She grabbed a support strut at the same time everyone else made a grab for a handhold. Going for a burn when not strapped in was not fun.
The next few minutes were hell. The ship rattled and shook around them, and she seriously hoped the boarding ramp held. Zero had rolled over, his body half over hers as he pinned her in place against the bulkhead. She didn’t argue. The warmth of his larger body was a comfort as she rested her forehead against his shoulder. And if a cyborg couldn’t hold on, what hope did she have?
Her hearing had just about returned to normal when they hit space. The ship stopped shaking and everyone straightened up, letting go of whatever they’d grabbed to look at each other.
“So… what the hell happened there?” T’Raal growled, looking at Skinny and Sparky. Eris wasn’t surprised that the former con was involved somehow. He always managed to find himself at the center of any shit that was going down.
Skinny shrugged. “Not a clue, boss. Bumped into a woman and apologized. I think her guards took exception because after we found Beauty, they started shooting at us, and it all went to shit.”
T’Raal grumbled in the back of his throat as they all filed out of the loading bay. He shot a look at Sparky. “That what happened?”
Sparky nodded. “Honest gods truth, boss. He didn’t even ogle her. She was probably jealous ‘cause he left with me though. The ladies do love a bit of spark.”
Eris sighed and looked away as his words were accompanied by a hip thrust she really didn’t want burned into her retinas.
T’Raal turned his attention to her and Zero. “You guys get what you needed?”
She smiled, rooting the message strip from her pocket. “Easy as taking candy from a baby.”
Beauty blinked, looking up. “You take candy from babies?”
She sighed. Lathar were so literal at times.
“They don’t. It’s just a saying. Means we had no problems,” Zero said before she could and then took the message strip from her fingers.
She was about to complain, reaching to take it back, when he said, “But I do want to check this before you play it. Just in case…”
Huh. That made sense. She’d already put him in danger once and look what had happened. SO13 had chased them through an asteroid belt. She didn’t want to put the rest of the Warborne in danger. That would be a terrible way to pay them back for everything they’d done for her.
“Okay. We’ll put it down to homicidal humans—”
“Hey!” Sparky protested. “I resemble that remark!”
T’Raal sighed, ignoring him as he continued talking. “—we’ll put it down to homicidal locals. Put Praxis-Four down on the no-go list… and would someone please get that bloody shuttle back up from the surface! I don’t want to leave anything for the locals to use to kill someone else.”
The group went their separate ways down the corridors, Zero and Eris heading, not for his quarters as she expected, but to the lower deck. They passed the cargo bay and another door. The sound of raised voices emanated from inside, both male and female. Zero grunted.
“Engine core. That’ll be Fin and Red. They have a thing not-thing going,” he said as they walked past. “They argue a lot.”
“Ah… yeah, I thought that might be the case. Where are we going?”
“Computer core.”
He stopped by a door just as it opened and motioned her to go ahead of him. She blinked as she stepped into the room, having to duck her head. With a low ceiling and metal walls, it was less of a computer core and more a computer closet. A single console was set into the wall over a metal desk bolted to the wall. One seat swung out from the wall and folded down. It was the sparsest, most utilitarian space and she turned. Yeah, a cleaning cabinet occupied the area behind the door. All in all, she’d seen more impressive coffee machines.
“This is it?” She motioned to the console on the wall. “I assumed it would be bigger.”
He raised an eyebrow and then smiled.
“That...” he motioned to the screen, “is just the access point. Technically… all this is the core.” He waved his hands around them. “We’re sitting in the middle of it.”
She blinked and put her hand out to place it against the wall. A soft hum prickled against her palm, working its way up her arm like a gentle welcome.
“Say hello to the Sprite.” Zero smiled. “She’s a Tlerian-Seven enhanced computer core. Capable of running an imperial destroyer or housing a miisan-level AI. We… err liberated her from a storage facility deep in the heart of the empire. They weren’t using her, and that’s just criminal for a beauty like this.”
He stroked the wall soothingly as he spoke. Eris’s eyes widened as the hum under her palm changed, becoming more like a contented purr.
“It knows you’re here?” It had to. There was no other reason for the reaction.
Zero’s lips quirked and he tapped his temple with a metal finger. “Direct uplink. One of the perks of my non-organic nature. Okay… let’s take a look at this message of yours. Shall we?”
She nodded, sitting down as the big cyborg held the seat out for her. “I doubt it’s anything important. He... I…”
She sighed. “My brother and I don’t get along well. I don’t know why he’s contacted me. Probably just to be an asshole and shout at me.”
The console flared to life in front of her although this time instead of Latharian script, code was filling the screen. Okay, so the UI wasn’t as friendly down here. Good thing she had Zero with her. She wouldn’t have been able to make heads nor tails of it otherwise.
“That’s what worries me. Not him shouting at you. Although, if he did and he wasn’t your brother, I’d be forced to rip him a
