by J N Chaney
“Then it’s something we can detect?” Rigby asked.
“My sensors gave me a warning about the radiation,” Warren confirmed. “Maybe we can do something with that.”
He switched to the public Cyborg channel. “The last spy on the station has escaped. He’s on the loose with a couple of launchers from the mechs we encountered earlier. Be on the lookout for any forms of radiation. Proceed with caution. These rockets are nasty and I’m pretty sure they can burn a hole right through the dome.”
Warren sat up on the infirmary bed and inspected himself. Good as new. As much as he’d wanted to join the hunt, Hendrose insisted he return to the Ruthless and get repaired first. He gave when another of his subsystems had gone haywire.
He and a number of the cyborgs had gone up in case they needed to utilize the warship against another incoming attack.
“I have something,” Craig said from aboard the Ruthless. He’d been quiet so long, Warren had nearly forgotten about him.
“What is it?” Warren asked, pulling on his clothes.
“Just noticed a radiation spike a few seconds before you started talking. It’s in the lower decks. I’m close to it, but I can’t find the source.”
How the hell had they gotten onto the ship? They’d done a thorough sweep before taking off.
“I’ve got that,” another cyborg spoke up. “It looks like about a dozen of those rocket things. They’re burrowing their way through the hull.”
Warren inspected the cyborg’s feed. It looked like the spy had spread the damage out over a large surface—at least two meters wide. It would force them to either dig the dangerous, little radioactive warheads out, or replace a huge section if the little bastards were left unchecked.
“Found a breach in Dome-3,” another cyborg reported. “Single micro-rocket. It’s already burned its way through. I found someone who knows how to patch the hole. The radiation level is low, but I’m making her put on an EV suit to protect her before I let her repair it.”
“That might’ve only been a test,” Cooper said. “Or it might be a distraction to move us away from his real target.”
EV systems were critical and vulnerable, but there were spares in the warehouse. Any decent spy would know about that.
“I need two cyborgs to head to the warehouse,” Warren said. “Lock yourselves inside until we catch the bastard. Protect the food and spare parts. I need four in the hangar, both to watch the shuttles and the printers. They’re both critical to our future survival, so don’t let them get damaged. In fact, shut down all repair operations and gather everyone who’s in there near the ship and away from the entrances.”
What else?
“Water,” Warren said to himself. “Cooper, head into the water reclamation plant. If the spy drops a few dozen of those rockets into the water supply, he could shut the entire colony down. No water means they’d have about three days before they all die of dehydration. If they drink it, there might be enough radiation to poison them all. Does anyone see the head of the Water Reclamation and Sanitation Department?” Warren added a photo of the short, greasy-haired man along with the question.
No one responded in the affirmative, giving Warren a bad feeling.
“He could be the spy,” Warren speculated. “He’s the one who’d know the best way to poison the water supply. It’s the only thing big enough to be a target for sabotage now. Find out if that’s what happened.”
Bruce Liebman, a cyborg located on the ship, transmitted an update. “I got him. He’s—“
LIEBMAN: KIA
RETRIEVAL DATE: 2486.01.31
Warren spat out a curse and picked up his weapons but there wasn’t time to don his armor.
“Prepare for incoming!” Warren warned. “Looks like the spy is on board. He didn’t have to add that the man had already killed one cyborg, something that shouldn’t have been an easy feat.
“I’m moving to intercept,” Kendricks said.
“On my way,” Warren said. “Rigby, you’re with me. Everyone else, maintain your positions. We still don’t know if he’s got an accomplice or what other kind of damage he’s done. Find whatever surprises he’s left behind. I trust your judgment.”
The female cyborg was already waiting outside the infirmary when he strode out.
Warren ran as fast as he could, pushing himself to his cybernetic limits. Rigby did the same, keeping pace with him. They turned the first corner and kept sprinting. On the ground, Oplin started transmitting.
“Contact!”
Warren was still focusing on moving as quickly as he could, but he got a distinct image from the other cyborg. His vision was filled with a shower of white, swirling rockets. It appeared the spy had turned one of the launchers into a grenade and had tossed it into the dome ahead of himself.
Civilians ran away from the swirling explosion, but it looked like several wouldn’t make it. Screams filled Oplin’s ears as he fired at the spot where he’d last seen the spy.
Oplin was moving, trying to flank his enemy, but he couldn’t get close enough to see through the intense amount of radiation the rockets were putting out. His HUD was glitching, and along with it, his feed.
A warning popped into Warren’s HUD, alerting him to movement near the Cyborg Upkeep and Production. “I need one cyborg to support Oplin,” Warren ordered. “Just one. Don’t let him spread us too thin.”
Kendricks made it to the CUP room first. “I see someone,” he reported. I’m going to engage.”
His feed took over Warren’s vision just long enough for the picture to form. A shadow passed in front of Kendrick’s eyes, then the feed went dark.
KENDRICKS: KIA
RETRIEVAL DATE: 2486.02.11
“What the fuck?” Rigby snarled. “How is he taking cyborgs out so easily?”
She was right, Warren knew. It shouldn’t be possible. The spy had a plan, though Warren didn’t know what it was.
