The loud klaxon of an alarm shattered Jacob’s light doze. In a panic Jacob looked around his dark room but saw no immediate threat. The alarms grating sound was disorientation, and Jacob unsteadily got to his feet. Just as he neared the door to his room, the alarm cut off with as abruptly as it had began. Walking into the central living room area Jacob saw his mother in conversation with the consul on her desk.
“-could be responsible for setting of that alarm for the entire Section Four?”
The steady voice of DAVID replied through the consul’s speaker, “Systems report detecting gunfire within the section.”
“Gunfire,” Carrie replied in disbelief, “Any idea as to where or who?”
“That’s the problem,” DAVID replied his voice tinged with confusion, “You and Jacob are the only people still in Section four, almost everyone else headed over to the station wide-meeting.”
Loudly Jacob swore, “The meeting I forgot all about it!”
Carrie looked up in surprise at Jacob, having not caught his entrance. “Hey Jacob, I see your awake now. I was going to get you up in a few minutes, but I didn’t want to disturb your rest after the shock of the news. Besides I wouldn’t want you at the entire meeting anyway, I know your not looking forward to being in such an intensely charged emotional atmosphere any more than I am.”
With a groan Jacob put his hand to his head, “That’s right it’s gonna be the entire!”
“Yes and the emotional static is going to be enough to drive both of us out of our psychically gifted minds.”
DAVID interrupted further discussion at this point with a response, “I’ve been doing a deck by deck audio/infrared scan of the entire Section, Carrie, and so far haven’t fou-…what have we here? One moment Carrie I may have something.”
Carrie and Jacob waited in tense silence, for DAVID to continue. When DAVID’s familiar beep sounded over the consul, signaling his return, Jacob let out a gasp having unconsciously held his breath.
“Think I have located the source of our gunfire Carrie,” DAVID replied, sounding as smug as his virtual voice could manage, “There is an enormous amount of interference from the animal pens they seem very agitated.”
“The animal pens,” Jacob replied, his voice cracking a little at the thought of visiting them twice in one day.
“Yes,” DAVID continued, “but I can’t pinpoint a person, or a number of persons, because of all the cross body heat and noise the animals are making.”
“We’ll get right on it David, no need to alert Rick and the rest just yet, the meeting is of more importance.”
“If you say so Carrie, but I’ve already dispatched to Cyclopes drones from the nearest Sec depot.”
Only Jacob hear that comment, because Carrie had already left the room in a run. “Right David, I’ll tell her,” Jacob answered before heading out the door in pursuit.
***
The animal pens echoed with the angry sounds of the disturbed animals, and yet as he neared the pens, the distinct sound of shouting overrode even the upset animals. Racing even faster Jacob almost rushed headlong into the scene, until Carrie’s upraised hand caught him from the side and pulled him behind the hulking figure of the Cyclopes drone. With a finger to her mouth for silence she returned her attention to the argument.”
“You murdering bastard!”
“God damn it woman, just get out of the way and let me kill that damn thing!”
From behind the drone Jacob could make out the figure of the second Cyclops on the opposite side of the hallway boxing the gunman in-between. The gunman stood in the center of the hallway facing a pen that Jacob belatedly recognized as the same zergling pen he had been at earlier in the day. The furious gunman clutched a gauss rifle tightly in his hands, and was waving the nozzle to accentuate the points he was making in the argument. Interposed between the gun and the still tranquilized zergling was an angry Selena Kilm screaming very loudly at the gunman. At the last moment Jacob’s attention was drawn to a spot of white on the ground and he could just make out the body of another scientist on the ground, white lab coat stained crimson. With dread Jacob realized that the body on the ground lying in a rapidly expanding pool of blood must belong to Sam.
So intense was the shouting that no one had noticed Jacob’s running arrival, drowned out as it was by the shrieking and commotion of the agitated animals in nearby pens.
Turning to the nearest Cyclops, Carrie quietly queried DAVID, “Can you activate the forcewall to protect Selena?”
DAVID’s voice sounded from the Cyclops in a low whisper, “Activating a forcewall takes a few seconds, he’d see it happening and get too many shots in before it was up. Nodding Carrie then leaned forward and whispered something else into its audio receptor. Even Jacob right next to her couldn’t make out exactly what she said, but DAVID understood her well enough for the Cyclops did a quick dip on its legs, signaling what Jacob could only assume was DAVID’s ascent.
Then Carrie moved in to the scene and began to speak to the gunman, still unaware of their arrival.
