by Donald Swan
Stunned by her malicious act, Nick looked from the Meth worker to Arya. As he stared horrified, goose bumps ran up his arms, culminating in a sudden intense shiver that raced back down his spine. Clearly, the thing standing in front of him wasn’t Arya anymore. This was a vicious, cold-blooded killer. “What have they done to you?” Nick’s voice cracked in pity and fear.
Arya never even glanced down at the dead crewmember. Instead, she remained emotionless and intently focused on Nick. She gave Nick a grin so sinister it made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up and reminded him that he was the prize pig at this Dragoran fair, and she intended to bring him to the barbecue.
“What have they done? You mean what have I done?” she hissed. “Rest assured the Arya you knew is still here, pounding to get out. Screaming to be heard.” She tapped her temple several times with her fingertip. “Locked in here, in the prison of her brain.” A cold, soulless laugh floated from her lips. “I finally put her where she belongs. Now, she can watch my greatness from a front row seat in her mind.”
Nick stared so hard at the stranger in front of him that he didn’t blink until a tear ran down his face, surprising him by its presence. There was no sign of the Arya he once knew. She was dead and gone, just as sure as if she had been hit by a plasma blast to the head.
The monster that was once Arya winced in disgust. “All this time I was forced to sit back and watch you fools going about your pathetic little lives. And you, you’re the most pathetic one of the bunch. Always complaining about how unfair everything is.” Arya cringed. “What she saw in you, I cannot fathom.”
Without taking her watchful eyes off Nick, she reached into the module’s cockpit and flipped on the systems. She obviously didn’t think he was so pathetic that she could trust him.
Her eyes narrowed. “I was forced to wait patiently for the right moment, staying hidden in the recesses of Arya’s pitiful, narrow-minded brain. The things that go on in there make me sick. Only now I’m in control, and that wench is nothing more than a sergut gnat buzzing in my ear, soon to be no more. But not before she’s forced to witness her failure firsthand. It’s ironic that she will be the demise of everything she fought for. Everything she held dear.”
Tears burned Nick’s eyes. The light in Arya’s eyes had vanished, replaced by a psychopath’s cold stare.
Nick glanced around the bay. “Where’s your accomplice? That bastard Sirok? Or are you throwing him under the bus, too?”
“Sirok? That fool is not my accomplice. The coward probably ran and hid as soon as he found out Argos had been killed.”
Nick was puzzled. “I thought…the slime found on Argos—”
“Sirok didn’t kill Argos, you idiot! I killed Argos.”
Arya suddenly jerked her head back. Her eyes twitched oddly, and her body convulsed as if she were in terrible pain. Nick stared at her, waiting for an opportunity to escape, but uncertain as hell about what was going on right in front of his eyes.
A glint of fear showed in her eyes and then her shoulders dropped suddenly. “Argos! No! Argos,” she cried. Tears ran down her face as she looked back at Nick. “Nick? Nick, help me. Please…help me.”
“Arya?” Nick was stunned by her abrupt personality change but still leery. He couldn’t trust her. Not yet. Whoever was doing the talking now would have to prove she was the real Arya before he let his guard down.
Arya’s painful struggle to regain control of her body was evident in every inch of her distorted face. She was fighting with everything she had to stay in control. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop it. Please h―”
Nick took a step toward her, hoping to compel her to fight the monster in her head. “Don’t let it win. You can fight it, Arya. Look at me! Stay focused on me. And fight the damn thing in your head!”
Nick’s movement snapped the alternate personality within Arya’s brain back into action. Its fail-safe, self preservation mode had activated, and it seized control of her once again. Arya’s body flinched once, and then she raised her weapon up to Nick in a silent warning for him to stop his advance. Coldness fell over her eyes again as her spine straightened. A dark, merciless abyss was all that remained within her pupils. The artificial spy personality had won. She stared down the barrel of her pistol at Nick and smiled a cold, murderous smile.
