Oxade clenched his fists, struggling with the sheer temerity on display by his two colleagues, “Christ alive. You two really do put the artificial in artificial intelligence, don’t you?”
“He started it,” Manny affected a sarcastic huff and started to extract the data from the comms panel via her beam.
“I did not start it,” Poz muttered. “I’ll shut you down and use your memory as toilet paper.”
“You don’t have an ass, you ass.”
Oxade threw his left arm forward.
SCHUNT-CLICK.
A Rez-9 firearm slapped into his palm, having traveled up the length of his sleeve.
“I swear to God. If you two don’t stop bickering, I’m putting a bullet right in the middle of deck.”
“Okay, fine,” Manny said. “I’ll look the other way.”
Oxade stepped over to Poz, “Suits me. What’s the situation with the live link to Beta?”
“Need the pass-code.”
“Try A-W-A-K-E-4-5-7,” Oxade looked at the transparent password box hanging in front of the deck, “It’s what Beta uses to reactivate their antiquated piece of junk autopilot.”
“On it,” Poz punched away at the keys. He kept a crafty eye on Manny, who had spun around to face the windshield.
BZZZZ.
“Incorrect,” Poz said. “Got any other suggestions?”
Oxade slammed the deck, “Sonofa—”
“—There’s no need to swear, Captain,” Poz said.
“It’s my goddamn ship and I’ll fricken well swear if I want to, okay?”
“It’s beneath you,” Poz looked at the empty pass-code box, waiting for an intelligent response.
“Make no mistake, my little ball of death. You’re beneath me in this particular hierarchy, and don’t you ever forget it,” Oxade ran his hands through his slicked-back hair and took a deep breath. He needed to calm down and keep his professionalism intact; both for the sake of the crew and his own sanity, “We haven’t been here a day and already we’re failing.”
“Transfer complete,” Manny spun around and displayed the text results across the central pages of her book-body.
Oxade tried to read the text but it was far too small, “What does it say?”
“Last recorded data point suggests that the crew were on seventy-two hours oxygen. According to Beta’s second-in-command, Tripp Healy, many of them have fallen one-hundred-and-eleven.”
“Eh?” Oxade leaned into the text on her page and raised his eyebrows. Manny had mistaken the word ‘ill’ for a number.
“It says ill, you cretin. Not one-hundred-and-eleven.”
“I’m sorry, I thought it was numeric—”
“—Captain, I am at a loss for what to type as the password—” Poz announced, before being rudely interrupted.
“—Shut up for a minute,” Oxade returned to Manny. “How long ago was the data point recorded?”
“Two years ago. Approximately. Would you like the exact time in days, hours, minutes and seconds—”
“—No, I’ve heard enough,” Oxade went to pat Poz on the back, remembered the intense pain it caused the last time. He pulled his hand away and stared at the vicious-looking lump of technology, “Ah, forget it.”
Poz cylinder ‘head’ revolved as his eyebulbs followed Oxade to the door.
“Did you want something, Captain?”
“Three days of oxygen in two years? No response to our communication attempts? They’re definitely all dead. This is going to be the easiest salary we’ve ever earned,” Oxade palmed the panel on the wall and opened the door, “Manny, how long till we can bridge with Beta?”
“Three or four hours.”
“Keep establishing contact every ninety seconds. The more they don’t respond, the more likely they’re dead. We’ll get on board, take what we want, kill anything we find, and go home."
Oxade walked out of the control deck, “And try not to tear each other’s throats out until I get back, at least.”
Poz and Manny scowled at each other.
***
Alex struggled with the jarring effects of his hyper-sleep. He gripped the edge of his pod and suppressed the urge to vomit.
“God, my organs feel like pâté.”
Nutrene, on the other hand, was used to the feeling. Alex couldn’t understand how she was able to hop to her feet and casually make her way over to the sink.
“Hey, it’s perfectly natural to feel like crap,” Nutrene said.
