Girl Gone Nova

by Pauline Baird Jones

  It shocked her how fast she went from relaxed to alert when the two MPs stopped in front of her. She didn’t pull a weapon because they were “her” guys, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to pull something.

  “Doctor Clementyne? General Halliwell would like to see you in his ready room, ma’am,” one of them said, his tone cop-neutral. Both had hands close to their weapons, as if they weren’t sure she’d go quietly.

  Had her abrupt departure from the infirmary been perceived as dangerous? And if it had, why? Last she remembered, she and the General were on their way, well, she wasn’t sure what to call it. A state of mutual neutral, maybe? Two MPs were both over—and under—kill. No way could those two bring her in if she didn’t want to be brought, but she’d have gone without the escort.

  “Can I bring my brownie?”

  That got a slight reaction from the two men. Very slight. And the lights overhead flickered once. Doc looked up, then got up, her brownie in hand.

  “How long has that been happening?”

  “I wouldn’t know, ma’am.” One of them gestured toward the doorway. “The General is waiting.”

  * * * * *

  It was a surprise to awaken in his quarters aboard his flagship. It wasn’t a surprise to find he’d been detained. A security cuff secured his arm to his bed. Hel turned his head, unsurprised to find his cousin, Glarmere standing by the bed.

  “This is an interesting move, even for you, cousin,” Hel said. Was the man acting on his own or with support of the Council? Based on the fact that Hel was alive and still in his quarters, probably on his own for now.

  “I need your access codes.”

  Hel arched his brows. That would never happen.

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t give them to me.”

  He’d kill Hel once he got them. Hel stared at him. Glarmere looked edgy. How long had he been waiting for Hel’s return? And how had he gotten into his quarters? Hel didn’t ask. Questions exposed weakness. Glarmere had already exposed his flank, revealed he was acting alone at the moment. If he had enough support in the Council, he’d already be in control of the fleet.

  “Everyone dies.”

  “There are worse things than dying.”

  Hel doubted his cousin had the stomach to act for himself. He shrugged.

  Glarmere’s face twitched. He hadn’t expected this. The man had known him since they were both small and still he didn’t know Hel at all. Time was limited. Once the ship reached the outpost, the Leader would have to emerge from these quarters. Even if Glarmere succeeded in taking control, he wouldn’t have a smooth transition. The people on this ship were Hel’s. If ships were now en route to support Glarmere, they were still at least a day out or more. Hel had checked his ships positions before coming aboard. None had moved. Glarmere wouldn’t have risked ship movements while Hel was unsecured. And Hel had made sure the most unreliable ships were two to three days out—unless he’d miscalculated some loyalties? That was possible.

  He’d miscalculated the security of his quarters. Again.

  Almost, Hel wished he’d stayed on the Doolittle. Was he losing his taste for political maneuvering? None of it seemed as critical as it had a few days ago. This wasn’t about life and death, well, it was about his death, but the stakes weren’t galaxy-wide high. This was a power play, pure and simple. Was this what had added to his dissatisfaction? For many long years, they’d battled to survive, battled to find a way to defeat the Dusan. They’d succeeded and this was the result?

  It was beneath them, a disservice to the people who’d given their lives to preserve their freedom. It should have made them better, not the same or worse.

  He realized something else as he stared into his cousin’s less-than-scary face: Glarmere could do nothing worse, could not cause him more pain than he felt right now, knowing Delilah was forever out of his reach. He’d avoided facing this, but with death hanging over his head, he owed it to her and to himself to face this one truth. Somehow, during their interactions, she had secured his heart in a way no other woman had, and that included his bond mate. He’d cared for her. He longed for Delilah. He always would.

  Death would be a mercy.

  * * * * *

  The MPs flanked her on the journey through the ship. It told her the General considered her a risk, but didn’t tell her why. The light malfunction came with them. This made people look up as they passed. She liked that. The MPs attracted too much attention. She munched her brownie and mulled, but the only thing she could think of was that maybe the General thought she had Stockholm syndrome. She hoped she was wrong. Surely he didn’t think she’d bond with bad guys in four days?

  One of the MPs palmed open the door to the General’s ready room, and then they followed her in. Unless they needed to know who she was, which they didn’t, this was starting to feel like an arrest.

  The General looked up, his face impassive, even by his standards.

  “Doctor.”

  Not a lot of information to pull out of the single word, but his body language indicated unease and distrust. How had she managed to piss him off while she was unconscious? She came to attention and saluted.

  He studied for almost a minute. “How do you feel?”

  She had a not normal impulse to say, “With my hands, sir, just like everyone else.” She managed to quell it. Didn’t want to get shot over a bad joke.

  “I feel fine, sir.” What did he want her to say? Usually improvisation wasn’t a problem, but even improv actors got a jumping off point.

  “You left the infirmary.”

  That was his problem? “I was hungry.”

  “You could have asked for food to be brought to you.”

  “I’m sorry?” She made it a question because she couldn’t ask the ones she wanted to ask with the MPs playing audience to their very boring word play. “I feel great and I didn’t want to bother anyone.”

