Chapter 6: A Choice of Values
A data burst from the Buran cut the crisis meeting short. The metallic sound of guns scraping over the rough aluminium tabletop filled the half-enclosed room with a sudden rush of activity as the assembled soldiers re-armed themselves and went to get their units ready to move out within minutes.
Lorca had made them put all their weapons on the table before commencing with the meeting, a petty little power-play that might just as easily have backfired fatally, at least if Culber's blanching expression had been any indication. It had done its job, though, easing these people into the concept of taking orders which they might deem strange or impudent or downright insane. They were going to do his bidding, every last one of them, Lorca wouldn't allow them to wriggle out of it.
When the men and women had left the background buzz of their activity faded away behind the divider walls, leaving only Lorca behind, with Culber facing him across the table and Balayna standing off to the side with Moreau. Lorca paid none of them any attention.
He dug the tip of his dagger into the palm of his gloved hand, then pulled down to leave a thin fissure in the leathery material. He brushed the flat of the blade over the cut to smooth it out and then watched as the material healed the minor damage as if it had never been.
The Buran had shown its teeth, it seemed. Had taken out both the Khumaro and the Tarleton, but had suffered damage nearly beyond recovery. They hadn't had the time nor the capability for more than the data burst they'd received, not enough bandwidth for more than a very short message and one their enemies almost certainly had picked up, too, though they might need a little time to decode it. Landry, or whoever else was now in command of the ship, would try to leg it back to Tarsus, bringing the Defiant with them. They couldn't stand and fight, though, not even for a moment, which meant their plan to take New Anchorage and the phaser banks had mere hours left to succeed.
Lorca wanted the Buran to start evacuating her crew to the planet's surface as soon as they arrived, giving him a few extra guns to hold the city while they blasted the Defiant out of the sky.
Lorca looked up and watched through the gaps in the walls as the men and women milled about. They were too far away to understand what they were saying, but their body language and facial expressions made their topics quite clear: Boasting about the atrocities they had already committed, comparing them to the ones they were looking forward to. There were too many eager grins on these faces, flexing hands on their guns and daggers. Not all of them had had a military background, though they all were well-versed in fighting. There were many erstwhile mercenaries and freelance assassins among them, former pit fighters and other unfree servants who had fought free of their imprisonment only to throw their lot in with just another tyrant, though, perhaps there was something to what Culber had said. Everyone got used by someone and the only power an individual could hold was to choose who was holding their leash. It didn't matter much which lies they told themselves to get through it.
Culber was watching his antics with the knife, doing his level best to appear as if it didn't bother him and Lorca wondered how long he could keep him hanging there, how much time he dared waste on such trivialities, just another meaningless power-play, like everything else in this forsaken universe.
"I want Tyler," Lorca said, looking up.
Starting to speak jostled Balayna, brought her back to the table like a dog whistle. She pulled out a chair to sit down, hands neatly folded in front of him, watching him with both halves of her face in the same expressionless stoniness.
Culber gave her a quick, questioning look, but frowned back at Lorca when he said, "Yeah, me too."
"He'll fly the gunship," Lorca said, caught Culber's gaze and dragged it along towards Moreau. "Take Cadet Moreau and release him. He's her prisoner, after all."
"What if he doesn't want to join up?"
"You kill him," Lorca said. He dug the tip of the knife into his palm again, this time rotating the knife like a drill, burrowing deep. "Or do you want me to do it?"
Culber was a laid-back man, but the last few hours had chipped away on his mood, chafed away the quick smiles on his face and the relaxed posture of his body. Bags were beginning to form under his eyes, frown lines creasing his forehead.
"I don't think that's a very good idea," Culber said. "Tyler, I mean. We don't know much about him. He's not safe for you to be around."
Lorca considered smiling at the absurd implication and then decided not to. He said, "So who is safe for me to be around?"
Culber threw out his hands in a burst of exasperation, rolling his eyes. "Every-fucking-one else!"
"You mean my jailers?" Lorca asked. "Or are you volunteering yourself?"
"Soldiers trained to follow orders," Balayna supplied when Culber seemed momentarily lost for words.
The doctor gathered himself and said, "Tyler is probably just going to stick a knife in your back and drag you off to Maddox. What are you even thinking!"
