Courage

Both members of the crew of the Black Watch were on the bridge.

"So, he's already in Reyll space?" Peter leaned back in the command chair, gripping the arms of the seat tightly.

"He crossed over a little while ago. Triggered the jump mines, got overrun by a Hunter squadron. From what I can make out, they have the area under quarantine." Jinx looked at him carefully. Was he angry? Was he sad? All she saw was restrained aggression and impatience, a hypomanic urgency that scared her -- especially after she saw what he was capable of.

"Any sign of mobilization? Are they--"

"No." Jinx took a second look at the sensor readouts at the helm station. "Not yet, anyway."

"I think I have a plan." Peter sat up straight. "But I need some advice."

"Of course." Jinx wanted to help.

"I want you to stay on the ship. Be ready to get the hell out if things go wrong, and keep your distance." Peter paused. "I'll close in and try to hit him with gravity-based attacks. Maybe do that inflation thing I did to Leviathan. If we're lucky, I'll manage to tear him apart before he kills me."

Jinx took a deep breath, and shook a little.

"That's a terrible plan."

"Well, I--"

"You don't understand." Jinx was afraid. "There's someone inside Nyqll. An innocent man. I was supposed to protect him."

"I think it's a little too late."

"I have to try. I promised him that."

There was a long pause. Something Jinx had said had changed Peter's mind. He looked at her for a while, and when she examined his face carefully, she saw something like a smile.

"All right. I understand."

He relaxed a little, and continued "So we need a better plan. Let me see..."

"Maybe I can help. I still have some of the black oil left."

"Use it as a weapon?" Peter grinned. "Yes!"

"No. I -- he was exposed to it. Maybe if you look at a sample--"

"Then I could figure out his weakness! Of course!"

He was still worryingly aggressive, but at least they were both on the same side. Jinx led him to the briefing room, and summoned her last dewar of black oil. Peter leaned forward towards the container as she carefully placed it on the table.

He seemed fascinated, and observed the dewar in silence for a long moment.

"Where did you get this stuff, Jinx?"

"Outside the cluster. A charming little world orbiting an orange star with a nameless crypt-city buried beneath a field of imported grass."

Peter looked at the dewar again.

"So, the planet wasn't just a radioactive lump of strange matter. That's... kind of surprising, actually." He paused. He was not looking at the dewar, but it was clear that he was sensing what was going on inside the container. His eyes would briefly close for a second or two, and twitch like someone having a vivid dream. "I can't sense the stuff directly. Too much magic. But what it's doing on a quantum level is really strange -- it reminds me of some theories about mirror matter."

"Mirror matter?"

"Matter is defined by a set of potentials. These potentials can be distinguished as quanta of various forces. These forces are interrelated, and only exist in certain configurations -- certain geometries, among other things." He paused.

"This stuff has a geometry that's a mirror image to the way ordinary matter is organized. It should be like a ghost to us, only interacting gravitationally."

Jinx thought for a moment. "Well, the story I heard is that this is some kind of waste product from an interstellar transit system. There was this white mist that would form bridges in space-time to far-away worlds. When the bridge collapsed, it left this stuff behind."

"A condensate. First it coated the travelers and created a environment they could handle -- then it peeled back off, turning itself inside out in the process." Peter leaned back in his chair. "It sounds plausible, at least. Wish it helped me beat Nyqll."

"You don't have to beat him, Peter." Jinx sat down next to him. "I know the name of the man inside that monster. I can pull him out."

Peter looked at her, and she felt something she was not expecting -- love and admiration, coming from him. He said, "I don't want Nyqll to hurt you."

"I know. You'll have to figure out how to pin him down and keep him busy."

"All right." His voice sounded a little more relaxed, but also frightened. "I'm so used to doing this alone."

"Yeah. That's why you get your ass kicked all the time."

The Paper Tiger

Executive Officer Franco had the helm of the Nightstalker.

He was alone on the bridge. Jolt had retired to her stateroom. The Eye and Thresher accompanied her.

This wasn't a time to leave her alone.

Franco pulled up the criminal records of Jolt's father, Drazen East. A long list of convictions, prison sentences commuted by powerful friends, shadowy connections to the Corporation's elite managers. His connections to the deep state had kept him free.

For a career criminal, East had done well for himself. His estate on Bestos was an island in a temperate fresh-water sea on the northern hemisphere. Many senior Corporate executives had smaller properties. The private spaceport was small, but large enough for the Nightstalker to land.

