by G J Ogden
“Casey!” he shouted, but there was no answer. “Casey, can ya hear me?” he cried again, reaching out to grab her shoulders, but his hands just slipped through her body. He recoiled, and scrambled away from her on his hands and knees. “What the hell is this?!” he shouted and then he sprang up and rounded on Sonner, “Hey, lady, what’ve you done to Casey?” There was no response – the scene just played out, recreated from Taylor’s memory. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you!” Blake shouted, but again there was no answer. He went to grab her, but his hands slipped through, the same as they had done with Casey. He balled them into fists and confronted Taylor. “What’s goin’ on, Cap? Tell me, or I swear I’ll beat it outta you!”
“I’ve already told you, Blake,” said Taylor, keeping his cool as best he could. “You wouldn’t believe my words, so now I’m showing you. These are my memories. This is when I first became awake, or whatever you want to call it. This is when I saw myself for the first time, the same way you see me in that chair.”
“But Casey an’ Satomi, that woman killed ‘em?” said Blake, still angry.
“Yes, but we were trying to kill her too. You have to understand we were her enemy. We were Hunter simulants, programmed by the Hedalt to kill humans. But I fell and something inside me snapped. I woke up and saw her for what she really was, and she realized I was no longer a threat. She let me go. She’s a friend, Blake. She’s the one who helped me find you.”
“Wait, you’re workin’ with her? After what she did to Casey an’ Satomi?”
“I wouldn’t be here without Commander Sarah Sonner. She could have killed me, but she didn’t. She could have refused to help me rescue you and Casey, but she didn’t.”
“Wait, Casey’s okay?” The suggestion of her still being alive had the immediate effect of cooling Blake’s hot head. But more than that, Taylor could see that he had chipped away at the wall Blake had put between them, enough that what he was telling him and showing him was starting to get through.
“Yes, she’s on the ship, waiting,” said Taylor, realizing he should have probably mentioned that earlier. “It’s not the same Casey you see there,” said Taylor, managing to force a quick glance at the two simulants propped up against the wall, despite the sight of them still causing him distress. “And it’s not even the same Casey you remember. It was another copy of the Casey simulant from another ship. But it’s still Casey, Blake. It’s still her.”
Blake glanced back at the two bodies, and then back to Taylor; the hard edge had now gone from his eyes. “What about Satomi? Didya manage to get her back too?”
Taylor glanced to Satomi’s lifeless simulant body and then looked down, “No, not yet.”
Blake sighed and then shook his head. It all sounded crazy, yet for some reason he was starting to believe it was the truth. As much as anything, this was because he knew he hadn’t the imagination to concoct something so wild, no matter how much he’d drunk the night before. “And what about me?” he asked, nervously, “If I’m a different Blake to the one you knew then I guess I – or the other me – didn’t make it outta this place alive, either?”
“No, you didn’t,” said Taylor. “You were actually the first to fall.”
“Was it a good death?” asked Blake, hopefully. Coming from anyone else the question would have surprised Taylor, but not from Blake.
“Is any death good?” Taylor replied, but he knew what Blake was asking and quickly added, “But if you mean did you go out well, then yes. You went out protecting us all, in a blaze of glory.”
“Well, at least that’s somethin’.” Blake turned back to watch as the woman Taylor had called Commander Sarah Sonner removed the other Taylor’s restraints.
“I can try to show you if you like,” said Taylor, “But, I struggle now to remember the things that happened while I was still under the Hedalt’s control. Each day the memories become more detached, but if you want, I’ll try.”
“No, there ain’t no point, Cap,” said Blake, turning back to face him. “You’ve dug up enough of the past already, and I ain’t in the mood to see more.”
“So what now?” asked Taylor.
