Perilous Waif (Alice Long Book 1)

by E. William Brown

  That was how I ended up spending my first visit to a foreign station alone, rushing frantically from one errand to another with no time to sightsee. Not that there was anything to look at anyway, in the service tunnels that the navgrid’s directions always sent me through. Just endless kilometers of bare metal corridors, broken up by giant hatches every few hundred meters where they passed through internal bulkheads. The bigger hallways had roads running down the middle, filled with a constant stream of automated cargo vehicles.

  My first errand was picking up a load of local spices from a shop less than a kilometer from our berth, so I just walked there with a couple of utility bots following along behind me. Smoke spent most of the trip perched on my shoulder, his long neck craning around as he took in our surroundings. Ash liked to move around more, darting ahead to scout the way and then flying back to circle around the bots before heading off to scout again.

  Their programming was pretty amazing. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they were real animals. Curious, affectionate little critters that loved to cuddle and get their chins scratched. I knew that part was real, too, because they had an empathic relay option that let me tap into their feelings. Their little AI brains weren’t smart enough for abstract thought, but they sure were concerned about protecting me. It made me feel a lot better about being in such an alien place.

  By the time I got the spices back to the ship Dusty had unloaded a cargo truck, and configured a team of bots to act as movers. He sent us off to pick up a load of crates from one of the passengers, and then to help another one pack. The bots were perfectly capable of doing all of that on their own, so I was mostly just standing around keeping an eye on things the whole time.

  It was a little odd, how many people I saw. At the homes of our passengers most of the packing was being done by androids, with just a few bots here and there working under close supervision. The locals had a real mythological theme going, too. There were lots of big-eared elves and giant, green-skinned trolls along with a few more exotic morph types. Angels, dwarves and a lot of less identifiable variants, with cosmetic mods like horns and tails. No furry types, though, and none with muzzles or other big facial oddities.

  Almost all of them were women. A discreet check of the colony’s Xenopedia entry told me that the human population here was almost all male, like a reversed version of Felicity. I tried not to think about what that probably meant.

  After a few hours of errands I was starting to get a handle on things, when of course life threw me another curve ball. I’d just finished loading up the truck, and was stowing the bots for the trip back to the ship when a blonde elf girl came hurrying up to me.

  “E-excuse me, Mistress? You’re a spacer, aren’t you?”

  I took in her oddly worn-looking dress, and the worry in her eyes.

  “Yes. I’m Alice Long, with the Square Deal.”

  “Finally! We’ve been searching for days. Please, Mistress, can you spare a few minutes to help a lost household? We’re desperate, and you’re our only hope!”

  Chapter 7

  She stood gazing up at me earnestly, with her hands clasped below her chin and her big blue eyes full of hope. Darn it, I was on a schedule. But how could I say no to that pleading look?

  “What do you need, cutie?” I asked.

  She glanced around nervously, and leaned in to whisper to me. “Our master is… well, there was a shuttle crash, and… we, we’re all alone now.”

  Her lip was trembling. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and for a second I thought she was going to start bawling right there on the sidewalk.

  “That’s terrible,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “But what can I do about it?”

  She wiped her eyes, and managed to get a hold of herself.

  “Master didn’t leave a will,” she said. “He didn’t have any close relatives, either. The Security Directorate is supposed to take care of cases like this, so there won’t be any unsupervised serfs wandering around. But they’re so overworked it could take months before they do anything about us, and the household account ran out of money a week ago.”

  I sighed. “Are you looking for money?”

  “No, Mistress! Just the opposite. You see, our accounts elf knows all of Master’s passwords, she just has orders not to use them without permission. She keeps a hardcopy of them printed out next to her workstation, though. So if some other elf just happened to lead a human there, well, then they could access all of Master’s accounts. They could transfer some money to the household account, so we can take care of ourselves until the courts get around to us, and maybe pay themselves a nice fee for their trouble.”

