The machine whirred to life around him, intersecting holographic rings moving over and around each other as they scanned him. He didn’t bother closing his eyes. He just focused inward and let his onboard inform him about what was going on.
He could tell he was being scanned, right down to the molecular level and… it itched. Ignoring the irritation, he pondered the feeling. His own systems were a constant source of fascination for him. Even though he had no memories before the point T’Raal had pulled him half-dead from the wreckage of his ship, he knew several things about himself.
He had been made. Not born.
There was no other explanation for it. Analysis of his skeletal structure and the enhancements made to it indicated that his implants were approximately six months younger than his biological components. Which meant either he’d come out of the womb an adult, or… yeah, he hadn’t been born.
He’d been grown somehow.
The tickle from the scanning ramped up a notch as the machine began a low-level whine of complaint. Too low for an unenhanced being to detect, the machine seemed to work harder to scan him. Probably because he was mostly machine.
Given that, was he even a person?
Yes. He was. He had to believe that. He was capable of independent thought, even when he shut his onboard down as far as he dared, to the bare minimum required to run his cybernetics. He was alive… and sentient… but past that, he didn’t know anything about himself. Even the few serial codes he could dig up from his base coding weren’t a match for anything from any known world or civilization. Not even humanity, the latest species to join the intergalactic community.
Still, he couldn’t help a little curiosity over what Talent, formerly a member of the healer’s hall on Lathar Prime, would discover. The tickle in his body ramped up again. He gritted his teeth when it became an unpleasant buzz. Hopefully, this would be over soon.
“Interesting.” Tal’s voice was low. “Physically, your biological construction mirrors the Lathar. Same bodily systems from what I can see. Your skeletal structure has been enhanced with an alloy I don’t recognize, and most of your joints are cybernetic. Internal organs are protected with mesh, again that I don’t recognize but your brain and ner… what the draanth?”
The whine of complaint from the unit became a scream, and the intersecting rings circling him went into a frenzy.
“Trall!” Talent hissed, hands moving frantically over the console. “It’s overloading. I can’t shut it down!”
Zero heard the explosion before it started, that moment of stillness before a spark caught and fire flared.
“Out! Now!”
Talent moved faster than anyone Zero had ever seen before, shoving the big cyborg out the door ahead of him and slamming his hand over the door release. He heard a roar like all the hounds of hell had been released behind them in their fiery rage and then silence as the door slid shut behind them.
BOOOOOM!
Both men winced as the explosion hit, almost buckling the door of the medbay. Talent opened his mouth to speak, but Zero shook his head, pointing upward.
Sure enough, within a half-second, T’Raal’s voice exploded over the comm. “What the fuck have you lot done to my ship?”
Less than ten seconds later, the heavily muscled Lathar barreled down the corridor toward them followed by the rest of the crew. T’Raal skidded to a halt, his hands on his hips as he looked at the pair of them.
His eyes narrowed as he spotted the door and then he rounded on Talent.
“Okay, him I understand… give him half a chance, and something gets blown up. But you? And medbay?”
“‘Snot his fault, boss,” Zero argued and stood upright. He shook his head to try and clear the ringing. “He was scanning me and… well, boom!”
“Boom?” T’Raal didn’t look convinced, glancing over at Talent.
“Boom.” Talent nodded in agreement. “Never seen a unit react that way before. I was just starting to scan your power core and…”
“Boom?” Fin, leaning one shoulder against the wall, asked.
“Yes! Exactly! Boom!” the medic agreed, his face alight with fascination. “We need to find another unit and scan again—”
T’Raal squeaked, cutting him off. “Not on the Sprite, you’re not! Fuck’s sake, is there even anything left of medbay?”
Zero winced and moved toward the door. Tentatively, he put his hand on the metal. It was buckled but not hot. Reaching out, he uplinked with the Sprite’s systems.
“Sensors are toast in there,” he reported. “But hull integrity is uncompromised. It looks like the room contained the blast.”
“Lucky for you,” T’Raal grunted, but Zero had caught his quick looks of concern when he’d arrived, making sure neither of them was injured. “You two are on cleanup duty. We’ll need to divert for resupply.”
Zero’s heart leaped. Resupply meant they were headed where Lathar feared to tread, to the outer limits of Terran space. Unlike the Latharian empire and other powers, independents like the Warborne had known about the human species for a while. They only ever ventured along the edges of human territory, making sure to only visit the most outlying stations and colonies.
But one of those was Tarantus Station. And that meant the beautiful station security chief, Eris Archer.
❖
Eris was so not a morning person.
She grunted as she sat down on the bed slowly and ran a hand through her loose hair. Reaching for her brace, she avoided looking at her leg. Scars made a patchwork of her skin, telling the tale of her shattered limb and highlighting the sites of her implants. The scars were smooth, old and silvery. No one would guess the damn things were burning out.
With a sigh, she buckled the exoskeleton in place, making sure the contact points on the brace were sited correctly over the implant points that powered it. In an instant, the heaviness of the limb disappeared, and she stood easily. Quickly she pulled her uniform pants on, covering the brace. Unless the fabric was pulled tightly, no one would even know
