The Cyber Chronicles VII - Sabre (2 page)

Tassin looked
up at the receding blue and white globe in the screens. "Omega
Five?"

He nodded.
"Myon Two enforcers have ambushed us. We're leaving."

"But we're
here! We're home!"

"They'll
destroy us if we stay."

"Call Fairen!"
she said.

"We can come
back. We don't need to worry him."

"They'll just
be waiting for us again!"

"I'll speak to
him when we're safe. There's no need to call him here."

"They didn't
obey him last time; why would they do it next time?"

Sabre shook
his head, gazing at the shrinking globe. "That's for him to
arrange, if he will."

"Why won't
they just leave us alone?"

He folded his
arms. "Because they're enforcers."

Nemesis
shuddered again and again, and the enemy ships gained on them. Once
Nemesis reached light speed, however, the enforcers' weapons would
become useless, so they would be safe in the corridor. The next
problem was where to go with enforcers on their tail.

"Call Fairen
now," Tassin insisted. "Why wait?"

Sabre
hesitated, wanting to argue that Fairen was a busy boy, and Nemesis
might make it to the corridor. Judging by the amount of damage the
ship was accruing, however, that might not be the case. He went
over to the communications console, changed to the correct
frequency, and picked up the microphone.

"Overlord
Fairen. This is Sabre. We have encountered enforcers at Omega Five,
please respond."

The
communications officer frowned at his instruments. "They're jamming
you, Commander. That frequency is blocked."

Sabre nodded.
"Of course they are. We've got to get into a corridor."

Tassin
flinched as a jolt rocked the ship, and a distant boom came from
its bowels. "If we make it."

Sabre glanced
down at the bracelet again. The last thing he wanted to do was
abuse Fairen's generosity, but it looked like he had no choice. His
bones tingled, and his blood chilled with shock and dread. He
closed his eyes as searing cold gripped him, and he seemed to
tumble through space. Dark grey flooring hit his feet, and he
dropped into a crouch, dizziness making him sway.

White walls
surrounded him and glaring overhead lights made him squint. The
cyber flashed multiple warnings in his mind, too many to react to
at once, and his hand snapped to his left wrist as a dart hit him
in the neck. It had been fired the moment he materialised, making
evasion impossible. Usually, enforcers would have just as much
trouble winning against a cyber as anyone else, but the
translocation had given them an advantage. Now that they had him,
they knew exactly how to incapacitate him, and had the means to do
it. Clearly the ships had been waiting for him, and his capture was
well planned. He triggered the bracelet’s emergency beacon as the
strength drained out of him in an alarming rush, and he
collapsed.

A red analysis
appeared in the back of his mind, identifying the drug as
endronate, extremely effective against cybers and instantly lethal
to normal humans. The control unit initiated countermeasures in the
form of a fluid flush and an adrenalin surge, but they would do
little good. His eyes closed, his breathing slowed, and a dull
roaring filled his ears. He switched to the cyber's sensors, and
the scanners showed that he was in a small, reinforced chamber.
While he waited for someone to arrive, he considered the
ramifications of his translocation. Enforcers were not supposed to
have transfer technology, and they could only have got it from an
Overlord. He did not need to guess which one. Ramadaus.

Two men in
white jumpsuits approached him.

One said, "Get
his other arm."

The cyber's
audio sensors made the voice tinny, but crystal clear.

The men
gripped Sabre's wrists and lifted him, dragging him face-down out
of a door and along a black-floored corridor with pale grey walls.
They entered a room lined with sleek black and silver equipment,
consoles, keyboards and glowing data screens. Grey was a popular
colour with Myon Two, and particularly Cybercorp, for some reason.
His captors lifted him onto a metal table and removed his tunic and
shirt, then secured him with reinforced duronium cuffs that were
welded to the table top. When his wrists, ankles and neck were
shackled, four men gathered around him.

A tall,
sallow-skinned blond man with a beaky nose peered at Sabre. "So,
this is him."

The shorter,
balding man with hard black eyes and a unibrow nodded. "The
infamous rogue cyber. The bigwigs back home want a good look at him
real bad."

