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Hearing that there was something wrong with Hugh, Fallon was immediately awake, and when she flipped over, she woke Jenna as well.
"What's wrong Tatyana?" Fallon asked, concerned. By now Jenna was almost in tears.
"I think perhaps we should get him to the medical center. The intruder biocytes are fighting back. I've had to task most of our biocytes to keep him from permanent damage. I've consulted with the medical AI and it has agreed with me; the Captain should be in medical," Tatyana replied.
"Good enough for me call a stretcher crew, and we'll let them in," Jenna said, jumping out of bed, and grabbing a pair of coveralls.
"He will have to be transported in a bio-containment unit, like the ones Nurse Doria brought to the dining room," Tatyana said.
"Whatever it takes, Tatyana. Get it moving!" Fallon said.
"Da, Comrade Commander. Medical has been notified, and are in route. Dr. Ryan and Dr. Carter will meet you in medical."
"What about you, Tatyana? Where did he leave you?" Jenna said.
"I am with him, Comrade Lieutenant. I asked him to leave the cuff on so I could work with the biocytes."
Fallon was pulling on her boots when the door chimed an entry request. Jenna ran down to meet the medics, and lead them to where Hugh was.
The two medics, both dressed in bio-suits, waved the girls back before they lifted Hugh out of the tanning bed, and put him into the chamber. Once it was sealed, they removed their helmets and started pushing the chamber back to the door. Fallon and Jenna were following right behind.
Fallon held her cuff up to her face. "Simon, please wake Captain Ayres with my apologies, and ask her to meet me in the main medical center. If she asks why tell her there is a problem with the Captain."
Fallon's AI, Simon, acknowledged her order and carried it out right away.
Hugh didn't remember waking up, but wasn't he supposed to be in the tanning bed? "Tatyana, what's going on, where is everyone?" He asked looking around the Titania's empty bridge.
When she didn't answer him, he held up his cuff and looked at it. It looked normal, but it wasn't responding to him. "That's weird, this has to be a dream, but I don't feel like I'm dreaming."
Very softly he heard a woman laughing, but it wasn't coming over the intercom, it was echoing through the great ship; she could be anywhere.
"Hello? Tell me where you are, and I'll find you!" Hugh called back.
The laughing eased up, and the woman replied. "You already know where I am, 'Captain'. Your friends are trying to save you from me, but it's too late! You're mine!"
Hugh immediately recognized the voice. It was his ex-lover, Hanna. He set out for the brig.
"So this is a dream then, which means you're lying, Anna," Hugh said purposefully using her original name. He did get a rise out of her.
"That name no longer holds any power over me! I'm free now!" Hanna replied.
This time it was Hugh that chuckled. "Not exactly. I take it you have no idea where you are in reality?"
"That doesn't matter now that you're mine. You see, I'll soon have the codes for this oversized barge you call a ship, and once we exit FTL, I'll send for the fleet. You see, you were right about one thing, 'Captain'; those ships on the other end of the transit lane are the new Earth fleet, and you were right about who was going to crew them. But where you miscalculated was how fast the process is, and the location of the 'missing' cryo-pods. The pods were trans-shipped through Luna, and sent straight out to the fleet where they were processed."
Hugh paused in his walk to try to remember which way to go. "Okay, so I miscalculated on that; but why do you need such a large fleet? I mean, once you deal with us, it has no use."
"Come, come Hugh, you already know the answer to that. You and the other traitors were discussing it. You see my little friends inside you may not have full control yet, but they can eavesdrop." Hanna replied.
"Okay, so you plan on attacking these religious nuts. The question is, why?" Hugh asked as he picked a direction and began walking again.
"They are massing a fleet in preparation for an attack on us. We are trying to get prepared for it. Once we destroy their fleet, we can move forward and take their captured planets for our own." Hanna said. "We can use the slaves to build a bigger fleet and take more of their worlds."
"I see a few problems with your plans, Anna," Hugh replied, still intentionally using her former name. "Not the least of which is personnel. Even with the rest of the pods, you still wouldn't have the people to man a fleet the size you're talking about. Not and still maintain a viable breeding population."
