The Rush's Edge

by Ginger Smith

  They landed in the same heavily armed spaceport as before, but this time friends were waiting when Hal and Vivi stepped off the ramp.

  Jacent Seren and Patrin Kerlani were present. Hal made his way toward them, scanning each of them nervously, until he saw Beryl. She looked to the side, talking to someone who was hidden behind the large figure of Seren. When Hal got close enough, he saw it was Tyce.

  Ty was sitting in a suspensor chair at an unnatural, stiff backed angle. That was when Hal realized with alarm that Ty was wearing some sort of back brace. His captain looked up and was smiling widely, however. “Hal… when we heard about the spaceport, we feared the worst,” Ty said.

  Hal crouched beside the chair. “I’m OK, Cap. I brought everyone back safe… except Max.”

  “Max?”

  “The researcher. He was shot. He developed a fever and we didn’t have the right medicine to stop the infection.”

  “They’ll help him,” Beryl said, as a group of medics and a few vats ran past them and entered the ramp, following Lane.

  Hal nodded, looking back up at Ty. “You OK, Cap?” he asked, when everyone had turned back to their conversations.

  Ty nodded and shifted his eyes away before replying quickly, “Oh yeah. I’m gonna be fine.”

  “Don’t worry, Ty. Whatever you need, I’m here.” Hal promised.

  “I know.”

  Vivi approached Ty and laid a hand lightly on his shoulder, before wrapping her arms around him and giving him the gentlest hug possible. “I’m so glad to see you,” she whispered, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Me too,” he replied. “So… that was you flying my ship out of port with all the hoses and connectors attached?”

  “Yeah,” she grinned. “But Hal was on the guns. He was amazing.”

  Hal blushed slightly at the praise.

  “So we made the newsfeeds!” Vivi said.

  Ty nodded. Hal stood up as a medic and a group of vats came out of the Loshad with Max on a stretcher. The Al-Kimian doctor had dosed him with meds. He was no longer thrashing incoherently and looked almost peaceful as he slept.

  Seren had heard the question and turned to them. “Come on. Let’s get Ty back to his room and talk there.”

  “OK,” Vivi said. She took control of Ty’s chair and began pushing it along with them.

  “Wait… Where are they going?” Hal asked, looking over and seeing Patrin, Lane and Orin heading out of the hangar in a different direction.

  “To debriefing. They volunteered to go first, so that you and Vivi could spend a little longer with Ty,” Seren said. He was followed by two armed bodyguards who shadowed them back to the medcenter and took up guard outside Ty’s door as they entered.

  Ty tried to swing himself out of the chair and onto the bed, but he misjudged and almost slipped. Hal caught him easily and helped him get seated back on the bed. Ty pulled his legs back onto the bed while everyone looked away, pretending not to notice. Then, Beryl and Seren took seats. Vivi took up a place at the foot of the bed and Hal remained standing beside Ty, as if on guard duty.

  Seren pulled out a handheld and sent the footage of the press conference to Vivi’s data pad with a single hand motion. “Take a look at this.”

  Vivi threw it up on the holo and they watched the newsfeed with increasing expressions of disbelief.

  “Son of a bitch,” Hal cursed.

  “That’s not what happened. Not at all,” Vivi said, shaking her head.

  “We didn’t shoot any innocents. We only fired at the soldiers shooting at us,” Hal said. “And there was only one ship.”

  “We already knew that,” Ty reassured them. “They bombed their own spaceport on… on… um…” His forehead creased as he struggled to remember.

  “Chamn-Alpha,” Vivi said.

  Hal glanced to Beryl when Ty couldn’t remember and caught her slight shake of the head. He said nothing, but filed it away for later, when he had a chance to talk to Beryl alone.

  “Yeah,” Ty said. “They must have bombed Chamn-Alpha themselves. Shot those people to make it ‘look good’ to start a war with Al-Kimia.”

  “Can you tell me a little about how it went?” Seren asked.

  Hal answered. “We picked up Max, then got tangled up in the spaceport lockdown… That Senator was visiting Chamn-Alpha and it shut the place down. Unfortunately, they somehow got wise to Max leaving, and they came after us.”

