by Briana Ervin
I was distracted by a feminine, rattling shout and an impact to my head. A piece of armor landed beside me, indicating the source. I stopped firing and swiveled around: the arachnid again! She was perched on Theta's pedestal, one arm missing an armored cuff. I switched my focus to her and screeched a metallic noise. She just stood her ground, glaring. I aimed my turrets to fire them at her, but she was faster, raising her weaponized arm.
There was a flash of light and a sound somewhere between a siren and a roaring beast before I felt horrible searing pain penetrate my shoulder, throwing off my aim! Cyrii yelped as I bucked and slammed her against her seat. The arachnid chittered something alien at me, and Cyrii rushed me toward her with a shout, swiping at her with a bayonet with renewed vigor. The spidery creature swiftly dodged and fired again, but this time the searing sensation had a different effect: energy! I was energized!
Cyrii shouted in alarm as something on the control panel exploded! Relieved of her control for a second, I turned with incredible speed and slashed at the alien repeatedly. She knew something didn't work right and bolted. I pursued her, matching her speed but frustratingly out of reach!
“You can't avoid me!” I hissed, training my turrets on her. Her limbs were difficult, fast-moving targets, and the bullets bounced off the body armor, but we were making progressive dents, lining the holes with walls where I missed. Whatever jolt I was given suddenly wore off just as fast as it came, slowing me down. Growing frustrated, I changed tact and jumped onto the pedestal with a heavy thud. There was a loud crack and Theta cried out like I had stepped on her. The arachnid soldier let out a rattling screech, keeping up the game of running circles around me while also firing her arm weapon. It wasn't too hard to dodge as I quickly learned it had a cooldown, but all of my jerky movements and bouncing must have made Cyrii sick. My bullets traced a nice path behind my foe, pocketed with glowing molten spots as she fired back in turn.
“SWIVEL NOW!” Cyrii ordered. I jerked with shocking speed and she made a hacking sound as I knocked the breath out of her; did she overclock my processor?!
A vital hit! A bullet went into the arachnid's flank and made her crumple against the wall with a cry. Having flattened the top of the pedestal, I braced myself on it and kept firing, feeling my ammo reserves grow low, but the metal was ricocheting off something orange... a shield?!
Just now I noticed that there were glowing orange emitters on my target's armor. My moment of shock and anger gave the arachnid a chance to pull out another weapon from a sheath in the armor. A small, radiant ball?
“Thermal weapon!” Cyrii hissed in alarm, “Don't miss!”
I never miss!
I jumped off the pedestal and advanced toward my target, bayonets raised and lasers warmed. If I can't shoot her, I'll melt her!
The arachnid flung the glowing object. Cyrii tried to wrench me out of the way, but I was too stubborn! As soon as it hit me it flung me back with immense force, slamming me against the reinforced wall behind us hard. Cyrii's shout was cut off by her seat restrains as they tugged back on her. The impact left a nice dent in the wall and shook me, further breaking my eye lens. I was now glaring at the arachnid on all fours through distorted, faceted glass. She heaved herself upright and frantically limped toward the pedestal,, wrenching off a side panel and messing with the circuitry there.
Cyrii audibly shook her head, grunting at the pain. “Focus on the dots! They're force generators!” she commanded. For a split second I wondered if she was okay from that hit, but the wonder was fleeting.
We're still in danger! Just obey! I told myself. So I picked myself up and focused on the orange spots, marching forward and now using my lasers to cut through the thick armor. It was effective! The heat penetrated the shield and quickly popped each spot as I focused on it. The arachnid tried to ignore me, but on the third pop she shrieked and clicked, skipping away from the pedestal and trying to give me the run around. Instead I anticipated a straight attack, and intercepted her! I pinned her against the wall. She feebly struggled, knowing her shield was now nearly useless.
“You can never take us!” Cyrii hissed, her voice aflame with venom, pushing on my controls with what strength she had. I slashed at the alien and she ducked, my bayonet instead gashing the wall open. The arachnid then pulled out a shiv and slammed it through my eye lens. I screeched as it took out two cameras before I could react.
