Frontline sf-4

by Randolph Lalonde

  The outlines of Ayan, Jason and Minh were inside a moment later, running between the five people inside and positioning themselves with nano blades at the ready. “In position,” Ayan announced as her outline poised with her cloaked blade at the neck of an unarmoured recruit.

  “Surrender or die!” Oz called out using his voice amplifier. He knew they could hear him.

  “This is an Eden World now! The West Watch will never surrender!” replied one with fervor.

  “Double check your seals,” Ayan ordered.

  “Sealed,” Minh replied.

  “All buttoned up here,” Jason reported.

  Ayan reached into her poncho and produced a heavy stun grenade, it had enough range to cover four times the size of the room they were standing in. She detonated it in her hand. All five of the conscripts fell to the floor.

  “Oh, they're gonna feel that in the morning,” Minh chuckled as he dropped a self sealing vacuum containment sac over the nearest conscript. The protective mini-prison took on a life of its own as it stretched around him and sealed. “And that's going to be a rude way to wake up.”

  “All clear Oz, get in here, we have alarms going off,” Ayan ordered as she did the same, making sure the bag activated before moving on.

  “I hear most people think they've been buried alive when they first wake up in one of those. They'll thank us for it if we have to fire bomb the place though, they'll come out without a scratch,” Jason added.

  When Oz arrived inside Ayan and Jason were quickly working at the main consoles and Minh had gone downstairs. “No one's down here as far as my scanner's concerned. It's mostly servers and reserve power,” he called up audibly.

  “Good, plant the charges, we're going to plan B,” Jason shouted back.

  “So they had time to lock down all the systems?”

  “No, just to warn a command carrier in orbit that they're under attack. They've assumed control and according to this there's an invasion force on the way.”

  “Oh great. Any idea how large the fleet is up there?”

  “None, I don't even recognize the class of the command carrier, but it's Regent Galactic. The people down here might not have been experts on communications, but whoever's up on that carrier knows exactly what they're doing.”

  “Charges are in place, counting down from one minute on your go,” Minh called up from downstairs.

  “I've got an access port for the hypertransmitter in orbit, as soon as the jamming stops I can broadcast,” Jason said as he set the main terminal to go into standby mode.

  “All right, lets go. Start the timers,” Ayan ordered as she lead the way out of the bunker at a dead run.

  Jason was right behind her, closely followed by Oz and Minh. It had started to rain, giving the gravel a more slick quality, they took cover behind a half ruined four seater atmosphere car in the thickening downpour. The seconds ticked by quietly until there was a flash of light and a pop at the bunker doors followed by billowing, thick black smoke.

  The group watched as Jason uplinked to the hypertransmitter in orbit, and sent the emergency message from Alaka to the Carthan Government successfully. “That's done, I even have a confirmation signal from the other side.” He pressed another icon on his command and control unit, sending their encoded mission complete signal to Roman and Alaka inside the mountain along with their status and location. “Too bad they can't get someone out here to help, there's a ton of traffic on the command line. Wait, what's this?”

  He brought up a transmission that had just gone through the hypertransmitter from the planet and patched it in through their communicators. “Here it is from the beginning.”

  Lalonde, Randolph

  Spinward Fringe Frontline

  “This is Captain Valance to Triton, I need a pickup in Damshir on Pandem. It's a war zone, there's a fleet in orbit, the Holocaust Virus has hit and the West Watch have taken control of all automated systems with support from Regent Galactic. I'm in the city south of the mountain, there must be someone alive up there behind energy shielding-” The static and wireless noise of aggressive jamming signals resumed, cutting Jacob off.

  “What's with him not reporting his coordinates? How the hell are we supposed to get to him if we don't know where he is?” Oz exclaimed, throwing his hands up in frustration.

  “He might have something after him. I don't know why he'd come alone, but at least the Triton will know what's going on soon. It sounds like he's headed for the mountain though, so he's going in the right direction,” Jason reassured him.

  “How would he signal anyone in the mountain to let him through the shield? It's not like he could sneak in, they've got the whole place locked down.”

  “Hopefully we can get to a wired connection to the mountain somewhere to tell Alaka or Roman to expect him.”

  “I'm guessing the spaceport would be the most likely place to start looking for an intact-” Minh started but was interrupted as the sky lit up with the engine fire of dozens of drop ships.

  “If we can't find an intact wire maybe the transit tunnels can get us back to the mountain. I told them we wouldn't be getting back, but if Jake is on his way there we should try to get him behind the shield and regroup.” Ayan said firmly, making sure her rifle was securely slung.

  “Sounds like the best choice considering there's a fleet in orbit,” Oz said quietly. “Oh, and some of my stealth systems still haven't regenerated.”

  “I know, your long range covert systems still work, right?”

  “Yup, I won't show up on thermal or throw any EM.”

  “Good, let's go,” Ayan said, starting off at a run between the rows of sugar cane.

  “Are you all right?” Minh asked her privately.

  “I'm fine, let's just get back in one piece and try to save Jake's butt along the way.”

