Hero Code

by Lindsay Buroker

  Momentum carried Casmir into the entrance corridor. He bumped into the second astroshaman a moment before Rache hit the man like a mag train. Casmir barely had time to flatten himself against the wall and get out of the way.

  It only took him a second to get to his feet, but the skirmish had ended by then, with Rache standing and the astroshaman on his back, his neck broken.

  The first astroshaman who’d been knocked off the precipice reappeared, using jet boots of his own to regain the perch. He aimed a rifle at Rache’s back.

  “Watch out!” Casmir yelled. Unnecessarily.

  Rache must have had a rear helmet camera on. He ducked right before the energy bolt streaked down the corridor, then whirled and sprang at their enemy before he could fire again. Rache ripped the rifle from the man’s grip and hurled it further into the fortress. The astroshaman sprang at him, launching a barrage of punches. He wore armor, and his fists blurred, but Rache’s blocks were just as fast. Rache roared as he charged, punching his foe in the face.

  For the second time, the astroshaman flew off the ledge. This time, his nose was splattered flat, and he looked too dazed to react as he tumbled away. Rache ran to the edge and peered over to make sure.

  A distant thud floated up.

  “He’s dead,” Rache said.

  An orange energy bolt streaked up from below. Once again, Rache’s enhanced reflexes were enough for him to anticipate it and dodge.

  “The robots aren’t.” Rache ran into the corridor. “You all right?”

  “Yes,” Casmir said. “Other than feeling like a damsel in distress.”

  Rache picked up the discarded rifle, kept it for himself, and held out his pistol in offering. “Want it?”

  Casmir eyed it. It would make sense to be armed, but would he actually shoot at someone? If he’d had a stun gun, yes, but not with a weapon designed to kill. He doubted his aim was good enough to ensure he wouldn’t cause a fatal wound. Assuming he didn’t hit his own ally.

  “No, thanks.” Casmir opened his tool satchel and looked for something that might help with their assault of the base. He had four vials of the biological agent, carefully insulated with bubble wrap, but so far, they had run into more robots than human beings.

  Casmir pulled out a power drill and hefted it. Maybe he could open a panel in an astroshaman’s half-computer head.

  “Perhaps your friend could give you some combat lessons.” Rache holstered the pistol and passed Casmir, waving dismissively at the drill. He strode down the empty, dimly lit corridor.

  “Which one? Asger or Qin?”

  “Kim.”

  Casmir almost tripped. Not because she wasn’t capable of handling herself but because he didn’t know when Rache had learned that. “You’ve seen her fight?”

  “She resisted kidnapping.”

  “Well, good.” Casmir wanted more details but decided this wasn’t the time to ask for them.

  Rache headed for a modern metal door blocking the old stone corridor, a control panel glowing from the wide jamb. The terrorists had been settled in for long enough to modify the ancient ruins.

  “Are you sure we should go this way?” Casmir asked. “Like you said earlier, it’s a foregone conclusion they know we’re here.”

  “It wouldn’t be my first choice, but I didn’t see any other entrances when I scouted around.”

  “What about the satellite dish?”

  “What about it?”

  Rache planted his gauntleted palms against the door and tried to heave it open.

  “I bet it’s hard-wired to wherever their control center is,” Casmir said. “It would be hard to get a wireless signal through all this rock.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Someone would have had to run that wire. There may be an access shaft.”

  “Did you see one?” Rache growled, straining with the door.

  Despite his muscular enhancements and the additional strength the combat armor gave him, it didn’t budge. Maybe the terrorists had anticipated robots—or knights in armor—busting into their stronghold.

  “I’ll open that for you if you give me a ride back up to that satellite.” Casmir stepped up to the control panel, switched out the drill bit for a screw head, and unfastened the exterior with four quick buzzes. He smiled and extended a hand toward the interior wiring, assuming he could figure out how to open the door in a few seconds of tinkering.

  “I’m not a shuttle bus, Dabrowski.”

