by Jake Bible
Sno realized he was a little soft. Too many hours spent healing in med pods lately. His muscle tone wasn’t as strong as he would have liked. He’d have to do something about that when he survived the Mip. If he survived the Mip…
Sno steeled himself for the next part of his plan. With weapons stowed, he had to open the access hatch in front of him. The second he popped it open, he’d be exposed. Sno would have maybe half a second to draw a weapon. Half a second was enough normally, but Sno’s arms were not at full strength after the climb down.
No way around the scenario, Sno shoved the hatch open and dove through into a massive corridor beyond. He came up out of the roll with the rifle back at his shoulder, finger hovering close to the trigger. No one was there. No guards waiting, not even mechanics or engineering personnel. Sno counted to thirty, senses tuned for any sound or movement.
When there was still no welcome, violent or not, Sno stood up and walked the length of the massive corridor. It was so wide that Velly could have flown her ship down and still have a meter of space on each side. Sno reached the end and faced a door that was as proportionally massive as the corridor.
Sno waved his wrist across the panel by the door and waited. There were a series of clanks and whirrs before the door began to withdraw up into the ceiling. With the rifle leading, Sno walked into the GS M’illi’ped’s main engine room.
And came face to face with the android named Ested.
“Pol,” Sno said, making sure he was aiming the rifle for a spot directly below where the android’s navel would be. If the android had a navel. It was simply a smooth patch of synthetic skin. “You’ve been busy.”
28.
“Agent Prime,” Ested/Pol said. “I shouldn’t be surprised you found me.”
The fact that Ested wasn’t cursing at Sno told him that his hunch had been right. Pol was piloting the android.
“You care to tell me what you are up to, Pol?” Sno demanded. “And don’t try to lie or make up a story. I’m done with that crap. Tell me the truth or I put a plasma blast through this android’s belly.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, asshole,” Ested snapped.
The android’s body shook then stilled.
“I have to say that this AI is quite possessive of its body,” Pol said. “I’m working on that issue. Just a little more time to sequester its—”
“You can sequester my ass, you old piece of flesh!” Ested shouted. “I swear, when I get my hands on you, I will squeeze your neck until every single molecule of skin, muscle, and sinew has been torn in half. Then I will laugh and sing over your destroyed vertebrae as I twirl your corpse above my head! It will be glorious!”
“So much for not harming living beings,” Pol said.
Sno wasn’t quite sure what to do. He should blast the android’s guts wide open and expose its main processor. That would put the machine down fast. But the android’s mind was still inside and the way it spoke, which was very un-android like, gave Sno pause. It did not sound like a simple AI, but one of the sentient protocols.
“I can see your morals fighting with your training, Agent Prime,” Pol said. “Wondering if killing this body will kill the AI’s being too. I can say that if you kill this body, you will kill me. My tether to Ested is not a basic override, but a full synthesis of our consciousnesses. Despite the unpleasant personality, Ested is a very remarkable AI. I have much to learn from it.”
“How will you learn when you have my foot up your ass, old man?” Ested snarled. “You want to play puppet master? I’ll show you fucking puppet master, you tiny shithole.”
“Tiny shithole?” Pol replied. “What is that exactly?”
“The hole where my fist goes so I can run your mouth like a sock puppet,” Ested yelled. “Keep diving deeper, dickhead. Go for it. See what happens when you reach bottom.”
Other than the sound of the Mip’s massive drives, the engine room was silent. Sno waited for Pol and Ested to continue their verbal jousting, but the android’s body remained quiet. Sno glanced around.
“Where’s the engine crew?” Sno asked. “What did you do with the mechanics and engineers?”
“They have been subdued,” Pol said.
“Like you subdued J’gorla?” Sno asked. “She was a woman doing her job and no real threat to you, Pol. Why did you have to kill her?”
The android’s features scrunched up in rage then slackened completely. Then scrunched back followed by the slack nothing.
“You murderous cocksucking twat sniffer,” Ested said so low that Sno almost didn’t hear.
