Kyle, part 5

"Johansen here. We have just done a search of the cargo hold, and the engine deck. There is no sign here of Celena's body. We are about to check the boat slip, then the staterooms. Johansen out." He replaced the comm back into his jacket pocket.

"Do you think she's back from the dead?" His Aslan companion was walking slowly to Johansen's rear.

"No, Danny, humans don't come back from the dead. It's not, what you say, natural?" Johansen waited for Krigbaum to catch up. He was guiding the sensor robot with a remote unit, and occasionally had to wait for the robot to catch up. It wasn't a very smart robot, but it was very useful.

"Well, I was thinking. Herrowwwl....that maybe because she is a female. They have strange and mysterious ways."

Johansen rolled his eyes. "No, Danny. Human males and females are not THAT different. Well, at least not most of the time."

"Warrumph. Aslan females are a world apart. That's the way it should be. After all, who would buy your food, otherwise?"

The whirring sensor robot came down the passage way past the armsmen. Krigbaum was not far behind. He had a set of HUD goggles on, and a VR glove.

"Gangway, one side. Sensor specialist Krigbaum coming through..." He followed the robot, seeing through its sensors. The robot reached the end of the hall, and activated the automatic iris valve to the boat deck. It then entered the room.

Krigbaum all of a sudden stopped moving. He just stood there.

"Uh, Johansen. You better get the captain. He's not going to believe this." His head tilted slightly, but he didn't remove the goggles.

"What is it - do you see something?"

"You could say that..." Krigbaum stood perfectly still, twitching fingers on his VR glove, sending commands to the sensor robot, but not moving his head.

Then Johansen noticed that he was licking his lips.

"Krigbaum, what is it. What the hell are you looking at?"

"Well, like I said, you better get the captain. Cause I think I found Celena."

Johansen left him and trotted to the end of the passageway, to cross through the iris valve. When he did, he was greeted by the site Krigbaum had been staring at through the robots sensors.

The darkened boat deck had a large see through set of view ports out into space, so you could see when the launch pulled into the slip. Out there, illuminated brightly, was the launch.

Standing on the deck, without a stitch of clothing on, was the figure of Celena. Staring out the view panel at the launch, with her hands pressed against it. Motionless.

After a few silent moments, Johansen pulled the comm from his pocket.

"Captain. You better get down to the boat deck."

His voice must have been heard by Celena, because she broke out of her trance. She straightened her back, took her hands from the view panel, and then waved a hand across her field of vision, in front of the launch. A second later, all the power on the launch shut down, for a second time.

*****

Hollingsworth and Heeswyck were alone on the bridge, but they were both staring at a comm panel. It had a live feed from the boat deck, showing the launch outside the slip. The side of the small ship's boat had been melted away by the decomposing effects of the nano-machines, but the inner airlock had not been breached. It looked quite dead as it just floated there, with only a few dim lights visible in the cockpit view panels.

"Captain, this might not be the time, but I have a question for you."

He turned to look at the only member of his crew that he knows from before the Rebellion. Other than Celena, that is. Celena. Back?

"Yes, Heeswyck, what's your question?" He never turned from the panel.

"Well, sir, earlier today you referred to Culp and Sekula as the girls. But you still referred to Mitchell as Mitchell. I, uh, was wondering...don't you think of Mitchell as a girl?"

"Of course I do! She's beautiful. And talented, and intelligent. Best damn small vessel engineer I've ever served with. But if I say anything at all to her that lets her think I see her as a woman, she'll kick my ass."

He smiled briefly, but still stared at the view panel.

"Is that all you can think of right now?" Hollingsworth was quite fond of the younger officer, and enjoyed watching Heeswyck grow in his role. Very different from his beginnings as just a trained bodyguard for a Royal Heir.

"Well, actually, no it's not. I'm worried about all of them. But I don't know what to do." The young man shifted from one side to the other. He followed his captain's lead, and stared at the unmoving image of the launch.

"You can get down to the boat deck. If Deyo's plan works and those nano-bugs are dead or gone, then they'll need help getting our people off the launch once it comes inboard. Take Turnitsa with you, he'll be worried about Culp."

"Aye, Sir."

As the younger officer left the bridge, he bumped into the leader of the Marine contingent, coming up from below.

"Hollingsworth, what is it? I heard something about Celena?"

The Captain turned to see a very somber and serious Major Burnes come onto the bridge deck.

"Yes, Major, I think so. Your people, Johansen and Krigbaum, are bringing her this way." The Captain paced back and forth on the open deck, behind his command chair. He was, in spite of his comments to Burnes, still staring at the comm panel.

