-The Weaker Part
The others and I are on the Celerity now. The Scabrous took only us, leaving our crew stranded on Lalita 1. We are prisoners on our own ship as the Scabrous pilot it away, toward the inner systems of the Interstellar Alliance. We can only pray that the Scabrous kept their word and left the Lalitans unharmed as we face our own fate. (Oh, the drama.) Yesterday they put us here in one of the smaller cabins. Aaren attended to her father's and Lakan's wounds while we talked.
Tito Jim related how he and his crew met enemy forces in a star system several jumps from the Lalita planets. The battle had been poorly planned - not by him, he remarked wryly - and they'd been forced to retreat. His ship had been boarded, and he and his crew had been captured. In the middle of this, one of his own men turned traitor and agreed to be interpreter for the Scabrous in exchange for his life. He was the one who'd explained what was in Tito Jim's journal when the Scabrous captain took interest. Intrigued by a chance to take Alliance royalty hostage, they sped back toward the Lalita planets immediately.
Lakan talked about how things had just gotten better for the Lalitans and how we'd all let our guard down. We'd all been lulled into thinking we were safe by the peace of Lalita 1 and her inhabitants. Nothing, he said, could have prepared us for the Scabrous's return... Again, he prayed aloud that the Lalitans had been left alone, though we doubted it.
I said nothing to Aaren. I spoke to Lakan and Tito Jim, telling them that the Scabrous were only giving us a night to decide what to do. If we didn't agree to lead them to Mirandus, they would kill the four of us.
I knew that for the sake of the Alliance, my death, and the death of Tito Jim, Lakan, and Aaren would prevent the Scabrous from reaching Mirandus. My home would remain untouched as it has for decades, the Scabrous would never establish their secret base, and they would not proceed to infiltrate the rest of the Alliance and bring about its downfall.
If I refuse to bring them there, they will kill first Tito Jim, who Aaren loves fiercely as her father and who has been the wisest uncle to me. Then they will kill Lakan, who has been the closest thing I've had to an older brother, who I've looked up to all my life. They will kill Aaren next, forcing me to see her suffering till her last. And then, out of frustration, they will kill me, for continued defiance after seeing my loved ones die.
It must be done, we all know. I'm a prince, so is Lakan, Tito Jim is a captain, and Aaren's his daughter and a cadet. I think we all know enough about noble, honorable deeds - sacrifices for the greater good. All these are made despite the loudest, shrillest cry of the weaker part of our hearts.
"Or we could escape," I offered.
A wry smile crossed Tito Jim's face, and he nodded at me. "Is there a map in this cabin?"
Aaren dug under the bunks and pulled out a dusty, copper-colored metal sphere. After the Treasure Planet incident, Dr. Delbert Doppler had spent some time with his mechanical genius cousin Albert, and together they'd recreated and then patented the sphere atlas. They and their families were now living off the royalties. Aaren now pressed firmly on the dark grooves, and threads of silver seemed to come spin themselves into a map as a flash of light opened the atlas of the etherium.
"Can we call you Captain?" Lakan asked Tito Jim.
The older man raised an eyebrow. "But this is your ship," he answered.
"Not anymore," I replied, "but we'll be taking our orders from you."
Aaren grinned and added, "If you don't mind. Captain."
Captain Jim Hawkins sighed and shook his head, but I could detect a faint smile, as well as a glimmer in his cobalt blue eye. He stared at the map thoughtfully. "We can't commandeer the ship," he said. "We can't take on 40 healthy Scabrous warriors by ourselves - though it would be fun if we did. The best we can do is steal a longboat or two and make for the nearest planet. It has to be the nearest planet if we're only in a longboat."
"Wouldn't they follow us there?" I asked.
"Not if it's an Alliance protectorate. An ARMED one." Aaren put in. "What's our location, Captain?"
A confused Lakan opened his mouth, and then he looked at our new Captain Hawkins, who laughed and nodded. "This is us," Lakan then pointed. "Us" was a blinking violet dot moving steadily through the map. Aaren handed him the copper sphere, and he pressed on one of the sides. Immediately, some of the floating planets became red orbs with white rings. "And these are the planets that are part of or protected by the Interstellar Alliance." He pressed again, and some of the red orbs now had gold rings. "These are the ones that have been armed since the Scabrous invaded. If the Scabrous are punctual, at the time of our supposed execution, we will be approaching Asimov Red, Asimov Blue, and this little rock, Ta - something. The name isn't clear, the place has been uninhabited since the terraforming of the Asimov sister system."
"Well done," said the Captain absently. Somehow, something about him suggested a heightened awareness, as if the mention of the Asimov planets had suddenly awakened something in him. I looked at Aaren, and I knew that she'd sensed it, too.
"Something wrong, Dad?" she asked. But he shook his head.
Lakan gave him the copper sphere, and he closed the map. He then went down on one knee and motioned us to come closer. "Now," he said, "this is what we're gonna do..."
Author's Note
-Okay, I've decided to give Jim a slightly bigger part than background
character and Marko a turn at narrating in this story. Thanks for the
reviews, by the way. And I'm sorry I keep taking so long to update
everything.