Fire on the Frontline

by Trevor Wyatt

  I shrug, handing the rifle to one of the Tyreesians. Then I follow the interrogator as he leads Captain Montgomery out the door and down a hall.

  We don’t walk far.

  The Tyreesian sits Captain Montgomery in a chair, locking down his ankles and wrists.

  And then he opens his black box and selects a long thin rod. Not good. I’m familiar with this tool—I’ve used it a few times.

  But the part that bothers me the most is that the only time you bring out this ugly bit of tech is when you’re not planning on playing with your guest for too long—

  which tells me that I’m going to have to watch closely or Captain Montgomery isn’t going to make it out alive.

  He turns the tool on and I hear it power up. I realize that the chair Captain Montgomery is fastened in is made completely of metal. A perfect electrical conductor.

  “Where is the defector that carries the secrets of our mass transport system?” asks the Tyreesian.

  “I have no idea and it wouldn’t matter if I did. If we have her, then you’re not going to be able to get her back,” Captain Montgomery states.

  A slight groan escapes from Captain Montgomery as the torturer touches the tip of the picana to manacle on his left wrist.

  “You know where they have taken her,” he presses.

  “Shangri-La.” Captain Montgomery says through gritted teeth.

  “What are the coordinates of Shangri-La?” the Tyreesian asks, not understanding the cultural significance.

  “In the system next to Disneyworld,” he replies again, referring to the long dead amusement park on Earth that received one of the first direct nuclear hits of the Third World War. I mean, these Tyreesians think they have the market on brutality? We threw nuclear missiles at each other – at our own children, not less than 300 years ago.

  The Tyreesian stands placing the picana to Captain Montgomery’s arm, holding it there until he starts to scream.

  “Stop it! What the hell are you doing?” I exclaim.

  The Tyreesian glares at me.

  “If you don’t have the stomach for this, leave. You wanted to come, so shut up and let me do my job,” he finishes. Then, almost out of retaliation for my interruption, he presses the tip of the tool to Captain Montgomery’s other arm, once again holding it there until he’s satisfied with the level of screaming. He stops. Captain Montgomery is panting heavily.

  “You know if you kill him, you’ll lose the most valuable bargaining chip you have now with the Terran Armada. They will do anything to get him back in one piece, so you need to make sure you can deliver him in one piece.”

  I get another glare from the Tyreesian.

  “Who cares about bargaining? We have everything we need,” he says to me.

  I feel a jolt of panic, but I keep my voice steady.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “We don’t need anything from the Terran Armada except for its defeat. Until we annihilate them I cannot think of a more significant blow we can deliver than announcing to them that we have killed their war hero, the famous Captain Jeryl Montgomery. Not only did we kill him, but we made him suffer first.”

  He smiles.

  Shit, shit, shit. This is not going as planned. I need to think up something new.

  “The only reason you have him is because of me,” I say.

  “Really? And that changes what I am going to do to him how?”

  I can tell I’m really getting under this guy’s skin.

  Good.

  Angry people don’t always think clearly. He’s getting irritated that a Terran is telling him what to do—especially a female Terran.

  “Yes, because if you’re not going to use him to bargain, then I will.”

  “How exactly is that going to happen? Do you think my commander will just let you walk out of here with him? You’re lucky that we are allowing you to continue breathing.”

  Fuck.

  The guy has a point. He laughs at the look of resignation on my face, then starts tapping on different parts of Captain Montgomery with the picana.

  Each scream becomes a backbeat to my thoughts…

  The defector is gone. She escaped.

  Zhang is dead, but he completed his mission, just not the one the Tyreesian wanted him to do. For my part, I have one-half of the matter teleporter safely tucked away in the cargo hold we left behind that’s hopefully impounded by the Terran Armada.

  Captain Montgomery is panting. The Tyreesian hasn’t asked him any questions for awhile now. It’s like what he said, there’s really no need for it. I was wrong when I thought their desire to use him to bargain would outweigh their desire for revenge.

