Opus X Series Boxed Set Three

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

General Aaron stepped through a door into a cramped, dark room filled with technicians and researchers sitting at separate desks lining the wall.

The workers tapped on virtual keyboards and data windows. Some of the busy men and women had as many as ten windows open. Upon first inspection, the scene resembled nothing more unusual than a group of men and women staring at numbers and graphs.

It could have been a group of normal scientists, even accountants, but he understood the true meaning. These weren’t mere researchers. These men and women were working on ensuring the dominance and safety of the human race in the coming decades and centuries.

The general had spent his career as a military man, but he respected the scientists and engineers behind the technology that gave his soldiers their lethal edge in combat.

He remembered well how everything had changed after the first encounters with the Zitarks.

Even if the Navigator artifacts had proved humanity wasn’t the only intelligent species in the universe, that wasn’t the same as running into a living, breathing species—especially a race with more advanced technology in some areas.

As a teenager, he’d understood the implications of that first contact. Humanity’s destiny no longer lay in filling the galaxy. Other species had claimed dominion over star systems, and they weren’t about to roll over because the UTC wanted more resources.

Later revelations that the Leems had been to Earth earlier in Earth’s history only fueled the concerns he had. How could humans win against races who had head starts of decades, if not centuries?

How? By taking risks.

A flicker of motion caught his eye. When he looked over, he caught Doctor Talz’s weathered face staring at him from inside an office. “I didn’t expect to see you today, General.”

Aaron frowned. “I’ve found that putting in an appearance can be motivational, especially for projects that are behind schedule. We’re well behind on multiple fronts. I won’t bore you by stressing the importance of your work, but we need results, and unfortunately, we need them yesterday.”

Doctor Talz nodded. “I understand that you’re frustrated, General, but things are proceeding well. We’ve had good results despite those earlier setbacks.”

The general scoffed. “Those earlier setbacks involved the destruction of billions of credits’ worth of Defense Directorate assets.”

Doctor Talz waved a hand dismissively. “This project’s success is no longer a matter of doubt. It’s when, not if. While I understand your frustration, we’re in a better position right now than we have been in the past, and that isn’t just because we learned a few new secrets. No, our end of it will be ready when the main ship is ready. I guarantee that.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.” General Aaron strode toward the researcher. “Especially when we’re on the ninth version of the prototype jump drive. I should have never authorized construction of the main ship.”

“We needed a little more time, general.” Doctor Talz motioned around the room. “Some of the best minds in the UTC are working on this. Developing new technologies is always going to involve unexpected roadblocks.”

“A tool that stays a prototype forever is useless.” The general narrowed his eyes, the corner of his mouth curling into a frown. “I can’t tell you how many advances in technology researchers have paraded before me over the years that didn’t go anywhere. I understand your difficulties, Doctor, but I don’t want promises. I want results. Humanity needs results.”

“We’re pushing science beyond anything humanity has ever known. Hell, beyond what any other currently living race in the galaxy knows. For all we understand, we might be going beyond what the Navigators knew.” Doctor Talz smiled, an infuriatingly thoughtful look following. “And we don’t have Navigators around to help us understand any of this. We might be behind schedule, General, but the important point I’m trying to make is, we are not stalled. I have never lied to you. The drive will be ready for more extensive testing pretty soon, at least on our end. It should be ready for installation at that time.”

General Aaron’s nostrils flared. He hadn’t missed all of the implicit ifs in the other man’s response. The subtlest of qualifications were often the most damning.

“At least on your end, Doctor?” The general took a step forward, looming over the researcher. “Be specific about what you mean by that stipulation.”

Doctor Talz sighed. “The navigation system, as always, is one of the main limitations. The jump drive works in simulations and basic tests. It’s stable, but I can’t do anything about the navigation system. It’s a simple matter of full installation and then secondary testing. Assuming the ship is completed on schedule, the navigation system becomes the rate-determining step. That said, I’ve been in continuous communication with the team lead on that project, and she has given me her assurances.”

“Ilse Aber says a lot of things, but they’re not always true,” General Aaron growled. “It always comes back to her. She acts like this is nothing more than a fascinating science project for her to play around with when she should be doing her damned job.”

General Aaron would have loved to kick her off the project, but removing a project lead so far along would kill what little momentum remained in the project.

Her subordinates weren’t incompetent, but they lacked her vision and range of skills and knowledge. She hadn’t ended up being the lead on the AI navigation project by chance.

“From what I understand from Doctor Aber,” Doctor Talz’s confidence slipped from his face, “the navigational system components will be stabilized. I don’t know what she said to you, but she seemed to think it’d be soon as well.”

