Vengeance Lost_Ardent Redux Saga_Episode 1 Page 7

  “Wait! It was me!” Dani called out, causing a hush to fall over the room.

  The judge stared at her, gavel suspended above the podium.

  Dani’s eyes darted around the room. Those present almost seemed relieved at her supposed change of heart. She had to do something, and the only thing she could think of was throwing herself under the bus. It was the only way she knew she could save the others.

  “It was me. It was all me. I assume full responsibility, for everything that happened. The crew didn't know. I... ” Dani sighed. “I used them.”

  “And why should the court believe you acted alone in your treachery?”

  Dani sighed, hoping she was right in her assumptions. “All the evidence points to me, and me alone. The money was in my bank account. I imagine you already dug into their accounts and past and came up empty-handed.”

  The judge continued to peer down at her, neither confirming nor denying her statement.

  “I betrayed the GC. Me, not my crew. I alone am responsible for the actions of Alaska’s Vengeance and the resulting destruction of PS683.” Dani’s heart felt as though it shattered into a million pieces as she uttered the words.

  The crowd gasped in unison and a smirk crept over the judge’s face.

  “Then you, Ms. Devereaux, are sentenced to death.”

  The sound of the gavel emphasized the finality of the sentence. The guard released her, and she stumbled forward. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. The judge was the first to leave. The guards in the courtroom quickly ushered out everyone else. Bits of conversations caught her ear as the crowd funneled out the door.

  “I told you she was guilty.”

  “I knew it all along.”

  “May she burn in hell.”

  Mr. Smitz packed up his briefcase and stood to face Dani.

  “You did a horrible job.”

  He shook his head at her and walked past her out of the courtroom.

  Dani exhaled loudly. All that remained was herself and the guard.

  “You lied,” the guard spoke out from behind her, his face hidden by his mask. “I’m surprised the judge went for it.”

  She turned to face him and squinted as though it would help her see the features below his mask. “What choice did I have? He was out for blood. If I didn’t confess, he would have had us all killed.”

  “You realize that they’ll still face lesser charges, right?”

  “At least they’ll be alive.”

  “There are fates worse than death.”

  Dani stared at him a moment before blinking rapidly. “Who are you anyway? Shouldn’t you be taking me to my cell?”

  The guard hesitated a moment, then reached for Dani’s restraints, leading her out of the room and back down the hall to her cell.

  Meg jumped up off of her bed as Dani was shoved back into the cell, the door clanging shut behind her.

  The guard lingered at the door a moment, staring.

  Meg’s eyes danced between the guard and Dani. “What’s going on here?”

  The guard turned and walked away, leaving Dani alone with her cellmate.

  “Well, how’d it go?” Meg asked again, holding her hands up in the air.

  Dani pulled her eyes away from the door and the strange encounter with the guard. “I pled guilty.”

  “Oh, wow.” Meg sat back down on her bed.

  “Why do you care?” Dani scowled at her as she flopped down on her own bed.

  Meg shrugged. “I dunno, I guess I just hoped they were wrong.”

  Dani pulled her knees to her chest. “The court system doesn’t seem to care about who’s right and who’s wrong here.”

  Meg nodded. “I hear that. No one cares about why someone breaks the law. They just care about what happened. I mean, sure, I stole some stuff. But it was for good reason.”

  Dani rolled her eyes at the comparison and lay down on her bed once more, facing the crack in the wall, mumbling. “What’s done is done.”

  Chapter 6

  “You gotta eat sometime, you know.” Meg huffed as she stood by the open cell door.

  Dani quit picking at her nails and looked at Meg, knowing the other woman was right. It had been two days and she felt weak and lightheaded.

  “Look, just stick with me. I’ll give you the run down on who’s who. It’ll be fine.”

  “Alright,” Dani said as she reluctantly stood and followed Meg into the corridor.

