CHAPTER 7

Alexander

I wanted to punch something. I wanted to punch some one . I wanted to pummel the assholes who were trying to destroy my career solely for the purposes of ensuring my silence.

Blackmail. That’s what this was. Babysitting the green beans. They’d learn soon enough that entitlement and arrogance wouldn’t get them far and they’d fall in line. But until then, they were making a circus of my ship, and I was not happy about it.

Addy was constantly trying to make light of the situation, teasing me for my inability to tolerate the newbies and attempting to bring a little levity and peace of mind back into my moods. It wasn’t working. She managed to get a small reaction from me here and there, especially if she was gossiping at the expense of some of the idiots currently on my ship, or when she was feeling snuggly, but it didn’t solve the problem at hand

Something nefarious was going on in the dark underbelly of the Intergalactic Union, and not enough was being done to extinguish the threat. It wasn’t even being considered a true threat, and that was just pissing me off even more. I could handle the death of my military career if it meant putting an end to the horrors I had witnessed. What I could not handle, however, were the men and women in charge turning a blind eye, tossing the issue into a dusty file in the darkest recesses of their unused record rooms. It wasn’t even a priority for them. People – children – were being kidnapped, held captive, tortured, murdered , and they didn’t even care. They just handed the case over to the general and told her to deal with it, and she, in turn, tossed it to someone else who didn’t care

Sure, they shut down the laboratories they could get access to, but those were the labs that were producing necessary medical enhancements and discoveries. Those were the labs performing experiments legally and at the behest of the IU and its military. Shutting those down was not only doing more harm than good, but it didn’t solve the issue in the slightest. All those scientists that we hadn’t caught? They were hiding away, sequestering themselves in the hidden locations of their secret labs, continuing their testing on unwitting and unwilling live subjects.

People . They were experimenting on people they had abducted . People that no one would notice were missing. Some had even been sold , like an old piece of clothing no one wanted anymore.

It was like trying to weed out a needle in a million different haystacks. There was simply no way to find them all without going undercover. My mistake was suggesting doing so myself a little too forcefully. And perhaps… accidentally insulting the colonel in the process. Not my finest moment, I was ready to admit, but it was born out of desperation. Seeing with my own eyes what those monsters were doing to those people… it was the most horrific thing I had ever seen, and I had fought many battles; seen planets destroyed.

The last I heard of it was when one of the subjects from their secret locations had managed to escape and throw everyone into a tizzy. A woman who had received all the upgrades successfully, turning her into one of the most dangerous beings in the entire IU. I wasn’t sure of her specific abilities, but I did hear she was one of the first to have effectively adapted to the medical nanites created by the legal branch of The Program. They gave her the ability to not only block her pain receptors almost immediately after an injury, but to completely heal any injury within a matter of clicks.

With that ability alone, she would be practically indestructible. The perfect weapon.

The IU was treating her as a threat, actively hunting her down with the intent to destroy her. So if they could consider their victims to be a danger, why, why couldn’t anyone see that the perpetrators were also a threat.

My goal had been to search for the escaped woman, to recruit her into our cause and use her to take down The Program. But that proposal was shut down almost as soon as I’d opened my mouth. Instead, I had been ordered to mind my own business or find myself suddenly unemployed. When I’d begun to protest, I’d been demoted then and there to babysitting duty as an instructor at Nova Academy. I was officially placed on probation and warned for a final time to keep my nose out of it.

Of course, I didn’t intend to do that. I still planned on finding the woman, though it would have to be in my free time now that I was stuck with the children. If it meant going rogue, I knew my crew would back me. They had seen the horrors of The Program just as I had and were just as eager to spill evil scientist blood and slice into the belly of the beast. It would take longer to get the information we needed, to hunt down each and every secret location, but we would do it. We were a hardy bunch that didn’t give up so easily. We wouldn’t be cowed by politicians telling us no, especially when there was no real reason to object to the mission.

Not unless they were in on it.

