Augment

by C R MacFarlane

  “Junk?” Gal cried. “A24-alpha? No.” He paced, two steps this way, two steps back. “Absolutely not.”

  “We have to.” Kieran looked at Hoepe, and Hoepe nodded.

  “You are a lunatic,” said Gal. “We need to stay off the grid.”

  “Galiant,” Hoepe held up his hands.

  “This is my ship. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Your engineer tells me we’re going to be stranded soon with no way to return.”

  “We’ve got rations and recycled water for years. Off the grid is the safest we can be.”

  “Junk is off the grid!”

  Gal growled, pushing his way to the front of the crowd at the desk. “This is my ship, or do you not remember the promise you made? A promise you knew you could never keep, not with an Augment on our ship.”

  Hoepe signalled, and his man in the corner came forward.

  Gal picked dup his fists, preparing to fight, but Sarrin lifted a hand and flicked him hard three times in rapid succession. Gal slumped to the floor.

  Hoepe breathed a sigh of relief, raising a hand to signal his advancing man to stop. “Thank you, Sarrin.” He signalled again to the two guards behind Sarrin and directed them to Gal. “Take him to his room.”

  “Sir?”

  He waved them away, making clear that his orders were final, and they picked up Gal’s body unceremoniously and carried him from the room. Fixing his gaze on Kieran, Hoepe asked quietly, “You have something?” His deep set brow relayed his meaning.

  Guilt washed over Kieran, and he refused to look at Sarrin as he pulled the auto-syringe out of his pocket, showing it to Hoepe.

  “Good. Go fix the engine. Let’s not sit out here any longer than we have to. We don’t have time for this squabbling.”

  And Kieran found himself back in the corridor, alone with the Augment.

  * * *

  “Where are you from?” Kieran stood on a stool, leaning over the workbench in the engineering bay, his garbled drawl floating down around her.

  Sarrin kept her gaze on the medical-laser plasma-igniter, ignoring Kieran. She was uncertain how many times he had helped her, uncertain how to respond.

  His arm reached shoulder deep in the drive chamber, sanding smooth the welds he had made to seal the chamber again. “Okay. What about your parents, what were they like?”

  She slipped the final lens into place, aligning it precisely, enjoying the feel of her mind falling into a singular focus.

  “Right. Well, did you have other siblings? Besides Halud.”

  Biting the inside of her cheek, she checked the connections on the machine.

  He sighed, exasperated. “Alright. Never mind. I’m just tryin’ ta get to know ya. People do that sometimes.”

  Normal people? Perhaps. Hoepe had warned her about this, but now that they all knew it couldn’t hurt. “Mariante. I don’t remember. No.”

  “Pardon? Oh.” He grinned.

  She let the corners of her mouth tip up. The engineering bay was peaceful, nearly the freedom she had imagined. Hoepe’s guards hadn’t returned. It was Kieran she had to thank for it. Gods knew why he had helped her, or why he didn’t say anything about the weapons.

  She lifted a hand to her temple, pressing on the dull ache there.

  “I think this chamber is as good as it’s going to get. Hopefully it holds long enough.”

  She nodded, ready to bring the completed laser, but the pain in her head continued.

  “Sarrin, you okay?”

  She frowned. The eyes scanning her moved too slowly. But there was no reason for it. Darkness fuzzed at the edge of her vision. She shook her head as though it would clear. Why would the trance come on out of nowhere?

  Warning lights flashed on the consoles — proximity alarm.

  Kieran spun away, tapping at a console. “What?” All the colour drained from his face. “We have to get the FTL working.”

  A voice flowed through speakers overhead: “Warship incoming.”

  Warship? They were floating in the black. In the middle of nowhere. Untraceable.

  Kieran pushed their machines together.

  There was no way for a warship to find them.

  A stray thought came into her cracked mind. “The chamber isn’t sterilized.”

  “It’ll have to do.” He jumped up. “Start loading the gas, I’ll be there in a sec.”

  Forty-nine objects. Least of all the modified plasma ignition laser. They were coming for her, if she had to escape she could, the monster reminded her.

