A Plain Jane Book One (14 page)

Lucas took a massive breath. It
might have been incredible, but what it felt like was a giant
headache. Yet slowly, through the edges of the pain, he was
starting to find access to information the he’d never had before.
Ordinarily Lucas could access the Galactic Force computers through
his bio suit, and within a fraction of a second he could know
whatever it was he wanted. Yet there was a limit to how much data
he could store at any one time and how much he could access. If he
ever went too far away from the Galactic Force computers, like say,
deep into dead space, he would lose that connection completely, and
he would have to rely on the on-board memory systems of his
armor . . . . But this, this was different. It
felt like somebody had crammed several hectares worth of computer
banks right into his implant.

‘
No time,’ the creature now said,
‘no time,’ he repeated.

‘
No time until what?’ Yaka looked
back up at it. ‘Are we about to be attacked? What kind of enemy are
we looking for?’

The creature nodded down
towards Lucas. ‘Ask,’ it said simply.

‘
Right,’ Yaka put a hand on
Lucas' chest and steadied him. ‘Stone, you heard the creature, what
are we after?’

‘
I, I . . . ’
he trailed off, blinking wildly as he tried to force through the
pain and latent pressure in his head, attempting to access the
memory banks of his armor in the way that he always did. It was
hard this time, it was different; there was an utter swirl of
information, almost like a fog, and he had trouble seeing what he
needed to. Everything was jumbled together – just a sea of
information clogging his mind. Yet out of all that information –
the symbols and images that haunted him – he recognized one. It was
Specimen 14.

‘
What . . . what
is that thing?’ Lucas asked, though more to himself, as nobody else
could see the images that bombarding his mind. The more he followed
Specimen 14, or the impression of something similar, the more a
cold sweat trickled down his back. Almost on fast forward, it was
as if he were getting a whole life history of the thing, or if not
a life history, at least the history of its interactions with the
Parans. He saw hordes of creatures like it attacking Paran
home-world after Paran home-world. They were vicious, they were
fast, and they were unique. Their bodies did not seem to have one
form, but rather they were capable of morphing and changing
depended on what situation they were in. If they were required to
jump fast, to run far, they grew long capable legs. If they needed
to rip through metal, to tear down defenses, they grew great big
arms and claws. Yet their ordinary form appeared to be one of a
white, fleshy creature. Its skin was pristine and clear, glistening
and wet. It had no eyes, but a long snout that ended in a jagged
jaw with protruding sharp teeth.

Lucas snapped his eyes
open and took a sharp, quick breath. He could now appreciate that
Specimen 14 was one of those creatures.

‘
It is about to break free,’ the
robot noted. ‘Many deaths. Unless you stop.’

Lucas shuddered and
clamped a hand to his head as another stream of information dashed
through his mind. It was data on how to fight Specimen 14 and its
race. They were fast, violent, chaotic and could assume any
disguise. They also picked out the most important target and went
after it relentlessly, leaving the weaker targets until
last.

‘
You must stop,’ the robot said
again, ‘stop before it gets here.’

‘
Why?’ Yaka asked quickly, his
countenance now less diplomatic and far more worried. It was
strange to see Yaka worried; usually the man didn't even look up
when the engine core was on fire or when there were reports of
space pirates heading to their position. Now he looked worried, his
expression pressed, his voice quick. It wasn't every day that an
apparently ancient and broken Paran relic turned into a robot and
started prophesizing your destruction.

The cold sweat that had raced
down Lucas' back now covered his palms and forehead too. ‘It goes
after the most important targets first,’ he repeated, aware that
his voice was shaky and unsure.

The Paran Artifact
nodded.

‘
So you are an important target?’
Yaka asked quickly.

The Artifact shook its
head.

‘
Jane is an important target,’
Lucas found himself saying quietly and softly.

‘
You are about to lose
containment,’ the robot interrupted, its eyes finally darting off
Lucas and then down as if it were trying to look through the very
floor.

Jane suddenly gave a
shake, and even whimpered as she now clutched her legs even
tighter.

Suddenly the Galactic
Force security arms went haywire. The illumination in the room cut
in half, and the familiar red strips along the ceiling that
indicated red alert began to flicker.

‘
Security alert, level A,’ the
computer warned, ‘breach in containment field, possible unknown
biological entity. Worldwide security forces alerted. Security
measures Alpha Beta Two enacted.’

Yaka immediately turned around,
surveying the room. ‘What's going on? Stone?’

Though the pain was still
roaring through his head, Lucas straightened up. Still breathing
heavily, he forced his armor to make a call to Alex. The call
didn't go through. ‘Prack,’ he spat heavily. ‘It's coming here,
isn't it? It's coming here.’ Lucas now walked straight up to the
security field, as close as he could get, his face now so near to
the crackling, arcing blue electricity that if it weren't for the
still transparent helmet he wore, it would have burnt his skin
off.

The robot only used one eye to
look back at him, its other eye still directed through the ground.
It didn't have to say yes. Lucas just knew he was right. Specimen
14 was coming here. As he entertained a mental image of it, a name
popped into his head. Darq . . . . it was a
Darq. That was the name of its race. Out of the chaos of Paran data
uploaded to his armor, that single fact made itself clearly
known.

‘
What do we do?’ Yaka asked
immediately, pointing to the consoles close by the door. ‘Marie,
try to get me a level-three security field around this
room.’

