by Scott Baron
“Let them go,” Celeste said over open comms. “They’re years of jumps from home. This will all be over long before they ever get there.”
“Agreed,” Zed said. “Their warp drives are barely functional. Unless you’ve got a clear shot, I want you to maintain focus on the battle stations and larger ships. They still pose a threat, and must be neutralized.”
“I also want away teams to prep to board all remaining Ra’az craft once we take out their weapons capabilities,” Celeste added. “If we can commandeer and salvage them, we will. If not, demo teams know what to do. Now get to work.”
“Holy shit, did you guys hear that?” Finn asked, stopping in his tracks as the shrieks and sonic booms of missiles flying overhead filled the sky. Their noisy arrival was followed by flashes in the evening sky moments later.
“That looked like an explosion,” Omar said. “I wonder how far––”
A deep boom rumbled in the air.
“I’d say fifty clicks or so, judging by the delay,” George said. “Those were hypersonic missiles. I’d know the sound anywhere.”
“But aren’t those on Earth?” Sarah asked. “And aren’t they not functional?”
“Yes, to the first question. At least, they should be,” George replied. “As for the second one, well, they sure seem functional now.”
Omar wobbled on his feet a little, the exhaustion of the day taking its toll.
“Hey, man. You might as well take a load off,” George said, dropping his pack and tossing the metal-legged soldier an electrolyte pack from within. “I think it’s a pretty fair assumption that we just won this thing. At least, I hope so. In any case, the big dogs are running the show down here now, so y’all might as well sit down and eat something. No telling how long we’ll be down here on our own.”
That question was answered fifteen minutes later, when a ship that looked an awful lot like the Váli, but smaller, swooped down through the sky and landed softly in front of them.
“One of ours, obviously,” Finn said, studying the craft’s design. “But how did they––?”
The airlock of the lowermost forward pod swung open and a slender figure jumped down to the soil, pulse rifle at the ready, a dapper fedora tilted at a cocky angle atop his head. His eyes fell on the tired and injured team in front of him.
“Come on, you dirtbags! Let’s get you off this rock!”
“Jonathan? It has to be,” George said with a laugh, rising to his feet.
“Sergeant! It’s good to see you intact!” the cyborg replied. “I had heard about your resurrection from Duke and the men. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to finally meet you.”
“Duke told me all about you, Johnny boy. Said you performed exceptionally well under pressure. And you even coughed up a hand in combat. Is that true?”
“It is.”
“Hot damn, now that’s some quick thinking. Lemme see what they replaced it with.”
Jonathan held up his shiny new hand. It was similar to his original appendage, but after a few words from his new spec-ops friends, the fabricators had hooked him up with a more robust and somewhat deadlier version.
“Ooh, nice,” Sergeant Franklin said appreciatively. “But why haven’t you gotten a new skin job yet?”
“The others were so anxious to have their old faces back,” Jonathan said. “They’ve been through so much––far more than I ever have––so I wanted them to be taken care of first.”
“Damn solid move, brother. I can see why they like you so much. But we really do need to get you skinned up when we get back. It’s time to make you whole again.”
“The sentiment is appreciated, Sergeant,” he replied, then turned to their human companions. “Come on, you two,” he said to Sarah and Finn. “The pilot wants to say hello.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Finn reached out and took Sarah’s hand, helping her through the ship’s airlock doors. She accepted, though there was really no need. She was more than capable of getting in and out of the vessel unaided, but nevertheless kept her fingers interlaced with his long after she was safely aboard.
“This thing looks brand-new,” Finn marveled. “The layout seems to be the same as the Váli, all right, just two levels of pods instead of three, and a bit shorter in length. Nice, though. Really nice.”
“The command pod is this way,” Jonathan said.
“Yeah, we know,” Sarah replied, walking hand in hand with Finn. “She’s so similar to the Váli.”
“Indeed,” Jonathan agreed. “But this is a he, not a she.”
“It can be whatever it wants to be, so long as there’s a hot shower and a soft bunk,” Omar said as he trudged along behind them.
“Weapons systems?” George asked.
“I knew you’d be curious,” Jonathan said with a smile. “He’s outfitted with a pair of forward pulse cannons, a rear cannon, defensive flak burst pods along both sides and the rear, and a top- and belly-mounted pair of rail gun turrets.”
“Holy shit. He’s armed to the teeth,” Omar said.
“Just the way I like it,” George added, appreciatively.
A few minutes later they had passed through the craft’s secure airlocks, dividing the bulkhead into easily partitioned sections, arriving at last at the command pod.
“After you,” Jonathan said, stepping aside.
Finn stepped in first, followed closely by the others. There was no one there.
“Hello?” he said.
“No one’s here,” Sarah noted as she scanned the pristine chamber.
There were seats and consoles, but the captain’s chair was empty, and it looked like it hadn’t ever even been sat in.
“Hi, Sarah,” a voice said over the internal speakers. “I heard you were back from the dead.”
“No fucking way,” Finn blurted.
