Chapter 6 - You Shoot a Bomb. It Explodes.

Anger fills you as the facts click into place. This thing is a lying piece of slag and it's got some kind of connection in your head. Whomever is calling might be looking out for you. They might be a pirate, or worse. But right now they're better than that lying lump of plastic.

You take off toward the open door. The screens all dead and the room is quiet. No air, no sound, except your breath and the pumping blood in your ears. Creepy. As you reach the door you draw the blaster and turn, half your body hidden by the metal door. You aim down the barrel and see a narrow slit sight at the end of the barrel. The White Device's glowing screen gleams an angry red; right in the sight as you pull the trigger. A sliver of light streaks without a sound through the vacuum and into the White Device.

You throw yourself against the hallway wall before it explodes.

There's no shock wave, no rumble, no flying shrapnel. Just a flash. You peer into the room and see that most of the consoles on the Bridge are now slag, and glowing slightly as the heat from the bomb you just shot melted them. What had been IN that Device? And how bad would it have been if it went off in a pressurized ship?

Nice shot, Captain; but it'll have power back on soon. HURRY. 

The words play out over your helmet panel. So IVORI isn't dead yet? Did he download into the computers? He'd still be limited. Unless, being in the comuter of an illegal ship, he didn't have to obey any laws. That might be bad. You tap the side of your wrist, why you aren't sure, but you immediately hear the pop of audio in your ear, and a sultry chuckle.

"You're remembering more and more." You stand up as a voice warm, friendly, and female sends thrills down your neck. "That's good." Your lips curl up into a smile, without prompting, and your feel your blood start to run faster. "But we don't have time for call-play. That tin can bastard will be back in his other body soon, and I can't hold it back anymore."

Other body? You feel that warmth abate as you take off and see stairs leading upwards. Up is good. Hopefully. 

"I'm moving, but what's going on? What REALLY happened to this ship? Who am I and how'd I get here?"

You hear the voice take a sharp inhale.

"Critical points. You're Ex-Imperial, you got sick of it and left. You also stole some pretty sexy kit when you did, you bad boy." You clear the first line of stairs and you halt almost immediately. There are what look like gashes in the metal. Punctures from something stabbing into the walls, and the floors. The holes are small enough to be a fist, in some places. "They wanted what you stole back, and took their sweet ass time doing it, but when their Intel Branch processed your DNA, they found out you had a latent PD factor."

"Perfect Donor." You fill in the acronym as you side step the holes in the ground, there's something red on them, stained into the metal. Where are the bodies.

"Right. So they wanted you alive after that. We, your crew, got ambushed on a furlough, they tried to leverage us against you putting up a fight."

"Judging by the patched up bullet wounds, I don't think I took to that." You see more stairs, and more red emergency lighting coming through window panels. You look out and see the drones are all in a row, and that beneath them the metal walls of the hold are starting to rattle and move. "Are you opening the hold doors?"

"Yeah, It's the only way to get OUR ship out."

"OUR ship?" You climb up more stairs as you  finally reach a level that looks light a place where pilots would hang out. Despite it being eeriely clean, there were posters, card tables, and a bar in sight. It felt like a pilot's lounge. "Why do they have our ship?"

"We dressed it up like a knockoff adrift, and they pinched it, and stashed it the rear half of the bay, behind the drones' nest. With me hidden aboard."

"How'd this crew get me?" You ask as you head down an open hallway. There are more signs of battle here. Torn patches of wall struts, but the wall panels are clean and replaced. Like a bad way to 'hide the crime' on a vid set.

"We found out where the Imperials were holding you, and healing you. It was a secret base outside their territory. The sort of base that violates treaties it." There's a groan of effort and you feel a rumble up from the deck through your feet. "But when we found out they were fucking with your head, we decide to blow the whistle instead of waiting for you to heal up first."

"Thanks." You say as you head near an airlock, but it's sealed. "Um, how do I open the doors if there's no power?"

"Look for a panel in the frame of the door." The silky voice advises. "Where was I?"

"Whistle blowing." You answer as you run your hands over the frame. Opposite the control panel is a thin hatch. You press it inwards and feel the click through the gloves. There's a soft vibration and an orange glow comes from the screen, and several red lights. No air. No pressure. Also four empty circles, then one blinked full, and the second one started blinking for a few seconds before turning full.

"Right. But the Agents running the base see it coming so they scrap it, and scuttle off to maintain their alibis. YOU were passed off to one of the covert agents that was a 'middle man' for this crew to move that base's equipment."

"So who were they?"

"Grey market privateers."

"Why didn't you come get me sooner?"

"They had a bunch of different contacts, we had to split the crew to cover all the bases, and it wasn't safe to call them to regroup. Plus, there wasn't enough time. The best I could do is have the other crew members, whom I was with, 'remove' the agents at a port station, but that spooked this ship's Captain, and he legged it."

"What kind of people were they?" You walk over to a place on the wall. There are five puncture marks in the wall. They're all on the same level. You crouch, almost on your knees. and are eye level with the holes.

