The Lost Aria (Earth Song Book 3) Read online

  “Comparative scans are complete. Damage to injured subject cannot be healed.”

  “What?” she barked and started to sit up. To her surprise, hoverfields gently held her in place. They were so subtle, she hadn't even felt them come on. “You have to fix him.”

  “Subject cannot be healed. Several nodes of the brain are gone, or substantially destroyed. Areas of the brain that are damaged are integral to some cognitive functions as well as social interaction, speech, and overlapping memory zones.”

  “What can you do for him?”

  “Subject can be placed in hyper sleep pending a qualified medical officer’s evaluation.”

  “There is no qualified medical officer; you are all we've got.”

  “Noted. Then the patient should be euthanized.”

  “No fucking way, she snarled. Hoverfield restraints or not, she was armed and more than willing to turn the entire shiny white bay into scrap metal if need be. “I said fix him.”

  “Request is outside the abilities of this medical intelligence.”

  “I don't care, improvise, and do whatever is necessary to fix him. I'm the commanding officer, and I order you to do whatever it takes.”

  The machine was quiet for what seemed like hours. Deep in the core of the ship in a forcefield reinforced, dualloy vessel sat the vessel’s collection of master processors. Fully uploaded and enabled, the separate processors were capable of incredible levels of autonomous action, but only a tiny corner of the vast capacity was occupied. The spaces where the ship’s battle mind would have lived were empty, as well as the ship’s system mind. The steward and medical intelligence programs considered each other and then the unorthodox orders they'd received from the new commanding officer.

  Healing the patient was out of the question. Yet the overriding protocol of the medical intelligence was to preserve its biological operators, at any cost. Was the patient salvageable? Yes. Did it have the necessary knowledge within the sub-species codex to heal the patient? Yes. Was it within its ability without a human medical operator to perform that healing? No. Yet it came back to the same issue again; its overriding protocol, and the commanders orders. A sort of decision was reached.

  “Subject cannot be healed, subject can be repaired. There will be some lasting effects.”

  Minu turned to look at the others. Through the window to the waiting area they all looked grief stricken, none more than Cherise. “What kind of lasting effects?” Cherise asked through the window.

  “Without a biological medical operator it is impossible to be certain. However once the repair is made, some fine tuning and modifications will be possible.”

  Minu took a deep breath and let it out. “Will he be able to function independently? Will he be a human or a machine?”

  “Subject’s higher brain functions are impaired, but intact. Eventual level of functionality depends on the perseverance of the subject, and its ability to adapt to the new modifications.”

  “Do it,” she ordered the machine. And with no fanfare new arms sporting tiny implements appeared. Almost invisibly thin beams of laser energy began cutting into Pip's head. Minu gasped and looked away, unable to watch. On the other side of the wall Cherise blanched and turned green. Only Bjorn watched with an unusual mixture of fascination and concern.

  “Shall your injuries be attended to now?”

  She'd almost forgotten about her own condition. “Sure, might as well.” Minu held up her half melted and nearly useless right arm. A scanning wand followed her movement, carefully examining the trashed cybernetic prosthesis. She was suddenly conscious that she was naked and more arms were examining her numerous burns. She puzzled through a slight fog wondering where her clothes had gone, turning her head she looked at her friends waiting expectantly on the other side of the moliplas barrier. Ted and Bjorn were watching the surgery underway on Pip's brain while Cherise did her best to only look at Minu, her face etched in concern. Aaron was just turning away, his cheeks colored bright red.

  As she glanced down and saw a pair of microscopic surgical lasers removing burned flesh from her right shoulder Minu finally realized she was under a very effective and subtle anesthetic. As she watched with a distant interest a pair of arms immobilized her cybernetic limb at the shoulder, and with a couple of quick movements detached it. Even under the anesthetic, she felt her bile rise as her melted arm was carried away. A minuscule poke in her bottom and the nausea was instantly gone.

