Shadow Core - The Legacy (15 page)

Kade smiled at the mention of the 'Vortex drive'. Her grandfather's stories had mentioned it often. A truly unrestricted star-drive that could take one anywhere. Every captain’s dream.

“Careful cute stuff, you keep teasing me like this and I may never leave,” Jude said with a broad smile and a sparkle in her eyes.

“Down girl!” Kade said to her sister who seemed as though she was becoming smitten. Though she couldn’t tell if it was directed at Drake or the technology of the Zenith.   

“I think she likes you!” Zen grinned mischievously as she looked at Drake.

“I must admit, I didn’t see that one coming. This is getting... awkward. Enough tech questions.” Drake said with a stunned look as he started to blush.  

“Probably a good idea.” Kade smiled.

As he stood there, embarrassed at his own reaction to such a simple event, Drake felt like it had been a lifetime since he had last stood face to face with another human being. It felt as though for as long as he had been alive the only people he had talked to had been Nexus, Static and Zen. But social ineptitude aside, Drake had more pressing issues to deal with.

“Was Nick telling the truth? Is the Regent really coming this way?” Kade asked, clearly concerned.

“Could be, they're still a couple of hours out so it's difficult to tell with only passive sensors. I can tell you there are a lot of ships, and at least one of them is capital class, but that’s about it,” Drake replied.

“How can you be so calm?” Kade asked.

“Because the inbound fleet is not really an issue, it just means the Zenith needs to leave the system soon,” Drake replied, shrugging his shoulders.

“Are you serious?” Kade asked in disbelief, unable to understand how anyone could be so calm in a situation like this.

“Yes... we can leave at any time, or at least as soon as problem number two over there is ready to be kicked out the airlock,” he said while pointing at the chamber and Nick's unconscious body.

“And... what about us?” Kade asked, concerned that they had seen too much to simply walk away without incident.

“Hmm? What about you?” Drake replied.

“Let's assume that by some miracle we manage to leave the system, then what? What happens to us?”

“That's up to you. You two aren’t prisoners, you are free to leave at any time you wish. You could leave right now if you wanted. Not that I would recommend it with the Union fleet inbound, but I certainly won't stop you if you decide to do it.” Drake smiled reassuringly.

“Just like that? After all we've seen?” Jude asked, surprised that he would let them go so easily.

“Sure, why not?” Drake replied somewhat confused at Jude's reaction. “The colonies are full of stories about the Shadows. You two talking about what you've seen doesn’t concern me. If anything you would just attract the wrong kind of attention from the Union. Which, by the way, I don't recommend. The Union actively suppresses information about the Shadows and not always in a gentle way. So I don’t recommend talking about it publicly.”   

Drake felt Zen tugging at his right arm as she tried to get his attention. And as he looked at her she glanced in the direction of the chamber's control console which was showing a notification message. The chamber had finished analysing the structural composition of the material that was implanted into Nick's brain tissue, and had created a virtual construct in order to simulate how the technology was intended to operate.  

“Excuse me for a second,” Drake said and then focused his attention back on the console, leaving the two sisters to talk to each other as he examined the information.

“This is unreal,” Jude said to her sister.

“Tell me about it.” Kade smiled.

“You better play your cards right! If you get us kicked out of here before I get to play around with some of this tech I will never forgive you!” Jude warned her sister, who had a history of making men run for the hills.

“Calm down...” Kade started to say.

“Ever!” Jude said emphatically.

“Good grief, what's with you and tech?” Kade asked just as Drake finished his task and turned back towards them.

The Shock

“So then, back on topic. I got your basic profiles from Nexus.” Drake said, noticing that he had piqued Jude's curiosity yet again. “And depending on how this goes I might even tell you how, later,” he said, addressing Jude, who crossed the threshold from curious to giddy. “But I still don’t know why you are here. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the company, but why would someone in your line of work risk coming to the Sol system?” 

