Fic: Red Petals [10/10 - COMPLETE]
Fic: Red Petals [10/10]
Previous: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9
Disclaimer: Sometimes I think this show was created just for me, but alas, still not mine. Definitely for the best, in this case.
Rating/warnings: NC-17. Sex pollen and sex slaves, dub-con and non-con (though mostly off screen), plus violence, cursing, lots of nudity, and forced druggings.
Pairings: (In order of apperance, not necessarily importance) James/Camille, Mercedes/Kendall, Kendall/Jo, Kendall/James, Mercedes/Kendall/James, James/Logan.
Notes: As always, enormous thanks to my fantastic and amazing beta reader, lielabell. And thanks to everyone for reading!!!
Summary: Kendall and his crew are supposed to be on a rescue mission, searching for someone on a black market planet. But he's the one who ends up needing to be rescued... [COMPLETE]
Ten.
Jo frowned at the window. A new crop of soldiers had arrived, with bigger equipment. They were organizing. This was it; they were going to cripple the ship and then break in, unless she stopped them. And now that they'd realized how open she was, any step down the ramp was a danger. They'd be on her from all directions, and she couldn't dodge bullets and shoot at the same time.
God damn Mitchell and that drug. With some covering fire she could not only take out the people setting up the equipment, she could probably take the whole apparatus out. But she wasn't going to risk her life on it. She needed another way, a strategic location for when they broke in --
Footsteps thudded towards her. She looked down the hall and saw Mitchell. He wasn't alone. Diamond followed him, but he didn't have that far-off expression she was used to on him. Instead, he was frowning, moving with purpose. And he was wearing clothes -- a CivCorps uniform that didn't quite fit, but he wasn't actively trying to take it off. Something had obviously changed.
"Hi," Mitchell panted. "Sorry about -- we were -- sorry. That dust is really, really potent, and... I'm better now. And... and this is James."
Diamond held out his hand. "It's Jo, right?" He looked at Logan. "That's what you said?"
His voice was a little bit deeper than when he'd been drugged, and his whole manner was different. She wondered what he was really like. Not that she had time to find out. She shook his hand and said, "Yeah. But this isn't the time for getting to know each other. I estimate we've got about six minutes until they're set up to cripple the ship."
"Shit," Mitchell breathed, looking out the window. "Do we have any options?"
With the two of them there, they did. "Is either of you a good shot?"
They exchanged a look and Mitchell said, "I'm alright."
"I'm better," Diamond said, then, bluntly, "and I'm fine. I'm not dizzy anymore --"
"We don't know what the long-term effects are --"
"And short term, we're being attacked. I'm. Fine." He turned to Jo. "Do you have a plan?"
She revised her initial thought and grabbed her heaviest gun. It was strong enough to knock out their equipment, and it didn't require precision. She held it out to Diamond and said, "Brace yourself when you fire; it's got a bigger kick than anything you've used. Ignore everything but the cannon. We're elevated enough that you should be able to see the loading and firing mechanisms. Aim for them, but as long as you're in the general area you'll get the job done. Don't get distracted by the people who'll be shooting at you; they're my job."
He took the weapon and examined it for a moment. "Is this a Taylor 900? How do you even get one of those? I've never even seen --"
"We can chat later if we're alive. Mitchell." She turned to him and handed him something lighter. "This'll be more accurate than anything Cops-issued. Extra backup never hurts. Keep your eyes open for anyone I miss.
"To get a good view we'll need to be a third of the way down the ramp. I'll go first; Diamond, you're second; Mitchell, you're last. Head back up the ramp on my signal, I'll cover as you run. I want to take out as many of them as I can, but the cannon is the chief objective. Questions?"
They both just stared at her. "Who are you?" Diamond asked after a stunned moment.
She ignored him. "Let's get this done. Ready?"
"Yeah," Diamond said.
Mitchell swallowed, adjusted his grip around the gun, and nodded. Jo turned to the entrance, a gun in either hand, and nodded back at them. She hated working with people she didn't know, but they had as much at stake here as she did, so she'd just have to trust them to do their jobs. Besides, it had to be better than going it alone. She took one moment to center herself, catch a deep breath, and then sprang forward down the ramp.
--
Carlos snuck back towards Kendall and the wheelbarrow with trepidation. But he hadn't had a choice, he'd had to leave Kendall for awhile. Kendall still couldn't walk or run, let alone sneak, and Carlos had needed to check around. What he'd found hadn't been good. Mercedes' troops had formed a loose ring around the ship. Not close, and mostly grouped at the north side, where they were building up some kind of equipment. Whatever that was, it was big and looked like it could do real damage.
He had to find a way to take it out. But as good as his Taylor was, it wasn't a weapon made for sniping, and he didn't spot any good hidden locations anyway. And even if he'd been able to find one, what would he do with Kendall? He had to get Kendall back to the ship. Logan would take care of him, and once they regrouped, they could try to find James again. He still had to be somewhere on this planet, and Carlos wasn't going to give up on finding him, but that wouldn't do any good if Mercedes' people took over their ship.
Okay. He had to save the ship. His assets were one gun, one wheelbarrow, and... that was it. He made his way back to the wheelbarrow and checked under the tarp. Kendall had slipped back into unconsciousness, and didn't come out of it when Carlos shook him lightly. Crap.
A shot exploded somewhere behind him, and then another, and another. Carlos ran back towards it, the noise of the shootout covering his footsteps, and skidded to a halt when he could see. There people were balanced on the halfway-extended ramp now: Logan, the girl he'd seen before, and --
James.
He gaped for a second, but that was all he could afford. If James was on the ship, able to shoot like that, that meant he was in way better shape than Kendall -- and that meant all he had to do was get Kendall on board, somehow, and they could go. The four of them would finally be reunited, and Logan would take care of Kendall, and when Kendall was better he'd come up with a way to get them all out of hot water with Civ, and everything was going to be okay. If he could just get on to the ship.
He snuck closer and when he realized all of the soldiers' attention was fixed on the shooters on the ramp, he started waving his arms. James was focused on what he was shooting at, the girl moving in quick circles, picking off soldiers. But Logan was staring around cautiously. Carlos waved again, and this time Logan's gaze snapped to him. He mouthed something Carlos couldn't make out, and, desperate, Carlos drew a giant K in the air in front of him.
Logan mouthed something again, maybe what, and Carlos realized his letter had probably looked backwards to Logan. He did it again, in the opposite direction, and then pointed down towards where Kendall was waiting, and then at the ramp.
Logan's eyes went wide he nodded hard. Carlos started to turn towards Kendall, but froze, seeing one of the soldiers between him and Logan with his gun raised. Carlos brought his own weapon up but it was too late. Carlos fired, but so did the soldier. And Logan went down.
--
Smoke roiled from the cannon and it collapsed. James shot a few more times, sending pieces of its casing flying, and took out two soldiers who were trying to tend to it. Then he turned to signal Jo --
And he saw Logan stagger a step and then collapse down on to his knees, towards the edge of the ramp. James reacted on instinct, ducking to grab Logan so he couldn't topple off the ramp, shielding Logan's body with his own. It was only Logan's leg that had been shot, but he was bleeding through his pants already. It was bad, but not fatal. Thank god.
"Get him in!" Jo screamed above the din of the shootouts. And James had to, because they were being attacked from all sides, and she couldn't cover them from everyone at once. But as he half-dragged Logan up to his feet, Logan gasped something.
"What?"
"Carlos -- Kendall -- get the ramp down!"
James' gaze darted around the hanger, but he only saw soldiers.
"Go!" Jo screamed at him.
She didn't mean to lower the ramp, but if Logan was right, he had no choice. And Logan was basically always right. "Careful," he mumbled, hoping Logan would be able to balance, then sprinted for the doorway. He hit the switch to extend the ramp and ran right back.
"Are you insane?" Jo screamed at him. The ramp shuddered as it moved and Logan swayed in place. James wrapped an arm around him and brought his gun up, trying to target and take out anyone he could in the crowd. But bullets were breaking in too close to them despite Jo's seemingly perfect aim and reflexes. If Logan was wrong about this, lowering the ramp would just be a delay that got them all killed --
And then he saw it. Carlos was running wildly towards them, with something -- a wheelbarrow? "What the hell?"
"Cover him!" Logan hissed, pulling free of James' grip. He still had his gun, and though he pitched forward as the ramp touched down, screaming for a moment as he landed on his bad leg, he managed to stay upright. Which was good, but Carlos wasn't the only one who needed cover.
He turned to Jo. "Get him onto the ship. I'll get Logan --"
"Yeah, go!" she yelled, gesturing him on before turning away. She had a gun in either hand now and switched from picking off individuals to sending an automated barrage into the crowd. Putting faith in her because he had no choice, James turned back to Logan, grabbed him around the shoulders again, and pulled him forward. Logan staggered with him, and again, James did his best to shield Logan with his body. As Logan crossed the threshold into the ship, James released him, turned around.
