by M. D. Cooper
The guard on her left—the woman who had previously rolled her eyes at Nuermin—seemed bored. She was clearly watching personal holo, or engaged in a Link conversation. The other guard was a thin man who moved with the grace of a cat as he prowled along behind Kara. She felt a modicum of respect for him, as he paid close attention to his surroundings, his eyes darting to Kara if she so much as twitched a wing.
He would go down first.
Five minutes later, they crossed the demarcation Vicky had made on the map, and reached the room with the secure terminal.
Nuermin led the way into the sterile chamber, which only possessed four chairs along one wall and the terminal in the center.
Both parties were to hard-Link into the terminal and register special encrypted tokens for use in the transaction. Kara, of course, had no intention of doing that.
As Nuermin walked to the far side of the terminal, Kara readied herself to strike the guards, both of whom had entered and now stood behind her on either side.
I imagine they get a nice cut. Kara grimaced at the thought.
Thanks for the countdown….
Kara snapped her wings wide, filling the room with their inky blackness, and kicked back at the wary man, clamping her clawed foot around his calf and pulling him forward.
She thought he’d fall, but instead, he hopped forward and crashed into her back, then drove a fist into her armored side.
With only one leg on the floor, Kara slipped and spun around, smacking a wing into Nuermin and knocking him away from the terminal.
Both of the guards faced her, the bored woman suddenly alert and swinging her pulse rifle up at Kara’s head, while the man staggered backward, still unslinging his weapon.
Kara whipped a wing in front of herself as the woman fired. The carbon-fiber, polymer coated construction of her wing blocked the woman’s pulse blast, and Kara slashed at her with the clawed tip of her wing, trying to hook the weapon and pull it away.
Meanwhile, the man had leveled his weapon and fired a pulse shot that Kara also blocked with a wing. The man lowered his weapon for a moment, his eyes registering dismay, and Kara lunged forward, one of her left arms grabbing his rifle, while another clamped around his neck, lifting him into the air.
So much for Sharp Eyes being the biggest threat.
She threw him at the woman and spun once more, whipping a wingtip at Neurmin, who was struggling to his feet. The blow sliced his face open from ear to chin, and he fell back with a shriek.
Kara turned her focus back to guards. She had succeeded in relieving the man of his rifle, but it was biolocked, so she tossed it aside.
He yelled something unintelligible, and Kara wanted to smile. Having titanium alloy knuckles driven by her augmented limbs was more than his helmet could withstand.
She hit him again, and this time her fist drove through his faceshield, smashing into the flesh and bone beneath.
Kara continued to drive her lower left fist into the man’s face while she grabbed the woman by the throat with one hand and grasped the underside of her helmet with the other two.
A sharp twist was all it took to break the helmet’s locking mechanism, and then the woman’s neck.
“You should have spent prior bribe money on better armor,” she whispered as she turned to Nuermin.
The grey man was blubbering as he crawled back across the grey floor on the far side of the terminal. Kara slammed her wingtips down into the deck plate, surging through the air to land on his fragile body—the force of her impact shattering his left hip and ribs.
Kara flexed both feet, snapping the stationmaster’s pelvic bone and sinking her claws into his chest, feeling his heart muscles contract around her talons.
Nuermin drew in a sharp breath, about to scream, when two of Kara’s fists smashed his face. Then she rained another two blows into his head, leaving it a shattered ruin.
Vicky made a coughing sound.
Kara turned to the two guards and confirmed that both were dead. She clamped a foot around the woman’s helmet and leapt into the air, smashing the helmet and head within back against the deck.
Kara returned to Nuermin, tore a strip of his pants off, and began to clean her hands.
Kara replied as she picked up the two pulse rifles, depositing nano on them to work at the biolocks. Then she slung the straps for each over her shoulders and held them behind her back with her lower arms.
Kara had felt empty while dispatching the guards and the stationmaster. Normally, striking down her enemies felt…better. She wondered if it was because her father’s aegis was gone, or if it was because Aaron was not there with her.
