Hero Code

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Get rid of it,” came a man’s voice from inside the craft.

  The crusher sprinted at Qin.

  She cursed. She’d gotten the best of one before but not by destroying it. She had no idea if it was even possible to destroy one. Before, she’d been able to fling it off the hull of the ship and into an ocean. Here, all she had were trees.

  A man appeared in the hatchway as the crusher sprinted toward her, and Qin thought she saw someone lying on the deck behind him. Someone tied up? Or someone dead?

  She sprang up the nearest tree as the crusher rushed toward her. Though she wished she weren’t wearing her gauntlets so she had the use of her claws, she still scrambled up the trunk like few humans could. The crusher paused to stare up at her. Could they climb?

  The tree swayed alarmingly as Qin ascended farther and the trunk narrowed. No, the trunk wasn’t the problem, she realized. The crusher gripped the tree near the base. A snap sounded as it broke the trunk.

  Qin leaped off it before it tipped toward the ground. She sprang to the next tree and then the next. She ran from branch to branch, angling toward the shuttle. Maybe she could reach the pilot and avoid fighting the crusher.

  It only broke one tree before following her on the ground, waiting for her to come down. Maybe it had already figured out her intent, and it would head her off if she tried to jump down to the shuttle.

  She paused in a clump of branches forty feet up, the needles and cones dense enough to hide her movements, and she loaded a canister into her Brockinger. As her robotic foe gazed up at her, she leaned to the side of a branch, aimed, and fired.

  The crusher was almost fast enough to leap out of the way, but her round struck its shoulder and blew. Flames and smoke hid it, but she doubted it was dead. Qin leaped through two more trees and down onto the roof of the shuttle.

  As she landed, she glimpsed the crusher, its head and shoulder torn half off, but already, it was reassembling itself, more like a liquid than a solid as it re-formed.

  Qin leaped down from the roof as the man inside jumped out, whipping a rifle toward her. He wasn’t armored, and a cigarette dangled out of his mouth, the scent of burning tobacco pungent in the air.

  He got two shots off, the DEW-Tek bolts ricocheting off her chest plate, before she landed. She grabbed him under the armpits and hurled him between the trees. He struck the crusher and bounced off, crying out as his shoulder slammed into a tree.

  Qin rushed inside the shuttle and found a button to close the hatch. Stealing the shuttle seemed to offer more options than running out to engage in combat with the recovering crusher.

  The legs she’d spotted were attached to an older man who was tied to an older woman, and they were both tied to the base of a seat. They were gagged, but from the way they stared at her, Qin was sure they were gaping.

  “Hi.” She ran toward the pilot’s seat, hoping she could figure out how to get the craft in the air. Bonita had given her some lessons on the Dragon, but that was her only experience. “I’m Qin. I’ll explain when—”

  A thump sounded as something landed on the roof.

  “—we get rid of that,” Qin finished, certain it was the crusher.

  Fortunately, the shuttle was still powered up, and it had a flight stick that appeared intuitive. She lifted them into the air, branches scraping the hull, and did her best to back out of the tight parking spot without hitting a tree.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  She tracked the crusher’s heavy footfalls as it ran across the roof toward the hatch. Any second, it would tear it open and try to get inside. Would it simply attack her? Or try to hurt the prisoners to keep them from getting away?

  The shuttle cleared the trees, and she twisted the flight stick, hoping to dislodge the crusher. She almost sent them careening into the cliff. Usually, this was Bonita’s job…

  She wondered if either of the two prisoners could pilot. Then she could climb out and knock the crusher off.

  But there wasn’t time to free them and ask. As she tried to gain ground, hoping she would have more opportunity for maneuvering once she was above the trees, a second loud thump sounded.

  Now what was the crusher doing? That had sounded like something else landing on the shuttle. If there were exterior cameras that she could call upon, Qin didn’t know where the controls were. All she could see was what was visible directly in front of them. At the moment, that was the cliff.

