Liberation's Desire

by Wendy Lynn Clark

  Hmm. She was excellent at codes, and what she could make out looked like … was it possible? New recipes? This assignment took a second notch up in her interest. She set that aside for later.

  In addition to holos, the Robotics Faction had sent her all the files they possessed on Mercury’s immediate family. Two parents on a distant holiday cruiser, one half-brother governing a planet made almost impenetrable by space, and a sister who had been executed. Those files were encoded.

  She could break into them—in a hundred years or so.

  Request declassification of all files from the Cressida execution , she ordered her robot.

  All files are classified .

  Request declassification , she repeated.

  …Reason?

  I’m looking for something.

  Her robot fell silent for a longer period. You have no choice but to obey Faction orders.

  A hard, sharp pain needled her right in the brain.

  Of course she knew that.

  You’re getting my hopes up. Don’t let them conceal something useful. I hate to be disappointed.

  After all, there were so many ways she could lure out Mercury if she had survived the destruction of her garbage ship.

  But to steer the targets into her trap, Zenya needed to select the correct family member to stage a kidnapping. The rogue’s little chat had given her the perfect strategy.

  Ah, the hail light blinked.

  She maneuvered to keep herself within the range of the buoy and punched the comm. “Hello, distinguished representative of the True Just Undovan Government. How did you like the three TM-class warships that should have arrived empty yesterday?”

  The dour face of the Undovan administrator admonished her from what was now a hundred systems the opposite direction. “Representative Sen, you’ve broken your agreement.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Her flat tone conveyed exactly what she meant. “Whatever do you mean?”

  The administrator ground her teeth. “You were not supposed to kill our hostage. You were supposed to document the rebels’ illegal use of state resources. With that documentation, we can start an inquiry to request the censure process…”

  Zenya yawned.

  “Oh, is your failure to honor the contract boring you?” a blood relative in a faded royal blue robe cut in. “Let’s skip to the part where you were supposed to rescue my sister, not kill her.”

  Zenya rested her chin on her hand. “You received the evidence necessary for a legal resurrection.”

  The hostage’s head should have arrived in the co-pilot seat of the unmarked commuter vessel, which she had programmed to fly to the nearest population center—after she had overtaken the warships.

  “That evidence”—the man’s throat worked—“was still warm.”

  “And?”

  “You could have saved her! You had a choice.”

  Anger whipped through her, hard and fast as an oxygen-fueled inferno. The new assignment had required her to move immediately. A living companion complicated everything. She’d had no choice.

  Her robot dampened her shock of anger with metallic calm. Of course she hadn’t. She never had any choice.

  Zenya spoke. “I returned her to you via the most expedient method.”

  “We cared about her life.”

  “So resurrect her,” she said. “Of course, I could have rescued her on day one. Why didn’t you request her immediate rescue as my assignment?”

  His lips tightened.

  “Perhaps you were hoping for secrets. Other conspirators she had uncovered? Credit holders and expense accountants to blackmail? And you hoped I would bring these to you in her intact head for no extra charge?”

  He looked away.

  “We have more efficient ways to extract information,” she said, pushing in the needle. “For a little extra, I could have brought it to you. No need to torture anyone’s baby sister—”

  “Why should we believe you?” the man snarled. “You couldn’t even get the first assignment right.”

  Had his sister consented to be a spy? Zenya doubted it. Probably the family had just dropped her into danger, not caring at all what traumas she suffered while there, and expected Zenya to pull her out again. Robots were supposedly inhuman, but she honestly thought humans were the cruelest. That’s why she relied on her robot to keep her sane.

  Precisely , her robot agreed.

  Funny that Yves, a logical class robot, had gotten so obsessed with his human target. Such a flaw would never happen to Zenya.

  Although it is worrisome that you have felt anger twice in two days , her robot said. After this assignment, schedule a visit to repair facilities.

  No. Anger was an illusion. She dropped to cold, emotionless slate. No repair was required. She felt nothing.

  She let her robot come forward, watching the dead transformation on the small screen representation and her targets recoil in front of her. “My assignment is complete. The rebel base is destroyed, the hostage is returned, and you have three warships.”

  The man struggled with his displeasure. “We should have four!”

  “You will, as soon as I finish borrowing this one.”

  The administrator put a hand on the vexed man. “The important point is that you should not have ‘borrowed’ one without filling out the proper forms.”

  In triplicate, of course. “You’ll have to overlook it.”

  “And you shouldn’t have programmed them to come directly to us,” the man said. “Everyone thinks we’re behind the violence. If the other rebel groups band together, it won’t matter how many warships we have.”

  “Oh, well.” Zenya stretched. It wouldn’t be too bad to live a life in exile on a ship like this. She opened the “cookbook” again on an extra screen. “It’s already done.”

  “Curse you!” The man did not sound so certain. “Curse you all to hell, you metal-plated bi—”

  Oops, she had allowed the ship to drift back into the super-accelerated shipping lanes, outside of the range of the faster-than-light communications buoy, which forcefully ended the transmission.

  Her robot would decrypt the Cressida execution files later.

  Now, as she accelerated for the Tube connected to Cloverleaf Hub, she spread out the family holos. Time to reach out and touch someone.

