Chapter 5: The Value of Pawns
Silence fell when the door of the ready room drew closed behind Landry as if the constant battering of noise had found its tipping point and fell the other way. It was just her tired mind, of course, perhaps trying for a blackout of her thoughts. She kept herself going and sound rushed back, although a little muffled.
The ventilation had been turned down, so smoke hung thinly in the room, the acrid smell of melting metal and burned fabric, the stench wafting off of dead consoles. She pushed herself around the desk, planted both hands on its surface and kept herself upright.
There was nothing she could do about taking the captain's chair on the bridge while she commanded the Buran. But here, in the tiny sliver of privacy she had earned when she ordered the Buran to fly into the asteroid belt, here she wouldn't trespass on her captain's rightful place, even if he himself had wanted her there.
She opened a drawer in the desk and took out a small, foil-wrapped package. Her hands shook a little as she let the package unfurl to reveal the row of tiny injectors and pried one of them loose. She turned around and leaned against the desk, glad for what support it offered.
The drug had been developed for shock troops and emergencies. It wiped away every symptom of tiredness and exhaustion and took away the pain of any injury. The eventual crash was its only downside. Increased or repeated doses had no effect and there were currently no known counter-agents. Once the drug wore off, the body shut itself down for several hours no matter what. Most of her crew had already taken their doses, but she had wanted to hold out on her own, because she could not tell how much time they would need and the thought to be passed out in her captain's chair, surrounded by an unconscious crew, while the Defiant boarded them didn't sit well with her.
Now, though, with this other man's plan to enact, she couldn't afford to let her fatigue dull her senses and slow her mind. She brought the injector to her wrist and pressed it to the veins, flipped the release.
It felt cool for a moment, soothing, almost like a caress travelling up her arm. She let her eyes close while she waited for the effect to take hold.
The Buran was smaller and more manoeuvrable than the Defiant, the dangerous course right into the asteroid belt had bought them a little time. Captain Maddox, correctly, guessed that they were making their way back to the base and knew he didn't need to waste his shields on a bunch of rocks, he could just keep pace with them and wait at the other end. At least, Landry thought, he was following her lead, even if he probably saw that differently.
Not only did the short respite allow the crew a breather, it also gave them a chance to patch some of the worst points of damage they had sustained. Landry had known things were bad when the chief engineer had stopped complaining about how taxing short, warp 1 jumps were on the drive. If he had no time to complain, he had his hands full with keeping them all from blowing up.
One of the photon torpedo launchers had sustained damage, too, but one of the engineers had sworn to everything she hated that she could repair it if she had only five minutes without the need to fire anything. She had her five minutes, Landry would be promoting her if any of them were to survive.
With their shields on a solid forty per cent, the navigator had taken it upon himself to bring them through the belt without straining them further. So far, Landry hadn't felt any significant impacts, only the sluggish response of the motion dampeners as the ship made too-quick twists and turns on its way through the field. She was only glad that Maddox hadn't had time to seed the belt with mines, otherwise, this wouldn't even be possible.
The sensation of coolness climbed in her system, wiped away the ache in her muscles and the hurt in her bruises. Only when her head finally cleared did she release how bad it had been, how close to the edge she had come. It had been stupid to not use the medication earlier, but now she was ready to take on the next step.
She brushed the discarded foil and injectors off the desk, then opened an encoded channel to the base commander. He didn't come on immediately and when he did, his voice was made even rougher by the hissing of static in the audio-only transmission.
"Commander," she greeted him.
"Commander," was his reply, not without a moment of humour at the repetition.
"Status?"
"Not to be that guy, but it's bad. The Khumaro has towed the Tarleton back into orbit. The damn thing can't fly for shit, but her weapons are still mostly functional. The thing is, they've stopped firing at the base directly. They've taken to carving up the damn rock we're sitting on. I feel like a feast-day kelpien. If they keep that up, the whole thing will break up and tear us apart with it."
"How long can you hold out?"
"I have absolutely no idea," the commander hissed in frustration. "I wish these cowards would get down here, give us a real fight, not this… fucking imitation of a battle."
"I hear you, commander," she said with a small, vicious smile creeping into her voice. "We have a plan. The Buran is currently on the way back to the base. We will engage the Khumaro and get the Tarleton away from you. The moment you can, you need to drop your shields and transport your soldiers down to the surface of Tarsus IV. The exact coordinates are in your files."