  “Sarrin, you okay?” The engineer’s bright green eyes startled her.

  She clenched her teeth. “Yes.”

  “Good.” His hands rushed, sealing the chamber and funnelling in the reserved gas. He looked at her again. “Help me get this to the engine room.

  With the fortified chamber and all the heavy gases, it weighed as much as a person.

  The comm chimed. “Kieran, we need to get out of here now.”

  “Steady,” he said, locking eyes with her. “We can’t drop this baby now.”

  Ten yards to the engine room.

  “You’re not gonna freak out are you?”

  The ship rocked, and they went staggering. Cannon fire.

  Wide-eyed, he checked the drive. “I think it’s okay.”

  His words crackled like electric shocks, shooting sparks through her nearly dark vision.

  Eight yards from the engine. Twenty paces.

  “Sarrin, look at me. We’re fine. We just have to get it that far.”

  The engineer.

  Three yards. Eight paces.

  “Almost there,” he said. “No big deal. We can do it.”

  Could they? What would happen if the trance took over? Would she destroy the entire ship? Or would they stop her? Would the warship take them?

  The ship rocked again. Over the comm speakers, Hoepe shouted.

  They set the drive on the floor. Kieran pulled at the insulated tubing, stretching it from the engine to the drive. She shook away the darkness and plunged into the engine, double checking the connections.

  The ship shook violently. Her vision almost black by the time she came out. “Kieran?”

  “Hold on, Sarrin.”

  “I can’t.” Not after tasting freedom, the monster wouldn’t let it happen. It clawed its tendrils over her. She could sense the warship, sense the unwavering determination to find her and destroy her. The darkness dug in, preparing. She had to warn Kieran: “Go.”

  “We need to bypass the FTL checks.”

  “Leave.”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  He had to go. Didn’t he understand? The darkness drew schematics for his death.

  “We’re going to be fine. It’s just one quick jump away and they’ll be gone. Help me connect the drive.”

  She crushed her head between her hands. “Why are they here?”

  “They just stumbled upon us. Bad luck, that’s all.”

  “They’re here for me.”

  “No, no. The odds are bad, but it could happen. Space isn’t really that big.”

  A window in her vision cleared. Enough to see Kieran checking the auto-syringe.

  He looked up, their eyes meeting, and he flinched. He spoke to her like a child: “One jump. I need your help. Is the drive charged? Can you check it’s progress.”

  She blinked. Part of her wanted to be indignant, to tell him she wasn’t a child. The other part understood, and her addled brain latched onto the simpleness of the request. Checking the jump drive was easy. She could do that. The console was two steps to the left, her hands moved over it automatically. “Fifty-eight.”

  “Good.” His voice shook as he entered coordinates seemingly at random.

  The ship rocked again, and she squeezed he eyes shut. They had to jump away, he was right, but the monster dug in, asserting itself. She pulled a panel off the wall, not unscrewing it first.

  He stared at her. The auto-syringe shifted in his hand.


  The FTL flashed 100, and he sent the ship into a jump.

  ELEVEN

  KIERAN STEPPED OFF THE CARGO ramp and took a deep breath. Junk smelled oddly like his father: a combination of engine oil and rusting metal. A warm breeze rippled his hair, and he grinned up at the dark sky, stretching his arms so he could inhale as much non-recycled air as possible.

  The planet surface was covered in scrap and spare parts. The ship itself perched at an angle, landing struts resting on swells of old metal. In the sky above, the orbital belt — also made of old space junk — could be seen shining in the dark blue sky.

  “It’s beautiful here,” he said. He’d not had much opportunity in his life to step planetside, but the sun felt just right, warm and welcoming. “Too bad it was never colonized.”

  “Who says it’s not?” Gal muttered inaudibly.

  “What?” Kieran looked around, but no one else seemed to have heard. Gal hadn’t moved, still sitting on the same set of packs with his flask of Jin-Jiu.

  Hoepe stepped forward and organized the crew into pairs, sending them on different directions into the maze with a list of desperately needed parts. Rayne begrudgingly went along with Gal, acquiescing to help only because, this far out in the deep black, their only option was to find a replacement Kepheus drive for the FTL.

