CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 

 

 

Codon lowered Nova onto the command pod's swiveling chair, with an audible sigh. Beads of sweat dribbled down his forehead and collected on the end of his round nose.

Nova squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip as her wounded ankle bounced against the chair. Agony raced up her leg.

"Please tell me you've got Parapem or something stronger," Nova said through clenched teeth.

"The medbot should be able to help you out," Codon said. "Medical unit to command pod."

His ship replied, "Medbot dispatched. Arrival in one minute."

It was the longest sixty seconds of Nova's life. She clutched her leg, just above the knee, in an effort to stop the pain spreading to the rest of her body, and to stop the blood from pouring out of the mangled stump.

The buzz of a motor entering the room made Nova open her eyes. A square robot hovered across the rubble and came to a stop in front of her. It scanned her body with a red light and its internal mechanisms beeped.

"Multiple injuries and major damage detected."

"I know that!" Nova said. "Give me something for the pain!"

The robot opened a compartment and a tray extended out with a single Parapem strip resting on top. Nova snatched it off the tray and laid it on her tongue. The soothing numbness spread upwards and eased her throbbing headache. The Parapem strip couldn't stop the agony coursing up from her missing foot.

"Missing limb detected. Tissue sample required."

"Just do something."

Nova gripped her leg tighter and allowed herself a flicker of hope. Codon's ship had medical technology far beyond what she'd find in Crusader, perhaps it could make the pain stop. She didn't let herself think beyond that, because without her leg she was a cripple and she'd never hold her own as a bounty hunter. She'd lost her livelihood, her life.

The robot hovered closer and jabbed a long needle into Nova's upper arm. The thin point sunk through her skin, into muscle and pain burst through her arm.

"Argh! What is that?"

The robot withdrew the needle.

"Will it stop the bleeding?"

"Stop the bleeding?" Codon said. "That's the latest in med-tech, I designed it myself. We'll have a new foot for you in no time."

"It's got tissue printing?" Nova's eyes bulged and her heart fluttered.

"Of course it does. All Confederacy ships have tissue-regen facilities."

Nova swallowed and stared up at the ceiling. The outer planets couldn't get bandages while the Confederacy overflowed with tissue-regeneration equipment. But Nova's usual outrage fizzled; she couldn't resent the equipment if it saved her leg.

"Tissue analysis complete. Please raise the wounded area," the robot said.

Nova gritted her teeth and forced her wounded leg up so that it was horizontal. Loose flesh dangled down from the mutilated end and dripped blood over the floor.

The robot positioned itself in front of Nova and encased the end of her leg inside one of its compartments. Its motor whirred louder and Nova's leg tingled. It felt like a feather brushing up and down her injured leg that took the pain away.

She breathed easier and her shoulders relaxed back into the chair.

"Engines are clear for take-off," Codon said. "Whatever was holding us here is gone."

Nova let out a slow breath; she could leave this hell-hole.

It took ten minutes before the robot spoke. "Regeneration complete."

Nova opened one eye and looked down at her leg. Maybe it was—but she couldn't let herself hope.

She followed the line of her leg, past her knee, to her ankle, and then up to her toes.

Her heart clenched. They were all there! The skin was lighter than the rest of the leg, as if she'd spent her whole life wearing a thick sock, but apart from that, it was as if the incident had never happened.

She wiggled her toes. The smallest one jerked away from the others and then clenched tight. She tried again and this time her whole foot spasmed up and slammed back to the floor.

"Perfect coordination will take time," said the medbot.

Nova took a deep breath and focused on lifting her foot away from the floor. It jerked up faster than she'd intended but she managed to hold it still for several seconds before it dropped back to the ground.

"Incredible," Nova whispered.

"Old technology," Codon said, waving his hand.

Nova's head spun, she'd been sure her life, at least as a bounty hunter, was over, but she'd been given a second chance. A sharp sting in the side of her cheek reminded her that she wasn't back to full-health yet. She poked around with her tongue and a loose tooth popped free. She spat it into her waiting palm. Blood left a tangy trail across her tongue.

