Spinebreakers

by Mitch Michaelson

  A giant fan above the explosion point continued however, and sucked the flames out.

  Cyrus found the trigger wristband and picked it up, seeing only three of the lights burnt out. “One of the bombs didn’t detonate.” He looked up and saw a red bag pass from sight into the ceiling vents. He turned to tell Glaikis but saw Leech fleeing. “Stop him!”

  In a fluid motion, Glaikis rolled underneath the discipline robot, drew the fission gun, and switched off the safety. When she fired it, the white beam cracked the air with an ear-splitting scream, as if it burned the fabric of reality. The roar abated and Glaikis saw that she narrowly missed. The spit of white light had knocked Leech to the side and bounced him off the floor, but he was recovering. Unfortunately for Leech, the fission gun had melted the coppery exit door into a solid blob. She couldn’t take a second shot because it took minutes for a fission gun to recharge.

  Cyrus made an excellent shot and hit an arm reaching for Glaikis. Silvery metal sprayed from its limb. It was down to two arms.

  “Are you safe? Can you handle this one?”

  She nodded. The other discipline robot was a pool of molten goo.

  Cyrus took the other gun from the dead guard and ran off into the dark.

  Leech was slipping around the outside of the battle when he suddenly found himself confronted by Cyrus.

  To his surprise, the robot charged. He grabbed Cyrus’s right arm with his claw and squeezed. Cyrus’s wrist bled profusely. “The bombs are gone. You have failed as a hero,” Leech said. “You failed your friends … Steorathan, Yuina, Glaikis … and whatever other freaks are on board the Eye of Orion.”

  Cyrus pulled the pistol out of his gripped hand. He and Leech struggled. The robot tried to grab the gun-wielding hand.

  Face to metal face, Leech said, “It’s just a pistol. You can’t win.”

  Cyrus twisted his arm until the barrel was pointed at Leech’s chest. “It’s a laser.” He pulled the trigger and a bright beam shot through the robot’s torso.

  “Your status … as a pile of scrap … is confirmed.” He fired again.

  Leech’s claw continued to squeeze. Cyrus winced. He pointed the laser at the arm and shot it off. With Leech’s arm hanging from his own, Cyrus stumbled back.

  The retainer robot’s head and arms twitched as it settled to the floor. Cyrus raised the laser and widened the beam. He took aim and blasted a gaping hole in Leech. The robot clanged the floor. It sparked and burned up inside. He shook off the robot’s detached arm.

  Somewhere above, the fourth bomb reached an incineration chamber. The explosion shook the room. Cables dropped. Fans spun off their axes and crashed to the metal floor.

  Cyrus ran to Glaikis. Coming up behind the discipline robot, he shot its head off and then shot it through the chest. It fell with a clunk to the floor. Sparks and squeals of bending metal came from the ceiling.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here!” she said.

  They ran through the plant complex. Sheets of burning steam sprayed them. Sizeable wedges of metal fell all around. Their lungs burned as they sprinted for the door. They jumped through it as the ceiling of the complex collapsed behind them.

  They lay on the cold floor in the hallway, panting. Glaikis rolled over and pushed herself up. She saw he was covered from head to toe in cuts and abrasions. His clothing was darkened with blood.

  “Cyrus! Are you okay?”

  He sat up a bit and braced himself on his elbows. “I’ve been better. I’m worried about all these cuts though.”

  “We have to stop the bleeding.”

  “No, they’re not that deep. They’re closing now.” He touched one of the long, ragged cuts on his side. It was already tightening up.

  “Then why are you worried?”

  “I hope the scars make me look more rugged.”

  They helped each other up. “The bombs are gone.” She looked back at the collapsed room. “And that damage won’t slow them down.”

  They shook their heads and said nothing. It was an unspoken conversation that conveyed their unyielding determination, regardless of setbacks.

  Cyrus said, “I’m not hunching any more.”

  She nodded in agreement and adjusted the holster on her hip.

  Alarms sounded again. They heard the shuffling of feet, so they got out of the area fast.

