Depraved by Trent Evans

Chapter 9

The command room at Base Gamma was ill-lit even in the best of times, the overheads too spaced out, the green and cyan displays garish, yet lending hardly any usable light.

The space smelled of sweaty troopers who’d gone too long without a good wash, and stale coffee.

“Clear the room,” Beckett barked as he strode to the center, stepping down into the commander’s well that was surrounded on three sides by the executive control and administrative suites.

In normal times—pre-Schism—such a place would have been teeming with officers, enlisted, and even orderlies hustling here and there. Gamma was easily the most important base in the entire rebellion, but The Awakening had seized it following the traitorous Benton Wyndham breaking away.

Now though? Few of the officers, and almost none of the enlisted could be trusted. At least not until Harling had consolidated the purge of Loyalists at the base who still followed the cursed Awakening.

Beckett’s forces, the Carter Faction, were by far the more powerful force compared to that of the Awakening. But it was still a force—and a cause—slowly but steadily losing ground against the material, military, and psychological power of The Sixth Society.

A man recognized the world—and his situation in it—for what it was, not what he wanted it to be. That had helped Beckett survive, and even thrive, after he’d thrown in with the Rebels.

Kaman was a sadistic, indulgent, and capricious dictator. But he was a smart one, too. Very smart.

And that made him incredibly dangerous, even in the best of circumstances.

Where Beckett found himself, and the Faction he led, at the current time, wasn’t even in the same galaxy as the best of circumstances.

He waited for the last officers to clear the room, the door slamming shut, the air stabilizing as the seam clamped home, before he wheeled around on Harling.

“What am I supposed to do with a commander who can’t even watch over a simple girl? Tell me, Harling, what the fuck am I to do with you?”

The commander blanched, his throat working. His eyes were beady, shifty. Beckett wasn’t sure how the man had ever risen as high in the ranks of The Awakening as he did, but then again, Benton Wyndham always had a soft spot for sad sacks like Harling.

Beckett wondered if Wyndham had ever realized Harling had such an unsavory fixation on the leader’s own daughter.

Assigning Harling to hold her was stupid, he realized that now. Yes, it was a clever place to hide her, in the midst of her own base, but the man was soft. And his little crush on Benton’s daughter, while useful in the beginning to turn him… was now a serious fucking liability.

“We think she must have escaped up top. The sentries reported talking to her.”

“They actually spoke to her? Did you think to ask them why they allowed her to simply walk out of the base?” Beckett ran a hand through his hair, pacing a little. “I can’t do everything myself, commander. I need men I can trust to do as they’re fucking told. Exactly as they’re told.”

“Sir, there was nothing I—”

Beckett stabbed a finger at him. “You shut that fucking mouth, right fucking now, commander. I don’t want excuses out of you! I want answers. I want to know why I shouldn’t demote you down to a rifle range target right goddamned now.”

Harling stood at attention, at least intelligent enough to know when he’d really let things go sideways. And maybe fatally so.

He let the inept Base Gamma commander twist in the wind before he finally stopped pacing. “Luckily for me, I’ve got others in my camp who actually do know how to follow orders. And luckily for you, my foolish, turncoat commander, I’ve already cleaned up your fucking mess for you.”

“H-how? We sent out at least a dozen S&R teams. She’s… nowhere.”

“That’s because she isn’t there, commander.” Beckett leaned a hip against one of the communications consoles. The second lieutenant manning that station had left his coffee cup precariously close to the edge of his comms screen. Even a light brush against the front of his desk, and that coffee would topple onto the chair.

Idiots.

“What do you mean? She’s out there, sir. Even now, she can’t have gotten more than a few miles, and that’s only if she stayed on one of the patrolled trails.”

“She’s in custody now. I’ve got confirmation.” He held up a hand, Harling’s eyes blinking rapidly, his mouth dropping open. “I have an HKU under my command. He’s got her.”

“A… Ravager? H-how?”

Beckett began pacing again. It was probably unwise to disclose everything to the moronic commander, but he might need him again, so letting him know some of what was happening was a necessity, unfortunately.

“We captured one. Wiped the neural net mapping. And, no, I’m not telling you how we did that. Way above your particular pay grade, Harling.”

Getting Norton Graham, one of the most brilliant engineers in the entire Sixth Society, to turn against the TSS had been no easy feat. The Sixth Society wasn’t stupid, and it knew geniuses didn’t exactly grow on trees.

Especially once the TSS destroyed most of those trees.

Money, and the promise of… other benefits, usually bridged the gap of such reluctance to farm out one’s talents. And it had worked nicely in Norton’s case.

