The Final Project

Posted on Wed 31st Aug, 2022 @ 12:52am by

620 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: The Hunted
Location: Oblivion
Timeline: MD 4, 11:10

Adrian Dobbs knew that he was dead when the ventilation cut off. The decommissioned Klingon D4 -- its warp nacelles long gone, its matter-antimatter reactor cold and dormant -- ran on fusion power, and Dobbs knew that there was enough deuterium and tritium in the vessel's slush tanks to run the quarter-sun fusion reactor for decades yet. So when the ventilation groaned to a stop and the lights went out, Dobbs knew his time had run out.

There was, however, no point in simply accepting his death as inevitable. He opened the box on his desk which contained a few last-hour items. A light beacon was slipped over his head. Yes; it would illustrate to a hunter where his head was, but he doubted any hunter his sponsors... his former sponsors... sent would need the assistance. And Dobbs did need the light, needed it where he was looking. The phaser was only a type 1, and a hundred years old at that, but against anything but latest generation heavy infantry combat armor, that would be plenty. He glanced at it, verifying a full charge.

Dobbs kicked off his boots, walked to the office's door. With the power out, it stayed closed, but it took only a moment to find the manual release and pull it open. He glanced left, then right, stepped out, his feet quiet on the threadbare carpet. A quiet voice spoke from the darkness behind him, within the office. "It is traditional for one of my order to ask you to choose to live. But that choice is no longer open to you, Adrian." He tried to turn, tried to bring the phaser to bear, but there was cold, and pain, and he was looking down at his severed arm lying on the floor.

"Do not dispair," the assassin said. "We will still be able to reason together." She took his legs, and then leaned over him, revealing herself to be a Romulan, or perhaps a Vulcan, a short-bladed single edge sword in one hand; in the other, she held what appeared to be a Starfleet issue hypospray. "Do you know what this is?"

"No," Dobbs said, horror in his voice.

"Yes," the assassin answered. "Your very first invention... only you didn't invent it, did you, Adrian. Like everything else, you stole it from someone else, turned it to your own dirty purpose." She laid the injector beside his throat, pressed the control. A slight hiss sounded, and Dobbs felt fire in his veins.

"Noooooo!" he screamed, feeling the cold of hypovolema stealing in, feeling the fire of the nanomachines in his head, carried directly there by his carotid artery.

The assassin sheathed her sword and released a bag from her back. She took a box from it, set it above Dobbs' head, turned it on. "This is what you did to test subjects, back at the beginning. Connected them to computers. Took their individuality from them. Took their knowledge and skills. And now? It's your turn." The machine extruded arms... tentacles, really... which aligned themselves with Dobbs' skull and stuck on, then bored in. "Everything you know, everything you can do, distilled down and made accessible, without the inconvenient ego and personality. So do not despair, Adrian Dobbs. You have failed profoundly and frequently, but it will not go to waste. Not... entirely."

The world was narrowing in for Dobbs, or maybe the beacon he'd strapped to his forehead was going dark. There were so many things he'd wanted to do, so many experiments he wanted to carry out. He tried to protest, but the words were gone, already drained from his memory.

With a sigh, Adrian Dobbs died.

 

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