"He's the A
plus?"

"Yep. He’s
supposed to be the best cyber ever produced."

"He has
remarkably few scars for a cyber that's been in service for what,
almost ten years?" an older, portly man commented.

"Thereabouts."

A handsome,
grey-haired man with a hard face and silver trim around the cuffs
and collar of his well-cut dark grey uniform moved closer to
Sabre's head. "I'd like to talk to him, Grundel."

"You'd just be
talking to the host, Commander," the balding man, who appeared to
be the senior technician, said.

"Can we get
the control unit online?"

"We can hook
it up to an interface."

"Do it."

Grundel pulled
a square console with two screens atop it to Sabre's side, gripped
his head and plugged a cable into the brow band. The tech typed on
the keypad and peered at a screen, whose information was mirrored
in Sabre’s mind.

"Here we go.
Inputting password. We have access. Status: malfunctioning, of
course. Bio-status: one hundred per cent. Huh, that's pretty
amazing. All cyber implants are offline, yet the seventh control
light is green." He typed in a query. "It's a feedback from the
cerebral cortex. Not only has the control unit lost control of its
host, the host now has control of it."

The portly man
grunted. "That's got to piss it off."

"Big time,"
Grundel agreed.

"Can it be
fixed?"

Grundel typed
on the keyboard again. "Probably. What I'd like to know is how it
happened. I’ll access the memory circuit for audio and video
playback."

Sabre fumed
with helpless fury as his conversation with Tassin from two days
ago played on a wall screen at his side.

The portly man
chuckled after a couple of minutes. "Wow, that little sweetie sure
has the hots for him."

"Hmmm,
fascinating, but not what we're looking for,” Grundel said. “You
can watch it some other time."

Several more
scenes from Sabre’s memory were played before they found the one
containing the beings of light, which they watched from beginning
to end in silence. Then the commander turned to Grundel.

"I've never
heard of that type of alien, have you?"

"Nope, that's
a new species. And that's solved an age-old mystery; the origin of
Archetype. Fascinating stuff." He leant over Sabre and shone a
bright light on his chest. "Look at that. Archetype did that
too."

"What causes
it?"

"Light-refracting skin cells. They protect against heat, but we
could never get the gene combination right to produce it. Those
aliens did some amazing stuff to him."

"Why would
they do that?"

Grundel
shrugged. "Who knows? Sounds like they took a shine to him. Females
tend to find cybers attractive. That was done to corner the market
in rich, lonely old ladies."

"What's that
on his wrist?"

Grundel
examined the bracelet. "It's high tech, that's for sure. Looks like
some sort of..." He scowled. "Bugger! It's an Overlord friendship
bracelet." He glanced up at his commander. "It's the Scorpion
Lord's."

"Is it
active?"

Grundel shook
his head. "I don't know."

"Well, find
out. And deactivate it."

"I can't. No
one can deactivate an Overlord bracelet, or remove it."

"Find a way.
Contact HQ."

Grundel
hesitated, studying the bracelet again. "I could break it, but if
he activated it..."

"He might not
have."

"But if he
did..."

"Break it and
stop the signal. At least then the Scorpion Lord won't be able to
find him, or us. HQ will have to decide what to do about it."

Grundel turned
to a tray of instruments beside him and picked up a pair of
cutters. Clamping them around the bracelet's centre, where the tiny
beacon was located, he crushed it with a crisp crunch.

"That should
do it," he muttered, replacing the cutters on the tray with a
clatter.

"Ask the cyber
if he activated it."

Grundel turned
to the keyboard and typed in the query, but Sabre ordered the cyber
to be silent. "It won't respond. The host must be controlling
it."

"We could wake
him up and make him to tell us."

"He's awake,
and torture won't work on a cyber."

"He's just the
host."

"True, but I'd
rather not deal with him." He turned to his commander. "The guys on
Myon Two are going to be really excited about this. They won't
destroy him now, even if he can't be fixed. He'll be cloned, so we
can upgrade to fireproof cybers. He'll be put into stasis."

"Let's hope he
didn't have time to activate the bracelet, though. See if you can
find anything else interesting in his memories."

