On a Rogue Planet

by Anna Hackett

  “Thank the stars.” She blew out a breath. “Are you okay?”

  No. Malin was stuck in this goddamned maze. It was his worst nightmare. “I will be. Systems are coming back online.” He managed to lift his head. Her dark hair was mussed and sticking up in spikes at the back, but she looked fine.

  She looked around, her eyes a little wild. He looked too. Thankfully none of Forge’s creations were rushing at them.

  Yet.

  Until his systems were back, Xander only had his enhanced strength and his training. He’d need all of it to get Malin out alive.

  “Well, you wanted to get in here,” she said.

  Yes. But not like this.

  A loud clanking noise echoed along one of the pathways leading to the pile of insulation they’d landed in.

  Malin stared that way. Swallowed. “What do we do now?”

  “Head towards the center. Solve the riddle.”

  “The riddle? That’s our best chance?” She made a face as she helped him stand. “Our odds aren’t good.”

  She was correct. He’d run the probabilities of their survival. But, his probabilities didn’t take into account what he would do to keep this woman safe.

  He cupped her jaw. “You’re with a CenSec, remember?”

  Her lips trembled. “I’d never forget that.”

  No, she wouldn’t. And she was the only person he’d met who was never scared of him or bothered by it.

  Xander stripped out of his coat and yanked off his bowtie. He watched her kick her heels off. “You can’t go on with bare feet.”

  “It’s not ideal, but I’m likely to break an ankle in here.”

  She was right. But that didn’t mean he liked it.

  She shoved her shoulders back. “So, oh-great-CenSec, which way to the center of this hellhole?”

  Xander looked that the three pathways that lead off from their location. He remembered the images Forge had showed above. Xander had memorized the few brief aerial shots.

  “That way.” He pointed to central path.

  They headed down the narrow pathway. It was only wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side.

  He didn’t like the fact that nothing had attacked them so far. It left his nerves on edge and he could feel the tension pumping off Malin.

  She cleared her throat. “Flames are your friends and never take the easy path…what was the rest of it?”

  “Find the point and become the master. Reach the treasure. For now, let’s just focus on the first part.”

  “Right. Flames are your friends and never take the easy path.” She scowled. “I get the feeling there are no easy paths in here.”

  They came to a four-way crossroads.

  “Look, flames.” Malin trotted over to where red-orange flames shot upward from a pipe against one wall. “They don’t look very friendly.”

  “Let’s keep moving.” Xander felt the sensation of someone, or something, watching them. Damn his systems being offline. If he could scan the area… “Let’s head left.”

  The path twisted and turned.

  And led away from the center of the maze.

  They reached another junction.

  “Damn it,” Xander muttered.

  Malin bumped his side with her shoulder. “You didn’t think this was going to be easy did you?”

  No. But he thought he’d have all his enhancements available to him. Right now he felt blind. And that left Malin in danger, which was unacceptable.

  “No flames around here.” Malin wandered forward. Above them some junk arched overhead like some sort of giant metallic sculpture.

  Xander studied the twisted metal overhead. Something about it…

  Malin took another step forward.

  “Malin, no—” he dived, tackling her to the ground. He turned so he took the brunt of the fall, her slight weight on top of him.

  Flames shot downward in a long sheet, like a deadly, orange waterfall.

  “Sweet scrap.” Malin sagged against Xander.

  He held her tight for a second, and tried to calm his racing heart. Then he helped her to her feet.

  After the flames died off, she studied the metal above them. “It has a motion sensor. But this part to the left—” she gestured “—doesn’t seem to be connected. Looks safe to go through there.”

  Xander studied it. She was right, but still… “I’ll go first.”

  They safely skirted the fire trap.

  On the other side, Malin gave a little laugh. She moved up beside him. “We’ll have to—”

  Suddenly the floor gave way beneath her. Malin screamed.

  As she fell, Xander lunged forward and caught sight of giant metal spikes below, spearing up like needle-sharp teeth.

  He reached for her, but her twisting body slipped through his grasp.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mal flung her arm out and managed to brush Xander’s hand.

  His mechanical fingers clamped onto hers with a punishing grip. She heard her panting breaths as she dangled over the wicked metal spikes beneath.

  “I’ve got you. Hold still.” Xander pulled her up like she weighed nothing.

  She felt the hem of her dress catch on something, heard it tear. Then he pulled her over the edge and she scrambled into his lap, wrapping her arms and legs around him.

  “Xander, Xander, Xander.” She couldn’t focus.

  “Shhh.” He pressed his lips to her hair. His own hold on her was so tight she could barely breathe.

  “I am so glad you’re fast.” One second later and he would have missed her. She shuddered.

  A strange clanking sound came from behind them. They both swiveled to look.

  Mal frowned. It sounded like wheels…no, not quite. Tracks. It sounded like tracks moving across the ground.

  The robot wheeled into view and Mal felt the air rush from her lungs.

  It was bigger than Xander, maybe by a foot. It ran on tracks, had a long, solid body and lots of arms. Each held a different weapon. Sword, knife, laser pistol, energy weapon and a few other things she didn’t recognize.

