Purge of Prometheus (24 page)

Captain Hodge pushed the console out of her way before collapsing into the helm, her wings folded tightly against her body.
 
She raised her hand and ran it absently through her hair, lost in thought.

“Vangore killed Merric?” a disembodied voice asked from the other side of the room from where the three stood.
 
All turned to see Tylgar still standing awe-struck behind the navigator console.

“Sit down and monitor navigations,” Captain Hodge yelled at the Lithid, who immediately disappeared behind his console and busied himself with unimportant work.
 
“I don’t need to remind you that should word of this spread before I make an official announcement to the crew, you’ll be sharing a cell with him.
 
Am I understood, Magistrate?”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” Tylgar replied hastily without turning away from his console.

Captain Hodge turned her attention back to Yen.
 
“I just don’t understand why he would do this.
 
It just doesn’t make any sense.
 
Everyone has had their disagreements on board, but no one under my command would resort to murder.”

Yen shrugged.
 
“I can’t hope to speak on Vangore’s behalf, ma’am,” he replied.
 
“Only one man knows why he committed murder, and he is currently being escorted to the brig.
 
However, ma’am, with your leave I would like to accompany Prestige Horace to the brig and be present for the interrogation.”

Captain Hodge looked up, perplexed.
 
“Why?” she asked.
 
“Why would you want or need to be present for his interrogation?”

Yen leaned forward until he was mere inches away from the Captain.
 
“Ma’am, believe me when I tell you that I have no morbid fascination in watching someone be… encouraged to tell their secrets.
 
However, we need to face a horrible truth.
 
Eminent Merric is dead, which leaves me as both the Squadron Commander and your Tactical Officer, making me the second in command of the
Revolution
.
 
Whether we like it or not, it is now both my duty and responsibility to ensure discipline is maintained on board.
 
If we can find out what happened to make Vangore cross the line and commit murder, hopefully we can ensure it never happens again.”

Looking tired, the Captain nodded in agreement.
 
“Fine, go with Horace and be present for the interrogation.”
 
She turned toward the Oterian.
 
“Use any means necessary to get answers.
 
Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” Horace rumbled through clenched teeth.
 
As he turned to leave, Yen fell into step behind him.
 
Neither spoke as the entered the lift, waiting instead for the doors to slide shut behind them.

“That was fairly impressive detective work,” Horace growled condescendingly.
 
“It’s surprising for someone with no forensic background.”

Yen didn’t bother turning toward the Security Officer, instead maintaining his focus on the floor numbers rolling by as the lift descended.
 
“I don’t know what to tell you, Horace.
 
I guess I got lucky by following my hunch.”

“Detectives only use hunches in old vids and story reels,” Horace snorted.
 
“Anyone now and days that tells you they just followed a hunch is covering their own shoddy evidence collection.
 
You wouldn’t be trying to hide something, would you Squadron Commander?”

“Maybe you wouldn’t be so upset if you didn’t have someone else doing your job better,” Yen snarled, the anger flashing through his body.
 
As he turned toward the Oterian, the lift doors opened and Horace stepped off the lift.
 
Yen let the anger subside as he followed.

“No offense, Commander, but I don’t believe you.”

“Then let’s just see what the prisoner has to say under interrogation,” Yen replied.
 
“I can guarantee he’ll tell a pretty interesting story when questioned.”

CHAPTER 19:

Her hopes had been simple: after passing through the small sewer tunnel once and pulling free most of the grime from the pipe walls, let there be nothing left for her second pass.
 
She learned long ago that her hopes very rarely ever came to fruition.
 
Wading through the frigid pool of water, she frowned at the disgusting smell that permeated her body and the filth that, quite literally, fell from her hair and skin.
 
Either she hadn’t knocked free nearly as much from the walls of the tunnel as she would have liked, or the Terrans had devilishly snuck in after she escaped the city and reapplied the fermented bodily wastes.
 
Based on her sour mood, Keryn was prone to believe the latter.
 
Exiting the pool and making her way down the straight tunnel, it wasn’t long until she located the ladder that would return her to the surface, and back into harm’s way.

Keryn slipped out from the sewer entrance and back under the cover of the stone slab, scanning the rubble field with her stolen Terran rifle.
 
She was far from excited about being back in Miller’s Glen, and was even unhappier about the idea of telling the others of the fate of the
Cair Ilmun
and the rest of the crew.
 
They had put a lot of faith in her plan of escape, even if it had taken a while to convince them of its merits.
 
Unfortunately, no one had believed in her plan more than she had.
 
It had been a severe emotional blow to find the wreckage, a pain that was only slightly alleviated by killing Cardax for the second time.
 
Now there was no avoiding the simple fact that they would have to find another way out of the city.
 
However, she was getting ahead of herself.
 
Until she made it back across the clearing in one piece and back into the relative safety of the still-standing sections of town, her worries were moot.

Taking a deep breath, Keryn bolted from the safety of the sewer entrance and sprinted across the open ground, sliding for cover behind a crumbling wall.
 
She waited, her breath labored as nervous energy flooded her body, but she saw no scanning lasers and heard no gunfire.
 
Perplexed, she peeked over the wall.
 
The watchtowers were quiet, their spotlights rolling lazily across the ruins.
 
No Terrans sounded the alarm and no turrets tracked her position.
 
