The Cyber Chronicles VII - Sabre (3 page)

"No ships.
Find their ion trails and follow them."

"Yes, My
Lord." Shrain tapped on his com-link. "Three ships, one was the
Trykon warship... the other two are unidentified."

"Well identify
them!"

"Yes, My Lord,
working on it. We're following the trails. They're heading for a
corridor."

"Of course
they are."

The stars
moved across the screens as the Scorpion Ship turned to follow the
trails, and Fairen seethed with impatience. Its massive size made
his ship slower in normal flight, especially when manoeuvring, but
without a destination he could not translocate, and the generators
need time to recharge.

****

A technical
officer looked up at Atrel. "We're going to run out of fuel in two
hours, burning it at this rate, First Lieutenant."

"How far to
the corridor?"

"Twenty-seven
minutes."

"That gives us
an hour and a half of fuel for deceleration and manoeuvring. It
should be enough."

Another
officer looked around. "They're not heading for this corridor.
They're turning away."

"What's their
heading?"

"They're still
turning." The officer studied his instruments for a couple of
minutes. "They're on course for a distant corridor, 675-842. It's
three hours away."

Atrel cursed,
bringing his fist down on the console beside him with a bang. "We
can't follow them. We have to find fuel. Enter the corridor ahead.
We know where they're going."

"That will
give them time to torture, or kill him," Tassin said.

Atrel turned
to frown at her. "If they wanted to kill him, they would have done
so already. As for torture, a warrior can withstand much pain,
non-com. There's nothing we can do without fuel."

"Then let me
use your communications device. I'll call Overlord Fairen and ask
for his help."

"They're still
jamming us."

Tassin wanted
to shout at him to follow them, to fight, do something, but she
knew it was futile. He was right. Swinging away, she left the
bridge.

****

"My Lord,
we've detected debris ahead,” Shrain said. “One ship, and not a
very large one. It's not the Trykon vessel."

"Scan it for
cyber remains."

"Detecting
traces of barrinium, enough for two or three cybers."

"So they had
cybers aboard, that doesn't mean he was one of them."

"No, My Lord."
Shrain consulted his com-link. "The trails split up ahead. One
enters the corridor close to us, the other continues on to a
farther corridor."

Fairen swung
around. "Then they must have defeated the second ship, and it fled.
Follow the Trykon ship."

"Yes, My Lord.
Entering corridor momentarily."

The young
Overlord mounted the shallow dais and sat on his high-backed onyx
throne, pondering the situation. The remains of two cybers in the
debris could mean that the ships that had attacked Sabre were Myon
Two enforcers, but was not conclusive. Many ships carried cybers,
although two was unusual. If they were enforcers, Myon Two had
disobeyed him, and the fact that they had found Omega Five seemed
to indicate that they had had help, possibly from Overlord
Ramadaus, which did not please Fairen.

****

Commander
Barrin entered the examination room, which had been especially
prepared and equipped in case they captured the rogue cyber. The
walls were reinforced duronium, and movement sensors constantly
monitored the occupants. Although the loss of his escort soured his
triumph somewhat, it was still a great achievement. Seventeen
enforcer ships had followed rumours and clues in search of the
rogue cyber since Overlord Ravian had taken him, and he had thought
the boring vigil at Omega Five would be a waste of time. The
mission was top secret, since two Overlords had forbidden Myon Two
to hunt the cyber. He wondered why Myon Two thought it was so
important to capture the rogue, even going against the Overlords to
do it.

Walking over
to the table, he gazed down at the rogue. The senior technician,
Grundel, looked up, cocking one side of his unibrow. "Can I help
you, Commander?"

"How long
before the paralysing agent wears off?"

"He'll
metabolise it in five hours, since he's not in stasis, but we'll
give him more."

"I want to
talk to him."

"It won't do
you any good, sir, he's just the host."

Barrin nodded.
"A host who managed to free himself from his control unit and live
like a human for many months. I think we could learn from him."

"I disagree.
The host brain was not designed for independent thought."