  “Just drop me off, and I’ll either find a way in or enjoy the view of the robot battle from the ferns atop the cliff.” Casmir put away the drill and pulled out wire clippers, waving them in offering.

  Rache reached into the panel and tore out most of the wires inside. Something snapped and spat smoke.

  “Uh,” Casmir said, “that probably won’t—”

  The door slid open. And then shut again. But not before they saw six armed men waiting with rifles pointed in their direction. The door slid open again, and Rache pulled Casmir behind the jamb as their enemies fired. Several bolts made it through, skimming past in front of Casmir’s eyes, before the door shut again. After a pause, it slid open again. Rache’s solution hadn’t been as tidy as Casmir’s would have been.

  Before the men on the other side could advance, Rache leaned out and threw an explosive. The door slid shut, some of their energy bolts pinging against it.

  Casmir kept his back to the wall, his belly sucked in while the access panel hissed and smoked next to his ear.

  “Come on.” Rache grabbed Casmir’s wrist and slung him over his back like a potato sack.

  Casmir squawked in alarm, but a boom thundered from within as the door opened again. Rache’s explosive. Casmir didn’t hear any men yell in pain, so maybe the six guards had scattered in time to avoid the attack. Rache had time to sprint back to the platform, fire his jets, and leap into the air.

  Casmir dangled from his grip, doing all he could to keep from screaming.

  The robot battle below had stilled, with the Quasar Stalkers stomping over the wreckage of Casmir’s robot allies. His former robot allies. He hoped Bonita was on the way with the rest of his army. If the terrorists were able to focus fully on Rache and Casmir… that wouldn’t be good. Casmir had no idea how many people and robots were inside the base, but it was a foregone conclusion he and his twin were outnumbered.

  As Rache zipped up the side of the cliff, Casmir twisted to look for the cables he expected to see. There, below the edge of the bluff and the dish, a waterproof conduit ran ten feet down the stone face and disappeared into a fissure.

  “There’s a tunnel,” Casmir blurted as Rache angled to land in the foliage next to the dish. “Did you see it?”

  “I saw a hole. It probably goes three feet into the cliff and ends in a pile of wire and a router.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m going to try to get in that way.”

  “It’s too small.”

  “I can fit through.”

  “I can’t.” Rache let him go and thudded a fist against his armored chest.

  “That’s all right. This isn’t your fight. I’ll go in and try to find a way to bring down the barrier that’s blocking transmissions and hiding this place from the satellites. Then Asger will know where to send his allies.” Casmir grimaced, because he wanted badly to find his parents and make sure they were safe before those allies arrived and fired everything they had.

  “You’ll get yourself killed if you go in alone. You don’t even have a stunner, do you?”

  “No.” Casmir pulled out his drill again and waved it.

  “Yeah, that’s going to drive terror into their hearts.”

  “I also have some vials of a biological agent that can make people puke.” Casmir patted his tool satchel.

  “Presuming they’re not in combat armor and using a self-contained breathing system. You said it’s possible your parents are in there, right?”

  “I’m not sure. They might be. That’s another reason I hav
e to go in.”

  Rache shook his head.

  “If you want to help, you can fly around and keep them distracted.” Casmir waved toward the robots below.

  “Distracted? Look, Dabrowski. I’m nobody’s distraction. I’m the main event.” Rache thrust the pistol at Casmir again, making sure he took it before stepping back and off the cliff.

  His boots fired, and he flew down, zigzagging in the air. Several of the Stalkers below must have spotted him, for they fired. Rache dipped and darted and somersaulted twice, avoiding their blasts, then zipped into the entrance corridor again. Smoke was still flowing out of it. Within seconds, crimson energy bolts also sailed out. Shots meant for Rache that missed, Casmir hoped.

  He shook his head. Even with his combat armor, Rache couldn’t storm an entire compound by himself.

