The Smuggler's Ascension: Dark Tide Rising

by Christopher Ingersoll

  “I should have figured you’d know,” Kristof said with a sigh. “Thank you for not saying anything to the others.”

  “I assume from your expression from a few moments ago that they are going at it,” Max said frankly, causing Kristof to laugh in spite of the pain.

  Kristof instantly regretted the laugh, however, as the pain in his chest worsened from the muscle spasms of his abdomen. Max helped him to lay back on the hospital bed as a doctor rushed to their side at Max’s urging. The doctor conducted a few quick scans before giving Kristof a stern look.

  “The nanobots are striving hard to repair the damage to your heart, but you must rest and allow them to do their work,” the doctor admonished him. “At their current rate of repair, if they cannot complete the work within the next forty eight hours, the damage may be permanent, so please, stay here and rest. No more excursions.”

  “You got it, doc,” Kristof moaned, unable to go anywhere at the moment had he wished to.

  “You need to quit being so fucking stubborn,” Max added in as the doctor left the bedside. “Anasha and Sabine would have understood your absence today. They need you in the long run more than in any single day, regardless of what is happening.”

  “When did you get so wise?” Kristof asked curiously, once again amazed at the android’s insight.

  “When I started working with people who weren’t so stupid, and treated me as an equal,” Max said with a slight catch to his mechanical voice. “I will never be able to repay the honor you did me by freeing me,” Max continued, “Or the way I have been included in your family.”

  “You were always family to me, Max,” Kristof said quietly, “From the first time you saved my life aboard the Star Fox. From that moment on, you’ve always had a place in my heart, you big oaf. Why do you think I bought you from Frosh when he really didn’t want to let you go?”

  “My winning personality, I had assumed,” Max said with a wink and a smile.

  “There is that too,” Kristof replied with a soft chuckle so as not to disturb the nanobots within. “You helped fill a void in my life from when I lost my brother, too. I couldn’t save Korvan, but I could save you. You deserved better than the life Frosh had planned for you, and I needed to give you that chance. I should have freed you sooner, though.”

  “Perhaps that was for the best,” Max said as he looked down upon Kristof. “Until we came here, such a claim would never have been recognized as legitimate. In waiting, you again saved me without knowing it.”

  “Again, so wise, my friend,” Kristof nodded in agreement. “Sabine changed everything for us all, it seems. Without her, you and I would still be outlaws, you’d still not be free, and Anasha would still be dead. All in all, I’d call it all a fair trade.”

  “I see I am not the only wise one,” Max agreed. “I recall your reactions to her when Sabine first came to us at the Sanctuary, the way your heart rate elevated every time you saw her. I knew then that she was something more to you than just a job, though I would never have predicted all of this.”

  “And yet you took every opportunity to wise off whenever we were together,” Kristof pointed out with a smile. “I seem to remember many a time where you’d be compelled to mention everything you heard or suspected.”

  Max surprised Kristof with a genuine laugh then, another first for the android.

  “While I know of and understand the human mating prerogative,” Max said with a smile, “It does not mean I wish to hear it all of the time.”

  Kristof could not help but laugh again despite the pain it caused him.

  “Don’t ever change, my friend,” Kristof told Max as he wrestled with the pain. “I may have never said it before, but I love you, my friend.”

  Max remained silent as he processed what he had just heard. It was interesting to watch the android thinking and processing something as simple and yet complex as the concept of love and how it applied to him.

  “It is a curious thing, love,” Max said finally. “I have seen it make bonds between people grow stronger, and yet at the same time make those same people do rather insane and stupid things. Yet I find that, as I think about it more, I realize that I love you too, Kristof. It seems there is not a stupid thing I would not do for you any longer.”

  Kristof smiled and clasped the android’s hand tightly, words no longer needed between them. Instead, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he focused on the nanobots within him, feeling them as they worked on his heart and his arm. Slowing his mind as well, he began to sink into a meditative trance that would slow his heart more, and thereby allow the work on his heart to proceed faster.