Lorca just watched him, focussed more on the weight of the knife in his hand than on the doctor. The knife's sheath was nestled inside his right boot and though it fit smoothly to his calf, he couldn't shake the impression it was throwing off his balance when he walked. Balayna's expression had settled, though, seeing through him far too fast.
"Your opinion has been noted," Lorca said. "Tyler will fly the gunship." He tilted his head towards where Tyler was still sitting forlornly on the chair. "Get going."
"My opinion has been noted?" Culber repeated, voice beginning to tip into a shout. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
By then, Lorca had nearly managed to penetrate the glove, and the pressure he felt was slowly taking on a thin edge. He waited out Culber's outburst, let him think it through and realise he didn't have any other options left, because none of them really did. He looked as if he intended to argue the point anyway but then didn't.
"Whatever you say," Culber said, he still sounded strained, but much more like himself again. He got up, took a step towards Lorca around the table. Reaching out and opened his hand in Lorca's line of sight.
A tiny phial sat there, an injector needle nestled safely in a transparent covering. Lorca glanced from the pin to Culber.
"Shook troops use something they call Rush," Culber explained. "Kicks like a gorn berserker, but I can't really synthesise it with the equipment I've got here. So this is a much milder version I developed myself. Just gives you a little kick, sharpens the senses, but dulls pain, increases oxygen delivery to the brain and muscles, lowers inhibitions a bit. Pretty good stuff, and the best part, you barely crash after. Not much worse than you would anyway after an exertion."
"Lowers inhibitions," Lorca said almost to himself, sickened by the sudden sharp urge to reach for the pin and take its promise to protect him from his consciousness for what he was about to do.
Louder, he said, "What do you want me to do with it?"
For a moment it seemed like Culber was about to throw the pin at his face, but he just shrugged again and let the flare of anger fade away into annoyed resignation. He dropped the pin on the table and repeated, "Whatever you say."
He stepped away, lingered for another second, but then turned towards Moreau.
"Cadet," he said, cordially again. "Walk with me."
Lorca made a mental note of Moreau's quick look at Balayna for confirmation before she followed the doctor past the divider walls, leaving Lorca and Balayna in dubious, fleeting privacy.
Balayna had been keeping a careful distance from him in a good imitation of what constituted respect to these people. Having tried and failed to exploit his all too obvious vulnerability against him, she had withdrawn to observe him some more, a cat sitting back on its haunches and watching the mouse to better predict the next swat of its paw.
He'd been thinking about what she'd said, about him being afraid of her, but it wasn't quite the truth. He wasn't afraid of her. He was afraid of how she affected him. He couldn't trust his instincts around her. In every unguarded moment, a careless turn of his head, a swipe of his gaze, when he didn't have time to consciously think, a sharp spike shot through him, seeing her standing there, as alive as she had ever been. Only to immediately remember who and what she was and that Balayna was still dead. He was afraid of how much he wanted to punish her, just because she wasn't the woman she should've been.
He was glad she most likely wouldn't try to get back into his bed because if she ever got close enough to touch again, he wasn't sure he wouldn't hurt her. It wasn't something he contemplated living with.
"Take it," she said, chin pointing at the pin. "It'll be a hard fight, no point in making it harder."
"I know what I'm doing," he said. The tiny crater he had made in his palm closed itself.
With a well-concealed sigh, he pushed himself from the table, set his right foot on the chair and sheathed the knife in his boot.
Balayna's gaze still rested on him, the mobile half of her face displaying an emotion somewhere between anger, disdain and mere exasperation. There was a hunger there, too, but it wasn't anything he could help her with. She, like him, would just have to find a way to deal.
He straightened and zipped the jacket up, surprised when the material closed high around his throat without any apparent discomfort. Even the back of the collar, pulled high enough to support the base of his skull didn't seem to hinder his freedom of movement at all.
It shouldn't be unexpected that this universe exceeded his own in the sophistication of armour and weaponry, given their warlike and expansionist nature. For a fleeting second, he wondered if it would be possible to take some of it home with him. Certainly, it might just be the edge the Federation needed in the conflict with the klingons. Then, of course, he remembered he probably wasn't going to go home at all, no matter how he still told himself it was his ultimate goal. He didn't have the means to go home, let alone take anything of value with him. And even if, would he even want to taint his universe with anything at all that had come out of the Terran Empire's blood-drenched history?
