by David Byrd
Zara engaged FTL before Nash could even hope to respond which is how she liked it.
Chapter 20
Dr. Brielle Gorman was involved in a heated debate with someone on the other end of the vid. Her assistant carefully avoided being close to her when she was in a mood like this.
“I don’t care what you think Burke. The trouble is that our little experiment was never meant to become this widespread in the first place. You can blame that on that idiot Caldwell.” She said.
Burke bristled on the other end turning red. “Don’t you lecture me Brielle; you are just as much to blame on that score. And you leave Caldwell out of this.”
“Hit a nerve there Burke…no matter, right now we need to go to phase two. I assume you can carry out your end without my constant oversight.” She said looking at another console showing a ship docking. “I have other matters to attend to now Burke so please do not disappoint me.” Gorman broke the connection leaving Burke furious with his mouth hanging open like a fish out of water.
The nerve of that woman Burke thought. If she wasn’t integral to the plan he would love to send her a beautiful box of chocolates laced with the most deadly pathogen he could dig up from the vaults. But she outranked him in this instance.
Burke brought up a set of pre-planned orders to release public statements system wide. The news nets and automated systems would pick up and relay the messages all across the Human inhabited worlds, outposts, stations and colonies. In short it would say that Paxton Bio through exhaustive investigation had found the cause of the illness on RanClor IV. It would also say that a vaccine was on its way to help those unfortunate people recover. Paxton would provide the necessary prophylaxis free of charge. The text went on to say that researchers had discovered that the parasite was from the Telvari home world and it was a dedicated effort to destroy RanClor IV. The proof of the secret invasion of RanClor IV by Telvari aliens with the sole purpose to destroy the Humans was unfortunately destroyed in a RanClor IV Research Center, most likely by the aliens themselves.
That should have the desired effect he thought. Burke activated the widespread release and then sat back in his chair with a smug smile.
The door to Dr. Gorman’s office opened and Dr. Julia Danforth followed by Caldwell Turner came in. Turner held a weapon on Julia as she entered the room.
“Ah Dr. Danforth,” Gorman said rising from her chair behind a desk and moving in front of Julia to shake her hand. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. I know all about your work and in fact your advanced discoveries in Restrictive Enzyme research has been an enormous benefit to our work.”
Julia was disoriented for a moment. She recognized the woman’s face but couldn’t recall from where. Seeing her confusion the woman continued.
“By the look on your face I can see that you’re confused. First…Turner, that weapon won’t be necessary. Why don’t you run along and let Dr. Danforth and I have a nice chat.” Gorman said. Turner with a sullen look turned and left the room silently.
“There that’s better, now why don’t you sit here and I’ll introduce myself. My name is Dr. Brielle Gorman and I am the director of this…facility.” Gorman said sweetly moving back behind her desk and sitting down.
“Gorman,” Julia said softly going over her memory of that name until it sprang forth with clarity. “You are the same Dr. Gorman who pioneered modern gene splicing techniques?”
“Why yes that would be me.” Gorman said with a smile.
“But…you disappeared years ago. There were investigations and theories that a competing company had abducted you.” Julia said.
“Well all of that was necessary for me to carry out more important work without encumbrances,” Gorman said. “I just can’t tell you how pleased I am to have a fellow scientist of impeccable reputation to work with again. You wouldn’t believe some of the people I’ve had on my team for the last year. Barely a brain between them I’m afraid…especially that hired gun Caldwell Turner. But I do find uses for all of them and I have every confidence that you and I will do great work here.”
“Where exactly is here?” Julia asked.
“We’ll have plenty of time to go over all the details,” Gorman said touching a spot on her desk. Turner came back into the room shortly after. “I just wanted to meet you straight away after your arrival and when you get settled and get your sea legs, we’ll have a long chat about our work and your new responsibilities.”
Julia knew she was in danger and the best option was for her to play along for now. It wouldn’t do to antagonize the people holding her captive until she could find a way to escape or send out a message. She rose and walked to the door with Caldwell but turned to ask one more question.
“Dr. Gorman, you implied that we had work and responsibilities. Just how long are you going to keep…I mean how long do you suppose I will be needed here?” Julia asked.
“Oh my dear didn’t I say that...too many things going on I suppose. Why this is your new home. You’ll never leave,” Gorman said with the sweetest smile.
Chapter 21
Julia was taken down a hallway to a doorway that opened when Turner placed his palm on the reactive wall pad. He pushed Julia inside and then closed the door. Julia waited a few seconds and then went back to the door but it was locked and refused to open. Taking stock of the situation she was in a very large set of quarters with multiple rooms. A sitting room/office of sorts followed by the standard refresher and a sizeable bedroom. She thought that Dr. Gorman was probably trying her best to impress her and win her over but she had another thing coming. She needed to gain the woman’s trust to explore the entire complex. So far she had been brought straight from the freighter to Gorman’s office and these quarters on the same level but the complex must be quite large to accommodate laboratory space. For now she tried to get as much rest as possible before making her break.
