As it was, he could barely stand, and his arms were completely disabled. Spin deactivated her cloaking system and made her faceplate transparent. "I was born here."
"Soft, small, little pleasure creature made to please even softer humans," the Dasian said as though they were curses. "You couldn't have defeated us. There must be a hundred of you."
Boro, Aldo and Dori appeared then. "Only four," Boro said. Sophia and Spencer carefully emerged from their hiding spot, their suits sealed to protect them against the toxic smoke and dwindling fire.
"Why are your people here?" Spin asked.
"To take the station and make an army of obedient slaves for my Queen. She's promised the greatest victors slaves of their own, and the valorous fallen a place in her Arena of the Dead, where we can…"
Even through the translator, the Dasian looked so much like Kort that she couldn't stand watching him rave on about his Queen or the afterlife she promised anymore, so she tilted her rifle up and blasted him in the face until he fell back, mostly headless. "Let's move on," she said, turning away from the scene towards the main doors leading further into the station. The maturation and holding chambers weren't far off.
Forty-Six
As Skylar and Gavin followed their guides down the paths leading to the processing plant Skylar scanned in the distance, she felt a growing sense of unease. The Issyrian, she assumed he was Issyrian, anyway, based on the style of containment suit he wore and the breathing pattern she could hear through its water recycling system, was talking to the humans riding beside him. They couldn't hear anything other than the whines and squeaks that Issyrians made when they were talking under water, so she assumed whatever he was saying was being translated and transmitted to his cohorts. When he spoke before, he used a speaker to translate his words aloud. She could only conclude that whatever he was saying wasn't for her or Gavin's ears.
"If you're worried about us eating your food, or using your supplies, you don't have to. We have enough on us to last several days, and we're trained to survive just about anywhere, so we can scrounge up our own food if your people are short," Gavin offered as reassurance.
"We have an abundance. We make a surplus that was trade. We're not worried about you two eating too much, trust me," Gusson said with a thin smile.
The ground they tread on turned from the damp black stuff that felt like drying silt to thick clay as they moved up a hill. A shanty town came into view as they passed through a close group of thick trunked trees. The wood would be worth a fortune where they came from; naturally grown stuff that was twice as wide as she was, and hard wood from the looks of it with a fine dark colour. Her thoughts wandered for an instant and she found herself wondering if the world they were standing on was terraformed centuries before or formed naturally. The wildlife was almost familiar, similar to the kind she'd seen a few times, but nothing matched up perfectly.
Then three children ran into the broadening path. They were from the shanty atop the hill, wearing clothing made from scavenged synthetic and natural cloth. The fit was loose on two, too tight on one of them, but they were clean for the most part, a good sign for their quality of life. They stopped in shock, staring at her and Gavin round-eyed.
Skylar bent down and smiled at the girl, who was tallest of the three and in clothes she was about to outgrow. "I'm Skylar, what's your name?"
She took a quick step back, screaming; "Dirty Synth!" before running away, the younger boys joining her. "Wicked Iron Port Synths!"
"That's not good," Gavin said.
"You're gonna stand out," the woman with a scar across her face said. "You're too pretty to be from here. No one in the world is that good to look at except for the Synths in Iron Port."
"I didn't catch your name," Gavin said.
"I didn't give it," the scarred woman said. "Ida, pretty boy, it's Ida."
"That little girl reacted like she wasn't happy to see synths. Are the synthetics here hard to get along with?" he asked.
Skylar was happy he was being diplomatic. He could even be charming if he decided to be, but sometimes he spoke too plainly, his words stripped of niceties. "We're dirt-dwellers to them. Only good for working, selling scriff to, gaming plat and gear from. They look at our tech like it's junker trash," Ida said. "Won't let us trade our way up so we can have a place of our own in Iron Port, they'd rather keep us down where…"
"They say Iron Port is full," Gusson interrupted. "It hasn't been up in the sky for a year, though, so we can't see how. They're choosy, and that's fine with me. I'm happy down here where we never run out of food or parts."
