The whole point of this chapter is appreciation for the scant few readers who've read this far and because with my hiatus looming near I don't want to disrespect those who do actually care. You see, just stopping or marking a book as 'hiatus' is insulting. It's like Royal Road's version of ghosting. It's downright rude.

So, this is an unfortunate, but temporary goodbye. Thank you again, to all who've shown interest in my work. I'll be back. I'm just not sure when that will be. I'm not going to put a deadline on myself.

In an effort to show my appreciation I'm going to post a little bit more of the actual book, since that's what you've come for.

}||”:::[O]

Surge broke through the delicate encasement. It took him ten minutes. He was thrilled to find the microchip intact. This wasn’t so much for the success of whatever mission they were on, which remained a trade secret. Rather, scratch Grant and Samson, he’d catch hell for the fuck up for no other reason than the chip was currently in his possession. Yet it was his holo-terminal that revealed this information. No one could tell by the naked eye. The chip was almost microscopic. It was as flat as an ancient sheet of paper and as wide as a sewing needle. It amazed the pirate something so small could hold so much information.

Surge feared for his life the moment he nearly dropped the chip. He never would’ve found it on the filthy chromide floor. The chip was the key to the mission. If lost, he’d be better off hollowing out his own head with a bullet. This much he knew, but the information inside the chip remained a mystery. He may never find out. The encryption code guarding the interior of the microchip stumped him and his terminal for hours on end. Their patience was surely running thin. Fuckers should’ve kept the breed alive.

Passwords were archaic. This was a random matrix of codes and sub-codes, which completely altered itself to a new matrix every five minutes. Surge believed there was a set pattern of about ten to twenty different matrices. After cycling through them all, it reset itself. It was Surge’s job to discover out exactly how many matrices there were and crack every last one. Either that or speed up the process of cracking just one. He always seemed to start making progress at four minutes, fifty-nine seconds.

It all boiled down to the Dark Omen and her ancient hardware. A top of the line system could cycle the codes in the blink of an eye. This terminal couldn’t ‘think’ that fast and so Surge had to think even faster. The task grew increasingly difficult the longer he kept at it. He hadn’t slept since he began. His focus waned in tune with his desire to collapse. Surge figured the goddamned code was slated to crack by Christmas . . . ten years from now.

Dahlia assumed the not so lofty position of ship’s captain. As a testament to his inability to lead, he hadn’t even considered putting someone else on the task. Surge was the resident technical genius. If he couldn’t hack it, who else had a shot? Dahlia wasn’t known for his patience, but more importantly, neither was Sykes. Why did he have to work with such Neanderthals?

Sykes wasn’t some primal beast, but he was known to act like one when his desires weren’t met. That wasn’t so uncommon, but most didn’t possess the power to back it up. People often died when Sykes lost his temper. He lost it an hour ago when Dahlia had failed to check in at the scheduled time. Surge could only assume that failure was due to fear at Sykes’s reaction to Surge’s own lack of success. So Sykes ‘reminded’ the entire ship. It wasn’t pretty, but fortunately Sykes couldn’t reach through space and kill him. He would’ve to; both of them. Naturally, Dahlia blamed Surge for all of this. It showed.

As fate would have it, Dahlia walked through just as Surge dozed off. “Got it!? Tell me what I want ta’ hear or yur’ a dead man!”

Aside from the accent, Surge only caught the words ‘dead man’, but he woke with a start as he felt cold chromide at the back of his head. The bastard had a taser rifle! “I don’t want to die any more than you, Dahlia, but the code is anyone’s game now. It’s just like playing concentration. You’ve got to memorize each matrix.”

“Then do it! Ya’ piece a’ shit! I thought ya’ were good!”

“Kind of hard to work with a taser rifle at my head.”

“Deal with it!”

Surge no longer cared. He had to sleep. Whether it was temporary or permanent didn’t seem to matter as much as he thought it might. He couldn’t break the code if he couldn’t concentrate. “Can’t. Too tired. Told you, even a fucker like you could figure it out, given a year or two! So go ahead! Fry me! Who knows? Maybe my blood will short out the terminal!”

Dahlia’s fury could be felt. “Wouldn’t want that!” Surge was sure he’d fire, but was surprised when the cold chromide left his head. His relief lasted only a second before he was pushed out of his chair onto the floor.

“Ya’ wanta’ sleep, do ya’!? Sleep through this!” Highly charged particles of electricity leapt out of the rifle’s muzzle. Within a mili-second Surge felt the skin on his left thigh melt away and expand outward. He was awake, now. “Yer’ right that ya’ gotta’ take per’cautions, but yer’ wrong ‘bout the bleedin’! Yer’ wound’s already cauterized!” Dahlia paused as if thinking. “Yer’ the brains here, so I guess that’s the only part ‘a ya’ we need, shall I try the other leg . . . or are ya’ ‘wake now!?”

When Surge started screaming he couldn’t stop. He could even feel his bone burning. The sensation was still spreading outward as well as inward. If he’d been able to think about anything else he would’ve screamed for Dahlia to stop.

Dahlia accepted the screams as a ‘yes’, and turned his taser rifle on the man named Chris Pierce.

Pierce’s eyes widened as Dahlia began to speak. “Yur’ new here. We know Sykes sent ya’, but we don’t know why. Do you know why!?”

Pierce’s silence spoke volumes. He wasn’t often threatened from men of shit status. It pissed him off, but a fear still crept in. The unhinged were unpredictable.

“Maybe you’ve got some hidden agenda!? Maybe ya’ know somethin’ we don’t!? . . . or, maybe ya’ know how ta’ decode the fuckin’ matrix!! If ya’ don’t . . . maybe yur’ better off dead!!”

Pierce was more concerned with letting Sykes down than appeasing this asshole, so played along.

“I’ll give it a try.”

“You do that, an’ if ya’ need help, ask our resident cripple!” As Dahlia turned to leave, he spit on the still screaming Surge. He then turned to Samson, but lowered his rifle as he did so. “Samson, make sure pretty boy does more ‘an try. If he don’t, r’mind him of what happened ta’ our good friend Grant.”