Keydra looked down the table at Phelian. “Naturally Commander Crex.” She laughed, and took another bite. “I can’t have our senior staff being stuck under Kala’s care for malnourishment.” She giggled, and looked over at Kala who returned the smile.
Teasingly Kala spoke up. “Stuck? Stuck under my care.” She laughed very lightly. “I’ve been told it’s a wonder to enjoy, and others have said they’d rather be sick if I’m tending to the wounds. Stuck, indeed.” She smiled and enjoyed the change of emotions around her. She noticed that even Merx and Henessa were more at ease.
Kei smiled. “Yea, yea, we’ve heard nightmares about your care.” She laughed, and everyone at the table joined in the jovial laughter.
Cyrin approached the table with her half eaten tray. “Mind if I join the party? My previous company is a bit in the sullen mood today.” She nodded to a table on the far end of the room where Sira the pyrokenitic was finishing her plate with a clearly unhappy expression.
“Everyone’s welcome.” Merx spoke up as Henessa gestured to an empty seat next to Keydra, who slid in to make a little more room.
“Thank you.” Cyrin sat down and looked around to everyone with a warm smile, “This is already one of the most interesting groups of people I’ve ever worked with.”
Maddux looked up, and tilted his head slightly at the new arrival. “How so?”
“Let’s start with, not one of us have the established chain of command position experience, but we have more knowledge than we’re typically given credit for in our respective positions. Palrion being the only person who will make sure we are given the credit we’re due.” As she spoke, she gestured to the room. “Also, I know for a fact at least one person at this table could have been executed, another should be in the brig for subverting a superior officer, and a third should have been neutralized as a child but somehow made it beyond expectations.”
Frowning, Henessa looked at Cyrin. “Did you serve on the Reverence? How do you know this?” Henessa felt her reflex to reach for Cyrin’s mind, and stopped herself from doing so. She held Merx’s hand tightly, and could feel him become tense as well.
Cyrin shrugged. “I do my research. I know something about the background of everyone we will be working with on this mission and the entire bridge crew.”
Merx arches an eyebrow, and looked right at Cyrin. “You’re not one with security clearance to delve into that kind of information, nor the security clearance to go further back than the crew manifest. Even your last assignment limited your access to such files, so tell me, how did you manage to obtain such data?”
A grin crossed Cyrin’s face as Merx spoke to her. “I’m pleased you are as detailed as I am. I obtained the information because the fleet commander doesn’t know how to properly secure it. A four month trained military cadet could easily obtain this information. That is, if they were paying attention in basic computer design.”
Kala’s eyes grew wide, but Rouen asked what she was thinking. “You broke into the fleet commander’s computer system and stole the information?”
Casually, Cyrin nodded. “Yep. And I’m going to break into that Dentonian computer too. Cybernetics will be a bit more challenging, but I’m sure I can play some games with that as well.”
Confused, Kala finally managed to speak about this subject. “Wait… how can you actually manage to do this?”
“I’m an electrokinetic. If you learn how to manipulate the electrical impulses that run almost everything we do, you’re able to access and manipulate anything and if needed, anyone.” Cyrin spoke as though this was common knowledge.
Without another word, Maddux got up from the table, disposed of his tray and left the mess hall, clearly frustrated.
Kala watched him go, her hearts saddened by his emotions. She turned back to the table. “Zero four hundred will be here before we know it. Perhaps we should all retire for the evening.”
The table fell into agreement without hesitation. Once trays were dispensed of, and pleasantries spoken, each member of this unique team moved into their own rooms for the night.
Chapter 11
At exactly zero three hundred, every member of the senior staff was woken in unique and disconcerting manners. Each manner was designed for and catered to shock the individuals awake.
Henessa, Merx, and Sira were woken by an unexpected pool of water, on their beds, where they were sleeping.
Cyrin woke when all of the lights in her quarters turned on without obvious instruction to do so. Every time she would order one off, two more would flicker, and all would turn back on, at an additional ten percent luminosity.
Keydra was woken by random, light items dropping from above her. All of the items were relocated from the mess hall.
Phelian, Rouen, and Kala were woke through intrusive noise alerts, in their bed quarters. Each sound was different, and persistent. The longer a sound persisted, the more uncomfortable it would become.
Zaren woke when insect filled dirt was relocated onto his bare chest and legs.
By the time they all were dressed in uniform, and assembled in the training area, they were already shaken. The experiment in unusual wake up routines was nothing compared to what came next. Palrion ordered each one of them into the most grueling and physically challenging training course any of them had ever encountered. The course started on the training deck, and ran through the halls of the ship for two decks and countless maintenance junctions.
In various areas, the ship itself worked against them. Some aspects of the course had none lethal lasers for weapons fire, while other areas the environmental controls actually caused the obstacles. In more physically demanding areas, there were holo-projected opponents. Fire, gravity changes, and egregious conditions persisted throughout.
The team finished the course back on the training deck where the captain was waiting. Palrion was furious when the last arrived in the room.
