Countdown, John Walker [online e book reader txt] 📗

range of turrets. If they decided to attack, he wanted to get out of there fast.

“Unidentified ship,” a woman said, “this is station Sigma Hotel Six. State your purpose.”

“This is…” Borden sighed. “The Pegasus. My name is Captain Borden. What’s yours?”

“Sharisa, sir. What brings you here?”

“We noticed your buoy is down.” Borden noted they did not have any starships attached to the station. Nothing docked on the outside anyway. But if they had shuttles, why not fix the thing so they could talk? “We don’t have the parts to repair it. Can you tell us what’s going on? We need to send a message out of the system ASAP.”

“There’s been no traffic through this system for three months,” Sharisa said. “We’re in a bit of a bind, in fact. Do you believe you can repair the buoy? Because we don’t have a shuttle to get out to it.”

“Yes, we can do it if you have the parts.” Borden found something fishy. He couldn’t articulate the problem, but something in the back of his mind made him leery. Instinct? Or paranoia? “If you let us dock, we can grab them and take care of it. Maybe get you some help… I imagine you’re running low on supplies.”

“We do have hydroponics,” Sharisa said, “but you’re right. We’ve only got two months of reserves left for our current crew. We’d be happy to accept your offer. Please dock at Bay Six. You’ll see the flashing lights, and I’ve got a beacon you can link up with.”

That’s very friendly. Borden checked the signal. She set it up fast enough. “Got it. Thank you very much. We’ll be down ASAP.” He muted the line. “Vic! I don’t trust this shit. How crazy are you?”

Vic replied, “Crazy enough to leave the ship before you get to that docking platform and enter from a different point.”

“Excellent… you’d better get ready. I’ll get you as close as I can to one of the maintenance entry points. We’ll dock and stall them as long as we can. Let us know when and if we’re screwed.”

“If worse comes to worst,” Vic said, “I’ll just leave the way I came in and you can pick me up on our way out of here.”

“I hope these people are on the level,” Borden replied. “I’d rather them be in dire straits and need help than the alternative. But either way, at least we’ve got a plan. As soon as you’re ready, we’ll start moving. Right now, I’ll perform some unnecessary system checks to buy you a few minutes.”

Sharisa, don’t prove to be an asshole. Borden couldn’t swallow back the warning in his gut, the paranoia that suggested they were in trouble. Just be cool. For a change.

Chapter 4

Noah took Alexander aside after the meeting. They didn’t have long to talk, maybe five or ten minutes before the next meeting took the Marshal away. If they didn’t chat then, they may not have another chance before the conflict arose between them and the ervas. Waiting so long meant some answers may never reach the light.

“This won’t take much time,” Noah said, “I needed…”

“What is it?” Alexander leaned forward, taking Noah’s arm. He squeezed affectionately. “Whatever’s on your mind, go ahead. You know you can tell me.”

“It’s hard.” Noah smirked, looking away. “What do you know about the creation of the war dogs?”

Alexander stiffened. “As in the process behind building one?” Noah nodded. “Ah well… I mean, I’ve read the reports. I understand the basic concept. It’s fairly simple. The chassis are broken up into three different types. Each of them have a human brain inserted through a special canister that provides them access to all the systems.”

“I get all that… the semantics. I’m asking you about the part where they extract the brain. How’s that work?”

“Volunteers. Men and women who were on the verge of dying or had died. All military people.” Alexander shrugged. “Mostly high-ranking commanders. Minds that were educated, intelligent, stable. Solid individuals. Why? Where’s this coming from?”

“Because…” Noah shook his head. “I’m not ready to answer that. How were they chosen? You didn’t say whether they volunteered or not.”

“Some volunteered,” Alexander said. “Others were chosen.”

“Yeah? Against their will?”

“They were dead,” Alexander replied. “So they obviously weren’t given a choice.”

“So are you telling me that the program essentially robbed graves?”

“Technically, the brains were extracted prior to burial. Though, I mean… this is kind of in the weeds stuff. I only know so much because I read the details on a flight one day.”

“Don’t you find that unethical?” Noah asked. “Did they do a study to find out which brains went crazy? What’s the correlation between insanity and the minds that were taken without permission?”

“Remember that back then we were at war and that meant taking some liberties with rights. We needed those minds to build an army, Noah. Those machines made it possible to win the rebellion. To keep our enemies away from the core worlds.”

“But did we really win?” Noah asked. “I mean, we used a bunch of machines to kick the shit out of them then just abandoned the colonies. What’s to say that it wouldn’t have ended without the bloodshed had we just left them alone? Think about the possibility that the fight may never have happened if we acknowledged them and embraced their independence.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Just that we went in there for pride,” Noah replied. “We hit them, killed countless people, leveled cities, turned some of those planets into rocks where no one could live easily, then just left. We built machines out of human brains that went insane and abandoned them. Shut them off. All for what?”

“Does this have to do with Mac?” Alexander asked. “Did he… did he go—”

“For a time,” Noah interrupted. “We were able to shut him