A Plain Jane Book One (16 page)

He’d found her, but damn
it had taken him a while. She could run and she was fast. And the
speed with which she hacked through security terminals was
phenomenal. Lucas had never seen anything like it, not from a
robot, not from a bio-synthetic, and certainly not from a
biological life form. She was possessed with a speed, agility, and
knowledge that was far, far beyond her.

When he'd finally reached her,
he'd had a moment of hesitation. Seeing her bypass that security
panel with such expertise . . . he’d wondered
whether this was a trap after all. Perhaps Jane was working with
Specimen 14 somehow.

Then he’d seen her
expression again. Her expression had been at complete odds with the
expert moves of her hands, with the slack, easy posture of her
shoulders, and the comfortable stance of her legs. Her expression
had been wild with fear, and such obvious, genuine fright that he
knew in an instant that it could not be faked.

She kept on talking, and what
she kept on saying sounded exactly like Jane. Not that he had known
her for long. Yet even the way her expression crumpled and her nose
crinkled, her eyes squeezing in, reminded him of the first time
they’d met. Whatever the movements of her body were, they weren't
Jane. Though he had no reason, no evidence to go on, he didn't
wonder whether it had something to do with the Paran Artifact.
After all, whenever it had told Jane to move, she had moved,
whether she’d looked like she wanted to or not.

So Lucas made another
decision: he would trust her. At least for now. Too much was
happening, and it was happening too quickly, and unless he acted to
create certainty, he would be swept up by the chaos.

Plus, even if he had no
idea who Jane really was or what she was capable of, his gut told
him one thing: Specimen 14 was dangerous. No, it was beyond
dangerous, it was terrifying, terrifying in a way that the Galaxy
had never experienced before. Most species of the Galaxy, that was,
except the Parans.

All of his worst
suspicions, his nightmares about the mysterious ancient race from
Hell’s Gate, were turning out to be true. The Darq, as the Paran
database had called them, they were fiendish, deadly, and intent on
destruction.

He didn't know why, and
while he now had access to the Paran database, he couldn’t make
sense of most of it. He did know one thing however: he had to stop
them at all costs. They felt like a perfect, deadly force that
could easily sweep their way across the Galaxy, conquering what
they could and annihilating what they could not. The Galaxy would
be a soft target. It hadn't been to war in years, maybe didn't even
know how to protect itself any more. Maybe it thought that there
weren't any real enemies left out there to threaten it. Well they
were wrong. There was one downstairs.

Lucas swallowed hard and
put on another burst of speed. He didn't know how long he could
keep this up for; his armor was already giving him feedback that he
was taxing not only the living membrane of his bio suit but his
very joints, tendons, muscles, and bones. It was weakening him.
They were almost at Hangar Bay One though, so hopefully he could
hold out just a little longer.

Jane wasn't slowing down.
She kept up the exact same pace. Lucas wondered how long she could
do it for. He knew she wasn't human; Miranda had told him so. Yet
Miranda had also told him that she had lower agility and strength
than your average human. Which was obviously completely wrong,
because Jane had speed you never associated with a human. Still,
all races had their limits. Jane could run like this for a while,
but she couldn't run like this forever.

In order to get to the
hangar, they had to pass through the decontamination unit. It was a
long corridor which, ordinarily, you walked through at a healthy
pace, and while you walked, all of the nasties that you’d picked up
on Earth that you didn't want incubating with you in space were
irradiated right off you. In fact, the process was perfectly timed
to how long it took to walk to the hangar, but if you ran, or even
half jogged, the computer would snap at you to stop running in the
corridor. Jane, however, obviously intended to ignore
it.

There were now no security
personnel around. Obviously they’d all been redirected to the real
problem: the Darq in Research Lab Two. The creature that was now
being surrounded by a security field from a Paran Artifact. A
security field that looked as though it was light-years beyond any
technology the Galactic Union currently had.

They finally reached the
decontamination doors, and before Jane could rip into the panel and
hack into it, Lucas put a hand forward and just typed in the right
code, the doors opening for them easily.

The number of panels that
Jane had now torn through and hacked in her attempt to run to the
hangar bay was clocking up, and Lucas knew that when this had all
died down,
if
it died down,
the Chief Engineer would have some very, very strict words for
him.

When the decontamination
doors opened, Jane began to run down the corridor behind them, but
Lucas did notice that she was starting to flag. She was certainly
breathing heavier now, and there was sweat dripping down her face.
Lucas quickly used the on-board biometric scanners of his armor to
note that whereas her life signs had been steady and almost vibrant
before, they were starting to taper off, and quickly
too.

‘
Jane?’ he asked her. ‘Are you
okay?’

‘
Tired,’ she replied simply,
breath heavy. She still didn't stop; she kept on running. Sure
enough the computer blared out several times to slow the hell down
so it could decontaminate them properly.

He just snapped at the
computer to prioritize decontamination and hurry the hell up. And,
being Lucas Stone, the computer paid attention. After all, there
were several benefits to having his rank, one of which was the
ability to prioritize computer functions. Even if every person
under the sun accused him of always having his priorities wrong, at
least he could dictate to the computer what it should do and
when.

By the time they reached
the end of the decontamination corridor, Jane was practically
stumbling.

He glanced up to see the
ship in dock one, and was happy to note it was one of the fastest
cruisers the Galactic Force had. A small, nimble ship, usually used
in reconnaissance.

How Yaka had managed to
clear it so fast, Lucas would never know. Well possibly it had
something to do with the Darq in Research Lab Two threatening to
tear up the planet to get to Jane. Getting her off-world before
that security field failed was everyone’s last and best
hope.

