“You are to be interviewed as soon as possible.”
“I see,” Captain said. He stood ramrod straight. The alien in front of us with the line of guards blocking the exit ramp of our ship was tall with a large head topped with a dome of purple scales, and all the swirling patches on his clothes made him look very important.
“The prisoners?” he asked. His voice hissed on the end of the word, and the multiple nostrils on the end of his protruding snout snapped shut to cut off the sound.
“Ready for transfer.” Deke and his small team stood behind three transports with thick bars. They were gagged as well. I was relieved. I clenched my hands in fists, looking away from their glares and frantic movements hampered by the fields holding them to the transports.
Three men snapped their weapons into holsters on their thighs and stepped forward from the line behind the man in charge. They walked away immediately, not waiting for the rest of their squad. The color of the scales darkened on the male’s head. “Now, if each of you will follow along with one of my men, we will start the interviews.” He began to turn.
Wait. What? Each of us go with one of them…? I tensed, and Captain stepped back and to the side so his body barely covered mine.
“No,” Captain said.
A bugled whistle pained my ears, and all the color faded from the guy’s scales. “No?” he hissed.
“We are not subject to military interrogation as civilian contractors, even if we were working on the Council’s orders, which we were not. As such, we can only be interviewed on the matter as a case of civil unrest as false imprisonment and violence was perpetuated against us and we fought back to retain our rights of freedom and life. If the Council convenes and wishes to judge the matter as one of abuse of power by a planetary governing body, we can also be called to testify before them as to that matter.
“Otherwise, you have no legal right to separate, question, or detain my crew. We have provided evidence of criminal actions, the criminals who are so accused who survived the violence against us, and we stand ready to testify in public session as to these matters. That is all.” Captain stood straight and tall in front of me, protecting me and the rest of the crew, and he didn’t bend an inch. His voice didn’t shake as he firmly stated our rights. If I wasn’t so damn scared, I’d be whooping.
Deke clearly wanted to, that, or start laughing at the sheer dumbfounded shock that even I could recognize on the alien’s face. Freska elbowed him. He huffed, and I glanced at him. All the amusement faded from his face and cold fury took over as I heard plastic scraping noises.
Someone had just armed their weapon.
Freska spoke up. “Do you really think us so naïve us to approach Central without putting surveillance in place to ensure our presence would not be swept away like so many other embarrassing debacles for the powers that be?”
“We have control of all the technology—”
“I am technology you have never seen,” Danie said. He stood beside Freska. “And you have no idea what I can do. What I will do, if you try to harm any of these people who are just trying to right wrongs that have happened to too many innocents. That video that was transmitted? A single command and only a few seconds against a few old men and women. I had no need to use more… deadly means.”
The cold, impersonal tone was as scary as the implied threat if the soldiers’ faces were anything to go by. The alien whipped one of its tentacles behind its back, and the weapons were powered down.
“You cannot hide from this. Everyone saw what you did. It is your duty—”
Captain cut him off. “I did my duty, for years, for people who were looking out for themselves. For greed. Power. What I’ve learned? Power corrupts. No one remains untouched. No one has the right to demand I give up my life to save the rest of the universe, and I’m not going to risk those who depend on me just to satisfy some heroic ideal any real soldier knows is fake bullshit. Bad things happen every day, on planets all over the universe. Someone else is just going to have to fix them. I’m done.”
Captain backed up, pushing me with him. We retreated into the ship, never turning our backs on the soldiers on the ground. As soon as the hatch slid shut, Captain’s shoulders slumped. I put my hands on them and leaned against his back, resting my head against his shoulders.
“I shouldn’t have spoken for the whole crew like that,” he said. He looked at the hold which held basically the whole crew. Everyone was armed or carrying supplies for running, in case we’d had to abandon the ship.
“Hell yes, you should have,” Deke said.
“Captain Querry, you should know by now that you are more than just the captain of our ship, you are the man who we all follow because you would do anything for us. Fight off fictional Elite who are hell bent on taking over the universe, refuse to bend to sneaky politicians who’d turn us into figureheads and puppets or worse, scapegoats.” Others nodded at Freska’s words.
“But that Council toady was right. We won’t be able to escape this. Our ship is known to every single station, dock ring, and landing field on every planet with a vid system. We’re either famous or infamous—and I don’t know which would be worse.”
“Stop being such a defeatist. You solved that already. Like a damn intern, always spouting off silly questions they know the answer to,” Aparoe muttered.
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