Adrift in Space

"Surprised you guys weren't wearing those uniforms we had this weekend," he said aloud, they were shaking, it was normal. They seemed they'd be ok. Good. They'd be alive for the trial.

He tapped his own wristlet and let Anna's conversations back into his ear as he retrieved his padlets and walked to the door. Her voice was hard but controlled.

"Paetor, you awake now?" Not a happy question.

"Sorry, Anna," he stopped and put his empty ear to the door, "I had unwelcome visitors, had to mute ya'll. I need to get out of here."

"Are you ok?"

"Walking and talking. They will be too, but not for a couple hours."

A cruel laugh. He opened the door slowly as he listened in the pause in her speech. He looked each way and saw no one.

"Anna, is Stuart close by?" She assented with a grunt. "Is Olivia there? Maybe she can get you weapons."

He heard the quick discussion.

"No. Stuart is angry, she didn't show this morning. Now, I have found more engineers. Unlock—-"

His earbud trilled. He hefted his padlet mostly out of its pouch, quickly pulled up phone control and tapped. Then he went to the video monitor.

"Anna," he said sharply, got a challenge growl back, blew past it, "two more guards on the way TO YOU! Emergency stairwell behind the tanks! Duskrider's with them."

Her response was a hard exhaled breath as a laugh.

"Well, that's a fucking treat," 'fuck' had a rather direct translation from the Sylvan equivalent even to the varied ways it could be used.

"They have weapons. Tell Stuart to keep his people out of their way, nothing they can do unless someone can convert those VR guns to work in the real world. I'm coming your way."

He had half a kilometer to go and had taken two quick steps before the voice stopped him.

"No," Anna ordered, "we will come to you. We need to take back the control rooms."

She gave him a conference room where she'd found some technicians who were familiar with the reactor controls, if not experts. Peter tasked an agent to unlock the room and slipped it back into his pouch and walked quickly.

He knocked and the door slid quickly open and an angry female face was suddenly in front of him but her expression turned quickly to surprise.

"You are Paetor, the Queen's pet human," the female said, "but, how?"

"I'm unusual," he said, "everyone in there okay? Anna will be here soon."

The female winced at Anna's strident tone that was suddenly in both his and her ears.

"He's not my pet, Diana, he's my fuck toy. And he's the only one here doing shit. We'll be there in two minutes. Slow going, radiation doors are down."

Peter had noticed the same. A hidden keypad allowed you to override for passage if the local sensors didn't detect radiation, fires or vacuum. And each door was essentially independent, to allow emergency movement across the station in case of loss of central control. It had slowed him as well.

But it had been handy. He couldn't dump the wristlets and earbuds of the idiots who'd attacked him down a recycling chute, it would lock and hold them. But the section doors just pushed harder if they detected non-organic material in the way. He'd not noticed any gap at the bottom after he'd let a door close behind him.

There were four Sylvans and a human in the conference room, all were support techs who covered a number of areas but only two had training on the reactors. The senior engineer and his second were dead or incapacitated and the crew who'd been on shift in the control rooms were either complicit or captured.

"Hey, Peter," it was the human, Harris.

"Just a sec Harris. Diana, is it?" The Sylvan nodded to Peter, who nodded toward the door.

"Watch for Anna."

She blinked once and her expression recalled the first hour in the VR tank but her mouth went tight and she stood in the doorway.

"How the hell can you see?" Harris was the only black person on the three satellites, Sylvans ranged from very pale like Iris to something like Vicki's not quite beige so human variation was wildly different. But they also had the opinion that humans were humans so they mostly wondered why color was so important to Earth's natives.

"My secret, Harris," Peter walked and put his hand on the man's shoulder and a hand was placed on it, "once this is over I'll send out the specs."

Everyone looked at the doorway as Diana backed in and stood aside before Anna stepped in. She looked around until she found Peter.

"See? Can't get rid of me so easily," she said in a tone that forced some uncomfortable laughs, "Paetor?"

"Yes, Queen?"

"Come, a moment everyone," she dipped her head to the hallway but she grabbed a chair and rolled it into the hall as he followed her into the hall. Angie took the chair and nudged Kim to sit down, she looked wan and pale, he guessed a bit of a panic attack. No surprise

Laurel glared at him. He didn't worry. A glare was her happy face. Anna and the changelings were in green fatigues not unlike what his crew had worn over the weekend, but less martial and fewer pockets. Hardy faced back the way they'd come and didn't react. Laurel had her phaser in hand but it wasn't pointed at anyone, Peter assumed Hardy had his as well.

