The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (21 page)

Sirok slithered
his short, plump body over to the side of the cockpit. “I knew the spy would be
after the module, so I hid behind the seat and waited for them. I never
expected it to be her, though,” he said, one eye pivoting back in Arya’s
direction. Three eyes still pinned Nick with a googly gaze and noted his
concern over Arya.  “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. She’ll wake up soon.”

“I never
expected you to…um…well…rescue Arya.” Nick ended on a mumble.  “Or my
module.”

All four eyes
were on Nick again, and one actually looked a little squinty.  “Why do you
act so surprised?” Sirok demanded. “I think maybe now you should show me a
little more respect. I heard what you said earlier, you know.”

Nick bowed as if
addressing a King. “Forgive me, Your Royal Gooeyness. But you do have beady
little eyes.” Nick scrunched his face in embarrassment. “Okay, I agree…you’ve
saved our butts. I was wrong. Now get your slimy ass out of my module ’cuz I
have work to do.”

Karg started to
reach for Arya.

“Careful, Karg,”
Nick warned. “I fell for her fake unconscious act earlier.”

Sirok pulled
himself up and over the side of the cockpit. He dangled for a moment before his
metal chariot contraption zipped from its hiding place in the bay and
positioned itself smartly underneath him. He let go of the edge of the cockpit
and plopped down into the seat with a squish.

Karg retrieved
the unconscious Arya from the module. “I’m taking her to Cryo until we can
figure out what to do with her.”

“Good thinking.
Wait…will that stop those nasty nanites?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know.”
Karg shrugged.  “It’s the best I could come up with.” Karg turned and
headed out the door with Arya over his shoulder.

Nick climbed
into the cockpit to prepare for liftoff. When his fingers touched the controls,
slimy mucus squished between his fingers. “Oh, man. Slimy, you really need to
do something about this!” Nick hollered.  He used the edge of his shirt to
wipe the gross ooze off his hand as best as he could and then closed the
canopy. A quick rundown let him know that all the module’s systems checked out
okay. On a whim, he reached into his pocket and rubbed his lucky coin. After
all he’d been through the coin was still there, always with him.

Nick maneuvered
the module off the deck and through the protective force-field, aiming for open
space. “It’ll work.” He pressed his lips together hard, a nervous habit he’d
had since childhood. “It sure as shit better work.”

After clearing
the hangar door, he looped around in front of the Ashok. “Kyrk, you
ready?”  He still couldn’t get used to that name.  It seemed to roll
off his tongue in a sort of joking way that didn’t seem quite respectful. 
Kyrk!
  Who’da thought it.

“We’re ready,
Bannon,” Kyrk responded. “I just hope you’re right about this.”

“Yeah, me too,”
Nick whispered to himself.

He flipped the
generator on, and to his relief, a window opened in front of him. He dialed the
amplitude up just enough so that the window grew barely large enough to
accommodate the Ashok’s huge size. With the Dreadnought in such close
proximity, he didn’t dare open the window any larger.

Nervous energy
poured through him as his module started into the window.  Shit was about
to get scary. This was only the second time in his life that he had ventured
into hyperspace, and the first time had been completely out of his
control.  He didn’t know if he could actually do this and control it well
enough to drag the Ashok and himself into safety.

“So far, so
good.”  Nick breathed through the words.

The module
cleared the window into hyperspace, the Ashok close behind.

“Come on, baby,
hold on. Just a little longer.”

Nick watched his
instrument panel nervously, praying the new generator wouldn’t burn out before
the Ashok could make it through.  And praying he was doing the right
thing.  Who knew where they would end up or what could be waiting on the
other side.

Aboard the
Grok….

The Captain of
the Grok watched as the Ashok plunged into the hyperspace window. His prize was
escaping! The Commodore would not look kindly on another failure. The scales on
D’rog’s face rippled as his teeth clenched. Muscles along his powerful jaw
quivered while he attempted to control his rage. “Fire upon them now! Do not
let them escape!”

Several bursts
from the forward guns raced toward the Ashok, crippling its only remaining
engine. But it was too late.  The ship’s inertia continued to carry it
forward into the hyperspace window.

“Follow them in,
lieutenant!”

