B785 (15 page)

On high alert, Bolt and Nova trotted down the hall and met up with Seth and Astro coming from the other direction. As a group, they made their way back into their small landing craft as Bonnie and the others watched and waited to see what, if anything would happen next.

It seemed almost anti-climatic when they managed to lift off without incident. Hell, they even cleared the downed military craft before it went up in a ball of dancing flames, the concussing waves barely rocking the small craft speeding away.

Aramus trusted the ease of their departure even less than her. “That was too easy. And I hate easy. Seth, scan the hull for trackers or unknown objects. Bolt and Astro, sweep the interior while Nova drives. I want every inch of the thing searched for possible intruders.”

“You think we might have brought a castaway with us?” Seth asked, his steel knives tucked into his hands. As weapons went, it was a saner choice given in their cramped vessel. One stray blast could destabilize their spaceship and kill them all.

Einstein paused in his typing to answer. “I had a hand in designing the device Bolt found. Of course, when I left they were still in the testing phase. From what I recall, they have a short timer sequence, no more than fifteen minutes. Which means…”

“Someone set that bomb while we were on the ship.”

“Unless the military adapted them since you last saw them.”

“Possible,” Einstein replied. “But unlikely. They were meant to be a suicide bomb. Once set, their main function was to go off quick before anyone could disarm them.”

“Outer hull is clear,” Seth announced.

“Engine compartment clear,” Bolt added.

“Ditto for the rest of the ship,” chimed in Astro.

The tension in the room eased. “Good. With any luck, whoever set the bomb died in the blast,” Aramus said. “Still, though, just in case, I’m warning the onboard units to remain on high alert. Once the whole crew is assembled, we’ll perform a ship wide sweep.”

“I’m already running scans.” Einstein’s eyes remained riveted to his screen as his fingers flew fast enough to blur. “So far, I’m not detecting any exterior breaches, unknown accesses to our systems, or other anomalies.”

“Keep looking. We don’t want to bring any nasty surprises back with us. Joe will have my hide if I do.”

As the cyborgs worked, Bonnie kept quiet. Her unease refused to dissipate even when the landing party returned, supposedly enemy free. She couldn’t have said why or what bothered her. The repeated scans showed nothing strange or out of place. Everyone reported in safe and sound. They’d escaped and brought back the captain’s hard drive, and the mysterious paperweight to boot.

So why did she chew her nails in a nervous habit her bionic status never managed to erase?

Why couldn’t she relax?

Entering the command center, booty in hand, Seth proudly presented his treasures to Einstein. “Here you go, dude. All yours.”

Einstein made a face. “Problem is, what should I do with it?”

“I thought the whole fucking point of the mission was intel. So crack the damned things and tell us what they say.”

“I don’t have a clean machine to work on them, though,” Einstein replied with a frown. “If I hook them up to our ship’s mainframe, I could inadvertently launch a malicious virus or tracking program.”

“Then unhook a computer from the mainframe. You’re the resident techno geek. Figure something out. Or were you bullshitting me when you said we needed this info pronto? What if there’s important stuff on the drive, like plans for attack or worse?”

A sigh left Einstein. “I’m on it. I was just pointing out it won’t be easy. I’ll have to firewall my lab. In other words, cut off all access both wireless and wired to the rest of the ship, just in case.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Get your metal ass moving.”

“Do you need help?” Bonnie asked.

“I could use a hand just in case I come across some encrypted stuff. That’s if you’re up to it?”

She smiled. “I’m delighted to be of help.”

“Oh make me gag.” Aramus rolled his eyes. “Can we stick to the mission instead of turning this into a date? Both of you, get out of here and decode those devices. Let me know if you find anything.”

“And he doesn’t mean her sweet spot,” Seth hollered as they exited. “Work before play.”

“I know,” Einstein grumbled.

She laced her fingers in his as they strode. “Come on, charming. Let’s show your buddies what a great team we make and find something useful on these things. Then we can get to the playing.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He squeezed her fingers and for a moment, she could almost believe everything in the universe would turn out all right. Now if only she could dispel the sense that something overshadowed them waiting to swoop in and ruin the happiness she’d found.

