by Hal Archer
Jake, trying desperately to breathe, glanced past Kharn and saw her holding her right arm, her shoulder dripping blood from the wound caused by the blast. She looked as if she could barely stand. Then he saw the Waudure girl, sobbing and writhing to get free from the grasp of the guards on either side of her.
Drawing strength from some untapped reserve, he repeatedly struck the inside of Kharn's bicep on the arm gripping his own neck. Kharn's hold loosened, and Jake pushed forward, ramming the top of his forehead into Kharn's face. Kharn's battered nose bled. He staggered back, and Jake advanced, plying him with multiple blows to his body and head. Kharn's fight seemed to be fading. Jake paused to catch his breath.
Then, Kharn shook his head, as if throwing off the effects of the attack.
He came back at Jake with renewed energy. Jake hit him as he advanced toward him, but Kharn was unflinching. He moved in and took hold of Jake by his arm and belt, lifting him over his head.
"No!" Nadira tried to come to Jake's aid, but one of the Cracian guards grabbed her injured shoulder, and the pain caused her to drop to her knees with a whimper.
Kharn yelled loud enough to drown out Nadira and the crying girl still held by the guards. "I am Crassus Kharn!" He threw Jake to the wall at the back of the lab.
Jake crashed into the white wall at shoulder height. The impact rattled everything at the back of the lab, as well as the large robotic arm attached to the ceiling above the vat. He fell to the floor and lay motionless. A smattering of sweat and blood marked the wall where his body struck.
Kharn wiped his own blood from under his nose with the back of his hand. He looked at Jake, who neither moved nor made any sound. Then he stepped over to the vat. "Bring her!"
The two guards dragged the unwilling girl past Nadira and brought her by her arms over to Kharn. One of them kicked Nadira in the back of her head as they passed. She fell with her face to the floor, moaning from the pain, before turning to watch them go by.
Kharn looked at Jake. "Wake up, Mudd. I want you to see this."
Jake didn't move.
Kharn grabbed the girl's arm. He looked to one of the guards and nodded toward Jake. "Get him up."
The two guards stepped over to Jake and pulled him off the floor. His eyes were closed and his body hung like dead weight. One of the guards shook him to rouse him. Then the two of them lifted him to his feet, each of them moving a shoulder under one of Jake's arms to keep him standing.
Jake mumbled and barely opened his eyes.
Kharn, seeing Jake was up and watching him, turned his attention back to the vat and the girl. He pulled the girl to himself. She struggled, but against his strength she had no chance of getting free.
Jake mumbled again, dropping his right arm off the guard's shoulder and leaning his head against him. He reached around the man and grabbed the guard's blaster from his holster. As the man noticed what he was doing, Jake tipped the weapon up and shot him in the chest at near point-blank range. The Cracian fell dead, and Jake, still weak, dropped to the ground at the same time, holding onto the man's weapon.
The other guard reached for his blaster, but Jake shot again. The man cried out in pain as he fell to the floor.
Kharn turned to Jake as the two guards fell.
Jake pointed the blaster at Kharn, but before he could pull the trigger again, Kharn kicked his arm that was wielding the weapon. The blaster flew out of his hand, landing across the room. He tipped forward, bracing himself with his forearm against the floor.
The girl struggled to get free from Kharn's hold, but he yanked her closer to him. She screamed. The scream broke down into sobbing. "Please," she said. "Please, no."
Jake heard her. Despite exhaustion and the shooting pains throughout his body, from broken bones he couldn't even begin to name, he found the will to move.
He looked up at Kharn, who was holding the girl's arm and grabbing her leg with his other hand to lift her. Jake sprung forward to stop him, but something held him back. The second of the two guards he'd shot had a grip on Jake's leg by the ankle. The guard couldn't get up, but still had the strength to keep Jake down.
Kharn lifted the girl over his head. "No more rebels standing in my way."
Jake strained against the pull on his leg, dragging the guard with him. Jake's body convulsed in protest, as internal injuries caused him to heave under the effort.
