Ghost Ranger

by Dayne Edmondson

  “I understand that if this treatment fails we have no other recourse but to vaporize every unliving thing on that bloody world.”

  “The treatment could fail to work,” Jason went on to explain. “Or it could prove fatal to the infected, killing them instead of curing them.”

  “Which is exactly what we don’t want to happen,” my father noted.

  “I agree.”

  “It’s worth the risk. How soon can we deploy?”

  “Within the hour. I recommend evacuating all living personnel and civilians from planet-side before we deploy.”

  “Is the cure dangerous to the living?”

  “Not necessarily, but it could cause unwanted side effects if the living are exposed to it.”

  “I’ll ensure Marine Ops is informed,” Dawn replied. “Thank you, Jason, your news came at an ideal time.”

  “It was my pleasure,” he replied. Without further fanfare, the holo evaporated, to be replaced with an ever-updating tactical map.

  “He’s a man of few words,” I observed. He’d only answered when strictly necessary and was short and to the point. I could see why Isabelle clashed with him.

  “Jason has always been an intellectual man of few words,” my father explained. “But he has been my friend and brother-in-law for many, many years and he is a good husband to Bridgette and a good father to Isabelle.”

  I suspected Isabelle would disagree with the last part. According to her, Jason hadn’t always been an attentive father. Could you be a good yet inattentive father? I decided there were bigger fish to fry in that moment and simply said, “I see.”

  “TacComm, contact Marine Ops and relay an order from me requesting they evacuate all military personnel and civilians possible within forty-five minutes.”

  “Of course, sir,” the tactical commander replied. His monotone voice irked me, so robotic. From what I’d seen in pop culture, tactical commanders were humans melded with AIs in some way to interface with the ship computers. I shivered at the thought. I wanted to ask my father about him, but, like Isabelle and Jason’s relationship, now probably wasn’t the best time. A moment later, he spoke again. “Sir, I also have Agent Isabelle Thorpe waiting on the line.”

  “Put her through. God knows she hates waiting.”

  Isabelle’s image did not appear. Instead, her voice emanated from the projector as if she were there, but the map remained. “I’ve deposited the first cured survivor from the Cheville in room 660. It appeared empty. You might want to post some guards in there.”

  “Of course,” my father replied. “TacComm, see that a squad is dispatched.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  “And the other survivor?”

  “I’m grabbing her...shit!” a loud crack that sounded like an explosion rocked the channel, vibrating the air around me. “I’ve got company!”

  “Get out of there!” my father shouted. I reflected it felt silly for him to say such a thing in that moment. As if she would stay and fight...oh, yeah, it was my crazy secret agent cousin we were talking about. Maybe she needed a reminder to save herself.

  Isabelle didn’t reply right away, which caused a pit to form in my stomach. I heard grunts and moans and the sound of blasters discharging and what sounded like metal on metal. At last, several moments later, she grunted “got her” and the line went dead.

  “Can we track her location?”

  “Attempting to locate now, sir.”

  I held my breath before realizing such a gesture was pointless. I didn’t need to breath. It was a habit my body carried out, but which was not technically required for me to live. Holding my breath out of nervousness lost its meaning. I’d have to come up with a new nervous gesture. Maybe gnawing my fingers off? They’d grow back, right?

  “We have her. She is aboard the Nightblade in room 662.”

  “Dispatch medical and security teams at once.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going too,” I said, turning before my father had even acknowledged me.

  “Rachel, wait.”

  I half-turned, meeting my father’s gaze. “What?”

  I expected him to forbid me to go. To tell me it was too dangerous or to wait for the professionals to clear the area. The length of time he paused for told me he was warring with such statements himself. “Just be careful. Let your guards go first.”

  I blinked in surprise, then nodded. “Of course.” I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. “My guards have been taking good care of me.”

  Chapter 8

  I arrived back at the medical floor of the ship and found it crawling with security forces and medical personnel. I found room number 662 where Isabelle stood outside the door, blood spattering her armor but looking alive. Three medics attended to her while she grumpily answered questions from an officer, judging by the symbol on his shoulder.

  I made my way toward her and found several security guards turning their weapons toward me. “Halt!” one of the guards demanded.

  Terrence, who had been leading the way with Phillip, put a hand out in front of me and then stepped wholly in front, blocking any shots. “If you know who she is and value your job, lower your weapons.”

  “Boys,” I heard Isabelle mutter. “Let her through,” she said more loudly.

  Terrence stepped aside and I found the guards had lowered their weapons.

  I approached my cousin while my guards hung back. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, despite what the presence of three bloody medics would suggest.”

  “What happened? I was worried.”

  Isabelle snorted. “Don’t waste time worrying on me. But thanks. I was just about to grab that chick,” she indicated room 662 with a thumb over her shoulder, “When the door shattered inward. I barely avoided the shrapnel. Then I had to kill three of the pock-faced shit heads before I could lay hands on the girl and shift out.”

  “She survived?”

  “Yeah, she’s still in a coma, but she survived.”

