Chapter 17
Death Becomes Us
***Warning – This chapter contains graphically violent content. Parents should review it before allowing their children to read it***
Kaevan walked cockily through the sliding door and sneered over at Ben. Young punk. He took great pleasure in kicking him in the head earlier, and he looked forward to doing it again soon.
“Oh, wow, is she dead?” he asked condescendingly. He walked over to Cadence and felt for a pulse in her neck. “Not quite, eh. Guess I’ll have to remedy that in a bit.”
Ben looked over at Kara and Warrina in relief. They all thought for sure she was dead.
“Who are you?” Ben growled through gritted teeth.
“The better question is – What’s in the box?” Kaevan asked as he canted his head into a sinister pose, while looking over at Ben.
“Don’t take the taunt, Ben,” Warrina warned him. “I know you’re from Payra. Why are you here?”
“You presume to ask me questions, you traitor!” Kaevan yelled at her as he stepped over and punched her in the face.
“YOU SON-OF-A…” Ben started to yell, but he couldn’t finish because he got his own solid pop in the jaw.
“Mind your tongue!” Kaevan reprimanded him.
“You didn’t think I knew, huh, you filthy traitor?” Kaevan said, turning his attention back to Warrina. Blood started to run out of her nose and mouth again.
“We weren’t traitors. All we wanted was for the truth to come out,” Warrina told him. Her head was pounding with pain. “He won’t tell you anything.”
“Are you sure about that?” Kaevan said sharply. “I have a hypothesis, but I need to know for sure. I can’t afford to risk everything based solely on a hunch.” He turned his attention back towards a bloody-lipped Ben Taylor. “There’s a funny thing about men, Ben. Men are extremely protective of women. They’re as protective of their women as women are of their own babies. And if a man loves that woman, forget about it. They’ll do anything for her. It’s a primal instinct.
“It’s fascinating, actually, especially when we consider Earth’s history. Did you know, for much of Earth’s history, women weren’t allowed in combat? One reason was because of how protective men were of women.
“There were times when men would be captured and tortured, and even under the most horrendous pain, they wouldn’t crack, so attention was turned to their comrades. It was harder to see a friend get tortured. Some would crack, but by and large, men understood this was part of the deal. It’s war.
“This wasn’t necessarily the rule. There’s never any real rules. It just…is. But Ben, when men see women get beaten, tortured…” He canted his head and let the unsaid marinate.
Ben knew where this was going, and it horrified him. What was worse was the look in Kara’s and Warrina’s eyes as they connected the dots as well.
Kaevan shook a finger in the air and then said, “Now, I’ll bet that if I started to beat on you, you might or you might not give me the information I want, but those odds aren’t good enough for me. What’s even worse odds is betting on those two giving me information if I beat on you. That would prove to be pointless. They’re women after all. They don’t care if man gets beat, not even a young man, such as yourself.
“I think there’s better odds…let me rephrase that…I think THE BEST odds of you giving me information is if I beat on one of them, as opposed to me beating on you.”
“You’re a bastard!” Ben shouted at him.
“Thank you for proving my point, Ben,” Kaevan snarled. “Of course, you can prevent it if you just tell me what’s in that bloody box!”
“What box?” Ben asked in frustration. Kaevan summarily punched Warrina in the chest with an enclosed fist.
“Stop! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Ben shouted as he leaned forward in his chair in desperation to get closer to Warrina.
“You play stupid with me, and they’re going to get hurt!” Kaven yelled. “Tell me what’s in that effing box!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Kaevan stared at Ben with dead eyes. “I know about the box! And I know it survived my attack on your parents!”
“You…you killed my parents!?” Ben yelled.
“Of course I did!” Kaevan proclaimed with furled eyes.
Ben looked at Kara, but she gave him a stern glare and shook her head. He needed to calm down.
“Continuing on with my lecture on torture, BEN,” Kaevan growled as he leaned towards Warrina. “I could torture this one, Warrina, I believe her name is – but, really, for me, she’s just a filthy traitor – and I doubt that would garner enough sympathy from you to give me what I want. But Ben, I won’t torture either of them if you tell me what’s in the box.”
“What are you playing at?” Ben demanded.
“I want to know what your parents put in that box, you effing dolt!” Kaevan yelled at him.
“I don’t know! You destroyed it!”
“BEN!” Warrina shouted at him as a warning to stop – the more agitated he got, the more likely he was to divulge something.
“What, Warrina, what?” he yelled back at her. “We don’t know what’s in it! Look, dumbass,” Ben said, turning his attention back at Kaevan. “There was a video of my parents on the ship telling us about the box and where to find it. They said that only I could open it; something about my DNA. We found the box, but I couldn’t figure out how to open it. The rest of the ship was vacant, and we couldn’t find anything to help us.”
