Ghost of Mind Episode One

by Odette C. Bell

  Chapter 14

  John Doe

  John couldn't believe his eyes. She was still alive. And what was more, the cuts along her arms and the multiple tiny abrasions that had covered her cheeks and arms were gone.

  As if they'd never been there.

  And though she sat exactly where the containment field had dumped her, as stiff as a board, she was still very much alive.

  Which was incredible considering what she'd gone through.

  ‘She's in the cell now, sir - the Chief has requested,’ the officer began.

  ‘Then tell him to come down here. I'm not moving from this door till we finish those scans,’ John snapped.

  The officer made a little strangled noise, but John hardly paid attention to it. Instead he kept his eyes locked on the woman. Which was a good thing, otherwise he would have missed her twitch powerfully at the mention of a bio scan. Just what did she have to hide?

  ‘Okay sir,’ the officer managed in a single, sharp breath. John had been in charge of troops long enough to know when someone was holding something back.

  Turning slightly, hating the fact he had to take his eyes off the woman, John looked down at the officer. ‘What?’

  ‘The scans can't penetrate through this cell. It's not designed for that. Also, because systems are being upgraded right now, the only system capable of doing a full bio scan is in the main area.’ The guy practically winced away from John as he spoke.

  It wasn't as if John was going to hit the officer; while the guy's information was not welcome, John had come a long way from the disciple that used to be doled out in the slums. ‘Right,’ he let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I guess we'll be needing that containment field again.’

  ‘Sir,’ the officer was a little bolder now.

  God, bad news again - John could just tell. ‘Yes?’ he hazarded.

  ‘While our systems are being upgraded they won't be able to penetrate through a containment field.’

  John's shoulders deflated, and if it wasn't for the fact his armor was rigid, he'd probably drop to his knees in frustration. Okay, maybe not all the way to his knees, but this news was not welcome.

  Taking the time to glance back at the woman, John stopped. Because she was standing, the stiff look of her body gone, her head raised. Though he still couldn't see past her hood, he could see her top lip.

  She was smiling.

  He'd been right; smiling suited her far more than the morbid scowls she'd been offering him. And he imagined that right now she had a lot to smile about. No doubt this was brilliant news for her. If they had to move her into the central area, she would try her hardest to escape. And considering what she'd gotten up to over the past hour, her hardest might just be better than what John would have to offer in reply.

  Before John could think of a plan, he was interrupted. He turned to hear a rattling, croaking cough.

  It belonged to a tall Bakar. His face, like all Bakars, was lined with spikes and was one of the most fearsome sights in all the universe. Fortunately this guy was not rattling an electro spear and whetting his tusks in preparation for glorious battle though. He was staring down at John with a less-than-pleased expression.

  ‘Chief,’ the security officer by John's side suddenly snapped a salute.

  So this would be the Security Chief of Orion Minor. It made sense to pick a Bakar - with the number of slums crawling over the lower buildings of this planet, you would need someone hardnosed, and in this case spikey, to deal with the crime.

  ‘Why did you redirect the entire ICN? Why did you take hold of one of my transports? Why did you dictate our priorities while the entire weather field of Block Alpha is offline?’ the Chief asked. He had a voice familiar to all members of his race. One that reminded John of stone grinding against stone. It always made his back itch and arch.

  Planting a hand on his chest plate, keying in a short code that saw his helmet disappear as the plating of his armor rearranged in a hiss, John didn't bother to set a force field to replace his helmet just yet. Though he would. He was not going to stop being cautious around this woman. Not until the hood was drawn back from her eyes and her identity revealed.

  John did not flinch and neither did he look for a second like he was sorry for the numerous inconveniences he'd caused the Chief. ‘Union dictate,’ John snapped simply.

  The Chief considered him warily. ‘For that,’ he stretched a hand past John and flicked it towards the woman within the security field.

  It was a dismissive move, and one that made the woman shift on her foot to face the Chief.

  John cleared his throat carefully. He understood that the crap the Chief would have to deal with would be immense, but John liked to think every being in the universe deserved a certain level of respect. Right from the pirates to the exalted leaders.

  Fixing the Chief with a look that made it clear John wasn't impressed, he cleared his throat pointedly. ‘Yes, for her,’ John emphasized the word her. She wasn’t a that, she was a person. An important distinction. The kind of distinction you used when something was alive and breathing and worthy of being distinguished from the grit and slime and detritus that lined your walls.

  The Chief narrowed his eyes, all three of them. ‘Are you going to explain why she is worth this? It looks as if an unarmed security bot could take her down.’

  John gave a sharp laugh. ‘Hey, you go get one and we'll see if it can. Or,’ John crossed his arms, ‘if you are done questioning my authority, I would be happy to fill you in on the situation.’

  John had gotten into trouble for his attitude on numerous occasions before. Hell, it had been the one thing that had almost prevented him from being promoted.

  There was a chain of command in the Union Forces, and you respected it. You did not sass your superiors, and you always acted with decorum. That extended to not deliberately pissing off Security Chiefs on backwater planets.

  But John had been promoted, and no matter how deep he dug, he could not uproot the side of his personality that always rallied against injustice and intolerance.

  The officer beside John was obviously trying very, very hard not to laugh. The guy was probably half human and half some other soft race, so John could recognize the stiff-lipped, crinkled-nose look well.

  ‘I see,’ the Chief finally replied. ‘I have stopped, as you say, questioning your authority. Debrief me.’

  And that's why John liked the Barkanians. A matter-of-fact race when they wanted to be, notwithstanding the brutality and thirst for war, that was.

  Taking a deep breath, John talked the Chief through the last hour of his life. Listing the woman's exploits one after the other. The Chief did not snigger in disbelief; John didn't give him the chance. He linked up to the Pegasus and got them to send down all the information they'd picked up on the woman's fall and resultant walk through the frosty salt and snow dunes of Orion Minor.

  When John was finished, he looked over his shoulder to see that the woman was no longer in the center of the room. She was not huddled on the bench or underneath it either, considering how large it was. She was pacing, back and forth in front of the security fields. Though she was a good four meters away from the crackling field, that didn't stop the color of it from playing across those exposed lips of hers.

  The sight caught his attention for a second.

  ‘Commander, I repeat,’ the Chief said louder, ‘I demand we do a bio scan at once. I do not want to risk having a high-profile criminal or assassin cyborg in one of my cells. The Union will have to be informed immediately; we don't have the facilities to hold such creatures.’

  John snapped his attention back to the Chief. All facts he agreed on; the woman needed to be scanned as a top priority. She also needed to be placed in a better holding cell whenever it was safe to move her. But John doubted very much she would turn out to be an assassin cyborg; not with that smile of hers. And as for her being a high-profile criminal, he had no evidence. But a flicker of intuition told him that wasn't even sc
ratching the surface of this elusive woman's secret.