Broken Hero: Part 2 (Broken Hero Series) Read online

  After dressing in the same clothes from the day before, he made his way out into the corridor. Seeing it with the lights on for the first time, he now knew why it was so difficult to keep up with the captain the night before. The sides of the corridor were lined with crates and random spare parts, the larger pieces were strapped to the walls or under thick netting to keep them from moving around. The smaller items were just tucked into any available gap, and in many places were sprawled out over the deck.

  Just down from his quarters on the opposite wall, a large panel was missing from the wall exposing the normally unseen wires and pipes that ran through most of the ship. Just above that, black scorch marks covered the rest of the wall and ceiling.

  Further down the corridor, just past where the floor plating was bent and sticking up in the corners, there were two more closed hatches then a sharp turn to the right. Still uncertain where he was going, Adam continued. The dull greys and faded browns of the corridors seemed to continue in every direction until he eventually saw a well-lit, white room, at the end of one of the corridors.

  Adam stepped through the open hatchway into a large, clean room. There was a long table surrounded by chairs that looked as if it could seat about fourteen. To the right of him, there was a large kitchen. The polished steel bench tops and modern appliances would have looked at home in any restaurant back on Earth Station.

  “Not what you were expecting, eh?”

  Adam look behind him to see the captain stepping through a nearby hatch.

  “It’s a bit extravagant for a cargo ship, isn’t it?” Adam asked, as the captain squeezed past him and headed for one of the kitchen counters.

  “For a cargo ship yes, I suppose it is. But this is also our home. If we’re not sleeping or fixing something most of our time is spent in this room.”

  The captain slid his hand across the polished metal surface of the counter.

  “Every crew member has their special part of the ship, that one place that makes them feel at home. This is mine. As long as I have my kitchen, I don’t care where we’re headed.”

  Above the counter where the captain was standing was an overhead cupboard. Attached to a magnetic strip on the bottom of it was a row of metal mugs. He pulled two down and placed them on the counter top.

  Adam sipped his freshly made coffee and followed the captain to the rectangular table. The captain took the end seat on the right, where a data pad and some papers were already spread out. Adam sat at the opposite end.

  After a short silence, Adam finally spoke up.

  “How many crew members do you have? I haven’t seen anyone else so far.”

  “There are three others. I’m sure you’ll meet them before too long. The pilot, Bridget, is up in the cockpit at the moment.” The captain gestured upward with his hand. “Then there’s Simon, he’s the mechanic mainly, but he does a bit of everything. John is the engineer; he looks after the reactor core. The old man’s too frail to do much else, but that’s fine, he’s damn good at what he does.”

  “That’s a small crew, looks like you have plenty of room for a few more.”

  “It works fine how it is, plus it gives us plenty of room for passengers. There are always people who can’t wait for the next passenger transport to this station or the next, and are usually willing to pay a premium to get there a day or two early. Such as yourself, and the other six.”

  Adam knew the captain was subtly asking him where he was going and what he was doing, but it was the last part of what he said that caught his attention the most.

  “Other six?” Adam asked looking up from his coffee.

  “Yer, six young soldiers. They boarded about an hour or two before you. There looked to be about thirty or so all up, boarded half a dozen different ships wherever they could fit.”

  The captain leaned back and watched Adam for a response. Adam took a sip of coffee and didn’t give any hint of what he thought about it.

  After a moment of silence, the captain spoke up again.

  “Things must be getting pretty crazy out on Titan Station, after that rich girl went missing.”

  “I would imagine so,” Adam replied.

  The two looked up to the open hatch near the kitchen when a burst of footsteps and laughter filled the room. The small group of young barely dressed men and women crowded in the kitchen, before heading to the table with their drinks. One of the two women made a hot drink; the rest filled their metal mugs with cold water.

  The five of them all sat on the same side, to Adams right, and continued on with their own conversations. They all wore the same white vests and light blue shorts, and each one glistened with sweat.

  “It’s not going to get any hotter in here is it?” One of the men asked Captain West.

  The captain thought for a second, then smiled. He was still wearing his sleeveless long coat, though it was open at the front, and his almost full-length trousers.

  “Probably rise a few degrees, no more than five or so.” He said casually, as if it was no big thing.

  The soldiers all groaned in disgust at the same time.

  Adam tried to use this opportunity to get some information out of them. The one that decided to answers his questions about their assignment introduced himself as Lieutenant Bradley Williams. But that was about all Adam could get out of him. Either he knew nothing about what was going on at TS, or he was very good at lying. Adam quickly decided it was that he knew nothing and gave up on the questions, before the lieutenant could ask any of his own.

  * * *

  Jo spent almost the entire day in her quarters; she had ventured out once to refill her water bottle in the kitchen, but didn’t see anyone.

  She was the first of the six to board the ship and chose the only quarters with one bed. She had caught a glimpse of the other five when they boarded, four of them where infantry like she was now. They were in their uniforms, whereas hers was still wrapped in plastic in her duffel bag. The last one was a lieutenant. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t be sure. He certainly hadn’t been in her class at the academy, though he must have been there at the same time as her if he had only just graduated.

