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NOTE FROM 101: Before you read, I'd just like to say a few things about these chapters. This is part of Jade's Return, the sequel to A Hidden Legacy. This is chapter 13's second post, but will definitely help refresh some memories as far as what was happening in the story in case anyone has been wondering when the next chapters were going to be posted. Chapter 14 has of course, not been read. Chapter 15 is going to be seen here reasonably soon. Enjoy the chapters!
:::Both A Hidden Legacy and the previous chapters of this story can be found in the previous pages of the Chronicles, by selecting "View all articles," from the top of the page.:::
============ Chapter 13-Old Friends. . .?
As I sat, still smiling, I couldn't help but not look at the stars. For some reason, at this moment, they seemed more fascinating than ever. I wonder why they did... I did not know. My thoughts were again interrupted by a beeping sound from the console. I moved to it.
The Defender A.K. was close, and the hailing light was on. I flicked the switch and Jake's head came into a small screen. He nearly screamed when he saw that I was alive.
"Doc!"
"Jake!" I said, laughing.
"What's up, man? That detective with you?"
"Yeah."
"Cool, cool. Alright, well just sit back and relax, and you'll live through this. We're gonna use a tractor beam to pull you in, alright?"
"Alright."
"So how is everyone?"
"Well, they've been pretty worried about you."
"Yeah. I'm a celebrity," I said, grinning.
"Uh huh, whatever," Jake replied while shaking his head at my ego. I laughed again. It would good to be home.
"Any news on Jade?"
Suddenly from the other side of a hangar a man came out screaming and yelling.
"Get off the ship! It's a trap, it's a trap!!" he screamed, followed by two medical workers injecting anesthetic into his shoulder.
"A trap?"
"... Yeah, that guy has been hysterical ever since we picked him up. What a loon. He was piloting one of the Janus ships in the battle."
"Ah."
We finally got to the hangar exit door. I was worried. What was going on? Something just didn't fit in. Had they awoken Greg yet? What if this was a trap... but then again, I shook Jake's hand, so it wasn't like all of this was some big hologram, or a dream.
"Mind if I walk you to your room?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Good."
"Good?"
"Yeah... ya know," Jake said, staring into my eyes. He'd never done that before. We walked slightly faster to the point where he was barely in front of me. Then Jake stopped.
"Oh," Jake said under his breath. "By the way, Doc."
Jake turned around, holding a gun, at waist level. I looked at it, then back to him in disbelief. This was a trap.
"Jake, don't-"
PEALTH!
I saw the gun fire, and at first didn't feel it. My stomach grumbled, and I put my hand on it to feel thick liquid. I looked at my hand, the middle two fingers with fresh blood covering them. I began to feel and faint and looked back to Jake.
"Why?" I asked.
"It was what I was ordered."
"Wha-"
"I had to. It was my mission. I'm sorry, Doc."
"What are you-"
I coughed and fell to the ground, not capable of standing any longer. Jake moved in closer to stand over me. I looked at him, with all my anger trapped inside, I fell asleep.
"Waking up already, are we?" a doctor's voice spoke to me as my eyes slowly opened.
"What is this?"
"What is what?"
"This! You know what I'm talking about! Why is this happening?!"
"Why is what happening, Mr. Mason?"
"Damn it! Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!!" I yelled, grabbing the doctor's collar and pulling him closer to my face. He rolled his eyes and drew a side arm, putting the barrel of it on my leg.
"Please stay calm sir, I'd hate to have to unload an entire energy cartridge on you."
Suddenly, something flickered in my mind. ///////////////////// How could Surmount crew have stayed awake during all those fighters swarming around it? The engines, effecting everyone's brain patterns. Perhaps I underestimated the abilities of the Defender A.K. Only time would tell. Guess I'd have to ask Jake that when I would be picked up.
I gasped, realizing what had happened. None of these people were who they appeared to be. Their minds had to have been controlled somehow, but I had no idea how. I studied the doctor's face as he put bandages around my wound. I looked at his eyes, his mouth, his teeth, his nose, up his nose, his neck, his bangs, his ears, only to find nothing. I kept watching him, anyway, however.
