Star Raider

by Vaughn Heppner

  “He primarily has the one,” Ursa said, “knowledge. That one, however, often trumps everything else.” She shrugged. “We must force a showdown. I suggest you retrieve the blaster.”

  “Why?” Tanner asked. “So I can threaten to shoot him?”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Ursa asked.

  Tanner shook his head.

  “Why are you troubled?” she asked.

  Tanner chewed on his lower lip. “I don’t understand Acton. I’d like to know what a Shand is exactly. How alien is he?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Ursa asked. “An alien—”

  “I’ll tell you,” Tanner said. He pointed at Greco. “One could argue apemen are alien. One could even make a point that undermen are alien from humans. They’re a different species, are they not?”

  “It depends on what you mean by species,” Ursa said.

  “Yeah,” Tanner said. “That’s my point. Why can Acton mimic humanity so well? Maybe he’s part human. I mean, maybe far in the past humans went too far in their genetic experiments. Maybe the scientists made Shands.”

  “From your observation,” Ursa said, “does that seem likely?”

  “I have no idea,” Tanner said. “I’ve seen him do strange things. The way he folded into a corner when we fought the pirate gunmen—that was freaky. Does he sweat the drug he uses on people? It seemed like he did with Ottokar. That’s the other thing. Why does the drug work so well on people? Maybe because whatever Acton is, it is similar to humans.”

  “Whatever he really is,” Ursa said, “it’s time for a showdown with him. We’re almost in orbit. The Coalition is still coming after us and they’ve found a new weapon. Maybe we should have gone for the giant battleship ourselves. Maybe that was the real prize all along instead of whatever is on the cyborg haunted planet.”

  “Right,” Tanner said. “Let me get my gun.”

  ***

  Tanner made a pit stop in his quarters. He put on his Remus uniform and buckled on the special holster for the Innoo Flaam. Then, resolutely, he marched to the engine room. He feared suddenly that Acton had found the hidden weapon and put it somewhere else.

  His heart pounding, he entered the engine room and hurried to the fixture. With a powerdrill, he undid the screws. Finally, he pulled off the grille. The gun was gone.

  Tanner’s heart beat faster yet. The bastard had—

  Just a minute, he told himself. He leaned in and smiled like an idiot. The big blaster had moved at some point in the journey. He reached in, and hesitated.

  Tanner held his palm over the gun. Could he feel anything different about it? He wasn’t sure.

  The centurion gripped the heavy, longish blaster, drawing it out of the duct. With a decisive shove, he put it into the holster. Then, he put the grille back in place and drilled the screws into their spots.

  Tanner drew the blaster, looking at the weapon. He—

  Wait. He moved the gun near his face. He felt something stir against his skin. It was…a vibration. Would a hidden energy being cause that?

  Tanner inhaled, flexing his chest. He marched for the exit. As he strode through the ship’s corridors, he thought about the voyage.

  The Dark Star had been a different ship at the beginning. Maybe he’d changed, too. At the beginning, he had simply been Centurion Tanner, the bounty hunter waiting for Consul Maximus to find a plan to free Remus. Now, he was supposed to stop a terrible menace, the cyborgs from ancient times. Yet, if the menace simply was cyborgs, why had the Old Federation gone to such insane lengths to fortify this star system? It seemed like far too much of an effort. It would have been much easier to just land and dig out the cyborgs.

  This is something else, isn’t it?

  They all knew that somewhere inside themselves. The Dark Star was something else, too. Tanner never would have thought to build a super stealth craft like this. He had the feeling they could go anywhere in the super-modified raider.

  The tiptoeing through this star system had been an education. Acton had done more—

  Tanner stopped as the hairs on the back of his neck lifted. His gun hand darted to the blaster. He flipped the switch so it vibrated and made an audible sound. At the same time, he threw himself to the side.

  Something tiny like a mosquito hissed past.

  Tanner backpedalled, drawing the blaster. “If you try that again, I’m going to shoot. I’ve switched it to the highest setting, as well.”