She looked into the basin mirror and focused on his trim figure. Dressed only in her USARIC-issued underwear, she licked her lips at the glorious sight, “You should scrunch your toes and walk around for a bit. Try to reorient yourself.”
She turned to the corner of the chamber and saw Neg spinning around, calibrating her extended arm.
“Neg, can you get our friend, here, a glass of water?”
“Certainly.”
“Yeah,” Alex pushed himself to his feet and stumbled forward, “Oh dear, no. No.”
“Hey,” Nutrene raced over and caught him as he fell to the floor. She hooked her arms under his and lifted him back to his feet, face-to-face.
She looked into his eyes, “Alex, stand up straight. It’s the best thing for you.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” he pushed her back and tried to remain still.
“Muscle fatigue. Quite normal after such a long journey.”
Alex moved his hands in front of his body. He took one step forward and wobbled on the spot.
“A bit like learning to walk again,” Nutrene watched on as he put his other foot forward, “There, you got it.”
Neg rolled over to Alex and extended her metal retractor. At the end of it was a glass of water which she offered to Alex, “Drink this. Fresh H2O.”
“I know what it is,” Alex took the glass from Neg and sniffed around the rim, “Fresh?”
“Yes, Charlie has the latest filtration system installed. Fresher than fresh, actually.”
He took a sip. The trickle of water worked its way down his throat and into his stomach. So intense was the sensation that he visualized the liquid revitalizing his body and organs. It made him close his eyes, thankful for the small mercies in life.
Nutrene giggled at his reaction as she opened the cabinet door, “Good?”
“God, yeah,” he muttered in ecstasy, “Damn good.”
“Gotta keep that impressive physique of yours on-point if we’re going to do our job.”
Alex looked down the length of his body. The fine hairs around his well-defined chest and abdomen seemed to stand on end, almost as if it had been rubbed with a balloon.
“What’s that?”
Neg swiveled her cylindrical head and flashed her eyebulbs, “Interference, probably. We’re trying to establish contact with Opera Beta.”
“We’ve found Opera Beta?” Nutrene picked out her USARIC inner-suit jacket from the cupboard. She slipped her arms through the sleeves and inspected the lapels around her neck, “That was fast. How long ago?”
“A few hours. She’s orbiting Enceladus, but isn’t communicating,” Neg said.
Alex looked in the mirror above the wash basin and analyzed his face. As expected, he’d grown an impressive amount of facial hair during stasis. Today, he looked like a different person. His hirsute facial rendition in the mirror added a few years.
“I guess we’re going to board, anyway,” he said.
“Of course we are. Invite or no invite.”
Nutrene placed her hand on Alex’s shoulder and smiled at him via the mirror, “The beard suits you, you know.”
“It’s coming straight off once I’m dressed,” he moved his eyes to her reflection, “How come you’re not feeling groggy after such a long journey, anyway?”
“I’m used to it,” she extended a strap in her hands and placed her right, bare foot on the side of the hyper-sleep pod, “Seven visits to IMS. You get used to it.”
Alex couldn’t help but look at he
r flagrant exposure of her thigh as she strapped the belt around her waist. She thumbed the hook and enabled the material to crawl across her skin and turn her porcelain-white skin a synthetic black.
Alex averted his eyes to her face, “What were you doing on the International Moon Station?”
“USARIC set up a Medix center there a couple of years ago. A part of their expansion after the success of the Star Cat Project back in twenty-one-eighteen.”
She thumped the sole of her foot onto the floor and jogged on the spot, working her new pants down to her shins, “I guess they wanted to keep animals on standby there.”
“You guess?”
“They never told us their mission aim. Top secret. My job was to tend to the felines and provide updates. And not to ask questions.”
“Are you saying there are cats on the moon?”
“Yup,” Nutrene unbuckled her left sleeve and revealed a metal rail sewn inside, “Only a couple. They had their ICs installed.”
“The infinity claws?”
“You know your acronyms, I’ll give you that.”
She flung her arm forward. A Rez-9 firearm rolled along the inner sleeve rail and landed comfortably in her palm. She aimed the firearm at Neg, “You. Stay there, I need to calibrate.”
