by Jan Domagala
She moved over to the ops station and accessed the main computer via her NI. No subtlety this time she just powered through all the firewalls and went straight to the files she wanted. IN a matter of less than a second she had downloaded all she needed to her NI and then turned to Kurt to ask, “Fast enough for you?”
Before Kurt could reply the alarm sounded throughout the entire base. Her intrusion into the computer main server had raised the automatic alarm and within moments the C and C would be crawling with security personnel looking for the intruder. They had nowhere to go. They were trapped.
Kurt looked at Zara and said, “Time to go,”
Both of them activated their SUT’s once more and were gone in a flash.
*****
Apollo heard the alarm sound and rushed from his quarters back towards the C and C grabbing a weapon on the way. He burst onto the command deck his pistol held in a two handed grip as he searched for a target. What he saw chilled his blood and confused him at the same time. Dead bodies littered the blood splattered floor; all the staff working there had been slaughtered.
How could this have happened without anyone knowing?
Accessing the comm. channels via his NI he called the lab where the test subjects were still being monitored.
“What is happening sir?” asked the lab tec running the experiments.
“We’ve had an intruder, are the test subjects ready?” Apollo asked.
“I can’t guarantee the serum has been successful sir, we haven’t had enough time to monitor any results. I haven’t had the time to run the proper tests anyway,” the lab tec said.
“Are they ready to go or not?” Apollo asked bluntly. He was not interested in excuses, just results. There had been a serious breach in their security and he was going to do anything that was necessary to rectify that problem.
“Yes I suppose they are sir.”
“Good, send them out now to the C and C,” Apollo ordered then closed the call.
*****
Kurt and Zara appeared out of another starburst of intense light this time inside one of the interior pods. They had appeared on a balcony overlooking a vast area that housed hundreds upon hundreds of containers, each the size of a human being. Row after row of these containers were lined up on the floor filling an area the size of a football field.
“What the fuck are they?” Zara asked and without tearing his eyes from the floor below Kurt said, “Cloning vats.”
“You’re kidding right?”
“I wish I was.”
“There must be thousands of them,” Zara said, her voice almost breaking under the enormity of the discovery.
“Yep with this set up they can have an endless supply of troops to send against us,” Kurt said his face cold and hard.
“If they have Norsky up here and they somehow duplicate what was done to him, and us, what’s to say they won’t try to make those things also like us?” Zara said with real fear in her eyes.
“My thoughts exactly. We have to destroy this entire facility, and fast,” Kurt said and he accessed a comm. channel via his NI.
“Jake, we have what we need, blow this place to hell,” he said once the call was connected.
*****
Jake Riley heard the call from Kurt and turned to the rest of his team and said, “Right here we go, Artie take us into position ready for Kurt and Zara to come aboard. Captain Biggs, we have the go signal for your assault.”
The Pulsar’s AI steered the huge craft into a lower orbit to make it easier for their two expected guests to come aboard.
“Here we go people, payback time,” Jake said with a certain amount of satisfaction in his voice. A sentiment that was echoed by his team as they all replied, “About time too.”
*****
Captain Biggs had been waiting patiently for the signal from the Pulsar and when it finally arrived he said, “Right people, this is what we’ve been waiting for, let’s raise some hell.”
The huge battle cruiser’s engines fired sending her up and over the lunar horizon toward the target area. The second they were in firing range they would open fire which gave Kurt and Zara less than ten minutes to get aboard the Pulsar and for it to remove itself from the danger zone.
They could afford no delays.
43
Kurt and Zara looked at each other. They had to make a decision and fast. Should they bug out and get to the Pulsar and allow the Odyssey to blast this place off the surface of the Moon, or should they try and learn if Norsky was located here first?
“What do you think, do you think they’ll have kept him here or moved him to another location?” Zara asked when she saw the hesitation on Kurt’s face.
“If they’re using his blood to formulate a serum, like they were trying to do with me on Toldax but to enhance these clones, then it’s a possibility. If they have taken samples of his blood to store for that purpose then they may have moved him to another location to do the same there. Either way we have to destroy what they were doing here, we can’t take the chance that anything of this experiment will remain and we can’t take the chance that the bombardment will do the job on its own,” he replied after a moment’s pause while he formulated his response. Without saying it he was asking a lot of this young woman but deep inside he knew she would not disappoint him.
“Okay let’s go find him, but before we do, what do you intend on doing when you find him?” she asked.
“We don’t really have a choice; we have to make sure he doesn’t bother us ever again. Are you okay with that?” he said.
“Definitely, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to try and take him back with us so the General could use him instead of us in any experiments,” Zara said bringing up a point that had not occurred to him. Shaking his head he dismissed the thought before it could grab a hold in his mind and form into a plan. He dreaded that happening to him or Zara so much he would not wish it upon his worst enemy. At the moment Norsky had that potential so he had to remove it before it became a real threat.
