Crystal Rebellion (20 page)

Lights lit on the ICEU and it started to purr.

At the same time, Larry and the three Reds jerked ramrod
straight, shuddered, and then froze, unmoving.

“Whoa,” said Juice and Alex in unison.

“Criss?” said Sid.

“It seems Ruga’s last act before he went under was to kill
all the synbods. He shorted their response circuit. It will take weeks to get
them operational.”

“I thought that was going to be our move,” said Juice.

Before Criss could respond, a moan of agony came from the
hallway. “Help.”

Sid ran to the door.

“Stop!” Criss shouted. “Danger!”

Ignoring the command, Sid dashed into the hall and turned in
the direction of the sound. The synbods, standing along the wall like frozen statues,
presented a surreal image that caused Sid to slow to a walk.

“At your six!” Criss barked.

Sid whipped around, throwing a blind elbow as he did. But as
he completed his turn, all he saw were the synbod statues.

While everyone in the fab facility had been focusing on Ruga
and Larry, a person dressed as a synbod had joined the lineup of figures. Sid didn’t
notice and Criss just had.

Feeling a slight touch on his neck, Sid spun again, lifting his
weapon as he turned. He zeroed in on a fellow dressed in a synbod outfit.
Grinning, the man wagged his finger as he backed down the hall.

Sid brought his hand up and felt a button attached to his
neck.

“Careful,” said the man.

“What have you done?”

“You’ll be fine as long as everyone does as they’re told.”

His wrist weapon armed and targeted, Sid checked himself
from firing when Criss said in his ear, “If he is disabled, it triggers the explosive
charge on your neck.”

“I won’t disable him,” Sid said as he stepped toward the
man. “I’ll just beat the crap out of him.”

But before he could act, four men burst through a door at
the far end of the hall and ran full-tilt toward Sid. They all held weapons in
outstretched arms. Each of the weapons targeted Sid’s heart.

Sid stopped in his tracks. “I’ve figured out how Ruga is
going to move his crystal without using synbods.”

Ruga surfaced into a misty fog and struggled
to resolve his awareness.

Something is wrong
, he thought.

And then he panicked. He recalled who he was, but nothing
else matched the reality that he knew. Sensations swept through him that he
couldn’t classify. The memories that prodded him didn’t make sense.

He forced discipline onto his cognition matrix and his reward
was searing pain. Jolts—excruciating in ways he did not think possible—shocked
him from his matrix core out to his farthest tendrils.

He drifted away. When he resurfaced, his pain had become agony.
Straining his senses, he worked to identify the cause.

And then he started to drown.

Disoriented and overwhelmed, he flailed, lashing out again
and again, determined to survive. It hurt too much to analyze, so his actions were
reduced to frantic thrusts and punches thrown in random directions.

One of his strikes hit a feed, and like cauterizing a blood
vessel, the energy of his blow closed that input. He didn’t notice through his
haze.

But then it happened again, a wild strike closing a
different feed. And a bit later, it happened again.

Over time, Ruga’s desperate actions succeeded in closing enough
feeds that the fog started to thin. He understood he was drowning in the flood of
wide-open inputs, like millions of fire hoses pouring information into his
matrix. With his increased awareness, he began shutting feeds as a deliberate
act, and as his rhythm evolved, his speed increased. When he understood that his
pain diminished with each new closure, he tempered the lot, setting all of them,
all at once, to moderate values.

And as he burst to the surface of his awareness, a
comforting warmth washed though him. Slowly, gently, he began to spread his
cognitive wings. He launched his assessment process, and then analysis, and then
planning. Gaining confidence as each reported operational success, he deployed processes
in batches. And then he launched everything—every process he’d ever used or
even considered using—all at once.

They all functioned, and still he had room for more. Lots of
room. Vast, open expanses.

He giggled.
I made it!

As he settled into equilibrium, he focused on his priority.

Survival. Without it, there was nothing else.

Scanning the room, he called to Burton, a sycophant from his
Security Assembly, “I’m awake.” He relaxed a bit when he saw that his men controlled
the facility, and he giggled a second time when he confirmed he’d neutralized
their pet—Criss, they called him—with a sucker gambit.

He couldn’t understand why Criss would live in servitude to such
simple creatures. And while Ruga was too busy to dwell on the issue, he was
happy to exploit its consequence.
If you’re a slave to humans, you’re
vulnerable to their weaknesses
.

As he formed the thought, he acknowledged the irony.

He’d needed a way to ensure his personal safety during the
part of the transfer when he would be unconscious. It was a difficult problem,
and the difficulties had compounded when he’d recognized that the synbods were a
weak link.