"The Iron Port synths speak for Iron Mind. They're stingy, even rip us off sometimes."
"They negotiate for the best deal they can get for what we're offering," Gusson defended half-heartedly. "Just like anyone else."
"They have so much, then trade so little for as much food and cloth as they can get for a little plat and a few good parts, maybe a couple little energy modules. Synths never trade fair. We're dirt to them."
"That's enough, Ida. You're getting plenty out of today, stop crying about yesterday trades," Gusson growled.
They travelled silently for a while, and Skylar took in the look of the town they passed into. There was a tall wall made of hull segments salvaged from a ship so large that she couldn't piece them together in her head to figure out what it was. Guards, some in makeshift armour, others in armour from military organizations that she didn't recognize as often as she did, gathered over the gatehouse to see the newcomers. They were in awe, and Skylar wished she had her suit completely sealed, but left her head exposed in case covering up could make things worse. She felt exposed as they stared down at them, some grinning, others shaking their heads and scowling.
Once through the wicket gate, the small pedestrian door beside the tall main doors, they emerged onto a street that was roughly paved in chunks of concrete that weren't poured there but organized like massive flat stones to make a road. The dome containing the lake towered above everything except for a few towers built from found metal and cables.
The nicer homes they passed were made from small ships and transit shuttles. Most of them were severely damaged and patched but would probably never fly again. The other homes were made from random pieces of metal, plastic from mid-sized containers, and wood. It was odd, seeing whole wooden panels and logs that would be worth a fortune where she came from used to build shanty walls alongside bioplastic sheets and container sides that should have been recycled, not used for housing.
Wind catchers that spun overhead on roofs and little towers were common, providing power and catching moisture for clean household water. Skylar started to see a pattern in how people regarded them when they were seen the first time. Many of the townsfolk looked them right in the eye before glancing downward, their gazes dwelling on their feet, covered by the boots built into their suits but sullied by the black dirt. "I'm guessing the synths you've met don't come down from Iron Port?" Skylar asked.
"They don't touch the ground for longer than they must, they always have too-clean boots," Ida replied. She dismounted and fell back so she was walking alongside Gavin and Skylar. Her crawling, humanoid android mount stood upright and walked behind her silently, too tall, its hands, bare feet and knees black from the soil. "You're not like the Iron Port synths, are you?"
"If they're as prejudiced as they seem, then no," Gavin said. "We'd rather make ourselves useful, and…" he stopped speaking suddenly, there was something wrong.
Skylar turned so she could see what was going on and realized that Ida had taken Gavin's scanner and was working on opening his thigh pocket. "Leave him alone," Skylar warned, her hand resting on the butt of her sidearm.
Gavin tried to step away from Ida and managed to get her hands off of him for a moment before she grabbed his forearm firmly, smiling. "I'm half bot, no getting away."
"I'm going to tell Deckard we have new synths," Gusson said, urging his mount into a strange gallop on its androi
d hands and feet. The Issyrian kept up with him.
Four guards, three in battered British Alliance armour with missing plates here and there, the fourth in a full metal suit that had a few noisy motors running within, emerged from an alley and Skylar's heart sank. The newcomers were armed, carrying rifles and handguns, but they weren't pointing them at her or Gavin yet. The way she saw it, there was one chance, and it was a big gamble.
She drew her weapon quickly and fired at Ida, catching her fully in the forehead with a charged slug. "Run!" Skylar shouted, and then made it to the mouth of the opposite alleyway before she realized that Gavin wasn't behind her. Skylar glanced back in time to see Ida trip Gavin and press him down to the ground, the top half of her face was stripped bare of flesh, revealing a dented metal skull beneath. "You bitch! Do you realize how expensive flesh growing is? It's going to take weeks and all the plat I got to get a new pretty!"
"Run, Skylar!" Gavin said, his arms twisting behind his back.
