by Paul Barrett
“Moran’s predictability is about the only rational thing he has left. Although the flashbang was a surprise.” Hawk tapped the side of his ear, opening his comlink. “Ashron?”
“Aye,” Ashron said, speaking over the noise of combat. “We’re on our way.”
“Moran jumped out the window. I need you to go after him.”
“It’s five stories up, he couldn’t—never mind. Probably need another tactic. We’re almost to your position, and the rest of the squad is engaged in perimeter actions. He’ll probably be gone before we can mount a search.”
“Understood. See you when you get here. Did you copy that, Ship?”
“Affirmative.”
Laura walked to the head of the table and snapped her fingers, getting the attention of the stunned executives. “There’s another problem we need to resolve. Lest you forget, I am infected with a contagious virus. I assume all of you have seen what this organism can do.”
Frightened expressions filled the room. Apparently, most of them were indeed familiar with it.
Using the chair as a stool, Laura stepped onto the conference room table and walked to the middle. Horrified, the executives pushed their chairs away. With a muttered equation and a gesture, Gerard forced them close to the table. Sweat dotted his forehead at the energy he was expending.
“I want the antidote, and I want it now, or we all die,” Laura told them.
The various expressions told Laura her statement terrified them. Salakon simply lay still, his shoulders occasionally shaking. No one spoke.
She knelt in front of an obese, sandy-haired man. “Do you know how this virus is transferred?”
The man shook his head and turned away. She reached out and grasped his jaw, forcing his face toward hers.
“Then I’ll show you.” She leaned close and spat in his eye.
He gasped in horror and wiped frantically at his eye. She stood and walked over to a cream-skinned Gronian, his yellow eyes bugging in horror.
“Please no,” he begged in a sibilant voice. “They never told us about the antidote.”
“That’s too bad,” she squatted in front of him.
“He’s telling the truth,” the woman beside him cried.
“Please,” the Gronian said. “We don’t know.”
She grabbed his throat and forced his head up. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered them with his arms. “Nooooo!” he wailed.
She spat in his mouth.
Wide-eyed, he grabbed for a pitcher of water. She knocked it over with her boot.
He started spitting on the floor.
She stood and moved toward another executive. All of them were pleading that they didn’t know and tears poured from most of them.
She almost didn’t hear Salakon when he said softly, “My life for yours.”
He lay on his back on the floor, his eyes rheumy and bloodshot. “What?” she asked him
“My life for yours,” he said in a stronger voice.
She jumped off the table. He flinched as she landed, straddling him. She dropped to her knees and glared at him. “I heard what Moran called you. Is it true?” When he didn’t answer right away, she grabbed the shirt covering his thin chest and shook him. “Is it true?”
“No,” Salakon said. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Lying, perverted bastard!” Laura screamed at him, shaking him harder.
“I know where the antidote is,” Salakon gasped as his head bobbed. “Kill me, and you won’t get it.”
Laura let him go. Her face curled as if she suddenly found herself sitting on a pile of offal. “Tell me where it is,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I want your word that my life will be spared.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I can,” Hawk walked toward them.
Laura never took her eyes off Salakon. “Where is the antidote, you sick bastard?”
“I want you to promise none of your people will harm me. In writing.”
Like a snake, Laura’s hand grabbed his throat and slammed his head against the floor. She pressed against his chest with a knee. His eyes bulged with fear and a lack of oxygen as he grabbed at her hand. She had found and drawn his hidden stiletto and held it against his groin. “I would rather die and take you with me than have you harm another innocent child,” she said in a deadly voice.
“No you wouldn’t,” Hawk said. His hand fell on Laura’s shoulder. He leaned down and whispered. “You’re no good to us dead, and this can be dealt with later.”
Her emotions kept her from any reaction or movement. The slime beneath her didn’t deserve to live. Salakon clawed at her hand. His struggle was growing weaker as his loose-skinned face turned purple. She didn’t think she could live, knowing she had let something this heinous go free.
