G-Pol Ch. 05

"Lets talk about something a little more pleasant, okay guys?" Janice interrupted pleadingly and looking a bit green around the gills. The two men looked at her and nodded in agreement. Literal dirty pirates weren't much of a conversation item. Mike joined them in the spa on Janice's other side and they chatted amiably until they got too hot and had to get out. They agreed to meet out front to go to lunch and Karl went to the locker room to shower and get changed into his street clothes. When he emerged, they were waiting for him and they headed off to find a place to eat.

They continued their conversation as they ate and covered a variety of topics. Mike and Janice were remarkably open about their lives and brought up a number of items Karl thought should be kept private. But, if they wanted to discuss them it was their business after all. He did find it entertaining. Janice was the more uninhibited of the two, and wanted to get much more in depth when she brought up their sex lives. Karl managed to change the subject and Mike gave him a grateful look over her head.

After lunch the two of them had to go back to work and take up their respective classes. Karl went his own way at the gym front after they said their goodbyes and got a hug from Janice and a firm handshake from Mike. He spent most of the rest of the afternoon walking around the station and looking at the people.

That night he decided he would go down to the surface a little early. Maybe he'd find a distraction there. He made his arrangements and went to bed.

He was up again two hours later, too restless to sleep despite the extra exercise that morning. So he went out walking again. Getting impatient, he changed his plans yet again and made arrangements to take an earlier shuttle.

Thus it was he found himself standing waiting for the shuttle to depart in his power armor and a drop case in each hand. The cases were far too heavy for a man to move easily unassisted, but with the robotic strength of the suit, he could handle them as easily as if they were empty suitcases and that was how he carried them. It was a novel approach and it drew a lot of eyes whenever he traveled, but it was effective and efficient and therefore practical. His licenses and credentials allowed him to move this technically military grade piece of equipment around without too much interference.

He was the last one to board the shuttle and set his cases down next to his seat but remained standing because it was more comfortable in the suit. He grabbed an overhead hand rail to steady himself as they got underway.

An hour later they were getting close to the edge of the atmosphere and passing over the planetary terminator when he felt a sharp pain in his head and something pushed its way in, brutally crushing all his defenses. "NATASHA'S HURT AND SOMETHING'S VERY WRONG! SHE'S UNCONSCIOUS BUT THERE'S ONLY A TINY WOUND AND SHE'S DYING! COME HERE NOW!" The voice belonged to Bona and the message froze his blood in his veins.

"Bona" he thought urgently, "Where are you?" he hoped she could hear him when he had no psychic ability of his own. All he knew was she was somewhere down on the surface.

"WE should be directly below you in less than a minute." came the reply.

"I'll be there as quick as I can! Just hold on." He picked up his cases and headed for the airlock.

When he opened the door and stepped inside the com came alive. He was glad he could hear it via his suit's com gear as well. "Passenger, please return to your seat. This is an unsafe area."

He closed the interior door and opened the com channel as he set the pumps to evacuate the atmosphere in preparation for opening the exterior door. He looked into the vid pickup, "Cockpit, this is an emergency. As you can probably see, I'm in spatial power armor and I need to leave the shuttle now or a life may be lost. I'm familiar with orbital drop procedures and you don't have anything to worry about. Just keep on course. If you check with the G-Pol office on the station, you'll find I'm cleared and rated for this." The instruments showed the airlock cycle finished and the outer door was safe to open. "Cockpit, I'm out of here. Have a good flight!"

He opened the outer door and stepped out with his cases, closed and sealed the door before recovering his cases and decelerating hard to hold his position and let gravity do what it did. "Bona? Can you give me a slightly more precise location? I'm in freefall right now but I need to know where to aim so I can get there as fast as possible."

