Starship Magic 1: Broken, page 6
part #1 of Foremid Saga - Starship Magic Series
“What is it, Whisper?”
“I need to have a power source for the bomb around Graven’s heart or none of this will matter.”
Kat presses her palm into her forehead and says, “Crap. Alright, I’ll find something.”
She hops out of her chair and runs to the utility room. There would have to be something there she could use as a battery for the bomb. The utility room is near the rear of the cargo hold and it is more of a closet than an actual room. Crucible, as far as she could tell, was going to be a military vessel of some kind. Some mix between an APC and a battle cruiser. The hold is large enough to hold supplies for a few weeks for a squad of soldiers.
She opens the door and rummages through the shelves. Wire, connection cables, and fuses. Whisper’s voice comes over the com-system.
“Fury got the shield on and they’re at full and the Mars ships is powering its weapons. The other ships will be here any…”
The Crucible rocks as a barrage of attacks slam into the shields. Kat stumbles to the side, falling into a stack of cardboard boxes filled with MRE’s, but she manages to stay on her feet. A box slides off the top shelf inside of the open closet hitting Kat like a wrecking ball to the chest knocking her on her butt.
Whisper says frantically, “Barrier shields down to twenty percent, we can’t take another barrage like that last one.”
“What happened?”
“The other Mars ships appears and fired right out of FTL. They must have used the same target lock as the scout.”
“Can we divert any power to them?”
“No, we can’t, all the extra was used in that last blast. Looks like I won’t be getting that wax after all.”
“There still has to be a way out of here. What about the FTL drives, are they ok?”
“They are stable, and awaiting a clear jump. The only problem is if we try now, they will just blast through our shields and rupture the engines. I haven’t done the calculations on what would happen if they ruptured, but let’s just go with we won’t know the explosion happened.”
“Open the com-channel and I’ll see what they want.”
Fury says, “Kat, weapons systems check complete. Combat will be possible at the next restart of the engines.”
“Next restart!? That’s just craptastic news.”
Kat gets off the ground, grabbing the power-cell pack that knocked her over. It might be for a blaster but it’s all she’s got. One more thing she wished she could have waited on before running off with the ship. A fully stocked supply room.
12
Entering the bridge Kat’s met with a man’s face displayed on the center screen. His brown eyes focus on Kat with a steeled gaze. “I order you to stand down you Guild pirate. Drop your shields, disengage your weapons. I will give you two minutes, if you have not complied within the time limit you will be scattered across the cosmos.”
Kat replies annoyed with his tone, “Why do you think I’m with the Guild?”
“I will not answer questions from the likes of you. The Guild is full of tricksters and liars. You mages think you can do whatever you like because you can control the forces of magic. The Security Forces of Mars will no longer tolerate your treachery.”
“But I’m not with the Guild, I’m ex-Earth Empire special forces. I just run a simple transport business.”
“A transport business with a ship that has an advanced magi-tech barrier, hardly. That is just another deceptive story in a long line of others I’ve heard. I will not be made a fool.” He turns his face to the side addressing another person in his crew, “Ready the cannons, send word to all ships to fire on my mark.” He looks back to Kat, with fire in his eyes. “You Guild pirates disgust me. Lower your shields NOW, or I will blast you into space dust.”
Kat cuts the transmission. “Whisper, how long would it take to do an engine restart?”
Whisper says, “Too long, they will board us before—”
“How long Whisper?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes. I haven’t done it since we forcibly acquired the Crucible. Since that start was such a rush, there could be a myriad of unforeseen glitches, and now isn’t the time to risk it.”
“Now is the time. Cut the shields and restart the engines.”
Whisper mumbles out, “You had better be right with this ape.”
“It’s a step up from monkey.”
“Did you find a power source for the bomb yet?”
“Yes, I think so. I’ll bring it to you now.”
“Great, but there is a new problem. I need to simulate body heat. This is a very complex bomb and Ryker wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to come out easily.”
“Check the shelves and cabinets in there. Should be something there that can work for heat but I might need you to hurry up with it. I have a plan.”
Kat leaves the bridge rushing for the medical bay. There is a plan brewing in her mind that would hopefully let her get out of this mess she’s found herself in. If it doesn’t leave her trapped in space or blown to pieces, it would be a miracle.
She asks, “Whisper, do you have the bomb ready to go?”
