Flashpoint

by Christie Golden

  As it turned out, Egon wouldn’t have missed that much, at least not at the beginning. Narud was much more interested in listening than in talking for the first part of the meal. He pressed them for the details of where they had located the pieces of what would become the “weapon” and when Raynor had first begun to be curious as to what the purpose was. How the weapon had worked, and in what condition they had found Kerrigan.

  Jim managed to put away a sizable amount of the appetizers, the shellfish soup, and more of the wine despite being peppered with questions. But as the main course was served—a generous and mouthwatering portion of what looked and smelled like a prime cut of skalet steak—he said, “You know, I can’t help but feel like instead of sitting in a comfy chair eating good food, I should be having a light shone on me and needles shoved under my fingernails. Care to lighten up on the inquisition, Doc?”

  Narud had the grace to look embarrassed. “Please forgive me,” he said. “I’m just so eager.”

  “I completely understand,” said Valerian. “Jim is an intelligent man, but he doesn’t share our passion for science, I’m afraid.”

  “I do when science gets me what I want,” Jim said, cutting into the steak and putting a forkful in his mouth. Sweet mother of mercy, it was delicious. The phrase had belonged to Tychus; the big man would have been on his third helping by now. If only things had been different.

  “But Mr. Raynor is right,” said Valerian. “Please—surely you’ve had time to analyze the data we’ve given you on Sarah Kerrigan and run a few tests on her of your own.” Before Jim could react, he added, “You were present when they drew blood and tissue samples, Jim. They’ve done nothing else to her.”

  Yet, thought Jim, but his mouth was still full of skalet, so he stayed silent. Narud turned to him, his expression one of professional concern.

  “Let me share with you what we do know, Mr. Raynor,” Narud began. “These tests that Valerian mentioned are extremely preliminary, and once we’ve convinced you and Miss Kerrigan to permit others, we’ll know more. There is still a great deal of zerg mutagen in her system. I’m sure you were aware of that when you saw her . . . hair, for want of a better term.”

  Jim had swallowed the bite of steak and now gritted his teeth.

  “The hair is a visible sign, but there are many other parts of her that also must be infected. It could be her brain, her abilities, her kidneys, or liver—anything and everything could be touched in some way.”

  “I thought the artifact would take care of that,” said Jim.

  “Mr. Raynor, surely you can appreciate how—well, how alien this alien artifact is,” said Narud earnestly. “We’ve only even been aware of the existence of the zerg, the protoss, and the xel’naga for a few years.”

  “Valerian said you were the expert,” said Jim.

  “He is,” said Valerian, “but even an expert can’t know everything, not yet.”

  Narud rubbed his temples and sighed. “Sarah Kerrigan needs to be thoroughly examined for the good of humanity and for her own well-being,” he said. “You’re tying my hands and preventing me from achieving either of those goals. We don’t know what that mutagen is doing to her. Let me speak bluntly. Every minute we waste arguing about it could be another minute closer to losing her—or loosing her upon humanity.”

  Suddenly the delicious food tasted like rations. Jim had a sinking feeling that Narud was right. He couldn’t deny the evidence of those Medusa-like tendrils in place of Sarah’s soft, flowing red hair. And if that was the mutation they could see—

  But what about what Sarah had said? About how Narud felt familiar to her? Was it just her spotty memory or was something else going on? Jim did care about humanity, but he knew in his heart he cared about Sarah just a little bit more. He wanted what was best for her.

  But right now, he realized sickly that he had no idea just what that was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sarah lay in the sick bay bed. Jim had arranged for her to eat the same meal they were eating, and she had to admit, it smelled good. Really good. On a more practical note, she knew she had to build up her strength. Sometime, from some place, a fight was coming, and she had to be ready.

  So she made her nurse smile as she tucked into the skalet steak and mashed tubers with some kind of berry sauce. While she ate, she thought about the situation.

