Warrior Chronicles 6: Warrior's Glass

by Shawn Jones

  The doctors believed that Cort’s current synthetics were building up electromagnetic barriers in his brain, in addition to scar tissue. His body’s natural defenses saw that tissue as detrimental, and tried to consume it.

  “His body, at least when it comes to his brain, is beginning to fight the current synthetics. It’s rebelling against his brain.”

  Kim looked at Cort, lying on the medbed in the other room. He was still now, but she could see bruises already forming where he had fought the restraints on his arms. Ceram put two of his arms around her. She asked, “And the surgery? Will it work?”

  “Doctor Biyadiq is certain she can stop the progression, and believes she can do so without much permanent brain damage. She does not know how it will affect his telepathic abilities, or if he will suffer permanent memory loss. The surgery might kill him, as well.”

  “What is the chance of that?”

  “Perhaps fifty percent.”

  Kim knew Ceram lacked the ability to lie to her, so he wasn’t inflating the risks or the potential benefits of the surgery. He was just being factual. She remembered the message Cort had sent her minutes before. I love you. “Can I talk to him? Can Dalek and Diane talk to him?”

  “No. He is already unconscious, and even if he weren’t, he might not remember any of you. We don’t know the current condition of his brain.”

  “Get started then.”

  --

  Kim was in the medical bay ten hours later, and looked up to see Salana walk out of the operating room.

  “Is he okay?”

  “I’m not done yet. I’m still trying to fix the damage done by the original stroke and the synthetics. But I need to rest.”

  Kim stood up. “What? You’re just leaving him in there with his brain open? What the f…”

  Salana held her hand up to silence Kim. She told her she would only be gone for a few minutes, to get some sleep in a shuttle provided by George. Kim commed her AI son, and asked him what was going on.

  The doctor left the room as George responded. “It’s a simple solution. I will accelerate for seven minutes, then pick up Doctor Biyadiq’s shuttle. Eight point two hours will have passed for her. In the meantime, Doctor Ceram will be filtering more synthetics from Father’s blood, and monitoring him.”

  Kim sighed thankfully. “Okay.”

  Kim walked to the galley to get a cup of coffee. Clem and the children were there when she walked in. Clem watched her as she got her coffee, then walked up behind them and asked, “How about you two let me sit between you?”

  “Momma!” Dalek said. “Where’s Poppa?”

  “Is Daddy okay?” Diane asked.

  She explained they were dropping Biyadiq off so she could get some rest. Then she said, “He’s going to be fine, Diane. He gets hurt a lot, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of used to it, but it’s scary. I remember when I was little, there were some bad guys in a store we were in, and Daddy kept them from hurting us. That time he didn’t get hurt. But all the rest of the time, he does.”

  “Momma, Diane was there when Poppa got the scar on his face.”

  From behind them, Angela said, “So was I.”

  Kim didn’t move, but felt Diane scoot closer to her. She took the child’s hand as Diane said, “Hi.”

  Angela sighed and sat down across the table, next to Clem. “Hi, Dianosaur.”

  Kim relished the pain on Angela’s face when Diane told her that only her dad could call her Dianosaur. It was complete when Diane added that Kim and Dalek could use the nickname too.

  Angela forced her emotions past the moment, looked at Kim and asked, “How is Cort?”

  Kim ignored her, so Clem answered the question briefly.

  Kim touched her ear and said, “Yes? Okay, thanks, Honey.”

  Clem said, “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. We just picked Doctor Biyadiq up. She’s rested and going back to work on him.”

  “Where was she?” Angela asked.

  Kim looked at her for a long moment before saying, “You’re too stupid to understand the science, and I’m too tired to try and explain it to you. If you want to sit here and visit with Diane, fine, but don’t speak to me.”

  Dalek said, “We left her outside the ship, and went fast so time wouldn’t pass for us. She got to sleep, without it taking too long for Poppa.”

  Diane said, “It’s called time dilation.”

  Angela smiled and said, “Well aren’t you two smart. That’s part of Einstein’s work on special relativity.” She locked Kim’s eyes with her own. “He didn’t marry me for my looks.” She ran her hands down the side of her body, and added, “This was just a perk. One that he enjoyed quite often. Mmm… I remember it like it was yesterday. Oh wait, for me, it kinda was.”

  Clem couldn’t move fast enough to stop Kim’s blow to Angela’s chin, but he was able to stop Kim from climbing over the table as the children moved away. Angela landed on the floor a meter behind where she had been sitting, and tried to scream a vulgarity that came out as, you bith! She felt her jaw and realized something was wrong.

  Kim took a deep breath as she massaged her knuckles. “Watch your mouth. Maybe by the time your jaw heals, you’ll have learned. And pick up your teeth.”

  Angela looked at the floor and saw three bloody teeth between her and two human Marines. The Marines were both smiling.

