by DJ Morand
Zee knelt beside Echo and brushed back her dark auburn locks from her face. She was still sleeping soundly and he figured she would do so for several days. The inhibitor in the command module would keep her mind dormant by periodically injecting a toxin known only to affect Quintarrans.
In a Quintarran, the toxin often resulted in hives and extreme itching. Zee figured the reaction from human to Quintarran had something to do with their evolutionary paths, which made him curious again.
How did Admiral Shade and a Quintarran woman produce offspring? He thought.
Anatomically, he understood it. Humans and Quintarrans were virtual cousins in the universe, but their genetics were oddly different.
Zee reached down and pulled the control module off of Echo and waited for her body to cleanse the toxin. He figured it would only take a few moments. Humans were incredibly resilient.
* * *
Eden - Badlands: Kodiak Entry Vector
2972 ESD - Thursday, November 5th 10:00 hours
Echo Shade could smell the Quintarran kneeling beside her. She could feel the heat coming off his body. It was like when she was in the Trance within the escape pod. Aware of her surroundings, but helpless to respond. She remembered the conversations, albeit vaguely, about her and the suspicion Abel held for her mission.
She could sense Zee, almost as if she could reach out and touch his mind. The thought terrified her and excited her at the same time. Echo had linked with her mother, once, but she had never been able to link after that. As she thought about reaching out she could feel the tendrils reaching out toward Zee’s mind and she recoiled instinctively.
Her mother had admonished her for such an act, saying it was something that should only be done if you trusted and loved the one for whom you reached. When Echo had protested that she loved and trusted her mother, her mother laughed and said that is was best left to those in love. The distinction was subtle, but Echo understood.
Something about the moment felt wrong and she did not want to frighten or offend him and certainly did not want to give him the wrong idea. Echo considered the motion of the ship, it was far steeper than she had expected and the violent shaking indicated problems.
Echo could not physically feel any motion. She washed away the sensation. Testing it with logic.
It is the inertial dampeners, the thought invaded her mind.
How? She thought in a panic.
Waves of understanding hit her as she realized she had felt Abel’s emotion. In reaching out and recoiling from Zee, she had connected with Abel instead. Echo blushed furiously and withdrew, he would probably never know it had happened.
Echo knew they had been headed for Eden, but she didn’t think they would be there any time soon. Echo felt her mind sever from Abel and the feeling of Zee nearby changed into perception, an awareness of her surrounding separate from her mental probing.
Echo Shade sprung out of the bunk and into Zee violently. She struggled with Zee for a moment grasping for his holster, a sudden rage filled her as she fought the Quintarran. She could hear Zee calling to Abel as she battled him. Echo was immediately aware when Abel entered the room, his pistol drawn and aimed at her.
“Flak she’s flakking glitched.” Abel commented as he entered crew berthing, “I won’t use a stun lady. Never had time to equip them. So it is lethal plasma or you calm the flak down.” His voice was tinged with fear and anger. She understood the emotions, he scared her too.
“Where are we? What is happening?” she managed to stammer, still fighting against Zee’s powerful biceps.
“You are still aboard the Kodiak dear child. Abel and I are not going to hurt you, but we could not leave you aboard the ship.” Zee spoke calmly in his ever stoic demeanor. He managed to maintain it even in stressful situations.
“It’s like he says,” calm entered his voice. “We’’ve got to make repairs to the Kodiak after coming to save your sorry ass. I am not flakking waiting for you to try and steal her or for you to get killed when someone else tries to steal her.” He said it with a half-grin on his face as if laughing at his own joke.
“Alright. I’ll calm down. Put the guns away.” Echo said calmly.
She didn’t want to harm either of them and she sure as hell didn’t want them to harm her. Abel put down his pistol and holstered it. Surprisingly, Zee had her pistol in hand and still had it aimed on Echo.
“I promised I would calm down and I have. I want to know what the hell is going on with drugging me though.” Abel and Zee exchanged guilty looks and she knew she had caught them.