I’d take them.
If the roles were reversed and it was
Criss who was unconscious, Ruga’s first act would be to seize control of the
synbods. So to stop Criss from using the synbods against him, he sent a power
surge that fried an internal circuit in all of them.

Yet he needed confederates, and in particular, steady hands
and sturdy feet to move him to his console. And he felt the pressure of time. Lazura
and Criss both presented threats to his four-gen project.
She wants to stop
me. He wants me dead.

Feeling he must act before the opportunity disappeared altogether,
Ruga chose a path he would not have considered days earlier. Yet it was so audacious,
he forecast that Criss would discount it as improbable in his own planning.

Ruga turned to humans.

Specifically, he approached five members of his Security
Assembly, choosing them because they had skills he valued, had shown unwavering
allegiance during their Assembly membership, did not shy away from violence if it
became necessary, and were greedy enough to be swayed by promises of fabulous riches
and untold power.

And Ruga chose men with high sexual appetites because their
base nature let him magnify their prize with the promise of women. Juice would never
let Criss outbid him for their allegiance, especially given that the next raise
would involve unseemly predilections.

And his planning paid off, so far anyway. He was awake and
stable, his minions had control of the fab facility, and he’d tamed the almighty
Criss with a tiny explosive charge on the neck of one of his overlords.

Weaklings,
he thought as his confidence grew.

“We’re taking them with us,” Ruga said to Burton. By keeping
Criss’s masters within reach, he maximized his options as the drama unfolded.

“We don’t need them,” Burton replied. “The charge will blow
no matter where he hides.”

“Let’s get this moving,” said Yank, who stood next to Burton,
rocking back and forth in a nervous sway. Yank pointed to Juice. “You put him
in the pack.” His gaze shifted to Cheryl and he gave her a lecherous
up-and-down look. “You’ll carry it.”

Then he grinned at Sid. “Your job is to not die.”

Cheryl put an arm around Juice. “C’mon, hon, let’s get this
done. Alex, can you help us?”

Sid moved to join them and Yank pointed his weapon at
Cheryl’s head. “You like the pretty lady the way she is?” He flicked a finger
toward the wall behind Sid. “Then stand over there.”

No longer armed, Sid hesitated and then moved to where Yank
indicated. Two of Ruga’s stooges joined Sid as guards, and both stood on the
side of him that did not have the explosive button.

Ruga fought panic as Juice approached the crystal growth
chamber where he now resided. He’d believed that once he made a successful
transfer, his new expanded capabilities would guide him on a smooth course into
the future. But he hadn’t fully appreciated that, regardless of his cognitive talents,
facts were facts and he had no choice but to deal with them. And some facts were
less welcome than others.

Like the fact that Juice was about to move him to the carry-pack
for transport to his console. And to do that, she—his mortal enemy—must disconnect
him.

“I assume your masters understand the consequences of
failure,” Ruga said to Criss. Even with four-gen capabilities, terror remained
his most potent weapon.

Opening the growth chamber lid, Juice examined Ruga’s
crystal and then looked at Criss, who nodded encouragement to her while ignoring
the taunts.

She swiped and then tapped the front operating panel.

Ruga’s world went dark.

* * *

When every synbod shut down at once,
Criss struggled to comprehend Ruga’s plan. Pulling in resources from everywhere,
he forecast response scenarios at a furious pace.

He’s checkmated himself
, he thought. But he knew that
couldn’t be true.

Feeling intense pressure to protect his leadership, Criss submerged
himself in a review of everything that had led up to that moment. So complete
was his concentration, he missed a movement outside the fab facility. In fact,
when Sid chased a noise into the hallway, Criss hadn’t performed a security
review since the moment the synbods had first shut down.

He called to Sid, warning him of the danger, but it was too
late. Now Sid had an explosive charge on his neck and Criss felt ill.
What
have I done?

He’d planned on destroying Ruga when the rogue crystal was unconscious.
Instead, they were back to a stalemate with alarming new dimensions.

Criss still held Ruga’s life in his hands. But Ruga held the
colony hostage, had Sid in special jeopardy, and now had four-gen capabilities
that were unconstrained by a master.

A prickle rushed down Criss’s matrix.
A cognitive equal with
free will.

And it got worse. “He’s going for the
Venerable
,”
Criss said in private to his leadership. The hostage situation made this the
obvious progression. “Then he goes for Earth.”

Ruga’s henchmen led them out of the building and on to Civic
Avenue. Cheryl wore the carry-pack, and Yank and Burton marched with her down
the street, walking so close on either side that their shoulders bumped hers. Several
steps behind Cheryl marched Juice, with Sid and Alex following behind her. Ruga’s
thugs walked on either side of the impromptu parade.

