The Defiant

by C. Gockel

Volka took a deep breath. “Mrs. Darmadi is very newly infected. I’m sorry, we only just detected it.”

  6T9’s head swiveled in Volka’s direction. The movement was too fast. Inhuman.

  Her ears tried to fold in her helmet. “I am so sorry.” She looked down. “We can take her to the Time Gate 1 in the Republic, where they are working on the experimental treatments or to Luddeccea. It is your choice.”

  It had to be a choice—his choice because Alexis was unconscious, and he was next of kin. She knew from her paperback education that if it wasn’t a choice, it would be kidnapping and might make the situation between Luddeccea and the Republic worse. Closing her eyes, she thought of the bodies of infected children. Her eyes bolted open. There was no other way they could have escaped, she told herself. She prayed Alaric would say the Republic. It was the only place there was hope, and maybe hoping he’d choose it proved something about herself…and made those shattered bodies worth something.

  Alaric exhaled. “Take her to Time Gate 1.”

  Volka’s shoulders relaxed. Nodding, she gazed at her boots. Surely, he would be questioned for his choice later. The peace was fragile, and all Republic technology and innovation was suspect. It said something about him that he would do the right thing, anyway. She wasn’t a fool for having loved him—and all she had done, all those bodies, they weren’t in vain. Her throat tightened.

  “We would appreciate…” Alaric said, and Volka raised her head.

  There was no hard edge to his features anymore. He just looked…lost. “If you would accompany us so there are not…misunderstandings.”

  Volka regarded Sixty, sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding the tablet on his knees. He was the one who would contact Fleet and let them know the Merkabah meant no harm. He was the one who could give flight coordinates so the Merkabah could jump to Time Gate 1’s location without danger to life or starting a war.

  Voice robotic, Sixty said, “I am transmitting coordinates to you now. Please allow ten minutes from our departure to engage your own light engines.” To her and Carl, in the same robotic voice, Sixty said, “Please transport us to Time Gate 1 immediately.”

  Carl whispered in her heart, “Got this, Hatchling.”

  Sundancer turned to light, along with Carl, Alexis, Sixty, and Volka. An instant later, they were hovering outside the familiar ring of Time Gate 1, above the blue jewel that was humanity’s home world.

  Sixty’s eyes were vacant, and she knew he was connecting to the gate via the ethernet, arranging for Alexis’s transport to the medical facility and the Merkabah’s arrival. That was normal.

  It was only after they docked, after Alexis had been taken away, and just before they were separated that his eyes refocused. She and Carl were being led to decon by medics decked out in white hazmat suits. 6T9 had to remain in the airlock to be “cooked” to clear any bugs that might have gotten into his lungs.

  “Goodbye, Sixty,” Volka ventured.

  He had his arms behind his back. His focus was on a point above the door. “Goodbye.” She remembered him reaching out and smoothing one of his hands along her ear before the landing on the pirate hideout world, and him tapping his visor to hers during their trek to the camp. Now he seemed so cold. What had happened? But she knew. His admonishment after she’d fired on the infected children replayed in her mind. There has to be a better way.

  Not moving, clutching Carl, Volka stared at his impassive face and swallowed. “Ma’am,” said one of the white-clad medics, his voice muffled in his mask. “You must come with us.”

  Volka had saved Alexis…or at least done all that she could do…and saved her soul. But she felt like she’d lost her best friend.

  6T9 sat next to Alexis’s bed in the quarantine ward on Time Gate 1. The same ward that Benjamin Moulton had occupied, it was appointed like a hotel room or studio apartment. The furniture was clean and modern in subdued beiges and pastels. There was a holoprojector and exercise equipment discreetly tucked into what appeared to be a closet from the outside. There was a real closet with plenty of bedding, a kitchenette just out of sight, and a bathroom with a soaking tub and shower. The temperature could be independently controlled via the ethernet. The only things that betrayed its real purpose were the window that faced a visitor’s observation room, the single sheet of plastimatting that covered the floor and could be easily hosed down, and the exit door with no handle. It could only be opened from the other side and led to a locked decon chamber which opened into the station proper.

