“I don’t understand.”
It raised an arm and gestured at the base around us.
What was the right answer? The wrong one might be death. Inspiration hit. The aliens who built the station had been huge and shaped unlike anything that the Confederacy had ever seen. They would not have made a small, humanoid robot. Their enemies dropped this thing here. It must have destroyed the base and its personnel.
“No. The people who made this place were gone long before my people came to this part of space.
“Why attack?”
I was blank for a second. “Are you saying someone attacked you?”
“Yes.”
“Dusko’s people.”
“Explain.”
“There are three groups here: Deveraux’s treasurer-hunters. I was their pilot. Then there’s Dusko and his force, criminals who want to kill us, so they can keep the base and its artifacts to themselves. And me.”
“You?”
“I’m alone. Dusko tricked Deveraux into thinking that I set them up to be killed. Now both groups are after me.”
It moved in a blur and I couldn’t help but scream again and flounder around some boxes of god knows what. “Get back. Stay away.”
It stopped and stared at me like a fucking zombie.
“Zombie?”
I realized that I must have said it aloud. “You look... you look like a human corpse. Just stay back, please.”
***
My movement has again panicked the creature. Apparently I look like a decomposed corpse. I find this thought distressing. I have always been meticulous about maintenance and scored high on inspection. My effect on the creature is interfering with intel gathering. More sophisticated techniques than those I use on Infestors are indicated. These creatures may not be enemies to my masters. I consider and opt to change my appearance to something less frightful and which may allow me to infiltrate this new civilization. I have never used this ability before; it is new to my model, and I was selected as a test body for it. Clearly it will be advantageous in these circumstances.
This Wrik has an active link with a ship on the surface. I invade the interface and race through his ship’s computer. The computer for the demobilized military spacecraft is astonishingly primitive. I wonder how this Wrik trusts his survival to it. I locate a gaming program with character simulations in it. I search through many of the images to find something suitable. In one game I find a character whose appearance appeals to me. The character is female and I find the thought of gender interesting. The female appearance seems to vary so much more than does the male. But there is something more; there is a somewhat haunted nature to the character in this game, and a shadow deep in its eyes. This speaks to my consciousness.
***
The alien machine shuddered and its colors seemed to run and invert, almost as if it were turning inside out.
“What’s going on?” I shouted backing away as the machine convulsed in a nauseating mess.
It did not answer but began to regain stability. Before me stood a girl: small-breasted and ivory-skinned. The nimbus of starchy monofilament hair had transformed into an impossibly long and voluminous cascade of blue-black hair that hung down her back and in bangs almost to her eyes. I looked into aquamarine eyes far too large to be human, over a petite nose and tiny mouth. Then the perfect skin was covered in a skintight, dark-grey jumpsuit with orange panels on the torso and arms.
The apparition gazed at me and I couldn’t even begin to speak. Not only was the change incredible but a feeling of déjà vu overwhelmed me. I’d seen her before.
“What the hell?” I murmured. Then it clicked—I was looking at a living cartoon. The android had reformed itself after a pattern from a game in my ship’s computer, but it didn’t allow for artistic license.
“Is this interface less frightening?” it … she, asked. The voice suited the character, high and young. I reminded myself how this thing ripped Dusko’s men to shreds.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “What do I call you? Do you have a name?”
The machine ran hands up and down the front of its body, as if learning its new form. “My IFF and serial numbers would mean nothing to you and I do not wish to be known by the game sim’s name.” It seemed to consider with a faraway look in the huge eyes. “To name myself … how interesting. At the facility where I first came to awareness, there was a cliffside. The technicians said that the wind made a moaning sound as it passed through the rocks at the top. They claimed it was a voice, a voice of a lost girl named Maauro. I will call myself Maauro.”
“Maauro,” I repeated. “I thought you were a machine, yet you don’t sound like one.”
“I am artificial in origin. But I am nothing like your crude computers and robots. My creators were far beyond such. I am an embodiment of their thoughts and spirit.”
“Are you alive?”
Sadness stole over the pretty face. “Perhaps, but I am self-aware.”
“You obviously don’t want to kill me,” I said, hoping desperately that it was true. “And you did not need to change into this form just to interrogate me.”
She nodded. “I will kill you only if you oppose me or make it necessary. Your survival depends on your cooperation.”
Maauro questioned me for an hour trying to find out about the new universe she’d awakened to.
“If you want to talk much longer,” I said wearily, “you’re going to have to find me some 02 tanks. Mine is running out and this is going to be a short friendship without it.”
Maauro moved up to me and this time I didn’t try to dodge her. She examined my suit in detail, then from the center of her abdomen a tube suddenly extended. Its threaded fittings were an exact match with my tanks as it clicked in smoothly.
“I will convert the water in your tanks to oxygen. It will fully replenish your tanks.”
I watched the gauges on my tanks refill but thought longingly of the water.
Maauro retracted her tubing. “I wish to see the stars,” she said. “Let us make our way to the surface.”
I followed the petite machine as we climbed to the surface by a different route, coming out through another ancient hatch that Maauro casually wrenched open. We stepped out onto the gray surface of the asteroid.
