Taunting Krell

by Laurann Dohner

  Breathing hurt. She dragged in air, found it tough to do and understood the bullet must have pierced a lung when the taste of blood filled her mouth. She cleared her throat.

  “Did they get all the shuttles away?”

  Anger, and finally sadness, filled the older man’s pale-green eyes. She’d known Craig most of her life. He and her father were friends. “Yeah, baby. They did. Not that it’s going to help them. When they reach space the ships up there are going to blow them to kingdom come.”

  She chuckled, coughed, and choked on blood. “No.”

  His hand tightened on her face. “You made sure of that, didn’t you? What were you thinking? They are dangerous. They are going to attack Earth, kill us all, and you made it possible.”

  “Emily!” her father’s panicked voice yelled. “Oh my God. What did you do?”

  Craig released her, moved out of the way and rose to his feet. “I didn’t shoot her, Edward. I swear. Two of the guys did it. I’m so sorry. It’s terminal.”

  Her eyes closed. She choked on blood, knew she wasn’t going to survive, but the cyborgs had made it off the surface. A sense of peace filled her. She’d finally done one wonderful, meaningful thing with the short life she’d been given.

  * * * * *

  “Stay with me, Emily Rose,” a familiar voice demanded.

  Her eyes opened and she stared in confusion at her father’s face inches above her own. He looked haggard, his normally neat white hair messed up as if he’d teased it, and she realized they were inside his lab when she took note of the ceiling above his head. It confused her to still be alive. She knew she’d been shot. With her sick, weakened body, it shouldn’t be possible for her to have made it from the floor of her office to his lab two buildings away.

  “Hurry up,” he yelled at someone, turning his face away. “We’re losing her again. I don’t know if I can revive her a third time.”

  “This isn’t going to work,” a female voice sobbed, one Emily recognized as her father’s longtime assistant, Bella. “Her heart is damaged, both lungs, and I think we fractured her spine when we just scooped her up and ran with her, Eddie.”

  “It can work.” Her father’s voice broke and he leaned over her. “Stay with me. Just a few minutes more, sweetie. I’ve been working on a project for the past three years just for you. I knew your body would fail eventually and I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Damn it, this is insane. It’s just a theory that it could work, not something we’ve ever tried, and we’re not gods. We thought we had more time before she’d start to die. We’re not ready!” The male voice hissed the warning.

  “She’s out of time.” Her father ran his fingers through her hair to rub her scalp. His tears dampened her face where they fell on her cheeks. “We’ve got nothing to lose at this point. We can work the kinks out later but we need to save her first. Just do it. Is the prototype ready?”

  Doctor Percy Olson, her father’s longtime friend and research assistant, suddenly hovered over Emily. He met her gaze and she saw fear on his aged features, regret. “Yeah. It’s out. This is going to hurt her a lot.”

  “Do it,” her father sobbed. “She’s lost to us for certain if we don’t try.”

  She’d grown up with Percy. He was like an uncle to her. His daughter happened to be her best friend. She saw tears swim in his eyes before he looked away. Something hot and agonizing pieced her skull.

  She screamed and fell into nothingness.

  Chapter One

  Present time, decades later

  “Systems check,” Cyan ordered the computer.

  “Everything is fine,” it responded.

  Frustration rose. “Then why aren’t you responding the way you should?”

  “Perhaps it is an operator failure on your end.”

  “Damn hunk of junk,” she muttered under her breath. “I’m fine.”

  “You could have made an error.”

  She flipped it off. “Just keep your heading. How long until we reach Belta Station?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  Cyan checked the readings. No ships were within range, a good thing in her mind, but the Markus Models she tracked were smart. Anger stirred. Why she’d been sent on the mission wasn’t a mystery. She’d made an enemy of General Vargus after she’d broken his thumb for grabbing her ass.

  “This is a suicide mission if we find them.”

  “Response noted.”

  “Note this, you hunk of junk.” She kicked the side of the pilot’s station with her boot. “What happened to the signal? You’re supposed to keep tracking it. It was there but now it just disappeared?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Maybe those stationers managed to kill all those androids. That would be too tidy, wouldn’t it?”

  “Response noted.”

  “Have I mentioned I hate when you say that whenever you don’t know how to respond? And don’t say it again. I’m talking to myself so butt out while I have a decent conversation for once.”

  The computer remained silent. Cyan rose from her chair, her fingers absently rubbing the weapon strapped to her thigh, and paced the floor. “It’s got to be a trap.”

  She paused and reached for one of the cabinets but cursed. “I hate being short.” She had to find something to stand on to reach it, tore it open, withdrew spare energy shots for the gun and shoved them inside a pocket of her pants. “I swear that dickhead assigned me to this shuttle on purpose. He could have let me have the Derik but no. He stuck me on the Blarney where everything is higher. What a prick!”

  “Belta Station within docking range. Hailing.” The computer paused. “No response. I read extensive damage. They have hull breaches on two levels.”

  “Of course they do. They were attacked by those crazy defense Models that are one circuit short of mass murder.”