  ~*~*~*~

  Mercury heard words.

  “I think she’s waking up.” They were spoken by a strange woman, but the panic lacing her voice sounded all too familiar.

  “It’s going to be okay,” a man replied. “Look at her monitor. Her vitals are fine, Cressida.”

  Something about that name tugged Mercury a layer closer to consciousness.

  “She was out there for so long,” the woman said anxiously.

  “They are very good monitors. But you can perform your own wellness check. Here she comes.”

  Mercury’s head swelled like her brain was too small for her skull and light split right down her lobes. Immediately, she was back in the hospital again, Cro-Magnus forehead a mark of the failure that had destroyed her life and ripped her older sister from their family.

  She groaned and pressed a hand to the source of the pain. Her forehead seemed whole and normal-shaped. Liquid slid down her cheeks like tears. She forced her eyelids to open.

  Her naked body lay in an opaque gel bath.

  Mercury looked to the side. Ornate gold fixtures dripped with high-grade repressurization gel, kaleidoscope tile soothed her with muted patterns, and, at the foot of the luxurious bath, a willowy woman leaned over health monitors. Brown hair pulled back from her face, and soft threads lay against her curved neck. She wore a slim white caftan fastened under her breasts, an outfit reminiscent of Mercury’s distant memories of her mother.

  But it wasn’t her mother worrying over her now.

  Disbelief warred with hope. “Cressida?”

  Her older sister jumped, blue eyes wide, lips parted. Her face suffused with joy. She tripped over her own feet
to land at the bath side and threw her arms around Mercury. “Thank goodness you’re okay. I was so worried.”

  Mercury’s throat closed and tears prickled behind her eyes. She struggled to speak. “Me too.”

  “I missed you so much.” Over a decade had pried itself between them, but her voice remained smooth and oh-so-capable. “They wouldn’t tell me anything after the first surgery. I was afraid I’d never see you again. Or if I did, you’d still be in a coma.”

  “It only lasted a year.”

  “A year!” Cressida’s breath hitched. “When I heard the surgery failed…and you were in a coma because I…b-because of something I…did….” Her shoulders shuddered.

  Was she crying? Her unflappable older sister?

  Perhaps some things had changed.

  Mercury summoned her strength and reached out of the bath. The gel peeled off, leaving only a damp sheen on her skin. She flopped a wet arm around Cressida. The thin shoulder blades felt so fragile beneath her hand.

  “I’m fine.” Mercury’s arms shook with weakness. “Totally fine. You can check the monitors, like someone said.”

  “That was me.” A man in a ripped flight suit leaned against the wall, one knee bent so his foot pressed the tile. An unusual silver laced the green of his eyes, and amusement twinkled in his expression. His voice broke rough, a little gravelly, and utterly new to her. “Welcome aboard the good ship Liberation’s Dream, Mercury.”

  Cressida sucked in an uneven breath and drew back, stroking Mercury’s brow. She tried to smile through her worry. “We’re so glad to see you.”

  Mercury felt the same way. She struggled upright, the gel peeling off her, and reached for Cressida’s towel. “We?”

  “Oh, of course.” Cressida’s smile came more naturally. “This is my husband, Xan.”

  Her eyes felt like they popped out of her head. “Husband?”

  Cressida bit her lip through her smile. “It’s a long story.”

  “One I’d love to hear.” Everything groaned, overstrained and bruised from the exposure. “Along with how you found me.”

  “Also a long story.” Cressida turned to the ship’s monitors, frowning at angry lights. “And right now, we’re a little short on time.”

  Ominous clouds shadowed their incredible reunion. “What is it?”

  “A small complication.”

  “Like—”

  “Rest now,” Cressida said, using her distant voice. So the situation was much worse than she let on. “We’ll take care of everything.”

  Mercury forced herself to move. “Can I help?”

  “I hope so.” Xan activated the pump to drain the gel and handed her a long, white caftan like Cressida’s to fasten in place of her modest towel. “Cressida tells me you’re a wizard with AI.”

  “Basics.” She struggled to control a flush of pride. Cressida had talked about her? “I spend most of my time in the kitchen now.”

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You’ll have to see ours. We need a real chef to tame the reprocessor. Neither of us are up to much more than protein gruel these days.”

  “Glad to give it a test.”

  “Actually, we’re hoping you’ve tamed another piece of AI. We’re desperately in need of some solid strategies.”

  Mercury sat on the side of the tub, overstrained muscles groaning as she stretched. The gel evaporated, leaving her clean and pink. “Strategies? Ask Yves.”

  Xan and Cressida traded looks.

  Mercury’s stomach dropped. He made it. He had to have made it. “Tell me he’s here.”

  “He’s here,” Cressida said grimly.

  “Mostly,” Xan said.

  “What?”

  “Let’s double-check a couple things. He’s not trying to kill you, so far as you know?”

  “He saved me,” Mercury said. “What do you mean, ‘mostly’?”

  “And was he frozen solid with a couple holes in his head last time you checked?”

  “Not frozen solid,” she said. “Uh…so you know?”