In any case, Lucas didn't
have the time to wait around on the hangar deck and make the right
calls to ensure everything was legitimate. Plus, Jane was already
running up the ramp to the ship.

There were two very
surprised engineers either side of the hangar door, and they
glanced at Jane and then straight at Lucas.

‘
Umm,’ one of them
began.

‘
Priority mission,’ Lucas snapped
back. ‘Is the ship ready to go?’

‘
Yes, sir,’ one of the engineers
said as he glanced at Jane and then back at Lucas. ‘But there is no
crew.’

‘
We will pick them up later. We
just have to get off-world as soon as possible. Has she got
clearance?’

‘
Not yet,’ the other engineer
replied through a stutter.

‘
I need you to get on the net,
get absolute priority clearance. I need to be the next ship that
goes off.’

‘
Yes sir,’ both of the engineers
replied.

Then Lucas ran into the
ship. As soon as he did, he turned, he clamped his hand over a
panel on the side, and his armor instantly linked to the on-board
computer. In another second the hanger door closed in a
whisper-quiet move. Then Lucas, his armor still linked to the ship,
instructed it to begin the takeoff process. Soon enough the engines
hummed into life. He also set the shields to maximum, primed the
scanners, and even uploaded some biometric data from the Paran
database into the computer. Data on the Darq. Should one come
close, the ship would let loose with every gun and torpedo it
had.

Only when takeoff was well
under way and the ship was unclamped and moved towards the giant
hangar bay doors at the end of the room, did Lucas take a massive
sigh. He let his head tip back, closed his eyes, and took several
relieved breaths.

He’d already plugged the
course into the ship's on-board computer, and had set navigation to
autopilot. Then he finally un-docked his hand from the panel and
moved forward into the rest of the ship.

He’d always been fond of
these smaller, faster reconnaissance ships. There was so much you
could do in one of these that you couldn't do in the heavier battle
cruisers. Fair enough, you probably couldn't take on a hoard of
space pirates or blow up an asteroid field, but you were quick, you
were silent, and you went unnoticed. Maybe right now he needed to
be unnoticed. If Specimen 14 really came after them, then maybe
this was exactly the kind of ship they needed to have a hope of
getting out of there.

If
it came after them that was.
After all, Lucas still didn't know anything for sure. He was still
working on instinct, working on full throttle, going from one
problem to the next without having the time to properly analyze the
situation. The Paran Artifact could have been lying to him, he was
still aware of that fact, and though he’d decided to trust Jane for
now, he still wasn't stupid enough to think that the case was
solved: he had absolutely no idea what Jane was or why she’d done
the things that she’d done. Or even
how
she'd done them. She had undergone a physical examination
the day previous, and Lucas was pretty sure that if Miranda had
uncovered that Jane had superhuman agility, speed, and strength,
she might have mentioned it. No, and it wasn't as if Miranda would
make any mistakes; Miranda was one of the best doctors Lucas had
ever met. Which meant one thing: Jane was far more extraordinary
than she’d ever let on.

Finally Lucas made his way
towards the bridge.

The ship was small, but
was still large enough to be comfortable. There were two small
dormitories, a very small mess hall, an armory, and of course the
bridge. Underneath the bridge was the engine, computer, and
life-support core. It was compact, but still it had enough room so
you wouldn't be running into the other crew and stepping on each
other’s toes.

When Lucas entered the
bridge, he stopped. Jane was there alright, but she was crumpled on
the floor, her hair covering her face, her limbs an awkward
mess.

He snapped down to his
knees, put a hand on her back, and let the highly sensitive sensors
over the surface of his armor pick up Jane's life signs.

They were weak, very weak.
Obviously the amount of energy that had gone into getting her to
race here like a super soldier had taken its toll. She was
breathing, but only just, and the lactic acid build up in her limbs
was dangerously high.

‘
Prack.’ Lucas spat.

Then, reluctantly, he left
Jane as he snapped up to his feet and slammed his hand down onto
the docking panel in the middle of the major console at the front
of the bridge. All reconnaissance ships like this had docking
panels for bio armor like his. They introduced a new level of
control that you simply couldn't get with holo manipulation and the
ordinary user interfaces. He could link directly with the computer
system, the living membrane of his armor almost melding perfectly
with it, enabling him to borrow the processing power of the
computer and also enabling him to make quick flight decisions and
movements that would take too long to input by hand. Right now he
was feeding the computer Jane's bio signatures, using its on-board
medical knowledge in order to diagnose and treat her. In another
moment it blinked into action, and told him it was synthesizing
some kind of drug for her. While synthesis was expensive, and took
up a great deal of energy, Lucas gave it clearance without a second
through.

Unfortunately it would
take at least five minutes to manufacture the drug. Lucas instantly
asked whether she had five minutes, and the computer bleeped out a
worrying answer: it didn't know.

Grimacing, Lucas let his
helmet recede into his armor, not just letting it go to
transparent, but getting it right out of his face for once. Then he
let his legs fall out from underneath him, and he sat heavily, one
hand going up to his brow, the other hand clamping back onto her
shoulder.

He waited there right
beside Jane.

She wasn't moving; she was
still crumpled on the floor. Considering what she’d just been
through, he couldn't blame her. In fact, considering the pounding
he’d given his own body, he almost felt like passing out himself.
But he couldn't do that right now; Jane needed him.

‘
Jane, it will be okay, you will
be okay,’ he tried to reassure her. Which was probably useless, as
she was clearly unconscious. Yet he said it anyway, because he said
it for himself. He was vocalizing a wish, not a fact. He wanted her
to be okay.