When Mae stirred from her slumber, it was to find she remained in a nightmare. Her jaw ached, as if to remind her it was nothing she could wake from.
The human Extraktors moved about the ship. They checked weapons and discussed in excited tones the possibility of the greatest haul of intellectual property in the Combine’s history.
Warrae and Homolka stood huddled by the control screens, ignoring her.
“Minos Station, come in.” The sergeant punched more buttons. “It’s on all frequencies, but no answer. Ariadne, is the station still powered up?”
The ship AI’s voice was syrupy sweet. “Confirmed. I am receiving power signatures, and Minos is still in a stable orbit.”
Mae struggled free of the rack. To her right, two Extraktors were waking Lenny from the cryopod. To proceed with her plan, she knew she needed to put aside her guilt. She and Lenny needed to work together to get out of this alive.
Mae wrestled with her complex emotions. I didn’t even know what I was myself, so how could I be honest with him?
Dearest daughter, don’t even attempt to be logical. Humans aren’t, after all.
She understood her father was trying to comfort her, but she was too busy examining the unpleasant emotion that was guilt. Her deception was on her mother’s orders. No one disobeyed Colonel Hendricks. If anything happened, the orders she’d given Rook were specific: activate Mae’s protection protocol.
The Jackals were relying on her to bring back help. The desire to protect her family was the one thing she and Lenny still had in common.
“Bring it up on-screen.” Warrae crossed his arms but glanced back at Mae. “If you’ve lied to us, this will be a very short trip.”
Humans want to be synthetics, while synthetics want to be human. What a galaxy of wonders we live in. Her father’s sarcasm, as always, hit awkwardly.
Minos Station appeared from around the far side of the planet. As the Ariadne circled it, the Fury came into view. Her long, spiky form remained inert by the dock, with the umbilical still attached. Her running lights flickered, a dim yellow light against the darkness of the station.
Mae didn’t know what she’d been expecting. The sight of the Jackals’ vessel confirmed that she wasn’t malfunctioning. All her memories—the fight, the Xenomorphs, and those final horrors—were all real. The Jackals were real. A ragged gasp escaped her.
That made Warrae laugh. “Beautiful impersonation of a human, there. You don’t need to bother for our sake.”
She glared at him. “It’s part of my programming. Given to me by my—” She stopped herself in time. Telling these people she had a father was pointless and potentially dangerous.
The Extraktors weren’t listening, anyway. They’d finally realized that the Righteous Fury was no normal military vessel—any more than Mae was a regular synthetic.
The avarice positively dripped out of Warrae’s remaining pores. “That is not a standard Colonial Marines ship. Give me a deep scan on that, Ariadne.”
A second later, the ship replied. “Unable to comply. Hull structure and ionization is preventing my systems from completing scanning.”
That brought them up short.
“Is this what you’re bartering your lives with?” The captain spun on Mae. “Is this what you think will save you? One ship?”
They’d woken Lenny. The young man stood shivering, cryo liquid dripping down his hair and face. Yet his eyes were defiant.
Mae smiled. “That’s only the start. You’ll find the best stuff inside the station.”
Warrae examined her for a moment and then jerked his head to his sergeant. They retreated to the back of the ship. Mae’s synthetic hearing was better than they could possibly have guessed.
The furious conversation between Warrae and Homolka would almost have been comical if it wasn’t so deadly serious. A spiral of greed now drew them in. The appearance of the Fury confirmed she wasn’t lying, and if that were true, then the rest must be as well.
Warrae’s little industrial espionage squad had discovered what miners would’ve called the mother lode. If it was possible for grown, augmented men to be giddy about anything, then Warrae and Homolka were.
Mae inched her way closer to Lenny and passed him a towel from a stack by the cryopods. As he wiped off the cryo fluid, she whispered, “Stay close.”
He nodded.
No one seemed to notice their brief exchange, especially when Minos revealed her other treasure. The Extraktors all raced to the windows as the silver trail of the space elevator came into view.
It remained intact, and that gave Mae hope. Red Team and her mother might have been able to use it, but was Zula Hendricks even still alive?
Never bet against Zula Hendricks. Davis’s voice entered her mind wistfully. If a synthetic could love, then perhaps anything was possible.
“Holy shit!” Homolka pounded on the control desk. “If that thing is still intact, we’re in the money. We can fly down and see what’s at the base.”
“If you’d like to be cut to ribbons.” Mae pointed out the satellites that peppered the planet’s orbit. “That is a grade-A Wey-Yu defense grid. Break atmosphere and you’ll trigger a deadly response.”
Warrae considered for a moment. “The elevator it is, then. Once we’ve used it, we can bring back a Combine salvage team.” He turned on Mae. “What exactly happened here? Where are all the staff?”
“It was a virus. Wiped everyone out. Synthetics can enter, but I’d recommend breathers for those of you who still have lungs.”
“Three World technology.” Homolka stared out the window like a lovesick fool. “And whatever that ship is, too.”
Warrae’s gaze darted over to Lenny. “We’re all going in—including your delicate friend.” He clearly suspected it was a trap, but he couldn’t imagine the true horrors waiting for them.
