Phoenix Rising: The Covenant (Phoenix Rising Infinitology Book 1)
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Kel looked out over the ocean from his vantage point on top of a Hopper. He was sitting cross legged, the sun beamed down on his bare back, his shirt lay behind him and he lay back onto it, jumping slightly as the hull was hot even with his shirt covering it.
The sea was calm, the waves lapped lazily on the sandy beach as a seagull played in the thermals above. He was on an island, the palm trees hardly stirred in the light breeze and coconuts lay uncollected on the golden sand. Further down the beach a group of natives were fashioning a war canoe. They were hand carving the intricate wooden prow as most of the canoe was finished. Scantily clad black haired dusky skinned maidens went about their business.
Suddenly there was a dull hum from somewhere above him. He opened his eyes and looked up in time to see a battle shuttle entering the atmosphere. It descended so fast he could hardly get to his feet and shout a warning before it was raining fire down on the natives. They screamed and ran but fire engulfed them and gunfire rattled along the sand in lines, the bullets that missed thudded into the sand, sending grains in all directions. He saw the look on the faces and he recognized three of them, a woman and two children but he couldn’t remember from where.
Kel screamed a warning and for them but they were running for the trees as if he wasn’t there. Then a fireball hit them and they were engulfed in searing heat. He screamed in frustration and anger as he watched them die.
Suddenly it was dark, the island was gone. He could feel the cold of a metal wall to his right, the damp softness of a mattress which was soaked in sweat. He sat bolt upright and looked around in the half light. He recognized his room and Kyla who was climbing down the ladder. She walked over and sat on his bed. He mumbled. “It will never be alright again, never.”
Kyla put her arms around him and stroked his damp hair. “It was a nightmare Kel, nothing more. It wasn’t real. This is real, here and now. It’s over, whatever you saw it was just a dream.” Kel took a deep breath. “Sure, just a nightmare. It was so real.” Kyla ruffled his hair. “You’ll be fine. Do you want me to stay?”
Kel pulled back from her. “Sure.” He lent forward and kissed her on the cheek and pulled her over onto the bed with him.
She wriggled further onto the narrow bed to save her from falling off and stroked his hair. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
He looked up at the ceiling. “It was a perfect moment. I was on a tropical island, the sun was shining. A Followers ship arrived and killed them all in a fireball.” His mind was racing, he didn’t want to mention any more.
She rested her head on his shoulder and he relaxed and enjoyed the moment. He put his arm around her and they both fell asleep.
Rennon was in his laboratory. He was working with chemicals in a test tube, the tube turned blue. “Schrak, green, I need green, turn green damn you.” Eloise looked up from her terminal. “No success this time then?”
Rennon lifted the tube from its holder and tipped it into the waste chemical bin. “There has to be an answer.”
Eloise looked at him long and hard. “What are you working on?”
Rennon picked up a new test tube. “I’m looking for an antidote to the drug they gave Kel. It’s likely that is what they are giving to their Drone Warriors and if I can give them their free will back again I might be able to set them free of Follower control.”
Eloise looked a little surprised. “So you think it’s a chemical that makes people follow them? I thought it was a belief.”
Rennon sat down on his stool and put his feet up on the bar between its legs. “Far from it.” He went back to mixing chemicals and looking hard at the screen. “I need a break, will you be ok for a while?”
Eloise smiled sweetly. “I’ll be fine, I’m a big girl
now.” Rennon smiled and left the room.