“Chris what’s going on?”
Both Selena and Chris jumped slightly at the sudden interruption and at once they simultaneously shifted focus to her saying, “Carrie! Thank God your here!”
“This madman just shot Sam!”
“I did not, I shot that monster, Sam got in the way, and as soon as you get this bitch out of my way I can kill that thing and someone can take care of Sam!”
“I will not let you kill Fang, he stands the best chance of understanding the Zerg,” Selena hotly responded.
“Understanding them? What’s to understand they’re inhuman monsters all we need to do is worry about killing them and I’m going to start with that one!”
Angrily the two threw further retorts back and forth, Carrie’s presence almost completely forgotten again. Still maintaining her calm Carrie spoke again trying to project a voice of reason, “Listen we’ve got to get Sam to safety he needs medical help.”
“That’s what I told him, he wont send for medical help instead he’s going to let Sam die,” Selena responded.
“I said just let me shoot the damn thing and we can get him help, or you can drag him to safety yourself…”
“And let you kill Fang and the others? We need them all alive to study.”
“You can study their corpses just as well, and then we won’t be at risk of being killed in our beds.”
Jacob edged closer standing right beside his mother, trying to impose his own body in front of hers. With a tight mental clamp on his own emotions Jacob tried to avoid being emotionally drawn into the fight by his empathic abilities. Instead he followed his mother’s example, she had calmly walled off her empathic presence, focusing it on finding the source of what was causing Chris’s irrational behavior.
Giving Chris one of her famous counselor looks, to draw his attention back to her, Carrie interrupted again, “That’s a lie Chris. Your not worried about them killing us, you know Fang and Thorn couldn’t present any real threat to Krysen, with David and almost four hundred people on board.”
“They’re still a danger, what if they can communicate with the main Swarm, what if they can reach those bastards on Tarsonis.”
Through his empathic web Jacob was seized by emotional reflections of pain and anger, and shockingly Jacob thought he caught a trace of guilt brought on by the mention of Tarsonis. His mother detected the wave as well apparently because she replied, “That’s whom you really want to get back at Chris, isn’t it. You want to kill those Zerg who murdered all the people on Tarsonis, not the Zerg that have been here caged for almost three years.”
Again the flash of hot emotion, but this time Jacob could home in on it more, at least in terms of the pain it caused him. Analyzing his own emotions as he had been taught, he tried to understand what he was the source of his feelings, and therefore through empathy, what was causing Chris’s own pain. In a tight telepathic band to his mother he thought, ‘Mom, I’m not sure why he’s upset, but I don’t think its because of Tarsonis, the pain feels to specific to be a whole planet.’
‘It’s not the loss of Tarsonis causing this Jacob, I know that pain I’m feeling now, it’s the same as if I had lost you.’
Sympathy poured out of her empathic senses as she spoke out loud, “Who Chris. Who was on Tarsonis? I know your records and your family lived on Antiga Prime.”
The pain flared at the mention of family and then surprisingly the guilt came back much stronger this time. The emotions were now so apparent on Chris’s face as he took a step backwards towards the pen opposite the Fang’s pen, that Jacob no longer needed his empathy to discern or try to identify it. Thankfully Jacob changed his concentration from emotional reception to emotional blockage before his own emotions became too much for his less developed mind to handle. Carrie on the other hand, somehow managed to hold up under the assault keeping her emotional receptivity at a high, although Jacob thought he detected some shift to shielding, now that Chris was being so emotionally “loud.”
Chris didn’t respond immediately to her question, instead turning to stare at the unconscious Zergling and the glaring form of Selena. With finality in his voice Chris finally responded but not with an answer,
“Selena you have one minute to move out of the way or I will shoot you to kill that monster.”
Haughtily Selena merely glared back at him, and shifted in an attempt to appear imposing and angry from her position, a feat made more difficult by the fact that she had to remain kneeling to cover Fang’s unconscious form.
Carrie softly spoke again, “Your family wasn’t on Antiga prime anymore was it. Your wife and you had a daughter too, as I recall, they were on Tarsonis weren’t they.”
A flash of loss and despair poured forth from Chris.
Ten seconds ticked by with no other response but the stab of emotional loss.
“Why did they leave Antiga prime, Chris?”
Another emotional outpouring, but this time the strange guilt was back and stronger, than even despair.
The gun wavered a moment, then returned to its steady aim. Forty seconds to into the countdown the sound of ammo casings locking into the loaded position on both Cyclopes drones sounded simultaneously.
