by Rhonda Mason
A lift platform that, judging by the sound of it, was rising to meet them.
A woman came into view, toe to chin in sterilized lab gear. She was reading from a datapad even as she worked the lift controls. It was Officer Fengrathen, whose appearance had touched off the discovery of Zimmerman and his contingent of not-crazy stepa at es.
She looked up from her notes just as the lift stopped. “Let’s go: she’s almost awake and we have to get this thing started.”
They piled on, and as the platform started to descend, she finally noticed the stasis pod. “What’s that for?”
::It’s for me:: Corinth said, ::in case things don’t go so well.::
Zimmerman said the best way to halt the queen bug from taking over his mind entirely—or simply destroying him—was to put Corinth into cryosleep the second they noticed something going wrong. There was no way Kayla was trusting him to one of the Yari’s pods, not when the image of those three dead teenagers was still so stark in her mind. She’d had Hekkar yank this one out of the Lorius’s much more modern med bay and fly it over. That had taken the longest of all the prep.
The platform descended through what began to look like a laboratory. Each level they went down was hermetically sealed, with its own small airlock needed to enter from the lift or ladder. Kayla could see beyond the plascrystal windows into what looked like small medical labs, or maybe research labs. There were benches and instruments and complinks and microscopes and racks and racks of storage. Fengrathen stopped the lift at one of the labs, eyes once again on the datapad, and ushered everyone off. Her lips moved as she read, like a baker reading a cookbook and trying to memorize which spices the recipe called for, and she entered the lab last, sealing them in.
Not that it mattered, at this point.
“Okay, on the table,” Fengrathen said. “Well, first, off with the EMU, then onto the table.” She went to check on a machine that seemed to be beeping out a countdown while Kayla and Noar helped Corinth out of his suit and Zimmerman got the stasis pod plugged in near the quadtanium table that looked more ready for a dissection than a medical procedure.
She steadied Corinth as he stepped out of the heavy outer suit. “Don’t be afraid,” she said.
He looked up, surprised. ::I’m not.::
“I meant me.” She said it as a joke and he smiled, but she was terrified. Even as he climbed up onto the table and lay back, she wanted to snatch him to her and run off.
But there was nowhere to run, and he wouldn’t want her to take this moment from him, no matter what it might cost both of them.
Fengrathen wheeled over a cart that had a few innocent-looking, everyday medical devices on it. “Hold up your arm,” she said brusquely, mind clearly on the task and not the patient. Or host, or whatever Corinth was about to be. She took some blood samples, hooked up some sensors, and walked back to the gently humming machine.
A minute passed.
Two.
Three.
Corinth’s smile faded. Given time to think about what he was doing, doubts were surely starting to creep in.
“Here,” Kayla said, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. “ Speak with me.”
She lowered her mental shields, not bothering to pack away all of the worries she’d always hidden from him before. He entered her mind in a rush, too quickly, filling all the open space and causing a spike of minor pain between her eyes.
This time she laughed instead of admonishing. It was so like him, in his puppy dog excitement to know another person. Maybe a lifetime of training still wouldn’t cure him of it.
You are doing a very brave thing.
He squeezed her hand in return. ::It doesn’t feel brave. It feels… easy. Like it wasn’t a question at all. Just… ‘Yes. I want to do this thing.’:: He paused for a moment, then asked, ::Is this how you always feel?::
What, certain of what I’m doing?
::No.:: His eyes narrowed as he concentrated. ::Worried. Do you always have all this…:: she felt him turning over the boxes of fear in her mind, peeking into closets of doubt. ::All of this clutter in here? This unnecessary junk.:: He kicked at a pile of leftover worries from their time on Altair Tri. ::Stars, Kay, no wonder you’re so overprotective.::
I am not. I am just right protective.
His mental eye-roll came through loud and clear.
In the background a machine beeped with a result and Fengrathen uttered a “hmm.”
