by Peter David
“Wait a minute,” said Carlsbad, frowning. “I thought you said the nanobots were in the cylinders you kept in reserve, not the ones Dovan was carrying.”
Burgoyne shrugged. “Seems I made a mistake. Apparently, the ’bot colonies were in Dovan’s parasite cylinders after all. The two cylinders Dovan already attached to the probe, to be exact. Lucky for us, huh?”
Carlsbad nodded knowingly. “I’ll say. Pretty lucky you happened to have that remote trigger with you, too.”
“I’m on a roll, apparently,” said Burgoyne. S/he allowed hirself a quick smile, then went grim as another scream burst out of Dovan. “Now let’s hope it continues. There’s no guarantee the nanobots will work, given the probe’s ongoing evolution.”
“Then what?” said General Cu’lan. “Yet another alternative?”
“Not a good one,” said Burgoyne. “If the Livingston doesn’t hear from us by a predetermined deadline, she’ll hit the probe with an orbit-to-ground phaser barrage. We’re betting that will be enough to take out Starfly.”
“And Dovan,” Carlsbad said gravely.
“When is the deadline?” said Cu’lan.
“Fifteen minutes,” said Burgoyne. “So let’s hope, for Dovan’s sake, that the nanobots have what it takes.”
As if Dovan had heard hir, the J’naii let loose with the loudest scream yet.
Burgoyne had never realized that five minutes could seem like such a long time.
For five unending minutes, perched atop the pile of rubble, s/he watched the tricorder readouts for a fluctuation in the probe’s defenses…and listened as Dovan screamed in agony again and again. Every time s/he checked the tricorder, there was no change in Starfly’s energy levels or shield strength; every time s/he looked down the street, Dovan had been sucked farther into the probe.
Before long, over half the J’naii’s body had been drawn into the silver sphere, leaving only the head, a third of the torso, an arm, and a leg still free. At Starfly’s rate of absorption, Burgoyne was certain that by the time the Livingston’s phasers opened up, not a trace of Dovan would remain outside the probe.
Five minutes passed like five hours, punctuated by screams…and then, after one minute more, Burgoyne finally noticed a change. It was small and brief, but it might as well have been enormous and long-lasting for the surge of hope it brought hir.
For just a split second, Starfly’s power levels dipped. It would have been better if they had stayed down for good, but the fact that they came right back up again did not negate the importance of the fluctuation.
It meant that something was changing inside the probe. It suggested that more changes were on the way.
Burgoyne waited until the next alteration to speak up. “Shield strength is down two point five percent,” s/he said, eyes glued to the tricorder. “And back up. The dip was three seconds in duration.”
“Call it when our window opens up,” said Carlsbad. “We’ll focus four phasers on one point for a concentrated burn.”
“Five phasers,” said General Cu’lan, raising a rifle he’d retrieved from a soldier’s corpse.
“There’s another dip,” said Burgoyne. “Down five percent…six…ten point three…ten point seven. Down twelve percent. And back up.”
As Dovan screamed again, Carlsbad scaled the rubble and hunkered down next to Burgoyne. The rest of the group followed with weapons in hand, arranging themselves along the top of the pile.
“Sight in on the side of the sphere opposite Dovan,” said Carlsbad. “Target between two and three o’clock, below the phaser cannon armature and above the harness ring.”
“Another drop,” said Burgoyne. “Twenty percent…twenty-five…thirty-two…thirty-two point three…and it’s coming back up.” Watching the tricorder closely, s/he did hir best to block out Dovan’s latest round of screams. “But not all the way back up. Shields are steady at minus ten percent of original strength.”
“Seven minutes until the airstrike from the Livingston,” said Ensign Rubio.
“Down forty percent,” said Burgoyne, heart racing. “Forty-three…fifty…sixty-five…and back up. Steady at minus twenty-seven percent.”
“We’ll go at minus seventy-five percent,” said Carlsbad.
For a moment, nothing changed on the tricorder, and Burgoyne started to worry. If Starfly had managed to neutralize the nanobots, Dovan was doomed to be vaporized by the Livingston’s phasers.
