“That would be an acceptable hypothesis, at least until we understand the propulsion and power generation systems of their ship,” Marti said.
“Elias wasn’t kidding when he said it was an ultra-high frequency field that kept their singularity bottled up,” Ammo said. “It’s over 8.5 tera-hertz. T-waves in that range are near the bottom of the IR band for photons.”
She was tuning the sensors to the higher frequency and shaking her head. “I don’t think we can get that high,” she said. “If we could, we might be able to see through—”
“Captain we might have a problem,” Qara said, her voice only barely more than a squeak.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. She sat with her eyes wide and staring off into the distance. “They’re coming again.”
“Where the frak did they go?” Ammo hissed, scrolling out to widen her view as fast as the system would track.
“All hands prepare for action,” he said over the shipwide comm. “We’re tracking potential inbound hostiles.”
“Got them,” she said. “They’re closing fast, range four light hours.”
Nuko’s face appeared on the commscreen. “Olympus Dawn, we just caught a gravity pulse four light hours back —”
“That corresponds to where I have them,” Ammo said.
“I am detecting a spike in the plating grid,” Marti reported.
“Security, we may have—”
“I’ve got company,” Rene said, his voice a hissing whisper. “Two bodies in upper engineering.”
“On it,” Quinn said.
“Try to capture them if you can—”
“We’ve got another pulse,” Nuko said.
“I am also detecting a second positive spike on the grid,” Marti said.
“Another inbound?”
“I hear them,” Qara said. “Four of them.”
He twisted to look at her. “Where are they?”
She shook her head. “I can’t tell… they’re trying to hide their thoughts from me.” Her voice sounded almost like a feral snarl as she struggled to break through.
“Security, look sharp we may have a second set of intruders.”
He swung back toward his console and stared at the screens feeling helpless.
“We’re not seeing anyone else in engineering,” Quinn said.
“Where the frak are they?”
“There’s another pulse,” Ammo said. “Right in the middle of the wake signature.”
“And another gravity spike,” Marti added.
“Another boarding party?”
“That is possible,” it said. “The drain on the sensor line current has increased with each additional intrusion.”
“Are they coming at you?” Ethan asked, glancing at Nuko’s face on the comm screen.
She shook her head. “We’re all still flatlined on the grav-plates.”
“We’ve got two more just appeared in engineering,” Quinn said. The hissing crack of a stunner round punctuated his report. “We’re under fire. The two new ones are tooled for a fight. They’re providing cover.”
Several more shots snapped out in rapid succession. “Frak, they’re wearing armor.”
“We’ve got to get them off the deck,” Ethan said.
“I’ll do my best boss, but—” Another stunner round and the sound of a body falling came over the comm.
“Quinn’s down,” somebody hollered. Ethan didn’t recognize the voice.
“Rene, can you tell what they’re after?”
“As far as I can tell, they’re not trying to get to anything,” he said.
“Delay” Qara whispered. When Ethan turned to look in her direction, she was rocking forward and back holding her body in her arms. Her eyes had glazed over and she was sweating. “They are… distraction.”
“Where’s their other team?” He jumped up, reaching out to grab her as she started to tumble forward out of her jump seat. His hand barely made contact with her shoulder when his mind exploded into a billion burning embers. He jerked back, but the pain was so intense he screamed, crashing against the rear bulkhead and groaning. It was all he could do to stay upright.
“Has anybody got eyes on them yet?” Ammo asked, taking charge of the communications while he held his head and howled. He looked down at Qara and watched her writhe on the deck through a fog of pain. Fortunately, it was fading, and he shook his head. The wave of dizziness that followed almost launched his last meal in protest.
“Got them,” somebody said. It was one of the volunteers. He heard the voice echo around the inside of his skull. “Two intruders. Command Deck, outside computer control.”
“Marti are they after you?” she asked.
“I am detecting a thermal rise on my security housing surface. It may be possible that I am the intended target.” That put them five meters behind the ConDeck in a small alcove across from the entrance to Ethan’s office.
“I’m on it,” he said, stumbling toward the door and reaching back to snag the gun out of his holster.
Another crack this time meaty and heavy. More like the thunder of a real gun. It sounded like it was right outside the ConDeck door. One of the handlers was also on the deck.
“Do not shoot to kill, we need prisoners!” she ordered. “Ethan, stand down!”
He shook his head and stepped to the side of the door as he palmed the lock plate. Another shot echoed down the corridor and he jumped out pressing himself against the far wall trying to get a line of sight into the alcove.
“Hold your fire, the captain’s in the hall too.”
He held his gun up in front of him and slid along the wall with his shoulders pressed against the smooth surface. Getting almost to his office door, he realized the alcove was empty.
Or not?
He saw what looked like a shadow of a person stumble through the bulkhead like it wasn’t there. He blinked several times trying to hold the afterimage in his vision.
“We have three negative gravity plating spikes and the sensor line current drain has ceased,” Marty announced over the comm. “The intruders might be gone.”
