trans_9 | Buy a Little Mercy [Open; Potentially Graphic Material]

Less than an hour after the ship leaves Agrestic's orbit, an announcement is broadcast throughout Stacy.

|| Attention, crew. Your crewmates, Howard Bassem and Charles Merriman, have been apprehended attempting to desert. They will now be given Punishment. According to established guidelines, you are all requested to report to the Observation to witness the Punishment. Attendance is not mandatory, but highly suggested. This will serve as a reminder of the consequences of treason and desertion. ||

On the observation deck, Archon Yavek, Archite Rekkti, two other Daligig and a handful of Kessek soldiers stand outside a spherical force field. Inside the bubble, Orc and Howard are suspended by tentacles looping around their wrists. Orc's ceased thrashing around and struggling against his restraints; rust-colored fissures have developed around his shoulders and forearms from the strain, but now he simply hangs there, looking defeated. Howard's nose is bleeding, and every time a drop falls to the bottom of the forcefield there's a small sizzle. He's weeping and begging the Daligig with every plea possible, but they act as if they aren't listening. Instead, they wait for an audience.

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He pulled her close, resting the talons of the hand that he ought not even to have anymore in her hair. Even her veneer of calm made his guilt stronger. He didn't need to hear the crack in her voice to know how hard she was working to keep all her emotions in check.

She was good at that. At restraining herself, at keeping her feelings under wraps - and here he was giving her reasons, bad ones, to keep in practice.

When he drew back he kept his hands on her shoulders, ready to draw her in close again, but also simply wanting the contact with her. He owed her a long talk about what had just happened, but first he had to know - "What happened to the prisoners?"

He looked so well - almost back to normal, in fact - that it was difficult for her to dwell on just how serious his injuries had been. Or it would have been difficult if it hadn't been for the scar on his wrist and the blood that still stained her plant suit.

"They're ok," she answered, "Stacy intervened. She stopped the punishment."

They were still bruised, battered and deeply upset by what had happened, but they were alive. And they hadn't been tortured to death in front of the rest of the crew.

Goliath sighed with relief, and a little bit of surprise. Did that mean the ship was on their side, after all? Could that be relied upon?

He could consider that later.

"Good." He glanced around the observation deck. While mostly empty, it wasn't home, and that was what he wanted as much as he wanted privacy. "Let's go home."

By the time they got there, he might have had time to sort his thoughts into a speaking order.

Elisa wasn't sure what it meant and she certainly wasn't ready to trust the ship , but it was certainly more than just a stroke of luck. The situation seemed to be getting more and more complicated with every day that passed and the crew remained trapped in the middle, trying to survive and trying to work out exactly what was happening.

"Good idea," she said with a nod. "We can take the transport tubes."

He was still tired, despite the healing effects of the stone sleep. She didn't want to let him push himself too hard.

"Bronx will be wondering where we are."

Indeed, they had been gone long enough to be worried after.

He walked (and rode) in silence, not speaking again until he'd closed the castle gate behind them, and Bronx had run up to greet his returned clan.

He turned to Elisa again. "I owe you an apology."

It seemed so long ago now to him, but by her memory, he had only recently knocked her off the top of a dam the last time a battle had seemed more important than heeding her reason. Would he ever stop owing her an apology?

She hadn't been expecting an apology. Although Elisa hadn't been there when Goliath had started the battle that had almost cost him his hand, she'd pieced together what had happened afterwards. She would have been more surprised if he hadn't tried to stopped the unfathomable injustice of the punishment.

She couldn't begin to put into words how she'd felt when she'd thought that she was going to lose him. But she certainly didn't blame him.

"What for?"

"Perhaps if I had spent less time researching the Daligig, more time researching their bodyguards, I would have known better than to think I could best one -"

But even then, he would have had to do something to oppose the injustice the Daligig had been set to enforce. What that opposition could be, if not battle, he did not know. If there could be any opposition but battle, he was not sure of it.

He sighed his uncertainty.

"I don't know what I could have done differently - what I ought to have done, but I am sorry, my love. I never meant to scare you as I did."

"So if you'd done more research you would have stood back and done nothing?" Elisa shook her head. "That's not you. And, as scared as I was, I wouldn't want you to be anything else."

She moved closer to him, trying to soothe some of his uncertainty by resting her hand on his cheek.

"Next time we have to face them, we'll be ready."

"Of course not." But she knew that. She understood him well, and her understanding comforted him.

He placed his hand over hers, the one now ringed - permanently, it seemed - with the scar of his temporary loss. He put his unmarred arm around her waist, inviting her to lean into his embrace.

She was his dearest friend, and he had been without her so long. And the fear that had gripped him when he faced the prospect of his last moments was not for him, but for her, for the prospect of leaving the person he cared for most deeply to soldier on without him.

"I am not afraid to die for this cause." Fear was not something he often had reason to confess. He was not afraid to die doing what was right no matter the situation, if it came to that, but - "But I know too well the pain of being alone of our world on this ship, and I am afraid to leave you to that loneliness."

She moved into his arms without hesitation. It was the one place on the ship where she felt truly content and truly safe. For her part, she couldn't remember what she'd been thinking when it had happened. She'd just wanted to get him to the hospital and stop it from happening.

"Neither am I," she said, quietly, "But losing you ... that scares me."

She paused.

"We're in the middle of a war. We always knew it was a risk. We can't change that. We just have to keep fighting."

His vision went, again, to the ring of scar tissue around his wrist as he stroked Elisa's hair.

He had never had a scar before. And now he would never hold his beloved, would never stroke her hair as he was accustomed, without a reminder of the risks they faced.

It was an unsettling notion, even to someone who had never spent a night unprepared to die defending his home, his clan, if he had to. But it did not lessen the comfort of having this moment to hold his beloved safely in his arms.

He drew back to look her in the eyes as he stroked her hair. "I must fight for this crew. To do less would be to submit to the evil we witnessed today, and that I cannot abide - but know in your heart, that wherever I go in this universe, while our home is lost to us, you are my home. And I will never give up on returning to your side, not while any breath of life is left in me."

Buy a Little Mercy [Open; Potentially Graphic Material]

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