by Paul Barrett
“A little,” she answered.
Moran waited until she could open her eyes. He paced the room as he spoke. “You look different than your picture, but I still recognize you. The infamous Laura Benzing. I’m glad to finally meet you, although I feel like I know you already. Born on Earth in a little nowhere place called Fayetteville. Graduated high school at age fourteen. Went to Duke Medical School and graduated top of your class at eighteen. Went onto advanced neurology at the University of Charon. You had one son who is, unfortunately, dead. You have been a member of Force 13 for seven years and with the Knights four years. You function as ship’s doctor, second in command, and sometimes assassin.” He said the last with an edge of contempt that Laura found humorous coming from him.
“It’s a living,” she said.
He paused in his pacing. “And what drew you to this particular line of work?”
To her surprise, Moran sounded genuinely interested. However, she had no stomach for idle conversation. “Why don’t you cut the shit, you psychopath? What do you want?”
Cold fury lit up his dark face. Flesh and cybernetic eye narrowed as he glared at her. “Very well. I want Ship, and you’re my ticket to get her.”
“How so?”
“With you alive, he won’t leave the area. It’s only a matter of time before I find them.”
“Possibly,” she said, “But when the Council—”
“To hell with the Council!” he shouted back at her. “Why do you think I want Ship in the first place?”
“Infatuation?”
Moran flung his glass at her. She ducked, barely avoiding it, and it shattered against the wall behind her. He stormed across the room and grabbed her jaw in his cybernetic hand. Laura winced in pain as he squeezed.
“Your plan failed.” Moran held up the small strip of transmitter tape Laura had attached to the computer. “By nightfall, I’ll have Ship in a hanger and Hawk chained to a wall. By year’s end, I will be the Council. It’s over.” He shoved the strip of tape in Laura’s mouth and pushed her away. “Strip her down and toss her in a cell.”
Two guards, followed by a third, dragged Laura’s chair down a flight of stairs. Each bump jarred her until she began to see stars and thought she might pass out. They reached the bottom and things smoothed out as they towed her down a dimly lighted corridor. Her vision cleared; her head continued to pound. They pushed open a large metal door that opened into a closet-sized room, a little over two meters to a side. Although it looked like a medieval dungeon room, it did not surprise Laura to find its existence underneath Salakon’s ultra-modern house.
They sat her in the room. With his knife, one of the guards slit her jumper suit down the center and along each arm and leg. He yanked it away; she closed her eyes against the pain as the fabric abraded her skin in several places. She opened them again when she felt a hand on her bra. The knife slipped between her breasts and cut the fabric.
“Not bad for an Earthling,” the guard said, squeezing one of her breasts. “Shame it’s only two.”
Rage rose up in Laura as she flashed back to an earlier time, when another man took advantage of her. A man she thought of as a friend. The guard’s leering face in front of her became Wynick’s face, his groping hands Wynick’s hands. She felt helpless now, just as she did then.
She had to fight back, even though she knew the outcome would be the same. With a snarl, she spat the wad of transmitter tape at him. It struck him in the eye; he gasped in pain. As he pulled back, his hand left her breast and came by her mouth. Straining her neck, she lunged out and clamped down. Her teeth dug into the meat of his palm.
He screamed as she tasted his blood, a bittersweet taste, like charcoal-tainted honey. With his good hand, he punched her face. The force knocked the chair over. Her head bounced against the wooden backrest as it slammed into the stone floor. She again saw stars; she smiled as she pushed chunks of palm flesh from her blood-coated mouth.
“You whore,” the guard screamed, his voice breaking with pain as he cradled his mangled hand. He kicked at the chair’s bottom, sending a jolt through Laura’s spine. She continued to smile.
“Come on, Jonak,” one of the others said. “Leave her be unless you want to deal with Moran. Let’s get your hand fixed up.”
Jonak leaned over, grabbed her by the hair on either side of her head, and kissed her on the lips. She tried to bite him; he quickly pulled back.
