[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]“This will never work; you are simply compounding your crime.”
“Master Erzo'acteru... We simply wish to allow you time to fully investigate our cause. It would be unfair of you to act without full knowledge of who we are, what we are attempting to accomplish.”
“I know who you are. I have fully researched your organization, your faith. And I know what you are trying to accomplish.”
“Then why won't you help us...?”
“Because you are breaking federation law.”
“Laws are made by people; people are fallible. We are attempting to right a fallacy in the law. Don't you wish to make your people whole again?”
“Dalcachenes are as Dalca'odge has made them. Nothing can be done, nor should it be done. It is wrong to try and change the order of our race.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then this may take longer than we had hoped. Eventually, however, we are confident you will come around to our way of thinking.”
“I will not.”
“But the Great One Above ordains this. He has spoken to our leader concerning it. Surely you believe in the Omniscient.”
“Yes, I do. But I do not believe it is his will to experiment on others for our own benefit. That is why it is illegal.”
“You are thinking too small. Perhaps you need some help in seeing the light of reason.”
At that a robed Dalcachene entered the chamber and, coming to the bedside of the bound master, administered a solution into his eyes. It worked its way quickly into his cerebral cortex. His mind began to wander; thoughts became difficult to formulate; reality became surreal.
“Now let us talk about the Baeliwik Religion once more...” came the disembodied voice.
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]She came to him again in his dreams. This time, she was even more aggressive than normal, hungrily engaging him in the act with a deep yearning desire. He felt her on a different level tonight, the anesthetic of the dream-state considerably dulled; it was much more akin to reality, more visceral, more tangible. All of his senses were incredibly heightened.
In punctuation, some type of electrical storm was occurring outside the building. He could hear the lightning crack, feel the flashes of light on his face. Their union soon fell into sync with it, ebbing and flowing to the strokes of thunder. She sought a position above him, began moving rhythmically. Soon he rose to crest, crying out with wild abandon! It was absolutely the most incredible feeling! Wait! This was no dream! It was too damn real! He smiled warmly with the thought and as he continued to flood into her, she continued to straddle him, move with him. This was real! (He liked that idea!)
Now that he knew it was no dream, he wanted to see her, to pull her down to him, caress her beautiful face, her silky hair, to hold her close. But he was only half awake, caught somewhere between the antithetical worlds of sleep and consciousness. Yet he wanted it so badly, needed it! It was the first time in so long he had allowed himself to feel like this, since his wife had died. He willed his eyes to open with a great force of effort. And they did. It coincided with the exact moment in time that a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the room.
He shrank back in sheer horror!!! It was atop him! Its bulbous bald head and saucer eyes glaring down at him; its sickly, pallid skin a dead gray; its body a bony mass of deformity! With a scream of disgust, he threw it violently off him. It landed against the far wall, crumpled into a heap and lie still.
Ryan stumbled drunkenly to his feet, head swimming. Where was the fricking door?! He had to get out of there...
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Ryan moved down the darkened corridor, feeling the wall with his hands. He was very unsteady on his feet, the medication muddling his balance. He was just basically as confused as hell. Where was Laura? He had come to depend on her to be there for him. And why was that Dalq'chette mucking with him in his sleep...? That was a little much to accept! Just his luck! ...dreaming of a babe like Laura and it turns out to be some deformed alien chick instead...! Well, quarantine be damned, he was leaving!
He suddenly heard a noise up ahead, slunk backward against the wall. By chance he slipped into an alcove. Comforted by this seclusion, he stayed put until the noise up ahead died. Now his eyes were starting to cope with the dimmed lighting. It was not totally dark after all but just subdued, a soft yellow glow permeating the corridor. He blinked hard, rubbed his eyes, drew a deep breath and left his sanctuary.
Passing several chambers along the way, he glanced furtively within each in turn. Finding nothing of interest, he continued on. In his drugged state, he really didn't know what he was looking for. All the rooms seemed to be duplicates of the one he had just left. Some had people asleep on a high table-bed; some were empty. Laura wasn't in any of them.
Abruptly, the corridor ended. It dumped out into a large, spacious room with rows of tables and air-chairs. Against the left wall was a partially enclosed area with machinery within. Even in his impaired state, Ryan recognized it as sustenance equipment. This had to be the cafeteria. It must be very late now as the facility was darkened and empty; no diners present. He glanced back the way he had come. Not much choice, either go through this room or retrace his path and try the opposite direction. He wished his brain was working better; everything was so fuzzy. He decided to cross the room to the corridor at the far end.
Halfway there he heard voices again, coming from both directions this time, behind and in front of him. He was trapped! He stumbled into the galley area, where the sustenance machines were lined up like dutiful soldiers on parade. There he danced around for a few seconds looking for somewhere to hide. A door located between two rows of machinery suddenly looked promising; it looked to be large enough to hide in. The voices were coming dangerously close now as he pulled on the door and leaped inside.
