“The shield is up,” announced an angosian who was staring at a small status display in his hand.
A moment later the armoured nafalli who led the rescue entered the room without his cannon. He stopped and touched the belly of the female nafalli beside the door, said something to her quietly and she nodded before leaving.
Removing his heavy helmet, originally made for protection against medium range stellar radiation or interstellar particles, his loping gait carried him to Jason and Oz, who were still healing. They were just starting to stand as he gestured for them to remain seated with a massive paw. He looked strange and ominous under so much armour, two and a half meters tall if not a few centimetres more, and the fur under the helmet was a thick dark brown with black stripes. “I am Alaka Murlen, welcome to Damshir,” he smiled.
“Thank you for saving us, that was a hell of a rescue,” Oz said loudly enough for several of the soldiers who had just entered behind the large nafalli to hear.
“You're lucky, the enemy had given up on taking the mountain from the cliff side. Besides, I couldn't let fighters like you be killed meaninglessly, we need every man we can find and there are fewer every day. I assume from your abilities out there that you are military?”
“Good assumption,” Jason complimented with a raised eyebrow. “I'm Senior Lieutenant Jason Everin, formerly of Freeground Fleet Intelligence and my friend over here is Captain Terry Ozark McPatrick, formerly of Freeground Fleet,” he introduced.
“Call me Oz.”
“We were on our way to rendezvous with a friend before we were forced to change our course after a malfunction. Pandem looked like a good spot to land and repair, maybe get some parts. Guess our luck could be better,” Jason concluded with a shrug.
Alaka looked at them both, his eyes wide. “We have a few police officers, some former military, but no one like you two. Will you fight with us?” he asked quietly.
“If our choices are to fight or hide away and hope it all turns out for the better, I think I speak for us both when I say we'd rather fight,” Oz said firmly as Jason nodded his agreement.
A great big smile spread across the nafalli's face. “Roman is going to be overjoyed. He's conducting things from the shield room deep inside the mountain.”
“So this is an all out war? Our ship was seriously damaged by a rogue artificial intelligence, but I didn't think that it would affect so many machines, especially not a military force.”
“Most of the military and police forces here were manned by intelligent androids. It's been a while since they turned on the humans and killed most of the population in the city center. They began organizing themselves sometime after that. They dispose of bodies, coral survivors until ships can take them away and fight us for this mountain. Damshir is the last refuge as far as we know.”
“Is the city inside the mountain?” Jason asked.
“Partially, but Damshir extends inland from the mountain as well as within. We only control a little more than half the city thanks to a network of energy barriers. There is constant tunnel fighting on the side opposite the cliff. We haven't been able to contact any other pockets of resistance or target any objectives outside of our area of control for weeks now thanks to the jamming.”
“Sounds dire.”
Alaka nodded slowly. “We're holding our ground though, getting better at working together.”
“Did you lose anyone while coming after us?” Oz asked soberly.
Alaka smiled; “No, today is a good day. I'll have someone introduce you to Roman, I have to go lead a counter attack on a post on the other side of the mountain. I'm sure we'll take the next tunnel, word of your arrival is already passing,” he said, gesturing to a group of soldiers quietly talking behind him who were intermittently glancing at the new arrivals.
Family Reunion
Ayan and her mother had seldom gotten along after she entered her teens. Things hadn't improved since she began her new life either. The woman hadn't visited, and what was worse, she had abandoned the original Ayan some time before Doctor Anderson and his team emerged from the time compression wormhole. Ayan couldn't imagine abandoning someone in their last days, someone who lived in pain and needed friends and family around them.
Just thinking of it conjured up the memories of what it felt like when her mother left as her first body had a serious bout with disease. Right before the full body scan was taken, close to the point where the old memories ended, she had suffered through sudden multiple organ failure. Freeground Medical had been there, Doctor Anderson was there in the first hour, where he'd come from she didn't know, but she was certain if he could have been there faster he would have.
Her memories were clear, waking up the next morning after dying on the table once, having multiple organ replacement and accelerated recovery therapy. She was heavily medicated when she woke and through the blur the first face she saw was Doctor Anderson's. Over his shoulder she made out the shape of her mother pacing through the recovery room window.
“Hey there,” was what she said when she saw him. Ayan remembered trying to sound upbeat, but instead her casual greeting came out as a croak.
He brought a straw to her lips. “Welcome back,” he said with a tired smile. “Take it easy. You'll be tired for a few days.”
The cool water was the perfect relief. “Everything okay?”
He nodded and took her hand. “You'll be doing aerobics and yoga again soon.”
“But for how long this time? Did they say if there were any other problems developing?”
“It looks good this time, everything looks fine,” he reassured. Her relief ran deep, if there was one person who wouldn't lie to her, it was him. “Your mother is here, she was on her way to the new colony when she got the call. Jason and Laura are on their way.”
“Geez, can't a girl get a good night's sleep anymore?” Ayan whispered through a wry grin.
