Chapter Text
"Enter," Aris's voice held the cold, husky tone that was all Dr. Zee.
Anya gently pushed the door open, peeking in like a nervous child. Zee had her back to the door as she tended to the plants and vegetation that lined the back wall of the med bay. The Doctor poured a thin, measured stream of nutrient rich water over the base of a small fern, precisely angling Plastiglass watering pot with both hands, almost ceremonially.
Zee turned on her heels, almost too gracefully, laying her pot on a precisely folded square towel. Only then did her cold steel grey eyes meet Anya's
"I'm sorry to interrupt..."
Zee raised her chin slightly, the light catching on her exquisite cheekbones, as if considering something beyond Anya's comprehension.
"Nonsense. One would need to interrupt me first. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Anya deflated. Just a little. Plan B it is
"It's... well..."
Then she saw it. The light quiver at the ends of Zee's mouth. the softening of her eyes.
"Are you okay?", she asked. Zee tried to contain a snort, but failed miserably as Aris fell onto the stool in a fit of giggles.
Anya stared at her incredulously.
"How do you do that?"
Aris sat up, prim and proper with her hands held over her crossed knees. The giggling continued unabated, despite her best efforts to contain them.
"Lots and lots of practice."
"Uh huh," Anya leaned against the counter, unconvinced. "I'm sure there's more to it. We've been doing this for--"
"Ten years, one month and seventeen days," Aris blurted out. "Not that anyone's counting."
"Let me guess, you know this down to the minute."
Aris made a face of mock exasperation, her hand to her mouth. "Why I'd never! Only a complete weirdo would do that."
"Okay. Just-"
"Eleven hour, thirty six minutes and twelve... thirteen... fourteen seconds!"
Aris hid her face behind her hand, her olive complexion taking on a rosy hue.
Anya opened her mouth, the words hanging. She tried again, but now Aris was standing.
"For reals now," she said, regaining her composure. "I'll tell you about sometime soon. I'm sure you didn't come here just to see me. What's up?"
"I...," Anya deflated just a little more.
Dammit, just say it.
"It's Becks." No! Not that! Anya screamed internally.
Concern clouded Aris's eyes. "Oh no. What's wrong?"
"There's a mark behind her left ear. Okay, a mark isn't the right word for it. A number."
Aris had locked in now. "A number? As in, what? An identification number?"
"A brand."
The final leg of the jump to Narion was a silent, anxious affair. The crew went about their business as usual, the weight of Becks' tattoo weighed on Anya. Aris felt it too now, having discreetly inspected the mark under the guise of braiding the girl's hair like Aris had been wearing it. Every time she looked at Becks, now sitting quietly in the co-pilot's chair and humming to herself, all Anya could see was the small, black '5' branded behind her ear. Number forming a particular point of stress in the back of her own head.
"We're approaching the coordinates," Sammi announced, her voice unusually all business. "Deep in the asteroid belt. Good place to hide."
"Way to give us the warm and fuzzies," Kenji said from his station, tossing a paper airplane at her.
Sammi tilted her head, almost casually, as the airplane glided past her.
"Pre-dictable",'she said matter-of-factly. "Ten minutes to contact point.
The rendezvous point was a hollowed-out asteroid, a makeshift waystation bristling with comms relays. As Sammi expertly guided the Jolly Steve into a docking clamp, a single figure in a nondescript flight suit emerged from an airlock.
Anya and Robin met him in the airlock. James Drexel was older than he looked in the recording, the lines on his face deeper, but his eyes were the same—sharp, intelligent, and haunted.
"Miss Novakova," he extended his hand. Anya accepted it, matching his firm grip. "Doctor Drexel, I assume."
He shook Robin's hand next, "Indeed, for what it's worth."
The scientist looked around them at the ship, expectantly. "Where's Rebecca?"
Anya glanced at Robin, who had already assessed the situation before they walked over, nodded. With a raised hand, Aris stepped down the Jolly Steve's loading ramp, hand in hand with Becks.
