Duty, Honour, Love

Karasena stood watching the terrified faces on the civilians as the raiders used them as a human shield. She felt anger surge through her but she kept calm. Anger wouldn’t help the civilians.

“I’ve stationed your best soldiers of the roof. We’ll get them out of this,” Mark stated.

Karasena was thankful for his presence it calmed the turmoil within her.

“That’s close enough!” she yelled at the raiders. She was worried that the Militia wouldn’t obey her orders if it came to having to fire upon the civilians. It was something she really didn’t want to test. She commed the soldiers on the roof top. “Pick your targets, target only raiders, fire on my command.”

The raiders moved closer confident that the Militia wouldn’t fire on their own and they were probably right in that regard.

“Surrender!” a raider called out. “And you can walk away!”

“No!” Karasena yelled back emphatically. “We’ve seen what you do to surrendered civilians, we know about the bounty on ears!”

“Shit!” another raider uttered.

“You die, we die I really don’t care about your shit just get off our planet!” Mark shouted.

Marks defiance filled Karasena with hope and he had said ‘our planet’. “Roof top fire!” she ordered.

Half the raiders dropped with the first volley and as they milled about confused Mark and the Militia charged.

“With me!” He yelled vaulting the barrier and head across the ground heading for the raiders.

Karasena held her breath as there was a short ugly fight and the Militia grabbed the civilians and pulled them back over the barrier. The surviving raiders retreated empty handed. Karasena held back a tear the rescue hadn’t been without incident. Several dead civilians lay in the road. A reminder to her nothing was without cost.

“How many did we save?” she asked Mark as he returned to her side.

“About thirty odd some are wounded. They are grateful that we saved them. I regret the loss of life but things could be worse a lot worse remember that?”

Mark was right no need to dwell on the right or wrong she had to accept and move on. She spotted Kathleen moving amongst the civilians they’d rescued. She walked over to her. Kathleen looked up as she approached.

“Want to talk?”

Kathleen’s question floored her. “Yes,” she replied. “In private.”

Kathleen called over to her staff that she was talking with Karasena and they walked away from the chaos.

Karasena explained her problem with Dareia and Jane. “Is there someway we can revive Dareia?”

Kathleen considered Karasena’s dilemma. “There is a way it’s dangerous. It might kill Dareia.”

Karasena shivered at the thought. “If Jane dies then Dareia dies anyway.”

“I accept that. We need to get her here where anything we do will be under my supervision.”

“She’s at the base,” Karasena said. She knew she’d have to leave Mark but she had her duty there had to be one senior officer in charge. If Dareia was coming here she had to be at the base.

“I can’t send a shuttle I really don’t want it to be shot down by our weapons,” Kathleen said like she read Karasena’s mind.

Just as she was about to despair she heard a familiar engine sound. A base ATV pulled up to the entrance to the hospital. The Ezarans had mounted a railgun on it trailer. It seemed as if the Ancients were answering her prayers. Quickly she out lined her needs to the crew. With a chaste goodbye to Mark she was on the road. Mark watched her go feeling her pain. He had hardly any time to dwell on it the raiders attacked again. He had to keep them out of the hospital. He was glad Karasena had gone when she had. He believed she’d get there safely, believed Dareia would wake and they’d find Jane. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

In space above Erikino the raider commander raged two of his crew lay dead at his feet for daring to question his command. The others cowed terrified he could taste their fear it was like an aphrodisiac to him. Things weren’t going the way he expected them to. It was taking the other captains too long to complete their tasks. The largest settlement below should have been a flaming ruin. They’d failed in that task fearing death from the surface. Ships had been destroyed and the others pulled back out of range. He had encouraged them down to the surface with an additional bounty of ears. Payment for each right ear they collected. Not that he had any intention of doing so. He glared those crew remaining. “Anyone else?” he snarled.

Abruptly he turned and stalked to his quarters. It was a large room the largest on the ship. He had the bed removed he had no need of sleep. Two metal tables stood in the centre of the room. A human strapped and gagged to each one. A man and woman captured from one of the smaller settlements after a hard fight. Both had been wounded when they had been grabbed from the wreckage of the rocket launcher they had been using. He had them stripped to add to their humiliation. It was what the body he inhabited had informed him. Two men stood against the wall the controllers in their chests making them more robot than human, thralls obedient to his will. He walked over to the man feeling his pain in his mind. A frisson of fear ripped through the man as he beheld the raider commander. It was then that the commander noticed the lack of response from the woman. She was close to death and had accepted her fate. The commander snapped his fingers. “Put ‘it’ in that!” he ordered the thralls. In one corner the shiny silver box of a Cell Stitcher.

The two thralls moved silently removing the woman and placing her in the Cell Stitcher. What was the point of having the fun of torture if they died. Where was the pain both physical and mental it could feed off. He turned his attention back to the man he was awake and his eyes were full of fear. The commander pulled a knife from his belt and waved it across the man’s face. “An eye,” The commander mused. He’d no intention of that yet. He drew his knife slowly across the man’ body making small cross shaped incisions. Blood dribbled from the cuts the man’s eyes screwed tight unable to scream because he was gagged. The commander wasn’t finished yet. Placing the bloodied knife on the table he picked a small bottle and opened the cap I sharp acidic smell issued from it. He let a drop dribble from the bottle on the open wounds. The commander laughed seeing the acid sizzle on his victim’s skin. The man’s pain rushed through his mind as the body on the table arched and thrashed. The pain was a drug to him. He imagined more victims to cure his insatiable hunger for pain. Feeling satisfied he headed back to the bridge, time for the other one later.