Shadow Core - The Legacy (12 page)

“Our weapons can't harm you?” Nick asked as he held his gun, as if showing it off. “I think someone left you in the freezer past your expiration date. You actually expect us to believe that you're what? Immortal?” He asked, holstering his gun.

“Believe what you wish. Your perception of reality does not change the reality of existence.” Drake shrugged his shoulders.

“What?” Nick asked.

“He means that a belief can't change a fact,” Kade explained, surprised by Drake's words.

“Very good. Most people don't get it right away.” Drake smiled, causing Nick to feel dumb.

“Our grandpa used to say something similar. It was one of his favourite sayings actually,” Jude said.

“Smart man.” Drake smiled.  

“We should have left him in there. Now we have to deal with this lunatic!” Nick said to Kade.

“That's not very nice!” Drake protested the accusation and then said, “I prefer to think of myself as 'eccentric'.” Kade instinctively smiled at the comment, which further infuriated Nick.

“You two need to calm down.” Kade said, trying to defuse the escalating situation.

“Indeed! You need to calm down Nick, you're gonna give yourself an ulcer at this rate.” Drake said.

“Could you stop antagonising my pilot?” Kade asked, wondering why Drake was behaving this way.

Kade saw Drake tilting his head slightly to the left, and giving her an annoyed look.

She had always been good at reading situations, but this one seemed to make little sense:

Nick, the consummate joker, was tense and quick to anger. He also seemed frustrated for some reason.

Jude, with her usually calm analytical approach, seemed to be bordering on giddy for no apparent reason.

And then there was Drake, the supposed captain of the Zenith, whose attitude and demeanour seemed completely mismatched to the situation.  

“That all depends now doesn’t it,” Drake said calmly, breaking Kade's train of thought.

“On what?” She asked hesitantly.

“Can you keep your boyfriend on his leash and stop him from insulting me again?”

“My what?” Kade's eyes widened in shock at his comment. She glanced at Nick and said softly, “Eeew!”

Her soft spoken words seemed to resonate throughout the room as Jude laughed herself silly, but Nick was showing no reaction at all.

“Wow... that was harsh,” Drake commented, and then closed one eye and dropped his head slightly to the right, wincing as if in pain.

“You OK?” Kade asked, looking concerned.

“Hmm? Oh... yes... I'm fine,” Drake said in clear discomfort and then turned his head away from view and whispered, “Static, would you shut the hell up! It's hard to concentrate with you laughing your ass off in the background like that.”

As Drake's discomfort subsided, he found himself looking in the direction of the open doorway. And there, hidden in the shadows of the corridor, he saw a small figure like that of a scared little girl, hiding as she looked into the room.

The girl noticed Drake looking at her, and was about to begin moving when he made a slight gesture with his right hand, signalling her to stop.

Drake was surprised to see her here, though it did explain what Nick had seen earlier. But even more surprising was the information he was receiving from Static over his neural communications link.

“I told you he was nuts, he was talking to himself just now. How much more proof do you need? I say we stick him back in his pod and deep freeze his backside again. Let whoever thaws him out in 100 years’ time deal with him,” Nick said, clearly upset with Kade's handling of the situation and making no effort to keep the conversation quiet.

Drake turned back around, facing his visitors again, but his expression had changed. He was angry and clearly concerned about something.

“Who did you call?” Drake shouted suddenly while staring at Nick, startling all three of them.  

Kade could almost swear that she had felt the ground tremble beneath her feet at that very moment. She was certain she had imagined it, but for a split second it was as if the Zenith had somehow reacted to Drake's emotional state.

It was obvious that Drake was upset, though Kade didn't know why. But his stare in her general direction was as cold as ice, and she felt a sense of impending danger like none she had ever experienced before.

Before Kade knew what was happening Jude grabbed her wrist and pulled her away. And as she was dragged away Kade saw that Drake's gaze had been firmly fixed on Nick all along.

