Fringe Legacy by Rachel Aukes

Author:Rachel Aukes [Aukes, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781732844933
Publisher: Waypoint Books LLC
Published: 2018-11-29T22:00:00+00:00

Loose Strings

On board the Littorio, near Myr

Critch woke up with a headache worse than any hangover had ever given him. He opened his eyes, only to snap them closed due to the bright lights. The brightness hit him from every direction: above, below, and even the walls. There was only one place Critch knew to have 360-lights in all-white rooms—a prison cell on a CUF ship. He knew because he’d been in ones exactly like this on more than one occasion.

“Well, shit,” he muttered, and rubbed his forehead with his hand. When the assassin had caught him, he’d assumed he was going to die…though he guessed he probably still was, since he was in a cell.

His wrist comm had been removed, as was done for any prisoner. He felt for his weapons and found nothing, as expected. His captors had even found the blade in the sole of his boot, leaving Critch both impressed with their diligence and disappointed at losing some of his best tools.

At least they’d left him with his clothes and boots.

A window in the door opened, and Critch looked, wincing in the light, to see Corps General Barrett Anders. “Ah, so you’re Mason now? Couldn’t come up with your own secret name?”

Anders ignored the comment. “Drake Fender, you’ve topped the CUF’s most-wanted list for twenty years. That’s quite the record, by the way. You had to figure that you’d get caught sometime.”

Critch shrugged. “Evading the CUF hasn’t exactly been challenging.”

“Yet here you are, in my cell.”

“That’s because you cheated and hired an assassin.”

Anders laughed. “A pirate accusing me of cheating. That’s rich.”

“Why’d you pick me up, Anders? Things getting a little dull around the Collective without colonists to push around?”

“On the contrary, things are rather exciting lately. You’ve been a loose string I’ve been meaning to pull for a long while. I’m running a bit short on time, and you’re one criminal I don’t plan to leave behind.”

“Aw, let me guess. You’ve got some nasty disease that even Collective medicine can’t help with. You’ve got a few months left to live, so now you’re getting all nostalgic? Damn, if I’m not getting a little weepy.”

The officer’s lips curled upward. “Get weepy for yourself. This time next week, you’ll be publicly executed for war crimes and piracy, though I care little about the piracy.”

“War crimes? You mean, like when you bombed Tulan Base, where all the refugees were, and killed Vym Patel in the process?” Critch countered.

Anders sobered. “We all make hard choices in war, but some choices cross a line. You’re being executed specifically for committing bioterrorism against the Unity, killing all 466 crew members on board as well as eighteen crew members on board the patrol ships sent in to investigate.”

Critch chortled. “You’re executing me for using the blight? How about Gabriel Heid and Michel Ausyar dropping the blight on Sol Base? They killed over seventy thousand colonists, and it wasn’t even in a time of war.”

“They’re both dead and cannot be tried for their crimes.

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