Megalodon City Penitentiary, Tundra, Standard Year 403 after founding

  “Our terms are as follows, and there will be no negotiations. We accept the ten to one exchange and your people will not be physically harmed. You will all be questioned at our discretion. You will be coming under my command. You will obey every order and provide us with full access to the station and station records. Both sides will act in good faith to fulfill their terms of the bargain. Do you agree to these terms?”

  “All access other than classified military information.” Alanna responded immediately, and waited. There was only silence. With finality, she cut off visual and audio contact and opened the cherry pie channel. “Operation Cherry Pie is on, get the two turret guns ready on my mark and hold. 1.1 kilometers.”

  “Alanna, the drones are here.” Tom’s voice cut in.

  Alanna didn’t know why they hadn’t spotted the drones earlier. It didn’t matter. “They sent the drones ahead. I want everyone in vacuum gear now. Then we take out the drones. Priority one: keep them away from the turret guns. Do not, I repeat do not use the explosives. Not yet.” Following her own orders, Alanna donned her space suit, the familiar weight settling on her shoulders in the full grav environment of the station. She desperately wanted to go out and shoot the drones herself, but it wasn’t the right time. She was still needed on the bridge. She had to trust her people to do their jobs. The ship was coming in on starboard, their good side with the four working guns. As they had rehearsed, two of the four guns fired. “Come on.” Alanna whispered. “Poor us. We only have two working turret guns, come just a little bit closer. “Are the drones eliminated? Report.”

  “Alanna we took out three but three more are inside the station.”

  Alanna nodded. “I’m going to take them out.”

  “Alanna, not yet!” Tom said sharply.

  “Has to be done. It’s gonna be fine. Tom, you can do this. If I’m not back, draw them in and then fire. We can’t let those drones see what we have.” Alanna took out her gun, heading at a dead run towards the starboard turrets. She knew the station like the back of her hand. As she suspected, the drones barreled down the center of each hallway at top speed. In that mode, they would struggle to aim at a target. Their priority was speed. She took the first one out head on, three bullets one after the other. She hesitated. She could keep running to find the other two or… “hold” she whispered under her breath. They would be looking to get a visual on the turret guns. As she suspected, a second drone came barreling down the same hallway. She had good cover now, and shot it down easily. It would have to be enough. She ran back towards the bridge. “Two down, get the third drone.” She called out as she ran. “On my way back to the bridge.” She nearly stumbled over the dead body blocking her path, before automatically jumping over and continuing on. No need and no time to check who it is. It wasn’t important. The drone had taken out at least one of them. It was to be expected.

  “Fire!” She yelled as soon as she got to the bridge. The Black Hawk was moving in, finally thankfully within most effective firing range of the starboard guns. “Open all starboard fire. Go. Go.” She watched the black ship move in. Even with luck on their side, the damage they inflicted was limited. The Black Hawk moved in fast, faster than their guns could readjust and with flawless aim all four starboard turrets were taken out by the Black Hawk’s own guns. D12 was unprotected. They were coming. Alanna took a breath. D12 was mined with explosives but with a manual trigger, each trap needed a crew member to set it off. “I want confirmation we have a man on each trap. Count off.” She listened, paused. “Station four is unmanned. Glenda you take it.” They would know now, that they had casualties. But that was unavoidable.

  “On it, lieutenant.”

  “Man the explosives. Remember, do not set them off too early or we spook them. Hold for now.” She waited, her breath loud in her ears. There was silence. Why weren’t they coming? She took off her helmet. It wasn’t the most conducive to hearing and she thought she may have heard a soft sound, somewhere. She froze, listening. “Ceiling.” She said before she had even fully formed the thought. They were coming through the roof. Had they seen the explosives in the drone footage? It didn’t matter. They were well hidden but someone may have spotted the tell-tale signs. She put her helmet on just in time, as the cold vacuum of space entered the station. Alanna’s breath was harsh in her ears. Of course, why would they come in at all? They had a ship with life support. All they had to do was let D12’s oxygen seep out and wait them out. If they were willing to take the station with damage, there was no need for James Hawk to send his people in to die. “Pull back. Bridge and crew quarters. Everyone pull back unless you’re manning the explosives. They’re not coming in through the front door, they’re coming in through the roof.”

