Chapter 52: Chapter 36: Promises

The hatch opened, revealing a weary Dash. Brock shoved Gaius and Wesley inside. They bounced off the far bulkhead. Brock’s large frame filled the open hatch. He drew a knife and held it out to their bound wrists. “Hands, both of you.”

Wesley complied, and Gaius reluctantly followed. Brock cut the ties. “Don’t even think about trying anything.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Gaius said. “Who’s going to fly the ship?”

A hearty laugh escaped from Brock’s meaty frame. He said, “I’m not even a pilot, and I’ll do a better job than you.”

“Oh, go crank yourself,” Gaius said. “If your piloting is as good as your thruster calibrations—”

Brock’s grin sank into a scowl. He lunged at Gaius, who balled up. Brock stepped back, grinning at his successful feint. “Enjoy your stay,” he said and shut the hatch.

Wesley shifted next to Dash, scanning for any signs of further injuries. He hadn’t seen the captain since the stunning in the bay. Dash had banged his head when he fell after being knocked unconscious, and Milia hadn’t let Wesley examine the captain. Her heartlessness filled him with equal parts animosity and guilt. “Captain, are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dash said, though his eyes looked a little dull. “Unfortunately that wasn’t the first time I’ve been stunned.”

“All the more reason—”

Dash held up a hand. “You can help me by not bothering me about it.”

Wesley nodded and let the captain be. Without his medical equipment, there wasn’t much he could do anyway. Gaius slumped his back against the bulkhead. “Can you believe those greedy fools went along with her?”

“Yes, I can,” Dash said. “Should’ve seen it coming.” He filled them in on what he’d learned from her.

“She hijacked the Stardancer to get another chance at taking her old ship?” Gaius said. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“As someone with limited experience of commercial cargo operations, I reach the same conclusion,” Wesley said. “If it didn’t work the first time, won’t it be much harder to attempt it again?”

“Yes,” Dash answered.

“So what’s our plan to squash hers?” Gaius said.

“There isn’t one.” Dash said. “I think you should ask to join her crew.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Gaius said.

“Captain, what she has done is immoral. I could never join with her,” Wesley said.

Dash said, “If you join with her, you at least have a chance of convincing her to dump me on some backwater rock. You’re still alive—”

“No,” Gaius and Wesley said at the same time.

Dash eyed each of them. “I could order you to do it.”

“You’re not captain anymore,” Gaius said with a sullen grin.

A hint of a smile crawled onto Dash’s face. “Guess I’m stuck with you then. If anyone has a bright idea, now’s the time to bring it up.”

But no one did.

“Rest while you can,” Dash said. He lowered himself to the deck and shut his eyes.

Wesley observed him once more. An expression of acceptance spread across the captain’s face, the lines in his skin relaxing. Time drifted by. Soon, his breathing grew shallow and he was asleep.

“Whatever happens, I’m not giving up on us,” Wesley whispered. He glanced at Gaius and found the pilot asleep as well.

Wesley shifted toward the compartment door, where he could stretch out upon the deck. He lay on the metal grating, thoughts racing. He’d been so preoccupied with his own status as a targeted man that he failed to see it happen to Dash and Gaius right under his nose. The guilt and shame of Milia’s betrayal gnawed at the pit of his stomach. Had his need to be helpful, to serve others been his undoing? No matter what Dash said, he couldn’t help but feel responsible.

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He’d give anything if he could talk to Jo. But then, he already knew what the answer would be.

Hold his head up high, and press forward.

He promised himself there, trapped in that storage compartment, that he’d do everything in his power to make it right. He whispered it to the Lords, clinging to the thought, repeating it over and over, until he joined the others in restless sleep.

---

On the bridge of the Stardancer, the ops crew raised their mugs. “To Milia,” they said in unison.

Seated in the captain’s chair, Milia forced a smile as she returned the toast. “To a new beginning.”

They drank. Brock let out a raspy sigh while the others coughed down the liquor. Rosalie said, “Good Lords, this is horrible.”

“How did Dash ever drink this?” Draug said.

“His taste is as bad as his captaining,” Henrik said.

Brock lifted the flask with a slight smile. “More for me,” he said, and poured himself another.

Milia shifted in the chair, pressing her lips together as she observed the incompetent ops crew who’d almost cost her another mutiny. She was fortunate their former captain shared the same trait. While the apparent elevator mishap claimed by the ops crew could’ve foiled the entire mutiny, the glitch in the escape pod’s system led to Dash’s downfall. Had he launched, he would’ve alerted SecForce, and she—along with the ops crew—would be locked away in the Depot’s brig, awaiting trial and severe punishment.

