Shalia's Diary Omnibus

by Tracy St. John

  The second message was from Betra. His voice was screamy from worry. “Shalia, where are you? You missed your appointment with Tep. Com me immediately, or I’ll have Oses track you down.”

  His message had been left 45 minutes ago. Surely he’d put the weapons commander on my trail well before now. Why hadn’t they found me?

  I realized they hadn’t been able to find Candy either, not until they tracked her when she contacted me. Even I’m not so slow as to not figure out what was going on.

  I was turning for the door, ready to run my infected ass to Medical before I could lose my mind as Candy had, when the floor beneath me shook. Screams and then warning claxons erupted in the corridor outside my door.

  The message over the transport’s announce system came seconds later. “All Mataras, please go to your quarters immediately. Your section is not in danger. I repeat, Mataras, please go to your quarters and await instructions from your liaisons.”

  I had no idea what was happening. However, I knew I had something to do with it. I thought about the computer in the bulkhead, the vid showing numbers changing. Perhaps counting down?

  The order had been to stay in quarters. Screw that. I needed to be in Medical, maybe in stasis. I ran out of my room...and into Betra.

  The Imdiko grabbed me, his eyes wide. “Shalia, thank the ancestors! Where have you been?”

  I didn’t answer him. “What happened? What was that big jerk that moved the ship?”

  He shoved me into my quarters. “One of the shuttle bays suffered explosive decompression when the door to space opened without warning.”

  I got a really sick feeling in my gut. “How many, Betra? How many were killed?”

  He shook his head. “I’m a liaison, so I wouldn’t have that information right away. No doubt at least a dozen or so men were working in there. Probably more. I doubt they all escaped.”

  At least a dozen lives lost. Men doing their jobs, not harming anyone. Why?

  “Is the ship in danger?” I asked.

  Betra sighed with obvious relief. “An emergency containment field went up seconds after the doors opened. The ship is fine. Hopefully, that also means a lot of the crew got away unscathed.”

  He hugged me tight against his body, but my thoughts were riveted by what he’d said. An emergency containment field? Damn it, there had been no indication of any such mechanism, but I should have intuited a similar failsafe would be in place in case of a rupture. I had been dormant for far too long, and this body was putting up too much of a fight for me to function at capacity.

  Rage suffused me. I was too angry at my failure to realize I wasn’t hiding my thoughts from the host anymore.

  Wait a minute. I meant to write, I was so focused on the otherness inside me to realize it wasn’t me...Shalia me...thinking and furious with the invader’s failure.

  I remembered every moment as if my own actions caused them. The other consciousness was in my head, running my body, and using me. It didn’t feel separate from me at all. It felt as if it all came from me.

  That scares me more than the rest. I couldn’t separate it from me at all for a few seconds.

  Lost in the parasite’s will, I turned the rage against Betra. I yanked free of him and shoved him away. He went down, arms and legs flailing, his mouth a perfect ‘O’ of surprise. He held onto me for a second, and the sound of fabric tearing was almost as loud as his surprised yelp.

  He stared up at me from the floor. I stared back, wondering how the hell I could have attacked Betra. I was losing my mind.

  Oses swept into the room before either of us could recover. He stopped short to see Betra sitting on his ass and me standing over him. He eyed us both carefully. “Is everything all right?”

  Betra said, “Fuck no.” At the same instant, I said, “We’re fine.”

  I could feel a separateness there, a slight difference between my real thoughts and the other ones that shouldn’t belong to me. My mouth opened to scream for help.

  Oses spoke as Betra climbed to his feet. “Shalia, you were seen leaving the shuttle bay several minutes before the doors opened. What were you doing in there?”

  There was no time to explain, not when I could attack my lover and be forced to lie without warning. “Take me to Medical. Use hover cuffs if you have to—”

  My throat and mouth froze. Anger was building again, the same anger that had led to me shoving Betra to the floor. My fists clenched.

  Oses saw the motion, his gaze dropping to my left hand. His eyes widened for an instant before he moved in a blur.

  He grabbed my arm, lifting it. My sleeve had torn, showing a hint of gray and green beneath the fabric. Oses tore the sleeve off.

  From the wrist to just past my elbow, my arm was encased in bony armor and green tube veins. I swear as God is my witness, I do not know when it happened. It might have been days that the exoskeleton had been knitting itself over my flesh...and I had never noticed.

  The otherness in my head dissipated, becoming one with me. There was no more Shalia Monroe. There was only the It, and it was furious to have been discovered too early.

  Rapid-fire tactics flew through my head, faster than any thought I’d ever experienced before. Strengths of Kalquorians, the assessment of the pair before me, my options of fight and flight – it ran through my shared brain in less than a second. I recognized that I was not up to full strength and could not hope to fight to victory. Flight seemed the best plan, flight and hiding. First, I would have to get past the two enemies to gain the door and the corridor beyond. They were still surprised. It gave me a precious moment to hurt them badly enough to keep them from being able to follow or raise an alarm.