Carlos was still running towards them, a mission that looked suicidal. His only advantage was that the soldiers seemed terrified of Jo, concentrating on her more than him -- but he wasn't even looking up, couldn't dodge or duck, and was still trying to maneuver the damn wheelbarrow. If he dropped it and sprinted he'd have better luck -- but Logan had said Carlos and Kendall, and James didn't see Kendall anywhere, which meant... shit.
Jo was covering Carlos, so James covered Jo, keeping close to the ship to make sure that no one could hit him from the back. Jo glanced over her shoulder and nodded at him, realizing what he was doing. Something clanged -- a bullet snagging the wheelbarrow, and then another. James took out the soldier who'd managed to fire them, and another whose sights were a little too clearly aimed at Carlos, and then, thank god, Carlos jammed the wheelbarrow up onto the ramp.
"Retract it! Go!" Jo yelled, dancing to the side so Carlos could pass her. James ducked in to hit the switch, then tried to cover them both from the doorway. Carlos shoved his way in and Jo followed moments later.
The ramp folded in, closing the door behind it, and James paused to breathe and take stock. Carlos pulled the tarp off of his wheelbarrow, revealing Kendall, unconscious and bleeding. Carlos must have been grazed, his shirt was torn and he was bleeding, but he seemed otherwise okay, probably so adrenaline-filled that he didn't even feel it. Logan was leaning against the wall, all his weight on his good leg with blood pooled on the floor around him, and Jo was catching her breath.
"Med bay," Logan gasped. "Fast."
"No," Jo interrupted. "We need to get off this planet -- we need to get out now."
"Kendall needs help, and -- "
"And it's not going to be easy to get out of here," Carlos interrupted. "I don't know what's going on but it looks like there was some sort of space port shut down. The sign said it was Traffic Control, but maybe it was just Mercedes' people trying to keep everyone out of their way, I don't know, but if it was Traffic --"
"Then we need to get out of here before the authorities arrive," Jo finished for him.
"But Kendall needs care," Logan repeated, and Logan obviously needed help himself.
Carlos and Logan turned to look at James, who realized suddenly that, with Kendall unconscious, he was technically the ranking officer. Even Jo was looking at him curiously, sizing him up to see what he'd say, though he doubted she'd follow any orders she didn't agree with. Not like the others, who trusted him. Never mind that he couldn't remember the last ten months, never mind that he had no idea where they were or what had happened. Jo was a stranger, and Carlos and Logan always looked to him when Kendall wasn't around.
And if Kendall didn't get care, he wouldn't be around again, ever.
But then again, if they were all arrested, what would happen? Logan hadn't had time to fill him in on everything, only that they'd all been AWOL for almost a year. That meant that, if they were lucky, planetary authorities would hand them over to the Corps, where they'd all be arrested and court-martialed. But if they weren't lucky, they wouldn't even get off the planet. They'd get handed right back to that Mercedes woman. James doubted she'd give Kendall the medical care he needed, and as for the rest of them --
James didn't remember much, but he'd meant what he'd said. He was not going back to the Red Petals, ever.
He shook his head and started for the bridge. "Let's get out of here while we can."
Logan looked at Kendall, pale and bleeding in the wheelbarrow, and then back at James. But he didn't really object, just asked, "Are you sure?"
Images of people's faces and hands and silk sheets flood James's mind, and he grabbed the wall, sick to his stomach and a little dizzy again. "I'm not going back to the whorehouse from hell. Period."
Before anyone else could argue, he straightened up and helped Carlos pull Kendall to his feet, while Logan gave them instructions not to move his head or neck any more than necessary, in case he had a concussion or a spinal injury. Jo threaded Logan's arm around her shoulders to help him follow them. They strapped Kendall into a seat by the entrance.
"I hope you can still fly," Logan mumbled as the rest of them found their seats. James fell into the pilot's chair and glanced over at the captain's seat by habit, but Kendall wasn't there, wasn't in any shape to give orders.
"Yeah. Me too," James agreed, breathing deep, wishing the world would stop spinning around him. He grit his teeth and brought the ship's navigation panel to life. The ship hummed with energy and a message from Traffic Control blared, warning them to shut down their systems, that all ships were forbidden from taking off, that any ships that tried to do so would be treated as dangerous and shot down.
"I guess it wasn't a ploy," Carlos mused.
"We're going to die." Logan's hand dug into the arm of his seat. "Traffic doesn't shoot cannons, it shoots energy blasts, it doesn't even have to hit us to take us out and --"
His objections were cut off as the ship took to the sky, a sudden upwards vault that pressed them all down against their seats. Normally they'd have needed Traffic Control's instructions and they'd wait in the queue before jumping to light speed, but James' hands worked across his console, the displays clearer in his memory than anything else so far. When he focused on them, the fuzziness in his dissolved a little, and he felt old instincts flaring to life as he ran through the pre-light speed checklist.
"Crap, they are gearing up for a shot," Carlos warned from his spot at the security console. "They'll have us in five, four --"
"Shut up!" Jo yelled.
"-- two -- "
James punched the button that threw the ship to manual, the kind of fine control that was useless in deep space, so most pilots didn't bother to learn. The ship rolled at his command, dancing across the sky, and a shot just missed them. Logan gasped, Jo cursed, and Carlos said, "They're gearing up again. James, we need to go to light speed now. They'll have a trace fixed on us now and we won't be able to dodge --"
"I'm concentrating," James snapped, not letting his gaze leave his console in case he started getting dizzy again. He didn't have a proper course in place, but then again he had no idea where they were or where they were going. They just needed to go, get out of range so Kendall could get up to med bay.
"James! We've got ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven --"
"Not helping!" Logan yelled.
"-- five -- "
"Carlos!"
Fuck it. James screwed his eyes shut and hit the light speed engines, bringing them on with nothing charted, his hand shaking at the control. Four died on Carlos' lips as everything went silent, stretched out, and moving became impossible. James concentrated on the keys under his fingers, the lights frozen in place during the moments between sub-light and light speed. His body started to tingle as the jump neared completion. Straining against the inertia, he was already moving when they hit full light and the ship jerked, pulling them back to sub-light immediately. It threw them forward and then back before the ship could dampen the inertia completely and every muscle in his body burned from the force of it as the ship shuddered to a stop, now in deep space.
"What the fuck was that?" Jo demanded after a long, painful pause.
James shook as he said, "A gamble. Shortest light jump possible and no programmed destination." He heaved a few breaths. "I have no idea where we are. But we're out of range."
"You could have gotten us all killed!" Logan said, sounding strangled.
"Traffic would have killed us," Carlos pointed out. "Is everyone okay?"
Jo and Logan both said yes, and James reached for his strap to get up. "Med bay. Now."
Logan unstrapped too, stood, and then fell back into his seat immediately. His leg was still bleeding and his face was way too pale, his lips almost blue. James crossed to him on legs still shaky from the light speed jump, pulled him up. "You two take Kendall. Let's get everyone fixed."
Carlos was the next to manage to break free of his seat. He paused for just a second as he walked by, resting a hand on James' shoulder. But that was all. Then, as James half-carried Logan out, he helped Jo up so they could help Kendall.
"You gonna be okay?" James asked softly, as Logan leaned on him.
Logan nodded. "Yeah, my leg is... it didn't hit an artery or I'd be out from blood loss by now. It's Kendall I'm worried about."
James had a sudden flash of Kendall naked, of Kendall's arms around him, of pressing his lips to Kendall's neck, and he staggered to the side, gripping the wall while he forced the images out of his mind.
But they meant... It meant that Kendall had been in the brothel, too, looking for him. And now he was at death's door, bleeding and bruised and out cold, and James didn't even know what had happened to him. All he knew was that whatever had happened, Kendall had been trying to save James.
Which meant it was James's fault.
He couldn't even look at Logan as he said, "Yeah. Me, too."
--
The Civ ambassador assigned to the planet leveled a glare at Camille and said, "You're being deported."
"Deported?" She pushed herself further up in the hospital bed, gritting her teeth against the pain. She hadn't let them give her anything that would make her loopy, which meant her pain killers weren't as effective as she'd hoped. At least her biomech would start to work again soon, which would help.
"You had absolutely no authority to close the space ports --"
"Do you know who that was trying to get away? A top priority threat to Civ --"
"This is not a Civ planet," the ambassador snapped at her. "It's all I could do to keep them from throwing you in jail instead of the hospital. You hacked their entire planetary Traffic Control! It's been one hell of a mess trying to get it back under control."
Camille didn't bother to point out the obvious, that she couldn't have done the hacking, since she'd been unconscious on the roof. Not that it mattered, really, since it had been done on her behalf. "Keeping Rebecca on planet is vital. If I'm not here to find her..."
"The planetary government will oversee the search. As soon as the hospital clears you to travel, you're gone."
Clenching a fist, Camille tried one last time: "My presence here is the only thing keeping Mercedes in custody. If I'm not here to testify, she'll walk. She has enough officials bribed --"
"Again, that is a matter for the planetary government to handle. And I will be in touch with the Civ Council to let them know just how badly you botched this." With that, the ambassador turned and stalked out of her hospital room.
