Cyborg Corps Complete Series Boxed Set

by J. N. Chaney

  He tapped a control on the arm of his chair, and one of the screens changed to a view from the front of the ship. A moment later, the stars vanished, as he’d expected. The transition to faster than light travel was less impressive than he’d seen in the movies, and if he were honest with himself, he would’ve admitted how disappointed he was.

  “Who’s first to command the bridge in the rotation?” asked Warren.

  “I am,” said Hendrose as he got up from a station to Warren’s left. He was puffing his chest out like he was the proudest man in the galaxy. Maybe he was. The sight made Warren smile.

  “Then Commander Hendrose, you have the bridge.”

  Hendrose looked confused. “I’m not a commander.”

  “You are now,” replied Warren. “Once this battle’s over, we’ll have a promotion ceremony and make it official. I’ll see if I can find you a silver oak leaf as well. If not, we’ve got a 3D printer onboard. I’m sure we can find enough raw material to make a pair of insignias.”

  “Thank you,” the former tech replied.

  “Wake me if you have any trouble,” replied Warren as he turned and left command of the Ruthless in the hands of the full human he trusted the most.

  The hallways were bustling with crewmembers, most of whom he only recognized from Lukov’s reports of new arrivals. He regretted he wouldn’t have enough time to get to know them all before the battle. He might never see them again and wanted to at least remember his conversations with them. But there was a plan to stick to.

  Heading aft from the bridge, he passed one of the chow halls. It was vacant, except for a few tables someone had forgotten to fold into the walls. The cyborg chow dispensers would be empty, he knew. They’d robbed all the chow out of all the machines when they first arrived at Reotis, before they discovered how much food the Reotians had been squirreling away.

  Rigby reported there were still sixty bars of Cyborg Chow, as they’d started to call the stuff. They were essentially bricks containing enough calories to last a cyborg at least a full day. Each contained enough nutrition to keep their biological parts—their brain and spinal cord—healthy. The method of consumption had been more or less the same as well. Insert nutrition bar into mouth. Chew. Swallow. Allow the stomach-like processing unit to extract every single calorie and bit of nutrition it could possibly use from the bar.

  Likely, the nutrition bars would remain on the Ruthless. There were enough Commonwealth rations for each cyborg to load up on, not to mention what they’d find on the surface of Turano.

  Warren’s next stop was in the nearest Cyborg Upkeep and Production, or CUP, room. Inside were forty-nine cyborgs, all standing in cyborg-sized alcoves in the bulkhead. They all had their eyes closed, and besides their rigid postures, they looked like they were asleep. In a way, they were. Warren had assigned each to be backed up the moment they entered the alcove. He’d also instructed the war computer to place each of them in stasis and to wake them in case of emergency, or six hours before the stardrive was planned to disengage. It was the closest thing cyborgs had to real sleep.

  A memory floated to the surface somewhere in Warren’s mind; they’d been reappearing more frequently lately. This one reminded him of his current situation. It was from his time in the Army. Iran had been a problem for a hundred years. They’d had to be beaten down a couple of times since then, but mostly all they did was a bunch of saber-rattling. They lead their people in massive protests and financed terrorism around the world.

  They had done something when Warren was a child, but he couldn’t remember what it was. After that, they attracted the entire world’s attention. It was something he’d grown up with, though. There was always talk of Iran. The country’s government was always up to no good, so he’d grown used to it. One day, that changed.

  He’d been woken up early—sometime before sunrise. With no warning, he’d been ordered to pack his gear and to hurry everyone to the base’s airfield with the rest of the platoon. There, the rest of his battalion assembled and received the news they’d be shipping out to invade Iran.

  The next step had been that of paperwork. It was mostly on computer, but it seemed paper would never go away. Everyone got in line while a dozen clerks from the base’s administration office processed them. Each soldier had his service record checked to make sure it was up to date, along with his shots and other medical records. They’d been asked questions about their finances. For instance, if there were any late payments or garnishments coming down the line, the Army needed to know about it so it could take care of them. They’d also asked if their wills had been updated.

  Warren didn’t have a will. He didn’t have any family, so he didn’t think he needed one. Besides that, he wasn’t going to die. He was too young, and this was probably just a drill. They’d all be back to their regular job tomorrow—after they put everything back where it belonged and cleaned it all again. That’s what he’d thought, but the expression the female admin soldier had made removed all doubt. Her expression had spoken volumes. She’d never expected to see him again. It turned out to be true. He never did see her again.

  It was the first time he’d realized that being a soldier might end up getting him killed. The idea had always been there, but it had been a distant thing. Wars were far away and happened to other people. Not Warren Prescott. Not this guy. The Army treated it like an assembly line. Each person got about five minutes and then was told to go somewhere else before the next person took their place. It had made Warren feel like he was waiting for his turn to be made into sausage.

  Warren returned to reality with a start. A dull tingle ran through his circuits. A full system check didn’t reveal any trouble or explanation, so he chalked it up to nerves. In a way, stepping into the CUP alcove felt like stepping in front of the temporary desk the administrator had set up. He couldn’t remember her face but got the impression she’d been pretty. Not that it made any difference at all, but it stuck out to him for some reason.