“Please do not point your firearm at me, Nutrene. I work with you.”
“Shut up, just hold still,” she pressed her thumb on the side of the barrel. A rectangular HUD holograph floated above the sight. The surface drew a white line around Neg’s bulbous shape. The phrase death drone flashed next to it.
“Pow,” Nutrene pretended to shoot Neg and finished with a smirk, “Bang on target.”
Neg wasn’t nearly as impressed.
“Nutrene, do you know that you should never aim a gun at the people you’re working with?”
“You’re not a person,” Nutrene winked at Alex. “Besides, a Rez-9 charge wouldn’t even put a chink in your armor.”
The fact surprised Alex.
“It won’t?”
“No. Wanna see?” Nutrene aimed her Rez-9 at Neg once again, “Let me show you.”
Neg rolled back and beeped in protest, “Please, don’t—”
BLAMM!
The charge blasted out of the barrel and flew through the air. It collided with Neg’s metallic surface and disintegrated into nothingness. A couple of orange sparks to flew into the air.
“See?”
“That was just rude,” Neg huffed and rubbed her head. “Don’t do that again.”
“Amaziant,” Alex said. “Poz and Neg are indestructible?”
Nutrene held her left forearm up and allowed the gravity to return her gun to the crook of her elbow.
“Ha, yeah. Trust Manning/Synapse to include that in the Death Drone series.”
“I don’t trust any of their wacky technology as far as I could throw them,” Alex made his way to the cupboard and opened the door, “The Series Three units were a good idea, but, like most of USARIC’s endeavors, they were flawed.”
“Like most humans, I guess. Only we don’t freak out and behave like lemmings when we remember who we really are.”
Alex pulled out his USARIC jacket and looked at his name on the sleeve, “Beta’s full of them.”
“Ooooh,” Nutrene pursed her lips and nodded her head, impressed, “You figured that out all on your own, did you? The odds are very high that they’ll have killed themselves. Save us the trouble, and the ammunition.”
Alex slipped the jacket on.
“Why do you think they named the ship Beta, and not Bravo?”
Nutrene’s eyes grew at Alex’s revelation, “Huh. Good point. I thought each iteration was phonetic.”
“If that was the case they’d have called her Opera Bravo,” Alex grabbed the Rez-9 tucked into the left sleeve, “Sending a cat to Saturn with a bunch of messed-up androids? It was a test. Like a bunch of canaries or guinea pigs.”
“I never thought of it that way. It makes complete sense. USARIC expected the mission to fail?”
“Did they really think sending a cat into space would work? The chances of success were literally millions to one, if that,” Alex threw his left arm towards the ground. His Rez-9 slid down the length of his sleeve and landed in his palm, “It’s a stupid idea. If it was a movie or a novel no one would believe it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nutrene said. “We’re here to rectify their stupid mistake.”
***
Nutrene and Alex followed Neg as she rolled through the door to the control deck.
Oxade looked up from the communications panel and clapped eyes on Nutrene’s mercenary get-up, “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Sleep well?”
“Like a baby,” she moved the chair from her path and grabbed his hand in hers. They clutched tightly and bumped fists, “How long you been up?”
Oxade checked her over and smiled, “A few hours, now. You look great.”
“Oh, I am great. You know that,” she nodded at Manny, “I heard we found Opera Beta?”
“Yeah, we did. We’ve just sent a message back to USARIC updating them on our findings.”
Oxade caught Alex staring at him. He seemed to be lost in his own world. Oxade remained professional and refrained from causing any undue upset.
“Hey, soldier. You okay?”
“I’m fine. I just want to get this done.”
“You seem anxious?” Oxade said. “Having second thoughts about the mission?”
“No.”
Alex tugged at his sleeve. A sense of dread thumped against his chest.
Opera Beta edged closer and closer. Soon, Opera Charlie would bridge with them and instigate an intergalactic act of violence and death.
“Is your suit okay?” Oxade asked, knowing full well that it wasn’t the merc gear upsetting the man.