  It had been seven hours and forty-five minutes since 6T9 had stunned Alexis. Since then, she’d received her first dose of the Republic’s experimental treatment: a nano-injection the likes of which hadn’t been completely explained to him. She wore a small ether transmitter to monitor her vitals. She was, by Luddeccean standards, a cyborg now. She’d also been bathed, her hair had been brushed, and her clothing changed—her other garments had been burned. She would be waking up any minute, which was why he hadn’t responded to the ethernet call.

  The caller continued to ping.

  And ping.

  And ping.

  He relented. “What is it, Carl?” 6T9 asked.

  “I’m worried about Volka,” Carl said. “You weren’t with us when she was interrogated by Fleet and the Diplomatic Corp, or when we got reamed by the Ambassador on Luddeccea via Q-comm. I can’t wait for Noa to get here and ream him.”

  “I was being cooked for bugs,” 6T9 replied. His visor had been up and he’d carried Alexis in his arms, close enough for her breath, and the infection, to enter his faux lungs.

  “Yes, and then you volunteered to be Alexis’s nurse.”

  “It was logical for me to do so,” 6T9 replied. “They don’t have an android at this facility. I can attend to her without fear of infection, and I have experience with Luddeccean culture.”

  “But I’m worried about Volka,” Carl said. “It would do her good if she knew you aren’t upset with her.”

  6T9’s eidetic memory could recount each child’s face. “I am upset.”

  “With what happened, surely,” Carl said. “So is Volka.”

  6T9’s Q-comm hummed. “I keep running alternate scenarios. There had to be a better way, Carl.” He hadn’t devised a scenario without such a heavy death toll—not without contingencies they hadn’t had—but there must have been one.

  Carl persisted. “You’re disturbed, too…that’s understandable. Maybe you could comfort each other.”

  6T9 snapped. “The genocidal weasel understands I’m disturbed by human deaths. Maybe you should comfort Volka. You have more in common with her than I do. You’re both…animals.”

  He had pushed that out of his mind for too long. He’d been too focused on the Volka who would push him away instead of using him as a toy, the Volka who cared about his feelings. To think…when he’d first heard the news about Alexis’s kidnapping, he’d first thought of saving her, as he was programmed to want to do—but his second thought was that if he didn’t save her, Volka and the captain would be together. It wasn’t jealousy. He was programmed not to be jealous. He just thought he’d miss her company. But Volka was an animal—more than an animal, she was a carnivore, designed to kill. Volka had murdered children who couldn’t help being infected without a word of remorse or tears. He was programmed to respect all human life, especially the lives of children. That was how humans designed him. She’d broken human codes; he hadn’t. And then Darmadi had nuked the other infected. No, there wasn’t a cure yet for them, but there could be. It would have been perhaps logistically difficult to save them, but not impossible.

  Carl didn’t disconnect. 6T9 could feel the connection in the ether as a faint hum.

  Alexis stirred, and her eyelashes fluttered.

  “I wish my venom worked on you,” Carl hissed.

  Alexis rolled over to her side.

  “I’m sure you do, weasel,” 6T9 replied. “Now if you excuse me, I have a patient that I need to attend to. A patient
who is facing a very serious infection.” He had to help humans in distress, but he could prioritize that distress. Certainly, Alexis’s situation was more dire than Volka’s “upset.”

  The line disconnected, and 6T9 turned to Captain Darmadi’s wife.

  29

  Aftershocks

  Galactic Republic: Time Gate 1

  Alexis smelled disinfectant and chill...a hospital? Had her ordeal only been a nightmare? She opened her eyes. Instead of bright white linens, she was in what looked like a hotel room—a cheap hotel room with spartan furniture and plastimatting on the floor. Had her first guess been right? Was she in a hospital?

  “Good afternoon,” said a vaguely familiar, male voice. She rolled over and found herself facing the man who’d cut her bonds in the warehouse. His armor was gone, and now he was dressed in a simple crisp green tunic and pants. He’d looked familiar to her in the warehouse, and had an open, clean-cut handsome face. She’d immediately thought he was a member of the Guard sent to rescue her. But then she’d seen that weere and realized he was one of the Galacticans from the party at Stella Tudor’s.

