Once the pilot was strapped down to the table, the automated medical systems began to work on him immediately, mostly pumping him full of medical nanites. Doc turned to Jason, "There's a way to impart the knowledge needed to fly the ship directly into your brain via the neural implant, but it's not customarily done so soon after the initial install."
"Why not?"
"It takes the neural implant time to learn your synaptic pathways. Implanting skills into your brain is quite intricate. This may be met with varying degrees of success."
"How varying?" Jason asked, almost certain he didn't want to know the answer.
"It could range from complete success to massive and permanent brain damage, although it'll likely hit somewhere in the high-middle range, your brain has shown itself to be readily adaptable to the technology." Doc was looking at him intently.
"Fuck it. Let's do it. Where do you need me?"
"Really?" Doc and Crusher asked in unison.
"Yes. If I think about it too long I won't do it, and we don't have much of a choice at this point."
"We could bring else someone out of stasis, or see if one of the other's we released already has the necessary implants..."
"No! Thanks, Doc, but no. This is my mission, I'm in command, and I'll accept the risks to see it completed," Jason said. He could see Crusher puff his chest up and nod with approval. What the fuck is he so impressed with? He's the reason we're in this mess. Still half afraid of the monster, Jason kept his thoughts to himself.
"Ok," Doc said quietly. "Let's do this in your quarters, you may as well be comfortable during this." He grabbed a long interface cable out of the case Jason's implants had originally been delivered in and gestured for him to lead the way.
Once in his room, Doc had Jason lay down on the bed on his back. He plugged one end of the cable he'd brought into a socket near the room's computer terminal and walked towards Jason with the other end. The cable flattened out on that end into what looked like a circular paddle about one inch in diameter. Doc reached under Jason's neck and placed the pad just above his collar, he could feel it adhere to his skin instantly. He then removed a memory chip from the case and began installing a software package on the ship's main computer via the terminal at Jason's desk. The software would allow the computer to connect to his neural implant through the interface cable.
"Now," Doc began, "I want you to visualize connecting to the interface I just put on your neck. Try to imagine your brain actually reaching out to touch it, almost as if your brain could move." Jason looked at him as if he were mad, but he did as he was asked. As soon as he began to visualize the absurd request he was shocked to feel something crawling through his skin and then a sudden coolness, like the pad had been coated in a pain-relief gel. "Excellent!" Doc was monitoring him through the terminal display on his desk. "You're a natural. In order for this high level of data transfer to work there has to be a hard connection. It's also a safety measure that protects you in case someone is trying to establish a remote link to your brain. That visualization let your neural implant know you wished to establish a link and it sent nanite threads to the surface of your skin to complete the hard circuit with the interface. Keep that feeling in mind, it'll be useful in the future. Now, you're going to have to do this next part, I don't have the proper permissions to instruct the computer to begin an upload."
"What do I do?" Jason asked, more than a little apprehensive about what he was about to attempt.
"Tell the computer you want the full flight instruction set for the DL7 uploaded through your implant," Doc said.
"Computer, upload the full flight instruction set for the DL7 through my neural implant," Jason said aloud.
"Acknowledged. Establishing connection..." Jason felt the patch on his neck go from cool to hot. "Connection established, do you wish to remain conscious during the upload?" Doc was frantically shaking his head no and waving his arms.
"No!"
"Acknowledged. Stand by for upload..." Jason didn't hear another word as the computer commanded his neural input to put him to sleep.
Chapter 15
Damn this is getting old. Jason blinked his eyes as he slowly woke up in his dark room from the data transfer. He was beginning to lose count of how many times he’d either been put under or just plain knocked out since this adventure began. He didn’t feel anything on his neck so he reached behind him and found that the interface cable had disconnected from his skin on its own. He concentrated on how to fly the ship, but drew a blank. He wasn’t sure how it was supposed to feel, but as far as he could tell nothing was different except the feeling that he’d been laying on his back for too long. Rubbing his temples, he sat up in his bed.
“How do you feel, Commander?”
“FUCK!” Jason shouted as he jumped so high he actually fell halfway off the bed. The lights came up and he could make out Crusher sitting in a chair by the door watching him curiously as he was stuck between the exterior bulkhead and the bed. His heart still pounding from the fright, he tried to salvage a bit of his dignity, “I’m doing ok. How are you?”
“I am well.”
“That’s good,” Jason said as he tried to dislodge himself. After a moment of struggling, which must have looked absurd, he turned back to Crusher, “A little help?” With what looked suspiciously like a smile on his mouth, Crusher walked around the bed, grabbed Jason’s arm, and effortlessly lifted him off the floor and set him on his feet. Straightening his clothes out, Jason walked out of the room without a word, leaving a quietly chuckling Crusher in his wake.
