by C. Gockel
The grip tightened. Dots swirled before Sela’s eyes. She could barely hear its voice over the roar of blood.
“Give her to me. You and your captain may go free. The warrants against you will be rescinded. You can even return to being a soldier, Tyron. Is that that not what you want? You need not lose your rank over this. You were mortally wounded when Veradin dragged you onto the vessel. The Information Officer’s testimony confirms it. Certainly, you would have not made a deliberate choice to go with him. Why should you suffer for Veradin’s lapse?”
I suffer.
Her thoughts swam like her vision. This freak knew so much.
“You can have it all back. You have my word. In return, I want Erelah Veradin.”
The grip slackened, and cooling oxygen raced into Sela’s scorched throat.
“You say you can do all these things. That you have all this power. Why not just take this whole station, find her yourself?” she croaked.
“Ah. There is the keen intellect of a survivor.” The Defensor smiled briefly.
Ravstar must have beaten the Cassandra to Merx. It had been much more than a good guess, or carefully honed strategy. Their intel had been enough to spur this half-breed and her team to arrive here in person. There was something very wrong, despite this creature’s deliberate tone. Something deeper. She wanted things quiet , according to Phex—wherever the duplicitous little slug had scampered.
If this thing truly had the backing of First, the station would be an orbiting cinder. Only four EEs had pursued them into Phex’s private lounge. And only two remained with the Defensor. To Sela, it felt like far too few boots on the ground to take a facility of this size. It seemed reckless, desperate.
“First doesn’t know you’re here,” she said. “This is a rogue op. Who are you?”
The freak canted her head in an unnatural manner, looking like a raptor sizing up a meal.
“I can see why Trinculo considered you a danger. It’s a pity to waste such intellect on a lowly breeder like you. Perhaps Veradin likes the sense of power he has over you…his clever and loyal breeder pet.”
Erelah’s words were coming out of the face of this monstrosity.
“You’re not fit to speak his name.”
“Oh? And what do you know about your worshiped captain, pet?” Her oddly Eugenes eyes studied her, somehow able to read the very pattern of blood flowing through Sela’s body. A strange prickling sensation flowed down the back of her neck. “If you knew the truth about him…about his sister…would you be so swift to defend him?”
“Like I’m going to believe a word out of your ugly head.”
“Defensor Tristic…ma’am. There is a problem,” the lieutenant interrupted. One hand pressed against his head, listening to the earpiece of his vox.
The grip on her throat slackened further. Sela saw her chance. She launched, pushing off from the wall. Tristic sidestepped, easily dodging her tackle. The floor rushed up to meet her and her knees folded. She levered up on hands and knees, gulping in air. A trooper was instantly upon her, planting the muzzle of his rifle against her temple. She was more than content to stay there and breathe at the moment. She needed to think. Tristic. So that was this bitch’s name.
The lieutenant pressed closed to his master. His voice was frantic and hushed. “Ma’am, we cannot possibly maintain our location and continue the search.”
“Maynard, it is not a question of insufficient resources, but of insufficiency in your leadership,” Tristic snarled.
“We have only cleared half of the docking bays,” he replied. “If the renegade ship has a masked ident, as you’ve described, my men will need to conduct a visual search of each docking tier.”
“Erelah is here.” It was a meaty rumble. “Even now I share Sight with her despite her resistance.”
Tristic swayed. Her voice was slower, thicker. “Continue the search for their ship. She is still there.”
“I need more men. If you simply recall the Questic —”
With a savage growl, Tristic turned on Maynard shoving him toward the corridor where he fell sprawling. He climbed to his feet, cringing as if in preparation for another attack.
Tristic righted her cloak. Her voice was calm and glossy once more as if the attack had never happened. “Maynard, you will accomplish what I have asked.”
The freak’s head was turned. She had dismissed Sela for the moment.
There. The sawed-off lay forgotten near the wall. The A6 was a glinting impossibility too far to reach. The two troopers were more interested in watching the attack on their lieutenant. Sela dove at the weapon and drew aim on Tristic.