The two cyborgs who’d been heading to Dome-6 to support Oplin were on the move again, though they were being cautious and careful. They hadn’t even spotted the spy before being shot at. Whoever he was, he was good.
“He knows it’s all over if he gets caught,” Warren said. “He’s probably been collecting data on us since we arrived. We didn’t detect any transmissions from the surface during the battle with the Republic or Commonwealth ships, so I doubt he got any word to them. His number-one duty is to get what he knows back to the Republic.”
“But how?” Rigby asked. “There aren’t any other ships in orbit. It’s not like he could transmit far enough to reach one in another system.”
“There could be probes lurking out there,” Cooper suggested. “Some of them can act as relays. They’d be too small to spot until we got close to them. Maybe that’s why the Conquest was hanging out in orbit for so long. Maybe they were launching probes, just in case things didn’t go their way.”
“Still, he’d have to find a transmitter powerful enough to reach that far,” Rigby argued. “The guns can barely do it. He’d need his own ship.”
“We would’ve spotted a ship if he had one,” Cooper replied. “Any time during the battle. Unless it’s on the other side of the planet, we would’ve seen it. We were all over the surface during the fight. If it’s on the other side of the planet, we should just let him go. He’ll run out of air before he makes it more than a couple dozen kilometers even if he has one of our Republic EV suits.”
“He does have a ship,” Warren said.
“Where?” Cooper asked.
“The Ruthless.”
Everyone fell silent for a long few seconds. “The backup prisms are there,” Cooper acknowledged.
“Right,” Warren replied. Then over the gunner’s channel, he said, “Attention guns. Keep an eye on that ship parked outside Dome-6. If it leaves the surface, blast it to bits. Until further notice, it is considered hostile.”
“I have a gun within range right now,” one of the civilians at a particle cannon said. “W
ant me to blast it now?”
“No,” Warren said. “We might need it later, but if it launches, return it to the molecules it came from.”
“I hope his partner tries to take the ship,” Rigby said as they rounded another corner. “The gunners will solve this problem for us.”
He slowed and motioned for her to do the same. “I don’t think he has a partner. The sequence makes me think he might have things on a timer to throw us off. What better way to distract us from his being on the Ruthless than to have us chasing our tails on the surface?”
Rigby arched a brow, mulling it over. “I hate to say, but that makes sense,” she finally said. “Spreading us thin as we try to track multiple people down.”
Warren nodded. “Exactly. Don’t underestimate this person.”
32
When Warren and Rigby finally made it to the hall where the Cyborg Upkeep and Production room was located. It was empty except for the fallen body of Kendricks.
“I know he’s not really dead,” Rigby began. Her voice was hard as stone, reflecting her anger. “But I still want to rip this spy to shreds.”
The door to the CUP room was ajar and Warren pointed the rifle at it. “If he destroys any of our peoples’ drives, they won’t be coming back.” Warren had no intention of letting that happen. “I’ll go first. Cover from the door in case I go down.”
She nodded and moved closer to the door. Almost instantly, Warren felt her body jerk and spasm, the sensations spilling over from the shared communication. They were powerful enough to almost send him to his knees, but he forced himself to stay standing.
When he looked for the attacker, there was no one. Rigby continued to jerk on the ground, but she lifted an arm, pointing up. Warren followed the direction she indicated and understood.
The same hastily installed circle and device he’d seen on the Commonwealth boarding ship that attacked the Ruthless were on the ceiling. He shut out Rigby’s feed and aimed his rifle. There would be no disguising the shot, but he couldn’t leave her like that.
Warren blocked out her haywire transmission, took aim, and destroyed the device. Rigby’s body relaxed, but she didn’t recover like he had before. He stepped closer and tuned into her feed again. Rigby’s vision was fading fast and he could feel her systems shutting down.
He knew what was coming but didn’t have a clue how to stop it. Then, it was too late.
RIGBY: KIA
RETRIEVAL DATE: 2486.02.11
“I modified the Commonwealth’s idea,” a voice said from the open doorway. “Made it a little more efficient.
The rifle in Warren’s hand jerked up to point at the man’s face. Warren recognized the man but had to dig in his files for his identity.
“Glenn Hoffman,” he remembered. “The security chief turned sanitation worker. Or spy, I suppose.”
The greasy-haired man had a wild look in his eyes and blood running from his nose and over his lips. He held one of the prisms in his hand. “At least I’m not a traitor.”
Warren kept the rifle aimed at center mass. “What makes me a traitor?” he asked.
“What?” Hoffman wiped some of the blood from his top lip before answering. “You betrayed your own government. It’s the definition of the word, cyborg.” He said the word like it was something dirty, clearly trying to get a rise out of Warren.
He didn’t take the bait. “Is it? I thought one had to claim loyalty before betrayal could happen. One had to earn trust and show it in return.”
The menace in his voice made Hoffman take a step back. The man’s lips worked for a moment, but no sound came out.
“I was a slave,” Warren stated flatly. “You won’t make it off this ship.”
“Maybe not, but I can take all of you with me,” Hoffman replied. He held up the prism with a cruel smile and waved it at Warren. When he tried to talk again, a cough stole the words from him.
