Chapter 19: Betrayal

Soria

I ducked, and avoided the ball of super hot web-glue that hit the wall. The net like substance covered the transport doors, as I ran down the hall. Running around the corner, I plowed into one of the mutineers, and kneed him in the groin. As he went down to his knees, and I brought my left knee up into his jaw, dropping him like a sack of replicated cornmeal. I picked up his dropped data pad. I noticed it was set for scanning, as I slipped into the access shaft for the energy conduits.

I was closing the door when someone shouted out. I slammed the hatch and locked it. I turned and ran for a second one about twenty yards away. I could hear that the men chasing me were trying to open the other door. I slipped into the new room, slammed the hatch, and sealed it. Taking a pen I from my pocket, I slammed it into the access panel, and shorted out the controls. Looking up and down, I started climbing up to level nine of the station. Ten minutes later, I was on the command deck, listening at the hatch.

"Shit!" I said as I adjusted the hearing apparatus and listened at the door that opened into Kalib's office. I could hear Kalib arguing with someone, and then a smack as if he had been slapped. Then Kalib cursed the man as he was dragged away. I opened the door and slipped into the room. I was startled to see Valin, one of the former military scientists standing in the doorway. I quietly closed the hatch, and slid under Kalib's desk, as someone came into the room.

"How many are still loose?" Valin said.

"By my count, only twenty of the scientists, as well as the Captain of the cruiser and his daughter, are still loose on the station. The cruiser has left orbit and is not answering our hails. What do we do about her?"

"Nick, that cruiser cannot take on this station. We would blow it apart. They will come around when they start getting hungry. Now what about the freighter? What about the safety protocol on the disrupters? I want to be able to use them on the station," Valin asked.

I was startled when I recognized my former roommate from the academy, but as I thought on it, I wasn't surprised he was involved. He was always saying the military security needed a firmer control on everything. I wanted to jump out and charge them, but I stayed where I was and listened as they tightened the execution bands around their necks ... the data pad recorded everything.

"Secured, I've also locked down the hold with the five new human teams and they are in suspended sleep. As to the safety protocols, forget it, I cannot get into the system to allow the disrupters to work on the station, so we can only use the batons. I have also dispatched teams to take out the ones that have been set up already. Captain Black will be going after the two on the coast with his pirates, and John has dispatched his army to take out James Anderson, and his group. We have told both of them they can have anything they want in the caves as well as their women. I have also dispatched three Russians I grabbed and made them a deal that we would send them home, if they take out William. As for the other groups, I have dispatched local groups I have recruited to take them out. We should be ready to take over everything on the planet, in a few hours," Nick replied.

I knelt under the desk as the two men walked away, and wished I could help William's group. First, though, I had to help myself. I heard the door lock, so I slid out from under the desk and saw Kalib's computer was still powered up. I started towards it, but stopped. Going to the replicator, I summoned a stun baton and then went back to the computer. Sitting down, I started typing commands into the computer, shutting down systems that dealt with the civilization project. The first thing I shut down was the tracking devices in the subjects and their mates. Next, I shut down the monitoring devices in their home.

Finally, I activated the holo-emitters that hid the homes from space. I then checked on the supplies to each group and saw they were ok with supplies and shut down the teleporters so they couldn't receive anything and give their locations away to the command deck sensors. I then accessed the file matrix and moved all the locations for the groups to the far side of the planet incase Valin decided to send troops down to kill them. I was typing away at the keys trying to find the rest of our division when I heard the door locks being released. I quickly shut the screen down and hid in the power shaft. I sat there listening to the conversation and fumed.

"I don't care what you do, find the rest of the scientists and capture them, or terminate them. I don't care which. They have to be somewhere on the station and I want them found. Do you understand me, Nick?" Valin said as he sat down at Kalib's desk.

"I'm trying, but the scanning systems are not working. Someone has infected the software with an algorism that sends the system into a diagnostic loop. We shut down, rebooted the system and tried again and the same thing happened. I suspect it was Soria, but I am not sure. I know for a fact it wasn't Nadil, since she is dead..."

"Thank god on that. It helped bring support for our side because of what they did to her. Also, Rala is good with computers, and she and her wife are still loose, so find them," Valin ordered as he started typing on the holographic keyboard.

"I will," Nick said and started to leave the room.

"Nick, never mind I will do it. You stay here, and work on this computer. Get access to Kalib's files for me," he said and walked out the door.

"Yes, Sir," Nick said and walked over to the computer station and sat down. After a few minutes he started swearing, "Come on, open up you son of a bitch," he said as he tried opening the files on Kalib's computer.

I listened as Nick tried to access Kalib's files and I slowly slid the hatch open and stepped out behind him. Raising the stun baton, I jabbed it into his neck and he stiffened like a board and went down like a sack of meal. Going to the replicator, I ordered up some stun cuffs and a ball gag I had found in the historical database. I quickly secured him, and stuffed the gag in his mouth. Dragging him over to the storage cabinets, I opened the one that contained examination garments and pulled the bottom stacks out. I rolled him into the container and stacked the garments in front of him and on his body, except for his head.

Going to the replicator, I ordered up an injector and filled it with liquid trazodone (a medicine that was stolen from the twentieth century and used as an anti-depressant/sleeping medication, but it was modified by us) and injected a large enough dose into his neck. With a quick scan, I saw he was going to sleep for several hours. Closing the scanner, I placed the last stack of garments to hide his head, and went to Kalib's computer and started searching for William. He was the only one I could think of that could help us. His weapons should work inside the station, because they were not energy weapons and when I had programmed him, I programmed him as the best marksman in the world.

