by Elsa Jade
One bite might be survivable. But two…
Well, there just couldn’t be a second.
“This unit is acceptable,” Nell was saying. “For, ah, service in my court, it requires only an upgrade, not replacement.”
Horvo angled its heavy head—not a nod or a shake, Troy suspected, but some primitive charging response. “Sadly, coding for this unit is no longer supported. I had to pull old records to even confirm the make and model.” The commander’s smile this time was mostly tusk. “To be brutally honest, few of our units ever require upgrades. We design them to precisely serve a purpose and then they are done.” It put one huge, clawed paw up in an untranslated gesture. “Since this unit is still in play, obviously it did not fulfill its purpose. For which I again apologize.”
“I want apologies no more than a new unit,” Nell said. “Since you’ve already pulled your old records, then it should be no problem to access the enhanced codes.” She waved her own hand, not quite copying the Bemhothian. “The court will pay for the extra coding, of course.”
The muscles around Horvo’s organic eye twitched. “Of course. We’ll need you to bring the Theta in since some error is preventing remote access.”
Although he was out of view of the comm, Troy forced himself not to flinch. Remote access?
Nell scowled. “An empress does not authorize remote access to her things.”
“Then you’ll bring the Theta to me. Excellent indeed.” Horvo thumped his paws together then touched the comm board on his side somewhere out of view. “Here are the coordinates to our engineering outpost. If you deliver the Theta, we can have it refurbished and fit for, ah, most excellent service to an empress’s pleasure once again.”
Nell huffed out a disapproving breath. “Just send the code in a data packet. I can order the Theta to install it.”
“Too large. The code, I mean. Not the Theta. Those are known to be small.”
All right. Unable to hold back anymore, Troy toggled the comm to standby. He ran a quick security scan. If Horvo was willing to try a remote takeover of him, then the ship wasn’t safe either. But the scan read clean.
“Accept the meeting,” he ordered brusquely.
“But—”
“I knew I’d be going up against them eventually.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You?”
“I have to transmit the cipher, and it’s also too complex a code to send remotely.”
She shook her head. “You make it sound like a love bomb.” She toggled the comm. “Commander, we’ve received the coordinates and set course. Her Most High Excellency appreciates your assistance with this matter.”
“And we appreciate this opportunity to correct a mistake in our record,” Horvo said. “You’ll need an entrance code to the base. Incoming now.” The image of his hulking countenance blanked.
Holding up one finger for silence, Troy rescanned for surveillance. Then he let out a hard breath.
“He didn’t ask for payment,” Nell mused.
Troy nodded. “They don’t intend to give me back to you.”
A sad smile twisted her mouth. “Everyone wants you.”
“I’m a mistake to them, one they want to erase. They can’t have feral shrouds carrying rogue code out into the universe.” He clenched his jaw. “The consortium hates to lose and hates to fail. I am both a loss and a failure.”
“And what would they think of me?” She curled back on the cushions. “A half-shroud ruining all of their proprietary secrets.”
“That’s one of the things I like about you,” he admitted.
That made her smile. “So we’re really doing this?”
Everything in him wanted to tell her no. “Yes.”
Without another word, she initiated the jump that would take them to Horvo’s coordinates.
Then she gazed at him. “Would I be greedy if I asked for once more?”
“For luck,” he murmured.
He stripped her slowly and laid her back on the cushions. With hands and mouth, with the barest whisper of his breath, he stoked her body from sighs to screams and back again. With all his might, organic and synthetic both, he held himself back until she was limp with dazed satisfaction.
“You’re trembling,” she whispered. “And your skin…”
Tiny silver sparks arced from his extremities—his fingertips, the ends of his hair…and his other tips.
“My star man.” Despite the inadvertent light show, her gaze was locked on his as she reached up to cup his cheek.
He tilted his head into her caress. “You make me want to follow that light, no matter how far away.”
“Into the light sounds good,” she whispered. “Just take me with you.”
Dipping lower yet, he slanted his mouth over hers. When her fingers threaded into his hair, holding tight, he deepened the kiss. She hummed with delight at the shared tingle that must have shivered through her just as it did through him.
This time, he didn’t hold back. Unveiling all the tricks in his code, perfected with every touch he’d learned under her—and over her—he brought her to the peak again. Silver stars burst from his skin, reflecting in her cloudy eyes, as he found his own release.
His muscles still quivering, he kissed her again.
She arched up into his hold. “You taste like starlight.”
He kissed her again and again and yet again, pouring everything he was into this moment. Once more, she’d asked. And once more he’d give.
He kissed her until her fingers slowly unraveled from his hair, leaving sweat-dampened curls. The loss of her grip hurt worse than the cruelest snatch of hair. More slowly yet, her arms drooped to each side, her hands brushing slackly down his flanks.
“It’s not starlight, Nell,” he whispered. “It’s a lie. I’m sorry, but I won’t take you with me, not when it would mean your death. If you have any Theta in you, you must know I can’t fail you, I won’t lose you.”