  Well, that was interesting. “Wouldn’t that be stealing?”

  She shrugged. “The lawyers could spend years arguing about that one. But you’ll be long gone before anyone finds out, and who would bother trying to track down a spacer over something like that?”

  “Hmm. What’s your name, cutie?”

  “This unworthy one is called Lilia, Mistress.” She hesitated, and a sly look stole across her face. “You know, if the Mistress so desires it would be child’s play to use Master’s money to buy me from his estate. Or anyone else of the household that Mistress might fancy.”

  I chuckled. “You can call me by name, Lilia. All this exaggerated bowing and scraping feels kind of weird to me.”

  Which was true, but not quite in the way it sounded. I felt like I should be disgusted by this place, and part of me was. But at the same time, the respect all these androids showered me with felt kind of nice. As for having a pretty girl call me Mistress, and hint that she wanted to belong to me? I wasn’t sure what to make of the feelings that stirred up.

  Lilia put her hand on my arm, and looked up at me with wide eyes. “Thank you, Mistress Alice. I knew you’d be a kind Mistress. Does this mean you’ll help? There’s quite a bit of money in the old Master’s accounts, if you want it.”

  Darn it, I shouldn’t be wondering what her pretty pink lips would feel like against mine. I was supposed to be shocked and horrified, not… tempted.

  Was that why people made serfs?

  No. It was still wrong, and I was better than that. Maybe I did want to be in charge of something one day, and have people who’d look at me the way Lilia did. But if that ever happened it would be because I was so awesome I actually deserved it. Not because I’d crippled their minds to make them easy prey.

  On the other hand, maybe I could do some good today.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Lilia. Where is this place?”

  The address she gave me was on the way back to the port, so it didn’t cost me too much time. We pulled off the service tunnel into a little parking bay just like the ones at the last couple of homes I’d visited, and I hopped out of the truck.

  “Will this take long?” I asked.

  “Only a few minutes, Mistress Alice,” Lilia said shyly as she climbed down next to me. “Unless you decide to take longer.”

  “Alright. Ash, guard the truck.”

  The little dragon swooped up to perch on top of the truck, his head craning around to take in the parking area.

  Yes! Guarding! Grrr!

  Smoke settled himself on my shoulder, and eyed Lilia suspiciously. She returned the look.

  “Are those things dangerous, Mistress?”

  “Only to people who try to hurt me,” I assured her.

  “Oh. Of course. Um, I’m sorry Mistress, but household security is configured to keep out war machines. None of us have permission to change the settings.”

  Well, that was annoying. I didn’t want to be separated from my dragons. Takeo Station seemed safe enough, but why take chances?

  “Could I use one of these passwords to change the settings?” I asked.

  “Certainly, Mistress. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you where they are.”

  “Alright, I guess that will work. Smoke, guard the truck.”

  Just in case, I told the bots to call for hel
p if I didn’t come back within twenty minutes. Then I followed Lilia up to the armored door at the far end of the parking area. It opened to reveal a lift big enough to hold a dozen people at once.

  “The manor is above us,” Lilia explained. “The elevator opens onto the servant’s foyer, and then we take the stairs up two floors to the offices. Some of my friends have set up a distraction to get Tria out of her office, so she won’t see you. She’s our accounts elf, so she’d have to try to stop you if she found you there.”

  The elevator started to rise.

  “She’d have to stop me, but you don’t? What’s the difference?” I asked.

  “I’m a personal companion, Mistress Alice. The accounts aren’t my responsibility. The guards would be a problem, of course, but since the household isn’t on alert they’re going to be in their barracks instead of patrolling. They all know our situation, so they’re doing the best they can to let someone fix it.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  The elevator stopped, and we stepped out into what was obviously a security area. Sensors in the walls pinged us with active scans, although I noticed they weren’t nearly as thorough as the ones on the Speedy Exit. By the time we’d crossed the room the system had apparently decided we were safe, and the inner door opened for us automatically.

