Infinity's End: Books 4-6, page 43
His head flinched back. “But how—?” Realization dawned on him. “Of course. Vrij’s tracks are different than everyone else’s. I should have anticipated that.” He smiled and turned around again. “You’ve caught me in a rare moment of weakness, Captain. I applaud you.”
“No applause necessary.” They were almost to the bay. She’d feel so much better once he was back on his own ship. Perhaps it would be a good idea to sedate all the Bulaq before sending them back off. She should call Xax and get a medical team down here to administer it to each Bulaq they collected. It would make the job much easier. “Go ahead and take him inside,” Evie told the two security officers. “I’ll be in there in a minute.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ensign Folier replied, pushing Diamant forward. He still had a grin on his face Evie couldn’t help but dislike. Despite everything, he was still toying with her. She glanced down to tap the comm on the back of her hand when something hard rammed into her, knocking her to the ground and the weapon from her hands.
Chaos erupted.
Chapter Thirty
“I don’t like it.” Laura paced the width of Engineering. Cas watched her as Zenfor continued to work on the engine systems behind him, as did the rest of the engineering crew. “That bastard is still hiding something, I know it.”
“Like what?” Cas asked. “He has Evie plus two other guards escorting him. What else is he going to do? Besides, Diamant doesn’t come across to me like the kind of person who gets his hands dirty. If he were going to do something rash, he’d get someone else to do it. And we have everyone else locked down.”
“H-he’s d-deceptive,” Vrij said from the corner of the room. He’d backed into it and stood there, as if being smashed up against the walls was the only thing keeping his sanity.
“See, even he agrees with me.” Laura motioned to Vrij. “I’m calling her, I gotta know everything’s okay.”
“And what are you going to say?” Cas asked.
“I’ll make something up about the weapons systems.” She tapped the back of her hand. “Captain, come in.” There was nothing on the other end. Laura screwed up her face. “Captain?”
Cas noticed an unease forming in his stomach. The kind that always came along when one of his courier missions was about to go south. He turned to Zenfor. “Anything out of the ordinary on the sensor logs?”
“I was just going over those.” She glanced up to Sesster, whose arm moved over to the primary sensor control units adjacent to him. “He’s worried too. There are anomalies in the system.”
“Evie, come in,” Laura said into her comm. Maybe her concerns weren’t misplaced after all. But how could Diamant have gotten the upper hand? She wasn’t stupid and she wouldn’t have turned her back on him.
“Are the force barriers still holding?” Cas asked.
Zenfor moved over to another monitor to check. “Yes. They’re all still in place and most, if not all the Bulaq are under guard by one or more security officers.”
Which meant the frequencies Vrij had given them were accurate and Diamant’s people weren’t still roaming the ship. So why did something feel wrong all of a sudden? Laura gave up and stared at him, her eyes accusing as if to say I told you so.
“Okay, fine, let’s go check,” Cas said. “Vrij, you come with us. I’m willing to bet you’re better at hand-to-hand combat with your people than we are.”
He nodded again. “T-they w-would slice y-you to r-ribbons.”
Laura’s eyes went wide. “We need to go. Now!” She ran over to one of the supply lockers in Engineering and pulled out a pulse rifle. Cas instinctively reached for his sidearm, but it wasn’t there. It was in the security lockup on level twelve, near the Bays. He should swing by and grab it, just in case.
“Try and figure out what’s going on,” he told Zenfor. “Comm us as soon as you have some information.”
She’d pulled up an image of Bay One where they were supposedly escorting Diamant. Everything looked normal as far as Cas could see, though Diamant and the escort hadn’t arrived yet. What could be taking them so long? It wasn’t that far of a trip.
“Are you coming or am I doing this alone?” Laura asked, already at the door to Engineering. Cas and Vrij jogged to catch up with her.
He wasn’t sure if it was Laura’s insistence or the fact that his mind had been somewhere else while they all waited in Engineering but the hairs on the back of his neck now stood straight up. He turned to Vrij. “Can I count on you to help us?”
