Warhawk's Sacrifice - Ch. 16 - Shopping for Syn - Alpha (Patreon)

After explaining to the crew the initial plan to travel off of Mahad, Seb and Zara coordinated approvals to do a little shopping. Half of the crew needed simple necessities, such as clothes, toiletries, and armor. While Seb and Eni needed to acquire a few key elements to see their scheme come to fruition.

Everyone in the crew stood waiting at the edge of the Amnesty’s cargo bay. They watched as two personal luxury shuttles descended from the sky. Their sleek curves and bright metals were a signature of Merovingian design. Only those with deep pockets could keep such vehicles clean in the Mahad desert.

When the side doors split horizontally and a small step extended from the side, several armed guards, in full armor, stepped out and stood at attention.

Seb cocked his brow. These weren’t ordinary soldiers or guards. These were the same elite military units he’d seen on Varinadae’s Spirit. While he didn’t expect trouble, seeing how cautious the FLS were acting reaffirmed to him that the sepix government was afraid of Iris.

Seb turned around and pointed over his shoulder. “All right everyone, shuttles are here. Make sure to keep your comm channels open and keep in contact with Syn at all times.”

“Iris, wait for us!” Nalla shouted as the nakai pranced down the ramp.

“She seems overly excited,” Seb said.

“I know. This is all so new for her. But I don’t want her to get overwhelmed.”

“She’ll be fine. She has you and the others to watch out for her.”

Nalla pointed to the ship. “Do you need us to get you anything while we’re out?”

“Nah,” Seb said, waving his hand. “If so, I’ll get it when I’m out with Eni.”

Nalla leaned forward and kissed the captain’s lips. “We’ll see you later tonight, then.”

“Yup, see you soon.”

As Nalla, Vi, and Roja marched toward the shuttle, the huntress spun around and pointed at him. “Don’t forget, we need to talk.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Seb said. “Once things settle down, I’ll swing by.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

Once Sister Mischa passed him, Seb grabbed her arm and held her back momentarily. He leaned in and whispered. “Keep an eye on everyone. Especially the guards. They’re no doubt gathering intel on us as much as protecting us. If you notice anything out of the ordinary, let me know.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” Sister Mischa said with the smile clearly behind her red-crossed helmet. She slapped Seb’s bottom as she walked past. While he smiled, it left him feeling confused over the mixed signals.

Maybe she’s had a change of heart? he wondered.

As he watched everyone climb into the larger shuttle, he heard footsteps approaching from behind. When he looked over his shoulder, Eni walked up to his side wearing her armor and helmet; a request from Seb so they could keep their communication private. She carried her shotgun on her back, which was a fair enough compromise rather than bringing Betty.

Seb tapped on the side of his helmet, closing it over his face. Once it fully sealed, he opened a secure comm channel to Eni and Syn. “Can you both hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” Eni said.

“Affirmative, Captain,” Syn added.

“Let’s head out,” Seb said, shuffling down the ramp. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

As the pair crossed the landing platform, the cargo bay door rose behind them. Four soldiers stood waiting for them at the entrance to the smaller shuttle. They shouldered their rifles and gave a brief bow as Seb and Eni approached.

“Greetings, Captain Warhawk and Comm Specialist Black,” the soldier said. “I’m Fourth Fang Redas. The men behind me are Third Fang Uto, Third Fang Brakan, and Second Fang Lirra. We’ll be your protection for this evening on behalf of the Saladonus Family. Up in the cockpit is Fourth Wing Ptero who will be piloting us to our destination.”

“Good to meet you all,” Seb said, waving. “I didn’t expect to have the FLS’s finest flying with us.”

“To be honest, before this morning, neither did we. But we were told that this came in as an order from Caput Draconis Saladonus himself. You all are high-value assets who demand only the finest protection.”

“More like enough spec ops to take us down should they give the word,” Eni whispered over the comm.

“Are we expecting trouble?” Seb asked. “Seems like a lot of men just for me and Eni.”

