Birth
13 Jan 2024Ryuko Ntsikana
Part Thirty-Five
Birth
_____________________________
There were no loud alarms or clansmen running to their stations as the Zooey’s carrier entered the system, appearing near the ringed gas giant of the Xochitl’s prior position. As a formality, Rex notified Avery of the arrival. As predicted the closer the two entanglements neared each other the more influence was exerted, though both were one and the same yet separate and unique. The symbiote being the primary with its essence becoming secondary.
Xochitl made her way through the service corridors, avoiding as many clansmen as possible, as she made her way up to the hangar levels. The large Imperial Cutter loomed before her. Several service androids were finishing loading the last of the drones into its cavernous interior cargo bay as she walked over to look up into the expanse, noting they had packed it to within millimeters of its 432-ton capacity.
The fighter hangars were considered essential and were kept, though without humans to pilot them. Xochitl would have rather had them replaced with additional cargo space, but her wishes were voted against by the majority. Fortunately, they did agree to send no further clansmen with her, relieving her of the burden of having others placed in harm's way. In place of crewmen to pilot them, the ship’s own AI would take command. More clinical than a human, they were not as tactically efficient as a seasoned pilot.
Monty was already waiting on the bridge as Xochitl entered, taking her place in the pilot’s seat. The lighting changed as the hangar doors above them opened to reveal the space beyond. Monty turned his head to look back at the cabin door, hearing the hiss of the atmospheric processors equalizing the pressure.
Jason stood over the crewman manning the tactical panel, watching the Imperial Cutter class ship depart from the distant fleet carrier, navigating on an elliptical course that would position them on the opposite side of the ringed gas giant from this carrier’s position. He looked back at Zooey, sitting in the captain’s chair, staring into something distant and beyond. Since nearing the system she had become increasingly preoccupied with something Jason knew better than to ask about.
What worried him more than Zooey’s internal distraction was the condition of the carrier. The crew had pushed it far past its breaking point, with no maintenance cycles. They raided everything nearby to get as much fuel as possible to keep jumping at a pace that Jason thought was suicidal. The nearer they got to this location, the more they became increasingly agitated. Now that they were here it was as if a switch had been thrown. To a person, every one of the crew began to appear distracted, confused, and disoriented.
“Tracking a single ship, cutter class, moving on a trajectory that will take it to the far side of the planet from us. No other launches have been detected,” Jason announced as he flinched in reaction to Zooey, who bolted upright from her chair, her eyes fixed into nothingness as the signal on the scanner changed course towards them. A hailing signal appeared in the top corner of the screen.
“They are hailing,” Jason stated, glancing up in curiosity as the bridge lighting annoyingly flickered for a brief second.
All of the screens flickered as Zooey screamed in terror, ducking down behind the captain’s chair. The crewmen on the bridge wilted at their positions as Jason clutched his head in pain, looking at Zooey who began to cry, cowering as much of herself behind the chair to hide from something. Fighting through the pain, Jason scanned the bridge for a visible threat, seeing only crewmen who were now slumped at their consoles. “What the hell…”
“You’ve nothing to fear little one. I have brought your mother. We are here to bring you back safely with us, and care for you,” a voice announced, as Jason drew his sidearm, looking around for a source, realizing it had not come through the communications channel or any other person on the bridge.
“I don’t know who or where you are, but you have to get through me if you want to get to her,” Jason growled, stepping up to stand in front of the captain’s chair. “Stay down,” Jason commanded, his eyes scanning every centimeter of the bridge with his weapon at the ready. He could hear a child sobbing, but could not find the source of the sound, as he jumped down the steps from the captain’s chair, to the tactical console below, pushing the unconscious crewman out of the chair. He kept his pistol up and at the ready as his other hand tapped out on the screen, to bring all offensive and defensive systems online.
Jason could see the Imperial Cutter out of the large bridge window, drawing nearer, as all of the screens on the bridge went blank. The lightning flickered once more.
“Your intentions are pure. Your care for her is noted. Put away your weapon and prepare a ship for both of you to depart on. Set a course for the other carrier in the system. Hurry…there isn’t much time.”
Jason raced up the steps again, this time standing behind the captain’s chair. He knelt down, touching a shaking Zooey on the shoulder, as he kept his pistol at the ready. “There is someone or something in here with us. I need to get you to someplace safer.”