  “Alanna, if they’re coming in through the roof, why are we staying by the front door?” Glenda’s throaty voice came through the channel.

  “They may do both.” Alanna said sharply. “Hold.” She paused. They would be on the roof, out in the open, with no cover. “I’m going to try and take some of them out.” She said, reaching into her pocket and loading a new magazine into her gun. “I’ll be back.” She ran towards the portside gun turrets, where she would have easy access to the roof of the station and cover if the enemy decided to fire back. Going through the soon to be redundant airlock, she peered out onto the roof of D12. It was only six people, after all. They were drilling holes to release the oxygen, rather than simply blowing up the roof. Small enough, Alanna guessed, to easily repair later. They still wanted the station intact. Taking out six would be a challenge. “Loel.” She said softly into the speakers. Loel was no master sniper, but he was the best she had.

  “Yo.” Loel responded.

  “I need you to go to the exit by the starboard guns and draw their fire. Don’t try to aim, don’t stick your head out for more than a second. Just draw their fire.”

  “On it.” Loel said shortly.

  Alanna waited. “Loel tell me when.” She reminded him. She wasn’t sure she would hear the gunfire from this side of the station.

  “At the exit. Coming out. And now.”

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  Alanna moved, taking out three before they turned their fire on her. She wasn’t sure but she thought Loel had taken out a fourth, ignoring her orders. They knew where she was now and would likely try something else. She turned slightly, seeing movement at the edge of her vision. Drone. Bringing up her gun, she got out two shots before the drone took her out.

  ---

  The old fashioned steel bars of the Black Hawk’s cell greeted her vision, along with the memory of what her head felt like after suffering stunner fire. Two words echoed in her head, over and over on a loop: enemy combatant. She looked over and saw Loel, Tom, Glenda, her people, two to three to a cell, stretching into the darkness beyond. Enemy combatants. The echo of heavy military boots walking down the hallway came closer, mirroring the beat of her own heart and echoing the pain in her head.

  ---

  Alanna gasped, sitting up and opening her eyes onto the dim gray walls of her prison cell. It was quiet. She looked down and saw James looking back at her, icy gray eyes open and unreadable.

  “Bad dream?” He asked.

  Silently, Alanna got up and walked over to the sink, splashing water on her face. The ice of the floors bit into the pads of her feet and she didn’t care. After a small pause, she poured water into her hands and drank it. Because why the hell not? She didn’t want to go back to bed. Didn’t want to lay next to him. Didn’t want to talk about the dream. So she stood, staring at the water running down the drain. Supposedly drinkable water, primeval building block of life, just running down the drain. His hands settled on her shoulders and she flinched, unavoidably. James would notice. James always noticed.

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He said quietly. “Come back to bed.”

  Enemy combatants. They’re not people, Alanna. She shuddered. She would need to go back to bed and lie next to him. How long? It had to be nearly morning, by now. He would go soon. Obediently, she turned around and walked back to the bed, sitting down and pressing herself against the back wall.

  “You mad at me for what I did in the dream?” James asked mildly.

  “No.” Alanna said, with relative honesty. She wasn’t mad at him. Not really.

  James studied her in the shadows, trying to make out her face. The lights were in full night mode and she had pressed herself against the back wall of the cell, as she so often did. He was lying next to her, close enough to feel the warmth of her body from a few inches away but not quite touching. “Seems like you are.” He said quietly.

  Alanna shook her head. “No.” She repeated. “Mostly myself. My stupid, stupid self.”

  “I always thought you were rather bright.” James said.

  Enemy combatants. “I’m definitely not.” Alanna shivered. The back wall of the cell was at least as icy cold as the floors. But she didn’t mind.

  “Tell me about the dream.”

  “You said I didn’t have to.”

  “Ok. But tell me anyway.”

  “What if I didn’t surrender?”

  James turned on his side, his eyes looking at her in shadows. “We were on the knife’s edge, you and I.” He said quietly. “I don’t think either of us was sure which way the dice would fall.” He reached out, touching her face. “I would have found a way to save your life. Even then.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of! We all have the stun setting on our guns, James. There is a reason no one uses it. POWs are a waste of resources. We’re supposed to all have the decency to just kill each other. I didn’t plan for anyone to get captured!”

