Chapter 4: A Secret Weapon

Deep in the Outer Realm around the system of Vomisa a small contingent of Slavo destroyers were quickly losing a lop-sided fight against an armada of GSA battleships. Barrages of plasma cannon blasts punched holes into the Slavo ships, who spun out of control and launched a counter-attack of tunneler missles, designed to puncture hulls and either depressurize ships or deploy troop infiltration. The Slavo tunnelers leapt at the batlleships, and as if they had dealt with this tactic numerous times, the battleships opened fire – not on the Slavo ships, but on the incoming missles.

Plasma lit up the space between the ships, and even a few stray blasts connected with the Slavo ships on the other side. Missle after missle were blown apart. The last ditch effort of the Slavos was dwindling down and the GSA armada focused all their firepower at the few stragglers left. Soon only one missile remained, side-winding around blasts and floating wreckage until it slammed into the hull of the GSAS Redav.

On the bridge, the captain barked orders to his crew, “Get a welcome committee down there now! And arm your greenpacs. I don’t want any mixers aboard my ship!”

An officer stepped up to the captain and asked, “But what if their goal isn’t infiltration? Those men will be thrown into the vacuum of space.”

The captain disregarded the man and said, “I don’t want those abominations on my ship – no matter the cost.”

Below decks a column of marines donning plastellic armored airsuits waited outside a blast door. Nervous breath fogged the clear viewplates of their helmets. A few of them shook so hard their rifles wavered in their hands.

“Listen,” said the squad leader. “I know you’re afraid. But we don’t have time for that now. Many of you haven’t even seen a Slavo up close.” He pointed to a glowing green button on his suit’s chest plate. “This is your greenpac. It’s a biogenetic toxin. Don’t worry, it takes about forty-eight hours before it kills us. Until then, you’ll be fine. The upside is that if any of those damn mixers gets you, this toxin scrambles up your DNA when it hits their bloodstream, preventing them from absorbing it.”

“They eat their victims?” asked one soldier.

“They’re mixers. They eat the flesh of their victims to absorb their power, their knowledge. Why do you think we’re fighting them?” asked the squad leader. Then he turned to the rest and said, “Alright! Activate your greenpacs.” Throughout the squad rang a series of clicks and whooshes as the toxins were injected into the soldiers. Once clear, the squad leader nodded his head and a marine activated the blast door. The marines aimed their weapons at the thick metal door scraping open before them.

Once the door was open, the soldiers were awestruck and their weapons slowly relaxed as they laid eyes on a young attractive woman standing in the compartment by herself. She held her arms behind her and looked lost, confused and innocent. Her silvery hair was cropped short save for a thin stretch running from her forehead over the top and down to the base of her neck. She wore a tight, gray, one-piece jumpsuit with lines of red squares running down the sides of her legs and arms. The marines were so surprised at her presence that they never noticed the thin hair-like extensions sprouting from her fingertips behind her back. The thin fibers stretched to the floor and felt their way to the wall, where a control panel glowed.

The girl smiled coyly as the marines tried to ascertain what was going on. One of the marines looked at the control panel and saw the glowing fibers interfacing with the panel.

“A conduit!!!” he screamed to his squadron leader.

The squadron leader barked into his wristcomm, “We got a conduit, pull the PMT.”

An officer’s voice bellowed back through the squadron leader’s wristcomm, “But it’s experimental! We don’t even know if that will work?”

“Do you want to wait until she’s handing us and the ship over to the Slavos!” yelled the squadron leader.

Just as the squadron leader turned, a metallic pop echoed throughout the ship. Then the lights in the ship cut-out briefly and then shut off. Plunged into darkness, the marines scrambled to the primitive glow wands stored on their wrist guards. After a few of broke their wands and shook up the luminescent fluid, they noticed a different light source – coming from the girl. They looked and to their horror saw the girl’s eyes beaming white light and the rows of red squares lining her jumpsuit were lit up. One of the marines noticed a brief smile on her face, before he felt her foot break his jaw.

* * *

Maintenance crews scrambled around in the darkness of the Redav trying to restore power to the ship. In some places limited lighting blinked on, but most functional areas of the ship were dead. A crew near the escape pods was busily trying to retap into the ship’s systems to get their sector online.

“You really think there’s a conduit on board?” asked one of the technicians. He seemed frightened and inexperienced in the dull glow of their wands.

Repairing some wires in a console, another technician said, “That’s crazy. All the conduits were hunted down years ago.”

“Or so they say,” said another technician. “If they’re all gone, why’d they pull the PMT. It’s experimental. Supposed to drain all power within twenty ticks. Imagine a huge off switch for an entire fleet. No way they risk our ships falling into the atmosphere, if there wasn’t a real conduit on board.”

“Yeah,” said another technician, trying to hack into the system code. “No way the GSA is going to let one of them survive. You know what they do, right?”

The frightened technician looked around to the others and said, “Sure. They’re human interfacers.”