“Our grandfather...” Kade started to explain as her expression changed, her worries melting away as she remembered his gentle nature. “He used to tell us stories about this ship and the Shadows. What they were about, what they stood for, the stuff they did.”

“I especially liked the stories about the twin AI's,” Jude added. “They always sounded so surreal. The stories always portrayed them as more human than humans. Kind, gentle and always giving.”

“OK.” Drake looked pensive. “Is it safe to assume the sigma code you have came from your grandfather? If so, then who was he?”

“Yes he gave me the code shortly before he passed away,” Kade said with sadness in her eyes. “His name was Jake Tobias Alexander,” She added, leaving Drake completely shocked at the revelation.  

“Wait... Toby! He was your grandfather? But we were...” Drake stopped mid-sentence, looking confused. He looked directly at the palm of his left hand for a few seconds, and then closed his hand and eyes tight as sadness overtook him.

“I see. Has it really been that long?” He asked as if talking to himself. “Please, continue.”

“You knew our grandfather? How?” Jude asked.

“No,” Drake said with a pained expression. “It would be more accurate to say that I know 'of him'... but, unfortunately, we never actually met in person.”

“Was he a Shadow?” Jude asked excitedly.

“Yes,” Drake said with pride. “He was one of the two remaining members of the old guard. We had actually thought him dead a long time ago. It's comforting to know that he lived on to raise a family of his own,” he said, genuinely happy at the idea.  

“Sounds like there's a juicy story there.”

“Ha ha, there's a whole book-store's worth, but we don't have the time for that.” Drake smiled.

“I knew it!” Jude grinned. “Every time we asked him he would always reply with a 'maybe', and then give us this mischievous smile. It would drive us insane, and he enjoyed every minute of it.”

Drake mumbled, “Sounds like him.”

“What?” Kade asked.

“No... nothing,” Drake said dismissively. “So, when did he pass away?”

“It's been almost 8 years now,” Kade said. “Just before he died he asked me to find this ship and bring something here. At the time I thought he was delusional for asking me to find the Shadows, but he was insistent and I just couldn't refuse. Unfortunately, we ran out of time before he could tell me why it was so important to bring this sphere here.” Kade said, sadly.

“Sphere?” Drake asked.

“Yes, this thing.” Kade reached into her pouch. “He was holding it right until the end.”

Drake wondered what could have been so important to make Toby ask his grandchildren to take such risks. He had never been the kind of person to willingly put others in harm’s way, so what was so special about this sphere?

And as that thought coalesced in Drake's mind he suddenly realised what the 'sphere' was and panicked.

“No! Wait! Don't touch it!!” Drake shouted just as Kade's bare hand made contact with the sphere.

Drake's words caused Kade to look up at him. From his face she could tell that he seemed worried about something, and he seemed to be speaking, but she couldn't quite understand him.

Numbness started spreading over Kade's whole body. She felt as though she was rapidly becoming light headed, her vision clouding over.

As all her senses began to shut down Kade could faintly hear Jude's panicking voice, “Kade! What's wrong with her?” She could also hear Drake's voice, but she could barely make out what he was saying, “She's going into shock...” And eventually the voices trailed off into complete silence. She couldn’t hear, see or even feel anything anymore. All she could do was wonder: - Did I die? -

Back in the waking world...

“Kade!” Jude panicked as she grabbed her sister before she could collapse on the floor. “What's wrong with her?” She asked with despair in her eyes as she looked at Drake and Zen.

“She's going into shock,” Drake explained as he knelt down near Kade, seeing the sphere in her hand.

Jude held her sister gently as she tried to wake her, but Kade was completely unresponsive. Her breathing was shallow and erratic, and her temperature was dropping fast, becoming ice cold.

Drake held his right hand against the sphere, which was still in contact with Kade's hand, closing his eyes as he stood perfectly still.

Jude didn't understand what was happening, all she could see was that her sister's life was slipping away and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Jude screamed frantically, “Help her dammit!”

