The Pilgrim of Cele — 9
Chapter 9: The Power of Three
When Paul Kane regained consciousness Orion introduced himself by throwing his CSA credentials on the steel table in front of his prisoner. Kane couldn’t feel his ass or his hands and suspected he’d been unconscious and synched up tight as a scrapper captain’s wallet for at least 12 standard. He had the sort of headache you’d bargain with the devil of Mintron to get free of and his mouth tasted like he’d been munching on asteroid cruft for a week.
After one half standard of strained silence, adrenalin kicked in and began pushing the fog from his mind. He was in deep, he knew it — but, true to his nature, Kane began weighing his options if only out of habit; his options felt feathery, at best.
“Who are you? Where am I?” he asked in an even tone, trying to get a read on his captor was his first and only option at this point. He must find his weakness, or create one.
“You’re on the Astrolabe and just in case you’re wondering, the black cloud you had over your head at Weller Station is still there Charlie Brown. You just got every last pilgrim aboard that sorry ass colony tin can slaughtered. We’ll just have to add them to the rest of the casualties already to your credit. You do have a way of causing the death of innocent people, don’t you Samuel?” Orion whistled and clucked his tongue in mock disgust. His eyes betrayed only a slight flicker of something… what was it, an unintentioned slip when he’d hissed the name Samuel, taunting Kane? In a moment of hubris, Orion had tipped his hand too far forward.
The mention of his brief but, coincidental alter ego, Samuel, sent a jolt of revelation up Kane’s spine. His pasticha training; however, kept his outward appearance unperturbed by Orion’s inadvertent reference which led him to conclude they’d taken someone else alive from The Ark along with him. But who?
Layla’s head throbbed with the echoes of torturous screams from the naive pilgrims wantonly slaughtered on The Ark and for what, or who? No, not all of them were exactly what one might consider innocents but it seemed they were genuinely attempting to make a fresh start and an m-class colony ship was their ticket to a new life, on a new planet in a galaxy far from their past mistakes. Now, their journey was at a stone cold dead end.
Everybody was running from something, she was certain of this and she had felt quite sure of herself upon deciding Samuel was anybody but the Navigator, not that she had any intention of telling this to Brother Stephen. She had sensed Paul Kane was a runner the moment they’d picked him up in that drifting pod. She had spent her evening meditation and resurrection time reflecting on the information she had gathered about Paul Kane thus far and had concluded he was, in fact, a fraud but decided he may prove to valuable to the cause and so, he should be allowed to live. It was at this precise moment of decision the ship exploded into fatal chaos and everything went black.
She sat calmly in the steel chair in the dim room and reflected on her situation. Where had these intruders come from and why had she not been left for dead on the decks of the ship with the rest of her so called brothers and sisters? Even more troubling, with three sintaps onboard The Ark, how is it they received not one standard minute of forewarning about the deadly energy pattern of events with which they were about to collide?
In a flash of apprehensive recognition she remembers Kai and Diana. Where were they? Were they even alive? And where was she, for that matter?
When the fortuitous moment came, Kane was ready. Orion, much too pleased with himself for capturing Kane and fulfilling his mission, let his guard slide for one half standard and now he sat semiconscious in the still warm metal chair Kane’s ass was in minutes earlier. Orion’s mouth was bloody, and his hands and feet were bound tightly to the steel chair and table. He’d be there awhile.
Armed with Orion’s photon phaser, Kane taps the panel and quietly slips into the dim corridor. For a moment he considers trying to locate whoever they may have taken from The Ark along with him and dismisses it. He must get to an escape pod and get the hell off the Astrolabe and as far away from that crazy CSA as possible if he’s going to survive Act III of this nightmare.
Looking to his left the corridor dead ends into a blank bulkhead. Clinging to the wall he moves slowly in the opposite direction toward a four way interchange in the passageways. Passing another door exactly like the one he’d been held behind he hears a muffled female voice.
“Anyone there? Hello? Hey, I have to pee! Anyone?”
“Sister Layla?” he whispers urgently at the door seal and tries the control panel beside it. Nothing happens.
“Stand back,” he urges and fires a short photon burst at the panel and the door slides open.
“Jesus, Samuel, or whoever you are, where the hell are we?” Layla whispers, more surprised and relieved to see this pretender than she’d anticipated.
“Never mind that, we’re going to be ‘nowhere’ fast if we don’t find our way to the shuttle bay. C’mon,” Kane said, jerking her up from the chair a little too roughly.
“Easy, space cowboy,” Layla said, rubbing her slight wrist while following him quickly out of the cell.
Are there any others?” Layla asked from behind Kane as they moved down the deserted passageway. She didn’t mind playing a few moments of the damsel in distress because she actually found Kane was growing on her even if he was deceptive son of a bitch of the first order. She could respect brilliance and artistry in any form, especially in Pasticha.
Layla could sense the rapid beating of Kane’s heart and the electrical impulses of thoughts were careening through her own mind like a series of solar flares. He was on the verge of panic. Layla could not have him melting down now — with concentrated effort she set her intention and reached out around Kane with her own electromagnetic field and set a calming force in motion ahead of him. Soon, she sensed his thoughts calming and becoming more focused along with the settling of his heart rate and breathing.
Following the signage on the bulkheads they found the shuttle bay. Scanning the hanger, they saw one crew member lying on the deck in a pool of blood near the escape pod. The pod was powering up.
“C’mon, this may be our only chance. Whoever’s in that escape pod wants off this ship, too, so they either come with us, or they die,” Kane said, pulling Layla towards the pod’s hatch.
Standing on either side of the door, Kane motioned for Layla to open the hatch as he sprung into the cockpit with his phaser leveled at its pilot.
“Diana!” Kane and Layla shouted in surprised unison.
“Oh, thank the moon and stars! It’s you Layla. Get in! You too, Kane. We’ve only got one shot at this and we’re going to need a minimum of three sintaps to pull off our mission. We’ve got to find Kai. I know he is alive, I’ve sensed it.”
“One shot at what,” Kane demanded. “What mission?”
“You’d better buckle up,” came Diana’s reply as the bay doors opened and she switched on the thrusters.
© S Lynn Knight, 2017
