Stars of Blood and Glory (20 page)

Roman closed his eyes and
switched his consciousness to the digital interface. Once again, he
found himself floating in a white, featureless room, devoid of any
physical sensation.
Perhaps the doctor is right,
he thought to himself, musing on the
contrast.
Perhaps I am not yet beyond feeling.

He switched back to physical consciousness
just in time to hear Yuri swear. A glance out the forward window
showed a blinking red light in the midst of the void—a jump beacon,
no doubt launched by the Hameji.

“
Dammit!” Yuri swore again. “How
much longer are they going to keep up with this?”

“
Scan the sector,” said Danica,
her expression cool. “Charge weapons and raise ship-wide alert to
level two.”

“
Confirmed,” said Roman, raising
the alert level. Down the hall, alarms began to sound.

“
Scanning,” said Yuri. “It looks
like we’re the only ones out here.”

“
For now, at least,” said Danica.
She drew a deep breath and rose to her feet. “Tajjashvili, deploy a
squadron of fighter drones and have them keep watch on our
perimeter. Alert me at once if anything comes through.”

“
Yes, Captain.”

“
Avanadze, take out the beacon
and put some distance between us and its position. Set the
coordinates for another long jump, but wait until the primary drive
is charged again before you execute.”

“
With pleasure.”

Roman watched as Yuri brought the railgun
turrets to bear on the Hameji beacon that had pulled them out of
jumpspace, thwarting their escape. A loud rumble sounded through
the bulkheads, and the beacon exploded in a silent flash of
light.

“
At least they did not ambush
us,” he said. “Either their net is still wide, or they have not
committed many resources to pursuit.”

“
They will,” said Danica. “This
is Qasar’s son, after all. He’s a high-level prisoner.”

“
We could always backtrack,” said
Yuri. “Fly deeper into Hameji controlled space. The rift is almost
three light-years wide at this point—if we could evade their
interdiction efforts, we could still slip past them and make it to
New Vela in good time.”

Danica raised an eyebrow. “How good of
time?”

“
I don’t know,” said Yuri. “A
hundred hours, or perhaps a hundred-twenty.”

“
Let’s try it, then. But Roman,
have your men ready just in case.”

“
Certainly, Captain,” he said,
nodding grimly. Of course, he knew it was of little use—if the
Hameji disabled and boarded them, the battle was as good as
lost.
But at
least we will not go down without fight,
he told himself, feeling satisfied
with the prospect. It would be a fitting end—much better than
fading into a purely digital consciousness.

“
I’ll be in my quarters,” said
Danica. “If anything changes, alert me at once.”

“
Yes, Captain,” said Yuri and
Zura.

She nodded and turned to Roman. “When you get
a chance, bring the prisoner to me. I have an idea.”

“
Yes, Captain,” he said, giving
her a quick salute.

She returned the gesture and walked briskly
through the open doorway, leaving the bridge.

* * * * *

Abaqa groaned and sat up as the locks on his
cell disengaged with a loud clang. He swung his legs over the edge
of the metal slab of a bed and rose to his feet, folding his arms
as he faced the soldiers who stood in the doorway. His body still
felt sore from his fitful sleep, but he wasn’t going to give them
the satisfaction of seeing that.

The old cyborg stepped inside, with two other
soldiers waiting behind him at the door. In his hands, he carried a
set of electrified restraints.

“
Good morning,” he said in his
heavily accented Gaian. “Sleep well, did we?”

Abaqa gave him no answer.

“
We can do this easy way or
hard,” said the cyborg, his half-human face utterly unreadable.
“What is your choice?”

“
I will not submit to your
shackles.”

He shrugged. “The hard way, then.” He
motioned to one of the soldiers, who stepped inside with a shock
rod in his hands.

“
If you have any honor,
planetborn,” said Abaqa, “then take my word that I will not try to
escape.”

The old cyborg stopped the soldier with a
raised fist. He narrowed his good eye and looked Abaqa over, as if
to pierce his very soul. For his part, Abaqa tried not to look
frightened, but the way the cyborg stared at him, it seemed
impossible to hide anything.

“
Very well. Come with
me.”

Abaqa followed him out of the cell and into a
narrow stairwell, his mind racing with questions and possibilities.
How was he going to escape? If he could somehow subdue his captors
and seize control of the ship, it would undo all of the shame and
humiliation they’d brought upon him. But how to do it—that was the
question. Planetborn or not, he didn’t think he could overpower any
of the soldiers, even if he were armed. He’d have to out-think
them, then—talk his way out, goad them into making a mistake.

“
Where are you taking me?” he
asked, trying his best to seem as if he didn’t care.

The old cyborg grunted. “To our captain,” he
said.

Then why didn’t he come down to
the brig?
Probably because they had some devious plan to torture
him—or worse, install those neural implants and suck out his brain.
He swallowed, but did his best not to show any sign of fear or
weakness. If it was to come down to torture, he’d endure it with
strength and dignity.

The old cyborg led him down a long, dimly lit
corridor. Exposed wires lined the corners along the ceiling, while
the air smelled as stale and recycled as it did in the brig. No
doubt their ship lacked a proper hydroponics lab—perhaps that was a
point of weakness he could exploit. If he could locate the ship’s
food stores, then—

The cyborg stopped at a non-descript door and
palmed it open. He motioned for the soldiers to stand guard, and
stepped aside to let Abaqa in first. Abaqa hesitated for a moment,
but seeing as he didn’t have much of a choice, he went in.