I couldn't help but moan from the pain of the laser shot to my stomach. It obviously wasn't going to kill me, and the gun must have been on a low power setting. They didn't want to kill me if they didn't have to obviously, but most likely just make me yet another one of their mind-controlled drones.
The doctor was on a rollerchair. He finally got done with the bandage packages, and rolled over to his desk behind him to throw them away. As he did, I noticed the one thing that was odd about his appearance. On the back of his neck, I spotted a gray speck.
He turned around, holding a needle in hand, then looked to me. I shook my head. He shrugged, then said, "Don't worry, you'll hardly feel it."
"This is crazy!" I yelled, jumping off of the medical bed.
"Please, just relax, this will take but a few minutes, sir."
I ran for the door, but I stopped at the reminder of the doctor's gun. A shot pierced the lower back part of my leg. I grunted, then moaned. The doctor calmly walked over to me, bent down, and grabbed my arm. With my right leg, the good leg, I kick him in the groin. He screams, and falls to the ground, I get up, filled with rage. I take the gun from his hand, stand up and aim it toward his head.
"No!" the doctor screamed, his eyes circles, his limbs shuddering with fear. "Please don't! I don't want to d-"
SHULT, SHULT, SHULT, SHULT, SHULT!
Quickly, stepping over the man's carcass, I got a first aid kit, and wrapped my wounded leg. Every part of my body ached. My stomach, especially, my leg, my tired arms, and my eyes felt like they were dried out.
I limped to the door, and pressed the green activation button. It opened with the hiss that I had gotten all too used to, and I stepped out, looking left right, up and down, only to see that I was on board a ship that I had never seen before. I looked at the walls, and catwalks on higher levels, that had consoles, controls, devices that I had never dreamed of. My first guess, of course, was that I was on one of the Karticel warships that hadn't gotten a scratch on it. The truth, was that I didn't know how many of these ships there were.
I walked to the railing, where I could see down below at least 12 decks, straight to a bottom platform. I leaned forward a tiny bit to see if I could see what was right below me, only to have my hair wizzed off. I drew back immediately. Green lines, that had an electric look to them flickered. It was a force field. My head began to sting. I touched my head, then brought my hand down into view. Blood.
To my left, there was a door at the end of the catwalk that I was on. I ran to it. It automatically opened. Gun in hand, I saw four men sitting at a surrounding table look up at me and jump out of their seats, drawing their weapons. I jumped to my right, having shots miss me barely, firing back into the room without even looking, poking my gun around the corner and firing in random directions.
Then I turned to look into the room, still firing, now backing up to head back to the room that the doctor was in. Running backward, I ran halfway down the catwalk, only to run into something behind me. My pain split into my back, and I yelled. I turned around to see an Igadzra staring straight down at me. He slapped the gun in my hand. It flew into the force field and was incinerated. The Igadzra, his hand as big as my chest, picked me up with one arm.
"I have him," he said.
This time, while being held in the air, I could see three officers instead of four. A dead body was lying there in the meeting room. They walked through the doorway to the Igadzra, and looked up to me.
"Doc," one of the men said.
"Let me go. And how the hell do you know my name? What is this?!"
"Don't panic, captain. That would be pointless. You're apparently full of more energy than we found you in."
"You're damn right you found me in more energy than I was in! And as soon as I get out of here, I'm going to have the UE, and the DME come down here and show you how-"
"Oh shut up!" the officer said, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "Docmother doesn't stand a chance against Project Hellfire. Docmother goes by the book of rules. The laws of the galaxy."
One of the other officers signaled the Igadzra to go to a room that was not far from here. The Igadzra nodded, while I was still being held in the air. The officers walked with me to the room, talking.
"The law stops Docmother, or the Karticel from releasing the true technology that they have in their grasp."
