Gabriel F W Koch

Chapter One
Earth Orbit

Zaci Lukman cringed as the explosive locks fired the escape

pod from the forward portside hatch. She struggled to see the
shuttle, now five hundred meters behind them, through the stern
camera display, but couldn’t move her head. With a silent
shudder, she fought to raise her hands to stop him, but the magne-
bindings locked her against the seat.
My God, he's going to kill them all.
Tears sparked in her eyes reflecting light from the fast
descending digital readout that recorded their plummet into the
upper atmosphere. She darted a glance at Commander Isaac
Fredericks, but saw nothing. The tinted visor obscured his face.
Zaci felt sure that Fredericks had programmed their destination
into the pod's onboard computer before he stunned her into
submission and forced her into the pod.
She hadn't even known he'd carried the weapon. The small red
pistol-shaped firearm with its short platinum-cadmium barrel had
frozen her movements when she spied it clenched in his fist. She
had thought they were friends. She'd trusted him enough to
transfer from another assignment and copilot for him.
And now this? She'd thought, pictured him as he'd aimed the
weapon at her as he triggered the shuttle's shutdown with an
AVD override he'd planted in the main electrical panel.
"This will activate in thirty minutes. At that time we’ll be
halfway down," he'd informed her calmly.
"I'm not leaving my passengers," she'd cried, hearing the quaver
in her voice.
"You have no options," he'd retorted, a kind of calm insanity in
his words. "You're my passport. You come willingly, bitch, or I'll
laser-stun you and drag your unconscious body into the pod."
He duped me! Pleaded with me to transfer to his flight because
he needed me for...what? To kill people?
"You sonofabitch, I'm not helping you!" She'd said with more

1
 Crystal Clear Motivation

confidence than she'd felt and turned away.

"Whatever." He'd laughed a sound of cold intention.
Electric discharge scorched through her chest. Her arms and
legs had jerked spasmodically, hands and feet slapped, kicked.
Her vision had blurred to a milky white film as her muscles went
slack and her head lolled helplessly. Dimly conscious, she'd felt
him force the helmet onto her, seal it against the collar of her
flight suit, and drag her to the pod's auxiliary seat. He'd harnessed
her in and magne-locked her down. She'd gasped for air and
barely managed to drag in enough to breathe.
Now, she could only watch, paralyzed, as the pod speared and
bucked through air currents--pockets of turbulence, she knew,
that the shuttle passengers would not have noticed during a
normal return flight from Luna Colony--as they flamed into the
crowns of cirrostratus clouds.
By now, my passengers are aware of the impending crash, and
the result will be declared throughout the Free-Earth Federation
as an act of sabotage and terrorism.
The worst in post-Chaos Wars history. In her mind, she heard
her passengers’ screams, clenched her eyes shut and squeezed out
tears.
The sound of plasma burning against the outer hull diminished.
She felt the retros fire sequentially, slowing and turning the pod.
She watched Fredericks work the keypad in the right arm of his
seat. She felt a lurch, knew the Delta wings had extended,
watched the heat-shielding slide from center to left, and right
exposing snowcapped mountains.
Zaci moaned in her throat when she saw the mountain she had
skied as a girl.
Mount Hood. She mentally reached for it.
The Delta craft banked sharply left around the northern face of
the mountain, and headed southwesterly until she saw the vast
spread of the Pacific Ocean.
Fredericks keyed another command. The Delta pod dipped,
revealed Douglas Firs carpeting the coastal mountains in an
undulating dark green body of mounds and ridges.
This is my home. The forest's movement made the landscape
more beautiful.

