“There’s just the small detail of The Reapers. As soon as they detected his hacking efforts, they may have dispatched some agents to quiet his fingers, you could say.”

  “They are trying to… kill him? A permanent removal?”

  “‘Trying’ is the operative word.” Geddy nodded. “Which, in part, is why I have imported so much of my family to protect this place. But as it were, the kid may be safer with you.”

  This conversation is an absolute minefield, Perry said. But I’m putting it all together. The laser blasts on the front of the building, the hardened soldiers patrolling inside. And let’s not forget the look in the three Trinox’s eyes. That was fear. The kind you get when you see something horrible. Reapers have already hit this place.

  Mark shook his head.

  I’d warn you to watch how you respond, but that would be to insult your intelligence, boss. If Geddy is being truthful, a Sovran Brigade takeover would likely be in line with our vision of a better Galaxy, and in the end, a better Guild. The caveat? It all hinges on whether the Sovrans are any better than the Reapers, mind you, but it’s better than nothing. And it would get us Tan back. I’m okay with this plan if you are. I’d rather stay on the Geddais’s good side, for the time being.

  Mark reached up and scratched his chin, then smoothed down his mustache. There were too many variables to consider all at once, and he had entirely too many stims and steroids pumping through his body at the moment. So, he’d have to go with his gut and trust Perry’s judgment.

  “I saw laser blasts on the front of the building, as well as seasoned soldiers downstairs. That tells me that you likely housed Tan here for a while. But if the Reapers already attacked Gastro’s, then you’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t keep him safe here. You’ve moved him somewhere, correct?”

  Geddy nodded. “But there are only so many places I can hide him here on the station. And like I said. There is likely no place safer than on a small, well-armed ship out amongst the stars.”

  “We can take him. My ship should afford him a strong enough Nexus connection to maintain his efforts for the Sovran. But if I do that, there are some things I’m going to need. A few supplies. And when this conflict within The Reapers is over, the kid’s free.” Mark shifted, holding out his hand. “Deal?”

  “You’ve got some rock-hard balls, Mark Tudor. I like that about you.” Geddy laughed, then the P’nosk rocked forward and accepted the handshake. The big alien’s hand enveloped his, the grip clamping down with crushing pressure. “But know this. I’m gambling on you, Tudor, and I don’t like to lose bets. Don’t disappear on me, or all of a sudden decide that you don’t like the terms of our deal. I’ve got far too much riding on this to look the other way. We clear about that?”

  “Crystal.” Mark squeezed back, the muscles in his forearms immediately knotting up.

  Their handheld tug-of-war continued for several punishing seconds, until it became clear that one could not necessarily overpower the other. Considering Geddy’s size and strength, Mark considered any stalemate a win.

  “Alright. Considering the hidden nature of our technologically inclined friend, it’s important that I only move him one time, and once he is aboard your ship, that you depart as quickly as possible. Tell us what supplies you need, and I will have them brought down with the kid.”

  Mark slid back in his chair and relaxed, then turned to Perry.

  “It just so happens that I’ve got a digital shopping list already prepared.” The bird ruffled his feathers and hopped forward. “We’re also on a bit of a time crunch, so if you can have those rushed down to the docks, we’d appreciate it.”

  17

  To sell their ruse, Geddy staged a rather tense conversation outside his punch bar. The idea was Perry’s, naturally, although the P’nosk proved to be a savant at not just screaming curses, but new and inventive threats.

  The idea was simple—lead anyone who might be listening in to the conclusion that Geddy had lost all trust in Mark. And that the reformation embroiling the Guild led to distrust.

  Once the spectacle was complete, a host of hardened P’nosk soldiers escorted Mark and Perry to the docks, where they loaded aboard the Fafnir. Valint was in the shower when they arrived, so Mark paced the passage impatiently.

  “Boss, someone’s outside the airlock. They’ve got crates,” Netty announced just a short while later.

  Bypassing the airlock, Mark cycled both doors open, only to find two workers in jumpsuits waiting outside. A small, automated cart sat between them, stacked high with crates.

