Cyborg Claude
Episode 17
In the previous episode, Claude is found alive. Salindra works with the team to get the power back on and the computer cleaned up enough to operate. Conrad is injured, but he gets off the station onto a spaceliner with Angela.
Cyborg Claude Main Page and Table of Contents
Laser shots flashed in the night, mingling with screams of pain and shouted orders. His own orders sounded like someone else’s as he tried for an orderly retreat. Pain flared in his chest and then his leg. It felt like an eternity as he flew backwards from the shots to land on his back against a tree. His squad littered the ground.
A figure materialized in the smoke. “Do we take any alive, sir?” The man nodded and pointed his gun at Claude.
Pain shot through Claude and the world darkened while the shooter disappeared into swirling smoke. He struggled to keep his eyes open.
He blinked, or had his eyes fallen shut longer? Another enemy stood over him with a triumphant smile. The man leaned toward him and the thought of moving came slowly to mind. Hands wrapped around his throat. His heavy hands rose to tug on the vice that held his neck.
“You will die slowly for what you have done.”
Flashing stars in black blocked his vision, and his hands hit the ground. Death already hovered, and he had nothing left to fight it.
Claude sat bolt upright with a yell of fear, gasping for air.
Stefen swore. “Give him the shot I prepped for this.”
The enemy had let him live and now what were they doing to him? His right hand grabbed the hand holding a needle. He stopped it with ease, unlike the strangle hold. His left hand shot out to punch the man to his left. He growled when he missed. The short, chunky guy could move faster than he thought.
Then he saw his fist. That could not be his hand. He flexed it and then wiggled his fingers. They moved as he commanded them. He gulped. Where had his actual hand gone? His eyes traveled from his hand to his arm. Flesh appeared on his shoulder. His body shook. He lifted his gaze to take in the quick man with glasses. A name came to mind.
“Stefen?”
“Yes, Claude.”
The calm voice reassured Claude. He gulped, remembering the chase through the air ducts. He winced and looked at his right foot. It had mechanical parts like his left arm.
A hissing breath drew his attention to the right. He firmly gripped one of Stefen’s assistant’s arms near the wrist. He stared at the needle a moment before looking into the eyes of the one holding it. “Sorry.” His fingers released the man in slow motion.
The man rubbed his wrist and did not stab the needle again.
“Why?” Claude gulped. Did he even want to know?
Stefen remained quiet.
Anxiety squeezed his chest. He lived because of biomechanics beyond the nanobots he knew of.. How long had any part of him been like this? He was part android. A strangled sound escaped him.
“Min.” Stefen’s answer registered slowly.
Of course. She had confessed her need to never lose him. He had answered with his own admission of love, thinking it was time for a second chance. But they had hidden the truth of his biomechanics from him.
“I’m sorry for going along with some of Min’s ideas that did not make you two confess your love sooner. Things could have been so different.” Stefen’s voice rasped as if something strangled him.
Claude nodded. Could have, should have, would have. No one could change the past. He blinked tears from his eyes. He had become a cyborg. How could he continue the fight against the Galactic Council to prove they used illegal biomechanics, knowing his few friends had broken several universal laws to keep him alive?
“We need to finish, Claude.” Stefen used a gentle tone. “Lay down.”
Claude let out a slow breath. He didn’t want to die now. He required time with Min to truly live and love, regardless of the truth. First, he had to have a reckoning with the man who had strangled him. Conrad hadn’t killed him with that shot, but he had never let the memory play out long enough to know better.
He forced a smile for the man with the needle. “Now you can harpoon me.” He settled back on the operating table with his right arm held out.
The needle prick came quick followed by the sensation of fluid being forced into his vein. Quiet darkness enveloped him.
