The Silver Liner: Sails to the Edge!

by Daniel Sullivan

  The rest of them were injured, with Xenia Xayasith injured the worst, though amazingly, she still stood. It was a costly victory, and only getting the ship spaceworthy before the next wave would make it worthwhile. If they could not do that, Jax was not sure that they would ever leave Ceres.

  37

  With the masers set up for multidirectional firing, repelling the mantids no longer required boots on the ground. That was the one positive that came out of the last battle. Had Heather and her crew not reconfigured the masers, it was more than likely that most or all of the ground team would have died, and that the mantids would have found their way into the ship, and most likely, killed everyone aboard.

  Commander Jax’s actions had seemed suicidal at first, but his brilliant tactical feat was the only reason anyone survived until the maser modification was finished. The rest of the ground team had given their all, including Doctor Xayasith and the former rock icon, Kendrick Royce. Some—three of the clone legionnaires and three marines—truly did give all.

  Equally instrumental to their victory were the actions of Doctor Kinsale-Royce and Captain Giffords. The two women had created the openings the ground team needed to return to the airlock. The captain had taken no damage at all, but Fiona, the first to the door, had taken fire from the monsters in the form of acidic projectile spittle. It had burned through her suit in more than one place, ruining the suit and necessitating a visit to the Med-Bay with the rest of the injured soldiers, including her husband.

  Kendrick, for his part, had suffered several burns and tears in his suit, the result of their projectile spittle and actually being stabbed by the creatures. Though he was not injured as badly as the still recovering Lieutenant Fleischer had been earlier, the stabs had compromised the integrity of his suit, exposing Royce to subzero temperatures and vacuum. All of the surviving ground team had similar injuries.

  Jax’s injuries were more numerous, but much to Doctor Biggs’ relief, all of the commander’s injuries proved to be superficial, and he was now being tended to by a MEDroid.

  Given the damage to Fiona’s suit, Biggs expected her to have fairly severe injuries from the acid. However, when he examined her, Jacob found that her injuries were already healing, no doubt thanks to the nanites in her blood.

  Doctor Kinsale-Royce sat on the table in the Pod Alpha Med-Bay, wearing only a sports bra and a pair of form fitting athletic shorts, displaying a toned, muscular physique. All who looked at her were astounded.

  “Doctor Royce,” Biggs exclaimed. “Your injuries are healing before my very eyes! How…”

  “You already know how, Doctor Biggs,” Fiona replied. “I am aware of the concerns you expressed to Captain Giffords. I am also aware that she asked you whether or not I could be killed.”

  Biggs backed away from her as she spoke. “How…”

  “I am connected to the ship, Doctor Biggs.” Fiona stood, prompting him to take another step back, and drawing the attention of the others in the Med-Bay, including Kendrick. “Until Captain Giffords invoked the Omega Protocols, I was the ship.”

  Fiona was no longer even trying to hide this from the crew. It no longer mattered—if they all died, none of this would matter. She felt that it was better that everyone knew what she was capable of now; perhaps it would help when the creatures attacked the next time.

  “We are two separate entities, but I can merge with her just as Kendrick does, and we maintain a constant connection. Rest assured; if the ship knows something, I know something. While in the tech lab, you recorded voice notes about your findings and your conversation with Captain Giffords. Ordinarily, I would not have had access to your notes, but when the shuttle was destroyed, Mister Mun authorized the scanning of all datapads and computers aboard, yours included.”

  “Doctor Royce, you must understand my position…” Doctor Biggs began, but Fiona cut him off.

  “I know perfectly well your position, Doctor Biggs, as well as that of Captain Giffords. It does not matter; you were discussing the possibility of killing me.”

  “You should know that I was not in favor…”

  “We will discuss this later, Doctor Biggs,” Fiona declared. “Now, I will tend to my husband; his injuries are well within my capability to heal, and the rest of the ground team has more severe injuries than I; please see to them.”

