Star Navigator Read online

  “I’m afraid.”

  “You should be.” There was no comfort in his voice.

  “I’m glad that you’re here with me, Atlas. I’m glad that I’m not alone.” Even though she felt very much so. There was only one course of action that she could take, and only one chance at survival. “Teach me how to be like you and...” She trailed off.

  “And?”

  Reina could only feel the weight of her arm, heavier than the weight of her choices.

  “And you can live through me if that’s possible. I can try and fill you with life. While we have this time together.”

  ATLAS DIDN’T ANSWER, not immediately, as he thought about her offer. Would the intimacy of sharing his digital space be worth it? He eyed her as she rubbed her scars.

  “On one condition.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to bring a projector into your quarters.”

  “No.”

  “Are you afraid that I’ll watch you while you sleep? You may still mistrust me, but know that watching someone sleep is incredibly boring. Keeping you awake would be far more fun.”

  “Why do you want access to my room, Atlas? You can train me here, in the bridge, or in the lounge, or sky-loft.”

  “If I were a man, a physical, real man, would your answer be different?” he asked, teasingly.

  “You’re not a physical man.”

  “Then you can be sure that I could never take advantage of you. But no, the reason I would like access to your quarters is so we can train while you sleep.” And to be near you.

  Atlas continued to walk around her, calculating every step with ease, almost feeling the ground beneath his ghostly feet and loving every second of it. He couldn’t wait to be alive.

  Even now, he could feel the revitalization of his nanocells move throughout his body down below, waking him up, healing him, hurting him, as the doctor wired up his heart piece.

  “How?” she whispered, following him with her eyes.

  “A Cyborg never lets his or her defenses down even when they recharge. Yesne was correct, by the way, you are the soul of this ship. It is you, the ship is you. You need to protect your ship even when you are sleeping, and I can help if I have access to you.”

  He could read her face while she thought about his reasoning.

  She’s intrigued.

  “Fine. That sounds reasonable. Now train me.”

  Atlas tried to touch her again. Mine. Maybe. Hopefully.

  Soon.

  “Do what you did before, when you were angry at me: find me, focus on me within the ship. Use the ship to your advantage, and fight me off.”

  Reina closed her eyes. He didn’t feel her presence. Atlas waited for her to find herself but knew that she was having a hard time locating the power within to connect to the network.

  He moved closer to her.

  “I can’t.” She opened her eyes.

  “Touch me.” Reina eyed him with suspicion before she placed her hand into his arm. A subtle zap of contact was made between them. “There, now imagine pushing into me, flowing into me.”

  Her brow creased, and yet nothing happened.

  After several minutes of nothing but their small static charge, she opened her beautiful eyes wide with frustration, directing their mesmerizing gaze at him. “I can’t. I don’t know what I’m looking for this time. What does it even look like?” Her hand fell away.

  “It doesn’t look like anything.” He channeled up into her without a thought, watching her eyes widen and her mouth part. He wanted nothing more than to feel what her body felt. “It’s black and white and everything in between, a spectrum that can’t be described as anything but endless, limiting, and hollow. I don’t know if human minds can imagine it.” He paused, trying to find the words. “But if I could explain it, it’s like a labyrinth that is at once safe, yet constantly trying to kill you. There are endless rooms with information and endless walls that keep you from moving forward and sometimes if you’re not paying attention, you can become trapped. Safeguards and firewalls. There are windows that lead you back to the physical realm, my projectors are windows for me, the speakers are my voice.”

  “That sounds horrible. Why would any Cyborg go into such a hellish place?”

  “No Cyborg is ever fully a part of the network, we tendril through it like creeping vines, but we always remained rooted in the metallic hulk of our bodies. Grounded.”

  Reina shook her head, a quick flash of fear lined her face. He could almost see her trying to picture it in her head. Picturing the pictureless.

  “It is a silent vacuum. So silent it presses down on you and pushes you to the farthest corners of your mind, where there is nothing left because your humanity is somewhere else, where the sound is and the silence ends. And at the same time, there is so much noise, and so much chaos, that you can lose yourself. Then there is the fear of actually losing yourself and that fear brings you back. Only loneliness remains...and your regrets.”

  “Can you get lost?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you survive it?” she asked.

  “I survived it?”

  He walked around her as she turned to follow him with her wary gaze.

  “With a little bit of insanity. When I first died, I think I was insane for quite some time. I can’t recall anything but my memories, my mind, there was nothing that connected or grounded me to it. Eventually, I came back to myself and I found a window, and with the help of the Earthian Council and the cybernetics lab I regained all that I had lost.”

  “Except for your body.”

  “Yes, except that.”

  “Why didn’t you ever have them build you a new one?” She canted her head, and for a moment he forgot her question as a strand of silken brown hair fell out of her bun to rest over her neck.

  “I didn’t want a new body.” They wouldn’t have given me one anyway.

