“And if the ship doesn’t use this wormhole?” Roihan’s eyes searched hers.
She winced. “About twenty-three years.”
“That’s a bit longer than I planned to devote to this mission,” Valdjan stated.
Mordjan scowled. “It won’t matter since we’ll all be dead in a year.”
Aria ignored the byplay, finishing the food square. Then she drank half the water and turned to Roihan. “That’s why I need to go to the laboratory. I’m hoping there are some files that will help me take back control of the ship.”
“I’ll go with you,” he stated.
She almost wanted to object because there was something about him that was . . . distracting, but she pressed her lips together and gave him a single, sharp nod.
Mordjan cleared his throat. “I’d like to go back to that weapons room to see what we have in case we need to battle a bunch of Ardaks in fewer than thirteen hours.”
They all turned to Valdjan. “Blowing things up sounds good. Simban and I will go with Mordjan.”
Aria pointed out the corridor that would lead them back to the weapons room, although she knew she didn’t need to. All cyborgs had location placement programs so they wouldn’t get lost in enemy terrain.
Then she led Roihan down the long corridor, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. She wished she’d gotten her memories back “Did everyone here know me before I became a cyborg?”
“I believe so, but I’m not sure about Tanis,” he replied. “I believe he lived on the other side of the realm from us. But our realm was not that big. Most people knew one another, or knew of one another, at least. And we were friendly with other realms, which was why it was easy for the Ardaks . . .”
“I see,” she said quietly. “The invasion sounds terrible. I’m not sure whether it’s better to remember, or not.”
“After the invasion, there are so many things I’d rather not remember,” he agreed, his deep voice soft and filled with grief. “But the rest of my memories? Those of my life before? I wouldn’t give them up for anything.”
He was in love.
She didn’t know how she knew, but she was certain of it. Only a deep love could make such a man look like he did when he thought about his past.
“I remember you, though,” Roihan said, his voice gruff.
“Really?”
“Oh yes. You were the best shooter of all of us, and you had a mean right hook.”
“I punched you, did I?” She smiled at the thought of punching Roihan. He was at least a head taller and twice as wide as she was.
“Oh, a few times,” he admitted. “You were pretty temperamental.”
“Uh-huh. I’m sure you didn’t deserve them.”
He gave her an angelic smile that told her he’d deserved every one of those hits.
“I’ll be able to get my memories back, too, if we live.”
If we live. It was the first time she had thought that way. As she led him down the corridor, she found her processors going back to his image again and again. There was something about him that was . . . attractive. From his dark brown hair to his blue-green eyes and his larger-than-life muscular structure, he was different from the others.
But it wasn’t just his image. It was his intensity. And the way he looked at her, as if he found her attractive, as well.
Why am I thinking about him? I had never even considered a mate before. Perhaps because the Ardaks didn’t bring their mates with them on the supply missions.
Her hands began to tremble. The Ardaks had told her that this was a supply mission and they would offer their technology to help the people of Aurora.
But if that were the case, why would they poison the whole planet?
It defied her logic.
The only explanation was that they weren’t simply on a supply mission. But the horror of it was still too much for her to process.
At the end of the corridor, she yowled into the vocal recognition scanner.
“What the hell was that?” Roihan asked as the door slid open.
“Vocal recognition,” she said over her shoulder, leading him inside. She smiled when his jaw went slack with awe. “This is my lab. Please don’t touch anything.”
“That will be difficult. This is an engineer’s dream,” he replied.
Aria strode straight to a seat at the far end of the laboratory that appeared similar to the one she had used in the control room, with the same connector.
“I need to hurry. I know thirteen hours seems like a lot of time, but the Ardaks have millions of files to go through.” She sat with her back perfectly straight, reaching for the connector. “I’m going to search the database to find a way to take back the computer. I don’t know how long it will take, and I might be slightly slower to respond once I hook in.”
As he knelt beside her chair, his scent washed over her, and it was unlike anything she’d smelled before. Armor, leather, metal, and something else. “Is there any danger to you at all when doing this?”
She shifted, finding him far too close to her. “No, it’s perfectly safe.”
She reached to connect the port, and he seemed to notice her discomfort so he looked away. “Is there something I can do?”
She thought for a moment before standing and gesturing to another seat not far from her. “You could plug yourself in to that seat there and teach yourself how to fly the ship. Once you know, you could call the others in one by one to teach them, as well. Yowl like an Ardak.”
“What?” The expression on his face was almost comical.
“Yowl like an Ardak. Loudly.”
He took a moment to compose himself, and when he finally yowled, she fought the urge to smile.
She sent it to the computer, programming the voice recognition so it would open for his command. “Now you can open the door to the lab.”
“Thank you.” Roihan moved to the second chair.
The loss of his presence next to her was like nothing else she’d felt before. She almost wanted to call him back. Almost. They had a mission to complete, which meant they didn’t have time to waste on things that didn’t matter.
“Hook yourself in, and I will send the Ardak language files to you,” she ordered. “Once you have those, you can download the flight control files.”