  Clearly there was some zerg mutagen still left in her DNA. Anyone with eyes could figure that one out. And she couldn’t help but wonder if that was only the tip of the iceberg. If she and everyone else could see this, what else was going on inside her body—hell, maybe inside her mind—that they couldn’t see?

  So yes, on one level, she agreed with them. She did need to know exactly what had happened to her—and what the artifact had and hadn’t done. At the same time, it seemed to her that her very cells were screaming a warning about Emil Narud. She knew him. She . . . Sarah shook her head, forcing herself to take another bite. It was as if she had known him—and forgotten him—but still, on some level she couldn’t quite access, she remembered him. And the memories, if indeed that was what they were, were far from pleasant.

  Sarah Kerrigan had a wealth of unpleasant memories. Her mother, her father, a small, sick kitten . . . being the queen of the zerg . . .

  . . . the hydralisk—Kerrigan’s hydralisk—had gone for the mother first. Using its scythe-like arm to almost casually slice the woman’s skull into two neat pieces. As brain and bone and blood spattered, the little girl screamed even louder, the sound piercing and lost.

  “Mama! Your head! Your head!”

  “Her head came apart . . . . Her head came apart . . . . ”

  And then it felt like a shadow fell over her soul.

  She choked on the meat and spat it out, gasping for breath, skin covered with gooseflesh.

  Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  Her stomach clenched with apprehension as adrenaline poured into her system. For a terrible second, she felt like she would vomit up the fare, but by sheer will she kept it down.

  She could almost taste the—malice, she supposed it was—the glee. And it was personal, personal in a way the attack on Jim, Horner, and Valerian hadn’t been.

  Her head whipped up and she stared at the door.

  They were coming.

  * * *

  Egon Stetmann wondered when he would outlive his usefulness.

  He hadn’t expected a thing. Which, of course, he should have. But he had walked into the spider’s parlor under the blithe assumption that the fraternity of science had its own code of honor, and that assumption was why he was now bound and stashed underneath a desk in a supply closet like an extra box of test tubes.

  He’d been too eager, of course. He was always too eager. He’d been so agog at the vast discoveries that surely lay beyond the door to the laboratory that when his drop-dead—oh, hah, there’s a term for you, Egon—gorgeous escort—oh, and there’s another one; it’s just pure comedy gold here on Space Station Prometheus—had shoved a slugthrower in his side and directed him to speak into a recording device, he hadn’t even been frightened. Just confused. Well, at first anyway.

  “Why are you sticking that thing in my side?” he’d asked, utterly baffled.

  De Vries had rolled her eyes. “It’s called a threat, idiot,” she’d said. And, of course, the word that had immediately registered wasn’t threat but idiot, and, of course, like an idiot, he’d said, “Hey, now, I was on the fast track on the Tyrador III research fa—”

  At which point he had nearly thrown up, because she had slammed the business end of the weapon into his stomach, hard, and said, “Shut up and say something.”

  At this point, he had recovered his wits sufficiently that he didn’t point out what an oxymoron those two phrases were but merely said, “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t want to know anything. Just talk.”

  “Uh . . . okay . . . this is Egon, and I’m . . . talking . . . . ” he
’d said, his voice creeping higher as he had started to fully realize the direness of his situation. “I’m not sure what I’m talking about, but this is me, and . . . these are words, and—”

  “That’s enough.”

  “Enough for what?” He couldn’t help himself; the words had left his mouth before he could censor them.

  She smiled. Stetmann wondered what it said about him that even though he was scared stiff—oh, hey, you got ’em rolling in the aisles, Egon old pal—he still found her attractive. “I needed a sample of your voice. I’ll feed it into the adjutant’s data files, and if anyone attempts to contact you on this”—she had reached inside his coat pocket for his comm—“I’ll be able to convince them you’re safe and sound.”

  “That’s—smart,” he’d said, defeated.

  “I have three degrees,” she’d said.

  “So, uh . . . now what?” He’d stood up straight and tried to look brave. “Are you going to execute me?”

