Cybership Read online

  Cybership

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Copyright © 2017 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  THE AWAKENING

  -1-

  The man tried to jackknife up to a sitting position. Instead, his forehead slammed against something hard, which caused him to sprawl back where he lay.

  He was stunned—but only for a second.

  He vaguely realized that his forehead should have been throbbing from the blow, but he had little attention to spare for this because his pounding heart had caused a sick feeling to erupt like a geyser in his stomach. He vomited, but nothing came up. The agony grew, lancing through his chest and radiating to his extremities.

  Am I having a heart attack?

  The agony redoubled. He choked on his next breath, finding it impossible to make his lungs work. He needed air or he would suffocate.

  His eyes snapped open. A heavy sheet of Plexiglass was centimeters in front of his face. To his right and left was steel sheathing. He was lying in a coffin with a Plexiglass lid.

  He shuddered as he finally sucked down air. Breathing eased the agony in his chest enough for him to start thinking more coherently.

  He shouldn’t be here. He—

  Who am I?

  He strove to understand more about his situation. He felt a thrum all around him. It was a steady vibration as if he was inside a vast engine.

  There was something else.

  I’m heavier than I should be. Something is pressing me down. His eyes narrowed. We’re decelerating. What happened to the gravity dampeners?

  This must be a cryogenic travel unit, not a coffin as he’d first supposed. He was traveling low again. The thrum was a spaceship’s engines and the pressure was Gs, either from deceleration or acceleration.

  Something was wrong, though. The stale air said as much. He had to get out of the cryo unit if he wanted to keep breathing. Panic would deplete the remaining air faster. Thus, he had to do this as calmly as he could.

  His hands lay by his sides. He twisted in the tight confines, wriggled and wrestled each arm until both hands pressed against the Plexiglass lid.

  He noticed a whitish band on the bottom of his right ring finger. He had obviously worn a ring there for quite some time but it was missing now. He saw his thick wrists and suddenly believed that he was stronger than average, but he couldn’t remember why he was so strong. Hell, he couldn’t even remember his name.

  “You bastards,” he said thickly, referring to whoever had done this to him.

  If he failed in his breakout…he would die. He would die trapped like an animal. That made him mad. He wasn’t an animal, a stainless steel rat in particular. People had called him that before. He’d fought hard for honor and respect. That was more precious to him than life.

  He bellowed like a power-lifter that had gone berserk on crack.

  The back of his head throbbed from the strain. He kept roaring just the same. He kept shoving against the Plexiglass, but it didn’t matter. He was going to die. He couldn’t shove off the lid.

  Abruptly, he quit shoving. The palms of his hands and his fingertips still touched the Plexiglass, but only lightly now.

  His arm muscles twitched from the exertion, but the feeling of needles in the back of his skull dwindled.

  He berated himself, but only for an instant. Negative self-talk wouldn’t get him out of here. If this was a cryogenic unit on a spaceship—going low as the saying went—that meant the box was in essence a sleeper cell. Such cells or units usually had emergency handles or buttons. He had to find his.

  The confinement made it impossible to turn onto his side. Instead, he first felt around near his head and shoulder with his left hand. There was nothing. Worse, the stale air was making it harder to think. He switched hands.

  His fingers brushed against something. He grabbed it and jerked as hard as he could. The tiny lever didn’t move. Panic gnawed at the edge of his mind. He forced it back. There was another option. He shoved the handle forward. It was stiff, but it moved, suddenly clicking a moment later.

  There was a hiss above him as seals popped. The Plexiglass lid moved upward. Freezing air gushed all around him. It was beautiful air just the same. It was—

  He stiffened as klaxons rang. Had they been ringing for some time or did he just hear them now with the opened lid? The loud klaxons repeated a particular rhythm that meant only one thing. The spaceship was under attack.

  -2-

  Using all of his strength, what little he had to call upon, he eased over the lip of the opened unit and tried to slide onto the floor. He lost the battle as his fingers lost grip. He thudded onto freezing deck-plates, lying there gasping at the intense cold.

  He was naked except for a special jock covering his genitals. The “cup” was there to protect him from extended heavy Gs that presently pushed against him.

  The cold proved too much. It forced him to sit up and then to gather himself so that he perched on his knees and the tips of his toes.

  He noticed frost on the deck-plates, as well as on the other cryogenic sleep units, which were laid out in row upon row. The chamber had a low ceiling, barely higher than his head if he stood.

  The cycling klaxons were beginning to annoy him, as it made it more difficult to think.

  He examined himself in an attempt at recognition. He had pale white skin, but he couldn’t decipher any particular nationality. He possessed lean muscles and had practically no body fat. A tattoo on his right shoulder showed a black anvil with a white “R” in the center.

  He knew the tattoo. It was a mercenary symbol for…

  He rubbed his eyes, the meaning of the symbol just beyond his reach. The “R” meant…regiment. That’s right. The anvil meant…the black anvil meant…he belonged to the Black Anvil Regiment out of Titan in the Saturn System.