  Once he stepped in, the war computer would initiate a backup. The next thing he knew, he’d be hours away from what might be the toughest battle he’d ever been in. He’d be fighting an entrenched enemy who’d already proven they could take on a Republic cruiser and come out more or less on top. The others hadn’t unlocked their war computer, though. They hadn’t had that advantage. All Warren could do was hope it would be enough.

  After querying the war computer and receiving confirmation that all the other cyborgs were in their alcoves, Warren stepped into his and closed his eyes. He’d done all he could do. It was up to the non-cyborgs to get them there. If they never made it, he’d never know.

  The real world vanished, replaced by the familiar landscape of the war computer. Warren stood in a field of tiny green dots, which he’d come to realize were the digital representation of his current memories. It was everything he knew and remembered. Essentially, it was him.

  A cloud of the tiny green pixels hung overhead—a faintly glowing green mass that looked close and staticky, and far away and vague all at once. It hung in the black sky and represented the memories the war computer had stored for him. Soon, it would begin to rain, but in reverse. Each pixel would split from itself, forming an exact copy that would soar into the sky and become one with the cloud. No matter how many backups the war computer had stored for him, that cloud never seemed to change. It didn’t grow, become denser—nothing. He wondered about it for some time before the reverse-rain began.

  It was too bad there wasn’t any sound with the effect. Warren allowed himself a moment—whatever that meant in a virtual world—to consider what reverse rain might sound like. He couldn’t even recall the last time he’d heard it. Maybe before he’d been transformed into a cyborg, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Another thought occurred to him. Almost all of his memory had come back, but some things were still blank. It bothered him. He was an advanced piece of technology. How come he couldn’t draw them from the well of his mind whenever he wanted? In
the virtual world of the war computer, he thought about taking a step forward. The world shifted under and around him. He did it again, a vague semblance of walking.

  Given enough time, he was sure he could find the problem. Somewhere among the bright little pixels were memories of his parents, his past lovers, birthdays, and pets. Nearly everyone had a pet at some point in their lives, he thought. He couldn’t remember his. He couldn’t remember what steak tasted like, the texture of a perfect birthday cake, or what his favorite foods were.

  As he thought about it, he became even more excited and willed himself to travel faster. Would he need to reach beneath the landscape to pull a handful of pixels to the surface? Would he find damage—dark pixels that should be bright? Would he know what to do when he got there, or would he be able to do nothing but mourn that which was lost forever?

  But it was time to sleep, so the world faded, and he let it come. He’d get back to this later. It was a reason to survive, or maybe the old memories didn’t matter. There were new ones to be made.

  Warren’s eyes snapped open. He was awake. The lights in the room were white, not red, so it wasn’t an emergency. They must have arrived.

  A quick check of the date and time on his HUD confirmed his suspicion. He’d been awoken by the war computer exactly when he’d expected to. The other cyborgs were moving too, heading to their assigned duty stations and guard posts. The day of the invasion had finally come.

  “Hello, Captain,” said someone from the bridge. It wasn’t Hendrose, but he hadn’t expected the man to be the one who greeted him when he woke. Hendrose was part of the team that had to be fresh and awake when the battle began.

  “Give me a status,” ordered Warren.

  “The board’s green,” the man replied. “All systems are reporting normal. All personnel are present or accounted for. No injuries and the war computer is saying all the cyborgs are operational, too.”

  “Good,” replied Warren. “I’m headed to the bridge.”

  17

  When the hatch to the bridge slid open, Warren’s senses were assaulted by lights, talking, and incessant beeps. The bridge was occupied by at least twice as many people as before, but Hendrose wasn’t among them.

  “I have the bridge,” announced Warren as he took the vacant captain’s chair. All the screens at the front of the bridge were showing the empty blackness of space. It’s all anyone could see while traveling faster than light. A few clicks on the controls near his right hand replaced the black image with information.

  A query to the war computer returned the names of more than a dozen cyborgs who didn’t have anything to do. Warren assigned two of them to begin transferring the latest cyborg backups to cyborg data cubes. CDC’s were small four-centimeter crystalline devices that could store an entire cyborg’s memory. Once they were done, they were to load the CDC’s into a case and store them aboard the Camel. Should the worst happen, someone could take the ship and flee. Maybe someone would be able to find a way to capture another Republic cruiser so First Cyborg Corps could be reset. It was an insurance policy—one he hoped never to invoke.

  Hendrose arrived an hour before the Ruthless was scheduled to leave hyperspace. He looked rested but also appeared nervous. So was the rest of the crew. That was good. If they were too calm, they might get sloppy. Being nervous meant they’d be alert.

  Warren studied the readouts, occasionally responding to questions from the bridge or other cyborgs, until the navigator made an announcement.

  “Disengaging the stardrive in two minutes, sir,” he said.

  “Very well,” replied Warren, sitting up in his chair. He reached behind himself and pulled straps over his shoulders, and then he hooked them to the rest of the harness designed to keep him in place. He was big, though, so it barely fit. Captain Blythe—the former captain of the Ruthless—had been a much smaller man, both in height and diameter.