2
 Gabriel F W Koch

Tears blurred the scene and tracked her cheeks. They’ll blame
me for their deaths...three hundred seventeen citizens. I’m not
home. She swallowed a sob. I’m a fugitive.
The Delta descended until she felt the wheels extend and touch
ground. Then, she heard the turbo wind down.
Fredericks released the magne-bindings from her seat and
clamped them so her wrists were locked together behind her
back, lifted her as if weightless and hissed, "Another hit from the
laser-stun this soon after the first will do permanent nerve
damage," when she attempted to kick free.
She froze, breathing heavily, and struggled to accept her
helplessness.
Fredericks carried her out, placed her on her feet, and removed
her helmet. He held the laser centered on her chest.
"You’ve made you point succinctly, Fredericks." Zaci
shuddered in a deep breath, and hated her weakness.
"Commander Fredericks."
She grimaced, shook her head, and said with conviction, "You
damn bastard. You lost the right to the title the moment you
activated the AVD."
His face hardened, reddened, and then as if he’d thought over
his options and concluded that not crippling her would prove to
be in his best interest, he nodded once and lowered the weapon.
"You need only concern yourself with obeying my orders. If
you do, you'll survive."
"Of course I will." She bravely straightened her shoulders,
although she didn’t feel courageous.
"Where do we go?" she said with resignation and shook strands
of black hair off her brow.
"Follow that path until it comes to a rail line." He pointed.
"Tracks? They shut down the train about a dozen lifetimes
ago."
"Move your ass, Goddamn you. Who the hell cares about back
then ago or your blasted train?" He shoved her shoulder.
"It would be easier if you’d unshackle my hands." Zaci
stumbled, and barely regained her balance before she fell.
Fredericks watched dispassionately, but didn’t move to help.
He hates me and I don’t know why.

3
 Crystal Clear Motivation

"Yes," he averred. "It would be easier." Fredericks went into

the Delta, and returned lugging a large aluminum box with twin
combination locks.
She watched him use a voice control unit, as he ordered the
Delta to ditch in the ocean. The small craft rose and disappeared
over the trees. Then he spoke quietly into his personal wrist
comm, removed it, dropped it, and crushed the device with the
heel of his boot.
"They can trace the link with their satellites," he said as if
thinking aloud.
He started walking, stopped, and snapped, "Let’s move,
Lukman. We have important clients waiting for us."
Zaci saw the Hydrologist Guild’s logo on the front and top of
the case he carried. Wonder what’s inside that's so important?
she thought, knowing that the Hydrologists Guild ruled the Free
World Federation.
Then the logo reminded her of Foster Ryton. He wore a similar
logo on his jackets, had it on his luggage and his e-pad, she
recalled.
As a member of the elite Free Lancers Guild, the investigative
arm of the Guild Conglomerate, she also knew that Foster Ryton
filled the roles of police officer, spy, and assassin as needed and
at his discretion.
Will he hunt me now? I wish I hadn’t left you, Ryton and none
of this would've happened. Now will I live long enough to tell you
I’m sorry?
"You might consider that the authorities think we died too,"
Fredericks said as if he read her thoughts. "By the time they learn
the truth, it’ll be too late for them."
Zaci swallowed her sharp reply, nodded and walked obediently
along the trail into the forest.

4
 Gabriel F W Koch

Chapter Two
21.5 hours later, African Continent

Foster Ryton hefted a length of torn strut bracing and banged it

against the edge of his left sole. He’d been unable to avoid
walking through a wide patch of sand soaked with the fluids of
wreckage. The cloying mud that filled the deep treads of his
steel-toed boots dropped off in chunks the color of yellow
sandstone laced with hydro fluids and hydraulic oils. He repeated
the action with his right boot, then kept the strut and used it like a
walking stick.
Irritating fumes burned his nostrils. He circumnavigated the
crater blasted by Luna Shuttle 1AV-22 when the craft exploded
against the Sahara.
The report e-faxed to his office from Guild Headquarters had
informed him--with the curt military efficiency he expected--the
initial investigators believed that hijackers overpowered the
shuttle’s crew who fought back. Whoever sat in the pilot’s seat
afterwards, if anyone, lost control or failed to regain control of
the ship.
The heat on impact had splashed out kilometer long sprays of
molten glass in a pattern not unlike the wake of an ocean-going
vessel frozen in time.
The Guild’s ruling Council of Seven refused speculation as to
why they accepted that particular explanation, which made Ryton
believe they suspected layers of ill-defined and or vague
complications.
During Ryton’s career, he had witnessed the aberrant activities
of criminals frequently enough for him to believe no one had
ever, or would ever fathom the depths of human depravity.
When a disorder is successfully treated something new worms
through the fabric of social order and slashes unsuspecting lives.
Like the three hundred nineteen aboard the shuttle, but a
hijacking? Why? We totally crushed the enemy by wars’ end.
He stopped at the north end of the trench where the crash-