Kyrk’s voice broke the deathly silence. “I’ve picked up a Dragoran Dreadnought on an intercept course! We need those guns back on-line!”
From somewhere in the ship, a young male crewmember responded. “Snark here. I’ll try to make my way there. Maybe I can bypass the main power conduits. Wait...all the freking doors are jammed. Can you override them from the bridge?”
“I’ll try,” Kyrk responded.
The monster inside Arya scoffed. “It won’t be long now. Sorry I won’t be here to see the action.” She waved her gun at Nick. “Turn around.”
Nick hesitated. Surely, she wasn’t going to kill him. The knowledge he possessed was too important to the Dragorans for her to kill him. Sure, they may get the module, but they would want Nick as their backup. He had to do something, and quick. Faced with few options, Nick tried to take her by surprise. Using his limited knowledge of Tae Kwon Do, and a bit of improvisation, he attacked. He deflected the pistol with one hand while he moved in to force her off her feet.
He didn’t count on Arya’s blindingly-fast left elbow to his chin. The blow flung him to the floor and left him unconscious.
Arya sneered down at him. “As if there were ever any doubt who would win at hand-to-hand combat.” Leaving him on the floor, she quickly boarded the module, closed the canopy, and blasted out of the hangar bay on a course to rendezvous with the Dreadnought. Once clear of the Ashok, she radioed the approaching ship. “Forty-seven reporting in. Mission objective completed. Requesting pickup.”
Back aboard the Ashok, Nick roused to find Karg standing over him. “Karg?” He squinted up at the big ghoul looking down at him, then placed one hand on his head as if that could ease the pain burning through his cranium. “Damn, what a headache.”
Nick readjusted his neck so he could see Karg better. As Nick became more lucid, his eyes flew open wide. “Karg! It’s Arya! She’s the spy. She’s the one who killed Argos. We have to stop her!”
Karg stared out of the open hangar door into space. “She’s disabled half the systems on the ship and there’s a Dreadnought closing fast. We’ll be lucky to even survive the next twelve chronits.”
Nick stood up with effort. “Come on, Karg, buddy, don’t give up so easily. We can use the Admiral’s ship to go after her.” He pulled on Karg’s muscle-bound arm to no avail. The behemoth didn’t budge an inch.
“It’s too late. We’d never make it in time. Right now a strategic retreat is the best we can hope for.”
“But what about Arya? And what about my module?” Nick’s brain raced to come up with a plan. There had to be something they could do. The Admiral had mentioned something about a way to eradicate the spy nanites. That meant they might still be able to save Arya and his precious module.
“No!” He pointed a finger in Karg’s general direction and shook his head emphatically. “I’m not going down easily. No way. Not this space cowboy. It ain’t over til the fat lady sings, and I don’t see any fat ladies singing around here. We have to stop Arya! No question about that. And we will. You and me.” Nick made a move for the Admiral’s ship.
Karg reached over, grabbed the back of Nick’s shirt with one hand, and yanked him off the floor so he couldn’t take another step. He spun Nick around in mid-air and looked him in the eye. “This isn’t the time. Not here. Not this way. I don’t like it any more than you do, but we’ll have to find some other way to rescue her.”
Nick hung uncomfortably by his shirt and stared up at Karg. Something about Karg’s face just didn’t look right. He cocked his head to get a better look as he swayed in the air. A huge tear ran down the big lug’s cheek, pausing in its path for just a moment before dri
pping onto the floor. The sight of emotion on Karg’s face shocked Nick. He hadn’t known Rakozians could cry.
“We won’t give up on her. We will find a way. We owe her that much,” Karg said as he tried to hold a stiff upper lip.
“Karg. Buddy. Put me down.” When Karg silently refused, Nick became more insistent. “I mean it! Karg?” Nick reached up and put one hand on Karg’s arm to stop his incessant swaying. “Karg?” Karg’s limb was as solid as an Oak branch. Judging by Karg’s stubborn stance, Nick wasn’t going anywhere.