I started scanning his house, and didn't find him. I then remembered Nick's report and him mentioning three Russians. "Fuck! Where are you William?" I said as I started scanning for him. Reactivating his beacon, I didn't find it within a few miles of the house so I checked the garage and saw the Hummer was there, but one of the four wheelers was missing. Doing a quick scan, I found it about twenty miles east of the cave. Bringing up the online diagnostic and found the vehicle was disabled.

"Shit," I said and started scanning around the area of the bike. I found one of the dogs, she was badly hurt. Transporting her to the lab, I continued scanning for William. I found three bodies lying in the grass and transported them. Going into the other room, I looked down and didn't see William.

"Crap!" I snarled out, walk back into the main lab, and started scanning again. I found William's rifle standing up. Its barrel was six inches into the mud... "Mud?" I said in shock.

"The river!" I snapped out and started scanning downstream for William. I found him two minutes later. His body was floating face down in the water and carrying him with it. Transporting him into the next room, I ran in, grabbed a nanoinfuser off the counter, and started scanning his body. His stomach was a mess from where the bullet had torn him apart. His spine was shattered, as well as his internal organs and his lungs were full of water. I activated the infuser and injected him with nanobots as well as activating his medical ones that were only supposed to do maintenance work, every month, on him. The wounds started healing as I turned to the counters, and found a cortex stimulator and placed it on his head. Typing some commands into the band, I removed my hand as the first electrical surge shot through his body.

"Come on! Live!" I snarled as I continued working on the body in front of me. I injected him once more, checked the stimulator and ran for the cabinets. Opening the doors, I found the helmet in the third one. Turning I walked quickly to Kalib's computer station and set the helmet in the input slot. I quickly logged on with Kalib's password and started uploading all the data from William's last download. Going to the bed, I slipped the helmet over his head and initiated a download into his body. The stimulator had revived his body; I now needed to revive his mind.

Typing some commands into the pad mounted on the helmets side, I watched as his long-term memory was restored and the short term was stimulated with neuro shocks. On the monitor, I watched as William was shot with an arrow, and they had used a nanoinfuser to heal the wound. He then went out to hunt down the men who tried to kill his wife and him. I watched as the ambush was played out when the alarm sounded.

"Intruder alert, intruder alert. All hands report to your stations. Valin to the command deck, I repeat, Valin to the command deck. Security to deck nine, section thirty-one."

Blood drained from my face, and I ran to the transporter and started typing as I listened to the alarm dispatching guards to my location. I broke through the security lock and transported William, his dog and the dead men to my secured lab. Once they vanished from the room, I released a sterilization flyer into the room. The orb like device flew over the beds, and ran its scanners over them. A sterilization field flooded the bed as I transported out of the room. The last image I had of Kalib's office was through the open lab door. The main doors were forced apart and six security guards came running into the room with stun batons in their hands.

Appearing in my lab, I checked the seals and they were still tight. Turning the dampening field on for the whole deck, I then turned to Star.

I started healing her wounds as William healed on one of the beds. The nanobots started healing the knife wound in her side. She licked my hand as I petted her head. Activating a suppression field, I walked over to my workbench and looked through the pile of tools. I found the sub-dermal enhancer and went to the first of the assassins. I started downloading their memories from the brains neurons. I soon had the man's history and how he came to be here.

I read the information from the scan and was shocked on who Valin grabbed. The three men were trained killers. The first one was Corporal Igor Bogomolov. Born in Petrograd on October 25^th, 1965, enlisted in the Russian army at the age of sixteen, transferred to the Russian spetsnaz and trained as a sniper, deployed with his unit to Afghanistan in 1985. He vanished on a long range mission with two companions, as they were hunting down rebels in their Hind attack chopper.

"Shit!" I said as I scanned the other two bodies.

The second man was Captain Boris Konstantinov commanding officer of unit 186 of Russian spetsnaz. He was born in Moscow on June 19^th 1960. He was married to Catalina Konstantinov and they had two children, both girls who live in Moscow with their mother and his father. The computer updated the information on Boris and I found out that General-Major Ivan Konstantinov a hero of the Great Patriotic War has never stopped looking for his son.

Turning to the third man, I found out that Sergeant Aleksandr Mihaylov was a grenade launcher expert and a spotter for Russian spetsnaz snipers. Born in Sevastopol on December 1^st 1965, he was on his first tour of duty with his fellow warriors. Most of the information I recovered from his body I shudder to think over. He loved to torture his victims, and especially women. I decided he would not be revived by any means if I could help it. I then put all three bodies as well as William's dog into stasis for Kalib to decide as I turned to check on William.

Walking over to the bed, I looked down at him and said, "William, time to wake up. I need your help."

William groaned and slowly opened his eyes. He then sat up clutching his stomach. "What happened? How did I get here?" he asked.

"I brought you up here to the station, and healed you. I ... we need your help. The station has been taken over, and the scientist have been killed or incarcerated by the military groups. They want to destroy all we have accomplished," I said,

"Where's your security? Your military?" he asked as I helped him to his feet.

"Our security from the station was lured away to our cruiser, and the cruiser cannot reconnect to the station. If it tries, it will be blown away. They also are holding the ships families as hostages down on the housing decks. There are over twenty thousand of us on the station and planet. Eight thousand are support personal, two thousand are assigned to the cruiser, four hundred to the freighter, eight hundred are children under sixteen. The rest are scientist, researchers, astrophysics and other support scientists. There were only fifteen hundred security officers and men in the security service. Of them, eleven hundred of them are down on the island we use as our recreational use. The island is five thousand of your nautical miles from the nearest coast and is being transformed into a home for us..."