  When she first woke around lunchtime, she dressed in one of the two civilian outfits that she owned, a pair of red shorts and a black, short-sleeved T-shirt, that ended just before the shorts started. By mid-afternoon, the heat was too much. Her clothes and underwear were in a pile on the floor as she lay on the bed under the small air vent.

  It was just before seven thirty when the intercom crackled into life again, and a female voice informed the passengers and crew that the main meal for the day was ready in the mess.

  Jo was the last one to arrive. The other soldiers were all on the far side of the table, and the ends were taken by the captain and someone that she hadn’t seen before. The closest side of the table was the ships small crew. In the first seat from the captain was Bridget, the pilot she had met when she came on-board. Bridget had long, curly, red hair and wore a red, long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up above her elbows tight, dark grey pants, and dirty white lace up shoes.

  Next to Bridget was an old man, probably in his late eighties. His thin, white hair was damp and brushed to one side, and he was wearing a pair of perfectly clean orange and yellow overalls. He was completely covered apart from his head and hands. Next to him was a younger man, he looked about thirty. He was wearing the same type of overalls except they were covered in greases and other stains. The top half of the overalls were folded down and tied around his waist by the sleeves, revealing a dark blue vest with the logo of the Mars Marauders sports team on the front.

  Although she hadn’t met the two men of the crew, she guessed by the description the captain had given her that the neat and tidy older one was John, the engineer, and the other one was Simon, the mechanic. Jo sat one empty seat up from Simon, which left one empty seat on the other side between her and the stranger. No one acted as if they noticed her sit down, though she couldn’t help fee
ling like there were many eyes upon her.

  The middle of the table was full of trays of different foods, far more then she was expecting. She quietly thanked Simon who passed her a plate then began selecting different dishes to sample. She took one stuffed tomato, even though she didn’t recognise half the ingredients inside it. Next, she took a slice of quiche and then two square slices of meat in a thick dark sauce. Technically, it was all the same synthetic compounds, just flavoured and textured differently.

  Just like the stranger to her left, she ate in silence and just listened to the conversations going on around her. The five soldiers talked amongst themselves, mainly about how good the food was. The captain, Bridget, and John, talked about ship functions and maintenance. Then there was Simon who talked to everyone, even a mouth full of food didn’t slow him down. Bridget was the only one that could silence him for a moment, and that was only while she was correcting some of the more farfetched parts of his stories about battling pirates or repairing parts of the ship from the outside while under fire.

  The meal seemed to drag on longer than she would have liked. Everyone ate slowly, talked, and joked with each other except for the stranger at the end of the table. He looked more uncomfortable with the situation than she did. Jo watched him as subtly as she could. He picked at his food, not eating much, only taking tiny bits when he did find something he wanted to eat.

  At one point, his hand was resting on the table and it began to shake, but he didn’t seem to notice it for a long time. When he finally did, he placed it on his lap and covered it with his other hand. He was the second person to leave the table, shortly after Bridget returned to the cockpit. Then Jo was the third, she thanked the captain for the food then left the room, without a word or even a glance from her fellow soldiers.

  It was still too early and too hot to sleep, so Jo took out her data pad, sat up against the wall at the top of her bed with her back against the air vent, and searched through her novel collection for something to read. After all those months in the hospital, there weren’t many books that she hadn’t read at least once. Eventually, she decided on an old story written hundreds of years ago about knights and dragons and warring kings.

  It was hours later when a firm knock on the closed hatch disturbed her reading. She unlatched the metal door and stepped back to allow it to swing open.

  The barely dressed lieutenant just stood there and looked down at Jo.

  “I know you missed some training, but I’m pretty sure they taught you to salute a superior officer.”

  Jo snapped to attention and saluted, then waited for the order to stand at ease, but it never came.

  “I didn’t recognise you at first, your hair is different or something,” the lieutenant said, waving his finger at her head.

  Jo remained silent, and thought about how stupid it must look saluting someone in their underwear.

  “You’re the savage that thinks you’re as good as the rest of us,” the lieutenant’s voice grew deeper into a snarl.

  “I’m Private Jo Bex,” she replied still looking straight ahead even though he had moved behind her.

  “How is it that you got to graduate and Mike, Nathan, and Kim didn’t?”

  Jo relaxed to a normal standing position and faced the much taller man.

  “Well, Mike is dead for one thing,” the corners of her mouth curled up as she replied.

  * * *

  Adam lay wide-awake on his bed. He thought it was about midnight, but didn’t bother checking. If time was ever irrelevant it was here, day or night it was all the same. The small air vent continued its never-ending battle to counter the immense heat of the reactor core. The slightly increased gravity made every muscle and joint ache, and the boredom continued. He even thought about asking the captain for a job to do in the morning, now that he felt he was getting used to the heat.

  Finally thirst, and the realisation that he wasn’t going to get to sleep anytime soon, got the better of him. He dressed in the clothes that he had dropped on the second bed earlier in the night, grabbed the pack of cigarettes and lighter, then headed for the kitchen.

