“No,” Seutter whispered. “I'm... I’m not like them. I’m not! I never lost my conscience. I'm here to help...”
“Who… are you?” she mouthed.
“I’m Graham Seutter,” he said. “I’m a Psionicist. You are… Your mind is so loud, Jan Dolan, I’m trying to… Your name IS Jan, right? I’m so sorry they…”
“I need to find… my son…” she gasped.
Seutter’s dark eyes went wide, and he suddenly broke into a delighted, childish grin. “Jan, he’s on our ship. Your son, Jeremy, is safe. On… our… ship,” he slowly repeated, as if talking to a child.
The woman sobbed, and Xon pulled Seutter gently back. The Doctor moved forward, removing his medical scanner from his utility pack.
“We’re going to cut you loose, Ms. Dolan, but we must be careful. I’m Doctor Xon, and I’m very glad we’ve found you.”
“The others…” she sobbed. “And the men… my husband… Balth… are they…?”
42
The sounds of battle drew closer...
The Valorian Templar knelt above the body-boiling tank. Aiming for ambush.
As if sensing something, it glanced down—
Balthazar Washington smiled up at the thing.
Been saving this one ‘specially for you—you mother-loving bonesuit bastard…
The long stick was something they’d found in the ruins. Perhaps it had once been the shaft of a tool, or a broom handle or something; he wasn’t sure. But the wood had been in good shape. And out of sight of their captors, stealing time from the precious hours they’d been allowed for sleep, he’d sharpened the thing.
He’d hidden it in some scrub by the fields, waiting for the right time…
Now, he hurled the crude spear—
The wooden shaft punched through the Valorian’s faceplate! Fluid gushing, it tumbled from the platform into the tank...
That’s for Chen and Franzen!
He was surprised he’d still had the strength to throw the thing, to be honest. Sure, he’d always been a big guy, muscles built up by years of labor before he’d ever joined the militia.
But so many of the others had started strong, as well… And they had been so weakened by the forced work, the lack of decent food, and what was probably radiation poisoning… That they’d succumbed in the end.
And ended up in the damn vat…
Those armored bastards burning our brains, forcing us to do it, to feed our dead friends to the machine.
But it wasn’t the first time that Washington had been near death.
As a child, growing up on Nuevo Nevada, when the town oasis dried up and the Republic’s trade embargo and disease had killed most of his family… He’d survived.
In the battle over the second moon of New Virginia Beach, when most of the rest of the crew had perished when the cruiser FS Louisiana went down under ceaseless fire from the Corporate destroyers, he’d survived—making it to a lifeboat late enough to ride out the shockwave from the exploding ship.
He’d always figured he’d survived for a reason.
And that reason… was to keep fighting.
For my men.
And for Janny and the baby and Jeremy…
Because I can’t give up some hopes, however slim they might be.
Now, as the sounds of gunfire continued in the distance—and most of their Valorian captors were distracted—he ran to the emergency rendezvous point.
Behind a ruined building, Hawking, Bell and a dozen other Colonists had gathered.
“Captain, this is it, huh?” Bell said. The albino’s pale skin and hair were so coated with dust and grime, that by this point he looked almost as brown as Washington himself.
Hawking smiled. The mustachioed little man still wore the tatters of his scarlet coat and other finery. Like Bell and Washington, he’d somehow survived with enough drive left to want to fight back.
“Did you know their powers are insufficient to stop a stampede?” Hawking remarked.
Washington shook his head. “You don't say...”
“Indeed. Amazing the things one has occasion to learn here.”
“They’re coming back!” Bell warned. “The big guys chasing them… Blue skin… Holy ass, are those Repub marines?”
“Lesser of two evils, at worst,” Hawking observed.
Washington tried to focus them. “Get ready!”
More Valorians approach as the squatly built, blue-skinned marines appear. The groups fired furiously at each other.