"Yet, from
watching his memory recordings, we've all seen that he's fully
capable of it."

"Even so, what
do you hope to learn from him?" Grundel asked.

"How he got
free, for one thing."

"We know that.
The control unit was damaged in a high velocity impact."

"The first
time,” Barrin agreed. “What about the second time?"

"Under the
direction of his owner, he kidnapped a Myon Two director and forced
him to remove the software patch that reinstated the cyber's
control."

"How did his
owner know to do that?"

Grundel
shrugged. "Not a hard thing to work out. The only way to hack a
cyber is to get a technician who has the codes."

"I still want
to talk to him."

"Sir,
releasing him from the paralysis would be extremely dangerous, even
with restraints. I won't authorise it."

"You can't
keep him paralysed for three months, and that's how long it's going
to take us to reach Myon Two," Barrin said.

"I plan to put
him into cold sleep."

"How will you
do that without the cyber to control his metabolism?"

Grundel
frowned. "I'm working on that."

"And if you
can't?"

"Then we'll
have to let the paralysing agent wear off."

Barrin nodded.
"I can wait. I don't think you're going to be able to fix him on
your own."

Grundel turned
back to his equipment, scrutinising the spiky lines on a
screen.

Barrin leant
closer. "What are you doing now?"

"Studying his
brain waves."

"Looks pretty
active."

"Yeah, he's
wide awake, and listening to us. This is so abnormal, it's freaky.
His brain waves should be almost non-existent, less than a sleeping
person's."

"Are these
like a normal person's?"

"Yeah."

The commander
straightened. "Let me know when you plan to release him."

"I don't."

****

"We've entered
the corridor, My Lord," Shrain informed Fairen. "Do you wish to
hail the Trykon ship?"

Fairen turned
from his perusal of the light-filled screens. "Yes. Tell them to
take their solar wings offline so we can capture them, then bring
them to a docking port. Tell them I wish to speak to Sabre."

Shrain spoke
into his com-link and waited for the reply, then looked up at
Fairen. "They say Commander Sabre is not on board, My Lord. He was
captured by two Myon Two enforcer ships, one of which the Trykons
destroyed. They don't know if he was aboard it."

"Well that was
bloody clever of them,” Fairen muttered. “When they're docked, have
Tassin Alrade and the technician Tarl brought aboard, and then
release the Trykons."

"Yes, My
Lord." Shrain spoke into the com-link again.

Fairen gazed
out of the screens, frowning. The only way the enforcers could have
captured Sabre without defeating and boarding the Trykon warship
was if they had transferred him, and that technology belonged
exclusively to the Overlords. If the enforcers had it, an Overlord
had given it to them, and he knew of only one Overlord who would do
that. The one who wanted Sabre dead at any price, it seemed. He
pondered the ramifications of Ramadaus helping the enforcers now,
since he had discovered the folly of trying to kill Sabre himself.
Giving away Overlord technology was also forbidden and Ramadaus
knew it. Fairen would have to forbid the enforcers to ever use it
again, but so far Myon Two had proven rebellious. If they continued
to use it, there would be a vote amongst all the Overlords to lay
down a unanimous decree, which, if broken, would result in the
destruction of Myon Two. They would not dare to disobey. At least
then they would not be able to use it to snatch Sabre again.

The Scorpion
Ship sailed the photon corridor on mammoth solar wings, its size
such that it spanned the entire corridor. Fairen hardly ever used
photon travel, since he could translocate, and a ship this size,
home to over one hundred and fifty-five thousand people, caused
some spacial distortions as it outstripped light speed several
hundred times over. In fact, the Scorpion Ship was not really
designed as a light ship, since it was too large, and it had solar
wings primarily as a backup system, in case his translocation
generators and the tunnel drive failed. In order to capture a ship
in a photon corridor, however, he had to enter it and match its
speed. The solar wings, vast webs of negatively charged
electromagnetic power confined in a stasis field, propelled the
ship by capturing the speeding photons and reversing them, which
provided basically unlimited forward thrust, since the faster the
ship went, the more the streaming photons were overtaken and the
inverted particles moved backwards quicker.