  Eve

  The operating room was unlike anything Gabriel Meunez had ever seen. All the surfaces were a shade of red and covered with tacky, self sterilizing non-slip coating. Independent inertial dampeners, environmental systems and gravity management systems were behind a thick armoured curtain in one corner, available for servicing at a moment's notice. The lights projecting down from overhead were so bright and multi directional that the few shadows left stood out like stark black outlines on the various red surfaces.

  The one they had augmented and rebuilt from human into a hybrid framework lay on the operating table under surgical covers. She was called Gloria, but in moments she would be no more. Her human brain, born of a mother like trillions of humans throughout history would be discarded like a waste product. All that work, moderating her tendencies through direct interface treatment, rehabilitation, all gone to waste. It's a shame, but the woman was so damaged that her mind couldn't be cleared without damaging it physically, permanently. At least there will be no pain.

  “Anaesthesia is in full effect. Begin,” ordered the dispassionate lead surgeon. He was a specialist, Doctor Nevil Barnes, and he had spent months aboard his ship waiting to take on this one task. The kind of transplant that was about to occur was beyond rare, it was nigh unheard of outside of horror movies.

  The initial crackle of a particle saw coming to life startled Gabriel and as he watched from behind the sterile shield at one end of the operating room the beam began cutting through skin and bone. He cringed and had to look away. The very nature of what was happening was at first fascinating, then he discovered how grisly the act would actually be and he found himself struggling to watch.

  He had sent countless troopers to their deaths, onto battlefields that became graveyards, but he had never personally seen the gore. The blood that flowed in everyone's veins was a scarlet secret to him and even though the events transpiring in the room were of his doing it took all his bravery and fortitude to look back at the proceedings.

  The lead surgeon, surrounded by other doctors who leapt at the chance to assist, was just about to finish cutting the top of the woman's skull off. The large three dimentio
nal representation of what was happening inside the patient's head hovered in front of him, backed by another two dimensional display just past it, keeping all her vital readings and invisible details in easy view.

  “All right, here we go,” announced Doctor Barnes in a whisper as he gently removed the top of Gloria's skull.

  Unable to control himself any longer Gabriel spun around. A nurse was right behind him with a bucket, holding the self sealing lid open for him. His gelatinous brown synthetic breakfast came up in a violent surge. The sight of the substance his automated nutrient generator filled his stomach with several times a day urged another heave.

  “Don't mind the man behind the curtain,” commented one of the Doctors as the skullcap was carefully laid in a container. There was some chuckling and head shaking, Gabriel could hear some and guess at the rest as he wiped his mouth with the towelette the nurse handed handed him.

  He took several deep breaths and started to turn back to the ongoing surgery. Gabriel's stomach immediately threatened to revolt, to start heaving whatever was left and he faced forward once more. “They said this shouldn't happen, the nutrient delivery systems should manage any reaction,” he told the nurse, a hairy knuckled, thickly built man.

  “It's nerves sir. Same thing happened to me in anatomy class. I have something that'll help,” he replied, holding up a small medical infuser.

  “Please, I don't want to miss this, it's history you know.”

  The nurse held the infuser next to Gabriel's cheek and pressed the small button on the other end, sending a mist of medication into his system through his skin. It felt like a mild, brief cold pinch. “You should feel that right away.”

  “Ah, yes. Thank you very much, there'll be something extra in your next paycheck.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  Gabriel returned his attention to the operating table and flinched his gaze away. Her head was wide open, Gloria's brain was plain for everyone to see as the doctors ran scans over her entire nervous system to verify that she was ready for the next phase.

  “All right, starting to connect the new mind with the nervous system. Watch for neural spikes and call out problems with connection strength,” announced Doctor Barnes as he brought a circular device with cables leading directly into a tank behind him where the Eve brain waited, anaesthetized like the patient on the table.

  The ultra fine net of wires seemed to move on their own, reaching down to the table and around the brain inside Gloria's head. They were drawn into her skull by nanobots programmed specifically for the task and none other to make a connection between a living, working nervous system and a new brain while the original was still in place.

  “Wow that's quick. Did you program these yourself Doctor Barnes?”

  “I had to. Outside of emergency brain transplants into machine managed clone crop bodies no one does this anymore. The idea of bringing an old brain into a body with a pre-existing mind became taboo centuries ago,” replied Doctor Barnes without a hint of pride as he watched the holographic display of the lines being connected to the brain stem in hundreds of places.

  “Looks like all the lines are in, Doctor.”

  “All right, let's start with something simple. Let's see if our patient can connect with the tactile nerves in her upper body.”

  “Anaesthesia won't interfere with our readings?” asked one of the red clad men around the table.

  “Of course it will, that's what anaesthesia does, but that doesn't mean we can't run an artificial sensation up and down the nerve to check to see how we're doing,” Doctor Barnes replied with a little irritation. “I'd go back to wherever you studied neural science and request a refund if I were you. Until then, keep your questions to yourself,” he commented as he programmed the test sequence in a holographic control pad. Barnes couldn't feel the keystrokes or icon selections, but that didn't seem to slow him down. “All right, let's see if Eve is willing to communicate with the new body.”

