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line up for a side project, “Starboard”/”Starboard Bound”, about a crew of space pirates/mercenaries just going around space and trying to make a quick buck. hijinks ensue
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Ysidor dragged his thumb nail back and forth over the wall, like he had done many times before. Looking at the new diagonal line he created, striking through the four tally marks that were already there, he almost felt confident. Five out of seventy. One fourteenth of the way. This time, he wasn’t counting down to death.
The last Hollows he had been to had taken their toll on him. He had suffered, he had hurt, he had died – but he had made it out alive. And every one of them meant another tally mark on the wall. Another step closer to freedom.
Now that he had finished his count keeping, Ysidor picked up the book from beside his bed. This wasn’t the cell he’d occupied when he was first thrown here, nor the high security one he had been placed in after his rampage. This one was bigger, cleaner, more comfortable, courtesy of his nameless patrons who had recruited him as a Hunter. The bed had an actual mattress rather than straw. Meals were a lot better as well, and he was provided with books to pass the time to the next mission he was sent on. His reputation protected him from the other prisoners, at least. It wasn’t exactly a good life, but it was better than a lot of things he’d known.
When he heard steps echoing down the hallway outside the cells, Ysidor didn’t look up. It wasn’t mealtime yet, nor did he get yard time today, so he supposed it was just guards doing their rounds. Then the steps stopped in front of his cell.
“Well, look who’s finally back.”
The voice was a sneer that made Ysidor’s entire body cramp up. Just like that, he was thrown back into the dream that had taken him when he had died in the Hollow.
“Can’t say I’ve been missing your ugly ass face around here.” The words were followed by a dry laugh.
Ysidor forced himself to remain calm. Staring straight ahead into his book, letters blurring in front of his eyes. Controlled his breathing. Calm. Face down. Don’t look up.
“Hey, rat, you deaf?” The voice was louder now, harsher. “Look at me when I talk to you.”
He breathed in, straightened his back, and raised his eyes. In the hallway, leaning casually against the bars of the cell, stood Jakk Drire, warden of the prison. His brown hair and beard were streaked with grey and less kempt than usual, his cruel eyes bloodshot and piercing Ysidor. He seemed tired, and ready to let his bad mood out on someone else, the someone else being Ysidor, of course. Next to him was a guard Ysidor hadn’t seen before, but that didn’t mean much. After his rampage, they’d had to hire a lot of new personnel. Both men had one of their hands rested on a weapon: A gun for Jakk, a knife with a jagged blade for the guard.
As Ysidor’s eyes met Jakk’s, a dirty grin spread over the warden’s face. The guard laughed again. Ysidor’s hand involuntarily clenched into a fist, but his fingers didn’t find the metal and bone they were looking for. His weapon got confiscated between Hollows, locked away someplace he didn’t know. He still heard its voice, though, whispering at the edges of his mind.
“Don’t you have more important things to do than visit prisoners?” It was meant to have bite, but Ysidor’s voice was too frail and broke apart at the last word. His patrons’ protection suddenly seemed much less comforting than it did a few minutes ago.
“What kind of warden would I be if I didn’t take time to put my inmates in their place now and then?” Jakk almost sounded playful now. “Don’t want the odd jobs and special treatment those self-important pricks offer you to get to your head. You travel with heroes too often, you might be in danger of believing yourself to be one. He look like a hero to you, Junior?” He cast a sideways look at the guard, who looked too broad and tall for the name.
“Looks more like a rat to me, boss,” the other man grinned.
“He’s a coward and a murderer is what he is.” Jakk directed his eyes at Ysidor again. Murderer. The word echoed in Ysidor’s head. The dap cloth over his face. The feeling of drowning. “And I won’t let ya forget that. Look at me!”
Ysidor had flinched away, but now forced himself to look up again. The whispering grew louder. Words of revenge, of vile hatred. All the thoughts he kept locked up within himself. Edging him on. Pushing him.
“Did your wife make another drawing of me, or why are you really here?” The delivery wasn’t as impressive as he wanted it to be, with his voice trembling and stuttering, but it still had an effect. He regretted his remark immediately as Jakk’s face turned dark red, eyes bulging. His hand shot to the keys on his belt. He unlocked and opened the cell door, and then, just a moment later, lifted Ysidor up by the collar of his prison uniform and shoved him against the wall.
“Care to repeat that?” Jakk’s breath stank of whiskey and onions.
It wasn’t just the hand clamped around his throat that blocked any words from escaping Ysidor’s mouth. He went slack in Jakk’s hands.
Jakk laughed: “That’s what I thought. Not like anyone would draw your face again. Not after me’n the boys were done with you.” He tilted his head, and his hand went into his jacket. “But maybe we didn’t cut off enough.” Ysidor felt cold steel pressing against his cheek.
“Uhm, boss...” The guard was standing just behind Jakk now. “You know what the higher-ups said about – “
“Don’t worry about them,” Jakk said, annoyed. “I won’t damage their special boy. Just gonna rough him up a bit. Not my fault if he gets into fights with other inmates, you get me?”
The guard thought this over for a few moments and then laughed. “Sure, boss.”
Jakk let go. Ysidor stumbled to the floor. He tried to scuttle away into a corner, when the guard roughly grabbed him and pulled him up. The world flashed with white pain as a fist rammed into his stomach with full force. Ysidor toppled over and retched his breakfast all over the floor. When his head stopped swimming, he tried to heave himself up, but a weight settled on his neck, pushing his face down into the puke.
“You make a mess, you clean it, dog,” he heard Jakk’s drawl.
Ysidor tried to squirm away from under Jakk’s boot, but the warden only ground his heel harder into his neck. Only when Ysidor had licked up some of the sick and forced it down his throat again, did the weight lift.
