by Jay Toney
I did as she said. My mind was flooded with images of the circular chamber that the door faced. I tried to move past the images, to see what was there now. It resisted. I felt like I was passing through a sponge-like material. I managed to push my way through the material and look into the vault chamber. There were no guards in this area.
I pulled my self back. It was a lot easier than trying to move through the door. "It wasn't that bad."
"Then you can do it from now on."
"The way is clear. We can move through the door together."
"No! You will have to find a way to open the door."
This vault was like any other vault I had been inside of. There was no way to unlock it from the inside, but that didn't mean that we couldn't break out. Vaults were designed to prevent people from breaking in. They were not designed to stop people from breaking their way out of them. The door's hinges were located on the inside with us as well as the locking mechanism.
I removed my energy sword from my belt, activated it and sliced through the lock. After cutting through the lock, I deactivated my energy sword and returned it to my belt. The door opened easily on its hinges. We stepped out of the vault closing the door behind us.
The two of us managed to descend three levels before we came in contact with guards. They weren't expecting company and were not prepared for our attack. Fortunately for us, we knew we would encounter resistance and were prepared. Our blasters were already drawn and set on kill. All three guards were dead in seconds. One of the guards managed to set off an alarm.
Strobe lights flashed, klaxons sounded, and the public address announced, "Intruder alert. Intruder alert. All guards report to level 18. Shoot to kill." We couldn't afford to stick around until the guards showed up. Taking on a few unprepared guards was one thing, facing an assault team was another.
I took stock of our surroundings, looking for a means of escape that would allow us to elude the security forces. There was a gravsled nearby full of empty containers. It gave me an idea. I used my energy sword to cut away the safety railing and kicked it over the edge. I watched it fall. It seemed to take a long time for the railing to reach the bottom.
Persephone and I tossed the empty containers out of the back of the gravsled then buckled herself into its seat. I turned the repulsorfield up to maximum and the gravsled rose waist high.
"You are not going to do what I think you are, are you?"
Without answering, I drove the gravsled over the edge. Either the repulsor field was going to break our fall, or it was going to hurt like hell when we hit bottom.
The fall seemed to take forever. I watched floor after floor rush by us. Eventually, we reached the bottom. The repulsorfield absorbed most of the shock of impact before failing, but not all of it. It still hurt like hell when we hit bottom. None of my cybernetic limbs were broken, but all of the nociceptors in my artificial nervous system were sending pain signals to my brain. I did my best to override and ignore them. Persephone was unharmed.
"You know what they say about any landing you can walk away from." I struggled to get off of the seat and stand. We overshot the reactor floors by two levels, landing in a maintenance section. Our path to the reactors was clear, with everyone heading up in search of us.
The first reactor area was occupied only by technicians. It would be dangerous firing a blaster anywhere near the rector's core. I pulled the energy sword from my belt and started killing the technicians as fast as I could. Persephone drew a long wicked looking sword from a scabbard at her side. I had never seen it before. "It's a gift from father," she explained, helping me deal with the technicians.
The reactor's controls were standard and easy to operate. Persephone made a connection with its computers and cycled the reactor to standby. She set up an encryption routine that would prevent anyone else from using the reactor's controls without first solving her lockout encryption. That took care of the depository's defensive weapons.
A new set of alarms sounded. The security guards were rushing back down to our level. We had to hurry. We passed reactor room #2 going to the third reactor. I hoped this was the one that powered the station's life support systems. It wasn't. Our luck had changed. After taking care of the technicians, Persephone took care of the reactor. She shut down the reactor and locked out its controls, in the same way, she did the last reactor. The depository's shields were disabled.
She contacted the fleet, telling them it was safe to approach the moon base and begin sending our shuttles to the depository. We still had the operations reactor and controls to deal with.
The technicians had armed themselves. They knew what was coming and couldn't depend on their security to reach them in time. They weren't trained and didn't realize the danger they were in by firing their blasters in the reactor room. Any stray shot could set off a chain reaction.
Our power armor could shield us from the occasional shot but wasn't designed or nearly powerful enough to absorb the constant barrage of fire that faced us. I charged the men hoping my cybernetic limbs and implants could withstand the abuse. I killed three of the men before their weapons overcame my power armor's defenses and my cybernetic limbs. Machinery shouldn't hurt, but my cybernetic limbs did. Both of my legs, my abdomen, and my left arm were severely damaged. My body shut down to prevent further damage and couldn't be used until it was repaired. I released all of my stored nanites to begin making the necessary repairs. All I could do was lay on the floor and watch helplessly.
The technicians saw that I was immobilized and turned to attack Persephone. She was in full rage. She moved faster than I thought was possible. My mind must have been playing tricks on me. I swore I saw her step out of the path of a blaster bolt fired at her from point-blank range. Body after body fell to the floor, headless, and some without limbs.
I could hear clapping from the back of the room. It was Ares. "Bravo cousin. I couldn't have done better myself." Then he vanished. Persephone turned the last reactor down to minimum power, she left power for lighting and artificial gravity. She turned the life support off and began venting the air from the building. In minutes, there would be no air left to breathe.