He ignored Balayna as well he could and stepped outside the wall to survey the hall.
A young man walked into his trajectory and Lorca barked, "Hey," tone infused by the irritation he felt at being unable to address the man by his name. He reached out and grabbed his upper arm to stop him. The young man's reaction was immediate and lightning fast, he shook free of the grip and twisted around, fist already swinging. He'd have landed that blow because he was too close and for all his alertness, Lorca would've been fast enough to retaliate, but not fast enough to block. Instead, the young man stopped himself, his raised fist hovering awkwardly in the air before he dropped it by his side, staring at Lorca in abject shock.
Lorca tilted his head back, arched one, questioning eyebrow and waited for the young man to gather his wits, take a step back and give the sharpest salute Lorca had ever witnessed.
"I need a set of weapons and armour for Commander Tyler," Lorca said.
"I'll get it," the young man said, blinked in another moment of uncertainty, then added, "Sir."
Lorca didn't move, so the man wasn't quite sure if he was already dismissed or if his rash action would still have consequences.
Lorca said, "What is your name?"
Some quickly hidden part of the man squirmed, knowing better than Lorca himself how very unhealthy it could be to attract the wrong kind of attention from just the wrong person, but he knew better than to make his situation worse by hesitating. "Romeo Zhang, sir."
Lorca nodded and knew he looked like he was edging the soldier's name and face into his memory for all eternity. He had always made it a point to know the people under his command. His subordinates had always been divided on whether this was a good thing or not, since he had a habit of holding each and everyone responsible for their decisions and mistakes. He believed it kept them on their toes and their head in the game and he saw no reason why it wouldn't work the same way here, possibly even more so.
"See to it," Lorca said, finally dismissing the man and walking past him.
#
Culber walked across the hall with Cadet Moreau striding alongside him. He was doing his level best not to show his annoyance at being saddled with her. She had been Ferasini's recruit right from the start, two of a kind, Culber had always thought. Too smart, too pretty and too ambitious, which only spelt trouble for pretty much everyone around them. Lorca's attempt to split them up was a valiant effort, but Culber doubted it would lessen the damage the two women could do. It'd just double it.
To combat his foul mood, Culber told himself that he was backing the right man with Lorca. It didn't serve his own best interests to undermine the leadership he had so naturally assumed and he had trouble figuring out why Ferasini was quite so adamant to go against him. She was hardly dumb enough to jeopardise her own survival just because her sexual advances hadn't — apparently — worked as she had expected them to. Personally, Culber was a great fan of willing partners, everything else was just too much like work.
Besides and above everything else, there was no way Ferasini could really believe she was going to replace Lorca. If Landry returned and was still in one piece, the leadership would fall to her, as Captain Lorca's right hand and close confidante. Though, at this point, they didn't even know if she was still alive.
Culber had been keeping an ear to the ground, paying attention to what the soldiers being beamed down from the base were saying — and not saying. He was the doctor, after all, with the painkillers and the little happy pins to hand out. People had a habit of getting chatty with him. It had come as a relief to learn that most people were just glad someone had taken the reins and was giving them orders and the promise for a decent fight to die in. Of course, they knew Lorca wasn't the real deal, but it hardly seemed to matter apart from a little grumbling bewilderment. Most of it was owned to Lorca himself, the way he carried himself, his commanding voice and the underlying reassurance he portrayed. He had done a good job of setting himself up as the unexpectedly imposing centre of the storm with everything revolving around him, even if grudgingly.
All that made Culber wonder what it would be like to really serve under Captain Lorca. What would he do, if he was with them right now? Would his brilliance be giving them a different set of orders? Just how deep — or shallow for that matter — did the differences between the two men run?
"I don't get it," Moreau said, tearing Culber from his not very useful speculation.
Culber gave her a smile. "There's nothing to get. We play the hand we've been dealt."
"But he's…"
Mildly, Culber interrupted, "Yes? What is he? A prisoner? Hardly. Weak? Not really." He paused for a moment to let it sink in. "A usurper? Sounds like Captain Lorca to me all right."
"It's wrong," Moreau insisted inadequately, pouting.
