by C. Gockel
6T9 blinked. These were Volka’s people.
“Of course, sir,” one replied in dulcet tones that nonetheless made Davies jump. “Please follow me.”
Davies fell into step behind it. Other Guardsmen followed him.
6T9’s circuits sparked. The Luddecceans could handle this without him. To the scrap heap with his coding issues. He could go back to Volka; he’d just find a way not to be near Darmadi until he recovered. Static danced beneath his skin, and he frowned… Volka was wrong, though. The captain would stay in the Republic. Even without the lure of Volka, he’d be able to move from combat to research—he was the only expert the Republic had on Luddeccean gate-less ships. With the lure of that and Volka...
Gate 5’s thoughts erupted over the ether. “There is a riot by the main entrance to quarantine!” A scene of a mob played before 6T9’s eyes. A half-dozen police in riot gear were barely holding back a throng of people, too numerous to count. A bottle soared above the police’s heads, and shards of glass sprayed down. The police ducked, and the mob surged.
6T9 snapped from his reverie. To have Volka, he still had to save the gate.
To Ko, he said, “We are needed now.” In his mental image, a police officer went down, disappearing into the mob as though pulled by undertow into an unruly sea. Breaking into a jog, 6T9 commanded, “Time Gate 5, change of plans. Send all sex ‘bots to the quarantine airlock. Order them to restrain any of the attackers!”
Doors opened before them, revealing a wide stairway. 6T9 jumped down steps three at a time. Luddeccean boots thudded after him.
Panting a half-step behind, Ko commanded, “Visors down!”
6T9 reached a double door that slid open at his approach. Angry voices roared into the stairway, and 6T9 stared into a seething mass of humans. There were security ‘bots sparking on the floor, barely noticed by unruly civilians.
“Infected have broken through!” Ko gasped at 6T9’s shoulder, lifting a pistol. “Prepare phasers.”
6T9 caught his arm. “No!”
A weere panted at Ko’s shoulders. “Those people aren’t Infected!”
Ko looked at 6T9, his face writ with anger and confusion.
Dropping his hand, 6T9 pulled out a stunner. “Those are civilians trying to break into quarantine.”
One of the civilian attackers turned to face them. “Who are you?”
“He is Android General 1!” a downed security ‘bot replied.
“You’re the one that instituted the quarantine!” the man shouted. A few of the mob broke off and charged 6T9 with a roar. Firing his stunner, 6T9 cursed, elbowed a man in the head, fired again, and cursed again. Luddeccean Guardsmen raised their own stunners and fired past his shoulders.
Nebulas, Galacticans against Luddecceans, and he was on the Luddeccean team. If he thought about it too much, he’d probably overheat his processors and have to shut down. Instead, he kept firing.
4
Luddeccean Offline
Galactic Republic: Time Gate 1
Alaric wished they’d turn out the lights. He wanted to sleep. Every time he came close to consciousness, he burned from the inside out. If it weren’t for the light—and the reek of disinfectant—he’d think he was dead, innards being devoured by maggots …
There was a prick on his arm, and the light disappeared … so did consciousness, the ground beneath him swallowing him whole.
The light came back. He fought it, wanting to return to sleep that was as deep as the grave. And then he remembered the urgency with which he’d wanted to live, but not why. The urgency came back, a chilling dread that made him force his eyes open. For a disorientating moment he didn’t know where he was. He was in a room painted ptery-shell blue, under crisp white linens. It smelled faintly of disinfectant, and machines were humming nearby. There was a window to his left. It could be anywhere … but something was wrong with the light from the window; it was too bright, like a floodlight. He carefully rolled his head left—and half rose in shock. The small movement sent pain lancing from his abdomen and back, and he froze, afraid to fall back or go forward.
“Easy, lie back down,” a man commanded.
Alaric did and was surprised it didn’t hurt.
“You’re still being sewn back together on the inside. It shouldn’t hurt too bad, unless you put stress on your torso.”