Lucas was still breathing
through the pain as he tried to access as much information as he
could, attempting to get an idea of how to beat this thing. But
there was a problem. Out of the little information he could make
sense of, he knew one thing for sure: the Darq were practically
unbeatable. They had destroyed the Parans, perhaps the most
technologically advanced race in the entire Galaxy. They had done
it quickly, efficiently, and silently. So what kind of a hope did
the Galactic Force have?

‘
There's only one,’ the Paran
Artifact said, as if it could read Lucas' mind. ‘Close
now.’

‘
Stone?’ Yaka asked, his tone
tight. ‘What do we do?’

Lucas felt paralyzed – the
amount of information, the sheer certainty that there was no way to
defeat the creature . . . . It felt
hopeless.

So he just stood there, covered
in cold sweat, image after image flashing through his mind,
certainty after certainty rolling around his brain. He
couldn't . . . .

‘
Stone,’ Yaka snapped
loudly.

When Lucas didn’t reply, Yaka
growled and turned from him. ‘Try to make some defenses, try to
contact the security division, tell them what's going on,’ he
pointed at the other security forces in the room.

I
t was too late.

Suddenly the Paran
Artifact looked down at the floor, both of its eyes snapping there,
its shoulders and body tucking in.

Without warning, the floor
underneath it melted away. Jane screamed and started to fall down,
but in an instant the Paran Artifact twisted around, pulled its arm
from the security ring and grabbed her. It threw Jane out of the
way, then jumped out of the security ring itself. Snapping down it
jammed its arm into the security ring again, the field flickering
back into place just as something snapped forward.

It was Specimen 14, and
now it was trapped by that wall of flickering energy.

It had happened so
quickly, in the blink of an eye.

Nobody in the room
moved.

There was a giant, tall,
perfectly white, wet snarling creature with no eyes. Though there
was hardly any floor left underneath it, the Paran Artifact had
obviously extended the security field there to form a floor as
well, and while the electricity of it was crackling up the legs of
the Darq, it did not seem to bother it. Yet it still appeared
contained for the moment, though it did not look
injured.

The Darq leaned down
slowly, crumpling its tall body in half, until its face was
directly opposite the Paran Artifact. It opened its mouth slowly
and snarled.

If Lucas thought there’d
been a cold sweat racing down his back before, it was nothing
compared to the wave of fear that now washed over him. All of his
hair stood on end, his heart beating erratically and frantically
fast in his chest as his breath stopped.

It
was . . . .

‘
Contained, not for long,’ the
Paran Artifact said, its voice crackling as if it were under
pressure.

The Darq kept on growling,
bringing its face as close as it could to the security field, its
teeth glinting and glistening under the electrical arc.

‘
What
the . . . ’ Yaka trailed off, his eyes strained
wide with surprise and fear. It was an expression that Lucas had
never seen on the usually controlled, hardened scientist. To be
fair, Lucas had never felt fear like this himself
either.

Everyone in the room
stared at the Darq, stilled by the incredible, horrible
sight.

Except for
Jane.

Jane.

Lucas finally snapped his
head to the side and saw that she was still hunched up on the
floor, exactly where she’d landed after the Paran Artifact had
thrown her.

Though the Darq didn't
have eyes, it still twisted its head towards her. The instant it
did, an electrical shock of desperate fear jumped through Lucas. It
was the way it looked – the way it stared at her without having any
eyes.

‘
Get out,’ the Paran Artifact
said. ‘Get off planet.’

Immediately Jane stood up.
While seconds before she’d been huddled on the ground as if she
could hardly move, she now stood up with a grace and ease that
suggested she was hardly affected by the situation at all. Then she
turned around, and Lucas caught sight of her face. It was shattered
by fright. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears trickling down either
side of her nose, her lips pressed tightly closed. Yet her body
didn't seem to care.

The second she started
moving, the rest of the security forces pulled up their guns and
trained them right on her.

She paused.

‘
Don't,’ the Paran Artifact
said.

T
he security forces didn't put their guns
down. Lucas twisted around and saw the expressions on their faces,
or at least the expressions on the faces of the ones that weren't
wearing armor. They were all terrified, shocked; none of them would
have ever seen anything like this.

‘
Get out, get off planet,’ the
Paran Artifact said again.

Again Jane started to
move.

Lucas grabbed at his
rifle.

He was aware that one of
the eyes of the Paran Artifact was trained on him.

Jane opened her own eyes,
and her gaze darted all the way around the room, and then settled
on Lucas. He was barely two meters from her. She looked down at his
gun, and then up at his face.

‘
Put your damn guns down,’ Yaka
snarled from behind him. ‘Get a brain on your shoulders; you attack
that girl, and she will attack back. Plus, I don't think the Paran
Artifact over there is going to play friendly if you do. Right now
I would rather it keep us from whatever the hell is on the other
side of that security field. So put your guns down,’ Yaka growled
again, and the note of command in his voice rang through the
room.

The security forces did
not pay attention to him. Instead they looked right at Lucas. As
Lucas, after all, still had his gun raised.

He didn't know what to do. He
didn't know who or what to believe. Technically standard operating
procedure in a situation like this would dictate that he at least
try to take Jane into custody. She had shot three security guards,
hacked through Galactic Force computers, destroyed a security field
protecting the Paran Artifact, and had then gone on to activate it
somehow. And if he couldn't take her into custody,
well . . . he would have to eliminate her. She had
just proved herself to be a threat not only to the Galactic Force
but to the Galactic Union as a whole.

 
. . . 
.Hadn't she?

S
he was still simply standing there,
crying.

‘
Lucas,’ Yaka growled from behind
him. ‘Don't do anything stupid.’