“While we don’t anticipate any issues,” Redas said. “It’s never too cautious to have an extra pair of rifles on your side while venturing Abarros’s streets. Especially the section of the city that we’re venturing to.”

“Is that right? Is it heavy in crime?”

Redas let out a snort. “Well, perhaps what tourists might consider crime. But that’s just business on Mahad. Either way, we won’t let anything happen to either of you.” Redas extended his hand to the shuttle. “If you’re ready to depart, please feel free to take any seat you’d like.”

Seb nodded and climbed in the middle row. Eni followed, taking the seat next to him. After they both secured their belts, the soldiers climbed in and stowed their weapons next to them. Once everyone was on board, the shuttle’s doors closed, kicking on interior lights. Redas’s head nodded as if speaking to someone over a private comm just before the vehicle ascended into the air.

“So, where’s this place we’re going?” Seb asked.

“It’s called The Hub,” Eni said. “It’s owned by a contact I know through the net. I sent him a list of the things we needed for Syn’s drone. He said it was doable and had the time to manufacture everything, so we’ll see.”

“Do you trust him?”

“No,” Eni said laughing. “I don’t trust anyone on the net. But the parts we needed are something only a specialist can acquire and install. It’s military grade shit I wouldn’t exactly call legal.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?” Seb shrilled.

“How was I supposed to know we were going to be traveling with commander kickass and his band of goons?”

“So, what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to do exactly what we came to do. If they have a problem, then we figure it out on the fly. But for what you asked for this is our only option. The kind of technology to upload Syn to her own personal drone is only accessible by the privileged few like galactic militaries.”

“So this guy you met on the net, what do you know about him?”

“His name is Voxel. He moonshines as a wholesaler for all kinds of stuff. Scripts, malware, gadgets… Pretty much whatever you need. I’ve purchased from him a few times, but never met him face to face. But he made his name as a techie. He’s skilled at building custom hardware for specified jobs. He once built an aerial drone that could siphon credit chips just by flying over them. He apparently made millions before he opened his mouth and got caught.”

“Well, hopefully, he doesn’t mind us bringing a few friends along.”

The remaining flight took almost an hour before they reached their destination. When other shuttles and airborne vehicles descended underground, Seb sat up in his seat and leaned against the side glass. They circled a giant hole that looked to be carved by some colossal creature of ages past.

Large commercial elevators and landing platforms hung onto the side of the rocky surface and descended into the darkness below. Each street circled the pit’s edge every twenty feet, giving pedestrians a method to travel to the various homes and shops that were carved into the dusty rock. Those too deep to reach the surface light were illuminated with brightly lit signs in the prominent sepix language.

As the shuttle landed on one of the open landing platforms, the guards readied themselves and were the first to disembark when the doors opened. With the professionalism of career soldiers, they secured every direction of the area.

“Clear,” Redas said, only to be repeated by the rest of his team.

“Looks like we’re up,” Seb said over his private comm. He followed Eni out of the shuttle and glanced around.

The first thing he noticed was the noise. Even though the tunnel was massive, with the number of people and shuttles coming and going, the noise was deafening. He was thankful he brought his helmet for the simple fact that he could dampen his internal speakers.

A subtle gray haze hung in the air. When Seb noticed it, his HUD displayed a red warning symbol. It had an environmental warning level of one out of five. His suit’s toxin filter sat at seventy-one percent, giving him ten days inside the environment before it ran out.

Plenty of time, Seb thought.

Redas approached the pair. “Are you two ready to go?”

“Yeah, lead the way,” Seb said, pointing off the platform.

One benefit of having the soldiers with them was they knew where to go. When Seb had coordinated the shuttles with Zara, he had Eni give the address so that it could be approved ahead of time. And based on the thick crowds, thin side streets, and number of locations, this place was more of a maze than a destination.