  Clutching her blankets, Alexis jerked upright and looked around quickly. She didn’t see the weere bitch. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t here. There was a window on one wall that, instead of revealing the outdoors, revealed another room beyond. It was the sort of arrangement she associated with the poisonous lizard house at the zoo. Her heart beat faster.

  “You’re at a hospital in the Republic,” the man said calmly.

  Alexis’s eyes went again to the window. Did the Republic feel the need to put rare, full-human specimens on display?

  The man continued to speak. “You’ve contracted a rare pathogen, but there is a new treatment that has been 99.8% effective in our computer models.”

  “I want to go home,” Alexis said automatically. Her breasts hurt—more than hurt—they were in agony. She thought of Markus, and they felt like fire. Her milk let down, but it didn’t bring relief. “My baby…”

  “Markus is safe on Luddeccea,” the man said. “Your heroic actions saved him and all the other civilians and off-duty Guardsmen aboard the Manna.”

  “I want to go home,” she said again. She wanted her boys.

  The man frowned slightly. “We hope you will be able to go home soon, but at the moment, that isn’t possible.”

  Alexis pulled back. Her breathing was coming in quick, shallow gasps. He was, now that she saw him in full light, very handsome, disturbingly so.

  “I’m sure it is a lot to take in,” the man said gently. “There’s much I can tell you, but perhaps you’d like some tea first?”

  “Yes,” she said, just to get him out of the room.

  He bowed to just the right depth—suspiciously accurately for a foreigner—and exited the room.

  Swallowing, Alexis pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to compose herself. She was a prisoner. Obviously. But she was in better circumstances than she had been. Also, the Luddeccean government would not stand for her to be kept here. Her mother and her mother’s family were well connected. Her father might be a fool, but Grandpapa wasn’t. He’d have the new premier’s hide if he didn’t get Alexis freed. She huffed. Mother and Grandpapa didn’t like the new premier; they’d probably lead an insurrection if she wasn’t freed. Alaric’s family would probably join them, no matter what her husband’s desires, just as a matter of honor.

  Motion in the corner of the eye, a shadow behind the glass, made her raise her head. Her breath caught. Standing on the other side of the window was Alaric, flanked by a member of his crew she recognized—shipman Davies, and a member of the Weere Guard carrying Solomon, the werfle that Alaric had adopted. It must have snuck aboard Alaric’s ship...the things were notoriously sneaky. It was no wonder the rumors of their demonic possession had spread.

  Clutching her blankets against her chest, surely embarrassingly soiled, Alexis swung her feet over the edge of the bed. “How soon can we leave?”

  The weere’s eyes got wide and he stepped back as though she’d burned him through the window—pathetically disciplined creature.

  Alaric put his hand against the glass. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his voice piped in through invisible speakers in the corners of the room. “We must wait for your treatment to be finished.”

  Alexis’s jaw sagged, but then she regained herself. “I’m sure whatever treatment I can receive here I can receive at home. I want to see my boys. I want to see Markus.”

  Alaric leaned closer. “Markus is well, Alexis, because of you. Mrs. Bergenson cannot stop talking about your selflessness. None of the survivors on the shuttle can stop talking about it.” His brow furrowed. “And your prescience. You warned them that the captain was in league with the pirates…” He tilted his head.

  Stepping toward the window, Alexis shook her head in irritation. “Of course he was in league with the pirates! They couldn’t have boarded us at lightspeed otherwise.”

  The crease in Alaric’s brow vanished, and his shoulders loosened. She was too consumed with other thoughts to decipher what it meant. “Now you must get me home. My family can pull strings, I’m sure.”

  The tightness in his shoulders returned. He waited a beat too long before he replied, “You’re to stay here until you’re cured, by order of the Council. You’re dangerously contagious.”

  Alexis felt heat rising in her face. “You’re going to let me remain a prisoner here?”

  “You’re not a prisoner; you’re a patient.” He leaned closer. “I have permission to remain here during your treatment. I’ll stay with you.”

