CHAPTER 5
Cadmus
Not for the first time, I was immensely glad that Artemis was on my side.
Watching her cull our enemies like it was nothing was not only terrifying, especially with the most dangerous creature in the Intergalactic Union a steady presence at her side, but I was fighting to keep my twitching cocks from fully rising beneath the uncompromising fit of the spacesuit.
I couldn’t believe that this woman had seen something worthwhile in me, especially when she already had a stars-damned Griknot prince eating out of the palm of her hand.
Well… it certainly wasn’t her hand that he was eating out, that was for sure.
When we finally stumbled upon a dark, dank space that I knew would smell horrifying if I removed my helmet, with metal bars blocking our passage.
‘Talk about overkill,’ I muttered as I watched Artemis burn through the bars.
I wondered if I could do that, but I wasn’t ashamed to admit that a single glance at her charred flesh with the bones visible beneath ensured I would never try.
She didn’t even seem to feel the pain, and I wondered if she was just that good at hiding it or if she really couldn’t feel it.
Was turning off pain receptors something we could do?
I added those questions to my ever-growing list then locked them away again.
I would ask when we were free and clear, and not a moment sooner.
I was a selfish prick, but not enough to actively endanger lives just to sate my curiosity.
When the bars no longer blocked our way, everyone but me, Arty and Tormik rushed forward to enter what was no doubt the dungeons where their families were caged and tortured, but Arty held out her arms to stop them.
Xander actually growled at her for preventing him from getting to his sister, and I hoped it was just her who was inside.
If the rest of his family were there, I had a feeling more than just enemy heads were going to roll.
‘I’m not stopping you from going in there,’ she tried to soothe him, but his responding scoff was a clear indication that it hadn’t worked.
‘We can’t just storm in,’ she elaborated, keeping her tone soft but firm.
‘They will be traumatised and terrified.
It won’t help to see you tear apart their tormentors right in front of them.
They’ve faced enough violence, and I can guarantee that most of them won’t be used to it. We need to do this delicately.
Xander grunted his acquiescence, his entire form vibrating with barely contained violence.
Still, she hesitated before lowering her arms.
‘Just don’t act rashly and make this more traumatic for them, okay?’
‘I’ve got it, Captain,’ Xander snapped, the aggression in his words like a physical blow, and her expression immediately hardened.
In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to shoot his kneecaps out and leave him to rot here for daring to speak to my woman that way, but I knew he needed to be given some grace.
After what he’d been forced to watch…
I didn’t have anyone I cared enough about to react the way he did.
Of course, I didn’t want anyone to suffer, whether they were important to me or not, but until Artemis, and even Henrik, Bromm and the others, I hadn’t had anyone I cared about enough to fear for their wellbeing.
In fact, it was the opposite, but I didn’t want to think about my father.
That was a whole can of worms I did not want to open just yet.
I was jolted out of my thoughts when Artemis barked out more orders.
‘Tormik, Reece, and Gwym, you can help me release the captives.
Cadmus, Stanson and Hum’Rit, you can help Xander dispatch the pirates.’
My anger at my old captain relaxed when he did, his immediate needs lying more with eliminating the threat against his sister while we got her out of there with the others.
I was suddenly glad I hadn’t jumped down his throat for speaking to Artemis the way that he had.
There was nothing to be gained from infighting, and he was clearly on edge.
For good reason, too, I reminded myself again.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who needed to chill out.
It wasn’t my loved ones on the other side of those melted bars, but my anxiety over Artemis somehow landing in The Program’s blood-soaked hands once again was driving me insane.
I couldn’t lose her.
Not now. Not ever.
She lifted her hand and used the military gesture for follow me, a raised fist turned at a ninety-degree angle, and my steps almost faltered at the reminder of our first days as cadets upon The Carina.
Oh, what an arrogant ass I had been.
I still was, but hey, I was working on it.
Artemis stepped aside as soon as we were on the other side of what remained of the bars, Dave Junior, Tormik, Reece and Gwym joining her to allow Xander and the rest of us through first.
I wasn’t sure how great that choice was if he was the first to walk into the sight of his sister naked, bloody and strung up, let alone if those vile creatures were messing with her in… other ways.
Then again, there was no saying what we were walking into, and these pirates were his to deal with.
I shivered with revulsion at the memory of Amarantha on the video.
Her whimpers, cries of pain, and discarded pleas echoed inside my skull in a haunting rendition of her suffering that would forever change the way I heard her music.
And wasn’t her identity just the biggest mindfuck of all? I couldn’t believe I never even knew Xander was related to one of the biggest celebrities in the Intergalactic Union, let alone how The Program had managed to capture her without the public’s notice.