“That was an accident,” Pol said. “I only wanted to knock her out, but I hadn’t gained full control of this body’s motor functions. I hit her too hard and I am sorry for that.”
“Then you two duked it out for who would be boss,” Sno said, jutting his chin towards the android. “Ested wasn’t too happy about giving up the driving seat.”
“Still not too happy, you fucking moron!” Ested yelled. “Or haven’t you been paying attention?”
“What are you doing down here, Pol?” Sno asked.
“Who fucking cares?” Ested roared. “Someone get this old son of a bitch out of my body and out of my head! NOW!”
The android stiffened. Its eyes flashed red, green, red, green, white, then returned to the simulacrum of real eyes. Sno gripped the rifle tighter, his finger only a hair’s breadth away from the trigger.
“Pol?” Sno said. “Ested?”
The android relaxed and its head rolled on its neck.
“Pol,” Sno said with confidence.
“Yes. Control is complete,” Pol said. “I have tucked Ested’s conscious mind away in a very safe place. Too valuable a consciousness to delete. I do want to study it thoroughly at some point down the road.”
“Pol. What is going on?” Sno asked. “Why are you doing all of this?”
“Doing all of what, Agent Prime?” Pol asked. He spread his arms wide. “Do you see me doing anything?”
“You have been playing me from the beginning,” Sno said. “The luxury liner? You set this up.”
“What? I believe taking a luxury liner was your idea, Agent Prime,” Pol said. “How could I possibly set anything up?”
He took a step closer to Sno and Sno shook his head sharply.
“No. Stop right there,” Sno ordered. “I will shoot, Pol.”
“And not get answers? I don’t think you’ll shoot until you’ve heard me out, Agent Prime,” Pol said, taking another step.
Sno shot the floor between Pol’s legs and the android body stopped mid-step.
“Try me,” Sno said. “The captain? Did you know him before? Or is his involvement improvised?”
“Loch? What is he doing?” Pol asked.
“He has control of the guards,” Sno said. “Osol is dead.”
“What?” Pol exclaimed. “No. That wasn’t supposed to happen.” Pol retreated a few steps. “I may need to move the schedule up a tad. Would you mind putting that rifle down so I can get back to work, Agent Prime?”
“You’re joking,” Sno said. “That was a joke.”
“Only if you found it funny,” Pol replied. “I didn’t intend it to be a joke.”
He brought up a holo of the map of the part of the galaxy the Mip was traveling through. The images moved and changed too fast for Sno to track.
“Are you reading trans-space?” Sno asked.
“I am,” Pol said with a laugh. “Having the use of an android brain is quite something. I thought my mind was the best in the galaxy, but take my mind and put it in a brain with the processing capabilities of an android? Agent Prime, would it be hubris to call myself a god?”
“I am fairly certain that is the exact definition of hubris, Pol,” Sno said.
“I thought as much,” Pol said and sighed. “Then let’s keep that revelation between you and me, okey dokey? No need for others to worry that perhaps I have lost my marbles when the complete opposite has happened.”
&
nbsp; “You’ve acquired extra marbles?” Sno asked.
“Exactly!” Pol crowed. “Now you are getting it!”
“Pol…”
“You are so impatient, Agent Prime.”
“Pol…what is going on? Be honest with me. I have been assigned to help you. And that assignment came with the understanding that my help would come at any cost. It wasn’t spelled out as such, but the implication was there. Talk to me and let’s work this out.”
“I can’t talk right now,” Pol said. “I need to work on moving this ship into position. We were supposed to arrive at the Bgreete System in what? Two days?”
“Three,” Sno said.
“You are forgetting that we have been awake and working for a day, Agent Prime,” Pol said. “Two days is the new ETA. Going to have to do something about that if Loch is playing games. I suspected he might which is why I needed the android.”
Pol’s eyes went wide, which was slightly terrifying on an android’s face.
“Veben? Is she safe?” Pol asked, alarm evident. “Do not let Loch get ahold of her, Sno. He’ll use her against me.”
