Sunday, June 27, 2010

Chapter 15: From the Dead

The whole garage shook and in the darkness, Palo grabbed for Vaga and both crashed to hard plasteel floor. Above them, a hole had opened up in the ceiling from the blast, showing thin clouds against the pale blue sky of Draedus. In the few moments of scrambling up from the floor, he gazed up through the hole and saw a ship strafe around the house, plasma shooting from its cannons.

“What is going on?” Vaga shouted as they ran to the side garage door.

Palo thought about it. He couldn't help but think back to that fateful night when he took extra credits to deliver his courier package to the wrong person, a courier package that he didn't know at the time contained a memory kor holding the last vestiges of his dead father – his memory. This situation was so far beyond anything he could have ever fathomed, that he had to stop in the garage to gather his thoughts.

“Come on,” Vaga said, pulling his arm. “This could be our chance to get away!” Another blast tore a hole in the front of the garage. Flames were now running along the roof and smoke billowed down on them.

Palo had to think. This had to be the handiwork of the man who ransacked his apartment, that much was for certain. They were after the kor, his father's memories. He had to get them back, but then he looked into Vaga's face and remembered she downloaded them to herself in an attempt to gain leverage on Morigin. They didn't need the kor anymore – as long as they had Vaga.

“Palo,” Vaga pleaded and coughed. “We must go NOW!”

“Wait!” Palo shouted. “We go out there now, we're dead! There is a ship out there razing the entire place. We need to hold back here as long as possible, make him think we died in the house. It's out only shot.”

Vaga's face had softened and he knew she couldn't resist the logic. Finding a corner away from the fires, they knelt down close the floor and pulled their shirt collars over their nose and mouth. Even with their clothing filtering the air, they still coughed and gagged.

“Listen,” Palo told Vaga. “When our friend is gone, we have to help Morigin. I know you think he's still going to hook you up to that chamber, but I'll find a way to get him to think otherwise. I need you.”

Her eyes runny and wet from the smoke, Palo sensed a brief wave of relief run across her face. He didn't know what it represented, but he felt perhaps, he had won her over, for the time being.

And even though Vaga appeared more open to the concept of travelling and even helping Morigin further, she looked at Palo and said, “And what exactly are you going to tell him that will convince him of that?”

“If he's alive,” Palo said. “I'll tell him you saved his life. And if he's dead, you have nothing to worry about.”

Palo coughed and held up his hand. He heard talking outside. He remembered that voice, even over the roaring fires above them and the idling starship engines outside. That was his attacker – the man he should have delivered his package to. He didn't hear Morigin's voice at all, so Morigin was either wounded badly or, worse, dead. A brief moment later, they heard the whine of boosters as the starship hovered away and rocketed into the atmosphere.

“Okay,” Vaga said. “He's gone. Let's go!”

Palo grabbed his pack with his father's gifts and helped Vaga up. Then, tripping over their feet in a hurry, they stumbled out of the garage. Their faces and hands covered in soot, they crawled through the burning, charred landscape to where Morigin's body lied with two plasma blasts smoking squarely in his chest.

Palo rolled him over to look at his face and noticed Morigin no longer had the cube. “I hadn't thought about the cube,” Palo said. He kicked himself for worrying about the kor containing his father's memory, when the more important piece, the gauntlet had been stolen right out from underneath them.

“Is he dead?” asked Vaga.

Palo peeled back Morigin's eyelids to see lifeless eyes and said, “He didn't make it.”

Just then, the Jade Tendril blasted through the trees and touched down in the smoky clearing with a vengeance, its exterior PA system screaming, “Morigin! Morigin!”

Palo and Vaga jumped back at the appearance of the ship and its ferocity. Fearful, Vaga grabbed Palo's hand and squeezed.

“Don't just stand there!” screamed Jade. “Lift him up and get him in here!”

“But, he's dead, Jade,” Palo dared to say.

“Don't you say it!” the ship barked back. “Just bring him in and hook him up to the medsystems. Now!”