Vrij tapped his chest twice, though he was clearly nervous. For a moment he thought about calling Box as well; the extra muscle wouldn’t hurt. As they followed Laura down the long corridors Cas tapped his comm.
“Yeah, boss,” his friend said on the other end.
“Get down to Bay One, I think we’ve got a problem here,” he replied.
“Caspian problem or actual medical problem?”
“A Bulaq problem,” he said, breathing hard as they picked up the pace. Laura was fast.
“Caspian problem then. Shall I bring the bazooka or the grenade launcher?”
“Just get down there! We’re on our way.” He ended the transmission. Grenade launcher. What had he been watching now? Wasn’t Xax supposed to be keeping him too busy for net dramas?
As they ran Vrij’s mandibles extended out and in front of him, almost like protective blades. Cas really didn’t want this to get bloody, but as he studied the gleaming metal blades he could see how they might easily slice a person in half. This could go bad fast.
They took the nearest hypervator down two levels to twelve but in their haste Cas didn’t even bother veering off toward the weapons lockup. It was too far away and between Laura and Vrij he was confident they had enough weapons.
When they arrived in Bay One it became clear to Cas that they had severely underestimated Diamant’s cunning. Instead of a contingent of security officers waiting to escort Diamant to his shuttle, the Bay was a wreck. A second Bulaq ship had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and was perched in the middle of the deck while at least forty men under Diamant’s command subdued and restrained the Bay crew and security officers. Cas noticed the adjacent Bay where the spacewings and pilots were stationed was blocked off by a force barrier, though it hadn’t been one of the ones Zenfor had set up. And in the middle of the crew the Bulaq had rounded up so far was Evie, on her knees with her hands behind her head while one of the Bulaq bound her wrists together.
“Let her go, motherfucker,” Laura said with perfect calm in her voice. The pulse rifle was outstretched in front of her and she took slow, calculating steps toward the group. Diamant turned with a smile on his face. He surveyed the three of them, though Vrij held back with Cas right behind him.
Cas tapped his comm. “Box, abort, we have boarders,” he whispered.
“Ah, Caspian, how good of you to join us,” Diamant announced. “You’ve saved me an awful lot of trouble by delivering yourself to us. And there is no use calling for help.” He turned to Laura. “Because if you value the life of your captain…” In his hand was Evie’s gun, pointed right at her head. “Such crude weapons. Perhaps we should demonstrate how we deal with unruly prisoners. Ju’lid, if you don’t mind.”
The Bulaq standing behind Crewman Abernathy smiled. Abernathy never saw it coming. One moment he was staring at Cas, his face drawn in confusion and the next his head had been severed clean from his body and was rolling across the floor, leaving a trail of slick blood in its wake. His body, which took a moment to register it was in the process of dying and remained upright for an almost comical amount of time, flopped over, blood pouring from the severed neck.
“You son of a bitch,” Laura growled behind the rifle.
“Now you wouldn’t want a similar fate to befall your captain, would you?” Already one of the Bulaq stood behind Evie, despite Diamant pointing the weapon at her. Evie’s face was one of fury.
“Just shoot the bastard already!” she yelled. Cas was sure she was pissed at herself for letting him get the drop on her.
Laura winced then unshouldered the rifle, throwing it to the ground. “Get away from her,” she said, too much emotion in her voice. Cas was sure Diamant would take notice.
“Of course. Now that we all have an understanding.” He passed the pistol off to one of his men. Cas couldn’t stop staring at Abernathy’s severed head, his surprised eyes bulging from their sockets. “Now, Captain, we were in the middle of a negotiation if I’m not mistaken.”
Three of the Bulaq came over and restrained Laura, Cas, and Vrij, taking them to join the others.
“This isn’t a negotiation, this is a hostage situation,” Evie spat.