“Your shifts start in thirty minutes, but you won’t have time to shower, and prepare. Do you know why?” The room fell silent and into formation by rank. “Because you moved through the course independently, you moved far too slowly. There was little if any teamwork seen on that course. How do you expect to function as a unit if you are stepping over your fallen teammates, Sira?” He looked right at her and she remained silent. Both knew any response would not have been adequate.
Palrion walked to the holo-projection panel on the nearest wall, and used the standard projection sequences to force the team to watch the way the course was run.
It was obvious the team was working independent of each other. Each member was seeking to finish the course, but not seeking to help the others do the same with little exception. This issue was emphasized as Palrion began to rant about their flaws.
“Cyrin was it too hard to shut down the laser sights before your team got there?” As he yelled, she remained silent. He walked down to Zaren. “You watched Sira have trouble with the climb, so you just hung a few rungs behind her on the ladder and waited instead of helping her?”
Zaren stiffened his stance but also found himself hesitant to respond. Palrion walked down the line again while the sequence played out around them. In a snow filled section of the course, he paused the life-sized replay, and pointed to Kala. “You… Did you really think the best way to get through that was to walk? This is not a course that says get through carefully, it’s a course that says get through.” He then gestured to everyone. “If you were working together through that short section, Kala wouldn’t have walked or seen a need to, would she?” The group remained silent and he restarted the projection.
The course resumed playback around them. Again, Palrion walked the line of his covert team like a wild cat ready to pounce. When the image of Rouen Maddux showed him moving through a wall of flame, Palrion again stopped the playback. “Maddux, really? Do you think that a wall of fire is something you need to rush? What happened to shutting down the system that created it?”
Commander Maddux rema
ined at attention, and like the others, he remained silent. A moment later the projection resumed, and Palrion went back to stalking. The playback continued to scroll through the events until Palrion stopped it again at an image of the group converging on a climbing obstacle. Keydra had fallen. Kala reached to help her up, and several pushed passed them in a rush for the obstacle.
Palrion started to yell. “There is more wrong with this than I want to remotely entertain.” Then the playback resumed through the halls, up four decks to training deck five and in a full run, for most, into the training gym.
By the time his rant was over, every member of the senior staff was late for their first day on duty. Every one of them was fatigued, frustrated, and realizing what they were up against. They completed a full shift in their respective departments that day. When they retired that evening, they were both physically, and emotionally exhausted.
Zero three hundred arrived again, and the team re-lived the experience. The relentless routine continued for more than a week, while they were learning their new positions.
~*~
On the first day off, the exhausted senior officers gathered in the conference room on deck two to unwind. Sira stood in a corner of the room, not speaking with anyone, running the obstacle course through her mind again and again, trying to figure out how to make things easier. As she stared into the star filled space beyond the ship, she noted the beauty of the bright streaks as they moved at faster than light speeds.
She closed her eyes a moment, and muttered under her breath, “No. I need to solve the riddle of that course. One of us is knocked out every day. I need to figure out why.”
Kala walked up behind Sira, and softly spoke to her, “No, Sira, we all need to figure that out. Palrion keeps telling us that we are a unit. We are a single group, and even when we operate like one, we still lose someone. It’s very hard to take, but I’m sure we’ll figure out how to handle this.”
Sira glanced over at the smaller woman, and then back out the window. “Yeah, well, I’m the one who’s kept things rocky through specific sections. I need to solve my portion of the issue.”
“We’re a unit, and you’re a part of that unit. We’ll figure this out together.” Kala’s tone was reassuring, but certain. As she stood next to Sira she could feel a level of tension and control that only other members of this team seem to share. She could also feel something else under the surface that Sira worked hard to keep contained, but Kala did nothing to pry.
Sira remained silent until Kala returned to the group. Her mind raced while she replayed the events and the obstacles of the course over and over in her mind. Each time only served to be more and more focused on her own failures. Finally, she left the room and walked back to her quarters. She sat down at the computer console in her room, and requested the visual data from the morning’s run of the obstacle course.
Frustrated by the replay, she requested it to start again so she could take notes. She replayed the images several more times, growing more frustrated by the moment. When she saw the water portion of the course surface for the last time, she cringed as she watched herself dip into it, and then warm it to steam. She watched as she was hit by a blast of cold air, and an electrical shock that brought her to her knees. She shut it off the playback.
Even though Kala took the pain moments later, Sira could still feel the shock as she watched it on the screen. In anger, she pushed the console hard onto the ground. Sira stared at it momentarily, before it exploded into flames, and the heat sensors in her room activated the sprinkler system above the spot.
She left the mess in her living area, and tried to stretch out on her bed, but couldn’t rest her mind. Just as she was about to enter meditation, battle alarms sounded throughout the ship. Without another thought, she moved rapidly toward Engineering, welcoming the distraction.
When Sira arrived, she immediately felt uneasy. Several of the Engineering team members were huddled over a small section on the far side of the engine room. The effort to maintain her balance as she crossed the room made the magnitude of the battle evident to her. The moment her eyes met Commander Tol’s she asked, “Who’s attacking? What’s goin on?”
