by Gun Brooke
“I’ve never even heard of anything like that,” Briar said.
“Sir.” KahSandra turned to Adina. “We must study the blueprints and make sure we know exactly where this TPN line has outlets.”
“I can tell you that if you’re prepared to listen,” Briar said calmly, but her turquoise eyes glimmered dangerously.
“Ma’am—you are a civilian—” Commander KahSandra stopped talking when Adina raised her hand.
“Before you step into what you’re about to say with both feet, let me inform you that this is Briar Lindemay, also known as Red Angel. She’s saved my life twice, and when she speaks, those of us who know her and her abilities also know when to listen.”
“Yes, sir,” KahSandra said, her lips tense.
“Anyway.” Briar motioned toward the TPN outlet. “This goes from the basement straight up through the walls. Each line has its own canister down there. They should all be checked, naturally, but for now, it is this one, and on all the levels.”
“What if someone has already been infused?” Caya asked. “I mean, it’s early afternoon. If you’re on TPN, surely you get some of that stuff at breakfast?”
“Damn.” Adina slapped her communicator. “Commander Vantressa to Admiral Heigel.”
A brief moment later, Korrian responded, sounding agitated. “Heigel here. What’s up?”
“Admiral. A quick question. What will white garnet diluted with Total Parental Nutrition do to a body?”
“What?” It was obvious the question shocked the otherwise seasoned admiral.
“We have a reading suggesting that this is happening through a certain room on the wards directly above each other on the hospital, cube eleven.”
“Madam President, you need to hear this,” Korrian said, and soon Adina’s tablet showed the Pathfinder logo and then Korrian’s and Thea’s faces. Caya stepped to the side, trying to become invisible. If Thea saw her here—it wouldn’t be a good thing. And it would distract them all when they needed to focus on the crisis at hand.
Korrian rubbed her forehead with her thumb and middle finger. “Diluting it with any harmless fluid would slow the volatile process. It might even give us a chance to stop this before it goes any further. Let’s hope we’ve caught it in time.”
Caya tuned out the discussion, and then a vision of the old, emaciated woman she’d met in the corridor flickered through her mind. Every thought of trying to stay out of Thea’s view vanished. “And if it has already entered a body? What would that look like?”
“Depending on how much it has been diluted, it will eventually turn the individual into a living, breathing explosive device.” Korrian’s voice was hollow. “They would no doubt look close to transparent, as all their veins would be emphasized…dark blue.
Caya groaned and walked over to Briar and Adina. “Adina. The old woman from before. She was from this room. Wasn’t she, Briar? You must have seen her and used her, involuntarily or not, as a conduit for reaching out to me so I could find you.”
“Yes. The little old Gemosian woman. She was so afraid.” Briar blinked.
“We need to find her.” Caya was about to rush after the old woman when Thea’s voice boomed over the comm system.
“Caya? How the hell can you be in cube eleven?”
“I can explain, but not now. We don’t have time. There could be more patients with explosive TPN in their systems. It’s not only about this unit. I was wrong. It only starts here, but if other people in the hospital have white garnet in their veins, the entire cube, and ultimately Pathfinder, is in jeopardy.” Caya rounded Adina and met Thea’s furious glance. “We need to locate all patients who have been subjected to poisoned TPN. You need to figure out what we’re supposed to do with them when we find them.”
“She’s right,” Adina said. “We don’t have much time. Depending on the amount of white garnet mixed into the TPN, we may have an hour, or we may have only minutes. Either way, we need to hurry. Commander KahSandra and Lieutenant Diobring’s team will accompany Briar and Caya to where they are caring for the ones evacuated. In the meantime, I’ll take my engineering team downstairs to test the TPN containers. From there, we should be able to use the computer to track who has been given the nutrition and how much.”
“We can do that from here.” Korrian looked grimly at them from her tablet. “Just take the samples and let me know the concentration of white garnet. I’ll do my calculations accordingly.”