  “Don’t you want to live again?” She released her bun and started to retie it at the nape of her neck.

  “Please don’t do that, leave your hair down. I love your hair.” Reina stopped, then let her hair settle around her shoulders. “Thank you.”

  “Atlas, don’t you want to live again?”

  “More than anything. I would give anything for a chance to live again so that I can touch your hair and destroy all the hairbands in the universe so you can never tie it back again.”

  The silence that descended between them was at once painful and yearning.

  She took a step back. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No, you’re giving me a reason to take chances.” He smiled again, trying to lighten the mood. “I apologize for before. I don’t see you as a fancy, Reina, I just don’t have a lot of experience with women, and my thoughts fall more on the logical side than they do on the emotional. It is hard to know what to say sometimes. Will you forgive me?”

  “Forgive you? Truthfully, Atlas, I would have thrown you into my bed because of what you just said, and happily taken your every savage thrust before throwing you out just as quickly afterward.” She laughed. “Of course I forgive you.”

  “That sounds like a challenge.” He closed the distance between them again. “After a night with me, you would be far too exhausted to throw me out, and every time you tried, I would tire you again until you submitted to the fact that you have been claimed by a Cyborg.”

  “That is quite a challenge. So tell me again why it is that you don’t have a body anymore? You’re really making me wish that you had one.”

  “Who says that I don’t have one?” He grinned.

  Even now he could feel physical, electrical currents shock through his robotic structure. If he tried hard enough he could feel the slice of the scalpel cutting open his flesh, the rubbery touch of gloves peeling back his skin, and the vague sensation of life beginning to stir within his body once again.

  “Don’t even joke about it. That isn’t funny.”

  “If you don’t like it, stop me. Throw
all of your irritation at me. I think you have more control over your bionic side when your emotions are heightened.”

  Her eyes closed, clenched more like, and he began to feel her travel throughout the ship. He could feel her searching for him. Atlas moved to intervene, clashing with her head-on. The moment they collided, she pulled back in shock. He projected himself inside of her; it should have looked obscene, and it probably did but he remained entwined within her physical form when she didn’t move to dislodge from him. They flowed through the channels together.

  “You’re right,” she said, awed. “It doesn’t look like anything. Please don’t let me lose myself.”

  “You’ll never be alone. Now follow me through your ship.” It was like taking hold of her hand, her digital self, and guiding her through the hollow electricity of the vessel, using his will to bolster hers as they supplied commands to the ship. He knew he was helping her more than teaching her how to do it on her own, but he also knew how terrifying it could be to do it alone.

  It wasn’t long before she caught on to the projection system throughout, stopping at every window along the way.

  Atlas steered her clear of the cybernetics lab, instead ushering her through the telecommunication systems. The network access, the weapons systems, they shot off another round of ballistics, and he even led her through his own personal navigation channels, showing her the electric star-routes through the eyes of a robot. He stopped her at an access channel where he could not go beyond but she could, and he waited as she left him behind to explore the memory banks.

  When she hesitantly came back through the barrier that he could not breach, Atlas enveloped her within himself and she fell into him without reservation. They stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity before he dragged her back into her head.

  He stepped away from her shaking form.

  “You did great,” Atlas encouraged.

  “I feel nauseous.”

  “It’s better than insanity.”

  She stared at him with those beautiful, wide brown eyes and it was enough for him to get lost in their depths, far beyond anything that the network could throw at him.

  “I want you, Atlas.” Tears welled in her eyes. “How is that not insane?”

  He reached out to trace his hand down her arm. “You already have me, Reina, and it won’t always be this way. I promise.”

  She laughed softly and wiped away her tears. “We’re probably going to die out there in dead space.”

  “Do you really think I would let that happen? That you would?”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  They stood there for a time in silence as the dust settled between them; neither one could muster another word in their bleak circumstances. But like everything and everyone else in the world they lived in, a bleak life was a better life than what most of the souls had who were born in their time. By all accounts, the two of them were lucky, and sometimes, even for him, it was hard to keep that in perspective because at the end of an endless day, he always wanted more.

  The silence finally broke as they passed a giant planet, a dried-out green ball of a rock that was unusual and yet known to everyone throughout the universe. He felt the ship slow down but he did not see Reina do it by hand. He knew that even if she did not realize it, her consciousness had begun to integrate with the ship’s systems. Soon she would not even need the pretense of his help to wield her power.

  Atlas followed her to the giant view screen to stare at the ominous sight before them.

  “That’s Taggert.”

  “I know. I’ve seen it before,” she murmured.

  He looked down at her. “When? I didn’t know the Peace Keepers transported prisoners.”

  “We weren’t part of the transport. Commander Anders’s ship was part of the guard when Larik was brought in. We flanked another Cyborg’s ship, sure that a fleet of pirate ships would attack, and try and set him free before he was imprisoned.”

  “It was a wasted effort.”

  She looked away from the jungle planet. “Why?”

