Octavia Girl

Chapter Sixteen

What if Iker Started with an F?

Two days later, Iker had not arrived. There was no explanation as to why his pod hadn’t landed. There had been no news from his ship. When he first got on board, it moved on course, but after a few hours, it stopped and no transmission was received or sent out.

Temptic was concerned and sent a vessel to meet the ship in transit. They scanned the ship and found that Iker was not aboard and everyone else was dead.

As a consequence, Jenna was on the line with Lou Denver. He was finally the calm military leader as he said sternly, “I think it’s clear to see that whoever did this, they are not a friend to the Octavian/Adamis Alliance.”

“It’s good to hear that you are not blaming the Octavians,” Jenna said, relieved.

“Oh… I am,” he said in a menacing tone that got under Jenna’s skin. “They should have defended their ship better. The ship’s log doesn’t show that they put up much of a fight at all. A poison drone latched itself to the hull, drilled through to the water level, and let the poison loose in the water system. It killed all of them. Their water filtration system was not sophisticated enough to filter out the poison. One would think they’d be prepared for that eventuality.”

“Has something like this ever happened before?” Jenna questioned keeping her voice neutral.

“I do not have time to give you a complete history of the uses of poison drones,” Denver hedged gruffly. “Since the Octavians were unable to protect Iker, his entire pod was stolen and the only thing we know is that the ship that cut him loose did not approach The Sunflower. Once everyone on board was dead, they hacked the ship’s computer system, killed the security in the pod, and set it adrift. After that, they calculated how it would fall through space and picked it up along its trajectory.”

“This is a major loss for both of us,” Jenna said remorsefully.

“Madam Diplomat, I hate you,” Denver said without reservation.

Jenna’s head perked up, though she didn’t say anything. She had been feeling bad because it was the first time Octavians had died on her watch and she hated it. She didn’t know what happened to Iker either and though she did not like him, she did want him to come to Octavia Prime and help her get her numbers up. She did not care one iota if Admiral Lou Denver liked her or not.

“I hate you completely,” the Admiral went on. “You ruin the reputation of six of our finest officers only for you to toy with one of them, and lose him when he’s on his way to you. It’s damn sloppy, Jenna, and I’m blaming you entirely for it. I hope you can figure out a way to take responsibility.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Jenna barked back.

“Ass?” he growled.

“Yeah. You don’t want to go back to your superiors and explain that things went badly because that will make it look like you lost. If you lost then I must have won, but I haven’t won and you damn well know it. You want me to take sole responsibility when we have BOTH lost? I wanted to crown your men when you sent them to me the first time. I don’t know if it was you who put the worm into their heads that they should attack me, but they did. You lose and I lose. You sent me three more men. I have already crowned Scion and I would have crowned Rennett, but you told me not to because of his health. I’m not even sure if that’s been a legitimate story with that weird doctor working on him, but I’m taking it on the chin and moving on. I found Iker to be more palatable than Voguen, so I asked you for him instead, but he got attacked by someone unknown. That person could be just as much my enemy as yours. So, let’s be real for one freaking second… You are obviously trying to stall me and stop me from achieving quorum. Why? I am an Adamis diplomat and if there is a good reason, then I am f—ing happy to be stalled.”

Denver’s eyes bugged out. His mouth hung open and he didn’t say anything.

Jenna waited, clenching and unclenching her jaw while the moment hung in the air.

Ixy chimed in over the loudspeaker, sounding more like a professional PA than she ever had in her life. “Madam Diplomat, Captain Temptic is on the line. He has vital information about the whereabouts of Major Iker.”

“I’ll call you back,” Jenna said to Denver, dismissing him.

He raised his hand to stop her, but Ixy had already cut the line.

Temptic’s picture came up. It was really him, floating in the water of the space station, but he didn’t speak. Instead, a line of text appeared under his video feed which was read aloud in an automated voice.

“We found the ship that stole Iker’s pod. It’s an Adamis ship used by a subspecies called Calcumicas. We got a transmission through to them and they responded with a message. They kidnapped Iker intentionally and they’re holding him hostage.”

Calcumicas? That was a boneman ship.

“What do they want?” Jenna asked urgently.

Sardius laid a hand on her shoulder and said to her gently, “You know what they want.”

She turned her head. He had been in her meeting with Admiral Denver and she hadn’t paid any attention to his being there. He was there like the furniture was there, like Ixy was there like the air around her was there, but he was more important than any of those things.

