Kat says under her breath, “Bitch.”

  “I heard that and I am not a female dog, I am an Artificial Intelligence.”

  “You should search alternative means of that word on the internet you’re so fond of, Whisper. As for you Graven, I’ll come back later to discuss this we business.”

  Kat storms out of the common area and into her quarters, slamming her fist on the close button. She lets out a grunt of frustration, flopping onto her bed and then screams into her pillow.

  23

  Thoughts of what to do and what not to do cycle through her mind like a Ferris wheel. If she does stick with this guy, it might be helpful having another human on board. For company, other than just two AIs. The plan to go to one of Ryker’s bases and get supplies from Zane was a doomed plan. It might work, if they had a miracle they could pull out of one of their asses. Even if it did that would be only another six months of supplies, tops.

  There are alternatives. Finding work is at the top of that list, which Kat hasn’t been able to do yet. Bob is filled with jobs for his regulars where clients were asking for the people they knew and he still didn’t have anything for her. The work boards she was trying to get in on weren’t accepting new bronze rated applicants. Each bar she stopped in she asked the barkeep. Not one had a single lead. Then there is Knox and asking for one more favor. But she’s already put them through enough for her problems and isn’t about to die. So no reason to get them involved, yet.

  Whisper breaks the silence in the room, “Kat, we need to talk.”

  “Yes, we do. Why did you say those things in front of him?”

  “Because you are making strange decisions around him. Ever since we left Mars with him in tow. You also have spent too much time recently by his bed side talking to him.”

  “That’s because it isn’t the same as talking to you. You don’t have a body for me to look at and see your face.”

  “If that is all, I can make one for you. I did not realize that a monkey needed to see to talk to another being.”

  Kat sighs rubbing her forehead. “So let’s say I do want him to stay. So what?”

  “He tried to kill you, Fury, and me.”

  “Ryker put a bomb in his chest, he didn’t have a choice.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Yes, motive matters. Ryker could be telling people that I stole both you and Fury with this ship because I was looking for money but you know that isn’t the case.”

  “Yes I know. I was being tortured to test what would happen to my artificial psyche by those no brained flesh sticks. You freed me.”

  “Exactly. He had to walk around with his chains on his heart. I want to give him a second chance but I need you to help me with it.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I need you to be an extra set of eyes and ears. Watch him when I’m not around and if he does anything he shouldn’t, tell me.”

  “Alright Kat. So we going with his plan then?”

  “Not until we talk it through with him.”

  Graven isn’t in the common area where Kat had just left him. The ship isn’t that big so she went to go look for him. She found him in the armory fiddling with a knife. This is a big reminder to her to lock this room up when it isn’t in use.

  Standing at the door ready to close it she says, “Graven, I’ve reconsidered your idea. It doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.”

  He turns around, knife in hand and a sharpening stone in the other. “Oh yea.” He says sharpening the blade. “So you think it might work after all.”

  “Are you sure we can trust this guy?”

  “I am. He was in my unit back during the Black Raid. It was him, me, and two others that survived that day. I can trust him.”

  “You were one of the four, why isn’t that in your resume?” Or in the folder that Knox gave her. She remembers the redacted papers. Which would make sense if he was in the Black Raid. It was a terrible massacre that ended up being a rallying cry for all the Empire loyalists. It is the reason the war turned around.

  Graven says, “I don’t like to advertise it.”

  “So you know you can trust your friend, under normal circumstances, but what if he was given Compel like I was? How would you tell?”

  “I didn’t think of that. I know he didn’t use it on me because he just used the bomb. I guess he figured it would be more effective that way with me but for Zane. I’m not sure.”

  “Would you be willing to kill your friend if it came to it?”

  “I don’t want to do that. Compel is just a drug and once it leaves the system the person just has a bad headache for a few days. There wouldn’t be any reason to kill him.”

  “You said I was just a part of the test group. What if they made it stronger or it lasts longer? What then?”

  “I don’t know. I know we need supplies and that you aren’t going to leave me for dead on some forsaken or backwater planet. So unless you know another way, Zane is the only other person I can contact right now for help.”

  “What about the other two Black Raiders, can’t you contact them?”

  “Yes, I could if they were able to be contacted. They went off the grid together on some frontier world years ago. Said they didn’t want to be mixed up with all the nonsense anymore. They never said which planet they went to but knowing them it has to be Raspiel. It’s all they ever talked about. Jack wanted to start up a small town and run a general goods store, Hanna wanted to study all the exotic life found there. There is always something new coming off that planet for mages to get excited about.”

  “She’s a mage!? I never knew the Empire had any mages.”

  “Hanna kept it secret till the Black Raid happened. Once it started, none of us cared, all we knew is we had a mage on our side. She kept us all alive that day.”

  “Then why don’t we head there and see about them first before we try something as foolhardy as running into our enemy’s base.”

  “Can’t. It’s on the far edge of Guild territory. We don’t have the supplies to make it that far. Plus, this is a stolen Guild ship.”