“I found something for my heat problem but I still don’t know if it will work. Once I disconnect it, there is no telling what will happen. Your meaty bits and my flawlessly perfect digital self could be blown into particles.”
“If it doesn’t work the Mars Security Forces will do that for us.”
“Point taken.”
“How are the engines?”
“Almost ready, another five minutes.”
Kat asks, “Fury, how are the weapons?”
Silence.
“Uh, Fury. You there?”
“I’m here.”
“The weapons. How are they?”
“Once the engines are back on, they will fire up. Targeting will have to be calibrated once they go live. Shouldn’t take long.”
Kat rubs her forehead. It is just one happy surprise after another. Can’t just one thing go her way? All she has ever wanted for herself is what she and her parents had before the rebel hack that made the cyborgs attack everyone. A husband, maybe a child or two or three, and happiness. The whole super-secret spy-turned-cyborg-on-the-run was not in her diary when she was younger.
She says, “Fury, is there anything else I should know about the weapons we have on board. Like if they shoot marshmallows or blow kisses. I didn’t exactly get a manual on the way out.”
“They can shoot marshmallows if you want them to. I would advise against it as marshmallows are a little soft for a ballistic weapon. The Crucible’s weapons work off the same principles that I do. There are chambers that get filled with matter, then convert said matter into ammunition. The conversion takes time, but as long as there is something to convert, there’s ammunition. So you can have whatever you want for bullets.”
“That’s… awesome.”
“I only have the cryo shells and gravity shells unlocked right now. Whisper is helping me with the others.”
“That sounds like it will fit the plan perfectly.”
The ship shakes and Whisper says, “They have latched onto the outer door. It will only be a few minutes till they try to get in.”
Kat says, “Whisper, I hope that bomb is ready. We just ran out of time.”
Robotic arms above the operating table are holding onto a metal box. Inside is a spare blaster battery that has been rigged to power the bomb, alongside heated gel packs warmed to body temperature. Whisper maneuvers the arms into Graven’s chest, skillfully securing the power cables on the device, allowing her to then place it into the box. With the bomb inside of the box, the arms move over to Kat.
Whisper says, “There you go. You have fifteen minutes of heat. The power could last for days but doesn’t matter if there isn’t heat.”
Kat says, “Should be more than enough. Wish me luck.”
Kat runs down the narrow hallway to the outer door. She opens the hatch and braces herself as air rushes out of her ship and into the extended bridge between the two ships. Bridge was a generous term for the thin wall of plastic that is separating her from the uncaring void of darkness they call space. But she’ll take what she can get right now. Taking a deep breath, she pushes off the outer hull of the ship and makes her way as fast as she can to the Martian’s door. She can see faces through the glass, with the door cracking open. She can hear the low to high pitched noises of blasters charging up from the other side. Holding out the box, the door slams shut.
A man’s voice comes over a loudspeaker. “Do not come any closer, or we will be forced to disengage the bridge, leaving you in space.”
She ignores the warning, dropping the box at their door. She turns tail and runs for her hatch, back to the warm comforting safety that the Crucible has waiting for her.
The man says, “Have it your way pirate. Hope you like the cold vacuum of space.”
Alarms start sounding and orange lights above her start to flash, signaling the bridge is retracting. The seal around her ship breaks and the air around her begins to be sucked toward the opening to space. Her heart races as the thought crosses her mind of how stupid this idea really is. If she lives through this she will remind herself never to do anything this stupid again. A four-foot gap between the bridge and her ship stares at her, she sees the bridge getting further away by the second, and jumps.
13
The air leaking out of her ship pushes her away and the tips of her fingers scrape the edge of the door frame. Her heart sinks as the realization of failure hits her. She missed. This is it, this is all she could do. She’s angry, sad, afraid, and disappointed in herself all at the same time. This isn’t how she imagined it all would end. She wanted to be sitting on a porch on some distant world with her husband sitting next to her and kids running around a yard.
Waiting for her life to flash before her eyes, desperately holding onto her last breath, she watches the Crucible’s engines fire up like a holographic light show. The ship rolls toward her. She passes through the outer door upside down, slamming into the wall, only to hit her head on the floor as the door seals shut.
Whisper panics, “Katrice, are you alright?”
Kat says with a shit-eating grin, “You couldn’t be a little gentler could you?”