  CHAPTER 35

  Overload

  “We have been invaded!”

  “Explosions reported in the plant complex, level 68F!”

  “We should send repair crews!”

  Lord Muuk heard the reports. The ship had suffered internal damage and soldiers were returning from the field soon. He said nothing while the crew scrambled to their duties. For once Lord Muuk saw things through the eyes of the man he knew was a mercenary, Admiral Slaught. The military man would have known what to do. His bridge crew would have been more than loyal; they would have been professional, efficient and ruthless. They knew their duties and didn’t stop to ask for orders. Of course, they were all dead.

  He admired the style and substance of Admiral Slaught. Regardless of some of his actions, a few of his beliefs, there was a certain nobility to Slaught’s life, he thought. Slaught’s vision was unclouded. His mission was always clear to him. He chose his course of action. Muuk wanted that. He respected the clarity of purpose one had when he had absolute faith. He wanted the banners to flutter high in the wind. He wanted to see soldiers marching by, stiff-backed and proud.

  “Send repair crews to level 68F. Find out where Leech and the discipline robots went, and check the penal cells.” Glumly, he suspected all three were related.

  They had encountered several groups of guards. There were many more broken jaws and dislocated arms than there were before on the ship.

  Cyrus had a laser, plus he’d picked up an electromagnetic gun. It looked like a shotgun with a big barrel. He said he picked it up in case they met any more discipline robots. So far he had only used the butt to knock people out. Glaikis had also reloaded her gun, but kept it and the fission pistol holstered.

  They came into a round room with a single walkway across a large pit. The bottom was dark but the smell was atrocious.

  “Garbage recycling pit,” Glaikis said. “Let’s cross.”

  They walked across the metal walkway. About halfway across, the other door opened and three mercenaries appeared. They wore the reflective black armor and carried the tension shields and crashbars of Admiral Slaught’s recruits. They grinned.

  “Never send a mongrel to do a man’s work,” one said with a macabre grin. He had his teeth shaped into fangs and liked to show them.

  Another with a heavily scarred face said, “I can’t wait to loot your corpses!”

  The mercenaries marched forward, shields balanced in front of them. Their visors slid into place, lending them further protection. They saw their enemies had pistols.

  Glaikis reached for her fission gun. Cyrus put his hand on her shoulder. “The heavier they are, the harder they fall,” he said. He raised the EMP gun and fired.

  The invisible wave disabled electronics in the mercenaries’ weaponry. The tiny lighten-burden discs shut off. Their tension shields and crashbars immediately increased weight by an order of magnitude. The objects slammed to the floor, viciously wrenching the mercenaries with them. Arms bent in abnormal directions. Backs snapped. Their muscles and skeletons didn’t have time to react to the sudden pull, and they collapsed to the floor like ragdolls.

  The mercenaries cried out in pain. They writhed on the floor, held down by their own gear, with splintered bones jutting out and frayed muscles crawling under their skin.

  The metal walkway wasn’t built to support thousands of pounds. It sagged and creaked, on the verge of splitting.

  Cyrus ran and jumped over the mercenaries. He called for Glaikis and she followed. They got to the door and looked back.

  “I think the people here are on their own now,” Cyrus said.

  They watched as th
e walkway snapped and dropped the last of Admiral Slaught’s personal bodyguard into the recycling pit.

  Numerous reports told Lord Muuk what he already suspected: Cyrus and his associate had escaped the penal cells.

  “Gather all those guards that have seen the escapees. Collect them in the Hall of Ancestors. Question them individually. Get all the information you can on Cyrus and the woman,” Lord Muuk dispassionately ordered.

  “Excellent, sir,” said Limax, the Reminder of Contribution. He turned to leave, but Lord Muuk uncharacteristically snatched his arm. Limax was beginning to grow concerned. Lord Muuk didn’t have a title when they left Alpha Centauri centuries ago. Now his gray uniform was ironed and he wore a holster with a gun in it.

