by Isaac Hooke
“You’re just going to let them fight?” Shaw asked.
Rade watched the pair go at it a moment longer, and then: “That’s enough. Enough!”
Rade pulled them apart. Fret had a black eye, and Bender a bloody nose.
“That was entertaining,” Manic said. “Course, I would have done a lot more damage.”
Bender scowled at him.
Rade quickly swiveled Bender away before the man could jump Manic as well.
“We have to work together now above all times,” Rade said. “That means no infighting. Understood? Bender, Fret?”
“Got it, boss,” Fret said.
Bender pressed his lips together defiantly.
“Bender?” Rade pressed.
“Yeah, yeah, I won’t touch the skinny-armed little bitch till we’re off this planet,” Bender said. He rubbed at his bloody nose.
Shaw offered him the medkit but Bender shoved it away.
“How the hell did this happen in the first place?” Rade said. He glanced at Bender. “You and Surus were working alone on the planet before the rest of us arrived. Did you see any unusual changes in her behavior, or that of her host, Ms. Bounty?”
“No,” Bender said. “Zhidao is a good actor. Then again, it isn’t hard to imitate Surus. She’s usually pretty cold at the best of times, especially to me. And I wasn’t with her 24/7. Zhidao could have gotten to her at any time without me realizing it.”
Lui nodded. “He would’ve had to have drawn Surus out of her host, and then reprogrammed Ms. Bounty to obey his orders remotely. Maybe he actually planned for us to capture him, or maybe it was just part of a failsafe on his part. The reprogrammed Artificial probably messed with the codebase of the other robots when the rest of us arrived. And when we boarded the Argonaut, she would have installed the aberrant code into Bax first thing, so that the Argonaut’s AI wouldn’t interfere when she set Zhidao free. Likely the Purple entered her body at that point, and used her as host.”
If Surus had been gone, leaving only the reprogrammed host during the battle against law enforcement in Gala, that would explain why their alien ally hadn’t seeped out of Ms. Bounty, despite two opportunities to do so: the first, when taking out a drone, and the second after Rade ordered her to possess a police mech. Her slightly strange behavior was starting to make sense now.
“All right,” Rade said. “That’s a good working theory. And it’s the best we have. That means Surus might still be out there somewhere, and could be working to get back to the Argonaut as we speak. Maybe she’ll reach the children first. But either way, I want you all to start working on ideas to get out of here. Whether that means constructing some sort of distress beacon from the materials we have on hand, or figuring out how to get to the shuttle.”
“We’ve already come up with a few ideas…” Lui said.
seven
Surus, in her native alien form, was trapped in the center of a containment device similar to one of her own. Zhidao had copied her design and used it to trap her. She floated in the center, between the metal disks that capped the top and bottom. The only difference between this containment device and her own was that it lacked the final black box, a component that resided in the ceiling of her designs and was capable of storing a Phant indefinitely with little power expenditure.
She was relying on that missing component to eventually break free.
Because, in theory, the shuttle she was trapped inside of would divert power away from the containment device when its battery levels became low enough. Then again, Zhidao had probably assumed the power levels would never reach that point. At this very moment, the shuttle was probably heading for the star Ceres V orbited, on a trajectory to pass straight through the corona. Surus would survive the intense heat, of course, but she could never escape the gravity. Surrounded by the nuclear fires of the photosphere, she would slowly starve to death over the next thousand years.
She was doing her damnedest to ensure the shuttle’s battery was drained. She constantly fought against the magnetic binds, forcing the containment field to expend extra energy to keep her secure in the center. It was an exhausting battle, and was quickly depleting her energy reserves, but it was necessary. If she ever got out of here, she’d have to spend a few days feeding. She’d probably be able to eat a whole starship core by that point.
The Purple had lured her under the guise of information. She had received a tip from an operative in Gala city. A man claiming to have information on the whereabouts of one Weiyan Tang—the alias she believed Zhidao was using—had come to her operative, and told him he would meet Surus at a restaurant to share the location of Weiyan Tang under the condition that she came alone.
Surus had gone of course, leaving Bender behind, but the contact never showed. When she left the restaurant, she was shot with a stun rifle—it had to be one of her own—and then a man carried her host, Ms. Bounty, into a flyer. The last thing she remembered was being forced into a glass container and then spun at incredible speeds by centrifugal forces until she separated from her host. In another key difference from her design and Zhidao’s, the Purple was able to open the container and retrieve Ms. Bounty while Surus remained trapped by the competing magnetic fields.
After that, Zhidao loaded the container into a shuttle and departed.
And here Surus was.
Ms. Bounty had probably returned to tell Bender that the contact never showed. Whether or not Zhidao was in control of her host, or Zhidao simply reprogrammed her, it didn’t matter. The Argonauts were in grave danger. Surus had to get back to them as soon as she was able.
Assuming she escaped before the shuttle reached the sun.
She was unable to peer past the fuselage of the shuttle, so Surus had no idea if the craft had boarded a ship, first. If it had, that meant her end would come all the sooner, as a starship could travel much faster than a shuttle. By her estimate, it would take three days to travel to Ceres V by transport vessel, versus eight in the best shuttle. The only way she would know for certain was whether she was still alive by the end of the third day.