“Oh good, sarcasm. Next time I’ll leave you out there for a minute or two longer so you can line up with the door. How’s that sound?”
“No thanks, that’s the last time I’m pulling that stunt.” Kat stands and looks out the porthole and can see the Mars Security Forces ship pulling away with the box inside the folded up bridge.
Kat continues, “Whisper, pull us a safe distance away from that ship and ready the FTL drives. Fury ready the weapons. This is about to get flashier than a wizard’s hundredth birthday.”
She heads to the bridge. The bomb is going to explode any minute now. Not knowing how well the thin plastic will insulate the box by keeping its temperature above boom. Which means she needs to be in that chair ready to go before it does. Either way, it's about to be a bumpy ride. She falls into the door as the ship flies forward from another barrage of attacks.
Alarms are sounding off over Whispers voice, “Shields offline with minor hull damage. The FTL drives are still functional, barely, but I don’t know if the ship can handle a jump without the shields.”
Kat says, “Fury, ready the guns with cryo shells. We’re about to blast a hole through them.”
“Alright Kat, but calibrations aren’t finished yet.”
“That’s fine, I just need them to move out of the way. I don’t really want to start a war with Mars or the Empire.”
Whisper panics, “Mars ships have another active lock and are preparing to fire.”
Kat grabs the grip of Fury and the targeting reticle appears on the main screen. She aims the main cannons at the ship that tried to board hers. “Whisper get ready to for the FTL jump once I make the opening.”
“This is going to be too close Kat.”
“It’s going to work, trust me.”
She pulls the trigger. Two shells leave the cannons grazing the hull of the targeted Martian ship. Each shell explodes against it as the outside of the hull gets splashed with a liquid. The outside of the Martian ship freezes. Less than a moment later an explosion takes out the bottom half of the ship.
Kat yells, “NOW Whisper!”
Each Martian ship opens fire on the Crucible with full barrages. Explosions rock the ship on either side, narrowly missing the hull. Kat slams up against the right of the captain’s chair. She feels an acceleration in the pit of her stomach as the FTL drives engage at full power. With the shields down, there is a rumble across the ship that worsens until the ship breaks into FTL speeds. Her stomach settles and she slinks into her chair.
Whisper says, “You know, now that is all out of the way, it might be a good time to take those pills I gave you.”
Kat lets her head rest against the back of the chair. She just wants one minute without anything shooting, exploding, or asking her questions.
She takes a calming breath, “I’m not much into taking pills right now. What if they have Compel in it… Wait a minute. What if Graven has the pheromone half and I just brought him on board because I couldn’t resist. What if he has a tracker too.”
“Where’s this paranoia coming from? Graven the monkey won’t be going anywhere for a long time. I just performed major heart surgery on him to take out that bomb. I’m also monitoring all the communication channels, signals, and radio frequencies in and out of the ship. Right now nothing is leaving this ship. Also, if you don’t take those pills your arms and legs are going to fall off.”
Kat rolls her eyes, “It isn’t a guarantee.”
“What about all of that itching you’ve been doing the last couple of days?”
“Fine, but not until you have the things examined and are sure that Compel isn’t in them. They could have everything loaded down on this ship with that. I can give you the pills and perfume that Ryker gave me so you know what to look for.”
Kat leaves the bridge and heads into the captain’s quarters. She needs to take a few minutes to compose herself and her thoughts. Firing on a Mars Security ship, while it needed to be done, is not the best thing for trying to run away and hide. This is nowhere near what the plan was on rescuing Fury but it’s done. She still has conflicting feelings on what she should do next.
There are two uninhibited AIs with her. Both of which just helped save her life. She can’t just turn them into the Earth Empire because after the artificial intelligence rampage, they would just tear them apart. Even if it was really the rebels fault for the rampage. The Empire would strip Whisper and Fury down to a virtual assistant or worse use them as experiments without telling anyone.
The rampage was almost twenty-five years ago now. She might hate AIs and cyborgs but that isn’t Whisper and Fury’s fault. They shouldn’t suffer for what another did. That would be like outlawing humans because they could be another Hitler.
Revenge is the next thought that crosses her mind as her face hits the pillows on her bed. Ryker dead at her feet, bleeding out from the wounds she gave him. That is a satisfying image, but ultimately a pipe dream at this point. She then moves on to what to do about Graven.
