The Cyber Chronicles IV - Cyborg (21 page)

"You've
managed until now."

"But now he's
here, and, since I saved you all, it's the least you can do."

"We're paying
for your help," she said.

"You didn't
pay for the fight, and some men were injured. Two were killed."

"Settlers."

He shot her a
glare. "Paying passengers."

Tassin met his
gaze unflinching. "My cyber's injured."

"He won't have
a problem. When you leave, you'll get your weapons back."

When they
returned to their cabin after dinner, their crewman escort objected
to Kole staying there, whereupon Tassin invited him to do something
about it. He scowled at Sabre and left. The cyber sank down on the
bunk with a grimace, holding his ribs, and Kole leant against the
wall.

"He's going to
try something soon, I just know it. He won't wait until Sabre's
recovered even a little. We'll have to stick together like glue,
and I have to go watch the engineers on Striker tomorrow."

"I'd much
rather rest." Sabre sighed.

"When we get
off this rust bucket, you can sleep for a week."

"What do you
think he'll try?" Tassin asked.

"I don't know.
There's not much you can get past a cyber, but I expect he'll think
of something."

She turned to
Sabre. "Why is it that you seem so much more formidable in this
modern society, where they have such deadly weapons, than you were
on Omega Five?"

He looked
pensive. "According to the cyber's information, Omega Five is a
post holocaust world, so I'm guessing it has regressed to a
primitive society?"

"We don't have
technology like this, no."

"It's
primitive," Kole confirmed, earning himself a glare from
Tassin.

"Cybers are
designed to function best in a high technology environment. Powered
weapons like lasers show up on the scanners, but primitive ones
such as spears, swords or arrows aren't so easy to spot. Our
barrinium body armour deflects and defuses laser bolts, which use
heat to destroy internal organs. Barrinium is a superconductor; it
disperses heat, or any kind of power that enters it, at a terrific
rate. Large wounds inflicted by edged weapons, such as swords, are
more dangerous because of the amount of bleeding they cause. If the
enforcers had been better prepared for a cyber conflict, they would
have armed theirs with bladed weapons."

"Which they
probably will next time," Kole said.

Sabre nodded.
"Maybe."

"And you can
dodge laser bolts," Tassin added, recalling the amazing battle.

Sabre
chuckled, winced and hugged his ribs. "No. That would imply that
I'm faster than light, which I'm definitely not. I'm faster than
the men aiming the lasers, that's all, although not as much against
other cybers. My control unit provided me with tactical
information, using my knowledge to select which were enemies and
which were friendly. It then calculated and projected the firing
trajectory of each man by estimating his most likely target. That
allowed me to dodge most of them, but miscalculations happen. It's
hard to explain, but what I saw in my mind during the battle looked
like a web of intersecting lines, each one a potential danger to
me, even if they weren't firing at me. The lines that converged on
my position were red, since they were the most dangerous ones."

Kole shook his
head. "Wow."

"That doesn't
work so well with primitive weapons," Sabre went on. "Then the
cyber can only show me the position of my enemies and estimate how
they'll use their weapons."

"How many
times can you be shot before it's fatal?"

"That depends
on where I'm shot. If it's in the eye or ear, only once."

"In the
body."

He looked
thoughtful again. "In tests on Myon Two, a cyber survived twelve
shots to the chest before succumbing, and it still took him seven
hours to die. Those were fired in rapid succession, but if enough
time is given between shots for the barrinium plating to disperse
the heat, a cyber could survive many more."

"Bugger me,"
Kole muttered. "It only takes one direct hit to the body to kill a
man."

Tassin frowned
at him. "Are you implying that Sabre isn't a man?"

"That's not
what I meant, and you know it."

"If Ravel
wants to steal Striker and our money, why hasn't he tried to kill
Sabre? He has enough men, and Sabre isn't armed."

Kole shrugged.
"Perhaps because attacking even an unarmed cyber is a really shitty
idea. Sabre would arm himself with one of their weapons in about
two seconds flat and take out dozens of them before he went
down."

