SCIENCE! fiction

Angel checked over the plasma rifle. Satisfied that Maeson had kept the weapon in good condition and fully charged, she walked out of the security suite with the plasma pistol holstered at her left hip and the rifle over her right shoulder. It felt good to have a real weapon in her hands. The sword was in her left hand. It was not as elegant as the katana that she preferred but she took what she could from the situation. She stepped back into the stairwell and looked down to the deck below. Satisfied that there wasn't anyone coming up from below, she continued down to the corridor to the lift.

As she stepped into the lift, she said, “Bring me to the lower cargo deck.” Aeolus initiated the movement of the module. The gravity systems required for the lifts to work were hardwired to stay on-line. It was something that Angel couldn't command Aeolus to override. She didn't worry about that, however, because she figured it was something she could use to her advantage. The doors to the lift hissed open and she stepped out. The plasma breech was above her. She could see how it was slowly eating away at the metal in a far corner of the cargo bay.

She resettled the rifle on its carrying sling so that if she needed it quickly she could bring it to ready immediately. “Captain,” the ship said via the neural-link, “This level may be able to tolerate combat but only for a limited time.” Angel muttered in the darkness something about how it wasn't going to be a long fight. She reached the emergency egress to the upper deck and climbed the rungs up. She punched in her command code and the hatch opened.

Her vision heightened to the limits of human vision and pushed farther by the display that the neural-link generated, she could tell that her targets were at the opposite end of the bay still trying to figure out how to open the main hatch. “Dregan!” she shouted. The cloned units turned as a single body. As they began moving towards her, she stepped back and dropped back down to the lower deck through the open hatch.

The first of them jumped into the darkness. The clone found himself with a sword cleaving into his torso as he hit the deck. The claymore was heavier than what Angel was used to but it did the job superbly. While the cyborg clones were well designed to infiltrate non-combat units, it left them a little more susceptible to injury than the combat units. They lacked the metal impregnated skeleton that the combat unit clones had because they were just bodies to throw as cannon fodder. They didn't have the neural-link or any of the other features of the combat units, such as enhanced reflexes or broader visual acuity. They were little more than doomed men wearing her lost lover's face and memories. The second clone began to climb down the ladder as Angel moved back.

In the pitch dark of the cargo bay, they stumbled over the corpse of the other clone. Angel brought her sword down and decapitated them. Two clones executed, she awaited the other four. She knew that the clones would learn from the situation because they were not androids. She called up to the clones on the deck above. “Dregan! Get down here!” Angel waited. “I'm not getting any younger, lover boy,” she called as another clone came down. Their foot met the bodies and gingerly they felt their way around them. “That's right,” Angel said, “Come this way, follow my voice.” With her enhanced vision she watched the clone walk directly towards her.

She stepped forward and hacked into the clone with the sword. Where the first two didn't have an opportunity to scream, this one did. It was a cry of betrayed agony. Angel felt something inside her sicken at that sound. “Don't worry,” she said, moving closer as the clone dropped to his knees, “I'll make it better.” She could see the head turn towards her. With a single blow of the sword, she beheaded the one that gazed at her with wounded betrayal in their eyes.

The clones on the deck above moved towards the hatch and down into the cargo bay below. Angel stood well back from them, the sword at her feet and the plasma rifle in her hands. She shot the first one in the back. A brilliant, blindly bright blast of light came from the blow and the body began to burn as it fell away from the ladder. The third clone hesitated at the hatch entrance.

“Lights up, Aeolus,” Angel said, “I want him to see what I've done.” Angel blinked at the sudden shift from utter darkness to pale running lights illuminating the gloom. As the clone in the exo-suit climbed down, they looked around the empty bay. They saw Angel standing at the opposite side with a plasma rifle trained on them. They saw the bodies of the other clones.

“What are your orders?” Angel demanded.

“Complete the mission,” they answered in Dregan's familiar, husky voice.

“Well, the mission is complete and we're enroute to deliver the data,” Angel said, “So, I'll ask you again, what is your orders?”

“You're compromised,” they said, “We are supposed to take command and confine you until the replacement arrives.” Angel shook her head.

“Wet-work never was your forte, was it?” The clone shrugged while looking around for something to possibly defend himself with. “Listen to me,” Angel said, “I promise, when I get back to Terra Firma, I'm going to burn the whole thing down, like we planned.”

The clone's attention snapped to Angel. As she edged forward, she let the plasma rifle swing back to her side. She slowly drew the pistol at her side. “Xenogen is going to go down,” Angel said, “Just like we planned. I just have to get back there to shut project Morpheus down and all the rest of them. You're going to help me, just like we talked about it.”

“I... I don't remember,” the clone said. Angel's voice was soothing as she raised the pistol. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you're dead, lover boy,” Angel said, “They killed you thirty years ago.”

“But, I'm right here,” he said, “And you haven't aged a day.”

“Stasis in the Creche does that to you. They got me the day they got you,” she said.

The clone gripped their head through the exo-suit. At her words, a memory of Angel's screaming and blinding light and pain hit the clone. Operation six was a failure because of the neural-link synchronization sickness. He fled into the the city and found Angel. They were happy for a time. And then operation six found him again. They accomplished synchronization for a brief moment to implant the command to bring the wayward and hunted prototype cyborg to a location for them to take her in.

The clone looked over at Angel as the memories slammed into them. “End it,” the clone said in a ragged voice, “You don't know what else they programmed into me.”

“I had to give you a chance,” she answered. The clone of Dregan nodded and straightened. Angel fired her plasma pistol and the head whipped back as it was vaporized. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she turned around and picked Maeson's sword.