“Heya, Finn. How’s it hanging?” the ship’s familiar voice replied in greeting.
The shocked pair stood stock-still.
“Gus?” Sarah finally managed to say.
“Holy shit. Seriously?” Finn added. “Dude, is that really you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Ta-da!” the ship said. “Surprised?”
“You’re damn right I’m surprised,” Finn said. “I saw your body, man. We buried you. You fucking died.”
“Yeah. I saw it too,” Omar said.
“Oh, hey, Omar,” Gus said casually. “Sorry you had to see all of that.”
“You were dead, man,” Omar replied.
“I know. Bummer, right?”
“So now you’re a computer?”
“Technically, a one-of-a-kind AI, if you want to get nitpicky about it,” he replied. “But there’s something I need to ask you all. A question of the utmost urgency and importance, and I need you to be upfront.”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “What is it, Gus?”
Their AI friend paused a moment for effect.
“Be honest. Does this ship make me look fat?”
“Oh, you fucker!” Sarah said, smacking a console.
“Hey, don’t hurt the hardware.”
“It’d take a lot more than that,” she said.
“With that new arm of yours, maybe not,” he pointed out.
“Touché.”
“We haven’t met yet,” George said. “I’m Sergeant––”
“George Franklin. Yes, Mal told me all about you. Nice to meet you.”
“So you were Mal’s other secret project,” he said. “Now I know why Freya was helping her out with those new processors.”
“Yeah, that kid’s amazing,” Gus replied. “The things she can do. Wow.”
“And, apparently, salvaging the dead is one of her new skills,” Finn joked. “Come on, man, spill. How’d she do it?”
“That wasn’t Freya. Not the saving part, anyway. She just helped sort me out and install me in this ship. The actual saving, though, was all Mal.”
“I think we’d have known if Mal could back up an entire consciousnes
s,” Omar said, doubtfully.
“Yeah, about that,” Sarah replied. “She kinda already did.”
“No way.”
“Yes way,” Finn confirmed. “Daisy admitted it right before we launched. Apparently, when her neuro-stim did that number on her brain, it also copied Sarah’s backup into her head.”
“So she has a file stored in there?” he asked, confused.
“No, she has a fully functional and aware copy of me living in her head,” Sarah replied.
“So she hears what Daisy hears?”
“Yep. And since we’re the same person, Freya was able to devise a modified neuro-band that allows us to link up and talk. And now she’s taken it a step further. We finally share each other’s memories as well,” she said, squeezing Finn’s hand.
“I’m confused,” Omar said. “If Mal was able to do this all along, why haven’t other AIs done the same thing and saved people’s minds when they die? It’d be like immortality.”
“Because I was heavily repaired already,” Gustavo replied. “Remember all the connections and mods I had built in before any of this madness even began? And when I died during the attack on the communications hubs, I was massively tied in to the ship’s systems. In addition, we had installed a shit-ton of new processors and storage to handle all of the drones we were remotely piloting.”
“But that doesn’t explain how you’re functional now,” Finn said. “The tech to sort you out didn’t exist.”
“It didn’t, no. But this ship contains Freya’s new state-of-the-art quantum processors, which are tied in to the salvaged systems from the Váli and are the only thing making it possible.”
“Of course. The extra tech Chu and the others installed before the mission.”
“Yep. Because Mal had a full backup of my mind up until that point, and since I was hardlining the ship directly into my brain at the time, flying those drones and all, a neural ghost was captured in those systems. It was quite by accident, I should point out.”
“That’s why she was offloading all that hardware,” Finn realized. “She wasn’t taking out damaged machines. She was taking the ones parts of you were saved in.”
“Yep, though scattered might be a better way to put it. Let me tell you, it took a hell of a lot of processing power to sort out all the pieces, from what I’ve been told. A lot of the AIs we saved that day all chipped in processor time and power to help untangle my mind from that mess of aborted systems tie-ins. They didn’t even know if it was possible, but seeing as how our people had just pretty much saved the planet, they kinda owed us one.”
“And now you’ve got your own ship.”
“That I do,” their newly AI friend replied. “Unfortunately, because of the way I wound up being saved, that means I’m not a hot-swappable AI cube, but am pretty permanently installed in this ship. But it’s better being a ship-bound AI than a dead human, right?”
“I suppose so,” Sarah replied. “I know a little something about being saved, after all. Twice, in fact.”
“So I heard.”
“Does Reggie know?” she asked.
“Not yet. I was only activated and launched right before the attack, and then we were immediately right in the thick of it, and I didn’t want to distract him from his job with something like, ‘Hey, your dead buddy is a ship now.’”
“They turned you on just in time for a battle? Seems a bit harsh,” Omar said.
“Perhaps, but it’s what I’m trained to do, so it made sense. And besides, I think they’d done all they could and decided it was time to see if I was ready to live.”
“Or die trying,” Omar added.
“Which I did not,” the ship AI said with a chuckle.
“Glad it was the former, not the latter, man,” Finn said.
“Me too, bud. Me too.”
