by H. M. Clarke
“I want to speak to whoever’s in charge,” Katherine repeated as she held her arms close behind her back to make it easier for the men to handcuff her. The man in front kept his gun trained on her.
Once the cuffs were on the men relaxed a little, their barrels not aimed at her chest but close enough to take her down at a moment’s notice.
“Doctor Barkley wants to see you as well. We’d better not keep the Doc waiting.”
Chapter
Twenty
Hyde was not in charge. A Doctor Barkley was. But that still doesn’t rule out that Hyde is here, I just have to know for sure.
They were escorted out of the elevator with three guards on her and one on Tom. Katherine was amused by the guard’s presumption that she was the bigger threat, if they knew that Tom was an Ontolic then it might be a different matter. The Alliance hated Ontolics with a passion that bordered on lunacy.
They had dropped three floors to the fourth level or what Katherine would call the basement level. She also knew exactly what would meet them when they arrived.
The corridor that the lift opened upon was similar to the floor they had just left. With one exception. Instead of leaving the corridor in its native color, everything had been white washed. Floors, walls, ceilings, and doors in conjunction with the recessed white lights it made everything colorless and glaring.
Their escorts turned them left down the corridor and marched them around the octagonal ring and Katherine knew where they were pushing them. So she was not surprised when she and Tom were halted before a large door built into the inner ring wall.
To one side of the door was a Gentec scanner and the guard closest to it quickly pressed his thumb to the panel. A second passed before the scanner flashed green and the door panel slid apart. A push in the back and they were shoved inside.
’56.’
’72.’
He was the first thing she saw after the elbow was removed from her back. Daniel was suspended in a small status chamber at the rear of the room, his body positioned as if he was modeling for a Da Vinci sketch. 56 looked a hell of a lot better than when Katherine first laid eyes on him in the holding cells at Yunga. His body no longer looked like a collection of bones being held together by rubbery skin and sinew but was now well fleshed out and healthy. It was also very naked.
Katherine felt her gaze harden at the indignity; felt the now familiar rage building up within her, wrapping her in its comfortable and protective folds. The anger had been with her so constantly, for so long that it had become a part of her; a part that now had to be suppressed. Katherine knew that if she did not play this right, she would be right up there in the chamber next to him. She pushed down on her rage, forcing it back into the dark recesses of her belly, commanding it to stay put until it was needed.
“Jesus Christ.”
Tom’s hissed comment drew Katherine’s attention back to the matter at hand. She glanced around the room and felt a chill down her spine that she recognized it. It was the perfect copy of the laboratory at Yunga, complete with operating table and other medical paraphernalia that she recognized and her body twitched with the remembrance of the pain they could cause. The status chamber was the only thing that was out of place with her memories.
“He can’t help us here Tom. We have to fight this devil ourselves.” Her voice sounded flat, dead; devoid of all emotion, devoid of anything touching her…
“What?” Tom turned to look at Katherine. She felt his eyes on her; felt his worry, but she ignored it.
“No talking,” one of their guards said. Three of them still had their guns trained on her while the fourth kept his rifle steady on Tom.
“Where is the gutless bully boy who is leading this operation?” the question sounded lifeless to Katherine’s ears but she saw the fingers on the triggers around her tighten as if ready to respond to a threat.
“I said no talking!” The guard repeated, raising the muzzle of his rifle to aim squarely at Katherine’s head.
Katherine folded her armored arms across her breast as best she could with the plascuffs and calmly stared at the man who, after a moment dropped the muzzle of his rifle and stepped back.
“He’ll be here soon Kath. After all he has to finish this pissing contest you’ve start-” The smack of a rifle butt knocked Tom to the floor and Katherine was on the man while he still had his rifle in the air. The firearm dropped and skidded across the floor into one of the legs of the operating table as the guard was slammed to the ground under Katherine’s rush. The plascuff securing her arms snapped under the pressure exerted from her powered armor and her hands whipped out to attack. The man’s armor was not as good as hers and she felt his chest collapse under the weight of her knee while one hand snaked to circle his windpipe and the other began to pound into his helmeted head.
There was shouting all around her and then she was being pummeled from all directions. It hurt, but her armor protected her from any real damage, the attack on her body did not worry her as long as her arm remained free. The burn on her shoulder ached as she raised her fist again to punch down on the enemy beneath her only to find that something was holding it back. Katherine snarled and reversed the force of the punch into her elbow as it slammed back into whoever was holding her arm. A grunt and then it was free again. She felt arms locking around her head and body, trying to pull her off but all that mattered at that moment was that her arm was free. Then above the shouting Katherine heard Tom’s name.
“-said I will kill Shepherd if you do not stop.”
Katherine froze and looked towards where Tom had fallen. A man was holding a pistol to Tom’s prone head and as the angry guards pulled her from their unconscious compatriot, Katherine felt a jolt of recognition. She knew this man! Pure hatred boiled up from the pit of her stomach, this man should be dead; she had left him a broken heap in the ruins of Yunga.
