Captain Alyarus threw her arms out and used a stretch for an excuse to gather a look at her surroundings. Two of the prisoners were still watching her from the other side of the campfire with those hungry eyes that made her fur stand up. A few of them were sleeping, though they had not slept much since leaving out from the Triumph. Come to think of it, she had not slept much either and had little desire to do so. Most of the others were either pacing around or playing games to occupy their time.
And time was something that the captain of the Triumph knew that her and the other surviving members of her crew were in short supply of. Dally and Serge had been working on a way to try to power some batteries so they could use the replicators from the ship to make some supplies. Her Chief Engineer and Non-Essential Systems Chief were trustworthy, and though these cruel criminals had barely given their new prisoners time to converse with each other, she knew that they were working on a plan even now. Knowing the tough Canid Serge, the first thing that came out of the replicator would be a weapon that would be used against their captors.
She thought for a moment about Bradlus, her co-pilot and felt a sharp twinge of pain and regret. The poor Titan had been killed upon impact and never made it out of the ship. He would never smile or laugh or joke or cry again. In a twisted way she thought perhaps his quick death when the ship had crashed had been for the best. After all, he did not have to suffer the indignities that the rest of them had to suffer these past weeks at the hands of their brutal tormentors. She thought back to the conversation she had shared with the young co-pilot in training not even an hour before the crash. She remembered his fears at having these dangerous criminals on board the ship, and she had been the one to tell him how foolish he was being.
“You were right old friend.” Alyarus mumbled in sad tribute to her lost crew member. “You were right all along. I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“You got something to say sweetheart?” A bulbous Mongoose rose to address her, adjusting his pants as he did so.
Alyarus’ icy glare she returned could have bored holes through him. She was on edge from all the suffering these insane criminals had put her and the others through, and quite honestly, she was bordering on the edge of emotional madness.
A gentle yet firm hand gripped her shoulder and she relaxed slightly. Even she did not realize the fact that she had been seconds away from attacking her captor in a mad fit of desperate rage. She glanced over her shoulder and caught the eyes of Kenner, another one of her crew members that had thus far survived. She had not realized her intentions, but somehow her Security Chief had, and the simple act had stopped her suicidal move. She mouthed a thank you that the criminal could not see from their vantage, and he nodded in reply.
There had been ten out of fourteen of her crew that had survived the crash, but now only four remained, her, Kenner, Serge and Dally. The others had been forced to fight and kill, and then were eventually killed in return for the criminals’ amusement. And three had suffered a much more ignoble end when the criminals had decided to kill them for food. After witnessing these events over the past two weeks, Alyarus’ nerves were completely frazzled. Who would be the next to suffer from either these psychopaths’ hunger or cruel amusement? Would it be the old Beaver engineer Dally, who could not defend himself? Would it be her? Every time one of them looked at her she couldn’t help but thinking, were they wondering what she tasted like? If it wasn’t for Serge and Kenner, she figured she would hate Carnivores with a burning passion as a result of this ordeal.
“I can’t take it anymore.” She whispered to her security officer with tears welling in her deep blue eyes. He put his strong Badger arm around the slight Rabbid captain reassuringly and mouthed the words “I know.”
Alyarus thought briefly back to the crash. She was sure she was still suffering from shellshock from the event, but the crash had freed the criminal passengers and they had overwhelmed the Zenith Corp security and rushed the deck so quickly that she hadn’t had much time to process the event mentally or emotionally. There were too many unanswered questions about the final moments before the Triumph had gone down, and for the life of her she could not remember everything, though she tried desperately.
There were bits and pieces of recall here and there. She remembered the instrument panels suddenly blinking, little red indicator lights flashing angrily at her that the hull had sustained damage. Warnings that systems were failing, and depressurization was occurring in parts of her ship. But one of the major questions that she had was simply what had caused the event? She thought she would remember if she had collided with some foreign object, some asteroid or piece of space debris. They were so far out in the fringes of the galaxy, the chances of her colliding with another ship were essentially non-existent, being attacked by one even smaller.