  “You would have preferred that they die?”

  “Sometimes, death is better.” Her eyes slid across the hall, in the direction of the screams she heard earlier. “You would have hurt me, James. Really hurt me. And you would have hurt them. I set them up to be enemy combatants. They were civilians! And all for what, because you thought I was pretty?”

  “Are you finished?”

  “Yes.” She stared back at him, eyes wide.

  “First of all, it is done. Why worry about something that didn’t happen? I negotiated with you. I negotiated with you after I said I wouldn’t. A matter that was commented upon by many, and at length.”

  “No classified military information.” Alanna whispered.

  “Yes. Which incidentally, I always thought was stupid. And if you hadn’t insisted on it, there is a good chance you would be in my bed already, next door to my oversized bathtub and unlimited hot water. All you had to do was follow the plan. As things stand, your non-cooperation perforce calls your loyalty into question.”

  “Why did you?” Alanna asked again. “Why did you negotiate?”

  “Because it would have been a dark, ugly mess we started with. My people’s lives were at risk. The Black Hawk and D12 would have been damaged. And you may yet have died. A minor hit to my reputation wasn’t worth all that.”

  “You could have just slowed down. I thought…”

  “I could not slow down.” James interrupted. “I had no way to know if you were acting in good faith or stalling. If it was a strategic stall, I could not put my people at risk by allowing you to succeed. You were not afraid, Alanna. You were surrendering without being afraid. An inherently suspicious state of affairs, that was also commented upon at length.”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Perhaps. But you weren’t acting like someone surrendering out of fear. You weren’t afraid to fight. I understand what you did now. But at the time, it made no sense. I couldn’t risk my people’s lives on the questionable words of a stranger.”

  “Have you ever hurt a POW?”

  “Alanna.” James said sharply. “Do not do this. It took both skill and luck of the devil himself to get you and your people off D12 alive. You succeeded. Dwelling on what might have been is a waste of time. Worry about the future.” He reached out, pulling her back towards him until she was back where she belonged, her head resting on his shoulder. “Now, if you want to have a bad dream about running out of oxygen after a rockslide leaves you trapped in an underwater cave, go right ahead. We’ll talk about it.”

  “I will endeavor to only have permissible nightmares from now on.” Alanna murmured.

  “Good. That’s all I ask.”

  “Take D12 intact.” Alanna said sleepily. “Send the Black Hawk, best of the best for one little station. Giant diamond drills can go all the way down to the planet’s core without overheating, nearly unlimited geothermal power for shields…”

  “Luck of the devil himself that you’ve lived this long.” James whispered into her ear.

  Alanna was about to drift off to sleep when the faint sound of footsteps heading in their direction woke her up. Turning slightly, Alanna’s eyes focused on the knife she had thrown earlier, still piercing the loaf of bread on the bench.

  Noticing her line of sight, James got up and picked up the knife, absentmindedly noting the slight nick in the stone bench underneath. The force of the throw would have easily cut through human bone. He listened. Two people in heavy, military boots. His mouth tightened. This was not going to improve his night. He could now hear the faint, muted sound of voices, as well. Alanna’s cell was near the very end of the hall and the footsteps stopped before they came that far.

  “Stand back.” A man’s sharp voice could be heard clearly now, across the hallway. The sound of a cell door being opened and closed followed.

  “Alanna.” James paused, suddenly unsure of what to say.

  “I know.” She said quietly. “Maybe you should go.”

  “This has nothing to do with you.” He reached out, framing her face with his hands and trying to get her to focus on him. “Do you understand me? Nothing.”

  She nodded. It was possible they had just come to talk, but she didn’t think so. It was clear James didn’t think so, either. There was the muted sound of voices and then, as if to dispel any doubt, a hoarse scream echoed across the hallway.

  James pulled her down onto the bed. “Look at me.” He ordered.

  Alanna looked at him, eyes wide as she heard another scream.

  “I can help you forget. All right? I can help you forget all of it. Put your hands on my shoulders.”

  Alanna did as he asked. She wanted to forget.

  When it was over, there was only silence. Her head resting on his shoulder, the exhaustion took over and she drifted off.