Gunship (58 page)

She said this last part to Holly, who patted the Gaiden’s hand and nodded understandingly. Tiny stood to go, but Duv stopped her. She looked at him curiously, wondering what he wanted. The man had barely spoken to her at all in the days following the knife attack. Tiny noticed Ty casually positioning himself in case of trouble and gave him a small shake of her head to let him know all was well.

Duv finally looked up at her and forced himself to speak. “Thank you for not killing her”—he gritted his teeth and continued—“and for helping Seth.”

Tiny waited to see if there was more, but Duv’s silence persisted. She nodded once and walked off to stand by Ty again, knowing how difficult it had been for Duv to manage even those words to her. It was a start. Reilly had watched with the others, her face impassable during the exchange. Only her eyes showed that she had empathy for his pain, a brief glint, and it was gone again as she stepped back into the role of leader.

“We need to get going. Tiny, is everything ready for the gate?”

The Gaiden nodded briefly. “Gunny Chang and Marek will be in the fighters. The energy weapons in the gate are set so that they will not destroy a ship’s hull but they will allow for the identification and termination of any implants. The captains must ensure that their directed-energy-weapon protection systems are turned off and that all sensitive components are off as well when they glide through. As soon as they exit the gate, the pilots can reactivate all systems. We will position our fighters to either side of the gate in case we have anyone who decides not to go through.”

Reilly nodded. “Duv, I need you to fire up the ship and get her ready. While you’re doing that, Holly has something she needs to talk to you about, I think?” Holly nodded shyly when Duv looked at her. He took her hand and led her towards the bridge.

“Ty, I’d like you to manage the guns from the bridge while Duv and Tiny focus on dealing with the gate and managing the movement of the wing.”

“What do I do?” Lee Roy hobbled through the hatch in his coveralls, a wrench in one hand and a coffee in the other. “I finished that backup drive for you, ma’am.”

Reilly couldn’t help but grin at him. “Thanks for that. If you wouldn’t mind taking a look around the bay and then closing her up, we’ll be on our way. Did Chang give you the list of spares I’d like to get fabricated?”

Lee Roy nodded. “Yup. I’ll be starting on those straight away. We already got the storage cages set up for ’em. I’ll try to rotate through them, but some will be easiest to do in a large batch without interruption. I’ll focus on the ones we need the most first.”

Reilly thanked him again as he raised his hand and shuffled out the hatch towards the bay. The old man had been tickled when she offered him a spot on the ship. She could use a mechanic with his metalworking skills when they got to where they were going next. She had to threaten to punch Marek to get him to stop thanking her. He had moved the old man in with him and hadn’t stopped grinning since. Reilly strode towards the bridge to see what Duv thought of Holly staying aboard. She had offered the woman room and board in exchange for her help in the medical room and at chow times, which would free Chang up for some new duties. It seemed like the right thing to do. Reilly hoped Holly would be a positive influence on Duv. He hadn’t been the same since he lost Seth. Seeing him with Holly today had showed her that the old Duv was still in there, he just needed a little help.

She got her answer when she stepped through the hatch and was met by Duv’s Cheshire-cat grin and Holly’s sweet smile. She grinned back at them both as Holly left to go prep the medical room in case there were any emergencies. Duv waited for Lee Roy to close up the bay before he gave the engines a solid rev. He nodded to Reilly. It was time.

“Trace, we’re ready to fly over here. How are you looking?” Reilly asked.

“Roger, I’m ready to git. Say the word!” Trace responded.

“Let’s go.” Reilly nodded as Duv gave the gunship an extra, joyful kick to the engines and gracefully arced upwards towards the sky.

