“You son of a bitch!” Iana yelled as she caught him with a right cross on his jaw. Yen tumbled from the ramp next to his fighter, collapsing onto the ground in a heap. He immediately leapt to his feet, fury burning in his eyes.
“What are you going to do?” Iana asked, threateningly. “You going to hit me back? Better yet, are you going to kill me like you did Gregario?” She reached forward and tried to push him in the chest, but he caught her wrists before she could reach him. His power surging, Yen lifted her from her feet and threw her across the large room. Iana collapsed with a groan as the wind was knocked from her lungs.
“I warned you, Iana. I told you what would happen.” Yen took a step toward her, murderous anger clouding his mind once more, but paused as he noticed the stunned pilots gathering to watch the fight. “What are you looking at?” he snarled at them. “Go to the debriefing room!”
When he turned back around, Iana had disappeared amongst the crowd of departing pilots. He would have to have a stern talk with her about what she should and should not say in public. Pushing through the throng of pilots, Yen caught sight of her as Iana disappeared around the corner and fled up the hallway.
“Move,” he growled at the closest Uligart as the pilots bottlenecked into the narrow doorway. Though a few moved out of his way, the rest were not as fortunate. Driving his psychic power forward like a wedge, pilots toppled over one another as they were forced out of Yen’s path. Chasing her out of the bay, Yen turned left to follow Iana and stared down the long, empty hallway.
Moving until he was out of earshot of the rest of the surprised and angry pilots, Yen called down the hall. “You haven’t escaped me yet, Iana,” Yen said as he began probing the hallway with his mind. His power rolled down the hallway in waves, ricocheting and rebounding like sonar, probing and searching for any brainwaves that he could detect. “Why don’t you just come out so we can talk? That’s all I want to do, Iana. I just want to talk to you.”
He continued down the hall, scanning continually for her. There was a chance that she had made it to one of the lifts already, but Yen didn’t think so. No, he was sure she was still on this floor somewhere, avoiding him.
“You obviously have some misconceptions about what happened out there,” Yen said, rubbing his still sore jaw. “Why don’t we discuss what you think happened? It would save us both a lot of time. Come out and talk to me. We’re old friends… don’t you still want to be friends?”
Yen didn’t expect an answer. The talking was just an excuse to keep her in hiding until he could find her. On cue, Yen detected a single life form near the end of the hall. Her emotions radiated from her in a perceivable aura. Yen reached out, searching her thoughts.
Yen’s snarl shifted to a decrepit smile as he advanced down the hallway toward his hiding prey. He turned off his power, conserving its energy for when he caught Iana. He didn’t need it anymore, anyway. She would be his soon enough. Walking until he was just around the corner from her, Yen paused, letting the destructive power build within. When he was on the brink of being overwhelmed by the magnitude of his psychic energy, the air whipping around him as though he were enveloped in a pillar of flames, Yen began speaking again and stepped around the corner.
“You’re a dead woman,” he said as he reached out, closing his hands firmly around the neck of a very surprised Crewman. Instantly, Yen released the man’s neck, who coughed roughly as he staggered backward. Not allowing him to escape, Yen grabbed a hold on the Crewman’s shirt.
“Where is she?” Yen yelled into the man’s face.
“Who?” the scared Crewman replied, as he squirmed, trying to free himself from Yen’s grip.
“Warrant Morven,” Yen growled.
“She…” the Crewman lost his words as Yen shook him roughly. “She ran past me just a second ago, heading for the stairwell. Please, sir, let me go!”
“Squadron Commander!” a voice yelled angrily from the elevators at the end of the hall. Yen turned as Captain Hodge stepped off the lift, her pale face flushed with anger. “Release that man this instant!”
Yen kept his grip as he scanned once more for Iana, his power passing through multiple walls and catching sight of her just as she reached the base of the stairwell. Letting go of the Crewman, Yen turned and stormed past the Captain as he pursued the escaping Warrant.
“Don’t walk away from me,” Captain Hodge ordered as she took up step right behind Yen. “You’re already in enough trouble, Commander.”
Ignoring her, Yen continued to the stairwell, rushing up the first flight in a hurry, taking two stairs at a time. Captain Hodge kept pace, though Yen could hear her heavy breathing as she rushed. Pausing at the next landing, Yen looked up the lengthy stairwell above him, scanning again for Iana. He sensed her again, a couple flights above. As he got ready to rush up the next set of stairs, Captain Hodge grabbed a hold of his arm, pulling him to her.
