Alpha Dawn: Book one of the Teragene Chronicles

by Morgan R. R. Haze

  The more crew I took on, the less time Ell and I talked, but the more of a true partner she became. We always had each other's backs. She helped me with every bounty. In turn, I helped her procure the parts that she needed for her invention, an EMP device. When Ell decided she had to leave her brother William, I almost asked her to come be my partner in person. It had been three years of us talking daily, being a fly on the wall of each other's lives but never meeting. Still, something held me back. It was the first time she would be on her own, making choices for herself. She got to be her own person without her brother or sister-in-law telling her how different she was. Ell was deciding what to do with her life for the first time... and she still kept me in it.

  That was when I realized she was a weakness for me. I felt relief that she wanted to keep our partnership. Up to that point, almost four years, I had fooled myself into thinking the only things I had to lose were my ship and my brother, Pete. Ell had become so ingrained in my life that if I lost her, it would be like losing a piece of me. Somehow, she had burrowed her way into my chest and taken up residence in the vicinity of my heart, wrapping my ribs around her to the point that I wouldn't be able to remove her without causing some serious damage to myself in the process.

  Not long after that earth-shattering self-discovery, my brother completed his mandatory time with the Fenix Service Program. He followed my lead and went Recreant. Having a doctor on board was a nice bonus, but Pete was almost a stranger to me. I didn't know if I could trust him with my secrets; secrets like Ell. I knew that the years of separation between Pete and I had my choice. I didn't want him to feel the stigma or negative effects of my decision of going Recreant. Frequent contact with me would have been frowned on at best. Worst case, he could have been moved out of medical training and into a combat position, with little to no fighting experience. When the Fenix Service Program thinks it's going to lose you anyway they don’t see why they shouldn’t use you on the front lines.

  For the first time in all my contact with Ell, I was the one reaching out, needing to talk about current family issues. I think she hacked a med library for information to help. She always had the right advice on how to deal in a ‘healthy way’ with Pete. She never gave me an easy fix or a blanket statement on how everything works itself out. I think she was saving up this information for use with her own family. Now she won't have a chance to fix things with her brother. William is dead now; and he's left a mess for Ell to deal with. Guess it's my turn to search a med library for ways of helping someone with loss.

  I never thought the first time I laid eyes on her; she would be unconscious, having small spasms with blood slowly trickling from her nose. I had to move fast. I unbuckled her from the pilot seat and was through the door and up the stairs before I even really thought about what I was doing. She had said, “No doctors.” So I told Pete to take care of the kid and I hoped I did the right thing.

  I had opened the cover to the blue embrace before leaving my quarters. In the floor of my shower stall was a pool of viscous blue glowing liquid. Ell said the blue embrace was all she would need to finish what she started. The blue embrace would help her heal, but it could have some strange, potentially dangerous side effects for anyone that was touching the liquid at the same time as her.

  I laid her in the liquid, careful to not touch any of it while arranging her in a way that kept her face above the surface. She had told me that she used a breathing apparatus when she was submerged in the blue embrace before; back in her time with the Service Program. Her spasms increased to what looked like a seizure. When she started to submerge beneath the blue liquid I did the only thing that I could, I slipped my hand beneath her neck to hold her head up.

  It was like touching a live wire. I froze with fire and ice warring their way through my veins. But I could see what she was doing. It was exactly the way she had described it to me. Threads of glowing data running from her to what I could see as satellites, ships, and planets as far as my mind’s eye could see. All of it hers, to manipulate any way she wanted to. Without the blue embrace she had to run down one line of data to the next until she had what she needed, but with the power boost it gave her access to everything. Everything could be too much.

  "You’re keeping me grounded.” I heard her voice softly whisper through my mind. I tried to speak but the feeling of being frozen from an electric charge was still coursing through me.

  "I can hear your thoughts while you are in the Modrý Objetí with me. I'm keeping the flow of data from overrunning your mind but I can't do that and stay out of your thoughts. I'm sorry." She said.

  Have you ever tried not to think about something? The first thing to come to mind was how much I needed her. I didn't want to scare her off so I tried to focus on something, anything else, but all that did was make me feel that same helpless dread again, at the thought that I could lose her.

  I felt a warm, soothing wave of peace wash over me. She had a small, shy smile on her face. "It's alright. We will talk when we are on more even footing. I just need to finish up with the satellite feeds and I'm going to download all of the AlliedCorp frigate’s files to the Waylay so I can go through them later. Then we can get out of this goo. Watch the light show while I work."

  What a light show it was. I could see different sparks and flashes of color coursing through the lines of data. It was easy to relax into the rhythm of breathing in time with her and following the data dancing across our shared mind’s eye. Then as the flow started to slow, I started to feel myself regain control of my physical body.

  When I realized the stardrive was running, Ell responded verbally, "I got us moving as soon as you linked with me. I couldn't take the chance of us getting spotted." She slowly sat up in the gel, and I raised my hand out. My brain felt sluggish and somewhat disoriented with the loss of connection to hers. I gazed at my hand, momentarily mesmerized by the blue stain that ran from the middle of my forearm to the tips of my fingers.