  His back bumped against a hatch. He scanned the corridor ahead. Acton stepped into view. He put a small needler into a holster under his suit jacket.

  “That was a remarkable, intuitive leap,” the Shand said. “A pity, though, because now you’re making everything more difficult.”

  “Where are the others?” Tanner said, with the blaster aimed at Acton’s chest.

  The Shand nodded. “You have surmised correctly. I have put them to sleep for the moment. They are otherwise unharmed.”

  “You listened in to our meeting.”

  “Well done, Captain, you have deduced another truth. I used a directional listening device, training it on the chamber. The apeman and you discovered all the hidden microphones in the rec room. Ursa’s anti-bug device made the directional listening difficult, though. Still, I heard enough.”

  “I want to see my friends.”

  “In time, in time,” Acton said.

  “If you try anything—”

  “Captain,” the Shand said. “Do you see my hands? There are in plain sight, yes?”

  “I see them. I want you to put them down at once. I believe you have hidden weapons in your palms. I don’t know if they can breach my blaster shield, but I don’t feel like testing it just now.”

  Acton hesitated for just a fraction. Then, he lowered his hands.

  “If the Lithians try for me while we’re talking, I’m firing at you.”

  “You will kill us all if you fire the blaster in the ship.”

  “That I will,” Tanner agreed.

  Acton cocked his head. “I’m not sure you’re suicidal enough to fulfill the threat.”

  “That’s funny, because I was just thinking the same thing about you. I don’t think you’re suicidal enough to test me, especially as I have an activated Innoo Flaam pointed at you.”

  Acton smiled, and it seemed genuine. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Captain. You are elemental and stubborn. Despite my vastly superior intellect, I find myself stumped more than I should be by you. By you, Captain, an inferior being. Such a role switch is beyond my understanding.”

  Tanner didn’t just fixate on Acton. He kept aware of his surroundings. He wasn’t sure what the Shand planned next. If Acton had gone to such lengths to keep everything secret, why should he change all of a sudden?

  “Let us bargain,” Acton suggested.

  “Nope,” Tanner said. “Either you wake my friends and rearm them or I’m shooting you. Those are all the choices you have left.”

  “If you do that, the human race has a greater than fifty percent chance of perishing.”

  “I’m supposed to take your word on that?”

  “That would be easiest and in the end wisest move,” Acton said.

  “I’m too elemental for that, too stubborn, remember?”

  “That’s true,” Acton said. “Just a moment, please.” He made a harsh, loud and guttural sound.

  Tanner’s hackles rose. He heard a grunt through the hatch coming from the room behind him. He didn’t turn around, though.

  “A Lithian was getting ready to surprise you,” Acton said. “He hid there a while ago. I told him to hold just now. Very well, Captain. I will wake your companions. In truth, I probably shouldn’t have incapacitated them. I do so hate anyone coercing me. In that way, you and I are alike. I struck out of force of habit, a very old habit, but one just the same. Can we agree to a truce?”

  “We can, provided you tell us the truth for once.”

  “Yes,” Acton said. “Let us make this a ma
rvelous exception to my normal rule of thumb. That might even prove interesting, eh?”

  -44-

  They met in the rec room around the pool table. Everyone aboard the Dark Star had packed into the chamber.

  The two Lithians crouched near the hatch. They were too big for the raider. Under natural conditions, they would have panicked and started smashing things. Several taps on a brown control unit had been all Acton needed to do to soothe them.

  Seeing that had caused Tanner to wonder about Acton’s words earlier, saying he had instructed the one to stand down. Had that been true or another misdirection? Why shout when a tap on a control unit could make the Lithian obey?

  Vulpus stood behind Ursa. The underman watched the Lithians, his right hand tight around his sheathed baton.

  Tanner doubted the baton would slow down the big uglies. Maybe the underman battling the Lithians would give him time to draw and activate the blaster.

  Marcus also wore a gun, one of the new ones from the weapons shop on the hideaway. Greco and Tanner completed the crew. The four of them with Vulpus were on one side of the pool table. Acton with his Lithians was on the other side.

