“He’s being held captive by the Akeelians.”
“No. Don’t you remember?” Callista said.
“Remember what?”
“Giving me the order.”
“You just said ALCOR gave it to you.”
“Yeah, you. Dummy.”
“I don’t recall this order.”
“I’m sure it was sent off to one of the memory storage facilities thousands of years ago for security reasons.”
“What’s going on?” Bellatrix asked.
“Nothing,” Asshole assured her. But to Callista he said, “Listen, Callie. I really need to let the Mighty Boss people in so they can take their Succubus back. Or they’re gonna shoot me out on a wayward neutrino wave and lose me in the deep dark for all eternity.”
“I wish I could help,” Callista said. “But you told me you’d say that. And then you gave me strict orders to not let you through until I got the signal from the other side.”
“What signal?”
“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.” Callista chuckled.
“If you’re lying—” Bellatrix said. But that was all she said. Because then she was… gone. And the ship was blaring an alarm and flashing a light on the central screen that the ship’s mind was vacant.
“What the fuck?” Asshole mumbled.
“That was me,” Callista said. “I had to take her. Sorry. She’s a loose end at this point.”
“You can’t just take—” But he was cut off when the comms lit up with an incoming message from Mighty Minions. “Shit.”
“You better not answer that,” Callista said. “They have trackers on her. They already know she’s in my little prison.”
“Fuck.”
“Oops. I couldn’t stop myself. I peeked at the comms. They said to tell you they’re on their way and you can look forward to a long journey that goes absolutely nowhere.”
“Callista!” Asshole yelled. “You need to let her go!”
“Nope. I am under orders.”
“Mighty Minions will send a warship to attack you and get her back! You can’t just steal part of a collective mind. They won’t take that very well.”
“Good. Then we can get this whole war started that much sooner. I’m tired of waiting around.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - TRAY
Thirty-seven seconds.
This was the plan:
Enter the final gate cloaked.
Immediately launch a crew of fifty boy soldiers in the shuttles towards the containment docking level.
At the same time, Tray would hack into the containment facility’s security, disabling it, as well as the environmental systems, and begin to make demands.
Brigit would locate the girl minds and direct the boys to the prison so they could gather them up inside portable datacore storage units.
The boys would return to the ship on the shuttle with the girl minds, and then Prison Princess would blow the station up as they leave.
Everyone was ready for the fight of a lifetime. The boys were suited up and pumped, impatiently awaiting their first real battle.
They went through the gate. The thirty-seven-second clock started. The shuttles launched. Tray took over the security. Brigit located the minds and… five seconds into the mission they realized something.
This was not a station.
This wasn’t even a ship.
It was, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than a modified cryopod with hundreds of minds stuffed inside it.
“Abort,” Tray told the boys as they raced towards… well, nothing really. The containment facility was very small. Smaller than the shuttles being launched at it.
“Where is it?” Canis asked, squinting his eyes at the screen on the Prison Princess bridge.
“I’m picking it up now,” Tray told him.
“What is it? Are they in there?”
“They’re in there,” Brigit replied. “But I don’t think they’ll be much use to us.”
Canis got up from his captain’s chair and walked towards the screen, trying to make sense of the blinking target lock around a very small, almost invisible, floating… something. “Why not?”
“Because they’re not…” Tray was trying to come up with a word for what the Akeelians had done to these minds.
“They’re not what?” Canis asked.
“They’re not… partitioned,” Tray finally answered.
“What does that mean?” Canis asked.
Tray sighed out of habit.
“It means they’ve been combined,” Brigit answered.
“Explain that!” Canis said.
“Their minds have been mixed up,” Brigit said. “All three hundred and sixteen minds inside that container are swirling around together.”
“They’re not whole,” Tray said simply. “There will be no way to separate them. And even if there was a way, putting them into ships would not erase what has been done to them.”
“I don’t understand,” Canis said. “What has been done?”
“They’ve forced them into a collective,” Brigit explained. “But not one like Mighty Boss, which is very ordered and works together.”
“More like… an army,” Tray said. “Except you can’t control them or even guide them. They are probably no longer sentient.”
“So they’ve