She threw her hands up in front of her face and his armored fist slammed into her forearms. The force of it threw her across the room and knocked her gun from her hands. Her limp body collided with the stone podium and knocked it over. Nova crumpled with it. Her arms and legs smashed against the hard stone and agony coursed up from her mutilated foot. She blinked but blood from her forehead dribbled into her eyes.
The Ancient lunged across the cavern.
Nova couldn't see well enough to find her gun. She scrambled through the sand around her and her hand landed on something hard. She snatched it up, drew back, and hurled the object at the Ancient.
It arced through the air and slammed into the Ancient's head, knocked it sideways.
Nova swiped the blood out of her eyes and drew a ragged breath. The thing she'd thrown came into focus; a helmet. A dirty, dusty helmet that she'd seen before.
"What—" The Ancient scrambled to his feet. "It can't be. The totem of destruction—"
The helmet reeked of rotting flesh, death, and disease.
The last time she'd seen the helmet she'd been in this very room except that it was covered in soot. There'd been a strange carving on the wall and her initials were there. But none of it matched up with what was happening now.
"If we're going, then you're going with us," the Ancient cried, raising a shaking arm to point at Nova.
Nova blinked and looked up at him but pain from her foot clouded everything else.
The helmet had come from the podium, she was sure, and yet it hadn't been there before she banged into it. That didn't make any sense. Not that it mattered much, it looked as though the Ancient was going to kill her anyway.
A part of her said that she couldn't die here because she still had to get back to The Jagged Maw and kick Aart's ass for sending her out here in the first place for sabotaged cargo.
Nova pushed herself up so that she sat with her back against the wall. The Ancient loomed over her with his gun aimed at her head and yet he seemed powerless.
"After everything we worked for, I stand defeated by you?" he said.
Voices and noise came from the passageway outside, along with the boom of Codon's gun but it all sounded muffled, as though it came from far away.
The Ancient shook itself, leveled its gun at Nova's chest, and fired.
Nova snatched the dusty helmet from the floor and held it in front of her like a shield. The purple bolt of energy slammed into the helmet with enough force to knock Nova backward and crush her against the wall. Her ribs crunched and pressed against her lungs.
Her vision shrank to nothing but a thin tunnel with pain on every side.
Nova reached into the helmet and grabbed a handful of rotting flesh it came free with a wet plop. The rank stench of disease surrounded her and bile rose in her throat. She scraped it out and clutched it in her palm, the hurled it at the Ancient.
Agony seared through her chest and a rib punctured her lung.
She didn't have any reason other than that the Ancient was terrified. She expected him to shoot her, or the chunk of flesh, but the weapon remained silent. The Ancient scrambled away from the flying hunk of dead meat.
It landed on his shoulder with a wet splat. Grey-green flesh dripped over his arm and created trails of juice down his armor.
"No!" He flicked the flesh off but wet trails snaked across his arm and chest. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Survived," Nova whispered.
"We are so much more than you." The Ancient dropped its arms to its sides.
Nova's eyes dropped closed. In her mind's eye she saw a ghostly version of herself flail through the air, toward the podium. Her body hit the stone table and just as it did, the helmet materialized on top. It skittered to the ground along with the pieces of broken stone.
The scene replayed over and over again, a continuous loop in front of her eyes. She lifted her heavy eyelids.
"It begins," the Ancient said.
He took a deep, gasping breath and collapsed to his knees. His whole body convulsed and he clawed for the button at his neck but it was a charred ruin, there was no way to get its helmet off now.
His breathing quickened and then his body stiffened and he fell forward, face first into the sand. The force of the fall was enough to detach the broken helmet. It rolled across the floor and came to rest against the far wall; right where Nova had picked it up in the future.
The head beneath was covered in purple bruises and swollen. The flesh ballooned out around the remaining armor. Two more breaths and the gasping stopped.
Nova collapsed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Nova!"
Nova's eyes flickered open, but as soon as they did, she wished she could fall back into oblivion. Her chest ached with every breath, no matter how shallow, and her head throbbed. Agony coursed up her leg. Her leg… She struggled to sit up, to see if she'd imagined it.
"I wouldn't—" Codon said, but it was too late.
Nova's eyes locked on the mess of flesh where her right foot used to be. Nausea rocked through her. She leaned to the side and vomited across the sandy floor. The acrid taste burned her throat and tongue, making her eyes water.
"Where are the rest?" she whispered between heaves.
"Dead," Codon said. "It was like a wave spreading out from that one. I don't know what was in that helmet but it hit 'em bad."
Nova nodded, her head hanging low as she spat the last of the bile from her mouth.
"We should get out of here, whatever the disease was it doesn't seem to be affecting us but your foot needs to be taken care of."
Nova pushed herself up on shaky arms. She used the wall for support and managed to get up on one leg. Each breath drove her broken rib into her lung, how much more could she survive?
"The writing," she gasped.
"What writing?"
She dug into her belt and pulled out her knife. It glinted in the light of the chamber. She reached up as high as she could and began to carve. It was hard to keep balance with just one leg and twice she toppled to the sand where she had to struggle to get upright, but she refused Codon's help.