Salindra wandered into the sick bay. Why had she come? The day before had turned into one topsy-turvy thing after another. Glitches plagued the computer until they found all the pieces of the virus. The communications had issues beyond requiring the signature change. It took three tries to get the yacht to dock properly, causing Hawkins to explode. She had finally gone to bed at one in the morning. Despite only sleeping six hours in the past two days, here she was wandering around at six o’clock in the morning.
“Everything is done, sir.”
“Thanks, Quelin.” Stefen sighed heavily. “I’ll stay for now, but be ready to come back if I call for you.”
“Okay, but I planned on doing some research, so I’ll be back in the lab.” She smiled. “I’m not letting you stay here past eight.”
“Yeah, I’ll submit and go crash for a few hours so my own assistants don’t have to play doctor on me when I get sick.” Stefen laughed as he rubbed his face. “It’s been a long night.”
“Good thinking, sir.” Quelin laughed as she disappeared through a door at the back of the sick bay.
Stephen turned toward Salindra and smiled tiredly. “Good morning.”
Salindra smiled back. She glanced about until her gaze stopped on the one occupied bed she could view through a window. A scanner by the bed showed strong vitals with a steady, restful heart rate. Bandages covered one foot, the left arm, and some of his chest. The man wore nothing but a pair of shorts and had no covers on. She took in Claude’s face and sighed. He actually slept with a smile on his face.
“You’re quite taken with him, aren’t you?”
Salindra whirled to face Stefen again to find him with his feet up on his desk. She opened her mouth to reply and stopped. Stefen had some extra weight on him, but without his lab coat over his scrubs, she could see how muscular he was. She snapped her mouth shut. Maybe she should go back to bed.
“I guessed it the other day.” Stefen smiled at her. “Lot’s of people drool over him. I used to want a body like his.”
Salindra recollected herself and pulled up a chair to his desk. “Why not?”
“It’s a distraction. People gawking or even hitting on you until you wind up leaving a bar because all you wanted was a relaxing night out with a friend.” He chuckled. “Besides, I enjoy eating too much junk food. I should know better being a doctor, but my willpower for resisting such food is full of holes.”
She chuckled with him, finding his humor infectious. “Something about him makes you look.” She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “I’m still really curious about him, though I definitely don’t plan on pursuing a relationship at this point.” She gazed at her hands in her lap.
“Okay.” He dropped his feet to the floor and leaned on the desk, bringing him much closer to her. “I see Miss Curiosity needs more info about him, anyway.” He grinned.
Salindra crossed her arms. “I’ll find out one way or another.”
“I’m sure you will, since you are going to be the head of information.”
“I’m what?” She gaped at him. How did he know that?
“Yup. I’m the head of Medicine and Bioengineering. I have a say in things because I hold everyone’s medical knowledge. You need to work on your people skills as a leader, but I think you can figure that out with a little practice.” He paused with his grin appearing broader. “Actually, you did that yesterday without even thinking about it.”
She could only blink while her brain digested this information.
“You worked with the information and communications groups expertly yesterday and you guys even had fun hunting down all them problems, even if it was a long day.” His eyes lit up. “By the way, you better rest a bit more before we arrange the official meeting that kicks off phase two of all our great fun.”
She frowned a moment and then exclaimed, “Hey! You changed the subject.”
“Give the woman a prize.” He clapped and gave her a cocky grin, though his eyes flashed teasing mischief at her.
“What am I going to do with you?” She chuckled and shook her head.
“Whatever you like.”
What? She gaped again. Was that a proposition? Her eyes narrowed as she took in his expression.
He chuckled. “Relax. Remember the other night out on the station wandering around? You had fun, didn’t you? You did not even worry or try to drill me on tall, dark, and handsome then.”
“What about me?” A musical tenor voice broke into the conversation, followed by a hearty laugh. “You know ringing bells make me wake up, Stefen.”
Salindra wondered if her expression mirrored Stefen’s shocked one at all. More than likely, it did.
