Rogue World: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Darkspace Renegade Book 3)

by G J Ogden

  Hallam winced and held the device to Dakota’s neck. It hissed, delivering a triple dose of the powerful stimulant. “She’s going to be pretty hacked off when she finds out I stimmed her,” he grumbled. “There was enough in that injector to get one of the reptilian beasts doing cartwheels.”

  “I reckon she’ll forgive you.” Ruby smiled back.

  Dakota became suddenly alert as the drugs flowed into her blood stream. It was like the chair had just been electrified. “What the hell are you two doing here?” she cried as Ruby managed to free her hands.

  “What the hell do you think we’re doing?” said Hallam, almost laughing.

  “They’re using me to get to you,” Dakota hit back. “You have to get out of here!”

  “Yeah, boss, we figured that part out already,” said Ruby, releasing the ropes around Dakota’s legs. “Come on, my ship is just outside.”

  Hallam and Ruby pulled Dakota up, and together they staggered toward the exit. However, they’d only made it a few paces before Hallam saw the figure of Cad Rikkard standing in the doorway. The mercenary’s face and armor were caked in mud, and blood trickled from his ear, mixing with the grey-green slime to create a sickly sludge.

  “I take it back,” snarled Cad, taking a step toward Hallam, fists clenched. “I’m not going to kill you slowly.” Then he pointed to Hallam, and added, “I’m going to tear you to shreds with my bear hands then rip your friends apart, piece by piece.”

  Hallam broke open the barrel of the shotgun and frantically fumbled in his pocket for the cartridges, while Ruby opened fire with her pistol. Cad ducked, shielding his head as the bullets deflected off the mercenary’s armor. Ruby’s weapon again clicked empty, but not before Cad had roared in pain. Two of the bullets had penetrated his metal shell and were embedded in his left arm and shoulder. Cad plucked out the bullets, tossing them to the deck as blood began to leak through the holes. Hallam finished shoving the cartridges into the chamber, snapping the weapon shut and lifting it toward Cad. However, he’d barely raised the weapon by a few inches before Cad’s armored hand closed around the barrel and pushed it aside. The shotgun fired and the recoil threw Hallam and Cad into a tall metal container, toppling both it and them to the deck with a thunderous crash.

  Hallam rolled aside, barely evading Cad’s fist as it smashed into the area where his head had been only moments earlier. Cad’s wild strike shattered open the container, causing a plume of white mist to rapidly rise from it like steam from a geyser. However, as Cad pulled himself up, using the container for support, Hallam could see ice-crystals forming on his metal armor. A second later, an alarm blared out through the PA system.

  “Warning, alien containment breach in Sector D. Lockdown initiated. All personnel must evacuate immediately. Twenty minutes until automatic self-destruct.”

  Heavy shutters thudded down across all three doors leading out of the room. Hallam cursed, realizing they were trapped. He then turned back to the container, the contents of which were now glowing ominously.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be dead long before this place blows up, Knight,” said Cad, stepping through the vapor with fists still clenched.

  Hallam and the others backed away, but in the tussle with Cad, Hallam had dropped his shotgun, and Ruby was already out of ammo. They had nothing to fight with and no way of getting out.

  Suddenly, a shape rose from the mist that was still billowing out of the metal container. All eyes turned to it, except those of Cad Rikkard, who continued to stare at the renegades with brutal intent. Hallam backed away, his own gaze flicking from the mercenary to the object behind him, until the vapor finally dissipated and the identity of the shape was revealed. Hallam froze, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing. The shape of the machine was unlike anything Hallam had seen before. Its limbs were in different proportions. Short, powerful-looking legs attached to a long torso, with claw-tipped arms that draped almost to the deck, giving it more the appearance of an animal than a man. And while it appeared to be a warbot in everything other than name, this machine had clearly not been designed or built by human hands.