5
 Crystal Clear Motivation

resistant nose of the ship had ground to a rest thirty-three meters

in sand. His companion, the CME cyborg En-Anh stood
alongside him.
En-Anh’s willowy form became motionless. He brought his
hands together at the center of his chest. Ryton knew the Borg
performed a religious ritual, a CME variation of Last Rites.
Like others of his kind, En-Anh practiced the rituals of
membership in the Church of the Millennial End. The CME had
begun as a small splinter group of spiritualists with roots in the
Buddhist/Christian co-joining formed after the apocalypse failed
to materialize on the eve of 01/01/01 over a century and a half
earlier. Their membership grew exponentially upon the general
acceptance of cyborgs; humans otherwise deemed inhuman by
the radical turn-back-the-clock-of-history members of society.
Ryton had initially resisted accepting the cyborg’s assistance.
With a bit of serious prodding from the Guild‘s Ruling Council
of Seven, he had reluctantly agreed to the partnership, but hoped
it would be brief. Not that Ryton felt any prejudice toward the
Borg. He didn’t care much for religions, considered them a
distraction from purpose. Furthermore, he enjoyed working
alone.
En-Anh had proven he didn’t behave like a zealot, didn’t try to
sell his religion as others did. In addition, as experience had
taught Ryton previously when working with cyborgs, En-Anh
preformed proficiently with anything technical, mechanical, or
electronic. In fact, his skills and knowledge classed him as a
genius in Ryton's mind.

The Borg spoke with quiet articulation as if he didn’t know

how or desired to not waste time on small talk. How much of him
might prove to be artificial would be difficult to determine. Ryton
knew. One eye glowed cyborg red, both arms moved with
abnormal fluidity, otherwise he appeared too ordinarily human.
The small rectangular terminal plug set in the base of his skull
struck Ryton as his most remarkable feature. The terminal
allowed him direct interface with CME and Guild comp
networks.
The rest of his facial features looked small, his flesh taut as if

6
 Gabriel F W Koch

intentionally pulled across his skull to remove any traces of

aging.
Ryton, himself a product of genetic bioengineering, didn’t
judge a man by appearance, but by actions. Although he felt
inclined to look unfavorably on those who followed popular
‘isms’...like retroism: the once again reborn need to resurrect
fashion best forgotten in his mind.
Ryton sweated profusely under the Sahara’s sun but knew he
wouldn’t burn. Like many Guild members, he'd had his flesh gen-
altered to resist the strongest ultraviolet radiation flooding
through the Earth‘s spotty ozone layer. His skin-tone glowed
deep mahogany, and would get darker the longer he remained
outdoors. Conversely, if he remained indoors for more than
several days his flesh lightened dramatically.

He squatted and peered into the shadows of wreckage. The

desert sun cut knife-edges through the blacks and grays, cast
them randomly through the metal and carbon-plastic shards. He
thought if he concentrated, he might smell death wafting up on
spirals of heat. With his free hand, he scooped up loose dry sand.
He tossed it in the hole like a shaman warding off evil he alone
could conjure or dismiss, and then he stood and studied En-Anh.
The cyborg equaled his height of three centimeters less than
two meters, but couldn’t have weighed more than eighty kilos,
versus Ryton’s one hundred.
"I think we should download the shuttle’s structural coordinate
grid first," Ryton said.
"Good idea." En-Anh‘s rich baritone sounded out of place in
the desert.
Ryton couldn’t decide if the Borg meant the comment
sarcastically or contemptuously and shook his head.
Their two-man aircar sat on a rocky outcrop twenty-five
meters to their rear where Ryton had landed to keep the vehicle
safe from possible cave-ins.
Opening the side door, he leaned in and booted the onboard,
scrolled the passenger manifest until he’d scanned the names of
those whose remains festered inside the wreckage. Relatives of
the dead clamored in protest with the Guild, demanded answers,