Even pirates did not come out this far, farther even than the extreme edge of Titanian space known as the Abyss. There simply was nothing for them to plunder, for no other ships or space commerce were here either. She thought to herself that Titans did not belong this far out into unexplored space and wondered what they were doing way out here. The official story she had received from the Zenith officers that had hired her and her crew was that in the Alcyoneus Arm region of the galaxy that extended past the Abyss, there was a small colony they were establishing to construct a new trans-warp gate that would allow them to push even further into the dark reaches of space.
That was beginning to seem like a suspect story. Why would they ship condemned criminals and enemies of Zenith Corp and enemies of Titan off to the edge of the galaxy to construct a new gate? These were not engineers and craftsmen, these were, as she had recently learned over the past two weeks up close and personally, brutal killers, Titans without conscious or remorse. These were Titans who seemingly enjoyed depravity and viciousness. They were most certainly not the first ones she would pick to entrust the building of something so expensive and momentous.
A glut of angry sounding belly-laughter erupted from the campfire, and she cast a sullen look towards her oppressors. One of them kicked poor Dally, who fell to the ground, bewildered by the random hostility. The old Titan was so good natured and kind he simply could not understand the reality that there were minds among Titan-kind that could be so heartless. These criminals would have beset and ripped him to shreds, save for a sudden angry barking from their leader, who stopped their attack instantly.
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The leader was a Ursid Titan that even though she had been traveling with for two weeks, she did not know anything about, for they did not treat their captives with any Titanality. They were treated as less than Titans by these criminals, they were treated worse than animals. The only thing she knew about the leader of the insurrectionists was that he went by the name Haze, and this only because the other prisoners had used it. Haze did not speak to their captives; he barely acknowledged their existence and had given them only enough rations that they would not die. She was hungry and thirsty and scared and frustrated all at the same time and the overpowering desire to scream was ever present.
There was another commotion then from the crowd. She heard the angry barks and growls of a dogfight, something her frazzled nerves had almost gotten used to by now. There was a sharp whine of injury followed by guffaws and laughter coming from the crowd. And then Dally came shuffling around the flickering campfire, supporting and half-dragging an injured Titan with him. This Titan was ripped up pretty badly and his fur was mottled with bloodstains from numerous attacks. He had been the one to bear the brunt of the escaped prisoners’ wrath for the past weeks and while they had exhibited no inhibitions in viciously killing the others that they had killed, for some reason they left this Titan alive to multiply his tortures and pain. Likely because he had been the security officer in charge of keeping them all prisoner.
“How are you holding up Halden?” Captain Alyarus asked as Dally helped ease the wounded Zenith security chief to the ground.
Halden’s eyes smoldered with rage when he met her eyes, though rage she knew that was directed elsewhere. He barely had a voice to answer her.
“I’ll live.” He growled proudly. Though they had done their best over their time together, the sadistic prisoners had not yet beat and tortured the dignity out of the Zenith Corp security officer. “I’ll be happy to see the day that these criminals get theirs.”
“Mate.” The old Beaver looked over at him sadly. “Nobody is coming for us. We’re out in the bloody blue hell of nowhere, probably a thousand AUs away from any form of security or government reach. They are the law here. If you are waiting for them to get theirs, who then d’ya suppose is gonna be givin’ it to them?”
The battered Zenith officer, one eye swelled shut, grinned with a knowing expression. He had been making cryptic statements throughout his savage beatings and tortures for the prisoners’ amusement.
“No. They only think they are the law here. They aren’t the law. Not for long.”
“Mate, you’ve been saying things like this for days. What do you expect is gonna happen? Some mystical savior to fall from the sky?”
Halden looked around nervously to make sure that the nearby criminals were not listening and spoke low enough that he would not be overheard.
“He didn’t die in the crash. I checked before we left.” At this point the security officer was making little sense and seemed to border at the edge of hysteria. “He’ll find us eventually. You can count on it.”