Infernal creature! my threads spat in rage, and I struck again. A hit! The arachnid cried out as one lightning-quick arm fell to the ground.
CLANG! I was hit with a force was strong enough to flip me around. I glared at the source: 433! He's still here!
“You!” I growled, only becoming angrier at the sight of his smug face. I moved the bayonet I was using to pin the alien, freeing her, and struck 433 across the face with it. He fell back and stumbled, but was still standing. With his hull on a downward angle he actually looked angry for once!
“You're a stubborn piece of scrap, you know?” he said, trying to divert my attention. I felt like grinning, giddy from the fighting. The arachnid tried to claw her way to safety, but Cyrii stomped me down on one of her legs, pinning her again.
“Lovely scrap. Lovely lovely scrap. A-Ack!” I twitched as sparks flew out the area where he struck me; his claws must have sliced through my hull and hit a few wires! Cyrii began typing again, possibly to reduce the pain I was feeling all over me. “....The great thing about scrap... is it can be remade. Remodeled. Created better! It's too bad you'll never have that liberty!”
He lunged with a yell. I steeled myself and screeched.
WHAM! For once the brace kept me from sliding into the wall! The lights flickered. 433 put his remaining arm on me, now holding onto one of my turrets and slamming himself into me so I couldn't aim at him. Now I slid into the wall, letting the arachnid go even though she was exhausted. Our eye lenses smashed together and broke. I struggled to push him back, and he pushed to keep me from doing so, putting us at an impasse. We both glared intensely at each other while Cyrii kept typing rapidly.
“Last chance to reconsider your STUPID alliance!” he grunted.
Allied with the Empire! Allied with the Empire! Allied with the Empire!
“I will never surrender! I will survive! You will die,” I spat in his face.
“You think I can die?!” he hacked out a laugh.
“I will kill you!”
We both pushed harder, stuck in a stalemate: he couldn't transmit termination data through my turret, I couldn't move to shoot him, my lasers were low on power and I had no missiles left from the battle prior to all of this!
“That's the beauty of it,” 433 laughed, “we're machines, 767! We CAN'T die. That's how I ended up here! That's why I'm here!”
He rotated me so I slammed into the wall, then flattened himself against me, staying outside weapon's reach. I let out an awful screech at him, pushing back with renewed vigor.
“They tried to kill me, 767! And they'll try to kill you too! The redemption chamber is your fate if you return!”
“NEVER!”
“You can't deny it!”
“I'll make you WISH you could die!” I roared. Cyrii gave me another processing boost. I mightily shoved him off me. He stumbled back, anticipating an attack.
I jumped and fired my power-jumping pistons.
CRASH!! He flew into the windshield so hard a concentric fracture radiated out from the impact! Inner layers of glass shattered around him on the floor. I expected him to recover as I stomped toward him, now able to fire rounds again; instead, he simply lay there, glaring, listening to the wailing alarm of the ship and the silence of everything else.
“Kyl-brained hatchling!” he coughed, “You're making a mistake. Bowing down to Gryn, to kiss his feet!”
Cyrii screeched out in my head. “I'm am NOT some kind of slave!!”
She compounded my anger to uncontainable levels. I wasn't going to give him the liberty of bullets! Instead I pounced and rammed a bayonet
into his shoulder, prying his remaining arm off. He screamed out at the simulated pain and tried to attack, but I held his other arm at bay with a turret.
In the muddle of his screaming, I didn't notice that Theta was still “alive” until she began talking loudly, her voice crackling with static and distortion:
“I-I-I-I -----ent your stu—id r-r-report, Scaln! --'ve failed! ---frying myself for the sake of---------!”
I paused mid-thrust in trying to tear 433 apart, listening for her to finish her sentence. Instead I felt another invisible wall hit me!
I cried out and convulsed, falling against the glass of the windshield, sparks flying out of my damaged hull and my senses turning to static.
“Don't you dare go out on me again 767! Not this close to victory!!” Cyrii roared at me.
I----IIIIIIIIIII'm sOrRY!
“767!!”
