Star Navigator Page 5

  He ignored her question, and that it wasn’t lost on her. “You don’t seem upset. I would think anyone would be upset with being used?” His steely, metallic man-voice hitched.

  “I’m not stupid, Atlas. They gave me a choice. Even as the captain of nothing and leader of this bleak quest, I knew that I wasn’t given all of the information.” She shrugged, “Maybe they didn’t want to scare me off?”

  “Are you depressed?”

  Reina’s eyes narrowed. “No.”

  “What are you then? A martyr perhaps? Maybe we are both very curious about each other’s intentions and I am having a very hard time coming up with a logical one for you.”

  Her cheeks reddened. “There is nothing wrong with me mentally. Maybe I’m loyal? Maybe the promotion and the pay raise were too good to pass up?” Her voice rose, “Maybe I wanted to be cybernetically mutated? There are plenty of logical reasons to bank on the success of this mission. And we have been given everything on this ship to see it be a success.” Reina huffed, “Maybe I have hope, and maybe I lost family out there and I want to know what became of them? Don’t deign to judge me because my reasons are not clear. Maybe I don’t have a reason at all.” She whispered, “Maybe I was bored.”

  Reina got up on unsteady legs, the blood flow kicking in suddenly and she had to balance herself to stop from falling. It was unsuccessful, now that her new arm was three times heavier than her other. She crumpled back into her chair and waited out the dizziness before she stood back up.

  A silence followed as she made her way out of the bridge and down to the medbay. For the first time noticing the airy blue streak of light that followed the ceiling, intermittently interrupted by the same mini projectors that she had seen Dr. Estond carry in during her briefing.

  “I think you’re trying to escape the inevitable.”

  “Which is?”

  “That the Council will force you to breed.”

  Reina stopped short at that. What does he know? “They could never force me.”

  But they could, deep down she knew they could. And the men, even those who were her friends, who respected her, had eyed her with opportunistic lust. So many had approached her over the years hoping to encourage her capitulation on her fertility. She had even received the attention of Trentian Spacelords, asking for her like a piece of meat in treaties.

  It had only taken one chance meeting in a hallway for the tall alien men to ask for her. Ever since that frightening time, where she thought her freedom might be taken away, that a man or an alien might steal her away, she looked for an opportunity to vanish.

  And then she was offered this mission.

  “You’re the only female of breeding age who I know of in the Peace Keepers. And it’s not because the unit is closed off to your sex.”

  She rubbed some warmth into her hands. “Tell me, please. What do you know?” I need confirmation.

  “It’s too risky. Protection cannot be ensured, and every woman who has joined the Keepers did not stay long because they were moved elsewhere or quickly found a life-mate or became pregnant.”

  “The Earthian Council never made a woman disappear?”

  His dark laughter did not ease the fear that that could have happened to her. “No, but they will incentivize. Sometimes their offers are too good to pass up. I find it commendable that you have stayed in the fleet for nearly a decade.”

  Reina tugged at her metalloid fingers in apprehension. “Thank you,” she breathed. “For the truth.” She knew it to be the truth because she had similar, consistent pressure the entire time she had been an active crew member. Commander Anders was the only man who never had any intention toward her besides friendship, and Reina thought it was because of that that he was the only man she would have actually left the fleet for.

  She shook her head. What a screwed up reason to like someone.

  “I am sorry, Reina. I presumed your motivations, and my curiosity and need to understand everything in a logical way brings me to a fault.” His deep baritone washed over her in a lulling whisper as she entered the medical lab. “I find myself continuously pushing your buttons...in the wrong way.”

  Atlas, even the short amount of time she had known him, made her feel safer than anyone she had ever met prior. Their relationship was clear. It was simple.

  “You were correct in your assumption. I have many reasons for why I took this mission but that one was the most prominent.” She located a medbay diagnostics machine and stripped to her undergarments. “Why do you even care about my motivations?”

  “To build trust between us.” There was a tense hush after he said us. “You do not mind that I see you in such an undressed state?”

  She lay down on the bed as a glass shield fell around her. “No.”

  “That,” he said softly, his voice right next to her ear now, coming from within the glass entrapment, “pleases and annoys me.” His words caressed her, so close, like he breathed them throughout the small space. Atlas whispered into her ear, “I am still a man, Captain Reina.”

  A warm blush heated her skin. Our relationship is clear. She told herself again.

  Reina closed her eyes as a medicinal spray fell over her, seeping into her skin, cooling the burning sensations that had begun to streak up her body. She tried to relax but her muscles tensed in reaction to the sting of needles stabbing her skin. The machine prompted her to initiate further testing.

  A metal band encased her artificial appendage and the tips of her fingers were pulled taut as she connected to the ship. Electricity shot through her hand, up and over her shoulder, and straight into her head. The sensation had a static electricity feeling to it, mixed with inhuman energy. Like she was soaking up sources from the outside.

  Reina could feel Atlas poke her firewalls from beyond her shell. “Why are you doing that?” she asked sleepily.

  “There is something wrong with your arm. Your recovery has gone into retrograde.”

  Her eyes opened to the blue light around her.

