by C H Gideon
The young tech’s hand clenched into a fist and shot forward. Aht Gow opened her mouth to shriek, but before she could make a sound, Geroux punched her hard in the forehead.
There was a solid thump as reinforced knuckles collided with bone and Aht Gow stumbled backward, eyes spinning in their sockets. She gasped and fell to a knee.
Geroux growled when the Muultu reeled, a flash of conflicting emotions running through her at seeing her still awake, but she hadn’t started this to quit now.
She pulled back her hand and hit the emperor’s sister again, driving her to the ground.
Aht Gow lay there stiffly, unconscious.
Geroux sighed, staring down at the female, unsure how to feel about what she’d just done to her.
But there wasn’t time for that. Asya and Ka’nak needed her.
She scooped up Aht Gow and tossed her over her shoulder, checking her system to ensure that the armor’s cloaking device extended to the alien’s limp body. Once Geroux was sure that both she and the emperor’s sister were obscured, she started off again.
With her hostage, Geroux made her way to where Asya and Ka’nak had last been seen.
That was as far ahead as she’d planned.
Fortunately, it would be a while before she reached them.
She’d have plenty of time to think of something by then.
At least she hoped she would.
Asya blinked and came awake with a start, through blurred vision and disorientation she struggled to collect her wits.
She gasped and tried to fling herself upward, only to feel a weight push her back to the hard floor. Asya growled in defiance, glancing over when she heard Ka’nak mumble something.
“Relax, or you’ll hurt yourself,” he told her, his gravelly voice indicating he was barely more awake than she was. He was propped in a stone pew to the side of her.
She twisted her head to glance at the Melowi and saw that he was being held in place by some kind of forcefield. It was wrapped about him in strips like rope and glistened with his every subtle movement.
Asya realized she, too, was held in place by the same kind of field. The straps tightened every time she tried to shift or adjust, growing uncomfortable for a moment before relaxing once she stopped fighting them.
They were in what appeared to be the ruins of an old church. It struck her then that they hadn’t been moved far.
“They brought us inside?” she asked.
“Looks that way,” Ka’nak answered. “Our hosts are right over there.” He gestured toward the front of the church with his chin.
Asya stared across the intervening space and spotted the two strange aliens who had captured them. They floated alongside the main cultist, who stood on a small dais at the front of the room. He was pointing at Asya and Ka’nak.
Where his people had gone, she didn’t know. They were nowhere to be seen.
The aliens and the cult leader came over to stand—float—in front of Asya and Ka’nak.
A sharp, ear-piercing skree sounded before the alien’s voice became something she could understand.
“Who are you?” the alien asked.
“We’re the people who are going to bring down you and your bullshit cult,” she snarled. “We know all about Phraim-‘Eh and his people and their connections, and that asshole Jora’nal in the Loranian ship,” she went on.
While she really didn’t have much in the way of details, Asya figured it couldn’t hurt to bluster. The aliens had captured them instead of killing them. That meant they wanted something.
Most likely, it was to interrogate her and the Melowi to see what they knew, and what could be used against the Reynolds and its crew.
Asya wouldn’t let that happen.
She’d stir the pot and see what she could find out about their enemy first while trying to turn the table.
“Our superdreadnought is in orbit, and they know exactly where we are,” she continued. “If you think they’re going to leave us here alone and at your mercy, you’re sadly mistaken. They’re positioning themselves right now to blow the shit out of you.”
The cultist growled and turned on the nearest alien. “This was a mistake,” he said. “The longer we entertain these beings here on Muultar, the greater the risk that we expose ourselves to the others.”
“You’re not going to be exposed,” Asya fired back. “You’re going to be exterminated.”
The cultist spun away. “We are wasting our time. Be rid of them.” He marched toward the front of the church, fuming, his every step heavy and angry.
The aliens appeared unaffected by his tirade.
“If you want to be rid of us,” Ka’nak started, “you can simply let us go. We can pretend none of this ever happened. We can keep our mouths shut.”
The aliens peered at them, their internal energies flickering as if in contemplation.
“I can sense your concern,” one of the aliens said, “but I believe it is due to your uncertainty regarding us and our mission here.”
“Give that freaky alien a prize,” Asya muttered. “You think?”
The alien seemed to sigh. “Things are not as they might appear,” he stated. “Perhaps I should show you.”
“Yeah, why don’t you do that,” Asya growled.
A tendril of energy fluttered and the restraining bands fell away, freeing Ka’nak and Asya. The pair scrambled to their feet.
Asya hadn’t expected it to be that easy.
“Come with me and I will,” the alien said, drifting toward the front of the church where the cultist sulked. The other followed.
Ka’nak glanced at her and shrugged.
“What the hell?” she said and started off after the glowing energy, deciding against trying to flee. “What have we got to lose?”
“Everything?” Ka’nak countered.
“Well, yeah, there is that.”
But if the aliens had wanted to kill them, they would have done it by now. They had something else in mind, and Asya wanted to know what that was.