Perhaps it was both.
A stray thought wandered into Kara’s mind as she peered out into the corridor, ensuring the coast was clear. Katrina was able to reattach my arm with her medbay on the Voyager. I wonder if the people at New Canaan can fix me….
She didn’t know exactly what needed fixing, but it felt like something was broken inside of her. Surely the people with the most advanced technology in the galaxy would know how to repair what was broken.
She crept through the passageways, pausing and ducking around corners twice when Vicky told her to—not a simple task, with her height and wings.
Ten minutes later, she was at the entrance to Vicky’s node chamber.
The door slid open, revealing a small room with a gleaming Titanium-Au cylinder in the center. Kara spotted an AI case on a rack to the left, and grabbed it as the panel slide open on the cylinder. Within rested the tetrahedron-shaped AI core.
Kara snapped her wings wide in frustration, and grabbed the core, forcing herself to be gentle—as much as she didn’t want to—and then set it in the case.
Once she closed the lid, Vicky’s presence rejoined her.
Kara nodded silently as she peered back into the corridor. No one was present, and she turned right, rushing down the corridor with both pulse rifles held in front of her, all pretense at subterfuge long gone.
A pair of guards rounded a corner ahead, and Kara fired on them, knocking one back. The other ducked behind the corner and tossed a grenade her way.
Kara didn’t even flinch. She snapped a wing out and swept the grenade further down the hall to her rear, continuin
g her mad dash.
She came around the corner and slammed a shoulder into the guard, then kicked him out into the intersection as the grenade exploded blasting flames down the passageway.
Kara didn’t reply as she resumed her run through the station.
Kara asked.
Kara shook her head in frustration, cursing aloud. “What the fuck, Vicky! That wasn’t the plan.”
“Just hope there are pods left for us,” Kara grunted as she picked up the pace.
One advantage of the general evac being sounded was that no one cared about fighting the large winged woman racing through the station.
They were, however, prepared to fight her for a place on the escape pods.
Kara rounded the final corner to find droves of people crowding into escape pods, and four soldiers with kinetic slug throwers watching over them.
She skidded to a halt as soon as she saw the soldiers and scampered back the way she’d come as kinetic rounds tore through the air around her.
One ripped a hole in her wing, and another cracked the armor on her leg before she was back in cover.
The statement stopped Kara cold. Is that all people think I’m good for? It was what her Father had used her for the most. A joke came to mind about people who were so stupid they weren’t good for much more than being walking meat-suits for AIs.
Was she even that? Or was she nothing more than a weapon for others to wield?
Kara snapped to and peered around the corner. Sure enough, all the pods were gone.
“Shit! I just stood there for a second!”
Kara nodded, considering her options.
Vicky didn’t respond, and Kara hoped the AI understood what to do.
She took off at a full run toward the first evac pod’s chute, bracing for an impact that—thankfully—never came. When she was a meter from the door, it blew open, and Kara tucked her wings in tight as the explosive decompression shot her down the pod’s launch tube.
She slammed into the tube’s walls and screamed silently when one of her wings caught on something and snapped.
Then they were out of the chute, and the guns fell away from her hands, and she clutched Vicky’s case with all four arms, watching as GCP1 began to shrink behind them.
Kara turned, looking for the Voyager, and spotted it, a pinprick of light noted on her HUD.
Something’s wrong, she thought as her body began to feel cold. She looked herself over, checking for injuries, and saw red gouts of blood drifting away from her leg.
Katrina’s words started to sound strange to Kara, like they were bendy. Then more warbling voices that were indistinct gibbering nonsense.
Kara saw the red glare of engines, and felt a grav beam tug at her, jerking her body around like it was a rag doll.
Hold the case, Kara, hold the case. Don’t let go. Do it for Father.
Then the darkness of space was replaced by the clean, white interior of an airlock, and Kara flexed her fingers to be sure it was still there.
Got it. Daddy will be proud.
