Survivor (22 page)

She wanted to scream, curse and yell, and
stomp on every last Ancient until they were all indistinguishable
piles of goo.

"You damned bastards!" she yelled.

She held the helmet in her hand and drew
back over her shoulder, ignoring the screaming pain in her chest.
She let fly and lobbed the helmet up into the air. It soared across
the desert, sparkling.

It was about to hit the sand when it blinked
out of existence.

"What?" Codon said.

"It's gone," Nova replied, equally
confused.

"Did you do that?"

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe it went
back to where it came from?"

"Maybe it did."

"You don't think—" Nova began but cut short,
her thoughts working.

"No time to sit and wonder," Codon said,
waving his hand. "Let's get back to my ship and hope the damn thing
flies."

Nova nodded and let him help her across the
sand, blood trailing out behind them.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Codon lowered Nova onto the command pod's swivelling chair,
with an audible sigh. Beads of sweat dribbled down from his
forehead and collected on the end of his round nose.

Nova squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip
as her wounded ankle bounced against the chair. Agony raced up her
leg.

"Please tell me you've got Parapem or
something stronger," Nova said through clenched teeth.

"The medbot should be able to help you out,"
Codon said. "Medical unit to command pod."

His ship replied, "Medbot dispatched.
Arrival in one minute."

It was the longest sixty seconds of Nova's
life. She clutched her leg, just above the knee, in an effort to
stop the pain spreading to the rest of her body, and to stop the
blood from pouring out of the mangled stump. She kept her eyes
closed as Codon moved about the command pod, begging for any kind
of relief.

The buzz of a motor entering the room made
Nova open her eyes. A square robot hovered across the rubble and
came to a stop in front of her. It scanned her body with a red
light and its internal mechanisms beeped.

"Multiple injuries and major damage
detected."

"I know that!" Nova said. "Give me something
for the pain!"

The robot opened a compartment and a tray
extended out with a single Parapem strip resting on top. Nova
snatched it off the tray and laid it on her tongue. The soothing
numbness spread upwards and eased her throbbing headache. The
Parapem strip couldn't reach her leg or stop the agony coursing up
from her missing foot.

"Missing limb detected. Tissue sample
required."

"Do it," Nova said, her voice barely
audible.

For the first time since arriving on the
planet, she was grateful that Codon's ship was here. The medical
technology of the Confederacy ships was far beyond what she'd find
in Crusader. A hard weight dropped to the bottom of her stomach as
she thought about her foot. With just one leg, she was a cripple.
There was no way she'd be able to compete in the lead bounty hunter
circles. Her whole livelihood was at stake.

The robot hovered closer and, without
warning, jabbed a long needle into Nova's upper arm. The thin point
sunk through her skin and into muscle. The area burst with pain and
Nova had to bite her lip to stop from crying out.

The robot withdrew the needle and it
disappeared into one of the many compartments.

"Will it be able to stop the bleeding?" Nova
said, straining to keep her mind off of her future.

"Stop the bleeding?" Codon said. "That's the
latest in med-tech, I designed it myself. We'll have a new foot for
you in no time."

"It's got tissue printing?" Nova said, her
mouth dropping.

"Of course it does. All Confederacy ships
have tissue-regen facilities."

Nova shook her head and fell back into
pained silence. The outer planets were flat-out getting bandages;
meanwhile the Confederacy was overflowing with tissue-regeneration
equipment. It was unbelievable and yet completely typical. Nova's
emotions battled; at that moment she was filled with equal measures
of hatred and love for the Confederacy.

"Tissue analysis complete. Please raise the
wounded area," the robot said.

Nova gritted her teeth and forced her
wounded leg up so that it was horizontal. Her stomach churned at
the sight of the mutilated end. Loose bits of flesh dangled down
and dripped blood onto the floor.

The robot positioned itself in front of Nova
and encased the end of her leg inside one of its compartments. Its
motor whirred louder and Nova's leg tingled. It was as if someone
was running a feather up and down her injured leg and was taking
the pain away.

