Star Navigator Read online

  Anders’s face had dropped as well but she couldn’t focus on him, not with a towering, godlike being standing next to her. One who had a violent streak. Who wasn’t actually there but could be felt in every fiber of her being.

  She shared a look of shock with her friend just before the communications feed switched off.

  Atlas now projected before her where her friend’s face had just fallen away. He stood close, consumingly so, and she had to look up to see his eyes.

  “Please, don’t hurt him,” she begged. “How can there ever be anything between the two of us?”

  She reached out to touch him but quickly pulled back her hand. Reina rose from her chair and tried to put some distance between them, but he followed her with the steady, predatory grace of a carnivore that knew the every movement of his prey.

  “Feel me, Reina,” he demanded, zinging up her arm and into her head. “I belong here, don’t I? Say it.”

  She came to a stop and focused on his shocking intrusion, knowing that she had let him in and that she had wanted him there. He caressed her from within her head and it felt right. His touch took away the strange foreignness of her cybernetic nature by virtue of his being a part of it.

  “Even if it feels right, how can there ever be more than a verbal relationship between us?”

  “You don’t want to be a woman who is only seen for the womb she bears, the clean record, and you don’t want to be a girl who goes nowhere in her life, right? I don’t want you for your fertility, Reina.”

  “Can you even feel desire?” She cringed at her harsh question.

  “I can feel you, and I want you. I remember physical desire, and I have seen it a thousand million times projected on the network and in real life. I recognize it within myself and I know that I want it with you. I want you in every way that I have seen displayed before me across all these lonely years.”

  She struggled to breathe. “But how do you know for sure? I don’t know anything about you beyond this ship. How do I know you’re not lying?”

  “Can’t you just trust me? Just trust, Reina, come inside of me and feel me out.”

  “I can’t do what you do.”

  He pushed his way into her space, his eyes glinting with a mathematical sparkle that she couldn’t place.

  “Of course you can do what I do. The only difference is you weren’t born into it like I was, but crafted into it. Every cell in your body is beyond human now and you can use them.” He blocked her path, and wherever she turned, he appeared in front of her.

  “You only want me because you can feel me,” she accused.

  “I want you because I feel that quicksilver feeling that you so eloquently spoke of to Commander Anders. I want you because you talk to me with an interest that is more than merely academic.”

  Reina narrowed her eyes. “What about love, Atlas? What about lust? Claiming dominion over something doesn’t make those feelings true. You speak about me like I’m an object, an impulse, a fancy. Although your words are nice, every man looks at me like I’m just a something to be obtained. There are thousands of women out there. Find one of them.” She seized her uniform and tugged it.

  Atlas wandered around the bridge but never took his eyes off of her. A tense, electric silence settled between them.

  She could have sworn she saw very human, readable shifts cross his face, but she couldn’t be certain.

  When he refused to respond to her, refusing to wait any longer for him to explain his primitive claim on her, Reina walked out of the bridge and toward the lounge. She was filled with fury and sadness by the only two men in her life currently. Three, if you counted the doctor. She didn’t.

  One truly loved her but not with passion; one only cared about the cybernetic part of her. She laughed at that as she bumped into the mysterious doctor sitting at the table. The blue holographic lights filled the public space.

  She looked hard at them, willing Atlas to look back at her. The third only wanted to stake a claim on her because she had no one else.

  Don’t corrupt my feelings for you.

  Reina willed Atlas to read her. Before she knew it, without even touching the ship except with the soles of her boots, she powered through its channels, sought his presence out, and attacked it.

  Her hand clenched when he fought her off with ease and laughter filled the space. Her concentration broke as Dr. Yesne cleared his throat. She came back into herself.

  “Captain Reina, how are you feeling?” he smiled awkwardly. “You look right as rain today.” There was a wariness in his eyes.

  “I’m fine.” She moved to a food unit and replicated a cup of coffee and sat down, content to allow the heat of her drink to soothe the hurt in her head.

  The doctor continued to stare at her, adjusting his glasses. “How is your arm coming along? Will you allow me to look at it?”

  With an audible grumble, she peeled off her clothing until she was in nothing but her under top, displaying her perfectly unblemished arm between the two of them.

  I guess my exhibitionist fantasy came half true. That brought back her smile.

  The doctor dropped his food and leaned over the appendage, making happy chittering noises. “I would say you have recovered quite nicely, Captain Reina.” She jerked when his hand swiped down her arm. It was human contact, and quite unwanted; Atlas’s inhuman, pervasive contact felt better than this. “Do you feel any other abnormalities throughout your body?”

  I sure do. She shifted away.

  “I feel robotic if that’s what you’re asking. I can feel the ship around me when I concentrate hard enough,” Reina sighed and took her arm back.

  “Ah, quite right. You are connected to the ship. In a way, you may be more than the key to it at this point. You could be the heart of it.”

  Atlas appeared at the table suddenly, sitting in the chair and staring daggers at the doctor.

  Yesne didn’t seem to mind and turned back to Reina, “I apologize, I have hearts on my mind these days.” He laughed awkwardly.

