The Cyber Chronicles 09: Precipice

by T C Southwell

  ****

  Tassin beat on the pod's hatch pane. "Sabre! Sabre! Oh god, no! No! Sabre! No, please, don't... don't do this!" She gulped and hammered on the glass again. "Sabre!"

  Hot tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks. She had revived moments after the pod's hatch had sealed and air had flooded into the tiny sphere. The clunk of its closing had jerked her back to reality. She had been alone, and remembered his strong hands on her waist, thrusting her painfully upwards, then sailing through the air. Her ribs sent shafts of pain through her at every breath, her knee throbbed and her lungs burnt. He had said he would be right behind her. She banged on the tough glass under her fists ached. She scanned the darkness outside, rubbing away the tears that blurred her vision. A pale form drifted in space, starlight gilding him, curling slowly into a foetal position as the cold ate into him. Tassin hammered on the glass.

  "Sabre!"

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fairen glanced up as Commander Shrain entered his private study and bowed. The young Overlord held a cup of hot chicolane poised before his lips, and he had snatched a few minutes of peace and quiet to relax. He was sick and tired of interruptions and endless conflicts that required his immediate attention.

  He scowled. "Unless this is urgent, go away."

  The commander hesitated. "Sorry to disturb you, My Lord. Your friend's distress beacon has just been activated."

  Fairen leapt up, slopping the hot drink on his hand, and cursed. "What is it now? If Myon Two are at it again, I swear, I will kill the whole bloody lot of them."

  "The beacon is in the Estron Quadrant, My Lord. Earlier there was a call for help from a planetary leader in the same area, but you did not wish to be disturbed. Neither, apparently, did anyone else, and no one answered it. The ship is still in translocation configuration."

  "Translocate then. What are you waiting for?"

  "Yes, My Lord." Shrain tapped his com-link.

  Banging down the cup, Fairen headed for the door. The stasis field clamped down and the white light engulfed them, and he staggered a little as it released him. Shrain hurried after him.

  Fairen marched across the vast control room, gazing at the screens, where two battleships hung. One was breaking up, venting atmosphere, debris and life pods in a spreading cloud. The other appeared to be moving away, even as life pods headed towards it.

  Shrain frowned at his com-link. "It's Shadow Hawk, High King Tarvin's ship, and Imperial, which belongs to Emperor Endrovar, My Lord. Shadow Hawk is the damaged one. There's another ship... it's Pathos."

  "Find Sabre. If he activated the distress beacon he's in trouble."

  "Yes, My Lord."

  "And capture Imperial."

  "At once, My Lord."

  ****

  Tassin flung herself against the hatch pane as a vast crimson ship shimmered into being with a flash of light, so distant that it appeared quite small, but she knew it well. She banged on the glass, her breath catching at the pain that shot from her broken ribs.

  "Fairen! Thank god! He's here!" She swore, glancing around the pod.

  There had to be some way of communicating with him, but she did not know how. She tried to recall her last experience in a life pod. It had been an old one, with only a distress beacon. Perhaps this one had a transmitter? She studied the control panel's little screen, pushing some of the buttons. It buzzed and clicked, and writing scrolled up the screen. Status reports, vector co-ordinates, beacon activation. It was all meaningless, and nothing looked like communications.

  "Shit!"

  Tassin banged on the panel, making it buzz again, and red lights flashed. Sabre was dying, and she was trapped in here, helpless. She pushed herself back to the hatch pane, the only screen in the pod, which fortunately faced in the right direction. Sabre still drifted not far away, and Fairen's ship was beyond him. A green filament snaked from it and captured Imperial.

  She cursed. "No! Forget that bastard! Save Sabre! He's over here!"

  Tassin gripped the hatch handle and rattled it, overwhelmed by an insane urge to get out and wave her arms to attract Fairen's attention before it was too late, or better still, grab Sabre and bring him into the pod. The handle did not budge, no matter how hard she yanked on it, and all she did was hurt her hands and make her ribs flame with pain again. Anguish and despair swelled in her like a black bubble, and she sobbed. Minutes had passed. Fairen was too late. Surely Sabre was dead by now.

