by M. D. Cooper
She moved to the ladder and looked around one more time. She smiled.
“Safe travels.”
BOARDING
STELLAR DATE: 12.22.8537 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Voyager’s shuttle
REGION: Outer fringes of Bollam’s World
Katrina shifted nervously in the seat’s harness as her shuttle drifted less than a kilometer off the Pemberton’s starboard bow, the massive ship ominously blocking a broad swath of stars as they both waited for the Calvary strike group to complete their transitions into the dark layer.
The Castigation was next, and Katrina sincerely hoped that Jordan would follow orders and not do anything stupid.
A call from Captain Houston interrupted her thoughts, supplanting one set of worry with another.
Katrina smiled and nodded her head. The Verisa persona was firmly in place; though her ghosts were just out of eyesight, she felt them all the same.
But is that relief in his mental tone? she wondered.
Katrina-Verisa smiled as she inspected her nails for the benefit of eyes watching her from the Pemberton.
And then Troy was gone.
A second later, Captain Houston hailed her again.
As she set the shuttle on the designated course, Katrina ran through the mental checklist of the objectives she needed to meet if was going to survive. An hour from now, she would either be safely back aboard the Voyager, or she would be dead. At the very least, she wouldn’t be drugged and dissected by a military force extracting her treasure trove of ancient technology.
Won’t they just be disappointed!
Troy was the real treasure trove. Yes, Katrina possessed advanced nano, but not source information. She was no engineer.
Ten minutes later, her shuttle settled into a cradle within one of the Pemberton’s forward bays. She released her harness and rose from her seat. Glancing over her shoulder, she winked at the forward optics.
“See you shortly, Captain Houston.”
She cut the comms before he could reply, and took the moment of privacy to remove her gloves and activate the skin sheath she was wearing under her shipsuit. Originally, she had intended to use it as protection against any type of dampening collar, but now it would serve a much more important purpose.
When the time was right, she would be quite electrifying.
A minute later, the shuttle had finished equalizing pressure, and the exterior door opened to reveal six armed soldiers flanking a lieutenant, who held the collar she’d anticipated.
“If you would cooperate, Lady Katrina, for our safety.”
He held out the collar. He was going to allow her to put it on herself.
Well, how much luckier can I get? Or is this just the dumbest lieutenant I’ve ever met?
With a sweet smile on her lips, she reached for the collar, patting the man’s hand in a kind gesture as she took the device.
“Of course, I did promise full surrender, didn’t I?”
The man smiled nervously, and unconsciously rubbed his hand where she had touched him.
The soldiers tensed as she lifted the collar to her neck, expecting some last-minute treachery. But their anxiety evaporated as the already-disabled collar clicked shut around her neck, and she feigned a heavy sigh.
Adding to her show, Katrina bit her lip and then spoke quietly. “And now, if you don’t mind, this has all been very stressful. Your captain promised me a cabin, and I should very much like to lie down.”
“Of course, ma’am.” The lieutenant ducked his head in a quick nod. “And I am sorry about the collar. You will get used to the draining effect. I am told it goes away in a short time.”
“Thank you.” She smiled sweetly and drooped a little, pantomiming further fatigue. Self-righteous ass.
The soldiers led her across the bay. As they approached the doorway into the corridor, a wave of ‘dizziness’ swept over her, and she fell sideways into the bulkhead.
She thrust out an arm to stop her fall, and almost cut her hand on the edge of a control panel. A soldier reached out from behind her to hold her up, while another stepped in front with a hand extended to ensure she didn’t fall further. Reaching out, Katrina squeezed it gratefully then turned to touch the other soldier lightly on the cheek. “Thank you, again. I did not know soldiers could be so gallant.”
The lieutenant chuckled. “Then you have not spent much time with the Bollam’s World Space Force, ma’am.”
Did he really just say that?
“No, I haven’t had the opportunity before today.”
Another smile, and then she was stepping over the threshold and out into the corridor beyond. This time, it was a young woman who reached out with a helping hand. Katrina took it with a smile and was surprised at how young the soldier was.
Did she look like Juasa?
Katrina held her breath and looked longer. No; Juasa was not there. No specter of her dead lover was taunting her now.
The corridor curved to the left, and Katrina started counting down. Another minute, maybe two.
Pay attention to where you’re going, woman. You’ll have to get back to the shuttle double-time, or you’ll be toast.
They walked for a minute down the long corridor, and then took a turn to the right, revealing a lift at the end of the passage.
Fuck!
That would have to be the end of this little walk, whether things were ready or not. Getting on the lift would be death. If it locked down for even a few minutes, she would not make it back to the bay in time.