  “And he thinks I’m going to get myself killed.” Casmir stuffed the pistol in his tool satchel, dropped to his hands and knees, and scoped out a route to that fissure.

  His heart quailed at the ten-foot descent he would have to make down the vertical rock face to the hole where the conduit disappeared. But Rache was down below charging an army for him—or to redeem Kim’s favor—so he couldn’t let himself fail. He slid his legs over the side while trying not to think about why Rache was willing to risk his life to redeem a favor, especially when the request had simply been to get Casmir into the terrorist stronghold, not to storm their base and take on an entire army.

  As he carefully descended, wishing he had a rope in his tool satchel, a rock slipped free and clattered down the cliff. He feared one of the Stalkers would notice him, especially now that Rache had gone inside, but he was too terrified to look down to check.

  One of his feet reached the fissure. He realized he would have to climb down below it, so he could go in headfirst.

  Another boom erupted inside that entrance corridor, and more smoke flowed out. It hazed the air, and Casmir hoped it would make it hard for the Stalkers to sense and target him.

  He picked his way farther down, his arms shaking from more than exertion. Finally, his face was level with the fissure. Rache had been right that it was only a couple of feet wide—too narrow for someone in armor, but if it didn’t get much narrower, Casmir could navigate it.

  “I hope.”

  He slipped his arms inside and clawed and pulled the rest of his body in with such a lack of grace that he was glad there were no witnesses around. For some reason, he imagined Princess Oku seeing this on some drone’s security camera footage on the news. He hoped the news story wouldn’t be explaining his death.

  Red light flashed behind him, and a bang sounded above the opening in the fissure. Casmir jerked his legs inside, cracking his knee on the rock. The smoke must have cleared enough for the Stalkers to target him. More bolts sailed up, smacking into the face of the cliff. Rock tumbled down, and the opening collapsed.

  Casmir hurried deeper, terror clutching his chest as he imagined the ten feet of rock above him all collapsing. There was no way he would be able to dig himself out.

  The robots stopped firing. Darkness engulfed Casmir. He activated his night vision, and the dark gray outline of his cave—his coffin, his brain wanted to say—came into view. He could still make out the conduit running along the bottom and see that it continued deeper into the cliff.

  “Time to see if it goes somewhere useful.” He decided not to think about what would happen if the passage narrowed, since the only entrance he knew about had been blocked.

  17

  Qin stared at the crashed shuttle, the wreckage smoldering, what little remained of it. It was so charred and in so many pieces that she couldn’t be positive it was the furniture-delivery vessel Rache had been flying. But the queasy feeling in her stomach made her suspect it was. Some part of her knew.

  Had this happened before or after Casmir had sent Bonita that message? It was hard to imagine anyone walking away from this crash.

  As she picked her way around the wreckage, looking for but hoping not to find Casmir’s body, her ears picked up the sound of weapons fire. She guessed it was three or four miles away—it was difficult to gauge distance in the dense forest.

  A distant boom sounded. Explosives.

  Hoping that meant Casmir—and Casmir’s robots—had survived, Qin ran in that direction. It sounded like they were assaulting the enemy base. That didn’t sound like a wise plan, even if all the robots had survived. Casmir would need her help.

  She pushed herself to run faster and was encouraged when she spotted the treads of robots and the occasional footprint in the churned mud. It looked like Casmir and Rache were both alive. And she was on the right path.

  Her skin tingled with a harsh buzz, and she lurched to a stop and jumped behind a tree, suspecting some enemy’s weapon. A stunner? No, she wore her armor. She wouldn’t have felt a stun blast. What had she felt?

  She looked all around, but nothing but ferns and trees and bushes she couldn’t name rose up in the darkness. Her eyes were keen enough at night that she would have seen people or robots. There was nothing.

  “An energy field?” she murmured, exploring the area with her hand.

  She felt the buzz again, penetrating her suit. Some kind of electrical field. It must be what protected the base and made it hard to find.

  The booms and weapons fire had faded. What did that mean? That Rache and Casmir had defeated their enemies? That their enemies had defeated them?