“The wake signature is falling back too,” Ammo added, her voice echoing down the hall.
“Where’d they go?” the handler that had fired off the shot asked as she charged up the hall toward the captain. “I’m sure I winged him.”
Ethan nodded, pointing down at the floor. “You hit him.” There was a trail of thick red blood that ran down the wall and onto the deck. An impossible back-half of a boot print was visible where the two surfaces met. Like whoever it was had simply walked through the wall and it had closed behind him.
Glancing around, he noticed a small object that one of the two had dropped in a panic to get out of the firefight. It vaguely resembled Kai’s telepathic communicator with several extra protrusions that made it look like it might have been some kind of tool. He bent over to pick it up.
“Don’t touch it!” Qara said.
He spun to face down the corridor, surprised that she could have recovered so quickly. “What?”
“Don’t touch it!” she said again. This time when he heard her voice, he was looking toward the ConDeck door and knew she wasn’t standing close enough to be what he heard. He shook his head. It doesn’t matter, she’s probably right.
“Security report?” Ethan said. The handler was staring at him strangely.
“They pulled out,” Rene said. “Quinn’s down but it was only a stunner pellet, he’ll be up in a minute. I just hit him with a stim to make sure.”
“Keep your eyes open,” he said. “Just because it looks like they’re gone doesn’t mean they won’t be back.”
“Copy that,” the engineer said.
“Kaycee, we’re clear up here. I need you to come look at something.” He leaned back against the wall and shook his head again. “We got you a blood sample.”
“On my way,” she said, sounding confused. “How did you know I wanted a blood sample?”
They
’d talked about it the night before, even if she didn’t remember. He had more important things to deal with than her forgetting their conversation, so he didn’t bother with an answer. “Kai. I need you up here too. It looks like they left something behind and I’m hoping you can identify it.”
“I’m on my way. What is it?”
“It looks like your thought communicator had an intimate moment with a spider,” he said. “And it makes Qara nervous.” He closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. He felt drained, as the adrenaline of the moment let go of him.
“Ah,” she said. He could tell she was more than a little concerned even from the one syllable response.
“Also, you might want to bring one of your doctors. She went down during the fight and might need help.”
“I’ve already called one, we’ll be right there.”
“Good,” he sighed as he slid down the wall. He felt heavy.
“You touched her, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yah. Melted my brain. How do you know?”
“I’m on my amplifier and not the comm.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ethan opened his eyes and squinted up at the bright light above his face. Through the glare he saw a medical scanner hanging on an arm beside the bed and not much else. He was in MedBay. But something didn’t look right.
Across the room, he could hear three voices. Kaycee was the most familiar, but he recognized the other as Kai. The third one he didn’t know. Maybe it was one of the plussers? It probably was the doctor that Kai had summoned to take care of Qara, he decided.
“How’s Qara?” he asked. His voice echoed strangely around in his head. His brain still ached, and he crushed his eyes closed against the pain.
“She’s sleeping, but she will be fine,” the third person said, he flinched and shook his head against the sound of his voice. “He’s awake,” he announced, this time his voice was much quieter.
“What happened?” he asked. The glaring light was visible even through his eyelids and did nothing to make his brain any less painful. He was about to ask for someone to shut it off, when it went dark.
“We’re not sure yet,” Kaycee said. “Not precisely anyway.”
“Is the ship safe?”
“At the moment we are,” she said. “Ammo’s got the ConDeck and Quinn’s doubled the guards again. At last report the ship is holding position at twelve hours behind us.”
He opened one eye and looked up at her. She held a scanner over his face and was frowning at the readout. Nothing he could see behind her looked right. “This isn’t MedBay?”
“It’s ours,” Kai said. She was still across the room and he couldn’t see her behind Kaycee. He also couldn’t see the other doctor, but he knew he was there.
He reached up to push the medical scanner out of his face and she jumped out of his way. Other than the throbbing in his head, he felt fine, and he had other things to do. He didn’t need to waste time on his back in a diagnostic bed.
“You need to be working on getting that blood analyzed,” he said glaring at her as he rolled over and sat up.
“It’s already done,” she said. “There is no evidence of genetic resequencing in the blood sample.”
Already done? He glanced around the room to orient himself. There was no chrono. “What does ‘no evidence’ mean?”
“In my mind it confirms the blood sample is from an Institute Augment, and not a plusser,” she said.
“The Institute doesn’t even allow passengers on the Tahrat Shan Che who aren’t STIF,” Kai added.
“And since all Institute Augments are required to report their whereabouts at all times, and none were missing as far as I know, the only way it could be Jetaar is if he was using plussers.”
“It could still be him,” he said. “Nothing says he isn’t using a mixed crew. His fighters might be normal humans and not augments.”
“We know that the person who got shot had to be enhanced,” Kaycee said. She nodded at the other doctor who held out the spiderlike thing he’d seen on the floor in a pair of tongs.