  Gears shifted in his mind. The gas giant Saturn belonged to the Solar System. Each planet had its own culture and governmental process. Saturn possessed cloud cities in the gas giant’s highest upper atmosphere, icy satellite colonies in orbit, and various moon colonies, the largest of which was on Titan.

  The klaxons abruptly quit. That brought a strange silence to the freezing chamber.

  No! That wasn’t exactly right.

  The mercenary—he was sure he was one—cocked his head.

  He heard a deep groaning, a metallic sound. That befuddled him for a moment before he realized that the ship itself was making the noises. The sounds had struck him the first time he’d heard them. They sounded like structural shifting. He realized that this spaceship must be huge.

  When had he first heard those strange sounds?

  His shivering grew worse as he tried to concentrate. That opened another hatch in his mind. Something terrible was hovering just outside his conscious thoughts.

  He cursed as his shivering intensified yet again. This was too much. Why hadn’t a tech been on hand for his revival? They shouldn’t have brought him out like this. There were injections he hadn’t received. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t remember his name, why he was crouched naked like this. Someone had royally screwed up, bringing him out of cryo sleep before the ship had reached its destination.

  Proper injections would have made it a slow thaw-out. Coming out like this could cause permanent brain damage.

  Anger drove him to his feet. Someone might be trying to harm him.

  The strain of standing remin
ded him of the intense Gs.

  He staggered to the next cryo unit, used his left hand to wipe frost from the Plexiglass and stared at the immobile face of an older man with silver hair. He should know this person. He should—

  The pounding headache finally announced itself, hitting so suddenly that he collapsed onto the sleeper unit.

  That only lasted a moment. The cold drove him back onto his feet. The freezing air hurt his throat and lungs. With both hands, he massaged his throbbing forehead.

  At that point, the deck lurched under him. He staggered. The thrum around him changed, cycling downward. Immediately, the amount of Gs pulling at him lessened into something more bearable.

  He looked around as the chill became unbearable. Some of his skin had already turned blue. He would get hyperthermia soon… No. He was cold from coming out of the cryo unit. What was wrong with his thinking?

  He clenched his teeth, heading for the hatch. His naked feet slapped against the icy deck-plates. It was time to get out of here.

  As he reached the hatch, the metal partition slid up fast. The sudden motion made him flinch. A gust of warm air struck him. That felt wonderful. The warmth drew him like a magnet.

  Then, a thin man in a dark uniform stepped before him. The man aimed a black-matted gun at his midsection.

  “I was right,” the officer said in an odd accent. “This is your fault. Now, you’re going to fix it, or I’m going to kill you.”

  -3-

  The naked man had an instinctive dislike of the uniformed officer. He wanted answers, but he closed his mouth out of long training from somewhere. Don’t speak to cops played over and over in his mind with the force of a mantra.

  Only…this officer had a black uniform with blood-red buttons and the same blood-colored shoulder boards. That meant something.

  Arbiter. The uniform and tabs meant the man belonged to the Government Security Bureau, the Solar League’s secret police. They were better known as the GSB.

  In the beginning, the Solar League meant Earth. The mother planet held the vast majority of the Solar System’s population. Earth also wielded the most authority, but not quite to the same degree as it had superiority in number of people. The earthborn did not particularly care for the spaceborn, or “spacers.”

  “Don’t try any of your tricks on me,” the arbiter snarled. “Up, up, get your hands up.”

  Slowly, the naked man raised his hands.

  “Behind your head,” the arbiter said. “Lace your fingers together and put them behind your head. If you don’t, I’ll shoot. I’ll make it a belly shot, too. That’s the slowest, most painful kind of death.”

  Reluctantly, the mercenary put his hands behind his head.

  The arbiter smiled nastily. He had narrow features and bony hands. His eyes bulged outward in an unhealthy manner and there was an evil brightness to them.

  The mercenary realized the arbiter enjoyed inflicting pain. He’d known people like him, far too many in his lifetime. All the signs told him the arbiter was a sadist.

  “Turn around,” the arbiter said.

  As the mercenary began turning, he realized that he was bigger than the other man. It wasn’t so much that the mercenary was huge, but that the arbiter was smaller than normal. Despite the black-matted pistol, the arbiter obviously feared him.

  “Walk backward into the corridor,” the arbiter ordered.

  The mercenary did. The warm corridor felt good on his skin. He kept backing up until he bumped against the far bulkhead. The arbiter watched him from the left…maybe three strides away.

  The hatch slid down with a clang.

  The arbiter flinched, turning his pistol and body toward the closed hatch.

  Without conscious thought, the mercenary lunged. He might have moved faster if he had his normal reflexes. Undoubtedly, coming out of cryogenic sleep had dulled his speed. It felt as if he moved in slow motion, but he kept on attacking anyway. The arbiter had a gun, but the mercenary had surprise.

  The arbiter finally realized what was happening, swiveled the gun and fired.

  Searing pain flared along the mercenary’s side. He didn’t know if the bullet had gone through him or merely grazed his side. It hurt unbelievably either way.

