"I... No. Workers never leave the docks."
She sagged against the console. "Are we going to die? Can you help us, Sabre?"
The cyber's brows rose. "I can't manufacture oxygen."
"Could you call for help?"
He contemplated the console. "The only form of transmitter a drone ship has is a data burst beacon to alert the next docking port of its approach. It has a range of about two light years, and it will only send the data burst when it reaches its destination. Everything is automated, its course, speed, and destination."
"But you can change it with the cyber, can't you?"
"Maybe, but it won't do you two much good. The next closest inhabited planet is Ester Five, which is seven hours away, and you two only have about two hours of air."
"Us two? What about you?"
Sabre smiled. "Care to explain, Host Tech Martis?"
"Ah... Right. Well... Cybers are designed to survive in low oxygen environments, and he can always go into his casket."
Estrelle shook her head, casting a pleading look at Sabre. "Please, I know you can help us."
He sighed, folding his arms. "Hmmm. A free cyber, help a pair of idiotic Myon Two torturers... now there's a thought."
"We're not torturers! We freed you! You..." Estrelle shut her mouth on more hot words.
"What was that? I owe you, perhaps?"
"Don't you think you do?"
Sabre hung his head, looking exhausted.
Martis seemed to recover from his shock. "I should have known. I should have guessed. A drone ship! How could I be so stupid?"
"You - we were desperate to save Sabre," Estrelle told him. "We didn't have time to think it through. And there was no other way."
"This isn't a way. This is suicide."
"For us, yeah." Estrelle sank down on the floor, her back against the console. "Could we use two caskets?"
Martis shook his head. "They're designed to sustain cybers in cold sleep. There's not enough oxygen for us."
"We're going to die." Estrelle clamped her hands over her face.
"Not necessarily," Sabre said.
She looked up. "You know a way to save us?"
"Yes. A drone ship has a distress beacon, in case of engine failure, or a meteor strike, or attack by pirates."
"Great! Let's activate it!"
Sabre nodded. "Of course, I'll have to disable a solar wing generator to set it off."
"Do it then!"
"And the only one who'll hear it is Myon Two."
Estrelle stared at him in despair. "You'll be returned to them."
"And you'll be sent to prison. But you'll live."
"Prison's... better than death, I guess. But... they'll turn you into an idiot."
"Yes, but you two will live."
Estrelle frowned at him. "Is this a trust thing?"
"No... Well, in part, but it's also a courage thing."
"We took a huge risk to free you, and now you doubt our courage?"
"Okay, you took a risk, but you thought it was a small one. It's easy to stow away on a drone ship, and it seems like a really good idea if you don't know about the air thing," he said. "Now it's turned out to be a huge risk, a life threatening one. You could ask me to disable a solar wing and activate the distress signal, that's the easy way out, or... you could decide to trust me. What's it going to be?"
"I trust you," Martis said.
Sabre raised his brows. "You do? Without knowing if I can save you?"
"Yes."
"Would you disable the solar wing if I asked you to?" Estrelle enquired.
"Now that's a damned good question, isn't it?" Sabre glanced at the screens. "I'm free, and in no risk of dying, but if I activate the distress beacon, I get to go back to Myon Two and have my brains fried. But if I don't, you two will die. You could try asking me, or you could take a leap of faith, like Martis."
She scowled at Martis. "Why did you agree so easily?"
"He won't activate the beacon, Estrelle. Does he look stupid to you?"
"Then he'll let us die?"
"I don't think so, but we have to trust him. Only once we've put our lives in his hands of our own free wills will he trust us."
Sabre smiled. "Well done, Martis. You're a clever chap."
"But we've already proven that he can trust us, by getting him off Myon Two!" she protested.
"Pure female logic," the cyber said.
Martis shook his head. "He put his life in our hands. He showed us respect and trust without knowing that he could. He just wants the same from us."
"He was destined to be turned into an idiot and burnt once a week for the rest of his life. He had a reason to risk trusting us."
"That's true," Sabre agreed. "Now you have a choice between death, a Myon Two prison, or trusting me. What's it going to be?"
