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Chapter 15

Quirk's shooting at the servitor robots had put him into some kind of kill-frenzy again, so Niall forcibly grabbed the deranged protogen and carried him out of range of the suspension pods in case the firefight damaged them and the occupants inside.

Reluctantly, the vulpine warrior fired on the surviving enemy mook, shooting them in the leg and causing them to collapse with a scream of pain.

Abruptly the servitor robots broke off their attack and set about removing the dead and injured protogens.

"Right," Niall said, shaking Quirk until he snapped out of his combat mode. "Where's Toast?"

"Here," the red and black protogen said, clutching his arm. An unhappy expression on his face. "They got me, but not too bad, I hope..."

"We'll patch that up," Xerian promised. "Meanwhile, we need to get out of here."

"Or we could shoot someone else and take their arm," Quirk put in hopefully.

"No!" Xerian, Niall and Toast responded in unison, looking appalled.

"Just a thought," Quirk said, looking at his own mismatched arms. "Okay - back to the hideout on Deck 3, then," he decided. "That's closest."

* * *

"Right," Eris said once they were back in the safe-house. "Let met get this straight. We're on a cloaked alien spaceship..."

"The Vengeance," Toast put in.

"...Which is orbiting Prime and has been abducting people by means of a matter-transporter. The ship is commanded by an Emperor-in-exile who stole it after being deposed and is hoping to raise an army from the worlds of the Outer Rim."

"That is essentially correct," Niall said. "To the best of my knowledge, anyway. These aliens are cyborgs, although their minds do seem to be mostly electronic like your Synths. And the rest of us, for that matter," he added, patting Lautrec.

"And you are an interested third party who just so happened to turn up when our planet was invaded?"

"I created Lautrec," Niall said. "I have an interest in his wellbeing, but for your information, I've been drafted in to help by the same power that abducted Xerian a year or two ago by your calendar."

The lizard's eyes narrowed.

"Look," Niall sighed. "In Bob's defence, he borrowed Xerian to try and solve a problem and didn't quite think it through. He's powerful, but not infallible, and he made a mistake. The Emperor, on the other hand, is actively malicious. Like it or not, we are in this together. Unless you really do want us to put you back in the freezer while we try and save your worlds."

"We were hoping you might be able to help," Xerian said. "If we find a way to signal the planet, you might have a better idea of what to tell them, and who to tell as a priority."

"So, do you actually have a plan?" she asked.

"So far our best option seems to be to disable the cloaking device," Niall said. "That will make the ship visible to your planet, alerting them to the danger at the very least. Other options include sabotaging the process of collecting Synths for his army - though that also means that we won't be able to return the existing captives to the planet."

"I just want to kill the Emperor," Quirk said, his visor flashing "KiLL" again.

"Uh... How are the voices?" Xerian asked Quirk, looking at him with concern. "Are they troubling you again?"

"They've been unusually quiet," the protogen answered. "I think having my brain rearranged has shut them up, at least for the moment."

The policewoman and Niall both looked at him suspiciously. Toast rolled his eyes.

"The voices in my head tell me to kill people," Quirk said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "It's part of my combat implants. Usually I'm able to ignore them."

"Does the red one have this problem too...?"

"Me?" Toast asked, looking insulted. "No! I was hired as a videographer, but that doesn't mean I hear voices telling me to take photos either. There's something wrong with him."

"If you were created to be an assassin for a mad tyrant, you'd have a few problems too," Quirk retorted.

"Changing the topic," Xerian said, pushing the two protogens apart from each other in case a fight broke out. "In terms of immediate next steps, I want to rescue Zuki. Then we can deal with the wider issues."

"Or scram," Lautrec said enthusiastically. "If we can get him, then we've done our part. The detective here can fix everything, that's her job. Xerian's job is running packages - or more recently, telling people about Furrae over and over again."

"But..." Eris protested.

"I'll be honest, I'm a little worried about the size of the party," Niall said. "While there is strength in numbers, it increases the risk of our being detected. Plus we'll have to provide for him. Chargers don't grow on trees - not here, anyway."

"So we take him and run," Lautrec said eagerly. "Find an escape pod. Xerian, Zuki and I flee to the planet. Maybe bring the detective too since she can inform the right people. That brings the party down to size, right?"

"No!" Quirk looked scared. "It'll ruin everything! This is the first chance in years I've had allies... Friends even! I can't do this alone! I need help! Please, Lautrec... You're an armoured war robot! Our ace in the hole! Without you I'll be hunted down and lobotomised! Or flat out scrapped for parts!"

"I'll still be here," Niall said reassuringly. "Lautrec has better armour, but I'm not too far behind him."