Camille groaned and shut her eyes. She hurt all over and could barely move, given the number of places she'd been injured. The ambassador was right about one thing, though. This was a total clusterfuck. She'd lost Rebecca and, whether she stayed on the planet or not, didn't have much hope of finding her again. She'd never gotten her hands on physical proof that tied Rebecca to the Red Petals. She'd never found out the extent of the Red Petals' operation, how big their distribution network was, how they'd developed the petal serum, what other drugs they might have in the works. She'd never found out if there were other cases like James Diamond, mindwiped and being used in their brothels, or drugged into oblivion and sold. And her cover was blown totally, which would limit her future investigations -- she'd never be able to use a high-profile cover again, just in case someone happened to remember her from this planet, however unlikely that was.
Her biomech pinged and the White Knight asked softly, "How are you feeling?"
"Like crap. And like a failure." She groaned. "Tell me there's some kind of good news."
"Well, there's all kinds of news. You want the good first? Or the bad?"
"Bad."
"Rebecca got away. One of my inspectors in deep cover has already overheard Hawk communicating with her; she's on the move, but we don't have any idea where yet. A few ships blasted past Traffic Control despite my hacking, she must have been on one."
"Damn," Camille muttered.
"But," White Knight continued, "I have a theory for you. It's about the Mercedes file."
Camille felt a rush of hope for her lost investigation. "Yeah?"
"Don't get too excited. I still can't get a damn thing out of it, but I realized, there's no way someone could have hacked in and done that. No one is that good. There's no sign of tampering, nothing at all."
"Then how...?"
"My theory is that it was an inside job," White Knight said. "Someone with enough rank to have access did this."
"Are you sure?" Camille gasped. "Who would do that? Why?"
"I don't have those answers -- yet. But you can be damn sure I'm going to find out. But there is good news."
"Tell me," Camille said.
"I've been keeping track of the Rush. The deserter crew you found. I thought you'd want to know, all four crew members made it back to the ship safely and they managed to get off the planet despite the traffic shut down."
"The four of them, are they all okay?" She thought about Kendall Knight, who she'd only glimpsed for a moment, and James Diamond. Gorgeous, mindwiped James Diamond, who she'd taken advantage of. Logan had been so sure of his abilities, but...
"It looks like they will be," White Knight said. "Mitchell's miracle concoction seems to have worked. James Diamond is slowly regaining his memories -- at least, most of them. He can't remember much of anything from when he was drugged, which is probably for the best. Mitchell says that judging from some of the tissue damage he's seen, Diamond was probably tortured at some point a few months ago."
Camille couldn't even bring herself to be surprised. Of course Hawk tortured his enemies. If he and Rebecca had wanted something from Diamond badly enough to kidnap him, they'd have been willing to torture him for it, too.
"But he's recovering," White Knight continued. "And so is Captain Knight, we think. His immediate injuries were worse -- a concussion, contusions and lacerations, a few bullet wounds -- plus he was dosed with the serum -- but he'll likely be okay."
"You aren't sure yet?"
"Mitchell's been keeping him unconscious until the worst of it passes. I should know more later today."
Camille paused for a second. "How do you know any of this? I know how to trace a ship, but it's not like you have access to cameras inside, do you?"
"Not exactly. Let's just say I have my ways."
That was an odd answer, but then again, the White Knight's whole interest in the deserter crew had been odd. All she usually did was coordinate missions and data; she'd never been involved like this before, as far as Camille knew. But all she said was, "Okay, I guess."
"Now you rest up. Don't worry about anything; I'll have your travel arranged for you and see if I can find someone to pack up your apartment. Is there anything there that needs special handling? Do you want it all shipped home?"
"It doesn't matter," Camille said, thinking about the life she'd carefully built up over the last few months. "You might as well just toss everything. It's all fake, anyway."
--
Kendall woke slowly. He groaned a little, rolling over, his whole body aching with the movement. Panic hit him and he froze, groping for a sense of where he was -- he remembered Mercedes and Rebecca and a gun to his head. And then... Carlos? Or had he dreamed that, delirious and desperate for an escape?
He opened his eyes.
White ceiling tiles -- cabinets mounted on the walls, the gentle curves of a spaceship's interior. He sat up, dizzy for a moment, and rubbed the back of his neck, where the ache was the worst.
Logan was sitting in front of some science equipment at the counter.
Logan.
He was on the ship -- he was safe. Relief washed over him for a long moment before reality crashed down on him and he gasped, "James! James was in the brothel, we have to go back and find him, Logan --"
He tried to stand up, swayed on his feet, and fell back onto the bed. Logan hurried towards him. "Sit. Relax. Kendall, we have James. It's okay. James is safe."
"We do? We -- what happened?"
"I need you to lay back down so I can get some readings," Logan said.
"But -- "
"Kendall." Logan used his serious voice and Kendall sank back down on to the table. As Logan began gathering readings, he said, "How much do you remember?"
Kendall grimaced, sifting through the memories. Everything was hazy, but he remembered the first part well enough -- Mercedes questioning him while he was tied to the chair, the first rush of her serum. He shuddered, nauseated. Then -- he'd nearly escaped but Jo had shot him, only to then agree to help him. And then James. He'd seen James.
Those memories weren't clear, but they didn't have to be. His cheeks heated up at the flashes of him and James together that he could recall. Oh god, they'd... they'd...
He stared at Logan, who looked concerned. "You okay?"
Kendall shook his head. "What happened to my neck? I -- I don't remember anything after I saw James. I thought I saw Carlos, but..."
"You did. And your neck is going to be sore for another day or two," Logan said. "It's a side effect of the compound that counteracts the serum. You've been out for a day, the med tables heal more efficiently that way so I kept you under. The worst of your injuries are dealt with, but you're not in good shape."
"Yeah." Kendall sat up again and stretched slowly, then looked at his arm. The skin was still pink and chapped, but it wasn't the angry red burn he knew should be there.
"Why don't you head to your quarters and shower, and meet us on the bridge?" Logan suggested.
Considering how sore he was, a hot shower seemed like a good idea. Kendall nodded and tried to get off the bed again. This time, he moved slowly, and after a second he felt surer on his feet. Still, Logan walked with him the whole way to his bunk, then offered, "Do you want me to wait?"
Kendall shook his head. "I'm okay."
"Okay." Logan nodded a little.
Kendall felt a little better when he stepped into his own cabin. There wasn't much there that was really his; it wasn't the Wild, where he'd been the captain for over a year. It was the ship that had been available when he'd been forced to take an extended leave, the Corps' way of trying to keep him from going after James. They'd ordered him not to. They'd reassigned the Wild. And they'd thought that would be enough to stop him.
He'd known James was alive somewhere. Nothing would have stopped him. And now James was safe.
That was what he told himself over and over again, as he stood under a hot shower and waited for the ache in his body to recede. Some of it did, soothed by the heat and the steady, gentle spray, but his neck still hurt.
So he'd been shot, and drugged, and -- but he was safe now. He was safe, and James was safe. But he and James had...
He was never going to be able to look James in the eye again.
But James was safe.
As Kendall lathered up, his mind flashed with images of a shower at the brothel, of Jo watching him. His stomach churned, but he ignored it, forced away the memories that threatened to spill over. Logan hadn't mentioned Jo, but if James was safe, she must have been there, waiting to collect from him. Which was fine. Civ would pay up, and they'd be even. But that meant he really was going to turn himself in to the authorities, and Carlos and Logan with him. And that meant they were going to be court-martialed for disobeying direct orders, for going AWOL, for stealing a ship.
If it had been just him, he might have made a run for it. But he'd taken Logan and Carlos with him on this whole desperate mission, and he wasn't going to let them spend the rest of their lives as outlaws. So... he'd take the blame himself. He was their superior officer; if he made it clear he'd forced them to help, the blame would all end up on him, and they'd probably walk away with lesser charges, or nothing at all. If James was safe and Carlos and Logan were, too, then it was fine. Court-martial. Prison time. He could find a way to handle it.
Kendall finished his shower and dried off. He dressed slowly, taking a few moments to appreciate the mundane act. But wearing his own uniform, wearing anything at all, was something he could appreciate now. His memories were hazy, but the humiliation burned through anyway. He'd been so exposed -- used --
No. He did up the buttons on his black and silver uniform, took deep breaths, and willed himself to calm down. He was fine now, and he couldn't afford to think about what had happened. If he was going to convince Civ to blame him and not the crew, he was going to have to have his head together. So he finished getting dressed, took a few more breaths, and headed to the bridge.
Everyone was there, but he hardly noticed Carlos at the tactical station, Logan in off at the side, or even Jo, lounging in the captain's seat. All he really saw was James, sitting at navigation, looking down at his console. In the bright lights of the bridge, he could see that James was too thin, that his hair was too long, the angles of his face were too sharp. There were bags under his eyes.
Logan cleared his throat, and James looked up sharply. He saw Kendall. And he stared.