I began to shut down. Cyrii's presence left my head again, filled with fire. Yet, even then I felt this burning rage. This cold desire to destroy everything. So different from the mundane feelings from the exercises...
Before my vision went out I saw the lights go dark, and heard sizzling from Theta's pedestal. 433 powered down beside me. Cyrii was saying something unintelligible. I couldn't tell if we were winning or not, but did I wish for some extra defenses so I didn't take so much damage!
Then a thought hit me: What about my long-range defenses? I was told about them in the exercises, but we never used them. They generate electromagnetic energy. Perhaps...
As my senses died out I executed the defense command and felt the two, ear-like projections on my head raise up. They were meant only to attract metal projectiles to more benign parts of me, but the field they were generating... it kept me from shutting down! So even with scattered processes and an immobile body, deaf and blind, I was still alive! I marveled at how it was creating a power cycle just strong enough to prevent unconsciousness!
Everything was dark and cryptic for a while, so I ran a quick diagnostic. I sustained a lot of damage, mostly internal from 433's cyberattacks. I had three gaping streaks on my right side where he struck me, and indeed some of the wires on my right turret's fabricator had been cut. Ammunition was even more limited than before on that side. My eye lens was out, I had plenty of scrapes and dents, and one of the claws on my feet had broken off. When did that happen? Well... at least they weren't important, just useful for traction.
As I finished the diagnostic I went back to my intense rage, those hundreds of threads spinning in circles like violent orbs of energy. They felt nice. They made me happy. It... wouldn't be too bad... to go out like this...
Then my senses began to come back.
Did I recover? That attack... it must have been another EMP from Theta! That explained her earlier shouting. The fact that she only did it twice told me that it was a high-energy attack that risked her functions as well. Chances are she won't do it for a third time.
Everything powered back up, and I picked myself up, already prepared to help Cyrii. 433 was still shut off. The arachnid was gone, leaving behind only a few bluish smears. Scaln was still missing and Cyrii had disappeared. A large gun I recognized as Xinschi-uual technology was laying on the ground next to a splotch of blood. I flashed my scanner over it.
Cyrii's blood! I realized with horror and rage, What happened to her while I was out?! WHO DID THIS?!
I practically fell toward the splotch, opening up my retrieval panel and picking up the gun with the two, inferior retrieval arms, holding it accordingly. I wasn't trained to hold an external weapon; it was never intended. The kickback from the gun might even blow the arms off.
I didn't care. I had a limited ammo supply. The more weapons, the better.
There were no other signs of life on the bridge. Only the screaming alarm drowned out the silence. The door to the hallway was open; I immediately assumed Cyrii was beyond it and rushed through.
Whatever overrode the locked door on the bridge also unlocked all of the other doors; each of them were wide open, yet not a living thing was in sight. I flashed my scanner into the darkness, the grid projection an ominous red that blended with the dim light. I mostly picked up whatever carbon alloy the floor was made of, but also found an assortment of strange, foreign particulates. Among them were tiny droplets leading away from me: some foreign, some Xinschi-uual.
I raced after them. Cyrii was being taken away from me...! How could they?!
Halfway down the hall I heard a warning shout from Scaln coming from one of the end rooms: “Close the door! That damned machine is alive!”
“RETURN CYRII!!” I screeched at him. I was answered by the resounding thud of a door slamming shut. I saw the door and rushed toward it even as the locks hissed into place and forcefully threw my weight into it.
THUD! I felt the heavy impact and my vision flickered, but all I did was dent myself! I screamed angrily at it, making a horrid scraping sound. “Open the door, Scaln! I won't shoot if you give Cyrii back!”
“767!” I heard a muffled cry from the other side: Cyrii! “767! Break it down!”
“Keep her still!” Scaln barked over her. He shouted some more orders, but I couldn't hear them past the weight of the door. I growled and backed up, searching for a way to break the door down.
Unfortunately it was just as solid as the other doors on the ship, and its keypad was intentionally broken. I heard Cyrii call for me again on the other side, only stirring my threads up into more panic. They're taking her they're taking her they're taking her...!
