-(Altaïr)-

Heavy Corvette ‘The Lurker’

Personal ship of the Shadow Broker

Saturday the 7th January 3141 of the Human Federation Calendar

I placed the girl into one of the guest quarter when she fell asleep on the dead body of Doctor Buchanan. It was really a shame, I counted on him to take care of his surrogate daughter. Even more of a shame that he was pretty to look at…

*Calm down, me.*

This dry spell that I drag since the death of my late husband twelve years ago makes me act up like a young girl sometimes. The turbo elevator brought me to the bridge at the center of the ship, there were three decks in the Lurker; the upper, middle and lower deck. In the middle deck was the bridge where I could control every part of the lurker, from the weaponry to the engine room. The Lurker is an automatized ship that doesn’t require a crew. I made the mistake to trust my crew once, never again. The main bridge of the ship was a circular room with a command chair on a pedestal in the middle, around it consols that controlled the different systems of the ship could be found. Behind the command chair, there were the two consoles controlling navigation and engineering; the three forward consoles controlled the weapons, communication and the pilot station. On the far gun gray colored walls of the bridge where the consoles that operated the other more mundane system tasked of controlling the maintenance bots, the sickbay or the crew quarters and other essentials part of the ship.

Normally, I was truly alone on this ship; But the teenager in the crew cabins is changing my routine. I sat on the commander chair and with a wave of my hand, a holographic window appeared and showed me the data on the girl, Destiny.

Her DNA map suggests that she is of Asian and Celtic descent, that combination wasn’t unnatural with the centuries of crossbreeding humanity had fallen into since their first contact with the Alliance of Races. She had that double triple helix in her DNA suggesting that she is psionic, and a powerful one at that, the marker suggests that she is not only a Telepath but something else. My AI was already comparing those markers to others known in the Alliance database. The results brought by the AI show a match with the gene marker for precognitives.

Interesting.

“No wonder you want her so badly, Tyrant. You went as far as to give me one of your precious nanites pack to hand over to her.”

Now I understand better why Helena was this adamant in freeing that little girl from the clutches of the Federation. The fact that she trusted me with one of her precious case of centurion maker nanites prove how important she was to her, but what would be the effect of that pack on someone with dual gifts? I heard that those actually boost psionics powers by a very large margin. Crossing my legs, I looked at the ceiling of the bridge in contemplation.

*What is that woman planning?*

Divining the moves of Helena Theresa Vice has become something of a hobby of mine since she came on the Alliance game board. She has made overtures with a lot of governments like the Thelians and some free empires that didn’t want to join the Alliance like the Sirena Republic and has a presence on most of them, marketing clean energy, safer starships transit services escorted by some of her warships against privateer activities, selling quantum computers and permit cultural and academic exchanges. Then there are those shady actions in the null zone that buffer the Shdeveri empire and Human space. It has become rather difficult to track what is going on there. If I didn’t know better I would say that Vice Corp is preparing for taking over the Alliance and gearing up for war.

*Impossible, the other Oracles wouldn’t let her.*

In response to my thoughts a map of Alliance space, the neutral worlds and an approximation of the size of the Shdeveri Empire appear in different colors on the hologram. The yellow dots on the map represented Vice Corp, the green ones are the human federation, the neutral worlds in blue and the Thelian orange ones. I narrowed my eyes on the map and linked most of the missions I did for Vice Corp and information I sold to them. I was missing something, I don’t know what but I will find it.

Now that I think about it, what about that Saryan female her and Idunn made me track for them? Was she given a nanites pack as well? Is Vice Corp amassing powerful and talented soldiers?

*That little girl, Destiny what is her role in all of this?*

The problem is, does Destiny knows that she a holder of multiple psionic gifts? Unless trained thoroughly precognition can easily be dismissed as intuition. Maybe testing her later would assuage my burning curiosity.

 

***

 The Lurker

In transit toward US Conglomerate Space

Sunday the 8th January 3141 of the Human Federation Calendar

Through the camera in the quarter assigned to Destiny, I watched her sitting on her bed in fetal position her arms holding her knees. Through the log of the bot responsible of the chow that she didn’t order anything and didn’t take any showers or went to relieve her bowels. The little girl was mourning and neglecting herself. I decided that I should not let her do so. I pushed a button the armrest of my command chair and spoke.

