Ends, Means, Laws, chapter 3 (Patreon)

Tyce listened to the general chatter on the radio. The teams had set up an air scrubbing quarantine in the corridor where most of the shuttles had attached. Other than one near disaster where a breaching charge had cut through a line of corrosive fluids and damaged the docking equipment before the spill could be neutralized, taking the ship had been less eventful than a cargo run through empty space.

Mond came and sat next to Tyce on the long pipe he’d claimed to set up an office of sorts. It was close to the section Command was holding and since they hadn’t found any aliens, Command had moved up to worry number one. “Oxygen levels are rising,” he said.

Tyce nodded. The crew knew their jobs, so he wasn’t surprised.

“No, you don’t understand.” The breathing mask muffled his words, but his frustration still came through. “The oxygen levels are rising too fast. Someone other than my team is pumping out oxygen, and not just in the quarantine area.”

“Command?” Tyce asked.

Mond sighed. “Maybe. At the levels I’m seeing, they would have to be using ship systems, so they may have found environmentals.”

Tyce closed his eyes. Fuck. The Dragon crew had opened a dozen hatches, but so far they’d found bunk beds too short for anyone over four feet and empty storage bays. “Other options?” he asked. No need to panic over possibilities.

“Tuch is the pessimist in the science unit. You know that, right?”

That sort of minimization did not “Oh boy. Just say it.” Tyce braced himself for a disaster. 

“Oxygen is poisonous and flammable. It might be an automated defensive system or some alien holdout turning the ship systems against us.”

Tyce wished he could rub his eyes. Of course. Fuck. At least this was an easy decision from a leadership position. They had no other choice but to keep putting one foot in front of the other and plodding on. “Watch the levels. Be prepared to switch to oxygen removal in the quarantine area.”

“No. We thought we would ignore the obvious precautions.” Mond left before Tyce could come up with a response. Asshole. Then again, most of the Dragon crew were. Something about living in a war zone left them slightly less warm and fuzzy than the average human.

“Captain to Alpha nine. Captain Alpha nine!” The coms barked, and Tyce knocked his improvised work table over as he bolted to his feet and took off running. That sounded like Yoss on the coms, and he never panicked. Never. The corridor twisted and curved around until Tyce almost ran into Yoss’s back.

“Report.”

“We have idiots on patrol.” Yoss had his teeth clenched and his Ribelo accent was thicker than usual.

“What did our idiots do?”

“Got captured.”

Coldness rolled over Tyce. Cold and calm and a dark anger that he fought to keep in check. He did a double take. “Yoss, where is your breathing mask?”

“Don’t need it. Even Tuch says the air is breathable, even if it does smell like ass. Good thing it is. Look.” Yoss stepped back, allowing Tyce to slide forward. Arli and Ter stood, their hands behind their backs, their elbows tied together so they blocked the corridor. Neither wore breathing masks. No doubt Command soldiers stood with weapons pointed at them. Fuckity fuck fuck. Ter was a fucking child. He couldn’t even grow a decent beard. 

Tyce eased back. “Keep an eye on them.”

Yoss snorted.

Footsteps charged down the corridor, and Tyce held out his hands to stop Ama and Joahan. Neither had on a mask—probably to conserve resources. Tyce clicked his respirator off and removed his mask.

“What’s going on?” Ama asked.

“Arli and Ter were captured. It looks like Command.” 

Ama lost most of her color. Ter was her great-nephew and one of the few people on the ship who could make her lose every ounce of calm. 

“I’ll get Bravo geared,” Joahan said. He turned, but Tyce caught his arm.

“They have our people blocking the corridor and we don’t have an alternative route. If we go with a direct assault, both the boys are dead.”

“And Command can follow,” Joahan said darkly.

Ama rested her hand on his shoulder. “They are individuals, just as vulnerable to fear as us. They have not hurt the boys...” She looked at him, and Tyce shook his head. Both had appeared fine. She nodded and pressed her lips together for a moment. “We should approach this carefully and with thought. Tyce, what do you recommend?”