“That’s just a little sample,” he promised. “When Moran’s done with you, I’m going to make you wish you had never been born.”
“Bring it.” Her eyes aflame, she spat blood back in his face.
Despite Laura’s disadvantage, she spoke with such ferocity that a moment of fear passed over Jonak’s face.
“Let’s go, Jonak,” the other guard said with a nervous glance down the hallway.
Jonak looked ready to do something else, then appeared to think better of it. They left and closed the door. The chink of the lock slamming home echoed in the small room.
Spitting more blood out of her mouth, Laura wiggled, fury still burning through her. The tight cable dug into her wrists as she squirmed; her anger wouldn’t allow her to submit. Determined not to be left helpless when the guards returned, she vowed to get free, even if it meant cutting herself to ribbons doing it.
The pain eventually broke through her rage. She stopped, recognizing her irrational behavior. Calming herself, she spat a few more times. The blood that had tasted sweet in her fury now almost gagged her. She longed for some water to alleviate the foul taste.
Calmed, Laura took stock of her situation. A study of the cell revealed no apparent cameras. Her hysteric wriggling had accomplished something: though still tight, the cable had loosened. It would take effort and concentration, but Laura thought she might be able to slip free of her entrapment. All she had to do was get the first loop free of the chair back, and the rest would come easy. Even though she had no way to escape the room, she could offer the guards an unpleasant surprise when they returned to fetch her. And she felt certain Jonak would be among them. Come on. Get yourself together. Trey is counting on you.
With the thought of Trey focusing her, she closed her eyes, lowered her heartbeat, loosened her muscles, and started her slow push toward freedom.
Back on Ship, Hawk and Gerard sat in Operations staring at a monitor, both unable to sleep. Trey lay in his chair, dozing fitfully and occasionally muttering Laura’s name.
“God, I could use a real drink right now,” Hawk said as he sipped his glass of melon soda.
“It looks like we kicked a beehive,” Gerard said as they watched the monitor. A chronometer in the upper left of the screen clicked off the seconds: two A.M local time.
“I expected nothing less,” Hawk didn’t take his eyes off the frenzy of dots flitting across the screen. Each dot represented a planetary craft; most of the dots were running search patterns. “Do you think she’s all right?”
Gerard glanced at the monitor displaying Laura’s vital signs. They had lost verbal contact with her, but whatever jammed the internal communicators didn’t affect their bio-implant sensors. “Her heartbeat seems to be slowing down. Maybe she’s trying to get some sleep. Something we should consider ourselves.”
“I couldn’t even begin to sleep now,” Hawk said, rubbing his eyes.
“Me neither,” Gerard agreed. “We should try anyway. We’re doing no one any good getting ourselves fatigued. There’s nothing we can do until Moran contacts us. Ship will let us know if anything changes.”
“I know,” Hawk said. He made no move to leave the room. Neither did Gerard.
Laura pushed away the last bit of cable and rubbed at her shoulder, abraded by the stone floor as she wriggled her way out of the chair. She pushed herself across that same floor, finally free of confinement, and rubbed her hands together, trying to chase away the damp chill of the bare stone room, uncomfortable but not life-threatening.
She flexed her jaw to open her inte
rnal comlink and said, “Can anyone hear me?” She got no response and tried again, with the same result.
No communication and no weapons other than her body. She pushed away the despair that tried to intrude. She still had a heartbeat and a brain and had used nothing more than that many times before to escape dire situations. She also had friends nearby, a factor not always present in earlier times.
Though she had seen no cameras, she ran through the modes on her contacts, searching for any electronic signals that might indicate surveillance equipment. She found nothing. Another sign of Salakon’s overconfidence. She wanted to laugh at his incompetence until she considered what she had missed that put her in this cell.
She had no idea when her captors would return. To make use of the time, she picked up the thin titanium cable that had so recently held her and twisted it, forming it into a whip. When she finished, she began scraping the braided wire against the stone floor, working to fray the edges along the weapon’s length, creating dozens of jagged barbs. As she worked, she smiled, thinking about the little surprise she would offer her escort when they returned.
