"Mina, hand me that torch, will you"
A hand reached out in the dark, beckoning for the ancient fire welding tool that she had in her hands. The woman handed the inviting palm what they needed and in just a second's time, they had started it up and began burning metal. The one called Mina looked over her shoulder to make sure they were unobserved. She could feel the gentle ticking of anxiety. They did not have long to find what they needed before Starfleet would be alerted.
"Remember Rick, just get the outline, I will take care of the rest." Mina waited impatiently, feeling useless in her inactivity. After a few minutes, there was a grunt before a man came from the entrance that they had begun to make into the Federation Cargo 1B hold. Usually, it was under air tight security. But a mixture of luck and skill had made it easy to circumvent their discovery.
"What are we looking for again? I want to make sure I get this right." Rick stepped out of the passageway that they were creating. Mina picked up a holopad, a small handheld device in which she activated, producing a small 3D picture of a torpedo.
"Our benefactor wants us to procure Starfleet Torpedoes. There are a total of 74 that we need to collect. We are getting paid quite a bit for this little venture. No questions until we are back on base." The man named Rick nodded slowly, still seeming a little uncomfortable with carrying several kilos of explosive material off world. He gave the entrance he had made a look before turning back to Mina.
"I know we decided on the Grav-machine to get these to our ship, but are we really going to have enough time to get 74 missiles out of there? I am not used to more than a 6 minute mission." Rick seemed uncomfortable with a lot of things.
"Look, I know this isn't the usual, Rick. But we are getting paid a million per torpedo. That must be worth something."
Rick seemed to take this into consideration before giving her a toothy grin, moving on from his anxiety.
"Are you sure you can still handle a foot or so of metal?"
"Of course, unless in the past week I suddenly lost all my strength. Come on, Rick. Let's get this show on the road. Make sure the proximity alarms are off. I will wait for your go-ahead" Mina's voice was at a practiced low, and the man nodded, pulling off his welding goggles and setting off on a trot down the alleyway.
Mina never liked being this out in the open, but the payload was supposed to be worth it. She stretched for a moment, taking a look at the weaknesses caused by their short work, which had taken nearly four minutes to perfect. Her COM beeped at her lapel, and a voice whispered, "All ready". Mina lifted her leg and slammed it into the center of the mental, causing a groan, and then the siding of the warehouse gave way.
Mina pulled the large cart with her which followed behind her with a hum, hovering about a foot off the ground. The inside of the warehouse was vast, a large open space surrounded by shelving units stacked with boxes. Files, she guessed.
"Rick, I am in. Pull the Grav around so I can just grab this thing." Mina whispered into her COM quietly. The affirmative came from the other side of the COM and Mina made her way into the warehouse. It was fairly easy to find the Torpedoes, which startled her slightly. She expected weapons of this size and capability to not be available for anyone to see.
"74 Torpedos. This is going to be a bitch." Mina said under her breath before hefting one of the torpedoes onto the flat surface of the cart. She heard approaching footsteps and she looked over her shoulder to affirm that it was just Rick and Arno, just two of the five crewmates.
"You two take the other end, let's make double time, I don't like standing in the middle of a Starfleet warehouse with my pants down like this." Mina ordered after hefting another torpedo onto the cart. Mina thought carefully, the carts could carry 10 torpedoes each, five on each side of it. Even so, that would be at least 8 trips. She was not looking forward to this.
An hour passed, and Mina started to feel the anxiety climbing to unfathomable heights. They were finally finishing up, but they still had to get the Grav shuttle up and running. Just as she thought this, she noticed a red blinking light above one of the doors out of the warehouse, one of the doors they had avoided using.
"Arno, Rick, we are about to have some very, very, very unhappy company. Let's get out of here!" The two others nodded and started pushing their cart at a run. She allowed them out first and then followed into the Grav machine. She pulled the door closed, noticing that it was tight now in their medium sized cargo transport.
"They aren't here yet, we still have time to get out of here before they get ahold of our information." Arno whispered as he sat in the front, looking back for Mina to join him by the piloting. Mina followed up to the front, feeling more and more uncomfortable with the fact that they had tripped an alarm, even a silent one. It didn't matter, an alarm was an alarm, and a team was sure to be on their way. She took her seat next to Arno and flipped on the main thrusters, powering up the rest of the ship afterwards. She put the machine into drive, and it began forward, slowly making its way off of the ground and into the air. It was then that the spot light found their ship.
"Mina, get us the fuck out of here!" Rick was strapping himself in, and Mina pulled up hard on the controls, forcing their ship almost straight up, causing the other ship to swerve dangerously to the right to avoid a collision.
"This is Starfleet Security Captain Hans Coronor. Land your vehicle, or we will open fire!" The ship's COM screamed at them. Mina stopped the ship in midair, turning to look at her crewmates with an evil grin.
"Oh god, come on Mina. I told you last time, never again!" Arno put his forehead in his hand as Mina pulled up hard again on the controls, causing them to lurch upward.
Part 2
Mina straightened her uniform, consisting of a black tank top covered by an over shirt which was a dirty shade of grey. She finished buttoning her pants and took a last look in the mirror. Her hair was out of sorts a bit, black curls hanging to her shoulders in a haphazard fashion. She threw it back in a ponytail before turning and walking from her quarters.
