Augment

by C R MacFarlane

  Hoepe’s heart paused for a second, then resumed its usually steady beat. The engineer was a peculiar character. But in him, Hoepe saw someone that perhaps could understand it. Still, secrets were unpredictably dangerous.

  “Did you do this to her?”

  His eyes snapped up. “Of course not.”

  “Okay,” he nodded. “Just someone did, someone who knew what they were doing. Someone with a very enhanced skill set and an ability for detailed work.”

  “It wasn’t me,” he said softly.

  They stared at each other for a long time.

  “What else happened there?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I had no idea,” he stated boldly. “Not a clue they would do anything like this in Evangecore. I want to know what else.”

  Hoepe blinked, torn with indecision. In the end, Hoepe trusted Sarrin, and Sarrin seemed to trust Kieran more than anyone else. “Help me roll her over.”

  “What?”

  “Help me roll her over. I’ll show you.” He pushed more of the sedative into her IV line.

  “She doesn’t like being touched.” Kieran rubbed his arm uncomfortably. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” Hoepe said honestly. “She’s asleep though.”

  Hesitating, Kieran came to the table and they flipped her on her side.

  Gently, Hoepe pulled her matted hair to the side, revealing the barcode stamped into the back of her neck.

  Kieran reached his hand out, slowly tracing its edges.

  “We all have them.” Hoepe told him. “Neck and each arm. To help with identification.”

  “I assumed something like that.”

  Hoepe considered a moment. Sarrin certainly would never have condoned this, but there no hatred, no evil crossed Kieran’s eyes, only curiosity. And if he had a chance to make an ally, he would take it. He’s already told Kieran more than he’d told anyone in four years. Hoepe unzipped the top of Sarrin’s jumpsuit and pulled on the collar, revealing the first set of marks.

  Kieran’s hand traced the first one: a black circle with a thick cross in it. The three below it were visible too, a code of hashmarks and geometric shapes.

  “Procedure marks,” Hoepe explained. “Some people have more or less, depending how many experiments they were part of.”

  “Experiments, huh.” Kieran tugged, peering under her collar. “How many does she have?”

  Hoepe frowned. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen them all. Most people have ten or fifteen, but they used to call her twenty-seven in the war — I assume that’s why.”

  Kieran’s eyes flared open and his mouth dropped. “Twenty seven? Experiments? It can’t be that many.”

  Curiosity got the best of him, and Hoepe pulled down the jumpsuit as though he were going to expose a wound, and lifted the thin undershirt.

  Kieran stuck his hand out to stop him. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m her doctor, Kieran.”

  He spoke quietly again, “How many do you have, Hoepe?”

  Hoepe pulled back his hands. For years, he put these kids — his friends — back together after the experiments broke them down, over and over again. But in truth he had been lucky. “Three — but I’m different. I wasn’t trained to fight, I was trained to heal. I had to learn what they could take after each of those marks. And what they couldn’t. Do you understand?”

  Kieran turned his head and nodded.

  The thing Hoepe had always searched for, the unfilled hole in his heart, it felt like the answer was right here, somehow, on Sarrin’s back with Kieran standing next to him. “I have to know.” Desperately, he pulled the rest of the covering off.

  A long line of marks trailed down the left side of her spine, all the way down. A second line started on the right, beside her scapula and continued half-way down again. There were nine marks beside that row.

  Kieran counted under his breath.

  “Forty-two.” Hoepe told him.

  Gasping, Kieran turns to look up. “I thought you said twenty-seven.”

  Hoepe shook his head, “I must have been wrong.”

  “Or they’re more recent.”

  “Possibly. Only Grant would know how many she had during the war.”

  “Why would — wait, did you say Grant?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “She muttered ‘Grant’ when the bombs started falling.”

  Hoepe’s heart slammed in his chest. “That was Grant? Grant’s alive? By the Gods, what are they doing to him?”

  “I thought Junk was uninhabited. I don’t understand.”

  “If Sarrin saw him….”

  “Why would he throw bombs at us?”

