Reavers (Book 3) (47 page)

“Casanova,” Cain said calmly.  “Looks like I’m going to need to give you another list of
romance
3Ps.”

“What are you rambling about?” the woman in the dull black asked.

“Remember that one 3P?” Cain asked Brent, completely ignoring their captor, “on the cargo ship from Deriso?”

Brent raised an eyebrow at the odd question.  This was certainly not the time for reminiscing.

“Have you gone nuts?” Humphrey mumbled.  “You’ve got a pack of rifles pointed at your nose, and you want to stroll down memory lane?”

“Well, she’s determined not to answer any questions.”  Cain gestured toward the lady in dull black.  “Why beat a dead horse?”

The hint of an idea flashed in his mind.  He was getting a vague notion of what Cain was up to.  Best to play along for now.

“The Adventures of the Red Fanged Pirates,” Brent said with a chuckle.

“That’s it!” Cain nodded emphatically.  “I can’t believe I’d forgotten the title.”

“Will you just shut up?” the woman in dull black asked condescendingly.

“What are you going to do?” Cain mocked.  “Get us
wetter
?

“Why you . . .”

“Brent, I hate to bring this up . . . but do you remember the Harbinger?”  Cain interrupted.

Subconsciously, he pulled his right arm back.  The memories stung.  Briefly, the images of the ship being sliced in two by the collapsing Wall filled his mind.  Three years had past since he had been stranded on that ship and lost his right arm to it, but still the pain remained.

“I still check up on little Miss Miron from time to time,” he said somberly.  “She’s got a lot of friends now, and her teachers say she is the brightest in the class.”

“Enough of this.”  The woman in black stomped her foot against the floor plating.  “I will not be ignored.”

The woman pulled out a side arm and pressed it into his chest.  Henry shifted and focused on the woman, but still feigned unconsciousness.  The look of hatred on her face smoldered as she debated ending him.  Brent remained calm and even smiled slightly at the thought of the little girl he had saved on the Harbinger.

“How can you smile?” the woman sneered.

“Cassandra is the one who thinks I need to stay away from mortal threats,” Brent said with a warm smile.  “I’m still neutral on the subject.  Regardless, they seem to seek me out.  So if someone is going to kill me, I might as well enjoy their company while I can.”

A loud gasp escaped from several of the armed guards.  That had done it.  Instantly, six of the fifteen shifted their rifles and pointed them at the others.  The other guards dropped their rifles in disbelief and stared at the traitors in wonder.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the woman asked as one of the traitors pressed his rifle into her back.

Without a word, the man disarmed her while one of the female traitors gestured for all the disarmed to move out of the way.  Their captor fumed as she slowly obeyed the traitors.  Abruptly, Brent fell forward.  They had released him, but only him.

Three of the six kept their rifles locked on the disarmed, while the other three turned to face him.  They looked at him with a hesitant expectance.  It took him a moment to figure out what they wanted, but finally he got it and bowed gracefully like the Shard tripods.  In turn, all six returned the bow and released his friends.

“Anyone care to explain what just happened?” Rhea asked incredulously.

“You’ll have to ask Cain that; I’m not completely sure myself,” Brent said as he made sure Cassandra hadn’t hurt herself.

“A change in the narrative,” he said with a smirk as he helped Angela up.

“You sure this isn’t a dream?” she asked.

“You doubt me?” he grinned and nudged her.

“I can’t sense you,” she said in a troubled voice.  “It’s like I’m in a 3P and all of you are fake.”

“That’s the limiter,” Brent said as he felt behind his ear.

“Be careful!” one of the traitors shouted as she moved to his side.  “If you try to remove it yourself, it could do permanent damage.”

“I thought it was just an ugly earring,” Erin scoffed.

“An earring worn
behind
the ear?” Hiroko said, sticking her tongue out at Erin.

“You won’t get away with this!” their captor fumed as she sat on the floor.  “Where do you think you are going to go?  Six against a whole ship?”

Cain walked over to the furious woman and wrung out his wet shirt over her head, soaking her.

“Pity, I had hoped it would have made some steam,” he said with an enormous grin.

“She does have a point,” Penny said.

“I doubt there will be any trouble,” Cain said with a shrug as he straightened out his shirt.

“You seem sure of yourself, more than usual,” Tyra said as she rubbed her wrists.  “What dirty trick did you pull
this
time?”

“Dirty trick?” he asked in an overly dramatic voice.  “You cut me to the core!  I thought we were all friends here, and you mock me so.”

“What did you do?” Ronald asked flatly.

“You’re never any fun,” Cain said as he threw up his hands in defeat.  “Although, if you want to know - you really should ask your sister.”

“Valerie?”  Ronald turned to face her with an honest look of surprise.

“Me?” she shouted defensively.  “What did I do?”

“Almost foiled my plan completely, that’s what,” Cain put his hands on his hips and pretended to pout.

“Am I the only one developing a headache from this conversation?” Owen asked.

“Comes with dealing with him; you get used to it,” Angela said sweetly.

“Could you stop being . . .
you
for five minutes and explain what you’ve done?” Cassandra asked in a clearly annoyed tone.

“Party poopers, each and every one of you!” Cain said with a sigh.  “Angela, what have I been doing in my spare time over the last three years?”

“Besides annoying me and the rest of the general staff back on Eos?”

“I’m serious.”  Cain’s grin didn’t match his stern tone of voice.

“Writing 3Ps, dirty ones.”

“Figures,” Cassandra said under her breath.

“I only show
you
the dirty ones.”  Cain let out a thunderous laugh.  “Actually, I’ve been following Brent’s example.”

“Brent writes . . .
romance
3Ps?” Liz asked in shock.