Time passed. The third day came and went and she began to hope that the shuttle had indeed not docked with a larger ship. The fourth day ended. Then the fifth.
The shuttle was definitely not aboard a starship. That meant she had three more days at worst before she reached the star, and maybe five at best—if this particular shuttle model had a weak engine.
She fought against her magnetic binds all the harder, hoping to drain the battery even more.
She paused occasionally to reach out with her being, attempting to contact the others of her kind that resided on her plane of existence. She never got an answer. The Greens still shunned her for what she had done to her own kind. She had trapped hundreds of them in a star, after a faction of Greens had allied with the other colors. Even though these particular Greens had disobeyed the noninterference edict her High Council had issued, the punishment she had inflicted, trapping them in a star, had ensured she would never be welcome again. She was anathema, to them. A rogue. A traitor.
If any of you are out there, Surus sent in her native language. I just wanted to say, I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I hope you can forgive me. But it was necessary to protect humanity. They are as much my people now, as you are. And just as I will always do anything to protect you, I will do anything to protect them. You won’t hear from me for much longer. I am about to suffer the same fate I inflicted on our bothers and sisters. It is somehow... fitting.
If Surus could grin, she would have done so then. Bitterly.
She struggled against her binds anew.
The eighth day arrived. It was perhaps the longest day yet. Every moment she kept expecting the shuttle exterior to burn away, and then the glass container itself, to find herself locked hopelessly in a deteriorating orbit above the system’s star.
Because she was exhausted, Surus wasn’t able to fight as often, or as hard. She would shove against the binding fields for te
n standard minutes and then rest for thirty.
The ninth day arrived. She had only just finished resting, and started pushing against the containment field, when finally the magnetic binds failed. She knew because, although she still floated in the center of the container—there was no artificial gravity in the shuttle—her extremities began to expand outward, reaching toward the edges of the glass.
Quickly, before the field could kick in again, she moved toward the glass wall and passed through it. Then she flowed toward the deck and entered the AI core area, where she easily assumed control of the shuttle’s AI.
She accessed the telemetry data. If she were human, she would have gasped.
The shuttle was indeed on a course for the system’s star. She was less than three million kilometers away. It was almost too late, given the shuttle’s limited acceleration capabilities: she had maybe thirty seconds before the craft reached the point of no return.
The closeness to the star explained why the power to the containment field had finally cut out: the subsystems in a typical vessel, starship and shuttle alike, were programmed to reduce drains from non-essential systems when approaching powerful gravity wells, the assumption being that the AI, or whoever was piloting the craft, would need extra power to pull away. With the point of no return quickly coming up, and battery levels likely low already thanks to her ceaseless struggling, the system had obviously elected to cut off the supply to the container entirely, in preparation for the expected course change.
Zhidao had disabled the main AI—presumably because no sentient AI would ever steer into a star—but the remaining subsystems responsible for engine control were still active. With those systems, Surus quickly changed course. It would take weeks to pull out of the star’s gravity well with the shuttle’s weak engines, but she would survive.
She set a course for the closest space station, which happened to be all the way back at Ceres V. According to the latest calculations, it would take a month to completely pull away from the star and return. Assuming she couldn’t find a starship to hire in the interim to retrieve her.
She tested her connection to the InterGalNet. The shuttle’s node was still active, which she expected, given how sloppy Zhidao had been with the other ship subsystems, leaving them all online. Not to mention the poor design of the container itself. All of that was probably due to overconfidence on Zhidao’s part; that, and a rush to be rid of her.
She initiated the connection to the mailbox she had created for Green Systems, the virtual entity she used to conduct financial transactions with humanity. She had considered changing the name after her falling out with the other Greens, but she knew they’d eventually track down whatever new corporate title she came up with. The physical address of her secret base was a different story altogether, and that was not something they would find soon.
She had set up her remotely hosted server to forward all mail to a local provider on Ceres V. At this distance, it would take about half an hour to complete the handshake and transfer all messages that had been queued by the local provider, depending of course on the size of the data. While that process occurred in the background, she composed a quick note requesting assistance and broadcasted it in all directions, promising a generous reward.
Half an hour later her mailbox download completed and she read her messages. There were a few pings from Noctua, who she had left in charge of the base: the little robot owl was concerned for her well-being. There were also some administrative messages from other base employees, and a couple of notes from her contact on Ceres V offering the latest clues on Zhidao’s whereabouts.
She reached the last message. The timestamp told her it had been sent a few days ago. It was from a man named Mason, known among the Argonauts by his callsign, Snakeoil.
She read it to herself.
I was in the neighborhood and figured I’d get in touch. Green Systems, huh? Nice. How’s Rade? I heard you guys had teamed up to squash bugs across the galaxy. The last location listed on his profile shows Ceres V, but he hasn’t been answering my messages. I’m guessing you probably know what’s up with that. Tell me you guys aren’t on some top secret undercover mission. Because if you are, I’m here to blow your cover!