"I don't like the sound of any of that. We'll be sitting ducks up here with no troops."
"You and your command staff are to remain on the base, it's essential that the imperial forces don't notice what's going on. Whatever you do down there, keep doing it."
"What's on Tarsus that helps us?"
"Ground to orbit phaser-banks. Your people will take New Anchorage, get control of the phaser-banks, I'll lure the Khumaro and the Defiant back within range and…" she stopped, mimicked the explosion with her hands, although she knew he wouldn't see it. "Fireworks over Tarsus."
The base commander was silent, clearly trying to figure out how to tell her he didn't think the plan was going to go as smoothly as her description of it had made it seem. For one, there was absolutely no guarantee the Buran would be able to hold out against two imperial ships for the timeframe they had.
"Whatever you need, commander. We'll get them down."
"Fighters first, only who can follow orders and hold a weapon."
"Of course," he said, paused before he added, "But for the record, I really wish I'd get to kill at least one of these bastards myself today."
"All you've got to do is survive," Landry said. "Fight another day." It was, of course, true for all of them. The Buran was going to take heavy fire for a long time just to set things in motion and there was the ever-present needling doubt that she had put the success of this entire operation into the hands of a prisoner who should never have been let out of his cell. Despite the gravity of the situation and all the moving parts she could barely keep in her view, not to mention even dream of controlling, this different Lorca was capable of being a force all his own, with nothing to ensure his compliance, now that he was released. She pushed the thought aside. There was nothing she could do, except use him as a weapon for as long as he let her.
"Now there's a challenge," the commander chuckled. "I'll take it."
"Good. I expected nothing less."
She closed the channel with a flick of her finger, let her eyes close for another moment of quiet, but this time the medication didn't let the tranquillity come. Instead, there was only an itching sense of urgency, forcing her away from the desk, squaring her shoulder.
Head held high, she strode back out on her smoke-filled bridge.
"All right, let's show them how it's done."
The Buran broke from the feeble protection of the asteroid belt with phasers blazing. It got several shots in at the Khumaro, aiming for the ship's nacelles with the obvious intention of disabling it like the Tarleton in their first skirmish. The Khumaro's shield held, causing only minimal damage, but the ship swung around immediately, ceasing its attack on the asteroid to focus on the new, moving target.
The Tarleton, without any drive of its own, fired several torpedoes at the Buran, but otherwise continued its attack on the base.
The Buran went to warp, springing itself out of range of the torpedoes' targeting. Out in the openness of space, the Defiant had no trouble catching up to the Buran. It engaged the smaller ship the second the warp jump was completed and forcing the Buran to transfer all energy to shields just to hold out against the first onslaught, unable to run or even fire back in that first moment.
Like a predator on its prey's bloody trail, the Khumaro joined the fray, picking at the Buran's underbelly with the slicing assault of its phasers. The Buran shuddered for a moment, seemingly immobile before she sprung back into action. Her phaser banks opened fire, she used every ounce of additional agility to roll over the Khumaro, switching to her rear phaser banks to deliver a second folly just before the Khumaro could adjust her own shields.
One phaser sliced through the Khumaro's shields and impacted the bulk of the ship, near the port-side nacelle. The manoeuvre had brought the Khumaro between the Defiant and the Buran, shielding the Buran from a direct phaser attack, but the torpedoes the Defiant let loose swung swiftly around the Khumaro and hit the underside of the Buran's saucer section.
The Buran jumped back to warp, bringing it to the edge of the solar system, where she dropped back into impulse, used a swing-by around a small moon to accelerate her and propelled her at sub-light speed back towards her pursuers just as they finished their own warp jumps. The Buran passed through between them, close enough to the energy fields of their shields collided and short-circuited each other. Opening full fire on both sides, the Buran deliver a long, ongoing phaser bombardment along the length of both imperial ships.
The Buran herself suffered several impacts on her nacelles and the defunct spore drive installation. It shook and shuddered when one of her four nacelles went critical, tiny explosions running from the tip towards the body of the ship.
Immediately, the Defiant and the Khumaro concentrated their fire on the vulnerability. The Buran's shields were on full power around the drive, but the internal and external forces were too much and the field weakened. Just before the explosions could reach the ship, new explosion propelled the destroyed nacelles away from the Buran while her remaining two nacelles flared up, their energy rerouted and put the Buran back into motion.
On the bridge of the Buran, Landry's hands were clasped tightly around the armrests of the captain's chair, painfully aware of the severity of the damage they had already suffered.