  “Response noted.”

  Cyan screamed in frustration. It made her feel slightly better. She’d had to spend nearly two weeks alone inside the ancient shuttle with only the computer for company. General Vargus wanted her to suffer for embarrassing him in front of his men when she’d openly rejected his advances. The fact that she’d actually broken a bone hadn’t helped. No other soldier had ever been sent on a dangerous solo mission.

  “I’m just special,” she snorted. “He’s got no idea.”

  “Response noted.”

  Her weapon cleared the holster before she realized she’d aimed it at the computer module. Her finger froze over the trigger and she took deep breaths. “Blowing you to pieces may feel good but it would only make my job harder. Stop talking. That’s an order. Silence.”

  She planted her butt on the seat, took the controls and did a visual inspection of the large space station that had sent out a distress signal weeks prior. They’d been under heavy attack, had identified the Markus Models as the aggressors, and she’d been sent to investigate.

  The station had put up a vicious fight. They’d taken a lot of damage and obviously hadn’t just surrendered. She glanced down.

  “Computer? Why aren’t you scanning for life signs?”

  “There is too much interference from debris. I’m unable to get accurate findings to display.”

  “Great. I guess when I board Belta Station I’ll just hope I don’t run in to any surprises. My birthday is coming up and here I thought I wouldn’t get anything.”

  “Response—”

  “Noted!” Cyan yelled. “Yeah. Shut up. I am ordering you to stop saying that.”

  “I’m unable to follow that order.”

  “I hope I run into one of those crazy-ass androids. I’d love to kill something at this point.” She steered the shuttle against one of the undamaged docking doors. She turned off the engines and stood.

  “Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck.”

  Cyan moved quickly through the shuttle. She’d usually have a team of at least eight soldiers under her command to board the station with her. No help waited when she entere
d the cargo bay. She paused at the door, grabbed one of the masks off the wall, and shoved it over her face. She ignored the tug on her long hair. The general would have a fit if he knew she’d stopped braiding it against her skull. It was against regulation to wear it down while on duty but it was also against regulation to send a soldier on a mission without an armed team to back her up.

  One glance at the monitor indicated the pressure on the other side of the door was stable enough to enter the station. One hand gripped her weapon and her other hand keyed in the code to unlock the door. Air hissed when the seal broke and the door popped. She used her foot to kick it open. She wondered if the area of the station she was about to enter had been depressurized since the attack and if her docking had auto-triggered the onboard computer to pressurize the area. It would be a very short trip if that were the case since she’d be contained in a small area before hitting sealed doors.

  “I hate old shuttles,” she muttered but knew it had been the only smart thing the general had insisted upon. The Markus androids could remote hack computers. On the older ships everything was pretty much manual and the onboard computer was only voice activated from the same room in which the module had been installed. They traveled through space slower but once in range of the station, they couldn’t be controlled by one of those freaky Markus Models if they’d taken it over.

  Destruction and death met her the moment she walked onto the station. Two dead bodies lay decaying on the floor. She curled her lip, grateful for the mask that kept her from smelling what had to be putrid air. Their severe decomposition assured her that this part of the station hadn’t been affected at all by the hull breaches from the attack. Only being exposed to high levels of oxygen could do that to a body in space. She could remove the mask but didn’t do it.

  She entered one of the corridors. More bodies were piled up as if someone or something had chased them, shot them in the back, and they’d tripped over the fallen bodies to collapse on top of each other. She counted twelve dead stationers. It was hard to tell if they had been male or female but they were wearing civilian shoes when they’d died. One body looked suspiciously small.

  “Oh no,” she muttered, distraught. “They had kids here. It’s too close to deep space and pirates. What were you thinking?”

  No one answered but she didn’t expect it. She stepped over some of the bodies, moved slowly, and continued deeper into the station. She kept alert. It was likely the Markus Models had figured out how to mask their tracking signals. They had a scary ability to adapt. She’d been fully briefed on them after they’d been created and the trouble had started. Her vote would have been to pass on that project if anyone had asked her before they decided to make the defective things.

  The defense androids were nearly indestructible except by electrocution. They were also self-aware, had escaped from the manufacturing facility where they’d been undergoing testing, and were extremely dangerous to anything living.

  Her grip on her weapon tightened and her left hand reached for the other weapon at her waist. All she had to do was pierce their skin with a bullet and shoot energy shots at them to jolt them with electricity and take them down. Her ears strained to pick up any sound but only eerie silence greeted her.

  “Not having a good feeling about this,” she whispered, the sound of her voice comforting. “Every living person on this station is dead. I just know it.”

  She’d wished to find some survivors on Belta Station. Sure, they hadn’t responded to hails since the initial distress signals but she’d still been hopeful that it was a case of their communications being taken out. Cyan tried not to stare at the bodies she passed. It freaked her out a lot and depression settled in deep with all the death surrounding her. There had been thirty-nine souls aboard according to the manifesto, all civilians, and obviously some of them had been children.

