The Ancillary (Tales of a Dying Star Book 2)

by David Kristoph

  She tried to become angry. I shouldn't be so cavalier. She was a trained soldier, taught to never surrender, to fight even after hope was lost, to do as much damage to the enemy as possible. But all she felt was apathy, and the freedom that came from powerlessness.

  Darren adjusted their path to the left, toward the frigate. Three figures floated there waiting, two brown and one white. Darren pulled her to a stop in front of them, next to the laser cannon.

  She looked to Keld, hoping he could give her some signal that he'd finished the job, but there were no eyes to look back at her. The glass of his helmet was shattered, the face inside an indistinguishable mess of red and white.

  Beth didn't flinch away from the sight. She forced herself to stare, to pull some reaction from deep within her. Keld was one of the good ones, a worker she had cared about, but she couldn't bring herself to feel anything.

  One of the pirates pointed at her and spoke, though she couldn't hear anything. Hands patted her suit all over, stopping when they reached the pocket with the blasting cap. Darren spun her around to face him.

  A voice invaded her helmet. "What were you two doing?" For a moment she was confused, until she saw the green notification at the bottom of her helmet display. They were using a special channel unblocked by the frigate.

  Darren held the blasting cap to her face. "What was this for?"

  Darren was the saboteur on the Ancillary. It all made sense now; he'd charred his fingers damaging the communications equipment. Stars, I had Mark tortured, she thought. Bul was probably still working on him, if Mark was still alive.

  "We were trying to destroy cannons," she said. She knew she sounded defeated, but she couldn't muster much energy into her voice.

  Darren laughed. "These won't do much. And to think you called me stupid." He turned to the pirates. "Search the other one. And check the cannon, just to be safe."

  They found nothing in Keld's suit. They shoved his body away from the hull before disappearing into the cannon. Darren began pulling her away, but she kept her eyes on her comrade's body as it drifted into the black.

  The brightness of the airlock stung her eyes. The weight of her body ached as gravity engaged. As soon as the doors opened Darren threw her to the floor. Her helmet hissed as she removed it and looked around.

  Everything in the dock was too vivid after floating in the black. It looked artificial, like something viewed on a computer screen. Three pirates sat against the wall looking bored, their guns laid across their legs. Two more stood watch over the prisoners in the corner. Those were the only five; Soren and the other two were not there. Had the blast doors opened while she was gone? She wasn't sure how long she was out there.

  One of the prisoners stood and left the group. He was old and dirty, and his face wore decades of exhaustion. Javin.

  The guards made no move to stop him as he approached Beth. He stopped in front of her with a deep sadness in his eyes.

  "Hey, old man," she said.

  His hands were tied behind his back, but Beth pulled him close in a tight hug. She closed her eyes, could feel tears welling inside.

  "Beth," he whispered into her neck, "I told you to destroy the station."

  She pulled away from him and took a good look. His hair was disheveled, his beard weeks old. And there was a smell deep within him that her nose wouldn't accept.

  But there was a fire in his eyes, an alarming fervency. "We can't let them capture it, Beth. We need to overload one of the Ancillary's cores."

  One of the pirates was walking toward them.

  "You're not making sense," she said. "Are you okay? When was the last time you ate?"

  "I'm fine!" he snapped. "Who's in charge? Elo? We need to get a message to him. We need to tell him not to surrender."

  The guard grabbed Javin by the shoulder and yanked him to the ground. His teeth were yellow and cracked. He gestured with his gun. "Over to the corner, with the others."

  Beth bent to Javin, who groaned on the ground. She helped him to his feet and carried him to the corner, where the other prisoners sat cross-legged. Gola scowled at the ground, but Alissa smiled at her.

  "You guys okay?" Beth asked to distract herself from the body on the ground nearby. Jane's body.

  "We're alive," Alissa said. A few of the others nodded. "We saw you out there, attacking the frigate. The pirates saw too."

  Beth lowered her voice. "We were trying to damage one of the cannons, to temporarily disable their jamming. It didn't work. Keld is dead."