"But you're only here because Lautrec summoned you," the protogen said miserably. "If the god creature looks down and sees you're no longer protecting his precious cat, he might send you back home too!"

"In which case the Emperor will win," Niall pointed out, looking at Lautrec. "And Xerian will no longer be safe."

"Sorry," Lautrec said, looking miserable. "But I was appointed as Xerian's bodyguard. Protecting him is one thing... protecting an interplanetary civilisation - talk about feature creep! It's not in my job description! I'm just one cat! Imagine if you were told you had to take on the entire Dragon race singlehandedly!"

"We could find your friend and liberate his suspension pod," Toast pointed out. "If you're worried about not being able to keep him powered up, we can take him to safety and keep him suspended until we're in a better position to let him out."

"...Can't argue with that," Quirk said. "But I think our next move should be to do a bit more hacking. Find out what I can about how the Emperor is planning to feed his prospective Synth army."

* * *

Quirk didn't trust Toast enough to leave him unattended, and Eris didn't want to be left on her own either, so the entire group made their way to the nearest computer room.

A firefight ensured involving a security bot, which Quirk destroyed with explosives. They also encountered an officer and a couple of mooks.

To the distress of Eris and Xerian, Quirk shot both mooks in the head and would have dispatched the officer in a similar fashion had Niall not intervened.

"But it's a science experiment!" Quirk protested. "We can see what happens when he's resurrected!"

"He can always surrender," Toast said.

"No!" the officer looked terrified. "The Emperor will destroy me!"

"If you don't, I'll destroy you myself!" Quirk said, visor flashing the words "KiLL" again.

Trembling, the officer quickly pulled an energy weapon. Xerian leapt back, but the officer placed it under his own chin and would have shot his own brains out if Niall hadn't made a grab for it and ruined his aim. The shot burned a hole through his large, fluffy ear.

"Let me die! Let me die!" the officer pleaded. "If I go back to him remembering any of this..."

"Into the cupboard," Toast decided. "He may reach the same enlightenment that I did."

"Alright, Alright," Quirk protested. Prisoner locked up, they made their way to the computer room.

* * *

"You're not going to like this," Quirk said, after jacking out of the VR system. "The good news is that I've located the workshops where chargers are being mass-produced. They're on Decks 4 and 5, Delta Corridor. We can pilfer some and test them on Xerian, I guess, before looking to free your Zuki or any other Synths."

"And the bad news?" Xerian asked.

"The Emperor's technicians have made some kind of breakthrough," Quirk said.

"Uh oh," Lautrec said.

"First," Quirk said. "What can you tell me about Helper Bots?"

"They're... Well... Helper bots," Xerian said helplessly. "I mentioned them to Niall before... No, wait! That was his twin."

"His twin?" the policewoman said.

"I am an android replica of an existing person," Niall said. "I was made as a decoy for a dangerous mission. However, since I am fully sentient and possessed of a soul, I continued my life from the point where I was branched off. I call myself his evil twin. It's a joke," he added quickly.

"Point is, there are two of him and I explained helper bots to the other one," Xerian said.
"Helper bots are... well, like pets, really. They're orbs that float around on a gravity planer and can perform simple tasks. Carrying shopping, helping to water flowers, and act as companions. They are based on Synth technology but their brains are simpler and not believed to be fully sentient, though without the fancy empathic powers from Niall's home universe, we don't know, so we treat them kindly anyway, just in case they do experience emotions the same as we can.
"The short version is that they're robotic assistants. Which sounds a little silly given that we Synths were built as robotic assistants, but there you go."

"Bigger fleas have smaller fleas upon their backs to bite them," Niall mused.

"I guess so," Xerian said. "Anyway. That's basically it - when I first saw Lautrec I assumed he was the local equivalent of a Helper Bot."

"That's kind of what we intended to do with them," Niall admitted. "And they do make good companions. However we were looking more at defensive roles for them to begin with since that's what they're best at. Lautrec was assigned as your bodyguard, for instance."

"Okay," Quirk said. "This is the thing - some of the Synths and Organics the Emperor has kidnapped had their Helper Bots with them at the time they were taken. The Emperor had these orb-robots taken away for experiments. On their brain circuitry."

"What?!" Xerian and Eris looked horrified. "That's... That's awful!"

Quirk gave them a side-eye and continued in a deliberately even tone. "These... experiments have taught them how to introduce violent behavioural abnormalities in their Helper Bots."

"No!"

"It gets worse," Quirk said slowly. "By turning the Helper Bots into crazed killing machines, they've increased their understanding of how Synth brains work too. And they are attempting to make the same modifications to your kind as well."