“You say comette, I say cometé. In the end, does it really matter how we label our respective positions?” Diamant smiled.
“What does he want?” Cas asked as he was pushed to his knees and his hands bound behind him.
“Control of the ship,” she replied.
“You will make a ship-wide announcement telling your people to surrender themselves willingly, otherwise one member of the crew will die every fifteen minutes until either they comply, or we run out of people to execute,” Diamant announced. “If I were you, I would encourage them to cooperate. We will deposit you on the next planet we pass.”
“You never had any interest in trading, did you? Your only goal was to get on this ship. Zenfor was right, you were behind the attacks.”
Diamant placed his right hand on his left cheek. “You flatter me. It’s true, my influence does have a far reach. Who knows what others will do in my name? I control what a rogue faction of radicals does when they happen to see a vulnerable ship passing by? But there is one thing for sure; it’s for the good of the Bulaq people. We will be strong yet again.” He turned to Evie. “Now, would you like to make the announcement, or witness the severing of your first officer here?” He blinked, still smiling. “Or perhaps your tactical officer.”
“Take me to a comm panel,” Evie said through her teeth. Cas glanced back at Laura who had dropped her head.
“Hey,” he whispered. “It’s not your fault. It doesn’t matter what we would have done, they always had the upper hand.”
“Yeah.” She lifted her head enough so her eyes were barely visible under her drawn brows. “And who let them on the ship in the first place?”
Cas turned back around and sat back on his legs. She was right. All of this was his fault, Evie never should have put him in charge. Dammit. And he knew better too. It was too much to hope that the second time would be any different. Why? Why had he assumed he could do things any better this time around? Because it wasn’t official? Because he didn’t technically have a rank? Those things didn’t matter in the slightest. Leadership came from character, and it was clear to Cas he’d never had the character to begin with. Otherwise he never would have put his crew in this position. And now, unless Zenfor and Sesster could figure out what was going on before it was too late, they would be removed from the ship and left for dead on some barren planet. Andromeda would find their way to the Coalition and destroy it just as they had the Bulaq and there was nothing he could do about it.
And it was all because of him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Zenfor stared at the feed coming in from Engineering. The captain had just made a ship-wide announcement informing the crew they were not to resist the Bulaq and to do as they said. But Zenfor wasn’t having it. Diazal wasn’t in command of her. She was her own consul and she would be until the day she died. And in the little time they still had before Bulaq invaders flooded every corner of this ship, she had been trying to figure out how they had gotten past ship’s security.
It doesn’t matter. We need to prepare. Don’t do anything rash.
“They’re not taking me into custody,” she muttered, going over the information on the screen. It looked like the Bulaq had managed to break into the internal sensor data and put everything on loop. But they had done it with such skill it was difficult to tell any changes had been made at all.
If you fight them, you’re putting the crew at risk.
“So what? They do nothing but lie and deceive each other. It’s what they deserve,” she replied.
You don’t believe that. I know you too well.
“You don’t know me as well as you think. Weak elements must be purged. Everyone on this ship is a liability; what matters is getting the information back to Mil’less and the others.” Her mind searched for any option. If she could reconfigure the same kind of probe they were going to use back at the Excel Nebula and load it into a shuttle with an undercurrent, it would reach the Coalition. It might not be soon enough to make a difference, but it would at least get there. That was more than she could say for this ship. But did she have time to configure and launch one?
Does that mean I’m a liability as well?
She’d been so intent on working she hadn’t even realized what she’d said. She stopped and glanced up. Most of the crew in Engineering had stopped working, instead they stood huddled in small groups, watching the doors precariously. All except for Tyler, who continued to work regardless. His face was centimeters from his screen. Whatever he was doing, it looked intense. “No,” she replied, looking up at Sesster. “It doesn’t include you. And you’re right. It doesn’t include the others. But you have to admit, things would be so much simpler if you all stopped lying to each other.”
