My first task was the easiest. I threaded a small number of my nanites through Sam’s body, creating a continuous loop running from his head to his chest and back through me again. That would give me an idea of what was going on with his colony and a place to start fixing things.

Information started to trickle back as I thought about all the other times I had done this in the past. Not kneeling on a cold deck and doing nanite therapy on an unconscious engineer. Fixing people’s problems with their nanite colony.

Some were simple. Some were not.

I remembered the old folks who had gotten their colonies later in life. Others that had made bad decisions. There were little kids with broken instruction sets. Infants whose initial colony for some reason did not take. Old folks whose nanites had become increasingly erratic over time, too.

Then there were the special cases. Soldiers and spies. Governments were always looking for an edge. In war. In peace. In competition with other powers. Sometimes that edge was so sharp they cut themselves.

A lot of the broken pieces ended up in my lab.

I had seen far, far too many once promising young men and women reduced to shattered wrecks, crippled and driven insane beyond even the ability of modern science to fully repair before they finally came to my door. When the costs quickly became to much to bear, the governments of the world gave up on them. Those poor folks were left to fend for themselves, often confused, alone, and in pain.

The company paid me to examine these people, try to determine what went wrong. They weren’t too worried about replicating the attacks that caused the damage. Nanite attacks were unreliable in the extreme.

They wanted me to investigate the more promising cases. Sometimes the damage provided some sort of beneficial effect along with the savage injuries. That involved a lot of testing. A lot of failures, too, but the paltry few successes made the company money.

The operating costs were cheap, too. Those people had nowhere else to go.

Along the way I managed to help some of them. Fewer than I would have liked. The more I saw of them, the more I began to despise humanity in general. Not my patients.

But everyone else was fair game for my ire.

I’d learned long ago to be wary of other people. Somewhere along the way I’d become arrogant and blind. I’d despised Security for being annoying and useless. I’d ignored my fellow researchers as part of the problem. The other station residents were mostly part of the company, in some form or fashion.

Not every person was selfish and evil. My newest companions had proved themselves already, willing to take risks for others. I’d been the selfish one, before. I had worked for men that I believed to be evil, disdaining others that worked for the very same company.

I was trying to do better.

Sam’s colony was in chaos. Some factions were attacking each other. Others had gone rampant within his body, triggering his immune system to reject them as foreign objects. A few seemed to be trying to help limit the damage.

What was left remained still. Those were the only normal ones.

My own colony could sweep through, completely destroying his and reseeding a brand new colony to grow with him. That would be the quick, safe, and simple method. That was what medical machines did when doctors attempted to fix a feral colony.

I’d seen the result of that before, though. Doing could sometimes cause more issues than it fixed. And the recovery time was not short.

The other option was to selectively remove those actively harming the body. Then separate the fighting factions. Then examine them to see if there was a way to adjust whatever instruction had caused them to do so.

Second option it was.

The destructive nanites were consumed swiftly. They didn’t even fight back, like the rogues. Then I split up the fighting factions. One of them quickly turned on my colony, trying to consume my nanites themselves. They failed.

Without proper instruments there was no way for me to examine the instruction sets that the remaining nanites had. But I didn’t need to in order to see if they were going harm Sam once I let them out of quarantine.

The first few that I freed scurried out and immediately took up residence in Sam’s gut. All the recent activity had likely drawn their power reserves down significantly more than usual, so that made sense. A few moments later they left the stomach and spread out, wandering through the body as if searching for something.

Then they stopped. Without instructions or purpose the tiny machines simply waited, drawing the least amount of power possible to remain active.

I released the rest in batches, monitoring them to see if there were any remaining issues. A few times I had to eliminate a batch that attempted to cause further damage. After several more minutes of observation I withdrew my colony with a sigh.

No rogue nanites. That had been my biggest worry.

“His color has improved and the fever looks to be dropping.” Doctor Delveccio put away her instruments, peering up at me with hooded eyes.

“How did you know to do- whatever it was that you just did?”

“That was part of my job. I did not just do research all day. Basic nanite therapy was offered by the company. When someone’s colony grows erratic over time or becomes actively harmful, well, that needs to be properly addressed.”

“I thought doctors just purged the harmful nanites and grew you a new colony, though?”

“Sometimes that is done, yes. But doing that can cause more stress on the body. Not a good thing with infants, the elderly, or those with weakened or compromised systems.”

