Spinebreakers

by Mitch Michaelson

  Slaught contemplated Steo. He reached down and took a metal cylinder from Steo’s hip.

  “What’s this? A new weapon you invented?” Slaught pointed it at Steo and pressed the green button. A four-inch thick needle sprang out. “Oh, combat drugs. Stimulants. Is it a weapon?” He turned it in his hand and walked around Steo. “Let’s see which.”

  Slaught rammed the long needle into his back. Steo screamed in agony. Slaught grabbed his shoulder to make sure he didn’t writhe away. It squirted its contents into Steo’s chest cavity. The cylinder’s indicator then showed empty.

  Slaught ripped the needle from Steo’s back. He waved the cylinder and felt it was hollow, then threw it away.

  Steo’s eyes were wide and he silently flailed on the floor.

  The door opened and Cyrus came in. He looked back and forth between Slaught and Steo with a blank expression.

  Cyrus said to the two guards, “You are dismissed.” Cyrus had never given a command before.

  Slaught looked at Cyrus, who had followed him loyally since the ship graveyard. To Slaught, his open face spoke of faithful devotion and trust. The perfect follower, bred to believe everything the admiral told him.

  The old mercenary was equipped with weapons and body armor under his robes. Cyrus was in plain clothes. There was no risk.

  “Go,” Slaught said. The men marched out of the room and took up station outside.

  Cyrus relaxed. He tilted his head at Slaught in a questioning sort of way.

  “I was just telling Steo here about his many failings. His last is to die here.”

  Cyrus reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial. “The doctor said to give you this.”

  “Yes,” Slaught said. “The timing is right. Bring that to me.”

  He carried the vial to Slaught, who turned around and said, “Insert it there, under my right shoulder blade. There’s a port for it.”

  As Cyrus found the port for combat drugs, Slaught said to no one in particular, “I won’t be forgotten. The galaxy will know my name. I’ll live forever. Let knight-mercenaries chase me. Fleets assemble. Weapons armed. Come and get it. You want war, don’t you? Deep down, you all want war. I’ve seen it! So I’ll give you what you want. I’ll show you war. I’ll take a thousand worlds with me to the grave. I’ll show you the far end of violence from one edge of the galaxy to the other.”

  Cyrus didn’t spare a glance at Steo twisting on the floor next to him. He inserted the vial fully into Slaught’s torso.

  “It’s done.” Cyrus stepped back with an expression of wonderment.

  Slaught flexed his powerful muscles. “Don’t go away, Cyrus. Stay close and watch. People say they have morals against killing but they’re just squeamish. Once you get past the blood, you can get so much done.”

  “What was that in the syringe?” Cyrus asked.

  “The latest in combat drugs. Stimulants. Most soldiers use them for improved performance, but I’ve found they can turn an easy kill into … an event. They heighten your senses and you can revel in your victory. Really savor it.”

  Slaught closed his eyes. On the floor, Steo’s back bent like he would break in two. He could barely breath from the convulsions.

  Cyrus said, “Do you think they make you a perfect predator?”

  Slaught opened his eyes. “What?”

  “The drugs. Do they make you a perfect predator?”

  “They … seem to sweeten success,” Slaught said with a catch in his voice.

  Cyrus stepped away from him. “I don’t think they will.”

  Slaught looked confused but didn’t move. “What –”

  “I know what the perfect predator is. I found it. It kills without remorse. It kills without feeling. It just kills. I thought you might be interested in meeting it, up close and personal.”

  Cyrus knelt next to Steo. “Come on buddy, let’s get out of here.”

  Slaught froze. His face muscles jerked. “Why don’t I feel the stimulants. What is this. What did the doctor give you?”

  Cyrus hefted Steo up. Steo’s legs didn’t work well. He was tiring from the spasms. Cyrus carried him. “He didn’t give me anything. I stole it from him. That vial wasn’t stimulants.”

  “What … is … it?” Admiral Slaught said.

  “Flesh-eating bacteria.”

  The realization slowly dawned on the mercenary. He took a halting step toward Cyrus. “You did … this?”

