A Faded Star 2: The Deadly Pact Read online

  She looked at the crab and said, “There is no amount of pain you can inflict on me that will force me to talk, crab. Do your worst, and I’ll either die, or you’ll have no choice but to answer my demands.” She pursed her lips and spat bloody phlegm onto the crab. She never even felt the pain when it returned. She only felt the crisp air and felt the mountaintop below her feet.

  When Hanlon regained her senses, she was back in her cell. The floor was covered with smears of blood from her wrists and ankles. Both were raw from struggling against the restraints. She wondered what had happened that had allowed her to escape to the mountaintop from her dream. She’d never hallucinated in her life, and she certainly didn’t want to start now.

  Another period of bored rest punctuated by another box of food flung into the cell, and a crab appeared. She was marched back to the torture chamber and strapped back into the chair. She resisted less this time as she knew the crab would put her there no matter how much she fought it.

  The crab stood there, looking at her. She wondered if it was the same crab. The ones she’d seen were identical to her eyes. She waited, staring at the crab’s eyes for whatever it had planned.

  “You may address us as Ulef. The word has been chosen as something your species can pronounce. You may no longer address us as ‘crab’.” As before, the voice that came into the chamber was her own but robbed of inflection and emotion.

  “I’ll call you want I like, crab. If you want any cooperation from me, you’ll have to give me something first.” She paused for a moment before adding, “Actually, you’ll have to give me a lot of cooperation after the way you’ve tortured me.”

  “You will answer questions for us, now,” her voice said again.

  “Just get it over with. The only way I’ll tell you anything is if I’m dead,” Hanlon snarled. She stared at the crab, waiting for the pain to come. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and sweat trickled down her body despite the coolness of the air.

  The crab stepped forward and grasped a handle on the chair she was sitting on. The chair rotated through half a turn. When the chair had stopped moving, the wall she was now facing became transparent. Sitting in a chair identical to hers was Adler. He was crying and babbling incoherently. He was begging the crab not to hurt him again.

  “You will answer questions, or you will watch your crew die,” her voice said.

  Hanlon’s shoulders slumped. The difference between welcoming torture herself and protecting those under her command tugged at her consciousness. She decided to try to cooperate enough with the crabs to keep her crew from harm.

  “Fine, you win, crab. What do you want?”

  Her chair was spun back around to face the door. The crab stepped behind its console once more. “You will answer questions. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand. What do you want?”

  “Why do you fight for our enemy?”

  “I don’t understand. What enemy,” Hanlon asked. Perhaps a stalling tactic would work.

  “Why do you fight for the Alliance,” the crab asked again.

  “We weren’t fighting for them. We were trying to help them defend themselves. Why are you attacking them?”

  “They are minions of the Woduur. Are you allies of the Woduur?”

  “Who or what are the Woduur?”

  “Why do you oppose us? We fight the Woduur.”

  “I don’t think I understand the situation.” Hanlon’s mind worked desperately. If there was some outside influence controlling the Alliance, it might explain some of their bizarre behavior. They were certainly confident in their ability to beat the crabs despite the fact that they were fighting from one defeat to another. “Do the Woduur protect the Alliance?”

  “Your answers are insufficient. Are you allies of the Woduur?”

  “No, I’ve never even heard of the Woduur until you mentioned them.”

  The crab was silent for a moment. “We will now take you to our world. There, you will answer a question for us.” The crab advanced on her and began removing her restraints.

  “What question? Why can’t you ask me here?”

  The crab was silent as it manhandled Hanon back towards her cell.

  “I demand you take me to my people. I answered your questions. I want to know they are safe and being treated well,” Hanlon demanded.

  The crab paused at the door to the torture room. Then the voice said, “Granted.”

  Hanlon’s head was spinning. She hadn’t told the crab anything sensitive. She’d thought the crabs would want to know about fleet positions, movements and tactics, but instead, they’d asked about nonsense. She couldn’t figure out what value the crabs derived from the answers she’d given them.