  She had laughed, a very unladylike snort that was somehow the epitome of insult. “Narud wants you alive. Probably to pick your brain of what little helpful information you might have.”

  “Oh.” Well, that was good, at least.

  “Count your blessings, Dr. Stetmann. You’re better off than Sarah will be,” de Vries had said, and that was all he knew. He awoke God knew how much later to exquisite pain in his head. He tried to move and suddenly vomited, quite violently, and winced, feeling that he had just added insult to injury.

  Think. He had to think. It was what he was good at. The room was dim, but light came in through cracks around the door. That it wasn’t one of the oh-so-spiffy irising doors that he’d seen thus far was heartening. It meant that this wasn’t a particularly important room, and that he might actually be able to break out of it. Well, yeah, except for the tied-hands-and-feet thing, which he was just now discovering.

  His eyes had been closed long enough so that the dim light was sufficient for him to see. He was under a desk, with boxes at his head and feet. Steeling himself against the pain, Egon did his best to scoot out into the middle of the room. Gracelessly, lurching spasmodically with his hands tied behind his back and his ankles bound, he managed it. Once, he sneezed violently at the dust and froze, convinced that someone was going to come and finish the job de Vries had started, Narud be damned. The minutes ticked by and finally his heart slowed down. Another good sign—no one was posted outside guarding him.

  He was in the middle of the small room now, lying on one side. He’d even managed to avoid soaking himself in the puddle of his own vomit. Egon looked around as best he could from his position and confirmed his guess that he was in a supply closet.

  What sort of things were in a science base’s supply closet? Needles . . . tubes . . . containers of all varieties . . . No knives or—

  No knives. But broken glass was pretty sharp. And tubes and containers were still usually made of glass. It was still the most reliable material for the delicate work that went on in a lab. It was cheap and almost completely nonreactive. With an effort, looking no doubt like a flopping fish, he sat up. The desk beneath which he had been thrust was piled high with boxes. On the opposite side of the small room was a shelf with more small boxes. The light was insufficient for him to read from this distance. He’d have to stand, somehow.

  Egon currently sat with his long legs stretched out before him. Now he bent them back to his side and wrenched himself into a kneeling position, “walking” over to the shelves. The boxes were labeled with their contents, but he found nothing useful on the first or second shelf. He craned his neck and sighed. He had two choices—try to get to his feet from his current position or try to maneuver his bound wrists so that they were in front of him, not clasped at his back.

  His legs were really, really long.

  Egon sank back, momentarily daunted by the effort it would take. He wasn’t limber or fit. He was just a scientist.

  For a smart guy, he told himself, you sure were pretty stupid. You walked into that trap with a KICK ME sign on your back. You failed as a smart guy. Now you have to be a tough guy. Like Jim.

  Raynor would no doubt have already been out of the bonds and have blasted his way through the station. Nobody knew where Egon was. Probably no one even knew that he was in trouble. Something that de Vries had said came back to him now: “Count your blessings, Dr. Stetmann. You’re better off than Sarah will be.”

  What did she mean by—

  Oh no. They were going to take Kerrigan. Experiment on her. Maybe kill her. Maybe kill Raynor too. And as far as Egon knew, right now he was the only one who was aware of it.

  He whimpered, just a little, just once. And then Egon Stetmann grimly sat back down on the cold floor and began slowly, painfully working his tightly bound hands down his body and trying to pull his gangly legs through a very, very small gap.

  * * *

  Matt Horner despised rations just as much as the next person with taste buds did, but he despised sitting in awkward, formal situations with people he didn’t trust even more. He amended that almost immediately. Of course he trusted Jim, and he was beginning to seriously consider Valerian as someone worthy of cautious trust as well.

  But he didn’t like Narud, and he would have given a lot of credits to not be there at the dinner tonight. Fortunately, he’d been able to decline without paying anyone.