  Warren sent a message to the war computer instructing it to reactivate the instant communications he’d deactivated to help ensure the cyborgs had some privacy during their stay on Reotis. The fight ahead wouldn’t be easy, but unless someone had managed to leak First Corps’ new capability to the defending forces, they had no idea what they were up against.

  Images from every other cyborg washed through Warren’s mind and filled his HUD. With a thought, he cleared his display. Now that the instant comms were reactivated, he could bring up anyone’s feed at any time. He was aware of where each other cyborg was located, their general mood, and what they intended to do next. Overall, they were eager to kick some Commonwealth ass. They were reveling in the feeling of oneness with their brothers and sisters, but none as much as King. It was the first time he’d experienced the full capabilities of a Republic cyborg.

  Warren got the impression King was smiling so hard he might rip his face right down the middle. The image made him grin. He remembered what it felt like the first time—like a big dose of a powerful drug. It reminded him of his first kiss. The thought shocked him. He could remember it. Her name had been Mary. He thought maybe her last name was Thelen, but he couldn’t be sure. It was third or fourth grade. The thought brought another smile to his lips. It had been a messy kiss, but it had still counted as his first.

  As planned, the twenty members of Wraith Squadron were making their way to the CWS-14 “Stingers.” Warren regretted not being able to join them as their 21st member, but he was needed on the bridge. It was the cost of leadership, and someone had to do it. It would be more effective if it was a cyborg—someone who was fully integrated with the war computer. Someone who had the experience and knowledge to make the most of their resources.

  A moment later, Warren tapped the controls near his right hand, and the stars of space returned. Less than a second after that, the lights on the bridge turned red, and klaxons began to sound. Warren scanned the data that flooded the main display. That couldn’t be right.

  Signs of battle began to appear, both close and far away. The ship’s shields sparked angrily as they deflected the brunt of the Commonwealth’s defenses. Warren wanted to stand—to step closer to what he was looking at even though he could have just zoomed in if he really wanted to. There were mines. Thousands of them.

  MINE, COMMONWEALTH, CM-22(B)

  COUNT: 110,388

  Had this been what brought the Conquest, the cruiser assigned to the Second Cyborg Corps, down? The details King had given him were fuzzy. Was this a setup?

  The action, happening further away than the range of the shield, involved explosions caused by the point-defense systems—a series of short-range beam weapons along the hull of the Ruthless designed for things exactly like this.

  “We’re moving too fast,” announced Warren. “Slow us down by seventy-five percent.”

  “We’ll be more vulnerable to attack by other vessels, sir,” replied the weapons officer.

  “It won’t matter if we get destroyed before our enemy gets to us. Slow it down.”

  The helmsman did, but the point defense cannons still had all they could handle. Warren could direct the war computer to focus most of their attention forward if he wanted to increase his speed. For now, he let it do what it thought best, which was creating a buffer all the way around.

  “Incoming!” the sensor officer announced. “Looks like a Commonwealth destroyer and six smaller ships. They’re heavy fighters, sir. Computers identified them as CWS-62 Heavy Fighters.”

  Warren took a moment to bring up the information from the modules he’d loaded from the war computer. The incoming fighters weren’t as fast as Stingers but carried up to six missiles each. They also came equipped with their own point defense cannons, one on the port side, the other starboard. Each required a crew of six to be fully functional, and their armor, like all CoW trash, was thick.

  “Godspeed,” Warren transmitted to Oplin, the designated squadron leader in Warren’s absence.

  Oplin ordered Wraith Squadron to launch, and five seconds later all twenty ships had exit
ed the cargo bays. They snaked and swarmed through the loose cloud of mines to intercept their incoming enemies.

  “Sir, it looks like the mines are moving out of the destroyer’s way,” announced the sensor officer.

  It was true, they were moving. The information made Warren feel better about his decision to slow and allow the point defenses to create a buffer all the way around. Of course, they were also surrounded by mines that were capable of moving themselves, so it was a mixed bag.

  “We have an incoming transmission from the destroyer, sir,” announced the communications officer.

  “Put it through,” replied Warren. If they wanted to talk, it meant they weren’t entirely confident of their superiority.

  “Attention Republic vessel,” a man’s voice said through the comms. “This is Commander Nigel Fornsworth of the Commonwealth vessel Trident. You are in violation of Commonwealth space. Stand down and surrender.”

  “Attention Trident, this is Captain Warren Prescott of the Reotian vessel Ruthless,” replied Warren. “I will not be standing my vessel down. Nor will we surrender. If you would like to begin negotiations for your surrender, I am willing to entertain them. Please indicate your willingness to stand down by bringing your vessels to a stop and powering-down your weapons.”

  “Ah, Warren Prescott. Please, stand by.”

  It wasn’t the response he’d expected. Wraith squadron would be within firing range in just a few minutes, so whatever he wanted to say, he needed to say it fast.

  “Hello, cyborg,” said a different voice across the comms.

  Warren felt one of his eyebrows go up. “Yeah, who’s this?” he asked.

  “I am Governor Tobias Kinsley of the Commonwealth of Worlds planet Turano. We know who you are, but what we don’t know is why you’ve left your home undefended. How very curious.”