Tymber Dalton - Bightmares

“I kind of suspected there was something going on. I didn’t think a guy could seem so happy about killing people.”

Rob clapped him on the shoulder. “Unfortunately, you’ll see more like him if you stay in long enough, believe me.”

Rob had to go to the K-2 to pick up Sam so he could run him to the Petrovis Skye . “Take these guys and jump back to the relay,” Rob told him. “See if you can get it started again. If you can, send an emergency update to the DSMC and request backup. I want an official stand-down order from them.”

“Right.”

The dose Emi gave Eckhart was more than enough for them to get him to the surface and securely locked down in the colony’s brig. When he finally came to, he immediately thrashed against the energy shackles and started screaming.

Emi stood by the cell gate and stared at him, reading him. “Why did you do this?” she quietly asked.

He sneered at her. “Those lying bastards ruined my life! Their lies got my father murdered! They killed my mother!”

Emi had glanced at Eckhart’s service records while he was still unconscious. “Your mother chose to kill herself. No one is denying that you have suffered horrible tragedy in your life. However, Aaron Lucio and the crew of the Wayfarer Margo didn’t ask to be pulled into your father’s vendetta.”

“It’s all a lie! My father didn’t do what they said he did! They murdered him!”

Aaron walked over and laid a hand on Emi’s shoulder. “Come on,” he quietly said. “He’s crazy. Don’t talk to him.”

He led her away as Eckhart screamed at them. As the hallway door shut, cutting off his angry voice, Emi shuddered. “What’s going to happen to him?”

They stood in the conference room and watched Eckhart through the observation window. Aaron had muted the com into the cell as well as changed the glass to a one-way setting. Eckhart couldn’t see or hear them.

“You, Rob, and I will have to meet with the joint council. We’ll recommend Eckhart lose his commission and be institutionalized.”

Emi watched Eckhart screaming in the cell. Without sound, it was a pathetic pantomime of rage and delusional pathology.

Something bothered Emi. “This is just too coincidental. This is a big frakking universe. How did the guy who hates you and wants you dead, with a ship full of undergrad cadets, get assigned to a mission like this?”

“We’ll figure that out, too. I have a feeling he knew people. More worrisome to me is how a man who is an Academy trainer, not an experienced deep space captain, was assigned to an extremely sensitive security mission from the start.” He sat at the conference table and patted his lap. “Come here,” he quietly said.

She went to him, relieved, comforted. No, they didn’t officially have a cure yet, but she knew with the new information it was only a matter of time before John and his men came through. Sam had a nearly two-day jump to reach the trans-light relay. With Eckhart safely locked up, their worries were over.

She hoped.

Eckhart’s mental condition worsened in confinement. He didn’t need to eat anything to fly into a rage. Because of Emi’s expertise in psychology, Sascha let her take the lead directing Eckhart’s treatment regimen. That evening, she ordered a cocktail of drugs she hoped would stabilize him, or at the very least make him more manageable. Dr. Martinez helped Taber administer them. Within an hour, Eckhart lay quietly on his side on his bunk and stared at the wall.

His internal rage still seethed, unquenchable. Emi sat down and took a long look at his detailed personnel records and family history. His mother died by suicide a month after her husband’s execution. James Candling Eckhart’s name had been changed by his uncle, who was then an ISNC commodore.

That probably explained his connections.

Raised in military boarding school, he excelled in his classes, although his instructors noted he wasn’t very social. His skills and high grades earned him an early graduation and position in the Academy’s training staff at his uncle’s recommendation. He’d been leading training missions for seven years. Before now, he had an unblemished service record. He had, in fact, earned several commendations and letters of recommendation in his record from superior officers.

She made sure to record her session with Eckhart for evidence. “How did you locate Captain Lucio and his men?”

Eckhart didn’t roll away from the wall, although a wave of sedation-subdued rage washed across the cell toward her. “I’m tapped into the assignment rosters. I’ve kept track of Lucio and his fuck buddies for years. Once they hit the DSMC, I knew it was just a matter of time before they’d be sent on a mission needing ISNC backup. I had to take the chance when it came up. I didn’t know when I’d get another one.”

“Your uncle green-lighted your assignment?”

“Yep. He thought I showed great initiative in volunteering. He didn’t realize Lucio was also assigned. I didn’t tell him that. He signed off on it without even looking. He assumed it would be an easy monitoring mission, that you all would get it figured out before we even got here. Give the kids a safe shakedown jump cruise, a little experience.”

It’d been that and more, unfortunately. The drugs she’d given him also made him tell the truth. At least, the truth as he perceived it.

“How did your med officer die?”

“He saw the official itinerary and questioned why I’d changed it, why we were stopping at the trans-light relay. I couldn’t risk him interfering.”

“You killed him?”

“Yes. I hit him in the head when his back was turned in cargo.” His emotionless voice shocked her. That wasn’t just the drugs. She felt it in him, a bottomless black hole, a lack of compassion and empathy for anyone.

“So you didn’t care that you committed murder and were sentencing innocent people to death?”

He rolled over and looked at her. “ Innocent ? My father died because of their lies. I never got to know him. My mother killed herself because of their lies! Why should they get to live a happy life when I never got that?”

Emi wanted to rage a little herself, scream at him that his father had been an unfaithful animal without a conscience who sent an innocent woman to her death and nearly got Aaron killed in the process. She bit her tongue. It wouldn’t do any good. Only Eckhart’s uncle’s hand on his career got him to this point in the service.

“Did you view the hearing records?” Emi asked. “Read the transcripts and reports?” Emi had scanned through them after Aaron unlocked them for her. In an attempt to save his hide, Candling had thrown himself on the mercy of the court and claimed he was mentally ill. He admitted to everything, claimed he’d gone temporarily insane with jealousy.

After several of his crew testified he chased any woman he could and had made statements about wanting revenge on Aaron, Ford, Caph, and Kels for her rejecting him, he was found guilty by a unanimous decision. The pre-hearing investigation turned up thirty women Candling had affairs with in the previous twelve months before the incident. Affairs he’d never revealed to his wife, who he’d only married after getting her pregnant so she could receive spousal benefits from the Merchant Marines for herself and her son.

“They were lies. My mother said he loved her.”

His mother had also been a few letters short of a full alphabet. She’d taken various medications for years, prescribed and illegally obtained, according to her autopsy. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, narcotics—a nearly toxic stew of drugs. Her own brother testified at the coroner’s inquest that she’d suffered from mental health and substance abuse problems for over a decade.