"It's survival, my dear cadet. Chances are Lorca will be dead when this is over, which solves the problem pretty much to everyone's dissatisfaction. But it's nothing we have to worry about right now."
Moreau had quite obviously expected him to agree to her position and when it wasn't forthcoming she looked deeply unhappy. Culber wondered what Ferasini had been saying on the same topic.
"Cadet?" Culber prompted. He wasn't going to let her off the hook quite so easily. "You got what I'm saying here?"
Chewing on her lower lip, she hesitated, but then said, "I see your point."
"Good, make sure you remember it when it counts."
Commander Tyler still sat alone on the chair in the middle of an empty space, out of the way of where people were hastily finishing up the assembly of the buggies. He was being almost completely ignored, except for the occasional quick look of passersby. He tilted his head at Culber when he spotted him, face oddly serene, giving nothing at all away. He had sharp eyes, though, missing nothing of what was going on around him, filing the raw data away for when he might be able to make use of it.
Moreau broke away from Culber's side to pace a predatory circle around Tyler's back which the young commander pointedly failed to acknowledge.
"Is it true?" Tyler asked.
Not many things he could be talking about.
"Completely true," Culber said, tone careless in the face of what should've been an enormous revelation, but it lost some of its impact after a while.
"Where is Captain Lorca?"
Culber gave him a toothy grin. "How would I know? And even if I knew, why would I tell you?"
"To convince me."
"Aren't you just full of yourself," Culber shrugged.
Tyler paused for a moment, let his gaze drift around the room, turning his head just slightly to catch a glimpse of Moreau's pacing behind him. He said, "Your other Lorca, he offered me a place with you. Does it even count?"
Culber smiled, "Depends on what you want, really. Captain Lorca is going to take the Empire and rebuild it. You want a place in it?" Culber spread out his arms. "You have it."
"It's that simple? Why would you trust me?"
"No one said anything about 'trust', my friend, don't be stupid. You'll fight for us, you'll risk your life for us, and you've got your place. That's what's simple."
Culber fixed on Moreau over Tyler's shoulder and kept smiling warmly. "And besides, Cadet Moreau is going to vouch for you."
Moreau had a moment of looking entirely furious, too clever for her own good. With one simple sentence, Culber had tied her loyalty to Tyler's, making it that much more difficult for her to veer off in a direction she shouldn't be going.
But she worked through her anger and took up the part Culber had forced her to play.
"Yeah, he's got no one in the Empire left who'd take him," she said.
She gave him an ungentle shove and said, "Get up, I'll untie you."
Culber nodded his assent, in case she needed it and because Tyler shouldn't get any lofty ideas about his rank in the pecking order.
When Moreau was finished untying Tyler, the young commander got to his feet, shaking out his limbs and stretching limberness back into them, surveying the hall once again. He stopped, briefly, and when Culber swivelled to the side, so he caught sight of Lorca crossing the room in their direction, Ferasini and Leighton behind him.
"What happened?" Tyler asked, addressing no one in particular, but he'd waited until Lorca was at least in ear-shot.
Lorca didn't answer, only studied Tyler in silence with an intensity that made Culber vaguely glad he was standing off to the side of it. He had been paying attention to Lorca, too, reading between the lines of his silences and the minuscule twitches of the muscles in his face, the curl of disdain of his mouth and flare of his nostrils.
Movement caught Culber's eye, some discord in the general activity he couldn't figure out until he saw a young man hurry towards them, package hugged to his chest which turned out to be a set of body armour once he got close enough. With his hands full, he couldn't salute but stood to attention sharply, body turned towards Lorca before he handed the armour off to Tyler. He swung the second carbine from his shoulder and handed it over, too.
Lorca flicked his gaze at him, scrutinised him in the same eerie silence. When Lorca looked back at Tyler, the young man saluted, nodded at Culber, then hurried away.
Privately, Culber felt a little sorry for having missed whatever had gone down to make this one act the way he had. Culber thought it might have been rather educational.
Meanwhile, Tyler made no attempt to put the armour on, though he slipped his fingers smoothly into place on the carbine. Culber tensed and noticed everyone around him— except Lorca himself — do the same.
Tyler said, "What happened?"
