of having the upper hand.
But the fact was, they needed me.
They needed a pilot for the Chandler . They had me.
And they had only me. Everyone else in the crew they had killed off, suffocating them in those lifepods. They were so sure they had the upper hand with me that they didn’t bother with a spare.
Which said to me either they had never done this before, and had no idea what they were doing, or they had done this a lot, and the response by their pilot victims was always the same.
I thought about the Rraey saying that their engineers could repair the ship and get it going again because this was something they were used to. I thought of their efficient way of dealing with the crew, to cow them and get what they wanted.
It was clear this wasn’t something they were new to.
They had done this before. And maybe were right now doing it with pilots other than me. They expected the pilots to be desperate and to be willing to do anything to get their bodies back. They were so used to the response they didn’t really think any other response was possible.
So no, I didn’t think they were listening in on me right then. I didn’t think they thought they had to. I could be wrong, but it was an assumption I was willing to go on.
That gave me free time to think. And plan. Another asset that I had. For now, anyway.
Then there was the final asset I had:
I knew I was already dead.
By which I mean I knew that their promise to return me to my body was almost 100 percent certain to be complete bullshit. There was no way that was going to happen.
I knew that because they killed the crew of the Chandler . I knew it because of what Ocampo said when I pleaded with him to send the skip drone back to Phoenix Station to save the crew. I knew it because of how they lied to the crew to lead them willingly to their deaths.
They had no intention of putting me back into my body. I was as close to certain as I could be that my body was already gone—incinerated or tossed into space or put into a stew because the Rraey had a reputation for eating humans when they had the chance.
I thought about my body in a very large pot, simmering.
I actually found it blackly amusing.
Whatever was done with it, my body was history. I was sure of it.
I was also sure that whatever it was that Ocampo and the Rraey—or whatever it was they were working for—wanted me to do, when I was done with it they would flip whatever switch they had and simply murder me then.
That is, if whatever mission they were going to have me do wasn’t already a suicide mission. Which I suspected it probably would be. Or at least, they wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep if I didn’t come back.
I was under no illusion that my fate wasn’t the same as that of the rest of the Chandler ’s crew. It was just a question of when. And the answer of “when” was: when they were done using me for whatever it was they had planned.
Which meant that I had whatever time existed between now and then to, in no particular order, find out who they were (besides Ocampo and a bunch of Rraey soldiers), discover what they had planned, learn how to stop them, and kill the hell out of all of them.
All of them, that is, except Ocampo. If there was some way to bring him back to Colonial Union space, I was going to do it. Because no matter what else, I think they were going to be very interested in whatever it was he was wrapped up in.
And because he didn’t deserve to get off as easy as him dying would let him.
You’re pretty ambitious for a disembodied brain, that other part of my brain said again.
I’ve got nothing else to do, I replied. Because it was true. All I had right now were my thoughts, and time. Lots of time.
So I took it.
* * *
At some point I think I slept. It’s hard to tell when you have no outside frame of reference to let you know if you’re actually asleep.
I do know I didn’t dream. I was okay with that.
And at some point the voice came
But the fact was, they needed me.
They needed a pilot for the Chandler . They had me.
And they had only me. Everyone else in the crew they had killed off, suffocating them in those lifepods. They were so sure they had the upper hand with me that they didn’t bother with a spare.
Which said to me either they had never done this before, and had no idea what they were doing, or they had done this a lot, and the response by their pilot victims was always the same.
I thought about the Rraey saying that their engineers could repair the ship and get it going again because this was something they were used to. I thought of their efficient way of dealing with the crew, to cow them and get what they wanted.
It was clear this wasn’t something they were new to.
They had done this before. And maybe were right now doing it with pilots other than me. They expected the pilots to be desperate and to be willing to do anything to get their bodies back. They were so used to the response they didn’t really think any other response was possible.
So no, I didn’t think they were listening in on me right then. I didn’t think they thought they had to. I could be wrong, but it was an assumption I was willing to go on.
That gave me free time to think. And plan. Another asset that I had. For now, anyway.
Then there was the final asset I had:
I knew I was already dead.
By which I mean I knew that their promise to return me to my body was almost 100 percent certain to be complete bullshit. There was no way that was going to happen.
I knew that because they killed the crew of the Chandler . I knew it because of what Ocampo said when I pleaded with him to send the skip drone back to Phoenix Station to save the crew. I knew it because of how they lied to the crew to lead them willingly to their deaths.
They had no intention of putting me back into my body. I was as close to certain as I could be that my body was already gone—incinerated or tossed into space or put into a stew because the Rraey had a reputation for eating humans when they had the chance.
I thought about my body in a very large pot, simmering.
I actually found it blackly amusing.
Whatever was done with it, my body was history. I was sure of it.
I was also sure that whatever it was that Ocampo and the Rraey—or whatever it was they were working for—wanted me to do, when I was done with it they would flip whatever switch they had and simply murder me then.
That is, if whatever mission they were going to have me do wasn’t already a suicide mission. Which I suspected it probably would be. Or at least, they wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep if I didn’t come back.
I was under no illusion that my fate wasn’t the same as that of the rest of the Chandler ’s crew. It was just a question of when. And the answer of “when” was: when they were done using me for whatever it was they had planned.
Which meant that I had whatever time existed between now and then to, in no particular order, find out who they were (besides Ocampo and a bunch of Rraey soldiers), discover what they had planned, learn how to stop them, and kill the hell out of all of them.
All of them, that is, except Ocampo. If there was some way to bring him back to Colonial Union space, I was going to do it. Because no matter what else, I think they were going to be very interested in whatever it was he was wrapped up in.
And because he didn’t deserve to get off as easy as him dying would let him.
You’re pretty ambitious for a disembodied brain, that other part of my brain said again.
I’ve got nothing else to do, I replied. Because it was true. All I had right now were my thoughts, and time. Lots of time.
So I took it.
* * *
At some point I think I slept. It’s hard to tell when you have no outside frame of reference to let you know if you’re actually asleep.
I do know I didn’t dream. I was okay with that.
And at some point the voice came
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