Needles by Mike H. Silverman I heard her crying in the dark. The air was cold, smelled of antiseptic and... something else...unnameable. I'm not sure that I can remember how we came here, it's been such a damned long time. The darkness wasn't total, no... there was a faint breath of softly diffused light, coming from the eyes of the executioner. Yes.. the executioner! Now, now... I can recall something of the madness, behind the pain, ah... behind this pain... mine and hers. The wave started again. I felt the tingle of warning in my nerve endings, the executioner hissed, and the needles slid out. Adrianne shrieked in horror, pain, and I marveled that she had the strength left to gather the breath for it. I'd given up screaming, long ago. The needles, sliding from the executioner, entered at two places in my throat, six places in my chest, two places in my groin. The hissing came again, and all I could do was close my eyes as the pain rattled though every nerve. Like a caring mother, careful and attentive to her infant's every need, the needles fed me the carcogen. Wires from my heart and brain sent feedback to the violet- eyes of the executioner, telling it that we were in sufficient agony to have fulfilled this segment of our criminal sentence. Pain has a way of destroying the soul, while reawakening the memory. Adrianne cried, something low, unbearably melancholy... too weak to be heard. Then, I heard the heartbreaking call for her mother. Why do the bravest of hearts return to the shelter of a mother's arms when in the throws of death? Perhaps it's that last vital memory, that somehow is the same as the first vital memory, that carnal understanding of safety and security... in the mother's hold. Adrianne was young, still only twenty years old, but I'd never known her to be anything but a monumental example of human courage. She knew when I asked her, that the assignment was pure suicide, and there wasn't even a hesitation, not even that heartbeat of a moment when one might envision what the word 'no' might look like. She simply turned, walked to the prep-room, and suited-up for the one-way trip. "M-M-Momma, p-p-please! H-h-help me!", she cried, and I felt worse for her, than for myself... for she was getting the devil's dose of it. The alien magistrate had decided to sentence her to double the dose that I would get, because of her refusal to utter one word during the mockery of a trial we faced. I wanted to talk, to tell her not to give up. But a strangely familiar voice in my head stopped me. Just what was it I didn't want her to give up? Hope? I almost laughed, but the carcogen was in control, and the pain of it wouldn't allow me that luxury. I opened my eyes against the hammers that were playing on my nerves, and my eyes filled with hot tears of pain. I tried to look across the cell, to see her in the dim violet light, but all that came to me was the most vague of impressions. An outline appeared, of the vertical platform she was strapped to, and of her head arched backwards in mortal agony, a thrashing shadow, twisting with the searing flame of carcogen in the bloodstream. A sigh filled the air, and I released a captive breath as the needles slid back into the executioner, and out of our bodies. Adrianne went utterly silent. For a moment... for one hopeful moment, I thought that she had finally died, thus no more to bear horror of the sentence. Death by torture. Death by long, slow, torture, was the sentence. Every hour, by my estimate, the executioner would hiss, and the needles would come out, slide into us, and pump the carcogen through our veins. The carcogen had to be pumped, it had to be forced through the blood in order for its enzymes to activate and tear down the nerves. I couldn't see the executioner clearly, though it hung suspended from cables in the center of the room. It was some sort of machine, wires and tubes running through it, that would automatically deliver and pump the acidic fluid through us. Apparently the Matriarchs, as they called themselves, didn't find our suffering amusing, since they didn't hang around to watch us. The only thing that I had to cling to, in the depths of this fatal nightmare, was the fact that we'd carried out the mission successfully. Adrianne and I had flown a prototype anti-hydrogen-powered SD into the Prime-Womb of the Matriarchs. The SD, or Self-Destruct, was designed to use all of its energy to power its matter-refractors and image-teleporters, then burn itself into perfect annihilation by releasing its supply of anti-hydrogen into the main hold. Of course, anyone in the ship at that time, would also be destroyed. Oh, there'd be no pain...just simple straight-forward annihilation. Fortunately, we ejected into the Prime-Womb exactly as scheduled, thus avoiding that unpleasant circumstance. Our ship's image-teleporters were the main feature, allowing us to