Farthest Reach Read online

  “Now.”

  TRX-33 unloaded into the oncoming aliens as the door slid open. Kelsey took two seconds to enter a close-and-lock code and then ripped the device from the panel.

  “Let’s go!”

  She charged into the room, TRX-33 rolling in backward as he continued to unleash a firestorm into the Carapaces. The door slammed shut just short of his tracks.

  Kelsey tapped some buttons on the device on her belt, pulled another device from her pouch, and scanned the room. Watching the readout, she stopped and pointed. “Over there.”

  They maneuvered through stacks of crates until they came upon a single crate hovering in place by itself. It didn’t look like the standard cargo crate but rather a high-tech storage unit complete with readouts and command buttons.

  “This is it,” she said.

  TRX-33 lifted the crate off the floor.

  “Careful, Tracks.”

  “I will attempt to restrain my reckless behavior in my efforts to pick up a box.”

  The two moved to the central walkway and headed to the rear of the cargo hold. With her belt remote, she directed her ship to extract itself from the hull of the alien ship and track her signal. It would pierce the hull a second time nearest their location.

  A crackling sound drew their attention to the cargo bay doors where four streams of lasers were making slices into the thick steel.

  “Someone is determined,” Kelsey commented.

  “You didn’t leave them much option.”

  They stopped ten meters from the rear wall of the cargo hold, the other side of which was empty space. The crackling cease and a loud CLANG resounded through the chamber as a cargo bay door fell flat. Blaster fire immediately flooded the chamber.

  Before the two had time to react further, the freighter lurched beneath their feet, a terrible BANG drowning out the blaster fire as Kelsey’s ship pierced the hull. The sudden jerk caused even the Carapaces to stumble. TRX-33’s hydraulics compensated for the sudden shake. He leaned down, placed the crate on the floor, then turned and fired on full auto. The moment she had her footing, Kelsey picked up the crate and hurried into the ship.

  She turned back to see the blaster fire had resumed but was being held off by a temporary force field thrown up by her bot. Beyond it were several Carapaces and at least fifty humans or near-humans all concentrating fire on the warbot.

  “Tracks, come on! Let’s go!”

  “I can’t move and maintain the force field. There’s too much concentrated blaster fire. The interior of the ship will take significant damage if I lower it and we will not be able to take off.”

  Kelsey froze.

  No, Tracks.

  “You’ll have to go without me. I will stay behind and hold them off so you’re able to take off.”

  “Tracks, don’t be a hero! Get in here!”

  Kelsey could see the shield flickering, losing power.

  “Hero? You mean to say you actually care what happens to me?”

  Kelsey didn’t answer, the question throwing her into inaction.

  “Well,” TRX-33 continued as the flickering intensified, “first time for everything, I suppose. Do try not to get yourself killed.”

  The portal closed, no doubt by remote from TRX-33’s copilot clearance. Kelsey screamed and pounded impotently upon it. She moved to the captain’s chair, desperately entering commands to turn the ship around and go back for him. But TRX-33 had overridden the controls and locked her out. It would take days to get back in. She slammed her fists on the controls, leaving small dents in the paneling. All she could do was watch the freighter grow distant as her ship moved away and then rocketed into hyperspace.

  ***

  Kelsey ripped the pilot’s seat from its weldings and tossed it across the small craft. She punched the walls, making deep dents.

  Her eyes spied the crate. She picked up a long metal bar that had come loose, ready to smash it to pieces. She froze in front of it, her arms poised to strike, TRX-33’s voice ringing in her head.

  “Oh yes, destroy the very thing we came to retrieve for which I sacrificed myself so you could return. Very fine logic.”

  Kelsey threw the bar to the floor. It clanged loudly in the empty, quiet ship. She sank to her knees, her anger melting into sorrow, and wept without tears. She may be a Synth, a robot near indistinguishable from humans, but she still had emotions, emotions that sometimes she could barely control. TRX-33 had been with her a long time. He was more than just her personal war bot, he was her friend, her only friend. Now he was gone, all because of that crate.