It spoke to their sheer amount of resources, let alone the severity of the corruption they had caused.
It wasn’t a good sign for us in this war, but we had something they didn’t.
The Super Gang.
My thoughts came to a screeching halt at the sound of the screams.
We had just rounded a corner to unveil one of the most gruesome sights I had ever been exposed to, and that was saying something after recent events.
Xander was already combatting one of the pirates, Stanson and Hum’Rit taking the other two when they launched themselves at us, fists first.
Dave Junior eagerly joined the fray, tearing through a body like it was butter. There was no one for me to fight, however, so I stood back and watched my people dispatch the disgusting excuses for men, which gave me the time to take in the rest of the room.
We were in a dimly lit cavern with all the light focused on the single entrance/exit we’d just come through, but that didn’t stop me from clocking the countless cages at overcapacity that were stacked on top of each other and lined the walls from floor to ceiling.
And it was a remarkably high ceiling.
My recently enhanced eyesight was coming in handy, though it was a view I particularly wanted burned into my brain.
Men, women, children, all of various ages and races, were crammed into cages that were too small for a single person, let alone multiple, yet there were at least three to a cage.
They were naked, and if they wore clothes, they were so tattered that they barely covered anything anymore anyway.
Useless.
Bloody. Black from grime.
A dirty face peered out at me curiously from the closest cage.
Pointed ears indicated Yu’Rom descent, though I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, but they were far too young to have suffered through such horrors.
They couldn’t have seen more than five solars in their short life, and to have been trapped here with a front-row seat to people being tortured, perhaps even their own family members…
I was about to say screw it and abandon my orders to free them, but Artemis chose that moment to sweep past and took over the task herself, Reece, Tormik and Gwyn reaching the subsequent cages.
Artemis and Reece were the only ones strong enough to break the locks, so they methodically opened the cages, Arty taking the higher ones since she had a hang of her new levitation ability, and the other two helped the newly freed captives get out.
Despite keeping an eye on the exit in case we had any unwanted visitors, I still managed to watch out of the corner of my eyes as some of the captives, those in worse shape than the others, failed to hold themselves up without assistance.
Worry was starting to creep in that they might not all be able to make it out of here without us carrying them, that perhaps we should have brought the damn laundry carts with us, but those concerns were thankfully assuaged when the stronger captives immediately propped them up, keeping them on their feet.
Some were tossed over shoulders, children were clinging to the fronts and backs of their parents or the closest adult, and there were even the heartbreaking tears of those who had been lost.
My heart clenched painfully from an array of emotions, many of which I didn’t want to begin to unpack yet, if ever, when Reece cried out and rushed to a couple I assumed were his parents.
For some reason, I was shocked to find that his Yu’Rom parent was his mother, and his father was the Terran, but perhaps that was just my own bias stemming from my Terran mother.
It was strange to see a pure-bred Terran so far away from Earth, as they were notorious for keeping close to their home planet, but I really shouldn’t have been.
My perception of the Intergalactic Union and those that called it home had been proven false, my own experiences of wealth and status tainting my reality and my sheltered upbringing blocking me from any real knowledge of the people who shared this vast space with me.
It had been a point of shame for me for a long time, and one of the reasons I had joined the military in the first place.
But now, seeing a mixed family that loved each other so viscerally reminded me painfully of the one I had lost.
They clung to one another, tears or bittersweet joy, relief, and misery that spoke of the horrors they had been subjected to running down their dirty cheeks as they fought to hug their son around his helmet.
Just as I had the thought, it disappeared back into the suit, freeing his face and removing any remaining obstacles to their reunion.
But now wasn’t the time for such things.
They could hug it out later, but right now they needed to get moving.
‘That’s the last of them,’ Artemis called as she drifted back down to the ground, a frail-looking woman held securely in her arms.
The woman didn’t stir, and I caught the multiple slashes on her back that were very clearly from being whipped.
Some of them even had marks that extended from the end like an explosion.
Their whips had accessories.
Fucking monsters.
The last scream tore from the pirate's throat as Xander tore into him.
Literally.
There wasn’t much left of his body when Xander reached us, drenched in the blood of our enemies.
But when he took one look at the unconscious woman Arty carried, his entire demeanour changed. No longer was he the Berserker who ran on bloodlust alone. Now, he was a wounded man who crumbled at the sight of who I had just realised was his sister.
He reached out a tentative hand, saw the gore coating his skin and promptly let it drop.
He twisted his fingers together anxiously as he met Artemis’s eyes.
‘Is she…?’
‘She’s alive.