“Commander!” she hollered as he continued trying to chase Iana up the stairs. “I was monitoring your communications channel during the last battle. I heard what you did to Warrant Pelasi. I am accusing you of murdering one of your own pilots. I’ll bring you up on charges for this. I’ll also let them know about Merric.” She paused while Yen continued to stare upward. “Are you even listening to me?”
Yen stopped trying to pull away and turned toward her, his eyes burning blue as his psychic energy grew unfettered. “Oh, believe me, ma’am,” he replied dangerously. “I heard you.” He stepped toward her as the intercom sounded an alert above them.
“Warning! Warning!” the intercom roared. “Collision with unidentified debris imminent! Brace for impact!”
The Revolution shook violently as a piece of metal struck its hull, scraping and puncturing the thick metal plating. Multiple rooms decompressed, launching their inhabitants to a freezing death in space. On the stairwell, the ground shook, nearly knocking Yen’s feet from under him. Dropping to one knee, he braced himself against the motion. Captain Hodge, caught by surprise, staggered backward toward the lip of the stairs. Clutching for the railing, she grabbed hold at the last moment. Though now supported, her body leaned far out over the precipice of the first stair. Leaping forward, Yen grabbed hold of her wrist as her grip weakened from the continued shaking of the ship.
As the shuttering of the Revolution finally stopped, Captain Hodge let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Commander,” she said. “You saved my life.”
Yen smiled cruelly. “I don’t think so,” he hissed. “No one questions me. No one!”
Forming his power into a pair of hands, Yen clutched the sides of the Captain’s head. Shifting his grip on her wrist, Yen dug his nails into her soft flesh. Screaming in anguish and surprise, the Captain’s grip faltered on the railing and she tumbled over the lip of the stairs.
As she fell, her knees buckled. She threw up her hands defensively in order to protect her face, but Yen’s powers drove her head toward the solid stairs. Her head crashed against the first stair, being driven downward by the combination of her body weight and the psychic grip. With a sickening crack, blood sprayed across the matted stairs, trickling onto the stairs below as she continued to tumble. Keeping a grip on her head, Yen slammed her fragile face into each individual stair on the way down. Under the psychic hands, the Captain’s skull grew soft and the skin split on the edged stairwell. One wing shattered as she tried to slow her decent and her nose flattened against the side of her face as the next stair caught her between the eyes. Blood smeared in a thick streak as Captain Hodge finished the fall and her body came to rest at the landing below. Her body crumpled — with one arm twisted awkwardly behind her, a wing shattered and broken, and blood spreading from her crushed skull — Captain Hodge’s body convulsed uncontrollably as the damaged brain send confusing signals throughout her nervous system.
Standing at the top of the stairs, Yen watched dispassionately at the broken woman below. A frown etched its way onto his face as he realized he had lost track of Iana. He would have to make sure he watched the hangar bay so she couldn’t escape the ship. It was only a matter of time before he caught up with her. Still, having just killed the Captain, Yen had other tasks to accomplish between now and when Keryn arrived if he expected to remain free.
Activating his transponder, Yen let emotion slip into his voice as he called to the bridge. “This is Commander Xiao.”
“This is the bridge, Commander,” Tylgar replied, his gravelly voice carrying over the radio.
“There has been an accident,” Yen said, allowing a tear to fall from his eye. “Captain Hodge fell when the ship was damaged. She’s…”
A brief silence stretched over the radio. “Sir?” Tylgar asked. “The Captain is what?”
“She’s dead,” Yen replied, his voice almost a whisper. “She was killed in the fall. I need a medical team down to Level Fourteen immediately to retrieve her body.”
“Yes…” Tylgar paused, stunned at the news. “Yes, sir, right away.”
“One more thing, Tylgar,” Yen said into the radio, not wanting the navigator to turn off the channel before Yen was finished. “I need to know the whereabouts of Horace. He’s the security chief and should be apprised of the situation.”
“I’m not sure, sir,” Tylgar said. “The debris knocked out our internal sensors. His last known location was in the brig, guarding the prisoner.”
Yen turned off his radio and smiled to himself. “Perfect.”
The smile remained on his face until he arrived at the door outside the prison. The thought of Captain Hodge lying at the bottom of the stairs was pushed from his thoughts as he traveled through the series of lifts and hallways. Instead, he focused solely on the next inevitable stage of his plan: eliminating any loyalists to the former Captain. Closing his eyes, Yen stood outside the door and let his power build. Blue tendrils spread from his back, sculpting and shaping into a series of scalpels and hooks at the ends of his psychic chains. Snarling, Yen reached out and activated the door.