“SHUT UP, BEN!” Warrina shouted again, but Ben pressed on.
“We were going to take it to Stoddard to see if he could figure it out, but then you showed up and destroyed it!”
“NO B…!” Warrina started, but her plea was met with a right fist to her jaw, followed by a hard left hook to her cheek. Her head whipped back and to the side, then flopped forward, and blood poured out of her mouth and nose.
“AHHHHHHH!!!” Ben shouted in desperation. “You said you wouldn’t hurt them if I talked!”
“I said I wouldn’t torture them if you talked,” Kaeven yelled back at him. “I never said I wouldn’t shut them up if they interfered!”
Ben stared at Kaeven with evil intent. He was shaking, and he felt a spike of energy as adrenaline began pumping through his veins.
“I swear to God,” Ben growled with a devil in his voice, “if you hit her again, I’ll kill you!”
“And here comes the heroics,” Kaevan droned. He took a sharp breath and exhaled obnoxiously. “Ben…why push my buttons with petty threats?” He walked over to Ben and firmly patted his face. Ben twisted it away. “Tell me what I want to know!” he yelled in Ben’s ear.
Ben dropped his head. He looked over at Warrina, who wobbled hers but couldn’t quite lift it. Ben thought he was being clever by giving Kaevan partial truths mixed with a believable lie, but he wasn’t, and Warrina paid the price.
“You just as well keep talking, because if you don’t, the real torture will begin. Oh, and did I mention that you’re going to have an audience?”
“What?” Ben shot at him.
“That’s right. My partner’s contacting Stoddard’s ship. Any minute now, they’re going to have a front row seat to a class on primal instincts. There’s a convergence of events here, Ben. I’m going to clean up past mistakes, and you’re going to help me do it.
“You’ve shown a compassion for this traitor that’s quite revealing. My guess is you know the other traitor over there is your aunty, so I can assume your compassion for her is even greater. Unfortunately, beating on her wouldn’t be as effective because she’s already near dead. That means you wouldn’t be able to hear her scream, so what’s the point?
“But these two aren’t the only women in this room, are they. Right in between them is this lovely young woman, Kara Whelan.”
Ben’s face became demonic as he looked at Kaevan. Oh, what he wouldn’t do…
“I’d be willing to bet that you’ve grown quite fond of her over the past month or so. A young, lonely boy – a pretty, young woman, the same age. Mmm…”
“Ben,” Kara’s voice cracked as she strained to speak, “don’t do it.” Tears started to well in her eyes.
“Remember when I said that mothers are protective of their babies? Well, as it turns out, daddies are equally protective of their daughters, if not more so.”
“I will kill you!!!” Kynan’s voice shouted out of nowhere.
“And here’s daddy,” Kaevan said as he peered down at Ben with a broad, creepy smile. As he did so, his partner walked through the sliding door and tapped a button on a Simpad he held. A two-way screen appeared on the wall to Ben’s left.
“Kynan Whelan, so glad you could join us,” Kaevan said with a sneer as he looked at Kynan’s image on the wall’s screen. “Colonel Stoddard, I’m impressed that you’re actually letting him watch this.”
“All I’m doing is letting him get riled up; that way, he’ll take greater pleasure in gutting you.”
“Oh, right…” Kaevan said moments before pulling out a laser gun from inside his long leather coat, pointing its barrel at Kara’s chest, and pulling the trigger.
Nobody knew who screamed first, but the only voice Ben heard was his own. Kara’s head fell limply downward.
Kaevan walked over to her lifeless-looking body as Kynan let out a string of murderous threats. He grabbed her red hair and pulled back so that he could look at her. Not satisfied with what he saw, he let it flop back down, and then he felt for a pulse.
“What the hell,” he said, acting as though he was agitated with himself. He looked down at his gun and said, “Oh crap. I had it stun! Looks like you got lucky, Kynan. Don’t worry, though; I’ll be sure to flip the selector lever to kill next time.”
“I have nothing else to tell you!” Ben shouted at him.
“I’m sorry; I thought I told you, Ben. We’re not just after information. We’re after you and your Payra friends. All of them.” Kaevan looked back at the screen so that he could see Captain Baas. “You have exactly five minutes to get on a ship and get over here.”
“If I go over there, I will kill you,” Gedeon said with a grounded voice.
“All right,” Kaevan said while nodding his head slowly as if contemplating something. He perked his head back up and then said, “I understand that this traitor right here is your wife. While I can’t control your bad taste in women, I can control your heart.”
“She’s hurt, Captain Baas! She’s hurt really badly!” Ben shouted.
