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  She’d used the library on her data pad to find everything she could on blocking emotions. It wasn’t easy. She couldn’t make it too obvious or she’d end up in the military with no choices. So she’d taken a class in behavioural therapy to avoid being recruited as a sensitive. She had no intension of being used as spyware that was not what she wanted. Carefully, she’d access what she needed in a roundabout way, then clear her pad of any evidence trail. It worked and she obtained some leading theories in the protection of the brain. With practice, she was able to put up mental shields and the effects lessened. Slowly she exposed herself to others, sensitising herself to the experience. Within the first year, she could move in with her friends and not share their dramas unless they told her. Donna felt…. normal at last. But that was a lie.

  And to an extent it was wonderful. She just had to keep her barriers up and it was all good. If she ever forgot to reinforce her walls each day, she was given a sharp reminder as they flooded her.

  Then there were the relationships. She considered herself a pretty girl and had her share of interested males, but they were even trickier. She’d have to be so mentally guarded that she couldn’t relax enough to enjoy it. It was too much to cope with and she’d decided to let it go. She didn’t want anyone looking at her like she was a sexual freak or worse call her things. It was just one step beyond what she could manage, and all the while her ‘gift’ continued to grow.

  Did she like it? Hell no. But with no other option, she looked for those of a similar disposition and moved into a field of work where she could be useful and found herself motivated to work with those suffering trauma.

  She was happy. Gained an apprenticeship with a leading clinic, put in the hours and found she loved the work. Five years on and she’d steadily moved from apprentice to leading the therapy group.

  And loved it for another 6 years until she’d seen the advert for empaths to support the Cyborg Empire with their human population. A population that had been left abandoned by Earth Corp on worlds throughout the universe. It was shocking and people were still reeling from the reports and court cases.

  Her sympathies were with the Empire. They were a people that had suffered much and were still trying to move on with their lives. But it was the role that drew her. The chance to be one of the liaisons between the Empire and humans on their ships and worlds. Ships that searched for new worlds that were unknown to them previously. Worlds they continued to find, that had been seeded by the corporations. Living or dead worlds, no one knew until they got there. And too many had been dead. But if there were even one human still living, they would need someone to understand what they’d been through. They needed a human for that. One with a gift.

  The whole thing spoke to her.

  A challenge beyond anything she’d done before and she’d wanted it. The impulse to apply had been strong. And before she knew it, her application had gone in. Why? She had no idea.

  “Cyborg liaison to the Bridge.” Donna blinked automatically looking up at the visual comms.

  Grabbing her data pad, she opened the door to find Brok waiting for her. “Cutting it fine Don.”

  She waved him off. “Yeah yeah, move it,” and closed her door following him down the corridor at a jog.

  Not a small ship, it took a while moving through corridors, the lift and more corridors to finally get to the Bridge. As they entered, the Captain turned towards her. “Ready for deployment?” Donna nodded taking the seat indicated to her and strapped in. The Captain turned back and looked at the vid screen showing them still in port. “Send signals for departure. Release locking clamps. Move out when ready.”

  Nervousness caught in the pit of her stomach. There was no turning back now. Was she ready? Shit….

  The ship moved slowly out. Not that she could tell by any vibration. It ran silent. Only their movement displayed on the vid screen in front of her gave any indication that they were moving at all. They exited the docking bay smoothly. Her datapad pinged, she looked down at it. Opening the new tag, information on the mission came up.

  “The mission,” the Captain told her. Then looked back at the vid screen. “Ship wide communications.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “This is the Captain speaking. We have a female liaison officer now on board as part of our team. Neuro net communications will be limited to allow her inclusion in all information on this mission. Comms out.”

  Donna looked up. They were making changes for her? “I don’t want to be an inconvenience to this ship,” she told him honestly.

  “You’re not. You’re a necessity. And we will adapt. I’m Captain Sord. Bridge introduce yourselves.”

  Each man informed her of their name and designation. She gave each a nod. “Thank you. I’m Donna.” Looking back at the mission parameters she saw it was an unknown world previously not shown on any intel. She could feel her own excitement build at reading it. Found via investigation into some new files they’d located. “There’s no corroborating data on this world?”

  Sord turned back towards her. “No. Brand new off the press. There were co-ordinates and mention of a primary Cyborg spearhead mission but there’s no evidence of a colony ship ever being sent. In our experience, that doesn’t mean one wasn’t.”

  She knew that as she flicked through the information and pulled up the file on the original Cyborg mission. It was a list of disasters! And they’d still gone? “Jesus. It would be a miracle if they ever made it,” she whispered.