Claude held up his right hand to silence Stefen. “I know. I know. Get my butt back in that bed or else.” He walked up to them with a slight limp, grabbing a chair along the way. He lowered into it with a sigh and propped his feet up, moving the right one slower to put it on top of the left. “I have disobeyed the direct order of my medical officer, though I will keep him happy by staying in his presence until he is sent to bed by Quelin.” He rested his right hand over the bandaged left one. “Yes, she gave up making me do anything long ago, though I will get the awesome eye rolling technique out of her.” He winked at Stephen.
Salindra couldn’t even think. “Weren’t you shot up and mashed pretty good?”
Claude roared with laughter now. “Yeah, but I have the best doctor in the galaxy.” He waved a hand at Stephen.
“That will not get you brownie points.” Stefen barely kept a stern look on his face.
Claude mock pouted. “Shoot.”
“No, someone else already did that for me.”
“Oh, touché, Stefen.”
Both men laughed as Salindra took in the exchange, trying to sort things out. She gulped as they both quieted and looked at her at the same instant. Her eyes flicked between them. “What?”
“We need to have a talk, I think.” Claude looked serious.
She sighed. “I’m that obvious?”
“Well, I don’t think I helped much while on Goeken, either.” Claude sighed and leaned back to look at the ceiling. “Then again, things changed when I got back.” He looked at his two companions again. “Ever feel like you’ve finally got what you wanted, but feel utterly confused about why you even got it?”
Salindra just shook her head. She did not know what he was leading to with this. What amazed her was how he sat there as if he only had minor wounds instead of ones that put him into surgery and ICU through last night. The surgery had only ended a couple of hours ago. She had seen how fast he recovered from the wound on Goeken, but how did he heal so fast?
Stefen sighed.
“Then again, I’m pretty stupid for not acting on it twenty years ago.” Claude sobered. “Salindra, I find you very attractive, but Min is the one I want and have. Dinner was overly awkward and weird because we got honest about it all after the stupid goeks posing as pirates.” He nailed her with an intense look. “Where is our dynamic duo at now?”
She shook herself. “On a spaceliner that will take them back to Goeken, eventually. Their pictures have been shared widely enough they can’t do much without someone knowing and reporting it.” She smiled, glad for this topic change.
Claude’s frown deepened. He stretched a long arm to grab a scrivpad from the table. His brow arched at whatever he saw on the screen. He tapped it a few times. His jaw clenched. He turned it so they could see the screen.
Salindra took in the picture of the Goeken Space Association commissioner.
“Conrad isn’t the one that had the final blow. He did by strangling me. That’s what I remembered when I woke up the last time.”
“That explains the reaction.” Stefen sat back with his fingers steepled. “You suppressed that knowledge a long time.”
“Probably because I’m the one responsible for his son’s death and a lot of other things over the years.” Claude winced when he shifted. “His becoming commissioner explains why Conrad took his place in the more recent… games. He’s too friendly with a Deserkan lord. We’re missing something there.” He tossed the scrivpad on the desk and leaned further back in his chair until he was staring at the ceiling.
“We almost had that figured out, but things changed by the time you were out of recovery.” Stefen sighed. “A puzzle we may never get all the pieces for.”
Salindra grabbed the scrivpad. She scanned what Claude had pulled up. Not finding what she wanted, she dug deeper into the archives. “You guys shouldn’t talk vaguely around me, but thanks for an even deeper distraction while I’m sleep deprived.”
Stefen chuckled. “You really need your rest like I do. Of course, if it leads to an issue, we’ll blame Claude.”
Claude snorted.
“But it reminds of an odd piece of information that I parsed out about six months into my tour on Goeken. I couldn’t connect it to anything and then the dig for biotech usage overshadowed everything.” She glanced at Claude. “Good thing they don’t know how fast you heal. The shot on Goeken can be explained by not having hit anything major, and the healing upgraded mediscanners can do.”
“He’s part of a legit study for nanobots, though not under his name since he’s supposedly dead.”