A bead of sweat ran down hir forehead, and s/he wiped it away with the back of hir hand. Dovan wailed with such pitiful desperation that s/he wondered if it was already too late to save the J’naii.
Then, the tricorder reading plunged once more. “Forty percent…sixty…seventy…seventy-four point five…point seven…point eight. And mark!”
All at once, five phasers opened fire from atop the rubble. The bright beams flared to a stop against the probe’s shields, several meters out from Starfly itself…but continued to pour more energy against the protective screen. The spherical wall of force shimmered like heat ripples in the air, distorting around the impact zone with increasing agitation.
Then, with a burst of flickering sparks, the shields gave way. The phaser beams punched through to the skin of the probe, striking in a single point of blinding light.
Everyone kept pouring it on, frequencies rotating automatically. The skin of the probe dimpled under the bombardment, glowing yellow, then red, then white.
Then returning to silver again.
Burgoyne grimaced. “Time until airstrike?” s/he hollered over the shrill whine of the phasers.
“Five minutes,” Ensign Rubio shouted back.
Burgoyne kept the phaser’s firing stud depressed for a few more seconds, then released it. “Cease fire!” s/he said, tossing the weapon aside.
The other four beams disengaged. Dovan’s screaming, which had been drowned out by the attack, resounded in the street once more, continuous and louder than ever.
“It must have developed some kind of ablative armor,” said Burgoyne. “It’s dissipating the energy from the phasers.”
“Damn,” said Carlsbad. “I guess that’s it, then. We wait for the airstrike.”
“The hell with that,” said Burgoyne. “It still has a weak spot.”
“Weak spot?” said Cu’lan.
Burgoyne got down on all fours, relaxing into the predatory posture of a Hermat about to draw blood. “There’s an opening,” s/he said in a low voice. “I’m going in through it.”
“What opening?” said Cu’lan.
“Oh my God,” said Carlsbad as realization dawned on him.
Burgoyne coiled back, gathering hir strength for the coming struggle. “Dovan,” s/he said, and then s/he leaped from the rubble toward Starfly.
As Burgoyne charged down the debris-littered street, the probe opened fire. Since Starfly was damaged, the shots were erratic, spraying willy-nilly in all directions, but their unpredictability made them nearly as dangerous as if they had been aimed with precision. Several times, beams from Starfly’s phasers came close enough to Burgoyne that s/he could feel their searing heat crackling past.
In spite of the random weapons fire and the rugged course, the Hermat never stumbled or slowed. Four limbs pumping, s/he raced over the remains of blown-apart war machines and warriors, scrambled over wreckage and churned-up pavement, dove across craters.
Even as s/he brought hir feral instincts to bear, s/he counted down in the back of hir mind, marking the time until the Livingston’s airstrike. Each passing second spurred hir to go faster, accelerating hir heart rate, lengthening hir stride.
Four minutes.
Burgoyne barreled around the smoking hulk of a ruined tank, switching directions just in time to avoid a bolt from the probe’s phasers. S/he darted up an incline of upthrust pavement…then leaped, arms extended like a tiger’s forelegs.
Though Burgoyne had worried that the probe would manage to restore its shields, s/he met no resistance in hir flight. Phaser beams flashe
d around hir, but none made contact, and s/he landed lightly on the street in front of Starfly.
Springing up on two legs, s/he lunged toward Dovan with a snarl. The J’naii was almost completely absorbed now, submerged up to its chin; its free arm and leg were visible only from the elbow and knee down.
Without hesitation, Burgoyne drove hir claws between Dovan’s forearm and the skin of the probe…realizing that s/he was raking the J’naii’s flesh in the process but not caring. If s/he failed to free Dovan, the J’naii would die within minutes anyway.
Three minutes, to be exact.
Grunting, Burgoyne thrust hir claws through the tight seam between forearm and probe, creating a gap by cutting and squeezing Dovan’s flesh. S/he forced the claws deeper until s/he felt the tips push past solid mass into open space…and then, s/he hooked them into Starfly’s skin from the inside and wrenched backward with all hir strength.
The skin resisted, holding fast. Burgoyne braced hir feet against the sphere and heaved backward again.
