Cascade

13 - Contingency

13 - Contingency

Claire now rested comfortably in the pilot seat of the dragonfly as it coasted to high orbit. The crew had hoped to get to Alice and save the planet mostly undetected. After Jordan decided to blow a hole through a heavy industry facility, this was no longer an option.

Nexus security had actually been alerted when Jordan had refueled the dragonfly and flown off without following the proper undocking procedures. That, on top of hearing a massive detonation effectively grabbed their attention.

Security officers and intercept forces inundated the facility moments after the coolant processing hub turned into a battlefield. Melissa and Claire were able to escape by grabbing onto the dragonfly’s landing struts, and Jordan flew them to the top of a distant building, touching down properly, which allowed them to actually get inside the craft.

After nearly being crushed from Jordan’s erratic landing attempt, Claire took over and launched the dragonfly back into orbit. Melissa was dispensing bio-gel over her wounds while Jordan remained strapped into the co-pilot seat, pouring over the dragonfly manual some more.

In the rush and excitement of it all, Claire neglected to tend her own wounds, and now that she had a moment, she reset her shoulder, giving a sharp hiss. Then she set to work on her injured fingers and wrist.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Jordan asked.

“Only for a little while. It’ll be good as new in about an hour.”

Jordan nodded.

“So…………are you guys going to tell me what the heck actually happened?”

“What would happen to the human body if every muscle in it clenched at once?” Claire asked.

“Well not much really. Muscles are set up in pairs, so there would be a lot of strain on the tendons and bones, but you wouldn’t move anywhere.”

“Ok. Now imagine every one of those muscles is in fact sync-fiber.”

Jordan’s eyes went wide.

“Holy crap.” He said.

“That’s what happened.” Claire said. “It was a risky play, but it worked.”

“Risky?” Melissa piped in. “I’ll say it was risky. We both nearly got, pulverized and beaten to death. You nearly suffocated, I was nearly electrocuted, I sustained more broken bones in twenty minutes than I have ever accrued in my entire life, and you very nearly fell into a massive vat of industrial coolant.”

“Part of the play.” Claire said.

“Are you telling me that you meant to get yourself beaten to a bloody pulp?”

“Bloody? What are you talking about? Most of my bleeding is internal.” Claire replied.

Melissa laughed, but suddenly flinched from the pain.

“More pain killers it is then.” She said. Her arm flexed and medication flooded her system.

“While we were descending for re-entry, I wrote a small program into a portable drive. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hack Alice’s hold on the system, and delaying her just wouldn’t be enough. So I made an alternative. In the event that Alice remained indoctrinated, she would immediately see us as opposition to the cause. She would then used everything in her power to destroy us. Where we to run away, she would have pursued, and more machines would have been made available to her as our environment changed. I knew I had to do whatever it took to keep her in one location with limited access to mobile machinery. Now, I knew it would be extremely difficult to trap her, but if she never desired to run in the first place, then there would be no problem.

“That’s why we had to lose. In seeing two opponents in a limited space, she would have either brought the fight to a different location, or enacted the plan immediately, giving us no time to interfere.

“So, I decided to take the brunt of the punishment in the fight. As much as I wasn’t looking forward to it, I was the obvious choice. Injuries tend to be less serious on me, especially when I have every medical compound known to man at my disposal. ” Claire said, pointing a thumb towards Melissa. She winced at the movement of her shoulder.

“You want something for that swelling?” Melissa asked.

“I suppose.”

Melissa drifted forward and her needle emerged.

“Don’t you have anything smaller than that?” Claire asked.

“Sorry, tough girl. One size fits all.” Melissa said. She poked the needle into Claire’s shoulder, and Claire winced again.

“Anyway.” She said, rolling her shoulder. “I gave Melissa the drive and kept Alice occupied in the fight, allowing myself to get pummeled so Melissa had enough time to get the file uploaded to the command center computers.”

“Wait, I thought you said you couldn’t override Alice’s hold on the system.” Jordan said.

“I wasn’t trying to.”

“But Alice didn’t know that.” Melissa said.

“The moment Alice saw Melissa run off with the drive, she would have killed me, caught up with Melissa, killed her, and ended all attempts of our sabotage. That’s where you came in.” Claire said.

“When the dragonfly entered the playing field, it would have reorganized Alice’s priorities. She would have seen a winning battle go to a loosing one. That meant she would have reverted back to the previous options of choosing a new position, or enacting the plan without delay. The fact that a multi-environment combat aerial vehicle was now in pursuit, limited her options to only one. She couldn’t set off the reaction mentally. Controlling every solar panel servo requires too much information to be sent across her limited wireless bandwidth. She had to do it physically. So, she climbed to the command center to link into the system, where my program was waiting for her.

“It was a simple program, with one goal. The first access to the solar array network triggered an upload. The broadcasting of a single signal. The one signal, when sent through her nervous system, would trigger and immediate and full scale contraction of all muscle groups.” She finished.

“Game, set, match.” Melissa said. Her bracelet vibrated and displayed a new message.

“CONTINGENCY.” It stated.

“What does that mean?” Jordan asked.

“It means we have to get to Silva immediately.” Claire said.

“How far are we from the slip array?” Melissa asked.

“12 minutes out.”

“What’s going on?” Jordan asked.

“The contingency plan.” Claire said. “At this point, Profearen is supposed to be covered in the remains of a hazardous chemical bomb leading to a total planetary meltdown. Since the allotted time for mission completion has passed, and it’s still business as usual, all remaining Paladins are to enact their missions immediately.”

“So why Silva?”

“There are two Paladins left within The Ring. One on Scentia, and the other on Silva. People can live without the intra-net. They can’t live without food.”

The slip array became visible, and Claire navigated her way into it.

“Claire, Adam has been on that planet for months already. We’ll never be able to stop every part of his mission.” Melissa said.

“I know. But we don’t have to save the whole planet. We just have to save enough to provide food for 30 million.”

“Why 30 million?” Jordan asked.

“Because that’s how many people are left now.”