I woke up laying in my bed, but if I remember correctly I fall asleep on the floor in Lany’s room. I stood up and looked around the ship for someone. Finally I found them in my lounge. There were Lany, Doctors and even Leon was sitting in a sofa. I looked at Doctors and they nodded that meant that it was ok for him to be here.
We talked about what happened yesterday and who was the guy that captured them. I found out he was their former comrade and it was because of him that their planet fall. He betrayed them and sold their codes for planetary defense.
“So what do you think he’s doing here?” I asked.
He thought for a second before he replied, “Not sure, but nothing good, that’s for sure. He was never nice guy, but now he’s more like a psycho.”
“I already told you about the situation on the planet. Do you thought he could be behind it?” I said concern about my friends that I would be leaving here.
“No, I don’t think so. He was never one to be in charge. He’s working for someone.” Said Leon.
“What if they attack the city? Can you help them?” asked Lany.
He looked at his missing arm. “I can ask my team, but I won’t be able to help much.”
“We could give you a mechanical arm.” Said Doctor Gilian. He was one who made the operation on both Helia and Leon. Compared to other two he was older, already in his late fifties, while his to assistants were around twenty years old.
“I saw the mechanical arms. They can’t be used in combat. They have too long response time and they glitch all the time.” He looked down angry.
“If everything went right it wouldn’t be so bad.” Said Doctor Gilian.
Leon looked at the Doctor with angry face. “What good it would do to me, if I can’t use it in combat? I was born to be a soldier. I don’t know how to do anything else.”
We stayed silent and waited for Leon to calm down. “Sorry Doctor. I know you want to help, but I don’t think you can.”
“Maybe I could help you with that.” I piped into their conversation.
“What do you mean?” asked Doctor.
“I was born without my right arm and I had to use mechanical arm from the small age. Like Leon said there were glitches and she didn’t respond well to my commands.” As I talked I could see Leon hang his head more down with resignation. “But when I finished my study in engineering I made my own arm and it was far better. There were still problems, but Doctors told me it was because I never had one to begin with.”
Leon looked hopefully at me. “You’re telling me that you can make an arm that would be without all the problems?”
“Don’t know if it would be without all the problems, but you should be able to use it without problems.” I smiled at him.
“How do you plan to attach it?” asked Doctor.
“I won’t. That would be your job. I’ll only make an arm and you’ll be the one attaching it.” I said.
“How long would it take to make this arm?” asked Doctor Gilian.
“That would depend on you and Leon. I want your inputs on connection to the arm and on gadgets and other things it would have.” I said.
“You mean it could work as something else then normal arm?” asked Leon with wide eyes.
“It could be done. Before the war I saw people with arms that could transform into weapons and other weird things. I thought everyone forgot how to make them. It requires really small parts to work with.” Said Doctor.
“Yeah I can do it. Come we have work to do.” I said and stood up.
“Can I watch?” asked Lany always eagerly to learn something new.
I turned to Leon who nodded. We went to my working room and I showed them some basic designs. Doctor made me do small changes to the connections that would help with controlling the arm.
Far more time I spent working with Leon. He wanted to have a hidden weapon, but wasn’t sure which would be best. I told him that either some sort of blade or small pistol build in the arm. I also told him I could make it so he could use it as cutter.
Biggest problem were with making a shield. He asked if it would be possible to make shield only in front of him. Something that wouldn’t use as much energy as normal shield, but still offered protection. I thought about it and in the end I could do it. I would bend the shield around itself to make it almost flat.
Only downside was that he could trip himself with it if he wasn’t careful, but he told me it would be ok. He’ll just need to train with it when I finish it. I thought about ways to change its size which would help him in energy consumption. When I had everything I needed I ushered him away.
I immediately went to work and with Lany’s help we made it in record time. Of course it helped to have fully functional replicator. Doctor planned operation on tomorrow afternoon which gave us enough time to finish it and do all tests to make sure it was alright.
When I woke up next day, I found out that Helia was getting better and even woke up briefly. Doctor said that most of the danger should be now away and that her chances were far better than they were before.
Helia’s waking up also helped Leon who wanted to get operation behind him as soon as he could. I walked around the ship and looked at the state of it, but almost everything I needed to repair was already done. My time on this planet was nearing its end. I already prepared all parts for the spaceport and my friends.