  “Yes. I let you inject yourself with a big dose of Venicarce, the deadliest strain of necrotizing fasciitis the galaxy has ever seen. It’s eating you from the inside out and there’s no cure.” He stepped away from Slaught.

  “Why? How?” Slaught managed to say, as he staggered another step.

  “The Bonding Experiment failed. You can’t force someone to feel love, or feel anything. I’m my own man. Always have been. Oh, and I choose my friends.”

  Slaught gritted his teeth and raised his hands as if to strangle him, but Cyrus walked away. In desperation, Slaught triggered the other drugs in his system, thinking adrenaline and endorphins might keep him alive long enough for someone to get to him, or maybe give him enough strength to grab Cyrus. Unfortunately, they only accelerated his heart rate, which pumped the bacteria through every ounce of his being.

  “Please, Cyrus,” Slaught begged. “Pity. Help.” His veins were turning an unnatural reddish-black. They ran up his face.

  Steo groaned. Cyrus said to him, “Let’s get you out of here. Can you tell me where the ship is?” They left from a different door than the mercenaries were guarding.

  Slaught struggled to stay on his feet.

  The other door opened and Hack and Boc ran in. The two guards followed.

  “Sir!” Boc said. “Cyrus! He’s a traitor! Ha! Cyrus loaded a virus that let them track us! Sir?”

  They clustered around him. Hack had seen a lot of strange maladies in his career and didn’t flinch at the blackened boils and dripping holes appearing in Slaught’s face. The admiral managed to stay standing, but just barely. Hack quickly checked his pulse. The wires leading from Slaught’s spider eyes popped out of the skin and dangled.

  Suddenly Slaught fell to his knees. He looked up at them but couldn’t speak. When he opened his mouth, black blood poured out. This Hack had only seen once before, through a protective window. He looked at his hand, then back to Slaught.

  Pustules burst on Slaught’s flesh, the discharge hitting the men crowded around him. Blood didn’t bother them.

  Hack started to shake, but maintained a firm jaw. He knew he was a dead man.

  “Whoah,” Boc said, unsure of what was going on. “Hack, do something! Why aren’t you doing anything?”

  At that moment Admiral Slaught exploded. Everyone was sprayed with the visceral liquids.

  The two mercenaries wiped it away but screamed when it ate their skin and eyes.

  “Ah! What is this? Doc! Hack!” Boc shouted as they fell away from the pulsing corpse of Admiral Slaught. As the flesh-eating bacteria devoured his arms and crawled up him, Boc bellowed, “Hey it burns! Get this off me! This shit isn’t funny!”

  He went down to the floor screaming, like the other two mercenaries. The lights on the plate in Boc’s head flashed weakly then went out. Hack held on a bit longer. The doctor watched as all of them died, swiftly consumed by the hungry bacteria. It crawled up his neck and he twisted as muscles contracted under the pain. Then the side of his face fell off. Dr. Hack Fector’s lifeless body fell on top of that of Admiral Slaught and Field Officer Boc.

  CHAPTER 24

  Contribution without Doubt

  Cyrus carried Steo as fast as he could from the loading bay. Steo had been badly beaten, but Cyrus really wanted to get away from the weaponized flesh-eating bacteria.

  As he ran, Cyrus occasionally passed awakened people. He avoided saying anything or explaining the strange situation until he saw a Reminder.

  “Limax!” The man turned, confused. “You’re Limax, right? You don’t k
now me. I work with Councilor Ulay. You have to seal off loading bay 17A. A dangerous leak has occurred. Trust me!”

  Limax nodded.

  “Get the doors to loading bay 17A sealed off, then release the contents to space! I have to get this soldier to sick bay.”

  Cyrus ran off with Steo.

  When novorians see dead bodies, they make a strange lowing sound like herd animals. Readers spend their lives analyzing people’s facial and body language, and when faced with a corpse they instinctively give off a sound that means the dead person can’t be read.

  The seven noves on duty made the low “uh-ruuuh” sound. Kiluth checked the camera feed they were watching. The pile of moldering bodies in the loading bay was unrecognizable until he saw the rank insignia.

  “Undock,” he whispered. “Undock, undock, undock!” he said as he ran for the bridge.

  “Bridge XO Pesht! Emergency! Undock! Undock I say, immediately!”