He almost hit the same tone as before, but the two words came out more clipped and a little louder.
Lorca kept him hanging for another heartbeat longer, but finally asked, "Can you get the gunship past New Anchorage's automated defences?"
"The containment field isn't strong enough to stop us flying through," Tyler answered immediately. "Avoiding the turrets is going to take some work, but they're meant for crowd control, lots of splash damage, but not enough concerted fire to penetrate the gunship's shields, all we've got to do is keep moving."
Lorca nodded, taking in the information and fitting it in the plan he had already made. He had been free about his considerations during the talk earlier, laying out their next moves as clearly and plainly as possible. He wasn't going to allow someone to accidentally ruin everything. Terran commanders usually were more reticent with these things, jealous of the possibility some other officer could benefit to their detriment.
"The colonial offices," Lorca said. "Have a landing pad on the roof?"
"A docking tower," Tyler corrected. "To get into the building there's a lift or an outside ladder."
Lorca scowled at the unwelcome divergence but left it uncommented.
"You'll pilot the gunship," Lorca told Tyler. "And watch my back inside the building."
Culber shifted away from the little circle and stepped to Ferasini's side, who greeted him with an arched, sceptical eyebrow on the uninjured side of her face. They said nothing to each other, though, not with so many unsuitable ears listening.
Lorca looked them over, then glanced around the wider hall, where the buggies and other soldiers were almost ready to move out. A tense, waiting silence was slowly taking over the hectic activity from before.
"Leighton, Moreau," Lorca said, fixing on the two of them. "I want you in vanguard. You know the city better than anyone."
Leighton nodded, his fist to his chest, without saying anything. Moreau's execution was much sloppier, still with that quick look at Ferasini to check her approval. Culber sighed inwardly and said nothing.
Lorca gestured at the gunship with his head and Tyler fell into step behind him, putting the last of his weapons away in their sheaths and holsters.
Watching Lorca scale the gunship ahead of Tyler, Culber turned to Ferasini and said, "Should I get working on a batch of custom analgesics? Makes booth time much less… boothy."
"That's not a word," Ferasini pointed out, sounding far too bored for it to be anything but an act. "And you've been championing him since the very beginning. If it was a mistake, it's too late now."
"Oh, so you're not scared of the agony booth?" Culber drawled sarcastically.
"It's just pain," she said.
"Yes, exactly!"
Culber sucked in a deep breath, gestured towards the gunship.
"So what's that thing with Tyler?"
Ferasini laughed mirthlessly. "He wants Tyler."
"I know what he said," Culber snapped. "But I was really asking what sort of plan he could be cooking up by running that — entirely unnecessary — risk."
Ferasini gave him a 'how can you be so dense' look which Culber didn't very much appreciate. But before he had decided if it was worth getting worked up about, Ferasini answered.
"Tyler is the only one without any set loyalty. We're all already sworn to someone else. But Tyler? He doesn't know yet who he wants to support. He's potentially Lorca's only real ally."
Culber thought on it, sighed and said, "What a mess."
Ferasini laughed again. "You knew that when you signed up for it."
"Did I?" Culber asked lightly. "Must have been my dick thinking."
"That's usually its own punishment."
It didn't matter to Culber that he was the one who had started down that line of reasoning — or that this Lorca certainly wasn't done with his flimsy connection to Paul Stamets — Ferasini really had no high ground of her own.
"You're one to talk," Culber snorted.
The humour, thin and dry as it had been, instantly left Ferasini's expression, final proof that whatever had been going on between her and Lorca hadn't turned out nearly as satisfying as it had sounded like.
"I guess its a pity you don't have any basis for comparison," Culber continued. "I'm a little curious how this one compares with our captain…"
In the hall, the soldiers had finished assembling and Lorca strode to the gunship, easily scaling the ladder to the cockpit, but stepping past it to stand over it so everyone could clearly see him.
At Ferasini's angry silence, Culber sniggered and said nothing more, considering them even on this particular topic.
On top of the gunship, Lorca raised his voice to make it carry across the hall.