"Transmission from the base, sir," the comm officer announced through the smoke and sparks around them. "They say the Tarleton is concentrating its fire on the base, they can't drop their shields to beam anyone out."
Landry had suspected something of the sort but had hoped without the steadying tractor beam of the Khumaro, the Tarleton would drift off course much faster than it had.
"Well, fuck that," Landry hissed. "Fire a torpedo at our dropped nacelles, maybe ignite them, give them a moment to deal with that. Then get us back to base, ASAP."
"Aye!" the navigator and the ops officers shouted at the same time.
The sirens howled announcing the launch of the torpedoes just ahead of yet another warp jump. The engineer on the bridge cursed colourfully but wasted no time on complaining. Even with only half their nacelles functioning and the other two's rough detachment causing some severe structural damage, the Buran was still capable of going to warp, although it was far from a smooth jump. Landry was fairly certain they left a trail of bits and pieces of essential components behind.
"We've got two minutes until we're back, do we have enough juice to tow the Tarleton?"
"We don't have enough juice to tow a sailboat, commander," the engineer said.
Landry narrowed at the tactical information scattered across the view-screen. It was an exaggeration, of course, but not nearly as much as she had hoped.
"Draw the energy from the phaser-banks," she ordered. "Catch the Tarleton in a slingshot and toss it at the Khumaro when they drop out of warp."
"Even if we could do that, it'll fry everything we've got left," the engineer pointed out, but he was already working on re-routing the currents to do as she had said.
They used the stored kinetic energy of the jump to fly close to the Tarleton, engage the tractor beam and drag the helpless ship with them. The Tarleton trembled in their wake, did its best to use phaser blasts to stabilise itself. An ingenious attempt, but not strong and precise enough to break the Buran's hold for more than a handful of moments at a time. When the connection snapped, it made things worse for the Tarleton, tumbling helplessly in space.
The Buran caught her again, this time the lock held and they swung around each other like dancers, in increasing speed and momentum.
The Khumaro arrived first, just as the Buran and the Tarleton completed an orbit. The tractor beam cut them loose, propelling both ships away from each other, their massive bodies unstoppable in the emptiness of space.
Due to the mass of the Tarleton, it was moving comparably slowly, but it wasn't enough to enact any evasive manoeuvres so close after a warp-jump. The Tarleton smashed through the Khumaro's shields, tore through the delicate attachments of the nacelles and their bulks collided with the unstoppable slowness and utter devastation of a breaking avalanche.
The Buran had lost all power after it released the Tarleton, being sent just as tumbling the other direction. Landry remembered shouting to get everything they had to shields in the darkness, but couldn't tell if there was any response in their systems left, any energy or power to draw upon.
They had been launched back into the asteroid belt, tiny rocks impacting them like hail, making it clear that there were no shields at all to protect them from the shockwave of two exploding warp-cores.
"Shields!" she shouted herself hoarse and her only answer was an incoherent scream from where the engineer was still holding on to his console. Something sparked in the absolute blackness, another spark and the minute sound of the systems booting up.
The first quake of the shockwave shook through them so strong, Landry felt them pulling on the very molecules of her being as the integrity of the Buran began to disintegrate.
"Shields!" the engineer announced, laughing in mad triumph. "We have shields!"
The shockwave broke over and against them.
Leaned against the wall by the kitchen, Culber watched the soldiers being beamed down five at a time, assessing their state with a critical look from a distance while Ferasini barked a quick debrief at them and directed them to the infirmary, the kitchen, or the sleeping quarters.
As the hall began to fill up and the first batch of soldiers reported for duty, Culber and Ferasini set them to task, assembling buggies from stored or replicated parts so they could rush back to New Anchorage. With the lockdown still in effect, they couldn't beam there directly, even if they had the technology available. A scattering field would intercept and disperse a transporter beam.
A message announced itself on the PADD in his hand and he glanced down. Leighton announcing he had picked up Marlena Moreau and… Commander Tyler? Now that was an interesting development, but Culber couldn't quite decide whether he liked it or not. He would find out soon enough, so he wasn't inclined to ponder it.
Lorca wandered to his side, cradling yet another cup of pitch-black coffee, making Culber wonder if the man actually liked the stuff or whether he just needed something to hold on to, an old habit from when he had been, well, whoever he had been where he'd come from.