Jason headed to the infirmary to talk to Doc and was slightly surprised when Crusher kept walking and headed towards the cargo bay instead. Shrugging, he continued on and greeted Doc as he walked in. Doc threw him a preoccupied wave as he hovered over the pilot that Crusher had thrown into the canopy, as far as Jason could tell he was still completely out. Doc tweaked one last thing on the tablet computer he was holding and looked up, "So... you feel ok?"
"Other than that monster Crusher scaring the shit out of me when I woke up I'm just peachy," Jason said as he flopped down in one of the chairs.
"Yeah," Doc chuckled, "he stayed in the room guarding you the entire time you were out."
"Why?" Jason asked, both surprised and mildly creeped out.
"It's in his nature. You're his commander right now and his kind are fiercely loyal. Not only that, you freed him from a life of certain torment and probably a violent death."
"That's... strange... but I mean why guard me at all? It's not like this was even remotely close to the most dangerous thing I've faced since this all started," Jason said.
"Oh, that's right... You were already out when we released the others. Crusher and I figured that having all the prisoners out of the stasis pods and mobile was in our best interest," Doc said, sitting across from Jason. "We may have to make a hasty exit at the rendezvous point. We were also tempting fate by keeping the units running on their own internal power for so long, thankfully we didn't lose anyone. We've set them all up in the cargo bay and restricted their access to the rest of the ship. They're a mostly grateful bunch, but there are still more than a few dangerous individuals out there."
"Good thinking I guess. How's he?" Jason gestured with his chin towards the pilot.
"Stable. He'll recover, surprisingly. You may want to talk to Crusher and impose some controls. If he's left to his own devices someone could end up seriously hurt or killed," Doc said. Jason looked at him incredulously.
"I'm not telling that behemoth anything he can or can't do, my self preservation instinct is too strong for that," he said.
"Your self preservation instinct is questionable, at best..."
"...Hey!..."
"...and at any rate he'll listen to you. Just tell him no killing or maiming until he asks first." Jason rolled his eyes at that and got up to leave.
"I need to get something to eat," he said as he walked out of the infirmary intent on hitting up the galley before
going to the bridge.
After a quick meal he walked up to an empty bridge and stopped himself before he sat in the copilot seat. Instead, he walked back around and hopped into the pilot's seat and waited as it adjusted itself to his body. As soon as he laid eyes on the controls at the helm it was like someone opened the floodgates in his brain. He instinctively knew what every control did and what each display represented without having to consciously think about it. He also now understood how the gravity drive and main engines complimented each other and when each was appropriate, he even knew at what speed the lifting body would stall within an atmosphere and when the repulsors would kick in. It went beyond simple memorization, he truly knew what he needed to do in order to fly the DL7. I'd have killed for this implant back in high school. He observed that they were on the final leg to their destination with forty-two hours remaining until they meshed into real-space. That would mean he had been out for around thirty-six hours.
"Commander Burke, please come to the cargo bay." Doc's voice floated through the ship's PA. Please let there be nothing disastrously wrong this time.
"On my way," he said as he hopped out of his chair and headed aft. Entering the cargo bay he paused, there were twenty-two aliens milling around on the deck with all but one stasis pod pushed up against the port side of the bay. Mats were scattered throughout the cargo bay where the freed prisoners had obviously been sleeping. Jason spotted Doc and Crusher standing by the last stasis pod that still had power applied, Crusher was still armed with the plasma carbine and eyeing the prisoners with thinly veiled menace. Jason sighed, realizing he would indeed have to have a talk with him. "What's this?"
"The last prisoner," Doc said. "But we're a little unsure how to handle him." Jason peered into the pod and let out an audible gasp at what he saw. Nestled in the pod was a synth, but nothing like Deetz. This machine was easily two meters tall and looked heavily armored. Even his face was armored with only the eyes being visible.
"Holy shit!"
"Indeed. He's a battlesynth, a rarity even among such a rare species," Doc said, eyeing the bulky synth. "The issue is that he's loaded with integrated weaponry and he's unbelievable strong, if we let him loose in here and he doesn't play nice the entire ship is at risk."
"I see your point. Is there any way to only activate his cognitive functions so we can talk to him?" Jason asked. Doc turned and began poking at the controls of the stasis pod before answering.
"It appears we can. You want to wake him?" he asked.
"Yeah, let's talk to him and see what's what. Keep your hand on the control to shut him down again if it goes wrong," Jason said. After a few more seconds the head of the synth snapped up and the eyes moved, focusing first on Jason and then sweeping the room.
"Who are you?" the synth asked.
"I'm Commander Jason Burke, my associates are Dr. Ma'Fredich and Crusher," Jason said.
"I recognize you," the synth said to Crusher. "Am I to understand we've been delivered to our new keepers?" The tone was unmistakably contemptuous.
"You understand wrong, friend," Crusher said. "These men have gone to great risk to rescue us."
"Rescue?" The synth said skeptically. "To what end?"
"To whatever end we choose. We're to be freed." Crusher's tone was surprisingly gentle as he addressed the synth.
