"What do mean the auto-destruct's been activated? Who would do that? It doesn't make any sense." Alonzo stated.
What difference does it make now. We're getting out of here anyway. If they wanna blow this thing sky high, let 'em." Josh responded, as he settled himself into the pilot's seat.
Thompson stood in the cockpit with the other two men. After ensuring that Dr Heller and Dr Ramirez were safely hooked up to the shuttle's med-scanner, he had told the two about his discovery. According to his chronometer, they had less than six minutes left. "That's easy for you to say Heller, you don't give a rat's ass about the Council or it's property. There are nine men on this satelite, men that I am responsible for. We can't just leave them here to die - Mitchell yes, he can burn in hell as far as I'm concerned - but I'm not letting that happen to the others."
Solace thought this over, before turning to Heller. "He's right Josh, we can't let the satelite blow. For one thing we can't let innocent men die."
"Innocent?" The younger man scoffed.
"Yes, *innocent* they were just taking orders, I don't blame them for what happened to Julia. They were misguided yes, but they don't deserve to die for that. Reilly is the one that is responsible for all this, he's the one that set the satelite to self-destruct too no doubt."
"And?" Josh asked impatiently.
"And, if this satelite is destroyed we *all* die."
"What are you talking about?"
"Yale, told you about Franklin Bennett and Elizabeth Anson right? The two scientists on the Venus Class we found." Heller nodded. "Well it's because of them that we even know about this satelite and Eve. We also found out that every member of Eden Advance and possibly all the people on the colony ship too, have bio-stat implants attached to their brain-stem, the bio-stat's are monitored by Eve. If anything happens to Eve we get sick, or even *die*."
"Yeah, I know. Yale told me all about that too. You don't know whether that's true though, that could just have been a coincidence."
"Yeah, maybe it was, but we can't take that risk. So I want you and Thompson to take Julia back to the surface for me, okay? I'm gonna try and stop the rig from blowing."
"Why can't we just wait for you?"
"Because if I don't make it in time and it does blow, I don't want you all going up with it."
"Solace, that doesn't make any damn sense. You just said yourself if the satelite blows, they all die anyway."
The pilot grabbed Heller by the shoulder, his face inches away from the younger man's. "Listen, we haven't got to time to argue about this. Just humour me okay? You also just said yourself, that it may have been a coincidence, let's just pray it was."
"You're right." Thompson told Alonzo, as he opened the shuttle's outer hatch. "But you're not the one who's going, I am." Without waiting for a response, the Leuitenant pushed the heavy metal door open and ran outside. The hatch shut behind him again with a dull clunk.
"Where the hell does he think he's going?" Solace demanded, turning to pursue the older man.
Josh, put a restraining hand on Solace's arm. "Let him go man. He'll be faster than you anyway, he's uninjured and he probably knows exactly how to shut the self-destruct off." The pilot made no move as Josh let go of him, he just stared absently at the shuttle's hatch. Heller set about firing up the shuttle's engines. They had about four minutes left.
"We can't just leave him here."
"Geez Solace, make up your mind will ya. A minute ago, it was fine to leave you."
"That was different."
"No it wasn't, and anyway there's another shuttle. He can catch us up."
Resignedly, Alonzo sat in the seat next to Heller. After a deep breath, and a silent prayer, he too began punching in commands. A low rumble passed through the shuttle, as the thrusters fired.
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Jeffrey Thompson sprinted to the nearest computer terminal with the capability of shutting down the auto-destruct sequence. It was located in the lower deck engineering room. Even as he ran, Eve continued the count-down to destruction.
."..Attention Emergency. You now have T-Minus 2 minutes, 37 seconds till the installation will self-destruct..."
On reaching the Eng. Room, Thompson literally threw himself at the terminal, ripping off the protective cover. Beneath, were a dizzying array of buttons and wires. "Okay now. Easy, easy." The Leuitenant whispered under his breath, as he gently probed the box with his fingers. None of the buttons were labelled, which made his task all the more difficult. He would have to reverse the auto-destruct process by memory.