  “Why? What’s going on?” Pesht didn’t like orders from subordinates. He had docked so that Hack and Boc could find the admiral and warn him about Cyrus.

  Kiluth didn’t know whether to say out loud, so instead he hit a button. The main bridge panel showed the AndroVault loading bay.

  Pesht reeled back at the sight of the festering carcasses.

  Yuina had a worried expression. “Two figures are coming down the docking tunnel.”

  Hawking said, “It is Master Steo and Cyrus.”

  Yuina cheered loudly.

  “He did it. Technology preserve us, he did it,” Glaikis said.

  “I knew he would,” Renosha said with a big steel grin.

  Cyrus’s voice came over the ship-wide comm. “I’m on board. We’re on board. Slaught is dead! Get us out of here!”

  Yuina made sure everything was safe, retracted the tunnel and sealed the ship.

  Cyrus carried Steo down to his quarters and left him in Governor’s care. In the bridge he found Glaikis, Yuina, Renosha and Hawking preparing to exit the bay. They had their eyes on their own consoles. Cyrus struck a triumphant pose and cleared his throat. No one looked up.

  Deflated, he said, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Glaikis said, “Cyrus, good to have you back! We have to get out of here. Is Steo okay?”

  “He got thrashed but he’s moaning and groaning so I think he’ll live. Governor has him. Are we leaving now? They’re going to figure out we’re here and Slaught is dead.”

  “He’s really dead?” Renosha asked.

  “Very, very dead,” Cyrus confirmed with a grimace.

  “You killed him?” Renosha said.

  “He came down with something.”

  The massive bay door opened. Yuina pointed the ship. Hawking confirmed there were no obstacles. Glaikis verified a safe course. Yuina hit the accelerator.

  The Eye of Orion shot out of the AndroVault. The Fire Scorpion had just undocked nearby.

  Pesht shouted, “Follow them!”

  The destroyer Scrag was several minutes away, running scans elsewhere in the system.

  Muuk was summoned to an emergency meeting. The Reminders informed him of what they knew.

  Limax said, “Councilor Ulay sent our guards away. Later, I saw his son carrying the invader Steorathan Liet away from that loading bay. The Councilor’s son had a grave look and said we should vent the loading bay, that there was a leak of some sort. What do we do?”

  “Communications have stopped,” Doib said. “The soldiers are looking like something terrible has happened. Their network, the one we can’t hear, seems to be saying that a great battle occurs outside and they are losing. We are in danger!”

  The awakened had learned from observation that some communications were blocked from them. From the soldiers’ reactions though, the awakened could often guess what the messages were about.

  Muuk said, “We should do what we should have done. We have not contributed. Bring our engineer apprentices to the old control room. It is time for the AndroVault to awaken to our call.”

  They made their way to a room with knobs, levers and black screens. Several young awakened men met them. They brought up the controls of the ship. Several more men came in with robots in tow.

  “Have we captured the robots?” Muuk asked.

  “Yes sir. We have replaced their dongles with our own.”

  “Prepare to empty loading bay 17A. Wait for my command. I want to see what’s in there.”

  On a tiny screen, they brought up the two-dimensional image of the bay. They saw decomposing corpses and thick blood.

  Muuk zoomed in on the bodies. The ooze moved. It bubbled and seethed. It seemed to slide across the floor.

  “What sickness did the invader bring here,” Erps uttered in horror. The normal reaction of Exceptionalists to bodies was to return them to the soil. However he doubted the prudence of that Old Way when he saw what was in loading bay 17A.

  A medical robot spoke up. “Unknown, sir. However if it is a biological weapon I may be of assistance.”

  It gave technical instructions how to safely destroy the matter in the room. The doors and vents were already sealed. They increased the atmospheric density of the room with oxygen beyond what a normal person could survive. Then they released chemicals into the room and opened the door to space. A fire burst forth from the bay. They continued spraying gases into the room to maintain the fire.

  Muuk said, “Continue cleansing procedures. Once they are done, leave the bay open to space. Block off access to it. Run bioscans on everyone who has been in that room.”

  “We hear and we contribute, Lord Muuk,” the Reminders said in unison.

