Chapter:
4302.11.12
It was the frontal lobes, they hadn’t been fully developed. It was why Crimson was acting the way he did. Pending always knew there was a logical explanation for everything. Crimson had been using Matt’s frontal lobes as a crutch as his own matured, it was why he had seemed so capable at such a very young age.
Carmine’s state had recovered slightly. He saw that she was taking up the same stance perpendicular to Crimson as Crimson had during his six month stay here with Matt.
Crimson’s loss would affect her greatly, but he was on rails now, there was no other alternative. He blamed Matt. He blamed Marina. He blamed himself for having worked with such incompetents.
“Position the team.” Pending ordered over his comms chip.
The officers got into position in the catatonic ship. They were at the neural plexus in minutes using the physiological data they had gained during his sedation. Carmine hadn’t noticed a thing, scanning outwards, away from Crimson for threats.
Maybe this had all been a mistake. David had tried to give Crimson glimpses of Matt, of his being alive. Crimson accepted them without really believing the visions.
Of course he’s alive. He’d transmitted back, Of course he’ll be here soon. I know that. I’m not worried.
Physically his hull was pale now as he started regressing into the final stages of self-termination. Starving himself of koverans almost subconsciously. Cognitively he had regressed to the standard maturity levels for a beems this age that didn’t have a captain, incapable of rational actions, having even attacked Carmine on occasion.
Carmine seemed to treat her role with Crimson more as a mother now than a mate, dangerously protective.
It had been decided during their last meeting, hours ago. It was Bombard’s idea, really, his obsession with ending the life of this hybrid.
“Kill him.” Bombard would almost plead, though he never really said it that directly. Pending was sick of it. Fine, he thought.
“Prepare to sever the neural link. Do not hit the oblongata functions.” He would kill Crimson. But he would spare the ship. It had been attempted before. Those attempts had failed. Crimson was different, however, he was already born with direct console links to a number of his systems. It was simply a case of hotwiring.
Carmine still hadn’t deep scanned Crimson. David was doing a good job of distracting her.
“We are ready, Doctor.” responded the team co-ordinator.
“Cu—“ He was cut off by an event unfolding in the window ahead of him.
–
–
The beems jumped in half an au from the Deep Grey. It hailed them immediately, and requested to speak with Doctor Pending.
“How did you get back here?” Doctor Pending asked.
“I’ll always know where my ship is.” Matt replied, noticing several fighters launch from the facility. Crimson was in the second docking port; his thoughts were faint. Matt slowly pecked away at them with his consciousness, nudging him gently. Wake up.
“Why did you do it? Why did you steal my ship? Why did you have someone try to kill me?”
“Crimson was never your ship, Mr. Bowen. You were merely a victim of circumstance.”
Reaper was docking with Crimson. Carmine hadn’t noticed them. Matt wasn’t sure how she would respond to the situation, but her positioning indicated a defensive stance, one affectionate of Crimson. He imagined the future she and Crimson could have had in a perfect world.
“You killed his mother, and now you’re killing him.” Matt transmitted.
“Perhaps, in a way, we were responsible for the death of Crimson’s mother. Science expects sacrifices from us all.”
“Inhumane science, perhaps.”
Those fighters are traveling extremely fast; they will be here in forty-five minutes. Lyla reported.
I have uncovered an interesting data pool in the Deep Grey’s databanks. Would you like me to download the information? Ghost asked.
Ghost was watching Reaper’s team at the moment, How long will that take?
Two minutes.
Do it.
–
“Do it.” ordered Mr. Pending.
There was a burst of static over the comms chip as Pending’s connection to his team was abruptly severed. He looked over at the sleeping ship in the hangar as if he would see what was going on in those walls.
“Plexus team, respond.” Pending demanded.
“I’m sorry Mr. Pending, Plexus team is busy oozing down the plexus walls.” Lance replied.
“You!—“ Lance overloaded the comms chip as Tass’ran broke the other Coalition soldier’s neck.
–
There was something seriously wrong with Crimson, and Carmine wasn’t responding to Matt’s presence at all. She was watching, however, Lyla had felt her sensors wash over her multiple times.
Crimson… Matt transmitted.
I knew you would come back. Crimson replied weakly.
The link failed.
Carmine locked Lyla. It took every ounce of Matt’s willpower to fight Lyla’s instinct to flee.
“You’re too late!” Carmine hissed. “Your negligence led to his demise. You are despicable!”