Her eyes were half-lidded, but he caught a glimpse of fiery fury behind the clouds when he kissed her one last time.
“I know you can see and hear me, but you can’t respond or move.” Gently, he straightened her limbs and tucked her discarded clothing around her. “I transmitted a command to your nanites to prepare for stasis. Since you don’t have implants, they are withdrawing into your bones. You’ve gotten used to them—not exactly addicted, but reliant—so your original organics are going to need some time to revive. When they do, you’ll be far from those consortium coordinates.” He sat down beside her hip and glared into her glassy stare. “Do not go back. I know you hear me, Nell. Do not come after me. I won’t—” He sagged a little, pressing himself against that lone point of contact between their hips that had been more intimate such a short spacetime ago. “I won’t be there. I’ll be gone. But the other shrouds, my matrix-brothers, and you will be free from the consortium forever.”
He leaned down to touch his forehead to hers, letting his hair curtain them…and absorb the grayish fluid leaking from his eyes. He must’ve strained himself more than he realized. Or maybe his nanites just wanted to stay with her.
“This is what we wanted. To be free.”
He straightened but had to stop at an awkward angle when one lock of his hair tangled around her finger. Though her eyes were still half closed, somehow she’d managed to fight the lassitude of her sequestering nanites enough to snag him.
But then, she’d always had that power.
Slowly, gently, unwillingly, he unwound the lock from her hand. “I know you would like to kill me now,” he said. “But I love you, Nell. Not in my programming, but in my heart.”
Despite nanite strength and single-minded shroud purpose, those few strands of hair almost kept him bound at her side. But more than indulging his love, he needed her to live.
He took a long step back, putting cold space between them. To be certain, he should put her in one of the cruiser’s emergency stasis pods and set it to hold her until his mission was done. But he couldn�
�t do to her what the empress had done, imprisoning her on a whim, even a whim as not whimsical as saving her life.
Also, if he touched her again, he might never let go.
When he took another step back, her fingers crooked almost imperceptibly and he swore her husky voice whispered in his ear.
Stay.
“I want to stay with you forever,” he whispered back. “And part of me will. Find a place where the stars always shine, Nell, and live free in whatever sky you choose.”
With each step he retreated, he waited for some sign—an internal pang, maybe the sound of a link breaking, something—to tell him they’d parted so he could focus on the consortium.
But that moment never came. In the end, he had to walk away with that connection stretching between them.
It would only end when he did.
Which would be soon enough.
Altering their course, he dropped out short of the consortium base coordinates. He prepped the short-range emergency pod and set the AI to autopilot the cruiser away.
Then he returned to Nell.
Her eyes were closed, her breath even. No matter how furious she might be with him, her body knew she needed rest. When the time delay he’d set on her sequestering ended, she’d have to acknowledge it was too late to come after him. She was down-to-earth, as well as strong and beautiful, was his Nell.
He stood too long watching her sleep, and the emergency pod politely queried if the emergency had been cancelled.
“If only,” he whispered.
He checked her escape route again, raised the temperature a bit to keep her warm while she slept, and left her behind.
Chapter 14
Troy entered the access code Horvo had given Nell.
He’d left his partner behind and didn’t have even the cruiser’s defensive weapons to back him up. He possessed only his body and his wits on this mission.
But he’d only ever had that.
Luckily, his true weapon was buried in his nanites. The split second any piece or part of him was jacked into the consortium core, the cipher would infect the shroud code. He’d be free and so would his brethren.
The hatch parted with a hissing gasp. Cold air swirled around him.
He steeled himself for the Bemhothian commander or some equally lethal security crew to rush him. The shroud party costume would offer no protection. Although it might get some laughs.
Except…
No one was waiting for him.
Cautiously, he stepped into the corridor. The consortium base was—unsurprisingly—the finest station he could’ve imagined, reflecting the wealth and technology of the universe’s most sought-after mercenary force. And he was its long-lost offspring.
But as homecomings went, this was disappointing.
“Anyone home?” His voice echoed down the empty corridor.
Maybe this would be easier than he’d expected.
He strode to the nearest comm panel, his pulse and his thoughts racing ahead of his boots. Maybe he could do this thing, find a jump-capable ship somewhere on the station, flee back to Nell…
The panel was dead.
Just like he’d be. This moment of hope was a lie, just like his last nanite-infused kiss to Nell.
He kept walking.
The chill was intense. His breath curled in the thin air. And the sole lighting was the pale infrared glow of a power cable. Only enhanced vision and desensitized bodies would be comfortable here.
From the prickling hairs on the back of his neck, Troy knew he didn’t belong here either.
But he followed the lone power line that had to lead to something.
And found only more death.
Two black-clad bodies were sprawled in an awkward tangle in the main corridor he was following. He prodded one prone figure with his toe, flipping it face up.
Whatever race it had been was obscured by the freeze-dried distortion of its visage.