  The workers transmitted a digital receipt to his slate, then drove the cart through the airlock and into the passage. Standing back as they worked, Mark noticed sizable angular shapes beneath their jumpsuits. What the weapons were was irrelevant.

  “Safe travels, friends,” one of the workers said after lifting the last crate free and dropping it on the deck. Then they piloted the cart back out the airlock and were gone.

  “Alright, Netty, get us out of here,” Mark said.

  “Aren’t we waiting for Tan?”

  Valint emerged from his berth, still working to dry her hair with a towel. Mark approached the cargo, quietly sizing up the stack of crates. The largest was on the bottom—a box the two workers struggled with most to unload. It was hardened, with a small, pressurized bottle affixed to one end.

  Mark unstacked the crates without comment or complaint and unearthed the box on the bottom. A small screen blinked to life on its lid, with the silhouette of a palm print in the center.

  [Confirm biometrics]

  Leaning in, Mark pushed his palm against the screen, only to have the box beep and unlock. He undid the latches on all four sides, and with the gentle hiss of releasing pressure, carefully lifted the lid free.

  “Oh, look, Netty,” Valint said, moving in to look inside. “He’s already here.”

  Tan blinked up at them from the box’s tight confines, his arms and legs tucked up tight to his body. And yet, the Druzis still had room to fish a puff out of a bag and shove it into his mouth. His lips and chin were covered in orange cheese. A coating that seemed to extend to the inside of the crate.

  “Why am I in a box?” the teenager muttered while chewing.

  “They didn’t tell you?” Valint asked.

  Tan shook his head, and instead of answering, inserted another puff and chewed.

  “Alright. Reticulum has finished filling our fuel tanks, and since the guest of honor’s aboard, I’ll get us out of here,” Netty said, and Mark felt the docking clamps release. Thrusters fired, and the ship started to move.

  Perry hopped over next to Valint, stretched up to his full height, and looked inside.

  “Hey, look. A Druzis in a box. I don’t remember ordering one of these. And this one is covered in food. Should we send it back?”

  “Ha ha, bird. Funny. Let’s cram you in a box and see how you like⁠—”

  “Eh!” Perry interrupted, holding up a feather. “Been there, done that. And my term of service was spent rolling around with a bunch of oily guns amidst the fresh reek of Bosin phlegm stink glands. This is not a pissing contest you want to start, junior.”

  “Fine.” Tan licked his lips, gave an audible groan, and tried to move. “Can you at least help me out of here. I can’t feel my toes anymore.”

  Perry guffawed. “They had to cut them off so you’d fit. Didn’t they tell you?”

  Tan blanched visibly.

  “Ha! Just kidding.”

  “Come on, kid. It’s good to see you,” Mark said, then with Valint’s help, they carefully decanted the young Druzis.

  Although his legs were a bit wobbly at first, Tan seemed to regain his bearings fairly quickly. He looked from Perry to Valint, and finally Mark, then took in a deep breath and unleashed an impressive tirade.

  “...earned your trust. Fixed your ship time and time again. Helped you fight battles. Shit. We explored how many worlds together? Almost got eaten by cannibalistic primitives, faked a seizure so you could dose yourself with Verit toxin, and how do you repay me? You dump me off on some shitty little outpost station in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Wayfare, kid,” Perry interjected. “It’s neither shitty nor little. And far from being in the middle of nowhere, you’ve got all those lovely asteroids to keep you company. Teegarden’s not a horrible place to get stranded, all things considered.”

  “But I was still stranded.” Tan exhaled. His large, somewhat bulbous eyes fixed on Perry for a long moment, before sliding back over to Mark. “You dumped me off with that old, scary lady and the meaner of the two angry birds. It was a low-down, dirty, deceitful, underhanded, conniving...”

  “Yes,” Perry muttered. “Don’t forget ‘devious’ and ‘sneaky,’ as well as ‘dishonest.’ Might even roll out ‘skullduggery,’ if you’re feeling Britishy. Those are all good ones.”

  “Uh...” Tan stammered for a moment. “And you said you were giving me a ship. I suppose that was a lie, too, hmmm?”