"Commander Landry and the Buran have given a four-hour window in which to take New Anchorage, arm the phaser banks and blow the ISS Defiant out of the sky. We don't have enough vehicles to move everyone, so an advance force will take New Anchorage's public transporters, disable the scattering field and beam the rest of you over, but your primary targets are the phaser banks. Whoever gets to the phaser banks targets the Defiant. Don't wait for orders, don't hesitate, do what's necessary." He paused to look them over, flashed his teeth in a wide, vicious grin. "I know you will. Let's get it done."
The responses among the assorted soldiers were muted, a few cheers here and there, salutes by many and curt nods by those who felt this Lorca didn't quite deserve the sign of respect just yet, though none of them had dared to deny it to his face.
Lorca stepped back and climbed into the gunship while the soldiers sorted themselves into the buggies. At the other end of the hall, the great gate screeched open.
It wasn't a bad speech, Culber noted. Name-checked Landry and the Buran, outlined their targets unambiguously and played to their convictions. All that, and not a peep of trying to defend his questionable identity so no one was tempted to remember who was — and who was not — giving the orders. Ferasini huffed and pulled an annoyed face, so Culber took it she agreed with his assessment.
#
Not all of the buggies are already assembled and a good two-thirds of the amassed soldiers have to stay behind and wait until their comrades take the transporters in New Anchorage and bring them in. Or until their first push fails and they all die or scramble back to a completely indefensible position.
Even so, the buggies leave spill through the great, rusted gate and out into the open, breaking through the endless fields with no care and no regard for the crops' value. They were a swarm of locusts, destroying and devouring everything in their way.
Before, when they fled New Anchorage, they dodged about the countryside, seeking to lose any pursuers, though perhaps there hadn't been any. Now, they the movement is on the direct route and New Anchorage sat waiting under the flimsy gossamer of a containment shield, bared to its attackers like a civilian in a war-zone, wielding a kitchen knife, and no help was coming.
Tarsus IV was a planet on the very edge of populated space, on the outer edges of a void. The next starbase was weeks away and automated, unmanned cargo freighters crawl along their routes with no consequence for the conflict. It had always been Tarsus' tragedy, the perfect setup for disaster, waiting to happen in the serene beauty of an agricultural planet and its rich soil.
#
Tyler used to fly patrols in the gunship along with his subordinates. It had always been a matter of pride for him, doing his part alongside the others. He knew enough commanders who preferred to set themselves up as wannabe lords, content in keeping court in their tiny, rotten part of the Empire, letting their soldiers serve them as slaves as they allowed their minds to lose their edge and descend into god complex madness and suicidal complacency. These never lasted long, of course. Tyler's predecessor had been one of those, dispatched mere days after Tyler's transfer to Tarsus.
He knew the gunship controls, he could have flown it in his sleep, so when the hatch closed and blocked out the bustle, he had time and the mental freedom to study the man next to him at comparative leisure.
It was a difficult equation to solve, with too many unknowns involved, but moreover, too many factors that seemed knowns, but weren't. Every officer learned early how to always be ready for an attack, how to always calculate the best trajectory of defence from an ambitious subordinate or a jealous superior. And the cockpit of the gunship was a narrow, enclosed space, evening out what might have been this or that advantage. Tyler was taller than Lorca, younger by a substantial number of years.
Tyler had fought Lorca in the simulations, but he would be the first to admit these weren't terribly useful to gauge his true capabilities. He would be better served if he based his assessment on what he could see. So, not as tall, but heavier-set. Not as young, but the Captain Lorca Tyler knew of had spent thirty years in the upper echelons of the Terran Empire, there wasn't a sign of ageing he would have to suffer unless he wanted it. There was no indication modern science hadn't advanced to the same level where this man was from. He had been imprisoned for some time, possibly enough to erode some of his strength and stamina. Possibly also, however, imprisonment had replaced what it took with sheer willpower.
Tyler watched Lorca's hands from the corner of his eyes, as the other man settled them on the console and rapidly scrolled through the gunship comm setup. He seemed perfectly oblivious to Tyler's considerations, none of his weapons within easy reach in the confined space.
There was a part of the equation too many people forgot about. It wasn't just what your opponent might do to you, or you to him. It was also a question of what you did once you subdued them. How many favours could he buy with a Lorca from another universe? Surely he would be worth something to the emperor? Or to Maddox? Whatever private feud he had with Lorca, having a flesh-and-blood man to try his fantasies out on would hold its allure.