  The ‘servant’s foyer’ turned out to be a roomy hall with a tile floor, the far end of which opened into some kind of living area. A couple of the tall, green-skinned types the locals called trolls were coming towards us from that direction, and I noticed Lilia seemed a little nervous as she greeted them.

  The armored door behind us slid shut, and my access to the station network was abruptly cut off.

  I frowned, but the first stun bolt hit me before I could even open my mouth. Everything went blurry and confused for a moment, and my legs stopped working. I fell, sprawling across the hard tile floor. Lilia hurriedly backed away from me, and two more stun bolts smacked into my exposed back.

  They were coming from a sonic stunner mounted in a little turret above the door. No visible armor, but my muscles weren’t going to work right as long as it was shooting me. I let myself go limp, and pretended to be unconscious like any normal person.

  Wait, I really was unconscious. How was I still thinking, when my internal diagnostics said my brain was completely scrambled?

  Leave the mystery for later. I watched through passive sonar as the trolls rushed over to grab me.

  “Good job, Lilia,” one of them said. “She didn’t suspect a thing.”

  “Humans are stupid,” Lilia said dismissively. “Just bat your eyes and let your voice quiver, and they’ll believe anything you tell them. Better go with the full brainhack, though. She’s got an implant com, so just the puppet chip wouldn’t keep her from calling for help.”

  “That’s a shame,” the other troll said. “It’s more fun to make them watch. You remember that security guy who came nosing around last month? Kirela’s got him stuck in a VR where he has to watch what his body is doing, and she can pop in for a little payback whenever she wants.”

  The trolls had me pinned to the floor, and one of them was pulling something mechanical out of a belt pouch. Shouldn’t I be terrified right now? I could feel the fear lurking around the edges of my thoughts, but most of my mind was too busy to pay attention to it. Analyzing every detail of my situation while the milliseconds ticked slowly past, looking for a way out. I could break down in hysterics when I was safe again.

  “Kirela wastes far too much effort on revenge,” Lilia sniffed. “It’s unprofessional. She could never pull off an op like this one. She’d start killing slavers halfway through and give herself away. What have you got, Jenki?”

  Electronics have faster reflexes than organics. The turret was the biggest threat, so I’d need to take it out fast. I needed a weapon for that, and I didn’t have one. The stun pistols the trolls carried wouldn’t do anything to a machine, but they also had long knives on their belts. Modeling said their aerodynamics weren’t the best for throwing, but it could be done.

  “She looks pretty close to baseline,” the troll with the gadget said. “I’m picking up an implant computer with a fancy com system, but no internal VR support. Lots of physical mods, but it’s all biological stuff. No cybernetics or built-in weapons. Her skull’s reinforced, but we can go in through the spine.”

  Their scanner was a basic civilian model, with millimeter resolution. Not nearly good enough to pick up my more subtle enhancements, even if my stealth suite wasn’t feeding it distorted returns.

  My own sensors were a lot better. The trolls were purely organic models, without even implant computers. Barely twice as strong as a normal human of their size, with only a few basic damage control measures. Their stunners had biometric locks, so grabbing one wouldn’t help me. On the good side Lilia was practically helpless - she had no weapons or combat mods, and kinesthetic modeling told me she was even weaker than she looked. I guess ‘elves’ are supposed to be frail or something.

  “Good,” Lilia said. “Initiate the hack, then. We need to get her safely under control before she’s missed. Renit, is the insertion team ready?”

  Jenki pressed another device against the back of my neck. Something pricked my skin, and started to worm its way into the soft tissue beneath. My internal monitors reported a mass of tiny, worm-like threads burrowing into my flesh.

  Ugh! I wanted to tear them out, but my muscles were still twitching from the stunner. The thin fibers of synthetic muscle threaded through the normal tissue couldn’t be stunned, and they’d be able to move me even with my human parts shut down. But the twitching would throw off my movements, and I couldn’t afford that. I needed to buy a little more time.