Tyce tried to put himself back in that mindset of Command. If these people had served on or close to Earth or if they were new, they would follow the rule book to the last clause. But nothing in the rule book allowed for the use of a prisoner as a tactical shield. So these guys were more interested in results than academic discussions of ethics. The thought soured his stomach. 

But on the other hand, the boys were unharmed. Hopefully that meant these guys weren’t the sort that hated anyone from Ribelo. With the strange names and accents, the boys wouldn’t have been able to hide their home planet, and Command considered Ribelo the center of all evil. 

“We open a dialogue. That will keep them focused here, and they’ll assume we’re playing by their rules,” Tyce said. “Joahan, put a fire under those tech’s butts. They’ve had plenty of time to study these damn organic pipes. Mechanics have to follow a certain logic or the ship won’t work. So you tell them to make their best bet about where to find a corridor that runs parallel to this one. Get the children and elderly back onto the shuttles so if one of the techs hits a nuclear containment wall instead of a passage, they’re not in harm’s way. In fact, get all non-essential personnel and at least fifty percent of our critical people, including all unit leaders onto the shuttles.”

Joahan gave a quick nod and then sprinted off to follow orders.

“Should I even bother trying to get you on a shuttle?” Ama asked.

Tyce scoffed. “Nope.”

“If they learn you’re here, they will do anything to get you. People always desire that which they feel they lost unfairly.”

Tyce was counting on that. “Thank you for making me feel like a lost toy.”

“Humans often develop sentiment toward objects, and they are equally as likely to dehumanize a person. You are not responsible for every disaster, and you can consult on the proper course of action just as easily from the safety of a shuttle.”

“Yeah, you’re not telling me anything I don’t know.” Tyce turned his back on her. He respected the hell out of Amali. She was equally skilled at targeting computers and counseling people through loss and grief. She was the first to have offered him her friendship when he’d expected the rebels to gut shoot him and leave him to die. 

Maybe he’d even wanted death. Back then he’d believed he deserved it, but Ama had taught him to forgive himself for not being strong enough to force the universe to be fair. “Signal me when Joahan has found a corridor. I won’t move until then unless the situation appears to be deteriorating.”

She sighed before retreating.

Tyce moved to stand behind Yoss. “You’re right about the air smelling like ass.”

“If they kill those kids, I’m going to murder every last bastard,” he said with a quiet intensity that made the hair on Tyce’s arms stand at attention. “I’m going to make them beg for death, and then I’m going to spit on them while they do it.”

When Tyce patted his shoulder, Yoss jerked away. The whole time, he kept his weapon trained on the corridor. Tyce sighed and leaned back against the wall. Waiting was the most important step in negotiations. If someone felt rushed, they made mistakes.

“Are you going to do something?” Yoss demanded after four or five minutes.

“Nope,” Tyce said. “We wait.”

Yoss’s shoulders hunched a little more. An unhappy Yoss was a dangerous creature, but if Tyce ordered him away from his position, he would refuse to go. Tyce couldn’t afford a power struggle right now. How ironic. He left one army because he couldn’t get anyone to obey an order and now he’d joined a ship where people only obeyed when they felt like it. 

Minutes ticked into quarters which turned into hours, and all remained the same. Tyce had sunk to the ground where he sat behind Yoss and waited. Nothing blew up or blasted the air with poison. If anything, the ass smell was fading. And still they waited. Maybe Command was playing for time, too. They would want an alternative path into Dragon territory, and they might be using the hostages to distract the crew, but Tyce had patrols out on every section, and most of their people were safe inside shuttles, ready to blast away.

“Arli and Ter are shifting. I think they see something,” Yoss said.

Tyce climbed to his feet and looked over Yoss’s shoulder.  Ter was definitely uncomfortable. He was trying to twist around, pulling on Arli’s elbow because they were tied together. “We need to talk to a spokesperson!” Someone shouted.

“Don’t do it!” Ter shouted. He had his aunt’s bravery, but not much of her common sense. The butt of a gun hit him in the ribs, but the soldier continued to hide behind the wall.