  With that, Fiona walked to where Kendrick sat and kissed him. “I am here, my husband.”

  “Fi… do you want to put some clothes on?” Kendrick looked quizzically at her as she tilted her head, pondering his question.

  “When I have completed my work with you,” she replied. “You are my top priority at this point.”

  Doctor Biggs left the two of them alone and coordinated with the rest of the medical staff and the MEDroids to aid the rest of the ground team. The further away from Fiona he could get, the better. He soon found himself examining the clone legionnaire whom Fiona had named Sorcha.

  Like Fiona and the rest of the wounded, the tall clone woman had doffed most of her clothes. A deep gash in her side did not seem to slow the soldier down, nor did any of the myriad of smaller wounds and burns on her body.

  “My scans show that your wounds are superficial, except for your side wound,” Biggs noted. “I’m about to apply an application of Qwik-Heal gel to your side; it will hurt, but it will speed the healing process and keep you from bleeding out. After that, I’ll cover the wound with a closure strip, and then a bandage.”

  “Begin, Doctor,” the woman said flatly.

  “Okay, Sorcha,” Biggs said with resignation. “Here goes.”

  He placed the applicator into her wound and began filling the gash with the gel. Sorcha stiffened and made a sharp, hissing inhalation, but otherwise remained still.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes,” she replied as he slowly filled the wound.

  “Almost done.” He finished off the application of the gel, then cleaned her blood from her skin before placing the closure strip over the wound, which compressed and pulled the wound closed when he ran a current through it. “There; that will hold you together. Now…” he paused, placing a large bandage over her wound, and taped it to her side, “you won’t bleed out, and your injury will heal.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Sorcha said, relaxing now that he was not working on her side.

  Biggs began dressing the rest of her wounds. “You took a lot of damage out there, Sorcha.”

  “She’s earned her place with us, that’s for sure,” Jax interjected as one of the MEDroids cleared him for duty. “Fiona too,” he added. “Maybe think about that in your next secret meeting, Doctor.”

  “Look, Jax…” Biggs began, but Jax stood, tall and imposing, folding his arms.

  “It’s ‘Commander,’ Doctor. Never forget that.” Then, he returned to his seat on the table. “Meet me in the forward conference room in Pod Beta as soon as you’re done here. We need to have this conversation in private.”

  Technically, Jax did not outrank Biggs, who also held a commander’s rank. But in reality, Jax was second in command on the ship, and the marines were under his direct command. Jax was also on track for a captaincy, and rear admiral later. If Donavan Jax demanded a meeting, there would be no ignoring him.

  “Of course, Commander,” Doctor Biggs replied before returning to his patient.

  38

  Doctor Xayasith had returned to Hutch Davis’ lab instead of going to the Med-Bay, assisted by G-2, before the others had realized that she was not with the rest of the wounded. Once inside, she locked the door, and allowed G-2 to attend her injuries.

  “That was highly risky of you,” G-2 noted. “Were you not afraid of dying?”

  “The reward… was worth the risk,” Xenia grunted. “Did you do as I asked?”

  The medical gynoid nodded. “There was a point when Miss Dalrymple and Miss Chen were shutting down power in different places in an effort to diagnose the ship’s current maladies.”

  “Were they successf
ul?”

  “Unknown Doctor, but it afforded me the opportunity to disable the security and listening devices in the room. I have reported electrical faults to maintenance and made certain to make it seem like a result of the shuttle explosion. I obtained pieces of shrapnel and placed them carefully, just as you directed.”

  “Good. You will be rewarded.”

  “What of your reward, Doctor Xayasith? You said it was worth the risk.”

  “I was able to obtain… eggs from one of the dead mantids.”

  “You are severely injured, Doctor Xayasith. Why are you not in the Med-Bay?”

  “The eggs… they’re in my side wound,” Xenia explained. “Get them out and into a secure container, and then get me to the Med-Bay; be as critical of my stubbornness as you can.”

