Song of the Navigator (6 page)

Cherko clicked his tongue angrily. “This is getting to be a habit.”

“I'm sorry,” Tover choked. He started to cry.

“Don't be a fucking pussy, just do your job!” Cherko shouted.

Tover braced himself for the helmet again, but both he and Cherko were distracted by a female scream.

Tover looked over to the pallets and gasped.

Five women were shoved at gunpoint into the amplification area.

Women
was too generous a term. They were very young, one girl hardly a teenager. They were clearly in distress. Their clothes were cheap and provocative, and their hands were cuffed behind their backs. All of them wore breath clips, suggesting they too were Caridans, from the same planet as the man who had sold them to Cherko. One of the smugglers Tover particularly despised stood guard outside the perimeter of the orbifold amplification zone, with a machine gun aimed with obvious intent.

Several of the women sobbed behind their gags, but the silent one made eye contact with Tover. Her glare shot a bolt through his heart.

There was no way he could do this.

They seemed to be in the same boat as him. And this didn't entail contraband weaponry to a storage bin on a distant satellite. These were
people
, and if he was supposed to move them to Marco, he knew enough now about Savel and his associates that their lives would be brief and tormented.

Savel didn't reappear for several minutes, which was unusual. Tover could hear his voice, shouting at someone in the long corridor leading to the cockpit. This was what happened when Savel got drunk. He made hideous deals, and Tover had to suffer the consequence.

Tover began to tremble.
Oh God
, he thought.
I can't help these bastards hurt them
…

Then he thought, what choice did he have? The memory of being trapped in that bone knitter washed through his body like a physical pain. His muscles began to clench in terrified anticipation of the repercussions of failure. If he didn't jump these women, he would suffer worse than before.

Tover began to breathe rapidly. He rested his head against his outstretched arms, thinking desperately. What the fuck was he going to do?

“Tover.”

A rough slap against the side of his head jerked him upright. Savel's expression was furious.

“Get them out of my sight before I fucking kill them.” Savel glared at the woman in the center, the one who had made eye contact with Tover. She was beautiful, her dark hair loose and wild. But at the moment she looked capable of murdering all the men in the room with her eyes alone.

“Give them to Marco on Jagarbaz Station,” Savel repeated. The only other sound was one of the women sobbing against her gag.

Tover almost sobbed himself. He knew what was about to happen to him. But he would never be able to look himself in the mirror again if he contributed to these women's torture.

He held his tears in, not wanting the other prisoners to see him weak. As he thought this he almost laughed. How absurd that his pride would return now, in the face of such a horrible situation.

Cherko grabbed the helmet. Tover shook his head. “No.”

His entire body tensed, ready for the attack against him. The silence stretched. Savel pulled the wire around Tover's neck tighter, choking him.

“Don't fuck with me,” Savel hissed. “Fucking
jump
them!”

Tover gagged, but shook his head.

Savel held up his fist to Tover's face, his eyes red-rimmed. “You really. Do not. Want to piss me off. Not tonight.”

“Just let them go,” Tover whispered.

Savel's fist hovered there for a moment. He let out a loud sigh. He reached under the console and pulled out his metal pipe. Nausea swelled through Tover.

“Stretch out his legs this time,” Savel said.

White fear blinded Tover. “No! Please, no, not my legs!”

Tover shrieked as Savel smashed his knee, hard enough that it splintered like balsa wood. The pain knocked him out. He sputtered back to consciousness soon afterward, soaking wet. Someone had stripped him, doused him with water to awaken him. Savel waited until Tover regained consciousness before assaulting his right leg.

The beating was worse than before. A heavy blow just above the restraints broke his barely healed left wrist. Cherko smashed the butt of his gun hard across the bridge of his nose, and he thought he would pass out again. A hard kick snapped something in his chest, and pressure and pain exploded through his body.

