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  Chapter 9 Upgrades

  Jasper blinked and blinked again, and tried to make sense of the world around him. He was dimly aware of Jackson unplugging a number of cables, disconnecting him from the operating table. He sat up and slid himself off the table. He reached out and clutched the edge of it to steady himself, standing unsteadily on his feet.

  “Don't worry it’s a normal reaction.” Jackson said almost absent mindedly as he continued tidying up. “It takes a while to adjust to the new sensory input just try and focus on the here and now.”

  He picked up a pad and looked at it, tried to bring it into focus. At one level he was aware of the sub-atomic particles that made up the materials from which it was constructed. At another we was aware of individual bits and bytes that made up its core memory. The pulsing currents that carried information around it. He de-constructed it and rebuilt it again level by level, until it resolved itself into the pad he knew and he could read the information off the screen in front of him.

  “I'm impressed, Jasper you learn fast.”

  He studied Jackson. A few hours ago he would have sneered at the comment, assuming that this weak, fat, balding man was being sarcastic and treat him accordingly. Now a whole range of biometric readings, to which he was privy merely by looking at him, told him the sentiment was genuine. He felt a sharp pain shoot through his head and he clutched it in his hands.

  “Sensory overload, don't try and take in too much at once, acclimatize yourself one level at a time.” said Jackson placing a spay injector against his neck and squeezing the trigger. “There I've damped down the sensitivity of your neural receptors for a bit that should help you adjust.”

  Jasper laughed. “You’re the first person to ever accuse me of being over-sensitive. How would you and your team like to join my crew when we're finished here?”

  “We've already packed. We designed the R&D facilities on the Fury. It’s an evolving vessel, it learns from previous engagements, absorbs and incorporates new technology. We have a great future ahead of us Jasper, we're going to strike fear into the heart of the galaxy.”

  Jasper patted him on the back. “You know Jackson your right, I guess I misjudged you.” he was careful to shield his thoughts as he made a metal note to tell Alice to keep a close eye on him.

  By the time the lift had delivered them back to the surface and the remains of the refinery, he already brought himself up to speed on all the latest troop deployments, the status of the incoming fleet, reviewed the crew compliment of the Fury, reassigned various crew members, appointed his commanding officers and reconfigured its bridge crew to suit his own personal requirements. He found himself wishing the pad he was holding could update its display fast enough to keep up with the speed reading abilities of his newly upgraded eye. He wondered what he would truly be capable of when he'd fully acclimatised and no longer needed to dampen his abilities with Jacksons drugs.

  As the doors opened and he and Jackson steeped out he tossed the pad to Wilkes. “We've got ourselves a new ship a planet killer class dreadnought, Fury. Wilkes as First Officer I'm making you responsible for crew assignments, you'll find the details on the pad. I want all the crew reassignments completed within 24 hours. Get to it.”

  “Yes sir.” Wilkes turned away and began to scroll through the pad issuing orders, unable to comprehend how he'd manage to assemble the assignments so quickly.

  He turned to Alice. “And as for you as of now you’re part of my command team, I'm putting you in charge of intelligence.“

  “Yes sir!” said Alice snapping to attention and saluting with a broad smile on her face as she shot a side-long glance at a scowling Wilkes.

  “Temper, temper Wilkes.” he said without turning round. “And you can gloat later, I need you to liaise with Jackson here to secure the safe relocation of his research team to the Fury when it gets here. We're taking what Malstrom really wants from this miserable rock by any means necessary and then we're going to frag whatever and whoever's left when we've finished.”

  Alice nodded and turned her attention to Jackson.

  Jackson smiled to himself as he finalised the details of his teams transfer to the Fury. In reality everything and everyone apart from himself and his precious Angel-1 data core was disposable, but they didn't need to know that. The main thing was to play the game, to ensure that whatever happened that he and his research survived. If Malstrom fell, he had no intention of falling with it and seeing his research taken by a rival. According to the secret simulations he's run on Henderson's strategic goals Malstrom at best had a fifty/fifty chance of survival. While Jasper and Fury in most circumstances gave him at least a seventy-five percent probability of an out, in the most powerful ship in the known galaxy, and kept his precious research intact. True Jasper was little more than an animal, but one he could control, or so he thought as he fingered the small spay injector in his pocket. He'd need to update the simulations to take account of new factors such as Alice of course, but didn't anticipate any dramatic changes in the odds.

  Jasper could feel the people around him staring at him, wondering what had happened in the research facility. He sensed their fear it was so palpable he could taste it. He looked around the room and examined their biometrics. They wore their fear like an aura as he looked at them. A hazy grey-blue halo, that grew darker as he focused on each one in turn. He revelled in the power it gave him and focused on Briggs to see how much he could deduce in his dampened state. Briggs went about his work trying not to let Jaspers gaze burning into his back faze him. The aura of fear around him growing darker by the second. He could see from his peripheral vision that the rest of the troopers were giving Briggs a wide berth as if to avoid contamination by getting too close to him. He drew his pistol and saw the halos change suffused with a dark red tinge as muscles tensed and people instinctively prepared for fight or flight. He squeezed the trigger and as Briggs turned around fired several shots into his chest. He watched the colour of his aura change as he fell to the floor writhing in agony. The grey-blue halo shot through with spikes of red and yellow pain. As the dying man’s convulsions slowed and eventually ceased the colours drained away leaving him enveloped in a black cloud of death which vanished in a puff of smoke visible only to him. He wondered if your life really flashed before your eyes when you died and if in time he would be able to see and absorb this as well when he took a life.

  Suddenly he realised everyone had stopped and was looking at him. He snapped out his private reverie and addressed them all. “He was a traitor and if anyone else here is thinking of joining the Brethren, they'll meet the same fate.” As he holstered his pistol, and they resumed their duties, he motioned to a couple of grunts to take the body away.