“It was a precaution. We’d expected to land near more hospitable lands on Eden, but it seems our reputation precedes us. So we’ve decided to take you with us rather than risk you harm being left alone on the ship.” Abel gave Zee a nod and the Quintarran handed the pistol back to Echo, she took it and holstered it. With everyone acting more relaxed, if not feeling it, Abel continued.
“Zee and I made an enemy of the local law around here. I had falsely assumed he was only the local law. It would seem that his influence is more planet wide than I had expected. We’ve landed in the badlands, an area few will venture into and those that do aren’’t nice folks like Zee and I here.” Echo scoffed at that. She had known that Abel Cain was a pirate, but she hadn’t expected the bravado and charm.
“So, I’m a prisoner now?” Echo asked with a bite. She looked ready for a fight.
“Nope. Just another person on the ship at the moment. Free to go where you please. So if you want off the Kodiak and away from us, now is the time. I don’t like spending much time on rocks, they have a way of drawing trouble.” He remembered Talia’s smile and he felt the pang of guilt.
“You? Draw trouble?” Echo intoned lightly. “I couldn’t see that ever happening.”
The sarcasm brought a bit of a mischievous grin to her face. Was she flirting? Are you flirting E? Stop it! She struggled with her own internal monologue. Echo dropped the act and stared Abel hard in the face.
“I’ll go where I please. Right now, though, I think I’d like to stick with the two of you.” She bit her lip. She had come off harsher than she intended, “At least until I find another ship, if that is okay with you Captain.”
Abel seemed slightly taken aback by her response. She had trouble reading him, his expressions flitted from angry to sullen to youthful. He was a complexity and that was a rarity. Humanity in the Quintar Prime System was outmatched and outnumbered, and it left many feeling fearful of the future.
That fearful indecision was prevalent among most people she had encountered; Abel wasn’t afraid. She caught herself staring at him again, part challenge and part invitation.
She scolded herself again; you’re not here to win any hearts E. Aren’t you though?
She knew she needed Abel and Zee to save Human and Quintarran alike, but she didn’t know how to tell them she needed them, let alone what they could do to help. Her time in Dark Space - seeking a way to help the EFNF and set up the communications relay - led her to some interesting truths.
For starters, EXOs were not particularly secure in their transmissions, likely because they were practically unchecked in the system. Second, Echo had learned what Abel had done and what was so different about him and the Kodiak. She dared not mention it now.
“Works for now, we could probably use your contacts in the EFNF at some point. Keep in mind I am Captain of this ship, my word is law. Is that understood?” Abel was using that irritating smile again.
“Yes Captain.” Echo said cheerfully. She was getting what she wanted anyway.
BADLANDS
Eden - Badlands: Silence Territory
2972 ESD - Thursday, November 5th 12:31 hours
After they unloaded their Snowduster (although Abel continued to call it a Snowskipper) from the cargo hold, Echo took a look at the ship. She had not really considered its massive size in comparison to herself. Sure her ship had been dwarfed by the beast, but seeing it landed was another feeling en
tirely.
Echo noted that while it seemed blocky in space, it did have a curvature to it, lending to some atmospheric aerodynamics. The port and starboard nacelles were easily as big as a house. She shuddered when she realized that the Darter was half the size of just one of the nacelles and the Kodiak had four, two forward and two aft on either side.
The turbine-like nacelles were presently in the down position, likely because Abel planned on leaving in a hurry. The rear engines were more massive still, and she could hardly fathom the thought that this ship used to fit aboard her father’s dreadnought, the Terran Veil.
The gunship was a marvel of human ingenuity most of which she laid at Abel Cain’s feet. The design had been a collaborative effort, but the specific astrodynamics and controls had all been courtesy of Abel Cain. She considered Abel again - he continued to surprise her.
Abel took an hour or so, with Zee climbing up the side of the ship to see the extent of the engine damage and if the forward plates were salvageable. Zee decided the forward plates did not have to be replaced, but the starboard engine needed serious repairs.