go undetected visually by exactly reading and mapping the environment immediately surrounding the ship and teleporting that image over and around the ship, making it look like the very background through which it was passing. The Matriarch's radar couldn't pick up the ship's presence due to the unique matter-refractors that collected and absorbed all colliding signals and teleported them through the ship at the exact angle they struck, making the ship a perfect stealth machine. Once we'd penetrated the Prime-Womb, all we had to do was set the viral into action, and the womb itself was destroyed, causing a major setback to the production of Matriarch soldiers for the war. There was no hope, nor any intent, upon escape. We merely sat there in the withered and dead dome of the Prime-Womb and waited for them to put us in chains. The hiss came again. I felt my nerves scream with horror as the needles slid out of the executioner and into our bodies. The carcogen began its vicious circulation, and pain was all I could focus on for the next fifteen minutes. The world was a black wall of pain, and I had no way of climbing over it. I had hoped to at least be able to retreat into some impenetrable quadrant of my mind, to find some way to ignore the pain, but even this was denied as the carcogen weakened the mental facilities while hyper-sensitizing that part of the brain that recognizes pain. When the barrage was over, I let out a weak sigh of relief. I noted that Adrianne no longer cried out. Thank God for little things, like death. "You fucking bastards.", I muttered with a trembling breath. "Meshuagata! Semhucta Meshugata!" I uttered the curse in their own language. They could speak English, French, Italian, Swahili, Nordic, Plutarian, Menusian... and every other language of every species natural or alien that made a home on the earth... but they thought themselves too highly advanced for us to actually learn their own language. It wasn't easy... their words have no set meaning, but are given their actual meaning only in the inflection of the tone with which they are spoken. The greeting 'Losha' when spoken in a flat monotone, would have no definition, but add the correct high or low pitch to it, and perhaps a fluctuating octave or two.. and it could have any of a dozen different uses as a way of introduction. "God Damn it! Why did she have to be so damned ready to die?", I mourned uselessly for Adrianne. "Shata Cenisdata...Eta.", something responded. Something in the cell, with a low liquid voice that spoke Matriarchian, was answering my rhetorical question. What the hell was in here besides the two of us? Was there another prisoner, one of their own perhaps, who'd been likewise sentenced to death? I tried to focus on other aspects of the cell, but the light was so vague and dim, It was impossible to see more than the grainy outline of Adrianne and the executioner. "Who's in here?", I questioned the darkness. "Tonreta Excapata.", came the same responding voice, only this time I knew where it was coming from. The executioner was responding to my verbal questions. "Can you respond in English?" "Affirmative.", came its low liquid voice. My heart jumped with the unexpected reaction of this death device. Why the hell it was suddenly talking to me wasn't evident, but it gave me something to think about. "Why are you answering me?" "Activation code, entered, affirmed." Activation code? It didn't make sense. I couldn't enter any activation code into it. Hell, I couldn't even move to scratch my own nose. "Repeat the activation code." "Negative." Well, at least I could see that it wasn't about to fully cooperate with a prisoner that it was in the process of executing. "Why won't you repeat the code?" "Code has been changed. 122-2-2771 program 'Menacaata'", it responded with cold liquid rumbling. My only hypothesis was that the code was designed to automatically change once it's been used, as a sort of fail-safe. The hiss of needles came again. As I prepared for another round of torture, I tried a test of this new-found verbal communication. "Stop the execution cycle." The needles slid into me. "Level 1.",it responded. Level 1? I had no time to ponder the odd response as the deafening liquid agony of the carcogen was pumped through me again. I faced the black wall of pain again, looking to the top, trying to see some light... some way out. And there was something that glittered there. The pain finally subsided at the end of the regular torture cycle and the needles slid back into the executioner. I took a long, slowly drawn breath, and let it slide out. It trembled viciously. I didn't know how much more I could take before I'd be like Adrianne. Then I thought about Tammy. I don't know why I'd kept her from my thoughts this long, except that it reminded me of how far away from home I was. I loved her. I loved her so much that it