by B. V. Larson
“J-tech?”
“This name is derived from the word ‘jain,’ a term meaning, approximately, ‘universal,’ or perhaps ‘ubiquitous,’ with overtones of ‘victory,’ in a dead Old Earth language. The modern term, J-tech, refers to the concept of self-organization, an idea much discussed but never empirically demonstrated until the Mindspark device. Whether the device actually—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, Zaxby. We have a piece of the Mindspark device aboard?”
“We have a miniscule piece of subquantum J-tech matter Murdock salvaged from the Victory and isolated, after we used the device to disrupt Vic as we were assaulting the flagship and rescuing Carla Engels the second time. We do seem to be making a habit of rescuing her.”
Straker scowled. “That’s because she makes a habit of taking unnecessary risks.”
“Said the obsidian pot to the stygian kettle.”
Mara spoke up. “Good question, though—what can we do with a piece of J-tech?”
“We could float-drop that into an enemy ship instead of antimatter,” Steiner rumbled.
“With no idea whatsoever of the effect,” Mara replied. “We might be handing the Arattak a baby AI that could spread and unbalance the entire Middle Reach! Unleashing real, non-theoretical J-tech could create the most dangerous form of self-organizing life ever known, so no, we’re not doing that.”
Straker thought about asserting his command to tell Mara he’d make such decisions, not her—but as he agreed with her, he didn’t bother. The older he got, the more he realized he had to pick his battles—especially with the women in his life. “Mara’s right. We can’t unleash J-tech—but can we use it ourselves somehow?”
“Not unless you want to infect our own SAI,” Zaxby answered, “and try to raise it from a baby to some form of effectiveness within the next few hours—another low-probability strategy, I suggest.”
“Fine, fine. What else?”
“Rejuvenation chamber. FTL comlink—”
“Back up—what? We have a rejuvenation chamber aboard?”
“Affirmative. It is our autodoc, medical bay and regeneration tube all in one, and incorporates the best subquantum reorganization tech Murdock and I were able to perfect.”
“So what’s the difference between that and the J-tech? It’s subquantum, right?”
“It’s the difference between an organ of your body and a virulent, self-replicating organism. One has a structured, controlled purpose, while the other is wild and unpredictable, possibly destructive.”
“Right, right.”
Mara spoke thoughtfully. “I used subquantum medical tech to develop the Breaker Bug. It allowed me to go deeper and do more, faster, than standard genetic engineering.”
Straker snapped his fingers idly, pop-pop-pop, pacing with his head down, suddenly struck with an idea. “So wait, wait.” Snap, snap. “The rejuvenation tank is so advanced, it can make people younger—physically, anyway—without affecting their brains.”
“Actually, we don’t alter the brains of people we’ve used it on,” Mara said. “We tried on some animals, and their minds degenerated shortly after the process. The brain already functions at the subquantum level to a certain extent, and any disruption degrades memories, personality, skills... no, all we do is rejuvenate all the rest of the tissue in the body, except the brain—which means there’s probably a limit to how many times it will work. The brain will eventually get old, but the young body keeps it younger longer.”
“So can it make someone’s body into something else entirely? Like, could it turn a human into a Ruxin? Or what looks like a Ruxin anyway?”
Mara blanched. “Ugh. Now we’re getting into bizarro territory. That would be really hard. We’d have to do a lot of research on Ruxins, how their physiology could support a human brain, or... ”
“No, no, never mind. Not a Ruxin, then—that was just a random thought—how about a superior human?”
“Superior how?”
“For certain purposes. Like, could you give me armored skin?”
Mara crossed her arms and sat back. “Sure. You’d lose sensitivity and flexibility—”
“And could you change me back?”
“More or less. It all depends on the unintended consequences—and without extensive testing, there will be unintended consequences.”
Straker clapped his hands together. “All right then. I know what we’re going to do.”
After he explained, Mara objected vehemently.