“Did they leave Antiga prime, because you asked them too Chris? Are you the reason they were on Tarsonis?”
A second wavering of the nozzle, this time Chris took a step backward, pain on his face, a tear rolling down one cheek as he replied, “I didn’t want them too. But Antiga was getting rebellious, I didn’t want them hurt if someone started attacking families of Confederate employees. It was for their own good!” His ambling backwards met the steady touch of the forcewall behind him, and using its solidity for support for a moment, he resolutely trained the gun back on Selena and stood straight again.
Looking at his watch, Chris remarked in a trembling voice, “20 seconds left Selena, move aside, please move aside.”
Selena didn’t move, but Carrie did stepping into the line of fire, pulling Jacob with her. Then she looked straight at Chris her eyes demanding his complete attention. “You sent them to Tarsonis, you sent them to their deaths?”
“No Carrie, it wasn’t like that, it was for their safety, I had to protect them, where in the galaxy could I put them that would have been safer than Tarsonis! Until…Until…They came.” The gun steadied again, as Chris once again turned to the source of his anger and frustration, the zergling.
Now Carrie stepped forward again, and Jacob who was pulled up with her, felt through his direct contact with his mother, that she was not directly reaching into Chris’s mind. Using her own empathy she pushed Chris’s guilt to the forefront, and in that moment, the faces of his daughter and wife surfaced to the height of his thoughts so visible that Jacob could see them without reaching into Chris’s naturally shielded thoughts. Then suddenly Jacob felt a surge of mental energy through his contact with his mother. Jacob didn’t see any sudden change in his mother, but a change came over Chris almost immediately.
With horrified eyes he stared at Carrie and then at Jacob. Loudly Carrie then yelled out.
“You told us to go to Tarsonis. You told us we’d be safe!”
Chris denounced Carrie’s statement, eyes bulging in panic, “No I didn’t Amanda. I was trying to protect you, and our Clarice. I just wanted you to be safe.”
“You sent us to our deaths admit it, on Antiga Prime the Zerg wouldn’t have gotten us! And now you would kill us again?”
Tearfully Chris looked down at the gun in his hand, and shifted its aim slightly from Carrie, defensively stepping back till he was touching the forcewall again.
“I’m not trying to kill you Amanda! I’m not! I just wanted to make things right. I just wanted to protect you, both.”
“Protect me from what? You?! You’re the reason I died! I don’t need your protection, I needed protection from you!”
In a piteous moan Chris put one hand over one of his ears turning his head and leaning into the opposite shoulder to try and block out Carrie’s accusing voice. His attempt to block out the sound caused the gun’s aim to waver wildly as he loosely held it with his one free hand.
The instant the gun’s aim swung wide, Carrie called out, “David!”
As the word left her mouth, Chris’s eyes lost their agonized lack of focus, and a dark cast of anger came over his face. The sound of a forcewall panel being accessed was followed almost simultaneously with a gun firing as a Cyclops charged forward. Carrie, who had leapt to the side to get out of the Cyclops charge, pulled Jacob to the ground with her. In the instant Jacob had twisted to avoid the charging Cyclops he lost his view of the scene. He did; however in that moment hear the sound of another body hitting the floor.
In fearful anticipation Jacob shook himself, and sat up to get a good look at the scene. On the ground Chris lay half within the pen behind him. It took a moment for Jacob to catch on that the sound of activated forcewall panel had been to turn off the panel behind Chris, who had leaned into it as the Cyclops charged, and instead of being supported by a solid energy barrier fell through open air. The menacing gun of that same Cyclops now was trained on the unconscious form of Chris sprawled out on the floor by the force of the charge. In the pen behind him, Selena, apparently unharmed was moving to attempt to administer to Sam’s still bleeding form.
With worry in her eyes Carrie unsteadily got to her feet and asked, “Does he have a pulse?”
“Yes, I’m getting a very faint pulse, but its definitely too weak.”
“David-” Carrie began.
“Way ahead of you Carrie, the medical squad was called the instant I knew trouble was in the animal pens. I’ve had them waiting offsite since they arrived.”
On cue the squad arrived on scene, one of them easily sliding Carrie out of the way as he depressed a hypo-spray shot to Sam’s arm. Then once the other medic was positioned properly they gently lifted him and set him down on a cushioned tabletop like apparatus on the ground. Once activated the cushioned table rose gently to hover at hip level off the ground.
