to say. Her only focus was the Aquila, and what remained of her. It tore her heart to see the ship where she served for fifty years, the ship where she met the love of her life, be destroyed in so many pieces. She never thought she would live to see that day.
I was supposed to die with the captain. Then she straightened. No – he is alive. It’s the ship that’s dead, not Arrius. But she remembered the old saying that the captain goes down with her ship. The thought froze her body.
“Commander,” Galerius repeated.
“Leave me be, captain.”
“Commander, we’ve been scouring the remains for hours now. There are no survivors.”
“But you didn’t find his body, did you?”
There was a pause. “No, but it is known in many cases of space battle that human bodies could melt down by the heat of beam weapons. The emperor may be out there, somewhere, but not whole…”
She meant of Arrius’s body, though she didn’t say it. “We stay here until we find proof that they are dead.” And after that, I will bomb the usurper’s palace until nothing remains.
Then she heard Captain Frang clear his throat. Valeria hated this Bion trait he had, the copy of their organs. “I understand how you feel, commander,” Captain Frang said, “but that merchant ship might have sent a distress call. Sooner or later someone will arrive to investigate.”
“Every battleship is on their way to the Bion home world, Captain Frang. If someone arrives it will be a merchant ship.” And I will gladly deal with it.
“What if we don’t find their bodies?” asked Galerius.
Valeria curled her fingers into fists. “We will find them. Get to work and reconstruct the battle. I want to know exactly what happened here.”
Both captains went silent after that. She didn’t hear if they moved somewhere or lingered behind. Honestly, she didn’t care. Arrius was down there, and her emperor. It was all that mattered to her.
The moving stars started to extinguish as they entered whole chunks of the hull. If there were survivors, she knew they would be somewhere inside, waiting to be rescued.
Commander – she heard the doctor’s voice in her head. She didn’t have the urge to respond. Everything other than her captain and her emperor was irrelevant. The voice persisted – Commander, do you receive me?
She did receive, she just didn’t care.
Commander, this is important.
It can’t be more important than Arrius.
Commander, you will want to hear this… It’s about the boy.
The sound of that made her ask – What is it, doctor?
He’s awake.
Valeria spun around and hasted out of the bridge, leaving both captains to wonder what happened. She quickly passed by her mixed crew, even used the elevator with some of them, and before she knew it she was at the infirmary’s door, few decks below the bridge. Doctor Modius was waiting for her outside.
“I want to see him,” she declared, ignoring that self-satisfied smile on the doctor’s face.
He nodded, his hands clasped together close to his chest. “Yes. But before you proceed, I want to warn you. He might be afraid of your…” his eyes moved on the overhead, searching for words “…of your cybernetic looks.”
“His bones are cybernetic. So are you.”
“Yes, well, I would still advise caution. You should’ve seen his reaction when he first saw me. He was terrified.”
“Anything else I should be wary of?”
“Mmm, yes. There is a language barrier between us.”
“He talks?”
“He said few words, yes, but in some strange tongue that I hear for the first time.”
Valeria noted that. “Do you think he is self-aware?” was her next question.
“What do you mean, commander?”
“He was in a tank. Did it affect his brain somehow? Does he understand what he is?”
“Oh, that, yes. Well, these people have some interesting technology, I’ll give them that. You see, it’s like his brain grows along his body in a natural way. Once he would reach his peak – which, by the way, I have no idea when that is – it would be like he had a real childhood, a real life.”
That intrigued her. “Are you trying to say that he is living some virtual life as he grows?”
“Exactly. One of the tubes that were attached to his brain hit me as strange. I couldn’t figure out what it was feeding him with as I couldn’t find any chemical traces on the skull. After that, I did a full analysis of the tube and I realized it was a cable. Ancient technology, yes, but its purpose was unaltered.”
“Get to the point, doctor.”
He smiled. “It fed him with memories.”
“Memories.” She couldn’t grasp the possibility.
The doctor nodded.
“Explain,” she said.
“Those memories are supposed to give him personality once the growth process was over. He would have his own history to tell.”
