“Would you have risked so much?” Edmond murmured to the unconscious Captain Moreau lying in the bed beside him. They were in final docking protocols with the planet’s space-side dock—a process that could take hours—and Edmond had stolen a few moments to sit with his mentor and friend.
To his surprise, the Captain stirred.
“Sir?” Edmond leaned forward, searching for more signs of life. The Captain, in turn, coughed gently and opened his eyes.
“Edmond?” he rasped.
“Sir! You’re awake!” Edmond said as his eyes clouded. “Even with everything we did for you, we weren’t sure. The damage was extensive…”
“Water?” the Captain asked as his hand blindly searched for a glass. Edmond nodded, quickly filled a tumbler from the drawer, and put it in his hand. Captain Moreau drank, motioned for more, and drank that, as well. Something resembling his old spark shone in his eyes again, and he coughed to clear his throat before testing his voice.
“I remember pirates,” he said slowly. “Status report?”
“The ship was damaged and you were dying. We had to put into port for repairs and medical attention. Mercedes saved your life.”
As he processed this, he nodded slowly. “Cargo? Crew?”
“All intact and uninjured, sir—save yourself, of course. We also managed to capture the pirate’s ship when they docked with us. That was Fernand’s cleverness.”
“Cleverness,” his mouth twitched in a sad smile, “or viciousness?”
“He did want to send them out an airlock,” Lieutenant Dante admitted, “but I opted for compassion. They’re in custody now, awaiting trial.”
“I’d expect nothing less of you, Edmond.” He passed back the cup, but before Edmond could withdraw with it, the Captain captured his hand.
“Don’t lose that quality. Don’t lose the compassion,” he said. “There is little enough of it in this world. I should know—I’ve shown my share of contempt.”
“Sir, I don’t believe that…”
“Edmond, you’ve always been a great student and a better man than I was at your age. During these past years, you’ve taught me as much I’ve been able to teach you.”
He settled back down into the pillows, eyes closing. “I felt it—I felt my death. There was nothing there that I’d earned in this world, except the quality of my deeds. All the regrets piled up like chains, countered only by the few acts of courage and selflessness I’d managed to accrue. I saw them all; everything was laid out plain.”
“Sir, you need to rest. You’ve been through so much.”
“Don’t lose your compassion,” he repeated, “it’s worth more than anything else in the world.” The Captain’s words faded as sleep claimed him.
“I won’t, sir, I promise.” Edmond squeezed the man’s hand and stared out the window again at the glorious planet filling his view. It was blue and green and filled with promise for those with enough courage to make their own path.
Captain Moreau’s words resounded to his soul. He would meet with this man of Napoleon’s and learn all he could. He would not become a tool of the Company—in fact, perhaps he could fight against it, through the proper channels, and become something of a champion. He would be a man Mercedes would deem worthy to stand by. He only needed to escape the notice of the Company a little longer before he could tell her everything.
“I will choose compassion,” he whispered. “Rest well, Captain. We’re nearly home.”
“Edmond, are you there?” Villefort’s voice came through his comm unit.
Villefort must be overseeing the docking and investigations would soon follow. Edmond straightened his back, ready for what may come. He’d already deleted the notes he’d taken, committing them to memory in the middle of the night before purging them. There was no evidence left, save for what was in his mind, and he felt confident he could keep that safe from the inspectors and their psychic inquiries.
“Acting Captain Dante speaking,” he said.
“Right, Captain Dante, the constables are here with an investigator. They want to speak to you. They’re docking right now.”
“They couldn’t wait for the normal protocols, hmm? No matter, assemble the crew. We’ll take care of this now and be finished with it.”
The crew waited for him with an odd mix of expressions on their faces. Mercedes looked like glass: expressionless, but fragile. Villefort was muttering while fiddling with the holo projection from his ever-present tablet; Fernand looked, as usual, like a handsome wolf.