"What's your name?" Jason asked, trying to maintain control of the conversation.
"I am Combat Unit 777," the synth said.
"You've got to be kidding me... Your name is a serial number?" Jason asked, the cliché of it almost too much for him. "You don't have a name besides that?"
"Why would I?" 777 seemed genuinely confused. "It's not as if I interact with you biologicals in any meaningful way," he finished, almost bitterly.
"Fair enough," Jason said. "So, Lucky 777, if we restore the rest of your functions and let you out do you promise to not destroy the ship, or us, until we land and you can go your own way?" The synth looked at Jason and then to Crusher, who nodded to him.
"I am no threat to you or your vessel. I do wish to be left alone, however," 777 said quietly.
"No problem. Doc, go ahead and fire him up and release the restraints." Jason knew he was taking a huge risk, but the idea of keeping 777 chained up was morally repugnant to him. Freedom for some but not for all? That wasn't what he had risked his life for at The Vault, so he'd take his chances and hope his decision didn't end in a lunatic synth butchering everyone in the cargo bay. Looking at the impressive machine, Jason had his doubts that even Crusher would fare too well against him.
777's whole body twitched once as Doc restored full system power to him. After he was clearly supporting his own weight on his legs they popped the restraints off and let him step out of the pod. "Do I need to stay in here with them?" he asked distrustfully, almost fearfully as he looked at the huddle of other prisoners. Jason thought hard about that one, letting him out of the pod was one thing, but letting him into the guts of the ship was quite another.
"Where would you be most comfortable?" Jason asked, hoping to reach a compromise.
"I would prefer to remain with you three," he said, indicating to Jason, Doc, and Crusher. Jason looked to Doc, who shrugged noncommittally.
"Follow us then," he said to 777. "Everyone else," he addressed the others who were leerily watching the synth move about and exercise his servos, "we're nearly to our destination. Once we land we'll meet up with the others we've freed and discuss what the next move is, I'm guessing for a lot of you it'll be a trip home." The other three followed Jason out of the cargo bay to the sound of cheers and clapping. They made their way to the bridge where Jason immediately slouched back into the pilot's seat as 777 slowly walked around the bridge following Crusher and Doc.
"How much longer?" Doc asked.
"About another thirty-two hours," Jason said after a glance at his displays. "I'll take first watch if you guys want to grab some sleep, you can relieve me and then I'll take a quick power nap before we come out of slip-space." Doc and Crusher grudgingly agreed and left him alone on the bridge with 777.
Jason was content to let the synth stand off to the side in silence as he continued to familiarize himself with the ship's controls to reinforce his newly acquired skills. 777 was the first to speak, "Commander, why did you call me Lucky 777?"
"Hmm? Oh... on my world the number seven is considered lucky. Since you're triple-seven I would have to say that you're three times lucky," Jason regretted his glib response after he said it, the synth had just recently been a packaged piece of property, after all. He could hardly consider him "lucky", all things considered.
"Lucky. I suppose I would have to consider myself lucky if I thought about it," 777 said quietly. "I was abducted to serve a cruel purpose, of that I'm sure. Most consider my kind to be simply highly advanced machines, intelligent, but ultimately just a piece of equipment. Once they realize we can't be reprogrammed or coerced, they usually dispose of us."
"So your design doesn't allow you to be controlled by reprogramming?"
"No. Our personalities and processing structure are unique to each individual. This was done intentionally, we were given free will by our creators and it can't be taken away." 777's choice of words struck home for Jason as he thought about the Declaration of Independence from his own country. In many ways it seemed the synths would never be free, unwelcome and unrecognized as free-thinking beings by the majority of governments. He was saddened to think he had freed this sentient being only to release him into an uncaring galaxy to make his own way.
The pair fell silent for a while as each was lost in his own thoughts. Jason got up to go get a mug of chroot when 777's hand reached out to touch his shoulder. "Commander, thank you for freeing me." Jason put his own hand on the synth's shoulder in turn.
"You're welcome," he said simply, unable to think of anything else to say that wouldn't sound trite.
Jason milled about in the galley for a little while, thinking about the very real con
sequences of his recent actions. He had, without a doubt, just formed some powerful enemies. He didn't know exactly how powerful these crime lords might be, but he was certain they were at least strong enough to cause serious problems for Earth if they ever found where he had come from. He wracked his brain to think of a way to keep his home planet a secret, but by virtue of having to take a ship back to Earth at least once to get home he always ran the risk of at least one person knowing its location.
He continued to mull things over in his head until he heard footsteps approaching from the direction of crew berthing. Looking up he saw Crusher walking towards him while in the middle of a open mouthed, feline-like yawn. "Where is 777?"
"Up on the bridge. We talked a bit and I don't think there's any risk in letting him stay up there alone," Jason said sleepily, the long day catching up with him.
"Nor do I," Crusher said. "Go ahead and get some sleep, Commander. I'd prefer you to be well rested before attempting your first landfall."
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