  “Stay back, Malin.” Xander rose slowly and set her behind him.

  She looked between the two. She’d seen Xander fight and knew he was good. But a sense of dread turned her stomach and she was all-too-aware that his systems weren’t all back up and running.

  The robot stopped and raised one arm. Laser fire hit the ground in a long trace. Mal stumbled backward. The laser fire hit right where Xander had been standing.

  But Xander was already gone.

  Mal crouched down behind a lump of metal. She watched as Xander ran then leaped into the air, over the top of the robot.

  He landed behind it and landed a hard kick to the robot’s midsection.

  The machine rocked but was already turning a hundred and eighty degrees to face him again.

  Xander kept moving. Darting, leaping, landing blows where he could. The machine didn’t appear to be affected. Except when Xander managed to break off one arm.

  Mal forced herself to take her gaze off Xander and study the robot. She took in all the parts, amazed that anything this dangerous could be made from scrap.

  It had armor plates covering certain areas, under which she guessed were its power and control centers.

  Then she spotted it.

  A weakness.

  She leaned out from behind her cover. “Xander! Flexible joint right at the base. Joining it to the tracks.” When laser fire came her way, she ducked.

  “Stay down,” Xander roared.

  She did but inched to the side to see around.

  Xander was airborne again. Damn, the man moved like no one she’d ever seen before. Pure poetry. He slammed his foot into the joint.

  The top half of the robot tilted and its tracks whirred. Then Xander slammed out with his mechanical arm, grabbed the bent joint and yanked.

  The top of the robot fell to the ground, its many arms flailing. The tracks spun in a circle, completely dis
connected from the main body of the robot.

  Xander ripped off the armor plate at the top of the robot. It exposed the blinking lights of the control center. Then he slammed his foot down.

  All movement stopped.

  Thank the stars. Mal rose.

  Xander stepped over the twisted metal and headed her way. She smiled at him, the expression fading when she heard a skittering noise.

  Behind him. The remains of the robot were moving.

  What the—? As she watched, pieces of the robot began to break apart. In horror, she saw the robot had been made of smaller machines that pieced together to make the whole. They looked like little six-legged, silver metallic insects with quivering bodies.

  And mouths filled with sharp metal teeth.

  The crowd of tiny robots, each about the size of Xander’s hands, moved together in some eerie formation.

  “Xander! Watch out—”

  He was already turning, but the pack of robots leaped into the air and covered him.

  He went down under the onslaught. She knew he was fighting but all she could see was an undulating cloud of silver.

  Jesus. She searched around her, saw a long pipe sticking out from the wall. She pried it off and ran.

  Mal smacked at the robots closest to her that were not on top of Xander. She heard a satisfying crunch and kept swinging.

  Some flew through the air and hit the walls. Others she crushed.

  “Xander!”

  Suddenly he pushed upright. She saw a bright glow, felt a pulse of energy in the air and the crowd of robots flew off him. Like they’d been blasted outward.

  Xander’s clothes were tattered and all over she saw small patches of blood. Especially on his face. On one side of his cheek, the robots had bitten through and underneath the torn skin she saw…metal.

  “We need to go.” Xander grabbed her arm and yanked her forward. “The energy pulse will have dazed them but not for long.”

  They’d taken three steps when the skittering sound filled the air. One glance over her shoulder and she saw the little robots righting themselves, preparing to launch again.

  “Run!” Xander growled.

  They both sprinted, Xander falling in behind her. This pathway was long with no junctions. The walls were getting closer together, the path getting narrower and narrower.

  Please don’t be a dead end. Soon Malin had to turn sideways to squeeze through. Xander grunted as he shoved his larger body through the small gap.

  Then the path widened again and they were at another crossroads.

  “Which way?” Mal shouted.

  Xander was studying the paths, his jaw tight. “I don’t know.

  Then Mal noticed something. Stylized flame shapes carved into a sheet of metal that was part of the wall.

  Flames. Flames are your friends.

  “This way.” She waved Xander on and took the path marked by the flames.

  They kept running and the sounds of the skittering bug robots slowly died away. At the next junction, Xander veered left. But Mal looked around and saw a fire burning in an old drum, right in front of the right-hand path.

  “No, that way.” She ran for it.

  At the next crossroads, she picked the middle path, marked by a flame trap that blew fire across the entrance at random intervals.

  They eventually slowed to a jog.

  “I can’t detect the robots any longer,” Xander said.

  Mal heaved a sigh. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day. Your systems are back online?”

  He nodded. “And I believe we are closer to the center of the maze than before.”

  She touched his cheek. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ve restricted blood flow to the area and I can expedite healing there.”

  She traced her finger along his eyebrow. “You have metal attached to your bones?”

  He stiffened. “In some places, yes.”

  Her poor cyborg. “No wonder you weigh a ton. And are so strong.” She cupped his uninjured cheek. “I don’t care about metal bones, Xander. I think you’re beautiful.”

  A quirk of his lips. “Men are not beautiful, Malin.”

  “They can be.” She smiled. “I think I’ve solved the first part of the riddle.”

  “Go on.”

