by J N Chaney
“This is not your vessel!” Captain Bligh snapped. “This vessel belongs to the Grand Republic of Unified Systems! And you’re—“
“A slave no more,” Warren interrupted.
“I have many Reotis loyalists gathered in deck-3 mess hall,” Lukov transmitted. “I’m guarding them and keeping all others out. Hendrose says each is loyal to Reotis and is not a threat to us. They will comply. They will fight. Hendrose says to say he vouches for all 50 of them.”
Warren sighed inwardly. He was hoping for more than that. There were four hundred and seventeen crew assigned to the ship. Half would have been better. Though many of the ship’s systems were automated, it still took a lot of bodies to keep it moving. The systems onboard the Ruthless couldn’t repair themselves, after all.
The captain and the cyborg stared at each other for several seconds. Suddenly, one of Bligh’s junior officers reacted. He pulled a tiny pistol and raised it to Warren’s head. Acting on an instinct born of hundreds of close combat engagements, Warren reached out and crushed both the weapon and the hand holding it. Then he squeezed some more, feeling and hearing the man’s bones splinter within his grasp. The sailor would live, but his screams might be enough to convince the others to obey.
Warren took a step closer to the captain and leaned forward, bringing his face close to the commander’s. Bligh’s expression was flat—not a man who was easily intimidated, so Warren squeezed the ensign’s hand a little tighter—just enough to get his shriek to go up another octave.
“The cyborgs are in control now. We’re giving you the opportunity to surrender peacefully. If you refuse, I will twist the head off your shoulders and dump your lifeless body into the void. Your crew might suffer the same fate as well. I’m giving you the opportunity to save their lives. The choice is yours.”
“Impossible,” Bligh said, dismissing the statement with a wave of his hand. “Your compulsion chip will kick in soon.”
Warren smiled, though there was nothing nice about it. “The chips have been neutralized. It’s still there, but the war computer no longer holds any power over me. No one ever will again.”
“Then the other cyborgs will stop you,” Bligh spluttered. He didn’t seem to notice that Warren had said chips, as in plural.
“They’re free as well,” he replied. “We all are now. Every single one of us. We are no longer your slaves. Cyborgs no longer take orders from you or your damned computer, and we will no longer do the Republic’s bidding.”
“Th-that’s impossible!” Bligh said, retreating a step as his eyes widened with fear.
“Is it?” Warren asked, taking a small step forward. He dragged the shuddering ensign over and brought the man’s hand close to the captain’s face. “Could I do this if I weren’t free?”
“W-why?” Bligh stammered. “You’re Republic soldiers.”
“Because slavery is wrong, no matter what form you use to dress it up and assuage your conscience. Because of the war crimes the Grand Republic made us commit. Because we were born free, and we intend to die free.”
Captain Bligh’s expression turned dark and dangerous. “So, you’ve decided to defect? To join the Commonwealth?”
Warren released the ensign and brought his index finger dangerously close to Bligh’s nose. “The Grand Republic and Commonwealth are both guilty of war crimes. Neither is innocent. We are independent. If you don’t raise your hands above your head and get your ass onto the nearest escape pod, I will make your head independent from your body.”
Two of the four officers with Bligh quickly raised their hands above their heads in the universal sign of surrender. The ensign cradled his injured hand against his chest and tried to hide behind the others. It wasn’t until the captain himself raised his hands that his final junior officer did.
“To think, I actually admired you,” Bligh whispered, sneering at the cyborg.
“The fact that you don’t says something about your character,” Warren said. “I’ll leave you to figure out what that is. Single file to the nearest escape pod, now!”
The officers turned around and began walking down the hallway away from Warren. Craig was coming the other way with ten prisoners of his own. Most of them looked battered and bruised, but they were all alive. The hulking cyborg had a wicked grin on his face. He was clearly enjoying himself.
“It is done,” Lukov transmitted to all of the First Corps. “All cyborgs are free. Only two gave us any trouble, but we held them down and freed them anyway. No casualty. Last two had many unkind words. Four others are guarding them and trying to talk them into sense.”
“Fine, we don’t have time to do anything about them just yet. Keep them confined until we get the ship under control and all the crew off.”
Warren watched as the command staff marched toward their escape pods. They stopped in front of a red-framed hatch with E-104 printed above it. They weren’t making any effort to finish their exodus, which caught Warren’s attention. “Keep moving.”
“The escape pods only have four days’ worth of supplies,” Bligh protested. “It will take at least that long for the Grand Republic to send someone out here to retrieve us. You’ll be sentencing us to death.”
Craig shoved his last captured crew member into the next pod marked E-105 and stepped over. “We could always snap your neck right here. Then we could fit at least three times as many into the pod and it wouldn’t matter how long it takes for them to retrieve your rotted corpses. Less trouble for me. Fun, too.”
Warren moved Craig to the side and spoke to the captain. “You and I both know you’re lying, trying to gain sympathy from someone who’s had enough of your shit. I’d take his word for it when he says he’s willing to snap your neck.”
The captain scoffed.