“But, Sir. It’s
too small, we won’t fit—”

D’rog stood and,
with a single step, he was at the lieutenant’s console. A forearm to the First
Officer’s chest hurled him across the bridge and plunged him down hard onto the
deck. “Get out of my sight! You’re a disgrace to this ship and the Empire!”

Dazed, the
lieutenant hesitated for a moment and then scrambled to his feet. He stumbled
into the nearest transport tube, eager to get away from the wrath of his
Captain.  A blow to the chest was the least of D’rog’s often brutal
punishments.  Death could be next if the Captain so decided. Dragoran
Captains were known for shooting First Officer’s who questioned a command. The
lieutenant wasn’t about to press his luck.

D’rog’s gaze
never left the console in front of him. He was barely even aware of the sound
of the transport tube doors closing behind his First Officer. His only thought
was the escaping ship and the repercussions of failure. He pushed the
Dreadnought’s engines to their limit and beyond. Life support to non-critical
areas of the ship ceased to function as he raced to redirect every ounce of
energy to the ship’s propulsion. The loss of a portion of the crew was
insignificant compared to the mission at hand. One by one, power to
non-critical systems were cut. He redirected power from the artificial gravity
in the crew quarters. Every trick he knew to gain more speed. He must get
through that window. He must not allow them to escape again!

The ship’s
engines neared overload, yet he continued to press on, fearless and willing to
suffer any consequence.  The gap to his target closed rapidly. Radiation
leak warnings flashed on the console as the engine casings melted.  Still,
he pushed ahead. His only focus was the edge of that window. He watched for any
change in the field’s diameter as his ship raced toward the nearing hyperspace
opening. D’rog leaned forward in anticipation of reaching the window. He could
almost taste victory.

The Grok was
within half a click when suddenly the circular window began to collapse.

“Noooo!” he
roared long and loud.

He wasn’t going
to make it. The window quickly shrank in size until it evaporated into space.
The Dragoran ship barreled through the remaining electrostatic discharge
moments after the window’s collapse. His prey had escaped to the elusive realm
of hyperspace.

D’rog’s scaly
brow dipped and ripples shot through his clinched jaw. His head flew back and
he released a long, deafening roar, as if every ounce of his being was suddenly
expelled from his throat. At that moment he knew he had lost his status, his
life, and the lives of his entire family. The Commodore was not one to bluff.
Punishment would be swift and merciless.   D’rog had failed.

He lowered his
head and turned to see an ensign staring at him from a corner of the bridge,
frozen with fear. The ensign was dead before D’rog even realized he’d pulled
the trigger of his plasma pistol. He looked down at the pistol in his hand,
sneered and stuck it back into his holster. He stood there, one hand on the
Captain’s chair, staring without seeing, busy contemplating his next move.

In
hyperspace….

“Yeehaw!” Nick
crowed. “We did it! That should buy us some time.” If he’d done this back home,
they would erect a statue and teach his accomplishments to little school kids
forever and a day.  Out here in space…wherever he was…his mates back on
earth might never hear of this, but right now…he was just damn happy to be
alive.

He lowered his
voice to a whisper.  “I can’t believe I actually did it.”

“Good work,
Bannon,” Kyrk replied from the bridge of the Ashok. “We do have one small
problem, however.  That last blast took out our only operating engine. But
we still have thruster control. We should be able to hold position until
repairs are completed.”

Nick punched
some keys on the module’s instrument panel. “I’m sending you some positional
data. Just align yourself with these three gravitational distortions and hold
position relative to them. I’m coming aboard.”

“Gravitational
distortions laid in. Thrusters at station-keeping. Holding steady.”

The red
undulating hues of hyperspace glowed beyond the module’s windows. A familiar
lump found its way into Nick’s throat. He swallowed hard and tried to convince
himself everything would be fine, but he knew this maneuver was beyond risky. A
hunch: that was all he really had to go on. That and very slim data.

He slowed his
approach to the hangar bay to ponder the vast red ocean of hyperspace. It
wasn’t anything like what he’d expected it to be when he had postulated his
theory. He wasn’t even sure what he’d expected. He hadn’t really thought of
hyperspace in terms of how it would look. It was amazing to actually
see
the
strange, red underworld. It was almost like looking at a gravitational field
chart with gravitational currents and eddies but no planets or stars, only
their gravitational distortions.