“Greetings, Miss Macleod,” I said.

“Who-?” She blearily asked.

She sounded really out of it for a moment.

“Come on, Miss Macleod did you forget where you are?” I reminded her.

I could literally feel the gears in her head turn, also the psionics activity scanners in the ship detected how far the range and power of her telepathy were when it activated. For a human, this little girl was already among the heavy hitter. I felt the caress of Destiny’s mind reaching for mine, my natural mental shield stopped any intrusion on her part.

“Are ye that person who helped me escape?” She asked.

The sadness in her was overwhelming and she looked as if she had given up. But I wouldn’t stand for it, so I went bluntly into the heart of the matter.

“Grief didn’t fog your brain too much, good; your uncle wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

She looked rather stricken when I said this and was about to go catatonic again, I won’t let her.

“Miss Macleod, I invite you to take a shower and come to have a bite to eat. New clothes will be given to you by the service bot that will guide you to the mess deck. I expect to see you here at my table in one hour.”

I cut the communication by pushing the button on my armrest again; a slow and lazy smile appeared on my face. *If she doesn’t want to snap out of it, I will make her.* Suddenly a plan formed in my mind, I will not get the girl back into Helena’s hands yet; I will educate her and make her see a bit of the galaxy first before throwing her at that particular villain. There is this saying about being prepared to face adversity that I particularly like; Destiny is not ready, but I sure will do my best to make her take her ‘fate’ in her own hands. I laughed at myself for the unfortunate pun, at least this poor girl didn’t have to grow up surrounded by kids making fun of her name.

***

It is 12:000 and time for lunch I was waiting for Destiny to appear. I really expect her to be there, she’s the kind of girl that is subject to give in to the authority of her seniors; a programmed behavior that I will have to break her out of.

Conjuring a holo-screen I looked at my reflection, I wore my dark grey shipsuit and boots and had fashioned my pale blond hair in a long middle parted haircut. My green eyes reminded me of that woman, Helena. I hated her and I loved her at the same time. This face was recognizable everywhere in human space and I couldn’t bear to be compared to her, judged to be like her. It has not always been this way. Once upon a time, I felt proud to be her double, but when my crew sold me out everything changed.

*Whose eyes are those?* Strange feelings swelled up inside me.

Was I Altaïr or Helena?

A ‘swoosh’ from the door of the mess made me dismiss the holo-screen and school my face in a neutral mask. I turned toward the door, hearing someone walking in the room; what wasn’t my surprise in seeing that indeed Destiny put on the clothes I had designed for her. She wore the same shipsuit as me, but she added a dark purple jacket and forgo the issued boots and gloves. She still had the same boots she came in with and the belt with an “x” almost sliding out of her hip but still hanging on, it weirdly looked good on her. Her red hair was long and in need of a haircut.

*We will do that later.* I thought.

“You came,” I said matter of factly.

<And you look good.> I sent to her via telepathy.

<...?>

<You didn’t expect me to be psionic? That’s rich, you can literally become one with a DNA splicing operation from Vice Corporation.> I said dropping a nugget of information.

<Who are ye?> She looked at me from head to toes taking in how I looked.

<I am Altaïr Aquilar.>

<Like the constellation?> Destiny tilted her head.

<A bit.> I said while chuckling.

People I interact with from human space always ask me this. I made her follow me toward the long table with the chair around it. We sat facing each other, the girl looked nervous with her gaze roaming everywhere. She looked mostly at the different exit points of the mess, there were three of them. One for the middle deck, and two leading to the lower deck and engineering. The mess was a room of 50m² and the walls were grey with posters of movies and recruiting ads that I took from different human worlds. There were four long table, a cooking area and a distributor of protein paste that you could program to flavor them with different tastes. There was also the stasis container with all the preserved food. The machine that fabricates plates and cutleries near the kitchen area. It was a simple but efficient setup. But as I live alone on this ship it went unused mostly.

<You are safe here, nothing untoward will happen to you. I gave your uncle my word that you’d be treated well and given a better life.”

“I miss him,” Destiny said with a sob.

Tears were already streaming from her eyes to her cheeks, she was so vulnerable at the moment. But she shouldn’t stay like this, people will take advantage of her.

“I did my best to save him, but he begged me to get you onboard while I was treating him. I… feel bad about it. But he was a stubborn man and only thought about you.”