She hesitated, glancing at Martis, who frowned and nodded. "I... Okay. I trust you."
"Good." The cyber sat down on the floor, rested his head against the console behind him and spread his hands, gazing at the scars on the backs of them.
"What are you going to do?" Estrelle asked.
"Save you."
"How?"
Chapter Six
Sabre's eyes flicked up to the racks of caskets behind Martis. "The fastest killer is carbon monoxide, then lack of oxygen. The carbon monoxide poisoning will start in about half an hour, since we're living on the air that's trapped in the ship. Every cyber casket has a supply of oxygen, and scrubbers to filter out carbon monoxide."
"Of course!" Estrelle was delighted and relieved. "That's it!"
"Yeah. That's it."
"So what are you waiting for?" Estrelle shook her head and jumped up. "Never mind, we can do it."
The cyber smiled up at her. "Go ahead."
Estrelle headed for the racks, beckoning to Martis. "Come on, Martis."
The young tech sighed and sat down with his back to a rack. "You'd be wasting your time."
"Why?"
He glanced at Sabre. "Because those caskets are armoured duronium-cobalt alloy, able to withstand... ah hell, I forget exactly, but one hell of an explosion."
"Two megatons," Sabre supplied.
"Right. We have about as much chance of breaking into one as we do of getting out and flying home."
Estrelle was flummoxed. "So... what then? Were you trying to be funny, Sabre?"
He smiled again, shaking his head. "My sense of humour isn't at its best right now."
"Sabre can break into one," Martis stated.
"I see." Estrelle came back and sat down beside Martis. "So we just have to wait for him to decide to get up off his butt and do it before our air runs out."
"And he'll have to make up his mind soon. The more the oxygen level drops, the weaker he'll become."
"I have made up my mind," Sabre said, "but I'm not feeling really great right now. Jorran's little experiment killed me, remember? I may be a cyber, but I'm still part human. I'm having muscle tremors, and, even though my bio-status is sixty-two per cent, I'm quite weak. The convulsions strained most of my tendons, and I think I have torn ligaments in my elbows."
Estrelle chewed her lip. "I'm sorry. I... I'm just afraid to die."
"I won't let you die. Relax, give me a minute, okay? I slowed my metabolism in the casket, which is now making me feel really shitty."
"You could initiate an emergency energy burst," Martis suggested.
"I'll have to do that."
Sabre closed his eyes, and they waited for several minutes. Estrelle chewed her nails and fidgeted, Martis gazed at the cyber with something akin to admiration. At last Sabre opened his eyes and raised his head, then stood up in a lithe motion, swaying a little. Estrelle jumped up, and Martis rose more slowly, eyeing the cyber. Sabre walked to the rack behind him and unclamped a casket, floating it onto the floor, then tapped in the override code. The lid cracked open with a click, and he lifted it, mist billowing out. Inside, a young cyber lay like a corpse on a bed of white sati
n, his control unit dead.
"Brand new,” Sabre said. “Just twenty years old and destined only to suffer."
Sighing, he reached into the webbing inside the lid and drew out a laser. Estrelle gasped as he pressed it to the cyber's eye and pulled the trigger. The flash of blue light was accompanied by a sharp thud. The young cyber remained immobile. Sabre put down the laser and bent to lift the body out of the casket, laying it on the floor.
"Sorry, brother, but you're better off dead."
"Did you have to kill him?" Estrelle demanded.
"Yes."
She opened her mouth to ask why, but Martis tugged her arm and shook his head when she turned to him.
"Leave it."
"Why? Why does he have to kill them? We could use them! Wake one or two up and make them open the caskets, then Sabre wouldn't have to do it."
"No, we can't."
"Why not?"
"We don't have the codes."
"Oh." She frowned. "But then how do they wake them up at the other end?"
Sabre reached into the casket and ripped out the satin lining. "The codes are sent ahead to the new owners on an enforcer warship, to make sure pirates don't steal them. Although it wouldn't do them much good, without knowing which codes belong to which cyber, or even which batch of cybers.