  Rather than being put back into her cell, she was walked back down the hallway, past the docking bay and into a much larger chamber. Inside, were a number of humans milling about. Most of them had wide bands of raw flesh around their wrists and ankles in various stages of healing. All of them were as bare as she was.

  The humans all turned at the opening of the door. One of them stepped forward. He was a brown haired, brown eyed man of middling height with a marathoner’s build. “Captain Hanlon, I’m relieved to see you.”

  Hanlon recognized the man after a moment’s thought. He’d been one of the engineering officers on Broadsword. “Lieutenant Murphy. Are you the senior officer here?”

  “Yes, ma’am. There’s fifty-four of us. Fifty-five, now that you’re here, ma’am.” His eyes rested on hers for a moment. “How long did you spend in the chair?” His voice was tinged with concern.

  “I’m not sure. It was hard to tell once they turned it on,” Hanlon said. She gave an involuntary shudder. “At least a couple of hours over two days, I think.”

  “Most of us didn’t make it ten minutes. I’ve never felt anything like it, ma’am. None of us have.” His expression grew serious. “All of us talked, ma’am. The crabs didn’t want much from us, only to ask us about our motives in joining the Alliance against them.”

  “They asked me the same thing, Lieutenant.” Hanlon felt slightly ridiculous, maintaining military formality while having the indignity of her nakedness to deal with. The door opened, and three crabs shoved Adler, Kelper, and Watkins through the door. Hanlon hurried to the trio and asked, “Are you alright?”

  Watkins answered first. “I’m okay, but Zinda is pretty broken up. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Adler yet.”

  Adler said, “I’m fine. As fine as I’m going to be, at least.”

  Hanlon turned her attention to Kelper. She was staring straight ahead without focusing on anything in particular. She waved her hand in front of Kelper’s eyes. Kelper jumped slightly and turned her attention to Hanlon. Her eyes focused slowly, and tears began rolling down her cheeks.

  “I wouldn’t tell them anything, ma’am. They kept hurting me over and over.” Her shoulders heaved with a sob. “I wanted to tell them something, anything, but I didn’t.” Her eyes met Hanlon’s. “They used my own voice to talk to me.” Kelper broke down entirely, then. She leaned into Hanlon’s chest and sobbed uncontrollably.

  Hanlon stroked Kelper’s hair and tried to comfort her. After a few minutes, Kelper got herself under control and gazed off into the room. She moved to a wall, sitting down leaning against it. Her head lolled against her chest after a moment and Hanlon realized she’d fallen asleep.

  Hanlon examined the room. There were a series of low benches like the one she’d used in her cell. Two holes in the floor at both back corners and nothing else.

  “We have to sleep in shifts, ma’am,” Murphy said. “There are only thirty, ah, ‘beds’.” He gestured at the shelves. “Not that it matters much. The floor is equally comfortable.”

  “I’ll try to negotiate for some improvements in our conditions when the crabs come back,” Hanlon said.

  They had to wait for what seemed like several days for the opportunity. Food and water were distributed at regular intervals. Each time she slept, Hanlon had the same dream of standing on the mountaintop and watching the huge black shape descending towards her. Each time she saw the object she was filled with feelings of comfort and security along with a jarring feeling of fear.

  After several attempts, Hanlon managed to get attention by banging on the door just as food was being thrown through the slot. The door opened, and four crabs were standing there, motionless. Hanlon said, “We require better conditions. We need clothing, bedding and mattresses to sleep on. Our bodies require these things.

  The crabs stood there, watching her for several seconds. Without warning or response, the door closed again.

  Hanlon threw her hands up in frustration. “I guess that’s a no,” she said to no one in particular.

  Kelper, who had recovered significantly in the intervening days, said, “They must have what they want for now. If we had something to trade them for the things we want, we might be able to get them.”

  “We don’t have anything to offer. Not, apparently, even information. They could have had that from us if they’d wanted,” Hanlon said.

