Ashes and Metal

by Naomi Lucas

  “We gotta go, boy! What’s the matter?” he asked, pulling her again.

  She couldn’t move. Her feet planted on the threshold of her cell. Her throat was tight and dry as her eyes drifted to the empty cell beside her. The other prisoners spoke out but she didn’t hear them.

  Gunner has a plan. I sent him out there. His empty cell loomed, harrowing.

  “Boy! For fuck’s sake, what’s the matter with you?”

  Chesnik grabbed her arm and dragged her out of her cell, her feet trailing behind him heavily, her pulse racing. She twisted to keep her gaze on Gunner’s cell as he led her to the door, the flashlight a beacon in the dark.

  Her safe place vanished into the gloom.

  The space she shared with him. Her throat constricted.

  “Ely,” her dad roared. The brig door zipped open, and she paused to see if the lights would flicker once more, begging that they would, so she could see her spot one last time.

  But it was lost in the dark.

  The door closed.

  “What’s the matter with you!?” Her dad shook her and she snapped back to reality.

  “Everything,” she breathed.

  “We don’t have fucking time for a meltdown, Ely. I heard gunshots from the shaft and the crew’s in an uproar! They could be here anytime!”

  “What about the others?”

  “We can’t save everyone.” He led her down a series of passages.

  “But we can’t leave them!”

  “We can and we are! They can take care of themselves. I need to get you out of here before the security systems reboot. Oh my...”

  Her dad stopped and she peered past him. She broke out in a cold sweat. Two bodies, mangled, broken, and spitting blood lay on the floor. The acrid scent of death was fresh and it wasn’t bullets that claimed their lives.

  Elodie stepped around him and took in the scene. Blood was everywhere; on the walls, pooling among the floor grates, and splattered on the ceiling. A man’s leg was half torn off, his clothes soaked in blood, and his face frozen in pain for all to see.

  “Elodie, we need to get out of here,” Chesnik urged.

  She stepped between the bodies and looked at them, the iron smell of them stifling. She recognized both as men who had come into the brig before, men who had taunted and beaten them, recalled their enjoyment and their grins as they pressured the prisoners with all the power they had—and with pain.

  Her stomach dropped, and she retched. She felt nothing for their deaths and couldn’t even bring herself to care for the pain of their passing, but the gore still caused an involuntary heave to pass through her.

  Chesnik wrapped his arm around her shoulder and moved her past them, stopping briefly to loot their bodies of their weapons and shiptech. They were met with another corpse at the elevator with claw marks down its back.

  “Fuuck.” Her dad inspected it and visibly trembled. “It ain’t a man who killed these men,” he said. “He was racing toward the shaft.”

  Not a man...

  Elodie glanced around them and tried not to think about it, but it didn’t stop the unease making its way into her. “What did this then?”

  “An animal, a beast, a monster, who knows. But it took down three armed guards.” He turned toward her. “We don’t stand a chance if we come upon it.”

  She stared at the claw marks that were still oozing. “The murders?”

  “You heard about them?”

  “Yeah. The guards mentioned it in passing during a routine visit.”

  “They started after me and those two others were recruited.” He placed his hand on top of her head. She was tall for a girl but her dad was taller. “They suspect us.”

  She lifted her eyes. “They do?”

  “Yeah. We can’t go up. I was going to hide you in my quarters until I got you some new crew clothes from the replicator but we can’t anymore.” He looked around.

  Elodie was in a daze, looking around her, turning in full circle. “Why not?”

  “Whatever did this...came from down here. These men weren’t down here when I snuck to this level. I’m lucky to be alive, but the shaft is above us now and the blood trail leads into it. Whatever did this, is up, and if it’s locked in the elevator, I sure as hell ain’t calling it down to us.”

  “Take me back to my cell,” she suggested, turning, but was stopped.

  “Ely, I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Kallan told the crew you were my son. If they suspect me already, they’ll use you. If they get close enough, they’ll find out about you. I was going to wait to get you out, wait until the ship landed, but there’s no time for that anymore.”

  She shivered and banded her arms around her middle, pulling the lapels of Gunner’s jacket further over her body, wanting to drown in it. His eyes caught her movements and narrowed.

  “Where did you get that jacket?”

  Her hands dropped. “I got it from one of the prisoners.”

  “I don’t remember any prisoner wearing a jacket like that near us.” Her dad reached out and gripped the sleeve. Elodie pulled away, not wanting him to touch it.

  “Someone new showed up. He offered his jacket for information.”

  “And you gave it to him? I heard there was a new prisoner, don’t remember seeing him when I got you.” The suspicion in his voice was evident. It made her wary. Why did she feel guarded? Bringing up the existence of Gunner, and everything that had transpired between them, was something secretive and hers. She and her dad had never been forthright with each other but they had also never withheld pertinent information. Regardless, her throat closed up.

  “For the jacket, yes. It was either mine, Royce’s, or Kallan’s.”

  He narrowed his eyes further but knocked his chin and let it drop.

  I can’t go back. She looked at the ceiling and where the holes in the pipes were—where she now knew the security feed was.

  “Do you think they can see us?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. The system’s been on the fritz, everything is haywire.”