“Right, he is!” Kaevan confirmed pompously. He peered behind her chair and made a nauseated look as if he saw something repulsive. “Her arm is jacked, bro…she’s a mess. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure she’s in shock.”
Gedeon pushed his eyebrows forward and tightened his lips.
“I imagine it can’t be good for her if I do this!” Kaevan wound his right hand back and punched Cadence as hard as he could in her face. Her body wanted to contort to the side, but it couldn’t because there was no give in the bolted-down chair and because her hands were cuffed behind her.
Everyone screamed out in fear and anger…everyone except Gedeon, whose helpless eyes went blank.
Kynan turned to Gedeon and grabbed his bicep. “We have to go, now!” he said to him, not caring about the horrid future that would await them if they did.
“I’m not running away!” Gedeon said through gritted teeth.
“I’m not telling you to run away…I’m telling you to surrender to him.” Kynan’s emotions were getting the best of him.
Stoddard turned to look at them while simultaneously pointing a finger at his Visi. The Ares were flying in to make their first strafing run on the compound. “I can’t control what you do, Captain Baas,” he said, “but make your decision wisely.”
“Maybe this will help you make your decision!” Kaevan shouted as his left foot round-housed in the air, tattooing Cadence on her cheek with his heel.
“You’re going to kill her!” a slowly reviving Warrina said helplessly as a concussion rocked the building. Red warning lights and low-toned sirens saturated the air as the regular lights flickered rapidly for a few seconds. The door to the room slid and stayed open automatically.
“You have the balls to attack us?” Kaevan shouted.
“Let them go, and I’ll order them not to kill you!” Stoddard shouted. “I have a comfortable cell on this ship that you can enjoy.”
“No! This isn’t some ragtag outpost, you fool! This building goes three stories underground, and there’s a network of tunnels with shuttles that can transport us to any of the other outposts. So, call off your attack, Colonel, or I will end all of them!”
“We’ll see about that. You’re just sealing your fate the longer you stall. LET THEM GO!!!” Stoddard shouted with a razor-edged look to his face that could cut a man in half. As if on cue, the building rocked as another concussion from an explosion topside reverberated through the walls. The lights flickered on and off again.
“Call my bluff, Colonel! I dare you!” Kaevan shouted over the sirens as he whacked Cadence with the back of his hands. Warrina cried out in helpless frustration again. “You can save her, Gedeon! If you come now!”
“If I go down there, it will not be to surrender! I’ll kill you! I’ll cut your arms and legs off with a spoon, and then I’ll throw your trunk out of an airlock! You understand me!”
“Make threats, you traitor!” WHACK! Another punch to Cadence’s face. “I’ve got at least another hour!” WHACK! WHACK!
Gedeon fell to a knee, overwhelmed with emotion. There was no point in talking tough, for there was absolutely nothing he could do…except maybe surrender.
“Yeah, come to terms!” Kaevan taunted him.
“We can’t risk this!” Kynan shouted to both Stoddard and Gedeon.
“Oh, Kynan, I almost forgot about you,” Kaevan said in a voice that was intended to sound like mock forgetfulness. “Let me walk over to your daughter here so I can see how she’s doing.” He slapped her face softly, checking to see if she was awake. Her face and body twitched as if she were regaining consciousness.
“Well, look at that,” Kaevan said. “Looks like she’s starting to come to. Just imagine the fun I’m going to have.”
Stoddard’s brown face started to turn bright red with enraged anger. A thought sprang into his head, and he quickly tapped his stylist on his holographic Visi.
Far below, the same image that he could see of Kaevan and his hostages was broadcast to everyone on the QRF. It was a gutsy move. It would either become a distraction or a rallying cry.
Ben sat in his chair, deadly quiet, glaring hatefully at the terrorist in front of him. His body trembled from uncontrollable surges of raw adrenaline. There was little give from his restraints, but his vibrating body still managed to sway slightly with maddening energy. He was reflexively pulling so hard against his cuffs that his wrists were starting to bleed.
His chest heaved in and out as his breathing became so rapid it looked as though he’d just sprinted 200 meters. He started to grit his teeth so tightly that black spots began to form in his bulging eyes, but he didn’t notice them.
He looked like a sadistic lunatic thirsting to kill. Only no one noticed because no one was looking at him. All eyes were trained on Kaevan, who was now pointing his gun at the screen.
“Do you know what happens, Kynan, to people who’ve been shot multiple times with a laser on stun?” Kaevan asked cruelly. “Their bodies can’t handle it, and the electrodes in their brains go haywire, which causes their nervous system to freak out.” He pointed his gun at Kara and fired another shot into her chest. Her body convulsed and then fell limp again. Kynan screamed in agonizing rage at the sight of his daughter being brutalized.
