The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (28 page)

“Oh, we’re not
going to kill you. That would be too nice.” Nick sat down in a chair across
from him. “How did you know about the module? And how did you know Arnon?”

“You’re going to
kill me as soon as I tell you, so you can just go get freked.”

Nick smiled
calmly. “You can do this my way or
his
way,” he said, pointing at Karg.

“Frek you! All
of you!”

“Okay.” Nick
shrugged. “But you should have done it my way.” He stood up from his chair.
“Karg, you win. You were right. He’s not gonna talk. He’s all yours.”

Nick looked back
at Zurkan. “You should have cooperated. I was just trying to help you. Not that
I care. I just hate it when he gets messy.” Nick turned and headed for the
door. “I’ll be in the corridor. I just don’t have the stomach for this.”

Karg walked over
to Zurkan and grabbed him under his armpit with one of his massive hands.
Another hand grasped Zurkan’s ankle tightly, while a third covered his mouth.
Karg pulled the raider’s pant leg up with his remaining hand, exposing his leg.

Zurkan looked
nervously over the huge hand covering his mouth. “What the hetek are you doing
to me?” he mumbled under Karg’s hand. “Wait!  Stop!”

Karg ignored his
plea.

To Zurkan’s
horror, Karg opened his enormous mouth, pulling his lips back to expose his
huge, blunt teeth. Karg eyed Zurkan’s leg as he drew it closer to his mouth,
then leaned forward and stretched his teeth around Zurkan’s leg to take a bite.

Sweat dripped
off of the raider as he struggled against the massive Rakozian. Muffled screams
came from Zurkan’s throat. “Wait! Please! I’ll tell you anything, just don’t
bite my leg off! Please, I beg you!” Tears ran down Zurkan’s face as he sobbed
like a child.

Karg lifted one
of his fingers from Zurkan’s mouth. “Are you sure? ‘Cause I’m really getting
hungry.”

“Yes, I’ll tell
you anything you want to know,” Zurkan blabbered from between Karg’s powerful
fingers.

“Go get Nick,”
Karg directed as he lowered Zurkan’s exhausted body back down into the chair.

Arya opened the
hangar door and winked at Nick as he stood leaning against the wall just
outside. “Looks like he wants to talk, after all.”

Nick
nonchalantly strolled into the hangar and plopped back down in the chair across
from Zurkan. “Start talking.”

“Arnon was a spy
for me, but then he got captured by the Dragorans. Lucky for me, you rescued
him. While he was aboard your ship, Arnon had been sending me secret
transmissions, but then they suddenly stopped. When I found out the Dragorans
wanted you real bad, I knew they would pay a huge finder’s fee to whomever
caught you. Naturally, I took my chances that I could find you.  I’ve been
chasing you for weeks.”

Sirok shook his
head. “No. He’s lying. We would have picked up any transmissions.”

Zurkan chuckled.
“I doubt it. Not unless you knew exactly what to look for. The transmissions
were masked to look like background noise. Even if you could filter it out of
the noise, it would just sound like static. You know…white noise. When blended
into the background radiation, it’s virtually impossible to detect. And then it
can only be decoded using a special algorithm.”

Arya sat down
hard in the chair next to Nick.  She was clearly surprised by the news of
Arnon’s treachory. “All that time Arnon was a spy, after all. Only not for the
Dragorans. For
this
slug. Sorry, no offense, Sirok.”

“None taken,”
Sirok muttered, still deep in thought about the ingenious hidden transmissions.

Arya
frowned.  “The transmitter is quite clever, actually.” She looked hard at
Zurkan.  “I honestly didn’t think you had the brains for that sort of
thing.” Her gaze went to Sirok. “You better get to the bridge to monitor things
in case we have more company. Karg, will you supervise repairs?”

“I’ll get right
to it…
Captain
.” Karg winked and headed out of the bay.

Nick glanced at
Arya.  “So, what do we do with him now?”

Arya heaved a
weary sigh.  “For the moment he’s our prisoner.  I’m sure I’ll come
up with something useful to do with him.  Right now we need to think about
repairing our ship.”

“Right. 
Speaking of ships….”  Nick stood up and walked over to the module, leaving
Arya to guard the prisoner. After all the fighting and plasma fire ripping up
the bay, he needed to make sure the raiders hadn’t damaged his pride and joy.
To his relief, everything seemed to check out okay.

As Nick leaned
into the module’s cockpit, a scuffling sound erupted from behind him. He turned
to see Arya struggling with Zurkan. The two were face to face, fighting over
the pistol in Arya’s hand. With the weapon mashed in between them, it was
difficult to see who had the upper hand. Nick took a step toward them,
preparing to rush to Arya’s rescue when a shot rang out. The horrible, muffled
sound of a close-range plasma blast. Arya stood there with her back to Nick as
a puff of smoke rose from between the two.