hurt. It's the kind of love you have no second thoughts about, absolutely natural and beautiful. Her eyes, I can see glittering emerald eyes full of tears now, and I felt the tears come to me. I didn't want her to know about this mission, but she found out. It was a long night, full of her pleas and fits and anger... and she had every right to be angry, we'd just been married and had made detailed plans for a family. We were going to have a daughter, she was so certain it would be a girl, and we'd get ourselves a real house, not one of the pre-fabs that the Air-Corps offered to personnel, but a real house. We would have a swimming pool in the back yard... oh yes and a real yard with real grass and flowers. She was a dreamer, and more than a dreamer, she made dreams come true. She made my dream come true when she agreed to be my wife. And then, this, the one-way mission... that I accepted without question. I tried to tell her why. I tried to tell her that all the other officers available were just low-level paper pushers with commissions, just young kids no more than twenty years old who hadn't even had a chance to live yet. "But, we haven't had a chance to live yet either, Corbin.", her voice was bitter... and sad. "What about us?" I tried to convince her that I'd find some way of getting back, but she knew. In the end, I couldn't lie to her. We made love one last time, and I left early... before she woke up. I couldn't bear saying goodbye. And then, when I arrived at the base, the final devastating news. They didn't tell me till the last minute. I had to take a partner on the mission. God-damned bitch General Savoy, had to flex her mighty twenty stars, and demand I take a partner as back-up. I had no choice. I threatened to abort the mission, but the bitch knew me better than that. She knew I'd fulfill my duties, to the letter. And then Adrianne's courageous and silent acceptance of the mission, all in all I felt nothing but hate for General Savoy... Adrianne didn't have to be here. It was days ago. Long, terrifying days. I suddenly snapped out of my memories and focused on the death chamber again. "What is Level 1?", I asked the executioner. "Execution function. Ready." If Level 1 is its execution function, I supposed, then perhaps it had other levels. Of course, trying to force it into some other function could be dangerous. It might self-destruct, it might even double or triple the dosage of carcogen it pumps into me. It didn't matter. If it did triple the dose, at least it would be enough to kill me outright, and that would be the end of it. Either way, death was certain. "Go to Level 2.", I commanded it. "Level 2.", came its cool liquid voice. "Execution function. Ready", it added a moment later. Shit. Apparently that wasn't it. The hiss came again, but, this time there was something different about it. It was a much longer hiss, like a long exasperated sigh... and as the needles slid out, my heart exploded in fear. I could hear the resultant clicks of twenty needles... twice what I was getting punished with. They came and pressed into my flesh. Four went into my neck, twelve into my chest, and four more needles into my groin. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists to brace for the pain, feeling certain that this would be the last time. The whir of the pump started and I felt the acidic liquid being forced into and through my veins. The pain came again, and I stood before that interminable black wall of agony. But, this time the wall seemed a little smaller, and there seemed to be a bright light at the top... not so far away. My body convulsed and writhed under the pain, and I felt what Adrianne had felt... that hopeless searing of the soul, the blotting out of all other thought till all you can think of is the very contours of the pain itself. It seems to be alive, a living breathing apparition of some vaguely human form all covered with needles. My body felt hot and cold and it seemed that my organs wanted to crawl out and escape on their own, and I heard my body crying to me, begging me to stop the pain, and all I could do was shrug and tell it to hold on. Then the hissing sigh came again and the needles slid out. They slipped back into their sheaths on the executioner, and I felt certain that I was dead, but I knew... I knew I was still alive. It took a full ten minutes before I could focus enough to think about the executioner. I'd made a mistake in telling it to go to Level 2, that was fairly obvious. Apparently the levels are a marker for how strong a delivery of dose it gives. I continued to test it. "Go to Level Zero.", I ordered it. "Level Zero.", came its cool liquid voice again. "Execution function. Ready", it continued. I closed my eyes... and gave up on my life. "Execution function. Shutdown in progress.", it suddenly reported. I kept my eyes closed. I wanted to believe that