The Battle for the Ringed Planet (37 page)

Gently he whispered back, “Don’t be. This admiral is the best there is. His word is good.”

In parting she gazed into his eyes, “I’ll be waiting.”

“Escort her.” The SIS agent with slicked back jet-black hair beckoned to the two soldiers. They both walked up on either side of Siiri and she peered back sadly at Torian as they led her out a door on the other side of the room.

“Off you go, Lieutenant.” The Admiral dismissed Torian, who saluted and then exited the room through the same door after Siiri had left.

When both Siiri and Torian were gone, the agent turned to the Admiral, “I have a special shield placed around her examining room, and there she’ll stay under heavy guard.”

“She’s just a young girl, no older than my own daughter.”

“You don’t have my clearance, and I know what she can do.”

“This is my vessel; anything you do to her meets my approval first.”  

The other man rounded on the admiral, “She is my prisoner, and I will interrogate her the way I feel best. After all, she’s not a citizen.” 

“If there is any bad business with her, I’ll put you off this ship in a life pod, understand?”

His eyes narrowed, “Don’t interfere in my work.”

“I meant what I said. Lieutenant-Commander Dubois is my medical officer and he’ll monitor everything you do to her.”

“No harm will come to her, physically, anyway.”

“No harm period!”

“And get rid of her friend, I want him off ship while I am working with her.”

“He’s short; it would be grossly unfair to put him on a deep space mission with only a few days left on his tour.”

“If you want to win this war, admiral, let me do my job! Get rid of him!” and with that Tass stormed to the exit.

The metal hallways were narrow and every few meters a hatchway sealed the sections in an emergency. Torian knew the class of ship inside out and made his way to the quartermasters to change his uniform. The officer in charge was asleep in his quarters somewhere, but for simple orders there was a computer terminal and small chute underneath. With his Con, which had been Siiri’s, but now registered with him, he transferred his DNA tag and linked to the QM terminal with his profile specifications for a flight suit, including his rank insignia, decorations, and new unit patches assigned to the Europa. A moment later a box appeared in the chute below with a new folded flight suit with a packet of insignia patches, socks, boots, underwear and a utility belt with a hygiene kit. Since no one was around, he changed quickly in the hallway and put his old marine combat fatigues and webbing in the box back into the chute.

On the way to the officer’s quarters, he stopped in the washroom and studied himself in the mirror, “Look at you!” Tristan came up from behind, “All those ribbons and a commission!”   

Torian began to brush his teeth, “I was wondering if you were still around, we could have shared a room in officer’s territory.”

“They couldn’t handle the two of us together in the same quarters!”

“Well, that’s all done with. I’m short, going home.” He splashed his face.

“With her?”

 The chocolate haired young man stared at his blue-skinned friend, “Yeah.”

“Good. She is right for you.”

“You surprise me, Tristan, a monogamous relationship?”

“I said she was right for you, not me.”

“Even as an apparation, you haven’t changed.”

Down the narrow dimly lit hall, more like a metal tube with titanium spars, he checked the door numbers for his assigned room. When he reached the door, he opened it with his Con sending his DNA tag for a pass code and the heavy door slide open noiselessly.  Officer’s quarters consisted of a tiny room with two beds on either side with lockers between. As soon as he entered the light on his side of the room snapped on, brightening up most of the room.

In the other bed a figure with a mess of red hair moaned and rolled over shading her pretty face blinking her eyes open, “Who the Hell are you?”

“You’re roommate.” Sarcastically he snorted and stripped off his flight suit to his shorts pulling back the navy blue comforter on his bed.

The red headed woman checked her wall clock, “It’s 13:44 in the morning.”

“Sorry, lights out.” Torian commanded and the room went dark.

--

Siiri, led to the Sick Bay, observed a crowded room full of wounded soldiers moaning and reaching out in pain. Medics worked feverishly operating and bandaging up screaming patients while blood and brunt flesh littered the floor. She wanted to wretch, but her escort pulled her away into another section with a small sterile windowed room and a single gurney in the middle.

“Agent Tass told us to lock you in and wait,” one of the soldiers motioned towards the room.