“What’s ‘hmm?’” Noar asked, when Fengrathen said no more than that. Corinth valued Noar as a friend and a teacher, maybe more so than Vayne, and when Noar, who was usually so unflappable, asked his question in that tone, Corinth’s anxiety began to climb.
“An aberrant result. Don’t worry, I’m rerunning. The queen bug will keep for a few more minutes.”
Kayla didn’t think she’d keep for another few more minutes of this not-knowing.
Fengrathen came over to the table to explain the procedure. All Kayla really heard were two things: “can’t be done under anesthesia” and “going in through the ocular cavity.” That was way more than she wanted to know. Corinth squeezed her hand again, and they both clung to each other for strength.
Something on her wall of machines beeped again and Fengrathen excused herself to check it. Zimmerman went over as well. Kayla was dying to see whatever they were looking at, but was just as certain that she didn’t want to know.
Once you have the superbug, she said to him instead, will you still be my il’haar?
::Only if your feelings won’t be hurt once I’m more powerful than you.:: She felt his humor, reflected it back at him. He turned serious, then, and held her gaze. ::I will always be your il’haar, no matter what.::
Her heart swelled in her chest almost painfully. Then I am the luckiest ro’haar in the entire galaxy.
::You’re damn right you are:: he said, and laughed out loud at the surprised look that must be on her face.
“Corinth Reinumon, who taught you to talk like—”
He laughed again, his voice scratchy and soft, but it was his voice. Out loud, not in her mind.
He coughed, laughed again, then said, in the faintest croak, “Vid.”
Kayla leaned over him and gripped him in a fierce hug. She laughed. She cried. She held him until he squirmed and she felt embarrassment roll off of him.
::Quit it, Kay.::
She wiped at her wet cheek as she pulled back. He’d laughed. She’d heard it. Life was good. Precious.
“That’s not right, is it?” Zimmerman asked.
“I ran it twice,” Fengrathen answered. “I mean, we always knew it was theoretically possible…”
Instruments went flying as Noar stole the datapad from her hand and tossed it across the room. When he had everyone’s undivided attention he calmly, very politely asked, “What are the findings?”
Kayla held her breath.
“Well, according to that—” Fengrathen pointed to her scattered data, “Corinth is immune to the nanovirus.”
She heard the words, but couldn’t quite… “What does that mean? For him? For the planet?” Elation soared through her at the thought that Corinth wouldn’t have to be infected after all, but fear came just as hard on its heels. “Malkor? Vayne?”
Fengrathen shook her head. “His body will just destroy the queen bug as soon as we implant it. It won’t have a chance to establish a connection.” She shook her head again. “I’m sorry.”
Kayla rose up. “You’re sorry? You’re sorry? Everyone we have ever loved, will ever love, is down there on the planet, infected, dying, and you’re saying you’re sorry?” She was incredulous. “You created this frutting thing, for frutt’s sake. There has to be another way to stop it.”
::Kay…:: Corinth sat up on the table, his dejection complete. ::It’s not her fault.::
“Like frutt it’s not her fault. It’s all of their faults.” She jabbed a finger at Zimmerman. “You, Ida, the whole damn ship. How could you make something like this?�
� She was coming unhinged, she could feel it. The pain was just… so great. In her chest. She couldn’t breathe.
Oh, gods! Malkor, her Malkor.
And Vayne…
“Try me,” she said suddenly, grasping at anything. “I’m not immune, am I? Test me.” She was fumbling with her suit, fingers numb and not working. “Noar, help me.” She looked at him, imploring. He had to help, someone had to help. She was drowning and she couldn’t breathe.
Then Noar and Corinth were there, stripping the suit off, moving her limbs with their minds to get her head and arms clear in a flash.
Kayla thrust back the sleeve of her ventilation suit and held out her bare arm. “Do it.”
Fengrathen looked at Zimmerman. Finally Zimmerman just shrugged and nodded, so Fengrathen took her samples.
