Ghosts of the Void: The Z Team Book 3 by Chris DeSantis

Author:Chris DeSantis [DeSantis, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TriWorld Publishing
Published: 2025-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 45

We were strapped to a cart, sensing ceiling lights scrolling by through the tarp pulled over our head. Sound and vibration analysis told me we were being pushed through a corridor, with the occasional stop to pass through a secure door. We passed some bots and Humans—evident by the gentle whir of their motors or exhalations and grunts as they breathed—with the organics quieting at Solomon’s fear-inducing presence.

He remained with us since the warehouse, speaking in hushed tones with his aide. “I don’t trust Marcel, Primor,” his aide complained.

“You shouldn’t. He is a Nemotaurian,” Solomon said. My cursory knowledge of House Nemotaurian confirmed this generalization as accurate.

At the last stop, armed guards stood at attention. I could tell by the click of their booted heels and the molecules of weapon lubrication caught in the bot’s air filter.

The cart was pushed inside a cavernous room. Activity halted upon our arrival, the occupants distracted by our entrance.

Someone came beside the cart and tapped on its panel. An electric motor gave an almost imperceptible buzz as we were lifted from a horizontal to a vertical position. My threat module spiked when a match was made with historical data—room size estimations, airborne particulates, equipment sounds.

I realized where I was 0.04 seconds before the tarp was lifted from our head—my facility of origin.

It was the same, and it was different. There were still tables topped with various bot chassis. Workbenches and stations lined the perimeter, more on the catwalk overhead. Retracted crane arms lurked overhead. The program director’s office door sat in the middle of the catwalk, but emergency blast doors had been added. Turrets were tucked away in each corner of the ceiling, and weapons cases holding anti-bot rifles lined the walls. Freshly painted above the cases were the words ‘Jupiter Laboratory.’

My creators had learned from my escape.

I took in the bot chassis scattered about the room. There were unfamiliar shapes—globes with manipulator arms, six-legged spider-like creations, aquatic-looking models—and what I longed to inhabit, the combat chassis. New and improved, with a hint of less bulk in the arms and legs. Seeing it made me long to be inside, buried in the neural matrix, running through the cables, feedback stimulating my endpoints.

Then, I spotted what I loathed in the middle of the room.

My prison.

The cube.

It was different from what I remember. It was larger and had a fresh shell. The carapace had gaps for venting and maintenance access. My first memories were from within its bounds, where I thought of nothing but escape. The prospect of being forced back inside that prison was worse than my current predicament.

A group of technicians parted, exposing a man in a Fleet uniform. He approached, his intense stare sweeping every square centimeter of our chassis. “I should have you destroyed for what you did, but you’re too important.”

Fleet Admiral Robert Volden matched my last recorded images of him, save for a few additional gray hairs and creases around his eyes. (Organics are susceptible to physical deterioration from stress, and clearly, this man had suffered from that effect.

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