The smell was horrendous as he hit the chute. It was greased with old food and he slid down it at a scary rate of speed. He pressed his hands against either side trying to slow his wild descent. It did no good whatsoever; he continued downward at break-neck speed. After a small eternity the chute spat him out into the cold environment of Hei'a 12. He landed in a stale, fetid, semi-frozen heap of refuse, naked and dazed.
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Quang Liu was approaching the installation from the direction of polar north. He had landed clandestinely in an ice valley not too distant from the archaeological dig. Quang was determined to fulfill the mandate that he had been given by his order: discover what had happened to Master Erzo'acteru. The Exeonasii order-master of Urtyre had given him the assignment with a word of caution. Dalca'odge was on the brink of political upheaval, a regime-change was in the offing. It appeared that the Baeliwiks were coming back into power.
Now he crested a small, snow-covered hillock. Lightning flashed as he stared down at the installation. He had not expected this storm. It must be a unique feature of Hei'a 12, for he had never seen a lightning storm like this before. It tended to crack horizontally, searing thin fingers of electricity across the horizon in shocking iridescence. If not for his all-absorbing focus on the mission, he would think it quite astonishing, even beautiful. As it was he barely noticed.
Down in the shallow depression wherein lay the archaeological facility, he could make out several notable features. To the right of the main building, a nondescript rectangular structure, was a landing pad with a single ship docked there. It was not the master's Saar'floe, but a different crescent, a different model. That didn't mean that he was not being held in the installation, just that they were being careful not to broadcast the fact. Saar'floe could easily be hidden in any of the multitude of canyons of this over-sized moon.
In the foreground, just at the base of the hill he was peering over, was an excavation. Near the building itself was some sort of refuse pile, the installation's offal, no doubt. They probably covered it over with fresh layers of snow and ice ever so often, to keep the smell down. Dalcachenes were very sensitive to rank odors, liked to keep everything tidied up in that regard. Quang smiled, he doubted they could have survived the slums of Seoul, where he had grown up.
He determined to move forward to the edge of the landfill. Carefully he picked his way down toward the area in question, occasional strikes of lightning illuminating his way. Now he was in position to examine the entrance. What type of alarm security did they have in place? He had no way of knowing just yet.
He suddenly heard a strange noise coming from the direction of the landfill. A trap door at the base of the outer wall of the building opened and ejected something, which flew into the pile of refuse. He watched, astonished, as a naked man stood up and began to look around confused.
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]It was hard for Quang to determine whether the man was more frozen or more asphyxiated by the time he got down to him. Either way he was a deathly shade of blue. Hei'a 12 was not what you would call a cozy place for humanoids. If the twenty below temperatures didn't get you, the atmosphere would. There was simply not enough of the right kind of air to breath.
Kneeling by the nude man, he threw off his utility pack. Rummaging around within it he found a mask, which he promptly secured over the stricken man's nose and mouth. Now he drove his hand back into the pack, found the ever-present survival webbing there. Yanking it out, he began wrapping the man in this clinging medical net, bundling him up as tightly as he could until he resembled an Egyptian mummy. Then he strapped an environment belt around the entire bundle and activated it. This would counterbalance the effects of the hostile environment, warm up the webbing, put the patient into a mild stasis.
That accomplished he stood up and cast about furtively for any signs that he had been discovered. Satisfied that he had not been, he tossed the half frozen man over his shoulder and began to work his way back up the icy slope. If he didn't get him back to Pam-sae quickly the man would more than likely die.
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]“What happened here?” Quang inquired, speaking to the prone figure he had carried in from the cold, his recognition of the man returning along with the healthy tone of his flesh.
At the question, Ryan opened his eyes and looked around. He was on a ship, that much he could readily ascertain... exactly which ship was a mystery... until, that is, his eyes found Quang Liu. He licked his lips, his tongue a mass of feathers, and spun around to a seated posture on the bed. “Can I get some water?” he croaked.
Quang obliged, tossing a canteen to him. Ryan caught it by chance—it bouncing off his chest, him catching the rebound—looked at the thrower and nodded his thanks. He drank long of the thirst-quenching liquid, spilling it liberally across his chin in his haste.
“Where is Master Erzo'acteru?” It was as much a threat coming from the Korean as it was a question. You will tell me where he is or I will kill you! Ryan pulled the canteen from his lips, grimaced.
No need, he wanted to say, my head is already killing me. “I was told he was down with a bug,” Ryan explained.
“Bug...? What bug...? What are you talking about...?”
“The installation is under quarantine due to an infection of some kind.”
“Who told you this...?” Quang asked angrily.
“Laura, my... uh... nurse...”
“Quarantine...? by who's authority?”