He wasn’t one to give up easily, but he was very familiar with strategic retreats. Nick’s rational brain struggled to overcome his emotions even as he considered surrendering to Karg’s plan. It felt as though his brain would rip in two from the war being waged in his mind. Arya was out there somewhere. He couldn’t leave her, abandon her without trying to free her from the nanites and the Dragoran tyranny. And what about the hyperspace tech? They had to stop the Dragorans from getting their scaly hands on that kind of power. Was Karg really thinking about any of that?
Slowly and reluctantly, Nick pushed back his own emotions and realized Karg was right. Going after her would be suicide. The crew would end up dead, and he’d likely become a prisoner. “I guess you’re right. It wouldn’t do her any good if we were captured or dead.” Nick looked up at Karg from his awkward position. Karg raised him a little higher so he could get a better look into his eyes, apparently to determine if Nick were being truthful with him.
The thought of Arya in the hands of the Dragorans was almost more than Nick could stand. What would they do to her? Would they discard her when they had gotten what they wanted? Space her? Torture her then kill her? The idea cut him to the core. It was torture not being able to run after her, grab her, and haul her back to the Ashok, whatever it took. It was going to kill him to sit still and let someone else devise a plan of action.
Karg stared deep into Nick’s eyes. “I’ll put you down when I know you won’t run after her.”
“I swear, Karg. I won’t go after her. You’ve delayed me too long anyway. Besides, I don’t want my butt to fry at the hands of the Dragorans.” Nick rubbed the right side of his jaw. It was still painful as hell from Arya’s sucker punch.
“You can let me down now,” Nick said. “Anytime now, buddy.”
Karg grinned.
Nick frowned. “Seriously. You can put me down.” As Karg grinned back at Nick, something suddenly dawned on him. “Wait a minute, who let you out, anyway?”
“Remember that isolation chamber door?” Karg asked.
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to need a new one.”
“You didn’t.” Nick winced. “Ow!” Talking was still painful. The ache was probably going to be there for awhile.
Karg was already using a free hand to call up to the bridge even as he lowered Nick to the floor. “Kyrk, get us out of here.”
“I’m trying. Two of the engines are disabled. The Meths are working on them now, but even if they get them back online, I fear it will be too late.”
“Shit. We’re screwed!” Nick exclaimed, squinting in thought. “Dammit! Think, brain, think. There must be something we can do.”
Karg lumbered to one of the bay’s consoles and brought up a tactical display. The display clearly showed Arya’s trajectory in Nick’s module as she left the Ashok. Peering around Karg’s arm, Nick watched as the module sped toward the advancing enemy ship.
Nick stared hopelessly at the display. “We’ve practically handed the hyperspace technology over to them. I should have destroyed the module while I had the chance.”
“No. Argos was right. Sooner or later the Mok’tu would have recreated it from their scans, anyway,” Karg replied.
“I can’t believe Arya is the spy.” Nick shook his head in disbelief. “I feel like I should have known, should have been able to see it somehow. If I had, we may have been able to help her.”
Karg still followed the module’s trek toward the approaching Dreadnought. “None of us knew. I can hardly believe it myself.” He glanced at Nick, one brow lowered. “Wait a minute, if Sirok’s not a spy, where the hetek is he?”
“The coward probably ran and hid when he saw the Captain was dead.” Nick frowned, his mind still on saving Arya. They needed to get this tub moving. The quicker the better. “Shouldn’t we try to help with the engines?”
“All access from here to the engineering section is sealed. I’ve already checked. We couldn’t get there in time.”
Nick peered at the display screen. “Uh…Karg? Why does it look like the module has stopped?”
Karg used the tactical display to zoom in on the module. The display reeled off a line of words that indicated various readings about the module’s speed and trajectory. “It has stopped. It’s starting to drift now.”
Nick’s eyes widened. “Arya must be trying to regain control.” He stared at the display, jaw clenched as he watched the module drift. “Come on, Arya, fight it,” he muttered, as if he could will her to beat the nanites from his position so far away. “Get out of there. Come on! Turn around!” he yelled, staring hopefully at the screen.
