“That is odd, Ana.”
She called up the full readout of her vitals and read over everything. She didn’t see anything amiss. “I’m okay, right?”
“You are looking at the same information I have access to, Ana.”
“That wasn’t what I was asking.”
“You want to know if the overload on the emppy did some sort of permanent damage?”
“Basically.”
“I don’t see how it could, Ana. I went over all the research while you were unconscious, just in case. I think what you are experiencing is temporary. It is not uncommon for humans to become emotionally catatonic after catastrophic events. And you experienced a lot over that last full hour you were awake.”
“Like sharing mental space with a fanatic who blew her brains out?”
“Yes, and the dampening effect from the overloading emppy was extreme. It far exceeded its design parameters before blowing a fuse, so to speak. I think that has numbed, temporarily, your basic human emotions. Not that I could find a mechanism in the research suggesting such a thing could happen. I think you probably just need a few days of rest.”
“Well, I transitioned from a sort of euphoria to catatonia. Hopefully, normality is next and not something worse.”
“Hopefully, Ana.”
Tentatively, she tried to open her mind, but she couldn’t do it. “My empathy isn’t working. That’s concerning.”
“Give it time, Ana. Physically, you are in working order. Even your brain chemistry is normal.”
She walked over a tapped on the blast door. “So they haven’t tried to get in?”
“They withdrew after the emppy overloaded, Ana. It is possible that it may have repulsed them.”
She checked the HUD, noting all the remaining red dots were in either Engineering or on the Bridge.
“They are acting as if you are not even here, Ana.”
“I guess they figure they can’t get in here without damaging their ship, so they’ll wait until they reach their destination to do something about me, or just leave me locked in so I’ll starve to death.”
“Or, Ana, they think you are dead, and so the door can wait. Just a possibility you might want to consider.”
“Dead? Why would they think that?”
“First, Ana, there are no cameras in here. So they cannot verify your condition. You know how the Krixis are.”
The Krixis trusted their telepathy so much that they didn’t use nearly as many cameras as humans did, only putting them in places where they thought visual information was absolutely necessary.
“And second, your empathy got knocked out completely, just before you went unconscious, making your presence invisible to them. They have never encountered an emppy before, so as far as they know, given the strength of your ability, you are a genetic freak.”
“So you actually think my emotional numbness has convinced them I’m dead?”
“You went from being all up in their telepathic business to being completely absent, right after one of them committed suicide. And you had taken a few needle hits. They may not have known how many. At the very least, I think it is a safe assumption that you going from a uniquely powerful empath to something they cannot even detect has them stumped.”
“Could the overloaded dampening field have affected their telepathic abilities?”
“I suppose it is possible, Ana.”
“If they think I’m dead, that definitely works to my favor.” She shrugged. “I only wish I was happy about having an advantage. I guess without my empathy I don’t even care about myself.”
“Be patient, Ana. It will come back to you. If you don’t die of dehydration first.”
“You’re so uplifting, Silky.” She picked up the last remaining power pack. “I have a choice to make.”
“I can reroute power from your sensor pack to your refractor field if need be, Ana. Not much, and not in a pinch, of course.”
Thinking of all the needles the Krixis had fired at her, she took the power pack out of her force shield and replaced it.
“Transfer a small amount then. Enough to hide me for a couple of minutes.”
“I can get you up to a single minute, at best, Ana.”
She took a sip of water. “I’ll take it.”
A brief wave of vertigo washed over her, then the odd halo around the edges of her vision vanished, along with the light buzzing sound in her ears.
“We just dropped out of hyperspace, Ana.”
She downed the canteen in her hand, leaving only one left and pulled out a protein bar. “Then it’s on, bitches.”
“Ana, what bitches are you referring to exactly?”
She bit into the entirely tasteless bar. “You know…bitches.”
“Don’t chew with your mouth open.”
She smiled. “As if it matters to you.”
“Bad habits ruin good people, Ana.”
She laughed. “Send another signal as soon as you figure out where we are.” She scanned the room, for the first time with serious intent. “And then help me find a way to blow up this ship from the inside.”
Chapter Eleven
Eyana Ora
Eyana walked around the room, studying the controls and opening every access panel that didn’t require tools or codes for entry. She didn’t see anything useful, but then she didn't really know what she was looking at. And while Silky had specs and data for every Krixis ship in service, there wasn’t much to go on for sabotaging their Atmospheric Control systems.
“I’ve got nothing. Silky?”
“Ana, in my review of classic Terran movies, I noticed that the hero often wins the day, and by win I mean blows up some big bad guy thing, by setting off a chain reaction. Typically, this involves striking an unshielded engine core or exploiting an armor chink or firing a shot down an exposed exhaust port connected to an important system. In Star Blades VII, the hero—”
Eyana stopped in her tracks. “Wait! Are you seriously suggesting a vague strategy that worked in classic movies from the olden days?”
“Yes, Ana, I am.”