As soon as he was gone she slipped off of her stool and closed the door carefully, c h e c k i n g t h a t n o b o d y was l o o k i n g . She t o o k the k e y a n d communicator that Rennon had in his jacket pocket, hanging by the door on a peg, and went to the cabinet where he kept the more sensitive drugs and samples. She unlocked the cabinet, opened the glass door and lifted out the tray of samples he had carefully labelled and took another vial from her pocket. It had a screw top stopper which she carefully unscrewed and then tipped a drop into each vial. For a moment the liquids steamed as they met and then went back to how they had looked again. She put the vial into the waste chemical box and then put the tray very carefully back onto the shelf. She went to Rennon’s terminal and smiled widely as she saw that he had not logged off, his research was all there in front of her. She took a disc from her pocket and downloaded the contents of his laptop onto it, then slipped it into her bag which she kept under her part of the desk. She then uploaded the contents of another disc marked with a red cross she took out of her bag onto Rennon’s laptop. She then removed the disc and placed it in a glass bowl, took a glass bottle from the cupboard and poured the concentrated acid over the disc before tipping the contents into the used chemical bin. There was a loud “pop” from the bin and it jumped a bit.
She then turned to the thermostat on the wall. She keyed in her code and raised the temperature. She then opened up the terminal and took out the contacts behind the buttons. She then disabled the intercom and shut off the air conditioning unit and removed the wires from inside the control box.
Eloise looked around the room and checked that everything was back to how it had been before Rennon had left, put the key back into his pocket then went back to her chair and carried on with her work.
Rennon came back about a quarter of an hour later with a coffee and one for her. “Milk no sugar, is that right?”
Eloise smiled at him. “Perfect, thank you.” She took a sip but it was too hot so she put it down beside her terminal.
Rennon coughed and she started a little then smiled and moved the cup to a table a safe distance away. “Sorry, I forgot.”
Rennon sat down and carried on typing. He ran a diagnostic and then raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Well, well, now Eloise this looks promising.” He went to his jacket, reached into his pocket and took the key out and went to the cabinet.
Eloise gave him a nervous glance behind his back as he went to the cabinet and hastily slipped down off of her stool. “I need to go to the ladies room.” Rennon smiled. “Of course, no problem. I’ll run a test or two and then we can pack up before dinner. Kyla is cooking, that should be a treat.”
Eloise walked out of the room and shut the door. She keyed in her code and silently locked the door then opened up the panel. She took out a vial and poured it over the circuits inside so that they melted. She then replaced the cover on the keypad so that it looked like nothing had changed and wandered off down the corridor.
Rennon took the tray of vials from the cabinet and carefully set them down on the table. He took the third one in and looked at it and his brow furrowed a little. He held it up to the light and then he reached for a scanner and ran it over the vial. He carefully put the vial down into its tray. Something was wrong in the room, he could tell there was but he couldn’t think what. Everything looked normal. He ran his finger around his collar, was it his imagination or was it getting hotter? He went to the thermostat, it was ridiculously high. He pressed buttons but he could get no response and the numbers just kept rising.
As he turned he noticed that the vials were smoking. He ran his scanner over them again and ran a second scan. He ran to his jacket and found his communicator was missing. He turned in time to see the smoke rising from the vials; it had turned a thick yellow colour. “Oh my God, heat, the heat is going to set them off. He altered the scanner and scanned again. Dequathoraxine, I can’t believe I didn’t detect that before.”
The intercom was dead. The expected crackle as he opened a channel just wasn’t there. He looked at the air conditioning, it was shut off. The air wasn’t circulating. He ran to the door and keyed in his code, it wouldn’t open.
He pressed the off button but the computer didn’t react. He picked the laptop up and took the bottom off of it and ripped out the back up battery and the main battery and unplugged it from the mains. Immediately the wireless connection was cut as the laptop screen went black, the laptop was switched off. He was glad he’d destroyed the internal battery by leaving it plugged in.
Rennon didn’t have long to relax as the liquid in the vials was bubbling violently. As the vials exploded Rennon just had time to leap under a table. The table shielded him. The exploding vials shattered into an arc of broken glass and sprayed chemicals around the room which lacerated everything they touched and everything they had lacerated was then sprayed with the liquid the vials had contained. Rennon was on his back when the table vibrated, jumped in the air because of the pressure of the explosion and landed, the legs broke and the table came down on him hard.
The table had been next to the wall which on the Zephyr was the outer shell. The blast penetrated the shell and the room began to depressurize. The suction lifted the table and forced it up against the hole, sealing it off. Rennon lay on the floor like a rag doll. The sensors were working again now that the laptop was turned off and was no longer controlling them. They immediately sensed the burning debris and activated the sprinklers and set off a warning which flashed around the ship.