  The crate.

  The object sat hovering in silence several inches off the deck, its lights blinking. Her job had been to retrieve it for the Federation. She couldn’t have cared less what was in it, until now.

  Kelsey checked her chronometer. Thirty minutes to link up with her main ship, the Arrow. Her pod ship was out of hyperspace, a five-minute jump away. She didn’t have long to find out what this was all about.

  She examined the status display. The readout told her this was a cryo-pod, something used for storing living things in suspended animation. Opening it was probably a bad idea. Kelsey scrolled through the menu and entered the shutdown sequence. She was in the mood to ruin someone’s day. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be hers.

  The display beeped and flashed. Kelsey took a step back as the repulsors depowered, lowering the container to the floor. Air hissed and steam vented. The top of the container slid back. Kelsey stepped forward and peered inside, hands on her blasters. Amid wisps of chilled air wafting off the inside lay a human girl in her late teens or early twenties curled into a fetal position. Her chest and torso were covered by a skin-tight body suit.

  Kelsey wasn’t fooled. Looks could be deceiving.

  She watched the girl until her eyes fluttered open and she inhaled a breath. She blinked up at Kelsey. Keeping one hand on her left blaster, Kelsey reached her other hand toward the girl. The girl reached up a pale arm and placed it in Kelsey’s grip. She struggled and stumbled. Kelsey moved her hand from her blaster and grabbed the girl’s other arm, helping her to step out on shaking legs.

  Kelsey watched her as she looked around. The girl straightened, standing unsteadily.

  “What’s your name?” Kelsey asked.

  The girl steadied and answered in a voice that was otherworldly, as if distorted by passage through several dimensional gateways.

  “My name is… Kara.”

  “Don’t move, Kara.” Kelsey activated a scan and walked around her. A schematic appeared before her eyes, streams of data flowing past.

  The girl’s DNA was quadruple that of a normal human, as if each piece contained many times the information of a normal strand of DNA. There was also a strange energy signature pulsing deep inside her core.

  Kelsey concluded her circuit around the girl and deactivated her lenses. Kara’s eyes went slightly wide.

  “Who are you, Kara? What is your purpose?”

  “You… are not human.”

  “I’ll ask the questions on my own ship. What is your purpose?”

  “I am... a key.”

  “A key? A key to what?”

  “To... the aperture.”

  Kelsey was about to ask what aperture when a beeping from her console grabbed her attention. The Federation.

  “Stay right there,” she said. She walked to her console and pressed the com button.

  “This is Retriever One.”

  “Retriever, this is General Tao. Have you retrieved the package?”

  “I have your package intact. But I lost my copilot. I’ll require double for what you offered to do the job in the first place.”

  “Risks were part of the deal.”

  “Let’s cut the back and forth. You want this package, you’re going to pay me double or I’ll jettison it and leave it for the Carapaces to pick up after I transmit to them its coordinates.”

  “That wouldn’t be smart. We’ll hunt you down and vape you the mom
ent we get a chance.”

  “Go ahead. You still won’t have your package. And I’m guessing by the resistance I encountered, the pirates want it just as badly. Now that they’ve been robbed, they’re sure to up their defenses. You won’t find any bounty hunter so willing to go into that kind of trouble. Even if you do, it’ll cost you more than double my original fee. So, what will it be, General?”

  Several seconds of silence followed.

  “You’ll have your money.”

  “Good to hear. I’ll link up with you in fifty. Retriever One out.”

  Kelsey stared out the front viewport thinking on the general’s words. He sounded almost eager to do away with her. Delivery may be trickier than she thought.

