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

  The final young soldier, who was the smallest of the lot, avoided Adam and began to help his friends to their feet.

  The room went silent as they all heard the mechanical clicks of a pump-action weapon. Everyone, who was able to, turned to see the captain standing just inside the room, shotgun in hand.

  “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Bridget, who was sitting uneasily on the table beside Jo, explained to him as best as she could, what had happened.

  “Not sure exactly how it started, but it ended with Blondie here slicing up their lieutenant. Now this lot was going to do the same to her.”

  The captain cocked his head to gesture Adam over to him. As Adam released his grip on the soldiers wrist, she jumped up, then suddenly froze as she realised the captain’s weapon was now focused on her.

  “This is the last thing that we need. We can’t keep them all apart for the next four days. There’s no brig on my ship,” the captain said in a hushed tone.

  Adam looked back at the five troops. Their movements were getting bolder. They were less convinced now that the captain was going to shoot them on the spot, the less injured slowly moved into a more tactical position closer to their target.

  “We need to dissolve the situation here first, if we can get them back to their quarters for now, it might buy us some time to work this out. But it’s up to you, it’s your ship.”

  The captain thought for a second then answered.

  “If we do the wrong thing here, the military will take my ship and probably throw us all in the brig for just being a pain in the ass.”

  Just as he finished talking, the soldier that Adam had dropped to the ground first made a quick dash towards Jo, trying to catch everyone off guard while they were busy whispering to each other.

  He got less than two full steps from his starting position before Bridget pulled her hand out from behind her back and levelled a thin silver device, not much larger than a pen, at the approaching man. A long blue spark erupted from the taser and wrapped around the man’s body before he collapsed to the ground convulsing. She adjusted her aim to the next soldier, who immediately stepped back and raised his hands in a submitting manner.

  With the threat of a weapon that was more likely to be used against them, the remaining soldiers went back to their quarters. Two of them carried the unconscious man by the arms and legs.

  The captain slid a short length of metal pipe through the hatch release on the last of the soldier’s quarters.

  “This isn’t going to hold them forever, not if they decide they really want to get out.”

  Adam agreed, but didn’t respond. He was standing alongside the hatch to Jo’s quarters trying to build up the strength to look in.

  The captain stepped around him and looked in first.“What a mess.”

  The two jumped in surprise as a sudden voice come from behind them.

  “I’ve taken the girl to the shower to get cleaned up, she wants to know if her bag of clothes is salvageable,” Bridget said, ending with a smile after she saw the two shocked faces.

  The captain took a long step to clear the worst of the mess, and emerged from the room seconds later with a half-empty duffel bag.

  “This looks like all she had.” He passed Bridget the slightly splattered bag. “Once you’re done with her, I want you to send an encrypted message back to the main military base on Capital. Tell them what happened, and that we will hand them all over to the authorities on Titan Station in a few days.”

  Bridget replied with a look that the captain seemed to understand, but meant nothing to Adam.

  “I know. I hate dealing with them too. But if they think that we’re hiding something from them, then …”

  “I guess,” Bridget replied, “Will take about an hour before we receive the reply though.” She slung the bag over her shoulder and started down the corridor.

  The captain thought for a second before he called out. “Where did you put the girl?”

  Bridget pointed her thumb back over her shoulder towards them and called out, “His quarters.”

  The captain thought it was funnier than Adam did.

  “Well whatever their reply, this body can’t stay here for long, not in this heat. We’ll stick it down in one of the freezer crates in the cargo bay.”

  They wrapped the body in the sheet off the bed first, then in a plastic sheet that Simon brought up from engineering. Several of the shipping containers had self-contained freezer units. They busted the security seal and lock off one of the smaller ones, then removed enough boxes of frozen meat to make room.

  Simon was going through one of the boxes, trying to decide if the long, body-shaped parcel had put him off enough to dump the meat out the airlock, when then ship’s intercom crackled into life with Bridget’s voice.

  “Captain, get up here. We’ve got a problem!”

  End of Part 2

  NOTESFor more information on the story or the release dates, take a look at the website.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.