Depraved by Trent Evans

Chapter 28

Lyssa sat down at the table in Rexall’s kitchen, Anson and Tom going back and forth over what to do next.

“We rifled everything,” Lyssa said, sighing. “Practically nothing, just some old, encrypted files—which we can’t access without a cracker anyway. Probably old orders, or something—unlikely to be of any use to us now. He’s got zippo here, Cap. He doesn’t even have a node for comms with TSS headquarters… which is something we always assumed HKUs must have had.”

“So, how’s he communicating with them?” Anson muttered.

Lyssa pointed at the single disc on the tabletop. “This is the only thing that’s possibly of interest.”

“What’s that?” Anson rubbed the back of his neck.

Lyssa’s expression grew pensive for a moment, then she threw a glance at Yulia. “It’s a detailed med file—on her.”

Anson looked to Yulia, but said nothing.

Tom was busy cleaning one of the extra barrels for the rifles, his own weapon disassembled, laid out on the kitchen table.

“Told me Kaman sent it to him,” Lyssa said, staring off into the distance, lost in her thoughts. “But why?”

Nobody had an answer though.

“How does he get his orders?” Anson was still looking at Yulia when he said it.

“He never once told me. I didn’t even think to ask. Didn’t you… question him?”

Anson shook his head. “Not about this.”

“Need to get him to Gamma then,” Lyssa said. “Docs would want to have a look at him anyway. They’ve got all sorts of theories about Ravagers, but a whole lot is still a complete mystery. Never even had one KIA that we could autopsy, and sure as shit never captured one before.”

“Guess you can scratch one off your sure as shit list,” Tom said, chuckling to himself.

It was surreal for Yulia, sitting there in her tattered smock, a blanket over her shoulders, nursing a cup of really bad coffee, in Jon’s kitchen.

Considering it was the first time she’d seen his kitchen since he’d brought her there. Rather cramped, not much more than a galley with a tiny sitting area dominated by the battered wooden table.

It was a kitchen someone rarely, if ever, had much use for.

Even more so for the fact that Jon was currently cuffed and locked in the same barred cell she’d spent many days and nights in during her own captivity.

A time she was struggling with how to reconcile in her mind.

What he’d done… some of it had been cruel, humiliating, degrading.

And yet, part of her, deep down… had responded to some of it. Maybe a lot of it. Was it merely a survival response? Adaptation and accommodation under acute stress? None of that was unknown, of course, and she knew it might possibly be just that simple.

But what if it was more than that?

You know it is.

Which made grappling with it that much thornier. What did this say about her that she was even having second thoughts about him at all?

Because he isn’t the same person. You know this, too.

“We’ve got bigger problems,” Lyssa said, nodding toward the disc. “What we found there matches what the HKU told us. Kaman was involved, too. Directly.”

“His name is Jon.” Yulia didn’t know why she objected, but it just seemed… wrong to call him that. To treat him as an… other.

What’s gotten into you?

“So, he didn’t lie.” Anson sat back, his chair creaking slightly. “We have an HKU—Jon—sent to kidnap Yulia. Somehow Carter gets hold of him, figures out how to…what? Command him? Program him?”

“Jon didn’t know either,” Lyssa said. “Just woke up here, and knew he was supposed to snatch her. Said that was new for him though. Has only a hazy recollection of events before he woke up here—and even that recollection is fading. And fast. There appears to be an… interruption in the flow of his memory.”

“Interruption?” Tom shook his head, scowling. “What the fuck does that mean? Like, amnesia?”

Lyssa shrugged. “Maybe? How the hell am I supposed to know? My medical training begins—and ends—with basic field first aid.”

“This is… there are fucking freight train-sized pieces of this picture we aren’t seeing yet.” Anson’s hand clenched into a fist atop the table. “What the fuck was Carter up to?”

“Yet another reason we need to get to Gamma,” Lyssa said, with a twinkle in her gaze. “I think our little mole Harling might have some light to shed on that.”

Anson took a deep breath. “Yeah, I suspect he might.”

“We’re days from Gamma,” Tom said, beginning reassembly of his rifle. “Who knows what’s going to happen between now and then? Do we want to trudge out there and find out Carter’s already played his hand? Whatever the fuck he’s up to?”