This time, s/he tore away a jagged silver hunk. As it separated from the probe’s surface, bundles of fibers came with it…and rubbery pink strands that looked like nerves. Crimson fluid oozed from the broken edges, smelling of brine and metal, covering hir hands. Whatever the exact composition of this techno-organic slurry, it was close enough to blood to send Burgoyne into the killing frenzy s/he needed.
Howling, s/he heaved aside the hunk s/he’d ripped from the probe and gouged out another piece. Starfly bucked and quivered, weapons arms twisting and firing randomly.
Now that its integrity was compromised, the probe’s skin yielded more easily. Burgoyne was able to hack out bigger chunks with less effort…and the more pieces s/he cut away, the more bloodlike slurry flowed out, intensifying hir frenzied strength.
Two minutes.
Burgoyne plunged hir talons into the hole s/he’d opened and slashed away at the tangle of conduits and fleshy tubules connecting Dovan to the probe. Tendrils shot out of the mess of electronics and organics, whipping around hir wrists and neck…and s/he ripped them away in a crazed flurry of motion.
Starfly started to spin, but Burgoyne would not be dislodged. Hanging on with hir clawed feet, s/he hacked like a whirlwind at the guts of the probe, shredding Dovan’s bonds and anything else within reach.
Finally, Starfly shuddered and dropped to the street. A piercing squeal rose from inside the probe, reaching an earsplitting crescendo that made Burgoyne howl in pain…and then it quickly subsided. The hum of power that had throbbed all along inside the techno-organic berserker died away to nothing just as fast.
One minute.
Burgoyne hit hir combadge, then kept slashing Dovan free as s/he spoke. “Burgoyne to Livingston!” s/he shouted, hoping that Starfly’s systems were as dead as they sounded and the jamming field was gone. “Emergency transport! Two to beam up!”
There was no response.
Burgoyne kept slashing. “Livingston! Two for emergency beam-out!”
Still nothing.
Hir mental countdown reached thirty seconds.
“Repeat!” shouted Burgoyne. “Two to beam up now!”
Fifteen seconds.
When there was still no response, s/he howled and clawed all the harder. If s/he had to die, it was better to go out like this, fighting for survival to the very last instant. At least s/he would die in the full flower of hir true nature, bloody and beautiful in the heat of the kill…and even better, laying down hir life for the life of another of equal courage.
Dovan, s/he had no doubt, was hir equal in that regard. Whatever its mistakes in developing Starfly, the J’naii had walked out to meet it with little more than bare hands. Dovan had faced its errant creation only moments after witnessing its destructive might in action, and had not flinched.
So there was no shame in this for either of them.
Ten seconds.
Burgoyne hit hir combadge again. “Two for emergency beam-out!” s/he shouted, cutting away the last fibers and tendrils that held Dovan in place.
When no one from the Livingston answered, s/he howled one final time, crying out hir rage and pain and joy like a wolf in one of hir holodeck programs.
And then, it was all over. Just as s/he resigned hirself to impending death, Burgoyne disappeared from the face of Damiano in a beam of energy sent down from above.
A transporter beam.
As Burgoyne walked into the Livingston’s sickbay, s/he had the distinct impression that Dovan was pretending to be asleep. A whiff of Dovan’s scent in the air confirmed it: The scent was deeper, muskier, warmer…all results of increased blood flow and a waking, not slumbering, physiology. Though the J’naii lay with eyes closed on the diagnostic bed, Burgoyne had no doubt that the scientist was just as awake as s/he was.
Nonchalantly, s/he strolled over to the bed, hands clasped behind hir back. “I guess I’ll have to come back later,” s/he said in an exaggerated whisper loud enough for Dovan to hear.
Then, in the process of turning to leave, s/he let hir elbow bump a nearby tray of instruments, sending them clattering to the floor. “Oh, dear,” s/he said, whipping around in time to see Dovan’s eyes snap open. “Clumsy me! I woke you out of a sound sleep!”
Dovan’s eyes were too clear and alert for the J’naii to have been sleeping, but it kept up the pretense. “No problem,” Dovan said with what had to be feigned grogginess, letting its eyes flutter shut. “Can’t stay awake anyway.”