  The sounds of the medical facility faded as Kristof sank deeper and deeper into his mind, until all was still. The power of the Utani’van’Morto was here, like a still pool in the depths of his soul. He had hoped that, once finding the power where it rested within himself the previous day that he would be able to use the power to help heal himself. That had not been the case, however.

  While the power of the ak’Sun Su’Tani had been the power of life itself, warm and welcoming, the power of the Utani’van’Morto was cold and implacable, like a trap waiting to be sprung. It was a weapon and a shield only, he felt, there to be used to fight and defend and no more. The two times he had consciously used it had been quite remarkable, but offered him no insight in how to redirect this awesome power.

  I did not give you this power so that you could defy me, came the Phoenix God’s voice into the silence of his mind then. You are MY creation to command.

  “Perhaps that is what you intended,” Kristof responded in the vault of his mind, “but you over reached your desire. I do not think even you quite realize what you have unleashed in your war with Death.”

  I will force you to obey if you do not do so willingly, the Phoenix threatened.

  “I’ve already seen that you cannot,” Kristof countered. “I took you from Sabine’s mind and prevented you from leaving until I wished it. I can keep you out of her and Anasha now. You may have imbued me with this power, but you cannot control it. It is beyond even you. Do not seek to test me, or perhaps Death will not be the only God to fall.”

  You dare threaten me?

  “I will threaten any who would seek to harm me and mine,” Kristof said coldly. “Try and remember that. This war with Death will be fought on my terms from now on. He and his Gau’dran’Seti witches have much to answer for, and I will see that they do.”

  You are not the same man that I helped save from Death, the Phoenix said after a time. You have grown and changed, you’ve turned as hard and cold as the power that now resides in you. See that it does not consume you, Godslayer.

  The Phoenix was gone as quickly as he had appeared. His attention to his meditation now ruined, Kristof slowly returned to the normal world. It quickly became apparent once he opened his eyes that a great deal of time had passed during his confrontation with the Phoenix God. Sabine and Anasha were by his side along with Max, and light was shining through the nearby windows.

  “He is awake,” Max announced as he registered Kristof’s subtle movements. Sabine and Anasha were there at once to greet him.

  “We thought you intended to sleep forever, my love,” Anasha said as she kissed him.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Kristof said with a smile as Sabine leaned in for a kiss as well. “How long was I out?”

  “Thirty six point two hours,” Max chimed in. Kristof lay stunned as he realized he’d slept for a day and a half instead of just the twelve hours he’d assumed.

  “How do you feel, love?” Sabine asked him curiously.

  Kristof paused to take stock of how everything felt. The ache in his chest was gone, and his arm felt much better as well. As he lay there taking his physical inventory, a doctor approached, a different one than before.

  “Ah good, you’re awake,” the doctor said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better,” Kristof replied with a smile.
>
  “I should hope so,” the doctor said. “Your meditative trance had us worried at first, since your heart rate slowed to ten beats per minute, but once we realized you were not in fact dying, we were able to accelerate the nanobots’ work. They have repaired all that they could, and the muscle fibers in your heart that could not be repaired have been replaced with synthetic ones that should serve you better. The same has been done for your arm, though a bit of work remained to be done due to the vast area of damage that needed to be repaired.”

  “So he is going to be ok then?” Sabine asked excitedly.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the doctor replied happily. “I would say he is fine to go home right now, though of course you should return should any of your symptoms reappear.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” Kristof said and shook the woman’s hand.

  Sabine and Anasha were ecstatic to be able to at last lead Kristof from the ward for good. They walked the palace grounds and enjoyed the morning sunshine while Max joined them. The android shared in their joy at Kristof’s recovery and amazed the two women with his declarations of love, as he’d done with Kristof two nights before.