  ****

  "Have you found him yet?" Fairen demanded, glaring at Shrain.

  "My Lord, there are fifty cybers in the area. Forty-one in various life pods, four on Pathos -"

  "Four? Then Sabre's not there."

  "Perhaps, My Lord."

  Fairen sank down on his onyx throne and gazed out of the screens. "Sabre wouldn't have activated the distress beacon if he was in a life pod or on a ship."

  "There is one cyber... adrift in space."

  "Translocate him immediately to the hospital!" Fairen jumped up and headed for the door.

  "My Lord, he's probably... Locking on... translocating."

  Fairen was already in the corridor, running towards the hospital. Bursting into the long, aseptic room with its many screened cubicles, he raced towards a group of medics and doctors that was gathering around something on the floor.

  "Get out of the way!" he cried in a voice that cracked.

  They parted, bowing, and Fairen stopped, his breath catching. Sabre lay on his side, curled in a foetal ball, his brow band black. His skin was ashen, and he did not appear to be breathing.

  "What are you waiting for?" Fairen demanded. "Tend to him!"

  "My Lord..." An older doctor shook his head. "He's dead."

  "No he's not!"

  "We cannot find a pulse, My Lord."

  "That's because you're idiots! He can't be dead!"

  Fairen fell to his knees and touched Sabre's shoulder, snatching his hand away from his skin's icy chill. He shook his head, his eyes wide.

  "I'm sorry, My Lord," the doctor murmured.

  "You can revive him! Fetch the resuscitation equipment!"

  "He's frozen, My Lord."

  "What do you know about cybers? Nothing!" Fairen looked around as Shrain came trotting in. "Shrain! Find that cyber tech, what is his name?"

  "Tarl Averly, My Lord?"

  "Yes! Find him! He's probably on Pathos. Bring him here immediately."

  "Yes, My Lord." Shrain tapped his com-link. "Tapping into Pathos' on board security cameras, checking facial recognition...."

  "Hurry up!"

  "I must locate him first, My Lord."

  Fairen jumped up, his brows knotted in a thunderous scowl. "Scorpio! Bring me Pathos!"

  Shrain gaped at the young Overlord, almost dropping the com-link. Dull groans and distant booms rang through the ship as it reconfigured, spreading its mighty arms. The floor shivered.

  "Pathos acquired, docking bay four," Scorpio's husky voice said.

  Fairen turned to the commander. "Fetch him here at once!"

  Shrain tapped on the com-link, frowned at the tiny screen, then lowered it. "He is on his way, My Lord."

  "Tell them to run."

  "They already are, My Lord."

  Fairen sank to his knees beside the cyber again, reaching out to touch his cheek. If all his power could not save his friend, what good was it? He remembered saying that to Sabre, not so long ago. Sabre's skin was frozen solid. How long had he been drifting in space? Were the doctors right? If his friend was dead, he would find who was responsible and execute him. He owed Sabre his life, but more than that, the cyber was the only person he liked to be around, whose touch did not sicken him and whose gentle teasing made him laugh. Like the big brother he had always wanted, and never thought to have.

  Shrain leant closer. "My Lord, they're almost here." He held out a veiled hood.

  Fairen wanted to smack it from his hand, but rose to his feet and took it, pulling it on. Moments later, a group ran in, four of his guards surr
ounding three men and a woman. Fairen recognised Tarl, Kole, Martis and Estrelle. Tarl fell to his knees beside Sabre and touched his brow, then his neck, giving a despairing groan. Martis knelt on the other side of him, shaking his head.

  "He's in deep hypothermic shock," Tarl said.

  "Looks like the cyber tried to put him into cold sleep before it shut down," Martis agreed.

  "Is he alive?" Fairen demanded, the voice distorter disguising his concern.

  Tarl glanced up. "Just barely, but yeah, sort of."

  "What does that mean?"

  "He's gone into hibernation mode, like cybers do in their caskets, but his temperature's way too low. Cybers are genetically modified to handle low temperatures, but... he's almost frozen."

  "We could not detect a pulse," the older doctor said.

  "No, you wouldn't," Tarl replied. "His heart is only beating at about ten beats per minute right now."

  "Can you revive him?" Fairen asked.

