Shit. So much for waiting

**************************************

"Everything ready?" 

Jack's auburn hair matched Ember's. Red was surprised he didn't see the resemblance between them before. In the memory, Red had only nodded. Revenge still tightly woven around his heart as they set out. He would get his friends out, but he'd doubted he would be joining them.

"We're ready." Dag picked up the bags, a quick glance at his wife and young son, and tossed them into the transport. Their transport was a small nondescript vehicle, old style it actually had rubber tires and connected to the ground in a day and age when most people had hover crafts of various sorts. Jack had called it untraceable and unhackable. No computer systems inside, with a combustion engine.   

"Let's go." Red hadn't looked at either of his friends. But Dag had picked up on his mood. As soon as his family had been loaded, Jack had jumped into the driver's seat, while Dag's wife packed their son and herself into the back. That's when it all went wrong.

Chaos erupted in the streets as two large scandroids came barreling down their section.  The large bots had a singular purpose and that was rounding up augs. They did nothing else, they weren't AIs. If the augments put up a fight they were to be killed. If they surrendered they were rounded up and placed in prisons away from the rest of humanity on other worlds.

They knew. 

"Shit." Red's symbiotics flared as he scanned the area, there had been two more around the corner. He tapped the side of his head. "Jack, get Dag loaded and get out of here," he shouted as he placed himself between his friends and the incoming droids. 

He sensed rather than saw Dag standing next to him. "Dag go."

"If you think I'm leaving you behind... You got another thing coming. Jack start driving."

Jack's voice called to them through their earpieces. Neither one of them responded.

"Damn it Dag, get in the car." Red turned to him but Dag wasn't looking at him, but at the scandroids moving in on them. 

He turned towards them and lifted his hand. His scanners lit up once again, throwing a blue shade in front of his vision, still, four scandroids coming in fast with two more not too far behind them. The engine fired up and the tires squealed as the car pulled away.

"You should have gone with them." Red snapped at Dag. He was more than willing to fight and die right now. But Dag wasn't having it. Once he was sure Jack was long gone he wrestled Red to the ground.

"Dag?!?" Red remembered shouting as Dag had wrapped a metal arm around him holding him still.

"You know, one or two, and I wouldn't mind joining you... But six? Six Red, there are six, live to fight another day..."

"I don't care, Dag." He struggled to get his arms out of Dag's grip, to at least put up a fight against the beings that had taken so much from him. Dag's metal arm wrapped around his torso, his regular arm wrapped around his neck, not quite cutting off his air, but making him struggle. Spots of color formed in his vision. He began to pant, spittle dripped from his face, as tears flowed, real tears of frustration as his inability to do anything, to get any kind of revenge.

"Tough shit, I do!" Dag had wrestled him to the ground as the scandroids converged on them. He'd struggled in his grip but there was no escaping the strength of Dag's arm. If Dag had been anyone else he might have used one of his other military augments to hurt him.  The scandroids had surrounded them and subdued them, Dag holding him down while he cursed and screamed at him, begging him not to struggle so he wouldn't be killed. 

******************************************

"Red."  Her voice snapped him back to the present, away from the memories that he'd long forgotten. 

His mouth had been hanging open and he snapped it shut now, his body tensed as he reflexively moved back from her touch. He inhaled, hating that he'd kept that from her, wondering if this would drive her away from him.

"Jack?" It came out as a weak question, he knew it, she knew it. Again, he clamped his mouth shut. "You were listening to our conversations..."

"Of course, I was. I hear almost everything, and this actually perked my interest." 

That hit Red like a kick to the stomach. He supposed he should have been grateful for that at least.

She had to have heard his and Dag's conversations. Well, their almost conversations anyway. He stood up, startling Ember in the process, she took a step back suddenly wary.

But he moved away from her to the window, staring into space. The truth was probably easiest. Damn the consequences.

"You want to know about Jack? Ok, I met Jack sometime after the purge. I didn't even know who he was then. He was more interested in finding out the source of the virus than anything else. But he was brilliant. He could make anything work, create almost anything."

"He was?" Ember's voice caught, Red turned back to look at her.

