Andros didn’t have to wait long for his captors to return. By his estimation, it had only been a couple of hours since he had been on the bridge with Commander Varus. He was tense when they arrived and placed his customary restraints on him.

Despite his nervousness, he presented a calm exterior and followed them out. He had one guard leading and another following with a rifle pointed at his back. He had become used to the arrangement and swiftly ignored their presence. His mind was occupied with other things.

He was interested to see the hangar bay. The last time he had been bundled off of one of the Imperial transports, he had been blindfolded. He was interested if it resembled something like the docks from his own home, but his intranet link had been surprisingly mute on the structure. He guessed because the hangar bay held strategic significance that wouldn’t be in the Empire’s best interest for him to discover.

After taking a couple of hallways and a lift down, he finally found himself in the hangar bay proper. It was a cavernous chamber in the bowels of the ship. It opened up to the complete abyss of space. Since everyone on the deck looked alright, he assumed that the giant hole in the side of the ship was sealed by some form of barrier. After a few seconds, he saw the telltale shimmer that confirmed his theory. Dying in space wasn’t on his list of things to experience in the galaxy.

From what Andros had learned, being exposed to space was like drowning underwater except that it happened far more quickly. In less than fifteen seconds the average person would fall unconscious. In another four to six minutes, the person would die. Of course, that was only if the individual exhaled as soon as they were exposed. If they held their breath, their lungs would explode and they’d expire even faster.

He noticed on either side of the opening, there were colossal metal panels withdrawn and layered upon one another. He expected that they would close like sliding doors to seal off access to the hangar if under attack. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense to allow an enemy direct access to the interior of the ship. His mind was already calculating his chances if he were able to drop a group of raiders with advanced technology on a ship like the Expedition. With what he had seen so far in terms of internal security, he figured they would be able to do some serious damage.

On one side of the hangar, he saw six bulky transports. They crouched like fat seabirds on the ocean. He noticed cargo and personnel moving in and out of their open hatches. When he had been knocked unconscious by the Marine, he hadn’t seen the outside of them. He had only woken up inside one a few hours later when his body had recovered from the majority of the wounds it suffered. Judging by the size of them, he didn’t think they were capable of transporting the entire population of Aetolos. They would’ve had to make dozens of trips to accomplish that feat.

There must be more of them somewhere else.

On the other side of the hangar were twelve smaller craft. They were sleek in comparison to the other Imperial ships that he had observed. They looked more like blood-red hawks than the hulking transport craft. Even though the collection of ships were interesting, they weren’t what captivated Andros’ immediate attention.

In the center of the hangar, where he was being led, a smoke-colored ship with black accents of a size somewhere between the transports to his left and the fighters on his right was waiting. From his angle, the ship looked like a squared-off spade. There was a squarish protrusion that swept back from the center of the craft that gave it a more aerodynamic look. Muted white running lights ran the length of the ship and a dull hum could be heard emanating from the craft.

An access ramp was open and facing Andros’ direction. On either side, a dark-haired man and a blonde headed woman in garb similar to the Commander’s uniform waited. While the Commander’s attire was blue, these newcomers were dressed in all black with gold accents. On top of their uniform, they wore the customary personal control device that he was used to seeing, a breastplate with a knife horizontally attached like his escorts, and a pistol holstered on their thighs. They looked capable enough, but it seemed like their armament was a formality more than anything. They didn’t wear it with the ease that Andros had come to associate with his own shipboard guards.

The thought made him suspicious. Surely, they’re not handing me off to individuals who are even less armored than my current escorts.

Either Andros’ docile behavior during his incarceration had been enough for them to lower their guard, or he was walking into a trap. He sincerely hoped it was the former.

