Theseus

I stared down at Dr. Godin, face turned to the side, eyes empty, expression locked forever somewhere between indignant shock and blind fury. The man who had put me through so much fear and doubt lay dead at my feet, life snuffed in an instant by the weapon in Aisling’s hand.

I couldn’t look away from him for some reason. This was a dead body. I’d seen a dead body before: my predecessor as Theseus’s core. There was a delicious irony to the fact that he now shared a state with something he looked down on so proudly. He was no different than that core now. I caught myself smiling a little bit before I shook my head “A-Aisling… Captain… He… You killed him.” I stated, uncertain what else I should say.

“Yeah. That’s probably about to happen a few more times.” Aisling continued to peek out through the blinds “It’s empty out there. Completely empty. Everyone’s gone to shelter. I would check their forums, but I don’t wanna take my eyes off this window.”

I managed to peel my eyes away from the corpse in the room when I heard a quiet whimpering noise coming from behind the reception desk. Peeking to the side of it, I saw Dr. Yates’ son wrapped up on the floor with his hands around his legs, shaking like a loose wing panel in atmosphere. He was scared witless. This colony was not a place of violence, and we’d literally just brought a murder, justified by self-defense as it certainly was, not only to his neighborhood, but right to his doorstep. He’d probably never experienced anything as existentially frightening as this before. Death, realized and thrust into his face.

I was shaken as well. I’d seen a body up close before, but I hadn’t practically watched someone get shot to death before. Sure, there was that unit of Foundation grunts that invaded our ship on our way here who had suffocated in my cargo bay. Not only could that be twisted by a justification of a more natural biological death, but it was also separated from me by a remote sensor array and the haze of the aftermath of extraordinary mental effort under the influence of the psychic damper. This felt more real. More visceral.

But seeing the way Yates’ son cowered like a helpless child made me realize I didn’t feel that way right now. I was scared, a little confused, and on edge, but I was trying to figure out what to do, not just hide and hope the scary things went away. I swallowed and took a few heavy steps toward Aisling, taking in a deep breath before I asked “W-What’s the plan?”

“Back to Theseus.” She said sternly. “We’re leaving.”

“What about Ray and Joel?” I took up a position at the opposite window, also taking a peek out. As she said, there wasn’t a soul outside the office. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about endangering bystanders, but I had to wonder how Skygraves evacuated a colony’s main thoroughfare. At least he wasn’t going to use innocents against us. “I thought we had to wait for them.”

“What did I say about plans? They’ll get there.” She backed away slowly from the window and opened the door slightly, peeking her head out. “They could have ambushed us, but they just sent one guy.” she mumbled “We need to move so they can’t corner us. Are you tapped into colony security?”

I shook my head “Personal terminals are one thing, I would have set off alarms if I hacked those.” As I said it, I wondered if there was a point to keeping silent anymore. Playing by the laws wasn’t necessary anymore, and it was time to throw subtlety out the window. I’d have to tap the cameras as soon as I could.

“Well, I think the coast is clear. It shouldn’t be, but it is.” She sounded irritated at the unexpected peace, expecting to walk into a trap, but she motioned for me to move up with her anyway as she threw the door open and pointed her pistol both ways down the hall in turn. I stepped out after her, making one last glance back at the whimpering desk as the door closed behind us.

The war was on.

—

Aisling crept down the hall in front of me with the caution and grace of a stalking predator, walking between the benches and informational screens scattered almost haphazardly throughout the concourse, then signaling silently for me to follow and join her in cover. There were no guards with guns or mechanical threats of any kind just yet, so it felt like we were practicing or playing some kind of game of stalking hide and seek. The whole thing felt surreal, but to her, it was routine.

She finally held up a hand to stop me at one of the large upright info panels that displayed a 3D map of the colony, looking both ways around it before she pulled me up to the wall and let out a deep breath, trying to shake the tension from her shoulders for a moment “You alright?” She spoke quietly.