Ben’s own rage continued to grow deep in his bowels.
“Eventually their nervous system gets so overwhelmed it simply…shuts down.” He fired another shot at Kara’s chest. Kynan’s screams of anger turned to screams of pain as tears started to flow freely out of his eyes.
Rich adrenaline-filled blood continued to gush through Ben’s overworked veins, and the more it did, the more he needed to release the overwhelming power he felt.
“I imagine two more shots will do her in,” Kaevan warned. “Tell your Payra companions they need to surrender to me – NOW!”
Kynan grabbed his head with his hands, his mind scrambling with fury and hurt. “Go,” he pleaded to Gedeon. But he only said it once.
Stoddard, who outwardly appeared to have lost all composure, still managed to keep a level head. He understood the risks Gedeon would face if his crew surrendered. He knew it was a death sentence. And more likely than not, it would be a death sentence that wasn’t worth the cost. Kaevan was too clever a player in this game. He wouldn’t let any of them survive, not even Kara.
“I’m calling your bluff,” Stoddard said as he dipped his head down in a foreboding look of steely death.
Kaevan pointed the gun at Kara again. “So be it!” he shouted.
Just as Kaevan’s arm began to rise, a deep, commanding voice with the echoing resonance of a troubled god thundered, “IF YOU PULL THAT TRIGGER, YOU WILL DIE!!!” The brutality in Ben’s voice was so overpowering that it stopped Kaevan’s finger from finishing its pull.
Both rooms fell into dumb silence – not even the alarms could be heard.
Kaevan turned and stared at Ben with a medieval look in his eyes. He shook his head as if escaping a trance. The pressure in the room had noticeably changed. He then turned back to Kara and leveled his gun at her head. “Times up,” he finished as he pulled the trigger.
Adrenaline-filled rage flashed through Ben’s body like a star going supernova as he screamed out the most deafening war cry the universe had ever heard. With the speed of Zeus’s lightning and the strength of a thousand Hercules, he shattered his cuffs and chains and lunged into the air towards Kaevan.
Kaevan didn’t have time to react. Ben shouldered Kaevan and lifted him off his feet before barreling him into the ground. The air was forced out of Kaevan’s lungs in a freakishly loud and gut-wrenching sound that caused everyone watching to wince.
“What…what…” Gedeon shouted but couldn’t find the right words.
“GenMod?” Stodard asked in bewilderment, his eye transfixed. “That’s impossible!”
Ben’s mind went completely blank as his subconscious reached back into its depths and found its most primordial, barbaric instinct – kill to survive. He dug a knee deep into Kaevan’s stomach while grabbing Kaevan’s throat with his left hand. He could feel the trachea crushing together in his fingers. At the same time, he began to pummel Kaevan’s face with his right fist repeatedly, over and over again, like a revved piston in a shaft. With each strike, Kaeavn’s body jerked and twitched madly.
Terrell sprinted forward and tried to punch Ben in the head, but Ben’s sixth sense and his peripheral vision alerted him to Terrell’s attack. Ben turned his face at the last second, making Terrell’s fist miss him by mere centimeters. Ben then lifted his left hand up and pulled it inward while pushing his right hand outward so that both of his hands crossed while connecting with Terrell’s passing arm, breaking it in two. With a forward-leaning movement, Ben thrust his elbow into Terrell’s side and threw him across the room.
After Terrell landed with a reverberating thud, Ben turned his attention back to Kaevan. He looked down, and he saw firsthand what unmitigated rage could do. Kaevan no longer had a face. The entire left side of it was nothing but bloody mush and protruding bone fragments. His smashed eye looked up from the ground.
Kaevan was dead.
Ben rose to his feet. He looked over at Terrell, who was trying to use the wall to help himself stand after being thoroughly dazed when he crashed into it. He took one look at Ben and knew instantly that it wasn’t a fight he could win, so he took off through the door and down the hallway.
A ringing silence seemed to engulf the room, but it wasn’t really silent at all.
“BEN!” he finally heard Warrina shout over the low tones of the alarm. It was the third time she had shouted his name, but he couldn’t hear it beforehand because of the rage and adrenaline that had deafened his hearing. He turned and looked at her. “Get me out of this so I can care for them!”
Ben scrambled over to her, but he couldn’t break the cuffs or the chains with his hands. His rage strength was gone.
“Use the gun,” Warrina instructed him as she nodded her head in its direction. Ben looked over to where she was nodding and saw it lying near Kaevan’s grossly deformed head. He picked it up, changed its settings, and then blasted the cuffs and chains off of Warrina’s wrists and ankles.