Drexel's face lit the moment he saw her, his professional mask crumbling with a hitched breath. Becks let go of Aris's hand and ran, her small form crashing into his legs.
Drexel dropped to his knees, wrapping her in a desperate hug, burying his face in her hair. "You're safe. Thank God, you're safe."
He held her out for just a moment, "Oh my," he said. "You've done something to your hair. It's so pretty!" The little girl laughed and hugged her daddy tight.
Anya watched the reunion, feeling another crack forming in that indignant something inside her, aching for them both. She let the tender moment hang for a beat before she spoke, her voice quiet but firm as the tattooed number stood out on the back of the girl's head.
"Dr. Drexel. We need to talk."
"She isn't my daughter," Drexel confessed, his voice heavy with guilt. "Not by blood. Well, not really by any measurable means".
"What exactly does that mean?," Robin asked, a little rougher around the edge than usual. He gave Anya an almost imperceptible nod.
Bad Cop.
Drexel looked at his hands for a moment, then to Becks, who was buried in another game on Anya's slate.
"You see. I was there when she was born. Cared for her. Raised her."
He rolled his neck, trying to loosen the tension that suddenly welled up within.
"But, born," he sighed. "Isn't the right word for it either."
"What? Are you trying to say she's a clone?," Aris laughed.
Drexel didn't.
"Why aren't you laughing?", Anya asked, leaning in. Good cop be damned.
"Because the tragedy is that the statement is true."
"That's impossible. Human cloning has not been legally sanctioned in the Settled Systems," Aris was in her feet, Zee standing resolute and looking down her nose at the man. "Aside from the absolute fact that successful cloning has been proven ineffectual. There is no way--"
"Legally sanctioned, yes. Ineffectual," Drexel said, interrupting Zee's lecture, placing his head in his hands. "Not so here. I thought that we were making ground-breaking discoveries. Something that would help the human condition, to finally cure the ailments that have plagued humanity since the dawn of civilization."
"I don't follow," Anya said.
Drexel looked up, something solidifying within him again.
"It was called the 'Persephone Initiative'. We were chartered to develop clones that would be resistant to cancers in order to reverse engineer the disease."
He stood and paced.
"There were twelve subjects. All girls. We were given a specific DNA sequence, the progenitor had traits that were considered 'optimal' and 'effective'. That number,"
He paused.
"That was Rebecca's identifier. She was PS-05. A funny reaction to this. Well, maybe not 'haha' funny, but odd. Rebecca's inability to see her number, somehow developed as a mental block."
"She can't say the number 'five'," Anya said, connecting her thoughts since she met Becks.
"Yes, exactly.", Drexel looked at her, dignified that he wasn't the only person that noticed this. "To be honest, this is what drew me to Rebecca."
He leaned against the table. "I began playing number games with her. Counting and memory, kid's stuff. But, the longer I was with her, the more I realized that she was different."
"How so?", Zee asked.
"The others were detached. Cold. Less human. Unlike Rebecca. She laughed, she cried. She was a true child and then, one day, she said it."
Drexel's voice cracked.
"She called me 'daddy'. And it was over, just like that. Wrapped around her little finger."
He looked around. Aris had returned, wiping an eye. Robin looked a taken aback as well. Anya sniffed, then fixed Drexel with a question.
"Sounds sweet, but how did we get to this," she gestured to the room in general.
Drexel sighed, "And this is where it all goes oblong--"
"Pear-shaped," Aris corrected.
"Yes, that. At the two-month mark, we were notified that the subj... girls, were ready for the next phase in the trial. We were to prepare them to move to a new facility."
"Two months?," Robin asked. Two month mark of what?"
"Of their life cycle."
Drexel let that settle before continuing.
"The Persephone Initiative relies on factors provided by a programmed growth cycle, meaning that--"
"The subjects age at rate that supersedes natural human growth. By what factor and for what target range?", Zee asked, sharply.