“Cybernetics. There is an android fleet and we’re trying to get one of the experimental technologies online.” Merx nodded to Sira. “We’ll need to tap your psionic ability if we get this to work. In theory, it amplifies the impulses, and can send it in a weaponized manner across space. If needed, it will morph the psionic ability first, but we need to get it working before we know how it works for sure.”
Sira became amused. “You mean you want me to fry their circuits from here?”
Merx responded, “Basically.”
Looking at the panel, Sira took note of the vertical console next to a horizontal flat surface that extended inside of the machine. This squared hole had additional mechanisms above and to the sides. Sira started to shoo people away from the control panel. She listened as Merx explained how it was supposed to work, and what problem they were facing. She got her hands into the machine, and started to adjust specific sections. As she did, the computer responded or confirmed positive connections. After several minutes working, the whole panel lit up and a soft hum was heard as a red beam of light moved over her exposed arms.
The computer then alerted: Configuring
Sira looked back at the Commander and the team that was assisting them. “I’m not sure what it’s doin.”
The machine then moved a small arm over both of hers, and pinned her arm to the flat surface of the panel. A smaller arm with a curved end swung out and moved over her wrists securing Sira inside the machine. This happened over the course of seconds. She didn’t have time to respond before the computer moved into the next stage.
The computer announced: Preparing Pyrokinetic discharge. Preparing conversion.
Sira attempted to withdraw her arms when she felt the machine start to warm. The mechanism holding her wrists grew tighter when she struggled.
Uncomfortable, and hiding her desperate desire to run, she looked at Merx. “This won’t let go. Can you aim it so the discharge will help?”
As she spoke, a panel behind her exploded, and a shard flew across the room at her. It lodged firmly in her shoulder. Screaming out as it impacted, she felt her body start to react, as well as the familiar warming sensation that came when she commanded her hands and arms to generate fire. Soon, the computer generated discharge overtook her entire body, instead of her hands or arms.
Clearly sensing her fear, Commander Merx Tol started to input the coordinates provided to him from the bridge. “One more moment, Sira. It’ll be gone.”
She acknowledged him, while trying to maintain a stoic appearance for those who couldn’t sense her emotions.
The machine created a small vortex in the chamber. As it did this, he noticed she started to glow slightly. “Everyone out of this section, now!” He moved the rest of the crew out of the Engineering section, and returned his focus to Sira. “I’m not leaving until we know.”
A moment later the charge within her body was absorbed by the machine, and Sira cried out again as the buildup released. She slumped over when the machine moved her charge through the system and out to the targeting array.
Exhausted, she looked up at her commanding officer. “Did we hit our target?”
Merx opened a communications channel with the bridge to find out. “Maddux, did that work?”
Everything was uncomfortably quiet. A moment before the ship was being rocked by explosions and threats of being boarded. Now, there was an uneasy silence before Maddux finally broke through on the communication channel.
“Yes, Commander Tol, target destroyed. The Android fleet is in disarray and the mind ship is gone.”
Relief was evident on both Merx and Sira’s faces. He gave the system commands to shut down, and it released Sira. The moment she was free of the machine, she slid down to the floor in pain unlike she’d ever experienced before. Quickly realizing
what was going on, Merx connected the communications line to the med bay, but before he could say anything he heard Kala in his mind.
~I’m already on my way.~
Sira looked up at Merx, and spoke with a weak tone. “Her method of communication is the most effective but …it’s not… “ Sira blacked out from the pain before she finished her thought.
An hour later she had been moved to a private medical room under Kala’s care. As Sira came around, she looked at Kala who just smiled warmly, and spoke to her. “You gave us quite the scare.”
“Yea, well that thing down there worked, so… I guess there has to be a cost of some kind. Clearly, it wasn’t developed by a psionic.” Sira leaned up a bit on her elbows.
Kala nodded and frowned. She spoke softly to Sira with heavy hearts. “That … thing… did some damage. Although it works well, it stimulated your psionic lobe beyond your normal limitations. It may be days before you can generate a spark again, and maybe longer before you can actually use the ability for any significant purpose.”
“That thing drained me, and left me for dead.” Her tone was cynical and her emotions mixed with anger and fear. Sira laid back, trying to sort the situation in her mind. She found herself committed to identifying how the machine worked, and how to better the design so it didn’t damage the others.
Kala tried to console her. “It didn’t leave you for dead, just not in an active psionic state. You will be fine, as long as you don’t use the psionic lobe for a few days. Further attempts right now, may do more prolonged damage. Look at it as a good time to rest.”
Captain Palrion, commander Tol, and Commander Maddux entered the room to check on Sira as Kala finished speaking. Maddux picked up a tablet, and pulled Kala aside to discuss Sira’s medical information while Palrion and Tol spoke with the pyrokinetic.
After several moments of casual interest and updates, Sira requested, “Captain, I formally request to be removed from the covert team. I am a hazard in my current state.”
Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars Page 124