  Kim said, “Come on, kids. Let’s go see if George will let you pilot the ship.” She took them by the hand and the three walked away.

  Before they got to the door, Diane said, “I’ve never seen anyone hit my mom.”

  Dalek leaned back, looked at his sister on the other side of Kim, and replied, “Get used to it. I don’t think Momma likes her.”

  “I’ve seen Daddy kill people, I got used to that.”

  “I haven’t seen him kill people. I know he does, but I haven’t seen it. He says it’s part of protecting me.”

  As they passed through the door, Diane said, “And the cockroaches protect you, too.”

  Kim reminded them that the Jaifans would protect Diane, as well.

  When they were gone, Clem looked down at Angela and said, “Medical will be here soon. But they’re kinda busy with something more important than a broken jaw. I gotta say, though, you may be book smart, but you’ve got no common sense at all. You’re lucky she wasn’t wearing black, because you’d be dead right now. If you ever see her in the clothes I’m wearin’, steer around her. And if you keep this up, that woman is gonna to kill you, anyway.” Then he left the galley, too.

  --

  Kim had been awake for thirty-two hours when Cort woke up. He opened his eyes to see her sitting beside him, reading a paper book.

  He said, “What happened?”

  Kim looked up from her book, then stood and said, “You had what I hope is your last stroke. And I broke the whore’s jaw.”

  Kim told him what had happened with Angela, and Cort grabbed her hand. He smiled weakly and said, “Why’d I have to save her, if you’re just gonna kill her anyway?”

  A few minutes later, Doctor Biyadiq walked in.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Confused. But your English is getting better. What happened?”

  “You had another stroke. This one was caused by a battle between your synthetics and your DNA.”

  She ran a scanner across his forehead, and stopped him from speaking by asking questions designed to gauge his mental capacity and possible memory loss.

  “What is your name?”

  He rolled his eyes at Kim and told Salana he was born in the late twentieth century, about his time travel, and as a jibe, that he was a living god. After a dozen more questions, he tried to ask one of his own, but she stopped him again.

  “Let me ask the questions. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I was eating with the kids.”

  “What did you eat?”

  Cort told her he only had coffee with Diane and Dale
k, and went on to answer random questions about his childhood, the Ares Federation, obscure moments of his timeline, details of battles, and the people in his life.

  “When was the last time you were on Earth?”

  “To get Diane and her mother. Before that, I was talking to Dvok. Another time traveler of sorts.”

  “Who is Speral?”

  Cort had to think for a while. He was about to give up, and Doctor Biyadiq suggested he think of other people in his life and how they might know the name. Finally, he thought of a former Marine named Jeff Pence, and remembered that he had married a naked, white, alien.

  “A Nill. She has poisonous spines on her back.”

  “Who is Kay Gaines?”

  Bitterness filled Cort as remembered the hole in Kay’s abdomen when she was killed on Mars, during an attack by Earth. He snapped at Salana to get on with her questions. Kim squeezed his hand in an effort to calm him.

  They continued for another twenty minutes before Doctor Biyadiq said, “Your memory seems mostly intact, but you may find additional holes as time goes by. If you do, try to think around the memory, the way you did about Speral, if that makes sense. You might find a less used neural path to it. If not, ask someone who was there to tell you about it. That can also help.”

  “Okay. Can I ask some questions now?”

  He sat up on the bed and asked his own questions. He started with telepathy, because he couldn’t read the doctor. She explained that it was too early to tell because there was still some swelling, but felt that, at the very least, the changes would stop.

  She placed a metal frame over his head, activated it, and looked at her flexpad. “I’d like you to phrase your questions differently than you normally would.”

  “How is… The child I have of the female gender is of a concern to me that I would like you to alleviate.”

  Kim said, “She’s fine. The last I checked, Dalek was showing her how to ride the Jaifans.”

  Cort was trying to play Biyadiq’s game. He guessed it had something to do with measuring his ability to reason, or some other crap. But it was a little amusing to rethink his own thought patterns. Flexing his hands, he said, “The second question that I was going to ask has been answered by the way my wife answered the first one. Next interrogatory. At this time, on the third planet in Mars’ solar system, strokes often had physical effects. I haven’t had physical effects. Can you explain this anomaly?”

  Not all strokes present physically, and Biyadiq told him so. Some barely even register, while others only steal a few memories.

  “What? Oh. Okay, I understand. Next, a jaw, which belongs to my ex-wife, was apparently broken by my current wife, and I would like you to tell me the circumstances of the altercation.”

  “Very good. And I won’t tell you. Clem might, but I know better than to get involved.”

  Kim smiled at Salana. “See how smart she is, Baby?”

  Fifteen

  Cort and Kim watched Tur teach the kids self-defense moves, and his mandibles flexed into a smile when Diane threw his living god-prince through a wall. They were in the mock-up of the Erom ship, and after two days in her CONDOR, Diane had the makings of a human wrecking crew. It was clear the Pledge Sister was more concerned with victory than survival. There was no doubt she was the Pledge Father’s daughter.