Vaga and Palo leapt at her commands, each grabbing Morigin at oppsite ends and hauling him up the ramp and into the cabin. Once there a disguised wall panel made to look like a storage locker slid down and opened up revealing a compact tube with a clear plastic covering.

“Open it up,” Jade said as she was already closing the entrance ramp and firing the halo boosters for a takeoff. “Get him in there and hook him up to the leds and the IV.”

Palo and Vaga struggled to get him in the tube and as Vaga patched the leds onto Morigins chest and head, Palo stood transfixed, looking at the needle at the end of the IV tube.

“Hook up the IV Palo,” Jade said. That time her voice had calmed, but Palo sensed a bit of annoyance in the voice.

Palo grabbed the needle and motioned to inside elbow of Morigin's left arm. Deftly jabbing the needle at the skin, he was obviously having issues.

“Get the IV in now, Palo!” Jade was back to yelling.

Palo backed away and threw up his hands. “I don't know any of this! I was a courier, not a nurse!!”

Vaga finished with the leds and grabbed the IV needle from Palo's hands and deftly inserted it into Morigin's arm and closed the tube. “Go, Jade,” she said.

Jade closed the tube and retracted it into the bowels of the ship. Palo thought the whole process seemed odd, watching Jade swallow up Morigin's body like that. He thought of swamplikker bugs and how the female always tore apart the male after breeding and fed him to the larvae.

Vaga patted him on the shoulder and slumped down in one of the plush cabin chairs.

Palo turned to her and said, “Where did you learn to do that?”

Vaga shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don't know. I don't remember learning it. I'm guessing part of the programming for conduits is field triage.”

Palo sat down next to her and said, “Is there a lot of stuff you can do that you don't remember learning?”

Vaga turned away and looked uncomfortable. Obviously there was a lot about being a conduit that made her self conscious. Palo imagined she probably had done a lot of stuff she wouldn't have had she been allowed a normal human life. “I'm sorry,” Palo said. “I didn't mean to pry.”

The viewscreen in the cabin lit up, showing the expanse of space. A reticle bounced from location to location, running different analyses on them.

Palo stood up and said, “Where are we headed? What're we going to do?”

For a few moments, Jade ignored them, busy with her calculations.

“Jade?” Palo said.

Vaga kicked her feet up on another chair and said, “You better find one hell of a medic, Jade. I plugged Morigin in. I sensed no life signs, even in your medical systems.”

“Quiet, conduit,” Jade said sternly. “I'm searching for something. Here it is! Prepare for departure. Setting course for Odiacz.”

Vaga turned her head to the viewscreen and said, “Odiacz? Never heard of that system...and I've been around.”

The viewscreen pulled up a brownish planet called Cilbuper-2 populated with massive city structures all lit up in activity and business. Then Jade pulled up a window file showing a creature with no facial features and long braided brown hair. “Odiacz isn't a planet or system. She's a healer. A friend of your father's, Palo.”

* * *

“You must bring me to him immediately,” Odiacz told them.

Palo couldn't help but stare at the strange woman. With no features on her face: no eyes, nose or mouth; he thought it a miracle that he could hear her speak. Not to mention, her choice of home. Ostracized by the public, Odiacz found her home deep within the bowels of the sewer. Condensation dripped on them from above and every corner they heard the trickle of water running. And the smell. Palo tried to be polite, but he kept rubbing his nose because he couldn't stand it anymore.

Vaga grabbed his arm and said, “Palo? She wants to go.”

“Right,” he said. “Not a moment too soon.”

Together the three of them wandered through the sewers and made their way up to the city, to an abandoned industrial park, where the Jade Tendril sat waiting, the ramp down and ready for their arrival.

Palo ushered Odiacz up the ramp and Vaga followed. In the ship's cabin, they saw the medical tube open and Morigin lying in it, the black plasma burns on his chest staring back at them.

