Fractured Stars

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Your ship?”

  “I’m not sure.” She sounded doubtful.

  “He might have thrown branches over it to camouflage it,” Dash pointed out.

  “True.”

  He glanced at the sensor display, getting the position of the ship, and flew toward it. He kept them low over the trees, avoiding the village for now in the hope that they wouldn’t draw attention. A forlorn hope, most likely, since cyborgs had, among their other upgrades, augmented hearing.

  Foliage from trees buzzed and blatted as it hit the shielding under the belly of the ship. Dash looked from the sensor display to the route ahead. The dense jungle made it impossible to see the ground through the thick green canopy, but he spotted a small clearing ahead.

  McCall leaned forward even more. She was right on the edge of her seat and looked like she was holding her breath.

  Dash slowed down as they reached the clearing, noting trees that had been knocked down. Not by some storm or even a logger’s axe but by a ship crashing.

  A ship crashing years ago, he decided, spotting a gray arrow-shaped craft half-buried in the earth. Vines grew all over the hull, as if to devour the craft or pull it down into the soil.

  He could make out enough to discern the make and model. “That’s a law-enforcement ship. Or it was. It looks like it crashed years ago.”

  McCall sank back in her seat. “Yeah.”

  “Maybe your client found it was difficult to extract a cyborg from his colony.”

  “It was a corporate client who probably sent in private security rather than imperial law enforcement, but the sensors are showing more than one wreck around here, so it’s possible many people have discovered that.” She fiddled with one of the charms on her bracelet and looked thoughtfully at the sensor display.

  “Any recently landed ships around?” Dash asked.

  “No. Nothing that isn’t powered down and half-buried. I can tell now that we’re closer.”

  “So, your ship isn’t here.”

  “No.”

  “I guess it’s better not to find it than to find it wrecked against a wall of trees.”

  McCall snorted, not precisely in agreement. “Let’s fly over the village.”

  “Now that they’ve had time to hear us cruising about and ready their rocket launchers?” Dash asked, but he complied, taking them toward a larger clearing than any of those around the crashed ships.

  “The shields are at full capacity, right? They can take a few hits.”

  Dash stayed low as he guided the ship toward the clearing. It might have been smarter to fly higher so they would have more time to react to fire, but if they were going to identify individual people, it would be easier from closer to the ground.

  Up ahead, light glinted off solar panels. Dash took the ship over open ground that had been cleared for crops and pens of livestock. Numerous small wooden houses dotted the area with a clump of larger communal buildings at the center. A few paths wound through the compound, though nothing as major as a road. A couple of large, brawny, white-haired men worked out in a field. Two others walked along a path coming from the jungle, each carrying a freshly killed animal over his shoulder. The animals looked to weigh hundreds of pounds, but the cyborgs carried them as if they were bags of potatoes.

  All of the men looked toward the ship as Dash sailed over their compound. A couple of them turned to yell and gesture toward one of the communal buildings, a building with a flat roof and e-cannons mounted atop it. A cyborg was already up there, loading one of the artillery weapons.

  “Time to go.” Dash veered back toward the trees.

  “Wait, look.” McCall pointed toward a cluster of men working on building a house, the foundation recently laid. “Is that…?” She glanced at Dash, uncertainty in her mind.

  “That’s Axton.” Dash recognized his hulking form at a glance.

  Axton glowered at them—all the cyborgs did—and ran a few paces to snatch up a blazer rifle. He opened fire on the law-enforcement ship. The crimson energy bolts splashed against the shields as Dash flew toward the jungle.

  He wasn’t worried about them. The e-cannons were another matter. They packed the power of—

  “Incoming,” McCall said, watching the sensor display.

  The ship shuddered as a huge white ball of energy slammed into their rear. A display popped up, warning them that shield integrity had taken a dip.

  “I know, I know.” Dash guided the craft through evasive maneuvers as they flew off over the canopy.