  The chance to hurt the man responsible for screwing up so much of their plans is too much temptation to resist.

  If I don’t intervene, Captain Montgomery is never making it out of this ship.

  I need to act quickly.

  I have a sudden inspiration.

  “Fine,” I huff, “but if you’re going to kill him and therefore deprive me of any benefits I might get, can I have some fun too?”

  I deliver my most wicked grin.

  “You ever used one of these before?” he says holding up the picana.

  “Yes, as I matter of fact, I have,” I say walking closer to him. He appraises me anew; I think I see respect forming in his eyes.

  “Here,” he says, “Just make sure you don’t finish him off too soon.”

  I step up, taking the picana in one hand, careful where I place my fingers.

  “Oh don’t worry about that,” I say holding the picana vertical to my body.

  I take a deep breath. This isn’t the smartest thing I can do, but then again, the smartest thing isn’t always the right thing.

  Oh well.

  Hefting in my hand, I turn, smacking the Tyreesian full in the face with the rod. He goes back and down, hand coming up to his gushing nose.

  “He’s not finished, but you sure as fuck are.”

  I take this moment to get Captain Montgomery out of the chair. He’s hurting, but I pull him up.

  “Can you stand?”

  He nods, coughing, then straightens up as I step back.

  I pick up the picana, walk over and yank the Tyreesian torturer to his feet.

  “Now you’re the bargaining chip,” I say to him.

  I turn to Captain Montgomery. “Let’s go.”

  Jeryl

  I find myself once again confused by Ms. Grayson. She’s calm, cold and even ruthless, but that doesn’t entirely explain the reason she’s freed me…unless she’s going to make good on that threat to use me as a bargaining tool.

  Right now I’m following her lead as we find our way back to the room with the teleporter. She has the picana inches away from the Tyreesian interrogator’s throat, just a bit below one ear. We’re making good time and before long we’re walking right back into the teleporter room. There are only two Tyreesian engineers in there now.

  “Step away from the teleporter or this guy gets some electro-shock therapy,” says Ms. Grayson. Both Tyreesians look at her in horror.

  “What are you doing?” demands one of them.

  “I told you that Captain Montgomery was my asset and since rocks for brains here thinks its more fun to torture him to death, well, that’s not happening, not when I can get paid handsomely for delivering him safely back to the Terran Armada.”

  Both Tyreesians begin yelling at the same time.

  “—how can you?”

  “You’ll die for this betrayal!”

  “We won’t let you go!”

  “Oh really,” says Ms. Grayson, as she casually presses the tip of the picana into the Tyreesian’s flesh. You can hear the tiniest buzz as it connects, and after what seemed like hours of torture—I can’t help but flinch a bit.

  However, I also can’t help but take some delight in the torturer getting a taste of his own medicine.

  The Tyressian begins to howl as the pain builds.


  “Stop! Stop! We will let you leave.”

  “Send us back through to the other matter transport. Once we—as in all of us—arrive safely, I’ll send him back,” says Ms. Grayson.

  The Tyreesians look at one another and nods. The three of us squeeze on to the teleporter. I take a deep breath. Ms. Grayson is taking us on a crazy ride, but for some weird reason, I trust her.

  I’d say I have bad taste in women, but Ashley is the proof that’s not the case. Besides, this isn’t romantic—though it is intimate.

  I’ve had a chance to get close to her physically (can’t be helped when you’re literally being held against a person’s body and a part of me thinks maybe I’m figuring her out too.)

  For one thing, I’m not buying the one-dimensional merc for hire bit. She’s more than that. Maybe, just maybe, there’s more to her than meets the eye.

  The question is: whose side is she on?

  Logic says she’s on her side. Who isn’t?

  She released me and took the Tyreesian as a hostage instead; however, that could just be self-serving. As much as the term “war hero” makes me nauseous, she’s not wrong; Terran Armada is going to bring its best men and women to rescue me.

