by Melissa Good
“Daniel, we must speak with you.” Doss looked meaningfully at Jess. “It’s important. And urgent.”
“I gathered,” Kurok said, dryly. “What’s the emergency? I see the comp systems are offline.”
“Well...” He looked again at Jess. “Let’s go into your office so we can speak privately.”
Doctor Dan glanced casually around and met Jess’s eyes. “Why don’t you join us after Dev’s ready?”
“Daniel...” Doss objected.
Jess smiled. “Sure, we’ll do that.” She lifted her hand and let the gun rest against her shoulder, not missing the twitching from all the security guards in the room as she shifted again and picked up Dev’s pack, getting the strap over her shoulder.
Jess let them wait, then she stepped back and into the chamber, allowing the door to shut in front of her before she safed the gun and turned to regard the table. “Hope he knows what he’s doing,” she muttered. “That’s a bunch of three-weekold dead fish there.”
As she said it, the lights changed color and went back to the normal off white shade, and the overhead speakers made a little clicking sound. “Operations to normal,” the voice announced. “Return to standard stations.”
Jess regarded the speaker thoughtfully. Then she walked over to the console Kurok had been working at and tapped the input, watching as the screen stayed at a static screen with “SYSTEMS OFFLINE” on it. “Huh.”
Dev was still out, lying on the table that now had all the mechanical bits retracted, her slim form covered with a light blanket. Jess went to her side and peered down, putting her hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Devvie.”
She saw marks just under each ear, and she tilted her head to inspect them, small cuts that had been swabbed with antiseptic she could just smell. They seemed closed and just had a tinge of rust red around them.
“Deeevvvvie,” Jess warbled, blowing into Dev’s ear gently. “C’mon, rock star. Wake up.”
Dev’s breathing changed a little, and after a moment, her pale eyes flickered open, blinking in a little confusion. She looked up at the ceiling then turned her head. “Jess!”
“Hey,” Jess responded. “You’re a people.” She touched the small wound, then peeled the neck down on Dev’s Interforce uniform to find a distinct lack of a collar beneath it. “Doc did a good job.” She inspected the skin, which seemed a little lighter than the surrounding surface but had no mark on it.
In reflex, Dev reached up to touch her neck, her fingers pausing as they felt only smooth skin. “He did? It’s done? Where is he?” She sat up. “It hurts a little.”
“He had to take something out.” Jess peered at the cuts. “Those things in your head I guess.”
Dev’s gaze went inward and her eyes unfocused briefly. There was a difference, but she was hard pressed to describe exactly what it was.
She knew it was there, though, and it made her smile, and suddenly she was so glad they’d come to station. “Oh, Jess. He really did it.”
Jess ruffled her hair. “Glad that worked out, but we’d better get ready to do stuff because something’s going on out there. I got your gear.” She unshouldered the pack. “They just announced everything was cool, but I don’t think so.”
Dev sat up and shifted around, hanging her legs off the table. She took a deep breath and released it. “Where is Doctor Dan?” She hopped off the table, took her pack and opened it, removing the jacket she’d folded inside.
The cuts on her neck stung. She felt a soreness up along the line behind her ears to the back of her neck, and if she turned her head she felt a twinge. “He really did it.” She carefully settled the jacket over her body and tugged the sleeves straight.
Jess took a step back to watch her. “He’s in his office. He wanted us to come over after you got up.” She put her blaster on it’s holster at her side. “There are a bunch of your buddies outside and some of the other docs.”
Dev moved her jaw around and rubbed the back of her neck.
“Sore?” Jess asked.
“Yes,” Dev said. “I think it will take some time to adjust.” She came over next to Jess and looked at the console. “Oh!” She reached out to touch the input pad. “That’s unusual.” She put her hand flat on the embedded square, but it didn’t react.
Jess tightened her pack and put her hand on Dev’s shoulder. “Yeah, let’s go find out what’s actually going on. Doc may need our help.”
“Yes,” Dev said. “We should go find him. I want to say thank you.”
