Syn-En: Pillar World

by Linda Andrews

  Bei smiled. The enemy would think the attack came from the wrong direction.

  On the remaining screen, Groat’s eyestalks twitched. “Are you a coward like your leader, Beijing York?”

  Spittle drizzled from the Scraptor’s mandibles.

  “This is almost insulting.” Bei placed his hands on his hips.

  Sensors switched to green. Shang’hai had repaired the engine’s coolant system. “He thinks we’re two year olds vulnerable to taunts? Biologics are far better at insulting us.”

  “Indeed.” Not that Bei would thank any of them. Their words had caused him to doubt his Humanity, even tempted him to deny it and take revenge on others. He hadn’t. His programming to protect them was too deeply embedded in his hardware.

  Rome’s lips curled back. “Does the ET even know how ugly he is? That armor makes him look like a scorpion. I ate a scorpion once. It tasted as nasty as it looked.”

  Iggy leapt back onto her stool. Her ears flattened against her head. “Admiral, I’m receiving a message.”

  She materialized in cyberspace just as a ball of light shot through it. She leapt toward it.

  Bei sucked in a breath. “We’re supposed to be radio silent.”

  A single transmission would give away their position. He’d have the upgrades of whatever moron sent that communique, then he’d beat the lesson into the Syn-En’s plated skull.

  Iggy pounced on the ball, wrapping her body around it.

  “Fire when ready.”

  “I’m ready.” Rome’s fingers twitched. The drones blazed white hot on the screen. Black fissure lines appeared in the spherical bodies. Per their design, they splintered apart, heading toward the enemy battleship.

  A bouquet of red blossoms filled the screen.

  “They can’t penetrate the enemy’s energy shields.” Bei’s fists shook and compression sensors blazed in his head until he relaxed his grip.

  “Ten made it through.” Rome crossed his hands over his chest.

  Iggy yelped. The message bundle dragged her across cyberspace. Feathers and fur smeared a trail behind her.

  Groat’s image tilted. A klaxon sounded before being switched off. His mandibles peeled away, revealing sharp incisors. “Ah, so you are there. Now we can play. For keeps.”

  Bei shook out his fists. “Status on those pods?”

  “Ten A.U. and closing.” Shang’hai opened and closed her fingernail, revealing the screwdriver inside the prosthetic appendage. “ETA to wormhole: five minutes.”

  An eternity. At least the Bug-uglies didn’t know where they were. “Prepare the next salvo.”

  “Preparing next salvo.” Rome bared his teeth.

  Iggy’s hologram stiffened then melted away.

  Bei stepped toward her last position. Had the strain of maintaining the hologram been too much for her? The base of his skull burned from the energy to maintain the link. What would happen to the Amarooks if their leader was brain dead?

  The screen with the battlefield dissolved. Guenoc, the leader of the Plenipotan, stared back at them with all four of his black eyes. “Ah, there you are.”

  “End message.” The Striker’s computers rejected Bei’s orders.

  “Well!” Guenoc’s nostril flaps quivered. “I simply want an update on the status of the operation. As the senior sentient of the alliance, I—”

  “Desist.” In cyberspace, Bei mentally yanked on all transmission lines.

  Shang’hai materialized next to him. She wrapped her hands around a large blue tube. “This one.”

  The screen fell dark.

  That had not been on his schematic. The Skaperian techs had a lot to answer for. Bei quarantined his anger. He’d deal with interfering administrators later.

  “Admiral, we’ve been detected.” Rome rose from his seat. “They’ve locked on.”

  “Abandon ship.” Bei snatched the drone controls from Rome’s hands. A clock counted down inside his head. Only two minutes twenty-nine seconds until the lifepods reached the event horizon. He’d give them two minutes, thirty.

  Rome’s lips thinned. “You know if you die here or are cut off from your body, you’ve bought a ticket on the next chariot. One way.”

  “I know the risks.” But they were his to take. He was in charge. Behind Bei, the elevator doors chimed and opened. Drones drifted through the holograms to fill the bridge.

  “God, Bei, don’t leave me stuck explaining things to your wife. With her superpowers, I know parts of me will go missing. Parts I love. Parts my wife loves.” Shaking his head, Rome faded away.

