A Learning Experience

Chapter Four

Fnfian Horde Warcruiser Shadow Warrior

Earth Orbit

Steve stared down at his younger brother, helplessly.

“What happened to him?”

“Subject overloaded the neural interface,” the interface informed him. As always, there was no trace of emotion in its tone. “Subject’s brain shut down to allow time to recover.”

“I… see,” Steve said. “Will there be any permanent damage?”

“Unknown,” the interface said. “Place the subject in a medical tube for a more detailed analysis.”

Steve listened to the instructions, then Charles and he carried Kevin’s body down to the sickbay and placed it inside a transparent tube. The sickbay wasn’t like anything he’d seen in real life; instead of beds, there were a dozen medical tubes, each one big enough to carry a human, but too small for a Hordesman. It might explain, he decided, why the sickbay looked far cleaner than the rest of the ship. The Horde had simply had no use for it. But if the alien medical technology was as advanced as the rest of the starship…

He shook his head as the medical tube went to work, scanning Kevin’s body. “Permanent damage averted, but there are minor feedback curves from the neural interface,” the system reported. Steve silently prayed the system was smart enough to realise it was operating on a human, rather than an individual from any other race. “Compensating… note; subject also has numerous genetic flaws that can be corrected, if requested.”

Steve frowned. “Genetic flaws?”

He listened, in some disbelief, to the explanation. Again, most of it was well above his head, but it was clear that there would be long-term problems for Kevin — and the rest of the family, if they weren’t handled. Kevin, in particular, was at risk of losing his sight in the very near future, something that bothered Steve more than he cared to admit. Death was one thing, permanent disability quite another. And then there were the whole string of suggested enhancements…

“He’ll never forgive you if you don’t give him a bigger cock,” Mongo commented. Charles had replaced him on guard duty once they’d moved Kevin to the sickbay. “Nor will his wife.”

Steve rolled his eyes. Sexual enhancements weren’t the only suggested possibilities. Kevin could be given enhanced strength, coordination and longevity — even intelligence — and remain roughly human. But he could also be turned into a cyborg. The suggestions ranged from implanted weapons to actually removing his brain and inserting it into a combat unit. He accessed the interface and saw a handful of images, then shuddered. If he’d had to face something like that on the battlefield…

“I think we’d better concentrate on repairing the mental damage,” he said, firmly. “Other enhancements can come later.”

He watched, feeling utterly out of his depth, as the alien autodoc went to work. It seemed much more efficient than any human doctor, although the potential of the system to do great ill as well as good chilled him to the bone. Moments after it started, Kevin’s body jerked and his eyes opened. Steve hastily opened the tube and welcomed him back to the world.

“Idiot,” he said. “What were you thinking?”

“I was downloading a considerable amount of data,” Kevin said. He paused, thoughtfully. “That’s interesting; I still seem to have the data.”

“Good,” Steve said, impatiently.

“And we may be in some trouble,” Kevin added. He clambered out of the tube, brushing the proffered hand aside. “The entire world may be in deep shit.”

He led the way back towards the bridge, seeming to find his way effortlessly through the alien corridors. Steve watched him carefully, wondering what else the alien system had done to him. Had it turned him into a spy? Or merely overloaded his head with data because it wasn’t bright enough to realise the danger?

“These guys” — he indicated the alien commander’s throne with his foot — “are scavengers.”

“I said that,” Steve objected.

“You were right,” Kevin agreed. He sat down on one of the uncomfortable chairs, then turned to face his brothers. “From what I have been able to determine, they literally know almost nothing about how their technology works; they didn’t build it, they can’t mend it and they certainly cannot duplicate it for themselves. They barely had fire when they were discovered by an elder race and brought into the galaxy.”

He shrugged. “They weren’t here to invade — at least, not yet,” he continued. “I think they wanted samples of humanity for their employers.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“This is where the speculation begins,” Kevin warned. “One race clearly took some humans from Earth years ago and turned them into slaves — no, cyborgs. Soldier cyborgs. These cyborgs have been hellishly effective. Our captors were employed, I suspect, to find humans who could be turned into other cyborgs.”

Mongo sucked in a breath, clearly remembering all the options for enhancing Kevin. “Do you think that was the fate they had in mind for us?”

“I believe so,” Kevin said. “Given enough samples of human DNA, they could simply clone as many human brains as they needed and then go on from there.”

He paused. “The problem is that, sooner or later, the other Hordesmen will realise this ship hasn’t reported back,” he explained. “And Earth might be targeted by their employers.”

“Shit,” Steve said. He looked down at his hands for a long moment, then back up at Kevin. “How long do we have?”

Kevin shrugged. “Unknown,” he said. “Travel time between star systems that don’t have gravity points…”

He stopped. “I…”

“Kevin,” Steve snapped. “What are you doing?”

“It’s weird,” Kevin said. He was hyperventilating between his words. “I didn’t know that and yet I did.”

He shook his head, brushing off their fears. “It might be a few months or it might be a year,” he said. “But we will run out of time.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “And I think we need to decide what to do with our ship.”