"Deyo, are you sure that there is no electrical action on the hull of that launch? I want to be absolutely sure that those nano-machines are gone before we bring her into our slip."

He heard the old Deyo, the cool collected voice, coming out of the avionics shack.

"Yes. It is dead on the outside. No EM field at all. And I have already slaved the launch's computer, so whenever you give the word..."

"Very good, Deyo. Bring her inside, and let’s get those people out of there."

He was concerned about the crew members, and also about the fuel that would allow them to escape this patch of dead space, but he was also very, very interested in seeing Celena again.

*****

Just as soon as Turnitsa got done activating the EVA maintenance robots, he went to the flight deck.

As he was entering the flight deck, he saw Heeswyck and Danny leading Mitchell's crumpled form to a series of couches the Aslan had set up. Culp and Sekula were already sitting in couches of their own, with their helmets removed.

He rushed to Culp's side to see how she was.

"Well. You certainly got the good ticket this mission." He smiled at her and helped her start removing gloves.

"Yeah. Fun ride. Did anyone get the number on that speeder that hit us?"

"Cute. Captain tells me that you managed to get another bellyful of fuel into that launch. I guess my machines did pretty good, huh?" His smile was wide, and infectious.

"Well, yeah. Until they went berserk and started eating everything in site. Lucky thing they didn't eat Mitchell. I told you that stuff was dangerous, and look at what it did?"

The programmer rolled his eyes, "I've already been over it with the Captain. Nothing that I designed or programmed could have done that. It must have had something to do with whatever caused the blackout."

He watched as her head rolled slowly backwards, to rest on the couch. He started undoing the Velcro webbing on her pressure suit, to make her more comfortable. She kept talking, though. "The blackout. Yes, the blackout. Sekula and I found something over on the alien ship, and she picked it up. That was when it happened."

He glanced over Culp to the other form on the next couch. "Sekula--glad to see your awake, I'll give you a hand in a second."

"Don't bother, I can tell you're busy enough over there with AJ. You two take all the time in the world." She was smiling at them, and Turnitsa saw that she looked to be in pretty good shape, too.

Then he noticed her hand.

"What the hell happened to your glove?" It was only half fashioned.

"What's that on the arm of your pressure suit?"

"What? Oh this" The programmer watched as she rose up her hand, and looked, stupidly, at the glove. "Oh yeah!" She got a sudden look of recognition.

"AJ, you must have pulled my glove back on." She reached over and pulled it off.

"Damn." It looked painful to him. "Does that hurt?" He looked at the black scorch marks on her hand, and up the sleeve of her pressure suit.

"Funny. No it doesn't, actually. But it doesn't rub off either. It's like something shorted out or exploded in my hand. Say, Culp - did you pick up that crystal - I'm sure that's what did this to me. Right after I picked it up, the whole world blacked out for me."

"Me too. But, no, I didn't pick up the crystal. Come to think of it, when I got you out of the alien ship, I didn't even see it lying around. Things were a mess, though. When I got you out the whole alien ship was decompressing. The outside hull had been eaten by laughing boys" He jumped as she thumbed at him, "Nano-machines. Things went berserk when we all blacked out."

"Weird. I wonder what that crystal was."

He had been going back and forth between the two of them, following their comments to each other, when he felt his hair crawl up his neck.

"Turnitsa!! What the hell do you mean setting me up with some crappy half-assed technology that tries to get me killed?" Mitchell had woken up. And just in time for all of them to see Danny help DeAlteriis come limping out of the launch.

Turnitsa stood first, and started clapping, followed by Heeswyck, Culp, Sekula, and finally Mitchell. The last three struggled to stand, but they all owed their lives to the pilot.

The ship's programmer was smiling as he saw DeAlteriis toss his helmet aside, and grinning, just looked around and asked, “What?"

*****

"Alright, Deyo, you know the score. We have 40 tons of crappy fuel that we got from the nano-machines. The jump drive is already acting like a tempramental whore, and we need to get out of here. What have you found?"

*****

The engineer was talking over her shoulder to the comm panel, but she was busy putting away the tools and meters she had out for her repairs. When she heard the astrogator replying to her question, she turned to face the panel. No image, of course, but his voice was not to be mistaken, not even over the hum of the ship's powerplant.

*****

"Well. I believe that I have found a system with a colonized world, within approximately 8 light years of here. That should take the 40 tons of fuel we have in the Rani, and if we siphon off the last couple of tons of hydrogen out of the launch, we should have maneuver time in the system when we come out of jump space."

*****

"What system is it?"