But that didn’t happen, and here she was, in control of the ship, with a handful of loyal crewmembers. Loyal for the moment, at least. She should have been beaming with satisfaction, hyped that her chance at redemption came so soon. Yet, it all felt hollow, unfulfilling, like she’d eaten a delicious meal but was still hungry. She knew there was only one way she could truly be satiated.

Captain Rakton had to die.

Her former captain was a psychotic buffoon who would’ve been dead already had the cowardly crew of the Trusty Terran not backed out at the last minute. Milia was only alive by her split-second decision to shoot out the main coolant regulator during her desperate escape. Had that not happened, Rakton would’ve tracked her down in the escape pod and torn it and Milia apart. But her quick thinking saved her, and she was picked up by a long range hauler before Rakton could find her. A sob story about a black market exchange with pirates gone bad kept the hauler crew quiet, for they wanted no part of a SecForce investigation just as much as Milia. She soon found herself departing the ship at the Depot and heading straight to the pub to wallow in her misery.

The Terrran would make an appearance somewhere in the Atan system soon enough. Milia now only needed a plan to take back what was rightfully hers. It was her idea to turn to deep space salvaging that had left the crew with lucrative shares. It was her idea to get the CSL—her creds to fund the legal forms and shell corporation sponsor, her license risked during the application to the Praxa Administration, her body used to jump it to the front of the queue. At least the official she’d seduced at the pub had been somewhat cute. Made the nights in his bunk borderline enjoyable.

It wasn’t just Rakton’s incompetence that burned Milia. The buffoon had taken the credit for everything that Milia had done. And worst of all, Rakton’s behavior—like attempting to murder that baker in a drunken rage—almost ruined the whole operation. The ensuing SecForce investigation would’ve exposed the Terran’s illegal activities of late. The entire crew would’ve been doomed.

That was Milia’s breaking point. Her whole life had been spent bowing down to those who didn’t deserve it. Her addict foster parents, then the orphanage administrators. The loser instructors at trade school, who couldn’t hack it on their own. Each of her three inept captains, with Rakton being the worst. All that should’ve ended with Rakton’s dead body hurled at the nearest star.

Milia would find her way back to her old ship, find a way to get close to Rakton, then she’d finish the job she started. The Trusty Terran would be hers. She’d be in charge. And then everything would finally fall into place.

“So, Captain, how soon until we pick up the job you had in mind?” Rosalie said, interrupting Milia’s drifting thoughts.

“Soon,” Milia answered. She’d boosted the Stardancer to the far side of Praxum and shot off on an outbound vector, going dark in case anyone tried to track them. They’d stay this way for a bit, drifting through the void in a sea of scattered traffic, watching the passive sensors to see if they were being followed. Many ships were dark, attempting to avoid SecForce scrutiny. She would need a few course corrections to get where she wanted to go. But that would come in time. For now, they would lie low. “I need time to prepare, and the ship needs your attention as always. But for right now, we celebrate.”

The real celebration, she knew, would happen soon enough.

After they had their fill, she collected the weapons and sent them back on duty. Then she went to Dash’s cabin.

It was spartan and not much bigger than her previous one, but still an improvement. She dug through the lockers, finding clothes and not much else. The safe took some work to open. Inside was a modest pile of hard creds, a few spare magazines for his pistol, a crude kinetic sleeve gun, and a small brown wooden box.

She pocketed the mags and placed the pistols inside. No way she was risking them changing their minds. She retrieved the sleeve gun and examined it. The weapon was an antique, yet was as deadly as any modern pistol. A neat toy, or maybe something more, as she considered the possibilities.

Leaving it on the desk, she took the box out next. It appeared handmade; simple yet still beautiful with its smoothed edges and stained exterior. She popped the metal clasp and opened it. Inside was a multicolored ribbon a few centimeters long, a bronze-colored metal sun as wide as two of her fingers, and a blue star hanging from a blue ribbon. She was certain she knew what they signified, but confirmed it with a quick scan on her PD and search on GalaxyNet.

The results appeared, confirming her presumption.

“Damn,” she said. It didn't matter, her plan wasn’t changing, even if her opinion about Dash shifted. She returned the items to the safe and closed it, the lock now tied to her biometrics. Then she laid down in the bunk, resetting the cushioning to adjust to her form.

It didn’t take long for sleep to come, and dreams of vengeance and glory to follow.

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