I heard it correctly, but hope was no longer a part of my psyche. "Shutdown in... 4, 3, 2, 1,", the executioner's liquid voice counted off. "Shutdown completed." The was a whir of gears and a gentle hiss. The electronic manacles that had bound my wrists and ankles popped open, and I slid from the vertical platform. My feet hit the floor and I immediately crumpled into a ball of agony. I hadn't realized what the torture had done to my mere ability to stand, but it took several long hard minutes for me to regain my feet beneath me. "Are there any lights in this fucking cell?", I muttered to myself in the gloomy darkness. At this question, large aquamarine-colored lights came up and flooded the deep cell. My eyes went blind for a few moments as they adjusted to the bright glow. The first thing I focused on was Adrianne's crumpled form on the cold tritanium flooring. I couldn't move too quickly yet, my body wouldn't let me, but I made a straight line for her across the cell. She was petite, only five-seven, and light. When I moved to pick her up, my body complained even at this low amount of impact. I struggled to stand her upright... then realized that she was dead... and laid her out face-up on the cold floor. I pressed my hand to the base of her throat, and my ear to her lips. No pulse, no breathing. "Fucking bastards!", I wasn't sure if I was directing my expletive more at the Matriarchs or my base generals. She was only twenty years old. Only twenty years old, and she faced her death better than I would have at that age. I stood and turned with barely controlled rage at the executioner. The monstrosity was a large oval shell suspended from cables and hydraulic pistons in the ceiling. It hung at about eye-level and radiated a soft violet glow from two apertures that resembled eyes... though more likely they were monitors of some kind. From the sides and bottom of its oval, tubes dangled in loops which fed back into itself. Each tube was a different shade of color, each tube containing some form of poison no doubt. I recognized the green tubes... the carcogen. My mind impulsively shivered at the sight of the thick green tubes, their needles hidden in the sheaths at the end of their loops. "You piece of shit. What kind of mind conceived of something like you?", I wondered out loud. After a moment, the executioner responded. "Matriarch One.", came its low liquid response. Matriarch One, the Queen Of The Brood. Every planet had its Nazis. The Matriarchs were the equivalent here. I looked around the cell, which I hadn't seen clearly since I was dragged in. The room was deep, about the size of a football field, and every four feet along opposing walls, a vertical platform presented itself...with wrist and ankle manacles. The ceiling had the vague outline of recessed ovular platforms, stretching the full length of the room, each one containing another executioner no doubt. They could torture hundreds of prisoners at once. I tried to imagine what a room full of screaming writhing base soldiers would sound like, and decided not to think too much about it. There were two doors in the room. I recognized the one we came in through, the large heavy galvanized door, windowless, and probably sound-proof. But at the far end, there was a smaller door, with a window in it. The door had a number, which translated easily. "What's behind door number 117?", I asked the dangling executioner. "Emergency evacuation port, One-hundred seventeen.", came the liquid reply. My heart suddenly kick-started. An emergency evacuation port would have a ship. I stared down at Adrianne. Her shoulder-length black hair was spread out like a fan under her head, her beautiful Asian features were dead to the world. "I need to get this prisoner into the evacuation port." No response from the executioner. I began to get nervous... was it signaling the Matriarchs that the execution had aborted? "Hey!", I waved my arm at it," I need to move the woman you murdered into the evacuation port." "Murder. Willful destruction of innocent life. Definition, a1..section m1... earth reference.", it responded. What the hell was it doing? Reading up on human language? "Yes, damn you... that's correct. Now open the evacuation port. Open door 117, now!" "Invalid reference. Subject described has not been destroyed. Emergency evacuation port can not be opened, subject to evacuation signal." I stared dumbfounded at the alien machine. What did it mean, the subject described has not been destroyed? I looked down at Adrianne. She was dead. Wasn't she? "Elaborate on your last statement.", I ordered it. After a moment of silence its liquid voice came back. "Emergency evacuation port can not be...", "No! No... you piece of shit... not that. Tell me about the subject not having been destroyed.", I demanded. "Subject indicated as victim of murder.", came its reply. "Yes... go on." "Subject