I nodded my head. I was definitely not alright. I was shaken and very anxious for what was about to happen. Aisling watched me carefully and grimaced. She could tell I wasn’t ready for this. She took in another deep breath, briefly closing her eyes before she reached her free hand down to her vest and dislodged one of the loaded pistols. She flipped it around in her hand once, holding it by the barrel, and then held it out toward me, open hand as if presenting me a gift.

I stared at the pistol for what must have been too long because she pushed her hand toward me again to emphasize it “Take it.” She demanded impatiently.

“O-Oh… Aisling… I… I can’t.” I tried to stammer out, but she had already moved to holster her favored handgun, and then pushed the spare into my hands directly.

“Right, you’ve never done this. Crash course. Hold it in both hands, like this.” She moved my hands into place, wrapping them around the surprisingly comfortable grip of the firearm and then overlapping my other shaking hand on top of the first to make a solid mass wrapped around the base of the pistol. I blushed a little as she held onto my hands with a firm grip, guiding me into place. Her skin was surprisingly delicate to the touch, smoother than I expected from someone who had lived a lifetime of hardship, but still strong. Her touch felt nice.

I shook my head. What was I, some kind of hormonal teenager? This wasn’t the time to be crushing on my captain, attractive as she was in the heat of the moment. The tension was getting to me and my mind was wandering. “Focus.” Aisling must have noticed my mind wandering as I stared blankly at the heavy metal in my hands. “Two hands when you aim it. None of that akimbo bullshit. This ain’t a movie, you’ll never hit anything if you try to go all action hero with it. Always be aware of where the barrel’s pointing, and never point it at anything that you don’t intend to shoot, even if it’s unloaded, even if the safety’s on. Got it?”

I nodded very slowly, but then shook my head “Aisling, I… I can’t. I’m not ready to shoot someone. Th-This is different than a starship battle, everything is so much more fragile in the flesh and-”

Aisling shushed me, putting a finger over my mouth, which wasn’t helping my inappropriately active libido for this moment before deadly combat. “You won’t have to shoot anyone, you just need to know how to look like you can shoot someone. Now quit holding your finger on the trigger like that. You hold it against the guard like this until you’re ready to shoot, that way you don’t accidentally tense up and misfire. The safety’s this lever right here. Up like this and the gun won’t fire. Down like this and it’s live.” She kept forcing my fingers and hand position around the gun to make sure I was holding it in what could at least be mistaken for a correct grip, and I did my best to memorize it, my hands shaking even more by the time she seemed satisfied by what I was doing.

“There, now you look dangerous.” She peeked out from around our cover for a moment before returning her attention to me. “And you know enough to be able to shoot it if it comes to that. But it won’t. I can handle the shooting today, okay? You won’t have to pull that trigger. I promise.” She paused for a moment, watching me examine the intricate configuration of my hands around the device, trying to memorize the position so I could return to it when I inevitably fumbled it. Then she put a hand on my chin and forced me to look into her eyes, serious and smoldering “Look at me, Meryll. You’re gonna be okay. I’ll get you through this, alright? We’re leaving this colony together today, I’ll make sure of it.”

I nodded at her slowly, still dazed in a mixture of adrenaline and a bizarre primal attraction for the woman who was teaching me how to use a device to kill people. But that was something I would have to unpack later. I flinched and look to the side as I heard the approach of hurried footsteps scuffling along the hard plastic floor of the hall.

Aisling shoved me back against the wall, where I immediately lost the intricate grip on the pistol, holding it at my side in one hand as she peeked out around the corner, drawing her handgun again and pointing it across the concourse before returning to her position against the barrier and holding up a finger to her own lips this time, signaling me to be quiet. I swallowed hard and held my breath, closing my eyes for a moment.

That’s when I realized that I wasn’t totally helpless. The electronic world around us was still active, whether or not there was an impending battle about to occur around it. I might not be able to harm flesh like Aisling could with a gun, but I could still use my abilities to our advantage.