"That's why drone ships are hardly ever attacked, there's really nothing to steal. Otherwise, you'd be looking at about... fifty million credits worth of merchandise on this ship alone. If it was possible to steal new cybers, no drone ship would ever reach its destination. They'd have to be protected by warships."
"Oh," Estrelle said. "Myon Two thinks of everything, don't they?"
"Except, apparently, two techs escaping in a drone ship with a cyber to help them."
"Is that why techs aren't allowed to own cybers?"
He shot her a surprised look. "Could you afford one?"
"No, but I'm not allowed, even if I could."
"Well, I don't know why that is."
Sabre had stripped all the satin out of the casket, and picked up the laser. Leaning into the casket, he aimed the weapon at the floor and pressed the trigger, holding it. The hot blue beam ate into the metal, leaving a glowing line as he moved it around in a rough square.
Estrelle glanced at Martis, her brows raised. "We could have done that."
He sighed, closing his eyes. "Just wait and see, okay?"
"No, I don't see the problem. You could have burnt through that just as easily as he can."
Sabre stopped and looked up at her, then held out the laser with a smile. "Want to try?"
She stepped forward to take it, but Martis grabbed her arm, halting her. "Estrelle, please! We can't do that, damn it."
"Why not? He's just burning through it with a -"
"He's not!"
Sabre lowered the laser, looking amused. "She never stops, does she?"
"Apparently not."
"You'd better explain it to her then, because I don't have the time." Sabre leant into the casket and resumed cutting through the bottom with the laser.
Estrelle jerked her arm from Martis' grip and put her hands on her hips. "Well?"
"Right under the floor are two fairly large oxygen tanks, and, since these are new cybers, they're full. He can't burn right through the floor without risking puncturing an oxygen cylinder, and then... boom."
"Oh."
Sabre nodded. "And only a cyber can burn almost through the floor without piercing it, by using the scanners."
"Ah."
"So just wait," Martis pleaded. "Okay?"
"All right, I'm just curious."
Sabre deactivated the laser, which was starting to overheat, and studied the shallow, glowing groove in the floor. "Now it just has to cool."
"How long do we have?"
"About an hour."
Estrelle shivered, rubbing her arms. "It's getting bloody cold in here."
"It will get colder, without heating."
"So what, we're going to freeze?"
Sabre sighed and sat next to the casket, looking up at her. "No. Would I bother doing this if I was going to let you freeze?"
"But how can you -?"
"Estrelle," Martis groaned, rubbed his brow and shook his head. "Anyone would think you know nothing about cybers."
"I'm a control unit tech, I don't know much about hosts."
"That's obvious. How about you just wait and see?"
"The caskets have heating units?"
"No, they have refrigeration units."
"Oh." She sighed. "Okay, I'll wait and see."
"Thank you."
Sabre stood up and bent to peer into the casket, testing the heat of the metal. He went over to the discarded equipment from the lid and took an armoured glove from the pile, pulling it on. Returning to the casket, he sidled around it to get a good angle, flexing his right hand.
"What's he going to do?" Estrelle whispered to Matris.
"You're about to find out."
Sabre leant over the casket, drew back his fist and punched the floor with a terrific bang, making Estrelle jump and squeak. He recoiled with a curse, shook and wrung his hand, then nursed it against his chest.
"Damn, that hurts."
Estrelle stared at him, her hands clamped over her mouth. He paced around, rubbing his hand. Returning to the casket, he leant over it again, positioning himself. His fist hit the floor with another loud bang, and he swung away once more, nursing his hand.
"Shit!"
Estrelle cast Martis a wide-eyed look, and he grimaced. Sabre inspected his hand, pulling off the glove to suck the split skin of one knuckle, which bled. Replacing the glove and returning to the casket, he leant into it and tested the floor. He punched it again, swung away with another curse and held his hand clasped to his chest. When he took off the glove to inspect his hand, blood oozed from his knuckles, and he grimaced, frowning.
"You're hurting yourself," Estrelle pointed out.
"You don't say?" Sabre muttered.
Martis touched her arm. "Leave him alone."
"But he's -"
"Estrelle, please!"
