Page 16 of Black Star

“Of course he did.” The reply was no more than a whisper and a deep, resigned breath. “OK. I’ll join you. But you have to give my crew a safe way back to Vok’nair space.”

Mikiel wasn’t surprised. There was something going on with these ships only Damon knew. He wasn’t pleased to be left out of the loop. “I assume you’ll fill the rest of us in on this?” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his reply.

“Just promise my crew won’t be harmed.”

“I’ll give them one of my best ships to return to Vok’nair. I have no interest in harming anyone. I only want the ship.”

“The ship has a name!Black Star!” The intercom screeched both from the ship’s speakers and all internal psycom units. Crewmembers screamed and covered their ears, though it didn’t do any good.

“Sword Breaker! Please stop!” Nadira screamed her protest. Mikiel wanted to go to her, help her, though his head throbbed with the sudden burst of sound inside it.

“I’m tired of both of us being treated like inanimate objects. We are people. Not things.” The volume was considerably less, but the voice still came from both sources.

“What’s he mean, ‘we’?” Mikiel was losing the thread of the conversation. He knew he had missed something somewhere, but things were moving too fast for him to keep up.

“He means theBlack Starand theSword Breaker. Do you know how cyborg vessels and cyborg androids are made?” Damon’s voice from the intercom sounded wary, as if he was trying to measure his responses. Nadira wished she could have seen his face to gauge the situation a little better.

“A synthetic brain is grown from manufactured neurological cells. It is then implanted into the central computer. I don’t know which parts, but it’s the brain that allows the computer to free think, and more importantly, to allow a living human to link with it.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder what would happen if anon-synthetic brain from a living person was housed in the central computer? The Vok’nair have been linking with synthetic cyborg vessels for several years now. The Asalians only built one. Me. They could never find anyone to link with me and never tried an alternate method. The Vok’nair solution was simply too costly, not to mention slightly immoral from the Asalian viewpoint.

“Now, we have little Nadira. She’s linked with me and I just bet you don’t have a clue as to why.”Sword Breakerwas impatient by the sound of him. Like he was dealing with a bunch of lack wits.

Mikiel shook his head. It was like hearing an echo. The voice in his head was a split second faster than the voice from the speakers. It was distracting, but not so much he didn’t understand whatSword Breakerwas saying.

“So, you’re saying you have a brain from a human donor housed inside your computer?”

The voice responded with contained fury. “No. I’m saying they paralyzed my voluntary muscles, shaved my head, and cut my skull open. They then connected my brain to the master computer, which was later connected to the lesser computers running this ship. Once that was done, my brain was severed from my body, which died immediately. And here is where I’ve been for the past twenty-three years. I’m not saying I have the brain of a human donor. I’m saying Iamthe brain. Iamthe human donor.” No one spoke for several moments as theSword Breakerlet the image sink in. “Worse, I was very much alive and conscious during the entire grotesque procedure. So was theBlack Star. It was the only thing in a hundred years the Vok’nair and Asalian governments did together.”

“But --” Mikiel could see Nadira’s hands shake as she fiddled with her console. “-- theBlack Starwas only commissioned in the last six months. If the Vok’nair government had her all this time, why keep her a secret?”

“Because no one has been able to bond with her. It is the same with me, only the Asalian Coalition saw fit to use my other talents and change crews every so often in case someone was actually able to bond with me.”

“You sound as if you know what the problem is.” Mikiel was incensed. What the ship was describing was nothing short of torture.

“Asalians have very few true telepaths, or empaths for that matter. You can enhance my telepathic and empathic abilities all you want, but if the person trying to form a link with me isn’t capable of telepathic communication, a bond will not be formed.”Great Swordmade perfect sense. It would explain why they hadn’t figured out the key to bonding with the ship.

“What about enhancers to the one who is to be bonded?”

“Enhance all you want. You can multiply zero by a hundred million and you still get zero. If you don’t have the gene that enables telepathic ability, enhancing a gene that’s not there isn’t going to make a hell of a lot of difference.”

“But what about me?” Nadira looked at Mikiel then. He could see she was confused. “I was never enhanced. My telepathic ability extends only to close members of my family. I’ve never had contact with anyone else.”

“Then --”Great Swordmade his statement without holding anything back, without softening the blow one little bit. “-- it is quite likely that you would never share a telepathic link with anyone outside your family.”

Mikiel thought he might be sick, and from the look on Nadira’s face, she felt the same way. He could see there was no way she could force the words out, so he said them for her.

“How are you related?”

There was an awful silence. His command crew had identical looks of sympathy directed at Nadira, but she didn’t seem to be aware of it.

“Damon?” Her voice was small, like a child going to a beloved parent for answers to life’s questions.

“The essence within theSword Breakeris your father.” Damon’s whisper was almost lost as it came through the speakers.

“Wait a minute.” Mikiel had stood and was now beside Nadira with a hand squeezing her shoulder in support. “You told me Vok’nair’s king was Nadira’s father.”

“So I did. And I’m probably the only other living person who could say otherwise. Her mother was in love with a star pilot named Darian, but she was forced into a marriage with Samair, Vok’nair’s king. Even still, Nani kept seeing her lover. When she became pregnant, the king had the six-month-old fetus tested and found out the child wasn’t his. He knew immediately who the father was, and had Darian arrested and condemned him to death.

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