The Zahkx Alliance: A Sci-Fi Dystopian Adventure (Dominion Rising Book 2)

by Katherine Bogle

  “You scared the hell out of me!” Flik narrowed his eyes.

  Selene stood, wobbling precariously until Flik took her elbow and helped her climb out, half carrying her onto the floor.

  “I’m dizzy.” She held onto her head with one hand as black sparks encroached on her vision.

  “Damn, pretty. You’ve looked better.” Captain Erock stood a few feet away, back in his pirate garb with a hand on his hip. “Come on, let’s get you fixed up so Doc can get you cloned.”

  “Right.” Selene’s eyebrow furrowed as she tried to move her fingers on her right hand. Her entire arm was numb. “Can’t move my arm. Shit.”

  Flik took her rifle from her good hand, and set it back inside the speeder before he flung her working arm around his shoulder. He was much taller than she was, and had to bend down so her feet could still reach the floor.

  “You’re an idiot, you know that?” Flik said.

  Selene smiled. “So I’ve been told.”

  Rem joined them, and supported Selene’s other side. She was surprised when moving her shoulder didn’t cause her to scream in pain. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “It’s in my belt pocket,” Selene whispered to Rem. She covered herself with a cough as Rem looked around to make sure no one was looking. They followed Erock out of the large hangar, and by the time they were down the hall, Rem had his silver disk back, filled with the Dominion’s mainframe information.

  He nodded to tell her he got it, and went back to supporting her arm and shoulder.

  As exhaustion began to boil over, Selene dragged her feet more and more until suddenly they were in a small room with a metal table at the center, and shelves of medical equipment everywhere.

  Her heart ached as she glanced around. It reminded her too much of Sarah. Though Sarah’s office was far more colorful, and far better organized, the room was about the same size, and the table might as well have been identical. The stench of cleaning supplies was also the same.

  “Doc,” Erock said.

  Selene looked at the back of the room where she hadn’t realized a man in a white coat sat at a desk with a book in hand.

  “Captain,” the man greeted without looking up.

  “I’ve got a patient for you.”

  The doctor sighed. “What have you miscreants gotten into—” The man looked over his shoulder and went wide-eyed at the sight of Selene, Flik and Rem. They hadn’t met before, but that didn’t explain why the doctor looked so startled.

  “Hello.” Rem grinned impishly.

  “Hello!” The doctor stood, nearly throwing his book onto the counter lining the wall before he rushed over to help. “You aren’t pirates.” He sounded surprised, his blue eyes buggy as he glanced between them.

  Flik and Rem deposited Selene on the table. “Nope,” Flik said.

  The two stepped back as the older man, maybe a decade older than Erock’s clone, washed his hands in a sink attached to the wall. He dried them before throwing on plastic gloves the same pale shade as his skin. He grabbed a tray of medical supplies and set them on the sleek silver table he’d wheeled over beside the patient platform.

  Selene held onto the edge of the metal table. It cooled her fingers, and kept her a little more awake as she watched the doctor flit around the small space, now crammed with four men—two of them rather large. Having four Rems in the room would be one thing, but a Flik and Erock alongside the short, thin Rem, and a slightly larger doctor, was another thing.

  “What’s up, Doc?” She smiled at her own lame joke, remembering a cartoon she’d seen on an old holoscreen channel years ago. It had been one of those shows that was popular before the apocalypse. There weren’t many of those around anymore. Her smile faded as a wave of dizziness hit her. She blinked rapidly in an attempt to stay awake.

  “Your shoulder is mangled!” Doc gasped. The blond man shook his head as he cut off the sleeve of her jacket with a scalpel. Dried blood clung to the skin beneath it, dirtying her otherwise tawny skin.

  “It seems so,” Selene said. Darkness crept at the edges of her vision, threatening to pull her down into the shadows of sleep.

  The doctor poked and prodded her arm. “Do you feel this? What about this?”

  “Nope,” she mumbled.