An argument ensued, until Zaxby interrupted. “I have a better idea. A much better idea.”
“What?”
“Are you familiar with the story of Frankenstein’s monster?”
* * *
The small antimatter explosion lightly seared the hulls of the two survival pods, sending them sailing through space on a tangent to the enemy fleet. The flare of energy drew their attention—as expected—and two ships, an Arattak and a Korven, moved cautiously toward them.
As they drew near, they directed powerful multiphase scanning pulses at the pods, which were transparent by design. Inside, the scanners saw nothing unusual—nothing but life support systems and two humanoid occupants, both with very faint life signs—and several quantum-locked credit disks in each.
As expected—as hoped—the avaricious aliens moved in to recover the pods, eager to acquire information, material, money, and a couple of captives.
Aboard one pod Straker lay, apparently strapped down to immobility. He’d insisted on it as a part of his plan. The scans would show his helplessness, decreasing the chance the enemy would simply blast the pods out of hand.
That, after all, was the biggest danger.
That would ruin his day, he told himself with a morbid chuckle.
That’s why he’d included the credit disks as well. Nobody blasted free money if they could help it.
From his low metabolic state—one he controlled with his mind—he heard and felt the pods being recovered. He hoped he’d be taken aboard an Arattak ship, but odds were it would be Korven. The Korven were better equipped to handle prisoners, more eager to seize them.
Though his eyes were shut, he could see dimly through his modified eyelids. Zaxby had wanted to add an additional nictating membrane, but Mara had vetoed the idea, as any extra body parts would need time for Straker to practice controlling—time he didn’t have.
So, though his body was heavily modified by the rejuvenation module, he didn’t have extra arms or tentacles or anything else like that.
What he did have, as the Korven discovered when they opened the pod, was an exoskeleton, making him look like an insectoid, an Opter—or a man with smooth armor over most of his skin. His joints and flexible areas were articulated, like a medieval knight’s suit of plate. Their scans would reveal all of this was completely natural, making him appear to be an unknown species of alien humanoid, sharing DNA with humans, perhaps, but not some kind of created being with artificial armor slapped on.
Yet, that’s what he was—at the cellular level.
The Korven immobilized Straker with fiber-tape, and then unstrapped and lifted him out to set him on a table. He perceived he was in a medical facility, or perhaps a biological research lab—or maybe it was the same thing. Two Korven watched him with weapons ready, while two others ran tests.
Straker had hoped for some indication Steiner had been recovered too—hoped both of them would be extracted from their pods at the same time and in the same place—but he hadn’t seen any indication the Breaker marine was nearby. He resolved to stay passive and gather information as long as he could while they ran their tests.
That passivity ended when they unstrapped his ankles to spread them as one of the researchers lined up an anal probe. Old Earth tales of alien abduction ran through his head as he kicked his heavily modified body into high gear.
“Steiner!”
Straker’s internal bio-radio got no response from his fellow modified human.
His do
uble hearts surged oxygen-rich blood through his veins. New glands dumped naturally produced battle cocktail into that blood, five times as powerful as adrenaline. His own genetic speed and training, plus the Breaker Bug for strength, made it a simple matter for him to twist his wrists, forcing the restraining tape to yield enough for him to bring his razor-sharp claws into play, slicing it.
Now free, he grasped the solid table and somersaulted backward, flying toward one of the guards who thought himself in a perfect position—above the prisoner’s head—to shoot him if he attempted to escape. That guard was alert and fast, lifting his weapon and squeezing the trigger even as Straker’s feet hammered him in the chest. The blaster bolt struck Straker in the leg—and ricocheted off his armor, armor of extruded biological duralloy, armor harder and denser by far than anything nature ever designed.
As the Korven went down under the impact of his driving heels, Straker arched and spun like a cat, using a clawed hand on the wall behind him to land on his feet. He caught and twisted the blaster out of his opponent’s grip and quickly aimed it at the other guard.
