by Mark Tufo
“Give me the wrist tablet as well.”
He looked over to Lokken, who was as still as a sculpture. She nodded her head ever so slightly; if there was ever something that terrified her, this was it. The fear of Rhodeeshians must be ingrained deeply within the psyches of Stryvers.
I no sooner attached the arm device than the rifle lit up and indicated it was ready for use.
“The rest of you might as well put those down,” I said, motioning with my gun. “That wasn’t a request.” Again, they looked to Lokken; this time she did nothing.
“I am told that the venom from a bite is one of the most excruciating ways one can vacate the living,” I said.
Lokken’s eyes were closed but still, there was a nod of ascension.
“That’s the most intelligent thing you’ve said today,” I told her.
When the guards were on the ground and unarmed, Frost finally released her grip on Lokken’s neck, though she stayed close.
“How dare you bring one of those filthy animals aboard my ship.” Lokken was fairly quaking with rage.
“There was a time when at least half of what you are fought alongside their kind,” I said.
Lokken shuddered.
“Well, maybe less than half now,” Cedar added.
“What are you planning on doing?” Lokken asked.
“We’re going to need this ship for starters,” Cedar said, very matter of factly. “What are the chances you’d just give it to us?”
“That is not going to happen.”
“Here’s the deal. We’re stranded out here.”
I looked to Cedar, wondering why she was freely giving information away.
“With nothing else to do, I plan on using this ship as target practice until such time as I run out of fuel, air, or munitions, or more likely, until there is nothing left of this bucket worth wasting a round on. Our scans show your buckle system offline and your life support hanging by a thread. We’ve not been able to get a read on your weapons, but since you’re not fighting back, I don’t think I have to travel too far down a limb to say they are either damaged or offline as well. Maybe you get your systems up and running in time, maybe you don’t. But what are the odds I don’t have another Rhodeeshian, even now, roaming through the tightest crevices of this ship, placing charges in some of the most vulnerable locations?”
Lokken kept her cool, though her eyes narrowed.
“So with all I’ve said, how do you feel now?”
“I would rather we all die out here than I ever turn this ship over to you,” she replied.
“I figured this wasn’t going to be easy. I mean, sure, I hoped, but one can never tell. So this is what we’re going to do. You’re going to allow us to get the captured, wounded, and deceased. When that’s over, I will begin the process for your capitulation.”
“Do you believe that I am just going to allow you to remove the only bargaining chip afforded to me at the moment? What kind of option is that?”
“Well, as far as I see it, there are no options other than you all die. I’ll leave that decision to you. Now go send some of these guards to round up my people.”
Lokken did not look as if she was going to comply; that ended the moment Ferryn came into view.
“It is done,” he said as he paced around the men on the ground.
“Crager, get the prisoners.” The man closest to her got up; he made sure to skirt around Ferryn as much as was allowed.
“We have one of yours in the infirmary. To move him now would only speed up the outcome you seem to most desire,” Lokken said.
Cedar looked over at me. “I’ll stay with him,” I told her.
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t trust her.”
“I’ll give you a remote for the explosives. Don’t worry, Commander; if you somehow got it from her, which you won’t, it can’t be deactivated from there.”
Within fifteen minutes the four from the raid were led out. Cedar called in one of the other shuttles to pick them up. She again looked over at me when she saw them. I gave her a terse nod.
She gave me a hug and leaned in close. “Are you sure about this?”
“I have to stay with him.”
“Completely understand. Be safe.”
I wanted to laugh out loud at the lunacy of that statement. How I could possibly “be safe” on a ship full of the enemy was ludicrous. “I’ll do my best,” I smiled.
Anxiety increased within me as I saw them all leave.
“Come. We will wait at the infirmary.” Lokken appeared to have got herself back under command with the removal of Frost and Ferryn.
We were no sooner in the room when three guards came in.
“You will surrender your weapon.”
“Not really a fan of that idea.” I had my rifle raised, as did the Others. “I’ll just hold on to it. Maybe all of you should just leave, then there won’t be any unneeded tension.”
“Very well. Although you do realize there will be guards posted outside,” Lokken replied.
“Not a doubt in my mind.”
She was heading out the door when a thought crossed my mind.
“Why are you really saving his life?” I asked.
“Is it not enough that we are?”
“No…I appreciate it, just doesn’t make much sense. Your ship is crippled and…and you…” I wanted to state something about the mutations they were undergoing, but left the thought unsaid.
Lokken waited until the guards were out of the room, she closed the door and directed me to a seat.
“I’m going to stand.”
“As you wish.” Lokken strode across the room and sat down. “We are changing from what we were. At first, we were nearly gods among men; our minds vastly superior to those we had deviated from. It wasn’t until much longer that the side effects began to manifest themselves.” Lokken stroked some of the fibrous hairs on her arm. “What we fought so hard to separate from, Humankind and their foibles, we now desire to recover. We’ve been falsely convincing ourselves we are still Human, even as more of the disadvantages of our ‘upgrade’ reveal themselves. It was when we first discovered that we could begin to talk to each other telepathically that we knew our end was in sight.”
