Chapter 20
Wyl
Shit. PACU and the Grivaldans held us up long enough for the GA to track us down.
Or Daddy Concubine snitched and told them where to find us.
I wouldn’t put it past him. He didn’t seem to like me too much, and who knows? Maybe he got pissed that Aura wouldn’t listen to him. This could be the android version of grounding your kid.
But … does PACU really care if Aura is arrested?
Does he care if she’s executed? I mean, he built one kid—What’s to say there’s not an army of Mark II XR-17s and XR-20s out roaming the galaxy?
If he’s got more children out there, why would he concern himself with Aura’s safety and wellbeing?
It’s not like he has to wait for them to mature or anything; all of his offspring can be made to be fully grown and operational from the start.
The thought of PACU with his own self-made army terrifies me. It was scary enough facing his Grivaldan allies, but a whole army of droids who look mostly human and can integrate—infiltrate even—with superior strength, dexterity, reflexes, intelligence … I shudder at the thought.
He could build a whole Mata Hari unit, and as long as they didn’t reveal their switches or sustain penetrating injuries, who would believe the XRs were back?
Today’s galaxy is separated from the Archer IX scandal by two generations—we’re on our third Epigan by now—and despite the horrors we all witness in school, I doubt anyone would anticipate or believe any claims of the XRs returning.
I shake my head to clear it. Speculating on this won’t help us now, not with the Galactic Authority breathing down our necks.
“Aura, can you fake the readouts in the med bay to make you look human? Y’know, add in some organs and erase the mechanical parts?”
She blinks at me in stunned silence for a moment before answering. “Yes, but—”
“Will it last long enough to convince the GA that you’re human?”
“Perhaps, but if they do an extensive scan of their own …”
It’ll have to do. “Go to the med bay. I want the readouts to show you in stasis while your leg wound heals. That means you’ll be essentially comatose while they’re in there. No moving, no talking, no responding if they poke and prod you. Can you do that?”
An emotion that I can only describe as fear crosses her face; her eyes widen and fill with tears, and her lower lip trembles. “I want to stay with you.”
I cup her cheeks with my hands. “I know, doll, but you can’t.
If they even suspect you’re an XR—Mark II or no—they’ll take you away and execute you.
We haven’t had time to plan how to convince them that you’re not the threat that the previous XR models were.
” Kissing her softly, I bury my hands in her silky hair.
I wish I could tell her it’s going to be okay, but I can’t.
By the time I release her, Aura isn’t the only one shedding tears.
“Be safe, okay? If by some miracle they don’t check the med bay, if they only take me … Run. Get to the Klymani outpost. Find someone to check your leg and replenish your fluids. Promise me you’ll do that.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but the GA’s transmission overrides her speech again.
“You have ten solar minutes to prepare for our entry.”
Crap. We’re both filthy, thanks to me and my hormones. I reach for a com panel to the side and open a channel to the GA ship.
“I’m afraid you’ve caught me at an inopportune time. My ship was just attacked by Grivaldan pirates—as you can see from the damage to the aft—and I got a little gross getting rid of them. Can we make it twenty minutes instead?”
With a glance at Aura to confirm that’s enough time for our plan, I verify that I’ll meet the GA officials at the airlock in twenty.
Time for the quickest shower of my life.
The official captain’s uniform is itchier than the regular crew uniforms, and I struggle to stand properly at attention while I wait for the GA investigators to board.
I fucking hate following protocols, but if the GA is searching for a scavenger and an android, it’s best if I look more like an upstanding citizen than a lowlife who salvages ships like this for parts.
Granted, the Galactic Authority has my holoscan on file, but I’m hoping I can chalk the whole “Hank ratting us out” mess up to a simple misunderstanding, or at worst, Hank developing space madness.
If I can convince them that I’m a legitimate captain and that Aura is an injured crew member who, by sheer coincidence, looks exactly like an old XR-17, I might—might—be able to pull this off.
Some of it depends on how tough the investigators are, the mood they’re in, and whether or not they feel like probing deeper into our story.
The airlock hisses open, revealing a low-ranking Jiinite GA officer, a human admiral with a stern expression on his angular face, and …
… A modern android.
Fuck, fuckity-fuck-fuck. An admiral alone is bad enough, but this?
It’s one thing to try to fool humanoid officers, and I’m sure the admiral has earned those stripes on his crisp uniform, but I can’t predict what the droid might find if it conducts a scan of the ship …
Man, I hope Aura has a plan for this because I’m fresh out of ideas.
Sweat beads on my forehead as its eyes glow, indicating a scan.
Since I’m not posing as an official member of the Galactic Alliance, I don’t salute when they board, though I do offer a polite nod to the LC. I squint slightly to catch the officers’ names on their uniforms before beginning with the pleasantries.
“Admiral Breem. Petty Officer Gnath. Welcome aboard Jupiter’s Joy.”
Officer Gnath’s nostrils flare, and I’m certain she’s sniffing for signs of other occupants on the ship. Jiinites have extraordinary olfactory senses, and it wouldn’t take more than a couple whiffs to identify scents that are even decades old.
She’s small, smaller than Aura, but I won’t let her apparent size fool me.
Jiinites like Officer Gnath have such dense bodies that they’re almost as impenetrable as a Grivaldan.