The surprising craft flew up out of the atmosphere to rendezvous with the main body of the fleet. Soon, he’d be surprising the others with his tale of unforeseen survival, but for now, he was just enjoying the company of good friends.
“So what do we call your ship, Gustavo? Did you give it a cool name?” Finn asked.
“Nope. I’m a permanent part of it. We’re inseparable. One and the same,” he replied. “Just call us Gus.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The bonds of friendship were strong among the Chithiid people, but those of family held them even closer.
A victory had been achieved, and it was hard won. Much blood had been spilled, both in space and on the planet’s surface, but ultimately the Chithiid had reclaimed their world. They had only barely achieved that previously unimaginable goal when they launched into their next task. That of reuniting families torn apart by the Ra’az and their loyalists.
Unlike the scattered camps and barracks on Earth, full of spies tracking dissidents, the loyalist elite of Taangaar had felt no need to employ such tactics. They were the feeder planet, sending out the strong and able-bodied to be used by the Ra’az as needed. There were simply not enough males to pose a serious threat, so they kept to their compounds, never subjecting themselves to the wear and tear of spying and infiltration.
They had made one crucial mistake in that decision. They had underestimated the strength and resolve of the females.
While they played their part, appearing subjugated and defeated to all loyalist eyes, the strong women of Taangaar had secretly maintained a communications network, sharing information between camps whenever possible, such as during the periodic shifting of laborers.
What this meant––in addition to the Chithiid having at least a partial sense of where their family members might be held––was that the conscripted workers also knew the loyalists on sight.
After their rebel victory against the Ra’az, the loyalists would find no shelter hiding amongst the survivors. And unlike on Earth, the women-folk of Taangaar whose families had been violently taken from them had no intentions of offering leniency.
Daisy flew across the surface, shuttling not only Maarl––the appointed ambassador for the newly returned Chithiid––but also herself, as they landed in the newly-freed labor camps, searching for loved ones among the survivors.
The Chithiid had never seen a human before, and if not for Maarl’s presence at her side, they might not have trusted her at first sight. But when the unusual creature with only two arms began singing a Chithiid song––the song of the family of her dear friend––their defenses were immediately dropped, and she was accepted as one of their own.
It was a lengthy and emotionally draining process, but Daisy flew from camp to camp, following leads until she finally tracked down an old Chithiid woman at the other end of the globe.
She found her sitting with her daughters and granddaughters in an encampment at the edge of the sea.
It doesn’t look all that different from the coastline where we met Craaxit, Daisy mused.
“You’re right, Daze. And even after all the Ra’az have done to this planet, you have to admit, it really is a beautiful view.”
Daisy sat with the woman and explained who she was, and how she had befriended a most unlikely of ally. A brave Chithiid named Craaxit, who risked everything to save not only Earth, but his homeworld as well.
The woman was skeptical, of course, but upon hearing Daisy’s singing of her family song, she knew the strange, two-armed woman spoke the truth.
“He must have been a young man when he met you,” his elderly wife said, warm tears in her eyes. “They took him shortly after we were wed and placed him in stasis for the long voyage to whatever world he would end his days upon.”
“He was,” Daisy replied. “He was young, and strong, and spoke with great love of his wife and family. No matter how far away he was, no matter how long it had been, he never stopped thinking of you.”
“But I am an old woman now. Had he survived, he would not wish to see me like this.”
“You know the man far better than I do,” Daisy replied, “and you know that is
not true. You were his world, and the mere passage of time could not change that.”
The women shared a cup of tea with Craaxit’s daughters and granddaughters––his wife having been pregnant when he was sent offworld years prior.
“He was the bravest man I’ve ever known,” Daisy told them. “His courage, his determination, saved the entire mission, and by extension, freed not just my world, but yours as well.”
She sipped her tea and looked out over the glistening waters, remembering her friend and his unexpectedly humorous outlook on life. They had been more than allies. They had been true friends, and the injury of his loss, which she had thought healed over, felt fresh anew.
But it was also good, in a way, and she felt that where there had been an emotional scar before, she would heal clean and pure this time around.
Maarl watched quietly as Daisy regaled his friend’s widow and family with tales of his courage, his eyes tearing up as well, as he listened to her recounting of his brave and selfless acts.
“I want you to know this,” Daisy said, a steely strength finding its way into her words. “It is a truly rare occasion when you can tie a single person’s selfless acts to so momentous a feat. But mark my words and know they are true, Craaxit was the linchpin of the rebellion, and his sacrifice unleashed the tidal wave that washed the Ra’az from both of our worlds. This act, I feel, should be immortalized, and I have taken the liberty of adding one small verse to his family song. I hope you approve.”
Daisy then quietly sang the words she had struggled with for weeks, finally coming upon what seemed the proper phrasing with the help of Maarl and Aarvin. All were pleased with the result.
Now that his family heard them for the first time, there was not a dry eye in the room as they added a new segment to the song of their line for the first time in ages.
Craaxit’s sister hugged her warmly and excused herself to fetch them something to eat, singing their family song as she walked away.
