by L Bowers
“Yeah,” Kopf replied. “What of it?” His tone was indignant, and possibly mixed with a touch of pain.
“It’s not the best I’ve heard,” Prius replied. “But well played.”
“Everyone all right?” I worked my way around the lifeless machine.
“Yeah,” Kopf said. “You were the closest to the explosion. The rest of us managed to get back into the hallway. Thanks for the save, by the way.”
Finally clear of the thing, I stepped up to Kopf and Pruise, and noted how close they stood to one another. “That’s what I’m here for.”
The constant blinking of a red light in my HUD was too much of a distraction. I opened the message to see what the data was. It was an update to the map that showed me the center of the ship.
“Guys,” I didn’t take my eyes off the display. “We’re close to the objective.” As I spoke, I sent a copy of the map to my team.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Kopf said. “Let’s get this done, and get the hell out of here.”
Movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention. I turned my head in time to see one of the beast’s arms raise and swing wide.
“No!” Kopf shouted. He jumped at Pruise and slammed his body against hers while manifesting a tail. The tail slapped against the deck, which pushed him harder into her. Pruise went flying. The arm connected with Kopf, and he traveled the same high-speed flight path as Pruise. She slammed into the wall and fell to the deck. Kopf hit close to where she had and landed in a heap next to her.
“No!” I shouted. I reached the arm at the same time as the silent Marine. My talons tore into the arm as he swung the arm I had previously detached. For several minutes, we smashed and sliced until there wasn’t enough of it left in one piece to pose a threat.
“Are you all right?” Aspen asked.
“Yeah, I think so.” I took a deep breath to slow my heart rate and breathing. “Gotta check on Kopf and Pruise.” I dropped a large chunk of metal I didn’t realize I was holding. When I turned to Kopf and Pruise, they were already getting to their feet. My heart leaped with joy at the sight.
“That was not my idea of a good ride,” Kopf said. Once again, elation filled me at hearing him speak and sounding okay.
“Same here,” Pruise said. “Count me out if you want another turn. I think I’m swearing off all amusement parks from now on.”
“Really?” Kopf asked.
“Nah.” Pruise chuckled. “But it sounded good.”
“I’m glad you two are okay.” I stopped in front of them. “Can you keep going? We’re close to finishing this, and I want to get out of here.”
The trip down the next hall was short and uneventful. As we neared the end, a red glow filled the space and gave the purple-marbled walls an eerie quality. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, we were at the end of the hallway and staring at the heart of the ship.
“Hot damn,” Kopf said. “It’s an actual heart, and it’s huge.”
16
Goshawk
Dumbfounded is the word I would use to describe how I felt as I stared at the giant beating heart. It had me so mesmerized that I stepped into the sizable chamber without looking to see if the room was clear. All I could see was the glowing mass of flesh. The only sound my ears picked up was the steady thump, thump of its beating.
Hands grabbed me from behind and yanked me back. I struggled to move forward, only stopping when a familiar sound broke through. A voice, one of someone I thought of as my brother. “What the shit are you doing?” Kopf asked.
It took a couple of headshakes for me to break the spell. “I… I don’t know. I felt drawn to the heart, and I can’t explain why.”
“That much is clear,” Pruise said. “The question is, why you did and we didn’t?”
“It calls to both of us,” Aspen said in my mind. Her sudden interruption caused me to jump. The trance made me forget about her as much as I had my Marines. “It was the same for me. It wants us, but I don’t know for what purpose.”
“This is all very interesting,” the usually silent Marine said. He stepped forward and removed the latches holding his helmet in place. “We must report this at once. Bozz will want to know.”
“Yo.” Kopf turned to face the Marine. “What did you just—” A backhand sent him flying.
“It’s about time you learn when to shut your mouth,” the Marine said. I was beginning to harbor serious doubts about him being one of us. His helmet came free with a hiss and he let it drop to the floor. “We’re here!”