“You thought we were Kurtherians?” Reynolds asked, shocked to hear what the alien had said and still uncertain if he’d really heard it.
“Your energy signatures, while markedly different, contain an aspect of Kurtherian technology,” Xyxl told him.
“As do yours,” Tactical fired back.
The alien almost seemed to nod. “This is true,” he replied. “Like you and your people, we have been influenced in some small manner by our enemies. We have adopted what technology we could, and have adapted it to our own uses. This, as we have both seen, only sows confusion.”
“Yeah, like random aliens blasting us for no reason,” Tactical growled. “Killing our meatbags for no reason.”
Reynolds waved his other personality to silence. “Speaking of our people,” he started, “you claim to be able to bring our dead back to life?”
“That is technically incorrect,” Xyxl clarified, “but we can help them, yes.”
“How?” Reynolds questioned, feeling the press of time on his shoulders.
“Like all living beings, your crew is made up of electrical impulses that control their every action and their very existence. And although you understand much of their physiology, there is a deeper mechanism that avoids you. This stage precedes true death.”
“There were a lot of words there, but you’re not saying much,” Tactical muttered.
“My point is, while you believe your crew to be dead, their electrical impulses below the threshold of detectable activity to your science, your people are not yet effectively dead. We can restart them.”
“How about we skip the details for now and just do it?” Reynolds pressed. “You mentioned us being short on time, remember?”
“Of course,” Xyxl replied.
The alien seemed to pulse, flickers of current growing in its center as if a lightning storm rippled through a cloud, and then there was a wash of energy that flared out, running over all of them and deeper into the ship.
Reynolds gasped as his circuits flashed and felt as if they were on fire for an instant, then the feeling passed.
He glanced around the bridge and saw Maddox and Ria rubbing their temples as if they’d had a sudden headache come on, but neither looked seriously harmed, just in discomfort.
“It is done,” Xyxl stated.
“That’s it?” Tactical asked, obvious distrust in his tone of voice. “You just send out a sparkly blast of energy and everything’s okay?”
The comm activated then, and Jiya’s shaky voice came through. “Uh…you know all those dead people we lined up in the hallway outside of the med-bay? Well, they just…uh, sat up.”
Reynolds activated the ship’s cameras and zoomed in on the hall where Jiya and the others had placed their dead crewmates in anticipation of their eventual funeral rites and burial in space.
His crew sat up, shocked, eyes wide, and then the panic and pain set in.
People screamed and howled and fell back, clasping at their wounds. Blood began to flow.
“Oh, fuck!” Jiya screamed over the comm. “They’re still hurt.”
She was only baffled for an instant before regaining her composure and ordering the once dead but now wounded into the Pod-docs for stabilization.
She didn’t bother to say anything to Reynolds, simply cut the connection and got to work saving her crew.
Reynolds ordered the bots and the rest of the available crew to help her, and he spun on the alien with a growl.
“How come you didn’t warn us that they would come back with all their injuries intact?” the AI shouted.
The alien seemed to shrug, his energy tendrils fluttering. “We had not discussed such contingencies,” he answered. “We only spoke of returning them to sentience, and didn’t believe the rest to be of concern.”
“Guess you don’t know as much about humans as you claimed,” Maddox snarled, shaking his head. He hopped up, headed toward the bridge door. “I’m going to—”
“Jiya has it under control,” Reynolds told the general, waving him back to his station.
Maddox grimaced but dropped back into his seat without being told again. Reynolds knew the general was fighting his instincts to go help his crew, but the AI was coordinating with Jiya through the doctor aspect of his personality. He figured Maddox knew that.
They had already prioritized those of the crew who needed the Pod-docs the most and were cycling them into the system, while stabilizing and taking care of those who could wait; those whose injuries wouldn’t kill them again now that they had been brought back to life.
Well, if the aliens were to be believed, none of them had truly been dead, so they hadn’t technically been resurrected. They’d been…restarted?
It was a concept Reynolds wanted to look into more thoroughly, but now wasn’t the time to try to figure it out. They had other issues to discuss.
“We’re not engaging on the same level,” Reynolds muttered to the alien.
“There is much that we can learn from one another,” Xyxl admitted. “Given our common enemy, it would appear it would be in our best interests to commit to a true dialogue between us.”
“We’re not letting you scrape our databases,” Reynolds warned.
Xyxl seemed to laugh, the sound awkward and strange. “We have no need to examine your databases any longer,” he said. “We know of your healing technology and the secret of your nanocytes. At least the theory of such,” Xyxl finished. “That was not what we were looking for, fear not.”
If Reynolds had had a physical heart, it would have skipped a beat at hearing that.
Xyxl went on, “Much of our technology is similar to yours and our evolution proceeded along the same lines, although we have had longer to develop ours,” he said. “We can do what you can, and more.”
“Which explains how you just appeared on our ship without effort,” Tactical grunted.
“Something we might not have been able to do had your gravitic shields been stronger than they are now,” Xyxl admitted.
Reynolds filed that detail away for later use.
