Negasi and Ogedai stared at each other for a long moment.

"What are they planning to do with Aurora?" Negasi asked, his voice nearly stilled with dread.

"I didn't think it could be done, but what you said about Mason makes it all make sense. There must be something genetic that allows them to do this."

"Do what?" Negasi demanded.

"Shh, keep your voice down. They want to download the AI from that Imperium android into Aurora's mind."

Negasi leaned hard against the wall, his stomach clenching. For a moment, he thought he would puke. He struggled to control himself, and asked, "How do you know this? We didn't even know there was an android there."

"They did. They found it on the first trip. It was switched off. Even so, the scans showed it was mostly intact. They pretended they didn't know about it, huh?"

Negasi remembered how Nova and Derren didn't object too much when he and Jeridan wanted to go on a scavenge through the station, and how they pushed to bring the "discovery" with them.

"So it wasn't powered on when they found it?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"It switched itself on. Someone left an external power source that powered up a combat mech, which then powered up the AI."

Had that really been an accident?

Maybe. That combat mech had nearly killed Nova too.

Wait. Someone on her crew had left it. Whatshisname. Ibrahim. Nova insisted pretty hard that he hadn't done it on purpose.

Had he? Is more going on than even Nova knows about?

Ogedai brought him out of his thoughts.

"So that AI is still self-aware? Damn, so not only are they messing with the kid, they're messing with an AI."

"And none of it consensual. Damn them. They can justify anything with the excuse that they're saving the galaxy."

"I don't think Aurora knows about it. I only found out from Roger Tilden."

"The guy that went rogue on Yavari Prime?"

"Yeah. It's supposed to be a secret but I got the truth out of him before I iced his ass."

Negasi rubbed his eyes. He felt a headache coming on. "Cack, it's bad enough they did it to Mason, and now they want to do it to their other kid?"

"We got to stop them."

Negasi looked him in the eye. "Damn right we got to stop them."

"I have a few things to show you," Ogedai said.

"Let's go."

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They hurried down the hallway.

"When were you planning on grabbing Nova?" Ogedai asked.

"We haven't really thought that far. We've been kind of busy trying to stay alive."

"Dumbass. You got to think a plan through. Good thing you're with me now. You need some brains in this operation."

"Um, right."

Ogedai clapped Negasi on the shoulder, nearly sending him through the wall.

"Let's go see what we can find out. There's a lab right at the back of the building you should see. I don't know this stuff too good. Maybe you can tell me what it is. It's got things I've never seen before, and I thought I'd seen everything around here."

"You've been snooping a lot?"

"Ever since I heard about Aurora."

"They didn't tell you, did they?"

"They didn't mean to. They told Preston, that bioengineer that ran off on Yavari Prime with Tilden. He was going to conduct the operation."

"Was he the guy you shot in cold blood?"

"Yeah."

"I have officially stopped judging you for that."

"Thanks. The device I hid from you was an Imperium bioelectronic interface that connects from the AI to a human brain."

"They have it now?"

"Yeah. There was no way to ditch it without them getting suspicious, so I had to bring it back. I would never have let them use it, honest. Aurora's a good kid. When she was here last time, we used to play Robowars. I couldn't let anything happen to her, or any kid."

Ogedai looked so hurt that Negasi instantly believed him. He'd noticed that the biggest bruisers often had the softest hearts. Maybe it was because everyone was scared of them.

"So you didn't know about Derren being put into Mason's head?" Negasi asked.

"No. I didn't see him much. I just thought he was a weird kid."

Negasi nodded. He had been on the ship with him for months before he learned the truth.

Ogedai stopped and frowned at him.

"Why didn't you save Mason once you found out?"

"We didn't have the medicine and experts to do it right and … " Negasi hung his head. " … we realized it was the only way to get the jump gates back online."

Silence. He looked up at Ogedai, thinking he'd see hatred stamped on his face.

He only saw confusion.

"Damn. I don't know what I'd have done in that situation."

"Did we do the right thing?"

Ogedai shook his head. "I don't know. I think maybe you did the only thing."

"That's what we decided."

"But they don't have to put the AI into Aurora's mind. What are they thinking? They don't need that to get the jump gates online."

"Maybe they have a plan beyond that."

"Maybe we can find out."

They passed down the hallway, ignoring the door at the end as they took a right.

"Where are you taking me?" Negasi asked.

"You'll see."

They came to a door with a keypad, the first Negasi had seen. Ogedai punched in the code.

"They let you know the code?"

"Head of security," the Mongol said. "I can get in anywhere."

The door clicked open and they entered.

Negasi stopped right inside the doorway and stared.

This was a medical lab, and quite an advanced one by the looks of it.

But it wasn't the compound's infirmary, not with only one bed and hidden down a side passage behind a locked door.

Plus a lot of the equipment he saw sure didn't look like something you'd see in a regular medical installation.

There was a medical computer, switched off, and a monitoring unit, also switched off, but then there were several devices he hadn't seen before.

Ogedai pointed at one complicated machine that had a half-dome on an extendible arm a bit like what you'd see at a women's hairdressers. There were several holes in the interior of the dome.

"I looked that one up. It's a computer-bio interface. Hypos come out of those holes to connect with the patient's synapses."

Negasi felt gorge rise in his throat. "I didn't know that existed."

"They're totally illegal everywhere. I had a hard time tracking down an image of one. I found a photo of one from a court case on another system. They executed the defendant."

Negasi nodded. "Good."

Ogedai pointed to two more machines, a squat box on wheels with several cables coming from it, and a tall metal pole that looked like a coat rack with several arms coming from the top, the ends of which looked like they could be equipped with various attachments.

"You know what these are?" the Mongol asked.

Negasi studied the box. "I think this is—"

A loud siren blared out in the hallway. Negasi spun around.

"Damn, we've been caught!" he cried.

"No, that's the security alarm. Someone's breached the perimeter!"

Ogedai rushed out into the hallway. Negasi followed. They came to a vidscreen and Ogedai punched in an access code to bring up the external cameras.

The one at the front gate showed the gate in a smoking ruin. One of the armored cars, its cannon leveled, was driving over the twisted metal.

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