  “I was not finished. After questioning, place those guards in the penal cells. Reduce their rations to half. Lower the temperature in the penal cells. Throw cold water on them every hour on the hour for the next day.”

  “I … I will do as commanded,” Limax said. Lord Muuk was hurting his arm. “Is it to be one day?”

  “Punishment has no value unless it’s severe and memorable,” Lord Muuk said, repeating one of the Old Ways.

  Cyrus had a good idea where they were and led them through the ship, through many rooms and corridors.

  “Why are we going up? I’m getting tired of climbing steps,” Glaikis said.

  “They think we’re headed for an important system, most of which are at the bottom of the ship.”

  Soon they stood at an airlock. Cyrus hit the button and it opened. Since they were landed, the ship’s computer didn’t have to verify that it was safe. The door creaked open and there was a gust of wind in their faces. If the AndroVault was a building, they were at least 20 floors off the ground.

  “Tell me you have a better plan to get down than I think you do.”

  “Jump!” He leapt out of the ship.

  Glaikis groaned and followed.

  Lord Muuk called together the Reminders and several important members of the awakened. He first held a short ceremony where some men were promoted to officers of the soldiery. The AndroVault was the galaxy’s largest transport and its people mostly civilians. However with weapons, training and experience, they were forging a large and powerful military. Men who were terraformers, skilled in converting planets to be more habitable, proudly accepted positions of authority in this army.

  Once finished, he stood on a platform so that everyone could see him. He tried to stand tall and look imposing.

  “Some of the returning men will also be promoted. Awards for gallantry and battle honors will be bestowed upon them. These men are the first leaders of our glorious new armed forces! Salute the triumphant troops! See where Exceptionalism has brought us! Victory!”

  This was met with loud applause and cheers.

  “We will be leaving soon. However we have not accomplished so much without losses. We have been wounded. Our troops were maimed and killed by unscrupulous, foreign enemies. Insurgents have struck our heart. I would have us remember this battle as an example of the achievements we can reach when we work toward a common goal. Conformity is its own reward.

  Councilor Ulay brought us forth from the graveyard of death, into a galaxy even more sinful and corrupt than it was when we left. Will we swallow filth and ignore it? Or will we leave our mark as a sign for all to see? How will humanity know the way to Ino?

  I propose that we leave a trail, a clear sign of our progress. We have a means: our blessed home. In times of great need, the AndroVault was designed to take extraordinary measures. Let us deploy the Exocaust.”

  They wore comfort harnesses so they only “fell” a few feet before beginning a slow, gentle descent. Fortunately, none of the guards looked up.

  “We can’t linger up here in plain sight for long,” he said.

  They tapped the controls on their necks and descended faster, eventually coming to a safe landing. There was 600 feet of open ground, merely dirt and mud, between them and the shield. Thousands of soldiers and their gear had crossed the ground. Dozens of squads surrounded the colossal ship.

  Glaikis pointed at a berm near the wall. They ran toward it.

  Soldiers to their right saw them and pointed but didn’t do anything.

  “How are we going to get past the shield?” Cyrus said.

  The soldiers must have received a message because they drew their weapons. Others took notice, too. The ground behind them erupted from automatic weapons fire.

  While running, Glaikis drew the fission pistol and pulled the trigger. The terrible screech was less deafening outside, but the visual display of firepower was no less impressive. The squad bolted for cover, and they weren’t the only ones. Even soldiers chasing them stopped and ran away. They didn’t know she had deliberately aimed over their heads and the weapon couldn’t fire again for several minutes.

  Cyrus fired the laser a few times to keep other soldier’s heads down.

  Before long they jumped over the berm and skidded down the other side. No sooner had they done this than a surge of bullets hit the dirt behind them. They found themselves in a small hollow with the dirt wall between them and the soldiers, and the shimmering sky-high wall of the ship’s shield behind them. Their communicators were useless within the shield.

  Between bursts from his laser, Cyrus said, “So how do we get out of here?”

  “Troops are returning soon. They’ll let them in and the shield will drop.”