I dismissed the thought as soon as it came. There was no use dwelling on it. Even if the cancer had spread too far so quickly, infecting all the way up to the highest of government officials, I had no proof. I would not and could not act on a hunch, which Addy reminded me of on a regular basis. At least until I had the physical evidence to present. Though who I would present it to when I was losing trust in my superiors was anyone’s guess.

Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Addy waltzed through the doors to my personal chambers as if she owned the place, though not without bumping into the doorframe and knocking over my freshly folded pile of uniform pants. I knew better than to make a fuss, so I simply shook my head with a sigh and got to work refolding them .

‘What brings you here this time, Addy?’ I asked.

‘I have so much to tell you, bestie,’ she squealed as she bounced on my bed. I winced at the reminder of our platonic relationship before throwing the thought away. I never could figure out where she found so much energy, but she never seemed to run out.

‘Have at it,’ I said, already preparing myself for the bombardment of inane gossip.

‘So, my first greenie shift was with Prince Brommyt Min’Tuk. Can you believe it?’ she began, and it was like a record scratched in my ears. There was a Griknot princeling on board my ship and no one had thought to inform me?

She continued before I could start ranting and raving the way I was gearing up to do. ‘And his whole team was, like, so stunning, but each in a different way, you know? I think their team leader was a pure-bred Terran, which is, like, super-duper rare so far away from Earth. And there was this ginormous pure-bred Tornu and a Terran-Yu’Rom mutt that was so damn pretty it was hard to even look at him. I mean, how does anyone reach that level of ethereal? It’s just not fair. Like, how can those people even exist individually, let alone in the same room and the same team , amiright?’

I grunted in response, which was enough for her to keep blabbing. ‘And I think the Tornu and the prince might have a thing goin’, ‘cause they kept casually touching each other like it was nothing. I swear, it was so damn sweet it almost made me wanna puke, but of course I didn’t. Wouldn’t want that to be my first impression in front of the greenies, you know what I mean? But they were all so helpful, and they made sure I didn’t get buried and that Arty fellow chose which piles to organise first so I wouldn’t have to and it was just amazing, because after they left they taught the new team taking over what to do so that when they were gone I would be okay and I really like them. I think you should promote them all.’

She hardly took a breath, her words more like verbal vomit than actual sentences that it took me a moment to process it all. But what I got from that was she wanted me to hand out promotions to an entire team on their first day, and I wasn’t doing that. I’d already promoted enough cadets for an entire solar.

‘Sorry, Ads, not happening. But I’m glad you finally got some help organising that horror show you call a workshop.’

She pouted, but got over it in a blink, continuing on with her verbal onslaught. ‘Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I want to be friends with them, and while I love you and would follow you to the end and all, I need more people like them. You know, positive and kind and helpful and adds value to my life. You’re too much of a grouch these days. Okay, bye!’ she called, plopping a quick kiss on my cheek and waving behind her as she exited my room as quickly as she came. I was left gaping at the closed door and the emotional destruction she had left in her wake.

Did she just…?

She did not…

I dropped the pants I’d been folding and stormed after her, only to discover my moment of stupefaction had allowed her a head start and she was nowhere in sight. I quickly re-entered my bedroom and picked up my holo-tab, hastily tapping her identification number into the search function. A map appeared above the glass in a blue glow, followed by a white blinking dot that was rapidly descending the ship deck by deck. It stopped on deck three, traversed the corridor to the right, and stopped at room seventeen.

‘Gotcha,’ I muttered to myself, and then promptly made my way down in the officer’s elevator. Deck three was as far down as it went before one reached the service decks, and where I would have typically shoved the guests I didn’t particularly like. It was loud and its proximity to the engines created a dull roar that never ceased, ensuring sleep would be hard to find. For most. I was sure any of the students on scholarship would be accustomed to sleeping through an abundance of noise, but that sent me on another thought spiral where something struck me. I seriously hoped I hadn’t accidentally assigned a princeling to a crappy room on deck three. After Hurricane Addy’s announcement and then her destination, I had the terrible suspicion that I had done just that.

The corridors were empty when I arrived, and I thanked the stars the none of the cadets were out to watch me on the warpath. It was a personal matter, so they could mind their own damn business if they did step out.