“No, definitely not, we have to stop them using Norsky and if it means totally destroying him then that is just the way it has to be,” he said with a tone of finality that brooked no further comment from her except to say, “Okay, let’s do this.”
Before they could move a Rover5 appeared in the corridor through a door behind them they had passed on their way to their present position. The Rover5 was accompanied by three other clones all armed with Remm assault rifles.
“Freeze!” shouted the lead clone and before he could react, Kurt and Zara had turned firing their own assault rifles cutting him down in a hail of pulsed plasma fire.
The remaining clones had already aimed their own weapons on the two figures before them but as they fired their bolts passed through empty air as Kurt and Zara had gone into a combat roll forward to come up on their knees, their Remm M25’s already at their shoulders firing as the opposing fire passed harmlessly over their heads.
The three clones were cut down in seconds leaving Kurt and Zara free to get to their feet.
“We’d better get moving this place is only gonna get more crowded the longer we remain here,” Kurt observed.
*****
“Kurt, where are you and Zara? We only have a few minutes to get you both aboard before all hell breaks loose,” Jake said through a battlecom comm. link. Artie had already informed the Wildfire Team that the Odyssey was en route to their location and that her weapons were locked and loaded. If they did not vacate the area within the next eight minutes they would come under fire from their own people.
“There’s something we have to do first, stay on station as long as you can and we’ll get to you,” Kurt replied not giving too much away. Jake thought better of enquiring as to what he had meant, instead leaving him to get on with whatever it was so that they could make the rendezvous on time.
“It seems we’ll just have to wait and ride it out,” he told the others.
“Is there n
othing we can do to help them?” Vance asked in frustration at having to sit and wait.
“I agree, I’m sick of sitting on my ass while they put theirs on the line for us,” agreed Cooper echoing the sentiment.
Jake looked at Torres, raised an eyebrow and asked, “You want to get in on this too?”
“They’re right Jake, and you know it. If the shit’s hit the fan down there what’s stopping us joining in and adding to the mayhem?” she replied getting to her feet to stand in the middle of the bridge.
“Orders, that’s what’s stopping us from going down there, our orders. Look I don’t know why Kurt has changed the game plan but I’m guessing it must be something really important for him to even think about it.”
“What if they aren’t back in time, are you really going to sit back and let the Odyssey level that place knowing two of our own are down there?” Vance asked getting up to stand next to Torres. This was rapidly turning into a mutiny and Jake had to regain control fast before it all went pear shaped.
“You’ve seen what Kurt can do, I don’t think anything that happens down there would do anything more than slow him down a little,” Jake said keeping his voice calm so as not to agitate his team any further.
“What about Zara, we have no idea what her abilities are and if they aren’t as advanced as Kurt’s they could be in real trouble because I can’t see that man leaving her behind to die,” Torres said.
“She came back from Toldax after being shot dead and having the facility destroyed around her according to the report, so I think she’ll cope,” Jake said.
“Let’s hope so then,” Cooper said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jake asked rounding on the only member besides himself still seated.
“Well if she doesn’t make it out of there I wouldn’t like to be the one to tell Kurt that we just sat on our asses up here and did nothing to help,” he elaborated.
Jake turned away from Cooper’s blazing stare and said, “We follow our orders, now everyone get back to work.”
As the other two sat down Torres said, “How would you feel if it was you and Nat down there and we were up here and did nothing, just following orders?”
“You don’t get it do you,” Jake said turning to face them all, “Sinclair wanted them on this op on their own for two reasons; first they are the best , for the job and second because they have a certain skill set, they can’t be killed which makes them expendable,” he added.
“Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron, saying someone can’t be killed but they’re expendable?” Cooper asked.
“You know what I mean, they are the future of Col Sec, they can be sent into ops that would be certain suicide for anyone else but they can get the job done. Sinclair’s known this from day one, he just needed Kurt to come back voluntarily, now he has two operatives and I wouldn’t bet on him trying to make a few more either in spite of what he may promise Kurt.”
“Bottom line is, we do nothing to help them then,” Vance said through gritted teeth, clearly he did not like how this conversation had turned out.
“I’m afraid so, yes.”
“That’s just fucking great,” Cooper said slamming his fist down on the armrest of his seat in anger.
44
Apollo had re-staffed the command deck after the massacre there. He stood in the centre of the large room as the new clones took over the stations vacated by their predecessors. Although he had holstered his weapon at his hip he remained alert for any other intrusion and he turned as the ten enhanced Rover5’s entered the C and C.
“What kept you? Never mind, we have to find the intruder and by ‘we’ I mean you. Get out there, access the interior sensors and locate whoever it is and bring them to me,” he snapped at them.
Without a comment the team simply turned and left the room.
“Have you located the intruder’s yet?” he asked ops, he could feel his frustration rising once more. How could anyone gain entrance to this location never mind wreak the havoc they had in this, the most secure section of this secure facility was beyond him. He was determined though to learn how they had done it and to make them pay.