Blake shrugged, “I guess you wake me up, or whatever it is ya call it,” he said, with a resigned air, “and then I’ll either be a plastic-faced freak like you, or I’ll just be me, with one mother of a hangover.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Taylor, Casey and Sonner gathered around the workbench and waited for the simulant form of Blake Meade to wake up for the first time. After the experience with Casey, where she had woken up before Taylor had returned to the workshop, Sonner had delayed ‘flipping the switch’ until Taylor had a chance to update the others about what had happened in the DMZ. But now they were out of time; Sonner was almost due for her meeting with Colonel Collins, and didn’t want to give him an excuse to reprimand her by being late.
Casey had placed the ring into Blake’s open palm and then closed his hand around it. It had belonged to a different Blake simulant to the one lying on the table, who had given it to a different Casey than the one in the room, but Taylor didn’t believe this mattered. They may have had different experiences to the Blake and Casey from his crew, but in the same way that his feelings for Satomi hadn’t altered, he had to believe that the deeply human bond between Casey and Blake would transcend all else.
Blake Meade opened his eyes and sat up. For a few seconds he didn’t move, and then he raised his hand and opened his clenched fist. There was total silence in the workshop as Blake slowly tilted his head to look at the ring. Come on, Blake, say something... Anything! Taylor urged. The wait was excruciating.
Blake’s mouth puckered and then he swung his legs over the side of the bench and looked at each of them in turn, starting with Sonner, then Taylor and ending with Casey, who he shot the faintest suggestion of a smile. Then he stared back down at the ring in his hand and gently flipped it over between his fingers and thumb, as much observing the strange new digits as the ring they held. “Well, I guess the good news is that I don’t have a hangover,” he said, looking up at Taylor.
Of all the first words he imagined coming out of Blake’s mouth, these were not among them, and Taylor was struck dumb. But then Casey laughed, freely and easily, body bent forward to rest her hands on her knees, as if her non-existent stomach muscles were buckling from the strain of laughing. And then Taylor found himself laughing too.
Sonner looked at them both in utter disbelief, before glancing across to Blake, who was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s madder; the fact that you all find this so funny, or that you somehow convinced me it was a good idea.”
“Aw, hell,” said Blake, jumping down off the bench and looking at Taylor, “don’t tell me she has a rod up her ass too, just like you? One Captain that’s stiffer than an Egyptian mummy is bad enough, but two?”
Taylor’s eyes widened and he stole a quick sideways glance at Sonner, but to his surprise, she seemed to have taken it quite well.
“It’s Commander, actually, Tactical Specialist Meade,” Sonner corrected, “and you’d do well to remember that.” Then she turned to leave, but something compelled her to look back. “And, for your information, Egyptian mummies are not actually stiff, but extremely fragile.”
“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me!” said Blake, throwing his hands up, “She’s worse than Satomi!”
“I must be out of my mind,” said Sonner, shaking her head. Then she looked at Taylor, “I’ll leave you three to get re-acquainted, while I pay a visit to our silver-haired friend.”
“Aye aye, Commander Sarah Sonner,” said Taylor, smiling, as Sonner strolled out of the workshop, muttering under her breath.
“She seems like a barrel of laughs,” said Blake, after a few moments.
“There isn’t much to laugh about around here, Blake,” Taylor replied, “but Commander Sonner is one of the good guys.”
“If ya say so, Cap,” said Blake, and then he glanced ac
ross to Casey and flipped the ring towards her as if he was tossing a coin. “Seems like you lost this...” he said as Casey caught it.
“Actually, Blakey, this one wasn’t yours,” said Casey, smiling back at him, “And you never actually gave it to me. Not this me, anyway.” Then she winked at him, “Until now, that is...”
“Does that mean you two are now engaged?” said Taylor, amazed at how naturally Blake seemed to accept his new reality. His transition had seemed practically instant, without any of the difficulties that he or Casey had encountered.
“No way, I ain’t getting’ down on one knee for no-one,” said Blake, though he was still smiling.
Casey laughed, “That’s okay, Blakey, the only reason I’d want someone to get down on one knee for me is to tie my shoelaces.”