  Shang’hai shook her finger at him. “No chariot rides. Get out before the reactor loses containment in two minutes thirty.”

  He would not die today. Neither would the enemy. But Bei would inflict some damage. Silence blanketed him. Tactics and his available armaments streamed through his head. He laid out his plan.

  Twenty-three-point-six percent chance of success. It was better than Twenty-three-point-five. Bei shunted extra power to the forward shields.

  Light burst from the side of the enemy dreadnaught.

  He checked the sensors. Twenty torpedoes. He unleashed a space-age flashbang. The small missile streamed directly into the converging barrage.

  “At least tell me your name little Syn-En.” Groat picked a piece of meat from his teeth. “I’ll carve it into your carcass while the others dissect you.”

  Dissect this. Bei detonated the flashbang. The electronic signature on the torpedoes flickered. Using the com, he amplified the Wireless Array and tapped into the guidance system while the weapons rebooted. One. Three. Six. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty-one missiles hacked. He overrode their kill codes and returned them to sender.

  Four more torpedoes resumed course. He counted down. Less than a minute.

  “Time for a little housecleaning.” He authorized the sloughing off of the crystalline structure that provided the Striker’s cloaking. It wouldn’t do for the technology to fall into the Founders’ hands. He rolled his shoulders, shifted so he could see through the floating drones.

  “Ah, there you are little Syn-En.” Grout threw back his head and laughed. The sound was sugar in a paper cut. “Such a tiny vessel. I wouldn’t have wasted so many torpedoes if I had known.”

  Groat’s bullet-shaped head whipped about. “What do you mean we’ve been targeted? By whom?”

  Bei braced his feet on the deck. The first three torpedoes exploded when they hit the Striker’s energy shield. The concussive wave punched the bridge. Bulkheads crumbled.

  The fourth torpedo slammed into his starboard side. Wind screamed through the elevator shaft as he vented atmosphere.

  Bei threw energy reserves behind his ship. Accelerating, the vessel shook. Vibrations dislodged panels that clanged against the deck. The fusion engines approached critical mass. He charged across space, closing the distance between himself and the enemy’s torpedoes.

  The dreadnaught’s guns barked fire. Projectiles strafed his hull. A torpedo exploded off his port bow.

  He laid in a collision course.

  Groat pounded his humanoid fist against his palm. Beneath them, his pinscher claws trembled. “Not this time little Syn-En. We are wise to your tactics.”

  Wise maybe, but that didn’t mean they had the defenses to stop it. Bei fully charged the drones hovering about him. He overrode the failsafes and splintered the warheads. Once his ship breached the dreadnaught’s shields, they would burrow deeper for five seconds before exploding.

  Bei played his last card and opened a channel. Instead of displaying the full bridge, he projected his image on the NSA flagship. “Here I thought you’d roll out the welcome mat for me, Grouse.”

  He deliberately messed up Groat’s name. Would the Bug-ugly know he was being compared to an Earth bird? To food?

  “Groat, Beijing York. I’m not surprised you’re defective. Too much technology.”

  “So are you going to let me in or are you chicken?”

  Groat’s segmented armor
expanded as he inhaled the insult. “Such a little ship. Have you come to plead for your pathetic race? Or maybe your wife’s life?”

  Bei’s cardiac sensors broke free of his programming. He sent a dose of Serotonin to counter it.

  Groat steepled his fingers. “Our scientists can’t wait to get their hands on Nell Stafford. They have many experiments planned. But that’s after we have a little… fun with her.”

  Scraptor chuckles soiled the com system.

  Bei hoped the fire he caused would cleanse it. The wormhole swallowed the lifepods. The wardens were through. His men had been rescued. Bei’s skin prickled. The idiots had let him inside their energy shields. Their pride was a powerful weapon for him. “I have a message for you.”

  “I look forward to receiving it.”

  “Go to hell.” He severed the connection. The Striker slammed against another energy barrier. Shit. He hadn’t been so clever after all. The bulkhead crumpled. Black space appeared in the tears in the hull. His systems recorded the damage and the danger. The fusion reactor overloaded. Metal curled away from the fireball. The MIRVed drones pierced his hull, turning it into a colander.