How’s the inhibitor spike fixing going, Father?
They know their stuff, Davis replied. Rerouting your systems past this device is taking longer than I thought.
Well, I’ll need to be free of it soon. Very life-and-death.
The Extraktor spike in the back of her throat burned and itched at the same time. A curious tickle ran over her skin. It must be another symptom of her captor’s controls.
The Ariadne came about and faced the docking bay. This ship was small enough to land there, rather than attach itself via umbilical. The docking bay doors still hung open from the Blackstar’s hasty departure, and the Extraktor ship entered through the blown-out doors.
It was fortunate that nothing about the dock itself was too suspicious. The Solo Cup now floated in the bay, since the dock lost its air when the control field at the entrance was destroyed by Rook. Simulated gravity had also been cut. Another smaller shuttle bumped up against her in a cloud of debris as if to emphasize the damage.
“We’re going to have to go EVA to get through the airlock.” Warrae grinned savagely. “At least, some of us are.”
Homolka deployed magnetic clamps to attach the Ariadne to the docking bay floor, and Mae couldn’t help but wince a little at the echoing thump. Advanced synthetics experienced trauma too.
Her father’s voice took a few seconds to reply. But you also have dreams. Hold on to those.
The synthetics on the ship didn’t need suits, but the augmented Extraktors slipped them on for the short walk to the airlock. They forced Lenny at gunpoint to pull one on. The full Extraktor team opened the door and stepped out onto Minos Station.
Mae stood on the deck and scrutinized the landing area. It seemed mostly intact, and no bodies floated within, so at least the airlock wasn’t breached. She pushed herself off, following the Extraktors and Lenny, who was still in a synthetic’s grip.
“Run a bypass,” Warrae commanded one of his human troopers.
Breathe in their concerns, Davis whispered. Manage them.
The hatch was thankfully still functional. As the team entered the airlock, Mae drifted closer to Lenny. Homolka closed the inner door and cycled in air.
The sergeant consulted his wrist-pd while standing in front of the inner seal. “Looks like they still have atmosphere and gravity on the other side.”
“Pathogens?”
“Nope. Clean as the Ariadne.”
“The station has a contamination protocol. It’ll have destroyed the pathogen long ago.” Mae found it remarkably easy to lie.
Warrae jerked his head to her. “You first.” He emphasized this by jabbing the muzzle of his pulse rifle into her back. Mae calculated how many moves it would take her to wrest it from him.
Not yet. If you do that, or ask for a rifle, they’ll know you are lying about the pathogen.
She slipped between the troopers and took up a position by the door lock. With the air cycled in, the humans in the group removed their helmets and stowed them on their backs. Lenny took his off and made eye contact with her. However, it was not a comforting moment; he appeared empty, drained of all emotion—even anger.
Her first step beyond the airlock and into the station proper echoed across the empty galleria. It hadn’t seemed too large before, but the empty shops and scattered tables made it appear three times larger. A curious phenomenon, which she chalked up to her attempts to become more human. Their foibles and idiosyncrasies came with the territory. The air was fresh, but an odor still lingered. The stink of sweat.
The synthetic troopers moved out first, always the cannon fodder to protect the humans. Warrae and his nine human Extraktors followed. Homolka withdrew his scanner and frowned at it. “I’m not reading any life signs. Just us.”
His captain smiled. “Even better. Pathogen cleaned everyone out, and we can just grab what we need. Synth troopers, hack the network.”
Mae experienced their attempts like a trickle of gooseflesh over her skin. Minos didn’t only possess regular station networks. This was a highly secretive black site, and even the Extraktors wouldn’t get in without the key. She neglected to tell them she had it.
“We cannot breach the firewall,” the E1 command android replied. “We would need to break into the communications command center and do a physical hack.”
Warrae considered. Some primitive human instincts must still linger in his augmented brain, and they likely told him that speed was the only way. Mae again withheld the information that Green Team had already broken the command center open.
“Negative. Not much to learn from the synth network. We have our own.” He pointed his rifle at Lenny, but glared at Mae. “Time to show us the goods.”
She’d been waiting for this moment. “That would be the laboratory. Follow me.”
They took their time crossing the galleria. The last time she’d been here was with Rook, and the shops were full of terrified humans. Cut off from the rest of the escape pods, they’d been trying to get through to the ships on the other side of the airlock. Her memories, now hers again, troubled her. Should she have attempted to help those people? Her mother gave her an order, and she’d obeyed it. However, the recollection of the employees was hard to shake.
Welcome to humanity. Trauma isn’t optional, Davis observed wryly.
Mae took them to the transit system. Something had happened to it since she was here. The tram lay on its side, a tumble of twisted metal and shattered cabs. This worked for her, giving Davis time to access the station’s synthetic network. Rook gave her the key back while they were running for the Blackstar. Now it proved invaluable. As the Extraktors checked around every corner and scanned every shadow, she went to work.