  She veered away as more thumps and an ear-splitting screech came from the roof. An alarm flashed on the display, and something that sounded like rocks bouncing off the hull came from underneath them. No, not rocks. Energy bolts. The robots on the ground were firing at the shuttle.

  Qin growled in frustration. How much damage could the craft take?

  Another alarm flashed to life. Had she rescued these people, whoever they were, only to crash and cause them to die?

  No, damn it. She—

  White light flashed outside, and an epic boom thundered, rattling the hull. Something like a railgun blast slammed into the ground below and exploded. Three of the robots that had been firing on Qin were hurled into the air. One slammed into the face of the cliff hard enough for pieces to fly off.

  “What was that?” She tilted the nose of the shuttle upward and almost laughed. The dome-shape of the Stellar Dragon filled the sky.

  Just as she thought she was rescued, Qin realized Bonita wouldn’t know she was the one piloting this shuttle. It might be Asger’s next target.

  More thumps sounded above her, right above her. That crusher was still up there, maybe more than one.

  She angled back toward the ground. She couldn’t handle flying. She would rather be on the ground and fighting. If she could lead the prisoners out into the forest—

  Metal screeched, and a black spear drove down through the ceiling. The point halted an inch from Qin’s helmet. She jerked her head back and instinctively released the flight stick so she could grab whatever that was and keep it from retracting and striking again. It was tarry black, like the crushers. No, she realized as she gripped it, and it pulled back—hard. It was a crusher.

  The freighter’s railgun fired again, the round shrieking right past the shuttle and blowing into the side of the cliff. A huge piece of rock slammed into the hull, knocking them sideways. The black spear was torn from Qin’s grasp as the craft struck the ground, bouncing and then skidding into something. A tree? The cliff? The screen went dark and she didn’t know.

  She abandoned the pilot’s seat and sprang for the hatch, only knowing that she couldn’t let the crushers get inside.

  The prisoners were still on the deck, their eyes bulging even wider now.

  “Sorry,” Qin blurted. “I’m young. I haven’t rescued a lot of people yet.”

  She didn’t even know if she was supposed to be rescuing these people. The hatch squealed as it was ripped off its hinges. A crusher hurled it into the woods.

  Qin leaped in front of the prisoners and pointed her Brockinger. Before she could fire, another crusher slammed into the first, and both tumbled out of view.

  “Was that Zee?” Qin leaped out to help.

  The two crushers wrestled and thrashed on the ground beside the shuttle. Wind batted at Qin’s armor, and leaves and pine needles flew through the air as the Dragon settled down a few dozen meters away. Pieces of robots crunched under its weight. The cargo hatch opened, and new robots stomped, rolled, and flew out.

  “Oh, good.” Qin grinned at the captives. “Casmir’s robot army is here.”

  The man and woman looked at each other.

  Qin figured they had no idea what she was talking about. She hoped Casmir was all right and not crumpled up and dead among the broken robots out there.

  Zee—he was noticeably larger than the other crusher—hurled his foe against the rock face hard enough that it lost its form. Qin expected him to keep attacking, but he sprang twenty feet up the rock wall and found a handhold. He climbed toward the entrance up there. />
  She suspected that meant Casmir was somewhere inside. And that she’d just been left to finish off this foe.

  The battered crusher started re-forming itself. Qin raised her anti-tank gun. She would handle it.

  18

  The galaxy suit kept Casmir from scraping skin off his shoulders on the tight walls of his crawlspace, but he doubted it would keep bruises from forming. He pulled himself determinedly forward, on his hands and knees—sometimes on his elbows and belly. The conduit continued to line the bottom of the shaft, leading him slightly downward and deeper into the cliff. Every time the passage leveled out, his hands landed in puddles.

  “Poor infrastructure planning,” he muttered.

  At least the crawlspace continued to be large enough for him, as he’d hoped. Someone had laid that conduit. Or some robot or drone had. A robot or drone that might have been smaller than he was. What happened if his tunnel shrank?