  Several of the half hair thickness lines lit up, glowing different colours as several new readings on the floating two dimentional display remained completely flat. “Come on, you've been in active preserve for a long time but you've got to remember what it feels like to be human,” Doctor Barnes said to himself.

  Gabriel watched intently as the display still showed four flat lines. “I'm not sure what this means. It has to do with Eve accepting the new body?” he asked the nurse in a hushed whisper.

  “They're checking to see if she could feel something touching her if she weren't under anaesthesia. It's a standard test for people with severe brain damage.”

  “You think Eve's been damaged?”

  “Probably not, but they have to find out if she can accept a new body, this is a good way.”

  “But she's not communicating with the new body.”

  “Not yet. No one's done a brain transplant with this kind of technology before, not on the books anyway.”

  Gabriel stared at the flat lines as everyone in the operating room watched her vitals in silence. “So we don't know how long it'll take or if it'll work.”

  “I'm sorry, you're asking the wrong person sir. I'm a good nurse, but not a neurosurgeon.”

  “All right, we're going to have to simulate a sensation,” Doctor Barnes announced as he brought up another manipulatable hologram beside him. It outlined Gloria's entire body with a focus on her nervous system. “Stimulating a cluster.”

  All four activity lines bumped for a moment, then returned to scrolling from left to right. The half dozen doctors all waited in silence, watching the steadily breathing form on the operating table and the readings hovering translucently above her.

  Gabriel had become more accustomed to the grisly display before him already and his gaze went from the display with the flat readings to the body, then to the wires leading from her skull to the halo that kept them gathered and from there down the blue cable that carried the whole bunch to another ring that spread the lines out again and fed them into the opaque tank that held the Eve Mind.

  “Stimulating a cluster closer to the brain, it might feel like a broken nose but if our anaesthesiologists did their jobs right she won't remember it,” Doctor Barnes announced as he activated a holographic control beside him.

  The four lines spiked once again, this time much higher and to Gabriel's dismay they returned to scrolling along, from left to right, as flat as they were before.

  He didn't blink, move and barely breathed as he looked on, his gaze flinching between the readings and the grey tank that held so much promise. A mind that had been in storage, connected to an interactive computing system for a hundred years while the galaxy moved on, while humanity expanded and Eve's children went on with their existence. They pined for her, worshipped her like an absent Goddess, looked for ways to bring her back to life and failed for all that time because of some block that had been put in place, some inability for them to generate a solution to the problem.

  “It's been too long. This mind hasn't seen the inside of a body for centuries, it was a long shot to begin with,” said one of the Doctors quietly.

  “Let's try one more time. Maybe we're going about this the wrong way,” replied Doctor Barnes. “I'm going to simulate a sensation artificially then send a similar sensation through the tactile senses.”

  The lines spiked again, more gently this time.

  “All right, that was the simulated stimulation, from our technology to the Eve mind. Here's the real thing.”

  The four readings spiked once more, only slightly differently, the line was more gradual, less jagged. For a long moment those lines returned to being flat and then they started showing activity on their own.

  “There we go! Basic nervous system interaction, it almost matches the original host brain,” announced Doctor Barnes with a sigh of relief.

  “Congratulations Doctor,” said one of the other physicians attending.

  “Yes, this has got to be the most humane transplant ever done.”


  “I'd agree with you if we had a host body for the woman who has original possession of this body,” Doctor Barnes contested quietly.

  “That body was property of Vindyne Industries until I purchased it. She was a known criminal and a burden on society. If Vindyne hadn't used her for medical purposes she would have been put to death, your conscience should be clear. Continue Doctor,” Gabriel called out from behind the sterile screen.

  Most of the surgeons turned to look at him but only for a moment. The eager giddiness on Gabriel's face was enough to unnerve most.

  “All right, let's make the primary connections.” Doctor Barnes directed as both his hands began to manipulate holographic tools that appeared around them.

  “What does he mean, primary connections?” Gabriel asked the nurse beside him. He could have just as easily have looked up the information himself, but his attention was fully focused on the surgery.

  “They have to get the new brain to take over the automatic functions of the body like breathing. Then they can start calibrating the finer points of the nervous system.”

  “So when they're finished she'll be able to walk around and speak?”

  “I doubt it, but it shouldn't be like learning to walk all over again either. She'll remember how to walk and do other things, but she'll have to apply that knowledge to her new body. I've seen brain transplants into full grown clone replacement bodies before and I don't expect this to be much different.”

  “You'll be staying?”

  “I'm on Doctor Barnes' staff. I specialize in physical therapy so I'll be helping her with her motor skills. I'm Nathan,” he offered his hand to Gabriel as they both watched the fine wires leading into the woman's skull light up in colours of blue, red, green white and yellow.

  Gabriel shook it. The man's hand was thick and strong. “We'll be getting to know each other Nathan,” he meant to sound reassuring, to put the man at ease, but instead it sounded more like a threat. If it had any affect on the nurse, it didn't show.