1.16.1

A Covert Kidnapping

Anders escorted her through the Med Lab, and with a quick word to Ishioka, into the converted storage room just beyond.

“Anders, what the hell is this?” Astrid demanded once inside.

“Just a precaution. They probably wouldn’t know what you are, even if they saw you, but-”

“The Earthen Military doesn’t even know you recruited me, do they!?”

Guilt-ridden, Anders cast his eyes at the door.

“Are you insane?!” Astrid hissed. “The captain stole a Ward of the State! He violated nearly half a dozen laws!”

“Our reasons still stand, okay?” Anders defended. He caught Astrid’s arms between his hands to hold her still. “Please. We’ve done good work so far. This is about trust, remember? We’re trusting you, and you need to trust us.”

“If I get exposed, they won’t just send me back to Endra, Anders! What I’ve done now, what I’ve seen—they’ll exile me to a cell permanently! Anders, if I kill someone for you, unsanctioned, there are some Guardians that would call for my execution! Do you get what I’m saying!?”

“We’re going to protect you!” he exclaimed. Even in the dark, his eyes glowed in earnest. “Astrid, please, just… be patient. The captain knows what he’s doing! He’s got allies on the Admiralty Board, he’ll smooth this over after the mission, when they can’t argue with our results. He has friends in high places.”

“So does the S.O.!”

Anders released her and sighed.

“I have to go out there. I’m an officer. But please, please, stay here. I’m begging you.”

“Like I have a choice.” Astrid crossed her arms.

“It’ll all be worth it. Please, trust me.”

Anders backed to the door, hands in the air apologetically, before he finally turned to leave her there, alone in the gloom of Ishioka’s tidy, if tiny, room.

~~~

It was difficult to not resent yet another secret uncovered.

Astrid knew herself unable to imagine her future for some time, but this most recent reveal deemed her potential prospects even fewer than she suspected. Any number of things could foil the captain’s scheme. And then where would she be? How could he possibly protect her from a century of legislation against her people?

And if she failed, or if his experiment was deemed too hazardous, what would it mean for those she’d left behind? Could she have inadvertently condemned all Channelers to worse restrictions?

Fortunately, the transportation of the four men captured in combat on Penelope went smoothly. When Anders came to announce the coast clear, Astrid begrudgingly brushed past him.

She wasn’t used to the swirl of doubt and frustration the revelation stirred in her. She wanted, needed, to talk about it, to seek clarity. But she felt she already knew what Captain London would say. And Tenya.

No longer fatigued, Astrid plodded back down to the cargo hold to continue her channel training. To do something with the restless, agitated energy. Most the crew gave her a wide berth, to let her feelings settle. She would have appreciated it if not so irritated.

Her power came easier while she ran through scenarios in her head. What breaking the law, without any real back up, could mean.

What she thought to be an opportunity now named her a fugitive.

How counter-intuitive, she decided, that obedience made her a prisoner, but freedom made her a criminal.

Arcs of light danced over the hold while she sorted her frustrations. The pull started to feel pleasant. Like a release, even, when someone finally came to talk to her.

Her eyes slid to the older man that approached her from the dark.

She remembered Karth most for the calm, gentle expression he offered when he took her by the hand that fateful last day on Endra. He himself led her out of her home.

She still wanted to feel grateful. But it wasn’t gratefulness that zapped the ship’s floor with a flash of her hand.

He came to stand a bit behind her. As if to silently, patiently, make himself available to her ire. But she no longer found the same reassurance in him that he once showed her.

“I feel I was lied to,” she put to him bluntly when her last battery finally died. She rounded on him, drained enough now to nearly think straight. “I overlooked the sense that something shady was going on because I wanted to believe in you, in this.”

“And now you don’t?”

His short question made Astrid twitch. “I don’t know. Captain hid that he knew about the Static Opposition. Now this. Mostly I just feel foolish.”

“Astrid, I can appreciate you feel blindsided here, but you would do well to remember what brought you to us wasn’t a promise of safety or approval,” Karth reasoned. “Nothing has changed. We are not your enemy. We are on your side. We have violated protocol and flaunted the law to bring you here and give you a chance.”

“But I was denied the truth of what position it would put me in. I feel used.”

“And had we been ordered to select a random Channeler and turn her into a soldier, that would make you feel less used?”

“It’s not about the Service it’s about--!” Astrid fumbled, at a loss for words and unused to this feeling. “It’s about us. This team, you. You took me from my home and made me feel safe, like everything was going to be okay. But it’s not, is it?”

In the dim hold, Karth came to stand a little closer. “Look, do you want to feel safe, or do you want the truth? You don’t get both.”

Astrid blinked. A part of her craved the feeling of security again. But she realized now those days were over. And to avoid reality flew in the face of that wisdom.

“Truth.”

“No," Karth spoke gently. "You’re not safe. The captain hopes to leverage the latitude his missions permit him into something bigger than what’s happening now. But there’s no way any of us can prepare for what that’s going to look like in a year, or ten years. We have no guarantee this risk will pay off. We don’t get to make promises that everything will be okay, Astrid.”

Astrid felt something in her stomach drop. But there was no lie in what he said.

“Would you have come if you’d known we were breaking the law?” he asked next.

Astrid thought for a moment. She wanted to say yes. But her past wasn’t so far gone that she couldn’t remember how she felt in Alethea’s office, defending to the Keeper and Captain London how her place lay among her own people. That London's offer seemed unfathomable.

“I don’t know… probably not.”

Karth nodded knowingly. “Then all that’s left to decide is whether you regret coming. Only then will you have been cheated out of something.”

Astrid frowned and bowed her head, perplexed.

“Is it always going to be like this…?” she finally posed. “Never having the whole story, only having to go on what I know in that moment and just hoping I’m not making a mistake?”

“Yes,” Karth told her, his frankness bracing. Something in how he looked at her resonated in meaning. “Always.”

~~~

She went to bed that night with conflicted feelings. Confused, and yet annoyingly satisfied that even though her recruitment had been shrouded in shrewd dealings, she still succeeded.

The mission moved forward. Her abilities progressed. And she was, in fact, helping against an enemy that posed a true threat to her people.

Regardless of what deception secured her place aboard, there remained only one path onward.

She labored under her mixed feelings and focused on her work in the following days. The crew granted her time to adjust, as the importance of the mission deepened with the specifics of their enemy, and their enemy’s intended targets.

Some days, the promise of advancement was all that kept her level. So, she strove for it with every breath. It grew harder for Anders and Tenya to convince her to take breaks.

She wolfed down every meal. And even her downtime was spent chronicling proposals to the captain should the Earthen Military accept his premise that a Channeler Division might one day serve with Static forces.

That potential future, now, was the absolute best she could hope for.