They had arrived back from their mission the night before, and she had spent most of the night writing a report for "the good doctor" who was in charge of most of their missions. The base was a smaller one, mostly used for genetic manipulation and other experimental medical procedures. The idea always made Mina's skin crawl, since she had been one of those experiments.
Mina shoved the thoughts out of her mind, walking in rhythm towards the main medical center, where the torpedo pods had been deposited the night before. Dread filled her with each step she made, her shoes clicking against the metal flooring. The hallways were cold, but more than temperature. There was a clinical feel to the whole space-base. The windows showed nothing more than the blackness of space, stars speckling the darkness.
When she made it to the main medbase, she pressed the intercom.
"Doctor, its Mina."
The door slid open without a moment's notice and Mina stepped in through the opening. The main med bay always made her nervous. It was like being in the cage again. Trapped.
"Ah, Mina. I am glad you have come. I would like you to see my latest project. One you provided with me last night actually." Doctor Hauser was a middle aged man, salt and pepper hair that fell down past his ears. He was a normal enough looking man, but anyone who knew him just needed to look at his eyes, past the thin rimmed glasses he wore to know there was something past them that was sick and twisted.
Mina took a few steps forward towards one of the torpedoes that she had brought back from Starfleet. She stopped in her tracks when she saw that it had been opened, and inside there was not a box of fuses and wires, but a humanoid figure.
The doctor looked gleefully at the frozen humanoid, putting a hand on the case of the cryotube and looking back at Mina.
"You still owe me a great deal of money for the ship you destroyed on Planet Prime 4 on that gun run I had you go on. You made a good amount on this trip, but you will also owe me for your new upgrade."
Mina shuddered inwardly. This was how it always was. A circular trap she could never escape. Required upgrades and experiments made her more capable for the missions that the doctor sent her on, but the upgrades and experimental procedures required a great deal of pain. If she didn't get the tests and experiments, she would be seen as unfit to do missions, and then terminated as a part of their fucked up arrangement. Many of the missions were impossible without the destruction of their ship, or at least damage. She had flown into Klingon space several times within the past year. More and more, it seemed. It was more than that though. The doctor had something much more precious that he kept from her.
But none of that mattered. She barely felt human anymore in his company.
"Mina, my dear, are you listening?"
The stern voice brought Mina from her thoughts and she nodded at the doctor who seemed unsure if he believed her. His glasses glimmered in the florescent light from the ceiling, and he slowly shifted them on his face.
"Anyway, what was I saying… Yes. A good friend brought these torpedoes to my attention about a year back. But finding a good time to take them was the hard part, as you know. So many details, getting them shipped to that building, paying off the guards that night… Do you know what these are?" Hauser began walking through the rows of cryotubes disguised as torpedoes. Mina followed silently, looking in horror at the faces trapped in ice.
"Of course you don't know what these are, silly me." The doctor said with a cruel giggle that made the man seem even more insane. "These are Augments. Do you remember learning about those creatures, Mina?"
Augments. She knew that word well. Doctor Hauser had drilled the idea into her head over and over. The products of the Eugenic Wars. The strength and brutality of the augments had been Doctor Hauser's calling.
"I see you remember them from that look on your face, dear Mina. The Augments…the augments are perfection. What I have been reaching for all this time." Doctor Hauser took of his glasses and cleaned them absentmindedly, his eyes still boring into her, even as she knew he could barely see past his own nose.
Mina's throat was dry as she tried to smile. She knew what this meant. Her new upgrade, the new experiment, was going to be to her detriment.
"As you may remember, that ship that you destroyed on your last mission added a steep increase to your dues. You have oh so much to lose." Mina looked back at him as he slid his glasses back on his face. Anger boiled deep in her belly.
"In order to remain in my service, I require you to undergo the next step in the phase. You will have a few days to prepare, and if all goes well, you will have the abilities I need for your next mission. Then, maybe you can begin to pay off…other dues"
The cycle continued.
"And should I choose not to do this next phase doctor? Please, we have come so far, surely another upgrade would not benefit you…There are still a lot of jobs I can do." She knew she was on the edge of pleading with him. The idea of going under the knife again so soon after the last procedure was not one that she relished. Needles, scalpels, blood…her own blood.
The Doctor's eyes flashed at her and she was silent. That was all he needed to do now. The chains, the confinement, and the pain had made it all but easy to break her spirit.
"As you know, this is far from a choice Mina. That chip in your neck does more than just let me know where you are." As he said these words, Mina felt her skin itch on the left side of her neck. Technology these days allowed for a small computer chip the size of a dime to have enough explosive capability that it would completely sever her head should it be activated.
"I don't need to mention our main part of the deal, do I? What would your sister do without you?"
He took a moment of pause to let this last tidbit sink in. Her eyes flashed at him but she did nothing, choosing to take her defeat.
