She had to shield her eyes from the light which seemed to double in strength. The silver hole continued to grow. A smile formed on her dry, chapped lips.
The wormhole was man sized. She saw a leg and knew who it was. He had come to rescue her. He had made it. She was going to be okay.
Professor Ricter stepped out. “Thank you.” She said, tears rolling down her cheek. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay,” Professor Ricter replied holding his hand out to her. It felt oddly comforting to have him reach out like this. He was her savior. “We have a lot to discuss but first, let’s get you out of here.”
Chapter twenty-three
Marjorie tapped her finger on the table trying to remember the beat for a song. It was an absent-minded thing, but it was something she needed to do. They said she was in control, and she was going to keep it that way. It was her mind and they were not going to mess with it.
The body of several handlers lay on the floor next to her chair. They had sent four and she had attacked all four, three she strangled, one she beat the death with the chair. All four Handlers looked alike, but as long as they didn’t have that link to her mind, they would not be able to get any information out of her.
She continued to tap on the table. The half remembered song coming to her easily now. She still had access to her memory. That access was going to betray her, but she didn’t know how to shut it off. How do you shut off your memory? How do you tell yourself not to think of an elephant when you’re told not to think of elephants?
A thought caused her to freeze. If the Arwen leaves what’s to the stop the Handlers from tracking the Arwen back to Earth?
She heard the unmistakable sound of the door forming. She braced herself, ready to strike whatever came through.
The door formed and opened. She sprung forward to attack the Handler, the same one she killed four times. This was going to be fun, again.
Only, she never got a chance to advance. She found herself frozen in mid lunge. The Handler, clipboard in hand, walked around her. “It took us a while, but we finally figured out how to stop that.”
She wanted to move, she wanted to say something, but instead found every muscled frozen in place. He sat at the table and flipped the paper on his clipboard over. “We’re going to give you the nightmare treatment. This will be most unpleasant, I can assure you. We gave it to the other human a few times when he was misbehaving. It's not something we like to do but with you we found it necessary.”
“I will never tell you.” Marjorie said, her muscles were no longer frozen. She could stand normally.
“So be it,” He looked at Marjorie and sighed. “I was starting to like you, Captain. I am sorry that it had to come to this, but you left us no choice.” He slapped Marjorie in the face the nightmare began.
She found herself sitting at the sensor station of the Sam Wise, her first ship assignment. This wasn’t like the other dreams, this time she could feel the anticipation of what was coming next. Her younger self had no idea what was about to happen. She had relived this memory many times, and it took her years to get over the pain.
Her Handler wasn’t anywhere near her now yet she could still feel his presences. “What are you trying to accomplish here?”
“We can make this stop at any moment. We can bring you back to the good memories. You just need to answer our questions.”
Captain Sharp looked down as his communication officer sent him a message. Ensign Cook, she had been married a few months now, watched this from the corner of her eye. She had her real sites focused on the screen in front of her, scanning for any enemy activity. Captain Sharp pursed his lips before speaking. “Ensign Cook, go to your room, you have a private message you need to read.”
She looked up, surprised. “I can read the message here.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll have your replacement sent up right away. You are dismissed.”
Captain Cook watched as her younger self walked off the bridge. She knew what that message was going to say, and the tears swelled up under her eyes. It was still painful, getting news that one of your parents had been killed. It was devastating when it was the only family you had left.
She tried to hide her eyes when she found herself in her old room. The memory wasn’t as vivid, some of the knickknacks were blurry blobs while others, things she cherished and managed to keep even after years of moving around, were crystal clear. Her computer was one of the blurry things but the message she read was as clear as the day she had read it.
Ensign Cook’s face contorted as she read. Her brows pulled in on themselves, and her lips started to quiver. An involuntary cry fell from her lips as she continued to read. It was all very quick, very professionally written. “We are sorry to inform you that on April 21 your father died when the shuttle he was on lost power and crashed into the Pacific Ocean.”
Ensign Cook flopped on her chair and stared into empty space. Captain Cook remembered what she was thinking. She would have to ask permission to go back to Earth. She would have to contact Payton and ask him to join her. So much to do, so little time to mourn.
“That’s just the way I was,” Captain Cook said. She felt her stomach tighten and did her best to hold back painful tears. “I’ve dealt with this memory many times. If you want me to crack you’ll need to do better than this.”
“Grieving for the death of a loved one is something humans are used to and something you do fairly well. No, this isn’t what we wanted to show you.”
“Don’t,” Marjorie said, knowing what was likely to come next. She didn’t know if she could live through it again, not wanting to remember something that was even more painful to her than her father’s death.
The scene changed and Marjorie, dressed in her best military uniform, stood next to a casket. She was alone next to her dead body. The only person she wanted to be there wasn’t. She felt uncomfortable being the only person standing there greeting people as they came. The casket was closed and she was happy about that. She knew from reading the reports that the bodies recovered were brutally mutilated, and she didn’t want to the last image of her father to be a badly beaten and broken body.
