Read Gamma Nine (Book One) for Free Online

a clipboard as he scanned Christian’s
paralyzed body. He was finally out of surgery and he was not
strapped down anymore, but still he was unable to move. He could
not speak or do anything more than move his eyes, the man knew he
could not because he began to speak as soon as their eyes
met.
    “Ah, awake are
we? Very good then,” he said. “I’m Engineer Walters. You can
address me as Sam Walters, Sam the Engineer or ‘Oi, you with the
wrench!’.” He tapped his tool belt as confirmation. Sam grabbed
hold of Christian’s big toe and shook it as a greeting. “Nice to
meet you,” Sam said, wiping his hand on his overhauls, an utterly
pointless thing to do considering how dirty he was, “Corporal.”
    Pain rocked
Christian’s leg and he bit down a curse, he just watched Sam as he
continued to meander on about his job. He still lay there, unable
to move, as Sam launched into a detailed account of his final
surgery. Sam was odd, tall and thin, like a lost bamboo stalk
separated from the rest of his bamboo family. Glass thicker than
void windows inserted into what seemed to be old welding goggles
covered his eyes. The colour of his eyes just a smudge of green
behind the thickness of his ocular device. A grease-smeared face
and greying black hair completed Sam’s odd outward persona.
    Sam looked like
just another deck engineer, destined to live in the bowels of a
void vessel, forever tinkering and maintaining ship systems. But
Christian knew better, the man at the foot of his bed was the Chief
Engineer of the Titan Project. A genius, that was the only word to
describe him, and now he was attending to Christian personally for
some unknown reason.
    “Why are
you...?” Christian tried to say through his burning throat.
    “Why am I here?
Oh, I thought you were told. You, Corporal Quinn that is, are the
last Titan that will be created during this cycle.” Sam took a deep
breath before he spoke again. “We are unsure if there will be any
more production cycles after this one. You see, our vaults are
empty, our resources dry. Only thirteen could be produced during
this cycle, which means that there was only enough of everything to
create thirteen complete suits and their Operators.”
    Christian
nodded in acknowledgement. Shifting his eyes to the ceiling, there
were no words there in this room. The missing words made him
anxious.
    “During dire
times there is always dire news. The Fateful Moment disappeared,
with all of our Nano systems and power system in its cargo bays for
the next ten cycles, some time ago. Anctinium is in very short
supply, enough to maybe produce a few more Titan suits, but without
the other systems it would just be an empty husk. All of them
worthless without the other pieces of the project puzzle.”
    “When will I be
able to move?” Christian’s throat was on fire with every word he
spoke. Water, he needed water.
    Sam somehow
sensed it. He walked over to the table beside the immobile future
Titan’s bed, producing a cold water pitcher from the cupboard
bellow the table.
    Christian just
swallowed at the sight of the cold fluid inside the pitcher. His
body responded and he instinctively licked his dry lips.
    Sam poured the
mesmerizing liquid into a container that looked like a child’s
drinking cup with twirled straw. He placed the twirled straw
between Christian’s lips. “This cup belonged to the daughter of the
previous occupant of this room, the young lady never made it past
the first surgery. Her heart too weak to handle the trauma caused
to her body,” his voice trailed off as a memory resurfaced. “I
watched her succumb to her wounds. Give me a bleeding and broken
machine and I will fix it without hesitation, but show me a human
in pain and I cry like a little girl.”
    The cold liquid
was nectar from ancient gods, never had machine filtered water
taste so good. Usually it tasted like burnt coffee and underpants,
but now it was up there with the finest and most delicate wines