  The pair made their way past the other open cells to the mess hall. Women lined up against the wall around the room. At the front of the line was a cafeteria-style buffet; the servers were other prisoners who had worked their way up to kitchen duty. Dani had yet to receive any job assignments but was sure they’d start her somewhere at the bottom of the food chain.

  “Okay, so over there you’ve got the pirates,” Meg said quietly and subtly nodded toward a group of rowdy, tattooed women. “They’re nice and all, but only if they think you can do something for them. Otherwise, you may as well not even exist. Problem with pirates is that they’ll turn on you like it’s nothing, without no warning, too. They always do what’s in their best interest. Always.”

  Dani nodded. She knew the type. “Why do they look so happy?”

  Meg shrugged. “Doing time is a rite of passage for them. They embrace it.”

  “Who are they?” Dani gestured to another group of women who were considerably less cheerful. Instead of laughing and joking around like the pirate women, they sat with their heads close together, watching one woman draw on a slip of paper.

  “They’re the rebels. They do not get along with the pirates. Not one bit. The rebels kind of put off this vibe like they’re better than everyone else. No one really likes them ‘sides themselves. They think they’re super heroes or something, out to save the galaxy.”

  “But the rebels and pirates are both against the GC, right?” Dani had been briefed on the actions of both parties and their involvement in the ongoing war, but she never realized the two factions loathed each other so much.

  “Pretty much. The biggest difference is that the pirates don’t want to follow any laws and the rebels think they should be the ones to make the laws.”

  “Gotcha,” Dani said as they crept closer to the front of the line. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Yeah, don’t eat that.” Meg laughed as one of the servers plopped down a brown, gritty-looking pile of goo on Dani’s tray before quickly pulling her own back before the server could give her any.

  Dani stared at the steaming plop of what appeared to be hupnal manure. “I don’t think I needed help figuring that one out.”

  The inmates turned and stared at Dani as she and Meg made their way to an empty spot at the end of one of the tables. As soon as they sat down, the other women at the table got up and left.

  “That’s not a good sign,” Meg mumbled under her breath.

  Dani glanced around the mess hall. It now seemed more like a photograph than a real-life scene. Even the servers stopped what they were doing and were staring at her in anticipation. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so uncomfortable. Dani shifted in her seat and leaned close to Meg. “Is this normal?”

  Meg’s eyes widened, looking past Dani. “Not one bit.”

  Dani took a deep breath before looking over her shoulder.

  Behind her stood a tall woman, the left side of her face a mess of tattoos and scars. The once-ornate pattern ran down her neck and across what Dani could see of her décolletage. A look of disgust resided on the woman’s face and her hands rested on her hips.

  “I know your face,” the woman hissed at Dani, grabbing her jumper by the collar and lifting her up out of her seat.

  Dani’s feet scrambled to find the ground as the woman lifted her. She looked to Meg, who sat frozen at the table, mouth agape. As soon as Dani was clear of the table, the woman let go and forcefully shoved Dani back toward the wall.

  “You’re that GC captain. I saw yo
u on the news.” The woman hissed again as she continued to advance toward her.

  Dani stood her ground, looking around for a means to defend herself from the woman who obviously intended to hurt her. The only thing nearby was a chair resting against the wall next to a trash receptacle. A quick look around the mess hall proved no one else was going to step in. Most of the inmates had returned to their meals, aside from the other pirate women, who now stood around their table, watching their apparent leader and Dani. The rebels also stood, watching, waiting.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” Dani spoke clearly and calmly, holding her hands up, palms outward toward the woman.

  The pirate woman didn’t halt her advance; instead she raised a fist and swung at Dani.

  Dani quickly ducked and swung back at the woman, catching her in the soft spot of her side before stepping around her and holding up her fists. “I’ve had one hell of a week; I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself in to.”

  The pirate woman jabbed again at Dani, who quickly dodged the attack. She never was more thankful for her father’s insistence she participate in various self-defense courses. The inability to strike Dani seemed to infuriate the woman even more. Before Dani knew it, two additional women grabbed her arms.