Blake looked down at her purple canvas shoes and then back at Casey. “Those’re new.”
“There’s a lot around here that’s new,” Taylor said, feeling the need to interrupt their remarkably natural first encounter so that he could fill in Blake about everything else that had happened. “And there’s more we need to tell you, if you’re ready.”
Blake looked at his new and strangely smooth hands and then shrugged, “Unless ya gotta real body lyin’ round here some place, I guess I’m ready. But on one condition.”
“Okay, what’s your condition?” asked Taylor. He was both intrigued and reluctant to learn what Blake’s proviso was.
“I’ll listen to all the other crazy stuff you wanna tell me, so long as it’s over a drink.” Then Blake shoved his hands into the pockets of his new Earth Fleet issue pants. “There has to be somewhere in this place I can get a decent bourbon. Hell, I’d settle for a crappy one!”
“Umm,” said Taylor, not knowing how to break the news to him. Fortunately, he didn’t have to, because Casey stepped forward and hooked her arm through Blake’s.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, Blakey,” she said, trying her best to sound sincere, but failing miserably. Then she patted Blake’s simulant stomach, which was as solid as a heavy-duty punch bag. “But simulants don’t eat or drink.”
Blake looked like someone who’d just been told their dog had died. “You’ve gotta be messing with me?!” he cried, and then shot a disgusted look at Taylor. “Why the hell d’ya leave that part out?”
TWENTY-FIVE
Adra’s War Frigate emerged from the jump, finally releasing her from the vicious pain that had gripped her mind, and that now bled out into her muscles and bones. She was holding on to the pilots’ chairs, clenching so tightly that the metal had twisted under the strain. With Lux gone, she had taken up his position at the front of the bridge for the second of the jumps required to reach the system where racketeers were raiding an asteroid mining operation. It was one of thousands of such mining operations spread throughout the empire, and Adra knew its loss would be no more significant than cutting down a single tree in a forest. Yet this is what had drawn her away from the rogue Hunter Corvette. This was a Priority One.
She glanced down at the Adjutant’s console and saw that five ships were in the system; three Hedalt mining ships and two others, neither of which were transmitting identification signals.
Adra prised her hand away from the metal frame and let it fall onto the shoulder of the primary pilot simulant, using its body to support her own. “Intercept the closest racketeer vessel,” she ordered. Her voice sounded crackly and strained, as if invisible hands had closed around her throat. The pilot simulant obeyed and the great War Frigate began to accelerate.
Adra tore her other hand away from the metal frame and returned to her command platform. The short walk was excruciating. It felt like every muscle and joint in her body was on fire, and that her head was ready to crack open like an egg. Every screen and flashing console indicator was like a plasma shard to her eyeballs, forcing her to lower the light level on the bridge by thirty percent, but even this barely lessened the pain.
She pointed to a screen in the halo above her head and pulled her hand to her chest, drawing it down in front of her. She had to shield her eyes against the glare with the palm of her hand. “Screen brightness to fifty percent,” she said, still squinting through her fingers until the light output reduced to a level she could tolerate. The screen displayed a detailed medical bioscan of her body, highlighting areas of severe neurological trauma. Almost any other Hedalt with trauma this severe would either be dead already or in a coma. But Provost Adra was no ordinary Hedalt. Over the centuries she had survived countless battles, and irrespective of whether the fights were ship-to-ship, hand-to-hand or even political in nature, she had always come out stronger. This battle was no different, she told herself. She would endure whatever pain was required in order to accomplish her mission and keep her status and reputation intact. Her future on Earth depended on it.
She pressed three boxes on the screen, selecting the recommended neurogenesis, neurological and genetic treatments, all of which would first intensify her discomfort, before delivering any improvement. The screen border flashed red, causing her to wince again, and then a message appeared: ‘Recommend induced coma for selected treatments. Return to nearest medical facility.’ Adra dismissed the message and overrode the warning, adding a powerful stimulant to the cocktail of medications, before initiating the treatment program. She then waved the screen away and drew down another, which displayed a tactical analysis of the ships in the system.
