They arrived just in time as Taft challenged all takers to a pull-up contest.
“Just in time, Lena. I’m about to school everyone in pull-ups, including you.” He swaggered up and put his hands on his hips. “Our bet still stand?” He smiled.
“It still stands, Taft, but I’m not much worried.” She pushed him out of the way as she guided Rayne past. “In fact, I’ll bet money Rayne can beat you, too,” she said over her shoulder as they walked to where the rest of the squad were getting ready to compete.
“Hah! I’ll take that bet,” he said, following them over. “How much money do you want to lose on that, along with a night of love and passion with me?”
Lena snorted.
“I’ll give you a thousand credits if you beat her.” She wasn’t particularly worried about losing either bet. She had the top PT scores on the squad and when it came to pull-ups, Davis was the only one who could beat her. As far as Rayne was concerned, she looked fit and Lena had experienced firsthand the kind of strength that lay hidden beneath her smooth black skin.
Lena, her arm still hooked in Rayne’s, guided her to a position underneath the bar at the far end. Mike looked at the two walking arm in arm, and gave Lena a raised eyebrow. She shrugged her shoulders and gave him a look that said, “I’ll tell you later.”
There was only enough room for four marines at one time on the bar, so Rayne, Lena, Taft and Davis lined up, ready to begin. Rayne still held the batons in her hand and looked around, wanting to put them down, but unwilling to let them go.
Mike stepped forward.
“Would you like me to hold those for you?” He held out his hand.
Rayne stared at him for several long seconds. She glanced around the bay and then back. Finally, she tucked the batons in to her waist band and turned back toward the bar. That drew grins from the squad, but no one spoke up.
“Hey Taft?” Called Davis as he rubbed his hands together. “You know, if you lose, you have to clean the heads, right?”
“I was going to have to clean them, anyway,” he replied, swinging his arms back and forth. “At least this way I got a chance.”
“Okay, everyone ready?” shouted Mike.
A thought occurred to Lena. “Wait a sec, Sarge.” She leaned over and whispered something in Rayne’s ear. Rayne turned her head and returned a short nod and turned back with a determined expression. “Okay, we’re ready,” Lena said.
Mike shouted the commands.
“On my go, grab the bar and begin. No short stroking or it doesn’t count, Taft.”
“Why you picking on me, Sarge?”
“Cuz you’re the one who’s always trying to cheat. Now three, two, one, go!”
Rayne jumped and caught the bar with the three other marines, keeping pace as the others began pulling themselves up and down in rapid succession. After five minutes, Taft fell to the ground with a respectable thirty, while Davis, Lena and Rayne kept pulling. Davis was the squad’s leader for the event, while Lena was a close second. The marines cheered and urged the competitors on as they pulled themselves up and down with mechanical precision. Rayne attacked the bar like she was on a mission and showed no signs of slowing after ten minutes while both Davis and Lena began to struggle. Finally, Lena dropped to the ground exhausted. A minute later, Davis let go, unable to pull himself up any further. Rayne kept going with an intensity that bordered on anger refusing to quit, not knowing she’d already won. The squad had stopped their cheering and were now looking on in awed silence.
“She ain’t even slowin’ down, man,” whispered Jackson in awe as others nodded their agreement.
“I want whatever she’s got,” Abena added. “Can someone get me some of that?”
“No, but I can get you some of this,” Taft said, struggling to stand.
“Ugh, I think just threw up in my mouth.”
Lena got up from her place on the floor, still winded from the contest.
“Rayne! Rayne! You won! You can stop now,” she yelled to catch the girl’s focused attention. She stepped closer, yelled again and patted her leg. Rayne immediately dropped to the ground, crouched into a fighting position, taking in air in deep steady breaths. Lena held her hands up and repeated without shouting, “You won, Rayne. You won. Calm down. You won.” Rayne shook visibly as she fought for control, while everyone held their breath. “Focus on your breathing, Rayne. In and then out.” Rayne’s fists clenched and then unclenched, and her breath grew steadier by measures, until finally she shook herself and stood from her crouch.
A small smile escaped her lips and she whispered.
“I win.”
***
Rayne sat to the side and watched with interest as the rest of the marines went through their hand-to-hand fighting drills. She’d never been taught to fight, she’d just learned through trial and error what worked and what didn’t. Laser and bullets worked fine until you ran out and then all that was left were your hands, feet, elbows, knees and any other hard part of your body you could use as a weapon. Fortunately, the T80 had been made of mostly hard parts so the options had been extensive.
She rubbed the back of her neck and then ran a hand over the stubble on her head. It was throbbing with the start of a migraine. She pulled her sunglasses off and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. Rayne replaced her glasses and stood as she heard footsteps approaching.
“You okay Rayne?” Lena asked with a look of concern in her eyes.
“Headache.”
“You want me to see if the Doc has anything for it?”