They headed for the door, pausing as the surface under them shifted a trifle, and Jess felt heavy, then not.
“Suboptimal,” Dev responded without prompting. “Not good at all.”
KUROK WENT BEHIND his desk and dropped into his chair. Doss and his retinue followed, and the door slid shut behind them. “Now, what’s going on?”
One of the men with him pulled a blaster out and held it. “We’ve got problems.”
Kurok gave him a withering stare. “Put that away. If you think that’s supposed to intimidate me you’ve got the wrong idea, Charles.”
Doss came over to the edge of the desk but stayed standing. “Daniel, there’s a shuttle locked on. They want the seeds and the system. The one we sold to the homestead.”
Doctor Dan put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Did we do that?”
“Don’t act stupid, Daniel,” the man called Charles said. “You know perfectly well what we did. Don’t pretend you don’t.”
“Well, except I don’t,” Kurok replied in a mild tone. “If someone was supposed to tell me, they didn’t, so sorry, Charles, I wasn’t a part of that stupidity.”
“It wasn’t stupid,” Doss said. “Daniel, it’s a breakthrough. You know it is. That was the only place they found that mineral, and they were glad to work with us on it. Don’t disparage that.”
Kurok regarded them. “And now we have the other side here, ready to take it from us at gunpoint because they know damn well they can’t take it from Drake’s Bay.” He looked faintly amused. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Talk to them,” Charles said. “You come from there.”
Kurok laughed. “Are you really that much of an idiot, or do you just not know that much about my past?”
Doss cut Charles off with a stiff arm gesture. “Daniel, they’ll listen to you. It doesn’t matter about your past.”
Kurok stood up abruptly and put his hands on his hips. “Screw you,” he said. “It’s not my project, not my screwup, and I’m not going to talk to a posse of jackasses from the other side who will know more about me than you do and probably shoot me on sight.”
“Daniel!” Doss shouted. “Be reasonable!”
Charles pushed past him and thrust the blaster forward. “Listen, you jerk! You’re going to do what we tell you to do or... blup!” He reeled backwards as Kurok came over the desk at him, flailing his arms as the gun was taken out of his grip, and he was whacked in the head with it. “Ahh!”
“Stop it,” Kurok hissed, safing the blaster and tucking it into the front pocket of his harbor shirt. “Idiot!”
Charles pushed off the wall he’d stumbled into. “Don’t you call me an idiot you—”
“Just shut up, the lot of you.” Kurok removed the blaster again and unsafed it, aiming it at them with casual skill. “Before I blow your heads off.”
Doss stepped back in shock, holding his hands up. “Daniel, we just want to do what’s best for the station! We have to deal with these people!”
“You,” Doctor Dan shoved him back into the room and away from the door, “are an idiot, and you two are bigger ones. You have no idea what fire you’re playing with. Have any of you sent a message down to Interforce that we’ve got an invasion?”
Charles leaned over, holding his head. “No. They took our systems offline.”
Kurok sat down on his desk. “Okay I’ll have Dev relay it. She can hack them.” He put the gun down on the desk and folded his arms. “Be
cause the problem is, oh my colleagues, we don’t have anything to give them.”
“We can...” Doss started, then paused. “They think we developed a growth medium.”
Doctor Dan stared at him. “Why would they think that? Did you tell them that?”
“I did,” Charles said. “They were ready to offer us anything.” He lowered his hand, and there was blood on it. “You cut me you little bastard.”
Kurok went back around his desk and sat down in his chair, scrubbing his hands in his thick, pale hair. “Sit down, all of you.” He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the desk, then pulled the blaster back across it and shoved it in his pocket again. “What kind of shuttle is locked onto us?”
Uncertainly, Doss sat down in one of the chairs across from him. “Well, I don’t really know,” he said. “After they locked on, the systems went down, and besides, Daniel, we really don’t know much about all that. Can’t you just talk to them?”
They felt the grav shift, and Doss clutched at the desk. “What was that? Maybe the systems are back up.”