Doctor Anderson chuckled and nodded. “You've been here a while.”
The door slid open to admit her mother. She was in full uniform, the state she was used to seeing her in back then. Admiral Rice only looked unsure and tentative when approaching a hospital bed. It was always the most awkward time for her mother, she never knew what to say even though just being there, trying to make the passing time more enjoyable would have been enough, more than enough.
“I'll leave you two for a while,” Doctor Anderson took his leave quietly.
“Thank you Doctor,” her mother said as he left. “How are you?” she asked Ayan.
“On cloud nine thanks to these recovery meds. There are days when I'd fake it if I could just to get dosed.” Ayan's attempt at levity didn't so much as dent her mother's awkwardness. There was something going on. Bad news hung in the air. “It was bad this time,” Ayan stated to gently press her mother for more information.
She nodded. “I'm sorry. They got it under control and were able to make your circulatory system viable again.”
Make your circulatory system viable. She'd never forget the stark reality of those words. It wasn't just organ failure, it was an all out attack that went well past it. Something she had to know, but not just then. “Thank you for coming,” she managed.
Her mother looked at her, a little startled. “Of course. When I heard I had them turn the transport around.” She sat down quietly.
Ayan recognized the look, her mother was trying to find the right way to say something but instead of waiting for her to phrase whatever it was just right, she decided to change the topic. “How's the colony?”
“Beautiful. Developing the existing flora and fauna is going much faster than expected. You should see it.”
“I will, when I can get away from Special Projects. We're just starting up two new developments.”
“I heard, Minister Ferrel can't stop talking about your success. It made getting your scan pushed through much easier.”
Ayan was genuinely surprised. She had requested access to the high resolution bioscanner month
s before but they hadn't so much as reviewed her application and there was little Freeground could do since it was owned by a private firm. Her mother wasn't even told about it. “How did you?”
“I put in a request of my own, they told me yours was already in queue. They'll take you as soon as you've recovered.”
She tried to keep calm, tried to keep the worst thoughts at bay. “Is it something the doctors said?” Ayan asked finally.
“It'll help if they can use a healthy scan as a base template.” It was a rehearsed response, it came too quickly and smoothly.
Even then she recalled thinking that there was something else going on. That kind of instant, high resolution image capture encompassed everything that was happening inside and outside of the human body was expensive and in very high demand. Physical and bioelectrical images were taken down to the molecular level. Several million frames in the space of a few seconds were captured with her scan, enough to see exactly how she worked, right down to the neural functions of her brain. “Thank you,” was all she could manage then.
Her mother smiled a little and patted her hand. “You're welcome.” They looked at each other then, and just as Ayan was starting to smile back, to expect her mother to stay a while, the woman cleared her throat and that sleek veneer replaced the soft expression that had made a brief appearance. “I'm sorry, I have to go. There's a shuttle waiting for me and I need to wrap up this part of the colony's development. I'd stay if I could, I shouldn't even be here now, but I have operational data that's critical to the colony's success.”
Ayan smiled reassuringly, through the fog of pain killers it was easier than expected. “I'll be okay. Thank you for coming.”
Admiral Rice stood up then, glanced at her daughter once more and left.
The memories were so clear, the view from that hospital bed as she watched her mother walk by the windows, off to continue her own life, to perform her duty. How badly she wanted her to stay just that once as the realization of her mortality settled in. That was the time she realized that things would only get worse, that she had passed a marker in the history of her illness and there was no going back.
As tears started to further obscure her vision Jason appeared at the observation window. He was smiling and waving exaggeratedly, it was hard not to chuckle at his antics. Even as he lifted her spirits she knew Laura was probably out of sight, speaking with her mother somewhere down the hallway.
Now those were true friends. Ayan thought to herself in reflection. Laura was always there and Jason would often stop in and visit even if his wife wasn't around. At her apartment, in the hospital, even at work a few times. Theirs was an easy friendship, just as easy as the one she had with Laura, only different. Conversations with him were always more light hearted, it was easy to have a laugh over a cup of coffee. She wondered idly how that progressed as time went on, through the times after the scan, past the scope of what she could remember.
Doctor Anderson had done what he could to inform her of what went on after the scan, he had even showed her footage of her mother's visits when the wormhole ship emerged after they had completed the long time compression phase. It took her some serious convincing, but she had even seen the last visit her mother paid her, where she actually threatened to destroy her before she was born.
That had struck a deep nerve. Ayan doubted her mother could actually dispose of her just as the dream of her rebirth was realized, but just saying it aloud, threatening the man who had spent over thirty years of his life isolated with a small crew with such a loss, it was something she didn't think her mother was capable of.
Doctor Anderson was completely forthcoming about how he seized full control of the project after that, and how he had pulled strings to have her mother sent just far enough away so she couldn't cause any more difficulty. Ayan understood, and was grateful for his honestly. For once her mother had a valid excuse for being absent at a very important time in her life, and Ayan tried as hard as she could to put the past behind her, to give her mother the opportunity to start from scratch, but it was hard. Then the trouble in the Blue Belt began and she hoped that her mother had somehow survived it.
