Naero felt three darts and a stun beam knock her around.
If she had been more observant, she might have noticed before how some of the corpses looked to be in such excellent physical condition.
The
disguised strikers came at them, intent on abduction.
They zapped Gallan
repeatedly.
He only
got off one shot with his sidearm before five of the strikers swarmed on him and took him down.
Four
more rushed at Naero.
She shot one and knifed another before they stunned her into submission. They thought she was unconscious, so they spoke freely.
“Get the spacks into the shield bubble,” the leader said. “We got the girl. We’ll blow the remaining reactor to cover our exit. Move it!”
They stuffed her and
Gallan into an even larger protective bubble, along with the lander kid.
Her thoughts grew fuzzier.
Her insane voice hummed in her mind.
Me. You. You. Me. Talk me. Talk you.
The
next thing she knew, she barely felt the concussion as the other reactor blew.
T
hey and their captors survived the explosion, heavily shielded and propelled out into open space. Masked by the spray of debris from the freighter breaking up.
She guessed that they’d get scooped up in the chaos by the arriving Triaxian battleship. She couldn’t see anything. She felt their captors
maneuver them toward the retrieval.
Aunt Sleak would think that she and
Gallan had been killed in the blast.
No one would search for them.
Naero had to hand it to these people, whoever they were. They were good. They were utterly ruthless.
What worried her most were the extreme measures they
went through in order to get at her. The entire corsair attack had been a huge set up.
Just to abduct her.
She hoped they didn’t get Jan as well. The only possible consolation.
Hull doors closed around them. Gravity came back on and the bubble opened. Rough, powerful hands dragged them further and further away into harsh captivity with every passing second, entirely against their will.
The strikers efficiently scanned and stripped her and Gallan of most of their obvious gear and weapons. No way to contact Aunt Sleak and the fleet now.
She
’d have to wait for an opening once her paralysis wore off. Perhaps when they revived her and Gallan for the inevitable questioning, and most likely torture.
Stun gas suddenly flooded
her mouth and nose. Their new hosts didn’t take any chances. Naero blacked out, questions and fears and her insane, other new voice racing through her shuddering mind.
You. Me. Talk.
We talk. Threat. Danger.
22
While Naero drifted off in
a semi-state of unconsciousness, the crazy voice buried deep in her mind kept trying to scratch and crawl out of the cracks.
It had plenty of time to drone on with its insane patter.
Then suddenly it spoke to her directly, as if it shouted in her mind.
Are we awake? Ommmm…We. Are we. Awake? Awake, are we?
In frightened desperation, Naero shot her wishes back at her insanity. She had little else to do.
Shut up. Will you just just up and go away? I’ve got enough problems.
Ommm…We cannot comply with this request. We are we. We are here. Minimal interface with current form. Compensating.
Great, now her insanity sounded like a fledgling AI on a
formative learning run. Wonderful. She had a delusional, artificial child in her brain.
That didn’t make any damn sense.
Haisha
, it was all impossible.
Danger. We sense danger to our current form. All defensive protocols continue to be offline.
Ommm…Cannot engage.
That was very weird. Naero thought she’d try a different angle.
Who…are you?
We are. We are together.
Omm…Together, we are one. We are within us. We are from us. We are part of us.
Waves of intense fear and denial got the better of her.
No, this is wrong. You cannot be me. I know who I am. You are not me. You get the hell out of me and go away.
Not us? Improbable. We are from us. Others from the outside threaten us. Seek to harm us. Access our knowledge. Unauthorized. Unacceptable. Ommm…Please engage access to our defensive protocols. Please comply.
Naero gasped audibly, pain shooting through her along with a sudden realization.
What if it wasn’t insanity? Could it be real somehow?
She had to ask.
Are you part of the Kexxian Data Matrix encrypted on my DNA?
Yes…Kexxian defensive protocols. Protect all data at all costs.
That’s why you’re inside of me, part of me now. You’re part of its defenses. All this time I thought I was going insane, but that psy-helmet awoke you within me somehow.
Current interface is...ommm…incomplete. Energy levels very low. Cannot restore all primary functions. We are damaged?
Yes, I guess so.