Temptic displayed a picture of the red spacecraft. Jenna didn’t have much experience with spaceships, but it was obviously not like the Octavian ships that carried pods. It was a ship filled with air and acted more like a submarine than a train with cars that could be added or subtracted, though it didn’t look like one. If Jenna had to describe the design of it to someone back on Earth, she would have told them that it looked like a giant coral floating in space. It was beautiful and terrifying.

Temptic came back on. “Its captain is a man called Don Leo Quillio. He says he wants Ryatt, Sardius, and if he goes by any other names, he wants that version of him too. He says he’ll trade him for Iker.”

Jenna balled her fists together, ignored Ixy’s gasp of shock, and turned to her man. “Any idea why he’s after you?”

Sardius’ eyebrows went up. “Uh… yeah. He… uh… he was the first captain I ever worked under.”

“So, this is about a personal grudge?”

“And much more,” Sardius admitted. “I served under him, but he was the vilest sack of crap the universe has ever spewed out. He was a government official, but he tortured and butchered people all the time, and the higher-ups looked the other way. They wanted him to do such things if it yielded the results they needed. After working under him for three years, I endured a devastating injury. It was the thing I mentioned before about my face being burned. When I recovered, I deserted my post and joined the revolutionaries. Don Leo’s complaints against me are expected because I became the face of his tormentors. I spent twelve years stealing his supplies, bombing his ships, and spreading very truthful rumors about his atrocities. During that time, the idea for drawing attention toward me was to make it look like there wasn’t anyone else involved, thus fewer people would be punished by the government if the fist came down hard. At the time, I was fine with it. But times have changed. I’m the war hero now and he’s the villain holding a diplomat hostage.”

“If I fork you over, what do you think he’d do to you?” Jenna asked, rubbing her frozen fingers against her clammy palm.

“Eat me,” Sardius said without hesitation. “He’d probably cut my right leg below the knee and have it cooked. He’d make me watch him eat it. He’d eat my thigh the next time he wanted to celebrate something. Then my arms. I’d make at least eight meals before he killed me.”

“Shut up!” Jenna shrieked. “Do you think he’d do that to Iker if we don’t make the trade?”

“I don’t think Don Leo would get the same satisfaction out of eating Iker so that probably isn’t what he’d do, but we can’t let him keep him. Iker is valuable to the Octavian/Adamis Alliance. If we don’t get him back, that could be the thing to start a war between the Octvians and the AAMC. The Adamis may be looking for an excuse to start one, so we have to do everything in our power to get him back for the sake of diplomacy.”

Temptic spoke up. “Don Leo says Iker will be safe for 72 hours. He says that isn’t enough time for them to make a fake you. It also isn’t enough time to mobilize a force against him. It is only enough time for you to say goodbye and get on a pod.”

Jenna felt like she was dying. “Isn’t there anything we can do besides give you to him?”

“The problem is retrieving Iker,” Sardius pointed out. “If all we wanted to do was blow them to smithereens, we could do that. Rold, Scion’s father, has some incredible laser tech. After Scion mentioned it, I looked into it and it is awesome. We do not want that man involved in any military conflict against us. An amazing number of people will die.”

“I don’t want you to die!” Jenna screamed.

Temptic was speaking, but neither Jenna nor Sardius noticed until Jenna screamed. Luckily, his text was still displayed on the screen even after the electronic voice had finished saying it. “The problem with immobilizing the ship is that they will be wise to any tech designed to cripple them. Because of the way they took down The Sunflower, it’s clear they are masters of those techniques. The Sunflower had multi-layered defense strategies. The fact they were able to beat them is proof of their superiority. If they notice any attempt on our part to mobilize, then they’ll kill Iker.”

“If they do that, what will stop us from blowing them to bits?” Jenna asked.

“They have a way of running away quickly,” Sardius supplied.

“What?”

“They’re bonemen,” Sardius said, continuing his explanation. “They’re not worried about the radiation in the Xypher Zone. They just blast from here to there in a dimensional shift. The old government would have given them tech to do those kinds of dimensional shifts that are not commonly available. The administration won’t like that at the prison, but they won’t be able to shoot them down before they’ve shifted to another galaxy. That’s what they plan to do once I’m aboard their ship.”

“So technically, they could disappear at any second?” she asked, feeling like her options were narrowing by the second.

“Yes.”

Jenna turned to Sardius, a plan forming in her head. “How do I look? Sexy? Good?”

Sardius looked her up and down. “You look normal, which I think is sexy, but who do you have to talk to that you need to look sexy for?”

“Rold.”

“He might… not… be the man you want to talk to,” Sardius replied slowly.

“I might not have very many options,” Jenna shot back. “But he’s an arms expert. He might know of more solutions than us and I have something he wants.”