Alexis sleeps heavily and it is only a constant chiming that wakes her up. Blurry eyes look over and notice it is not just one chime of an important message but one she does not know that is alerting the Captain’s door is being tampered with. The woman moans and rolls out of the bunk and notices some readouts activating. She pauses as a display shows the main engines of the ship are being readied for firing.
Distracted she moves her metal arm to twist her still to short hair. She winces as the cold metal hits her head. The door tone changes, causing her to get up in just her silky undergarments to answer it. She still has the metal arm up as she opens the door.
The door slides open catching the gray clothed technician who was trying to break in by surprise. The man next to the technician swings a pry bar he was holding. The steel beam smashes in to her upraised metal arm jolting the limb.
Alexis is knocked back in to the cabin by the force of the blow with blood flying. Her brow has a cut from the metal limb hitting it but that limb saved her from a skull-cracking blow.
The blood makes seeing out of one eye difficult but there is movement at the door. Three others holding firearms join the man holding the bar at the door. The technician has scooted out of sight.
Alexis recognizes Senor Crewman Melrin in the middle of them. One of them has a bandage from the fight with the boarding action before around his arm.
Senor Crewman Melrin is holding a large diskshooter leveled at her. His voice is full of spite and arrogance. “You dare betray the country by dealing with them. Fled the ship to save yourself, took their chemicals for your own amusement. For your crimes the only judgment can be death. So for those that died and for our great country we pass judgment and execute you.”
The others two raise their shipboard diskshooters and Alexis dives towards her discarded clothes. The sound of the weapons powering up whine loudly.
She expects to feel the spinning blades cut in to her with the toxins but they never come. She turns around to see they are still trying to fire. The injured man looking at the weapon trying to see what is wrong and she gets to smile as she reaches the discarded clothes. Alexis raises the military black diskshooter in her flesh hand.
“Mutiny and attempted murder are punishable by…” Her words are cut short as the weapon she has whines then sprays the small blades she broke apart fly in to the four humans. Alexis has test fired her weapon but nothing prepared her for this. The targets are close together at the door and the blades fire off at rapid speeds.
The man with the bar loses a finger from the first hit. There are sparks off the pipe he held and the next ones leave him spurting blood.
The weapon has almost no recoil but Alexis is spraying it over to the next person. A woman goes back holding her face. The next two go down but Alexis does not know why. She drops the empty weapon after seeing what has happened.
The air has a spray of blood from the mutineers. Her cabin looks like a charnel house and herself is coated once more in gore.
The loud thumps follow as the bodies fall to the deck but not all in one piece. The screaming and crying starts in a surreal delay to Alexis.
The woman herself has teary blurring her vision. Her sobs are quiet compared to the mutineers’ cries of pain.
It takes the whirling sound of her empty weapon to break her out of it. One of the wounded men has crawls to where she dropped it leaving a trail of blood and has it aimed at her. The hate in his eyes restores the woman who rises. He croaks, “Why will you not die?”
Alexis gets up and wipes the tears with the blood-marred hand. She picks up the discarded metal bar that was used on her. The man still on the ground where he dragged himself when she walks over him. The metal hand has a solid grip as she brings it down on him. Two more blows and the man is no longer a threat or even able to make a sound. Rage makes another blow come down on the man before she stops. “You first.”
Alexis leaves a trail of red footprints part way to the shuttle after leaving the cabin. More then one crewman comes in her view but they all give her a fearful wide berth.
She looks at the shuttle hatch that is open when it shouldn’t be. Entering it she hits the key locking it down with her flesh hand.
Inside there is a crewman with a diskshooter in his hands. The man is totally surprised seeing her gore covered form.
Alexis shows no fear of him and her bloody look is very intimidating. The man drops his weapon and backs in to a corner. She walks over and activates the Warborg.
The sound of the AI canister shifting in to the body is the only sound before the machine shifts to life. The mechanical voice speaks, “AI Unit 4 activated. Operation mission and parameters not downloaded. Commence under command of Military personal 0501.4117.4117.1336 Alexis.”
The man is moving to the hatch but stops when the pipe points at him. Alexis is still looking at the Warborg when she asks the man, “Who else?”
The man stutters, “Bridge.”