"A factor of 2.3 to 1 for a target of twenty eight years of age."
Anya and Robin looked to Zee to clear this up, but it was Aris that looked back at them with a horrified expression.
"My stars... You're telling us that Becks is only two months old?"
"No, she's closer to three and half months now. Physically and mentally, she's almost seven."
"Which means she'll be my age in less than ten months," Anya said, her heart dropping as she looked at Becks.
"Yes."
Tears welled as Anya thought more about the sudden changes she had noticed over the short time since Becks snuck onto the Jolly Steve. The room spun and she forced herself to lean against the wall, her hands balled into fists.
"How?," she asked, her voice rising. "How could you do this to her?"
Drexel's face wore the shame without excuse.
"This isn't the worst of it. Rebecca was scared, she didn't want to leave and I couldn't let her go without being able to tell her--truthfully--that she'd be okay. So I asked the other researchers, Rand, McNally and Guinness, if they knew what Phase two was." He held his plans up again.
"Turns out that none of us were in the loop. So, I did what researchers do best and started digging. Even got this girl that I had been seeing to help. She was big on the whole hacking thing. Then nothing. A week went by and then suddenly, I get a message from her, the day before the transfer. It was one word."
He looked at them all one at a time.
"Weaponization."
The silence was palpable. When he spoke again, there was a silent pain that ended his voice.
"I never heard from her again. So, I packed away some of Rebecca's things and hid it in a crate outside of the security feeds and waited until the middle of the night and snuck her out of the facility."
"Where was this?", Robin asked, his tone lighter. The need to play Bad cop long expired.
"New Atlantis. Right where you'd never expect something like this to happen. We shacked up in the Well for a couple of days, but didn't know what to do next. And, that's where you came in."
Drexel pointed at Anya.
"I let Rebecca watch your movies on my slate to keep her entertained. She couldn't get enough. All she wanted was to watch and pretend to be you."
Drexels eyes shone again.
"Compared to what she could have been, seeing her become a hero," he sniffed, "like you. What more could a dad ask?"
He rubbed his eyes and cleared his throat.
"Anyway, I went back to the facility a few days later. Rand, McNally, Guinness were dead. Executed at their workstations. That's when I panicked."
"And that's when we showed up", Anya snorted. "Just in time to save the day."
"Well, yes. It wasn't my intention."
"The hell it wasn't!," she shot back.
"No, honestly. I had hoped to go back to the facility to find a way to stop Rebecca's aging. Halt it. Permanently."
"A viable counteragent?,"
Zee asked. "Is there such a thing?"
"Theoretically, yes. I scoured the server for anything and everything, even my former colleagues' notes. I found more than I bargained for."
"Explain," Zee said, a little more edge to her force than her normal level calm.
"I found three data nodes that contained some of the PGS subroutines."
"But?," Robin cut in.
"Yes, but... the nodes are offline, requiring direct access. If I can get the data, I can synthesize a stopgap that can slow Rebecca's growth to near normal."
"Why can't you get the data," Anya shot back. "Why us? What aren't you telling us?"
Drexel shrugged. I'm a scientist, a researcher.", he said. "I don't have the skills to protect myself, much less Rebecca, from the Shades."
Anya and Robin glanced at each other. "That's the second time I've heard about these Shades. What are they?," Anya asked. "And don't you dare tell me they're window coverings."
"What?"
"Nevermind. Dish."
"I don't know much, only what I could glean from the server and random scraps of data from the web. All I know is that they're dangerous and most likely the ones that funded the Initiative."
"Why didn't you lead with this?", Anya groaned.
"You didn't ask? Besides, I told you they'd be onto you in my recording."
Before Anya could respond, a proximity alarm shrieked through the station.
"Contact!" Sammi's voice yelled over the comm. "Single ship, black, no transponder, just jumped in to the system and it's burning hard right for us."