“Whose memories are we talking about?”
Modius shrugged. “His creator, some random man, I don’t know. But the thing is he’s a complete person. Well, a boy, to be exact. He will probably remember his childhood, his parents, maybe even going to school…”
“How old is he?”
“Tank years or biological years?”
“There is a difference?”
“Well, in tank years he is fifteen, although I am not sure we should count the years his body was inactive.”
“Explain that.”
“He should’ve grown faster than he did. For some reason he didn’t, and I bet that is why his creators left him there.”
“I see.”
“In biological years he is twelve.”
Twelve years old boy. She never thought she would see something like that. “Thank you, doctor. Now, if there’s nothing else, I will see him.”
“Gladly.” The doctor opened the door and followed her like a shadow. They entered the infirmary and then the doctor opened another door to an antechamber where they both waited for the pressure to equalize with the chamber where the boy was. Once the green light gave the signal, they entered inside. The boy was seated on a bed, surrounded by two metal tables with medical tools, his useless legs dangled down. He was dressed in some Bion rags, undoubtedly donated from Captain Frang’s crew. His chest and forearms were naked, his skin was almost translucent. The titanium bones and the Bion organs were clearly visible if she looked long enough. His little heart pumped regularly, pulsing, spreading his blood where needed. In his dark metal skull, little gray eyes regarded her warily.
He’s so cute, she thought, holding back her smile. “Can we do anything about his skin?” she asked without moving her eyes from the boy. “Can we make it thicker?”
“Maybe, if we had Bion medicine and Bion know-how. But not with what I have. I can probably strengthen his bones, but I don’t want to interfere with his creators’ technology as I don’t know how his body will react.”
Valeria made a step closer. The boy’s tiny eyebrows hopped up, his eyes widened. His upper body leaned back trying to keep his distance from her.
“It’s okay,” she said, “I won’t hurt you.”
The boy mumbled something and tried to move away from her, using his hands to push him back.
Valeria stopped, showed him her palms. “See? I have nothing that will hurt you. Don’t be afraid.”
Two tiny eyes moved from one hand to another, his eyebrows moved back down. Who knows what sort of memories the boy had regarding her race – maybe they were bogeymen in his eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said, feeling her smile come out. She took a step closer. The boy pushed himself backward and he lost balance. Headlong he fell on the floor pulling some tools down with him. Valeria rushed to help him, but the boy screamed when she touched him.
Somewhere behind, the doctor called, “Commander! Leave him be!”
Valeria ignored his plea and she grabbed the boy under his armpits. The boy fl
ung his hands against her head, hit her over and over. She couldn’t feel a thing from those tiny fists. If anything, she was afraid the boy would hurt himself.
She put him back on the table and retreated. The boy’s heartbeat pounded in his chest. His lungs expanded and contracted almost with the same speed as his beating heart. His eyes were open wide, moving uncertainly from Modius to Valeria and back. Little hands grasped the edge of the bed and squeezed. They were red from the punches.
The doctor grabbed Valeria by her arm. “Commander,” he hissed, “that was a dangerous thing you did. You could’ve scared him to death. Literally. He is still fragile.”
She hated that the boy feared her, but she could fully understand. The only thing to do was to be good to him, to show him that there was nothing to be afraid off. He will like me soon enough.
The doctor let go of Valeria’s arm. “We should let him rest.”
She nodded reluctantly. Before she left, she gave the boy another smile. To her sadness he returned with a frown.
Once they were out, Valeria asked the doctor, “Can you fix his legs?”
“Well, I have the same problem as before – I don’t have clean prosthetics. Either we find some – which I’m not entirely certain how I would combine them with his organic parts – or we use a Bion DNA and someone who knows how to use it. I heard they can alter their bodies with nothing but a syringe. They can thicken their skin and even change color for camouflage. Though, I think that’s rather useless. We can use thermal imaging to see them–”
“Doctor,” she interrupted him. “I know what they do. From now on, your job will be to monitor the boy. I want to know of every change that happens to him, even minor. You will
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