7
 Crystal Clear Motivation

insisted on justice, and received the standard reply. "It is Guild

policy to fully investigate any accident before we report and act
on our findings."
The authoritarian Guild Conglomerate ruled the remains of the
Free-Earth Federation with disdain toward any person who dared
disrupt order. Guild members in good standing earned their
respect and the protection of their freedom. The key word being
"earned."
Ryton took a small sip from his water bottle, and passed it
over his shoulder. He felt En-Anh’s dry but warm hand grasp the
bottle. He heard the cyborg drink. When the Borg pressed the
bottle against his palm, Ryton returned it to the cooler between
the front seats. He sat with his legs outside. The aircar’s interior
held a cloying acrid smell left over from En-Anh’s cold veggie-
burger lavishly coated with a powerful, aromatic spiced green
garlic paste. The odor turned Ryton’s stomach.
The Free Lancer tapped the onboard’s LCD, and scrolled the
folders until he pinpointed the Shuttle Coordinate System. After
downloading the SCS onto a chip, he inserted it into his palmtop
and scanned the schematics. He made a serious effort to
memorize the three-dimensional X0, Y0, and Z0 axis
intersections for all pertinent locations.
When finished, he stood outside the aircar, coded the door to
close, and heard the whine of servos, loud in the flat desert air.
Ryton was curious over what his superiors believed he would
find inside the shuttle, excluding the item they ordered him to
retrieve without his companion’s knowledge. The Council’s
directives often sounded ambiguous, as if they felt certain Ryton
could interpret their intentional omissions and apply them
judiciously, which often he could and did. On the rare occasion
that he couldn’t, Ryton did what he thought best fit the
circumstances.
He rolled the tops of his boots up. With his palms, he pressed
their seams against the seams of the hazard suit he wore to cover
his body, and listened as the seals hissed.
He watched En-Anh do the same. When finished, a silver
protective layer impervious to sharp edges and all known
infectious and biological agents covered them both. He flipped

8
 Gabriel F W Koch

his visor down and heard it too seal. Lastly, he pulled gloves
from inside his sleeves and slipped them on. When sealed, the
suit’s systems cooled him, dried his sweat. He checked the digital
readouts the computer fed into the visor and nodded when he saw
everything green.
"You about ready?" he asked.
"After you allow me to input the SCS data, then I will be
properly prepared to assist you."
Ryton popped the small chip out and handed it to his
companion. He studied En-Anh carefully as the cyborg placed the
chip into a small drive in his waist pouch plugged into the port in
the base of his skull. Ryton hesitated until he heard the cyborg’s
drive whirl, then flexed his shoulders in preparation for descent
into the wreckage.
He dragged a length of cable from the aircar’s winch and
dropped the looped end into the pit of fragments. He tossed his
alum-titan strut bracing against other scraps they’d collected and
looked for a safe way down.
The rear third of the shuttle had torn lose and disintegrated
during descent, shattered by the forces of reentry--bodies and
unrecognizable pieces of the craft had littered the desert. Ryton
planned to enter directly into the remains of the ruptured hull.
The climb would be close to straight down since the ship stood
on its nose at a seventy-five degree angle.
He used the narrow power beam mounted on his right forearm
for illumination, found structure he thought he could safely climb
and stepped inside the wreckage.
"I’ll go in first," he redundantly informed his companion as he
used the cable to hold most of his weight. Ryton felt his foot
contact torn honeycombed bracing, the under-carriage of the
cabin flooring--where power cables, pipes, hydraulics, and
electrical conduits ran from nose to stern. He tested it by
bouncing on the metal X’s without releasing the cable. The web
held his weight.
He let go of the cable. "Okay. Come on." He moved lower and
heard En-Anh’s boots contact the metal web, and continued.
Without the shuttle’s power supply to aid him, he needed to
rely on dead reckoning and instinct--both his and the cyborg’s.