  And that means it’s a big bounty for whoever liberates me.

  So, if that’s her end game, then making sure I get out alive makes sense.

  But like the first time I met her in her holding cell, something about that doesn’t ring true. Again, it’s just a hunch, but I think I have good instincts. Well, at best she hasn’t killed me thus far.

  So my gut’s right about that.

  Now the bigger question is given that I’m Captain Jeryl Montgomery, am I going to sit here and let her make all the decisions?

  No.

  Anika Grayson is clever and dangerous, but bottom line is, as a leader and as a commander, I need to use those assets to my advantage.

  Right now, the Terran Armada most likely has the defector and a half of the transport device.

  I need to convince Anika Grayson a.k.a No One that we need to go after the bigger fish while we’re still close to the pond.

  “Ms. Grayson—,”

  “Don’t call me that,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me like I should know better.

  “Fine,” I say. “No One, we have a chance to come back with more than just a Tyreesian interrogator.”

  She looks at me guardedly.

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “I mean, having a defector in our possession is one thing.”

  The Tyreesian interrogator growls, “That traitor will die!” earning him an elbow to the face from No One.

  “The conversation doesn’t include Tyreesian shit-for-brains,” she snarls, then looks at me.

  “You were saying?”

  Her casual brutality never fails to disturb, but I continue.

  “So, we have a defector and we have half of one of the transports.”

  No One nods.

  “What if we had all three pieces?”

  She looks at me seriously considering what I’m saying, but then she shakes her head.

  I look at No One.

  “I’m talking about taking the ship.”

  She furrows her brows and I can tell she’s thinking about it.

  “That sounds noble,” she says. “But noble doesn’t get me paid.”

  “It can,” I say, smiling. “As you said I’m worth a lot to the Terran Armada.”

  “So maybe I just take you and shit-for-brains here as my collateral for some nice treatment, nice credits and a chance to walk away. Why should I work harder, risk more when I can already offer you to the highest bidder?”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do. But more importantly, you like to win. If we can get the Tyreesian ship, well, I’d call that a big win.”

  She looks at me suspiciously then rolls her eyes.

  “Alright,” she sighs quietly. So quiet, only I can hear.

  And that’s the point the Tyreesian hostage decides he’s had enough.

  Being four feet, his mouth is close to No One’s arm. He swirls.

  And bites.

  The momentary loss of control is enough to plunge the transporter room into total chaos.

  The Tyreesian makes a run for it as soon as he sees an opening. No One fires, while other Tyreesians scatter. She turns to them and coldly fires again, hitting them in the back. I watch as they crumple.

  She chases the interrogator, cornering him in a room down the hall.

  “Hey!” says No One while she points the gun at the interrogator who just glares at us as he catches his breath. “How’re we gonna pull this taking over the ship thing off?”

  I take a deep breath. “Here’s my idea: I fly the ship right within range of the Terran weapons on Perseus and signal Armada, then the Tyreesians on board will have to surrender and we’ll have the ship. It’s a win-win.”

  No One stares at me with shock.

  Yeah. That was probably not the best plan.

  But it’s all I got.

  It’s time to go all-in.

  No One

  “You want to fly this ship—a Tyreesian ship, let me remind you—into the middle of the Armada?” I ask, incredulous.

  “It’s daring, I admit.” Captain Montgomery replies.

  “Daring?” I scoff. “I can think of more appropriate words. Stupid springs to mind.”

  The torturer watches us argue.

  “You’re not going to get out of this, you know,” he says. He draws a breath to say more, but subsides when Montgomery glares at him.

  Taking my arm, the captain pulls me a few steps down the corridor with him.

  “He’s probably right,” he mutters, once we’re out of our captive’s earshot.

  “We’re bottled up in here.”

  I brush his hand off.

  “Oh, come on. We have a teleporter!”