As it slid open, Horace turned, seeing Yen standing silhouetted in the doorway. The large Oterian took a step backward as he saw the demented expression on Yen’s face, the sadistic smile accentuated by the blue glow of the whirling hooks and blades and the shifting and shimmering aura surrounding him. Yen stepped forward threateningly as Horace tried to speak.
“Commander, what are you…” Horace never finished his sentence as the barbs and knives of Yen’s psychic power plunged into his body. Hooks tore through his flesh, pulling his arms and legs wide until Horace was stretched, suspended a few feet above the ground. Yen generated and sent more and more of the hooks into Horace’s body, ignoring the cries of pain as the barbs pierced his cheeks, abdomen, and groin. With his body stretched and blood spilling freely on the ground, Yen sent the scalpels flying at Horace. Ignoring the surgical precision one might expect from his small blades, Yen struck the Oterian’s body over and over with the knives, leaving ragged cuts and torn flesh as the blades pierced his thick hide. The hooks in his cheeks and lips leaving him unable to speak, Horace gurgled as organs ruptured under the assault. Withdrawing all the scalpels at once, Yen formed his hands into claws with his fingers pointed at Horace’s suspended form. As he moved his fingers, the ten dancing blades responded in like. Thrusting his arms forward, all ten scalpels drove forward, piercing straight through the Security Officer’s chest and erupting from his back. Horace stopped struggling and hung limply in the air. Satisfied, Yen dismissed all his psychic power, the hooks and blades dissipating into the air and allowing the Oterian body to collapse to the floor.
As Yen turned away, he heard a soft whimper from the brig cell. “Vangore, I had almost forgotten all about you,” Yen said without turning toward the Wyndgaart prisoner.
“I don’t want to die,” Vangore said weakly as he pulled his knees tighter to his chest while huddling in the far corner of his cell. “Please don’t kill me.”
“Hush, now,” Yen said sharply. “It’s not you, you have to understand. You had a purpose before. You were going to expose a great conspiracy that would have brought down Captain Hodge, Horace, and numerous others. That would have allowed me to take over as Captain of the Revolution.” Yen leaned against the bars separating the two and reached his right hand through the bars. He held his hand palm up as he continued speaking. “But now I decided to take matters into my own hands. You’re just not needed any more.”
“I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” Vangore pleaded. “Just, Gods, don’t kill me.”
“Believe me when I tell you that the Gods will be the only one to hear your story,” Yen said as a blue ball of energy started forming in his hand. The psychic energy swirled angrily as the ball grew in size. When it nearly consumed the whole palm of his hand, Yen tossed it across the cell where it affixed to the far wall. Vangore cringed, flattening himself against the floor.
“Goodbye, Vangore,” Yen said passively as he walked out of the brig, sealing the doorway behind him. As he walked away, a muffled explosion rocked the brig and blue light flared in the window behind Yen. The explosion tore through the wall and the thick hull, exposing the entire brig to the vacuum of space. The violent decompression sucked Vangore into the vacuum only moments before it ripped the metal bars from their sockets before blasting them into space as well. As an afterthought, Horace’s limp body was drug out through the hole as well, to be consumed by the void.
“Bridge, this is Commander Xiao,” he called into his transponder as he walked casually to the bank of elevators.
“Sir, this is the bridge,” Tylgar rough voice responded.
“It appears that the debris punctured the brig as well. Both the Security Officer and the prisoner were jettisoned into space.”
“Are you sure?” Tylgar responded.
“I’m always sure,” Yen said condescendingly. “Open a Fleet-wide channel, linked to my transponder.”
“Yes, sir,” Tylgar replied quickly, sensing the dangerous tone in Yen’s words. “The channel is open, sir.”
“All ships within the Alliance Fleet, this is Yen Xiao. Due to an unfortunate accident aboard the Revolution, Captain Hodge has been killed. As the second in command of the flagship, I am assuming command of both the Revolution and the Fleet. From this point on, I have been promoted to the rank of Captain. All previous orders are still in effect. Captains, I will still expect your presence for a battle planning conference on board the Revolution, beginning within the hour. Make necessary arrangements. Captain Xiao, out.”
With the unfortunate business of murder behind him, Yen allowed the stressors of the day to escape his body. He knew that Iana had no way off the ship, which meant that it wouldn’t be long until he caught and disposed of her. More importantly, he had less than an hour to prepare for the arrival of the other Captains. He hoped he had enough time to clean up before Keryn arrived.