As she finished folding the last of her clothes, a vacsuit version of her favourite long shirt with camouflage properties, the door chimed. “Come in,” she replied without checking who it was.
Her mother stood there, her red hair tied in a short braid, her vacsuit uniform pristine as always. Ayan didn't care what demons the past played host to right at that moment, only that her mother was alive. She ran across the main room of the apartment and hugged the woman, who gently put her arm around her. “Thank God! I kept checking for you in the list of survivors but they never added your name.” Ayan said as she tried not to tear up.
“I'm sorry, I was in the first group to return to Freeground from the Paladin but there was a lot to manage,” Admiral Rice apologized. She was quiet, surprised.
Ayan stepped back and wiped a tear from her eye. “I thought they were posting everyone as they reported in.”
“I wasn't listed. They didn't want whoever was responsible to know I escaped.”
“Oh,” was all Ayan could manage as she turned around and closed her last suitcase. She was surprised at how much she had accumulated in such a short time, but then, every crew member of the wormhole ship had a gift for her. They made her feel like the daughter of many, while her mother didn't seem to think telling her she was alive as soon as possible was a priority. It was so hard not to say it out loud. How could you wait? Can't you tell I needed to know you were safe? was what she wanted to say, but all she could manage was; “oh.” Ayan tried to shake it off. “You changed your hair.”
“It's just a new red, a little longer,” she replied hurriedly. There was a pause then as she watched Ayan make sure the clasps on her luggage was secure. She braced herself before going on quietly. “I would have told you earlier,” she offered. “Intelligence had me operating from a secret location.”
“It's okay. You're here now,” Ayan replied as she opened and closed a suspect latch on the last case. There was one other by the door beside her work bag and the poncho she planned to wear on the way to the Warpig.
“So it's true, you're leaving.”
Ayan nodded. “I can't get the clearance to rejoin the Special Projects Division or re-enlist so I'm going to find Jason and Oz.” It wasn't the entire truth. The Special Projects Division would be her third priority if she had a choice, preceded by finding Laura and meeting Jacob, then Jason and Oz. She didn't have to tell her mother that though. “I can stay for a while, there's some coffee left from this morning, would you like some?”
“I can't stay,” her mother replied, averting her gaze.
“Oh,” she looked at her mother for a moment. “Thank you for coming, I was worried.”
“There are other people who could go after them if Freeground needed them back. You should stay here, we'll find you something.”
It struck Ayan then; she doesn't know. She has no idea Intelligence has already given me exactly the assignment I'd want. Someone pulled strings and made the mission I'd choose for myself official but didn't say a word to her about it. “Did you even bother looking at my status?” Ayan asked, she was trying so hard not to let her astonishment become anger.
“I saw everything I needed to at the ruling. That doesn't mean that you can't pursue something meaningful here. I can pull some strings and get you into a project, developing something new. Separate from Doctor Anderson's projects if you like.”
“I'm already assigned to find Jason and Oz. After I've found them or determined their status I'm to catch up with the Triton and liaise with Jake Valance and the Triton. I'd go into more detail but from the look you're giving me I can already tell you're not behind me on this.”
“It's just another excuse to go after him again. Jonas is dead, what's left is something Vindyne manufactured. You're risking a new life on a past you should leave behind.”
“All
I can think about is Jason and Oz stranded somewhere, Laura alone, and yes, I want to meet Jacob Valent even though I know he's some kind of copy, maybe not even a duplicate.”
“You mean Jacob Valance. You're still confused, all these changes take time to manage.”
“I feel fine, better than ever. For the first time in a very long time I'm not confused, I know exactly where I should be going, what I should be doing. With Intelligence's blessing there's nothing holding me back.”
“Their blessing? They're not even giving you an official rank, to the rest of the military you're just a civilian. If anything goes wrong they'll deny your connection to them. You have an opportunity for a new life here at home. You could be anything you want, instead you're letting Intelligence send you off on a fools errand, letting them tie you off like a loose end.”
“They're welcome to! And when I signal that I'm ready to represent Freeground on the Triton they'll have to deal with me all over again!” Ayan extended the handle on a grey suitcase and rolled it towards the door.
“You spent the last of your years searching for Jonas, I don't want you to waste your second chance doing the same thing,” her mother said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“He sacrificed everything.”
“So you could have a chance at going on. I don't think he'd want you to do this either.”
“That's what makes finding Jacob worth it. If he has Jonas' memories and if Laura is willing to stay on his ship there must be something, then I have to meet him. We're practically two of a kind anyway. I have Ayan Rice's memories and as far as I'm concerned, I am Ayan. All it took was someone saying that it was all right for me to think that way and thank God Doctor Anderson and Doctor Milan were there to do just that.”
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