  It was one huge list, one problem after problem and likely breakdowns with time frames. Both Cyborgs and the ship. They’d been pushing too hard, even she could see that. It was clear they weren’t ready, but they’d still let them go. A whole list of functionality problems lit up on the Cyborgs. Several were marked for termination. Jesus! “Noooo,” slipped passed her lips. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up. Tears in her eyes. Brok stood there. “Have you seen this?” she asked choked lifting the datapad so he could see it.

  He nodded. “We’ve all seen it before.”

  She bit back her anguish, glad she couldn’t feel theirs around her. Fuckers… “The chances of finding……. “ she couldn’t say it.

  “We know but we go anyway. They are our brothers. Some of the first of our kind to survive and be sent out into the universe. They are our forebears’ part of our history. As far as we know, the others of their generation are all gone now, and we are determined to find them if we can.”

  She looked at the launch date stamp. Nearly 123 years ago. Could anyone have survived all that? Even Cyborgs had their limitations and that ship…. It was barely space worthy….

  She feared to look at the ships specs and faults list but knew she must. It was staggering in itself. They’d given it a 35% chance of making the journey. Who the hell sent something out with those odds? They had to be crazy. “Why send it out with only a 35% chance of success? It makes no sense. You guys cost billions.” she mumbled.

  “They’d got wind of another corporation looking in that sector and didn’t want to lose the mineral content of that world.” Sord told her.

  Donna shook her head, biting back the swear word that threatened to break free. Brok patted her shoulder and let her go. Donna looked up at him. “Those fuckers are dead right?” He gave her a half smile and slow nod. She was good with that.

  Looking at the list once more she flicked to the list of Cyborg tags. 0103 to 0238. Her finger lingering over 0103 for some reason. He was the first listed and down as soldier/operational medic. Had he made it? crossed her mind. She looked at the projections on failures listed below the IDs. His wasn’t on it. But every single one of the others was. Jesus!

  “I can’t believe they went with this list of known problems. According to this, the best outcome was a failure at day 48, 94, 176, 492, 832, 857, 912, 1045 and it goes on… are we planning to look for debris at each of these plots during the journey? Nearby planets, Stations and Ports?”

  “We are.” Sord told h
er.

  Shit that was going to take forever but it was the only way to track them down. “Good, it’s their best chance. If……. they got passed the projected fault at day 48 that is. That one’s a critical failure….” God help them….

  Chapter Three

  42.4.7 Years since last Cyborg contact.

  The winter came early. It had surprised him, he thought he was beyond any more surprises but this one had got away from him. It had been a long time since the winter had hit this hard, this soon. He pulled his data across his optic on the times this had occurred. Five occasions over his long time on this world. Only then did he see the pattern. They were fairly evenly spaced out over the decades. A natural phenomenon? A year or two off between the cycles. But it still came sooner or later. 0103 Knew his data should have predicted the occurrence but it hadn’t. Not for the first time did 0103 wonder if he was malfunctioning at last.

  He was obvious now that his data wasn’t working as it once did. He’d had no programme up grade since leaving Old Earth. As the medic of his team, both he and the troop leader had been given the latest upgrades before they’d left. He wasn’t stupid. Sooner or later it would start to degrade, and he had nothing to replace it with. Now that he thought about it, his diagnostics had gradually reduced too. Saving energy? Saving resources? Who knew? The computer embedded in his brain made decision’s he was barely aware of any longer. It’s primary role, to last as long as possible. If it died, so did he.

  Was that another sign? Not that he understood it. No one had bothered to explain how it all worked and his training had been on basic medical repair only. How to provide supplemented nano injections, healing nutrients and clean up the wounded. That was it. Stitch, suture and remove if needed. He had no knowledge of how the neuro net actually worked. No one had bothered to tell him. It had not been a logical response and he’d told them several times he needed more information, but it made no difference. They still saw no worth in telling him. It was short sighted, and his data told him they were afraid to give him the knowledge. What did they think he was going to do with it? The more he knew, the more he could fix. That was logical.

  Testing himself, 0103 mentally listed all the things he needed to get done before the heavy weather set in. Moving swiftly at the first signs of the temperature dropping, he would bring all the animals inside securing them in the pens that stood ready. They’d only been him for decades now, he hardly needed the space for anything else, so he’d turned it over to them and kept it ready for the winters.

  Store plenty of feed and water, check the security fencing. Boosting it as he knew he must. The predators had learnt by their mistakes over the generations. Not that it stopped them trying for an easy meal. Particularly the younger ones. They wanted to survive as much as he did. He could sympathise. Over the years it had become a battle of wills and more than once, he’d been the injured party. Sometimes it was hog roast. Others, it was fighting off 9ft beasts and sometimes, he needed the med bay. His memory appeared to be working fine.

  This was his life now and part of him welcomed the challenge. To fight and win. What he was born to do. And although the years started to ware heavily on him, he never lost sight of his objective. His data clock continually ticked away. At any time, it could tell him exactly how long it had been, but he’d put a block on that information. He didn’t need the constant reminder of how long he’d been alone.

