By Dawn's Early Light

by Jason Fuesting

  “Really? Why would you believe that?”

  “You don’t need to understand a lot of math to move boxes. They taught me algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus.”

  “Calculus? Single variable or multi?”

  “Single, but I wasn’t done yet.”

  “Show me.” The interrogator scribbled on a sheet of paper and slid it across the table. Eric held his hand out for the pen. “No, do it in your head.”

  “Fine. Well, first answer is pi.” The interrogator nodded. “Second is,” Eric paused for a minute as the problem was harder than it looked. “I hate anti-differentiation. Second answer is something like inverse hyperbolic tangent of x plus e to the x times whatever this squiggle is. I’m assuming that’s a constant. As for the third, I think I saw something like it when I skipped ahead, but I haven’t done that yet. What is it?”

  “Fourier transform. Not bad, Eric. Any ideas what these plans Captain Fox had for you? We never see normal crewmen with this level of esoteric knowledge.”

  Shit, Eric, you fucking show-off, shut up!

  “Not really. Electronics and comms? Engineer maybe? Cheaper to have an in-house specialist than to pay someone outside? Something higher than storekeeper?”

  The interrogator smirked, “Yeah, storekeepers don’t need that kind of math. Electronics might be plausible, but technicians get by with algebra. Calculus is a tool for engineers, designers, and the like. I’m curious what other education they gave you.”

  “Well, I did start on a few modules dealing with basic alternating and direct current circuits. I can tell you what a resistors, capacitors, and inductors are and how they function. I was a bit confused by the idea of non-linear resistivity though. At least in terms of what that meant to circuit design.”

  The interrogator nodded and entered something on the tablet. “Did you ever cover synthetic gravitons?” Eric shook his head. “No? Did they ever put you in charge of anything? Even small things like work details?”

  Hah.

  “Nope. Not once.”

  The interrogator looked him in the eye. “Are you sure? The level of education you’ve received is something we expect for highly technical ratings and officer candidates, not low level crewmen.”

  Eric shrugged. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I just know I wasn’t in charge of anything. For all intents and purposes, I’m just some poor, oppressed sod.”

  The interrogator glanced back to his tablet and remarked, “Well, it looks like our time today is almost up. Last question, Eric. Your parents were respectable naval officers and you’ve clearly inherited much from them. Why did you never come back to the Protectorate?”

  Eric shrugged. “I didn’t know they were Protectorate officers. Why would I come back to a place I never knew I came from?”

  “Fair enough. Someone will be along shortly with your food. We’ll see more of each other later,” the interrogator replied as he packed up.

  “Uh, sir, one question before you toss me back to the wolves if I may?”

  “Make it brief.”

  “What exactly are the rules down there? Nobody’s told me shit and I’ve already seen one guy get beat nearly to death. I’d like to avoid that if I can.”

  “To be fair, the guards are given significant discretion as to the application of the rules, but unless things have changed since I worked detention, if you stay away from red lines, keep your mouth shut, and don’t mess with other prisoners then you should be fine. I would say I’m sorry for you having to witness Mister Frost’s lesson, but such displays are more persuasive to new prisoners than verbal warnings. Good day, Mister Friedrich.”

  Seeing little else to do but wait with the interrogator gone, Eric slumped forward and rested his chin on folded arms. First rule of piracy: Always sleep when you have the chance, you never know when you won’t be able to. The clatter of a metal tray snapped him from his sleep.

  “Eat. Guards will to take you back to your cell in five,” the crewman delivering the meal said over his shoulder as he left.

  Eric stared at the mystery meat in brown gravy on rice dish before cautiously trying a bite. Wow, wish the food on the Fortune was this good. The meat patty disappeared along with every other item on the tray save for the small roll of colored hard candies. Something bugged him about the multi-colored packaging. Maybe it was the cheerful lettering. Charms. Hah.

