Gunship (31 page)

“Status?” Reilly looked around as Duv and Tiny began running their systems checks.

“Gunners checking in, we are fine, no damage to the guns, light to moderate laser scoring along the hull but no breaching or heavy damage. She looks good from the outside, Captain,” Chang reported.

“Ma’am, our countermeasure system sustained minor damage from the blast in the tunnel but nothing I can’t fix, and the shields are holding well at about seventy-six percent across the board. They should be back to a hundred percent within the hour. The Tether ship with Sergeant Ty on board made no attempt to disguise its path. In fact, they seem to be leaking neutrons almost as if they want us to follow. I should be able to get a solid final location for them by running a couple of standard star-tracking programs to trace their route.” Reilly nodded in acknowledgement, and Tiny turned back to her console to run a few more scans.

“Journeys are plotted, and we have no pursuit at this time. If we continue on course, we should arrive at our designated rendezvous with Commander Zain in exactly fourteen hours,” Duv reported.

“Brynt, Macen, report,” Reilly ordered.

“They are a little busy right now, Captain. But I’m fine!” a voice responded.

“Seth?” Reilly looked around at Tiny and Duv. “This can’t be good.”

—————

Ty opened his eyes. His vision blurred, then cleared, then blurred again. He tried to see where he was and what was around him, but everything looked dark and gray. One eye was swollen shut, and he was pretty certain his nose was broken as well. The front of his shirt was wet with sweat and blood, and his head throbbed as he tried to remember what had happened. He moved to sit up but found that his hands and legs were manacled to the floor. He wrestled with the chains for a minute and then leaned back on the cold metal surface.

Suddenly a bright light flashed on, blinding him. He could hear voices, but his ears were still ringing from the explosions and he couldn’t make out what was being said. He squinted, trying to see around the light, to get a glimpse of the shadowy person behind it. The light grew brighter, and he leaned away from it. A dark object came flying in as a brilliant blast of pain shot through his skull, and he knew no more.

“So here is the video I promised—as you can see, he is still alive, just somewhat disoriented. I prefer not to have trouble on the flight back, so”—a younger man appeared to one side, grabbed his blaster, and smashed the butt of it into Ty’s temple to knock him out again—“we will keep him like this until we arrive. Not too long, three days maybe?”

“Very good! I would prefer that he is coherent on arrival and still able to speak, so if you would avoid breaking his jaw? When you arrive, bring him straight to me for your payment. It is most definitely a pleasure to make your acquaintances, gentlemen!” Crazy Ray clicked off of his handset and hummed a jig. He was in between auctions, and this news had just made his day fantastic. He looked over at his temporary assistant, who was struggling with the switches on the control boards, and laughed. The man looked up at him, fearful, pausing to see what would happen next.

“Go out and get me someone else from the communications center. You have four minutes.” Crazy Ray waved him off, then jumped up on the stage and strode across it purposefully. He opened up a crate, pulled out one of the new laser rifles inside, and then loaded it. He picked up his remote, tweaked the cameras, and then trained one camera on the door and the other on himself. As the “On Air” light came on, he smiled his signature psycho smile.

“People, people! What a fantastic day we have going on here! I have got some super deals that will quite literally knock your socks off!” He laughed hysterically, then sobered and unloaded an entire clip at the back of the room. The camera trained on the door captured it all as he mowed down the assistant, leaving behind only the man’s shoes. “These guns are the real deal, the latest in Vhax technology, and today only you get a free pair of shoes with your purchase!”

A second man numbly stepped through the door, over the body, and walked to the console to begin working the lights and sounds. He didn’t even react to what had just happened. Crazy Ray continued his auction, calling out bids as the blood from the hall flowed across the floor at the back of the room, perfectly framed for the viewing audience by the dead man’s shoes.