  The cyborgs fired several more blasts, but it grew easier to avoid them as the ship sailed farther away.

  “You were right,” Dash said once they were out of the e-cannons’ range. “Do you feel triumphant?”

  He could tell she didn’t. Pensive was the word he would have used.

  “I was hoping to find my ship with him,” McCall said, and he sensed worry for Junkyard and Scipio in her thoughts again. “I’m afraid this means he already sold it. Or… worse.”

  She rubbed her face, thinking again about how Junkyard might have been shot by now or dumped out and abandoned on the frozen tundra back on Frost Moon 3.

  Hoping to alleviate her worries, Dash said, “There’s one person who knows.”

  “Who? Him?”

  “Him, indeed. If we question him, he’ll know where your ship and friends are.” This time, Dash wouldn’t hesitate to surf through Axton’s mind. Who cared if the cyborg figured out he was a Starseer? Who was he going to tell here? Monkeys and macaws?

  “Yes.” McCall nodded slowly. “That’s the logical way to get answers, I suppose. From the source. The trouble is that I doubt he’s going to invite you or me over for tea. Or azidmar juice.”

  “Is that the local beverage?”

  “It’s a berry the size of a house that grows in the jungle.”

  “I’m skeptical that house-sized food can taste good.”

  “There’s a reason it’s not a popular export.” McCall drummed her fingers on the control panel. “All right, so how do we get him away from his buddies, who I assume are going to defend him, and get him to talk to us?”

  “Drugs for the latter seem like the best bet. Maybe drugs for all of them. Can we get something in the city to spray on their village from above?” He arched his eyebrows. At this point, he would be surprised if McCall hadn’t read some books on medical and recreational drug substances.

  “We can put it on our list of ideas, but there are two problems. Most sedative drugs need to be delivered at a relatively high dose—in hospitals, IVs are typically used. There are some aerosols, but the dose that one needs to inhale is significant. I think anything we dropped from the air would dissipate and be useless by the time it reached the cyborgs on the ground. Second, the hodgepodge of surgical and hormonal tinkering cyborgs endure alters their systems enough that drugs become unpredictable in them.”

  “Ah. Too bad.” Dash liked the idea of air-dropping sedatives into Axton’s gaping gullet.

  “We could have tried to lure him out somehow, but we’ve tipped our hand by flying over the village.” Her finger drumming turned into a pattern, like someone playing scales on a piano. “I’m not a large consumer of military history or tactics books, but I do know General Cinderlake said the best way to fight androids is with cyborgs and vice versa. I wish I had Scipio at my side right now. Even though he’s a personal assistant model, he’s as strong as any combat model. Not that one android would be enough to hold off dozens of cyborgs while we went in to collect Axton. We’d need an army of them.” She shifted from drumming to rubbing her chin thoughtfully, and Dash glimpsed an image in her mind of an assembly line full of androids.

  “The factory that Scipio came from?” he guessed.

  She puffed out a soft breath. “That’s what I was thinking of, yeah, but it’s just a fantasy. A single android costs as much as a ground vehicle. Buying an army of them isn’t feasible unless you’re the imperial government.”

  “That’s a sham
e because an army of androids would certainly have the might to keep the cyborgs busy while we went in and confronted Axton. Maybe you can finance them. Does Selva Moon use the imperial banking system?”

  She laughed shortly. “Yes, and you can finance androids, but if you go out and get them destroyed fighting cyborgs, it’s not like you can avoid paying the rest of the bill. I suppose, in theory, I have enough in savings to buy some androids, but that would deplete my bank account tremendously, and it’s possible I’ve already lost my ship…”

  “Are you sure they don’t have a money-back guarantee? If they make combat androids and that’s what you buy, and then they fail to be effective battling your adversaries, you ought to be able to bring back your broken headless android—or androids—and get your money back.”

  “Uh, right. You’d have to be the one to negotiate that deal with the seller. With your special mind powers.”

  “I could try.”