The twinge of resentment the combination of East's prosperity and criminal record kept Franco digging through the documentation. He had a list -- all the plaintiffs in the numerous criminal cases where Drazen East was a defendant. He had put together the data gathered from investigating the illegal clones together with a bibliography referencing previous cases.

It was simply a matter of running through the list and sending the documents. Routine police work.

The All-Org Ethics Bureau on Bestos replied first, with a nondescript form letter thanking Franco for bringing this matter to their attention. Franco suspected that a complaint wasn't going to be coming from them any time soon.

While he wondered what made them so hesitant to go after East, a second message came in, marked for urgent attention and counter-signed by the Adjudicator General of the Amalgamated Public Security Services.

It was a complaint, filed by the Committee on Cloning Ethics, with an attached warrant for Drazen East's immediate arrest.

"Gotcha."

Franco paged Jolt.

"What is it?" She sounded like she had been sobbing.

"We have a warrant. Let's get the bastard."

Miracles

Jinx floated in deep vacuum. Her body had stopped metabolizing oxygen a few minutes ago.

She watched Peter as he floated in the void. Her mind had reached out to him, and recoiled as she felt the vast amounts of information flowing through his consciousness.

He was in a trance, a deep one. Two glowing balls of matter formed near him.

Matter and anti-matter. He was sorting virtual particles.

She was not scared by the void that surrounded them. She watched his mind, felt it racing, and rejoiced.

Something was happening.

She couldn't follow what he was doing, but she knew.

She watched him, felt around the edges of his mind -- and felt fear.

Her mind was powerful, a dreadful thing of parts that devoured souls. She could read a mind like a billboard, and a community of minds like a book. She had seen, contemplated, and done things that would break the strongest minds.

She watched something impossible. His mind was like a machine, a terrible all-consuming mechanism, a fever dream apparatus that grew twisting, turning, pulsing, and grinding until it consumed all of reality.

He was gambling with the laws of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics, and winning handily. From nothing, there was something.

Ever increasing amounts of something condensed from nothingness.

She felt a thrill when he began synthesizing strangelets.

Dopants for a weak-force band-gap, they were the basis for neutrino circuitry.

Hours passed.

The anti-matter cloud collapsed. He has pressed it into a geometric point, constructing a tiny black hole that sputtered with decay radiation as he used it to stress the vacuum to create ever stranger constructs.

The structure beside it was no longer a cloud. Her suspicions were correct -- a spade-shaped starship took form next to the proton-sized gravitational singularity. The pieces fell into place.

The singularity boiled away, and the copy of the Nightstalker remained. He seemed to waken from his trance, and floated into the ship.

It approached her, and the outer door of an airlock opened.

She thought, "Stupid powerful." He had re-created what he had lost, when he could have made anything. The phrase seemed to fit.

She drifted into the ship, and the outer door closed. She braced for impact, and absorbed the impact of the drifting vessel.

Systems where slowly coming on-line. The inner door opened to a darkened corridor, but the lights turned on after she walked a few meters.

She readjusted to breathing, and approached the bridge.

The door opened automatically.

He was sitting in the command chair, and turned to face her.

"Welcome aboard." His voice was tired. He looked exhausted. "What do you want to call it?"

She very briefly considered saying something sarcastic. Part of her wanted to cut him down to size, reject the impossible thing she had just experienced.

"I-- I don't know." She thought for a moment. "The Black Watch?"

He smiled. "All right. I've generated a new key-pair. We'll be on-line in a few minutes. Wanna take helm?"

The banality of his request shocked her a little, but she had to admit that she was looking forward to piloting a copy of the Nightstalker.

She sat down at her station, and turned to him.

"You know -- if you're just going to make a copy of your old ship, you should do something to make it different. Like a different color or something."

His eyes narrowed. "Hmm. It is a pirate copy..."

He snapped his fingers. The hull turned black, except for a skull motif on the blade of the spade.

Jinx giggled.

Peter dead-panned, "It was that or flames."

They laughed for a few moments, and as they quieted down again, Peter slumped in the command chair.

Jinx became serious.

"So, what do we do now?"

Peter looked like he was about to fall asleep.

"Now?"

He paused for a beat.

"We find this god person and kick his ass."

