Command Code

by James David Victor

Which was killing Solomon, apparently.

  The thing is sentient now, Solomon thought, or the Ru’at orb controlling it is. Solomon’s mind, spurred on by the spikes of adrenaline and panic, started to accelerate. Unknown to him, the Serum 21 that was pregnant throughout his body clicked into gear, and complex chains of amino acids and enzymes were released to activate the Ru’at RNA he had unwittingly been born with.

  The pain and weariness in Solomon’s limbs started to subside as the serum in his blood took over. He felt that roiling ball of anger in his gut start to rise once more as a black cloud of energy that would make his heart beat faster and would focus all his attention to a single pinpoint.

  “Behold, Ambassador, Imprimatur,” Tavin called out, “the final product development. Which one will win? The cybernetically-enhanced Ru’at? Or the genetically-enhanced one? Two technologies masterminded by our saviors. But which one will determine the fate of the galaxy? Evolution, my friends. It is now ours to control!”

  Solomon saw the Ru’at twitch its head toward the shouted words of the clone, and in that movement, he moved. The serum in his body made Solomon react out of instinct, faster than conscious thought, as he leaped forward to seize the blade waiting for him.

  “Kol!” Solomon shouted as he saw the Ru’at cyborg start to move in the periphery of his vision. “Give me those damn injectors!”

  The thing did not roar as a cornered animal might. It did not charge either, but merely hissed, its entire metal chest vibrating as it stepped from its place and started to stalk its prey.

  Warily, Solomon started to back around the circle, aware of the burning heat of the energy fence just behind him. He kept his eyes dead on the Ru’at cyborg, seeing that it was doing the same, moving closer but slowly circling him as he attempted to circle it.

  “No chance of calling it a draw, I take it,” Solomon murmured as his limbs flooded with the rubbery, nervous excitement that always came before a fight.

  The Ru’at cyborg just continued to hiss. Solomon could see its small, beady black eyes boring into him, watching his every move as a forked tongue flicked from between its teeth and lapped at the air.

  “Lieutenant!” Kol threw the first injector high over the fence, arcing through the arena air until—

  Got it! Solomon caught it with one hand, reversing his grip and plunging the silver injector pen straight into his neck.

  “Ach!”

  “Sss-crargh!” The Ru’at cyborg lunged forward in that moment of distraction, keeping its spear low in one hand until the last possible moment, when it flicked it up between them in a strike that would surely disembowel the Outcast.

  Clang! Solomon managed to drop the injector pen and seize his own short spear with two hands just moments before the impact, driving his own weapon down to dash the thing’s to one side as they both leaped back again.

  First blows, and no one has drawn blood. Solomon was panting, feeling an odd giddiness. Was he hyperventilating? What was causing this new sensation?

  He couldn’t tell if the new and improved H21 serum that the Ru’at had loaded the pen with was starting to work or not. He had no idea just what the pure H21 serum would do to his body. Back on Ganymede, he hadn’t known it at the time, but he and the other Outcasts were continuously involved in performance tests. At least a portion of every day was spent in the gym or out on the surface of Jupiter’s moon, with Dr. Palinov taking daily blood samples to assess the impact of their own Serum 21.

  I guess this has to be tested in the field, Solomon thought. All sensation of pain and exhaustion was gone, and if anything, his anger only amplified. It felt to Solomon like the storm cloud of his own negative emotions—what he had tried to force down and ignore ever since that fateful night in New Kowloon—was filling his entire body.

  The Ru’at cyborg lunged forward once again, and Solomon’s eyes were filled with the glare of blue light.

  Clang! Another parry sent shockwaves reverberating up Solomon’s arms. The creature was strong! Far stronger than Solomon.

  Instead of pulling the short spear back and swinging again, the creature merely used the first parry to counterstrike with the other end of the blade. Solomon saw the line of razor-sharp steel descending in a line straight for his face.

  “Ach!” He pivoted on one heel, allowing the Ru’at’s blade to sail inches past his nose as he lunged forward with the tip of his blade.