With a gentle push by one of the medics the floating table was moved away towards the medical labs. As the squad left, DAVID chirped in, “What do you want me to do about him?”
With that one of the Cyclops gun turrets waved in the direction of the unconscious Chris.
“Call another medical squad to pick him up, tell them to give him something to keep him out, something strong, he’s going to need a lot of help to heal those emotional wounds, but first he needs to sleep for a long time,” Carrie said softly. Then with a half sad ironic laugh Carrie continued, “Worst part is he doesn’t even know that Antiga Prime fell to the Zerg, before Tarsonis did. We were planning on revealing the full extent of the bad news in the meeting, thought it help if they took the shock in smaller pieces.”
Her downcast monologue was interrupted by the sound of a soft chirp. On the ground the zergling that had slept through the entire scene was shifting slowly to wakefulness, shaking its head in confusion.
“I was wondering how long that tranquilizer was going to hold, I’m surprised it’s kept Fang under that long,” Selena commented absently.
Then Selena motioned Carrie out of the pen and activated the forcewall, as the blissfully unaware zergling struggled to regain the use of its limbs. Then she turned to Carried and as casually she could manage said,
“Now mind telling me what just happened?”
Carrie weakly nodded and replied, “Once I figured out why he was feeling guilty, I interfered with some of his brain patterns in a way similar to what I designed in Mnemonic, his mind saw his wife Amanda, and daughter Clarice approaching him not me and Jacob. It held because I had him so emotionally upset and guilty, that his mind was completely focused on his wife and child, so I just shifted what his mind was thinking about to what he was seeing. It held until I called out for David, that act brought him back to reality, but by then the gun wasn’t pointing at us and he was leaning against the other forcewall. Forcewalls might take a few seconds to power up, but they shut off instantaneously so he was caught off guard at the loss of support, he only got one shot off that went wild as you saw before he was downed.”
“You can do that,” Selena asked, “make him see what you want him to see?”
“Not exactly,” Carrie replied, “I was able to make him see what HE wanted to see or at least what his mind was seeing. It’s just like daydreaming only more realistic and fueled by intense emotional outbursts.”
“Well at least we all came through it and hopefully Sam will be aright.”
Absently Carrie turned to Jacob, smiling, “Thank you for being so calm and controlled dear, and I felt you empathing, that was exactly the right thing to do at the time.”
Selena herself turned and added, “Yes young man, you handled that very well staying quiet and in control.”
Jacob flushed at the praise, “Thanks, but I didn’t do anything, mom, you did the work.”
With a responding smile Carrie reached out distantly to ruffle his hair, though her eyes were still haunted and deep. At the contact she nodded a moment and said, “You can drop your shields now hon., he’s out and your going to give yourself a headache if you keep yourself so tightly locked.”
Jacob nodded, dropping his shields, and noticing as he did that his mother had loosened but not dropped her own.
A curious chirp sounded beside him and Jacob saw that Fang had walked right up to the forcewall and was standing right next to Jacob looking up at him. Comforted by the wall between them, Jacob stared right at the zergling, getting perhaps the best look he ever had had at the creature. Unsteadily on its hind legs the creature almost looked comical instead of scary. Even without visible pupils, zerglings had a translucent filmy red covering over their eyes, that doctor’s speculated came from their desert dwelling ancestors, Jacob knew that Fang was looking right at him, and with another light trill it butted it’s head against the forcewall and looked again. Then with shock Jacob felt the lightest mental touch at the edge of his psychic senses, an emotional touch mostly registering curiosity.
Falling back from the forcewall he turned to his mother and Selena who were discussing the nature of the “trick” she had done. “Mom, I think that the zergling, I think it’s psychically sensitive or telepathic or something?”
Selena merely nodded, “We know Jacob, when we first encountered the Zerg, your mother worked a great deal on them with me, trying to determine how psychically sensitive they were. Unfortunately, they weren’t interested in talking, or communicating. We suspect that they have abilities more along the lines of mild psychic receptiveness so the Cerebrates can communicate with and control them.”
“Does that mean that they can mentally hear me?”
Carrie turned to face him, and in a distant, haunted voice she replied, “Yes Jacob, he can hear you.”
Then she turned towards the still form of Chris, and closed her eyes, as a wave of guilt rocked Jacob backwards on his feet. In shock he turned to see if Chris had awakened, but saw he was still asleep. Turning to Carrie, Jacob realized that she was the source of that guilt and once again he noted her still shielded mind.