The Warborg comes out of its repair bay. The man drops to the ground terrified with not only the grisly sight of Alexis in drying blood but the Warborg so close up.
Alexis looks to the Warborg, “Mission is to stop a mutiny.”
The machine looks to the down man who scurries out of the shuttle. It then looks to Alexis, “Mission requires lethal response.”
“Agreed.” She says coldly.
The machine opens a locker she had not notice and pulls out a large weapon, “Unit 4 will take control of engineering.”
Alexis goes over getting on a jacket to large for her but she does not have to do anything to the sleeve due to her right arm. She then gets in to a medical kit and gets more of the painkillers and eats them. The pain in her arm has been bothering her heavily enough to get through her rage. She doesn’t clean up at all and picks up the pry bar. Looking for something else she gets in to the locker the Warborg opened and pulls out a surprisingly heavy handgun. It is not a diskshooter but something else.
The walking to the bridge is long from the shuttle. Alexis is in a bit of a cloud from the medication when she gets to the Bridge controls and hits her code to override open it.
The crew on the bridge is active at their jobs and no one noticed Alexis till she calls out, “All sections report.”
One of the men gets up, “You!”
The weapon in Alexis’s hand fires ending his comment with a loud retort that stuns everyone there. The woman spins around from the recoil surprising her. The drugs in her system do not let her know how much pain her wrist is in from the using of the weapon.
The victim of the weapon goes down in a display of carnage. There literally is a hole right though him. The man does not bleed out the front, instead his back ripped open and coated electronics in blood and pieces of flesh.
The weapon was never to be used on board a ship, as it is way to powerful. Even after going though a human body it smashes in to the console behind him with enough force to destroy it and only is stopped by the bridge’s reinforced frame. The shell splinters and does more unseen damage behind the consoles next to the one it smashed.
The bridge goes from silent to bedlam with everyone screaming before Alexis yells, “Quiet! There was an attempted mutiny. I am in command and will remain so. Those who are responsible will surrender or be summarily judged and executed.”
Alexis never thought of herself as a cold person but her vengeful spirit at the fore from those that planned to kill her.
The rest of the bridge crew looks in stunned silence as she walks over taking her seat. Her own thoughts were as much a jumble as theirs but she kept her cool asking one simple word, “Status?” No one moves before she asks again, “Status?”
The crew is well trained and the order gets them moving from their shock. The short lady sits barely listening getting control of herself. She has seen dead bodies before with the frozen but this time they were alive until before she killed them. The blood, she closes her eyes and can still see it. One of the crew’s words get through her funk.
“What was that?”
The man that was talking repeats, “We are jettisoning unneeded cargo and personal as per return protocols.”
The metal hand cracks the plastic of the chair when she slams it down, “Tell them to stop immediately. Put everything back in storage.”
“But the protocols…”
The firearm is aimed at the man’s head and Alexis looks at him coldly, “They are to stop, now.”
The man drops the data slate backing up. He goes and puts the commands to stop the unloading. The woman doesn’t lower the gun till the order is confirmed. She then calls for the Warborg.
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“Unit 4 has control of Engineering.” It replies to her.
“Go check the hanger and make sure they are reloading the cargo. Some took it on themselves to ignore my orders. I have control of the Bridge.”
“This unit will comply. Should this unit use lethal force to make a point?”
“Do it.” She coldly says in to the communications unit. Alexis looks over the crew satisfied the ones present are studiously working at their stations and not looking at her bloody face.
“Where should I detain them?”
“If they do not resist in a cargo hold. We can Freeze them after all is under control.”
“Understood and engaging in action.”
One of the bridge crew with medical training breaks the silence, “But the time, it could be lethal if you Freeze them.”
Alexis lifts the firearm at the person that talked, “It’s a chance they have to take. They intended on my death and I am not going to give them or anyone another chance at me. You best tell the rest as the Warborg will cleanse any attempts that happen again, successful or otherwise.”
The silence on the bridge is palatable before she lowers the firearm. The crew goes back to their stations. She keeps in the seat. “Call someone to remove him to the freezer.” The smell of death palatable from the body, not to mention the mess she is.
The next few hours are tense as Alexis has everyone disarmed but herself and the Warborg.
