Savage Stars

by Randolph Lalonde

  Her gaze kept on wandering back to the control versions of Aspen and Larken, looking perfectly at rest as they lay facing each other on a white bed in a white room. It was an image she was sure she'd never forget. With a shake of her head, she decided she had to get away from it, and to hurry things along. If she wanted to investigate before taking real action, she had to hurry. The raiders were coming. "Can you two handle things up here?" she asked Sophia and Spencer.

  "Absolutely, we know these systems," Sophia said.

  "There are nineteen of our synthetic brothers and sisters ready to be born. All of them have the knowledge and skills we put together so they should be ready to go a few seconds after they wake up," Spencer added. "Should I start waking them up?"

  "That's what we're here for," Spin said with a smile. "How long do you think it'll take?"

  "Each wake cycle takes about three minutes, and we have to do one at a time because the system can't handle more," Sophia said. "I'll start the first one."

  "All right. Are you sure there's no way to make it go faster?"

  "I'm sure."

  Spin was happy to leave the control room behind as she walked down the stairs. She was stopped half way down as the production floor lights came on. There were racks of maturation and fabrication pods along the ceiling, against the walls, and control stations on pillars between rows of even more pods on tracks. "There have to be hundreds here," Spin said.

  "You don't want to open any but the nineteen that are viable," Sophia said through her communicator. "When things got unstable on the station, the development of unfinished synthetics was halted. What's in most of the pods is either not ready, or long dead."

  "But this place could get cleaned out and new production could begin?" Spin asked.

  "You're asking if those raiders could run this place and make their own dolls?" Spencer asked.

  "Right."

  "Yes, easily. If they don't try to design their own models, then they can just keep producing run after run of any of the five hundred or so doll models that were made in this facility in the last thirty years. If they use patterns stored in memory from other facilities, then they'd have access to thousands of models, some of them are even military."

  "Is there a list of facilities in the computer here?" Spin asked.

  "I'm making a copy and deleting the original now," Sophia said.

  "Can you wipe the whole system? I don't want anyone to take this place over."

  "We could re-crystalize all the drives, even the backups. It's the best delete there is," Ashley said as she approached the stairs. "Sorry, I overheard you. I was one of the coders for the station. That was my job while I sat around being observed." She spoke with a lisp that robbed some of her words of their seriousness.

  "Okay, how long would that take?" Spin asked, pulling a pair of tightly rolled vacsuits out of the pouch on her back then resealing her armour. "Oh, and put these on," she said, handing one to her then to Kline.

  "Oh, thanks," Ashley said, accepting the suit and unrolling it. "Making the program would take a couple minutes, then the drives would take about five or six to recrystallize. All they'd have is the backup operating system then, no records, no other software. Even the backups would be blank."

  "Why would the people running this place trust you to work on their software if they knew you could wipe it out whenever you wanted?" Dori asked.

  "We couldn't delete or access anything sensitive from our containment, genius," Kline said, yawning. "There were safeguards. Let us into the main control room and we can get into everything, delete everything. I can't believe I have to explain this. Are you qualified to rescue anyone?"

  "Kline, be nice," Ashley said, shooting him an irritated look.

  He shrugged and started undoing his jumpsuit so he could change into the vacsuit. "Better get up there and start programming. You were always faster than me."

  "You can put those on over your clothes," Spin said as Kline was about to drop his suit entirely.

  "Oh, guess I could do that. Why am I changing?"

  "There are life saving features in that suit, and it'll connect you to our secure communications network," Dori explained. "Genius."

  Kline nodded with a smirk. "I think I like this one."

  "We have someone or something trying to cut through the main doors at the other end of the production floor," Boro said, highlighting a warning on Spin's tactical map.

  The same activity warning appeared for the doors they came through. "We've got them coming in from behind too, and it says they'll be through in five minutes," Aldo said.

  "How? What the hell are they using?" Boro asked.