  “Your cybernetic prosthetic does not match your biological codex, do you desire a more perfect match?”

  “Pink skin would be nice.” She thought for a second then spoke up again. “But keep the three fingers, I'm used to it.”

  Sensors were examining the connection points installed by the Chosen doctors and apparently found them satisfactory. “You will need to be unconscious to finish the treatments.” It wasn't a question, and in seconds she slid backwards into the darkness.

  Chapter 13

  January 14th, 522 AE

  Kaatan Class Cruiser, Firebase Enigma, Galactic Frontier

  As if seeing Minu suddenly naked wasn't hard enough on him, Aaron gasped as the automated medical systems started carving into her abdomen with a wild abandon, laying back skin and muscle like it was pages of a book. “What the fuck is it doing?”

  “Fixing an old injury,” Cherise almost whispered, “I wonder if she knew it was going to do that?”

  “What injury?”

  “The trials, remember? She was stabbed by Ivan?”

  “What!”

  Cherise made a choking sound and looked away. “Aw shit,” she said and smacked the heel of her right hand against her forehead. “Never mind, I shouldn't have said anything!”

  Aaron maneuvered around to be in front of her, leaning over to catch her eye. Despite her being a half meter taller than him, Aaron was one hundred seventy centimeters of solid muscle and he was hard to ignore. “Well you damn well said something, didn't you? Tell me what you are talking about,” he said, carefully enunciating each word of the last sentence so there was no doubt he was deadly serious. Ted and Bjorn were both watching them, Bjorn looking on with the same concern he'd worn since all this began. Cherise caught Bjorn's expression and did a double take.

  “I told her I wouldn't talk about it,” she said to him eventually.

  “God damn it, Cherise, I lo-” he stopped, his mouth getting caught on a word. “We've all been through hell and back together!” he changed tack, way too late. “We've bled together, cried together, watched friends die together. Cherise, you can't keep this from me.”

  “I didn't make the decision, she did. And until she decides to share it with anyone else, I'm not going to break that trust. I know more than she thinks I know, and I'll die before telling a single soul.” Aaron looked crestfallen and she changed to a whisper. “Even the man who loves her.” She looked over at Bjorn who nodded solemnly. Damn it, he knew! How was that possible? And how much did he know?

  “She's full of secrets,” Ted told Aaron, who was glowering at the wall, his jaw muscles working like banded steel. “She is the strongest woman I've ever known, maybe the strongest person period, especially considering her young age. She won't tell you until she's ready. But if you're as good of a...friend, as I suspect you are. She'll tell you.”

  Aaron sighed and turned back to see what was happening now. Robotic arms were attaching a new cybernetic prosthesis while at the same time the skin over her shoulder had been neatly peeled back like a shirt being opened. Additional arms where sliding something in under the muscle tissue. Aaron was in control of enough of his senses to marvel at the complete lack of blood. Not a drop anywhere. It took a moment for him to realize the new arm was the same color as her skin, but still with only three fingers. If he knew her half as well as he thought he did, that was a purposeful decision on her part. Another set of arms were working on her legs, though not nearly as intrusively. Taken as a whole, the object of his affections looked like a machine on an
assembly line he'd once seen at a Concordia made factory.

  Despite himself his eyes strayed to her perfect bosom, slowly rising and falling as she breathed. A nearly invisible line lay under her nose, supplying oxygen while the robots worked inside her abdomen. He took a deep breath and let it go in a sigh. How could I have let it go this far? I've loved her since the day I first saw her, and what have I done about it? Besides accidentally masturbating in front of her, absolutely nothing. Not even when she took up with that fucking prick Christian.

  “I need to make it right,” he whispered, “somehow, I need to try one time before it really is too late.”