I gasped at the notion that they could now listen in on each other’s private thoughts.
“Oh yes, it was as disconcerting, as you might imagine. Human minds can be a cesspool of errant, deviant, sometimes evil thoughts. Fighting amongst our own became the norm as no secret was safe. This calmed down as we became more like Stryvers, and we began to understand the fact that we were all moving toward the same goal. There are a great many among us that are welcoming the change, no matter how far it brings us away from who we originally were, and still others, like myself, are doing everything in their power to halt or even repeal the changes. I very much remember what it is, or was, like to be Human; I do not want to be a Stryver. That, and the process…” She hesitated.
“It’s painful,” I answered. I could see the anguish in her eyes. We may be enemies, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have compassion.
“It’s that.” She looked up at me, “and more. It’s frightening to the depths of my very soul. To lose one’s self so completely.”
Then it all came rushing back, all I’d heard, all I knew. “This is why you want Earth. Why you’re saving him.” I pointed to the window. “What can you hope to accomplish?”
“There are some among humanity that are naturally immune to the Stryver DNA. Their bodies completely reject the foreign cells, destroy them, in fact, and pass them through with no more difficulty than food.”
I grew suspicious; my eyes narrowed as I looked upon her. “And how do you know who’s immune?”
“There are two processes. A very unobtrusive test that merely requires a small vial of blood, and another more…invasive measure that involves injecting the DNA into a host.”
“And?” Alarms set off in me, much like my fighter when it’
s under attack.
“The unobtrusive method requires time: a luxury we can ill-afford.”
“So what? That’s your plan? Inject as many people on Earth as you can and see who rejects it? You selfish bastards! You made your choice and now you want to take that away from others?”
“What would you have us do? The need to survive, to flourish, is hard-wired into all of us.”
“But at the expense of everyone else?”
“You are not that naïve. Isn’t war all about surviving and flourishing? Haven’t you killed to ensure just that?”
“This is different. And don’t you try and justify it with some superior-sounding moral compass. Those people, they’re not your enemies. They’re not fighting you!”
“What rose-colored glasses you wear. They have—no, they are a resource, and all wars revolve around resources. Whether territory, precious metals, food…what does it matter what the resource is? They have it and we need it.”
“You’ve known for ages your kind are changing; why didn’t you go to Earth and do the testing when you still could?”
“As I said, there are those that don’t wish to alter the course. They feel it is our evolutionary right, and unfortunately, these people are high ranking members of society; senior military officers. We have not had authorization to travel to Earth until recently, when your sister’s ship was detected. Oh, look at that face; it’s priceless. In saving you, she ultimately doomed you. How ironic.”
“And Tallow?”
“Your precious boyfriend? Don’t look so surprised. It’s my job to know everything.”
“What about him!?” I raged.
“We’ll know in the next twenty-four hours if he can fight off the injection. I have to admit, the odds are not in his favor. I’m told only one one-thousandth of the populace can.”
“I am ashamed to know that we share any DNA. Reverse it. Get it out of him!”
“I can no more do that than I can rid my own body of the poison.”
“Want to bet something you didn’t know?” My reflection in the glass was a mask of hatred; a part of me shrank away from it, another reveled in it. I leveled the rifle on her. Her head disappeared in a misted shroud of bone, blood, brain, and hair. The detritus had no sooner settled when a guard burst through the door. I sent him back into the hallway with a fist-sized hole in his midsection; blood poured from his mouth as he fell over. Another guard ran past the door but not in. I heard a loud yell as my shot hit his trailing leg. I heard him fall over but knew enough not to stick my head out the door and see if I needed to finish the job. I looked down to Lokken; her chest still rose and fell; her body didn’t know quite yet, she no longer lived. I would have not taken note of it had it not lit up at that exact moment; she was wearing an arm device much like the guard, though hers was bigger. It was warning her that her vitals were slipping…if it only knew how far they would sink. I suspected she would have access to things a guard might not; I ripped it free from her arm and tucked it into my pocket. Then I ran across the room and secured the door by shooting at the electronics panel. I had no idea if that would work or not, but as of yet, no one was trying to gain entry. My only exit was through the glass and to the infirmary floor, one story down.
“If that glass is plasma-proof I’m in trouble.” I was angry at myself for not properly thinking this through. My anger had clouded my judgment and I had put Tallow in even more jeopardy than he already was. The glass dissolved under the assault of the rifle charge. The two technicians working on him looked up. One was reaching for something; I shot him before he had the chance to get to it.
“Move!” I ordered the other one to the far side of the room. Ten feet wasn’t extremely high, but certainly high enough I could break a leg or roll an ankle. My best bet was to climb out and hang down the sill, making the drop as short as possible.
“Hurry!” I could hear hammering on the door behind me and an alarm trilling.
“Winter, what’s going on?” Cedar asked.
“Change of plans. Hold one,” I told her as I dropped down, bending my knees to take less punishment. “Get him out of there!”