 "Sketchy as hell. But, the ones who didn't escape, they didn't deserve what they got."

"What did they get?" You ask and watch you back. No telling what the getting was.

"Ivori units aren't JUST talking bomb pads. They come with a small set of kill bots." No telling till you get told.

"Oh, fuck me."

"I would love to, Captain. But right now, someone has to save our skins. The bots are locked up for now, but they're cutting their way out, and fast."

The last circle blinks full, but before you can reach out to touch it, the voice speaks up. "Wait."

"What." You sigh and rock on your heels. You NEEDED to get out of here.

"I haven't told you the plan yet."

"Oho!" You laugh, "so there is a plan?" Who was this woman and why did every little thing she said make you smile. You close your eyes and feel warm breasts on your bare chest, strong arms brace against a wall on either side of your neck, and thighs tighten against your own as your cock fills a cunt dripping with heat and honey, as you pull it tight until her swelling, gleaming, mons mashes against your pubic bone..

"Don't do that," The voice moans. Suddenly panic fills your mind.

"You can see into my head too?" You growl and are tempted to slap your wrist and close the channel, even if she can put words on your screen.

"Its complicated, but it is how IVORI can sort of see in there too."

"How?" You stare at the door and narrow your eyes. Something's coming. There's another heavy rumble of the ship. Is power trying to come back online?

"I have a bit of your brain in me." The voice meekly answers.

"What."

"You gave it to me!" She insists. "That's how I can 'feel' you! It's a piece of your brain that you gave me. Well, it's sort of a part of your brain. It's made from you."

"The Perfect Donor again?"

"Yes. It let our Doctor pick a piece, and clone just a little bit of your brain. She put it in me-"

"Phrasing," You quip.

"and I put a bit of me in you." You blink and suddenly you're in a medical room. White lights, sterile floors. Golden arms cup your head as a liquid warmth flows into your ear. Your eyes are down as the sensations roll over you. "You remember. You remember that and not what they programmed into your head.

"They couldn't take it out?" You run a hand over the helmet, suddenly concerned for the inside of your skull. More concerned, anyway.

"They'd have to know it's there, and I don't think they knew I could do that." The lovely voice answers, then supposes. 

"And IVORI has a bit of my brain they copied while I was under." You connect the dots, and they line up to be a big 'fuck you'. 

"Right. It's how he's able to sense your words." She doesn't sound overly worried, also:

"He, not an it?" It seemed pretty insistent.

"He was shackled, your aggression will remove that." Oh, you unchained the crazy murder robot. That's just Perfect. "He might have something of a murder-boner, so to speak.

"So what's the plan?" You sigh as your hand hovers over the panel.

"I've brought the ship's systems back online, such as they are after we disguised her. I spent most of the time you were asleep doing that."

"As opposed to thawing me?"

"It took days for IVORI thaw you in a way that wouldn't kill or permanently damage you," The voice defended itself. "It wasn't lying that it had medical procedure loaded up." She grumps and you can see crossed arms and a pout, but, the body its attached to is the same naked woman from that dream. "I don't know how to operate one of those Imperial Heavy Stasis tubes, but it does. I've been making it think that it's just stuck on a shitty ship while I did my best to dismantle the struts holding us, without it looking like they were being deconstructed." Her words were quick; glib, but hurried.

"Sounds tedious, time consuming, and all around a shit time."

"It could have been worse." The voice sighs, "I've gotten to fall asleep to your face again. That's a fine trade off." 


"What about these kill drones?" You ask, feeling like the blaster you're holding is more for small space parasites, as opposed to robot assassins.

"The Grey Market drones aren't an issue until they get power. I had them set be drained, rather than recharged. As for IVORI, I used the ships power lifters, remotely to keep him and his small drone bodies busy for the crew to escape. Doing that knocked them around for a bit, and damaged them enough they have to power down at intervals to not overheat. He thought it was a homebrew security program.

"Wiat, overheat? Aren't we're in space?"

"We absolutely are. Which means there athmosphere for the heat to radiated into. Just the floor, and well.... You." She makes another grunt of a sound, a heavy groan that ends in a gasp. "Okay, The only thing left is to flip the switches on your end and we're loose."

"Phrasing." You laugh again. "So, what: I find a switch and I turn it on?"

"Off They're big red handle switches, and before that; look in that line of old lockers, real quick. Closet one too you." The voice whispers into your ear. You head over too it. "I DID manage to turn one of the cleaner bots the Crew had into a delivery bot while I was waiting for you to thaw."

You open up the locker and blink at what's inside. You know this. It's yours. It's been at your side longer than any crew or companion. It's part of you, and extension of your will to kick ass and kill sons of bitches. It's your old reliable. It's your favorite. It's waiting for you to take it up, again. "I figured you want it, and that'd it'd help you remember." 

"Who are you?" You finally ask again.

Warmth and a smile radiate from the voice as it whispers into your ear.

"Someone who loves you."

What's in the locker? What do you do next? What do you ask next?