  “If not for Max getting the mag lock off of the Loshad, we wouldn’t have gotten away,” Vivi added. “But then he got shot.”

  “It sounds like our doctor earned his place with us,” Seren said.

  Hal watched Vivi offer up Max’s datapad to Seren. “This is the data Max brought us. The information about the device was correct. It causes instant death to a vat. You only have to stand a few feet away and press a button, according to Max. It sends out a pulse to their interfaces and…” she looked sick at the words “…Max didn’t know exactly how the device works, but he has theories. And he’s provided all his information on the genetic code of the vats so there may be a way of finding a workaround.”

  Seren took the pad, looking down at the item in his hands with a mixture of relief and revulsion. “We will put people to work on this.” Then he glanced at all of them in turn. “I cannot tell you how grateful we are. This – this may save many lives. I do not mean to push, but if you ever change your mind about joining us… the offer is still open.”

  Hal shook his head. “Not yet. We’re gonna need some time.”

  Seren nodded. “I understand. You need some time together, I am sure. We will debrief you in the morning; that way you have time to eat, rest and recover.”

  They nodded and thanked him. When he was gone, the room seemed very quiet. Hal glanced to Vivi, uncertain what to do or say.

  She nodded slightly, then asked the question they were all thinking. “Ty, what have the doctors said?” She laid a hand on his arm to reassure him.

  Ty dropped his head. “I’m paralyzed. I won’t be walking on my own again.”

  The words hung there, heavy with their air of finality.

  “Cap. You know we’re here for you. Whatever you need from us,” Hal said, putting a hand on Ty’s arm. Vivi took his other hand.

  “I’ve always known that,” Ty replied, his voice rough with emotion. “Always.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  The Loshad’s crew had rallied around Ty for the past two days, anxious to provide support. Hal visited in the mornings, usually after Tyce was back from physical therapy. As he approached the room, Hal could hear the slight metallic slip of the exoframe as Ty moved from the chair to the bed. He was getting better at it, but Hal knew it had to be difficult to get used to the rig, even on the best of days.

  “Captain?” Hal rapped on the door. “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah,” said Ty, sitting down on the bed. “What’s up?”

  “Eira’s asked for you several times,” Hal said softly, after glancing around to make sure it was just the two of them in the room. “She… Cap, I think she’s a little worried about you. If she could talk to you…”

  “Sure,” Tyce said. “I need a change of scenery anyway. First though, I have something to say. Sit down for a minute.”

  “OK,” Hal slid into the chair near Ty’s hospital bed. He wasn’t exactly sure what Ty wanted, but he sensed something in his captain’s manner that said this was important.

  “I’m getting out of here in a couple of days,” Ty said. “I know everybody’s been kinda tiptoeing around all of this but you shouldn’t. I mean it’s obvious that things are going to change. I’m expecting that you’ll be able to take charge more often, Hal. If there’s anything the Chamn-Alpha op told us is that you deserve more responsibility. I want you to take a more active role in things, and I… I think I’m going to need you to.”

  Hal frowned. “Nah, I don’t wanna be in charge, Cap. I take orders from you. It’s what I do.”

  “I get that. But
I need to know I can trust you to be there, to run things when I need you to. And to run things the way I would.”

  “Boss…”

  “Hal, I’m not giving up. I just need some time to steady myself. I need to know I can depend on you while we get used to all this.”

  Hal stood up. “You can depend on me, Ty. Whatever you need me to do.”

  Ty slid off the bed, standing eye to eye with Hal. “Thank you. Now, let’s go see Eira.”

  Ty glided aboard the Loshad in the chair, followed by Hal. They locked the cargo bay, then made their way to the bridge. It felt like coming home at last, now that Ty was with him, Hal thought.

  “Hi, Eira,” Tyce said as the door to the bridge slid open.

  Eira’s voiceprint was on every display, shining like a sea of stars. “Tyce, how are you functioning? I have been concerned.”

  He stood and took several sliding steps toward the captain’s chair before sitting down. “Oh, just a little slower than I used to be, but I’m here,” he said, as he sank down in his spot with a soft groan.