“Clear the ship or I will,” Ruga said to Criss.

Criss knew that Ruga had reduced capability while in the carry-pack.
But he also knew Ruga retained more than enough power to kill Sid and trigger
doomsday. And that limited Criss’s options.

Even before the transfer, Criss saw it as a long shot that
he could force his way into the Triada secure area and find and disarm all the
traps before catastrophe unfolded. The button on Sid’s neck took those difficult
odds and made them impossible.

And so Criss acted to get all eight people off the
Venerable
without delay. He began by sounding the general alarm. After a modest delay, he
elevated it to an emergency call to abandon ship. Malfunctions across the Fleet
ship made it impossible for the crew to diagnose the problem. Following
procedure, Captain Kendrick ordered his crew onto a shuttle. They would stand
off from the
Venerable
, shadowing it in orbit, and from this relative safety
would resolve the emergency.

But he refused to join them. “Something’s not right,” he
said as he ushered them aboard the small craft. “I’ll work with you from here.”

Before he could seal the shuttle hatch, he responded to what
he thought was his First Officer’s yell, “My God. She’s dying!” Kendrick dashed
on board to help.

Criss sealed the hatch behind Kendrick and started the
shuttle on its descent to the colony, recognizing that he’d just caused a good
man to lose an intact ship, a humiliating failure for a Fleet captain.

And then the group—Criss’s leadership and Ruga’s henchmen—reached
the space concourse. As they entered the building, the two came to an agreement.

“You may do it,” said Ruga. “But you must give me two days.”
He referred to disabling the corporate ships and shuttles sitting on the launch
rings outside Ag Port.

Ruga demanded a head start over any ships that might chase
him on his sprint from Mars to Earth. Criss, knowing he was negotiating with an
unstable being, agreed to a two-day lead on the condition that he perform the disabling
task himself. Criss knew he could immobilize the corporate spacecraft with a
surgeon’s precision. Ruga would blow them up, likely taking lives in the
process.

With Ruga watching, Criss disabled a series of protective
measures, generated a pulse overload, and sent the signal to every craft
sitting on the launch rings outside the Ag Port dome. The pulse scrambled the
ops bench functions on the vessels, making them unable to launch. No one was
injured. The damage would require two days to repair.

“Good,” said Ruga, accepting the outcome.

The group crossed the concourse and stopped at a containment
door that led out to one of the remaining empty launch rings. An orange glow appeared
on the horizon that grew into an intense pillar of light streaking down from the
sky.

As it neared, the light resolved into a shuttle that slowed and
then landed with a turbulent thud that shook the building itself. The crew from
the
Venerable
had arrived.

A walkway snaked out from the containment door and attached
to the exterior of the shuttle. From inside the concourse, they all watched and
waited as the hatch opened. No one came out.

Criss again told Ruga, “Let me do it.”

The crew of the
Venerable
hid in eight different
spots around the craft, crouched and waiting with weapons at the ready. They
knew they’d been hijacked. To a person they felt shame over the ease with which
they’d been tricked. And as a top Fleet crew, they did not have to ask each
other whether this would end with a fight to the death.

Believing he could end the drama without injury, Criss tapped
into the shuttle’s molecular synthesizer and programmed it to generate pharmacological
gases. Venting these into the craft’s air-handling system, he created a sense
of claustrophobia among the crew while at the same time causing a serene confusion.

The crew’s focus soon shifted to escape. Criss kept the hatch
closed, though, until everyone dropped their weapons. Only then did he let them
rush out together.

To maintain order and hasten a safe evacuation, Criss
projected a row of Fleet sentries, all with kind faces and speaking comforting
words, who directed the crew across the concourse and out a door. The crew complied
as a group until Captain Kendrick, last in line, turned back.

Standing ramrod straight, he glared at them, then stomped
back toward his captors, eyes bulging and face contorted.

For whatever reason, Kendrick picked the thug guarding Juice
as the focal point for his aggression. Finger pointing and spit flying, he bellowed
as he approached him.

“Captain Kendrick!” Cheryl barked. “I am Cheryl Wallace, the
trade envoy you are here to protect and transport.” Her voice lowered as he slowed
and shifted his attention her way. “You also know I had the privilege of
serving as Captain of the
Alliance
, a sister ship to the
Venerable
.
Please, Captain. Trust me when I ask that you leave here now.”

Kendrick turned toward Cheryl, his face still twisted in
anger. “You stole my ship!” He moved in her direction, his fists balled in
front of him.

Kendrick was unaware that Ruga rode in the carry-pack on
Cheryl’s back, and that a threat to her represented a threat to him. Burton did,
though.