“He was a stubborn old man.” She made a hollow laugh while saying that.

“Destiny, first we are going to eat and then I will explain to you why I saved you and you’ll have to make a choice. It’s pretty simple, do you want to be protected or become strong enough that people don’t mess with you?”

“Ah…” Destiny tried to say.

The bot with a rolling chariot full of food arrived at this moment and began putting different dishes between us. It ranged from vegetables to meat with bread wraps and fruit juice. No alcohol will be served to that underage girl.

“Well, let’s eat and I will hear your answer after that.”

Destiny looked at the spread before her, then at me. I began to prepare my own wrap; putting meat and veggies inside, then drenching it in the soup. I put it into my mouth and chewed up. The girl mimicked me and bit into the wrap and opened her eyes wide and to then eat like someone had starved her for days.

*Well she was doing that to herself.*

I served her, fruit juice in a disposable mug, she took it from my hand downed it in one gulp. What a thirsty girl.

<Slow down the food won’t go away.> I sent to her with telepathy.

She stopped to devour and looked at me sheepishly and then resumed into eating more slowly. Like I said this girl was subject to some kind of influence, she always followed order or instruction from people older than her. Thirty minutes later, it took five wraps and three mugs of grape juice to fill up Destiny’s belly. She looked replete and satisfied.

“How good do you feel?”

“Ah am feelin’ bloody good, pure dead brilliant.” She said and put her hand before her mouth and burping a little.

She looked rather embarrassed by doing so and hid her face behind her bangs. I had a tough time to decipher what she said, but she said she felt great. Destiny felt less on her guard around me, even if I liked this sudden development we had things to discuss.

“I will now tell you everything you must know, are you ready?”

“I was born ready.”

The girl bent her torso toward me and put her linked fingers under her chin. I had all her attention, and she acted like a typical teenager.

“I am Altaïr Aquilar, the Shadow Broker. I sell information to those that can pay and I do additional services like mercenary works. I acquire new technologies for certain parties and help where I can when it is warranted. It’s a simplified version, but that’s what I do.”

“Sounds great.” Destiny smiled slightly.

“I was contacted by one of my main clients to extract you from the project Xavier on this planetary outpost housing it. I came into contact with Magnus through this client and we put in motion a plan to help you two escape. He gave me information to help incriminate the people responsible for the project and its inhuman goal, I already released the files to the public and it is creating great upheaval in the Federation.”

“Too bad he ain’t here to see it happen,” Destiny said sadly.

“Even though we exposed them, I don’t think they are going to stop. Children possessing psionic abilities will be taken and experimented on. They want to form a psionic army of a sort, to take on my client. She is interested in you because they had a goal they put a lot of money in and you were central to it. They intended to turn you into… they wanted to clone you. The clones and you would be part of a quantum network that your abilities would boost to be able to look into the future and calculate odds. They wanted to turn you into an organic computer.” I said disgusted by this.

Some people needed to be put down, I decided that I will find all of them. Politicians, military and scientists responsible for this project and kill them in the most gruesome way.

“What? I… don’t understand what it is.” Destiny seemed to not understand those simple terms.

I decided to add a technology course for her to be able to use it, they must not have let her use anything more complicated than a coffee machine in that damn lab. I decided to simplify it for her again, she wasn’t stupid; just ignorant.

“Basically you’d be a vegetable linked to a machine, like a computer,” I said in layman terms.

Suddenly she looked pale and then gradually her face took on a greenish tint.

“Geein me the boak, ah am glad that ye took me out of here…” She uttered.

Translation, it made her feel sick, that Scottish brogue is not facilitating communication, I set my AI to add subtitle for when she speaks because I really needed it.

“Your welcome.”

The girl looked at me with uncertainty and despair.

“What’s gonna happen tah me?” Destiny asked.

She looked rather lost and worried, I would be too in her place. The poor girl lost her father figure and was uprooted rather brutally. So I decided to be transparent with her, to give her options.

“I want you to work with me for a bit and then my client plan to buy your services. But there is something you must do to accept the job. You must receive an injection of nanites that will give you a chance to survive out here.” I said, laying the card on the table.

“Nanites?” The girl asked looking at me mystified.

She didn’t seem to know what they were either. Let’s focus on her education while we are in transit for the US conglomerate space.