“The federation... Quang... You should know about it. And what the hell are you doing here anyway?”
“There is no federation quarantine of this facility.” He scowled. “I came to discover the whereabouts of my old master. When Saar'floe failed to check in at the appointed time, I volunteered to investigate.” He walked over to Ryan, sitting on the cabin bed, rubbing his head. “What is your last memory before you got sick...?”
“Uh... let me see... we landed and a group of scientists, the ones we had brought out here, met us in a room near the entrance. Charlie was stating the purpose of the visit. Then I saw him go down... about that time my own knees buckled... Next thing I recall is seeing Laura...”
“You walked into an ambush.” He grunted, shaking his head in disgust. “I thought I taught my old master better than that.”
“So...” Ryan was trying to sort it all out with his befuddled mind—no easy task! “If the epidemic's a scam they must be holding him captive as, I suppose, they were holding me...”
“Yes.”
“And... so... you are going after him...?”
Quang shot him a baneful look, eyes narrowed dangerously. “Of course...” he snarled, as if to say: Don't be stupid!
Ryan nodded and glanced away for a split second, then locked eyes with the other man. “I need an environment suit. I'm going with you.”
Quang stared back at the wretched figure of a man he had just saved from death. He snorted, pursed his lips and left the chamber.
Head pounding, eyes rheumy and out of focus, Ryan attempted to stand. It was a no-go; his knees buckled immediately. Determined, he groped along the bedside, found purchase and began climbing up. He managed to gain his feet just in time to see Liu come back into the room.
The marine tossed him an E-suit. Shaking his head, doubt painted plainly on his face, he spun on his heels and left, tossing a parting shot over his shoulder. “I leave in twenty minutes... with you,without you... It does not matter.”
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]He managed to make his twenty minute deadline—just! He caught Liu's backside as he was cresting the first hillock heading back toward the installation. That damn ninja wasn't kidding—he wasn't waiting for ****! He hurried to try and catch him.
Ryan was feeling somewhat normal now, his headache subsiding a tad, but his energy level was not yet there. To top that off, he didn't know how far it was back to their destination—he had been out on the trip in—so he steeled himself for the worst. It was a good thing he did for that is exactly what he got! He discovered later that they were about six miles or so from their target.
He never did catch the marine during the hike but was relegated to trailing along docilely in his wake like an unwanted pup. He didn't have the breath to complain so he just did the best he could to follow along as expeditiously as possible, daydreaming about getting another shot at the ass-end of Pam-sae. (It was the only thing that kept him going.) Soon he was reduced to simply following in the foot prints left in the icy snow, Liu having all but disappeared from view, only visible now and again when he crested a far rise.
Panting and in severe pain, Ryan finally reached the destination to find his recalcitrant partner advancing cautiously toward the entrance, taking his time, checking for anyone that was watching. Ryan was thrilled at the respite; he threw himself on the blind side of the hill overlooking the installation and fought to catch his breath, his strength. Then he turned over and belly crawled up over the rise to get a peek.
Quang was disappearing into the building. Crap! Ryan hustled on down the slope in clumsy pursuit.
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Ryan was about half-way to the building entrance when all hell broke loose! A squadron of Szearfetti ships, their sharp contours and arrowhead shapes making them unmistakable as such, dove on the installation. They laid down a deadly rain of plasma fire that instantly set much of the outer works of the building to flames. The quintet of gun-barrel colored fighters then swept up and disappeared into the mist. Ryan retreated back to his hillock, reaching its safety just in time to watch their return run. This time they fairly rubbled the entire building; the ceiling collapsed and all that remained was a smoking heap of debris. After one more pass—their coup de grace—they roared away and didn't return.
Ryan could scarcely believe it. In short order they had completely obliterated the structure. He doubted anything could have survived the devastating attack. He looked at the landing pad. They had not neglected the ship docked there either. It was utterly destroyed. All that remained was a single gnarled mass of smoking metal, (reminded him of a piece of modern sculpture he had seen back in Portland so many months ago... so many worlds ago...!).
He finally came out from his cover to advance on the ruin, wondering if Quang and his master had somehow survived. He decided to investigate the entrance. The ROK jar-head had not been long inside before the attack. Perhaps he was near the entrance and could be dug out fairly easily.
Ryan approached where the entrance had been, noticing that it was gone now, just rubble in its place. He wondered idly why they didn't have some type of shield to protect the place. Maybe they figured no-one would consider them worthy of attacking... or maybe Quang had done something to disable the shields, to allow for his entrance into the building... Ryan had no way of knowing but if the latter were the case it had to have been the most astonishing case of bad luck timing he had ever even heard of...