The presence of a storm appeared, as before. Swirling with no real form Zooey looked into its midst as the child cooed in excitement. “Mother!” she cried out, as the self shared its attention between the abyss and the child. “Do you know what this is,” it asked as the neural processor's playground began to change at the same instance a distant light appeared from within, drawing nearer. “I know you,” the self said, focusing. “Yes, we are here now and won’t let anything happen to you, but you need to get to a ship and away from here quickly. There isn’t much time.”
“There isn’t much time,” Zooey said, wiping tears from her eyes as Jason looked at her in confusion. “Not much time for what?”
“A way has been cleared and all of the hangars have been made ready. Get her to any ship, and now. Boost to the other carrier as fast as it can take you,” the voice commanded as Zooey reached up, gripping Jason’s arm for support, taking him by surprise. “Hurry.”
“Is it as you thought,” Monty asked as Xochitl unplugged her neural processor's external port from the ship's computer as the Cutter landed on one of the carrier’s large landing pads. “Yes. They rigged the graviton beam generator to activate without a command input.”
Monty chuckled lightly, nodding in acceptance. “It was the smart thing to do.”
“I will delay it as long as I can. Go and help them get to a ship,” Xochitl commanded, a weak smile appearing on her face.
Monty bolted from his chair, racing off of the Cutter’s bridge. As he ran down the nearby steps towards the lower forward access stairs, he knew there was no need for words of bravado or time for any pleasantries. This ship was to be sacrificed either way. Instead of taking the escape pods back to Xochitl’s carrier, he would now be taking one of the ships from this one. At least the ride will be more comfortable, Monty chuckled as his feet hit the hangar floor and he began racing towards a nearby tram, if we survive it.
Xochitl waited until Monty vanished on the tram before rising from her seat and making her way off the bridge. “Close, but not too close,” a voice said, as she smirked, descending the stairs.
Jason raised his pistol as Zooey reached up with her hand, pushing down on it as Monty appeared near an elevator. “There isn’t much time left. Get your asses on the move!”
“Who the hell are you!” Jason spat, as Zooey weakly nodded her head. “We know him. He is a friend. Help us…” Zooey collapsed on the floor as Jason dropped his pistol to catch her as Monty raced over, grabbing her. “There is a ship right above us. We have to move…now!”
Jason and Monty each took a side under Zooey’s arms, dragging her feet as they ran to the elevator.
“Not much time before what?” Jason spat again.
“The fusion reactor of the Cutter we landed on is rigged to detonate. Imagine what 39 megawatts of that will do to this tub!”
Jason moved with a new purpose as they entered the elevator, which began ascending. “I am not the smartest person in the universe, by anyone’s imagination, but to detonate a fusion reactor, onboard a ship that has its own, generating more than 1,000 megawatts from its own reactors! Are you people insane!”
“Only up to the point where the singularity it creates breaks us down into atoms,” Monty replied as the elevator doors opened.
The self watched as coded snippets whipped past it in hurricane-force wind, that neither it nor the child could feel. There was no sound aside from excitement from the child, as it watched the coded colors swirl around before being consumed by the light. The storm began to fade, replaced by a comforting warmth that both of them could feel. “You are now free,” a voice said.
“We are free,” Zooey said weakly, as the padlocked into position. Jason looked down at her as Monty raised the gear of the Imperial Clipper, pushing its engines to full. “Hang onto something,” Monty warned, as he boosted the engineered engines.
Carlos sat at his daughter’s bridge office desk, monitoring events with Yatziri and Avery. A distant star appeared and then faded. A dot in space appeared, where otherwise nothing should be, and now nothing was, except two near landing lights from the Imperial Clipper as it descended onto the waiting landing pad. The stars behind it appeared to distort, as a prismatic ring of color formed, then slowly faded. The distant gas giant that it had once orbited had vanished, as a brief gravitational wave passed. The only announcement of dramatic astrophysical event, that most would never know happened, so far removed from the nomadic trails used by those transiting between Colonia and the Bubble.
Yatziri looked at Carlos curiously as the lines on his forehead deepened. Leaning forward he replayed the recording of the event. Seconds before a second distant star appeared, a small, faint, pinpoint of light could be seen, then it stretched and vanished at the moment of the flash.
Carlos eye’s shifted slowly over to Avery, who looked back at him, nodding her head in silence.