The Cyber Chronicles 09: Precipice Read online

  "She's gone and got herself into trouble," he muttered. "If anything happens to her..."

  "You'll find her."

  "She could be anywhere."

  Fairen patted his shoulder. "She's resourceful. She'll be all right. And Tarl's with her."

  "I'll kill him." The sudden irrational urge made Sabre's hands clench.

  "No you won't."

  "If anything's happened to her... Why didn't he stop her? He should have known better."

  Fairen shook his head. "Tassin's too strong willed for him to have stopped her. Don't blame him. I'm sure he's doing his best to keep her safe."

  Shrain's voice spoke from the com-link by the door. "A Myon Two commander awaits you, My Lord."

  The young Overlord stood up and donned his hood, arranging the veils over his face. Sabre followed him into the command centre, where the silver-haired commander waited. Fairen mounted the dias and sat down on the black throne, Sabre wandered over to gaze out at the pearly globe of Myon Two. The immensity of the task that faced him had reached an incomprehensible magnitude, and the sheer impossibility of it clogged his thought processes. His analysis of the situation had expanded to encompass the myriad possibilities that existed after three days of space travel. His mind seemed numb, and the unidentified emotion kept intruding, making logical thought all but impossible. The volume of data available to him in the form of star charts that mapped a three-day travel radius of the space around Omega Five, and the specifications of the dozens of planets in it, overwhelmed him. His mind followed the train of logical impossibilities down the black hole of illogical emotional overload like a rabbit down a burrow.

  Fairen beckoned to the commander. "Approach."

  The man walked up to the dias and bowed. "My Lord."

  "Your name?"

  "Commander Thestan, My Lord."

  "I am appropriating your ship, Commander. I am placing it and its crew under the command of my friend, Sabre. You will do exactly as he orders at all times. If you feel that any of your crew is liable to disobey him or show him disrespect in any way, you may dismiss them now. You will dock in the Scorpion Ship for translocation. Is that understood?"

  Thestan nodded. "It is, My Lord."

  "You will be given instructions when you have returned to your ship."

  The commander bowed and backed away, and Fairen's men escorted him out. The Overlord pulled off his hood and went over to join Sabre, gazing out of the screens.

  "You're very calm."

  The cyber frowned. "I don't know how I'm supposed to react. This is new to me."

  "How do you feel?"

  "Numb. Detached. And it hurts, here." He tapped his chest.

  "You're in shock. It will pass."

  "I'm not sure it will. I... I feel like my reason for living just disappeared. She could be dead."

  "I doubt it," Fairen said.

  "They might hurt her."

  "Possibly, but you'll save her."

  "I don't want her to be hurt, but I can't prevent it. I don't know where she is. I don't know how to find her. There is no way. There are a hundred and eighty-seven planets within three days’ travel of Omega Five. Forty-two of them are outlaw worlds. She could have been taken by Myon Two, or slavers, or hitched a ride on a friendly yacht, or paid for passage on a merchant vessel. The possibilities are endless. She could have travelled as much as eighty-two light years in any direction. There's no data to base a working theory on. There's no way to find her."

  Fairen frowned and glanced at Shrain, who hovered nearby as usual. "Bring me the tech, Martis."

  "At once, My Lord."

  Fairen replaced his hood before Martis was ushered in, looking nervous. Estrelle followed him, and the Overlord beckoned them over. They stopped beside Sabre, who continued to stare out of the screens.

  "Cyber Tech Martis," Fairen said. "Sabre has just received news that his betrothed has been abducted, and he appears to be dealing with it badly. What's wrong with him?"

  Martis studied Sabre with a frown, waving a hand in front of his eyes. The cyber ignored him, not even blinking. "You have no information about where she might be, My Lord?"

  "No."

  The host tech looked worried. "I think his brain block just failed."

  "What is that, and what does it mean?"

  "Most of his emotions and human instincts were locked away behind a wall in his mind, which has been gradually weakening. I think this shock has caused it to fail, and he's gone into emotional overload."

  "So he's in shock?"