  The pirate woman smirked. “Dodge this.”

  Her fist hit Dani in the jaw with a crack, snapping Dani’s head to the side and plunging her into total darkness.

  * * *

  “Ms. Devereaux.” A squat, rotund man waddled into the infirmary and over to the gurney Dani sat on. “It’s only been a few days and you’re already causing problems.”

  Dani resisted her urge to argue with the plump man. The pain in her jaw helped her hold her tongue.

  “I’m Warden Quill. I wish I could say it was nice to meet you... but it’s not.”

  Dani glared at the man as he walked in a semi-circle around the gurney, sizing her up.

  “Though I must admit,” he said, wagging a chubby finger at her. “You’ve got spunk, standing up to Geneva like that.”

  The corner of Dani’s mouth crept up in a crooked smirk.

  Warden Quill frowned at Dani, narrowing his eyes at her. “I hate spunk.”

  Dani wiped the smirk off her face and shifted uncomfortably.

  “You know what else I hate, Ms. Devereaux?” He stopped in front of her, crossing his arms and resting them on his belly. “Trouble. And I can tell you’re going to be trouble.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Dani looked down into her lap, trying to push the pain in her jaw to the back of her mind.

  Warden Quill continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “Do you know what we do with trouble, Devereaux? We put it in the Cellar.”

  “The Cellar, sir?” Dani didn’t like the sound of the ominous place but felt she should engage with the man somehow.

  A twisted smile grew across Warden Quill’s face. “There’s no light in the Cellar, you know. No walls. No bars. In fact, I really don’t know what’s down there, but if I get any more trouble out of you, then you’ll have the chance to figure it out yourself.”

  “Understood, sir.” Dani nodded and awkwardly held in the instinctual salute.

  “I hope so, Devereaux. I hope so.” Warden Quill waddled back out of the room.

  The nurse returned from wherever she had retreated to when the warden entered. “Here, take these. Everyone gets them after their first fight, but only after the first. For any other fights, you’ll just have to deal with the pain.”

  Dani nodded in appreciation and took the tiny paper cup holding two small pills from the nurse, and quickly threw them into the back of her throat.

  “You better get back to your room and lie down. Those are going to knock you out.”

  “Thanks.” Dani stood and steadied herself before stepping out of the infirmary and quickly making her way back to her room.

  The halls were relatively empty aside from the posted guards who had been mysteriously absent during the run-in with the woman the warden called Geneva. She slipped back into her stall and bee-lined for her bed.

  “Oh good, you’re okay,” Meg whispered as she slipped into the cell shortly after Dani.

  “No thanks to you,” Dani muttered as she tried to get comfortable on the small bed.

  Meg looked at her feet as she shuffled them. “Yeah, I mean, you kinda dug your own grave.”

  Dani propped herself up on her elbow, teetering slightly as the drugs started to take hold. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, that whole PS683 thing. One of the planets there was a pirate refuge.” Meg cocked her head slightly. “You didn’t know?”

  “Of course I didn’t know. I am—was—a GC Captain. We arrested pirates. If we knew they were there, then there would have been a raid.”

  “Or you’d just blow them up,” Meg mumbled with a shrug.

  “I did not blow anyone up,” Dani said through gritted teeth.

  “Right, well, not you directly, but anyway, you’re probably going to run into a lot of trouble in here. A lot of people died.”

  Dani rolled over to face the wall. “Leave me alone. I’m tired.” The words barely made it past her lips before she fell into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  Several sets of hands pulled Dani out of bed, rolling her out onto the floor, her face colliding with the cold, stone floor. She groaned, trying to push herself up, but a foot came down hard between her shoulders, causing her face to collide with the concrete once more.

  A brunette with short, dark hair bent down and flicked Dani in the forehead.

  Dani scrunched up her nose and squinted through the medicine fog at her assailant. She tried to get up once more, but the foot remained on her back and a pair of hands pinned her legs to the floor. She tried to wiggle to free herself, but the effects of the drugs still had a hold of her. It was all she could do to mutter quietly, “Get off me.”