Once free, Warrina hurried over to the Simpad that Terrell had dropped and started tapping on it. She looked up at the still stunned and motionless people on the screen, then said, “Trace this signal, Colonel!” She turned the Simpad to show them her screen, then placed it on her chair.
In the background, Ben and Warrina could overhear Stoddard dispatching the medical ship and then telling Kynan and Gedeon to fly down to assist.
“Ben, help me!” Warrina said to him as she grabbed the gun out of his hands and commenced firing off the shackles from Cadence. They set her down flat on the ground first, and then they did the same to Kara. Warrina did a quick assessment on both of them, and then she looked gravely up at Ben.
“They’re alive, but just. And they won’t be for long,” Warrina said feebly. Just then, the sounds of clanking boots running down the hallway filled the busy air.
Ben could feel the freakish adrenaline begin to flood through his body again as his fight-or-flight instincts took over. Without saying a word, he flashed through the doorway and down the hall.
Warrina shouted at him to get back, and then she heard a series of painful cries and pleas to stop, a shot fired, and then she heard nothing but low-toned alarms. A few moments later, Ben walked back into the room holding his left hand to his right bicep. A steady stream of blood was rolling down his arm through his hand.
“There’s nobody else coming,” Ben said. “Terrell must’ve sent them as a distraction.”
“Did they run away, too?” Warrina asked, referring to the people Ben went after. The look on Ben’s face told her that she deserved a self-reprimand. “Do any of them need medical attention?”
“You can’t fix them.”
Warrina nodded her head. “It’s just as well,” she said. “You did right.”
“Ben,” Stoddard said to him through the screen. Ben walked over to it so that he could see Stoddard more clearly. “The cavalry’s on the way, son. They should be there any second now.”
Stoddard soaked in Ben’s image as he spoke to him. Ben’s left eye was almost completely closed shut. His exosuit was severely torn, and he was bleeding from at least seven different places.
Ben was a hot mess.
“Colonel Stoddard,” Warrina said urgently as she moved over to Ben’s side. She decided to inspect Ben’s bleeding bicep as she spoke. “Cadence and Kara are going downhill fast, but I fear that Cadence is worse off. I don’t think she’s going to make it.”
“There’s a medical team en route. And so are Captain Baas and Kynan,” Stoddard said before glancing away from the screen for a second. “It looks like they’re landing now. The QRFs already secured the compound. Do you know what level you’re on so I can relay it to them?”
“Should be in the coordinates I sent you,” Warrina replied.
“Okay, hang tight.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The wound on Ben’s arm was a passthrough, though it could use a dose of synthaflesh to help it heal. But that wasn’t Warrina’s primary concern for him. Ben’s problem wasn’t his physical injuries; it was the spike of adrenaline in his system and his emotional state. He couldn’t stop fidgeting with his hands, and his head was bobbing back and forth with a nervous tic.
She wiped her bloody hand on her pants and reached up to calmly caress his cheek, hoping the contrasting touch and feeling would be enough to temper his rage. He needed something to do to distract him.
“Ben,” she said gently, “why don’t you go down the hallway and see if you can find Captain Baas and Kynan? They have the medics with them.”
Ben looked down at Cadence and Kara, then nodded in affirmation. But something didn’t seem right to him. Kaevan’s body was too close to them. That disgusting pig didn’t deserve to be on the same planet as his aunt and the girl he loved most in the universe, let alone in the same room.
Without saying a word, he heaved up Kaevan’s corpse and threw it over his shoulder. He walked out of the room and dumped the body next to the other five men he’d brutally killed in the hallway. He couldn’t help but stare at them all with repulsed hatred in his eyes.
“Ben,” Warrina’s intentionally soft voice said as she looked through the doorway, “please go find them.” Ben looked back at her, nodded his head, and then jogged away.
At the end of the hallway was a rather large room with three other hallways branching off of it. There were couches, tables, chairs, several monitors, and a small kitchenette in the room, giving it the distinctive feel of a recreational room.
He circled the room quickly, trying to decide which hallway to take, when he suddenly heard Rangi’s loud voice echoing down one of them. He ran towards the sounds into a long hallway that led past sliding doors and other shorter hallways.
“Ben! Warrina!” the shouts came again, but this time more clearly.
“We’re down here!” Ben shouted back.
A few moments later, Rangi’s massive body rounded a tight corner. He paused for a heartbeat, long enough to determine that it was Ben he was looking at, and then he ran towards him with surprising speed and wrapped his powerful arms around Ben’s shoulders in a mighty man hug.
“Damn you, boy, damn you! You scared the hell out of me!” Rangi fought to say through the frog that was leaping excitedly in his throat.
