Three days later found us at Omega Zone Two. It was a forbidden Jump gate that even has an announcement attached to it feeding right into any comms system. “Do not proceed through or you will be destroyed. Do not proceed through or you will be destroyed…”
This recording played fifty-three times while we made our way toward the Jump gate. Martha made sure I had the count. She was really good at that. Making sure that I was aware of the little obvious details even though she was the one suggesting this insane course of action.
“Are we at maximum possible speed?” I asked her.
“Approaching at ninety-nine point nine eight percent of light speed.” Martha explained.
“Cut off all systems that are non-essential, including life support to anywhere other than the bridge. Direct maximum power to shields.” My heart began to pound and sweat started beading on my forehead. Here is where we found out if this magic shield I bought was all it was cracked up to be. If I was using anything else, I would never have agreed to this plan.
“I am picking up a significant increase in your heat radiation, Jared.” Martha informed me. See? Useless pointing out of obvious facts. I’d heard of a group of scientists that followed the same principle. They were called the Masters of the Obvious Organization by everyone other than themselves. To themselves they were the Society for the Expression of Ideological Freedom. A really fancy name for people that wanted everyone to accept their right to rub people’s noses in foolish things that they did.
“I swear, if this thing doesn’t work, I am bombing the MIT campus.” I growled.
“Actually, if this-,” Martha began but I cut her off.
“Damn it! I’ll haunt their asses!”
“There is no documented evidence from my limited amount of time researching humanity that there are spirits surviving after death.”
“I’ll find a way! That is how pissed I will be!” I yelled at Martha.
The ship slipped through the Jump gate and it felt like the entire universe went quiet. I swear I could hear my own heart beating it was so completely silent. I braced myself, checking the safety straps three more times as we adjusted course toward the Jump gate out of cat space. That was the unofficial name of Rakshasas controlled areas. They didn’t appreciate it very much. Yet another reason I dreaded moving through this area.
Ten minutes went by. Nothing. Twenty. Still nothing. I kept my eyes glued on the tactical view of the map I was flying on. After half an hour, my body could no longer keep up being ultra paranoid and started relaxing.
THUMP!!! The whole ship vibrated with that sound. I nearly flew out of my navigator’s chair. My body was thrown forward with so much force, I swear I could feel my bones bending close to their breaking point.
“MARTHA!” I screamed.
“Shields holding!” She informed me.
The second strike, smashed me once again into the straps holding me to the chair. I bit my tongue, then immediately clenched my teeth to keep it from happening again. The third hit threw me sideways, and I smacked the back of my head into the headrest over compensating.
“Damage to the ship?” I yelled out as quick as I could, then clenched my teeth again. I was somewhat prepared so it didn’t hurt nearly as bad.
“Minor hull fractures only. Easily repaired.” Martha explained. I blanched.
“Bridge?” I asked, not daring to make the question longer in fear of biting through my tongue.
“None in the-,” Her voice was drowned out with the next whump that rocked me nearly out of my skin. “bridge hull. It is built of stronger materials for this sort of contingency.” She finished explaining. Another blast cut off the navigation screens.
“I’m flying blind!” I screamed to Martha.
“I’m not.” She answered. “Ten more minutes to target!”
Another blast whipped me around and I managed to yell out, “Not helping!”
The next five minutes were the longest of my life. I was convinced the next hit was going to end my life. Every hit I survived, I celebrated a small victory. Until the five minute mark when my head was whipped so hard into the head rest that I was knocked unconscious.
“Am I dead?” I said to myself, looking around and seeing nothing but complete darkness. It was so dark, my mind refused to believe my eyes were even open.
“Not yet.” Came the answer from Martha.
I breathed a sigh of relief that lasted for nearly a minute. “Ow. My god I hurt!”
“You poor thing. Would you like some pain killers?” Martha asked me.
“I thought I checked the medical supply cabinet and there wasn’t anything like that in there anymore?”
“There isn’t. I was told that with all gifts it is the thought that counts.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, although I wanted to rip Martha’s server out of its mounts. “I swear, I will throw your server around the room a few times then ask you if you want a computer repair technician.
“Where are we?” I asked her.
“One day’s travel to Earth.”
“How long was I out for?” I asked, confused.