Kendall's throat went dry and his cheeks went hot and he couldn't look away. He tried to find his voice, to say something, anything, but he couldn't find the words.
Finally, after a long, awkward moment, James stretched in his seat and said, "So was it good for you, Kendall?"
Kendall gaped, then managed to snap mouth shut. James was smirking at him, but he knew James, knew it was a smirk to cover something else up. Probably the fact that James was as horrified and humiliated by what had happened as he was. Kendall's face, his whole body, burned with embarrassment, but he forced on a smirk to match James's and managed, "Eh, I've had better."
James laughed, sounding just as strained as Kendall felt, and got to his feet. He started towards Kendall and they met in the middle of the bridge. And what was initially a handshake somehow became a hug, and he could feel James struggling to hold it together by how fast his breaths came.
"It's okay," Kendall murmured. "God, it's good to see you. James..."
"Yeah. Yeah." James finally stepped back from him, looked away, embarrassed.
Kendall cleared his throat and looked over at Jo. "You know you're in my seat, right?"
"You weren't using it." She shrugged, looking way too at home in the seat of authority.
He examined her, seeing her sober for the first time. She was younger than he'd thought, her features still girlish and pretty. The fact that she was wearing a borrowed uniform, which was a bit too large, didn't help. But even younger than he'd assumed, she was still dangerous. She'd strapped her shoulder and hip holsters on. Which reminded him... "You have my gun."
"And you owe me a lot of money," she shot back.
"Which you'll get. But I still want my seat. And my weapon."
She considered it for a long moment, then shrugged and got up. "All yours," she said, gesturing, and then reached towards her back, under the uniform shirt, and produced his weapon. It had been strapped somewhere out of sight -- how many more weapons did she have? He'd grabbed a gun out of a thigh holster when she shot him, hadn't he? Or was he confusing things, not quite able to remember?
That was one more detail he was definitely missing. He accepted the gun, feeling a little better once its familiar weight was settled on his hip. He watched as Jo settled herself in one of the empty bridge seats. "So what's your full name, anyway? I don't think I ever caught it."
She studied him again, shrugged, and said, "Stetson. Jo Stestson."
He nodded, then looked around at everyone else. "Where are we?"
James glanced down at his console. "A few hours out of Civ space, drifting in sub-light. We figured you'd want to be awake when they contact us."
"Yeah," Kendall said. "Thanks." He took a breath, getting his bearings.
"So," James said. "Now that you're up, do you want to tell me what the hell has been going on? I still can't... My last clear memory is of cursing you out and leaving the ship. And I guess that was a year ago, but everything since then is just... gone."
"Ten months," Kendall corrected, wishing the date wasn't quite so clearly burned into his mind. He looked at Carlos and Logan, who were both watching him with serious expressions, and Jo was looking on with interest. So he continued. "You were pissed at me and you went out to blow off steam. You never came back.
"At first we thought -- I thought you were just being a jerk when you didn't show up the next day, but..." But Carlos and Logan had known better and tried to tell him. They knew that James loved the Corps even when he hated Kendall, and he'd never just go AWOL like that. It hadn't taken long for Kendall to go from angry to guilty, so the three of them had searched, and... nothing.
"We looked for you. For days," Carlos said, picking up the thread. "We took some leave and we searched but no one had seen you, no one knew anything, and... It was awful, James. For all we knew, you were dead in someone's basement or something. It was awful."
James looked down at the floor, frowning.
"After... after awhile, we tried to move on. We tried, but..." Carlos' voice broke.
"But then Katie called me," Kendall said. "She was tracking some weird transmission she found on CivComm, something really, really encrypted... but you know Katie, she looks at stuff like that as a challenge. So she managed to decode it and it was from Hawk. To Rebecca. It said they had you."
James looked up at that, eyes wide, mouth open. "I don't remember Hawk or Rebecca. Are you sure...?"
"I'm sure," Logan said. "All the analysis I've done of your physical state, James, someone tortured you. The damage is old now, maybe eight, nine months. It's hard to pinpoint, but..."
"I don't remember any of that."
Logan shrugged helplessly. "Between the serum and the trauma... It's probably for the best. Whatever they did to you, it was... it was bad."
James looked away again, frowning, puzzled.
Kendall continued with what they knew: "We brought the transmission to Griffin. But..." But James had been through so much, and Kendall hadn't been able to protect him from it. He could at least protect James from this, from knowing that the Corps he'd worshipped since he was a kid had been more than willing to leave him for dead. He cleared his throat. "We went through all the official channels, but they didn't know what to do. They didn't want to cause, uh, an incident. So when they wouldn't just let us go find you..."
"We stole a ship!" Carlos put in.
"You..." James looked up sharply, then laughed. "You helped with this, Logan?"
"Well, you were missing. What were we supposed to do?" Logan shrugged.
"We'd never turn our backs on you. Once we knew you were alive, we had no choice," Kendall said. "So we followed Rebecca. For months. We tracked down rumors and checked every planet and... well, eventually we got to the right one."
"Where Kendall promptly got his ass handed to him by a drug dealer-slash-brothel madam," Carlos said.
Kendall glanced over at Jo, who was expressionless. Curious at how she'd react, he said, "Actually, she was the one who clobbered me. And shot me."
"What?" Carlos and Logan both turned to stare at Jo.
"Didn't I mention that?" she asked, one hand not-so-casually stretching towards a gun. "I was working for Mercedes." At their darkening expressions, she added, "I didn't like working for her, obviously. I quit when I got the chance, didn't I?"
"For money, you said," Logan pointed out.
"Without her, we might not have found James," Kendall said quickly. "And she only shot me when I was threatening to shoot her. And..." He couldn't bring himself to say it, hated that so much had happened that it even mattered, but Jo hadn't taken advantage of him when he'd been drugged. Not even when he'd begged her. "Look, she's a mercenary, but she's okay."
"If you say so," Logan said skeptically.
Jo cleared her throat. "Rebecca tipped off Mercedes that anyone with a connection to the Diamond family was bad news, which was how she IDed you as a fake."
From there, they managed to piece together the threads of the story: how Carlos had found Rebecca, only to end up running into Camille; how Jo had gotten James out of the brothel and onto the ship in time, but couldn't get back out to find Kendall; how Camille and Carlos had gone looking for James, found Kendall instead, and Camille had disappeared, following Rebecca out.
"I hope she's okay," Carlos said. "If we'd had time, I would have looked for her. Rebecca's dangerous..."
"Inspectors can take care of themselves," Logan answered. "She was doing her job."
"She's the first thing I remember practically at all," James said. "She was -- we -- she asked me questions. Everything before that is gone, nothing but a few faces of people I don't even recognize, but she... she said she was going to help me. I feel like she woke me up." He shook his head. "I know that's insane, I don't even remember her that clearly, I just... I don't know."
"I'm sure she's okay," Logan said.
"Yeah. She really knew her stuff," Carlos added.
"When we get home, file our reports on all of this, we can put in a request to find out," Kendall said. "They might not tell us much, but I'm sure they'd let us know if she's alive, at least."
"You really think they're going to tell us anything?" Logan asked. "I kind of assumed we're going to be the ones getting interrogated, not the ones asking for information."
"Good point," Kendall sighed, leaning back in his seat. "So what, exactly, are we looking at, here? Court martial, and...?"
"Well, uh, we all had minor infractions at the Academy but no disciplinary actions on our records, and great records since then, so... I don't know, I bet that actually rescuing James is enough for them to handwave our AWOL charges, so it's really just the ship theft and then resisting arrest... It's a fifteen-year minimum sentence for stealing a starship, but considering they were pissed off enough to slap us with bounties, my guess is we're looking at closer to twenty, twenty-five."
Jo let out a low whistle. "Damn, boys, you really got yourselves into a mess, here."
Yeah, they had. But Kendall cast another glance at James, who wouldn't look back at him, just stared down at the floor with a frown.
Twenty-five years was a long time, but James was safe. Kendall would take it.
James' console sounded and he turned back towards it, took a reading, and glanced up. "We just got contact from the Corps. They seem to know we're heading home, and want to meet us at the border with a military escort to keep us in line." He looked over at Kendall. "They won't send military ships out of their own territory. We've still got time to make a run for it. You guys don't... you don't have to go to jail. "
Kendall half-expected Jo to jump in and say something about their bounties, but she didn't. Everyone was watching him, waiting. Kendall shook his head. "We need to get you home. And if we ever want to see the end of this mess, get our lives back on track, we need to go through official channels."
"You really think you'll be able to get out of this somehow?" Jo asked.
"Yeah," Kendall said, half-lying. He'd get the rest of them out of it, anyway. "It'll be fine. James, you can let them know we'll be good."
"Oooookay." James went back to his console, tapping keys, then, "Acknowledged, and I'm accepting their flight course now, Captain."
Weirdly, hearing James call him by title drove home that this was done, it was over, more than anything else had. He'd known his crew for their whole lives. They never called him by title, outside of tense missions where they really had everything on the line. Like they did now.
Kendall called up the flight course on the bridge's main screen and nodded. "Then it's time to face the music. Take us home, Mr. Diamond."