Despite having slept longer than the rest of them, Lorca looked tired, face drawn into a gaunt calm with eyes narrowed into seemingly perpetual annoyance. Maybe the coffee, Culber thought, amusing himself.
The next batch of soldiers being beamed down accepted Ferasini's direction and took their leave. Some of them noticed Lorca and saluted him quickly and briskly. Ferasini hadn't noticed, with her back turned to them, but Culber had no doubt she'd have scowled if she knew.
Culber had vaguely hoped their tryst would have put both of them into a better mood, it had definitely sounded like they had enjoyed themselves. However, Ferasini seemed even more short-tempered while Lorca's pretence of confident self-control had taken on a sharp, icy quality.
"I just got a message from Moreau," Culber said. "Leighton picked her up. The gunship is inbound any minute. There's no tail."
"Any news from Landry?"
Culber pulled a face and said nothing as he handed Lorca the PADD and watched the man's face as he looked over the reports pieced together from the soldiers that were being beamed down from the base. Landry had managed to take out the Khumaro and the Tarleton, but the Buran was barely holding together anymore. They were currently engaged in a deadly game of hide-and-seek with the Defiant in the asteroid belt, trying to leg it back to Tarsus before they were turned into space debris.
When Lorca handed the PADD back without a comment, Culber said, "Do we have enough time?"
Lorca took a sip of the coffee and despite watching for it, Culber spotted not even the slightest reaction to the vile liquid making itself known in the set of his face.
"Wrong question," Lorca said. "We'll just have to move as fast as we can. How many people do we have?"
"Fifty-two so far, most of them in fighting condition," Culber said. "They are only sending down the foot-soldiers, by the way. The officers are staying on the base."
Lorca frowned. "I need officers with command experience."
Culber made a sound of disagreement at the back of his throat. "No, you just think that. You need soldiers who'll follow your orders. Officers would challenge you, doesn't matter what Landry told them or whether it's not the smart thing to do. You keep forgetting that you're not our captain. Granted, most of us slip up on that one every so often, but that doesn't change anything. At the end of the day, you're just the pretender and you haven't proved anything to most of these people."
Culber pointed his chin at the milling soldiers. "Some of them were your jailers not very long ago."
Lorca snorted a derisive laugh. "You think I can't make some uppity officers respect the chain of command?"
Culber shrugged. "Honestly? I don't know. But the thing is, I don't think we really have time for that much of a pissing contest. Landry is doing all of us a favour, go with it."
Lorca didn't look convinced but held his silence. Culber already sensed that he wasn't going to let that one go, because tactically, Lorca's demand for officers wasn't a bad idea. Culber really hoped he wasn't somewhere on the list of possibilities, but he had already worked out his arguments against it. Ferasini, he suspected, would be doing the opposite. She had no combat experience of her own, however, and would most likely just become a victim of her own ambition.
"Do you want to know why we've all chosen to follow Captain Lorca?" Culber asked. There was a twitch in the other man's face at the sound of his own name. It looked almost like he was developing a nervous tick.
"I really couldn't care less," Lorca said, distaste thick in his voice.
"Well, but you should," Culber insisted. "Because these are the people you're going to have to trust." He pointed at the soldiers. "Captain Lorca cares for us. Every single one of us, we're important to him. That's the difference between him and the emperor."
"He burned dozens of you when he took my ship," Lorca said. "Didn't seem like he cared."
Culber shook his head, wondering how he could get past the other man's wilful ignorance. He couldn't blame him for attacking every aspect of Captain Lorca he could, but Culber found he couldn't stand the unfairness of it. Captain Lorca deserved respect, even — or perhaps especially — from someone with the same face.
"Seems to me like you're a captain, too," Culber said. "Had a ship, had people under your command. I bet you've been in plenty of situations where you knew you couldn't protect everyone. I always thought that's the point. Commanding officers, they've got to make the hard calls. Are you really going to stand there and pretend you never did any of that? And if you didn't, what kind of worthless captain are you?"
Lorca kept his mouth clamped firmly shut, frown directed away from Culber and at the two soldiers who passed them by on the way to the kitchen. The two saluted and Lorca, seemingly without realising it, gave them a curt nod in acknowledgement.