As if sensing her thoughts, Hawk whispered two words that changed everything. “The Hole.”
Laura suppressed a smile. None of the Knights had to harm this piece of waste physically. He wouldn’t last more than a week in the hole on Red’s. Maybe less once the patrons found out why he was there. It might break the spirit of the agreement they made with Salakon, but justice often ignored such social conventions.
She loosened her grip and jumped away. Salakon grabbed his throat, sucking in gasps of air, while Hawk scribbled on a piece of electronic paper.
“Done,” Hawk said as Salakon sat up. Hawk handed the flexible plastic to Salakon, who stood as he read the impromptu declaration.
“Where is the antidote?” Laura’s voice trembled with rage and fear.
When he finished reading, Salakon pulled himself up straight and said, “In the medical lab with the virus.”
A brief firefight in the hallway caught Gerard’s attention. The noise of gunfire died away, followed by a staccato knocking at the door. Gerard waved his hand. The green glow on the double doors faded and they swung open.
“The cavalry has arrived!” a jubilant Ashron said, charging in with Tasha and Wolf at his side. A squad of Council marines stood behind in the hall.
Laura grabbed Salakon’s shirt and dragged him toward the door, not caring that she caught some of his parchment-thin skin in her grip. Pushing Ashron aside, she headed down the hallway, stepping over the bodies strewn through the corridor.
“Great to see you too, Laura. No thanks necessary. Always glad to help.”
“She’s preoccupied,” Gerard said.
“What was your first clue?” Ashron said. “That cold, glassy stare or the chokehold she had on the Grim Reaper?”
“Wolf, go with them to the lab,” Hawk said, sending him as much to protect Salakon as Laura. He didn’t particularly care if Laura broke their agreement, but it would be much more satisfying to toss the pervert in the Hole and watch him beg.
Nodding, Wolf followed Laura and Salakon down the hallway.
“Boy,” Ashron said, “you guys just don’t know a good time when you see it.”
“Don’t mind him,” Tasha said. “He’s been like this since the fighting started.”
“Did you find the control room?” Hawk asked her.
“We did,” she answered. “Follow me.”
Hawk turned to the Marine sergeant that stood in the hallway. “Sergeant, take these prisoners into custody and transport them to debriefing.”
The sergeant’s eyes grew wide as he recognized Hawk as a Force 13 commander. “Yes, Sir!” he barked, saluting.
Hawk crisply returned the salute. With Ashron and Tasha leading, he and Gerard followed them down the severely damaged and body-littered hallway. Odors of ozone, burnt stone, and blood permeated the corridor.
When they turned the corner, away from the Marines, Ashron smiled and said, “I love it when you’re all official.”
“Shut up.”
They walked down a flight of stairs and through a thick armored door that had been blown off its hinges.
“Been busy, Ashron?” Hawk asked.
“He’s been like a kid in a candy store,” Tasha told h
im.
“New explosive, very effective,” Ashron said to Hawk giddily. “Also very nasty to personnel,” he continued, pointing to an unrecognizable pile of organic matter.
Hawk shook his head, glad Ashron was on his side. He spotted what he thought was the central console. Sitting down in a singed chair, he started adjusting controls. “Ok, Moran. Let’s see if you’ll stay true to form.”
31
Moran And Sara Reunited
Moran fled through the streets, his gait thrown off by the damage to his cybernetic feet from the five-story fall. His right foot had been completely shattered. His left was less damaged, the impact absorbed by an unfortunate pedestrian who now lay dead and crushed on the sidewalk. Moran had ignored the screams of the other people, running as fast as he could in his mechanically injured state. He dashed down a side street and glanced back. No one pursued him, perhaps paralyzed by the sight of a man dropping from the sky. He ran another fifty meters and turned right on to a different street. Then he slowed to a walk and took his bearings using the map that laid out over his cybernetic eye. Moran could not bring his arm under control. Gerard’s energy bolt had compromised it and it now twitched at random intervals.
