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TYCE DID A FINGERTIP exploration of his eerie prison, as much as he could with his hands shackled, before he gave up and sat in the corner. Time dragged, and he dozed. The ache in his arms precluded actual sleep, but he tried to reserve his energy, at least. He wasn’t sure why he bothered. There was no end game here, only a quick death or a long imprisonment. If these soldiers decided to turn on the traitor in their midst, he’d get the first. If they truly hated him, he’d get the second.
Even though door opened, he didn’t move from his spot against the back wall, but he sat up when John appeared. Surely the commander or captain of the ship would want to interrogate the prisoner directly. Terrorism and murder of the soldiers under his command were serious charges.
John stared and Tyce waited until the silence grew too much. “So, should I call you John or Commander Burden?” Tyce asked.
“Sub-commander,” John corrected him without answering Tyce’s question. If John decided on psychological softening, Tyce was screwed. John had too many keys to Tyce’s defenses because they’d been too close. When the demands of the academy had grown too great, they’d drunk and cried and encouraged each other. Maybe that was why his commander had sent him in, but if that was the case, the commander was a sadist. Tyce had as many insights into John’s weaknesses, even if he hesitated to use them.
John took a step into the room, and the door slid closed behind him. “What the hell?” he demanded in such an offended voice that Tyce smiled at the familiar tone.
Tyce stretched his legs out in front of him. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
“You joined the Ribelians. You’re a fucking terrorist.”
That surgically removed any amusement Tyce had found in their situation. “I wouldn’t describe it that way,” he said even though Command would. They knew the whole story and they’d still sent out fugitive warrants to any computer that would take a signal.
“Really? So you don’t have a fucking Ribelian tattoo?” John aimed a kick at Tyce’s foot only to look surprised when it connected.
“Shouldn’t I have an advocate if you plan to throw around words like that?”
Despite the fact that the room was only five feet or so across, John tried to pace. He resembled a dog circling before settling in for a nap, only angrier. “The only people I’ve ever seen with markings like that are hard-core terrorists. Suicide bombers. Is that why you’re on this side of Earth space? Do you have an attack planned?”
Tyce locked down all his emotions. John believed that he would kill innocents; that was a hot knife to the gut. Instead of showing that emotion, he retreated into rules. John should respect those even if their friendship was dead. “Regulations say you can’t question me without an advocate.” Tyce doubted the Command ship had carried any personnel certified to act as a defense advocate. However, asking for one should lead to the end of the interrogation. They could haul him back to Earth and railroad him legally. Tyce had no idea why it mattered to stall for time, but it did.
John stopped and gave him a deadly glare. “Don’t give me that shit. Answer the fucking question.”
“Any answers given in custody can be used by the military tribunal to adjudicate the case.”
John threw his hands up. “You can’t make this any worse. Nothing you say could do that. Nothing!”
“Sure I could.” Tyce gave John his brightest smile. It faltered when John’s expression turned to horror. For a second, they were back in the second year of the academy, and they were talking about Tyce’s friend who had stolen tests. Tyce had agonized over what he should do—whether he should turn Scott in or not. It wasn’t even John’s friend, and yet he had been aghast at the dilemma Tyce had found himself in. He’d worn the same worry back then.
John sighed and sank to the floor, his back to the door. The gesture alarmed Tyce. Command had trained John to handle battle, even if this was an unexpected battlefield.
He whispered so softly that Tyce suspected he was talking to himself. “What the fuck happened?” Weariness rose from him like a fog. Part of Tyce wanted to spill the whole story, to beg John to side with him, the way he had with the Scott case. When the other cadets had found out Tyce had turned on another cadet, they’d spent months making it clear they wished Tyce would flush himself down a toilet and drown. John had stood with him.
But John couldn’t do that now. At best, he’d flush himself down the toilet with Tyce.
“I made a choice,” Tyce said quietly. “At the time, I didn’t think I had another option.”
John stared at him for long minutes before asking, “And now?”
Tyce didn’t answer. He had acted to save lives, to save the right people, but John would want a different answer. Tyce might regret that day and some of the consequences of it, but he wouldn’t put on a hair shirt and beg forgiveness.