As some of the agony lessened, she breathed
easier and her shoulders relaxed back into the chair.

"Engines are clear for take-off," said
Codon. "Whatever was holding us here is gone."

Nova let out a slow breath; she could leave
this hell-hole.

It took ten minutes before the robot spoke.
"Regeneration complete."

Nova opened one eye and looked down at her
leg with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. She had no idea
what to expect but was sure that anything other than mangled flesh
was an improvement.

Instead of blood and shredded tissue, her
leg and foot looked just like normal. The skin was lighter than the
rest of her leg, as if she'd spent her whole life wearing a thick
sock, but apart from that, it was as if the incident had never
happened.

She tentatively tried to wiggle her toes.
The smallest one jerked out away from the others and then clenched
tight into a ball. She tried again and this time her whole foot
spasmed up and slammed back to the floor.

"Perfect coordination will take time," said
the medbot.

Nova took a deep breath and focused on
lifting her foot away from the floor. It jerked up faster than
she'd intended but she managed to hold it still for several seconds
before it dropped back to the ground.

"Incredible," Nova whispered.

"Old technology," Codon said, waving his
hand.

Nova shook her head, speechless. It looked
as if she did have a career in bounty hunting after all. A sharp
sting in the side of her cheek reminded her that she wasn't back to
full-health yet. Her tongue poked around until the jagged tooth
popped free. She spat the sharp junk into her waiting palm. A
rivulet of blood followed after it, creating a tangy trail across
her tongue.

"Are any more repairs required?" the medbot
asked.

"No. That will do," Codon said. The medbot
turned and hovered out of the room.

"Um—" Nova said, holding her tooth in one
hand and her aching side with the other.

Codon whirled away from the controls and
stood over her. The calm facade was gone, replaced by a stony
mask.

Nova's hand clenched around her tooth and
her heart fluttered in her chest. Her eyes flew around the room but
she was cornered in the chair with no way out and no room to stand
up, if her new foot would hold her weight.

"What—" Nova let the tooth fall off her palm
and clatter to the floor, her hand flicking to the gun at her
belt.

It felt like an eternity before her hand
came to rest on the butt of her plasma pistol and by then Codon
already had a gun aimed at her head.

"I can't let you leave," Codon said. "With
all of that technology and your powers, it's the greatest discovery
since warp-travel. I'll be recognised as the greatest scientist of
all time."

Nausea rolled through Nova's stomach. She
wanted to kick herself for ever thinking that Codon was anything
more than a self-serving, arrogant, pig.

She used the chair to get to her feet and
stood as high as she could with her aching side. She hunched over
to her left as her ribs spasmed in protest. She sucked in a shallow
breath, the room spinning around her as she teetered on the edge of
unconsciousness. She rested her right foot lightly on the floor of
the ship but it was shaking uncontrollably and couldn't hold
her.

"You don't own me and neither does the
Confederacy. If I want to leave, then I'll damn well leave." She
had to take shallow gasps at the end of each sentence. Her chest
felt like it was being ripped open with every word. "You know as
well as I do that the Confederacy would turn those weapons into
death machines. They'd wipe the whole of humanity out by
themselves."

She loosened her gun and pulled it an inch
from its holster.

A bright yellow ball of energy screamed past
her and slammed into the wall at her side.

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear," said
Codon. "You're required by the Confederacy to better help us
understand this technology. Destroying it would be in direct
violation of Confederacy law. You're now my property under the
cyborg act."

"What?" she said, momentarily stunned. "I'm
not a cyborg."

Codon shrugged. "I guess that depends on the
definition. We'll just have to agree to disagree. In the meantime,
stay right where you are."

Codon reached behind his back and pressed
more buttons. The ship beeped twice in response and Codon
grinned.

"Prepare engines for warp," he said.

"Preparing engines," the ship replied.