Smirking, Burgoyne plopped hirself down on the side of the bed. “Well,” s/he said lightly. “Since you’re up for the moment, how about filling me in on how you’re doing?”
When Dovan’s eyes blinked open again, Burgoyne could see a mingling of irritation and apprehension in them. “Feeling fine,” said the J’naii. “Healing fast, but need more rest.”
“Excellent,” said Burgoyne. “I see your wounds have regenerated.”
Dovan sighed impatiently but lifted its arms and turned them over. The shiny patches of newly regenerated skin were the only indicators of where Starfly’s connectors had punctured and Burgoyne’s talons had slashed.
“Sorry I had to cut you up like that,” said Burgoyne, running a fingertip over one of the regenerated patches.
Dovan pulled its arm away and looked at the ceiling. “You did what you had to,” the J’naii said tightly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must get some rest.”
Burgoyne sat for a moment, then eased hirself off the bed. For once, s/he felt awkward about saying what was on hir mind.
S/he turned to go, then cleared hir throat and turned back to Dovan. “I know you don’t think much of me,” s/he said slowly, “but I wanted to tell you it was an honor working with you.”
Dovan lay silently, staring at the ceiling.
“The design of the probe was incredible,” said Burgoyne. “It had a couple of kinks, but it was incredible.”
Still, Dovan said nothing.
“And I admire you for confronting it the way you did,” said Burgoyne. “That really took guts.”
Dovan blew out its breath as if eager for the Hermat to shut up and leave.
“Anyway,” Burgoyne said with a shrug. “That’s all I wanted to say. See you later, Doc.”
With that, s/he moved to the instrument tray, retrieved its spilled contents from the floor, and headed for the door.
Just as the door slid open, Dovan finally spoke up.
“Seventy-seven dead,” the J’naii said bitterly.
Burgoyne turned.
“I’m sorry you cut me free,” said Dovan, “because I should be dead, too.”
The door slid shut again as Burgoyne walked to the foot of Dovan’s bed. “It was an accident,” said the Hermat. “You didn’t intentionally program Starfly to cause the deaths of those people.”
“My carelessness let it happen,” said Dovan. “I took a shortcut and used my own genetic material in the biomatrix.”
“And we still don’t know if that caus
ed the malfunction,” said Burgoyne.
“We’ll never know, since the Livingston’s phasers vaporized the probe,” said Dovan. “And as long as there’s a possibility that I caused it, I’ll blame myself.”
“Give it time,” said Burgoyne. “If I had a credit for every scientific pioneer who never made a mistake…well, I wouldn’t have a credit.”
Dovan sighed. “You don’t understand. I helped create something that ended up violating everything I believe in. You can’t imagine what it’s like for a pacifist to be responsible for such destruction.”
“Pacifist?” said Burgoyne, frowning. “You’re a pacifist?”
“I believe that violence is never acceptable under any circumstances,” said Dovan. “It is my most deeply held belief. It is why I found you so repellent.”
“I thought you had a problem with my dual genders,” said Burgoyne. “You being a J’naii and all.”
Dovan shook its head. “When we first met, you had blood on your hands from a violent act. It might have been only a holodeck simulation, but it revealed your true nature. You are a creature of violence.”
Burgoyne smiled. “I guess I should be insulted,” s/he said, “but I’m relieved.”
“I am a pacifist,” said Dovan, “and I have caused so much death. To make matters worse, I avoided my own death, the death I deserved, only because you committed more violence. And the worst of it is there’s a part of me that’s glad to be alive. There’s a part of me that’s grateful to you for saving my life.”
Burgoyne nodded thoughtfully, then walked around the bed and took hold of Dovan’s hand. “Well, Doctor,” s/he said. “I’d like to tell that part of you that I’m glad you’re alive, too. For now, anyway.”
Dovan frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been through an ordeal,” said Burgoyne, squeezing Dovan’s hand just a little too hard. “I understand why you feel guilty, especially now that I know you’re a pacifist.”
Grimacing, Dovan tried to pull its hand away. “You’re hurting me.”
“This is the kind of experience that could ruin somebody,” said Burgoyne, “and I won’t let you let that happen to yourself. I think you have some important contributions to make to the universe.”