Nadira, still hazy from the blow to her head, realized what Jake was about to do. "Stop! It'll kill you!"
Taking hold of the edge of the work surface beside the vat, Jake clawed his way across the counter toward the stew of imminent genocide. He couldn't get to Kharn in time, but there was another way, he thought.
Kharn raised the girl higher, and a mania lit up his face.
"Not today," Jake said, then he thrust his arm into the vat.
The torrent of pain consumed all other sensations in his body. His head reflexively whipped back, and he screamed in agony.
The solution in the vat violently filled with froth, as it churned and sloshed. He felt the flesh dropping from his arm. He couldn't remove his hand from the vat. The current held it in as the deadly liquid worked to devour the encoding material he had offered it.
Sarah.
Kharn cast the girl down to the floor. "You fool! What have you done?"
The girl scampered away, hiding on the other side of the vat.
Jake stayed slumped over the metal table, with his arm, hooked over the top of the vat, submerged up to his bicep. The dark solution inside the massive steel container settled.
He raised his gaze to Kharn. "Set things right."
"You, Mudd," Kharn said, "will die when the weapon becomes active." He reached over to Jake and lifted him by the throat with one hand.
Jake's body had gone into shock from the pain of the vat, but he still felt the squeeze on his neck and the warmth building in his face. But he didn't feel the pain or panic typically associated with choking. He noticed his eyes growing glossy and his vision blurry.
Kharn held him aloft. "No need to wait for the weapon to do its job." Jake's feet dangled a few inches off the floor. "But I want to enjoy this." He threw Jake against the wall at the back of the lab.
Jake felt something thrust into his lower back as he landed. He nearly passed out. Then he realized what he'd just seen. The robotic arm above Kharn moved. The idea formed slowly.
Kharn, still standing next to the huge vat, scowled at Jake before peering into the pool of dark liquid, the instrument of Waudure destruction ripped from his grasp.
Jake twisted his body off the controls to the robotic arm. Then he took hold of them with his intact arm, bracing against them and the wall to keep himself upright. He nudged one of the control sticks and watched how the long jointed mechanical arm moved, as it swiveled at the base set in the ceiling. He figured out which lever did what with the arm. Kharn turned to face him again, and saw Jake's hand on the lever.
Million credits. Damn. So close.
Jake pushed it to its limit. The robotic arm plowed down, crashing into Kharn's head and toppling him into the vat. The brackish liquid splashed as he fell in, and heavy sloshes spilled over the edge of the container.
Jake felt the lever push against his hand, but he held it down. After several seconds, the vibrations in the lever stopped. The liquid in the vat smoothed over around the large robotic arm still sunk into it, with Kharn underneath it.
CHAPTER 39
She was a blur to him at first, then Jake's eyesight cleared enough to see Nadira rushing over to him. He saw the young girl clinging to the wall beside the open door to the lab.
"I'm here," Nadira said as she came to his side.
He tipped his head back to see her face. "I'm sorry I couldn't save him."
Nadira sharply inhaled and turned her attention to her father on the ground just past Jake. She moved and knelt beside Lorian. She took his lifeless arm in hers, clasping it by the forearm as was the custom. Her back faced Jake, but he heard her
crying softly.
Then she stood and turned back to Jake. "Your arm."
"Yes. It hurts." He shifted between gritting his teeth and wincing from the pain.
"I think that might be a slight understatement," Nadira said. She dug through the pocket on her pant leg and pulled out a small tube.
"I think you can finally shoot me now," he said.
After removing the cap from one end, she jabbed the exposed needle of the tube into his leg and pressed the other end with her thumb.
"Oh, that's just cruel," Jake said, as he clenched his jaw and drew his shoulders inward.
"You'll thank me."
She stood over him, waiting.
He felt the drug kick in. The pain from his arm, and throughout his body didn't go away, but the injection certainly made an improvement.
"Thanks," he said. "What was that?"
"We call it Comfort. It's usually given to soldiers with mortal wounds, to take away their suffering until they pass on."
"Maybe I'm delusional, but I think I'm gonna make it."