Previous: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9
Disclaimer: Sometimes I think this show was created just for me, but alas, still not mine. Definitely for the best, in this case.
Rating/warnings: NC-17. Sex pollen and sex slaves, dub-con and non-con (though mostly off screen), plus violence, cursing, lots of nudity, and forced druggings.
Pairings: (In order of apperance, not necessarily importance) James/Camille, Mercedes/Kendall, Kendall/Jo, Kendall/James, Mercedes/Kendall/James, James/Logan.
Notes: As always, enormous thanks to my fantastic and amazing beta reader, lielabell. And thanks to everyone for reading!!!
Summary: Kendall and his crew are supposed to be on a rescue mission, searching for someone on a black market planet. But he's the one who ends up needing to be rescued... [COMPLETE]
Ten.
Jo frowned at the window. A new crop of soldiers had arrived, with bigger equipment. They were organizing. This was it; they were going to cripple the ship and then break in, unless she stopped them. And now that they'd realized how open she was, any step down the ramp was a danger. They'd be on her from all directions, and she couldn't dodge bullets and shoot at the same time.
God damn Mitchell and that drug. With some covering fire she could not only take out the people setting up the equipment, she could probably take the whole apparatus out. But she wasn't going to risk her life on it. She needed another way, a strategic location for when they broke in --
Footsteps thudded towards her. She looked down the hall and saw Mitchell. He wasn't alone. Diamond followed him, but he didn't have that far-off expression she was used to on him. Instead, he was frowning, moving with purpose. And he was wearing clothes -- a CivCorps uniform that didn't quite fit, but he wasn't actively trying to take it off. Something had obviously changed.
"Hi," Mitchell panted. "Sorry about -- we were -- sorry. That dust is really, really potent, and... I'm better now. And... and this is James."
Diamond held out his hand. "It's Jo, right?" He looked at Logan. "That's what you said?"
His voice was a little bit deeper than when he'd been drugged, and his whole manner was different. She wondered what he was really like. Not that she had time to find out. She shook his hand and said, "Yeah. But this isn't the time for getting to know each other. I estimate we've got about six minutes until they're set up to cripple the ship."
"Shit," Mitchell breathed, looking out the window. "Do we have any options?"
With the two of them there, they did. "Is either of you a good shot?"
They exchanged a look and Mitchell said, "I'm alright."
"I'm better," Diamond said, then, bluntly, "and I'm fine. I'm not dizzy anymore --"
"We don't know what the long-term effects are --"
"And short term, we're being attacked. I'm. Fine." He turned to Jo. "Do you have a plan?"
She revised her initial thought and grabbed her heaviest gun. It was strong enough to knock out their equipment, and it didn't require precision. She held it out to Diamond and said, "Brace yourself when you fire; it's got a bigger kick than anything you've used. Ignore everything but the cannon. We're elevated enough that you should be able to see the loading and firing mechanisms. Aim for them, but as long as you're in the general area you'll get the job done. Don't get distracted by the people who'll be shooting at you; they're my job."
He took the weapon and examined it for a moment. "Is this a Taylor 900? How do you even get one of those? I've never even seen --"
"We can chat later if we're alive. Mitchell." She turned to him and handed him something lighter. "This'll be more accurate than anything Cops-issued. Extra backup never hurts. Keep your eyes open for anyone I miss.
"To get a good view we'll need to be a third of the way down the ramp. I'll go first; Diamond, you're second; Mitchell, you're last. Head back up the ramp on my signal, I'll cover as you run. I want to take out as many of them as I can, but the cannon is the chief objective. Questions?"
They both just stared at her. "Who are you?" Diamond asked after a stunned moment.
She ignored him. "Let's get this done. Ready?"
"Yeah," Diamond said.
Mitchell swallowed, adjusted his grip around the gun, and nodded. Jo turned to the entrance, a gun in either hand, and nodded back at them. She hated working with people she didn't know, but they had as much at stake here as she did, so she'd just have to trust them to do their jobs. Besides, it had to be better than going it alone. She took one moment to center herself, catch a deep breath, and then sprang forward down the ramp.
--
Carlos snuck back towards Kendall and the wheelbarrow with trepidation. But he hadn't had a choice, he'd had to leave Kendall for awhile. Kendall still couldn't walk or run, let alone sneak, and Carlos had needed to check around. What he'd found hadn't been good. Mercedes' troops had formed a loose ring around the ship. Not close, and mostly grouped at the north side, where they were building up some kind of equipment. Whatever that was, it was big and looked like it could do real damage.
He had to find a way to take it out. But as good as his Taylor was, it wasn't a weapon made for sniping, and he didn't spot any good hidden locations anyway. And even if he'd been able to find one, what would he do with Kendall? He had to get Kendall back to the ship. Logan would take care of him, and once they regrouped, they could try to find James again. He still had to be somewhere on this planet, and Carlos wasn't going to give up on finding him, but that wouldn't do any good if Mercedes' people took over their ship.
Okay. He had to save the ship. His assets were one gun, one wheelbarrow, and... that was it. He made his way back to the wheelbarrow and checked under the tarp. Kendall had slipped back into unconsciousness, and didn't come out of it when Carlos shook him lightly. Crap.
A shot exploded somewhere behind him, and then another, and another. Carlos ran back towards it, the noise of the shootout covering his footsteps, and skidded to a halt when he could see. There people were balanced on the halfway-extended ramp now: Logan, the girl he'd seen before, and --
James.
He gaped for a second, but that was all he could afford. If James was on the ship, able to shoot like that, that meant he was in way better shape than Kendall -- and that meant all he had to do was get Kendall on board, somehow, and they could go. The four of them would finally be reunited, and Logan would take care of Kendall, and when Kendall was better he'd come up with a way to get them all out of hot water with Civ, and everything was going to be okay. If he could just get on to the ship.
He snuck closer and when he realized all of the soldiers' attention was fixed on the shooters on the ramp, he started waving his arms. James was focused on what he was shooting at, the girl moving in quick circles, picking off soldiers. But Logan was staring around cautiously. Carlos waved again, and this time Logan's gaze snapped to him. He mouthed something Carlos couldn't make out, and, desperate, Carlos drew a giant K in the air in front of him.
Logan mouthed something again, maybe what, and Carlos realized his letter had probably looked backwards to Logan. He did it again, in the opposite direction, and then pointed down towards where Kendall was waiting, and then at the ramp.
Logan's eyes went wide he nodded hard. Carlos started to turn towards Kendall, but froze, seeing one of the soldiers between him and Logan with his gun raised. Carlos brought his own weapon up but it was too late. Carlos fired, but so did the soldier. And Logan went down.
--
Smoke roiled from the cannon and it collapsed. James shot a few more times, sending pieces of its casing flying, and took out two soldiers who were trying to tend to it. Then he turned to signal Jo --
And he saw Logan stagger a step and then collapse down on to his knees, towards the edge of the ramp. James reacted on instinct, ducking to grab Logan so he couldn't topple off the ramp, shielding Logan's body with his own. It was only Logan's leg that had been shot, but he was bleeding through his pants already. It was bad, but not fatal. Thank god.
"Get him in!" Jo screamed above the din of the shootouts. And James had to, because they were being attacked from all sides, and she couldn't cover them from everyone at once. But as he half-dragged Logan up to his feet, Logan gasped something.
"What?"
"Carlos -- Kendall -- get the ramp down!"
James' gaze darted around the hanger, but he only saw soldiers.
"Go!" Jo screamed at him.
She didn't mean to lower the ramp, but if Logan was right, he had no choice. And Logan was basically always right. "Careful," he mumbled, hoping Logan would be able to balance, then sprinted for the doorway. He hit the switch to extend the ramp and ran right back.
"Are you insane?" Jo screamed at him. The ramp shuddered as it moved and Logan swayed in place. James wrapped an arm around him and brought his gun up, trying to target and take out anyone he could in the crowd. But bullets were breaking in too close to them despite Jo's seemingly perfect aim and reflexes. If Logan was wrong about this, lowering the ramp would just be a delay that got them all killed --
And then he saw it. Carlos was running wildly towards them, with something -- a wheelbarrow? "What the hell?"
"Cover him!" Logan hissed, pulling free of James' grip. He still had his gun, and though he pitched forward as the ramp touched down, screaming for a moment as he landed on his bad leg, he managed to stay upright. Which was good, but Carlos wasn't the only one who needed cover.
He turned to Jo. "Get him onto the ship. I'll get Logan --"
"Yeah, go!" she yelled, gesturing him on before turning away. She had a gun in either hand now and switched from picking off individuals to sending an automated barrage into the crowd. Putting faith in her because he had no choice, James turned back to Logan, grabbed him around the shoulders again, and pulled him forward. Logan staggered with him, and again, James did his best to shield Logan with his body. As Logan crossed the threshold into the ship, James released him, turned around.
