Chapter 7 - Necessary Evils
Jack stood on the balcony looking out at the city again as numerous small craft buzzed about the buildings like a swarm of flies. He hated this world--- this pit of unbounded and monstrous passions. He couldn't wait to leave, but he realized a part of him never would. That part had died here.
"You want something to drink?" Hank asked from behind him.
"No," Jack answered absently.
Hank joined him, gazing at the city as the darkness of night fell once again.
"I sent the message to Simmons on Kel-j'na," Hank told him. "I'm sure they'll send a ship to go scout out Nybiros."
Jack didn't react.
"You know, I thought you were..."
"I did too," Jack said.
"So when did you two come up with that little trick about the gun in her leg?" Hank asked with a grin.
Jack's face showed no emotion. "While you were getting dressed."
"Why didn't you guys tell me about it?"
"Befana said she wanted to get you back for something, but wouldn't say what," Jack answered.
Hank nodded and started to go back inside.
"There's still hope we'll find them, Jack," Hank said. "It may not seem so right now, but there is."
Jack took a step forward. Hank watched him for some time to make sure Jack wasn't considering jumping. Then he went back inside where Befana walked up to him with a drink.
"Your friend okay?" she asked as she handed Hank the glass.
Hank exhaled and shook his head. "I doubt he'll ever be okay again."
"Shouldn't we try to talk with him?"
"No," Hank told her. "He has to face his demons alone."
Jack stood, looking out over the seemingly endless city holding Mei-Wan's comm badge in his hand, turning it end over end. It was the one thing here that gave him some sort of connection to her.
Mei! his heart cried out. I'm so sorry! I've failed you!
"You did not fail her, Jack McCall."
Jack spun around and saw a creature covered in bluish white fur--- the Vedala.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Jack demanded.
"I had wanted to speak to you much sooner," the Vedala named Kalastia said. "But we had to be certain it was safe to do so. The Ladeo Jutamfa are free from their prison on Hel'yra."
Jack watched the Vedala and thought he saw more than caution in its expression as it looked out at the city. "They were defeated before by the Ancient Progenitors' sacrifice--- a sacrifice given so that the rest of us might live," the Vedala told him. "If they had not, all life in this Galaxy might have perished. Our fear is that, this time, the Ladeo will be unstoppable."
Jack didn't care about the rest of the Galaxy at that moment. All he cared about were his wife and father.
"The G'voda have Mei-Wan," he said.
"We know."
"You have the power to bring her back to me... her and my father," Jack pleaded.
The Vedala stared into the night sky. "To do as you ask would destroy all the Vedala. The Ladeo would overwhelm us in mere moments."
"What?" Jack asked, confused. "The G'voda are on Nybiros."
"And so are the Ladeo."
"Certainly you could get Mei-Wan and Dad away from there before..."
"I am sorry, Jack McCall, but their sacrifice is necessary."
"I can't accept that!" Jack yelled, his words fading into the smog filled air of the city.
"We dare not even look upon Nybiros," the Vedala said. "There are some things that even we fear."
"But..." Jack began to protest.
The Vedala raised its fur covered hand to stay his words.
Jack closed his eyes as an updraft blasted air past the balcony they stood upon.
Mei, forgive me!
***
"Lieutenant…"
Nothing.
An endless haze without light, but not total darkness...
"Lieutenant McCall..."
Where am I? her mind asked.
"Time to wake up."
What? When did...
Through the fog, alert klaxons blared. Everything felt as if the world had turned upside down. She floated for a moment then hit the floor.
"You don't want to miss this, Lieutenant."
She had to get to the pod. They were out of time. "Strap yourself in!" Then her stomach fell through the floor. They were away, but only five of them. Surely others got out. Surely...
"Wake up!"
Mei-Wan McCall's mind burst into consciousness. She tried to open her eyes, but a blinding light from above forced them closed again.
"Now that's better," a mechanical voice to her left stated.
