The Apocalypse Contract

CHAPTER 40 - MEL

Chaos blossomed in the air above the control console.

"Whoa... what was all that?" Mel tapped at the glassy surface, trying to tease more information from the display. The holographic alien base floating over the table was a riot of flashing colors.

Sydney nudged her sister aside and tapped open a new window. A few more taps, and text appeared next to the different areas of color. "The base just lit up like a Christmas tree all across the E.M. band. It's broadcasting gibberish like crazy."

Mel resisted the urge to feel annoyed at her sister. Sure, Sydney knew her way around her own console better than Mel did, but Mel would have figured it out. If need be, she could always just slip into shadowspace and dig through the raw data.

No, wait... she couldn't do that now, not since sacrificing her own ship. She was running totally on Sydney's hexframe, and she couldn't grab control and crank up the clock rate without causing all sorts of trouble. She was stuck doing it the slow way. She would just have to learn to use Sydney's control room, at least until she found a way to unpack The Island of Crows and get it running again.

"What in the blazes is that?" Roger was pointing at a tiny dot emerging from an insignificant dimple on the moon sized base. It was blinking more insistently than everything else around it.

"Good catch," Sydney replied, "I almost didn't see that." She tapped and slid her hands across the console surface. The dot expanded into a squashed sphere covered in bumps and spikes.

"Ooh, it's an honest to goodness flying saucer," Mel enthused.

Roger tilted his head and squinted at it. "It doesn't look very saucer shaped to me."

"Close enough," Mel insisted.

Sydney continued tapping at the console. "It's broadcasting at us. Tight beam transmission. It's Adra!"

"Hah! I told you she'd do it. Open up a channel, I want to talk to my girl."

"It's a one way transmission. A recording." Sydney tapped again, and a flickering image of Adra appeared in the air.

"Help me Obi-Wan Sydney, you're my only hope." The flickering image winked at them, then snapped it's fingers and solidified into a more lifelike image. "There, that's better. OK, so... sorry I can't join you in person, but there wasn't time to copy my full neural image to this crate. I've copied a bunch of stolen data, uploaded some sensor logs, and even rescued a few prisoners. You need to grab this ship. It's really really important. I've stayed behind to do maximum carnage and give it time to escape. When I'm done, I don't expect there to be enough processing power on this rock to run a copy of MS-DOS, let alone little old me... so I guess this is goodbye. Drink a toast to me at Miss Marple's, and don't let Mel eat all the cookies." She waved, and blinked out of existence.

Roger's face darkened. "Do I understand correctly that Miss Adra has sacrificed herself."

"Yeah, it looks like it." Sydney's face was equally grim.

Mel stared intently at the console, "Well, she knew the risks. We all did." Her hand thunked against the control surface as she opened and closed windows.

Sydney put a hand on her sister's shoulder. "I know you felt a connection with her..."

"Well of course I did, I made her..." Mel was nearly yelling. Her heart was racing. She stopped and took a deep breath. More quietly, she said, "We need to link up with that ship like she said, or this was all for nothing." She returned to poking at the control console.

Sydney nodded, took her hand from Mel's shoulder, and turned her attention to the console as well. Together, they charted a path toward the fleeing ship, a series of course corrections that would match speeds and bring them alongside.