  Though she wanted to sprint in the last direction she’d heard noise, Qin reminded herself that Casmir’s goal had been to find the terrorists and give the location to Asger so he could bring in help to defeat them.

  She stepped away from the invisible field and sent a message. Captain? I’m on the trail of Casmir and Rache, and I believe I found the energy field that may be keeping the Kingdom from locating this place. Can you pinpoint my location?

  Yes, Bonita replied. We just got rid of that other shuttle—Asger isn’t bad with a railgun for someone with such pretty hair.

  Why would pretty hair affect his aim? Qin asked, confused by the comment.

  Pretty people get through life on their looks. They don’t have to spend thousands of hours at ranges, mastering marksmanship.

  Spending time at the range is enjoyable. And he is a knight, so perhaps he revels in physical training.

  Yeah, yeah. About this field. Do you know how far outside of the base it is?

  I heard weapons fire approximately two miles northwest of my current position. Should we meet there?

  I’ll do my best, Bonita replied. The Dragon was damaged, so we may have to set down for emergency repairs.

  You could set down at the base and disgorge Casmir’s robots.

  Qin, you don’t land your damaged spaceship right outside of the enemy base to do repairs.

  Not even when you have a robot army? Qin stepped through the field and started running again, worried the silence that had descended on the forest meant Casmir was in trouble.

  It was only when a minute passed without a response from Bonita that she realized their communications might not be able to pass through that energy field. She didn’t want to waste time by going back, so she hoped Bonita had all the information she needed.

  The smell of burning wood and scorched metal reached Qin’s nose long before a blue light grew visible. The noise of something—several somethings—crunching over what sounded like wreckage reached her ears. She made herself slow down and tried to approach from a darker section of the forest.

  Up ahead, the trees thinned. She crept to the edge of the forest and gaped at the wreckage spread hundreds of meters along the base of a cliff. The only moving things in sight were six hulking insectoid robots that didn’t look like any of the ones Casmir had been working on. The pieces lying on the ground might have been the remains of the ones Casmir had been working on…

  Qin fingered her Brockinger. The robots appeared sturdy, as the victors of a battle would, but could they take an explo
sive to the torso?

  Did it make sense to start a war with them and announce her presence? If Bonita was coming, she ought to try to clear the ground in front of the cliff—it was the only potential landing area she had seen—but where were Rache and Casmir? Had they been taken prisoner? She didn’t see a base.

  She peered higher up the cliff, thinking it might be on top. Then she spotted the chiseled stone walls of an ancient structure built into the rock face, along with an entrance in the rock fifty feet up. She could climb to it easily enough if she weren’t being shot at, but she didn’t know if she could avoid being spotted. The robots were patrolling back and forth like sentries.

  Movement in the sky caught her eye. Uh oh. The Dragon?

  No, it was a smaller craft. An armed shuttle similar to the ones that had attacked the Dragon.

  It arrowed down from the sky, skimming close to the cliff, and Qin expected it to land. She readied herself to spring out and attack whoever came out. Assuming it was a human, he or she might have answers to some of her questions.

  But the shuttle didn’t land in front of the entrance to the stone structure. It continued past, following the rock face and flying right past Qin’s hiding spot. She crouched low as it zipped through the clearing and between trees at the far end. There was barely room for it to land, but the shuttle settled into a gap.

  Qin backed farther into the trees so the robots wouldn’t spot her, then ran parallel to the cliff and toward the shuttle. She felt certain something would be gained from capturing its pilot and whoever else was inside.

  The hatch swung open, and a crusher strode out. Her heart sank. Maybe there weren’t any humans, after all.

  The tarry black crusher’s head shifted left and right, as if it were sniffing the air. But it lacked a nose and eyes in the traditional sense, and Qin had no idea what receptors truly sensed its surroundings. Whatever it had worked, for the head turned toward her.

  “A threat is present,” it announced.