  “So you checked yourself out? Without telling anyone?”

  “I didn’t see anyone to tell.” Someone had to break the verbal stalemate before they bored each other to death. “Have I done something wrong, sir?”

  Annoying people wasn’t unusual, not knowing why was.

  He hesitated, his gaze still boring into her. “What do you remember?”

  She didn’t look at the two MPs but she felt their presence. “Not much.” Her programming to hide was stronger than her current need to know.

  “Sit.”

  One of the MPs pulled out a chair the furthest from the General. Suspicion and wariness were buried deep in his steely gaze. She wanted to reassure him, but she didn’t know how. She could tell him she was better than fine, but she didn’t know why she was better than fine or how the cacophony inside her head had been tamed. Somebody had done something. That was obvious, but who and what? Could she be a risk and not know it?

  He sat down and the silence drew out. While she met his gaze with outward calm, she poked around inside her head, looking for clues. It wasn’t as easy as it should be. Even tidy, there was a lot to examine in there. Her brain before almost dying had been like a meteor shower. Now it resembled a huge multi-lane highway. Ideas were lined up, proceeding through her thought processes in neat lines, but there were a lot of lanes. They all thought they were of critical importance, so finding the one that mattered at the moment wasn’t easy.

  “Do you feel in control, Doctor?”

  More than she ever had her whole life. “Yes, sir.”

  Another long pause, then he nodded to the two MPs. “You’re excused.”

  When the door slid closed behind him, he lifted a stun weapon onto the table, his hand resting on the handle. Black ops fought to come online. Doc did tense, but she kept her hands in view. She could react before him if necessary. She just didn’t know why she’d need to.

  “Did I miss something while I was…away?”

  “Before you lost consciousness aboard Kalian’s ship, you mentioned Miri’s lab. Do you remember that?”

&
nbsp; She shook her head. The last thing she remembered was Hel urging her to live. The lights in the room flickered once and then again. They both looked up. Then the General looked at Doc.

  “Did you do that?”

  “How—” Miri’s lab. Nanites. “You used nanites to heal me.”

  As soon as she said the words, her brain connected the right information stream and brought it to the front of the line. That’s what was different. The nanites were helping her control the flow of information and the way her brain dealt with its lust for connections and information. She was better than fine, though telling him how much they’d changed her wasn’t a good plan when he looked ready to shoot her.

  He nodded, his hand twitching on the handle.

  “You’re afraid I’m going to go bad SF movie whacky and take over the ship?”

  His lips twitched then, but firmed. “I just need to know you’re fully in control of yourself.” His gaze narrowed, turned searching. “You are different.”

  “Maybe I’m just relieved to not be dead, sir.” He was right, though. She felt different, had been changed before the nanites came on board. What they’d done to her, well, she was sorting through that now. She was surprised he’d picked up on her differences. He was a General, but he was also a guy.

  His gaze plowed into hers, seeking for the indefinable something that even Doc would have had a hard time explaining. She felt the difference to her toe nails—but she felt like herself. Truth was, she felt like she was who she’d been meant to be. There was still a lot to process, but one thing was clear, almost dying had changed her almost as much as the infusion of nanites. She’d been pretty cavalier with her life up to now. It gave her an edge going into an operation and that edge felt gone. She wanted to live, which was odd, since she hadn’t known she wanted to die. The Major wasn’t going to be happy about that, but like her, he was going to have to deal.

  After a pause, he nodded. “I guess I can see that. You gave us quite a scare, Doc.”

  “Us?” It unsettled her to think of the General discussing her with anyone. Made her feel exposed and vulnerable. She didn’t like either of those things.

  “Kalian assisted.”

  The General worked with Kalian? She’d like to have been a bug on that wall.

  “As far as the infirmary staff knows, the Garradian Influenza was a false alarm.” He hesitated. “When you disappeared from the infirmary…”

  “I can see where that might make you uneasy.” She thought she knew about weird, but she didn’t. She was aware and involved in her conversation with the General, but she felt herself absorbing information at a tremendous rate. The nanites were learning how to communicate with her, though it wasn’t as smooth as either side would have liked and still indirect. She’d think questions and her mind would flood with images or equations or data. Some she understood. A lot she didn’t. That was new, too.

  The nanites were taking her questions, the ones she’d had before she got sick and the ones she had now, and processing them as information requests. It felt a bit like ants swarming, but tidier. Each question was in one of the memory lanes, with information flowing both ways. It was…extraordinary and very efficient. She could get used to efficient. She slotted what she was learning into priorities and then got distracted when she wondered how many nanites they’d used to heal her and a HUD popped up between her and the General.

  She blinked. It didn’t help. “That’s a lot of nanites, sir. Did you tip the whole test tube in me?”

  The general’s grim visage cracked. “You didn’t glow. And you were pretty far gone. Didn’t seem like they were working.”

  Doc stiffened. “So you what? You dumped two test tubes in me?” The General didn’t look at her. “Three?”