  Kieran’s eyes roved hungrily over the piles as he walked away from the ship — transmitters, diodes, things that hadn’t been used in centuries. He moved aside an old rubber wheel and found an intact hydrogen cell. He could use that.

  “What are you doing?” Sarrin suddenly asked.

  Of course she had been watching. He gulped, but her eyes showed only bright curiosity, none of the wildness she had slipped into before in the engine room. “Look at this — it’s in perfect condition.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “What is it?”

  He chided himself for the slip: hydrogen cell tech hadn’t been used in three-hundred years. He’d already broken the rules once for her, and this was dangerously close to sharing outsider knowledge. “A hydrogen cell. Very old. I thought you knew a lot about engines.”

  “I do.”

  Quickly, he changed the subject before she could think on it too long. “How did you get to know so much about engines?”

  “Reading.”

  Kieran followed her as they picked their way over and between piles. “Did they make you read a lot at Evangecore?”

  She paused in her stride. She had started answering some of his questions, as long as they weren’t too deep. He thought that one might have been too far, but, surprisingly, she answered: “Some things. When we were younger.”

  “Like what?”

  Her eyes swivelled darkly — he was pushing his luck, but this was the most open she had been. “The Litanies, mostly.”

  “Oh.” He had read the Litanies as part of his research, quotes from their Gods, reminding them to listen and keep faith and obey. “Then how did you get to know so much about engines?”

  Sarrin stood with her hands held in front of her, studying a pile of scrap. “A nurse saw my interest and brought me books.” She reached in, digging under old transmitters and canisters, grunted once, and pulled free a Kepheus Drive.

  Kieran stared. “How did you do that?”

  She passed it to him, carefully holding the heavy container at its extreme end.

  “Incredible.” He shook it lightly, listening for the rattle of broken pieces. The gas might need to be recharged, but it looked to be in good condition. “You just pulled this from a heap of junk. I never would have looked in a million years.”

  She shrugged, folding over her hands and turning away. Question period now evidently over.

  Kieran lugged the heavy drive behind him. He followed her around a corner, finding her staring into another pile.

  “Your list included an ion transmitter.”

  “What, did you find one?” This shopping trip was going far better than expected.

  To answer, she reached forward. Halfway, she stopped. Her head turned, focus suddenly shifting to something in the distance. She murmured a single word: “Grant.”

  Squinting his eyes, Kieran strained to see what she might be seeing. There was nothing. Then, a round, grey spec flew through the air. A fireball erupted where it landed.

  He jumped, hand automatically gripped the sedative in his coveralls pocket. His eyes darted to Sarrin. Her face had knitted into a frown, but otherwise she appeared relaxed.

  Another bomb whistled overhead, wobbling like a football, and landed on the near side of them, close enough he could feel the heat. She dropped her shoulder and took off running back towards the ship. Kieran scrambled behind her. “Where are they coming from?” There shouldn’t have been anyone else on the planet.

  She pointed. A figure sprinted across the top of a ridge of crumbling junk — a creature with dark, mottled brown skin, no hair or facial features to mark it as human.

  What was it?

  Sarrin slid under an old panel, and Kieran took cover beside her. A series of bombs exploded making the ground shake — whatever it was, it was aiming right for them.

  The auto-syringe slid into his grip. Sarrin’s eyes wandered, her focus far away. He called her name.

  She responded, turning slowly to look at him.

  Poking his head out of their hiding space, he could see Rayne and Gal taking refuge under what looked like an old shuttle wing. Past them some of Hoepe and his men pressed their backs against a wide pile of scrap. They weren’t far from the ship. He turned to tell Sarrin, but she already stood, her eyes darting across the junk yard.

  “Sarrin —.” He reached out to tug her back down into their hiding place.

  She took off at a sprint, sure feet sprinting up the irregular side of a pile. Partway, she stopped dead. Her head swivelled from the fearsome alien to Gal and Rayne.