  I blinked a few times and shook my head, clearing out the last of the cobwebs. I finally took a minute to really look Ell over. She was sitting in front of me with the same blue stain covering her almost from head to toe. Her dark loose curls had a blue tint that made the blue of her almond shaped eyes stand out even more. But she looked similar to most inhabitants of Sthenos, whose genealogy was so muddled together, someone would be hard pressed to pinpoint the exact region of Old Earth where they had originated from.

  She looked exhausted and I slowly stood up, with my knees protesting from being on the hard floor for who knows how long. Extending my hand I asked, “Can I help you up?"

  She took my hand with an unfocused look in her eyes. "I'm sorry about the blue. It takes a few days to wear off."

  I gave her my best devil may care smile and said, "Well at least we are a matched set, right?" She rewarded me with a bright smile of her own, but her eyes showed me the fatigue she was feeling.

  I palmed the controls to close the clear cover over the blue embrace as she stepped out. I lead her farther into the shower and turned on the water. I washed my hands as the water heated. "Do you have the energy to clean yourself up?" I didn't want to make things more awkward than they already were.

  She nodded and said, "Can you get me something to put on?" as she looked down at her saturated clothes.

  "Sure. I'll leave something out on the bed for you. Try and get some sleep if you can. I'll make sure Echo is taken care of while you get some rest." Still holding my hand she rose on her tiptoes and softly grazed her lips against my jaw, and then turned toward the now steaming water of the shower. As I turned and walked out to my bedroom I had the picture of all of that blue swirling down the drain with the water.

  I got out a pair of drawstring pants and a soft shirt for her and laid them at the foot of the bed. They would be much too large for her but it would do for now."Just have the AI get me if you need anything." I called to Ell through the partly closed bathroom door. With one last look around to make sure everythin
g was in place I left to give her some privacy

  The Waylay Med Suite -Day 336- Willow Linn

  As I stood in the med suite of this new ship, watching while the doctor examined Echo, I couldn’t help but contemplate how I got here. Six months ago everything was normal. I was working with my father, tending to the few people that needed medical attention on Talia. We had made a good, quiet life there for about a year and a half.

  He was healing from the loss of mother. Her death was a blow to both of us. Talia was to be our new beginning. It was the kind of environment where he didn't have to worry about me not being able to receive immunization. With the limited population and him being in charge of their healthcare, he had more control over my environment than ever.

  Then they found Teragene; a rare ore that is needed for the terraforming process. Everyone thought they were going to be rich. Not long after that, the land holder’s wife Lydia Andrews came in because she wasn't feeling well. My father got to tell her the good news… she was pregnant! I don't think I have ever seen anyone show less emotion at the news of a child. Her husband, William, on the other hand was over the moon! He wanted to make sure that everything would be perfect for his baby. His first concern was how the radiation from the Teragene could affect a child's development. So Father did research and found that there was a new antidote which would protect the population from the Teragene’s damaging effects. Unfortunately, I was in the risk group of people who have a high chance of side effects, as were pregnant women and children less than one year of age.

  Lydia demanded that no mining be done before she could receive the antidote. She had six months left in her pregnancy, and it would take almost that long to get everything they needed shipped out to Talia for the mining operation anyway. Again she showed zero maternal feeling for her child. She suggested that the baby could be raised off world at a boarding school somewhere.

  Funny enough, William didn't seem surprised by Lydia's lack of feelings. However, he did realize he would be losing his doctor and his child at the same time. Ever the manager he came up with a plan that would excuse Lydia from the duties of raising her child for the first year of its life, while at the same time not losing all contact with his newborn. He proposed that an old derelict ship be retrofitted as isolation and decontamination housing for me and the baby. My father jumped at the chance to not have to uproot his life again and I couldn't deny him that.

  So on the day of Echo's birth, she and I entered our new home. Within a month I dreaded the day that I would have to give her up. I may not have birthed her, but she was my baby.

  While my father was walking me through the steps of Echo's three month checkup, I noticed that he wasn't looking well. He seemed to be aging years… not months. We talked daily through the comm system, but he didn't suffer through the decontamination process to enter the isolation ship unless he had to. So this was the first time I had seen him in two months. When he was finished with Echo, I asked him how he was doing. The truth was in his eyes. He had the same look he got when he had to give his patients bad news. He told me the antidotes they had received from AlliedCorp must have been tampered with. Instead of stopping the effects of the radiation, it causes an irreversible shutdown of the body once the person was exposed to Teragene. Everyone on the planet, all of his patients that he administered the antidote to, were going to die. The miners were the first because they had the most exposure to the Teragene, but everyone had been exposed at some point. The more contact they had with the Teragene, the faster the rate of the bodies’ failure.

  Father said I wasn't to worry about myself. Echo and I were completely safe. William was taking care of things and our futures would be in good hands.

  Father declined rapidly after that. The day William came to talk to me, I was shocked to see how much he had deteriorated. He told me the news I had been dreading; Father had passed. I had cried silent tears at his words. When I had collected myself he went on.