"I've got news for you, Docmother goes by the law that is set by the UE. If it means abolishing Hellfire, UE will promit it!!"
"The GALACTIC law states that the UE can only do so much. If you have any complaints, or are still alive in a few years you can go to the Council, or perhaps the Azdgari, or the Miranu and complain to them on that issue, but-" the officer said, raising a hand in defiance. "For right now, we're completely in control. We could do so much more than what we're doing right now. In fact, for all you know, United Earth space is being conquered right now. However, they have nothing of use to us, and pose no threat. Your friend Jade, however, we can use him for a number of different experiments. To be honest, we already have."
"You're not going to get away with this!"
"We could have killed you already, but unfortunately our commander says that there is something useful about you too, so just be grateful that we choose to follow orders. In the mean time, Mason, shut up. We don't appreciate you killing medical crew."
"It's not even a real-AHHH!" I screamed as the Igadrza squeezed my chest. Apparently wanting to get silence out of me. My teeth clenched, I screamed through my teeth from the pain. They got to the room, and the Igadzra opened the door. The officers back up for a moment, and let the main one come in with me. The door to the room stayed open. The Igadzra threw me in.
"I hope you enjoy your stay, and I think that once we're doing with you, you're mind will feast upon our knowledge, and enjoy working for us. The meals aren't that great for technology that isn't due out for hundreds of years, but don't worry, you will be fed food at least. We could choose to feed you other things."
"You piece of-" I tried to get up and attack him, but I yelled from the pain, and fell to the ground once more.
"It's true. Your friend Jade seems to like being controlled by the ship, I'm sure you will too."
Chapter 14 - Ice
The gray speck on the doctor's neck had to have been the way his mind was being controlled. Whenever I killed him. . .I could barely resist the idea of pulling the trigger. I didn't resist it at all.
The cold, damp, metal floor had a rough, green, and brown texture. The room, which I had now discovered was a cell, was empty. I had been sitting in the same exact place for two hours. I just couldn't move from all of the pain. I had to have had some broken bones or at least some sprained joints. I moaned at least once every twenty minutes, wincing at the stabs that would go on and off every minute on the hour. It was torture.
What was to become of Greg? The officers said nothing about him, and he was still sleeping in the escape pod. Something bad must have happened to him. Either that, or he made something bad happen to whoever tried to capture him. However, I highly doubt that it was like that.
I crossed my arms and shivered, feeling the freezing cold air whirl around me from the overhead vents. If I got sick, they'd most likely have a cure easily, but they wanted to make me suffer.
What use did they have for me, again? Oh, that's right. The officer didn't tell me, so I still don't know. What use could I possibly have to them? The only thing I can think of that would be wise to do with me would be for them to kill me, because I was trying to get Jade. That was the thing that was all too weird. According to the officer, whom I probably shouldn't believe, Jade was still alive, and his mind was now under the control of the ship.
Wait! The ship. What did he mean by, 'Jade was under control of the ship?' So he had given it all away. I had managed to escape from so much. . .and now I had to do this. This was different, however. I would have to pull a lot more complex things than I had ever even attempted. This would take more than having a Jade clone help me, and navigate through an air vent on a planet's building.
This was a warship, it wasn't just a normal jail cell. There wasn't an easy way of getting out here. In fact, there was no way to get out of here without inside help. But what inside help was there? There was none that I could think of, except for Jade. But Jade was under mind control. Who knows what he would do under their control. Who knows if it would even be the real him, and not one of his body guard clones that Jade himself had created for his protection.
I watched one Jade be torn in half by an alien, and another cry for help in panic at the sight of Project Hellfire's massive, vicious warships. There was nothing now. No hope, no chances, no ideas, no happiness. Whatever excitement there was was mixed in, and blurred into fear, which in turn created a shrieking mix that simply added to my endless physical pain. Suddenly, my physical pain became my mental pain, and I was in complete suffering.