  Reina looked at Atlas and the doctor and frowned. We’re all going crazy...and we haven’t even been out in space for more than three weeks.

  The three of them sat there in silence for some time, glancing at each other and feeling an unfriendly relationship build up between them. Reina downed her coffee like a shot of whiskey and sat back, eyeing the two men in front of her.

  “What’s going on?”

  The doctor looked at his nails and Atlas turned his imaginary blazing gaze back to her.

  “Nothing,” they said in unison.

  Reina got up and walked out, pushing the thoughts of men from her mind.

  “I HAVE HALF A MIND to kill you for that.” Atlas turned back to the doctor.

  “What? For telling the truth? You have half a mind to kill everyone. I do so hate liars, and I gave nothing away, nothing at all that would make her suspect that you will soon rise from the dead.” The doctor picked at the leavings on his plate. “I hope I will be around when she sees you for the first time. That will be an interesting debacle to catalog.”

  Atlas had nothing to say to that.

  Dr. Yesne continued, “She was in a rather odd state when she came in here not too long ago. Did you do something to upset her? Because I know the ways of women better than most men, as surprising as that might be.”

  Atlas looked at the doctor, a middle-aged pale man, with the keen glint of intellect and curiosity ever fixed in his eyes. If the man cared half as much for his health, he could have been considered attractive, but the years of giving himself over to the science of playing god had worn him down into the odd man that he was today.

  “What do you know about women?” Atlas would play along.

  “Hmm, well,” the man paused and pulled off his glasses and wiped at the lens. “I know that they want to be treated as equals. The women in my line of work were often more intelligent, keener than me, and I respected them for that. I savored it and in turn, they savored me. But y
ou’re a Cyborg, and your capabilities are far beyond that of a mere man. I can’t begin to imagine what it is like to be within your mind.”

  “Have you ever lottoed to join the cybernetic program?” Most scientists in that field did, but very few were chosen.

  “I did, once, knowing they would not choose me. Even though I can fabricate a new metallic organ for you, I was neither strong enough of mind nor fit enough of body to be accepted.”

  “And yet you changed your blood type to be a universal donor.”

  “Most humans do these days. When a species begins to die, the need to prolong one’s life becomes far more important. Even in the mind of a child.”

  Yesne discarded his plate and moved toward the door. Atlas followed him in silence back to the hidden lab beneath the medical bay.

  Dr. Yesne looked at him. “Are you ready? It is time for me to slice you open.” He ran his fingers back over the chilly glass. “I could fail.”

  Atlas looked down at himself, his eyes closed, waiting to be reopened by him. He thought about Reina above, monitoring the bridge. She was indeed the heart of the ship.

  “I’m ready.”

  Chapter Ten:

  “Captain Reina, what is the current status of your mission?” Wasson’s voice crackled through the intercom.

  “We are one warp jump away from Port Antix and should be arriving at our destination within an Earthian week’s time, sir,” she answered, keeping her eyes fixed on her boss.

  “Very good. We were told of your delay at the cybernetics lab on Aleyx and that you picked up a doctor to join you on your mission. He has not responded to any status reports about your recovery.”

  Anders had said the same thing. Confused, Reina responded, “I was not made aware that Dr. Yesne was receiving communications, nor that he was negligent in his duties, sir. I will inform him promptly.”

  “You’re the captain of your ship, you should be aware of everything on board.” The lieutenant sighed. “He will be dropped off at Port Antix before you proceed, I assume?”

  “Yes, sir, Dr. Yesne will not be continuing on with us beyond that point.”

  “Very good.” There was a short pause, and as the general chose his next words she could see the twitch of his mouth. “How is Atlas?” the man asked hesitantly.

  “He has been a commendable navigator, sir, and an incredible asset to me as I accustom myself to my new position,” Reina said carefully, unsure of why she felt the need for caution.

  Wasson stared at her through the screen for agonizing seconds before a slight smile lifted his lips. “Very good. I will await your response when you reach your destination, Captain–”

  “Wait, sir!” she intervened before he shut off their connection. “I have a question if you don’t mind.” Reina watched as the man sat back in his chair and surveyed her. She took that as a sign to continue. “Why did you choose me for this mission?” Her fingers twitched outside of his sight. “When there were better-qualified people to take it on?”

  The general didn’t answer her immediately, and she once again saw his face harden as he chose his words carefully. “You have a one-of-a-kind genetic make-up, Captain Reina. Out of the hundreds of servicemen in our ranks, you were evaluated to have the best chance of success with the cybernetic mutation.”

  She took a deep breath. “Thank you, sir, I have been confused on that front.”

  “I thought we had made it clear upon our request, Captain, that you are one-of-a-kind and we did not want you to choose to leave the fleet and procreate when you were destined for greater things. Especially with the aliens.”

  Like death? Reina soured.

  She could feel Atlas envelop her; she mentally pushed him out of her system.

  “Do you have any other questions, Captain Reina?”

  “No, sir, and thank you again for answering.”

  The intercom shut off and Atlas appeared in its place.

  Why? Without realizing she directed her question at Atlas, her energy pushed into the ship, surrounding him like feelers. She walked over to stand in front of him.