Alaric remembered … He’d been punctured by shrapnel. He remembered dying. Death hadn’t been so bad. He’d been semi-conscious—but not in pain. Volka had been there for the final desperate firings of his neurons. She’d held his hand and begged him not to leave. He’d been prepared to disobey her, to drift off into the final oblivion with her next to him. But then he had remembered he had to live.
“Nice sunrise,” the man said. “You’ve got the best view on the station.”
Gazing out the window, Alaric pieced together that he was on Time Gate 1, the gate above Earth in Sol System. At the moment, the station’s rotation had it facing Earth’s horizon, and the sun was just coming into view. The light was unfiltered by atmosphere and was stronger than sunlight planetside. Or stronger than what Alaric would expect sunlight to be on Earth. He hadn’t been allowed to visit humankind’s cradle during Alexis’s recovery.
“Are you comfortable?” the man asked.
Alaric’s eyes slid to the speaker. The man wore the pale scrubs that doctors wore here and looked every inch like a Galactican. It wasn’t just the neural port in the side of his head—he was tall, didn’t have any scars or blemishes, his teeth were brilliant white and perfectly straight, and his features were so symmetrical it was jarring. The man could be Alaric’s age, but this was the Galactic Republic, and he might be a century older.
Tapping his port, the man said, “I’m not detecting any pain, but we couldn’t hardlink with you.” Reaching down, he took Alaric’s arm just below the elbow and grumbled, “We’ve got this external sensor, but I don’t trust these things. How do you feel?”
“I’m not in pain.” And his head felt remarkably clear. Alaric glanced down, and his eyes widened. The “external sensor” was a shiny, black plastic band that appeared to be merged with his body.
“It’s embedded in your skin,” the doctor explained. “Connected to your lymph nodes, nerves, and blood vessels. It communicates with the nanos doing their job in your gut and other places—and it connects to us, of course.” The man tapped his temple.
Alaric flexed his hand. He couldn’t feel the device. If he hadn’t seen it, he would not have known it was there. “Will you be extracting it?” He knew the Guard’s doctors would if the Republic’s did not, and he’d be looking forward to a painful skin graft.
“We will,” the man replied.
Alaric exhaled.
“But not all the nanos in you will be coming with it.” Alaric looked up at him in alarm.
He gave Alaric a grim smile. “We don’t know anything about your gate-less drives. There was the potential that you’d been exposed to toxic chemicals and extreme amounts of radiation when your ship blew. We gave you the standard scrubbers.” Alaric knew what that meant—nanos were now part of his cells. They would hunt down and destroy dangerous mutations and stabilize his telomeres, his cells’ time clocks. He’d age slowly.
The doctor’s eyebrow rose. “Congratulations, you may live as long as your wife. Doubt your government will give you as much trouble about going home.”
Luddeccea wouldn’t let Alaric escape that easily. He knew too much and was too valuable. “No.” Alaric heard his response as though it had been spoken by someone else. That person sounded vaguely disappointed.
He immediately felt guilty. Sam, Lucas, and Markus depended on him. His parents would be frantic. They probably were frantic already. He rubbed his eyes. Would they be told he was alive and in the Republic, or would the Guard hide that detail? Maybe they didn’t even know he’d been injured.
His crew would know. God, were they all right? Were they holding Time Gate 5, or had it already been overrun, and was the
doctor keeping the news from him so he didn’t panic? Aboard Time Gate 5 was a Luddeccean spy with a member of The One. If Alaric could communicate with him through Solomon ... He swallowed. But he didn’t have Solomon. Solomon had given his body to save Alaric and defend the Galaxy from the Dark. Was Solomon safe? Had he found a new host? Could The One be lost if they couldn’t find a host fast enough?
He huffed and reminded himself that “Next life, Hatchling” had been Solomon’s final words. Solomon was hundreds—maybe thousands—of years old. He’d hopped bodies many times before. He’d find Alaric again.
Alaric dropped his hands from his eyes. He should be worried about his wife. Things had been better between them before he left. Or seemed to have been, until the moment of goodbye. She hadn’t said, “Come home on your shield or not at all” aloud, but everything else about her had.