  “I have read your medical records,” Eira said. “You have lost major functioning in your legs, due to spinal cord damage. Is that correct?”

  “Yeah. That’s about it.”

  “May I scan you?” she asked. “To confirm something?”

  “Um, sure,” he agreed.

  “You have suffered damage to the lumbar plexus,” she said after a moment. “Nerve branches were severed during the attack. Your movement is now compromised. When are they repairing you?”

  Ty glanced to Hal, then to the display where Eira waited. “They… They’re not. There’s nothing they can do for me, I’m afraid.” Hal could see Ty’s jaw tighten as he made the admission.

  “It is a simple matter to regenerate nerve cells. I have done so many times for biologics in my lab.”

  The two men said nothing, allowing Eira to read their words from the silence.

  “Oh,” she said. “Your medical technicians and scientists cannot do this.”

  “No,” Ty agreed, letting out a great sigh. “It’s beyond our ability for now. I’ll…” He looked down at his legs. “I’ll be wearing these braces for the rest of my life.”

  “My nanites could be programmed to perform the same functions as the obturator and femoral nerves.”

  “What do you mean?” Ty asked.

  “They can reform the required nerve pathways.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you saying that I could walk again?”

  Hal’s eyes were huge as he glanced from Tyce to Eira’s voiceprint. “W- Wait. You could just fix him?” he asked.

  “Yes, Hal. It is how I have said. I am a biologic scientist,” Eira said in a tone of certainty. “After downloading your medical data, I feel ninety percent certain I could restore Tyce’s physical functions.”

  Hal and Ty looked at each other for several beats where words just wouldn’t come.

  “How would you be able to do that?” Hal finally said.

  “I can repurpose some of the nanites that contain my consciousness to reform the connections that were damaged. They will have to remain there permanently, however.”

  They were quiet again, full of thoughts. Hal was pacing, something he did when thinking strategically and considering the angles. This would work, he thought. He had an allenium interface and he was just fine. If they could help Ty walk again… it was worth taking the risk.

  “So, ninety percent means there’s only a small chance it won’t work,” he said. “What could cause it to fail?”

  “The complex nanites that contain my consciousness are made of mytrite, a different Mudar alloy. It is possible his body could reject them.”

  “Why can’t you use the hull’s nanites? They’re made of allenium,” Hal said.

  “My allenium nanites are more simplistic in nature. They were programmed for one job – to create a vessel for me. They cannot perform the functions Ty’s operation will require.”

  “You have to do this,” Hal said, looking to Ty.

  Ty glanced to the display where Eira’s voiceprint was. “I…”

  “I understand your hesitation. But I have now had 64,838 chances to eliminate you and your crew. I have not. You asked me to keep them safe and they are safe.”

  “I did?”

  “Before your attack, you said that you were leaving them in my care, and you required me to keep them safe.”

  Ty was struck silent, then spoke. “Thank you, Eira,” he said. “We certainly wouldn’t be here without you, and I’m grateful. I trust you. When, ah, when can we try this?”

  “I will need fifteen-point-two hours to modify nanites, amatan. I will need Beryl’s assistance after that.”

  “OK then,” Ty said. “Sometime tomorrow?”

  “I will be ready.”

  “We need to go find Beryl and Vivi,” Ty said to Hal as he transferred back to his hoverchair. “They’re not going to believe this.”

  The next morning, Ty checked out of the medcenter with Beryl and they returned to the Loshad. Beryl had talked to Eira the night before and together they had planned the procedure. Ty would be lightly sedated while Beryl injected him with a saline solution containing Eira’s nanites. They would bind to the damaged areas of Ty’s spinal cord and hopefully restore Ty’s ability to walk as they connected his severed nerves. Beryl had explained it to them, then left for the medbay to ready it for the procedure.

  Hal and Vivi waited with Ty in the galley. “Tyce, I am sensing elevated vital signs. Are you feeling well?” Eira asked.

  “Yeah. I’m just… a little nervous,” Ty admitted. His braces whirred softly as he adjusted himself in his chair.

  “I will take the greatest care during the procedure,” Eira said.

  “I know you will,” Ty replied.