The humans have had a hard time with it in the past. It was one of the failings of their old societies. We’re working on it, but not hard enough it seems.
“Consul!” Tyler yelled, running over to them. “I need your help. I’m trying to lock out the main computers so the Bulaq can’t use them. But I need a foreign encryption key.” He glanced up to Sesster. “And I need your security clearance. Mine only goes so high.”
“Will that work?” Zenfor asked, glancing at the door. They couldn’t be far now.
“I don’t know. We have protocols for when ships are boarded but with the amount of damage we’ve sustained a lot of the backups are offline. Including the security protocols.”
“That’s not from the damage,” Zenfor said. “The Bulaq did that on purpose.”
“We need to lock out what we can before it’s too late.”
She had to admire Tyler. Despite everything he wasn’t giving up. While the rest of the crew had already stopped, anticipating what was on the horizon, he charged on. She felt as if she’d misjudged him before.
The door to Engineering rolled away, revealing a dozen Bulaq, half with pulse rifles and the other half brandishing nothing other than their back mandibles. Zenfor had the immediate urge to rush them and begin tearing them limb from limb.
No, we can’t put the others in jeopardy.
“I know, I know,” she muttered. She’d been too late; there hadn’t been enough time to even load a probe with their data, much less launch it. She watched the Bulaq spread out, taking each person individually. One with its mandibles out approached her and Tyler.
“You, come with me. You,” he pointed to Tyler, “stay here.”
Zenfor flexed her fist. Just how hard were their skulls? Could they take the full impact from a Sil fist? Especially one that had been trained using the ancient fighting technique Kailocution? She really wanted to find out. “Hands out,” the Bulaq said. She slowly extended her hands, fighting the urge to grab him by his tiny head and crush it, but instead she allowed them to be bound together. She tested the magnetic lock between them and found it was stronger than she’d anticipated. Though she might still be able to break them in a pinch. “Follow the rest,” the Bulaq said, indicating the rest of the Engineering crew who had been rounded up. Only Tyler and Sesster remained. The Bulaq weren’t stupid; they knew they needed both of them to use the undercurrent. Diamant had been busy since coming aboard.
Zenfor followed the rest of the crew out into the corridor. Similar scenes were playing out across the deck as Coalition crews were led out of their respective rooms and down corridors until reaching the hypervators where they were escorted to places unknown. For all Zenfor knew they were taking them all to the Bays and kicking them out into open space. If that turned out to be the case, she’d take as many with them as she could.
It turned out to be a short trip up one level to nine where she and three of the other Engineering crew were led out. Zenfor noticed one was Ensign Jackson, the same idiot who’d interrupted her goodbye ceremony with Mil’less. He was tense, cowering as they led him away.
The two Bulaq guarding them escorted them down the corridors until they reached the brig, which already had a few occupants, including the robot and the doctor. Another Bulaq had already taken over the brig’s control station and he looked up when Zenfor and the Engineers entered. “Over here, he wants them all in one place,” he said, indicating Zenfor and the others file into the left-most brig. It was a space built for one or two at the most, not four and though they weren’t cramped, it wouldn’t be comfortable.
Once they were inside the Bulaq raised the barriers. Zenfor noticed the cell beside her empty, but in the next cell over stood some of the bridge crew. Lieutenant Zaal, Uuma and River, the navigator. She didn’t see the helmsman.
Just as the two Bulaq who’d escorted them here left, the door opened again to reveal the captain, Caspian, Lieutenant Yamashita and Vrij all being escorted in where they were stored in the middle unit. Behind them was Diamant, a big smile on his face.
“There,” he said. “Isn’t that more comfortable?” The force barrier went up sealing the four of them inside. They looked unharmed as far as Zenfor could tell.
“I expect you to keep your word,” the captain said, her eyes never leaving her captor.
“Captain, I’m insulted. Are you insinuating I might not be telling the truth?” he asked, his mock sarcasm dripping. It made Zenfor want to rip his head from his body.
