by Aaron Hubble
The soldiers passed, their boots creating a steady rhythm with the bobbing of their rifles. Calier pulled his hat lower over his eyes. The soldiers didn’t give him a second glance. A relieved sigh escaped his lips and he continued walking toward the hospital.
Another fifteen minutes of walking led him into a more heavily populated part of the city and one he was more familiar with. Calier felt he was on the edge of a panic attack. One sideways glance from a passing soldier would be enough to make him fall apart.
Instead, he focused on a memory of Berit’s face. It helped him stay calm. Passing through an intersection, Calier saw the hospital. The journey here had been the warm-up. The real mission was about to begin.
CHAPTER FORTY
Aereas - Human base in Homa former Am’Segid great city
The hospital was enormous. It had been a long time since Calier had been inside and he’d forgotten how large and awe inspiring it was. The campus sprawled among buildings, labs, rehabilitation facilities, and research libraries. He entered the main reception area and stood in awe. The building was a work of art. Carved stone pillars soared fifty feet to a frescoed ceiling. A mosaic of a man attending the wounds of a traveler beaten and left on the side of a road adorned the floor. Calier felt wrong by walking across it.
This part of the hospital was ancient, going back to the founding of Homa itself and was erected around the same time as the walls. The other parts of the facility had been added on through the years. After the Great Peace Homa had become the leader in medical research and the Am’Segid had this hospital to thank for the advancements in medical technology which kept them in such good health.
Calier tore his eyes from the art around him. The clock was ticking. He had a day and a half to figure out what was happening to the Am’Segid women.
He strode across the lobby toward a set of doors on the far side. Two soldiers stood guard by a metal arch. Calier took a deep breath and rubbed the bump behind his right ear. The stolen ID chip had been taken from a dead soldier. With Evie’s help, the tech gurus in Alam had manipulated the chip and created an identification for him. He was a human research doctor on his way to the job. If this didn’t work, it would be the shortest spy operation in the history of the galaxy.
The guard nodded to him as he stepped in front of the scanner. Sweat ran down his back and he worked hard to keep his face impassive. He needed to look like he’d done this all before. Calier closed his eyes and stepped through the arch fully expecting to feel hands grip his arm and drag him outside to be shot.
Instead he heard a buzz and the door in front of him slid sideways. A polished stone hallway stretched out in front of him. Calier glanced at one of the soldiers. He wasn’t paying any attention to Calier. Nothing was out of the ordinary so why should he?
Calier stepped through the doorway and into the hall. It was time to begin the search.
****
The hard part was being nosy without looking like he was being nosy. At first he’d wandered around, poking his head into any door he happened upon, but that produced harsh stares, misunderstood questions, and awkward retreats. If he was going to do this, he needed to do it systematically. Without any idea what they were doing with the women, he couldn’t even make an educated guess as to where they would be. Resigned, he decided to start on the top floor and work his way down to the main floor. If he didn’t find anything in this main building, he would need to move on to some of the other auxiliary buildings.
There was a soft tone to his left and Calier saw people stepping off an elevator. He needed to get to the top floor and the elevator was the easiest way. The only problem was inserting himself into the midst of all those humans. They would be just too close to him. Calier closed his eyes and remembered the soldiers destroying the hospital in Gadol City. He remembered the bodies, the blood. His friends had been ruthlessly gunned down by these people. His fist clenched. How could he rub shoulders with them?
Time was winding down.
Pushing the anger and fear aside, Calier stepped into the small crowd who’d gathered outside of the lift and moved with them as they flowed into the small cubicle. Inside he was sandwiched between a man and a woman. He breathed deeply, trying to keep the impending panic attack at bay. The lift doors quickly opened on the top floor and disgorged its occupants into the waiting hallway. Calier let everyone else step off before he moved into the hallway. It was brightly lit. A seemingly endless line of doors stretched in front of him.
Straightening his back, he reminded himself he’d been sent here on a mission and he intended to fulfill that mission.
While resolve was great, he knew it would do nothing to reduce the number of rooms he needed to explore.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Aereas - Human base in Homa former Am’Segid great city
Cullen paced across the length of his office.
“Okay Jane, is there a time when the extraction laboratory is not staffed by someone?”
“No, Cullen, the lab is continuously staffed.”
That’s what he thought, but he’d hoped there would be a time when the lab was unoccupied. This would require more thinking. He stopped pacing. In reality this whole idea required more thinking. Real, critical thinking.
Turning, Cullen slowly walked in the other direction. Had he suffered a recent head trauma? That was the only rational explanation for what he was considering. Unfortunately, as far as Cullen could tell, he was of sound mind, and this entire plan had been hatched after long thought and soul searching.
He needed to leave.
He couldn’t be a part of the CPF any longer. It was painfully obvious their objectives for this planet, this race of people, and Earth ran counter to everything Cullen thought the CPF had stood for. No doubt he’d been naive, choosing to ignore the signs, but the revelations of the past few days had sent him spinning, and he needed to escape the madness.