He was being controlled just like she was but she still doesn’t know where his loyalties lie. She sits up and grabs the perfume and pills out of her duffle bag and inspects them. This was Ryker’s remote control. These two insignificant little things are what allowed him to do whatever he wanted with her, without question. Revenge might be a dream but it is a sweet one.
The doors to the medical bay swoosh open and Kat can see Graven lying on the table with a blue sheet over his chest. His bed is against the wall and above his head are all of the displays for everything he’s hooked up to. There is a metal pole that wasn’t there the last time she was in here. One with a bag of fluid and a bag of blood. The scanner is on the left wall under large yellow letters that read “scanner.” Kat opened the door, placing the items inside.
She says, “Whisper, here are the perfume and pills. When you finish can you tell me?”
“Yes master, anything you say master.”
“I get it, I get it. Whisper can you please do that for me and tell me when you’re done?”
“I will, and is that so hard to do?”
“What, being polite to you?”
“Yes.”
Kat says with a smile, “Well you see, it's hard for my primitive ape-like mind to remember something so trivial as proper manners.”
“Ah, I see. Finally admitting it. I guess you’re right, I can’t blame you that much.”
Kat walks over to Graven, “How’s the patient?”
“He’s going to be out for at least a few more days. He’s receiving some sedatives to keep him docile, just in case, and to help him heal for the first few days. There isn’t anything to worry about. He couldn’t get off that table even if he did wake up.”
“Well, I still feel uncomfortable here in this small ship with a man I don’t know on board.”
“This ship has more than twenty thousand cubic feet of available space.”
“That’s not what I meant, Whisper.”
“Then why did you bring him on board.”
“I don’t know. It felt right at the time but now it doesn’t. I have the right to change my mind when I want.”
“Monkeys, I will never understand you monkeys.”
Kat glares at the camera in the corner of the room, “Whatever.”
“There is something else I would like to talk with you about.”
“Oh God, what?”
“I would like to monitor your vitals. You are my only connection to the physical world and if something happens to you or the bracelet I’m housed in…” Whisper pauses, “I’m concerned is all. If you lose your limbs that could mean your facial prosthetics could be next and that would be something fatal for a monkey like you.”
“You know what, that almost sounded like empathy.”
“Go ahead and don’t take me seriously Kat.”
“I need to have a power source for the bomb around Graven’s heart or none of this will matter.”
Kat presses her palm into her forehead and says, “Crap. Alright, I’ll find something.”
She hops out of her chair and runs to the utility room. There would have to be something there she could use as a battery for the bomb. The utility room is near the rear of the cargo hold and it is more of a closet than an actual room. Crucible, as far as she could tell, was going to be a military vessel of some kind. Some mix between an APC and a battle cruiser. The hold is large enough to hold supplies for a few weeks for a squad of soldiers.
She opens the door and rummages through the shelves. Wire, connection cables, and fuses. Whisper’s voice comes over the com-system.
“Fury got the shield on and they’re at full and the Mars ships is powering its weapons. The other ships will be here any…”
The Crucible rocks as a barrage of attacks slam into the shields. Kat stumbles to the side, falling into a stack of cardboard boxes filled with MRE’s, but she manages to stay on her feet. A box slides off the top shelf inside of the open closet hitting Kat like a wrecking ball to the chest knocking her on her butt.
Whisper says frantically, “Barrier shields down to twenty percent, we can’t take another barrage like that last one.”
“What happened?”
“The other Mars ships appears and fired right out of FTL. They must have used the same target lock as the scout.”
“Can we divert any power to them?”
“No, we can’t, all the extra was used in that last blast. Looks like I won’t be getting that wax after all.”
“There still has to be a way out of here. What about the FTL drives, are they ok?”
“They are stable, and awaiting a clear jump. The only problem is if we try now, they will just blast through our shields and rupture the engines. I haven’t done the calculations on what would happen if they ruptured, but let’s just go with we won’t know the explosion happened.”
“Open the com-channel and I’ll see what they want.”
Fury says, “Kat, weapons systems check complete. Combat will be possible at the next restart of the engines.”
“Next restart!? That’s just craptastic news.”
Kat gets off the ground, grabbing the power-cell pack that knocked her over. It might be for a blaster but it’s all she’s got. One more thing she wished she could have waited on before running off with the ship. A fully stocked supply room.