Anson’s lips thinned. “Man’s right. We don’t have time to hump it back out there, no matter how much we might learn from that piece of shit Harling.”

Just his name sent shivers down her spine, and at the same time filled her with an unaccountably deep rage.

Somuch had gone wrong for her because of that man.

“What about his rover?” Anson tilted his head in the direction of the vehicle bay. “Looked in decent enough shape.”

Lyssa’s dark brow quirked. “That would do it, for sure. Tom?”

The blond soldier shook his head. “I don’t even know how the ignition works on it—and believe me, I tried. When you and Cap were talkin’ to the stiff, I had a look at that rig. Drawing a complete blank though. Whatever it is, it’s nothing like any of the vehicles in TSS or rebellion inventory, that’s for sure.”

“Well… shit,” Lyssa murmured.

“Why did you come here? To…to rescue me?”

The three of them grew silent, turning to her.

Yulia didn’t know why the question popped into her head, but she realized it had been weighing on her, grateful though she was for what they’d done.

She looked to Tom, but he held up his hands, his partially assembled rifle, posed vertically upon the floor, leaning against his collarbone. “Don’t ask me, I just work for the man.”

Lyssa smiled almost wistfully, giving a tiny nod to Anson.

The stern captain stared at Yulia for a moment, and in that instant, she saw the toll all of this was taking on him, the lines in his weathered face, the fatigue, the pain in his eyes.

“Things are—I’m not gonna bullshit you—pretty bleak. And they’re getting worse. People are… they’re seeing hope fading away. They fear it, what it means—that we’re all losing.”

“They’re not wrong,” Tom drawled bitterly.

“Shut up,” Lyssa snapped, with uncharacteristic venom. “Let him talk.”

The hulking blond flashed Lyssa a gimlet gaze, but held his tongue.

“We all miss him—all of us.” Anson looked away for an instant, then to his fellow soldiers. “But when I learned you’d been taken… I knew what had to be done.”

“Even if it got you killed in the process?” She set her mug down, the coffee already growing cool. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why risk your lives… to find me?”

Anson looked down at his hands. “Because when I see you… I see him. I see my best friend.”

The words had her heart twisting, her loss and hurt at her father being gone welling up within her again, tears suddenly threatening.

“And when I see you—I see the compassion he had, and the strength he gave us.”

“I’m just his daughter…”

“You’re not just anything.” Anson looked at her once more. “When I see you, I see hope. I know the others… when they see you? They’ll feel it, too.”

“You should be leading us, Anson,” Yulia said, softly. “Why aren’t you?”

He shook his head, his mouth twisting. “I’m a soldier. I lead men into battle, but I’m not a leader. I know someone who is though, who could be… if she’d only open her eyes.”

Her stomach dropped. “You… what?”

“Yes. You’re young, sure. You’re not Benton—but you don’t have to be. You’ve got your father in you. His spirit. I see it.” He looked to his companions. “And others will too, when they realize you’re still alive.”

“I… I’m not this person you think I am. I’m… just a scared little girl.”

Anson gave her a wry grin. “A scared little girl who busted out of the brig, and talked her way topside? I don’t know many scared little girls who could even hope to pull that off.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

Anson chuckled softly. “Yes, you did. Just like you have a choice now. A choice to do what you have to, even if you don’t think you have what it takes.” He fixed his gaze upon her. “And you fucking do it anyway.”

It was the quality she admired most in her father. His quiet, understated courage. He never had to demonstrate it, not overtly, but everyone felt it. Everyone saw it.

And everyone was inspired by it.

She stood up, her fingers trembling so badly, she splayed them on the tabletop to still them. “I have an idea. But I need to talk to him.”

Anson glanced toward the cell. “Him? No way. He’s dangerous.”

“Not to me he isn’t.”

“Yulia…”

“You wanted leadership? Well, this is it.” She lifted her chin, pointing toward the cell. “I’m going in there. Where are the keys?”

Anson glared at her for a long moment, then reached into his jacket, retrieving them. He dangled them from a long finger. “I shouldn’t let you do this…”

“You aren’t letting me do anything. I’m… it’s an order.”

He gave her the subtlest of winks, one only she could see. Then he dropped the keys in her palm. “Be careful, Wyndham.”