Lee shook his head. “This complicates things.”
“I’ll say.”
“Hey, kiddo, don’t worry. At least it’ll be quick. One shot from those turrets and you’ll be breathing from a thousand new holes.”
The pirate leader squirmed. Lee glared at him. “If your ship opens fire, my hand will involuntarily snap your neck.” The pirate stopped squirming.
Flaps dismounted and crouched next to him. “Yeah, just when I was enjoying all our time together. You know I had a brother once. Really miss him. I know you give me a lot of heat, but deep down you couldn’t live without me. Aren’t I right?”
Flaps babbled when his nerves got the better of him. Lee still suspected that was how he got his nickname. But there was no denying it. Lee was fond of the scrawny little pilot. If the end was near, Lee might as well tell the kid how he felt. He’d had a little brother once, until fate ripped him from his life. He never talked about it—and tried never to think of it. His younger brother was just about Yuri’s age when he died.
“Well . . . the truth is Yuri . . . I—”
Another thunderous rumble, drowning out the sound of the pirate ship, erupted across the atmosphere. It moved faster and more graceful.
Star Runner. The sleek high-speed courier. The un-armed high-speed courier.
But the raider either was oblivious to the lack of armaments on Star Runner, or didn’t care to find out. It fired its thrusters and burned for orbit. The raider was unimportant. Lee and the others had already located its base of operations in an asteroid nearby. A task force from the Fleet would handle the base. That had been the plan, anyway. All these goons would have been on that ship back at their base with the horses when the Fleet raided.
“Lee, what were you going to say?”
Lee drew in a deep breath. “About what? Never mind that now, Delaine’s here!”
Rachael’s voice came over their handhelds.
“Looked like you cowboys were in a bit of trouble!”
The reference wasn’t lost on Lee.
“Cheeky, Lieutenant. Now get down here and let’s get these goons off this planet.”
“I’ll be down shortly and we’ll round them up!”
Lee could hear laughter over the comm. Clearly, someone had been reading about wild animals.
***
Two hours later they’d detained all the pirates and secured them for transport in Star Runner’s cargo hold. The locals had insisted on a victory celebration.
Afterwards, they all sat together on the flight deck. The console in front of Delaine chimed, there was a pending subspace transmission at least a couple days old.
Delaine looked at the message, her eyes widened. Then she blinked and her eyes shimmered. She looked up at them.
“It’s from Shepherd . . . Aaron’s awake.”
Chapter 5 – You Were Never Alone
“I remember everything” – Commander Aaron Rayne
Recovery Ward, Medical Deck
USSF HQ
“Delaine, what are you looking at?”
Aaron’s throat was dry and his voice raspy. Lieutenant Rachael Delaine stared back at him with sad eyes.
It appeared his sudden sojourn to the deck from the bed, and his subtle query seized her tongue. No doubt his sudden awakening surprised her.
“Aaron,” she said, as she reached down and assisted him back onto the bed.
More like lifted him. Everything hit him at once.
Trident. Rachael. Quintus. His crew. The Empire. The battle of Atlas Prime. The mission. Expose the conspirators within the United Systems fanning the flames of war with the Baridian Empire.
Two weeks ago, he’d awoken. He could finally remember. The past two weeks they’d been trying to get him to walk again. Every day they had to remind him who he was, what had happened.
They said the treatment was experimental. That his memories would return. Every day he’d cursed the universe. Just to recall the previous day took great effort. Now everything came back to him—including his struggles the past two weeks since he’d awoken from the long dark.
“What do you remember?” Rachael asked. It didn’t seem like she was expecting much.
“Everything,” Aaron replied. “I remember everything.”
She stared at him a moment longer. A look of indecision appeared across her face. She tried to hide it, but her concern was apparent.
“Don’t move.” She disappeared and returned several minutes later with Doctor Max Tanner in tow. Then she quietly slipped away. He purged her from his thoughts and focused on Max.
Aaron knew he was in for it now. He leaned back on the angled backrest and interlocked his fingers behind his head. The doctor wore his customary lab coat and reading glasses, his eyes puffy from an apparent lack of sleep. It was ironic that a man who specialized in healing people refused to get the simple procedure done to correct his vision.
Max reached for a small medical device and waved it near Aaron’s head. All the while nodding and murmuring to himself.
“If you don’t stop scanning my brain with that thing and talk to me, I’m going to hurt you Max,” Aaron said.
Max blinked and fiddled with the device.
“Well you’re definitely on the mend,” he said. “You haven’t once threatened me in the past two weeks. I was a bit worried you’d awoken too soon after the treatment.”
Aaron shook his head. “I don’t want to know what you’re talking about. Because if I find out you’ve been using me as one of your test subjects, you’re really going to get it. First it was Lee, now—”
“You know,” Max cut him off. “You’re an ungrateful, mean, antagonizing, cynical son of a—”
“Thank you, Max,” Aaron said.
Max snorted . . . a horrible sound.
“Aaron, take it easy for me. You suffered severe neurological damage from the pulse rifle. You were comatose for six months. Two months ago, I began repairing the damage with a treatment I devised in collaboration with your mother. Many wonderful nights of sleep were lost, and I had to live on this blasted space station the entire time. When you came out of the coma two weeks ago, we were afraid you would never regain your full memories and that your short-term memory was on the fritz for good. Tell me what do you remember of the past two weeks?”
“Like I told Lieutenant Delaine. I remember not remembering. I remember the frustration.” He closed his eyes, pushing down the darkness. “Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
Max let out a loud hmm. Then he continued.
“We observed unusual phenomena in your brain activity the past twelve hours. We had you sedated after a particularly troublesome therapy session. We were hoping it was your brain continuing to respond to the final stage of treatment. You suffered severe trauma and your entire body has contributed to the repair.”
Aaron zoned out from the explanation. “I never want to dream like that again. It was too real. I just feel drained. It’s a scary thing, Max, to be alone with your demons and powerless to fight them. These past two weeks that’s how I’ve felt. Alone in the darkness. I remember now that I would fight you before you sedated me because I didn’t want to dream again.”
Water had set in his eyes. He flicked away the stubborn tear that rolled down his cheek. To relive the most painful moments of your life, over and over, without an end in sight, had taken its toll.
Max smiled and shook his head as he patted Aaron’s hand. “Oh, my boy, you were never alone. Someone was always here by your side, day and night. Believe me. There were times if your ‘royal entourage’ was tired or duty called, that random Fleet personnel volunteered to keep watch over you. I know it’s the last thing you want to hear, but you’ve got quite a fan base now.”