“Captain. I think we should retrieve some gremlins while we are in the Border Towns. The starboard engine is severely damaged.” Zee said concerned.
Echo questioned his use of the word gremlin and nearly burst into tears with laughter. Her father had told her stories of ancient creatures called gremlins. She assumed Zee had meant the monsters. Zee and Abel had a good laugh at her expense before explaining that gremlins were automated repair drones that could enter antimatter engines and repair them without exposing the anti-matter.
Since they didn’t have the time or the money to replace an engine full of anti-matter, Abel agreed to the gremlins. Echo pulled Zee aside before they headed into the Border Towns.
“What’s his issue with automated repair bots?” Echo asked Zee quietly.
“He distrusts anything automated. If it is automated it must have complex programming, if it had complex programming it can be affected by the EXO virus and made to work for the EXOs. He knew Alek Vale you know. The man tried to kill him.” Echo stared in shock.
Everyone had been taught that Alek Vale was a traitor and his nanites had been infected with the EXO virus. Even her father mentioned that the military nanites were not complex organisms, but they had highly complex programming.
“Why does he allow you to interface with the ship then? Don’t you have Quintarran nanites?” Echo asked seriously.
“I do. However, the Captain reprogrammed my nanites and built protections into them, I cannot be made into an EXO.” Zee said a hint of pride in his voice.
“What!? You’re immune!? Completely? Why doesn’t everyone get this upgrade?” Echo was furious.
She knew that Abel was different. He had an immunity granted to him when he allowed Quintarran nanites into his blood. The nanites uniquely altered his physiology. Coupled with the human nanites, Echo was not sure he was still entirely human. Zee was a different matter entirely. Zee gave her an incredulous look, obviously not understanding the question.
“Why do you ask that? Have the humans not figured out how to protect against becoming an EXO by now?” Zee said, honestly confused.
“Are you kidding? Have you been away that long?” Echo was shocked. Humanity’s version of protection against the EXOs only secured away the mind and left the body a puppet; surely these two knew that by now. “Are you saying you haven’t seen what happens to a human who is … exed?” she said the last with a hint of fear.
“They become a mindless drone like the rest of the EXOs, controlled by the EXO Prime.” Zee replied as a matter of fact.
“Oh my … you really don’t know.” Echo was shocked.
“Don’t know what?” Abel said as he approached the two of them.
“The results of a human being exed.” Echo said, anger in her voice rising.
“I know all about it. They get all glitchy and try to murder you. Are we done talking about this?” Abel immediately became defensive, memories of Talia and countless others threatened to overwhelm him. “Are you suggesting something else happens?”
“Listen here, Captain.” She emphasized his title with disgust, “An exed human doesn’t go glitchy, as you so eloquently put it. They become a shell of a person. Their internal organs are turned to jelly and their skeleton is infused with Energized Xeno-Organic tissue, imagine a puppet master’s strings genius. Their mind remains intact, but they can’’t do anything about it. They become a silent witness to the atrocities they commit.” Echo was raving now, she knew.
“Flakking glitch! What is this? That ain’t no EXO virus honey. That is something else. Zee, explain it.” Abel said incredulous.
“I … am … not sure I can.” Zee fumbled.
“Well I can!” Echo piped in again, “the firewall designed by Doctor Chase and Theodore Burns reacts violently and tries to kill the host, but the EXO virus adapted and lets the host die, in a sense. The EXOs need a brain to host the nanites, so they keep it alive, but the host no longer has control.” Her voice was a near screech now.
“Kill the host!? What the flak are they thinking? You don’t salvage out a ship because you can’t unlock the cargo bay. You find a way to unlock the bay or you hotwire the flakking ship.”
He paused a moment giving Echo a look that could freeze fire, “Chase and Burns!? It was those two idiots that started this EXO thing in the first place. FLAKKING GLITCHES!” Abel knew he was yelling and he was happy to, at this point he wanted to shoot something as well.
“Let’s get the flak out of here. The Snowskipper is ready.” He began to walk back towards the ship, brooding. He knew he had to do something about the Doctors’’ folly.