Kurok slid his entry pad over and tapped it, reviewing the results. “No.” He pressed a few keys and then started inputting. “Let me see if I can try something else.” The auth pad lit up and he put his hand on it, the pad turning from pink to teal immediately.
There was a light tap on the door, and then it opened to reveal Jess’s tall form filling the opening. “You got problems,” she said without preamble. “You’ve got a T300 series military shuttle clamped on and three dozen troops coming down the hall.”
“And then again, who needs systems when we have a Drake around.” Doctor Dan pushed the console away from him. “These idiots told them we’ve got a growth medium to sell,” he said. “They want to talk to me about it.” He glanced past her. “Hello, Dev. Are you feeling all right?”
Dev produced a whole hearted smile as she came up to join Jess. “Yes, Doctor Dan. Thank you.”
His eyes twinkled a little.
“Why did you tell them that?” Jess asked Charles.
“Because they were willing to pay anything for it. For him.” Charles pointed at Kurok. “They’re dying. Something happened months back that sent them into a spiral and now they’re desperate. So, yeah, I told them we’d gotten something working.”
“See, Daniel? You have to talk to them,” Doss said. “I’m sure the security is just to keep themselves safe. They know we’re no danger to them.” He stood up. “I left them in the rotunda. Let me go tell them you’re coming.”
Jess pushed him back into his seat. “He’s not going to talk to them,” she said. “If they figure out who he is, they’ll blow him into bits. We’ve got to figure out how to get them out of here before they break something we can’t fix.”
“But...” Doss protested.
“Or before they figure out the person they actually have to talk to is you,” Kurok said in a dry tone. “On the other hand, maybe the sheer irony of that will make their heads explode and solve our problem.”
The station lurched, and a moment later the power went off, and they were in complete darkness.
“Welcome to the frying pan,” Kurok said. “The sound you hear all around you is the fire.”
DEV HAD A panel apart, and her head stuck inside of it, a small worklight poking out of her mouth. It was pitch dark around them in the lab, and she could hear the buzz of worried chatter from the bio alts behind her.
She was looking for a way to cross connect the lab systems into emergency power. Her hands moved in automatic motions, sorting through the cabling and boards inside the console as her mind tried to encompass the knowledge that her collar was gone.
If she pulled her head out of the cabinet and looked around, she would see a hundred LED traced rings on a hundred bio alt necks, but if they looked back at her, they’d see nothing.
Even if she took down the neck of her Interforce uniform, still, nothing.
It was such a strange feeling, Prickling and new and strange and amazing and really, really distracting.
“Anything, Devvie?” Jess’s voice rumbled behind her.
“Not yet.” Dev forced her concentration back on the traces. There was a bus there that she could almost... “Ouch!” she yelped, as she touched a live lead, then almost put her head into it as the cabinet was suddenly full of Jess crowding in anxiously behind her.
“What happened?” Jess said. “Are you okay?”
“There is power here.” Dev shook her fingers a little and flexed her hand. “I touched it.”
“Oh.” Jess cautiously withdrew. “Be careful, Rocket.” She bumped against Dev’s hip.
Dev turned her head and flashed the light behind her, catching the twinkle of it on Jess’s eyes and savoring the feeling that caused inside her. She returned the light to the boards, then almost dropped the light when Jess gave her calf a friendly squeeze.
And all of that was okay. She felt the resonance of that as she carefully put the power on bypass then rerouted the leads over and clamped them on. All of that was okay. She took the light out of her mouth. “Please take care. Power on.”
Doctor Dan had told her it was okay, in that deep twilight that was being down, a gentle reassurance she could feel even now, and knew she would never experience again.
“Go.” Doctor Dan’s voice came from another console some distance from her. “Shunt the power, Dev.”
“Yes.” Dev removed the bypass and got her hands out of the way as, with a crackle and pop, systems started to come live around her. She backed out of the cabinet and was lifted to her feet by Jess, as lights started to come on across the lab.