Her knife made a shallow dent in the sandstone. The rock crumbled under her blade and scattered to the floor.
"What are you doing?" Codon said. "That's defacing heritage. I could have you shot for that."
"Trust me, Doc," Nova said. "Without this, we'd both be dead."
"How? That doesn't make any sense."
"No," she said and continued to carve, "It doesn't."
She kept working; she had to go over the letters three times before they were bold enough. She didn't know how long it would be until she arrived, or how time may affect her words. She couldn't take any chances.
As an afterthought, she added the T to her initials. She still couldn't remember what it stood for, but it was a part of who she was.
"Alright, let's get out of here," she said.
She leaned over and gathered the helmet up off the floor. She hopped the first few paces, but the effort left her breathless, and her body was already in so much pain that she struggled to stay conscious.
She allowed herself to lean on Codon's shoulder and together they shuffled out of the tunnels. When they reached the top of the chamber, they surveyed the desert beyond. It was scattered with the fallen Ancients. They lay across the sand, mostly with their helmets off. Their skin was purple and bloated like the creature in the chamber. All of them were dead.
"They're gone," Codon said with a sigh.
"Cal," Nova said, her mind straining to keep up with events. "Are there any signs of life on the planet?"
"I detect critical physical injury. Immediate medical attention required."
"Just answer the question."
"Two humans remain," Cal replied.
"Crisis averted," she said.
Her shoulders sagged and she would have fallen if not for Codon. It was over; the whole damned ordeal was over.
Except the
madness.
The voices hadn't disappeared along with the Ancients and the shadows still moved at the edge of Nova's vision. A part of her had dared to hope that when the Ancients died, so would her insanity. Her insanity appeared to be coping just fine.
She wanted to scream, curse and yell, and stomp on every last Ancient until they were all indistinguishable piles of goo.
"You damned bastards!" she yelled.
She drew back and hurled the helmet up into the air, ignoring the screaming pain in her chest. It soared across the desert and sparkled in the sunlight.
Just before it hit the sand it blinked out of existence.
"What?" Codon said.
"It's… gone?"
"Did you do that?"
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe it went back to where it came from?"
"Maybe it did."
"You don't think—" Nova's mind raced but the pain made it too hard to think straight.
"No time to sit and wonder," Codon said. "Let's get back to my ship and hope the damn thing flies."
Nova nodded and let him help her across the sand, blood trailed out behind them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Codon lowered Nova onto the command pod's swiveling chair, with an audible sigh. Beads of sweat dribbled down his forehead and collected on the end of his round nose.
Nova squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip as her wounded ankle bounced against the chair. Agony raced up her leg.
"Please tell me you've got Parapem or something stronger," Nova said through clenched teeth.
"The medbot should be able to help you out," Codon said. "Medical unit to command pod."
His ship replied, "Medbot dispatched. Arrival in one minute."
It was the longest sixty seconds of Nova's life. She clutched her leg, just above the knee, in an effort to stop the pain spreading to the rest of her body, and to stop the blood from pouring out of the mangled stump.
The buzz of a motor entering the room made Nova open her eyes. A square robot hovered across the rubble and came to a stop in front of her. It scanned her body with a red light and its internal mechanisms beeped.
"Multiple injuries and major damage detected."
"I know that!" Nova said. "Give me something for the pain!"
The robot opened a compartment and a tray extended out with a single Parapem strip resting on top. Nova snatched it off the tray and laid it on her tongue. The soothing numbness spread upwards and eased her throbbing headache. The Parapem strip couldn't stop the agony coursing up from her missing foot.
"Missing limb detected. Tissue sample required."
"Just do something."
Nova gripped her leg tighter and allowed herself a flicker of hope. Codon's ship had medical technology far beyond what she'd find in Crusader, perhaps it could make the pain stop. She didn't let herself think beyond that, because without her leg she was a cripple and she'd never hold her own as a bounty hunter. She'd lost her livelihood, her life.
The robot hovered closer and jabbed a long needle into Nova's upper arm. The thin point sunk through her skin, into muscle and pain burst through her arm.
"Argh! What is that?"
The robot withdrew the needle.
"Will it stop the bleeding?"
"Stop the bleeding?" Codon said. "That's the latest in med-tech, I designed it myself. We'll have a new foot for you in no time."
"It's got tissue printing?" Nova's eyes bulged and her heart fluttered.
"Of course it does. All Confederacy ships have tissue-regen facilities."
Nova swallowed and stared up at the ceiling. The outer planets couldn't get bandages while the Confederacy overflowed with tissue-regeneration equipment. But Nova's usual outrage fizzled; she couldn't resent the equipment if it saved her leg.
"Tissue analysis complete. Please raise the wounded area," the robot said.
Nova gritted her teeth and forced her wounded leg up so that it was horizontal. Loose flesh dangled down from the mutilated end and dripped blood over the floor.
