NR Ch 7: Sneak

1900 hours on the dot, the sergeant said. Patrick Bradshaw was in the hangar at 1850 just to be sure, explaining that his presence was allowed to all of the security guards and their shock batons. Players were never allowed out of their prescribed areas in this hellhole. The first time one of Patrick's teammates tried to slip out of their barracks and explore, the poor bastard got fried by one of those shock batons. They were allegedly stun weapons, but everybody here knew that those damn rent-a-cops tuned them high enough to kill.

It figured that the security officers would miss the scheduled launch. They maintained control over the Crown League through brute force, not some kind of tactical genius. The players mastered operating on a rigid schedule years ago, their very existence regimented under threat of death. Surely the security team were just as replaceable as the players were.

Patrick leaned against a sleek black transport ship, the dim lights in the hangar vanishing into its hull. It looked more expensive than everything else on this base put together. It made sense that they had the cash to invest in fancy-pants interstellar travel now that they didn't have to pay the athletes anymore. Slave labor was quite the money-saver, turns out.

Finally at 1935, the sergeant and his five cohorts stumbled into the hangar. Had they been drinking? Patrick wanted to scream. He would kill for a good buzz right now. Of course such things were denied to the players. Management claimed it would "negatively impact their performance," but Patrick figured that murdering his teammates and enslaving him affected his performance a great deal more.

He fought not to give the sergeant the stink eye. This was a good thing, Patrick reasoned. If these pricks were drunk and distracted, it would be much easier for him to find a way to contact the Affini. It wouldn't be much longer. Either this would work, and he would escape into the blissful confines of life as an owned pet, or they would catch him and throw him into space. One way or another, he would never come back to this godforsaken rock.

"Good evening, Sergeant," Patrick said, standing bolt upright and saluting. He felt ridiculous, but kowtowing to this blowhard seemed a promising route. "Are we ready to depart? Are there any tasks you need me to perform before takeoff?"

"Calm the fuck down, Bradshaw," the sergeant slurred. "Get on the damn ship, Cutler will give you your responsibilities there."

"I will?" Another one of the armored officers said, his voice even more thick with alcohol than the sergeant. "The fuck even are his responsibilities."

The sergeant's nametag fell off of his vest and he swore as he bent down to pick it up. Patrick looked down at him with disdain. This was the force that had evaded the Affini Compact for three years? Maybe the administrators were smarter than their grunts, these fools could barely outsmart the door to the ship.

The sergeant stood, securing the placard back on his chest with his chewing gum. Patrick squinted, reading the name "Kiper" on the cheap, flaking piece of golden plastic. He'd been too disgusted to read it earlier after the bastard's squad threw Jordan out of an airlock. He smiled when he watched, too. Maybe he'd get lucky and Kiper would die in the crossfire when the Affini came to take the ship.

"Whatever Bosa's responsibilities were, just pass 'em along," Kiper grumbled. "It's a fuckin' kill mission, he shouldn't have to do too much but point and shoot."

Sergeant Kiper stumbled onto the ship, mumbling about a headache. Patrick wondered if these men were reckless or just fools. They were going into Affini space on a kill mission like this? To take down citizens of the empire that crushed the Terran military like bugs? He followed along behind them, hoping that at least the pilot was sober.

He glanced into the cockpit to see that the man flying the ship was mercifully not one of the uniformed rent-a-cops. He did shoot Patrick a scowl, and he wondered what he had ever done to invite the scorn of all of these people. Scorn was part of the job of a professional athlete; back on Terra he couldn't stop himself from wasting nights scrolling through hateful online posts directed at him. But that was quite different to dealing with the hatred of a person who could kill him and face no consequences.

"Bradshaw! Get your pansy ass over here," Cutler barked. Patrick ground his teeth, he wanted nothing more than to show this jackass who the real pansy was here. "Gotta show you the comms panel, it's your station."

All of the distaste was instantly forgotten. Communications panel? Was he lucky enough that they were going to sit him in the exact spot he needed to escape the last of the Accord forever?

Apparently so. Cutler didn't seem to have the first clue how it worked, but he had his deceased comrade's credentials to log into the terminal. He slurred his way through a half-hearted explanation of Patrick's duties on the mission.