"Nothing too exciting. a main sequence red star named Kappa Corvii. The world is the only one inhabitable in the system, and it's quite cold. The locals dwell in underground cities. It appears as if they are there for harvesting some kind of bugs that live in the liquid ocean, under the icy surface."

"What a great sounding place! Can we get some fuel there and figure out where the hell we're going?" She stared at the screen. Why won't Deyo show himself ever?

*****

"I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's the best I can do. And yes, they do have a downport where we can get fuel and flush our filters. The good news is that there are no Imperial bases in the system. And there's better news for Danny. One of the harvesting companies is run by an Aslan bond-family.

"Wonderful. More fur balls. And what's this garden spot called?"

"It's called Corax. And I wouldn't knock it completely. They are supposed to have really great calamari."

"I'm sure Heeswyck will be pleased. Is Hollingsworth up there, I need to talk to him about the engines."

"Good luck. He disappeared with Celena over an hour ago. I wouldn't hold my breath."

*****

"I tell you again. I am in the body of the one you call Celena, but I am not Celena."

"Alright. Who are you, then?" Hollingsworth was alternating between desperation, and frustration. He was anxious about the idea of having the woman he loved back again, but frustrated because it was obviously not entirely her.

"I am other. I am at once many and none. I inhabit this body because it is available, and because it is undamaged. I am aware of it because she who awoke me thinks of this body. She is an acquaintance."

"Yeah. You must mean Sekula. She and Celena were friends. In fact Celena was friends with most of the crew. But I need to know who you are. For instance, what do you mean that you are many and one."

The woman, or whoever it was, inside of Celena's body didn't look in one place for long. Her head was constantly drifting around, looking at all details in the room at the same time. Her field of vision would cross the Captain's face from time to time, and for the briefest of moments, her look would linger there. He thought he saw recognition, but then she'd be gone again, looking somewhere else.

"I am of the Rish. As a race it is our belief to preserve each generation, and this we do by giving of ourselves, upon death, to the crystal. All the Rish in our ship, that your soldiers destroyed, are stored in the crystal. This body now is that awareness."

He stared at her, briefly, while thinking about what she was saying.

"Tell me more about this awareness. And what do you know about what happened to our ship?"

"The awareness is...Rish. I do not explain it. I am unable. I do know many things. Many things beyond the physical perception of this body. When I became of this body, I attempted to protect the bodies of Rish--to do so I disrupted all local power systems. It is now too late for that, so I am content."

"So, you lashed out and shut everything down? You can do that."

"Yes, that and other."

Hollingsworth shot up out of the chair, and nervously began pacing back and forth in the room.

"And the second time? When you had been in that body for a while, you shut down things on our ship's launch. What was that about?"

"I am one with this body now. It is important to this body to keep alive. It is therefore important to this body that micro life does not consume this vessel. I shut off micro life and all power in the smaller vessel. Micro life was not then behaving as it should because of my earlier action, so I repaired the situation."

"You caused the nano-machines to change? And then you shut them down? Hot jumping cheese! Please do me a favor, and don't do that again -- I don't want to know what else you can do if you shut something down." He was still pacing up and down again for a few minutes, when something hit him.

"Wait a second. You just said that it is important to that body that it stay alive. Are you in contact with that body? With Celena, with the original inhabitant of that body?"

"Yes I and Celena are both inside this body. When I return to Rish I will be gone, and only Celena will be inside this body. She longs for return."

He slammed his hands down on the table, leaning forward, staring into her eyes.

"Alright then tell me, how do you return to Rish."

"The one who awoke me must will it. She contains the power, and can return me to the crystal of Rish."

"Sekula? Sekula can will you to return?" As she turned her head aside to start glancing around the room again, he returned her face, gently, to face his. She did not struggle against that.

"Yes. If she wills, then I will return to Rish, and Celena will return to this body."

"Well? And why won't Sekula will you to return? Do you know? Have you spoken with her" He was excited and his voice grew louder.

"Sekula is without someone. In the instant when she was in touch with Rish she saw that person. She knows it...inside. But she is not aware of it on the surface."

"Who? Who would Sekula--wait a damned second! You're talking about Kyle, aren't you!"

Celena thought for an instant. Blinked twice, without changing the expression on her face, and then spoke. "Yes. It is Kyle. However it is only one of him. One of Kyle is mechanical, an artificial. The one that Sekula longs for is held against his will."

"What? Are you telling me that there are two Kyles? And that one of them is a fake? And that one is a prisoner?? Hot jumping cheese! Don't go anywhere, I've got to get some more of my people in here. Damn, this is huge. Bigger than--shit, I don't know what. But it sure as hell is huge!"


part 6