  Martis nodded. "Of a sort, My Lord. He has a machine-trained mind that has just been swamped by a huge amount of illogical human feelings, instincts and urges, and he can't handle it."

  "Can you help him?"

  "If I can get him to focus on something. Right now he seems to have gone into a sort of illogical loop." Martis hesitated, then gripped the cyber's arm and shook it. "Sabre. Snap out of it. Focus."

  The cyber's eyes flicked down to him. "What?"

  "What are you going to do to save her?"

  "I don't know."

  "Is there a way to find her?"

  "I don't know."

  "She needs your help, what can you do?"

  Sabre's brows drew together. "I don't bloody know!"

  "What about going to Omega Five and finding out what happened to her?"

  "They won't know anything, they're peasants."

  "What about tracking the ship that took her?"

  The cyber shook his head. "It's too late; the ion trails have faded by now."

  "There must be a way to find her."

  Sabre's hands flashed out and gripped Martis' shoulders, making him wince. "Listen, you bloody little shit, she's gone! Get that through your head! She could be anywhere in the damned galaxy, a hundred light years away by now."

  "Or she might be close by, waiting for you to rescue her."

  Sabre's face twisted, and he released Martis, reaching up to grip the brow band. "I can't think straight. I don't know what to do."

  "Okay, calm down. Everything's going to be all right. We're going to find her."

  The cyber swung away, releasing the brow band, and stalked towards the screens, shaking his head. "No one can find her."

  Martis looked at Estrelle, who chewed her lip, then at Fairen, who had turned his head to watch Sabre. "My Lord, to be honest, I don't know if there is a way to find her, and he knows it. I think he's experiencing a whole host of emotions, the strongest of which, I would imagine, is despair. He's experienced that before, but in a dumb, distant capacity, for himself. Now it's full strength, mixed with anguish, helplessness and grief, for someone he cares about. He can't handle it, and I think he wants to shut down to escape it, but he can't do that either."

  Fairen glanced around as Shrain said, "The enforcer ship is docked in berth five, My Lord."

  "Translocate to Omega Five."

  "Yes My Lord."

  As the distant booms and groans echoed through the ship, Fairen turned to Martis. "You must help him. You know what's wrong with him. An enforcer battle cruiser is at his command; he just needs to decide how to find Tassin."

  "Right now I think he wants to curl up in a dark hole to escape his emotional turmoil. His logic has been destroyed by overpowering feelings of anguish and sorrow."

  "Then he needs hope."

  "Yes."

  Fairen swung away and went to the dais, stepping onto it. "Shrain."

  "Translocation in thirty seconds, My Lord."

  "The beacons around Omega Five record all traffic. Download the data from three days ago."

  "Yes, My Lord. Connecting."

  Fairen sat down, gazing at Sabre, who stared out at Myon Two, his hands clasped behind his back.

  Shrain tapped his com-link. "Translocation in ten seconds, My Lord."

  The suffocating stasis field gripped them in a momentary flash of white light, and the two techs reeled as it released them. Sabre gazed at the blue and white globe of Omega Five as
if nothing had changed. Fairen turned to Shrain, who tapped his com-link again.

  "Downloading data, My Lord. Three days ago, a ship was in orbit for seven hours. It was a Gigantor, E-class luxury explorer, two years old. Its tracking beacon was deactivated, so no other data is available, but the satellite recorded some local voice traffic. I'll play it for you."

  A gruff voice came from the com-link, speaking a strange dialect, then faded in a hiss of static. Fairen glanced at Sabre, who turned to face him, frowning.

  "That's a Frellan dialect, a sub-dialect of Nardrin, spoken on only two planets, Farrelin Eight and Pragan Prime. He was issuing instructions to a shuttle, guiding it somewhere."

  "Does that help?"

  "A Frellan dialect, spoken on a Gigantor ship, which was built on Endron Two, can only mean they're smugglers or slavers, and it's a stolen ship."

  Fairen nodded. "There's nothing worth smuggling on Omega, so it must be slavers."

  "It's worthless information."

  "Let's assume they have all the slaves they can carry. What's the closest slaver planet?"

  "Darvel Three."