She waited until he sat and connected before she closed her eyes and got to work.
Chapter Seven
Roihan
The connector at the back of Roihan’s head hummed, and the laboratory disappeared. His vision went black for a moment and then information began to flood his chip. It continued in an overwhelming swell for several seconds before slowing to a trickle.
A screen came up in his mind’s eye, and he could read the options. Home. Flight. Ship History. Science. Warfare.
He really wanted to choose warfare. Before the Ardaks, he had trained as a warrior under Mordjan—never expecting an Ardak invasion. Being defeated by them made him want to learn as much about their battle strategies as he could, and maybe find some weaknesses. But flying the ship would be more important to this mission.
Although warfare may be important to winning the war should we live through this.
He forced himself to mentally click the button for flight. Different positions on the ship came up, starting with Captain, which he clicked on first.
Information flooded his chip again, his processors taking in the information and building new files. It finished in less than a minute. The feeling was strange. He didn’t know the information in his brain, but when he thought about the captain’s console, he could visualize the controls before him. Never one to stop before the job was thoroughly complete, he systematically downloaded information for the other positions.
Then he moved on to science. He learned about their recent technological advancements, as well as wormhole technology and cyborg technology, downloading all of it to examine later.
“Roihan?” Valdjan’s voice broke into his mind.
“Yes?�
�
“I believe we’re about to enter the wormhole. And trust me, you’ll want to see this.”
“On my way.”
He left the laboratory and sprinted toward the control center. When he entered, the entire room was glowing brilliant blue and purple. In front of the ship was an enormous ring in the black sky, looking ready to swallow them whole.
“It’s beautiful,” Simban said. “Too beautiful for words.”
“Agreed,” Roihan remarked.
“The most beautiful things are often the deadliest.” Mordjan had just entered the control center and was striding toward them. “Let’s hope it doesn’t kill us.”
“Has anyone seen Tanis?”
“No, but he isn’t responding over any of the frequencies. I’ve been looking for him for the past ten minutes,” Mordjan replied. “I wanted to see if we could rig some explosives or traps for the cats so they can’t board the ship.”
The door opened again.
“Hey, everyone,” Tanis said. “I also wanted to see the wormhole.” His attention was fixed on the transparent wall. “Whoa.”
“Yes.”
As they watched, the wormhole seemed to get larger and longer and time seemed to slow.
“Whaaaat’s haaaaappennnnninggggg?” Simban asked, his words coming out long and slow.
Roihan tried to look down at his hand, and it was like moving through water. “Juuuuuuussssst reeeeeeeeeelax.” Roihan forced the words through lips that moved far too slowly. Then, almost as swiftly as it started, time snapped back into motion, and Roihan loosed a breath of relief.
“That was fast.” Mordjan commented.
“Yes, it’s supposed to be quick.” Roihan turned to the rest of them. “There is a way to download the Ardak language and instructions on how to fly the ship. If you will follow me to Aria’s lab, we can give the information to you, too.”
“I’m not sure I want the Ardak language inside my head,” Valdjan grumbled.
“Knowledge is power,” Roihan replied simply. “And we need all the power we can get if we’re going to win this fight.”
“True.” Mordjan grimaced. “Unfortunately.”
“I’ll be first,” Simban said. “I want to learn more.”
Roihan admired the cyborg for his fortitude. From what Valdjan had told him, Simban’s chip had been installed incorrectly, making his thought processes and speech much slower than everyone else’s. But what he lacked in speed and speech, he made up for in curiosity and grit.
Roihan led them to the lab, yowling into the voice recognition scanner. The other cyborgs all whooped and guffawed when they heard it. They would never let him live it down. He waited until they had calmed down before letting them into the lab, not wanting to disturb Aria’s search.
When they were all inside, he realized he hadn’t needed to worry about the noise. She hadn’t moved or acknowledged their arrival. She was just sitting there, looking relaxed as her eyes moved rapidly behind her closed lids.
Roihan led Simban to the chair and motioned for him to sit. “The program I left running is the default program and the one used for learning the Ardak language. The minute you connect, it will begin to run. Tell me when it’s finished.”
Simban nodded, and Roihan attached the connector. Simban’s eyes closed, and his eyeballs began moving behind their lids.
“How long does it take?” Valdjan asked.
“I don’t know. Mine was done in a few seconds.”
Roihan waited expectantly, but Simban didn’t open his eyes again. As the seconds ticked by, Valdjan become more and more worried, fidgeting and shifting from foot to foot. “Is it supposed to take this long?”
“No, but . . .” He hesitated because he knew Valdjan was protective of his brother. “You know that Simban’s chip is slower. It may take his processor longer to store the information.”
Valdjan nodded and then began to pace back and forth as he waited for Simban to finish.
“Maybe we should stop his and let the rest of us go first,” Tanis groused. “I have work to get back to.”
Roihan wanted to agree, but he couldn’t. “Why don’t we give him a little more time? Ours will be quick, and I don’t know what stopping in the middle of the program will do to Simban’s processors and memory.”
