were even murdered. Other times they were left to starve without husbands to support them. Most women hold factory jobs or are whores. They take people from the poorest regions of society because we have no claim to fight back. They left my family to die.”
He’d started out composed, but by the end of his speech he’d grown tense, his voice rising. Not enough to shout, but he certainly hadn’t been quiet. He rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to rant. But the bottom line is they’re taking advantage of their power. They need to be stopped before they kill more people.”
“So you’d send everything into chaos because you dislike the government.”
He smirked. “Not chaos. We have a plan.”
“You know, you sound like those crazy genetically engineered armies. The ones that were messed up. They wanted to take over the government too. Look where it got them. Look where it got you.”
“We don’t plan to run the government. We have people loyal to us among the senate. Not everyone wants us killed.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now that shocks me.”
He gazed deep into her eyes like he was trying to read her, while revealing nothing of himself. “You don’t really want me dead. Or any of us. You think it’s as much of an injustice as keeping the genetically engineered in ghettos.”
“This is different. You’re ten times more of a threat than the Gens are. You have a brain rivaling a computer. You have reinforced skeletons. I’m sure you know your fair amount of government secrets, and you’re stealing their ships.”
“You still don’t think we should be stuck out here, rotting in space under threat of death if we’re caught. Admit it.”
She glared at him. She wasn’t going to say it. He was right of course. No one deserved this. But when they behaved as they were, who could blame the government for wanting them contained.
“Fine. Don’t say it, but I know you believe it. Your actions prove it.” He turned and stormed away from her. “Keep up, or I’ll assign you another guard and be done with you.”
She’d pissed him off. She couldn’t help it. She refused to insinuate that it was a good idea to overthrow the government. She didn’t agree with that. It would get many more people killed. He said they had friends in high places, but there was no way to ensure that their favored leader would get the position, and despite their belief that he or she was on their side, he probably couldn’t even get laws passed to save them.
She looked around the ship as she followed closely behind him. It all seemed so familiar. Like she’d been here before, or …
She stopped and her jaw dropped as she stared at the walls around her. There was only one ship this size that had been stolen in the past decade. “This is Vengeance!”
Galen turned around and smirked at her. “Yes, yes it is.”
She gaped at him. “But how? It was state of the art. Guarded by half the military and then there was its crew. How did you do this?”
“Well, with a whole strike force it would have been impossible, but with one man? It was easy to slip in unnoticed. I hid in the repair tunnels, and started wreaking havoc on their systems. It took me days, but I found environmental controls and alerted them that the ship was going to be flooded with neurotoxic gases. Everyone made a mad dash for the exits, when really all I did was hold my breath and slowly vent the atmosphere. I can hold my breath for twenty minutes. See, I’m still human. I didn’t even break any records. Then I released a life pod of people who didn’t quite make it out.”
He grinned. “It turned out that stealing it was the easy part. Piloting it with one person? Significantly harder. More than one system tends to require your attention at once, and multitasking can be dangerous while flying a ship alone.”
She shook her head. “But you made it.”
“That I did. I managed to use autopilot, which while not
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
John O'Riley
Brenda Sinclair
Christopher George
Stephen Lloyd Jones
Karl Iagnemma
Celya Bowers
Jill Gregory
Aria Cunningham