  Now that the table had warmed beneath her fingers, the cold was no longer keeping her awake. Her head drooped forward as another dizzy spell hit. Someone stepped forward to catch her from slipping off the table. She wasn’t sure who, but she continued to lean, half-conscious, on someone’s chest, the warmth of their skin against her cheek not helping her exhaustion one bit.

  “That’s not good,” the doctor said as he peeled away the clothing from her wound.

  “She’s going in the cloning pod once she’s fixed up,” Erock explained. The chest beneath her rumbled, and Selene had a feeling she was leaning on the captain.

  “Ah, yes.” The doctor paused his work. “Then I’ll just close up the wound. I can mend her nerves in the cloning chamber.”

  “My nerves can be what?” Selene mumbled. She hadn’t even realized her eyes were closed until she slowly blinked them open.

  “Mended,” the doctor said. “There’s a lot more those cloning pods are good for than just the actual cloning. I’m working on an article explaining the other practical uses of pods right now. I believe with some modifications they can be used in all types of surgery—from simple flesh wounds, to more serious brain injuries—if done right.”

  “Uh huh.” Selene closed her eyes again. “That’s great.”

  The chest beneath her cheek rumbled again, this time with laughter. “Maybe you can explain it to her another time, Doc.”

  “Right, right.” The doctor must have moved away as some clanging noises started up across the room. Then a pan hit the table beside her, and she nearly leapt out of her skin.

  Selene jerked back into a sitting position, blinking wildly until her heartbeat slowed back down. She looked up into amber eyes, and her cheeks heated. She was right. She’d been practically lying on Captain Erock’s chest.

  Oh god, I’m never going to live this down.

  He grinned as their eyes met, and Selene bit back a groan. She did not need to give him any more ammunition against her.

  “All right, this might sting,” the doctor said.

  Fiery pain lashed through her shoulder so fast, she cried out. Her fingers closed around the table, and she sucked in a breath to stop herself from screaming.

  “Sting?” she hissed.

  “So you still have feeling here. Good.” The doctor prodded at her shoulder with a cleaning pad before dousing her mangled skin in anti-bacterial spray.

  Selene clenched the table and looked up at the ceiling. White stars danced across her vision and she ground her teeth together as she stared into the ceiling light.

  While the doctor worked, Selene counted the seconds as slowly as she could, praying to whatever god might be listening for the pain to stop or the doctor to be struck by lightning—whichever made her feel better.

  “One last thing.” The doctor turned back to his tray, grabbing a long silver cylinder, similar to the anti-bacterial spray, but with a red cap instead of blue. “This will hurt.”

  “Fuck—” Selene closed her eyes as the cold spray assaulted her shoulder, followed by another dose of flaming hot agony. She bit down on her tongue as a familiar sensation went through her shoulder. Microscopic nanites worked over her skin, mending her torn flesh and muscle. She hadn’t used the little bastards since she’d suffered the head injury that brought back some of her memories. Now she remembered why.

  They hurt like a bitch.

  As the mending process reached its end, Selene took a deep breath, and leaned back on her hands. She looked at her shoulder, probably the cleanest part of her arm. The skin looked like new, but her arm was still numb.

  Selene shook her head. “Let’s all agree this is the last time I get shot.”

  “I thought it was your new thing!” Rem g
rinned.

  “Ha, ha.” Selene rolled her eyes.

  “You should be fine for cloning now. I can fix your nerves in the chamber as I said before.” The doctor cleared his throat as he returned his medical instruments to his tray and set it aside. “Do you have your cloning specifications already on file in the national registry?”

  Selene raised an eyebrow. She had no sweet clue. “I’m not sure.” It’d make no sense for Pate to register her cloning unless he did it under another name. But what name would he choose? Or would he even bother if he had the power to bypass that stage?

  The doctor didn’t seem perturbed by her answer in the least, and simply went about washing his hands. “I’ll have to take some liberties with your muscle graph index then. Do you have a list of mods you’re having applied?”