Culber softened his tone a little, "The point is, everyone gets used by someone for something. But the emperor? She uses people up and throws them away. In her mind, everyone is replaceable at the flick of her finger. That's what makes her weak, she doesn't see the bigger picture. Some minor transgression can get anyone in her inner circle killed at any moment, it doesn't matter if they serve an important purpose or have talents or skills she actually needs. Captain Lorca knows what the people under his command can do. He's put us all in the one place where we matter the most. He'd never waste anyone just because he can. Even if someone is just a tiny cog in his machinations, that tiny cog is important, because without it everything else breaks down. He matters to us because we matter to him, that's the thing that really counts in my book."
When Lorca only responded with another sip of the coffee, Culber added, "And it's in their books as well. That's why we follow him and that's why he has people loyal to him. The emperor only has people who fear her."
"Are you in love, doctor?"
Culber laughed. "I wouldn't go that far. A crush, maybe. A small one. I've only met him once, after all, and I got, uh, distracted by someone else at the time."
"Someone I know?"
"Paul Stamets, Captain Lorca's chief scientist, I don't know if you've met," Culber said, looked at Lorca and said, "or which one."
"The magic mushrooms guy? I saw him briefly on my ship. Seemed like someone in need of a beating."
Culber snorted a laugh. "He's… peculiar, I'll give you that. It's difficult to explain, sometimes people just click, like it's meant to be, like the whole world and your entire existence makes sense suddenly."
"He's betrayed you and ran off to the emperor," Lorca said and Culber pulled a face. He had seen the riposte coming a mile away, but a small part of him was still shocked that even this Lorca hadn't been nice enough to let it slide.
"Well, he was just a one-night stand!" Culber said, too quickly and too defensively for his own taste. "It's not like he told me he'd planned to do that years in the future!"
"A true love one-night stand," Lorca mused, took another sip. "You think he feels the same?"
Culber shrugged. "It's a nice thought," he admitted. "I like hanging on to it."
Lorca said nothing for a moment, gaze carefully kept away from Culber, between the open hall and the passing soldiers. "Would he come back for you?"
Intensity lurked behind the seemingly innocent question, neutrally voiced between a nod at a passing soldier and a sip of the worst coffee in the galaxy. The spore drive was Lorca's only certain way to get home and Paul the only one he knew who could operate it. Captain Lorca's and Paul's relationship had always been marked by mutual distrust and disdain, Culber rather doubted Paul would be much more amenable to this Lorca's arguments, with or without Culber backing them up. Which, truth be told, he could definitely see himself doing, mostly for entirely selfish reasons.
None of this seemed like a particularly good idea to share with the man next to him, who was still amassing an interesting arsenal of connections and pieces of knowledge, figuring out how to make best use of all of them.
The PADD chirped in his hand and he glanced down, with a hint of relief at having a proper excuse to abandon the topic, hopefully for a good long while.
"Here they are," Culber said and walked to the nearest control console to open the broad doors. They slid open reluctantly, screeching as their worn-out meta-materials were forced to grind against each other. The gunship glided into the hall, filling almost a quarter of it and sending some soldiers scrambling out of the way hastily.
The gunship extended its spindly landing gear, looking like a giant spider as it sat down on long legs before it lowered itself fully to the ground. Handholds snapped out along the side of it and the cockpit lifted, then slipped back into the chassis.
Marlena Moreau's dark head became visible first, standing up to scan the area until she spotted Culber slowly walking towards the gunship.
"Tommy's wounded!" she shouted at him, then bent down to haul the slumped, much larger man over her shoulder.
Culber broke into a run, giving a shout for aid and scaled the outside of the gunship. Leighton was unconscious, sitting in a puddle of blood in the co-pilot seat next to Moreau. Behind the two seats, wedged in the too narrow space, was Commander Tyler, handcuffed and blindfolded, though without any visible injuries on him.
Culber helped Moreau pull Leighton from the gunship and down, where he handed him over to four waiting hands.
"Get him to the infirmary," Culber told them. To Moreau, he said, "Report to Dr Ferasini, she's around here somewhere."
She nodded but bent back down to get a hold of her captive.
Culber decided to let her struggle with him on her own time. He hopped down and hurried after the injured man.
Tyler had felt the gunship touchdown, heard Moreau shout for help. There were voices and the rustle of clothes and combat gear as Leighton was removed from the gunship. A moment later, Moreau's slim fingers dug like steel wire into his arms. He considered kicking at her with his legs, just to spite her, but decided against it. Blind and without the use of his hands, he was more likely to make a fool of himself than make anything harder for her in any significant way.
"There must be an interesting story behind it," a deep, female voice said and a second set of hands took hold of his legs.
