Page 27 of Monstrous Baby
Axxol heaved out a vicious sigh. “Agreed. It makes sense to worry about the other squad since we didn’t eliminate them.”
“In all the missions you went on, nothing like this ever happened that we can use to guess their next move?”
“We were never used to hunt another dyni squad,” he replied. “Only known threats to the numerous interests of DSC.”
“More than just Myrm deposits, then?”
“Yeah,” Kroktl admitted. “Anything even slightly related to Myrm was terminated on sight, no need to wait for direct orders. But for the past twenty or thirty missions, we were used to eliminate other threats.”
My head cocked. “Like what?”
“Pockets of rebels attacking the syndicate’s more remote shipping lanes.”
“Our last forty-nine missions were to a region of the universe you might know as Hercules-Corona Borealis,” Lohr added. “The network of galaxies has infinitely many hiding places for smugglers and raiders. They attack the primary shipping lane between Draco and Hercules and then jump through gamma-ray bursts in the area to disappear before the patrols can track them.”
Shaking my head slowly, I could only laugh. “More and more, this is sounding like an episode ofStar Trek.”
And I’m woefully ill-prepared for such an episode.
RIZAN
Our mate’sconcern tightened the interlaced network of the grid until the invisible lines shimmered with tense energy. All of us drew nearer the table where she sat, compelled to protect and assist in any way possible.
Luckily for me, I was uniquely qualified to help ease her fears by making Earthling inferences from their communications—which included seemingly useless episodes of a science-fiction media franchise.
“When shit hits the fan, Scottie can just beam us up.”
A smile cracked the tight lines of her face. “In other words, Axxol can jump us somewhere.” Though the smile slipped back into worried creases in her brow. “As long as he isn’t decommissioned by a trap again. That’s why they took him first, so they could pick the rest of you off one by one.”
“We can’t confirm the trap was designed solely for Axxol, or more generically, a pilot,” Lohr said. “Though your inference is valid.”
“This is going to sound dumb, but…” The other human female paused, waiting for Natalie to nod with encouragement. “Don’t they have trackers on you to show your location at all times? I mean, if I lose my purse, I’ve got a tag in it so I can always locate it on my phone. It’s even sewn into the lining so it’s not immediately found and discarded if my purse is stolen. They’re going to want their technology back, right?”
This was also my area of expertise. “We do have tracking applications built into every aspect of our programming, but I disabled it almost immediately.”
“Every Sirian cell?” Natalie asked, staring off into space. Eyes soft and hazed, she seemed to be looking more internally than externally.
“Yes.”
“But isn’t that impossible?” The human male asked. “There must be billions of cells in our bodies, let alone yours.”
“The human body contains roughly thirty-seven trillion cells,” Snryx replied. “Dyni carry closer to sixty trillion, though only ten to twenty percent actually carry Sirian programming.”
“Which are billions of cells to manage,” Snyder said. “If even one of these alien super cells goes rogue, won’t your department be able to track you down?”
Lohr let out a deep huff of amusement mixed with irritation. “You clearly don’t understand basic biology.”
“Or logical programming,” I added. “I don’t have to command every single comms cell to do a basic function. We’d be dead before we could accomplish any task if that’s how our bodies operated.”
“Did you command the pneumocytes in your lungs to perform gas exchange across the alveolar wall so you can breathe?” Lohr asked. “Those cells are specialized to keep you alive—and your nervous system manages all of the individual functions across the trillions of cells without you even being aware of it. Our Sirian cells are even more specialized and powerful.”
“As soon as Axxol jumped and left us stranded, I shut the grid down,” I said. “That’s our internal comms network, which connects us to the wider DSC grid. As far as HQ knew in that moment, we were all dead. They didn’t get the last of our transmitted feed, though I couldn’t be sure exactly how much got through until I analyzed the logs once we moved locations. We followed Axxol for a while and then decided to split up.”
“That doesn’t seem smart,” Snyder said. Though he paled when we all shot him narrowed looks. “I mean, why did you split up?”
“Because Axxol tore off my front limb,” Lohr replied in a mild tone.
Holly swallowed hard and pushed her plate toward the center of the table.