"If you take another step and I twist his hand off!" Ida screeched.
"Just go!" Gavin shouted, grimacing and struggling. He managed to get one arm free, tried to turn so the pressure on the other was relieved, then Ida put a foot down on his back, gripped his forearm and started to pull on his hand. Her eyes and her bloodied grin were wide with glee. Gavin's face was frozen in an expression of pure, silent agony.
"Wait!" Skylar said, dropping her gun. "I won't run, don't hurt him."
"You synths are soft, so weak," she laughed, letting his hand go. "I knew it. Sleep shoot them."
It was against every instinct she had, but Skylar watched as one of the guardsman with a long rifle raised it, aimed, then stunned Gavin. She didn't see who stunned her, it was from behind, perhaps from above, but a second after Gavin was stunned into unconsciousness, her body was wracked with pain as though every nerve was set alight before darkness overwhelmed all her senses.
Forty-Seven
The smell of something old and mossy rotting filled Gavin's nostrils as he felt someone tugging at his boots. Training took over. He pulled his feet up under him, was vertical the moment he knew there was nothing overhead in the half-light and kicking.
A humanoid with segmented green and red eyes screeched loudly as the toe of Gavin's boot caught him under the arm. Still crouched, it rushed away, screeching and holding its underarm. Skylar woke beside him in a hurry. The noise must have roused her, and she was on her feet looking around them, checking her pockets. They'd taken everything except for their suits and the reserve food cubes kept in an interior collar pocket.
Concrete walls, ceilings and floors surrounded them in a hallway choked with pipes and mechanical refuse. "I'm sorry, I couldn't stop him. I've learned to stay out of the way of Scrizex, when those people want something it's best to let them have it," said a woman Gavin recognized, but he couldn't remember her name.
"Lorna," Skylar said, quietly shocked. "What are you doing here?"
"I was part of an expedition to Termire despatched by our Prince. We were to see what kind of resistance a harvesting expedition would meet and find out how much nansha was left uncontaminated on the planet surface."
Nansha, a substance that occurred naturally, but rarely. When it was found, it was generally in great abundance on worlds that were well suited to human habitation without terraforming. It was used as a base for some of the best regeneration and recovery drugs in the galaxy, the kind that were too expensive or complex to develop synthetic equivalents for. "Is there nansha growing on the surface of this world?"
"There are dense lakes of it at the bottom of the ocean and the subsurface oceans. There's pure concentrate underground, so thick that it's a solid. This swamp is full of it in lesser concentration, that's the secret to their food production and what drew my team here. We were taking samples here when the people from the settlement above attacked. Most of us were killed, leaving me and two members of our party. They recognized that we were synthetics right away and put us to work cleaning parts, working in the purification plant. Most of the people here are allergic to purer forms of nansha, but synthetics and Scrizex aren't, so we clean parts that come in contact with the stuff."
"So, we're prisoners," Skylar said, touching the side of her head gingerly.
Gavin touched the side of his head right behind the ear as well and found a tender spot. A strip had been bonded with his skin, it felt almost seamless. "The others are working," Lorna said, nodding. "They're replacing filters in the nansha vats. Don't touch the receiver strips," she said, pointing at the side of Skylar's head. "If you tamper with them, they'll send pain through your nervous system, or knock you out entirely. We can't leave the compound or argue with the foremen either. You don't want to give them a reason to torture you. There's nothing worse."
"Except for being trapped here, maybe?" Skylar asked in a hush. Her body went rigid, expression frozen in agony for several seconds before she could breathe again, sitting down hard. "Oh, my God, everything hurt, it was like I was burning from the inside."
"They're listening, they're watching. It's another thing the strips let them do, I think," Lorna said. "Is the Prince here? Is there a rescue team coming?"