is not destroyed." "What do you mean? She's dead! I thought you were programmed to detect that." "Subject is not dead.", came its cold liquid reply. I froze for a moment and tried to reason what it was reporting. Was it malfunctioning? After all, it shouldn't have even responded to me, let alone free me and turn on the lights. I looked down at Adrianne. She was as dead as anyone could be. "How can you report her condition as not dead?", I asked it. "Subject is in suspension.", it replied. Suspension? I had no clue what it meant, but something surged deep inside me... a glimmer of hope, perhaps. "Can you bring the subject out of suspension?" A long moment of silence came. Then a small panel on the executioner slid up, and a scanner beam played out directly at the platform which Adrianne had been clamped to. It seemed to be searching for her. "Subject is not in place.", came its reply, and the panel slid shut with a soft hiss. My heart felt an additional surge of hope. Could the Matriarchs actually bring the dead back to life? I gathered up my strength and pulled Adrianne back on to her platform of torture, and manually locked the clamps around her wrists and ankles. "Bring the subject out of suspension.", I ordered the executioner. The panel on it slid open again, and the beam played out over her body. It scanned the full length of her. A second panel, just below it, also hissed open, and a cutting laser sliced out. The cutting laser delicately stripped the base command uniform shirt, pants, shoes, and undergarments from her, leaving her naked on the hard metal surface. It was now that I saw the extent of the carcogen's damage to the flesh. Her body had welts, small red circles with raised nodules that appeared around each of the locations that the needles had entered. I shivered at the sight. No doubt I had the same markings. Then, the executioner moved. Its hydraulics and cables slid the full shell of the monster over to her at a point just above her platform. There was another hiss as thirty or so needles slid out of their sheaths and were very slowly and deliberately directed by the executioner into her flesh at evenly spaced points across, over, and around her breasts. Then a panel on the bottom of it opened, and the executioner extended what appeared to be a huge white spotlight. It focused this light on her, and then one of the screens on its side began to flicker to life. It showed Adrianne's naked form. Then the large spotlight changed to a crimson color, and her body on the screen was represented as a muscular overview, showing all her tendons and strings of muscle tissue in extreme detail. The light changed to a silvery color, and now Adrianne's screen-form was shown as a resonance image of all her organs and body fluids, all of which were deathly still. There was a long pause here, and then the light changed to a dark color, somewhere between gray and black, and her on-screen image was displayed as a full skeleton, with every bone being examined from every angle. The executioner was mapping her body. It all took perhaps a total of two minutes. Then it hissed, and sighed, and fluids began to feed from the hidden supplies of its interior, and pump into Adrianne's lifeless form. I stared in hypnotic fascination as the tubes pumped with slow deliberate force... all except the carcogen tubes. Those remained inside their sheaths. This went on for about three minutes, and I noted, suddenly, that the ghostly pale color of her cheeks was becoming darker, as if blood was being fed through her vessels. Then the hissing stopped, and the tubes receded from her body and slid back into their various sheaths in the executioner. Nothing else happened. Adrianne didn't move, and though her flesh seemed to maintain the color of life, it didn't respond with breathing motions, or.. when I checked her pulse again.. a heartbeat. "Well?", I queried the executioner. "Is this it?" I should have known better. Death is death. I was about to order it to open the evacuation door, when the large spotlight that was still positioned over her body... exploded. Or, it seemed to explode. It more erupted. A burst of electrical current jumped from it and struck Adrianne square in the chest. This happened two more times, each time the bolt lasting about five seconds. At the end of the fourth shock... Adrianne opened her eyes... and screamed. "God! Oh God help me!", she screamed out across the room. "Open the manacles! Let her go!", I shouted at the executioner. The manacles popped open and she slid down to the floor. I grabbed her by the shoulders and helped her back to her feet, which she seemed not to have much trouble standing on. Her eyes seemed hazy, and her body trembled... but she was alive. The Matriarch technology was as miraculous as it was horrifying. I took the shreds of Adrianne's clothes and draped them over her naked