  Alexis backed away from the window. “I want my family,” she whispered. She wanted to hold her sons and maybe see Silas…but not her husband who had announced his love to that weere in front of all of New Prime, and not her mother and father. She should be wishing for her mother, shouldn’t she?

  “That isn’t possible,” Alaric said, the crease in his brows returning.

  The weere woman… “She’s here too, isn’t she?” Alexis hissed.

  “What, who?” Alaric said with a little shake of his head.

  “That weere bitch,” Alexis spat.

  Alaric gaped. “She saved your life at great risk to her own.”

  Alexis snarled, “She made me a prisoner!” She almost banged her hand against the glass.

  Behind her came heavy footfalls, and the Galactican said, “Ma’am, your tea.”

  Alaric’s mouth snapped shut. He looked past Alexis, and his face went red. “You! What are you doing with my wife?”

  Rolling out a tea service on a cart, the man stopped and bowed. “I’m serving as her nurse, Captain Darmadi, I assure you—”

  “You’re a sex ‘bot!” her husband exclaimed.

  Alexis blushed at the crude words, and her eyes went wide.

  “—I am qualified to be Mrs. Darmadi’s nurse and a logical choice as I cannot contract the pathogen,” the man replied.

  No, he wasn’t a man. “Se…” Alexis couldn’t bring herself to finish the word. “‘bot?”

  “It’s only one of my many capabilities,” the Galactican man—or man-machine— responded. “I am also a wonderful chef, and—”

  “You have no business caring for my wife,” Alaric snapped.

  The man-machine bowed again. “Sir, I—”

  Focus returning to her, Alaric said, “Don’t worry, I’ll get someone else to care for you, Alexis.” He turned on his heel and had almost strode from view when Alexis shouted, “No!”

  “What?” said Alaric, spinning around.

  Alexis’s mouth was open like a fish. Why had she said that? She glanced at the two members of his crew. Davies was blushing furiously. The weere man was shifting on his feet, blinking rapidly. Even the werfle had buried its nose in his arms.

  She snapped her mouth closed. She knew why she’d said it. Because Alaric didn’t like the man-machine being in the same cell with her. If she thought about being alone in a cell with it
, she didn’t like the situation much either—she’d spent her whole life guarding her reputation, and now she was in a cage with a Galactican machine. But wasn’t her reputation crushed anyway? Her husband had publicly declared his love for a weere, and she’d been held captive by pirates—tongues were wagging, and she was already the center of salacious gossip. She should tell the creature to be gone.

  But the machine made Alaric angry—she had a way to make Alaric angry. To make him, dare she say, jealous and humiliated. Giving her husband a tight smile, she said, “No, I think I’d rather keep him.” She was shocked by how like a purr it sounded.

  Alaric took a step toward her, hands tightening at his sides, jaw clenched.

  Her nostrils flared. He was jealous. After his own affair, how dare he? Lifting her chin, Alexis said, “I like him. He is polite…and…and…he’s very handsome.” Alaric did not move or say a word. She was breathing too fast, and her palms were sweating. She swallowed down her bile and hissed, “I gather from what you…what you called him that he is well equipped for a woman’s needs.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “sex ‘bot.” The words made her skin crawl. Thinking about what she’d just said made her want to retch, but she forced herself to smile and batted her eyelashes at him. Let him hurt. Let him wonder and worry.

  Alaric’s eyes narrowed. A muscle in his jaw jumped. Shoulders sagging, he shook his head. “For the sake of our sons, I hope you recover.”

  He turned on his heel again and strode from view, as cold as he’d ever been.

  “Go on, leave!” she shouted, throwing herself against the glass. “Go see your weere bitch!”

  If he heard, there was no sign in the crispness of his stride or the set of his shoulders.

  Growling, Alexis stepped back and spun around. The man-machine was still in the room, standing behind the cart.

  “Please…” he whispered.

  “Please what?” she snarled.

  “Don’t,” he whispered, eyes scrunching tighter, sounding absolutely miserable. Her eyes traveled down his body. The scrubs did nothing to hide the protrusion at his groin. Her lips curled in disgust. Please don’t, he’d said. A sudden intuition came to her. Nostrils flaring, she huffed. “Are you the weere bitch’s toy?”