  "I hope so."

  "There's going to be some cellular damage," Martis said. "Hosts are not designed to be frozen."

  "I need the cyber interface module, to connect with the control unit and monitor his systems," Tarl said.

  Fairen gestured, and Shrain spoke into his com-link.

  "It's shut down," Martis pointed out.

  "It can be rebooted," Estrelle said.

  The older doctor turned to one of the medics. "Fetch a heating blanket and a stretcher."

  Tarl sat back on his haunches and shook his head. "No. He must warm up slowly, and he mustn't be moved. I'm more concerned about the brow band." He tapped it with his finger. "It's frozen, and, being a superconductor, it will have lowered the temperature of his brain. That's a good thing, provided it hasn't frozen it. The brow band has a heat shunt that connects to the barrinium skull plating," he explained for Fairen's benefit, "to prevent it from freezing the brain in extreme cold. But I don't know if it will have been able to deal with deep space."

  "Depends how long he was out there," Martis muttered.

  "Judging by his condition, more than twenty minutes." Tarl glanced up at Fairen. "Where's Tassin, My Lord?"

  "I don't know."

  "I hope she's all right. I have no doubt that he sacrificed himself to save her, or trying to save her. If she's dead..."

  "I shall find her." Fairen signalled to Shrain, who tapped on his com-link again, looking martyred.

  "My Lord, there are two hundred and twenty-two life pods drifting around out there."

  "I'd say you're looking for one with a single female occupant," Tarl said. "If Sabre wasn't able to get in it, he sure as hell didn't put anyone else in it before her."

  Shrain consulted his com-link. "There are two such. I shall transport them to the docking bay."

  Tarl looked around as a group of soldiers ran in, carrying, pushing and dragging most of the cyber repair and analysis equipment from Pathos, which, as he recalled, belonged to Fairen anyway. They brought it to Tarl's side, and he rummaged in a case. He drew out a slender instrument and inserted it into the interface slot in the edge of the control unit. A row of four green lights came on along the top of the brow band, three of them flashing. Two turned amber.

  Estrelle said, "It's gone into standby mode, since the host is incapacitated."

  The medics moved aside as Tarl dragged the control unit interface closer and plugged the cable into Sabre’s brow band. The screen came to life, and the blue, white and grey dashboard appeared. Tarl logged in with technical codes and queried the host status.

  "Heart rate... eight beats per minute. Blood pressure, eighty over sixty. He's in bad shape. Core temperature: twenty-seven degrees. Blood oxygen is eighty-two per cent; bio-status... twenty-four per cent. He's barely alive. He must have used an energy burst to be this depleted. I need veoxxin, atremax and penadril." Two medics left to fetch it, and Tarl tapped on the keyboard. "I'm going to activate two more genetic sequences. The cyber has already activated the R series and G11 to 21."

  Martis peered at the screen over Tarl's shoulder. "What sequences are you going to switch on?"

  "The F and Z series."

  "That's all his alien DNA."

  "Yeah. If the fireproof skin is a gift of his alien ancestry, maybe it can help with freezing too."

  Martis frowned. "We don't know what those genes do, that's why they're defunct."

  "Well, now would be a good time to find out if they're useful, because otherwise I don't rate his chances very high."

  "He's going to die?" Fairen asked.

  Tarl glanced up. "Perhaps. I don't know for sure. Right now I'd say his chances are thirty-seventy."

  Fairen tucked his hands into the sleeves of his jacket, afraid someone would notice their trembling. Tarl typed on the keyboard, chewing his lip. Fairen bent to peer at the screen. Lines of numbers and letters scrolled up it, changing from amber to green as they did so. F1, F2, F3, F4... The sequence continued to F54, then changed to Z1, Z2, Z3, Z4. The Z series ended at 21, and a prompt reappeared. Tarl sat back, frowning at the screen.

  "Now we wait and see."

  "It might not make any difference," Martis said.

  "Well then, that's it, isn't it? At least I tried. There's nothing else to do but wait, anyway."

  "Or you could have made it worse."

  Tarl glowered at the host tech. "If you can't contribute anything useful, how about you piss off?"

