by Viola Grace
She grinned. “They take off limbs like cutting through butter.”
“Oh. Good. That is a comparison I want to have.”
Lucky looked at Hammer. “Thank you for finding her.”
“It was my pleasure. I got to find the girl and break some heads.”
Lucky smiled. “Well, we can head out then.”
Cracker shook her head. “No. They don’t have any way of getting out of here, and even if a few want to join Alphy’s base, we can’t leave the others stranded.”
Lucky grinned and whispered, “Look behind you.”
Cracker turned, and three thousand men filled the fight floor of the arena.
She asked in an astonished tone. “You all want to fight?”
The men looked at each other, and a deep and resounding shout ran through the space. One man at the front said, “We volunteered to protect our home. Just because they stranded us, doesn’t mean we stop what we set out to do. I am going to fight until the Splice are dead, or I am.”
The battle shout reverberated through the space. Cracker slowly smiled and turned back to Lucky. “So, how many can fit in your ship.”
Lucky chuckled and narrowed her eyes. “Sending the information to Stitch and Alphy. They will send transport and move the base closer.”
Cracker nodded and turned back to the men. “Right. We are organizing loading you guys onto the ship. If you can help me recover the parts of the six ships that were here four years ago, I would love to put those back together.”
Achilles walked up, and he smiled. “You might want to ask about what the aliens were trading for.”
Cracker scowled. “Why?”
“They wanted our dead.”
She looked at him and looked around for any of the strange beings that had been watching the fights get bloodier and more brutal. “Oh, shit.”
Lucky frowned. “What is the problem?”
“How do you reverse engineer a cyborg?”
Lucky’s face paled. “Oh shit. How long?”
A look at Achilles, and he held up two fingers.
For two years, aliens had been buying the dead humans and trying to figure out how to enhance their own people. There were safety protocols in place, but it was only a matter of time before those would be cracked. The human race was now facing extinction from a monster that they had created.
What fun.
Chapter Nine
Cracker went to the administration building with Lucky at her heels. “Okay, we need all records of all transactions, even spurious ones. I am looking for data showing landing and takeoff weights to indicate who took what where.”
Lucky sat down and began to work out a program to scan for the information they were seeking. “I am setting it for automatic upload. Alphy will do destination math.”
She realized as they were working that they hadn’t told the men what they were doing. Cracker murmured, “Should we have told someone about this?”
“Solouk is used to me taking off. He is posted outside the doors with his wings ready for action.”
“Can he really fly?”
“Oh yeah. We altered the wing structure, and now, he can fly with a passenger.”
Cracker frowned. “Would it be possible for me to see the specs for the structure?”
“Sure. We were hoping that you would give it a looking over. Stitch kept it balanced, I made the nanites make it work, but I don’t want it to wear on their joints.”
“Stitch told me that they picked up aliens, but she didn’t mention their camo.”
“Ah, that was my idea. I was working on a bit of a hidden project, and once I realized that it worked, I could make it topical for any other cyborg.”
“You have your own camo?”
Lucky snickered. “I turn into a guy six foot six with tattoos on my shoulders, and I can really swing these blades. It is a lot of fun.”
“Seriously?”
“Damn straight.”
“Do you think you can make one for me?”
Lucky sighed. “It will be trickier. I am missing about half of the front of my body when I am not sporting several pounds of nanites. They form the shell around me and create the body.”
“Damn. I had no idea.”
“Yeah. It’s okay. The regeneration of my actual soft tissues has begun. The explosion for me was a close-range acid attack. I am getting better. So, you lost your leg?”
Cracker brought up another manifest and transferred it to Lucky’s data pack. “Not really. I broke my leg and worked to get folks like Alphy emergency treatment. Then, I was transferred here, and they didn’t top up my nanites, they removed the leg and tethered me to the blank.”
Lucky paused what she was doing and turned toward her. “They removed a viable limb?”
“Yeah, it was already healing, but with my condition, the nanites were busy coping with the internal bleeding.”
Lucky nodded and gave her a small smile. “We can fix that.”
“You have a nanite builder?”
Lucky chuckled. “We have three.”
“Aw, sweet. I have so many ideas for custom machines.”
“We are looking forward to it. We have missed you.”
“I have missed you, too. You have no idea how much.” She brushed away a tear and continued looking for anything that would tell them where their tech had gone.
The nanites being sold to the Splice were everyone’s worst nightmare. Steps had been taken to make them host specific, and they turned into acid when they were removed from a living host. Enough dead hosts and someone might be able to extract and copy one of the nanites.
Cracker murmured, “We have had a fairly good reclamation program here, but there are bodies missing.”
“I will send some of the guys to check the actual inventory.” Lucky paused, and then, she nodded. “They are on their way with one of the fighters who have agreed to come to our side.”
“You have an internal com?”