—————

Time was relentless. At first Seth shrugged it off. He worked out, he whistled, he made a calendar of sorts by scratching the shackles on a corner of the floor. At day fourteen, he struggled with sleep under the constant lights in the windowless room. By day twenty, he was moving around and telling himself stories to avoid the roaring deafness of the silence. His programming had covered detention and the effects of solitary confinement. But knowledge was one thing. The actual experience was quite different. No book could capture what he was feeling. Once a day food came in through a slot in the door, and a camera constantly monitored him. No human voice, no music, no sound other than those that he made himself could be heard. On day twenty-three, he managed to escape the shackles and began banging on the walls and doors, calling out for someone, anyone. Only the echoes of his own voice could be heard. Day twenty-seven, he stayed on the bed curled into a ball, his hands over his face to hide from the eternal light. On day thirty-three, the voices started. At first he thought they were real and he began talking to them, only to realize that his mind was the source of the whispers he heard. His emotions began to swing widely from anger to fear to insane happiness to depression and bouts of tears on day thirty-eight. He had waking hallucinations where he would see the door open and Duv or Sergeant Ty or Tiny or the Captain would walk in to rescue him. He would rush towards them only to find no one was there. At other times, a window would appear, or a gun, and once a large tree from his backyard grew in the corner of the room. He went and sat under it to hide himself from the sun, but he could never escape the light. By day forty-seven, he was virtually catatonic. He wandered in increasingly smaller and smaller circles over a sea of sand muttering strange phrases to himself. On day fifty, he stopped moving, standing rigid in one corner of the room, his head down, staring off into space. On day fifty-one, the door opened.

Seth ignored it. It had opened hundreds of times before, and hundreds of people had walked through it before it slammed shut, disappeared, or turned into something else. This time, a man walked through, grinning at him. He looked vaguely familiar. Seth waited for him to disappear too. Sometimes if he didn’t look directly at the person, they would stay for a while, wandering around in his peripheral vision. The man walked up and looked at him, staring at his face intensely and then grinning again.

Suddenly Seth felt a blow strike the side of his head. He looked up from the floor. None of the others had been able to do that. He wondered what had changed. His head hurt and there was a cut where the man’s ring had split open his cheek. Seth reached up and touched his face, pulling back his hand to find it wet and red. He flicked his tongue out to taste the stuff. It was blood. It was real. He began to laugh, hysterically, holding up his hands then rubbing the blood in circles on the floor.

The man squatted in front of Seth and slowly tilted his chin upward so that their eyes would meet. Seth stopped laughing.

“You are real,” he breathed, astonished by this fact.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked, cocking his head to one side like a bird looking at a worm.

“No.” Seth tried to think really hard, tried to remember. “I know you, though, don’t I? You’re someone important, I think…to me…”

At this the man smiled. “Yes, that’s right. I’ve been trying to find you for quite some time, and here you are! Do you know who put you here?”

Seth shook his head again. “Someone very bad, I think.”

“So smart! Not just one person, many people. They were trying to take you away from me, keep you from me.”

Seth felt like there was something very important he needed to remember, but his mind was scrambled. It was just such a shock to hear a human voice, to have a person actually touch him. The man patted him on the shoulder. He jumped at the feel of it, unused to the warm sensation of another human.

He squinted at the man again, trying to piece together his memories. He remembered this man pulling his chin up and looking him in the eyes in the past.
He reminds me of me when I was young!
Seth could still hear these words in his head. It suddenly dawned on him who this might be.

“Are you my father?” he asked tentatively.

Crazy Ray smiled benignly. “Why yes, son, I am! I’m so pleased you remembered me. I knew you would. I’ve come to take you home. Would you like to go home now?”

Seth nodded and took the hand that was offered to him, following Crazy Ray out through the open door into a long hallway. He shuddered briefly, thinking about the bad people he couldn’t remember who had put him in the room.

“Don’t worry. We will get out of here, and then you can help me to stop them. Would you like that?” Crazy Ray asked as he led Seth down the hall.

Seth nodded absently, his bare feet shuffling along as he followed the man. Crazy Ray smiled to himself as they looped through the same set of hallways once, twice, three times before heading back towards his suite on the ship.

As they rounded a corner, two of Alton’s security people came down the hall towards them. Seth saw them and whispered, “Are they real? Are they bad?” while clinging to Crazy Ray’s arm.

Without another word, Crazy Ray pulled his blaster and shot them both dead on the spot. Seth looked at them and then back at Crazy Ray.