  Elodie didn’t know if they were watching her, didn’t know if he was seeing her, but she hoped he was. Chesnik turned the body over at her feet and it was another man she recognized. Another cretin.

  “Is there a place we can hide?”

  “Follow me,” he said after a moment’s thought.

  They made their way down another corridor, in the direction they came from, until the hallways went from smooth walls to pipes and metal rods, thicker grates, and puffs of steam. A latched door was at the end that clicked open with her dad’s keycard. She knew it for what it was: the engine room. A place she had made her home in countless ships, on countless jobs.

  With her belly roiling, and her heart hurting, she followed her dad down into the machines, hoping that she wasn’t making a mistake.

  Her gaze stayed on her dad’s back.

  She knew it was Gunner who had killed those guards.

  She knew she’d made a deal with the devil.

  And he would find her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  GUNNER KEPT THE SIRENS suppressed as he made his way through the crew-deck. His control was coming back to him slowly, minute-by-minute.

  He wanted to go back to Elodie but couldn’t. The information the guards had given spurred him on. He didn’t like that the ship had changed course, even though he had no idea where it had been going to begin with, and he knew he couldn’t keep hacking the security feed before his prey realized what he was doing.

  They’re already trapped. If the captain had truly locked himself inside the bridge, he knew he was in trouble. Gunner was surprised the man hadn’t stationed the whole crew as a human shield outside his door.

  He dodged into a side room as a pair of men went past, waiting until their steps faded far down the hallway before he ducked back out. His fingers twitched on the dead pirate’s pistol in his hand. It felt right holding a gun again.

  His m
ag remained untouched in his thigh strap, his one prize and the single piece of property that had been stolen from him, returned. He wasn’t going to use its bullets on just anyone. Like a welcome home gift. Karma gave him a little something for not burning everything to the ground in an uproar the first day he was brought aboard.

  And for not doing so again when it came to Elodie’s safety.

  The pull to Ballsy’s technology brought him right outside a closed, double-barricaded door, with turrets lined a top it, and protruding cameras following his movements.

  Gunner’s lips twitched as he looked down at himself, naked as the day he was created, and his own mainframe still on the verge of bursting out of his skin to let his beast back out.

  He tempered it and connected with the first door’s systems, forcing them open and eroding the encryptions. When he was through, it closed behind him with a thunk.

  At the second door, he pulled his hand back and slammed it right through its locking mechanism. It sparked, short-circuited and thundered, echoing angrily in the small hold. He sensed his target on the other side.

  It was almost too easy.

  He calculated the odds of a trap. But even if the odds were high, he was entering into it regardless.

  The door jerked open in broken spurts, revealing a server nerd’s dream: giant bright towers littered with blinking lights stood throughout, and Ballsy slouched over a holographic tablet across the room.

  “I was waiting for you,” he said, unafraid.

  Gunner approached, equally uncaring. “Miss me?” he asked.

  Ballsy shrugged without looking up. “Sure.”

  “Your eyes are dead.”

  “So are yours.”

  “Yes,” Gunner pulled out a stool and sat down. “I suppose they are.”

  “Were you created with them like that?” Ballsy looked up and met his gaze.

  “No. War has that effect on people, in my experience.”

  “I would’ve liked to have seen that,” he said, looking past him and at his sparking inner door. “The war, that is.”

  Gunner canted his head and took measure of his adversary. The man was thin, gaunt, but sharp. Something about his features was serpentine but only in fleeting glimpses. Mainly, Ballsy came across as bored, constantly so, and always calculating. “No one should have to see what I’ve seen. How did you end up here?”

  “Same way anyone else would. I was a hacker, a good one, growing up. Born and raised on Elyria to a mother who paid the bills on her back, and a father who was a booster addict. They were great role models. The best,” Ballsy said without sarcasm or amusement.

  “I fell into computers to drown them out and I fell in deep, got myself real good in reading and understanding intelligent systems and artificial intelligence software. I don’t know why, maybe because they think differently. I’ve always appreciated the efficiency of a machine. I understood it in ways I didn’t understand people. Sold my services the same as dear old mom, except I was the one doing the penetrating this time, stealing data to sell to the highest bidder. Along the way, I was picked up. Technically kidnapped, I suppose, but it got me off Elyria.”

  The flat effect of Ballsy’s voice told him everything he needed to know. “You’re a sociopath.”

  “You’re a Cyborg.”

  “What gave me away?”

  Ballsy looked back down at the tablet in his lap. Gunner seeded through it but found more of the same offensive prickles from before.

  “That right there. You’re trying to break into a space that’s protected against your kind.”

  “Nothing is protected against my kind.”

  “It is if it’s made by your kind.”

  Gunner frowned, eyeing the systems in the room with newfound curiosity. “Who?”

  Ballsy scratched his cheek. “Like I said, I understand intelligent systems better than people.”

  “I’m not people.”

  “And you’re never getting your ship back.”

  Gunner rolled his gun right as Ballsy slammed his hand down on his screen.

  A shockwave plumed out and struck Gunner before he pressed the trigger, and his missed shot burned a hole straight through one of the server towers behind his target.