He looked at Kai skeptically. “You said not to touch it.”
“You can now,” she said. “Only a plusser or a STIF can use one of these.”
He glanced at Kaycee and she nodded.
The doctor dropped it into his palm and left the room, closing the door behind him. As Ethan watched, it uncoiled against his skin like it was alive. A thin tentacle extended out along the underside of each finger and sealed itself to the inside of his hand like a glove.
He stared at it, unsure if he should be fascinated or horrified. Eventually it quit spreading out and melted into his skin. Whatever it was, it made his entire arm tingle.
Kaycee looked at Kai and nodded.
“What the holy frak is it?” He was climbing toward horror as the sensation seemed to crawl across his shoulder and up his neck.
“It’s an Urah… nevermind. You could call it a dexterity and perception enhancement glove,” Kaycee said.
“You said it only worked for someone who was…”
“Augmented,” Kaycee supplied the word his mind was resisting. “I’ve never seen one meld with someone who wasn’t.”
“What does it do?”
“Come over here,” she said. She gestured to the countertop along one wall. “Let’s start out with something easy. Touch the top of the bench.”
He reached out gingerly and laid the tip of his finger on it. His eyes shot open.
“What do you feel?” she asked.
“Carbon? Iron? Nickel?” He paused mid thought. “Also, polymers. Silica too.” He picked his hand up and looked at it like it wasn’t attached to his body.
“What temperature was it?”
“Twenty-four point six Centigrade,” he said without thinking.
“Close enough,” Kaycee said, winking.
“How the hell do I know that?”
“It feeds sensory data directly to your nervous system then uses your brain to provide comparative analysis and deliver useful information.”
“Only STIF and some plussers can use one,” Kai said.
“But I’m not either of those?” Feeling like he needed to sit down, he backed over to the diagnostic bed and leaned against it. He held his hand up close to his face and stared at his palm. He could barely make out the edges of the glove and some fine details of what might have been wiring.
“You touched Qara while she was in state,” she said.
“In state?”
“In a deep telepathic link with the intruders.”
Kaycee nodded. “She’s such a strong telepath and was so intensely connected to them when you made physical contact with her, that we think the contact might have partially overwritten your engrammatic structure.”
“Engrammatic structure?”
“Your brain scans show some neurological changes, but we can’t figure out how it happened. It’s like the physical contact rewrote your mental code and it is somehow rewiring your brain to match hers.”
“How is that even possible?”
Kai and Kaycee both shrugged.
“It’s never happened as far as I know,” Kai said.
“The alteration seems to be rather extensive.”
“Are you saying I have brain damage?
“Most doctors would say yes,” Kaycee said.
“Is this something that will heal?” He didn’t feel like there was anything wrong, other than the bender class brainache, but it was disconcerting.
She shook her head. “We honestly can’t know until I do more tests.”
“We don’t even know if you’re fully accessing the tool yet,” Kai said. Reaching into her thinskin she pulled out a thin pad and brought it over to him. “Run this between the fingers on your normal hand,” she said.
He did. It was slick and smooth.
“Now with your other hand.” As soon as he touched it, he could feel the screen was rough, almost like it had been coat
ed with a coarse abrasive. One edge was thicker, too. He also noticed that it was warmer than an average body temperature and he flashed on the idea that she’d kept it tucked against the underside of her breast. There were also foreign cells on the surface, and he knew they were there because it had been against her skin.
He held it up to his eyes and frowned. It looked normal, but it felt completely strange.
“You should be able to feel irregularities of a ten thousandth of a millimeter. You can also control your fingers to that precision once you get used to it,” Kaycee said.
“That’s how they scored the conduit so accurately.”
“What?” she asked.
“It was how Rene knew it was sabotage.”
“Now, think about the electrical charge inside it,” Kai said, calling his attention back to the thinpad.
Instantly, Ethan became aware of the charges flowing around in the circuits. He could feel their magnetic fields. He dropped the thinpad down on the bed beside him and stared again at his hand.
“Here’s the part that will prove how well he’s accessing it,” Kaycee said. Reaching out, she snagged his hand above the wrist and turned it over. She glanced at Kai and smiled before she grabbed his hand with her other one.
He gasped.
He felt her.
Her skin, then inward he felt cells, and blood moving. Chemical reactions. Oxygen and carbon dioxide changing places. Long strings of chemicals. Proteins? Amino acids? Calcium ribbons that had to be bones? Other chemicals too. Water? A strange quiet came over him and he realized that he felt her heart beating like it was his own. He fell further inward, and the electrical impulses in her nerves washed over and through him. Then the door opened, and he knew what she wanted him to find.
Her awareness.
You can feel me? Her voice came as a whisper in his mind. Indistinguishable from his own thoughts.
Yes? I think.
Everything around him erupted into a new reality. He saw himself, through her eyes. He felt his own skin… from the outside.
Amusement, she sensed with him.
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 79