  With a yawn, he realized for the first time in a while he wasn’t cold. Standing to stretch, something orange in the seat across from him caught his eye. Curious, Eric picked up the cloth. Better than nothing I guess. He stepped into the cheap boxer style shorts and tied them off. The door hissed open behind him. On the way out he pocketed the candy. Might be able to trade these for favors.

  Returning to his cell under guard, Eric made a point of looking for patterns in the layout. Nearing his cell block, Eric grew bored with the repetitive design.

  Every boundary secured with deployable security bulkheads. Eight cells per block, two blocks separated by supporting infrastructure, common corridors connecting the support sections. One hundred twenty eight prisoners per wing. At least three wings, so three-hundred eighty four prisoners, assuming single level and three wings total.

  What kind of warship carries brig space for this many people? How big is this ship? You could fit the whole crew of the Fortune in these three wings. Factor in space for food storage, propulsion, weapons, life support.

  Eric strained to remember various considerations for ship design. The Fortune’s executive officer, Commander Murphy, jokingly threatened to ‘build my own damn ship and push off this garbage scow’ multiple times a voyage. Eric vaguely remembered when Captain Fox asked what Murphy would build and why. Eric hadn’t overheard the entire discussion that followed, but the parts he picked up had been informative given Murphy’s past working in a shipyard.

  The Shrike is easily twice the size of the Fortune in terms of volume. That’s crazy. A random thought struck a glancing blow to his incredulity. But the Gadsden, how big did Pascal say it was? Three hundred meters? Had to be bigger than that.

  Lights in the cell block flickered and died. Eric stumbled to a halt. The guards grabbed his arms from behind as the emergency lighting activated unevenly and pushed him forward at speed. On arrival, Eric found himself unceremoniously dumped into darkness beyond the doorway.

  “Really getting sick of this place,” Eric muttered out loud. The cell door whined as it closed and Eric froze. Even tertiary systems like the doors should not be running on minimal power.

  “Svoboda?” Panic tinged the woman’s voice when she asked, “Frost?”

  “No, just me,” Eric replied. Svoboda must be the guy who told me to shut up.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, relief in her voice.

  “I’m not sure, something with the power.” Several sharp vibrations kicked through the deck plates. “Or not.”

  “What was that?”

  “These racks are bolted to the floor, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Get under yours.”

  “Why?”

  “That was a rail salvo. We’re shooting at someone, which means we’re going to be maneuvering soon and probably pretty hard. That and there’s no telling when they’ll shut off artificial gravity to save power.”

  Whimpering carried across the darkness, but no further questions came. He padded his way across the room and knelt by the woman’s rack.

  “Here, take these,” Eric said, handing her the candies he’d saved, and made his way back to his bed.

  Eric stuffed his blanket under his rack to do the same when the door whined open and another shadow was thrown in with them. Without light to see by, Eric could only interpret the cacophony that followed as staggering followed by a quick trip to the floor.

  “Fuck you, too!” their new companion bellowed. He sounded drunk. Another series of sharp vibrations shook the compartment and the drunk hooted. “Come on, buddies! Come and get 'em!
Shoot straight for once, ya Navy pukes!”

  Not Frost. Doesn’t quite sound like Svoboda, either. Accent’s wrong, more lilting than guttural. “Svoboda?”

  “Who’s asking?” the shadow slurred.

  “The cellmate who didn’t get his face caved in yesterday?”

  “Oh, evenin’, pup. Enjoyin’ the fireworks?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Nothing like getting shot at to make a man feel alive,” Svoboda mumbled. Eric heard the results of what must have been an attempt to stand. “Fuck, I’m drunk and it’s gettin’ worse. Ya mind helpin’ me to me rack, lad?”

  “Sure. Keep talking so I can find you. It’s a bit dark.”

  “Oh, ya want me to talk? I ain’t sayin shit.”

  Eric snorted. “Dude, what the hell happened to you?”

  “To me? I think they drunked me.”

  “Drunked?”

  “I said drugged. I wouldn’t talk then and I won’t talk now!”