When Nick
realized he’d been staring out the window for a few minutes with his mouth open
in awe he decided to speed up his approach. He was anxious to check on Arya and
see what kind of data the Ashok’s instruments could gather on this bizarre
dimension.

Nick jumped from
his module before it even came to a full stop on the bay floor and ran toward
the Cryo lab. He called Karg on his com-link as he hurried down the corridor.
“Karg. How is she?”

“We had to
sedate her just to get her in the Cryo-unit. She bruised up a few of the crew,
but she’s in suspended animation now. The cold has slowed the nanites to a
crawl, but it hasn’t stopped them completely. If we don’t do something soon,
the dran things will sever all her life functions and then probably self
destruct. I already have Sirok searching through the Admiral’s files for
anything helpful.”

Nick picked up
his pace, sprinting down the corridor. “Be there in a second.”

Nick’s pace
slowed as he rounded the doorway into the Cryo-unit. On the opposite side of
the room, Karg stood looking down into the transparent window of a Cryo-tube. A
stream of ice cold vapor spewed from a vent in the end of the chamber. As Nick
approached, Arya’s face slowly came into view through the tube’s frosty window.
She looked so peaceful, so much like the Arya he had known. There had to be a
way they could rid her brain of the nanites without killing her.

Sirok called on
the com-link. “I’ve been through all the files, and I didn’t find any more
mention of the spy nanites or how to remove them. I’m afraid the Admiral may
have felt the information was too sensitive to risk having it in writing.
Anything he knew apparently died with him.”

Karg’s shoulders
noticeably dropped.

Nick rubbed a
palm across his rough, stubbly face as he thought. “Damn, where’s the pot of
coffee when I really need it,” he muttered. “Hey, Karg, you think we could
reprogram those language nanites to eradicate the spy ones?”

Karg shook his
head solemnly. “I thought the same thing. We already tried it before putting
her in the tube. That’s when she went berserk, throwing crewmembers around the
room. When I was finally able to pin her down, the nasty buggers started
cutting the nerves to her life functions. I barely got her sedated and into the
tube in time. I have life support standing by, but I fear it will be inadequate
in this case. Not only that but the nanites we sent in were transformed into
more spy nanites. Insidious, they are.”

Karg’s
explanation was cut off when an alarm sounded from the Cryo console. “What is
it?” Nick nervously asked.

“Frek, we’re
losing her. We can keep her body frozen, but, if this continues, I don’t know
if we’ll be able to repair the damage to her brain. From what Sirok found out
earlier, once the nanites have accomplished their mission, they self destruct.
They literally go through a meltdown, frying the areas of the brain they are in
contact with. Once that happens, there is really no hope.”

Nick stared at Arya
for a moment, his brain in high gear as he remembered something important,
something that just might work. “Wait a minute! This may not be over yet,
buddy.  I have an idea. Back home they used an EM pulse to destroy rogue
nanites. Would that work for these?”

“I think so, but
because of their shielding, it would take a massive pulse.”  The gaze Karg
turned to Nick was two parts hopeful and one part glum.  And then it got
worse. The big guy started looking sad and hopeless.

Nick didn’t like
the pucker face look.  Not at all. “Oh, shit.  What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know
how we can generate that kind of electromagnetic pulse in time. We’re down to
minutes here.”

Nick
grinned.  “Rail guns!  We got big-ass rail guns, remember.”

Karg’s eyes
opened wide. “The forward plasma cannons!”

Karg didn’t even
hesitate.  He immediately yanked out the hose connecting the Cryo-tube to
the wall and yelled, “Coming through!” He spun the wheeled Cryo-unit around,
almost running over Nick’s feet as he bolted for the door. Karg raced out of
the room and down the corridor as fast as he could get his huge feet to move
and still maneuver the Cryo-tube.

A Meth
crewmember stepped out from a doorway to see what all the commotion was about.

“Clear the way!”
Karg boomed.

