by M. D. Cooper
Fire followed, and when it was gone, Kal glanced at Yaris, who was struggling to get his legs out from under the dead guard.
“Shit,” Barry said from the entrance to the dormitory on the left, a group of women clustered behind him. “That was nuts…glad you gave me that ‘nade, though.”
“And I’m glad you lowered the yield,” Kal muttered before getting to his feet and addressing Yaris. “OK, so here’s the deal. You disable the collars, and I don’t kill you.”
Yaris stopped pushing at the body pinning him, and glared up at Kal. “I do that and I’m dead.”
“You don’t, and I turn you over to these people down here. They don’t have any weapons, so they’ll probably carve you up by hand.”
Kal didn’t actually think the collared slaves would do that. Most were likely far too cowed to turn against their masters, but by the expression on Yaris’s face, he considered it to be a real possibility.
“OK, fine. Sure. You’re not getting out of here anyway.”
Yaris’s eyes closed, and the sound of metal hitting the ground came from all around.
“Damn…that was easy,” Barry shook his head. “Thought you were a badass, Yaris.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the man said, raising his voice. “A thousand troops are on their way. Anyone who leaves their dormitory with these two idiots will get gunned down with them.”
“Check the last dorm,” Kal directed Barry. “See if Karen is in there.”
“I’m Karen,” a woman said, pushing through the crowd that had spilled into the hall behind Kal.
He looked her up and down. “Karen Boula?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “That’s me.”
Barry walked toward the woman. “No it isn’t. Karen’s my sister. I think I’d know if I was looking at my sister.”
The woman’s face fell and she sucked in a wavering breath. “OK…I’m not Karen. My real name’s Francis. We swapped places one night when she was called up to Maverick. I…she did it to save me. But he liked her, and she never came back down.”
Kal held up a hand. “Wait a second. Are you saying that Barry’s sister is actually Francis, one of Maverick’s top lieutenants?”
“Top what?” Barry blurted out. “How—”
“I’m sorry!” the woman blurted out. “If I’d known—”
Behind them, Yaris was laughing, and Kal turned and fired a slug into the man’s head.
“Fuck!” Barry jumped at the rifle’s report. “What was that for?”
“Don’t need him sharing that bit of info with his boss. Mav would take this out on your sister.”
“Why would he do that?” Barry asked in a quiet voice. “She’s apparently one of his top lieutenants.”
Kal began to push through the crowd toward the rear exit. “I know who Francis is, and she’s still collared. She also left with Maverick when he went off-world a few weeks back.”
“Fuck!” Barry swore. “We have to get out of here!”
“No shit,” Kal said while still pushing through the crowd that now filled the corridor. Half the people were looking at one another in fear, and the other half were staring at the two men expectantly.
“What about us?” one asked.
Kal shook his head. “I came to get one woman out. We can’t get all of you back the way we came—hell, I have no idea how we’ll get out the way we came.”
“We’re coming anyway,” another voice said, and he saw the woman pretending to be Karen approach. “At least, I am. I’m dead if I stay.”
He was about to argue with her, but he realized that there was no point.
“Fine. Anyone who wants to come, come, but chances are we’re going to get shot at, and you won’t all make it.”
Kal gave Barry a sidelong glance.
They reached the rear hall just as a pair of lightly armored soldiers came into view. Kal fired on the pair before they realized what was going on, and then tossed a grenade the way they’d come for good measure.
Screams came from the recently un-collared slaves as they spilled out into the hall, but they didn’t slow in following Kal and Barry through the warrens.
He wasn’t sure about the exact count, but a glance over his shoulder showed roughly three dozen people following after. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised so many came, or so few. In all honesty, the ones who’d stayed behind were smarter. They stood a much better chance at survival.
It took a lot less time to reach the lift shaft running than sneaking, and they only encountered two more groups of guards on the way. Two of the slaves had been hit, one fatally, the other only earning a nasty burn from a beam weapon.
The two men had used the last of their grenades, and now stood at the edge of the long drop into darkness, their rifles the last line of defense against the enemy.
“We’re supposed to go down those?” one of the women asked, pointing at the rusted ladders on either side of the shaft.
“Not a lot of options. Unless you’re hiding wings somewhere I can’t see,” Kal retorted.
“What about the lift?” a man asked.
“I don’t thi—”
Before Kal could finish his reply, one of the women pressed the call button. For a moment, nothing happened, and then a long groan came from the bottom of the shaft. The groan turned into a screech, and then a low hum.
“It’s coming!” a man shouted.
“Now that’s a miracle,” Kal muttered, moving through the crowd to the door that led out of the lift’s small foyer. “C’mon, Barry, you bleeding heart. That thing’s gonna take forever to get up here.”
The two men took up positions on either side of the door, ready to fire on Maverick’s soldiers. They didn’t have long to wait before two soldiers eased into view down the hall, firing at the entrance. Barry ducked back, and then returned fire, glancing at Kal.