"What?" she got out just above a whisper.
"Your eyes will adjust in a minute," the voice said. "I can wait."
Mei-Wan took several breaths. "Where am I?"
"You are home--- your home from this point forward."
She forced her eyes open and saw a face, but not a human one. Its shape was human, but instead of flesh, shiny metal covered its surface. Some parts were exposed, revealing a mass of power conduits and artificial muscles. But the eyes stood out above everything else. They were featureless orbs within their sockets that emitted a dull red light.
"How do you like it?" the machine asked her, pointing to parts of its body. "I know it's not finished yet, but I do think it's coming along nicely so far."
Something about the voice, the attitude...
"Yes, I have shed my mortal coil and moved on to the next life, but I haven't forgotten you, Lieutenant. I'd never forget you."
It finally hit her through the dissipating fog in her mind. "Zachary?"
"Not just Zachary," his machine voice stated. "Consider me, Zachary reborn."
His metal face contorted into what was meant to be a smile, but instead of conveying happiness it only frightened Mei-Wan.
"What happened to you?" she asked, still believing none of this was any more than a twisted nightmare.
"The G'voda granted me the opportunity of a lifetime," Zachary told her. "They gave me a new body, a new life, and a new purpose. They freed me from all the instincts and drives of humanity."
He leaned closer to Mei-Wan. "I am a new creature, better than the original, but still Duncan Zachary."
Mei-Wan closed her eyes hoping she'd wake up, but her wish went unfulfilled. "My god, what have you done to yourself?"
"Your gods are indeed the issue," a voice to her right said.
Mei-Wan turned to see a familiar face walk up to her. "Jeremiah?"
"Hello Mei-Wan," he said warmly, still wearing his admiral's uniform. "I'm sorry for all of this."
She tried to move, but found her arms and legs restrained by metal clasps at the wrists and ankles. Another metal brace held her waist.
"Help me get out of here!"
"Oh, we can't do that just yet," Zachary said. "And don't think your dear husband will come flying in here, guns blazing. I've made certain he'll find an appropriate target to vent his anger upon."
Jeremiah looked up at the machine. "That's enough, Zachary," he ordered. "There's no reason to torment her."
Zachary gave a quick nod and took a step back.
Jeremiah watched Mei-Wan. "Your gods, or rather your Ancient Progenitors as you call them, are responsible for all of this I'm afraid."
Mei-Wan struggled frantically against her restraints. "Let me go!"
Jeremiah McCall placed his hand on her shoulder. "Don’t do this, Mei-Wan. You'll only make it harder on yourself. Please."
"What are you doing, Jeremiah?!"
"The part of me that was the being you call Jeremiah McCall wishes he could help you, but I'm afraid that's not going to be possible," he said. "I truly am sorry."
"Who are you?" she demanded, becoming angry.
"I am a victim," he said. "A victim of the Progenitors, those we knew as the Beota. I was their first victim."
He stepped away from her, lost in thoughts about a time billions of years before. "I am a victim of their unwillingness to see things from a different perspective." He smiled. "However, thanks to Captain Gann, I was the first released from the prison the Beota placed me in more than five billion years ago."
"The being from Cajma? One of the Ladeo?" Mei-Wan asked. "But how... where's Jeremiah?"
"He's still here," he explained, pointing to his head. "He's asleep now. I'm afraid we can't both operate at the same time."
Mei-Wan looked at Jeremiah's face and noticed how pale his skin was, and how much older he seemed. She glanced down at her own restrained body and saw dirt on her uniform as well as rips in the material.
"The Balthazar--- we were attacked," she said, looking at him. "By you?"
"No," he answered. "The unfortunate thing about being locked away for billions of years is that your servants begin to operate on their own."
Jeremiah frowned at the machine inhabited by the mind of Zachary.
"They do things that are counterproductive like conquering the Fashod and making their presence too widely known," he said. "However, the attack on Admiral McCall's ship was an excellent way to get more information about your Federation."