Seb got the feeling that this area was an anything can go kind of place by the lack of guardrails along the landing space. Whoever maintained it had little concern for public safety. This was a place of business where, as long as he knew the right person and had the right amount of credits, he could find whatever his heart desired.

Redas and his guards flanked Eni in the Seb as they pushed through the crowd. Many of the passersby scrambled to get out of the way. Anyone who was dumb enough to get close got a firm shove or an elbow into the gut. They drew a lot of attention, but the protection offered offset any concerns.

After a few minutes of rounding the pit, the soldiers stopped in front of a shop. When Seb looked up at the sepix script above the open entryway, his HUD translated it to The Hub.

“This is it,” Eni said aloud before she and Seb followed the guards inside.

The shop had an aesthetic of organized chaos. Full bipedal bots and their various parts hung along the side wall. Rows of standing shelves displayed everything a hacker could dream of owning: holonet decks, VR and AR headsets, pre-built penetration sticks, and countless chips loaded with the latest malware organized alphabetically.

The opposite far wall had several rooms labeled “Testing Station” with holo running chairs. Several customers lay hooked in, trialing the latest products. Monitors hung above the doors into the rooms displaying a feed of their activities.

Each of the guards took a row and scanned for threats. Upon spotting the soldiers, all the browsing customers scurried out of the shop. A lone sepix man wearing a red visor and a skinsleeve full of electronic tracer lines stood behind the counter.

When he looked up to investigate the commotion, he raised his hands and stammered. “I… I already paid Thruba for the month! I swear!”

“Clear!” Redas shouted. His comrades echoed a similar declaration, except for one.

“Sir, we’ve got a few stragglers over here,” Uto said.

“Toss them out and shut the doors.”

Uto and Braken removed the customers who were plugged into the chairs. The harsh emergency ejection caused the users to scream in pain. But the soldiers paid them little mind, tossing them out on the street before closing the shop’s shutters.

“W-what’s this about?” the store owner asked.

As Eni and Seb approached the front desk, the pracovi pointed to herself and said, “Hey Voxel, it’s EB. I’m here to pick up my order.”

“EB?” the red-scaled man asked with a pointed lip. He glanced at the soldiers before leaning over the counter and hastily whispering, “What on Varinadae’s cunt is this? The first time you come to my shop and you’re bringing sepix military?”

“I didn’t know this was happening anymore than you did,” Eni whispered back. “Don’t pay them any mind.”

“Don’t pay them any mind?” Voxel scoffed. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I see you in the net with a payload the size of a dreadnought.”

“Voxel… buddy… I’ve always been a good customer, haven’t I? I always pay up front and always buy custom. Not like this kiddie level shit collecting dust on your shelves. I think that warrants a bit of good will.”

Voxel glanced at the soldiers once more before pointing down at Eni. “This better not come back to bite me in the ass. You know you have a ten million credit bounty on your head, right? You’re lucky I didn’t have my own kill squad waiting to collect.”

Seb rested his hand on his revolver’s grip. “And that would have ended very poorly for you, friend.”

“Would you like us to correct this hatchling’s behavior?” Redas asked as he and Uto rounded the counter.

Voxel let out a nervous laugh and raised his hands. “Just wait! It was just a joke between friends. I-I meant no offense.”

“Nah, it was just the nerves talking,” Eni said, the smirk evident in her voice. “Isn’t that right, ol’ pal?”

“Y-yeah. Why don’t you follow me in the back and we can get you what you came for?”

As Voxel turned around to the door behind him, it shunted to the side with a sharp hiss. Redas pushed him to the side and he and Uto entered the room with their rifles raised.

“Please be careful!” Voxel shouted. “I have a lot of delicate equipment back there.”

The sound of shuffling metal and spilled electronics rang from the room.

When the two soldiers returned, Redas pointed over his shoulder. “It’s clear. You’re good to head in.”