And here I thought the Repubs sold us out to the bonesuits. Or did they and they’re just having a falling out?
Hell, Hawking’s right… We don’t have much choice but to pray those marines are on our side.
But it looks like… Only three of the damned blue skins?
Not much of a squad…
Rushing out from behind the cover of a broken wall, Washington charged forward, a piece of jagged permacrete rubble in his hands as a crude weapon. The other Colonists surged out behind him…
The closest of the marines jumped at one of the Valorians, slicing and stabbing with some kind of sword, cutting him down.
A second marine sprayed fire from his slugthrower, taking down one of the bonesuits. But another Valorian blasted him with a swarm of little lighting projectiles, knocking him down on his back, where he lay still.
Washington rushed out and grabbed the fallen marine's gun.
Old-fashioned autorifle, he thought. Surprised the Repubs even know how to use these.
But I sure as hell do.
He loosed a burst of bullets into the nearby Valorian, the same one who’d killed the marine.
The bonesuit’s armor cracked as the bullets impacted, and the flood of fluids that bubbled out of the bullet holes as the thing fell made Washington want to laugh with joy.
But two more of the Valorians appeared, edging around a ruined wall. The bonesuits raised their gauntleted fists towards Washington and the other Colonists.
Damn, no! Not that!
We can’t fight the damn flames in our heads…
He braced himself for the searing pain.
Suddenly, there was a whooshing noise and a violent rush of air—
And a ship shot forward, flying low across the ground. A small shuttlecraft.
Its prow struck the Valorians, shattering them and their armor in a cloud of bony fragments and fluid—
Then the shuttle shot forward, threatening to smash into the Washington and the Colonists.
He ducked—
And the ship shot over their heads at the last second—
Only to spin around and come back over them, hovering down, its side hatch opening.
A figure appeared in the opening… A slightly built young woman in a Republic naval outfit, with bright blue hair and dark lips.
She shouted down to them: “Get inside! We're trying to rescue you, ya morons!”
43
Reynard and his team helped Xon and his medical staff with the last of the Colonist women. The sickbay was now packed with them, and Brattain had seen a few more sitting in the hall outside.
Some were weeping, some were silent… But few spoke, and although they physically appeared healthy, they seemed traumatized.
Also, based on Reynard’s quick description of the organic prison they’d been kept in, they had spent a lot of time in zero-g without any treatments or exercise to counteract the weightlessness…
The women all wore disposable medical coveralls, and many huddled under blankets which the Musashi’s crew had provided. But Brattain couldn’t help but notice that many of them had obviously swollen… distended… bellies.
Xon was examining one of the women, a slightly-built young girl with dark skin and hair whose eyes had a far-away look. He opened the front of her coveralls to examine her, and her breasts looked swollen, her belly clearly rounded, the skin there stretched tight.
In a moment, Xon was finished and one of his nurses took over. He approached Brattai
n.
“You look uncomfortable, Commander.”
“It’s just… What did they do to them?”
“They’re pregnant. You've never seen natural gestation, have you?”
Brattain shuddered. “Not for myself, no. But I should have expected it… Just like in Seutter’s vision. So the Valorians… impregnated them?”
Xon nodded. “Most of them, I think—aside from one or two who were pregnant already. They used their own sperm cells and artificially brought about conception with their tech. It wasn’t a sexual act for the Valorians. It was artificial insemination, as the antique term would put it. But the process of treating these human beings as… brood mares… It must have been horrible for these women.”
“All that advanced biotech of theirs and they can’t build simple artificial wombs?”
“They believe that would be sacrilege,” Xon explained.
“And the infants?”
“We didn’t find any,” Xon sighed. “We can only presume that the ones already born were taken to be raised by the Unity.”
Reynard approached Brattain and saluted her. “Mission accomplished, Sir. We lost Behr, though. The Doctor failed to obey my orders to stay put and—”
She cut him off. “Good work, Lieutenant. I am sorry about the Ensign, but we can discuss this at a later time. Report to the bridge—I need you there in case we have another crisis. I know I can rely on you.”