  "It doesn't matter," Spin said, thinking quickly as she looked over the broader blueprints of the station. There were only two ways in or out of the core of the facility, and the Dasians were burning through both doors. "We need to buy time," she said under her breath. Boro was at her side then, Dori was in front of her.

  "We're reading whole squads of those buggers trying to break in," Frost told her through her connection with the Sector Jumper. "Twenty-eight Dasians on one side, and thirty-five coming from the other."

  "Can we take the whole pods with the dolls inside?" Spin asked.

  "These pods aren't portable. They're made for production, they need to be connected to the station for power and system maintenance," Spence said as he rushed down the stairs. "I need one of those suits, the first one will be out in a minute."

  Boro gave him two, and Spin knew what he was thinking right away. If Spencer got the inference, he didn't show it. "We only have time to wake two of them up," Spin said.

  "What about leaving them in stasis or whatever and pulling them out asleep?" Hal asked from the pilot's seat aboard the Sector Jumper.

  "That's a great idea," Ashley said over the communicator. "Gosh, that's a clear comm signal. Anyway, it won't work. They'll die because they're all set to be awakened, the drugs that we'd need to use to keep them under would conflict. We're only going to get two, aren't we?"

  "That's if we don't get slagged in the firefight," Dori said.

  Spin was watching over her shoulder as Spence and Aldo helped a barely conscious female doll step out of her tube and straight into a glossy grey vacsuit. Her eyes were wide, excited, as she followed their instructions without questioning. "There has to be another way out of here," Spin said, looking around. Her scanners followed her eye line and locked onto a round mechanical door with thick iris blades in the middle of the ceiling. "There, what's that?"

  "That leads to a secure hangar above where ships pick up deliveries," Sophia said. "I didn't mention it because it only opens from the inside. I didn't think we'd need it."

  "I see it," Hal said. "If someone opens the outer door, I can get there, but you won't have any cover out here. There are more raiders coming into the system. There's a whole armada of ships I've never seen before coming this way. Says they're Carthan, but they definitely have new hardware."

  "We're out of time, folks," Frost reinforced.

  The main door only metres away from Spin was turning red. "How is that second doll coming along?"

  "Another minute and a half," Sophia said.

  "I'm getting ready to catch him," Spencer said from where he stood in front of a pod.

  Spin's tactical system said they had two minutes and thirty-five seconds before their enemies broke through the nearest door, two minutes and ten before the opposite door was burned through.

  "We can't save them all every time," Boro said on a private channel.

  Spin looked at the men and women who were waiting to be born. They rested in their pods, ready and innocent in the front row. Spencer and Sophia didn't choose which ones to wake and take based on any specific criteria, she guessed. They woke the one nearest to the door, and they were working on the second nearest. They expected to get them all, and Spin felt an ache in her chest at the very real notion that they wouldn't. It took an incredible amount of destructive force to destroy on
e small group of Dasians, and her tactical display was showing her that forty-two were about to come through the nearest doorway. They were spaced out evenly in a double line, each standing a metre behind each other.

  "We would be massacred if we took cover and tried to hold them off. Those pods are exposed, so we wouldn't save anyone either," Spin said to everyone. "As soon as the second pod opens, euthanize the rest of the dolls then recrystallize the drives. Wipe everything."

  "We need to save them!" Sophia said.

  "I don't want to leave any of them behind, but we're going to have to live with the four rescues we can make," Spin said. "Dori, Aldo, make sure that delivery hatch opens. Do it now."

  "I don't want to admit it, but she's right, Sophia," Ashley said. "I hate it, but she's right."

  "We're ready to wipe the drives," Kline said. "And I've got a dose loaded for all the dolls we're leaving behind that'll put them out for good. They won't feel anything."

  "I don't want them to become slaves," Spencer said. "If this is the only way we can save most of them, then…"

  "No! You are warriors! What are all those guns good for if you can't save your own people, Aspen!" Sophia protested.

