by A. B. Keuser
If they'd taken it away, who knows what she might have had to attempt her escape in.
With little experience with shielding of this design, she had to trust her gut. After all, she'd heard enough stories from enamored station techs who wanted a bounce shield. The force shielding had a solid component - one she'd never fully grasped - and if the tech historians were to be believed, the nickname for the shields was a valid one. Energy weapons dissipated off the exterior of the shield. Projectile ones... well, they bounced. And if the shield could hold a bomb out, why couldn't it hold one redhead in?
Timidly, she tested the shield again, letting out a small sigh as it gave against her fingers, but didn't break. She'd have liked some assurance, but she didn't have time. It either worked.... or she'd be toast. That metaphor brought a prettier visual to her head than what would actually happen to her if she fell through the shield.
Climbing over the balcony rail, she pushed herself away, listening to the sigh and buzz of the shield as it compensated.
There was only one way to go: down.
She pushed herself back, pressing her boots against the rocky surface beneath the railings and looked below her. The ship curved under and she could barely see the space below, but there was one, and she was going to have to take her chance.
In the middle of convincing herself that getting down wasn't going to be as hard as it looked, the shield shifted and her grip slipped. She dropped the two meters to the next balcony, her fingers barely latching onto the railing as her feet flailed in the open air beneath.
Throwing her elbow over the rail, and taking a deep breath, Mack looked back at the shield, shimmering behind her. It had moved away from the ship. "Are you compensating for little ol' me?" She might have thanked it, if her heart beat wasn't in her ears, or her tongue bleeding from where she’d bit it on the way down.
Slinging her foot over the balcony, she rolled onto the hard floor and pushed herself to her feet. Wiping away the dust that wasn't there, she turned to face the door. Unlike her balcony above, this one wasn't lit. Also unlike hers, this door was shut tight. She twisted at the hatch release, but it wouldn't budge, instinctively, her hand went to her side, where she kept her tool kit. It was gone, but that didn't matter. She wasn't getting past this door without a welding torch. She let her eyes wander around the balcony's barren floor. There was no chance she'd find what she was looking for here.
Turning back to the shield, she gave it a glare. "I don't suppose I'd be able to climb back up you again, would I?"
Leaning over this balcony, she looked for the one below it, but couldn't see.
The view was stunning, but the company was crap.
Slinging her legs back over the rail, she scooted herself down until she had no more hand holds. And still, her feet hit solid surface. With a long breath in and a heavy sigh out, Mack let go.
Her butt hit the bounce shield and, instead of bouncing like she expected, she slid. The shield was slick as mud as she reached out for anything to stop her descent she realized her potentially fatal error.
Mack stared up at the bottom of the ship she'd only partially succeeded in escaping from... She was technically off the ship, after all.
Suspended in the void by the ship's bounce field was not much better.
The sigh and buzz echoed around her and suddenly she dropped away from the ship. Not into the void, but further away. The shield was compensating for her, thinking some part of the ship was pushing past its normal bounds.
The ship, which looked more like a rock—
That thought stopped her as she sucked in a quick breath and traced the vein like casings that ran through the nooks and crannies of the rock. Because that was what it was. A ship that’s mass came from the hollowed out remains of a captured asteroid. Bad Alley was the only example of a human made conglomeration like this... and it didn't have the telltale signs. Mack was floating on a bounce shield several meters below a Ka ship.
"Where the hell is all this Ka technology coming from?" It pained her that she'd probably never get the answer to that.
Her eyes turned down to the empty void beneath her. Glittering stars winked in the distance as she looked to the ringed planet she’d only barely been able to see from her room.
But it wasn’t empty. Not entirely.
A dark ship hung in the void below her. Even as a shadow, she could guess it was Maeltar’s, or—when she saw the name, Curran—one Maeltar had stolen from the fleet before venting its crew.
