The Beast

The Beast - Part 45

Gabriel was on the way to Zuski and the others when Tibi intercepted him, looking like she just woke up. Her eyes wandered down his body before she started talking: "No collar, blood stains and screams in the middle of the night. I assume you talked to Chip?"

The mindset that had set in when he tortured was still wearing off: "Good guess. Do you also want to talk before I free your prisoners?"

Her voice was still too tired for him to interpret emotions: "I can offer you my perspective and the key so you don't have to damage the very thing keeping us alive.", he blankly stared at her until she continued, "Last night I woke up to a freaked out Chip knocking on my door. She showed me a video of you surviving a deadly shot, which is not so unusual for you, but ancient forces trying to cover it up are. You may not know because of whatever you are but that's scary stuff. Chances are I would've gotten a bullet in my head the very day Taro found out. H-"

He cut in: "Chip already explained the necessity for what you did, skip that part."

"Okay. She handed me explosives to spread around the ship and told me to abduct Zuski and the princess in the morning after you left, which I did. Should have been harder but a combination of chaos and my gas allowed me to overwhelm Taro's guards. Soon after I met up with Chip and took an escape ship off Taro's cruiser. That's it."

Gabriel thought for a while and came to a simple conclusion: "We should be dead. How did any piece of that plan work out? What if I killed Chip? What if someone would've caught you? Who even drives the ship and why is Verona and Kanu here? What were you thinking?!"

Tibi answered his last question: "Dying hurts, plus we are not even remotely close to being safe. Taro should've figured out what has happened somewhere in the last few hours."

He took a deep breath: "Can you make sure we survive while I free our prisoners?"

"Hostages. Don't fool yourself. They are leverage and don't free Verona or Tac, both are not to be trusted."

"Why do you sound like you've done this before?"

She got the last word by walking off: "Think what you want but watching Aina had some advantages. We are currently headed for contested space to shake off Taro's hunters; ruthless violence got us off the ship in the first place and our pilot is loyal because of the Aina special."

He didn't think about what she had said, his mind was on Zuski and the others. He made his way there getting more excited with each step he took, to the point where he was almost running by the time he reached the door. He had to explain what was going on but Kanu's and Zuski's mood improved greatly. Verona and the princess did not react as well to the news as he hoped. Tac refused to leave her corner in the room and wasn't big on speaking either. Verona answered his question but he knew enough about her to understand where her loyalty laid.

They spend some time exploring the ship to find that it was smaller than expected. He and Chip had small cabins. Tibi shared her room with the pilot and the improvised prison cell were all the living quarters they could find. The rest was all essential for the ship to work as intended. In the end, they choose to pile up in Gabriel's room , which was a relief to him, as he wasn't sure how to tell them what he did to Chip.

Not long after falling asleep Elle woke him up again, notifying him that Tibi was on her way to his room. He climbed out of the bed careful not to wake anybody and meet her in the hallway. She looked exhausted and yet focused.

"Follow me.", is all she said.

He did and they walked to the bridge in silence, on it were Chip and the pilot, staring into a central hologram. Tibi begann explaining: "Gabriel, we have an issue. You see, our initial goal was to get to a group of bases that remained semi-neutral during the war. Unfortunately News travels fast. The annihilation of Rutha gave a few lowlives enough confidence to overpower the bases and declare sovereignty." She pointed at a point on the map. "This is our current destination. We don't have the money to pay the new prices for docking rights. Which wouldn't be an issue if we could just trade the princess for safe passage and supplies but the union doesn't trade with the uprising so she has no worth for them."

Gabriel interrupted: "Can't we just look for a better place to dock?"

Chip answered suppressing whatever emotions she was feeling: "This ship doesn't have the fuel for another jump and they would shoot us down way before we could even if we did."

He tried again: "What about negotiating?"

This time Tibi answered: "It's almost certain that taro made sure the bounty on our head is bigger than anything we could offer them, if you pull a miracle out of your sleeve." All eyes waited patiently on him for the miracle she asked for.

"Protocol says no." Elle told him.

He shook his head: "Is there any other way I could help?"

Tibi got a suspicion: "You wanna go kill again, don't you? They have enough firepower to deal with your suit before you get even close to the entrance and going without one is a death sentence."

Chip followed up: "I discovered that he can take more damage than we might think. Which begs the question: What are you?"

Gabriel thought for a moment before commiting to an idea: "Human."

Tibi responded first: "What?"

Again he delayed his answer but then he finally said: "Something ancient." He didn't know what he had expected but silence isn't it. Nevertheless, finally coming out with the truth dropped a stone of his heart, he felt better, excited to be more honest. So he continued: "I was surprised too. Now is not the time to go into my past. It is time I show something we humans call limit testing."