“No,” said the hacker technician. “Conduits are the bane of the GSA. They’re born into slavery and nanetically enhanced to interface with all technology. The Slavos built them to destroy the things that make this galaxy great. All it would take is one conduit in the right place at the right time and it could destroy the GSA – break it down to primitive levels. There would be no control. Chaos in system after system. No order. All of civilization would degrade into barbarianism. And who wins in those situations? The Slavos.”

“Oh,” said the frightened technician.

The hacker technician saw the fright on the young man’s face and smiled. Then he broke in and said, “Plus they think more like a machine than a human. Meaning in combat, they kill anything that will compromise them.”

Just then a shadow whisked behind them. The frightened technician said, “What was that?! Was that it?”

“Shut up,” said the lead technician, who stood up and began walking down the hallway near a battery of landing pods. He held his glow wand to the thick viewglass to each pod and checked each one. But he found nothing, so he turned around and rejoined his crew.

Inside the fifth landing pod, the conduit sat against the pod door. Moments earlier the glow from the technicians wand lit up the inside of the pod, but she didn’t think he saw her. When the glow went away, she frantically moved about the tight cabin of the pod. She had never felt this way before. Ever since she could remember, there was always a cool voice in her head directing her on what to do. And she always listened, or at least she felt compelled to listen. But that cool voice was now absent and she didn’t know what she should do.

She fumbled with numerous controls – flipping levers, twisting knobs and such. Nothing. There wasn’t any power in the whole ship. The crew did something that killed the ship and changed her – removed the cool voice in her head. Frustrated, she sat down in the pod seat and relaxed. Holding up her left palm, the glowing fibers grew out of her fingertips. The head of each fiber was lit up with light. They writhed like tiny snakes under her control.

Under her control. Of course. She leapt from the seat and held her palm over the pod controls. The fibers writhed out of her fingertips and entered the control panel, weaving an intricate web into the technology. Soon her eyes began to glow with white light, buttons began flickering and the console lit up. Systems uploaded and a launch sequence was initiated.

When the work was done, the fibers retracted form the technology and receded back into her fingertips. Stumbling from the console, she fell backwards onto the cold steel floor. In an almost completely weakened state, she pulled herself into the pod seat and strapped on the safety harness. She had no idea where she was or where she was going, but she didn’t care. Whatever this new feeling was, it felt good. She was free. Closing her eyes, the landing pod detached from the battleship and blasted off, away from the dead ship.

* * *

The conduit indulged in a deep sleep, a dreamy sleep she had never experienced since birth. Images of people she thought were her parents flashed in her head, memories that had long laid dormant in her mind. Then the fire and smoke of her abduction, her very own screams being drowned out by the Slavos. She saw herself strapped to a crude table with Slavo surgeons surrounding her, lowering a mask over her face. Then suffocation and blackness.

A sudden lurch awakened her. Startled by her dream, she lashed out with her fibers, only to retract them in embarrassment. She unbuckled her restraints and looked out the small window in the pod. She was approaching some sort of space station – a large disc, about ten ticks wide with a core of buildings running through the center. The pod was prepping for docking into the station. When it lurched into position, she waited for the rush of air to signal the bay had been pressurized, before she twisted the hatch release and opened the pod door.

After she passed through the bay doors, her senses were assaulted with the sheer commerce taking place on the concourse within the station. Lights flashed and music blared, selling everything from tac noodles and cartho boosters to pints of grommel and batucakes. As she walked past each vendor, she felt saliva pool in her mouth and her stomach began to quake. It had been so long since she had felt those feelings. Stepping over to a vendor selling kabo lizard skewers, she pointed to one of the fresh skewers of sweet meat rolling over the open flames.

“Ten credits,” said the vendor.

The conduit smiled and then felt up and down her tight gray jumpsuit, but it left no room for pockets to hold credits. And even as hungry as she was, she had to turn to the vendor and say, “Sorry.”

Around and around the concourse she roamed, unable to partake in any of the delectable goods. Frustrated, she sat down on a bench between two fracca plants and watched the various travelers pass back and forth. A family strode by with luggage and bickered at each other. Businessmen bustled to and fro. A tall lanky man stood by a machine. She watched him punch in a few codes and then withdraw credits from the machine. Holding up a finger, she extracted one of her fibers and looked at it.

“It isn’t really stealing, is it?”

Back at the kabo lizard stand, she sat at a small table devouring the sweet meat. Seven empty skewer sticks already adorned her table and she had three more to go. Even some of the other patrons looked at her weirdly, wondering where her appetite came from. When finished, she sat back and patted her belly and said, “That was good.”

Later, she walked about the concourse sipping on ado nectar and realized she was having the time of her life. She liked being in control, making her own choices. The food filled her with energy. The drink felt cool and tingling on the back of her throat. She wondered how much of her life she had missed. How old was she? Where were her parents? She vaguely remembered something about a colony ship and plating herbs in rusty soil.