I felt tired, worn out, and completely depressed. Minute by minute passed, I dozed, then fell asleep. For the next four hours, I dreamed of Greg and Jade begging for my help, and mercy to the pain that they were receiving. Only time would tell what was going to become of them.
The door slid open with a loud creak. It was a rather dirty, old fashioned door for such an advanced ship. All these horrid noises at the same time came with that usual air releasing hiss. Four officers walked in, all of them armed. Three with a machine gun, and one pistol, and one with just a single pistol. The one with the pistol was the one who spoke first.
"Get up," he said with a harsh tone. I groaned then sat up.
"Stand up!" he yelled in shallow exasperation. At least, that's how I had felt it to be. I stood up all the way. "It's time for you to meet your fate."
The other men laughed at the whole situation with the idea of it sucking to be me, as some would say. Two of the three men grabbed me by one arm each, on opposite sides of me, with the man with the pistol walking around behind me, and the remaining man with the machine gun holding it to me from a slight distance of a few feet.
"Now walk," the man with the pistol said. I began to walk toward the horrible sounding door. I walked out and found the catwalk that I had struggled upon to free myself, but to no avail. I felt the barrel of the man's gun to my back with a jolting stab. I was waking up, becoming more and more awake. I was going to be nothing more than a drone, a robot, a puppet for them to control. I might die trying to free myself. I had to do something. That was all I knew. I just had to do something! I couldn't let this happen. Think, Doc, think, I thought to myself.
Thinking wouldn't help in this kind of situation. This may be my last breath. I looked at the man to my left, holding my left arm. He was focused on where we were going and not my actions. However, the man on my right was just the opposite. If I even looked back, I had a feeling that I may be shot and killed, or perhaps maybe only shot and wounded. It didn't matter, because I didn't want to take either chance. Something in me told me that I most definitely had to, however. The man with the machine gun was off slightly behind me, and the man with the pistol to the right side. If I were to look back he would be diagonal with my right shoulder. I could only hear his footsteps. These men were not that greatly trained. Another matter was that they were human. Probably extremely lucky ex renegades who found a home in an advanced crime empire. Whatever. I didn't care anymore. There was no point in thinking about that subject.
With my still working left leg, I kicked the left soldier's machine gun to the left. Its barrel hit the wall, and I immediately jerked free of the right man with one pull, and grabbed the left soldier's machine gun, taking cover by staying in front of his body, that was automatically shot by the other men. I fired, killing the man with the pistol, and laying about three shots into the shoulder of the soldier behind him. Then soldier on the right jumped behind a crate about ten feet in front of us. With all the strength I had left, I threw the dead, shot up carcass of the soldier behind the crate. The soldier fell over, firing as he tried to get the body off.
WUUAHH, WUUAAHH, WUUAAH.
The alarm began to sound. Doors opened all round the catwalk that went around the long shaft. I looked down, as I heard the men with weapon all running toward me. I saw nothing but two levels below the one I was standing on. The rest was pitch black because of how deep it went down.
I looked up. The men ran from their rooms, blasters in hand. I looked to my right to see a corridor leading out of the main shaft. I fired at two men, missing, but causing them to duck and ran to the corridor to my right. I took cover behind one of its corners and fired both directions, including across where I could see the men on the other side of the cat walk.
They fired back, and I laid down, only hoping that no stray shots would hit my head that was to the ground, or my shoulders. I wasn't so lucky, one soldier's shot ripped into my right shoulder, revealing flying skin, and raw, bloody flesh that roared with pain. I yelled louder than I ever had, and fired back, holding down the trigger and not letting go. Then getting up running out and jumping straight down into the abyss of the mysterious, pitch black shaft. I saw more catwalks. Hundreds more, with people watching in amazement. Igadzra's, Karticels, and humans, even one or two Miranu looking.