"Are any more repairs required?" the medbot asked.

"No. That will do," Codon said. The medbot turned and hovered out of the room.

"Um—" Nova held her tooth in one hand and her aching side with the other. "I guess I should be getting back to my own ship."

Codon strode away from the controls and stood over her, face stony.

Nova's hand clenched around her tooth and her heart fluttered in her chest. The only way out of the room was past Codon and he had her cornered in the chair with no room to stand up.

"What—" Nova let the tooth fall off her palm and clatter to the floor, her hand flicked to the gun at her belt.

She fumbled and Codon pressed the barrel of his gun into her forehead.

"I can't let you leave," Codon said. "With all of that technology and your powers, it's the biggest discovery since warp-travel. I'll be recognized as the greatest scientist of all time."

Nausea rolled through Nova's stomach. She wanted to kick herself for ever thinking that Codon was anything more than a self-serving, arrogant, pig.

She rolled the chair away from him and then used it to stand. Her injured ribs spasmed and forced her to hunch over. She sucked in a shallow breath and the room spun.

She rested her new right foot on the floor but it quaked, couldn't hold her weight.

"You don't own me and neither does the Confederacy. If I want to leave, then I'll damn well leave." Her chest felt like it was being ripped open with every word. "You know as well as I do that the Confederacy would turn those weapons into death machines. They'd wipe the whole of humanity out by themselves."

She loosened her gun and pulled it an inch from its holster.

A bright yellow ball of energy screamed past her and slammed into the wall at her side.

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear," Codon said. "You're required by the Confederacy to better help us understand this technology. Destroying it would be in direct violation of Confederacy law. You're now my property under the cyborg act."

"What?" she said. "I'm not a cyborg!"

"I guess that depends on the definition. We'll just have to agree to disagree. In the meantime, stay right where you are."

Codon reached behind his back and pressed more buttons. The ship beeped twice and Codon grinned.

"Prepare engines for warp," he said.

"Preparing engines," the ship replied.

Nova clutched the butt of her gun, calculating. She was fast, but injured, and Codon had proved he wasn't useless with his weapon. She'd only get one shot.

"I wouldn't," Codon said. "If you move that gun one more inch, I'll blow your hand off. I'm sure you'll be almost as good to us without limbs."

"You bastard," she said.

"For the greater good. Your welfare doesn't mean much in the face of the whole Human Confederacy."

Nova's mind raced. The ship was on autopilot so Codon could stay standing with his gun aimed at her until they landed at Confederacy headquarters. There'd be no chance for escape.

She wiggled the fingers of her left hand back and forth through the air. She needed something, anything to distract Codon but if she'd thought she had control of her powers before, she was wrong.

Instead of reaching through time and pulling out a miracle, her fingers wriggled, useless, in the air. Each breath grew more painful as her cracked ribs pressed against her lungs. Stars flashed at the edges of her vision and she swayed on her feet. Her eyes searched desperately for a way out, surveying the room, chairs, desks, debris. The engines had righted the ship, but there were still things scattered all across the floor.

Nothing useful.

She had to do it.

She let her body collapse behind a row of controls and whipped out her gun.

Codon fired. A yellow blast burned through the air and hit her hand where it clutched her side. The skin seared and blistered. Nova screamed and clutched her hand close to her chest.

Nova's first shot flew wide and took out a video feed, shards of glass scattered across the room. She landed hard and dragged her aching body across the floor to the edge of the controls. She fired three shots around the side.

One hit Codon's knee and it shattered. Pieces of bone and specks of blood exploded out. Codon dropped his gun and collapsed to the ground, clutching his knee with both hands.

A stream of curses and cries of pain poured out of his mouth, much like the streams of blood between his fingers. "You bitch! You'll never make it out alive. I'll see to it that you're a prisoner for the rest of your life."

Nova kept her pistol trained on Codon even though her arm shook with the effort. "Cal, please tell me you're on your way."

"Crusader is touching down now."

"Thank the stars," Nova said through a gasp of pain.