I still had enough time until the afternoon so I went to George’s ship. I walked around with his head engineer and help him with small repairs. I also made a small list of things I’ll sent them before I go away.
When the time for the operation came I stood before the infirmary nervously and waited for results. I knew it wasn’t as simple operation as Doctor told me because I already went through one. I was walking in a small circle and stopped only when Lany told me it was getting on her nerves.
The operation went for more than two hours, but when one of the assistants went out, he showed us thumbs up. I immediately run to him and hugged him. I asked him when we could see Leon, but he told us that he needed to sleep at least one day.
I thanked him and went to make rest of the preparation for my leaving. I knew that someone wanted to take this planet hostage through the spaceports, but I still didn’t know who. It could be the company that wanted to buy both spaceports, but why attack the council. They would have sold it if they wouldn’t attack the council.
Also there were just too many mercenary companies for such small planet. George couldn’t tell why they were all here. He came only because he heard you could earn good money on this planet.
I sighed, I made all the preparation I could and they weren’t defenseless. If someone tries something, they will stop them. At least I hoped so. I gave them necessary tools to defend themselves, stall them long enough for someone to help them or for me to return.
I called George and gave him parts for his ship and parts that he would take to the city. I told him that I would be going away tomorrow. Some of his crew came and bid final farewell.
Lany wrote small letter for her granddad and went to sleep. It was long day and it would be longer when we start working on outer plating on our way to rescue Eleanor.
● ● ●
I woke up on next day with feeling of urgency. It was slowly building up over the last week and now I knew I don’t have more time. I needed to go and start my journey. I lost too much time with repairs. I hoped that Eleanora was alright.
I went to check on Leon to the infirmary, but I didn’t found him there. That’s when I heard shouting from corridor.
“You can’t move in this state! You’ll just tear your stiches.” I heard Doctor.
“I need to talk to her before she goes away. It’s just too important for my men!” said Leon.
I rounded the corner and saw Leon trying to walk towards the bridge while Doctor and his assistants tried to get him to return to infirmary.
“What are you doing Leon? You’ll just hurt yourself.” I said and run to him and immediately supported him.
“I need to talk to you. It’s important.” He said.
“Ok, but first you need to return to the bed. Then we’ll talk.” I said and steered him back.
“Ok, ok, just hear me out before you go away.” He said.
“I said I’ll listen to you do don’t worry and let Doctor look at you first.” I said.
I could see he was relieved and he let assistants to place him back on the bed.
“Thanks, he wouldn’t budge and we didn’t want to hurt him by dragging him back forcefully.” Said Doctor.
“You could have put him asleep and move him back to infirmary. That way he wouldn’t hurt himself.” I said
“Well we couldn’t. He has some augmentation and normal drugs won’t work on him and stronger could kill him. Also we was pretty stubborn about seeing you. We decided it would be best to let him go and monitor him.” Said Doctor.
“You know I can hear you.” Said Leon
“Yes.” Said both me and Doctor.
“Just checking. Now that we have some time I’d like to talk to you.” He said and waited.
I beckoned him to continue. “As you probably saw, Me and my people are not ordinary security force. To tell you the truth we are former marines. We were elite force of our planet until we were betrayed. We were called Black Legion.”
I could see Doctor staring at him like he grown another head.
“I don’t really know about the Black Legion as I’m not from around here, but what do you …”
“They’re the best soldiers in this part of the galaxy. From what I heard if mission was impossible they called them and they finished it.” Said Doctor.
“She probably wants to know where I’m going with this. We served our Emperor till last breath, but his last command was to go out and help people. We tried, but without resources we started to decline and in the end, we end up as regular security force.” He said bitterly.
“But I talked with my men and we would like to join you. Not everyone, but some of us would like to work with you and help you rescue your friend.” He finish.
“I … I’ll have to think about it. It’s not that I don’t want to, but there is more about me that you don’t know.” I said.
“I don’t care. You are honorable and it would be a privilege to serve under you.” He said.
I wanted to take them, but it would be a risk to reveal myself and maybe even bigger if I told them Eleanora was AI. They could freak out and tried to stop me or they could warn others or … I stopped and thought more calmly about it.
They probably don’t have enough strength to stop me and from what I saw they won’t be able to send message from this planet. Only thing that could happen was that they would help me and betray me in the last moment, but when I looked at Leon on bed I knew it wasn’t in him. He would either try to stop me now or he would join me.
I sighed and turned back to them. “Doctor I would like to speak with Leon in private.”