It was all a blur as I spun out of control, my clothes rippling in the fierce winds of the fall. The machine gun slipped from my hand as I began to fall faster than it did. Eventually, I managed to stabilize my fall, but that didn't help my confidence as I saw something light blue. . .gray, yet kind of white at the same time. There was also a bit of a darker shade of blue, all blended together like some sort of ancient painting. I saw it get larger, and the catwalks end as I fell faster and faster, getting closer and closer to what I saw below. The air began to feel dramatically cooler. The image below became so very close. . .
My body hit the light colored ice with a crack as I fell through it into the freezing water, my body numbing from the immense pain and temperature. I swam for the top, struggling to get up to the hole that I had made, but something took me away. I felt my wounded head slide along the top of the ice, that wouldn't break as I hit it, flowing away with the incredibly fast current. I lost control, and felt my body start sliding along the smooth bottom of what seemed to be this river of freezing water and ice. I spun around several times, then felt myself be flushed out, falling once again, this time to warm water, yet still with a fast current. I fell about forty feet, hitting the water with a hard smack.
I opened by eyes to see that the water was reasonably clear. I saw a light above the surface and began to swim for it. I got closer as I edged to the side, reaching for it. I grabbed onto a pipe that I couldn't see, then to the ledge, and pulled myself up, coughing up swallowed ice water, and grabbing my throbbing head, wincing in pain at my stomach and chest that had hit the ice with a hard wham. I pulled myself out of the water, feeling like my body was a million tons, from how much water was now in my clothes. I struggled out and laid next to the fast flowing water. I wanted to fall asleep, but struggled harder than I ever had to stay awake. I ran an extremely high risk of falling into a coma, then waking up with a person that was never meant to be me.
My mind began to burn with anger at the Karticel that had betrayed their mighty empire to do dirty, wealth making research on living beings. Project Hellfire had to die. My only concern was that Jade and Greg might have to die too. I would never do that. There was no way in all the universe that I would ever, ever do that. Somehow, I had some kind of premonition about what was to happen.
I dozed again, this time I sat up, and felt my head, that was still wet with water. Finally I stood up walking to a console that was next to a door. No one was around, and I appeared to be in some sort of water or some kind of fluid generator area that was used for something inside the ship. The console had a few lights, and switches. I had no idea what they meant. I tried to read them, but water in my eyes stopped me, or maybe it was the dizziness from the rapidly leaving blood. I didn't know. I dropped, becoming more dizzy, my vision began to blur.
NO! This wasn't going to happen. I felt along the wall, in the area around the console. I began to trip and skip left without wanting to. My head hit some sort of metal thing sticking out of the wall and I fell. What was that? I felt it, from where it began in the wall, to its tip. At it's tip was some sort of rubber handle. It was a lever. I pulled it down. A panel opened up directly to its left. It was a keypad with a metal box built into the wall right next to it.
This was the part where I was going to either, rip it out of the wall and put it down the toilet, or punch in a wrong code, get caught and say, "I'm innocent I tells ya!"
Hell, oh my devil, I never want it to be this way. I looked at the entry screen for the code that would open the metal box. This time, it wasn't going to let me off easy like my destiny had guided me those few years ago. I wouldn't wait and see it say, "Access granted," and I wouldn't get into it so easily. It just wasn't that simple. Flash back humor... what would I be thinking when I would think that it would cheer me up.
That was fantasy. A fantasy fulfilled. It wasn't reality. This was. I wouldn't run into someone who would invite me into something that I had stolen from someone in a Luna bar. It was all different. All important. I punched in a code that I remembered from somewhere, but didn't remember where.
1-1-1-1. I waited as it said, "Please wait..." only to find the words "Access denied," appear on the entry screen. Also to see the words at the bottom that said, "2 TRIES LEFT."
Now I was walking on air.
SPECIAL THANKS GOES TO: Talos - My editor and Chronicles By Jake101 publisher. Skyblade - A reader since the beginning. Lonevoinian - Providing insight. Captain Whitehawk - Taking the time to submit to the poll.
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 11-30-2001).)
Just to let everyone know - they can contact me about my modern writings at youngprer@yahoo.com. You can also ask about my upcoming book to go into stores.
-Jake101
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