by E. R. Torre
“I’m surprised you lasted this long,” a male voice said.
The Independents faced the source of the words. Sitting behind the mahogany desk was an elderly man. They did not know how he appeared when moments before the chair he sat on was empty. His hair was very thin and gray. His face was stern, his eyes charcoal. He was dressed in a business suit and, despite the deadly temperature within the office, didn’t appear the least bit uncomfortable.
“Jonah… Jonah Merrick?” B’taav said.
The elderly man offered the Independents an equally cold smile.
“You’ve come a long way,” he said.
“How can you… be there without a space suit?”
Merrick ignored the question.
“You have probes hidden in the rubble of Solyanna, don’t you?” Merrick said. “They detected our energy signatures and that brought you here.”
“Yes,” Latitia said. “What are you up to?”
Merrick leaned back in his chair. His smile remained.
“You must have some ideas.”
B’taav’s body shuddered. Lines of sweat fell from his face.
“Let him be,” Latitia said.
The grin on Merrick’s face broadened. B’taav groaned. The pain within him grew until he was in agony. Merrick frowned.
“How strange,” he said. “I told the nano-probes in his body to rip him apart. They most certainly are trying.”
His frown remained.
“They may not succeed. In fact, the odds are your body will destroy them before they can do the same to you. How is it your system can fight them so efficiently?”
“Let him be!” Latitia repeated.
Merrick shrugged and, in that moment, B’taav let out a relieved breath. The agony was gone. His body relaxed.
“What… what is this?” B’taav muttered.
“As you said, the end of the line.”
The robots around the Independents drew closer. They raised their hands and reached for the Independents’ helmets.
“You don’t think I’d come here alone,” Latitia said.
The smile returned to Merrick’s face.
“Your arrival intrigued us. We needed to figure out the hows and whys of your appearance. It was the only reason we allowed you to come this far. We found your –my– spacecraft planet side. You didn’t use the Displacer to get here, so how did you make your trip to Pomos?”
“You won’t find any answers in the shuttle,” Latitia said.
“Won’t we?” Merrick said. “We won’t find a log? We won’t find clues about your elusive masters?”
“No.”
Latitia’s denial carried more than a hint of panic in it.
“Good to know,” Merrick said. “The ship is in our base. We’re examining it as we speak.”
Rather than displaying more panic at this revelation, B’taav caught the ghost of a smile on Latitia’s face.
“You’re not Merrick,” she said. “What did you do to him?”
“What makes you think I did anything at all?”
The old man stood up. As he did, his face changed. Wrinkles disappeared and his pale skin gained color. His face became younger, feminine. Soon, and with the exception of the hair, he looked just like Latitia.
“Does it matter who I am?” the figure said.
“What… what is this?” B’taav said.
“A Chameleon,” Latitia said.
“A what?”
The chameleon unit smiled.
“We’re nano-tech robots made up of billions of individual nano-probes with the capacity of arranging into any shape.”
The robots around them changed their looks as well. All three took on the form of B’taav. Unlike the figure of Latitia, their outer shell remained metallic.
“My counterpart has an organic layer over its machinery,” Latitia said. “Helps to pull off the deception.”
“You don’t think we’re only on Pomos, do you?” the machine that looked like Latitia said. “You must realize we’re among you.”
“How many?”
“That would be telling.”
“Too bad,” Latitia said.
“Too bad?” her duplicate repeated.
“Yeah,” Latitia said. “I was hoping to find out a little more. Oh well.”
Latitia looked at B’taav. Incredibly, she gave him a wink. Her attention returned to her duplicate.
“So, you hauled our shuttle into your base?” she said.
“Yes, we—”
Latitia’s duplicate stopped talking. It looked away. Its hand came to its ear, as if receiving –or sending– a transmission.
“Too late,” Latitia said.
Latitia released B’taav and pushed a button on the control panel of her space suit’s sleeve.
In that instant, all hell broke loose.
One of the three robots guarding them abruptly grabbed its partner and hurled it at the other side of the room. That robot slammed against the tinsel glass wall, its flight so violent that it shattered into pieces. In a flash the renegade robot grabbed its remaining partner and the two were locked in a terrific struggle. They fell to the ground.
The dim lights in the room turned red and the Latitia chameleon froze. It looked up, then at the Independents.
“What’s the matter?” the real Latitia said. “We got company after all?”
The chameleon Latitia scowled. It approached the Independents but before it could grab them, Latitia pressed another button on her suit. The remains of the robot flung against the tinsel glass wall erupted into white hot flame. The flame seared the tinsel glass, creating stress fractures along its surface. There was the eerie sound of cracking and then, abruptly, the tinsel glass shattered. Latitia’s magnetic boots locked onto the floor and she held B’taav tight as everything within the office that wasn’t nailed down, including the two fighting robots, was sucked into space. The chameleon Latitia dropped to the floor. Its hands grabbed the carpeting and held tight.
“What did you…?” B’taav managed.
“Thing about machines is they can be hacked,” Latitia said.