  Mark shook his head. He’d accept the kid’s anger, as it was earned, after all. But beyond the obvious deception necessary to keep him safe, he’d never intentionally lied to him.

  “That wasn’t a lie. The Bob is yours. But, kid. What he and I had to do,” Mark said, gesturing between himself and Perry. “There was no way I was going to drag you through that hell. Not after what you’d gone through with Stillness.”

  “You should have given me the choice! I could be a warrior, too.”

  “Eh,” Valint said.

  “Please,” Tan said, refusing to meet her gaze, “but I think you might, or you may, I mean... please don’t take this the wrong way, because you kind of scare me, but you might be wrong about me.”

  Valint perked up. “Oh?”

  “Yes. And I’m happy you’re okay, by the way. You are okay, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll get there.”

  Twitchy as ever, Tan turned to Mark. “So, does this mean the mission’s done? All of it—the Guild? The bad Master? My virus? Like, the whole fight?”

  “The worst of it, I hope. But, no. It’s not done.” Mark cleared his throat and stretched out his left arm. The muscles were cramping so hard that his fingers were curling up into his palm.

  Tan watched but looked doubtful.

  “He’s telling you the truth,” Valint confirmed.

  “If you’d been with us, you would have had to deal with a bunch of Unbound assassins making the horrendous decision to delete themselves right in front of us. It was... unfortunate,” Perry said.

  Tan shrunk a little, the worst of his anger now expended. “Why couldn’t you have just told me that you didn’t want me to go?”

  “Because, Mark knew you would refuse. So, he saved you the trouble. I would have flown you someplace else if we had more options and time,” Perry said, his voice now softer. “We could have dropped you off at the farm on Earth or maybe with Drogo’s Radian, but as it were⁠—”

  “The farm would have been nice...” Tan’s gaze drifted off into the distance. “You won’t do it again? Promise you won’t.”

  Mark reached out and patted the teenager on the shoulder. “I pray there will be no need. Now, the reason why you’re here.” He stepped aside, clearing the Druzis’ view down the passage, and Mother’s scorched and battered body.

  “What the...?”

  “Those were my words, too,” Perry agreed.

  “Is that a...?”

  “Yes. It is an advanced, multi-purpose AI—one that survived an attempted assassination by overcharge cannister. She’s fading and very much in need of your particular area of expertise.”

  “Overcharge, but that would mean⁠—”

  “Yes. Her chassis is cooked. So, you will need to bypass her ruined power supply and transfer her quantum mind into an AI cradle.”

  “Yeah, that would probably work.” Tan looked from Perry to Mother’s prone form for a long moment, his eyes glazed over.

  Mark moved in, grabbed the teenager’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, and turned his head until their eyes met.

  “I need you to focus, Tan. This AI was in charge of a medical clinic. One where a child was being stored. A very important child.”

  “Child?”

  “The offspring of one Valint Damascine and Mark Tudor,” Perry added.

  “Wait. You and her... you know?” The teenager pointed at Valint, then Mark, and clasped his hands together, coupling his fingers. “With each other?”

  “Okay. Let’s grow up.” Perry sighed. “Gyl-Mareth killed everyone aboard that facility, but not before someone made it out with their kid. No one knows who that person is, where they went, or how to contact them, except this AI.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Now he gets it. Good,” Perry said, extending his wings. The bird’s equivalent of throwing his hands up in the air.

  “You can do this, Tan. We believe in you,” Mark said.

  “Um.” The Druzis nodded absently, before his eyes and mouth abruptly opened wide. “This is... awesome. Yes. I’ll need the bird, and my workspace, my room, all my tools, and snacks. Yeah. Food. And all the Blue Blaster caffeinated drinks you can get your hands on. Like lots of it.”

  Then making a noise somewhere between a giggle and scream, Tan ran around Mark and made for the galley. He tripped and sprawled to the ground, then stood next to Mother’s chassis.

  “But wait. I’ll need⁠—”

  “Everything you don’t have should be in these boxes.” Perry patted the closed crate with a wing.