  “So you’re the big, bad woman who blew up my home planet? Pathetic.” The woman spat on Dani’s face.

  Dani struggled to get her cheek to her shoulder and managed to wipe most of the saliva away.

  “Look at you now. Garbage. And to think that I used to think you were a hero.” The brunette stood.

  Dani watched the woman’s feet as she paced back and forth in front of her. “Look, I’m sorry, but I promise it didn’t go down the way the news is playing it out.”

  The feet stopped and the woman bent down once more. “What? You weren’t paid to look the other way while the Vaerians destroyed PS683?”

  “Of course not. We were actually—”

  “Get off her, Bea.”

  “You sure, Roni?”

  The brunette, Roni, stepped toward Dani and shoved the woman off of her back and onto Dani’s bed before grabbing Dani by the back of her jumper and pulling her up to her feet.

  Dani’s legs struggled to stay firm beneath her, but now that she was upright she recognized Roni as one of the women from the rebel table. “I thought you hated the GC anyway.”

  Roni snarled, “I do hate the GC. And their corporate goons, government officials, and even the soldiers, but that doesn’t mean I’d end billions of innocent lives.”

  “Innocent people have died in rebel attacks.”

  Roni slapped Dani across the face with a loud pop.

  Dani closed her eyes briefly, trying to focus on regaining her coordination as the sting of the slap felt hot across her cheek. When she opened them, Roni had her back to her.

  “Look, nothing you can do to me is going to change what happened.”

  “No,” Roni said, turning to face her. “But it sure will help me feel better.”

  The last thing Dani remembered before she blacked out again was Roni’s fist coming right at her face.

  * * *

  Dani wasn’t sure how long she was out, but when her eyes fluttered open, they were greeted with nothing but darkness. She blinked rapidly and groped her face with her hands in search of whatever was
blocking her sight. Shit. I’m blind. Her thoughts raced as she rubbed her eyes and opened them wider hoping to see something, anything.

  Sheer panic began to pump through her veins at the idea of never being able to see again. She wouldn’t be able to pilot another craft, not that it was an option anymore anyway. Most importantly, she wouldn’t be able to defend herself in this hell hole of a prison.

  She took in her surroundings using her other senses: a cold, damp cement floor, the dank smell of moisture, and a lack of sunlight. Then, the warden’s threat returned to her mind.

  “Hello?” Dani called out in the darkness.

  A scuffling from her right and a harsh “Shhh!” echoed through the chamber.

  Dani lowered her voice. “Are we in the Cellar?”

  “Yes, now be quiet,” the voice urged. “I don’t want the warden to hear me talking to you.”

  Dani took a deep breath. The good news was that she wasn’t blind—at least she was fairly confident that wasn’t the case. There’s no light in the Cellar. The warden’s words bounced around her head. The bad news was that she had no idea how long she had already been down here or how much longer she was to remain locked in the dark.

  How is this even allowed? Dani asked herself as she felt along the cold floor on her hands and knees. Surely this can’t be legal. Her outstretched fingertips grazed the wall and she turned, sat, and leaned back against it.

  Dani blinked her eyes several times more just to make sure they were actually open. The darkness in the Cellar was more than just an absence of light. It was as though someone had actually put in the extra effort to suck all of the light out of the room. She tried to concentrate; surely some light had to filter in from somewhere. At the very least there must be a door. Despite her efforts, Dani couldn’t make out a single shape in the suffocating dark.

  It’s like space, with no stars. She held her hand up in where she guessed would be the front of her face. Dani tried to reach out and feel the space around her with her mind, but her thoughts were as dark as the room before her.

  A soft crying bounced off the stone walls and met her ears. She wasn’t sure if there was another prisoner down here or if it was the same girl who silenced her earlier. Either way, Dani vowed not to let herself fall into the hopelessness of the dungeon.