Most likely, he would die in the process. Cullen really couldn’t see it working out any other way.
A grim smile played across his face. If he didn’t die, maybe he’d be shamefully imprisoned. Perhaps tortured. No, that wouldn’t happen. The admiral would make sure that no one knew what had happened to his son. Cullen would just cease to exist, taken care of before he sullied the admiral’s name.
That was the part of the plan he had chosen to conveniently ignore. Thinking of torture made his stomach queasy.
“Alright, Jane. When is the lab the least staffed?”
“Between the hours of 0100 and 0500. One doctor is on staff at that time.”
Cullen folded his arms and let the information play around the lobes of his brain. “Check the protocol for the lab and see if there is any instance in which a doctor may leave the lab unattended. What would pull him away before someone else could cover for him?”
“A facility wide emergency requiring his or her assistance.”
“That would be hard to pull off,” Cullen thought out loud. “Could we get a message to the on-duty doctor there was an emergency that needed his response?”
“Yes, a private communication to him can be accomplished.”
Cullen shook his head. “It won’t work. Once he stepped into the hallway, it would be obvious there was no emergency. We need something else.” Cullen paced some more. What was he willing to do to save the black-haired woman and get her out of the city? It was a difficult task to get himself out of the city unnoticed, but it was another task entirely to ferry out an Am’Segid woman with him.
He looked at the small clock in the upper right hand corner of the hollow window. It was slowly counting down, ticking away the seconds of life the woman had left to her. She was blissfully unaware her time was running out, and Cullen felt weak against his inability to stop the relentless passage of time. Less than twelve hours before she was scheduled to be terminated, she and the child growing inside of her. He slammed his fist on the table.
What was he willing to do?
Cullen hung his head.
He felt impotent against the monster that was the CPF. It was soul-crushing, and he felt like giving up. The numbers were calling to him. Their siren song would be a balm to the wound he felt in his spirit. It wouldn’t completely heal, but it would lessen the pain. Eventually, he would forget about the woman. He would make himself forget and just be who the CPF wanted him to be.
A spineless, subservient drone.
He leaned against his desk. What was he willing to do?
Anything. He was willing to give up his life to right a wrong.
The realization gave him clarity, and with that, a plan began to form. All the cards were on the table and he was willing to use them all.
“Jane, I need to know where I can get my hands on a stunner in the next eleven and a half hours.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Aereas - Human base in Homa former Am’Segid great city
At 0230, the hallway was deserted. Cullen walked unnoticed toward the door that led into the extraction lab. Even though there were no eyes on him, sweat ran down the middle of his back, soaking his shirt. His hand kept straying to the cargo pocket on his pant leg, where the bulge of his stunner remined him of what he was about to do. It was small and compact, but in Cullen’s paranoid state-of-mind, he was sure it stood out like a watermelon.
There was still time to turn around. Still time to retreat from this insanity.
His footsteps slowed for the hundredth time. He wavered in his intent. He’d formulated a plan, and although it was a long shot, he believed it would work. His feet picked up speed once again, and he pushed his hands into the upper pockets of his pants to keep himself from compulsively checking on the stunner.
With Jane’s help they’d created a ‘ghost event’ in the system. To the doctor in the lab, it would look like one of the stasis units was malfunctioning when, in reality, it was working properly. This would prompt the doctor to put in a call for a technician, and the technician on call tonight just happened to be Cullen. It hadn’t taken much effort to get the tech who was on this shift to switch with him. The man was more than willing to trade a third shift for a first shift.
The stunner had been a little more difficult to procure. The weapon was part of the standard field medical kit, and Jane found several doctors who had recently returned from field exercises. Cullen took a chance and guessed a med kit would be in one of their lockers. Jane identified which lockers to search and Cullen had hit the jackpot with the first. Maybe things would turn out okay.
Now he was on his way to the lab in response to the ‘ghost event’. He stepped up to the door and pushed the button to request access to the lab. After a moment the door slid open. Cullen walked into the lab and turned to see Dr. Mitchell sitting at his desk.
Great, thought Cullen. The one doctor who treats me like a human is the one I’m going to send 50,000 volts through.
Mitchell greeted him. “McPhall, nice to see you again.”
“What’s the problem?” Cullen asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice.
Mitchell scratched his head. “I’m unsure. The unit just keeps sending up a code I don’t recognize. I’ve run diagnostic checks on all the systems, but it all seems to be working properly.” He smiled at Cullen. “I probably just pulled you out of your office for nothing.”
“It’s alright.” Cullen gestured toward the rows of stasis units. “Why don’t you lead the way.”
Mitchell nodded and strode toward the units. Cullen picked up his pace and pulled up behind the doctor. With a sweaty hand he pulled the stunner from his pocket and before he could stop himself, jammed the unit onto the man’s neck and pulled the trigger.