  “That seems risky.” He looked up at the shield and tapped his chin. “I like my plan better.”

  “What’s that?”

  He flashed a confident smile. “Did you see the shield flicker to let us in? I think we can get them to do it again.”

  “How?”

  He took the fission gun from her hand. A burst of bullets made him slide deeper into the hollow. He popped a plate off the bottom of the dangerous weapon. He reached into the slot and fiddled with something.

  Glaikis’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing? Are you overloading a fission gun? The explosion won’t take down the shield but it will be huge!”

  “Exactly! Come on!”

  He ran to the shield. He had little cover there. Glaikis cut loose with a rapid spray of laser beams, mostly aimed at the feet of soldiers. They were too far away to hear the growing whine of the overloading fission gun.

  “That can’t be reversed! Throw it or something!” She knew he couldn’t throw it far enough to get outside the explosion radius.

  Inside the control room, the ship’s computer flashed a new alarm, indicating a serious energy build-up just inside the shield. The computer made its recommendation and the officer on duty followed without question.

  As the fission gun’s whine grew unbearably loud, Cyrus and Glaikis suddenly found themselves outside the shield. In an instant, the shield had reset. Cyrus set the fission gun down and ran. Glaikis was already ahead of him.

  They sprinted for their lives. Soldiers inside the shield moved forward to see what was happening. When they received communication, they also ran away from the shield.

  The fission gun reached its limit and exploded. A white-hot ball of energy spread rapidly outward. Cyrus and Glaikis raced and jumped a ditch; it wouldn’t be enough protection if the explosion overlapped them. They landed on the other side and stumbled but kept running.

  There was no chance the massive shield would buckle. It reflected the energy. The shockwave rushed outward, growing closer to Cyrus and Glaikis. They ran as fast as their legs and lungs could take them.

  An A-skimmer came out of nowhere with its side door open. Cyrus was first and jumped, followed by Glaikis. The shockwave pushed them hard through the air. They hit the inner wall hard, Cyrus breaking several fingers and Glaikis her nose. The skimmer’s door closed and it sped away from the fission explosion.

  In the cool, safe interior of the skimmer, Governor said, “Welcome aboard sir and madam. Quite the dramatic leaps you made there. I am glad you are safe.”
r />   CHAPTER 36

  Outer Burn

  “Sir! We received a secure message for you. It’s from inside the ship! We can’t open it, it’s for your eyes only.”

  Lord Muuk brusquely waved the crewman away from the panel. It was a final message from Leech. Loyal to the end, the retainer robot had performed one last task. This brand of robot had a spoilsport function: nearing destruction, it transmitted an encoded message to its master with one final dump of crew assessments and recommendations. If the retainer harbored any suspicions of treason, it transmitted those to its master when destroyed. In this case, Leech transmitted what it deemed the greatest threat to its master.

  Muuk’s stomach sank. There was a map with a glowing icon and words he was tired of seeing. He should have known that Cyrus was in league with the dogs at his heel.

  He knew mercenaries were competent, but none were left to use as disposable troops. The AndroVault was preparing to leave the planet. They needed to get away to a safe location and prepare for the jump to another spiral arm. It was dangerous to delay. Muuk’s mind raced. He could send soldiers from the AndroVault to deal with this threat. They had weapons and skimmers, but to do so meant they may not return to the ship, and their bodies wouldn’t be recoverable. The soldiers’ bodies would have to be left behind. Sending them would be a violation of the Old Ways.

  There was also the risk that they wouldn’t die in the attack. Even if they succeeded, they might not make it back in time. Terraformers were already calculating the Exocaust attack.

  Muuk thought about how a mercenary did things, how Admiral Slaught would have treated enemies. Mercenary meant cold and rational. A mercenary did what it took to complete the mission and win the war. Leaders had to send soldiers into battle without concern for their survival. Sacrifices had to be made. Besides, the soldiers would be happy to give their lives in defense of the ship. This was their time to become martyrs.