Peace Army (11 page)

Titan remembered the reason for his presence on the alien ship. He was on a volunteer suicide mission. Somehow, he didn’t think the man seated in front of him would have volunteered for the assignment—not that it mattered now.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Gee. Gee Jones.” The man kept his eyes closed, but his voice did not waver. “I’m an engineer. I’ve been on this ship since the Minith arrived.”

“Well, Gee Jones, I’m Titan. We’ve got a long trip ahead, and we need to get this place cleaned up.”

Gee’s eyes snapped open. Titan saw the fear in the other’s look and shook his head.

“Don’t worry about them.” He waved at the half-dozen alien bodies surrounding them. “They’re already dead.”

* * *

It took them more than three hours to remove the bodies and clean up the mess that Grant and his team left. While Titan did most of the work, Gee helped by pointing out the locations of cleaning supplies and the ship’s disposal compartment. After receiving assurance from Gee that there would be no harm to the ship, Titan dumped the alien bodies into the disposal unit and walked away, pleased to be done with the leathered carcasses.

As they worked, Titan filled Gee in on how he had first met the ancient soldier called Grant Justice. Without telling the engineer what awaited them at the end of their journey, he explained how he had come to be on the ship.

In turn, Gee told the large Violent his own story and what he had learned about the ship during his twelve years aboard the vessel.

One of the most surprising items Titan learned was that the aliens knew very little about the mothership they possessed. The Minith flew the ships, but very few of them knew how they worked. According to the Minith mentor who trained Gee, the ship, and a dozen others just like it, had actually been stolen from another race the Minith had defeated and enslaved.

Apparently, the greenish, bat-looking aliens were very good at taking things from others, but not so good at building things themselves, or keeping the high-tech items they stole in good working order.

As Gee spoke, Titan started forming a plan. He thought it was a good time to tell Gee what waited for them at the end of the journey.

“So, Gee,” Titan began, “what do you know about the bomb the Minith have on the ship?”

“The… the bomb?”

Chapter 14

“Who is that?” Titan interrupted Gee as he was explaining what he knew about the device the Minith kept on every mothership in their fleet.

“Who?”

Titan pointed to the video screen he had used to watch Gee earlier.

The screen clearly showed two humans, a man and a woman, walking slowly along one of the corridors of the ship. The man walked with his right hand dragging along the wall; the woman had her hand on the man’s right shoulder. In the rush to evacuate, more of the former captives had obviously been missed.

“Oh. The man is Derk. The woman is his partner, Ceeray. They are interpreters for the Minith.”

“Like Avery?” Titan asked.

Gee gasped. “You know Avery?”

“Yeah. Grant took her from the ship a while back.”

“Ah. We were wondering what happened to her. She was well liked by everyone,” Gee explained. “When she disappeared… well… we believed the worst.” It was clear to Titan what “the worst” meant—that the Minith had gotten rid of her. It was well known that humans who entered the ship never left it. At least, not alive.

“She’s fine.” Titan pointed to the screen. “Shall we get them?”

“Yes, let’s.” Gee hopped from his chair—a clean, dry one. He nodded toward the screens on the walls. “I’m surprised these are on.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“In the twelve years I have been on the ship, I never saw the Minith use them.” Gee cocked his head sideways, lifted his thumb to his mouth, and gnawed at the nail. His lips pursed and the space between his eyebrows shrank. The engineer’s mental gears were obviously turning. Titan also noticed that the man’s fingernails were, without exception, chewed to the quick.

“Well, they came on by themselves when the ship lifted from Earth.”

“Hmmm. Probably an automated function of the ship,” Gee replied absently as his teeth gnawed the abused appendage. “Amazing.”

“If you say so. Shall we go find our shipmates now?”

Gee spat out a small piece of nail.

“Certainly,” he agreed. Without preamble, he set off to find the two interpreters.

