Invasion By Betrayal

By Ron Lugge

Part Twenty-Two

"Go, now." He whispered. The technician suddenly swung up from his prone position, and marched to the exit. "Hold." Rah said, frowning. He's too obvious, maybe if I let him control how he gets from place to place, and what he does when he's not 'working' for me.... finished. "Go."

The man walked out, with a little stiffness in his stride, incognizant of 'carrying' a copy of Rah, or at least parts of Rah, around in his head. Rah kept his eyes closed, the better to focus on the push that linked him to himself, and watched in his mind's eye as the technician walked into the shuttle. The security fields were thorough, yet caught nothing. Eyes vacant, the technician quickly disabled several of the security systems by placing them into diagnostic mode.

Rah ran into the shuttle, using his pull to disable the rest of the security systems. Yank this cord, disable this system with a power surge. Replace cord, repair the damage caused by surge. Press that button, clear system. Create power surge, delete record. The technician was skilled. I'll have to remember that if I need additional information. Getting inside was easy, and since there were few technicians aboard no one saw him except his puppet. Rag ducked into a cargo space. The technician was right. There is just enough room if I get him to close and latch the door. It will hurt, but pain management systems are still partially operational, and internal discipline will maintain control. Rah nodded at his puppet, and the technician shoved the door shut, hard. Shallow breaths are all I can take. Have to maintain breathing. Must not move any more than necessary. Rah fell asleep, the better to conserve his energy.

Starting awake, Rah felt the shuttle shake and rattle and roar around him. So this is what takeoff feels like. Not what I expected. Let's see what the pilot is thinking ... A buzzing filled his ears, as something - or someone - nearby put out tremendous amounts of mental noise, nearly jamming him. Focusing his concentration to a needle thin spike, he cut through and watched the technician. The reprogramming had worked, and the shuttle was compensating as he had hoped. Rah went back to sleep. Waking up during final approach, Rah felt the static again, this time much closer.

Someone groaned, "I can hardly wait until we dock. I am having the worst possible headache." Something thumped, right next to the cargo compartment.

"Admiral? ADMIRAL? Help! I need help! The admiral's hurt!" a second voice cried out desperately. Rah tried to push his way into the second voice's mind. Nearly blacking out, he wondered at the strength of the static. Using his pull in place of his hands, he rubbed his temples to try and clear the headache.

The shuttle rocked as the pilot engaged the main engines. A cackle of warning systems went off, half a dozen automatic safeties tried to override the pilot. Somehow, the pilot was projecting directly into Rah's mind what was happening. He'd gone to emergency thrust to slam into the docking port instead of drifting in, so as to get the med teams for the admiral in faster. The pilot hoped that he had the tolerances right, so that they would hit hard enough to wedge but not damage. He ordered the docking command to allow this emergency crash, and when the curt response came, Rah felt the pilot's pain. "We'll talk afterwards. I hear X-201 needs a commander." Rah didn't understand the pain, as the pilot refused to think about it any further. Feeling the shuttle bash into its port, Rah felt the certain knowledge that the med teams waiting in the lock would help the admiral. The feed in his mind changed from the pilot to the medical personnel waiting in the lock, almost instantly.

"What the hell is happening?" Rah whispered. The admiral right outside groaned, and one of the others said, "We don't know what happened to you, admiral."

"Did he hear me?" Rah whispered, shocked. In an eerie counterpoint, the voices began a new conversation.

"What did he say?" One of them asked quietly.

Another replied, "Something about us hearing him. I think he wanted to know if we heard him - don't know why."

"Yes admiral, we heard you." The first voice replied.

"Who am I?" Rah whispered, to see the reaction. A sudden silence greeted him.

"Admiral, you are..." Trailing off into silence, the first voice let another start.

"Sir, you are the Admiral in Chief of the Terran Federation Navy, Admiral Kane. You're aboard a shuttle, and we just docked with the flagship. The medics are-" A hissing sound interrupted the voice in mid-sentence. "...the medics are right here, and they are going to take you to sickbay right now."

The voices trailed away, and Rah started thinking. Somehow, the admiral and he had ended up linked. Worse yet, the static that had filled his mind went at the same time the captain did. Frowning, Rah pushed his mind into the nearby technicians'. Seeing that they intended a full security sweep of the shuttle, he had one of them disable the security for the entire docking bay for him. The technician couldn't do it on his own, but a few computer commands combined with a few discreet uses of his pull, and the security was down. Opening the door with a light pull, Rah flowed out of the cargo area, and slipped unseen into the flagship. Swiftly making his way to the workshops, Rah again used his push and pull to disable security systems. Finding a molecular scanning workshop attended by only one technician, Rah entered and took control.

The tech discovered the problems with Rah's implants very quickly, and even had the right tools on hand to fix most of the damage. The tech signed off for several racks of top notch nanites. The newest model included a limited self-programming ability, as well as the age old abilities to permeate a given structure by penetrating through the smallest cracks, and then constructing things on the cellular, or even molecular, level. A quick infusion with nanites insured his eventual recovery by reactivating a few of his nanites. His internal nanites swiftly destroyed the 'invaders', however. Grabbing a few more injectors, Rah erased the memory of the incident from the tech's mind.

Slipping out, Rah made his way to the engine room. Here, in the bowels of the beast, he should be able to draw the power that his systems would doubtless want to use to complete the repairs. Rah settled in for the long wait, stealing to the galley fairly often for food, and the workshops even more often for raw materials. Waste disposal wasn't much of a problem, as there were several garbage disposals in the room he had appropriated, and no one noticed the additional power use as he set them to 'molecular disassociation'. Several weeks later, he set his escape in motion.

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