  The next day, the door opened, and a single crab was standing there. Hanlon was sleeping when it arrived, but Watkins woke her up and gestured at the waiting crab.

  Hanlon approached the crab and said, “We want clothing and better sleeping arrangements. We also want you to contact our government to negotiate the terms of our release.”

  The crab stood motionless for a moment before using a translation box mounted on its harness to say, “We approach our planet. There you will answer our question.”

  “I’m not answering more questions until you provide us with clothing and better sleeping arrangements.”

  “Granted,” the crab said before leaving and closing the door behind it.

  “These are a truly odd lot, Captain,” Watkins said. “I wonder what their motivations are.”

  Kelper said softly, almost to herself, “Whatever they are, I’m going to kill them all.”

  Hanlon sighed. Since her torture, all Kelper would talk about was killing the crabs. She didn’t know enough about psychology to help Kelper and had detailed people to make sure Kelper didn’t attack any crabs that came into the room with them.

  A pile of clothing and bedding was delivered a few hours later. The clothes were rough and all the same size, making it almost comical when Adler, who was nearly two meters tall wore it. His size making it almost like a short sleeve shirt and shorts, while Kelper, the smallest person there, was shrouded in the clothes. Hanlon felt much better now that the crew was decently covered.

  They were left alone after that. Hanlon tried to estimate how long she’d been on the crab ship. She thought they’d been underway for at least three weeks. If the ship was as fast as the Aeternum, they could be very far from Lashmere by now. She talked the problem through with Watkins.

  “I have been trying to add up my sleep cycles since we were captured. I spent at least three days in the first cell, and we’ve been here for at least another two and a half or three weeks.”

  Watkins nodded in agreement. “I was estimating more like four weeks total, ma’am. Our body clocks grow longer without a fixed day-night cycle to keep us in synch. We probably don’t realize it, but we may be staying up half again as long as is normal for us. Our sleep time will grow in proportion as well.”

  “If we’ve been gone four weeks, how far from Lashmere could we be?”

  “L262, where we were captured, is about eighty light years from Lashmere. If we assume this ship is as fast as the Alliance ships and is traveling at its maximum speed, we could be as much as six hundred light years from Lashmere. If they’re traveling at a more leisurely eighty percent of their max under the same assumptions and they went directly past Lashmere on their way, we might be as close as three hundred fifty light years. No matter how you slice it, we’re a long way from home.”

  Hanlon put her hand on Watkins’ shoulder. “Don’t worry. They’re keeping us alive for a reason. I mean to find out what it is and use it to get us home.”

  Chapter 2

  “Mister Kri, I want you to break off and pursue Miss Simmons. She commandeered the science corvette and has vanished through a jump ring.”

  “Are you sure, sir? I mean, the crabs are making a run at Lashmere.”

  “I'm going to deploy Behemoth to cover Lashmere. We'll harass the crabs as they approach the planet. We've inflicted such heavy losses that we're at near parity. We still have a few surprises up our sleeves.”

  “Aye, sir. I'm breaking formation now. I'll be in touch.” Kri turned away from the main plot, now displaying the formation of crabs bearing down on him and said, “Have we received the sensor download from Loki’s jump?”

  Lieutenant Commander Dowd, Damocles’ operations officer, said, “Yes, sir. Putting the data on the main plot.”

  Kri looked it over and said, “We’d better jump now. The rest of our formation is about to move out to avoid that crab formation.”

  Commander Taylor, the executive officer, said, “We’ll lose most of our drones if we jump immediately.”

  “No choice. If Simmons does a back to back jump, we’ll lose her.” Kri tapped out a calculation on the arm of his command chair. The ship leaped under him as it took a heavy hit on the starboard flank. “Keep an eye on those crab corvettes, Miss Taylor. We’re not out of here yet.”