“I will,” Drake said as he snapped open his eyes and looked towards the chamber, looking conflicted about what he should do next.

“If we remove Nick from the chamber before the sequence is complete, he will die,” Zen said, stating a fact which Drake was already painfully aware of.

“I know that,” he said. “But the safeties failed to kick in because the unit is dangerously underpowered. I've managed to stop it, but we need to reverse it or she will suffer permanent damage.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Jude asked, incensed at their inaction.

“There's no time to explain,” Drake said to Jude and then turned back towards Zen. “Power up the pods. The chamber probably isn't enough at this stage anyway. We'll have to do it the old fashioned way.”

And immediately after Drake had given the order the two pods, to the left of Drake's own pod, immediately activated.

The status screens on the pods control consoles were cycling information at lightning speed as Zen worked to speed up the initialisation sequence which would normally take the best part of an hour.

“Please move, we need to get her into the pod, we can use it to reverse this,” Drake said to Jude as he grabbed Kade and lifted her in his arms.

“Why is this happening? Is she gonna be OK?” Jude asked as Drake moved towards the sleeper pod.

“This 'sphere' is Toby's... well, that's not important right now. I just can't believe that dimwit never warned you two not to touch it with your bare hands,” Drake said, and then gently placed Kade in the pod, putting the sphere in a custom slot by her head.

“That thing? She's had that for years, it has never done anything like this before, and you just touched it with your bare hands. What gives?” Jude asked, uncertain whether to believe in Drake's explanation.

“In its discharged state it's about as harmful as a paperweight, but it started building up charge the moment you all came on board the Zenith,” Drake explained as he worked the pod's controls, causing the  canopy to start closing. “And it didn't harm me because it can't harm me. Any more detailed explanations will just have to wait, now get in the other pod and lie down,” Drake ordered as he gestured to the spare pod next to Kade's.

“Why?” Jude asked, uncertain of his intentions.

“So we can help your sister, now stop asking questions and get in the damn pod!” Drake said emphatically and then turned towards Zen. “I need you to finish preparing Jude as I get ready. And interlink the three pods once we are all inside.”

Zen nodded. Drake turned away from her and started getting back into his own sleeper pod.

Jude was standing by the empty pod, her mind filled with uncertainty. She didn't know whether or not to trust Drake, but it didn't seem like there was much of a choice in the matter. If there was anything she could do to help then she had to try, she thought as she got into the pod.

Zen approached Jude as she was lying down, and gave her a reassuring smile as the pod's canopy closed overhead.

Jude's heart was racing as the canopy closed, blocking out all sounds from the outside world. The only sounds remaining being her own breathing and a very faint hum that she could only assume was part of the pod's mechanism... which was oddly relaxing.

Jude looked around the room through the transparent canopy.
She could see her sister lying motionless inside the nearby pod, her body twitching ever so slightly as she winced
. And Zen was standing by Kade's pod control console, seemingly operating the controls without ever touching the interface.

Under normal circumstances Jude would have been fascinated by Zen's ability to control the pod without touching it, especially since her own tests had determined the Zenith did not have any type of recognisable wireless interface system. But at this moment in time, none of that mattered to her.  

As Jude looked on she could see a thin grey mist filling up her sister’s pod. And just as she started wondering what it was she heard a hissing sound, seeing a similar mist filling up her own pod.  

It didn't take Jude too long to realise that this was no ordinary mist. What she was looking at was no chemical or compound merely floating in the air, it was not dispersing and it moved as if with purpose.

She ran through the possibilities in her mind, realising what it was when she felt a sudden burning sensation in her throat as the mist entered her body.

“Can you hear me?” Jude heard Drake's voice ask as though it was coming from inside her head.

“Please tell me you didn't just do what I think you did,” Jude said as the pain in her throat subsided.

“That would all depend on what you think I did,” Drake replied, the sound again seeming as though it was coming from inside her own mind.