Page 51 of Bonded

“I have discovered an anomaly hidden in my wake. It is the reason why I have chosen to take a meandering route back to my home base. However, if I delay any longer, the captain will notice.”

“Okay,” I said deliberately. “Is there a reason why you wouldn’t tell Captain Ithran immediately?”

“I did not wish to upset him. However, if you told him, then the probability of upset would be significantly diminished. You are the ship’s soul, after all. And he defers to a female presence.”

My anxiety ratcheted up higher, and I wasn’t surprised when this time, I felt an inquiry from Vryek through our link.“Ignore me. Nothing to worry about. Just talking to the Ship.”

Belatedly, I realized I automatically placed a filter on the link. Great. That meant I only had a few minutes to prepare a persuasive speech, and I have yet to figure out what I need to communicate.

“What is the anomaly, then?” I braced myself for impact. This type of a build up couldn’t be for anything good. Still, I hoped the ship surprised me and end up talking about a wormhole of an endless coffee and chocolate dimension. I would gladly persuade the crew to venture off toward an anomaly like that.

The holopad flickered and in its place was a grainy image. I realized that it was a magnified still of something outside. “Here is the anomaly. It is not a consistent presence, telling me that it is using some kind of cloaking device. I have a type of cloaking device, which is why I believe that I can lose the anomaly. The problem is, that it is able to locate me eventually. This is why I feel there is a danger to returning to my home base. The crew, Captain Ithran especially, has made it a prime directive never to reveal the location of the home base to outsiders. The risk would be catastrophic.”

Home base. What I believe to be the elusive Earth 4040—an entire planet colony that has been obliterated from all maps. The ship was right. If the crew removed an entire colony from all known charts and databases, they didn’t want it to be found ever.

As I was now integral to the crew, I, too, wanted to protect this home base.

“So, I need to tell the captain that we had a shadow cloaked somewhere behind us, and it’s somehow able to follow us, though it can’t see us. That doesn’t seem to be too bad of news. Not the best, of course, but feasible.” I saw the old feeds. This crew knew how to fight. Captain Ithran most of all.

“That is only one half of the news. The other half is that my internal systems are shutting down. Gizmo, Minion, and Dash are doing their best to direct energies where needed.”

“Ship! Are you sick? Was it from the bonding?” I worried my hands together.

If the blocked link didn’t alert Ruzan and Vryek, my tension now did. I felt them seek me out. I needed to know more, everything, so that I could present the ship’s needs effectively.

I needed to help the ship the same way it helped me, by voicing what I could not.

“No, it was not from the bonding. In fact, bonding with you has enabled me to start healing nerve clusters that had been dormant for years.”

That bit of news warmed my heart. I was helpful after all. “What is it then?”

“I suspect another anomaly had infiltrated this ship. I suspect that it is the one that is causing my system breaches, and if left unattended, will eventually cause enough damage to shut me down into a healing cycle. Because of these actions, I suspect that it somehow triggered your unnatural heat cycle.”

The holopad flickered again, and this time another grainy still loomed before me. The ship played the video feed. I recognized the shuttle, and Vryek. He looked to be entering the shuttle from the docking bay.

Just underfoot, a bot that I didn’t recognize zoomed inside the shuttle. The feed cut, and the video played hours later. Captain Ithran and the crew unloaded boxes onto various haulers and jacks. That same bot darted from the shuttle, and blended in with the rest of the bots that flowed with the others.

No one ever noticed the bots. The crew didn’t acknowledge them. “That bot. It’s not one of yours, is it?”

“No. It is at this moment an unquantifiable variable. But this time, the results are all leaning toward a highly negative outcome.”

Of course they were. And though the ship might not see it this way, the reason the bot had stowed onto the shuttle in the first place was because of me.

I clenched my teeth. I refused to let some wormy bot infect my ship. “Do you have any idea where that bot is?”

The holopad blurred into a shimmering cascade of color. It was the ship’s version of thinking. It flickered again. “Yes. Gizmo reports that it is cornered behind the utility walls. Near the communications array. Hurry, or else it will slip their hold once more.”

Dammit. Communications array. I bet good credit that the bot was feeding infobits to whatever shadowed the ship.

I ran out the door and plowed straight into Ruzan. “My Priya, what is wrong?”

“Are you hurt?” Vryek asked at the same time.

“Great timing!” I said as if that answered their questions. “Come on, we have to hurry.”

As we approached a T in the hall, I realized I had no idea how to get to the communications array. “On second thought, I shouldn’t lead. I’ll slow us down. Where is the communications array?”

Vryek pointed left. “Is that where we need to go?”

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