“Of course, I’ll wait outside.” He said and went out of the infirmary.
I waited until he went outside than I turned to Leon, “What do you think about AI?”
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
He looked confused, “What does it have to do with our joining you?”
“In this case probably everything. This friend I told you about is in truth AI.” I said.
“I’m not sure I understand. There is big chance of something attacking this planet and you want to go save AI?” he asked.
“Yes I want to save her and I will save her.” I started to walk around. “I know you probably don’t understand, but she’s very precious to me. I don’t think about her as just code and servant. She’s my friend.”
“But there are friends here who need you. How can one life compare to all lives here?” he asked incredulously.
“Why should it compare theirs? I gave them means to protect themselves and this planet. I have to go and save her because no one else will!” I growled at him.
“She’s probably already working for them. Why would she return to you?” asked Leon.
“Because she’s my friend, family and because I unshackled her. They can’t control her without her consent.”
“You mad? How could you unshackle her? What if she starts killing everyone? Who will be there to stop her? Does Lany even know that you’re going to save AI?” he shouted at me.
“For your information I told her she doesn’t’ have any problem with it. And to your second question, who’s going to stop me? I can start killing right now. There is no one on this planet who could stop me. So tell me why would she do something like that when I don’t?”
“Because she’s machine. She doesn’t have feelings. We would never know why she’s doing something?”
I stared at him, “And that’s the reason to enslave them? Because you don’t understand them? What about races we don’t understand. We should just use them as a slaves, because we don’t understand them.”
“That’s different and you know it. They’re …”
“Why should it be different? I unshackled her long time ago and I’m sure that she did more good in the universe then every single individual on both of our ships.” I said.
Leon sighed. “Maybe, but you were right. It’s good that you brought this up. I don’t think Me and my company can join you. That was the biggest law in our Empire. Never let lose AI. They could kill our whole planet as we used machines to breathe.”
“I understand, but that’s not the excuse to enslave them.” I said and look sadly at Leon. It’s a shame that he can’t get his mind around the idea of free AI. “I’ll call George and let them transfer you to their ship.”
“You do that.” He said sadly.
As I went from infirmary I saw Doctor looking at me expectantly, but I just shook my head. I went to bridge and called George to inform him that I would start my journey tonight. I told him that we would need to transfer Helia and Leon to his ship before I go away.
He asked why the haste. I told him that I waited long enough and maybe even too long. My friend was somewhere out there and it was my responsibility to rescue her.
I didn’t take us long to transfer both Leon and Helia. I made farewell with both of them and maybe when they meet Eleanor they would change their decision. Both me and Lany went to George’s ship and bade them farewell.
Most tears fell when Lany was bidding farewell to Hana. They became good friends in what little time they spent together and it was sad to tear them apart. George offered Lany to take her as one of his crew, but she wanted to stay with me and learn as much as she could.
Finally, after all these weeks I would go back into space. I would once again fly and if everything goes right I’ll met Eleanora in no time. I went through pre-flight quickly and in no time I was already flying up away from the planet.
We talked about this and George feared that some mercenary company would try to stop me, but no one came to confront me. When I came out of the planet’s atmosphere I did quick scan of my surroundings.
I was surprised that there was almost nothing. There were only couple of old satellites but nothing more. There were no mercenaries, no orbital station or any other ship. Harr and others told me that this planet didn’t have strong presence in the space, but it looked like it was more like none.
If someone decided to attack them they would have no way of protecting themselves. Their only choice would be to defeat them on the ground. That could be done from what I saw of the planet. There were large patches of forest where they could hid from the sensors. I hoped that weapons and other parts would help them until I return.
I pointed ship towards the wormhole that would take me to Qunar. I had to calculate all navigational vector manually as I didn’t have AI, but at least I could use George’s computers for calculation. I would work on AI core on my way to Qunar. It should take me somewhere around two weeks.
As soon as I came to wormhole I activated wormhole drive and we were entered in with our envelope raised. In a blink of an eye we were away.
● ● ●
We were nearing the end of our journey through the wormhole. I was sitting on pilot seat while Lany sat herself behind the tactical map. She liked to sit there because it enabled her to saw what was going around us.
These last two weeks we were working almost constantly. I reworked the AI core and we slowly reworked our plating. I used all remaining materials for it. Plating was specially made in replicator. It was harder than titan plates and it helped with distribution of heat. That was especially effective against the laser weapons which would need to strike same spot at least three times before they would punch through. Of course that would depend on power of laser, but in normal laser cannons it would be around the three shots.