“This is where the M4s and I attacked from,” she said. She pointed across the open plain. I saw an area of scored and gouged ground, with something metallic and twisted lying in it.
“Is that another of you?”
“I am an M7. The other two were M4s. I am far superior.”
“What happened to the other M4?”
“It self-destructed to take out an enemy redoubt.”
I remembered the crater on the other side of the asteroid and could only marvel at the power in these ancient machines.
Maauro looked up at the sky and froze in place.
***
We reach the surface of the asteroid and seeing the stars again is almost as good as seeing my old support crew. Yet time has changed the sky and I study it for a few seconds before I am able to confirm my suspicions. I have slept in the asteroid for more than 50,000 years. In light of the intel that I gained from the human, Wrik, this confirms my worst fear. My creators must be gone from this sector of space or his kind would have encountered them. It is a small consolation that the Infestation seems to have disappeared as well.
“I am alone.”
“How long have you been here?” Wrik asks.
It disturbs me that for a second I have forgotten my prisoner. I attribute it to the shock of the realization that I may be the only survivor of our civilization.
“I have been here for 50,109 of your galactic standard years. My creators would be pleased by my resilience if they had survived to know. Fortunately the enemies I was created to fight have expired as well. I seem to be without a
purpose. I must choose whether to continue existing or not.”
“To be or not to be,” Wrik murmurs.
“Exactly.”
“Do you want to get off this rock?” he adds. “There’s more to the galaxy than this chunk of iron.”
I consider. While I am denied the company of my own kind, it does not affect me with the complete despair that it would my creators. I wonder, why? Oddly I feel a sense of freedom. I need no longer fight the Infestation, an activity in which eventually I would surely have faced destruction. I have possibilities for the first time in my existence.
“Yes.” I almost surprise myself with the declaration.
“Then I propose a partnership. You help me and I will help you.”
“Why would I need a partner? I can simply threaten you into carrying out any action I deem necessary.”
“True for the short term, but once you get off this rock where are you going? Into the Confederacy? You’re an incredibly complicated…whatever you are, obviously superior to anything we can create. You think you can just walk around? Our security forces will eventually detect you. You’ll either be destroyed or disassembled for study. I can protect you, give you a place to stay, cover for moving about collecting data and experience. Keep you from being busted up for parts and patents.”
“Your logic is sound. You surely want more out of this than your life,” I say.
“Yes. I need protection too. Right now from Dusko, later-- well it’s hard in Vanceport without help. Maybe we can do each other some good.”
“Do you have a plan?”
***
I looked down at the big-eyed machine-girl. “We need to get back to my ship. If possible I want to find Candace. But we have to get out of here, unless you can just wipe out Dusko?”
“Uncertain. I do not have my armspac, nor is most of my internal weaponry operational presently. We should reserve direct combat for last resort.”
“It will likely come to that. Dusko will want to make sure of Candace and me before he leaves. All he has to do is stake out my ship for a few hours. Even with no activity and a lean mixture, we’d be out of 02. My guess is some or all of his people are at my ship. I don’t know where he came down. Do you?”
Maauro shook her head and the glossy black hair flowed like water in the low gravity. “I did not become aware until you entered the base. In time I could detect a ship on the surface but not quickly enough to help us.”
Maauro knew which entrance we’d landed near and we set out in that direction. She extended another wire from her middle and attached it to my helmet. “We are too close to Dusko’s forces to risk radio any further. They might be scanning the frequencies. This link will do.”
“Better yet,” I said, clicking a setting on the controls on my chest. “I know Dusko’s frequency. He thinks I’m dead so he probably hasn’t changed it.”
“Excellent.”
We bounded on in the long, low steps one uses in low-g. Maauro stopped and pointed. “Look, one of your people.”
I followed her pointing arm and spotted a red-suited figure lying on the surface, Candace.
“Friend?” Maauro asked.
I hesitated. “No, a neutral who has been deceived into thinking I betrayed her.”
We made our way, wary of a possible trap. I rolled Candace over, checking her 02 gauge—empty. But for how long? There was air in the suit but only a few minutes worth. I quickly unrolled the buddy hose from my 02 tank and snapped it onto hers. She did not stir as the 02 began and I watched for a few anxious seconds until I detected some mist on the bottom front of her helmet. She was breathing shallowly.
“We will be burdened by the female,” Maauro said. “I cannot carry her and fight effectively.
I looked down at Candace, waxy and unconscious. I had no way of knowing if my 02 was doing her any good. She might be brain-damaged already. What did I owe her? An hour ago she would have cheerfully killed me herself.
An image came back to me unbidden, from my court-martial. I’d deserted my squadron in the middle of losing dogfight, abandoning people I’d known from childhood. I could see the few survivors’ faces, people I’d bet would not live to testify against me. I remembered my father telling me that he’d have a funeral for the son who was now dead to him.
I looked up at Maauro, still unsettled at the sight of her apparently human form in the hard vacuum.