“OK…so next time I have a stupid idea like trying to infiltrate The Shade, talk me out of it!”
“Next time?” Kal spat the words as he fired down the corridor. “What in all the flaming stars makes you think there’s going to be one of those?”
“I’m an eternal optimist,” Barry retorted. “Didn’t you get that from my determination to rescue my sister?”
Kal snorted as he ducked out of sight, glaring at the other man. “I just thought you were moronically stubborn.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
The pair returned to trading fire with the enemy soldiers, who were growing in number, their shots wearing down the doorframe the two men were hiding behind.
Then a plasma burst splashed against the wall and began melting through. Kal fell back, scrambling away from the molten plas.
“We can’t—”
His words were interrupted by a screech behind them, and he turned to see the lift car rise into view, the former slaves piling in even before it had come to a halt.
“Fall back,” he directed Barry, and the other man nodded, moving back toward the lift, his rifle still trained on the doorway leading out into the corridor. Kal rose to his feet and fired a few shots into the passage before joining Barry.
Before they’d even reached the lift, it began to lower once more, and Kal swore.
“Ungrateful bastards, wait for us!”
The two men dashed toward the descending car and jumped onto the roof just as it disappeared from view.
“Great cover here,” Barry muttered.
“Take aim.” Kal pointed at the floor above them. “Blow away whatever peeks over the edge. If that asshat fires plasma on us, we’re done for.”
To his credit, Barry didn’t reply, only crouched and pointed the business end of his weapon at the steadily shrinking opening above.
The lift was dropping fast, but Kal knew that didn’t matter; a sharp shooter would have no problem picking them off from above. Moments later, a weapon nosed into view, and both Barry and Kal fired, one of their shots missing, and the other hitting the gun’s barrel. It jerked back, and a second later, a grenade sailed out into the shaft.
“Fuck!” Barry yelled.
Both men flattened themselves against the roof, hands over their heads as the blast went off a dozen meters above them. Kal felt something pierce his thigh and craned his neck to see a chunk of metal sticking out of his leg.
“Dammit,” he muttered, then glanced at Barry. “You hit?”
“No, but can you tell the bells in my head to quiet down?”
Kal didn’t reply and fired wildly up the shaft before rolling onto his back.
“Keep shooting,” he said to Barry while grabbing a canister of biofoam from his pack. He popped off the cover and then grabbed the metal. “One, twooooo…” He ripped it free and jammed the canister’s nozzle into his leg and pressed the spray lever.
The scream that tore through his throat was drowned out by the lift coming to a stop at the bottom of the shaft.
“Can you move?” Barry asked, pointing at the opening that led down into the lift car.
“Just a se—”
Shots fired from above, some rounds hitting the walls, but just as many slamming into the lift car’s roof all around them.
“Nevermind!”
Kal dove through the opening, Barry following after. A few of the rescues were still present, and he landed on a pair of women, softening his fall.
“Thanks,” he muttered as they all half rose and scrambled out into the corridor.
Grabbing one last grenade from his pack, Kal lobbed it up through the roof hatch and turned to the others.
“Run!”
“I thought you were out!” Barry said after the explosion went off behind them.
Kal shrugged as he pushed through the milling crowd that had gathered at the end of the hall. “I saved one to disable the lift. Didn’t want the enemy to use it.”
“Wow, think you could have told me that?” Barry asked, an eyebrow raised.
“No.” He looked at the crowd of women and three men who had braved the tunnels down from The Shade. “Thanks for holding the elevator for us. This way.”
“Where are we going?” one of the men asked, jogging up to Kal’s side.
“Somewhere I hope no one is going to look.”
“Which is?” a woman asked.
Kal didn’t respond as he pushed open the door and walked out into the pumping station, holding a light aloft. He guided the group through ancient equipment until they came to the aqueduct.
“We’re going that way,” he gestured to the lower section of the tunnel.
“Wait…if that’s further down,” one of the women said, “and these pumps draw water up…”
“Yeah,” Kal nodded. “We’re going to see where it leads.”
“Which is probably outside the dome,” Barry groused.
There were several other complaints voiced, and Kal felt a rage begin to bubble up in his chest.
“Enough!” he hollered. “You have three options. Back to the lift shaft to wait for your likely deaths. Up the aqueduct to the Atmo Tower where they’ll be waiting as well, or down to the inlet to see what options we have.”
“What if they’re waiting for us down there, too?” a woman asked, and Kal recognized the one who had taken Karen’s name.
He shrugged. “Then we’re fucked.”
WELCOME TO HELL
STELLAR DATE: 10.03.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: GFS Satisfaction
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
“Damn this thing is messy,” Gert commented as she pored through the AI’s programming. “And to think, Grayson was sitting in our lab with this thing in his head the whole time.”