“I see that,” a raspy voice echoed through the chamber. “I had hoped the glamour would have kept you busy for longer. Oh, well. We’ll take care of this now.”
A thin figure stepped out of the shadows across the room from us. Like the SEALs, it was part of a torso connected to a machine body. In this case, it was a humanoid body that seemed to lack the bells and whistles the SEALs had. The other major difference was the flesh. Time had desiccated it, so much so that the exposed chest could have belonged to a man or a woman. Its skin was a dull gray, and I doubted that was its natural color. Its face was the most startling, since it looked a lot like the aliens from the planet, the ones I saw when I stepped into the past.
“I see the light of recognition in your eyes, Earther,” it said with a voice that sounded like leaves rustling in the breeze. “Yes, I too feel a stirring of memory. Almost like… No.” It rocked back on its heels. “It was you who ruined it all for us.” Its mouth formed a smile, which caused a sound like paper tearing as cracks formed around it. “Or so you thought back then.” It raised its arms. “As you can see, we prevailed, and your interference was merely an annoyance that caused a slight delay.” Its eyes narrowed. “You look confused. As if you don’t… Could it be? Have I found you before?” Its smile widened. “This is a most fortuitous day.”
“Why are you doing this?” I hoped I might get this creature to go into a classic villain monologue.
“It doesn’t matter to the dead what the living do.” It turned and walked into the shadows.
“What the hell does that mean?” I shouted.
“It means,” the SEAL I had thought of as a Marine said. He turned to face us. “I have the honor of ending you, Sergeant Goshawk.” His suit exploded into tattered fragments.
I jumped to the side in time to see a tentacle shoot out from the stiff falling debris. It was a mechanical creation of the same design as the other machines from the planet. That confirmed my guess that he was a SEAL.
“Weapons free!” I shouted.
It was moments like that when I realized how much I loved my fellow Marines. The time between my words leaving my mouth and the first round being fired could probably be counted in nanoseconds.
The SEAL jumped to get out of the line of fire. His limbs spread out under his torso as he sailed through the air. He was all tentacles and reminding me of an octopus, or whatever you would call an octopus-like creature with twelve appendages.
“Was it worth it?” I shouted as I pulled my rifle free of the magnetic plate on my back. “Was becoming a freakish mechanical monster all you ever dreamed of?” My words went unanswered, but I hadn’t expected him to. I wanted him to focus on me while I tapped away on my pad. A beep confirmed that the drone was on its way back to the dropship with an audio recording from its sensors, and a video from my helmet stored safely in its memory core.
“It doesn’t matter!” I shouted while I added my fire to the mix. “I don’t know why you’re doing this, but you backed the wrong horse.”
“And it’s past time to pay the bookie!” Kopf shouted.
“That’s us,” Pruise added. “We’re the bookie. Thought I should clear that up, in case all the metal has destroyed too many brain cells.”
The SEAL, or squid, since it seemed a more apt description now, used his tentacles to propel himself in all kinds of weird and amazing ways. He went from swinging across the room to rolling around sideways on curled-up limbs, to using suction cups on the
underside to stick to the wall. I could kinda see the appeal, if not for the whole “cut most of your body off” deal.
“Hey Kopf,” I shouted. “I just realized that not once have you made a joke about these guys being dickless. Why is that?”
“Clearly, they had their junk amputated. While the urge to make jokes is there, I think that would be a bad idea.” Kopf paused his talking and shooting to jump out of the way of a tentacle that lashed out like a whip. “It would be my luck that some sort of replacement hardware would pop out and cornhole me. No, thank you. Not worth the laughs.”
Pruise laughed, and laughed some more. Then she laughed harder and stopped firing. “You missed an obvious dick joke, or lack of a dick joke, because you were scared of some sort of AI dick that would get you? Please tell me you got that from a movie, because we need to watch that one for sure.”