  Spin cringed at the sound of her old name and being called out for being as useless as she felt. "Aspen may have planted her feet and died here, but I'm taking the good we can do and getting out of here before nothing we've done here matters."

  "What if we surrendered? Maybe we could bring everyone out of stasis if we make peace."

  "Become slaves?" Spin asked, surprised the option was even on Sophia's mind. "What was the point of the failsafe you designed? What if they don't accept our surrender?"

  "Slavery is better than death, and you were able to get away from the Countess, so you could help us escape these people," Sophia countered.

  "No, we're going," Spin said. "I'm sorry, but surrender isn't an option."

  "Oh, I like her," Kline said.

  "The hangar bay door is open, friendly ship," Ashley said.

  "I see it," Hal said. "I'll cover you from outside until the last moment, then swoop inside and pick you up. Oh, and she's called the Sector Jumper, or Jumper for short."

  "The second doll is getting dressed now," Spencer said. "We have to go, Soph. We'll make up for this someday."

  "Dosing the rest of the dolls, go ahead and recrystallize the drives," Kline said.

  "Good night, I wish you could have come with us," Ashley said, her voice heavy with sadness. "Opening the hatch so we can run. The drives are recrystallized and blank."

  "The hatch is open, cool force field tech here too, no need for an airlock," Dori said from where she hovered in the middle of the ceiling.

  "Everyone go," Spin said, looking at the door, her rifle pointed at it. Red hot pieces of the door were starting to fall off, the Dasians were almost in. An urge to look to her right, where she could see the soft yellow light in each of the pods going out as the dolls died, struck her and she ignored it. Instead she pulled a handful of grenades out of her thigh pouch, set them to explode the moment someone passed within half a metre of them, and tossed them in front of the door.

  Boro tapped her on the shoulder. "We're the last to go," he said, pulling a fistful of small finger sized grenades out.

  Spin nodded and affixed one of her hands to Spence's back, the other to the doll who was in his vacsuit, but still getting his bearings, looking around nervously. "Welcome to the universe, we're going to fly now," she told him. She activated the barrier thrusters hidden under the slats of her armour, flying up to the ceiling and towards the exit. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Boro drop all his grenades on the control room stairs. They converted to mines, cloaking and waiting for someone to step near one.

  "In position," Hal said, and Spin could see the lower airlock of the Sector Jumper line up with the ceiling hatch. "There are fighters nosing around, probably wondering where we went. Our cloaking hasn't been super effective because we've been doing so much shooting."

  The first rounds from the Dasians were coming towards them, scorching the ceiling around them. An occasional round struck their shields, but they didn't hit enough to drain more than ten percent of their energy. Not so far, at least. Everyone not in heavy armour was aboard before the raiders had a chance to take a shot at them. The group coming through the far doors were firing wildly across hundreds of metres, between the pods.

  Dori, Boro and Aldo fired a full burst of their rifles heaviest explosive rounds at the far door, blasting the first few to recklessly take shots at them. Most of the Dasians rushed for cover, and they took the opportunity to get aboard the Sector Jumper.

  Spin had a chance to see the other group of raiders enter through the doors she booby trapped. The grenades went off two and three at a time, pushing the Dasian's back, if only for a few moments. One was flung into the pods, his body shredded on one side, screaming, the stump where his shin was once attached sending jets of blood across the floor. She felt strangely detached for a moment as she looked at his face. Kort looked so much like him, and she wondered if that was the logic behind all the modifications the Countess' consort made to himself. Did he want to be Dasian? A cold realization settled on her then. She would kill him. It wasn't a goal. It was something she knew. She would find Kort and murder him. For what he did to Boro, but mostly for being a slaver. She would end him and use his resources to free the slaves he kept for the Countess. It would be the beginning of her former master's ruin and how she'd find and turn any synthetic who wanted freedom against people like Kort and the Countess.