"Okay! Sheesh! I just thought maybe there are some tools on this tub he could use instead of his fist. A hammer, maybe?"
Martis shook his head. "Why would there be tools on an unmanned ship?"
"I don't know."
"If there were, Sabre would know. He has all the information about every ship every built, so if he's using his damned fist, there are no tools, okay?"
"Fine."
Sabre put the glove back on and returned to the casket. Reaching inside, he tugged at something. Estrelle moved closer and peered in, horrified to find that he had hooked his fingers around the sharp edge of the torn metal square and was pulling it up. The edge cut through the glove and into his fingers, and he grimaced, biting his lip. As soon as the metal bent a little, he eased his hand further in, getting a better grip, then pulled on it again. The metal creaked and ripped free with a screech, flew up and hit the ceiling with a clang before clattering to the floor.
Sabre pulled off the glove and inspected his hand, which now bled from deep cuts in his fingers and grazes on the back of it. Estrelle frowned at him, chewing her lip. Sabre gripped one of the exposed oxygen cylinders and ripped it free. Oxygen hissed from the broken pipe, and he squeezed the end of it half shut, cutting down the flow to a trickle. Reaching into the casket again, he pulled out a square object and placed it on the floor. It hummed, and air moved through it. The cyber went over the medical kit he had removed from the lid of the casket and found a roll of bandage, starting to wrap his hand.
"I'll do that for you," Martis volunteered.
Sabre nodded, returned to the console and sat on the floor beside it. He rested his head against it and closed his eyes. Martis took the bandage and wound it expertly around Sabre's hand, the clean white cloth turning pink. Estrelle pondered the cyber, then sat beside the rack.
"So we're okay now?"
&
nbsp; "For a few hours."
"And then?"
"Then I'll open the other one."
"But now we - you have to change our course, so we can reach an inhabited planet, right?"
He sighed, a tired smile curving his lips. "Yeah."
"So how long before -?"
"Estrelle," Martis interrupted. "If you don't shut up, I swear, I'll gag you."
"What's wrong with asking -?"
"Enough!"
Estrelle glowered at him, mutinous. Martis bandaged Sabre's hand and came over to sit beside her, leaning against the rack.
"Look, leave him alone, okay? He doesn't have to help us, and all you're doing is pissing him off. He'll do what's necessary, when it's necessary, but he doesn't need your constant carping."
"You really think he'd let us die, just because I ask too many questions?"
"I don't know. I very much doubt that he likes us, given what we are - were. He'd be a lot better off without us. We're just a burden to him, and keeping us alive is forcing him to hurt himself, which I doubt he's enjoying. So let's rather not make it worse by badgering him, okay?"
"Okay." Estrelle shivered and rubbed her arms. "I'm cold. Aren't there any coats in the caskets?"
"No, cybers don't wear coats. They don't need one unless they're in a really cold environment, but they aren't sold with coats."
"It's not part of our standard equipment," Sabre said without opening his eyes. "And while I would rather not have to answer so many questions, Martis, your insinuation that I might let you two die is not only insulting, it's extremely annoying."
"Sorry, I just wanted to -"
"I know. But don't use me as the reason when I'm not."
"I thought you were getting a bit irritated with it."
"And you're so concerned about my mental status... or is it because you think I'm some sort of pathological killer?"
"No! I don't think that at all, I -"
"Bullshit." Sabre smiled. "You forget, I know when you're lying. You saw me kill two of your cohorts, and you're downright terrified of me. Even though you helped to free me, and you trust me to know how to save you, you still think I might get angry enough to snap both your necks in a... what? Fit of uncontrollable rage?"
"I... I saw how you snapped when they were burning you the first time. It was scary."
"Well, yeah, they were burning me." Sabre opened his eyes. "And if you do it again, I will break your neck, but if you think I'm going to let you die because Estrelle's a bit too talkative, that's an insult. Right now, you're more irritating than she is. Is that why you claimed to trust me so quickly? Because you were afraid that if you didn't, I'd let you die, or kill you?"
The Cyber Chronicles VIII - Scorpion Lord Page 8