"This upgrade will be required. You are to help me awaken one of these Augments, and I will create a serum from their blood. You are to be the start of the next race of Augments. Isn't that nice?" His sarcastic tone was like glass under her fingernails. Anger rose into a lump in her throat, and she wanted nothing more than to slam the man's head into the side of the med bay walls until he was putty in her hands.
Mina stared forward, refusing to make any sort of emotive expression that let the doctor to see how she was truly feeling. This was not the time.
"Like a good dog, doing as you're told. Good girl." Her blood boiled, and more than anything, she wanted to cry out in anger. "Come over here and help me with this casing."
Mina slowly made her way over to the cyrotube and looked upon the exposed face. The doctor was at the control pad, and he flipped a switch that began to defrost the tube. The ice slowly disappeared, and Mina observed the long, thin face that slept so peacefully under their care. The figure was a man with short black hair, cut carefully outlining his face.
Dread continued to pound in her veins. For now there would be another subject for the doctor who played God. She pitied this creature, who would soon join her waking nightmare. Though he would be far less lucky than herself, if that was even possible.
"Mina, stop staring and do as you're told." His cold voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she hefted the lid off of the top of the tube with ease. She noticed that the doctor had armed himself. To an onlooker, it looked like nothing more than a small black box. But she knew, first hand, that all he needed to do was come in contact with skin on the rough side, and a series of shocks would shake the form he touched. It was enough to floor any human, or any creature that they had come in contact with thus far. Doctor Hauser placed the black box into his pocket, safely tucked away. He hooked up the Augment to a heart monitor.
Mina continued to watch the Augment's face. It was a strong face, but the skin told her a story of a war-ravaged past. As the cold evaporated, she could literally see his skin thawing. The heart monitor showed the progression of a heart awakening after a long slumber. Faster and faster it pumped, far past the normal for a simple human. She couldn't help but think to herself of the possibilities that the Augment brought. If he truly was what the good doctor had described, than he might be her only chance of escape from this place.
All thoughts of escape vanished as the Augment's eyes popped open and he sat up from the cyrotube. The Doctor made an excited sound and walked around the tube to come face to face with his treasure.
"Excellent! It worked!" Was all the doctor could say. The Augment looked at the doctor first before passing his eyes over Mina. She could tell nothing from his eyes, those sharp blue orbs peering out from a skeletal face. He sneered for a moment before slowly swinging his legs over the side and proceeding to escape from the cryotubes. The doctor had already started babbling, overexcitement bubbling form him.
"You are absolutely exquisite!" The doctor whispered following his stream of babble. The Augment moved so quickly that neither Mina nor the doctor were quite prepared. The augment's hand wrapped around the doctor's throat and he lifted the man to his own height. The doctor's feet dangled from the ground for a moment, and Mina's breath was caught in her throat. This was what she wanted.
Something took ahold of her, survival became more important than pride and she lurched forward barely hearing the low growl emanating from the Augment.
"Where is my family?"
Mina's fist came in contact with the side of the Augment's face. He stumbled back, confused and still delirious from his awakening. His eyes flashed towards her as he dropped the doctor to the floor and started towards Mina. He looked unphased by the actual impact of her punch and she prepared herself, bringing her fists to a ready position.
Mina shuddered as he came towards her. His figure was one to behold, taller than any normal man, yet lithe like a panther or wild cat. His eyes were flashing in blind rage, and once he was in range, he threw his arm out in a punch which she felt come in contact with her cheek. It was like an iron fist, and she felt the gravity of the hit. Pain exploded from the spot he had come in contact with and though she blocked another punch even as she was confused from the first. Mina felt slightly dazed from the throbbing that had begun from the jaw his fist had just come in contact with. She swung herself under his arm and gave him a swift kick that caused him to lurch forward. Mina grabbed his shoulders and threw him into one of the medical examination tables. He moved to get up, but doctor Hauser had regained his bearings and he quickly placed the black box on the man's chest.
The shock was immediate. Mina watched in horror as the Augment's muscles began to throb and his body to shake. She could see the pain in his eyes, just before he opened his mouth in a feral scream. Mina could not watch as the doctor waited for the shock to continue.
After a few moments, the box was removed, and the Augment was still. Alive, but unmoving.
"Well then. That was an interesting interaction. Cuff him and throw him into a holding cell." The doctor's voice was a distant nuisance that she would have rather ignored. But like a dead man walking, she grabbed the augments arms and followed the doctor's direction. Soon, like her, the Augment would be a test animal, poked and prodded until found to be useless. Soon, he would be outfitted with a chip like her, and her hopes for escape would diminish.
When she had finally muscled the augment into a cell, she saw his eyes begin to flicker open. He sat up from the bed she had laid him upon just moments before. He glared at her, and she felt it through her entire being. Rage, like a storm of fire destroying all in its path.
"I'm sorry." Was all that Mina could conjure up before checking the lock one more time and then retreating. She would be seeing him soon enough, of that she was sure.
I have spent the past few days looking this over and making small changes while also writing the next chapter. I hope you enjoy!
Please feel free to leave me comments. What did you like about it? What could use a little more work? I enjoy keeping a certain level of fluidity to my work. It is not a finished piece and is still in metamorphosis.
Thanks for reading so far! A new chapter is sure to be up within the next day or so.
