“This really is an impressive ship,” Tenner commented as he finished his tour, heading back into the main lounge. Hughes stood casually by waiting for Tenner to finish looking about. “It’s really a shame I have to turn it over to the client; she would have made an excellent addition to my fleet.”
“The Praetorian is certainly something,” Hughes said casually. “But she is only as good as her crew and Captain. The living computer certainly made her a deadly weapon.”
“Indeed,” Tenner said nodding. “Of course, I didn’t have the pleasure of engaging the computer in combat, but I’m sure it would have lost to the might of my pack. Even with the help of that traitorous pup,” Tenner said as he spat. Hughes’ mind wandered momentarily to Kella, currently curled up on the floor in the brig. He had been forced to watch the group of mercenary thugs beat and bully Kella into the cell. She’d been hardly conscious, and yet Tenner’s men spared her no mercy. Hughes was reminded sharply of why he so disliked mercenaries.
Tenner cleared his throat and Hughes caught himself. “So when will we be able to lift off, Major? The client is waiting.”
It had been nearly four hours since Hughes had ‘deactivated’ Gavin and surrendered the Praetorian into the custody of the Deep Wolves. Once Gavin had been shut down, the robots that had been repairing the PDEs along the wings had also deactivated. It had taken some time, and some additional help from Tenner’s ample supply of Hunters to get repairs back on track. It was almost time for the work to be complete. Hughes pulled up his D-Com which was connected into the VI gestalt through his control box and pulled up the outside cameras and status reports.
“Looks like they are just about finished,” Hughes said, watching Tenner’s reaction closely. It wasn’t a matter of ‘if’ the mercenary would betray Hughes, it was a matter of ‘when’ and Hughes couldn’t afford to let his guard drop. Then again, Hughes had realized during the tour that Tenner had an almost sixth-sense regarding trouble. The mercenary hadn’t garnered his reputation on stories alone.
“Excellent,” Tenner said, clapping his hands together eagerly. “Then let us be on our way. My men have plotted a course to fulfill our part of the bargain, Major. There is a small world, roughly a day’s travel from here that has a small, but functional, starport. The name of the place escapes me, but I’m sure it would be most suitable for your needs. Is this acceptable?”
Hughes quickly brought up the local territories in his mind. There wasn’t much in the systems they were travelling through that he could remember, but he did know of one small planet with a starport: Fendis. Hughes cringed inwardly. Fendis was a hotspot for mercenary companies. If he was dropped off there, he would most likely never find his way off planet. Hughes swore, mentally. It fit Hughes’ qualifications in the agreement, and yet, didn’t. If Hughes argued it, Tenner would take it as an insult and break off the deal. Well played. “I’m sure it is,” Hughes said. “And what of my second condition?”
“Well,” Tenner chuckled, with his Hunters joining in. “You can have the pup, or what’s left of her.”
“She’s really no good to me dead, Tenner,” Hughes said, fighting to control his voice.
“Absolutely, and she’s not dead,” Tenner said grinning. “I just don’t think she’ll be doing anything real complicated for a little while is all.”
“That really is unacceptable,” Hughes started, but Tenner cut him off with a growl.
“Listen here, Military-man,” he said with an evil grin. “You never did specify what condition she was to be in. I also did mention that I was going to discipline her, so it was obvious that there was going to be some damage to the final product. I thought that was understood?”
“I remember some small mention of that, but not as to how far the discipline was going to go,” Hughes said coldly. His worry for Kella’s safety was beginning to override his caution.
“Ah, well, it was implied,” Tenner said, chuckling. “Is there a problem with this?”
Hughes suddenly felt a large number of eyes facing his direction and heard a disquieting number of feint clicks. A tingle at the nape of his neck was the final caution and Hughes backed down. “No, not at all,” he said, recovering. “I was just a little disappointed, but the details are still satisfactory. As long as she’s breathing, right?”
“Exactly!” Tenner said laughing loudly. “Now! On to astrogation. Let us be on our way!”
The next twenty-four hours were the hardest Hughes could ever remember. He spent most of his time in his make-shift quarters, near the brig. Tenner didn’t have security system access yet as Hughes was keeping that until his conditions were met, so he knew he had his privacy in there. Anywhere else however, he was shadowed by the Hunters. And it seemed, like the Wolves they named themselves after, they could sniff out trouble.
Hughes had attempted to sneak down into the CPU Data Core twice to contact Gavin and give a status update, but he had been blocked twice, and almost caught once. Only very quick thinking had allowed Hughes to talk himself out. After that, he didn’t dare to go towards the Core. He remembered that Kella had found a way past his own men not a few days ago, but he never did figure out how she’d done it. That information would be really handy, but he had no way of contacting the girl. He tried to get in contact with her in the brig, but was blocked by Hunters every time. The last time, when he tried to bluff his way past, demanding he inspect the goods, he was nearly shot. These mercenaries were a meticulous and untrusting bunch.
And finally time ran out. Tenner summoned Hughes to the bridge. A large group of Hunters were standing around looking unusually smug, and Hughes immediately realized he was in worse trouble than he had anticipated. Tenner was leaning against the back of the command chair with his arms crossed over his chest, a large grin plastered on his face.
“We have a bit of a problem, Major,” Tenner said as Hughes crossed the threshold into the bridge.
“Oh?”
