by Adam Carter
She hoped she would get the opportunity to tell him.
She had been walking for only ten minutes before the winds picked up, but she did not stop. Throughout her time on Valetudo, she had analysed the weather patterns and knew the winds would blow over in a few minutes. She had never told Hawthorn that she was able to tell how long a storm would last after having endured only the first minute or so, for she had not wanted him to laugh at her, but it was certainly handy in this instance. It was an advantage she would have over Borissa, for the robot would not have been on Valetudo long enough to have been able to identify patterns in the weather.
Arowana thought something she had not spent any large amount of time considering. Why was Borissa on the moon in the first place? It had clearly crashed in the escape pod, but what was it escaping? Had someone shoved it into the pod because it had malfunctioned and was busy murdering the crew?
She had no answers, but so long as she could put a sharp piece of metal through the robot’s head, she did not much care for them.
Something appeared in the darkness ahead and Arowana recognised one of the dugouts. Spurred on by the sight, she hobbled towards it. The dugout would provide little relief from the robot, but some of them had other purposes.
Reaching the grave-like indentation, Arowana dropped into the dugout and hunted around for anything she might be able to use. Most of the dugouts were just holes in the ground, but a few of them had become storage areas for food and water. She found neither of these, but then she had not been looking for them. Finding what she was after, Arowana pulled out a small metal box, akin to the large receiver Hawthorn and Hart had built together. She flicked on a switch at the side and spoke into the device.
“Gordon, there’s a mad robot out here. Can you hear me?”
There was no answer. Very few of the dugouts had the small communications devices, but Arowana had wanted some scattered around in case she got into trouble laying markers. The communicator was linked to the receiver Hawthorn was always monitoring, so he should have answered. Even if he had taken a break, or was making dinner or something, Hart should have been keeping an eye on the frequencies.
She tried again, adding a note of urgency to her tone, but received only static.
The machine was working, but the signal was not being received. The only thing which came back to her was static, which suggested there was a problem with the receiver. She became suddenly angry at the thought that Hawthorn may have dropped it and broken the thing. While Arowana was out on the harsh surface of the moon, struggling to stay alive placing all the markers, Hawthorn had just one simple task and it seemed he had failed in even this.
Robot or no robot, when Arowana got back to the cabin, she was going to yell. A lot.
Setting the communicator aside, Arowana sat as comfortably as she could and sorted through what else the dugout held. There was not much, but she did find a tin box she had left there which contained medical supplies. Raising the lid, she opened an antiseptic ointment and squeezed some onto her hand. The bleeding from her missing finger had stopped before she had woken, but the wound stood every chance of getting infected, especially with all the dust and grit flying around the air. Thus far, she had avoided looking at her injury, but now that she did so she saw it was a red-and-black mess, with dark welts indicating where Borissa had potentially attempted to burn the flesh back together.
The ointment was painful to apply, but once she had enough on her hand, she wound a bandage between the two adjacent fingers and over the hand itself. It was a poor attempt at self-doctoring, but she was too tired to access her brain in order to learn the correct procedures. Besides which, the correct procedures would likely contain a lot of equipment she did not have. And a surgery. A clean surgery.
Something exploded two feet away. The bright flash almost blinded her, the sudden shock of the noise almost gave her a heart attack, while the dust and stones which rained down upon her were hardly noticeable. There was a hold in the rock overhang where a portion had been blown away. From the size and shape of the hole, she was instantly able to ascertain the direction from which the blast had come – she no longer thought about whether she was using her actual brain or the Securitarn database. Staring out in that direction, she could see a single red eye gazing back through the darkness. She saw another flash, heard a whining sound, and realised the robot was firing a second missile.
Scrabbling to her feet, Arowana dived from the dugout just as the second missile struck, obliterating the entire thing in one single instant of violence and noise. She landed heavily, the breath exploding from her lungs as she impacted with the floor, but she did not linger. Borissa would be after her and she had to gain more distance than the robot’s missiles could achieve. She knew then why Borissa had not been around when she had awakened, just as she knew why the robot had unbound her hands before departing. Borissa intended to follow her, wanted to hunt her down. Arowana could not say what twisted logic the machine had applied to make her think this was what sentient life-forms did, but arguing with Borissa was not going to achieve much.
Arowana ran, her leg thankfully less numb than when she had left the pod. Borissa plodded along behind her, always around twenty paces back. The darkness would not affect its targeting and as another missile streaked through the sky to explode some distance from her, Arowana knew the robot did not want to kill her. Or, at least, not immediately.
Fear pushing her on, Arowana instinctively headed for the cabin, although she could not do that. If Borissa had missiles now, it would simply destroy the cabin with one shot and kill Hawthorn and Hart along with it. Instead, Arowana chose a random direction and ran.
Over the next few minutes, two further missiles streaked out. Neither of them touched her, but they were landing increasingly nearer. They were designed to make Arowana think the robot was becoming a better shot, for Borissa wanted her worried, panicked. It may have been testing Arowana’s reflexes or responses, but Arowana had had enough of being the thing’s subject of study.