  “I hope you’re all feeling better,” Acton said.

  Tanner had helped the others after they’d woken up. The Shand had darted each with the little gun he’d fired at Tanner in the corridor. The spring-driven gun had fired needle-thin knockout darts.

  “Are you frightened of us?” Ursa asked. “Is that why you acted as you did?”

  “Frightened of you, my dear?” Acton said. He shook his head. “Of him,” he pointed at Tanner. “Yes.”

  “Because of the blaster?” Marcus asked.

  “That amplifies his strengths,” Acton said. “I’m not sure it’s the critical reason, though.”

  “None of that matters here,” Tanner said. “We want to know the truth.”

  “The truth,” Acton said. “He wants to know the truth. Is that all?” he asked the centurion.

  “No more evasions,” Tanner said. “Why did you come here? What’s on the planet? It has to be more than just cyborgs.”

  “It is more,” the Shand said. “They also amplify the original problem.”

  “There’s something more than cyborgs?” Ursa asked in disbelief. “Then all the old legends about the Old Federation battling the cyborgs—”

  “Are perfectly true,” Acton said, interrupting her. “The Old Federation fought a terrible war against the cyborgs. It brought about savage destruction and sapped the strength of the Old Federation. The Great Breakup took place soon after the end of the war, with endless years of barbarism all over the galaxy. Granted, there were a few points of light, but far too few. Now, at last, the galaxy, or this part of the galaxy, anyway, is stirring again.”

  “Were you really born on Manhome?” Ursa asked.

  “That is not at all germane to the situation,” Acton told her.

  “But still—”

  The Shand raised a hand. “I will not submit myself to further scrutiny. You want to know about the planet, about the terrible danger threatening all of us. That will suffice for the present. I will tell you that.”

  “It would be good to know who you really are, Lord Acton,” Ursa said.

  “I am humanity’s benefactor against a terrible event that will soon sweep upon you with a frightful vengeance,” Acton said. “It has been a long, long time coming, believe you me. It has taken delicate timing on my part. Now, I suspect, it is too late for them to retreat elsewhere. If we had come too soon, that’s what would have happened. The secret enemy would have drawn back, possibly evaded the blow. I suspect there are other transfer nodes in our galaxy they could use. This is a known one, though, and that will hopefully make all the difference.”

  “Transfer nodes?” Ursa said. “Delicate timing and retreat? What in the world are you talking about?”

  “Phazes,” Acton said. “They are the energy beings Centurion Tanner keeps wondering about. We don’t know what the Phazes call themselves, but it is what we call them.”

  “By ‘we,’” Ursa said, “you’re referring to other Shands?”

  “Obviously,” Acton said.

  “What are the Phazes and what do they have to do with cyborgs and this dreadfully bleak planet?” Ursa asked.

  Acton put his elbows on the edge of the pool table and pressed the fingertips of his right hand against the fingertips of his left.

  “The cyborg Web Minds are among the vainest entities in the universe,” Acton began. “Please, hold your questions, Patrician, I am about to tell what a Web Mind is and how it bears on our present peril.”

  The Shand paused as if collecting his thoughts. “The cyborgs were a terrible danger. Each of their victories allowed them to grow rapidly as they absorbed the defeated into their ranks. It was a wretched process. A captured human found himself strapped onto a conveyer belt. Often wide awake, he went through the skin choppers, which peeled away his epidermis. It was a ghastly procedure. I won’t go into further details how certain organs were removed and old muscles replaced with new and more powerful fibers. Graphite reinforced bones, steel plates in places, the additions changed the poor wretch. Circuitry found its way into many places, most of all in the defeated human brain.

  “Those mechanical-human creatures weren’t the main, carefully constructed cyborgs of legend. Machines made those in a different way. I’m taking about the cannon fodder that did the majority of the dying. We—meaning the Shands—have calculated that many of the hastily constructed cyborgs had dim recollections of their former humanity. To be precise, they suffered cruelly as they fought for the Web Minds under mental compulsion.