The blast roared. The impact struck the space between the uneven lines of Tristic’s shoulder blades. She pitched forward slightly as if she had just been jostled in a busy corridor, nothing more.
Body armor. The crazy bitch had on body armor.
Wide-eyed, Seal stared. A trooper ripped the weapon from her, and she was hauled to her feet. Her arms were braced painfully behind her back.
Tristic turned with an amused expression pulling across that crag of a mouth. She applauded slowly.
“Stalwart to the last, Tyron. Your defection is such a loss.”
“Thanks,” Sela muttered, spitting blood onto the deck. One of the EE troopers pinioned her arms behind her and restraints bit into her wrists. She was forced back against the wall and felt the restraints fastened to something solid and unmovable.
Tristic peered into her face. Her poison blue tongue darted along the top edge of her needle-like teeth.
“I understand that you have recently become enlightened as to teachings of the Fates. Allow me to further your studies. I offer you a new choice on your Path this day, Commander.”
Sela blinked. How? How could she know about the priest on Tasemar? She had never even told Veradin all of it.
“I shall offer you something that your worshiped captain never did: A choice. I will ask you to make a simple choice. But to do it, you must be honest.”
Tristic leaned against her in an intimating whisper. “And, Tyron, to be fair, I can tell if someone is lying.”
She drew her chin up and fixed her gaze at the wall.
“Eleven souls, including yourself, that Veradin so heroically rescued from Tasemar even when he had been ordered to abandon you. And impressively, only one casualty. Worthy soldiers whose lives rested in your very hands.”
Sela rolled her eyes. Tristic really did enjoy the sound of her own voice.
“Once more, as a demonstration of irony the Fates so tediously enjoy, one of your team finds himself in a similar place at this moment. You face another choice: Who shall live this day? You? Or your loyal sergeant?”
“What?”
“The question is quite simple.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Do you care to test my resolve?” Tristic canted her head. Poorly feigned sympathy in her voice. “You don’t believe me. Understandable. After all, we’ve only just met.”
Sela swallowed. How far did the Defensor’s reach extend?
“Here. Let me make this easier for you.”
Tristic waved a hand over her shoulder. There was jostling somewhere in the corridor beyond. A large figure, cloth bag over his head, was corralled into the room. His thickly-muscled arms were bound behind him. It took two troopers to control this captive.
“I believe introductions are not necessary.”
Tristic traipsed past, lifting the prisoner’s hood.
The features were bloodied. The man squinted about the room warily, before his eyes locked onto Sela’s. A sob caught in her throat. Valen.
“Now.” Tristic sighed. “I see I have made my point.”
A grim smile formed on Valen’s face.
Sela felt her own lunatic grin form.
“Commander.”
“Sergeant.”
Sela kept her eyes front, her arms sore in their restraining hold. The reassuring weight of her blade pressed agains
t her forearm. The fools had not bothered to search her yet. There was still an edge, the possibility of a way out.
“I ask again, Tyron. What Path do you choose? The truth? Or the life of your sergeant?”
Oh. That’s right. Tristic was still talking.
Sela looked down at the decking. A familiar red-hot tide of fury filled her. It was not something to be tamed at a time like this. No counting or breathing. Its acrid power gnawed at her, insisting that she rend and tear.
“This…will end badly for you, half-breed,” she said.
While Tristic chuckled, Sela pulled forward; it distracted from her true intent of trying to get the blade further down into her sleeve. Finally, it eased into her palm, and she began to saw at the restraints. The plasti-web was stubborn, but she felt purchase of the knife’s teeth. The angle was odd. Her left shoulder was a knot of agony.
“My new girlfriend.” Valen canted his head toward Tristic. “When I get loose I’m going to skin her—”
A rifle butt connected with Valen’s sternum.
