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Authors: Wade Andrew Butcher
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treatment of her. Risking direct conflict of an order issued by Leonidas, I knew I could justify my reaction to him based on what I saw.
“You are both guilty of abuse of a woman, punishable by death, which is within my charter to administer, right now, unless you answer my questions,” I instructed.
“You patrols haven’t enforced any abusive practices in this part of the ship for years. Why start now?”
“Because seeing you torturing my friend makes me a little bit angry, and I’m having fun thinking of what I should do to you in return,” I retorted.
The one on the table started to get up. My wing came crashing down on him like a blanket of steel. He would not be able to move from there. I placed the bony tip of my other wing down the other’s throat and pinned him back. He tried to bite down, but my wingtip was impervious to any damage he could attempt.
“You, on the table, don’t struggle, or I will kill you. Tell me - what exactly were you doing to her? What kind of study was that?”
He replied, “Studying the makeup of her lungs. Her genes are not telling the whole story. They don’t make sense. We cloned her as ordered. We’ll know in nine months, but that baby won’t have the abilities expected from our Commander.” His voice was shaky. I lifted my wing to uncover his face. He did not attempt to get up.
“Do you see me? You could clone me, right now, if you wanted. You know why you don’t? It’s because these wings are utterly useless on this spaceship, except for using them as tools to beat the life out of you, which is what I intend to do in a minute after you tell me the truth.”
“It’s the truth. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Next time she comes here, I’m coming too. If I see what I just saw one more time, I’m going to tear both your arms off and your legs and expel you from this ship while you’re still alive so that your remaining blood boils in the vacuum of space. Got it?”
He nodded while I released his accomplice. They left the room, and I clothed myself once again, which I really was getting more and more tired of doing.
Chapter 14
February 7, 2830
The patrol duty assigned to me yesterday took me to the interior. It was business as usual as far as I knew. There had been no word from Leonidas about my assault on the doctors. They were probably too scared to say anything.
From my quarters in the midsection of the ship, I climbed through the ladder tubes that joined the concentric layers on my level. The weightless center was my goal. Going all the way from the cylinder edge to the center took some exertion against the artificial gravity over the thousand-meter radius, but with each sideways coriolis push from inside the tubes, my weight decreased during the journey. I passed all of the inhabitable portions and reached the water tanks, used for the long-term water supply as well as fusion fuel. The last half of the traversal was a long uninterrupted climb through the final ladder tube. I eventually reached the center corridor, the completely weightless section running through the center of a toroidal ocean of saltwater.
It was a logical place to assign a patrol in theory, but in reality the usefulness was questionable. If anyone were trying to hide, they would probably not have done it in an open weightless area.
The center corridor was the closest thing I had to free space. Twenty meters in diameter and a substantial five kilometers long, the passageway offered space for me to lightly exercise my atrophied wings. It was very unsatisfying to travel the entire length in less than three minutes through a space requiring only forward propulsion. Not needing the full expanse of my wings, I removed only my shirt. (Resembling fins of a fish as much as wings of a bat, the sections that fold under my shirt can be retracted independently. Although it does not hurt to draw them in,
“You are both guilty of abuse of a woman, punishable by death, which is within my charter to administer, right now, unless you answer my questions,” I instructed.
“You patrols haven’t enforced any abusive practices in this part of the ship for years. Why start now?”
“Because seeing you torturing my friend makes me a little bit angry, and I’m having fun thinking of what I should do to you in return,” I retorted.
The one on the table started to get up. My wing came crashing down on him like a blanket of steel. He would not be able to move from there. I placed the bony tip of my other wing down the other’s throat and pinned him back. He tried to bite down, but my wingtip was impervious to any damage he could attempt.
“You, on the table, don’t struggle, or I will kill you. Tell me - what exactly were you doing to her? What kind of study was that?”
He replied, “Studying the makeup of her lungs. Her genes are not telling the whole story. They don’t make sense. We cloned her as ordered. We’ll know in nine months, but that baby won’t have the abilities expected from our Commander.” His voice was shaky. I lifted my wing to uncover his face. He did not attempt to get up.
“Do you see me? You could clone me, right now, if you wanted. You know why you don’t? It’s because these wings are utterly useless on this spaceship, except for using them as tools to beat the life out of you, which is what I intend to do in a minute after you tell me the truth.”
“It’s the truth. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Next time she comes here, I’m coming too. If I see what I just saw one more time, I’m going to tear both your arms off and your legs and expel you from this ship while you’re still alive so that your remaining blood boils in the vacuum of space. Got it?”
He nodded while I released his accomplice. They left the room, and I clothed myself once again, which I really was getting more and more tired of doing.
Chapter 14
February 7, 2830
The patrol duty assigned to me yesterday took me to the interior. It was business as usual as far as I knew. There had been no word from Leonidas about my assault on the doctors. They were probably too scared to say anything.
From my quarters in the midsection of the ship, I climbed through the ladder tubes that joined the concentric layers on my level. The weightless center was my goal. Going all the way from the cylinder edge to the center took some exertion against the artificial gravity over the thousand-meter radius, but with each sideways coriolis push from inside the tubes, my weight decreased during the journey. I passed all of the inhabitable portions and reached the water tanks, used for the long-term water supply as well as fusion fuel. The last half of the traversal was a long uninterrupted climb through the final ladder tube. I eventually reached the center corridor, the completely weightless section running through the center of a toroidal ocean of saltwater.
It was a logical place to assign a patrol in theory, but in reality the usefulness was questionable. If anyone were trying to hide, they would probably not have done it in an open weightless area.
The center corridor was the closest thing I had to free space. Twenty meters in diameter and a substantial five kilometers long, the passageway offered space for me to lightly exercise my atrophied wings. It was very unsatisfying to travel the entire length in less than three minutes through a space requiring only forward propulsion. Not needing the full expanse of my wings, I removed only my shirt. (Resembling fins of a fish as much as wings of a bat, the sections that fold under my shirt can be retracted independently. Although it does not hurt to draw them in,
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