  “Scrarghl!” He was rewarded with a roar of anger as he felt the blade scrape across the thing’s chest, hitting metal and dark flesh.

  As soon as the hit was scored, Solomon jumped away again, hoping to see the thing spurt blood behind him, but it didn’t. Instead, only a thin trickle of blackish ichor appeared and ran down the creature’s chest as it spun around to roar at its attacker.

  “First blood to the H21!” Solomon heard clone-Tavin call out, apparently just as pleased to have the human variant of the Ru’at’s creations win as the Ru’at itself.

  Solomon panted, backing away from the beast as it closed in once again. He saw the metal pistons on the thing’s legs start to turn and churn as it sprang forward in a bounding step, spear held high.

  Solomon ducked into a roll just as the Ru’at cyborg did something unexpected, leaping into the air and jack-knifing its body so that it spiraled as it spun, landing expertly behind Solomon.

  No! The Marine was already committed to his roll and had too much momentum going forward. Solomon tried to twist his back, but he felt a sudden line of fire spread down his body from shoulder to hip.

  “Sir!” he heard Kol yell as Solomon continued to roll out of the way, blood spreading down the back of his thin encounter suit. It wasn’t a fair fight, obviously, given that no one had offered Solomon metal plates like the Ru’at cyborg had.

  “Behind you!” Solomon ended his roll as Kol shouted, and he heard the heavy thump of alien, clawed feet as the thing jumped after him.

  It’ll bring the blade down to stab me, Solomon guessed, turning where he crouched on the floor, already raising the short spear in a two-handled grip.

  KERASH! The Ru’at cyborg had indeed thrown a simple, but very powerful, overhead strike, and Solomon met it with the handle of his own spear, forcing the blow to one side—but not before it had snapped the haft of the two-bladed short spear in half, leaving Solomon with two smaller leaf-blades, one in each hand.

  Oh frack. Solomon had a moment of sheer terror as he realized that the monster had just cut through metal with its own two-handed blow. If that strike had hit him, it would have easily cleaved him in two.

  But the Ru’at serum—the purest dose of the H21 strain—was now flooding through his system, and Solomon felt sharper, more alert, stronger.

  The servos… Solomon’s thoughts raced, seeing the monster raise one giant leg in a stamp that would surely crush his ribcage. He saw the pistons firing and the external exo-skeleton flexing.

  That is its weakness. Solomon threw himself forward under the thing’s raised leg in a slide, spinning around to drive one of the blades up and into the thing’s hip, between where the metal rods hit the servo mechanisms.

  “Scrargh!” The creature roared in pain as black ichor spurted from between the plates and rods, accompanied by the whine of metal. Solomon didn’t stop but rolled again before bouncing to his feet and spinning around, this time with only one blade left.

  The thing lunged toward him, but the leg that Solomon had struck was clearly injured. There was a screeching sound as the pistons locked up, and the creature was now half-limping on one foot.

  Solomon closed in.

  “Through blood and fire,” the Outcast Marine said through clenched teeth as he darted in, blade low.

  “SCRARGH!” The monster flung its weapon up in a lightning-fast move. Even with its injured leg, it was still quick.

  “Agh!” Pain seared Solomon’s upper arm as he tried to swivel out of the way. The strike that he was going to throw went wide and lost power, harmlessly skittering across the th
ing’s metal shoulders.

  Time slowed around Solomon. Perhaps it was the serum, or perhaps it was his mind’s way of telling him that he was near death. His back was aflame with the previous injury, and now his arm was too. In awful slow motion, he saw the monster reverse its grip and drive its blade toward him.

  Solomon jumped. He leaned all his weight toward the beast as he grabbed the thing’s exo-skeleton and pivoted, somersaulting over the creature’s head as its blow swept past his legs.

  But even with all the adrenaline and increased strength of the H21 serum, Solomon couldn’t catapult over the creature like a gymnast. He turned in mid-air, landing on the thing’s back and grappling with one hand at its exo-skeleton.