****

Tassin stared
at the worn metal floor in Tarl’s cabin and blinked back the tears
that stung her eyes, determined not to cry. She sat on a bunk,
which was a little more comfortable than the cold metal chairs. The
cabin’s dull greyness and cramped confines were depressing, but a
relief after the tension of the bridge and the Trykons’
ill-concealed scorn and hostility. Without Sabre’s protection, only
his former status with the warriors kept them safe, and she
wondered how long that would last. If he had died on the enforcer
ship, she did not give much for their continued freedom or good
health. The possibility that he was gone did not bear thinking
about, however, and she refused to believe it. Tarl sat on the bunk
opposite, looking stunned and forlorn. She raised her head and
glanced at the door.

"I'm going to
ask Atrel if I can call Fairen. The enforcers must have stopped
jamming us by now; we've been in a corridor for two hours."

"He won't let
you."

"He wants to
save Sabre, doesn't he?"

"If his pride
doesn't get the better of him," Tarl said.

"I don't think
Atrel's as bad as the rest. He seems reasonable." She stood up. "If
he won't, we'll just have to use the lasers again."

"They
confiscated them after the last time, remember?"

"Didn't Sabre
get them back?"

Tarl shook his
head. "I didn't tell him that they'd taken them. Did you?"

"No." She sat
down again, slumped with dejection. "Then I'll just have to hope
Atrel will let me. Last time I asked, he didn't say no."

The door
opened, and Atrel filled it, two warriors flanking him. Tassin's
heart leapt with hope that he had good news, or was here to give
her permission to use the communications device. His gaze swept
over them.

"Overlord
Fairen requests your presence on his ship. We'll be docking with it
shortly."

"He came!"
Relief made Tassin dizzy, and she wanted to laugh. "Sabre must have
activated the distress beacon when he was taken. Has Fairen rescued
him already?"

"He didn't
say. Bring your possessions. You will not be returning." Atrel was
clearly disgusted that Fairen had requested two non-coms instead of
him.

Tarl went over
to a cupboard and pulled out his bag, stuffing his few spare
clothes and oddments into it. Tassin brushed past Atrel and ran to
her cabin to collect her things. When she returned, Atrel was gone,
leaving the two warriors to escort them to the docking port, where
four black-uniformed soldiers waited. She was amazed to discover
that the Trykon warship was berthed in a docking bay so vast that
the destroyer seemed like a toy. Quite a large one, but the sheer
size of the docking bay dwarfed it. Fairen's crewmen guided her
through the Scorpion Ship's black-walled corridors to his control
room, where the young Overlord sat on his massive throne, his
bright blue eyes filled with worry and his level black brows drawn
together. Tassin ran to the dais, dropped her bags and inclined her
head. Behind her, Tarl bowed.

"Where's
Sabre?" she burst out, unable to control her desperate need for
news of him.

Fairen's brows
rose. "Greetings, Queen Tassin."

"Forgive me,
Overlord Fairen, I'm so worried about him. Thank you for
coming."

"Regrettably,
I don't know where he is, or even if he's alive, any more than you
do. Cyber remains were detected in the debris of the enforcer ship
the Trykons destroyed."

Tassin's heart
sank, but she shook her head, determined not to give in to despair.
Sabre could not be dead. "No, he must be on the other one."

"I hope
so."

"They'll take
him to Myon Two. We have only to go there to find him."

"It will take
them three months to reach Myon Two using corridors. Since I
followed your ship instead of them, I've lost their trail."

Tassin looked
away, despondent. "They'll do terrible things to him in three
months."

"I agree.
Which is why I intend to go immediately to Myon Two and demand his
release. But I must warn you, if they have the audacity to go
against my order not to hunt him, they won't easily admit to having
done so."

"They can't
lie to you."

"Myon Two is a
big planet. The enforcer factions are manifold, and it's entirely
possible that their president has no knowledge of who did
this."