  "You should have destroyed the Ancillary!" Javin said. "There's still time, if we can get a message to Elo."

  "Will you shut up already?" Gola said, raising her head. "He's lost his damn mind, wanting to kill everyone here."

  "More may die if we don't!"

  Beth frowned at Javin. She'd never seen the engineer so insistent, so suicidal. She began to ask him what he meant, but then three men emerged from the hallway.

  Soren was just as she'd seen him last: tall, with quiet authority. He smiled widely at them. The unmoved half of his face made the expression seem hollow.

  "Hello, Beth," he said. He was polite, friendly. He had a presence about him that was compelling.

  "We caught her snooping around one of the cannons," Darren said. "She had these."

  Soren hefted one of the blasting caps in his hand. "Did they place any?"

  The airlock opened. The two pirates in brown suits approached, removing their helmets. "The cannon was clear," one said, "we didn't see any inside the barrel."

  "These are too small to do any real damage," Soren said, "unless you blow out a window." For some reason he smirked at Javin. "Bound their mouths. I don't want them to speak."

  The guard tied Javin's mouth with a length of cloth, then Beth's. It tasted wet and sour. Then he tied her hands in front of her with wire.

  The pirate leader returned to the hallway door and pushed a button on the computer. "I would like to speak with whoever is now in charge."

  There was a long pause before they heard Elo's voice. "This is Elo. I am in charge, now."

  Javin screamed into his cloth, muffled and incoherent, until the guard hit him with the back of his hand.

  "Elo," Soren said, "the lock-down ends in thirty seconds. When it does we will join you in the command room. I want your assurance that you still intend to surrender peacefully," he glanced at Beth, "regardless of what others may have attempted."

  There was a pause before Elo answered. "Peacefully, yes we will. Just don't hurt anyone. Don't hurt Beth." He sounded awkward at being in command.

  "As you can see we have not. Let's make sure it stays that way, yes?"

  Abruptly, the damaged remains of the blast door slid upward. Deeper down the hallway Beth heard the echo of other doors opening, one after the other, each more distant than the last.

  "We will join you in the command room shortly," Soren said. "Please have all weapons on the floor when we arrive."

  Beth and the other prisoners were pulled to their feet. They allowed themselves to be shuffled toward the door, following the other pirates into the hallway. Beth lowered her head, a defeated woman.

  She almost didn't notice it through watery eyes. The light caught something shiny, hidden on the floor between two crates.

  Her knife.

  She stole a glance at Soren. He was speaking with one of his men while the others led the prisoners into the hall. One guard watched her, inadvertently blocking her path to the blade.

  Before she could think, the Ancillary shuddered. Beth and everyone else whirled to face the dock window: there was an explosion outside. A cloud of metal and electronics floated outside the dock, pieces of the laser cannon. He did it. Keld did it!

  She turned back to the door. Javin and the other prisoners were already in the hallway, but Soren and two of his men stared. They were frozen in place, confused by the blast.

  Beth jumped to the ground to retrieve the knife, holding it in her bound hands. With a wordless cry
she threw herself at Soren.

  Part III: The Pirate

  Chapter 13

  Soren looked into her eyes as she died, the fading balls of blue, and in that moment they were lovers.

  Her breasts pressed against Soren, all momentum from her attack gone. She had the most splendid eyelashes: thick lashes that ringed all around, not just along the top. He wrapped an arm around to steady her. Her hair was still moist, soft. There was a clean smell mixed with the sweat, like flowers after rain.

  Beth's knife slipped from her hands and clattered to the dock floor, but Soren's gun was still in his hand, poking into her chest and smoking from the shot.

  Men yelled around Soren, but he didn't hear. He didn't care. The chaos around him meant nothing. In that moment there was only the woman dying in his arms.

  Her lips were full of color as the light dimmed from her eyes.