  “SKRARGH!” The thing roared and spun, trying to dislodge the Marine.

  But now, Solomon was not fighting like the Marine Corps had taught him. He was fighting the way he used to fight on the streets of New Kowloon. Street-fighting was different from Marine fighting. It was dirty, and it was ferocious. Solomon clung onto the creature for all his life was worth, aware that he was losing it through blood loss with every heartbeat.

  Solomon jammed his own remaining blade down on the head of the Ru’at cyborg, hoping to find any bit of uncovered skin that he could.

  FZZZT! There was an explosion of light and noise as his blade hit the sunken Ru’at orb in the center of the creature’s forehead, and Solomon felt white fire travel up his arm and fling him across the room.

  The energy fence, he managed to think as he hit the floor and skidded, throwing his arms and legs wide to slow his skid.

  “Arggggh!” He skidded to a halt just inches from the lowest line of burning fire, panting and shivering with the electrical shock. To Kol, Ochrie, and Rhossily watching, they saw tiny lines of static electricity playing up and down Solomon’s body before winking out as his muscles shook.

  I’m going to die, Solomon thought. This was it. He had nothing left. He was bleeding from two severe gashes, and his muscles felt like they had been cooked.

  “SSsss…” And the Ru’at cyborg, amazingly, still wasn’t dead. Solomon managed to flop heavily over onto his back to see the Ru’at rising on its injured hip and stumbling to one side as it tried to shake its head.

  Which still had Solomon’s blade sticking from its forehead. The Ru’at light had gone out, and in its stead sparked blue-white fire. Black ichor ran down the thing’s face, dripping into its own maw as it roared in agony and confusion.

  Solomon had no weapons left at all. The thing was raising long arms to scrabble at its head where the blade still stuck, but its claws wouldn’t close on the object. Its arms and metal talons were shaking. Solomon had managed to maim it seriously, but it still wasn’t enough to put it down.

  “Ssss-SCRARGH!” The thing bellowed in pain, a primal sound that made every human in the room flinch. It was the sound of an enraged predator. It was the sound of a frenzied bloodlust as it lunged forward, charging at its prey.

  I’m going to die. Solomon saw the thing grow bigger in his vision in moments. It wouldn’t have to do much to kill him, after all. All it had to do was step on him in his current state and the bodily shock would be enough to finish him off.

  But it was running blind. It had no Ru’at orb to give it super intelligence anymore.

  It’s just another animal now, Solomon realized, and he rolled, just as the cyborg Ru’at pounced.

  The creature landed on the spot where Solomon had been.

  He lashed out with one leg, hitting the thing’s bad hip.

  FZZZZZ-TT!

  The creature, blind with fury and already overbalanced, toppled forward—straight into the waiting blue-white lines of burning fire.

  There was no time for the creature to scream or even sigh. The particle-beams of the Ru’at were too powerful for that, able to punch through the thickened, meter-wide external hulls of Marine Corps battleships.

  Those blue lasers that made the air smell like ozone as they burnt the oxygen was more than a match for one creature, even as powerful as the Ru’at cyborg was. There was a gasp from Tavin and the sound of heavy thumps as the creature’s head and parts of its torso fell to the far side of the energy fence, completely severed by the Ru’at’s own energies.

  “He did it. He bleeding well did it!”

  Solomon lay there, his eyesight starting to fuzz and go black as he heard Kol shouting jubilantly.

  Of course, all they need to do is shoot me now and have it over and done with, Solomon managed to think. Either the H21 serum strain had worn off, or his injuries were so severe that their angered voices cut through the serum’s pain suppressant properties. Solomon could barely keep two thoughts together. He felt weak, and he felt near death.

  But he wasn’t unconscious, and he could still hear what Tavin said next. The clone’s voice was tremulous with either fear or awe.

  “We have a winner,” Tavin said. “The Ru’at have judged, and the Ru’at have decided. The new general of their invasion fleet, and the commander of their cyborg forces, will be H21 Solomon Cready!”

  THANK YOU

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