Fools, he thought. Five years of planning and effort destroyed because he had surrounded himself with fools.
Some in the group had intelligence. They had tricked him into believing they were competent and had the vision and wherewithal to do what needed to be done.
So they deceived you, the inner voice he thought of as his machine voice told him. Who is the fool then?
They are, he replied. They were fools for thinking I wouldn’t eventually see through their subterfuge. They were fools for not acting quickly enough.
Fools for thinking this would ever work? The voice whispered with implacable machine logic.
No! It would work. It will work. I will find another group. A group with more vision and belief. Hawk won this round, but there will be others.
At the end of the crowded street, across the roadway, he spotted a for-hire hovercar idling. Its driver scanned a reader and occasionally glanced at the entrance to one of the office towers that dotted this area. Moran knew his vehicle would already be swarming with guards and he didn’t want to take a chance on doubling back.
His arm had stopped smoking and twitching. Moran checked it. Power had returned, and everything appeared functional. The bolt’s damage had been temporary. The arm’s metal had held it intact. He moved it, and it worked as if nothing had happened.
He limped across the street and stepped up to the passenger side of the craft. He glanced both ways. A sparse collection of businessmen moved down the walkway. No Council Marines or any other authorities to stop him. He opened the car’s door and slid into the front seat.
The startled man began to protest in a language Moran didn’t understand. He didn’t get much out before Moran silenced him by putting a pistol to his head. With hand gestures, Moran got the terrified man to pull into traffic and drive toward the spaceport.
Keeping the gun trained, Moran scanned the dashboard, seeking a netjack. He found one under the steering wheel. Still holding the pistol on his captive, he pulled the link-up from his arm and plugged in. A pleasant rush filled him as his brain made contact with the car’s computer. That spark of raw power was better than any drug. The vehicle was now his to control any time he wanted.
He let the man drive for about another mile, watching the mixture of fear and guile on his face. The driver planned to try something to rid himself of this hijacker.
Shame you’ll never get a chance, Moran thought. They had left the small city’s central business district, and traffic had lightened. Time to lose his passenger.
Moran took mental control of the car. He remotely opened the driver’s side door. Before the man could react, Moran shoved him from the craft. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw the man roll until he slammed into the curb and lay there motionless.
Not your lucky day, Moran thought gleefully.
Moran wormed his way over the center console and into the driver’s seat. He drove down side roads, avoiding the crowded main thoroughfares and slowly winding his way toward the port. He had still seen no sign of law enforcement. They would be arriving soon. Gerard had doubtless already sent out an alarm.
As he drove, his mind seethed with the bitter taste of defeat and raged with hatred at Hawk. Everything you have should be mine, he thought. Sara was mine and Ship should be mine.
You shouldn’t have toyed with them, the machine voice rebuked.
I know that, Moran replied. I wasn’t going to at first. His initial plan had called for nothing more than Hawk and Gerard’s deaths. The rest didn’t matter. Without their leader and his freak cyborg manipulator, the Knights would dissolve and just be another trio of Force 13 agents.
Then Madrin had confirmed what he suspected all along. Sara hadn’t died all those years ago, but through some strange alchemy had become part of The Flaming Star. She and the ship had transformed into one being.
Even so, he would have stuck to his plan to kill Hawk and Gerard and steal the vessel in the ensuing confusion, but he made the mistake of watching the holo discs Madrin sent him. To hear Sara’s voice again sent an exquisite shiver through what remained of his flesh. So many years past and she sounded no different. For a moment, just hearing her speak filled him with strange contentment. He wanted to inhabit the ship, to be surrounded by Sara.
Then he heard Hawk talk to her as if she were a thing, a mass of cold metal and dead electrons. Fury boiled over him. How could Hawk dare to be in such a beautiful presence, the perfect blending of flesh and machine, and treat her like nothing more than another tool?