Her lip was quivering and her hands were clasped under her chin like she was praying. This was the situation he'd been hoping to avoid...

"He was the last time I saw him. The truth is, I put him and Dag's family on a ship to New Elysium back when... When it was just an idea we had."

"But you guys said that there was a good possibility..."

"There is..."

"So, he's still alive."

Red nodded, his expression remained guarded and he crossed his arms. "I don't know. Probably."

Ember stared at him. "You know for a guy who just broke out of a maximum-security prison on a dead world, you are wildly pessimistic."

Red laughed. "Yeah, well, for a girl who just got tossed into the same prison, got attacked, and is now running for her life, you are wildly optimistic," he countered crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm not making any assumptions that anyone is alive. Nor am I giving false hope. I didn't want you to think he might still be alive and then find out he wasn't."

Ember shook her head. "That's my decision." She moved toward him. "You should have told me you knew him."

Red snorted, crossed the room past her, and sat back down in the chair with a thud. He looked up at her. "You know that's pretty rich coming from you, I just found out who you were a few days ago, the very first time that I sat in this chair. Until then I had no idea that you were Darius Dawson's daughter let alone related to Mad Jack."

*****

Ember went silent, she pursed her lips. They were speaking of things that had happened over a matter of days. It felt like she'd known Red and Dag for a lifetime.

She stiffened as a warning caught her attention. Her eyes narrowed and stared in front of her, empty of any emotion as she instinctively reached out and grabbed Red's arm. Her attention was she focused on the commons. She barely felt him pull away but that only made her grip tighten. The pilot's chamber vanished and she was looking out into a room full of angry people that Andrea was trying to quell. 

"Please don't do this." She heard the old woman beg as she lost control of some of her people. Ember could feel the fear in the room. They were reacting out of fear of the unknown. They had agreed to go with them but being out there was a different matter entirely.

And then she was back in front of Red, who was standing next to her, looking down at her, concern marring his features. "Ember what is it?" Too close, he had put his hand on her other arm. 

She took a step back, slipping out of his hold, dropping her hand, her face flushed as she looked up at him. She stared at his face, trying to figure him out. He pushed her away at the same time, he was suddenly concerned for her. He made no sense. She let her eyes drop to his chin and stared at his labret piercing because it was easier than looking him in the eye. "Andrea's trying to put down a mutiny by herself in the commons area."

"Where's T and Alt?" He started for the door, before turning back. "You mind giving them a warning?"

"Take your gun." She countered. "I'd like to not vent the ship if I don't have to." She paused. "Dag will meet you there."

He nodded turning around and heading straight for the pilot's chair. The weapon he'd taken off of Helion 7 leaned against it, a token of some guard, a guard that Red refused to think of as an innocent caught in the crossfire. He grabbed it and was halfway through the door when Ember's voice called back to him.

"Red, if anything happens to you, I will make good on your promise, I will vent this ship. Do you understand." Her voice was hesitant, her eyes widened, as she swallowed, surprised at her own admission. 

Red's mouth went dry and he nodded. He took one last look at her, opened his mouth to say something, anything and snapped it closed again. He didn't know what else to say so he turned around and headed towards the commons. 

****

The gun felt heavy in his hand as he moved towards the hatch that would take him to the commons area. The "commons" was little more than a large dining room in the center of the ship, where the passengers could meet, greet, and eat. 

Dag stood outside the door, arms crossed, eyes grim. Red felt a little bit of remorse when he spotted him. There were so many memories he'd forgotten, his own history, life... Dag had kept him sane in prison, and it was his fault he had been there in the first place.

Dag flicked his gaze to the door, eyebrow raised. "Ember says there's a riot in there."

Red nodded. "Maybe we should remind them that I didn't want to take them on in the first place?"

Dag snorted and touched a console next to the door. The hatch slid open and the noise became quiet. Red slung the gun behind his back in a careless manner studying the people in the room. 

Andrea was in the center arms raised shouting above the din, her voice suddenly becoming audible in the silence. "--we can't turn back now.-- Her own voice echoing across the room stopped her mid-sentence. She turned to the doorway paling at the sight of Red, with his gun and Dag behind him.