“And our prisoner,” Mongo said.

“Lock him in one of the cabins, then deactivate the computer terminal,” Kevin said. “He’ll be safe enough for now.”

Once the alien prisoner was securely locked away, they gathered again on the bridge.

“This is the situation,” Steve said. “We have a starship, we have a surprising amount of technology… and we have a desperate need to move quickly to protect Earth. The question is simple. How do we proceed?”

“We could call the government,” Charles pointed out. “They’d be needed to get behind this and push.”

“Hell, no,” Steve said. The sheer force of his reaction surprised even him. “Do you really want to give this ship and all of its technology to the government?”

Bitter memories welled up in his mind. He forced them down, savagely.

“There’s no way we can trust the current government to do the right thing,” he said. “The best we can hope for is that they will drop the ship into Area 51, give us all a pat on the ass and classify everything to the point where no one knows a thing about it. And then they will exploit it for petty political reasons while ignoring the looming threat from outer space.”

“Except for the fact there’s just four of us,” Charles said. “Five if you count the alien.”

“We have friends,” Steve reminded him. “Men and women who can be trusted to keep a secret and join us, people who would leap at the chance to escape the morass our country is becoming.”

“Or we could take over,” Kevin mused. “We have the technology to do it now.”

Steve shook his head. “I’m not interested in taking over the federal government,” he said, bitterly. “I’m interested in getting away from it. And in protecting my homeworld.”

He smiled, rapidly pulling together a plan. “We reach out to people we know and invite them to join us,” he said. “In the meantime, we start work on expanding our capabilities, unlocking the secrets of the alien technology and establishing a settlement on the moon.”

Kevin considered it. “We’ll need money,” he said. “Some of the tech would have to be sold.”

He paused. “You know we have four fabricators, right?”

Steve frowned. It had been mentioned, but he hadn’t had the time to follow up and work out what they actually did. He checked with the interface and discovered that they produced items according to saved specifications, provided enough raw materials were provided. That wouldn’t be a problem, he decided. All they had to do was start shovelling in material from the lunar surface.

“There are some limits,” Kevin said. “They cannot reproduce themselves, for example, nor can they produce certain kinds of technology. But there should be quite a few examples of tech we can sell… we’d just have to be very careful how we inserted it into Earth’s economic network. Something that appeared completely out of nowhere would raise eyebrows.”

“You’re in charge of finding something we can use,” Steve decided. “And of finding a way we can… insert our new technology without raising too many eyebrows.”

“There are thousands of possibilities,” Kevin offered. “I was going to suggest fusion power and computer technology. The former, in particular, should be very lucrative.”

“But would definitely attract government attention,” Charles said, softly. “Computer technology might pass under the radar for the moment.”

“Work on it,” Steve ordered. “What else do we need?”

“Food,” Mongo said, immediately. He snorted. “Food and human tech we can use on the moon.”

Steve gave Mongo a puzzled look, so he explained.

“The problem with getting into orbit is getting into orbit,” he said. “Getting something the size of the space shuttle into orbit costs a shitload of fuel. But we can bypass that problem with the shuttles we have, which will allow us to start using human technology on the moon without needing to place extra demands on our fabricators. Hell, we’ve had all the tech we needed to set up a lunar settlement for years. All we lacked was the ability to get there in the first place.”

“Fucking politicians,” Steve muttered.

“Tell me something,” Charles said. “Are we seriously considering setting up our own country?”

“Yes,” Steve said.

He wondered, briefly, if his friend — a natural conservative — thought they were moving too fast. But time was of the essence. Quite apart from the alien threat, they needed to be well-established before secrecy slipped… and he knew, from bitter experience, that nothing remained secret indefinitely. Missing people would be noticed, strange new technology would be noticed… all in all, eventually someone would put the pieces together and realise the truth. And, at that point, there would be trouble.

The federal government hated it when people tried to move outside its sphere of control, no matter the reason. It was incapable of leaving people alone, even if they weren’t causing trouble or doing anything more than keeping themselves to themselves. And the technology Steve and his buddies had lucked into would reshape the world. The federal government would want it, very badly,

And they’d really hate the idea of someone setting up an independent state on the moon.

He pushed the thought aside and looked at Charles. “I want the three of us to put our heads together and work out a list of people who might be suitable recruits for our new society,” he said. “Mainly military veterans, but feel free to add people who haven’t served, but might still be useful. Ideally, people more than a little disenchanted with the government.”

“Don’t go for anyone on active service,” Kevin offered, “Too much room for divided loyalties.”

“Understood,” Charles said. He held up a hand before Steve could say a word. “What do we do if someone turns down our offer? Because someone will, soon enough. Either because they don’t want to leave their comfortable homes or because they have patriotic objections to setting up on our own.”

Steve swallowed. The thought of killing someone who knew too much was sickening, yet they might not have a choice. Unless they intended to take prisoners…

He paused. “Could we wipe their minds?”

Kevin hesitated. “Perhaps,” he said. “But the techniques are unreliable.”