  Hoepe shook his head. “An experiment.”

  “An experiment?”

  “The war may be over, but nothing’s changed.”

  * * *

  The warship arrived without warning. Rayne’s eyes snapped to the 3-D display as the proximity alarms blared. The warship sent a volley of laz-cannon fire.

  “Shields! Evasive action!” she screamed.

  In the pilot’s chair, the man named Quincy gripped and spun the steering sphere. The Ishash’tor shook from the shear forces, and Rayne gritted her teeth. Beside her, Halud clutched the Tactical console.

  The ship dipped and rolled. “Should we return fire, Ma’am?” asked one of the men.

  Fire on a UEC ship? Her instinct warred with her duty. “Absolutely not!”

  The warship fired again. She didn’t need to look at the ship ID, but she did anyway: UECAS Comrade.

  “We need to make an FTL jump,” said the Poet.

  Jump away? The whole situation didn’t make any sense. The warship should be helping them.

  “Rayne. The FTL is our only option,” shouted Halud.

  “We don’t have the FTL,” Rayne snarled. “Quincy, easier on the oversteer, or you’ll pull us apart.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Sweat beaded out on her back. They were going to be blown apart.

  She called down to Engineering. “Any luck with that FTL? We need it now.”

  Sutherland responded, “Not yet. I don’t know what he’s done down here.”

  Where was Kieran? Why was the warship attacking? More importantly, how had she gotten here? This was insane. They were truly going to be blown apart. By an Army warship.

  She had to uphold the Path.

  Rayne turned to the communications console. She opened up a mayday on all frequencies and spoke into the com’s microphone: “This is Lieutenant Commander Rayne Nairu of the U.E.C.A.S. Ishash’tor. We surrender.”

  “Rayne!” the Poet shouted. He lurched towards her, but stumbled and caught himself on the console between them.

  “What?” Her laz-gun slipped from it’s hidden holster and she held it in his direction instantly. “You’re a traitor to the Central Army. This is a Central Army ship and I am taking control”

  He paused. “You don’t understand.”

  She reached for the communications microphone again. “Repeat, this is Commander Rayne Nairu. I have taken control of the ship and am surrendering. Please cease fire.”

  A voice transmission came through. “Commander Nairu, this is Commandant Mallor of the U.E.C.A.S. Comrade. Your surrender is accepted. Please shut down all weapons systems and prepare for boarding. We are engaging magne-grav lock.”

  The ship jolted under their feet as the magnetic field caught them. The lights dimmed to ten percent.

  The Poet gripped the console unit this knuckles turned white. “Quincy, get us out of here.”

  “It’s not responding, sir, we can’t move.”

  “I’m sorry, Poet,” said Rayne. “This is the Path of the Gods.” She turned to the pilot. “Power down the engines. I’m going to prepare the shuttle bay.”

  * * *

  “What’s going on?” Kieran gripped the edge of the surgical table as the ship shook underneath him. Vials of medicine and rolls of cotton tumbled from their ti
dy shelves.

  He scrambled for the tiny console screen set into the wall above the bench. “The warship,” he said, his eyes going wide, “it’s here.”

  “Impossible,” said Hoepe. “That’s the third time they’ve found us.”

  “I haveta get the FTL going.” Kieran shouted, lunging for the door. Another rumble sent him flying down the corridor.

  He found several of Hoepe’s men arguing when he arrived in Engineering:

  “I think it goes there.”

  “No, the duality will be reversed. It goes there, and you connect this wire to that bit.”

  “I thought the wire went to that other thing.”

  “Get out of my way,” called Kieran, running to the engine room.

  The group parted readily. “Oh, thank the Gods,” muttered one.

  “I admit it’s not the most elegant solution,” said Kieran, his fingers already flying over the connectors, “but it works. As long as the welds hold.”

  The ship jerked, and then felt unnaturally still. “What was that?” The lighting dropped to an emergency glow.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  Frowning, Kieran made the connections on the damaged FTL. He stifled a groan realizing he had dropped the spare, and sent a silent prayer that this one would make it.