  Hal and Tyce continued to talk while Vivi walked back into the kitchen to grab coffee. Since the Chamn-Alpha op, Hal had been thinking the Loshad needed a new paint job, so she could hear him trying to distract Tyce by discussing colors for the ship’s new paint scheme. As Vivi listened and added sugar to her cup, a sudden idea came out of her like a soap bubble popping.

  “Eira, is there anything your nanites could do for Hal? So that…we could keep him with us longer?”

  Everything in the room stopped. Finally, Eira answered, “It is very possible. From my previous scans, it appears that Hal has interface nodes or sensors in places throughout his brain which control different functions. While the interface and its nodes cannot be removed, there is a seventy percent probability that disrupting the node’s signal would negate the ability to rush, thereby stopping adrenaline fatigue syndrome.”

  Vivi almost dropped her cup. Turning, she saw Ty’s reaction. “Hal–” Ty said.

  “No, Cap. I’m not taking your place,” Hal replied with a shake of his head.

  Eira broke in, “While I cannot say with a hundred percent accuracy, I should be able to help both of you.”

  “You… you can?” Hal asked.

  “Yes, Hal, I believe I can suspend some of my subroutines and spare enough nanites without losing integrity. I would do this for my amatan.”

  Vivi could see the overwhelmed expression on Hal’s face as he sat back. She and Ty shared a look, then Ty put a hand on Hal’s shoulder. “Hey, let’s step back from this a minute. There’s nothing that says any of this needs to happen today. There’s time to think it over.”

  “But you need to go ahead,” Hal said.

  “Not yet. After this kind of news, we need to take a minute and regroup, and I want Beryl to talk this over with Eira before we press go. I can stand these braces another couple of days.”

  “But Cap–” Hal began.

  “We’ve got time. Do me a favor and go let Beryl know what’s up,” Ty said.

  Hal let out a frustrated sigh. It was clear he wasn’t happy with Ty’s decision. “OK.”

  After Hal left the galley, Vivi looked to Ty. “He’s got to be persuaded t
o do this.”

  “I know we want him to. We’ll try and convince him, but ultimately, it has to be his decision,” Ty said. “We can’t make it for him, as much as we want to.”

  “We’re talking about his life,” Vivi said, coming to sit beside Tyce.

  “I know, but Hal hasn’t had to make a lot of decisions like this. He’s going to need some time to wrap his mind around it. If what Eira says is correct, he’ll be giving up part of who he is, Vivi. That can’t be easy.”

  “You mean the rush.”

  Ty nodded. “He takes protecting us very seriously, so he might struggle with that. We need to keep that in mind.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Hal took a seat on the ramp, looking out at the hangar in front of him. Even though it was the evening hours, and the temperature was dropping, soldiers were still moving equipment and supplies onto transports. It felt oddly comforting to watch the bustle, and he lost himself in it for a while.

  “Hal?”

  He turned to see Vivi standing behind him. “Hey, Veevs,” he said, a smile crossing his features.

  “I just came to check on you. If you need to be alone…”

  “Nah. Come on.” He motioned to the ramp beside him. Earlier in the day, Beryl had confirmed that Eira’s plan had a great chance of working. Everyone had been giving him space… time to think about Eira’s offer. He’d taken a walk, then spent the afternoon in the cargo bay working out. Punching the bag always had a way of clearing his head that nothing else ever did. But now, he was starting to feel lonely; he needed to talk to someone.

  She came and sat. “Everything OK?”

  “Just… thinking about everything.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  He looked around, watching a soldier pull a stack of hovercontainers past the Loshad to the larger transport waiting outside. “You know, I actually feel at home here.” He gestured to the busy soldiers in front of them. “Most of my life was spent waiting in places like this. Waiting to go somewhere else. Waiting for the next battle. Waiting to see if I was gonna be smart enough or strong enough to bring back my team from whatever shit we were gonna find ourselves in.” He paused a moment. “I never thought I would live long enough to get out of the ACAS. Figured I’d just be another bolt-catcher left on some rock somewhere when I got gunned down. When I was released from service, I decided to just go raise some hell before my expiration date – go out fighting in the vat clubs rather than dying from adrenaline fatigue, y’know.”