  “Think positive, Casmir,” he muttered to himself. “You’re not a big guy. You’re smaller than most robots.”

  A distant boom sounded, and the cool stone under him trembled. Dust and tiny bits of rock shifted and fell free. He grimaced and ordered himself not to panic, to keep his breaths steady. That was probably Rache throwing explosives at someone, and he wouldn’t do that in an area where he was likely to bring the cliff down on himself.

  Alas, this logic only partially helped Casmir. He could hear his ragged breaths reverberating off the rock. Nonetheless, he continued onward. His tool satchel kept getting stuck, but he wouldn’t dream of leaving it behind.

  Distant shouts filtered through the rock. They were far too muffled to make out, but they gave him encouragement, since they seemed to be coming from deeper in the cliff. That ought to mean that his passage would connect to something at some point.

  “Hopefully, before I run out of food and water and die,” he whispered.

  A part of him wished Kim were here, to make some pithy comeback as she crawled along behind him. But the larger part of him was glad she was safe back in the city. He only wished his parents were.

  The rumble of machinery reached his ears, and he made himself focus on that instead of worrying about people. Machinery was promising. Far preferable to deal with than armed men.

  The rumble grew louder until he couldn’t hear anything else. It remained dark ahead of him. Even with his night-vision enhancement, he almost missed an opening to the side of his passage. The conduit he’d been following ran into a T-connector, with a tuft of clumsily laid wires going off into a machine room while the rest of the wires continued on in the closed conduit. A few yellow and blue indicator lights glowed in the machine room.

  Casmir twisted, clunking his elbow on the stone as he maneuvered his flashlight out of his tool satchel. He shone his light over numerous machines and almost laughed when he spotted something exactly like the stealth generator on the bridge of that cargo ship.

  He’d already wondered, at the first sign of an astroshaman, if this group was tied to the group that had stolen the gate from the archaeological site, and this seemed to cement that. Another machine looked like a power generator, and there was a huge tank and a water pump.

  “Environmental control room,” he decided and pointed his flashlight down to see how far of a jump he had.

  He and the wires had come out ten feet up from the floor. They were bolted to the wall, so he couldn’t use them as climbing aids. He figured he could get down without too much trouble, but jumping and pulling himself back up would be a challenge if he couldn’t find something to stand on. Should he attempt to sabotage the equipment down there? Or continue to follow that conduit to what was likely the communications area?

  No, he didn’t need to make any calls. If he knocked out the stealth generator, and the entire base appeared on the Kingdom satellites, it wouldn’t take the Guard long to send ships to destroy it. He would have accomplished what the king asked. And his parents… He would just have to find them before the reinforcements arrived.

  Casmir swung clumsily down—the opening wasn’t that wide, so he had to awkwardly go past the opening and then back so he could lower his legs out of the hole first. He imagined Rache rolling his eyes at Casmir’s lack of athleticism.

  There was a closed metal door on the opposite wall. Casmir ran to it, hoping he could lock it from the inside. No such luck. There wasn’t a lock at all. He would have to work quickly.

  The stealth generator looked to be the exact same model. He spotted the on/off switch and almost flicked it, but that wouldn’t be enough. As soon as one of the local goons realized it was off, he or she would run back in to check on it.

  Casmir put his screwdriver to use again removing the panel. He could have smashed up the inside and broken circuit boards, but his soul rebelled at such wanton destruction. He removed a few select pieces, then found the power cord and cut it. The generator thunked off, its indicators going dark.

  Casmir eyed the other equipment, debating if he should turn off the lights. If everyone was in combat armor, darkness wouldn’t matter. Those helmets had better night vision than his contacts.

  He looked around, hoping to spot the controls for a ventilation system. There had to be fans to pull potentially toxic gases out of the underground tunnels and bring in fresh air. If he could ensure they were blowing air inward, and break Kim’s vials into the flow, maybe he could deliver an effective dose to those inside who weren’t wearing armor.

  A nice thought, but he didn’t see a ventilation system, not operating out of this room.