—————

Reilly and Duv ran down the catwalk while Tiny checked her med kit to make sure she had some extra tranquilizers and an injector. How Seth had come around so quickly she could guess. He must have decided not to take the pills. That’s what she would’ve done. As a precaution, Tiny double-checked her armament as she ran, looking for the small bolt gun that doubled as a pen. If she had to, she could immobilize him with a neurotoxin bolt first and then increase the tranquilizer dose. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

Reilly jogged down the last hall, slowing to a walk with Duv at her side. Seth had keyed in from the cargo bay. Reilly wasn’t sure what to expect when they entered, but she crossed her fingers, praying that Seth hadn’t accessed any of the secure holds with the remaining Vervian equipment in them. They still didn’t know what most of it did, and if Seth had armed himself with any of those weapons, they could all be in a world of hurt. She was hoping for the best, but in this line of work, it was always smart to prepare for the worst. She handed Duv a stun gun and grabbed one herself, but also checked her blaster just in case. Duv was too distracted to notice.
Just as well,
Reilly thought to herself. She hoped she wouldn’t have to hurt the kid.

They paused at the hatch, waiting for Tiny to catch up, then slowly opened the door and walked into the room.

Seth sat on a crate at the back of the bay, head down, looking at something. Duv and Tiny flanked to either side of Reilly as she began to walk directly up behind him. She slowly moved closer, holding a hand out for Duv and Tiny to hang back a bit. Her footsteps sounded lightly on the cargo floor. When she was still a few feet away, he abruptly lifted his head. Reilly and the others froze.

“Captain Campbell. Did you know I could hear you coming from across the room? And I knew it was you just by the way you walked. It’s the way you balance your weight on the balls of your feet, always moving forward.” Seth paused a moment, fascinated. “It’s very distinct. I never used to be able to do that.”

Reilly stood still and waited. “What’s this all about, Seth? Where are Macen and Brynt?”

“I had to put them somewhere to keep them from causing any more problems. Over there seemed like a pretty good spot.” Seth sent a cold glare across the room. Reilly fought back a shiver, remembering Ty’s words about how Seth had changed into a cold-blooded killer in town. He was right. This wasn’t Duv’s son, the kid they had rescued from slavers. Something was terribly wrong. She pushed it all to the back of her mind as she took another couple of steps forward, looking for the missing men.

“Where exactly did you put them?”

Seth gestured to the blast doors. Reilly looked in that direction, confused. Nobody was there. Seth grinned evilly and pointed to the doors again. He opened them slightly with the handheld in his lap. The two men gazed out from the crack like frightened rabbits.

Reilly slowly glanced back at Duv and Tiny. Duv was staring as if he was trying to recognize the person in front of them. His face displayed a mixture of pain and horror as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Meanwhile, Tiny was stealthily loading a wristband that appeared to fire some type of darts.
Probably tranquilizers of some sort,
Reilly realized. The Gaiden appeared relaxed, as if this were just a training exercise. Reilly wished she could be so detached. She turned towards Seth again. He still sat with his back to them, unmoving, in what Reilly hoped was a gesture of trust.

“Seth, how long have they been in there?” Reilly asked cautiously.

“Not long enough.” Seth looked around at her with that flat, dead stare again, then caught himself and gave his head a light shake, as if he was fighting something. “I mean, since they tried to tie me in my bunk.”

“I asked them to strap you down. We thought you were still out, and Duv was doing some serious flying up there. I didn’t want you to get hurt.” Reilly continued to watch him warily, keeping her hands where he could see them.

“They came for a different reason. They came to kill me.” Seth tossed Reilly the handheld and then looked back at the men. They shrank away from him.

“What’s this?” Tiny and Duv came over to look at the handheld as Reilly scrolled through it.

“They used it to send a signal, the signal that brought the Tethers down. They helped the Tethers take Sergeant Ty.” By this point, the rest of the crew had gathered on the catwalk upstairs and was listening as Seth continued his story, his voice cold and unforgiving. “I turned it off. It was attached to a trigger for an electromagnetic pulse bomb that would have disabled the ship once we broke out of the atmosphere. The Tethers were going to come on board, take us captive, and take the ship. These filthy traitors set us up just to make some credits.”

The last comment was directed at the captive men trapped between the blast doors. Brynt shot a vile grin back at Seth, who continued to eye him with the look of a cat who was tired of its prey and ready to kill.