“Eleven minutes, fifteen seconds, five tenths of a second, four-,”
“Eleven minutes, got it.” I cut her off before she spent the next hour defining the period of time to the nth degree. “How is it only one day? I thought we calculated out two.”
“I did a slingshot maneuver from the star of the Illaris system.” Martha explained.
My jaw hit the floor. “Martha, you do realize that is the most dangerous usage of the grav plates and zero-mass field don’t you?”
“You like gambling. I wanted to know what it felt like. Very exhilarating.” She informed me, nonplussed.
“You are a-,” I almost said computer program, then stopped myself and reconsidered. “Crazy woman.” I finished off with. There was a twenty-three percent survival chance from doing a sling shot. If the calculations for the timing of the grav panel charge and initiating the zero-mass field were off by even a fraction of a second there was the guarantee that the forces would rip a ship in half. There were videos on YouTube of drone operated space ships disintegrating from it.
“I had a relatively sound theory that there is a five picosecond window. I was right.” She explained. I simply shook my head in wonder.
“Next time, please consult me if you decide to put something like that to chance. Thank you though for doing it while I was unconscious. I probably would have crapped myself if I was awake. Do we have the medscanner up and running? I need to check if I have a concussion.”
“You don’t.” Martha informed me.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I lowered the oxygen level of the bridge to prevent you from regaining consciousness. According to the medical journals that I have absorbed, there is a certain point I can bring your blood oxygen levels to that will keep you sedated for at least thirty minutes without brain damage.” She explained.
I lowered my head and stared at the ground for a moment while shaking my head. “And why exactly did you put me to sleep? I thought that I was knocked out from the blow to the head.”
“The blow to the head was a completely coincidental timing correlation. It was a very minor blow. I put you to sleep, as you say, because your tension was presenting the threat that you could possibly injure yourself severely. Completely relaxed the human body has the ability to absorb much more damage without serious health risks. In some cases, up to four times the trauma you are capable of surviving while wide awake. You asked me not to kill you. Since this was my plan, and you reluctantly agreed, I was not willing to take the chance that you would injure yourself too badly.” Martha explained all this and I couldn’t help but agree with her reasoning. Although it was quite uncomfortable that my computer knocked me out for my own good.
“Martha, can you handle navigation from here? I’m going to go to my room, curl into
a little ball, and cry myself to sleep.” Waves of insane amounts of confusion and terror were still beating on the walls of my brain. I made my way into my quarters and was lying down in my bed when her answer came.
“Yes, John. Good night.”
“Wow, you got my name right.” Was the last thing I said before sinking blissfully into blackness. I thought I heard her say, “Of course I did, Jack.” But I can’t be sure.
I awoke to us docking at the Las Vegas interstellar port. When the ship finished docking I realized that I was about to do something that would invariably commit me to this operation.
“You let me sleep through just about everything.” I commented.
“What is the first step?” She asked, ignoring my remark.
“First, I have to find Gabby. Then kidnap her.” I shook my head. “I have no idea why I am actually doing this.”
After bouncing around to at least a dozen locations throughout Las Vegas, I managed to locate her at her apartment building. I picked up a large bouquet of flowers from the local supermarket and put on a hat then made my way to her door. The Taser that I picked up at the local gun store was clutched in my sweaty palm as I made it up the two flights of stairs to her door.
I rang the doorbell and knocked. I held the bouquet in my left hand, and in my right the Taser was stuffed into my pocket.
“Yes?” I heard a woman’s voice ask through the door.
“Flower Delivery.” I answered.
I heard various locks being undone and waited patiently with my head down until the door opened. When Gabby saw me, the shocked look of terror was almost worth all the effort I had spent getting the hell out of the trap she’d happily thrown me into. When I fired the Taser at her, she didn’t even try and cry out. Just dropped to the floor, twitching.
I walked into her apartment and closed the door behind me. It took a few minutes to get her tied to a chair and duct taped to one of her dining room chairs. It was another twenty minutes until she was coherent. She was staring at me in horror and fear, all sorts of gears grinding inside her brain. Best thing about drug addicts were how paranoid they were. I admit, I wasn’t the nicest person in the world since I was very pleased with letting her stew and torment herself with more and more terrible scenarios of torture and pain.
“You know Gabby. I really hate you.” I told her. It’s really amazing how quickly someone shuts up when the threat starts talking.