When they reached the ramp, both of his escorts halted in place and spread to either side of him. With synchronized movements, they placed their rifles parallel in front of their bodies. Andros was bewildered at the behavior, but there seemed to be some sort of ceremony taking place. The shadow-garbed newcomers placed their right hand over their hearts, then extended their arms parallel to the deck with their palms facing down, fingers pressed together. To Andros, they appeared to be performing some sort of salute. In his time on the ship, he hadn’t seen anyone salute. Even when he was meeting with the Commander, who probably should’ve merited one, didn’t go through the bizarre exchange. Andros was frustrated at all the things he didn’t know. It made planning anything exceedingly difficult.

At once, all four members dropped their salute, and then the man next to the ship addressed him.

“Mr. Aeton, come with me.”

Andros shrugged, this wasn’t the time or place to make a scene and it suited his purposes for the newcomers to be caught unaware. He tried to use his intranet link to learn more about them but he was surprised that it stayed completely silent. When he had used the link on others on the ship, it gave him a rank and organization. These individuals were completely blank.

The realization was a sudden one. Ah, they’re the spies.

He followed the male spy up the ramp while the woman followed close behind him. When they reached the top, Andros saw that it opened up into a chamber not dissimilar from the bridge where he had met Commander Varus. There were workstations with light screens along the outer hull of the ship while a double line of back-to-back seats running down the center. At the end of the room, there was a set of double doors that were shut and shielded. It was like the bridge that Varus had commanded.

That must be where the pilots sit, he mused.

He wasn’t given much time to observe as the man gestured for him to take a seat in the middle of the room. As Andros walked toward the indicated seat, he studied the group of men and women around him. Outside of his two guards, there were three other individuals in his immediate vicinity. They were spread around various work stations and were enthralled in whatever data they were looking at. He assumed that there were at least two more pilots in the area beyond the room. He noticed corridors that snaked beyond the open ramp. He couldn’t tell where they led but assumed there was a small cargo hold or perhaps crew quarters. If these ships stayed in space for long periods of time, it would make sense for there to be some sort of berthing for the crew.

So, six maybe seven total combatants. All are lightly armored and have inferior weapons, at least with the Imperial Marines and the navy personnel aboard the Expedition.

The Hodian raider was rather pleased with how this trip was turning out. He sat down in his chair and slumped as if he were defeated. He kept his head bowed and his eyes on the floor. He wanted the Imperials to think that there wasn’t any fight left in him. His two escorts took seats on either side of him and Andros felt, rather than heard, the access ramp closing.

The rumbling of the ship increased until he felt it in his chest and then a sense of weightlessness stole over him. Gravity quickly returned to normal and he didn’t have any sensation of movement within the cabin.

“How long will it take to reach Ceres,” he asked the man next to him. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see annoyance flash across the man’s features but Andros didn’t care.

His eyes unfocused in a manner that Andros had come to associate with someone consulting the intranet.

“About thirty minutes. This is just a short hop across Sol, and then you’ll be home.”

Andros was getting increasingly tired of the Imperials referring to everything as his home even though they had stolen him from his actual home. He kept the anger off of his face. He wanted them to believe that he wasn’t a threat.

In reality, he didn’t have much time to enact his plan. He wanted to set a countdown on his intranet, but he was afraid his captors would be able to see the countdown and be suspicious of its purpose. Instead, he began to count the seconds in his mind. It wouldn’t be completely accurate, but he wanted to be far enough away from the Expedition that they wouldn’t be able to immediately come to his victim’s aid.

So, he waited patiently for the appropriate time. The man next to him had already leaned back in his seat and thrown an arm over the seat next to him. The woman was browsing something on her intranet link and also suitably distracted.

When the moment arrived, Andros stilled himself. His next actions would need to be explosive, violent, and utterly surprising. He marked the locations of the other three enemies in the room. They were all still completely engrossed with whatever they were examining on their terminals. They weren’t even wearing the same armor and weaponry as his escorts. That would be a deadly mistake.

