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Chapter 27
He was conscious again. Beka could hear the guttural, low screams through the doors she had left open when leaving for medical. She broke into a jog, literally bursting into the Maru's captain's quarters and precipitating herself towards the bed on which Dylan was once more writhing in agony. Although by now used to it, the pilot still felt her stomach tighten up in knots at the sight before her. She threw the box with the tranquilizers into Jonah's arms, who stood by the door with a relieved expression on his face as he appraised her return with the medicinals in her possession . He quickly pulled out an injector and approached the bed.
"No!" The sharp order made Draeger stop and turn around. His eyes widened upon seeing Paul Musseveni hurrying in after Beka. Surprised, Jonah eyed Beka with a sharp, inquiring glance, that still persisted after he noticed her slight, approving nod.
Grabbing for the belt still thrown over his shoulder Paul Musseveni unceremoniously shoved the Seefran out of his way and bent over Dylan.
"No? Why not?" Beka asked aggressively while she sat down next to her captain's convulsing body, trying to get a grip on him.
"Because I need him conscious. I have to run some tests. The painkillers could affect the results. I need him alert and focused," Musseveni concluded and reached down to Dylan, touching his bare shoulder. As soon as he felt the strange hand on him, Dylan opened his eyes, with pupils by now surrounded with pearl-white rings growing larger, and – still tensing in pain – attempted to flinch away as if in fear.
"Alert and focused?" Jonah asked in disdain. "Well, good luck with that!"
The captain of the Andromeda Ascendant frantically rolled his head on his pillows, still trying to pull away from Musseveni's hands. As his eyes fell on Beka, who had stood up again to make room for Paul, there was a flicker of recognition and resolve to be seen on his face.
"Be... Beka..." he spat out, his arm outstretched towards her, struggling to sit up. "Beka, please... help me, I... I just... can't take this... any longer!" He managed to get himself into a half upright position, and his XO took his hand, quickly pushing the pillows out of her way and sliding behind him on the bed. She tried to reassure him, whispering into his ear and gently forcing him to let himself be eased down against her. Her arms encircled him safely reaching around him from behind.
"That's right, that's a good boy, come on, Dylan, don't worry... Now, just look at Paul and let him check you up... It won't take long! Come on, Dylan, you can do it, relax..." she softly repeated in an endless murmur. Although it seemed to soothe him, he was still rigid in her arms, his flesh compact and hot to touch, his muscles as hard as concrete. Oh my God, she thought wearily, these are no fever seizures, he's sure as hell overdosing on flash. She didn't stop her comforting whispers, bracing herself against his renewed struggle to get away from Musseveni, who by now was scanning him from head to toe. He finished rather quickly and reached for an extractor.
"Jonah, she might need help to hold him down," he ordered. Draeger approached the bed and sat down at Dylan's feet, firmly grabbing his legs and pressing them down. It wasn't of much help.
As the extractor touched his neck, drawing blood and tissue samples, a new wave of pain washed over him and Dylan hit rock bottom. He jerked up, desperately trying to free himself, but was struck down by the searing fire running through his entire body. Burying her hand in his hair, Beka pushed against the back of his head, forcing it down on her shoulder. The screams, that she so dreaded, started anew and this time she could clearly hear him shouting out her name again and again, his hoarse cries somewhat muffled by her jacket. Luckily Paul quickly finished his task, and Jonah immediately grabbed one of the injectors and shot the High Guard officer a full dose of painkillers into his thigh.
The painkiller was not nearly as effective as Beka had hoped, the pain reluctantly yielding to the painkiller, and Dylan screamed and screamed on until he had no voice left. Finally though it took effect, and as he laid exhausted resting on Beka's shoulder, she couldn't help from pressing her lips against his forehead. Panting he lifted his head, searching for her eyes:
"Thank you," he mouthed silently through parched lips, before his eyelids dropped; he drifted off to sleep after a couple of minutes.
-
Two hours later Beka left Dylan alone with Jonah and headed for medical in search of Paul Musseveni. Not only had the Nietzschean founding father not come back to them, he had not been seen or heard from since he had left the captain's quarters.
One hour after he had received the pain medication Dylan had briefly awakened, and Beka gave him another massive dose as the pain had started to blossom up again. She had been reluctant to deliver it to him so soon after the previous dose, but Jonah had advised her to do so before the pain wave reached once more top level. She had hoped for some results of Musseveni's before risking another shot, but as trying to contact the old man had proved futile she had finally agreed to follow Draeger's advice. By now another hour had passed, however, and they were only 45 minutes away from Crimeea. She simply had to know what Paul Musseveni had come up with before entering the system.
"Paul, open up," Beka said into the com unity at the doors to medical. That they did indeed open on the spot took her a little by surprise, though.
"My love!" The captain of the Maru briefly closed her eyes; over the past few weeks she had come to loathe the ironic, a little breathless voice – during the past hours she had learned to hate it.
"What have you come up with?" she bluntly asked the man without any introductory pleasantries.
"Oh, are we a bit testy?"
"Paul, please..." she sighed wearily. It didn't sound like asking.
"Fascinating really. I wish I had known earlier." He turned towards a tall panel and started quickly switching through its diagrams, but refrained from further explanations. Beka waited patiently for a couple of seconds, but then burst out in anger:
"Care to elaborate?"
"Do you know what this is?" Musseveni asked her curtly, still focusing on the screens and not looking towards her.
"DNA-strings..." the pilot answered vaguely.
"Your captain's DNA to be more precise. On the left screen you have them as they are; the right one shows you what is happening to them."
"???" Beka lifted both shoulders and her eyebrows.
