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Part V
42
Sisters
Debrisphere, September 11th, 2047
“She is such a brave girl. I don’t know whether to be scared or proud right now Daki… err, Gandalf. Do you think they’ll make it back?” Wietse asked with a hint of nervousness in his voice.
“Let’s just try to make sure they’ll have a place to come back to Merlin!” Dakila responded, trying to sound confident, but things had gotten too weird in the last thirty minutes even from his wizard mindset. They were on a living spaceship that looked like a wolf-shaped robot, but this giant wolf hadn’t been a robot, at least not by any definition Dakila could align himself with. Just as they had teamed up with the three-man crew of the mythical Fenrir alien, the giant wolf had been hit by a HEOPS. All logic dictated the spaceship should at least have been perforated with tiny holes if not ripped to pieces by the kinetic energy of the small but solid projectiles that made up the swarm, launched many years ago into their highly elongated orbits in order to destroy all orbital communication systems. Instead though of major damage to the living space-ship, a short quake-like movement went through the ship for a few seconds, somehow resulting in a seven percent increase in both the size and the mass of the ship.
The alien ship, while alive, needed a human pilot for navigation. And as humans weren’t ‘compatible’, a wounded, alien looking, grey humanoid somehow acted as an in-between. The crew of the ship consisted of the wounded humanoid, a young geeky looking kid who acted as pilot, and a New Zion operative. Wietse had visited the other living ship before it disappeared into a huge M-Brane-fold entry-sphere. The old man, called Bjarne, that was to pilot the second ship had been fitted with Quant-augmentation and a Roverandom Interface by Wietse. The three-man crew consisted of the old pilot, Wietse’s granddaughter and another grey hominid referred to by the crew as Azraella. With the old man fitted with M-brane-folding tech, the ship was to make its way home, three million light-years away to the Triangulum Galaxy.
No wonder that Wietse was nervous about his granddaughter ever returning. Hell, navigating just the planet Earth with M-Brane folds was hard enough. Just imagine having to find your way back to Earth from a different galaxy. Finding our little sun amongst two hundred billion stars! But then, war demanded sacrifices, no-one knew that like Dakila did. If there was only five percent chance that his granddaughter would be able to get alien reinforcement of the caliber of this giant wolf, then a ninety-five percent probability of never making it back home was a chance that had to be taken. A war, Dakila knew, could only ever be won by betting on fat-tail events. Gwen now was one such bet. These were not the words Wietse needed to hear right now though, and not the thoughts Dakila should be thinking. No. Dakila knew he needed to be Gandalf right now and Wietse needed to be Merlin. No room for being Admiral Kotu, no room for the cold and hard calculating mentality. No, they were wizards now and wizards could do anything. This old man, Bjarne, Sleipnir's pilot, he too was a wizard now.
"Väinämöinen will bring your granddaughter back safely Merlin, a great wizard will not ever let his guild down" Dakila spoke with confidence.
Wietse smiled for a second at this remark than let out a deep sigh.
"John, it's Xavier, what are you doing aboard that monstrosity? What happened to the octopod spaceship?" a heavily French-accented male voice suddenly sounded through the short-range radio device the New Zion operative was holding. The lean but muscular agent with long dreads and well-tailored suit typical of New Zion agents had tried to contact the debrisphere mining vessel they had encountered in the Van Allen belt, using different frequencies, but so far his hails had not gotten any response from the ship. Dakila had not expected the persistence of this handsome black man to yield any results anymore. Let alone a response indicating a link between a New Zion operative and a debrisphere miner.
"Shit, I don't remember! Stupid erasure, guys, what do I do?" John asked, looking at Wietse, then looking at Dakila for a split second, then looking back at Wietse.
Damn, years of leading the largest and most effective cyber army this world had ever seen and who does Mister New Zion look at for authority? While Dakila had no issues taking second place behind Wietse, after all, the old man was brilliant, the fact was that John would have no way of knowing that. But then it hit Dakila, it was the costumes. Yes, Wietse looked the part and the more time passed, the more Wietse started to actually play the part as well. Or play? No! Wietse wasn't just playing. He wasn't acting. While Dakila loved getting carried away in the cosplay on steroids with the costumes and the tech, Wietse actually was a wizard now, the way he carried himself. A real wizard. Wietse had become one with the tech, had become one with his attire.