."..1 minute, 57 seconds..."
"Okay, just give me a second goddammit!" He swore at the offending announcement. Taking a deep breath, which he in fact didn't release. Thompson began pushing buttons in a seemingly random order. A red crystalline display flashed on above his head.
'Cancel Auto-Destruct sequence: Yes or No?'
He jabbed the Yes button, with a shaking index finger.
'Please enter Authorisation Code now.'
Thompson did as he was asked, a bleep accompanied each of the eight digits. After a few seconds, which felt like a lifetime to Thompson, the display flashed once more.
'Authorisation accepted. Auto-Destruct sequence has been cancelled'
Finally able to let out his breath, Thompson noted that the command had been completed with only 24 seconds left. "What was your hurry Jeff? You had plenty of time!" He sighed, with a nervous chuckle. As a fail safe, he also spent a couple of minutes adding a security clearance code to the command. A feature to insure that the Self-Detruction sequence couldn't be re-initiated without a 12-digit, pretty much uncrackable code, of Thompson's design. Satisfied that it wouldn't offer any more of a threat, Thompson replaced the metal cover and left Engineering.
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"How's she doing?"
Alonzo didn't avert his gaze from Julia, as Joshua sat down beside him. "Well she's breathing regularly again."
"Which is good right?" The younger man asked, sensing the despondent tone in Solace's reply.
"I guess." Finally the pilot turned to face Josh. "I don't know man, she don't look so good. I have no idea what all these mean, do you?" He asked, pointed to the med-scanner readouts panel.
"Let me take a look." He shifted position, to get a better view of the electronic read-outs the machine was displaying. "Hmm, now let's see. This is the heart rate monitor, that appears within the norm. Blood pressure - fine." He continued to tick of other elements beneath his breath. "As far as I can tell, everything appears within the green. She's not in tip top condition, but she seems to be out of danger at least." Solace still didn't seem convinced. "Relax, she'll be fine. As a chromotilt, Julia has a very high resistance factor. The sedatives wore her down a bit, but once her body rejects the remaining toxins she'll be right as rain."
"I hope so."
Josh laid a hand on Solace's shoulder in reassurance. Then he turned his attention to the other occupied cot in the small shuttle. "And how's Ramirez doing?"
"Oh, he's doing fine. I gave him a derm-app for the pain, like you said. Then when I hooked him up to this, he went to sleep. Again, I can't really make out most of these readings, but I think his condition's stable."
Leaning over to see the readings on Ramirez's monitor, he concurred Alonzo's report. "Yeah, you're right. He's stable at the moment, his wound has been cleaned and treated. Should be okay by the time we get to G889."
"At least that's something to be happy about."
"Hey, we got alot to be happy about, Solace." Heller rebuked. "We got her back didn't we. I'm telling you, she *will* be fine. You have to believe that, believing is half the battle, right?"
"Okay, okay. I believe you. Let's just drop it."
Heller realised that one thing would convince Alonzo, and only his sister could do that. They would both just have to patiently wait, until Julia herself was strong enough to provide that much needed certainty.
An uncomfortable silence followed, to be shortly broken by a tinny scream of static.
"Solace, Heller, you reading me?" Jeffrey Thompson asked.
Leaving Solace to tend to his two patients, Heller sat back down at the cockpit's control panel. "Yeah Thompson, I'm reading you fine. I take it, by the fact that your still with us, that you managed to de-activate the self-destruct mechanism."
"Affirmative, no problem." Was the static distorted reply.
"Where are you now? Are you in the second shuttle yet?"
"No, I'm in the Comms Room."
"The Comms Room, what're you doing in there? There is'nt much time before the others wake up, you have to get outta there."
"I know. I was just checking to make sure that Reilly hadn't set any other surprises. Everything seems clean though. I'll be launching the shuttle in a couple of minutes."
"Okay. Have you seen any sign of Reilly?"
"No, I haven't seem him. Hey, you've got a point there, where is he?" There was a long pause, before the lieutenant resumed. "Oh shit, I can't leave the satelite with that maniac running around. I'm gonna have to go find him. Thompson out."