“Constables,” Edmond said in greeting. “I think I know your intentions.”
Their captain, a burly man with the signature blue half-cape and blue cap pulled tight to his ears, strode forward. “I’m sure you do. Lieutenant Edmond Dante, you are hereby placed under arrest for high treason.”
EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER...
CHAPTER TEN
“COME IN, DANTE, AND SHUT the door behind you,” the baritone voice filled the tiny cabin of Schrodinger’s Feline.
Captain Roberts’ voice always filled all available cubage, as did his ageing physique and his collection of shipyard identification plates cut from the hulls of stolen or destroyed vessels. They were arranged, with their edges warped from plasma cutters, in vertical lines on his cabin walls. There wasn’t room for a single new addition.
Dante entered, limping slightly, and sat in the red leather chair facing his desk.
“I hope I’m not keeping you from party planning.” Roberts’ grin was decidedly shark-like. “Oh, don’t play innocent. I know you’re all planning a big retirement party for me. Never thought I’d leave this business, but there you have it. There comes a time when a man wants things he didn’t expect, although I suppose you know that.”
Dante lifted an eyebrow. He sat in the still fashion of someone highly disciplined and rigorously trained for physical action.
“You don’t say much; never have since we found you begging on that wretched world. What was that place again?”
“Diappo.”
“Uh huh. If Jack hadn’t vouched for you, I would have left you there, but the kid’s always had a sixth sense about people.”
Dante stared at a place on the wall an inch above the man’s head.
“Well, pirating isn’t for everyone, but you’ve worked out. Two years and you’ve seen action on every station of my fine ship. You have fine instincts. It’s almost like you can guess what the rest of us are thinking. You don’t need me to tell you this, though.” He paused, poured himself a viscous blue drink from a pressurized aluminum shaker, and swirled it in the glass. “The thing is, when you give up your ship and your crew, you want to entrust them to the right kind of person. You bought her from me fair and square with your earnings. I probably cleaned you out, too, but the thing is… well, you’re so close-lipped about everything, and it would just set my mind at ease if… well. Dammit, I don’t usually stumble over my words like this. Talking to you can be so single-sided, like playing zero-G ball against yourself. You could help a man out, you know.”
“I’ll treat the crew fairly and with loyalty.”
“I never said you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have agreed to sell her to you if I didn’t’ think you’d do right by the boys, even with all the respect you’ve earned. You hate the Company, too. That’s always a plus.”
“Yes.” The single word was so solid it could have pierced a ship hull.
Roberts chuckled. “Yeah, that hasn’t changed, has it? The thing is, Dante, my shuttle arrives in four hours, and it will take me down to the planet and that will be it for me. No more plundering Company ships when no one is looking. No more fat prizes and glorious assaults. I’ll miss it and my crew. It would warm my bones while I play with my grandchildren if you could tell me one thing.”
Dante stayed silent and still.
Roberts sighed. “Could you tell me what you’re going to do with her? Raid off Asteroid Belt 007A5567? Take company purser ships near the Granadine Planets? Give a
n old pirate something to think of on those long, law-abiding nights.”
“The Monte Cristo.” Dante hadn’t twitched, but there was something different about the way he sat when he said it, like a man beholding beauty for the first time. His eyes glowed a little.
“A legend. No one knows where she drifted, although I grant you she’s said to have a priceless treasure. The rumors fill every port. Did you catch the treasure-hunting bug? Don’t go down that road—it’s a fool’s errand to hunt down treasure hulks. They’re never what they seem.”
He paused to drink, and Dante kept his steady gaze. It was unnerving, but the man was always like that: steady, deliberate, like a panther frozen in mid-leap. Roberts shivered.
In pirating, there were some crazy characters who would tell you, over breakfast, of the ghastly, horrible things they’d done. People who were clearly more nuts than the auto-doc could correct for. But at times Dante, was scarier than them all.
