9 Years, 5 Months, 21 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
“Could someone help me?” asked Megan as she tried to ignore the fact that Ben was crushing her.
James quickly stepped over to her and picked Ben up bridal style.
Ben groaned and opened an eyes, “Hell no I’m not dying like this.”
James looked around the room, “well where did you imagine dying?”
“Either in the middle of an explosion, or I don’t know when Megan hit me with something?”
Megan sniffed her eyes watering already.
“Damn it Ben.”
James moving over and carefully put the engineer down in one of the Council chairs, dragging him and the chair from the raised stage and down next to Megan.
Slowly Night crept over to Ben and crawled up to settle on the arm of the chair.
“Do you guys believe in the afterlife?” asked Ben.
Night tilted his head to the side, “afterlife?”
“What happens when you die?”
The Tanuin shifted slightly, “You rejoin the sound of the universe, is that what you mean?”
Ben smiled and Megan winced as a small amount of blood ran down his chin. Ben coughed and tried to raise a hand up to his mouth.
Reaching out Megan quickly wiped the blood away with her own hand.
Ben looked at her and closed his eyes again taking a deeper breath.
“Tom.”
The young man who had been slowly moving away looked up, “Yes?”
“You’ve got the right idea, but don’t get so angry so quickly. It’s something that can be used against you.”
Tom quickly nodded, “Right.”
Ben nodded as well and put a hand out to Megan.
She quickly took it.
Tears were streaming down her face now.
Ben looked at her and sighed, “We had fun.”
Megan sniffed again, “We did yeah.”
“You had better keep having fun, figure out how to stick it to the aliens, figure out how to blow up a star or something.”
Megan weakly smiled, “that’s a little ambitious, don’t you think?”
Ben weakly shrugged, “Something to shoot for.”
He groaned and put a hand to his stomach, “Oh, their it is. Here I was thinking I’d get to avoid that symptom.”
Despite herself Megan let out a small laugh.
“Yay,” muttered Ben.
Megan reached out and lightly tapped his arm, “really now, of all times you’re going to make jokes?”
“Don’t have much time left.”
Megan leaned up against him, “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”
Ben was silent for a moment.
“You’ll be fine,” he finally rasped out.
“I know that, but,” Megan trailed off not sure what to say.
“Find some new assistant who can deal with you chucking stuff at them, that would be my first recommendation.”
“Only you’re enough of an idiot to deserve that kind of treatment.”
Ben chuckled and groaned, coughing again another spurt of blood fell from his lips.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“Sorry.”
The two were silent for several more moments and they both watched as the people, the councilors and everyone else in the room continued to deal with the aftereffects of the night. Everyone had moved away though, giving them space.
The doors opened again and James strode back into the room, Megan hadn’t even noticed him leaving.
Walking over to her he paused, and put Bens gun as well as another two vials in Megan’s lap.
She glanced down at them, and then back at James, “thank you.”
He nodded, “Ben.”
Ben nodded at him wincing.
Megan slowly picked up his gun, and moving over slid it back into the holster.
“Am I taking things with me?”
“Never hurts to be prepared.”
“No I guess not.”
Megan looked at the vials, and at the syringe that James had put in her lap.
“Do you want this?”
Ben glanced down at the drugs.
“I want to say no, but then the other half of me is afraid I’ll want it and I won’t be able to say anything,” Ben hesitated and moved his hand slightly towards them, “I don’t want you to do it either.”
Megan frowned looking down at them, “I could.”
“I don’t doubt you could, and I would want you too, but that’s selfish. As much pain as I’m in you’ll still think you killed me. I don’t want you to even think that’s the case.”
Reaching down Ben picked up one vial and the syringe.
Megan’s eyes widened, “Now?!”
“No, I don’t want you to do anything to help.”
Leaning forwards slightly and concentrating Ben put the first vial to the needle and extracted the drug, dropping it to the ground and picking up the second Ben leaned back into his seat, the syringe in his hand.
“I’m going to miss everything.”
“Everything?” asked Megan.
“Meeting more aliens, exploring, fighting, I’m going to miss it all. We’re so close too!”
“We’re going to be at war Ben.”