“Hawk, wake up,” Gerard said.
Hawk stirred in the chair. Despite his assertion he wouldn’t fall asleep, the pattern of the searching ships on the monitor had turned hypnotic, forcing his eyes closed.
“Sorry,” Hawk rubbed at his scratchy eyes as he looked at Gerard. “Guess I dozed off.”
“It’s okay, you needed it,” Gerard said.
Hawk thought about pointing out Gerard’s bloodshot eyes—a strange sight against his pale skin—as evidence he should also have been sleeping, but kept silent. “What’s happening?”
“Ship just picked up a blanket broadcast from Moran on an old coded Force 13 wave.” He tapped a few numbers on the control panel. When he finished, the center monitor went static white for a second, and then resolved into an image of Moran.
“so don’t wait too long or Ms. Benzing will be nothing more than a puddle of flesh.”
The image disappeared, replaced by a black screen. Five seconds later, the image reappeared, Moran’s head and shoulders backed by blackness, offering no clues to his location.
“Pause and record, Ship,” Gerard said. Moran’s image froze in a grimace.
“Why are you doing that?”
“I told Ship to wake the others. We might as well all hear it at the same time.”
Hawk nodded and looked at a yawning Trey, who had begun stirring at the sound of Moran’s voice over the Operations Room speakers.
“What’s wrong?” Trey asked, his face blanching as he saw Moran’s oversized sneer on the monitor.
“It’s okay,” Hawk said in a soothing voice. He explained the situation to Trey as Ashron, Wolf, and Tasha, all briefed by Ship and alert despite the early morning hour, walked in. As they all turned to the center monitor, Hawk said, “Run it, Ship.”
The video started again. Moran’s grimace turned into a cold smile. He had removed his eyepatch, revealing a gleaming black cybernetic eye with an emerald green pupil. “Hawk, old friend. I have to assume you are out there somewhere receiving this broadcast since I know you won’t go far. I also know you won’t answer, for obvious reasons, so I’ll get to the point. I have something you want, and you have something I want. Cliché perhaps, but aren’t most of the great truths? The question is: where do your values lie? Are you willing to give up Ship for Ms. Benzing? I’m betting you are, but I’m not as patient as I used to be, so I’m moving up the time frame a notch. I’ve injected the young lady with a time-release capsule of kataverin. I know you’ve seen the effects, so I won’t bore you with a description. It’s set to go off in twenty-four hours. It can’t be removed so she must have the antidote before its release. I want you to bring Ship to a nearby airfield. Follow beacon four seven six point seven six and land there. In case you decide Ms. Benzing will have to make a noble sacrifice so you can leave with Sara, I want you to know I’ve mobilized my entire fleet and cut off all avenues of escape. As we speak, the net grows tighter and time is getting short.
“Now I have no delusions about the ship’s capabilities. I know that should you wish to make a fight of it, I would suffer heavy casualties. Be warned. Heavy casualties or not, you would lose, and Sara would die; something neither of us wants. I offer your doctor and safe passage in exchange for Sara and the ship. I consider this an extremely generous offer con—”
“Don’t they always?” Ashron said.
“—sidering you’re trapped and I will find you anyway. So don’t wait too long or Ms. Benzing will be nothing more than a puddle of flesh.”
The image faded out.
“Recording stopped,” Ship said.
No one spoke, looking at each other with morose faces, until Gerard said, “He’s worried.”
“Right!” Ashron said. “I could see the fear radiating off of him.”
Gerard turned to Ashron. “Don’t analyze what he said but what he didn’t say.”
Ashron’s tongue flicked. “I’m listening.”
“You and I both know he has no intention of keeping his word. As soon as he gets Ship, he’ll kill us all. Probably with the same virus. He also knows that we know this.”
“Yeah, and we know that he knows that we know this, what’s your point?”
“My point is, why make the offer in the first place?”
“To save time?” Trey asked.