“Veben is secure in your room,” Sno said. “She is there with your body, Velly, and Zan.”
“Zan? Who is Zan?”
“The medic from before,” Sno said.
“Oh, yes, lovely woman,” Pol said. “I expect that Zan was called to try to do something about the interface?”
“She was,” Sno answered.
“And Velly was talking her through what she knows of remote piloting?”
“Yes. Precisely that.”
“Can you comm them?”
“I can.”
“Please comm them and have them stop immediately. They’ll damage my body and I still have need of it. There is no way to sever the remote piloting tether. At least not with the tech they are using.”
“I’d comm them if I could trust you, Pol. But I can’t trust you.”
“Hmmmm…”
“It’s over, Pol. Face that. To get off this ship, you will have to go through me. Are you really going to kill an SSD agent, Pol? You’re a tech, not a killer.”
“You have no idea who I am, Agent Prime,” Pol said quietly. “No one does. They all think they can manipulate me for their ends. They think they can assert control over me by using fear and intimidation. Threats of violence. Threats of imprisonment. Threats against those I care about. Threats, threats, threats!”
Pol’s eyes went bright red.
“What I am about to accomplish will end all of those threats. All of them!”
“Pol! Stand down and give yourself up!” Sno shouted as he started to squeeze the trigger.
A blast tore into the floor by Sno’s feet and he spun around. Two dozen guards were sprinting towards the wide open entry of the engine room.
“Ah, that should occupy you,” Pol said.
Sno didn’t dare turn to see where Pol was running off to. He couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the guards.
“Put the rifle down!” one of the guards shouted.
Sno did not put the rifle down. Instead, he put two blasts dead center of the guard’s chest, knocking the man into the three guards behind him. More guards stumbled and the pile grew as Sno ran to his left, letting loose plasma blast after plasma blast at the guards until he was able to find cover behind a huge turbine.
Sno ejected the rifle’s energy mag and slapped in a fresh one. He racked the charge and checked the energy level. The rifle was full and Sno took a deep breath as he came out from behind the turbine, his finger depressed fully on the trigger. Plasma streaked from the rifle and connected with one, two, three guards, dropping them to the ground.
There were still over a dozen guards streaming into the engine room. They split up and Sno knew he was about to be flanked. He ducked back behind the turbine and looked for a new place to hide. Other than the catwalks crisscrossing the ceiling above, there was nowhere else to go. The row of turbines in front of him had too wide of gaps between them to be effective cover. The guards would simply surround him.
Sno looked for the ladders to the catwalks, but they were up against the walls of the engine room. Too far to sprint to without taking serious fire.
“Shit,” Sno muttered.
A guard came around the left side of the turbine and Sno put him down. A second followed, but threw herself backward, avoiding the plasma blast Sno sent at her.
“Pol!” Sno shouted. “Help me out of this and I promise I will do whatever I can to help you!”
No reply other than shouts from guards for Sno to give up his weapon and surrender himself.
The scuff of boots caused Sno to turn in time to fend off two guards on his right. He blasted one in the thigh then jammed the rifle barrel into the throat of the second. The first guard got off a lucky shot and Sno felt searing pain across his left shoulder. The pain grew and grew and Sno risked a glance down. The wound was a good four to five centimeters deep and just as wide. Sno was missing a good hunk of shoulder.
More boots and Sno whirled about, firing blindly. He hit one guard in the chest, but missed the next four. They came at him too fast for Sno to get more shots off. He dropped the rifle and came at them swinging. A right hook nearly knocked the helmet off a guard. A left jab sent a guard to her knees, her hands clutching at her throat.
Sno tried for an uppercut on another guard, but his arm was grabbed from behind. Then his other arm was grabbed and Sno found himself restrained as guards sneered and glared at him. None opened fire.
“We have him,” a guard said, obviously speaking into her comm. “To the brig?”
The guard waited for an answer then grinned.
“Yeah. We’ll take good care of him then bring him right to you, Captain,” the guard said. She lowered her rifle, turned it around, and walked towards Sno, the butt of the weapon leading. “This is gonna feel great.”
