Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 7: Renegades (13 page)

One group of Ashtoreth fighters vectored towards the
Yorktown
itself while the other headed towards High Orbital One. Orbital One, though, had a few surprises of its own in store for the attackers. Various engineering teams from the station itself as well as teams from her taskforce retrofitted hyperfield shielding, outward facing beam weapons and even a fighter bay – compete with four fighter wings –in each of the orbitals. Sadly those wings were woefully understaffed at the moment but that was something Cat hoped to address with Hupenstanii volunteers in the very near future. Assuming of course the Orbitals survived this engagement.

That assumption seemed to be a good one at the moment. The enemy craft seemed to have grossly underestimated the abilities of the
Yorktown’s
combat fighters. In fairness to them, had they faced fighter wings from any other GCP ship the outcome would likely have been much different. The
Yorktown
had the advantage of fully functional Heshe and hyperfield technologies – that and the fact that her crews had more actual combat experience than the entire combined GCP fleet.

As Cat watched, Orbital One launched the single wing of fighters they had secured pilots to fly. At the same time their point defense systems began to engage the oncoming fighters. The enemy aircraft began an elaborate weaving pattern in an effort to confuse the station’s PD flak fire.

Several of the Ashtoreth fighters fired missiles that arched toward Orbital One. Had they been fired at the station even a few hours earlier the outcome would not have been good for the station. As they vectored in and continued to accelerate Cat’s throat clenched. This was the first real test of the systems they had put in place. The missiles were too close. She was thinking the shield must have failed to activate when suddenly the missiles began to impact against an invisible barrier.

In response the remaining enemy fighters fired all their missiles. Suddenly almost a hundred of them were hurling toward Orbital One. The PD systems took out some but the remainder began to impact the shields. The shields flashed as nuclear energies roiled over their surface but the shields held.

At about the same moment the station’s fighters reached the enemy. It was over almost as fast as it had begun. The Ashtoreth fighters were badly outclassed by the Scorpions that were attacking them. Eight scorpions were slightly damaged but the opposing force was devastated. Only three of the initial forty craft wing survived the vicious engagement. Those three raced towards their original jump point and made a hasty retreat.

The other contingent of Ashtoreth fighters seems to consist of more experienced pilots. This was evidenced by their superior tactics in the face of a better equipped opponent. Cat watched as their fighters almost matched the Yorktown’s Scorpions despite the advantage in speed and maneuverability her fighters enjoyed.

The Ashtoreth fighters soon stopped firing at where they though the scorpions were and instead fired where they anticipated they might jump to. Several of the Yorktown pilots were caught off guard with this tactic. Since the Scorpion’s shielding was its weakest attribute these unlucky ships were often taken out of the fight. At least none of her pilots had been killed thus far.

She toggled her comm-link and reminded the CAG that she wanted a prisoner if at all possible. Commander Martinescu informed her that a team was working on that very thing.

She turned back to the main view screen. Suddenly there was a blinding flash. As the glow of a breeched fusion containment chamber finally began to fade she saw one of the scorpions had been shattered by the blast. There was precious little of the fighter left. Cat had a horrible feeling she knew who the pilot was. The realization that she had just lost a dear friend left her gutted.

Chapter 15: Stone Cold…

Lieutenant Anthony Grant Stone was confused. He remembered approaching the enemy craft in his Mark 2 Scorpion combat fighter. He had been attempting to disable the vessel’s engines so they could capture the pilot. Something had gone terribly wrong. The enemy ship had anticipated his movements and deliberately crashed his ship into his adversary. He knew it was deliberate because the acceleration used to pull about the collision far and away exceeded the maximum acceleration envelope previously observed for the Ashtoreth fighters. It was unlikely the pilot would have remained conscious for the maneuver. Therefore it must have been preprogrammed in the tiny ship’s computer.

The result for the newly promoted Lieutenant Stone was a blinding flash of light followed by intense pain and then a numbing cold. His ship literally shattered around him. He looked down and saw most of his torso and lower body shredded or just plain missing. He knew in that moment that he was dead. Only the recently introduced nanites operating within his skull kept him conscious as they fought to both preserve his brain’s function and transmit data back to the Yorktown’s newly installed training bay.

It was a cruel joke. He could learn faster than any man alive thanks to the Ashtoreth technology that Admiral Kimbridge had adapted for her use… and yet it was the Ashtoreth that would teach him about death. At that moment he wished he could turn the nanites swarming his brain off. There was not enough of his body left to regenerate. He knew very well the limitations of current medical technology. It could do miracles but this was well beyond the scope of what was possible. As he wished for the kindness of death a darkness enveloped him… and then… there was light.

              ***

“He’s waking up”

The big man on the table struggled to move. Reinforced steel straps held his arms, legs and chest. Some type of transparent cocoon covered him. He could see a myriad of colorful lights dancing about its interior surface. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. 

