The man with the laser hesitated. “Who are you?”
“That’s not what matters here, is it. Let’s just say I’m captain of a ship that landed here for supplies and repair. This is a repair depot, but you didn’t offer us any.”
Glaikis and Yuina exchanged glances.
Cyrus said, “You saw our gliders before you decided to tell us off. You’ve seen a nice, new glider like this before. You saw one today. What matters here is property. I lost some today. A man on my ship decided to leave my employ and he took one of my gliders with him. I want my property back.”
The man shifted his feet. “I don’t have your glider!”
“I know you don’t, but that doesn’t change that the glider is here. I’m going to get it back. If I have to, I can leave and return with more men. Hard men, who are paid to follow my orders. I hope you don’t think I only brought women with sticks to Tumblewell.”
He ignored the black looks aimed at the back of his head.
Cyrus said forcefully, “Turn down your gun robot here, and tell me where my glider is. I may have a mind to reward someone who helped me get it back.”
The man looked out at the yard and back to Cyrus. He pointed at the distant outline of a ship. “The blue and gray one.”
Cyrus nodded at the man and donned his mask.
The gun robot didn’t move. The three of them edged around it.
Yuina put away her weapon. She pulled down her mask. “You’re a good liar.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me,” Cyrus said.
CHAPTER 29
The Pyre of One
Steo had figured out the problem with the graviton engine controls. It wouldn’t take parts or special tools to fix, but it would take a few days to repair and test. Far down in the hole, he welded parts back together. He tried to keep his mind on his work.
Is this how you would leave them?
“Hm?” He looked around, up and down, and didn’t see anything. He tapped his lee to make sure it was off. Seeing and hearing nothing, he went back to work. The light of his welding torch lit up his face.
You would leave your friends after all they’ve sacrificed?
His chest unexpectedly hurt. He felt like it was something deeper than broken ribs. He felt hot. The medicine caused that as it knitted flesh together, so he took a swig of high-energy drink.
Like a memory he didn’t want to recall, the voice came again. The danger to the galaxy remains. The scales are still imbalanced.
Steo knew the crackly old voice. He leaned back and wiped the sweat off his brow. Somehow, he knew how to answer.
I failed, he thought.
Yes. You failed when you left.
A bolt fell from the top of the tube, clanging off beams on the way down.
“Steo?” came Yuina’s voice.
Steo leaned back into the darkness so he couldn’t be seen.
“It’s too narrow to get down there,” said Glaikis.
“He’s skinny. I thought I saw a light,” Cyrus said from the top of the tube.
You are not alone.
I don’t want them to be hurt anymore, Steo thought.
You hurt them now. This isn’t about you. Talk to them.
“Steo?” Glaikis called.
He thought for a bit. It’s not like he could get out. “Yeah! I’m down here.”
Cyrus said, “All right! Good!”
“Yes, good!” Yuina said, overly enthusiastically.
“I’m not coming up. I’m going to fix this ship and then … go.”
There was some whispering at the top of the tube.
Keep talking to them.
Glaikis said, “We took a vote. We want you back.”
Steo stood at the bottom of the cluttered tube with his head bowed. “You should go on without me. Take the Eye of Orion, she’s yours.” That last part was harder to say than he expected.
Glaikis said, “I don’t want to. Steo, you don’t understand, this isn’t just your mission anymore. It’s mine too. I can’t speak for the others, but I have to see this through. Not for revenge but for the chance of doing something meaningful. I can’t let evil win the day. Not this day. It’s not that I can’t back down, it’s that I don’t want to. And I don’t think I should. I want to stand up to evil no matter what happens.”
There was a long pause.
“Who do you think I got that from? That determination? I got it from you. You’re more than my friend. Come back.”
They have picked up your mission.
Steo remembered Tully’s death and saw in his mind’s eye the very destruction he had tried to stop.
“Steo,” Yuina said softly. “I want you back too. I saw possibilities with you around. I could imagine being a better person, someone who had a positive impact. I agree with Glaikis. She speaks for me. I want to do the right thing. I don’t want to run and hide.”
“You should have seen her trying to use the holobridge to locate you,” Cyrus said.
“She was determined to find you,” Glaikis said.
Yuina said, “You promised me I didn’t have to be part of any landing parties. Well look at me now. This is a landing party I want to be part of! You’re all my friends. No bluff.”
Do you hear that? They learn from you.
Steo scratched his chest. “I don’t think I serve a purpose in the galaxy anymore.” He felt like this mission was more than he could handle.
“I know the feeling,” Cyrus said solemnly. “I can tell you about being lost. I had nothing, but now I know where I’m supposed to be. What my role is. What I’m supposed to do.”
That was a bright point for Steo. “What’s that?”
“Don’t you see? I’m the sidekick. You’re the hero!”
Steo frowned.
“I was supposed to be bred as some superleader, an ultimate weapon. You can’t breed leadership, though. People don’t follow someone because their eyebrows are thick and their face is symmetrical. We follow you, Steo. We want to because you’re a good man! We respect your values and your courage to do something about them. Some people need protecting, and some people need stopping. Sometimes it’s a good thing for peaceful people to get in trouble.”