  A small part of me had remained separate after all, it seemed. At the idea of harming my lovers – and seeing into that other’s plans and how devastating its attack could be to them – I re-surfaced and snagged tenuous control over myself.

  “Cuff me now!” I screamed at Oses. “It’s going to use me to hurt you!”

  Bless that big wonderful brute, he didn’t hesitate for an instant. Even as I screamed with the rage of the It, Oses was already behind me, snapping cuffs on my wrists at the small of my back. He swept my feet out from under me, catching me before I could fall and be hurt. He lowered me facedown onto the soft carpet.

  The It’s consciousness vanished all at once. I was fully myself again, sobbing in terror of what I’d become.

  “The baby,” I cried, my greatest fear rising to the surface. “What is it doing to my child?”

  “We nuh-nuh-need to take her to Meh-Meh-Medical.” Betra’s hitching words told me he was weeping as well.

  “I’ll carry her.” Oses was busy tying my legs together with what I later discovered to be my bathrobe’s sash. He’d gone into my room for it and returned without me even realizing he’d moved. “Tell Tep I’m on the way, but first com Security and tell them to send a guard detachment with me.”

  “Oses, this is Shalia!”

  “Not all of her is Shalia. Not any longer.” Oses swung me into his arms, cradling me gently against his chest. “Call in that security detail, Betra. Tell them I’m taking the most direct route to Medical.”

  With that, he left my quarters at a run. I shut my eyes against the blur of our surroundings and prayed for salvation.

  By the time Oses got me to Medical, we had a security detail of six Nobeks surrounding us. We burst into Tep’s department like I was dying with only seconds left to be saved.

  It felt that way.

  The doctor wasted not a single second. “Place her on the table for a full scan,” he ordered Oses.

  Oses had to remove the cuffs that held my wrists prisoner behind my back to lay me down. He bared fangs at the security officers around us: they had drawn their blasters. I welcomed the show of force. There wasn’t the slightest peep from the It that had invaded my body. I thought perhaps it knew it was in danger and that kept it quiet.

  Though Oses was clearly unhappy to have me unde
r armed siege, he didn’t object. It was pretty obvious that I was behind the shuttle bay incident. Under the It’s control, I could be lethal to this ship and crew.

  “Computer, place patient in stasis from the neck down,” Tep said as soon as I was in position.

  Good, I couldn’t move. Oses snarled at the others, “She’s secured. Put the blasters away.”

  I’m sure they could have challenged him since he was on leave, but no one did. Oses was held in high esteem, no matter what his current status was. They holstered their weapons.

  Tep muttered and scowled at whatever the scan showed him. “All right, all right. She’s infected with the same organism as Matara Candy, but nowhere as much. It’s barely left the arm. A single feeder vein in her chest, two in her brain. There seems to be something else here though, on her wrist...”

  Betra’s voice informed me that he’d arrived. “It’s that cuff Candy got her for her birthday. The armor is growing over it.”

  Tep tapped like the world’s fastest typist on his computer station’s keyboard. I’ve never seen fingers fly so fast. “Actually, it’s growing from the bracelet. There is no separation between it and where the armor connects to it. Did Matara Candy have a similar piece?”

  I stared at the ceiling overhead. “Yes, an exact duplicate. She bought it from a vendor on Darotkin.”

  “How long have you been wearing it, Shalia?”

  I couldn’t remember when I’d put the cuff on. I searched my memory, but all I could come up with was the night of the special dinner with Betra and Oses. I’d worn the bracelet and the pretty blouse Katrina had bought me. The shirt that matched the dress she’d bought for my unborn daughter.

  I swallowed. The It was only in my arm, chest, and brain. It hadn’t gotten to my baby yet.

  “I don’t know for sure when the last time was. The latest I recall was eight days ago. I can’t bring to mind taking it off after that.” I looked at Oses, pleading with my gaze for him to believe my next statement. “I have no memory of going into the shuttle bay today either. One moment I was in my quarters, and the next I was in the bulkhead where we found Candy. The computer there was counting down, but I didn’t know why. It must have opened the bay doors.” My voice ended in a little sob. Men had died because of me.

  “Easy, pet,” Oses murmured. He stroked my hair, his fierce face trying its damnedest to be comforting.

  Tep’s frown deepened, etching big furrows in his face. “Candy came into possession of these cuffs during shore leave. That was ten days ago. Did she start wearing hers immediately?”

  She slid it on after giving me my birthday present. “Yes.”

  “I’m going to operate on the theory that the organisms affected you both in the capacity of memory. You wouldn’t realize you still had the pieces on once they had the chance to infiltrate your bodies. I’m betting it sends a vein...or whatever the green tubes are...straight to the brain as quickly as possible.” The doctor paced, considering. “Only two days’ difference between when you put them on. Yet the organism has spread so much farther in Candy than in you. Why is that?”

  I interrupted his worrying. “Are you going to place me in full stasis too?”