"We've been working on him for a while," Moreau said, hissing when Tyler's weight nearly slipped her. She cursed, then said, "Let's just let him drop."
He braced himself, but judging from the angle, he was already halfway down. He hit the ground with his feet first, the impact sending jarring pain up his bones because he hadn't been able to cushion the fall, but he didn't think it had caused any lasting damage. He would even have struggled to his feet, but a low thud landed next to his head and a boot kicked him between the shoulders. He decided to stay put.
"That wasn't quite the method I had in mind," the unknown woman said, sarcasm thin and deadly in her tone.
Moreau gave him another kick, but then hauled him to his feet after all and walked him away from the gunship.
"Nothing works on this guy," Moreau said, sounding petulant. "I can't figure him out. But his command is shot to hell now, so I thought I'd just take him along, see if the captain can talk some sense into him."
"Let's get to that later," the unknown woman said in an obvious deflection. Tyler wondered if Moreau couldn't hear it. The woman said, "What happened to Leighton?"
"He got stabbed when he took over the gunship, his co-pilot didn't want to see the light. We dumped her body when Tommy picked me up. We needed the space."
Roughly, she freed him of his blindfold and gave him a shove so he stumbled forward. He would have been able to stay on his feet, but Moreau swiped his legs away from under him and he crashed. He managed to turn his body slightly, protecting his chest and taking the brunt of the fall on his shoulder. The force of it bounced his head down, though not nearly as painfully as it could have been. Kicked up dust filled his nostrils and he exhaled sharply to clear his airways. Moreau gave him a kick, not hard enough to really hurt, she was just reminding him of how she had bested him. It was hard to even be angry with her, not when she had played her game so well and he had been entirely clueless the entire time through. She had been laughing in his face all this time, knowing so much more than he did. She had had him so utterly convinced he had her figured out, he never even considered looking deeper.
Except, now, the ground had opened up and revealed the abyss beneath his feet and it was so much darker than anything he had ever dared dream about.
"That is enough," a voice commanded and the kicks into his side stopped.
He struggled on his side, lifting his head to take stock of his surrounding.
A warehouse or large garage, mostly empty except for a haphazard array of equipment set up near where he'd been dropped. He watched as a woman walked past him, said Moreau's name and then seemed to lead her away.
Tyler was fixated on the man who had spoken and now stood several steps away, casually, as if giving Tyler time to slide his gaze up along his body in appraisal. Solid boots, dusty from the dirt in the hall, tight-fitting trousers with the dull gleam of combat-weave to it. A freshly replicated thigh holster held a phaser, straps bunching a loose shirt around narrow hips. He wore a dark jacket, reinforced chitinous patches on elbows and shoulders and along his sides. Tyler knew the design, there would a line of reinforcement down along the spine at the back, too, meant for close-quarter fighting. The collar was pulled up, framing his exposed throat. Visible just at the edge, almost hidden behind the collar, was the discolouration of small bruise and the distinct marks of teeth from someone he had allowed close enough to mark him.
He returned Tyler's scrutiny levelly, blue eyes sharp and unblinking, but not as wantonly malicious as Tyler had expected. There was no mistaking the man's identity, though.
After Lorca's first, failed coup, his likeness had been added to all fighting simulations across the Empire. It had been programmed based on the man's medical scans, his own fighting logs, every piece of data the Empire possessed about his skills. Most soldiers hated the simulation, considering it overpowered when even the best of them rarely exceeded a one-in-eight success rate.
Tyler, as a commander, knew that the soldiers' assessment wasn't far off. It was meant to stoke their bloodlust, play to their pride and desire to test themselves against such a foe.
Up until this moment, no matter what Maddox had said and what the reports had suggested, Tyler hadn't quite believed Lorca really was hiding out on Tarsus.
Tyler cursed quietly to himself and dropped his head to the floor in a moment of weakness.
Lorca picked up a chair as he walked, set it on the ground in front of Tyler and sat down, forearms resting on his knees, hands suspiciously empty as he leaned in and tilted his head just slightly.
"I'm Captain Gabriel Lorca," he said and for a moment his expression held something almost like warmth. Tyler couldn't think of anything to say, didn't want to show a hand he probably didn't even have. He just watched him and waited.
Lorca lifted his gaze briefly to glance in the direction where Moreau had gone, but his expression gave nothing away.
"What do you think I should do with you?"
