Kalan was surprised to find his path utterly clear on the way to the bridge. He’d expected to meet resistance and traps. It seemed incomprehensible to him that the crew wouldn’t try to take advantage of their superior knowledge of the terrain. They knew where the choke points on the ship were. At the very least, they could have stalled him. It’s what he would have done in their position. Then, the truth dawned on him. He wasn’t dealing with people versed in ground combat. These were navy personnel versed in the arts of fleet maneuvers. He would have been as out of his depth in the midst of a fleet battle as they seemed to be fighting him in close combat. He paused in the corridor where he was walking and thought it over. How would they try to stop him? What would their priority be? He shook his head. That was the wrong question. What would their commanding officer’s priority be?

Based on the conversation between Temera and the commander that he’d eavesdropped on, the man was bursting with unearned pride. There was a good chance that his priority wouldn’t be the survival of the crew or even necessarily the safety of the ship. His priority would be his own survival. He’d want his protection very close. He’d try to overwhelm Kalan with the weight of numbers. They’ll be clustered right outside the bridge, he thought. He glanced down at the pair of smoke grenades on his vest and nodded to himself. Those would do the trick. He started moving down the passageway until he reached an intersection. He heard muttered words and shuffling feet from down the cross passageway. It was poor noise discipline. He peeked around the corner and pulled his head back. A haphazard scattering of blaster fire peppered the bulkhead and flew down the cross passageway. He heard someone barking orders.

“Cease fire! Cease fire, you fools! Damn it! I said cease fire!”

Kalan shouldered his rifle, crouched, and leaned out from cover. With the order to cease fire fresh in their minds and the distraction of a screaming superior, he took advantage of the moment. He sent a single bolt down the passageway at a red-faced man who looked like he was about to scream again. As Kalan leaned back behind his cover, he heard a body hit the floor. He pulled the tactical sling off and set the rifle on the ground. He hated to surrender the useful ranged weapon, but it’d prove more hindrance than help moving forward. He reviewed the mental snapshot he’d taken of the scene down the hall. There were maybe six or seven people left. It was time to get in close.

“Lieutenant!” Someone yelled. “He’s down! He’s down!”

Kalan stood back up and half-listened to the confused shouting as he unclipped the mask from his vest and slid it into place over his face. He felt the intelligent material adjust itself to the contours of his face and then seal into place. He took a deep breath and got fresh, clean air. The mask only had about a half-hour air supply, but Kalan doubted he’d need it for that long. He cycled through the limited optics that were programmed into the lenses before he settled on the thermal setting. Satisfied that the mask would do its job, he took the smoke grenades off his vest. He yanked both pins and threw the grenades around the corner. He heard them bounce a few times. It only took about ten seconds before he heard coughing and panicked calls between the crew members. A wave of dark smoke rolled into the intersection. He drew his blaster pistol with one hand and his sword with the other. Then he stepped into the smoke. It was a tactic he’d never use if he had to worry about losing track of someone fighting with him. There was too much chance of accidentally injuring someone on your own side. In these circumstances, though, anyone in the passageway that wasn’t him was an enemy. Between the downing of the lieutenant and the smoke, he was able to simply walk into their midst. He closed with the first thermal signature he caught sight of in the smoke. A swift motion drove his sword through their back, their heart, and out their chest.

“There he is,” Kalan shouted, the mask conveying his voice.

He shoved the dying man toward the mass of thermal signatures shuffling toward him through the smoke. A blaster shot from his left lit up part of the smoke and made him wince as it lit up the lenses momentarily. He fired his blaster in that direction as his eyes adjusted and was rewarded with a cry of agony. He immediately dropped to the floor. He closed his stinging eyes and had to suppress the urge to curse out loud. As useful as the smoke was for cover, he was no more immune to random fire than the ship’s crew. Well, with the captain’s coat, he was probably more immune than the crew. But there was no upside to taking unnecessary risks. He heard more cries of pain as the crew seemingly opened fire on one another. Not wanting to risk another round of pain in his eyes, he waited until the crossfire died down and listened. Ahead of him and to the right, he heard someone softly cursing.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

He looked up and in that direction. He aimed at the center of mass on the bright red outline of a human being and pulled the trigger. He rolled left until he came up against a bulkhead and then waited again. The smoke was starting to dissipate right at ground level as basic circulation and the ship’s air scrubbers went to work. He could make out several still forms on the deck. Ahead, he could see two sets of legs that belonged to people who were still upright. He switched the lenses back to normal vision. Kalan slowly rose to his feet to minimize noise and holstered the blaster. He drew a couple of the restraints out of a pocket. Then, he moved forward with all the stealth he could muster. He stepped over the corpses that littered the floor until he could just make out the haziest outlines of two people. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as he felt the conflicting impulses in him. Part of him wanted to simply execute the men as his father would have demanded he do. The other part of him wanted to spare them because he could imagine being them. Ordered to do something they didn’t understand. Ordered to protect a man who would not have acted to defend them. They were victims in this situation more than culprits.

Stolen novel; please report.