  CHAPTER 25

  Dance Class

  The Eye of Orion was out of offensive missiles. It had two cannons, plenty of ammo and anti-missiles.

  The Fire Scorpion was fully armed and undamaged. It modulated its energy signature so missiles couldn’t target it, but its missiles were next to useless since the Eye of Orion had an advanced hacking application.

  Yuina swept behind the wreck of the destroyer Dastard and stopped. She rotated them to face the Fire Scorpion.

  Cyrus said, “I know who to talk to. Let me talk.” He opened a comm channel. “Bridge Executive Officer Pesht, I am Cyrus Majeure. If you don’t know already, Admiral Slaught is dead. Dr. Fector and Field Officer Boc are also dead. Your fleet is destroyed. We are willing to let you go.”

  Yuina said in the background, “We are?”

  “Let me go?” Pesht shouted. Now he was deep in it. The entire crew had just learned the state of affairs. He had to show strength. “This is CAPTAIN Pesht, and neither I nor my men are the kind to slink away. Your deaths will be the first in a new era for the Fire Scorpion! And we don’t negotiate.”

  Cyrus’s connection was cut. He tried to turn it back on. Yuina had cut it. She brought up her own. “Thanks for the party invitation, scurj. Let’s dance!”

  She fired the rotary cannon through a hole in the wreck of the Dastard. Tens of thousands of bullets raced toward the Fire Scorpion.

  “I was trying to give them a chance to end this,” Cyrus said resentfully.

  “I’m giving them a chance to join their admiral,” she said.

  “Either way, we’re in it now!” Glaikis said.

  The Fire Scorpion weaved as it approached so there was little chance of the bullets hitting it. Any that did merely wore its shields a little.

  “Missile launched from the Fire Scorpion,” Hawking said.

  “It can’t hit us,” Yuina said.

  The missile raced forward.

  “It appears to be aimed at the wreck in front of us,” Hawking said.

  Glaikis stopped what she was doing. She spun her chair around. “Move! Now!”

  Yuina reflexively moved the ship but not fast enough.

  “Nuclear detonation on the wreck!” Hawking said. The internal sounds played a deep BOOM.

  The Eye of Orion was thrown away from the expanding white ball.


  When they stabilized, Yuina fled, never presenting an easy target.

  “Shields down to 78%,” Hawking said.

  Yuina asked, “Is there something we can do with our tractor beam? Maybe grab a wreck and sling it at them?”

  “This is what finishing your pilot training would have taught you,” the robot said. “Tractor beams are too weak to move a ship without persistent pressure.”

  Renosha went over to Cyrus. “Let’s go into the holobridge. You know something of that ship, its officers and tactics. Perhaps we can divine a strategy there.”

  The ships darted around, each trying to get a bead on the other. Glaikis and Hawking helped Yuina maneuver and fire. The Fire Scorpion ran into a bullet storm and lost some shield strength.

  In the holobridge Renosha said, “Cyrus, why did you come back? I doubt it was due to one of Steo’s speeches.”

  “You’re my friends. I don’t know what they told you about the fight inside the carrier but I really did have a problem unlocking the door and getting back to them. By the time I did, they were outnumbered and outgunned. Knowing them, they would do something impulsive and get themselves killed. Slaught and his men are faster, so I took a chance. Slaught thought he controlled me, so I let him think that. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but fortunately Steo and Glaikis got out of there.”

  Renosha said, “You were aboard the Fire Scorpion for days.”

  “I tried to get to Slaught but he was always protected. Eventually I saw what they were doing and came up with a plan. I was going to kill us all. I stole a vial of a biological weapon. I was going to crack it open when Slaught was nearby. When I finally got my chance, he got all of it. I grabbed Steo and got out of there.”

  “Did you learn anything about their tactics? Does their ship have any weaknesses?”

  “No … not yet.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I watched Steo when I was here. I learned from him. Hawking helped me load some applications into this, my own light interface hub.” Cyrus gestured with a small, plain disc.

  “Cyrus, I need to know what you know.”

  “I thought Steo would be here. Making life-and-death decisions isn’t really my strength. Technically I’ve never killed anyone.”