  The strident thrum of the warbot’s power core finally reached Cad Rikkard’s ears, which had been deafened by rage. The mercenary turned to see the colossal machine towering over him. A single, glowing blue slit in its cranial unit peered down at the mercenary. The normally unflappable leader of the Blackfire Squadron then shoved the machine away, in what was seemingly an act of pure spontaneity. The alien warbot staggered back, moving with an organic fluidity that no human-built machine had ever attained. Its blue vee-shaped eye then focused on Cad before the machine uttered a complex and indecipherable warble of sounds that were alien to Hallam’s ears. However, while Hallam stood dumbstruck before the machine, Cad Rikkard’s instincts were to attack.

  Cad drew his pistol and fired at the machine, aiming first at its chest and then at its cranial unit. The alien warbot backed away, raising its huge claws to shield its eye. The bullets deflected off the machine’s metal shell, resisting the impacts in a similar manner to Cad’s own armor. When the mercenary’s weapon finally clicked empty, the machine was undamaged. Then its blue eye again turned to Cad, somehow appearing meaner and more intense than before. Its colossal, claw-like hands seized hold of Cad’s armor and lifted the mercenary into the air. Cad struggled against its hold, hammering his own armored fist down on the warbot’s cranial unit and shoulders. The force of Cad’s blows would have been enough to smash through any ordinary metal, but again the alien warbot appeared impervious. Without warning, the machine then surged forward, uttering more strident, alien sounds, and drove Cad into the wall, smashing them both through it as if it were no more substantial than an egg crate. The machine and the mercenary tumbled outside into the cold and rain, and landed in a crumpled heap in the mud.

  Hallam had no time to process what had just happened, as the room suddenly dropped sharply downwards. Hallam held on to Dakota as they slid across the deck, narrowly avoiding other crates and boxes that tumbled and crashed into the sloping deck. The outpost block then hit the ground and split open at its seams, allowing the harsh environment of the rogue world to penetrate inside. Hallam and Ruby helped Dakota to her feet, but she was already looking much stronger.

  “Warning, containment breach in Sector D. Lockdown failed. All personnel must evacuate immediately. Seventeen minutes until automatic self-destruct.”

  Hallam peered through the gap in the wall, seeing the warbot and Cad Rikkard slowly getting to their feet, then turned back to the others.

  “We make a run for it, right now,” said Hallam, beckoning Ruby and Dakota through the gap first. Hallam followed, sprinting across the mud. The complex continued to creak and groan, the remaining stilts wavering from side-to-side, but the structure stayed standing long enough for the renegades to reach Ruby’s ship. Hallam hammered the ramp release and helped Dakota inside, but morbid curiosity compelled him to stop and look back. Rising to its full height, the organic-looking warbot stood in the rain, its shimmering armor reflecting the flashes of lightning that continued to crackle overhead in a uniquely alien way. In front of the machine was Cad Rikkard, Black Prince sword in hand, its blade also reflecting the flashes of energy in the atmosphere with a similarly unearthly sparkle.

  “Hallam, come on!” Ruby cried as Cad Rikkard briefly turned his gaze to him, the mercenary’s eyes rage-filled and resentful. If Cad survived the encounter with the alien machine that was sure to follow, Hallam knew it would not be the last he saw of the Blackfire Squadron. And the prospect of that filled him with dread.

  Hallam turned away from the mercenary and dove inside the fighter, slamming the button to close the ramp.

  “Ruby, go!” Hallam cried toward the cockpit as he wrapped his arms through some cargo netting, gripping the material tightly. The fighter lifted out of the mud and shot away from the alien complex with ferocious speed, forcing Hallam to exert all the strength he had remaining just to stop from being pinbal
led around the cargo hold. Soon the forces on his body subsided and Hallam relaxed, suddenly feeling drained and sickly again. The pounding in his head had returned, and bright spots danced in front of his eyes before his head lolled forward and he passed out.

  16

  Cad Rikkard watched as the renegade fighter soared into the darkness, and cursed Hallam Knight’s name into the cold, stormy sky. The alien warbot cocked its head toward the escaping vessel, the single line of blue light narrowing into a thin vee, like a curious frown. Then it turned its attention back to Cad and the vee sharpened.

  “Get out of my way!” Cad snarled at the machine, raising his sword, ready to strike should the warbot attack him again. The machine answered, but it was again just a jumble of noises to Cad’s ears, some of which were pitched so high that he could barely hear them at all.