  Taylor returned her attention to the defensive fire panel along with Lieutenant Hultz. “Sir, the rest of our formation is jumping. We’re going to be exposed if we don’t jump in the next minute.”

  “Jump calculations on the main plot now. Helm jump soonest,” Kri ordered. The helm confirmed the order and began punching the coordinates into the computer. Six battleships formed up just outside of weapons range and began moving towards the Damocles. Enemy fire began to pour in on the screening drones. The rest of Kri’s formation moved through their jump rings in near perfect synchronization. Only Damocles was left to face the crab ships.

  “Jump immediately,” Kri shouted, seeing the volume of fire concentrated on his drones increase massively.

  “Jump ring is forming,” Taylor reported. The Damocles moved through the jump ring, trailed by a dozen drones, narrowly avoiding destruction by the six crab battleships.

  “Position report,” Kri said.

  “We’re at the target coordinates, sir,” Dowd said. His coarse, closely cut black hair was slick with sweat. He turned his chair to face Kri. “No sign of Loki on FTL sensors. Still waiting for returns on the light speed system.”

  “Oh, no. She’s here. There wasn’t enough time for her to get away from the system. Even the new point to point drives manufactured by the Aeternum have a ten minute cooldown between cycles. She’s definitely out there. Put me on omnidirectional instant comms.”

  Dowd nodded to Kri and said, “You’re on, sir.”

  Kri turned and faced the visual pickup, setting his expression in what he hoped was stern authoritarianism and touched the transmit button on his command chair. “Commander Simmons, this is Captain Kri of Damocles. Please respond.”

  Silence stretched out for a minute, then two. After five minutes, Kri pushed the transmit button again. “Marli, I know you’re out there. We were able to track your jump destination. You have to know what you’ve done is wrong.” He released the button and gave the rest of the bridge crew an exasperated look.

  “I’d have responded to that, sir. Just the right amount of emotional appeal,” Lieutenant Hultz, the tactical officer said. His brown eyes were bright with mischief.

  “Why, thank you, Mister Holtz. I suppose I could talk you into taking Miss Simmons place so we could simply end this chase here and now?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. If my memory serves, piracy is punishable by death under the military code of conduct.” Hultz had the decency to look abashed, if only slightly. He turned back to his console, suddenly immensely entertained by whatever the tactical sensors were telling him.

  Kri rubbed his eyes and said, “What’s our system status, exec?”

  Taylor had obviously been anticipating the question, given the speed with which she responded. “Port sensors are degraded seventy percent, and we took a hit that disabled the forward boat bay just before we jumped. No casualties, the shot failed to penetrate the gallery. We did lose our forward drop ship and both our forward pinnaces. Our internal drone compliment is nearly gone. All we have are the twelve that followed us through the jump. We’ll have to build new ones if we plan on staying out here.”

  “What’s the status of our onboard resources, Mister Dowd,” Kri asked.

  “A lot of the raw materials are being used for repairs. The port armor is shot up pretty badly. Damage control is using our on board materials to patch up the rest of the internal damage. Outer hull damage can be repaired, but we’ll need to find some raw materials and use the manufacturing ring to fabricate new panels.”

  “Very well. Continue to coordinate with damage control and let me know when all systems are fully operational. Any response to my message?”

  Negative, sir,” Taylor said. “We aren’t detecting any other ships in the area, either.”

  “The Loki is the prototype stealth ship. Their sensor deflection technology is actually more effective than what we used for the main production of the stealth corvettes. If she doesn’t want us to see her, we won’t see her.”

  “What about Loki’s main gun,” Dowd asked.

  “In full stealth, it won’t have enough punch to damage us seriously. To get enough power to be a threat, we’ll see her far enough out to put up a good defense. That reminds me, Exec. Input Loki’s design specs into the defensive computer.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Simmons stared at the main plot aboard Loki. She knew the point to point transit rings could be tracked. Unfortunately, it was unlikely she could easily get far enough away from the Damocles to escape unnoticed. That meant she was going to have to wait him out.