Test of Mettle (A Captain's Crucible Book 2) (23 page)

“That process will repeat for some time, but eventually all that will be left in the universe are white dwarfs and black holes. Those degenerates will eventually evaporate, too, with the ever expanding universe, and after countless eons there will be nothing left but darkness. But I don’t think it will end there. I’m not a pessimist like you, Maxwell. Thanks to quantum tunneling and quantum fluctuations, or perhaps a massive stellar explosion in a higher-dimensional universe, I believe the universe will eventually renew, and another spontaneous Big Bang event will occur. Completely different life bearing planets will evolve. Completely different species. The life and death cycle of the universe will start all over again.

“Nothing is unchanging, Maxwell. Nothing will last forever. Not you. Not I. Not even the universe. No matter how much we advance, we’ll never escape the eventual heat death of everything. Robert once told me that humanity had to come to the stars to escape the demise of our own sun. Well, humanity will face a further trial after that, when the universe itself evaporates—unless we can find a way to live outside of reality. But either way, I take comfort in the fact that the universe will be reborn again someday, in a second Big Bang.”

The AI was silent for a moment. “Do you think you will be reborn in some way, too, after death?”

“I don’t know for certain, Maxwell. But with all the intricacies of the universe, all the checks and balances, I think I would have to be. Maybe I’d even return to this universe as a new life form, perhaps in a different galaxy.”

“Like this one?”

“Yes,” Jonathan smiled. “Much like this one.”

“So in a sense, you have been reborn already.”

Jonathan considered that. “In a way.”

“And I, Captain? Do you think I will be reborn if I am destroyed?”

Jonathan pursed his lips. “I have no answer for that, Maxwell. None whatsoever.”

“I choose to believe I would,” the AI said.

“Good for you, Maxwell,” Jonathan said. “It’s a happy thought.”

“Space combat makes you philosophical, Captain,” Maxwell stated.

Jonathan chuckled sadly. “How could it not? And don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question.” He paused. “Thank you, by the way, for that surreptitious little bit of counseling. That was very sly of you.”

“You’re welcome, Captain,” the AI returned. “I’m glad I could help. Shall I make you some burnt toast now?”

Jonathan grinned widely. “You already did, Maxwell. Best burnt toast I’ve ever had.”

I
n anticipation of what was to come, Bridgette had removed her spacesuit and stripped off the lower portion of her liquid cooling and ventilation undergarments. The telepath had told her to think very carefully on her decision for a day, and when he returned, she gave him her answer. It was the best possible choice for Eugene. She wouldn’t allow him to suffer at the hands of these aliens.

“Once we begin,” Barrick said. “We cannot go back. Your baby will be lost. You know this?”

“I’m ready.” She felt slightly self-conscious lying there half-naked before him. The feeling was only intensified by the fact he was likely in her head at that very moment, reading her every thought.

“Close your eyes,” the telepath said.

She complied.

“Concentrate on your breathing. Inhale deeply. Exhale slowly. Inhale. Exhale.” His voice was soothing. Hypnotic. “Clear your thoughts. Envision a place where you feel completely safe. Warm. Perhaps a beautiful, flower-filled meadow. Perhaps a mountain lake. Perhaps a sunny white sand beach. Focus on this place. Surround yourself with it. Wrap yourself in its warmth.”

Soon her mind was far away. Oddly, she had returned to the shipboard nursery where she had grown up. She used to resent that unchanging, monotonous compartment, but she did feel safe there. She always had a preference for confined areas and a dislike of the wide open places Barrick had mentioned—it came with growing up on a starship. In her current visualization, the robot playmates she had actually had were replaced by human children.

She thought Barrick was still speaking, but she could no longer hear his words. She was completely wrapped up in the mind illusion.

One of the children, a boy, rested a hand on her tummy.

“What’s his name?” the boy said.

Bridgette glanced down. She realized she was pregnant. But how was that possible, when she was a little girl?

“Whose name?” Bridgette said.

“Your baby’s, silly!” the boy said.

Bridgette shook her head fervently. “I don’t have a baby! I shoved a pillow under my shirt. I’m playing a game.”

The boy crossed his arms. “Show me.”

Bridgette lifted the lower hem of her shirt. In horror she discovered that there was no pillow and that her tummy was actually swollen.

“It’s not a baby,” a little girl said. “She’s just fat!”

Bridgette rested a hand on her belly, and felt something press at her palm from inside. She glanced at the children in horror, and said: “Get it out of me!”

