I could not handle it when I heard her call me a coward. I couldn't handle it when I heard her cry. I didn't like to see her broken like this. It hit me at my very core. But what could I do? I wasn't the captain of the ship. I wasn't the captain of the fleet.
I left Emma and walked back to my quarters. I walked back and forth inside the room trying to get rid of the anger that I felt toward my own captain. This did not make sense. I understood his reason for not wanting to attack an entire city full of cyborgs, but what about a stealth mission? There were other ways we could try to get the human females back. The fact that he wasn't even going to try and was ready to retreat was unlike him. I wondered what had happened to him in the time since we crashed and now. For some reason, he was ready to go back pretty much empty-handed. Lieutenant Vnor Gin had told me that they had found a few of the other human females simply because they had crashed alongside them. They were in the safety of the mothership out in space hovering above this planet. But this was six human females; that was a lot to pass up. Each of these women could be the mate of a Kynon. So why wasn't he willing to at least try to get them back?
I thought about what it would be like to go home, to see her again. It felt good. I did want to see her again. But what would it be like with Emma? She would always look at me as a coward, forever. I couldn't have that. I couldn't have her on my home planet with me never trusting me again. She would think that my words were always empty. That is what the outcome would be if I didn't at least try to help her get her friends. She was right. We were the reason that the human females were on this planet in the first place. We were the ones responsible for the capture of them by the cyborgs. So it should also be our responsibility to get them back. I had to do something, but I didn't know what.
“So what do we know of this planet? What do we know of the cyborgs? Do we have maps?” I said as I stood next to Lieutenant Vnor Gin.
“Yes, we know quite a bit so far. We know how to take them down; a knife to the side of the neck shorts out their circuits. We have a few maps in the communication room,” he responded.
“And where are we headed now? Is the captain ready to depart?” I asked.
“We are on the outskirts of the trading village Cantu, by a hundred miles. We are waiting here until the rest of the fleet meets up with us. Once they are all accounted for, then we will head back to the mothership, and then home,” he said.
“Sounds like a good plan,” I said. “Since I’m not useful as a pilot I might as well take a look at those maps,” I said saluting him and then walking to the communication room. But I was already cultivating a plan in my head; it hadn't come together yet because I needed to see the maps. I walked into the communication room and spent some time looking at our position, but I was most interested in the position of C2. I found it easily marked on the map; they seemed to know quite a bit about it. I downloaded the map into my arm cuff, then I moved to the ship blueprints. We had a cargo area on board, and that usually meant there were some speeders for local travel. I walked out of the communication room and made my way to the cargo area. There were guns charging, and there were speeders, lots of them. I knew what I had to do now; if I didn't, it would weigh on me forever.
I quietly made my way to Emma. I opened the door. She was lying in bed. There were tears on her cheeks.
I closed the door behind me and sat on the bed next to her. “I’m going to go. I am going to go get your friends. You can't tell anyone. I am doing this against the captain's wishes,” I whispered.
She stopped crying. Her green eyes grew large as she sat up. “You are? You would do that?”
“I would do it for you,” I said looking at her. I had the urge to take her right then and there. But I couldn't; there was work to do.
“No. I won't risk that. You are safe here. You will stay here. I will find your friends and bring them back to the fleet,” I said.
“By yourself? You can't. There are too many of them, the cyborgs. I can help.”
“No. It is non-negotiable; you are staying here,” I said. I pressed my lips against hers, kissing her one last time as I knew it was possible that I might not return. She moaned as she put her hands against my chest. Finally, I pulled away from her.
“I am coming with you. You can't stop me. Take me with you; we can do this together. If you don't take me, I will never forgive you for it,” she said.
“Fine. Stay close. We are going to steal a speeder and get out of here. C2 isn’t too far away from here.”
She smiled and gave me a hug. Her body felt good against mine. It was hard to move away and get started on the mission. I wanted to just lay with her for hours.
A few minutes later, we had snuck into the cargo area. I found several guns that were fully charged. I found a speeder that was heavily armed with guns. Then we got inside of it and quickly shut the doors.
“Stay quiet; this is going to happen very fast. Buckle your belt,” I said to her.
I turned on the speeder and punched in the numbers to open the cargo bay. Then the door opened; I punched the speeder forward, and we flew out quickly. I punched it hard, as fast as the speeder would go, in the direction of C2. I had done it. I had defied my captain and my lieutenant; I had defied an order from the royal family, the prince. There was no going back on my actions now. I could only hope that this would be a successful mission.