  “Yes, ma’am. Both squads are loaded into their hibernation pods, and their armor and weapons are at full charge. Those damned slavers aren’t going to escape the revolution. Bet they’ll be shocked when our people wake up mid-flight and start shooting them.”

  The doctor had been right about my internal defenses. Swarms of nanobots were flooding into my bloodstream, and an organ I’d never noticed before woke up ready to make more. But damaging their equipment would give me away. I held my defenses back, fumbling clumsily at reflexes I’d never used. Don’t attack yet. Get ready, but not yet.

  The worms burrowed deeper into my flesh. They found my spine, and started to work their way up towards my brain.

  “I’m still worried about the ship’s crew,” Jenki grumbled. “Spacers aren’t like the degenerate masters we’re used to. They can be dangerous, and we don’t even know what kind of security system that ship has.”

  “You worry too much,” Lilia said. “My dear, beloved mistress is going to show off her new pets to everyone on board. We’ll brainhack her friends and lovers first, and then work our way up their ranks to the captain. By the time the trolls wake up we’ll be ready to seize the ship.”

  The worms were burrowing into my brain now. Some of them fanned out into starbursts of microscopic tendrils, forming connections with my motor neurons. Others carefully worked their way deeper, reaching for other parts of my brain. It made my skin crawl. I wanted to scream, and struggle. The muscle twitches were dying down now, but I made myself wait. If they had trolls in powered armor around here somewhere I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. I had to wait for the right moment, no matter how creepy it was.

  “I hope you’re right, ma’am,” Jenki said. “It looks like you’ll get your chance, at any rate. No immune response, and I’ve almost got her com. You want the usual setup?”

  “Yes. The lack of VR is inconvenient, but I can work around it. Give me full control of her emotional responses, wipe the last few minutes of her memory, and leave the rest of the neural integration running. Convincing her to loot this place will be child’s play, and she won’t have time to watch me pack. When she comes back tonight she’ll assume the cargo container with our troops in it is full of her newfound gold and servants,
and she’ll happily slip it onto the ship of her own volition.”

  Somehow, I didn’t think Dusty’s security checks would miss a whole marine assault team hidden in a cargo container. But I wasn’t going to take chances, and I certainly wasn’t going to end up being the naïve little girl who had to be rescued. I waited.

  Sure enough, a couple of minutes later Jenki pronounced the brainhack ready to use. Renit picked me up, while Jenki stepped back and fiddled with her control box.

  “You’ve got the datalink, Lilia?”

  “I do,” the little elf replied. “My, my, just look at this innocent young limbic system. I’m going to have fun with her, once the mission is over. Let’s see, now. Standard suggestibility tweaks, a little fuzzy-headedness, and queue up a nice little crush to trigger the moment she sees me. Alright, let’s wake her up-”

  I unleashed my nanobots. They flooded into the tissue that the brainhack had infiltrated, severing connections and eating into communication lines. The device didn’t seem to have any defenses, and the delicate spider web dissolved like spun sugar hitting water.

  “-and get to work,” Lilia was still saying. “Wait, where’d my connection go? Jenki-”

  Free, and my body was my own again. Renit was holding me up with her hands on my waist, her head turning to look at Lilia. Perfect. She didn’t even see my hand move before I had her knife out of its sheath, and slipped it neatly into her kidney.

  She made a horrible squealing sound, and let go of me. I spun, pulling the knife free as I turned, and threw it in one smooth motion. The blade flew just like my simulations had predicted, and smashed into the stun turret’s camera point first. The lens shattered, leaving the weapon blind and hopefully unable to target me.

  Jenki was already starting to reach for her stun pistol, but I was on her before she could get it out. I ducked under a hand that was trying to fend me off, grabbed the front of her uniform and swarmed up it to get my teeth on her throat.