“Can you keep a telepathic link up between us from that far away?”
The giant man shook his head.
“That’s a bit problematic,” Jacobi cupped his chin with his thumb and index finger. “Okay then just give us fifteen minutes from when we split up, that should give us plenty of time to find Charles, got it?”
Lawrence nodded.
Jacobi turned to Sara. “Are you ready to do this?”
She tried to smile but she couldn’t hide the worry in her eyes. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Good luck Lawrence, we’ll see you at the hangar.”
“Be safe Sara.” Lawrence exited through the doorway and headed toward the slums.
“Let’s go, we’ve only got fifteen minutes.” Jacobi held his hand out to Sara.
“Yeah,” She took his hand and got to her feet.
They slipped out the window that Jacobi had entered through and ran toward the sewer outlet that they would use to enter the syndicate’s base.
~~~~~
There were no guards at the sewer outlet.
There weren’t any at the end of the small passageway either.
As Jacobi and Sara drew closer to the center of the maze he began to doubt the information that Charlie had found and a quick glance at Sara’s face told him that her thoughts mimicked his; but then they heard voices echoing from the tunnel that would lead to the would-be prison.
Relief flooded through Jacobi and a hopeful smile appeared on Sara’s lips.
Jacobi peeked around the corner. Behind the two guards, in the would-be prison cell, was a man with bright orange hair tied to a chair. The man wore nothing more than a pair of blue jeans and a blind-fold that was fastened over his eyes. He was awake and alert; Jacobi could tell by the way that his head was cocked to one side that he was listening to the conversation between the two guards. That was good, if Jacobi would have had to carry -or more likely, drag- Charles from the sewers, their chances of escape would be greatly dashed.
Jacobi crept back to Sara. There were only thirty seconds left until Lawrence would set off the bomb.
“Twenty five seconds left, are you ready?” His voice was just loud enough to hear over the idle chatter of the guards.
Her hand, still buried in her sleeve, was over her heart. Jacobi saw in her eyes a mixture of anticipation, fear, excitement and determination; he knew that she wouldn’t back down if things got ugly. She nodded.
“Three…two…one…” Jacobi’s voice of reason counted as they waited in the sewer tunnel.
A muffled thump sounded in the distance, almost as if someone had dropped a stack of books onto a carpeted floor.
Then came a roar. At first it was as distant as the thump, but within seconds the noise overwhelmed Jacobi’s ears. The tunnel started to shake violently and Jacobi saw a wall of fire appear at the end of the corridor.
The disk was much more powerful than he had anticipated. The explosion should have been fairly large, but this was ridiculous. Had there been some chemical in the air that ignited when the bomb went off?
No, Wynn’s people wouldn’t be carrying guns if the air was filled with an explosive gas.
Then had the bomb set off another explosion, perhaps a weapons cache or something?
It wasn’t impossible.
He didn’t have much time to think, let alone act, but in the small time it took for the fire to rage toward them he jumped in front of Sara. He didn’t think it would do much, but he hoped that his spiralweave armor would at least spare their lives.
The fire was close, Jacobi could feel the heat, but before the twisting inferno could reach the two of them the world came crashing down and they were left in darkness.
~~~~~
Captain Hughes loudly cleared his throat, bringing everyone’s attention to him. Jolt had whispered something to the Captain and now Morgan was holding his hand up to Jacobi. “Could you excuse us for a second Captain Myles?” He looked worried, but it could have also been disappointment that the story had been interrupted.
Jacobi nodded.
Morgan waved Trip and the battle-hardened soldier over to him. They walked to him and the male A.I. followed.
Jacobi scanned the rest of the crowd, they were all looking impatiently at their Captain; apparently they wanted to know what happened next.
“Would it be possible to get some water?”
The girl with lavender eyes, Geannina, shot up from her chair. “I’ll go get you some.” She wove her way through the crowd and disappeared through the door.
The feline-eared girl jumped into the vacant seat and spun around once before grabbing onto the bed sheets and gazing intently at Jacobi, her tail whipped back and forth behind her. “What happens next?”
“I should wait for everyone to return before I continue.” He traced his fingers along the bandage on his neck until he reached the two indents; the size of the wounds surprised him. The medication he was on must have been pretty powerful for such large wounds to hurt so little.
Mao whined but Jacobi ignored her. Instead he turned his attention to the bed in the corner of the room. “He’s…He’s one of ours” Vaughn’s words echoed in his mind.
“Space really is a dangerous place, isn’t it?” He thought to himself as Mao rambled about hating the quality of the fish that was served in the galley.
“It is, but you’d rather be out here than back on Titan, right?” Jacobi smiled. This was the first time since escaping from Titan that the voice of reason had spoken.