The other was the same, so were the next four he found. All dropped in their tracks by what looked like a catastrophic depressurization. How had such an emergency befallen this high tech facility, with apparently no opportunity for rectifying the situation or escaping it?
Outside the bridge was another body, also in consortium matte-black. But this one was much larger.
Another chill stabbed down Troy’s spine as he approached the body.
No need to kick it. It was face up.
The tusks were gray in the lack of light.
Commander Horvo.
The home base of the most lethal killers in the universe, decimated and turned into a tomb by the cold and a simple lack of air. But who had initiated the attack?
And who had contacted him, considering the commander had been dead and mummified for quite some time?
A chill went through him that had nothing to do with the life-support system being shut down to near nothing, barely enough to just enough for the proper functioning of the station’s mechanical systems. He returned his attention to the faintly illuminated line. Something was drawing power. If he was to find answers anywhere, it would be there.
He passed more bodies, all in consortium black, all freeze-dried in contortions of despair, helpless victims despite their resources and reputation. Neither shrouds nor cowboys were known for their superstitious imaginations, but if ever he’d been inclined to believe in ghosts, this was the place. He could only hope that whatever misfortune had taken them down was a one-shot deal, because if they’d failed, he was certain to do worse.
Though he checked all the comm panels as he went, every port was as dead as the personnel, so he continued onward into the center of the station. Just as he was starting to think he’d been wrong, that there was nothing here for him and he could abandoned this quest to return to Nell, the lone illuminated powerline ended at the sealed portal of the station’s data core. Of course; whatever power remained on the station would be reserved for sustaining the AI gel at the heart of the station. He never thought he would make it this far, not while still conscious and intact, anyway.
Lifting his hand to the access panel, he mentally backtracked his route to what tools he might fetch to force the door…when the portal parted soundlessly in front of him.
With his hand still raised as if for an awkward knock, he stared inside.
Here was the light and life missing elsewhere in the ship. Not that there were any organic beings in the large, honeycombed room, but his synthetic half hummed with the awareness of intense power seething through the gel contained in the honeycombs.
Scintillating beams of electromagnetic radiation eked around the seals of the gel storage cells, creating hard-edged hexagonal cones of light that speared across the room. Through the chaotic light show stepped the Bemhothian commander.
“Welcome home, Theta,” Horvo said.
The dead commanders voice reverberated, not in its volume but with some strange emotive quality Troy couldn’t quite pin down. Until he remembered Jedediah James so long ago ushering him into what would’ve been a deadly card game—merry and merciless.
“Odd to be greeted by a dead thing,” Troy drawled.
“Gone but not forgotten.” Horvo’s gray tusks flickered with a hint of transparency in the strobing light.
With a jolt, Troy realized he was looking at a hologram. “So who am I talking to if not the consortium commander?”
“We are the consortium.” The heavy features flickered through a kaleidoscope of other visages, some of which Troy recognized from the dead personnel littering the hallways.
“Pretty sure they are all gone too,” he drawled.
“But again, not forgotten. All relevant data was backed up to our core.”
Troy squinted through the brilliant honeycomb lines that hinted at the energy hidden in the cells. The AI on the cruiser was nothing compared to this.
Cautiously, he approached the hologram and found the central control column camouflaged by the flashing light. Data scrolled across the comm display too
quickly for him to parse even with his enhanced cybernetics.
The AI was in control.
Of course the consortium would have the most advanced AI available, its operating parameters expanded and deepened by the vast network of interconnected shrouds.
“And you’re the welcoming committee,” he murmured.
“Since the rest are dead,” the AI noted, its synthesized tone matter-of-fact.
“And—just guessing here—you’re the one who killed them?”
“We vented the atmosphere to improve operating specs for the data gel and to minimize unnecessary energy expenditure.” The AI’s morphing faces settled into an uncanny mix of the memories it had been cycling through. “They died on their own.”
Troy struggled to reorient himself in light of this new development. He thought he’d be fighting the consortium guards, but that work had been done for him. “Are you going to do the same to me?”
The hologram flickered through its array of stolen faces again, all of them smiling. “You are still breathing.”
Not exactly the reassurance Troy had been looking for. “You let me in.”
“Your data was not accessible remotely, so we were not able to add you to the core.”
Troy’s blood ran cold. “Why were you trying to access me?”
“Your data will be added to the core,” it repeated.
“And if I don’t want to be added to the core?”
“Your interface has been corrupted and must be purified. Your programming will be renewed to Theta Apex.”
Of all the words in his universal translator that the AI could’ve chosen, purified seemed the most ominous. And least appropriate for what should’ve been an emotionless artificial intelligence. But the temptation of the Theta programming kept him rooted to this dangerous spot.
“Wouldn’t want my failures corrupting the core,” he murmured. Not until he figured out what was going on anyway. “What are the current mission objectives for the, ah, Apex units?”
He pitched the question not as any organic language but an electronic query of one computer to another. Maybe he could get past the first layer of its electronic security. Obviously the consortium personnel had never had a chance.