Carlos was still running towards them, a mission that looked suicidal. His only advantage was that the soldiers seemed terrified of Jo, concentrating on her more than him -- but he wasn't even looking up, couldn't dodge or duck, and was still trying to maneuver the damn wheelbarrow. If he dropped it and sprinted he'd have better luck -- but Logan had said Carlos and Kendall, and James didn't see Kendall anywhere, which meant... shit.
Jo was covering Carlos, so James covered Jo, keeping close to the ship to make sure that no one could hit him from the back. Jo glanced over her shoulder and nodded at him, realizing what he was doing. Something clanged -- a bullet snagging the wheelbarrow, and then another. James took out the soldier who'd managed to fire them, and another whose sights were a little too clearly aimed at Carlos, and then, thank god, Carlos jammed the wheelbarrow up onto the ramp.
"Retract it! Go!" Jo yelled, dancing to the side so Carlos could pass her. James ducked in to hit the switch, then tried to cover them both from the doorway. Carlos shoved his way in and Jo followed moments later.
The ramp folded in, closing the door behind it, and James paused to breathe and take stock. Carlos pulled the tarp off of his wheelbarrow, revealing Kendall, unconscious and bleeding. Carlos must have been grazed, his shirt was torn and he was bleeding, but he seemed otherwise okay, probably so adrenaline-filled that he didn't even feel it. Logan was leaning against the wall, all his weight on his good leg with blood pooled on the floor around him, and Jo was catching her breath.
"Med bay," Logan gasped. "Fast."
"No," Jo interrupted. "We need to get off this planet -- we need to get out now."
"Kendall needs help, and -- "
"And it's not going to be easy to get out of here," Carlos interrupted. "I don't know what's going on but it looks like there was some sort of space port shut down. The sign said it was Traffic Control, but maybe it was just Mercedes' people trying to keep everyone out of their way, I don't know, but if it was Traffic --"
"Then we need to get out of here before the authorities arrive," Jo finished for him.
"But Kendall needs care," Logan repeated, and Logan obviously needed help himself.
Carlos and Logan turned to look at James, who realized suddenly that, with Kendall unconscious, he was technically the ranking officer. Even Jo was looking at him curiously, sizing him up to see what he'd say, though he doubted she'd follow any orders she didn't agree with. Not like the others, who trusted him. Never mind that he couldn't remember the last ten months, never mind that he had no idea where they were or what had happened. Jo was a stranger, and Carlos and Logan always looked to him when Kendall wasn't around.
And if Kendall didn't get care, he wouldn't be around again, ever.
But then again, if they were all arrested, what would happen? Logan hadn't had time to fill him in on everything, only that they'd all been AWOL for almost a year. That meant that, if they were lucky, planetary authorities would hand them over to the Corps, where they'd all be arrested and court-martialed. But if they weren't lucky, they wouldn't even get off the planet. They'd get handed right back to that Mercedes woman. James doubted she'd give Kendall the medical care he needed, and as for the rest of them --
James didn't remember much, but he'd meant what he'd said. He was not going back to the Red Petals, ever.
He shook his head and started for the bridge. "Let's get out of here while we can."
Logan looked at Kendall, pale and bleeding in the wheelbarrow, and then back at James. But he didn't really object, just asked, "Are you sure?"
Images of people's faces and hands and silk sheets flood James's mind, and he grabbed the wall, sick to his stomach and a little dizzy again. "I'm not going back to the whorehouse from hell. Period."
Before anyone else could argue, he straightened up and helped Carlos pull Kendall to his feet, while Logan gave them instructions not to move his head or neck any more than necessary, in case he had a concussion or a spinal injury. Jo threaded Logan's arm around her shoulders to help him follow them. They strapped Kendall into a seat by the entrance.
"I hope you can still fly," Logan mumbled as the rest of them found their seats. James fell into the pilot's chair and glanced over at the captain's seat by habit, but Kendall wasn't there, wasn't in any shape to give orders.
"Yeah. Me too," James agreed, breathing deep, wishing the world would stop spinning around him. He grit his teeth and brought the ship's navigation panel to life. The ship hummed with energy and a message from Traffic Control blared, warning them to shut down their systems, that all ships were forbidden from taking off, that any ships that tried to do so would be treated as dangerous and shot down.
"I guess it wasn't a ploy," Carlos mused.
"We're going to die." Logan's hand dug into the arm of his seat. "Traffic doesn't shoot cannons, it shoots energy blasts, it doesn't even have to hit us to take us out and --"
His objections were cut off as the ship took to the sky, a sudden upwards vault that pressed them all down against their seats. Normally they'd have needed Traffic Control's instructions and they'd wait in the queue before jumping to light speed, but James' hands worked across his console, the displays clearer in his memory than anything else so far. When he focused on them, the fuzziness in his dissolved a little, and he felt old instincts flaring to life as he ran through the pre-light speed checklist.
"Crap, they are gearing up for a shot," Carlos warned from his spot at the security console. "They'll have us in five, four --"
"Shut up!" Jo yelled.
"-- two -- "
James punched the button that threw the ship to manual, the kind of fine control that was useless in deep space, so most pilots didn't bother to learn. The ship rolled at his command, dancing across the sky, and a shot just missed them. Logan gasped, Jo cursed, and Carlos said, "They're gearing up again. James, we need to go to light speed now. They'll have a trace fixed on us now and we won't be able to dodge --"
"I'm concentrating," James snapped, not letting his gaze leave his console in case he started getting dizzy again. He didn't have a proper course in place, but then again he had no idea where they were or where they were going. They just needed to go, get out of range so Kendall could get up to med bay.
"James! We've got ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven --"
"Not helping!" Logan yelled.
"-- five -- "
"Carlos!"
Fuck it. James screwed his eyes shut and hit the light speed engines, bringing them on with nothing charted, his hand shaking at the control. Four died on Carlos' lips as everything went silent, stretched out, and moving became impossible. James concentrated on the keys under his fingers, the lights frozen in place during the moments between sub-light and light speed. His body started to tingle as the jump neared completion. Straining against the inertia, he was already moving when they hit full light and the ship jerked, pulling them back to sub-light immediately. It threw them forward and then back before the ship could dampen the inertia completely and every muscle in his body burned from the force of it as the ship shuddered to a stop, now in deep space.
"What the fuck was that?" Jo demanded after a long, painful pause.
James shook as he said, "A gamble. Shortest light jump possible and no programmed destination." He heaved a few breaths. "I have no idea where we are. But we're out of range."
"You could have gotten us all killed!" Logan said, sounding strangled.
"Traffic would have killed us," Carlos pointed out. "Is everyone okay?"
Jo and Logan both said yes, and James reached for his strap to get up. "Med bay. Now."
Logan unstrapped too, stood, and then fell back into his seat immediately. His leg was still bleeding and his face was way too pale, his lips almost blue. James crossed to him on legs still shaky from the light speed jump, pulled him up. "You two take Kendall. Let's get everyone fixed."
Carlos was the next to manage to break free of his seat. He paused for just a second as he walked by, resting a hand on James' shoulder. But that was all. Then, as James half-carried Logan out, he helped Jo up so they could help Kendall.
"You gonna be okay?" James asked softly, as Logan leaned on him.
Logan nodded. "Yeah, my leg is... it didn't hit an artery or I'd be out from blood loss by now. It's Kendall I'm worried about."
James had a sudden flash of Kendall naked, of Kendall's arms around him, of pressing his lips to Kendall's neck, and he staggered to the side, gripping the wall while he forced the images out of his mind.
But they meant... It meant that Kendall had been in the brothel, too, looking for him. And now he was at death's door, bleeding and bruised and out cold, and James didn't even know what had happened to him. All he knew was that whatever had happened, Kendall had been trying to save James.
Which meant it was James's fault.
He couldn't even look at Logan as he said, "Yeah. Me, too."
--
The Civ ambassador assigned to the planet leveled a glare at Camille and said, "You're being deported."
"Deported?" She pushed herself further up in the hospital bed, gritting her teeth against the pain. She hadn't let them give her anything that would make her loopy, which meant her pain killers weren't as effective as she'd hoped. At least her biomech would start to work again soon, which would help.
"You had absolutely no authority to close the space ports --"
"Do you know who that was trying to get away? A top priority threat to Civ --"
"This is not a Civ planet," the ambassador snapped at her. "It's all I could do to keep them from throwing you in jail instead of the hospital. You hacked their entire planetary Traffic Control! It's been one hell of a mess trying to get it back under control."
Camille didn't bother to point out the obvious, that she couldn't have done the hacking, since she'd been unconscious on the roof. Not that it mattered, really, since it had been done on her behalf. "Keeping Rebecca on planet is vital. If I'm not here to find her..."
"The planetary government will oversee the search. As soon as the hospital clears you to travel, you're gone."
Clenching a fist, Camille tried one last time: "My presence here is the only thing keeping Mercedes in custody. If I'm not here to testify, she'll walk. She has enough officials bribed --"
"Again, that is a matter for the planetary government to handle. And I will be in touch with the Civ Council to let them know just how badly you botched this." With that, the ambassador turned and stalked out of her hospital room.