“Yes, sir.” Adina gave Briar a quick kiss on the cheek and hurried out the door. Caya heard her gather her engineers and disappear down the corridor.
“I can show you which ward received the evacuated patients. Follow me.” Briar began to run and Caya bolted after her.
“Quick. Take my hand. I need to make sure we’re not forgetting something.” Caya reached for Briar, who squeezed her hand as they ran.
“What are you thinking of?”
“Help me extend my range of visions. If the ones behind this had a backup plan and placed white garnet somewhere else apart from in the TPN containers, we need to know, or we might be walking into a trap.”
“Clever girl.” Briar nodded and massaged the back of Caya’s hand with her thumb as she hummed under her breath.
Caya was glad Briar was guiding her, as it was damn near impossible for her to half run and focus on visions at the same time. They simply didn’t have time enough for her to stop and seek out seclusion for this. Images scattered, fractured, and reassembled at a furious pace, but no matter how she searched the patterns and examined every part of them, she couldn’t find any evidence or hint that the culprits had tampered with anything else. Instead she saw shadowy figures stir with long rods in what looked like metal barrels. She saw them open and close three barrels standing side by side in a room with green walls. When she couldn’t find anything else, she let go of Briar and nearly fell over as she was tossed out of her vision, rather than slowly easing out of it like she was used to.
Tapping her communicator, she paged Thea. She could have chosen to talk to Korrian, but the admiral was probably busy carrying out her end of the frantic search. “Caya to Commander Vantressa.”
“Caya. Adina here.”
“Look for three containers in a green room. As far as my vision allows me to see, those are the only containers they managed to reach. I think the lockdown may have prevented the terrorists from reaching more, if that was their intention.”
“Thank you. We’re entering the level in question now. Where are you?”
“About to enter the ward where the evacuated are kept.” Briar spoke into Caya’s communicator. “Be safe, Adina.”
“You as well. Vantressa out.” Adina’s clipped voice showed them how close to disaster they all were.
Behind them, Commander KahSandra paged Korrian asking for information regarding which patients they needed to locate.
“Korrian here. You have eight patients that have received TPN within the last four hours. I put four hours as a safety margin, as I don’t think it would be likely for anyone to survive white garnet in their bloodstream any longer than that. I’m sending the list to your tablet as we speak, Commander.”
Briar and Caya stood on either side of KahSandra, reading the names. “We can find two of them each.” KahSandra waved to Diobring to join them and handed out two names to each of them. “I think you better look for your little Gemosian lady and this young boy.” She pointed out the names on the list to Caya, who began moving between the beds.
It didn’t take her long to find the old woman. She was pale, and beads of sweat had formed on her forehead. Despite that, she was shivering under her bedcovers.
“Ma’am?” Caya said and loosened the break on the hover function. “I’m going to move you to another location, where we need to treat you. You are having a bad reaction to the TPN solution.”
“I think something worse than that is happening to me.” The woman looked up at her with her amber eyes appearing like they were on fire. The
whites of her eyes were grey-tinted, which made her look like a storybook wraith.
Caya moved the hoverbed over to the door leading out of the ward, where two of the team lined it up with the other beds as Briar and the others located their patients. The young boy was easy to find as well, as he was the only one that young among the evacuated. Like the old Gemosian lady, he was pale, blue-veined, and possessed the same grey-tinted eyes.
“Good job, everybody,” KahSandra said and looked at the two rows of four connected hoverbeds. “Admiral Heigel sent me coordinates to a place where emergency medical teams will meet us and exchange their blood volume. Engineers will come and jettison the containers of tainted blood from Pathfinder as we work.” She motioned for them to start moving.
Caya helped Briar guide the long train of four beds by holding on to the last one. The Gemosian woman looked up at her, smiling gently. “I’m Gioliva.”
“I’m Caya. Over there is my sister Briar.”
“Red Angel.” Gioliva nodded. “She is the revered one. You are the oracle. Some people fear you.”
“I know.” Caya swallowed hard. “I wish they didn’t. I’m harmless.”