  He twitched. Three test tubes of nanites? Doc looked at the HUD, surprised there was room inside there for her. No wonder he was worried about her control. Maybe she should be worried. She was amazed. The little buggers had been dormant for years but had kicked into high without too much trouble.

  “Can you control them?” He appeared as fascinated with the view as she was—or he still didn’t want to look at her.

  The answer didn’t come in words. They were still trying to integrate their systems with hers, but she felt reassurance, felt her control, though she couldn’t have explained how.

  “Yes.” The word sounded hesitant, because she wasn’t sure if she’d stay in control. There were a lot of them buzzing around in her system. The light flickered overhead again.

  “Are you doing that?”

  “No, but I don’t think it’s a problem.” A control problem is what she meant.

  She got his Look. “And you know this how?”

  “The…Key interacted with this ship, sir. Installed upgrades. I think those nanites are talking to mine. They’re both learning.” And trying to teach her at the same time. It was multi-tasking gone ballistic.

  “Why would they need to learn? They were created by the same person, weren’t they?” His frown was something to see. His hand twitched on his weapon again.

  “The Key’s nanites came to her through the womb, from her mother. They experienced things these hadn’t.” Her palms tingled and she looked down, shocked and not shocked, to see golden beads of light emerge from her skin, then sink from sight again. The rate of information exchange sped up and then knowledge…expanded inside her head like a garden bursting into bloom all at once. It hurt, but for Doc it was a “hurts so good” pain.

  She sat in a chair in the General’s ready room, but she was also in the ship and on the outpost and riding an invisible shockwave through all the other outposts. She was here, but everywhere. She could feel why and how they’d helped her mental malfunctions but the exchange wasn’t one way. For one, very odd moment, she could “see” how her brain looked to them. If they had a concept of a mother ship, her brain was it. She couldn’t understand everything yet, but they believed she had the capacity.

  She felt their—satisfaction wasn’t the right word, because they couldn’t feel, well, she was pretty sure they couldn’t feel, but her IQ aided them in ways the Key hadn’t been able to, even enhanced by the nanites. She’d lacked the education and the IQ to process what they were trying to share with Doc.

  They were downloading into her brain too fast, but she didn’t stop them because her brain loved having every single data stream maxed out. For the first time in her life, they weren’t the enemy. The cacophony settled into a happy hum and with it, the pain dialed back to a faint throb at the temples.

  “Doctor?” The General sounded wary.

  Doc blinked, peering through streams of data. Was this what it would be like to be inside a computer? “Yes, sir?”

  “You’re glowing.”

  She tapped into a security camera and studied herself. He was right, though pulsed was a more accurate description.

  “Sorry, sir.” She concentrated on dialing that back and saw the beads sink back into her skin. First he wanted her to glow and now he wanted her to stop. There was no pleasing the man. “I thought you wanted me to glow.”

  That earned her another Look.

  She, or they, and her with them, were deep inside the ship and she sensed a tap on the video line to this room and others. She followed them back to the source. Went into the computer and locked it down just by thinking about it. Genius gone nova. The analogy seemed apt. She’d changed from one thing to something else, something better. Okay, with three test tubes of nanites, maybe she’d gone super nova.

  “I found your security leak, General. I’ve resolved the problem, and I’m assessing what information has been compromised.”

  She was having so much fun, it surprised her when red suffused his face, a mini, less happy version of a star going nova.

  “What? Who?”

  “Neil Caldwell, assistant to Ambassador Rockley.” She directed some resources to sifting through his computer for any indication of other accomplices. He had to be part of a network.
He’d been part of the transfer that brought her to the Doolittle, so he was either a new recruit or replacement.

  “You can prove this?”

  “I have created a report on the trace and sent it to your computer.” Doc felt an unscientific thrill of pleasure. This was way better than fine. This was ass-kicking cool. Be even better when the General quit wanting to shoot her. It was almost painful to sit so still. She and her new peeps wanted to move, to dance and sway. Maybe do some lip synching. Karaoke was out of the question, unless the peeps had also fixed her inability to carry a tune.

  Halliwell keyed on his intercom and sent his own order—one to quietly arrest Caldwell. “Any other security breaches I should know about? Accomplices?”

  Doc sent some of her new peeps searching through the ship for other signs of tampering and Caldwell’s accomplices.

  “Working on it, sir.”

  He tugged at his military knot. “Good. I think.” He swallowed. “You sure you can control them?”

  “There is an ethics subroutine in their programming. They can’t attempt me, ship, world, or galaxy domination.” She grinned and felt them quiver in response. Did they have a sense of humor or were they learning it from her? The ache eased some more though she still felt super nova on the inside. Doc wasn’t surprised by the ethics programming. The original Garradians had freaked over their own abilities and how that technology might be used and abused. It was what had prompted them to lock and abandon the outpost and their galaxy.

  “Okay.” He tried to smile, hesitated. “Can they help you with the portal problem?”

  “We need to talk about that,” she saw something that made her sit up and take notice, “but we have another problem.” She activated a HUD again, this one a view of the galaxy.