She turned towards Crimson.
Time seemed to stop as Matt stared down the barrel of Carmine’s cannon through Lyla’s eyes.
Matt. I have finished downloading the information. There have been one hundred and thirty attempts at a hybrid before Crimson.”
Matt could feel the data, there was too much, pages of genetic information. Absorbing it all would destroy his mind.
What did it matter – Crimson was dead. Perhaps there was something that could save him. Perhaps all those other ships and their relatives hadn’t died in vain. … He drank Ghost’s data like a poison flask. Pain flashed across his neural vision, clouding everything in a reddish black. He cried out. Lyla automatically broke the neural link with him to spare herself the agony. Matt was alone again, tortured by the acts the Coalition had done on their subjects. 069 had developed a genetic abnormality that suffocated him. 042 had been born without a skid. 099 had severe haemorrhaging. 015 had been a stillbirth. He felt the pain of the mothers. He felt the regret and the fear lace across the neural band.
He heard the cries of the other beems. He felt their pain. He heard their voices.
You will not have him.
That final redeeming thought coursed through his mind as he reached out to Crimson with a mother’s strength. The link was painful, forceful. The burden of sapience was carried by Matt alone for a few moments. Crimson had given up, hanging off the edge of sanity. Matt reached out to him from the cliff, trying not to fall himself. He forced full concentration, feeling sections of his mind failing, his neural interface overloading. A piercing pain ran along his back as he felt his motor control fail, replaced by Crimson’s. For a few moments he shared Crimson’s body in full.
Take it. Matt said to him.
Crimson began to regain consciousness, reaching for Matt’s mental grasp.
They aligned their skids for a jump.
“Crimson…” Carmine pressed her bow against Crimson’s hull, shocked by his strong presence and the energy build up. There wasn’t enough room here for a jump. “Jumping here will kill you.”
“It will destroy the Deep Grey. Destroy Pending. Avenge my mother…”
“Don’t throw your life away. You have been given a second chance.”
Carmine is right. You know I can feel your sorrow. I’m sorry you had to bear the burden of Ghost’s stolen thoughts.
They will pay, all of them.
They will.
Matt felt a unity with Crimson he had never felt before. He put all his energy into the gravimetric lens, shooting past Carmine, past the hangar hull and the targeting lasers.
“Come with me, Carmine.”
“I can not. My loyalties lie with my captain first, and he is bound to the Coalition. I am sorry, but I know that you understand.”
–
“We’re at the neural plexus.” Tass’ran whispered to Lance, “We can finish the job. Get paid.”
It was tempting.
“No.” Lance sighed. “We can’t.”
“Getting soft?”
Lance didn’t know what to say. He liked the kid; he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who deserved to be mixed up in all of this.
Tass continued: “Cass can get us out. Flam can jump us out.”
–
They had been a mated pair for a few moments, and because of that, Crimson was able to find her thoughts, and speak to her directly. “I wish you the best of luck. If our paths cross I will not bring you harm.”
Crimson felt Carmine’s sorrow at the goodbye. She didn’t know how to respond, watching Crimson wander away. She was at a crossroads.
Matt felt for Lyla and activated her beem drive, synchronizing it with Crimson’s. They both jumped out in the direction of Zemoria’s nodepoint.
–
Lance checked his datapal. “Cass followed us through.”
“It’s now or never.” Tass hissed.
He pulled out a small electrostatic shock stick and jabbed it at the neural plexus before he could change his mind. They were both knocked off their feet as the ship careened out of control. The lights failed, sections of the hull seemed to groan from the sudden gravimetric stresses. They were pressed against the walls, knocked from bulkhead to bulkhead viciously.
“He trusted me enough to give me the access codes to the neural plexus.” Lance said, checking the damage to his armoured suit as he slowly picked himself back up.
“He had no choice.” Tass explained, he had unfolded his wings to keep himself stable. “In my travels across the galaxy, I have seen much suffering. Matt’s situation is regrettable but not peculiar.”
He began planting the explosives.
“I’m here; did you kill it yet guys?” Cassandra asked from Reaper.
The neural plexus was a large structure, spherical, with small corridors leading to lesser functions. There was an access hatch to it from the rear of the bridge. One still had to travel through a small maze of neural tunnels to reach the center, however.
When the explosive charge would detonate, it would kill Crimson instantly, a quick death. Painless death.
Matt didn’t consider Crimson a monster…
–
–
Carmine if you don’t turn around right now I’m going to have to court marshal you. Carmine? Carmine turn around.