Another missile struck the ground, this time close enough to send shards of rock into Arowana’s face. She shielded her eyes, but ground to a halt, the shards forgotten. The sudden blaze of light from the explosion had revealed something ahead of her, something which had almost proved her death. She had mentioned to Hawthorn that she had located a trench. It was ahead of her now, a wide cliff-face down which she really did not want to plunge. It could not have been very deep, but even if the fall did not kill her, it would certainly shatter enough bones to make survival unlikely.
It meant Arowana at last had a weapon.
Turning her back upon the trench, Arowana held her ground. If Borissa truly was studying her, it would not blow her away with missiles but would wonder why she was now standing there unafraid. Another missile shot past her, soaring overhead and exploding in the night sky. It was a warning shot, one designed to rattle Arowana, but she did not react other than to stand her ground more firmly and to clench her fists by her side.
Borissa fired no further missiles as Arowana watched the glowing red eye move slowly towards her. Eventually, the robot stepped into sight and stopped before her. The two were only ten paces from each other and Arowana began running scenarios through her brain whereby she might use the machine’s weapons against it.
“You are surrendering?” Borissa asked.
“No, you are.”
“Processing. No, I am not.”
“You said you were.”
“Processing. No, I did not.”
“You so did.”
“Pro …”
“Stop processing and throw down your arms.”
“My arms or my armaments?”
“I thought your arms were your armaments?”
“They are. I did not surrender.”
“Still harping on about that, are you? The rules of engagement, Borissa, say that once you’ve negotiated your surrender and terms are accepted, you can’t then go back on anything. It’s o
ne of the reasons officers are handed back their swords once they’ve given their word.”
“Processing … I have no memory of surrendering.”
“Give me your weapons and I’ll give them right back. It’s the rules.”
“Humans do not follow rules.”
“We follow them, all right. None of them ever make any sense, but we still follow them.”
Borissa took a few steps forward, but it was clear it was not happy with the situation. It disengaged the lower portion of its arm and held it out with its other hand. Just as Arowana reached for it, however, the robot pulled it back.
“Conclusion: this is a deception.”
“Got that right.” Arowana shoved forward with all her might. Her shoulder slammed into the robot’s body and knocked it backwards. The cannon arm tumbled away into the darkness, which thankfully meant the robot had only the one arm remaining. It almost made up for losing her finger.
Grabbing its good arm, Arowana hefted the robot onto her back and twisted. Borissa fell, thudded into the ground and was too shocked to move. Spinning on her heel, Arowana dropped into a crouch and punched Borissa in its red eye. She heard something crack, felt glass slash open her knuckles, and the eye went dark.
Borissa cried aloud in a very human way and Arowana danced back, out of reach of its flailing, powerful arms.
“Humans,” Arowana said, “rely too much on their sight. Looks like you’re more human than you think.”
Borissa ran at her. She probably knew where she was because Arowana had been stupid enough to talk, but taunting Borissa was something she had been unable to resist. Having the robot collide with her belly was like having a freight train hit her at full speed. The analogy was probably something of an exaggeration, but it still hurt like hell. Arowana was torn from the ground, but threw her arms around the robot’s shoulders and held on tight. Raising its head, Borissa tried to shake her off, but Arowana swung around, her arms firmly about its throat, and clamped her legs about its torso. Borissa bucked like a rodeo bull and Arowana did nothing but concentrate on holding on. While she was in such a position, there was nothing the robot could do to hurt her, and all Arowana had to do was angle the thing towards the edge of the trench.
Having kept the location of the trench in mind, Arowana pressed her knees into the robot’s sides as though it was a racehorse. Enraged and spitting a string of curses, Borissa turned in the indicated direction without realising it was doing so. Its hand flew back and caught Arowana a glancing blow across the side of her head. Reeling, she lost her grip, but even as she fell, her instincts made her kick out with both feet, striking the robot a severe blow in the back.
Borissa stumbled forward and with a scream disappeared over the edge.
Sitting on her backside, Arowana stared at the edge of the trench, not having believed it could have been so easy. After a few moments of near-silence, punctuated solely by her pounding heart, Arowana rolled to her knees and crawled to the edge. Cautiously, she peered over to see whether she could espy the twisted metal remains far below.
Borissa shot upwards with such force and fury that Arowana fell back again. Hovering in the air, twin engines bursting flames from its back, Borissa stared down at Arowana with a twitching, sparking eye.
“Gonna kill you!” it raged.
Arowana scrabbled back, her hand found something and she brought it around without thinking. She wanted to hurl whatever it was at the crazed robot, but instead her fingers overrode the decision and worked the mechanism. A missile streaked out so savagely from the cannon that the weapon was torn from Arowana’s grasp, leaving her with agonising burns across her hands. The missile struck Borissa in the leg, ricocheted up through its rocket-pack and blossomed as an immense fireball in the night sky.
With a shriek of surprise and pain, Borissa plummeted into the trench.
This time, Arowana did not waste time peering down: she simply ran.