As they approached the conveyance, Katrina stumbled hard and put a hand to her head,
“Please, can we stop for just a moment? I feel dizzy. I think I am going to be sick.”
She twisted away from the guards on either side, but not to run. Instead, she sagged against the bulkhead. Her hand on her face as she drew slow breaths, Katrina watched the soldiers from between her splayed fingers.
They were initially tense, prepared to grab her again, but grew relaxed as they perceived a weakened woman barely able to stand upright.
She reached out with her left hand, gripping the arm of the one soldier she had yet to make contact with. Just as her nano slipped into his body, a general alarm sounded, and the lieutenant gestured to the lift.
“We have to move. Seems your people decided to suicide rather than give you up.”
As the soldiers turned to her, Katrina straightened and drew her arms up, ready to strike, but then she issued the command to her nano, and all seven of her adversaries froze, rigid expressions of horror on their faces. Katrina barely spared them a glance as she turned and ran back the way they had come.
She rounded the first corner and encountered two of the Pemberton’s crew. One yelled for her to stop, but Katrina only paused to crouch and then leapt forward, slamming her s
houlder into the chest of the first woman, delivering a shock to her, courtesy of her skin sheath. The second Boller backpedaled, but Katrina surged toward her, grasping the woman’s throat.
The electric shock was enough to knock the soldier out, sending her to the deck with a thud. Behind Katrina, the first woman rolled up to her feet, reaching for her sidearm. The Boller soldier managed to grasp it just as Katrina delivered a roundhouse kick to an already bruised solar plexus. There was a sickening crunch as several of the woman’s ribs snapped, and she was down again.
The moment her foot came back down, Katrina was on the move, sprinting down the corridor at a full run. She had three, maybe four minutes to get in her shuttle, and fighting was wasting precious time.
She turned the final corner and saw the doors leading into the bay sliding closed.
Shit, shit, shit!
Katrina pushed her body to move as fast as possible, determined to get through that door or be crushed by it. Her feet barely touched the deck as she willed the door to slow down, focusing only on narrowing view of the docking bay beyond the portal.
When she was three meters away, she dove for the opening.
She sailed through and felt the edge of the door slam into the heel of her left foot, sending a wave of pain up her leg. She hit the deck hard, biting her tongue on impact, but she didn’t allow the scream in her mind to reach her lips. Instead, she put all her energy into struggling to her feet and pushing forward, as her mednano dulled the pain and began to repair what had to be a cracked heel, or worse.
By the time she reached the ramp to the shuttle, she could barely breathe.
“Hey! What are you doing there?”
Katrina saw a pair of soldiers rushing across the bay toward her, and then another appeared from within the shuttle, blocking the entrance.
Should have realized they’d secure it, she thought as she gritted her teeth against the pain, sprinting up the ramp to the shuttle and grabbing the barrel of the soldier’s rifle as the woman screamed at her to stop.
Katrina’s right side went numb as a pulse blast hit her, but she drew on all her reserves and kept her hand clamped on the rifle, using it to pull herself forward. Her weight pulled the soldier off balance, and she reached up with her other hand, clamping it around her neck, delivering the last of her skin sheath’s stored charge.
The man gave a strangled cry as he fell forward, but Katrina paid him no heed as she slipped around him and into the shuttle.
She hit the emergency seal panel, the door slamming shut on the other two soldiers who were already at the ramp.
“Stars…” she moaned while hobbling to the cockpit and settling into her seat.
The soldier hadn’t messed with the consoles, which was good—it only took a single swipe to bring the ship online and power up the grav-drive.
She called out to Troy.
“Dammit,” she muttered as she felt the clamps release, and the ship lifted into the air.
There was no time to turn the ship, and she punched the grav drive in reverse, slewing wildly as she flew out of the bay.
Backward, I’m flying backward…Hope no one saw that, she thought, as her vision grew blurry from the force of the thrust.
With her eyes all but useless, and her right hand completely numb, she switched to controlling the shuttle via the Link. The fusion engines came online, and as she spun the shuttle, an alert flashed in her mind, and a visual appeared of the Pemberton’s railguns pivoting to track her.
“Fuck! Dammit!”
She jinked the shuttle wildly, desperate to be as hard to hit as possible, while waiting for the second alert that would tell her an impact was imminent.
None came, and the weapons signatures on the enemy ship went offline.
She pulled up a visual and saw the Pemberton’s turrets swinging back and forth wildly.
Katrina did, though she set the shuttle to periodically jink so as not to give the enemy too easy a target.
