“You’re no safer there than you are over here!” Floreina replied.
She moved rapidly from behind the desks. If she was going to be on her feet it was best to be moving, in case Allihence – or anyone else – was targeting her.
Floreina ran to the starboard side, seeing Marteen’s body next to the row of desks and scanning Garmein’s beside the command seat. She noticed Mahran inching his way across the floor to the chair, his left hand still clutching his wound and his right still gripping the pistol.
Still clutching the rifle tightly in her right hand, Floreina backed up toward the secondary command seat. She sat down as she saw Mahran reaching Garmein’s body and wrenching the linkage plug from the back of his head to plug it into his own.
And from the other room she saw the two doctors jumping up in similar motions to dash simultaneously from the pod chamber into the control room to race to the sides of the command chairs. Pari carried Seleina’s rifle and Addeilon carried her sidearm.
“Pick up Dithmire’s rifle,” Floreina ordered as Addeilon passed the corpse.
Mahran rolled over as Doctor Pari knelt to examine his wound.
Floreina plugged her own connection into her socket just after Mahran plugged in his.
And there was Mahran’s presence… the old, obedient slave that she remembered… but somehow much larger now, as though he encompassed the entire network.
Floreina smiled in a strange warming comfort.
But there was no time for emotional dialogue as Mahran’s consciousness immediately began digging through layers of disconnected data related to recent events. Along some confusing path of logic and mathematical calculations, Mahran had hidden a code to allow an intruder into the system. Allihence, however, had already seen the twisted system and torn it apart, scattering the data into randomized sectors to hide her access point.
As Mahran dug frantically through masses of data, Floreina felt lost in this deliberate mess.
So Floreina disconnected herself. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked.
Doctor Pari looked up from Mahran’s wound. “Looks like he should be okay… we should get the bullet out and stitch him up before he loses too much blood… but we can wait a few minutes while you take care of Captain Allihence.”
“Hand me the pistol,” she said, motioning toward Mahran.
Mahran handed her the weapon and Floreina transferred the rifle to her left hand to be replaced with the pistol in her right. She checked the cartridge, finding more than enough ammunition for another fight, and began moving forward.
As she walked carefully forward, she ran a tally of all the weapons she had seen in the room, belonging to the two soldiers, Marteen and the technician. As far as she could tell all the weapons were now accounted for on their side of the chambers.
Floreina scanned every possible area from floor to ceiling within the control room, racing back and forth to be certain Allihence was not creeping up on them from a strange angle.
“Where did you see Allihence last?” Floreina asked.
“She was lying dead on the floor last we knew,” replied Doctor Pari. “We got distracted when we killed Seleina and Stephson and when we looked down she was gone.”
“She didn’t engage anyone?”
“Not that we could tell… No, she didn’t attack either of us… all the shots fired seemed to be coming from your end.”
And Floreina moved forward, toward the main pod chamber. “Can you get the lights back on?” she asked.
“I can try,” Mahran replied. “Allihence knows this network inside and out, and even with just a remote connection it’s not hard for her to keep up with me.”
“Find her and kill her!” shouted Doctor Pari.
“Yes, thank you,” Floreina replied tartly. “That is what I intend to do.” And Floreina walked carefully toward the darkness of the adjacent chamber. “Addeilon!” she ordered. “Grab a rifle and back me up.”
“I have no firearm training!” he replied.
“Don’t tell Allihence that!” Floreina shouted back. “Get up here. If she kills me, you’re just as dead.”
And Addeilon rose nervously, putting a rifle to his shoulder. He checked the clip and the safety switch, indicating that he at least had the minimum weapons experience necessary for a surviving adult in New Eden. The doctor moved into place behind her, near the overhead hatchway.
“Now just stay here,” Floreina said. “Only shoot if you have an opening and are certain that it’s the captain you’re shooting at… and don’t shoot me.”
The doctor nodded.
And Floreina moved into the darkness of Allihence’s central pod chamber, her back sliding cautiously against the smooth curvature of the outer bulkhead. She held the rifle in her left hand, cocked against her shoulder, scanning for a long distance shot. The pistol she held in her right hand, her arm moving systematically back and forth in front of her, her elbow cocking left and right in rapid succession.
Within seconds her eyes began adjusting to the relative blackness of the pod chamber and as she moved slowly to the back of the room, the features became more and more apparent, outlines of shapes flashing and distorting before her as her scanner picked out shapes.
A child’s voice pinged subtly and distantly through the chambers. “Traitor…”
Then a moment later, the same child’s voice, clearer and closer. “You are a sin… Commander Floreina…”
And voices from every race and nationality rang out, one by one. “Traitor,” they said. “Sin against God… you spit on our Lord…”
The voices became louder and louder, faster and faster, coalescing into one great mass of infuriated cries as Floreina inched her way along the backside of the pod chamber, still frantically scanning for any type of appropriate movement or shape.
The voices echoed, piercing Floreina’s mind, drowning out all other sounds.
But Floreina pushed onward, around the back of the massive pedestal and the bottom half of the capsule. She glanced upward to scan the giant pistons above for a clinging body, and still, found nothing.
