Quinn of Cygnus by AM Scott

Author:AM Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coming of age, sci fi, space opera, action and adventure, clean and wholesome, sci fi mystery, young female hero, young heroine, aliens, artificial intelligence, AI, metaphysical SF, classic SF, galactic empire, space pirates mercenary, travel across the universe, space exploration
Publisher: Lightwave Publishing LLC
Published: 2021-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

AFTER TWENTY-TWO MINUTES inside the cargo box, it stopped. Q tumbled, crashing into the other end. She found no way to penetrate the remote’s controls; they shut all her net connections down. There was some sort of comm blocker on this thing. Crouching in front of the hatch, Q readied herself to spring and run. But when the hatch opened, a tractor beam grabbed her. She dangled five meters above the floor of a huge compartment filled with boxes and shipping containers.

“Clove of Adnan’s, we will place you into an airlocked cell. You will enter the cell and remove all your armor and e-torc, or we will remove them forcibly. This may cause your death. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Oh, she understood all right. She was stuck.

The tractor beam moved her to one of the standard cargo containers. A hatch on the end opened, and they shoved her into a meter-wide airlock. The hatch locked with a thunk she felt through her boots and her bones; her freedom sealed away.

Q passed through the airlock and tested the atmosphere inside the container. The air was human standard and while the cell wasn’t warm, she wouldn’t freeze to death either.

She should have stayed on the surface. Dying of cold would be easier. But Quinn of Cygnus didn’t give up. Neither did her alter-ego, Q of the Universe. She’d survived and thrived. She wouldn’t let some paranoid mine owner win.

Q sent the commands to unlatch her armor. While it powered down and disengaged, Q looked for nets. She found quite a few but only one she’d previously broken into. With nothing to lose, she sent every malicious program into that net with a capture protocol. That told the programs to multiply and spread as fast as possible and start activating in thirty minutes.

If it worked, Nance would need her help to get rid of them. It was the only shot she had. She had no illusions; she wouldn’t last long among the slave miners of Benxihu.

Q took her armor off, struggling to lift each heavy piece. The more they underestimated her, the better. Unable to drag it out further, Q pulled her e-torc off. All she could do was hope her net programs made enough of a mess that they needed her to clean it up.

“Put the armor and your e-torc in the airlock.”

She dragged the armor into the small space and closed the hatch. She had nothing but her under-armor suit and the bags of water and nutrapaste she’d pulled off the armor. She’d considered trying to keep and hide the small knife or the mono filament garrote, but she knew it was useless. They’d be watching her, and she wouldn’t get close enough to use them on anyone.

Even a quick glance had shown her there was no way to get out of this cell. Besides, she was in a container in an airless hollow in the ice. If she got out of here, she’d die from lack of air. If she

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