12
Entering the bridge Kat’s met with a man’s face displayed on the center screen. His brown eyes focus on Kat with a steeled gaze. “I order you to stand down you Guild pirate. Drop your shields, disengage your weapons. I will give you two minutes, if you have not complied within the time limit you will be scattered across the cosmos.”
Kat replies annoyed with his tone, “Why do you think I’m with the Guild?”
“I will not answer questions from the likes of you. The Guild is full of tricksters and liars. You mages think you can do whatever you like because you can control the forces of magic. The Security Forces of Mars will no longer tolerate your treachery.”
“But I’m not with the Guild, I’m ex-Earth Empire special forces. I just run a simple transport business.”
“A transport business with a ship that has an advanced magi-tech barrier, hardly. That is just another deceptive story in a long line of others I’ve heard. I will not be made a fool.” He turns his face to the side addressing another person in his crew, “Ready the cannons, send word to all ships to fire on my mark.” He looks back to Kat, with fire in his eyes. “You Guild pirates disgust me. Lower your shields NOW, or I will blast you into space dust.”
Kat cuts the transmission. “Whisper, how long would it take to do an engine restart?”
Whisper says, “Too long, they will board us before—”
“How long Whisper?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes. I haven’t done it since we forcibly acquired the Crucible. Since that start was such a rush, there could be a myriad of unforeseen glitches, and now isn’t the time to risk it.”
“Now is the time. Cut the shields and restart the engines.”
Whisper mumbles out, “You had better be right with this ape.”
“It’s a step up from monkey.”
“Did you find a power source for the bomb yet?”
“Yes, I think so. I’ll bring it to you now.”
“Great, but there is a new problem. I need to simulate body heat. This is a very complex bomb and Ryker wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to come out easily.”
“Check the shelves and cabinets in there. Should be something there that can work for heat but I might need you to hurry up with it. I have a plan.”
Kat leaves the bridge rushing for the medical bay. There is a plan brewing in her mind that would hopefully let her get out of this mess she’s found herself in. If it doesn’t leave her trapped in space or blown to pieces, it would be a miracle.
She asks, “Whisper, do you have the bomb ready to go?”
“I found something for my heat problem but I still don’t know if it will work. Once I disconnect it, there is no telling what will happen. Your meaty bits and my flawlessly perfect digital self could be blown into particles.”
“If it doesn’t work the Mars Security Forces will do that for us.”
“Point taken.”
“How are the engines?”
“Almost ready, another five minutes.”
Kat asks, “Fury, how are the weapons?”
Silence.
“Uh, Fury. You there?”
“I’m here.”
“The weapons. How are they?”
“Once the engines are back on, they will fire up. Targeting will have to be calibrated once they go live. Shouldn’t take long.”
Kat rubs her forehead. It is just one happy surprise after another. Can’t just one thing go her way? All she has ever wanted for herself is what she and her parents had before the rebel hack that made the cyborgs attack everyone. A husband, maybe a child or two or three, and happiness. The whole super-secret spy-turned-cyborg-on-the-run was not in her diary when she was younger.
She says, “Fury, is there anything else I should know about the weapons we have on board. Like if they shoot marshmallows or blow kisses. I didn’t exactly get a manual on the way out.”
“They can shoot marshmallows if you want them to. I would advise against it as marshmallows are a little soft for a ballistic weapon. The Crucible’s weapons work off the same principles that I do. There are chambers that get filled with matter, then convert said matter into ammunition. The conversion takes time, but as long as there is something to convert, there’s ammunition. So you can have whatever you want for bullets.”
“That’s… awesome.”
“I only have the cryo shells and gravity shells unlocked right now. Whisper is helping me with the others.”
“That sounds like it will fit the plan perfectly.”
The ship shakes and Whisper says, “They have latched onto the outer door. It will only be a few minutes till they try to get in.”
Kat says, “Whisper, I hope that bomb is ready. We just ran out of time.”
Robotic arms above the operating table are holding onto a metal box. Inside is a spare blaster battery that has been rigged to power the bomb, alongside heated gel packs warmed to body temperature. Whisper maneuvers the arms into Graven’s chest, skillfully securing the power cables on the device, allowing her to then place it into the box. With the bomb inside of the box, the arms move over to Kat.
Whisper says, “There you go. You have fifteen minutes of heat. The power could last for days but doesn’t matter if there isn’t heat.”