The closest Earth description of her appearance would be an anthropomorphized combination of a fox and a cat; slender, lithe, and covered in soft, mottled fur that belies the strength beneath it.
Her snout wrinkles as she sniffs again, testing the air on the ship.
This might seem like a disadvantage, but I’m banking on her ability to sniff out PACU’s presence, not to mention the Ssylin travelers who stopped through.
The latter will add credence to my claim that I indeed had a Ssylin passenger at some point, and the former, well …
Hopefully she won’t be able to differentiate PACU’s scent from Aura’s.
If I can just fabricate a reasonable excuse for having an injured—and supposedly human—woman on board, I should be golden.
Provided, of course, that the droid doesn’t fuck up my plan.
“You weren’t so welcoming to the Galactic Authority officers who tried to question you on the station, Captain Nosurn,” Admiral Breem huffs, his nose in the air like he finds my personal odor offensive …
which is ridiculous, partly because I just showered, and partly because a human couldn’t smell me that acutely anyway. He’s just putting on airs.
“With all due respect, Admiral, they opened fire before I could answer any questions,” I say, lifting the hem of my jacket to show my bandages.
“And time was of the essence for my Ssylin companion. Her traditional Ssylin cloak had become damaged, and with the station’s environmentals on the fritz, I had to get her out of there before she froze to death. ”
The admiral smirks, as if he’s caught me in a lie. “And where would your Ssylin friend be now? This vessel is too cold for her kind.”
Nice try, jerk. “Dropped her off the next day at the nearest habitable port. Haven’t heard from her since.
I did pick up another passenger, a young woman with a leg injury.
She’s headed for an outpost in the Klymani asteroid belt, since they have some reputable physicians whose fees she can afford. ”
Whew! Hopefully I worded that well enough. I can’t just outright say that healthcare under the rule of the Galactic Authority is prohibitively expensive—even though it really is—but if I hint at better prices elsewhere, they can’t do shit about it.
The android’s eyes stop glowing, and it opens its mouth.
“The captain speaks the truth. There is a human woman in stasis in the med bay with a serious leg wound. It appears that minor surgery has already been performed, though hastily; she will need further treatment from a licensed physician.”
Admiral Breem’s smirk fades. “Hmm. Anyone else on board?”
“No, sir. However—” the android’s eyes swivel towards me “—this one has synthetic material in his bloodstream. It is … anomalous.”
Shit! I forgot that Aura gave me fluids. Hasn’t that stuff worked its way out by now?
Hoping they don’t question me too deeply on this one, I again point to my injury.
“Had to do something when I was bleeding out. I found an old pack of synth circulatory fluid in the med bay. It was expired, but since there wasn’t any human blood product on board, I had to use it.
Nothing wrong with that, is there, Admiral? ”
He grumbles but doesn’t comment on it further. Instead, he directs his next question to his droid.
“TC-39, tell me: Do you find any other anomalies on this ship?”
This is it. All or nothing. It’ll either find shit I forgot to hide, or it’ll declare us fit to go about our merry way.
“No, sir. There are particles of Grivaldan bodies in the closed-off portion of the aft of the ship, where the hull damage is most extensive, consistent with the captain’s claim of intruders on board. Scans indicate two explosions, which annihilated two distinct Grivaldan individuals.”
It can tell that from a scan?
“Explosions, you say?” The admiral looks impressed. “How did you manage to detonate something with enough force to pierce their hides, Captain Nosurn?”
Finally, a question I have a ready answer for.
“You gotta hit ‘em when their mouths are open. The upper palate is the thinnest exposed part of those guys, and once the blast rips through their digestive tracts, it’s all over for them.” I make a sound like an explosion with my mouth while splaying my fingers.
“Pieces everywhere. It makes a mess, but it does the trick.”
Admiral Breem turns back to his droid. “TC-39?”
“Forensic scans confirm, sir.”
“Well, then,” Breem straightens his already ramrod spine, “I suppose the Galactic Authority owes you an apology, Captain Nosurn. Our … hasty attempts to question you during an evacuation put your life in danger. Is there anything the Authority can to do make reparations for this near-fatal error?”
Much as I’d like to take this opportunity to make some rather opulent demands, I have Aura’s safety to think about. “No, sir. Your apology is more than enough for me.”
“At least allow me to leave you with my TC-39 model android. It is capable of conducting your repairs while the ship is en route to Klymani Prime, and I can arrange for it to return with a trade vessel once you arrive at your destination.”
Sure, let me just sign off on the totally unsuspicious spy staying on my ship. As if I could be that dumb.
“So sorry, Admrial, but I’m afraid my private mechanic would have a fit if he knew I let an unapproved droid take over his repairs.
He doesn’t get much work way out in the Klymani system, you see, so he views any repairs done by someone else as stealing work from him.
” I give the admiral a wink and a grin to soften the rejection.
“He claims he has seventeen mouths to feed, but between you and me, I’ve never seen a single larva around his shop. ”
For a brief moment, I worry that Admiral Breem will insist … but finally, he nods stiffly and turns to his petty officer. “Anything to add, Officer Gnath?”
She shakes her head, and a few agonizing pleasantries later, they leave Jupiter’s Joy and go back to their own ship. While I would love to believe that’s the end of it, I suspect we’ll be seeing the admiral again soon.