The Coranii
barely avoided the oncoming tube, quickly ducking back into the room as Karg
whizzed by. A few seconds later, Nick almost plowed into the same Meth as he
leaned back out into the corridor to watch Karg sprinting down the hall.

“Coming
through!” Nick huffed as he tried to catch up to Karg who was now disappearing
around the corner.

In the forward
gun room, Karg pulled off the maintenance cover of the plasma cannon’s rail
assembly. Nick slid into the room just in time to see Karg picking the
Cryo-unit up off its wheeled base and placing it on the rails of the
electromagnetic drive system. “We need to anchor it in place, or we risk
shooting her into space,” Karg said, searching the room with his gaze.

Nick stared at
the Cryo-unit lying on the rails.  Essentially, one blast would send a
magnetic pulse into the Cryo-unit.  Problem was the rails were designed to
fire huge plasma rounds out of the forward tube and into space.  They
needed something to prevent the Cryo-unit from being blasted into space while
still channeling the linear magnetic pulse into the Cryo-tube. Something metal,
and something strong.

Another alarm
sounded from the Cryo-chamber. Arya was dying. They had no more time, they had
to act quickly.

Nick spun around
in a circle as he swept the room looking for something they could use to anchor
the Cryo-unit.

Karg reached for
a nearby storage locker and ripped the metal unit from the wall, bolts and all.
He turned it and wedged it between the Cryo-tube and the plasma cannon’s barrel
then positioned himself at the weapons console. Karg paused with his finger
over the fire button. “The tube
should
refocus the field into a static
pulse.”

Nick looked at
Karg’s hovering finger. “What are you waiting for?”

“If I’m wrong,
we’ll shoot the nanites right through her skull.” Karg took a deep breath,
pushed Nick behind him with one swipe of his massive arm, and pressed the fire
button. A hollow thump rang from the Cryo-tube as the magnetic pulse discharged
along its length. Sparks flew from the display panels mounted on the sides of
the chamber, and then all of the displays went blank.

“Quickly! We
have to get her into another Cryo-unit.  This one is destroyed.” Karg
threw the chamber back onto the wheeled gurney, flung Nick on top of it, and
shot out the door again. One by one, numerous heads popped out from a row of
doorways in the corridor to watch as the strange spectacle passed by.

“Gang way!” Karg
roared.   He rounded the corner and zipped through the Cryo-room
doors, skidding to an abrupt halt in the center of the room.

Nick’s
white-knuckle ride had come to a swift and uncomfortable end. He slid off the
slippery container and landed head-first onto the floor with a loud thud. By
the time he scrambled to his feet, Karg had already transferred Arya’s body to
another tube.

With Arya
finally secure in a functioning Cryo-chamber, Karg monitored her life signs
carefully. “No signs of activity from the nanites. I think we did it. There is
some damage to her neural pathways, but I think the med-bots can handle it.
We’ll just have to wait until we can revive her to really know how she’s
doing.”

Waiting had
never been easy for Nick. Especially not under tense circumstances. 
Through the next grueling two hours Nick did everything from pacing to
whistling to annoying Karg with colorful rhymes in order to make the time pass
faster.  But time was not his friend today, and every minute seemed to
pass at a snail’s pace.  Every minute ticking by while nothing happened
inside that damn Cryo-chamber.  He wanted to talk to Arya, wanted to see
those cat-eyes open and stare up at him in that way she had when she was
clearly thinking he was a cute moron from outer space.  But nothing
happened.

“All we can do
is wait,” Karg told him for the hundredth time since placing Arya in the
chamber.

“Yeah, big guy,
I got that,” Nick muttered.  He desperately needed to know if it was still
the old Arya behind those sleeping eyes.
If it wasn’t….
He couldn’t bear
to think of the consequences.

The day turned
slowly into night as Karg stood watch. Eventually, Nick dozed off in one of the
chairs he had pilfered from the mess hall. Karg stared curiously at the
snoozing human beast, his big head tilted in consternation. Nick was turned
crossways in the chair, his feet draped over one arm of the chair and his head
hanging off the other. A spot of drool escaped from the corner of his wide-open
mouth and dripped onto the floor. How Nick could sleep in that position was
beyond him. It looked incredibly painful to the neck.  But perhaps that
was a normal sleeping habit of humans.