“There’s an unusual situation with the navigation system.” General Aaron furrowed his brow and looked away, his jaw tight. Talz didn’t need to know that Emma was riding shotgun with two ex-cops now playing at being ghosts for the Intelligence Directorate. Aber’s test results proved the AI had improved rapidly outside the lab.

In fact, well beyond anything anyone expected. The general half-wondered if Aber had been responsible for Emma being stolen, but the investigations hadn’t pointed that way.

He hated to think that a criminal conspiracy had inadvertently helped the project. It’d probably be the only good thing they’d ever done for the United Terran Confederation.

“I’m sure Doctor Aber can handle any irregularities.” Doctor Talz put a smile on his face, projecting confidence.

Aaron eyed him. Well, at least he tried for confidence.

“We can hope, but we don’t have a backup plan.” General Aaron focused on a nearby data window displaying a hyperspace transfer point diagram for the systems surrounding the Solar System. “Blind luck led to this project. Blind luck has helped it advance, and now blind luck might screw us and waste all our efforts.” He moved an eyebrow up in question. “Unless you have some method of navigating that doesn’t rely on Aber’s project?”

Doctor Talz shook his head. “We’ve tried, but you’ve seen the early results. We’ve made the effort, but attempting a jump without the navigation system is going to end in failure and loss. We wouldn’t be up to prototype nine if that weren’t the case. There might be some fundamental physics we can manipulate to make the navigational process safer, but honestly, we’re talking decades. You’ve seen the same simulations and test results I have. We need that AI for anything other than the most short-range of test jumps.”

“Then we circle back to Aber.” General Aaron took a breath, resignation settling in. “If she fails, we’ve spent billions of credits for nothing more than a fancy fireworks show and a rude AI who can’t take orders.”

“As I said, she’s given me—”

A loud alarm sounded. Red warning text flashed across the data windows in the room, and General Aaron’s PNIU buzzed with an emergency call.

He tapped to answer. “What the hell is going on?”

“Sir,” replied a soldier over the line, “the facility is under attack. Multiple full-conversion cyborgs. We don’t know how they got in. Parts of the security grid have been disabled. We’ve lost communication with squads near the main entrance.”

“Damn it.” He spat a curse to the side that Talz missed. “It’s like they knew.” General Aaron gritted his teeth. “Defense alert epsilon is authorized. Terminate all intruders with extreme prejudice. If it’s who we think it is, it’s not like we’ll take any of them alive. Do what you need to do. I want those Tin Men slagged.”

“Yes, sir.”

The general turned toward the roomful of scared faces staring at him and squared his shoulders. “This facility is under attack by a terrorist organization. We have every reason to believe they are here to kill the researchers and steal the accompanying data. They will likely destroy the prototype or steal the hyperspace tuner. In a moment, I will leave this room, and it will be sealed until such time as I or someone with equivalent authority unseals it. Those bastards won’t be able to get in here. My soldiers will eliminate the terrorists. You sit tight. You’re all too valuable to die.”

He bit off the “Congratulations” he had wanted to throw into his message.

Murmurs swept the room as the researchers voiced their worries to those nearby. They all knew they were working on a highly classified project, but most didn’t understand what type of terrorists might target them. The general didn’t feel the need to elaborate for the room. If the soldiers guarding the facility didn’t fight the enemy off, the researchers would all be dead and wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

He didn’t need more intel to know who was attacking. The only organization that could infiltrate the lab with an army of full-conversion cyborgs wouldn’t be put off by a sealed door.

Two choices and they both seemed to be spelled the same. It was either Talos or Talos.

Doctor Talz swallowed and moved closer to whisper, “Are you considering an omega-level response?” As project head, he was one of the few with complete knowledge of the possible threats.

General Aaron nodded slowly. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “It’s Talos, Doctor. We can’t let this technology fall into their hands before we’ve worked it out. Someone f****d up big-time. If it makes you feel any better, if I go that far, I’m going down with you.”

“I see.” Doctor Talz’s shoulders slumped. “That doesn’t make me feel better. I’d rather not die.”

“Everyone would rather not die, but somehow, they always do in the end.” General Aaron headed for the door. “Some of the best soldiers in the UTC are guarding this facility. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to an omega-level response.”

“What about reinforcements?” His hands shaking, Doctor Talz swallowed.

General Aaron nodded. “The alarm went off, so this facility isn’t totally compromised. That means reinforcements are on their way, but the enemy is here now. It’s my job to make sure we hold them until more of our soldiers arrive.”

Lieutenant Deler sent up a silent prayer to protect him from the evil before him.