  The pain seemed to make him move faster and hit harder. His fist struck the arbiter square on the chin. While doing it, a memory surfaced. The few times he had gone into the fighting cage for money, he’d never hit his opponent better than this.

  The arbiter staggered back as he windmilled his arms—the pistol went flying, striking a bulkhead. The small secret police agent in his midnight-colored uniform collapsed backward, the body pitching the back of the head onto the deck-plates with a decided thump.

  The arbiter began twitching on the floor. His eyes opened but it didn’t seem as if he could see anything.

  The mercenary knelt beside the arbiter, grabbing the man, making him stop moving.

  The arbiter gagged. His eyes bulged and he made weird choking noises. The twitching began again.

  “Who am I?” the mercenary shouted.

  The twitching ceased as the arbiter stared at the mercenary. The little man seemed to be trying to form words. Fear washed through his eyes. The arbiter croaked something that could have been, “Jon.” Then, the secret police agent deflated, the life seeming to hiss out of him. He features stiffened into an agonized mask as his limbs and torso stopped twitching.

  The mercenary thought the arbiter was dead…until the little man started making soft snoring noises.

  Jon stood. He believed that was his name. Jon... But Jon What? He didn’t know.

  He looked around and retrieved the black-matted pistol. He pressed a small button. A tiny magazine fell into his palm. These were minuscule bullets.

  He checked his left side. Blood welled from where the slug had grazed him. It still stung, but it was bearable.

  The gun seemed like a toy.

  The mercenary shook his head. If he pressed this toy against a man’s head, the bullets would kill just as certainly as a heavy gyroc round.

  Jon considered the arbiter. He was making rattling noises in his throat, and he clearly had a concussion. Should he let the GSB agent sleep?

  Fear and hatred for the GSB welled up in Jon. They were the most sinister secret police organization in human history. Their agents had infiltrated everywhere. The Solar League had their tendrils in every place in the Solar System.

  Jon frowned. What was the best course of action? He lacked enough information to know. Yet…it seemed he could derive something from his present circumstance.

  Suddenly, he heard an older man’s voice in his mind. “If you’re going to become an officer, you have to learn to make decisions, often with only the scantiest clues as to the real situation. You have a mind. In many ways, it’s just like a knife. The more you sharpen it, the better it can cut. I have plenty of tough men. I always need those who can think fast on their feet.”

  The arbiter had come alone to the cryo chamber. That seemed strange. That he alone had woken up in the cryo chamber also seemed strange. The arbiter had accused him of doing something bad, saying it was his fault.

  If the arbiter had come alone, maybe they would be alone for a time. That meant he could question the man.

  Jon’s grip tightened on the little pistol. He knelt beside the unconscious secret policeman.

  “Hey,” Jon said. “Wake up.”

  The arbiter did not respond.

  “Wake up,” Jon said, as he patted the man’s left cheek.

  The arbiter smacked his lips and moaned pitifully, but he remained unconscious.

  As Jon debated on his next choice, a clanking sound caused him to turn left.

  A blue/orange repair robot lurched into view on its treads. It was a large rectangular device, weighing something like seven hundred pounds. It had several optical sensors, one that twitched as if it focused on him. The repair bot had three skeletal-mechanical “arms.” One had an integral laser torch for cut
ting and welding. The other two arms ended with metal prongs or pincers. Blue/orange repair bots patched torn bulkheads, including in zero gravity. The multi-jointed treads helped it climb over debris. In zero gravity, it used presently hidden thrusters to maneuver.

  The repair bot kept clanking, picking up speed.

  Jon frowned. Had the spaceship taken hits? He didn’t feel any depressurization. Main hatches could have shut, though, sealing off damaged areas.

  Repair bots were routine items on spaceships, although there were more of them on military vessels.

  Jon set the gun on the floor and grabbed the arbiter, hoisting the man into an upright position. Keeping hold of the small man, Jon stepped out of the bot’s path. The bulky machine veered, coming straight at them again. Worse, the short-ranged laser emitted a pre-beam light: glowing a dangerous red.

  It felt like the bot was attacking them. But that was crazy.

  The bot clanked faster yet, aiming the integral laser torch at his chest.

  At the last moment, Jon moved fast, pulling the arbiter with him. The bot trundled past as the skeletal arm tried to shift so the laser torch would hit him. That proved too wild of a maneuver for the repair bot. The main body tipped, hung like that for a second as the treads continued to churn, and crashed heavily against the deck-plates.

  “What’s going on?” the arbiter muttered, with drool spilling from his mouth.

  The orifice of the laser torch lost its red color. The bot moved the two pincer arms, pushing against the deck, slowly righting itself back onto its multi-treads.

  The smaller man stared at the bot in terror. “No,” he moaned. “No, no, no.”

  “What’s going on?” Jon said. “Why did the bot attack us?”

  The arbiter twisted in Jon’s grasp, staring at him with horribly red eyes. “The machinery has gone berserk,” the policeman slurred. “It’s attacking us. But you already know that.”

  “Me?” Jon asked. Why should he know?

  “Your colonel must have slipped a virus into the ship’s main computer system. That’s the only explanation. That you’re awake proves I’m right.”