The crew that tried to take her power is detained. The twenty ones taken alive are given an option of becoming colonists to the world or to be frozen and brought back to Earth for trial as mutineers. Several crewmembers are refrozen, one for objecting medically over what was being done. The process reported at least two suffered terminal cellular damage during the process.
The other mutineers are busy with the shuttles going down to the planet loaded with the supplies just for that purpose. It will cut in to the stuff she offered to the Capitalists, but she doesn’t think of them.
The next few days are a blur of activity getting the ship repaired and back in order. There is also the dealing with all the shuttle flights to and from the planet.
Another bit of excitement is when she has a crewman wash her bloody clothes. The woman blanches when Alexis tells her the brown is dried blood.
Alexis finds those pills helping her get through as her metal arm keeps hurting. She finally looks in to the small view port she is horrified to see the liquid in the arm is not the same yellow but rust colored.
The woman rushes out of her cabin to the shuttle. There the Warborg is checking over the weapons, cleaning and maintaining them.
“My arm, it’s broken I think.” She shakes her head. “Inside not the machinery.”
The machine moved closer and inspects it. “The seals have broken. You are leaking blood in to the fluid. This unit suggests you seek medical attention.”
Alexis freezes before speaking, “I can’t trust them to do it. You did it before so you have to do it again.”
The Warborg looks at the arm a bit more. “This unit will have to open up the arm to correct the issue. It will be extremely painful.”
“I need it fixed.” She whines worried.
The machine opens a locker labeled ‘Interrogation Supplies’. Inside is a board with straps all over it and various cases. The woman watches not getting why all those would be needed on a mission like this.
The board is set up with legs and Alexis gets on it with only a tingle of fear for it, and a lot more for her arm. The various straps are applied to Alexis by the machine and tightened. There are so many of them, even ones for individual fingers. Second thoughts come to her mind as the machine hovers over her totally immobilized form.
The Warborg, “Would you like to bite on something?”
“No, I am not hungry. Just start.”
The minutes pass with the Warborg doing minor things. The machine pulls out of containers from the locker increase Alexis’s worry with her being totally trapped on the table. She tries to look over but the strap prevents her from even turning her head.
The table has warm liquid flow over it by her limb. Her arm once drained lets her know how wrong it is. The blinding pain is resisted for only a few moments before her screams echo off the readouts in the shuttle. Unconsciousness does not come soon enough but she does finally fall in to it.
Alexis wakes up to a sticky feeling and dull throbbing of her head. Trying to move she finds herself still bound. All she can see is the top ceiling of the shuttle. “Unit 4?” She waits without a reply then wets her lips and calls out louder, “Unit 4!”
A communication channel opens to her shout. “This is Unit 4. This unit will return once it has finished current activities.”
The bound woman can’t shift or do anything but wait. Her headache eases off at least but a touch of fear flickers.
The sound of the machine coming in happens finally after what feels like an hour but more likely was only ten minutes. The bestial features come in to her view. “Ally I will release your replacement limb for you to test out. If it does not work correctly this unit will fix it.”
“Just let me go.” She again has a whine to her voice.
The test goes well and the arm works, as it should. Alexis is released from the board and gets up slowly feeling a bit light-headed. She touches her eye and has to ask, “You hit me?”
“This unit had to knock you out once when you woke up. You kept tensing up the tendons.”
“Well… Thanks I guess.”
“The limb will operate correctly once more.”
Alexis has to quip, “It was working before just fine, other then well the blood.”
“That part of the function was working correctly. It was another part.” The machine replies with almost a dry tone.
The woman gets herself out of the shuttle taking time to make it to her cabin. The Warborg follows along. She spends time giving an after action report to the computer of what happened and her thoughts on it.
Later the next day one part Alexis has not wanted to for some time. The reading of the history is unsettling enough but finally she had to call him.
Outside the Captain’s cabin the Warborg reports. “Ally there is a CIN here to see you.”
Alexis hits a key opening the door, “Let him in then return to your duties on the Bridge.”
Groerge walks in almost meekly. The ebony man has aged a lot from his time frozen. No longer is he a teen but one well past 30. He must know of her reputation and keeps by the door. “You wanted to see me?”
Alexis sighs, “Groerge you have helped the ship but there is more I need you to do.”
The meekness goes away with a bottled up inner rage, “You set me up!”
Alexis is confused, “What are you talking about?”