  “I don’t, but I can make one.” Selene glanced at the other three. Erock watched her from where he leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. Flik looked tired, and stared at the floor. Rem’s eyes were slightly widened as he listened to the doctor, clearly ready to get his hands on a cloning pod. It was one of the few things he hadn’t had the pleasure of playing with.

  “Please do. I’ll need to input any body modifications after the initial scans, and you won’t be awake for those.” The doctor dried his hands, and slipped off his white coat before he made a move for the door. He paused, and looked back before stepping through. “Have you been cloned many times before, miss?” He looked her over, not in a perverted way like Erock had done many times, but in an inspecting-her-for-science kind of way.

  “I don’t remember being cloned at all,” she said. “So I’ll be asleep for it?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’ll go over some of the specifics with you once we get to the lab.” With that, the doctor let the door swoosh open, and stepped through, heading left down the metal hall.

  Erock stepped aside and motioned her after him. “Ladies first.” He smirked.

  Selene barely kept from rolling her eyes as she slid off the table. Her legs nearly gave out beneath her. Erock grabbed her elbow, keeping her aloft.

  “Damn, this shoulder thing has really put a damper on things,” she said.

  Erock chuckled. “Let me help you.” He slipped an arm around her back, and crouched to put his other arm beneath her legs.

  Her face flamed. “Wait a second!”

  The captain swept her off the floor and lifted her up into his arms like she weighed nothing. Her whole body heated, and her world swayed as she clung to his shoulder and neck. She was not one for being picked up, even if she could barely stand.

  “Don’t worry about it, pretty. Just relax.” He raised an eyebrow at her, and Selene refused to meet his eyes as he stepped into the hall and followed the doctor to the lab.

  Flik and Rem followed, murmuring a few steps behind them. Selene glanced over Erock’s broad shoulders and narrowed her eyes. She didn’t need the crew talking behind her back for something she had no control over.

  But when she met Flik’s eyes, he smiled, obviously enjoying her embarrassment. Selene sighed and looked away. Her crew were a bunch of heathens.

  A few moments later, they arrived at a large lab with a glass door that slid into the wall after the doctor swiped some sort of dark plastic coin over a wall sensor. They stepped inside a large room, three times the size of the doctor’s cramped office. At the back of the lab were two long dark pods in front of two large power modules with a giant screen between them, and a control panel the length of a speeder below it.

  Selene’s eyes widened as she took in the things that were about to literally clone her body. Though she’d thought herself a clone until the day her memories began to return, she still couldn’t get used to being one now. After months of being an Icarus, she just wasn’t anymore. She was just like everyone else, and though that shouldn’t bother her, it did.

  But what bothered her more was the fact that she had no idea how this was going to work, or what it’d really do to her. Could cloning go wrong, and she’d be killed? Could she end up horribly mangled? Though she’d never heard of such a thing on the news, wasn’t it a possibility?

  Her heart raced as Erock set her on the counter lining the left side of the room. She stared at the pods with wide eyes, trying not to imagine being inside.

  The doctor booted up the system, and somewhere fans whirred. The once dark pods lightened to clear glass on all sides, except for the frosted bottoms. On the left one, the top popped up, and slid open for her to climb inside.

  Images of being forced inside a vat in Dominion labs flooded her mind, and her breathing sped up. Her fingers dug into the smooth countertop, and her head swayed with dizziness that had nothing to do with her injury.

  “Selene, are you okay?” Flik stood by the end of the open pod, glancing between it and her. His eyes widened as he must have realized why she was freaking out. He stepped in front of the pod, and held his hands up. “Hey, calm down. It’ll be all right. Nothing has ever gone wrong during the cloning process. Not ever. It’s a simple procedure with a million safety precautions automatically built in.”

  Selene shook her head, even as Flik held her gaze, forcing her to meet his startlingly beautiful black and yellow eyes. “But what if this one is broken? Or what if I wake up? Oh god, what if I wake up?”

  Erock looked between them, his brows furrowed in confusion. He still remained close to Selene, but she barely felt anyone’s presence. Cold washed over her skin like the awful blue gel that drowned her again and again.

  “Selene,” Flik snapped.