"You're gonna watch the monitor and keep an eye out for location pings," Cutler said, reaching into his hip pack and pulling out a flask. "The ship's gotta stay cloaked, so you're also gonna send out dummy signals to bounce off anything you see. Planets, moons, other ships, it throws 'em off our scent. Think you can manage that, jock?"

"I'll do my best, Sir," Patrick said in his best impression of an earnest tone. Cutler nodded, grunted, and took another slug of liquor from his flask.

"Good," he said. "We should be getting in without detection from the weeds, but we'll be in real-speed flight for a while so they can't see us on scans. Once we're on the planet, all we gotta do is open fire on the thieves and then we'll head on back."

"Sounds simple enough," Patrick said. "What's this big red button do?"

Cutler laughed. "Distress signal," he said. "Don't hit that shit. Not unless you wanna end up with a fuckin' worm growing on your spine!"

He slapped Patrick on the back, and the green-eyed boy realized he should be laughing too. His blood froze for a moment there. But Cutler didn't suspect him of anything, he was too drunk and likely too dim. He walked off, telling his squadmates about the "great fuckin' joke!" he just told.

Patrick looked at the red button. Clearly, that would be the most obvious way out. It would also probably light up every monitor on the ship with the fact that he hit it, which would get a pulse rifle fired into his temple. That wouldn't do at all. He'd have to be more subtle about it.

"Strap in for takeoff," the pliot's voice said over the intercom. Patrick complied, while also unhooking the pulse rifle strapped to the wall and inspecting it. He'd never seen one capable of live fire. All of the Crown League academy students learned how to handle guns in case of emergency, but this one was different. It was much heavier, and it hummed with a dangerous energy. The power cells in these things were notoriously unstable at high settings, but no portable weapon could kill quite like one of these.

Jordan Cato flashed across Patrick's mind again, and his face fell. He was the best shot on the team, always had been. They maybe could've helped the Accord with the war if the damn league had just released them from their contracts. But no, apparently the quadrillionaires who owned the teams cared more about adding a few more credits to their hoards than preserving the society they lived in.

He was happy he didn't watch Jordan die. He made that mistake once, the first time a teammate got spaced. Bo Adams didn't make it a month in their new home before he did something to piss off Cashman, Patrick couldn't even remember what it was. Defending Bo got him a brutal shock from his cage and a reminder that stepping a toe out of line was enough to get him spaced. He watched as Bo drifted through space, clutching at his throat and pleading for mercy to an uncaring god.

Maybe Jordan was right, and there was another side humans went to when they died. That was certainly a more comforting prospect than dying in a freezing vacuum and entering a void for the rest of time. If Patrick didn't play this right, he'd find out before the end of the night what happens to a human soul when its body loses its spark.

"Brace for jump," the pilot said. The whole ship hummed, and Patrick gritted his teeth. Jump drives were an adventure at the best of times. They allowed Terrans to cross into the age of spacefaring, certainly, but they also killed a good percentage of the people they tried to transport. Plus, he half-remembered an article saying something about jump drives driving up cancer rates.

Whatever. If this worked, he'd find his way to an Affini who could cure any disease in the universe. From what he heard, they could even do something about the niggling sense of wrongness that pervaded his entire body.

"Initializing," a computerized voice said on the intercom. Patrick squeezed his eyes shut, sending a silent prayer to the stars that the ship would survive the jump. He felt a percussive thump against his chest that forced the air from his lungs, and when he opened his eyes, the display on his screen looked completely different.

"Jump completed, t-minus two hours and five minutes until landing," the pilot said. "Commence usual duties."

Patrick cast a glance over to the main passenger area. The whole squad of pricks was there without a care in the world, passing three flasks around and getting even more drunk. He fought down his instinct to be annoyed, choosing to view this as a blessing. At this rate, he wouldn't have to worry about dealing with them at all. He would only have to tangle with the pilot and presumably an engineer. Jump drives were complex enough that every ship with one needed a dedicated crew member to operate them, as a pilot had enough to worry about without managing that.

He returned his gaze to the screen, taking stock of what he saw. As he understood it, his job now would mostly be confusing enemy scanners. He started with Cutler's suggestion and typed out a dummy signal to send to a nearby planet. The ship's array beamed out

That is certainly a conundrum. Please proceed with your job as assigned, darling. Raise no suspicion, give the engineer no cause to activate the units. I trust that given you are still communicating with me, your activities have not been detected?