  “The gas probably would have dissipated too much anyway,” he muttered.

  Still, he was tempted to go through that door and see if any adjoining rooms held the heart of the ventilation system.

  A shout sounded nearby and convinced him not to wander. As he turned back toward the hole in the wall, debating how he would reach it, another shout echoed through the facility. Closer.

  He hunted around for a chair or something he could use for a boost.

  Footsteps rang in the corridor outside. He was out of time.

  Casmir ran and sprang for the lip, hoping his vertical jump was better than he remembered. He slammed into the wall three inches below the hole, his fingers coming nowhere close to gripping it. Damn it.

  As he landed, the door squealed open. Casmir flung himself behind the closest piece of equipment. Which happened to be the stealth generator, the first place they would look.

  Idiot, he cursed silently as he squeezed himself as far back as he could, praying they somehow wouldn’t notice him.

  Two people with heavy footsteps charged into the room. They headed straight for the stealth generator. Had he damaged it enough to keep them from getting it working again? Would they hear him breathing?

  “Someone’s been in here,” one man said.

  “No shit. There’s a whole army of people storming our secret compound.”

  An army? Was that Rache? Or was it possible Casmir’s robots had arrived? Even if they had, he didn’t think any of them could climb up the cliff to get to that entrance. Only the handful of drones, and they had modest weaponry. He’d only ordered them to deploy some of the vials.

  He supposed it was too much to hope that they were inside and dumping the vials now, vials that would ooze in here and affect these people.

  “What’s that?” someone asked, his voice sounding closer to Casmir.

  He grimaced, wishing he had Rache’s pistol in hand. But could he truly shoot someone? Even someone helping terrorists?

  A wrenching noise came from the corridor. It sounded like a door being torn off its hinges.

  “What the—”

  Weapons squelched.

  “Donner, Daiju,” someone yelled from the corridor. “Get out here, and help with this thing!”

  The men cursed and ran back out the door.

  Casmir peeked out. For the moment, he was alone. Bangs and thumps and weapons fire continued in the corridor, but he couldn’t ass
ume that was an ally attacking them. He hoped it was, but they wouldn’t have described Rache as a thing.

  With more time to hunt around, Casmir found a tool cabinet and pushed it to the wall so he could climb it to escape. One of the drawers was open, and he tugged on it, curious if he would find anything useful to add to his satchel. It was full of tape. Not exactly an elite robot-making tool, but he snatched a roll of duct tape. He could twist it up and use it as a rope to lower himself down if he had to go back the way he’d come.

  Footsteps rang out in the corridor again. Casmir climbed up the cabinet and into the hole, tugging his body out of sight as quickly as possible.

  Once again, he crawled deeper into the cliff. The sounds soon faded behind him, dulled by the intervening rock. He bumped his shoulders several more times, gritting his teeth as he rounded bends and half slid down a steep slope.

  A male voice sounded up ahead, and Casmir paused. A second man responded. Casmir thought they were speaking in the Kingdom tongue, but he couldn’t quite make out words.

  Had he found the inner sanctum? Or the route into the terrorists’ lavatory? He wished he had a map of this place—or access to the network to download one.

  As he turned a bend, a clear string of words made it to his ears. “…I can’t say how honored I am that the mighty Tenebris Rache would come to my humble abode. And without his mask! You’re as pasty as I suspected you would be after all those years under a hood.”

  Dread spread through Casmir’s limbs. Those words were delivered with the haughty sarcasm of someone who had the advantage.

  “It’s hard to get a tan in space,” came Rache’s cool reply.

  Rache didn’t sound like he was crying in pain and defeat, but Casmir wasn’t that heartened by that. Rache was someone who he expected would spit promises of revenge while he was dying on the floor.

  Casmir kept crawling, doing his best not to make any noise. He could tell that the speakers weren’t standing close together and that they were at a lower elevation than he, but not much more than that.

  “Put him over there,” the unknown speaker said. “And figure out how to get the rest of his armor off. You’ve got all of his weapons?”