He finally let go of Ben, and that’s when Ben realized that Gedeon, Kynan, and Jedrek were behind Rangi, followed by a male and female medic and a four-man fire team. Both medics carried a Simpad in one hand and had a medical backpack flung over their shoulders. Strapped to the left side of their backpacks were collapsible field stretchers.
Ben told them all to follow him, and they all jogged back towards the room of terror. As they rolled up onto the bodies in the hallway, Kynan ordered the fire team to move the bodies out of the hall to give them more room.
The medics set to work on Cadence and Kara, putting head probes on each of them. The probes conducted a comprehensive assessment in mere seconds, transmitting their findings to their respective medic’s Simpads.
The male medic taking care of Kara gave her three injections from a device that looked like a small gun. “Her nervous system is shutting down, but we can stabilize her. We need to move her now.”
Kynan looked at the medic, partly relieved that she wasn’t dead, and then he asked, “The Zeus or the Athena?”
“The Zeus, preferably,” the medic replied as he unstrapped the collapsible field stretcher from his backpack. Kynan immediately gave him a hand expanding it. “The Athena has a bigger medical facility, but it’s overwhelmed with casualties at the moment. We can give her more attention on the Zeus.”
“Okay,” Kynan replied without hesitation. He looked over at Cadence and then at Gedeon, who was holding her hand as the other medic looked her over. “Ben,” he said, looking up at him. “Help us get Kara on the stretcher.”
Ben did as instructed, and then Kynan called back to the squad leader outside, asking him to send in another fire team.
Warrina, who was helping the medic working on Cadence, looked at the assessment on the Simpad, then at the medic. The medic sucked in a conspicuous breath, then shook her head slightly. It didn’t go unnoticed to Gedeon.
“What is it?” he asked desperately.
“Gadeon,” Warrina began, her voice soft with compassion, “they can’t save her.”
“Wha…wha…no…what do you…” Gedeon pleaded. “What do you mean?” he finally forced out.
Warrina looked straight into Gedeon’s watery eyes, and as temperately as she could, she said, “There’s very limited brain activity, Gadeon. She’s nearly brain dead.” And then, as if slowly reiterating her first point, she emphasized, “The Federation cannot save her. They do not have the technology to do it.”
Gedeon closed his eyes and lifted his head as the realization of Warrina’s words sank in. He felt a hand rest on his shoulders, and he immediately knew it was Rangi’s.
“Save your wife, Captain,” Rangi said. “I promise you, come heaven or hell, we’ll get you both back.”
Ben, who’d been trying his best to pay dual attention to both Kara and Cadence, overheard the conversation. “What are you guys saying?” he asked with deep concern in his voice.
Jedrek stepped over to Ben so that he could explain what was happening to him without them interfering with what needed to be done. “Ben, Cadence is going to die. The Federation does not have the technology to save her life. But Payra does.”
“Payra’s light years away,” Ben pointed out. “And if you guys go, you’ll be shot for treason!”
“We suspect there’s a Payra military ship close by,” Jedrek said reassuringly. “And if there is, they’ll have the medical equipment necessary to save her. As long as he surrenders peacefully, our laws dictate that they must do everything they can to save her life so that she can stand trial.”
“But I can’t…”
“What you can’t do,” Jedrek cut him off, “is watch your aunt die!”
Ben looked down at Cadence, who was already being strapped to the stretcher. Rangi and Gedeon each took an end and picked her up. Kynan looked up at them and said, “Captain Baas, take my ship. I’ll go back with the medics.”
“You’re an honorable man, Kynan,” Gedeon said with a respectful tilt of his head. “I’m glad to have known you.”
Ben walked out of the building with them, and then he followed them to Kynan’s Hermes, where Rangi and Warrina strapped Cadence down on the ground. While they did this, Jedrek jumped into the cockpit and started up the engines.
Time was of the essence, and none of them wanted to waste any giving goodbye hugs. Instead, Gedeon looked at them all and said, “Godspeed. Protect Ben! That’s my final order!” His three mates saluted him, and Ben waved goodbye.
Moments later, Gedeon blasted into the air and shot out of the atmosphere so fast he disappeared.
“Let’s get back to Kara,” Warrina said after the ship was out of sight.
They ran back to the building in time to see Kara being hauled out by two soldiers. Kynan was walking in front of them, looking down at his Simpad, talking to it.
“…en route to find the Payra military ships,” they heard Kynan say.
Colonel Stoddard’s distinct voice came back with, “He’s a brave soul. I have two doctors waiting for you here. We’ll be…HOLY HELL!” Alarms and flashing lights overwhelmed the background imagery.
“What is it?” Kynan shouted at him through the Simpad as everyone started to gather around, curious as to what was going on.