I desperately threw my scanner around the area, searching for weak spots, but there was nothing a bullet could punch through and my lasers were too weak for anything! I was too close for a missile. The Shatterer, though...
I backed up and confidently aimed the small, Xinschi-uual gun I was holding, right at the center of the door. I squeezed the trigger and the weapon powered up with a high-pitched whir. Here goes nothing-!
BOOM! It seemed to rock the ship! I shut my blast shield against the intense light and molten shrapnel as it flew. I heard shouts of alarm from inside and felt searing heat on my face, the rubber tendons on my arms stretched loose. I opened my blast shield and saw a new, large dent in the door, sizzling with radiant orange heat.
Hah! Effective! I fired up the Shatterer again even though it threatened to blow my arms off, intent on melting a hole.
“Last chance, Scaln!” I screeched my warning. I don't know if he heard me or not, but what I could hear on the other side was definitely more frantic. Serves him right, I thought venomously, trying to abscond with MY pilot! It's my job to protect her!!
Another boom! This time it was accompanied by several snaps as my tendons were wrenched apart. The retrieval arms fell useless, dropping the Shatterer on the ground with a clatter. I ignored it, readying my turrets with what little ammunition I had left. The hole was open.
“GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!” Scaln's commands rang clearly through it. I vindictively moved forward but the ship suddenly swerved, almost throwing me off balance! I steadied myself and compensated for the hallway tilt as it quickly picked up speed. Haste and anger coursed through me. I leaped through.
“Shoot it!”
“Don't shoot it!”
I wasn't sure who's voice was who's! I ducked immediately behind some kind of metal container as thermal bullets punched into the wall where I had been. I appeared to be in a long room that was a combination of a cargo bay and a maintenance area, and at the far end of it was Scaln and a few passengers. One quick darting look and a few more bullets that threatened to hit me showed that at the other end were several portals in the wall. They were all closed except for one, which a couple of the soldiers were trying to pry open. Clide was fiddling with something in the wall beside it. 433 and four other soldiers faced me, and clutched in one of the mech's hands was a squirming orange creature clad in a beige private's uniform.
“LET ME GO!!” Cyrii screeched futilely at the machine, clawing at the metal fi
ngers. He completely ignored her. “767!! Shoot him! Burn him! Do something!!”
I so desperately wanted to, but I hesitated, knowing four other unknown weapons were trained on where I was sheltering. Underneath the screeches and grunts of the soldiers struggling with the portal I could hear Scaln hurriedly talking with Clide.
I knew I was far enough away to launch a missile and kill them all. That would solve my problem right away. Except...
“Release Cyrii,” I demanded loudly.
“No!” Scaln denied.
“RELEASE HER!”
“NO! I worked hard for this! You're not taking it away from me!”
“Just shoot the fletchscale!” Cyrii roared.
“She good! Must be good!” Clide pleaded, his voice broken.
“Keep working on the relay!” Scaln snarled at him. I hissed, annoyed by the situation. If he was going to be stubborn, so be it!
I stood up, expecting a volley of projectiles. I was met by them. Thermal and physical bullets alike flew past me and hit me, bombarding me with hot pain. I couldn't use my electromagnetic defenses because of my own bullets, but I could sure fire back!
I screamed out a war cry and fired. The bangs of the pistons overrode the pulses of their smaller weapons, the bullets spinning at high speeds and littering their position with holes. One of the soldiers immediately raised a shield between me and Scaln. 433 and two others took cover behind a box. The last was downed instantly, purple splatters on the wall marking where he had been. I took out the two trying to open the portal while I was at it, one of them being the arachnid who was unable to fight back.
Half of my threads were in shock that I had just slain living creatures. The rest were rushed with pseudoadrenaline.
“Get them 76-Aaack!” Cyrii's encouragement was cut off by a gag. 433 then darted back into sight.
I stopped firing. He was crushing Cyrii!
“DROP HER!” I threatened, “Or I'll blow a hole in you!”
“Try me!” he taunted back. I loaded both missile launchers, but... programming kept me from firing. I wouldn't, I couldn't, not with Cyrii right in front of me, being squeezed tight despite her best efforts to wriggle free.