  Prepare for system shutdown.

  Bei slammed back into his physical body in another solar system. His legs crumpled, and his eyes rolled back into his head. His systems tried to reconcile the damage it registered to this new reality. Shoving his command codes at his failsafes, he remained conscious.

  Rome and Shang’hai stomped over to him.

  Another set of boots shoved them out of the way. Doc’s face appeared. Concern lined his brow and a green diagnostic beam shot out of his wrist. “Are you shutting down, Admiral?”

  “No. No.” Bei cleared his throat and blinked. It took a moment for his optical sensors to realign with the mock bridge on the NSA flagship. The contradictions squeezed his skull like a vice. He raised his arm to rub the back of his neck. His hand trembled. “Well, it worked, but the newer remote-controlled ships will need some tweaking.”

  Doc focused on the readouts.

  Bei’s gut clenched. No Syn-En needed readouts. He sat up. “What’s wrong?”

  Rome clamped a hand on Bei’s shoulder. “There was a riot in sickbay. Nell Stafford has vanished.”

  Chapter 4

  Bei pushed to his feet. His knees shook and his stomach roiled. Obviously the transition from hologram back to his real self had caused an anomaly in his systems. He ran a diagnostic check, focusing on his hearing.

  On the mock triangular bridge, three of his command staff stared at him. Two ensigns hovered behind Rome, Shang’hai, and Doc. Both barely out of their teens, the two Syn-Ens had volunteered to assist in the sick bay. It was supposed to be simple work, but something had gone wrong. Richmond was missing patches of her brown hair, and Brooklyn’s right arm had been twisted backward at the elbow. Tears in their NDA skin and uniform slowly zipped together, covering the silver ‘bones’ underneath.

  Bei’s systems flashed green. No problems. He locked gazes with Rome, his head of security. “Repeat.”

  Rome swallowed hard. “Nell Stafford is not aboard.”

  Bei’s lungs seized. His body switched to hypoxic conditions and slowed biologic functions. Anger prowled the Wireless Array and rattled the bars of his self-control. There was bound to be a simple reason behind his wife’s absence. One that they would discuss while he inserted a subroutine into her cerebral interface ensuring that she never left this ship without him at her side again. Ever. “Explain.”

  Frown lines marred Doc’s tan forehead. The sclera of his brown eyes tinged gray. His avatar materialized in cyberspace and shot sedatives at Bei’s rampaging anger. “Nell Stafford was helping in sick bay, but she’d gone beyond her established time so I sent her back to your cabin for nourishment and rest.”

  A reasonable request, but Nell was rarely reasonable. Biologics lacked the software in their logic processors, and his wife defied any attempts to program it in. Normal operations so far. Tension relaxed its grip on Bei’s shoulders. “Alone?”

  “No.” Doc cleared his throat. The green diag beam in his wrist winked off and on. “I had my wife accompany her, along with two recently repaired refugees.”

  Bei nodded. Despite being a pacifist, Davena shared one of Nell’s superpowers—control of the fermites. The atomic-sized machines were capable of the most outlandish defenses, all courtesy of his wife’s imagination and twentieth century movie clips. “Nell listens to your wife.”

  As much as she listened to anyone.

  His wife had a mind of her own and wasn’t afraid to use it. Even if it brought harm to herself and wore out his circuits.

  Doc and Rome stepped back.

  Richmond and Brooklyn marched forward. Standing at attention, the ensigns kept their eyes trained forward and stood ramrod straight.

  Bei’s testicles drew up tight. Why the hell were they being so formal? Among the Syn-En there was no rank. “Speak.”

  Brooklyn eased back a step.

  Startled, Richmond glared at her co-worker. She raised her chin a notch and inhaled deeply. “We were transporting four critical refugees from the triage area in Docking Bay Six. All four were comatose with severe internal hemorrhaging.”

  So the refugees were being carried. The gurneys would have been occupied and unconscious biologics wouldn’t feel pain. Bei clasped his hands behind his back. All standard operating procedure. “Go on.”

  “We commandeered lift alpha-delta-omega. The doors opened onto the sick bay deck and we exited. Nell Stafford, Davena Cabo, and two refugees stood aside as we passed.” Richmond exhaled slowly.