  A moaning sound emanated from the room we stood in front of - room 660. The same room Isabelle indicated she had deposited one of the unconscious undead survivors from the Cheville into.

  “Who’s in there?”

  Isabelle shrugged. “I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care. I need to get this blood washed off my armor and unwind. Catch me later down at the gym and we can spar or something.”

  “I will,” I said, distracted by the repeated moaning. “I want to see who’s in there first.”

  “Suit yourself.” Isabelle disappeared in a cloud of shadowy smoke.

  “Miss, I advise against this course of action,” Terrence cautioned.

  “I want to see who Isabelle rescued.” The windows were opaque, but I tapped the control panel to turn the glass transparent and peered in.

  A young man, my age by the looks of him, lay thrashing and moaning in a hospital bed, his mop of brown hair flopping violently as he moved. Restraints on his chest, arms and legs strained against his strength. That told me he was undead. I spotted four guards for him too, just like in my room.

  “Is he someone special?” I asked. “He’s got four guards too.”

  “Not that I am aware of,” Terrence responded. “Four guards are standard for dangerous prisoners.”

  “Oh. And here I thought I was special.”

  “You are special, princess,” Delenn said. “It’s also standard for important dignitaries.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling slightly mollified. “I want to speak to him.”

  “That’s not a good idea, miss. He’s under guard with good reason. He could hurt you.”

  I looked Terrence in the faceplate and cocked my head to the side in my best recreation of the ‘really?’ pose. “I’m dead - what more can he do to me? Kill me?”

  “He could crush your head like a watermelon,” Phillip offered. “Then you’d be dead dead.”

  The mental image his words gave me caused me to chuckle. “Thanks for
the positivity. I’m going in.” Without waiting for permission, I tapped the button to open the door and went inside.

  I had taken two steps into the room when all four rifles pointed at me. Only the emergence of two of my guards gave them pause. They must have exchanged silent communication of some sort, for a moment later their rifles were again pointed at the ground. “Hello, boys. Or girls,” I amended. Until a person in full armor and a helmet spoke it was impossible for me to definitively tell what their gender was. The armor didn’t distinguish.

  “Please be careful,” a male voice came from the far right corner relative to the door. “The patient is unstable.”

  The patient didn’t look unstable in that moment. Instead, he stopped thrashing and watched me, a wary look mixed with what I imagined might have been hope in his eyes. Hope for what? That I would save him?

  “Help me!” the boy screamed, resuming his straining against the restraints. “They’re going to kill me!”

  “He is delusional,” the original guard said. “The restraints are for his protection.”

  And their own, most likely, I thought. I had seen the strength of those creatures. Four armed guards might have been hard pressed to take a fully feral undead down, and wouldn’t a fully conscious undead be even more dangerous? One who didn’t charge straight toward them but used tactics? I filed that thought away for future consideration, as I wasn’t a fighter. Yes, my mother had been, and my father was, but I wasn’t.

  “May I release him?” I asked, resisting the urge to look to Terrence for permission. He may have been the squad leader of my protection detail, but he would have no jurisdiction in that room. Instead, I settled my gaze square on the first speaker.

  The man stood still as a statue and silent as a lamb, a dead lamb, for several moments. Probably communicating with his team, though I noticed no movement from them either. At last a noise that sounded an awful lot like a sigh emerged from his helmet and he gestured. “Be our guest.” He inclined his head.

  I squinted, not sure if he was serious or not. Was he being sarcastic? Would they shoot me if I tried? Was he daring me? This time I did look to Terrence. “Well?” I asked.

  “It’s safe,” he said to me in some semblance of a whisper, assuaging my unspoken fears. “Well, safe from them.”

  “I have nothing to fear from him,” I said, pointing at the boy who once again was watching me in pensive silence.

  Despite my words, six rifles leveled on the boy. Insurance, I told myself. They had just heard the news of the Cheville being attacked and abandoned due to undead breaching containment. Things could change in the blink of an eye. They wouldn’t shoot him, hopefully. But my father would not be pleased if his daughter died again.

  I approached him and started by undoing his leg restraints. Then the arm restraints and, as I reached for the chest restraints his hand snapped up and covered mine, pressing it against his chest. Of course, I couldn’t feel a heartbeat, but it was still mildly romantic, I guess. I would have blushed if I’d been alive. Instead, I cleared my throat and thought of something to say. Play it cool, I thought. “So...where did you go to school?” I asked lamely.

  I half-expected to hear gloves hitting faceplates behind me as my guardians cringed at my lame first question, but no one moved and no sounds emerged from them. Granted, Phillip was still waiting in the hall. I knew he would have given me an earful.

  “Verkref High, in Everdeen City,” he answered. “You?”

  “Her Lady of Grace High School, in Silver City,” I replied.

  “Is that in the Gunshan province?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Pretty cool. I hear they produce the best clothing on the planet.”

  “Yeah, they’re good at that,” I said. I remembered one year during the holidays my father gifted me a hand-knit sweater made there. It was the warmest and softest sweater I’d ever owned.