  “That he’s an android who’s romantically attached himself to his target?” Xan cocked his brow at Cressida. “I’m familiar with the concept.”

  Mercury covered her face. Her sister had been running from the robots forever, and now Mercury claimed to be in love with one of them? “There’s a lot to explain.”

  Cressida went to her side and put a gentle hand on her forearm. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Mercury, no—”

  “Cressida, I just—”

  “We don’t have time for this.” Xan yanked the solid iron bar from the wall, bent it into a U, and straightened it again. He reattached it to the wall and flexed his obviously mechanical hands; android lights seemed to glow behind his pupils. “Agreed? Let’s move.”

  Cressida shook her head, but amusement tempered her disapproval. “Don’t show off.”

  Okay. Her sister had married a robot.

  Mercury turned her million questions back to, “Is Yves hurt?”

  “He’s going to survive.” Cressida hurried to the red-flashing screen. “Xan left him in the airless hangar to be safe.”

  Mercury grasped for the recently bent balance bar to help her rise, her legs trembling. The bar felt warm. “He can’t last forever.”

  “The y-class has at least ten minutes before permanent shutdown.”

  Mercury felt her mouth drop open in protest. “Ten minutes?”

  Cressida gave him a hard look. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?”

  Xan checked a chronometer. “Not to worry. I was going to ask you way before he reached critical.”

  Her sister started to admonish her husband for his flippancy.

  The screen flashed red again and a proximity siren wailed.

  Mercury gripped the warm bar. “Are we about to crash or get blown up?”

  “Hopefully neither.” Her sister helped her to the door. “But that’s what we need to ask your friend about.”

  “And let’s hope he wakes up quickly,” Xan tossed over his shoulder as he jogged down the lush hall, “since we have now fallen into laser range of an Undovan warship.”

  ~*~*~*~

  Full consciousness returned in one full cycle.

  Yves was lying on a Lion-class luxury cruiser inside the repressurized airlock.

  Mercury’s voice apologized. “—so, so sorry, Cressida.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “You weren’t being chased until after you saved us.”

  “Wake up, Yves.” A cocky Robotics Faction agent with a very un-android scar marring his brow leaned over Yves’ prone body.

  Yves read the spatial arrangement for x-class, team soldier in the threads of his irises, but a slightly unhinged smile further separated him from his origin.

  “Wake up, wake up.”

  Yves picked out two more life forms, humans, before he slammed into the encoded network. Nothing he couldn’t hack, but it took a few seconds. “Who are you? Where’s Mercury?”

  “I’m here.”

  She stood beyond the limit of his immediate vision. He strained to see her as he filtered for her identification, but her anonymizer declared her a foreign child. She staggered into his field of view, supported by a woman who shared her coloring and bone structure. Obviously, the sister.

  Instead of relaxing, he tightened. “Are you okay?”

  Mercury rubbed her arms as though pressing down the swell of depressurization sickness. Her pale color highlighted the exhaustion sagging her eyes. “I’m fine. What about you?”

  Her identity snapped into focus, and he relaxed. It was her. He knew it through sight, and he “knew” it through his analysis as well. She was alive and whole. He had succeeded in saving her.

  He let his head thump on the metal floor. “Better now.”

  A siren sounded in the distance. The lights dimmed and rose, red tinged behind his polarizing lenses.

  He knew that sound.<
br />
  Fuck.

  “So much for pleasantries.” The x-class helped Yves stand. “Everybody to the captain’s room. It’s the most shielded.”

  The women limped ahead.

  Heaviness twisted Yves’ unresponsive lower half. “Tell me that’s not proximity warnings for multiple large, armed pursuit ships.”

  “Aw. And I thought you were good at figuring out stuff.” The robot offered his shoulder and synced steps. “Say, hypothetically speaking, that we were being pursued by an Undovan Treatymaker-class warships. What would you do?”

  “My response depends on what counter-fire I can muster.”

  “Somewhere between none at all and nothing.”

  Yves groaned. “Of all the ships in the galaxy, I get rescued by the Love Boat.”

  “You could still be floating in space.”

  “I might wish I were.”

  The other robot grinned. “I didn’t realize y-classes were such whiners.”

  “I heard x-classes mostly speak in grunts.”

  Xan sighed. “And we went to all this trouble to encode the ship’s network.”

  “I saw your class in your eyes.” Yves cracked the network encryption and flooded it with his own queries and commands. Information began printing across his oculars. “How did you change your identification?”

  Xan Sarit Arch glanced at him. “That’s an awful personal question for a first meeting.”

  “I’m not inquiring about your bedroom prowess.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Yves let his question sink into his brain. Was the x-class saying that his performance in the bedroom changed his identification? How in the hell—no, more importantly, why in the hell would those things ever be interdependent?

  The rogue’s rewiring code defied logic if—

  “Just kidding,” Xan said. “You’re so funny.”

  “Oh, I’m a true comedian,” Yves said. “I notice you didn’t answer the question.”

  “The other identity was always inside me. Once I let go of the Faction and embraced my true self—and Cressida—then I also uncovered the deeply buried ‘me’ plastered over by the Faction’s control code. Satisfied? I’m so fucking deep.”