"I happen to know Xavier is New Zion, just like you. Xavier Latour was your partner when you got abducted, well, in my backyard, basically. Just greet him like you know him and tell him to expect a friendly visitor. I'll drop in and discuss the situation. Be sure to tell him I'm a friend. Xavier and I weren't exactly on friendly terms last time we met."
How the hell did Wietse know all this? Where did he get his intel from? Damn, cut it out Gandalf! Wizard mode, remember? Dakila had to remind himself to stop thinking like an Admiral. Wietse and he were wizards now. The rules of war didn't apply, not as they did before anyhow.
"Xavier Latour?" John asked with admiration and surprise in his voice. "The Haitian Ogre is my partner? No way!" John then exclaimed in disbelief? "Xavier Latour is a legend. The best soldier who ever lived."
"Just tell him to expect a visitor! Tell him I'm a friend!" Wietse commanded in an agitated tone.
John looked at his transceiver and pushed the speak button. "Mister Latour, sir, I mean Xavier, please stand by and expect a visitor, an old friend."
Dakila's eyes widened as an entry sphere appeared before Wietse.
"Noooo!" Dakila shouted, but it was too late. Wietse stepped into the sphere. Dakila's Admiral mode had kicked in again. This Xavier guy was an ex-soldier and now a New Zion operative. Dakila realized that Wietse knew Xavier and that they hadn't exactly been as close friends. There was something between them. John, his partner had addressed Xavier as Mister Latour telling him to expect a visitor, an old friend.
This wouldn't end well! Xavier would interpret this differently than both John and Wietse expected him to. Xavier's French accent combined with this very situation brought back a memory from years before. Bratislava! This Xavier guy; if he was anything like that stupid grunt Matatu, if his mind worked like the soldier mind Dakila expected him to poses, then Wietse was in big trouble. Xavier would be expecting a quite different type of old friend than John and Wietse
Intended to communicate.
"Fuck it, we are fucking wizards!" Dakila shouted out as he materialized a silvery sphere at his feet. He could see the room now.
"Fuck!" Dakila was looking down into the room where Wietse had jumped into. The old man was lying on the floor, two women were kneeling next to Wietse.
Then Dakila noticed the growing puddle of dark red blood on the right side of Wietse's head. There was something off about the puddle, but with the distortion from the sphere, Dakila couldn't make out what it was.
"The motherfucker killed Merlin!" Dakila shouted at John. "Your fucking partner killed the smartest guy this planet has ever seen, and it's your fucking fault you asswipe!"
Dakila jumped up, keeping the sphere in exit mode as long as he could. He needed to see where he was going and he couldn't risk Xavier seeing him before he is in the room with him; before it is too late even for a New Zion agent to respond. It was a manoeuvre one of his home base team had come up with. These hackers weren't up to working in the field, but their gamers mentality could come in handy in the field. A cascade of different M-brane folds would ram his enemy face first into a wall at a speed high enough to incapacitate even a big guy like this while allowing Dakila himself to land comfortably with nothing but a little leap after the last fold traversal.
As Dakila dropped through the first sphere, he created two new entry spheres. One for himself to fall through and the second at the big guy's feet. But then as Dakila kept dropping, he noticed something was off. Xavier didn't drop, he sank slowly, fear showing in his eyes as he tried to reach out for something to grab hold off. It was as if Xavier was standing on a platform that was slowly being lowered. Then as Xavier emerged deeper his huge body picked up speed and a fear in his eyes that delighted Dakila was the last he saw of him. His own fall though was something quite different. Where Xavier's drop had had a slow start and a fast ending, Dakila's drop was the reverse. He wasn't falling down, he was floating down!
"Shit! Microgravity!" Dakila whispered to himself.
Dakila's hacker might have devised a useful move for use on Earth or even aboard the living spaceship with its dot-six g pseudo-gravity, Dakila hadn't anticipated microgravity aboard the debrisphere mining craft. The movements of the people he had witnessed had given him no reason to suspect virtual weightlessness.
At that very moment, Dakila realized his mistake, AMPG!. Magnetic boots and floor plates that dynamically mimicked gravity aboard space crafts, at that very moment Dakila felt something or someone tucking on his coat. Shit, all of their tactics had used gravity and inertia, and at this moment Dakila had neither at his disposal. Microgravity and neither he nor the people in the room had enough inertia for him to work with.
"Motherfuckers! You've killed him! The big motherfucker killed Merlin!" Dakila shouted without knowing who was holding his body suspended above his projected entry sphere.