He was just so still and patient, like he was waiting for you to show your weakness. He’d earned it, though, hadn’t he? No one knew where he’d washed up from, but he’d done everything assigned to him and done it better than anyone else could until he’d earned a big enough share to cover his take-over payment. There was no way around it, even if he was going to be a fool treasure-hunter.
“Tell me you at least have a hot tip on where to look.”
“Yes,” Dante said, and this time there was a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
“Tell me you didn’t get the tip in some space station bar. Where did you hear this rumor?”
“Chateau D’If.”
Roberts snorted. “The infamous bastille where the Company kills you slowly through years of torture? Nice cover. Where did you really hear it?” He waited. “Fine, don’t tell me. Not that you’ll find it, but good luck to you when you give up and find something more plausible.”
“Thank you for your kindness to me.”
Roberts almost dropped his glass; that was the most he’d ever heard Dante say!
“Of course, yeah. I mean, it worked out, right?” he said, awkward now, before handing Dante a laser-key. “The codes and the records I bothered to keep are all on it. Treat my folks fair, be kind to the Feline, and I’ll say nothing of your ambitions, eh?”
Dante nodded and Roberts stood to clap him on the shoulder.
“If you find the legendary bio-ship, Monte Cristo, then drink one in my name, alright? Watch out for aliens, too; she’s not human. Now, let’s go pretend to be surprised at my party.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JACK COULD FEEL THERE WAS something different about this day. In space, there wasn’t anything as concrete as day and night, but the natural rhythms of man kept routines in place that simulated a day night cycle. So, when Jack woke for his shift and finished his morning rituals, he was not surprised to hear Captain’s summons.
“We’ve found her,” Captain Dante’s voice was crisp in Jack’s ear. Jack’s breath caught in his throat and he sent a quick reply, hurrying through the cramped but tidy decks of Schrodinger’s Feline with familiar ease. The ship was a little emptier than he was used to, as many of the crew had chosen to take their leave when Dante had revealed his quest, but that was fine with Jack; it meant only the faithful remained.
The bridge was typically only large enough for three to be comfortable but there were five bodies crammed into it when he arrived, some making use of video feeds from outside and others the natural windows that offered a panoramic view.
Captain Edmond Dante, a man with a thousand secrets, stood with his hands behind his back, staring out the center window. Despite the close quarters and lack of space, the other men gave him what space they could.
“There. She’s been there the whole time,” he said without turning around.
Quick as a weasel, Jack threaded forward to find a sliver of space between the Captain and the crew hand, Sleeveless Bill.
“You knew where to look,” the young man said, shaking his head. “You knew exactly where it was. How, Captain?”
“A tip. A lot of luck,” he admitted before tapping his temple. “As we came closer, it called.”
Jack squinted, but he’d known Edmond Dante long enough to know not to dispute anything he said. Now, the small pirate ship floated close to something straight out of legend: The Monte Cristo.
It dwarfed their small ship the way a whale outweighed a mouse. Jack had seen dreadnaughts docked and this ship seemed as large as any of those behemoths. Its smooth lines had an organic look, like something grown instead of built. Light reflected wildly off the surface, tracing chaotic patterns against the floating rubble, debris, and ice that had hidden it for so long.
“What now, Captain?” Bill asked, breaking the silence. “She’s too big to salvage and too old to fly home.”
“Too old?” Captain Dante asked without humor. “Hardly.”
“What will we do, then, sir?”
Dante finally turned to the men huddled around him. “We visit.”
They flew closer, near what Jack could only assume was the bow of the great ship. He didn’t see Captain Dante hail or use the communication equipment, yet a door yawned open and let them inside. It left Jack with the panicked feeling of being swallowed.
If the outside of the ship had seemed oddly constructed, the inside was outright alien. The Captain took five men with him when he strode out of Schrodinger’s Feline and into the docking bay of the Monte Cristo.