  “The Cyborg Empire was a monstrosity, a curse against life even as it mimicked life. With remorseless, logical brutality, they conquered wide swathes of stellar territory. If we fail to stop those down on the planet, the same awful conquering system will launch anew into our galaxy.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tanner said. “You said the great danger was something else, though.”

  “I did.”

  “But if the something else wins, it or they will still unleash the cyborgs on us?”

  “That is correct,” Acton said.

  “What does any of that have to do with Web Minds?” Ursa asked. “Whatever they’re supposed to be.”

  “I’m getting to that,” Acton said. “You are all remarkably impatient. The most simian looking of you has the greatest capacity to wait. That is ironic, don’t you think?”

  Greco stirred. “Why do you insult us at every turn? I have never fathomed the need. The truly superior don’t need that as a crutch to their ego. It shows weakness in you, Lord Acton.”

  The Shand paused, his eyes tightening. “Hmm, well, we shall see, shan’t we?”

  Greco said nothing more. For the moment, neither did the others.

  Acton finally nodded. “So then, let us talk about the Web Minds, a remarkably gruesome fixation to every cyborg manifestation. Many have likened the cyborgs to ants or bees. They are a hive creature, often linked by wireless servers to each other and to a controller. The first creators of the cyborgs also constructed Web Minds. First, many kilograms of brain tissues found themselves teased from various brain masses, from slain humans. Those tissues were eventually layered in sheets and placed in a green computing solution. Electrical and other impulses stimulated the mass. It contained hundreds of human brains meshed into one. Most of the old memories were scrubbed. In their places, new memories and synapse links emerged. This mass mind was smarter and could think faster and more deeply than any single human could.”

  Acton sat back as he picked up his cane. It had rested against his chair. He used the lion head to scratch the underside of his chin.

  “The Web Minds concocted marvelous strategies. They could on occasion outthink the greatest computers and the wisest Shand. That was the true feat.”

  Ursa glanced at Tanner and rolled her eyes.

  The centurion grinned. He was
thinking the same thing. Shands apparently loved to boast.

  “The problem with this incredible brain power was arrogance,” Acton said in a musing tone. “Almost to a one, each Web Mind became extraordinarily vain and even pompous. This seldom occurred right away. It took time for the fatal flaw to assert itself. Truthfully, it caused the cyborgs to make mistakes. It’s what allowed the Old Federation a fighting chance against the Cyborg Empire. Often, various Web Minds came into conflict with each other. They logically saw the flaw in that, but considered themselves above such pettiness. In that way, they became blind.”

  “Yet, even an arrogant Web Mind must have been dangerous,” Ursa said.

  “Oh, yes,” Acton replied, “but as I said, it gave the Old Federation with Shand help a chance. And over the many years, those chances added up to victory time and again. In the end, it led to the cyborg defeat. The problem was that as these Web Minds died, new, less pompous ones took over, and their cyborg minions became more dangerous again for a time.”

  “What does any of this have to do with Phazes?” Tanner asked.

  “I’m getting to that,” Acton said. He set the cane on his lap and put his elbows back on the edge of the pool table.

  “I don’t know which Web Mind did so,” Acton said, “but one of them learned about the Innoo Flaam and the energy beings. The Innoo Flaam fought the first Phaze Invasion twenty thousand years ago. The Innoo Flaam won, but at great cost to themselves as I’ve said before. Somehow, the Web Mind learned of this ancient conflict.

  “During the Cyborg-Old Federation War, this Web Mind searched for every clue, every hint about the Phazes. In its arrogance, it must have believed the cyborgs could harness their incredible energy. Linked together, the two would prove invincible. Unfortunately for life in our galaxy, this Web Mind had cunning with its pompous arrogance. It survived the last years of war. Carried by its workers in various pieces, it went down to Planet Zero and burrowed deeper than any Old Federation device could follow.”

  “That part seems hard to believe,” Tanner said.

  “Oh, the Old Federation people tried,” Acton said. “They went to great lengths to follow and destroy the cyborgs. The Federation people took catastrophic losses, and they never could be sure they’d gotten the damnable Web Mind.”