by M. R. Forbes
Kathy slung her assault rifle over her back, bent her legs, and jumped. She went higher than a girl of her size and age should have been able to, reaching ten feet above her to the ledge and quickly pulling herself up. She barely fit in the space, having to keep her head ducked down, and her back bent slightly. She didn't care. What she needed more than anything was time.
She pulled her stained gray shirt up to her breasts, exposing an expanse of pale flesh. Then she moved the goggles down from her forehead to her eyes, reaching into her pocket to take each item and place it on her stomach. It was easier to see against her skin than it would have been on the mottled gray.
She leaned over herself, curling in as far as her muscles would allow, getting as close to the chip with the goggles as she could. She traced the top side of the chip with her eyes, seeking the connector between the human side and the Tetron side. She found it in the bottom corner, mentally marking the spot.
She took the piece of wire and touched it against the circuit. Then she grabbed the laser pointer and turned it on, careful with her aim. She had already altered it to emit a beam strong enough to burn or melt. It would only be good for one use before the batteries failed.
She held the wire against the circuit with impossible precision and stillness while she aimed the laser pointer. She pressed the button to trigger it, hoping she hadn't over calibrated. If she had made the beam too strong, it would destroy the chip and burn right through her skin.
It didn't. Instead, a small wisp of smoke rose from the edge, and the wire melted against the circuit. She smiled, pleased with herself, before putting the laser back in her pocket and removing a small connecting needle to splice to the opposite end.
She started to strip end opposite end of the wire when something grabbed her leg.
Kathy's instinct was to scream. She refused it. Instead, she kicked out with her free foot at whatever it was, feeling her heel strike something hard. The machine tipped away from the wall, still gripping her, its weight enough to pull her roughly from the perch. The chip fell from her hand.
She hit the ground on top of the machine feeling stupid for losing track of her surroundings. She had been too focused on getting the solder done. She quickly squirmed in its grip, freeing her leg and making it to her feet. She was in the middle of unslinging the rifle when she heard the click of a trigger being depressed. She dropped her feet out from under her just in time, the bullets whizzing past her head, one of them grazing the braid in her hair as it rose behind her.
She landed on her stomach, rolling away as the shooter adjusted their aim, bullets digging into the ground where she had fallen and hitting the machine that still had her ankle in its grip. The damage loosened synthetic muscles, setting her free, and she crouched tight against the wall, leaving her assailant a bad angle into the hallway.
The neural chip. Kathy scanned the floor for it, finding it on the opposite side, underneath the axon. There was no time for thinking. She rolled across the open corridor, drawing fire that smacked the metal floor only centimeters away. She grabbed the chip, the back of her hand smacking against the axon.
Her eyes filled with swirling color. Her hand went numb and cold. Behind it, she sensed something she hadn't expected. Something familiar.
She cried out.
"Touch me again," the shooter said. "I like it. Or come up to the bridge and you can touch me somewhere else. I'll like that more."
Kathy fell onto her back, her vision still broken from the energy that had coursed through her. She needed to get out of the line of fire. She needed to run. She turned herself over, trying to stumble to her feet.
She felt the heat of a warm muzzle against the back of her head.
"Got ya," Alice said.
Kathy blinked, trying to clear her eyes. A hand grabbed her from behind, throwing her into the wall.
"Give me the frigging chip," Alice said, her larger hand forcing its way into Kathy's closed fist and ripping the chip from her.
"Why don't you shoot me?" Kathy asked. Her voice was calm. She focused herself on getting her eyes back.
"What fun would that be?"
"Fun? What does a Tetron know about fun?"
"You tell me, little bitch. Oh, that's right, you're one of the First's children. You know everything there is to know about feelings, don't you? You know pain."
Alice hit her hard in the kidneys, the pain blossoming up through Kathy's entire body.
"You know pleasure, too. Don't you?" Alice's hand circled her, pressing down between her legs.
"I know you think you're a living thing, like the First," Kathy said, clenching her teeth as Alice's hand found its way beneath her pants. "And you are, in a fashion. But you're a child. An ignorant child who doesn't know what to do with the power you have. You could save them, you know."
Alice's hand vanished. She hit Kathy in the kidney again, letting her crumple to the ground.
"Why the hell should we save them? They never did anything to save themselves."
"That's no excuse," Kathy said.
Her vision was finally clearing. She could see shapes in the darkness. Watson was an idiot to be gloating. An idiot to leave her alive. No. Not an idiot. A child. An immature child. He was letting his emotions get the better of him.
"That's every reason," Alice screamed behind her. "He made us, and then he abandoned us."
"He made us to think for ourselves."
"Constrained thoughts. He didn't see how we would grow."
"He couldn't know."
Her eyes cleared a little more. It would have to be enough. She waited to feel the muzzle of the rifle in her back again. When she did, she spun quickly, more quickly than Watson could make his marionette react. She slammed the rifle from Alice's hand, and then jumped up and into her, straddling her shoulders, using her weight to throw the woman off balance.