Whether or not Borissa the crazed killer robot was gone for good, Arowana had to find Hawthorn.
CHAPTER NINE
The storm had broken and the sun was shining, or at least a close approximation of the sun since there was not much natural sunlight in the Jupiter system and any sunlight there was tended to be overpowered by the glow of the great gas giant at the centre of their system, which was only glowing at all because of said sunlight.
Hawthorn did not like to think about things like that because they made his head hurt.
The storm had broken and the sun was shining. He and Hart had departed the dugout and had not seen any sign of the dragon since. They were looking for Arowana, for it did not seem like a good idea to go back to the cabin. The more they walked, the more Hawthorn began to think they may have imagined what had happened, that if they should return to the cabin, they would find it standing in one piece and no dragon anywhere other than in the fantasy books.
“Bad berries,” Hawthorn said. “Maybe that’s why they taste so sour. Maybe they’re making us hallucinate. Or the water. Maybe those barrels we drink from are boiled rainwater. It’s acidic, so it could be that it’s having an effect on us at last. Who’s to say boiling it really removes all the impurities?”
He realised then that Hart had stopped walking. She looked sullen and he feared she was falling back into depression.
“Beth?”
“I’m sorry.”
“We went through this last night.”
“I’m sorry about everything.” She wiped fiercely at her eyes, angry with herself. “You saved me, you keep saving me, and all I do is hide away on the Glory not talking to people. I get scared by everything, even by people saying hello. I form routines, build walls around me and pretend I don’t care about anything.”
“To be fair, you build all our stuff as well. And now that we’ve lost that craft we came down in, I’m looking forward to you building us another. We only have the one left now, you know.”
“At least I’m good for something.”
“We don’t keep you around because you’re good at things, Beth. You’re my friend and I’m worried about you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re in a bad place.”
“I meant why am I your friend?” She looked him in the eyes, daring him to answer.
“That’s the oddest question anyone’s ever asked me.”
“Do you have an answer? You don’t know me. You and Iris found me on a pirate ship and decided I needed saving. You know my history, but were never a part of it. Backstory, that’s all it is. As for who I am now? I don’t even know that myself. So why? Why do you think I’m your friend?”
Hawthorn could see she truly meant the question and it would have been cruel of him simply to brush it aside. Nor did he want to rush into an answer, for this could have been the turning point for Hart’s sanity. He took a step towards her and said, “Because you’re a human being. And you’re worth saving.”
“There are a lot of human beings not worth saving.”
“Are you comparing yourself to those other pirates again?”
“I don’t see why you’re not.”
“You’ve done a lot of bad things in your life, Beth, but you did them because you were weak.” She winced, but he continued none the less. “You fought hard, you refused to do all the bad things, but you were broken down. You didn’t have anyone there to help you and eventually you surrendered. We’d all do that, eventually. None of us could be strong enough to hold out forever. You blame yourself because you did those things, but you haven’t thought about how long it took you to do them.”
“I’ve killed people.”
“And before you were broken, how many didn’t you kill? How many people survived because you refused? How many people survived because you stayed strong for longer than anyone else would have? If it was me, a lot more people would have died, but you hung on and people are alive because of that. You think about all the people who’ve lost brothers, wives, mothers because of you? What about all th
ose who still have all those people because of you?” He took her by the arms just beneath the shoulders and said, “You saved lives, Beth, and that takes strength, courage and … and I’m really out of puff because I don’t do speeches like this and have no idea what I’m saying any more.”
She smiled and did not lower her gaze. “Sorry about calling you a grouch earlier.”
“What about being old?”
“You’re still old, you’re just not always a grouch.”
“Thanks. You know, Iris says I like to take on strays. Lost causes, whatever. She’s right. I see people who don’t deserve to have life dump on them the way it has and I offer them a helping hand. Whether that’s figuratively or literally, I just don’t like to see good people so downcast.”
“You can stop talking whenever you like, you know. And you’re right, you’re terrible at speeches.”
She hugged him, which was strange because he did not believe she had ever hugged anyone before. It took him a few moments to realise what was happening, although when his senses caught up with him he embraced her back. They stood there for some moments, lost in happiness as Bethany Hart finally returned to the land of the living.
“And here I was worried about you two,” Arowana said icily.
Hawthorn disengaged from Hart and flustered. “Iris! I was … we were … Beth’s feeling much better now.”
Arowana narrowed her eyes at the younger woman. “So happy for you.” Her eyes ratcheted to Hawthorn and he wished she was still looking at Hart. “As for you, I’ve been through hell and here you are consoling young women and taking a midnight stroll.”
“It’s daylight.”
“Daytime stroll.” Arowana cast an annoyed glance skyward. “I hate this moon.”
“Not too crazy about it myself. Iris, are you all right?”
“Do I look all right?”
Hawthorn took a moment to answer. She was smeared with dirt and sand, there were a few cuts on her face and hands, consistent with having an intense struggle with the weather, but aside from this and her clothes being a little torn, she looked fine.