The anxiety she had felt a few moments after Crimson’s beemout had been unbearable. She was compelled to follow him to his destination like some sort of primeval being run by instinct.
She set up a defensive formation around Crimson instantly, watching the other ship carefully. Its scent was familiar now that she could see it. This scent had lingered near Crimson moments after his recovery. That ship might be friendly. But then why wasn’t Crimson being receptive. What was wrong with him? Something had happened that had forced her to jump here. She knew something was wrong. The other ship had vanished from sensors. Perhaps it had been a ghost signal. She had to wake him, look into his mind. There was one way that she knew would work, and it was a method she truly desired.
–
–
“What’s that hissing sound?” Lance asked, ear up against the neural plexus’ walls.
“I don’t know.”
“Gas. Some sort of gas.” Lance realized, tapping at his suit’s air filter. It wasn’t responding, it must have broken during the exit from beemspace. “Shit.”
“It appears fate has intervened. I have not even begun arming the charges.”
“Then get to it.”
“This is pheralax. In a few minutes we will both be incapacitated. Let us hope they do not realize what we have tried to do.”
–
When they dropped out of beemspace, Lyla immediately spun around and began trying to force another beem sequence, fluttering about like an agitated moth. Matt felt the danger as well, the link with Crimson was still strong, but something had incapacitated him.
We have to turn around. Matt declared.
He’s… he’s. I can feel it. I smelt it in the sequence.
Her skids were tingling, trying to excite the gravimetric lens enough to create an interstice. Her uncontrollable urge to get there was all Matt could feel from the agitated starship.
Matt felt the presence of other beems, these were different. They didn’t seem to have thoughts and rationales as raumenoid as the ones he had met. They were pure.
“There! There!” Lyla whined to the ships gathering round. Some orbited her, flashing her with images and impulses. She flew off at twenty gees in Crimson’s general direction. “I have to get there!”
Matt felt an understanding from the beems that gathered around him, as limited as that understanding may be. A simultaneous shock hit her from all beems, and suddenly Matt and Lyla were in beemspace again.
They dropped out. Crimson was here, and Carmine, but before his mind could wonder, he was overwhelmed with pleasure. His feet felt heavy. He had an uncontrollable urge to dive between them, to make contact in as many ways as possible. A pained pleasure overcame him as ignored compatibility warnings seemed to flash in the neuralscape uselessly. It was her he was feeling: her excitement, her relief at being there. The ships seemed to dance instinctively with lights and sensations beyond what he could fully comprehend. It all seemed to have an underlying sense of ‘rightness’ to it, however. He forgot where he was. He forgot everything. None of it seemed to matter. All that mattered was this feeling. What a wonderful feeling. He caught occasional glimpses of things he didn’t understand at all. Of skids, tails, ventral sides, dorsal sides, ablative plates. There was an eroticism behind the parts that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend. He felt wet all over and had to lie up against a bulkhead. There was a pleasant mist spraying into the bridge. It made him aware of his body, but also made it hypersensitive, but the impulses his body gave him were garbled, mixed with other impulses, of other bouts of pleasure. It was too much to comprehend. He felt himself slipping away. He was frightened but his fear was mitigated by sensations of extreme soothing from another. He wasn’t even sure if it was his fear he felt. Was it Lyla’s fear? There was pain – an impact. Anxiety. Trepidation seemed to reverberate across all participants for a moment before fading away, replaced with more pleasure, more manoeuvring, flying, rubbing. There were sounds too, but he couldn’t understand them. Voices, or were they thoughts? The more he tried to comprehend the less it all made sense. His world of understanding had been pulled from under his feet, but he welcomed this new world the beems had shown him.
–
“Lance? Lance!”
It felt too good. He held onto the feeling. He loved this ship. He loved everyone. He opened his eyes. Reptilian eyes stared back at him, wings fluttering from agitation.
“I love you.” Lance said dopily.
The normally black Vorchan was streaked with vermillion, panting slightly, covered in sweat.
“The color suits you.” Lance continued with a lisp. “It brings out your deadlinesssss.”
Tass pushed him down the maintenance shaft, the walls wet and slippery, presumably from that mysterious mist. He traced their path back to the maintenance shaft they used to break in, removing the ventilation grate he had Lance’s environmental suit in.
“Put this on.” he said.
Lance slowly slipped into his environmental suit. Tass helped him get it over the damaged armour.