“Not
that
example!” Cain said as he restrained a burst of laughter.  “His recent fascination with history.  I figured if he was going to teach the youth of tomorrow about the distant past, who better than myself to teach them some
recent
history.”

“I don’t follow,” Owen said.

“You’re not the only one,” Penny said as she shook her head.

Brent paused his inspection of Cassandra’s wrists and slowly stood up.  Slowly he turned to face Cain, a shocked expression on his face.

“You didn’t!” he said as his eyes widened.

“Looks like Brent gets a cookie,” Cain said as his grin expanded.  “Then again, if we had to give him a cookie for every time he figured something out before the rest of us, he’d be as wide as I used to be.”

“What’s going on?” Tyra asked Brent, giving up on getting any kind of explanation out of Cain.

“Seriously?” he asked Cain.

“Yep.  Every single detail - although I spiced things up here and there.”  Cain smiled widely.  “No offense, but some of us are downright
boring
!”

“What do you mean, spiced things up?” Brent asked cautiously.

“Nothing much, a fight here and there that never happened.  Sprinkled a little angst on top of things.  Although, the death I added seemed a little forced.  Might have to remove that in a future edition.  Then again, people seem to love it when a popular character gets murdered.  Morbid if you ask me.”  He shrugged casually.  “Oh, and I increased Cassandra’s cup size.  Had to put her over the top to sell the idea of a heavy-gravity girlfriend.”

“My
what
?” Cassandra shouted.

“Enough!” Doug shouted over everyone.  “My head is killing me; would someone spell out why we aren’t secured to the wall in plain language?”

“He wrote a 3P,” Brent said as he shook his head.  “One about the events of three years ago.”

“Three years . . .
the Shard invasion
?” Angela asked in surprise.

“You got it,” Cain said with pride.  “Spilled the beans as it were.  From Brent’s arrival on the academy to the moment he saved us all - immortalized in 3P.”

“But that doesn’t explain . . .” Rhea muttered.

“
You
were the one?” Valerie shouted as she charged Cain.  “You’re the one who did that?”

“Guilty as charged,” he said as he dodged the grip of the girl.

“You knew about all this?” Ronald asked.

“I didn’t know
he
was the culprit!”  She stopped chasing Cain and looked at her brother pleadingly.  “I work for the academy ethics review commission, remember?  A dangerous 3P showed up at the academies a few years back, and I have been ordered to completely remove it from circulation.  Although, every time I get close, it resurfaces somewhere else.”

“The joy of being the friend of nearly every bookie in the Commonwealth,” Cain said with a chuckle.  “They make the perfect distribution network.  I doubt there is a single trooper who hasn’t at least heard of my work.”

“Hold on a minute.  What do you mean
dangerous
?” Hiroko asked.

“It told the truth,” Tyra said with a sigh.  “The last thing the military wants to become public is the fact we weren’t saved by battleships or elite troopers.  If the average citizen learned that one man saved our collective hides . . .”

“They’d lose what little faith they have left in the government or the military,” Valerie said in agreement.

“So how did that help us just now?” Owen asked.

“We realized we had taken
him
captive,” one of the armed traitors said in a quiet voice, “the Brent from the 3P.  We couldn’t betray the man who had saved us all.”

“You used my name?” he asked.

“What was the harm in that?” Cain asked with a quick shrug.  “Do you have any clue how many
Brents
are out there?  If the military rounded up everyone with the name Brent who matched the age in the 3P, they’d need an entire world to house them all - maybe even two worlds.  Plus, I say it’s worked in our favor so far.”

“Now that we cleared that all up, where does that leave us?” Tyra asked as she tapped the wall plating.

“On a ship headed to . . . where are we going anyways?” Cain asked as he turned to one of their new supporters.

“The regional Military Intelligence headquarters,” the man said as he bowed like the tripod to Cain.

“Well, this keeps getting better and better,” Rhea said.  “First the world we are stuck on gets attacked, and now we’ve been abducted by MI.  What’s next?”

“I bet it’s vampire pirates,” Doug said enthusiastically, “like in the 3P we watched on the cargo ship!”

“Don’t be a moron,” Humphrey mumbled.  “Everyone knows there is no such thing as vampires.  Although, Rhea might suck the blood right out of you if it would help the ITU.”

Rhea quickly punched Humphrey’s shoulder as Doug started laughing under his breath.

“First things first,” Cain said with a smile.  “Vampire pirates or space monsters can wait until
after
we are in control of the ship.”

“How do you propose we do that?” Hiroko asked in amazement.

“That part is simple,” he said as his smile expanded into a wide grin.  “Wake up, you metal manic.”

Henry stood at full attention and walked over to Cain.  Though his face showed no emotion, Brent was certain he could almost feel the heat of his loathing.

“What do you want,
meat bag
?” Henry asked.

“Sick of calling me a filthy organic?”

“I believe you warrant
special
attention.”

“I’m touched,” Cain said as he swiped at an imaginary tear.  “I need you to hijack the ship’s internal communications system.  Time Brent made his debut.”

“My what?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, we can’t let this opportunity pass us by.  Who knows how many of the crew are loyal to you.”

“You’re suggesting a coup d’état?” Angela asked with a small smile.

“Well, who’d you pick?” Cain asked no one in particular.  “MI with their
horrible
fashion sense, or Brent and his offer of giving you an A in history if you take over the ship.”

The others chuckled as Henry worked on subverting the proper systems.  Brent sighed; he didn’t like where this was headed.  As he contemplated his impromptu dictatorship, a small sensation flashed to existence at the far edge of his consciousness.  The sensation wasn’t an emotion or anything man made, it was clearly Shard in origin.  A small smile filled his face as he realized its meaning.  He was being summoned.