“Valen!” Sela strained forward, overreacting. It made it easier to slice the restraints. The sound of her shout covered the “pop” as the straps gave way. Still, she kept her hands clasped behind her. Relief uncoiled the muscles in her arms.
Sela started chuckling.
Her sergeant nodded imperceptibly. A low rumbling laugh rose in his throat.
“I will kill you, Tristic,” she said.
“No. Allow me,” Valen snarled.
With hands still bound before him, Valen lunged at the Defensor. He towered over Tristic’s slouched, imperfect frame, obliterating Sela’s view. Everything sped up after that.
Sela sprang at the trooper to her right, blade ready. It sliced into his torso, finding the narrow gap of the trooper’s armor. Field armor was meant to protect against plasma rounds and the blunt impact of concussion devices, but not the slender threat of a blade in close quarters.
She dragged his body in front of her like a shield. The guard posted at the door fired, but the rounds struck the trooper’s lifeless body. Even as he sagged to the floor at her feet, she claimed his rifle. She squeezed off a round at the remaining guard, taking him out at the knees. His painful cry was muffled behind the dark scrim of his helm. Another shot and he went silent. She swept to the left, sighting for Tristic.
But the Defensor had vanished.
Valen lay in a heap on the deck.
“Damn it all.” She knelt over him.
He rolled over with a groan. Then she saw the wound in his flank. Bad. It was not from a plasma weapon. He had been stabbed. Carefully, she split the webbing of his restraints.
“Ugly bitch had a blade,” he hissed.
She lifted the hem of his shirt. Quickly she pressed her hands over the site. Blood welled up to seep between her fingers.
“How bad?” He twisted, pulling at her hand.
“Be still.”
She glanced around at the dead or dying troopers.
“Here. Hold pressure.” She took his hand and clamped it over the wound.
The trooper closest to her had tactical pouches with his gear. She rummaged for his medikit.
“That thing was a lot stronger than she looks.” Valen grimaced. “Fast too.”
“Why are they doing this, Valen?” she asked, hoping to distract him.
She searched a second pouch. Her fingers met the smooth plastic of a cellseal packet. Her heart leaped. The universe had finally decided to throw her a favor.
“I don’t know, boss. She asked a lot of questions about you and the cap’n. Desperate to find someone called Erelah Veradin.”
Sela unraveled the dressing, prepping it. “Desperate?”
Her earlier impression of this as a rogue op had been correct then.
Desperate could be good. It meant they were in possession of a valuable asset. But it also meant that serious hurt would be headed their way, with the considerable resources of Ravstar driving the search for Erelah.
He nodded, grimacing. “Who is she?”
“Erelah?” She ripped a larger whole in his shirt to get at the wound. “The captain’s sister.”
“Tristic asked skew things too. Like if I knew of any Humans.”
“Humans?”
“Weird, right? Makes no sense.”
“None of this is making sense. What about the others back on the Storm King ?” She doubted Tristic could threaten an entire company of soldiers in secret. But still…
“No idea.” He shook his head. “Trinculo sent a team to secure the bay. I held position as long as I could to cover your exit. They used a stunner. Next thing I know I’m looking at the inside of the stockade. Never saw or talked to anyone else.”
“It’s okay, Sergeant.”
“Trinculo never once questioned me.”
“He didn’t interrogate you?” She paused in her work.
“No. It’s like he pretended Veradin’s escape never happened.” He gave a weak shrug.
“Because Tristic needs it to be quiet,” she said, recalling Phex’s explanation. She realized the hybrid might not have power in all corners of the Regime, but she did seem to have enough to influence one of the strictest Information Officers Sela had ever encountered. So much for the captain’s theory of an incorruptible Trinculo.
This was all skew. This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I was going to stay behind and face the consequences. Not Valen or anyone else.
Sela paused, holding the dressing open with both hands, ready. She met his gaze. He nodded. Moving quickly, she pressed the cellseal against his wound. There was a muted hiss, and a waft of burning flesh as the chemicals cauterized the damage. Instead of calling out, Valen pounded a fist against the deck.
