Page 2 of True As Steel

I reached out to my four Cyborg brethren, part of our pod. Through the closed network of our NNP—the neural net processor that allowed us to communicate and exchange tactical data—we agreed on our rendezvous point, should we manage to survive the explosion and escape the vessel. I hated that we had been split up, each of us jailed in different cells with random strangers. From my position, I couldn’t see any of them.

We wouldn’t be leaving here together as we were in completely different sections. A quick analysis of my current location suggested that the fastest route for me would be through the escape pods a couple of corridors from here. I wished I could have gotten to one of the vessels or shuttles instead. Escape pods essentially turned you into a sitting duck, hoping no pirate would tractor beam you in as a captive or blow you up just for fun.

I made eye contact with the only other Cyborg in my cell. He didn’t belong to my pod. Although everyone else considered us to be all the same, trust did not run rampant among us. After all, we were all simply individuals who had volunteered to become half human, half machine, each of us with our own motives, although the official one was to serve and protect the people of Kirs. I didn’t know him, but one glance sufficed for us to have an unspoken agreement. If we survived the initial explosion, we would work together to reach the closest exit.

Just as that thought crossed my mind, a deafening series of explosions rocked the vessel. The violent tremor knocked me to the ground. For a split second, the sharp pain at the back of my head made me think I’d been injured, but thankfully it wasn’t the case. Unfortunately, it took me a second to realize the passing of two of my pod brothers had triggered the hollowness I suddenly felt in our closed network. I immediately clamped down on the pain and sorrow that wanted to come to the fore and focused on my current situation.

Screams and shouts of agony rose above the roar of more explosions and the whining sound of tortured metal as the ship gradually fell apart. The energy fields that kept us trapped inside the cells started dropping one after the other. When ours fell, I didn’t hesitate and rushed out among the throng of prisoners who had also been freed. A wave of pity flitted through me at the sight of all the others yelling and begging for us to let them out as their energy fields still held. And yet, their downfall played in our favor as already far too many people packed the hallways, pushing and shoving at each other. Many were getting trampled underfoot in the mad stampede towards freedom.

In the distance ahead, another massive explosion caused at least a dozen cells in that entire section of the vessel to be severed and sucked out into space, taking with it close to a hundred souls. Energy fields immediately went up to seal these massive breaches and try to maintain the integrity of the dying ship. An eerie sense of doom washed over me as I passed so close to the void of space, with nothing but this thin wall of energy between us. It could collapse any minute, once the ship’s emergency system failed.

Up ahead, a group of people suddenly turned around to force their way back through the terrified crowd in the opposite direction, slowing everyone down. They were quickly taken down. But moments later, what they’d been attempting to flee became dreadfully obvious as an entire section of wall and massive beams collapsed onto the hallway, crushing too many souls to count. A few stopped to try and help friends or loved ones trapped under the debris. But they got shoved aside and their relatives trampled by those trying to flee.

A single female caught my attention. Tall, thin, with long obsidian hair, she hopped around the crisscrossed beams with the dexterity of a gymnast before doing a frontal flip to the other side. While others scrambled, shoving and elbowing to get first access to the easiest spots to climb, my fellow Cyborg and I used our superior strength to make our way through the toughest—but less crowded—spots.

However horrible this was, the collapse had actually helped us, thinning the herd to a trickle as they attempted to get past it. Instead of having to try and weave our way through the masses, we were finally able to break into a full run. Through the thick smoke, the acrid scent of burned material and flesh, the blaring siren, and the synthetic voice repeating in a loop to abandon ship, we sprinted towards the escape pod room.

As we ran down the last stretch of the corridor leading to it, I glanced ahead. Straight in front of us, through the large doorway, I spotted the black-haired female as she jumped into an open pod. However, before she even managed to close the door and shoot out into space, a man, who had been running behind her, violently struck her in the face. He yanked the woman out, throwing her onto the floor, then stepped inside her pod instead. The stunned female took a bad fall, knocking her head solidly on the floor and remained limp. This confirmed what I’d been fearing the whole time we’d been racing here: there weren’t enough pods for all the survivors.

But the man never got to shoot into space either. The ship abruptly tilted, sending everyone sliding down in the wrong direction. I barely managed to punch into a wall to make a deep enough dent to hang on to. The hit damaged my skin, sending a bit of pain through my hand. However, the hyperalloy compound that had been injected into my skeletal system when I became a Cyborg, had essentially turned my bones into metal.