“We’ll deal with it when it happens,” Steve said. He knew he was pushing the problem back until they actually had to confront it, but he saw no alternative. “It depends on the exact situation.”

Charles gave him a knowing look, but said nothing. Instead, he changed the subject.

“You do realise we’ll need a constitution and everything, soon enough?”

“Soon,” Steve said. “Or maybe we could just crib the one we already have.”

“You’d better go chat to Mariko,” Mongo said. “And I should go chat to Jayne.”

Charles swore out loud. “And Vincent! What do we do about him?”

Steve felt a sudden spurt of hope. “Could the alien tech reanimate him?”

Kevin shook his head. “Not now his brain has been dead for too long,” he said. “But we could bury him on the moon.”

“Except someone would notice he was gone,” Steve said. Vincent hadn’t exactly been unpopular. His wife might not be expecting him back for another week, but she was expecting him. They’d have to tell her something, preferably the truth. “We can fake his death in an accident that wipes out all traces of anything… inhuman.”

“Have to be a pretty nasty accident,” Charles said.

“Vincent was always modifying those old cars of his,” Mongo reminded them. “It wouldn’t be too hard to rig one so it exploded, burning him to death and wiping out the evidence.”

“We could probably fix up his body too, a little,” Kevin added. “Or we could simply report that he disappeared on our camping trip.”

“Or we could simply disappear completely ourselves,” Steve mused. “Wives, children… all gone to space. Nothing left for anyone to find.”

He shook his head. “I want to speak to Mariko,” he said. It wasn’t fair to leave his partner out of it, particularly as she shared his disdain for the federal government. “But we should work out a list of likely contacts now, while we explore more of what this ship can do.”

It was nearly an hour before they had a list of forty possible names. The arguments waxed and waned over some of the more controversial additions; Kevin had wanted a handful of intelligence specialists to help go through the ship’s databanks, while Charles and Mongo wanted more Marines and Rangers respectively. There was a general agreement against head-hunting any of the USAF’s fighter jocks, but some heavy transport pilots — and CAS — specialists — would be very welcome. And then Charles had another brainwave.

“There’s always Ed,” he said. “The one with busted legs. What about him?”

Steve gave him a sharp look. Edward Romford had been badly wounded during the flare-up in Afghanistan and then, thanks to the VA’s incompetence, hadn’t received medical treatment in time to save his spine. He was currently permanently installed in a residence home near New York, trapped in a wheelchair that he hated. Steve liked Ed — they’d shared some fun times together — but it was hard to face him after he’d been permanently crippled. The sight of the wounded veteran was a reminder that Steve could have easily ended up just like him.

He smiled, slowly, as he realised what Charles meant. “We could save his legs, couldn’t we?”

“Or make him an enhanced soldier,” Kevin added. “Humanity’s very first cyborg.”

“Why not?” Steve asked. “You start working on a plan to get him out of the residence home without raising too many eyebrows.”

Kevin smirked. “Daring commando raid?”

“I was thinking more about offering to take him into the ranch,” Steve said, patiently.

“Or we could just beam him out of the residence,” Mongo offered. “Maybe give one of those bitch nurses a heart attack.”

“Something more subtle than that,” Steve said, warningly. He stood up. “Unless anyone has any objection, I intend to beam down and collect Vincent’s body, then proceed to the ranch and explain everything to Mariko.”

“No objections here,” Mongo said. “Just make sure you bring her up here before Jayne sees you. She’ll want to know what happened to me.”

Steve smirked. “I’ll tell her you’re several thousand light years away.”

“I hate you,” Mongo said, without heat. “And so will Jayne, if you don’t let me tell her first.”

Steve nodded and accessed the user interface. After what had happened to Kevin, he was reluctant to submerge himself in data; instead, he asked questions and listened carefully to the responses. The teleporter — he had to remind himself to stop thinking of it as a transporter — seemed to work along the basic Star Trek principles. It was just a little dodgy to use it without a proper matter buffer at one end of the teleport.

“Find a science-fiction author we can recruit,” he said, after losing himself in the technobabble once again. “Someone who speaks fluent Geek. Hell, we probably need someone to come to grips with just what combat in space actually entails.”

“I’ll find one,” Kevin promised. “Good luck, bro.”

“Just don’t let yourself be seen materialising,” Charles warned. “One of your kids might be sharp enough to realise he wasn’t seeing things.”

“They probably would,” Kevin agreed. “And think how much smarter they will be once neural interface technology enters the educational system. They’ll be able to imprint information into their minds.”

“Not with the teachers unions,” Charles commented.

“There won’t be any on the moon,” Steve said. He smiled as his dream unfolded in front of him. “It will be a land of individualists, with no collective responsibility for anything.”

“Really?” Charles asked. “Even defence?”

“It may take us a while to work out a political theory,” Steve admitted. “I’ll beam down now, folks. Have fun in my absence.”

“We’ll try not to crash the ship into an asteroid,” Mongo called.

Steve gave him a one-fingered gesture and walked out the hatch.