I had refrained from tapping the security system of the colony so far because it would have certainly gotten us in trouble with authorities, but that was moot now. I reached for the nearest security camera and with just a few lines of code; I saw what it saw. I could tell I’d hit some kind of tripwire and it logged my intrusion, but that didn’t matter anymore. I peeked around the corner on the closed circuit, and I saw a single person holding a submachine gun in both hands, awkwardly aiming down the sights as he walked. I wondered if I looked that awkward holding my pistol. This was not a firearms expert, that was certain, but it was still a gun in his hands. It didn’t take experience to pull a trigger.

The security system wasn’t weaponized, so scouting was the best I could do. I whispered to Aisling, continuing to hold my eyes closed “One. Not augmented.”

I heard her shift slightly, but I didn’t dare open my eyes and lose my concentration on the security network. The footsteps drew closer, and we stayed silent behind our cover. I switched the camera and watched him approaching both of us. He didn’t see us, but he was pointing the gun directly at our cover, cautiously covering his corners. He would spot us in a moment. I swallowed and tapped an electronic sign opposite the man.

I held up three fingers for Aisling, and slowly counted down, hoping she was paying attention to me and that she understood what I was signaling. And as I hit zero on my countdown, I injected a script into the sign, causing the sign to flash a series of randomized bright colors.

Just as I thought, the man turned sharply to look at my distraction. Aisling turned out from our hiding place and I watched through the camera as the man’s eyes went wide. He tried to swing his gun back around to level it against her, but before he could correct himself, she had already fired off a round.

I didn’t see what happened next, because I had to open my eyes in surprise at the crack of Aisling’s pistol. It was far louder than I expected it to sound. Previously, I’d only heard it through a wall or through electronic sensors, but hearing it up close was shockingly visceral. What I really didn’t expect was the wet splatter of a bullet penetrating flesh. I hadn’t considered that the projectile would make noise on impact as well.

Just like in the office, a second shot rang out immediately after the first, like Aisling had already predetermined that the first shot wouldn’t be enough. It echoed down the halls of the concourse and then the hall went silent. I heard the sound of something heavy hitting the floor, and then that was it. It was over that quickly. I swallowed, not wanting to turn to look at Aisling’s kill, but I heard her let out a deep breath and flinched as she put a hand on my shoulder. “Breathe, Meryll.”

I did as she told me, and let out a few deep breaths, gasping for air. In an effort to remain silent, I had stopped breathing entirely at some point, and it was catching up to me. I glanced past Aisling and saw the body of the man, slumped down on the floor in a heap. Red leaked from his chest and head, same as Dr. Godin’s body.

“Holy shit, you killed him.” I mumbled, trying to wrap my head around the person this had been simply ceasing to be in an instant like that. It was even more real than when it had happened to Godin a whole room away.

“Well, yeah.” She said like that was the most obvious thing in the world. She continued taking breaths to calm herself for a moment before she stepped out from around our cover and pointed her gun at the corner while she stepped toward the body. She held the gun up with one hand as the other groped blindly at the floor, grabbing hold of the man’s firearm after a few missed grasps and lifting it up to pull the strap over her shoulder. “Nice idea with that sign. If we’re surrounded by tech, you can be pretty useful in an engagement, huh?”

I swallowed again, trying not to look at the body as I stepped around cover as well “It… made sense in the moment. I kinda just… did what I had to, I guess.” I was downplaying how automatic it had been. It was like everything slowed down in that moment, and I was able to calmly throw together a plan that made sense and worked beautifully, but now that the time was passed, I was in shock again. This was nothing like a dogfight between starships. I was terribly out of place in the midst of a conflict on foot, and I felt scared and wrong. It was like someone else had taken over for a few instants when I acted. Someone far more collected and confident.

“How far can you scout ahead?” Aisling asked, interrupting my internal rambling. That was something practical I could focus on. I closed my eyes and dove back into the local psychic network. The cameras weren’t networked to one another, and the system controlling them was too well-protected to hack in a rush, so I could only access the cameras within my own psionic range.

“Not far.” I warned “Around the bend of the hallway at least. No one else is coming right now.”