  Eric nearly tripped over the man in the dark as the entire compartment seemed to shift violently. There’s the maneuvering I was talking about.

  “Every man should laugh in the face of death,” Svoboda chuckled as Eric hauled him to his feet. The man mumbled, “Katelynn was a pretty young lass. She had a magnificent ass. Not rounded and pink, as you might possibly think. ‘Twas grey with long ears and ate grass.”

  Eric snorted.

  Svoboda grinned at Eric and mumbled, “Aye, that’s the spirit, lad.”

  Eric got the man to his rack, all the while being harangued by limericks that would make most pirates blush. In the last moments before Eric fell asleep, Svoboda was still singing to himself, albeit haltingly and in an arguably more atonal fashion than earlier, if that were possible:

  “Hark! When the night is falling

  Hear, Hear! The pipes are calling,

  Loudly and proudly calling, down through the glen.

  There where the hills are sleeping,

  Now feel the blood a-leaping,

  High as the spirits of the old Highland men.”

  Groaning brought Eric from his nap back to a now humid and incredibly stuffy dark cell. If his exhaustion was any clue, he’d been out for three hours, maybe four or five at most.

  “Dear God, whatever I did last night I will never do again,” Svoboda muttered. The man’s accent had changed back to what it had been when Eric had first met him.

  “You don’t remember?” Eric asked to pass the time.

  “Not a clue. My head’s killing me.”

  “A few minutes after the lights got cut, they tossed you in here. You sounded impressively drunk for a prisoner with no access to booze.”

  “Tossed me in here? Back up a bit, yesterday’s fuzzy.”

  “When we got up, the guards pulled you out. I got to see my lawyer.”

  Svoboda chuckled darkly.

  “What’s so funny?” Eric asked.

  “Don’t believe the lawyer shit for a minute. Keep going.”

  “Well, after the lawyer I spoke with an interrogator.”

  “You tell them anything?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure?”

  “They kept jumping topics and it tripped me up. I tried not to tell them anything useful. Fuck them.”

  “That’s the spirit. What next?”

  “The lawyer and interrogator took maybe an hour? Two? On the way back, the lights went out and they rushed me in here. Few minutes later, they tossed you in.”

  “Did I say anything while I was drunk?”

  “Oh yeah, you were babbling nonstop.”

  “What’d I say?” Svoboda sounded mortified.

  “Well, you rattled off a ton of limericks. Most of them were really, really bad. Pretty sure you sang some equally horrible sounding song, too. Something about glens and highlands. You also told me they drugged you.”

  “Drugged? That explains everything. Bastards.”

  “How’s that explain everything?” The weight pulling him down vanished. “Shit, there goes gravity.”

  “Won’t be long now. Best be quiet and get to praying, son. ”

  Eric set his jaw. Whatever you say, old man. I’ve been in enough space actions to know the only folks who see the end coming are all on the bridge. There’s no point in worrying about it; if it happens I won’t be around to regret not worrying. Lying under his rack in the dark with minutes ticking to hours, Eric found his thoughts wandering. Calculus, starship design, orbital mechanics passed the time but could not keep his thoughts from returning to uncomfortable subjects.

  With the Fortune’s destruction and his arrest, Eric slowly came to face the fact that he was adrift. I have nothing. They’re all dead. Shannon, Desi, Sokolov, the Captain, all of them. I haven’t seen Pascal in how long? Days? Weeks? I know they’re messing with the clock. Is my day even a full day? Is it longer? Does time even matter? Were my parents actually Protectorate Navy? Did Fox tell me the truth about finding me? Fuck. Maybe these assholes are right? What do I owe the pirates, really? Maybe I can get out of this. Being locked in a dark cell that was steadily getting warmer with little more than looping dark thoughts irritated him.

  “Fuck this. Being a prisoner sucks,” Eric blurted, brushing sweat from his brow.

  “You haven’t seen half of it yet, boy,” Svoboda remarked.

