Chapter 30: Retrieval
Kratopaxi, Wild Space, beyond the Outer Rim
In Capitol City, in an industrial section a block away from the noise of the crowd walking towards the Capitol Mall, sat a nondescript, dilapidated warehouse behind rusty security fencing overgrown with vines. The fenced in area included a mostly empty parking lot with faded lines and blades of grass-like plants growing out of the cracked pavement. A single small tree in a neglected corner of the lot struggled to survive in the urban landscape. It was one of several aging, closed down warehouses in the area.
The only hint of anything out of the ordinary came from a late model black van with blacked out windows parked at an angle near the loading dock. Two men stood on the loading dock. Their attire suggested a couple of demolition workers on break, except for bulges under their jackets. They kept an eye on the parking lot and street as they listened to the sound of the crowd surging past.
Inside the warehouse and belying its outward appearance, everything was new and clean, the interior divided up into laboratories containing state-of-the-art equipment, security, and administrative offices. In a section set up as an impromptu medical ward, two guards stood at the entrance.
Lillie woke up groggy and confused. She had a mild headache, her tongue felt swollen, and her throat was dry. She was in a small, undecorated, windowless room. She tried to sit up and discovered her left wrist was tied with a plastic restraint to a metal bed railing. She lay on a narrow gurney with thin padding, wearing a loose, wrinkled paper hospital gown with the start of a tear, a sheet and thin blanket pulled up to her waist. She felt cold.
"Hello?" she tried.
It came out raspy and barely audible. She noticed a chair and a rolling table near the bed with a pitcher and cup. It was just out of reach. She reached out with her foot, and after a couple of tries moved the table close enough to grab it with her hand and pull it close. The pitcher was mostly empty. She poured its contents into the cup, sniffed it, then drank it down.
As she put down the empty cup, Lillie noticed the sound of a muffled conversation outside the door. She couldn't make out what they were saying.
"Hello? Hey! Where am I?" she called out, loudly this time. She tried yanking her tied wrist a couple of times.
A woman in a dark blue uniform walked in carrying a briefcase. She gave Lillie a smile. "I see you're awake," she said. "Do you need more water?"
"Yes please. Who are you, where am I, and why am I being held?"
"My name is Commander Harms, but first, about you. We know you are not from around here. Do you consider yourself to be human?"
"What? Of course I'm human! You're right, I'm not from this planet, but I'm as human as you are! If you are capable of running a DNA check, we might even be distantly related, if you go back far enough."
The commander put her briefcase on the rolling table and opened it. "As it happens, we can test for DNA." She pulled out a piece of paper and held it up. "I won't pretend to understand everything on here, but in summary, this says you have some abnormalities."
Lillie was silent for a moment as she struggled to think. "That could be genetic drift. At a guess, your people have been cut off from the rest of the galaxy for at least five or six thousand years, maybe longer."
Lillie gave Harms a smirk. "And that drift could be your people's, not mine. Without context, who's to say who has the abnormalities?"
Commander Harms nodded. "That might explain some of it, but not everything, in the opinion of the doctors."
Lillie frowned. "You don't seem surprised by anything I've said."
"This isn't our first talk. I've interviewed you a couple of times before."
"Earlier interviews? What are you talking about? I just woke up!"
Harms waved to her notes. "You were given some pretty powerful drugs, including the anesthetic used by the agent who brought you in. They tend to make people chatty, and they affect short-term memory."
"Then I'll be careful with what I say."
"No you won't. In a minute or two our conversation will start over."
"What? That's outrageous!" Lillie tried yanking at her restraint, to no effect. "Why are you treating me like a criminal?"
Harms smiled. "There's criminal trespass for a start, but until the drugs are out of your system, you're in no condition to go wandering off on your own. Here, let me get you some more water."
Harms stood up and took the water pitcher out of the room. Lillie tried one more yank on her restraint before letting her head flop back down on the pad. Her eyes closed from exhaustion.
Harms reentered the room, poured water into the cup, sat down beside Lillie, and waited.
Lillie's eyes fluttered open.
"I see you're awake," Harms said. "Would you like some water?"
"Yes please. Where am I? And who are you?"
"My name is Commander Harms, but first, about you. Do you consider yourself to be human?"
"What? Of course I'm human!" Lillie tried to sit up and was shocked to discover her left wrist was held in a plastic restraint.
"What's this?" She tried giving it a yank. "Obviously you've had me here for a while. Have your doctors examined me? They'll tell you I'm human."