“I can’t think it’ll all be war; we’ve got to have time in their to explore a little. Find something out their that’ll make this all worth it.”
He took another shuddering breath.
“It’s why we built the Ark in the first place, so we could explore.”
Megan watched as he closed his eyes now near completely red from blood, which was now steadily trickling down from his tear ducts.
“I love you Megan.”
Megan sniffed and closed her eyes leaning in closer to him, “I know that.”
Megan felt a shaky arm drape itself across her shoulders.
For several minutes she concentrated on the sound of his breathing, letting the sound drown everything else in the world away. For several minutes she just listened and remembered it. The heartbeat shallowed slightly, and then died.
Megan remained still, tears streaming down her face.
Opening her eyes Megan looked down at the empty syringe in his other hand.
Staring at it for a moment Megan, reaching out knocked it to the floor. Sitting up Megan carefully moved his arm away and settled it in his lap.
Slowly she rolled herself forwards, away from him and into the center of the room.
Everyone had gone silent, how they knew when it happened she had no idea. The Councilors, James, the Tanuin, the young soldier and everyone else looked at her.
“I want the damage reports so my team and the Tanuin can get to work fixing this mess. James, tell Red to grab an engineering team and tow the Russia back to the Fort, Councilors I am going to investigate this black lab. I’ll give a public report on what I find in six hours,” Megan glanced down, “I’d also appreciate it if I could have my prosthetics back.”
Stepping into the Lab Megan looked around, it was a small room barely larger than her apartment. On the far wall from the door were banks of computers, off on the left side was what appeared to be the biological examination station. On top of one of the tables was a clear container, where a single Tanuin body lay.
It slowly turned, beady eyes glaring at her, all signs of intelligence in it gone replaced by the gaze of a tortured and beaten animal.
“Jesus,” muttered Megan.
Night slowly moved forwards climbing up onto the table.
“Megan, this creature is being kept alive only by the machines. It is injured.”
Striding over Megan grimaced, looking at the array of tubes and sensors that were strapped to it.
“Should we turn those machines off?”
Night quickly hopped on top of the container, “No!”
“It’s injured, it might not be Alpha anymore but it is suffering.”
“We cannot, only Alpha may do this.”
“Alpha’s catatonic.”
Night shifted on top of the container, “that is the best human word closest to his condition. This creature, is still calling to Alpha. It is a weak call even for our senses, but it has the greatest chance of rousing him.”
“Then what? I didn’t think you could rejoin bodies and minds once broken.”
“No. It can be resolved though,” said Night.
“Meaning?”
“Humanity might look upon what will happen wrongly, it will appear very alien to you. I fear it might convince you of the Councilor’s opinion. That we cannot be trusted, we are different something you might reject.”
“Night, we just went through all of this, I have to see what else is in the lab, and bury my Husband. I don’t have the time for you to mince words, spit it out,” snapped Megan.
Night looked at her for a moment, “When we introduce this thing to Alpha, he will attack and kill it.”
Megan blinked, “That’s all?”
“You are not distressed?”
“You have said it’s no longer Alpha, will killing it heal him?”
“It is the best chance, but not certain. It allows him to resolve the missing parts of himself as permanently gone, and begin to heal. Alpha is old, and like with humans the younger of our kind better deal with and adapt to neurological damage. At the dawn of our civilization it was not uncommon for many to lose bodies during childhood to the predators of our world.”
“Night, Humans can understand this.”
Night was silent for another moment, “I am glad.”
“Can Alpha wait a few more minutes, I need to see what else is in here.”
“I will remain here and attempt to calm it,”
Megan nodded and turning around stepped back out of the lab and looked at the guards outside, “Get a cart or something to carry a container. We’re going to need to move something.”
“Yes ma’am.” Said one.
Megan retreating into the lab strode over to the computers on the far wall. Looking at them for a moment she frowned and looked at the construction. The computer was an amalgamation of several different systems, none of them standard by any means.
What looked like a Martian logistics and data security node dominated the wall, it was a piece of equipment that had during the war been crucial to secure communication for their military. Earth had tried and failed many times over to get their hands on one, they had only ever able to obtain the schematics.
Frowning Megan looked at the equipment leading off from it, several sets of standard computer servers were wired into it, and from them were two small black cubes almost hidden behind the rest of the equipment on the wall.