Laughter hit her like a slow-pitched gravball. And as the beginnings of tears prickled at the corner of her eyes, she tried to calm herself down. She wondered how ironic it was that after all these years, she was going to die staring at the planet she’d picked at random when her brother – a mere eight year old boy – had asked her what her favorite planet was. Since naming Inanna, with its seven, distinct rings – one for each year she was old, at the time – the statement had slowly wound its way into her head as fact.
Her mirth was cut off by movement beneath her.
The shield sucked her upward, in quick contractions. She saw her fate, the uneven surface of the rock she'd soon be smashed against... or that would push her out of the shield and into the airless void.
Closing her eyes, Mack did her best to make peace with it, though she hated that she'd left things the way they were with Cable... she told herself that somehow, he'd know she'd forgiven him for his part in the Fleet's bullshit regulations.
Another contraction sucked her upward, but she wasn't crushed. A whirring noise echoed around her and a heavy hand grabbed her around the neck, pulling her upward and into the glaring light.
She opened her eyes to the grinning smile of the tall, unleathered crassicau.
"You're not leaving us that soon." He said, his words slurred by the rows of perfectly white, pointed teeth.
Twenty-One
Vinnita’s fist collided with Cable’s face for the… he couldn’t remember how many times the woman had hit him. Right hooks were beginning to blur with gut checks as Cable’s head swam. His military training had kept him conscious far longer than a normal man would have held out, but there was only so much the human body could take.
They’d bagged him and moved him as quick as they could. No one on Bad Alley thought twice about a man being shoved through the corridors with burlap over his head… no one questioned it.
Questions got you killed.
Or worse, it got burlap over yours as well and you’d share in every second of their first victim’s torture.
There had been one scuffle, and from the muffled threats shouted, it was clear Vinnita wasn’t the only one Aaron had entrusted with the task of getting their hands on him. It was beginning to look like he should have shot Aaron as ordered. The bastard wasn’t giving Cable any points for letting him live, that wasn’t like the Aaron he knew. But then… he wasn’t sure the Aaron he knew was real anymore.
When the burlap finally had been wrenched from him, Vinnita had pushed him down the last half flight of stairs to the rock-hard floor, and Cable had rolled into the fall, but too late, and now, his dislocated shoulder was only aiding in her attempts to beat him senseless.
Senseless might have been a welcome respite. Wherever Vinnita had taken him, it was cold, damp. Something was wrong with the environmentals. His mouth felt as though it filled with mold each time he sucked in a ragged breath between punches.
His hands were trussed up behind his back, bending him forward, so his face was the perfect height for a swift knee. Cable wouldn't mind the beating so much... if they were asking him some damned questions. He was used to hands-on interrogation, hell, this wasn't even the first time he'd been stripped down and strung up for one. He was only annoyed that his comm chip was somewhere unknown, possibly incinerated or crushed. Though if he went completely silent, Peezus would know where he was. Not that he was overjoyed at the prospect of his crew seeing him like this.
A quick jab to the gut, brought forth th
e piercing echo of a laugh, and Cable looked up through a swollen eye to see a grimy boy who couldn't have seen his fourteenth birthday yet. The boy was scrawny, his hair sticking out of a backwards lime gravball cap in tufts. If anything, Cable suspected the boy should be in a school room, learning his sums. But there he was, rubbing his knuckles as though he couldn't wait for his turn to pound some flesh. They were starting younger. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Nothing on Bad Alley should have surprised him at this point… but something always did.
His head snapped to the side as a heavily ringed pair of knuckles collided with his cheekbone.
"You should have let her go, buddy boy." Vinnita wrenched cable's head upward, "She belongs with her brother... with her own kind for that matter."
The harsh light overhead wreaking havoc on his eyes, Cable closed them, rather than squint and suffer through the twinge in his socket. He knew what Vinnita was getting at.
And though he knew it would gain him another fist to the face, he laughed. "Don't tell me you believe that crap Aaron was peddling. If he's a Ka, I'm the king of the Xyvar."