“I told you, son. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Seth looked down at the dead men, and then as they passed he spit on them. Crazy Ray pretended to hurry him along, as if more danger could be lurking nearby. But in his mind he already knew what would happen next. He couldn’t help but smile in anticipation. His new creation was coming along nicely, and with a few more tweaks, he would be just perfect. The boy leaned into him again, and he placed a fatherly arm around his shoulders as they walked on. Just the perfect balance of good mixed with bad, and he would have the perfect son. Torture was so much fun!

—————

Welch had been busy. Upon arriving at the Forum, he had humbly accepted his new role as the commander-in-chief of the AOC. He was formally announced and sworn in by the Forum leadership the next day and then followed his ascension with bold speeches condemning the rebel attacks and promising protection from them. The nets were full of rave reviews from the central planets, all of which voted immediately to join up under the unity agreement. In his spare time, he had begun to quietly eliminate those members of the Forum he had deemed to be unnecessary. He chuckled briefly to himself. The next Forum meeting would be a bit of an eye opener for anyone who wasn’t an implant!

Welch scrolled along his handheld, admiring the photos and vids of himself that had popped up even as a team of workers struggled to hang a large painting of his likeness behind his desk. The image showed him intrepidly leading a group of ISU shock troopers while crushing rebels and aliens alike under their boots. The AOC and Forum flags streamed against a blue sky in the background. All in all, he had to admit—he was very impressive. That the galaxy was bending to his will was no surprise to him, nor was the never-ending line of women who had sought him out at the many dinners and events over the last month. Men also fought for his time and attention, wanting to discuss war plans, economics, and the future of their planets or their solar systems. Welch smiled. He had finally arrived, as he always knew he would. This was where he was meant to be, a ruler, a king, feared and respected.

A brief irritated look crossed his face as he glimpsed a security feed of Raymond wandering the halls of the now-abandoned cruiser with his new pet. Almost as soon as Welch had departed with his staff, the arms dealer had secured the vessel for his own purposes with his bomb-wearing security details. Welch had done his part to ensure that Raymond stayed aboard the ship and didn’t wander too far afield by placing a full escort of troopers between the docks and the Forum. Even so, he was always amazed at Raymond’s ability to draw in fresh prey for his psychotic hobbies. Word had gotten out about the arms dealer, but even after the horror stories had made the rounds, women and men alike were still lured onto the cruiser by this skilled predator or one of his minions.

A chime in the background distracted him from his current ponderings and caused Welch to swivel his large chair towards the wall-sized holoscreen. He punched a button, connecting the space comms system. While he waited for the connection to be made, he ran his fingers over the smooth dark wood of the highly polished desk, enjoying the rich feel of the surface. A moment later, the darkened interior of an alien cruiser could be seen behind a Vhax commander.

“Commander Khrele. It is an honor to receive a communiqué from you!” Welch smiled at the screen.

The translator hissed as the alien language came through and was turned into human.

“No. The honor is mine. The plan is moving well. You have shown you are a true ally. We are keeping our agreement with you by providing weapons,” the commander replied, gesturing to a number of ships being loaded in the background and then towards a pile of bodies, “and blood. They were of your ISU but not with you. When they began to fight, we realized it and engaged them. Survivors from one of the planet cleanings.”

The camera refocused on the commander. His insect-like head and body twitched while his bioluminescence flashed in irritation at the dead troopers. The Vhax were designed to live in hostile environments, extreme heat or cold, thin atmospheres, little water or vegetation. Their bodies were more angular and had multiple appendages, while their heads had a hideous mouth and small, dark, multifaceted eyes. Their coloring varied from a dark, deep brown to a light gray. They had lines of fine bioluminescent hairs that ran along some of their appendages and up their heads to light around their eyes, which aided them in seeing in dark spaces or environments with low visibility. They could manipulate weapons with their appendages and had invented a variety of lasers, doubled-edged whirling weapons, and explosive devices. Their assault vehicles, heavy laser artillery, and space-based destroyers and cruisers were the best technology available in this galaxy.