“Fucking pathetic.” He kicked him.
Ysidor barely got time to regain his breath before Junior yanked him up by the hair and slammed him against the bars of the cell. He would have begged for mercy if any sound could have escaped him at all. He could barely whimper. Another punch to his stomach, then several to his face. He tasted the metallic tinge of blood along with the bile.
The voices in his head grew louder.
He’s going to kill you , whispered the blade. Don’t let him. Kill him first. Kill the guard and run.
Go for Jakk , said the bullet. Pay him back for all he did to you. You hate him. Kill him. Make him pay.
Ysidor didn’t move. It was no use. He didn’t resist, didn’t even try to shield himself. That would just spur them on even more. If he just waited this out, his tormentors would grow bored and leave him.
They will kill you. Fight back. Make them pay , sang the weapon, louder now, overwhelming even over the ringing in his ears, the rushing of blood, the pain surging through him, nausea forcing him to gag up an empty stomach. Kill them! Tear them apart! They deserve it. Remember what Jakk did to you. Kill them and flee and then move on to the next on the list. Jakk. Fynbar. Valenta. Then everyone else. Everyone who hurt you, who betrayed you, who didn’t help you when they could have.
The punches stopped. Ysidor went slack, held up only by the guard’s hand. Then sharpness bit into his arm.
“This one’s for my Dad,” Junior said as he twisted the blade of his knife deeper into Ysidor’s flesh.
Ysidor opened his mouth in a silent scream. His weapon screamed at him, shouts deafening him, and then suddenly he was on top of the guard, raining down punches at him. Junior tried to fight back, but Ysidor dodged every punch, every swipe of the blade. His hand closed around Junior’s wrist like a vise, and now he held the knife. Blood everywhere. His own dripping down and Junior’s splashing upwards, and he couldn’t tell which was which anymore. More screams.
Then a clicking sound behind him. Shouted words he didn’t understand. Within a moment, Ysidor had twisted around, out of the way of the barrel, and kicked the gun from his opponent’s hand. Now he was face to face with the man who had broken him. The man whose name was on one of three bullets in the weapon forged partially from Ysidor’s own bones.
There was no thought, no intention behind it, just burning hot rage and ice-cold revenge. He brought down the knife, slashing him once, twice. But unlike the young guard, Jakk had experience and skill in hand-to-hand combat. Ysidor slashed him only once more before the knife was wrenched from his hand and dropped to the floor. He didn’t stop. He dodged Jakk’s punches, ignored those he couldn’t dodge, and kept striking at him. His knuckles were bleeding. Jakk lying on the floor, curled in on himself, arms raised. The gun was in Ysidor’s hands, unfamiliar but sufficient for the task.
Then hands closed around him from behind, around his arms, taking his aim off Jakk. He managed to shake some off, tear himself away from the rest, but more arms took their place, pulling him backwards and to the ground, holding him in place. Then something bit into his neck, and the world dissolved into darkness.
The high security solitary cell didn’t have a mattress, or books. It barely had a bed, and was just large enough for him to take two steps, which were restricted to just one by the shackles fixed to his ankles, wrist and neck. Last time they had put him here, he had pulled on the restraints until his skin had been chafed open and bleeding, but now he didn’t bother. The chains rattled as he dragged his thumb nail back and forth across the stone to redo his tally marks on the wall of his new new home.
He stopped when he heard keys scraping at the door. He had already received his meal for the day, and it was usually pushed through a smaller opening in the solid iron door. Now, as the door opened, it felt like deja vu.
Ysidor hadn’t seen the woman with the stern face and the elaborate armor since she had offered him an alternative to the death penalty awaiting him, in this very place, the last time he had been shackled to these very walls. Even when he was sent on missions, the people who briefed and debriefed him and guarded him on the way there, had never included her, but were instead an always changing array of ultimately faceless people who didn’t see it necessary to introduce themselves to him. And neither did she.
She didn’t greet him but instead went straight to business: “When we hired you, we put in a good word for you to receive better accommodations at this facility on grounds of good conduct and cooperation in our missions. Attacking the warden and a prison guard does not constitute good conduct. Therefore, that part of the arrangement is null.”
Ysidor kept his gaze directed at the floor. He wanted to say something. Explain himself, ask for another chance, apologize, beg, anything. But it was like there was a wall between his brain and mouth.
“You may get out of solitary confinement if you can prove you are not a danger to anyone,” the woman continued. Her voice was sharp and to the point, but not cruel. Which made the words she said bite even deeper. “But with your current track record, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
She stopped for a moment as if she expected an answer. Ysidor just nodded without looking up.
“Another thing: Since you have gravely injured a guard and attempted to murder the warden, the powers that be see no other way than to extend your sentence by five years.”
His head shot up to her, hoping he had misheard. Her eyes were cold steel, her expression bored. As if she hadn’t just torn down any hope he had left. Ysidor opened his mouth, but still no words could escape the prison of his mind. All he could do was stare at her in desperation, hoping she would somehow take back what she had just said.
The armored woman looked at him unfazed. “As it stands, your sentence now measures 70 years. Our arrangement of cutting off a year for every Hollow you help destroy still stands. We look forward to working with you, and will inform you as soon as there is a mission you are needed in.”
And just like that, she was gone. Heavy iron door pulled shut behind her. Ysidor was left behind in the small cell. He sat for what might have been hours, or seconds. Then he reached up his hand and scratched his nails back and forth over the wall to redact the tally marks. The five lines slowly disappeared behind the white scratches. Even after the marks were long gone, he didn’t stop, the white bleeding into red as he kept dragging his fingers over the stone.