  “Prince Dalek, perhaps you should consider how to stop your sister, rather than defend against her.”

  Dalek stood up and pulled a cable from a wall. His arm raised the length of tubing and snapped it like a whip. The sudden loud blaring of klaxons sounded throughout the ship, and Jaifans surrounded the children, going from onlookers to defenders in the blink of an eye. Kim stayed with the kids while Cort sprinted toward the armory. He asked George what was happening.

  “Ceram’s lab. There has been a breach.”

  “Containment?”

  “I have containment, and am ready to eject the lab, but Ceram is asking for you.”

  Cort opened his locker in the armory just as Salana arrived. They both donned their CONDORs and ran to the bay that housed Ceram’s exo lab.

  —

  Clem waited outside the bay and Cort entered the first airlock, with Salana beside him. Inside, Ceram stood near the bay door, with his back towards them, ready to eject the lab module. Around his work table, pieces of a Formvar block lay scattered on the floor, as though an explosion had occurred.

  Cort said, “Ceram, did you clear it?”

  Ceram slowly turned around and faced the airlock. Cort heard Salana’s sharp intake of breath gasp before his own eyes registered what they were seeing. There was pain in the way Ceram held his mandibles. Under them, a fist-sized exo was attached to his friend’s body. A sickening feeling overwhelmed Cort. Anger and grief danced inside his head, threatening to debilitate him. Distantly, he sensed a fraction of the same emotions from both Clem and Salana. Now I’m going to lose him too.

  He couldn’t turn his face away from Ceram, as his eyes locked with his friend’s. “Scan him, Salana. Can you hit him with synthetics or something?” While she worked, Cort commed Kim and told her to suit up and hurry to the lab.

  “His subesophageal ganglion is completely compromised. I can kill the exo, but Ceram will die as well.”

  Cort’s eyes filled with tears, even as his anger overflowed. “You godsdamned idiot. What happened?”

  Ceram clicked. “They have adapted more quickly than I believed they could. I think they found the resonant frequency of the Formvar, and escaped.”

  Cort looked around the lab for the first time. The other samples were gone, including the ones that had paired with Erom. “Where are they?”

  “I have already ejected them. But I wanted to say goodbye, before George ejects the lab from the ship.”

  Kim was beside him now, her emotions of disbelief and denial compounding his own.

  “George, open the airlock. I’m going in there.”

  “I cannot, Father.”

  “OPEN THE GODSDAMNED AIRLOCK! Spray me with synthetics and let me in there. Right fucking now!”

  Kim grabbed his hand; George repeated his refusal; Ceram clicked, “No, Cortland. You cannot risk it. Too many lives are at stake. The exo has grown into my mind. If there are things you want to know, perhaps I can find answers.”

  Godsdamn you, Ceram. Cort forced his to mind shift gears, knowing he didn’t have much time. “Why did they have Bazal’s people?”

  Ceram’s head turned back and forth. Finally, he clicked, “They sought us. Somehow, they knew the octopods would lead to us.”

  The exos had watched the battle for Gryll from the inside of the Dyson sphere around the planet. When they saw the defeat of the Gryll, they had realized that there was finally a perfect host on the planet. They used the Erom to shadow the Remington during its trip back to the Ares universe.

  Cort asked, “Why did they want to attack me?

  “It was not you, Pledge Father. It was my species. We are the most suitable hosts.”

  Tears streamed down Cort’s face as he took off his helmet and pressed his forehead against the airlock. He spread the palms of his hands on the Formvar airlock, in a gesture to embrace his friend. “Godsdammit.”

  “Do you remember when we became friends, Cortland?”

  “For me it was when you interrupted my reading.”

  Ceram’s mandibles struggled with his words. “Yes. You gave me The Necronomicon, by Lovecraft. That was the moment for me, too.”

  “Do you want any of your people here, Ceram?”

  “You and Kimberly are my people.” The words garbled. “I’m losing control of my nervous system. I cannot let the exo take control of me. I love you, friend.”

  Ceram pressed a button on the wall, and the lab was instantly engulfed in flames. A moment later, it ejected into space, and George obliterated it with the Remington’s weapons.

  Cort collapsed against the airlock, weak with loss and anger and pain. Kim kicked his helmet out of the way an
d sat down beside her husband. With her arm in his, they grieved their friend.

  —

  Salana pressed the chime on Ceram’s door. She thought she might find Cort in his late friend’s quarters. The panel on the door turned green, and she stepped inside the spartan rooms. Cort didn’t look up from Ceram’s sleeping mat, where he held The Necronomicon in his hands. She sat in the one human chair in the room. It was a spot that Cort usually occupied, when he and Ceram argued, played chess, or just read in each other’s company. “General?”