Tyler bared his teeth, "Ask Cadet Moreau, she told me we'd talk, and then she stuck a needle in my neck," he took a sharp breath. "My fault, of course, should have knee-capped the little minx when I had the chance, but… you've thoroughly infiltrated my people, I lost New Anchorage. At this point, Captain Maddox can't even use me as a scapegoat anymore."
Something thin and sharp crossed Lorca's face in the guise of a quick smile.
"Is that what was happening? You were okay with being a scapegoat?"
Tyler snorted. "That just depends on in how many pieces Maddox gets a hold of you."
This time, the amusement lingered a little longer, though it wasn't any more pleasant for it.
"What's your opinion on the empire?"
The moment the question was out, Tyler knew he couldn't answer it. There was too much mixed into it, too much at stake to put into words. The empire was everything he'd ever known in his life. Even as a child, he'd wanted nothing more than join its army and make his way all the way to the top. Yet, at some point, he'd lost a gamble he hadn't realised was being played and he'd ended up with a dead-end assignment on a planet no one really cared about. Then, out of the blue, opportunity walks back into his life, only to draw the ground away from under him almost instantly.
He didn't know his own opinion on the empire.
Something of his thoughts must have been visible on his face or in the silence he kept.
Lorca leaned a little closer, bared his teeth, but his voice remained deceptively gentle.
"I'll tell you what I think. The empire, it's sick, rotting from the inside, morally corrupted, its current politics are unsustainable. It's going to fall apart in your lifetime."
He gave Tyler a moment to see if the description matched his own experience and whether he was able to accept the truth of it.
Lorca said, "The question you need to ask is if you want to go under with it. Captain Maddox certainly won't care. And as for your emperor, you're probably not even a statistic to her."
Her, Tyler noted. Lorca knew the emperor so well, he knew she was a woman. Tyler heard rumours over the years, but he'd heard the same rumours of the opposite. It hadn't seemed to matter then, the emperor was more than human, above them in any sense of the word, too great to be so mundanely defined. Yet, here stood someone for whom dealing with the emperor had been commonplace.
"But I'm sure I can find a place for you," Lorca said, a flick of his eyes at the milling soldiers around them, the open invitation to join them and… do what exactly? Lorca was just a fugitive, even if his prediction of the empire's inevitable demise was true, there was no guarantee he'd be the one who came out on top. In your lifetime, Lorca had said, but that wasn't a very meaningful measurement when they all could be dead tomorrow.
Somewhere behind him, a woman raised her voice, mingled with Moreau's in some kind of argument, ripping into Tyler's thoughts and Lorca's small, self-contained world he'd created around them.
"Hey you!" Moreau shouted followed by footsteps and she stepped over Tyler, glaring into Lorca's face. "That's my prisoner! I never said you could talk to him!"
Before Tyler could even be confused by her tone, Lorca was on his feet. Springing from refined stillness into violence, he kicked the chair away behind him, sending it clattering loudly across the floor, bringing the commotions in the hall to an almost instant standstill.
Lorca wrapped his hand around Moreau's slender throat and dragged her back, momentarily out of Tyler's field of vision. When he struggled around, he saw Lorca had her pinned into a divider wall, forcing her up on her toes in his grip.
She kept on struggling, even went so far as to go for her dagger, but Lorca caught her wrist with his free hand without any apparent effort or even taking his gaze away. He twisted her wrist viciously and she dropped the weapon, wincing and going still, though her glare was still full of fire.
Tyler couldn't hear what she said, it was too low, an angry hiss that didn't carry.
Lorca's answer, however, composed despite the exertion just before, was clear as day. He said, "Oh, I am Gabriel Lorca. It just doesn't mean what you think it does."
He paused, kicked her dagger away with his foot before he eased his grip, letting her down.
"It doesn't matter, I'm the one calling the shots around here. If you don't like it, I'll just have to deal with you right here."
By then, the woman Tyler had seen earlier and now recognised as a scientist from the institute — Ferasini? He'd seen her at functions at the colonial offices a few times — had come up behind them.
"I was just explaining this to her," she said, tightly controlled anger directed at Moreau.
"Well, you fucked that up nicely," Lorca said, but with a small squeeze for emphasis, he released Moreau from his grip, but held his position right in front of her so she didn't quite know where to go or where to look.
Lorca arched an eyebrow at Moreau. "Your call," he said, the implications clear.