“Yeah, I have plenty of space.” She chuckled. “It takes practice to work through it and not do wide broadcasts, but when you need it, it is handy.”
“I can imagine.”
Lucky kept working and then glanced at her. “So, you and the first-gen... serious?”
“I don’t think he has a serious bone in his body, but I am very comfortable with him, and I am not sure why.” Cracker shrugged. “He did take me out on the first date I have had in years. That was nice.”
Lucky was smiling softly. “It sounds like you like him.”
“I would say it is a possibility.”
“Good. Alphy worked like hell to find one of the sleepers that would match you.”
Cracker paused. “He was one of the sleepers?”
“He was. Like others, he was under for insubordination.”
Cracker chuckled. “That sounds like him. Is there room for the population here on the ship?”
Lucky snorted. “It is an asteroid that Alphy is steering through the stars. There is enough room for the entire original roster of Earth military. We have a movie theater and a bowling alley as well as gyms, pools, and an oxygen farm that the Alguth fly in.”
“I can hardly wait.”
Lucky laughed. “You won’t have to. We are going to get you out of here as quickly as we can.”
“Music to my ears.”
Her comment got her thinking about music then about piano lessons then Hammer’s hands, his fingers and her face heated to the point she felt steam was coming out.
Lucky glanced at her and smiled before looking away. “I think we have most of the data.”
“We need it all.”
“We will get it all. I have scheduled a data dump that will hand everything over to Alphy. If there is a hidden file, she will find it.”
“Her skills have gotten that good? I managed to replace a lot of her bones before they shuttled me off.”
“Her body was shattered, her spine degraded. She was sent to join the triad, and her b
ody was reformed completely from nanites.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know, right? Anyway, so now, she can rifle through the history of this base while she does her nails, so to speak. She will have the locations of the bodies in minutes after she lends her attention to it.”
“Please, tell me that Stitch doesn’t have extra arms.”
“Nope, just the two that were replaced. It took a while to get her the properly sized parts, so I wrote the subroutine I sent to you when I heard about her wait.”
“I will have to thank her.”
Cracker finished her search of the files, and she nodded. “I am done, and I have eighteen possible shipments.”
“That lines up with what I have. Good. We can check on the guys taking inventory, and then, we can be on our way back to the safety of the base.”
Cracker blinked rapidly. “We can just go?”
“We can just go. We are going to need you to take up your occupation as a cyborg mechanic and machinist immediately. Are you up for that?”
Cracker sighed in relief. “Try and stop me.”
They wrapped up the investigation, and then, Lucky sent off the data burst.
They left the admin offices, and Lucky glanced back with a smile. “They won’t be able to recover anything from that.”
Cracker looked, and there was smoke curling from within the main computer stack. “Self-destruct?”
“It is better this way. There was some severely nasty shit there that Alphy is going to have to deal with.”
“They were selling cyborgs. Live ones.”
Lucky didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.
Solouk and Hammer were waiting for them, and they headed back to the gathering where the Alguth were helping to sort the men into groups for evacuation to the flying base.
Cracker muttered, “At least three percent are going to try to take over the ship.”
“Alphy is the ship, so they can just end up on a one-way trip out the airlock.” Lucky smiled.
That little fact was both comforting and disturbing. Alphy had always taken the weight of the world on her shoulders. Now, she had an actual world to worry about.
Hammer asked her, “Did everything go well?”
“Yes and no. The arena has been selling cyborg bodies to alien buyers. That is what the bastards are after, they want our dead so they can make their own cyborgs.”
“Damn it.”
“Yeah. Not great. The ladies have a plan, and the courses are being charted.”
He nodded. “I have met those ladies. They are terrifying.”
Cracker inhaled and exhaled happily. “Yeah. I have never had friends quite as good as those women. All super-competent, too.”
“That was made apparent to me when Lucky wrote a program that diverted my rage into protective action.”
“Well, I have the funny feeling that I have benefited from that.”
He smiled. “Once or twice.”
“You don’t mind the programming?”
“I asked for it. The other two who were sent off at the same time requested the same protocol.”
“Why?”
“We were being sent out to find women who had more than likely not been treated kindly by the folk around them. Aggression on our part would not be well received. So, we asked for the diversion of the aggression and focus into good humour.”
“That is... thoughtful.”
He grinned. “I still have thoughts about pinning you up against a wall and sliding into you, but I won’t act on them. I still owe you that date.”
She was speechless for five minutes, and then, Lucky was escorting them both onto the shuttle in the shuttle bay.
Solouk was with them, but others were in the command deck. The shuttle was a personnel transport and two hundred of the cyborgs who wanted to rejoin the fight were with them.
Cracker held Hammer’s hand tight as they rolled out for takeoff, and the hot, fat tears ran down her face until they were in the sky and approaching the blackness of space.