As soon as both feet touched the ground, Katherine twisted and used her armored weight to pull the guards off balance and as their grip loosened she spun back and charged towards the man with the pistol.
In response, the man pressed the muzzle of his gun firmly into Tom’s hair and pressed his finger to the trigger.
Katherine halted in her tracks and the guards stayed away from her this time. She felt blood trickling along her jaw line from the exposed parts of her face and all she could think about was the gun nestled in Tom’s dark hair. The rage had escaped her grasp, had risen from her belly as Tom fell to the floor. It was the one thing she had not counted on – she cared for Tom too much to have him die because of her at the hands of this monster. This butcher.
“Get away from him.”
“You are in no position to negotiate anything 72,” the man said. And then he smiled. “In fact I can see no reason why I need your Lieutenant at all,” the man twisted the muzzle of the gun against Tom’s head as he spoke and Katherine heard Tom’s voice groan as he began to return to consciousness. “Alive that is.”
“If he dies, then you die.” Katherine’s voice sounded emotionless and cold but it was filled with such certainty that she saw the man’s eyes widen just a fraction before they fell back in with his smile.
“In a few moments this man’s fate won’t be of any concern to you 72.”
’72, behind you!’
Katherine began to turn and felt a sharp jab of pain in her neck. She pushed the technician away from her and groped at the needle still in her neck.
The bastards have darted me!
Her fingers closed around the syringe and as she pulled its small needle from her neck, her legs began to wobble and Katherine dropped to her knees. She heard another groan from Tom and the man took the muzzle of the gun away from his head and rested it on his knee.
“I think it’s time you went nigh nigh now 72.”
Katherine’s eyes fell closed and she slumped to the ground.
Katherine opened her eyes.
“How are you feeling?”
She found herself l
ying flat on her back on an unforgiving floor in a room that echoed slightly. Her eyes would not focus and Katherine turned in the direction the voice came from.
“Like shit.”
She raised a hand to rub at her eyes but that did nothing to help her sight.
“Your sight will come back momentarily. It’s just a side effect of the sedative.”
“Sedative?” Katherine said. And then she remembered what had happened. “Tom!” She sat bolt upright. “Where’s Tom?”
“He’s in the holding cell next door. They sedated him as well. He hasn’t woken yet.”
“I know your voice.”
“And I know yours. At least this time we are in the same cell.”
“56.”
“72.”
Katherine’s eyes were now clearing and she saw a man sitting barefoot on the floor across from her dressed in a grey T-shirt and sweat pants. He was the spitting image of this brother Joshua.
“Damn, they clothed you. You’re not bad looking with a bit of meat on you.” Katherine gave Daniel a smile.
“You scrub up pretty well yourself.”
“Even better than those pretty Federation nurses that had been looking after you?”
“Even better.”
“They must have assigned you the real scrubbers then,” Katherine muttered as she pushed herself to her bare feet.
“How can any woman compare after what you did for me?”
Katherine scowled at Daniel. “What I did didn’t change anything. We are now back to where we started again.”
She was not surprised to find herself out of her powered armor and she was dressed in the same grey T-shirt and sweat pants as Daniel; The same uniform that they wore in Yunga.
“We have to get out of here.”
“Why did they want to get us back? Why are we so important to them?”
“I’m not concerned with the why at the moment, only the how. Such as how do we get out of here?”
Daniel slowly rose to his feet as Katherine began to pace the holding cell. “Certainly not the same way you did last time. I assume you do have a plan.”
“I do. But it involves Tom.” Katherine’s pace became a stalk as she began to mentally kick herself. “I should have made plans in case something happened to Tom.” She spun around on a heel. “I shouldn’t have even bought Tom at all.”
“What did you need him for?” Daniel’s eyes followed Katherine as she paced back and forth.
“He is my connection to the rest of my team outside.”
“But he has been stripped down and dressed like us. How can he hide a comm link?
“Tom is an Ontolic, and there is an Ontolic up top with the rest of my team. He doesn’t need a comm link, he just needs to be awake and able to think.”
Katherine stopped pacing and abruptly scrubbed her hands roughly through her hair. “I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to him. I can’t lose someone, not again.” It took a great mental effort for Katherine to lower her hands back to her sides and gain control back, pushing back the wave of despair that was threatening to break over her and wash away the ability to feel nothing except the need to get justice.
The raw feelings and emotions that had been deeply buried within her now flashed to the surface. The feeling of being trapped with little or no hope in the same type of room and with Daniel’s familiar voice bought it all out. Katherine’s emotionless façade crumpled under the rush but the rage still burned within her as it had three years ago. Now, as back then, Katherine would not let the despair conquer her. Not when there were people depending on her.
“We need to get out of this cell,” Katherine repeated.
Daniel looked about the room. “The only way out that I can see is through that door.” He pointed towards the white plated steel door.
“I agree with you.” Katherine looked at Daniel. “We will need to give them a reason to want to open the door.”
“They won’t let you take them by surprise this time 72.”