Eloise was in the ladies room and she smiled to herself when she heard it. From the privacy of her cubicle she pulled out her hand held transmitter and typed out a message. “Mission successful” and hit send.
In the cockpit Mac was monitoring frequencies which he did often to make sure that there were no Follower craft in the area. He was just in the process of alerting the crew to the emergency in Rennon’s lab when he detected the outgoing message and with lightning reflexes intercepted it and diverted it to a storage device.
Mac’s voice was commanding and monosyllabic. “Crew, this is an alert. There has been an explosion in Rennon’s laboratory; all available hands are to attend.” He shut off the intercom and then opened the message he had intercepted.
Kel and Kyla got to Rennon’s laboratory first and it took mere moments for them to realize that something was seriously wrong. Kyla tried the keypad, got no response so flipped it open and saw the melted keys. Kel saw them too and pulled out his blaster when he saw Rennon lying prone on the floor of the lab through the toughened glass window in the door. He was about to fire when Kyla caught his arm and stopped him.
Kyla looked serious. “Look, Kel, the wall, the skin is broken. If we open this door then what will it do to the pressure?”
Kel looked at the table hanging as if in mid air over the hole in the wall. He looked at Rennon on the floor. “I would say that the pressure would stay the same, it is sucking out, not in.”
Kyla smiled. “Very smart, well I hope so, so go on then, let’s do this. We aren’t scientists so let’s hope we’re right.”
Kel levelled his blaster at the lock and fired, blowing a hole in the door where the lock was so that they were able to slide it open. Kyla ran to Rennon and checked him over. “I’d say he’s got broken ribs and he’s unconscious.” She ran a scanner over him. “He’s broken three ribs and he took a heavy crack on the head. Help me get him out of here.”
Kel helped her to lift him and they moved him out of the room. Kel mostly carried him, Kyla helped and they managed to get him to the Infirmary where Samson was waiting. He acted swiftly and got him on a bed, scanned him and began with an intravenous drip.
Jack Samson looked concerned. “He’s fine but what the hell happened?” Kyla put a hand on Rennon’s shoulder. “I do not know. When we got there the door had been sabotaged, the key pad had been corroded with acid or something. Something had exploded in the room as well but we probably won’t know until he comes around. If he’s going to be alright we had better get back. The outer hull has been breached and it’s blocked up by a table.” Jack looked even more concerned. “A table?”
Kel smiled. “A very strong lab table.”
Jack didn’t look much relieved. “Oh, well that’s the thing isn’t it.”
Kel and Kyla ran back to Rennon’s laboratory where the marines were busily welding the table to the wall.
Kel leant on the intercom near the Laboratory and keyed in the cockpit’s code. “Mac, we need to put down as soon as possible for repairs. We have a slight problem.”
Mac’s voice came over the intercom. “The problem is greater than you think. Can you join me outside the ladies toilets on level two?”
They looked at each other and ran. They arrived about the same time as Mac did. He was armed and he kicked the door in and rushed inside. He was met by Eloise, transmitter in hand uploading from a hand held scanner. Mac screamed at her. “What do you think you are doing?”
Eloise smiled her sweetest smile. “What do you think I am doing daddy dearest, I’m doing my duty. I will be revered for ever more for what I’ve done here. The Followers now have the whole contents of Rennon’s hard drive. What do you think of that? Are you going to ground me? Are you going to talk down to me? Not any more I don’t think.” She pulled a blaster out from her pretty flower decorated bag and pointed it at him. “Don’t think I won’t use it. They told me I might have to do this and I’m fully trained and prepared. You are no longer my father; I have a new family now.”
Her father laughed at her. “You stupid fool. I intercepted your first message and that one is going to exactly the same place, the storage device in the flight deck.”