Of all the things he expected to see, the
scene that met his eyes was nothing like any of them. A richly
woven carpet covered the floor, with wood panels
underneath—authentic, by the looks of it. A comfortable couch and
two chairs sat around an ornate Auriga Novan table, much like the
one in his mother’s quarters. The painting on the opposite wall
depicted a planetside landscape, but the wall on his left had some
sort of open-face compartment system, with various trinkets and
thin, box-shaped objects on display. He looked the compartments
over for something that might be useful later, but the old cyborg
ushered him to the couch and made it clear that he was to sit down.
For the sake of his word, he complied.

“
Ah, Prince Abaqa,” came a voice
from the other side of the room. A woman stepped out from a door,
carrying a tray with three antique porcelain cups and a thermos.
She wore a crisp military uniform with her graying hair tied back
behind her.

This must be the captain’s
servant,
Abaqa thought to himself. If it was humiliating to answer
to a planetborn, it was even worse to answer to one of their
servants. He did his best not to acknowledge her as she set the
tray on the table.

“
Allow me to introduce myself,”
she said, turning to face him. “I am Captain Danica Nova of
the
Tajji
Flame.
I
believe you’ve already met Master Sergeant Roman
Krikoryan.”

“
You’re the captain?” Abaqa
asked, snorting in disbelief. “Of course—only the planetborn would
allow themselves to be led by a woman.”

“
A woman smart enough to capture
a Hameji prince?” she shot back, lifting an eyebrow in amusement.
He scowled, but had no answer.

“
I’ve been very curious to see
you, Prince Abaqa,” she continued. “Unfortunately, other matters
have kept me preoccupied until now, but now that we have some time,
it would be good for us to get better acquainted. Some tea,
perhaps?”

How do you know my name?
Abaqa wanted to ask.
Instead, he took a deep breath and tried to keep his surprise to
himself. “Other matters”—that had to be his brothers, tracking them
down in close pursuit.

“
How do you know who I am?” he
asked.

“
Through your mother, of course.
Your uncle is an old friend of ours.”

He frowned. “My uncle?”

“
Yes. Has Sholpan told you about
him?”

No,
he almost said aloud. Instead, he
held his tongue.

The captain took a sip of her tea. “Ensign
James McCoy—he served on this ship for a short while. He was just
about your age at the time.”

“
Why are you telling me this?” he
asked, shifting uneasily in his chair.

“
As I said before, to become
better acquainted with each other.”

“
What makes you think I care
about that?”

She laughed, making his cheeks turn red.
“You’re just like your uncle, aren’t you? I remember when the
ensign first came on this ship, almost fifteen years ago. He also
had quite an attitude problem, didn’t he, Roman?”

“
Indeed, Captain.”

Why didn’t my mother tell me
anything about this uncle?
Abaqa wondered to himself. He tapped the floor
nervously and tried not to let their idle chatter get under his
skin.

The captain took another sip and set the cup
back down on the tray. “How is your mother?”

“
How do you know my mother?” he
shot back, clenching his fists.

She eyed him for a moment before answering,
the way a mother eyes an unruly child before shaking her head.
“James McCoy approached us with a job,” she said. “His brother and
sister had fallen prisoner to the Hameji, and he wanted to rescue
them. For his brother, we were too late, but for his sister—that
is, your mother—we managed to break through and get to her.”

Abaqa’s eyes widened. “You what?”

“
We found her, flew onto the
station on a stolen Hameji transport, and made it through a
gauntlet of guards to rescue her.”

“
But—but that’s impossible,” he
protested. “Our defenses are too strong for—and anyhow, my mother’s
a Hameji queen. You’re lying—I know you’re lying!”

The woman captain looked him in the eye. “We
aren’t lying, Abaqa. We really did come that close to rescuing her.
The only reason we didn’t was because she refused to be
rescued.”

“
She—she what?”

“
That’s right,” said Danica,
nodding. “She told us she would rather give up her freedom for a
chance to save her people than return and watch them die. She chose
to stay with the Hameji, even after all they’d done to her—chose to
stay with Qasar, and have you.”

Abaqa sat back in his chair, utterly
dumbfounded. “You mean—I could have been one of the
planetborn?”

“
If that’s what you want to call
it, then yes, I suppose so.”

The realization struck him with all the force
of a pair of colliding stars. His vision blurred, and the room
suddenly felt as if it were closing in all around him. He opened
his mouth to protest, but nothing would come out. Even though he
still didn’t trust these dirty planetborn mercenaries, deep down,
he knew it was true.

“
Are you all right?” asked the
captain. “You look a little pale—would you like some cold
water?”

“
I—I’m fine,” said Abaqa, taking
a deep breath. “Perfectly fine.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
Yes.” He sat up straight and
looked her in the eye, determined not to show any more
weakness.

“
What do you want from
me?”

The captain looked to the old cyborg, who
nodded at her. She nodded back, then turned to face him.

“
Frankly speaking, Prince Abaqa,
we want your cooperation. If you work with us, we can return you to
your mother without any, shall we say, unpleasant
complications.”

“
You want me to beg for money?”
he said, sneering at them. “What makes you think I’d stoop so
low?”

She shrugged. “Normally, we’d simply ransom
you to the highest bidder, but because of your mother, I’d be
willing to settle for a little less. That is, if you’re willing to
help us negotiate.”

“
My brothers are going to hunt
you down, planetborn,” said Abaqa, narrowing his eyes. “And when
they do, you’re going to wish we’d never crossed paths.”

“
And if they don’t?”

“
They will,” he said, his lips
curled in a snarl. “They will.”

Captain Danica sighed and shook her head.
“We’ll take our chances,” she said, rising to her feet. The old
cyborg also stood and took Abaqa by the arm, indicating that the
meeting was over.

“
Come,” he said. “The captain has
had enough of you.”

“
And I’ve had more than enough of
her.”

The old cyborg made as if to slap him, but
thought better of it at the last minute. Instead, he grunted and
led the way back down to the brig, the two soldiers following close
behind them.