Harms smiled at Lillie. "Anatomically, yes, you're human, but we also ran a DNA test. It showed some abnormalities."
"Abnormalities?" Lillie snorted in disbelief. "More likely it's just genetic drift. It happens. Roger Pagara showed me the remains of an Old Republic starship on that estate we visited. There's writing on it in archaic but still readable Aurebesh. Your ancestors first came to Kratopaxi around six or so thousand years ago. Your isolation for that long is the likely cause for any so-called abnormalities."
Harms nodded. "The doctors think there's more to it than that."
"Oh, well, I'm also a clone. That might explain some of it. Maybe. Or not. I don't know. Regardless, slight variations don't make me any less or more human than you."
Harms nodded. "Just to confirm, you say you're a clone?"
"Yes. Clones are rare in the galaxy now, but they were used back during the Clone Wars. My sisters and I were born, or decanted I suppose, near the end of the war, we think."
"Were you created for a specific purpose?"
"We've wondered that ourselves. Maybe. Probably. I guess the end of the war meant the end of that purpose. Story is, we were acquired by a crime syndicate, though I have to wonder about that too. As far as we know, we're the only female clones, but it's certainly possible there are others. The rest of our 'brothers,' you might say, in their millions were force-grown to become troopers for the war effort. We grew up normally and had normal lives. Well, as normal as it gets growing up in a brothel."
Commander Harms put her papers away and closed her briefcase. Without saying another word, she walked out of the room.
"Hey! Harms! When can I get out of here?" Lillie called after her, before closing her eyes once again.
Commander Harms spoke to a group waiting outside the room.
"I'm prepared to render a preliminary opinion. Finding number one: the subject, while outwardly human, has unique genetic abnormalities. Is she legally a person? That's a gray area. An argument can be made either way, until we arrive at finding number two: the subject has voluntarily and consistently affirmed her status as a clone on three separate occasions.
"Per the revised Genome Intellectual Property Act, clones are not legally recognized persons. Her genome is not on file, nor are there any other records concerning the subject. She is, in short, unclaimed property.
"Given that she originated from outer space, has no legally recognized owners or other claimants, and is now in your possession, maritime law can be sited as precedent to claim right of salvage. Take samples, file a patent, apply for a Certificate of Ownership, and you'll protect your rights now and in the future. You'll have my formal, written legal opinion in a few days time."
"Thank you, Judge Advocate," replied one of the men. "We'll take it from here."
A doctor with swabs and test tubes on a cart pushed his way into Lillie's room. "How's my favorite patient today? Did you enjoy your little chat with Commander Harms?"
"Who?"
"Where's Roger?" Stanley said as he anxiously glanced into the sun room from the veranda. "We can't leave without him!"
"He went into the basement looking for 'the good stuff,'" Kai said with detachment.
"Here we go," Roger said as he backed through a door into the open sun room. He carefully turned around, carrying two cases, one stacked on the other, filled with dusty bottles. "Chateau Portstone '49! Great vintage. Theresa was right! She said the old cheat had good stuff hidden in the wine cellar, behind the rotgut he serves to his guests. Now we can drink like corporate executives. You're going to love it!"
"Yeah yeah, take it with us. We'll try it later. Come on!" Stanley said, waving impatiently.
As a group, they all walked towards the moths, Kai in the lead, carrying 790. As they passed by the pool, they saw six men with weapons guarding the helipad.
"Wait here," said Kai as he handed off 790 to Ginger. Kai walked on ahead.
"Ah, what's Kai going to do?" said Roger. "He's outnumbered six to one!"
"Trust me, the odds are in Kai's favor," Stanley said with a grin.
From where they stood, Stanley and the others couldn't hear the exchange, but it was obvious the men were not backing down. Kai started to walk around one of the men to a moth. The man reached out to stop Kai. Kai shoved him out of the way and continued on. That was when the popping sound of gunfire broke out. A few moments later, all six men lay dead.
"I see what you mean," said Roger, who was feeling lightheaded from witnessing so much death.
"Hey, deep breaths, and don't drop the good stuff!" Ginger said, patting him on the back.
They moved forward, carefully stepping around the bodies.
"I will take 790 and search for Lillie," said Kai. "The rest of you return to the Lexx."
"Do you have a fix on Lillie?" Roger asked, a note of worry in his voice.
"She's in a warehouse district in Capitol City," 790 said. "I have the exact address. It's a few minutes flight time north."
Roger pulled out his phone and keyed in the information provided by 790.