9
 Crystal Clear Motivation

Ryton referred to the visor readout of the SCS as he found his

mental orientation hampered by the fact that he climbed the
underside of the floor through unknown twisted debris.
Worse, he could think of no way to know how deep he would
descend before his avenue of ingress became blocked by
impassable wreckage.
He dreaded discovering human remains. Ryton knew the high
velocity of impact stripped flesh from skeletons, and shattered
bones like porcelain.
Kadru, Ryton, let's just skip the macabre anticipation.
Instead, he reviewed the e-faxed report and recalled reading,
"We’ve recovered the onboard flight recorders. However, the
intensity of impact limited useful data. We need you to find out
what the satellites had relayed to earth as the shuttle burned
through the atmosphere.
"It‘s always possible they destroyed the comm net before the
crew could send a mayday."
He glanced up as he continued deeper into the wreckage. "En-
Anh?"
"I am here."
"Wanted to be certain the comm functioned properly."
"A justifiable concern under the circumstances. However, the
system works fine."
Ryton thought he detected amusement in the cyborg’s voice,
but decided, Hell, I don’t know Borgs well enough to know if they
find anything amusing.
He worked his way around rubble strewn haphazardly where
the path should be clear, and stopped when he could no longer
descend without using the laser-torch.
En-Anh climbed down and stood beside him. They looked at
each other, and then En-Anh, as if knowing what needed doing,
ran a scan of the bulkhead under their feet.
Ryton couldn’t see the readout, and waited until the cyborg
finished.
En-Anh looked up; their eyes met. Ryton read his expression
and knew the Borg had a problem.
"There is a considerable amount of human remains against the
opposite side of this bulkhead."

10
 Gabriel F W Koch

"Condition?" Ryton queried needlessly.

"The scanner informs me the remains are deceased organics
nothing more." A fleeting look of disgust briefly moved En-
Anh’s face, pinched small lines between his eyebrows.
"There’s no other way to get beyond here. Is your suit’s
environmental integrity stable?" Ryton asked and nodded
understanding as he watched En-Anh review the readouts on the
inside of his visor.
"Containment is intact." En-Anh lifted the laser-torch.
Ryton checked his readouts, and when certain of his suit’s
integrity, he nodded.
"Cut it." He climbed until the cyborg had room to maneuver
the laser.
As the thin red line sliced through the aluminum alloy, a sickly
gray vapor wafted from the cut, spiraled past Ryton’s face, and
out into the desert air.
He muttered, "Um, um, um. Mother’s nebulous." He looked
down to see En-Anh and watched his companion as he used his
left hand to etch what he thought to be religious symbols in front
of his face. His right hand slowly moved the thin beam of the
laser-torch across the bulkhead.
When he had sliced a large hole for them to pass through, En-
Anh shut off the torch and slipped it in its harness.
"Would you care to go first?" En-Anh asked.
"Not something I prefer, but I’m the Free Lancer." Ryton
smiled a flat grin.
"Indeed you are, and get Guild gold credits to prove it."
Ryton looked at his companion and saw, faintly, what
appeared to be a wry smile lift the corners of his mouth.
"Funny, but weak," he said.
"Ironically so, but under these circumstances..." En-Anh
pointed at the opening. "After you."
Ryton aimed his power beam and stomped his foot on the
cutout circle. The panel broke loose and clattered through debris.
He lowered himself inside. However, after one look around the
destroyed first class passenger compartment, he extinguished the
light, sucked several slow deep breaths, and then turned the
power beam back on.