He got a mental image of a map showing a circular sheltered cove that might once have been a small impact crater. On the inland side of the cove was a highlighted area with a symbol marking it as a remote landing area for small spacecraft. He would have several minutes of freefall to locate the target area and he made good use of it. Using his suit's sensory systems he scanned the shoreline below his position for the landmarks shown on the map. He was able to locate them in less than a minute and began to aim himself toward it using the flight systems in his suit. Then he accelerated downward. He didn't reach orbital speeds because he didn't want to generate too much heat and damage the sensitive equipment he carried in one of his cases.

When Melissa had died in his arms in the unforgiving jungles of South America, he'd sworn he would never lose someone like that again because he didn't have what he needed to save her. He'd spent two years acquiring and learning to use the best nanomedical technology money could buy. If there was anything this stuff couldn't fix, the patient would've needed a cybernetics doctor to save anyway. The system was the most advanced rechargeable nanite surgical system in current production and made use of the most effective medical drugs and antibiotics ever discovered. If she could be saved there was little this system couldn't do toward that end, up to and including temporarily performing the functions of several of the body's major organs, including the kidneys, liver and pancreas. Damage to other organs could be surgically repaired down to the smallest tears in the intestines and blood vessels. Even shrapnel and other debris could be removed and its damage repaired enough to allow the body to heal itself the rest of the way. A large number of other conditions and injuries could also be treated from infection, to burns, to poisonings, and even most forms of cancer.

So, hopefully he was prepared for whatever it was and he could save her. He realized if he couldn't, he would probably take a long time to recover. It was amazing how much this woman had affected him with just one date. He wondered if she felt the same? It didn't matter if she did. He still felt the way he did and who was he to question such things?

Magnifying the image of the ground below him, he was able to make out the form of the Czarina right where the map had shown him it would be. He was still at about a hundred thousand meters but was descending fast. He should be there in about five minutes. He would have to slow down to land, otherwise he could've been there in four. He sent this thought forward to Bona and felt her acknowledge him mentally through her worry.

He activated the grav suspension on the drop cases that would slow them enough that nothing inside would be damaged by their landing if he didn't have hold of them which he planned to. It never hurt to be safe though. Then he just watched the ground come almost imperceptibly closer as the seconds ticked by.

He was at terminal velocity now and could detect the beginnings of air resistance. At this altitude it was near mach two, but it would slow as the atmosphere got thicker if he let it. That was the advantage of using a powered suit like this. He could and would push well beyond terminal velocity to get down faster. Thus the five minute time rather than the ten to fifteen it would take in true freefall. He accelerated to mach four and held it there for now. He would still have to slow as he got lower or atmospheric drag would burn him up like the fragile bit of matter he really was, not to mention the damage it would do to the vital equipment and medicines in his cases. Currently there still wasn't enough air to carry sound so he fell in silence.

The resistance was becoming more noticeable though and the ground was becoming clearer in his magnified sight. He could clearly see the Czarina's lines now and a tiny speck on the upper deck. Further magnification showed him it was Bona crouching over Natasha who was lying on the deck with Bona worrying over her right forearm. He couldn't tell much more than that from here because of air distortion. He was now at fifty thousand meters and descending.

He set the suit on auto deceleration mode to avoid any mishaps and slaved the drop cases' systems to it as well so they would all land at about the same time and in the same place. He was glad he'd chosen this particular model of power armor. It had been designed specifically for this type of use and was equally capable in both space and an atmosphere and truth be told, under water too.

He'd made some changes to it of course. Primarily he'd installed a pair of restraint foam sprayers, short range electrical stunners, a laser cutting torch and an improved sensory and communications suite normally reserved for command and reconnaissance suits but modified to accommodate his line of work. It included a variety of descrambling equipment and electronic surveillance gear that would be illegal for most worlds normal law enforcement. Its use would violate most civilian privacy laws. But since he didn't collect evidence for prosecution and had the proper licenses, he could use it as needed to accomplish his mission of locating and capturing criminals for charges already in place. Those with legitimate interplanetary bounties for their capture had already been legally convicted of their crimes. They were considered to have no rights other than those afforded by the standard criminal rights codes. This meant that technically, they had no right to privacy as did those only suspected of criminal activity.