He could hear them breathing in fast, panicked huffs. They hadn’t been trained for a fight like this. Situations like this were, Kalan had been told, one of the main reasons why naval ships had complements of marines aboard in the first place. Marines would have been, in theory, ready for something like this. They trained for close combat, shipboard incursions, and breaching actions. At least, they might have been ready if Ankala Rising’s AI hadn’t slaughtered most of them along with their commanding officer. In the end, he decided that he’d give these two a choice. He tossed the restraints at the feet of the one on the left. For five seconds, there was total stillness in the passageway. Then, there was the clatter of something heavy hitting the floor on the left.

The one on the right muttered, “What are you doing?”

“Surviving. I don’t know what in the hells our glorious leader did, but you know damn well he’s responsible for this shitshow. And I, for one, am not dying for that prick.”

Kalan heard the restraint pull tight on the left. He'd barely gotten through a five-count before he heard the clatter of something hitting the floor off to the right. He could just make out some motion before he heard the sound of a second restraint pulling tight. He ghosted forward to find two young men kneeling on the floor just outside the bridge hatch. The one on the left was blonde, whip-thin, and pale. The one on the right sported a darker complexion and dark hair. Both had their bound hands out where he could see them. Neither one looked up at him.

“That was the smart choice,” said Kalan. “How many inside?”

“Four,” said the blonde one. “The captain, a couple of ensigns, and some new guy. He’s not military.”

“Describe him.”

Neither spoke for a moment, then the dark-haired one offered up a basic description that sounded all too familiar. Kalan sighed. Of course, he would be on this ship. As annoyed as he was by that fact, Kalan found he wasn’t all that surprised by the revelation. The confrontation with Colle had probably been inevitable ever since they first encountered each other. Still, he had questions he wanted to ask the man, and you couldn’t interrogate a corpse. It might be a dim hope, but Kalan supposed it was possible that Colle wouldn’t push things to a lethal level. He seemed to have good survival instincts back on Hasen 5. Of course, at that point, Kalen had just had dangerous but encrypted data. Now, Kalan had the means to disrupt what were surely long-term Zeren plans. If the information became public, it was damning enough that every government in this part of space would likely turn on them. There might well be nothing left of the Zeren Authority after that. It isn’t every day that you can fit doomsday into your pocket, thought Kalan. Of course, that meant that Colle might well see this as an all-or-nothing scenario. If Kalan were in that man’s shoes, he’d probably self-destruct the ship and hope it took out Kalan and the Ankala Rising.

“Are any of them armed?”

The two on the floor traded uncertain looks and shrugs.

“The captain might be,” said the blonde one. “Maybe the new guy.”

Kalan nodded and had the two men move away from the hatch. He studied the security pad on the wall for a moment before he realized that the hatch wasn’t under a security seal the way the engineering compartment had been. He grabbed the latch and pulled the door open, making sure to stand to one side. No point in making himself an easy, silhouetted target in the doorway. Smoke from the passageway started drifting into the room. A voice called out from the bridge.

“Captain Rinn. We surrender.”

“Who am I speaking with?” asked Kalan without moving.

“We haven’t had the pleasure of a formal introduction. I am Banjin Colle. We met, in a way, recently.”

“I recall,” said Kalan.

“We’re unarmed.”

Kalan drew his blaster and leveled it at the room as he stepped around the hatch. Kalan frowned at the scene. He’d expected resistance, despite Colle’s words. At the very least, he’d expected the ship’s captain to pull something. Instead, Colle stood in the center of the room with his hands in the air. There was an unconscious man on the floor in front of him. Banjin followed the line of Kalan’s gaze and sniffed in derision.

“The ship’s captain,” said Colle. “I found it necessary to relieve him of command.”

“Why is that?” Kalan asked as his gaze swept through the cramped command bridge.

“Dereliction of duty. Negligence. Suicidal stupidity. I didn’t like him. The list goes on and on, really.”

At least partially reassured that there was no ambush or immediate signs that a self-destruct had been activated, Kalan reached up and removed the mask. The smoke had mostly cleared, although a chemical smell lingered. He took a moment to clip the mask back onto the vest. Kalan eyed what were apparently the two ensigns that flanked Colle. They stood slightly behind him with their hands in the air as well. The man on Colle’s right did his best not to meet Kalan's gaze, but his eyes kept drifting out to the pile of bodies in the hallway. There was a complicated mixture of relief and shame on his face. Kalan could appreciate that. Very few people truly wanted to die, especially when they were young. That young man was probably overjoyed that Colle had decided for all of them that they would survive the next five minutes, and maybe even the next hour. At the same time, an enemy had invaded their ship and killed most of the crew. Duty and training no doubt told that ensign that he should throw himself at Kalan in a bid to retake the ship. His failure to do so immediately was a failure to do his duty, a failure to be a model to his people of right action, a failure to defend his entire way of life. Yet, he wanted to live, and it was very hard to train that desire out of people.

The young woman to Colle’s left watched Kalan with an expression of raw hope in her dark eyes. Kalan wasn’t sure what to make of that. Anger, he would have expected. Hatred, he would have understood. Hope, though, seemed very out of place. Still, there were practicalities that couldn’t be ignored while he tried to understand the people he’d taken captive. Kalan dug out some more restraints and tossed them down to Colle.

“If you would be so kind,” said Kalan. “I’ve had almost enough death for one day.”