Child of Hades

17. Not alone (Leo)

After a few minutes of collecting my thoughts, I called the troop that I had ordered to take care of the trafficked humans using my techdevice. I instructed them to find out where the people had come from and bring them back to their homes as soon as possible. Once their task was done, they were to call me for further instructions. Next, I called Mr. Heydrich into my room. He hastily rushed to my room, his tie flapping around his black suit jacket when he entered the room. "We need more ships. I am going to attack Charon."

Mr. Heydrich was visibly shocked as he stuttered: "You, you cannot attack Charon. Many high-ranking officers have very deep-reaching business relationships with him. The Lex are not going to agree to turn on him. He has been a very conducive informant and business partner."

"He is a human trafficker. He must pay for his crimes." I stared him down like he was nothing but a defiant new member of my team.

Mr. Heydrich took a moment, then started talking diplomatically: "Charon is a criminal, yes. But the bigger problems are those criminals that are attacking Lukrains, murdering our men. Your brothers, your friends. How are we going to keep them safe from reckless criminals, unhinged enough to attack and abduct even one of our own captains? Do you really think that anyone is going to support you, forgetting the lives of your own people? Your mission is to find the abominable space scum that attacked our ship. Your ship. In these kinds of endeavors, it is vital not to get side-tracked. Charon is not a problem for people like you and me anyways.", he laughed nervously. "Eliminating enemies of the Lex is how you as a new captain of the Lex will gain glory and one day even make a career. Not by attacking our allies." 

His condescending tone provoked me. It took me a while to fully contemplate my own reasoning for attacking Charon even while facing the uncomfortable truths in his words.

"Ok. No support needed. We are taking course for Chaus and we are taking on Charon by ourselves.", I insisted.

"That is a suicide mission.", he commented, fear in his eyes.

"You are free to leave. In fact, everyone. I am going to announce this shortly and everyone that wants to leave, I will gladly send them away in one of our escape capsules. They can go whenever they like, but they will not slow me down."

Out of 30 soldiers, 5 had died. 5 were still in the infirmary. Another 8 decided to leave through the escape capsule.

I was left with 12 soldiers. 12 soldiers that I knew were loyal to me and my values.

Once our ship was near Chaus, I sent the message to Charon: "I have found indisputable evidence that you are guilty of human trafficking. Your actions are deemed criminal according to the law of Lex. You have 30 minutes to surrender yourself, otherwise, the Jussum is going to take out your entire establishment."

It didn't take more than a few minutes until a ship connected to the Jussum. "We are giving in to all demands. Requesting teleportation to your ship." I chuckled. Such bullshit. 

Access was granted to a precise location. Only biomass allowed. (nothing else, not even clothes.)

We heard a loud noise as the other ship rammed into ours. Not an accident. More ships started flying towards us and I ordered the Jussum to shoot. Several ships exploded rather quickly. The main ship was severely damaged before they attempted to communicate with us again. The Jussum had taken significant damage to its outermost layer of protection, but it was far from destroyed. Most of the crew were gathered in front of the leftover escape capsules.

"Let us teleport with our clothes on at least."

I expected weapons. Our soldiers gathered at the place of teleportation. And they did come with weapons. We killed them quickly but regrettably, one of my soldiers got shot to the abdomen. Brielle took him to the infirmary.

"I will be receiving Charon now", I spoke with a sharp tongue. 

"You will indeed.", then there was silence.

Our ship detected an air leak in one of our corridors. The leak fixed itself automatically a few seconds later. I ordered a few men to come with me and we ran to the side. The enemies had hacked their way into the ship using pickaxes. They were still wearing space suits and weapons. The following crossfire happened before any of my men had time to prepare themselves. I counted 3 men falling to the floor before we could take cover behind manually generated blocks.

The fight went on for what felt like too long. Finally, we had gunned down all except Charon. I commanded my troops to leave me alone with him so they did. I had seen as much death as I could take in one day. "Surrender!", I screamed.

"Still looking for Lié, I see. Must have been her who abducted you.", he taunted.

Two of my soldiers surprised him from behind with stun guns. They had refused to abandon me. After Charon was paralyzed, he was quickly unarmed and his techdevice was confiscated. 

Peter and Nadim. I was not sure if I should thank them or discipline them as they escorted Charon into a holding cell.