By David C. Daoust
Just as all the Onion were not shady smugglers dodging hapless guards, it was not ALL shiny happy people trying to make it through their lives- in the dark, in the shadows, there were grim men, monsters, covered in blood and numb to their own actions. Men with no care for the lives of others; No care for where one’s life might have gone, had they not crossed paths.
Bernard Vice was covered in blood. He sat in the highbacked chair, the helm splayed before him, surrounded by the corpses of those that had derailed his life.
He was still a young man. His life, before this, was within a city-station- arguing the merits of the ‘Solid Foundation’ plan- his position would one day prove to be in the minority, yet this life was the norm for young men of the era. He was young- had just met a girl. For the first time, had his rather complex mind set afire with the mindlessness of love…
They came with promises, they came to tantalize the women away. To sweep them from their homes, willingly if possible. Abduct them if they failed. She was strong, and she was fast, and she was not falling for none of their shit.
They dragged her away.
Bernard’s life was derailed– not because of stolen opportunities, not because some defeatist bullshit left him kicking rocks… Some unfair loss… But because he had to drop everything to set things right.
The blood was starting to dry, the corpses starting to smell- he simply had to change the trajectory. Shift the freighter’s course, then he could go wake the women up. Free them from the forced stasis. Free them from the life that was being forced upon them.
Human Trafficking- Bernard could hardly believe it. This was not an issue covered by any of the current plans set before the Assembly, like some mythological monster made real. Take them, drug them, addict them– force them to work for their next fix. No one would ever ask where these women came from. By the time they were used up, no one would bother to respect them. The Unheard, lost to the Assembly.
Bernard turned just as the door shift open. The man came barreling at him, bare hands raised to throttle him. Bernard’s bloody knife, which was point down in the console before him, just out of reach as he rose in answer to the charging fiend. He grabbed the man’s right wrist and forced it down, threw his shoulder into the attacker’s chest, and with a twist slammed him into the wall. The man was gasping for breath when Bernard forced his arm behind him and slammed him to the other side of the bridge, to pin him over the council, just close enough to retrieve his knife. Pry the point free, and drive the blade up under the man’s jaw. The struggle left the form, and Bernard let it drop to the floor…
This is not who Bernard used to be, this is not anyone he ever wanted to be. Bernard Vice lost his old life, his old ideas, his limitless ideals that would surely pave the way to a shining future… A loss that began with his inability to convince -anyone- that she had been taken against her will. She had no family; she was known to bounce around from couch to couch… She’d be back, they said.
Bernard knew what he knew, he acted on it. His search led to being hunted himself. Fleeing at first, the longer it went on, the harder it became to get free. He started fighting back, wound up with angry men wanting payback. Eventually he started answering violence with violence. Killing them before they could kill him. He was in it deep- to a point where he could not believe he was still alive. Bernard was smarter than most, A unique mind that they had bent to violence, to a life it may have never known, yet still, excelled.
Ultimately, they were smugglers. It was easy to make sense of them, it was easy to figure out their next move. He was hunting. He was dismantling their operation… he was learning.
The course was set– he held the jagged knife firm in his grip as he left the bridge. Apparently, he’d missed one, it was not beyond him that he may have missed more. He was familiar with their ships at this point, familiar with the layout. He padded through the corridors down to the main hold, where crate upon crate stood stacked. Within each was a stasis device, within each slept a woman. Each one without family to miss her, to question where she may be.
Bernard set to work freeing them- one after the other, a job for ten men, he took on himself. One after the other, pulling each crate down with a fork lift, prying open each crate in turn, all to be faced with the daunting task of shutting down the stasis.
By the time he was down to the last five, he was surrounded by sleeping beauties. Little by little their faces were regaining color, they started to shift, cough- yet to regain consciousness. Still he worked on the remaining crates.
Bernard checked the clock just as he heard the outer airlock connect with another ship… he found himself relieved as he heard the footfalls within the nearby corridors.
They were here, finally…
Nearly two dozen women marched into the hold, none surprised at what they found. Some set to work waking those that stirred, others began shifting crates to make room for those yet pulled down. All with a measured pace that showed their experience. They had done this any number of times– since the day they awoke in a crate themselves.
“Bernard,” Flannery lightly scolded, “We told you- you don’t have to do this anymore. You can wait for us to help you.”
“I can’t,” Bernard scowled, “You know I can’t.”
With that there was grim silence as the captain helped to pry the next crate open. Bernard, tired to the bone, sat back and watched as she took over the painstaking series of sequences that would tell the program to safely wake the stasis device’s occupant… the upper lid would shift- and then pop up. Bernard was quick to help with the next part. Lifting the lid away, he let it drop into the side of the crate.
Bernard peered in, expecting to see her- as he had with every crate he’d opened since he’d started his obsessive search- On the half a dozen different ships that he’d infiltrated. Ships that he’d infiltrated and slaughtered every man aboard…
It was not her. It stung every time. Though he told himself with every drop of a lid, the probability went up. He would find her eventually.
With so many more people there to help, the remaining crates opened a lot faster. Bernard waited patiently, covered in dried blood. One after the other the lid was dropped to the side; each revealed a strange visage…
They were not her, either.
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