“They’re disorganized. This is good. Keep your eyes on the cameras ahead of us.” She patted me on the shoulder again and guided me forward. It made concentrating on the data stream difficult, but it wasn’t like I could just wait there for her to clear the way. “We’ll get back to Theseus and then get out of here.”

—

I did as Aisling asked and kept my ‘eyes’ at a wide angle so I could look down the curved hallway toward our destination. No more fumbling stray guards came nervously pacing down the concourse. It seemed unlikely that they didn’t hear Aisling’s last two shots, but there was no immediate response. They had either learned their lesson once the two Aisling dispatched so far failed to report, or judging by how disorganized they had been, maybe they just didn’t notice their absence. I felt a cruel sense of schadenfreude at that, not for the second man, but for Godin.

I didn’t know the story of how he had gotten roped into this scheme, but that he was the very first enemy casualty felt satisfying in some way. It was a delicious irony that the captain took the man who tried to take advantage of me out so easily. He thought he had been so powerful, but now he was the one left bleeding out, forgotten, on a psychologist’s office floor. I’m not even sure if Aisling realized who he was. For all I knew, they didn’t exchange any words before Aisling identified and neutralized the obvious threat.

On a whim, I broke the intense silence between us and muttered to Aisling “Thanks for killing that fucker.”

I couldn’t see her face to face because I was focused on the data stream, but I felt her confusion when her movement hitched and she grunted out a questioning “Huh?” that confirmed that she had no idea what I was talking about.

“The first guy, the one in the office. That was Dr. Godin.” I felt a smile growing on my face as I explained. I thought she would appreciate the fact.

Aisling’s hand that had been guiding me by my arm loosened a little bit. “No shit? Well, good then. Prick deserved it.” was all she said. I could tell that she wasn’t satisfied, though. Something was bothering her, or maybe she was just too intensely focused on the moment to let herself have a moment to celebrate offing the guy she’d outright said should have been shot after what he did to me. I’d have to bring it up once we were safely back in space.

For the time being, I switched to the next closest camera and stopped in my tracks. I felt Aisling tug me down to a low crouching state and watched my body duck behind a bench from a third person perspective, which was a surreal experience in itself.

“What is it?” Aisling muttered, peeking up over the bench and aiming her pistol at the edge of the turn in the hallway.

I took a deep breath and tried to let the tension out of my legs as I whispered “T-Two. Right at the hangar bay entrance. Looking our way.”

“Tch. They’ve got people waiting for us.” Aisling muttered. The two guards looked nervous, but they had their guns aimed down each of the halls, clearly prepared to fire on anyone who approached the only obvious entrance to our destination. “Alright. No sneaking up on these ones then, I suppose.” She sighed and guided me back up to my feet “Anything I need to know about them?”

I spent a moment examining the pair. The first had brown hair and a pair of square glasses and nervously flipped the safety of his smg on and off as he aimed down the hall. He was anxious and on edge. I couldn’t blame him.

The second was a blonde woman with short hair and a steely gaze that betrayed a more experienced combatant with better discipline, as she stood stock still, covering the opposite hall. Something else caught my attention about her, though. I sent a ping down the hall and I caught something in her. She was augmented. A brief look through the info showed she had prosthetic cybernetic eyes, both of them. I wondered how often people would need both eyes wholly replaced by incident and concluded that this must have been a deliberate augmentation. But that only worked against her when she was against a hacker of my caliber.

“One on the left is inexperienced. Nervous. Keeps fidgeting with his gun. One on the right might have actually seen more than a couple fights before.” I offered Aisling “She’s augmented, though. Eyes. I’m writing a reset script.”

“Perfect. Don’t attack her yet, we need to get into position.”

I nodded. It would only shut off her vision for a couple of seconds at most, anyway. I would have to time it and hope there wasn’t interference between her and I, but there was at least a momentary vulnerability I could take advantage of in the firmware. I could give Aisling an opening.

“Okay, see that bench up there? I need you under that. Wait for me, I’ll make an approach.”