Kat says, “Should be more than enough. Wish me luck.”
Kat runs down the narrow hallway to the outer door. She opens the hatch and braces herself as air rushes out of her ship and into the extended bridge between the two ships. Bridge was a generous term for the thin wall of plastic that is separating her from the uncaring void of darkness they call space. But she’ll take what she can get right now. Taking a deep breath, she pushes off the outer hull of the ship and makes her way as fast as she can to the Martian’s door. She can see faces through the glass, with the door cracking open. She can hear the low to high pitched noises of blasters charging up from the other side. Holding out the box, the door slams shut.
A man’s voice comes over a loudspeaker. “Do not come any closer, or we will be forced to disengage the bridge, leaving you in space.”
She ignores the warning, dropping the box at their door. She turns tail and runs for her hatch, back to the warm comforting safety that the Crucible has waiting for her.
The man says, “Have it your way pirate. Hope you like the cold vacuum of space.”
Alarms start sounding and orange lights above her start to flash, signaling the bridge is retracting. The seal around her ship breaks and the air around her begins to be sucked toward the opening to space. Her heart races as the thought crosses her mind of how stupid this idea really is. If she lives through this she will remind herself never to do anything this stupid again. A four-foot gap between the bridge and her ship stares at her, she sees the bridge getting further away by the second, and jumps.
13
The air leaking out of her ship pushes her away and the tips of her fingers scrape the edge of the door frame. Her heart sinks as the realization of failure hits her. She missed. This is it, this is all she could do. She’s angry, sad, afraid, and disappointed in herself all at the same time. This isn’t how she imagined it all would end. She wanted to be sitting on a porch on some distant world with her husband sitting next to her and kids running around a yard.
Waiting for her life to flash before her eyes, desperately holding onto her last breath, she watches the Crucible’s engines fire up like a holographic light show. The ship rolls toward her. She passes through the outer door upside down, slamming into the wall, only to hit her head on the floor as the door seals shut.
Whisper panics, “Katrice, are you alright?”
Kat says with a shit-eating grin, “You couldn’t be a little gentler could you?”
“Oh good, sarcasm. Next time I’ll leave you out there for a minute or two longer so you can line up with the door. How’s that sound?”
“No thanks, that’s the last time I’m pulling that stunt.” Kat stands and looks out the porthole and can see the Mars Security Forces ship pulling away with the box inside the folded up bridge.
Kat continues, “Whisper, pull us a safe distance away from that ship and ready the FTL drives. Fury ready the weapons. This is about to get flashier than a wizard’s hundredth birthday.”
She heads to the bridge. The bomb is going to explode any minute now. Not knowing how well the thin plastic will insulate the box by keeping its temperature above boom. Which means she needs to be in that chair ready to go before it does. Either way, it's about to be a bumpy ride. She falls into the door as the ship flies forward from another barrage of attacks.
Alarms are sounding off over Whispers voice, “Shields offline with minor hull damage. The FTL drives are still functional, barely, but I don’t know if the ship can handle a jump without the shields.”
Kat says, “Fury, ready the guns with cryo shells. We’re about to blast a hole through them.”
“Alright Kat, but calibrations aren’t finished yet.”
“That’s fine, I just need them to move out of the way. I don’t really want to start a war with Mars or the Empire.”
Whisper panics, “Mars ships have another active lock and are preparing to fire.”
Kat grabs the grip of Fury and the targeting reticle appears on the main screen. She aims the main cannons at the ship that tried to board hers. “Whisper get ready to for the FTL jump once I make the opening.”
“This is going to be too close Kat.”
“It’s going to work, trust me.”
She pulls the trigger. Two shells leave the cannons grazing the hull of the targeted Martian ship. Each shell explodes against it as the outside of the hull gets splashed with a liquid. The outside of the Martian ship freezes. Less than a moment later an explosion takes out the bottom half of the ship.
Kat yells, “NOW Whisper!”
Each Martian ship opens fire on the Crucible with full barrages. Explosions rock the ship on either side, narrowly missing the hull. Kat slams up against the right of the captain’s chair. She feels an acceleration in the pit of her stomach as the FTL drives engage at full power. With the shields down, there is a rumble across the ship that worsens until the ship breaks into FTL speeds. Her stomach settles and she slinks into her chair.
Whisper says, “You know, now that is all out of the way, it might be a good time to take those pills I gave you.”