* * *

Derk and Ceeray were ecstatic when Titan and Gee let them know there were no Minith on board. They were less than enthused when they learned that the ship was headed toward the aliens’ home for the sole purpose of destroying the planet. Although the idea of delivering the explosive device to the Minith was distasteful, the fact that they were in the presence of the Violent known as Titan seemed to upset Derk more than anything.

Upon hearing Titan’s name, he gasped, stumbled backward, and began chanting a Peace verse. Without appearing to know what caused his reaction, Gee and Ceeray reacted immediately to help placate the distressed man. Gee whispered his own Peace mantra, intertwining his verses expertly with the ones whispered by Derk. Ceeray held her partner’s left hand, stroked his back affectionately, and made soft, cooing noises in his ear.

Titan surmised that Ceeray, like Gee, had already been a captive on the ship when Titan had become worldwide news. Apparently Derk, on the other hand, knew exactly who he was.

Disgust, exasperation, and anger fought for dominance over Titan’s emotions as the dramatic show continued. Fortunately, a lifetime of practice made him an expert at masking those feelings. It wasn’t the first time his name had caused such a reaction, and he knew the best thing he could do was to appear patient and calm, but after a few minutes, he’d had enough.

“Are you finished now?”

The question set off a new round of whimpering. Titan merely shook his head, turned on his heel, and headed back to the command center. The other three could work out their issues and come find him when they were ready. Or not.

Twenty minutes later, he saw them approaching on the video screen. He turned to face the door as they entered.

Gee did not look at Titan when the trio entered the room. Instead, he looked at the floor. Titan understood that Derk had filled the other two in on his history and knew that the dynamic between him and the engineer had changed. It was unfortunate, but it was what it was, he supposed. Unless they could figure out a way to destroy Minith without killing themselves, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

“Not that it matters,” Titan addressed the three former captives, “but I didn’t do what everyone thinks I did.”

“What…what did you do?” Gee looked at Titan for the first time since entering the room.

Titan sighed and pointed to several of the newly cleaned chairs. He waited as Gee led Ceeray and Derk to two seats, then took one himself. He gathered his thoughts and began.

“Okay, this is the only time I am going to talk about this. Ever.” Gee nodded in understanding.

“I know what they say. ‘Titan killed dozens of people.’ ‘Titan is a crazy Violent who cannot contain his anger and aggression.’ ‘Titan murdered his family and friends.’ Am I right?”

Gee looked toward Derk, who was nodding slowly. Both Derk and Ceeray appeared ill, apparently at the thought of such actions. Neither of them spoke, though.

“Never happened. Any of it.” Titan watched as all three perked up and gave him their complete attention.

“Oh, I was violent. That’s true. Most of my life, from the time I was a young child until they tossed me into Violent’s Prison, I fought when I thought fighting was necessary. And I don’t regret any of it.

“But outside of prison, I never killed anyone, especially not my family. They are all alive and doing well, I suppose. At least, they were the last time I saw them, eight years ago.”

The acknowledgment that he had killed inside the prison did not seem to bother Gee or the two interpreters. That discovery surprised Titan. He had often wondered how those outside Violent’s Prison felt about the men, women, and children who lived inside its massive walls. Now, he thought he knew. As long as the violence was kept within the walls of that poisonous palace, what went on inside the prison did not matter to society. He felt sadness at the thought; wondered how those he had left would be treated by society now that the Minith had been banished. He hoped Grant would be able to keep his promises about their treatment.

Titan was no longer leader of the prison, but he still felt responsibility and fondness for the inmates. They were his people, more than anyone else on Earth. And his actions on this ship were as much for their well-being as for the rest of humanity.

Titan pushed on with his story.

“I had my first psych-retraining when I was five.”

Ceeray gasped at the revelation. Gee and Derk shook their heads in what looked like sympathy. He wasn’t sure.

Most of those who underwent the procedure for the first time were teenagers. Their hormones were almost always the cause of whatever violent outbursts required the mental re-training.

“By the time I was eighteen, I had been referred to re-training more than a dozen times.”