  He bypassed the safety relays, and the FTL spooled almost instantly. He clicked the comm. “Wood to Command, FTL is a go.”

  He waited, expecting the pull of a gravity well, but none came.

  A transmission came through from the bridge. He recognized Quincy’s voice: “Kieran, we’re stuck here.”

  Kieran frowned, “What do you mean ‘stuck’?”

  “Immobilized, sir. The warship has a magne-grav on us. I have no control over the ship whatsoever.”

  Well, that explained the lighting.

  “What do we do?” asked Quincy.

  “Sit tight,” ordered Kieran. There wasn’t much they could do short of disassembling and jettisoning everything magnetic on the ship, including the engine.

  All of their systems were shut down, the magnets wrecking the electronics. The only thing operational was life support. And the FTL.

  For a minute, Kieran wondered what would happen if he managed to engage the gravity drives and open a jump hole while the magne-grav held the two ships together. The phrase ‘utter catastrophe’ rang a bell.

  “Hold on,” he shouted in to the comm. There had to be a way to disengage it. “I’m coming to you.”

  * * *

  Grant urged the shuttle forward, but the engines were already at max. Through the window, he saw the warship overtake the small freightship and lock onto it with their magne-grav traction beam. Sarrin’s ship froze in place, caught by the same hunters that had caught him. He gritted his teeth.

  The shuttle had no weapons, only welding torches, short-range laz-drills and laz-saws. Still, he could work with that. He engaged the maneuvering thrusters to adjust his course, angling towards the warship.

  Grant pushed the shuttle into a vertical roll, aiming the laz-saw as he shot past the magne-grav generator on the front of the warship’s hull. He spun for another pass, this time seeing sparks fly as the heavy-duty laser made contact.

  Laz-cannons fired from the warship, narrowly missing him.

  Grant pushed the engines into a tighter turn, testing their limits. A warning flashed on the screen, but he swiped it away, targeting the traction beam once more. He attacked with drill and torches.

  He would save Sarrin, even if it was the last thing he did. Always a team, no matter how she had left him after their last meeting.

  The warship started to move, pushing dangerously close. Grant twirled the steering sphere forward, driving engines that whined in protest. The warning flashed on the screen again, and the shuttle slipped into the pull of the magnetic beam.

  A sharp shot of pain flashed in the back of his head. He could feel them trying to take control.

  Grant spun the sphere wildly. The warning flashed again, this time bright amber: engine overload. He angled for another attack. The beam flickered once, but didn’t go out. Grant set his teeth, he needed more.

  The engine warning flashed red, accompanied by alarm bells. He glanced at it quickly: Engine Failure Imminent. One more attack run. Direct this time. He had to help her, to make up for his mistakes if nothing else.

  He rolled the steering forward, throttle at full speed. He lived for battle, he would die in battle and would he would die of his own accord, helping his friend. The pain in his head flared, and the mottled grey-brown skin ripped through the scar on his back, sliding its tendrils over his arms and legs until it covered his entire body.

  The shuttle exploded, engulfing him in flames and rocketing shrapnel in all directions. The suit protected him completely. Even the cold of space didn’t touch him. The oxygen sucked out of his lungs into the vacuum of space, and Grant could do nothing but wait, ticking off the seconds until his body could no longer survive without air.

  The explosion pushed him away from the ship, sending him tumbling through space. In the distance, the wrecked shuttle crushed the magne-grav, and the freightship shot from its grasp.

  * * *

  Rayne clapped her hands behind her back and waited in the shuttle bay. Through the thick viewing window, she looked into the empty shuttle bay and through the open doors to the stars beyond. The Comrade would send a boarding shuttle to take the Augment and the ship, and then they could all go home.

  She repeated it to herself — “We can all go home, we can all go home.” — to keep the sinking terror from overtaking her.

  In the Gods she Trusted, but she couldn’t help thinking of Hoepe’s repeated warnings, the terrible look in the Poet’s eyes, of Gal — what if she had made a mistake?