“You’re a military-issue, advanced chippy.”
“That is correct, Ana.”
“And old movie stratagems is the best you’ve got for me?”
“Do you know of a better way? Remember, you only have two shaped charges left, and a single charge can barely punch through one of the doors here. As far as operating the ship’s systems, we know almost nothing, unless you still have some Krixis secrets bouncing around in your skull.”
“Okay, okay, I get the point. But in all those old movies, they must’ve figured out the weakness well in advance. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have known what to exploit.”
“In most cases, that was true, Ana.”
“And I seriously doubt the Krixis would have conveniently left an ultra-important system unguarded.”
“Like Atmospheric Control, Ana?”
“I hardly think this qualifies.”
“Perhaps.”
“The best I can do here is blow the systems and kill them through asphyxiation, which I’ll do if I have to. But that means killing myself, too.”
“Let’s try to avoid that strategy, Ana.”
She sighed. “Okay, so here’s what I’m getting from our conversation: You don’t have a clue what to do, and neither do I.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny my ignorance, Ana.”
She laughed half heartedly. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but I don’t think there’s any way for me to set off a chain reaction that would… Hm…”
“Do you have something, Ana?”
“Maybe. There are oxygen tanks accessible from here, along with controls for the filtering systems, right?”
“Correct.”
“Then I think I might just have a chain reaction we can set off to win the day…maybe.”
“Do explain, Ana.”
“If I were to strip the carbon dioxide from a vulnerable section, the Bridge pe
rhaps, while pumping in enough pure oxygen, then I might be able to start a fire.”
“You would have to find a way to turn off their fire suppression system. And you would need a spark to set off the blaze.”
“Well, that’s what I was hoping you could help me figure out. Because I don’t want to be anywhere near a room filled with pure oxygen when fire is added to the mix.”
“Ana, I am not saying this stratagem is impossible, or would ultimately be ineffective, though I think it would be. But I really do not see how we could manage to— Something is wrong.”
The ship lurched violently, tossing Eyana across the room. A teeth-rattling boom echoed within the ship.
“What the—”
A second boom sent shivers through Eyana as the ship bucked, slinging her back across to the other side.
“The ship is under attack, Ana.”
“You don’t say?”
Artificial gravity crushed her against the wall as the ship pitched into a hard turn. The hull shuddered as the quad ion cannon coughed and the plasma batteries hummed and spatted.
“The shields are up and holding so far, Ana.”
“Go to a level five scan, extend range to maximum.”
The ship rocked again as another weapon detonated against the shields, a large plasma missile she would guess by the reverberations. While there was currently no way for her to know, she suspected, based on the numerous ship-to-ship scrapes she’d been in, that the battle wasn’t going well for the ship she was on. The shields on a vessel of this class wouldn’t be able to take many more hits.
She chuckled. This was just great. Sure, the bad guys were likely going down, just not at her hands, with no chance for her to escape.
“Two ships in the immediate vicinity, Ana. They must have set a trap.”
“Our side?”
“Krixis wasps, Ana.”
“Given the situation, they’re the good guys. A single Wasp-class vessel is more heavily armed than this one, correct?”
“Most definitely, Ana.”
“So we’ve reached the end, old friend.”
“I suppose we have, Ana, but it doesn’t feel like it should be.”
“I doubt it ever does.” She went over to her pack and settled down. “I won’t need a harebrained, golden-age movie scheme after all.”
“Just as well, Ana. It was never going to work.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of—”
The floor quaked as a piercing wail tore through the ship.
“What the hell was that?”
“Shields down, Ana, hull breached in the back section.”
“‘Nevolence! Glad I didn’t stay in that locker.”
“I am not sure that it matters, Ana.”
“You don’t have any hope to sell me?”
“I do not offer hope, Ana, only solutions, and I have none of those for—”
The ship hummed, and Eyana’s vision blurred on the edges while her skin tingled. Then the ship shrieked and vibrated so violently that she worried it would be ripped apart.
“Did we just jump into hyperspace within a gravity well?”
The ship continued to rattle as it pitched wildly. Eyana was tossed about until she caught onto a control panel and Silky upped her weight by activating and reversing her antigrav.
“They jumped into dull-space, Ana. Right after deploying an antimatter bomb.”
“Holy ‘Nevolence! They had an antimatter bomb onboard this ship?! How the hell did they get their hands on one of those?”
“Cause bitches, Ana.”
“You didn’t use it right.”
“Sorry, I don’t think I will ever get the hang of using slang properly.”
“I keep telling you slang and comedy are all about situation and timing.”
The ship groaned and thrummed as its engines burned hot. A screech, like metal tearing, set her teeth on edge.
“The breach has expanded from the galley into one of the cargo bays, Ana. Plasma window seals are holding…for now. I am not certain how well their self-repair systems function, but they should already be working on fixing the breach.”
The ship quaked as if it were sliding across a grating. Another screech sounded.
