“Ye shut yer hole or I'll drag yer ass to the mast room before mornin' shift starts an' the Captain's first duty o' the day will be to come up with a punishment for your subordination. He's not a mornin' person.”
“Yes sir,” relented the server quietly.
“All brains and no backbone, some things never change,” Frost grunted as he led the much thinner man towards the door, pushing and lifting.
“Everything all right boss?” asked Hunsler as he and two other gunnery crew members just off early evening watch stood up at their table.
“Will be soon, puttin' this traitor off ship tonight. I'll be back for the next round.”
“You sure sir?” asked another gunnery crew member.
“Does it look like this pup can turn his luck around? Eyes on yer drink lad!”
As the gunnery crew members sat back down and watched Frost leave with his prisoner, Burke tried to grab for one side of the door only to have his grip forced loose as he was pressed through.
The trip down the hallway to a darkened crew cabin was quieter than Frost had expected. Burke's breathing was heavy but Frost could tell the man was steeling himself for whatever was coming next.
Once they arrived Frost tossed him into the middle of the room, where he stumbled over a low coffee table. Frost had his sidearm aimed squarely at him, there was nowhere to go, at least not fast enough to dodge a full on blast from a highly charged disintegration weapon. The vacsuits might take one shot from such a weapon, but certainly not a second. “On your knees, Burke,” Frost instructed quietly.
He hesitated; “please, there's history and-”
“Your knees, you git!” Shamus exploded.
Burke obliged, his eyes flinching from his old friend to the floor; “You and I've b-been through some tight spots, s-seen some good times and…”
“You must've thought I was the most daft man aboard, that's the only reason why you'd borrow my ident. Dinna think I'd figure it out.”
“N-no, I don't know, you j-just don't check the little things…”
“Well we've got proper folk goin' through that kinda thing, we're watchin' each other's backs. You'd probably stifle here, feel smothered, but you're lucky. If it weren't for all the good folk here I woulda slagged you by now.”
“You're right, I shouldn't be here, I don't d-deserve…”
“There's truth to that, aye.” Frost backed up to the door and locked it without taking his eye off Burke for more than a second, punching in his personal security code. “Now take off that suit.”
Burke looked at him for a moment, confused.
“Take it off!”
He did as he instructed, signalling the suit to slit all the way down the front by dragging his index finger across it while pressing the button under his collar.
“Give it here.”
He pushed the suit towards Frost.
Shamus drew it the rest of the way to him with his foot and manipulated the room's controls for a moment. “You remember Sigma Aconis? That crew we found all frozen to death when their hauler sprung a leak they couldn't get to?”
“D-don't, please, not that.”
The air in the room shifted as Frost finished setting the environmental controls to slowly depressurize the compartment and cool the air. His own vacuum suit head piece sealed. “Now there's somethin' botherin' me. How in blazes did you get on this ship?”
Burke's eyes looked in every direction, searching for some kind of solution, any way out of his current predicament. “Came aboard by mistake, didn't know Captain was running the show until I was all hired on.”
“Ye really do think I'm the dullest soul,” Frost took three quick strides forward and pistol whipped the other man with every ounce of strength he had. “You have less than a minute before there's real damage done, then not long after 'till you're dead! The truth, you whoreson!”
Burke started trying to pick himself up off the carpeted deck and gave up, fighting for breath and wincing at the two teeth Frost had just broken. “Captain'll have me done in-”
“What? Who d'you think you crossed here? I'll have ye dead with no answer an' sleep just as sound as if ye gave me one and lived to tell about it. Speak up, might be that the Captain'll give ye a kind of mercy I won't.”
“Wheeler! As soon as I got planetside I caught a call from the Stellarnet for anyone just off the Samson. I sent a message, got one back from Wheeler, said he'd give me a place on his ship an' a fair share of the bounty from Jake. We knew if we left you there with no means you'd have to call on him for help, and I gave Wheeler the transmitter codes for the Samson. I swear that's how it was!” Burke answered hurriedly as he felt the air grow much colder, thinner.
“Well that answers how he tracked the Samson so quick. D'you know you almost got all of us killed? That bastard was capturin' Ash an' a couple others for himself an' killin' everyone else.”
Burke shook his head emphatically; “I didn't know. Thought he was takin' Captain on the ground.
Frost just shook his head and let the point rest. “What the hell kept you aboard Triton when Captain took over?”
“It's like I said! Tried a few times durin' recruiting runs, even tried to leave with those Aucharian military types, but they stopped me, said I wasn't in their database. There's eyes on every important spot on the ship!”
“You coulda taken a pod.”
“Even you know Captain woulda caught me an' we'd be right back here or worse!”
Frost adjusted the controls by the door so the compartment wouldn't continue to depressurize, but went on to set another control. “Should be interestin' to see this.”
“What are you doing?”
“Wonderin' if the security team will get here before the temp in here drops to minus ninety. If they do, you'll make it to the brig, if not, well, I'll send a farewell to yer sister for ye.”
“I've told you everything!”
“Where's Silver?”
“I have no idea! He wouldn't turn on Captain! Went his own way!” he was already shivering, wrapping his arms around himself.
“You know we've no ship doc on board yet? Imagine, a ship this size with no doc.”
“Eight years! I only crossed you the one time! I'll make it up to ya somehow!”
“How're you gonna do that? What do you have that I want?”
“Name it! I'll do everything I can to make it happen!”
Frost laughed and shook his head. “Your edge is gone lad, maybe you can crack inta pretty hard info systems, but I wouldna have you on my crew, no matter what you've got for trade.”
Burke's teeth chattered and his body shook as he flexed his hands, blew into them and put them over his ears. “This is it then? Eight y-years and j-just like that…”
“Just like that lad, I get mine and you get gone,” Frost grinned so widely that he wished the other man could see through the blacked out faceplate of his vacsuit.
“Chief Frost, we can see what's going on through the security feed, let us in!” said a voice over the emergency band of his communicator. “This is lieutenant Garrison, let us in sir!”
“Lucky, might only lose a couple toes,” Frost said to Burke, who looked back at him hopefully. His lips were turning blue, white crystals formed around the corners of his mouth and his nostrils. “I'm havin' trouble with the door, can't remember my code in the excitement, you'll have to override,” Frost replied back at the security team before re-muting his end of the transmission.
“We're already on it. Can you adjust the climate controls from your end?” asked the Lieutenant.
“They're locked behind my code too. Sorry, looks like I can run a gun deck, but when it comes to these damned ship systems I'm just daft.”
“We'll be inside in a minute! Can you materialize a vacsuit for your prisoner?”
“Oi, dinna think of that,” Frost replied before muting his end again and bursting into laughter.
“G-god, p-please F-Frost!” Burke's skin was turning bleach pale in large patches, his nose and outer