“You think something here is funny?” The SEAL dropped to the floor. “A little gallows humor to ease your passing into the next life? Is that it?” Tentacles slid forward and back, and propelled the creature toward us. He made a rolling gesture with his right hand. “Go ahead, get it out so you’re ready to face your fate.”
“Got your fate right here.” Kopf fired.
Squid-man dodged with little effort. We followed him with a shower of bullets. His path took him in front of the enormous heart. Several rounds punched into the flesh. A loud, high-pitched scream drowned the ship. We dropped to our knees as the sound caused our heads to feel like they would explode. The pain dulled my senses.
The noise died down after a few minutes, and took the pain with it. We moved like lazy sloths as we rose to our knees. I wondered when I fell over, but didn’t dwell on it. As I looked at the heart, I hoped it had stopped beating and our mission would be over. Little crab-like machines moved around the surface to knit damaged flesh and pull our bullets free. The heart still beat, but it moved a little faster than before being shot.
Squid-man lay between us and it. His eyes were closed, and his tentacles all twitched and jerked randomly. It was the perfect time to make our job a lot easier. My rifle wasn’t in my hands or attached to my armor. I looked around and found it a few feet away, and grabbed it as I rose to my feet. Two steps brought me close enough to make sure my first shot would be the end of him.
As I lined up the rear and front sights on his forehead, my index finger gently squeezed. Something slammed into my left leg and knocked both feet out from under me. My finger jerked, and caused the rifle to buck. My grip faltered, and the rifle went flying. The deck hit my back hard and drove all the air from my lungs.
Squid-man rose over me with a smug look on his face. “Bitch please,” He said, and I realized that he didn’t have a suit on. “You thought a weak, fleshy thing like you could beat me?” A tentacle wrapped around my neck and hoisted me into the air, so I was eye-to-eye with him. “Not in this lifetime. I’m a SEAL, and I was better than any damn Marine long before you showed up.”
Squid-man blinked his eye rapidly as a look of confusion overtook his face. His grip loosened enough for me to gasp and catch a little air. “What the…” He looked around. “Where…”
A round bounced off his shoulder. He staggered back. Another hit his chest, sank into flesh, and caused a spray of black fluid to shoot from the wound. All of his tentacles wrapped around his torso. The one around my neck dropped me, and I hit the ground feet-first. There wasn’t enough strength in my legs, and I fell to the side.
Pruise flew by with her gorilla arms held high over her head. A silver and purple blur smashed into her, carrying her to the side and away. Kopf shimmered into existence next to squid-man with his rifle pointed at the man’s face.
“Say good night,” Kopf said.
“Why don’t you say hello,” Squid-man replied as three figures shimmered into existence around Kopf. They stood tall on short hind legs. The legs on their torsos were equally short, and ended in bulbous fingers. Their heads were large with wide mouths full of sharp-looking metal teeth. They reminded me of the Lenashal that inhabited Kopf.
Kopf jumped back as he vanished from sight. The lizard machines leaped after him, and also disappeared. A few feet away, light flashed and Kopf and one of the lizard machines appeared, locked in battle. They were gone as fast as they showed, and left a lingering afterimage like a still photo of their fight. Twice more, Kopf appeared while fighting off the lizards.
One step toward him was all I was allowed as a blocky head trailing a mass of tentacles fell from above. Another followed it. The blocks rose on their masses to stand before me. They had to be the beasts that Squid-man’s human parts had been attached to.
“Ah shit,” I said.
There wasn’t time to keep up my monologue with myself as both of them lashed out. My battle with them became a dance of tentacles shooting out and me dodging while being forced back. More than once, they knocked my feet from under me, and I had to roll away to buy myself enough time to get up.
I had hoped that I would win. Right up until my back hit the wall and there was nowhere to go.
As the attacks continued, my tactics changed from moving my body out of the way to twisting to the side or simply moving a limb. The squids had too many appendages, and they landed hits not long after backing me against the wall.