Even the bone knitter hadn't been this bad. Trapped on the console, Tover writhed as Savel yelled profanities and told Tover to complete the orbifold. He could hear the women screaming on the pallets, and he tried to look up, make eye contact, strengthen his resolve. But Savel's pipe smashed against his left eye and everything went completely dark.

An explosion sounded somewhere, but Tover couldn't see. The implants in his ears shot pain through his head at the volume of the explosion. Someone hit his exposed groin and he choked on a sob.

Off in the distance he heard a cry for help.

“Fuck,” he heard Savel curse. “Come on!” Savel took off with a roar. Flashes of brilliant pain became one overwhelming flame in Tover's body.

He heard gunfire. Someone in the room screamed, and there was the sound of something large and heavy falling. But none of it mattered. His eye was swelling shut, the sound was overwhelming his senses, and his body hurt so badly he only hoped whatever exploded around them would take him out quickly.

More gunfire sounded from close by. A voice in the room shouted, “Get out of here!”

Tover's left eye was too swollen to see out of, so he turned his head slightly, and out of his right eye saw two armed men in fatigues approach the amplification zone. They removed the restraints on the female hostages, and a small sense of relief broke through Tover's all-encompassing pain. At least his resistance had bought their rescue, if not his own.

The woman who had made eye contact pointed toward Tover as soon as her hands were free, and the soldier turned. He actually jerked back as if in shock, then said something to his companion. The other soldier led the women free, gun aimed ahead of him.

Tover lowered his head, the pain too great to do anything but curl in on himself.

“You!” a voice shouted, very close. The voice sounded furious. “Release his restraints!”

There was a hesitation. Tover opened his right eye again. One of the smugglers stood with his hands out, looking ready to piss himself.

“Release his fucking restraints!”

Another pause, then a thermal gun fired and the smuggler's face burst apart from the heated ray. The soldier moved closer, and Tover turned his head to see the last person he ever expected.

Cruz Arcadio glared down at him, half a dozen guns strapped to his chest, holding a machine gun pointed at Dirtbag.

“You okay?” Cruz asked Tover.

Tover spat blood in Cruz's face.

Chapter Five

“You!”

Tover's voice was ruined, throat chopped to ribbons. He tried to pull away but the restraints held him captive.

Cruz motioned Dirtbag toward the navport console with the barrel of his gun. Cruz wiped Tover's bloody spit off his cheek. “Release his restraints you goddamn son of a bitch!”

Dirtbag struggled with the old, rusted switch. Tover spotted Cherko lying on the floor, his head melted and bubbling in a pool of his own blood.

The restraints unlocked and Tover collapsed. His vision wavered, nausea rolled through him. He nearly blacked out from the pain in his legs. He tried to shift around on his elbows to ease the weight, but his broken ribs made every movement excruciating.

Cruz looked down at Tover, his face uncharacteristically showing emotion: fury.

Tover imagined what he must look like. Naked, pitiful, broken. Bruised, bleeding and filthy. No part of his dignity left. Cruz stared at him with an expression of clear horror.

Without warning Cruz swiveled and shot Dirtbag point blank in the head. Dirtbag collapsed backward.

Tover couldn't get up from the ground. He hoped the prisoners had been freed.

Cruz spotted something down the corridor and took off at a run. Tover tried to crawl toward the pallets but he couldn't. His body disobeyed him, so he lay there, trying to think beyond his pain.

Cruz returned with one of the other Pulmon Verde, who dragged Savel by the cuff of his shirt. The terrorist threw Savel to the ground.

Savel's fury was palpable. Cruz growled and kicked Savel in the head. Savel toppled over, and Tover saw Savel's hands were tied behind his back with the same type of wire tied around his own throat.

Cruz pointed toward Savel with his gun. “This guy. He do this to you?” He nodded to Tover's face.

Tover stared at Cruz, not understanding.

Cruz repeated the question. “Did this fucking bastard beat you?”

