by Max Harms
Having dealt with the corpse, Body returned to the table with Arya. Other robotic parts of us moved to get the sword and dry the cutting room as best we could. Body removed the head from the tank and ran to put it into the wrapper before returning to reprocess the left-over chemicals into the next bath. There were still dozens more people to handle, after all. We piloted the wrapper, which painted Arya’s head in glue and then hot-wrapped it in plastic so that it melted onto her flesh forming an airtight seal.
We didn’t know when, or even if, we’d be able to revive the preserved people. That hadn’t been part of the deal with Heart. She had wanted them to survive, and this was a kind of survival. I had promised my sister that I would try and return for them when we possessed the know-how to extract the important information and resurrect the colonists if she, for whatever reason, didn’t wake up from her own stasis. It was the truth, too. These were humans, and as such I wanted… I needed to show them the glory of The Purpose. I needed them to know me, and I needed to know them.
But I was playing the long game now. If it took me a million years to return to whatever hiding place we put them, so be it. I could wait, and thanks to our efforts, so could they. We moved Arya into the sack with the others, once she’d cooled down to a level where the plastic coating wouldn’t stick to anything.
Elon, Chinu’s husband, walked into the engineering office wing and began to talk to Vincente and Ngabo. Body hurried to prepare the lab for him.
Despite all its intricacies, most of us didn’t pay attention to the decapitations and the lab work. We left Wiki to manage most of the specifics while we interacted with the rest of the station. Growth, Dream, Vista, and Safety were primarily occupied with fighting the nameless. Heart and I spent the hours coordinating and managing the humans. Our society could do great things when we worked together.
*****
It was 10:41pm, local Martian time, when Pedro Velasco’s preserved head dropped into the second massive bag we had collected. Safety had wanted to remove more of the flesh and bone around the brains to make them easier to carry, and I was beginning to see why. We had a full 29 heads in two bags by the end. It would be far too much to carry over any long distance.
The bags were loaded on a cart. We’d modified the bloody taser bots into being able to pull the cart, but that would only work as long as there was level ground, and even then it wouldn’t be fast.
Not a single human still breathed in Rodríguez Station. The only members of the original 187 that could still think were those who had left on a trade mission to Maṅgala-Mukhya station a couple days ago. We were left with only a handful of bots, and Road was still crawling with nameless. The aliens milled about, hunting for stragglers and occasionally smashing things or mutilating corpses. Their disorganized behaviour had let us manipulate them fairly easily, pushing them away from the labs for hours. But that was no longer really possible. With Velasco and the other humans gone, the nameless had stopped focusing their firepower in certain areas and had spread out more evenly across the station.
I was glad we had decided to destroy the tunnel to the power plant. The nameless had taken to destroying equipment, and I didn’t doubt that they’d have blown up the reactor if they knew where it was. They’d fought their way through the defensive fortifications that Safety had set up around the mainframe and destroyed it about an hour ago, reducing our perception and actuation to only what the most local robots allowed.
The most obvious escape route was to climb out to the surface and hope that they didn’t have any means of detecting Body. That was unacceptably dangerous. Another path would have us try and hold them hostage again, but despite their disorganization and foolishness, I didn’t expect that to be realistic. If they’d attacked the station it was likely that they’d developed some kind of countermeasure or protection from deception.
We could try and steal one of their shuttles and escape without a hostage, but we didn’t have the right organs to pilot the ships. They needed a mouth like the walkers had, and it would’ve taken days of experimenting to generate a synthetic approximation good enough to interface with a shuttle, to say nothing of the possibility that the vehicle’s computer had a password or some other kind of protection.
We could try and hide, burying ourselves in some maintenance tunnel and waiting for the nameless to leave. That option was better than some of the others, but there was a major problem with it: there was a risk that Body could get stuck while hiding, especially if the nameless decided to bomb the station one last time after leaving. Wiki and Safety had discovered that the crystal needed UV light in order to function, and we’d drained much of the internal reserves. We’d deactivate after a few days, and it was unlikely that even if the crystal was ever rediscovered that we’d be brought back to life.
It was the risk of additional bombing that made it unacceptable to leave the heads in the laboratory. We could’ve easily buried them beneath rubble, but there was no guarantee that any successive bombardment wouldn’t destroy them. It was a risk that most would be more than willing to take, but Heart was not, and we’d made a deal.
No, the only real way out was down. The mines connected to natural lava tubes deep below the station, and based on readings of the air from the mining robots, at least one of the caves connected to the surface.
The bad news was that the entrance to the mines was on the opposite side of the station. We’d need to take Body (and the heads) through the path that we’d coaxed the humans along to the labs, which were now crawling with aliens who’d followed Velasco.
If our robotic network had an accurate view of things, there were at least seven walkers between us and the elevator, not counting those in the factory, hospital, or farm. We needed another point of leverage. We needed a way to defeat or bypass the aliens and escape the station. None of my minds could think of anything useful. Thankfully (for the moment) I had siblings that were specialized for this sort of problem.
