NULL SPACE - Part 11

“General Solvar, what a pleasure it is to see you.” Said Jeran as he began to raise his hands. He could feel the metal barrel of the gun pressing into his stomach and knew that the general would be able to pull the trigger long before Jeran could do anything. “I take it you aren’t here to visit my daughter.” Jeran could see his daughter, Silvia, beyond General Solvar. The medical instruments around her still said that she was alive, which was a relief. Although currently she appeared to be unconscious.

“Very funny Jeran. However I hope you aren’t planning to get me to drop my gun in laughter.” Said Solvar with a humorless expression on his face. “Frankly I’m surprised that it took you so long to get here. We had arrived here several days ago expecting you to have already left. Imagine our surprise when we found that your daughter was still here.” The general smirked a little as he continued.

“I bet that you thought that we didn’t know where you were keeping your precious daughter did you? Sorry, but you can’t escape that easily. But it has all worked out well now hasn’t it. We are both here and your daughter will help ensure that you join us again and return what you have unrightfully stolen from us.”

Jeran didn’t have much to say. Where he was now didn’t give him much of an option. He would only give Null time enough to get close to General Solvar. He had to trust that she would have some way to get them out of this. Jeran had to keep Solvar distracted. “How did you find out that I was keeping her here?” Asked Jeran in an attempt to keep his attention.

“You are an excellent soldier Jeran but you aren’t much of a spy. There are plenty of ways to track somebody down who doesn’t want to be found. We tracked you down through your money. Once you were on the run it was easy to figure out where you were spending your money. Then we just needed to wait until you fell into a habit and lay a trap for you. Luckily for us you began to frequent Ark-Neon as your base of operations so we just needed to wait until you went there again and then trap you.”

Jaren frowned in annoyance. He had hoped that his bank would have kept his expenses secret. Myth must have either convinced his bank to release his information to them or they must have broken into their system and stole it. Either way Jeran had lost out on secrecy. “So now that you have me your going to force me to return and give you the codes I take it.”

“Oh, and more too. We are going to use you for publicity. Everybody loves a hero and we can use that to our advantage. You are even going to fight for our side. You are going to do it to protect your poor daughter who we will graciously take care of. And if you should somehow fall in battle fighting for what is right, well… everybody loves a myrtior.”

Jeran gritted his teeth in anger as he head Solvar speak. Had Mythians fallen so low that they would resort to blackmail to get there way or have General Solvar always been like this and Jeran had just never seen it. Jeran suspected that it was the later and before Solvar had just shown Jeran his nice face.

Jeran felt the nudge of Null’s shoe against him and he spoke again, “There is only one problem with your plan General Solvar.” Jeran tied to sound as smug as possible and he thought he succeeded fairly well.

The general only smiled at him, “Oh? And what would that be. If either of you try anything then you will be dead. And in a couple of minutes some more soldiers will be arriving so there will be even less that you can do. And even if you manage to escape it will be impossible for you to leave with your daughter. Who knows what fate will await your poor little girl if you run off from us again. I don’t think there is any problem with my plan.”

It was Null’s turn to speak this time. “Actually I would reconsider the gun part of your plan. It wouldn’t be a good idea to try and use it, who knows what could go wrong. Also for what you are threatening to do I think you deserve to be punished. Jeran, why don’t you give him a sock to the jaw.”

“With pleasure,” Jeran grinned a little bit before lifting his fist and directing it directly into General Solvar’s face. Solvar stood there is shock for a second before leveling the gun at Jeran and pulling the trigger. Null must have done something to Solvar’s gun because it exploding in his hands. Solvar screamed in pain and dropped to the floor, his hands covered to horrible burns. Jeran kicked him once before grabbing him and throwing him out the door. Jeran locked the door behind Solvar and turned to Null and Silvia. “Thanks Null, whatever you did he deserved it.”

With Solvar out of the way for the time being he went over to check on his daughter. Silvia was feverish and unconscious but still alive. He brushed he hair back with his hand. He was glad to see his daughter again because it had been a while. He then looked up and Null and asked, “What do you think? Will you be able to cure her?”

Null walked over beside him and stared at Silvia. Time crawled by and Jeran was about to say something when Null spoke, “Yes, I can save her. However, you were right about only forbidden technology being able to fix her. Any cure would basically be replacing most of her body. My nano-machines will able to accomplish that given enough time. However time is the probably. That man’s soldiers will certainly be here soon and a full recovery for your daughter will certainly take weeks.”

Null placed her hand on Silvia’s chest. There seemed to be a glow which left Null’s arm and then slowly seeped into Silvia. After Null removed her hand she said, “I’ve taking the initial steps. This should at least prevent her from dying of her illness and it will help her regain consciousness. However this is only a temporary measure. I will need to treat her fully back at the ship but we need to get out of here before that man’s allies come or else if will be very difficult.”

Jeran nodded, “I agree but I’m still uncertain how we are going to do that will being my daughter with us. I have some friends in the hospital who were taking care of her but I would rather not get any of them involved because Solvar will probably be quite angry at what happened.”

“I guess the window is our only real choice then.” Said Null as she moved over to it and looked out.

“The window? But that is crazy, this is the third floor. I mean I could probably climb down but there would be no way that I could do that while carrying my daughter. I would say that the same thing would apply to you.”

“Who said anything about climbing.” Said Null with a smile. “Now that my nanomachines are operating correctly I could certainly make a jump like that, even if I was carrying someone with me.”

Jeran stared at her for a couple of seconds in bewilderment, “Your serious, aren’t you? If anybody else had said it would have though that they were crazy, but you might be able to accomplish it. All right, I’ll let you do it but please be careful with my daughter, I didn’t come all this way just to have her die by trying some fool stunt.”

“Alright,” Said Null and then the two of the helped remove Silvia from the bed. They removed the various medical sensors and Null picked her up. Jeran opened the window and looked out, it was a long way down. Null stepped up onto the windowsill and Jeran closed his eyes just as she jumped off. He waited a second but not hearing any awful sound he looked out to see Null still carrying Silvia and safely on the ground.

Then Jeran stepped out of the window himself and began climbing down the wall. It was rough going and harder then he had expected it to be. By the time he had gotten town one floor he could hear shouts above them. It seemed that Solvar’s backup had gotten there. Jeran climbed a few more feet before dropping down to the ground and rolling.

“The Myth military almost certainly have some vehicles around here.” Said Jeran, “If we could take one of those it would make getting back to the ship much easier.”

Null nodded in agreement and together the ran to the front of the building where several cars were parked. Jeran was about to break one of the windows and try and hotwire the car when Null stopped him. He handed Silvia to him and the pressed her hand over the keyhole. There was a click and the door opened. Jeran was even more impressed when she was able to use the same trick to start the care. Her nano-machines were turning out to be more useful then he had initially though.

They arrived at the space port to find their ship to be unguarded. Solvar’s confidence had probably caused him to neglect to send people to guard his ship. Luckily because of that they were able to board without any issues. Jeran carried Silvia into the bunkroom and laid her down on one of the bed. “Please take care of her,” asked Jeran to Null as he headed to the cockpit and started the ship.