  She paused at the sealed-down section when she came to it. The door indicators blinking red in warning told her she’d found the breached section of the station. She knew she could override the safety procedures to attempt to pressurize the affected areas but there wasn’t any reason to do it. No survivors would have made it without air. Even if they’d managed to lock down inside a secured room with a sealed door, two weeks would have killed them. No food, no water and a breached section stopped sending oxygen to the affected areas. They would have suffocated before they starved.

  She located the main control room. She really wished she hadn’t as her gaze slowly took in over ten bodies. Weapons fire scarred the walls, dried, black bloodstains smeared on parts of the metal floor and she knew this had been where the stationers had made their last stand. One body drew her attention.

  She aimed her gun at it and tread carefully, ready to shoot the hell out of it if it moved. It was male, had brown hair and wasn’t a mess of disgusted death rot. Her heart accelerated. It had the exact size and shape of a Markus Model. Their hair and eye color could be changed out, along with their voices, but not their general size or cloned faces. It remained sprawled facedown. Her boot nudged it.

  She nearly screamed from fright when it jerked, barely trapped the sound inside her throat, and hissed instead. She leapt back to put at least four feet between them. Its fingers clawed against the floor but it didn’t move anything else.

  “Great.”

  The head tried to turn but it just twitched. It took her long seconds to take a few calming breaths before she approached. One good kick and she jumped back again. The kick flipped it onto his back. She studied it.

  “Wow!” The Markus Model’s eyes were open but it didn’t attack. Burn marks scorched his chest and neck pretty badly. “They fried you, didn’t they? Just not enough to totally take you out.”

  One of his hands twitched. She saw a cable lying about three feet to his left along with the decaying body of a stationer, who still gripped it. A shudder ran through her. The stationer had obviously torn lose a live electrical connection once attached to the control panel to attack the Markus Model. He’d shoved the live current against the downed android and they’d both fried in the process.

  Cyan crouched, cocked her head and peered at the android. “Can you talk?”

  His mouth parted. “Help me.”

  “Oh I plan to. Where are your brothers?”

  He paused. “They aren’t here.”

  Good to know, she thought. “Where are they? I’ll tell them you’re still functioning and have them come get you. I’m not good at fixing stuff,” she lied.

  “I am uncertain. I have no linking capabilities. I have come to the conclusion they believed I terminated when the link between us severed. They have not returned.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “We are eight Models.”

  She hid her grimace. Two would be difficult but seven still on their feet were bad odds to face off against. “Why did you attack the station?”

  He paused and she could have sworn his eyes actually sparked. “Information unobtainable. I am suffering connection problems to memory and functions.”

  “Poor baby.” He watched her. She sighed. “Did any of the humans survive?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Surprise jolted her. “How many?”

  “One female.”

  Cyan turned her head and studied the room before looking back at him. “Where is she? Do you know?”

  “She left the station eight cycles previous.”

  “How?”

  “A shuttle docked and retrieved her.”

  “Do you know which shuttle? Who it was?”

  “Negative. I am unable to link to the station computer.”

  “How do you know she left on a shuttle?”

  “The onboard computer verbally warned of a shuttle approach and I heard voices. The female screamed and I heard a male say he had her. They undocked.”

  “Well, that information wasn’t very helpful. Now I’ve got to try to track her down. I don’t suppose you know if they were pirates?” Cyan
really hoped not or there wouldn’t be a reason to try to locate the survivor. Eight days with pirates would have made her either completely insane or very dead.

  “Negative.”

  “Okay, well, thanks for playing.” She straightened to her feet. “I’m going to help you now.”

  “Good.”

  She didn’t bother to shoot him and waste bullets. His open chest wounds gave her access. She pointed the energy gun at him and fired two shots. One would have done it but she wanted to make sure the stationer hadn’t wasted his life when he’d attempted to kill the Markus Model. This time she’d make certain it permanently shut down.

  The body jerked and smoke rose. The report of her weapon sounded unusually loud inside the otherwise silent control room. She watched as the eyes turned white, the mouth dropped open, and it totally ceased functioning.

  “Oh, just for shits and giggles.” She fired one more energy shot into the thing. “Better to be safe than sorry. I hope you keep burning in computer hell for killing all those people.”

  Cyan walked over to the monitoring station that still appeared operational while she holstered her weapons. She paused but then frowned. Two docking doors registered in use. The Blarney accounted for one. The survivor would have used the same door to flee if another ship had been docked when the attack happened.

  The color drained from her face at the implication. “Computer, emergency response,” she whispered to override most of its protocols. “State the times when the docking locations were activated.”

  The computer responded. “Twenty-three minutes and forty seconds.” It paused. “Ten minutes and nineteen seconds.”

  Cyan spun, her weapons clearing their holsters, gripped in each hand, and her heart raced. Someone had docked after she had. She wasn’t alone on the station anymore. She swallowed hard. She’d found one Markus, which meant at least seven more androids were unaccounted for. She had a really bad feeling that she’d just found them or worse, they’d found her.