Your brother in love (and war),
Snakeoil
Surus would have smiled if she had a body.
She quickly sent her reply.
RADE HELD THE free end of the fabric and watched as TJ meticulously scraped off the last section from the interior. TJ held a scalpel retrieved from the medkit, and worked the edges of the peeled fabric with the knife. It was a tricky job, with the potential to puncture the protective environment at any moment. Everyone else had barricaded themselves in a different dome: using needle and thread also found in the medkit, Bender had sewn pieces of their clothing over the connecting doorway, sealing them off from Rade and TJ. Bender had partial corpsman training, so the job wasn’t difficult for him. When TJ asked for volunteers to help him, everyone put their hand up, but Rade overruled them all. He wouldn’t allow any member of his team to take the risk except himself.
If TJ dies, I die.
He could still communicate with the rest of the team over the adhoc network formed by their Implants of course, but now wasn’t really the time for talking. Thankfully, Bender, Manic, and Fret were actually behaving, instead of resorting to their usual shenanigans. TJ didn’t need any distractions right now.
“Got it.” TJ pulled away the bottom portion.
Rade surveyed TJ’s handiwork. A gaping black canopy was all that remained of that portion of the wall where TJ had removed the fabric. A few conduits of different colors were also exposed, probably part of the magnetic field generators that helped the dome reflect solar radiation.
“You sure that’s enough to do what we need?” Rade asked, nodding at the fabric TJ held.
“It will have to be,” TJ said. “Probably won’t protect against radiation, but hey, we got anti-rads in the medkit for that.”
Rade helped TJ fold up the fabric, and then ducked into the can-shaped passage that led from the chamber. The pair walked at a crouch, heading toward the adjacent dome where the remaining Argonauts were holed up. They reached the sealed doorway, which was made up of pieces of different-colored clothing sewn together.
“Knock knock,” Rade said.
“Who’s there?” Bender asked.
“Pussy!” Rade said.
Bender broke into a loud guffaw. “Aw Boss! You know I can’t keep a straight face when you talk like that! Pussy!” He continued sniggering.
“You should see my face when he says that word,” Shaw said. She didn’t sound pleased.
“Let us in, please,” Rade said. He was regretting the suddenly playful mood he had been in. That dome could fail behind them at any moment.
Rade heard scissors working, and then the bottom edge of the clothing wall pulled open. He lay flat and wormed inside, followed by TJ.
Behind him, Bender began sewing the passage closed once more.
“You know, I always thought sewing was a girly activity,” Manic said.
“Shut up, bitch,” Bender said. “Only real men sew. Just ask the boss.”
“That’s right,” Rade said. He patted Manic on the back. “When you take corpsman training, come talk to me.”
“I doubt they teach normal stitching anymore,” Manic said. “It’s all laser stitching these days.”
“Even so, it isn’t easy,” Rade said.
He stared at the parts Tahoe had dismantled from the backup environmental system.
“You’re sure you’ll be able to put together a suit capable of providing a pressurized atmosphere?” Rade asked Tahoe.
“I can, at least with the help of the best minds we have,” Tahoe said. “Yes, I’m talking about you, TJ and Bender.”
“That fabric looks pretty flimsy,” Shaw said. “You’ll have to get the joins and seams just right.”
“That’s why I’m working with only the be
st minds on the team,” Tahoe told her.
Shaw gently kicked the canister next to the dismantled parts. “And you’ll only have twenty-five minutes of oxygen.”
“In theory, that’s all we’ll need,” Tahoe said. “One suit. Twenty-five minutes.”
“Hate to see who gets the EVA job,” Fret said.
The team had confirmed that the shuttle was lying out there, one hundred meters from the airlock. Rade could see it every time he looked through the glass of the exit portal.
“I think we all know, it’s going to be me,” Rade said.
“Rade...” Shaw said.
Rade smiled at her. “Trust in the team. They won’t let me down. The suit will be good.”
“Actually, no,” Tahoe said. “This time it can’t be you. It will have to be either Bender or TJ.”
“Yes!” Bender said from where he was sewing the clothing door back into place.
Rade raised an eyebrow at Tahoe.
“We need someone who can hack into the shuttle’s AI core,” Tahoe explained. “Someone who can delete the hooks Zhidao injected into the system, and who can restore the AI to a fully functioning state. Or at least a state where it obeys our orders.”
Rade was about to contest him, but then sighed. “I was going to say, I could do it remotely, with TJ or Bender to guide me. But with only twenty-five minutes of oxygen, there’s no time for something like that. You’re right, it can’t be me.” He ran his gaze between Bender and TJ. “Which of you is better with AI cores?”
“That would be me,” TJ said.
Bender slumped slightly and admitted: “He’s better with AI cores.”
eight
A few days later Rade called everyone to the airlock area, as Tahoe, TJ and Bender had finally come up with a working environmental suit. It was a primitive concoction, the pieces of fabric welded together with stitches and medical tape, but it would serve their needs. A bulky fanny pack made of the same canvas as the suit housed the oxygen canister and environmental system.