  "Then perhaps that's where you should start your search?"

  Sabre turned to gaze out of the screens again. "Then there's the Dellan Station, half a light year further away in the opposite direction, and Mintar Four, two light years further away in a completely different direction. And let's not forget Forge Prime, a mere five light years further in yet another direction. Who wants to pick one? Perhaps we should draw straws?"

  "Which would be the preferred haunt of Frellan slavers?"

  "Probably the Dellan Station, but who's to say they're all Frellans? Maybe only the coms-op is."

  Fairen sighed, the voice distorter turning it into a hiss. "You have to start somewhere."

  "It's hopeless."

  "Only if you give up. Tassin didn't give up, did she? She found you on Ferrinon Four, against all odds."

  Sabre nodded. "Tassin is a... mule."

  "And what are you?"

  "Right now I'm not sure. I can't find a workable solution. There are too many variables, too many unknowns, not enough facts. She's gone. In three days, those slavers could have taken her to any of those planets, or about seven others, and sold her, so she could be anywhere."

  Fairen leant back, tapping the arms of his chair. "You are correct, of course, but I want you to take the enforcer ship and search for her." Sabre stared at Omega Five, and Fairen turned to Martis. "What is his problem?"

  The young tech cleared his throat. "Well, basically, he's not entirely human, My Lord. If you ordered a cyber to search for this person, with these few facts, he would tell you pretty much what Sabre just did, that there was insufficient data to formulate a workable strategy, and no possibility of success. Sabre's been swamped by a whole host of new, irrational emotions, but he's unable to deal with them yet, so he lacks the ability to use them to base hope on faith, or luck. So he has no hope. You're asking him to do the illogical. If he was a cyber, the only way to order him to do this would be to give him exact instructions, which planets to search, and in what order."

  "All right." Fairen turned to Sabre once more. "Sabre, take the enforcer ship and start your search on the closest slaver planet, then work your way outward from there."

  Sabre turned to face him, a wry smile tugging at his lips. "I'm not a cyber, Fairen. You shouldn't listen to that little twit."

  "You have a better plan?"

  "She's just a girl, lost amongst a dozen planets with over a hundred and twenty-four billion people on them."

  "So what will you do?"

  Sabre lowered his gaze to the floor, his brow furrowing. "If I go to any of those slaver planets in an enforcer ship, they'll attack it. There's no way to find her. It's impossible. She's been swallowed up like a drop of water in the sea. So I'm not going to look for her, it would be a pointless exercise. I'm going to look for Tarl."

  "Why Tarl?"

  "Because he'll be easy to find. He's a cyber tech, the only one who doesn't work for Myon Two. That makes him a rarity, an oddity, and, while Tassin is just a pretty girl who will vanish without a trace, he'll cause ripples wherever he goes. He'll use his skills to keep himself alive, otherwise he's a worthless middle-aged man, but his skills make him extremely valuable to anyone who has cybers.

  "Whoever has him is going to use him. They'll want to buy cyber repair equipment and drugs. They might even offer his services to others. Tarl will either know where Tassin is, or he'll put me on her trail. I just need to find where she was taken, and I can find who bought her, then the trail's easy to follow."

  Fairen inclined his head. "Of course, a good plan."

  "It's still a long shot. I'll need the battle cruiser's emblems changed to something suitable for an outlaw, and made to look like some other kind of ship."

  Fairen turned his head. "Shrain, see to it."

  Sabre clasped his hands behind his back and paced in a circle, frowning at the floor. "I'll need Kole to do the Net searches, and Martis and Estrelle to do any repair work that comes our way."

  "Err..." Martis said. "Battle cruisers don't carry analysers or repair equipment, only regeneration drugs. They don't have a repair tech on board. Badly damaged - injured cybers are put into cold sleep and taken to the nearest repair centre and swapped for functional units. Omega Five is a Rim world; there are no repair centres out here."

  Sabre shook his head. "We'll deal with that if we have to, not now."

  "Where do you want to start your search?" Fairen asked.

  "The Dellan Station."