Before Skylar could answer, Gavin did so clearly and quickly. If there was another shock coming, he'd take it, if only to find out how bad it actually was. Maybe he could fight through it, increase his chances of overtaking a guard or working another plan. "The Prince isn't coming. What's left of him is in Citadel's hands. They're some kind of organization that prizes synthetics, puts them over natural humans. We were able to escape after discovering not everything was as it seemed on their ship. We still don't know exactly why they wanted us, but we knew we were their captives."
"They value synthetics?" Lorna asked, musing. "Then they're here for the facilities that produce them, or nansha, it aids in accelerated growth and reinforcement of tissue. It's one of the secrets to making the last few generations of dolls." She said the last while looking at her feet. Gavin could relate; he sometimes took refuge in the details of a situation to avoid the unfortunate side of it too.
There were moments when it drove Skylar crazy, when she wanted to know how he felt about something but he kept on going on about the science behind their predicament. The news about their Prince was hitting Lorna hard. "I'm sorry. We're not here to rescue anyone. I can't believe we were trapped in the first place." Gavin put his arm around Skylar, who nodded at him to indicate that she was all right.
"We weren't prepared for this," Skylar said. "We were trained to be part of a squad, then a crew, and that's after we were pampered through our youth, through our whole education. Duplicity and greed looked very different where we come from," she told Gavin more than anyone else.
"I didn't understand these people either, not at first," Lorna said. "They are crass and greedy. They hate us because we heal faster, are healthier, and because of the way we look. I used to try to explain that where we come from we're normal, everyone looks like us, and that I could help them with medicine, science, but they keep us down here. They hate synthetics. Don't try to convince them you can help."
A thick metal door at the end of the hallway opened and Ida walked in with two guards in mismatched armour behind her. One had a thick rifle with three emitters on the end, and the other had too thin to be human limbs covered in carapace like armour that was caked with mud.
"Welcome to our little complex," Ida said, her scar twisting along with her smile, curving up her cheek. Above it was a thick bandage that hid the damage Skylar had done. Her head was wrapped so her eyes could peer through the bands. "You're going to keep our operation running nice and smooth. There's no way out, and if we think you're doing something we don't like, you'll suffer. If you don't fall in line, we'll kill you. We can do it face to face, or from a very long way away. If you do your work, you can live a long time. If you sabotage our operation, we have special punishments. You don't want that."
"Couldn't you make machines to do all
this?" Gavin asked. "If it's filter and pipe cleaning, even servicing…" he was interrupted by the sensation of his head being squeezed from all directions as though he was wearing a shrinking metal helmet. Bone deep agony made him forget about the control strip installed behind his ear and live in a moment of pure suffering. As quickly as it occurred, it ended, leaving him gasping.
"That was one of a lot of pains," Ida said with a smile. "Don't question us or I'll give you a worse one."
Gavin looked her up and down. There was no control in her hand, but she was wearing a display collar that was sending images directly into her eyes, that was probably what she used to control the strips. She was strong, and if her skull had been replaced by armour, then who knew what else she'd reinforced or replaced with fortified cybernetics. Ida and anyone like her would be the biggest obstacle to escape, along with whoever might be watching them through the bands or other surveillance equipment. He suppressed the urge to attack her outright and settled on a simpler objective; they would have to find a dead spot, where he and Skylar could speak to the other captives freely. "I understand," Gavin said.
"I need to hear her say it too," Ida said, pointing towards Skylar.
"I understand," Skylar said. Her fingers tapped his side where no one would be able to see. Start planning our escape.
I'm already working on it. He tapped as a response on her waist.
"Good, now get to work. Lorna will show you scraping and cleaning filters," Ida said. "Do good work. There are other things we can use pretty synthetics for, this is a good job."
Forty-Eight
The Sector Jumper moved around the perimeter of the Flesh Tech Station, taking its readings from the scan pulses of other ships so it could remain cloaked. It was the predator, finding small boarding craft from the Dasian motherships and blasting them with quick, precise bursts from their cannons. The enemy hadn't landed a shot, and the missile like boarding ships failed to make contact.
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