Beckett didn’t trust Norton even a tiny bit, but the man was a simple creature, willing to work—and work hard—for the highest bidder. It wasn’t Beckett’s fault that The Sixth Society didn’t even know it was in a bidding war for the brilliant man’s skill set.

What the TSS didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it.

Until Beckett wanted it to.

He stopped in front of the man, fixing him with a glare. “But what isn’t above your pay grade is doing what you’re told, exactly as you’re told. You got me, commander?”

“Yes, sir.” Harling’s tongue licked his lower lip.

At first, Beckett hadn’t known exactly what he’d use his new HKU asset for, as yet. Harling’s frantic call to him had confirmed what the Ravager’s first mission under Carter Faction management was going to be. That would only be the beginning though.

Just knowing he had that ace in the hole—especially now that the accursed Benton Wyndham was out of the way—meant he’d have a freer hand. There was a lot more work to be done turning more of the populace to their side.

It was the only real hope they’d ever had, regardless of which rebel group it was. But a… firmer approach was called for.

Wyndham could burn in hell, as far as Beckett was concerned. Nothing worth doing was easy. Wyndham’s approach had been soft. Compassion blinded a man to his goals, to what really mattered.

And compassion in the face of the enemy—or potential enemies? That just wouldn’t do.

Turning a populace against the controlling authority always took time, especially an authority as fearsome as The Sixth Society.

Insurgencies were always messy. More often than not, rather nasty business indeed.

But if it took a few broken eggs to make an omelet, well, that was a casualty of war, unfortunately.

Brutality was something TSS scumbags wouldn’t shy away from—and had indulged in on numerous occasions for even the flimsiest of pretenses.

The people would see that, they’d have to see that, in time.

And if they didn’t? Beckett would make them.

Especially now that he had such a tool at his disposal.

What better way to make stubborn people see the light, the righteousness of the Carter Faction, than the dark skill set, the not-so-tender mercies of a fearsome Ravager.

“You’re going to help me fix this mess, Harling. We’re still a long way from getting this unfucked up. So, listen up, and don’t forget what I’m saying to you. The HKU will bring Yulia back here. You will question her. I don’t care if you have to hurt her. I don’t care what you do to her, as long as you keep her alive. Understand?”

“I… I do, sir. She won’t be hurt. I can talk to her. She… I can get her to trust me again. I know it.”

“You’d better be right about that.” He chopped a hand down in front of him. “But listen to me. We need to root out all the remaining Loyalists now. I’ve let it go on far too long. Those sentries… I’d bet my left fucking nut, they’re Awakening sympathizers. Drum them out. I don’t care what you do. You can take them out in the forest and liquidate them for all I care. Just get rid of them, one way or the other. But after that, you must—and I do mean must—find all the remaining people who are loyal to Benton Wyndham. It’s clear they’re too much of a liability now.”

“Sir, that might be half the remaining men here. Could be… hundreds.”

“That’s not my fucking problem. Commander.” He pointed at the man. “It’s yours. Figure it out. Get it done. And Yulia, who I’m going to deliver back to you on a silver fucking platter, will be the key to getting that job done right.”

“Yes… yes, sir.” Harling took a breath. “I’ll get it done.”

“Walk with me, commander. I need to get back to New Vickers, and there’s… something I need to speak with you about. Alone.”

Beckett made his way out to the vehicle bay, and jumped in his runabout, the air fans kicking on with their characteristic disconcerting whine as soon as his jumpseat took his full weight. He waved Harling into the passenger seat.

Pulling out of the bay, he shook off the disorienting feeling of passing through the spoofed cliff face that Gamma used to conceal its vehicle entrance. Beckett brought the air car out slowly and carefully, plotting three waypoints that would take them away from the base, but closer to the edge of the Fen nearest to New Vickers to the east.

Once out of sensor range of the base, he brought the air car to a halt, setting her down.

“Get out.”

“W-what are… sir, it’s at least ten clicks back. What…?”

“I said, get out of my vehicle, commander.”

They’d alighted on a small clearing, but there wasn’t a sign of even an animal trail where he’d stopped. Perfect.

He watched calmly as the commander extricated himself, the man fingering his sidearm as he looked around at the featureless forest surrounding him.

“You’re gonna hump your ass on foot back to Gamma just as fast as your little feet can take you. And while you’re doing that, you’re going to remember what I told you to fucking do. And you’ll further remember that the next time I feel I have to bring you out here? You won’t ever be coming back. Am I clear, commander?”

Harling paled, then stood back, saluting. “Yes, sir.”

Then Beckett gunned the engines, the air car lifting up, leaving the Awakening turncoat choking on his dust.