  The young Overlord addressed Shrain again. "Bring Kole Arvan aboard, then translocate to the Dellan Station."

  Sabre looked up. "No, you can't go there. The presence of an Overlord will cause a lot of suspicion. It's bad enough that we'll be newcomers. I'll leave you here."

  Fairen nodded, glancing at Shrain. "Belay my last order, and have all the cyber repair equipment in my hospital put aboard the enforcer ship at once."

  Sabre stopped pacing and faced him. "Thank you. Kole can ship-clamp Striker to the enforcer, it'll add to our disguise."

  "Pass on the order to Kole Arvan,” Fairen instructed Shrain. “Is the battle cruiser ready yet?"

  "No, My Lord, you only issued the order five minutes ago."

  "Tell them to hurry up."

  Sabre looked at Martis and Estrelle. "Go and get aboard the battle cruiser... does that damned thing have a name, Shrain?"

  "She's Pathos, sir."

  “A fitting name.”

  As soon as the door slid shut behind the two techs, Fairen pulled off his hood and stepped down to join Sabre, looking concerned.

  "Are you all right now?"

  "I'll be fine."

  "What happened?"

  The cyber shrugged, rubbing his brow. "I don't really know. I couldn't think straight. It was like my head was full of... I don't know what. Ready to burst. I can't describe it."

  "How did you overcome it?"

  "I haven't, it's still there, I'm just... working around it, I guess."

  "It's understandable that you should find your first experience of despair overwhelming; just don't give in to it again. You mustn't give up hope. You'll find her if you try hard enough."

  Sabre nodded, lowering his eyes to the floor to hide the expression in them. "I didn't give in to it, exactly. I tried to deal with it, but I can't, not yet."

  "I must go."

  "I know. So must I." Sabre hugged the boy and ruffled his hair. "Don't go blowing up too many planets."

  Fairen smiled. "Good luck."

  The cyber paused in the doorway to glance back, and Fairen raised a hand in farewell. Once more he was struck by the sadness that surrounded the lonely boy; a small, forlorn figure in the massive control centre of the mightiest ship in the galaxy. The fate of worlds rested on his thin shoulders, yet friendship and happiness were denied him, leaving his life a joyless existence. Somehow, thinking about Fairen's misfortun
e pushed aside his overwhelming concern for Tassin. He could not think about her right now, the stress was too intense and the accompanying emotions too strong.

  As Sabre loped along the corridor towards berth five, he resolved to return, when he found Tassin, and spend more time with the young Overlord. Being Fairen's only friend was a responsibility he would take seriously now he knew the full extent of the rare privilege and all it entailed. Fairen could have anything he wished with a flick of his fingers, except the friendship he needed so much. First Sabre had to find Tassin, which was impossible. He pushed the thought aside. He would find Tarl, which was more feasible. The mocking voice awoke deep in his mind to scorn his intent. How was he going to even find Tarl, when he was just a broken killing machine? The task was just too great. He tried to ignore the sneering voice's insistent ridicule. Cyborg! It had not said that for some time, and somehow that made it worse.

  In berth five, he found a group of enforcer officers watching the transformation of their ship with bemused eyes. Red-uniformed workmen swarmed over it, spraying on layers of ultra-hard brown and grey paint. Already the battle cruiser had a dull, moth-eaten appearance. A snarling wolf's head replaced the Myon Two emblems, and engineers were welding ramming spears to the bow and cutting shears to the sides. The battle cruiser was a massive ship, more than a kilometre long, and barely fitted into the docking berth. It only looked small when compared to the Scorpion Ship, and the workers were like ants on it.

  Sabre headed for the open door, and the distinguished-looking commander trotted after him, falling into step beside him.

  "Sabre, isn't it?"

  The cyber glanced at him. "It's 'sir', to you."

  "Right. Can you tell me what we're going to be doing?"

  "We're going to pretend to be outlaws, so have your men wear plain clothes, make some if you have to. We're looking for the outlaw cyber tech Tarl Averly, so we're going to offer to sell cyber repair services, equipment and drugs. Have Fairen's men finished setting up the repair equipment in your hospital?"