body, arranging them as best I could to cover her. "What.. are we dead?", she asked groggily. "No...", she seemed to answer her own question. "Open the evacuation port door!", I shouted at the executioner. "Emergency evacuation port can not be opened, subject to evacuation signal.", the cold liquid voice hissed. "Start emergency evacuation signal.", I ordered it. "Code.", it responded. Shit. I strained to think of some other way to get the door open. I ran over to it, and pushed on the release bar. No movement resulted. Apparently it was indeed necessary to have the evacuation alarm sound. I peered through the small window. There was a long slide-tube leading out of sight into the floor beyond. I went back to where Adrianne was standing, leaning heavily on the vertical platform. "List the possible automatic triggers of the evacuation signal." I questioned the executioner. "Evacuation. Condition, one... imminent destruction of Womb-Cluster. Condition, two... full shutdown of life-support operations. Condition, three... imminent presence of fatal viral contaminant. Condition, four... direct command from Matriarch One, or immediate subordinate." That was all. Four conditions that would open the door to freedom. There was no way for me to destroy the full Womb-Cluster, short of dropping some eco-thermal warheads on it, which I didn't happen to have at the moment, so the first condition was out. I could try to get to the life-support systems, but I'd have to go through three levels of the lower womb, unarmed, and it was crawling with Matriarch soldiers. I dismissed option two. The third option, however, got me thinking. "Adrianne...", my voice seemed to tremble as I spoke her name, almost as if I was uncertain that she was really alive. I placed a hand on her right shoulder, just to feel the warmth of her body, to reassure myself that this wasn't some kind of dream. She looked at me. She looked tired, and seemed to have trouble focusing her eyes, but she smiled. "Hi Corbin.", she whispered. Then her face took on a startled look. "Sorry, Commander Davis.", she suddenly corrected herself. Officers were not supposed to be referred to except by rank and last name. She was a good soldier, even after death and resurrection. "It's alright, Adrianne.", I smiled at her. "We've both just gotten a reprieve on life, we can drop the formalities." "Do you remember the code for the viral incendiary?", I asked her. She squinted and seemed to be trying to pull the memory out of the ashes. Then her warm chestnut eyes relaxed, and she smiled. "Six -oh niner!", she exclaimed as if having performed a monumental task, and no doubt it was. The viral incendiary had already been set off... having destroyed the Prime-Womb. But its shell was still in the remains of that womb, and it could be activated even with the charge expelled. Perhaps, if I could convince the computer system that the viral incendiary was alive and well, I could get the evacuation mode started. "Adrianne...", She looked at me. "I need the fail-safe.", was all I could say. It was a hidden signal corrector, to be used in the event that we were captured and the bomb was somehow disarmed before it went off. Adrianne's face went flush for a moment, but that was all... just for a moment. Then, without another thought she reached down to her privates and worked her fingers in... and after some moment of extreme discomfort, pulled her fingers out of herself without the device. "I... I can't work it out.", she whispered. She lowered her eyes and swallowed hard. "You'll have to get it." I felt the heat of her embarrassment, but it was only a momentary thing. The moment passed quickly, then her eyes looked up and her lips and gaze became steady. "Ready?", I asked her. She nodded and laid herself down on the cold metal floor with her legs spread. I tried, with all my concentration, not to think of this as anything but a duty and responsibility of my command, but it was difficult. Adrianne had been asked to sacrifice her life, and now was asked to sacrifice her modesty to the extreme, and she did it without question. I focused on that courage, and that kept my thoughts on what they should be, as I gently probed her for the fail-safe. My fingers came to rest on it, and I gently worked at sliding it out. Adrianne gasped involuntarily at several failed attempts, but finally I was able to free it. I made a mental note to put her up for the Medal of Devotion, the highest award any soldier can receive for devotion to duty. "I'm sorry.", I tried to apologize to her for the invasion, but she shook her head. "It's alright.", she said stoically. I was determined to get her out. Even if I had to stay behind to do it. The fail-safe was a tiny transmitter with a single code button. There was only one chance to use it. If I entered the wrong pattern, it would self-destruct by burning its own circuits. The