The Value of a Name: Part 2
16 Sep 2016Cartlidge1000
I was glad that I had the foresight to fit the Paladin with a cargo bay, or least a small one. This allowed me to use her for missions that involved only a small amount of cargo but carried a high risk factor. In this situation, it allowed me to do more than just sit around while the cryopod roughly a hundred meters in front of me slowly ran out of fuel. My first attempt at scooping the canister failed miserably as the large nose of my ship bumped it away. With beads of sweat now dripping down my face and knuckles white from holding the throttle a little too tightly, I managed to scoop up the pod on the second run.I probably should’ve just carried the pod back to the station, but curiosity had the better of me, so I made my way back to the cargo bay to see who I had rescued.
“Diagnostic scan at 50%” the ship’s AI announced as I stood in the corner of my cargo bay, half eaten ration bar in one hand, pistol in the other. Before I could flush the cryogenic fluids and revive the person, I had to be sure what kind of cryogenic method they had used, as well as the overall health of the individual. Once that was done, I’d simply have to hook up a coolant tube to the pod.
“Diagnostic scan complete. Error: No cryogenic solution found.” I stopped chewing as the AI’s monotone words bounced around in my head.
“No solution? Was there a leak detected?” I asked.
“No pressurization leak detected.”
“Is the patient alive?”
“Patient vitals are… normal. Patient physiological integrity is… critical. Cybernetics detected. Patient’s brain activity is… 216% Current status: conscious.”
“A cyborg?” I thought out loud, “what percentage of the patient’s body is cybernetic?”
“74.24%” the AI reported flatly, causing me to nearly choke on the half chewed bits of ration bar in my mouth. 74 percent?! That likely meant that only the vital organs remained original. In many parts of human space this level of augmentation wasn’t even legal.
“Give me a description” I asked. I wanted to be sure that the pod didn’t contain some horrible war machine developed in some less than reputable dictator system.
“Female. Age approximation: 23-27. Height approximation: 170.2cm. Weight approximation: 59kg. Visible prosthetics: Two ocular implants… one synthetic arm on the left side. Scars: multiple medical incisions covering neck, arms, legs, torso and head.”
“Well… there’s only one thing left to do then” I concluded. Once the door was sealed behind me I focused on a nearby access panel. “Open it.”
Two mechanical arms unfolded from the ceiling, grabbing hold of the pod. After a few twists the top of the pod came off, carried away by the arms. The woman inside blinked for a moment, as if surprised she had been freed. She stood up for a moment to survey the room. From the window in the cargo hatch I could see that her expression was entirely blank, as if she were deep in thought. Her hair was a vibrant red color, a rarity, assuming it was natural. Her eyes made no attempt to hide their mechanical nature, giving an almost neon green glow in the dim light of the cargo bay. She wore an enamel white jumpsuit, remarkably similar in design to my own pilot suit. Yet she was clearly not a pilot. In fact, she didn’t even seem to realize she was in space.
Not a moment after she noticed the door did she try to stand up and walk to it. This was a fruitless effort, however, as she immediately propelled herself upward. Unlike the average terrestrial during their first time in space she did not flail about in confusion. Rather, she froze for a brief moment, as if taking the time to realize what was happening. Just before her back made contact with the ceiling she twisted around and masterfully pushed herself towards the door, as if she had spent years in space.
“Having fun in there?” I shouted through the door, “Listen, I’m gonna need your name so I can tell the security service who they’re missing when we get back to the station.”
The woman looked at me for a moment through the window before shifting her attention to a small maintenance panel to her left. Shit. I had almost forgotten she was a cyborg. This was a cargo bay after all, not a brig.
“Hey! If you do anything to my ship I’ll put your sorry ass right back in that pod!” I shouted through the door. What was I doing? This was someone who had been cargo not too long ago and I was threatening them? No. There was something very wrong with this person. I had to get to the station to see if the other’s were having the same issues as I was. But at the same time I couldn’t just leave. Who knows what this woman could do to my ship.
Surprisingly she hesitated, as if the threat had actually caught her attention. The pause made me rather uncomfortable, but she finally relented, shifting her attention back to me.
“To answer your question, I do not have one” she finally spoke.
“What question?” I asked back. I had genuinely forgotten the question.
“My name. I do not have one” in the same breath she asked “are we in space?”
This conversation was getting weirder by the minute. I had figured the answer was obvious, but perhaps the girl had grown up without any influence from the galaxy around her.
“Yeah, we’re in a ship. Have you… ever heard of a Fer-de-Lance?” I replied. She thought for a moment, her eyes darting around the room.
“Fer-de-Lance. Manufactured by Zorgon Peterson and refined in a partnership Saud Kruger. A curious vessel designed to have a significant amount of firepower compared to its overall size, translating to one class four hardpoint on the underside and four class two hardpoints on the top. Or did you mean the snake species, by chance?”
I couldn’t reply. She hadn’t been fully aware of where she was, yet she gave a description of the ship as if it had been pulled out of a data bank. Perhaps it had been. Diagnostics had mentioned an excessively high level of brain activity. This likely meant that the woman’s neural implants were both well crafted and highly intrusive.
Either way, I had to let her out of the cargo bay. If the worst case scenario were to occur it would pose a significant issue if I were forced to eject while she was still in the cargo bay. Reluctantly I sighed and opened the door.
“Follow me.”
[part 2]