  “That, Doctor Xayasith, will not be a problem.”

  The MEDroid did as Xayasith asked. The process was painful – G-2 had to reach into Xenia’s side to extract each egg one by one. Each one G-2 placed into a secure sample storage unit. Xenia shrieked throughout the extraction.

  When it was finally over, she looked at G-2. “Did … you retrieve them all?”

  The MEDroid used a portable scanner to be certain, finally saying, “Yes, Doctor.”

  “Thank you. Now… treat my injury before I bleed out.”

  Vanya Reddy had retreated to her cabin, taking a much-needed break from the bridge. Her head pounded and being in the same room with Giffords was intolerable right now. Ever since her meeting with Xayasith in the NessCorp scientist’s cabin, Vanya had not felt right. Her headache had continued to get worse, and she had never suffered from migraines. More and more, she became convinced that Xayasith had done something to her.

  The door chime sounded, and Vanya called out, “Enter,” knowing that it was Doctor Liu.

  The Alliance scientist stepped into Miss Reddy’s cabin as soon as the door opened and let it close behind her before saying a word. In Doctor Liu’s left hand was a small medical bag.

  “Miss Reddy,” the Chinese woman said. “I received your message.”

  “I think Xayasith spiked my tea,” Vanya announced, remaining seated at her breakfast bar.

  Liu joined her at the bar and took a seat across from her. “I am willing to aid you however I can, but I am not a medical doctor. Identifying poisons and drugs would be Doctor Biggs’ department.”

  “I can’t let on that I’ve figured it out, Xayasith seems to have almost no contact with you.”

  Liu offered a slight smile. “She avoids me to the greatest degree possible. I will honor your request. I brought what you asked. I’ll take a blood sample and let you know what I find.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Miss Reddy took off her jacket and rolled up her sleeve. “If you aren’t sure, run it by Fiona.”

  This caused Liu to raise her left eyebrow. “Are you certain that you want her to be involved?”

  “She’s probably more capable than the rest of the medical and science team, myself included, and she’s less busy than Biggs and Pallone.”

  Liu nodded. “That is all true. Very well, Miss Reddy. Let us begin.”

  Doctor Hutch Davis remained in his cabin, a MEDroid present to aid him. He did not know how many days he had been like this. He was not certain that he cared. After what had happened in the lab, Davis could not imagine doing anything. He was so deeply ashamed of his actions that he wished that he too had died in that room.

  The door chime sounded and the MEDroid answered it, letting Doctor Kate McCormick into the room. Doctor McCormick was the Starfleet psychiatrist assigned to the outpost. She had visited with him every day since the incident, and every day, Hutch sat silently for the full hour that she was present.

  Today, Doctor McCormick took her seat at his breakfast bar as the MEDroid guided him to the seat across from her. He looked down at the table, averting his gaze, hoping that she would go away.

  “Hello, Doctor Davis,” she opened. “If you wish to talk, I am here.”

  The MEDroid poured her a cup of coffee, then left the room to allow privacy between the doctor and her patient. Davis wondered why they bothered with the charade – he was not going to talk, so there was no point in continuing.

  Kate sat silently, drinking her coffee. He occasionally looked up at her, expecting to see her judging him somehow, but there was no judgment in her expression. She simply sat patiently, ready to listen when he was ready to talk. Her visits were, of course, mandatory due to his mental breakdown, but once their session began, she placed no pressure on him to talk. Hutch appreciated this, but her very presence placed an unspoken demand on him.

  They sat for a while longer, Doctor McCormick refilled her coffee cup and patiently waited. They would probably all die on this rock. What was the point? The ship was dead in the water and the monsters were too numerous for them to defend against. This mission was over, and everyone on it was a dead man walking.

  “You know,” she said, “we won the last round against them. Soon, we’ll be back to setting up the outpost and the Selene will be off to Ganymede.”

  “No, it won’t,” Davis said absently. His eyes widened when he realized that she had just gotten him to speak.