“Turner you need to make that supply run now that the good doctor is secure.” Gorman said over the vid to Turner who was back on the freighter.
“I’m not an errand boy for you Brielle,” Turner said. “You forget who I am” he said with a sneer.
“Oh on the contrary Caldwell Turner, or perhaps you prefer your father’s name? I know exactly who you are and what your motivations are as well,” Gorman said. “As long as you are paid well for your services you’re happy and I’m also happy.” Gorman’s smile dropped into a thin line and her eyes took on an intense stare into the vid console. “But you should really never forget that as far out as we are with no support, it’s sometimes very, very difficult to find…volunteers to try out some of the more cutting edge techniques we are developing. I’m sure at some point you’ve brought in supplies to the lower levels…”
Turner did his best to hold her gaze steady but before she disconnected he swallowed. She was apparently satisfied with his involuntary tension response and cut the connection. Turner let out a breath cursing himself for not being more forceful but the very mention of the things he had seen on the lower levels made his skin crawl. He was only too happy to blast out of this rock.
The StarSeeker arrived a parsec out from the target coordinates and immediately activated the stealth system and shutdown all high energy active scanners. Using passive low power scans positioned in a forward cone configuration, they were able at this distance to cover the target coordinates and a half parsec in all directions of it. If there were any other ships or installations in that area it would just seem like normal background radiation. The downside was that the only thing that would register would be active movement in the area. For now that was better than walking into a trap.
“Could be waiting for a while so let’s get started,” Jevin said pulling out what looked to be an antique deck of playing cards.
“What are we supposed to do with those things,” Zara asked wrinkling her nose.
“Zara love, sometimes you have to respect and honor the past and besides, these are my lucky cards.” Jevin said.
&nbs
p; “Well you sure won’t get lucky with those old things,” she said with a wink. “Deal us in.”
Multiple games and two sleep rotations later the computer responded with a tone indicating activity in the target area. They tracked the contact leaving from the vicinity of the coordinates they were given and then moving at sub-light speed a distance away and then it disappeared.
“Jumped into FTL,” Nash said. “So we have the coordinates and the vector that ship took and where it left normal space. I’m betting that as a routine it will follow the same pattern in and out. It would be standard measures for safe approaching and departing vectors. Let’s extrapolate that return point and move to within 100 kilometers of that position. When it returns, we’re going to stop it.”
“No argument from us,” Zara said. “Adjusting course…we’ll be in position in 15 minutes.”
The door to Julia’s room slid open to reveal Dr. Gorman who entered the room immediately. “I hope you rested well Julia…may I call you Julia? I mean after all we are professional colleagues far out in the universe.” Gorman said.
“I…of course,” Julia said hesitantly.
“Good it’s settled then and please call me Brielle. Now if you’ll follow me I want to show you where you will be working.” Gorman said leading Julia out of the room and into the hallway. “So you already know that my office is at the end of this hallway and that green door is a lift that will take us down to the lab level.”
The entered the lift which soon opened into a very large room full of equipment, crates bio containment tubes and small office areas Julia supposed contained specialized equipment or specimens normal to research lab.
“Here we are then,” Brielle said. “Some of the most exciting discoveries have been made in this room and you are welcome to use anything you see here. That office on the right is your office and I’ve already downloaded all of the current research projects that we’ll be working on.”
Julia was having difficulty pandering to Gorman directly so she made a show of inspecting all of the equipment and specimen chambers around the room when she was startled to see the parasite in a containment cell on a worktable. Next to that cell was another chamber that she discovered harbored mosquitos. “Arbovirus…she said absently.”
“Yes exactly, I’m impressed. I’ve seen your work on RanClor IV and I have to say I was amazed at how quickly you solved the problem.” Gorman said.
“I don’t understand doctor...Brielle I mean. What was the purpose of that?” Julia asked.
“To see if it could be done dear. That was really just the first test subject. We’ve progressed far beyond this now. It was unfortunate that so many people on RanClor IV became infected. It was unintentional. We setup a controlled test but Mr. Turner let things get out of hand and we had a bit of cleanup to do after that.” Gorman said.
Julia was seething inside but she dared not show it. Her brief interactions with the woman convinced her that Gorman was either insane or had a very sadistic streak in her personality and for the moment she needed to be friends.
“I see,” Julia said. “I’m not clear on why this alien slug though?”
“That’s the real secret,” Gorman said her eyes shining with interest on the subject. “You see that little fellow hitched a ride with the first contact group for Telvari. It was a disaster of a mission but when they returned, Earth wanted the little fellow analyzed so they gave it to one of the top Bio Tech companies on Earth.”
“Paxton? Julia said her voice rising a notch. “Paxton Bio? You mean all this time I’ve been…played for a fool? They sent me here to investigate and find a solution all the while planning to kidnap me.”
“Well dramatic I guess but we needed a way to get you out here and since we failed at Nix station, we had to take drastic measures on RanClor IV. We had hoped to convince everyone that you perished on Nix in an accident but here we are.” Gorman said.