The craft pitched and yawed erratically, then finally turned and accelerated back toward the Ashok.
“I have an idea!” Nick slapped Karg as near to his shoulder as he could reach. “When she lands, I’ll need to take the module back out, so get her out of there as quickly as you can.”
Karg’s big, boney brow lowered as he looked hard at Nick. “What are you up to? If you think I’m going to let you blow up the module and kill yourself, you’ve—”
“Relax, Karg. It’s nothing quite that noble. I’m going to open a hyperspace window.”
“You’re going to run, leave us behind? I don’t think so!” Karg grunted.
“Is that what you think of me?” Nick was half pissed, half hurt. After nearly three months on this boat, he’d proven his loyalty. He expected a whole heaping helping of trust from these guys, not distrust. “I’m not leaving you behind. Besides, I wouldn’t last a day out there on my own.”
Karg still puzzled over what Nick was planning. “You know the Dragorans won’t let you get close enough to destroy their ship. They’ll disable your module and capture you.”
“I’m not going to take them out. I’m going to take us in. Into hyperspace,” Nick explained.
“That’s insane! Didn’t you say that you don’t know how to navigate in hyperspace? There’s no telling where we would end up! If we could even make it back out at all. I sure don’t want to spend the rest of my days trapped in hyperspace.”
“It’ll be okay. I think I have it figured out. From the data I have collected, I’ve noticed there’s evidence of gravity wells. Probably from nearby stars and planets. Anyway, I can use that to fix our position relative to those anomalies. I can’t really navigate, but I can use it to plot a short jump. We can hang out in hyperspace while we make repairs, then jump back to normal space. I think I can place us in the general vicinity of this region of space. When we jump back in, we should be able to get our bearings again.”
Karg’s distaste for the idea was abundantly clear by the look on his face. “And what if you can’t get us back? What if you put us in some other freking part of the galaxy?”
Nick bobbed his head and grinned. He almost felt like his old self, back home, old risk-taking, flying hard Nick Bannon, the prover of hyperspace theory. “I know it’s a risk. But what are our chances against a Dreadnought? Not good, I reckon.”
“Point taken,” Karg reluctantly admitted. “I don’t know why I’m agreeing to this, but…alright, what do you want me to do?”
“Just tell Kyrk to follow me in. I don’t think he’ll listen to me, so I’m going to need you to convince him.”
Meanwhile, on board the Dreadnought Grok….
“Captain, the craft has turned around. It’s headed back to the Resistance ship!”
“Yes, lieutenant, I see that. No matter.
We will soon have them all. There is nowhere they can run now,” D’rog replied, his long, sharp teeth showing through his confident sneer. He would soon have his prize. The Commodore would be most pleased with him. His station back on home-world would surely rise.
“Sir, the craft has reentered the Resistance vessel.”
“Patience, lieutenant. All in good time. Ready the forward batteries. I want that ship disabled only. Is that clear?!”
“Yes Captain.” The lieutenant quickly and efficiently coded in the commands then reported “Sir, weapons are at your command. Targeting engines only. Estimate 5 chronits to optimal range.”
D’rog grinned as he waited to sink his teeth into his prey. It wouldn’t be long now. The Resistance would feel the sting of his power, and he would forever be a part of the songs of his people.
On the Ashok, Karg stood ready with a plasma rifle in hand as he waited for the module to touch down in the bay. His entire body went tense as the canopy opened. This was Arya. He hoped she wouldn’t force him into a position of having to shoot.
After a tense few seconds, Karg shifted his weight impatiently. So far, there was no sign of a pilot.
“Where the hell is she?” Nick murmured.
Together, the two of them approached the craft slowly and peered over the edge of the cockpit. Arya lay unconscious in the seat, slouched over to one side. Sirok sat in her lap, grinning back at them.
“Sirok! What the hetek are you doing in there?” Karg exclaimed.