Tyler knew Moreau wasn't easily cowed, but he could tell she didn't quite dare challenge him again even though she looked like she wanted to.
"Marlena," Ferasini said. "Save your outrage for when you know the whole story, it's the best offer you'll get."
"Let Dr Culber set her straight," Lorca said and for some reason, Ferasini's expression darkened. She made no argument, though and Lorca nodded once in the casual assumption of a silent accord between them, then stepped back and turned around. Ferasini sent a baleful stare after him, then took the same look to Moreau. She made a gesture with her head and when Moreau didn't react immediately, Ferasini grabbed her upper arm and dragged her away. Moreau went with her after only a lacklustre show of resistance.
Lorca walked a small circle around Tyler as he returned to him, seemed to think for a moment, then walked further to the chair he'd kicked away before. He set it back up, but instead of taking it himself, he crouched down by Tyler and hauled him up and into the chair.
The world finally being a little more level, Tyler allowed himself a moment of deep breathing.
"I'm sure that scene didn't make any sense to you," Lorca said.
Tyler said, "Cadet Moreau doesn't respect anyone. It's her best and worst quality, really."
Lorca shook his head, "Ah, no, that's not what I meant."
Tyler watched him, still with that nagging sense of confusion at the back of his head. Something was clearly wrong here and not in the way he had any reason to expect.
Lorca said, "You see, her little outburst was entirely justified from her perspective. I am Gabriel Lorca, but I'm not the man you think. I was born in a parallel universe. The Captain Lorca you know and I switched places a few months ago after he attacked and destroyed my ship. Until recently, I was just another prisoner."
Tyler frowned, trying to wrap his mind around the concept and wondering if it was all some made-up story to deceive Lorca's enemies. It seemed entirely too ridiculous for that purpose, though.
"Why are you telling me this?" Tyler asked.
"Because you'd find out anyway," Lorca said. "Everything I said before is true. Your empire is failing, take it from an outsider who's never been brainwashed by your propaganda. You can help me and you'll get a chance to carve out a future for yourself, no matter what happens to the empire."
"What if I don't?"
A twitch at the corner of his mouth, Lorca said, "Can't get bogged down with prisoners and I'm not terran, I don't play with my victims. I'm merciful, I'll just kill you."
"At least I know where I stand," Tyler remarked, glanced down at himself and amused himself by adding, "Or sit, as the case may be. Thanks for that, by the way, it was getting demeaning down there."
Lorca bent his head a little, accepting the sardonic gratitude. Because he had relinquished the only nearby seat, he remained standing. In fact, the disparity between them had just shifted upward. Lorca was still looking down at him.
"I wonder," Tyler started, face as blank as he could make it, studying the other man's for any accidental change in expression. "If I actually believe you."
There was a twitch in the muscles along the side of his mouth. If anything, Tyler would have called it amusement, but it didn't go deep enough to be certain.
"It's just very convenient for you," Tyler said. "They've almost got you and here you are, not being… who you are."
"What have I got to gain?" Lorca asked softly. "You think your emperor would simply let me go?"
Tyler didn't exactly know what use a fake Lorca would be for the emperor, other than perhaps to make an example of him and declare Lorca dead for all the galaxy to see. If she wanted to help the real Lorca stay in hiding, of course, which didn't make any sense. The emperor wouldn't ever let him go, but his uselessness to her probably just made his situation more dangerous.
There was an intricate power imbalance at play around here, far beyond Tyler's ability to comprehend after just a few minutes. If he took the other man's words at face value, then his position was as precarious as it could ever be. He had to have plans of his own, something beyond the scope of what the real Captain Lorca had in store. If he believed the claim, then this Lorca was completely unpredictable.
Lorca said, "I'll let you think it through. Don't take too long."
He left without giving Tyler a chance to question him further and left the commander sitting alone on that chair. His hands were still bound, but there was no guard he could detect. In fact, no one seemed to be paying him any attention at all, least of all, Lorca himself.
Shifting in his seat to find a somewhat more comfortable position, Tyler thought that for a man who had just professed at not playing with his victims, the set-up was commendably shrewd.
End of Chapter 5: The Value of Pawns
Author's Note: I realise I've managed to get most of my plot stuck in a glorified garden shed. So I wrote a space battle to remind myself that this is supposed to be sci fi. I've never written one of those, please don't look too closely at the physics because they'll probably give you nightmares. Laws of nature deserve better. Otherwise, I hope it serves.
Last revised on02/February/2019