  The medics returned with syringes and vials, and Tarl injected Sabre in the vein in the back of his hand, the frozen skin cracking as the needle went in.

  "This is why he can't be moved," he muttered. "Any touch will cause damage."

  Martis placed a hand on Sabre's back. "He's warming, though."

  Tarl glanced at the screen. "Yeah. His core temperature is up to thirty."

  "That's good, right?" Fairen enquired.

  "Yes, My Lord. He's fighting."

  Fairen jumped and glanced around as a shriek came from the hospital doors. Tassin ran towards them, her hair tangled and wild, her face tear-streaked, one arm hugging her ribs. Tarl jumped up and fielded her before she could throw herself at Sabre, and she strained against him, staring at the prone cyber.

  "Sabre! What's wrong with him? Is he going to be all right? Let me go!"

  "No." Tarl shook her. "Calm down! You can't touch him right now, okay? Promise me you won't try, and I'll let you go."

  "What is it?" She struggled. "I won't touch him!"

  Tarl released her, and she sank to the floor beside Sabre, her eyes flicking over his pallid skin and blue lips. "What's wrong with him?"

  "What do you think, after drifting in space for so long? He's frozen. Literally."

  "He's going to be okay though, right?"

  "I hope so."

  "So what are you doing for him? Why aren't you warming him? Do something, Tarl!"

  "I am." He crouched beside her. "I'm doing what's best, trust me. I can't warm him, okay? He has to warm up slowly. What happened?"

  She shook her head, tangled hair straggling across her cheeks. She brushed it behind her ears. "He..." She gulped. "He saved my life. The ship was breaking up, I think. I don't remember much, I was unconscious for most of it. When I woke up, we were in a corridor. There was a wind blowing past, and he was holding me. He told me to get in the pod, and that he would be right behind me. Then he threw me into it but..." She rocked, clutching her ribs as fresh tears ran down her cheeks. "He didn't come! The door closed and... I... I saw him, drifting in space. I couldn't help him!"

  "Okay, hush." Tarl drew her into a comforting embrace, and she clung to him. "You couldn't do anything. He wanted to save you, and he did. Now we're going to save him. Hush, it's not your fault."

  "Of course it is! He came to rescue me! If not for me..." She swallowed and sobbed. "It's all my fault! If I'd stayed on Omega Five..."

  "You didn't know what was going to -"

  "But you did! You warned me, but I wouldn't listen!"

  "Okay, look, it'
s no good beating yourself up over it now. All we can do is hope he's okay." He stroked her hair, making shushing noises. "Do you want a sedative?"

  She shook her head, frowning at Sabre. "No. Why is he... glowing?"

  Tarl swung around, and Fairen followed Tassin's gaze. The cyber's skin had taken on a slight, shimmering glow, as if lighted from within. Tarl glanced at the screen, his eyes widening.

  "Bloody hell."

  Fairen studied the screen, unable to decipher the numeric sequences that scrolled up it, some flashing green, others amber, and one or two red. "What is it?"

  "I'm not sure," Tarl muttered. "It's as if... the F and Z series are combining, creating a whole new sequence of DNA. F12Z3... F22Z7... F31Z13... Wow. What do you make of it, Martis?"

  The host researcher frowned at the screen, shaking his head. "Impossible. That genome's totally alien."

  "But it's also healing him. Core temperature up to thirty-four and rising. Heart beat twenty-two, blood pressure a hundred over eighty, blood oxygen eighty-nine per cent, bio-status... twenty-two per cent. Damn! Whatever's going on, it's using up the last of his resources."

  "So activating those genes could kill him."

  Tarl put a hand on Sabre's arm. "He's defrosted. Get me a nutrition IV, now!"

  A medic ran off, returning a minute later with a bag of yellow fluid. Tarl inserted the needle into Sabre's arm and turned the drip on full. "This should restore at least some of his strength."

  Martis watched the screen. "If it doesn't, he'll die."

  "Well it's got to, doesn't it? It's liquid energy."

  "His organs will shut down at twenty per cent, and he's already down to twenty-one."

  "I'm not blind. He's going to make it. If I hadn't switched on those genes, he'd have died of the freezing, anyway."