It was then he decided Hawk had to suffer, that a prolonged revenge had to be extracted. Hawk had lived blessed by Sara’s presence for too long. He now had to be humiliated and demoralized. Before he died, he needed to pay for the sin of possessing Sara.
The machine voice had protested, trying to infuse cold logic. The human side of Moran—dead all these years—had returned to life at the thought of Sara. And with that revival came the rebirth of emotions. Feelings of hatred and betrayal consumed him.
“Who are you, Hawk, to decide that I need help?” Moran screamed at the air. The car made an erratic swerve in reaction to his violent outburst, and another car had to run off the road to avoid a head-on collision.
They had classified him a Product sixty-six! And his “friend” Hawk had gone along with them, telling Moran nothing. They had judged him, and they had no right.
“I’ll kill them all,” he said. “Except Gerard.”
Gerard was worth keeping alive. For a while, anyway. He would dissect the manipulator, tearing his precious cybernetic arm from its socket and making the bastard tell him how it worked. His entire power is in that arm. I’ll keep him alive and in agony until he tells me how to use the power. If he can have power like that, I can too.
Then he would have it all: The Knights dead, aetheric power, and Sara for his own. He would treat Sara as she deserved, with reverence. And he would offer children to her, an entire fleet of sentient spacecraft. With such devoted beings under his control, he would destroy the Council and set himself as the ultimate power in the universe. He would do it all himself, with Sara as his bride.
That was my second mistake. I shouldn’t have gotten UCT, and that child molester Salakon involved. At the time, they had been a necessary evil. He needed their capital and resources. He had his own wealth now. Ever since he had learned the codes to UCT’s accounts, minor amounts of money had disappeared over the past few years. Those small amounts quickly added up to large amounts in several blind accounts: accounts that all belonged to Moran.
He knew as soon as he boarded his craft, he would have to close those accounts and stash the money in special portable credit sticks. That way, the Council couldn’t freeze the accounts if they somehow stumbled onto them.
What if it’s already too
late? The machine asked. What if you’re creditless? Hawk won.
“Shut up!” he screamed. The car ran onto the sidewalk and almost hit a light pole before Moran brought it under control.
He surveyed the surroundings and realized he was almost at the starport. Here he saw his first signs of trouble. Traffic had slowed, and several Port Constable vehicles sat on the side of the road, orange blinkers flashing. A sign above the ramp declared the port on lockdown. It was a reaction to the recent battle above the planet. They would keep craft from departing until debris had been cleared and investigations enacted. That could take days Moran didn’t have.
Most people now bypassed the ramp leading to the port. He pulled onto it. Time to concentrate and bring himself under control. He needed his wits to talk his way onto the field. He would figure out the puzzle of how to leave once he got to his ship.
He bypassed the public entrance, swarming with police and Port Constables, and drove to the reserved field. The force field was up, and a Port Patrolman stood in a small gatehouse. Moran reached into his pocket and pulled out the permit that would allow him access. He also made sure his arm blaster was charged, in case word had gotten here to be on the watch for him. He doubted it had or there would be more guards. No sense in taking chances.
He flashed the pass without opening the window. The guard frowned and motioned for Moran to drop the window. Moran growled and lowered the glass.
“Council authority has put the port on lockdown,” the guard, a young, bronze-skinned man, said. “No ships can leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” Moran said. “I forgot something for a party I’m attending and need to get it. I’ll be in and out.”
The guard considered Moran’s story for a few seconds before he said, “Okay, just wanted you to know, so the tower didn’t have to shut you down.” He pushed a button and waved Moran through as the haze of the force field disappeared.
Moran drove on almost before the field was sufficiently dissipated to let the car pass. He increased the acceleration. He had ways to override the tower’s attempts to control his vessel. Then he would need to figure out how to slip past the Council ships still above the planet. Winks of light in the sky revealed them still riding above the atmosphere. He wanted to be far away from the planet before anyone caught on to his location.