“Am I supposed to sleep in there?” she looked a little bewildered.

“Wait for the SIS agent,” the other soldier gave her a gentle push and when she was inside the room a transteel door slide closed and there was a slight flicker as a shield activated. Surveying the room, she was crestfallen to discover it was nothing more than a cell, with all equipment removed except for the steel bed on wheels, with a plain mattress cover by a sheet.

Shortly later Agent Tass appeared with a shorter man in a light blue smock and silver-rimmed spectacles, one blue lens and the other red.

“This is the subject.” The agent turned to the other, who despite being shorter, appeared thickly built with broad muscular shoulders,

“I have over a hundred burn cases from the Titan and the Cordelia, this better be good.”

“I would like you to give her a full examination.”

“Why? Is she sick?” He glanced at the two soldiers guarding the room.

“Not in the normal way, but she’s … special.”

Sighing, the doctor stepped up to the transteel glass window and peered in. Siiri glanced back and saw that the man had the same skin and eyes like May.

Touching his glasses he made both lenses clear, “Miss, I’m Commander Dubois, the Chief Medical Officer, I’m here to examine you, and I’m just going to do a scan first.”

“Ok,” she said nervously.

From above a holo image of Siiri appeared, just a basic outline in a red showing all her organs with floating annotations and numbers beside each. The commander checked the numbers against his Con.

“She has some bruising on her 3
^rd
and 4
^th
right ribs, and an enlarged Pineal gland …” he frowned, “That’s unusual.”

“I want you to do a complete physical, both scan and in person.”

“I don’t really have time …”

“Doctor, my job is to save lives, too. And believe me, if I’m right about her, it will make your job a lot easier.”

Reluctantly he agreed and pushed a button to slide open the door and approached Siiri sitting on the gurney, “I’ll need you to take off your cloths and put on this gown.” 

Siiri swallowed and stared out the window at the agent’s dark eyes and unemotional stare, but the doctor turned and flicked a switch and all the windows went dark, “A little privacy. I’ll turn away if it will make you more comfortable.”

“Thank you.”

After a good half hour, the doctor stepped out of the room holding her military fatigues and flicked off the shading showing Siiri sitting with her head down, sleepy from exhaustion wearing a light blue hospital gown, “There’s nothing wrong with her, except an abnormality in her Pineal gland, but I have a feeling you knew about that.”

“No cybernetic implants?”

“No.”

“I just received a report about a dead cyborg in the city; I am having the body transported to the ship for you to autopsy…”

“Look …”

“That will be your priority, doctor, above anything else.” The agent turned away watching Siiri, “You can go until I send for you.” Without a reply, though visibly annoyed, the medical officer turned to leave.

The man in the white shirt leaned on the transteel window and watched her sitting on the gurney defensively with her knees to her chest, “I have everything Major Duncan sent …”

“So why do you need to question me further, you have what you want. Now let me be with Torian.”

“I know what you’re hiding. Major Duncan doesn’t have my clearance, and I know what you can do.”

“Tell me. You all seem to know more about me than I do.”

“A ship escaped a hundred years ago, when the colony self destructed.”

“Good for them.”

“There was a girl aboard, she rejoined the ‘Colonial Environmental Safety Society’. No one knew the kind of powers she possessed.”

“Then you killed them all.”

Kavan hesitated, “Well, I don’t deny there was a horrible misunderstanding, and yes, they all died, but by there own doing.”

“I’m sure you had some part …”

Growing impatient, he sighed, “They had powers, much like the holo I received showing your battle against the cyborg. They could throw objects, make soldiers kill themselves, and more.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t do that.”

“But the cyborg did. And you conveniently blow apart his head …”

“I saved our lives, would your rather we be dead?”

“Then we would have the cyborg to study.”

Siiri swallowed, “Do you really mean that?”

“You are going to tell me everything I want to know. If we can harness the power you possess, and equip our soldiers with that advantage, one life will be of no consequence.”

“My life?” she replied in a small voice.

“My mission is to find out what advantage we can use to defeat the enemy, at all costs!”

“But Torian and that admiral know!” 