A splash of red caught her eye, and she looked down to see blood on the seat and armrest. She’d ignored her med readouts during her mad dash, and was surprised to see that her hand was cut and bleeding. Bile rose in her throat, and she tasted blood.
A glance down revealed blood seeping from a hole in her skinsuit, and she realized that the pulse blast must have been followed by a projectile round.
Or those other bastards shot me. Rama’s going to be pissed about the mess.
A wave of dizziness washed over her, and Katrina swallowed back more rising bile, glad that Troy was matching velocity with the shuttle.
Wait, is he flying the shuttle too?
A minute later, the shuttle slid into the Voyager’s docking bay.
Home. Her only true home.
Tears of joy, relief, and pain slid down her face, as she let out all the emotion she’d been holding in over the…years.
Then came the pressure of the Voyager executing a hard burn.
It was just too much.
She watched the black fog rise up and cover her vision until that was all there was. Her last thought would have made her laugh, if she had not felt like she was dying
A big hole, some blood, and dammit, you just ruined your skinsuit.
AWAKEN
STELLAR DATE: 12.24.8537 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Voyager
REGION: Interstellar space, en route to New Eden
Someone was jostling her shoulder.
“Kat? Katrina, wake up.”
Her eyes opened slowly. She could smell something sweet, and the sound of water flowing reached her ears, but her eyes wouldn’t focus properly. When they finally did, she became certain she’d died.
She was sitting under the tree…her tree, laden with purple flowers and standing next to a pond. A stream wandered away nearby, flowing over a cliff, and if she looked, she knew she’d see the water falling into space. It was not a real place, but it felt and smelled and sounded very, very real.
But they were real and they were smiling at her.
Smiling? She looked closer. Yeah, the three of them were smiling. “Am I dead? Is that why you all look so happy?”
Lumin Katrina rolled her eyes, while the Warlord tapped a finger against her cheek and said quietly, “I don’t look happy, and I am not smiling. You are delirious.”
Matrem Katrina smiled even bigger. “That is her way of saying you are not dead.”
“Oooookay. Then why are you all so damn…um… smug?”
“Because you finally made it here.” Matrem Katrina gestured at the scenery around them.
“And, um, where exactly is ‘here’?”
Katrina noticed the irony of talking to herself as if she were talking to someone who knew something she didn’t, but at this point, she was insane anyway, so what difference did it make?
“Oh my god, she still has no idea!” said the Lumin, and Katrina noticed for the first time that she was a child, looking a bit silly in her shiny, dramatic, white and purple costume.
“Yes she does. At least she finally figured you out.”
That was the Warlord, not angry or in pain for once.
Katrina smiled at the metal woman and said simply, “Sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“For all of it,” Katrina replied, and the Warlord nodded.
Katrina felt her own head nodding in response.
She watched as the Matrem Katrina reached out and took the Lumin Katrina by the hand. Not even a flicker of surprise went through her as the Lumin melt
ed into the Matrem’s hand. When the Matrem then took the Warlord’s hand, she watched the process repeat until there was just the Matrem.
Katrina stood up and held out both of her own hands.
“Markus really knew me, and he loved me anyway. I couldn’t accept that, because I always wanted to be perfect in his eyes,” she said quietly.
“Do you remember Markus as a perfect being?”
The Matrem had a look of true curiosity in her eyes, the expression making her crow’s feet more prominent.
“No, I remember him as he was. I just never believed he could love someone like me. All that time together, and even though I know I never wasted a moment of it, I never believed he accepted the good and the bad parts of me.”
“Yes you did; Always wanting to be the perfect idea you imagined he saw.”
“I’m not, though, and if I had accepted that about myself, I would have left Juasa on that ship and kept her out of my life. That is the guilt I will carry the rest of my life. It’s the harshest lesson of all, and I won’t ever forget it.”
She felt the cool touch of the older woman’s hands and noted that the Matrem had begun to look a little transparent.
“But you will forgive yourself now and look forward to the place and people in your life in the present. You can build on that and be all the stronger by the time you see Tanis again.”
Katrina watched the older woman turn into something like mist and melt into her hands like water flowing backward. She was alone under her tree, she was all of herself.
Looking past the pond, she could see a room in the distance growing larger as it came toward her. It was her cabin on the Voyager. Just her cabin, though—no ship.
Huh…that just doesn’t seem right….
* * * * *
Troy.
Katrina blinked and she saw that she was on a medtable on the Voyager. A man was looking at the readout next to her head. When she spoke, he jumped a little.
“Am I all in one piece?”
“Lady Katrina! Captain! You’re awake! Yes, all in one piece, ma’am.” The man’s head bobbed up and down continuously, while a smile seemed to freeze on his mouth.