As she rounded back to the front of the pod the screaming voices continued growing louder, a new voice adding into the broadcast every few seconds. Her implant occasionally isolated voices, hearing grave insults, and the consistently repeated accusation of ‘traitor’.
Her feet splashed as she treaded through the thick, gelatinous liquid. Calculating every step, she crept along.
And suddenly the voices ceased… all but the same little girl who had started the taunting. This time, she spoke calmly. “Hello, my name is Floreina…” she said. “One time… I let my daddy die… I overlooked certain coolant pathways… ‘cause I just wanted to see him die… ‘cause I’m so empty inside it was all I could do to feel human again… and now I attack my captain… because I can’t admit my feelings… and I just can’t get enough…”
As Floreina turned her back to the pod to look toward the control room, her shoulder came instinctively up, as though she could cover her ear to block the insults.
A moment later, the voices ceased.
And as her auditory systems compensated for the new found quiet, she detected sudden movement.
She spun, only to bring her face into contact with Allihence’s stomach as she sailed from the lip of the pod, amidst a shower of embryonic gel.
They slammed to the deck and Floreina’s neck locked to prevent her head from pounding into the surface as the captain’s naked, gel-coated form crashed down from above.
Immediately Allihence began throwing punches, landing two into Floreina’s jaw and cheek, the liquid splattering in every direction.
Allihence caught Floreina’s wrist as she raised the pistol in her right hand, holding the weapon at bay.
In an attempt to limit the variables, Floreina threw the rifle from her left hand. It bounced against the top of the nearest terminal and fell to the opposite side.
As Floreina brought her left hand up to land
a punch against Allihence’s temple, she heard the giant bay door creaking into motion behind her.
The voices returned, screaming, chanting and crying a mixture of phrases… “crime against our Lord”… “God hates you”… “Traitor”… The voices ranged from every ethnicity and age found in New Eden, including Jovians and small children and ranged wildly in tone and pitch. The only thing the voices had in common were their unremitting anger and disgust.
The voices overshadowed all other sounds, preventing any reasonable cry for help. Remembering how this room had looked from the other, Floreina calculated that Doctor Pari could not see her from his vantage on the other side of the door.
Her wrist twisted and Floreina wrenched the sidearm free, throwing it backward toward the chamber’s divider, which was now slowly drawing closed.
And Allihence was up almost immediately, clawing and kicking her way off Floreina to dash toward the weapon. Floreina grasped at the captain’s legs as she splashed in the puddle of fluid. She slipped against Allihence’s flesh, wrapping her arms forcefully around the captain’s legs, and succeeded in momentarily halting her progress. Floreina rolled atop her as Allihence fell to the floor, her fingers centimeters from the weapon.
Floreina released and her legs extended like pistons. Her feet slipped dangerously in the gel before catching on the grating. She launched herself forward.
But the captain also threw herself forward and slapped a hand on the pistol half a second before Floreina’s hand came down on top.
As they struggled for the weapon, their hands outstretched before them, Floreina looked up to see Doctor Pari, the rifle in his hand, scanning for a shot as he knelt behind the door.
“Stop the door, Mahran!” shouted the doctor.
“I’m trying!” Mahran replied. “She’s locked into the system and still changing the access codes!”
Within another few seconds the hatch would descend far enough to block any reasonable shot, leaving Floreina alone, in a dark and unfamiliar room, with Captain Allihence.
Floreina lurched forward, driving an elbow into the top of Allihence’s head and a knee into her thigh.
The gun pulled free and Allihence made a frantic grab for it, knocking the weapon once again from their slimy fingers.
The pistol slid another meter to come to rest directly under the descending barrier. On the other side, Floreina saw little more than the floor and Doctor Pari’s lower body. Floreina dashed forward as Allihence clawed at her, keeping her eyes locked on the space between the floor and the descending barrier. She scrambled up as she saw Pari’s leg sweep under the door to slide the projectile pistol back into their room. The hatch nearly blocked the view of the doctor’s knees and continued descending.
Before Floreina made it entirely to her feet, she dove forward, feeling the captain’s frantic clawing on her legs and back, and dropped to the floor again to turn and roll underneath the hatch.
But Allihence was behind her, lurching forward at nearly the same rate, clawing and grasping at Floreina’s clothing.
As Floreina pulled the bulk of her body out from under the barrier she felt a hand clasping around her right wrist as she pushed herself out of the pod chamber. She felt Allihence’s other hand wrap around the same wrist, above the remainder of the plastic restraint, and clamp down.
Floreina pulled, feeling Allihence’s body slide forward, then saw her, on the other side of the hatch, pivoting her body to brace her legs against the moving doorway.
With a hard jolt, Floreina rolled, giving a sudden, forceful yank on her arm. Allihence’s grip slipped slightly, but the cuff dug into the base of Floreina’s hand and held tight. The captain’s fingernails dug into Floreina’s wrist as her hands clenched down like a vice.
And she heard Allihence’s laughter even as the sound was drowned out by Floreina’s own terrified scream.
She looked at the gap below the doorway and for several milliseconds considered rolling back under, but at this point, she would not be capable of rolling in time.
So she pulled again, feeling her face suddenly turning hot and the sweat instantly beading from her forhead.