::It won’t work, Kay. You’re too…::
“Old?” She chuckled, but she wasn’t as insane as she feared. “It’s not the age that matters, right, Zimmerman? Or it is, but only if you’re worried about your psi powers growing correctly afterward. You said it’s the state of the cartaid arch. Children are used because part of the arch is still bare and there’s room for the master nanovirus interface whatever to attach itself. Right?”
“Right,” he said slowly, studying her, trying to figure out where she was going.
“Well, my cartaid arch is in perfect condition, pristine, even. I should know, I had it checked out by a sadomasochist.” She laughed, and now she knew she had really lost it. Who would have thought that having Dolan inside her brain would ever turn out to be a good thing? “That queen bug of yours will love it.”
“But…” Zimmerman hesitated, and Fengrathen’s machine beeped away. “I hate to state the obvious, but, it takes psi powers to interface with the queen, and you don’t have any.”
“No,” she agreed. “But I will.”
Dolan, you asshole, you might save us all yet.
::I heard that.::
Get out of my head, Corinth.
* * *
REBEL BASE, VANKIR CITY, ORDOCH
“She wants to do what?” Malkor shouted the question at Vayne, even though he stood no more than a meter from him. “Absolutely not. How could she— And she was going to let Corinth try this?” Somehow Malkor found himself stuffing his gear into his rucksack while he shouted, pulling on his jacket, which was still damp from being hosed down.
“Apparently it would have been safer for Corinth, but he’s immune.” Vayne didn’t stop packing to listen to Malkor shout, he just kept stuffing that damn Influencer into its damn case. Malkor felt like grabbing the Influencer and smashing it to a billion pieces.
“We are not doing this.” Malkor half-jogged to follow Vayne out of the decontamination room. Somehow his gear bag was in one hand, his weapon in the other, and he was trotting.
Vayne just kept moving. “If we’re not doing this, then why are you all packed, and why are Trinan, Vid, and Rigger right behind us?”
“They’re not.” But they were. He and his team were following after Vayne, through the plascrete corridors of the rebel base, and up to the surface where death awaited on a single inhale. “Kayla is not injecting the queen of all superviruses into her brain and wiring herself to the ship. No way.”
“If she’s not, then why is Hekkar touching down in a shuttle?” Vayne slung the Influencer, case and all, over his shoulder and strode out of the building to where Hekkar had landed.
“Vayne, wait.” Malkor grabbed the man’s arm, pulling him to a stop as Hekkar opened the doors. “We can’t bring this up there.” Malkor gestured to his face, to where the skin was getting blotchy with hives, to where the nanovirus was cannibalizing his tissue in order to replicate. “So far Kayla and the others are infection-free.”
Vayne turned so he was looking at Malkor head on, eye to eye, staring right into him. “If we do not bring this Influencer up to the ship right now and let Kayla try this, then I promise you my crazy sister is coming down here to get it.” He gripped Malkor’s shoulder. “Hear me. She is either going to save us, or die with us, but she is never going to sit safe and sound up there while we suffer on the ground. So get that thought right out of your head.”
Vayne turned away and climbed into the shuttle.
Then he was buckling in, and somehow Malkor was beside him, and Trinan and Vid and Rigger beside them. Hekkar was grinning like a mad fool—maybe they all were—and then they were off, bringing death or salvation to the Yari…
Or maybe a little bit of both.
Damn you, Kayla, this had better work.
* * *
Kayla received the “good” news that she was not, in fact, immune to the superbug with a mixture of excitement and hope. She could end this.
She sat on the lab bench-turned-medical table in Fengrathen’s mad scientist lab, Corinth beside her, both of them strung so tightly the vibration from a tuning fork could make them snap. It was a good kind of tight, though, the tense of action, of things about to happen. An energy that hummed through them.
Even though they weren’t still linked mind to mind, she could feel the emotions rolling through him. Disappointment. Relief. Even a little jealousy that she got to be the one to try to save everyone.
Fengrathen was talking, trying to prepare Kayla for what she might experience and what it might all mean. The more she spoke, the less Kayla wanted to try this. What in the void had she been thinking?