“Arya!” Nick
screeched as he bolted over to her.  He came up behind her right shoulder
with his gun already aimed at Zurkan’s head.

Zurkan looked
over at Nick with a blank stare. “Frek.” His eyes rolled back in his head, and
he collapsed to the floor, dead. A stream of smoke rose up from a burnt hole in
his abdomen.

Relieved that
she was okay, Nick spun Arya around and hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry. 
Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I should have never taken my eyes off him.”

“It’s my fault.
He was faster than I thought,” she said, scrunching her little nose in
surprise.

“It’s over now.
Everything’s going to be alright,” Nick whispered.  He wrapped his arms a
little more tightly around her.

She gave him an
awkward pat on his back and waited for him to let go. But he wasn’t letting go.
Her heartbeat quickened. Nick’s reluctance to release her was a surprise. One
she wasn’t prepared for. She had to fight it. She couldn’t give in to her
feelings. She couldn’t allow her emotions to get in the way.
Dran, why isn’t
he letting go?
She could tell by the tremble in her hands that she was
fighting a losing battle. And did she really have to fight this battle? 
Why couldn’t she just allow herself to sink into the emotion, and….

Her body
softened as she finally gave in and melted into him, took in the heady scent of
him, noticed every single inch of how he felt pressed against her, his strong
arms, rippled abdomen, sturdy thighs.  Her senses went into hyperdrive as
she tried to impress every second of holding him into her brain.  She
never wanted to forget this moment in time.

They stood
embracing one another until Nick pulled his head back to look at her, his eyes
bloodshot with tears. “I thought he killed you.”

Arya smiled
through the stream of tears that were making their way down her own cheeks. “I
thought
you
were dead. We hadn’t heard from you in
days
.”

Nick raised his
thumb to her cheek and gently stroked a tear from her face. Their gazes seemed
unbreakable. In the silence of the empty bay, Nick slowly leaned in toward her,
his nose almost touching hers.  His heart was pounding so hard he could
barely breathe.  He just wanted to….

“Nick! Arya! You
two alright? I thought I heard weapons-fire,” Karg hollered as he stomped into
the bay.

Startled, the
two dropped their arms away from each other and took a step back. “Oh…yeah.
Everything’s great,” Nick said, grinning at Arya. They wiped the tears from
their faces and turned to look at Karg as he approached.

Karg looked at
Zurkan’s dead body lying on the floor and then back at the two grinning faces
in front of him. “Um, you sure you’re okay?” Karg asked, obviously perplexed by
their expressions.

“Yeah, Karg,
everything is…good.”

Nick’s grin got
bigger.  Arya’s nose twitched just slightly, one side of her mouth turned
up in an interesting little quirk that let him know all he needed to know at
the moment.

“So the long and
the short of it is that you were a handful as a child,” Arya said. 
“Always getting into trouble.”

Nick leaned his
elbows on the table between them and smiled back at her.  “I prefer to
think of it as adventuresome.”

The trio had
joined up in the lab. Karg had been helping Nick, and Arya had simply stopped
by to see what Nick was working on.  The conversation had quickly turned
to small talk, and soon they were all laughing and talking about their younger
days. It was one of those rare moments that they could really relax and joke
around, a welcome break from all the action of late.

As Nick was
talking, Arya glanced over at the I.S.A. patch on his shoulder. Her eyes opened
wider. “That’s it!” Without further explanation, she jumped up and headed for
the door, calling back to the two left sitting there. “Come on!”

Arya stopped
suddenly, turned around, and held up her hand.  She looked a bit confused
and preoccupied. She shook her head.  “No, wait…you need to stay here.”
With that, she walked out of the room, leaving the two of them stumped. “I’ll
be back!” they heard her call out as she made her way down the corridor.

Nick had started
to stand up but stopped halfway when Arya had told them to stay.  He
stared at the empty doorway befuddled. “What the hell was all that about?
Where’s she going?” he asked as he slowly lowered himself into the chair again.

Karg shrugged.
“Beats me. She’s been acting weird since Argos died. A lot on her mind I
guess.”

“Yeah, I guess.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her to have those damn
psychopath nanites in her head. That would be hard for anybody to get over.”

Nick and Karg
stared at each other uncomfortably.

Karg changed the
subject.  “What were you saying about those transmissions?”

“Oh, um, I had
an idea about how we may be able to use a hyperspace generator to send
transmissions between the different cells of the Resistance. I figure if we
used a low-power generator to hold open a minuscule hyperspace window, one on a
subatomic scale, then we could transmit a signal over great distances through
hyperspace to another device. A sort of hyperspace two-way radio. We could
shield the whole apparatus in a Faraday cage to keep the signal from
transmitting into normal space. Heck, it would work anywhere, even deep inside
an asteroid, because it bypasses normal space and matter.”

