She
stopped breathing by the time her body hit the table. He ripped her shirt,
exposing her olive-skinned torso. He tore her brassier and cast the leather
aside. He then lowered the surgical covering. He removed her helmet, exposing
curly black hair.
Her
body appeared on a screen overhead. A red alert appeared on the lung. The heart
beat was rapid but there was no breathing. Tyson tapped a few buttons and she
gasped for air. Her heartbeat slowed.
Sanchez
opened her eyes.
“That’s
some force of will you have there,” Tyson said. “Fighting to stay alive, when
you should be dead. I would respect you if you weren’t so pathetic. Showing loyalty
to someone who doesn’t care about you. I should have let you died.” Tyson
turned around.
“Tyson?”
she said weakly.
Tyson
stopped.
“You
are the kid who escaped the prison planet,” she said. “Always wanted to meet
you, always wanted to know why was a child in a prison planet and how did he
escape.”
“Since
you are probably going to die anyway,” Tyson said. “I guess I could tell you. I
hypnotized a few guards…took me a couple of months to get it right. So when it
was time to leave, I simply walked out, took a ship and flew out of there. Just
like I am going to do here.”
“They
are going to kill you.”
“They
will try.” Tyson said. He left the medical room, walked quickly down the
hallway and into the cockpit. He checked on Computer. Uploading had slowed. He
would need more time. Time that he didn’t have. He checked the outside monitor;
the chief’s men were at work. Time was short. They would cut through the door
soon. He panned over the ship, but a sound caught his attention. He concentrated
and listened. Just like his eyes was different. So was his hearing.
They
were inside the ship!
Tyson
stood up and moved out of the cockpit. He pulled the gun out of his jumpsuit.
He heard a shift and pointed in the direction of the sound. An invisible
assassin tackled him while another grabbed for the gun. He lost his gun but he
continued to fight. Punching and
receiving punches. He eventually grabbed one and slammed him into the nearest
wall. He felt an arm tighten around his
neck, but he braced himself and threw him down to the floor. Two shots rang out
and the bodies appeared—stunned by the shot. Tyson looked up to see Sanchez trying
desperately to support herself, leaning against the entranceway, guns pointed
at the two of them. “Either you are a terrible shot,” Tyson said, “or you just
switched sides.”
“If
Warren…breaks in here. He will kill us both.” Sanchez limped toward the
cockpit. Tyson followed her. She sat down in the co-pilot’s seat. She typed in
a long code and the bay doors opened. “This is our only chance.”
Tyson
sat down, reached for the pilot’s shades and put them on. “So, you knew the
access code all along.” He ignited the engine. “Now, why would someone at the
bottom of the totem pole have access to the codes for the main bay doors?”
“I
am the curious type,” she said.
“Nosy,
is more accurate,” he said. The caution light for the landing gear beeped
twice. Tyson ignored the alarm and increased the engine output. Damaged landing
gear was the least of his worries. He imagined the twisted mess of the landing
gear would be something he could easily fix later. He tore the ship from the
docking bay. He pressed a button and jumped into hyperspace. When it was safe,
he swiveled the seat around and stood up.
Sanchez grabbed his arm. “You don’t have to
kill them.”
Tyson
tensed his arm. “I am going to take their stealth suits, put them in one of
escape pods, turn on their emergency beacon and jettison them into hyperspace.
They won’t die if the UP idiots find them.” Tyson reached back and adjusted the
hyperspace instruments. “Besides, shouldn’t you worry about your own life?” Tyson
walked out of the cockpit. He stripped the men of their equipment and placed
them into an escape pod. Along with fixing the landing gear he would need to
replace the escape pod as well. He immediately went to the cockpit to check on
Sanchez. She hadn’t move from the co-pilot’s chair. Tyson noticed the color had
drained from her face. “You should go back and complete your treatment,” he
said.
“What
are you going to do to me?”
“I
have use of you,” Tyson said. “I will drop you off at the nearest colony unharmed,
once you tell me everything I need to know about this ship.”
Another
alert. The artificial intelligence was online. “Tyson? I feel different.”
“You
are in a different ship, Computer.”
“I
detect use of the medical room, are you harmed?”
“No,
I am fine. I hijacked a patrol class ship. Had to do a blind jump into
hyperspace, I am going to need you to drop us out of hyperspace when you are a
hundred percent.”
“And
what of the female?”
“Oh
Sanchez? She knows more about the ship than I do. We are going to keep her
around for a short while.”
“If
I get caught, I will go straight to the penal colony. I am an officer that
aided a man with a bounty on his head. I have nowhere to go.”
“What
do you want me to do about it?”
“Let
me stay with you until I can find a safe place.”
“Aren’t
you worried about being with a criminal and his sentient computer? We may plot
to kill you in your sleep. We may push you out of the airlock just for the fun
of it.”
“The
power to the nanites you flooded her with has decreased,” Computer said. “If Sanchez
does not finish her medical care, her wounds will reopen and she will die
anyway.”
“I
turn myself over to your protection,” Sanchez grabbed his arm again.
This
time Tyson pulled away. “What?”
“I
don’t know why there is such a high bounty for you,” Sanchez said. “But I don’t
think that you are a criminal. I believe you are a good person.”
Tyson
looked out of the debris shield and stared at the shifting stars. “You don’t
know a thing about me….” He turned to her and something about her look of
determination swayed him. “Fine. You can stay. But if you cross me, I won’t
kill you. I will use these eyes of mine and bury your consciousness so deep it
will take decades to come out of your mental prison.”
Sanchez
gingerly stood up. “Thank you,” she said as she limped out of the cockpit.
Tyson
leaned back and closed the cockpit door. “Computer, I want a watch on her every
move.”
“Acknowledged….
Tyson?”
“Yes?”
“Female
companionship may be a good thing for you. Studies have shown that human males
live longer when they have a family.”
“I
am hardly human or the family type. How could that be true for me? I was born
different. If I have children with these eyes, the UP will chase them down and
try to eradicate them too.”
“But
we won’t let that happen,” Computer said.
“You sound awful confident,” Tyson said.
“I
am as my programmer made me.”
The End.
Team Savant will return next Saturday. In the meantime, feel free to check out some of my older stories on this website.
NOTE:
You can buy my adult scifi novel Hearteless: A Journey to Second Earth @amazon or here.
For email updates, please click HERE and feel free to leave a message.
Also, feel free to comment below and follow me on Google and Twitter @ Frank_D_Rogers
No comments:
Post a Comment