"Medbot, get in here!" Codon screamed.

The medbot and Cal entered the command pod at the same time. Cal hovered through the doorway with his small plasma pistol trained on Codon.

Nova's arm collapsed to the floor. She could hear Cal and Codon talking but their words were muffled by her pain.

"Nova. Nova!" Cal said.

His voice brought her back to consciousness.

"Yes?" she whispered.

"Do you want him dead?" Cal said.

Nova's head lolled to the side. Codon lay on the floor with his arms tied above his head. How long had she been out for?

"Do you want him dead?" Cal said.

"No," she said. "He's a Confederacy goon but I won't sink to his level. Let's go home."

A compartment on Cal's side opened and he held out a box of Parapem strips. Nova took four before she snatched the edge of the controls and dragged herself upright. The Parapem numbed her punctured lungs and her blistered hand but did nothing for the damage. She leaned on the bench and glared down at Codon.

He stared back at her, face red and twisted.

"Let's be very clear about something," Nova said after a long pause. "You're not to tell anyone I was here. If you do, I will personally hunt you down and destroy you."

"How dare you—"

"No!" Nova held up her hand. "How dare you! I saved your life and you turn on me like the good-for-nothing coward that you are. You will leave this planet and never bother me again."

A muscle in Codon's jaw twitched. "How am I supposed to explain what happened here?"

"I don't give a damn. That's not my problem."

"There is a fortune of alien tech down there. If the Confederacy thought that I lost it, I'd be thrown into a black-hole." Codon's voice cracked. He'd lost a lot of blood through his knee, and the pain must have been unbearable.

Nova couldn't find much sympathy for him. After everything she'd done to save them both, he betrayed her. Not that she should be surprised. That's how things always played out, in the end.

"You're a smart man, right?" she said, wobbling as a wave of dizziness washed over her.

He didn't reply.

"I'm going to blow that alien tech to the multiverse. Now, weren't there some terrorists here recently?" she said.

Codon's eyes opened wide.

"There you go," Nova said.

A part of her wanted to see him dead. She wanted to watch him pay for his betrayal. But she'd seen enough death to last a lifetime; she decided that a broken knee would be punishment enough, this time.

"Fine," Codon said, breathless.

"Good. I would suggest you stay right there until I'm off the vessel."

"I can't exactly go anywhere." Codon jerked his arms and the rope holding him rattled the controls.

Nova nodded back and hobbled away. Cal hovered behind her, gun aimed at Codon. She lurched from one desk to another until she reached the corridor and from there she used the wall to hold herself upright. She had to stop every few steps to regain her breath and to push past the pain welling inside her. She'd lost track of her injuries and knew only that if she didn't get help soon, she'd be dead.

A lifetime later, she reached the small side door out into the desert. She took a deep breath and stepped down from the ship. Her new foot landed on the sand and gave out under her weight. The rest of her body collapsed to the ground in a sprawling heap. New pain surged out of her chest and she succumbed to the darkness.

 

***

 

Nova became aware of a constant beeping and a bright light moving across her closed eyelids. She could hear something moving to her right. The last thing she remembered was falling out of Codon's ship but the surface beneath her was firm, not like sand.

Her eyes flickered open. A bright light shone above her head and Cal floated in the air to the right of her body. Tools and equipment flicked out of half a dozen open compartments in his sides.

"Cal," she said. Her throat was dry and the words stung.

"You're awake!" he said.

"What happened?"

"With a lot of trouble I managed to get your lazy body back to Crusader. I don't know how you managed to get so injured."

She didn't have the strength to smile. "Me neither. How long have I been out?"

"Five hours. The Confederacy ship left as soon as you got out."

"Five hours. We've got to get rid of all that stuff. Codon will have Confederacy soldiers swarming this place in no time."

It hurt to talk and to think, all she really wanted to do was sink back into unconsciousness but if she did that then the Confederacy would get hold of the Ancient's technology and that was almost as bad as the Ancient's still being alive.

"I'm taking care of it," Cal said.