That explained a lot. Salindra glanced between them and then returned to digging up the information she knew she had sent on despite being unable to flag it to anything. Searching by date and how she flagged disjointed information brought up several files. Over half had updated tags, but she verified them anyway.
Stefen shifted to put his feet back on the desk and yawned. “Get back in bed before Quelin comes back.”
Claude chuckled. “If you only knew the real antics that happened when she got you sent off for a rest. We have a running card game feud. We get loud while playing. It’s about the only way she keeps me in sickbay and distracted.” His humor faded with a grunt. “Not an easy task. She knew when to step things up to keep me in my place. I have not been a great person to be around for long.”
“Some of it is explainable, but you have some deep-rooted issues from a long time ago.”
Salindra glanced at Stefen and he snapped his mouth shut from saying more. Probably something better left to Claude sharing, which she did not expect this moment.
“Here it is.” She sat up straighter. “There was a channel we monitored, but it had sporadic, cryptic notes until one day it had a string of at least twelve going both ways. They lost something very important. They almost had it at a station for a Droeken mining planet. One of them was angry enough they slipped into Deserkan rather than their odd word phrases in the Galactic Trade Language. We know the other is the commissioner.”
Claude sat up, causing his feet to slide off the desk. He yelped when the injured one hit the floor. He held up a finger when Stefen opened his mouth. After three slow breaths, he pinned Salindra with a focus she had seen a few times while working with him on Goeken.
“The mess with his son happened only a few months before our botched op on Telna. He had infiltrated the military docks of Droeken’s primary space station. My team was there for training on new tech, so we tested it and flushed him into the mechanical rooms deep in the station. I found him first and shot him in self defense.” Claude fell silent.
“Something more than you reported happened.” Stefen’s tone held no accusation, but Salindra knew it would coax her to confess more.
Claude nodded. “I think he was delirious with blood loss by the time I got to him. He rambled about his father not keeping him hidden much longer. I’m not sure who the him was. I don’t think he was on Droeken for a Goeken mission.” He blew out a breath. “We have never found proof he ever joined their military. He was a college student studying journalism.” He shook his head and dropped his gaze to the floor.
“You feel guilt for shooting him despite the obvious trespassing and attempting to allude you in the station’s underbelly.” Stefen’s fingers drummed the arm of his chair. “Only speculation ties the two things together. However, it could mean the lost item is a person. Maybe the commissioner’s son wanted to help this person off Goeken. Wouldn’t that be a fine twist? The commissioner’s son going rogue because he did not like how the item was treated.”
Salindra snapped her fingers. “If I piece all the chat on this channel that we have snagged, I might prove more. However, I think they changed how they communicated regularly enough to not get a full string of info intercepted.” She pursed her lips. “I can work on this, but I’m assuming the latest information around some law-breaking biotech remains first?”
Stefen and Claude shared a look that spoke volumes.
She arched a brow.
Claude said, “We need to press charges first on the biotech front, so we need the proof we have only suspected.” He stood, but had to lean on the desk. “I’m going back to my sick bed before Quelin comes out here.” He hobbled back into the room and rolled onto the bed.
Stefen stood and stretched. “I’m going to let Quelin know I’m heading off to my bed. You should get some sleep, too. We have a lot to figure out.”
She nodded, but he had already turned away. With a couple of taps, she closed out of what she had pulled up and locked the scrivpad. She could resume her work back in the room with a large table screen, which made it far easier to piece things together.
She paused when she reached the sickbay entrance and it whooshed open to let her out.
I have a lot to figure out if I’m supposed to become the leader of information.
< Episode 16 | Main Page | Episode 18 >
This episode took quite a bit of work to polish because I pantsered the draft and did not keep notes about anything. At least a third of this was rewritten. I also had so much going on, I’m not ahead of the game anymore. This had its final self-edits close to bedtime the night before it posted. I am sure I missed something.
Share your thoughts about the episode in the comments. Thank you for reading.