Hands cupped his elbows. “Lift your foot.”
Aubrey lifted his foot and was helped into what felt like a full-body ship-suit. The fabric was thickly padded, warm and very welcome. He sealed it closed with fumbling fingers. “How long?”
Socks were tugged onto his feet. “‘How long’ what, kid?”
“How long have I been in the tank?” Aubrey lifted his feet for a pair of boots.
“Um, let’s see…”
The boots were fastened closed. The damned things actually fit better than his last pair he’d worn. Aubrey felt something itching on his neck. He scratched at it and discovered that it was his own hair. It was past his shoulders. He froze. He’d been in the tank long enough for his hair to grow that long from a buzz cut?
“I’m not sure. You’ve been in that tank since I got on board three cycles ago.
Aubrey lifted his head. “Three thirty-day cycles?”
“Oh, longer than that.” The other man chuckled. “I’m thinking at least two more.”
Aubrey felt his knees shake beneath him. “Five cycles?” He was tugged forward and out into a carpeted hallway.
“Let’s see, I think the limit is nine cycles, and they told us to pull you because you’d reached the limit.”
Aubrey tripped on the carpet. “Are you saying I’ve been in that tank for nine cycles?” He couldn’t grasp being in the tank that amount of time. It hadn’t seemed that long at all. “So now where am I going?”
“Right now? Where they told us to put you.”
Aubrey dug in his heels. “You’re not putting me in that tank again!”
The older man laughed. “Oh hell no, you can’t go back in there. Stay in there too long and you won’t be able to function outside it.” They tugged him forward.
Interstellar Service & Discipline: Lost Star
15
Aubrey walked. It was that or be dragged. “Then what?”
“What were you in it for?”
Aubrey stiffened. They didn’t know? “I was in it, I think, for lung damage.”
“Lung damage?”
“That must have been some damage to need breathing liquid.”
Aubrey clenched his jaw. “I suppose one too many visits to the airlock would do that.”
“The airlock? Who’d you kill?”
“Who did I kill?” Aubrey chuckled, and the chuckle became outright laughter. He threw back his head, laughing as the tears burned down his cheeks. He finally stopped, gasping for breath. “How many ships in the past nine months?”
“Are you okay, kid?”
Aubrey looked up with his sightless eyes and screamed. “How many ships did this fucking ship take in the past nine months?”
“Uh, forty-seven, I think.”
Aubrey’s knees gave out, and he dropped to his hands and knees. “Bleeding Fate…” There were hundreds of lives on some of those ships, and thousands on others.
“Come on, get up.” They worked to pull him upright.
Aubrey climbed unsteadily onto his feet. “You want to know who I killed?” The hurt was so large, he couldn’t quite feel it. “I killed every bloody man aboard every bloody ship you took.”
“What?”
“The kid’s hysterical…”
Aubrey allowed them to tug him forward. He’d killed forty-seven ships. And he was going to kill more if they jacked him back into the ship. He couldn’t physically fight them. He was completely blind and without a drop of physical augmentation. He couldn’t mentally fight them. The ship was too strong, and the nav-pilot was too crazy.
He had to die. It was the only way to stop the killing.
A vibration raced under Aubrey’s feet. There was a distant howl of metal.
“What the hell was that?”
Aubrey smiled. He knew exactly what that was. He remembered it from his own ship. “We’re under attack.”
The man on Aubrey’s right jerked. “We can’t be…?”
The man on his left released Aubrey’s arm. “Yes we can. I heard that we’ve been in Skeldhi space for two days now.”
Aubrey blinked his blind eyes. Skeldhi space? That species had a particular hate for humans. A smile stretched his mouth. He didn’t have one drop of code to get into 16
Morgan Hawke
their craft. He didn’t have their coding language. He wouldn’t be killing any ships today.
“What in bleeding fury are we doing in Skeldhi space?”
Aubrey released a chuckle. “Getting your asses blown away, I’d say.”
“Who the hell gave clearance to pull that kid from his tank?” The voice bellowed right in front of them.
Both men at Aubrey’s elbows released him.
“Captain! Uh, it came from medical, sir!”
Aubrey frowned. That captain sounded nothing like Moribund.
“Yes, sir, Captain, sir! We got notification to pull him, clean him, get him dressed, then take him to”—there was a pause—“dock port seventy-nine, sir!”
“That’s a shuttle bay. Why the hell would someone send him there?”
A strong vibration shook the deck.
Aubrey fell to his knees and laughed. Because someone wanted him to live at all costs. The only person who had known that there was no way in hell he could tap a Skeldhi ship.
Niobe.
He groaned. Bleeding Fate… What were they doing in Skeldhi space? Committing suicide. Niobe must have finally had enough ship-killings and decided to take herself out of the game.
“Son of a fucking bitch!” The captain’s shout came from dead ahead. “Give me the damned kid. You two get to battle stations!”
Aubrey felt his upper arm grabbed by a hand that had serious power in it. He was dragged to his feet and winced.
“Come on.”
Aubrey went. There was no way he could fight the strength in that hand. It would only get his arm broken. “I can’t tap a Skeldhi craft. I don’t have the programs.”
“I know. The nav-pilot already told me.”
Aubrey’s brows shot up. “Then where are we going?”
“To your escape shuttle. Moribund will fry my ass if his most prized possession gets lost.”
Aubrey licked his lips. “This would be a hell of a lot easier for both of us if I could see.”
“Shit.” The captain came to a halt. “Turn around.”
Aubrey turned around. Something was jammed into his data port on the back of his skull, then yanked back out. The darkness brightened.
“Come on.” The hand on Aubrey’s arm jerked him back around and started hauling him down the hallway.
Interstellar Service &