Megan’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
“Son of a bitch.”
Megan hit her earpiece, “I need a medical team down to the black lab now! I also need neurological specialists in here right now!”
The guards outside the room quickly moved in, “Captain, we were ordered to not allow anyone else into the lab,”
“You see that?” asked Megan pointing at the cubes.
The guard hesitated, “Yes.”
“Those, those are people. That bastard took the research I did with Ben, to save the life of a little girl and twisted it. Those, are human brains wired into this computer! Most likely the brains of children! You want to leave them here for five more minutes while we clear this with the council?”
The guard paled and looked back at the cubes.
“Kids?” he asked.
“Kids. I’m going to kill Yan.”
The guard shook his head, “I don’t think anyone will try to stop you.”
Megan turned around to look at the computer assembly again, as well as the equipment that led to the brains.
“You believe this man was experimenting, on your offspring to what ened?” asked Night voice low.
“Like you said, out children are more neurologically adaptable. This does explain what he might have been doing with Alpha’s body, your brains must be constructed to deal with signal lag and processing time. If that could be duplicated in human brains and networked through ha computer,” Megan trailed off.
“To be able to harm children in such a way though, it is unthinkable.”
“Humanity can be evil Night,”
The Tanuin moved, only a single body remaining on top of the container the rest quickly crawling over to the wall.
“Still, this sounds like something the aliens who attacked both our races would do.”
Megan sighed, “I’m sure they have some good people too Night, you can’t classify everyone into good or bad categories. Have the Tanuin never had anyone who committed evils?”
“We have, but they are never allowed to act. We are always in contact with one another, during the escape from our planet though when the aliens attacked, and communication between ships in space was broken.”
Night hesitated, “Some ships deliberately sacrificed others to escape.”
Megan slowly nodded, “That’s a familiar story.”
“Then we cannot treat all Humans as friends, can we?”
Megan looked down at the creature, Night looked back up at her.
“No.”
“How do we know which ones we can trust? Which ones are right?”
“Do the same thing Humans do. Trust them, and hope your instincts, your feelings about them are right. Some Humans will never betray their friends, while others will do it for only the smallest advantage.”
“Which are you?”
“Which kind do you think I am?”
“You are the kind who we can trust, you met us in the beginning, and you have only helped. Both you and Ben.”
Megan smiled, “Then you’re going to have to have faith. Same thing I have in you.”
Night slowly bowed his head.
“Thank you.”
Megan nodded and reaching out slowly began to poke around at the cables and wires holding the brains, “Get Yern in here. I want to know what’s on these computers.”
“Should he delete the virus?” asked Night.
“No, as horrible as it is, we can defend against it now. We know what to look for, we need every weapon possible to fight the aliens.”
“You want to use it on them? We do not even know if the computer systems are compatible.”
“Well, like I said. It’s not a threat anymore.”
“Alright.”
Megan looked up as the medics entered the room.
“I’ll help you with Alpha after dealing with this.”
“It is appreciated.”
Rolling the cart into the Tanuin compound Megan pulled the cover off of it and looked in at the creature inside for a moment.
The thing looked helpless, injured and desperate. Shaking her head Megan picked up the container and heaved it over a shoulder.
“Are you sure you want to see this?” asked Night.
“Night, Humanity nearly betrayed you and your race and you keep acting like we’re the ones that need to be appeased. This is fine,”
“I am simply checking.”
Megan nodded and walking down the main corridor looked around at what the Tanuin had built, the compound was much more organized than last time. Metal ducts and material ran in every direction acting as paths for the Tanuin who moved about what was essentially a nest, one constructed out of metal and other human materials but a nest nonetheless.
“Are you going to want to build things like this on a ship?” asked Megan.
“We are adapting to Humanities standards. It makes sense for us to get used to your structures, you being much larger and less nimble. Still, sections of a ship that are smaller and which can seal for combat would be appreciated.”
“I have ideas about helping you guys handle a vacuum.”
“Really?”
Megan nodded, “Suits for you would be difficult but not impossible, I have some other ideas though.”
“Now I am curious.”
“I’ll show you what I’ve come up with later.”