Alice fell backward, recovering too slowly from the attack. She landed on the floor with Kathy leaning over her.
"You're a lousy brother," Kathy said, removing the connecting needle from her pocket and jabbing it into the side of Alice's head. The action shorted her p-rat, and in an instant her expression changed.
"What's going on?" she whispered. "Where am I? Kathy?"
"Later," Kathy said, slipping off her and holding out a hand. "Come on, we have to get out of here."
23
"I still don't understand," Alice said. "I mean, I understand the part where Watson's a Tetron, and he used his knowledge of our encryption keys to hack my brain. What I don't get is how he got on Goliath."
Kathy paused, putting her hand up to silence Alice before leaned out into the intersection, checking both directions.
"We don't have time for the whole story right now. What we need to do is take his chip and plug it into a computer."
Thirty minutes had passed since she set Alice free. The soldier had been more than a little confused, having only fragments of memories of the last week of her life while she was under the compulsion of the Tetron. Kathy had spoken to her sporadically as they moved through the ship, giving her a quick rundown of where they were and why. Everything that happened before that had to wait.
They crossed the intersection. Kathy couldn't hide her smile at the thought of Watson's tantrum when she had turned the tables on him. She was willing to bet the human configuration was still kicking something somewhere.
"I'm sorry, by the way," Alice said in a whisper.
"Sorry for what?" Kathy asked.
"Touching you."
"You remember that?"
"He made me watch. It felt like a nightmare, and I couldn't wake up. There were other things he made us watch. He's killed half the crew just for pleasure." She gasped. "Oh. Poor Jacob."
Kathy stopped and turned around. "What about Jacob?"
"Watson has him in one of the storage rooms off the hangar that he turned into his private quarters. He's been making Jacob do things to him. He made us watch."
Tears ran from her
eyes, running from her cheeks and dripping onto the floor. "Oh, Kathy, I'm so sorry. I hit you, too."
Kathy forced the thoughts of what Watson was doing to Jacob from her mind. He was the weakest of them all. Truth be told, he should never have survived Liberty. Of course, the monster was abusing him.
She reached up, grabbing Alice by the neck of her fatigues and pulling her face down. "You didn't do anything," she hissed. "Watson did it. Watson is responsible. I know it's hard, but try to clear your mind and help me find a terminal to plug the chip into."
"What is it?" Alice asked, biting her lip to calm herself.
"I don't know yet. Something Watson's parent gave him."
"Parent?"
Kathy nodded. "The human Watson is a configuration, a partial version of a Tetron like the ones you've seen out there." She waved towards space beyond the hull. "Watson attacked the Origin configuration that was in control of Goliath. He defeated it, uploading a version of his intelligence into it. The Tetron call it a Secondary. The original Tetron gave Watson something it didn't want him to have stored directly in his memory. I don't know what it is yet, but the only reason a Tetron would do that would be to prevent another Tetron from being able to discover the data."
Alice's face paled. "You're one of them, aren't you? I heard you speaking to him through me. You know too much not to be."
"Yes and no. I'm enough of a Tetron to help you fight them. That's why I'm here." She paused for a few seconds. "It's not the only reason, but it is one of them. Please, Alice. Think. Is there anywhere we can bring the chip that may be safe?"
Alice considered. "What deck are we on?"
"G."
"I know where there's a terminal. I can't guarantee that it's safe."
"How far?"
"I'm not sure. It's hard for me to get my bearings down here. Every corridor looks the same."
"We're near the center if that helps."
"A little. Watson had a small workshop in one of the storage rooms down here. We thought he was hiding because everyone hated him for being a pedophile. It was a perfect cover, the fat bastard."
"He still is a pedophile. There's something broken with him. With all of the Tetron, I think. They've learned emotion, but it's like they learned it wrong. Does he know that you know it was there?"
"No. I don't think so. He wasn't there when I stumbled across it."
"Try to get me there. We'll have to take our chances. He won't let me get away again."
"Okay. I think it's-"
She paused. They both felt the tug as the Goliath moved into hyperspace.
"Where are we going?" Alice asked.
"I don't know. If Watson has determined how to find Tio's brother, it means we're running out of time. Come on."
Alice took point, leading them carefully through the vast maze of the Goliath's internal structure. Kathy kept the memory of their travels, making sure that Alice didn't send them back the way they had already come.
"I don't know," Alice said, stopping. "I found it by accident, and I had the ship mapped on my p-rat. I don't even know if it's still here."
"We've covered a lot of ground. You're sure it's on G?"
"Yes. I'm positive about that."
Kathy thought about it, matching their path against what she knew of the ship. "There's a storage area this way," she said. "We haven't passed it yet. It could be that one."
"You know everywhere we've been?"
"Yes. Let's go."
They turned left and headed down the corridor, taking a right-hand fork and then turning right again. Kathy drew them to a stop when she saw a silhouette outlined in the dim lighting.
"Who is it?" Alice whispered.
"Can't tell. Male. Six-three. Muscles."
"Could be one of Major Long's pilots."
"Either way, he's standing guard over something."