The chems in the dressing would react with the heme, forming a seal and jumpstarting the healing process. If the wound wasn’t too bad. She squelched the rest of that thought.
“That tickles!” Valen grunted through clenched teeth. “You couldn’t find the kind that burns?”
Despite their desperation and the thoroughly screwed circumstances, she chuckled and thumped his shoulder.
“Shut up, Sergeant. Or I’ll throw another one on your junk.”
They needed to find Veradin and get to the Cass.
Sela rose and made her way to the doorway. The fleeing panicked crowds had thinned. They had headed for the bays, she imagined. It would be good cover. But their progress would be slow, impaired by the sergeant’s injury.
Valen pushed up onto one elbow as she returned.
She helped him to stand. “Can you run?”
“I’m not up to racing, boss.” He gave a mock-plaintive whine.
But he looked away quickly, covering. Valen was hurting. It was written in the way he leaned heavily against the wall.
“Next time.”
Sela resumed her search of the trooper’s gear. All of their supplies were new issue, she noted with a tinge of jealously. The gear doled out to her teams were usually half a decade old, or more. She claimed another medistat pouch and a bandolier of shatter grenades.
“So, is Veradin’s sister at least pretty?” he asked, allowing her to loop his arm around her shoulder.
“Pretty insane,” she muttered, reclaiming the A6. “Let’s get out of here, Sergeant.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Having grown from a class seven fuel outpost, Merx was impressive in size for a ghost station. During Sela’s first assignments with Commerce Enforcement, she had seen similar structures. They were always cobbled together, but the enterprising occupants here had added pressurized levels that were shielded from rads and capable of supporting hab. As a consequence, Sela found there was no predictable layout to the newer sections. But if Phex’s directions were to be believed, the bay was near.
The bustling marketplace she and Veradin had first encountered was now a deserted shambles. The former patrons and proprietors had dropped their belongings and fled at the sight of Tristic’s
boarding party.
In the aftermath, excited specus pheasants warbled in their tiny cages. A gelcid calf bleated listlessly at them from where it was chained to a post. Unattended fires for cooking had been left to burn in the food stalls. The smell of overcooked meat mingled with tendrils of black smoke. If there were atmo scrubbers or fire suppression in this obviously added-on area, Sela would have been surprised. She doubted safety was important to Phex and his fellow leaders of this little scum market.
“How far, boss?” Valen asked.
“Should be the second corridor. Through the market.”
Valen moved at a shambling pace as she helped him along the passage. His heavy arm was thrown about her shoulders. The bleeding from his wound saturated the side of the hateful single suit, plastering it to her skin. She thought of Tasemar, maneuvering Atilio into the temple. Then, it had been Valen doing the helping.
“Hold up,” he panted as leaned against the support pole of a canopy. Wordlessly, he unfastened the clasp on the calf’s collar. The animal shook its furry head and looked up at them uncertainly.
“Go on.” Valen made a swatting gesture.
The animal scampered away with a clatter of tiny hooves.
She muttered, “Always with the animals.”
“The ladies love it.” He gave her a haggard wink.
During a particularly brutal posting on an agri-colony, Valen had rescued a spike hound pup, risking his own life in the process. She had reamed him out for that one. But eventually, she came to realize it was part of who he was. He was a dutiful soldier, but not blind to innocent suffering. A crester would have considered him flawed. But his compassion didn’t make him weak. Somehow it made Valen stronger in her eyes.
She slipped his arm back over her shoulders and tried to take on more of his weight. His movements had become slower and slower in such a small amount of time. Although it seemed like forever ago, the corridor where they had encountered Tristic and her men was not that far behind.
Another hundred meters and they reached the access to the bay where she hoped the Cassandra was still berthed.
“Great,” she spat.
An enormous armored door sealed the passage. This, from its form and shape, was original to the structure and remarkably, still functional. Unluckily, they were on the wrong side of it.