Reilly waved Tiny forward. The Gaiden calmly walked past Seth to the open rear hold. She peered inside, noting the still-intact EMP device. The red light blinked an empty threat at her as she carefully cut the power supply to diffuse it and then handed it out to Chang, who had joined them. She looked at Reilly and nodded. The kid was right, they had been set up.

Reilly could feel the rage coming to the surface. A slow burn that threatened to explode at any moment, a hatred of the ones she had taken in, had trusted, who had betrayed her, had betrayed them all. She looked towards the men, and everyone who could see her eyes took a step back. Seth continued his own evil stare at his former crewmates. She pulled her blaster out as she strode purposefully towards them, racking the charger and leveling it at them.

Macen panicked and began yelling. “It was all Brynt, I didn’t do any of it, he just said it would be good money for turning you all in. I just helped ’cause he told me I could get my own ship out of the deal…” He stopped talking as it dawned on him whose ship that probably was.

Brynt elbowed Macen as best he could in the enclosed space between the two blast doors. “Shut yer hole! Fraggin’ idiot! We’d be getting paid right now if you would’ve just let me shoot that damn kid. And the rest of them would be goners, too!”

Seth stood and took a step towards both of the men, his face a murderous mask. They instantly froze. Reilly briefly wondered what he had done to scare them so badly. She decided it didn’t matter. They were going to die for what they had done. But before she took care of that detail, she needed to confirm her suspicions. She jammed the muzzle of the blaster between the doors.

“I bet you both are familiar with the purpose of a blast door and what it does to laser rounds? If I fire a laser round in here on an angle and then close this door, that sucker is going to bounce around in there with you. Might even go through you a few times, make some holes. It’s called fire-boarding by pirates and slavers, they use it to torture their victims. Sometimes they actually bet on how long a man will survive. I heard rumor the longest was about a day and a half for one fellow before the round finally ripped through his heart and finished him off. The cold helps keep the blood thick, so you don’t bleed out as fast. I’m willing to bet if I adjust this blaster a bit, I can get it so you live longer than that. Nice radiation burns, loss of a few appendages, and who knows? Maybe you’ll get a lucky bounce that will hit you in the heart or the head, or maybe you’ll just be praying that that next bounce is the one that will end it all. So who wants to avoid all that unpleasantness and tell me where my sergeant is being taken?”

The blood drained from Macen’s face as Reilly talked. He was already sweating and trembling. Before she could even finish her question, he was already hollering out a response, desperate to escape her wrath.

“They’re taking him back to Mr. Ray’s space station, and we were supposed to bring you, too. Mmmpfh!”

Brynt slammed his elbow up into Macen’s mouth, cracking his jaw, then grinned out through the crack at Reilly triumphantly. “We ain’t saying nothing else to you…you ain’t got the balls to do torture on us!”

Reilly walked to the side and slammed her fist into the control pad for the door. It hissed loudly as it closed. She stood for just a moment, letting the rage wash over her, and then reached for the comms mic and clicked it on. “You don’t have to say anything else. All you have to do now is listen. You made a bad mistake. You took advantage of me, took advantage of my crew. You turned my sergeant over to a murderous psychopath, and you tried to kill my pilot’s kid. And then you tried to take my ship. So you’re right. I’m not going to torture you. But I am going to kill you.”

She paused. The men were banging on the blast doors now. Brynt was cursing. It sounded like Macen was screaming at him.
Good
. She continued with her speech, the anger building to lethal levels.

“This ship and me, well, we got separated for a bit. I’m determined not to have that happen again, ’cause, you see, this ship is my home. If anyone is going to take her, it’ll be after they had to step over my dead body to get there. And if I know anything, it’s that two little shit birds like you aren’t going to be the ones to do it. Now I don’t know about everyone else here, but me, when I see shit birds, I only know one thing to do with them. Enjoy the explosive decompression on your way out!” Reilly pulled down the lever next to the door, opening the outer blast doors and flushing Brynt and Macen into space. The blast doors closed again, and the light showed green as they locked back into place.

She stood for a moment, mastering her anger. The silence was deafening. Reilly turned to find everyone looking at her. Most looked away, not wanting to meet her gaze. Duv ignored everyone to focus on his son. He had his arm around Seth and was talking softly to him. Chang was the only one bold enough to look her in the eye.