As soon as he arrived at his workspace, Einstein sealed the room. He manually unhooked the cable that connected his computer to the rest of the ship and disabled the wireless aspect as well. Bonnie, perched on the metal counter of his workbench, legs dangling, watched.

“So what do you think we’ll find on the drive?” she asked.

“A solution to peace between cyborgs and humans?”

She snorted. “Ha. Ha. You are turning into quite the comedian, charming.”

A smile tilted his lips. “I keep trying. As to your question, in all honesty? Probably not much on the hard drive. I doubt the captain kept much of import on it.”

“So why get Seth to grab it then?”

He rolled his shoulders. “You never know. If they were relying on a self destruct to destroy evidence then maybe they got sloppy. Could be the captain was the cocky sort as well, the kind who thinks nothing bad will ever happen to him.”

“So you’re going to check out the drive first? Why not the hunk of plaster?” Holding up the misshapen object, she squinted at it.

“Because I want to run tests on it first before cracking it open. I’d hate to take a hammer to the thing only to find out it has explosives inside.” The look of horror on her face as she set it down carefully and scooted away made him snicker.

“You’re fucking with me!” she exclaimed.

“Maybe a little. I highly doubt it’s a bomb. But, I do want to be careful before slicing it open. I’d hate to damage the insides and render it useless. First, though, let’s see what we can find on this.”

Hooking up a mini power supply, Einstein managed to get the hard drive humming. “So far so good,” he muttered. “Now where’s that spare monitor I had in here?” Scrounging in a supply closet, he emerged with a flat screen and a handful of wires. He plopped them down beside her, then headed to a filing cabinet where he pulled out a green square with transistors and gold etchings all over it.

“Oh my God, where did you find that ancient motherboard?” she exclaimed, obviously recognizing the antiquated heap of plastic.

“The colonies we’ve visited over the years aren’t exactly equipped with the best earth has to offer. Since I never know what might come in handy, I like to hold on to the stuff, just in case.”

“Hoarder.” She coughed the word in to her hand.

“I prefer the term collector of vintage artifacts.”

She giggled. “I guess I shouldn’t complain. Your need to collect useless objects is what led you to finding me.”

“I’d hardly call you vintage. However, I’ll admit, you’re probably the most priceless item I’ve ever found.”

He made a note that the compliment seemed to please her given her core temperature rose a few degrees. How fascinating. How distracting. He ignored his urge to explore it further. Right now, he needed to concentrate. With a little fiddling involving the attaching of ribbed cables and flicked dip switches on the old motherboard, he finally got things to work. His screen lit up as the impromptu computer system booted.

“I’m in,” he announced.

“I wouldn’t call a log in screen asking for a password in,” Bonnie remarked, sliding off the counter so she could stand behind him, peering over his shoulder.

“Bah. Like that will stop me. You are talking to a master hacker.” Cracking his fingers, a human gesture that came to him naturally even if he didn’t recall doing it in his past life, he set to work.

With his knowledge and skills, it didn’t take long for him to decipher the simple entry code and pull up all the files. Most he catalogued and ignored as they dealt with the boring, day to day details of running a ship—what broke, what needed fixing, who got reprimanded. Who cared?

What he was more interested in were the communications sent and received off ship. Those were hidden behind a few layers of security. Again, he didn’t expect much, but it seemed in this case, he might be proven wrong. Several missives had bounced back and forth, encrypted of course. But before he could open them and look into them further, a file caught his attention. Bonnie spotted it the same moment he did, her finger stabbing at the screen and the video file dated to the time of the attack on the asteroid.

“What’s in that one?”

“Let’s find out.”

The video began with a lot of static and noise, the wailing sound of a siren in the background strident, but not enough to hide the mumbled cursing of a man who plopped himself heavily in front of the camera. The blurred image of a star fleet uniform gave way to a visage, an ugly one. Heavy jowls, sunken eyes, and a receding hairline filled the screen.