"I told you, Hugh, that name is no longer mine! As for people, you really are as stupid as the guild predicted; there are more than one viable egg and sperm produced by the human body. Not to mention the cells from the original specimen."
"You're cloning, and producing test tube babies by the thousands! But none of them will be old enough for you to use as crew or soldiers. They need time to mature." Hugh had to keep his voice and emotions under control or she would have him. He could feel her trying to break into his conscious mind.
"Well we have to do something since we really can't procreate. We need the people; they have to come from somewhere!" Hanna replied.
"Dr. Ryan didn't think you really where human anymore. I don't mean that as an insult, just a comment. Do you see yourself as human still?" Hugh asked.
"We are the next evolution of Human. We were created by nature, we've evolved into what we are today. You and you're kind are inferior throw-backs! But we'll get all of you with the program; we'll get you or we'll kill you in the process!"
"Anna, I'm sorry, but I don't see the logic there. What you are right now was created artificially in a laboratory, not by nature. The biocytes you infected me with are the product of science not nature. Besides, if you can't procreate on your own, then you're a doomed 'evolution', what scientists call a mutation." Hugh said, and felt her anger sky-rocket. He was getting close enough to feel her emotions. He stopped, maybe he shouldn't get any closer yet.
"You have no idea what you're talking about! Which only proves how inferior you really are! Come, come closer and I'll explain it to you!" Hanna replied, telling Hugh she could feel him as well.
"No, I think I'll stay here for now. I got to close to you before, and look where that got me!" Hugh said laughing. "You know, I bet you were a lot more beautiful as Anna, before they... 'improved' you."
"Anna was a homely, lonely, mousy, little snit that had no friends, and no family. She was useless as a human, and this really is an improvement for me."
Hugh felt a very brief surge of ... something as Hanna made that slip. He didn't think he'd ever get her to admit a relationship to Anna. He decided to press it.
"You know, I bet I could have been her friend. She sounds like she was an incredibly strong young woman, you know, you have to watch out for the quiet ones, they're always the strongest."
"You are a fucking idiot, Hugh! You know nothing of my life before this. I was a fucking no-body! A nothing! People treated me like I was fucking invisible! You wouldn't have even fucking noticed me! You and your popular fucking, slut, girlfriends! It's people like you that made me who I was!" Hanna/Anna screamed back at him.
Hugh could feel her beginning to crack, so he kept it up.
"You never knew me at all did you? I was a major geek! When I wasn't trying to master some video game, I was in the library studying. I was a straight A student. Hell, half the time, even my sister avoided me. I've never had a girlfriend until you, which is why it was so easy for your crazy ass to get with me. If I'd've had any experience at all, I would have run from you as fast as I could!" Hugh said, trying to goad her more. He hoped she wouldn't catch the small fib in her anger.
"Hah! Liar! Like all males, you tripped all over yourself to get into my pants! I was made to be as beautiful as I could be, so I could attract stupid males to fuck me, so I could collect their sperm. You were the only one I'd found with viable semen! How could you have been a virgin when you'd already fathered two boys by the time I met you?" Hanna/Anna said accusingly.
Thinking quickly, Hugh came up with; "I never said I was a virgin, I said I'd never had a girlfriend! The two ladies that I got pregnant were not my girlfriends; they were married to one another. I liked them, yes, I might even care for them on some level, but even from the beginning we all knew there would be nothing but a sexual/friendship relationship between us." He paused. "You were the first person I cared about that way. That is, until you starting getting more insane."
"Enough of this emotional crap! Come to me know, so I can finish my work. I'll let you go back to your sluts then," Hanna/Anna said. "That way, at least you'll all die together."
"We're together right now; I can feel them near me. I can feel their love like warmth from a sun. Anna would know what that feels like, but I doubt you could understand it. It's a pretty ... uh, barbaric emotion, probably too barbaric for you."
"I told you dumb ass, I didn't have any friends or family! No one who loved me at all!" Hanna/Anna replied.
