Chapter Eighteen
Two weeks later, Amelagar assembled everyone in the large hangar. He stood in front of the small hybrid ship that was ready to launch the moment the cloaking devices worked.
“Our mission is to sabotage as many of the clone ships as we can, before they reach earth.”
He looked at the four marines, Colonel Farnham, Sargeant Bjorn, Corporal Jack Black, Sargeant Scott, Anatu and Agrippa. He would be the only male cyborg on this mission.
“We have all trained together, but please introduce yourselves again and mention your area of expertise, before I continue the briefing.”
The marines trained everyone in hand-to-hand combat, what they called close quarter combat and collapsing a sector which was clearing a room and a host of other tactics. That was fun, but Agrippa loathed the shooting and running what felt like running millions of miles. As their departure came closer, they all sped up their training and the work they had to do on the ship.
The first tine sergeant Bjorn ordered Anatu to run around the hanger and then climb the rope obstacle, she’d stared at him, blinked once and said, “I have to go kiss babies.” Then she’d simply walked away.
Since she wasn’t coming on the mission, no one tried to insist. Except for sergeant Bjorn, who seemed to believe that everyone on their team should be trained. Whether they were travelling with them or not. He did not care about cyborgs strength, insisting it can only take them so far.
In turn, the marines were trained in everything from piloting the ship to fixing the engines. None of them could be trained with Agrippa and Anatu’s skills, but they had to at least know the basics. Most of them were chosen because they had backgrounds in engineering.
Amelagar came the closest to being able to take over the fixing of the cloak and engines and when they heard this, the marines tripled their efforts.
Anatu loved being part of the team. They’d even given her a uniform and boots, like what the marines wore. She hated the physical workouts, but loved being dressed like one of the team. Sometimes they even helped her if she struggled over an obstacle. Her own family had been too scared to touch her, afraid the clones would retaliate against any perceived threat to their pet natural scientist.
Never had she been part of a group of people with such a noble mission. The Souls may have recruited her, but she had never been part of them. If only her family could see her now. Maybe they would be proud of her. She shook of those melancholy thoughts. Amelagar was proud of her, she did not have to yearn for more.
They tested the cloak several times and it didn’t work. They adjusted and it didn’t work. Agrippa did a shutdown of the cloak, the engines and computers and groaned. “My back ache from sitting in this position.” She rubbed the injured area. “If this cloak doesn’t work soon, I am going to end up with a permanently crooked back.”
Anatu checked their code with a speed Agrippa envied. “I have a cyborg spine, I don’t have to worry about ending up crooked.” She looked at Agrippa. “If your back becomes skew, I will ask Balthazar to authorize a new cyborg strength spine for you.”
Agrippa laughed a little grimly. If only the cloak would work, she’d put up with any amount of pain. “I’m starting up everything. Again.”
Anatu shook her head. “Wait, check this.”
She read the code on Anatu’s tablet. “Slower remember, I cannot read as fast as you.” For the first time she realized that among the cyborgs, she was slower and weaker and that seemed to make the difference. No one has rejected her yet for being too clever. Among this group Anatu was brilliant and she didn’t have to be ashamed of that. Excitement shot through her ryhov. She pointed to a particular part of the code. “That might be our problem.”
They fixed the program, tested it, and the cloak still wouldn’t work inside the ship.
Agrippa went to the cabin she shared with Amelagar. He was already there, working. He looked up and pushed away his tablet.
Each night she and Amelagar made love and as the time to leave came closer, there was a desperation to it. Both knew they could die if they did not get the cloak figured out. Even if they did, they probably would die anyway when the clones reached earth
He held out his hand and she rushed over to him and crawled into his lap and held onto him with a desperate need for his strength. “We can’t make it work,” she whispered. She felt guilty, as if she was letting him down.
His chin resting on the top of her head, he kneaded her back. “You have worked hard. If it works, it will be because of you. Because you didn’t give up.”
“Anatu worked just as hard.”
Warmth spread through her body and her ryhov swam lazily through her skin as he continued to kneed her sore muscles.
“I will keep trying, but the time is getting short.”
He lifted her face towards his, with a forefinger under her chin. “Let me worry about the time left. All you must concentrate on, is the cloak.”
“And sergeant Bjorn’s sadistic training.”
“His sadistic training might save your life. I would have stopped him, but the harder he pushes you, the better trained and the safer you will be.”