Volka’s eyes had been so soft when she’d leaned over him aboard her strange ship. His brow furrowed. He had a blurry memory warped by pain of her ... ordering ... no, that wasn’t right ... compelling ... doctors to look after him. Volka did not give orders. There was something about that memory, something that his mind slid over as though his feet were slipping on rocks in a fast-moving stream. Maybe it was just he’d been in agony at that moment. Maybe it was just that he missed her.
There was a whoosh from his right, a rush of air, and Volka’s familiar footsteps, as though his thoughts had summoned her. “Oh, I’m sorry, Doctor Bak. Carl thought I could come in. I’ll just go—”
Alaric sat up and pain lanced through him. Falling back into the mattress, he was too out of breath to say, Don’t go.
Don’t go. Volka wasn’t sure if she’d heard it or felt it from Alaric. Her ears flicked. She had slept last night; she wasn’t supposed to be telepathic now.
“Oh, you’re fine,” Doctor Bak said. “No need to leave.”
Turning back around, he scolded Alaric. “You need to stay flat on your back for another four hours. The pain is there to make sure that you do.”
Shifting the bag on her shoulders, Volka stared at the back of the doctor’s head. She didn’t receive visions of what would happen if Alaric got up and walked. She felt nothing from the doctor, although he seemed genuinely cheerful. She sniffed the air. He definitely didn’t smell like adrenaline or fear that she would expect if he was being duplicitous.
“After that, you’ll be able to get up and walk,” the doctor said, and Volka nearly rolled back on her feet, overcome by shock that started in her stomach and flew outward like a swarm of tiny pterys.
“Only four hours?” Alaric whispered.
Volka gulped. It wasn’t her shock. It was Alaric’s. As Sixty would say, Rusty gears. She didn’t want to be reading his mind.
“Don’t get your hopes up too much,” Bak replied. “You won’t be able to go home right away. The nanos inside you are building lattices that will be populated with your stem cells to heal your organs. They’re also building scaffolding to hold you together while that happens. The lattice will melt into your own tissues. The scaffolding will have to be removed. We left ports in the relevant locations.” At those words, Bak touched the linens above Alaric’s abdomen, and Volka’s ears perked to the doctor’s gentle, self-satisfied hum. “This was one of the most interesting cases I’ve ever worked on. We would have given you cybernetic parts, but we knew your people would want you back mostly human.” Patting Alaric’s shoulder, he smiled. “You’re only a temporary cyborg—mostly.”
Smiling, Bak turned and walked past Volka, saying, “He’s all yours,” and then he was gone.
They were alone. There was a moment of awkward silence. The last time they’d been alone, really alone, without Carl or Solomon, had been a dream aboard Alaric’s ship...Memory of that dream made Volka flush, and she averted her gaze. When she looked up, she found Alaric’s eerie blue eyes on hers. He was remembering the same thing; she could feel it right to the tips of her toes.
Feeling the urge to flee, she shifted on her feet.
“I think I am that doctor’s favorite project,” Alaric said, startling her. The observation was light...trivial. Unlike the memories. It broke the tension, and it was like a wicked spell had been lifted. Volka no longer had the desire to flee. She considered the doctor’s manner, and her lips quirked. “I got that feeling too.” She was relieved. Alaric would receive the best care as the “favorite project.”
Alaric smiled, and all she felt was happiness. Her fingers tightened on the strap of her satchel. She had a little time before she met the Marines aboard Sundancer, and she had gifts to give him. She knew what it was like to be stranded aboard Time Gate 1. Walking over to his bed, her eyes caught on the linens. There were three too-smooth circles on his chest and stomach. The “ports,” she suspected. Did they hurt? Was he in pain? Her eyes caught on a neat plastic band embedded in the flesh of his arm, and her ears curled.
“They don’t hurt,” Alaric said, and Volka’s eyes met his.
He was telling the truth. Her ears still drooped. He’d been dead, and they had brought him back, and even if he didn’t hurt at this exact moment, the ports reminded her he’d been in agony before. She didn’t know what to say.