“This will damage your cartaid arch,” the scientist stressed. “Our brains were designed to be linked to biomechanical interfaces like this.”
Fengrathen’s voice was dry, factual, and Kayla appreciated that. Her own emotions were out of control in a way she’d never felt. “We’ve never had a test subject with your particular situation: a fully developed and functioning cartaid arch without psi powers connected to it. I honestly don’t know what to expect.”
“Well then, it’ll be fun for all involved, won’t it?” Kayla smiled—what else could she do?
Fengrathen paused, studied her as if unsure Kayla’s state of mind was conducive to this sort of thing. Kayla smiled harder.
“You might feel something like… a sensation that the interface is trying to take over your consciousness. This was reported by two of our test subjects.”
“And did it?”
“Did it what?”
“Did it take over their minds? Am I going to become possessed by this thing?”
Fengrathen looked to Zimmerman, then back at Kayla. It was clear the scientist still took every cue from the first officer, no matter that their war had been over for five hundred years. “In both cases, the subjects suffered massive brain hemorrhaging and died before the phenomenon could be explored.”
Holy—
::Don’t tell Vayne that last part:: Corinth said. ::Or Malkor. Actually, don’t tell them any of it.::
He looked up at her. ::Right, Kay? We’ll keep our worries in little boxes to ourselves.::
“What terrible things have I been teaching you?” She shook her head. “We’re not going to hold onto this worry. We’ll tell them, just… after. How ’bout that?”
The vidcomm on the wall came to life showing Natali’s face. “Vayne’s on his way with the Influencer. Are you sure about this?”
Kayla looked at her younger brother. “Just as sure as Corinth was, when he volunteered first.” He ducked his head as if her words embarrassed him, but she saw his small, proud smile.
“We’re all here,” Natali said, and backed up so that Kayla could see everyone gathered on the Yari’s observation deck. There was Kazamel and his crew of Ilmenans, Noar, Natali, Uncle Ghirhad, Tanet, Shimwell, and all of the rebel Ordochians who had come through the Tear to help. There were the Ordochian medics and surgeons who had saved Tia’tan’s life, as well as half a dozen Yari crew members that Kayla had never met before—Zimmerman’s crew. The sane stepa.
It was weird not to see Ida, Benny, and Ariel as part of the group, but those three were being held in t
he cells, hopefully eating the same drugged food Ida had no doubt served to Kendrik and the other members of her own crew.
“Thank you all for gathering,” Kayla said. “And thank you for all that you’ve done. You’ve put your lives on the line for our mission, the freeing of Ordoch, and now we’ve almost achieved it. I say ‘almost,’ because we’re not yet free of the plague that started it all. The TNV that brought the empire to its knees is the same virus we created during the Nanotech Wars. The Yari unleashed the virus in Ilmenan space centuries ago, unbeknownst to us all, and then the virus was carried along with the Yari through a tear and into the Imperial Mine Field. From there it came into contact with imperials, mutated, and evolved. The imperials found their own way to weaponize it as we once had, despite our different genetics, calling their designer version the Tetrotock nanovirus.
“They brought our own plague back to us, and perhaps we deserve to die for creating this terrible, terrible weapon in the first place.”
She shook her head. “I don’t intend to die. I intend to fight. I will fight until the galaxy is rid of this plague once and for all. But to do that, I need help. I must ask a horrible favor of one of you. No, not a favor. A gift, for I can never return it.” She studied the faces of the people she’d come to know, fought beside. She searched them all, hoping there might be just one…
“I am not able to access my psi powers, as many of you know. However, I can use the controller to neutralize the TNV if one of you will volunteer your psi powers to me. They would be cut from your mind. The process, I’m told, is excruciating.” She saw Natali wince and look away. “There’s no guarantee that your powers will ever return. And… you might die from the procedure.”
“Wow,” someone said, as the comm split and another stream merged with it. “You really sold that, Kayla.” It was Vid. “Sign me up.”
She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “Vidious Con Vandaren, have you been teaching Corinth some sass? You should have heard him earlier!”