  Tep shook his head. “I’d prefer to run tests first. I want to discover if there is something in your genetic makeup that is fighting this organism. If we can figure out why it is invading you more slowly, that could be the answer to saving Candy and you from being overcome.”

  I wanted Candy to be okay. I wanted me to be okay. But someone else was my overriding priority. “What about the baby? You can’t let this monstrosity get to my child.”

  Tep paused for only an instant. “Right now, it is nowhere near the fetus. I can’t let this opportunity to study it pass, Shalia. However, I promise that the instant I detect any of these veins heading in the fetus’s direction, I’ll put you in stasis.”

  “It is still taking Candy over even though she is in stasis,” I pointed out. “Can you take the baby if you have to?”

  Tep wrung his hands. “At this stage, that would be dangerous. A few more weeks and she’ll be at a stage of development giving her a better chance of survival if we can’t—” he paused.

  “If you can’t stop the organism from advancing,” I supplied, grimly stating what he wouldn’t.

  Tep nodded. “If it comes to that, I’ll deliver her. We’ll do all we can to ensure her well-being.”

  “Even if it means you have to give up on me.”

  Betra’s sharp intake of breath came as Tep’s brows shot up. “I am in no way saying it’ll come to that,” the doctor insisted.

  “It could,” I grated between clenched teeth. “Let me tell you why.”

  I reported my dream then, making sure they knew the first dream of being an armed killer among many others had occurred well before seeing the armor on Candy. They couldn’t take the insight lightly. I ended with, “I think the nightmares were the It’s memory of an earlier existence. With it connected to my brain, I believe I am seeing some of what it’s done in the past.”

  “The It?” Tep asked.

  “That’s what I call this thing. It was made to kill. It has no conscience. It takes pleasure in destroying.” I swallowed a surge of nausea, reliving that heady thrill of power that had accompanied my blood-soaked dreams. “It cannot be stopped once it’s in full control. I don’t think I can make that clear enough to you. It won’t think twice about killing all of you.”

  Between clenched teeth I finished by telling Tep, “If you have to, take the baby and destroy both me and the It. You cannot let it get loose.”

  Minutes later, Tep housed me in a private room. He got busy arranging the tests he needed to subject me and my unwanted guest to. I remained in partial stasis to keep me from taking off and committing mayhem should the It gain the upper hand again.

  Oses remained with me while Betra went back to my quarters to fetch a few items. My Imdiko lover returned with my prettiest nightgowns, my handheld, hairbrush, and other little niceties. He set the handheld on the table next to me so I could speak to it. My diary, music, and audio story files were there to keep me amused during this incarceration.

  It is an incarceration. I am a prisoner in Medical, held by stasis and the terror of the demon hijacking me.

  I gave in to panic for a while. “Promise me,” I begged Oses and Betra over and over. “Promise me the baby will be saved, no matter what it means happens to me. You have to keep my child safe if I reach the point where I can’t make those decisions anymore.”

  They said all the right things, assuring me that my little girl would survive this nightmare. I’m sure Betra meant it, but who knows if he’ll falter if the worst happens? He’s told me he loves me, and sometimes love makes us weak. If it comes down to pulling the plug on me, I’m not sure he can insist.

  Oses, however...well, he’s Oses. I have hope his brand of uncompromising love will take care of whatever comes. He’s had to face the possibility of it before. I can count on him.

  When I continued to cry, devastated by all that was happening, the men did their best to soothe me with gentle kisses, whispered comforts, and loving caresses. When that failed, Oses went for what only a desperate Nobek who couldn’t beat someone up would: sex.

  I was jolted from my despair by him flipping up the nightgown I’d been dressed in by the orderlies, exposing me from my swelling waist down. I gasped as he spread my legs and planted a wet kiss on my pussy.

  “Are you insane?” Betra hissed at him, looking as shocked as I felt. “This is not the time for sex!”

  “She stopped crying,” Oses pointed out. If not for the heat in his purple eyes, the look he gave me would have been quite bland. “It’s a good distraction. It’s up to you, Shalia. Do you wish me to stop or continue?”

  I stared at him, flabbergasted. “Oses, I’m being possessed by an alien organism!”

  “Yes, I know. For now, you remain Shalia, the woman I crave. You were also becoming hysterical, which d
oes you no good. I have snapped you out of that.”

  He had a point. However, my mind was far from wanting a lurid encounter. “I am not up for fucking, Oses.”

  “Not yet,” he shrugged. “Maybe I can change your mind. You are helpless under a partial stasis field. That puts you unequivocally under my power, something that usually makes you happy. I can give you sexual pleasure to help you feel better. If Betra will stop looking so affronted, he could help too.”

  Betra shook his head at Oses. “Only a Nobek would consider fucking at a time like this.”

  Oses rolled his eyes. “I said nothing about actual fucking. It’s against regulations for intercourse in Medical anyway. However, Shalia can be serviced. Perhaps she can even achieve climax. Maybe not. But we can try to take her mind off her troubles, if only for a little while.”