"No, Thompson wait! It's not worth it, don't go after him..." It was too late, Thompson had already cut the connection.
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Jeffrey Thompson trekked through corridor after corridor searching for Councilman Reilly, before he realised it would have been a lot quicker searching by modern means. He carried on to the comms room, and with an exaggerated sigh of annoyance, settled down at the main control panel. Passing a hand over every single button on a nearby board, a series of screens flashed into action off to his right. As the many surveillance camera that were liberally spread across the satelite activated, Thompson was given a clear view of who was doing what. As of right now though, that didn't amount to much. One of the survcams showed that the occupants of the crew quarters were still otherwise engaged, mouths open, snoring peacefully without a care in the world. At least that was one thing the lieutenant needn't be bothered with, by the time they all woke up, he'd be long gone. As he turned his attention to the next monitor however, he hoped his last thought wasn't just wishful thinking. The displayed feed was being transmitted from the Med-Bay - the room was deserted. A fact that may have been fortunate in different circumstances, was presently causing Thompson considerable concern. "Shank!" Now Reilly *and* Mitchell were unaccounted for.
"Dammit, why can't things ever be simple?" Thompson swore to himself as he jabbed another button. Deciding it was worth the risk of revealing his whereabouts, he called upon the assistance of the satelite computer. "Eve?"
The reply was immediate, her synthetic voice sickening chipper. "Good Morning Lieutenant Thompson."
"Eve, can you tell me where Councilman Reilly is presently located?"
A short pause, and then "I can not."
Thompson was taken aback by this seemingly evasive reply. "What do you mean 'You can't?" He demanded, his anger rising.
Unaware of the human's growing annoyance, Eve responded flatly. "Councilman Reilly is no longer aboard the 'Excaliber'."
"What?!"
Taking his rage in its literal sense, the computer started to repeat itself. Thompson cut Eve off mid- sentence. "Yes, yes, I heard you the first time. How did he leave, where did he go?"
"He left via an Emergency Escape Vehicle, 8 minutes and thirty six seconds ago. No determinable course was plotted."
Thompson released his pent up anger on the nearest inanimate object, the cockpit chair next to him spun around haphazardly as the Leuitenant fumed. "Goddammit, that son of a bitch!" He put out a hand to still the spinning seat, and then collasped into it. "Shit, he's going to go down to G889 himself. I have to warn Eden Project."
"Leuitenant Thompson?" Eve inquired, waiting for her next command.
"What? Oh nothing, that will be all. De-activate." He replied, but then as an afterthought added, "Just one more thing - Is Sergeant Mitchell still on board?"
"Affirmative. Sergeant Mitchell is presently located in the Shuttle Bay."
*The shuttle bay? Damn I can't let him leave too.* Thompson realised with sudden urgency. He leapt up from his chair and ran from the Comms room. Leaving Eve to her own synthetic ruminations, if she possessed such things...
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"Thompson, are you there? Please respond." Heller tried once more. "Its no good 'Lonz, he either isn't near a comms terminal, or he's just ignoring us." Josh threw down the microphone in frustration. The two men had been trying, unsuccessfully, to reach Leuitenant Thompson, for the better part of an hour. Their intention was to dissuade him from persuing Reilly.
Josh turned around to face Solace so that they could decide on their next strategy. However, his train of thought was broken at the sight of his friend. "Man, you don't look so hot." The young man stated, although even that was an understatement. Alonzo Solace, looked to be at death's proverbial door. His pale face was covered in a thin sheen of perspiration, and his lips matched his eyes, both tinged a bluish purple.
"Gee thanks, a person likes to know when they're looking their worse." Alonzo replied sarcastically, as he self-consciously wiped his face with the back of his sleeve.
Josh ignored the attempt at humour, his face deadly serious. "No really, you look like shit. Are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just feel a bit queasy, that's all."
"Well, its a bit late now to find out you get travel sick, pal." Josh joked stiffly, as he continued to critically regard the pilot. "You sure you're okay?"