11
 Crystal Clear Motivation

He balanced on the pile of seats torn from the floor and

jammed chaotically against the crew compartment bulkhead.
Human remains marred every surface. He saw a black striped
white Guild issued uniform boot with the stump of shinbone
protruding up from the foot inside; a red shoulder bag hung from
a seat back as if recently draped there by the woman who owned
it.
Ryton closed his eyes, focused on his mission.
Before calling En-Anh to join him, he lifted a small barcode
scanner from his harness and waved it from left to right, and
back. An inset green light blinked once. He moved the scanner
across the same area and when the light lit, held it steady.
Concentrating on the location, he climbed the pile of debris,
wishing he had the piece of strut he left in the desert sun.
I don’t want to dig through this. His right foot slipped and he
hissed, "Shit. Oh no you don’t." He grabbed for a handhold,
dropped the scanner, clutched the handrail meant to assist
passengers out of their seats, and drew a few quick, shallow
breaths as he stopped falling.
The scanner came to rest a few centimeters from the item he
hoped to reach without personally engaging human remains.
Gingerly, he poked into an unidentifiable pile of flesh and bone,
found the scanner and the ID badge it had located. The badge
remained attached to a jagged piece of khaki jumpsuit, with the
Hydrologist’s Guild logo embroidered above.
Ryton removed a small evidence bag and dropped both items
inside, sealed the bag and deposited it in his harness. He switched
on his wrist comm, studied the small screen, speed dialed a
number and said, "I have it and will bring it back when I return."
He flipped off his comm and looked up. "En-Anh? It’s safe to
enter. Try to watch your step. The footing is treacherous." Unable
to stop himself, he grinned at his own twisted humor.
Too much horror to handle at once, he decided.
En-Anh recited prayers as he climbed next to him, and then
said sarcastically, "Treacherous you say?"
"We need to get into the crew compartment and find out what
the instruments read at the time the EPS shut down; try to
download the comp’s memory if it's intact." Ryton tried to voice

12
 Gabriel F W Koch

the humor he’d felt a moment before, but knew the attempt would
fail.
"If I use the laser-torch it will burn much of the organic matter
between it and the bulkhead underneath." En-Anh moved his
head. Their visors came close enough to let Ryton see his
companion’s eyes clearly.
"You stated your suit’s integrity is secure." Ryton held his
stare, his voice void of emotion.
En-Anh’s head made a curt nod.
"External sensors off?"
"They are."
"You can’t smell anything outside your helmet?"
"No, I cannot."
"If something smells bad, it’s only body odor or that nasty
garlic paste of yours." Ryton held back the same twisted grin
haunting him a moment earlier. Looking at his companion’s eyes,
he said, "Then I advise you to begin. The sooner you start the
sooner we get the hell out of here." He pointed to the edge of the
egress hatch exposed above the remains. "I suggest you cut
starting there and move upward."
En-Anh glanced down with obvious reluctance, and then
nodded. He lifted the laser-torch and switched it on. The tool
made a strange whine as if fighting for power.
Ryton tapped his shoulder. "Battery at full strength?"
"Of course, I checked the charge before leaving the aircar."
"Then why’s it making that God awful noise?"
"I do not know." En-Anh spoke without looking away from
the exact spot where the laser cut into the bulkhead.
Ryton imagined he could smell singed flesh, but saw the laser-
torch cutting through metal and knew his mind fed itself with
hallucinatory horror. The red beam stung his retinas. He studied
the readout of the names on the passenger manifest displayed
inside his visor and wished he could be anywhere other than
inside the wreckage.
As he did, he recalled the unsubstantiated rumors within the
Guild over the previous two or three months. Ryton hated
politics, ignored what he heard when he deemed the rumors
unworthy of his attention, and now knew he had erred. He was

