The Syn-En Solution

by Linda Andrews

  “Two hours then.” Doc glanced up. “Hmm. I think I’ve found it.”

  “Where?” Anticipation coursed through Bei.

  “Her skull is abnormally thick.” Doc tapped a few more keys and the picture of Nell’s head appeared on the diag screen. The image moved in and out of focus as it cut through hair and tissue to expose the underlying bone. “See this area at the base. It’s too thick and corresponds to regions with high activity levels.”

  Before Bei could respond, a ding from the com warned of an incoming message.

  “Security Chief Rome to Admiral York. Bei, come in.”

  Bei nodded to Doc. “I’ll want options for removal before we reach the planet. Send them to me encoded and, Doc, tell as few others as possible.”

  Doc nodded but didn’t look away from the readings. “Aye, Admiral.”

  Bei glanced at the com hub by the door before dismissing it. The citizens were technophobes, but he wasn’t. Using the WA, Bei sent a secured message to his security chief. What’s the problem, Chief?

  You need to report to docking station two. Chief Rome’s blond avatar wrung his hands.

  Bei sent his own digital representation to fetch the America’s schematics. The infirmary was in the same wing as the docking station. After charting the shortest course, he grafted the file onto his memory and strode from the room. I’m on my way. Brief me as I walk .

  Hushed voices drifted down the carpeted hallway. Gilded frames displayed holographic pictures on the beige walls. The photos shuffled between portraits of the UEN Supreme Council and bucolic scenes of Earth. Using his command codes, Bei deleted the officials’ portraits and replaced them with the induction photos of the children.

  Starflight 1. Lightning bolts radiated from the Chief’s avatar. Apparently, Civilian Timothy Smith rescued you and the others then brought you aboard.

  Surprise and anger rattled Bei’s control. He turned right at the next corner and headed for the elevator at the end of the hallway. An image of the civilian popped up in cyberspace. Not that Bei needed a reminder. He knew the face, rank and identity of all those who’d run off with the traitor Burkina Faso. And does Smith think he can earn his passage to Terra Dos by turning in his comrades?

  The elevator doors swished open. Bei entered the mahogany paneled box and stabbed the crystal button for level one.

  Their corpses, you mean. Rome’s avatar turned green. He’s mounted Faso’s head on a pulse rifle and piled her limbs underneath .

  Shock tempered Bei’s anger. Smith hadn’t been reduced to a civilian because of a violent crime. The doors closed and the elevator glided down. Where is Smith now?

  Dead, Admiral. His neck was broken. Swear words bubbled around the Chief. He’s been dead for days and his identity chip was cut out.

  And where is Smith’s ident chip? Bei was out the elevator as soon as the door opened. The stench of decay infused the long corridor. Ignoring it, Bei added this latest twist to what he already knew as his long strides ate the fifty yards between him and the docking bay.

  In the waste stream. He flushed it after disappearing among the rest of the civilian refugees.

  Bei would bet every implant in his body that the mystery man in Nell’s dream had brought them aboard the America. No one would give him a second glance when there were casualties needing attendance and the stranger was one of many civilians coming aboard. So why had the man risked exposure to rescue him and his men?

  For a moment, panic stopped Bei in his tracks then he raced down the hall to the com hub. Nell! She had been trapped in his arms when his armored skin had locked up. The only way to free her from Bei’s NDA was to save him. By bringing the rest of his crew aboard the ship, the stranger provided enough of a distraction to slip away unnoticed until he could get to Nell again. Shoving Chief Rome out of the way, Bei pushed the button to activate the com unit. “Doc report.”

  Nothing. Bei’s heart raced. Could the man have taken out a Syn-En?

  “Doc!” Bei released the com button and sprinted back the way he’d come. “Rome, I want security to Nell’s room now. We have an intruder.”

  Bei leaned on the elevator button, willing the lift to arrive faster. The bastard had used the bodies in Starflight 1 to distract Bei and his men while he went after his real target: Nell.

  Despite having the best sensors, fastest relays and immense strength,

  Syn-Ens must accept that sometimes, the best course of action is to

  do nothing.