He could grow the sphere and drop himself and whoever was holding him into normal gravity through complete submersion. Or could he? That still wouldn't get him out of the situation he was in right now. Whoever had grabbed hold of him now was in a position where that person could easily end his life. Sinking down into normal gravity might actually end up being exactly what could trigger his attacker to opt for making use of that option.
"Don't hurt him, Pete!"
The younger one of the two woman crouched at Wietse's side stood up and looked at Dakila intensely. A middle-aged woman of African descent who looked at him as if she knew him, as if ….. as if he was a ghost or something. Did he know this woman?
"I can't believe it! I think I know who this is!" The woman spoke in a surprised voice while looking at him in disbelief.
Dakila realized from the accent now that this woman was West Indian, but not New Zion, no, the accent was a mixture of a genuine west Indian accent with traces of Scandinavian, maybe Dutch.
"I believe you've caught yourself a little big criminal. This is Mister de la Vega, Dakila de la Vega if I'm not mistaken"
Dakila panicked. How did this woman know his name? His full name? 'Think Dakila, think, I need to keep my cool.'
"Who the hell is Dakila de la Vega?" A male voice behind him spoke. He sounded European. He sounded like a European grunt! But that didn't add up. If Xavier was New Zion and this guy holding a grip on his coat was an NNT grunt, what in heaven's name were New Zion and a former NNT soldier doing on a debrisphere mining vessel together? But if this was an NNT grunt, it could be remotely possible this was one of his NNT grunts.
"C-184 D-19 78-9-42, soldier identify!" Dakila spoke as if certain this was one of his former NNT grunts, but he wasn't certain at all. Dakila was grasping at straws. The lady knew who he was, who he had been before everything had started. She knew his name, his full name.
"P-89 77-14 S94" the voice behind him spoke. The first step of the identification handshake completed. Dakila couldn't believe his luck.
"A-1984 I-99 00-01" Dakila responded.
"What in heaven's name are you doing Pete?" The woman spoke.
"This is no criminal Rachella; one second." The hand now had released Dakila's coat but he was still left there floating. And he started tilting a bit around his vertical axis.
"C-48-35 I-27 92-99" the now friendly male voice responded. "Welcome aboard my ship, Admiral"
"Like hell he is an Admiral!" the woman spoke in a snappy voice.
"Listen, Pete, I've been working on this case every moment of my spare time running stochastic biometric modeling on every piece of broad-spectrum genetic material available. I'm one hundred percent sure this guy is Dakila de la Vega, one of four remaining suspects, all presumed dead. The very fact that he is alive can mean only one thing: this guy, Dakila de la Vega, is the pendejo that pulled off the quantum blockchain heist back in twenty-seven.
"You know I'm not Robert, right? That technobabble is total gibberish to me, lady. I'm sorry to burst your academic bubble, Rachella …." Corporal 92-99 spoke while handing Dakila a pair of magnetic boots, "but I'm 100% sure this man here, his silly gnome outfit notwithstanding, is a former SAGDA Admiral. Admiral 0001, Rachella, I do believe we are in the presence of the mythical Admiral Kotu"
Dakila activated his boots and found himself being attracted to the floor of the room in a way that felt almost indistinguishable from regular gravity. As he landed on the floor he looked at Wietse. An old lady was sitting there next to Wietse's body. Much of the puddle of blood behind his head had dissipated into a few dozen bubbles floating through the room and Dakila realized it probably hadn't been a real puddle to begin with. Hid hero. His idol, laying there, death on the floor because of that oversized grunt. The old lady held her hand to Wietse's head and stared at Dakila with the most intense of looks.
"Il n'est pas mort" the woman spoke in French.
Dakila didn't understand much French but this much he understood. Wietse was still alive. Then the woman seemed to caress her hair, but then Dakila noticed something glinstering in her hand. It was a tiny blade, no more than four centimetres long that the woman apparently had concealed within her hair.
"Où est Xavier? S'il est mort, je vais tuer ton grand-père rapidement. S'il est mort je te tuerai vraiment bas."
The old woman wanted to know where he had sent the big guy. Dakila wasn't sure about the French, but if there was any doubt about the words, the vicious look in the old woman's eyes and the tiny blade pressed against Wietse's carotid artery left no room for doubt. While the woman looked old and frail, Dakila felt sure she could follow up on her threat, whatever it was she was threatening them with. One thing was sure though, the crew of this ship wasn't exactly a team.