“Oh, my dear,” Odiacz said. She ran to Morigin's side, her dirty, tattered, slothen robes swishing in her wake. Once there, she dropped to her knees and held up an arm through her robes, only what came out wasn't an arm, but series of five brown tentacles that slithered about Morigin's body, searching for places to attach to his skin.

Palo tapped Vaga on the shoulder and said, “What is she doing?”

Vaga looked at him with a surprised face and said, “What? You think I know what she's doing? I stowed away on this ship. I have no idea what is going on.”

Then Odiacz chanted something and the tentacles over Morigin's body made little sucking or kissing noises on his body. Palo leaned toward the action to get a glimpse of the tentacles. In a way, they reminded him of the first time he saw Vaga use hers, only hers were fibrous interfacers for technology. Just as Palo leaned his head over the tentacle covered body, Morigin sat up and screamed a gurgly, blood-curdling scream, causing Palo to skitter backwards and fall over a plush cabin chair.

Morigin coughed and then collapsed back in the pod. Now the medunit registered a heartbeat and breathing with lonely beeps and whistles.

Odiacz retracted her hand tentacles beneath her robes and slowly stood up. “I am weak. Water. Please, may I have some water.”

Vaga helped her to a chair, while Palo brushed himself off and retrieved a waterpac for her. Sitting in the cabin with the strange woman in silence, Palo wondered why they hadn't heard Jade since they got back. He felt lost. He glanced at Vaga, but she too had the same blank look he had. For the first time since they all met, both of them realized that without Morigin, they had no direction.

The strange tentacle woman sat across from them, her tentacles wrapped around the waterpac, sucking the water from the foil package. Palo figured, after all this, that she used telepathy to speak. That was the only explanation.

“You are correct,” Odiacz said. “Do not be embarassed for your thoughts about me. I have chosen the life I lead. But now your friend, dear Morigin is better. He will heal properly, so apply your standard bandages and ointments. He will be weak and may need help doing things. Before long you will have your direction again.”

“But what is that direction?” Palo asked, leaning closer to her. “You were a friend of my father's, I am just beginning to grasp all this. I feel like we're caught up in something so big, there isn't any possible way to affect anything.”

“Ah, but you do,” ahe said, her tentacles still making the sucking noises on the waterpac. “Your father always said you had it in you, that somewhere deep inside you believed, but you just lost sight of it. What you just witnessed was a testament to his beliefs. Morigin is not alive because of a technological miracle, boy. He's alive because it willed him back to life.”

“It?” Vaga asked.

“Zetu, Fharj'Enhet, God, Kalickna, Etuney,” she rambled on. “Every species has a name for it – the divine creator, the binding will of the universe.”

“But that's impossible,” Vaga said.

“No, not impossible,” Odiacz said. “Only forgotten over millenia of disbelief.”

“But we don't even know where to start,” Palo said. “Morigin died trying to protect some weird gauntlet my father had found.”

Odiacz gasped and her tentacles stopped sucking on the waterpac. “He found it?”

Palo looked confused. “Um, yes. But it doesn't matter. They took it.”

Odiacz leaned toward Palo and said, “Describe it to me. What did it look like?”

“I don't know,” Palo said. “It was shiny.”

“It was golden and encrusted with fabulous jewels,” Vaga said, remembering how attractive it looked to her. “When I gazed upon on it, I felt odd, almost like their was a power that emanated from it.”

Odiacz leaned back in her chair and made a noise that sounded like wet mud hitting the floor. “Ah, no worries, friends.”

“What do you mean no worries?” Palo asked. “They took it. Morigin said there were a bunch of pieces to this armor and if someone collected them all, they be granted a great power. We lost the piece!”

“Your father,” Odiacz said. “You underestimate him. What you saw was not a piece of the armor. It was a fake. Your father knew he was being watched by other forces. He knew if the piece got into the wrong hands it could be disastrous.”

“But if what they stole was a fake,” Vaga said. “Where is the real piece?”

Odiacz's tentacles went back to suckling the waterpac and she said, “If I know your father well enough, he hid it in the last place anyone suspicious would look. Out in plain sight.”

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