  Even from this distance, he could read the change in her expression. He scrambled out of the hiding spot, injector in hand.

  Another bomb launched from the grey-brown monster. As he watched it, his eyes traced its path forwards, realizing its trajectory would land it somewhere very close to the captain and Rayne. He shouted out to warn them. Rayne must have seen it at the same time. She pulled on Gal’s arm, but he wouldn’t move. She tugged and shouted, but he only slumped forward.

  Jesus.

  Sarrin’s arms and legs moved so fast they blurred. Down the crumbling mountain, across the ground. She jumped over Gal and Rayne, running along the broken shuttle wing that they hid under, and sprang into the air.

  Not knowing what he would do when he got there, Kieran ran to meet them.

  In mid-air, Sarrin snatched the bomb, clutching it to her chest. She landed fluidly, rolling to her feet and kept sprinting. She stuffed the bomb into an old scrap engine casing, pushing it down.

  Rayne stood motionless, watching, mouth hung open.

  The bomb exploded, fire coming up around Sarrin’s arms and past her face.

  Kieran’s legs screamed, as he pushed them harder. “Sarrin!” He slid to his knees beside her.

  She sat frozen, body perfectly tense. She didn’t acknowledge him, her wide eyes staring into the casing.

  “Sarrin?” Kieran tried. He gingerly shook her shoulder. “Sarrin.”

  Her eyes fixed on her hands as she pulled them into the light. Kieran gulped. Torn and charred flesh hung from her fingers. In between flashed a glint of silver.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said out loud, and quickly covered his mouth. She turned her hands over slowly. The smell of burning flesh churned his stomach. The metal fingers flexed gracefully. Beautiful, if weren’t so horrifying.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she said.

  “Okay.” He wiped a shaking hand across his thigh. He had to do something, anything. “Okay.” They had to get back to the ship. The mottled brown figure was gone, but for how long? Kieran lifted Sarrin by her armpits. “Come on, Sarrin. Can you walk?”

  She didn’t re
spond. Her saucer eyes fixed on the glinting silver skeleton. He’d be in shock too. He was pretty sure he was. Clumsily, he draped his jacket over her hands so she wouldn’t have to see. So he wouldn’t have to see.

  They just had to make it to the ship.

  She tried to pull away. “Don’t touch me.”

  He caught her before she fell. “It’s okay, Hoepe is coming.” He could see the tall doctor, long legs stretching across the ground as he ran. Her body trembled, so hard it nearly broke free from his hands. Her eyes swam, and she kept blinking and swallowing. Blinking and swallowing.

  “You’re not gonna… are you?” The auto-syringe lay somewhere behind him.

  Her head jerked, a single shake he took to mean no.

  “You’re okay.” He pulled her tighter to his side. “Stay with me, here.”

  Hoepe slid to a stop, reaching to tilt her chin, a penlight flashing into her eyes. “What happened?”

  Kieran shook his head, glancing at the covered hands.

  Hoepe pressed his lips grimly. “Bring her inside.”

  Make it to the ship. Kieran’s breath came in short gasps as he half-led, half-carried Sarrin across the uneven ground. One foot in front of the other. He was here to observe, do what any normal person would do in this situation. He followed the doctor to the ship, up the cargo ramp, and through to the infirmary.

  Together they maneuvered her onto the bed. Her eyes rolled to meet his, desperate and haunted. Vomit caught at the back of his throat.

  Hoepe removed the jacket, revealing the charred and silvery ruined hands. “Sarrin?” Razor blue eyes danced over the injury as his hands took her pulse from her neck. “I’m going to sedate her,” he concluded, and turned to the cabinets behind him.

  Kieran nodded and took a deep breath. The edges of his vision were blurry.

  “Kieran?” Hoepe’s voice sounded strangely distant.

  The world went dark, and Kieran fell to the floor.

  * * *

  Rayne blinked slowly, snapping her gaping mouth shut as her mind fought to catch up. The girl, the Augment, Sarrin — impossible. She watched as Kieran half-walked, half-dragged the limp killing machine to the ship. They must have been wrong, Sarrin was no Augment, just a girl.