“Hey!” Mao waved her hand in front of Jacobi’s face. “It’s rude to ignore people, you know?”
“Sorry, my neck hurts.”
“Oh, do you want me to give you some more medicine?” She reached over him and grabbed a small controller that hung from one of the machines that he was hooked up to.
“No, it’s fine-” The machine beeped and the pain instantly faded, his conscious shortly followed.
~~~~~
Geannina quickly navigated the deserted corridors of the Windsor as she headed toward the galley. The ship was eerily quiet, the only sound that could be heard was the constant dull thrum of the Tel'atomic engine.
When Gean first joined the UPSC she had asked Professor Nikken about the engine and how it worked. Professor Nikken explained that the engine only fires once about every two hours in order to keep the ship up to speed, the rest of the time the ship just relies on the momentum from the pulse to coast forward; when the ship needed to move faster a stronger pulse was fired on command and if the ship ever needed to perform precision stunts or evasive maneuvers it used a number of the small thrusters scattered about the hull to do so. When Gean then asked why the engines were never shut off Professor Nikken told her that the Tel'atomic engine also powered all of the ship's computers and systems and that if it were ever damaged the whole ship could be in big trouble, that's why the engines were often buried in the deepest part of a ship's hull.
Geannina reached the galley and noticed that not a single person occupied the spacious room. She hurried across the cafeteria and into the kitchen where she retrieved a sizable glass cup from a cupboard.
As she filled the cup at the sink she mused that she had never seen the place so empty. Every other time that she had been to the cafeteria there was at least one other person there, either cooking or eating. Now that she thought about it she often ran into Captain Hughes during her trips to the kitchen for a midnight snack. She smiled.
She turned to leave, glass of water in hand, when a face appeared in the air. Her eyes grew wide with shock and her grip on the cup loosened. Gean fell back a step and slipped. She felt the world spin as she crashed onto her tailbone, letting out a small yelp.
She looked up and saw the glass of water floating in the air where she had dropped it. Suddenly a hand formed around the cup and an arm and the rest of the body followed. Gean cried out in embarrassment as she realized that it wasn’t a ghost, but rather Lily Craft; former leader of the former group known as the Spirits,
but now she was Gean’s comrade and fellow member of Squad 11. Lily held her hand out to Geannina. “I’m sorry Doll. I didn’t think we’d spook you so badly.” Gean grabbed her hand and stood. “Are you alright?”
Gean nodded and noticed that Lily’s counterpart, Tiger Frazier, had materialized beside her. Tiger was also once part of the Spirits and also currently served as part of Squad 11. “D’you know what’s goin’ on here? This place’s a ghost town. You’re the first sign of life we’ve seen in the past twenty minutes.”
“We rescued a wrecked shuttle. Everyone’s listening to the Captain’s story in the infirmary.”
“Oh a story! That sounds like fun, can we tag along?” He turned to Lily for permission.
The two former-Spirits were rarely apart from each other and Geannina thought it was cute how Lily tried to deny the fact that they were all lovey-dovey.
Lily sighed and shrugged. “I don’t see why not, can you fill us in on the way there Doll?”
Gean happily obliged and summed up Captain Myles’ story as the three of them headed back to the medical ward.
~~~~~
Jacobi snapped awake and sat up. The pain in his neck and in his stomach was gone. Apparently the sudden dose of medicine had knocked him out.
He looked around. The Captain, Trip and the war-hardened soldier were still huddled with the two A.I.’s; Devon, Vaughn and the girl who he hadn’t been introduced to talked amongst themselves; the tall-dark-mysterious man still stood like a statue, the only part of him that had moved were his eyes which were now closed. Fen Mao was now napping in the chair, her head rested on her arms which were folded on the bed and she was precariously close to the edge of the mattress.
Jacobi stretched his arms and tried to scoot back without waking the sleeping girl, but as soon as he moved her ears shot up. She sat back in the chair and looked around woozily. “Feel better?”
Jacobi nodded.
Mao was about to talk again when her ears suddenly pivoted toward the door, the rest of her body followed as she twisted around and the chair swiveled.
Geannina returned from her journey with a glass of water, three new faces followed her into the infirmary. The first was a slightly-short man with slightly-long brown hair, similar to Jacobi’s hair. The newcomer had low sideburns and a cleanly shaven face; along the side of each of his sideburns was a series of alternating black and orange tattoos that reminded Jacobi of tiger stripes.
Doll handed Jacobi the water, he thanked her and took a sip. She introduced the man as Tiger Frazier and Jacobi shook his hand.
