16

“If you are nearly finished with the interviews, Captain, I would appreciate your assistance on the bridge,” Jelly said.

I considered my options, wanting to get back in the pilot’s chair, but I knew it wasn’t quite time for that. Jelly had done an outstanding job evading the Union. She and her previous captains had been dodging them for years before we met, and even smuggled supplies that kept people alive on Dreadmax before it fell apart. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use a little Reaper know-how when it came to screwing with Nebs and his spec ops group.

“Randolph is a spineless idiot,” I replied. “I need to have another crack at Novasdaughter, then I’ll head to the bridge to relieve Tom. There is something about the woman that I can’t put a finger on.”

“Very good, Captain,” Jelly said. “I should warn you, Captain, that Elise decided to speak to the prisoner. Her stated reason was that girl talk might be more effective than your brutish methods.”

I swore under my breath.

“Can you repeat that, Captain. I can’t decipher your meaning. Was that a request for me to do something to myself?” Jelly asked.

X-37 answered for me. “I quit trying to decipher his muttering in these types of situations. I’ll let you know if he actually says something worthwhile.”

“Much appreciated, X-37,” Jelly replied.

I burst into Novasdaughter’s cell, not caring if I interrupted Elise’s girl talk. The scene wasn’t what I expected.

 The girl had brought her own chair and was sitting close to the woman at a slight angle that suggested they were confidants rather than two people engaged in a debate. I wondered if she knew what she was doing was just lucky. In the type of interrogation she was attempting, regulating her proximity to the target of the interview was important.

If she had done it the way advanced interviewers were trained, she probably started out of arm’s reach, then slowly worked her way closer and closer to Novasdaughter until she could touch her.

It was hard to lie when someone had a compassionate hand on your shoulder. Reapers rarely used the technique. My orders were normally to get the information and leave my victim trembling in fear if they were allowed to survive the encounter.

“You should have let her finish,” X-37 observed.

I knew my LAI was right. I’d acted before I thought this through.

“Hello, Mr. Cain,” Elise said pleasantly. “How are you?”

 “I’d be better if you weren’t fraternizing with our prisoner,” I said before I could stop the words. “That’s the first time you’ve called me by my name in weeks.”

“I can gladly step out of the room if you two want to have a private argument,” Novasdaughter suggested.

Ignoring the pilot, I improvised. I’d read about a good interrogator/bad interrogator technique that our instructors hadn’t even bothered to drill us on. The concept was more of a footnote than anything that actually worked in the real world. Or that was what we’d been taught.

“Not a chance, Novasdaughter,” I said, stepping close and towering over her where she sat. “I talked to Randolph. And after what he revealed, you’re worthless to me.”

The woman swallowed hard, holding my gaze with effort. She was tough, but I was convincing. Everything she’d been taught about Reapers backed up my threat.

Elise stood abruptly, taking a position between us. She stood with her head held high and her shoulders back, one hand held up at me. “Now just stop. We were having a nice talk before you got here.”

“I told her nothing,” Novasdaughter asserted.

“Not everything has to be in interrogation,” Elise said to me, angling her face away from our prisoner and allowing it to convey things she wasn’t saying—something like “what the hell are you doing! I had this, you asshole!

“You’re just a kid. Prisoners are my job. Stay out of my way,” I barked loudly.

“That’s BS.  You don’t take or keep prisoners. And I’ll be really honest, I’m tired of being around men and computers. Can’t you just not kill one person? Show a little compassion for once?” Elise asked, crossing her arms a lot like a belligerent teenager. 

“She’s not your mother, your sister, or your friend. I don’t trust her, so she needs to die. Sooner rather than later,” I said, pushing Elise out of the way—just firmly enough to set her off balance.

The scene was either going to work or fail. There was something about Lieutenant Amii Novasdaughter that disturbed me—a nagging familiarity I couldn’t pin down. I’d begun this dialogue by acting, but anger boiled up from my subconscious and made it real.

Elise recovered her balance and rushed to get between me and the pilot. She pushed against me with both hands, barely slowing me down.

“Please, Mr. Cain. Don’t do this! You don’t have to do this! Just leave and shut the door. I need someone to talk to,” she begged.

I didn’t believe her act for a second, but maybe Novasdaughter did.

The pilot stumbled when she retreated. There wasn’t far to go, but she clearly decided a few feet was better than nothing. The look in her eyes was of alarm and desperation. Today had been a day of backing my enemies up against walls.

This was the first time I’d seen Novasdaughter truly unbalanced since I reminded her of what I was during our first encounter.

Elise faked a sob. “Please!”

I stopped, balling my hands into fists.

“You’re overacting,” X-37 advised dispassionately.

 I ignored my LAI. “You’re not playing fair, kid. I can’t stand it when you cry.”

“And the award for best actor goes to Reaper Cain for the part of the totally unbelievable bully who has second thoughts,” X-37 said.

I gave him one of my concealed hand movements that meant “piss off.” If he interpreted it correctly, he didn’t respond.