  “Great.” The Druzis turned back to Mother, bent over, and patted her scorched exterior. “Don’t worry, mama, Tan’s here. We’re going to fix you right up! You’ll see.”

  “You heard the kid,” Mark said. “He needs you, Perry.”

  “I’m gonna hack your ear bug and fill it with the worst sort of music. A choir formed from the cries of dying... organisms.”

  “Don’t hate me. I’m not the one that made you someone’s favorite computer building buddy.”

  Perry sighed long and low. “Hardened against lasers and kinetic projectiles, loaded with a substantial library of legal and political files, and topped off with a damn attractive avian chassis. All to babysit a hyperactive Druzis.”

  “Eh. To assist in the rescue of innocents and set the galaxy right away,” Mark corrected.

  “Fine. It’s all just part of the job, right?”

  “Right.”

  Perry turned and hopped aft, where the sound of Tan’s preparation was rising like a hurricane of dropped tools and slapping feet.

  Mark made his way to the cockpit, not stopping until he came to the forward instrument cluster.

  “That was a lot of shouting.”

  “I wouldn’t call it shouting but loud, exciting talking, Netty. But in truth, he needed it. Almost as much as we needed him.”

  “We or you?” Netty asked.

  Mark didn’t answer. Then again, he didn’t need to. Netty knew him almost better than he knew himself anymore. There was only one thing he hated more than an empty ship, and that was the thought of those he cared about being alone, out there in the black.

  “How are we sitting on fuel? Can we make the twist back to Salus with what we have left, or are we making another stop?”

  “We have just enough, but we’re stopping anyway. We need Tan at his best, and for that, he needs a supercharged drink made from eleven natural sugars and stimulants.”

  “Great. So if his hearts don’t explode, we might accomplish our goal?”

  “Blue Blaster to the rescue, boss.”

  “Alright. Let’s get the kid what he needs,” Mark said, moving over to his pilot’s chair and sitting down. “Punch it, Netty.”

  Their Hu’warde twist drive fired off at maximum power, their location, the galaxy’s movement, and a bit of luck bringing them to the next closest spaceport.

  The transit was short—barely twenty-six minutes from drive hit to shutdown.

  “Alright, hit me with the name one more time, Netty. It’s not sticking,” Mark said as he kicked in their retro thrusters and locked in the station beacon. He could read the spaceport name on the screen just fine, but he liked hearing the AI say it.

  “The S’rall spell it, ‘K’r’tll’, but it is commonly referred to as Kirtil. Rhymes with turtle. Considering the urgent nature of this trip, I am already in communication with its docking and freight handling AI. Its name is Y’nlithi Sarg’arar Boxmover the Third.”

  “That’s a mouthful, but the third? And isn’t the Y’nlithi another race entirely?”

  “Yes. In this particular case, the AI liked the phonetics of the word. Sometimes that’s all it takes. You also need to understand that the S’rall use a peculiar, reflexive, and self-replicating code base for their artificial intelligences. It is heavily regulated, but their AIs can, in essence, have children. In reality, they are coded clones with intentional variances, but they have come to adopt certain naming practices. It’s weird, yes, but endearing in a way.”

  “And I just learned more about the S’rall and their practices than years working amongst them as a Peacemaker. Thanks, Netty. Were you able to confirm through...”

  “Y’nlithi.”

  “That’s the one. Was the AI helpful?”

  “Very. With their help, I have purchased five cases of Blue Blaster. They should be waiting for us at our slip.”

  “Again, I wonder what I’d do without you.”

  She laughed. “Let’s just go with, less than if I wasn’t here. And just so you know, I had Y’nlithi include something a little extra for you and Valint. My treat.”

  “Color me intrigued,” Mark said as the ship abruptly rolled hard to port. The shift threw him sideways and against his harness but also elicited a significant crash and subsequent shout from the back.

  Mark straightened in his chair and adjusted the harness. The jolt seemed to reawaken a slew of old aches and pains.

  “Easy on the stick, eh? Some of us are soft and squishy organisms.”

 

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