"You need a bath. A bath will do more to help you than I can." She opened a portal. "Ella, Lara, come help me with Nathaniel." The naiads broke the surface of the water. They transformed their tails to legs and swam to the shore of Persephone's lagoon.
Ella and Lara joined Persephone on this side of the portal. "Help me remove his armor and help him into the water."
When I entered the water, the sensors in my cybernetic components malfunctioned again. Instead of sending me temperature and pressure readings, the water felt cool, refreshing, and my limbs began to tingle. Ella and Lara transformed their legs back into tails and pulled me under the surface. I could hold my breath for quite awhile with my cybernetic lungs. It was possible that my lungs could extract oxygen from the water if needed. It wasn't. Breathing the water felt no different than breathing air.
"Persephone has asked us to watch over you while you heal in the water. This lagoon's water has healing properties and will rejuvenate your body. All of your wounds will be healed soon."
I didn't know how that would apply to my mechanical components, but I felt that I could trust whatever they said. "Where is Persephone?"
"She is in the other world, gathering your treasure."
****
Persephone greeted the cargo loaders and shuttle pilots. Some of the crew thought of her as the ship's AI, most didn't know what to think of her. There were new rumors about her every day. Most focused on her being one of the captain's consorts. Anything she ordered had best be done as if she was the ship's captain herself.
"Everyone, we will work from the top down. Nothing is to be left behind. The captain's personal treasure is located in a vault on the eighteenth floor. It will be taken directly to his quarters. The rest of the treasure will be divided as follows; six shuttle loads will be transported to the Persephone, four to the Ve
ngeance, three to the Valkyrie, and two to everyone else except for the Falcon and the Gryphon. They will be receiving one shuttle load each."
"That will hardly clear out one floor," Beck said. "There are over thirty floors of vaults to empty out.
"We don't have enough room aboard our fleet to house all of the treasure. The rest will be placed in a secure area that Captain Roberts or I can access anytime we wish." Persephone concentrated and a portal formed. On the other side of the portal was a large open room. There was enough room to house the contents of 10 depositories this size.
The men began working. It took longer to load the shuttles and to fill the storage room than she thought it would. The men had to rotate in shifts, recharging their spacesuits between shifts. It took nearly three weeks to clean out all of the vaults. During that time, no ships entered the system to challenged us.
****
"Your body has been healed. It is time to return to your world." I was brought to the surface. I had no idea how much time I had spent here. There was no day/night cycle. It was always light. Even so, I spent most of my time asleep with the water nymphs caring for.
A portal appeared on the beach. I headed towards it. "Thank you for healing me."
"Do not thank us, thank Persephone. It is her bath."
I stepped through the portal and was back in my cabin. No one was in the common area. While changing clothes, I noticed that my weapons belt was hanging at the entrance to my wardrobe. I would have to thank someone for bringing it back to me.
I headed up to the bridge. Nugget, Amber, Jewel, and Persephone were there.
"You bit me." Nugget pulled off the mitts he was wearing to show me the bites. Large purple pustules covered both of his hands. I did bite him, but these were not from my bite. Some how he was bitten by our niffids. He had a nasty case of noids. The mitts he was wearing were to stop him from scratching while they slowly healed. The itching must be driving him mad.
"That is not from a spider bite."
"What is it then? The autodoc units couldn't diagnose it or heal it. Doc couldn't find a cure either. He told me that I would have to wait until my body healed itself naturally."
Doc knew first hand what noids looked like and how much they itched. We had plenty of Hannah's noid cream in our sick bay to treat the occasional bite. The cream would instantly relieve the itching and speed up the healing process.
"It is a rare form of Galaxian Herpes. I've seen it before. It is highly contagious and transmitted by touch. Have you been cheating on Astrea?"
"Of course not. I've never heard of this form of Herpes." He began typing in a query on his computer terminal. Data immediately flowed onto the main viewscreen, none of it was good.
Persephone turned away from Nugget so he couldn't see her laughing. The time she spent with Amber was having an effect on her sense of humor. I liked it.
"You better have Astrea examined. She may have been the one who infected you with the Galaxian Herpes. Either way, you both have been infected by now."
"Is there a cure?"
"No, but it is easy to treat. The both of you will have to take long mud baths. After soaking in the mud, the two of you will have to let the caked on mud dry. This will draw out the infection and relieve the itching." I didn't know if it would help with the itching or not, but it couldn't hurt.
"It sounds like you are speaking from experience. You and Persephone should be examined too." He left the bridge to find Astrea and tell her the news.
"He's going to be mad when he finds out the truth."
"Who is going to tell him? It serves him right for having Jewel and Amber fly us over to the depository."
"How are you feeling?"
"Much better now." I was. My body felt like it was mine and not a collection of machinery attached to me. I could feel instead without relying on sensory input. My body still had a tingling sensation all over it. I checked my diagnostics. All systems were operating at peak performance. I was still a cyborg, but I felt human again.