  He expected it to be empty, instead he found Bridget sitting in the captain’s end seat with her feet up on the table. She glanced up from the data pad she was reading and blew a cloud of smoke into the air as he entered.

  Adam filled a metal mug with ice-cold water and took a seat close enough to use her ashtray. He lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair so he could cross his legs.

  After a short silence he looked over at Bridget and realised she was staring right at him. She had one eyebrow slightly raised, like she had just asked him why he was disturbing her.

  “Isn’t there enough bounty hunters on TS already to rescue the rich girl?” she finally asked.

  “Not a bounty hunter. Not going to rescue her,” Adam replied, in a flat tone.

  Bridget looked back to the data pad in her lap, moments later she was looking back at Adam. She was just about to speak again when a noise got both of their attention. It started with the loud pounding of footsteps on the metal deck, then a series of crashes, then more rapid footsteps. Moments later, one of the soldiers burst through the open hatch, stumbled over her feet, and slid along the deck, leaving a long streak of blood.

  Adam jumped to his feet and reached the girl at the same time as Bridget.

  “Stay down,” Bridget shouted, as the bloody soldier tried to pick herself up.

  Her top was torn and only remained in place by the mass of sticky blood that covered her from head to toe. Adam recognised her the moment Bridget turned her onto her back. She was the quiet one that sat away from the other soldiers during the meal earlier.

  “It’s not mine. I’m not hurt,” she panted as the two searched her soaked clothes for the source of the blood.

  “He just attacked me,” she added after catching a breath.

  Bridget and Adam briefly glanced at each other, their eyes giving more instruction to each other than words could even in ten times the amount of time.

  Leaving the seemingly uninjured soldier with the pilot, Adam took off in the direction that she came from. The corridor branched off into two different directions not far from the mess. To the right he knew led to his quarters, so he went left. He then turned a right-angle corner to see a metal drum with a bloody smear on it lying in his path. Further down the corridor, a smudged red handprint led him to the left at the next junction. He ran past three closed hatches then slowed to a walk. He could see from a distance the bloody hand marks around the hatch frame and the bright red footprints that led out of the room.

  But that was nothing compared to the sight that awaited him in Jo’s quarters. The lieutenant’s body lay half on the bed, his wide-open eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling. His head leaned backwards, opening the deep cut across his throat. Drops of blood still dripped from one awkwardly outstretched arm and caused ripples in the red puddle that covered most of the floor.

  The drops grew louder and louder until each tiny splash echoed through the empty ship like a sledgehammer on the hull. The brightly lit room faded to near black, and he could feel the rectangular mesh of the deck digging into his skin on one side. He could feel each drop run from his back. It stung as it rolled along the open wounds then it dropped through the floor. It fell forever, slowly tumbling and shimmering in thin shards of light before it slammed into the blackness below.

  Adam jumped at the sound of a shout that he couldn’t make out, and the bright room refocused in his vision. He stumbled to the side as someone pushed passed him.

  “It was that crazy bitch, wasn’t it,” a second voice shouted from behind him.

  “Where is she?” one of the male soldiers demanded, grabbing Adam by the shoulder and wrenching him around so they were face-to-face.

  Adam didn’t respond, still shaken by what he had seen, not what was in Jo’s quarters, but what was in his head. It was worse than any dream he had had before. They all felt like dreams; this fel
t real like he was back there. He could smell it, taste it, and worst of all he could feel it.

  “She’s in the mess, and covered in blood,” a female voice shouted from the end of the corridor causing the two soldiers to leave Adam and run towards her at full speed.

  Adam refocused on what was happening around him and took off after them, he reached the first corner too fast and collided with a crate stacked against the wall, it tumbled to the ground behind him as he stumbled for a few steps before he regained control of his legs and continued.

  Four of the soldiers had reached the mess before him, and one arrived just after. Bridget had wrapped Jo in a white sheet and was helping her to a chair, when the mob reached them.

  Adam pushed to the front of the group, trying to block their path.

  “Stop,” he yelled. “No one knows what happened yet, beating her isn’t going to solve anything.”

  “Oh, we aren’t going to beat her, we’re going to fucking kill her.”

  “The lieutenant told us about her. Someone should have done it years ago,” a female voice shouted from the back of the group.

  “She deserves a trial, it’s not for you to decide what happens to her,” Adam replied loudly.

  “Bullshit, She dies!” the largest of the troops shouted while reaching out to push Adam away. Before his hand could make contact with Adams chest, it was caught and twisted around backwards. Adam stepped in closer and used the man’s own body weight to flip him over; his back landed hard on the deck.

  Two more rushed forward in defence of their friend. The first stumbled back seconds later holding his bloody nose. The second swung wildly at Adam without making contact then came undone by a lightning fast kick to the back of the leg that sent her straight to the ground.

  One more lunged forward, large serrated blade from the kitchen in hand. Years of combat training forgotten in an instant, she swung the blade wildly side to side trying to reach her target. A quick side step and Adam had her wrist in his grip, a twist and a flip later, and she was on her back with his foot to her throat. He twisted her wrist until she finally released the knife.