  “No, you don’t!” The Tyreesian fucker hisses, dashing to the teleporter and quickly running his fingers over the panel, tapping it in a frenzy.

  “Fuck!” Jeryl whispers, moving fast and planting the sole of his boot on the torture’s back, kicking him back against the wall. Then, he looks at the teleporter, the lines on his forehead deepening. He goes down on one knee, running his hands over the small electronic panel with all the necessary information and coordinates. “Now we’re really boxed in.”

  “How’d you ever get to be a hero with that defeatist attitude?” I soften the gibe with a grin and after a moment he grins back.

  I blink twice.

  “Call it a character flaw.”

  He looks back at where the torturer sat against the corridor wall.

  “I guess he’ll know how to readjust the settings, just as how he knows to screw it up.”

  “If he does, he’s not going to want to tell us.”

  “No...” He cracks his knuckles thoughtfully. “I wonder if he’s susceptible to his own methods?”

  I nod slowly.

  “Well, if you want to try to...persuade him, I can just kind of stand guard down at the end of the corridor,” I say.

  “Yeah, I’ll have a word with him.”

  He walks back to where our hostage sits and crouches down beside him. I don’t see what he does, but a moment later the Tyreesian yelps.

  “So now we see what it comes down to,” I hear the torturer gasp. “Violence. It’s always like that with you Terr—ow!”

  “As if you never did anything underhanded or violent,” Montgomery says. “You’ve got several more of those I can break if I need to.”

  “You’re victimizing me!” the Tyreesian growls.

  “Don’t make me laugh. You Tyreesians foment unrest wherever you go. Why do you do it? We know your influence was behind that whole Homefront debacle on Sonali, when the Noble Marshal was shot.”

  “Surely you didn’t think the Sonali were acting on their own?” He sneers. “Those amateurs.”

  “No, we didn’t think...but it�
�s good of you to affirm it for us.”

  I hear distant shouts and the clanging of booted feet on metal flooring.

  “We don’t have time for this,” I say, glancing around at the two of them. “We’ll be having company soon, and plenty of it.”

  What I don’t tell him is that I have activated a portion of my nanite-infused brain and set it to work on the problem of readjusting the teleportation device. I’m no electronics genius, but my nanites have all sorts of interesting data stored away in their matrix, and what they lacked they can retrieve by remotely accessing the ship’s computer network. This they have been busily doing since my double-blink activation signal set them working.

  The torturer, cradling his injured hand with his other one, grins at us. Perspiration courses down his face. I know he is in great pain, and that doesn’t bother me one bit.

  “They’re coming,” he says with satisfaction. He nods at the teleportation hardware.

  “You don’t know how to assemble that into a working...”

  He trails off as I look down at the panel and press my index finger against the screen, following the best guesses supplied by my nanites.

  “What do you think?” I ask Captain Montgomery once the screen lights up, Tyreesian characters flashing there.

  “Looks like it might work, huh?”

  The Tyreesian chews his lips.

  “You’re just screwing around with it,” he says, not sounding convinced.

  “Yeah, what do you think you’re doing, No One?” Montgomery demands. “You can’t possible have figured it out that fast.”

  “Yeah, well, you better hope that I got it right, Captain.” I say.

  “Why is that?”

  Shouts; louder, nearer.

  I switch on the power.

  “Don’t do that!” our hostage yells. “You’ll kick us out into space!”

  “I don’t think so,” I say, smiling sweetly at him. “Hope not.”

  I calibrate the controls once more, double checking my work. Everything’s in Tyreesian, but I can read that quite well. The ACQUIRE subroutine pops up on the little screen.

  Closest terminal, I think. Pick it up! I’m sweating now, too.

  Come on, come on!

  TARGET ACQUIRED, the screen reads. I sag back with relief, and aim the aperture at Montgomery. “Happy landings, sir,” I say, and pressed ENABLE.