  “Flames are our friends. At each junction, one path is somehow marked by flames. That’s how I picked our paths.”

  His eyes flickered. “And now we’re closer to the center.” He flicked a finger at her nose. “Well done.”

  Mal craned her neck, studying the roof far above. “It irks me to think of Forge up there watching us, laughing at us.”

  “That, I can do something about.” Xander looked up as well, neon flaring to life in his eyes.

  After about a minute, his eyes returned to normal.

  “What did you do?”

  “I isolated the camera frequencies and jammed the feed.”

  “Really?” Mal imagined Forge staring at static-filled screens and smiled. “Nice job. Now what?”

  “Now we keep moving.”

  ***

  They moved deeper into the maze.

  Xander didn’t think Malin had noticed the rip in her dress. It had left a rather intriguing split on one side that showed tantalizing glimpses of slim thigh.

  He shook his head. If his team saw him now, on the run for his life, trying to find the Antikythera and fantasizing about the woman beside him, they’d think the universe had imploded.

  They reached the end of another path and came out on a platform. Below, a giant sea of junk and scrap spread out before them, blocking their way. In a few places, piles rose up like mountains or islands.

  “Well, I guess we have to cross it,” she said.

  Xander didn’t like it. His scans couldn’t detect a bottom. Something was skewing his readings. There could be anything under the sea of junk.

  He looked all around and above. To their left he spotted something.

  “Malin.”

  She followed his gaze. A zip line was tied from their platform, stringing out across the junk to the other side.

  Xander moved to it, studying the sturdy metal cable. He gripped the handles hanging down from the zip line, testing their strength. They were in good condition. “I’ll go first.”

  “Wait.” She grabbed his hand, frowning as she stared intently at the line. On the other side stood another platform like the one they were standing on. There was also a ladder leading up to the platform from the junk below. “What’s the easiest path across this?”

  “The zip line,” he answered automatically. Then he cursed mentally. “Don’t take the easiest path. It’s a trap.”

  “I’m guessing yes.”

  “So, we go down and walk across the junk.” That wasn’t his first choice, but his gut told him it was the only way.

  They both stared again at that the sea of scrap. In the distance, one part of it vibrated.

  “What the hell?” Malin leaned out, frowning.

  The vibration rippled through the junk for several meters before it disappeared.

  Malin’s purple gaze swung back to him. “There’s something down there.”

  Xander knelt and grabbed a large twisted lump of metal by his foot. Standing, he tested its weight. Not too heavy but heavy enough. He strode to the zip line, tied it on, and then gave a huge push.

  The metal whizzed out along the cable.

  As it reached the halfway point, the metal sea began vibrating again.

  Suddenly, a giant mass broke out of the scrap. Xander blinked. What the hell?

  It was an enormous metal…creature. A snake or monster or something.

  It had armor plating all over its long, sinuous body. The plates fitted together like scales. Its giant head was triangular in shape with a wide mouth filled with jagged metal teeth and two neon-red glowing eyes.

  “Oh. My. Stars.” Malin pressed a hand to her mouth. Together they watched the metal monster clamp onto the z
ip line. It gave a giant shake of its huge head before plunging back into the scrap below.

  Xander analyzed the situation, creating and discarding numerous plans to get across. Nothing eliminated the need to enter the beast’s domain.

  “What do you think attracts it?” Malin asked. “Noise? Movement? Vibration?”

  “Possibly all of that.” Xander curled a hand into a fist. “Probably it has built-in sensors. It’ll detect anything unusual in a set radius.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “So how do we cross without becoming monster bait?”

  He wanted to tell her to stay here. But he knew the labyrinth could throw up something else equally as dangerous and he’d be too far away to help her.

  “We cross it as fast as we can. Ready?”

  “No.” She closed her eyes for a second. “Damn, I wish I had my boots and coveralls.”

  “You look pretty cute in bare feet and that ripped dress.”

  Her eyes popped open. “You did not just say that!”

  He kissed her and she kissed him back. There was a lick of desperation, of fear, but there was also the need that was all Malin.

  He set her back. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Xander went first down the ladder. Malin followed and once he set foot on top of the scrap, he reached up, nabbed her around the waist and lifted her down.

  He sensed her racing heartbeat, the light sheen of perspiration on her skin. But her face was set with a quiet determination that made him want to smile.

  They set off.

  Xander moved quickly but as silently as possible. Malin followed a little behind. He was worried about her bare feet and when she gasped, he glanced down.

  She waved him on. “Don’t worry about it, tough guy. You can’t carry me, the ground’s too unstable.”

  She was right. But when she cried out again, he thought he might try carrying her.

  She was cradling one bleeding foot. When he started back toward her, she held up a hand. “The quicker we get across, the quicker we can deal with this.”

  Jaw tight, Xander kept moving. Every muscle in his body was strained, his attention tuned for any movement beneath them.

  As they neared the halfway point, Xander was tempted to relax a fraction. There had been no sign of the monster.

  Malin stepped up closer to him and overbalanced. He grabbed her arm before she tumbled, but a clump of metal was knocked loose. It rolled down the hill of junk, clunking and clattering as it went.