Anna slipped her arm around his and Laurel followed them away from the rest of the party. Laurel stationed herself at the intersection of the two hallways just in front of the pair when they stopped and her head rotated slowly to watch each passageway.

"Why did you teach that blue-eyed whore so well?"

"You know me, I never do things halfway," Anna snorted loudly before she shook her head.

"What's the status?"

He extracted his primary padlet from its pouch and scanned and dismissed alerts.

"Shit."

"Not useful, fuck toy."

"That blue-eyed whore and her grey-eyed hate-friend are fucking with the ops supercomputers and the reactors too much. The systems algorithms are... I think they're getting mad."

"They're computers. They don't get... mad."

"Anna," he flicked alerts off his screen, he noticed her green eye on the screen, its surrounding stain black in the weird lighting of the hall, "no one, none of your best paeple, not even me, fully understand what those systems do, how they do it."

He exhaled hard and tensed as a new alert popped up. The omnipresent alarms that Peter had long filtered out changed tone and timbre. Anna's grip tightened.

"Oscillating instability in the containment bottle. Iris is overriding every interlock there is, the ops systems are trying to restore but Brittany is blocking. Well, I assume it's them. No one else..."

"Well, stop the—-," Anna's order stopped.

"What?" Anna pulled his head down to whisper directly into his ear.

"Can you break into my connection? It's Seaskimmer."

"Charles," her voice was conversational, as Peter worked on his padlet, "give me a moment. Rather busy here, what with your pain in the ass females who don't know what they're doing messing with toys they don't understand."

Peter found the connection. Not a surprise. Brittany was using the same scheme he was. But this was simple. He didn't need a bidirectional line, just wanted his audio, he'd hear Anna's side. Her mismatched eyes were locked on him as he looked up from his padlet and gave a thumbs up.

"Charles, just tell those idiot bitches to remove their blocks and we'll be fine."

"Anna," Peter growled immediately at Seaskimmer's tone and Anna's expression reminded him of her video escapade, "we have your ship. It's time to talk."

"And what would we talk about? Your unauthorized killer nanomachine project?"

Peter and Anna exchanged tight smiles at his hard exhale that lapsed into a silence that indicated he'd muted his side for a moment. Peter began to speak but Anna put her finger to her lips and he stayed silent.

"Anna, you don't have all of the information. That project is only a prototype. But it's a sideline. What's important is we have control of the ship. It is not our intention to kill anyone—-"

"The senior engineer?" Her interruption was sharp.

"Ah, he, is, will be fine. We cannot let him interfere."

"Cut the shit, child. Why are we talking?" Peter had memory of Anna's opening phrase, he'd suggested the translation that his earbud gave him but he hadn't really understood the original reference.

"It's inevitable the humans will find us soon. Our fleet is on the way and we must ensure our future. We need to use our high ground. We also need to discourage the humans from being aggressive. We have taken precautions."

"What are those?"

"We can convince them to work with us, we are laying that groundwork."

"We are doing that. We have established programs to—-"

"No! You are delaying. Giving them time to prepare. But. Everyone respects you. There is no reason for anyone other than us to see the change. You will remain. But. We will be a new council."

"That's pretty rude. And who are you? You? Victor? Your two dinosaur murdering females who are going to kill all of us?"

A snort. "There are plenty who agree with us. And we have our own allies on Earth."

Peter tightened his eyes and pulled up a window and his keyboard and typed quickly.

"They will assist us in making sure humans are aware of what we can do. When they agree, we will share technology. On our terms."

Peter held the screen up for Anna as Seaskimmer spoke. It was in English but he wasn't worried she'd misunderstand. The key word the two of them had discussed and it had been well covered in Anna's council meetings. They'd simply adopted the English word because nothing in Sylvan culture or history offered an equivalent.

"Is that why you are working with terrorists?"

"Terror... what?"

"Terrorists. Irish paramilitaries. Red Army Faction. Black Robes. Those are your allies?" Peter wasn't sure the last one would register with Seaskimmer, did they even know about Cherry's true past?

Peter blanked the screen and checked new alerts. His mood worsened.

"As with your succubusses," Seaskimmer's voice was tight, "not every human is suitable for every job. We cannot expect regular humans to be competent to help us."