  “How can you tell?”

  “How can I not tell? I was a Cyborg for many years before I lost the use of my body. I have spent the last dozen years working extensively with the cybernetics program in creating this ship, as well as navigating new and old pathways for our fleet. You should give me more control over the ship.”

  She licked her sandpaper lips to speak but he cut her off.

  “How else are we going to build a relationship, Captain? My track record is pristine–read my records. I have been charged to protect you and I can’t do that efficiently without some ground.” The lights beeped as numbers ran across a screen above her. “You need sleep. You need rest. If you continue taking on everything alone, you’ll crash and not only put the ship and the mission in jeopardy, but also your life.”

  Reina weakly looked down at her sprawled body. “You make a sound point.” She could still hear the constant digital chirps in her ears, fading out, but still there, and still annoying.

  “I do, Captain.”

  “Don’t call me Captain, Atlas. I don’t feel like one, I haven’t earned the honor of being one, and right now I’m doing a terrible job at it and it’s barely been a week. Call me Reina.”

  “Reina is a beautiful name. It would please me greatly to call you by nothing else.” His deep whispers slithered back into her ears. “Reina. Relax and let me into the ship.” His next whisper was barely audible and she wasn’t sure if she heard correctly. “Into you.”

  She laughed to subdue the rising tension fluttering through her body, still very aware that Atlas continued to probe her defenses; she was hesitant to let him channel her arm. The thought was oddly disturbing.

  “You’re a flirt.”

  “Only with you.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “You should. I have encountered few women in my profession, as you should know, and most of those women were too green or elderly. Or worse, a cybernetics doctor or politician.”

  Just
then, a ringing sound interrupted their conversation and a flashing red light blared as her arm was set free from its restraints. She sat up with a rush and looked at the report.

  Her healing had regressed. Atlas was right. Her body was beginning to fight the mutations. Reina could feel sweat bead on her skin as her heart rate ratcheted up. “I don’t understand.”

  “Reina, give me medical access. Now.” The demand was evident. “Let me in.”

  “No.” She read the report but the information didn’t seem to make sense. “You said it yourself, you’re duplicitous.” Reina moved to send it to Dr. Estond’s team.

  “Don’t send the report. Let me look at you,” he said with a heated desperation that sounded alien to her ears. His voice has so much emotion...too much emotion. “Reina, you’re making a mistake.”

  Ignoring Atlas, she sent the reading anyway. Her head swam as a tidal-wave of lightheadedness overwhelmed her.

  Reina looked down at her dead-weight arm, unnerved at the sudden, rapidly swelling tissue. She gripped the table with her good hand. “Something is wrong,” she couldn’t keep the worry out of her voice.

  “Please, let me help you.”

  Her one-man crew couldn’t be read; his voice could be programmed to mislead. Her fingers ran over the scar on her neck. She could feel the wires just below her skin, and they sat stiff, like petrified worms.

  They felt like an infection that grew out from her shoulder, and instead of spreading throughout her bloodstream, it spread throughout her nervous system. And it all led into a parasitic circuit in her brain.

  Reina twitched and her joints stiffened. Her skin grew itchier.

  What’s happening to me? She jerked her arm, willing a human feel back into her system.

  Anxiety bloomed in the pit of her stomach and seeded into her brain, with Atlas only feeding the sinking feeling that overtook her. Her anxiety was worsening the effects; the effects were worsening her anxiety.

  Her hands clasped her throat, “Atlas!” A gasp escaped her.

  The beam before her wavered.

  “Reina, calm down, breathe.” The lights around her dimmed to a soothing warm glow. “You’re having a panic attack, breathe. Turn around, slowly now, and give me access to help you.”

  She lifted her shaking fingers slowly, touched the console, and allowed him in. Her fingers left sweat streaks across the screen. Reina watched the heated perspiration melt out of her skin and dampen the glass.

  She shook her head and clutched her nape. “What’s wrong with me?” she choked, ripping at the cloth of her undershirt, shredding it like tissue paper with a strength she didn’t know she possessed.

  Reina could feel Atlas shoot through her. Her mind clouded over.

  Her arm was red and flakey. The temperature in the bridge dropped as her body became a furnace. The robotic structure beneath her skin burned.

  “Breathe, borg-girl, your body is feverish. Lie down on the metal floor. Cool your body. It is adversely affecting your recovery,” Atlas’s voice commanded. It shocked her out of her attack.

  She crumpled to the ground. She was melting into the floor. Her inhuman appendage spread out away from her, Reina couldn’t lift it to save her life.

  “Please distract me.”

  “Shhh. You’re going to be fine. Just breathe.” Her eyes went half-mast as a strange, translucent man lay down next to her. “That’s right. Relax. You’re not alone.”

  Reina stared at the strange, beautiful creature who had a voice that soothed her into an exhausted sleep.

  “You’re safe with me.”

  ATLAS LAY NEXT TO HIS captain and stared at her face. There was nothing he could do for her and it irked him. Not a week into the mission and he was already failing.

  I wish she hadn’t sent that fucking report. He tried to grab it, hold on to it, but like most things in the digital world, it was beyond his control. It slipped away from him like water.