Doctor Delveccio nodded at that. I grabbed a meal bar and tore into it with my teeth.

“For the life of me I can’t understand how you can eat those things.” She shook her head sadly, as if lamenting my poor decisions.

“Food is fuel. Using nanites can cause me to use up a lot of energy, fast.”

“I can tell. You look about ready to drop.”

I finished off three meal bars, washing it down with a bulb of water. My nanites were sated for the moment, no longer bloated with the extreme numbers I’d carried before.

“How long will he be out?” I asked.

“Hours, probably.”

“Will you be alright keeping watch if I sleep now?” She snorted, giving me a level look.

“Get some sleep. I’ll make sure no monsters come and eat you like you did those nasty things.”

“Meal bars are not nasty. They provide enough nutrients and vitamins to keep any active adult healthy and fit-”

“And they taste like burnt cardboard,” she retorted. “Go on, get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a few hours. Weirdo.”

Her words did not seem to quite match her tone, I reflected as I drifted off to sleep. For most, the term was rather less appealing than she made it sound.

* * *

“-you’ll wake him up, idiot.”

The irony of that being the first thing I heard upon waking was not lost on me. Gravity pulled at me, keeping me tight to the deck. I felt stiff and sore. My face especially, where I’d been clawed. Then there were the bruises.

The still-yet-to-be-named Wampus Cat was pouncing at an empty bottle, sending it skittering and then chasing it down again. The bottle fetched up against my shoulder.

So, predictably enough, the little fuzzball grabbed it by the nipple. And used it to bonk me over the head.

“You cannot possibly be hungry again.”

“She probably is, actually. Hasn’t had her bottle in a couple of hours or so,” the silver haired catgirl commented, not turning around. The Wampus Kitten wriggled the bottle threateningly with a tiny growl. I searched around for a full one.

“Here,” Sam handed me one. “About time you got up. The ship is on its way to waking up, too.”

I added bottle to furball, picking both up and putting the now purring troublemaker back in her accustomed spot on my head where she settled in for some serious formula drinking.

“How long was I out?” I still hadn’t rebuilt my HUD yet.

“Nine hours. You looked like you needed it.” Doctor Delveccio said with a yawn.

“Problem is, we’re behind schedule. I’ve got the ship waking up, but we don’t know the situation with the Pride yet. And, I’m sorry Del, but I don’t think you’re tracking well enough to send you up to the bridge to contact them.”

The silver haired woman nodded, hiding another yawn with the back of her hand.

“Well I am awake now. You should get some rest while I go take a look.”

“Sounds good,” she mumbled, curling up on the deck out of the way. Her feline ears twitched once as her tail wrapped around her knees. Her breathing slowed almost immediately.

“She stayed up, watching over us the entire time while we both slept. Not knowing if there were other zombies out there, waiting to ambush us like this one was.” He indicated a sooty looking pile of refuse off to the side.

“Any idea how long the wakeup cycle will take?” I asked softly, trying not to wake the now sleeping catgirl.

“Thirty-six hours by the numbers,” the shorter man grumbled. “That may not be enough time.”

“Is there any way to speed that up?”

“No. Not and expect this bucket of bolts to fly. Or the air to not turn toxic. Or-”

“I get it.”

“So. You good to head up to the bridge for us and contact the other ship?”

“Yes. I will contact you via the ship’s intercom once I make it there.”

“Z. About yesterday...” Sam trailed off, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Don’t worry. There’s nothing in here. I checked the entire system when I was connected to the console.” Which reminded me. “I probably should have told Doctor Delveccio that before I slept. Please tell her that I am sorry for that if she should wake before I return.”

The MHU opened for me with a faint creak. Fortunately, it did not wake our sleeping companion.

“Be safe, man.” The stocky engineer said at last, turning back to the main console. It beeped softly, requesting more input. Sam’s hands danced over the screen, selecting commands with what to my eyes looked like supreme confidence.

I left main engineering, trying to tiptoe out in a one and a half ton exosuit. My efforts met with some limited success. I was not quiet. But the catgirl also did not wake up. At least, as far as my sensors could tell.

The cargo hold was a mess. Now that gravity had returned, everything that had been free floating had fallen to the deck.

Splattered would be a more accurate description, in many cases.

