Returned to Life, Part Eighteen
Aug. 28th, 2006 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalNightwind looked thoughtful, glancing down at his cybernetic frame. “You’d be surprised, how alive you can be.”
“You’re right.” Rachael thought for a moment. “Leeza, you don’t think they... they feel anything, do you, when they’re alive?”
Leeza shook her head. “In stasis no. They probably died without pain. I don’t know what they’d feel hooked up to one of the Gene Mage’s machines though. The one time he did it to Teri, it looked like it hurt him pretty badly.”
“We’re getting off track here,” Lance said. “Sergeant, how did you end up here and what happened to the rest of your unit?”
“We’d dropped out of superliminal to reset our course, trying to cover our tracks,” the sergeant said. “This is system seemed perfect for that, with all the debris and no useful planets near by. But our luck just kept running bad. We got painted by a squadron of fighters and our ship was disabled. When the lizards boarded, the Major decided for a last ditch defense instead of surrendering. Everybody got wasted except for me. I think the only reason they didn’t fry me is because their squad leader decided to bring me back as a booby prize.”
“Now what should we do?” Rachael asked.
“Figure a way out of here, rescue Terinu and get away,” Leeza said.
“What about Rufus?” Lance asked.
Leeza looked thoughtful. “Hopefully he ran for the hills once he found that the yacht had been attacked.”
“Maybe it would be better if we sat tight and waited for the cavalry?” Rachael suggested.
The sergeant shook his head. “Frell no. I’m not going to sit here and wait to be disassembled. We should get out and do a recce. This base had to have been built here for a reason. We should find out for what, do as much damage to it as we can, then get out of here.”
“Agreed,” Leeza said. ‘The longer the Gene Mage has Terinu, the longer he has to dissect him. We need to rescue him and get away.”
“But you can’t, not with me tagging along at least,” Rachael said. “The Gene Mage implanted a tracking device in me. If we leave this cell he and the Galapados will know immediately.”
Leeza and Lance glanced at each other dismay, but Nightwind actually grinned. “No worries,” he said. “I’ve got an active sensor spoofer unit hardwired into my frame, to cover the neutrino emissions from my power unit. I can probably boost the power to it enough to hide Rachael’s signal, if she sticks close to me.”
“Perfect,” Lance said. “Now, we just have to figure out how to get out of here.”
“That’s my department,” Leeza said, holding up her belt tool. “Help me out here, Lance.” She kneeled by the door and started working the lock, while Lance held up a small torch he retrieved from his pocket to help her see better.
Racheal sat back on her heels near the sergeant, watching them work and feeling useless. The sergeant glanced at her, frowned, then narrowed his good eye.
“Ain’t that interesting?” he muttered to himself.
“What?” Rachael asked. She didn’t care for the calculating gaze in the Sergeant’s eye.
“I was trying to figure why anyone would stick a tracker into a human girl, so I decided to do a little cross check.” Nightwind tapped the metal half of his skull. “When they installed all my replacement parts, I also got a nice little computer system to monitor the whole rig. It’s like having a hand comp wired right into your brain. One of the real fun toys is a set of face recognition software that’s connected right into a copy of the General Galactic Database.”
She sighed. “You know who I am?”
“Let’s just say you’re looking pretty spry for someone who’s supposed to have been dead for over four hundred years.”
“Not my choice,” she said bitterly. “The Gene Mage kept my around as a souvenir, until he could put me back together and find a use for me. I suppose you think I’m a hero too?”
“Dunno about that. Ain’t much heroic about getting shot dead.” The sergeant grinned. “Besides, it’s the pinkskins that get all gaga over The Three Children. The Vulpine have their own heroes from the days of the Dominion.”
“Like who?”
“Oh, Sharpears the Spy, those poor bastards the Greycoat Brothers, a few others.”
“Maybe I should go back to Vulpine Prime if we live through this,” she said. “I don’t want to go to Earth.”
The sergeant cocked his head. “Why not, that’s home for you, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to be a hero, I don’t want to be... history. If I go back, I’m never going to get any peace. When I was on Unity Station, Ari and I used to complain about having to be Symbolic. We were the Solar Scholars, picked up from over a billion kids to go up to the station. Except we weren’t really there to do any real science, we were there so other people could point up in the sky to their kids and say ‘See! If they can to that, then surely you can do this,’ what ever ‘This’ might be. Probably finishing their vegetables or something. We were a publicity stunt, getting in the way of the real scientists so Unity could have good PR and keep its funding. If I go back to Earth, its going to be ten times, a hundred times worse than that. Somebody, probably a lot of somebodies, are going to want to use me to support whatever cause they’re pushing. They’re going to point to me again and say ‘Here she is, Rachael Namatjira, Rachael the Martyr. She’s why we’re fighting this war! Now go support the Cause!’”
She snuffled once, and heard the sergeant let out a quiet, “Aw, crap.” He motioned for her to stand beside him, and she buried her face into the fur of his good shoulder and let out a short sob. He patted her back with his cybernetic arm and waited for her to calm down.
“I want to do good,” she said, her voice muffled. “But I want it to be a good that I’ve chosen, not someone else.”
“I hear you loud and clear,” Nightwind said. He pushed her way from him gently. “Now quit with the tears, would ya? You’ll get me all rusty.”
She snorted and wiped her face clean. “What do you think I should do?”
“Well, if you want to visit Vulpine Prime one of thes days, my wife and I have got a nice little place. In the meantime, let’s see what kind of good you can do outside of this frelling cell.” He called over to Leeza. “Any luck with the door?”
Leeza turned towards them, looking frustrated. “It’s sealed tight. I can’t even get access to anything to bypass.”
“Let me have a go at it then,” he said.
“What so you know about lock picking, Sergeant?” Lance asked.
Nightwind strode over to the door. “Not a whole lot,” he admitted. Then he punched at the door, denting it far enough to make a handhold, and braced his foot against the frame. “But I do know a bit about breaking and entering.” He pulled back with his cybernetic arm, and there was a loud squeal of protesting metal as the cell door was forced back into its alcove, just wide enough for them to pass through.
“Nice job, Sergeant,” Lance said. “Let’s hope to hell there aren’t any alarms attached to the thing.”
“Then we’d better get out of here before have to find out, Lieutenant,” the segeant said, slipping through the door. “Come on!”
TBC
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