Red spittle flecked his chin and Warren focused on it for a moment. His HUD updated, showing him that Hoffman was dying from the radiation poisoning.
“I have no doubt of that.” Warren moved slowly, closing the distance between them.
Hoffman stopped coughing and wiped his sleeve across his face, a snarl curling his lip. “Your government made you what you are today. You owe them for it. You owe them everything.”
“I agree,” Warren said as he started moving. “But not the way you mean it. I owe them big time.”
“Ungrateful son of a bitch,” the spy whispered before falling into a new coughing fit. His condition was deteriorating rapidly, but Warren wasn’t done with him yet.
“What?” Warren asked. “Do you think I volunteered to become a cyborg? Pretty naive of you. There may be a few of us who did, but not me. I was one of the first. I was tricked.”
Now Hoffman was breathing heavily, but Warren didn’t like the smirk still plastered on his face. “Doesn’t matter. You’re dead, along with this sad excuse for a rebellion.” He raised the prism above his head and threw it to the ground with all his remaining strength.
Warren dove for it but wasn’t fast enough. The prism hit the ground and shattered, all of the cyborgs’ backups destroyed with it. With a roar of anger and grief, Warren leapt to his feet.
They locked eyes a half second later and the spy’s expression turned from one of pain and surprise to rage. He lifted a weapon that must have been out of view and pointed it at Warren’s face.
It resembled a rusty, bulbous, sawed-off shotgun with wires and shiny metal needles sticking out here and there. Warren fired his weapon and missed. Before he could try again, the spy had already pulled the trigger.
Warren’s vision went black. His HUD was filled with damage alarms. Pain erupted across his face, and it took him a full second to shut it down. His eyes. His cybernetic eyes. They’d been destroyed. It was rockets. They’d reach his brain and kill him if he didn’t do something.
The spy laughed somewhere out of view, the sound weak but still triumphant. “At least I won’t die alone.”
Warren’s left hand was practically gone. Based on the damage report from his HUD, there wouldn’t be enough left to save, so Warren grabbed his face with his right hand instead.
“I bet that feels really bad,” the spy wheezed. “Now you know what kind of pain you’ve caused your government. I’m thinking about leaving a message behind. I think they should reset you, just so they can torture you. Nothing but your head and spine floating in a biologic tube. It’ll take some work, but I bet they can connect enough pieces to let you feel pain without being able to do anything about it. Yes, I think that’s what you deserve, traitor.”
Warren flinched when the two micro-rockets in his right eye and the one in his left burned through the center of the orbs. He heard a loud zapping sound and imagined seeing sparks fountain from each eye socket.
“It’s only a matter of time now,” the spy said softly. “This is quite the weapon the CoWs have come up with, isn’t it? I think it’ll be something my superiors are very interested in. We’ll install them into every cyborg so if this kind of bullshit ever happens again, they can take care of it right away. All it would take is one or two. A cyborg misbehaves? Press a button and poof, gone. Problem solved.” He coughed, which became a retching sound before something thick and wet splashed onto the floor.
Warren knew he only had seconds to live. He didn’t know where his enemy was. He needed more time. He could think of only one solution. Unable to access his pain dampeners, Warren reached up with his good hand, jammed his thumb into the space between his cybernetic skull and eye, and pressed as hard as he could.
“What are you doing?” the spy stammered.
Warren ignored him and dug his thumb into his other eye socket before ripping it out as well. The threat of the rockets was gone but his HUD was having difficulty sending information to his brain. His eyes must’ve been part of the circuit.
“You’ve gone mad,” the spy said. “You should’ve been deleted a long time ago
. That’s it. We’ve kept you too long. I think it’s time for all of the first batch to go. It means we’ll need some more volunteers, though.”
Suddenly, Warren’s vision HUD began to reboot. A second later, he could see again, though he wasn’t looking through his eyes. He was looking through Craig’s eyes. He was sneaking up behind Hoffman, his weapon drawn.
“You know the worst part of all of this?” Warren whispered.
Hoffman drew a little closer, glancing down at his modified weapon and making adjustments as if to fire it again. “What’s that?”
“The fact that we don’t get to kill you twice.”
“We?”
“Yeah. It was a team effort.” Warren pulled his combat knife and leapt up in one fluid motion. He buried the knife in Hoffman’s heart and twisted until it stopped beating. When it was done, he dropped to the floor.
The gun had done some serious damage and his systems weren’t handling it well.
“Hold on, boss,” Craig said as he reached him.
“Sorry, Craig. That weapon fucked me up good. I…”
Warren’s speech subsystem malfunctioned and he couldn’t finish. Craig’s vision started to waver, making Warren think he’d been affected as well, then he realized his body was going offline.
Damn. No back up this time.
He felt his body being dragged and heard voices shouting but it was all behind a layer of fog.
The last thing he saw was one last HUD message flashing across Craig’s vision.
PRESCOTT: KIA
RETRIEVAL DATE: 2486.02.11
33
A bright light shone down into Warren’s eyes.
No, he thought. Not even going there.
All he wanted was a new leg. As his mind woke up, he started to make sense of things. The surgery. Had it been successful?
