Resilience by Fletcher DeLancey

Author:Fletcher DeLancey [DeLancey, Fletcher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912684038
Publisher: Heartsome Publishing
Published: 2018-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

22

Defense

“Give me some good news,” Ekatya said as she entered Dr. Wells’s office.

Wells started so abruptly that her chair moved. “Whatever happened to knocking?”

“You called me here. I assumed you were expecting me.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to just blow in.”

Ekatya stood in front of her desk, too keyed up to sit. “I’ve got a dead man in your morgue and a pack of alien life forms rampaging around my ship, melting holes in it. Social niceties are not high on the list right now. Give me some good news.”

“I guess I’m lucky I can do that, then.” Wells pushed back her chair and walked to the lab bench set on the far wall. “Here. Put these on.”

Ekatya tugged on the thin gloves.

Having donned her own in half the time, Dr. Wells reached into a shallow dish and picked up a thin sheet of something white and fibrous, about half the size of her palm. “Take this and see if you can tear it.”

“Is this the—”

“Yes. Murray died of asphyxiation because of this. Given what the Resilere did to his skull, asphyxiation was a blessing.”

It took five seconds of effort to know she would never tear this material. She shuddered at the thought of having it plastered across her face and held it out. “Is the fact that he suffered less than he might have the good news?”

Dr. Wells ignored her outstretched hand. “No. Well, it probably should be, but that’s not what I wanted to show you.” She held up a small spray bottle full of clear fluid. “This is the closest approximation I can make to the seawater of Enkara. I looked up the chemical composition and programmed my matter printer.” Two quick squirts soaked the patch Ekatya still held in her palm. “Now try.”

The fibrous patch had already absorbed the water and increased in volume. Ekatya poked at it. When she lifted her finger, some of the fibers came with it, leaving a gooey string stretched between finger and palm. Rubbing her finger and thumb together merely spread the goo.

She picked up the patch between forefingers and thumbs of both hands and tried to tear it, an act that didn’t so much divide it as spread it into a thinner patch covering a larger surface area. With a little more effort, she managed to break the fibers and end up with two separate sections.

Dr. Wells wore a triumphant smile as she held up the spray bottle. “We have a tool of self-defense. I’ve already programmed this into the general matter printer menu. If you tell everyone to print one out and carry it at all times, we can prevent any more deaths by asphyxiation.”

Ekatya stared at the bottle, then the mess on her gloved hands. “Maybe I’m getting too old for double shifts. I don’t understand what just happened.”

“That’s because you’ve been talking to Cox. He sees enemies everywhere he looks. Captain, think about what we saw on that cargo ship. Only one person wounded, one more dead from this, and all the rest dead from environmental failure.

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