“There is a fleet of ships approaching this location, at least one of which is capital class. So I'll ask you again, one last time... who did you call!!” Drake shouted again, the sound of his voice seemingly resonating with the very ship, causing the whole room to shake slightly.

Nick pulled his gun out of its holster and pointed it at Drake's head. The high pitch sound of the gun's charger signalling that the safety was off, and it was ready to fire. But Drake just stood there, unfazed.  

A few moments passed as Nick considered his options. He had been reckless by drawing his gun on an impulse, but Drake's revelation of the approaching ships called for action. He had underestimated Drake, and his mission was now at risk.  

“I suppose this ruse has gone on long enough,” Nick said while shifting his weapon's focus towards Kade and Jude.

“What are you doing!” Kade asked as her heart raced in fear, staring down the barrel of a charged pulse gun, which meant certain death at this range.   

“Drop your gun Kade, and kick it away, now!” Nick said with a cold stare, devoid of all emotion.

“Please do as he says,” Jude begged her sister as she held her arm tightly, fearing she would do something reckless.

“Fine.” Kade dropped her weapon and kicked it away, causing Nick to focus his gun back on Drake.

“So, are you corporate or government?” Drake asked calmly standing there, facing down a charged pulse gun with no fear in his eyes.

“What makes you think I'm either?” Nick asked with a smug attitude as he started to feel that he had regained control of the situation. “And I'm the one asking the questions here! How did you find out about the strike fleet? And for that matter, how did you figure out it was me that called them in?”  

The entire situation was spiralling out of control, and Kade could do little more than watch and try to figure a way out of this mess.

It was clear from his actions that Nick was not the person she had been led to believe. After this was over she would need to have a few words with the people that had recommended him for the job.  

She had never fully trusted Nick. From day one she had always thought something about him wasn’t right, but all her checks had come up clean. And she had been in desperate need of a pilot after her last one had vanished without a trace. Which, in retrospect, seemed like a highly convenient occurrence for Nick.

Kade couldn’t help but wonder if Nick could have had something to do with some of the weirder events which had played out since he joined the crew. And, even more troubling, was the possibility that she had been manipulated all this time just to get him onto the Zenith. Meaning that she had attracted the wrong kind of attention during her search.

Regardless, it was probably a good thing that her weapon was out of reach, for she had half a mind to ventilate his brain right then and there.

The situation seemed pretty grim. The one and only doorway was half a room away, with Nick having a clear line of fire all the way there if they tried to make a run for it. And Drake was on the opposite side of the room, so co-ordinated action wasn’t likely.

And then she noticed it... Drake was smiling.

“I must admit, I thought it would be harder to try and get you to show your hand. I thought you’d try to play dumb and buy some time until your backup arrived. But then you go and break character. Disappointing really.” Drake said, obviously amused.

“Are you seriously gonna carry on playing this tough guy act? Answer my questions before I decide to ignore my orders! What gave me away and how did you find out about the strike fleet?” Nick demanded to know.

“OK, why not? We know about the fleet because we can see them on sensors, as for you... did you really think setting off a distress signal on top of this ship would somehow go unnoticed? So we did some snooping around inside the Icarus computers and found some interesting logs. Our second clue was your knowledge of the Zenith. Not many organisations know about the Shadows in general, and fewer still about the Zenith in particular. Add to all this, the fact that your background is an obvious forgery and you became the prime suspect.”

Kade couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

She wasn't particularly pleased at the suggestion that Drake had somehow managed to break into the Icarus central computer and accessed her logs. But the thought that Nick had somehow tampered with her ship was downright infuriating.

“I see,” Nick grinned. “So that Aurora program lied to us. This ship does have a crew, and they're the ones that are running the show while you distract me. I suggest you call them in here if you value your life,” he said, focusing his weapon's aim on Drake's head.

“That would be an interesting trick to pull off,” Drake laughed, clearly amused and completely disregarding Nick's threats.

“How so?” Nick asked, his frustration growing with every minute due to Drake's attitude.