The unit crackled and sparked. The doctor dropped to the ground, his limbs twitching. Scrambling over the doctor, Cullen zip-tied his hands and feet and tied a gag over his mouth. Grasping the doctor under the arms, Cullen dragged him toward the man’s desk and stuffed him underneath. Winded from the effort, Cullen took a moment to catch his breath before searching through the small bag he was carrying with him and produced a syringe with a dose of tranquilizer. The same tranquilizer used to drop the women in the field. With shaking hands Cullen plunged the hypodermic needle into the man’s thigh and pressed the plunger. That would keep the doctor quiet for several hours. He hoped to be long gone before it wore off.
Jogging through the maze of coffin-like stasis units, he caught glimpses of faces as he hurried past. They were serene, frozen in time, even as their bodies were harnessed and used as breeding stock against their will. Cullen knew he didn’t have much time, so he forced his mind to stay on task and pushed aside the feeling of revulsion rising in his chest.
Turning down the familiar row, he saw her. Beta three four seven.
He stopped in front of the unit and looked through the opaque window at the woman inside. She was beautiful and did not belong in a place like this, used without her consent. Cullen shook himself free from the desire to just gaze at her and got to work. He knew the inner workings of a stasis unit like he knew Euler’s Equation, but one of the things he had never done was run the program to pull a subject out of stasis. He knew there were two options. The preferred method took over twenty-four hours, progressively decreasing the dosage of inhibitors that kept the women in a drug-induced state of suspension.
Then there was the emergency protocol, the one he’d be employing. This protocol yanked the subject out of stasis quickly and without regard for the patient’s well-being. Cullen didn’t want to go that route; the possibility of complications dramatically increased with such a harsh reanimation, but he had no choice. He hoped she’d been in good physical condition before being put into stasis, which always allowed a person to weather such a process better. There existed the distinct possibility her organs had become too dependent on its help to do their job, in essence becoming lazy. With such a harsh removal of that assistance, the woman’s organs might have a hard time picking up where the machines left off.
There wasn’t time for worry. He set the small bag he had brought with him on the floor beside the unit and began to access the units internal computer. Cullen had chosen to do it without Jane’s help. If she accessed the lab network, the trail pointing to him would be as bright as the noonday sun. If the plan was all accomplished from inside the lab, maybe they would have a bit more time escaping the city.
His hands flew through the holo-images, swiping, accessing, and bypassing safety protocols. Finally, the last menu appeared asking him if he was ready to initiate the emergency protocol. He stopped, his hand hovering in the air, ready to start the process. There was no reason to hesitate. His actions tonight made him a traitor. He’d attacked a doctor with the intent of stealing CPF property. That was punishable by death. Possibly he could count on some leniency based on who his father was, but that meant an extended prison sentence. Cullen could only imagine what would be done to a weak computer-geek in prison. No, the time for hesitation and second guessing was long gone.
Cullen started the reanimation sequence. The holo-image in front of him turned green and let him know that the process was under way, and the subject could be removed in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes before he and this woman shook off the yoke of the Continental Peace Federation. In very real ways, they’d both been slaves to the oppressive regime, but now they had a chance to live in freedom, liberated from their masters.
Or, it was fifteen minutes before this euphoric dream came crashing down around him, and black-fatigued soldiers dragged him away to be executed and the last time he would see the woman would be when they plunged the needle into her arm administering the lethal dose of drugs that would stop her heart.
This had to work, he thought, banishing the negative rumination from his mind. It had to work. His future, her future, and possibly their future depended upon them getting out alive. Cullen laughed at himself. A future together with this woman was remote, he knew that. Most likely, she would want nothing to do with him. He had to accept that possibility, because he was, in re
ality, one of those who’d murdered millions of her people and enslaved the rest.
From the bag Cullen had brought with him, he began to prepare several syringes that were already filled with the proper doses of drugs to help the woman come out of stasis with the best chance of survival. Another in the long list of CPF property he’d now pilfered.
Once that was done, he nervously stood, staring into the window of the stasis unit, the room silent except for the soft hum of the unit pumping vitality back into the woman’s limbs.
Then there was a new sound.
The sound of the door opening.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Aereas - Human base in Homa former Am’Segid great city
Calier felt like he was moving in slow motion. He hadn’t been this tired since the long march through Sho’el. This was almost as stressful but not quite. There weren’t giant animals looking to eat you at every turn, but there were ruthless humans to contend with. Calier wasn’t sure which was worse.
Most of the top floors of the hospital were deserted and unused by the humans. All the patient rooms were empty which enraged and chilled him at the same time. This hospital had been a destination for people with rare and tough cases. It should have been a bustling hive of activity, full of patients, but none of them were here now. That meant the humans had emptied the building of the inconvenient sick. It was hard to imagine they could be any more heinous, but every time he turned a corner he found a deeper well of pain and cruelty.
Now on the first floor, Calier told himself he would finish looking down this hallway and then find a place where he could curl up for an hour or so before exploring the auxiliary buildings. The exhaustion was leading his mind down dark paths of despair and paranoia. He was starting to wonder if he would find anything, and he was sure the next person who passed him would recognize he was not a human.