He looked back to Mei-Wan. "That operation had already begun by the time we made it here to Nybiros. Though, my abilities did make the retrieval of Jeremiah's information much simpler. I have immediate access to everything he knew, felt, or imagined."
He turned as another machine, this one on four legs and at least ten feet tall, entered the large circular room which Mei-Wan was at the center of.
"You freed the others?" Mei-Wan asked.
"I wasn't left with many choices," he explained. "Not even our servants, the G'voda, could rescue us. The nebula around Hel'yra was deadly to them."
"The Ancient Progenitors must have had a good reason..." Mei-Wan began to insist.
His face twisted in rage. "Our struggle against the Beota, your Progenitors, had nothing to do with reason! It wasn't forced upon us because of differences in philosophy, political points of view, or ideology!" he yelled. "The Beota wanted nothing less than our extermination!"
"I don't believe it," Mei-Wan stated. "Their culture, their technology, they..."
"Only sixty of my kind remain," Jeremiah said, now more calm. "Out of tens of billions, only sixty... because of your revered Ancient Progenitors. They refused to co-exist with us." Jeremiah looked up from the display device in his hands. "The Vedala! That species of sycophants still exists!" He glanced at Mei-Wan. "I see from the scan of your mind they..." He stepped away.
Mei-Wan wondered what else they had learned from the scan. She hadn't even been aware the G'voda had done such a thing to her.
Jeremiah turned to the large four legged G'voda. He held up the display device. "This is why we were so concerned about your blatant activity! You fools!" he screamed at the machine.
The G'voda stepped back cringing under the rebuke of its diminutive master.
"According to her thoughts, the Vedala have evolved to a state of near godhood! They might very well attack at any moment!"
"The Ancient Progenitors are gone," Mei-Wan told him. "Your fight is over!"
"No, they live on in you and your kind," he said. "Doesn't their seeding of this Galaxy with their genetic material, altering the ecology on millions of worlds, prove to you they only wished for their own kind to exist? Why can't you believe they would want to exterminate us?"
Mei-Wan had never considered that side of the Progenitor's actions. She had always assumed they'd only seeded uninhabited planets.
"Despite our power, Mei-Wan, and it is considerable, there are still things we must fear," Jeremiah said. "You and your kind are our greatest fear."
"How could we ever harm you?" she asked him. "You destroy entire worlds!"
He closed his eyes. They were the progeny of the Beota. They would never allow his kind to remain alive. "You will see who destroys, Mei-Wan. It won't be us. It has never been us. We needed the life energy on Cajma, Ninaz, and Ikenga. I stopped the others at Parsandra. I told them it was a world of sentient life, that we could find other worlds."
"Too bad you didn't realize that with Cajma and Ninaz," she threw back at him.
"Those on Cajma had used me as a source of energy, and Ninaz…" his words trailed off into silence. "The others were nearly dead, they would have perished without energy from the beings on Ninaz. The deaths on that world were unfortunate. I mourn their loss."
"That does them a hell of a lot of good," Mei-Wan told him. "They were just on the verge of space travel. Their entire future was ahead of them."
"I know. We possess all their memories," he said with pain in his voice. "They will haunt us for as long as we live."
He stood looking at her. "I have sacrificed more than you can imagine to reside in this body," he said. "But I did it willingly to save the last of my kind. You would do no less." But, he did relish the pleasures of a physical body. It had been so very long since any of his kind had known such joys. They had been forced by Mei-Wan's Ancient Progenitors to leave them behind.
Too many sacrifices! his mind screamed. Even anger brought him joy. It produced a flood of sensations so intoxicating it nearly let him forget what he had given up to inhabit Admiral Jeremiah McCall's body--- nearly.
He more than any of the others now had to be extremely careful. He was vulnerable in ways he had not been for billions of years. He hoped it would be worth the risk.