“I still don’t understand why I’m important or why this creature is important?” Julia said.
“I think you’ll find all you need in your office terminal. But I have another matter so I’ll be back to check on your progress later,” Gorman said quickly turning and heading into the lift. Julia went to the lift a minute later but it refused to open. So now I’m slave labor she thought. Well I better learn all that I can about this.
Julia made another circuit of the lab and found no other exits or lifts so she knew the only way out was the lift they came down on. Resigning herself, she started accessing the terminal in her “office” going back to the first entries about the organism. When Paxton took over research of the animal they discovered it reproduced asexually by fragmentation. So a portion of the animal would split off and create another complete copy of itself. This was beneficial to Paxton in that they didn’t have to worry about cloning or trying to keep enough animals for research. But the other more important discovery was a type of alien bacteria in the animal that could be used as a Restrictive Enzyme in gene splicing. The process was so successful they could splice multiple types of genes together in a single host to take on those characteristics.
Julia had been reading for several hours and stopped at that point. The type of experiments Paxton was involved in with went far beyond all morality. Gorman appeared soon after and led her back to her suite of rooms where she found dinner had been prepared and laid out in the sitting area. Gorman left as soon as Julia was in the room.
Chapter 22
“There she is,” Jevin said suddenly. The freighter returned from FTL a few hundred kilometers away from their present position.
“Zara you have a go for tactic Alpha,” Nash said.
Zara activated the program. Hull plating energized and the stealth field dropped at the same time as the engines flared towards the target. An automated signal was broadcast to the freighter to stand down but the freighter suddenly lurched in another direction and sent a volley of pulse bursts their way. Zara was expecting a fight and the StarSeeker changed course radically and sent a couple of pulse shots across the bow of the freighter.
“Nash he’s not stopping,” Zara said.
“Alright Jevin, give him a little nudge but be careful. We still don’t know if Julia is on board that ship.” Nash said.
Jevin targeted the engine section of the freighter and with pinpoint accuracy sent a series of low power pulses into the engine exhaust cowling bucking and blowing one apart but not harming the engines themselves.
The freighter came to a dead stop and hung in space appearing to wait for the next attack.
“He knows he’s outgunned and that we’ll board him next so he’s getting ready to repel boarders,” Nash said. “It’s almost a textbook scenario but we are going to do a little of the unexpected. We’re not docking in the main port. Instead we’ll use the cargo bay freight connector.
Zara expertly docked with the freighter’s cargo bay docking collar and the three of them prepared to enter the hostile ship. Weapons drawn they opened the inner airlock and stepped inside. Lighting was dim and the hold was nearly full but no shots rang out in their direction.
Jevin pulled out a small scanner from a pocket of his BDU’s and scanned the area.
“No one in the bay but there is a concentration further in the ship,” Jevin said.
Nash was thoughtful standing in the middle of the bay. So far the freighter was not responding as if they were ordinary spacers. Indeed they were acting with military tactics. First concede to the greater force and then prepare to repel that force with the highest advantage of success which would be in the small hallways and sections of the ship forward of the cargo bays.
“Jev, can you disable the engines?” Nash asked.
“Ah…sure they would be through that hatch. With physical access I can disable them.” Jevin replied.
“OK…Then you get moving on the engines and then back to the StarSeeker,” Nash said. “This whole thing feels like a trap. We have to move forward to take the ship and if I were in char
ge I would find a way to flank around behind us from inside or outside and either trap us in the middle, or take control of our ship. So we’re going to proceed as if someone here has had military training. Zara I want you to find us another route to the bridge that doesn’t use the main corridors. Anything you can find…air ducts, maintenance passages you get the idea.”
“Roger that,” Zara said moving to the cargo bay consoles to call up ship schematics.
Ten minutes later they were ready. Jevin deactivated the remote linkage bundles from the bridge to the engine assembly and then re-entered the StarSeeker. Zara and Nash were slowly making their way forward using maintenance ducts. About 1.5 meters in diameter, it was a cramped journey but it would prevent any snare that was planned. Zara consulted the schematic she downloaded into her flexible wrist gauntlet. They stopped for a moment so that Zara could open a control junction and make a few modifications and then they proceeded forward.
The schematic indicated that they were next to the main bridge. Moving silently they carefully opened the maintenance hatch and peered in both directions. Far down the aft corridor Nash saw the glint of a weapon. From the distance he noted at least three people in position to ambush anyone coming up the main corridor. Zara nodded appreciatively to Nash for his foresight as the slipped out of the hatch and silently approached the main bridge. They tensed at the bridge hatch because opening the hatch would alert the men down the corridor. Timing the activation, Nash palmed the bridge to open at the same time Zara tapped out a command on her gauntlet. As the bridge opened, the men in the corridor stood up at the sound and the hatches fore and aft of their position slammed shut trapping them in between.
There was but one lone man on the bridge sitting in the captain’s chair. The man turned around at the sound of the hatch and was caught off guard.