Seb and Eni followed the owner into the back room while the soldiers stood guard. The room looked like a mix between a mechanic's shop and a surgeon's operating room. A lone table sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by a circular glass wall. Mechanical drills, precision laser cutters, and clamps hung from the ceiling.

Various shelves hung from the wall with storage boxes, projected labels showing what they contained. A smaller table sat along the far wall with various PCBs and soldering tools. An entire wall was dedicated to multiple screens that displayed scrolling lines of code.

When Seb got close to the center of the room, he paused. Lying face down on the table was Syn’s body. Or the same model of drone he’d seen before. It even had the same blonde-knotted faux hawk she wore from before.

But the back part of her hair was lifted upward from her skull. It revealed a circular port that looked to be used for some kind of plug. Its back was split down the spine; the synthetic skin pulled back. It exposed the machine internals that lit up in various sequences of blue light.

Voxel led them through the glass doors that sealed once they were inside. He offered Eni a stool, which she gladly took as the group gathered around the body. After pulling down a monitor that hung from the ceiling, he turned it around to face Eni and Seb. Once he plugged a thick cable into the back of the drone’s head, the screen lit up with a bunch of lines of text.

“So, this is it. I did my best to incorporate everything you asked for but I had to make some concessions and adjustments.”

“What kind of adjustments?” Eni asked.

“Pretty much all the offensive and defensive capabilities had to be cut. I couldn’t incorporate the subdermal armor, reinforced tendons, micro-launchers, blatted knuckles, or any of that stuff. The servos just couldn’t handle the weight of all that plus the additional neuroprocessing and storage I included. I had to reinforce the cages used to hold everything so she wouldn’t short circuit if something hit her too hard. These laser-based processing units and organic storage drives will give you everything you need, but they are more fragile. They’re supposed to be loaded into stable racks, not walking around in the body of a sex bot.”

Eni straightened and crossed her arms. “I didn’t pay you for half of what I ordered. You said it could be done.”

“I said I thought it could be done. But once I started putting her together, I ran into issue after issue. Not to mention the short time window you gave me. If it didn’t have to be uploaded into this frame, perhaps I could have worked around the issues, but you said that was the one thing I couldn’t change.”

Eni shrugged. “It was Syn’s request. She was adamant on the same model.”

“Syn?” Voxel asked, tilting his head. “Please don’t tell me you named your virtual construct.”

“I’m not paying you to question my methods. Now, is she ready to go?”

“If you’re happy with it, I can sew it up and it’ll be good to go. It’s running the default operating system. I figure you’d want to wipe it and load your own.”

Eni leaned over the parts and pointed at the body as she spoke. “How did you structure the equipment?”

Voxel pointed out all the specs on the drone as he spoke. “I fitted the largest standardized data transfer port I could on the back of the head, a Neurolink X350. The skull and spine contain all the processing units. Eight Cyrix LP9900s. Those are managed through a light frequency translation matrix. Storage runs down the chest cavity and appendages. Forty-eight Gasha BT1100s that are set up in their own array for maximum speed and redundancy that is connected through a bioconductor. Everything is then hard wired through to a management PCB that runs Dragonflight firmware. The power supply is a nano-floridium battery that will last well past our lifetimes.”

“And the cooling?”

“All Liquid Ice self-contained loops running internally like its own venous system. The base bot programming has a built-in leak detection system already given the standard nature of its use. I just repurposed that.”

“What about the pleasure specs?”

Voxel smiled widely. “I swapped all the components to match the spec you gave me but rest assured they’re all brand new. You can check if you want. It’s still got the seals.”

Eni shuffled to the bottom and spread the drone’s lower cheeks. It still had the factory seal bandages covering the crack and slit, with a note that warned: ‘If seal is broken check contents for damage before purchasing.’

“Looks fine.”

“If you’re satisfied with it, then I just need to sew her up, and you can take her with you.”

Eni looked the body over once more, before crossing her arms and glaring at Voxel. “Fifty. It’s missing half of what I asked for.”