Nova clutched the butt of her gun,
calculating. She was fast, but Codon was trained. She'd only get
one shot.

"I wouldn't," Codon said. "If you move that
gun an inch, I'll blow your hand off. I'm sure you'll be almost as
good to us without limbs."

"You fucking bastard," she said.

"For the greater good," Codon said with a
shrug. "Your welfare doesn't mean much in the face of the Human
Confederacy."

Nova's mind raced. The ship was on
autopilot. Codon could stay standing with his gun aimed at her
until they landed at Confederacy headquarters. There'd be no chance
for escape.

She wiggled the fingers of her left hand
back and forth through the air as subtly as she could. She was
desperate to brush up against something, anything that could help.
She tried to picture a distraction, anything, but if she'd thought
she had control of her powers before, she was wrong.

Instead of reaching through time and pulling
out a miracle, her fingers wriggled futilely in the air. Her sharp
gasps were getting more painful as each breath tore her wounds
deeper. Stars flashed at the edges of her vision as she swayed on
her feet. Her eyes searched desperately for a way out, surveying
the room, chairs, desks, debris. The engines had righted the ship,
but there were still things scattered all across the floor.

Nothing useful.

She had to do it.

She let her body collapse behind a nearby
desk and whipped out her gun. Her body and head dropped out of
Codon's line of sight while her gun flicked up and fired.

Codon grunted.

A yellow blast burned through the air and
hit her hand where it clutched her side. The skin seared and
blistered. Nova screamed and clutched her hand close to her
chest.

Her first shot had gone far wide, taking out
a video feed and sending new shards of glass scattering across the
room. She drew in a gasping breath from where she lay on the floor
and fired through the legs of the desk. All she could see of Codon
were his legs and it took three blasts of her pistol before she
managed to hit him.

Codon's knee shattered. He cried out as
pieces of bone exploded out, along with tendrils of tendon, and
specks of blood. He collapsed to the ground, howling. His gun
clattered to the floor as he grabbed hold of his knee with both
hands.

There were tears in his eyes and his face
was bright red. A continuous stream of curses and cries of pain
poured out of his mouth, much like the streams of blood between his
fingers.

Codon hissed words between clenched teeth.
"You bitch! You'll never make it out alive. I'll see to it you're a
prisoner for the rest of your life."

Nova was in too much pain to reply. Codon
writhed on the floor on the other side of the desk. Through her
haze of agony she kept her pistol trained on his body. Her arm
shook with the effort.

Codon glared at her for a few seconds before
he was forced to squeeze his eyes shut in pain. His jaw
clenched.

"Cal, please tell me you're on your way,"
she said.

"Crusader is touching down now."

"Thank fuck," Nova said through a gasp of
pain. She silently thanked whoever had invented the neural linkage
chips. Without them she'd be dead a hundred times over.

"Medbot, get in here!" Codon screamed.

Nova blinked the tears out of her eyes and
kept her gun pinned on him. His weapon lay forgotten by his side as
he rocked back and forth on the floor, clutching his leg.

The medbot and Cal entered the command pod
at the same time. Cal had his small plasma pistol out and trained
on Codon. Nova let out a shuddering gasp and her arm fell loose
onto the floor. She vaguely heard Cal and Codon talking but she was
in too much pain to make out the words.

"Nova. Nova!" Cal said.

His voice brought her back to
consciousness.

"Yes?" she whispered.

"Do you want him dead?" Cal said.

Nova's head lolled to the side where Codon
was lying on the floor with his arms tied above his head. She
hadn't realised she'd passed out for longer than a second.

"Do you want him dead?" Cal repeated.

"No," she said. "Let's get back home."

With a great amount of pain and effort, and
four Parapem strips, Nova made it to her feet. She wobbled and
leant on the desk for support. She took the time to glare down at
Codon. His face was red and twisted as he stared back at her.

"Let's be very clear about something," Nova
said after a long pause. "You're not to tell anyone I was here. If
you do, I will personally hunt you down and destroy you."