That guard, also a skilled, dangerous opponent, fired first. His only mistake, a natural mistake, was to aim for the escaping prisoner’s center of mass instead of his head. Straker’s thick chest plate easily shrugged off the spectacular bolt of plasma.
Straker didn’t make the same mistake. His precise shot took the armed Korven in the face, avoiding the possibility the soldier’s body armor would save him.
The drugs in his system, his biotech, in fact his entire combat-redesigned body, speeded his time-sense, making everything around him seem to slow to half speed. This allowed him to easily finish off the researchers. They seemed like clumsy oafs as he shoved their own anal probe up under their chins and through their brains.
“Steiner!” he radioed again.
“I’m up, sir,” the response came.
“Kill them all, as fast as you can. No quarter.”
“Roger wilco.” Straker thought he heard relish in the big marine’s voice.
It gave him great satisfaction to destroy Korven. As far as he could tell they had no redeeming features, other than their combat abilities, which he could respect as a warrior even while wishing them all slaughtered.
Those abilities wouldn’t save them this time. He felt like an avenging angel, like a god in some showvid about Greek heroes—like Hercules, the son of Jupiter, he thought with a chuckle. Ironic, considering the name of the lost transport.
In the passageways he found no automated defenses. Those were his main worries, machine-fast weapons with armor-piercing rounds, or powerful lasers, but he thought them unlikely. The arrogant Korven, as close-combat and boarding-assault specialists, would see no need for them.
Turned out he was right.
With a blaster in each hand and a captured bandolier of grenades he sliced through his enemies. Each of his precisely aimed shots killed a Korven. He felt like he couldn’t miss. He felt like a mechsuiter shrunk to man-size, as if his body were a mechanical, brainlinked thing. It was the super-chemicals singing in his blood and nerves, combined with a lifetime of combat training. He knew it wouldn’t last, but for a short time, he was pure death on two legs.
He mowed them as a reaper scythed through wheat.
When a lucky shot glanced off his armored cheekbone, he paused long enough to remove a combat helmet from one Korven and lower it onto his own head. Its face shield inhibited him slightly, but now he was as invulnerable to their infantry weapons as if he were wearing a battlesuit.
In fact, he was a living battlesuit.
His assault on the Korven ship became a minutes-long blur of murder. At one point he was aware of another battle taking place somewhere nearby, but he was in such an intense killing state, in such a perfect Zen flow of destruction, that he barely noticed it.
Shoot, shoot again, stab, shoot. Shoot some more. Rip a helmet off with claws and shoot what was behind it. Bat a grenade back toward its owner. Toss one of his own down a passageway. Drive a duralloy-clawed hand—claws with molecular blades like nothing in nature—through the gap below a Korven’s abdominal armor. Dodge an antitank rocket—the only thing that might hurt him—and put a bolt into the nose of the launcher tube, destroying the threat. These motions became his whole world, his zone, his fugue state of perfect flow.
Everything that approached him died.
The warrior in him rejoiced.
It was glorious.
It was intoxicating.
It was a song of consummate carnage. He bathed in fire.
A snippet from some ancient text floated through his brain: I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
And then another: Death is the solution to all man’s problems.
No man, no problem.
No Korven, no problem.
He found his mind able to think about other things as his body went through its perfected motions. Music played in his head, some kind of symphonic composition, lending a serene purity to the explosions and blood—the purity of cleansing. The Korven, their entire race, their species, was a blight upon the Middle Reach, upon the galaxy. Along with their allies, it was blisteringly obvious they should all die for their crimes, all and to the last.
Straker would be the agent of their eradication.
At some level he was aware his thought processes were far from normal, far from his usual self, but it really didn’t matter. He’d become the inevitable agent of his own intentions, his mind and body pre-programmed by himself to destroy his enemies in an unstoppable orgy of annihilation. At this point he had no more control of himself than someone in the final throes of sexual ecstasy—and it felt much the same.