Problems

"They're just... floating in space." The Eye had just taken her position at the helm, and was scanning the immediate area around the Nightstalker.

"Get us the hell out of here. Before they decide to attack." Jolt sat down in the command chair.

"Destination?" Thresher plugged himself into the engineering console.

There was a long pause. Jolt rubbed her temples, as if she had a headache.

"Bestos 3."

"Bestos 3? " Thresher sounded skeptical.

"Yeah. We'll be landing on the surface." Jolt looked grim.

"They're still not doing anything."

"Are they dead?"

"No."

"Turn the ship around. Prepare for jump."

The engines engaged, and the Nightstalker entered hyperspace.

The bridge was quiet. Jolt looked like she was about to cry.

Thresher looked up from his panel. "Captain?"

"What?"

"We have a visitor. It's the First Mate."

Executive Officer Benito Franco was waiting in the antechamber to the bridge. He took a moment to arrange his mane as the door opened. He squared his shoulders and entered the bridge.

"What the hell is going on here?" Benito strutted toward the command chair.

Jolt sulked. "What are you talking about?" She tried to ignore the young officer.

"Was there a court-martial, and nobody invited me?"

There was a brief silence. Jolt turned her head and looked Benito in the eye.

"No. There was an immediate threat to the safety of the ship and its crew."

"Really."

"There was a murder on board."

"All right. That's a good reason -- which you could have presented at a military tribunal."

"I've got a right -- a right to protect my crew."

"From another crew member?"

"From anybody or anything."

Benito was cut short; he looked carefully at the woman sitting in the command chair. He took a deep breath.

"You're doing it wrong."

Jolt looked at him with a steady, unresponsive gaze. "Then someone will just have to file a complaint."

"Captain Jennifer East, the standard Military Contract allows me to take command of this vessel in the event the commanding officer is unable or unwilling to assume the responsibilities of command--"

"You little bastard." Jolt scowled at Benito. "You're invoking Executive Privilege? On me!?"

"Yes. I am in command of this vessel, effective now."

Jolt, Thresher, and the Eye scowled at him, but Benito didn't back down.

"Now -- explain to me why we are flying to Bestos 3."

"My father. My father made the clones." Jolt stared Benito down. "He's been doing it for as long as I remember. He'll take bits and pieces and splice them together into whatever the customer wants. He took a dormant sample from one of the Seven Sisters--"

"Who?" Benito was listening carefully.

"A Reyll mutant-rights group. They tried to fight the prejudice against people born with a word of power encoded in their genes. He took a tissue sample from the Kebakika line, and cloned my mother."

Benito was shocked. "Isn't that illegal?"

"He was in and out of prison my whole life. That didn't stop the customers from coming."

Jolt paused for a moment and looked away. She held back tears.

When she looked at Benito again, her expression was hard and pitiless.

"So we're going to take that bastard down."

Does It Hurt You When I Do This?

Jolt sat on a bed in sickbay and fidgeted. She was tense.

The door slid open, and Arsenal and Jinx walked in. Arsenal was carrying a heavy cable with two alligator clips, and Jinx carried a small plastic case.

"Captain? Are you ready?"

Jolt grimaced. "Sure. Make it quick." She stretched her arm towards Arsenal, and he clipped one end of the grounding cable to a metal stub on the sleeve of her costume. She inspected the connection, then pulled up the bottom of her shirt to expose her red-furred belly.

"Is that enough?"

Jinx glanced briefly at Jolt. "That will do."

Jinx opened the case and removed what appeared to be a coiled hose and set it on the table. The tip of one end of the hose was a shiny hollow spike of metal ringed with tiny cutting blades.

Jolt took a long look at the metal spike.

"Just a moment." Jinx retrieved a sample jar from the case, and affixed the other end of the hose to a plug on the jar's cap. She looked at Jolt with a sidelong glance. "I'll be taking a sample of your abdominal epithelial tissue. You might want some anesthetic."

Jolt nodded curtly. "Forget about it. I'm on duty, and need a clear head."

Jinx grinned evilly just out of Jolt's view. "This might sting a bit."

She pressed a button on the remote, and the plastic and steel-tipped plastic snake sprang to life. The tiny blades spun up with a high-pitched whine.

"Lie down and hold still." Jolt complied, stiffly and nervously.