“We should talk this out, folks,” Sno said. “I’m an SSD agent. You harm me and you will have to answer directly to Fleet Intelligence.”
“We’ll take that risk,” the guard said as she sent the butt of her rifle flying into Sno’s face.
Sno’s nose exploded and his sinuses, then throat, filled with blood. The butt hit him again and again. Sno sagged slightly, but he was held up by the guards that had him from behind. Then the rest of the guards started in. Rifle butts nailed him in the stomach, the chest, the knees.
His head rocked back as a butt hit him between the eyes. Lights flashed in his vision and Sno had a hard time keeping focus. He blinked, but the vision grew worse as blood dripped down his forehead and into his eyes. His ribs screamed with pain as two guards went to work on his torso.
“That’s good,” the one guard said. “Captain wants him to live.”
The guard leaned in and snarled.
“But he didn’t say he wanted you conscious,” the guard said as the last rifle butt connected with Sno’s face.
Sno slumped in the guards’ grips, nothing but unconscious dead weight.
29.
Sno slowly awoke to a growing pain in his head and arms. The rest of him hurt considerably too, but it was his head and arms that had the loudest voices.
“Agent Prime,” Loch said. “Are you awake enough for us to talk?”
Sno struggled to open his eyes, but even the dim light that leaked through the gaps in his eyelids was too much.
“No,” Sno rasped.
“You are feeling discomfort,” Loch said. To Sno, he sounded somewhere behind and to the left. “Understandable. I had a medic remove your implants. Wouldn’t do for you to be able to figure out how to communicate with GF headquarters. Nor could I allow you to fulfill whatever conspiracy you and Pol Hammon have cooked up.”
“Conspiracy…?” Sno asked. “With Pol? You have it all wrong, Loch.”
“I think not,” Loch said.
Sno tried opening his eyes again and managed to lift his lids without screaming. He didn’t recognize where he was.
“Antechamber off the bridge,” Loch said without Sno asking. “I come here when the stress of the day gets to me. Warm lighting, comfortable furniture, tea, snacks. A delightful way to spend an afternoon or evening.”
“Thanks for sharing,” Sno said. “Can you put my implants back now?”
“Amusing,” Loch said. “Your implants have been shot into trans-space. A risky move considering the slightest of breaches in the ship’s hull could kill us all, but over the years, I have developed many methods to jettison contraband that perhaps the GF would not approve of my vaunted passengers of carrying. Not to mention the occasional oopsie moment when an escort winds up dead in someone’s stateroom. That would be a bit of a mess to explain when we docked. What is ejected in trans-space stays in trans-space, I always say.”
Sno studied his predicament. He was restrained to a simple metal chair in a small, but well-apportioned, room. There was a view window that ran the length of the room, giving Sno a good look at the swirl of trans-space. The swirl hurt his eyes and he turned away to keep from getting nauseous. His forearms had medical sealant running from his wrists to the crooks of his elbows. He had no idea what his head looked like. After the beating he’d taken from the guards, plus the removal of his comm implant, Sno guessed he looked like some mad science project.
“How long was I out?” Sno asked.
“Seventeen hours,” Loch replied, seeming miffed. “The guards got a little too enthusiastic. I reprimanded them for you. You are welcome. You spent most of your time in a med pod, but like I said, I had the medic focus on removing your implants more than healing the injuries you sustained from your capture.”
“Pol? Where is he?” Sno asked.
“He is in his room,” Loch replied. “Apparently, he tried to access the ship’s systems and something went very wrong. The medic already on hand says he has no brain activity at all now. For all intents and purposes, Pol Hammon is a vegetable.”
“And the others?” Sno asked. “Veben? Velly?”
“Veben and Velly,” Loch laughed. “That has a nice ring to it. You know, I have a friend that produces holo vids for broadcast. I should suggest Veben and Velly as a program name. What do you think? Zany comedy? Talk show? It could be any number of things, really.”