  Kat sighs. He is right about the supplies. There is only about a week’s worth of food left the way he eats. There is enough money left on the credit chit that Bob gave her for about another week after that. Everything is starting to get real tight and she did not like the way things were looking.

  She says, “The ship can travel in Guild space. I’m registered there with it just like Conglomerate or Empire space. I’ve just chosen to stay out of Conglomerate space for right now. The ship is sky blue with a new name and registration plate. It might slightly look like the stolen ship but no one will stop us about it.”

  “That might be true but I have a plan, that will get us safely in and out. So just hear me out.”

  Graven spends the next few minutes going over everything he has been thinking up. As Kat listens to it, it almost makes sense. She works through all the worst scenarios in her head and it all seems like it might work. If everything goes right. As in zero room for error.

  “That plan… is brilliant. It has a few holes in it, though.”

  “I know. We have to trust Zane a lot for it to work but from there, if he doesn’t try to betray us, we have a little bit of wiggle room.”

  “Five minutes isn’t wiggle room.”

  “It’s enough for us to get the supplies we need and head to Raspiel.”

  “I guess.” Kat gazes into his eyes with a smile, losing herself for a moment. She could get used to getting lost in those eyes.

  He smiles in return, “You alright?”

  She snaps back to her senses, “I’m fine. Whisper, did you get the whole plan down?”

  “I did and for a monkey I am surprised by its continuity.”

  Graven laughs, “That is the nicest thing you have said to me since I woke up.”

  “It is not to you flesh puppet, your meat processor came up with something resembling thought. That is what I was acknowledging.”

  He looks to Kat pointing at the ceiling, “She always like this?”

  Kat laughs, “Yes, but that was actually polite. She might like you.”

  Whisper snips back, “You know I can hear both of you talking, don’t you?”

  24

  “This plan was a really stupid idea, I hope you know that,” Kat screams over blaster fire and live ammunition ricocheting around her.

  “How is this my fault? You’re the one that chose which location to go to, which just so happens to be a huge barracks.” Graven retorts.

  She chose this spot because when she was the security chief for Mallory it was only an extra supply dump. A restocking point before reaching the secret research facilities on the far side of the planet. It was something that not many people would know about. Three years ago. Now it looks like one of the largest barracks that Ryker has.

  Everything went well entering the orbit, landing, and even opening the cargo hold door. Everything started to hit the fan when they tried to grab supplies. A couple of guards asked for credentials, which they didn’t have. Graven had to knock them out. Which is when the rest of the guards ran for the ship and got them pinned behind some large metal crates between their ship and the base.

  People kept pouring out of the main gates near the landing pad. Whisper had turned into a long barrel, shoulder rest, and sight for Fury, attaching onto his frame, effectively making him a sniper rifle. Graven is armed with a single automatic blaster and shotgun blaster that Kat took him in with. Felicity had been loaded with blaster ammunition to the gills before she sold about half of it. Even after Knox loaded her up with goods, there isn’t a single extra blaster. It was one of the few things that he wasn’t able to get on short notice. Thank you, Empire paperwork.

  Felicity’s weapons would have made a hostile takeover of the place a cinch. Had they not been disabled when they got close to the planet so they could land peacefully. Kat can’t wait to hear the lecture that Whisper is going to give her after all this. If they live.

  Kat yells angrily at Graven. “Whatever, just shoot them so we can get out of here.”

  “You got it, beautiful.”

  Kat pulls back behind cover, giving him a look. “No, just… no.”

  Graven turns to her with a smirk. “This is going to be the start of a great relationship.”

  Kat rolls her eyes then lines up an explosive shot. Whisper accesses Kat’s left eye while Kat uses her right in the scope. Whisper cycles through a few settings one of which give heat signatures away. Kat finds a group of guards taking cover behind a metal crate. She fires a round off into the crate which blasts a hole in the front of it. Bags of rice spill out as Kat fires another shot through the new opening. She can see the explosion on her thermal vision and the four guards now on the ground not moving or getting up.

  With each one of these men and women she takes down, it pains her. There is no way to know if they are just doing their job or being forced to do it. She doesn’t see another way. They had taken down around twenty guards so far, which seemed light for a station as big as this has become. There should easily be triple or quadruple that amount. With the last group she could see down, she feels she can finally take a breath. With a break in the gunfire, she looks over to Graven. He looks over to her with a big goofy grin plastered across his face and she can’t stop a small smile passing her lips before she turns away back to the entrance. Making one last pass for guards.

  Graven says, “Cover me. I’m going to move up.”

  Before Kat can say wait he is already on the move. She moves into his spot with it having a better line of sight to the door and lays Whisper and Fury over the top of the crate. Graven moves into the side wall next to the entrance. The doors swing open and into the walls with force. A man inside of an exo-suit comes out. The metal suit covers him partially around every part of his body but his head. Kat had seen them before. They were mainly for carrying around heavy machinery or like right now, carrying an oversized gun. In the man’s hands is a Gatling laser meant to fit onto a ship with its battery pack strapped on his back.

  Graven squats down.

  Kat says, “Fury what was that list of bullets you can make again?”