Rayne shook her head. She was in the habit of relying only on herself, and the thought of accepting help didn’t even occur to her.
“Come on. There’s no sense being in pain when you don’t have to be.” Lena motioned for her to follow. She knew marines and they had a bad habit of refusing help when it was offered; especially medical help. For some reason they thought it was macho to suffer pain when it wasn’t necessary. She was frequently guilty of it herself.
They walked together to the med tech room to find Dr. Little supervising the installation of a new piece of equipment. He turned when they entered and gave a quick smile.
“Ladies. How are you doing today?”
“You know I’m no lady, doc, and I’m fine, thanks.” She jerked a thumb at Rayne. “She’s got a headache, though, and we’re hoping you had something to take the edge off.”
“Just the headache?”
Rayne nodded and Dr. Little reached for a nearby cabinet to grab a bottle.
“This should do the trick.” He dropped two tablets into Rayne’s hand. She swallowed them without the benefit of any water and made a face at the bitter aftertaste.
“Thanks, doc,” said Lena. She touched Rayne’s arm lightly to catch her attention. “Whoa, your skin is hot. She’s burning up, doc.” Rayne pulled her arm away self-consciously and hid it behind her back.
Dr. Little had been about to go back to what he was doing, but turned around with concerned interest.
“Can I take a closer look?” He asked and indicated toward the med tech table. Rayne hesitated for a second, eyed the doctor suspiciously, then walked to the table and sat down. He activated his data pad and diagnostic equipment and read the data streams as they scanned Rayne’s vitals.
“Well, her temperature is up. It’s about one hundred point five at the moment. Nothing too serious and the medication I gave her should help with that.” He scanned through the other data streams. “Blood pressure and heart rate are up a little, but I’m going to guess that’ll be normal for a while.” His forehead creased as he scrutinized some of the other data. “Brainwaves look a little off, but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.” He set his data pad down. “Why don’t we have Rayne take some rest for the rest of the day?”
Mike walked in just as Rayne got off the table.
“Everything okay?”
He’d seen Lena leave training and escort Rayne toward med tech and wanted to make sure nothing was amiss.
“Just a headache. Doc gave her something and she’s going to take it easy the rest of the day.”
Mike nodded.
“We got re-cert to do anyway. She can go sack out while the rest of us endure our yearly torture. Hey, I was going to ask, what did you tell her before the competition?”
Lena took Rayne’s arm and they walked toward the door.
“I promised her a trip to the habitat if she kicked everyone’s ass.” Lena smiled as they walked out.
When they reached the marine barracks, Rayne was grateful to lay her pounding head on the soft pillow and soon fell asleep to the whisper of electronic gibberish in her head.
***
Dr. Gault spent a sleepless night at her house. Her brain had been going a mile a minute, developing theories and hypotheses. She’d worked through possible biopsy options against less intrusive scanning methods. She’d ticked off items of equipment needed not currently in her arsenal. There was so much to do and think about, and it literally flooded her brain with the possibilities. She’d finally had to resort to meditation to calm the storm of ideas sloshing around inside her head. She needed to focus her attention. She needed to make her plans, assess her options and position her players on the board to make sure everything went where it was supposed to.
She’d moved her first piece into position that morning with a call to a friend at Fleet Command. Dr. Gault understood that if you wanted to get anywhere in life, you had to have the political connections to make it happen. And she could play the political game like a grandmaster. To get the right funding and to have your projects approved took not just scientific genius, but political savvy as well. It was as much about who you knew as what you knew.
There had been some resistance as first. Moving a small scouting vessel from one side of space to the other just wasn’t something normally done. Her current system had enough of those types of vessels after all and why would they need another? Besides, moving a ship’s captain to unfamiliar space was not advisable. What often made a good ship’s captain was not just his leadership qualities, but his knowledge of the space he patrolled. Common sense decisions were often based on that knowledge. Without it, mistakes happened.
Dr. Gault had expertly smoothed away those concerns, outlined the information she’d come across, and the need to have the ship brought to her. She painted a picture of the technological possibilities and advancements, as well as hinting at the accolades success could bring them. It was the last part that got the job done, as she knew it probably would. She’d cultivated this particular contact for his drive to be successful and climb the ladder of command as high as it would take him. She’d helped push him up quite a few of those rungs herself, and the promise of yet more success and higher levels of command were just too good to pass up. After all, it was just one little scouting ship, anyway.
She sat back in her chair and smiled, satisfied with her first move. Now, she needed to start assembling the right team for what needed to be done. Most of them were already working in the same research complex, but they would need to be pulled from their current projects and assigned to hers. She had to be a little more careful with these calls than with the first. Brute force wouldn’t get the job done with her fellow scientists. They would need a little persuasion to drop what they were doing, but once they found out what she had they’d likely ask for re-assignment anyway. From there it was just a matter of greasing the wheels and getting the right approval from the right people.