Most of the people ahead of me slid down, failing to find anything to hold on to. The few who did sadly lacked the upper-body strength to hang on long enough or to propel themselves forward. Thankfully, the tilt didn’t last long, the ship soon recovering its horizontal position. But even before it did, I’d already been on the move.

For some reason, which defied logic, as I ran past the unconscious female—who had slid out of the room during the tilt and was now getting trampled by those trying to flee—I bent down and picked her up by her shirt before dashing to her pod that sat vacant again.

The wretched thing was incredibly small. Built like a flying coffin, these escape pods were meant for a single person lying down. On its own, my broad frame barely fit, but the unconscious female on top of me made it worse. One of the escapees made as if to try and yank us out, but a single look at my face taught him better. As I closed the door, I watched the other Cyborg move aside some debris in front of one of the few remaining pods and get inside.

I shot us out into space, eager to be away from the dying vessel. The escape pods were programmed to set a course for the closest allied planet with a sustainable atmosphere, while sending a distress signal to nearby ships. Except, those were Kirs—from which we’d just been banished—and the prison moon Tyurma—where I really didn’t want to land. I also especially did not want this vessel to broadcast my position. My four pod brothers and I had agreed to meet on Gorkon, a neutral, primitive planet at the edge of the Eridani Sector. Two of them had already perished in the explosion. But just as that thought crossed my mind, I felt a third presence vanish from our closed neural network.

My brother’s passing wasn’t a physical sensation, but more like an absence in the network. Only death or severe damage to the network itself could cause this. My heart ached as only Caylan remained. I prayed that the only person left in the world that I fully trusted would make it through.

However, as I began entering the coordinates to our rendezvous point, another massive explosion rocked what remained of the vessel. We weren’t far away enough from it. On top of being in the shockwave of the blast radius, debris came flying at us at dizzying speed. I watched helplessly as a large piece of twisted metal closed in on our pod.

Time appeared to slow down as various events of my life flashed through my mind’s eye while waiting for my impending death. I’d survived the excruciating transformation into a Cyborg, countless bloody battles to defend the people of Kirs, and done unspeakable things in the name of the emperor who had now turned on us. And this would be my end?

The force with which the debris struck us sent the escape pod into a tailspin. My teeth rattled in my head, the brutal impact jarring. I’d expected the reinforced glass door of the pod to shatter and for the freezing cold of space to turn the unconscious female and me into icicles. However, by some inexplicable luck, it held fast. Still, the navigation system, rudimentary though it was, lit up with warnings while the damaged escape vessel attempted to stabilize itself. Ironically enough, it took another piece of debris hitting us to help our pod achieve its goal and resume its course to safety.

“Caylan,”I called through our closed neural network.

“Are you safe, brother?”he answered.

“In a damaged escape pod. The navigation system is shot. It might take me longer to reach Gorkon, if I make it,”I replied.

“You better make it. We’re the last,”he answered.“I’m on a ves—”

Our mental link abruptly ended as a massive explosion in the distance obliterated what remained of the transport vessel. Whoever hadn’t made it out yet was gone. My heart leapt, fearing I had lost Caylan, too. However, I didn’t feel a void in our closed network. I wanted to believe he had simply gotten too far out of range for us to be able to remain connected.

Heaving a sigh, I looked back at the navigation system. I had no idea where the pod was taking us. The interface was blinking, strange symbols flashing all over it in scrambled text. For a moment, I considered trying to interface with it to attempt basic repairs. However, I decided against it for fear I might damage it more.

Instead, I turned my attention to the still unconscious female lying on top of me. That she had still not regained consciousness hinted at some potentially serious injury. She had struck her head extremely hard on the floor before getting trampled. However, the fact that she still managed to breathe fairly normally on her own gave me hope that she might make it.

With some painful maneuvering, I managed to access and open the side panel where they stashed the emergency med kit in this escape pod model. It didn’t contain much, only the bare minimum to give survivors a chance to hold on until rescue arrived. I retrieved one of the two hyposprays within and pressed it against the female’s neck. The nanobots within the injection would work on repairing most standard types of damage a person could sustain. If possible, it would handle whatever internal injury—including probably a severe concussion—the woman was suffering from.

Having done what I could for her, I began running internal diagnostics to assess what damage I had personally sustained during the escape. The nanobots, naturally present in my own blood since my transformation, were already hard at work. Aside from lethal injuries that could cause immediate death, anything else would be repaired.

I then closed my eyes and waited to see where the pod would take us.

Chapter 2

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