Hugh sensed more of Anna in that reply than Hanna. "See? I knew you wouldn't understand it! Hanna, you're incapable of understanding or accepting love. Anna knows exactly what it is. She knows that what I felt for you at first was for her, and not for Hanna! I felt her returning that love too!" Again he paused, and Hanna remained silent. "You want to know something else, Hanna? Love is the strongest force in the known universe, and nothing can stand against it!"
"You're wrong! I've been standing against it for weeks now. Now that I know what that damn emotion is, I can finally rid myself of it!" Hanna snarled back.
"Nope, it's gonna get worse, because now, Anna knows that her love is returned! She knows there are people out here that want to get to know her, and love her. She's strong Hanna, and you're in for the fight of your very short life."
Hugh felt the struggle in Hanna, and knew he'd been right. Anna was still alive and willing to fight what they did to her. He felt Hanna's grip on him loosen, and he began to slip back into the darkness of normal sleep.
"Keep it up Anna, I'll see what we can do for you from the outside." Hugh called just before the blackness over took him. He hoped she'd heard him.
Fallon watched as the Doctors worked on her love. She held a shivering Jenna, and beside her RyeAnn stood. "He is a most unique young man. I'm sure he'll come through this." One of the commanders that had accompanied RyeAnn to Med Bay said.
RyeAnn nodded in agreement. "Yes he is. I'm starting to believe we're going to need him as badly as we're going to need ships in the coming weeks. This is his first command, yet he seems to have a very good grasp on his duties and responsibilities. Most men would have tried to handle the fighting capabilities of the ship themselves. Hugh knows he couldn't; it's the mark of a good man, as well as a good Captain when they know their limitations, and are not afraid of asking for help."
"He's a lot like our Dad," Jenna replied. "Sometimes, if the light's just right, he almost looks like Dad too. I know he's not Dad, but the difference makes him better; something I didn't think was possible."
"Your parents are a remarkable group of people," RyeAnn replied. "I'm actually going to miss having them aboard."
Jenna and Fallon both looked at RyeAnn in surprise. Jenna spoke, "I thought they worked in Stellar Cartography and Environmental Services? Neither of those positions are liable to run into, or come to the attention of, the Captain of a military vessel."
RyeAnn smiled at her. "Because I'm in the military, is why we got to know each other. I'd share their bed on occasion. You see, Regs say a commander can't have an intimate relationship with anyone under their direct command; since I'm the Captain, that's everyone in the military on the ship. So, I got to know all the civilians onboard; some more than others." She turned to Fallon. "While Hugh's like this, you're acting Captain."
Fallon nodded. "Yeah, I know. I think that might be the second reason I want him to wake up."
"May I ask what the first is?" RyeAnn asked, but suspected she already knew.
"We haven't made love yet. I'm still a virgin." Fallon admitted without thought. "He's the man I'm going to spend the rest of my life with, but we haven't had sex yet."
"Tonight was to be the first night all of got to sleep together. Both Fallon and I feel like a part of us is missing now, if he isn't with us. It's hard to explain I guess..." Jenna said.
"I think you did a good job explaining it; I understand completely," RyeAnn said.
"I think he might regain consciousness soon, I'm getting some awfully strange readings from the weird biocytes. Especially the ones around his cerebral cortex," Emmitt said, shaking his head. "This is one of the oddest things I've ever seen. Almost as if there are two minds in there."
"According to the Captain, there very well could be," RyeAnn replied.
Emmitt shook his head. "Couldn't happen, there's not enough processing power in the biocytes, and second, where would the second mind come from?"
"I'm pretty sure the second mind you're seeing would belong to the anomaly in the brig," Alarms started going off on her cryo-pod a few minutes ago. The guard called me," Willy said as she entered the ward. "It seems she still has higher brain activity, even though she is in cryo."
"Okay, so she must be controlling the biocytes! We have to get them out of him!" Jenna cried.
"We're trying sweetheart, we injected another batch of our biocytes into him, and Tatyana has teamed up with MedCent AI and both are fighting off the invaders. Emmitt, how is she communicating with them?" Abby asked.
"It has to be a form of subspace but how it can work, and not disrupt normal brain function is beyond me," Emmitt explained.
"Well, we don't need to duplicate it, but we do need to disrupt the signal somehow. Any ideas?" Abby asked.