“Listen to the girl,” Novasdaughter said, hiding behind Elise now that all three of us were near the wall in a crowd of bad acting and potential violence.

“Don’t talk about the ship,” I said, pointing at Elise with my cybernetic left hand. “She might try to escape or sabotage something.”

I backed away from them but stopped near the door.

“That was pathetic, Elise,” I whispered over our private link. If she heard the words through her earbud, she didn’t answer.

Hopefully, she was drawing secrets out of the Union officer.

Novasdaughter’s face was too familiar. Memories that caused phantom pain in my cybernetic arm haunted me as I finally retrieved the memory.

“Your biometrics are a mess, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “What is it about this woman that bothers you?”

“She looks like someone I dropped off a bridge,” I murmured, while Elise distracted the woman with compassion and questions.

“Inaccuracy detected,” X-37 warned. “I was not present at the incident you are referencing. But according to your pre-Reaper Corps mental evaluations, you didn’t actually drop the woman.”

“You’re not helping, X. Put a sock in it,” I said.

“Processing one colloquialism before it locks up my logic systems,” X-37 replied. 

* * *

 An explosion shook the bridge. Captain Clark shouted until I wished I could mute his voice from my helmet speaker.

“I said fall back! Leave the civilians! They are not part of the Union,” Clark ordered. “Their leadership should have taken our offer.”

I couldn’t block his voice, but I was able to stall and yell at the woman before me. “Just do what I say! You can’t stay on this bridge.”

“My family! I have girls!” the small woman that looked like an older version of Lieutenant Amii Novasdaughter said.

 She twisted away from me and ran back into a maelstrom of flying debris and dust. Artillery rounds were marching across the half-kilometer bridge. It was already sagging, and if I didn’t obey the captain soon, I was going to slide into the river already choked with dead bodies and debris.

I followed after her, slipping twice and twisting my knee both times.

She grabbed two young girls and led them out of the chaos. The bridge was sinking lower and lower on the broken end. Now that the children could see which way to go, they were doing better than either I or the woman was. The little girls didn’t have as much weight to pull them backward.

Their eyes were wide with fear. At the time, I hadn’t thought I would ever get their soot and blood smeared faces out of my mind. Their mother pushed them forward when they fell, but it wasn’t enough.

I grabbed the terrified girls, one in each hand, and threw them to Grady, higher up and closer to safety than I’d ever be able to reach now. He caught them, I thought. More artillery hit the bridge, far too close for comfort now.

Tumbling, I saw the woman falling away from a twisted piece of the infrastructure at the same time I grabbed a beam with my right hand to keep from following her down.

Without thinking, I caught her wrist with my left hand.

“Corporal Cain, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Captain Clark shouted through my helmet’s speaker.

I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. I was going to die about five seconds after the woman dangling from my grip was going to die.

“Please! My girls!” the woman begged.

“Drop her! That’s a direct order!” Clark shouted, his voice breaking up with indignant fury. “You’re a valuable asset to the Union. We trained you and now you’re going to do your duty or get shot.”

Some decisions were easy.

“I can’t let go, sir!” I shouted, causing feedback in my radio.

“Can’t or won’t?” Clark growled.

I didn’t answer. Tears of frustration and rage ran down my face. I was losing my grip of the bridge and of the woman. Regardless of what the captain wanted, I had to make a decision. Save myself or die with a stranger.

There was so much noise that I had forgotten it was there, yet I heard the shot that took my arm. I looked up and saw Grady reaching for me. Behind him was the captain, rifle in hand and a strange look on his face.

The last thing I remembered about the scene was my shattered left arm tearing away from my body and the woman holding it like it was her only hope.

She’d almost hit the turbulent water before she realized I’d failed her.

* * *

“Reaper,” Elise said sharply.

I snapped out of my reverie.

Elise and Novasdaughter were staring at me and I didn’t remember how I got here. The memory of losing my arm normally remained in my nightmares.

“I thought you were leaving,” Elise said.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Reaper?” Novasdaughter demanded, mimicking Elise’s tone.

I leaned very close and knew she was seeing a demon in her imagination.

“I dropped a woman from a bridge on Carson’s World during the resistance there,” I said, my words so low that they made my voice scratchy.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Elise giving me a confused look, but Novasdaughter stared at me wide-eyed for several seconds, then threw up a wall of defenses.

“I remember Carson’s World,” she said, face blank as a professional gambler.

I leaned even closer. “Are you an orphan, Lieutenant?”

“You go to hell,” she cursed, struggling not to look away from my intense gaze. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“The Union took your mother,” I said.  “How can you be willing to die for them? How can you work for someone like Nebs?”

The memory of this woman’s mother falling into the debris-clogged river wouldn’t leave my mind. Phantom pain flared through my cybernetic left arm. The sound of Captain Clark firing his rifle was more of an idea than an actual sound. It was like being in a dream where physics didn’t matter and nothing made sense even when it did.

“You’ve been looking for me your entire life,” I guessed. “The question is, are you going to kill me?”

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