In exchange for the non-lethal weapons, he'd had to sacrifice the heavier particle beam weapons and heavy vibro blades housed in the forearms in favor of more compact lasers and smaller vibro blades. This was fine with him since he wasn't planning on taking it to war any time soon. He still retained the light railgun and lightweight infantry missile launchers that had been the suits primary long range weapons. He'd never had to use them until the incident on Ceres with the APC that had gone rampaging through the city. Then he'd been glad he'd retained them. Otherwise who knows what could've happened.

There was now noticeable air resistance and wind noise. He was at twenty thousand meters and slowing as he should. All looked the way it should as well. He should be there in a matter of a minute or less.

He could see Bona and Natasha clearly now and he began to monitor his rate of descent and altitude closely and took a firmer grip on the case handles. He took control of the flight at this point and headed directly to the ship's upper deck. He landed with a slight thump within three meters of Natasha where she lay looking like a dead thing. Her chest was still rising and falling though and in a fairly regular rhythm. "I'm here Bona, let's get her inside and somewhere more comfortable."

He scooped her up and headed for the hatch, Bona leading the way. They came down the stairs and into the living area. He followed Bona into a bedroom that was obviously Natasha's and waited while bona pulled the covers back then laid her on the bed. "I'll be right back Bona, I need to get my equipment. Then we can see what's going on."

He went back up to the upper deck and grabbed both cases and brought them inside and into Natasha's room. He put the less important case on the floor and put the one with his medical kit inside on top of it to serve as a table. He opened the top case and took out the first slim nannite control unit and strapped it to the inside of her upper arm. When activated, it immediately injected almost a million microscopic medical robots directly into the artery for fastest dispersal. Its first priority was to evaluate her condition. He let them work while he climbed out of his power armor to give him better dexterity.

Once unencumbered, he went back to the case and pulled out a much larger unit which he set on her abdomen and passed a strap around her waist to secure it then activated it too. By this time, the first unit was sending its report to the larger unit which displayed the results on a screen on its top. Her body was under attack by a necrotic bacteria of frightening efficiency. The unit was recommending the nanites be set to hunt down and destroy the bacterium. He told it to do so as he placed units on her other upper arm and both inner thighs, activating each as he finished. Soon there were ten million nannites moving through her body in search of the bacteria and destroying any they found.

There was more to the unit's report and he read it now. Along with the bacteria came a list of drugs and poisons. First on the list was a drug that would temporarily paralyze the voluntary nervous system and render the victim unable to move. Another part of the cocktail caused the blood vessels to dilate, reducing blood pressure and allowing the bacteria to spread throughout the body quickly infecting every part. A third was simply cruel. It was simple strychnine. This caused the nerves that transmitted sensation to go into overdrive, amplifying every sensation. In this case pain. Whoever did this wanted the victim to suffer horribly as they died. People like that shouldn't be allowed to live. If he found whoever did this, the bastard probably wouldn't live long enough to be arrested. If he did, Karl would be happy to deliver him to Timian himself! An minus his hands.

He set the system to eliminate the drugs and toxins or neutralize those that couldn't be.

He turned to Bona. "does this thing have a security system?"

"The best available." Bona replied immediately, "Do you want me to activate it?" Karl nodded. "We should be expecting at least one more person though so don't kill anyone immediately if they set off the system. Let me check them out first. If I don't recognize them, then you can kill them." She said the last with such savagery that Karl was convinced he'd have to wait in line for the opportunity. Bona went to do as he'd asked though.

He looked over at his still open power armor and decided to leave it that way so he could get into it fast if he needed to. He wasn't going to let anybody near Natasha he wasn't entirely sure of and right now, that was everybody except Bona.

Demeitri jumped up onto the bed with his mistress and stretched out next to her whining softly. He was worried too it was obvious. He licked at the wound in her arm which the nannites were already closing. Curious, Karl entered some instructions to the control unit and waited for the results.