In front of her a crowd had gathered near a gaming booth. Above all the patrons glared over a dozen viewplates showing pitfights. She shuffled up to the crowd and watched the fighters get ready onscreen. On the left side of the screen, a silver pedtech with blue pinstripes and quad panels swung its metal arms and loosened the ball joints in its legs. Emblazoned across the blue shoulder panels in jagged silver lettering was the name – Ring Bear. It held a large rusty chain with a spiked mace dangling on the end. On the right side, a pewter and red pedtech spun its torso completely around numerous times, brandishing blades running under its forearm plates. After spinning, it clapped the blades together in a shower of sparks. The name Sun Spot Sun gleamed in red down its pewter quarter panels.

The conduit looked around and found a Pentak bookie at the booth taking bets.

“Action! Action!” said the Pentak, his speech more bark than language. “50 to 1 on the Bear. 7 to 1 on Spot!”

And like that, the crowd went nuts handing and throwing credits at the Pentak bookie, who used all six of his hands to collect the money and register the bets. The conduit reached into the breast of her jumpsuit and pulled out her last remaining credits. Reaching through the crowd, she called out, “100 on Bear! 100 on Bear!”

Within moments, she felt the rough armored hands of the Pentak take her credits, then suddenly, she felt a different hand on her shoulder. She wasn’t able to get a glimpse of the person behind her until she was thrown backward and to the hard tile floor. As she skidded backward, she saw them – four Slavo scouts.

Being genetic mixers, Slavos all looked uniquely hideous. The only real way to know they were Slavo was by the uniform – tight gray jumpsuits with red squares running down the sides of their arms and legs. The leader, a hulking mass with head feathers, a toothy beak, four eyes and a reddish skin color, stood before the others – a cavalcade genetic mutations. One of them was a female humanoid with indigo skin, white eyes and one hand was larger than the other, loaded with long spindly fingers. Another was rather small, had three legs, skull tendrils, amber skin and no nose. The last Slavo was extrmemely thin, like an ikidu spider, with five arms, pale skin and a mandible mouth. A shiver ran down the conduit’s spine.

“Come with us conduit,” said the large Slavo. “And we won’t eat you.”

When she tried to stand up, the other three scouts reached down and dragged her to her feet. They walked her to the largest of the Slavos – his jumpsuit displayed the markings of an officer. He pulled out a wicked looking metallic injection gun from the holster hanging from his hip. “This will really, really hurt,” he said. Slavo voices were more like thick, wet gurgles than voices.

Then out of nowhere the viewplates at the pitfight booth shuddered and went black, just when Ring Bear was about to deal the death blow. The crowd grew into a frenzy. An ado nectar cup hit the large Slavo in the face. When the Slavos looked over to the crowd, the conduit kicked downward on her captor’s knee and bolted off to the expressway.

“Get her,” the officer shouted.

But it was too late. She had stepped onto the expressway and rocketed down the concourse.

When she arrived at the end of the expressway, she looked back to see the Slavos leaping down the expressway toward her. Running as fast as she could, she headed toward the nearest elevator and pressed the up button, but the elevator wouldn’t get to her in time. So she held out her fingertips to the controls and let the fibers weave into the wiring. Before long she saw the elevator falling down to her.

“I like this,” she said, before the elevator arrived.

Just then, she heard someone say, “There it is. Hit the PMT.”

To her right, a GSA police team bore down on her.

Frightened, she quickly extracted the fibers from the elevator controls and turned left where the Slavos leapt closer down the expressway. Her brow began to sweat as one of the GSA police said, “A PMT on the Kcid station? You’re crazy. Without power there’s nothing keeping this place in orbit.”

She turned around and saw the four Slavos almost on top of her before she heard the sweet “ding” of the elevator. The doors opened up and she quickly she stepped in and shut the doors. Interfacing with the controls she rocketed the car up the shaft and away from her pursuers.

Somewhere on deck 45, four Slavo scouts waited for an elevator to arrive and open its doors – but it was empty. The feathers on the officer’s head and neck fluffed up and he screamed into the empty elevator car.

Six floors up, on deck 51, the elevator shaft doors peeked open a sliver, then closed again. Then they opened a little further, only to close again. Behind the doors there was a frustrated huff, then a grunt as the doors opened just enough to let two female hands jut out and lever open the doors. With enough room, she lifted herself out of the empty elevator shaft, her face and hands covered in grease smudges.

On her feet, she staggered to the nearest docking bay door – 51-AA. Exracting her fibers over the doorlock, she heard the locks click from the inside and lurch open. Hidden off to the side, she waited until the occupant walked out. He was very eclectic. His clothes looked like they were from a different planet – a different era. Plus he carried a fantastically jeweled stick buckled to his clothes and he had a green sash tied around his head that wafted in the air as he strode away from the docking bay door.

Swiftly, she stepped into the docking bay just as it closed behind her. In the docking bay sat a fabulous ship, fashioned in the shape of an airshark. It looked to have many dents and gouges no doubt from run-ins with debris. It hummed dully and it soothed her. So she snuck up on it and holding out her hand, she interfaced with the ship and opened the entrance ramp.

As she boarded the ship, the artifacts that adorned Morigin’s ship amazed her. Old paper journals, maps, they all looked so alien to her. She ran her hand across all the golden trinkets, the medallions, she couldn’t help but smile. A rich history hung on these walls, a lot of stories to uncover.