  The repair team was, according to Swann, “getting right down to brass tacks,” whatever that meant. Horner assumed it meant they were doing a fine job, going by the pleased tone of the chief engineer’s voice. “And our own Miss Annabelle has an idea she’s cooking up. If it works, we’ll tell you about it. If it doesn’t, I never mentioned it.”

  “Uh . . . okay,” Matt had said.

  He figured he could relax for a couple of hours. The ship was safe, for the moment, as were Jim and Valerian and Sarah. As an extra bonus, even Rory wasn’t grumbling. He sat back in his chair, adjusting his arm carefully, took a deep breath, released it, and closed his eyes. His arm hurt.

  “Captain Horner?”

  His eyes snapped open. “What is it, Marcus?”

  “I’m getting readings that—well, I don’t know what Narud’s boys are doing in engineering, but I’m guessing they might have messed things up.”

  “What are you seeing?” Matt was on his feet and peering over Cade’s shoulder before he had even asked the question, intent on seeing for himself.

  “Well, this is apparently what’s on the outer rim of the asteroid field,” Marcus said.

  There were blips on the screen. Lots of them.

  “It—it can’t be ships,” said Horner, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

  “Well, sir, that’s what it looks like, which is why I wondered if—”

  “Horner to Swann,” Matt said, interrupting Marcus. “Narud’s boys doing anything other than making repairs? Anything that might be interfering with the sensors?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’ll poke around a bit. I’ll get back to you.”

  “You do that.”

  Matt began to pace, thinking hard, his eyes darting back to the screen. It didn’t look like a malfunction. The little blips didn’t move in any uniform pattern. Some stayed where they were, others moved slightly, and then they were joined by still more blips—

  He made a decision. If it was an error, he’d apologize. Hell, he’d host a dinner on the Hyperion to make up for insulting Narud’s people. But he couldn’t take the chance.

  “Horner to Swann.”

  “Hell, kid, give me a moment to—”

  “Stop the repairs. Now. Just do it.”

  * * *

  Annabelle, despite being engrossed in her new project, had overheard the initial conversation. She’d developed a sudden, keen interest in ship navigation over the last few days, due to her sudden, keen interest in Travis Rawlins. There was a way that they could check to see if it was a ship malfunction or an actual threat—and that way made her smil
e, just a little.

  She clicked her comm on the proper channel, attempting to raise Travis on the Bucephalus. Normally he answered immediately, because she wasn’t stupid enough to contact him in the middle of anything resembling an emergency. This time, though, he didn’t pick up.

  He could be busy. He could have left the comm in his quarters. He could be bored with her and ignoring her. But Annabelle suddenly knew that something was wrong. Horner’s voice penetrated her thoughts.

  “Stop the repairs. Now. Just do it.” Matt’s voice was deep and intense.

  “Fer the love of—all right, all right.” Swann punched the button and turned to one of Narud’s people. “You heard the captain. You’re to stand down, all of you. I don’t know what kind of bug he’s got up his ass, but he’s the captain.”

  “This is outrageous,” protested one of them. “We came here in good faith to lend you a hand. You think we’re responsible for phantom images on . . . ”

  Annabelle tuned him out. Following a hunch, she kept the schematics of the Fanfare up on her display while quickly tapping in a command to access the current level of the energy cells. She hoped she was wrong, both about this and about not being able to contact Travis on the Bucephalus, and at first the signal looked completely normal. She was about to breathe a sigh of relief when—

  The measurements, represented by orange bars, should be fluctuating slightly. Instead they were completely static.

  Which meant that she was looking at a fake image.

  Rory was still yelling at the engineer from Prometheus, who was yelling back. Her heart racing, Annabelle quietly contacted Horner herself.

  “Engineering to bridge,” she said, keeping her voice low. She glanced over at the two arguing engineers. It didn’t look like either of them had noticed.

  “Annabelle? Where’s Rory?”

  “Arguing with one of the engineers from the base,” she said. “Matt—there’s nothing wrong with your sensors. Someone is draining the energy from the power cells. And—and I think they’re also blocking contact with the other ships. I can’t contact Travis.”