He reached over to the woman with all the speed he could muster and drew the knife from the sheathe at her chest, she didn’t have time to cry out in alarm before Andros had plunged the blade into the armpit of the man next to him. Blood spilled out of the wound and stained his hands crimson.

He shouldn’t have put his arm over the edge of the chair.

Step one having been completed, Andros moved through the rest of his plan with machine-like precision. He left the knife sheathed in the man’s flesh—it would take too long to draw—and grabbed the man’s knife horizontally sheathed at his chest. It was sheer luck that the handles of both knives had been angled in his direction. He thought he still could have managed the attack, but it would’ve been more difficult and cost him precious seconds.

The woman was already screaming and moving to draw her pistol when he had the second knife. Its blade went into her throat and her screaming cut off as she choked on her own blood. Her life force splattered his face and painted him like a monster. Instead of letting go of the knife this time, he pulled it out of her neck and clutched it to his chest.

A rapid look around the cabin showed the other crew members backing away from him and turning toward the front of the cabin. They didn’t look like they were fleeing away from something, they were running toward something. Andros figured there was a weapon cabinet on board. He rushed the nearest crew member, a slight man with a shock of reddish-brown hair. His eyes went wide as Andros stabbed the knifepoint down behind his collarbone.

At this point, the other two had reached the front of the cabin and were drawing pistols from a locker set into the bulkhead. Andros left the knife in his victim, and then picked him up by his uniform. Red bursts of directed energy punched into the man as Andros used him as a human shield. He took the few paces it took to close the distance and then used his prodigious strength to throw the man at his compatriots. All three went down in a tumble of arms and legs, and Andros moved forward to capitalize on his advantage.

The closest crew member still alive was a woman with black hair. Her dark brown eyes, widened in fear and she screamed as Andros smashed his fists into her skull. In only three punches, he felt an eye pop and her skull fracture. Her wailing was music to his ears as he smashed her face beyond all recognition. Her legs and arms kicked out as her body realized it was dying.

He picked up a discarded pistol and used it to blast the last remaining crew member. These weapons were from the locker and hadn’t been locked to the person using them. This wouldn’t be a repeat of his ambush on Hod. These weapons were set to kill rather than stun. He had learned far more than the Empire realized since then.

When the last man died, Andros roared in adrenaline-fueled victory. He had been biding his time until this moment, and he wouldn’t let a single thing stop him. He rode the high of his victory until he realized that he still had more work to do. He needed to get to the pilots so that he could threaten them into taking him to Ganymede. Andros desperately wanted to get back to his family and his people. He wouldn’t let the Empire take them like they had seized his world.

As he studied the still-sealed cabin, he wondered how to get in and disable the pilots. First I need to get rid of these shackles, he thought as he glared at his wrists. He returned to the scene of his initial murder and pressed a few buttons on the personal control device of the man. Within a few seconds, he found the toggle for his shackles on the small widescreen and released their magnetic locks. Another button later, and they separated and fell from his wrist entirely. He rubbed his wrists while looking at the sealed cabin.

He doubted any of the crew members would have access. If he wanted to get in, he would need to power his way through. That suited him just fine. After a week and a half of captivity, he was ready to bring pain to the Empire.

He knew he needed to act fast, but he quickly removed and donned the breastplate of his first victim. He had already discovered that when facing the Empire, it was better to be prepared than hasty. His ramshackle armor on Hod had likely saved his life and allowed him to cause the havoc that he had. At first, it fit uncomfortable over his considerable bulk but after a few moments, he felt the armor shift until it fit him perfectly. After that, he stripped the man of his holster, strapped it over his orange biosuit, and attached his stolen pistol.

Armed and ready, he made his way toward the bow of the ship and unceremoniously tossed the corpses of the other crew members out of his way. Once the path was clear, he studied the area around the set of doors. With a snarl, he hurled his fist at the shield and it sparked when he made contact. He was reminded of the shielding around the Imperial Marines. He hadn’t been able to break it at first, but enough energy could cause it to fail.