  Bei’s sensors pinged from Richmond’s spiking blood pressure and the scent of fear on her breath. Brooklyn squeezed his eyes closed and clamped his lips together.

  “We had traveled three-point-two meters when someone shouted yea-sayer.” Richmond’s avatar appeared in cyberspace. A black raincloud drenched her pixelated figure. She held up two soggy data boxes—hers and Brooklyn’s memory clips of the events.

  Bei accepted the files of the incident but didn’t open them. Instead he crossed referenced her words with the Combat Information Center. The archives rendered a definition from Earth circa Nineteen-Ten. “What is the current meaning of a yea-sayer?”

  Rome’s lip curled back. “A collaborator. Apparently, these slagheads snitch on their fellow Humans for favors from their masters, and their talking results in the deaths of one or more people.”

  The worst sort of collaborator. Bei rolled his stiff shoulders. “Surely no one mistook Nell for one of these… these slagheads.”

  The word fell short of describing the traitors and left a foul taste in his mouth. Enough enemies populated the universe, Humanity didn’t need to turn on itself.

  Richmond’s teeth clicked together and the remnants of her pony tail slapped her shoulders when she shook her head. “No, Sir! Nell Stafford’s reputation precedes her. Even our allies are in awe of her superpowers.”

  Bei’s lips twitched. Leave it to his wife to spread the word that technological advances were superpowers.

  Brooklyn nudged Richmond out of the way. “Admiral, the refugees attacked our patients, not Nell Stafford.”

  “But Nell tried to help you, didn’t she?” Bei swore under his breath. Of course, she did. His wife was always wading in the water without checking for sharks or piranhas. And her damned superpowers kept her safe or healed her. What would happen if they stopped? A glitch infected his cardiac subroutine.

  Brooklyn’s hands clenched and unclenched. “I heard her calling and managed to work my way to the top of the dog pile. A female with a broken arm was reaching for Nell when she just disappeared.”

  “Disappeared.” Bei couldn’t process the word or reconcile the meaning. “How does one disappear?”

  No one just disappears. They go somewhere… Some place. In cyberspace, his avatar ripped open the memory clips and threw them up on the screen of his mind. He fast forwarded to the end. Both
Richmond and Brooklyn’s optical implants had recorded the same event. Doc, Shang’hai, and Rome joined him in cyberspace.

  Nell’s features had softened. Her outline blurred then a haze appeared around her. She faded like an old photograph exposed to direct sunlight. Her blue eyes widened. She raised her hand. Her mouth opened then she was gone.

  Bei replayed it again and again. The ending didn’t change. “Son of a bitch.”

  Nell had disappeared!

  How the hell could this have happened? A third screen popped up. Groat, the Bug-ugly bastard clacked his mandibles. “…beg for your wife’s life.”

  Bei’s armor locked and kept him from collapsing. He’d thought it was an empty threat… What if Nell died from his attack on the dreadnaught? Lightning bolts shot from his avatar.

  The hair on Rome’s pixelated representation stood on end as he was repeatedly shocked. He slapped Bei on the back. “There’s no way the enemy could have gotten to her.”

  The comfort of touch both in the WA and in person was a new development, one Nell had taught them. His wife had changed the Syn-En in so many ways… For the better, if she was gone…

  “They’ll never get her.” Shang’hai set her ebony hand on Bei’s shoulder. “Every Syn-En would die first. And we’re not dead.”

  An insidious idea infected Bei’s thoughts and rotted his hope. But there was a way. “A yea-sayer could have done it.”

  They were Human and injured. What better way to get close to Nell? His Nell. Who thought everyone played by the rules. Who wanted to help everyone. His eyes leaked, distorting his vision. Storm clouds gathered over his avatar’s head and poured down on him. God help everyone if Bei lost her.

  “The only yea-sayers on board died in the corridor outside of sick bay. No one betrayed us. You’ll see. Nell Stafford will outlive us all.” Rome squeezed Bei’s shoulder. “Death’s probably afraid she’ll talk so much that all the lost souls will mutiny and return to the world of the living just to rest in peace.”