  It was instinct! he wanted to scream at her. She had a weapon; he acted without thinking. He was defending himself. It shouldn't matter that she was a woman, especially one so quick and lethal, but to Soren the difference was profane. He'd killed a woman by his own hand, and the shame of his sin was overwhelming.

  One of his men, a pirate with a patchy beard named Clint, shook his arm. Beth crumpled to the floor. Soren stared at her a moment longer, the body folded unnaturally, before pulling his gaze away.

  Clint saw the emotion in his eyes. "What's wrong?"

  Soren shook his head. "The explosion startled me. Tell me what happened."

  "It was an explosion in the second starboard cannon," Clint said. "It's offline, but the others are all fine. No structural damage either."

  Darren was a few feet away, near the door. Soren eyed him. "I thought you checked for explosives."

  Darren shook his head. "There weren't any. We were thorough."

  "Not thorough enough."

  Soren looked around. Through the dock window he could see debris, pieces of the Leviathan ripped from the hull and sent tumbling through space. Inside the dock Maurice aimed his gun at two prisoners, the women, whose backs were pressed against the wall. The other prisoners were gone. The blast door was back in place, the carved hole from the laser visible again. He could hear yelling in the hallway beyond.

  "Where's Javin?"

  Darren and Clint looked around the room. They had no answer. Soren strode to Maurice and asked him.

  "I... I don't know, Soren." He scratched the side of his face marred with burn scars. "They were being escorted away last I saw, in the hall. When the explosion happened I grabbed these two."

  Soren had to duck to pass through the hole in the blast door. The hallway was small too, rounded like a cave, the ceiling nearly brushing his head. After a few steps he reached another door, with another hole carved away. Soren stepped through into what he knew was the ring at the center of the Ancillary. The hall curved away from him in either direction. Shouts drifted from one way, screams from the other.

  He turned right, toward the screams. He passed through two more drilled doors before reaching the laser crew. A blast door had slammed down on the tip of the cutting laser, wedging it against the floor. The laser's encasing was damaged too: sparks flew away from its body, and a small fire was burning within, filling the hall with acrid smoke.

  Also pinned beneath the door was one of the technicians. His back leaned against the laser, his legs ending at the door, the skin and flesh smashed flat. Red was spreading across the rubber material that padded the floor. He screamed in agony while Lucas, the other technician, held his hand.

  "Thank the stars you're here, sir," Lucas said. "I need help prying the door open."

  "Have you seen Javin?" Soren asked.

  Lucas stared blankly. "Have I seen who?"

  "Javin, the engineer," Soren said, "did he come this way?"

  "I don't understand," Lucas said. "Everything unlocked, so we began moving the laser through. That's when the blast door came back down on us. I haven't seen Javin, that wasn't my job." He waved at the door. "I think we can pry this open, we just need three--"

  Soren turned around and retraced his steps, passing the door to the dock as he went down the other hallway. He came to the first blast door, where Garrett, one of the prisoner escorts, stood. He was one of the younger members of Soren's crew.

  Garrett banged on the door with a fist. "Open up, damnit!" Indistinguishable sounds drifted from the other side.

  Soren put a hand on his shoulder. "Where's Javin?"

  "He ran off when the explosion happened," Garrett said. "We chased him here, but then the doors came down. Maynard and Irwin are trapped on the other side."

  Soren could hear more clearly now: the other guards yelled and banged on the other side, the sounds muffled by thick steel. Soren's voice was quiet. "Are you telling me Javin escaped?"

  "What were we supposed to do?" Garrett said. "We gave chase, but you ordered us not to shoot him. Whoever is in charge was closing the doors behind him, allowing him to escape."

  Soren stared at the door in thought, his red eye buzzing as it involuntarily focused. So much for taking this asteroid peacefully. Three of his men were incapacitated. Five remained on the Ancillary, with two back on the Leviathan.

  They had other cutting tools; they could rescue Maynard and Irwin, but it would take time. Soren shook his head. Ten days remained, but Javin was too crafty, and Soren didn't want to waste time. They needed to reach him as soon as possible, even if it meant doing so with fewer men. The work on the blast doors must resume, allowing them to proceed counter-clockwise around the Ancillary until they reached the command room.