  "I will have my sister, Ell, come to remove you and Echo. She will handle all of my affairs. I do wish for you to stay on as Echo's nurse. You are the only mother she has known. If you would prefer otherwise, I can make different arrangements for you."

  Because of such a great tragedy, I was getting one of my fondest dreams; I would get to see Echo grow from my beautiful baby into a beautiful woman. I wouldn't have to give her up when she was old enough for the antidote. This child I had single-handedly cared for, from the moment she was born, would be staying with me. I had to keep focused on this ray of light so that I didn’t completely break from the weight of everything else.

  Now we were getting a new beginning, but I still knew AlliedCorp needed to be called to account for what had happened. For now I needed to keep my focus on taking things one day at a time.

  "Well this little girl looks to be in fine shape. You have done an excellent job caring for her. Where is she at with her immunizations?" Peter asked; bring me back to the present.

  "She is up to date on all of the standard childhood ones. If there is anything else she will need while on this ship, we should get back in the isolation chamber. I haven't been able to have any immunizations. I had such a serious allergic reaction to them as a baby and almost died." I informed him.

  "While you are on this ship, I don't think you will have any problems. This ship does a full decontamination every time anything comes on board. Do you know where you are headed?” He asked.

  "I'm not sure what the plan is from here. I just know that Echo's aunt got us off Talia. I haven't even met her yet. I would like to speak to her if you know where she is." I said.

  A voice from the doorway said, "She's resting right now. I will check on her in a few hours and let her know you are waiting to talk with her when she is up to it." There was an obvious family resemblance between the doctor and this slightly older man. They both had sandy blond short hair, light green eyes, and similar clefts in their chins.

  "Willow this is my brother, Jason Singer. Jason this is Willow and this ray of sunshine is Echo." The doctor introduced us.

  "It’s nice to meet you ma'am. Welcome to the Waylay. Pete do you have anything that’ll take this blue stain off of my hand?" He held up his left hand that had a blue tint from the tips of his fingers to about the middle of his forearm.

  "What did you do?" Peter asked as he started looking through the cabinet above the counter, on the far wall.

  "I just got some blue med gel on myself." Jason said in an offhanded way.

  "What med gel?" Peter stopped and slowly turned to give his brother a stern look. "I don't have anything like that in my medical supplies."

  "It's in my quarters," was Jason brief reply.

  "Jason, do you have a Modrý Objetí on board? Do you have any idea of how dangerous those can be, especially if not properly monitored by a doctor?" Peter was obviously upset by the idea of his brother using a blue embrace, with good reason; the medical community derided the use of it to the point of it being banned on most planets. For every miracle story there were two tragedies. Some had barely touched the blue gel and been driven insane.

  "I'm fine, she's better, the only lasting side effect is that I'm a little blue. Well, and she's mostly blue, but that's a small price to pay for all of our safety." Jason said, downplaying the seriousness of the situation he had been in.

  "At least let me run some scans on you to make sure you don't have any surprises waiting for us." Peter countered.

  "Ell already ran scans, but go ahead and run whatever you want. Knock yourself out." Jason held his arms out from his sides in invitation.

  Peter was obviously frustrated by his brother’s lack of concern. "I know you have great faith in your ship, but do you think you can consider letting me do my job as the doctor first, before you get the ship’s opinion?"

  "Look, I've done just fine so far. I’ll come to you when I need you. Just run your scans so you can see everything is fine for yourself." Jason countered.

  The brothers seemed a
s though this was a regular conversation between them. Echo just looked on wide-eyed at the men sniping at each other. Jason ignored his brother as Peter waved a hand held scanner behind him.

  "Hey munchkin, we didn't upset you at all, did we?" Jason asked Echo in a falsetto sing-song voice.

  Echo broke into giggles at his attention. His whole demeanor changed from being defensive of me and his brother, to warm and playful as he crouched down so that he was at eye level with Echo. "I see where you got your name; you are an echo of your aunt. Yes you are." He continued in the sing-song voice.

  "The scans look fine." Peter said in a disbelieving tone. The look he was giving Jason made it clear he had never seen him acting like this before.

  "Ok, now do you have something that will take this blue off or should I just wait until it wears off on its own?" Jason asked, while standing up and switching back to a more authoritative tone.

  "Everything I have that will take it off will most likely dry out your skin at the very least. I would just let it wear off if I were you. It should only be a few days. Can I make sure Echo's aunt is alright? She had to be fairly bad off if she wanted to use a Modrý Objetí willingly." Peter asked, in a tone that was obviously trying not to set his brother off again.

  "She doesn’t like doctors, with good reason. Once she gets to know you in person she may feel more comfortable, but until then don't pressure her. Ok?" Jason had a look of real concern while talking about Echo's aunt.

  "So, will they be staying on for a while? If they are, we should get some quarter’s setup for them." Peter suggested to Jason.

  "Sure, for the time being at least. Why don't you show Willow the available berths and see what will work best for her, after you give me a rundown of the munchkin. Is she ok?" Jason inquired.

  "She's a very healthy little lady. Willow has done a great job of caring for her." Peter informed Jason.