"Well, I hope your successor is smarter than you are. I honestly thought Aaron was mental when he said you'd be coming for him... that you'd trust me long enough to get you in trouble... that I'd deliver you on a platter. I guess what they say about Kas and being able to see the future must be true."
Cable laughed again. The searing pain that shot through his lungs with each exhale was not enough of a deterrent to keep him from goading the woman. "Not likely. The day you serve me up on anything is the day we find out your father’s your brother, and your sister’s your grandmother."
Vinnita returned Cable’s smile and for a full minute they stared at each other in a mock standoff. Cable could feel Vinnita’s goons start to get uncomfortable as the silence in the room dragged on. Vinnita had the decency to break it for her onlookers.
"You know, when Aaron said we couldn't kill you, I was a little upset, but he never made any stipulations as to your treatment until we deliver you.... We'd be fulfilling the contract, if you've only got five breaths left in you when we drop you at his feet."
"Is it my turn, yet, boss?" The kid behind Vinnie tapped his food on the floor as he fidgeted with an acetylene torch. "I want to braise his balls."
All sound in the room died as Vinnita turned to look at the kid with a disbelieving squint, as though she hadn’t realized he was there before. "What did he ever do to you, kid? Get out of here before I tell your mother."
A dejected look on his face, the kid scurried away, leaving the torch behind. Vinnie picked it up, turning it in his hands as though he was inspecting some priceless gem.
“My sister’s kid,” she said as though it was important Cable knew. “He may be young... but he has some good ideas."
Cable swallowed as he eyed the canister-fueled burner in the woman’s hand. For some reason he suspected Vinnita’s plan to hand him over to Aaron involved a Cable that was missing a limb or two, and a whole lot of skin.
Vinnie set the torch down with a heavy thud. “We'll get to that shortly. I'll let you think about how it's going to be when your boys are on the burner."
Nodding to the two men standing on either side of Cable, Vinnie pulled a curved knife from the table. The men unhooked his arms from their fastenings above, pushing him upright and pulling his arms tightly away, securing the ropes to opposite walls.
Vinnita smiled at him, appraising his body as though looking for the perfect place to put that knife.
"Aaron gave us a hint, you see... about that little device your people have been working on... subcutaneous what's it called." He snapped his fingers at the man to cable's left.
"Locator Beacon, Boss." The man said it without a hint of inflection, as though he was bored. Cable wondered how many tortures he’d stood watch for. As Vinnie dragged the flat of the blade across the bare skin of his chest, Cable decided that was not his biggest worry.
"That's right. Now, he didn't tell us for sure if you had one, and we don't have no testing device... so we're going to have to do some exploratory surgery to see what's what."
Vinnita ducked under Cable's outstretched arms and dragged the flat of the blade across his back. "Don't worry, this should hurt terribly. It's only too bad we don't have any anesthetic. I could use a high right now."
The knife sliced through his flesh like a laze through butter, sending a fresh lick of fire through cable’s nerves. The grunt that left his mouth was an ugly and mangled thing.
"Not there." Vinnie said, digging around in the vein, as Cable fought to keep his feet under him. Bound as they were, his only options were to stand or fall, and falling would likely dislocate his other shoulder.
"Pity, that. If I'd found it on the first slice, this would all be over with." The acetylene torch flared and the white hot flame slid down the cut. Black spots flared in his vision. He managed not to scream.
When the torch cut out, Vinnita ducked under his arm and gave him an evil smile. “See, I’m not all bad. Cauterized the wound and what not.”
“You just don’t want me bleeding out before you’ve had all your fun and gotten whatever Aaron’s offered you.”
The smile widened “Something like that.”
The knife sliced into Cable's back again, crisscrossing over the burned flesh as cable clenched his jaw. His teeth were going to shatter if this went on much longer.
Vinnita flicked the torch to life once more and let its hot white flame lick down the cut.