Jack gaped; there was room for dozens of ships the size of their frigate to dock at once and bays to accommodate much larger ships, as well. The walls were curved with thin lines like veins evident everywhere. The faded lights inside seemed to brighten and soften with no apparent function. The ship was still powered, despite Bill’s predictions, still very much alive. He shivered. They were inside a living thing, like climbing into the intestines of a huge animal. It felt wrong, even violating. What would it be like to live in a ship like this? Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to find out.
“Don’t stray,” Dante called from far ahead. “I wouldn’t use the word ‘safe’ when describing it.” He was then off again, striding forward with the air of a man who knew exactly where he was going. The others scrambled to follow suit; Jack nearly ran to catch up.
“Captain, please, we’ve found it now,” Jack said, jogging to keep pace. “There’s something about this ship. The crew’s jumpy as it is, can’t you tell us what we’re after? It’d go a long way toward instilling some confidence. The stories of this place… well, before today, I would have said they couldn’t have been true, but now, seeing all of this, I have to wonder: is it an alien ship?”
“No person built this,” Dante gestured around him.
“Does it hold infinite treasure?” Jack asked.
“Of a sort.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t understand. How do you know?”
Captain Dante pursed his lips, his eyes in turmoil. “When I was in prison, I met a man who’d been here.”
“What?” Jack’s eyes went wide. “How is that possible? Why didn’t everyone know? This ship is the discovery of the century!”
“He wasn’t strong enough, he was rejected,” Dante said simply, but his eyes told a deeper, more frightening tale.
He came to a large door where Veins of light from the walls converged, making it pulse. Jack took a step back when a great lid opened and a monstrous eye gazed out at them. The words came at him in his mind—soundless, yet as loud as a breaking storm. Jack fell to his knees while the others cowered. Only the Captain kept his feet.
You are the one, mind of mind, the wordless voice intoned.
“I am,” Dante said levelly.
You will be tested, mind of mind, and measured, the voice continued. It sounded less like a threat than a simple fact.
“I know,” Dante said.
No, mind of mind, you do not know, the voice said. Not yet.
“Captain, no!” Jack yelled as the
pupil of the eye dilated, opening to the passage behind. Dante stepped inside as relaxed and at ease as Jack had ever seen him. The look in the older man’s eyes, however, made his skin crawl.
“If I don’t come out within the day, run!” he said before the eyelid closed, leaving no trace of Edmond Dante.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DANTE’S PULSE RACED AND THE blood pounded so hard in his ears that it was hard to hear anything. Around him, the walls of the passage pulsed, too. He followed the winding corridor with one hand against the wall. It neither followed a straight line, nor a curve, like you would find on many ring-shaped space stations. This corridor was organic, curving and winding with the floor rising and falling. Dante had to concentrate very hard to avoid picturing an optic nerve. The wall felt warm, but he steeled his mind, refusing to dwell on it.
This was the moment the Abbe had talked about all those long hours while guiding Dante through his mental exercises.
“You must control your own mind before you can control the mind of another,” he had said. Later, he’d added, “You must learn to find the void within. Burn your emotions within the void, so others cannot use them to control you like they did when they sent you here.”
Now, however, with the treasure of the Monte Cristo so close, it seemed almost impossible to burn the surge of excitement in the inner void he carefully maintained. Worse, his desires for revenge were bubbling to the surface.
The corridor ended abruptly and he stopped himself just before he stepped over the edge and into the cavern below. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but when they did, he realized he was in the mouth of a huge, spherical room. The walls were lined with a patterned, iridescent blue glow like the glow some cave plants gave off. Judging by the neural shape of the patterns, though, these weren’t plants. An arm–he could only think of it as an arm, despite his best efforts not to-extended from a central island, extended itself to where Dante stood, and attached its suction end with a wet sound at Dante’s feet to form a bridge.
Captain of the Monte Cristo: a space opera retelling of the classic tale (Classic Retellings Book 1) Page 4