John let his head fall back against the door. “Damn it, Tyce.” That was the first time John had used his name. Now would have been an excellent time for his commander to pull him out of this room. Instead they both sat on the floor on opposite sides, staring at each other. “This is so fucked up,” John whispered.
“I don’t disagree.” Considering he was the one with aching shoulders and cuffed wrists, he had more reason to say it than John did. “Is your commander dead or injured?” The only way any of this made sense was if John was the ultimate authority. Any commander who had heard their exchange would have realized John was as likely to break as Tyce. Leaving the interrogation up to him didn’t make any sense. However, it was the sort of stupid thing John might choose to do.
John’s head came up. “Why the fuck would you ask that? What do the rebels know?”
“First, I wasn’t lying. That’s a family ship down there, not a rebel one. When I came up with this insane plan, I assumed the aliens would blast the hell out of the first shuttles and stop when they realized all the children were on our heavy beta-class transport. I thought this might be a Rownt ship.”
John shook his head. “Command sent out an update on Rownt ships and technology. Their ships have long straight passages. If one took a hard-G turn, when the center of gravity changed, the fall would kill you. And their doors are taller to accommodate the Grandmothers.” He hesitated before adding in a softer voice, “God, you’re such an idiot. You gambled everything on this being a Rownt ship and their willingness to save the fucking children. That is so like you.”
“Well...” Tyce shrugged. “Yeah. But on the bright side, we’re not dead.”
John scrubbed a hand over his face. “Plenty of us are dead.”
Tyce didn’t have an answer for that, so he let the silence fill the room. Even after all these years, it still hurt to see John struggling so badly. He hadn’t expected that. He kept his voice low. “John, the cuffs will do damage if you don’t take them off soon. If you promise to leave the family downstairs alone, I give you my word that I’ll be a good little prisoner until we reach Earth space.” Depending on how quickly John’s people could figure out the controls they’d found, that might be a while.
Oddly, John gave a dark laugh as he climbed to his feet. “Yeah, I’ll get on that.” He had to turn his wrist communicator on, so he’d had it off the whole time. Again, Tyce wondered what sort of rulebook John was working off, because that was not a Command regulation. “Open the door. Code word: asshole.” John gave him a dirty look.
A second later, the door opened, and John left.
Something had John so rattled that he had ignored protocol—both those related to the rights of a prisoner and those related to safety during questioning. John would spend days mentally reviewing every word, every nuance, every speck of evidence. It was in his nature. Tyce was lightning; John was a slow-burning ember. In the long run, John always reached the right conclusions but never quickly.
He’d been so frustrated at the academy where Tyce’s quick responses had put him ahead in the ratings. John had that same expression now—like his brain kept spinning and wouldn’t kick out an answer John could use. But this time, Tyce couldn’t tutor him in decision-making matrix theory. At best he could keep his head down and avoid aggravating the guards.
When he’d been a prisoner on the Dragon, he’d aggravated everyone. Yoss had recently joined the ship back then, and his anger had been so bright and sharp. Tyce had verbally eviscerated him and Yoss had retaliated with kidney punches, shoves into walls and overly tight restraints. They’d bonded as newbies on the ship by torturing each other, but they had eventually reached a truce. When Tyce had been voted in as captain, Yoss had shown up with a bottle of rum to seal their odd friendship, but even when Tyce had every reason to believe his captors would kill him, he still hadn’t excelled at being a model prisoner.
It wasn’t in his nature.
Maybe that was why Ama had passed the captaincy over to him. At the time, he had suspected it was a combination of her desire to escape the office and her manipulation because she knew he needed to feel in control again. Maybe she had, in her weirdly spiritual way, recognized that the tattoo didn’t ground him as it would have grounded an actual Ribelian. He hadn’t grown up with those beliefs, and while he was proud of his ink, that was all he felt.
The captaincy had given him something far more tangible to live up to. Since he couldn’t solve the mysteries of the universe or even figure out what had John so on edge, Tyce leaned his head against the leathery wall. The lights flickered and dimmed, and he fell into a restless sleep.