The monsters weren’t even bothering hiding what they were. A Tin Man leapt on top of a soldier and sliced his head off with a huge blade protruding from an arm.

The cyborg didn’t wear any clothes, content to display his entire smooth silver and gray artificial body. Even his head was covered, the eyes red and inhuman. The enemy was more like a metallic skeleton than a man, but even a skeleton had a mouth.

Despite the situation, the lieutenant found himself wondering if the Tin Men ate, or if they just stuck an IV into a port somewhere to feed what was left of their bodies. There was nothing more disgusting than a man who willingly gave up his humanity.

The lieutenant ejected his magazine and slammed in new rounds. They’d expected cyborg trouble, and they’d prepared armor-piercing rounds. He brought up his rifle and aimed at the Tin Man’s head. The cyborg snapped his head in the lieutenant’s direction.

“You will die here,” the Tin Man announced, his voice hollow and sounding like it came from his chest rather than his head.

“Not before you, asshole.” The lieutenant fired a burst. The Tin Man jerked back under the assault, his armored skull facing the fury of the specialty rounds.

Regular bullets had scratched and dented him, but these rounds dug deep holes. Metal organs had replaced flesh and blood, but they didn’t react any better to having bullets rip through them.

Nearby soldiers concentrated their fire, riddling the enemy’s head with bullets. The Tin Man collapsed to the ground, blue fluid seeping from his wounds.

Dammit, Deler thought, he wasn’t even human enough to bleed the right color.

The lieutenant couldn’t smile at his victory. Two Tin Men now lay dead in the narrow corridor, but nine soldiers had paid the price for taking them down. They still didn’t know how many had infiltrated the facility. Every member of the security detail had received briefings about potential attacks by full-conversion cyborgs attached to a terrorist organization, but the lieutenant had always thought that was the brass covering their asses, especially since they didn’t want to give full details on the alleged organization.

Even with two dead Tin Men in front of him, the lieutenant was having trouble believing it. Only the most reckless men would submit to something like that. A man didn’t need to be a staunch Purist to find that disgusting.

“Where are the damned bots? They should at least be distracting these things.” Lieutenant Deler frowned. “Alpha Squad switch everything over to AP rounds and use those until you run out.” He turned toward a staff sergeant. “After you stabilize Lieutenant Harris, what’s left of Beta Squad, come with me.”

A staff sergeant knelt by one of the downed soldiers and put his fingers on the man’s neck. “Stabilizing Lieutenant Harris won’t be necessary, Lieutenant.” The sergeant stood and stomped over to one of the still-twitching Tin Men. He emptied his magazine into its head. “You monstrous piece of shit.”

“Don’t do it, sergeant,” the lieutenant shouted.

“Why? That thing killed our people!” The sergeant glowered at Lieutenant.

The lieutenant patted his rifle. “Don’t do it because you’re wasting ammo. We’re not done recycling these tin cans.”

“Understood, sir.” The sergeant kicked the body. “Inhuman bastards. They better not bury them alongside actual humans.”

“They need to be dead before we can bury them. Let’s get to finishing them off.” Lieutenant Deler motioned for the survivors to advance. At the start of the invasion, the security system had sent them maps with target markers identifying the hostiles, but he’d lost that and comm a couple minutes before. Hacking a top-end military research facility was more frightening to him than fighting an enemy that had given up their humanity.

“Follow training,” the lieutenant announced. “Slap medpatches on anyone on our side still alive, but we keep moving and continue sweeping corridors until comm is restored. We finish these off, then connect with the other squads. We need to show these wannabe robots what a real flesh-and-blood human can do.” He gestured at the dead soldiers. “Avenge our fallen!”

“Yes, sir!” the soldiers shouted.

Gunfire echoed around the facility as the lieutenant led the soldiers through the hallways and swept rooms one by one.

Every new shot filled Lieutenant Deler with hope because he recognized the sound. It was the distinctive noise of their standard-issue TR-43 assault rifle.

The Tin Men they’d fought earlier hadn’t fired weapons, relying instead on blades and claws like they were metal animals. Talos might have disrupted their command and control, but that couldn’t change that Lieutenant Deler and the men and women with him were trained soldiers.

The enemy would pay for daring to show their faces in front of the UTC Army.

Lieutenant Deler threw up a hand, signaling his soldiers to stop. They were closing in on the cafeteria, and the doors stood open. Two soldiers lay face-down in a pool of blood near the door, one missing his head. Another soldier was in one piece, but the holes in the back of her tactical vest made it clear she’d been stabbed to death. The lieutenant narrowed his eyes at the vest. They could take high-velocity rifle rounds, but the cyborgs were stabbing through them like they were paper. “Monster” was an insufficient description of what they were fighting.