The line for the viewing was out the door of the funeral home. Her dad was very well-liked in the community, and it seemed as if everyone who lived within ten miles came to pay their respects. So many faces greeted her, shook her hand, wished her well and told her they felt sorry for her loss. So many faces and not one of them were Payton.
She kept glancing around the room hoping to see his face. Kept scanning faces in the crowds hoping he had made it. She needed to see him, needed to have him hold her as she cried.
Captain Cook watched and felt the same knot form in her throat as the realization that he wasn’t going to show filled her heart with hate. He had not only failed to show but he had stood her up. No less than 24 hours ago he told her he was getting on the next shuttle to Earth and would be there by the time the funeral started. She managed to make it to Earth in less than two days, just in time for the funeral. He was only stationed on Titan while she was half-way between Earth and Ulliam, and she made it, why couldn’t he?
“We both know how this is going to end,” Marjorie said. “Payton never shows up, he makes up some excuse that I buy without question, all the while I’m dying on the inside because my husband can’t find the time to spend with his wife when she really needed him.”
“This isn’t his first time, is it?”
“No,” Marjorie replied dryly, not letting the emotion of the moment get to her. “What are you trying to accomplish with this? I’m been through this. I know what’s going to happen, you can pump all these emotions in me, and I still will not tell you what you want to know.”
“We don’t expect you to tell us today. The good thing about living forever is you can wait for things to happen. If you don’t crack today you might tomorrow, or the next day, or in three hundred years when you relive the worst days. The news of Payton’s death. T
he time you ordered your friend Kel into a battle he couldn’t win. The time you ordered the Arwen destroyed to save the Earth. Those days will keep happening, over and over again and the feels won’t dull, they won’t fade because we will make sure they don’t. You will crack, Captain. It's just a matter of time.”
“Why are you doing this? There are billions of stars, billons of planets without life. Why go after Earth? Why go after planets with life on them?”
“We cannot allow any other intelligent race to compete with us for resources. We will not allow it. We can see what the universe will be in billions of years into the future. We know that the stars will die and not be born again. We know that eventually everything will be absorbed by super massive black holes, and if there are other intelligent beings around we will have to fight them for those limited resources. We must be the last, and we will be the last.”
“You might have no other choice but to deal with other races,” Marjorie replied. “You will meet a race that is just as advance as you.”
“We grow with each race we destroy. We have numbers. If we meet a race that’s stronger than us we will simply overwhelm them. We have weapons and technology you can’t even fathom.”
“You’re a virus.” Captain Cook replied disgusted. “You spread and destroy. You-“ She stopped when she saw the odd look on her Handler’s face. He seemed to be listening to something from the outside. He let out a loud, bone-chilling scream, his mouth opening wider than she could ever think possible, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Then, he collapsed to the ground.
Marjorie stared at the body for a few moments wondering what just happened. Had her thoughts killed him? She wondered if she finally had complete control of everything in this strange dream world.
“Captain,” She heard the words from everywhere. “Captain.” It was Commander Pippleton. It was his voice calling to her. “Captain, wake up, we need to get out of here.”
She slowly opened her eyes. Her training took over and, in an instant; she could recognize who was there and who wasn’t. The Commander hovered over her and looked down. Next to him was a female medic, she had an empty syringe she was putting it back into a medical bag. The ships security team, it looked like every single one of them, scanned the room, guns ready for anything.
On the floor she saw five alien bodies. They were black with overlapping armor plates and several large holes in their torsos. One of them seemed to be inside some sort of box. It reminded her of the box she saw when Newman had taken her around.
Marjorie tried to move but found she couldn’t. She tried to speak but found her mouth unable to form words. Frustrated, she looked at the Commander and frowned.
The Commander must have gotten her message. “Let’s move out!” He said. He placed his hands under her back, lifted gently, and carried her out of the room.
Her feet and hands dragged on the ground while her head hung from her shoulders. She could see the wall, nothing more. “Captain, I’m sorry I have to do this, but I think it’ll be much more comfortable and I’ll be able to run faster.”
He gently slung her over his shoulder. Now all Marjorie could see was the floor which, thanks to the Commander’s height, was uncomfortable close to her face. “We’ve been monitoring your vital signs. About twenty minutes ago we detected a sharp spike in your heart rate and blood pressure. I was going to interfere then but one of the crew suggested I waited. He thought that perhaps you and the other Captain were mating.”
If Marjorie weren’t paralyzed she would have objected, instead she said nothing and let the Commander continue. “It wasn’t until we received word that Professor Ricter and Ensign Monrow had gone missing that I decided to see what was happening. I didn’t like what I saw, Captain so we’re leaving.”
What about the Professor and Juliet? Why was Juliet with Professor Ricter? She tried to asked but could only hear a soft moan leave her lips.
The Commander continued. “We have search teams looking for them but according to our sensors they’re not on this station or on the Sphere. At least we can’t find them on the sphere. Our sensors might not be strong enough to detect them in something that large.”