  The Gods were merciful. It wasn’t her fault, she had been following orders. And now she was correcting the mistake, surely that was what was important.

  Something flew into the bay, crashing and bouncing along the landing platform. Shaking, it stood up. A creature, distinctly humanoid, but its skin mottled brown and almost rubbery. Its face held no eyes or mouth, no distinguishing features at all.

  She screamed.

  It staggered toward her, arm reaching as though through the permaglass. It took step after step, coming for her.

  Where was the shuttle?

  “Rayne, you okay?” Kieran ran into the bay behind her. “I was on my way to the bridge when I heard you screaming.”

  Rayne pointed to the viewport. “It’s here. It’s coming for us.”

  “Holy shit.” Kieran punched the controls, shutting and re-pressurizing the shuttle bay.

  The demon-man in the shuttle bay collapsed, gasping frantically.

  Kieran reached for the microphone, “Are you Grant?”

  The man nodded, still gasping.

  “Don’t worry, buddy. We gotcha.”

  Rayne stared at Kieran, ice shooting down her spine. “What are you doing?”

  He ignored her, tapping on the controls.

  The ship condensed around them — the uncomfortable feeling of making a jump, of falling into a gravity well. Her eyes flared wide.

  In the airlocks shuttle bay, the rubbery brown man hunched over. Incredibly, the mottled skin retracted from his limbs and into his upper back, revealing a young man no more than twenty. He smiled, and then started laughing. And laughing and laughing.

  Rayne stared, horrified.

  Kieran started laughing too. He pressed the comm. “Good job, Quincy. How the heck did we make it out of that one?”

  “The FTL was ready, and all of a sudden, the magne-grav let go. So I jumped, sir.”

  Kieran turned to the man in the airlock. “Did you do that? Get us out of that magne-grav problem? I thought we were toast.”

  The man grinned as he tousled his sandy hair and bowed.

  Kieran laughed again. “Well, thank you. Welcome aboard.”

  Rayne’s eyes shot open with surprise.
“Lieutenant, “ she hissed, “what are you doing?”

  Kieran waved her off. Instead, he opened the inner door and invited the demon into the hangar.

  “What if he’s a” — she dropped her voice — “an Augment?”

  “I am,” said the man. His eyes narrowed. “And you’re not.”

  She gripped her laz-rifle.

  “Thanks for getting us out of that bind.” Kieran smiled, ushering the man in. “There’s a few people I’m sure will be excited to see ya.”

  Blocking his path, she pushed her laz-rifle right into the Augment’s chest. She could not allow him to board her ship.

  Grant lifted a single eyebrow and glanced down at her rifle, grinning.

  She took a step back.

  “I’m not so violent as I seem.” He pushed the tip of the rifle away from his chest. “I have no reason to attack you. As far as what happened planet-side, I was under a mind-control device.”

  Kieran reached out, pressing her shoulder so she spun away from the Augment. He shook his head, asking her to be quiet. He turned to Grant. “Are we in any danger now?”

  Rayne glared at Kieran, her voice trembling. “Lieutenant, this goes against every regulation —.”

  “Danger? No,” answered the Augment, ignoring her. “Not so long as we are out of range.”

  “Okay.” Kieran rubbed his hand through his short hair. “Anything else we need to know?”

  The Augment’s narrow gaze scanned Kieran, and Rayne felt the urge to press between them, lifting her laz-rifle once again to his chest. He didn’t flinch. “I’m a friend of Sarrin. I believe she’s aboard this ship.”

  “Uh.” Kieran glanced at Rayne.

  With Kieran’s one worried look, her trembling finger squeezed the trigger. A killing blow at this range, for an Augment or human alike. But she was shaken off her feet, the ship jolting out from under them. The laz-beam fell wide, and the Augment jumped. Her heart hammered in her chest.

  Kieran scrambled to the console. “Report?”

  A panicked voice came through the speakers: “The warship followed us through.”

  Her started look met Kieran’s. “That isn’t possible.”

  Grant reached out, eyes wide with fear. “We have to get away; they can control me.”