  “Larik was never imprisoned on Taggert. The pirates have spies, intel in our fleet. We weed them out when we can but they’re smart. When Jack dropped him off, he was immediately transferred to another vessel and sent to another planet.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “No one does, he’s too dangerous.”

  “Where is he then?”

  “He’s on a co-op Trentian and Earthian controlled prisoner base, far, far away from here. They know he’s not imprisoned here now but they currently don’t know where he is, or if he is even still alive.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Yes, I do. Why do you want to know?” Atlas smiled at her. “Are you a pirate spy, amongst everything else that you are?”

  The pout on her face was worth the snark. “No. I was just curious.” She grinned up at him. “If I was, would you turn me in?”

  “You know I wouldn’t.”

  “Your loyalties change fast.”

  “Who says there was any loyalty to begin with?” His voice darkened and her smile died. “I think we need to keep moving. This sector is not safe to stay in, I can already feel nearby probes scanning our ship.”

  Reina took a deep breath. “I think you’re right. I think I feel them too.”

  He watched as she sat down at her seat and manually piloted the ship back on course. Atlas wondered if the threat of being watched felt the same to her as it did to him, and whether she was aware that he may regain his body sooner rather than later, leaving nothing to stop him from taking her body and soul.

  Chapter Eleven:

  Reina walked down the quiet passageway of her ship.

  Her connection with the vessel had grown. She assumed it was because she was finally healed and her transformation was now complete, but she knew, in a way, that it had only just begun.

  She touched the wall and found that it was like touching a piece of herself. She could almost feel a magnetized force when she made physical contact with the ship. It was pulling from her as much as she was pulling from it.

  Reina was beginning to understand that the ship was her outer shell, that she had become something more than human. It should have frightened her but a keen sense of empowerment was all that she felt.

  And it felt strong.

  Her body was the first thing that had shifted within her and the ship was now the new end goal. Even now, when she concentrated hard enough, she could change and shift and shape the inhuman circuits of its interior make-up.

  And the entire time, Atlas was always there, lingering by her side, coaxing her and comforting her through it all. Sometimes he was just there on the fringes of her mind, leaving her to explore her own ‘self,’ but always just a willful thought away. Reina liked that he didn’t hover obsessively, that he allowed her to find her own roots to this new world but was just there like a soft whisper if she needed him.

  I can’t imagine being stuck in here alone. Endlessly.

  When Reina had given him access days ago, she had unwittingly given him access to herself and she couldn’t feel anything but a sense of relief with the thought.

  She needed him and he knew it, and now he was there.

  She looked down at the handheld projector she was carrying, having grabbed one from the storage units below. Without a backward glance, she walked into her quarters and set it down on a small table that was central to the room. Reina took a deep breath and took a step back.

  Does he really find me attractive?

  With just a thought and a flick, the device turned on and connected wirelessly to the rest of the traveling systems that Atlas and now she too used.

  Reina sat down on her cot and waited for him to appear.

  He didn’t immediately form before her. Does he need an invitation?

  “Atlas?” she said into the silent space around her. Reina flexed her robotic arm with uncertainty and moved to get up when he didn’t show himself. Lo
oking down at the bauble that brought him to life, she ran her fingers through the taut hair pulled back away from her face, accidentally dislodging a few strands.

  Reina reached out to disconnect the system.

  “I love it when your hair falls loose,” Atlas whispered in her ear, suddenly there at the corner of her eye.

  “You came.”

  “Of course I did. I have never been invited to a woman’s room before. What man in this universe could say no to that? To you?” He smirked down at her. Flirt.

  “Have you been with many women? Err, I mean before you lost your body?” Reina took a step back and looked at all of him.

  He was tall and statuesque, beyond any human male she had seen before, but even though she could not make out the color of his short, swept, unmovable hair, or the hue of his eyes, she would have known him to be a Cyborg.

  The projection of him resembled the pictures she had located of him on the network and their details, as well as the calculated mannerisms of the transparent being before her; all screamed of steel and strength. It did something to her, and she liked what it did.

  There was nothing soft about Atlas.

  And he’s killed thousands.

  “Is that an invitation? I may only be an image but I’m still a man.” He moved toward her with a seductively dangerous gait. “I can whisper the most terribly erotic things in your ear.”

  Reina covered her face with her hands, hiding the horrible blush that heated her cheeks.

  With a groan and not being able to meet his eyes.

  “But what about you? Would you find pleasure in that?” She didn’t dare to look up, knowing he was staring down at her a hairsbreadth away.

  “I would find more pleasure in seeing you submit to me than I have felt since I was created.” His blue hands rounded her face, his fingers traced the tendrils of hair over her cheeks, and she dropped her hands. “I have,” Atlas hesitated, “Never been with a woman before.”

  A virgin? Is he a virgin? The empowerment she had begun to feel grew into something close to excitement. I have to be his first. I want to be his first. I want him.