He went to ask ‘
what the hell was happening’
. Something was wrong. Suddenly he realized he was in a chamber filled with some type of transparent liquid. As he breathed he could feel the viscous material move in and out of his lungs. The lingering terror that had been a shadow in the back of his mind abruptly rushed forward.

He strained against the straps that held him – knowing full well that he would be powerless to break them. To his great surprise they snapped like dry kindling. He pushed against the transparent lid of his aquatic cage. His hands burned when the colored bands of energy brushed against them. The lid was harder to move than the steel straps had been and the energy coursing over its surface hurt but that just added urgency to his efforts to free himself.

With a tremendous effort he arched his back and heaved against the transparent barrier. He could hear people screaming on the other side of it but he was too engrossed in his own efforts to pay attention to what they were saying. With one final push the latching mechanism that locked the lid in place gave way and the lid flew off with enough force to send it flying across whatever room he was in.

The liquid that enveloped him drained over the side of the table he was lying on into grates on the floor that seemed designed to accommodate it.

As he wiped the gelatinous liquid gunk off his face and out of his ears he heard a moaning sound. A technician was on the ground some fifteen feet away. The lid had clipped her as it flew across the room. He tried to get up to help the young woman but his legs would not fully cooperate and he fell to the floor. It was then that he began to seriously cough. His lungs were still filled with whatever the heck that clear liquid was. His sides nearly split as he hacked and coughed the substance out of his system. By the time he was done every muscle in his body was pulled and he was exhausted.

“Let that be a lesson to you Lieutenant,” a stern female voice said. “Next time you stay in the chamber until the regeneration cycle is done. You’ll save yourself a lot of discomfort and I won’t have to spend the time patching up my staff.”

He recognized the voice. It belonged to Doctor Janice Pulaski.  He had tried to date her once – she was, in purely military parlance –hot! An intelligent brunette with curves on her curves and legs that went from the earth clear up to heaven.  That was before he had realized she was an officer. Fraternization rules forbade enlisted and officer entanglements… but wait… hadn’t she called him Lieutenant?

He tried again to stand. This time a male orderly rushed to his side to help him up. He grasped the man’s arm firmly, intending to pull himself up. The orderly screamed in agony as his arm was unintentionally broken by the force of the bigger man’s grip. He let go immediately.

He heard himself say gruffly, “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to… I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

“No one touch him!” Doctor Pulaski yelled. “He doesn’t want to hurt anybody but he has no experience with his new body. He’ll kill you before he’s even aware that he’s done it.”

That caused the big man to freeze in place. These people were his friends. He knew that much. He didn’t understand fully what was happening but he darn sure knew he didn’t want to hurt anybody else.

“I’m sorry,…” he began to say.

At that moment the single door to the room swished open and Admiral Cat Kimbridge walked into the room. Somehow her very presence commanded respect.

“Cat… er Admiral… I… I don’t know…” Again he tried to stand. It was then that he noticed he was naked.

***

Admiral Cat Kimbridge had been on the bridge of the Yorktown when the word came in that Lieutenant Stone was waking up. She immediately rushed to the turbo lift. If her suspicions were correct he was going to be a handful.

Cat had been devastated to learn her friend AG had been killed in the first of what she suspected was going to be many battles with the Ashtoreth. GCP medical technology could do wonders but there had to be something left to work with. Lieutenant Stone was a special case however. The Ashtoreth technology they had recovered from High Orbital One included bio-generation chambers designed to create enhanced organic replicants of a living template. Cat suspected the Ashtoreth had been covertly replacing strategically placed GCP personnel for a number of years. Replicants were bio-engineered and then implanted with their doppelganger’s memories.

One interesting feature of the technology was its ability to transfer a synaptic copy of brain engrams. It was this ability that Cat had adapted to create a teaching system. Basically she mapped domains of experience corresponding to the skill she wanted to transfer from an experienced teacher to an inexperienced student. The procedure required the implantation of specially designed nanites into the recipient’s brain in order to transfer and fine-tune the engrams.  Once implanted, said nanites could continuously monitor and transmit the interconnection status of every neuron within the brain. The
Yorktown
was able to store this information although it was impossible to fully decode it in anything other than an organic brain.

Sergeant, now Lieutenant, Stone had been one of the first volunteers to try the new technology. As a result Cat had a complete and up-to-date copy of his memories. She used the Ashtoreth Bio-Generation Chamber to replicate a new enhanced body for her friend based on samples of his DNA. The Faragon replicants had possessed greatly enhanced strength and speed as a result of the modifications the BGC had made to the Faragon template. Cat didn’t know enough about the technology to radically alter its programming. Nor, to be fair, was she inclined to do so. If the enemy had access to supermen then the GCP would need them too. Once the replicant was complete, she transferred the recorded copy of his mind at the time of his physical death to the waiting host.