“That may be.” Gioliva coughed and grimaced. “Your power to foresee the future and recollect the past is enough for some to feel threatened. They lack basic honesty themselves, which makes it impossible for them to perceive how strong your sense of integrity is.”
Baffled, Caya struggled to keep up with the hoverbeds and listen to Gioliva at the same time. “How do you know this?”
“I don’t know how. I just do. One moment the knowledge wasn’t there—and then it was. I think it has something to do with your sister. Her power of empathy and insight is amazing.”
“Yes.” Caya wiped quickly at unexpected tears. “Just rest now, Gioliva. We’re going to take care of you.”
“You may not be able to rid us of the poison in time.”
Horrified at how perceptive Gioliva had become, Caya didn’t know what to say. “We’re sure going to try. This team consists of the best.”
Gioliva merely nodded and closed her eyes. Caya was secretly relieved. Gioliva’s whites had now turned almost black.
Chapter Seven
Thea gripped the edge of the computer console with both hands. How the hell had Caya managed to leave her quarters? Thea knew it hardly mattered right now when so many lives hung in the balance, Caya’s being one of them, but she was going to have someone’s head when the crisis was over. That head might just be Caya’s own if her explanation wasn’t satisfactory.
“You’re going to make permanent indentations if you squeeze much harder, Madam President,” Korrian said absent-mindedly. She was standing next to Thea reading from her tablet.
Thea loosened her grip and clasped her hands behind her back. “Where are we on the TPN containers?”
“I’m receiving the initial reports from the samples Adina and Commander KahSandra have examined. Good thinking of the engineering teams to place basic testing kits in all major structures in each cube. Saves time.” Korrian tapped on her tablet, read some more, tapped again, and then put it down with a low growl. “Damn.”
Thea waited impatiently. She wanted to shake Korrian, demand information, but she could see the older woman needed to collect her thoughts. Eventually, Korrian turned to her, and the expression on her face made Thea uneasy. “The white-garnet ratio in the TPN is high. Eight point two percent. I’ve sent orders to jettison the containers immediately. I’m sure Adina has already started the procedure to do just that. But that’s not our biggest problem. The eight patients need to go through dialysis instantly, but the dialysis technology is not calibrated to handle white garnet. The instruments need to be adjusted, and that takes time.”
“Do we have personnel ready to do that?”
“Yes. I deployed chemical engineers to the hospital as soon as Adina alerted us. According to her initial report, if Caya hadn’t actually smelled the white garnet on the TPN outlet, it would’ve taken us even longer to figure out this…this horrendously evil plan.” Korrian leaned against the computer console, her face pale. “I don’t know, Thea. I might be getting too old for this.”
“Korrian?” Worried, Thea grabbed one of the hover stools and tugged it closer. “Have a seat, Admiral. You’re not too old. You’re simply reacting like the rest of us. I’m struggling to understand how anyone can do this to another person.”
“Yes. And to sick people on top of everything.” Korrian rubbed her forehead. “Where would we be without Briar and Caya? We wouldn’t know of these sinister new methods if their visions and other abilities didn’t show us in time.”
Korrian was right. Intellectually, Thea completely understood and appreciated the advantage of having benevolent changers who were all about using their powers for the good of the Pathfinder passengers and crew. That said, she was still furious at how stubborn and careless Caya had been when she left her quarters like she did today. Yes, she was with her sister and Adina, but what if someone had recognized her as the normally incarcerated changer?
“Madam President?” Fleet Admiral Orien Vayand, the highest-ranking military officer aboard Pathfinder, approached them. “We need to call the military leaders and your cabinet. This new attack means—”
“Is still underway. I’m not leaving the bridge until the hospital in cube eleven is secured. That includes the eight patients as well.” Thea raised her chin, knowing Vayand, who was a stickler for protocol, didn’t like it when she went off script, something she did every now and then when required.