"Got it!" he said with a grin. "I just posted to a conspiracy site that the Daughter of Atua has been kidnapped and taken to that location. With luck, enough people will read it and check it out, creating a distraction."
"Let's hope it's enough! Time to go!" said Stanley.
Inside the Octagonal Office, the Grand CEO and advisors listened to the latest field report.
"I'm on the grounds now, Mister Executive. The aliens have abandoned your father's estate. I have teams clearing the mansion and outbuildings now. Spotters report one alien craft is heading out to sea and rapidly gaining altitude. Our projection is it's returning to the mother ship. The other was last seen flying north. I've issued an order to disperse spotters along the coast line on the assumption it will continue in that direction. I'll report back when we've finished the sweep."
The connection dropped.
"We should blow them out of the sky!" said the Interior Minister.
"We can't track them by radar," replied the Minister of War. "Infrared tracking might work, if there's enough temperature differential. Their landing craft closely resemble insects. It's not simply a design aesthetic as first thought. We now believe they are actual bioengineered insect-machine hybrids. It's quite possible they can evade infrared tracking simply by flying at treetop height, allowing what little heat they create to be masked by the ambient ground temperature."
"Another point," added the political advisor. "Consider the size of the mother ship. The people on the ground must be something like a scouting party gone wrong. Do we really want to anger technologically superior aliens who could easily have an invasion force on board, or simply drop bombs from orbit? Also consider that Crumb Sr. has closely associated himself with the aliens in a bid to regain power. His followers might consider an attack on the aliens to be an attack on them."
"It's too late for that," replied the Minister of War. She gave the Interior Minister a hard look. "I've been informed one of the aliens, specifically the one the true believers are calling the 'Daughter of Atua,' has been taken prisoner."
"What? I didn't authorize that!" said the Grand CEO. It was one thing for his people to provide a degree of plausible deniability, but this? The Interior Minister was playing with fire.
"That would be the less public option we talked about," the Interior Minister said with a sly smile. "We had an opportunity and we took it. The public needn't know. As it turns out, she's a self-confessed clone. We have an opportunity here to cash in on her DNA."
The War Minister smirked. "And would you be holding her at a black site? A warehouse near West Seventeenth Street and Industrial Boulevard, right here in Capitol City? It's already all over PaxiNet. It's a fair bet that's why one of the alien craft is headed this way."
The Interior Minister paled. "What? How could that have leaked?"
The Grand CEO stared hard at the Interior Minister. "The better question is, how fast can you sign a letter of resignation?" he said. "It's public. It's your screw up. I expect your letter within the hour."
Without another word, the Interior Minister stood up and walked away. As he left the Octagonal Office, everyone's phones buzzed for attention.
"Well that tears it," the Grand CEO said, looking up. "Things are escalating out of control. Seven agents found dead on my father's estate. I'm authorizing lethal force to repel any alien intrusions against secure sites, especially that warehouse holding one of their party."
From the back of the moth, Roger leaned forward between Stanley and Ginger, trying to look out through the cockpit canopies as they approached the Lexx.
"Wow! I can't believe I'm in space! And I can't believe how big your spaceship is!" he said as they drew closer.
Ginger maneuvered the moth through an airlock into the interior.
"Amazing! But why is the inside practically hollow?" Roger said as he looked around in wonder.
Stanley shook his head. "Hey, I'm just the captain. We don't know the 'why' behind the design." He glanced at Ginger. "Take us straight to the bridge landing pad."
"Sure thing, Stanley."
The moth flew to the small landing pad, executed a half turn to face outward, and settled down close to the platform edge. Ginger and Stanley hopped out. Roger extricated himself from the back and climbed out. He reached behind the seats to grab the first case of wine bottles. With some effort, he got hold of it and handed it off to Stanley.
"Guys! Surely that can wait," Ginger called out, already halfway to the bridge.
"Almost done!" Roger called back. "Hey Stanley, give me a hand!"
Stanley realized there was nothing he could do holding a wine case while standing behind Roger. He put down the case and walked around the tail of the moth to the other side.
"Anything I can do to help?" Stanley said as he leaned into the cockpit from the opposite side.
"It's stuck like it sank slightly into the flooring. Why is the interior of this thing like soft flesh? On second thought—don't answer that. Try lifting from your side," Roger said as he worked up a sweat pulling hard on the case.
Stanley began lifting and banging on the case with the heal of his hand.
