Child of Hades

16. Heart of hearts (Leo)

Mr. Heydrich entered the coordinates. Charon had given us instructions to capture a ship. We had been given a description of the ship model, and a place and a time. Mr. Heydrich overbearingly ensured me that the Jussum would have no problem winning in the battle to come. I had realized that his arrogance could not be cured. 

Despite his assurances, I was still trying to come up with a way to find the elf that did not require working with a pimp from Chaus. I was Lex. Why was I being forced in a situation in which I had to obey the commands of a slimy deviant? I had never heard of Lex working with Chaus. 

All these years that I had spent imagining that I would become a mighty, glorious captain... I had not imagined any of this. There had not been much glory up to this point. And after being abducted by pirates and almost killed, here I was, doing some criminal's dirty work. So I really did not feel all that mighty either.

Finding the ship was easy. Within a few minutes, our crew had hacked their shields. I and most of my soldiers teleported onto the other ship. The criminals started shooting at us on sight. 3 of my men fell to the ground. I killed some of the attackers before taking cover. Shots were fired from every side. Two of the injured soldiers managed to teleport themselves back to our ship. One was not breathing anymore. I felt nauseated and my head was pumping. I had never seen so much blood. I had never killed anybody.

We marched onwards, taking out more and more of the enemies but losing more and more of our own. I counted that at least 4 soldiers had died by the time we had successfully captured the cockpit. Another 6 had been teleported to the infirmary.

After we had accessed the enemy's ship through their cockpit, we immediately checked all security cameras. There were no cameras in the wareroom, so I took some soldiers with me to make sure nobody was hiding in there. The door opened with a keycard that one of my men had secured from a pirate's corpse.

The stink of human feces was the first thing that hit me along with a wave of abhorrence. Dirty and ill-looking humans were sitting all over the floor, crammed up like wares in a supermarket shelf, closely next to each other.

The healthier looking ones were tied up. The sicker ones did not seem to notice their surroundings all that much anymore. A woman sat in the corner shouting "La, la, la" endlessly.

"Should we close the doors?", one of my soldiers asked.

I could hear his voice but I was still in shock. It felt like a dream to me. When I realized the feeling was not going to pass and neither was this situation, I responded: "No. Carefully untie them. I am sure there are showers on board this ship somewhere. Find blankets. Also, give them some food and water. Our nurses will do a medical check once they are done treating our men. I am going to check in on the men in the infirmary right now."

How many men had we lost?

My avatar had some minor wounds, so I took him with me to the infirmary to be healed in one of the machines.

Brielle saw me and took the avatar in. "4 of them are stable. 1 is still in critical condition and 1 has died."

Nausea finally got the better of me and I vomited on the floor right there. Brielle wanted to get a mob but I signaled her to sit down with me. One of the cleaners arrived shortly after.

I held Brielle's hand, not saying anything, my whole body was shaking. I could not look at her. Images of everything I had seen in the past half an hour swarmed through my head. I remembered every man that I had shot. The memories repeated in my head. One moment they were alive, the next moment they were gone.

"Why did I do this?", I asked, more to myself than to Brielle.

I don't know how long I was sitting there before I eventually found some peace. "Thank you.", I said without looking at her. Then I walked fastly to my room to strategize. Mr. Heydrich walked into me and asked why we had not set course for Chaus yet. I told him to leave me alone.