“Seventy-five. It was a nightmare trying to meet the specs in such a short window. I’ve got thousands of credits wrapped up in this thing. And all the high end components are in the processing and storage, not the offensive tech.”

“Sixty. I don’t pay you by the hour, I pay you for the product. You losing money is your own damn fault. And we’re taking this thing into the field. One laser bolt or bullet and it’s done. Worthless”

“Seventy. You scared all my customers away with your goon squad marching up the place.”

“Sixty-five. We both know you don’t make any of your money peddling the garbage out front. It’s all done through the net.”

Voxel groaned and nodded. “Fine. Sixty-five. But only because you’re a repeat customer. I expect you to come back when you see how well it performs. I’ll send you the refund at the end of the day.”

Eni looked back at Seb. “Does that work for you?”

“Yeah, sounds good to me.”

“Go ahead and seal her up, Vox.”

Eni jumped off her stool and Voxel pulled on his tools from the ceiling. Over the next few minutes, he tightened everything exposed. He used a liquid sealer on the edges of the Synth Skin after heating it up with a laser.

When he pressed the ends together, Seb couldn’t tell where the seams had been. The only overly mechanical look was the data transfer port on the back of her head, but that was hidden behind her long, blonde hair. The tracer lines across her body matched the norm of human cybernetics, which acted more like a fashion statement than something frowned upon.

Once Voxel finished, he powered the drone up. It pushed itself up to its knees in a robotic motion until it sat stationary on the table.

“Is it supposed to be moving like that?” Seb asked. “It seems stiff.”

“That’s just a startup motion,” Voxel said after taking a puff from an e-cig. “Once it finishes its boot up and you or EB assign yourselves as owners, it will move like normal.”

Eni reached in one of her belt pouches, pulled out a data shard, and handed it to the techie. “Here. Slot that in and restart her from that.”

“What’s that?” Seb asked.

“It’s just a shard that includes our comm encryption codes and drivers so SYN can connect to the drone over the air. Once she’s connected, she’ll load her personality matrix and take control. It saves us having to do it all ourselves.”

After Voxel plugged in the shard along a skin flap on the drone’s neck, Eni spoke over their comm. “Hey Syn, we’re loading the boot software into the drone now. You should detect the broadcast ping and should be able to connect to it from there.”

“Affirmative, Eni,” the virtual intelligence said. After a few seconds passed, Syn confirmed, “My sensors detect the drone. Initiating the handshake and download now.”

The drone’s eyelids flapped as the process completed. It only took a few seconds before they opened. They shifted from purple to blue. Syn pushed her lower body off the table and spun in the air with the grace of a gymnast before landing softly on her feet.

“This drone is heavier than the previous model,” the virtual intelligence said, her voice speaking from both the machine and comm. “I will need to make some final adjustments.”

With Syn’s body now standing in front, it was clear this drone displayed all the same curves as her previous one. Her thick breasts hung plump and firm. Both thighs were thick and screamed of power. The valleys and peaks of her abdomen gave the impression of someone who took fitness to heart. She was a sight to behold.

“Um, does she come with any clothes?” Seb asked, pointing down at Syn’s naked body.

“It comes as naked as the day it was manufactured,” Voxel said.

“You’ve got to have a spare skinsleeve lying around we can have, don’t you?” Eni asked.

“Not that you can have. That wasn’t included in the original invoice.”

“Just take it out of the cut you owe me.”

“Fine. I’ll go see what I’ve got.”

As Voxel left the sealed room and the doors shut behind them, Eni spun around, leaned on Syn’s thighs, and looked up at Seb. “So, are you excited?”

“Yeah, it will be awesome having Syn have a physical presence around,” the captain said.

Eni let out a short gremlin laugh as she rubbed her hands together. “We haven’t even gotten to the fun part, yet.”

Seb tilted his head. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

The big-eared pracovi moved in between Seb’s legs and walked her fingers up his leg. “When we get back to the ship, we’ve got to test her out.”