"I know, but you needed something that strong. Your wounds are severe, and we don't have time to deal with them here."
She gathered his weapon and stepped over to look into the vat. "It's draining. Must be converting to the gas. I don't think there's a way to stop it now."
"It won't hurt anybody now. It's encoded with my DNA."
"What about you? It'll kill you, I'm afraid, and any human that tries to come to Daedalon. Can you walk?" She held her arm out to him.
He noticed the wound on her shoulder. The blood had clotted, but it looked bad. He tipped his chin upward, glancing at her shoulder. "You?"
"I'll make it." She moved her hand still extended to him. "Come on. We need to get out of here."
He reached up and took her hand. He stood, and the two of them leaned on each other as they hobbled toward the door.
He smiled at the girl, who was looking up at him. "Stick with us. You'll be OK. Time to go home."
The girl nodded to him and walked just behind them, staying close and grasping the bottom of Jake's shirt from behind.
Nadira walked with her arm wrapped around his waist. "Sorry you didn't get paid."
"Yes, me too." He glanced to his mangled arm. "At least I got these souvenirs."
"You're nuts," she said, as they headed out of the lab.
"I know."
They headed down the corridor, making their way back to where they'd left Hanlan and Brun. Halfway there, a guard turned a corner and saw them. The man stopped in his tracks at the sight of them.
"What?" Jake said. "You didn't think we were going to make it?"
The guard reached for his weapon.
Nadira shot him with Jake's blaster, and the two of them continued down the corridor, stepping over the body when they came to it.
As they walked down the next couple of hallways, they felt the ground tremble and heard explosions beyond the walls of the base.
"We've made it through the mountains," Nadira said.
"The Cracian forces must be falling, if the battle's come here now."
"We've done our part."
They came to the room Hanlan and Brun held up in.
From behind a pile of Cracian bodies, a voice called out. "You two missed the excitement."
"Hanlan?" Nadira asked.
Hanlan stood up from behind the barricade of corpses. "Well, maybe you didn't miss the action after all."
"It's done," Nadira said. "Brun?"
Hanlan turned and looked down behind him. "He's here. Doing better."
Brun stood up, bracing himself with one arm on the wall. "Glad you made it. I'm sorry I wasn't there with you. Looks like you two had one hell of a fight."
"Jake here took the worst of it," Nadira said.
Jake waved a hand to Brun and Hanlan. "I'll live. But, her father."
Nadira dropped her gaze to the ground. "I didn't want to accept it, but he actually shared Kharn's mad dream."
"Son of a bitch," Hanlan said.
"Oh," Brun said, "I'm sorry, Nadira. And here we were trying to save him."
"In the end," Jake said, "he did what he could to help stop Kharn."
"And Kharn?" Hanlan asked.
"Dead," Jake said.
Brun nodded his head. "You're a good man, Jake."
"Not sure about that," Jake replied. "Maybe today."
"Alara?" Brun asked.
Nadira shook her head. "Haven't seen her."
"I know," Brun said. "She must've been working for him. There were always little signs, but I've been ignoring them. I didn't want to believe it."
"I'm sorry, Brun," Jake said. "That's hard."
"You deserve better," Nadira said. "I know she and I didn't get along, but I can't fathom how she could do that to you."
Brun gave him a quick nod, acknowledging the comment.
Jake looked at the stack of guards in front of Hanlan and Brun. The bodies were piled onto one another, staggered like large bricks in a wall. They came up to Jake's chest. "So, what's the story here?"
"They kept coming," Hanlan said. "I decided to put them to use."
Another explosion nearby rumbled the walls. Bits of the ceiling broke loose and dropped.
"We need to get out of here," Nadira said.
Hanlan and Brun stepped out from behind their Cracian barricade.
"What about the weapon?" Brun asked.
Nadira patted Jake's chest. "He took care of it."
"It's disabled?" Hanlan asked.
"Not exactly," Jake said. "But it's not a threat to the Waudure anymore."
"What do you mean?" Brun asked.