Groerge keeps his distance but paces, “You were waiting for me to break in to the training computer so you could get your nice shiny badge of honor.”
“Now wait a minute.”
The man interrupts her, “No you can’t shut me up like you did back then. I was drugged and then dragged off to be processed like some food production. Next I know I wake up here with you in charge. Proud of yourself?”
Alexis hits a key locking the cabin. She then changes the display, “What I am going to show you was sent to me from...” The woman just can’t say more. Her flesh finger trembles as she opens the security on the file.
Alexis’s father appears and the message she watched starts to play. She just tries to not cry as it plays. Groerge first looks defiant but as the message plays his face shifts but does not get on to what she might think of as her side.
“You expect me to believe that tripe?”
Alexis wipes a tear, “Yes.”
“Come on now it’s a canned message and he never even calls you by name. Its always child never…”
Alexis interrupts with the cracking of plastic from her metal arm. The ebony man backs up in fear to the closed cabin door.
“That is my father damn you. He has always been that way, but he loved me.” The tears come breaking through her attempts to stop them. “He…”
She chokes up unable to talk. Groerge keeps on the door till she finally gets control of herself.
“Groerge I need your help. When we get back to Earth the main record of who and what we are is on this ship. Our technicians will go over it and if they find that message, or anything else my actions will be construed as rebellion. I will be publicly hung.”
The man is stunned by her comments. He shakes his head, “They do not hang anyone in our country. We are too enlightened for such barbaric behavior.”
Alexis, “I was looking at the records. Our country has changed after we left. They have killed thousands, even millions for perceived disloyalty.”
“Capitalistic lies.”
There is a sigh before Alexis continues, “Our ideals of our country are perfect. It is people, like those that wore this uniform that failed to keep that ideal. I shouldn’t be wearing it but it is the only thing from keeping the SIN and the Warborg from dumping every CIN on the planet or even in to space. Their orders and a MIN’s are the same, do not come back with the CIN. My ideals of our country can get me killed.”
Groerge paces, “I wanted to warn people of what was being done. You are asking me to become part of the conspiracy.”
“Not that conspiracy but one to restore honor to our country.”
“Ok I will help you. I can alter the computer records.”
“Thanks Groerge.”
Alexis hits a switch letting the door open. The man leave edging past the Warborg that watches him leave.
Now that Alexis has done that she once more get in to the history. It’s slanted by the Capitalists but with her knowledge of what was to happen on the ship some of it can be believed. The information is a bit fragmentary but she with her father’s information can fill in the blanks.
The great country’s first rumble was with the Warborgs insurrection. Simultaneously throughout the ground, orbital, and asteroid belt they were reprogrammed. The carnage was massive and all the space bases were either destroyed or lost to rebellion.
The next section is ghastly. The Warborgs were still rampant when both sides unleashed weapons of mass destruction. It lists the horrors the Warborgs did, blaming them for all the worst tragedies. The woman has to spend time in the bathroom after seeing some of the pictures of the carnage.
Her country was crippled and fragmented in leadership when the next blow hit. The very leadership turned on it in the grab for power causing the great union to shatter in to smaller countries that fought each other in a brutal civil war.
It was then the Capitalists struck. Many of the smaller sections joined with the various other nations in mutual alliances that allowed the Elitist countries to move troops in converting them over the society that was the enemy a few years before the madness.
The situation cooled down with the threat of the Capitalists invading the remaining powers and taking them over totally.
Her country still exists but it is a mere fragment of the once world spanning power. The league had taken over the planet. The space stations in the system are independent but economically tied by needs of basic amenities forcing them to become Capitalistic in nature.
The history goes on to list two living worlds that have started colonization by CIN personal and the great vessels returned with the news. Without the space base it was left to the Elitists to colonize them and it was done in a large way with over 40 vessels sent to each world with one reportedly to have some wormhole rapid transit system, whatever that is.
The vessels returning could not be repaired or even maintained. The crews often would defect with the ship otherwise they would destroy them to prevent them from being taken.
Over the next few days the situation on the ship has settled down. The old crew gives plenty of warning to those unfrozen to make up from the losses from the fight and mutiny so they do not try anything.
Alexis herself has little and so reads mostly. She does make appearances on the Bridge with the Warborg in tow.