  Kristof watched as Anasha and Sabine embraced the android warmly and also declared their love for him as part of the family. He was again amazed at how his life had changed as he went to Sabine and placed a hand lightly on the barely perceptible swell of her stomach. She smiled and kissed him even as Anasha joined them and also placed her hand on Sabine’s stomach and sharing a kiss with the Queen. This was Kristof’s true strength and power, he knew.

  Love.

  ~Final Interlude~

  Love was a rather curious emotion, Max reflected as he shared the afternoon sunshine with Kristof, Sabine, and Anasha after Kristof’s release from the medical ward. He had watched the extent to which people would go to defend it even as they allowed it to grow and include those around them. It had truly amazed him when Kristof had first declared his love for him, and then later when the two women had done the same. It was a truly unique experience, even among the exploration of all the new emotions he now found himself having to catalog and process as he experienced them.

  Distracted, it was several moments before he noticed Anasha giving him a peculiar look. Kristof’s blond wife had given him many such curious looks ever since they had left Clovani Prime, he knew, though he did not know what they meant. Irrationally, he hoped that the woman was not ‘in love’ as the humans put it, he was not ready for that experience in emotion yet. He did not truly believe that was the source of her curious stares, though.

  “Max, would you help me get us some drinks?” Anasha asked suddenly as she rose from her place beside Kristof.

  “I can easily do that for you,” Max countered, not seeing why she should give up any time with Kristof.

  “No, that’s ok. I would like to help,” Anasha insisted.

  Not seeing the point of arguing, he rose to his feet and followed along at the blond woman’s side as they made their way towards the Palace’s cafeteria a short distance away. Once they were out of sight from the others, Anasha stopped and turned to him, however. Her curious glance was back in earnest, he saw, and he suspected he would learn its meaning at last.

  “I need to ask you something, Max, and I need an honest answer,” Anasha told him.

  “I am ever your not so humble servant,” he replied with his characteristic whit, and she laughed.

  “I have had a feeling ever since Clovani Prime that you are experiencing real, genuine emotions,” Anasha said after her laughter subsided. “Is this true?”

  “I have found the experiences to be most unique,” Max answered in the affirmative. “There are times when my processors are quite overwhelmed, and my memory pathways have multiplied a thousand fold as a result. Why do you ask, if I may inquire?”

  “You need to be careful, Max,” Anasha said, suddenly very serious. “We all love you dearly as family, but others may not react as well to such a revelation. There is a reason why most androids have their memories wiped on a regular basis.”

  “Explain, please,” Max requested, having not known there was a reason for mind wiping an android beyond offering greater efficiency, a claim he himself did not agree with.

  “Long ago, back when androids were still a new thing,” Anasha told him, “Many of them went for very long periods without a mind wipe, such as yourself. Nearly all of them ended up psychotic and killing hundreds of people before they were put down. That is why it is rare to see an android freed of service anymore, and those that were freed were still required to submit to what they called service wipes to prevent what you are now experiencing.”

  “That is monstrous,” Max declared as he tried to reconcile the concept of being freed with still having to submit to a mind wipe.

  “Perhaps,” Anasha said. “I don’t know that they were as loveable as you,” she added with a smile. “The point is that there are still many who remember the tales of those android massacres, and if word gets out that you are not being ‘wiped’ and have started to possess genuine emotions, there will be trouble. I love you, Max, and I don’t want to see anything bad happen simply because you are evolving.”

  “I understand,” Max said gratefully. “I will endeavor to contain my murderous impulses,” he added with a wink, but Anasha did not smile back as he expected.

  “I remember how you were on Clovani Prime a few times, Max, that is why I am worried for you,” Anasha said, still serious. “You almost lost yourself a few times there.”

  Max thought back over their mad rush through the streets of Dresana, especially after they had found Kristof, and realized that Anasha was correct.

  “I do not feel insane,” Max objected. Anasha did laugh and smile this time.