"The nanobots, Beka! They're reacting with him beyond my wildest dreams..."
An ice-cold feeling descended somewhere on Beka's neck, creeping down her spine.
"What are you saying, exactly?"
"The bots, they're reproducing on their own in his cells. The flash is simply becoming an integral part of his DNA-strings and all cell-growth in his body is being effectuated on this new premise."
"But this is killing him!" she shouted in his face.
"Not necessarily. It's slowly altering his genetic material, and I suspect that his immune system is battling the new cells with everything it has. Hence the pain attacks... There is no telling whether the flash or his immune system will win in the end. But if he survives this – it might well be that his body also comes up with an own way to combat addiction effects. A new race, Beka," excited he took her shoulders and started to slightly shake her, "imagine the possibilities..."
She squirmed her way out of his hands, staring furiously and not little frightened at the exalted figure in front of her.
"What if he doesn't survive it?"
He simply shrugged his shoulders.
"It still is a major break through. And I'll have his body to examine. Either way it's an enormous step forward," he replied with sickening enthusiasm.
Beka turned away from him, involuntarily trying to hide the expression she knew her face was bearing from him. She raised her hands to her head and slowly stroked her fingers through her hair. Fighting for composure she crossed her arms on her chest and slowly turned back to him.
"What are the odds?"
"Ah, Beka..."
"What are the odds, Paul?"
"Frankly, I don't know. Jonah said something about Vedran alterations... What do you know about it?"
"Not much, I'm afraid. Neither does he."
"That's awkward."
"Really?" she asked ironically. "He is a 348-year-old human with heavy grav genes from a planet that has been cut from slipstream for 308 years and was originally populated by blue centaurs and men, with whom the centaurs played games with their DNA. 'Awkward', Paul, doesn't even begin to describe it."
"Well, I'll wake him up. Maybe he knows more about it."
Alarmed, Beka took a step towards him.
"Paul, no! Please don't wake him up. The pain..." she squeezed her eyes, remembering the awful events of the past hours. "Don't wake him up," she repeated lowly. "He really doesn't know much."
"Who does then? Who has that information?"
"There were those guys – Paradine they called themselves, claimed that they were nothing but evolved Vedrans. They all said Dylan was one of them because his father was a Paradine, too. But I think that now Dylan is the only Paradine left. And they never really told him what this was all about. Nor did anyone else. Dylan doesn't know much – nor does he seem to care. So please, just leave him alone with that."
Musseveni nodded thoughtfully, though clearly not yet convinced. Watching him closely, Beka saw his doubts, his expression a distant echo of her own while she was digesting the information she had just received. The silence stretched between them, but then the Maru's captain straightened herself and turned, seemingly having reached a decision.
"I need to go," she said, leaving him alone and startled.
-
Musseveni almost had to run to catch up with her. To his surprise she didn't head back to the Maru's captain's quarters but turned towards the cockpit.
"Beka, wait! Hey! Beka..." he shouted at her back. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Why don't you try and guess?" she threw across her shoulder without stopping to wait.
Alerted by the loud voices Yvain, the Nietzschean officer, who had been leisurely hanging around the Maru's bar, jumped to his feet and rushed towards the cockpit, reaching it just seconds before Beka Valentine arrived. Arms crossed on his chest he blocked the entrance, staring at an imaginary point above her head.
"Get out of my way, bonehead," the blonde hissed viciously, but he just shook his head 'no' after throwing a glance past her at Paul Musseveni, who was rushing in behind her. The old man grabbed her arm, only to nearly loose his footing and stumble back against the rail as she spun around furiously.
"Rebekkah, what are you up to?" he then asked after motioning Yvain to not interfere.
"I'm turning back to Myrmidon."
"Oh, I very much doubt that."
"Watch me! What are you going to do? Kill me? Who's gonna fly you around then?"
He mustered her calmly.
"I could..."
"What?" she interrupted. "Kill Dylan? From what you told me he's probably already dying. And we both know that in his current state he is more than unlikely to make it through Crimeea, let alone through a 41-hour-slipstream ride. Now let me through."
She looked at him defiantly, every inch a commanding presence. Musseveni's eyes narrowed, carefully weighing her feelings and reluctantly coming to the conclusion that she was dead serious. Annoyed, he quickly reconsidered his options.
She was right, of course. With the nanobots ripping every cell in Dylan Hunt's body apart and reconfiguring his genetic imprint in ways Musseveni hadn't even begun to comprehend, the odds of the captain of the Andromeda Ascendant surviving the strain of the voyage to Ral Parthia was a more than improbable possibility.
With Beka Valentine refusing to fly them through slipstream he still could try to force her by letting someone else at the helm and trick her into taking over once things turned ugly. He had done so before. Yet her the knowledge of her captain's condition changed the equation. While perfectly aware of what he perceived as her superb survival instincts, Paul Musseveni had by now studied the Matriarch of his race long enough to know that they would not outweigh her loyalty and concern for Hunt. If he didn't survive, then Beka Valentine would see to it that they all died as well – survival instincts be damned.
He briefly considered whether his experiments with Beka and her predecessors along with the samples and scans from Hunt would suffice to ensure a successful outcome of his endeavors, but decided otherwise. This was a risk he could not afford. While things had started to develop rather well, there were still many questions left unanswered. From what he suspected, many of them could be provided by captain Hunt's reactions, while Rebekkah on the other hand still remained his most successful guinea pig so far.
Nonetheless, he didn't want to give in to her will completely. At least, he didn't want it to look that way, not considering the amount of cooperation he still needed from her, not in front of Yvain – actually not at all.
"My dear, I'm wondering... Would you care for a deal?"