  She turned back to Kara only to find the girl standing mere inches from her. Kara’s hands were on her cheeks before she knew it and power went surging through her, nearly the paralyzing her. Kara’s face was blank but her eyes glowed with a blue radiance. Kelsey’s finger found a button on her palm and she pressed it. A jolt of electricity shot through her skin. The shock tossed Kara away and Kelsey collapsed to her knees. Something she couldn’t comprehend was happening to her internals in her midsection. Her hand went there and she noticed her body heaving. She was… gasping?

  Readings from the sensors in her matrix had disappeared, but were coming back online. The inclination to breathe as well as the... whatever-it-was in her midsection faded.

  The girl stirred. Kelsey’s pistols were in her hands and pointed at her before she made it to her feet. She ran a quick diagnostic. All systems functioning normally.

  “What did you do to me?” Kelsey demanded.

  “You wished to know my purpose. It is to restore.”

  “I thought you said you were a key.”

  “Yes. To restore all.”

  “That still doesn’t explain what you were doing to me.”

  An image of a woman leaning over her flashed in her visual circuits, disorienting her. It passed and Kelsey straightened her arms which had slackened in the moment.

  “I was restoring you.”

  An image of a birthday cake. Kelsey tightened her grip on her pistols.

  “What are you talking about? What are these images I’m seeing?”

  “You are a Synth. Your personality was taken from the DNA of a deceased human. I was restoring you to who you were.”

  Another image, but this one was faded; her circuits must be compensating, she figured.

  Kelsey wanted nothing more than to blast this girl into a vapor cloud. But she needed real answers.

  “What do you mean? I was never human.”

  Sure, a Synth had a personality, consciousness, and was self-aware. That was what set them apart from bots like TRX-33 who only contained approximations of personalities and were not truly alive. But to say she was human…

  Kara stood, not answering her question.

  “Fine. How about this one: what happens when you are brought to this aperture?”

  “All will be restored.”

  “Restored? Restored how? To what?”

  “To how they were.”

  Kelsey’s patience was wearing thin at this girl’s ambiguous answers.

  “Why does the Federation want you? Why do the pirates want you?”

  Kara raised her hand. Kelsey’s fingers moved to her triggers. Kara’s hand went out to her side, her palm facing the floor. A bright light flashed from it. And standing impossibly next to her was...

  “Tracks?”

  The war bot focused its receptors on her and then looked to Kara whose arm had lowered back to her side. He then focused back on Kelsey and his voice modulator rumbled out, “Would someone mind telling me what just happened?”

  Kelsey was torn between wanting to embrace her war bot and not wishing to lower her aim.

  “Those who seek me think I am a weapon they can duplicate,” Kara said.“But they do not understand my purpose.”

  “That being a key. A key to restore the universe.”

  “To restore all.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Kelsey holstered her blasters. She walked up to TRX-33 and put a hand to his chest plate confirming that he was actually there.

  “Don’t tell me,” the war bot said. “This is an emotional reunion. Would you like me to hold you or shall I short circuit and save myself the joy of this wonderful experience?”

  Kelsey smiled, despite herself. If she were human, she’d be crying now.

  If I were human.

  She looked back at the girl who stared back at her with eyes backlit by a dull, blue glow.

  “My earliest memory,” she said, “is of waking up in a lab on an asteroid along with the other Synths. Each of us had different names, body configurations, and personalities. But no information as to our purpose or creators was present. The only thing we knew was that we needed to remain a secret. That was years ago, before the Bot Wars. I haven’t encountered a Synth since. You’re saying we were once human?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Tracks, see what you can dig up on the Synths. I know a few of us have been exposed since our activation. Maybe someone has uncovered something.”

  “Oh. Research. Joy.”

  “Okay, Kara. Let’s say you are a key to this aperture. Where have you been since... the beginning of time?”

  Kara gained a distant look.

  “I have no memory before you woke me.”

  “How do you know people are after you as a weapon?”

  “It is… what I know.”

  Kelsey pursed her lips. The girl was hiding something, though it may not be by choice. Logic told her to get rid of this girl as quickly and easily as possible. She was still on a job for the Federation after all. She wouldn’t get paid unless she delivered.