Night ducked into another room, one that would have been an apartment had humans been using the building and Megan followed. The room was colder than the rest of the compound, and around the room on the floor were small constructs, almost boxes. Looking in at them Megan gasped.
“These, these are your kids right?” asked Megan looking in at the tiny creatures in one nest. They looked almost cute in a traditional sense. The leathery skin of the normal Tanuin not fully developed and grayish in color the smallest of the creatures was only the size of Megan’s hand.
“They are, or at least the ones who have hatched. They are still forming their minds,” said Night crawling up on top of one of the nests and looking in through the clear material.
“The room’s colder because?”
“We would on our home world build the nests in cooler dirt, the warmth of the others in the nests encourages all of the bodies to remain together and form a mind. We must feed them once a day and wait until the speak in one voice.”
Megan looked in at the small creatures as the ones beneath Night squirmed and moved around slightly before settling back down still.
“I never asked, but do you have parents? Er, well you do I guess. Do particular Tanuin raise the young?”
“Those who volunteer to raise the children might not be the ones who made them. We all teach them and help them grow. Still like with Humanity, it is best to have a dedicated mentor.”
Megan stepped away from the nest and shifted the container on her shoulder, “This is heavy Night, I really don’t want to drop it.”
“The nests of the young are strong. You could not harm them by accident.”
“Then call me overprotective,”
Night let out an amused squeak and moved towards the back of the room, to a nest larger than the others. Several of the other Tanuin in the room moved forwards as well, and they quickly removed the top of the largest nest, sliding it aside.
Megan looked inside at Alpha.
The individual bodies looked smaller than she remembered, and the eyes were staring blankly up. There was no hostility, but neither was their thought.
Megan carefully lowered the cage and looked around, “You need me to do anything?”
“No,” said Night as he carefully opened the container and darting into it with several bodies drew out the missing part of Alpha.
It struggled slightly but Night ignored it, moving quickly he tossed it into the nest with Alpha. The other Tanuin quickly sealed the nest again.
Megan looked down through it waiting.
The broken body struggled for a moment, before apparently deciding it like the warmth of the nest and calming.
The other bodies all slowly blinked, and Megan watched as a few twitched.
In a burst of movement, they attacked, ripping at the broken body. Megan winced as something splashed up at the top of the nest but otherwise did not react.
The motion inside the nest picked up.
“He’s not going to eat it, is he?” asked Megan.
Several Tanuin let out indignant squeaks, which Night quickly silenced, “No, but he will eviscerate it more than likely.”
“How long might this take?”
“A few days, he has given up on the broken portion of his mind, and now must reform himself.”
“He’ll be able too though?”
“I am confident he will.”
Megan turned and moved to exit the next.
“Engineer, do you blame us?”
Megan paused turning to Night, “For?”
“The only reason these events took place were because of our presence. Had we not been present.”
“Yan tried to kill us before we even met your species Night. Hell him trying to kill us led us straight to you. No. I don’t blame you, I blame him.”
Night bounced up and down slightly where he was and didn’t say anything more.
Ben was buried in the dirt of an alien moon, in orbit of a blue alien world, nearly ten light years from the planet of his birth. He would never again see the planet, or the sun under which he and billions of other humans had lived.
9 Years, 5 Months, 22 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
Taking off the formal uniform top she had worn to the funeral Megan sat down at the kitchen table in the apartment. Staring across at the empty seat Megan lifted the mug of coffee to her lips and took a sip. Sitting in front of the other chair was his mug, an old beat up metal thing he had since the founding of the colony, it was composed of the materials from the first asteroid that had been mined in orbit of Bellona.
Reaching across the table Megan picked up the mug and going over to counter set it down.
Megan moved towards the bedroom of her home and paused. She hadn’t slept since being woken up in the middle of the night, when he had been alive.
Wincing Megan walked into the bedroom, her personal terminal was still on; it’s screen blank but flashing an alert in the corner.
Ignoring it Megan looked at the bed, and tried to hold back the tears.
She didn’t want to be remind of him everywhere she looked, didn’t want to see him everywhere. At the same time, she didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to ignore how he had impacted her life, made it their life together.