The chameleon Latitia coldly eyed Latitia and B’taav. It crawled along the carpet like a spider and approached the Independents. B’taav heard Latitia’s voice through his helmet’s speakers.
“Time for you to go,” she said. “We’ll see each other again. Soon.”
To B’taav, the words barely registered. Latitia pressed a button on B’taav’s space suit and released him. The suit’s thrusters activated and he flew past the chameleon Latitia, the shattered tinsel glass, and into space.
B’taav looked back. He was soaring away from the platform at an incredible clip. In seconds he could no longer see Latitia or her duplicate.
He floated away and drifted deeper into outer space.
34
The suit’s thrusters flamed out.
B’taav’s body spun around and around without anything to slow his motion. He caught glimpses of Pomos and Solyanna. He saw an enormous explosion rip the Space Elevator’s platform. Bright sparks rose from the base and traveled up, enveloping the Space Station. Debris and structural pieces ruptured in silence. A single large piece of metal flew by at tremendous speeds. He flipped around and saw darkness. When he finished his turn, he saw a mushroom cloud envelop the Space Station’s planetary platform.
Why did it blow up? B’taav wondered. The answer came to him even as he asked the question. That’s why you wanted to know where the shuttle was.
Latitia rigged it to blow. The people –creatures– of the Space Platform brought the shuttle right to its target.
“Latitia,” B’taav called through his communicator. “Are you there?”
He received no reply. The Station crumbled even more, its structure tearing itself apart. B’taav desperately wanted to go back and help his partner. Even more, he wanted to figure out what the hell was going on…
He couldn’t.
His body was unresponsive. His
mind drifted into a haze.
What did you just witness? Why did she bring you here, only to release you?
It made no sense.
He floated on, up into the heavens, an insignificant body lost to the infinite.
He might have blacked out, he wasn’t sure.
Another whirl and he faced the system’s sun, so far in the distance.
I’ve got a long way to go.
Just like that whatever fear he had was gone, replaced by a strange sense of peace.
If this is to be my end…
B’taav closed his eyes.
No use waiting. With the flick of his wrist, he could shut off his life support and be dead in seconds. His body would float through space for an eternity, a loan guardian overlooking a dead world. It would be painless. It would be…
He felt something tug at his side and his body spun around clockwise.
B’taav opened his eyes. A star field lay before him. Below it was the lower edge of Pomos. He was far away from the planet but no longer spinning.
How did I stop spinning?
Stranger still, Pomos was moving away from him. Farther and farther. He was traveling faster than before. Faster still.
How can I be gaining speed? The thrusters in the suit are spent.
It took all the energy to turn his head.
And there she was, standing over him. Cradling him. Staring directly into his eyes.
She was in her own spacesuit and attached to a thick black security line. Her eyes were a stony brown and her hair a beautiful yellow.
She was dead. She had to be.
The angel gently spun B’taav around until he was before her. There was a sadness in her expression, something he hadn’t seen before. Despite this, she offered the Independent a smile. He never thought he’d see it again.
“Hello, B’taav,” she said.
B’taav could barely hear her voice through their touching helmets. Her voice was brittle. It held back tears.
If she was dead, then so too was he. He smiled back.
“Hello, Inquisitor Cer,” he said.
35
B’taav fought hard to stay awake.
He had so much to ask of Cer yet it was difficult to think, much less talk. For her part, Inquisitor Cer said little.
While she carried B’taav’s body, he looked around. He was unable to see where she was taking him. After floating a while, Inquisitor Cer’s boots landed with a sharp, silent thump.
Inquisitor Cer spun the prone B’taav around. He expected to see the Xendos or whatever ship she appropriated below them. Instead, he saw darkness. Yet this darkness was blacker than what surrounded them. He could not see Solyanna through it, nor any stars.
“We’re on the top of the Xendos,” Inquisitor Cer said. “She’s cloaked.”
B’taav wasn’t sure he heard her correctly.
“C…cloaked?”
“Shhh,” Inquisitor Cer said. “There will be plenty of time to talk.”
She moved along the near invisible surface of the ship and, abruptly, the two were bathed in a strong light. It came from an open hatch and what lay beyond it was familiar: The decompression chamber of the Xendos.
Inquisitor Cer carried B’taav into the chamber and closed the door behind her. She then laid the Independent on a chair and walked to the controls on its other side. A rush of air filled the area. Along with it came the pull of artificial gravity.
Cer was back at B’taav’s side, her helmet off. She removed the rest of her space suit and did the same for B’taav. She checked his pulse and temperature.
“What happened to you?”
“D…don’t… know,” B’taav managed. “What…?”
“Easy,” Inquisitor Cer said.
Lines of worry filled her face. She pulled a thin medi-cart from the wall and lowered the chamber’s artificial gravity. She picked B’taav up and laid him on the bed before applying sensors to his chest, sides, and forehead.
Inquisitor Cer read B’taav’s readout and frowned.
“I’m doing that good?” B’taav muttered.
Inquisitor Cer reached for the ship’s remote control panel and snapped it onto her left arm. She sent a series of commands to the cockpit.
“Wish… wish we had one of those back in… in Erebus,” B’taav said.