“I have thought about all the ways to get you back for landing me on that slaver ship. Fortunately, they discovered that I was pretty good with piloting and decided to hire me instead. I guess you could say I lucked out. But I don’t consider it lucky to have been placed into that situation in the first place. And that, I blame on you.”
I sighed dramatically and reveled in the look of terror that was beginning to rebuild itself in her eyes. I really wanted to make her pay for what she did, I admit. “When I found out that you were trying to get to Dave though. That was when I decided that torture isn’t good enough for you.”
She started shaking her head and saying something. I didn’t really care. “But you see, I thought up something even better for you.”
I pulled out the computer tablet and played the conversation that Martha had recorded for her. At first she was freaking out, then after she listened to the recording a couple of times, she relaxed and a whole new look of terror that had absolutely nothing to do with me showed up on her face.
“Now, I’m going to ask you to stay quiet because I want to remove the tape from your mouth and untie you. I need to get you the hell out of here, Gabby. The only way I can do that is for you to cooperate.” She began nodding emphatically. “If I take this tape off, I’m going to keep the Taser on you so that if you even look like you are going to scream or anything I will hit you again. Oh, and if I get you out of this apartment building and you decide to do anything stupid like run off and go warn Steve or whatever I am going to hit you with this Taser, leave you in the street and anonymously tip off Fred that you are running around and you know he is coming to kill you. Got it?”
She nodded again, this time much more relaxed. I ripped the duct tape off her mouth. “Ow!” It wasn’t loud enough to alert anyone so I prevented myself from indulging in the base desire to hit her again with the Taser.
“I wasn’t going to hurt Dave.” She told me. That pissed me off. I almost hit her again with the Taser just for that statement.
“Okay, here’s another rule. You have no right to say his name. If you do, I will leave you tied up and duct taped here and leak to Fred where you are. Do you understand that? I don’t have to save you. I really don’t care at this point whether you live or die. You got it?” She nodded her acceptance.
“Now Gabby, I’m going to untie you. And you aren’t going to get anything from your closet or from your apartment. You can take your wallet but we’re going to cut up all the credit cards when I get you to my ship. Consider yourself off the grid for a while. ‘Kay?”
She nodded and I began the process of untying her. When I finished, she grabbed her wallet and we left. It took only moments for the hover cab to make it to us and we rode in silence back to the spaceport. I had informed Martha to stay completely quiet when the two of us got back to the ship. Thankfully, she didn’t decide to ignore my request. Gabby really didn’t need to know I had any help at all.
“Johnny Q, I’m sorry.” Gabby informed me when the airlock sealed.
“Don’t ever use that name again. You want my attention, you call me Mr. Public. I won’t allow you the right to refer to me as if we are anything other than acquaintances. Got it?” I asked her.
“Sorry John. I couldn’t help myself. But I wasn’t trying to sell Dave to Steve!” She explained to me.
“Okay, you know what? No. We aren’t doing this. I’m not getting into some argument with you about this. I’m not going to listen to your half-hearted attempts to win some sort of sympathy from me. Actually I want to sell you to Mark myself, so I can return the favor that you did for me. BUT I’M A BETTER PERSON THAN YOU ARE!” I screamed that last part at her.
“Here.” I told her, handing her a file with all the information about her father and all of his accounts. There was even a copy of his Will.
She started looking through it and slowly as the seconds slipped by she became more and more lost. The file eventually slipped out of her hand and she dropped it on the deck in a state of shock. “How did you get this?” She asked. I shook my head and brought up the screen in the messy bunk room that I put her in. Martha had a maintenance bot rewire everything so that it would hold Gabby and she could prevent her from escaping.
On the screen were the video journals of her father. I left the room and had Martha secure the door behind me when Gabby began watching the videos. A couple of hours later, Martha quietly informed me that Gabby was trying to get out of the room. I made my way back over and entered.
When I walked in, she was stripped to her underwear. I made a mental note to yell at Martha for not warning me about the condition of her dress. “Put some clothes on.” I ordered Gabby.
She answered by taking off her bra. I silently sent up a silent thank you to Marissa for everything that she did for me. “Alright, here is where I start getting upset. Put some clothes on.”
“You don’t like this?” She asked me, languishing on the bed.
“No, I don’t. See, I had this really evil woman cure me of my teenaged fascination with naked women and sex.” I informed her.