We were in deep space, heading away from the Aquarii constellation. Persephone was waiting for me to heal before setting a new course and entering hyperspace.
"How did we manage to separate from each other?"
"We didn't. You were with me the whole time." She pointed to the set of diamond earrings she was wearing. "The earring on my left is my bath. The one on my right is the new place I created to store our treasure. We can explore its contents together, later."
"How much of their treasure did we manage to take?"
"We cleaned them out." We didn't cause much harm to their people, but their government and banking system is broke. When word gets out, there will be several people trying to collect their money from the Drax. There will be a lot of rioting to keep the Drax busy."
"Set our course for Epsilon Tauri, in the Hyades open cluster. Enter hyperspace when ready.
"Not before I'm through with him. I've missed every turn with Nathaniel and Persephone for the last month. I am not going to miss this one!" Amber demanded.
Taurus
Epsilon Tauri's sun was bright orange. It was a massive star, over three times the size of Buenos Aries's sun. It wasn't a giant yet, but it was growing with its fuel nearly depleted. The fourth planet of this system was habitable. We set our course for it.
Navigation satellites guided us into an approach lane, to avoid collisions with other approaching or departing spaceships.
"The planet has three major land masses, several islands, and ice caps at its poles. Its terrain is a mix of desert and tropical regions. Over 2/3rds of the planet is covered by water. There are several spaceports, on its surface and an orbiting space station," Amber reported.
"I have a communications request from Rewadda," Jewel informed me. She opened the channel, and a humanoid appeared on our main viewscreen. He looked like an earthling or someone that could be of Earth origin except for his pale green skin.
"Greetings travelers," he sent navigation information to our fleet. "What is the purpose of your visit?"
"We are seeking the location of the Sol System and the planet Earth. We are also in need of supplies and reaction mass. It has been a long time since the members of our fleet have had a chance to take leave of our ships." Not forgetting to make good of my promise to spread the word of the Drax robbery, I continued, "We have just come from the Drax empire and have news of them. Apparently, someone has managed to break into their depository and steal all of its contents."
"That is excellent news. It is about time someone has managed to steal the wealth from that den of thieves. Welcome to Rewadda. We will do our best to satisfy your needs." Docking instructions followed his transmission.
"Persephone, how long will it be before we can dock?"
"At this speed, it will take a couple of days."
Cruising at 500kps was a slow crawl compared to the standard .2c that we were accustomed to traveling at. On this side of the wormhole, it took days to cross the same distance, we could pass in hours.
I headed below to my cabin to check on our children. The twins were all sleeping peacefully. Tammy and Daphne were watching over them. Demi was another matter. Her grandmother, Demeter, had been taking her into other alternate dimensions where time flowed much faster. She had spent years with her grandmother, growing up, in the short time she was with us. We had missed her first words and her first steps. She was a sweet and loving child to us, but a little terror for the nymphs. Her curiosity had no boundaries. She got into everything and enjoyed doing it. Right now she was busy drawing pictures on the walls.
"You're such a creative girl, and your artwork is wonderful," Persephone told her. With a flick of her wrist, our walls were clean again. "It is lunchtime. How about some pancakes?"
Pancakes were alright but not for every meal. Persephone couldn't get enough of them. She made a banquet table appear covered with pancakes with every type of topping. Demi liked her's with vanilla ice cream. I replicated myself a chicken dinner w
ith mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, and cranberry sauce. Amber and Jewel dutifully ate their share of pancakes trying to make their milk as sweet as the nymphs, for our children. Our kids still preferred feeding from the nymphs. Daphne and Tammy are fantastic wet nurses and loved caring for our babies. According to Persephone, amber and Jewel had to eat a lot of pancakes, using plenty of syrup, to sweeten their milk. It wouldn't work but who was I to break their hearts.
Sunday was still hours away. I could enjoy my time with Demi until then.
"No, you can't." Demeter appeared and scooped up her granddaughter. I came by early for Demi. We have lots to do. She needs a room of her own now, and it must be furnished appropriately." She waved her hand at the room we were using for storage, it was emptied. "Athena has promised Demi a new dress for her birthday, and Aphrodite is going to help me with her hair. I think she will need to start wearing it up. We need to shop for proper furnishings for her bedroom."
"Mother, you are spoiling her."
"That is what grandmothers do. Besides, it will give you and Nathaniel more time to lay with each other like goats. You can not tell me that you are not in love him now."
"We are close friends. There is no love between us."
"That is not what Ares said. He bragged about how you dealt with the Drax after Nathaniel was injured. He must learn how to regenerate himself."
"I would fight for any of my friends."
"But would you have a baby with them. Even I can see that you desire to have another baby by him."
Persephone was without words. She couldn't keep lying about how she felt, even to her mother. She looked down at the floor in defeat. Her mother had won again.
"Now that you have admitted it to yourself, you will feel much happier about your union with him, even if I don't. At least he is better than Hades, but not by much."
"I have never been happier. Since I became aware and shared myself with Nathaniel, I feel complete. I enjoy the time we spend together, especially when we lay with each other as mortals do."