Twenty standard minutes later, Simban opened his eyes. “I can speak Ardak.”
Valdjan hurried over, clapping him on the back. “That’s excellent, Simban. Why don’t you get out of that thing and let the rest of us have a turn?”
Simban frowned as Valdjan unhooked him from the connector. “But I don’t know how to fly yet.”
“Yes, but neither does anyone else.” Roihan broke in. “Why don’t we let Mordjan and Tanis go first so they can get back to the weapons? Once the others are done, you can take all the time you need.”
Simban nodded and stood, letting Mordjan sit in his place.
“It should be ready to go,” Roihan offered. “Do you see a green button?”
“Yes.”
“Click it with your mind.”
Seconds later, Mordjan was finished.
“Now click on flight, and go through them as fast as you can. I’ll let you know when it’s been ten standard minutes.”
Mordjan was finished at minute eight, and he stood to let Valdjan take the chair. “That was different. I’m going back to the weapons room to see if I can understand more now that I can understand the language.” He nodded at Tanis and Valdjan. “Come to the weapons room when you’re done. We’ll see what we can do about internal defense should someone breach the bay doors.”
Valdjan took twelve minutes to finish the programs. Mordjan, Valdjan, and Simban had all been tossed away after their chips had failed, but Simban was the only one of the three who seemed to be . . . broken. The only one severely impacted by the failure of his chip.
“I think my processor is slower than yours because I was a reject,” Valdjan joked.
Roihan just grinned and shook his head, handing the connector to Tanis. “For whatever reason, the Ardaks didn’t want you, so you should be thankful you were so lucky.”
Tanis was still connected at minute eleven, and Roihan began to wonder what was happening. He tapped Tanis on the shoulder. “What’s going on?”
It took a minute for him to open his eyes. “I’m looking at the ship portion of the program. I thought I might find more information here that I can use for the mission.”
Roihan clenched his fist. “Good idea. But we already have Aria on that, and she has a thousand-hour head start. She already knows these programs and much, much more. We need Simban to learn how to fly in case we need him. Once he’s done, we can see if Aria has found anything. Then maybe you can take another look if we don’t have a plan.”
“Are you sure? As you said, knowledge is power.”
“Get out of the chair, dimwit,” Roihan ordered.
Tanis rose nonchalantly. “All right. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’ll continue with my duties now.” He thrust the connector at Simban and headed toward the door.
Once it closed behind him, Valdjan let out a breath. “What was his problem?”
“I don’t know. He seems to think he can figure out the ship from these few programs. I don’t think he understands that Aria has exponentially more knowledge than he does.” Roihan shrugged. “Anyway, let’s get Simban hooked in and we can discuss some of what we learned.”
Simban sat, and Valdjan hooked up the connector for him.
“Just go through the programs one at a time,” Roihan instructed.
Simban nodded, but almost as soon as he closed his eyes, they rolled back in his head and he began to convulse.
“What the fuck is happening?” Valdjan roared, trying to hang on to his brother.
“Hell if I know. Should we just remove the connector? It could damage him even more.”
Just then Simban let out an inhuman scream, so Roihan ripped it out. Simban began to roll sideways off th
e chair, and they caught him and lowered him gently to the floor.
“Holy shit.” Valdjan ran his fingers through his hair and knelt beside Simban. “Can you hear me? Simban?”
There was no response.
Roihan checked for a pulse and observed his breath. “He’s still alive, just unconscious.” He searched his memory files for the layout of the ship. “Why don’t we take him to the medical laboratory? It’s three doors down from this one.”
Valdjan nodded unhappily, and they picked up Simban and carried him between them to the med lab, which was just as sterile-looking as Ariel’s lab had been.
Once there, they laid him on one of the bunks. They searched for several minutes, but couldn’t find anything that would help Simban without maybe causing him more harm. “I need to check on Aria. Do you want to stay here with him?”
“I’m not leaving him alone,” Valdjan said.
Roihan hesitated. “Do you think maybe it was just too much for Simban’s broken chip?”
“I don’t know.” Valdjan glanced at his brother. “We’ve never tried anything like that before.”
“Perhaps it just overloaded him. Remember how some cyborgs needed time to reset after their chip installation? Maybe it’s like that.”
“Maybe.”
Valdjan looked lost, and for the first time, Roihan understood that Valdjan might need Simban just as much as Simban needed Valdjan. “Let’s just hope that Simban’s processor is resetting and we can find out more when he wakes.”
As he turned to leave, Valdjan called after him. “Do you think Tanis might have done something? He’s the one who used the program right before my brother.”
Roihan slowly shook his head. “I also thought of that, but why would he? There isn’t a reason for him to harm one of us.”
Valdjan nodded morosely and Roihan departed, wondering what they were going to do if Simban didn’t wake.
Chapter Eight
Aria
Aria came back to herself to find that she was alone in the laboratory. She disconnected from the computer and made her way quickly to the control center.
Roihan Page 6