  Syn-En Vade Mecum

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bei charged down the hallway of the infirmary deck, relieved that no one blocked his path to Nell’s room. The plush carpet muffled his footfalls and children beamed at him from the framed LCDs hanging on the beige walls. Two minutes to get from the docking bay to the infirmary, yet he knew he was too late.

  Nell had already been taken.

  Thanks to the friction from the artificial gravity, Bei slowed down enough to make the hard turn into sick bay.

  A five man security team faced him. For a second, their rifle barrels aimed at his heart before pointing them at the deck.

  “At ease.” Bei focused on the black clad body at their feet. While a part of him remembered that Nell had been wearing nothing, reason couldn’t temper the panic infusing Bei. He broke through the ring of uniformed security men, ignored the empty, rumpled bed and glanced down. “Where is she?”

  Arms and legs twitching, Doc flopped on the ground. “The bastard infiltrated my interface and locked me out of my own body. Fortunately, a diag ran soon afterward or, God knows, how long I’d be out of commission.”

  Bei flinched. The stranger had achieved the Holy Grail of terrorists and anti-government nutjobs everywhere. He’d disabled a Syn-En without firing a single weapon. Without their cerebral interfaces, Syn-Ens couldn’t control their limbs, let alone complete a mission. Unlike Nell, the fiend knew how to use the interface to his advantage. But could it also be turned against him?

  Bei opened a secure channel in the WA, patted the digital Dobermans on the head then issued a fleet wide alert. This is Admiral York to the fleet. Security Alert Alpha. I repeat, Security Alert Alpha. This is not a drill .

  Surprise rippled through the WA before individual firewalls slammed into place.

  Bei didn’t know if the firewalls offered anything more than an illusion of protection, but it was the best they could do. He needed more intell on the stranger, especially on his hardware. Once cyberspace fell silent, Bei limited access to encrypted communications among his senior officers and entered the WA. Thanks to the citizens’ technophobia, moving in cyberspace was a lot like walking in tar. He swore upon discovering there were no security cameras in the corridors or rooms but quickly found the list of medical personnel who had attended him and Nell when they’d been brought aboard and accessed their memory files.

  Every encounter dealing with the stranger’s arrival had been erased.

  There would be no face to go with their enemy. Hell, they didn’t even have a name. Bei returned his attention to the sick bay.

  Doc wrapped his hand around the metal support of the bed and struggled to sit up. “I’m sorry, Admiral. All I could do was watch him take her.”

  “Understood.” Bei ignored the stab of anger and held out his hand to Doc. They were on a spaceship. Where did the stranger plan to take Nell? Unless… Her stasis pod had been programmed to create an exit far from the end of the wormhole and head for the fourth planet from the sun. Bei’s emotions rattled his control. The son-of-a-bitch wanted to get Nell to Terra Dos. But why? All the Syn-En were headed there. Bei gritted his teeth. First, they needed to find their enemy. Hell, with Doc out of commission, they didn’t even know what the man looked like and no one would take a dream clip as evidence. “Did you record him grabbing Nell?”

  “Aye.” The doctor grasped Bei’s wrist with both hands and pulled himself to his feet. He swayed a bit before collapsing onto the bed. Recovering from a cerebral lockdown
made those first steps with enhanced arms and legs awkward, painful and slow. “As soon as I gain access to my memories, I’ll send the image.”

  The security team shifted, restless in their failure. The hum of their charged particle rifles competed with the swish of the extra armor padding their uniforms.

  After glancing at the others, a dark-skinned man stepped forward. The patch on his breast pocket designated him as Algiers. Determination shone from his brown eyes. “We’ll make a sweep of this floor, Admiral. We will find Nell Stafford.”

  Bei gave his assent for the search and they marched out. Who was Nell really? Was she the woman who’d shared his quarters these last three weeks, and had her cerebral interface helped her seduce him? How much control did it have over her? That was the question. Hell, Bei didn’t care. The son-of-a-bitch might have Nell, but that arrangement was only temporary. Bei wouldn’t give up his mate without a fight. Using the WA, he entered the America’s CIC and accessed the com to search for Nell’s DNA signature. All of her medical files were empty. Without those files, the sensors couldn’t find her and neither could Bei and his men.

