7. Plans of the Dead

Amarria settled back into her chair, relieving the strain on her back and legs as she looked at yet another sample. The clean room smelled, and she hated it, and after all these hours of testing that was all she could focus on. The smell.

Below her in the separate quarantined rooms, Amarrians and Matari were dying. Fresh bodies came in more often from the slave side than the Amarrians, and she was beginning to feel sick to her stomach. Only a few Amarrians were dying each day as compared to the hundreds of Matari – simply because they were the ones who were inoculated with the most current treatment first. If they perished, which all of them did, then that particular antidote was scrapped.

Her NeoCom flashed the news and she stared dumbly at the screen. Several stations now were increasing their security level, and even denying docking requests. A flashing message icon appeared and she activated it.

Shar Tegral, a reporter for the EveGuardian claimed to have all of the doses of antidote that the Sect had placed in Amamake. A Matari? She wanted representatives to come claim these boxes.

Opening a reply, Amarria rubbed her eyes. She typed a few words, but erased them, switching to voice mode. “Ms. Tegral – if you should be in possession of these treatment packages, I implore you to turn them over to the appropriate authorities immediately. There are many Amarrians here at the Emperor's Station in Amarr that need this medicine. I implore you.”

Sent.

She heard the door open. A med-tech dropped off a container of several dozen more vials for her to scan. Failed treatments. Several dozen more dead Matari. The effort was to find a correlation between what would kill the patient and what would cause the body to fight off a similar infection. Those antibodies could then be examined and altered to fight a broader range of virals from the same class, but so far only the patient dying was the solution.

**

Dreams.

Heat and dreams.

She woke, but realized she was not truly awake. She was dreaming, and she had only become conscious of that fact. Cold metal walls shifted around her, first a square box three meters by three meters, then collapsing slowly into a cylinder barely large enough for her to fit inside. In the larger configuration, she found her hands heavy as if moving through thick sand. In the smaller, her hands always met the wall before she had moved them a few centimeters. Always trapped, enclosed and dreaming.

The cold metal became warm water as she trudged through the muck of the rice paddy. Her body was covered with muck, and she wiggled her barefeet in the mud. The Salten Sea roared beyond the rise, but she had never seen it. Only the water flowing from the opposite mountains to the shore flowed here, and she wondered what salt water would be like to float in.

The rice paddies were fairly large, and cool water flowed toward the sea, draining into an underground aqueduct. These three paddies were all that she had ever known, and working in the water was all she had ever known of the things outside this depression in the valley by the Salten Sea. What things lived beyond the rise? The water was her only connection with the planet, coming from the high Crisholfa Mountain range, flowing steadily past forests and cities to be broken into smaller streams that fed her owner’s paddies. She worked these three, and knew nothing of those things beyond.

Dreams of thick mud between her toes, and the smell of the sea.

She floated in the paddies sometimes, closer to dusk when the guards were off feeding their faces. She floated to rid herself of the day’s mire, and simply to float. For years, she had always thought this simple act of a body treading water was freedom.

The dreams of her owner’s death showed her that her childish mind had been wrong. Freedom meant walking over the rise to the sea as she saw fit, without guards or permission. The dreams of his death started simply, rarely more than flashes. Then, as she grew up they became more concrete until that day when the dream became a reality.

Dreams of his shocked face, of his blood flowing down his chest and legs. Dreams of her sister-of-blood appearing before her, holding the slaver’s own lance, the instrument of his death. She laughed. She didn’t remember doing that, but in this dream she laughed. Laughed at the face of her former owner laying in the mud, his blood mingling with the waters flowing from the streams into the paddies, enriching the soil. It would be a bumper crop this year.

The monk passed the medical PAD down the length of his female charge, a red haired Brutor woman with two thin red stripes down her forehead, her Destiny Mark. He did not understand their Brutor meaning, as he was Sebiestor, but they were prominent and probably spoke of great journeys yet to be. The PAD continued to show high brain activity, but also anomalies that it seemed incapable of deciphering.

The monastery was rarely a place of gossip, but today the two women had appeared and this one brought to his infirmary. That caused no end to tongues wagging, but he had a patient to look after. The two women looked quite like the other, but shifted out of phase, more like a mirrored image in the water. The one had been RageChild, real name unknown, and she had spent her time with the Acharya. This one, name Airgoidh Brendan, arrived unconscious and in intensive REM sleep. He could not remember ever seeing such activity in the brain.