Jolt's eyes widened as the device slithered towards her belly. The sound of tiny spinning blades rang in her ears. She clenched her fist as the snake-like apparatus reared back and struck.

The metal head bored into Jolt's belly, near her umbilical cord. She winced -- it hurt. The clear plastic tube of the device was colored red with a thin stream of blood. A few drops fell into the collection jar.

Jinx scowled. "Whoops."

Jolt fought her panic, clenched her teeth and arched her back. More blood spattered into the collection jar. Jinx maintained a forced neutral expression. "Stop that. I'll need you to hold still."

Arsenal scowled at Jinx, and whispered under his breath, "That's enough."

Jinx straightened up. "I'm in position now. Acquiring sample."

A tiny gobbet of epithelial tissue was chewed away by the endoscope, propelled down the tube, and deposited in the specimen jar.

Jolt looked like she wanted to cry.

"I'm pulling out now."

The endoscope withdrew, Jolt cried out in pain as it cauterized the wound in her belly. She curled up into a ball and scowled at Jinx.

Jinx detached the sample jar and walked towards Arsenal, who was also scowling. "Thank you for your cooperation, Captain. We'll get right on the analysis!"

"You do that." Jolt covered her oozing wound with her hand.

Arsenal looked helplessly at Jolt. "Do you need any help?"

"Get out." Jolt lay down on the bed. "I'll be fine."

A few moments later, in Arsenal's stateroom, Jinx started the analysis of the tissue sample. Arsenal stood, leaning against the bulkhead. He scowled and looked at the refrigerator.

"Done. This should be quick." She turned to Peter and noticed that he was ignoring her.

"What's wrong?"

"What did you think you were doing back there?"

"It was just a bit of fun."

"Fun?!" Peter was angry and hurt. "What, hurting people is 'fun' for you?"

"Hurting the deserving?" Jinx sneered. "Oh, yes."

"What did she do--"

"Come on, robot boy. Come out and say it. 'My boss is a bitch.' You can do that, can't you?" Jinx stared down Peter, until Peter turned away.

"You're all a bunch of self-righteous idiots," he mumbled. He turned to Jinx. "And that means you, too. You don't care who you hurt, or what you destroy, as long as it's you who comes out on top."

Jinx started to speak, but an increasingly angry Peter interrupted her.

"I know why she is the way she is. She's in charge, and that means that everyone is constantly second-guessing every decision she makes. She's responsible--"

Jinx interrupted him. "She makes bad decisions. And she hates you, Peter. You have no idea how much she hates you." Jinx stood up and took Peter's hand. "You're a disruption and an irritant. Your very existence undermines her, because you're powerful and competent and worst of all -- you make her look bad."

"Yeah, well -- let's talk about competence, shall we?" Peter looked sad and angry. "You discover some crack-brained plan to turn superheroes into living weapons, and what do you do about it? Did you ever actually talk to--"

"Shh. Why do you think I'm here?"

They both looked at the refrigerator. "She--"

"--was created to be a victim. I'm sorry."

"We need to get rid of the body."

"No." Jinx squeezed Peter's hand and looked sad. "I'm so sorry."

"What?"

"No matter what happens next, I want you to know something -- I may never become whatever you think a good person is, but I am trying to do the right thing."

Peter's doorbell chimed. "It's time," whispered Jinx.

He opened the door to his stateroom. Thresher's bulky cyborg body filled the door frame. The Eye and Jolt stood behind him. "Hey, bro. I heard yelling. How are you two doing?"

"Great, we're--"

"Mind if we come in?" asked the Eye.

"It's--" Peter stammered.

Thresher pushed past Peter, and took a long look around the stateroom. Jolt and the Eye followed.

Jinx sat down at the workstation and looked at the screen. "We're not quite done yet."

"Oh, really," Jolt remarked. "I can't wait to find out the results."

The Eye positioned herself between Peter and the refrigerator.

"I know -- I get us some brews while we wait." Thresher walked to the refrigerator and pulled the door open.

The corpse of Jinx's clone fell out of the compartment with a dull thump.

"Oh, now that's awkward," quipped the Eye.

Jolt approached Peter. She looked enraged. "What the hell, hero?"

"I--" Thresher came up behind the stammering Peter and pinned both his arms behind his back.

"I don't care. I think dealing with a woman was just a little too much for you. You lost your temper and killed her." Jolt wheeled around and pointed at Jinx, who looked up from her workstation. "And then you brought her back--"

"That's stupid! I can't resurrect the dead!"