“It’s Kevlar and Technomex. I’m used to it.”
“It’ll save your life if we encounter a fight,” Oxade waved Manny over to him, “Okay, enough BS. Manny, tell us about Opera Beta?”
Manny opened up and landed quarter of the way through her holographic tome.
Manuel-2
Space Opera Beta (second revision)
Pg 704,111
(exposition dump #99/4g)
Construction of Space Opera Beta commenced in 2116 at USARIC’s Cape Claudius compound. More than one hundred tons in weight, it measures one thousand feet and contains ten levels.
The name underwent a last minute change in early 2118 before it set off on its voyage to Saturn. Originally known as Space Opera Bravo, the original team of humans were disbanded and summarily executed shortly after the conclusion of the Star Cat Project.
It was decided by then-chief Dimitri Vasilov and CEO Maar Sheck that the mission would be manned exclusively by Androgyne Series Three units to save on insurance and running costs. In addition, the winner of the Star Cat Project, Jelly Anderson, joined them.
Captain Daryl Katz and botanist Haloo Ess were the only human beings on board. Along with Beta’s on-board computer, The Manuel, these were the only entities who knew the true nature of their colleagues - the Androgyne Series Three units. It is understood that Katz and Ess did not survive the link with Opera Alpha.
Data secured from her last communication advises that there are six souls on board at this current time.
1: Tripp Healy, formerly first officer. Assumed rank of captain after the death of Daryl Katz. Former ASF (American Star Fleet) commander and communications and liaison specialist.
2: Dr Bonnie Whitaker. USARIC’s then-chief scientist. Honorably discharged from ASF. Specialist in martial arts and prototyping.
3: Jaycee Nayall. Head of Weapons & Armory. Five years’ service with ASF. Died during service and subsequently reconstituted.
4: Wool ar-Ban. Chief Medician and Medix liaison. Five years’ service. Project medician coordinator of the Star Cat Project and caretaker of subject #6.
5: Tor Klyce. Head of communicatio
ns and specialist in psychoanalysis.
6: Jelly Anderson. Domestic household cat, and runner-up of the Star Cat Project. Joined Opera Beta after the winner, Bisoubisou Gagarin (Russia) reported dead.
“Thanks, Manny,” Oxade said.
“You’re welcome.”
“We don’t know much else. What we do know is that the stupid cat would have had something called infinity claws installed when they reached Saturn’s vicinity.”
Alex didn’t hide his faux-puzzled expression, “ICs. I know of them, but I don’t know what they actually are?”
“Titanium talons installed in place of her cuticles,” Oxade said. “Also, micro-fibre whiskers. Designed to heighten the senses.”
Alex jumped in to the explanation. “Right, they’re for an extra layer of protection. The claws are like talons. I hear they’re fierce.”
“Really?” Oxade folded his arms and took a keen interest in Alex’s expertize on the subject, “And the whiskers?”
“Anderson would have had a K-13 chip implanted just above her right shoulder so the crew can track her. The whiskers work in conjunction with it. As I say, heighten the senses,” Alex lifted his left forearm and pointed at the three inked lines across his skin, “They also act as a rudimentary one-way communication channel, a bit like our Viddy Media installations.”
“Wow, check out the big brains on Hughes, here,” Nutrene licked her lips at him, suggestively, “Not just a fit body.”
Oxade cleared his throat and grew suspicious, “That’s very interesting, Alex.”
“Yeah, out of all of Beta’s crew, Anderson is the one we need to keep an eye on.”
“I’m sure she is,” Oxade grunted and punched his left arm forward. “There’s just one thing I don’t quite understand, though.”
“What?”
Oxade’s Rez-9 flew into his palm, “How do you know so much about Anderson?”
“Huh?”
Alex held his breath and eyed the gun in his captain’s hand. ‘Idiot,’ he thought. He’d opened his big mouth and said too much. In acting dumb, he’d given the game away. The look in Oxade’s face said everything. Alex knew that he knew.
Star Cat: War Mage Page 14