Sabre's brows
shot up. "Actually, once I had armed myself I would seek cover, not
go down, as you so nicely put it."

"So you could
beat all Ravel's men?" Tassin demanded incredulously.

"Given enough
time and opportunity, it's quite likely."

"But you
couldn't protect us at the same time."

"I could
protect one of you. Two is a bit of a stretch, and cybers aren't
designed for that."

"Who would you
choose?"

"You."

Tassin smiled,
and Kole snorted. "Of course he would choose you, Tassin." He
turned to Sabre. "But if Ravel's men took you by surprise and all
fired at once, what would happen?"

"It's
impossible to surprise a cyber using powered weapons. Even if, by
some quirk of fate, I didn't notice them reaching for their
weapons, a laser must go hot before it can be fired, and the
scanners would pick that up. It only takes a moment, but that's all
I need."

"So they could
surprise you with knives?"

"They'd have a
better chance, but in order to use a knife they'd have to get close
to me, and even then, my body armour will deflect blades. My eyes
and ears are small targets, and they’d only have a split second in
which to strike before I killed them. A group of men armed with
bladed weapons could do some serious damage, and possibly kill me
eventually, but that would take a while, and a lot of men would die
in the process."

Tassin
shivered, remembering Sabre’s battle with Torrian’s men, and again
with the soldiers from Olgara. “I’ve seen that.”

Kole raised
his brows at her. “When?”

“
On Omega Five. Twice he was attacked by more than twenty
soldiers with swords, and both times he killed them all, although
he was injured.”

"Okay, good to
know.” He turned to Sabre again. “Right now, Ravel is probably
trying to figure out the best way to eliminate you, so it would
help if we knew how to do that."

"A poisoned
dart fired from a blow gun, but there are only three kinds of
poison that will kill a cyber, and even those don’t work instantly,
like they do on a normal man. It would still take me several hours
to die, although I would without the antidote. Also, those three
poisons are heavily restricted by Myon Two, so they’re very hard to
get hold of, and very expensive. There are also a couple of
sedatives and paralytic agents that work, especially the one Myon
Two uses in caskets, to paralyse cyber hosts for cold sleep, but
again, those are extremely hard to get hold of. Then there are a
few poisons that will make me very sick for a while, although I
will recover in a few hours."

"Okay, so we
must get that armour for you," Kole said. "Although I doubt Ravel
has a ready supply of blow guns or poisoned darts."

"What about
poison gas?" Tassin asked, glancing around the little cabin.

Sabre shook
his head. "The cyber would detect it, and I can hold my breath for
more than twenty minutes, plenty of time to smash through a
wall."

"But it would
kill us, so he might try that, since once we were dead, a cyber
would no longer fight him, right?"

"First of all,
it wouldn’t kill you, because I’d have you out of this room in a
matter of seconds. It might make you sick, that’s all. Also, a
cyber will follow his last order until it's countermanded. Even if,
for some unknown reason, I couldn’t rescue you, in a room this
size, poison gas would take several seconds to kill you, enough
time for you to order me to kill everyone on this ship. Ravel won't
risk that."

Kole nodded.
"I remember a case like that. The cyber was ordered to kill
everyone, since the owner didn't know who had poisoned him. He
started on the man's family and worked his way out into a city. By
the time they tracked him down and stopped him with the owner's
override, he had slaughtered a hundred and seventy-eight people.
That case got Myon Two into a lot of hot water, but no one could
think of a way to prevent it happening again."

"Surely
there's always a risk of a madman buying a cyber and sending him to
kill innocent people?" Tassin asked.

"Surprisingly,
it's never happened."

"What I'd like
to know," Sabre murmured, "is why we're staying in this cramped,
stuffy cabin when Striker is ship clamped and accessible through
the airlock."

Kole stared at
him for several thunderstruck moments, then turned to Tassin. "He's
right."

"So why didn't
you say so before?"