“Well, for starters, because Aurora doesn’t lie. Aside from you three I'm the only living being on this ship, and it's been like that for some time,” Drake said.

“Don't give me that crap. I saw someone by the corridor before.” Nick said angrily, “And don't think I haven't noticed the figure by the door. Call her in here!”

Drake paused for a moment, looking as though he was considering his options. And then smiled as he signalled the figure by the door to enter the room.

A little girl, who looked as though she was no more than 10 years old, hesitatingly left her hiding spot and walked slowly towards Drake. Looking like she was frightened out of her tiny body.

She had waist length purple hair, arranged in a braid, and her skin was a pale white.

Her eyes were a strange shade of purple, matching her hair colour.  

The girl was dressed in a white one piece suit with light grey reinforced padding, covering everything but her head and hands.

The little girl hesitated and stopped before reaching Drake, seemingly paralysed with fear.

Kade's first reaction was a desire to want to walk over to Drake and pummel him into the ground for allowing this girl to walk into the room, exposing her to danger. But as she looked closer Kade noticed that the girl wasn’t human, she was a synthetic.

“Good grief, you are one sick bastard!” Nick laughed at Drake.

“One of us is, but it's your mind that's in the gutter right now, not mine,” Drake calmly replied back, unfazed by Nick's insinuation.

“What's with the little doll?” Nick asked, waving his gun in the girl's direction, causing her to run to Drake's side and hide behind him in fear. “And why the heck did you program her to act like that,” he asked with a disgusted, disapproving look.

“This is Zen.” Drake smiled as he looked at her and put his right hand on her head, bringing an immediate smile to her face. “And I didn’t program her at all. You'll have to forgive her, she's a little shy around armed strangers.”

“So your crew is just synthetics? That makes things simple. Transfer control over to me and no one has to get hurt. We'll wait here until the Regent arrives and then... well, you’ll be someone else's problem. Or... I put a round through your doll,” Nick said with a sadistic grin as he looked at Zen's shaking little body.

“Finally!!” Drake said with a sound of relief, as Zen stopped hiding behind him, no longer afraid. And everyone else was left in a state of utter confusion.

“That was easy,” Zen said cheerfully.  

“What the hell are you two so happy about?” Nick asked, infuriated at their behaviour.

Kade couldn’t believe what she had just heard, the situation just kept getting worse by the second.

The Regent, a Jupiter class heavy assault carrier and flagship of the Sol Union military, was inbound to their location. Probably with the rest of the First Forward Fleet for backup. It was one of the most formidable fleets in human controlled space and was responsible for the 'pacification' of entire colonies out on the fringe systems.

Kade couldn’t help but wonder why this was happening: Why would the Union mobilise one of their heaviest forces to deal with just one ship? And, more importantly, how the hell had she ended up caught in the middle of this messed up situation?

“He still hasn’t figured it out.” Zen giggled as she looked at Drake and pointed at Nick.

Nick was an infiltrator, so violence was just one of the tools at his disposal, his tasks often requiring him to take unsavoury actions to get the job done.

Generally he was in and out of his assignments without ever breaking cover. Unfortunately he hadn't been given enough time to integrate into Kade's crew. Understanding a target's motivations and ideals was the key to manipulating it, but a couple of months was simply not long enough to pull it off. Especially when the entire mission profile had been changed at the last moment.

His original mission had never called for this, so he was being forced to improvise since he had failed to convince Kade to leave and alert the authorities once he had gathered his intel.

With his cover blown Nick needed a weak point he could exploit against Drake, and Zen's timely arrival had presented him with the perfect vulnerability. Drake seemed genuinely concerned about her, his caring expression and her fragile frightened appearance making Zen the perfect target.

Overwhelming force, in the form of the Regent, and an imminent physical threat was all that it would take to convince any normal person to comply. But the situation had completely backfired. Not only had Nick's threats not accomplished their goal he had actually revealed more than he should have.