FIC: Life Changing pt. 2
Life Changes... Here
Author - Kavanne
Summary - Ranes Hacre begins to realise who she is, and embarks with sympathy for the people she will kill.
Feedback - Kavanne@aol.com FEED ME!!!!!!! Please?
“Harder!”
“I can’t!!” I’m almost in tears, my knuckles stream with my and his blood combined.
“Knock me over and you won’t do another one of these exercises for a weeken.” This is all the incentive I need, lunge. He didn’t expect that and is bowled over with me on top of him. He gasps for air and so do I. “Well done Hacre, we never expected you to make it this far.” I get up and begin to walk away. “You’ll be going back to Ruther in a monen.” I stop in my tracks.
“I, I thought I was making it?”
“You are.”
“Then, er, why?” I ask tentatively realising that I am walking the fine line, between curiosity and interrogation.... again. Even curiosity is bad, my genes were supposed to be perfect, they all say they are, but they’re not. I’m not like the commando I was supposed to be. High command thinks me a failure, and I know it.
“They need you to find someone.”
“General Graive, I know I am about to fall into a precipice with this question, but, who?” he took a deep breath and started to look very agitated.
“I am sure Base Commander Sun will tell you that.” he formally stated. I was beginning to get scared, I know they, Sun and Graive, like me. They never keep secrets from me. I am too special, my latter name says it all. ‘Hacre’, it means ‘altered’ in ancient Sebacean. No one knows that but High command. I hate it.
* * * * * *
Alone. I walk. There are no trainees here, only high ranking officers and protected officers. I work here with Scorpius, the abomination.
“Ah, Ranes. Just the junior officer I was looking for.” I swallow. He always makes me feel this way, small, like I don’t matter. Like he’s using me.
“Scorpius.” I acknowledge.
“I hear you are leaving. Apparently Base Commander Sun is sending you after Officer Sun, her daughter.” I can hear it in his voice, he wants information, which I don’t have.
“Apparently so.” I stand tall and proud in front of his presence. I will not let him see weakness in me.
“Hmmmm.” he’s probing me. He will not find anything, I can hide things from him. “Well, Sun wants to see you now. About this... assignment.” he smiles one of those smiles that makes you want to cringe at the ugliness of it all.
* * * * *
Another door, another reassignment. This seems the same, the same as 7, no 8 monens ago. I press the entrance alert button.
“In.” she says.
“I am here for reassignment.” I state cautiously. I’m trying vainly to sound defiant and true, but these things escape me.
“Yes. We need you to find the leviathan Moya. They escaped Scorpius 8 monens ago, no peacekeeper has seen them since. Aboard 4 escaped prisoners, 1 peacekeeper... defector, and a Nebari.” she explained, I could hear something in her voice as she spoke of her daughter, but whether it was pain or pride I can’t see.
“Is this why I was brought here? Is this why I had.... that test?” I refer to the explosion in Ruther’s quarters. Commander Sun takes a deep breath, preparing her answer carefully.
“Yes.... We asked her to. She was apprehensive at first but when we assured her of your success, due to your genetic background, she agreed readily.” My brow creases as so many thoughts form.
‘They told her? Only at the end, or had she always known?
Did she tell anyone else? Is that why they were so hard?’ then I think ‘Why me?’
“I know you should still have 2 cycles more training until your 14th cycle, but a child is best to infiltrate their ship?”
“Infiltrate?!” I am almost lost for words, except to repeat hers. “You want me to mix with them, become their... friend?”
“Well, yes. We will give you a stripped Marauder to make it look like you are an exile.” she explains the plan more deeply to me, I begin to understand how this will work.
“When?”
“In a weeken. Here in the uncondensed briefing, it will take you 3 days to study and assimilate all the information needed from here and the data cores. But, we will give you 4 days, in case there is more background research you think is needed, or more details on your mission.” I have started nodding during this rushed and vague course of instruction.
“Shall I return in 4 solar days with any extra information?” I swallow, somehow this meeting is turning out to be less daunting than I first thought it would be.
“Yes, to this also. Get going, you also have 3 arns each day with the maximum resistance practice dummies, in case you are found out.” I continue nodding, as there is not much else for me to do. There is not much else my brain is letting me do at the moment.
* * * * *
<punch><kick><duck><roll><jab> My mind rolls through many scenarios that could happen to me even before I meet the leviathan Moya. <spring><turn><kick side><drop><swing> I don’t even know what the convicts looks like, all I know is that they destroyed Scorpius’ Gammak Base. I am sorry for such treachery, but I have to congratulate them. <tuck><unfurl>
I shakes these thoughts, but I now I have a feeling of eyes on me.
<spring round> 5 officers are standing at the door muttering to each other. I march over to the door and hit the close switch and they have to stand back as the door seals itself shut. As I push the button I notice my knuckles have returned to their bleeding state. I run my tongue along them to try and stop the bleeding and sooth it a little.
My life, a mess, rumours and staring. But never a conversation.
* * * * *
These 4 days are hard. I am running from data port to data port half the time. I wish I could access it all from one console, but doing that would take the 4 days I have in itself.
Leviathan: Moya; female
Level: CLASSIFIED
Commanding Officers: Lieutenant Velorek (Head technician) and Captain Crais (Fleet Captain).
Experiment: 7861; DNA implant to produce weaponed and armoured off-spring. Abandoned when Lieutenant Velorek became suspect of treason. Suspect eliminated.
7864; Leviathan escaped when taken by prisoners.
7865; Reported sighting a Gammak Base V-1 UT. 3 solar days later than this date, Base destroyed.
7865+7 monens; Sighted at shadow depositary UT2, Depositary destroyed. Ice Planet UT126, leviathan ill and forced to burn herself; cause unknown.
Leviathan escaped after Scorpius attained wormhole knowledge from the ‘human’.
That’s it? Oh this helps. I rub my face with my hands.... I could plot a course with this, they seem to be going in a vaguely straight line. With some enhanced sensors I might just be able to find them! It strikes me an electric bolt from the sky.
I start scribbling manically on the printed map parchments, the course I plot will ensure the maximum chance of me running into them. Anyway, I still plot an alternate course in case I am thrown off.
* * * * *
I eye the unique leathers carefully.
“Yes, this will do.” I pick them up and the design tech just shakes her blonde head. I do one of my ‘patented’ sighs, as the others call them, she simply picks up more uniforms and begins their repair.
I look... I look like a... Sebacean, not a Peacekeeper. They’re not uncomfortable, but I feel, strange. Like something is stirring my stomach around. Like as soon as I leave, I will start to have a constant adrenalin rush, and it’s all building up and being stored.
* * * * *
“I, I’m ready.” I hold my head high and stand in the doorway of the stripped Marauder.
“If you have not located them in a monen, you will rendevous with us at the point of Scorpius’ Gammak base, we will be beginning salvage there.”
“OK.” Commander Sun and General Graive walk up to me and he whispers in my ear.
“Find my daughter... please.” Is that begging I hear?
“There is a message from us and pictures in a coded file. Decipher it and give it to her.” I give them a bemused look.
“But, I thought I was supposed to kill them?”
“Do, but make sure she has this first. Please.” Sun asks again. I nod, I think they can see I’m trying to stop some emotions coming through. But they will not be able to see mine, like I can see theirs.
“Thank you.... For loving me.” I say to them. I recently came to the conclusion that this was a suicide mission, kill them, I must sacrifice myself too.
They did love me, I know they did. I may have been engineered, but I was still part of them, mostly. I turn onto the ship. I begin my task, to kill my own sister.
TBC.....
Mwhahahaha!!!!! Soon, friends, soon.