  Damn the bastard.

  Bei clenched his fists. He couldn’t afford to wait until the man messed up in order to catch him. God only knew what he was doing to Nell. The thought of her at the stranger’s mercy was a never-ending scream inside Bei’s head. He opened a priority channel to his Chief of Security. “Scan the ship of the dead for any unknown DNA trace and get it back to me ASAP.”

  “Aye, Admiral.” Chief Rome’s blond avatar melted from the CIC.

  A high-pitched shriek in the com system brought Bei’s attention back to the sick bay. What tripped the alarm?

  Algiers’ ebony face flashed in the open doorway seconds before his hulking body tumbled into the room and crashed to a stop against Bei’s abandoned bed. Just as he aimed his rifle, his fellow security officers dashed inside the room, weapons at the ready, covering the entire space in search of the enemy.

  Red tinged Doc’s dusky skin. “Sorry about the alarm. With my reset, the WA thinks I’m an intruder and keeps knocking me out.”

  Bei squeezed the doctor’s shoulder. “Just get us the data without injuring yourself.”

  With Doc’s explanation of the false alarm, Algiers unfolded his crouched frame and adjusted the targeting control on his weapon. “The chief just sent the bastard’s DNA signature. Do you want him dead or mostly dead?”

  Bei took a deep breath. He wanted the pleasure of killing the son-of-a-bitch, but every second the man remained at large increased the risk to Bei’s crew, not to mention the new inductees. The children on board had no defense against violence. Bei’s personal attachment to Nell was clouding his judgment, impairing his ability to command. Using emergency protocols, Bei cordoned off his emotions. He’d vowed to lead the Fleet to Terra Dos.

  Thanks to the United Earth Nations’ genocide campaign, the survival of the entire Syn-En race depended on him. He hoped Nell understood. His duty must come first.

  Doc’s eyes were black. Sweat glistened on his upper lip. “Got it.”

  A picture of a man materialized on the com screen. Bei recognized the flat nose, high cheekbones and tan skin from his shared dream with Nell. No, not dream, a false memory designed to… Bei shook his head. He didn’t know what the dreams did yet. But he would. Nell counted on him to save her.

  Algiers cleared his throat. “Orders, Admiral?”

  “Track the bastard, but do not engage.” The order left a foul taste in Bei’s mouth.

  Confusion and anger warred in the security officer’s eyes. “Sir?”

  Bei felt their condemnation as clearly as if the WA was still open. Syn-En didn’t surrender one of their own. And every one of his men considered Nell a Syn-En. The knowledge warmed Bei even as he denied his emotions power over his thoughts. “You have your orders.”

  The five man security detail shuffled toward the door.

  Spasms shook Doc’s legs. “He won’t hurt her.”

  “No.” Bei clung to the thought for a moment. But given the thirteen corpses on Starflight 1, he doubted the stranger would extend the courtesy to the security staff. Bei couldn’t risk a firefight or depressurizing even part of the America. Too many children were aboard.

  Bei would seek his revenge once his feet touched down on their new home world, when there was no chance of collateral damage to innocents. Until then, Bei needed a way to neutralize the man’s power.

  Using hand signals, Algiers motioned for two of his men to turn right then led the others left.

  Bei tapped into the CIC. Because of the citizen’s phobia of technology, he had to momentarily merge his consciousness with his avatar’s. After a flickering on and off, the com screen displayed a two dimensional schematic of the starcruiser. A green triangle appeared in the lower deck of the far wing of the arrow-shaped America. With a few clicks of the keyboard, Bei identified another biomass almost on top of the enemy’s. Tagging the new signature as Nell, Bei considered the significance of the signal’s overlap. Were they walking close together or was one carrying the other?

  Bei felt as if he’d been sucker-punched. Why was the man carrying Nell? Had he hurt her already? Had she resisted going with him, forcing him to render her unconscious?

  “He didn’t kill me.” Doc’s teeth locked together as a grand mal seizure traveled up his body. Red warning lights flashed on the diag screen above his bed.