The results were not unexpected and it made him glad Natasha had friends like Bona and Demeitri. Their saliva had probably saved her life! He'd known a dog's saliva was antiseptic. This was why they licked their wounds. It was part of their instinctive behavior to prevent infection and speed their healing. It was a useful adaptation. Bona's instinctive licking of Natasha's wound had slowed the growth of the bacteria in it and thus slowed the spread and prevented more damage. He let Demeitri do what came naturally and protect his mistress. All he could do now was wait and see what would happen. He pulled over a chair and sat down next to her bed and took her hand in his and held it.

This was how bona found them a minute later when she came back in. The protective feelings coming from Karl were more than reassuring. She didn't say anything, only went over and laid down at his feet next to the bed. Her bondmate was recovering, she could feel that and it eased her mind greatly. Now the exhaustion from the extreme stress and effort she'd put out to find help was catching up to her. She drifted off to sleep.

A few minutes later the security system warned of an approaching intruder and Karl was in motion. He was in his armor in moments and was already moving as it closed up around him and he pulled on the helmet and sealed it. On the way out he checked the panel by the bedroom door and saw the intruder was approaching by air. So he went down to the lower hatch unlimbering the large railgun as he went. Once he was outside the ship, he activated the armor's stealth system and faded into the background. He tuned his sensor system to use the radar emanations from the ship to track the target making himself effectively a passive sensory package. This meant he was for all intents and purposes invisible to most sensory equipment as long as he didn't move too fast.

He slowly used the suit's grav system to gently rise to a point level with the ship's dorsal deck, but stayed under the cover provided by the trees so as to use their branches as an extra visual screen, even though he blended in with the background. This was an instinctual thing from his training as a scout in his military service and his later fights in the jungles of South America.

He swept the sky with his eyes and watched his sensory receivers for any sign of the intruder. Bona mentally signaled she was waiting just inside the top hatch to spring as well. She was now fully armed and wearing her battle armor.

The girl that rushed into sight and directly to the top of the ship surprised him. She wasn't wearing much, only a tiny thong bikini swimsuit and a grav harness with a pair of lightweight all terrain sandals. The girl was carrying a gun and looking around nervously as she landed. She went over and was looking down at the towel lying on the deck rumpled into a heap near one edge. She was glancing around wildly. When she turned her back to him, Karl lunged forward silently and came to rest on the decks edge, his railgun leveled and ready, but his finger off the trigger. His sensors still showed no sign of anyone else. He deactivated the stealth system. "I'd put that down if I was you young lady."

The girl whipped around far faster than he'd expected and fired four expertly placed shots right into his chest. He didn't even feel the impact of the jacketed lead bullets as they splattered against the heavy armor. When she saw what she was up against, the girl just melted and dropped the gun to the deck crying miserably.

"You already killed them didn't you" she sobbed pitifully as she slid to her knees, "Well go ahead then and kill me too!"

Bona was there instantly and hugging her close whispering soothing words into her mind, reassuring her that everyone was okay. They were just being careful because they weren't sure where Mallory had gone.

When Karl heard that name he brought all his sensors online at once and scanned the entire range for anything he could find. Sean Mallory was one of the most wanted and dangerous men alive right now. There were things G-Pol didn't know about that one. If they had, they'd have called in the Ceresian Marines or a Timian scout platoon to track him down. If that was who Natasha was here for, they'd sent her into a deathtrap and didn't know it.

The man wasn't a man at all, but a full conversion cyborg that looked completely human. most of Natasha's and Bona's normal weapons would be as useless as the girls gun had been against him. Right about now, he was wishing he had the original weapons package on this suit, maybe with a few upgrades to boot. Maybe a heavy force shield unit for instance.

It was Mallory that he and Melissa had been hunting when she'd been killed by an ambush set by his troops in SA. What was left of the man was quite insane, and Karl wouldn't hesitate to blast him with everything he had to be sure he didn't get up or escape again.