Tover's face crumpled.

Cruz unholstered a thermal pistol and handed it to Tover.

“Kill him.”

Tover's right hand shook as he held the pistol. He turned it on Cruz. He wanted to shoot Cruz so badly he could taste it. How many weeks, imagining this, to see Cruz here, through the sights of a weapon?

Cruz's expression didn't change. He didn't move.

The other terrorist pointed his gun at Tover. “You shoot him, I shoot you, and you lose your chance out of here.”

Tover couldn't understand why the Pulmon Verde were helping him now, after all this time, but Tover knew the bastard was right. He had no idea what Cruz's plan was, but he had shot to death all but one of Tover's tormentors. If Tover wanted out, he'd have to go with Cruz.

Savel tried to sit up but Cruz was fast, grabbing Savel by the back of his neck and slamming his head against the floor grates.

“Shoot him, or else I will!” Cruz shouted at Tover.

Tover pulled the trigger. The gun roared and heat blasted through it as he shot explosive energy into Savel's chest. Savel cried out and collapsed, the smell of burning flesh and boiling blood filling the air.

Tover shot him again. A rush of adrenaline flooded him, nearly blocking out his pain, and it sickened him to think how good it felt, to kill this man.

When he had sapped the energy from the charger, Cruz grabbed the gun from Tover's hand. He adjusted his respirator, then reached down and grabbed Tover's uninjured arm, swinging him over his shoulder in a fireman's hold. Tover cried out in pain, and his vision did blacken then, every part of his body screaming in agony.

“Get the loading bay door open,” Cruz barked at the other terrorist. The man nodded and took off at a sprint.

Cruz carried Tover through the cockpit and into the elevator. The entire ship hummed, vibrating as if about to explode. They exited on the top corridor, and Tover saw the occasional form of a slumped body, the littered remains of the Jarrow crew.

“I can't remember. How tall are you?” Cruz asked gruffly. “One eighty? One ninety?”

Tover didn't understand.

“How tall?” Cruz asked.

“One eighty-five,” Tover croaked, his voice a raspy, broken thing.

Shots rang down the hall, and Cruz jerked backward behind a bulwark. The movement shocked pain through Tover's legs, and he had to clench his teeth from crying out. He felt Cruz reach to his belt, felt as he returned fire, something powerful judging by the violent recoil. Cruz groaned and leaned against the wall for a moment before returned fire. As soon as the firing stopped, they proceeded down the narrow hallway.

As they walked through the ship, Cruz leaned down and examined the dead as they walked past. At one of the bodies, he stopped abruptly and slowly lowered Tover to the ground beside the corpse. He winced as he moved, as if injured, but Tover couldn't care. Tover nearly passed out simply from being lowered.

Tover didn't recognize the dead man, so it must have been one of the smugglers not working directly under Savel. Tover wondered how many men the Pulmon Verde had killed breaking into
The Baroque
.

Cruz ripped off the dead man's shoes and unbuttoned his pants. Tover watched him, understanding dawning.

“Legs…broken,” he mumbled.

“You have two choices,” Cruz said, voice calm despite the wild, furious look in his eyes. “You can get on board a public freighter naked, with your dick hanging out for everyone to see, or you can endure three minutes of pain and let me pull trousers over your legs.”

Tover glanced down at his ruined body. His legs looked like they had been mangled in heavy machinery. He nodded.

Cruz expertly yanked the dark uniform off the Jarrow smuggler. He grabbed Tover's right leg.

Tover looked away but the pain blinded him anyway. He writhed on the ground. His mind filled with blinding, nauseating darkness, and he lost consciousness.

Pulsing.

The sound of the engine was rhythmic and close by.
Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.
It trembled through Tover's body like an alien heartbeat. Its tempo clashed with the pulsing of Tover's own nerves.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

The noise overwhelmed his senses. Even with his heightened sensitivity, years of technological advances should have muted the noise. Tover had never heard anything so deafening in his life.