  But something deep down inside her code ran counter to that option. She had to protect this girl. It felt almost… primal, and it scared her. But she had never been one to back down from a challenge. Not now, not ever.

  “Alright. Give Tracks the coordinates—”

  A proximity alarm blared.

  “A Galaxy-class destroyer has just exited hyperspace,” TRX-33 said.

  Kelsey rushed to the console and looked out the viewport. Above them was an enormous rectangular vessel, its outer hull displaying a great white star in a blue circle, the symbol for the Federation.

  Kelsey turned to sit but noticed her seat was missing. With unseen energy, Kara manipulated the seat from the back of the ship over to its spot and caused it to bolt itself back down.

  “Thanks.”

  Kelsey set to work on the controls.

  “Hyperspace?”

  “They’re too close. They’re hailing us.”

  “Put them through. Keep the visibility to three meters.”

  The viewport was overlaid with an image of the general.

  “Retriever One, this is Republic One. Prepare to dock and hand over your cargo.”

  “The meet was at specific coordinates, General. This isn’t them.”

  A yellow bolt of energy flashed across the bow of the ship, lighting up the canopy and momentarily fritzing-out the image of the general.

  “I say again: dock your ship and hand over your cargo.”

  Kelsey stared at the image of the general, her synthetic eyes boring into him. Talk would get her nowhere at this point. She sent a burst transmission over her private com-link with TRX-33.

  Get the jump drive spun up.

  Without shifting her gaze, she pressed the button to increase the general’s view of the cockpit. His eyes widened, his face twisting with rage. Kelsey smirked and cut the transmission.

  “Get ready to—”

  The ship lurched and rumbled.

  “They’ve locked on a tractor beam,” TRX-33 called out.

  Kelsey cursed herself for being too quick. The jump drive wasn’t fully charged yet.

  “They’re pulling us in.”

  Kelsey cycled through her options. They had
one forward turret laser. That wasn’t strong enough to knock out the tractor beam.

  “Fifty meters and closing.”

  They couldn’t go to light speed. They’d be torn apart.

  “Forty meters.”

  The jump drive would be the same result except...

  “Thirty meters. If you’re going to do something, now would be a good time. I prefer not to die twice in one day.”

  Kelsey turned to Kara.

  “Can you survive in a vacuum?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not seriously considering this,” TRX-33 asked.

  “You have a better plan?”

  “Anything involving not being torn to shreds would be preferable.”

  “Then just tell me when we get within ten meters.”

  “Oh. Much better. Thank you for this new and gloriously ingenious strategy. Fifteen meters and closing.”

  Kelsey’s hand wrapped around the jump drive’s activation lever.

  “Fourteen... Thirteen...”

  The hull of the other ship lowered into their view.

  “Twelve...”

  She could see the light of the open cargo bay door.

  “Eleven...”

  A line of shock troopers came into view standing at the edge, their weapons raised.

  “Ten meters!”

  Kelsey slammed the lever down. Everything around her stretched and compacted. The sound of tearing metal briefly punctuated the air around them before fading into silence. Her vision continued to stretch until all she could see before her was a thin line upon a field of white. Then that was overshadowed as a barrage of images flooded the visual processors of her matrix. They were accompanied by sounds, smells, and the feeling of natural touch. Her matrix filtered the images, allowing her to comprehend them at their blinding speed.

  What she was seeing—no. “Seeing” was the wrong word. What she was experiencing, were memories, a lifetime of memories through the eyes of the one to whom they belonged. She saw the images of a human man and woman and smelled the fresh paint of an unfamiliar home. Now she was walking on unsteady legs. Now there was a baby. Now a birthday with cake and ice cream. She could taste the sweetness and feel the cool treat melting in her mouth. She was blowing out candles, thrilled at receiving a new bike to ride.

  Now she was playing in the snow, feeling the flakes land on her cold face.