She was in a hospital. Her water had broken. She felt the contractions, the terrible contractions.

“Push!” the doctor said.

She pushed. Such pain. It felt like someone was ripping her apart lengthwise from the groin up.

“Harder!” the doctor said.

She shoved downward with all her strength.

“Get... it... out!” she yelled.

She paused, panting hard.

“Push!” the doctor said.

“I can’t,” Bridgette shook her head. “I can’t do it.”

“You can,” the doctor said. “You must.”

She looked at him. He was so sincere. He really wanted to help her.

Her brow furrowed. “I know you,” she said.

“Of course you do,” the man said. “I’m your doctor.”

“No,” she insisted. “I recognize you. Your name... your name is... Barrick.”

The doctor shook his head. “You’re having delusions. You have to push!”

“This isn’t real,” Bridgette said.

The doctor stood up to hold her hand. “Please. You’re in a hospital, about to give birth to your baby boy. Your husband is watching in the next room.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the observational window.

Sure enough Robert stood beyond the glass, the concern obvious on his face.

Bridgette glanced down between her legs.

I can do this.

She pushed, despite the pain. She couldn’t help the scream of agony that escaped her lips.

She paused again, panting. The doctor hovered above her groin, his hands ready to assist.

“Come on!” he said.

Bridgette stared at him for a few moments. And then: “No.”

He glanced at her. He seemed stunned. “What?”

“I said: no. I don’t want you to kill my baby. Stop this.”

The doctor glanced over his shoulder. “Nurse. Prepare for caesarean.”

The Weaver robot came forward, telescoping one of its limbs. A needle extended toward her skin.

“No!” Bridgette said. She fought against the sudden binds that strapped her to the bed. “No injections! No!”

The needle touched her skin, and she fought a few moments longer, then slumped on the bed. She no longer felt any pain. She no longer felt anything.

“Nurse, make the incision,” the doctor commanded.

The Weaver robot positioned itself over her swollen belly, and a scalpel appeared in a different telescoping limb. The blade touched her skin. She thought it felt cold, though the distant part of her mind that was yet conscious couldn’t be sure. She saw the blood dripping down her pale skin.

No. Eugene. No!

With that thought the vision stripped away and she found herself floating in darkness. She was a small, spherical mass of energy, blue in color. Beside her was another smaller mass, green in color, joined to her by a thin thread. A larger, pulsating red smear towered above her, reaching its crimson tentacles toward the green, threatening to rip it away from her.

She tried to move, but couldn’t. She knew she had to protect that green sphere at all costs. She focused on it with all her being, and tiny tendrils sprouted from her body. She willed them to grow toward the smaller sphere. As they grew near, tinier tendrils reached out from the green mass, and her own entwined with them. She was able to draw in the green sphere, and then she wrapped her protective tendrils around it, shielding it from the red smear that threatened to devour them both.

Those evil tentacles enveloped them and squeezed. Bridgette knew it was too late, but she reached down inside herself anyway, hoping to find the strength to resist a while longer. But then she discovered something entirely unexpected: an energy reserve vastly superior to anything she had on her own. She joined with it.

The hospital came back into view. The doctor was leaning forward, eagerly watching the operation, but then he abruptly stood up and staggered backward as if struck. The Weaver retracted its limb, and its servomotors whirred as the robot retreated.

The restraints were gone, and so Bridgette sat up.

“I will not let you kill my baby,” she intoned imperiously.

She looked at the robot, and it crumpled into a metallic ball that dropped with a loud clank to the floor.

She turned her attention on the doctor next. The man slammed against the far wall of the room, and then slid upward until his head touched the ceiling. He quivered rapidly in a kind of seizure, and then his body ripped apart in a stream of gore. 

She opened her eyes. She was back in the alien compartment, breathing hard. Beside her, Barrick panted just as loudly.

She instinctively reached for her belly: she still had her baby. She exhaled in relief.

“You are strong,” Barrick said.

Ignoring him, she pulled on the lower portion of her liquid cooling and ventilation undergarments.

“So confident,” Barrick continued.

Bridgette spun on him: “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

Barrick raised his palms defensively. “I only did what you asked me to.”

“Yes,” Bridgette said. “And thankfully you failed. Haven’t you ever heard of antenatal depression? Sometimes I have rash thoughts. You fed those thoughts, didn’t you? With your psychic powers. You amplified them.”

“Not at all,” Barrick said.

She thought he was lying.