* * * *
It began raining again just before dawn, as the edges of the night sky began to show the first glimpses of light rising from the horizon over the dark still waters. The rain that seemed to always fall on this accursed planet. Alyarus looked up at the thick raindrops that were falling on her face and scowled into the sky. Like all the other times, they were in an area now that would afford no cover for them. She would once again be forced to be wet and miserable.
But something drew her attention just then. It seemed as though Haze, the mammoth Ursid Titan criminal to which these others seemed to kowtow, was frantic about something. Both he and several others raced across their camp site and disappeared out beyond the fringes, beyond her vision. She thought about standing to her feet to try and catch a better glimpse of where the others were rushing off to, but when she saw the concerned looks of those that stayed behind, she thought better of it. Two Rodentia criminals were now standing within ten feet of her with the guns they had taken from the battle drones when the Triumph crashed, watched after the direction their leader headed.
“What’s going on?” Kenner whispered.
“I’m not sure.” Alyarus answered through the growing commotion happening around them. “Whatever is happening, they sure seem worried about it.”
“Is he there?” One of the criminals nearest the campfire in the center of their camp called out to the others who had hurried out.
“No.” A reply came echoing back a moment later.
A few minutes went by and judging by the looks on the faces of the criminals who remained over them, they had not found whatever they were looking for. And it seemed to be worrying them a lot. Alyarus wondered what in the galaxy could be causing this much commotion among the ranks of the hardened psychopaths.
Eventually the burly Ursid strode back over, a look of pure fury stretched across a moody scowl. No one wanted to risk his wrath and so no one would match his gaze. The others that had rushed out from the camp were trailing behind, and Alyarus noted that they were all looking over their shoulders nervously.
“Is he out there?” A thin, excitable Marten in tattered clothing asked the Ursid leader.
Haze stopped and turned his fierce gaze in full towards the smaller Titan.
“No. Slink is gone.”
“What do you mean gone? He’s gotta be there somewhere. He can’t just disappear. Did you look?”
Haze stretched his massive hand around the Marten’s face and his entire head disappeared under it in less than a blink of an eye and the lesser Titan shut up immediately. Both knew that he was a simple closing of the titanic hand and flexing of fingers away from certain death. Haze responded with a growl like the low rumble of thunder.
“No, we did not look, you git. We walked out there and messed about and came back just to confuse you.” Haze retracted that mighty hand, and the Marten breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s gone. It was no accident. Someone left a message behind.”
Somewhere behind her, Alyarus heard someone start laughing. At first it was a slight noise, too vague to be certain, but within moments it grew to an uncontrolled outburst that drew the fierce Ursid’s attention. With a nod, two Canids brought the offending party forth from the hostages. It was Halden, the Titan who had been their prison guard several weeks before, and something about the situation seemed to have tickled his fancy because he was laughing so hard that tears were now streaming down his cheeks.
“Is this amusing to you, runt?” One of the Canids growled in his face but was quickly cut off by a waving gesture from the mighty Haze.
“What do you know about this, wagger?” Ursid used the pejorative term that other races sometimes used when referring to Canid Titans.
Halden tried to compose himself and eventually stopped laughing long enough to face the intimidating criminal leader.
“What did it say?” Halden asked.
Haze motioned for the Canids who were holding him.
“Take him.”
They nodded and did as instructed without another word. They dragged Halden off to the last place they had seen Slink, sometime during the night. They set him down and he immediately saw a message scrawled in the dirt at his feet.
“I killed your friend. I want to kill more. Come find me.” Read the hastily scrawled message.
Halden looked back towards the Canids, who were watching the security captain’s reaction intently.
“Slink was the one that took the armor from me, wasn’t he?” He asked, trying hard to hold back laughter once more.
The two Canids looked at each other, then back to Halden and slowly nodded.
“He’s got his armor back. We’re all fucked!” And at that Halden fell into another fit of hysterical laughter.