****

"No!" Tassin
cried, staring at the spot where Sabre had vanished. Atrel also
gaped at the empty space, and several officers swung around.

"They've taken
him!" She turned to Atrel. "We've got to get him back!"

"The enemy
ships have broken off their attack," an officer stated. "They're
overtaking us."

"They're
taking him to Myon Two," Tassin said. "Stop them!"

Atrel frowned
at her. "Be quiet, or I'll have you removed. The only reason you're
tolerated is because the commander allows it."

She glared at
him, biting her tongue to prevent hot words from spilling from it.
"Please help him."

Atrel turned
back to the screens. "Target the ships, aim for their engines."

"Let me use
the communications console," Tassin begged. "I can call the
Overlord and ask for his aid."

"Be silent.
Those ships are still jamming us."

Tassin stared
at the screens, where the two black ships moved past, glowing spots
appearing on their hulls as Nemesis' lasers strafed them.

"Keep up with
them," Atrel ordered.

"Going to one
hundred per cent thrust," an officer said.

The floor
vibrated, and the tension on the bridge rose, making Tassin wonder
how safe it was for the old Trykon warship to use one hundred per
cent thrust. In the screens, a fireball erupted from the second
black ship's engines, and the officers shouted in triumph.

"A direct hit
on their engines, First Lieutenant!"

Atrel smiled
and nodded, then his face fell as the fireball continued to expand
into the ship. Flames burst through its hull as it disintegrated,
torn apart by a massive explosion. Tassin raised a hand to her
mouth in horror.

"Prepare for
debris wave," Atrel said, glancing at her. "He might be on the
other ship."

She nodded,
clinging to that hope. Her brave words to Sabre now rang hollow.
She did not want to go on living if he was dead.

Chapter Two

"My Lord! My
Lord, please wake up!" Commander Shrain touched the young
Overlord's shoulder, giving him a gentle shake.

Fairen cursed
and burrowed under the silken covers, shrugging him off. "Leave me
alone!"

"My Lord, it's
urgent!"

"I don't care.
Piss off."

"It's the
cyber."

"What about
him?"

"He's
activated the distress beacon."

Fairen flung
off the covers and sat up in his massive, crimson quilted bed.
"When?"

"A few minutes
ago. I came straight away."

"Locate it."
Fairen reached for his trousers.

"We're already
doing that, My Lord."

"Prepare for
emergency translocation." Fairen swore when he discovered that he
was trying to stuff both legs into the same trouser leg. "Why does
he always do this when I'm asleep?"

"The ship is
fifty seconds from translocation configuration."

"Locate the
beacon!"

Shrain, a
grey-haired man in his mid-fifties with a bluff countenance and
receding hairline, consulted his communications box. "It's
stopped."

"Translocate
to its last location."

"Yes, My Lord,
at once."

Fairen pulled
on his shirt and stood up, then bent and found his shoes. "Have you
found it yet?"

"Almost."

"Hurry
up!"

"Yes, My
Lord." Shrain typed faster. "We've narrowed the location to an
obscure planet on the rim. It's somewhere in the region of... Omega
Five."

"Translocate
there at once."

"What about
the negotiations between -?"

"Tell them
they'd better have come to an agreement before I come back, or I'll
wipe them both out."

"Yes, My
Lord."

Fairen headed
for the door, Shrain trotting in his wake. His private apartment,
like the rest of the Scorpion Ship, had a décor of black and pale
grey with crimson trimmings, such as the curtains that draped his
four-poster bed and hung against the walls, back-lighted so they
gave off a subtle ruddy glow that the floating light globes all but
banished when they were at their brightest. Since he had been in
the midst of a sleep cycle when Shrain had woken him, they had been
dim at first, but now that he was awake, the ship’s AI raised the
lighting to a normal daytime level. As he stepped through the
portal, the freezing solidity of translocation gripped him. A
blinding flash seared his eyes, and then he staggered free of the
stasis and reeled down the grey-carpeted corridor, Shrain stumbling
after him. In the vast black-walled control room, Fairen frowned at
the peaceful blue and white planet in the four twenty-metre ovoid
screens.