  His job was clear. Make the mission a success. How he did that with no colony and his men back in stasis he did not know. He’d begun to think it was passed being possible. The stats supported that. But he was Cyborg, he’d adapted. Deciding many moons ago that if the mission was just about him now, he would deal with it. For as long as he could. Earth Corp had been assholes, but he wouldn’t let his brothers down.

  0103 Checked the screens once more. The snow was coming thick and fast. Time to bring the animals in before it was too late. Getting up he made his way outside and herded them in. He was lucky the engines on the ship had been built to last over a hundred years on the power cells. He had others in storage if they were needed. If they still worked. The weight of the uncertainty weighed heavily too. Did it bother him that he could be alone for another 100 years?

  He knew the answer without seeing it across his optic. It did.

  He went about checking the power output on the ship was still optimum, then started the process of checking all other systems. It would take him 3.6 hours at most and then he’d check the new satellite boost rocket was still ready for deployment. He had high hopes of this one.

  A high-powered converted shell, with a deployable reinforced weather balloon embedded in it, that was triggered to deploy once it hit orbit. He’d planned to shoot it into the outer atmosphere, where it would be caught in the world’s fringes. Not enough to bring it down to land again but enough to keep it caught between the atmosphere and open space. The technical equipment on board to boost the ships communications had taken years to put together. Stripping out materials on the ship that were no longer needed and building the components piece by piece. They’d been more than a few failures.

  His own data had projected the precise location, timing and distance required for the launch to be a success. Timing was everything. The ship’s computer had concurred. The data on this launch suggested it had a high rate of success. 0103 Was finally confident he’d done enough. The relay was more powerful than anything that had initially been on the ship. It was the reason it had taken years to adapt and get right working on files left for him by their communications tech who was amongst the second group to go back into stasis. He’d done his job well, 0103 reflected.

  The Cyborg had given all his knowledge and data to the ship to work on the problem. It had taken time for the computer to come up with a working solution with the materials at hand. It had worked through each of the failures with him, looking for fixes.

  Year after year until they both thought he’d finally done it. Would it work? He had everything on the line. No reserve strategy left. This was it.

  Giving up had never been an option and with each new trial, they understood it a little bit more. One step nearer the goal.

  Determined to get it done this winter before the storms came in, he’d had everything locked down early. Now with the winter coming in earlier than he’d expected it hindered those plans. The best projections had told him it needed to launch on time.

  Delaying deployment would possibly affect its final location in orbit and therefore, its use to him. Radius and location to the ground was everything, the satellite only had a limited ability. 0103 Knew he couldn’t do any more but the winter coming early was a problem. He couldn’t afford to leave the deployment; the equipment might not survive the battering of winter until it was over.

  Equally, going early could put his projections off. 0103 Did some quick recalculations. The shell had to be clear of the atmosphere before the storm hit. Waiting and launching what would now be effectively in the middle of a storm, would be ineffective and doomed to failure. Its fire power not enough to get the rocket through the atmosphere. It simply couldn’t compete with a raging storm to reach its destination.

  Working quickly, the data came up. If he reangled to compensate for the earlier launch, he still might make the trajectory. 0103 Programmed for the launch at the new angle, then programmed the load to be ready, set the timer and watched the launch counted down.

  The millisecond he felt the recoil, 0103 smiled. One step nearer. The clock to deployment counted down on his screen next. His systems registered the sensation of anxiety and concern while he waited. The counter went to zero and he watched the cameras on the shell click on, as it fired from the ship heading up into space. The clock counted on to deployment of the balloon from its shell casing. It hit zero and he watched the weight of the shell breaking away coming free of the balloon as it fell back towards land. In the view he could see the balloon opening and, on the screen, all systems came on line. It was working!

&n
bsp; This was further then he’d ever managed to get in the process before. Losing many prototypes in conception. He checked the orbit of the balloon. It was……. stable. Elation hit him. Decades of hard work trying to find solutions to a problem he had no answer for, had finally been achieved. 0103 Wiped down his face with his hand. The stats of him believing it would not work, floated across his closed optics. Had he finally done it? Refocusing on the screen he checked the visual once more. It looked good. The timer on activating the communications beacon ticked down. That’s what it was now, a beacon, of hope. It hit zero and the programming started running. No faults showed. He waited. The relay looked good. The programme engaged.

  Thank fuck! 0103 Sat back in his seat. He hadn’t realised until that very moment just how relieved he would be until it hit him. In the end, it had not been how he’d planned it, but it was out there and working. That was all that mattered. The message being relayed was simple. Pointing in the direction of their journey back to Old Earth. The message was in Cyborg code. He didn’t want just anyone finding them. Who knew how the world had changed in 123 years.