Camille groaned and shut her eyes. She hurt all over and could barely move, given the number of places she'd been injured. The ambassador was right about one thing, though. This was a total clusterfuck. She'd lost Rebecca and, whether she stayed on the planet or not, didn't have much hope of finding her again. She'd never gotten her hands on physical proof that tied Rebecca to the Red Petals. She'd never found out the extent of the Red Petals' operation, how big their distribution network was, how they'd developed the petal serum, what other drugs they might have in the works. She'd never found out if there were other cases like James Diamond, mindwiped and being used in their brothels, or drugged into oblivion and sold. And her cover was blown totally, which would limit her future investigations -- she'd never be able to use a high-profile cover again, just in case someone happened to remember her from this planet, however unlikely that was.
Her biomech pinged and the White Knight asked softly, "How are you feeling?"
"Like crap. And like a failure." She groaned. "Tell me there's some kind of good news."
"Well, there's all kinds of news. You want the good first? Or the bad?"
"Bad."
"Rebecca got away. One of my inspectors in deep cover has already overheard Hawk communicating with her; she's on the move, but we don't have any idea where yet. A few ships blasted past Traffic Control despite my hacking, she must have been on one."
"Damn," Camille muttered.
"But," White Knight continued, "I have a theory for you. It's about the Mercedes file."
Camille felt a rush of hope for her lost investigation. "Yeah?"
"Don't get too excited. I still can't get a damn thing out of it, but I realized, there's no way someone could have hacked in and done that. No one is that good. There's no sign of tampering, nothing at all."
"Then how...?"
"My theory is that it was an inside job," White Knight said. "Someone with enough rank to have access did this."
"Are you sure?" Camille gasped. "Who would do that? Why?"
"I don't have those answers -- yet. But you can be damn sure I'm going to find out. But there is good news."
"Tell me," Camille said.
"I've been keeping track of the Rush. The deserter crew you found. I thought you'd want to know, all four crew members made it back to the ship safely and they managed to get off the planet despite the traffic shut down."
"The four of them, are they all okay?" She thought about Kendall Knight, who she'd only glimpsed for a moment, and James Diamond. Gorgeous, mindwiped James Diamond, who she'd taken advantage of. Logan had been so sure of his abilities, but...
"It looks like they will be," White Knight said. "Mitchell's miracle concoction seems to have worked. James Diamond is slowly regaining his memories -- at least, most of them. He can't remember much of anything from when he was drugged, which is probably for the best. Mitchell says that judging from some of the tissue damage he's seen, Diamond was probably tortured at some point a few months ago."
Camille couldn't even bring herself to be surprised. Of course Hawk tortured his enemies. If he and Rebecca had wanted something from Diamond badly enough to kidnap him, they'd have been willing to torture him for it, too.
"But he's recovering," White Knight continued. "And so is Captain Knight, we think. His immediate injuries were worse -- a concussion, contusions and lacerations, a few bullet wounds -- plus he was dosed with the serum -- but he'll likely be okay."
"You aren't sure yet?"
"Mitchell's been keeping him unconscious until the worst of it passes. I should know more later today."
Camille paused for a second. "How do you know any of this? I know how to trace a ship, but it's not like you have access to cameras inside, do you?"
"Not exactly. Let's just say I have my ways."
That was an odd answer, but then again, the White Knight's whole interest in the deserter crew had been odd. All she usually did was coordinate missions and data; she'd never been involved like this before, as far as Camille knew. But all she said was, "Okay, I guess."
"Now you rest up. Don't worry about anything; I'll have your travel arranged for you and see if I can find someone to pack up your apartment. Is there anything there that needs special handling? Do you want it all shipped home?"
"It doesn't matter," Camille said, thinking about the life she'd carefully built up over the last few months. "You might as well just toss everything. It's all fake, anyway."
--
Kendall woke slowly. He groaned a little, rolling over, his whole body aching with the movement. Panic hit him and he froze, groping for a sense of where he was -- he remembered Mercedes and Rebecca and a gun to his head. And then... Carlos? Or had he dreamed that, delirious and desperate for an escape?
He opened his eyes.
White ceiling tiles -- cabinets mounted on the walls, the gentle curves of a spaceship's interior. He sat up, dizzy for a moment, and rubbed the back of his neck, where the ache was the worst.
Logan was sitting in front of some science equipment at the counter.
Logan.
He was on the ship -- he was safe. Relief washed over him for a long moment before reality crashed down on him and he gasped, "James! James was in the brothel, we have to go back and find him, Logan --"
He tried to stand up, swayed on his feet, and fell back onto the bed. Logan hurried towards him. "Sit. Relax. Kendall, we have James. It's okay. James is safe."
"We do? We -- what happened?"
"I need you to lay back down so I can get some readings," Logan said.
"But -- "
"Kendall." Logan used his serious voice and Kendall sank back down on to the table. As Logan began gathering readings, he said, "How much do you remember?"
Kendall grimaced, sifting through the memories. Everything was hazy, but he remembered the first part well enough -- Mercedes questioning him while he was tied to the chair, the first rush of her serum. He shuddered, nauseated. Then -- he'd nearly escaped but Jo had shot him, only to then agree to help him. And then James. He'd seen James.
Those memories weren't clear, but they didn't have to be. His cheeks heated up at the flashes of him and James together that he could recall. Oh god, they'd... they'd...
He stared at Logan, who looked concerned. "You okay?"
Kendall shook his head. "What happened to my neck? I -- I don't remember anything after I saw James. I thought I saw Carlos, but..."
"You did. And your neck is going to be sore for another day or two," Logan said. "It's a side effect of the compound that counteracts the serum. You've been out for a day, the med tables heal more efficiently that way so I kept you under. The worst of your injuries are dealt with, but you're not in good shape."
"Yeah." Kendall sat up again and stretched slowly, then looked at his arm. The skin was still pink and chapped, but it wasn't the angry red burn he knew should be there.
"Why don't you head to your quarters and shower, and meet us on the bridge?" Logan suggested.
Considering how sore he was, a hot shower seemed like a good idea. Kendall nodded and tried to get off the bed again. This time, he moved slowly, and after a second he felt surer on his feet. Still, Logan walked with him the whole way to his bunk, then offered, "Do you want me to wait?"
Kendall shook his head. "I'm okay."
"Okay." Logan nodded a little.
Kendall felt a little better when he stepped into his own cabin. There wasn't much there that was really his; it wasn't the Wild, where he'd been the captain for over a year. It was the ship that had been available when he'd been forced to take an extended leave, the Corps' way of trying to keep him from going after James. They'd ordered him not to. They'd reassigned the Wild. And they'd thought that would be enough to stop him.
He'd known James was alive somewhere. Nothing would have stopped him. And now James was safe.
That was what he told himself over and over again, as he stood under a hot shower and waited for the ache in his body to recede. Some of it did, soothed by the heat and the steady, gentle spray, but his neck still hurt.
So he'd been shot, and drugged, and -- but he was safe now. He was safe, and James was safe. But he and James had...
He was never going to be able to look James in the eye again.
But James was safe.
As Kendall lathered up, his mind flashed with images of a shower at the brothel, of Jo watching him. His stomach churned, but he ignored it, forced away the memories that threatened to spill over. Logan hadn't mentioned Jo, but if James was safe, she must have been there, waiting to collect from him. Which was fine. Civ would pay up, and they'd be even. But that meant he really was going to turn himself in to the authorities, and Carlos and Logan with him. And that meant they were going to be court-martialed for disobeying direct orders, for going AWOL, for stealing a ship.
If it had been just him, he might have made a run for it. But he'd taken Logan and Carlos with him on this whole desperate mission, and he wasn't going to let them spend the rest of their lives as outlaws. So... he'd take the blame himself. He was their superior officer; if he made it clear he'd forced them to help, the blame would all end up on him, and they'd probably walk away with lesser charges, or nothing at all. If James was safe and Carlos and Logan were, too, then it was fine. Court-martial. Prison time. He could find a way to handle it.
Kendall finished his shower and dried off. He dressed slowly, taking a few moments to appreciate the mundane act. But wearing his own uniform, wearing anything at all, was something he could appreciate now. His memories were hazy, but the humiliation burned through anyway. He'd been so exposed -- used --
No. He did up the buttons on his black and silver uniform, took deep breaths, and willed himself to calm down. He was fine now, and he couldn't afford to think about what had happened. If he was going to convince Civ to blame him and not the crew, he was going to have to have his head together. So he finished getting dressed, took a few more breaths, and headed to the bridge.
Everyone was there, but he hardly noticed Carlos at the tactical station, Logan in off at the side, or even Jo, lounging in the captain's seat. All he really saw was James, sitting at navigation, looking down at his console. In the bright lights of the bridge, he could see that James was too thin, that his hair was too long, the angles of his face were too sharp. There were bags under his eyes.
Logan cleared his throat, and James looked up sharply. He saw Kendall. And he stared.
Kendall's throat went dry and his cheeks went hot and he couldn't look away. He tried to find his voice, to say something, anything, but he couldn't find the words.