There was no way to avoid all the gore, so I made my way through it. There were no little maintenance bots to clean up the mess here. Though I could probably reprogram a few, given time...

But time was a luxury I hadn’t enjoyed for a while now. My armored footsteps echoed throughout the hold at a quick pace. If there were any zombies still left alive the noise would attract them. None appeared, though.

The corridor where the second giant died was even more of a mess than the cargo hold. Blackened bodies lay strewn across the deck along with thick ropes of gore. Several of the corpses were in pieces. I was never more pleased that the exosuit had its own self contained air supply than at that particular moment.

I kicked the piles aside as I went to clear the path somewhat. This would have to be cleaned up at some point of the trip. Probably by hand. Or we could just stuff them into the compartment here for now.

There was no way the door would close now, though. The giant zombie had bent the door frame too much for that.

Thankfully the blood was mostly dry by the time I arrived. My footsteps only produced a mild squelching sound as I left large footprints behind. Even with the zombies, the deck had been relatively clean before then. Oh well.

The Hog Mauler was a much larger ship than the other one I’d been in recently, with many more compartments to search. I didn’t want to leave any sneaky surprises behind in case the other two decided to come this way, so I checked each one as I went.

First I knocked on the doors as I went by, listening for howls. Then I had to exit the MHU to search the rooms, just in case. It was possible to get it through the doorways, but doing so involved some careful contortions in most cases. How Sam was able to get the combat suit into the first compartment so quickly mystified me. Perhaps he was simply better at it than I was.

Most of the compartments I checked were empty. Extra storage, possibly occasional passenger quarters, I had no idea what they were commonly used for. A few held crates with labels that read ‘Do Not Open- Secure Storage!’ on them.

I passed a stairway and finished checking the deck, going all the way past where we had entered to another airlock at the far end. No zombies shambled out of the darkened rooms I checked and the airlock was empty of post-human cannibals as well.

The stairwell led me to the mess hall. That seemed to be a feature that freighters shared, no matter the size. At least, that was what my sample size of two seemed to indicate. Several nests littered the area. Empty ones.

Probably where the ones that had attacked Doctor Delveccio and Sam came from. Nothing ambushed me as I checked the various storage spaces and compartments. I did discover that the ship was quite well stocked with various foodstuffs in the surprisingly deep stasis compartment, though.

Make that stasis compartments. There were four. Doctor Delveccio, at least, would be pleased by that. Probably Sam too.

Beyond the mess hall the corridors were too tight for me to fight effectively in the MHU, so I had to leave it behind. I took out my pistol and grabbed the vibroknife that I’d taken to carrying around. As I exited, a bottle fell off my head.

The Wampus Cat had finally gone to sleep. She was kneading my scalp as she dreamed, too, but with tiny kitten claws this was less comfortable than it sounded.

The first compartment that I searched going aft looked to be crew quarters. A set of zero-g bunk beds lined two walls with a small desk at the back, with a couple of storage lockers by the entry. A holo poster of a pair of scantily clad women powered up as I entered over one of the bunks.

Since nothing jumped out to eat my face, I left the bunk room alone. The next two compartments appeared to be the same, though the holo poster over the last one featured two scantily clad men instead.

After that were two more empty rooms on either side. The corridor dead then dead ended into what turned out to be a fairly nice looking gym/rec room.

Too bad for me it was already occupied.

The irate patron howled at me as it launched itself across the compartment in a blur of wicked claws. I’d forgotten to knock. Unforgivable of me, really.

I snapped out two shots at the creature, backpedaling through the open door. Both struck the creature but neither seemed to do it any severe injury. It leapt through the doorway, all four sets of claws reaching for me as I fired once more as I fell backward, somehow hitting it in the throat.

Then it fell on me. I jammed a forearm under its throat to keep its snapping jaws away from my face and fended off the claws as best I could. It must have been weakened by the rapid blood loss, as I was able to keep it from ripping into me too badly before it died.

It was several moments before I noticed that the thing was no longer moving. It was simply so heavy I could barely roll it away.

The tiny furball was making displeased noises at the thing and worrying at the corpse as I got up, feeling the hot and sticky blood covering me from neck to belly button.

“I need a shower.” The Wampus Cat looked up at my voice, meeping reproachfully at me. I picked it up with the cleaner of my hands so it wouldn’t be licking at the blood again.