He set the PAD down, and touched her hand to feel her warmth, her wrist to check her pulse and then her forehead for fever. The PAD was a good tool for diagnosing ailments in seconds, but the hands-on method always seemed the most compassionate route. Although unconscious, her body could still feel, and that contact with a real human was registering in her brain.

He pushed aside a strand of red hair, and pried her eye lid open. He peered through the lens with his penlight, and then again. He opened the other eyelid. A moment later saw him running down the hallway to find the Acharya.

“She’s blind,” the monk said to the Acharya as they entered the infirmary. The two monks stood beside her bed, one on each side. The Acharya waited while her eye lids were pried open, and he looked with interest in through the lens.

“I don’t have your skills, brother, but yes I can see that her eyes are not active.”

“She is blind,” the monk said again. “From birth it seems.”

The Acharya looked again. “From birth? I find that incredible. Sister RageChild never mentioned this. Are you sure?”

The monk nodded, waving the Acharya to peer again into her eyes. “She was definitely born blind, but only recently was she able to see. Look here.” The monk waved the penlight a few times across the pupil. “Do you see it?”

“Implants.”

“Yes, Acharya. These bio-implants are blackmarket, definitely. They are sitting just at the back of the eyeball, feeding her images. My PAD didn’t pick them up, which only proves they aren’t SOCT approved. Besides, the SOCT version would be implanted in the occipital lobe, not in the eye itself.”

The two monks looked down on their charge, and the Acharya folded his arms into the folds of his habit. “Are they the cause of her ailment today?”

The other monk shook his head. The infirmary was empty except for the three Matari, but he lowered his voice anyway. “Not entirely. Yes, the implants are black-market, but seem to be functioning. They are well designed too, perhaps increasing her perception by as much as two or more points above her normal threshold . . . um . . what I mean to say, our normal threshhold.”

“Ours?”

“Her perception is highly evolved, perhaps partly because of her blindness. I have found strong alpha and theta tendencies in her brain, and her extreme REM sleep is just one aspect of that. Her brain is skilled enough to take all of the input the universe can give her, and creating lifelike images of the world around her. Her eyes may not work, but she can see better than you or I. Our threshold is standard for most humans. Her’s is twice that.”

“Because of the implants?”

“No, Acharya. The implants have only added more capability for her brain to resolve the image . . . how shall I put it, the resolution of the image for her is much better.” “She can spot a deer at the extreme edge of the forest?” The Acharya saw his humor failed, which always seemed the case.

“Better than that. She could see it’s heart beating, and certainly sense if it was happy or sad or fearful. You said she had trained in the SOCT Advanced skill packs? From the readouts, I’d say at least two – Clarity and Presence. Perhaps Logic too. Those sections of the brain that manage perception and affiliation are highly active. Those together might even allow her to read a human’s emotional thoughts.”

“So she could tell if I’m angry?”

The monk walked around the side of the bed, leading the Acharya back some from the patient. Even unconscious, their conversation was being recorded in memory synapses and affecting her recovery. “With people she had never met, mostly just emotional awareness. For people with which she was intimately connected, she could probably read their thoughts when those thoughts were encased by emotion. Since most humans are creatures of emotions . . .”

The Acharya fingered his PAD, keying in the access codes for file #317AJ. He handed the monk his PAD, and waited. The doctor scrolled through the contents of the file, mumbling to himself.

“She’s a . . . a . . .”

“A Paratwa,” the Acharya completed. He retrieved his PAD, and looked again into her eyes. A Paratwa not yet with a tway, one half of the equation.”

“What equation is that brother?” The monk was decidedly blanched. His hands shook. “The one that will lead humans in New Eden to continued survival or their mutual destruction.”

**

Amarria wrestled with intruding thoughts that could not be so easily dismissed, and she felt sickened by the logic of the virus. The Sect of the Warden had planned well their outbreak, now spreading from station to station in the Amarrian and Matari regions. The six days till the deadline were far off, but the plague had started in any case. She had not heard from the Gallente or the Caldari, but their remoteness would do nothing to stop this plague.

She looked over to the cabinets of vials – so many vials of antidote, all created in haste by her lab crew – all death. None of them showed any promise to killing the virus while it was inside the body. Inhibiting it’s growth? Equally futile. The Sect had engineered it to act as one of the bodies most needed proteins, and to inhibit the dissolution of the virus was to kill the patient in other ways. Transfusions were useless. Activating a clone only delayed the infection, perhaps a day or a month. Without a cure, the virus would infect everyone eventually.