"Yes; if the source of the control signal is the anomaly, get her outside of the ship's hyperspace shield. We know subspace can't get through the higher dimensions," Emmitt suggested.
"Not that I really give a shit, but won't that pretty much fry Hanna? The gravimetric sheer would tear the whole pod apart in seconds. There'd be nothing but atoms left after one minute out there," Jenna said.
Willy looked thoughtful a moment. "Maybe, then again, maybe not. Let me talk to Mercedes and see if she has an idea." With that, Willy turned and left.
Fallon faced Emmitt. "Didn't you say you'd meet us in our quarters with a way to kill these fuckers?"
Emmitt nodded. "I did, and I'm sorry. I haven't been able to figure out how to kill them; I was still trying to figure it out when Abby called me down here."
Everyone was silent for a time, contemplating their own thoughts while the two professionals worked to save Hugh's life. The revere was broken when Willie, followed closely by her daughter entered the ward.
"Dr. Carter," Mercedes began. "I could equip the pod with its own hyperspace shield generator, but the problem then becomes how do we hold onto it once we get it outside? Anything we try to tether it with, including a tractor beam, either won't function, or would be vaporized." She took a deep breath, bit her lower lip, and offered a solution.
"I've been playing around with a theory; it started out as an idea to improve engine performance, but, what if we kept her inside our shield, but formed a supra-space bubble around the pod?"
Emmitt looked interested. "What do you mean; I've never heard of supra-space."
"Basically, we equip the pod with a small hyper-drive and shield emitter. Then push it into the next highest dimension?" Mercedes explained. "Since it's inside our shield, it would stay phase locked to us, but it wouldn't actually exist in the same dimension as we are."
"Make the pod jump to hyperspace while we're in hyperspace?" Emmitt asked.
"Pretty much, but I was thinking a bit more complicated than that, but yeah. Unless the signal is really shallow like the data feeds the ship uses, which we'd be able to detect, the differential in metaspace should sever all contact to and from the pod."
Fallon and RyeAnn were listening intently to the two discuss the possible solution, waiting for them to agree when RyeAnn cleared her throat.
"What's it gonna be? Will it work on not?"
Emmitt was thoughtful for a moment before answering her. "As Mercedes has described her idea, it should work, in theory. I can't guarantee the safety for the anomaly however."
"What about our field integrity? From what I know of hyperspace physics, that same metaspace differential could destroy our shield. What is the risk to the ship if we try this?" Fallon asked.
Mercedes nodded agreement. "That's why I suggested a small generator for the pod. If the output on the pod generator is limited, and I keep the two fields in harmony, both shields should be stable."
"And if you can't keep the fields in harmony then what?" RyeAnn asked.
Jenna grinned. "Then Hanna goes the way of the dinosaurs, the control signal is gone, and we continue to our destination."
Fallon thought for a moment. "Do it." She turned to RyeAnn. "Captain, I'd suggest a bit more space between us and the Invincible: just in case."
RyeAnn nodded agreement, and moved away to relay her orders to her ship. Mercedes and Dr. Carter left to make the modifications they needed to pull this off. Fallon took Jenna in her arms and kissed her.
"I need to get to the bridge, sweetheart. Take care of our husband."
Jenna nodded and held on to her for an extra minute.
"I'll stay with the Commander to assist her if she needs it," RyeAnn told Jenna. "There are not many males that impress me. Even though he is young, Hugh is one of them." With that, she turned and followed Fallon.
Almost two hours later, Fallon called the medical ward to let them know the experiment was about to begin.
Abby called in two extra nurses, and pulled over extra equipment incase they would need it.
Suddenly, Hugh's eyes snapped open, he arched his back and screamed. Abby and her nurses sprang into action, and forcibly pushed Jenna back. One of the last things Jenna saw before she was pulled out of the room was blood coming from Hugh's nose and eyes. She heard Abby yell at her team. "Fuck! We're losing him! Get those bugs into defrib mode and get his heart started! Jillian, monitor his brain waves. Someone get me twenty mils of giufinol hydro! STAT!"
Jenna collapsed into a chair when she heard the sustained tone from the heart monitor.