"I didn't
think of it." Kole shook his head. "It never crossed my mind. I'm
an idiot."

Tassin sighed.
"How long have you been wondering about it, Sabre?"

"Since Kole
told us Striker was in ship clamp."

"Why didn't
you say something sooner?"

"I thought
there must be a reason we couldn't live aboard, since no one else
suggested it."

Tassin turned
to Kole. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go."

"Hang on.
There's still one thing to consider. Ravel's not going to want us
aboard Striker. He'll try to stop us getting to her."

"If all our
suppositions are correct, he's going to make his move soon anyway,
so why not try it now? He's not expecting it. We might even make it
aboard without him knowing about it. It's late; most of the crew
will be asleep."

"There's
always someone on watch, and cameras in every corridor," Sabre
said.

Kole rubbed
his brow and scowled at Tassin. "I've been wondering about
something for a while myself. Why don't you just use that bloody
sword of yours and spirit us all out of here?"

Tassin glanced
at the shadows under the bunk, where she had concealed the weapon.
"No. It's evil, and I don't trust it."

"It brought
you to Ferrinon."

She shook her
head. "You don't understand. I'll only use it as a last resort,
when the consequences don't matter anymore. We might make it to the
ship if there are only a few crewmen around."

"I hate to
point out the obvious, but Striker's in ship clamp and the engines
don't work. Even if we get on board, we can't go anywhere."

"Then why
would Ravel try to stop us getting on board?"

"Because once
I close the door, he'll have to burn his way in, and Striker is
armed. With the recycling equipment, we could hold out in her for
months, but he could still hand us over to the enforcers once we
leave Rashid. He'd just lose out on a ship and the money."

Sabre sighed,
staring at the ceiling. "For every move, there's a counter
move."

"Basically
we're in the shit no matter what we do."

"Then you'll
just have to fix the engines yourself," Tassin said.

"Do I look
like a damned engineer?"

"You must know
something, otherwise why were you watching the engineers?"

“
To make sure they didn't try to hack Striker."

Tassin turned
to Sabre, who frowned and asked, "Do I look like a damned engineer
too?"

"What should
we do?"

He considered.
"At the moment, our tactical position is weak, so we should
strengthen it."

"So we should
go to Striker."

"No, we do
what Ravel is planning to do to us. Take him hostage and make him
order his engineers to repair Striker."

Tassin looked
dumbstruck. "That's brilliant, but what if he's not planning
anything? We're only guessing that he is. He might be going to help
us escape."

Kole threw up
his hands. "Oh, great, now we're going around in circles, and we're
back at square one."

"I'm just
trying to be fair. You can't condemn a man for something he hasn't
done yet, just because you suspect him of planning it."

"No, let's
wait until he's done it, and we're floating around in space with
the rest of the trash."

Sabre rolled
onto his side, turning his back to them. "Could you two argue a bit
more quietly? I'd like to get some sleep."

Tassin sank
down on the floor and buried her face in her knees.

Kole squatted
beside her. "Taking the captain hostage is the safest option, and
you can apologise all you want if we're mistaken. No one will get
hurt."

Tassin raised
her head, looking glum, then nodded. "All right, let's do it."

Kole jumped
up, and Sabre rolled onto his back, squinting at them. "Have we
come to a decision?"

"Yeah, we're
going after the captain."

"You want to
kidnap him from his cabin?"

"It was your
idea."

"Not
kidnapping him from his cabin, that's full of pitfalls."

Tassin looked
exasperated. "Such as?"

"Well, if he's
really smart, he might be expecting us to try it, in which case
we're walking into a trap."

"Surely your
scanners will detect a trap?" Tassin asked.

"That depends
on how cleverly it's set. He knows I've got scanners, and so he'll
plan for that too."

"How?"

"Put a decoy
in his bed; have his men standing by in their cabins."

Kole turned
and banged his head on the wall.

Tassin sighed
and rubbed her brow. "So what should we do?"

"Right now, we
should get some sleep. Tomorrow we go to see him."