Gerard turned to Trey. “Yes, but why?”
Trey shrugged. “I don’t know,”
“Why indeed?” Tasha asked, stroking the fur on her cheek “Time is on his side.”
“Is it?” Gerard asked. “He made several mentions of time running short. I think he was speaking for himself as much as for us. He feels pushed for time. Why?”
There was a pause as the crew considered possibilities.
“He found the transmitter,” Wolf said.
“Exactly,” Gerard confirmed. “He found the transmitter, and we have to assume he found it right away. But he doesn’t know how much information we got.”
Trey had a puzzled frown. “Wouldn’t he have intercepted the transmission to the Council and know what we sent?”
“No. Our transmission was like a shot in the dark. By the time he heard the shot, it was too late. The message was sent.”
“That’s why he’s worried,” Tasha said. “He knows we have information on his organization and that we sent it to the Planetary Council, but he doesn’t know how much.”
“And that’s the key.” Gerard leaned back in his chair. “He’s given us only twenty-four hours because he knows there’s no way the Council can mount any kind of action in that time.”
“Can they?” Trey asked.
“No,” Hawk said. “Normally, it would take at least a week.”
“What do you mean, ‘normally’?” Ashron asked.
“Gerard, Ship and I were talking last night,” Hawk said. “We may have a found a way to circumvent normal time.”
30
Endgame Meeting
Laura started awake, hearing voices and motion outside her cell’s solid door. She shook her head to clear away the after-effects of the muscle booster and grabbed her makeshift whip from the floor. Stiffness from sleeping on the cold stone tugged at her muscles was pushed aside by a rush of adrenaline. She could take out two, maybe three with a little luck; after that, her odds went down. She couldn’t tell how many stood outside as a keycard slapped against the door; she hoped not many.
Standing to the side, she tensed as the door swung open. She recognized one of the guards from earlier as he stepped in. She lashed out with the whip. The braided steel caught the man across his neck. Wires ripped open his carotid artery. Blood sprayed as he dropped to the floor.
Laura stepped into the doorway, standing over the man’s dying body. The second guard had no time to register what happened before Laura flung the whip in a rapid up-down motion. The guard stumbled back screaming, two deep furrows in his chest.
His retreat forced him against a third guard and Laura pressed the attack. The whip swung again, catching the third man across both eyes. He shrieked and raised his hand, trying to stop the blood pouring from his ruined face.
Intense pain jolted through Laura and she fell. The whip dropped from her numbed fingers. Jonak stood in the corridor, his face flushed with fury and a neuroshock pistol in his hand.
“You bitch,” Jonak said. He stepped up and kicked her in the stomach. She barely felt the kick or heard him through the dancing flames of her nerves. His voice came to her down a tunnel of pain. “If Moran didn’t want you alive, I’d kill you so slowly you’d be begging for death hours before it came.”
He kicked her again, in the chest. She dimly felt herself coughing before she heard the electric crack of the pistol. Her body arched in uncontrollable spasms as she jittered on the blood-soaked floor. Vomit sprayed from her mouth, and her head struck the wall, then everything turned black.
Moran stood at the front of the boardroom dressed in a tailored black suit. The other board members gathered and seated themselves. Several stared at Laura. She sat bound and gagged against one wall. Jonak had thrown a long gray shirt over her. The blood coating her body had seeped through in several places. She reeked of vomit and gore. Several of the board members looked faint as they passed her. Moran would have sworn Wekeit, the Gronian who served as Unicybertronic’s treasurer, smiled sadistically at the site of the battered, semi-conscious Laura.
Moran’s thoughts about Laura were a mix of admiration at her skill and regret that she would never consider joining his organization. In many ways, she reminded him of Sara, not least in physical appearance.
He pushed such thoughts aside. Today was not a time to dwell on what could never be. Today was a time to consider what the future held and rejoice.
As the last of the board members sat down, Moran walked over to Laura. She had recovered from Jonak’s rough treatment and tried to level him with a cold, impotent glare.