On the Zeus, Colonel Stoddard shouted back, “It’s a…oh good Lord!” There was a holographic image hovering above his table of a colossal ship with contorted angles and enormous guns sticking out of it from all sides. Three huge docking bays on the port side of the ship opened as if threatening to unleash hell if Stoddard made a wrong move. The ship had appeared out of nowhere, almost right beside them, massively dwarfing the Zeus by comparison.
“Captain Sutter, tell Stark and Epson to have all of their ships stand down! Do not attack!” he shouted to her.
“Sir, one of our Hermes appears to be flagging it. It’s Kynan’s, sir!” Sutter hastily replied over the intercom.
“Kynan’s not in it. That’s Captain Baas and his wife.”
Colonel Stoddard looked back at the Visi-screen where he could see Kynan’s perplexed face staring back at him.
“You may want to tread lightly when you come up here,” Stoddard told Kynan. “I believe a Payra warship just entered the game. It’s effing massive!”
“What?” Kynan asked.
“Yeah, it just materialized right next to us. It must have cloaking technology.”
“That doesn’t exist.”
“You mean it doesn’t exist to us,” Stoddard corrected.
Kynan appeared to look off-screen and asked someone, “Does Payra have cloaking technology?” Colonel Stoddard heard Jedrek’s voice come back with, “Of course we do.”
“Did you hear that?” Kynan asked Stoddard.
“I did. Um…tell them that it looks like a fighter escort has intercepted Captain Baas. They’re flying into one of the docking bays now.”
“They heard. We’ve got Kara strapped down, and we’re heading up. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Okay, just be care…WOE!” Stoddard yelled, cutting himself off. “It just disappeared! Captain Sutter, do you have any readings at all?”
“None, sir,” she replied over the intercom. “Sir, Colonel Stark is panicking over that ship – he thinks it’s an Alliance ship.”
“Well, tell him not to panic, and not to go looking for it!” Stoddard replied urgently.
“Sorry, sir, he now wants me to report to you that the Alliance seems to be evacuating Sanchu. Dozens of gates have opened up behind the larger moon, and they’re fleeing through them.”
“Okay, have him keep pressure on them to make sure they leave, but don’t pursue. Once we’re sure they’re gone, we’ll look for survivors and those Crucis One captives on the base.”
“Yes, sir,” Sutter replied.
Colonel Stoddard realized that his Visi-screen image of Kynan had gone blank, meaning that he’d shut down the link. He rose to his feet and made his way to the medical ward to wait for them.
Five minutes later, Kynan, Warrina, and the medics came barreling through with Kara on a hovering bedlike stretcher. Ben, Rangi, and Jedrek picked up the rear.
“How’s she doing?” Colonel Stoddard asked Ben so as not to interrupt Kynan, who flew by him without so much as an acknowledgment that he was there.
“Warrina said she’s messed up pretty badly. Her nervous system is crashing. The medic shot her up with something, but I don’t know what it was.”
Colonel Stoddard nodded his head. They all took up residence in a small waiting room in the medical ward outside of the emergency room.
Kynan walked in a few minutes later. “The docs won’t let me stay in there,” he complained.
“Do you want me to go pull rank?” Colonel Stoddard asked as he walked over to him.
“No, sir,” Kynan replied, shaking his head. “They’re right. I’m just a useless waste of flesh getting in the way in there.”
They both walked back over to where the others were sitting.
“I don’t know what you’re planning on doing, men,” Stoddard said to Rangi and Jedrek after a few minutes of silence. Both of them were staring at the ground with their heads in their hands. “But I’d prefer it if you stayed on this ship for the time being. I think our number one priority just became getting Captain Baas and Cadence back.”
They both popped their heads up in surprise and looked at Stoddard with a glimmer of hope in their eyes.
“Rarely have I met anyone as honorable as your entire crew is,” Stoddard continued. “And I think it’s our duty to pay you back.”
“I can second that,” Kynan pronounced. “I owe you all a tremendous debt. I’ll do whatever needs to be done to help get them back, even if it means laying down my own life.”
Rangi’s lip started to quiver as he stood up proudly before them. Jedrek followed suit.
“It’s our pleasure to serve under you,” Rangi said emotionally while extending a grateful hand to Stoddard.
“No, Rangi, it’s my honor to serve with you,” Stoddard replied while accepting his hand. Stoddard then leaned over and shook Jedrek’s hand with just as much gratitude. Kynan then took the opportunity to shake their hands as well.
“Let’s go set you up with officer quarters and make arrangements to get you a new ship. As soon as we’re able to, we’ll give you an armed escort to Rona so that you can get your things and take care of any loose ends.”