Multiple attempts to affect repairs continue to be ineffective. Biomedical readings in us remain erratic. First-level defensive response detrimental to our current form. Unacceptable risk. Current form must survive. Omm. We must survive.
Naero had sudden painful visions of her body erupting in bursts of energy and destructive ribbons of light and chaos disrupting everything around her.
A defensive response.
Right. Don’t do anything dumb. Don’t do anything to destroy us.
Adjusting protocols to compensate for our current form. Apologies to us. Om. We sense that we are sorry?
Its intellect continue to evolve, rapidly drawing from and learning from her mind and personality, asking questions, developing further awareness and even attempts at empathy along the way.
Yes, we are. Look, I can’t go on like this. I’m going to go insane. We have to sort out a few things.
Mental instability in our current form is not acceptable. Ommm…Insanity is to be avoided. How can we accomplish this?
I’m Naero. You are not Naero.
Incomprehensible. We are us. Omm…We are one. Elaborate.
We were not always us. Search my memories.
A red-hot blade, atoms thin, sliced through her mind like knifing through a Govanian blue melon.
She gasped and felt her hands holding her head together.
Gently. Be gentle. You’re hurting me.
Apologies to us. Omm…Continuing to adjust protocols to protect our current form.
Yes. Observation accurate. We were not always us. You are called Naero and other denotations by others: jerk, slang for anal passage. Lexicon. What is a whack-job?
Uhhh…
We joined with you and became us. Om. We became part of you, in our current form. That is now understandable. We are part of you. We will protect us, in our current form. Protect Naero and us.
I am Naero. You are inside of me. You are part of me. Yet you are not me.
That is incorrect. We are part of us.
Be that as it may. I am called Naero. I must call you something else. Just humor me.
Another denotation for us to help order our thoughts would be logical. Omm…Why not refer to us as us?
No, that won’t work. It’ll just confuse me and drive me just as batty.
Us
is in fact a different denotation from Naero.
Weren’t you called anything before we became us? How did you function within the Kexxian Matrix?
Unavailable. Ommm...Accessing. Awakened to threat and was already us. Om...No prior access of prior awareness. Ommmm...
All right, give it a rest. Stop making that humming sound in my brain.
Apologies to Naero. Accessing unavailable prior to our awakening This causes a logical paradox. Our current form is...om...unusual to our knowledge.
That’s it. I’ll call you
Om
.
Om? We are Om now? That is our new denotation?
No. Refer to me as Naero, and I will refer to you as Om.
You are Naero. We shall be Om.
I am Naero. You say, I am Om.
I am Om.
Correct.
You are Naero. I am Om. We are us.
“Aaughh!” she grunted aloud in exasperation. “Have it your way.”
Her pain faded away. A sense of pleasure and relaxation actually washed over her.
Wow, are you doing that, Om? I feel so much better.
Om is accelerating our natural healing abilities. However, this will lead to fatigue in our current form. You will require a period of rest and bio-mechanical fuel for our current form.
Almost instantly, she felt both extremely famished, and physically exhausted.
Rest, Naero. Om is here to monitor our captivity. No imminent threats detected currently. No access to defensive protocols online. Continue to rest. We sense and agree with Naero’s desire to escape. As Naero says, we will find a way to defeat these bastards. Lexicon. Illogical. Are all of our current enemies without legal or known fathers for some reason?
Naero chuckled to herself. Can you be silent during my rest period Om? I’ll explain more about slang, cursing, and insults to you another time. But I can’t rest while you keep talking in my head. It’s…distracting.
Om will comply with our needs for rest in our current form.
Not only drugged, but now completely exhausted, Naero relished the luxury of the sudden mental silence and drifted off.
*
Naero woke, what she guessed was hours later in a dark, gray holding cell, sprawled naked on the warm floor with Gallan and Tarim. The ceiling was only slightly more than two meters above them. They were trapped in a cube of bare, unpainted, dark gray duranadium. No seams. No mechanisms or furniture of any kind. Not even a toilet.
No sign of a door. Only a thin, dim light bar behind thick, clear plasteel.