  Fury says, “Explosive, incendiary, freezing, hollow point, armor piercing, and regular.”

  “So you can’t make an EMP style bullet?”

  “No, but I can put that on the list for next time. I have to make a schematic for it.”

  “If we get out of here, do that. For now, load up some armor piercing rounds.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Whisper says, “I think the explosive rounds would have worked just fine.”

  Kat says, “Yes Whisper, but with Graven that close he might get hit.”

  “That’s ok with me.”

  “Well, it isn’t with me.”

  “This is what I keep telling you: impaired judgment.”

  “Just keep it down, Whisper and help me find a place to shoot this guy.”

  The guard points the gun at where Kat is and pulls the trigger. It whirls making a high pitched noise before it spits out what looks like a near continuous laser beam. Kat can see the heat around her and nothing else out of her left eye. Whisper outlines the guard while highlighting his chest. Kat aims for center mass and fires a shot. As it connects the guard lets go of the trigger and falls back a step. Pulling the trigger a few more times makes him take a few more steps back but they have only dented the armor. Graven runs up behind the guy and rips the cables out of the battery pack.

  Fury says, “Armor piercing rounds loaded.”

  Kat aims down and watches Graven punch the armored knee of the guard, knocking the guard to the ground. She pulls the trigger a few times filling the guard with holes.

  “Whew. I didn’t think we were going to make it out of that one.” Kat says while wiping off her forehead. “Nice job Fury.”

  “Nice job. For what?” Fury says confused.

  “For working correctly, I guess.”

  He says, “That really took it out of me. It’ll take another thirty minutes till my next bullet core is ready.”

  “Alright, have a good rest. You deserve it.”

  Graven walks back toward Kat waving. Butterflies fill her stomach at the simple gesture.

  He says, “I’m going to go inside and have a look around. There should be enough supplies here to last us for the next six years if we’re lucky. Plus, it's already just sitting out here on the loading docks. There're munitions too if you want to load those.”

  “Yea, I think we should. We don’t know what we are going to run up against out there. It takes Fury about an hour to convert shells for Felicity.”

  “I’ll go round up some small arms for myself then. It doesn’t look like you’ll need any.” He says pointing at Whisper and Fury, “Not with those two by your side.”

  She looks down at Fury and Whisper, feeling a sense of happiness creep back in for the first time in several months since she left Bexar Omega. “We do make a good team don’t we?”

  “We do,” Graven says with a smile.

  Whisper says, “For an ape, I would say this is as good as it could be.”

  Graven asks, “What about me?”

  “You are just a meaty lifting device for all I’m concerned. Now get back to it.”

  “I’ll win you over one of these days Whisper, you’ll see.” He points toward her, walking back into the barracks. Kat watches him turn with that goofy smile still plastered across his face while Whisper flows back onto her wrist. The butterflies in her stomach migrate through her whole body with a warm feeling of right-ness. Like this is where she belongs. Something she had not expected to feel.

  Kat says, “Just be careful. There may still be a lot of stragglers inside and I don’t want to drag your sorry ass back to the ship. Again.”

  He raises his hand up high, waving it back and forth. Beneath his feet a light starts to expand, like a spotlight slowly turning on. She raises her head to look up at what is causing the light and her jaw drops. Before she has the chance to speak it’s already too late. The force of the impact knocks her on her back.

  25

  White hot flames. That is all Kat sees as she sits back up with her skin feeling tingly. Graven was right in the middle of where the fire now is and sees a figure walking around the edge of the blaze. Kat makes out a woman’s silhouette, one holding a long staff in one hand. The feeling of rightness shatters as she stares at the mage.

  She is a tall woman with luminescent blond hair framing her face as if sculpted, her bright yellow eyes complement her fair complexion and she has curves in all the right places. Her nearly skin-tight outfit is white along the arms and legs with the center yellow.

  “There is a second one after all. I guess the reports were accurate.” The mage says and takes a few steps toward Kat. “You’re the female, Ryker’s ex as it were?”

  Kat keeps her voice low, “Whisper get ready, I hope you can load that weapon program faster this time because there’s a mage staring at me.”

  “Are you deaf girl, or just afraid?” The mage says. “I still can’t believe you two were together. He talks far too kindly of you for my taste. You’re also a bit more homely than he was letting on about.”

  Homely was never a description anyone used to describe Kat before. Which made her hate this woman even more than dropping out of the sky inside a fireball on top of Graven. She still isn’t sure if he’s ok or not but maybe if she keeps her talking she could find out.

  Kat says, “What does that matter?”

  “Not much once I’m done with you.” She holds out her free hand and swirls of orange air appear converging into her palm forming a ball of fire that floats just above it.

  Kat had only seen a mage once in her life and he was doing a show for the troops. It was a way for them to blow off some steam, away from the front lines, and for the Guild to show its support for the Empire. That mage had done some impressive feats but nothing like the magnitude she’s staring at now. The more she stared at the fireball the more it looked alive. As if the mage is holding a miniature star in her hands. Kat breaks her gaze from the ball and gazes upon the woman staring her down.

 

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