Rangi and Jedreck looked at him cockeyed for a second after hearing Stoddard say the name of their hideout. “I’ve known for a long time, men,” Stoddard said with a flick of his hand, “but that’s not important at the moment. And don’t worry, you won’t be abandoning it. But it’s possible that you won’t be spending a lot of time over there for a while.”
“That’s absolutely fine, Colonel,” Rangi said reassuringly. “As long as you have a place for me to store my weapons and my other mechanical legs, I’m good to go.”
“Same here, sir,” Jedrek said. “I mean, not the legs and weapons of course, but I’m good. All I need is my clothes and some tools. Warrina has medical supplies I know she’ll want to get. But other than that, I think we’re good. The place was built for extended leaves of absence.”
“Good, good,” Stoddard replied. “Ben, why don’t you stay here with Kynan while I get them set up?”
“Yes, sir,” Ben said as Stoddard walked away with Rangi and Jedrek.
Ben had never felt so weird in his entire life, all sixteen and a half years of it. He was still experiencing minor tremors as a result of the massive rush of adrenaline that had flooded his body two times in the span of only a few minutes. He almost felt like he was experiencing the beginning stages of a fever as hot and cold flashes waved over him. His mind was in a fog, making it difficult to focus. And how could he when so many different things had happened over the past few days, or even the past few hours?
This didn’t go unnoticed by Kynan, who took up a seat next to him.
“Ben, I know it’s a cliché for people to ask someone how they’re doing in a stressful situation, but quite frankly, I don’t know what else to ask, or even how to ask it,” Kynan said.
“I guess I could say the same to you,” Ben replied. Kynan nodded his head and put a hand on Ben’s shoulders.
“We’ll get through this together, Ben. Have faith.”
“Have faith,” Ben repeated.
“I don’t know if you need to talk about this now, or if it’s better to talk about it later. When it first happened to me, I had to get it off of my chest immediately.”
“What’s that?” Ben asked.
“Killing someone.”
Ben put his hands to his face and rubbed it somberly. “I don’t even know what to think about it. I never wanted to kill anyone. If I could have gone my whole life without ever doing it I…” He started to choke up, making it difficult to finish his sentence.
“I know, Ben, I know. But you did it as an act of valor. There was no wrong in it.”
Warrina walked into the room in front of them, and they both got to their feet. “The doctors you have on this ship are pretty amazing,” she said. “Kara’s going to be okay.”
Kynan’s face scrunched, and tears began to fill his eyes. He turned to Ben, and they both embraced in a hug.
“She’s been moved to a room not far from here. We can go there now if you want.”
“Thank you,” Kynan said sincerely.
Warrina led them to Kara’s room, where she appeared to be peacefully sleeping. A doctor was in there tending to her.
“Doctor Shultz, I’m sorry about before,” Kynan said apologetically to the older, grey-haired man.
“Don’t worry about it, Kynan,” the doctor replied in a grindy voice that matched his look perfectly. “People behave strangely in high-stress environments, and it’s ten times worse when it involves their own child.”
“Thank you,” Kynan replied appreciatively.
“I have her in an induced coma right now. Not to worry, though, it’s just a precaution. Her body needs to focus all of its energy on healing. I’ll assess her again in a few hours.”
“Can I stay with her?”
“Day and night if you’d like.”
The words had no sooner left the doctor’s mouth when Ben pulled two standard chairs away from the wall. “I’m taking that as an invitation to camp out here as well,” he said. Neither man protested.
“Doctor Shultz,” Warrina said. “Ben here has a few wounds. I can patch him up myself, but I could use a few supplies to do it.”
“Absolutely, Miss. I must say, I’m thoroughly impressed with your skills. Are you just a combat medic?”
“Not exactly.”
“She’s actually a doctor,” Kynan cut in. “It’s a long story, but she definitely knows her stuff.”
“Well, Doctor, she’s very fortunate that you were down there. And I’m glad to have met you.” He shook Warrina’s hand. “Feel free to use whatever supplies you need.”
“Thank you, Doctor Shultlz,” Warrina replied warmly.
“It’s my pleasure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I’ve been called over to the Athena. They’re overwhelmed with wounded soldiers. I’ll check back with you all later.”
“Warrina,” Kynan said after the doctor left. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“Kara’s a special girl,” Warrina replied sincerely. “I’m not capable of having children, but if I ever had a daughter, Kara’s the kind of daughter I would want to have. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. I honestly mean it. I think I speak for everyone on the crew when I say that they all feel the same way about her. Kara and Ben haven’t been with us for too long, but they’re our family now.”
Kynan extended a hand to her, and she accepted it warmly. “Family is the most important thing in the universe,” he said. “All of you are more than welcome to be in mine.”