  As Minu opened her eyes she came out from under the anesthesia faster than any time she remembered. And there were no after effects at all! It was more like waking up from a nice nap. She felt a tube being removed from under her nose and the tingle of the restraining hoverfield being released. “The procedures are complete,” the Medical Intelligence told her. She sat up, a slight uncomfortable twinge running through her abdomen and again across her shoulder. She looked down at the muscles of her stomach and was surprised to see the nasty scar was gone, replaced by a tiny pink line that ended just above the red tuft of her pubic hair. She felt the scar with her right hand, only then noticing the limb was repaired. After so many years, seeing perfectly matched pale pink skin was a bit of a shock. Only the three fingers were unchanged, other than that it could have been the arm she was born with. Looking up the arm to where it attached at the shoulder, another tiny pink line of skin surrounded the attachment point, and others radiated away up her shoulder and across her chest to just above her right breast.

  “What did you do to my abdomen and shoulder?”

  “Old, improperly repaired abdominal damage was found, and treated.”

  She ran a hand along the pink, nearly invisible scar that had been with her for so long now. Remembering that she was sitting there nude, she looked up to see all her friends looking expectantly. She gave a little wave and they all smiled back. A glance showed the robots were still digging in Pip's head so she quickly looked away. “The shoulder?”

  “The connection was sub-standard. Micro nanite installed dualloy reinforcements were added to your musculature and skeletal system, increasing speed of response by ten percent, and transferable strength enhancement by fifty percent.”

  Minu turned and put her legs over the side of the bed, then grimaced a bit. Just like her shoulder, her legs were covered in tiny pink traces of scar tissue. The computer anticipated her next question. “The artificial musculature replacements in your legs have likewise been improved with similar enhancement.”

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “They were damaged, and needed to be removed. You will find a new pair has been synthesized and is waiting on the small table to your side.” She looked and saw a brand new jumpsuit, black as the night sky, complete with three golden stars in a triangle on the cuff. She hopped down, her newly repaired legs functioning with even less discomfort than the arm, and got dressed quickly, feeling a little self-conscious which was not really like her. It felt unbelievable to be fully intact and healthy again, especially after being so messed up only minutes ago. Where the nasty burns had been now were just little patches of pink skin, looking almost like baby skin. And the arm felt even better than before. It had always felt a little bit different, some indefinable X factor that reminded her in the back of her mind that it wasn't really her arm. This new one was indiscernible from the real thing. She almost thought the medical intelligence had grown her a new biological one. “Does this limb have the same abilities as the old one?'

  “In addition to the previously mentioned improvement, the prosthetic you have been fitted with is superior to the old model in many ways, including additional mono-dualloy tubing installed into your skeletal structure as support. Lifting capacity is three times the old model, and general structural and epidermal toughness are five times the old model.”

  “Wow!” was all she could say. “How did you heal my wounds so quickly?” She ran a hand along one of the burns just under her left breast. Out of view behind the window, Aaron swallowed and looked away again. The skin felt a tiny bit sensitive, that was it.

  “A combination of fast growing dermal regeneration and metabolic quantum chronological distortion is utilized.” Minu looked over at Ted and Bjorn as she slipped her other arm into the jumpsuit and zipped it up.

  “It said it used a machine that speeds up your skin growth and another that alters time around the wound, or something like that.” Bjorn completed his explanation with a shrug.

  “I didn't think something like that was possible.”

  “Neither did we,” said Ted.

  Minu glanced at Pip then addressed the computer mind. “How long until Pip is...repaired?”

  “The procedure requires approximately another twenty four hours.”

  “Minu!” called Ted from the waiting room.

  “Yeah?”

  “The computer voice, haven't you noticed?”

  “What about it?”

  “Listen!”

  Minu looked up towards the ceiling. For some reason people always did that when a computer spoke, and she never understood it; even when she did it as well. “Computer, can I leave?”

  “You are sufficiently regenerated to depart,” it said and she tried to figure out what Ted was talking about, “some care should be taken with your abdominal and shoulder surgical closures.”

  “No monkey screeching,” she realized aloud. Ted nodded furiously. “Computer, how did you learn English?” The machine's English was effectively flawless.

