Chapter 65

I wasn't out that long. I woke to see Sarah kneeling over me with a worried look upon her face. She was pulling at my outer tunic and from the look of it she was trying to tear it off of me. When my eyes opened Sarah let out a gasp of surprise.

"Thank God!" Sarah declared with all the conviction of somebody who'd been doing a lot of silent praying. "You're awake."

"What happened?" I groaned out in response, feeling very weak and very tired.

"An assassin in a chameleon suit is what happened," Sarah responded quickly, pulling a small scanner out from her belt pouch as she spoke. "She had a laser pistol and she tried to kill you the moment Marta moved out of the way. Luckily she ignored me completely."

"So it was you whose shot dealt with her," I muttered softly. As I did, I tried to move and suddenly found out that I couldn't.

"Lie still," Sarah chided me, placing a hand on my chest as she did. "The bitch put a neat little hole through your left shoulder. From the look of it, the shot was through and through and it didn't hit any bone. It did however damage your nerves in that arm. You probably won't be using it any time soon. Her second shot hit your throwing knife. The energy blast melted that and the excess heat dissipated into your right hand. You've suffered third degree burns there and some major cellular damage. I don't know how bad that is without completing some tests at a medical facility. For now I've given you something for the pain."

"What about the assassin?" I asked, refusing to be distracted by what Sarah was telling me. "Is she dead?"

"Yes," Sarah replied, her face turning very solemn. "I shot her before she could turn her weapon on me."

"What about Dindraine?" I forced myself to ask. "Is she even here?"

"She's in the next room," a strange voice informed me. "She's in there tied up and gagged. I can go and release her if you want."

Slowly I turned my head and looked towards the voice that had been speaking to me. The voice had come from Marta. She was kneeling on the floor next to the body of a small woman who was dressed in the remains of a chameleon suit. Marta looked nervous but not as frightened as she had been earlier.

"Get the girl and anything she needs or wants," I said to the woman in a tired voice, "and bring her here. We still need to get out of here."

Marta leapt to her feet in response to my words and took off as quickly as she could move. I watched her go and sighed. Then I turned my attention back to Sarah. The woman was just putting away her scanner when I looked up at her through half open eyes.

"Will I be able to move?" I asked softly, dreading her reply.

"No," Sarah told me bluntly, "not with all the injuries that you've sustained today. You need to be in an operating room getting the bullets pulled out of your thighs and getting all these holes patched up as well. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get you out of here without help and there is still Rory to think about."

I nodded and sighed at that and then closed my eyes for a moment. By the time I opened them again, Dindraine was kneeling beside me.

The young girl looked exactly like her doppelganger except that her face was very grave and filled with concern. Seeing it I forced myself to smile. That actually hurt a little and I quickly gave up on the effort. Besides it didn't help change Dindraine's expression.

"You're awake again," Sarah exclaimed with a hint of surprise in her voice. "I can't believe it. You should have been unconscious for hours. It must be that enhanced healing factor kicking in and cancelling out the drugs that I've given you."

"It must be," I muttered in agreement. "Have you figured out how to get us out of here yet?"

"Not yet," Sarah admitted with a sigh, "although I do have Damien bringing Rory up here from where we'd left him lying. I didn't want to move him, but my scanner showed no spinal or head injuries that we needed to worry about and I figured that having the two of you in one location would free up Damien and perhaps he could go back down through the levels and elevators to the control room and get some help for us there."

"That's not a bad idea," I told her in a tired murmur of a voice, "but I've got a better idea. Is there a telephone around here?"

"A telephone," Sarah repeated softly as a question, "why do you want a telephone?"

"Well," I groaned in reply, "I want to call Kathy West down in the control room. If she can teleport robots out of here and drop them into the oceans of Game World, then I think she could easily grab hold of us and teleport us back to the resort so you can make use of that high tech medical clinic that they've got there. What do you think?"

Sarah thought that was a great idea and she cursed herself for not thinking of it herself. With the help of Marta, Sarah was able to locate a communications terminal. While she was at it, I spoke to Dindraine and asked her a few questions.

"Are you well Dindraine?" I inquired in Elvish, gazing up into the grave visage that was looking down at me.

Dindraine pursed her lips for a moment before answering me. I could see concern and fear behind her eyes and I wondered at it. Still I was too tired to push her to answer. Eventually she did.

"I am fine my sister's husband," Dindraine replied almost formally. "The others did not harm me at all and for the most part they took good care of me. You needn't worry about that."

I grunted an acknowledgement at that and then sighed and pushed on trying to converse with the girl.

"Your sister will be happy to see you again, little one," I told her softly, "as will others who you once knew and who now live with me and fight beside me. Dork and Damien are here and others live in the city that I now rule."

"I know this," Dindraine replied solemnly, her little face still very grave and serious. "I have watched everything on their network up until you cut their signal. Is it true that Goiania is dead?"

"Yes little one," I sighed in response, feeling sorrow well up in my chest as I told her this. "I am sorry that it happened."