“He’s still being worked on.” The tech raised his head, his arms held high.
“Will he live? Will he live if he gets out of there early?”
“I…I need to check where in the process he is.”
“Get up then, hurry. You do anything I don’t like, you’ll end up just like him.” I pointed to the other tech with the barrel of my rifle.
He stood and went over to a panel, punched in some information and was reading it. “You know we’re justified in what we are doing,” he said. “You’re nothing but savages bent on destroying everything you encounter.”
“I’m glad I gave you everything you need to alter your perception of us, enough to justify your horrific actions, I suppose. Will he live!”
“You realize he’s now one of us, right?”
“And yet, I’m the savage. I’m losing the reason I need you any longer.”
“He’ll live; he’ll be in pain, but he’ll live.”
“Get him out of there.”
“He’ll be too weak for you to make good on your doomed escape attempt.”
“You let me worry about that.”
“He’s already sacrificed enough; why not leave him here? See if his life will be worth anything.”
“I’m done. Can’t reason with the unreasonable.” I neatly removed his left hand from the rest of his body. He cried out as he held up the stump, the wound neatly cauterized by the heat generated. “What would you prefer to lose next? And you might want to hurry, before shock sets in.”
He moved to the cocoon device Tallow was in and pressed a series of buttons; there was a hiss as gas escaped. Tallow’s eyes fluttered; at first, they were dim as he fought upwards from the depths of the sleeping agent, then they flew open and he sat up quickly.
“Oh no.” He wavered, gripping the edge of the machine.
“Winter?” Tallow and Cedar asked at the same time.
“Come on, we need to get out of here.”
“Where am I?” He was doing his best to crawl out.
“The Others’ medibay.” I slung my rifle over my shoulder to help him. The technician had retreated to the far corner of the room and slid down the wall, his right hand had gripped his forearm and he was staring at the void where his hand had been. He was rapidly going into shock.
“Where’s everyone else?” Tallow was now partially standing on his own.
“We’re it. Can you walk, preferably run?”
“Win, I can barely talk right now.”
“Cedar, I’m going to have to shoot my way out. Did you hear what Lokken said?”
“Every word. I regret that we’re not going to be around longer so I can send them where they all belong.”
“Not quite dead yet,” I told her.
“We’ll keep them busy out here. You going to be able to make it to your ship?”
“Doubtful. Tallow doesn’t have a suit.”
“He can make it for a minute, maybe more.”
“Not the way he is now.”
“Head that way. There’s still a shuttle.”
I didn’t like that idea, though I didn’t tell her. The Others were detestable beings, but they weren’t dumb; they would know that was where I was heading. I wondered if the wristband I was wearing would give me authorization for one of their ships. The hangar was really my only shot. I would have headed to the bridge if I’d known where it was.
“I need a weapon.”
“Maybe once you can hold your head up we’ll get you one. I’m afraid you’ll blow your toes off.” He was shuffling along as I went over to the door; it opened, and I was relieved to not see anyone in the hallway. The alarm was still bleating, and I was worried that it would cover up the sound of people running toward us. I motioned for Tallow to follow.
“She’s in infirmary room eight,” came from behind me.
; “This is what happens when you show mercy.” I came back into the room and finished what I had started, only a few moments too late.
Tallow managed to look back. “We’re in it pretty bad then?”
“What gave it away?”
“Gotta cut me some slack; I’m still out of it, and this shrill noise in my skull isn’t making it any better.”
I looked over at him with a questioning stare. “The alarm, you mean?”
“Oh, thank goodness.” He did not explain any further.
“We have to move.” It became an elaborate dance of propping him up, moving and keeping my rifle at the ready. In a ship full of hostiles, it wasn’t optimal.
“I’d ask you to leave me behind, but I feel like that would be a waste of energy.”
“And yet you said it,” I grunted as I hefted more of him. “Cedar was right; it’s a good thing you’re pretty.” I mostly dragged him to a point hopefully far enough away from the medical bay. “You’re right though, we’re not going to make it like this. We need to hide until you get some strength back. Here, hold up this wall.”
“How am I going to do that?” he asked as I let him go.
I flipped my wrist electronic at the nearest door. The way things were going, I was fairly sure it was going to be crew quarters and I was going to be staring at a couple of hundred surprised soldiers. Instead, I got a darkened room; there was someone on a bed surrounded by all manner of machinery. This was a meddie room; seemed as good a place as any for Tallow to rest. I prodded the strapped man on the bed; he did not stir. I quickly went back and helped Tallow in. He had slid down to the floor, his head nearly in his lap.
“Just need a minute,” he said as I wrapped my hands under his arms, and instead of waiting for him to stand, just pulled him along on his backside. It was then I heard the pounding of many booted feet heading toward us.
Tallow was using his hands to force himself backward as fast as possible.
“Now you help,” I teased him. I let him fall to the floor as I quickly shut the door. I could hear people yelling.
“Shoot on sight. She killed Lokken. She’s armed and dangerous.”
Seemed safe to say negotiations were over.
“We need to get you on the other side of the bed.”
