'Yes, ma'am,' the doctor nodded.
'Wait! What do you want to know?' Kira attempted to stall further.
'Nothing more from you. Without access to the QMT, you haven't been able to contact Earth. My guess is that you are completely isolated and have yet to manage a message to home. Good try, though.'
The doctor held a glass tube up to the side of Kira's head just behind her right earlobe. The tube sealed off with a vacuum hiss against her skin, drawing blood to the surface it attached so harshly. A spring-loaded metal tube within the glass tube crunched through Kira's skull and extracted the bone. Kira screamed in pain and blood poured red into the tube. A little metallic finger snaked itself into the hole in the side of her head and pulled out a small gray object shaped like a sunflower seed.
'Motherfuckers! I'm gonna kill you!' Kira screamed.
The tube hissed, and the AIC popped out into the doctor's hand. He handed it to Ahmi, who then held it between her gloved thumb and forefinger.
'I know how you can grow attached to these things. I'm so sorry for your loss.' She sat the little seed-shaped AI implant on a table in a metal pan and picked up a small hammer lying beside the pan and then smashed the little implant to a thousand pieces.
'What about her?' the doctor asked with an evil grin on his face, reminiscent of a child molester's on a kindergarten playground at recess.
'You can have her,' Ahmi said as she turned and walked out of the sickbay. Scotty looked back at her and turned his head as he followed his fearless leader like a lapdog.
'You know, my sister was a security guard on this ship until this morning. I believe you killed her. I think I should get something to ease the pain of my loss.'
Kira ignored him. Tears and blood oozed down her neck into her hair. The doctor stepped between her legs and leaned over her. His breath smelled of coffee. He leaned in closer and began to fondle Kira's body clinically. He lowered his face to hers and glared into her eyes but she turned away from him as best she could.
'I am so going to fucking kill you,' she whispered.
'Oh, I don't think so. I plan to leave you right here for a long time. Right up until this ship explodes. Believe me. I plan to make you suffer until the last possible minute. My little sister would have wanted it that way.' He held an injector in front of her battered face that was filled with a pink fluid.
'What is that?'
'This, my dear, is pain. Pure, liquid, pain. Enjoy it.' He stuck the needle into her neck and drained the pink stuff into her.
The injection started burning from the instant the needle touched her skin. At first Kira felt a tingling and burning spreading out through her face and then down her body. Her hearing heightened, and she could hear her own heartbeat begin to race as if it would beat out of her chest. Kira tried to shallow and control her breathing, but the burning grew and grew to the point were her body felt like it was being burned from the inside out. She screamed in pain.
'I am so going to fucking kill you!' Kira did her best to put her mind somewhere else but the pain was too great to ignore.
'You can't just destroy Luna City, Elle!'
'Scotty, I can and I will. That is the only way to be sure that the election goes our way.' Ahmi paced back and forth in her cabin. 'Now, that's enough of this.'
'Elle, millions could die from an event like that. It was different when there were millions being saved on Mars, and we always expected that the U.S. would save them, but this is just murder. It's mass murder on the largest scale known to man. For what, just to sway an election!'
'A means to a better end,' Ahmi replied.
'Damnit, Elle—' Scotty was interrupted by the door buzzer.
'Yes?' Elle snapped the door open to face the ship's captain.
'More info on the attack at the facility, General.'
'Yes?'
'It appears as if we have overwhelmed them. The supercarrier has taken several direct hits from the mass driver on the moon. The space and ground forces are outnumbered more than three-to-one and are attritting.' The captain stood still in the doorway awaiting Ahmi's response.
'Good, Maximillian. And the other mass driver?'
'They are too close to it for any useful firing solutions. The crew has been moved to the moon facility for more efficient use of their abilities.'
'The defenses of the base are working as planned. Good.' Elle tugged at her ski mask, adjusting her ponytail in the back. 'We will drop out of QMT and start the immediate recharge of the projector. The hauler and other battle cruisers will protect us until we teleport again. Once the cruiser is in the Earth-Moon sphere of influence, we will evacuate the ship completely. Got it?'
'Understood ma'am.' The captain saluted, and the door closed behind him.
'How long were you going to keep this from me, Elle?' Scotty asked.
'Right up until the last minute. I knew you would get all defiant about it.'
'You know I have family there! Why didn't you warn me about it?'
'Would you have swayed one way or the other?'