The robot positioned itself in front of Nova and encased the end of her leg inside one of its compartments. Its motor whirred louder and Nova's leg tingled. It felt like a feather brushing up and down her injured leg that took the pain away.
She breathed easier and her shoulders relaxed back into the chair.
"Engines are clear for take-off," Codon said. "Whatever was holding us here is gone."
Nova let out a slow breath; she could leave this hell-hole.
It took ten minutes before the robot spoke. "Regeneration complete."
Nova opened one eye and looked down at her leg. Maybe it was—but she couldn't let herself hope.
She followed the line of her leg, past her knee, to her ankle, and then up to her toes.
Her heart clenched. They were all there! The skin was lighter than the rest of the leg, as if she'd spent her whole life wearing a thick sock, but apart from that, it was as if the incident had never happened.
She wiggled her toes. The smallest one jerked away from the others and then clenched tight. She tried again and this time her whole foot spasmed up and slammed back to the floor.
"Perfect coordination will take time," said the medbot.
Nova took a deep breath and focused on lifting her foot away from the floor. It jerked up faster than she'd intended but she managed to hold it still for several seconds before it dropped back to the ground.
"Incredible," Nova whispered.
"Old technology," Codon said, waving his hand.
Nova's head spun, she'd been sure her life, at least as a bounty hunter, was over, but she'd been given a second chance. A sharp sting in the side of her cheek reminded her that she wasn't back to full-health yet. She poked around with her tongue and a loose tooth popped free. She spat it into her waiting palm. Blood left a tangy trail across her tongue.
"Are any more repairs required?" the medbot asked.
"No. That will do," Codon said. The medbot turned and hovered out of the room.
"Um—" Nova held her tooth in one hand and her aching side with the other. "I guess I should be getting back to my own ship."
Codon strode away from the controls and stood over her, face stony.
Nova's hand clenched around her tooth and her heart fluttered in her chest. The only way out of the room was past Codon and he had her cornered in the chair with no room to stand up.
"What—" Nova let the tooth fall off her palm and clatter to the floor, her hand flicked to the gun at her belt.
She fumbled and Codon pressed the barrel of his gun into her forehead.
"I can't let you leave," Codon said. "With all of that technology and your powers, it's the biggest discovery since warp-travel. I'll be recognized as the greatest scientist of all time."
Nausea rolled through Nova's stomach. She wanted to kick herself for ever thinking that Codon was anything more than a self-serving, arrogant, pig.
She rolled the chair away from him and then used it to stand. Her injured ribs spasmed and forced her to hunch over. She sucked in a shallow breath and the room spun.
She rested her new right foot on the floor but it quaked, couldn't hold her weight.
"You don't own me and neither does the Confederacy. If I want to leave, then I'll damn well leave." Her chest felt like it was being ripped open with every word. "You know as well as I do that the Confederacy would turn those weapons into death machines. They'd wipe the whole of humanity out by themselves."
She loosened her gun and pulled it an inch from its holster.
A bright yellow ball of energy screamed past her and slammed into the wall at her side.
"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear," Codon said. "You're required by the Confederacy to better help us understand this technology. Destroying it would be in direct violation of Confederacy law. You're now my property under the cyborg act."
"What?" she said. "I'm not a cyborg!"
"I guess that depends on the definition. We'll just have to agree
to disagree. In the meantime, stay right where you are."
Codon reached behind his back and pressed more buttons. The ship beeped twice and Codon grinned.
"Prepare engines for warp," he said.
"Preparing engines," the ship replied.
Nova clutched the butt of her gun, calculating. She was fast, but injured, and Codon had proved he wasn't useless with his weapon. She'd only get one shot.
"I wouldn't," Codon said. "If you move that gun one more inch, I'll blow your hand off. I'm sure you'll be almost as good to us without limbs."
"You bastard," she said.
"For the greater good. Your welfare doesn't mean much in the face of the whole Human Confederacy."
Nova's mind raced. The ship was on autopilot so Codon could stay standing with his gun aimed at her until they landed at Confederacy headquarters. There'd be no chance for escape.
She wiggled the fingers of her left hand back and forth through the air. She needed something, anything to distract Codon but if she'd thought she had control of her powers before, she was wrong.
Instead of reaching through time and pulling out a miracle, her fingers wriggled, useless, in the air. Each breath grew more painful as her cracked ribs pressed against her lungs. Stars flashed at the edges of her vision and she swayed on her feet. Her eyes searched desperately for a way out, surveying the room, chairs, desks, debris. The engines had righted the ship, but there were still things scattered all across the floor.
Nothing useful.
She had to do it.
She let her body collapse behind a row of controls and whipped out her gun.
Codon fired. A yellow blast burned through the air and hit her hand where it clutched her side. The skin seared and blistered. Nova screamed and clutched her hand close to her chest.
Nova's first shot flew wide and took out a video feed, shards of glass scattered across the room. She landed hard and dragged her aching body across the floor to the edge of the controls. She fired three shots around the side.
One hit Codon's knee and it shattered. Pieces of bone and specks of blood exploded out. Codon dropped his gun and collapsed to the ground, clutching his knee with both hands.
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