Karg raised his
boney eyebrows. “And the Dragorans and Mok’tu wouldn’t be able to intercept the
transmission, since they don’t have the ability to open a hyperspace window.
That’s brilliant!”

“Only problem
is, we have to build in a self destruct to keep it from falling into enemy
hands. If one of the Resistance ships got boarded, we would need to be able to
blow the generator.”

“You know,
despite all your disadvantages, your species can be surprisingly intelligent at
times,” Karg praised.

Nick’s brow lowered,
and a half-grin appeared on his face.  “Um…thanks?”  He hadn’t heard
a backhanded compliment like that since Aunt Ruth said to his mom ‘You look
good, did you gain weight?’ Asking a woman if she’d gained weight was rarely
considered a compliment. Now he could relate to the confusion on his mom’s face
that day.

“You certainly
have a way with words, Karg,” he said.

Karg
grinned.  “I like to think so.”

Time got away
from them as they joked and badgered each other until they ran out of things to
talk about.

“I wonder what
happened to Arya,” Nick remarked.  “It’s been awhile since she left.”

Karg stared at
him for a long moment. “So…what’s going on with you two?”

Nick frowned and
hid a smile behind the glass he raised to his lips.  “What do you mean?”

Karg leaned
forward in his chair. “Come on, I’ve seen the looks you two have been giving
each other.”

Nick shrugged
and tried to avoid Karg’s stare.  “Nothing’s going on.”

“Uh-huh,” Karg
rumbled, a knowing grin on his wide face. 

The swish of the
door broke the momentary silence in the lab. Arya returning from the bridge.

“Hey, Arya, you
have to hear what Nick was telling me.” Karg glanced at Nick. “Go on, tell her
what you said about the transmitter thing.”

Nick looked up
at Arya, his mouth open to speak, when he noticed the odd look on her face.
“Arya? What is it?”

Her expression
was somewhere between amazement and bewilderment. She walked toward them with
an almost uncertain gait, her eyes glazed, as if she were disturbed by whatever
she was mulling around in her mind.

Nick felt an icy
chill go up his spine as he watched her approach. “Karg, could some of those
psycho nanites have survived?” he asked anxiously, his eyes remaining on Arya.
Cautiously, his hand slid to the plasma pistol on his hip.

Karg uttered
only a single worrisome word. “Um….”

“No, I’m fine. I
think,” Arya replied, staring straight ahead as she sat down, still deep in
thought about something. She turned and looked into Nick’s blue eyes.

He stared back
at her with a puzzled gaze, his hand still resting cautiously on the pistol in
his holster. “What?”

She drew in a
deep breath and realized she had barely drawn a breath the entire way down the
corridor. She inhaled deeply again, trying to catch her breath before
continuing. “Do you remember the prophecy I told you about?”

“Yeah, I
remember. Don’t tell me…the hero dies. I hate when that happens.” Nick was well
aware that the crew believed
he
was the hero in the prophecy. Something
he had casually shrugged off.  They were just reading too much into the
story and the coincidence of his appearance in their space.

Arya swallowed
hard and didn’t answer him for a moment. “Well…I just remembered the name of
the prophecy.”

“If you tell me
it’s named the prophecy of Nick….” Nick grinned nervously.  He didn’t like
where this was going.  The last thing he wanted was to be hero to an
entire nation of people.  The pressure would be too intense to live up to.

“No, actually
it’s called the
Prophecy of Isa
.”

Nick was still
puzzled. “Okay, so it’s called the
Prophecy of Isa
,” he replied in a
kind of hokey, spooky voice.

Arya pointedly
shifted her gaze to the patch on Nick’s shoulder.

It took a second
for Nick’s brain to kick in as he followed Arya’s gaze to his I.S.A. patch.
“Holly shit!  I-S-A…Isa!” Nick’s stomach turned loops in his gut. He tried
to speak but his throat only allowed for a tight, nervous squeak. By the look
on Arya’s face, there was more. 
Oh, God, here it comes
. “I know I
am going to regret this, but what’s the rest of the story?” he reluctantly
asked.

Arya stared at
the floor as she spoke. “While you were gone, I received a message from Argos.”

Karg’s interest
was piqued. “A message…from Argos?” He glanced at Nick, his brow raised as if
he were suddenly uncertain of Arya’s mental state. “But Argos is dead.”

Arya frowned at
her big friend.  “A recorded message, stupid. I haven’t gone loopy…yet.
Argos left me a recorded message.” She held up a memory crystal. “I saved part
of it to show you.” Arya placed the crystal into a port on the console near
her. An image of Argos popped up on the display.

