She had no idea, but the term seemed ominous and frightening. She looked back down at her hands to avoid looking at his face. There was something absolutely terrifying about his visage now. “You can’t do this, Ben.”
He snorted. “Those who have flight training can absolutely fly that ship. Once we have a ship, we can get there. Once we get there, we can take it over. It will be ours. You would do well to remember who I am in this new world that we have here, Jenny. You would do well to remember that I am now a master of everything that I see. These people, they follow me. They believe in me.”
Oh, God. He really was power-hungry. Not just that though: he was drunk on power. Whatever power he had been given, he had probably won it by force. She had seen for herself that he was willing to murder. She knew from the stories that she had heard about the Rovers that they had started off picking off the weakest and sickest. That they had plundered and looted every building that they could regardless of whether or not that meant killing those who had taken shelter within it. They had built their pack by demanding that people either join or die.
She did not know what to say or if there even was anything to say. She stayed silent. Ben began to pace back and forth, his booted feet echoing on the cold floor. He said, “This planet is a mess. It’s ruined and not any good anyway. I hear that you have been living on a planet in such splendor while we’ve been down here struggling just to eat. It will give us everything we ever needed and dreamed of. We can live there and feast every single day. We can have clean water whenever we want it.
“I could charge a great deal of money to people who wanted to come there. They would have to pay a heavy and high entrance tax. They would gladly pay it to have such riches.”
Her heart froze. Not so long ago she had been thinking that the planet was safe from such things simply because it was so out of the way and so small, but it was clear that she had been mistaken. Would war come to that planet as well? Would there come a time when they would have to fight for their home?
Ben stopped pacing. “I just sent the ransom demand. It will take a couple of hours to get there because the city is in such chaos.”
She said, “What will you do with me?”
Ben said, “I told you already. I have not quite decided yet. I don’t know if you can be loyal to me. I demand complete loyalty from everyone who joins me. You may already be loyal to them. If that’s true then how can I trust you? What if I put you on the ship to go with us to that planet and you somehow signal them that we’re coming?”
She would. If she managed to get on that ship, if he and his despicable crew managed to take it, she would absolutely signal her home and tell the people there, the people that she loved, that they were about to be set upon by humans who were no better than feral dogs.
He said, “I have things to attend to. So I will see to you later. By then, I should’ve made my decision.”
He walked away and she sat there with her head lowered until she heard the clang of a door. Her head jerked up, and she gazed at the door at the far end of the room. She stood and managed to walk over to it. It was locked from the outside, and there was no way to open it. She tried a few times and then gave up. Maybe there was another way out.
She began to walk around the room, circling it, her eyes continually scanning the walls. They were wet with damp mold and slick as well. She drew her fingers back every time she touched the surface of those walls, an expression of disgust settling on her features.
The walls were airtight despite the mold. The door was locked. She had to find a way out, and she had to do it soon. Ben would likely kill her, either because Talon and Marik simply did not have the credits that Ben thought that they had, and could not deliver the ransom, or because he had decided that she could not be loyal.
She would never be loyal to him again. She had done that once. She had been loyal to him out of blindness and obedience. Out of ignorance of his true nature.
Her arms went around her middle, and she whispered, “Oh, Marik. I love you so much. I have to find a way back to you, even if it’s just to tell you with my dying breath that I love you.”
Despair threatened, but she thrust it back. She dug deep within herself, trying to find some reserve of courage and that determination that had surfaced earlier. It was still there, coalescing and hardening into something else. She was not going to die there, not if she could help it.
She needed a weapon.
She began to pace around the room again, her eyes examining the scant furnishings in the hope that something there would make a decent weapon. Despair swamped over her despite her best efforts to hold it back. What would she know about fashioning a weapon? Even if she found something, what would she do with it?
Those thoughts were still running around her head, circling endlessly and nagging at her when she spotted the small stand on which stood a short metal jar.
She went to it and lifted the jar experimentally. It was heavy and seemed to be of good quality. She had no doubt that it held little value as far as credits went, but at that moment, it was the only thing that had any kind of weight to it that she could find. Maybe she could hit him with it when he came back.
The time passed. Jenny had no idea how much. Time seemed to slow down and speed up all at the same time. She continued to pace, but slowly now. She paced merely to keep herself occupied but reminded herself continuously not to overexert herself. She would need her strength.
She sat down again eventually. Her head hurt, and there was a strange shoving sensation coming from somewhere within her brain. That sensation was so odd and the pain that came with it so present that she forgot all about her little metal jug as she curled up on her side with her knees to her chest and her eyes staring at the wall. What was that? Why did it hurt so much?
Her eyes closed and sickness exploded in her stomach. She tried to force her eyes back open, hoping that would dispel the illness that had somehow managed to worm its way into her entire body but it did no good. Her eyes stayed closed.
The memory came floating back in. Marik standing at the side of her bed saying, “I’m sorry, Jenny, but we have to do this.”
Being lifted, carried like a child through the hallways of the ship. The doors of the med-bay opening and closing again. The feel of a cold table on her back. Not being able to move. Marik saying to her, “It is okay. It’s a simple drug and it will wear off soon.”
Faces hovering all around her and staring down at her. Someone asking, “Marik, are you sure? If she is not a natural healer, this might kill her.”
Marik saying, “It’s a chance we have to take. I feel the risk is worth it.”
Her blood ran cold in her veins as she huddled more tightly within herself there at the moment. What had happened? Something had. That shoving sensation was back in the middle of her brain, and she could feel something cracking. Literally cracking. What was it? What was happening? What had happened?
The memory came back in again, drifting through the pain and stirring it to new heights.