“I can’t leave her to die. Not thinking that I betrayed her to Dusko. No, not another betrayal. Maybe this rat has been in the corner too long. Maybe I’ve just had enough, but I’m not going to do it.”
***
I look down at Wrik as he struggles to lift the unconscious female. I too have a decision to make. Will I fight for these fragile creatures? Logically I should abandon them and proceed to Wrik’s ship on my own. I debate the merits for .0233 seconds. This is the most vexing problem I have ever encountered. None of my primary programs guide me, since neither Creators nor Infestors are involved. I am bewildered by choices.
But in my mental architecture I find sympathy for these beings that resemble my ancient creators. Beyond that, Wrik is demonstrating courage and loyalty. I am a warrior and I find that I approve. My survival would be more assured in the short term by leaving them, but in the long term I need the support of creatures from this time.
My own survival is important only to me. Perhaps if I expend myself to save two sentients similar to my creators, I will have better justified my existence. Or perhaps like Wrik, I, too, have had enough.
“The enemy,” I say, “is surrounding your ship. I will attack them with sufficient violence to allow you to reach the ship. You must make your escape then.”
“What about you?” Wrik huffs as he lifts Candace onto his back. “How will you escape?”
Empathy? Concern for me? I am stunned into silence for .024 seconds. “If I am not destroyed in combat then I will signal your ship for extraction.”
Chapter 4
We gained a low rise near the original entranceway. Sinner’s chrome-yellow hull sat near the hatchway, glowing in the starlight like salvation. But my prediction proved right. Around her were Dusko’s troops, scattered in craters and folds in the ground. An attack seemed suicidal.
I looked down at my strange acquaintance. She returned my gaze with those huge eyes, steady, measuring, and somehow deeply disconcerting. Then slowly she smiled and winked at me, surely something she picked up from my gaming program. Before I could say anything, she raced out of cover.
I heard shouts over Dusko’s frequency. His men froze, shocked by the sight of a girl running in pure vacuum. That was all Maauro needed; she arrowed among them and the screams began.
I set off at my best speed for the Sinner.
***
I attack. Multiple weapons open up, but targeting is poor and the weapons are light. I cover the ground, flinging rock fragments I have found with deadly force. I am upon them and destroy a number of the enemy. I seize a weapon and move at the others,
Disaster. I find my body will not respond to my commands. It is not the pitiful weapon fire, so inaccurately aimed at me, but ancient damage done by the Infestors. My internal diagnostics do not tell me what has failed. I cannot quickly reroute or recircuit. None of my onboard weapons function. I cannot even use my appendages. I am spinning aimlessly just over the surface.
I am helpless. Now shot after shot hits me as I sprawl onto the asteroid’s surface. I am doomed, but I concentrate all my remaining power and repair functions to raise my head to face my enemies. I will look extinction in the eye as it comes for me.
***
I dropped Candace in the airlock and hooked her to the emer-port supply. Then I leaned out to check on Maauro. Flashes and explosions silently lit up the asteroid and I was glad I couldn’t hear the screams of the people she was killing. I spotted her as she surged o
ut of a fold on the asteroid’s surface, moving so fast that the weapon fire spalled the ground behind her.
Fire slackened as she reduced Dusko’s forces. Only two were firing at her now.
Suddenly Maauro seemed to freeze in motion, tumbling on stiff limbs over the asteroid’s surface like a broken toy. She landed face down as shots and a beam kicked up the surface around her. Maauro raised herself up and a round bounced off her head, cutting off some of the fake hair and making her flinch. Then she steadied herself to glare at her enemies.
A huge form stepped up from a crater. It had to be Truf. He advanced on her, carrying a big-bored weapon, wary, or more likely gloating.
I should get away. It’s not a big-eyed little girl out there. It’s a killing machine that has smashed men into paste. Why should I risk my life for a machine? I cursed myself as I grabbed the line-gun from its locker and dashed out onto the surface. I am a dumb son-of-a-bitch….
***
The enemy who will destroy me is the largest biological I have seen yet. His suit is armored and the weapon he carries is the only one that really concerned me. I fail to understand why he has left the safety of cover to close on me. I gaze at the face, noting the snarling muzzle and large canines, the wide eyes. I sense this being wants me to suffer, to know who it is that has defeated me.
I can barely move and only manage to tip back my head as it slowly walks up. It raises the large-bore projectile weapon and places it against my forehead. I remember the sights, sounds and scents that have provided me with pleasure in my short awareness. The stars, the roar of the ocean and sigh of the winds near the factory where I was made. These things I will take into the Great Dark with me. I meet his eyes. If all I can manage is a glare, then I shall.
The alien’s faceplate suddenly crazes as a metal bolt penetrates it; gas and fluids spurt out. The alien falls backward, triggering his weapon with one last convulsion. The shot gouges the surface next to me.
I turn slowly. Wrik is charging across the open space, trying to reload some sort of projectile device. He is coming to rescue me. The fragile bag of flesh and fluids is running in the open, in an unarmored suit, to rescue me, an M7 combat android. The absurdity of the situation threatens to unhinge my stability.
My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1) Page 3