Kat lets her head rest against the back of the chair. She just wants one minute without anything shooting, exploding, or asking her questions.
She takes a calming breath, “I’m not much into taking pills right now. What if they have Compel in it… Wait a minute. What if Graven has the pheromone half and I just brought him on board because I couldn’t resist. What if he has a tracker too.”
“Where’s this paranoia coming from? Graven the monkey won’t be going anywhere for a long time. I just performed major heart surgery on him to take out that bomb. I’m also monitoring all the communication channels, signals, and radio frequencies in and out of the ship. Right now nothing is leaving this ship. Also, if you don’t take those pills your arms and legs are going to fall off.”
Kat rolls her eyes, “It isn’t a guarantee.”
“What about all of that itching you’ve been doing the last couple of days?”
“Fine, but not until you have the things examined and are sure that Compel isn’t in them. They could have everything loaded down on this ship with that. I can give you the pills and perfume that Ryker gave me so you know what to look for.”
Kat leaves the bridge and heads into the captain’s quarters. She needs to take a few minutes to compose herself and her thoughts. Firing on a Mars Security ship, while it needed to be done, is not the best thing for trying to run away and hide. This is nowhere near what the plan was on rescuing Fury but it’s done. She still has conflicting feelings on what she should do next.
There are two uninhibited AIs with her. Both of which just helped save her life. She can’t just turn them into the Earth Empire because after the artificial intelligence rampage, they would just tear them apart. Even if it was really the rebels fault for the rampage. The Empire would strip Whisper and Fury down to a virtual assistant or worse use them as experiments without telling anyone.
The rampage was almost twenty-five years ago now. She might hate AIs and cyborgs but that isn’t Whisper and Fury’s fault. They shouldn’t suffer for what another did. That would be like outlawing humans because they could be another Hitler.
Revenge is the next thought that crosses her mind as her face hits the pillows on her bed. Ryker dead at her feet, bleeding out from the wounds she gave him. That is a satisfying image, but ultimately a pipe dream at this point. She then moves on to what to do about Graven.
He was being controlled just like she was but she still doesn’t know where his loyalties lie. She sits up and grabs the perfume and pills out of her duffle bag and inspects them. This was Ryker’s remote control. These two insignificant little things are what allowed him to do whatever he wanted with her, without question. Revenge might be a dream but it is a sweet one.
The doors to the medical bay swoosh open and Kat can see Graven lying on the table with a blue sheet over his chest. His bed is against the wall and above his head are all of the displays for everything he’s hooked up to. There is a metal pole that wasn’t there the last time she was in here. One with a bag of fluid and a bag of blood. The scanner is on the left wall under large yellow letters that read “scanner.” Kat opened the door, placing the items inside.
She says, “Whisper, here are the perfume and pills. When you finish can you tell me?”
“Yes master, anything you say master.”
“I get it, I get it. Whisper can you please do that for me and tell me when you’re done?”
“I will, and is that so hard to do?”
“What, being polite to you?”
“Yes.”
Kat says with a smile, “Well you see, it's hard for my primitive ape-like mind to remember something so trivial as proper manners.”
“Ah, I see. Finally admitting it. I guess you’re right, I can’t blame you that much.”
Kat walks over to Graven, “How’s the patient?”
“He’s going to be out for at least a few more days. He’s receiving some sedatives to keep him docile, just in case, and to help him heal for the first few days. There isn’t anything to worry about. He couldn’t get off that table even if he did wake up.”
“Well, I still feel uncomfortable here in this small ship with a man I don’t know on board.”
“This ship has more than twenty thousand cubic feet of available space.”
“That’s not what I meant, Whisper.”
“Then why did you bring him on board.”
“I don’t know. It felt right at the time but now it doesn’t. I have the right to change my mind when I want.”
“Monkeys, I will never understand you monkeys.”
Kat glares at the camera in the corner of the room, “Whatever.”
“There is something else I would like to talk with you about.”
“Oh God, what?”
“I would like to monitor your vitals. You are my only connection to the physical world and if something happens to you or the bracelet I’m housed in…” Whisper pauses, “I’m concerned is all. If you lose your limbs that could mean your facial prosthetics could be next and that would be something fatal for a monkey like you.”
“You know what, that almost sounded like empathy.”
“Go ahead and don’t take me seriously Kat.”