  She sucked in a breath. She felt herself spiralling, but she had no idea how to stop it.

  “What’s going on?” Erock asked.

  Flik glanced between them. “It’s the Dominion. They… experimented on her for a long time in vats that looked a lot like that.” He nodded at the pods.

  “Oh.” The captain’s eyebrows rose in surprise, and his gaze softened with pity.

  Normally Selene would recoil at such a look, but with her head spinning and ice slithering up her spine, she couldn’t concentrate enough to hit him.

  Flik stepped closer and took her hand. He squeezed, sending warmth flying up her fingers. “Hey. You’re not with the Dominion, okay? Do I look like a Dominion lab rat to you?” He motioned at himself with a half-smile on his face.

  Selene glanced at him up and down. He was still in black fatigues, covered in dust and a bit of blood from helping her around. With his incredibly orange skin and flame red hair, he might be an alien, but he looked nothing like the Dominion lab workers she’d come to loathe.

  “No,” she said. Her heart slowed, and her fingers slowly unclenched around the lip of the counter.

  “Damn right. You had me worried there for a second,” Flik said, flashing a grin. “I know I haven’t been cloned before, but I learned all about it in school long before I joined the Alliance. Nothing will go wrong.”

  Selene nodded, taking deep breaths to get herself back under control. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. Though she wasn’t sure she’d ever be over her time with the Dominion, she was happy to have a friend like Flik to help her out of her panic spiral.

  “Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt a bit.” Erock patted her good shoulder. “It’ll be like falling asleep and waking up again. You’ll be completely refreshed.”

  After another deep breath, the dizziness faded and so did the cold. She leaned back against the wall, suddenly all too aware of how close Erock and Flik both stood.

  “Thanks guys.” She smiled shyly, glancing between them in hopes they’d get the hint and give her some room.

  Flik did first, and went over to join Rem and the doctor, who stood close together, mumbling over terms and specifications rolling by on the large screen between the pods. Erock stepped back after a moment, giving her about a foot before crossing his arms and leaning against the counter. He was all too relaxed for someone who’d just seen battle a few hours ago.

  Right. The miss
ion.

  “How did everything turn out?” Selene asked. “With the mission. Is everyone okay?”

  Erock watched her from the corner of his eye. “Everyone is fine, besides you.” He shook his head. “You had another reason for helping me, didn’t you?” His voice and his eyes darkened.

  Selene froze. Looks like the jig was up. “Maybe a little.”

  He sighed. “I suppose it’s all right… You did help get my sister back first.”

  “How is she?” Selene asked, eager to move on to another topic.

  “She’s resting.” He shifted uncomfortably. “But she’ll be fine.”

  “That’s good.”

  “We’re almost ready!” Rem called over.

  Selene straightened, but her fingers trembled. She was far more terrified than she’d ever expected.

  “O-okay.” She cleared her throat, hoping no one heard her stammer.

  “We’ve got your mods queued up. Enhanced strength, speed, and reflexes. Basically as much muscle mass as you can get,” Rem chuckled. “It really is a brilliant machine. You can do so much with this!”

  “Exactly!” the doctor grinned. “You get it!”

  “I do!” Rem said. “Oh, and I added night vision like you had before, so you’ll get your green eyes back.”

  Selene’s shoulders sagged with a relief she hadn’t been expecting. Though she didn’t have much occasion to see her own eyes, she still missed the gorgeous green emeralds she used to have.

  “You should be the same as you used to be, maybe even a bit better.” Rem grinned.

  “That’s great, I suppose.” Selene forced a smile.

  “So you’re sure these specs are fine?” The doctor looked between her and Rem. “With this high a mod ratio your body will only last five days or so. You’ll need to be re-cloned before then, or your body will begin to deteriorate.”

  Selene nodded. “Yep. Let’s get this over with.”

  Sliding off the counter, Selene did her best to stay steady, even as Flik returned to help her cross the floor to the pod. She held onto his arm as she stood in front of the pod. She pushed back awful memories of the vats she’d been subjected too.