Nick hadn’t seen
a picture of Argos since his death. He’d almost forgotten how intimidating he
was. Strong, in control, and a full foot taller than Nick, he’d been an ominous
presence when he was alive. The image didn’t quite seem to do him justice.
Although the resolution of the display was extremely lifelike, right down to
the individual hairs of the spotted, cat-like coat that covered Argos’ face. It
still wasn’t the same as actually being in his presence.

Arya pressed a
key on the console and the video message began to play.

“Arya, I
assume that if you are seeing this message, I must already be dead. There are
some things I need to tell you, and I’m afraid I may not get the chance. Let me
start by saying I am so proud of you. The Resistance was nothing more than a
loosely bound band of desperate people before you helped organize it into what
it is today. I’m sure it would not have survived this long without you. You are
a natural born leader, and I had hoped to see the day when you would lead our
people, from home-world, from the Royal Palace, as you should. But what I want
is not important. Our cause is what’s important. You, our Queen. Regaining our
way of life. Being free of oppression. Those things are important. You must
continue, not for me, but for our people. Never give up.”

Argos paused for
a moment, as if to collect himself.
“I found something while going through
Admiral Onaka’s belongings. Apparently, he had another reason for coming aboard.
Something important enough that he had to be sure there were no spies on board
before he revealed it. He never had the chance to tell me the real reason he
came here, but I soon discovered the incredible truth. The time of prophecy is
truly upon us. I didn’t believe it myself at first, but then I saw this.”
An
image of an I.S.A. patch identical to the one on the shoulder of Nick’s flight
suit popped up on the screen. The synthetic fibers around one edge of the patch
were melted and charred. The letters I.S.A. were still clearly visible. Argos’
voice continued in the background.
“This is an image taken of an artifact in
the Royal Archives. This artifact was placed in the archives over two thousand
years ago!”

Arya paused the
display. Her eyes were wet with tears.

Nick sat still,
frozen in bewilderment, his brain seized up with a million questions as he
tried to assimilate what he had just seen and heard.  “What? How?” he
stammered, baffled by the news. He shook his head.  “That can’t be right.”

Nick glanced at
Arya’s wet eyes. “It can’t be right.”

“There’s more,”
she said sadly.

Arya pressed the
button again and the message continued playing.
“I thought that there must
have been some mistake, but when I saw this next image I knew there was no
denying it.”
Another image displayed on the screen.

Nick’s stomach
lurched, and he sat back so hard in his chair that the legs screeched against
the metal flooring and almost toppled over backwards.  Nick righted
himself with difficulty and continued to stare at the vid display.  There
displayed on the screen was a two thousand year old hyperspace probe! The exact
same probe the Ashok had launched into hyperspace only days before. The pattern
of scratches on the side of the probe’s casing confirmed it. He recognized the
gouge that had been made when his screwdriver had slipped and scratched the
side of the case. It was definitely the same probe. But how the
hell
did
it end up two thousand years in the past?

 Argos
continued.
“My only conclusion is that Nick must, at some point in the
future, travel into the distant past. That’s how the prophecy was born. Our
ancestors found the probe and the data it contained, but they had no way to
decipher the exact date the events occurred. They were only able to retrieve
enough data to create the story in the prophecy. Unfortunately, there’s no
mention of what became of the hero in the prophecy. No one outside of the Royal
Family was ever supposed to know about these artifacts. The relics were only
discovered when the Royal Archives needed to be hidden due to the encroaching
war. They were imaged and then moved as quickly as possible to a location off
home-world for safe keeping. Arya, the hidden location of the Royal Archives is
in Demented Space. It’s the perfect place to hide something. It’s off the
charts, and even the Mok’tu avoid that area due to its space-time distortions.”

Argos drew a
deep breath and positioned his hands behind his back, looking even more like a
commanding leader. “The coordinates for the secret vault are attached to this
message. There are indications that the Dragorans have already been trying to
locate it. They can’t wait to get their hands on it and stamp out any remaining
embers of hope for our people. They don’t want to leave any remnants of power
that may someday come back to haunt them. They want to destroy the Royal House
and everything in the Royal Archives, once and for all. Get to the archives
before they are lost forever. And watch your back. You’re the best hope for the
future of our people. Remember, Arya…the Royal House and its power is still
alive and well…within you!”

Nick stared at
the floor in deep thought for a long time.  Karg and Arya sat waiting,
silently watching for his reaction.  When Nick finally spoke, his voice
was calm and determined. “The probe may have collected important data before
it…whatever the hell happened to it. I need to see that data.” Nick’s eyes
glazed as his mind raced through the implications of this new discovery.