Minos Station teetered on the edge of breaking orbit. Its orbital stabilizers needed maintenance, which they hadn’t received for weeks. Service robots could only do so much. However, its synthetics survived. Not all of them, but enough for Mae to find eyes and ears all over the station. Blood filled the corridors on the command deck. A Mr. Brown wandered around those empty spaces, repairing and cleaning. He stepped over the decaying bodies of station employees and then dragged them away into a pile in an alcove next to a disused toilet. He did his best.
Mae entered his head and observed him mopping the blood around. It was too much for one Mr. Brown to manage, but he gamely followed his programming, regardless of the humans who might appreciate it now all lying dead.
In the shadows of walls and doorways, the monsters slept. Mr. Brown did not disturb their slumber. He wasn’t useful to their breeding cycle, and he posed no threat to the colony. In the weeks that had followed Mae’s escape, no humans survived—on that level, at least.
She instructed the Mr. Brown to examine the bodies he’d piled up. Through his eyes, she observed only station uniforms. Security guards, mostly. They’d been the ones to fight back, and died defending the command center. The Xenomorphs hadn’t killed the rest of the staff, though. Instead, they must’ve taken them.
“Synth!” Homolka’s angry hiss brought her back in a nanosecond. “This thing is busted.” The transit tram lay on its side, derailed and useless. It had long ago stopped spitting sparks. She’d fought a David unit here, and his crumpled remains must still be inside. They were remarkably tough, even for their age. She didn’t want the Extraktors going in there, in case they squeezed out some information from it.
Mae worked her face into an expression of surprise. “It wasn’t like this when I left. We can take the stairs and tunnel.”
They clearly didn’t like those words, but what other choice did they have? Greed brought them this far, and it would carry them a little farther.
Yanking back a piece of twisted metal from the transit tram, she revealed a door marked with a red and yellow sign that read EXIT.
She smiled. “Not much farther.”
They could have gone back, cut their losses and run. Perhaps she even should have encouraged it, but no, she wanted the Extraktors to follow her into the darkness.
Warrae’s eyes narrowed. “Troopers, move out.”
Exploring Minos was like stepping into a nightmare realm. Though, as a synthetic, she ought not to have nightmares. Recovering her memories changed her perception of everything.
The images of the station as she’d first entered it with her mother, and when she’d hastened through the horror of the Xenomorph outbreak, layered on top of what she found now. It was incredibly distracting.
Emergency illumination remained active. Strips of dim red light illuminated the stairwell that led up to the control level.
“You first,” Warrae said, waving his rifle in her direction.
“I assumed so,” Mae muttered.
Taking her time to climb, she kept an eye on her captors. The Extraktors would be trying to get into the station’s network, but they didn’t have the access key. If they wanted entry, then they would have to hack the system at the node, as Green Team did. Her only advantage was that they had a lot more levels to climb. All stations, no matter who constructed them, kept their command centers on the topmost levels. In the meantime, she could lead them on a torturous and dangerous route wherever she liked. Along the way there’d be many dangers.
A locked door awaited them at the top of the stairs. Mae paused for a moment and listened. Nothing stirred on the other side, so the Xenomorphs must have gone into hibernation. When all its food sources were used up, the hive survived that way. After so many weeks, their usual life cycles must have completed.
A bitter thought wormed its way up through her processors: Jackals might have been cocooned to use as hosts. Though most had evacuated in their cryo escape pods, Red Team was still a possibility. Her mother and Shipp might already lie somewhere on the station, their chests blown apart from the inside.
“You waiting on something?” Warrae stood a few steps behind her, his arm wrapped around Lenny’s neck. He didn’t need a weapon. He could snap Lenny’s spine in a moment.
Mae calculated the odds. The probability was still too high that Lenny would die before she neutralized Warrae.
“In case of contamination, the station doors lock.”
One of the Extraktor synthetics marched up the stairs and nudged her aside. From his pack, he produced a maintenance jack. It didn’t take long for it to crank the door open.
Mae stepped through, already knowing Minos’s layout. This was the perfect entry point for her purposes. They’d reached the eleventh level, but on the far side of the donut-shaped station.
“This is the laboratory.” She turned back to Warrae. “You’ll find a lot of the IP you’re after here.”
His eyes narrowed. “Scan shows no viral or bacterial elements.” He gave Lenny a shake. “Good thing, too, or your canary in the coal mine would be the first to feel it.”
He might be considering killing them now, but Mae got ahead of him.
“He’s useful for something, then. You need us both.”
Lenny cast a desperate look towards her. Mae wished in that moment that she was able to share her network code with him, then she’d be able to let him in on her plan. It wasn’t much of one.
After recovering herself and her memories, she’d calculated how much time had passed since she’d last set foot on Minos. It had been four weeks. The Green Mae splinter still was not fully integrated with her systems, and that was causing her primary core to come close to failure.
She needed to manage her instability until she found her mother and the Jackals. Warrae would soon realize that he was in a great deal of danger. Even his appetite for advancement in the Combine could only take him so far.
Still, the laboratory level looked in bad enough shape to slow them down. Up ahead, ceilings lay collapsed and torn. So far, she’d detected no signs of Xenomorphs, but they’d soon come. Until then, she needed to thin the herd some.
In fact, it would be her great pleasure to do so.