Your friends look up to you.
“So come back with us. The galaxy doesn’t need another cyber-mercenary, greedy pirate or star messiah. The galaxy needs a good thief! I guess what we’re saying is we want our friend back, but we think you’re something more than that,” Cyrus said.
“Yeah,” Yuina said.
“You’re our captain,” Glaikis said.
He heard the confidence they had in him. He heard the truth in their voices and sensed it in their thoughts. Their friendship and respect humbled him but renewed his faith in himself at the same time.
Symbols are powerful.
Steo wiped tears from his face. He didn’t have a habit of running away from failure or danger. The dead dreams of the Bitter Widow weren’t his. His destiny was as captain of the Eye of Orion. Whatever the fate of that shiny green and gold ship, and its eclectic crew, he was tied to it.
He looked up at the three lights above him. “I’m coming up.” He was greeted by loud cheers and hands helping him up.
CHAPTER 30
Installation Procedure
In the dimming light, the four gliders crossed the dirt berm and looked down into the crater where the Eye of Orion hovered.
Steo let out his breath when he saw the ship.
“Yeah from out here it looks worse than I thought it would,” Glaikis said.
The armor was buckled. There were long black streaks crisscrossing the surface where laser beams had traced. On top, the two small sensor fins were curled and the turret was an unrecognizable blob. The long bottom fin had a hole punched in it.
“Is it repairable? Should we take it back to the depot maybe?” Yuina asked.
“No. We have some methods of our own.”
They flew up to the open tech bay.
Glaikis, Cyrus and Yuina were excited to get back to the ship. Steo lingered outside. He looked around, surveying the damage. He pulled up next to the bay, but didn’t enter.
“What are you waiting for? Let’s go,” Yuina said.
To the three of them he said, “If I return, things will be different. We’ll still be friends, but I’m not just the owner of this ship. I’m the captain. Is that understood?”
Cyrus was first to speak. “Agreed, sir.”
Steo glided into the ship and stepped off.
“Captain Steorathan Liet on deck,” Glaikis said with a smile.
“Yay!” Yuina said, with a clap and a bad salute.
Steo felt awkward as he led the way toward the bridge. He thought captains had different walks than normal people.
Glaikis said, “Hawking is mostly back up. Governor was restarting when we left. Renosha was down though.”
“Renosha is fine. He’s back up now,” Steo said.
“He is?” Glaikis said. Soon they entered the bridge and they saw the old robot standing, leaning on his pole, his eyes lit up and focused properly.
“Welcome back, Captain Steo.”
“Indeed. Welcome back, Captain sir,” Hawking said.
Steo said, “Renosha, you and I can talk later. For now go down into the kinetic cannon bay and break open those crates.”
He didn’t wait for agreement. “Hawking, the armor plates are buckled. Why haven’t they begun to autorepair?”
Renosha ambled past, out of the bridge.
Hawking said, “The molecular robots embedded in the armor are inactive, Captain Steo. They were knocked out by the EMP.”
“Can you revitalize them?”
“There are billions of them, sir.”
“That wasn’t an answer, science robot Hawking.”
“There are ways, yes sir. I will begin working on that immediately. Please accept my apology for being indirect.”
Steo turned to the people. “Glaikis, I need information on where the AndroVault went. Then please begin plotting a course there.”
“I’m on it.”
“Yuina, provide a summary of what weaponry the Eye of Orion has left and what can be repaired.”
She jumped into the pilot’s chair and tapped her console.
“Cyrus, we’re going to have to board the AndroVault. Can you go to the holobridge and gather all the information on it? You know more, and I wasn’t conscious most of the time I was on the ship. Thanks.”
Renosha’s voice came over the ship comm. “I have opened the crates. The tiny repair robots have exited, but they are wandering around aimlessly.”
“I’ll come down.”
Before long Steo entered the bay beneath the bridge. It was unfamiliar to him. In the center sat a long contraption, reaching from the back of the bay to the front. The kinetic cannon was braced against the hull and fed by tubes. This was the first time he had actually stood next to the big weapon. He touched it and felt small next to it.
He heard scuttling. A small oblong robot with many legs ran out and stopped next to his foot. Soon others came.
Renosha came out from behind the cannon. They sense your signal, came the robot’s voice in Steo’s mind.
How can I hear you? How can I communicate with you like this? Steo asked without speaking. He was a little physically uncomfortable and his back tingled.
It was the third gadget, Renosha said.
The injector?
Yes.
What was it?
The old technology wasn’t lost. I am an example. I thought I was the last of mankind’s pursuit into the nested Valence processor technology, but I was wrong. You are the pinnacle of that achievement.
I am?
The fluid inside the injector was the same fluid that Valence processors contain, a gel that can process far faster than any hard chip. It’s a neural network, not well understood even by today’s scientists. However the gel injected into you contained small atomic processors – far more than mine contains. They act as children to the parent. As I explained before, the subprocessors try to satisfy the superprocessor. The superprocessor is symbolic. It must make judgment calls. It can predict, Renosha said.
