The Smuggler's Ascension by Christopher Ingersoll

Author:Christopher Ingersoll
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2017-04-05T06:00:00+00:00

~*~

~Interlude 2~

Max’s systems fluttered and flashed as he came back online. After a few moments of diagnostics he realized that his primary systems were fine, but his limbs were severely damaged. His right arm remained functional and he used it to start pulling away the shattered remains of the cockpit from around him. Lights were flashing outside the crumpled remains of the ship, he could see, and he could hear the sounds of people shouting.

Kristof and Sabine could not be heard, and Max wondered whether they had survived the crash. Kristof had rushed to pull Sabine back to the survival pod as Max fought with the dying ship to land it as safely as he could. There’d been no way to know if Kristof had been successful or not, though. Even if he had, Max knew Kristof was likely dead either way.

An enemy ship had scored a laser strike that had broken open the Wraith’s hull and created an explosive decompression of the ship’s atmosphere. For at least a minute the Wraith’s interior had become a vacuum before the ship had passed into the space station’s hanger bay at a frightening speed. Humans were not built to survive in a vacuum, and Max had little reason to think Kristof, and possibly Sabine too, had survived.

Max found an odd fluctuation in his systems whenever he considered that Kristof was dead. He was still running diagnostics to try and determine the source of the anomaly when the rescue crews pulled him from the wreckage of the Wraith. He also felt another fluctuation in his systems when he saw that Sabine was alive. Again he ran diagnostics as they waited together to learn Kristof’s fate.

When the rescue crews had found Kristof alive an hour later, Max’s systems fluctuated wildly and he feared he was suffering some sort of computer virus. All of his scans turned up no anomalies, however, and Max was left to try and puzzle out the meaning of his system oddities as Kristof was rushed off to surgery.

Sabine had ordered the techs in the hanger bay to take Max to be repaired, despite Max’s wishes to accompany her to watch over Kristof. The fact that he could not walk made it impossible for him to insist on going with her, however. The techs took him to an android service bay and had begun disassembling the remains of his mangled and destroyed limbs.

It had been years since Max had received any upgrades, so he found the new limbs to be very agreeable. The new legs were stronger and more energy efficient, as was his new left arm. He decided that he would asked for a new right arm once events had settled down, but for the moment he was eager to return to Kristof’s side.

Max arrived at the surgical theater in time to see Kristof being wheeled out on a gurney. He was connected to a multitude of machines and tubes, making him seem to be almost an android himself, Max thought to quietly.

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