The soldiers crept toward the cafeteria, guns at the ready. The lieutenant lifted his arm and held it. He dropped it, and they rushed inside, ready to shoot any cyborgs they found.

Gasps erupted from the hardened soldiers.

The mangled bodies weren’t the reason. They’d been expecting those. If they’d run into more cyborgs, they wouldn’t have been as shocked, but no one expected the evil to be standing in the center of the cafeteria.

No one had been briefed about the possibility of such a thing. It wasn’t a Tin Man. Calling it a man of any kind was a mockery of the word.

The new threat shared similar coloring with the other cyborgs the soldiers faced, but its humanoid upper body was connected to a wide metallic lower body with eight legs. The monstrous cyborg had six upper arms that ended in blood-soaked talons. This monster at least had the decency to have a mouth, although it was filled with shiny silver fangs.

It reminded him of a grinning metal skull. Lieutenant Deler’s heart thundered, and his stomach tightened.

How the hell does something like that not suffer from Cybernetic Psychosis Syndrome?

Maybe it did, and that was the point. The kind of people who would change a human into a twisted metal monster probably didn’t care if the guinea pig remained sane at the end. The Tin Spider growled, the sound both bestial and metallic at the same time. It scuttled toward the doors.

“Kill that freak!” the lieutenant bellowed.

A hail of bullets enveloped the Tin Spider. Red blood and blue fluid splattered from its new wounds, but it didn’t stop its advance. The monster barreled into the squad’s front line. It backhanded the lieutenant, sending him flying into the wall. He slammed hard and slid down, groaning.

The Tin Spider’s claws shredded the staff sergeant’s vest and soon found his chest.

The proud NCO continued firing until the end and managed to sever one of the arms before he coughed up blood, and his head lolled back as he felt the stab in his chest. The Tin Spider tossed him into another soldier with a growl.

The back of his head throbbed as warm blood dripped down his throat. Lieutenant Deler blinked his eyes, trying to stay conscious. He could hear the beat of his heart and the muted screams of his people as more soldiers fell to the monster. Time slowed.

He tasted iron from the blood coating his mouth

That damned abomination was filled with holes and had lost limbs, but it kept crushing, slicing, and ripping into the humans. Slowly their guns fell silent, and an awful, horrible sound erupted from the cyborg. Not a scream or a yell, Deler thought, but a mocking, hollow laugh.

“You son of a b***h,” Lieutenant Deler spat, blood accompanying the admonition. “You’re not even alive anymore, you twisted freak.”

The Tin Spider turned slowly to face him.

“The inferior fall before the superior. Such is the way of nature, Lieutenant. We simply speed the process along.” Its voice was hollow, inhuman. The lieutenant couldn’t tell if it’d once been a man or a woman.

He decided it didn’t matter in the end.

The lieutenant kept his gun pointed at the creature with his right hand as he slowly reached toward a plasma grenade hanging from his belt with his left. “You’re a twisted mess. You call that being superior? You’re not good for anything but killing.”

“An interesting insult, coming from a soldier. A role created to kill.”

“I’m not just a killer, you fu—” Deler coughed up more blood, spitting it to the side.

“Names are what you have left to lob at me? I remain superior.” The Tin Spider walked toward him, raising one of its two remaining arms. “I have killed dozens of your precious organic-based soldiers. Is that not proof of your inferiority? I see the fear and frustration in your eyes. It’s because you know that you’re about to die to a lowly tin man.”

“Yes, I’m about to die, but there’s one good thing about all this.” The lieutenant grinned.

“You get to meet your Maker?”

“No. Since you’re talking, that means you’re intelligent.” The lieutenant primed the grenade and forced himself to his feet, the rifle slowly slipping out of his grip and clanging to the ground. “Which means you can feel fear too, bastard.”

“Perhaps,” the creature admitted. “But I don’t fear weak, soft opponents.”

“Then fear your own death.” The lieutenant started his slow, painful jog toward the Tin Spider, wishing he had the strength to yell.

“Pitiful.” It impaled the lieutenant’s legs with its talons and lifted him, smiling as Deler screamed in agony. “Futile. Pathetic. Pointless.”

Deler’s mouth twisted in agony to a morose version of the cybernetic creature’s own. “Enjoy hell,” the lieutenant hissed as he opened his hand and revealed the truth.

The grenade exploded, and in the brief moment before he was incinerated, Lieutenant Deler took pleasure in what he saw on the face of the monster: its bestial visage twisted in fear.