At some point, Cable knew, the pain would dull as his body's receptors shut down in response to abuse. Until then, though, he was going to have to suffer through it. He wondered if Vinnita was aware a person could die from excessive pain.
As she sliced through again, avoiding both burns and previous slashes, Vinnita chuckled to himself and singed the gored flesh once more. Setting the torch on the metal workbench in front of Cable, the flame still glowing white hot as it licked the damp air.
"You know, I've always appreciated men who know how to hold their tongue through torture. You are a special sort, you know. Noise is so irritating and you're so obliging. I remember we had a man down here. Big fella, took chains to hold him down. Though most of his girth was blubber. He whimpered like a baby before I'd even broken his skin. It's a sad state of affairs anymore when people can't handle themselves with decorum. I mean, sure torture isn't fun, none of us like being in the hot-seat, but you have been as quiet as a.... well, mouse doesn't really suit you, now does it?"
"It's not one of the things anyone has called me before."
"No, I shouldn't think so. But I have to say, half the fun is making people like you cry... I suppose I'll have to work harder." She nodded once and the bored-looking man to Cable's left clocked him square on the jaw. A lesser man would have seen stars if that had been the first punch. Cable saw them now... but he couldn't be certain that hadn't started ten minutes earlier.
"Can't be too hard on that pretty face of his, Gunther. We need to be sure Aaron recognizes him." He turned back to Cable with a wolfish smile. "Though your face is the only part we need recognizable."
He flicked the torch off, grabbing it up in a swinging motion and stabbed the white-hot burner into Cable's abdomen. The pain scorched through him as his breath left him and his breakfast too. Vinnie managed to dodge out of the way in time, and with her went the torch.
"I suppose that wasn't very sporting of me. I should have asked if you were feeling nauseous. Given you a bucket to aim for...."
Cable tried to breathe through his mouth to rid himself of the stench of sick, but the dank air was too heavy and only set more off kilter. He let out a particularly heavy breath as Vinnie set the torch back in its place.
"We'll come back to that later to finish this up...." her hands trailed over the knife she'd discarded and he turned back to Cable as he toyed with the bloody blade. "Tell me Whit, old boy. Are you a believer?"
"In what?"
"Have you heard the gospels, has any of them spoken to your soul?"
"I thought I was the one you were supposed to be driving insane...." Cable didn't have a chance to finish his thought as Vinnita took up the blade and plunged it through the palm of his hand. “Not the other way around.” He got the words out through clenched teeth.
Fighting all his instincts, Cable kept his hand open. Vinnita was just going to tear it out again.
But keeping his hand open as he did meant Vinnita left it in and slowly twisted the blade. "I've always wondered if I couldn't slice a man's hand from palm through to his finger.... would you like me to elongate your digits."
Cable kept his teeth clenched and didn't look Vinnita in the eye. He kept his focus on the ground, counting backwards from twelve over and over again to focus on the monotony.
Apparently Vinnita had no desire at that point to test her theory. She yanked the blade from Cable's palm and with one swift arch swooped down, driving the blade into the top of Cables foot.
As Vinnita righted herself, she looked to Cable with a smile as the pain coursing through his brain numbed him to all but the most dire thoughts.
"There's more nerve endings in the foot than you'd think, eh?" She had left the knife where she'd stabbed and turned to one of her lackeys. "I don't suppose you've ever thought much about it though. Most people don't. It's why they're so much fun to slice. I don't care what I want from you... you won't be walking away from my interrogation."
"Sounds like you're making this a side project. Any money in it."
"Not as much as you might think. But you know what they say: find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life."
"Is that what they said. I thought it was that only fools keep the devil's company."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Cable shook his head, unwilling to try to explain it to the gangster. Besides, now that he'd said it, he wasn't sure what he meant himself. His head was swimming and soon, he knew he'd black out if he didn't find a way to get a brief respite from Vinnita's ministrations.