After a while with no threat appearing, she stood and started a slower, if not nervous, march across the rubble field.
 
Much to her surprise, nothing happened.

The rest of her careful walk through town was as uneventful as her dash through the ruins.
 
She began growing nervous, firmly believing that anyone who said “no news is good news” was an idiot.
 
Keryn expected to be shot at.
 
She expected to be chased through the streets with Terrans in hot pursuit.
 
She expected to escape with the pits of hell opening behind her and consuming the world as she ran.
 
That’s the way it had always been.
 
Quiet made her worried.

Arriving back at the abandoned department store, she gave a cursory glance through the gloomy night and slipped inside.
 
As of yet, Keryn had no need to rush.
 
While she was confused about the lack of Terran activity in town, she knew she still had a few hours before “daybreak”, a sick joke of a term with all things considered.
 
Still, no one would miss her until then, and she wasn’t even sure they would even if she didn’t appear in her work group.
 
The Terrans knew that there was nowhere to go; the entire world was a frozen wasteland and all the food stores were being held within the city.
 
The survivors could flee, but they would be signing their own death warrant as they trudged through the unforgiving cold.

Moving past the manikins and into the back of the store, Keryn paused as she considered how to hide the much larger Terran rifle amidst the clothes and assorted odds and ends left in the back of the department store.
 
As she pondered her dilemma, a rack of clothes rattled behind her.
 
Spinning, she aimed the rifle at the metal rack, seeing no one but having trouble believing that two noises on two separate occasions within the department store were sheer coincidence.

“I know you’re there,” she said into the thick darkness of the store.
 
She wished she had time to pull out her flashlight.
 
“Show yourself.”

Keryn tensed, ready to fire, as a man emerged from behind the clothes rack.
 
The gloom of the department store left only a silhouette standing, his hands held high in a universal sign of surrender.
 
Keryn didn’t feel in much of a mood to accept his surrender and she kept the barrel of her weapon trained on the stranger.

“Why don’t you lower your weapon so we can talk,” the man’s voice called out in the darkness.
 
“We only want to talk to you.”

Keryn only had a second to ponder his use of the word “we” before two more men materialized out of the shadows.
 
Flashlights flared to life underneath their assault rifles, lights that shone into her eyes and blinded her to her surroundings.
 
Squinting against the sudden light, Keryn begrudgingly lowered her own weapon, but kept it resting firmly at her side.

“Alright,” she said angrily.
 
“You have me at a disadvantage, so I guess we’ll talk.
 
Just get those lights out of my face.”

Through the bright light, Keryn could make out the silhouette nodding to the two hired guns on either side.
 
On cue, both their flashlights went dark, leaving blue spots dancing in her vision.
 
She blinked furiously to get rid of the blindness, but found the darkness within the store even darker after having been exposed to light.
 
By the time she was able to see clearly again, the silhouetted man was standing at her side.
 
He bent down near her hip and removed something from beneath the display table.
 
Keryn heard a click and suddenly the entire back of the store was bathed in a soft yellow light.
 
The man shifted the small lantern out of the way before standing again.
 

Keryn stared at the Uligart who stood before her, the soft light reflecting off the sharp bones that protruded from his cheeks and solid jaw line.
 
The designer clothes he wore layered about his body, and accentuated by a combat vest bustling with weapons, offset his razor sharp bone structure.
 
The Uligart smiled disarmingly as he ran a hand over the short bone ridge at his hairline and through his well groomed dark hair.

“Please,” he said, gesturing toward a chair that one of the other two bodyguards placed behind her.
 
“Please sit.”

She quickly examined the bodyguard as he placed the chair behind her and resumed a defensive posture around the Uligart.
 
The bodyguard who had moved the chair was an Avalon, his dark clothes a stark contrast to his pale skin and wings.
 
Though Avalons rarely wore much around their bodies since it limited their ability to fly, the bodyguard wore a combat vest bristling with grenades and extra ammunition for the modified assault rifle hanging across his chest.
 
Keryn nodded appreciatively at the pistol grip, silencer, and recoil suppresser attached to the rifle, noting that all the modifications were military design and very expensive on the open market.
 
Looking over the Uligart’s other shoulder, she observed the Terran bodyguard who stood on the other side, carrying much the same armament.
 
Her nervousness fled her as she looked back into the disarming smile of the Uligart.
 
Whoever these people were, they weren’t working with the Terran Empire.

Sitting, Keryn took the chance to start the conversation.
 
“You seem eager to talk to me, but haven’t bothered to introduce yourself.”

The Uligart’s smile broadened, his blue eyes flashing mischievously as he sat in a chair across from her.
 
“My name is Alcent, a simple merchant until I was taken as a prisoner by the Empire’s arrival on Othus.”

“You are not a good liar,” Keryn stated, her eyebrows arching.
 
The smile didn’t falter on Alcent’s face.
 
“You see, your men are carrying military modified rifles, the asking price on the open market being well beyond anything a ‘simple’ merchant could manage.”
 
She pointed toward the bodyguard over his left shoulder.
 
“Your Avalon is carrying high explosive grenades strapped to his chest, grenades that even on the black market here in Miller’s Glen would be next to impossible to come by.”
 
Her gesture carried past the bodyguard and fell back on Alcent.
 
“But, most importantly, you hardly look like you’re a prisoner.”