  Knowing the misfires were part of Doc’s reboot, Bei ignored the alarms and kept searching for meaning in the stranger’s actions. The man hadn’t wanted to challenge the Syn-En directly, but he’d murdered Burkina and her band of mutineers. Was it because Bei and the Syn-En wanted the traitors dead? Did he hope to gain favor through homicide?

  A chill washed down Bei’s spine. For the man to know of the expendability of Faso and company, he must have entered the ship’s mainframe. How long had the son-of-a-bitch been in the CIC? Given that he had a cerebral interface, he wouldn’t need long to download information, especially on Syn-En battle tactics.

  Rescuing Nell wouldn’t be easy when the enemy could anticipate Bei’s every move. While he relished the challenge, he would have to discard the Vade Mecum and its battle-tested techniques. Of course, the task might be easier if he had an ally in the enemy’s camp. Bei walked to the side of Doc’s bed and waited until his body relaxed. “Were you able to disable Nell’s interface?”

  “Can’t.” Sweat matted Doc’s black hair at his temples. “It has grown leads directly into her brain stem. Just probing it stopped her lungs and heart.”

  Bei massaged his throbbing temples as fear and anger raged against their containment. If Doc couldn’t remove Nell’s implant, then she could become a threat anytime an enemy hijacked her frequency. Bei sighed, groping for a means to mitigate the danger. One thing replayed over in his mind, abandoning Nell was out of the question. But to let her live among them… “How many times did she die when you went after her interface?”

  Doc grimaced. “Twice.”

  Bei resisted the urge to slam his fist through the wall. The emotions dampener wasn’t doing its job. What else could go wrong? “How long will she be unconscious?”

  Doc’s eyes drifted closed. More and more of his vital signs leveled off in the normal range. “I gave her enough drugs to keep her out for two hours. But if the bastard can access her cerebral interface, he may be able to bring her out earlier. Not something I’d advise.”

  “Admiral.” Chief Rome’s voice came over the com system second’s before his face filled half of the screen. “Starflight 2 is powering engines. Security sweep is reporting sealed bulkheads between them and the shuttle.”

  Striding back to the com by the door, Bei checked the America’s schematic and overlaid it with the life signs near the docking bay. Twelve unconscious Syn-Ens were piled in a heap just outside of the airlock to the Starflight’s docking bay. Nell and the man’s heat signatures registered inside the shuttle. One was in th
e pilot seat.

  The com screen blanked then a tickertape of words scrolled across the bottom of the screen. “Recall your men, Admiral or your ship will face fatal errors and the civilians and little children will suffer.”

  Bei gripped the com’s keyboard and folded it in half, shattering the molded plastic. Keys pinged across the polished floor. The homicidal son-on-a-bitch was in the system again. Checking the CIC, Bei found the Dobermans collapsed under the assault of a swarm of rocket-shaped viruses. “You getting this, Chief?”

  “Yes.” Chief Rome’s avatar opened a first aid kit inside cyberspace. Disembodied mouths flew out of the white box and gulped the viruses attacking the dogs.

  The lights in sick bay dimmed, and another message flashed on the com screen. “Call off the tin soldiers or their deaths will be on your head.”

  Bei’s gut clenched. The stranger held the advantage, but only for now. “Tell your men to stand down, Chief.”

  “Roger that. Stand down, men.” On the com’s vid screen, Chief Rome worried the cleft in his chin.

  Bei switched his attention to the schematic. Algiers and his security team were forcing their way to the airlock. Starflight 2’s engines registered full power. Bei sent the order to release the docking clamps, before the bastard decided to rip a strip of hull off the America to prove his superiority.

  Chief Rome’s green eyes narrowed and a muscle ticked in his square jaw. “Acknowledge the order, Lieutenant Algiers.”

  The blue colored blips of the five men team paused two bulkheads away from the pile of disabled Syn-Ens. “Aye, Sir. Standing down.”

  Chief Rome ran his fingers through his short blond crew cut. “Starflight 2 is away.”

  “Trajectory?” Bei asked as the sick bay’s door opened and two medics hustled over to Doc.

  Chief frowned, then the ship’s schematic changed into a chart of the solar system. A dashed line extrapolated from the enemy’s current position, passed six planets and their moons to forecast an end on the fourth planet from the sun. “Terra Dos.”