“I’ll get better latency on her if I can get up there too.” I murmured. What was I doing? I didn’t want to offer to plunge into a firefight. My script would have a better chance of working correctly if there was less dead air between us, but this was too much for me to handle for sure.

Aisling hesitated and let out a quiet exhale before she asked “Do you trust me?” I nodded before I even had a chance to think about the question. Of course I trusted her. “Okay, cause I have a really dumb idea. And it involves putting you right in the line of fire.”

—

I tried to control my breathing and took a step forward as Aisling had already instructed me. My pistol was tucked uncomfortably in the back of my waistband, the irritating metal pressing lightly against the bruise on my back. It was important they didn’t see me as armed on our approach. I was the first to see the brown-haired man as we ran around the corner, and he immediately snapped the barrel of his gun in my direction. I broke for cover, diving down to one of the large info panels just before I heard a short burst of gunfire and watched bullets land against the floor nearby, missing me by a significant margin.

Getting shot at for the first time was a terrifying experience. If just one of them had gone stray and struck me, that could have been the end of my journey right then and there. But it wasn’t. I had been saved by an inexperienced shooter trying to hit a moving target. Aisling was right behind me, also slamming up against the same panel as me, but she had stayed decidedly more composed than I did, looking as far out around our cover as she could without exposing herself. I couldn’t help but sit on the floor, hyperventilating as my mind raced, glancing at the tiny circular cracks in the floor scattered behind us.

“Idiot!” I heard a woman’s voice call out, then in a more level tone, “It’s the target.” That confirmed it. We’d been correct, they’d been instructed not to fire on me. I didn’t hear any more of the exchange between them. They must have quieted down once they’d composed themselves.

I took a few deep breaths to calm down. Okay, I’d been shot at, but now they were aware of me and wouldn’t shoot at me again, right? Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I mulled over the plan, glancing to Aisling for help. She gave me a silent nod and I did my best to regain control over my muscles. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to crawl into my core module and go back into comforting torpor for the next week, but we had to make our way there first. That meant through these two, and likely more.

I took in a deep breath and pushed my palms against our improvised cover, slowly rising back up to stand with Aisling. Then I raised an arm up around the cover and swallowed hard. I braced as I took an experimental step out from behind the panel and looked at the pair of guards aiming down the barrels of guns at me. I was visibly shaking, terrified that they would just pull the triggers despite me. But they didn’t. They only aimed at me from cover that they’d taken up themselves at an overturned bench.

The woman called out in a commanding tone “No sudden movements.” She demanded “Your buddy either. Throw your weapon to the side and come out with your hands where I can see them.”

This wasn’t part of the plan. I certainly hadn’t expected the woman to attempt to de-escalate like this. She must have been an enforcer of some kind in her past. But I don’t think it changed much. I heard the clatter of metal against the floor to my side. Aisling had followed the instruction. I don’t know if they’d caught that she had at least six more guns on her while she was moving, though.

“That’s right, no one has to die here.” The woman called out. How I wished that that was true. Aisling stepped out from cover on the same side as me, but she didn’t have her arms up, and she wasn’t unarmed. I felt her arm wrap around me, and had to let out a gasp even though I had expected what had come next. I felt the barrel of the gun pressed against my head as the pair in front of me flinched, readying their guns, and for a split second, I thought that they were going to fire right through me anyway. But they didn’t.

As Aisling held her pistol to my forehead, I heard her answer the commanding woman’s voice with her own projected voice “Your boss would be real upset with you if you let the whole point of this operation die here. Out of my way. I’m getting into that hangar.”

The man looked confused, his gun arm losing tension as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do in this unexpected situation.

“Don’t fall for it, she’s bluffing.” The woman didn’t even flinch, taking control of the man. “Flank her.” She motioned to him as she started slowly making her way in a circle to our side. This wasn’t working like I hoped it would. I was hoping they would either surrender or be so confused by our actions that Aisling had time to take them both out before either would react. Instead, the woman, at least, already had a plan.