  “So...” I began again, thinking hard as to the reason I had come into that room. At first it had been because he seemed like he was in pain. Then he said they were trying to kill him. The guards said he was delusional, but was he? “Why do you think the guards are trying to kill you?”

  He glanced around at the four guards in the corners and then at my escort, new suspicion in his gaze. “They kept pointing their weapons at me.”

  I avoided the urge to turn my own gaze upon the guards. “They were doing that for their protection, and the rest of the ship.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, looking at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Well,” I began, feeling awkward. “There was an attack earlier today on the ship. Someone like...us...escaped and started attacking and killing people. And there was another...”

  “You say escape like we’re some kind of prisoners,” he said, accusation in his tone.

  “I also said ‘us,’” I fired back. “I’m just like you.”

  His eyes widened. “You mean...you...” he placed a hand on his chest, over his heart. “You died too?”

  “Yes,” I said, realizing I had become comfortable with admitting I was among the undead now. “And I’m not a prisoner.”

  “But you have guards.”

  “They are for my protection. I’m...” a cough came from behind me, “not a prisoner.” Were they warning me against revealing my lineage? I couldn’t exactly ask them right then.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Rachel,” I said. “Rachel...”

  Again, the out-of-place cough came.

  “Perigren,” I finished. I assumed that was what they wanted, and no additional coughs came.

  “I’m Orin Strahl,” he offered.

  I blushed, realizing that hadn’t been my first question. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask you what your name was earlier. I just launched into my questions.” I rolled my eyes at my lack of manners. “Ummm...what do you like to do in you free time?”

  He chuckled. “You mean pre-virus?”

  “Yeah, what did you like to do, before the virus?”

  He sighed, as if remembering better times. Which, to be fair, the times pre-virus were. “My dad was a mechanic. We worked on cars together.”

  “Oh, that’s cool,” I said, not knowing what else to say. My father had worked in IT, at least in his cover job, and I’d never seen him working on our car. That said, he was over two thousand years old, so chances were he had worked on cars at one point in his life. I would have to ask him sometime. “Did you enjoy it?”

  He shrugged. “It helped focus my thoughts. Being out in the garage, turning the bolts and taking things apart and putting them back together. It was better than being inside with my mother and the alcohol.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. Did you have any siblings?”

  “No. I’m an only child.”

  “And did your parents...?” I trailed off, unsure of how to approach the status of his parents. “They’re dead dead,” he replied, answering my unfinished question. “I don’t know how the virus chose who to reanimate or to let lie, but mine weren’t the lucky ones.” He chuckled harshly. “I’m not sure I’m all that lucky, though, to tell you the truth.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. It was great to be conscious, but if there was an afterlife, like many religions suggested, was I denied eternal life and peace? “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

  Silence fell for several long moments. I spent the time staring at the foot of his hospital bed.

  Behind me, one of the guards, Terrence, I thought, cleared his throat. “Miss, you said you wanted to get to your quarters soon?”

  Terrence with the excuse, I thought guiltily. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to Orin, I just was at a loss for words. I needed time to think. “Yes, you’re right, Terrence,” I replied, looking to the side where I could see Terrence in my peripheral vision. “We should go.” I looked back to Orin and met his gaze. “I’m sorry, but I really should get to my quarters.”

  “Why?” he asked, the fire of suspicion re-i
gniting in his eyes.

  “Well, my father is helping with some IT stuff and I’m going to visit him now that he’s out of work.”

  “Oh,” he said, sagging. Was he sagging in relief or disappointment?

  “But we can talk sometime soon,” I said hurriedly. “Let’s exchange numbers.”

  Orin perked up at that, giving me a handsome smile. “I would like that.”

  “Well here, let me give you my communicator number.” I grabbed a pad of paper and wrote down my number. “Talk to you soon,” I said with a smile.

  “Bye,” he said, waving.

  Out in the hall, I rounded on Terrence. “What was all that coughing about?” I demanded. I ignored the fact that several security guards remained in the hall, many turning to stare at me.

  The team leader looked down at me. “You shouldn’t disclose your identity to every random person you meet.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that before we went in there? And isn’t that what you did when you stepped in front of me earlier?”

  “I did that to potentially save your life. Let’s keep walking, shall we?” he prompted, gesturing down the hall toward the transport tube.

  “Fine,” I said grudgingly. It wouldn’t do for me to be seen arguing with my protection detail in front of Orin, or the security guards. Not that Shadow Watch Guards necessarily cared what random security guards thought of them. “You can talk as we walk.”

  “The more people who know who you are, the more likely it is that threats will arise,” Terrence continued. “For the time being, it is the recommendation of the Shadow Watch Guard that you maintain your cover identity until no longer sustainable.”

  “What situation would warrant ‘no longer sustainable?’” I asked.

  “If your cover identity was correlated to your true identity by too many people, such as hitting the headlines on GNN or FNN, it would be pointless to maintain the charade.”

  “But we don’t want to leak my identity to the press?” I asked.

  “We don’t want to put you in undue danger without compelling cause.”