Eloise screamed with anger. The blaster in her hand erupted with a blue light which hit Mac full in the chest as he fired just that fraction of a second later. His blaster bolt hit her in the chest too, knocking her backwards. Kyla fell to her knees beside Mac and she began CPR. She pulled out her mini med bag that she always carried on her belt and pulled out a pre-drawn injection and slammed it into his chest, pushed the plunger and carried on pumping his chest. She tried again, and again, and again while Kel stood over them helpless. He began to pace. Kyla looked up at him for a second. “Check Mac’s blaster, is she stunned or dead? Also, stop that transmitter uploading. Just in case. He could have been bluffing.”
Kel leapt on the linked scanner and pulled the connection so the screen went blank. He then grabbed the blaster on the floor and checked the dial. “Set to kill, he wasn’t messing around. I don’t understand, that was his daughter, what is going on?”
Kyla was still pumping Mac’s chest. “She’s a convert, without the implant as she chose to follow them. How he must have felt when he saw it was his daughter sending the message I can’t imagine.” She was pumping frantically, keeping to the rhythm. She pulled out a second syringe and jabbed it into his artery. “Come on Mac, live, we need you.”
Mac choked back to life, he took in a big, deep breath and then screamed. It was a pitiful, pained, hurt wild animal sound that tore the heartstrings of all who heard it. He fell back into Kyla’s arms and she lay him down gently on the cold floor and stroked his head. “Welcome back. Take it easy and we’ll get you to the Infirmary.”
Mac was choking. “I intercepted the message, it’s on a loop and is only downloading into our mainframe buffer. The Followers got nothing. Is she?”
Kyla felt for a pulse. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, she’s dead.”
Mac gasped for breath. “I pretty much knew. There was no coming back from that. She wasn’t drugged, she… oh my god, help me.” He began to go into convulsions and Kyla slid to the ground, cradling his head on her lap and trying to pull him into the recovery position.
Kyla looked up at Kel, helpless. “Kel, is there anything different about that blaster.”
Kel picked it up and turned it over in his hand. “There’s an attachment, it’s
well hidden but it’s there, on the side.”
Kyla looked at it while holding Mac who was foaming at the mouth. His eyes were wide and dilated then he became suddenly calm and looked at her with eyes had lost their focus. He reached up and grasped her neck before she could react. Kel was faster, he blasted Mac who fell back onto Kyla’s lap.
Kel grabbed him and dragged him off of her lap. “I’d say that was another of their innovations. He isn’t Mac anymore, look at him. I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to set my blaster to stun.”
Kyla leapt on Mac and tried to restart CPR.
Kel caught her arm and pulled her away. “There’s no point, he isn’t Mac anymore.”
Kyla fell back against his legs, exhausted and looking lost. “I don’t know what to do, how can we fight this when our own people are turning against us?”
Kel put a hand on her shoulder. She grabbed his arm and leant her head against it, tears flowing down her face. “This is crazy, how can we?”
Kel squeezed her shoulder gently. “We can go on but we’ll have to be more careful and we need to let the Commander know, there could be other operatives aboard other ships. I’m also going to go and check the cockpit. Come on.”
Kyla got up and went over to Eloise’s prone body. “Just a minute. I want to see what she is downloading from. If Rennon’s laptop got caught in that blast it may be the only copy of his notes.” She detached the disc from the scanner and placed it on the wash stand.
Kel took his blaster out of his holster again and blasted Eloise in the head. “You just don’t know. She may have had some of that drug in her system. I’m not taking any chances.” He turned and blasted Mac in the head as well. By the time they got to the cockpit, Shannon was already there and she had ripped out most of the controls and was in the process of pulling out any wire she could find. As they opened the door she turned her blaster and fired on them. They both fired back, catching her in the chest. She fell to the floor but so did Kyla who careered backwards into the wall and slid down. Kel turned and was too late to catch her. She crumpled to the ground in a heap. He immediately grabbed Shannon’s blaster, turning it over in a mad blind panic to check for the additional hardware. It was an ordinary blaster and he recognised it as the one that they had kept under the control panel in case of emergencies.