Marjorie opened her mouth but nothing came out. Frustration built the more she tried. All she heard were gargled word's barley auditable. She had an idea of where the Professor and Juliet were, and she wanted to tell the Commander. She wanted to order him to stop and wait, that they would return. It was easy to imagine the Professor finding the wormhole and wanting to explore it. Heck, it would be against his character if he didn’t go through it. They needed to find that wormhole. They needed to go through to bring him back.
“Captain, don’t try to talk. We can work things out when we get back to the Arwen.”
You won’t find him here. Marjorie thought. He’s not on the station. We can’t find him unless we go through the wormhole.
“Roger,” Commander Pimpleton said to some invisible person. He must have been talking to someone on a communicator. “Captain, the station is empty.”
No, they’re in there; they're in there! She thought and tried to speak. She heard moans coming out of her mouth.
The Commander stopped and gently placed her in a wheelchair that was waiting for her in front of the shuttle. “Captain, I know you want us to stay and look for the Professor, but we need to go. The station is empty. They are not here.”
They are, did they find the wormhole? Did they look for it? Helplessness was not something Marjorie did well, and she fought to speak. “Wormhole.” She said.
The Commander lifted his shoulders up a bit, the equivalent of someone shaking their heads. “Captain, we need to go.”
No, Marjorie thought. No, he can’t be gone. We can’t leave without him. As the Commander wheeled her up the ramp Marjorie tried to look back. From the very corner of her eye she saw the empty hallway. She half expected to see the Professor come running around the corner dragging Juliet with him. Even as the shuttle door closed she still held out hope. The shuttle lifted off. Marjorie lowered her head and sobbed.
Chapter twenty-four
The Doctor looked at his data pad, then back to Marjorie, and then to his data pad again. He let out a whistle of astonishment. Marjorie, who was lying in the sickbay bed, was only barely able to speak. She could form the words in her head easily enough but when it came time to talk she found her mouth sometimes had a mind of its own. “What?”
“First, the good news. You’ll be fine. Whatever drug they gave you was just a powerful muscle relaxant. Once it runs through your body you’ll have full control, including speech.”
She did feel better. Every few hours it seemed she was able control another limb. Those were easy, it was complex muscle control of her mouth she was having a problem with now. “And?”
“And, you’re perfectly healthy.”
“So?” She asked, wanting to expand the question even further. So, why did you whistle? So, why the astonished look on your face? So, what happened to the age spots on the back of my hand?
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with you. I mean, nothing. You no longer have Fullerton's. Your blood pressure, which was always a bit high, is normal, your heart is as healthy as I’ve ever seen it and you've lost all your ‘character lines.’ “
She could smile. She called them character lines since she first spotted them several years ago. It was nice to see someone was listening. “Why?”
“I don’t know. That place was great for you. What did they do over there?”
The drink. Marjorie thought. Newman told her she would now live for hundreds of years. What was in that drink? “Took a drink,” she said. “Felt better after it.”
“Hmmm,” the doctor said. “I’ll run some tests on your blood, maybe I can find an answer there.”
She nodded, and laid back on the bed. It was difficult not to think about Professor Ricter. He was gone. She didn’t know if he was dead, if he returned to the station to find the Arwen gone, or if he got l
ost somewhere in Wormhole Beta space. She knew he would find a way to survive if he could. Would even the great Theo Ricter survive this? She didn’t know and that killed her.
She sniffed back the tear and the hurt. The guilt would come later, right now all she felt was grief. Whatever it was that made her younger did nothing to dampen her emotions. If anything, they felt stronger than ever. She would never see him again. She would never get a late-night call asking her to take the Arwen to come see what he discovered. She would never again hear him talk about himself and how he was going to save yet another planet from certain destruction. A thought entered her head, she quickly sat up, startling the doctor. “What’s wrong?” He asked.
She swung her legs over the table and hopped off. He had to grab her or else she would have fallen. After he steadied her she walked as fast as she could to the door. Her grown flapped open behind her and the Doctor looked away. “Bridge,” she said.
“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Now.” She ordered.
“Right,” he said pulling open a drawer and pulling out small plastic bag. “Here are your cloths; you might want to put them on before walking the hallways.”
******
Commander Pippleton sat in the Captain’s chair. It was the first time in a while he felt he could relax. They had some loses, Professor Ricter and Ensign Monrow, but all things considered that was acceptable.
The bridge was quiet now. They had been in Wormhole space for almost a day and would be in wormhole space for the next few months. They had enough food and water to last them but it would be close.
The hum from the elevator told the Commander he was about to get some company. He turned just as the door opened. He lifted his shoulder in surprise at the sight of Captain Cook. She looked younger. The lines on her face had smoothed out. Above all, she seemed to move faster. When she spoke the voice was different, it was stronger and a bit higher. “Commander, full stop.”
The Arwen Book two: Manifest Destiny Page 18