  The renegade fighter engaged its main engines and streaked skyward, adding another thunderous boom to the still frequent crashes of thunder. Cad gritted his teeth and looked toward his own fighter, still parked in the mud on the other side of the now crippled complex. However, his path to it was blocked by the alien machine. Cad knew that every second he wasted on the ground was time that Hallam Knight slipped further out of his reach. He aimed the tip of the blade toward the alien contraption and began to circle around it. The warbot watched him carefully, matching his every step so that Cad was unable to slip past.

  “What do you want from me!” Cad yelled, focusing on the blue slit of light, which seemed to be regarding him with equal interest. “Move out of the way!” he roared, growing more unsettled with each passing moment. Hallam Knight had somehow gotten the better of him again, and it was eating him up inside. And for reasons he couldn’t understand, the alien machine was standing in his way, preventing him from chasing down his quarry.

  Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the complex, generating a flash so bright that it forced Cad to look away. The near instant, deafening crack of thunder caused the machine to turn its blue eye to the sky. Piercing, frantic warbles escaped from its cranial unit, which jerked in all directions, as if the contraption were afraid. With the machine unexpectedly distracted, Cad saw his opening to attack. He dashed toward the machine and swung the blade with all his augmented might. However, the warbot seemed to sense Cad’s intentions and reacted with unfeasible speed, raising its arm to block the strike. The sharpness of the blade, combined with the ferocious power of the blow should have cleaved the machine’s arm clean off, but instead, the blade dug a few inches into the metal and became stuck.

  The warbot peered at the sword, then its blue eye bent into a piercing arrowhead that was aimed directly at Cad. It pulled its arm closer to its body, dragging Cad through the mud along with it, as the mercenary desperately held on to his only weapon like a lifeline. The warbot uttered another unintelligible warble, this time deeper and more guttural. It then twisted its arm to expose the flat of the blade and hammered its claw-like fist down onto it. The sword broke as easily as if it were a piece of balsa wood, and Cad was cast backwards into the mud, still clutching one severed half of the weapon. He watched in utter disbelief as the machine pried the other half of the blade from its arm and tossed it into the mud as if it were nothing more than a thorn prick.

  Cad scrambled away as the warbot bore down on him, its single blue eye fixed on him and its huge fist raised high. Cad lifted the severed half of the sword, trying to shield himself from the strike he expected to come at any moment, but then another boom split the air. However, this was not the crack of thunder or the roar or fighter engines. This was the savage report of Draga’s semi-automatic shotgun.

  The machine turned sharply and Cad saw the female member of the Blackfire Squadron marching through the mud toward it, weapon raised. Draga fired again and again, striking the machine cleanly each time, but still it appeared only moderately damaged. Draga let out a roar like the guttural battle cry of a Roman legion charging into war and quickened her pace. With each step forward, she continued to fire, each blast from the shotgun landing true, until finally, the weapon was spent. The warbot’s circuits crackled and fizzled in the driving rain, but unbelievably, it remained standing.

  “Why won’t you die!” Draga yelled at the machine, tossing the empty shotgun aside and dropping to her knees. She was gasping for breath, one hand clutched to her smashed chest armor. The warbot let out a short, resonant howl before lashing a fist at her. Draga raised her arms and managed to block the attack, but she was driven through the air, landing face first in a pool of grimy, grey-green swamp water.

  The machine continued to peer out toward where Draga’s body lay in the mud. Its back was still turned to Cad and he could see thin wisps of smoke rising from its torso and cranial unit. It filled him with the faintest spark of hope that the machine could be defeated. Gritting his teeth, Cad switched the broken sword into a reverse grip and clambered to his knees. There was now no other option than to go all in and put everything on the line. If his attack failed, it didn’t matter – he was dead either way.