"Crap," Peter muttered. He looked up quickly to see Anna's glare and nodded quickly. She took a step back from him away from the intersection. He turned, saw Laurel maintain her slow vigil and pulled up his keyboard again.

"And what makes you think they won't turn on us? Your little toys will kill us just as easily as humans."

"Huh... wha... who told you that? They are... not—-"

"Bullshit, child. I'm bored with this. Tell your tshikash females to let the supercomputers get the damned reactor under control. Then we'll discuss how we're getting those nanos off of Earth to dispose of them."

Peter looked up in shock at the untranslated word in Anna's statement. But he quickly finished typing and held it up. He read the exaggerated silent 'fuck.'

"Anna—-"

"Shut up, Seaskimmer. You've proven you're untrustworthy. Your next call had better be to your bitches," she tapped her wristlet hard, "is he gone?"

"Yes, now, we need to mov—-," he jumped forward quickly and pushed Anna backwards when he heard a gunshot. He turned and saw Laurel side on as she fired her phaser to his and Anna's right at an unseen assailant. Deep red spread across her white shirt from a wound. A second gunshot and she shuffled back but didn't go down.

She howled and suddenly sprinted forward as she fired her phaser. Peter noted with surprise how fast she moved, even with two gunshot wounds.

"Anna, hold this," he handed her his padlet, she took it, "they tracked us. Duskrider will be coming, tell Hardy to keep watch."

He pulled the phaser from his waistband and flipped the safety off before he clicked the setting to maximum. It would kill a human or Sylvan up to ten yards and disable one two or three times as far.

A third gunshot before sounds of bodies colliding followed by at least one hitting the floor. He heard Anna's voice but paid no attention to it as he pushed her toward the room.

But Guards were different. Anna's diabolical gene editing made them heavily immune from phaser shots at any but very close range. While that wasn't advertised to the population at large, it was common knowledge to anyone involved in the biology and genetics departments.

They'd expected violence.

He edged to the wall and looked left where he had a better angle, saw no one. Then he looked right. Guards. Two. Laurel had to be one, both females. He slid further until he could look past the wrestlers on the floor, saw no one else. He looked the other way again. Where was her twin? They never went far apart.

But.

He saw the Guards roll, knew it was Laurel on the bottom from the fact her entire front was deep red. Her opponent straddled over her and aimed a weapon with her left hand. Now or never.

He sprinted around the corner. Not ten yards. The gun fired again, point blank into Laurel's face and her whole body jumped. Shit, but good. The noise covered his sprint and he put his phaser to the back of the kneeling Guard's neck and fired. The big female's entire body spasmed and he grunted as she pushed him back as her arms shot straight outwards. He balanced himself and fired again at point blank range again into her neck.

She dropped like a tree and landed on Laurel's dead body. He saw the gun, some sort of pistol, drop from her hand.

"Oooff, shi—-," he shuffled back two steps like he'd been punched in the gut, a second hit an inch away dropped him. He hit the floor. He finally registered the gunshots.

"Ah, goddammit," he half shouted, something whizzed over him before he twisted as he rolled to a position behind the piled bodies of the two guards. He looked through a gap between the two thick necks and saw Olivia, from the VR tanks. He touched his abdomen but didn't find blood.

The second padlet. He worked it out, the glass front was shattered but had stayed in place. He flipped it to face the glass away from his body. He saw Olivia stop, far enough his phaser wouldn't do much. The Guard's body on top shook as she shot at him but hit that instead. It looked like she had body armor similar to what they'd worn in the VR tanks. Lovely.

"Paetor, are you okay?" He glanced back, didn't see anyone.

"Stay back, I'm hit" he shouted with what he hoped was enough pain, then lowered his voice, "okay, bitch, play time."

He worked the late Guard's pistol out from under himself, checked it, left his phaser on the floor. An automatic, he guessed about .38 caliber. Details later. He fitted it to his right hand. A quick glance showed his foe hadn't taken cover. Book smart. Knew everything about guns except how to fight with 'em.

He popped up to his knees as he put the pistol into a two-handed grip. Her mouth moved but he didn't know if she meant to speak. He fired.

She fired as well. But her arm had already jerked the shot to bury itself in the ceiling as her head snapped back and her body lifted before her heels hit and she dropped to land flat on her back. She didn't move.