After a sidelong glare at Xon, he nodded. “Yessir.”
Once Reynard had departed, Brattain turned back to the Doctor.
“Doctor, I can’t imagine the pain of having the offspring of those monsters growing inside of me.” She stopped, realizing that Xon himself fit the description of “offspring of a monster.”
Xon winced, but nodded: “Many of them are early term. I could easily terminate the pregnancies, but the majority of Colonists believe that life in the womb is sacred… I doubt that abortion would even be a consideration for them. The babies will be human in all respects; I can only hope that they somehow find supportive families after birth. Adoption is not unknown in the Colonies, so…”
Seutter appeared with one of the Colonial women, helping her to walk, bearing as much of her weight as he could.
“You need to be careful, Jan,” Seutter told her, the Psionicist’s voice strangely calm. “You’ve been in zero-g for a while.”
Brattain gazed at the Psionicist with open surprise. The woman by his side was tall and sturdily built—bigger than Seutter himself—making their pairing almost comical as well as shocking.
What the hell happened to him on that station?
Seutter noticed Brattain watching—and only then did he turn his head away, apparently embarrassed.
A moment later, the Colonial woman’s eyes went wide and she let out a whimper.
“Jeremy!” she cried.
The boy was sitting on Xon’s desk in the adjacent office, coloring on his pad.
She rushed to the boy in the office. She hugged him brutally tight, and Jeremy tolerated it, even pausing in his drawing.
Xon and Brattain watched the reunion with satisfaction…
But she noticed Seutter shuffling out without a glance back.
Xon smiled. “Seutter’s letting himself feel again. Compassion… As well as anger, yes. The background thoughts must be overwhelming, but he’s handling it.”
“With the help of the suppressant?” she asked.
“Uh, well Commander…” he paused awkwardly, obviously trying to change the subject. “I need to speak to you about our situation. We haven’t encountered any Valorian ships here—yet. But the Unity must know what’s happened. Enoch knows. They’re surely on their way.”
“Which is why I plan to get underway shortly. How is Mister Sivarek holding up?”
As if on cue, the Engineer entered the sickbay.
He was not alone; he was accompanied by a lanky colonist wearing a weathered hardsuit. Brattain wasn’t sure which of them looked more gaunt. Sivarek obviously hadn’t yet recovered from the strain of rebuilding the ship with the nanos; but he still projected a nervous energy.
“Doctor,” Sivarek said, “I wanted to… ummm… Know you’re busy, but those, um, special nanos you promised me? Are they ready?”
Xon nodded and reached for a cabinet on the nearby wall, entering the code to unlock it. He removed a small black plasteel cylinder which had warnings stamped into it stating: “BIOHAZARD: CONTENTS MAGNETICALLY SHIELDED.”
“Stefan, I don’t need to tell you to be very, very careful with this, yes? And you don’t look well. Have you been eating?”
“Um, yeah I… Well, I’ll go grab some Szechuan burritos for myself and Joachim to take over to the Spartacus,” Sivarek said.
“Mister Sivarek, we’re planning on leaving Earth soon,” Brattain said. “I didn’t authorize any work on the Colonial ship.”
“B… But Commander,” Sivarek protested, “the Valorians are coming back. I think I found nanos to fight them, but our fusion torpedoes won’t work to disperse them. The Spartacus has old-style fission torpedoes that I can, uh, modify.”
“But how long will that take? We need to get out of here.”
Xon shook his head. “As I was saying, Commander, the Valorians can track us. Between here and Auris, they could ambush and destroy us easily, at any time. Their mastery of wormholes, on an instinctive level, is far beyond even Seutter. The ship we encountered before was only a small vessel, I fear. They will be coming, and soon.”