Where was that antidote the Matari reporter had obtained? She paced in her lab, waiting for more vials of death and news of the special delivery container from . . . someone! She swiped the NeoCom keys to scroll through her messages, hundreds of requests for assistance, more letters of horror. One caught her eye, but only for a moment. An Ammatar had said this virus might be a variant of a Lysomes infection, and she downloaded it into her PAD. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to do something.

She strode out of the lab, down the stairs to the twin doors of the quarantined rooms. Hundreds of Amarrians lay dying on the left, equal to the Matari slaves on the right. Several med-techs assisted those entering and leaving the quarantine – only a single trained Matari slave was entering the Matari side, administering to the hundreds of slaves within. Dozens of med-techs assisted the dying Amarrians, and she was sickened by this display.

She moved forward of the line of med-techs, pushing one literally out of the suit he was about to enter. She climbed inside, zipping up the clothing and started toward the right hand door.

“Doctor? Wait! That’s the Matari quarantine.”

She ignored the med-techs astonished shout, and entered the room. A series of doors kept the outer station safe from infection, keyed to open only as the next one sealed shut and decontamination protocols ended. The slave hurried over to her, a small woman with bright green eyes.

“Please, Doctor. This is the Matari side . . ..”

“Give me that,” she said, grabbing the injection module from the startled woman’s hand. As a Ni-Kunni, Amarria was sickened despite being of a race of people long enslaved and made part of the Amarrian empire. Forcing a poor Matari to adminster the antidotes they created in the labs upstairs when they themselves would not? Enlightenment be damned.

The first Matari she passed was labeled as having received a dose of the second series of injections. She couldn’t see any change in his condition, a stout Brutor with grizzled facial hair and blank, dying face. To the next and the next she walked, reading their scribbled charts. She was disgusted. These people should have had med-PADS keeping track of their vitals rather than relying on the poor Matari woman, likely trained to do these tasks only a week ago.

She came on a woman with deeply intelligent eyes who was mumbling. The chart said she hadn’t been injected with anything as yet, and Amarria stopped. She leaned in close to the woman’s ear. She smelled like a Matari, but it was natural and strong.

“Yes, I am a Doctor,” she said in reply to the mumbled question. “No, I don’t have a cure. I have a guess.”

The woman lurched upright, startling Amarria, but the slave’s grip on her arm was iron. “Then guess! Death is better than slavery.”

Amarria pushed the woman down, covering her bare body with the sheet. “I understand.” I agree. She injected the woman and watched the eyes go dull, then lifeless.

Amarria hurled the injection-module against the wall, and leaned over the body. I agree with you, dear Matari woman. Death is better. Go with God, or whatever faith guided you.

“Doctor?” A voice said over the comm circuit. “Doctor Darcest? Vice-Admiral Ezar Vorbarra has notified the station his fleet obtained the doses of serum. Please report to hangar delta.”

Hangar delta was empty with the exception of a single frigate and a lone dockworker who was hustling out as she entered. The station also seemed empty, but really all the inhabitants were likely sealed inside their quarters hiding from the plague. Lunacy.

A special delivery crate say near the loading ramp of the frigate’s cargo hold, held in place by anti-grav plating. It looked no different than any other crate, yet contained the only known antidote to the Amarrian-variant virus in this section of space. Just one hundred doses. The Sect had said trying to reverse engineer it would be useless, but she would try. She keyed her PAD, and spoke to Deacon Vorbarra of PIE.

“Doctor, I am Vice Admiral Vorbarra. One of our faithful has obtained the crate from the Matari, and I have provided you with a frigate and the crate. Please inspect it to your satisfaction.”

She nodded, thanking the man. PIE defended the interests of the Empire with fervor and dedication. In this instance, they had come through once again. The crate seemed properly sealed, but she would not open it until it was locked away behind a quarantine wall. Who knows what evil might exist within – the Sect may have been lying about the antidote. Perhaps this was simply more of the virus ready to be activated.

“All seems good, Vice Admiral.”

“Doctor . . . I must insist that we accompany you to Hedion.”

She shook her head. “That won’t be necessary Vice-Admiral. I can . .“

”I must insist. I do not trust that Matari terrorists won’t take advantage of this opportunity to cause havoc by destroying your ship and the crate. Please undock and we will accompany you. The TES Dominus, under command of Gavin Lok’ri, will be in charge.”