“Now that we’ve established that we’re on the same side and have a common enemy, there’s something else we need to talk about.”
“And that is?” Xyxl asked.
“What is your connection to Phraim-‘Eh and his cult?” Reynolds replied.
“Ahh,” Xyxl said, pausing a moment. “That is complicated, and I believe it might be easier to show you than to explain it.”
“How do you plan to do that?” Reynold asked.
“You must come with us,” Xyxl answered simply.
Reynolds scoffed. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but now’s not exactly a good time for us to be gallivanting about the universe. We’ve got wounded people to see to, and we’re on a mission. We need to talk about your influence on Muultar.”
“And we shall, Reynolds,” Xyxl told him. “They are all connected.”
“Then let’s get to talking,” Reynolds went on as a pulse of energy washed over him.
He realized he was no longer on the superdreadnought’s bridge.
Maddox gasped when Reynolds and the aliens disappeared without warning.
One second they were there talking, and the next they were gone, vanished without a trace.
“Where did they go?” the general asked, looking around.
Ensign Alcott slowly shook her head as she stared at the empty space where the captain had been. “They just disappeared. Scanners aren’t picking up Reynolds anywhere aboard the ship.”
“The two alien superdreadnoughts are pulling back,” Comm reported, the individual AI personalities having returned to their posts after the consolidated effort to repel the intruders. “They’re headed back to the planet at max speed.”
“That answers where they took Reynolds,” Tactical growled. “They said they wanted to show him something.”
“Where does that leave us?” Maddox asked, scratching at his chin.
“Fucked?” Tactical countered.
“Sounds about right,” the general replied. “Follow those superdreadnoughts wherever they go. Get close enough that when they Gate, we can use theirs,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Ria answered, acting on the order.
The SD Reynolds came about and started after the other ships despite its damage.
“You sure this is a good idea?” XO asked. “We’re not exactly in fighting shape here. What happens if they turn on us?”
Maddox shrugged. “Then we’re likely dead,” he answered, “but I don’t think that’s what these guys want, or they wouldn’t have done what they did with the crew. Why bring people back to life just to kill them again?”
“Maybe not,” XO replied, “but that doesn’t mean we’re not vulnerable out here. We could run into someone else, or Reynolds could piss these alien bastards off and they could turn on us.”
Tactical groaned. “I’m betting on the latter.”
“Then we continue to work on repairs and get our ship in order,” the general said, “but I’m not going to leave Reynolds in these guys’ hands. He wouldn’t do it to us, and we damn sure won’t do it to him.”
Only silence answered that, and Maddox knew he’d gotten through to the other AI personalities. They might fight and argue and contradict each other, but when it came to loyalty, there was no question.
They would do whatever was required to ensure that Reynolds was okay.
That settled, they just needed to figure out how to go about getting Reynolds back.
One problem at a time, Maddox thought.
Chapter Twelve
After reaching out to San Roche, Geroux arrived near the strange natural church that Asya and Ka’nak had been captured outside of.
The cloaked Pod hovered in the near distance, giving Geroux a tactical view of the surrounding area.
Sadly, there wasn’t much to see.
An alien ship was perched outside the stone building that had been carved in
to the landscape. Scanners told her that it was unoccupied, although its defenses remained up and the ship at the ready.
She scanned further and picked up the energy signatures of Asya and Ka’nak inside the church, as well as three other lifeforms, two of which were so alien as to defy description. They appeared as balls of energy that came back weirdly on the scans, confusing the system as to what kind of creatures they were.
Outside were five of the cultists who had left the estate with the first, the one Geroux assumed was inside the church with Asya and Ka’nak.
“What do you intend to do with me?” Aht Gow asked, a mix of fear and inborn arrogance coming out in her snarl. “I am Emperor Krol Gow’s blood sister. He will not tolerate such mistreatment of me.”
“I know who you are,” Geroux shot back. “And right now I don’t give a damn what your brother thinks. You’re conspiring with our enemy, and your friends have kidnapped mine. Until I get them back, you’re not going anywhere, no matter how much you bitch and complain and try to throw your weight around.”
Aht Gow stiffened in the straps that Geroux had used to bind her, her eyes narrow slits as she glared at Geroux.
Geroux turned away from the emperor’s sister, wanting nothing to do with the female beyond trading her for her friends.
Unfortunately, Geroux hadn’t figured out the best way to do that yet.
She’d watched Asya and Ka’nak being taken down easily by the aliens, and she knew damn well she didn’t stand a chance against them in combat if those two had been so easily disarmed. She couldn’t bull her way and demand a trade.
No, she had to figure out how to entice the enemy with the emperor’s sister while avoiding being captured or killed herself.
“This will not end well for you,” Aht Gow told her.
“Want me to gag her?” San Roche asked.
Geroux was tempted. She couldn’t think with the Muultu prattling on. But she decided against it.
The more the emperor’s sister talked, the more likely it was that she would reveal something she didn’t intend to. Geroux hoped that something would help her figure out how to get her friends back safely.