The case abruptly came free, sending Roger stumbling back as he tightly gripped it. He tripped backwards over the first case left by Stanley and fell off the edge of the landing pad, out into the large open pit inside the Lexx. Roger fell for several seconds before his panicked screams abruptly stopped. Stanley looked over the edge in time to catch a light blob streaming back up.
"What happened?" Ginger said as she ran back over.
"Roger tripped and fell," Stanley said. He held up his right hand. It glowed briefly.
"And he took the good stuff with him," he lamented, looking around at the few broken wine bottles than hadn't fallen off the platform along with Roger.
"How much farther, 790?" said Kai as they flew low over a large city.
"We're nearly there. There should be an adjoining 'car park' where you can land."
"These structures all look much the same, but I believe I have located the correct one. It's the only building defended by men firing projectile weapons at us."
The building was surrounded by a fence, keeping out a growing crowd of protesters.
"Then land fast!" 790 said. "A lucky shot might disable the moth! Or me!"
The moth chirped and landed in the open parking lot beside the warehouse. With 790 tucked under one arm, Kai walked from the moth to the loading dock, ignoring the gunfire and 790's upset screams. The crowd went silent watching as Kai was visibly hit time after time, and yet he never stopped moving forward.
As the men shooting Kai ran out of ammunition, they stood looking dumbfounded, uncertain what to do. One man moved to block Kai as he walked up concrete steps to the loading dock, but he stopped when he saw bullets extruding out of Kai's body and falling to the concrete with a clatter. He thought better and stood back.
Kai ignored the closed garage-style loading dock door that appeared to be welded shut, and walked to a side door. He forced the side door open and stepped in. He stood in a boxed in security area between the outer door, which locked behind him, and a heavily built inner door. Through a bullet resistant window, a security guard saw Kai and hit a button. Knockout gas poured into the confined space from the ceiling, obscuring the view. After a minute, the room was vented. Kai was not immediately visible. The guard leaned forward, nose to the glass to look down.
Kai smashed the glass with his brace, injuring the guard in the process. He reached in, pressed the button to unlock the inner door, and walked through.
"Which way?" said Kai as people in lab coats panicked and fled the immediate area.
"Straight down the hall, but I think she's being moved. We'll have to hurry!" said 790.
Around a corner more men arrived, this time wearing tactical vests and carrying automatic weapons. Kai turned his back to shield 790 as they opened fire, the sound deafening in the enclosed space. After a few seconds the sound petered out.
This time, Kai showed no mercy. Within seconds they all lay dead.
Kai moved steadily down the hall, completely ignoring anyone unarmed. Up ahead, there was a commotion as three people wearing hospital whites struggled with a fourth in a torn paper hospital gown.
"Kai!" Lillie called as she fought against her captors. "Kai!"
"Not so fast!" called one of the men holding Lillie from behind. He held a scalpel to her neck. Lillie stopped struggling, and the other two men stood back, looking slightly surprised.
"You will release Lillie now or face the consequences," Kai said. "If you harm her, I will show no mercy."
"Oh, I don't think so," said the man holding Lillie, as more security guards came running up behind Kai. He gave a cruel smile. "In fact, I think you will make an interesting subject as well, not to mention that toy you are carrying."
"Toy?" said 790 indignantly. "I'll show you toy!"
790 admitted a high pitched, high decibel continuous shrieking sound, instantly causing everyone to clutch at their ears in pain. Lillie rolled to the ground, clutching her ears, leaving the scalpel man standing by himself, bent over in pain. Kai killed him without a second thought, then turned and did the same to the guards behind him.
"That's enough, 790," said Kai.
The shrieking stopped. Kai walked over to Lillie.
"Are you all right?" he asked as he helped her to her feet.
Lillie gave her head a shake. "Yes, I am now. Thanks, Kai!"
Lillie looked at the two remaining men down on their knees, too afraid to move. She picked out the one closest to her own size and pointed at him.
"You! Take off your clothes. Strip now!"
He looked back and forth between Lillie and Kai. "Alright," he finally said when he realized he had no choice.
As he finished and stood naked in the hallway cupping his genitals, Lillie pulled off her paper hospital gown and offered it to him.
"Here, you can have what's left of this."
"I can't wear that!" he exclaimed indignantly, momentarily forgetting the position he was in.
"Okay," said Lillie. She tore the paper gown in half, wadded each piece into balls and threw them down the hall.
"If you change your mind, you know where to find it." She quickly dressed in his clothes.
"Let's get out of here," she said to Kai, and took 790.
The return trip back down the hallway was uneventful, but the local security strategy had changed. When they exited the building at the loading dock, the moth was on fire.