Peter looked down the hall, no one else. He turned at a sound, the male half of this Guard pair had turned a corner past their intersection and set into a sprint. Long way around to flank them.

Damn, they're fast. Peter threw himself over the prone pair and used them as shield and prop. The guard fired and the body under him absorbed yet another slug. Peter fired, saw it hit but it had little effect.

Suddenly a chair rolled out from the crossing hallway right into the running Guard's feet. He went down hard, his concentration on his target had blinded him to the risk. They really aren't that smart, Peter thought. He waited for the figure to stop and fired into the top of the head. The prone figure shook and his arms flailed for a moment before he tried to get them under him. Peter rose quickly and grabbed the phaser as he did so. He winced from the pain in his gut as he ran to the prone figure.

"Like I said, it's Jed fighting dirty time," he put the phaser to the back of the neck and pulled the trigger. The body spasmed and went still. His breath sped as he looked each way. Didn't see any more attackers.

"Paetor," he looked as Anna came from the side hallway and looked past him at the two Guards, then in the distance, Angie followed, a broad smile on her face as she retrieved the chair, "you killed her."

"I'm sorry, I had no choice."

"Fuck raight, you had no choaice," she said, "another tshikash female."

Angie's smile changed to shock when she saw the dead female in the distance. Peter knew she disliked the Guards even more than he did. But to see a dead Sylvan had to be a shock. Especially with a bullet hole through its eye. Other than very rare cases of cancer and rarer suicides the relative youth of the survivors meant that those born after the Crossing had rarely seen death except from afar on Earth. Just like these dumb ass 'revolutionaries.'

"Paetor," Anna drew his attention and held out his padlet, "you have a message..."

He nodded and reached down to grab the gun from next to the dead guard. He looked through pockets and found a full magazine. He popped out the old one and slid the new one in and primed it. He popped a bullet out of the magazine he held.

"Hollow tip," he showed it to Anna, "probably low grain too. Designed to mushroom when it hits. Why the padlet and that thin armor stops it, designed to NOT blow through the walls. But it'll sure make a mess if it hits flesh. Must've hid them in the production for the VR blanks. Shit."

Then he held the pistol out to Anna and traded it for his padlet.

"Take this, give it to Hardy. Tell him, point it and pull trigger. If Duskrider and his Guards show, they'll have 'em. And he'll have body armor."

She nodded and turned and walked quickly. Would he grieve for Laurel? Would he have time?

"Angie, ANGIE," he said and she looked at him as he pointed at the dead female, "go over and get that body armor off of her. See if it'll fit Anna."

The changeling's mouth moved but made no sounds as she looked at him and then the body. He put his hand on her shoulder and spoke softly.

"Angie, look at me," he saw the tears, "do you want this to happen to Anna? You? Kim?"

She blinked rapidly but finally shook her head.

"I'm sorry, humans. Damned humans. But. You need to do it, I'm guessing it'll at least protect against bullets as well as this."

He removed his hand from her shoulder and pulled out the shattered padlet. Her eyes went so wide he could read the Sylvan heritage in them. He let the ruined padlet drop into the pouch and took her hands.

"Yeah, she shot me. But, well. Now, go, please. Hopefully it'll fit."

She hugged him quickly then took a deep breath and walked unsteadily toward the corpse. He watched her as he looked at his surviving padlet.

'Peter. Advise to remove blocks on reactor control. Oscillations worsen. Cannot maintain. Will need to eject cores to avoid rupture. Thirty minutes.'

He typed 'who is this?'

'We are'

He was about to type again when 'watchers' popped up.

'You are the computers.'

'Yes.'

He noticed Anna had returned and stood at his shoulder, her hands rubbed his left arm. They both looked as Angie threw up near the dead female.

"Go to Angie. Put on that armor. Well, try. Hurry," her expression was doubtful but she shrugged and walked toward the young woman. He typed.

'Force the evacuate ship alarm. Unlock doors and open partitions, get everyone off ship.'

The supercomputers had a vocabulary, but it was around operations. This was... a conversation.

'Yes. Save ship.'

The ubiquitous alarms changed. They were doing it. Twenty meters down the hall opposite where Hardy stood a door popped open. Peter was just out of sight as was the prone Guard he stood over. He turned and saw Anna walking with Angie, the changeling fussing at stays or adjustments on the armor. He hurriedly typed a last question on his screen. He heard quiet voices approach the intersection before one of them said 'hey, Kim!'