For a timeless moment he mused upon the close relationship between sex and death, creation and destruction. Between actions such as his enemies kidnapping his wife and comrades, and their inescapable consequences—the removal of the perpetrators from the universe. These lifting, spinning thoughts only stuttered and stopped when he found no other enemies, no other living beings aboard the ship, other than Steiner covered in the gore of his opponents. His mind slammed to a halt like a roller-coaster finishing its exhilarating run.
Straker found himself breathing deeply as his perceptual world collapsed to something like normal. He dropped one blaster and raised his empty hand. “Steiner! Stand down, Sergeant. Jurgen!”
Steiner, who was shuddering and aiming his own weapons at Straker, lowered them. “Sir. Sorry, sir. I was... ”
“Yeah. I know.” Straker looked around at the mess, at the knee-deep dripping slurry of offal, and felt his own modified body, its many inconsequential wounds, its rapid healing, its growing hunger. He—they—needed food, desperately. “Follow me.”
He found his survival pod. After he and Steiner stuffed themselves with nutrition concentrate, he retrieved a data stick hidden inside. On the alien ship’s bridge, he plugged it in to a console and unleashed the malware Zaxby and Mara had programmed. Within seconds, the ship was under his control, the displays and controls reset to Earthan language and symbology.
The screens told him four other Korven ships had converged and grappled to this one, had poured troops aboard only to be slaughtered by the two remade men. Even now, the skeleton crews which remained on the grappling ships would be trying to figure out what had happened, trying to absorb this stunning setback, trying to decide what to do.
As it was already inside the Korven computer systems, using their own encryption, the malware easily leaped across the Korven comms and unobtrusively took control of the four grappled ships. From there, it datalinked to every other ship it could and infected them as well. The Arattak were unaffected, but within moments, all Korven ships in the area were compromised.
It was a success beyond all hope. Straker had expected he and Steiner would be overwhelmed and killed eventually, after causing a great deal of disruption, but he’d provided for the possibility of success.
Then he wondered why he’d done it,
if he didn’t expect to survive. It was one thing to take a big risk for a big payoff, but this—this near-certain death merely to disrupt, possibly destroy a few Korven assault cruisers—seemed crazy. It was a blow to their enemies, of course, but hardly worth throwing away his life.
His life... his life...
Straker shook his head, shook off bizarre, intrusive thoughts while he programmed the ships he now controlled, instructing the SAIs to ram-grapple their Arattak allies, and to issue orders to the Korven troops to board and seize. He had no idea whether the Korven would follow such odd and unexpected directives relayed via their automated systems, but he hardly cared. His plan—Straker’s plan—why did he think that way, from outside himself?—the plan, the plan, had already worked beyond Straker’s wildest dreams.
Straker’s plan.
As he entered the last instruction into the system, a trigger was tripped and the curtain rose on his memories.
He remembered opening his eyes in the rejuvenation tank and looking up at Straker—the other Straker, the original, unchanged Straker. He gave the original a thumbs-up. Straker had held out his hand to lift him—a bizarre, temporary combat-optimized suicide-clone of himself—from the machine. Because he was who he was—at least as long as his mind held together before its inevitable breakdown—he had no problem with how he’d been made.
A golem.
Another man might have been furious that his life would last less than a day, would be expended like a bullet, but not Straker.
Not this Straker.
Not any Straker.
He did it for the Breakers—for his friends, his comrades, and his honor.
But mostly for Carla and his children.
His family. Straker’s family. They would continue. He would not.
He was at peace with that, and held onto that thought all the way to the end as he sent his Korven ship hurtling toward another Arattak cruiser. Before the spiders reduced the vessel to slag and him with it, he broadcast a final message in Earthan, in the clear.
“Tell her I loved her. Tell her I loved her my whole life.”
On the comlink he heard Straker—that real Straker—clear his throat. “I will, brother.”