He gave the display unit back to the four-legged machine. "Proceed."
The metal creature touched a control on the display and several other G'voda entered the large room. One of them was a humanoid looking machine similar to Zachary, but female in design, and her outer metal shell was complete. They all moved to positions around Mei-Wan.
"What are you doing?" she pleaded.
Jeremiah kept his back to her. "I am sorry for what they are going to do. Their plan is sound and… necessary."
"You're being given a gift, Lieutenant," the machine Zachary stated. "They are usually so selective about who they bring into their number."
Mei-Wan's eyes widened.
"You will become one of the G'voda, Lieutenant McCall," Zachary said, contorting his metal face into a grin. "Just like me."
"No!" she screamed. "You can't do this!"
"There has been only one other who tried to refuse this gift," he turned to the female humanoid G'voda. "But you learned to enjoy this life, didn't you, Cilda?"
The female G'voda only nodded briefly and stepped up to a control panel near Mei-Wan that rose out of the floor. She began touching the controls as soon as they were within her reach.
"And so will you, Lieutenant," Zachary said with glee.
"Stop torturing her!" Jeremiah snapped at Zachary.
Zachary and the others stopped in place.
Jeremiah almost looked as if he might cry. Mei-Wan couldn't tell if that was the Ladeo within him or some part of her father-in-law getting through.
"She can't help what she is," Jeremiah said sadly. "None of them can."
He left the room as Cilda touched several controls.
"Full transference," Zachary told his female counterpart.
"And the body?" Cilda asked.
"Keep it in storage. It may prove useful at some point, especially if one of the masters wishes to inhabit it," Zachary said. He turned to Mei-Wan. "Sorry I can't stay, but I have a Borg Queen to interrogate."
Zachary and the other G'voda exited the chamber leaving only Cilda and Mei-Wan.
"Please!" Mei-Wan cried out to her. "I don’t want this!"
"I didn't want it either," Cilda answered her. "You'll learn to adjust. The centuries will pass and all those you knew and loved will be gone. After five hundred years I have learned to accept what is."
Several large metal devices came down from the ceiling to just a few inches above Mei-Wan. She struggled trying to free herself from the table she was strapped to, but she didn't have the strength.
Cilda's metal hand reached for a last control, but hesitated. She looked at Mei-Wan for a moment.
"Please…" Mei-Wan whispered.
Cilda touched several controls on the panel. The devices over Mei-Wan began to emit a high pitched whine as sections of them glowed.
Mei-Wan's vision clouded over as the sounds of the machines above her intensified.
"No!"
Her mind drifted.
Did I have a choice about us? We're together because of the whims of that bastard, Abolas, in that prison camp.
For a moment she thought she was back on the Chamberlain talking to Jack.
No, that's what I said when I left, she told herself.
You've slept with him, haven't you? she heard Jack's voice ask... again.
The world went dark. She could no longer see the room or the machine named Cilda.
Suddenly a flood of memories exploded in her mind.
But Robin, he's the Captain! she heard herself say.
So what, he's cute, Robin Nelson's voice answered.
The rush of past events intensified in her mind, coming so quickly now they overlapped in a jumble of different times, places, and people.
You're an excellent student, Cadet Lau, but there is more to life than archaeology.
Come on Mei, there'll be a bunch of cute guys there.
Do you think I have nothing better to do than pick up after you! her mother's voice scolded her.
Archaeology? That's hardly a real science.
How's my little girl today?
Your mother lost the baby, her father's voice said.
Then we can play chess if it rains.
You're such a sweet child.
Quiet down, Mei-Wan!
Mei-Wan!
Mei...
Then... only sensation remained.
Warmth, cold, hunger...
Hunger...
A flash of light and cold and noise.
Quiet. A point of light... flickering, flickering... gone.
Darkness... nothingness... emptiness.
TO BE CONTINUED…
***
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Dark Horizon Story and Characters Copyright ©2003 Michael Gray
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