Chapter One

Stitch was yelling, Lucky was holding the package, and then, the world exploded in light and pain. Alphy was thrown back across the room, and she slammed into the wall, face first.

Alphy jerked out of the dream and rubbed her face. Again. The dream memory was rough, but her reality was rougher.

There wasn’t another soul on the entire station to gossip with.

We are here. We are always here.

Alphy got up and headed into the shower, muttering, “Yeah, yeah, I know. Creepy, pervy bastards.”

Vocalizing was her only way of keeping her sanity. She had woken a few years earlier with a data connection to all satellites and starships owned by Earth running through her mind. Three disembodied minds worked to sort every miniscule piece of data on staff levels, and they fed it to Alphy.

She absorbed the data, quantified it, and sorted it for distribution to the other bases. Her exposure to the outside world was over. It was just her and three brains in jars.

That is not polite, Aria. We are living beings.

You are the brain trust of the human world. You were annoying, so they sent you here, and when I got the repairs that let them put a com unit in my brain, they hooked me up with you.

We enjoy the company.

You enjoy the information.

That too.

Alphy sighed and turned off the water. Stitch is back on the books.

No. She is still on leave.

You made a mistake; you moved her from Medical to Base leave.

Alphy grinned as she heard the three voices muttering to find out which one had made the slip-up. She had tracked the others from Adaptation Base and connected briefly with Windy. She couldn’t communicate, but she could listen. She listened in on Windy’s communication with others, and she learned. It was what she had left. Information.

Reading novels from the twenty-first century took up some of her time but not enough. She worked on star maps and had the brain trust leak out the locations of Splice staging areas to the battle bases. None of them had acted on the maps until now.

Through the monitors of the barely surviving ships that the Splice had left to rot, she could see new worlds, and she wanted to get there in person.

She wrapped a towel around herself and another around her hair. The argument was still rollicking around in her mind, but the consensus was that Trell had been the one to change Stitch’s classification. Onic and Duss were convinced that Trell’s urge for order had taken over his sense of keeping Alphy away from her friends. It was a project of theirs. They wanted to keep her mind calm. She got excited when she spoke of and to the other ladies. The excitement made it hard for them to process through her.

She got dressed and had breakfast before walking on her rounds. The mechanical sounds of pumps and the oxygen systems were the only noise in the station. Alphy started whistling as she checked the levels in the nanite tank that housed the brains.

Why do you do that? The grumbling came from all three voices.

Because I like it. It is silent in here. I don’t have an unlimited data stream to listen to. I can’t hear the sounds of the universe and the battles raging.

They grumped for a while before one said, You need to settle in your chair. There is a conversation that you must be in on.

She ran for the chair linked to the tank. It was the only com in or out, and since the guys couldn’t speak out loud, she had no chance to do any talking. She could only send information out via data bursts embedded in the status updates. It was all filtered through the brain trust, so personal messages were out of the question.

She settled, pressed the listening tabs to her head, and leaned back, focusing on the voices she was desperate to hear in person.

 

One hour later, she slowly removed the tabs from her head. “Well, that was interesting. So, the Splice are attacking another race of aliens, and they need help. Oh, and Earth has cut off all supplies and support. What do you think, guys?”

The panicked shouts in her mind showed her what they were thinking. They were horrified that their usefulness and existence was coming to an end. Alphy clenched her eyes shut at the riot in her mind.

“Shut it, guys. We are going to die here unless we get to some more humans, so what do you think about taking a little road trip? There is a new species out there that needs our help. Will you work with me to help them and get some more of our own on this station?”

Everything was silent in her mind, but she could hear their whispers, even if she couldn’t make them out.

Alphy called up the station manual and started to work on the propulsion unit. Cracker could have had it done in hours, but Alphy knew it was going to take her days.

Ah, well, it was something new to do, and as she knew precisely where Stitch was located, she was going to have to go to her. It couldn’t be too hard to fly an asteroid, could it?