13
 Crystal Clear Motivation

curious to find out if they assigned him to investigate the downed

craft because his superiors knew of his awareness of the threats
against the ruling Council of Seven and that he had ignored them
feeling no one would dare attack the Council directly.
Then he chuckled wryly. That's asinine, Ryton. How the hell
could any of them know what you thought?
His hand pressed the evidence packet he’d put in his harness,
fingers felt the edges of the ID badge. He tried to feel the
barcode, but of course, he could not.
"It is ready for you, Free Lancer." En-Anh switched off the
laser-torch.
He stepped around the cyborg, peered into the hole, and saw
nothing but blackness. After drawing a deep breath, he lifted his
power beam and switched it on, pointed it at the opening,
scanned it around the interior, and heard himself gasp.
The crew compartment housed no visible human remains, not
even a drop of blood.
An eerie handful of nails dragged the length of his spine and
sent a chill to the bottom of his feet.
"Where the hell did they go?" he shouted.
"Who?" En-Anh asked.
"The Goddamn crew." Ryton leaned and shined the light
around the empty compartment again. "Kadru Christ! There’s
nothing here. No remains, no blood, nothing."
En-Anh pressed against him and looked in the hole.
Ryton heard him mumbling something and asked, "What did
you say?"
En-Anh’s head turned. His red eye met Ryton’s pale gray eyes.
The sight deepened the dread Ryton felt.
"A prayer I hope is never recited for me before my end
arrives."
"Doesn’t tell me a damn thing. When will it arrive? You got a
computer link to that type of information?"
The cyborg smiled. The expression reflected the baleful glare
of his red eye, not amusement.
"The prayer requests that the souls of the lost are protected on
their journey."
Ryton’s mouth opened and closed without sound. He felt about

14
 Gabriel F W Koch

religion the way he felt about politics, which he believed to be

nothing better than the equivalent of a wild boar round up in a
South Georgia swamp. The kind his grandfather told him about
while Ryton was a boy growing up in North Charleston, South
Carolina, Corp-America.
"I’m going to see if I can find anything in the crew
compartment to give us a clue how this ship went down. If I don’t
return within five minutes...no. Scratch that. I’ll be right back."
He pointed the light onto the pilot’s seat back, and lowered
himself until his feet firmly contacted the tan and gray striped,
cushioned headrest.
Inside the compartment, he shined the light on every surface
and found only one thing wrong. The floor stood in the position
of a wall, and his feet rested on the control panel. He squatted
and tried to activate the EPS. Nothing happened. Then the light
of the power beam wavered, blinked several times, and
extinguished.
"Shit."
"Something wrong?" En-Anh asked. "Your light went out."
Ryton heard En-Anh’s muffled voice and knew the comm-unit
had gone down too.
"Don’t start praying for me yet," he shouted.
The Free Lancer slapped the tubular handle of the power beam
on the meaty part of his palm. He flipped the switch on and off.
The light remained dead. "Okay, now you can start praying for
both of us."
En-Anh stayed quiet. Ryton called, "Hey. You with me?"
"What do you think? I can see in the dark, therefore I left?"
"Well you do have that red borg eye."
"Because I chose the implant over blindness you think it
makes me more machine than man?"
"Good God, En-Anh, I wasn’t suggesting anything like that.
Why the hell would I?" Ryton knew he should have adjusted to
the darkness by then, but the complete lack of light kept him
sightless.
"It is hard to tell when you are serious. I have received severe
criticism from several normals."
"Because you’re a borg?" Ryton reached out until his fingers

15
 Crystal Clear Motivation

contacted something soft. He brushed the surface and decided

he’d located the pilot’s seat.
"Why else? My endearing sense of humor?"
"I’ve been meaning to speak to you about your sense of
humor."
"You think I’m too serious to have one?"
"A sense of humor?"
"Yes."
"I did. However, right after that you proved you had one,
albeit weak."
They remained quiet for a minute. Ryton reached up and found
the edge of the hole En-Anh had cut through the bulkhead. His
fingertips grazed the sole of the cyborg’s boot. The Free Lancer
reached, and slapped En-Anh’s ankle.
"Damn you!" En-Anh sounded startled.
"Glad you’re still with me. I thought you might've passed out."
Ryton laughed uncontrollably as if madness had overtaken him.
He hoisted himself into the passenger compartment.
"I suppose I should have done this sooner, but wanted to avoid
wasting battery strength." En-Anh switched on the laser-torch.
He pointed it across the crew compartment. The red light glowed
weak, but to them the illumination shone like midday sun.
Ryton looked up and found himself face to face with the top
half of a human skull, flesh and hair in tattered ruins, one eye
missing. He shuddered. Kadru Christ, I’m not sure I can take
much more of this blasted shit. Then he turned around.
En-Anh squatted on the side of the hole clear of death’s rancid
remains.
The laser grew dimmer. Ryton wanted to know why, opened
his mouth to ask his companion if he had adjusted the beam to
conserve power when he saw En-Anh staring at an object Ryton
couldn’t see.
"What?" he asked.
"An AVD," En-Anh replied, sounding nervous. "Could power
down my bionics."
"An AV what?"
"An Axial Vircator Device."
"An EMP?" Ryton tried to see it.