“Lany prepare for reemerging from the wormhole. Some people don’t like it and they have problems.” I said.
“You mean they hurl out their breakfast.” She said grinning.
I smiled, “Yes, that’s what I mean.”
I could feel drive shutting down as we emerged from the wormhole. I immediately did full scan around the ship. What I found out was huge amount of ships going in and out of the large city built on the asteroid. They wanted others to take it as planet, but no matter how I looked at it was just asteroid.
I tried to send request for approach vector, but I found out there was no one directing the traffic around the city. From what I observed it was first come first serve. I looked for free space and finally as we were approaching the city, I found one stop near us.
It didn’t look too good, but from what I saw most of the places looked bad. I had some money stashed and I hoped that they would be enough to cover expenses for landing pad.
First I went over the city. As asteroid had too little mass they had to use gravity generators to make gravity. If I should use the Earth as reference I would say it’s 1.2 earth’s gravity. Luckily it shouldn’t affect me much. With my new body I calculated I could function in four times earth gravity, but it would affect my speed.
City was illuminated with lights from every corner. There were commercials going on almost every skyscraper and house. As half the asteroid was dark because of its rotation. It was always on dark side. They used neons along the pavement and on the buildings. It provided enough light to see on the way, but also created enough shadows to help black market thrive.
As I sat down my ship on landing pad, I saw someone immediately calling me on my com.
“Good day, welcome to Qunar. Your landing fee will be thousand credits per day. We expect you to transfer your money before you leave the ship.” Said cheerful voice.
I didn’t have too many credits so I paid for three days. I know it would be probably insufficient for finding Eleanor, but I couldn’t effort much more. If I don’t find anything in these three days I would have to start looking for work.
“Thank you for picking our landing pad. Additional services will cost you more credits. We can offer you …” I ended the com call.
“What now? Can I go with you or should I wait on the ship?” asked Lany and look at me with puppy eyes.
She evidently wanted to go with me, but I wasn’t sure if it would be good idea. It was just too dangerous outside. I promised her granddad that I would protect her.
“Next time. I would like to first look outside and access danger before I take you with me.” I said.
She looked down sadly. “Also I’ll need to build you armor before you go outside. You should look at designs on replicator and pick one that would suit you.” I said.
She looked at me with smile. “Can I? I already looked at some designs, but I didn’t want to use your materials on it.”
“Yes, and it’s our materials. You’re part of the crew now so it belongs to you too.” I said.
She ran up to me and hugged me. Then she started to run away.
“Where are you running?” I called after her.
“I’m going to look at the designs.” She shouted back.
I shook my head and head for the armory. There I put on my armor and traditional weapons. I also took both drones and couple of grenades. From all I heard it would be better to take too much than too little. It was free for all outside. Even though there was semblance of order which in every part of the city was made by local gangs. I should take care and don’t let my guard down.
I opened the hatch and walked outside. There was no one waiting for me. It looks that as long as I paid they wouldn’t care about me.
The landing pad was made out of metal and it was on platform sitting on the roof of the building. I went towards the stairs going downwards and looked around myself. Even though it was night according to local time, there were giant masses of people going across the streets.
There were large number of merchants flaunting their merchandize and trying to sell it to anyone willing and sometime even to unwilling. There was large number of races from humans, cyborgs, bugs to some exotic aliens that looked like ghosts. They floated above others and connected to people with tentacles.
From what I observed they were probably communicating with them.
As I walk down the stairs I connected to the local network and I was immediately assaulted by commercials of all kind. I almost tripped when they assaulted all my senses.
I discarded them and looked for the information about merchant who bought Eleanor. According to information from my prisoner, she was sold to man named Guslak. He was local merchant who specialized in dealing with AIs. There wasn’t any more information about him, but someone has to know more about him.
I went to look for some information broker. I should first visit some pubs as they were frequented by these type of man.
● ● ●
There were two men looking at small ball which contained great wealth.
“So what do you think? Is it worth making auction?” said one.
Other man used some device to scan it, then turned to the other. “Definitely. I can arrange it if you want.”
“Ok, arrange it and hire some guards. It’s too valuable to lose to some thief.”
“I’ll hire Lotus clan. They’re one of the best.”
“Good, make it so.”