  A ghost of a smile lifted his mouth. Reina reached out and twisted her hand through his arm, watching her fingers lose themselves in his blue fade.

  “You knew why they chose me,” she stated more than asked.

  “I didn’t at first, but I do now.”

  “My genome is strong, my cells are strong.”

  “They’re very nearly perfect.”

  Atlas lifted his hand and caught hers in an ethereal dance. “They fought off the transformation.”

  “And they could have won if you had really wanted them to.”

  She eyed him speculatively. “Can Cyborgs procreate? Is that why Wasson hesitated?”

  Atlas smirked and walked around her, tracing his fingers over her shoulders, to walk behind and along her upper back, to end up standing in front of her to dance with her robotic hand. This time, the tingle of a charged current could be felt where he touched it.

  “They can. But that’s not why he hesitated. He doesn’t know that.”

  Reina tried to concentrate on their conversation but his seductive, silent stalking was throwing her off. His electric touches felt more like quick kisses than shocks. Her body was warming up under his pervasive perusal.

  “Am I the child of one?” Reina willed him to answer her, although she knew that it had to be true. Very few humans qualified for cybernetic enhancement, and even fewer survived it; she knew of no one who had an implant directly aligned with their neurological system. She had to have been a Cyborg’s child.

  “No, you’re not the child of one of my brethren. But you are close in your assumption,” Atlas laughed.

  Her demeanor fell and confusion clouded her mind. “What am I then?”

  “You’re a descendent of one of the original donors to the Cyborg program. Your cells spliced so perfectly with the nanoparticles because they were inherently built to suit them,” Atlas laughed again. “The Earthian Council doesn’t know we can procreate and they never will. If they knew you were a cybernetic child, I guarantee you would not be on this ship right now. In fact, you would be locked away and studied in the name of science for the rest of your life.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Were you ever going to tell me!?”

  “Would you have believed me?” He snickered and got into her face; she stepped back in reaction. “I love that I can still do that to people. And I wasn’t keeping it from you, I only found out the other day when you fell unconscious.”

  “You could have told me when I woke up!” She stormed to the giant glass panel and stared out into space. The stars and the blackness calmed her. She pushed any remaining traces of Atlas out of her body, which was a lot easier to do than pushing him out of her mind. Reina could see him move around behind her.

  Atlas’s body flickered in the reflection of the glass. “Why does the Earthian Council not know? This could be the answer to resolving the breeder’s disease amongst the aliens. There are so few of them left, so few of us left.”

  “It isn’t the answer. It’s too expensive and too risky. Even if they used the cybernetic program to make the Earthians bloom, the Council would never hand over that technology to the aliens. Beings like you and I would be enslaved. Our future children would be lab rats. The rich would get richer, the poor would get poorer, and it could start a second war. No, this isn’t the solution to the problem.” She watched him ghost his hand over her shoulders as if he couldn’t stop trying to touch her. “The Trentians wouldn’t surrender if it came to that, the hybrids would be slaughtered, the Cyborgs would be in a no man’s land. The cure is out there, but it isn’t with us.”

  Our future children?

  “You’re right...” Reina tried to process everything he was telling her, but it only made her sad and even lonelier than before. “Atlas, why did Wasson hesitate? My ignorance of my lineage doesn’t justify his reaction. Keeping it from me does nothing for them.” She sighed. “Or fo
r me.”

  “I don’t think I am authorized to tell you.”

  “You’ve been willing to share other secrets with me.”

  “I don’t want to cause you pain.”

  What else could possibly hurt me? “I want to know.” She exhaled softly, staring at a passing blue and pink nebula.

  “You’re not the third candidate for this mission.” His voice went stiff, “You’re the twenty-eighth.”

  What? The silence that followed was hard to swallow. “They all died?”

  “Every one of them.”

  Reina turned back to look at him, dismissing the star fields behind her. “Every single one of them?”

  “Killed by the mutation.”

  She felt a chill run up her back. “Wasson and Dr. Estond only mentioned two. That I was the third. That my cybernetic piece had only been in two bodies prior to mine.” Her arm felt heavier by the second. She carried a piece under her skin that had been inside dozens of others. Dozens of corpses. It made her sick.

  Sick. Reina looked down at her altered hand while running her human one over the tiny scars at the front of her neck. So, so sick.

  Now she really understood the old adage; power really did come at a cost.

  “Do you still feel that this mission was worth it? Now that you know the truth?” he asked softly.

  Reina didn’t know how to answer, too consumed by the bile rising in her throat and the feeling of its burning ichor spreading throughout her body to think.

  It ate away at her reserve.

  “What do they really expect us to find out there? Exploration isn’t worth so much needless death.” She twitched, trying to stop herself from clawing the metal skeleton out from inside her.

  Atlas sighed, “I wish I knew. I really wish I did. I only have rational guesses but none of them explain why thousands of souls have never returned, or why hundreds of ships, including Trentian ships, have never re-emerged.”

  Reina found the nearest seat and sat down. She couldn’t look out of the window, terrified all of a sudden by what she had always considered her beautiful home: outer space.