CHAPTER 18

HARD WAY

Grove of Trees - Conservatory Chamber

'Ise! ISE!' Victor shouted while trying to rouse her. Her eyes were open but not moving. Her arms and legs were laying still at her side.

She was completely unresponsive. He looked at the little box sitting on the ground with its wires leading to the motionless form of Ise. He grabbed it and pulled the wires apart.

'Dammit Ise, wake up!' Victor pleaded.

He pulled out his tablet and looked at it. The connection she had used to upload the file to his tablet was still on line. He opened it to see if he could rouse her with her own systems, but the link blinked out and his tablet shut off.

He slipped it back into its pocket on his suit and turned on his communications systems.

'Lt Hale to all crew, Advocate Okoh has been incapacitated. I need immediate help.'

Victor bent down and tried to lift Ise up into a sitting position, but her Advocate enhanced body weighed more than he could manage. He strained against it but realized he wouldn't be able to get far.

'Captain Geer here, what's your location?'

Victor looked up and noted the location of the support pillars and elevator shafts.

'If we act as though the far shaft from where we came in is our north, I'm about two kilometres east-northeast of the northeast support pillar. I'm in the centre of a grove of trees.'

'Roger that, we're on our way. Stay put, do what you can.'

'All her systems are dead; I don't think there's much I can do.'

'Stay with her Victor.'

'Roger that.'

Victor turned around and saw a robot walking toward him from the edge of the woods. He pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at the robot, and it stopped its advance.

'Don't come any closer,' he said firmly.

The robot stood still and looked at the Advocate. 'Do you require medical assistance?'

'Not from the likes of you. Keep your distance.'

'Ah, we'll do it the hard way then,' The robot said, an unexpected tone in its voice.

Victor wasn't sure how to take that, but had no time to think about it as he felt a flash of pain coming from behind him. He blacked out and fell to the ground.

***

Sam and Dan were moving as fast as they could. Dan was showing some of his fatigue and was breathing heavily. Sam kept going, driven forward by the sudden silence of Victor. They'd been trying to get a hold of him all through their hasty walk, but he was unresponsive.

Sam spotted a patch of trees ahead. She motioned to it for Dan and they slowed down drawing their sidearms.

They advanced slowly into the copse of trees. They found Victor laying face down on the ground. Sam bent down and checked his pulse. It was steady, and he was breathing. Rising back to her feet, she motioned for Dan to take cover while she slowly worked her way around the grove of trees. She finished her search and saw nothing dangerous.

She moved back to where Dan and Victor were.

'We're safe for now,' Sam said.

'What now captain?' Daniel asked.

Sam knelt down by Victor and pulled out her tablet. She turned it on, and had it establish a wireless link with Daniel's spacesuit. 'I'm going to check him for fractures using his suit's sensors.'

'I'll keep watch.'

Sam ran her tests, and the suit showed no fractures. Sam slipped her tablet back into its pocket. She looked him over and noticed a small tear in the back of his suit. The edge of the hole was red from blood, but the wound wasn't bleeding. The suit's auto seal gel was seeping from the torn edges and working to repair the tear.

She reached out and touched Victor, shaking him lightly. 'Vick, wake up.'

He stirred. His eyes slowly opened. He let out a groan.

'Careful now Vick, take it nice and slow.'

'What... happened?' he said with some effort.

'I was hoping you could tell me.'

Sam gently helped him into a sitting position against a tree.

'I... don't know. I felt something painful from behind, and I blacked out,' he grimaced in pain and shifted his body, favouring the wound on his back, 'I don't know what else happened.'

He looked around, and a look of concern came over him.

'Where's Ise?' he asked.

'We don't know. She's not here.'

'There... was a robot here. It said something odd.' Victor said.

'What did it say Vick?'

'Something about doing it the hard way, and then I was knocked out,' Victor managed.

Sam pursed her lips and was quiet.

This is not good, she thought.

***

'This is Captain Samantha Geer to Lt Cmd Macce. Please respond.'

John was sitting on a hill watching the elevator shaft while Jing kept an eye out behind them. The animals that had driven them off still stood between them and the shaft. John turned on the comms system on his suit.

'Lt Cmd Macce here captain.'

'Is Chief Fan still with you?'

'Yes Captain, we're still fine. Did you find Ise and Vick?'

'We've found Victor, but the Advocate is missing.'

John stood up and brushed himself off. 'What are our orders captain?'

'We've got two objectives now. Find our Advocate and find a way out. I want you and Jing to work on a way out. We will try to find Ise.'

John thought for a moment, 'Can you meet us at the north shaft? I have something I want to tell you, and I'm not sure I should broadcast it over the communication system.'

'These communication systems are using military encryption,' Sam said.

'If Ise is missing, we should assume they're compromised. Plus this place feels increasingly... wrong.'

'Okay, we'll meet with you. It might be slow going; Victor's not steady on his feet yet.'

'We're not going anywhere.'