He kissed her, a sweet kiss that turned passionate, until she squirmed and moved to straddle him.
Afterward they’d tested the chair with their lovemaking, she lay in his arms, the only place she has ever felt safe. “I am not afraid of dying. I should be, but I am not.” Agrippa traced the grey folds covering his muscled chest and smiled when he shivered. “But I am so scared of going near the clones. I know I should not be, but I hate them and I’ve seen them do such terrible things.”
His grip tightened. “I will not let anyone hurt you. I am not afraid of dying either, but I am afraid of seeing you die.”
She held onto him for dear life. “I can’t see you die either. It would end me too.”
They clung to each other, both trying to sleep and rest and both of them failing.
Amelagar called everyone together a few days later. He did not waste time with niceties. “The general and the earth president want this mission to go forward. The hybrid ship have to be tested in space.”
Colonel Farnham lifted his hand. “What about the cloak?”
He hesitated, glanced briefly at Agrippa and said, it’s not working yet, but Agrippa and Anatu will keep trying.”
“We’re doing the mission without the cloak?”
“Yes, though Agrippa and Anatu will continue to work on it after we launch.”
“They will see us coming. Space is not an easy place to hide in.”
“If we go without a working cloak, we will try to plot a course that keep us behind a planet and out of their sight until we reach the clone ships.”
“That would put years to our journey.”
He nodded at Colonel Farnham, who stepped forward. “Within the next few days we will have our marching orders. Say your farewells. I know you know this, but it bears repeating. Nobody talks about this mission. That will be all.”
In spite of having gotten their marching orders, as Colonel Farnham put it, Balthazar and the President still debated if the mission should go forward if they could not get the cloak to work. Agrippa knew this because Amelagar told her.
Anatu and Agrippa doubled their efforts. Determined not to be the reason this mission failed. They sat on the floor of the bridge, looking down at the space beneath the floorboard where the cloak was installed.
Agrippa bit her lip and then confessed. “I must make this cloak work. Too many people will die if we go on this mission without it.”
Anatu stared at her, then squared her shoulders and pointed at the space below them. “Let’s check everything.” She sighed “Again.”
They went down and checked every wire and connection. Still it didn’t work and that night she cried in Amelagar’s arms.
Then on a Monday after the marines had run Agrippa ragged, Anatu made some adjustments on their tablets. “Pray to the goddess we can make this work Agrippa.”
Agrippa did pray to the goddess and held her breath as Anatu clicked the screen of her tablet to start the cloak. Agrippa had been told she was gifted her whole life, but Anatu’s skill was extraordinary. She had learned more in a month working with her than she had in a year of training with the clones.
A low hum sounded. They stared at each other.
“It’s working.”
One minute, two, five, seven minutes.
A beep and the cloak stopped working. Anatu swore in a mixture of English, Russian and Tunrian. Agrippa started checking code. Half an hour later the cloak hummed again. This time it remained stable, but only because Anatu solved problems as fast as they arose.
Agrippa felt him before she looked at the door to the bridge and saw Amelagar standing there. They both knew what had to happen.
They’d somehow become one cohesive unit that worked together toward their common goal. The marines were professional and trained hard. When they weren’t running drills they were in the ship, going through the manuals that Agrippa and Anatu had compiled for the ship. For the cloak they had no physical manuals. Their tablets contained the programs and could self-destruct with one voice command. The cloak were off limits to everyone but Agrippa and Anatu.
“Congratulations, please continue with the drills, I have to talk to the general.” Amelagar left and they all went into the ship again. They lay down in the cryo pods and practiced getting ready and to their stations. Then they practiced for a proximity alarm and anything else they thought they might encounter. It was the things they didn’t know about that worried Agrippa.
***
Amelagar felt a combination of elation and dread. He stopped in front of the door to Balthazar’s office, grateful he could load this problem on another cyborg. Since he’d been chosen to lead this mission, he’d been given much more information about the relations between the humans and cyborgs and he knew that Anutu was invaluable with relations in spite of her blunt way of speaking. The human journalists loved her and published many pictures of her. But now, their problem was that the human president barely allowed her out of his sight.
He walked into Balthazar’s office and got straight to the problem.
“The cloak worked, but stopped. Anatu got it going again.”
Balthazar sighed. “You need Anutu for the mission?”
“Yes general.”
Balthazar stood. “You will come with me to earth to speak to the president.”
