Page 53 of Bonded

“Well, it’s safe to assume that the captain knows something is wrong,” I said.

“Come, whatever we need to accomplish, we will do so together.” Ruzan swept me off my feet once more, carrying me aloft. Vryek followed carrying the box with the sleeping bot in hand.

We walked in amiable conversation joking how best to deliver bad news to a Dirsigian male that we didn’t want to upset. And then, a sharp pain in my side made me wince. At the same time, a deep, low tone rippled from the ship’s depths.

“What was that?” I asked through clenched teeth. The pain became a low throbbing that I swallowed down. No need to upset Ruzan and Vryek when there was a more immediate need.

“It’s the ship,” Vryek said. “It’s screaming again. Is it upset?”

A dull ache pulsed at my side. A pain that wasn’t quite mine. “I think it’s in pain. Come on, let’s get to the foredeck.”

With Ruzan carrying me, we were able to get there in quickly.

Captain Ithran stood at attention in the foredeck, gazing out of the viewing ports. “Pilots, what is happening to my ship?”

Ruzan finally allowed me to stand in front of the captain. I had to crane my neck up a little to meet his gaze. “Captain, the ship expressed its concerns to me. I believe a stowaway bot has made its way on board with the intention of sabotaging enough of the ship’s systems to shut down.” I gestured to the box that Vryek carried, and now placed onto the table for inspection.

Ithran nodded to the jacks on standby, who opened the box and seizing hold of the bot inside that was still dormant.

“This bot has been sabotaging many of the ship’s systems in an attempt to run it adrift, Captain.”

“In such a state, it would be vulnerable to attack,” he concluded. “But why do so? Aside from the fact that a Cephela vessel is highly regarded, there are easier ways ships to attack and harvest?”

The way he described it made me shudder. “I believe the internal sabotage is the minor arm of a two-prong attack. The main reason the ship was a target is to discover the precise location of its home base.”

Ithran’s central row of plaits turned a shockingly bright shade of red, especially in contrast to the rest of his dark hair and slate scales. “Inspect that bot. Track its owner.”

The jacks followed Ithran’s orders, turning the bot this way and that. They uncovered a hidden insignia in its charging port. Twin suns that formed a stylized glyph.

“The Kaza twins,” Vryek growled.

A thoughtful grumble hummed in Ithran’s throat. “They knew that I had no intention of any further deals with them. And so this was their attempt at gaining the upperhand.”

Vryek snapped his fingers. “When you emphasized a future deal. The contract terms would only benefit them if you ever decided to deal with them again.”

“And, I had no intention of doing so,” Ithran confirmed. “As if I would allow my home to be defiled by whatever ill cargo they wished for us to haul.”

Ruzan wrapped his arm around my shoulders, holding me against him. “Yes, in retrospect, if they had intended to honor their part of the bargain, they would have haggled,” Ruzan said.

“Indeed,” Ithran confirmed. “Now we need to figure out a way to keep them from discovering our home base, while also keeping the shift from running adrift.”

While Ithran, Vryek, and Ruzan spoke back and forth about possible solutions, I linked with the ship.

“Are you okay?”I asked.

“My systems are at 60%. I will start becoming inefficient at 35%. Forced healing will take place at 10%, at which point I would be unresponsive.”

I translated that as, “No, I’m not okay.”“Wouldn’t forced healing help you reboot your systems?”

“Yes. But as any reboot, I would be offline for eight hours.”

“So whether forced or voluntary, your reboot would take eight hours.”

“Correct,”it confirmed.

When I was in the bag doing nothing at the space station, I had plenty of time to check out some of the ship’s systems. When I bonded with it, it uploaded snippets of its vast wealth of knowledge into our link.

There was one bit of information that I thought was interesting.“Ship, how much power would you need to go into a hyper jump?”

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