“Lieutenant McCallum will be out on patrol in a few hours, days away. The admiral’s views are subordinate to this mission. It will be just you and I. You will tell me everything about the powers, and the others in the village. I have an array of methods to help you cooperate, but I’d rather you be a willing party.”

Glancing at his cool dark eyes, she felt a chill down her spine, “I do not have any …” then she closed her eyes, and in her mind called out for Torian.

Something on his Con spiked, and Tass grinned, “The shield works, very impressive. It’s a start.”

Siiri’s eyes snapped open, standing behind the intelligence agent was the faint apparition of a creature with the same characteristics of the image she had seen in the alien city. It strolled around behind the man, invisible to the two guards, observing and studying the room outside. Then it stared directly at Siiri with round brown eyes.

In her mind she heard the voice of Kayla, “Do not be afraid, Siiri, I am Kayla, I promise will protect you from harm.” Then she vanished.

“What are you doing? The readings are off the scale!” The agent’s voice was animated.

“I’m trying to talk to Torian. That’s all I can do.”

“Tell me everything you know.” She did, for the rest of night, leaving out the part about Kayla and the other aliens.

--

The lights snapped on at 0600 hours, and the woman with the red hair slowly rolled out of bed and stood in her underwear watching the holo from the roof in the middle of the room, reading the columns of words and figures. She reached for her flight suit and pulled it on.

“Are you McCallum?” she called over to the slumbering form on the other side of the room.

“No, now go away,” he replied pulling the pillow over his head to block out the light.

“Fine.” She pulled up his file, “Lieutenant Torian McCallum, LRRS officer, transfer from the C.S.S. Callisto, Combat Medal, Silver Star, Purple Heart, 1 citation for disorderly conduct, 2 for piloting without authorization, 1 for falsifying logs … nice and colorful I see.”

“I’m a bad boy, let me sleep.”

“You have a mission, bad boy, now get up.”

“No I don’t, I’m short.”

“Read it and weep.”

He threw aside the comforter and pillow and stood up in his shorts rubbing his eyes, and then examined the floating words and numbers, “Hawkeye 221, what happened to the LRRS tech?”

“He lost it. His family was all killed in a raid on his home world.”

“Monica Poehler, pilot, only 3 missions, green as Hell, private academy grad, no doubt a silver spoon up her ass.” He sighed audibly.

She folded her arms and shot him a cool stare, “This silver spoon graduated first in her flight school.”

“Aye …”

Her smug expression turned to one of sympathy when the young man turned to grab his flight suit and she saw the laser scars on his back, and a little more softly, she urged, “Briefing in half an hour.”

In the coed head, he brushed his teeth while the green-eyed red haired Hawkeye pilot washed her face. Other officers showered or used the toilets behind protective screens as the shift rotation started.

“I’ll be making a quick detour, so I’ll meet you there, and I like my coffee black.” He did not give her a chance to answer striding out of the room and into the narrow corridor. Navigating through hatches and up a ladder, he made his way to the sick bay, and like Siiri before him, was shocked at the overcrowded casualties, the milder cases sitting or sleeping in the steel round hallway attended by medics.

Inside, he maneuvered around stretchers and gurneys almost slipping on a pool of blood until he found a room with two heavily armed soldiers and one reached out his hand to halt the young officer, “You can’t go in there, sir.”

“Sure I can!” Torian peered past the defiant soldier and saw a small room with large windows and a girl in a light blue medical gown curled up on a gurney under a sheet.

“What’s going on?” Agent Kavan Tass glanced up from his Con.

“Let me in!” Torian growled and Siiri stirred hearing the commotion.

Kavan glimpsed at the guard, “It’s all right,” and Torian burst past him to the window where Siiri hopped to her feet and rushed to meet him peering through the transteel.

“Torian!” she exclaimed with a huge smile.

“Hey!” he pressed close, “Where are her clothes!” He turned back to Kavan, the light blue gown barely reached her knees.

“You got one minute,” the agent turned back to the columns of data on his Con.

The young officer placed his hand on the transparent steel and she touched her hand in the same place, “How are they treating you in here?”