Jolt closed in on Peter. "That's my problem with you. I have no idea what you're capable of."

"I didn't kill her."

"I don't care."

Jinx drummed her fingers on the desk in front of her. "I have the results. The Captain's sample is a fifty percent match--"

"Yes. That's right. I know who made those cloned demigods -- I know that sequence of forced-growth genes." Jolt bore down on Jinx, who recoiled. "Daddy grew mommy in a vat. All the other kids made fun of me--"

"What?" Peter tried to pull away from Thresher and was restrained.

"My daddy. It's my daddy. He made them." Jolt shook with rage, and turned to Peter. "I want you off my ship."

"I didn't--"

"I don't want to hear it. Murder and necromancy, on board my ship -- I don't care what you have to say. It doesn't mat--"

"Of course it matters," Peter complained, almost whispering.

"Let go of him." Jolt turned to face him, looking like she was ready to start a fight.

Peter turned around to look at Thresher as he let go of his arms. The cyborg's face was an expressionless mask.

Arsenal took a step forwards, facing Jolt.

"Go ahead. Do it."

Jolt delivered the challenge with a growl. She looked angry, angrier than Peter had ever seen her before.

"No." Peter's arms stayed by his side.

"I want you and your sex toy off my ship, now!"

"Who, me?" Jinx. "What did I ever do to you?" She sounded theatrically hurt.

A moment later, they stood in the threshold of the port airlock.

Peter was shaking. He was trying very hard not to be afraid.

Jinx seemed calm. She was still very obviously play-acting that she a clueless innocent.

"I've been fired...." Peter's head sank as he said the words.

"Worse things happen every day." Jinx smiled. "Maybe you can file a complaint when we get back to civilization."

"What's the matter with you?"

"Lots of things." She reached out to hold Peter's hand. "Like when I was out in that box, and it was so cold, and I started to forget what it was like to breathe... that messed me up."

Peter's touched her shoulder, pulling her closer. She looked up into his eyes.

"But I'm getting better."

The airlock opened.

Flash Forward

"Victor! Don't--"

But he did.

Thresher hit the dirt as the device detonated over the alien city. The cyborg was afraid, teribly afraid--

The vision ended.

Thresher recovered first, and triggered the alert. "Where the hell is Arsenal?" he thought.
"One kilowatt. Excellent work, Jennifer."

"Thanks, Doctor." Jolt was in a clinic on a rocky, rugged, and beautful island on the world Bestos. She lay on a hospital bed, her body covered in bioelectric sensors.

She had been there for some time. "You've been a great help. Have you heard from my agent?"

"I have good news and bad news. Command's gone to Victor. Entertainment Division says they need some fresh faces after what happened."

Jolt's face darkened.

The doctor continued. "But you have a spot on the team. You just need to adapt to the new situation. You need to learn to see yourself as others see you--"

She snapped awake. She was sitting in the command chair of the Nightstalker. All was well.

"What just happened?"

Thresher answered. "Some kind of hallucinogen gas. I've called red alert."

"Good. Well done."

She stroked the arms of her command chair, and glanced over to the Eye's station. The Eye lay on the ground, twitching.

Vertigo. Pain.

The Eye struggled to her feet. A cold steel grip grabbed the back of her neck, and slammed her head-first into a bulkhead. The mirrored implants covering her empty eye sockets shattered.

"Why am I blind? What happened to my amulet?" She panicked.

She felt the presence inside her mind. "You have no idea what that thing can do, do you? It can see far more than the present or the future."

The Eye tried to stand up again. "Why are you doing this?"

"I can't risk you exposing me. The stakes are too high."

She fell, and listened to the footsteps approach her, closing in for the kill.

Her mind wandered. Things didn't feel right -- this wasn't a premonition. What was it--

The bridge of the Nightstalker faded into view. She looked at her own face and sighed a relieved sigh when she saw that the implants covering her empty eye-sockets were still intact.

She curled up into a ball on the floor. Her amulet let her watch as Jolt stood up and approached her, and see the look of concern on her Captain's face.

"What happened?"

"Some kind of hallucination. We're--"

The door to the bridge opened, and Arsenal and Jinx entered. Arsenal spoke.

"Captain. Permission to bring a non-combatant on the bridge?"