“Yeah,” Finn muttered. “What a travesty. I’m more concerned with the fact that we’ve been kidnapped.”
Gert shook her head. “You’re worried that someone is raiding your chips back on Heaven.”
“Don’t forget my bacon,” he muttered. “I still have a bit of the good stuff I got from Kylie and Rogers. If I get back and it’s gone….”
A low groan came from the far side of the room. “Would you two shut up?” Sylvia grunted in annoyance. “If we don’t figure this out, Maverick is going to kill us.”
“Doubtful,” Finn replied as he turned and leant against his console. “We’re the best. He knows we’re useful, even if we can’t housebreak his pet AI. The thing could still be made to talk.”
Gert gave Finn a sidelong glance. A lot of what the pair did with AIs was illegal—if there was such a thing on Heaven. They kept AIs on ice and ensured they would be docile when they were put into people’s heads.
When she’d started out, it had been a matter of survival, but eventually, it became clear that her well-being was at the expense of others.
But this Jerrod…he’s not just some well-meaning AI. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Maverick is a fool for wanting us to put it in his head.
“I have a solution that will allow us to fully encapsulate Jerrod,” Finn said. “We simulate an implant for him, and for Maverick. Then we sandbox the connection. The AI won’t be able to get direct access to Maverick’s mind or body.”
Sylvia shook her head. “He won’t go for that. He doesn’t want the delay.”
“It’s just a second or two.”
The rotund woman shrugged. “OK, you tell Maverick that. I’ll get the popcorn.”
“Sure, I’ll—”
“Stop,” Gert held up a hand. “That won’t be necessary. We can do the implantation the way Maverick wants.”
“How?” Sylvia and Finn asked in unison.
“I’ve identified the specific systems that give Jerrod the ability to tap into the host’s nervous system. I can disable it, and just to be safe, so long as the AI has a separate, well-buffered, Link from Maverick, there will be no way for this code to execute, even if someone runs an update and re-enables it.”
“Let me see that,” Sylvia said, moving across the room in a fast waddle. “Shit…yeah, you’re right, that is the segment of code that enables the takeover routine. How did I miss it?”
“It was hidden under several layers of innocuous systems. Maintenance routines and the like. Just took a bit of sandboxing and backtracing.”
Sylvia gave Gert a look like she thought the explanation was a lie.
In a way, it was, but she wasn’t going to tell the other woman her secrets. Having an edge that set her apart meant safety. She planned to make sure that Maverick knew who had achieved his desired result.
One way or another.
AN UPGRADE
STELLAR DATE: 10.05.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: GFS Satisfaction
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
“And don’t come back till those asshats get their ships here!”
The door closed behind Francis, and she sagged against it. Maverick had been in a foul mood lately; everything she did seemed to be wrong.
Not that he’s ever been terribly reasonable….
She shut her eyes and drew a deep breath, willing herself to become calm—as much as she could while in the service of a megalomaniac.
“He still irritable?” a voice asked from nearby.
Francis looked up to see Gert, the woman who might as well be an alien, with her stick-thin limbs and the tentacles on her head.
I wonder if she really is an alien…like…what if aliens ar
e living amongst us, and they’ve tricked us into thinking they’re modded humans?
She realized that Gert was waiting on an answer, though Francis didn’t see how one was really necessary. “Yeah, though that’s an understatement…of the millennium.”
Gert nodded, her brows furrowed. “Maybe I’ll come back later. I hate doing his check-up when he’s screaming at me.”
“Wise choice,” Francis nodded.
Gert asked privately.
Francis nodded vigorously, her eyes imploring Gert not to continue that line of questioning.
The green woman cocked her head, and then nodded. “I like you, Francis. You know, I might have something that could help Maverick relax a bit. Would you like to come to my lab to see it?”
Something about the offer intrigued Francis, and she nodded, following the strange woman as she all but floated down the hall.
Behind her, she could hear Maverick bellowing at someone else, and she was glad that she had somewhere else to be at the moment.
MAN WITH A MISSION
STELLAR DATE: 10.10.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISF I2 Dock A1, ISF I2
REGION: Outer Silstrand System, Silstrand Alliance
“Anything else you need?” the admiral asked Grayson.
“No, ma’am.” He shook his head, pausing to take her in one last time. She wasn’t taller than him, not by more than a centimeter, at least, but she exuded a commanding presence he’d never before witnessed, and doubted he would again.
She wasn’t stiff, either, but rather relaxed, more like a jaguar than a woman. Nothing about her demanded respect, either. She didn’t wear a chest full of ribbons, or an ornate uniform. Heck, each time he’d seen the admiral, some piece of hair was almost falling out of her ponytail.
But she was in charge. There was no doubt about it.
Grayson supposed that a part of it was how the people around her behaved. There was almost a level of reverence directed toward Tanis Richards. The woman who commanded a fleet numbering in the millions—who possessed ships with invincible shields.