“Very well.” The frigate was already prepped for flight, and simply waited for her to enter the pod. She maneuvered the crate up the loading ramp, pushing it as easily as a feather, and securing it in place by locking the anti-gravs into station keeping. She settled into the pod, the gel wrapping her closely. She found the feeling a little disconcerting but had flown many missions in frigates, and adjusted quickly. The neural interface activated, and she saw a face in the gel. A Matari face, a woman with red hair, which vanished almost instantly. Shaking off the vision, she activated the ship’s thrusters and moved the vessel out into space.

“TES Dominus, this is Doctor Darcest. I am undocking and ready to precede to Hedion.” “Acknowledged. PIE stands by to assist.”

She maneuvered the ship toward the fleet sitting 25 kilometers from the Emperor Family Station, turning on the automatic guidance system. The ships were now turning to begin warp to the Hedion Stargate, but she found the neural interface refusing her command to accept warp. Her ship simply started to spin in space, the calculations for warp stuck in a loop. She reset the control, but the ship would not respond.

“TES Dominus. I am having difficulty with ship’s controls. Autopilot will not disengage and navigation systems are similarly affected. I cannot regain control. Can you assist with remote?”

“Acknowledged. Stand by.”

She accepted the remote connection, and her ship altered its course to begin warp. “Doctor, please be aware that our link indicates your ship has been altered.”

“Sabotage?” She started a series of internal scans, making sure the ship was indeed intact, that the drive and life support systems were functioning and the cargo in place.

“Most likely.”

“Doctor, this is Gaven Lok’ri in command. We will attempt to warp you in conjunction with our fleet to the Hedion gate. My technicians are resetting your navigation and thruster controls in the meantime. We hope to have them restored to you in a moment.”

“That is fine. Please monitor this ship carefully. The antidote must get to the labs for examination.”

“Acknowledged. Lok’ri out.”

The frigate rumbled as the warp field developed and the fleet moved to the Stargate. She didn’t trust the ship’s systems, but she did trust PIE to keep her safe through this crisis. The gate appeared in the gel HUD, and she willed the thrusters to full forward. The ship responded, and she sighed, which really only created bubbles in the gel.

The Hedion system appeared in the gel HUD as the jump ended, and the navigation array adjusted the sensors and data objects to match the current revolutions of the system. The PIE fleet appeared from cloak, and she willed the frigate to the Court Chamberlain Bureau station. She felt quite a bit safer as PIE indicated they would be warping ahead of her and securing the approach to the station.

The frigate rumbled to a stop 15 kilometers from the station, and then acknowledged her request to self-destruct. What? She reached into the gel, and turned her outward facing palms inward, closing them to her chest, the command motion sequence to abort a self-destruct. Nothing.

“TES Dominus! This ship has been set to destruct. I cannot stop it.”

“Acknowledged,” came the standard voice, then Deacon Vorbarra’s. “Doctor. Jettison the cargo and eject! Eject!”

She willed the cargo bay open, but the ship refused her command. She could not let that box be destroyed. She punched the gel, and her forward momentum increased speed. She would get that box into the station one way or the other. “Stand by for me when I exit.”

The station accepted her request to dock, and she was pulled inside. She was already out of the pod and running along the frigate’s hull as the ship approached the hangar. Only the docking beams kept her from falling over the side as the ship lurched to a stop. Thankfully, the cargo bay opened when she hit the manual release handle, and she pushed the crate free. It floated down the ramp and into the station hangar.

“Get it out of here!” She shouted as med-techs came running to collect the box. “Get it out of here and seal those bay doors!”

She entered the frigate again, with the pod barely sealing shut in time as she willed the vessel back out into space. The frigate was sluggish, and she cursed the damned terrorists who had tried to destroy the Amarrian’s only chance for survival. The ship continued outward. She knew the doctors in the labs were more than qualified to find a cure if there was one to find. She would not let even one person die in the station because of this additional terrorist activity.

“Eject Doctor!” Vice Admiral Vorbarra.

“I cannot. I am destined for God’s grace.”

“Hold.”

Hold? A bright flash blinded her a moment, then her frigate buckled. Two more shots from the battleship of the Deacon sundered the vessel into pieces, but her pod scooted away safely as the destructing ship became a blossom of yellow and red fire.

The comm-interlink opened a standard frequency, and Concord warned the Deacon of his violation of Concord-Standard Law. The battleship was being fired on! Amarria set the pod to dock with the station, watching in the gel HUD as the bureaucratic dogmatists of Concord executed their prime directive – sustained peace through stupidity.

cont...