“This ship… it ain’t all that bad…” he slurred.
With his EV suit secured, Tass pushed him through the maintenance nozzle and pressed the emergency flush button.
“I got ‘im.” Cass reported. “’Twas a fucking bitch keeping up with you guys… Sight to see though.”
Tass was out next. He didn’t need an EV suit.
–
“I remember everything that happened to me.” Matt muttered, recalling his encounter with Marina in his bedroom. Skids were rubbing up on him from all sides as the ships drowsily gravitated towards one another. He slid down the wet and slippery ladder and grabbed a drink out of a freezer. He was so thirsty. And content. He felt so content. He wanted to put his arm around his ships. He couldn’t help but grin from the horribly naughty things they did; that he witnessed, and was only now beginning to comprehend. Marina: She had been crazy too. Wow. Was it even real – a fading, damaged memory or just a fantasy? As he drank, he focused on the space outside again. It was so messy, littered with all sorts of different fluid. There was blood oozing from the tip of Crimson’s skid too. It had dug into Lyla’s aft port ventral side. He felt her shudder, her slow retreat, letting the skid scratch along her hull, leaving a pink scar. She came around and pressed into him blindly, the nudge was barely felt on the bridge. Carmine floated with them, her skid entwined with Crimson’s. They weren’t where they had started the bond, either. They were somewhere completely different. The stars were different. Thoughts of his time with Marina entered his mind. How interesting that they had been talking about this during their time together. It must have made this bond a trigger for his memory. It also made him remember what Ghost had said. He hoped he would never have to be in such a situation.
4302.11.13 Late Night
“Oh my god that… was… fucking… INSANE.” Flam yelled at Lance. “You should have seen the gravimetric lens they created! I didn’t see shit. They sucked everything in though. Holy fuck. I can’t believe I witnessed that. I wish I’da seen more though, shit. Wow.”
“He’s been like that since it happened.” Cass explained. She was sitting on the couch Lance was lying on, his head resting on her lap. The others were sitting around him, in other couches and dining chairs. Brock was drinking some quaffee. Nina was polishing an intact dish by the kitchen. Tass was showering. The mess hall was quite literally a mess from all the turbulence the Reaper had fallen victim to.
“What happened?” Lance asked.
“A full bond! A whole standard day man! The readings were crazy! We weren’t even in realspace half the time.”
“Surprised we’re still intact.” Brock grunted.
“A lot isn’t.” Nina commented.
“Tass?” Lance asked.
“He’s alright, Lance.” Cass said, stroking his hair. “Think he took a shower. He was drenched in sweat. A completely different color too.”
“There was a gas.” Lance groaned.
“Pheralax:” Flam explained, “Like what we encountered back on that floral planet. Potent shit. Must have been trippy as fuck.”
“I felt things… I… never felt before…”
“It’s ok, Lance.”
“I…” he struggled.
“Shhh… it’s ok.”
“So why is that thing still alive?” Nina asked.
“Yeah let’s kill it while it’s fucking its two buddies. That won’t piss its mates off at all right?”
“Hmm.” Brock said.
“What’s your take on all this, Brock? You’ve been pretty quiet.” Cassandra asked.
“I have no ‘take’. Lance says, ‘jump.’. I ask, ‘how high?’. Lance hasn’t failed any of us, ever.”
“Two Hybrids! They owe us, too. We saved their ass. They were gonna scramble Crimson’s brain. I really wanna get to know Matt, too. He barely spoke with us. What a mystery man. What’s he like, Lance?”
“They better pay us more than our contract.” Nina mused.
“Fuck the contract. This is bigger than money. We have allies now, people that really got our backs.” Flam argued.
“What happens next will be up to Lance. But for the moment: He needs rest. Brock, can you co-ordinate with Matt. We’re to be their escort ‘til Lance says otherwise.” Cass said.
“Aye ma’am.” Brock replied, exiting to the bridge.
“Crazy shit.” Flam muttered, following Brock out.
“I don’t like any of this. This has become too complicated.” Nina said, staring at all the shattered plates and toppled furniture. She was surprised the inertial stabilizers held out as well as they did. “Can we even make another jump?”
“Reaper’s fine. It’s our fault for getting careless with the fastening. Not often you encounter turbulence like that.” Cass replied, beckoning towards the window where the slumbering beems were partially visible.
“So what are we going to do?” Nina asked, sharing her gaze.
“We’ll see…”