Drexel ran up to Becks and gently pulled Anya's slate from her hand, "Sorry, Sweetie. It's time to go and I need to borrow this for a moment."
He placed his slate over hers, syncing the pair together, then tossed it to Anya.
"We're linked now. I have a safe house, I'll ping you when I'm there. Take care of my little girl."
"You're not taking her with you?"
"She's safer with you than me!" Drexel said, already moving for the airlock where his own small, stealth-modded ship was docked. "You can't let them get me or any hope of Rebecca living a normal life dies with me!"
Anya ran for the Jolly Steve scooping Becks into her arms. "Frak! Frak! Frak!," she cursed under her breath as the station began to rock, the dull sounds of explosions against the vacuum of space vibrating through the rock.
Anya doubled over to catch her breath as she stepped into the bridge.
"Whoever that is isn't aiming for us," Lena realized. "They're trying to cut off Drexel's escape!"
Anya strapped Becks into her captain's seat, the stepped into the combat theatre, her voice dropping into the confident tone of Valiant Bravo. "Sammi, get us between him and that ghost. Lena, weapons hot. Irwin, I need everything you've got in the shields!"
"Aye, Captain!," came the chorus of affirmatives
The Jolly Steve detached from the station, maneuvering its bulk to shield Drexel’s frantic departure. The sleek black ghost ship was a hornet, zipping around them, its pulse cannons chipping away at their shields as it tried to target the shuttle in the station's launch tube.
"It's too fast!" Sammi grunted, fighting the controls.
"Then we just need to be faster!" Anya yelled. "Irwin, get ready to activate the theatre!"
"Neura-link, ready," Brody chirped from beside Becks.
The circular plate on the floor lit up, and the Neuro-Link flared to life around her, a holographic cocoon of golden light. She felt the ship's systems connect, a familiar tingle in her bones, that set her to hum an ethereal tune.
Her hum became a clear, commanding note, an aria that rose and fell like a flag in the wind. The ship's energy surged in response, the blue ion exhaust of the Steve's engines flaring to a brilliant, overcharged gold. She carved a path across the theater, a sharp, swooping step that sent the massive warship diving in front of the ghost ship, shielding Drexel's vessel at the last possible second.
"She's on our tail! Rolling on your mark!" Sammi yelled.
Anya's pirouette was a blur of crimson and gold, a perfect, elegant spin that ended as she dropped into a low crouch. The Jolly Steve mirrored her, rolling its massive frame onto its side with impossible grace. As Anya rose, thrusting one hand toward the ceiling as if commanding the stars themselves, the ship's ventral thrusters ignited with a roar, slamming them into position directly on the ghost ship's tail.
"Plasma cannons are hot!" Lena shouted.
"Drexel's shuttle is spooling! Three..." Kenji counted down.
"Target locked!"
"Two..."
This was it. Anya's voice rose, joined by the harmonies of her crew, the "Choir" command flooding the system with power. With the final beat of the song, she didn't just spin; she lunged, thrusting both hands forward in a single, percussive motion.
"Firing!"
"One!"
The Steve rocked as the twin cannons fired, blazing gold streams raced out toward the ghost.
"Grav jump completed! He's outta here!," Kenji whooped.
The fighter flared its nose thrusters and rotated on its axis in a punishing full stop, then accelerated directly at the Steve, rolling ninety degrees to slip between the lancing plasma beams and streaked past them, bare meters from the hull.
"No way!", Sammi shouted in disbelief. "That maneuver should have killed the pilot!"
Anya whirled, banking the big ship toward the black ghost.
The ship cut its engines, drifting on inertia alone as it spun toward, pausing for a single, chilling moment, as if considering them, then banked hard and jumped out in flare of gravitic distortion, leaving the crew in stunned, ringing silence.
This was the enemy, Anya thought. The Shades were more than just a cryptic name.
And now, they were after her and her crew.