Prior to leaving, Abel set the ship security to block the openings and hatches via the quantum plates. The large plates shifted and changed shape from four shield shaped plates into eight. The plates split and locked into place around the various entrances to the ship. Both the command deck and the rear cargo bay were completely covered, as was the port side docking ring.
* * *
Eden - Badlands: Silence Territory
2972 ESD - Thursday, November 5th 13:31 hours
The triangular machine tore through the frozen tundra. The star of the Quintar Prime system shone brightly causing a fair amount of glare from the ice and snow. Abel did his best to ignore the poor visibility and focused his attention on the Transteel view screen. The screen showed they were still ten klicks from the Border Towns. The Snowskipper moved steadily for another half a kilometer before the engine simply died and the vehicle came to a slow halt.
“What the flak!?” Abel exclaimed as the Snowskipper stalled in the middle of the tundra. Abel tried to reboot the machine. The Snowskipper refused to start and the Transteel viewer scrambled. Abel looked to both of his crew and lowered his voice nearly to a whisper.
“At some point I imagine the reason for the malfunction will become evident. When I give the signal, shut your eyes.” Abel ordered and Zee nodded his compliance; Echo stared at him in confusion.
“Why shut our eyes?” she said a little too loudly.
“Keep it down. We don’t know if they are listening. Just do what I say when I give the signal.” He whispered harshly, trying to add authority while keeping his voice low. Echo nodded and acquiesced. The trio piled out of the Snowskipper and made a show of examining the engine and trying to figure out why it had gone dead. Zee made a gesture to Abel that Echo did not recognize, but Abel seemed to understand and moved around to the front of the vehicle. As he did so, Abel cleared the holding straps for his dual pistols, and adjusted his sleeves to give him further range of motion. Zee, similarly, released the holding strap on his rifle making it easier to bring to bear if needed. The trio moved together filtering to the front of the Snowskipper allowing them some cover from any attack from behind.
“What do you think Zee? Is it an EMP?” Abel whispered to his co-pilot.
“No. I believe it is
a field emitter. It is scrambling communications and blocking the energy transfer to the engine.” Zee whispered back. Echo seemed to be catching on that this was an ambush and her hand instinctively reached for the pistol at her hip. Another voice came from the rocks ahead of the snow vehicle.
“That’ll be enough missy. Raise your hands above your head. Same goes for you two.” A thin rail of a man stepped from behind the rocks. He was dressed nearly head to toe in snow gear, obviously not utilizing internal nanites to keep his body warm. “Hello again Captain Cain. How good of you to return to Eden.”
“Hello Mercury,” Abel emphasized Mercury Frinz’ name with disdain. “I assume you have a reason for ambushing us.”
“Ambush? Oh Abel, you think I had something to do with your Snowduster dying in the middle of the tundra?” He said with feigned ignorance.
Abel turned to Zee with an odd expression, “Snowduster! Flak it Zee you were right, I was sure they called them Snowskippers here!” Mercury seemed irritated at Abel’s nonchalant attitude, this was his plan coming to fruition; this boy shouldn’t be ruining it with his wit.
“Shut up!” Mercury practically screamed the command – his fury riding him. “Flakking shut your mouths.”
“Or what?” Abel quipped back, his hands on his pistols.
“Men, move in and secure the prisoners.” Mercury called with a grin. “Or this, Captain Cain.”
No less than seven additional soldiers moved out from around the rocks, flanking the crew of the Kodiak. This was what Abel was waiting for – he had hoped he could goad Mercury Frinz into tipping his hand. He was glad that Mercury had complied.
“Well flak, Mercury. Why don’t you just have us close our eyes and execute us on the spot?”” He emphasized his preordained signal. Echo, Zee, and Abel shut their eyes immediately. A blast of brilliant light burst from the Snowskipper as Abel pressed a button inside his sleeve. Mercury and the other soldiers covered their eyes blinded temporarily by the flash. The effect was further enhanced by the reflection off the snow around them.