“When I was on my home world, I found a pebafri with two broken legs tangled in a bramble. A group of freio had driven the pebafri’s group hard, hoping for a meal, and the animal was suffering. An anelace is a ceremonial weapon intended to end the life of an animal when continuing life is too painful.”
Dante straightened and studied the weapon with a new eye before he held it out toward Regi, handle first. “Did I break a taboo by using it against that asshole?”
“No,” Regi said. “In fact, you used it properly. The Styl was dying, but my shot would have caused him to bleed to death slowly. You offered a quick death when death was inevitable.”
Dante snorted. “Yeah, that was not my main goal.” He ran his fingers through the short fur on his head. “I hated him. I really hated him. But I’ve never killed a person before.”
“Ah.” Regi understood. No matter how much one wished for the death of another, taking a life was difficult. Regi’s people believed that every ending was a beginning, which is why the Lady Divashi was goddess of both poisons and new beginnings. Death was a journey, not an ending. And despite that, Regi had struggled with the finality of killing the first time life had required him to make the same choice. “When I was young, I was determined to be a devotee of Gavd, and I imagined killing those who broke our laws and preyed on the weak. When I joined the Coalition and killed a thinking creature, the sensation was not as I had expected.”
“No.” Dante huffed. “No, it really isn’t.” Clearly Dante was not one who would follow Retav, the lord of retribution. Some of the unease Regi had felt since seeing Dante wield the weapon evaporated like morning mist. “So, what now?” Dante angled his body toward Regi.
Regi found himself without words. He slid the anelace back into its scabbard and tried to find words of comfort that did not exist in his brain.
Dante whispered, “I hope your people have morphine.”
“I do not know the word.”
“Painkillers,” Dante clarified. “I hope Bevti has really good painkillers. I don’t want to die in pain.” He shivered.
“You will not. Bevti has many medicines for pain, and she will use as many as you need.” And if she stinted by even one gram, Regi would call on every cold weather god he could remember to curse her. They could send her into her next life carrying Regi’s condemnation on her soul if she made Dante suffer.
Dante nodded slowly. And then they stood with the whispers and thumps of the engine filling the space. Regi wondered what death would be like. The gods supposedly came for a person’s soul, but he had not seen the evidence for that, so Regi worried a bit. Besides, as a devotee of Poque, her blessings after death might lead to an eternity of wandering. As a young man, he had considered that possibility with excitement. As he got older, he preferred some stability. He hated transferring ships at this point, even when he landed on one such as this where the crew was complaisant and bored. Usually bored. There had been a dearth of that particular condition in the last few days.
But it was too late to transfer his allegiance. He was Poque’s, and soon he would follow her on a new journey.
A louder clanking interrupted their silent companionship as several members of the security crew appeared in radiation suits, weapons drawn and on guard against enemies. After two years of drilling the security crew, this disaster had finally instilled the discipline Regi had failed to impart. Regi pulled his thoughts away from the morbid reality of his near future and focused on the present. He faced the security crew he had trained and he tried to offer them some reassurance. “The pirate is dead, we need a radiation transport in here. We’re too radioactive to touch the decking.”
A figure stepped forward. “Regi.” Even through the suit speaker, Vk sounded horrified.
Regi shrugged. His second was competent, and she would protect the crew well. “The pirate had propped the door open. He was trying to kill everyone. I couldn’t have that.”
“We would have been in danger, but not like this,” Vk said. She reached out her hand before withdrawing it. Even with the suit, there was danger in physical contact. Regi retreated to save her from that temptation.
Dante moved to Regi’s side. “Our choice,” he said firmly. “So, what now?”
Vk turned to one of the others. “Get Bevti. Get the radiation transport. Now.”
The other security officer turned and rushed away—or at least he shuffled quickly, which was the extent of movement allowed by the heavy suits.
“Vk, I need to make a final report. Activate your external recording,” Regi said. No doubt the Coalition would find evidence on the ship to implicate others, and Regi hoped to give them the details required to convict any pirates found in other parts of Coalition space. He looked at Vk’s camera and covered every detail he’d found during the investigation.
When he was done, Regi turned toward the huuman. “This is your chance to make sure that any pirates are criminally prosecuted.” Regi didn’t add that neither of them would survive to speak at any legal hearings, but he had known Dante long enough now that he trusted him to be intelligent enough to understand the subtext.
After a single nod, Dante gave his report. Regi’s description had taken four times longer than Dante’s simple explanation that he had been knocked unconscious during the night before awakening on the ship. He offered almost no details other than physical descriptions of the pirates who forced him to work on the ship, and even those details lacked any emotion.
“Do either of you have any personal messages?” Vk asked after Dante fell silent.
Regi thought of his parents. When he’d last seen his mother, she’d been silent as a stone and stiff with anger. His da-father’s gaze had flitted between family members as though he could not decide who to blame and who to comfort and his di-father had stood with his arms crossed, angry at the world. Regi had escaped his world, but in doing so, he had damaged his family. “I exiled myself, and that will be the end of it for my parents,” Regi said. He had no idea if the Empire would even learn of his death. “Dante, if you want to leave a message, the Coalition will pass it along when they find your planets.”
Dante shook his head. “I figure my sisters have already had a funeral for me, and there’s no one else to mourn. They don’t need that old grief dragged back up.”
“Don’t you have anyone who would miss you?” Vk asked. She wasn’t the most sympathetic soul, but she sounded genuinely distressed.
“Marengo,” Dante said in a wistful tone. “That old horse is something. He loves people and dogs, but let another horse get near him, and he’ll bite its nose off. He has a real hate for his own kind. And I hope Blue found a good home. She’s a great dog. But the fact is, neither of my animals is going to shed a tear, although I do like to think that they’d be glad to see me if I’d ever managed to get back home.” With that, Dante fell silent.
Regi wanted to offer some comfort. He understood what it meant to have no one waiting for his return. However, he had no words to offer. With Vk’s camera still recording, the most Regi could offer was the privacy of silence. The sounds of the engines surrounded them until two figures in radiation suits pushed a heavily shielded anti-grav sled into the area. Hoping to show Dante how safe this procedure was, Regi slid into the containment unit. Once the lid closed, soft blue light bathed him, and Regi closed his eyes. He didn’t realize the unit was delivering sedatives until his eyes drifted closed. That wasn’t how Regi wanted to spend the last minutes of his life, but he didn’t have time to protest before he lost consciousness.