"What's the problem?" Red asked, he suddenly felt tired, tired of trying to be a nice guy. He'd just got out of prison himself, for fuck's sake. He was still figuring things out himself. 

"We want you to return us to Waypoint." One voice challenged him. The speaker moved forward, he was a large man, at least a foot taller than Red, he towered even over Dag.

 Red shrugged. "The airlocks are that way." He had no idea if it was true or not, he really needed to go over the mechanics of this ship with Ember.

The man paled but seemed undeterred. Not even the gun hanging casually from Red's shoulder bothered him. "Turn us around."

"Andrej," Andrea had moved to his side. "This isn't the way. There is no going back now."

"We don't know what's out there!" Andrej snapped back and shoved Andrea out of the way to confront Red once more. Several more men moved up behind him. "Turn us around. We want to take our chances at Waypoint."

"Oh, so we'll up like the rest of New Caledonia?" Red didn't retreat, but he sensed rather than saw Dag tense up behind him. "I don't think so."

"We won't be killed." Andrej said confidently. "The signal has been sent, they know where we are."

"What signal?" Dag asked. 

What signal? He felt Ember in his head on their own channel. He tapped the side of his head, turning her down. He couldn't have her shouting in his head, with them at the same time.  

Find it, Ember. They've tampered with something.

We've been receiving entertainment, that's all I've got. 

Have you been scanning them?

No! Of course not! That might actually require me to watch them...and... 

Ember?

There is a signal, a box, something in the ship, something I'm not physically connected to. 

Can you hack it?

You might be able to, its a transponder...hidden in something.

Got it.

Red shifted his focus to Andrej again. "Where is it?" 

The big man lost some of his confidence. "Where's what?"

"You know what I mean. Where's the transponder?"

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Seriously, I'm trying to save your neck here." Red paused, his hand going for his gun. A box, something Ember wasn't connected to. "Dag, we're looking for a transponder, something, a box."

"Where's T and Alt?" Dag asked scanning the room. They didn't need hostages. Not now. 

"Locked up in their room." Ember's voice floated to him from somewhere...

Red nodded, "Good." This was going to get messy before it got better. He'd seen men like Andrej before. Andrej probably wasn't a bad man, but he was afraid. Fear could make you do anything, especially fear of the unknown.

"Some of our rather religious types never fear the unknown, its how they stay sane in situations that would otherwise test the boundaries of any normal human." Lars's voice suddenly mused in his head. "Something about perfect love killing all fear." 

Red's eyebrow raised in annoyance at the interruptions in his head. Shut up, Lars. You're dead. And you make no sense...

What made sense is that they'd sent a signal back, there was a transponder somewhere on this ship, half of the New Caledonians seemed to have a death wish. 

Oh, and Ember just proclaimed something... They'd figure it out later if nothing happened to him. 

He scanned the room, his scanners lighting up blue as he located the signal and then the transponder itself, as the man in front of him tensed, his muscled locking up, Red saw it happen in slow motion, the arm raising up, fingers clenching tightly into a fist. He also calculated the fastest way to bring him down. By the time Red had located the transponder, he had also calculated exactly where the man needed to be hit to bring him down in an instant.

It also didn't matter if the man was a fighter, Red was simply going to move faster, his military augments ensuring that. No one from New Caledonia had been equipped like he, or even Dag for that matter. 

He aimed for the lower jawline, a smile breaking out over his face. "Can you breathe in a vacuum?" 

Andrej's face crinkled in confusion. "What?"

Sorry for the delay in updating this chapter! I am now going to have to write a full-blown battle scene for the next chapter, (should be fun!). Feel free to comment, dissect, critique away! (Except you Ashabellanar4life, you are in charge of full-blown shredding this story down to size!) 

*Sorry for the slow updates, I really am highly involved in Irish Step Dance and it is March!* I'm already working on the next chapter as it directly feeds off of this one! Stay tuned and for those of you who've stayed with me so far! Thank you!

Chapter dedicated to Alice_Blake for liking the characters so much even if it's not her cup of tea, and AuthorJMColes, for yelling at the characters so much. Because some of those phrases were hilarious and kept for further use!