Aisling didn’t flinch, though. She kept holding the gun against my head as she backed away from the pair as best she could. Even though the man took a moment to pull himself together again, he started moving into position around us, doubtless trying to either get an angle on Aisling or make an angle for his partner. We were pinched.

I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself, but it kept coming out ragged and fast. Part of me wanted to break down crying and beg to de-escalate again into surrender, but I swallowed that part down, knowing the consequences would mean giving up my last chance at freedom.

I heard Aisling take a deep breath, and that helped anchor me again. She whispered to me “On three.”

Stick to the plan. I began to whisper back, closing my eyes as I reached for the woman’s augmentation “One… T-Two…” I nodded for the third beat as I shot toxic code through my psionic network. The woman froze in place, a confused grunt escaping her lips as her vision failed her entirely and her muscles tensed with uncertainty.

In one swift motion, Aisling flicked the barrel away from my head and I let out a whimpering cry as the bang of the firearm went off right next to my head before I was thrown to the floor.

I heard the sound of their rapid fire weapons going off alongside a couple more of Aisling’s more precise registers. I curled up into a helpless ball on the floor, a ringing in my ears from Aisling’s pistol firing off next to my ear almost overshadowing the violence playing out above me. I didn’t dare look, either with my eyes or through the security camera.

It was rare that I found solace in the data stream. It’s a confusing mess of code and random data that I could never hope to interpret as quickly as it flowed. Background noise produced by machines idling, like the cybernetic equivalent of heartbeats and breathing. It was distressing to stare into without purpose. But in that moment, it was somehow the most comforting view I could give myself. I escaped into nonsense computations rather than face the reality of the firefight happening around me, my role already finished before the more visceral action had gone down.

It felt like I was trapped there in the code for far longer than it actually had been. I had to wonder if I’d accidentally activated some kind of emergency trigger for the psychic damper and was experiencing time dilation, but Aisling told me after the fact that that was just how powerful adrenaline could be in the face of mortal danger. It made the world slow down in a pretty similar way.

When the silence came, it was deafening. All I heard was a single panting breath. I dared to peek up over my knees at the aftermath of the fight and was relieved to see Aisling’s face, her back pressed against the other side of the panel we’d used for cover, peeking her head around in every direction as if searching for a new target. Glancing around, I saw the man on his back, free hand over top of a seeping chest wound, his glasses askew on a face filled with terrified panic. Aisling walked over to him and kicked the smg out of his hand and across the concourse. He wasn’t dead. Aisling must have either not had the time to make the second, more deadly head shot she’d made on the other two she’d killed so far, and hoped that the shot to his core would disable him. She’d been correct. I turned my head the other way to see the woman face-down over her weapon. She’d been less lucky, blood seeping from one of her legs and her face.

“You’re out. You just wait here til things quiet down and hope I didn’t hit anything vital. Colony of geniuses, I’m sure someone can patch you up. Just so long as you don’t do anything to make me shoot you again.” Aisling instructed the man before she let out a shuddering sigh and turned back to look me in the eyes. “We should move.”

I nodded, still glancing back at the dead woman. She’d had the same kind of commanding presence as the captain did, but she died just like any other person with a bullet to the head. “You weren’t hit, were you?” I asked sheepishly, my muscles failing to respond when I told my body to stand.

She reached down and took my hand, guiding me up onto my knees and then to my feet in small motions. “Nah, I’m fine. Good evaluation on the guy being inexperienced. And she couldn’t see a damn thing. They missed me completely.” She let out another deep breath “Close, though. Always a risk, plays like this.”

Aisling hurried me to my feet and held onto my shoulder. She must have sympathized with how shaken I was, because even in that moment of crisis, she was gentle with her guidance. For a moment, I thought that it was over. I thought that I was just a few doors away from climbing into the void and feeling my shell’s wings cut through the vacuum of space once more. I thought that I was just a few steps from freedom. Then I felt it.

A specific, familiar, inexplicable terror.

“He’s here.” I muttered to Aisling, fear gripping my voice as we approached the intermediary hallway between the colony and the hangar. “Skygraves is here.”