Jolt looked at him skeptically.

"Why?"

"I didn't want to leave her alone." He paused for a beat. "It's not safe."

The Eye got up slowly and nodded to Jolt to show her that she wasn't hurt. Jolt started back to her command chair, looking at Arsenal and Jinx intently.

"All right. Anyone object?"

Thresher nodded his approval. The Eye scowled and said, "All right."

Jolt looked at the view-screen. The prospector module was still there. "All right. What do we do about this chunk of space junk?"

Thresher chimed in. "It's too big to put in the hold. We could tow it back to a station house--"

Jolt waved her hand dismissively. "Nah."

The Eye turned to face Jolt. "But it attacked us!"

Jolt rubbed the side of her head. "So let's shoot it and make it explode."

Threshed objected. "The Eye's got a point."

Jolt seemed annoyed. "I don't care. Explosion time."

The Eye armed a missile. "All right. On your command."

Jolt grinned. "Fire!"

A missile struck the prospector module, and it disappeared in a flash of light.

The Eye stated the obvious. "Target destroyed."

Jolt seemed satisfied. "Good."

She turned to Jinx and narrowed her eyes. "If you've got a moment -- I heard you found some anomalies in the cloned tissue we've acquired. I'd appreciate it if you ran a cross check with another sample."

Jinx blinked. "Um... sure."

Jolt smiled. "Good. Get you biopsy kit and a set of grounding cables. The next sample comes from me."

Free Falling

"You killed her."

Arsenal spoke slowly and without great emotion. His eyes narrowed, and he took a step back into a defensive stance.

Jinx look hurt. She reached out.

"I had to, Peter. It was self-defense."

"You won't get away with this. My team-mates will wake up soon. We'll take you down--"

He stopped short, and his hands shook.

"Please don't." Her voice was a whisper. "I've got a reason--"

"I don't care." Arsenal became angry. "You murdered someone in cold blood. That's pretty straightforward--"

Her eyes burned. "No, it isn't. Nothing is straightforward about this." Her pain turned to anger. "Why do you think you are here now? In this place, doing these things? Why?"

"It's a job."

"It's what someone told you to do because they're afraid. Afraid of you."

"What are you talking about?"

"Things are happening, Peter. The Corporation is getting ready for a war, and nobody knows if they're going to win. They're ready to try anything to beat the Reyll." Jinx became calmer as she spoke. Peter's hand stopped shaking, but the anger in his eyes was clear to see. "Right now, they're trying an experiment -- they've found a way to boost the powers of marginal super-beings to god-like levels by tapping in to our mythology. They're trying to turn our culture and history into a weapon--"

"So it's OK to murder someone who never did you any harm." His voice was low and steady; the mockery was delivered deadpan. "Because of some stupid conspiracy."

"She was a copy of me, turned into a leash for you. It's nice to have moral certainties, but you have to know what's going on before you apply them. And you don't, Peter."

Arsenal sank his head, and Jinx continued talking.

"You're not like your team-mates. There are a lot of people like us -- the really powerful super-beings. The walking weapons of mass destruction. Sooner or later, they're going to use that potential -- and if you don't help me, they're going to twist you around into some kind of sick parody of an old poem because they think that will remind the Reyll of bad memories."

She touched his arm, and Peter looked up. His eyes were filled with skepticism. She kept talking.

"They're pushing OptCond real hard. They have this model of the mind, and it's simple-minded and wrong, but it kind of works. For them, a bad memory isn't something you learn from -- it's like a flaw in a diamond. A weak spot to be exploited."

"Who?" He sounded scared.

"The Grays. Corporate military intelligence. They aren't smart enough to know why that won't work, and they're not dumb enough to be afraid. But they have to do something to convince their bosses that we're going to win."

He sank his head again. "Why did you have to kill her?"

She touched his shoulder. "She wasn't real."

"I know. I knew." Peter looked ashamed.

"She was there to manipulate you. It's all about control. She was a terminal they could use to feed you instructions." Jinx tried to comfort him. "If you don't help me now, it's just going to get worse. One way or another, they're going to make us fight for them -- but if you don't help me now, you'll be fighting them as a brainwashed slave instead of a free man. Do you understand?"

He looked at her intently for a few seconds.

"I understand. And I believe you."

An announcement came over the intercom.

"ALL HANDS ON DECK. BATTLE STATIONS."