“I’m giving you an open invitation.” Gabby explained. For a brief moment, I actually contemplated giving in. Then I remembered the look of shame on Dave’s face when he told me he was worried that I was going after Gabby for myself. I sent up another silent thank you to Dave.
“I’m giving you an ultimatum.” I explained to her and pulled out the Taser. “Put clothes on or I will put them on you.
I don’t think you will enjoy me putting them on you.”
Gabby froze for a moment, then ashamed, began replacing her clothes. “You can’t keep me here.” She told me.
“Actually, I can. I can keep you here for a very long time.” I thought about the fact that I had a permanent babysitter on my ship and smiled. “I can keep you here and I can make it so that you do nothing but watch over and over again your father talking about you and talking about how pissed off and hurt he was that you wound up getting screwed up so badly with Steve and his band of merry sleaze balls.”
“John,” I lifted the gun to shoot when she said that. “I mean, Mr. Public. Why are you keeping me here? I’m going to survive now and I’m not going back to those guys. I’d be pretty stupid to when they are going after Steve and everything.”
“See, I don’t believe you. You may even be telling the truth, but I don’t care. I’m doing what your father should have done. Just kidnap your ass and force you through withdrawal. He was so worried that you would hate him that he couldn’t stomach the thought. I don’t give a shit. So I can not only stomach it, but you pissed me off enough that I will enjoy watching you struggle through withdrawal. AND, the best part is, I will be doing you and Jim a favor with it. Clean conscience, vengeance, and a happy conclusion. All wrapped into one.” I smiled, keeping the Taser pointed at her.
“So what then? Why am I your problem?” She asked, her voice strained with tension.
“Maybe the psychologically damaged routine would work on someone that didn’t grow up with all the same wonderful issues that we had at the orphanage. It doesn’t work with me. It really pisses me off that it would work with Dave. See, I owe him now. Him and his friends set me up pretty well. So I’m doing him a favor by helping you also. That wipes that debt clean too. All in all, pretty much a win win for me. Gabby, you aren’t going anywhere. And, I may just keep you here indefinitely after you finish your withdrawal. Because I am just that sick of an individual and all those people that went off to that drug mining colony didn’t have anyone volunteering to let them go. So you still owe them. Not too much money for me either. I feed you just the two thousand calories a day a normal person needs and viola, not really all that expensive.
“In the end, you are my slave. I want you to understand this. And I’m going to torture you. I just don’t like getting my hands dirty so I’m going to do it in such a way that I never have to touch you or even really talk to you. This is how much what you did to me and others like me when you sold them for drugs. You lived like there were no consequences to your actions. I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. Have fun suffering Gabby. I know I will enjoy watching you do so.” With that said, I left the room and Martha secured the door behind me.
“Joel, that wasn’t very nice.” Martha informed me when I made it back to the bridge.
I sighed and shook my head. “Martha, I’m not really serious. I just don’t want her thinking that she is getting out of there at some point so she can just wait it out.”
“That’s twisted.” Martha told me.
“So is selling people into slavery for drugs and money!” I exclaimed. “Martha, I’m not dumping her in some facility so she can run back to the drug cartels or Mark with the fact that I have this information. After this is all done, I’ll dump her in some rehab clinic. Hopefully they can help her. If not, the police.”
“Sounds pretty sadistic, letting her sit in that room and stew over everything.” Martha informed me.
“Tough. How long would I have sat inside that cargo hold until they reached the mining colony? In the end, I’m not really concerned with how badly she’s hurt. All I want is to get through this without getting a price tag stuck on my head.” We undocked and headed off into space.
“Do you want me to just lower the oxygen level until she falls asleep, then suffocate her?” Martha asked. I wanted to laugh and scream at the same time.
“You call me sadistic then ask if I want you to kill her? Really?” I shook my head.
“I am having trouble understanding exactly what you’d like me to do.” Martha explained.
“I want you to just watch her. Make sure she doesn’t hurt herself or get out. That’s about it other than feeding her and I’ll take care of that. What’s she up to anyway?” I asked.
“She has finally stopped screaming at the top of her lungs and beating on the door for you to let her out. Now she’s watching the videos of her father again.” Martha informed me. “Where are we headed?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.” I answered and locked in the course for the Omega Zone. At least there, I’d have options once I figured out what I was doing.
* * *