"Look at his arm," Nadira said. "The weapon's encoded for humans. He's the target for it now."
Brun stepped over to Jake and helped to brace him. "We're getting you out of here."
Hanlan took point in front of them, and they headed out of the base.
CHAPTER 40
A fter Hanlan and Nadira, Jake stepped outside to see hundreds of Waudure troops across the plain surrounding the Cracian base. The Waudure fighters cheered. Many of them raising their weapons overhead, shaking them in celebration. Plumes of dark smoke rose from fiery wreckage of Cracian ships. At scattered points in the distance, weapon fire flashed, but those seemed to be the final skirmishes. Jake took a few steps before stumbling.
Brun caught Jake's good arm. "Looks like we did it."
Jake nodded, then he continued out into the clearing. He turned to look at the base. Many of the walls had been destroyed. Waudure vehicles formed an arc around the western part of the clustered buildings. He saw large holes blown through the walls there, and Waudure troops funneling inside. Only the occasional shot from displaced Cracian fighters challenged the conquering forces, but those threats now faced overwhelming numbers. From the edge of the base to the mountains in the distance, signs of the struggle that took place were visible. Fallen soldiers, smoldering vehicles, scars of war on the land.
Nadira stepped to Jake's side. "They say after the aerial forces were taken out, many of the ground forces disbanded."
"For all his blustering," Jake said, "Kharn couldn't give his soldiers what the Waudure have."
"What's that?"
"The desire to be free."
A roaring sound came from within the Cracian compound. Jake turned to see what it was. A massive jet of brown smoke shot up into the clouds.
"That must be the weapon," Nadira said.
Looking skyward at the storms still coalescing near the mountains, Jake drew a deep breath and exhaled. "That doesn't bode well. Not for me, anyway."
He heard Brun yelling nearby. "Over there. He needs it more than I do."
A team of two medics came up to Jake. "Sir, let me help you." He held out a canister.
Jake glanced at his mangled arm. "I almost forgot." He held it up for the woman to apply the treatment. "She gave me a Comfort injection."
The second medic knelt and pulled a roll of band
ages from the bag he carried. "Here, please."
Jake allowed the man to wrap his arm, while the other medic applied the foaming spray to Nadira's shoulder wound.
"Where's your commanding officer?" Nadira asked the one attending to her.
The woman pointed to a man nearby.
Nadira glanced at Jake as she addressed the medic. "Tell him we need to get him out of out here."
"His wound is bad," the woman said, "but he'll recover. The treatment—"
"It's not his arm I'm worried about," Nadira said.
Jake directed the woman's attention to the torrent of brown smoke rising to the clouds. "That's the bioweapon."
The medic looked shocked. "No. We're too late!"
"Take it easy," Jake said. "You're safe. You're all safe."
"What?" she asked.
"The weapon is harmless to the Waudure now," Jake said.
Nadira placed her hand on the medic's shoulder. "But not to him, or any humans. We'll need to send word that Daedalon is off-limits to their race, for now."
The woman looked at Jake, and then at Nadira. She didn't seem to understand what she was being told.
Nadira looked squarely at the woman. "Tell your captain Kharn's dead and the weapon can no longer target the Waudure."
The woman nodded as she listened.
Nadira continued, "And tell him the man responsible for saving all of us is about to die from that plume of smoke if we don't get him out of here. Now!"
The medic nodded again. Then she ran to her captain.
The other medic finished wrapping Jake's arm. Then he stood up and looked Jake in the eye. "Thank you, sir.” He held out his arm to Jake's good one.
Jake looked at the man, who glanced down at his hand and then back to Jake. Jake embraced the man's arm, clasping his forearm as Nadira had done with Tay. "Bond, not birth," Jake said.
"Bond, not birth," the man said in reply. Then he left Jake and Nadira and headed off to tend to others.
Nadira stepped closer to Jake, taking his hand. "There's not another way, is there?" She looked deep into his eyes.
He had no doubt what she was saying. "If I stay on Daedalon, I'll die. Perhaps one day I can return."
"I know. I only wish…"