16
 Gabriel F W Koch

"Yes, an electro-magnetic pulse emitter."

"Where is it? I can’t see it."
"It appears to be right here inside the bulkhead." En-Anh
tapped the wall separating the passenger and crew compartments
with the tip of the laser torch.
Ryton stared at the flat metal wall that, while the shuttle flew,
displayed the latest Guild produced holo-vid sensation. "How do
you know it’s there?"
"Simple. My eye implant detects peculiar emissions...like
radiation signatures."
"That intentional?"
"I decided since I needed a replacement after the accident that
took my eye and arms, I should select an implant, which would
enhance my working abilities." The laser flickered like a candle
before an open window.
"The EMP is active," Ryton noted calmly.
"Residual radiation. The EMP performs like a low yield
nuclear weapon. It emits a strong burst of electro-magnetic
energy, and then it weakens quickly, but dies slowly."
Ryton reached up. "Let me have the laser."
En-Anh pressed the handle against his palm. He lowered
himself back into the crew compartment and used the laser’s
glow to illuminate the other side of the bulkhead. The EPS
control panel hung directly opposite the spot where the cyborg
indicated he had detected the AVD.
Ryton grunted, opened the panel, and searched carefully. The
laser guttered, weakened as he moved it closer. He saw a small
silver button about twenty-five centimeters in diameter stuck to
the center of the panel.
"This feel like one to you?" He peeled it off, placed it in a
lined evidence bag, and handed it up to En-Anh.
He felt En-Anh take the device. "I’ll move away. Tell me what
happens to the laser."
Ryton listened to En-Anh’s breathing as the cyborg climbed,
knocking into debris and hissing indecipherable words Ryton
assumed to be part of a prayer, a blessing, or whatever the borg
did during such circumstances. After about a minute, the laser’s
beam strengthened. He found his power beam and flipped on the

17
 Crystal Clear Motivation

switch. White light blinded him.

"You got it," he shouted. "Both the laser and power beam are
working." He pointed the light up, saw En-Anh at the opposite
end of the passenger compartment, and told him, "Why don’t you
go up? I’ll keep the light on you."
With a nod, En-Anh climbed.
When he could no longer see his companion, Ryton said,
"Now. Where the hell’s the crew?" He reviewed the SCS and
headed for the crew’s escape hatch. He found it after he crawled
across the flight deck, opened the cover, and went inside. The
external hatch cover had blown out, the escape pod ejected. The
small compartment looked like it was half-filled with sand.
The pilot and co-pilot sabotaged the flight and fled to avoid
death, he concluded.
"Damn her to hell," he hissed. His relief at discovering that his
friend Zaci Lukman, the co-pilot, survived the crash transformed
into grief with the knowledge of the obvious depth of her
involvement in the disaster. Again using his comm unit, he
tapped in a number, and this time typed the message: Both pilot
and co-pilot are missing as you suspected. He shut it off, stared at
the device for a second, and then again stared at the names on the
readout.
Damn her. Both of them were Guild pilots in good standing,
and now both are fugitives. Finding them will be difficult, but not
impossible. Punishing them will be a reluctant pleasure.
He pictured Zaci the last time he saw her, when she ran away
from him after he... Ryton shook his head, and swallowed his
feelings.
"It’s over and done, damn her. What the hell did she think
might happen next?"
Then, he understood the ambiguousness in the Council’s
directive and began his climb up to join En-Anh.

18