Ceeray put her hands over her mouth. Derk hung his head and Gee looked on in shock. All of them knew the statistics. One procedure was effective enough to re-train 95% of violent teens. Few ever needed a second or a third procedure. The process was excruciatingly painful and highly efficient.

“By my eighteenth birthday, my parents knew it was only a matter of time before I would be sent to Violent’s Prison. The law states that anyone over eighteen who cannot be rehabilitated after three procedures has to be imprisoned.

“So they planned a party. Can you believe it?

“It was as much a going-away party as it was a celebration of my adulthood. We all knew it, but we didn’t think it would mark the occasion of my final outburst. We thought we’d have more time together.

“What we did not know was that the Minith would visit the fields outside our village that day. Or that they would kill my brother as he was gathering apples for the celebration.”

Titan’s voice grew low. The sadness was evident, but he managed to hide his anger from the others as they listened to his story.

“He knew how much I loved apples.”

Titan paused.

Took a breath.

Continued.

“When the first survivors reached us, the Minith were still there—killing anyone they found. Man, woman, young or old, they didn’t care. It was a sport for them. They were killing people who couldn’t or wouldn’t fight back. And they were doing it for fun.

“So I set out for the fields.”

Titan looked directly into Gee’s eyes. He wanted the engineer to understand that he would not be counted among those who could not fight back and that he would not apologize for his feelings.

“My father, my uncles, my mother—they asked me to be at Peace. They knew what would happen to the town if I made it to that field. But I wouldn’t listen.

“It took most of the town to do it, but they stopped me. Turned me in to the Peace Council authorities for the final time. I was eighteen then, so I got no more chances.

“I lost my brother and my freedom on the same day.”

Gee, Ceeray, and Derk sat quietly. Ceeray rocked back and forth in her seat. Titan noticed wet tracks running down her cheeks. Derk seemed to shake off the fear that had surrounded him since hearing Titan’s name in the corridor.

“So, that’s why you agreed to fly the mothership to Minith? Revenge?” Gee questioned.

“Ha!” Titan snorted. He shook his head and laughed. His hand still hurt from clobbering Grant, but he had kept his promise to Avery to protect the soldier.

“No. Not really. It was more like a compulsive decision than anything else. If I had stopped to think about it for longer than a half second, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

Chapter 15

The four fell into a rhythm as they hurtled through space. Titan spent most of his time exploring. Aided by Derk and Ceeray, Gee spent most of his time studying the engines and the systems that controlled their passage through space. His previous duties aboard the ship had rarely involved the flight systems—they had never been needed, and Tlak had offered only cursory overviews.

Even after two weeks, Gee understood little about faster-than-light travel. The technology that ran the engines was as much a mystery to him as they seemed to the Minith.

Gee wondered what had become of the builders and original owners of the mothership. Tlak had mentioned that they were from a planet called Waa, but he had never discussed them beyond that. Perhaps the Minith had wiped them out. More likely, they kept them in chains. It seemed the Minith way.

Although the drive systems remained a mystery, Gee made good progress unraveling the control and guidance systems. They were still two months out from their destination, but he was confident that within the next few days, he could take full control of the ship.

The question was: where would he take it?

Minith? Or somewhere else?

Gee was torn. For the sake of his race and his planet, the mothership had to reach the alien planet and do its intended work. On the other hand, the thought of dying in the blast was not pleasant, to say the least.

The last dozen years had shown him that Peace was possible, but only when all parties agreed to the principle. As the Minith had proven, when one entity did not subscribe to the ideals required for Peace, the concept could be a fragile house of cards, ready to tumble with the least gust of wind. And the Minith were a hurricane of wind.

Titan had offered the idea of destroying the planet and saving themselves at the same time. Gee like the idea; thought it was possible. First, he had to gain control of the ship. Then he could focus on the next step of the puzzle.

Gee was a ball of concentration and worry as he worked out the problem. He had a good reason for his efforts.

Self-preservation is a highly effective motivator.