"Listen, I'm fine. Don't worry about it." Then in an attempt to change the subject, Alonzo asked. "Do you think we'd be able to contact New Pacifica from our present location?"
Alonzo was relieved when Josh directed his attention to the nearby comms panel. At least the young man was satisfied, for now, with Alonzo's explanation. Truth be told though, Alonzo felt like he was going to either puke or pass out any second, but he'd rather Josh didn't know about it. The last thing they needed right now, was another body strapped into a med-scanner.
After a few minutes of deliberation using the information the shuttle was providing, Heller offered his reply. "I don't see why we can't. We should be within communications range, unless the satelite is still jamming our frequencies." He finished with a shrug. "The best way to find out, would be to just give it a try."
Alonzo frowned, not quite pleased with the prospect of explaining what had happened on the Satelite to his friends. "I suppose." He took a deep breath and then instantly regretted it as a sharp pain knifed threw his stomach. After the discomfort had passed, the pilot opened the comms channel. "Eden Project, this is the shuttle Narcissus, do you copy?"
Alonzo repeated this message a number of times, then all the two men could do was wait with feeling of uncertainty. Finally a familiar voice broke threw the whine of static. "Alonzo, is that you?"
"Yeah Martin, its me." A burst of chatter eminated from the other end, as Morgan Martin excitedly called for his wife. After a few more seconds, the aforementioned woman joined the conversation.
"Thank god Alonzo, are you okay? We were really starting to think the worst down here."
Alonzo waited patiently as Bess began firing a jumble of questions at him. Finally the pilot was given a chance to respond. "I'm alright Bess, glad to be heading home."
After the preliminary queries, Bess entered a territory, Alonzo was pretty sure he didn't want to get into. "Did you find Julia?"
"Yes." He answered non-commitally.
It now sounded like the comms tent was filled with colonists, their muted whisperings filled the shuttle. As Alonzo strained to hear what they were saying, one distinctive voice overlayed the others. "Alonzo, its Devon, how's she doing?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Alonzo saw Josh staring at him. The young man's expression was pained, obviously mirroring Alonzo's own feelings. "She's not doing too good, Dev." He told her, his voice cracking with emotion. "Those bastards pumped her full of chemicals, it ate away at her. He said she might not wake up again."
"What?" Devon asked with confusion. "Who said that?"
Seeing that Alonzo was having difficulty in answering, Josh stepped in. "Ms Adair, its Josh Heller. When we found her, she was unconscious. Ramirez, the Council Doctor, he tried to help her, but he said that she's suffered a total system failure and might not make it."
"What do you think?" She asked quietly.
"My sister's a lot tougher than that." The young man stated matter of factly. "She'll fight it."
An uneasy silence followed, both parties unsure of what to say next. Finally, John Danziger asked, "What in the hell happened up there."
"Its a long story Danziger." Alonzo replied. "And not a pretty one either. We're on our way back though, make sure you're ready for us. Julia and Ramirez will need immediate medical attention. I'll try and get in contact when we're a bit closer to G889."
"Alright 'Lonz, you do that. Just make sure you bring everyone back safely, and be quick about it."
*Amen to that.* Alonzo thought as he cut the connection.
Author's Chapter Notes:
No you're not seeing things, it really is Part 15...
Sorry for the huge delay in posting, unfortunately I don't have a good excuse like Lia, I'm just a lazy so and so. :) I know I've said this countless times before, but I really am going to try and finish the whole thing this month. My life is no longer mega-stressful (at least not as much as before) so I have no excuse not too. Anyway, enough with the rambling..
Without further ado, I bring you
Sorry for the huge delay in posting, unfortunately I don't have a good excuse like Lia, I'm just a lazy so and so. :) I know I've said this countless times before, but I really am going to try and finish the whole thing this month. My life is no longer mega-stressful (at least not as much as before) so I have no excuse not too. Anyway, enough with the rambling..
Without further ado, I bring you
Chapter End Notes:
Comments?? Death Threats??