"Goiania was my pretend sister," Dindraine replied looking up and away from me as she said this. "She watched over me in the court of Minos and made certain that I did not suffer as she did."

At that point Damien walked into the room carrying Rory over his shoulders. The tall elven man looked as tired as I felt. He brought Rory over to put him down beside me and then he glanced in my direction and nodded to me. Once I had nodded back, the man looked over to where Dindraine was kneeling beside me and he smiled. Dindraine instantly leapt to her feet and with the grace of her species, she danced about me and then Rory so that she could throw herself into Damien's open arms. The older Elf held her and hugged her in greetings.

There was no further talking after that. Sarah and Marta arrived a moment later and then everything went hazy for a few minutes. After that I found myself being grabbed by a bunch of helping hands who quickly hefted me onto the operating table in the medical clinic of the resort. As for Dindraine and Damien and Rory, I didn't even notice what had happened to them. My whole attention was taken up by what was happening to me.

While Sarah prepped herself for surgery, the helping hands started stripping me of my equipment and my outer clothing. Hands removed my greaves on my calves and my bracers on my forearms. They then removed my gorget before turning their attention to loosening the ties on my chainmail shirt. After that the hands worked it off of me. Once it had been discarded, the same hands started work on the high tech quilted padding that lay under it. The final thing that they removed was my under tunic and they removed it by cutting it off. In a matter of minutes I was stark naked and lying face down on the operating room table.

Sarah chose not to use anything more than a local anaesthetic on me. My reaction to the pain killer that she had used on my back on the other Earth had been enough to warn her off of using anything more powerful. Not knowing how I would react to the medication made her wary. With the local deadening the pain in my thighs and calves she went to work at removing the bullets that were still in me. When she was done, she sewed everything up. After that she turned her attention to my other wounds.

"Amazing," Sarah muttered softly through her surgical mask. At the time she was examining my burnt hand. "It's just simply amazing."

I didn't bother saying a word in reply. By then the pain was getting to be overwhelming and I had to fight just to keep from passing out. Sarah looked at me and just shook her head in response.

"You should just let go, Charles," Sarah told me, "and let the pain put you to sleep. You'd be much better for it. However, if you insist on living through this then I'll let you know what is going on. From the look of it your healing factor has already kicked in. I can already see new flesh growing over the damage on your right hand and the cellular damage the scanner had picked up is no longer there. I'm going to sterilize it and then wrap it up so it won't get infected but there isn't much else that I can do for you. In a way you're lucky. My medical expertise doesn't extend this far and in fact it doesn't really extend to the injury in your left shoulder either. Again you're lucky there as well. The laser hole was no more than the diameter of an old-style pencil and you've already got new flesh growing over it. I'm going to clean the entry point up and then I'll put a bandage over it to keep it clean. As for any nerve damage, we'll have to wait and see what happened. Right now you've got no response to the testing that I've tried. Maybe you'll do better in the morning."

I grunted at that but said nothing else. I lay quiet while Sarah and some one that I had never seen before went to work and did as she told me. Long before she was done, I gave into my pain and let it put me to sleep.

I woke the next day in the great hall of the keep in Oak Hall. I knew I was there long before I even opened my eyes. I could tell by the sound of things and by the smells that dominated the place. The air was thick with the scent of burning wood and the smell of the sea.

"He's awake," I heard a familiar voice sing out with pleasure. Like a claxon sounding an alarm, it silenced the voices that I'd been listening to and drew people towards me. I smiled in response to that.

I opened my eyes to find myself surrounded by my mates. Samira was sitting on one side of me and Asana was sitting on the other. It had been Asana who had spoken. Beside her lay Felicity with Caitlin sitting on the end of Felicity's cot. Nimue was there as well. She was standing at the end of my cot and she was with Dindraine. The only one of my mates not there was Elsa.

"Well, hello there," I croaked through dry lips. "How are you all?"

Smiles broke on everyone's faces including Dindraine's. Asana quickly picked up a cup of water and she helped me drink from it. Lifting my head up she tipped the cup to my lips and let me drink deeply of the liquid. When I was done, she helped me lay my head back done.

"You should rest some more Charles," Felicity said from across the way. "You're still recovering from your injuries."

"I feel fine," I declared dismissively. As I spoke I lifted up my left arm and then moved it and my hand about. It hurt a bit and my range of movement was limited, but it had obviously healed better than one would have expected.

"Show off," Caitlin teased in response. "Just because you can move that arm about, it doesn't mean you're ready to put your armour back on and head off to battle again. You still need to rest and regain your strength."

"How long have I been out?" I asked, pretending that I had not heard my mate's words.

"A dozen hours or so," Felicity informed me. "It's the next day now."

"And what has been happening since I went to sleep?" I asked no one in particular.