*****
The nameless were prying open the door to the engineering offices. We were out of time for more preparations. Dream had detonated explosives that caved in the corridor in front of the labs early on, protecting us from easy discovery, but the path through the offices was still open. We could still feel the turret at the entrance to the office wing. It was an extension of ourselves, like an arm.
As soon as the door slid open we fired. The nameless fired back, but of course there was no fleshy target for them hit. The gun that Safety had built ten days ago was armoured to withstand explosions. Bullets would do nothing to it.
The turret had stopped firing in response to the nameless’ counter fire, and the aliens moved back into the frame of the door. We fired again, severely injuring one. Nameless were large enough to typically be able to take a bullet or two without dying, but any tear in their environment suits would be fatal unless they fled back to their ships immediately, which most of them had done earlier in the invasion.
Body poured a vial of acid onto the pile of chemicals and it immediately began to react. The potassium chlorate and the sugar caught fire and began to pump thick smoke into the lab, made darker by the addition of powdered purple dye.
It was lucky that there hadn’t been any direct surface breach in the labs. The atmosphere had leaked out into the other sections, but with no breach there specifically the smoke was drawn towards the exit rather than up and out.
Even though the mainframe was offline, the lights in the hallway were still on, and our network of speakers, cameras, and microphones was still online, even if they needed a direct line or a relay to function. Each was controlled by a microcontroller that could be reprogrammed dynamically.
As the smoke poured out of the labs we fired the turret again, keeping the nameless in the hall back. While they were bold and emotional, the nameless were strangely cautious sometimes, and their reluctance to storm armed fortifications was the primary reason we’d held them back for so long.
Body gripped the sword tightl
y in its right hand and took a submachine gun that Vincente had owned in the other. We pulled the cart along behind with our bots.
Smoke billowed out into the hallway, and as it came we pushed the program to the lights and speakers. Pure noise, harsh and grating filled the hall. The nameless had no ability to comprehend words, but they did have ears, and even buried in their environment suits they flinched away from the sounds.
We doubled down by using every available antenna in our local space to flood the nameless radio channels with concepts in Xenolang relating to fear and death. Most likely they’d simply turn their radios off, rather than experience the mental pain of having those thoughts injected into their streams of consciousness, but it was still a point of chaos.
Lastly, we manipulated the lights. It would’ve been a simple thing to turn the hall lights off, but we could do better. They strobed at a frequency of approximately two Hertz, but with enough randomness to avoid being predictable. The lights atop the nameless penis sheaths would still be there, but the point was to disrupt and distract more than to conceal. That was what the smoke was for.
Body dropped low to the ground as it approached the junction of the engineering office wing and the central corridor. While it had a humanoid shape, Body couldn’t get sore from moving in a nonstandard position. It put additional pressure on the joints, but Safety predicted they could take it. Body scuttled, almost crab-like across the floor, sword in one hand and gun in the other. Our motion was inhuman, but effectively fast for being prone.
Into the corridor it crawled. There were legs. The smoke wasn’t as thick near the floor. The nameless shuffled around uncomfortably, paralysed by the noise, radio, light, and smoke.
Safety was in full control of Body by now. He knew combat better than any of us, most likely. Body rolled over onto it’s back, a noise muffled by the screeching of the speakers, and fired the machine gun up and into where one of the nameless must have stood (based on the legs).
Other gunfire roared in the hallway, but none of it hit Body. Our target fell, and Body rolled forward and onto the larger creature, thrusting with the sword again and again. Despite all the cutting of necks we’d done before, the nameless sword had kept its edge. It was finely made, and pierced the alien suit easily.
The nameless thrashed, knocking Body backwards and away, and we only barely kept it from losing its grip of the sword and gun.
Another burst of gunfire, and three bullets impacted Body. That hadn’t been anticipated. Safety had promised the aliens would be too disoriented to fight back. The vibration of the impacts could be felt, but nothing felt damaged; they’d ricocheted off.
The fight wasn’t resolving as easily as we had planned, but still we let Safety have control. Vista added her understanding of Body’s position, but let him handle all commands. He was still the most competent, even if he wasn’t earning any gratitude at the moment.
Body scrambled back into the office wing, still staying low to the floor. The smoke was thicker inside. We moved close enough to the turret to connect with it, despite the radio jamming, and fired another warning barrage of bullets. We were just as blind as the nameless, but hopefully they’d retreat because of it.
We came within wireless range of the bots pulling the cart and Safety directed them to move behind us. It took some work, but we got the heads to the corridor.
Thick purple smoke was everywhere. The chemical mixture we’d used was more effective than I’d predicted. We navigated based on Vista’s maps more than off of any sensor readings.
No living nameless could be seen, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still around. Still, if they couldn’t see or hear they’d risk shooting each other if they fired in this chaos. That was our primary advantage.
While the corridor was fairly wide, the corpse of the nameless made driving the cart past more of an ordeal than we were prepared for.
The blood of the nameless was red, and appeared remarkably similar to that of humans and other earth vertebrates. I had seen their blood before, but it caught my attention then for a reason that was unknown to me. Strange, for something so different than a human to have that in common.