Finally, after a long, awkward moment, James stretched in his seat and said, "So was it good for you, Kendall?"
Kendall gaped, then managed to snap mouth shut. James was smirking at him, but he knew James, knew it was a smirk to cover something else up. Probably the fact that James was as horrified and humiliated by what had happened as he was. Kendall's face, his whole body, burned with embarrassment, but he forced on a smirk to match James's and managed, "Eh, I've had better."
James laughed, sounding just as strained as Kendall felt, and got to his feet. He started towards Kendall and they met in the middle of the bridge. And what was initially a handshake somehow became a hug, and he could feel James struggling to hold it together by how fast his breaths came.
"It's okay," Kendall murmured. "God, it's good to see you. James..."
"Yeah. Yeah." James finally stepped back from him, looked away, embarrassed.
Kendall cleared his throat and looked over at Jo. "You know you're in my seat, right?"
"You weren't using it." She shrugged, looking way too at home in the seat of authority.
He examined her, seeing her sober for the first time. She was younger than he'd thought, her features still girlish and pretty. The fact that she was wearing a borrowed uniform, which was a bit too large, didn't help. But even younger than he'd assumed, she was still dangerous. She'd strapped her shoulder and hip holsters on. Which reminded him... "You have my gun."
"And you owe me a lot of money," she shot back.
"Which you'll get. But I still want my seat. And my weapon."
She considered it for a long moment, then shrugged and got up. "All yours," she said, gesturing, and then reached towards her back, under the uniform shirt, and produced his weapon. It had been strapped somewhere out of sight -- how many more weapons did she have? He'd grabbed a gun out of a thigh holster when she shot him, hadn't he? Or was he confusing things, not quite able to remember?
That was one more detail he was definitely missing. He accepted the gun, feeling a little better once its familiar weight was settled on his hip. He watched as Jo settled herself in one of the empty bridge seats. "So what's your full name, anyway? I don't think I ever caught it."
She studied him again, shrugged, and said, "Stetson. Jo Stestson."
He nodded, then looked around at everyone else. "Where are we?"
James glanced down at his console. "A few hours out of Civ space, drifting in sub-light. We figured you'd want to be awake when they contact us."
"Yeah," Kendall said. "Thanks." He took a breath, getting his bearings.
"So," James said. "Now that you're up, do you want to tell me what the hell has been going on? I still can't... My last clear memory is of cursing you out and leaving the ship. And I guess that was a year ago, but everything since then is just... gone."
"Ten months," Kendall corrected, wishing the date wasn't quite so clearly burned into his mind. He looked at Carlos and Logan, who were both watching him with serious expressions, and Jo was looking on with interest. So he continued. "You were pissed at me and you went out to blow off steam. You never came back.
"At first we thought -- I thought you were just being a jerk when you didn't show up the next day, but..." But Carlos and Logan had known better and tried to tell him. They knew that James loved the Corps even when he hated Kendall, and he'd never just go AWOL like that. It hadn't taken long for Kendall to go from angry to guilty, so the three of them had searched, and... nothing.
"We looked for you. For days," Carlos said, picking up the thread. "We took some leave and we searched but no one had seen you, no one knew anything, and... It was awful, James. For all we knew, you were dead in someone's basement or something. It was awful."
James looked down at the floor, frowning.
"After... after awhile, we tried to move on. We tried, but..." Carlos' voice broke.
"But then Katie called me," Kendall said. "She was tracking some weird transmission she found on CivComm, something really, really encrypted... but you know Katie, she looks at stuff like that as a challenge. So she managed to decode it and it was from Hawk. To Rebecca. It said they had you."
James looked up at that, eyes wide, mouth open. "I don't remember Hawk or Rebecca. Are you sure...?"
"I'm sure," Logan said. "All the analysis I've done of your physical state, James, someone tortured you. The damage is old now, maybe eight, nine months. It's hard to pinpoint, but..."
"I don't remember any of that."
Logan shrugged helplessly. "Between the serum and the trauma... It's probably for the best. Whatever they did to you, it was... it was bad."
James looked away again, frowning, puzzled.
Kendall continued with what they knew: "We brought the transmission to Griffin. But..." But James had been through so much, and Kendall hadn't been able to protect him from it. He could at least protect James from this, from knowing that the Corps he'd worshipped since he was a kid had been more than willing to leave him for dead. He cleared his throat. "We went through all the official channels, but they didn't know what to do. They didn't want to cause, uh, an incident. So when they wouldn't just let us go find you..."
"We stole a ship!" Carlos put in.
"You..." James looked up sharply, then laughed. "You helped with this, Logan?"
"Well, you were missing. What were we supposed to do?" Logan shrugged.
"We'd never turn our backs on you. Once we knew you were alive, we had no choice," Kendall said. "So we followed Rebecca. For months. We tracked down rumors and checked every planet and... well, eventually we got to the right one."
"Where Kendall promptly got his ass handed to him by a drug dealer-slash-brothel madam," Carlos said.
Kendall glanced over at Jo, who was expressionless. Curious at how she'd react, he said, "Actually, she was the one who clobbered me. And shot me."
"What?" Carlos and Logan both turned to stare at Jo.
"Didn't I mention that?" she asked, one hand not-so-casually stretching towards a gun. "I was working for Mercedes." At their darkening expressions, she added, "I didn't like working for her, obviously. I quit when I got the chance, didn't I?"
"For money, you said," Logan pointed out.
"Without her, we might not have found James," Kendall said quickly. "And she only shot me when I was threatening to shoot her. And..." He couldn't bring himself to say it, hated that so much had happened that it even mattered, but Jo hadn't taken advantage of him when he'd been drugged. Not even when he'd begged her. "Look, she's a mercenary, but she's okay."
"If you say so," Logan said skeptically.
Jo cleared her throat. "Rebecca tipped off Mercedes that anyone with a connection to the Diamond family was bad news, which was how she IDed you as a fake."
From there, they managed to piece together the threads of the story: how Carlos had found Rebecca, only to end up running into Camille; how Jo had gotten James out of the brothel and onto the ship in time, but couldn't get back out to find Kendall; how Camille and Carlos had gone looking for James, found Kendall instead, and Camille had disappeared, following Rebecca out.
"I hope she's okay," Carlos said. "If we'd had time, I would have looked for her. Rebecca's dangerous..."
"Inspectors can take care of themselves," Logan answered. "She was doing her job."
"She's the first thing I remember practically at all," James said. "She was -- we -- she asked me questions. Everything before that is gone, nothing but a few faces of people I don't even recognize, but she... she said she was going to help me. I feel like she woke me up." He shook his head. "I know that's insane, I don't even remember her that clearly, I just... I don't know."
"I'm sure she's okay," Logan said.
"Yeah. She really knew her stuff," Carlos added.
"When we get home, file our reports on all of this, we can put in a request to find out," Kendall said. "They might not tell us much, but I'm sure they'd let us know if she's alive, at least."
"You really think they're going to tell us anything?" Logan asked. "I kind of assumed we're going to be the ones getting interrogated, not the ones asking for information."
"Good point," Kendall sighed, leaning back in his seat. "So what, exactly, are we looking at, here? Court martial, and...?"
"Well, uh, we all had minor infractions at the Academy but no disciplinary actions on our records, and great records since then, so... I don't know, I bet that actually rescuing James is enough for them to handwave our AWOL charges, so it's really just the ship theft and then resisting arrest... It's a fifteen-year minimum sentence for stealing a starship, but considering they were pissed off enough to slap us with bounties, my guess is we're looking at closer to twenty, twenty-five."
Jo let out a low whistle. "Damn, boys, you really got yourselves into a mess, here."
Yeah, they had. But Kendall cast another glance at James, who wouldn't look back at him, just stared down at the floor with a frown.
Twenty-five years was a long time, but James was safe. Kendall would take it.
James' console sounded and he turned back towards it, took a reading, and glanced up. "We just got contact from the Corps. They seem to know we're heading home, and want to meet us at the border with a military escort to keep us in line." He looked over at Kendall. "They won't send military ships out of their own territory. We've still got time to make a run for it. You guys don't... you don't have to go to jail. "
Kendall half-expected Jo to jump in and say something about their bounties, but she didn't. Everyone was watching him, waiting. Kendall shook his head. "We need to get you home. And if we ever want to see the end of this mess, get our lives back on track, we need to go through official channels."
"You really think you'll be able to get out of this somehow?" Jo asked.
"Yeah," Kendall said, half-lying. He'd get the rest of them out of it, anyway. "It'll be fine. James, you can let them know we'll be good."
"Oooookay." James went back to his console, tapping keys, then, "Acknowledged, and I'm accepting their flight course now, Captain."
Weirdly, hearing James call him by title drove home that this was done, it was over, more than anything else had. He'd known his crew for their whole lives. They never called him by title, outside of tense missions where they really had everything on the line. Like they did now.
Kendall called up the flight course on the bridge's main screen and nodded. "Then it's time to face the music. Take us home, Mr. Diamond."