“Not yet sir, it’s difficult to lock on to them,” replied the clone.
“Why, what is the hold up? You have the most sensitive sensors available and you can’t pin point one intruder, I find that amazing or is it something else, are you incompetent?” Apollo shouted, his frustration taking control of him.
“Sir there is two signals that we are trying to track but they keep disappearing then appearing elsewhere. If I didn’t know better sir I’d swear they are teleporting.”
“Impossible.”
“I know sir but check the readings for yourself,” offered the clone at ops and he stood up from his station stepping over the dead body at his feet.
Apollo stepped forward to do as was suggested. After checking the results of the scans he stepped back, his mind rapidly trying to work out what to do to compensate. Finally he said, “Recalibrate the sensors to locate just these two signals, and then try to work out if there is some sort of pattern to them, we might be able to predict where they’ll go next. In the meantime double the guards on the cloning vats and Norsky. One thing is certain, whoever they are they are working for Col Sec, I don’t know how they learned of this base but I’m certain they won’t leave.”
Suddenly another alarm sounded at the ops station. The clone sat back down to read what the problem was and said, “Sir, we have a starship coming into our section. Sir it’s the Odyssey and their weapons are charged.”
Apollo could see his command coming apart at the seams as everything seemed to be against them. His mind raced trying to formulate a plan, working out possible strategies then finally he said, “Man the defences, I want to be prepared if they attack. Find those intruders and just in case, prep the ship. If we can’t save this place we’ll leave and blow it to hell.”
*****
Kurt and Zara stepped out from the blinding light into a lab and fired their Remm M25’s killing everyone in the room before they could react. In front of them, in the centre of the large room was a hyperbaric chamber and suspended inside, wired to controls on the outside of the chamber was a lone figure. He had a full face mask covering the front of his head supplying oxygen to him even though he was sedated.
“Norsky.” uttered Kurt as he recognised the figure in the tank.
Before they could take any action five armed clones came rushing through the door. A withering barrage of pulsed plasma bolts filled the room forcing Kurt and Zara to dive for cover. The walls and floor were peppered by plasma bolts causing debris to be thrown into the air and because the two of them had been standing in front of the hyperbaric chamber when the shooting started it took several hits also.
From his prone position on the floor behind a desk Kurt watched at the transparent ferriplex covering the hyperbaric chamber began to star on the impact sites. Cracks began to appear as the impacts took their toll, stretching further and further away from the initial target areas. Fluid from the chamber started to seep through the cracks as the damage became irreversible.
“We’ve gotta get out of here, that thing is gonna blow any second,” Kurt said quietly to Zara lying next to him.
“Where do you suggest, I’m all ears?” she replied as she craned her neck around the desk they were hiding behind. Plasma bolts continued to pick off bits of their cover as the firing continued, the clones seemingly oblivious to what was happening to the chamber close to them.
Kurt saw the ferriplex begin to shatter and the fluid from the hyperbaric chamber begin to pour out. The clones became aware of the truth of the situation as the fluid flowed around their feet. Their attention was suddenly diverted away from their prime target giving Kurt and Zara their chance.
Inside the emptying chamber Norsky was beginning to wake up. His eyes opened and he took in his surroundings. The memory of his last moments struck him like a thunderbolt from the blue. He
recoiled as the memory filled his vision and obscured what was in front of him.
Kurt watched his enemy come round. The recognition of his surroundings slowly registered on his face along with the fact that he had survived the missile attack.
Norsky looked around the room. He saw the Rover5’s in front of him and then his gaze landed upon the two figures being threatened by these clones.
Kurt Stryder and Zara Hardy, he had no idea how they had got here, he had no idea even where ‘here’ was but he did know that no one was going to harm Stryder and Zara. No one except him, that was.
The clones turned to view what was happening behind them one after another until they were all facing the now empty chamber.
As Norsky’s senses returned the changes wrought on him via the addition of the alien d.n.a. began to manifest themselves. As he stepped out of the chamber he began to grow. It was as if he was exploding from within, his limbs began to pulse as his muscles began to spasm. To accommodate this new growth his arms and legs lengthened whilst his torso widened so that when he stepped onto the floor he stood at least a head taller than all the Rover5’s.
He glowered down on them then his fury exploded in a flurry of frenzied motion as he ripped into the stunned armed clones. He picked the nearest one to him up by the throat with one hand and then gripped the clones’ waist with his other hand and with terrifying ease ripped his head clean off tossing it across the room with utter disdain.
“Holy crap!” Zara uttered after seeing the head come flying across the room in their direction. Both she and Kurt watched in stunned silence as Norsky destroyed the rest of the clones in similar fashion, ripping arms off and punching holes in chests in a display of primal fury that was devastating to see and all before one single shot could be fired against him.
When it was done and all the clones lay at his feet Norsky turned his attention to them.