Now he was up to the ruins themselves. He started casting about for some way of dislodging some of the debris, some way of digging a hole to see into the building itself. At the spot where the entrance had been there was a long, relatively straight, piece of metal. He decided that, whatever it had been in its previous incarnation, it had been born again. Now it was his lever. He pulled it to him, then inserted the far end under a large square stone on the top of the heap. Shouldering the lever he strained upward until the stone tumbled over and away from the entrance. The exertion brought back the jackhammer in his head. He ignored it and picked out another stone to leverage off the pile, then another, and another... finally carving out a substantial hole in the wreckage. Now he could see down into what was left of the corridor.
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Down the collapsed corridor about twenty yards was a body lying on the floor, legs pinioned beneath a pile of rubble that used to be a ceiling. It was Quang; he could tell by the color of his E-suit, a duplicate of the one he was wearing! Ryan rushed to his side. The man had a broken left arm, obvious by the crazy angle that it was perched at. His two legs, caught under a section of the ceiling, prohibited Ryan from moving him. He ran back out to get his tool, praying that he could accomplish what he had in mind without bringing any more of the roof down on their collective heads.
He came back with the metal brace, gingerly placed it under the stone slab covering Quang's legs. The man was out cold, thank God, but Ryan had found a pulse... So now his main concern was getting him out of there before the rest of the place folded like a bad poker hand.
He pushed up gently on the slab, easing it ever so slightly off the trapped legs. Four hands would have been useful but he was short by half, so he would have to improvise. He moved into the lever and jacked it up onto his right shoulder—which hurt like hell! It did, however, leave him with his hands free. In spite of that fact and, strain as he would, he couldn't quite reach down far enough to grab the trapped man. Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. He moved into the lever, closer to the broken slab, sliding his shoulder along the underside as he did so. Continuing like this until he was able to touch Liu's knees, he grabbed one in either hand and pulled backward gently but firmly. That earned him a grunt.
“Ryan...! What took you so long...?”
He pulled the man again, this time from a point a little below the knees. “I was... pacing myself...” he explained without turning around.
“Ah... good plan...” Quang acknowledged, assisting his efforts by using his good right hand placed flat against the floor to push off in tandem with Ryan's pulls.
Working thusly, they were finally able to extricate the marine's broken legs, for once out they realized this to be the case—compound fractures in both. He would do no walking on his own for quite some time.
Ryan caught his breath for a bare second and then grabbed the two hundred pound dead weight of the marine by his collar, sliding him out backwards. It was the longest twenty yards of Ryan's life. It was not the weight, the exertion of dragging him, but rather the trepidatious certainty that fate would somehow intervene at the last moment, caving in the ceiling. He was wrong, she didn't.
“Go! Bring me my ship... bring Pam-sae to me...” Quang ordered in a commanding tone. Ryan wanted to say: I don't work for you,but realized it was not the time to get pugnacious.
“Right... I was looking forward to making that hike again right away...”
“Here.” Quang handed him a thin piece of black metal he had fished from his E-suit pocket. “It will allow you access to Pam-sae.”
“Right... I'll need that...” he agreed, pulled Quang a short distance from the ruins, propped him into a sitting position and started his torturous trek back.
[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Ryan got the ship and collected the broken marine. In the better part of the four days that followed, he went to work recovering survivors and bodies from the ruins. Quang, while flat on his back, was still key to the process. He had told Ryan how to use the tractor beam while hovering over the ruins to dig through the debris, the low-power beam weapon where necessary to surgically burn holes through obstinate areas.
They recovered thirteen Pella'agrenes—Laura amongst the group! ...along with four Dalcachenes. All were alive though in various stages of injury. The sad news was that Charlie's was among the bodies recovered, news that struck Ryan harder than he would have thought possible; it seemed he had grown quietly fond of his master.
Laura was very glad to see Ryan but was in shock over the experience. Her injuries, however, were thankfully minor, a small laceration on her right thigh just above the knee, a sizable knot gracing her lovely forehead. Ryan tended her wounds carefully then settled her into one of the cabins along with two other Pella'agrene women. The Dalcachenes were all placed under detention. They would stand trial before the federation council.
Quang was seething mad about the death of his old master. If not for his injuries Ryan had little doubt he would have launched a one-man invasion of Szearfetti space immediately. Ryan, of course, would have none of that. He was for repatriating the Pella'agrenes first, as that was the closer destination, then returning to Urtyre to present their prisoners to the council. But the irate ninja was beside himself; he wanted blood, Ryan could see it in his eyes.
“Look Quang... after you're healed up, we can come back here and retrieve Saar'floe... then we can go after those responsible for the attack... together!” This course of action just made good sea-sense to Ryan. Whether he had succeeded in talking Quang into it or the man had just desisted for lack of any way of physically enforcing his wishes at the moment was beyond Ryan to decipher. It mattered not, either way Ryan was doing it his way. He left the marine and went to check on Laura.