 

It took her three days, but she managed to prep the propulsion unit and fire up the engines. She heard the screeching of the brain trust in her mind, but she ignored them as she settled into the command chair on the main deck. Her friends were out there, and she was going to fly the database to them. The camouflage of the asteroid had been enough to keep the Splice from their door, but who knew if it would hold up while they were in motion.

Alphy was definitely willing to find out what was on the other side of the war when Earth wasn’t in control.

 

* * * *

 

Stitch picked up the com. “What is it, Windy?”

Windy’s voice was a strange combination of excited and amused. “You are not going to believe this.”

There was a pause, and Stitch exhaled the question, “What?”

“There is an asteroid heading toward your base. I think it is Alphy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am pretty sure that the intelligence base is in motion and heading toward you right now. The satellites are picking up the movement, and the reports have stopped coming. That means that the satellites are no longer in proper position around the information station. This is what I have worked out. What do you think?”

Stitch smiled slowly. “I think that it is a very likely situation. Do you think she can stop?”

Windy chuckled. “I fucking doubt it. If I were you, I would get a pilot up there as fast as you can. This isn’t going to be pretty otherwise.”

Stitch smiled and rubbed her hands together. The timing was perfect. “Thanks for the head’s up. I am heading into medical. We are waking Lexo up today.”

“Geez, do you think it’s safe?”

“I think he will be fine. I read his file. He was put into stasis at his own request, as were the rest of those in storage. We are bringing them out one by one. I thought I would start with him.”

Stitch smiled as Windy wished her good luck a moment before she signed off.

Every conversation came and went with the sudden gusts of her namesake. Windy had other folks to gossip with.

Stitch dropped the headset and returned to the underground storage and med bay. Her request to Lucky had resulted in a disarming program and modifications that would keep everyone safe, and as soon as she was at her brother’s side, she would implement it.

Lexo had been a pilot before he became a weapon. She didn’t want to part with him, but piloting one of their ships was an option. She wanted him happy, and she had five different plans to help him with adjusting to life out of the tank.

He had options now that the Earth had cut off the cyborg population and locked the world behind shields of weapons and satellites. The force field didn’t hurt either.

Stitch walked through the corridors until she got to the thawing space, and she nodded to Niko and Captain Blue.

“Are you ready?”

Niko scowled. “Are you sure you want to do this? He could be dangerous.”

Stich touched his arm. “He is dangerous. I am counting on him to recognize me for who I am. Someone who cares.” She patted his cheek. “I will be fine. You and Blue get out of here once the waking program is triggered.”

“I don’t like this.” He growled it through his teeth.

“Go. I am fine. I will be fine. This is one time I am perfectly sure what I am doing.” She stroked his jaw and nodded. “Now, take Blue and get out. I would rather be alone when he wakes. My decision, my brother, my risk.”

Blue snorted. “The cycle is starting. We have a minute before he is up to temperature. Come on, Nikolai. Let’s get out of here.”

The beeping and chirping ceased, and whirring started. Stitch squeezed Niko’s hand and walked toward the canister. When the lid opened, she was alone, and Lexo was asleep inside. His chest was lifting and dropping, and she stroked his head out of reflex.

He grimaced and then gave her a small smile. “I am still going to enlist, Stephanie.”

She sighed, and tears tracked down her cheeks. “I think I might sign up as well, Lexo. Mom and Dad are going to freak out.”

She paused. “In fact, I already did.”

He opened his eyes and stared. “You are older.”

“I am. It has been more than nine years, Lexo. You have been asleep for three of them.”

He raised his hand to her cheek, and he jolted. “The implants. Get back; I am dangerous.”

“They have been nullified. We can get you into the repair unit upstairs, and it can work on giving you more control.”

He looked at her, and he clenched his hand as he lowered it to his side. “You should have left me to rot. Earth will never have me back.”

She chuckled and got right to the point. “They won’t have any of us back. It is quite the story. So, get out of bed, put on these clothes, and I will take you to the base itself. I have some folks for you to meet and a story to tell.”

He struggled to get out of the stasis unit, and she helped him as she had helped dozens of men in recovery. Her brother was alive, he knew who she was, and he had covered his junk. When she added the impending arrival of Alphy, the day was pretty good.