“Of course, Madam President.” Vayand nodded briskly. “I will gather the military chiefs and follow the outcome from the situation room. Let us know when you are ready to join us, and I will have my aide de camp assemble the cabinet members as well.”
“Sounds excellent.” Thea was taken aback for a moment. Vayand usually was much more rigid and disapproving when she didn’t immediately conform. He was a reactionary kind of man, used to how his military career had evolved under the previous, male, president. Now, Vayand seemed unusually subdued, his light-grey eyes looking wary. Perhaps the ruthlessness of the latest attack had gotten to even this seasoned old bear of a man? “Orien.” Thea lowered her voice and stepped closer. “This is a dark day in our history. We will get through it, but as I have subordinates that remind me to eat and drink, I expect you to listen to yours when they suggest the same for you. People look to us, not just the ones working for us, but the entire ship. We need to remain calm and strong. That means taking a few minutes when we can to do what we feel we must. For me, that is following the outcome of our effort from the bridge. Please do what you feel is best for you right now. I need your strength.”
Vayand eyed her with an expressionless face. “I suppose I can use some of that tea.”
Thea smiled faintly. “It really does help.” She nodded to the food and drink dispenser at the back bulkhead. “Tea, spicy, six-eight-four.”
“Even better with a shot of mogot-brandy.” Vayand smirked and walked over to the dispenser. After getting his mug of tea, he raised it to Thea in what she surmised was a silent way of thanking her before leaving the bridge with his entourage.
“Now that was interesting,” Korrian said, sounding more like her normal self. “Bringing Vayand down to a level where he actually sounded less pompous and more…real. Amazing.”
“Oh, stop it.” Thea drank more tea as Korrian checked her tablet again.
“Fuck!” Korrian pushed her fingers into her steel-grey hair.
“What’s going on?” Thea stepped closer, fear clawing in her chest.
Korrian looked devastated. “The dialysis process is taking too long. They have one machine ready to go, but two patients.”
Thea had to sit down. “They need to sacrifice one of them?”
Korrian tossed the tablet across the bridge and then gripped the sides of the computer console hard with both hands. Bending her head, she breathed deeply before answerin
g. “Yes, but how the hell do they choose?”
*
Caya sat next to Gioliva, holding the birdlike hand in hers. The woman looked up and over at her every now and then, but mostly she slept. Sometimes, she shuddered and a small grimace of pain or discomfort appeared on her weathered features.
“Are you sure we can’t give them anything for the pain?” Caya asked Briar, her voice broken. “Anything?”
“No. I told you, sweetheart. With all those foreign agents in their bloodstream, we can’t risk adding anything else.”
Caya remembered what Briar had told her the first time she asked. If they added yet another chemical to their system, they could set the white garnet off, killing the patients—and perhaps setting off an explosion. “I’m so sorry, Gioliva. You will feel better once you’re hooked up to the dialysis machine. I promise.”
“Child.” Gioliva didn’t look frightened, as she had done earlier while she was being evacuated. If you disregarded her odd-looking black eyes that made her green irises look quite diabolical, she seemed serene. Gioliva’s voice was strained, and she coughed a few times before continuing. “It really doesn’t matter. I’ve had a long life.”
“That’s ridiculous. You have many good years left now that we’re not far from our new homeplanet. You’ve gone through hell to get there. Don’t give up now.” Caya took both of Gioliva’s hands. “Just hold on until the machine is ready.”
“Caya? Can you come over here?” Adina showed up in the doorway.
“Hang on, Gioliva. I’ll be right back.” Caya hurried over to Adina and knew instantly something was very wrong. People buzzed around them, running between patients and the dialysis technology. Two of the patients were ready, and orderlies pushed the hoverbeds to adjoining wards. Everyone worked in silence, which gave the entire unit an eerie feeling, accentuated by the soldiers standing on watch, weapons ready. “What is it?”
“We are starting the dialysis procedure on the fourteen-year-old boy now,” Briar said quietly. “It’s very last-minute, and we might be too late with him, but everything took longer than we thought.”