In bad shape, but nothing we can’t fix,’ she told him softly, extending her arms to offer Amarantha to her brother.
But he shook his head no and backed away, clasping his hand behind his back to prevent himself from reaching out again.
‘You carry her.
I’m dirty.
She doesn’t need… this,’ he said in a small voice that I never imagined I would hear from him.
Artemis studied him for a beat before giving him a nod, then hugged the singer to her chest and started leading the way out of this dump, Dave Junior close on her heels.
Amarantha’s signature long red hair swayed with each of Arty’s steps, though instead of the silky threads I was used to seeing in the media, it was clumped and matted with dirt, grime, and blood.
Instead of a soft swish against Artemis’s body, it smacked into her audibly.
Xander winced every time.
He wasn’t the only one.
Reece followed close behind with his parents close on his heels, hands clasped together between them as they drew strength from one another.
Every so often, Reece would glance back just to check they were still there, that they were okay.
That they were real.
Envy stabbed through my gut each and every time they sent him small but brilliant smiles that spoke of their love and adoration for their son.
My own past tried to rear up to twist the knife in my heart that had been embedded there for so long, now I sometimes even forgot it existed.
Not now.
Now it was making itself known in the worst possible way, and I had to fight from keeling over. As it stood, my breath was already coming in short pants and sweat was accumulating on my brow. I felt too hot and too cold at the same time.
We needed to hurry this along before the memories took over and I passed out.
My vision blurred as we closed the distance between us and the ship.
Each step felt like a monumental effort, and when we finally exited the tunnel into the abandoned settlement, the artificial light from the biodome blinded me further.
My heart beat a rapid rhythm against the inside of my chest, each one threatening to pull forth the bombardment of memories from a time long forgotten.
Best forgotten. I had purged them on purpose, and I detested their gall to try to rise up now.
Finally, we reached the ship, but I feared it was too late.
My body had gone completely cold, numbness permeated my extremities, only interspersed with the occasional prickling of pins and needles as my heart worked double time to keep me moving.
When we were through the biodome and in view of the ship, the ramp lowered for us to enter the airlock and we crammed inside.
It was only vaguely that I clocked the soldiers posted with their weapons ready to fire in case of another attack, but none came.
The ramp rose and the airlock closed, then the hangar bay’s doors opened to allow our entry.
Immediately, Henrik arrived with a slew of white-coat clad soldiers ready to assist him in healing the captives.
As far as I was aware, none of us had an injury besides the cut on Tormik’s hand, but it was so small and negligible that it would just heal on its own without issue.
I watched through hazy vision, black closing in around the edges to create a fuzzy tunnel, as Artemis carefully handed Amarantha over to Henrik on a stretcher.
She was by far the worst off of the bunch.
Xander’s gaze tracked them until they left his view, and then he was being ushered away by a blur of pink.
Unfortunately, the crowd did not disperse quickly enough and my breathing was becoming laboured from the strain of holding off the incoming panic attack.
I knew what it was.
I’d had them before, but not since I was a kid.
They were a frequent ailment right after my mother…
Images of her sweet face, ambiguous from the years spent forgetting her, flashed through my mind without my consent, forcing themselves on me alongside the barrage of emotion that clung to them.
That clung to me.
I couldn’t do this.
There were too many people.
There was too much of her.
I needed to get out…
I shoved my way through the crowd, not caring who I knocked over in my desperation to find somewhere quiet.
Panic clawed at me, desperate and suffocating.
I raised a hand to wipe the sweat that dripped into my eyes but was blocked by the helmet still covering my head.
Frantically, I repeatedly jammed my finger into the button that would release me from the prison of the spacesuit, tripping over it as I jerkily stripped it from my body and tossed it aside, uncaring where it landed or the state it was in.
I found myself in front of a door and stepped through, distantly pleased to find it empty of people but too far gone in my panic to care much anymore.
I clung to a nearby shelf only for it to break beneath my weight and I collapsed to the floor in a heap, the shelf’s contents falling on top of me, though I barely felt their blows.
The memories swirled in my mind, each one sharper than the last, cutting into my carefully constructed walls with a terrifying ease.
My chest constricted as I struggled to take in air.
My throat convulsed as it closed, refusing to let anything past to reach my lungs.
Sweating and trembling, I curled into myself, trying to ride out the storm raging inside me.
‘Cadmus…’
I heard her sweet voice calling to me like a siren song, but it was too far away.
I couldn’t reach it.
That amped up my panic until the blackness around the edges of my vision finally took over, the shadows dragging me under with only my mother’s gaunt, corpse-like face to keep me company.