“Why?” Tyce called.

Yoss gave him an incredulous look, but Tyce shrugged. It was as good of a place to start as any. As a bonus, it would confuse Command. Sure enough, silence filled the air for long minutes. 

A new voice called out. “Are you speaking for the rebel ship?”

Tyce played for time and prayed his people found an alternative path to the Command soldiers. “We don’t have a ship. It got blown up. And the people on that ship weren’t rebels.”

“Are you speaking for them?”

“I’m speaking. No one really speaks for anyone on a family ship,” Tyce said. “It’s like a normal family only everyone ignores each other over the hyperspace engines instead of the dinner table.”

“Your brain is cracked,” Yoss whispered. Tyce didn’t argue. Kinder people than Yoss had said worse. A soldier edged out so Tyce could see part of an arm. “I have a shot.” Yoss sounded too eager.

“No. The boys won’t survive,” Tyce said. He wished he had Ama or Joahan here, but even he had to admit that Yoss was the best shot, even if his youth and grief made him far less stable than the older crew members. He turned his attention back to the corridor. “Why do you want to talk? You could just send those two boys back over here, and we can call this hallway no-man’s-land and keep to our sides.” Realistically, Tyce didn’t expect that to work, but it would be a good option for him.

“You could surrender.”

“To whom?” Tyce called. “Your big, old Command ship got blow up just like ours, so it seems like we’re both just trying to survive in alien territory.”

“You’re fugitives.”

“You’re shipless,” Tyce countered. 

“We’ve found the control deck, and we will get the ship moving again,” the officer at the other end said. Tyce silently cursed. This was his worst nightmare. “The war is over. If you really are from a family ship and you aren’t terrorists, Earth has no interest in paying to imprison you. But let’s be honest. You don’t sound Ribelian.

“I’m more of an in-law,” Tyce said.

“Then unless there’s a warrant out for your arrest, you have no reason to fear Command. Surrender and we can drop you off on Earth. Any member of your ship not involved in terrorism can either stay on Earth or return to Ribelo.”

Tyce doubted that. The crew would be told to buy their own damn tickets back to Ribelo. If Earth had treated the outer colonies kindly, the war never would have happened. True, certain assholes on Ribelo had taken their objections too far, but Earth had started the pissing contest. “There’s no guarantee you can figure out navigation before the aliens who own this ship show up to reclaim it. Do you really want to fight with one another while the enemy is out there.”

“We don’t know anything about the aliens. I know something about Ribelians, and since I don’t want to defend myself against a series of terrorist attacks, you’re my bigger concern.”

Yoss couldn’t control his temper any longer. “Your people started the fucking psychological warfare. If you can’t stand the heat, don’t set fire to the fucking nuclear reactor.”

“Stop.” Tyce caught Yoss’s arm, but he shoved Tyce away and brought his weapon up to fire. Leaping forward, Tyce put his back to the Command enemy so he could grab the barrel of Yoss’s weapon. He could only hope they’d listened to the part during officer training when the instructors had recommended against shooting unarmed people in the back.

“Stand the fuck down,” Tyce ordered Yoss. “You will not get yourself and those two boys killed with your fucking stupidity.” Maybe terrorism wasn’t hard-baked into Ribelians, but stubbornness was. That was the trait that had made it possible for them to survive on the first terraformed planet.

“They killed Zee.” Yoss’s voice broke with anguish.

“These humans didn’t, and you have to put the living ahead of the dead.” Tyce didn’t want to sound callous, but that was the simple truth. Nothing would return Zee, but Arli and Ter didn’t deserve to follow her, not when the war was over and they had a chance at a normal life, or as normal a life as they could get in a universe that excelled at dumping shit on people’s heads.

“Tyce?” The officer at the end asked, his voice unsteady.

Tyce turned around, and his stomach dropped. John. He was older and his shoulders had broadened some, but the man in a Command uniform was definitely Tyce’s John. Fuck. Tyce revised his earlier thought. The universe didn’t drop shit on people; it dropped unstable thermonuclear reactors.