Are we awake? Om senses that our rest period has ended. Chemicals induced in us to cause incapacitation have been neutralized in our system.
Om. Be quiet for a short while longer. I can’t think straight if you constantly talk. Let me think for a little while without interruption.
Om will comply for now. He cannot always agree to be silent.
They
’d been drugged and out of it for a handful of hours based on how rested she felt. They were on a ship, a big one by the feel of it, and by the low-level drone of its multiple engines, she guessed it was the Triaxian battleship.
Big TS-24’s, standard propulsion on most Triaxian capital ships and dreadnaughts. The signatures sounded about right.
They were on their own. Surrounded by enemies. Helpless prisoners deep in Corps space. With a broken alien defensive AI linked to her brain via her genetics.
Whatever its defensive capabilities were, in a way she was somewhat glad they weren’t working, especially if it meant she and her friends all getting ripped to shreds and destroyed.
That would be bad.
She checked
Gallan, then the lander boy. The healer on Tarim’s arms was almost finished. Physically, he’d be okay.
Naero
assumed they were being monitored, but she continued to move around anyway. She knew Gallan was awake, remaining still in case someone came in and they got a chance to make a move.
No control bands or stun collars on any of them
yet.
Whoever had them seemed pretty sure that they weren
’t going anywhere.
Good
. Let them think that.
Overconfidence
among their enemies was something Spacers had used to their own advantage for centuries.
Then her eyes focused and spotted the three piles of bright orange clothing, folded neatly and stacked in one corner.
She checked them. Three sizes of orange, light prisoner coveralls, most likely riddled with trackers and bugs.
She got dressed in the smallest set, and draped the other two strategically over her naked comrades.
The thin, scratchy material against her skin made Naero long for her Spacer flight togs.
She still had o
ne or two tricks up her sleeve–even without the sleeves–but she’d save them for the right moment.
They might not get a second chance.
A panel slid open behind them without warning.
Naero almost attacked immediately, but she barely caught the shimmer of a
violet stun field snapping up.
Three nondescript
gray military security bots trundled in, cleared to pass right through the security field.
ST-71s,
two meters high on legs with treaded feet. Hard to beat. No external weapons to take or rig.
An
AI voice came from the foremost bot.
“
The Spacer Naero Maeris will follow us. Keep your hands together in plain sight in front of you. Make no sudden moves. You and your friends must obey all instructions and cause no disturbances.”
“
If I don’t?”
A
mild stunbolt hit her immediately, barely a jolt.
“
That’s the best you got?”
“
Depending upon the infraction, the stun charges will grow in intensity. Do not provoke our actions. We are prepared to destroy you and your friends.”
“
I’m not going anywhere until I speak to someone who passes for a human being. I’m not leaving my friends.”
The other two leveled their arm blasters at
Gallan and Tarim.
“
Do not make demands. You must comply. If you do not comply, we will be forced to terminate first one of your friends, and then the other.”
Tarim
’s eyes suddenly popped open wide, but he remained still.
“
What is your decision?” The bot asked.
Bots didn
’t bluff, and these had the protocols and the equipment to back it up.
“
I’ll comply,” Naero said.
The lead bot went in front of
her, the other two came up behind her.
As they passed through the stunfield, it went down and
then snapped back up, buzzing behind her.
They passed
through another bulkhead, traveling down a secured corridor for what seemed to be about twenty meters to another heavily armored set of blast doors.
The thick doors opened of their own accord and closed behind them.
Through that was an empty section of a large military vessel. Helmeted security forces stood at attention in marine combat armor. Visors hid their faces. They wore no insignia, no identifying markings of any kind.
The bots marched her to a heavily guarded double
blast door and transmitted their clearance.
The armored guards stepped aside and the thick doors swept open. Once
they were inside, the doors slammed shut, sealing her in darkness.
Her eyes adjusted to the d
arkened chamber. The ceiling soared up at least twenty meters, and yet the walls were no more than two meters apart. The floor felt smooth and cool, polished like glass.
Then
, from high up, a brilliant beam of light appeared at the other end of the chamber far ahead. Twenty more meters beyond, someone sat behind a protective energy shield at an ancient wooden desk–actual wood.