"What is that silly hag doing? Woman, cut out the bullshit! The Admiral is on our side!" Corporal 92-99 spoke and took two steps towards the woman. Then at his third step, it was as if the NNT corporal had gone from completely sober to being drunk as a lord, taking his last step towards his right, slamming his head into what looked like a wall cabinet for key storage.
"Shit, Admiral," Corporal 92-99 said, "the lady is a conduit. That would explain the old man hitting himself in the head with his stick!" The corporal took out an oily blue handkerchief from his vest pocket and put it on his head, wiping off some of the blood from his brow.
'Fuck! A conduit'. Dakila always had dismissed the stories about New Zion conduits as superstitious nonsense, urban myths spread by New Zion as part of their wartime propaganda. The idea of agents being trained by witches or sorcerers with the supernatural power to turn a person's mind, a person's weaknesses into a weapon of their own destruction had been just too ludicrous for words. But now after having been on the Fenrir spacecraft, after having met a wounded Hylobo Sapiens, having witnessed the symbiotic telepathic relationship between the ship, its human pilot and the Hylobo in between, a conduit wasn't actually all that far-fetched anymore. In fact, come to think of it, conduit might describe the function of the Hylobo in this symbiosis pretty well. Dakila looked at the woman. Her determined look changed from one of anger into one of fear.
"Don't let them take me!" The woman cried out, reaching out her hand to Dakila while resting her chin on her chest in a pleading gesture. Her French accent had been massive, but as Dakila's French was almost nonexistent, to Dakila that was a welcome change. Both the change in language and the change in the posture from a murderous bitch into a fearful and timid creature. Then Dakila looked at the old woman more closely. He hadn't noticed it before because he hadn't had any reason to suspect such a link, and because it had been relatively subtle.
Yes, he had noticed that something had been off with the way this lady looked. An elderly, somewhat short lady of mixed descent, something was strange about her but in a strangely familiar way.
How could he have missed it?! While her general features were normal, it was the length of her extremities in proportion to her body that gave it away, but only if you knew what to look for.
Her arms were slightly long for the length of her torso, while her legs were slightly short. Not as expressed as it had been in the Hylobo Sapiens, but combined with the telepathic abilities, the similarities were just too uncanny, but more importantly, they were too many to be attributable to mere chance. If she had been young instead of an old woman this might have been someone's idea of a war-time weapon, but she was too old for that. Someone had interbred Hylobo with humans and this woman, no likely all of the New Zion conduits were hybrids!
"They don't know, they mustn't know!" The lady looked at him knowingly.
She was inside of his head, but she meant no harm. Dakila understood that now. It was her, not Xavier who had incapacitated Wietse. She had tapped into Xavier's mind, recovered whatever history Wietse and Xavier shared. She had considered Wietse an imminent threat and had used her Hylobo mind tricks to make Wietse knock himself out with his own staff. But Dakila's Admiral's mind understood much more now. She was bred for this! Bred as a pilot for Fenrir. She wasn't just a conduit in the way that Hylobo were. Fenrir and Sleipnir required a symbiosis of three. The living ship, a human pilot, and an Hylobo conduit. These human conduits? This lady could be both pilot and conduit at the same time.
"I must ask, what year were you born?" Dakila asked.
"My sisters and I were born in the summer of mille neuf cent soixante dix, nineteen hundred and seventy" the woman spoke sounding almost like a frightened little girl now. "None of us know our exact birthday."
It was astounding. The woman was seventy-seven years old, born the year after the Apollo eleven mission that was somehow linked to the discovery of Fenrir on the moon. And now, at this senior age, this woman and the living wolf-shaped spaceship Fenrir found themselves together in the debrisphere. New Zion might not have created these hybrids, the fact that this woman was even on this mission could mean only one thing: New Zion knew!
"Xavier didn't, or I would have" the woman snapped angrily.
The mention of Xavier made Dakila think about the situation he left poor innocent Xavier in. The poor guy had been going through a rollercoaster ride for almost ten minutes now. Dakila's team had set up a number of cyclic M-Brane folds for keeping Jötnar of different sizes suspended in rollercoaster fashion a few hundred metres above Atlantic ocean. The configuration of folds was so that the acceleration gained by falling down would be transformed rotationally into upward, forward and backward speed. One second Xavier would be falling down feet first, then next he would be launched forward feet first his face facing the clouds above in an inclined manner only to fall, back first, into the next fold and be launched again slightly inclined way with his face facing the ocean at an angle of about 45 degrees. Dakila had been too angry to care before, but now it was hard not to feel pity for the big guy.