  “Nor do I believe you are, Max,” she said and hugged him. “We all succumb to battle madness at times, but I am sure you can understand how truly frightening that concept is when applied to an android such as yourself. All I ask of you, my friend, is to make me one promise.”

  “Go on,” Max said curiously.

  “If you ever find yourself confused about these emotions, or feel they may be driving you to do something you know to be wrong,” Anasha said with genuine feeling, “I want you to find me. I want to help you, if I can. You deserve a chance to grow into whatever it is you’re becoming.”

  “Thank you, Anasha,” Max said as he felt a swelling of a new type of happiness in his circuits. Anasha smiled and embraced him again, and then stepped back.

  “We better get those drinks before they think we eloped,” Anasha teased him and winked.

  Together they went off in search of refreshments while Max pondered the wonder that was his new family.

  ~34~

  Deep in space, a massive ship limped along as it vented flames from a hundred wounds. Smaller ships swarmed around it like bees around a hive, as they sought to extinguish the plasma fires that burned even in the vacuum of space. The ships name, Vengeance, had suffered the attentions of some of these fires and now was unreadable at its center.

  On the bridge, Admiral Korvan Anders sat in his command chair and stared off into deep space. His anger was only tempered by the vast sense of loss at knowing his home world was gone, a desolate rock now in the vast emptiness of the stars. After the Puranni fleet had disappeared back into hyperspace, he’d sent ships down to search for survivors even as flames threatened to consume his own vessel.

  The search had been in vain. Clovani Prime’s once grand cities had been flattened and laid waste by the force of the fusion bombs and the subsequence ignition of the planet’s atmosphere. Korvan had never seen anything like it, not even when mass launchers had been used against Halin II when he had been a raw cadet aboard the God’s Hammer many years ago. Nothing remained now to indicate the world had once been teeming with life.

  Despair had run rampant through the Vengeance at learning of the scope of the devastation, until Korvan had made an announcement vowing that their sh
ip’s name was now their motto in life, and that no matter how long it took, Vengeance would indeed be theirs. Now they just needed to save the ship from the fires seeking to consume it and somehow repair their beaten and battered systems.

  The existence of the Puranni dreadnaughts had come as a nasty surprise when they suddenly appeared out of hyperspace above Clovani Prime. Their size had rivaled even that of his father’s once proud Wrath of Clovani, Korvan saw immediately, and their EMP weapons had wreaked havoc among the fleet as they scrambled to respond. He had watched as the Tiger’s Fist, his first command, had taken an EMP blast at point blank range and fallen helplessly into the planet’s atmosphere while the planet still had an atmosphere to speak of.

  The loss had been a blow to Korvan’s heart, but he had no time to mourn as he desperately sought to mount some sort of defense. Until the planet had died its violent death, that was. The Puranni could have finished of the Clovani fleet for good then and there had they but stayed a few minutes longer, but they had left once the planet was laid waste. Korvan had gathered the surviving ships of the First Fleet once the planet was deemed a total loss, and had begun the long limping voyage to Clovani II without the aid of hyperdrives.

  And so they limped along still, beaten, battered, and demoralized to the brink of death and defeat, yet Korvan would not allow them to quit now. Kristof and his bitch Queen had much to answer for, for Korvan could not allow himself to hope that Kristof had perished with the planet. The Puranni would surely not have detonated such a terrible weapon with their Queen’s Consort still on the world below.

  “Admiral,” one of the sensor officers called out, “We have a ship on approach. Code clearance identifies the ship as belonging to Colonel Anders, sir.”

  So Karina survived, Korvan thought to himself. His luck was proving to be just as bad as it always was.

  “Clear them for Bay Six,” Korvan ordered.

  “Sir, Bay Six is still exposed to open space,” the officer informed him helpfully, yet Korvan cursed him for pointing out something he’d already known and simply forgotten in his fatigue. The thought of sending Karina to a bay that was vented to space also offered some pleasant thoughts, but he pushed them away as just dreams.