The result was a living, breathing duplicate of her friend and officer. The procedure was not unlike what the Heshe had done with her some three hundred years earlier when she had died on the surface of Mars while saving the life of Yarin. The biggest difference was the Heshe had needed to recreate her engrams from a detailed forensic analysis of her deceased brain. It was a daunting task that had taken the highly advanced Heshe the better part of fifty years to accomplish.

By having a stored copy of Lieutenant Stone’s mind on hand, she had be able to step past that particular roadblock. Still, to her knowledge, no one in the GCP had attempted what she was now doing. If she was successful not only would she get her officer back but she would create a powerful weapon in the coming fight against the Ashtoreth. She suspected it was a weapon they would need.

There were of course, a host of ethical concerns. Going forward volunteers for the engram teaching program would need to sign a waiver permitting or explicitly revoking the GCP’s right to resurrect a person who was lost. Also, strong protocols would need to be put in place to ensure only one copy of an individual existed at any given moment in time. Should an accident occur that resulted in multiple replicants (or an original and a replicant) the law would have to give legal status to the duplicate while protecting the full rights of the elder doppelganger.   

She stepped into the medical bay. Doctor Pulaski was helping a member of her staff with what appeared to be a broken arm. Lieutenant Stone was struggled to get up from where he had fallen off the table.

He said, “Cat… er Admiral… I… I don’t know…”

That was good
Cat thought to herself. It meant his memories were beginning to integrate. Cat grabbed a surgical gown off the supply cart and draped it about the man’s shoulders. No one served in the military for any great length of time without becoming accustomed to seeing their fellow soldiers in the buff. Still he deserved his dignity.

She helped him stand. He looked a couple of years younger than she remembered but she supposed that was a function of the bio-generation chamber. Perhaps a default setting that returned an individual to the peak of their youth. It was interesting because the Faragon replicants had clearly not been bio-generated in such a youthful form.

He was amazingly strong. Being enhanced herself there was very little likelihood that he could hurt her—even accidently.

“Do you know who you are?” Cat prompted.

“I’m Sergeant Anthony Stone,” the big man responded after a second.

Cat looked at him with a quizzical expression.

“Wait,” he added after a moments pause. “Doctor Pulaski called me Lieutenant. I’m Lieutenant Anthony Stone. You just promoted me when I earned my flight wings. I’m a Marine.”

“Very good Lieutenant. It’s good to have you back. I dare say you gave us a bit of a scare.”

“I’m not dead?” He looked at his arms and knew that in those brief moments after the enemy vessel had rammed his scorpion that his torso, to include his arms had been blown away. He remembered being too the cold and the coming darkness. He shivered briefly.

“Is it too cold in here?” Cat asked.

“No Admiral, it’s just that I remember… dying.”

Cat smiled. “Trust me, I’ve been there, done that. I’ve even gotten the tee shirt. It’s not something you will ever get comfortable with… but you will get over it.”

“So did I… Did I die?” He asked in a soft voice.

“I suppose you did… but death isn’t what it used to be and I think you just moved the bar a little further.”

She looked at her friend and she suddenly remembered her own feelings the first time she awoke in a white room with the Heshe known as Yarin. The doubts and occasional self-loathing. The questions in her mind… was she even human?… was she alive?… where was her soul?… was she still a ‘beloved of the Creator?’ 

She didn’t have all the answers but she was self-aware… she loved… she was loved. That was enough for her. It might take time but it would be enough for Lieutenant Stone too.

***

Asdartu rose in anger. Two wings of strike fighters had been deployed to erase the mistakes made in the Hupenstanii system. They had failed! His brother Astarte would hold him responsible for this setback. The three pilots that had returned brought with them the bitter news of the defeat. He had them executed immediately. He needed his soldiers to know that retreat from the field of battle was never an option. Perhaps the next taskforce he sent would be more fully committed.

He tapped his communicator. “Signal my brother,” he barked at his assistant. “Ready my shuttle for immediate departure.”

As he made his way to the rooftop landing pad he grabbed a few dardania nuts out of a bowl and began to crush them between his teeth. They were an acquired taste… slightly bitter and slightly toxic but they would dull the pain of the flogging he was about to receive at the hands of his brother. Fortunately he knew his brother could not kill him – not for something as minor as this; but his brother would not hesitate to make an example of him in front of his court. The king could not be seen as weak… not and maintain his throne.

The shuttle flight to the king’s palace was mercifully short. As he departed the craft he ordered the pilot to pick up his personal medical staff. They would be needed shortly. One could never be too careful about health care. His staff knew that he had standing orders in place to execute their families should he die under their care. He liked that level of incentive. It kept people sharp and on their toes.