“It appears the client had a change in plans after leaving Falldown, and well, we’re not going anywhere near a habited system. So here is what we’re going to do,” Tenner said with that evil grin. “We’re going to put you in a lifeboat and eject you out into space. We’ll, of course, slow out of Slipspace just long enough to do so; I’d hate to scratch the paint.”
“Of course,” Hughes sneered.
“Oh come now,” Tenner said, enjoying Hughes’ reaction. “I’m only making a small change, and I’m still even agreeing to your second condition! Here you go!” Tenner turned and pulled viciously at something in the command chair. She came from around the chair in a daze supported more by Tenner than by her own feet, and when he released her she fell to her knees immediately. Hughes barely recognized her. She’d been unmercifully beaten. Hughes had seen such a horrendous sight before, but only once, a long time ago in a Military interrogation camp. It had sickened him then, the things human beings could do to one another to cause pain. And it sickened him again.
“Get up, traitor!” Tenner roared as he pulled her by the scruff of her neck, yanking her off the floor. She could barely gasp out at the pain, she was so delirious. “Here you go, Military-man!” Tenner roared again as he threw Kella as hard as he could at Hughes. Hughes caught her, and she collapsed in his arms, clinging to him with what little strength she had left. “Now that our contract is all in order, it is time for you to go,” Tenner said coldly, his men sniggering as they moved in.
Hughes held up his d-com and the Hunters stopped. It was going to be now or never. Hughes’ plan had been crude, but functional, and Gavin had played his part well enough. “Oh, that’s right,” Hughes said, his disgust spilling into his voice. “I still have the control box. You can’t turn over your ‘prize’ in such a sorry condition. And besides, Gavin isn’t really deactivated. Now Brains!”
Nothing happened. Hughes began to start feeling very foolish.
“Ah, right, the Control Box,” Tenner said, shrugging while he scratched at the stubble on his chin. “You see, my client is a bit of an expert on the design schematics for this ship. About two hours after we left Falldown, we contacted him about this little box of yours, and he told us how to bypass it. Oh! And do you know what we found while we were down there? Of all things, we found that your computer friend was still active! Playing possum as it were!” The Hunters began to laugh hysterically, howling in their glee. “We bypassed him as well. For real this time.”
“What?” Hughes said in shock. What Tenner was saying was impossible. There was no way his Control Box had been bypassed, and certainly not without him realizing it. But where was Gavin? Why wasn’t the robot army rushing in to save the day? And who the hell was the client with all of that technical information that the Military didn’t even have?
“We control the ship, and your little game is over. But I’m not a completely heartless bastard. You certainly gave it a good try, so here’s what I’m going to do.” He shook his head in amusement as the men continued laughing. “I’m going to let you have that,” he said, waving disinterestedly towards Kella dangling in Hughes’ arms. “And I will spare your lives. How is that for magnanimity? Ok men; get these people the hell off of my ship.”
“Yes, Leader!” the men said as they moved forward. Hughes felt the blows land before he could defend himself, and tried to fight back, but couldn’t seem to make anything move right in his shock. He hit the floor, hard, and Kella was ripped from his arms. Unable to get up, he felt himself dragged from the bridge along the floor and painfully down several stairs before being thrown violently onto some sort of couch. The last thing he remembered before falling unconscious was something heavy thrown onto him, and then a loud hiss and pop followed by a heavy jerk.
Hughes awoke several hours later to an awful headache and dried blood on his lips. Directly before his vision was a small porthole gazing out into empty space. So Tenner had been telling the truth, at least partially. He’d been ejected from the Praetorian in one of the ship’s lifepods. But unless help was nearby, that just meant a slow, painful death by suffocation. He quickly pulled up his d-com and tried to connect to the Praetorian.
“Damn!” he shouted loudly as the d-com failed to connect. The Praetorian was long gone and the Deep Wolves with it. Hughes suddenly remembered Gavin, shut down and defenseless. His plan had failed miserably. It was then that he heard a soft moan come from behind him in the pod. He twisted around quickly and saw Kella floating there in the non-gravity, looking half-dead. Small blobs of her blood were floating around the inside of the lifepod. Hughes gasped in panic and ripped the medkit off of the wall. “Hold on, Kella,” he said as he tried to reposition her in the zero gravity.
He pulled the scanner from the kit and gave her a once over. The prognosis was not good: multiple fractures, several broken ribs, internal bleeding and all of her fingers were broken. She also had a major concussion, not to mention all of the lacerations. Even with all of that, Hughes felt surprise that she wasn’t more seriously wounded from her time in Tenner’s tender care. Still, the wounds would be lethal if left untreated. Thankfully, the Military had stocked the latest nano-surgery packs in the Praetorian’s lifepods. Only the best for their pride and joy.
Hughes took the nanite syringe out and quickly administered the dose. The nanites, small protein-based organic machines, would immediately begin replicating almost exponentially in her blood stream and spread throughout her body and begin repairing internal damage. The nanites would use the natural materials left in the body to repair and rebuild damaged organs. The only downside is that, even with millions of the tiny organic robots coursing through her veins, the repairs would take time.
Hughes saw Kella relax slightly and listened to her breathing even out; another effect of the nanites. Hughes floated around to Kella’s other side and pulled an emergency blanket from the panel on the wall. He then turned and wrapped her in it, and pulled her into his arms. He stared out the porthole into the vast, empty blackness beyond, and sighed. Time was one thing he had ample supply of at the moment.
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