Staring at Chris’s still body, she repeated in a hushed whisper, “Yes…they can hear us all to well.”
Further talk was stalled by the arrival of the second med team, who handled Chris’s prone form in a manner similar to the treatment for Sam.
Then the Cyclopes stirred a moment to some unheard summons and then beeped for Carrie’s attention, “Carrie, I have a message forwarded to you and Selena by Rick, about the meeting.”
“Damn!” Selena responded as she hurriedly checked her watch. The meeting started almost an hour ago.
“The meeting is almost over things have about reached the point where they want to draw a vote. Rick thinks that both of you should hurry there soon, seeing as these are rather important decisions.”
“We’ll be right there,” Carrie replied.
***
As they entered the large general meeting room, no one too note as they all stood listening the Rick who addressed the hall through the microphone. “…We all agree that no one is going to come to us, and we can’t do anything more from our position outside the galaxy. We only have two problems left. First deals with getting us back home?”
One audience member stood to speak, and Rick motioned to her, “But why should that be a problem? The Krysen has enough transports to get everyone on board back easily.”
Rick replied, “But it doesn’t have enough transports to bring everything else with us, and that means we will have to leave everything behind, experiments that many of you have been working on for an entire lifetime.”
An audible murmur of displeasure and even anger surged through the crowd. Raising his hand to forestall further comments Rick continued, “The other option of course is to bring the Krysen itself back into the galaxy. The engines that the Confederacy used to deliver the Krysen are in storage and with a little work we can have them refitted and functional, one thing we have in plenty is technical expertise and materials. The problem with that is the Krysen is big, and the minute we get into main space we will be easily detectable and we aren’t exactly equipped to defend ourselves. We have to assume that our greeting will be hostile with conditions as they are back in the Koprulu sector.”
“So the choice is bring our experiments with us, or abandon them for our own safety.”
The rumble through the audience reached an audible loud pitch as arguments began to break out. Real dissent was forestalled by the loud rumble of chair as one women on the dais stood up. Activating her microphone, Dr. Leia Mylar, head of the physics department spoke up, “Can’t we meet halfway here? Who’s to say we can’t move the Krysen to a point juts outside the Koprulu Sector. From there we can more accurately ascertain what’s going on, and decide whether to take it the last few star leagues to home. Besides we have many technologies still in research phase, perhaps one of them might be able to “hide” the Krysen or defend her.”
Rick spoke, “That sounds like a good plan, does everyone agree that we should at least bring the Krysen within the galaxy itself. From the edge of the Koprulu sector we will have access to more materials, and possibly even people.”
There was a unanimous nod of ascent from the audience. “Good then from there we can decide whether or not to initiate the next step. In the meantime, I’m going to need to each and everyone of you to give me a full report of whatever projects you have been working on.”
Again a deep mutter, which Rick forestalled with an upraised hand calling for silence. “I know many of you are working on projects that have a security clearance rating beyond even my own, but the Confederacy is gone. The time for secrecy is past, if we don’t know everything on this station, we might overlook the one thing that could save us. Your loyalty to the Confederacy is admirable, but they are gone, we are not and we must stick together to accomplish anything.”
With a deep sigh Rick continued, “That brings us then to the next problem, when we get back home what are we going to do?”
Now the audience was filled with comments, “Restore the Confederation.”
“Fight the Zerg.”
“Find the other colonies.”
“Fight the Dominion.”
The responses flew around the room, and several fights broke out on the main floor. Rick pounded his gavel for order several times to no avail, until he activated his screen and contacted DAVID. Suddenly a loud screeching sound, like metal rubbing on metal sounded through the speakers. In the stunned silence that followed Rick continued, “Thank you David. People, obviously the opinions on what to do are extremely different. Seeing the magnanimity of the decision, I had no intention of us coming to a decision during this meeting. I merely wanted to suggest it so that everyone thought about it. When we get back to the Koprulu sector we can meet again and decide as a whole, what we shall do about this. Then we will perhaps a better idea of just what the situation stands at, and make an informed decision. At that point if necessary we can even break up, sending those with different ideas and opinions to wherever they desire. How do you vote?”
The room was much quieter then silently one person and then another stood in silent ascent to the proposal.
“Then its settled, Krysen’s engines will be reactivated and as soon as possible we will all head home or at least to what’s left of it.” Three loud bangs of the gavel signaled the meeting’s end, and the beginning of Krysen’s voyage home.