  “How long do you think this will last?” the woman asked. She squeaked as unseen forces shoved everyone against the bottom of their bunks for several seconds.

  “Until it’s over,” Svoboda answered. “That or we die. Either way, until it’s over.”

  “Either one of you want to tell me why I got accosted in the shower? Some woman offered,” Eric coughed, “Services in exchange for my name.”

  Svoboda chuckled, “That would be Kaylee. She does that to all the new people.”

  “Why?”

  “Interrogators reward prisoners for any information they dig up on the others. Sometimes that reward is clothing. Sometimes it’s whatever drug you might be addicted to.”

  “That’s--”

  “Ingenious?”

  “I was going to go with depraved.”

  Svoboda laughed. “No, of all the messed up things here, at least that one makes sense. If you can get the prisoners to turn on each other, less work for you. I’ll grant you, it can be immoral, but you want depraved, that’s the fact the guards will cave your skull in if you’re caught talking.”

  Eric sighed. “That, I’ve seen. How do you know all this?”

  “Been here a while, boy. You can whisper, but more than that and guards come calling. I’d lay good money their microphone system only kicks in over a certain volume.”

  “And you’re telling me that they reward people for breaking the rules?”

  “As long as you’re not caught, yes.”

  “None of this makes sense. Why?”

  “Conflicting rules, latitude to enforce them? Keeps the prisoners off balance and allows them to decide which rule gives them what they want more.”

  “That’s some sick shit.”

  “Welcome to the Protectorate.”

  “Why hasn’t someone caved in our skulls for talking?”

  “Whatever’s going on, they’ve cut the power to anything non-essential. No lights, no air circulation. The mics probably don’t draw much power, but all that network infrastructure they’re attached to does. Or I could be wrong and they’re just letting us think they’re not listening. Might not want to blab about whatever you don’t want them to know just in case. Beyond that, it seems the guards do what they want. Sometimes you’ll get away with talking for a while, other times the slightest peep brings the truncheon.”

  “Wow.” Eric paused in thought. “So when I got tossed in here and you told me to shut up, you were doing me a favor?”

  “Suppose you could look at it that way.”

  “How else could I look at it?”

  “Doing myself a favor is more like it. Less
I know, the better. If I don’t know anything about you, they can’t torture or drug it out of me. Besides which, if you got executed because of something they pulled out of me, your blood’s on my hands. I’ve got enough blood on my hands already without resorting to the ostensibly innocent. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, of course.”

  Flickering lights and the sound of fans spinning up jerked them from bored catatonia.

  “Bout time,” Eric remarked as he emerged from under his rack.

  Svoboda looked over at him from the top of his own. “Was hoping whoever that was would get lucky and core us.”

  “Why would you want that?” the woman asked, horrified.

  “Tired of being helpless and waiting for the knife, lady. I’d rather die with honor, knowing these Protectorate assholes got sent to hell with me than be put down like an animal.” Svoboda coughed repeatedly and spat on the floor before continuing, “If the lights are back on, then the listening devices will be back soon, too, assuming they were ever shut off. Best we get back to shutting up and forget we ever talked.”

  Eric frowned but could not argue. While he welcomed the break in the monotony and crushing silence conversation brought, he had no desire to see more of the guards. The clack of an extending collapsible baton echoed in his mind and he shivered.

  Svoboda rolled off his bunk. Standing straight, he rolled his shoulders and began a series of slow, deliberate stretches. He motioned to Eric.

  “You could be here for months,” the man whispered. “Doing nothing but sitting around, you’ll waste away before you ever get off this ship. Let me show you a few things to keep you sharp. Maybe you’ll learn, maybe not. Either way, it’s something to do that isn’t sitting around being bored.”

  Eager for anything that passed time, Eric nodded. Svoboda led him through a myriad of stretches, most of which focused on loosening major joints and muscle groups.

  “What?” Eric quietly asked when the man paused some time later.

  “You’ve been in a fight before, yes?”

  “A few.”

  “And you won?” Svoboda sounded doubtful.