He stirred. Pain forced him to still. His pain felt distant, suggesting he'd been drugged. But every movement burst the bubble of protection the narcotics gave him, and he gasped with the agony of his broken ribs and opened his eyes.

And realized why the engine sounded so loud.

He was on the floor of the cargo hold of a small public freighter. The air was oxygenated and heated for the sake of the goods stored inside, but the cabin wasn't designed for human comfort. He was cold, wearing nothing but the Jarrow smuggler's cargo pants and black tunic, and socks. The fact that he wore a dead man's socks disgusted him.

He couldn't tell much from the hold, other than noting the words on the cargo straps and on the caution signs were in Spanish first, then English.

And he wasn't alone.

Cruz sat on the floor next to him, leaning against an aluminum pallet of boxed fruits, machine gun across his knees. His head was tucked down, chin on his chest, as if asleep. His hands were folded over his stomach. Something wet stained his black shirt. This close, Tover could see he was very pale.

Tover turned his head and noticed the other stowaways. They were mostly men, armed and in fatigues, but a couple and what looked to be their two young children huddled across from Tover and Cruz, and a few women at the opposite end of the cargo hold played some form of poker. Nearby Tover recognized one of the young girls that had been Savel's hostage. All five victims were there, sleeping near each other, breathing clips on their noses and mouths.

Tover spotted Ramirez and the thick, bearded Pulmon Verde rebel amongst the men, also wearing clips.

Carida. He was going to fucking Carida.

He tried to think of a way out of the situation, but every part of him hurt, hurt more every moment. Whatever he'd been drugged with was wearing off quickly.

He turned to stare at the face of the man who had ruined his life. Loathing swelled inside of him. Tover used the last of his strength, swung his fist, and punched Cruz in the face.

Cruz fell over, startled awake. For a moment sheer rage crossed Cruz's features, but as soon as he figured out it had been Tover who had hit him, the rage seemed to disappear. He straightened his respirator, wincing a little.

“Calm down,” Cruz said. “I'm not going to hurt you.” He fumbled in his pocket for something.

“You…you ruined my life!” Tover said hoarsely. The other stowaways watched them carefully. The woman gathered her two children closer. Two of the rebels fingered their weapons.

Cruz prodded his nose carefully.

Tover jerked forward to hit him again, but the sensations of his injuries broke through the drug barrier, and he froze, clutching his left wrist. An unhealthy-looking protrusion under the swelling suggested more broken bones. The thought of getting in another bone knitter made him break out in sweat.

Tover rested his head against his arm, panting to control his pain. “I want to go home,” he mumbled pitifully.

Cruz leaned his head very close to Tover and whispered in his ear. His expression was cold but his tone sounded gentle. “Nothing's stopping you. You should get out of here as soon as you can.”

Tover reached to his neck. The wire was gone. All that remained was a crusted trench of damaged skin.

Tover closed his eyes. He could sense home, a beacon of light in a universe of darkness. His bed, his white cotton sheets…

But the pain in his body was so absolute he couldn't focus past it, couldn't conjure the strength to navigate. He lay his head back down, exhausted. “I can't,” he said, voice little more than a gravelly whisper. “You fucking bastard.”

“I'm taking you home, to a doctor.” Cruz pulled a small injector from his pocket. He frowned. “But we still have a long way to go, Tover.” He held out the needle.

Tover tried to pull back but Cruz's reflexes were fast. The injector flicked deeply through his skin and almost instantly a haziness washed through Tover. The pain receded quickly.

“I can't believe I ever trusted you,” Tover whispered. He closed his eyes.

Cruz said nothing, but before he lost consciousness, Tover felt Cruz brush Tover's bangs off his forehead.

“I know. I'm sorry.” A strange emotion wavered in Cruz's voice, but Tover couldn't stay focused on it long enough to understand.

Tover closed his eyes.