"Elsa has taken charge of the battle," Samira informed me. "The other world tried another counterattack on the resort but it was only a weak effort at best. The majority of their attacking troops were human and the Wu Chin warriors were able to deal with them, even though the attackers were armed with laser rifles. The warriors just kept down most of the time and then they employed a little guerrilla tactics on the attackers, hitting them from ambush when the attackers least expected it. As for the squad of robots that accompanied the attackers, the attackers walked their robots right into one of the minefields that the Wu Chin had set up. The minefield went bang and the robots blew up."

I looked at Samira in wonder and smiled in response to the description that she given me of the attack on the resort. I didn't know where she'd picked up on the lingual but from the sounds of it, she knew what she was talking about. Samira immediately returned my smile, knowing that I was impressed with her report.

"What about our casualties?" I asked, again not addressing anyone in particular.

"Minimum," Felicity told me, taking up the conversation. "Sarah has kept me informed on this stuff. The Wu Chin at the resort took four dead in their force. As for our raiding force on the other Earth, she says that we've lost only a dozen dead at the four locations that we attacked. By the way, those four locations have been reinforced in strength from Oak Hall and all of them are still in our hands."

"Good," I muttered in reply. Then I fell silent for a moment and sighed. My thoughts turned to the dead that we'd taken in the last forty-eight or more hours. Some of those men and women had fought along side me since I took the Swordfish away from Lord Barnabas and others had only been on Game World for a few weeks. Now both groups were dead along with my first mate and my friend. My heart ached at that thought.

"It's not your fault, Charles," Felicity stated firmly, sensing my mood. "You are not responsible for these deaths or for Kola and Goiania dying anymore than it is my fault or Nimue's or anyone else on Game World. The fault lies with the other Earth and their refusal to relent with their stupid programming policies. If they had listened to us, nobody would have died, but they wouldn't. Just remember that if you hadn't been here fighting those people, then most of the people now living in Oak Hall would either be slaves suffering under the yoke of oppression or they would have been dead. At least you gave these people a life worth living and a cause for which they were willing to pay the ultimate price, in the hope that their sacrifice would make a difference for those who survived."

"Felicity is right, my husband," Nimue interjected, drawing mine and the others attention to her where she stood by the end of my bed. "You told us the truth from the start and you said that fighting these bastards would cost not only us but you. Yet throughout everything you set the example of what was needed to be done. You didn't stop resisting the networks or showing them that we could strike back. You've united me with my sister, for which I am eternally grateful, but more importantly you've shown everyone that we can succeed. Mourn the dead Charles but don't regret the price they paid. Instead honour them by continuing to lead and by bringing this war to an end."

My mate's words were powerful and I felt each and every one of them as she said them. Deep down I knew that what she told me was the truth. The best thing I could do for Kola and Goiania and the rest was to stop moping and to get back into the battle so I could put an end to all of this and we could get back to living our lives. Yet the ache in my heart wouldn't go away.

"I know," I told my little elf, glancing up into her loving face, "and I appreciate what you're trying to tell me. Unfortunately, I regret what I have done in these last few days, whether it was necessary or not and I miss Kola. I wish she was here, but she isn't."

"She will always be with you, Charles," Felicity reminded me, "so long as you remember her."

It was true in a fashion and I knew it. When Victoria and Daphne had given me the memories of a thousand lives, they had also given me back the loves of each of those lives and when I wanted to think about them, they were there as clear as if they were standing in front of me and talking to me. I could recall their voices and their mannerisms and their personalities. I could recall the passion that we'd experienced together and the anguish of our parting when that time had come. I could recall it all and I could do the same with my memory of Kola. So long as I lived, neither she nor the others would ever die. It was something to think about.

And it was something I didn't want to think about right then and there. Instead I decided to change the conversation towards other matters. I glanced about and asked about Rory.

"Where is your brother?" I asked Caitlin.

"Zahra is taking care of the clod," Caitlin told me with a smile upon her lips. "Rory is pissed and annoyed for what happened to him while on the raid so you really don't need to worry about him. Beyond a great big goose egg on his head and a sprained left arm that he injured when he fell, he's basically in good shape. In fact he wanted to go back and join up with Dork the moment he woke up and found out what had happened. Unfortunately for him, Zahra won't let him go. My sister-in-law has decided that my brother needs to be reined in a bit and as far as she's concerned, she's the one to do it."

"Well," I muttered in reply, "I'm glad that there is somebody around this place looking after us, considering the fact that I see two of my injured mates out of bed. What about that?"

"We're all getting better," Felicity declared, jumping to her sister-wives defence. "I'll be up in a day or two and then I'll be back to work. Oh I'll probably not be up to traipsing after you for a while but I will be able to take over as your senior medical officer. As for Caitlin, I think that she's in the same boat as me. In a day or two she should be well enough to do some light work but that is it. On the other hand, Nimue..."

"Nimue is fine," Nimue stated bluntly before Felicity could finish what she was saying. "My healing factor is better than most humans, besides Charles' that is, and my ribs have stopped hurting. I'm ready to put my armour back on and rejoin you the moment you're ready to suit up as well."

"I'm ready to suit up right now," I said in response, "but I'd rather hear the verdict about you from your doctor."