Red Peace by Steve K Peacock

Author:Steve K Peacock [Peacock, Steve K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

We didn't spend the whole trip locked in a steel container, thankfully. Once on board the ship, Jaime and her vampire posse advocated a more free-range approach to human husbandry. Most of the bowels of the ship were ours to explore at our leisure – and before you get any ideas, we checked, they were devoid of anything we could build escape rafts out of – and we found enough quarters to house everyone for the journey.

A couple of people tried their luck, and it didn't go well for them. The vampires stuck by their doctrine of less-lethal methodology when it came to subjugating the rowdy, but it only took a week for them to stress the difference between less-lethal and non-lethal. One of the baby magicians and one of Kaitlyn's boys, if you're interested. Never learned their names, myself.

Before and after all this, Kaitlyn had done what any good dissident would do, and set up a recruitment office. She'd found what was either a long-dilapidated ballroom or a lavish canteen and constructed some sort of weird church. There wasn't much else to do, so she had a decent audience whenever she decided to preach.

'I need a distraction,' she told me when I asked. 'Every fibre of my being right now is telling me to fight, but I know that's a bad idea.'

'There's a chance though,' I said.

'For me and mine, sure. You even. We've been in international waters for a while, you can probably risk a spell or two without Whitehall cooking you. But these people? Best I could do is effect an escape right now, I can't seize the ship. Once they realise someone's escaped...' She trailed off.

'We're on a boat where the final destination is a vampire's pantry. There's not many punishments they can dish out to those left behind that can be worse than that knowledge.'

Her knuckles went white as she balled up her fists. 'Can't accept that. If I can't get everyone out yet, I'll stay until I can. And I'll politely dissuade anyone else from trying an ill thought out escape.'

I wanted to comfort her, to tell her it wasn't her fault, as if it was my place to do that. Who am I to try and soothe a conscience? I barely listen to my own one half the time, let alone know how to mollify it. Besides, Kaitlyn was a woman of conviction, no way I could begin to understand what was going on in that sort of a brain.

I did the next best thing. 'Maybe you're right. But I've seen where these people are going to end up, and it's not very nice.'

'We escape together, or we die together.'

And that's when I finally saw it.

It takes a special kind of person to be a leader, and a damn near unique person to be a good one. Conviction is a finite resource, you go to that well too many times and you'll drain it dry before long. Leaders ration that flow, make sure all their underlings get a taste so that they stay on side.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.