“If I look like death warmed over, I have a perfectly valid excuse,” he quipped. The comment startled her again with its lightness. It was the sort of banter she expected from Sixty. Alaric had always been more taciturn. At the thought of Sixty, her stomach clenched. She wanted to try calling him again. She’d tried when she’d first woken up, but had not been able to get through. If Sixty had time, he’d call her … wouldn’t he?
She forced herself back to the present and tried to smile. Alaric had been in horrible pain, and now he was in an alien world. She played along as though he were Sixty. Rolling her eyes, she drawled theatrically, “I suppose you do look better than when I last saw you.” He’d had a piece of his ship, nearly long as Volka was tall, piercing his body.
Raising a haughty brow, Alaric replied, “That doesn’t say much.”
Strange he would choose now to tease and be chatty.
“Maybe I should be insulted,” he suggested.
She felt no insult from him. Blinked. And felt it again: Don’t go. Don’t go. He was being light on purpose. He wanted her to stay, so he was doing his best to make her laugh. Most of their relationship had been her longing for him not to leave her. Her bending herself to fit him. Now he didn’t want her to leave, and he was bending.
It made a part of her angry, but then her gaze fell on his gray hair that didn’t fit his age. He’d acquired it in prison—prison he’d gone to because he hadn’t turned Volka in. He’d left her to follow his family’s wishes but tended to turn up when she needed him most. She supposed she’d done the same for him.
The thoughts were too heavy. Sticking to the Alaric-looks-awful theme, even if he looked much better now than he had when he’d been released from prison, she bantered back. “I am glad you’re at least feeling better.”
For a moment, their eyes locked. When Volka had ordered the doctors to take care of him earlier, accidentally using telepathy to compel them, she’d felt as though she were connected to them—as though there was a physical force binding them to her. She wasn’t compelling Alaric to do anything, just gazing at him, and yet she felt that same connection. Once, that connection had felt … magical, as though her relationship with him was predestined. Now she wasn’t sure she liked the feeling. He was married. He had children. No matter what he felt for her, that was the end of it. She didn’t want him. She wanted Sixty. She wanted their asteroid. She wanted to go home.
None of those were things she could have right now. Ducking her head, Volka said, “I’ve brought you something.” Setting the satchel on the floor, she peered in and scowled, perhaps a bit dramatically—even though Carl passed out and oblivious to the world didn’t surprise her. “Really, Carl?” Clucking her tongue, she pulled the werfle from the bag. Carl snored softly as she set him next to Alaric on the bed. �
�He is supposed to tell you that Solomon successfully transferred to another werfle host.” She met Alaric’s gaze. “He is going to try to get something closer to your family, but wants to rest a bit.”
Alaric’s eyebrows rose, and she felt his question.
“I don’t really know how it all works,” she admitted. “Also, Butterball, a cat—kitten—on Time Gate 5 wants you to know that all but four of your crew—including you—made it aboard. There are some injuries, but nothing serious. There was a scuffle in the gate, and some suits were breached, but no one was exposed to the Dark.”
His eyes widened infinitesimally, and her heart rate picked up at his unspoken question. “The scuffle was between uninfected civilians aboard the gate and your men.” She swallowed. “They were trying to get into the quarantine zone.”
Goddamn. He didn’t say the swear aloud. Volka knew because she was watching his lips.
Rolling on her feet, she said, “Some people in the Republic don’t believe in the threat of the Dark. It was, though, according to Butterball, a minority of Time Gate 5’s populace.”
Incredulity and rage rolled off of Alaric in waves. Images of the battle that had raged outside of Time Gate 5 filled her mind. His expression was icy.
She told him what had been explained to her. “News can be easily faked in the Republic, so people tend not to trust it, even when it comes from official sources.”
She felt comprehension from him, saw lines of code in his mind and felt rather than heard him say, Damn.
She blundered on before she could forget everything she needed to say. “Commander Bo...no, Ko and your crew and Time Gate 5’s police officers are maintaining the quarantine. It is—” She let out a breath and frowned. “—keeping everyone very busy, but Butterball is optimistic.”
“How long has it been?” Alaric asked.
Her ears went back. “Sixty’s there … I haven’t spoken to him in over eight hours.”