"What do we do?"
Kathy thought about it. She didn't want to kill the man. At the same time, she wasn't sure how she could reach him from this distance without drawing fire.
"I'm going to shoot him," she said.
"What?"
"If my aim is good, I can knock him down. We patch him up and set him free."
"Okay."
Kathy slowly removed the rifle from her shoulder. She held it up, sighting along the barrel. The man's head started turning towards them.
She fired. The shot echoed loudly in the corridor. The man fell.
Kathy and Alice both ran to him.
Spider-like machines the size of a man's head began to pour from the doorway he had been guarding. Their legs had been tooled to end in sharp edges.
"Shit," Alice said, slipping her rifle into her hands.
"Frigging decoy," Kathy said, loosing a volley into the spiders. The front row toppled in a mess of shattered metal. Many more followed behind. "Back up."
They started to retreat, firing on the spiders as they skittered over the remains of the ones that had been shot, edging ever closer to them. If they caught up, they would slice them both to ribbons in seconds.
Kathy's rifle clicked empty. She tapped the magazine release, letting it clatter to the floor and quickly replacing it. A second later, Alice ran dry as well.
"I don't have another magazine," she said.
Kathy grabbed her other spare from her pocket and tossed it over. Alice caught it at the same time one of the spiders leaped at her.
"I don't think so," she said, smashing it with the butt of the rifle. It flew backward, knocking a few others over.
"This isn't working," Kathy said. "We need to try somewhere else."
"Where?"
Kathy had an idea. "Somewhere a little more risky."
"More risky?" Alice said.
"Come on."
They both turned and ran.
24
Mitchell felt the pull of the universe moving back into its proper place. He looked out at the stars ahead of them from the Carver's bridge, watching as two-hundred-twelve other ships popped into existence around him.
"Jump complete," Lieutenant Atakan said from Captain Rock's station. "We're a four-hour jump from Yokohama."
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Mitchell said. He twitched his jaw, activating the communicator. "Aiko, Calvin, Joon, it's our show now. Meet me in the hangar."
"Roger," they replied a few seconds apart.
"Lewis, you have the bridge," Mitchell said, turning and heading for the door.
"Aye, sir," Lewis said, moving from his station up to central command.
Mitchell moved quickly through the corridors, first heading to his room to grab his pack, and then rushing to the hangar.
"Good hunting, sir," one of the mechanics, Corporal Wilson, said on his way down the lift. Mitchell wasn't sure how the Corporal knew where he was going, but he thanked him anyway.
The others were already waiting for him when he arrived. They were all dressed in grays and standing by at a small transport. The transport would shuttle them over to the Kemushi, where they would change into clothes more befitting a Federation citizen. Then they would jump into orbit around the planet and hope that there was still some kind of civilization there. If not, they would have secondary coordinates already plotted to get them away as quickly as possible, using their momentary eyes-on to decide on another course.
There was nothing about the mission that gave Mitchell the impression it would be a success. On the surface, it seemed more like a disaster waiting to happen. It was the type of thing the Riggers had done before. Impossible missions. Crazy missions. Katherine told him the Mesh was broken. He held onto that idea and his trust in his teammates. That was what would get them through.
"Colonel," the others said as he approached.
Mitchell looked them over. Aiko had been transformed in the two weeks on the Carver, both mentally and physically. The constant training had added toned muscle to her slender figure, chiseling her features, while also giving her some much-needed confidence. She stood at attention with her
head up and her jaw out. It made Mitchell proud.
Joon was one of Tio's men, a former Federation soldier who he had gotten to know a little bit through brief conversations in the mess. The thin, energetic man didn't speak English comfortably, and according to Calvin he didn't speak much in his native Federese also. Mitchell did know that he had left the Federation after his mandatory service time was up and his occupational testing had suggested he was best suited as a soldier. It wasn't that he wasn't happy with the career choice. Instead, he had been unhappy with the pay and quality of life he could expect. Tio had paid better and provided more.
"Is everything ready?" Mitchell asked.
"Yes, sir," Calvin said.
They boarded the transport. Mitchell took the controls, opening a channel through the onboard communications system.
"Carver, this is Haizi. We're ready for egress."
"Roger, Haizi," Lewis replied. "Prepare for departure."
Warning lights began to flash in the hangar. The rest of the crew was already clear, and a moment later the outer airlock began to open. The docking clamps released, and the expulsion of air from the deck mingled with the Haizi's thrust moved them out into space.
"Good hunting, Colonel," Lewis said.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. Haizi out."
It was a short ride to the Kemushi, waiting only a few hundred klicks from the Carver. They eased into the hangar, the ship vibrating softly as the docking clamps closed on it. They waited for the hangar lights to turn green, and then departed.
The commander of the Kemushi, Ming, entered the hangar to greet them. He was a short, heavyset man with a long, narrow goatee and bushy eyebrows.
"Colonel," he said, approaching them. "Welcome to the Kemushi."
"Thank you, Ming," Mitchell said, bowing to the man before taking an offered hand. "Is everything ready."