  The surge was hot and strong, knocking him off his seat. He barely managed to roll back and find his footing before another pulse blasted through the room.

  Stunned. His tech fizzled and the machinery thundered. Ballsy winced and walked over to him, above him.

  Gunner strained to move, strained to make the killing blow but everywhere he shifted, inside his digital self and his mainframe, he was surrounded by the same needle-like prickles he had come to know that protected Ballsy’s information.

  The fucker blasted him with EMP-based malware—a virus that acted like a shockwave of tiny targeted EMP charges. He sensed it snaking through his body and rendering him useless. Gunner watched with rage as a booted foot came down on his chest and knocked him over against the floor. The gun remained tight in his hand.

  “Don’t be mad,” Ballsy told him. “In my line of work, one can never be too careful. I won’t kill you but I won’t help you either. What is that saying?” His eyes glazed. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t?” Gunner glared death. “My head’s on a pike either way, so I’m out.” The boot lifted and he turned around, grabbing a bag, throwing it over his shoulder.

  “What’ve you done to me?” Gunner gritted out, already feeling his strength returning.

  His hold on the ship was gone though, and the sirens blared to life. The server room, once filled with electrical life, was now nothing more than inert metal. The EMP malware had destroyed everything in the room.

  “Electromagnetic nanobots,” Ballsy muttered halfway out the first door. “You’ll recover. No sense in destroying a creation like you.” His voice faded. “You’re inside a Faraday cage, Cyborg. You might want to move. The cage protects the rest of the ship from me, and me from the rest of the ship. They’ll be coming here first.”

  “How,” he hissed through his teeth, his body seizing as if electrified, “are you not affected?” Ballsy had implants inside him too.

  “My room wasn’t the only thing I put a Faraday seal around.”

  And then he was gone.

  Gunner knocked his head on the ground, straining his body with everything he had, willing it to move. His systems scrambled as the pulses sparked off like firecrackers against his skin. They neutralized his tech, did just about everything to it but destroy it like they had the rest of the room. A swarm of microscopic bees.

  In the distance, he could hear Ballsy walking away and he knew the only place the man could go to get away from him was an escape pod. He focused on trailing Ballsy’s power source, his answers escaping him as his target made his way through the confusion.

  His fingers twitched until he managed to curl them into fists. He heard the crew coming long before they reached the door.

  When the first tumultuous shocks faded, Gunner rose slowly to his knees, his metal frame still too heavy for his body to handle just yet, but each second his nanocells fought off the derangement, his strength returned.

  And you’re never getting your ship back.

  The words flashed behind his eyes when the first bullet hit him in the back.

  ELODIE GLANCED UP AS the muffled sounds of a very familiar ring—distant sirens—went off somewhere far away, far above her. It didn’t extend in full force amongst the giant metal contraptions, the propulsion and thruster tech she and her dad skirted through, but it still stopped her in her tracks.

  “Something’s happening.” She looked behind her.

  “A siren. Another damn siren, it sounds like. If we’re lucky they found the creature that killed those men. Not that I mind that they’re dead, but it would make me feel marginally safer knowing there isn’t a beast lurking around.”

  “But the sirens. They’re not supposed to go off.” Gunner. He’s supposed to be sneaky...


  Elodie chewed on the inside of her cheek, suddenly worried.

  “What the hell does that mean? It could be from anything. If they found those men, they’re soon going to find your cell empty. We need to keep moving, Ely.”

  “Dad, there’s no place for us to go on a ship in the middle of nowhere. We can’t hide here forever. Our best bet is staying at the entrance, not going deeper.” That was exactly where her father was leading her: deeper. “We don’t even have food.”

  “We can and we will! Geez, boy, when have I ever let you down? I learned some things while I was outside the cells and I know hiding in the bowels of this ship is a hell of a lot safer than what would happen otherwise.”

  Elodie looked back at him. “Otherwise?”

  “Captain knows something’s wrong, he’s not leaving his bomb-proof shelter of a hell-bent bridge and neither is his bridge-crew. They’re holing up and there’s been talk. More than just what Kallan is saying about us being related. Talk that they ain’t making their way to Elyria anymore, that they’re headed back to the main fleet, and I ain’t thinking it’s because of a reunion. I think it’s because of the chaos that is about to erupt on this ship. If they make it back to the main fleet...”

  “What?” Elodie was confused. Isn’t going back a good thing?

  “Boy, this ship is big, costly, and manned better and by more people than most pirate or blacklisted ships. There’s also cargo, beyond the humans aboard, worth a pretty penny. If the captain can’t control his men, and those men mutiny, with everyone on board, we’re going to be in the crossfires of a lot of bad fucking shit.”

  Her lips lifted into a small smile. Gunner must be beside himself.

  She still couldn’t shirk off the safety she felt just knowing he was around. But then the men with the torn up body parts came to mind, the gushing blood, and the looks of pain on their faces.

  Would Gunner continue to protect her? They made a deal, she knew, but how long and how exact was it? The farther she got away from the brig, the more distressing her thoughts became. Those bodies looked like he had lost control. Those men didn’t just die; they were eviscerated.