Doctor Dan appeared, a screwdriver behind one ear and a pair of cutters in his hand. “Good job, Dev. Let’s see where that gets us.”
“Doctor Dan, the outer ring hatches are still locked,” An AyeBee reported, his head poked through the propped open inner door to the lab. “I can see emergency lamps in the core.”
“Yes, thank you, AyeBee. Stay calm. We’ll sort this out,” Kurok reassured him.
“Yeah, chill,” Jess added somewhat helpfully. “Ya got the two best wrenchers in the history of the planet here. If they can’t fix this, it ain’t fixable.”
Kurok chuckled softly, shaking his head.
Doss was pacing. “This is unthinkable.” He went to the panel and leaned over it. “This is restarting. You think it will come up?” he asked Kurok. “Can we get comms?”
Dev had her scanner out and was tuning it. “There is a lot of power flux going on,” she reported. “I think the grid’s offline,” she said to Doctor Dan. “Someone’s trying to cut in the reserve systems, but they are not really being successful.”
Kurok had a panel open on the console top with wires trailing inside it. “Yes, well, we have to get that sorted before we stop being able to cycle air.” He glanced at the door. “It must be pandemonium down below.”
A blast of sunlight came through the upper levels, looking strange and harsh. “Cover your eyes.” Doss turned and ordered, almost automatically. “All of you! The photo shielding is down. Don’t look at the sun.”
Jess shut her eyes in reflex as the light poured into the lab, feeling it bathe her face and show blaring and white through her eyelids, and she spared a moment to wonder what it would be like if they could see the sun from downside.
“Systems are booting,” Kurok said in a mild tone. “Then maybe we can get comms, get the outer ring open, and find out what the hell is going on.”
“It feels warm, doesn’t it?” Dev asked.
“Yeah, it does.” Jess held her hands out and felt the warmth against her skin. “Like the rad in Market Island.”
“Yes.” Dev half turned to shield her scanner and eyes from the sunlight, recalibrating it slightly. “Hopefully we will not experience the cold water.”
Jess felt the light move off, and she opened her eyes, looking around to see the bio alts lowering their hands from their faces and the two other scientists
getting busy at some of the returning systems. Soon they would get things going, and then she could go out and do something far more useful than hanging around here.
She shifted her pack and tightened the straps, wandering away from the consoles and out into the outer chamber where twenty or thirty of the bio alts had settled down. Mostly the pilots and the guys who did mech she realized. “Hi.”
They looked at her nervously.
Jess went over to the hatch seal and poked at it. She saw it was on override, the station’s systems designed to keep sections sealed when there was some problem out there, keeping as many people safe in one area as it could.
Made sense.
Dev came over to her and fiddled with her scanner. “There’s pressure and breathing air in the next section,” she said.
“Good thing since they’re trying like crazy to open this door. Hate to have it pop open if we’re just going to explode.”
Dev eyed her. Then she smiled. “You’re really funny sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?” Jess kept poking at the controls. “How are ya feeling?” she asked. “Neck still hurting you?”
“It’s sore,” Dev admitted, “But I feel amazing.” She kept her voice very low. “Don’t talk about it here, though, with the sets around us. I think it would make them feel unhappy and possibly incorrect.”
Jess left off messing with the panel and put her arm around Dev instead. “Anything you can do to speed this up, Devvie? I got a feeling I need to be doing something.” She felt a certain tension coming into her body.
Dev sighed a little and glanced behind her. “I really don’t think so, and if I did, I would cause the director a lot of discomfort. He’s really agitated.”
“And?”
“He will get upset and start yelling again,” Dev said in a slightly confused tone.
“And?” Jess watched her cock her head to one side in bewilderment. “Why care? He can’t do anything to ya.”
Dev frowned.
“He can’t do anything to ya for three reasons,” Jess said. “One, you ain’t got a leash no more. Two, cause the doc back there is going to whack him if he does, and three, because he knows if he messes with you I’m going to kill him.”