“Fuck me, the camera is already running. Figures. Useless mechanical junk. Just another piece of crap that doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. Anyhow…to whoever gets this, if you get this, the ambush failed. Despite the new cloaking device, which someone assured me was foolproof, the cyborgs spotted us and managed to incapacitate our ships. Actually, they totally destroyed two and crashed ours. So much for sneaking up on them and taking them out.” The human mopped at his sweaty face with a dirty towel. Tired, bloodshot eyes bored into theirs. “It’s not looking fucking good. The bastards might not have been able to see us on radar, but that didn’t prevent them from kicking our asses. The mission is an utter failure. We didn’t capture any cybernetic specimens. Not even fucking close. Word from the asteroid is two were destroyed, but another four survived. Fuck, they kicked our ground troop’s asses. It should be noted that the cyborgs have adapted to counter the Taser technology. My boys scored a few direct hits and while it seemed to freeze the cyber units for a few seconds, that was it. Once again, only direct headshots seem to incapacitate them. We do have some good news. We received confirmation that they are indeed in possession of cyborg unit B785. She is active and aiding the rebel cyborgs. Attempts to regain control of her have failed. She has not succumbed to any of the override codes.” The captain sighed. “And now you’re up to date. At this point, we’ve lost. I’ve initialized the self destruct sequence for this vessel; however, the power is failing rapidly so God only knows if it will go off in time. Hell, I don’t even know if we have enough power to send this message off. I’m heading for the life pods as soon as I send this. Just in case we don’t manage to destroy the craft, we’re manually wiping the hard drives as I record this. I don’t know who the fuck’s brilliant idea it was to confront these bastards but whoever you are, you’re a fucking idiot. Court martial me if you like, but it’s the truth. I don’t care what technology we have, those bastards are smart. And deadly. Here’s to hoping someone picks me up at the rendezvous point. If not, we’re all dead men.”

A thick finger stabbed at the keyboard out of sight, but must have missed because the camera kept recording. A flask came up and the captain took a less than healthy swig. The sirens suddenly cut out and an eerie silence descended, broken only by the captain’s breathing. A swish of the door opening saw the captain turning his head. He half rose from his seat. “What is it? Why are you here instead of heading for the pods? What
—
” A gurgle sounded and the body slumped back, onto the screen. A moment later, the video stopped.

Stunned, Einstein took a moment to absorb it.

“That’s it?” Bonnie asked.

“Yes.”

“I’d say it’s safe to say he didn’t manage to send the message.”

“No. Looks like he died, which means the military might not know what’s happened yet.”

“You mean someone killed him.”

So it appeared. But who?

Bonnie voiced his question aloud. “Someone intentionally killed the captain, and then dragged his body out of sight. Why hide the body?”

“So we wouldn’t suspect there was a mutiny?”

She shook her head. “That makes no sense. Elsewhere they didn’t bother to hide the evidence. Someone wanted us to see that video.”

“But we didn’t learn much.”

“Didn’t we? We learned that they do have new technology.”

“Which we already knew about.”

“That they were tracking us before we hit the asteroid.”

“Which we suspected, given the ambush.”

“And that there’s a spy onboard with us.”

So she’d caught the subtle reference too. But did she realize the implication? The spy most likely came in the form of their newest member
—
Bonnie.

No. Einstein didn’t want to believe it. Something in his expression must have given him away because her lips tightened. “And no, before you even go there, it’s not me. Or weren’t you paying attention? The way the captain worded the message, he spoke as if someone else confirmed my existence and reactivation. That means someone on this ship is working for the military!”

“Impossible. I’ve known these cyborgs for years. They wouldn’t betray
—
”

The door to his lab opened, despite the security lock, and Astro appeared in the opening.

Einstein frowned. “What is it? You’re not supposed to be here…” He trailed off, noting the gun in the cyborg’s hand, a gun aimed at him. “Oh, Astro, don’t tell me you’re working for the humans?” Astro was the spy? But how? Einstein had cleaned out his BCI himself. He’d have vouched on his life Astro didn’t have any remaining military taint or programming. Unless someone got to him… But how? When?