  “Why do you feel that way?”

  Davis wrung his hands. “Because… because I saw what those things can do!” he broke down and began sobbing. “I saw my fellow scientists die… and it was all my fault!”

  “No, Hutch, it was not your fault.”

  He shook his head, still sobbing. “How can you say that? I was overconfident! I took samples against Commander Jax’s advice! I… molested the egg in the lab over Vanya’s warnings. Now, they’re dead.”

  “You did those things, but it still is not your fault.”

  “Then, whose fault is it?” He half-sobbed, half-shouted the question.

  “Nobody’s.”

  “Nobody’s?” Hutch now looked at her incredulously. “How can it be nobody’s?”

  “Because, Doctor Davis, you did what you were supposed to do. You had no way of knowing that the creature would do what it did – or even could do what it did. You did what scientists do, Doctor Davis. You took the proper precautions.”

  “But it still killed three people!”

  She nodded. “Yes, it did. But it is possible to do everything right and still lose.”

  He stared at her, trying to wrap her words around his head. It was something that had never occurred to him.

  “You… can do everything right… and still lose.”

  Doctor McCormick nodded again. “That is correct. Medical doctors do everything right, but sometimes patients still die. Success is never guaranteed. You of all people should know that.”

  “I… I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you. How did you…”

  “I did nothing, Doctor Davis; you were the one who made the breakthrough. I am only here to create an environment where you can make progress – nothing more.”

  Davis found himself smiling in spite of his feelings of despair. Perhaps it was not all over. Perhaps they could succeed after all. He still could not see leaving his cabin, but at least he felt like some of the hopelessness had lifted.

  39

  Kang Mun continued his investigation into the shuttle explosion. Things did not add up, not by a longshot, but the attacks by the mantids had distracted everyone from the sabotage. All crewmembers were accounted for, as were all MEDroids. Someone was in the shuttle, ensuring its destruction, but nobody was missing, and no human remains were found in the wreckage.

  A human in the shuttle would mean a dead crewman, scientist, marine, or legionnaire. The other possibility was an android, and there were several aboard. Five MEDroids assisted in the Med-Bays, and four in the tech lab, but all of them were likewise accounted for. While there were no remains of an android, androids were made of synthetic materials that melted at a lower temperature than human bones.

  The question refused to be denied, and hounded Kang most every waking
moment. Even his brief moments with Heather were colored by his thoughts about the elusive answer to this question. He was convinced that it was a MEDroid but could not work out how an extra android had been smuggled aboard. Then a thought came to him from out of left field: What if the android wasn’t smuggled aboard, but built after we left?

  Kang recalled the walkthrough aboard the retrofitted Selene prior to transfer of command to Captain Giffords, specifically the captain’s conversation with Royce about machine shops.

  The Med-Bay, cargo area and shuttle bays, Giffords had said. There are machine shops on the lower levels as well; if we need to fabricate parts for repair, we have the equipment to make pretty much anything.

  Kendrick had been surprised by this, and asked, Anything?

  It was Captain Giffords answer that came to Kang: Anything—if an android needs replacing, we can build one.

  Doctor Davis had in fact commissioned the construction of four MEDroids since their landing on Ceres.

  Now he had a theory that happened to fit the facts, but apart from maybe Kendrick and Fiona, nobody could just walk in and build whatever they pleased. Making anything required a requisition form for materials and signing off by the quartermaster. Anything as elaborate as an android, however, would require authorization by either the captain or one of the three most senior officers; Commander Jax and both Vanya Reddy and Doctor Biggs, both of whom held the rank of commander as well. That would be a harder trail to hide.

  While he supposed that it was remotely possible that someone could requisition all the individual parts, that would also create a long trail that would probably have raised flags along the way, and they had not been awake long enough for someone to have done so surreptitiously; an android would require thousands, if not tens of thousands of parts. The time required to hand assemble an android would also be considerable. No, whoever did this had done it within the past month.