  “The patient Pip's mind is linked through the medical intelligence, allowing access to your native language and idioms.”

  “He's conscious?”

  “Not on a level you can comprehend. Neural interfaces and cybernetic subprocessors are in place and we can interact with the mind you know as Pip, on certain levels.”

  “Um, sounds kinda scary.” The computer didn't respond so she stood and stretched. Another little twinge from her tummy and shoulder was about all she felt. Her gun and equipment belt were waiting on the table as well, so she strapped them on. It looked like the damned computer had cleaned and oiled the guns too! She walked to the waiting room, the door sliding open as she approached. Again that little tingle from head to toe as she walked out and the doorway disappeared behind her. Everyone instantly embraced her, laughing and crying. “I'm fine, good grief, you'd think I was dead!”

  “You didn't watch that thing digging into your guts like a holiday meal,” Cherise told her. Aaron looked at her, his expression so serious she was taken aback.

  “What is it?” she asked him.

  “I'll tell you later, when we have time.”

  “Okay,” she agreed and turned to address them all. “Since we have a while before Pip is done in there, we might as well find the driver’s seat and see if we can move this crate. I'm sure the snakes will be looking for us by now. Computer, please direct us to the bridge.”

  “Kaatan class vessels do not have bridges, in the traditional of your language.”

  “What do they have?” Ted asked.

  “Based on your terminology, it would be called a Combat Information Center, or CIC.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Minu said, and flashing green lines appeared on the floor just like before.

  As they followed the lines, Minu was beginning to develop a three dimensional image of the ship inside her head. The CIC was two decks down and farther inboard then the medical center, which put it about dead center of the big ball. Of course the ship had provided a few surprises already, and she could be completely wrong, but it seemed an ideal place to put the command center of a ship. Not on top or in the point like in many old movies or even the transfer shuttle Sally had piloted. She wondered, in that case, what was in the point? As the line terminated outside a very heavy dualloy door, it began to open and they got yet another surprise.

/>   The CIC was a sphere about ten meters across with no up or down. Unlike the rest of the ship there was no artificial gravity there. Minu felt the difference the moment she put a hand inside. “That's interesting,” she said and told the others what she'd found out. “Why would the ship designers do that?”

  “Ease of maneuverability,” Bjorn suggested.

  “Every wall space can be a display or a control,” Ted agreed with his colleague.

  “I can see it, as a pilot,” Aaron also added. “If all the walls can become displays, it would be like you were flying yourself, like a bird! I gotta give that a try!”

  “We might want to figure out where to put the key first,” said Bjorn.

  “Welcome to the CIC, Commander Minu Alma. The steward program would like to terminate now.”

  “Not so fast. How do we fly this crazy thing?”

  “There is no battle mind loaded. The vessel requires biological operators to function autonomously.”

  “Okay, well, let’s start small. How do we get out there?” Minu asked.

  “Just step out, it is simple. The principle is similar to a lift tube, or jump tube as you call them.”

  Minu swallowed and took a leap of faith. Besides, she figured the others could fish her out if she ended up stuck, spinning over and over in zero gravity. Her lead foot met resistance, just like stepping on a floor. She was so surprised to find a solid floor she almost stumbled and fell. When her following foot stepped in, it too found a seemingly solid floor. “Well, I'll be damned.” In addition to the floor, there was no gravity as well; variable floors and instantly responsive gravitic fields.

  “Let me try that,” Cherise smiled and stepped out. Soon they were all standing on thin air. Getting more assured, Minu took a couple of jogging steps. It was no effort at all, like literally walking on air.

  With experimentation, they found out they could change orientations by just 'walking up stairs', or down them. Like a surrealistic painting, you could walk upside down in only a few steps. In no time, they were all quickly becoming used to the strange environment. There was no up or down in there, except where you made it. Everyone except Aaron was a little queasy from the effect. As a natural pilot, it was all relative to him. “Are you ready to assume command, Minu Alma?”