Crying again Megan collapsed onto the bed. Rolling to her side she closed her eyes and for a moment imagined he was just on the other side of the bed, imagined she only had to reach over and touch him.
Holding onto that thought the exhausted the engineer dropped into unconsciousness.
9 Years, 5 Months, 23 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
“No you idiot, the capacitors need to be put back in before we start laying down the power lines.”
The engineer rolled his eyes, “I know that! Why the hell do you think I have power line in my hand?” he asked holding his hand out of the hatch, the coil of wire visible.
“I saw you reaching for those capacitors, fix the damn line!”
“I am; I have been doing that for the past eight hours!” He said indignant.
Megan huffed and pushed herself off of the wall, spinning around in the air and pushing off of the wall Megan drifted forwards through the ship to the bridge. Grabbing onto the Captain’s chair Megan picked up one of the data pads and looked at for a moment
The ship communications system beeped and she glanced up, the engineer working on the console did as well.
“Guess it’s working now,” she grunted.
“Obviously, want to put the message through?”
The engineer rolled her eyes and tapped at the correct button before turning back to the underside of the console.
“What’s the prognosis?” asked James, he was standing in the Council chambers and behind him Megan could see the Councilors and other at work, a few looking at the communication with interest.
“It’s going to take three months to finish her, and get all of the damage repaired.”
James slowly nodded looking down at a pad in front of him, “Alright I make sure the Council knows.”
“Any news on the kids?” asked Megan.
James’s eyes narrowed, “No, they’re unresponsive at the moment and no one wants to crack open the cases to take a DNA sample. For the moment the hope is that they are cloned brains.”
Megan shrugged, “It’s what,” she hesitated, “What Ben and I were working on when we commandeered the research to save Arik. A half biological, half electronic computer. We never got anywhere close to getting cloned tissue to work. But then neither of us are good at biology. Still, partially structured brains were theoretically the best. Which is why Arik worked. I’d love it if the brains are mindless cloned tissue, but I’m not betting on it.”
James pursed his lips and glanced down, Megan heard a muffled squeak through the communication.
“I’ve got Yern here, he wants to tell you something. Finished whatever task you set him and he’s quite literally hopping to make his report.”
Megan smiled, watching at the small Tanuin crawled up onto James’s large shoulders perching on them and now visible to the camera.
“What did you find Yern?”
“I have finished my preliminary analysis of the virus.”
“Anything we didn’t know?”
“Not much, the origin of the virus is not from Bellona. It appears the virus was developed on Mars, General Yan was the only person who escaped the planet with knowledge of and the code to run the virus. It was first introduced to Bellona’s systems five years ago.”
“Five years?”
“Yes.”
Megan swore.
“What?” asked James, “We’ve got the antivirus now.”
“The Canada doesn’t.”
James frowned. “No I suppose they don’t.”
Megan put her hands to her face, “Yern, I don’t suppose you were able to trace and see what the virus did in any of the computer systems, see if something was uploaded to the ship in the way of commands?”
“I will look, but I am not optimistic.”
The Tanuin quickly crawled down James and disappeared from view.
James watch him go and straightened his suit.
“He wouldn’t have uploaded anything damaging onto the ship, he wouldn’t want them to fail.”
“No, but the point is we don’t know.”
James growled something under his breath, “What can we do now?”
Megan looked around the interior of the ship.
“Go out and warn them.”
“Still three months for the ship then?”
Megan shook her head, “Nope, we’re going to move her into the China’s dry-dock and drag that frame out and strip her for parts and spares. I want all of the Tanuin the council will allow up here helping with fixing the Russia.”
“They’re not going to like you messing with the ship production.”
“Don’t care, I’m doing it. The Russia will be ready in three weeks.”
The technician under the communication console blanched, and jerking up hit something causing the image of James on the main display to disappear.
“Three weeks?!”
“Three weeks.” Repeated Megan.
“Damn it.”
Megan turned back to the Captain’s chair and paused, noticing something on its side for the first time. Leaning down Megan paused. A small toolkit, open and attached to the chair with only one tool missing from its slot was stuck to it. A tool that had been missing since the first week Megan had given Ben the kit.
Reaching down Megan pried the thing free, and carefully shut it.
“No rest for the weary.”