  Mustering the maximum amount of power from his suit, Cad leapt into the air and soared toward the machine. The warbot turned a split-second too late to stop Cad from driving the broken blade between its cranial unit and shoulders. Cad roared a cry even more guttural than the one Draga had screamed into the stormy sky as he drove the blade deeper, eventually severing whatever connection linked the alien machine’s head to its body. The warbot toppled forward into the mud with Cad on top of it. He scrambled off the alien machine and pulled the blade clear before raising it again, ready to strike a second blow. However, the warbot remained motionless, energy crackling all across its body like sunlight sparkling on the sea. Crucially, the blue slit of light in its cranial unit had gone dark.

  Cad breathed a heavy sigh of relief, sheathed what remained of the broken Black Prince sword, then ran to Draga. He slid to his knees in the murky pool where she lay, still partially submerged in the water, and flipped her onto her side. Draga convulsed and coughed up some of the dark sludge before jerking upright and peering back toward the alien machine with wild eyes.

  “It’s dead or destroyed,” said Cad, still unsure of whether the machine he’d fought had simply been an automaton or a living thing. He hauled Draga to her feet, conscious that Knight was still getting away. “Can you walk? Knight and the others are escaping.”

  “I can walk,” said Draga, still coughing violently.

  Cad threw Draga’s arm around his neck and together they trudged through the mud toward their fighters. The creaks and groans from the consortium complex grew louder as it swayed violently in the wind, tipping further toward their fighters.

  “Hurry; if the east wings collapse, it will bury the ships!” Cad called, driving Draga on harder, but it had become clear to him that she was badly hurt.

  Ten meters from the fighters, Cad caught sight of a number of the creatures that he’d seen dead underneath the outpost blocks. Half a dozen of them were stalking closer, and that only accounted for the ones directly in his line of sight. Cad gritted his teeth and pushed on harder, practically carrying Draga the rest of the way. Resting her on the landing strut of his fighter, Cad activated the ramp and waited for it to lower while continuing to scan the perimeter for any more of the beasts. It didn’t take long for him to see other dark shapes moving in the distance, drawing closer by the second. Cad turned back to Draga, but she had gone, and for a moment, he panicked before spotting her by the rear ramp of her own fighter.

  “Draga, leave it. You’re in no condition to fly,” Cad called over to Draga as the ramp of her fighter splatted into the mud.

  “We need every ship,” Draga called back with a hard-headed firmness. “We will not get any others like them.”

  Cad growled under his breath and cast his eyes back to the creatures, dozens of which were advancing rapidly.

  “I’ll transmit rendezvous coordinates once we’re clear of the detonation,” Cad called back to her, realizing there w
as no time to argue, and that Draga would refuse his command to abandon her ship, no matter what he said.

  Draga nodded and hauled herself inside the fighter, still coughing harshly. Cad ran inside his own ship, slamming the button to close the ramp before racing into the cockpit and powering up the engines. His consoles flashed into life and Cad saw that he had less than sixty seconds to get clear of the complex before the self-destruct failsafe turned it – and the Blackfire Squadron – to dust. Cad had initially not understood why Doyle would choose to destroy his priceless haul of alien artefacts. However, his brief encounter with the alien warbot had made him understand why. Whatever the alien machines were, they were not friendly or compliant. He understood why Doyle had experimented on them so far from the bridge worlds. If they had gotten loose on Vesta or any other planet, they would be near impossible to contain. Yet the prospect of taming one of the alien machines was worth the risk. With an army of such powerful weapons under his command, Doyle would have been unstoppable.

  Cad pushed thoughts of the alien warbots from his mind and engaged the thruster. At the same moment, the stilts on the east side of the complex buckled, and the outpost block began toppling toward him. He increased power, pulling his fighter out of range just in time. However, glancing across to Draga’s vessel, he saw debris from the collapsing structure strike her main engine section. There was no time to assess what damage had been done – they had only seconds to escape.

  Pushing the thruster control forward, Cad climbed then engaged the main engines at full throttle. The fierce acceleration threw his head back against the seat. Draga was still visible on Cad’s scanners, trailing a short distance behind. Then a blinding flash lit up the black sky, followed soon after by an intense blast that hit the ship like a tidal wave striking land. Alarms sounded and red lights flashed up on Cad’s damage control panel, but the ship surged on, and soon the vibrations subsided. Levelling off and silencing the alarms, Cad opened a channel to Draga’s ship.