THREE
"Colonel Carter, I had heard that you were quite attractive." Colonel Paul Emerson needn't have registered the meaning of the speaker's words to recognize their malicious intent. The man was attempting to assert dominance through intimidation on the bridge of the stolen ship.
Emerson interrupted, "I'm Colonel Paul Emerson, the commander of this ship. What do you want?"
"Nothing that you can do for me." His voiced oozed with contempt as he leisurely rose to his feet. "Now Colonel Carter, on the other hand..."
A Lucian Alliance goon stood pointing a gun at his chest while his second-in-command was being affronted and leered at by the bastard that had boarded his ship, who had the audacity to take the bridge. It took every ounce of Emerson's will to control himself, to hold still, and to appear dignified and unafraid, his voice steady and his expression collected.
"You are going to do whatever it is I want you to do." Anata'u's voice chilled Paul to his core, the tone implying so much more than disabling a locator. Emerson watched Carter hold fast and cool under their captor's gaze, and internally applauded her.
"Don't do it, Sam."
"Oh, I suggest you should do it, Sam." Emerson winced at Anata'u's use of Sam's name. That was his fault he thought briefly before watching helplessly as she was grabbed by the throat and manhandled across the room. Rage fired red hot through Paul's mind. Capable soldier or not, she's my responsibility, my second, my friend.
Grimly and with some satisfaction he determined that he needed to redirect attention back to himself. "Don't help them Colonel. That's an order!"
One gunshot. Surprise. His knees catch him momentarily. Sam's eyes, stunned and shining, grow wide in horror. That's an order, he repeats in his mind as his limbs grow numb and his eyesight fuzzy. Three more shots, and he is no longer in command of The Odyssey. But, he sees the lift of her chin and the set of her shoulders, and his last conscious thought is pride that she will follow through.