The Dark Run

Fen finished laying the last charge in a remote maintenance conduit and then made his way back to the main cargo bay, trailing a spool of wire. He had already rigged a cargo net to a corner of the bay that the fire wouldn't reach, and he strapped himself to the net before attaching a mechanical detonator to the wire. He would have radioed Giselle to let her know that the blast was coming, but hours earlier he had shut off the suit's comm system because Astra had already been pleading with him for her life. There was nothing else left to do, and so he flipped up the cover above detonation switch. Holding his breath, he pressed the switch.

Fire alarms sounded, loud enough to penetrate his helmet, and nozzles around the bay sprayed foam toward rapidly spreading fires. When the foam failed to reach the flames, the alarm tone changed. Oxygen masks dropped from panels over the cargo bay walkways, and a mechanical voice announced a halon warning. Hopefully, the halon wouldn't work, because Fen had rigged the firebombs with steady oxygen supplies that were just low enough to avoid incinerating the entire ship but high enough to overcome the halon. It must have worked, because the alarm changed again, and a new warning blared throughout the ship.

"Attention. Attention. Emergency venting in sixty seconds."

The harsh computerized voice counted down to zero, and then Fen felt his body lurch forward. He was slammed painfully against the cargo strap as the air in the ship was blasted out into space, and unsecured debris swirled around the bay. But the maelstrom stopped almost as soon as it started, and an eerie calm fell over the ship. Fen's first thought was whether Giselle had made it into the bay, but he didn't have long to wait for an answer.

"What are you doing?" Astra's voice exploded out of the ship's loudspeakers. "Jarek? Jarek, help me! Stop her! No... No, you fucking whore! He's mine! You can't! Fuck you! You stupid fucking slut! You don't know what you're.... no... no, please don't... please... Jarek? Jaaarrr..."

The voice trailed off to an agonizing silence. It was replaced by a new one coming through the comm system in his suit.

"Jarek?" Fen didn't recognize the voice. It sounded a little like Giselle, but it was different. She was immovably confident and sounded entirely human.

"Jarek, are you there?" the voice persisted.

"Yes," Fen said slowly. His head was swimming, and he felt like laughing. Or sleeping. Yes, sleeping would be good.

"Jarek, check your oxygen," the strange voice said. Shit. How had he forgotten that? The bombs had taken way longer to set than he had expected, and his air tank was empty. It would be hours before the cavernous cargo bay was pressurized, and he was too weak to make it to an oxygen mask. But he didn't care. He wasn't worried about himself. He was worried about someone else.

"Giselle? Are you there? Are you okay?"

"Don't move," the voice replied. "I'm coming."

--

For the second time in a few chaotic hours, Fen woke up in the med bay. Giselle was watching over him again, but she wasn't Giselle. At least not entirely. Her innocently curious eyes were gone, replaced with a sharp and entirely human awareness. And she moved differently, too, with a confidence that he had previously only seen in war veterans. As she turned to him, he saw that even her hair had changed. It was shorter, and the raven black was split by a streak of Astra's shimmering blonde. He laughed to himself.

A symbiotic relationship.

That had been her plan all along, he knew. She had merged herself with Astra and the ship's computer in order to eradicate the errant code. But Fen hadn't guessed that the symbiosis would be expressed so physically. Undaunted, be reached out his hand, and Giselle took it.

"Hello, Jarek," she said.

"Giselle," he breathed.

"No," she said, smiling. "Not Giselle. Not anymore."

"Then who?" Fen asked. He waited while the new woman considered the question. When she spoke, her voice came not just from her lips but also from every corner of the ship.

"We are Harmony."

To be continued...