“Yes, I know you’re upset that the four armed zombie interrupted your nap,” I said as it complained again from its perch atop my head. “I did not appreciate getting covered in zombie blood, either.”

A new bottle from my stash quieted the little beast. That reminded me of what Doctor Delveccio told me about it- her. Chances were she would grow up to be quite large. Unnaturally so, considering her current fist sized form.

But that was exotic biologicals for you. The era of genetic experimentation had created many such creatures. There were also human body mods, like the four armed zombie that had attacked me in the gym.

There were several popular modifications that remained to this day as evidenced by Doctor Delveccio. Catgirl modifications had plenty of fans and while the gene sequence was not especially dominant, it stuck around in the modern genome.

Other biomods were less appreciated. Some were outright shunned in many cultures on Earth. Further out in the system, people cared a lot less about that from what I had been told. That meant you could find the more outre forms in colonies and outposts with much greater frequency than on Earth.

They were still human, though. The popularity of the gene revolution had largely died in the wars and conflict that followed. Implant technology was the newer fad, though it never reached the numbers that the gene mods did. And implant tech was never heritable, making it seem safer to the more xenophobic factions of humanity.

I returned to the mess hall and headed up the corridor. The compartments here were larger, single units. These were probably the bridge officers. A single zero-g bunk, a larger desk, and individual showers.

Showers would have to wait, though. The main objective was contacting Maggie’s Pride. A howl sounded distantly as I knocked on the bridge hatch. I frowned. That could be a problem.

I wrenched the door open, taking the bridge in with a glance. No zombies. Lots of embedded consoles. Closed doors to the left and right. Howl sounded from the left. I put the pistol away. Shooting on the bridge could wreck our best chance at getting to the Pride.

This time when I yanked the door open I had a vibroknife in my hand. When the first zombie reached for me all it got was a face full of metal vibrating at speeds that made the blade seem white hot.

I felt no resistance as my hand and then my arm traveled through the zombie’s head. The second one tried to bite my arm while my hand was stuck in the first one. I drained that one and kicked the first one off my arm.

Two more arrived while I was finishing draining the second one. The press of bodies tangled them up for a moment.

A moment was all I needed. I slashed the vibroknife back and forth across both of them, slicing through arms, claws, then chests and heads. One wild swing ended up carving into the bulkhead. No more zombies appeared.

I was beginning to realize why vibroknives were considered highly illegal. They were terrifyingly effective. Even against substances as tough as space ship bulkheads.

A look through the compartment showed several sealed hatches- escape pods. All missing. Scraps of discarded meal bar wrappers and water bulbs littered the area. That explained how the zombies had survived in the small room all this time.

At some point in the past, all the escape pods had been used here. Had the crew escaped somehow? My mind worried at the possibility.

After discovering that other human beings had survived the collapse, some of them even just in stasis pods, I wanted to believe that such things were more common than I feared.

Cold logic suggested otherwise. But human beings were known to beat the odds, from time to time.

The other door off the bridge led to another batch of escape pods that hadn’t been used. Otherwise it was empty.

The ship’s internal communication was live, so I sent a call to engineering to check in.

“Z, my man!” I could hear the relief in Sam’s voice. “You made it. Any trouble?”

“Not that you’d notice. The ship is most likely zombie free. All of the ones I have seen so far are dead.”

“Wait. Does that mean you found more of them?”

“Yes. They have since been dispatched.”

“Well that’s a relief. Del will be happy to hear that once she wakes up.”

“No doubt. I intend to call the Maggie’s Pride now.”

“Copy that, Z. Let us know, alright? Engineering out.”

“I shall do so. Bridge out.”

It took several moments for me to find the com system. Then several more to determine how to initiate a call. Along the way, I learned how to broadcast the call to engineering. So I did that, too.

“Maggie’s Pride, this is Hog Mauler, Doctor Zolnikov calling. We are currently waking a ship to come to your aid. Come in, please.”

“Is that you, Walker?” A voice came over the com. It wasn’t the even tempered young woman that I’d spoken to before. This was an older woman. Her voice was clear and strong despite the age which colored her voice.

A moment later the main screen showed a face to fit the voice. Iron gray hair framed a face weathered with deep laugh lines. The face was not smiling.

“Where in the hell have you been, boy?”