“Basically little robots that will enter your body and fix things, make you more healthy, more beautiful, stronger, live longer and boost your psionics abilities.” I dumbed down years of explanation of what nanites are.

“Ah won’t get fat?”Destiny’s eyes were shining when she asked that.

She was a girl alright, I remember asking my sister about the same thing when she injected me with the nanites cocktail. I put my hands on the table and looked at her meaningfully.

“No, you will never get fat. I received them and I have been living for one hundred years.”

“Aye right, you look barely in yer late twenties.” Destiny rolled her eyes and crossed her arms under her breasts.

“I am one hundred years old and have been doing this shadow broker business for seventy years,” I said honestly.

I even let her in my mind briefly to see that I wasn’t lying, she went from dubious to really interested.

“Aye, ah am in.” Destiny declared.

“Just like that?”I said mystified by her sudden decision.

“You look great and ye’ll help me, yah?” She reached and put a hand on mine.

Her eyes shined with hope and desperation; the girl was looking for a rock to hang on in the tumult of her own feelings and grief. I think we need to do something about her uncle and bury him somewhere, I will ask her about it later. She needs to let him go to be able to advance, and I must undo that weird indoctrination she was subject to. We will work on that.

“With all of my power,” I answered taking her hand in mine.

“Let’s begin!” She cried.

***

It is one hour later that we found ourselves in the medical bay of the ship, Destiny was taking off her clothes and placed them in a transparent silicone box that I provided her. She shivered a bit because of the temperature and her nakedness.

*Don’t worry Destiny, you won’t feel the cold anymore when you let the nanites work on you.*

“Ah hate being in the skud before people!” Destiny shouted while covering her ample breasts and womanhood as she tapped her foot on the anti slip covered white tiles.

Translation she hated being naked before people, must be a trauma caused by her being studied by scientists who didn’t treat her like a human being. Despite me, I was starting to form a certain fondness for the girl. There was an office station with a computer desk on the east wall; on the western wall of the bay, the beds for patients were separated by a titanium wall with a transparent aluminum window showing them. Scanners above the beds that looked like a cylindrical telescope with big focus lens trained on the future patient. But what really mattered was the vertical health tank where regenerative treatments or DNA splicing operation could be done. Destiny followed me to the room where she will receive the nanites and be augmented. With a ‘swoosh’ the door of the room opened. There were different pedestals on the ground in a radial arc with machinery and specialized computer around them. Destiny stepped on the pedestal to the right and I went to strap the breather mask to her face. I patted her head with a reassuring smile.

<Don’t worry, it should not take more than two days. You’ll be famished when you wake up, be prepared.> I sent to her via telepathy.

The girl nodded and I saw her eyes smile at me, while she will be under I will work on undoing her indoctrination with telepathy and a bit of psychic surgery. I stepped back as the glass cylinder slowly surged from the pedestal and enclosed Destiny. The Health tank closed when it reached the corresponding inverse pedestal of the ceiling. Holes appeared near the feet of the girl and water began to gush out of them. Destiny looked panicked a bit.

<Please don’t be alarmed, you have the breather so you won’t drown.> I reassured her.

She visibly calmed down, thirty seconds later the tank was full and I put Destiny under with a powerful sedative gas that she breathed with the breather mask. She looked over worldly with her red hair floating above her head in the water. A bot came to deliver the nanites pack to me, it looked like a black suitcase with a keypad, a thumbprint scanner, and bio scanner to put genetic material to open it. This was a Psi pack if I was reading it well and it mainly gives a major power boost to psionic ability with the usual benefits of nanites enhancements. I opened the case by passing through all the security checks and three vials full of grey goo were in it. I placed each of them in the machine that will inject them into Destiny.

The AI that will be gifted to her with the pack was a preloaded one that I designed and unshackled called Nova, she will guide her and help her. Something that Helena will surely curse me for; she hates unshackled AI with a passion because they have choices. The grey goo full of nanites floated in the health tank and began to work on the girl.

“Now it finally begins,” I said crossing my arms and looking at the angelic red-haired girl who was changing.

---

A/N: Hi there! The chapters will slow down now, I need to stock up on chapters! There are like 4 chapters left to publish but I will hand them sparingly while I write them as fast as I can! You know guys comments and reviews for this work would be more motivating. I don't like this silent reader thing going on. I read the stats of the story so I know I have people who like this series.