The second newcomer was a woman who was about an inch taller than Tiger. She had sandy-blonde hair that hung well past her shoulders and light-green eyes that, in the right light, could be mistaken for blue. “I’m Lily Craft; it’s nice to meet you Captain Myles.”
He took her hand. “Like-wise.”
Jacobi took another swig from the glass.
The third “person” that had followed Geannina into the room wasn’t actually a person at all, it was another A.I. she was identical to Jolt, the medical ward’s A.I., but shimmered in a cool green color opposed to the pulsing pink and red aura that surrounded Jolt. She didn’t follow Gean, Tiger and Lily to the bed; she broke away from them and walked over to where Captain Hughes and the other A.I.’s were speaking in private.
Jacobi downed the rest of his water. He wanted more, but it seemed like Geannina had gone through a lot of trouble to get it for him so he didn’t ask.
“D’you want more?” Tiger asked, pointing at the empty glass.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
Tiger snatched the cup from Jacobi’s grasp. “Not at all, there’s a sink right over here.”
Jacobi turned to Geannina, she had reclaimed her chair. She still looked so fragile.
“The name Doll suits her…” The voice of reason quipped, Jacobi agreed.
“Thanks again for the water.”
“It was no problem at all.” She replied with a friendly smile. Suddenly a finger pushed into her cheek and her face contorted awkwardly. “What are you doing?” She asked helplessly beneath Mao’s finger.
Mao smiled as she toyed with Geannina's cheeks and Lily reached over and flicked the tip of Mao’s ear. She yelped and sunk back. “Do you need attention that badly?” Gean was rubbing her cheek where Mao had been poking her.
Mao’s ears drooped and she grumbled an embarrassed “Yes.”
“Why don’t you go find some yarn to play with?” Tiger offered as he returned with Jacobi’s second glass of water.
Jacobi laughed. “The tiger’s scolding the cat…” Geannina, Tiger and Lily joined him in laughter.
~~~~~
Jolt waited until everyone, Captain Hughes, Trip, Shaark and her brother, Avast, were gathered around before reporting: “Captain. The condition of Patient OR04 -the girl I have identified as Sara Zappia- is worsening. I do not know if I can save her.” Her voice was a low hum so that only those who were huddled around the Captain could hear.
Morgan cursed under his breath. From the way that Captain Myles had spoken of the girl he could tell that the boy cared greatly for her and he didn’t want to be the one to have to tell the young Captain that she might not live for very much longer. “What are her chances?”
Scripts fell through the A.I.’s holographic body. “There is less than a five percent chance that the operation will prove successful, Captain.” Her face was twisted with sorrow.
“What of the boy?” Shaark’s growl was even quieter than Jolt’s hum and it took a few seconds to register with Morgan.
“Patient OR03 -the man I’ve identified as Charles Zappia- is in stable condition.”
“I want you to use every resource you can to try and save the girl, do you understand?” Morgan didn’t want any more death aboard his ship and he knew that Captain Myles didn’t need anything else to worry about.
“Aye Captain.” She darkened to a color close to purple and scripts rapidly ran through her body.
Bolt walked into the room behind Geannina, Tiger and Lily. She saluted Morgan. “Captain.”
“Yes Bolt?”
“We’ve received permission to dock at the Mars Space-Station; we’ll be arriving in three days’ time. Shall I increase the output of the Tel'atomic Pulse-Propulsion system so that we can arrive more quickly?” She looked into the operating room.
“No, we’ll be fine. If Jolt can’t save the girl, no one on the Space-Station would be able to either.”
“Yes Captain.”
“What are we going to tell Captain Myles?” Trip asked. His voice wasn’t lowered quite as much Jolt’s or Shaark’s but a sudden burst of laughter from the direction of Captain Myles’ bed kept the words from carrying too far.
“Nothing yet. I want to find out how their story ends and if this Gabgoblin might come looking for them. Until he’s finished with his story we’ll keep him in the dark.” He glanced back to the operating room where seven more mechanical arms had joined the effort to save Sara. “Hopefully by then Jolt will have some good news for us. Not a word about this, got it?” He looked at the five people gathered around him.
“Yes sir.” They all responded in unison.
~~~~~
Captain Hughes returned to the foot of Jacobi’s bed. “Sorry about the interruption Captain Myles. Can we resume where we left off?”
Jacobi set his half-empty glass down on the small table beside his bed. All eyes were on him once again. He ran his fingers over the holes in his neck once more, no sudden spike of pain ran through his spine and he nodded.
“The ceiling of the sewers collapsed, I believe.” Morgan offered.
“Right.” He inhaled. It was a deep breath which filled his lungs with cool air and cleared his mind.
Then he continued.
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