“But we can fight back!” Sivarek insisted. “Just let me get these nanos loaded onto the Spartacus’s torpedoes.”
He was cut off when there was a comm message from Reynard: “Commander, there's a top priority message from the Mars. For your eyes only.”
The flagship? Are they here to assist?
Wesley…
Dammit, why do I suddenly feel so uneasy?
“I’ll take it in the wardroom, Jesus,” she said. “On my way up.”
44
The shuttle Otsu sped from Earth’s atmosphere toward the Musashi. Somewhere out there, the second shuttle, Neko, was carrying the rest of the Colonial survivors towards the same destination.
Molokos and O’Connor rode in the passenger compartment along with the Colonials. The former prisoners looked gaunt and exhausted, but Molokos remained vigilant, on the off-chance they might try something.
Though I don’t think so… They must realize they don’t really have anywhere to go. This intrasystem shuttle lacks jump capability.
Two more lost. Two more marines… brothers-in-arms.
I’ve always been a survivor, haven’t I? How many other Drones have I seen die in service of the Republic?
Too many.
I don’t mourn like normals do. There’s a blunt pain, spread out over years…
But if I didn’t have the Void to center me… As little as I understand it, it helps me now.
And the fact that I’ve been fighting the creatures that killed the Captain, enemies that defy every value I believe in…
Yeah, that helps keep me going.
But Musashi the samurai was a ronin. Couldn’t stand serving a master… He was his own man. At least, once he learned self-mastery, he didn’t need a master anymore.
Is that my path? To become a sharp blade… Self-aware, self-determined and then…?
I fight for the Musashi crew as an equal. Commander Brattain would let me question orders and treat me as a valued voice in decisions, like Kane did.
But I know the Republic. I have the feeling this grand experiment of the good ship Musashi won’t last, and to be reassigned, a new squad, more orders, more of being treated like an expendable asset…
The Colonial leader was staring at him. He was a large, dark skinned man, his shirtless, powerful chest exposed. He was muscular, yet ragged and weary from his imprisonment and forced labor. But there was power in his brown-gold eyes… an unusual shade for a normal who was supposed to be a “geneti
cally pure” human.
His hair was braided with metal decorations in a style that Molokos was unfamiliar with… Was it some designation of rank? Probably just some kind of normal “fashion,” though… Most normals seemed stupidly preoccupied with their personal appearance.
“I'm surprised to be rescued by the Republic,” the man said in a gruff voice not unlike a Drone’s. “I guess thanks are in order.”
He extended his hand, and Molokos shook it with his own giant extremity.
“You fought well, Mister Washington,” he told the man.
“You know who I am?”
“Yes.” Molokos smiled.
After all, your image has been all over the casts for months… Not that I watch them, really, but I can’t forget the “Number One Terrorist and Enemy of the Republic.”
“Not unexpected,” Washington said. “I’m surprised I’m not in shackles, though.”
“Do you want to be?” Molokos asked.
Washington chuckled softly.
“So, you’re a Drone… a slave?” he asked.
Molokos scowled. “I’m a Sergeant.”
Washington shrugged. “Sorry. Just thought that we might have something in common, both being under the heel of the Republic.”
“I’m a Drone. I’m sure I’m some ungodly mistake in your eyes.”
“No,” Washington said. “I don’t approve of genetically tampering with babies to fulfill the edicts of tyrants, no. But you didn’t choose that for yourself. A man should be judged on his character, not his DNA.”
“You sound like a certain Doctor I know.”
Ensign Cruz shouted through the open door to the cockpit: “Hey, isn’t anyone going to give some credit to the air support for her spectacular maneuvers?”
Molokos groaned. “Using a spacecraft as a blunt instrument is hardly efficient.”
Another of the Colonists—a very small, short man in red coat with odd facial hair—called up to Cruz: “Don't worry, miss. I for one noticed how skillfully you handle a stick.”
Space Cruiser Musashi: a space opera novel Page 21