“Either way,” Barrick continued. “I failed, as you said. However, ask yourself this: how can you be so certain I didn’t purposely back down?”

Bridgette considered his words. Then she began to don the lower assembly of her spacesuit. “Why would you go through all that trouble?”

“Perhaps I was merely testing you. To see how strong you were.” He stared at her intently. “You have the ability within you, I see that now. It is latent, more dormant than even the captain. But like Captain Dallas it is weak, undeveloped. It is no wonder Zhidao had no influence over you. Still, somehow you managed to link with your unborn child, and combine his strength with your own.”

She shook her head, annoyed by his nonsensical talk. She reached for the torso assembly of her spacesuit, which lay on the deck beside her.

“I didn’t tell you this before,” Barrick said. “But the Raakarr intend to execute you. The darkness will come for you, likely tonight.”

“Then my baby and I will die together,” Bridgette said firmly.

Barrick stared at her, his expression grim. “You’re assuming they will kill the baby.”

Holding the torso assembly, she paused, feeling a sudden horror. “Then... we have to go through with the abortion after all.”

Barrick smiled emotionlessly. “No. Actually we don’t.” He tossed her a small packet. “Install that.”

She looked at the metallic wrapping suspiciously. “What is it?”

“An anti-rad,” Barrick said.

She frowned. “How is this going to help me?”

“You’ll need it, trust me. As will your baby. Especially your baby.”

She still hesitated. “How do I know you haven’t put some poison in it?”

Barrick seemed amused. “If I wanted to kill you, do you think I would resort to
poison?
”

“What if it’s something else, then?” she said. “Like a custom carrier virus and accelerant designed to mess with my DNA?”

Barrick raised a hand in resignation. “Apply it, or don’t. The choice is yours. I won’t be responsible for what happens to you when the radiation hits.”

She opened the metallic wrapping. Inside was a thin, keycard-like drip that she recognized as an anti-rad, and a laser scalpel of the same width.

She gave Barrick a last suspicious scowl and then, sighing, she rolled back the sleeve of her ventilation undergarment and pressed the cold laser scalpel to her forearm. She felt the small prick as the device injected a local anesthetic, and then black smoke wafted from her skin as the laser made an incision the same width as the drip. The laser partially cauterized as it cut so that only a thin red line marked the incision.

She grabbed the keycard-sized drip and held the edge to the wound. She shoved inward, trying to slide the anti-rad horizontally inside the gash, as if tucking it into a thin pocket. She kept missing the opening in her flesh.

“Do you need some help?” Barrick asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.

In answer, she kept trying. The anti-rad finally slid partially underneath her skin; she flinched at the dull pain, knowing it would have been much worse without the anesthetic. Grimacing, she continued to push the anti-rad inside until it was buried entirely underneath her dermis; the only evidence it was installed was the small rectangular bulge of flesh under her forearm.

Fresh blood laced the wound opening, so she pressed the laser scalpel to the area, cauterizing it. When that was done, she tossed the medical laser aside and rolled down her sleeve. Other than the vague throbbing in her forearm, she felt no different than before. That was a good sign, she supposed.

He nodded toward the far bulkhead. “Finish suiting up. I’ll instruct the guard outside to open the airlock. Then you will go.”

She frowned. “Where?”

“The guards will escort you to a medical bay. My prison. Set an alarm on your aReal for oh seven hundred hours.”

That was twelve hours from the current time. She reluctantly set the alarm. “What happens at oh seven hundred?”

“The medical bay hatch will open. Make your way back to the shuttle, using the map made by your aReal. You’ll have to evade my guards: they’ll grow suspicious when the hatch opens and you don’t answer their telepathic requests. Make sure you’re off the ship by oh seven thirty.”

“And if I’m not?” Bridgette asked.

The telepath didn’t answer.

Bridgette didn’t know what to make of the man. “Why are you helping me?”

“I promised Captain Dallas I would eventually set you free if he let me go. I’m fulfilling my part of the bargain.”

She shrugged, then finished donning the spacesuit. When the helmet clicked into place, a permission request appeared on the aReal built into the faceplate.

“I’m sending you the access codes you’ll need to operate the shuttle,” Barrick said. “Please accept.”

She did. After that, the telepath tossed her a spare oxygen canister and she fitted it to her harness. Once it was secured, she said: “The aliens are going to know I’m not you.”

“Take this.” He kicked a small device to her.

She bent over to regard the thing. It looked like a remote control of some kind, though without any buttons.