“I still have
much to learn about your strange species,” he said under his breath. He grinned
and shrugged his shoulders. It was best to let his friend sleep for awhile.
Nick was awfully cranky when he was tired.

A soft tone
chimed from the chamber that held Arya, signaling the beginning of the
Cryo-unit’s regeneration routine.

Karg reached
over and poked Nick in the arm.  “Nick! Nick, wake up.”

The poke
startled Nick.  He jerked his head up, his eyes barely cracked open, and
looked around the room. 

“Nick! Wake up,”
Karg repeated.

“Wha…I’m awake,
I’m awake. What’s going on?” Nick sat up and rubbed a hand from his head down
his face and back up again, then knuckled his tired eyes and blinked several
times in an attempt to shake the sleepiness from his head. His brain began to
kick in, and he realized why he was in the Cryo-room with Karg. “Arya? Is she
okay?” He frowned as he wiped a disgusting dribble of drool from the side of
his mouth.

“She’s fine. The
med-bots have done a good job repairing the damaged neurons. She should be back
to normal. Functionally, anyway. I just thought you would want to be awake when
she came to.”

Nick was annoyed
that his body betrayed him with a yawn at that critical moment in time. It
seemed disrespectful somehow.  “Yeah, definitely. Thanks. I must have
dozed off.” He yawned again and stretched, trying to force his dry eyes open.
He’d swear someone had poured glue in them while he had slept. “Damn, I hate
that.”

He blinked
profusely, waiting for a little moisture to lubricate his gritty eyeballs as he
gazed down at Arya’s serene face.

Karg cocked his
head as he looked at Nick. “What is that noise you make when you’re sleeping?
Do all humans do that?”

“Noise? What
n―” Karg’s implication suddenly smacked him in the face. “Hey! I do
not
snore!”

“That’s what you
call it? It’s…annoying. How can you sleep through that?”

Nick threw his
hands into the air.  “I don’t know…we don’t notice it, I guess.  But
I don’t snore.  No one has ever said I snore, except for…Emily Rogerson
back in college.  Okay, so maybe I snore some.  Once in awhile. 
When I’m really tired.  But that’s it.”  He shook his head. 
“Enough about me already. How’s Arya doing?”

“So far, so
good. I haven’t given her any new translator nanites yet. Wanted to be sure she
was alright first. Don’t want to go through all that again.” Karg pressed a
button on the console. “This should stimulate her brain to wake up.”

In the open
Cryo-tube, Arya took a deep breath. Her response to Karg’s brain stimulation
was a relief to her shipmates, but they were far from out of the woods yet.
They still needed to know if she was the real deal.

Arya’s long
eyelashes fluttered and then her eyes slowly opened. She lay still for a split
second and then swiftly sat up, looking around in a panic.

Startled by her
sudden movement, both Nick and Karg quickly took a step backward away from the
chamber. Karg was preparing to fight, ready to pin her down but then she spoke.

“Nick! Help me!”
She tried to grab at Nick’s arm, but he was too far away. “Please don’t let it
take me. Please!”

Nick could see
the legitimate fear and panic in her eyes.  It would seem that the old
Arya was back.  He cautiously stepped closer and allowed her to take his
arm.  “It’s alright. You’re safe now. The artificial intelligence is
gone.”

Arya stared
strangely at Nick then turned to Karg and said, “Karg? What’s happening? I
can’t understand Nick.”

“It’s okay, you
don’t have any translators yet,” Karg explained. “They got blasted by the
magnetic pulse.”

Arya looked even
more panicked.  “I can’t understand you, either!”

Karg grabbed a
small device from a nearby table and handed it to Arya. “Sorry, I forgot.
Here.”

Arya turned the
device around and glanced at the page of text displayed on its screen. The
device had been printing out the conversation as they spoke, translating
everyone’s language into written Arisian text. As Arya read the text, her body
began to relax. “This is so weird. I was only an infant when I was injected
with translators. To suddenly be unable to understand anyone is a shock. I even
panicked and tried to access the console with my mind but couldn’t.” She looked
at Nick, and her cat-eyes formed into a familiar squint. “How does your species
bear to live this way? It’s so…isolating.”