She sat forward and tapped a finger on the desk. What to do with Dr. Miller? Dr. Gault recognized the psychologist had been a key figure in discovering and providing her with such an extraordinary find. It didn’t feel right to yank the rug out from underneath her. Dr. Gault was driven, but not underhanded. Well…not all the time anyway and she was going to need someone to address the psychological issues the test subject had or developed during the testing. That decided, she made another call and arranged for a transfer.
Having assuaged her conscience, Dr. Gault began going through Dr. Miller’s initial scans in detail. She would need to present her findings to her newly assembled team when the time came and needed everything organized in a coherent fashion. She assembled the 3D scans in succession and added notes, possible theories, and different aspects of study to pursue. She made tentative assignments to individual team members and made a short list of tests and scans needed to start.
Satisfied with her initial draft, she sat back and assessed her work. It was good, but there were still gaps that needed filling. For one thing, she had noticed the structures in the test subject’s brain were somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t quite place them. She hoped a member of the team could jog her memory. Second, those structures did not appear to be connected in any way; either to each other or the body’s nervous system by any visible means. Could they be communicating wirelessly, so to speak? And if so, by what means, frequency, and how was it encrypted to prevent interference? She had more questions than answers at this point and it excited her. She wrung her hands in anticipation.
***
Rayne looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was growing back in quickly, but not its original soft, reddish brown. Instead, it was coming in black, coarse and wild. Still, it was better than being bald. She’d tried to run a comb through it but that had proved impossible and she had to be satisfied with simply running her fingers through it to attain something remotely close to order. An attempt to trim it had met with failure as well, when Lena commented the four inch tangle was very un-marine. Scissors wouldn’t cut it and they’d given up after the squad’s trimmer had failed to make a dent. It seemed to have a life of its own. Sometimes it would bend to her will and lay as her hands directed it. Other times, it decided to stand straight up in a tangled mess, like today.
She reached down into the cold water of the sink and splashed it on her face and hair. She tried to flatten it down, but it stubbornly stood upright. She shrugged helplessly and began scrubbing the skin on her face. She’d noticed over the last week that her skin tone was lightening. The once black obsidian had now turned to a dusty gray, with just a hint of pink underneath. If things kept progressing as they had, she might be back to normal color in a few more weeks. She hadn’t really minded the color, but it would be nice to see her own face in the mirror again.
She still suffered from a near constant headache that hung on tenaciously like a vise, and threatened to squeeze her sensitive eyes from her head. She made daily trips to Dr. Little for relief, but for two weeks the pain had continued nearly unabated. The doctor had taken some blood samples and run some more scans, but so far he’d not yet identified the source of the pain. He’d made some guesses about possible head injury during her rescue or maybe the strain on her eyes after so little use during the previous three years. The neural interface in the T80 did not require the eyes to see, but bypassed them completely, using its own peripheral devices. As a result her eyes had sat in her head as no more than a decoration until she’d been released from the suit.
It was a logical theory, but it didn’t explain the muscle aches that had started just shortly after the headaches. The pain that had started in her head now worked its way throughout her body; invading every muscle and every joint. It wasn’t a debilitating pain. It was a kind of soreness you felt the next day after a heavy workout, but this one didn’t go away. It just took up residence and decided to stay, just like the ache in her head. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
“Okay, you’re pretty. Now get out of the way and let me have a turn.” Lena came up behind her and used her hip to bump her out of the way. “Need your morning latte? We’ll go see the Doc before we hit PT.”
Rayne stepped to the side to give Lena some room. Lena had become her lifeline. Not quite best friends for
ever, but they were never more than a couple of feet from each other. Rayne found herself frequently holding to Lena’s arm as they walked, finding it a great source of comfort and stability. They didn’t talk much, or at least Rayne didn’t talk much. Lena, on the other hand, was a talker, and did so constantly. Whether it was the banter with the squad or talking just for Rayne, she kept a constant stream of dialog going. She attempted to draw Rayne into conversation and keep her actively engaged in whatever they were doing. It helped, but even without the pain, Rayne was constantly on edge as the gibberish in her head began to increase in volume. That, added with the periodic flashbacks and persistent nightmares, put her on the verge of exploding at any given moment. There were times when Rayne simply clutched Lena’s arm and buried her head into her shoulder, while she closed her eyes tightly and forced the breath in and out of her lungs. During those moments, Lena would whisper soothing words and lightly stroke her head, like a mother to a child having a bad dream. The other members of the squad took it as a clue it was time to find something else to do and quickly cleared out.
Living with the marine squad was difficult for Rayne. While the weapons bay was big and afforded plenty of room to move and train and even find a place out of the way to be on your own, the barracks were not. They were tight and cramped and left almost no room to move past anyone without touching. Consequently, Rayne didn’t spend a whole lot of time there, but she had become somewhat used to being in close proximity to other humans without wanting to kill them; or at least the humans in the squad.