The three mining ships were modified light freighters, and they were unarmed save for their mining lasers. The crew would have been almost entirely simulants, with maybe a single Hedalt to co-ordinate the operation. But Adra knew that neither this individual, nor the unsophisticated simulant crews possessed the ability to employ these lasers in combat. Easy pickings… Adra thought. The preferred target of cowards.
The two racketeer ships were Earth Fleet Nimrod-class cruisers, likely found dead in space or stolen from a low-security reclamation facility. But their many modifications meant that neither ship bore much of a resemblance to the original design. They were a rung above most racketeer ships in terms of combat capabilities, but still vastly outclassed by Adra’s frigate.
“Mining Freighter Alpha has taken damage and lost engine power,” came the monotonous voice of a simulant at a tactical station. Normally, simulants would remain silent, but without Lux to relay the tactical situation, Adra had grudgingly enabled their vocal processors. But the anemic sound of their simulated voices just fueled her anger. “The lead racketeer has latched on. The escort is moving to intercept.”
Racketeer tactics evolved even more slowly than primordial life, and Adra felt insulted that they would attempt such an obvious move. The escort was not foolish enough to engage a War Frigate head on, unless its captain had a death wish. It was merely an attempt to frustrate and antagonize her, and occupy her attention for long enough that that the lead ship could cut through into the cargo hold, grab whatever it could in short order, and move off safely. But Adra was in no mood for their games.
“Maintain course towards the lead ship,” Adra ordered, as a medical simulant entered the bridge and stepped onto the command platform beside her, waiting for her instructions. Adra took off her long black coat, folding it and placing it neatly on the platform, before removing her armored jacket and laying it on top. The medical simulant approached and held out a small tray, containing a single yellow tablet, which Adra took and placed on her tongue. The effect of the stimulant was nearly instantaneous, waking up her senses like a jolt of electricity. She then extended her arm towards the simulant, which administered three injections in rapid succession, two into Adra’s veins and the third into the muscle of her upper arm. At first she felt nothing other than the stab of the needles, but then the pain hit her like a battering ram. Her muscles went into spasm and she reached out and latched onto the medical simulant, clutching its shoulders to steel herself against the agony that intensified with each passing second. Her grip tightened harder and ha
rder and the pain continued to swell until she cried out, unable to bear it any longer. Her fingers were now digging so deeply into the simulant’s synthetic flesh that they pressed against its metal exoskeleton. But still the flames inside her body grew hotter. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, she ripped her hands away from the simulant, tearing its arms away from its torso, and screaming until there was no air left in her lungs. The medical simulant staggered back, electrical sparks arcing from its exposed sockets, before falling and landing half on and half off the command platform.
For a time Adra saw nothing but blinding light, and was deafened by a pulsating roar in her ears, like a waterfall inside her head. When her eyes focused again, she realized she was on her knees in the center of the command platform, still holding the arms of the medical simulant by her side. There was an alert sounding and she could feel the thud of weapons impacting on the hull. She shook the simulant limbs loose and then stood up, wiping a clear mucus from her nose and from her neck, where it had also seeped from her ears. The pain was still constant, but her frame of reference had changed. Now the needles of fire that stabbed into her body felt like nettle stings compared to what she had just endured.
The bridge shook again as another blast landed on the hull. She looked at the screen, still dangling down on a thin metal arm where she had left it, and saw that the frigate was still heading directly towards the lead racketeer. The ship was attached to the disabled freighter, sucking out its cargo like a leech, while the escort had fallen in behind the frigate. But it was keeping a cautious distance, no doubt wondering why the huge warship appeared to be on a collision course with its own freighter. It still fired constantly, but because of the distance between them, its weapons had been unable to penetrate the frigate’s armor.