Pain burned across the lines where they connected with my arms, legs, and torso. One particularly bad hit on my right hip almost made my leg give out entirely. It took every ounce of willpower I could muster to keep the limb under me and stay standing.
Everything slowed as a tentacle came at my faceplate, pointy end first. My arm came up, but the tentacle moved faster than I could. It was all about to end, and there was nothing I could do about it.
A green wing came from behind me, sheared off the tip of the tentacle, and blocked the rest of it from reaching me. Momentum let the two-inch point hit my faceplate with a clang before bouncing off harmlessly.
“Not today,” Aspen thought to me. “Stay on the deck, but use your wings and claws. We will prevail.”
Sometimes, being bonded with a Lenashal was good. Who was I kidding? It was always good to be bonded.
The other wing manifested, and I spun while I crouched and spread them. There was a slight jerk as their edges hit something and slowed a little. When I faced the squid again, they were backpedaling on the stumps of their tentacles. The rest of the worm-like appendages lay in a heap at my feet.
I smiled, but it immediately fell from my face. Three more squids fell from the ceiling, then rose to their full height. The advance I planned to make while ending the machines turned into sidestepping away from the additional threat. The movement had the added disadvantage of moving farther from the heart.
A silver and purple mass the size of a basketball flew by from the direction I was headed. I looked over, and saw Pruise engaged in a heated battle with a group of silver machines shaped like badgers. The things had purple lights glowing in various places along their bodies. More of them joined the fight from a side passage on the other side of Pruise. She was overwhelmed and would soon fall. As much as I wanted to help her, the squids bore down on me ready to strike once they were in range.
Movement to my right caught my attention. I tensed as I turned my head, ready for another attack. Instead, I saw Kopf laying on the deck. He flicked in and out of sight a couple of times before he settled and became fully visible. He didn’t move. The lizard machines appeared one after the other, and stood around him. They had chunks of metal missing in various places, acting as testament to the fierce battle Kopf had been in. One machine fell to the deck and twitched once before going still.
As best I could tell, there were three choices available to me. Fight my impending battle. Or take my licks from behind as I turned to help Pruise or Kopf.
Logically, Pruise was the better option since she still fought. Together, we might be able to overcome her attackers, then take out mine, and finally help Kopf. Assuming the squids didn’t take me down b
efore I could help her. But Kopf was my friend, and the thought of leaving him in the clutches of the machines was heartbreaking.
“Fight your battle first, Ray.” Aspen chimed in. “If you die trying to help the others, you do neither of them any good.”
I sighed as I squared off with the squids. Aspen was right. Before I could assist my team, I had to make sure I was safe first.
A tentacle flew at my midsection. I caught it with one talon-tipped hand and sliced it off with the other. The squids took that as the signal to fight as they all advanced. I took a step, but something else caught my eye, so I backed up while moving my wings to cover most of my front.
The new thing turned out to be the ghostly apparition of the serpent woman. She stood to the left, beyond the corridor where Pruise’s attackers continued to trickle in. She stared at me while gently swaying back and forth on her tail. She seemed to know I was looking at her although my faceplate was still blacked out.
The woman moved away from the corridor to where a thick cable connected to the wall. She gestured down the length of the cable. My eye traveled along it until it terminated in the fleshy heart of the dragon ship. When I looked back, she was gone.
“Message received,” I said.
There was still the problem of my attackers keeping me from simply walking over. So I rushed them with my wings in front of me. The squids used their appendages like whips. Each hit caused a splash of green sparks to fly free. Along with the light show came spikes of pain and an energy drain. I kept going.
Upon reaching the first squid, I swept my wings out wide and knocked the tentacle closest to me aside. Then I dove and sank all of my taloned fingers into the blocky head. I spun and let my wing take as many of the next one’s tentacles out of play as it could. That was followed by a roundhouse kick, which grazed the head of squid number two. The claws on my foot tore lines into the metal, which sparked and smoked. The machine jerked, and its movements were sluggish. I dashed in close, sank my nails in, and split the head in two.