  McCall hesitated but shook her head. “I couldn’t do that to a business owner, knowing I’d be taking the androids out to get their limbs ripped off. There must be a simpler way we can do this.” She waved at Dash’s law-enforcer uniform, the one he’d found in a cabinet in one of the cabins. “What if we land outside of range of those e-cannons, walk into their compound, let everyone know Axton is a criminal, and then pretend we’re there to arrest him?”

  “You’re assuming those cyborgs care that he’s a criminal. Further, you’re forgetting that I’m now a criminal, something Axton is intimately aware of. He’s going to know the law enforcers didn’t send me.”

  “To address your first point, most of those men aren’t criminals. They fought for the empire in the Cyborg Corps because they believed in honor and doing their duty.”

  “I object to the notion that you can be honorable while serving the empire.”

  She waved her hand in the air. “What you believe and what servants of the empire believe are always going to be at odds. My point is that in their eyes, they’re heroes. I wouldn’t necessarily assume they would aid a criminal. I mean, they might, because he’s one of their own, but they might not. We could try the ruse, and maybe I can get a couple of androids as a backup plan.”

  She winced, and he could see her imagining the digits in her bank account going into the negative.

  “We don’t need an android for every cyborg in the compound, right?” she went on. “A handful could cause some trouble, maybe provide us the distraction we need.”

  “What about my second objection?” he asked.

  “Axton is out of the loop, so he shouldn’t know your current status. Also, we’re not positive you are considered a criminal right now, right? He didn’t report in to your headquarters, since he was, apparently, already thinking up his plan for pretending to die in a fiery crash.”

  Dash made a skeptical noise.

  “Or we could say you were having tendencies toward loyalty to the Alliance, but your superiors found out and sent you to one of the government facilities for mind altering.”

  Dash shuddered at that idea, but he’d seen enough people come back from that procedure that he might be able to fake it.

  “Now you’re back on the job with your thoughts freshly tuned and your loyalty to the empire absolute.” McCall smiled.

  “Are you sure we can’t drop drugs on them?”

  18

  “Yes, financing is available on all our models, providing you pass a credit check and give us a flash capture of your bank account.” The well-dressed saleswoman with gold and diamond tri-sun earrings dangling from her lobes eyed McCall a little skeptically.

  McCall had changed out of the prison uniform, but the clothing she’d found aboard the law-enforcement ship had been limited and none of it designed for women. She wore baggy gray trousers with a belt that looped around her waist almost twice, and a black shirt with the shoulder seams hanging halfway down her arms. At least the saleswoman hadn’t closed the door in her face.

  “I would be happy to provide those things,” McCall said. It was something she could do easily enough since Selva Moon was tapped into the imperial banking system.

  “And you said you’re interested in purchasing a combat model?”

  The saleswoman led McCall through rows of androids on pedestals behind forcefields, some nude or dressed sexily—the personal pleasure models—and others in full battle-dress uniforms with the latest BlazTech rifles. Some of the androids were listed as examples of models currently available while others were from previous lines that could, for a substantial price, be recreated.

  McCall spotted one from Scipio's line and froze, forgetting the woman’s question. The hair, the eyes, and the body were identical to his, though the model wore a butler’s uniform that Scipio would eschew for something more modern and fashionable.

  A lump formed in her throat, the one that kept popping up every time she thought of him and Junkyard.

  She supposed, in the worst-case scenario, she could have the factory make a new android from his model run. But it wouldn’t have any of his memories, and who knew if it would have the same personality. Oh, she knew such things were supposedly programmed in and identical from android to android within a certain batch, but she couldn’t help but feel Scipio had been somehow unique. Just like the rest of the occupants on her ship.

  She smiled sadly.

  “Ms. Richter?” the saleswoman prompted her.

  “Yes,” McCall said. “Sorry, what was the question? Combat models? Yes, I’d like to see those.”

  “Excellent. This way, please.”