“I have to—”
“You will come with me.” Balthazar’s eyes glinted. “If the human wants to murder someone, I will run away while he is murdering on you.”
Amelagar sighed. Balthazar has been learning odd earth sayings which he was incorporating into their own language. Some of it was very apt and some just weird. Today it was ominous. No one wanted to mess with the president of earth. He might have to outrun Balthazar to escape the president’s wrath.
With an evil smile, Balthazar contacted Anatu and told her they were on their way. They went to find a shuttle. With the humans coming and going all the time, it was getting difficult to book a shuttle and they had to wait for one to return. Half an hour later, they stepped into the president’s office. Anutu sat on a couch, scowling down at a magazine with a picture of her. “I’m not a trendsetter. I’m a cyborg tech,” she said to the president.
“And you are also a charming trendsetter,” the president said with a smile. The look in the President’s eyes made Amelagar uncomfortable. Did he look like that when he gazed at Agrippa?
Seeing Anatu’s ryhov gave him hope. If she could be gifted with a soul, surely he could be too.
Her blue ryhov increased its movement. A small smile played around her lips. The president joined Anutu on the couch, taking her hand in his.
Balthazar sat down across from Anutu and the president and Amelagar took the chair next to him.
“What can I do for you, Balthazar?”
“We need Anutu?” Balthazar said. Amelagar might be wrong, but it did not seem to be the right approach to him. Why not explain about the problem with keeping the cloak running. Praise Anatu’s skills first and put the human in a good mood?
The president got to his feet so fast, Amelagar couldn’t follow his movement, even with his enhanced cyborg abilities. Interesting.
“No.” It was harsh and gritted between clenched teeth. The president’s fists opened and closed and he looked ready to go for Balthazar’s throat.
Anatu shrank back. “I won’t leave my human.”
Her human put a reassuring hand on her head and stroked a soothing hand over her hair.
Anatu stayed seated, but her gaze was troubled. She probably knew this was coming. Everyone on their team knew they needed a programming expert along. He suspected Balthazar had hoped Arakhu would find the human programmer, Elizabeth. But even if he found her, it would be too late now for her to catch up with the rest of the team. They were about to set a date for their departure.
“It’s the only way the mission will succeed. We need a tech that knows human and cyborg computers. The only way our mission can succeed is if we have someone that can make changes on the fly. You know this.”
The president sat down and took Anatu’s hand in his again. He held it against his thigh, his jaw set at a stubborn line. “You have Agrippa.”
“She is brilliant with the engines and cryo chamber and good with the cloak, but she doesn’t have Anatu’s ability to fix problems with the cloak as they come up. I wouldn’t ask if there was someone else,” Balthazar said quietly. “If this mission fail, the war will take a turn for the worse. We can’t afford that.”
Anutu had looked stunned, but now she glared at them. “I do not wish to leave my human. I’ve only owned him for a short while, if I leave him he would be lost.”
The president’s shoulders relaxed. He smirked at them. “Yeah, what she said.”
Amelagar liked that the human cared so much for Anutu. He’d always worried that she had a hard time on earth. She might act tough, but she had a soft inside.
“None of us can enslave the clone ships with the new hybrid, but you might be able to do it, you know this Anatu,” Amelagar told her.
Anatu scowled. “I don’t want to leave my human. That Cynthia human will move in and win him with her short dresses and ugly walk if I’m not here to guard him.”
The president’s shoulders shook. “I think I can resist the short dresses and ugly walk.”
“My human walk beautifully,” Balthazar said out of the blue and inappropriately as far as Amelagar was concerned. They didn’t see him bragging about how clever Agrippa was, did they? And if they were to be truthful, they would admit that Agrippa was exceptionally graceful.
The president ignored Balthazar’s boasting. Obviously focused on keeping Anutu on earth. “I am not convinced Anutu is necessary for this mission.”
“If the cloak stopped working, the mission’s success will depend on how fast it can be made to work again.”
“This mission might make all the difference in the coming battle,” Amelagar told Anutu.
Anatu clung to the president’s hand.
“We all know this is a long shot,” the president said. “I do not want my wife to be gone more than ten years for a long shot.”
“It may be, but we don’t have any shot without Anatu,” Balthazar insisted.
The President and Anatu exchanged a long look. There was so much emotion in that look, Amukkan felt like a spying clone. At last the president said, “we will get back to you on this. Good day gentlemen.”