Hammer held her hand in both of his as they powered through space toward the asteroid that was going to be her new home.
Crying and hugging Stitch and Alphy was the first thing she did when they landed at the new base.
The second thing she did was check out her new work station and the office that went along with it. The unlimited nanites that were at her disposal made her tear up all over again, and wherever she went, Hammer was right behind her.
Stitch looked at the tether and asked, “Did you want me to take that off?”
“No. I will do that when I have something else to put in its place.”
“What?” Stitch was surprised.
Cracker unraveled the tether without touching it and sent its fangs into the wall before releasing and winding it back in place again. “I have twelve feet of attack distance. I want to keep it in place until I can install a collapsing cable or two with sixteen to twenty feet of reach. I just need to check on the equipment inventory. I should be able to find what I need on a ship like this.”
Stitch blinked. “So, you are going with a body mod?”
“Yeah. The leg is uncomfortable, but I think that with your assistance for placement, I could get something very functional.”
Stitch smiled slowly. “I am at your service. This sounds like fun.”
“Good. Now, is there anyone who needs my particular services here today?”
“There are some tweaks that are needed. The Alguth need your expert assessment. The wings work. The expansion works, but I need you to look at it with the eyes of a mechanic.”
Stitch walked her through the login, and once Cracker had access to the files, she got to work.
Hammer stood outside her office door on guard duty, and she smiled. It seemed that everything was relatively normal.
She looked at the internal structure of the Alguth wings, with the knowledge that most of the bone would regrow. There were problems with the plate in the scapula where the joint of the wings rested. They would begin to have degradation in the bone itself as the nanites retreated.
She made copious notes about the changes that needed to be made in one case. When she examined the further enhanced Alguth, she noted that the current programming was going to wear on the ocular nerve. The program hadn’t been set to avoid flexing the pigment in the eyes. Eyes were so fussy that she tried to avoid working with them unless absolutely necessary. She would rather do a direct replacement any day of the week.
She sent the files off to Stitch and Lucky, yawned, and looked at Hammer. She got up and made a bit of noise as she walked to the door. “Are you hungry?”
He glanced at her. “I can eat.” His stomach roared a confirmation of the thought of food.
“I have seen the map here, so what about us heading to get something to eat?”
He grinned. “Not a second date yet.”
“No. Just two friends having food.”
“Good. I want to make sure that we meet all the conditions.”
She took his arm, and they walked together through the new and gleaming hallways, passing other cyborgs who were walking around, some new and some who knew where they were going.
“So, are you off to a good start?”
“I think so. I have identified a few weak joints and trouble spots. In a few hours, they can all be sorted out.”
“You can analyze things that quickly?”
“That is what I am trained for. I look for the weak points, the wear points, and I fix them. Now, I have all the equipment I need to do the best job I can.”
“So, you are happy to be back and able to work?”
“I am delighted.”
They walked into the commissary, and she smelled food that was being prepared for them. The variety wasn’t huge, but it was fresh, and it was familiar.
Hammer was stunned. “This is Earth food.”
“I know. Stitch told me that they grow a lot of it in the oxygen farm.”
He grinned. “I love spaghetti.”
“You get yours. I will get mine. Meet you at one of the tables.”
They separated, and she wandered off to fill a tray with anything she thought she could fit in her stomach. She let the tether carry her tray, and there were a few dozen folks staring at her, but she didn’t care. The equipment that she wanted would be delivered to her workshop, and she would be able to get to work on it in the morning. She just needed two stretching compression cables and two ounces of nanites. The rest could be programmed into one of the surgical suites.
Tomorrow, she was going to change the way her body worked, and she could hardly wait.
Chapter Ten
Once she had a meal in her, her body began warning her that it needed to rest.
Hammer looked at her in surprise. “You look rather pale.”
She rubbed her temples. “As odd as it seems, I think it is just because I am safe. My body wants a deep and restful sleep.”
“Are you finished with your meal?”
“Yes.”
“Then, we will return to your quarters. Can you walk?”
She nodded. “I can. I don’t want the guys from the arena seeing me carried off like a fainting heroine.”
“Understandable. I will take care of your tray, and then, we will leave.”
She nodded slowly, and he returned in a few seconds. She got to her feet, and they walked out with their heads up. Her body was screaming at her that the hallway was a safe place to lie down and sleep, but her brain was overriding that voice in her head.
They moved through the halls. “My quarters are inside my workshop, right?”
“They are.”
“Oh, good. I am not up for memorizing another location.”
They walked a few dozen more meters, and she asked, “Where are you quartered?”
“Just down the hall. You have a hot button if you need me.”
She nodded. “Thanks. I know you had to set that up.”
He shrugged. “I am programmed for loyalty and protection where you are concerned.”
Cracker nodded. “I know. But, I also know that your mission is over. You can end that subroutine whenever you want.”