At first, striking a shield hurt by delivering a powerful shock to the one who struck it. However, Andros had been punching the shield that sealed his cell every day the entire week he had been in the brig.

After the first day, it had stopped being painful. The following days, he noticed that the shield had to draw more power to keep its integrity. After a few hours, it would start to noticeably destabilize. Andros hoped that whatever powered the shield on the Expedition was a lot more powerful than whatever fueled this one.

After a few seconds of raining blows on the shield, a voice issued from a speaker nearby.

“Stop what you’re doing. If you don’t stop now, you’ll be killed when we arrive on Ceres.”

Andros ignored the voice. He didn’t have time to be distracted. He also knew that if he stopped pummeling the shield, it would quickly regenerate. His goal was the small access panel on the door protected by the shield. He hoped that if he destroyed the panel, it would force the doors open. He was confident he could take down the shield with his bare fists, he didn’t have the same confidence when it came to the titanium alloy doors. He was a man, not a god.

After another minute passed, Andros was starting to sweat. He was punching the shield with all of his strength and it was finally starting to fail. The normally smooth light had rippled and become distorted.

He groaned and then released another rapid volley of strikes. He punched it with all the frenzy of a dying man and he was rewarded for his efforts. When the shield disintegrated, Andros knew that he didn’t have much time to capitalize. He drew the pistol from his thigh and released a series of point-blank shots into the control panel. Smoke began to drift from it that turned into a full-fledged fire as the sensitive machinery was abused over and over.

He heard the doors begin to slide open and he raised his pistol preparing to fire. When the door was only open for the length of a thumb, he was met with the barrel of another gun leveled at his chest.

He stared dumbly as the end of the barrel lit up with red light. Three shots impacted his chest and he was thrown backward from his feet. He landed roughly and barely held onto his weapon. He could smell the burning of his flesh and felt as if his entire existence was on fire. He tried to narrow his scope and ignore the debilitating pain.

One of the pilots stalked toward him with her eyes intent on his fallen frame. He looked directly into her eyes as he fired the pistol at her. One-shot caught her in the arm and threw off her aim as another projectile aimed at his face was redirected. His second shot missed entirely, but his third caught her in the throat. Her face was stunned as the cauterized ruin of her throat caused her to choke and drop to the deck.

Andros refused to look down at his chest, fearing the same kind of wound, and got to his feet painfully. He held the pistol out in front of him as he used the bulkhead for support. His thoughts grew hazy as he felt his life force draining from the wreckage that was his ribcage. He didn’t know how he was alive, but he didn’t care. He had one mission and one mission only: he had to get to Ganymede.

He reached the precipice between the cabin he was in and the cockpit beyond. He noticed a series of terminals laid out in front of him and a view screen with a small gray planet displayed. They were steadily drawn closer and Andros couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

Please, don’t tell me there was only one pilot.

He entered the cabin fully and turned to look for another pilot. The man was waiting for him. Before Andros could fire his pistol, the pilot had shot him three times point-blank in the head. Andros slid to the ground, stunned and dying, but still very much alive.

The pilot stepped over Andros’ unconscious body and his face turned pale at the path of gore and destruction that the Hodesian had painted across the cabin. The brutality was so immense that blood coated almost every surface of the room, it was the thoroughness of a beast, not a man. Before the sight, he couldn’t help but shiver as a brutal chill shot up his spine. This had been a routine transport mission. It shouldn’t have ended like this! He thought, hands shaking as he stepped forward, his foot nearly slipping in the still running blood.

He looked down at the unconscious man on the deck of his ship. His chest was a mess of ruined flesh and bone. If he didn’t act fast, the man would bleed out and die. If that happened, it would be better for the pilot to die alongside him. The Director didn’t take mistakes from his agents well. He gingerly stepped over the man and reached for the medkit at the bottom of the weapons locker.

Hopefully, he would last until they touched down on Ceres.