For some reason, a flash of their most recent stop at the bordello popped up. Einstein wanted to groan.
We’re all fucking idiots.
They’d worried so much about their vessel getting tracked, they never thought to check themselves. Einstein wanted to hang his head in shame. However, recriminations would have to wait. Death stared him and Bonnie in the face. He didn’t need to calculate their odds to know they weren’t good. “Why?” he whispered. After all they’d been through. Why turn on his brethren?

“I had to.”

“Had to?” Einstein couldn’t hide the note of incredulity. “That makes no sense. You had your freedom.”

“But they had my brother. He came to see me when we were visiting the bordello.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t.”

Couldn’t or wouldn’t? Did it matter? “Came to see you and what?”

“None of your business. Suffice it to say, he made me see things in a different light.”

“I’ll bet he did.” Probably via some virus he transmitted to Astro. “Where is your brother now?”

“He was on the other ship,” Bonnie concluded in a quiet voice that drew Astro’s gaze for just a second.

“He was.”

Einstein noted the past tense, but ignored it to ask. “How much did you tell them? How much did you compromise us?”

“Not much. I knew if I didn’t hold information back, they’d just kill us both.”

“But you told them where we were going.”

“Yes. And about B785. Enough to keep them happy.”

“Did Ralph and Fred really die in the ambush, or was that your doing too?”

By his very silence, Astro damned himself.

Anger flooded Einstein’s synapses. “What about our homeworld? Did you betray everyone there too?”

“No. They’re safe for now.” A ghost of a smile twisted Astro’s lip. “Good job locking that information down. Even though I tried, I couldn’t give it away.”

A small sense of relief flooded Einstein. As a precautionary measure, only a small handful of cyborgs knew the actual coordinates of the cyborg planet. Einstein programmed the units that way. In case of capture, it meant the military couldn’t just retrieve the information and mount an invasion. Thank their nano technology for that foresight. But their biggest secret kept safe didn’t let Astro off the hook.

“You should have told me about your brother. We could have saved him.”

“And risk your precious female?” The threatening cyborg sneered. A bitter laugh escaped Astro. “Just like you were all willing to do anything to keep her safe, so am I to rescue my brother. See, if I don’t do what they say, they’ll detonate the bomb they’ve got inside him. I can’t let that happen.”

“So you’d let the safety of one trump that of hundreds?”

“He’s my brother. I might not remember a lot of things about my humanity, but I do remember one thing. Family sticks together. I’m sorry, Einstein. I really did like you and the others, but…” Astro shrugged. “I promised my parents I’d take care of him.”

Cursing the fact he’d firewalled his lab too well in the hopes of containing any possible viruses, Einstein frantically tried to think a way out of their dilemma. Unarmed, with only his wits, things didn’t look good, but he wouldn’t let bad odds prevent him from doing the right thing. As he saw Astro’s finger pressing on the trigger, Einstein lunged, but a small body threw him off balance as Bonnie darted in front of him. He heard her gasp of pain as she took the shot meant for him. To the floor she crumpled in a dead heap.

“Bonnie! No!” Seeing red, his rage overwhelming his cortex, Einstein dove with only his bare hands as his weapon at the treacherous cyborg who dared to hurt the one thing that made him feel alive. Before Astro could fire again, they went down in a tangle of limbs, clawing and wrestling, their bodies too tightly entwined to land any blows of consequence. The gun went skittering across the floor as Einstein managed to grasp the hand holding it and slammed it a few times.

Weaponless, Astro nevertheless snarled. “Idiot. Don’t you know it’s too late? Even now, my brother is destroying the engines. Killing the others. Join us. We don’t have to fight anymore. The military will take us back. Leave us our memories so long as we aid them in bringing in the others. We could live without looking over our shoulders all the time. They’ve even promised us access to our families.”

Bonnie said it more eloquently than he ever could have.

“Like fuck,” she growled before pressing the muzzle of the rescued gun against Astro’s head and pulling the trigger. One loud explosion and the body under him went limp. Cyborgs could heal from a lot of things, but direct head shots, especially ones at close range, weren’t one of them.

Einstein rolled off the corpse and jumped to his feet, his concern immediately flashing to Bonnie. “Show me your injury. We need to stem the blood flow and assess the damage.”

“Chill, charming. It’s only a scratch. I was playing dead.”