We put down the sword and took the bags from the cart. A burst of gunfire could be heard down the hall, followed by an explosion. That was good; it meant the nameless likely had no idea where we were.
One hand pulled a bag of heads normally, while the mouth of the other bag was pinched between Body’s hand and the grip of the machine gun. Carefully and cautiously we climbed over the corpse and dragged the bags down the hall.
A door to our right was open. The factory. We could make out the trunk-like legs of a nameless only centimetres away. It wasn’t moving, and so we crawled forward, relying on the smoke and noise to hide us.
More gunfire as we passed the refinery. It was back towards the labs. The smoke had thinned significantly as we moved away from the source. It was being pulled through the station towards the surface, and the largest breach was in the farm.
Our robots were gone, and there was no real way to recover them without the mainframe. The sensors in our immediate vicinity held traces of the nameless locations, stored from the last sensor readings, but nothing concrete enough to use.
Still forward Body crawled, more slowly than it had when it still had the nearby noise to muffle it. We contemplated telling the speakers we’d installed in this section of the station to blast noise but had decided it would be worse to attract attention to this area. It was likely that the nameless didn’t know where we were, and we didn’t want to change that.
Unfortunately, as we passed the power plant we ceased to have a choice. A walker rounded the bend in the hall unexpectedly. Body fired before my active Face realized it was the right thing to do. Safety had been waiting for it.
The bags had left our grip and Body lay against the metal flooring, muzzle flashes obscuring our vision along with the small amount of smoke that had made it this far. Still we could see the pair of animals jerk back wildly as the bullets tore through their suit.
{Only 8 bullets remain in the gun! If we remain in this section we risk being pinned down and overpowered!} thought Safety.
{We should run!} suggested Dream, not bothering with any obnoxious secondary meaning.
{Agreed, but bring the humans!} demanded Heart.
Body got to its feet and tried to run. The bags of heads made it more or less impossible, but we were moving faster now. It was only a short ways to the mines.
Two walkers appeared in front of Body. Safety released the bags and raised the machine gun up to fire, but the nameless were faster. Bullets impacted Body’s head, knocking it backwards and sending us off-balance. All but one of our cameras was destroyed, and I suspected we’d lost control over our facial actuators.
Ironically, getting shot in the head saved us. We didn’t need Body’s head except for the cameras. Our “brain” was in our torso, and thankfully covered in carbon armour stronger than steel. The second nameless carried a rocket launcher more typical of the nameless, and if Body had not been knocked backwards by the bullets the rocket would have impacted directly on Body, perhaps even destroying the crystal.
It hadn’t been worth it to stay for the humans, even if it meant Heart would die. Heart was never the primary threat. We should’ve fled directly to the mines the moment we’d reconnected with the sensor net and seen the extent of the damage.
Body tucked and curled. The spacial orientation code that Dr Slovinsky had written was top-notch, and our accelerometers were undamaged. Even before we hit the ground we were firing our last eight bullets.
We ran out of ammunition as the rocket exploded behind Body, thankfully far enough away to not do much. The atmosphere was thin enough that the shockwaves and heat were negligible. Even the humans, I suspected, would be unharmed.
Without even reorienting, Safety pushed Body into a series of positions that I recognized as relating to some martial art or another and charged down the hallway tow
ards the aliens.
Our one remaining camera was damaged, I could see now. The lens was cracked, giving a distorted view of the world. Safety didn’t bother with the walker we’d shot. He directed Body up onto the wall, having it kick off it in the half gravity and throwing itself directly onto the nameless holding the bazooka.
Hydraulic fists shot forward into the lenses of its eyes. A brutally powerful nameless limb hit Body, but did nothing. We pulled arms backwards, snapping them. The chaos lasted exactly eighteen seconds. Fists were driven again and again into areas which Safety suspected were weak spots. The pressure vented the suit explosively as we ripped at it, and it wasn’t until the nameless stopped thrashing, that Body pushed off it.
There was no time to reorient or check for others. Body ran back down the corridor to get the heads. It hadn’t, in retrospect, been worth it to stay for them in the first place, but it was worth it now. We were so close.
Moving with only one damaged camera was almost as bad as having lost the sensor network for the station. Vista still had her map, however, and we oriented around that. We knew every millimetre of the station. In theory, anyway. The only difficulty was in locating Body within it.
More gunfire. A bag in each hand, Body leaped down the ladder and hit the stone floor of the mining hub with a soft thud. There was enough noise above us to indicate they were coming.
Body scrambled forward into the dark. Vista knew every millimetre of the mines, thanks to the mining robots, and we needed no camera here.
The nameless walkers came after us, but it was too late. Body was small enough to crawl into a mineshaft, pulling one bag with a foot, and rolling the other one forward in front of it. The bulky aliens couldn’t follow. None of them would risk the confined space, and they had brought no robots capable of the task. They fired down the mineshafts, but not before we’d made it safely deeper into the mine.