I banged my fist on the seventeenth door and didn’t have to wait long for it to open. There stood the Cadet Corporal I recognised from not only the day before as the first one to understand and respond to my hand gesture, but as one of the cadets I had allowed the use of the officer’s elevator just this morning. Arthur Mercer, if I remembered correctly. A willowy fellow who still had yet to even grow any facial hair. He appeared to be one of the younger recruits. We didn’t discriminate against age when enlisting in the military, but our new cadets typically ranged from the early- to mid-twenties. I just hoped for his sake that he was hiding his strength underneath those baggy clothes and youthful looks.

Regardless, he wasn’t who I was here for. I pushed past him, barging my way into the cramped room. And, low and behold, there sat my supposed best friend, grinning happily from her perch on a bottom bunk beside the Griknot that must have been the prince.

Ah, shit.

‘Hey, Cap! I’m glad you could join us. Why don’t you take a seat?’ she smirked, gesturing to the vacant bottom bunk across from her with a twinkle in her eye I did not like. And no, I did not, in fact, take a seat. I crossed my arms and gave her my sternest glare.

‘Ooh, I’m in trouble ,’ she teased, and I could feel my head about to explode. My pulse pumped so strongly I was afraid the expression would become a reality.

‘Indeed,’ I bit out through clenched teeth. ‘You did not give me the opportunity to rebuke your statement and forced me to chase you to the bottom of my damn ship. Now get your ass back upstairs and we can finish this discussion in private.’

She tapped a forefinger against her chin as she pretended to contemplate the order. ‘Hmm…’ She eyed me up and down, that stars damned twinkle glittering even brighter. ‘No, I don’t think I want to.’

The muscles in my arms bulged and shook as I fought to keep them crossed rather than reach over to throttle her, but a throat clearing behind me drew my attention. I turned and faced the young Mister Mercer and raised a single brow at him with the silent order to spit out whatever it was he needed to say.

‘What is it?’ I snapped when he didn’t immediately speak, and muffled snickering started up from the others in the room. Mister Mercer’s lips twitched as if he, too, were fighting off his amusement, though I couldn’t figure out the cause.

Instead of speaking, he rifled through one of the small cubbies attached to the foot of each bed and produced a pair of casual pants, extending them in my direction.

It did not compute.

‘Sir, you should take these,’ he offered, shaking the item at me as if that would make it make sense, and my bewilderment grew right alongside the room’s bewildering mirth.

‘Captain, you should put them on,’ he tried again.

‘Why?’ I asked, when I released my facial muscle’s grip on jaw and found my voice.

‘Uh, because you’re not wearing any pants, sir.’

My mind blanked and then kickstarted as if it had undergone a reboot. Glancing down my body, I noticed that I was, in fact, wondering around my ship and barging into unsuspecting cadet’s quarters, bare legs and chest on full display. Now, I wasn’t ashamed of my body, but I didn’t make it a habit to parade around in my underwear around my subordinates .

My eyes closed as I breathed deep, letting the mortification rush over and off of me before grabbing the pants and sliding them on.

‘Thank you,’ I mumbled, and I was fully aware I sounded like a grumbling child.

He faced Addy, then, looking more stern that I think even I could manage. ‘And I think you should go somewhere else to resolve your dispute.’

Though Addy’s bottom lip jutted out, I knew she wasn’t actually feeling as dejected as she wanted us to believe. She waved goodbye to the cadets, bidding them a good night and informing them that she would see them bright and early in the morning, and then she was gone.

Once again, she had left me gawping at a closed door like a dolt, and I questioned why I even loved the crazy woman. Best friend or not, she was pushing things way too far.

‘Please accept my sincerest apologies for my… less than professional behaviour this evening,’ I said, too afraid to look back at the group of young men that had just witnessed my moment of mortification. I spoke to the door instead. ‘It won’t happen again.’

I did turn to face Mercer, though, when I realised I had one more thing to address. ‘I shall return your pants folded and laundered sometime tomorrow.’

And then I was out the door.

Was I fleeing? Yes.

Did I care?

Also yes.