“It won’t be me that will be ‘taking them by surprise’.” She raised an enquiring eyebrow. “Are you up for it?”
A feral grin appeared on Daniel’s face.
“Of course I am.”
Chapter
Twenty-One
It felt as if someone had put his head through a mangle and then back again, and the back of his head throbbed in time with his heartbeat. At least his heart was still beating.
Tom opened his eyes only to quickly close them. The harsh white light of the room he was in caused the pain in his head to slice down his spine, making him fell like throwing up. Tom’s eyes felt dry and his eyelids grated closed as if they were made of sandpaper and he felt heaviness in all his limbs but as he concentrated on the feeling, the heaviness dissipated.
Drugged as well as being knocked out. Talk about being paranoid.
Tom risked opening his eyes again. It was much better this time, maybe because he was ready for the pain. Having his eyes open did not improve matters. Everything was still blank. All he saw was blinding white. A moment after his eyes refocused Tom realized that what he was looking at was a ceiling and the hard, cold surface beneath him was obviously a floor. Tom pushed himself up slowly into a sitting position and looked around him. He was in a very small and very bare cell. Tom had ‘visited’ a few in his time and this was the most unwelcoming. At least a ships brig had a bunk and a toilet.
He was also very much alone. Tom shot up to his feet and stumbled into the centre of the room on legs still recovering from the drugs.
Where was Katherine?
Fear and worry flooded him. It was at times like this that Tom wished that she were an Ontolic, then all he had to do was link to her and he would know she was all right.
Katherine wasn’t so he can’t. As he stood in the middle of the floor, Tom was suddenly struck with a certainty. Something within him knew that she was still alive and kicking, all he had to do was find her. Tom then remembered the last order Katherine had snapped at him in the upper corridor.
‘Varden, can you hear me?’
‘Yes. Barely. You’re very faint.’ Varden’s mind voice had no strength behind it and Tom had to concentrate to hear it clearly.
‘Just listen. The Skipper and I have been captured by these freaks and we need extraction immediately. Daniel Val Myra is here as well and it would not surprise me if he is being held in the same cell as the Commander.’
‘Hold on a minute.’
Varden’s Ontolic link terminated, leaving Tom to stare silently at the white walls and door of his cell as he waited for Varden to ‘call back’. After a few minutes, she had returned.
‘We’re coming down. Are you able to give your location and an estimate of the resistance?’
‘Negative on both counts. I know there are at least four more hostiles but I can guarantee you there will be more.’
‘Right. Hang tight. We’re coming.’
Then Varden was gone. And that left Tom to figure out how to get out of this cell and find the Commander.
At that moment, as if by a miracle, was the sound of a Gentec scanner being activated on the other side of the cell door.
Tom opened himself to the Ontolic energy living within him, let it bubble from beneath his flesh and felt its thick viscosity flow around his skin. The feel of the power pouring through him burned away the memory of the sedatives from his muscles and made him more awake and aware of everything than he had been for a long time. This was a side effect to succumbing to Ontolic energy. On the edge of that newfound awareness Tom found a familiar presence.
Katherine. She’s alive.
The door mechanism gave a click and the large steel door began to move. Tom watched silently as the door opened, keeping himself calm, still; letting his Ontolic energy build up without hindrance.
A laboratory technician waited on the other side, flanked by two guards. The woman looked surprised as she laid eyes on him standing in the middle of the cell. S
he taped at her datapad before turning to address the guards.
“Hold him so I can sedate him.”
The two men moved forward and Tom chose that moment to act while silently thanking whatever power ruled the universe that The Alliance had no Ontolics in their armed forces.
Mentally directing bubbles of Ontolic energy from the barrier around him, Tom pushed forward towards the two men. The bubbles slammed into their chests and knocked them backwards into the cell wall. Both men crumpled to the ground like deserted marionettes, unconscious. Tom would hate to be them when they awoke.
He looked at the woman.
And was surprised to feel an answering Ontolic spark within her. It was weak and untrained, but it was there. Maybe this woman was a Federation defector? Or descended from one. It didn’t really matter – she was in his way.
The woman stood still, staring, waiting for him to make his next move. She reminded Tom of a kangaroo caught in the headlights of a ground cruiser; that moment of stillness they have before reacting.
Tom exhaled slowly and the laboratory technician slumped to the ground, asleep. He quickly moved and disarmed the guards of their rifles and side arms and took their ammo utility belts.
This is a situation where you feel underdressed without a firearm of some sort on your person.
Slinging the spare rifle across his back and hooking the utility belts and pistols about his waist. Tom stepped to the cell door and peered outside, keeping the unslung rifle ready in case he needed it. He kept the floodgate open and let his Ontolic energy heave freely about his body. He would pay for it later. Like with any form of exercise, the human body can only perform for so long before it begins to tire and break down and as with elite athletes, extensive Ontolic training can improve and extend the body’s ability to perform, but it will still have to pay the price once the exercise was over. At this point in time Tom did not care.