code was 609. I pressed the button six times, and waited for the resulting click. I pressed it and held it for five seconds to indicate a zero. It clicked. I pressed it nine more times, and it clicked again. The viral bomb, or at least the shell of it, was now re-armed. The Matriarchs had never removed it, they'd been afraid to linger more than a few moments in the Prime-Womb until it was fully decontaminated, which it still hasn't been. I turned to the executioner. "There is imminent threat of fatal viral contamination. Alert all stations of the presence of a new viral bomb in the heart of the Prime-Womb." The executioner hissed. Images of scans and reports in Matriarchal dialect flashed on its screen. Suddenly the room went dark, and an underscore of flashing warning lights filled the chamber. "Entcata votrista.", came an automated command. It was an evacuation signal. I grabbed Adrianne's right hand and pulled her toward the now-open emergency evacuation door. "Votsata!", a screamed command came from behind us. The primary doors to the execution chamber were open, and the Matriarch soldiers were flooding in. We were still a good forty feet from the door to freedom. I grabbed Adrianne and pushed her forward ahead of me with such force that she nearly took flight, and her body landed at the slide tube. "Go!", I ordered her. "Go Down! I'll be right behind you!" I wasn't exactly certain of that. I had an idea for stalling the approaching soldiers, and I prayed only for enough time to let Adrianne get locked into the escape ship. I wasn't all that concerned with getting myself out alive. I'd already made peace with God and never expected to get back anyway. The Matriarch soldiers were all females of the species, though they occasionally produced males, when that happened... those were quickly 'eliminated'. I'm not certain how they reproduced, but they seemed to do it just fine without any male. They were carbon-based life though they had long ago merged with machine-life as well, and were half-android. They walked and moved similarly to humans, but they only had fixed-position eyes, those located on the sides of their heads... which required them to turn their heads to see anything positioned above them. I was counting on that. The first two Matriarchs to approach me, raised their shatter-swords, the Matriarch's primary hand-weapon, and prepared to shatter my body with them. "Executioner!", I shouted over the noise of a siren signal. "Go to Level 3. All present are to be executed." There was a hiss from the executioner's shell, followed by a startled cry from four of the soldiers at the back of the room as needles full of carcogen shot into their throats. I managed to duck under the thrust of the Matriarch immediately to my right, but the one to my left brought her shatter-sword down on my shoulder, severing it to the bone as I rolled off the sweep of it. Fortunately she didn't manage to cut my arm off, but it hurt like hell, and I had no way of responding. I turned and ran for the open evacuation port door and closed it behind me. I held the door closed with as much strength as I could muster, while a Matriarch slammed her shatter-sword into it, breaking the glassy material of the window all over my face. It wasn't actually glass, but one piece lodged itself in my left eye, the result of which was immediate blindness in that eye, and a long agonizing scream from my throat. I watched with my good eye as the Matriarch finally pulled the door from my grip and raised her sword to slice me into raw meat, but it never happened. One of the executioner's needles found its way to her and thrust itself into the back of her neck. The Matriarch screamed and fell to the floor in agony. I took the opportunity to get my ass down the slide tube. It was a long one, probably a quarter-mile, and finally dropped me into cushioned pad that lowered me to the waiting platform were the escape ship was. Adrianne was already in the co-pilot's seat and signaled for me to hurry, and as I glanced around, I saw why. The view, forward off the dock, showed the surrounding star clusters of the Matriarch space ship, and the field of vision was thick with their ships. I boarded the escape ship. "You'll have to pilot, Adrianne.", I told her as I clutched my left eye. "I've got a problem, as you can see." Without another word, Adrianne and I switched places and she brought up the power flow to the engines. The Matriarch ships were not altogether different from the Earth base ships, and we'd been briefed extensively on the designs of captured vessels. We managed to slip without incident, right through the morass of circling Matriarchs and head out to deep space. I put my head back and closed my right eye. I thought about Tammy. It'd sure be one hell of a nice surprise to see her again. Michael H. Silverman (c)1997 72270,1317 All Rights Reserved.