Vaughn Heppner - Cyborg Assault

Here we go again .

As Marten watched the globe ease toward them, a headache spiked a point between his eyes. Did cyborgs control the Thales -class warship? Or were Jovians allied with cyborgs? None of this made any sense.

Forty-six harrowing minutes later, Marten set his Gauss needler at high velocity. Then he waited with a tripping heart as the red flare of a slowly moving laser-torch cut open their tomb. Omi stood beside him, with his own needler out.

Marten clunked his helmet against Omi’s as he chinned off his radio. They would speak through the metal of their helmets. “If it looks like they’re going to capture us…” Marten said.

“Yeah,” Omi said, his voice sounding tinny and faraway, “in the heart.”

“In the heart,” Marten agreed.

The laser-torch cut its last section of bulkhead. Someone with a clamp on the other side removed the section. The being poked its head in, and stopped short.

Marten’s tongue felt raspy and his heart hammered as he knelt to the side. He aimed his needler at the enemy faceplate. He liked that his hand was steady and that his voice didn’t crack.

“The last people were cyborgs,” he said over the radio. “So let’s get a look at you, friend, before I riddle you with needles.”

For a moment, nothing happened.

Goodbye, my friend , Marten thought, on the verge of bellowing with rage and shooting Omi.

Then the staring visor went from black to clear. A pale, frightened man regarded him. The man had a round face, a small nose and a small mouth.

Marten’s stomach relaxed a fraction, and he eased pressure from the trigger. “Are cyborgs on your ship?”

The man blinked rapidly almost as if trying to comprehend the question. Finally, he asked in a strange, clipped accent, “Cyborgs? Do you mean like the creatures they’ve been broadcasting about from Mars?”

“That’s right,” Marten said, trying to determine if the man was faking ignorance.

“What’s wrong?” a woman asked over the crackling radio-link. “Is anyone hurt in there? If they are, we need to get them out fast.”

A vacc-suited hand pushed the pale, blinking man deeper into the chamber. Then another helmet poked in. That person stopped suddenly.

“You have a weapon,” she said.

“We’re nervous,” Marten said. His needler pointed rock-steady at her faceplate. “I’d like to see your features, if you don’t mind.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“Just do it,” the pale-faced man pleaded, clutching her suited arm.

The woman hesitated and then her visor became clear. It showed a pretty female with small features and a round head.

“We ran into cyborgs earlier,” Marten explained.

Her features changed into something like a person facing a crazed killer high on stimulants.

“Cyborgs… yes, I understand,” she said, pasting on a tremulous smile. “We don’t have any aboard the Descartes . Please, put away your weapon. And-and you can come with us.”

Her look did it for Marten—that talk of cyborgs was crazy.

“It-it would be better if… if you gave me your weapon,” she said.

Marten holstered the needler and shook his head.

“Ship protocol—”

“Will have to take a back seat today,” he said, patting his holster.

She nodded quickly, and said, “If you’ll follow me then. And just to let you know… the Force-Leader will want to know how you managed to become trapped in one of the Rousseau’s pods. I do not wish to insult you, but you don’t seem like a Jovian guardian.”

“I’m not. I’m Marten Kluge. My friends and I just arrived from Mars.”

The ride to the meteor-ship was short and uneventful. They docked with a hiss, a clang and a jolt that threw Marten against his restraints. Then he unbuckled himself and he and his friends floated after the two who had cut them out of the sealed pod.

They entered an airlock. There was more hissing and Marten felt the air-pressure grow around him. The inner lock rotated open and they entered a narrow corridor lit by a diffuse glow. A flexible membrane covered what had the bumpy outline of asteroid rock.

Marten realized they were inside the meteor, and this membrane likely helped seal in the atmosphere. Some rock was porous and would allow air to escape.

The two Jovians unsealed their helmets, cradling them in their arms. The woman had short, brown hair like fuzz, and the roundness of her head was even more pronounced than before. She looked back, waiting for them.

Marten unsealed his helmet, twisted it off and left it hanging from the back of his neck. He tasted the ship’s air. It was recycled from renewers, no doubt. It had a hint of oil and burnt electrical gear. Were they having technical problems aboard ship? Or was it more ominous than that?

Behind him, Omi removed his helmet. Osadar made no move to take off hers, which seemed like a wise precaution.

“There’s something you should know,” Marten began.

The pretty woman frowned, maybe hearing trouble in Marten’s voice.

“Ah….” Marten had been thinking about this the entire trip to the ship. “We came from the Mars System. I know I told you that, but—”

“I’m an artisan,” the woman said, interrupting, “a mechanic. You should save your explanations for the Force-Leader or for the Arbiter and his myrmidons.”

“Excuse me?”

Before the artisan-mechanic could explain, she gasped in horror, staring past Marten.

Marten turned. Osadar had removed her helmet. Her cyborg forehead gleamed, with the stamped letters and numerals OD12 on them. The plastic features and the strange eyes—Marten tried to visualize what the Jovians saw. Osadar had a space-zombie’s features, like one of the living dead that someone had only half-resurrected from Suspend or from a battlefield corpse-pile.

“Quick,” the artisan-mechanic gasped. “Go! Alert the ship-guardians.”

The small man Marten had first aimed his needler at moaned in dread.

“If you’ll just listen for a moment,” Marten tried to say.

Marten’s voice galvanized the small Jovian. He sprang from the chamber and scraped against the membrane of the narrow corridor. He curled his legs and shoved off again. Then he sailed out of sight down a bend in the corridor.

“There’s no need for alarm,” Marten said.

“Emergency!” the pale-faced woman shouted into a com-unit.

Omi shoved against Marten’s shoulder and twisted past him.

The pale-faced woman squeaked. And she lowered the com-unit as she stared at Omi’s needler. It was an inch from her forehead. A tinny voice squawked out of the com-unit.

“Tell them everything is fine,” Omi whispered.

The woman stared at the needler, too terrified to move.

Omi tapped the muzzle against her forehead. He did it twice. She moaned each time. “Tell them now,” he said, in his enforcer’s voice, the one he’d used in the slums of Greater Sydney.

Trembling, the woman lifted the com-unit. “Ah…we’re-we’re fine, just fine.”

“We should flee the ship,” Osadar whispered to Marten.

“They’d just shoot us down,” Marten said. “We have to talk our way out of this.”

“We have a hostage,” Omi said.

The woman’s trembling increased.

“She is an artisan,” Osadar said. “You have nothing with her.”

“What’s that mean?” Omi asked. “Artisan?”

“Put away your needler,” Marten told Omi. “We can’t shoot our way out of this.”

Omi didn’t even glance at Marten. The tough Korean kept his eyes on the woman.

“Please don’t kill me,” she whispered. She arched her body toward him, seemingly promising her flesh.