  He watched as a drop of sweat slid off of her face. He couldn’t remember what it felt like, such a small sensation that he never spent the time noticing it or uploading it into his memory database. But he imagined it would feel wet, ticklish, and hot. Atlas knew it would taste salty, warm, and delicious.

  He reached out his hand to touch it, a hairsbreadth away, knowing the touch wouldn’t connect. A strand of her hair had come loose and was plastered to her cheek. His fingers danced over it.

  Atlas could sense her heart rate slow down, her breathing even out, and the red heat of her skin faded to a light blush. Reina’s body soaked up the cold from the floor and the chill from the air like a sponge.

  He read her system, sinking into it, then slithering back out.

  Exhaustion, stress, fever, and even dehydration was fed back to him. Her body was still morphing into a nanocybotic being, and the transformation had besieged her cells, weakening her immune system and making her vulnerable. Atlas watched her as she fell into a deep, uncomfortable slumber.

  His hands clenched. He couldn’t even move her, he couldn’t even touch the floor he pretended to lie on. It left him feeling numb and hollow in his head.

  It wasn’t long before the damned scientists reached back out. Horrendously worried that their multi-million dollar equipment might be failing, they demanded a detour to the nearest lab. He changed their course and auto-pilot did the rest, sending the cyber-cretins confirmation.

  His anger grew. Atlas didn’t hate much in his half-life, but he hated them. He had just begun to connect to a living being, a beguiling woman at that, and now the mission might be in jeopardy.

  The next moment, he left her side and was poised over his frozen body, staring daggers at the crystalline sparkle that coated his iced-over skin.

  His hate festered.

  Chapter Six:

  Reina was sitting at an evening lounge, at a relatively high-class and uncrowded bar. Most bars weren’t busy these days–there were just not enough people to fill them and yet they stayed in business, because those people who did enjoy them enjoyed them well.

  She stared into the Sombrero Cosmo resting on the table in front of her, and ran the tip of a finger up the fragile stem of the glass as a tiny pool of condensation collected on her nail. She absently sucked it into her mouth.

  There was something wrong with her cosmic drink, and for a moment she laughed internally. All drinks were made in tribute to the universe these days. But hers was strange, the liquid inside was made in a way to depict the Sombrero Galaxy, a manipulated alcoholic image with a billion sparkling stars orbiting the outer ring.

  When Reina looked closer, she saw that the stars weren’t orbiting: they were swimming, wiggling ever so slightly, moving in an impossible way. She leaned closer to inspect it.

  A movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, disrupting her reverie, as a large, wiry man hit the chair next to her.

  With a brazenness she didn’t believe she possessed, she looked around the bar and rudely analyzed all of the empty seats this man could have taken before her eyes narrowed on him.

  “A scotch on the rocks, please.”

  Reina leaned away from the nonchalant power the man omitted.

  He wasn’t human but he looked human. He was definitely not a Trentian–his coloring was normal. He wasn’t quite right, his voice too low and steely, his size too imposing, and even the way his hair fell in short locks around his face was odd. She watched as the bartender slid him a chilled glass of amber liquid.

  The man was sitting right next to her, invading her personal space, and she could barely breathe. He caught her eyes as he took a sip of his drink.

  When she thought about it, there was so much space between her and everyone else, that even if this man had sat on the other side of the room, she would have felt invaded.

  “Why are you sitting next to me?–”

  The inhuman man sat his glass down and smirked.

  “–I won’t be going home with you.”

  He ignored her blunt re
jection. “Is there something wrong with your drink?”

  Reina looked back down at the wiggling cosmo again. The perverted stars now bled into the liquid everywhere, destroying the image of the galaxy as she watched. Destruction ensued.

  “The stars aren't real,” she gasped and jerked back as the strange man placed his hand over hers on the bar. He tightened his hold until she stopped struggling to reclaim it. The exchange didn’t take long as a warm current streaked up. The heat came from him and it soothed her in an unexpectedly welcome way; the pounding of her heart eased.

  Reina relinquished her hand to him and watched as he moved her drink between the two of them.

  He chuckled softly, “It’s because they’re not stars.”

  She looked up at him then back down at their joined hands. The heat coming off of his skin was beginning to burn, but it was a cleansing burn.

  “What are they then?”

  “Your cells.” He lifted the glass to her lips and tipped it up; she swallowed the horrifying liquid, feeling streams of liquor slip down her chin and splash on her thighs. Reina fell back and gasped, only to be caught up in his arms. He was a heavy metal wall trapping her against his body.

  A calm settled over her as the drink spread through her body, her bloodstream.

  “Thank you,” she whispered before blacking out, feeling a safety with him that she had never felt with any other person–even in a very unsafe situation.

  REINA WOKE UP GROGGILY.

  Her eyes were clouded. She lifted her hand up and ran it over her cold face, rubbing wakefulness and warmth back into it.

  Clarity came to her, and the constant, stressful exhaustion that she had been wading through was gone. She looked down at her body, covered in a medical sheath, relieved to see that the rashes on her skin were also gone. Reina lay back down with a thankful sigh.