So … I have a computer inside of me? Steo asked.
Of a sort. The installation process was unfortunately messy. The gel was designed to be carefully injected into the spinal fluid. I don’t think the designers knew if it would work. When it was stabbed into your back, the gel collected together and gathered around your spinal column. That is why you feel pain and discomfort. Your body is adapting and forming a safe case for the material. However it seems to be working.
I could feel them, Steo said. I picked up their thoughts.
You felt your friend’s distress. Later you felt their confidence in you.
Steo realized that part of his sense of failure was subconsciously picking up on the crew’s feelings.
I’m … psychic?
More so than I, Renosha replied.
Oh? How?
The processor can receive waves, even brain waves. It interprets them. It becomes a form of telepathy for strong emotions.
Steo didn’t sense much from above him. He knew the crew were going about their tasks but they weren’t generating any particular emotion.
Can I influence people?
No more than I have ever been able to influence you. And I have tried. Free will is stronger, Steo. You have always made your own decisions. For some reason I was built with a rule that recommends caution using the ability with aliens. That might have been something I experienced in a previous life, Renosha said.
Steo worried a bit about being overwhelmed by his friend’s emotions. He looked down at the repair robots.
Why are they coming to me? What do they sense?
They aren’t on Muliar anymore. They are searching for the Shipwright signal to tell them what to repair. They sense the faint electromagnetic signal from your processor.
Can I command them? Steo asked.
Try.
He looked at the robots and concentrated. Even more of them scampered out from hiding. There must be thousands of them. He imagined the top fins, melted by lasers. The little robots didn’t move. He imagined the fins, undamaged, and was startled by the results. The robots scuttled around as if anxious.
Why aren’t they going to fix it? Steo asked.
They can’t get out of the bay.
“Oh,” Steo said out loud. “Hawking –”
“Stop. You don’t have to do it that way anymore,” Renosha said aloud. Connect to the ship, the robot said in his mind.
Steo thought about networks and imagined he could feel them around him: the ship’s computer, Hawking, Renosha and the little robots. He connected to the ship’s computer and gave a command. A dark hole opened at the end of the bay; it was night outside. The little robots rushed toward the opening. They clambered out and up onto the ship.
This was a new world for the young infosurgent. He didn’t have to touch anything or wave his hands in the air, poking at colorful images. His brain was connected to his ship’s computer. More than ever before, he felt that the ship was his. Suddenly he knew Hawking was about to contact him.
“Captain,” came Hawking’s voice.
“Yes Hawking?”
“Did you need something sir?”
“No, I was mistaken.”
“Excellent, sir. Please note that the repair robots are working on the fins and should correct them soon. They are quite industrious. Also, I have found a way to revitalize the molecular robots embedded in the armor. By magnetizing and demagnetizing the plates, that restarted them. They have begun their natural function.”
Steo explained to Hawking how to tie the little repair robots in with the ship’s computer. “The hole in the ventral fin and the sensors should be next.”
He and Renosha returned to the bridge.
Cyrus was telling a story. “I tried to install the tracking application in the Fire Sc
orpion’s engines, and then later the AndroVault’s. I don’t know if the Fire Scorpion’s worked. The AndroVault’s security was so weak even I could break in.”
“Good job! Did they say anything about where they were headed?” Steo asked.
Glaikis said, “Cyrus told me everything he overheard. They didn’t mention a solar system name but from the description, I outlined a few they may have chosen. The problem is they might have headed back to the Tarium spiral arm already.”
“They didn’t have the energy to move that far,” Steo said. “And their fleet is weak right now. They need to capture more ships and crew them before finding a jumping-off point to the Tarium spiral arm. They need to conquer something. Please keep looking.”
“Aye. We’ll know if the virus is working when we leave orbit,” she said.
Over the following hours the repair robots crawled over the ship, while invisible robots no bigger than molecules migrated through the hull. Plates straightened and reattached. Warped and melted bits became smooth.
“Yuina, report,” Steo said.
“Spike – the kinetic cannon – is fine. We have plenty of ammunition for it. Defensive systems are like new. We’re completely out of offensive missiles,” she said. “Oh, and look … the little robots removed the rotary cannon barrels. There’s plenty of ammo for it but the six-by-six barrels were scrap.”
“Hawking are the repair robots capable of fixing that?”
“That would be more manufacture than repair, Captain Steo. Barrels are relatively simple parts but the repair robots don’t have the materials at the moment.”
“We don’t want to waste time here on the planet.”
Cyrus said, “We’re wanted.”
“Right. Would we be able to quickly find replacement parts from the wrecks up above?”
Hawking checked. “Yes sir. There are ships with rotary cannons in the open space of this solar system.”
“Good. When the repair robots are done and back inside, Yuina please take us away from the planet.”
“Sir, may I suggest something?” Hawking said.
“Of course.”
“The wreck with the most weaponry would be the Fire Scorpion.”
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