“I know,” Inquisitor Cer replied. She pressed more buttons and B’taav felt the ship’s engines come to life. Their sound was different from what he remembered.
“I thought you were dead. What… what happened?”
Inquisitor Cer drew a breath before explaining everything that happened to her since just before leaving the Dakota. She spoke of meeting the soldier who gave her a microchip and how Overlord Octo found it. Of how he poisoned her and, as she was dying, showed her what was on that chip. She explained her miraculous revival and her confrontation with the dying Overlord. Of how he sabotaged the Xendos and nearly destroyed it.
Inquisitor Cer led B’taav out of the Decompression chamber and through the living deck and paused before the door to Overlord Octo’s room. The door was well sealed but, along with much of the wall around the door, bore the heavy scars of an explosion.
“When I first saw this door after the explosion, it was torn apart,” Cer said. “This corridor was heavily warped and Overlord Octo’s room was destroyed. Over the next hours and days, the hallway, the door leading into Overlord Octo’s room, and the Xendos’ engines repaired themselves. It’s not a perfect fix, but it’s a lot better than it was. I didn’t know what to make of this. The Holy Texts talk of miracles, and I’m tempted to believe that’s the only reason I’m still alive. Yet even faith has its limits.”
Inquisitor Cer spun B’taav around. She moved down the corridor, up the stairs, and to the cockpit entrance. The door slid open and, despite his grogginess, B’taav was shocked by what he saw. The cockpit of the Xendos sported several new panels and sophisticated –and alien– equipment tied in to the more familiar controls. In the corner of the room one of the new panels was in the process of being created whole.
Inquisitor Cer pushed the medi cart closer to that panel. Small pieces seemed to appear out of thin air. It was like watching a candle burn in reverse.
“What is… this…?” B’taav managed.
“Nano-probes,” Inquisitor Cer said. “They’re all over the Xendos. I have no idea when they were put here or by whom, but they’re the reason the ship was not destroyed in the blast. Perhaps they’re the reason the poison given to me wasn’t as potent as it should have been. And when I was surrounded by the fleet and thought there was no escape…”
“The cloak?”
Inquisitor Cer nodded.
“Nano-probes cover the Xendos’ body like a layer of paint. When the Cygnusa, our most powerful battleship, shone its lights on me, the nano-probes emulated the colors and texture of the asteroid I was hiding behind. The battleship passed within three miles of where I was and didn’t see me. Not only had this ship taken on the look of that asteroid, the nano-probes absorbed the Xendos’ elevated temperatures and electronic signature. For all intents and purposes, I was invisible.”
Inquisitor Cer moved B’taav closer to the front view screen.
“I remained in place, hiding, until the Cygnusa and her fighter craft passed me by. I then traveled to the shipping lanes and hid among cargo vessels while waiting to use a Displacer.”
“Why… why did you come here?”
“The chip’s information was still in the Xendos’ memory banks. There was a detailed list of all the flights made by slave traders from their very early days. I was determined to find the people and institutions behind this savage practice so I searched for a pattern, something that would lead me to them. After a while, I found one: A port all those ships used… at least until a little over two hundred years ago.”
“Pomos.”
“The very last of the sex slave vessels arrived and left here only hours before the planet was quarantined and destroye
d. Even though it happened so long ago, I knew this was where I needed to start my search.”
She paused and sat in the pilot’s chair.
“Last thing I expected was to find you,” Inquisitor Cer said.
“How did you get past all the Displacer security?”
“The nano-probes gave out different ship registrations as I moved from jump to jump before arriving at Onia. Once there, I was forced to wait. The ship’s energy reserves were low. Helpful as the nano-probes are, they use up a great amount of energy and need time to recharge.”
“You used the… the type 6 Displacer?”
“Yes,” Inquisitor Cer said. “When I exited it, I was hit with a burst of sensor scans. The nano-probes on the Xendos anticipated them. They blacked the ship out just as an army of defensive drones appeared. I passed them by, though not without difficulty. When I approached Pomos I spotted the Orbital Platform and Space Elevator. Just then, you popped out.”
“We have to… have to go back there. I left someone behind.”
“Who?”
“Another Independent,” B’taav said. “Her name is Latitia.”
Inquisitor Cer was dumbfounded.
“Latitia?”
Remember the name.
“You know her?” B’taav asked.
“I do.”
“She’s stuck… stuck…”
A burst of light filled the Xendos’ cockpit. Something deep within the Orbital Platform erupted. The incredible structure blew into tiny pieces.
“By the Gods,” Inquisitor Cer said.
She used the ship’s cameras to search the Platform’s wreckage. She spotted hundreds of defensive probes circling her remains like an angry swarm around a destroyed nest.
“It’s gone,” Inquisitor Cer said. “No one could have survived that.”
B’taav forced himself up. The Platform, what remained of it, slowly, inevitably, was drawn down into Pomos.
“I… I barely knew her,” B’taav said. “She brought… brought me here.”
“Why?”
“To see all this,” B’taav said. Though he felt weak from the effort, he recalled an earlier conversation between them.
I’m not leaving here alone.