  Spin zeroed in on the cracked helmet of the Dasian who held his stump as it began regenerating and blasted it with full burst, leaving steaming meat behind. "I hate these Dasians," as she moved up into the Sector Jumper. "Get us out of here and cloak, please."

  "Yes, Ma'am," Hal replied.

  The lower hatch of the Sector Jumper's airlock closed, and Spin dropped into the nearest boarding crew seat heavily. She lowered her head and let the sound of Sophia weeping fill her ears.

  Fifty

  "What the fuck was so important that you had to leave us on our own?" Boro asked Shamus as he entered the bridge. "You could have bought us time, maybe enough to save all those people, instead you let those things,”

  "Dasians," Hal specified over his shoulder.

  "…whatever! Surround us, and we barely got out with our lives."

  "You got five," Shamus replied, turning in the captain's seat.

  "Four! You can't even be bothered to pay attention!"

  "Listen," Frost said in a harsh whisper, looking to make sure that the door was closed behind his brother. "They're glorified clones. Your girlfriend got her cure, this was just a victory lap. A bloody dangerous one, but nothing you should give a shit about. What do you care if a bunch of fake humans get out into the galaxy?"

  "There it is, that old talent you have for simplifying everything until you can justify whatever you've done to fuck friends and family over. You think you've changed, but you've just gotten better at getting what you want without ruffling feathers. When it comes down to it, you will always choose the loot over your people."

  "You have no idea how wrong that is, especially these days."

  "Okay, prove it. What was so important that you had to leave our backs open?" Boro asked.

  "It's a long explanation," Frost warned.

  "Boil it down for me," Boro growled.

  "We all right for now, Hal?" Frost asked.

  "Right as rain. Parking while we regenerate a few hull plates and replenish our auxiliary power. This old colony mover is a perfectly good hiding spot," Hal replied. "Time for something salty to chomp and sweet to drink."

  "All right," Frost said, clearing his throat. "There's this organization called Citadel, they're new allies to the Order of Eden, the big enemy where I come from."

  "I've heard of them. They were a doomsday cult who said you could pay your way out of some kinda doomsday. If I kn
ew that meant mad bots tearing you up, I might have paid the fee."

  "Right, they've gotten bigger. Anyhow, Citadel says they're from Earth, and who knows, maybe they really are, but they're not here to shake hands and make friends. They sent a ship into the Haven System on a suicide mission and turned a partially terraformed planet into a toxic fireball to make an example, to warn us to back down. That was how most of Haven's people were introduced to them. Now we don't even know how many ships are out there in neighbouring systems, and as far as the Fleet can tell every one of them has a Geist, a synthetic thing that mentally connects to the crew and can feel through space for people. Cloaking is useless against them. I wondered if that was connected to this system but kept it to myself because I've seen some weird coincidences in my time. Then I saw one of their ships, a big one, a combat carrier, headed right for the planet down there and I knew I had to slip through the shield. We found a cove and a facility there, and I might be getting my hopes up, but it might be where they breed, or make these Geists. I don’t know for sure, but our scans are good enough for the Fleet experts to find out. This could save millions of lives, hundreds of millions just by giving Citadel a good reason to pull out of the war."

  "All right, I get that you were after something important, but no one on that station is part of your fleet, and we sacrificed for your cause. If it's as important as you say, then I'm glad you'll get the data back to your people, but I know you're thinking about the glory, Shamus."

  "It'll justify this trip to the Fleet and give me a little clout so I can get you and Nigel set up once we get there, sure," Shamus said. "But that wasn't why I did it, just a fringe benefit."

  Spin walked onto the bridge with Ashley and Spencer in tow. Ashley had a canister of Citrus Blast in one hand, and a bag of Peanut Puffs in the other. Boro almost grinned at his brother's reaction to seeing Spin, who ignored him as she took a seat at the science station. He looked guilty, guarded, and Boro wondered if he even realized it. Then he saw Ashley and his jaw dropped. All those defensive reactions turned to shock.