  Soren returned to to the dock. Maurice still guarded the two prisoners, but Darren and Clint were waiting for him. Soren said, "There's another cutting laser on the Carrion. Fetch it and take it to Lucas so he can continue working on the blast doors."

  "What happened to the other laser?" Clint asked.

  "It was crushed under a door," Soren said. "Go now."

  After they were gone, Soren went to the computer screen on the wall and pressed a button. "Javin. This is pointless."

  Silence.

  "My men are only delayed. We will reach the command room in a few hours regardless of your futile resistance."

  Nothing.

  "Javin, you spent the last week under my care. You know I wish no harm to anybody."

  The speaker crackled to life. "I know you want to capture the Ancillary," he said.

  "I wonder what led you to that conclusion?" Soren forced himself to chuckle. "We would like to capture it peacefully, however."

  "Peaceful. Tell that to Beth."

  Beth. Her body still lay in the center of the room, just out of view. Soren clenched his jaw. "Surrender, Javin. Please."

  There was a long pause before he answered. "I will destroy the Ancillary and everyone on it before I surrender to you. I suggest you flee while you're able, pirate, before you lay dead on the ground like Beth." There was a click, the conversation over.

  Soren rubbed his flesh eye with two fingers. No, it would not go peacefully now. Reaching Javin as soon as possible was their top priority.

  Clint and Darren wheeled the laser out of the airlock. It was smaller than the first; it looked like it would take longer to cut through.

  "We need to kill a hostage," Darren said, breathing heavy from the effort of pushing the laser. He looked in the direction of the women. "They need to know what we're about."

  Soren ignored the suggestion. "Get the laser to Lucas and find out how much longer it will take."

  Clint hesitated. "Sir, this mission... we've lost good men. I don't know what bounty has been offered to take this hunk of rock, but it can't be worth more death."

  "We continue as planned."

  "Why don't we take the Leviathan and go?" Clint insisted. "We should take it to a vote." Darren and Maurice watched, nodding.

  Soren rounded on them. "The decision has been made. We will take this station or die in the process, and anyone who disagr
ees can float home to Beron. Now get the laser to Lucas and assist him as best you can."

  The door of airlock number two hissed closed behind Soren as he left the dock. The exterior door opened, revealing the inside of the Leviathan.

  The tall hallways of the Melisao frigate were a welcome change after the cramped, cave-like feel of the Ancillary. Clean light came from alcoves nestled in the wall by the floor and ceiling, spaced every few feet. It was comforting being back on his ship. Though they controlled bases throughout the system, no place was truly home to Soren like the Leviathan.

  He frowned, thinking of one of those bases in the outer system. Worry filled his mind, but he pushed it aside. There was no use fretting about something he couldn't control.

  The bridge held only a crew of two: the prime engineer Elliot, and the navigator Killam. It was to the latter that Soren strode, at a console in the center of the room. "How much time do we have?"

  Killam frowned at his computer screen before looking up. "Ten hours until Melis alignment. We already have communication line-of-sight. The explosion didn't cause any permanent damage; certainly nothing to cause delay."

  "It caused delay on the Ancillary," Soren said crisply. "We lost Javin."

  "You lost him?" asked Elliot. He left his corner to join them. "How'd that happen?"

  "He escaped in the confusion of the explosion," Soren said.

  "Without him it will take me days to realign the transfer laser," Elliot said, "if I'm able to do it at all."

  Soren looked him up and down. Elliot was nervous, with a pinched look in his eyes. His men were beginning to worry, to doubt the mission. And they still did not know the most important part.

  He put a hand on Elliot's shoulder. "We'll get him back. We have plenty of time. Trust me, friend."

  Elliot nodded.

  "Get rock-side and see if you can skim anything from their computers. I want to know what Javin is up to." He turned to Killam. "I need to give an update to our... customer. Connect him through to my quarters, please." He gave them both a nod before leaving the bridge.