8. Never Foreswarn
General Release: Hedion University Medical Labs
It is with much relief that I report the Amarr race's package safely delivered to the Hedion Labs for analysis. At great cost and personal effort, the good members of PIE assisted in the safe transfer of the package from Amarr to Hedion.
I must also warn all medical teams in other parts of New Eden that my ship was sabotaged. After undocking, the ship suffered numerous failures. Thankfully, PIE warped me to the gate and through to the Hedion system. As my ship approached the Court Chamberlain Bureau, the ship set itself into self-destruct. Thankfully I was able to dock, get the package unloaded and the ship back out into space to save the cargo from destruction and the station from being damaged.
Even the ship's ejection system had been tampered with, and at great personal risk, Ezar Vorbarra offered to destroy my ship to eject the pod. Concord, as usual, took the hardline on even this honorable action, and destroyed his battleship.
The labs here are beginning work on analyzing this virus for hopes of mass production of the cure. May God Protect Amarr
– Amarria Darcest
Khaldorn finished reading the GalNet information, specifically the General Release from that Amarrian doctor, as well as intercepted communications from PIE. He set the PDA down and took a deep breath. He had done many things he wasn’t proud of in the fight to free his people from tyranny, but he would do them again if it meant freeing more of his people from bondage. But this!
Matari killing Matari . . . Matari killing innocent people . . .
It was one thing to face your foe in battle head to head, with honor, even to destroy convoys full to the brim with his enslaved brethren, but this was not the Matari way. He'd fight to his very end to free his people, but not like this . . . not like this. He slammed his fist on the table, he had to do something. People were dying. What could a lone man do. He had just finished talking to Zool, but their numbers were not high at the moment, and they had not the resources to fulfill this need.
He opened a message
+++ BEGIN MESSAGE +++
To: Voshud Kiongozi of the Masuat'aa Matari
Greetings Voshud, although I am not part of your clan, I have my own brothers I have sworn fealty to, my fight is your fight, and I have fought beside your brethren.
I have enclosed all data we have on this virus which you have no doubt heard of. I am on my way to attempt to locate this cure but it is not enough to save the already growing numbers of people we have reports of being infected with this virus. I feel we need to track down the individuals responsible for this. Although their cause is righteous, this is not the way to achieve it – by killing countless numbers of innocent people.
Someone in the underground must have contacts to these people. My brothers are trying to track down any info we can from our contacts but without success so far. You have many resources at your disposal, I beg you to use them so we may stop this madness.
I have sent similar pleas to the PRM and our other brothers.
This is surely one of our darkest hours.
Khaldorn Murino.
+++ END MESSAGE +++
He hit send on his PDA just as a message was accepted. A face appeared on his PAD that sent chills along his hand that held the PAD. Her eyes were piercing, and her red hair framed a face that spoke of deep soul-level anger.
“I am RageChild, sister of the sisters of the Rona Paratwa. I am sent by the Acharya.”
“I . . . I, yes. The Acharya said someone would contact me.” The Rona Paratwa? The monk had sent him a Paratwa as a wingman? How did one fly with a ghost assassin?
Buckling up his fear along with his belt, he stood and grabbed his flight jacket. Zool and his brothers were already on their way to locate this cure and they needed help.
“I am orbiting the station. I await your presence,” the Paratwa said, disconnecting the communication before he could say anything.
“Of course you are.”
**
Dreams.
Airgoidh dreamed, all of the images being of the monastery. Beyond Reach sat on the top of the Onganese Mountains like a bird perched on the tallest limb. She dreamed of the monks walking the grounds, the work of maintaining the trees and shrubs, the work of building new residences for the expanding brethren, the work of building more hangars deeper down the mountain side. She dreamed of these things as they happened, and dreamed of herself laying on the bio-bed unconscious.
She had loved to float in the dusk-covered waters of the paddies, never having once seen the rice or the cranberries with her eyes. Her mind provided what she needed, and no one liked her. They did not understand how she could walk and run and work as well as they could, and whispers of her being a witch were common. Even though she never spent time with the other slaves, indeed was never invited to do so, she often sat in their midst at night around the hut fires. She sat in their midst by sleeping, by dreaming. She could wander the slaver’s compound somewhat in those days by dreaming.
She learned much about the world, from slaves who had known freedom and were shanghaied, and from slaves who had never known freedom but had heard of things from others elsewhere and elsewhen. Even those few things were treasured, and only those tidbits of knowledge kept her from trying to escape. She had often thought of it, but never really understood freedom. For her, in her earliest years, she thought freedom was simply the act of floating. Later, as her dreams developed, she saw what freedom really was and despite this she waited. She had to wait. Her dreams had shown her the day of her owner’s death, and her salvation from the Amarr by her sister-of-blood.
One day, one whole life it might have taken, but she trusted her dreams.
“She is blind,” she heard her doctor say to the other, but she simply let her mind wander into other parts of the monastery. She trusted the doctor to help her wake, and that was her faith and peace. To trust her dreams.
As the days wore on, Airgoidh often sat next to the monks, in her dreams of course, listening to their conversations. She watched the sun set and rise every day, feeling so comfortable here on Onga. The worlds outside this small space on the side of the mountain seemed remote.
Sister.
Airgoidh’s dreams became a tangled jumble of images of Gaelbhan and RageChild. She struggled to regain control, but the scapes became mere colors, then blackness. Sister.
She felt Gaelbhan trying to make a connection, but the effort was tremendous. As Paratwa they were capable of a shared-mind, but this took time to master. She saw nothing. Blackness prevailed where once had been sound and light. She cried out. She was blind!
Sister.
She could feel her own body in the blackness, and she slapped her face with her hands, willing her mind to see again. A bright light pierced her brain as cleanly as the sun broke through the atmosphere, and she cried at the intensity. Shapes moved beyond in the periphery of the shadows, and she struggled to get the images to become more focused.
Finally, with effort, the shapes became more focused. They were moving, no, running and beyond even them was a burning city. Bombs fell from the skies, and ships struck down those who ran in strafing style attacks. More flashes, less intense, but massive as whole sections of the city were obliterated. She could sense the feelings of those who ran, sense that they were the cause of this destruction and the source of the atomics being unleashed beyond.
She tried to merge with them, to understand where this dream came from – as she saw her body coalesce with one of those running along the boulevard, the strength of the woman’s anger became the only beacon in the flashing lights of atomics – the only beacon Airgoidh could hold onto as the knowledge of the woman poured into her own mind, the only beacon she could hold onto as Airgoidh screamed and screamed at what the images showed her.
“Be well sister,” the Acharya said to her as she lay more or less upright on the bio-bed. She did not look at him, this monk who seemed purely driven by the passion of logic.
“The doctor says you are doing well.”
Still nothing. What was there to say? She could see him standing by the bed, but not in the way her mind had always done previously. His body exuded a variety of energies she saw now as colors. The world had changed, her mind had changed. Her perception was clear, and the Acharya could have no idea as to the nightmares she had suffered these last hours.
Nightmares? She laughed, and the Acharya’s eyebrow rose. Nightmares for those with a lesser perception perhaps. They had started as nightmares, but her unconsciousness had allowed her body time to resolve the incongruity of her experience and her training. Those nightmares had become dreams again, and they provided her with sight she could never have imagined.
“I am well, monk.”
“I can see that you are,” came the reply, but hesitant. “I think some more time in recovery would be helpful. Perhaps some physical exercise.”
Airgoidh turned to the monk, turning her face to stare up into his eyes. He stepped back a moment, and she saw fear register across his variations of colors. Fear and concern, but also logic.
“Yes, I would like that.”