Warp Gate by James David Victor

Author:James David Victor [Victor, James David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairfield Publishing

8

The Return

“Explain yourself!” Eliard leaned forward to point his one good hand at the Recorder as the double-doors behind him hummed open, spilling OEC guards that had been summoned by the outburst.

The Recorder’s face was impassive as she stared up at the captain. “You do not need me to tell you, of all people, who that person on the screen behind me is,” the Recorder said. “That is Cassandra Milan, Cassie, or Cass, one of my best agents.”

“I saw her die,” Eliard said. I helped her to die. His heart thumped.

The memory rose in his mind like a shark from the deep, threatening to rob him of any semblance of control. They had been attacked by the mutant Q’Lot hybrid things. He didn’t know if they were some sort of weapon of the Q’Lot itself, or more likely to be an Armcore creation, merging the difficult, mutable genome of the ancient Q’Lot with human or other animals.

They had been attacked, and Cassandra had fallen. The only option had been to either let her die, or to take her back to the nearest medical facility or try some of the rare Armcore Q’Lot serum to keep her alive. The Blue Serum was supposed to be used for super soldiers that the Armcore was going to develop, infusing their body with an organic, natural viral version of the recovery nanobots. A virus that wouldn’t attack your system but would rebuild it.

The Blue Serum had failed. Cassandra had died.

No, Eliard forced himself to admit.

The Blue Serum had killed her. He had watched as her body had reacted to it, and the mixed toxins and poisons of both the serum and the mutant Q’Lot’s attacks had killed her. She might still be alive if he hadn’t decided to treat her there, lightyears away in the middle of nowhere.

And all because I couldn’t face handing myself over to the nearest medical facility, and thus getting apprehended by the Coalition or by Armcore, Eliard thought bitterly. Back then, at the start of this crazy adventure, he had been even more of a fool than he was now.

I had been certain that I was special. That I was the best pirate captain in all of non-aligned space, Eliard thought. That my reputation was worth so much, that I had convinced myself that Cassandra Milan wouldn’t want me to give ourselves up for her.

But now, it appeared, that she was in fact alive. But how could that be? How?

“Just watch, Lord Captain Martin,” the Recorder said softly. “We received this message not nine hours ago, and I was in the process of analyzing its accuracy and deciding who to approach with it when Senior Tomas of Armcore performed his betrayal, and the noble houses were devastated at the Massacre of Helion.” She paused, turning in her chair to face the screen with the still image of the woman that Eliard couldn’t take his eyes from.

“It appears, Lord Captain, that even in our darkest moments, there is still the possibility of hope.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.