"Guys, someone is getting nervous here!', the younger woman interrupted, pointing at the two men walking up and down the adjoining room nervously.
"Krijg de kanker!" Corporal Pete cursed while looking at a display. "Guys, think we have a problem, something is out there!, I'll put it on the big screen."
The wall of the room changed color from a metallic look to white, then a view of the debris outside appeared. The debris was moving around in its regular disorganized patterns, but then Dakila recognized a familiar shape. A Kong type Jötnar, alive and well was grabbing at larger pieces of debris, making its way towards their ship. Then Dakila noticed another and yet another.
"Guys, this is why we, me and Wietse are here. I've got this."
Dakila looked at the trajectory of one of the Kong's, materialized a sphere in front of it that it clearly couldn't evade in time and when the sphere disappeared, so had the Kong.
"Where did it go?" Corporal Pete asked.
"It's in the Sahara desert working up a little sweat."
"Xavier?" The old lady indignantly reminded him, then a dizziness came over him, a silvery bright sphere appeared before him and the huge mountain of a man came tumbling towards him, almost crushing Dakila against the wall.
As the big guy collapsed on top of him, Dakila felt all air being pressed from his longs. The guy was huge. Even bigger than Dakila had assessed when he was looking at him from above. Dakila pulled up his legs a bit and after some wiggling manages to firmly place his left foot against the big guy's chest. Dakila wasn't strong enough to push Xavier away, but he manages just enough room to get his right foot placed firmly against Xavier's belly. Dakila pressed and pressed with both feet and yes, there was movement, enough for Dakila to gasp for air before trying a second time.
"Let me help you with that, " Pete said as he places his arms under Xavier's shoulders and started pulling the giant of a man away. Pete pulled, Dakila pressed with all of his might and yes, the big guy was moving. Then Xavier's eyes opened. There was a wild yet foggy look in his eyes. Their eyes met for a short moment but at that moment the expression on Xavier's face left no doubt about what was going to happen next.
"Fuck! Shit! No!" Dakila shouted, but to no prevail. A stream of gritty vomit came pouring from the giant's mouth. As the sour stench of Xavier's vomit filled his nostrils, Dakila found the extra strength needed and as he pushed with all his might, Xavier rolled off from on top of him grunting deeply.
Dakila quickly took off all of his vomit covered wizard attire and while wiping his face clean with his wizard's cape, looked at the viewing screen in anticipation. This was not good. The Kong Jötnar were nowhere to be seen but the picture Dakila saw allowed for only one explanation. A growing number of pieces of debris seemed to share a common attribute to their trajectory. This really was bad.
"Stupid bitch, couldn't you just have waited two fucking minutes, silly old witch?" Dakila snarled at the old woman. "The Jötnar are all on top of us now, tearing apart this ship. Now we'll have to fucking evacuate the ship."
"Evacuate my ship? The hell we will. How about I try to land her in your sweaty desert?"
"Hell, yes!, steer forward, now!" As Dakila commanded Pete to steer his ship forward, a huge darkness formed in front of them.
"What the hell?" Pete spoke in surprise.
"Just steer her into the darkness and get ready for landing her a bit earlier than you were considering. We are jumping into the atmosphere, two kilometres above the Sahara desert."
As the ship exited the M-Brane fold, the viewing screen went completely yellow for a second then as the camera system adjusted, the contours of the desolate desert landscape below became visible.
"Hey, looks like I missed all the fun" Dakila looked at Wietse who was picking himself up from the floor. Looked like he was quite alright, but was he still sharp enough to come back with him to fight more Jötnar.
"Pete, me and the old bloke are going to go back to the debrisphere now, make sure you put her down in the hot sun at a safe distance from everything. Shouldn't take our stowaways outside more than half a minute to break out in a deadly sweat."
"Like hell, you are Mister de la Vega, you aren't leaving me stranded in this conjo desert. We came on this trip for my cousin and my pupil and we found you, Mister big shot blockchain robber. Either you guys help me get Robert and John to safety or so help me God, I'll drag your thieving behind through this dessert to the nearest police station." The woman looked at Dakila like she meant it and could actually follow up on her threat, and even though Dakila knew she couldn't do anything to stop him here in full gravity, the menacing look on the woman's face reminded Dakila of his mother in a way.
"Have the old man take you" the conduit responded in her heavy French accent, "I need this one to pick up a few of my sisters first"
| Chapter 41 | Chapter 43 |