“You’ve lost, Bligh. Craig is exercising a lot of self-control right now. If you knew anything about him, you’d understand how much patience he’s displaying, and you wouldn’t push him. So, unlike how the Republic has treated us, I’m going to allow you to have a choice. Either stop talking and follow orders, or you can see if this cyborg is serious about folding you like a fitted sheet. The choice is yours.”
The captain stared at Craig as if he were daring the cyborg to do it. The rest of his officers hurriedly opened the hatch and scrambled into the cone-shaped pod. They huddled together near the opening as they watched what looked like might be the end of their leader.
“The Grand Republic does not forgive, and it never forgets,” Bligh said, turning to Warren. “And neither will I.”
“Right back at you,” Craig said. “Now get your ass in there before I do something you’ll regret.”
A few seconds later, Bligh was in the escape pod and its hatch was closed. When it was secure, Warren stepped back and hoped letting the captain live wasn’t going to come back and bite him in the ass.
“We could always override the seal and space the whole lot of them,” Craig suggested. “You know they’d do the same to us. They deserve it.”
“They do,” Warren agreed. “But it turns out, we’re different from them.”
“How so?”
“We’re more human than they are,” Warren said as he pressed the EJECT button. The whooshing sound of the air escaping the tube gave a grim sense of finality to the mutiny. The captain of the Ruthless was no longer aboard the ship.
12
The cyborg channel erupted, filled with cheering and curses directed at the departing escape pods. Warren was sure if he’d still been fully human, he would have gone weak in the knees at what he’d just accomplished.
“Lukov, how many cyborgs did we lose?” Warren asked as he headed to the deck-3 mess hall to meet the Reotian separatists.
“According to HUD, zero,” he replied. “This day has granted us many fortunes.”
“That’s what mine says, too. All 98 of us accounted for.”
“Eh, zero cyborg casualties,” Lukov corrected. “Six Republic personnel are killed. They attempt to fight us. T
hey went to armory and did retrieve rifles. We did not have a choice. The dead were ejected in an escape pod so as to not cause disease from rotting corpse. For the ones Hendrose has vouch for.”
“It was their own fault,” Warren replied.
He arrived just over a minute later. Lukov offered him a crisp salute, which he instinctively returned. It felt odd, being the one who was saluted, but he dismissed the feeling and opened the hatch. Inside, he found a miracle. There weren’t 50 personnel. Nor were there 60. Crammed into the compartment, sitting on tables, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder were 82 personnel loyal to Reotis.
“Found some more in hiding,” Lukov said with a happy grin before marching off to talk to a wounded man propped up against a table.
Warren scanned the room until he found Hendrose and motioned for the man to join him.
“You’re certain none of the people here are Republic spies?” he asked.
Hendrose shrugged. “As certain as I can be. Every single one of them, except for two, have family on the planet. They’ve personally witnessed the suffering—the evil both sides have done. We recruited them months ago. The only thing we were waiting for was you, just like you’d planned.”
Warren noted the tech’s reference to a plan—one he couldn’t remember—and chalked it up to the memories he’d lost. Nothing he could do about it right this second.
“All of them have known about it for months,” continued Hendrose. “Even so, nobody betrayed us. So far it looks like a complete success. Can’t ask for more proof of their loyalty than that, can you?”
“Agreed,” Warren said as he gently grasped the technician by his shoulders and gave him a meaningful look. “Since I don’t remember the plan, but you do, what’s the next step?”
“We need to get this ship to Reotis,” the tech said. “We’ve built a hangar for the shuttles. Well, for any vessels we might be able to capture, since it’s the class of ships cyborgs are transported on.”
“You have a hangar on Reotis?” Warren asked.
“We’d have two if we’d been given a long enough break between battles,” he replied. “And, we have enough personnel to get us there. But we need to start moving as soon as possible. We’re understaffed, so it’s going to take us a while to make sure the ship is safe to move. Then we’ve got to get it pointed in the right direction.”
“What do you need from the cyborgs?” Warren asked as he released the tech. “Is there anything we can do in the meantime?”
Hendrose thought about it for a moment. “I guess patrol the ship. Make sure there aren’t any bombs or other sabotage left behind. Your people moved really fast. If there was some kind of contingency plan to scuttle the ship in case it was ever taken, I doubt there was enough time to put it in place.
“I’ll send you a list of the personnel who are still aboard, too. If they find anyone else, please instruct them not to kill the person or people unless they’re attacked first. I don’t want anyone dying because of a misunderstanding. Can you do that?”
“Done,” Warren said. Then he turned to Lukov, who was now standing just outside the hatch. “Organize patrols. Three cyborgs per deck. Have the rest search between the decks. Detain anyone they find out of place or doing something suspicious. Bring them to the brig for questioning. Make sure they use less than lethal force whenever possible. I’m releasing these people so they can get us to Reotis.”
“Very well,” Lukov said, still not sounding convinced. “It will be done. And Warren, no matter how this does turn in, you have done a good thing today. I thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Warren said.
As Hendrose got the crew to work, Lukov began issuing orders over the cyborg comm channel.
“We should get to the bridge,” Hendrose said as he turned and walked away. Warren wasn’t sure why he’d said ‘we,’ but he followed anyway.