  As she followed the woman, McCall couldn’t help but glance back at the Scipio-like android. It occurred to her that she could have come here a couple of years ago, purchased one of the lookalikes, and arranged to have it deposited on the doorstep of the facility where she’d originally acquired Scipio. Maybe they even could have programmed it to have some of his memories and the same information that had made him valuable to his owners.

  But that would have been trading one slave for another. Even if they were androids, McCall had a hard time not thinking of them as people, especially now that she had known Scipio for a couple of years. Androids ought to have the same rights as people.

  “Just let me know if anyone suspicious starts poking around,” Dash whispered into a comm unit he’d scrounged up in the ship. She didn’t know who was on the other end.

  He was trailing along after McCall, letting her do the talking to the saleswoman. Not that such things were her strength, but she was the one who had a bank chip with sufficient funds for this, and this had been her idea. She was glad Dash had been looking down at the cyborg colony at the same time as she, because she hadn’t been positive on her identification of Axton. She had a hard time recognizing faces of people she didn’t know well, and even with familiar people, a recent haircut or atypical clothing threw her off. Axton had changed out of his law-enforcer uniform and had been dressed in brown and tan clothes like the other cyborgs had worn, and the big men had all appeared similar to her.

  “You want to know what qualifies as suspicious?” Dash asked in response to whatever the person on the comm had said. “Anyone in a uniform or anyone with an interest in our ship.”

  They had parked the law-enforcement craft in the city instead of at the space base, where they had been certain someone would have run a scan on it. The ship was small enough that they had been able to tuck it behind construction materials on an empty lot about six blocks from the android factory.

  “In here, you can see our combat models,” the saleswoman said, stopping in a new room. “We have three currently in production.”

  “Any that are guaranteed to win against a cyborg in combat?” McCall asked, though she doubted there were any guarantees when it came to cyborgs.

  “No, Ms. Richter.” The saleswoman didn’t look as startled by the question as McCall had expected.

  But then, Selva Moon was known to be overrun with gangs and have more crime than a t
ypical core world. Further, a lot of people feared the Cyborg Corps and its soldiers, even law-abiding imperial subjects. Maybe it wasn’t surprising that a businesswoman would want a bodyguard that could protect her if cyborgs ever came knocking at—or knocking down—her door.

  “We can’t make guarantees like that, but the X-732s are extremely durable and have strength and agility greater than a cyborg. They come programmed in numerous hand-to-hand and armed-combat maneuvers. Would you like to see a demonstration?” The saleswoman patted one of the models on the arm—these were on the floor where they could be more easily examined—and the head moved slightly, its bland silvery eyes regarding her without expression.

  Not like Scipio, was all McCall could think of the face.

  Dash came up and touched her on the shoulder. He didn’t say anything with the saleswoman watching, but he widened his eyes, as if to convey some secret message. Had a suspicious person come by the ship?

  “A demonstration isn’t necessary,” McCall told the saleswoman, assuming they didn’t have much time. “I’m familiar with your work.”

  “Oh? Do you have one of our other models? If you’re a previous buyer, I can give you a three-percent discount.”

  “Uh.” McCall didn’t want to explain that she’d acquired one of their models without purchasing from them. “I was actually wondering if you have a bulk discount.”

  “Bulk?” The saleswoman’s eyebrows lifted. “What kind of bulk?”

  “Will you show me your prices?”

  “Certainly. If you’re ready to do business, please follow me into my office.”

  McCall glanced at Dash, but he had turned his back and was muttering into the comm device again. McCall had better make this purchase quickly. She hoped she was doing the right thing. On the way to the city, she’d scoured the local sys-net for any news she could find on ships like hers, but there still hadn’t been anything. She was beginning to suspect Axton had sold the Surfer on the way to Selva Moon. Had there been time enough for him to stop at another planet or moon to do so? And still make it here and start building a house with his cyborg buddies? It didn’t seem so, but where else would her ship be?