"You're sizing me up," Lorca said suddenly and although his tone was mild, the observation itself was a whiplash and it was all Tyler could do not to flinch.
He wasn't sure what response the other man expected, but Lorca offered his explanation without prompting. He said, "You all do that, all the time, with everyone. Even if you aren't planning to attack, you're always looking for weaknesses to exploit."
Tyler frowned. "Of course," he said slowly.
Lorca snorted a laugh, dry like parchment. "I don't understand how you can exist like that. Are you ever not afraid?"
"That's…" Tyler started and stopped himself. "That's bullshit. I'm not afraid. I've never been."
"Then you're either an idiot or a liar," Lorca muttered, sarcasm thick in his tone.
A message flared up on the screen, but the angle wasn't right for Tyler to read it, but it made Lorca frown and pull the keyboard out to type faster.
"What is it you want?" Tyler asked, trying not to smart at being called an idiot.
Even in profile, Tyler was fairly sure Lorca raised only one eyebrow, then canted his head to the side slightly to proof it.
"I want to go home," he said with an intensity Tyler could feel hovering in the tight space of the cockpit.
"And I want to find your Captain Lorca and rip his throat out with my bare hands."
He narrowed his eyes. "Is that sufficiently savage for your tastes?"
"Maybe, but is it true?"
The computer chirped and announced it had established a connection. Lorca looked away.
The message on the screen disappeared and was replaced with the face of a man. He looked like he hadn't slept well, seemingly stifled by the high, tight collar of his civilian clothing. Tyler recognised him as a clerk in the colonial administration and wished he had spent more time learning how to tell these faceless, bureaucratic minions apart. They had always been around en masse when he'd gone to meet with the council or the governor.
"Mr Kodos," Lorca said and there was a sneer in his voice. "Give me a quick report of what's been going on."
Kodos hesitated for only the barest of seconds, gaze flicking to the side as it searching for someone to corroborate Lorca's command and finding no one because the transmission would be restricted to just Lorca's face.
"Well, Lieutenant Commander Markannen has taken over as military commander. She has conscripted civilian police and private security forces and has been calling in support from across the planet. The governor has declared a state of emergency, everyone is confined to their homes. There's a standing shoot to kill order in the event of non-compliance."
Markannen was one of Captain Maddox's officers, the natural choice to take charge in the near-complete breakdown of leadership Tarsus' military complement had suffered after Leighton's desertion and Tyler's own disappearance.
"We need to take the scattering field down and take control of the public transporters," Lorca said. "How would we do that?"
"In a state of emergency, public transporters are shut down. All offensive and defensive systems are locked to military command."
"Where I'm from the governor has an override," Lorca said.
"Well, yes," Kodos said.
"Fill me on the system of succession, what would someone need to do to become governor?"
Kodos frowned even harder, but Tyler had already an idea where this might be going.
Kodos said, "The governor is elected by the council of mayors and officials, or appointed by a representative of the emperor. Uh, what do you want to know?"
For a moment, Lorca lifted his gaze to watch the tactical display adding information to the otherwise empty sky around the cockpit.
"How far away from the top-spot are you?"
"I'm a council member's aide," Kodos spoke very slowly as if he had trouble remembering his own resume. "If she dies by my hand, I'm eligible to take her seat. If I kill the governor and the remaining council supports me, I could take the governor's seat. But…"
His eyes widened, staring at Lorca through the screen. "I'm alone and I have no time. If that's what you're asking of me, I may as well kill myself right here."
Lorca made a dismissive wave at the screen. "Don't make promises you won't keep. I'll help you."
"I sure hope the council is in session," Tyler muttered.
"You heard that?" Lorca asked Kodos.
For the first time, Kodos' face relaxed somewhat. "They are in session, yes."
"Fish in a barrel," Lorca said with a grimace.
"But the whole building is swarming with security forces," Kodos pointed out. "I can unlock the docking bay on the tower from here, but you'll have to fight your way to Ribiero Hall."
Lorca gave Tyler another look, a small, unpleasant smile curling the corner of his mouth. Tyler wondered if this might be the answer to the question he'd asked before.
Lorca took the vicious expression back at Kodos and, through bared teeth, said, "I'm going to make you governor, Kodos."