“More hull damage?”
“Yes, Ana. They are going to have to drop out of dull space soon or the ship will be ripped apart.”
“Why haven’t they done so already?”
“I suspect because of the antimatter shockwave. Remember, dull-space is far more expansive than regular space so we haven’t moved far from the blast.”
To calm her mind and shut out the noises of the damaged ship, she meditated, breathing deeply and reciting the Fibonacci sequence. She sensed, suddenly, the worry in the crew. But then it vanished. Her empathy was starting to return. She breathed a sigh of relief. She was going to be her old self again after all. Of course, she’d have to be careful to keep it masked. If the Krixis did think she was dead or badly injured, then she wanted to keep it that way.
Minutes passed, then the tingle vanished from her skin along with the buzz from her ears and the halo along the edges of her vision. The ship oscillated and yawed, then settled.
“We just returned to real space, Ana.”
Based on the gravity she had felt a moment before the ship’s systems compensated, enough to cause her to stumble backward, they had just picked up significant speed.
“Did they just kick the ship into another gear?”
“We are riding the last of the antimatter shockwave, Ana.”
The hull screamed. Silky had brought up a silhouette of the ship, showing its condition. Whatever automated repair systems the Krixis used, they were not working, or at least not fast enough. And if it was anything like a Benevolency ship of equivalent size, there was only so long the plasma window patches along the hull could seal the ship from the vacuum of space. And at this point the ship could ill afford losing more atmosphere.
“The level five scan?”
“Reveals no enemy ships, Ana. The high-yield antimatter bomb did the trick.”
“It also violated the peace treaty.”
“I am not sure that it did, Ana, since they used it against their own people.”
She walked over to her pack, knelt down, and returned items to it that had fallen out during the ship’s wild maneuvers. “Good point. And there’s one plus to it, if I don’t succeed then they won’t have that antimatter bomb to use against our people.”
She slung her backpack over her shoulder and took up her plasma carbine. “Now I’ve just got to kill these insurgents so that they don't replace that antimatter bomb with whatever weapon they’re here to find.”
“I think, Ana, that you are getting ahead of yourself. The planet we are heading toward, assuming I have estimated their course correctly, is still two hours away. If you kill them before they land the ship, you will die too.”
“I know, Silky, but I am going to be ready for anything, at a moment’s notice. I can’t give them time to seize this weapon.”
“I understand that, Ana. But maybe you should relax until then.”
“Fine.” She sat down and leaned back against the far wall, facing the door. “No more crazy stratagems. Although…” She stood and drew a shaped charge from her pack. “Now that we know their own people oppose them and are in pursuit, we just need to make sure they can’t easily leave the planet.”
She opened a panel and placed a shaped charge against the control system for what Silky had identified as the main air filtration unit. Then she removed another panel and placed her last charge against a pipeline leading to the oxygen tanks which were just ahead of a coolant regulator. The blasts from both charges should effectively wipe out Atmospheric Control, making it impossible for them to return to space in this vessel without the ship being overhauled.
The ship groaned. The hull breach had spread farther. She hoped the hull lasted long enough to reach the planet and could withstand the heat and pressure of en
tering an atmosphere.
“What kind of solar system are we in, Silky?”
“Class M star system with one potentially inhabitable world.”
She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “And…”
“And that is it, Ana. We do not have any data on this system.”
“None? How is that possible?”
“Knowledge about this system was protected by treaty with the Krixis Empire. The fourth planet was designated as being sacred to them, and thus absolutely off limits to us.”
“I guess that explains why this ship was attacked as soon as it entered the system.”
“Perhaps, Ana. But just because coming here is forbidden for us does not mean it is for them. And even if it is, that does not mean they actively guard it. Perhaps taboo keeps them away…perhaps they go on pilgrimages to visit holy shrines here. We simply have no idea.”
“Perhaps we will face more guardians like those two vessels…”
“Anything is possible here, Ana. Anything.”
Eyana synched the shaped charges to Silky, so that she could activate them remotely, from up to five kilometers away. Then she settled back down and meditated.
Her meditation resulted in a nap that Silky woke her from two hours later, though it seemed to her as if only a few minutes had passed.
“We just entered orbit around the fourth planet, Ana. The ship sent out a pulse just before we arrived, disabling a web of defensive satellites.”
“These insurgents are more than common military personnel.”
“Undoubtably, Ana. They are about to bring the ship into the planet’s atmosphere. Based on the current vector, we should be landing somewhere near the equator where it is currently daylight.”
“What kind of conditions are we looking at here?”
“It is your typical used up and discarded Krixis world.”
“Can I breathe the air?”
“Yes, Ana, though the fungus and dust particulate counts are high at the moment due to windstorms, so I wouldn’t breathe it unfiltered if I were you, unless you want to undergo a lung cleanse upon returning home.”
Forbidden System: A Benevolency Universe Novel (Fall of the Benevolence Book 1) Page 8