Cyborgs had never been allowed on the bridge. They had no business there, so when Warren arrived, he paused to take it all in. The control center for the Ruthless was everything he’d expected: large, opulent, and crowded with workstations. Each workstation had a chair sitting in front of it and it looked like all of them were powered on. At the front was an array of curved screens mounted into the wall with the largest one in the middle. The only thing missing was the bustle of activity. Of the thirty stations, only nine were occupied.
“Can this be done with so many empty spots?” asked Warren.
“Just barely,” Hendrose said. “A lot of the ship’s systems can be run by the war computer, which helps. Most of the separatists have been cross trained to do just about everything on a ship. Captain Bligh said we were an inspiration for the rest of the Republic, the way everyone wanted to learn every job. In reality, we just wanted to make sure that once the plan started, we could do what needed to be done.”
Warren frowned. “They’ll figure it out eventually, but the Republic is a slow-moving machine. They’ll have meetings, review what reports they can get their hands on, and replay any video they can find. In the end, they’ll realize what we were up to, but it’ll probably take a few years. Even if some of them have suspicions, they won’t be able to do anything about it until they get past the bureaucracy.”
“True enough,” the tech agreed. “I’ve already sent coded messages to the rest of the Reotis agents in the fleet. It’ll look like a malformed report to everyone who isn’t looking for it, and they’ll dismiss it just like they do with every other comms error. However, I expect the rest of the cells to put their plans into action, if they can.”
“We’ll give them a hell of fight if they come after us,” Warren promised.
Hendrose’s expression turned thoughtful. “I’m told there are a couple other planets who are after the same thing: freedom. I don’t have any details. It’s how we kept our secrets, only telling people what they needed to know. If it’s true, the Republic is going to have a lot of indigestion for the next few years. Maybe so much they don’t come after us.”
“That would be ideal,” Warren said.
Hendrose motioned for him to sit in the captain’s plush, red chair in the center of the room. It was something no cyborg would ever be allowed to do under any circumstance… until now.
“I don’t have any experience captaining,” Warren said.
“You’ve got leadership experience,” Hendrose replied. “And, you’ve got the respect of the separatists.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re just afraid of me,” Warren said, glancing at the people running from station to station on the bridge. “After all, the last time I was on the planet, I made a bloody mess of their lives.”
“You don’t need to worry about them or the Reotis citizens. You might have some trouble with the older generation, but they’re few in number. Everyone knows you were a slave, and now you’re free. You’re just like us.”
The tech’s words were compassionate, but Warren worried the tech’s words might be a little too optimistic. “Still, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. I should be patrolling along with everyone else.”
“Nonsense,” Hendrose said, waving the comment away. “Your job, until we get to the planet, is to sit here and look important. You’re already making decisions for the cyborgs. If anything happens, you’ll be in the central location to make the call. And worst comes to worst, I’ll cough into my hand if I’ve got a better idea about something. We’ll make you look like a pro.”
Warren laughed. “I appreciate that. How long until we can get the ship turned around?”
“Two or three minutes,” one of the crew members replied. “They had enough time to lock a few of the systems out. We had to reboot them. They’re coming back online now.”
“So, this is it?” Warren asked. “We wait, the crew takes us back to the planet, and we figure it out from there?”
“It’s a little better than that, but not much,” Hendrose admitted, a pained expression on his face. “We have equipment, plenty of it. Each side of this i
nsane war abandoned gear every time the planet changed hands. It’s good stuff, and we could do something amazing with it, but we need someone to get us all headed in the same direction.”
“I hope this works,” Warren said, settling into the chair. “This is all virgin ground. We’re doing something that has never been done before. Something I doubt the Senate thought was even possible. If they had, they would’ve found a way to prevent it from happening.”
“I know,” Hendrose said.
“Ready!” one of the sailors called out. “Destination programmed in. Ready for FTL travel on your command.”
She was looking at Warren. They were all looking at him. He leaned forward, thought of what his favorite starship captain would have said, and pointed a finger at the main screen. “Engage.”
It was far less dramatic than he thought it would be. There was no sudden acceleration—no dizzying effect. The stars on the main viewscreen simply vanished. A moment later, the view to the outside was replaced with a star map showing their three-dimensional direction of travel and their estimated date and time of arrival. According to the digital clock, it would only take a couple of hours.
“FTL drive engaged,” the man said. “Optimal output. Temperature holding. Looks like we’re good.”
“What’s the situation like on Reotis?” Warren asked. “How many Commonwealth troops are we going to need to blast?”
“Zero, so far as we know,” Hendrose said. “You kicked their asses so hard last time, they didn’t have enough to hold the planet. That’s what the Republic probes are reporting, anyway. We’ll know more once we get closer. I’m sure the CoWs will be back, but not for a while. I know how they keep the cyborgs in the dark, but from what I’ve gathered, the entire border between Republic and Commonwealth space is engaged in hostilities.
“The CoWs are spreading all across the galaxy as fast as they can. It’s like their asses are on fire and their hair’s catching. From what I’ve learned, they’ve spread themselves too thin so when they get beat down too hard, they’ve got to consolidate elsewhere before they can try again.”