* * * * *
Katrina struggled to pull Kara’s listless form into the ship, hollering for someone to help. Carl was at her side a moment later, sliding a grav board under Kara’s body and lifting it into the air.
“Quick, medbay!” Katrina shouted, and they pushed Kara to the ladder shaft and then up to the next level.
“She’s in shock,” Carl called out as Kara began to shiver and convulse. “We should get her in stasis, deal with it later.”
Katrina nodded and tried to get Vicky’s case out of Kara’s grasp.
“Noooo,” Kara moaned. “Gotta keep it for Father.”
“Your father’s here,” Katrina said, stroking Kara’s arm as Carl got the stasis pod ready. “He needs the case. I’ll take it to him.”
“Suuure?” Kara’s synthetic voice warbled with what sounded like fear.
“Yes, I’m sure. And you’ll be safe, too.”
Kara’s grasp on the case lessened, and Katrina was able to lift it free.
Katrina maneuvered the grav board to the edge of the stasis pod where Carl waited. He grabbed her feet, and Katrina folded Kara’s wings around her before sliding an arm below the woman’s shoulders.
As quickly and carefully as they could, they got her into the pod. Katrina was about to close the lid, when Kara’s arm shot up and grabbed her wrist.
“I want to see Father.” Kara’s voice rasped and wavered.
“You will,” Katrina whispered. “Everything will be fine.”
“No…” Kara’s voice fell. “Not fine. Me. I want to be me again.”
Katrina folded Kara’s arm back down and stroked it for a moment. “You and me both.”
“Kat!” Carl whispered hoarsely. “Get to the bridge. I got this.”
Katrina coughed. “Yeah, OK.” She grabbed Vicky’s case and rushed up the ladders to the bridge, settling into one of the seats as the glowing shape of Gate 5 grew in front of them.
“Good,” Katrina said as she placed Vicky’s case on the seat beside her and wrapped a strap around it.
Vicky said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Katrina shared Vicky’s general sentiment and pulled up their rear view on one of the holoscreens, keeping one eye on it, and the other on the gate.
“We should have enough time, it’s a short jump…”
Ahead, the gate’s mirrors focused the negative energy into a roiling ball at its center as Troy deployed the Voyager’s mirror.
Behind them, the gate control platform crumpled as the Kjeeran plowed into it. Then it and the st
ation were swallowed up by a blinding flash of light.
Alarms sounded, and half the cockpit’s consoles lit up as the antimatter explosion bathed the Voyager in gamma rays.
Katrina gritted her teeth and gripped the armrests on her chair as the ship bucked and shuddered, its shields and dampeners barely able to compensate for the energy slamming into it.
A second later, the Voyager’s mirror touched the roiling ball of energy, and space-time disappeared.
THEBES
STELLAR DATE: 08.13.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Aegeus, Bridge
REGION: Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance
“And here we are, the Albany System, regional capital of the province of Thebes,” Oris announced as the Aegeus dropped out of the dark layer and into normal space.
Tanis didn’t know and wished she had left Oris back on the I2 in the Lisbon system. With no more Intrepid Class jump gates available to deploy, Tanis had been hesitant to bring the ship this close to Nietzschean space.
Instead, they’d spread the ISF First Fleet throughout systems in Septhia, searching for the current location of General Mill.
Tanis decided not to acknowledge Oris’s statement and turned to the Comm officer. “Let me know if there’s anything about Marauder ships in the system. We can’t keep hopping around forever. Eventually we’ve gotta find these mercenaries.”
“I wish you’d tell me what you hope to learn from General Mill about the Genevian mech program,” Oris said. “I might be able to use it to help you search them out.”
“They work for you.” Tanis gave Oris a look signifying lessening patience. “How is it that you don’t know where they are?”
“Well, they move around a lot.” Oris shrugged as she turned to look at the bridge’s holotank. “They have operations in a number of systems. But you know how it is, interstellar comms are only as good as the routes courier ships take to relay messages.”