And Allihence held tight.
Doctor Pari dropped his weapon and fell to the floor beside Floreina, but the door contacted her flesh just before his hands clasped around her upper arm.
Nanites rerouted themselves toward her elbow, pouring into her bloodstreams at maximum speed.
And before she felt the pain, she felt the painkillers.
The doctor’s hands clasped firmly around her arm, just below her shoulder and they tugged suddenly, sliding Floreina’s arm slightly inward. But Allihence held tight, and Floreina’s elbow caught under the base of the door and it closed down upon her.
Floreina’s medical processes forced themselves to the forefront of her mind, as though her natural mind was not aware of the danger. An internal outline became visible within the implant’s processes, and she watched, still pulling helplessly, as the nanites within her elbow mapped out her bone structure to analyze the damage about to occur.
She continued pulling in vain as her eyes snapped shut. Watching her internal monitor as the door closed on her arm, she saw the bones and ligaments begin to snap.
But somehow, the tightness in her stomach, the rush in her head, and the terror of what was about to come was somehow worse than the pain.
And Floreina lost herself in confusion, the sudden flux of pain killers and adrenaline hitting her system to twist her mind as though she encompassed the space above herself. She was an aspect of the situation… a complication… a calculation in the mind of God… but somehow, for a moment, did not inhabit a body.
She felt herself becoming one with the pod chamber barrier…
And she floated…
Despite the blackness and her tightly shut eyes, Floreina could still see the scene and the view looking down on her arm, even through the three dimensional model of her disintegrating elbow.
She saw the door towering like a massive steel monolith above her, the gap rapidly closing.
And From the other side of the door, like a ghost in the wind, she saw her pain racing toward her, a massive green bubble of agony ready to pound her from the far side of the room.
It pulled like a wave, hovering ominously above, and crashed down to encompass her body. Her stomach arched upward, wrenching against her arm. She knew it was the nerves within her elbow and upper arm that were firing with such intensity… but in truth, the pain was not coming from her exposed limb… instead, it came from the experience… the universe… from New Eden herself… and from God.
It was not just a series of nerves firing chemical reactions, nor was it a simple emotion… the pain itself was a holy entity.
Floreina felt herself making noise, experiencing the deep, involuntary, rumbling from the back of her throat, but heard no sound.
As the door clamped into place and the last of her limb’s connections fell silent, a blanket of disorientation fell upon Floreina, comforting her from some deeper level, but at the same time, igniting the muscles throughout her body to begin randomly twitching.
She convulsed, slamming randomly against the door and deck plating, her legs and left arm flailing wildly, the jittering coursing unchecked up and down her body. But somehow, the spasms comforted her, offering something to hold on to and bring her mind away from the destruction of her body’s most important limb.
Doctor Pari was next to her, and she felt herself shaking against him, her head bumping repeatedly into his stomach. She felt his hand on her shoulder and his body coming around to hold her still. He put a hand to her upper arm and pulled, but the limb didn’t budge. Floreina opened her eyes to see the scene, and the doctor looking down on her, his jaw hanging open and uncontrolled in terrified wonder. She looked at her arm, pinned, her right elbow crushed beyond repair, and the heavy steel door sealed tightly around it. Seeing Pari tugging on her arm, she absently thought that she should probably help… pull on
it and get the remainder of her body out of harms way… but instead she simply stared, as though the door, her arm, the doctor and the experience in general were a ghost fluttering through her bedroom as she slept… in simple, stunned amazement that this moment was actually occurring… right now… this moment was all that there was… all of existence… and she could never go back…
The doctor was speaking, but she could not make out his words. Others were speaking as well… shouting, to be specific. Scrambling for some kind of comprehension, her implant calmly reassured her, its processes running at the same clock cycles and precision timing as always, regardless of the physical trauma and emotional upheaval. It was recording everything and would play it all back the moment her natural mind could focus and understand. The implant was her rock… as always, reliable, precise, secure… always there, backing her up… like God Himself.
She saw her nanites hard at work stopping off the broken arteries at the end of her arm, and slowing the flow to prevent a lethal loss of blood, and felt her mind slowly refocusing back to the floor where she lay helpless and tortured, and on the necessary goals of the situation.
Her head pressed into Doctor Pari’s lap as he cradled her, and as the corporeal pain overwhelmed her sense of self, she found a way around it. Closing her eyes, she focused on her artificial computations. Her medical systems took over her movement, exerting a large measure of control over the jittering and random fluctuations.
“She’s gonna open it back up again!” she made out Mahran’s voice, distant and frantic, filtered through her hazy perceptions.
She continued shaking, staring up at the blurry and distorted image of the massive door before her, but the shaking somehow became more comforting and less terrifying. Slowly her natural brain mechanisms compensated for the trauma and allowed her to calm physically, but at the same time, her tactical systems, working with her emergency medical procedures, took control of her muscles and forced them to continue firing.
A moment later Doctor Pari began moving, pulling out from under her, allowing Floreina’s head to drop to the deck. She watched from the corner of her eye as he grabbed his weapon and retreated toward Mahran and his partner.
Against A Rock Page 29
