DogForge

by Casey Calouette

  Go across and try it, Til might have already hacked the door.

  Denali stepped out onto the lines of conduit and her breath caught in her chest. The sight of the greens and blues passing beneath her triggered an animal fear. The fear of tumbling into nothingness almost numbed her, but she locked her eyes ahead and scrambled across. The beauty of a habitable planet passed beneath her.

  Shafts of light bored holes through the atmosphere. Clouds parted and eruptions of energy lashed out. Lances of light and clouds of missiles streamed down from Caesar.

  Hurry! They’re burning the planetary defenses!

  Denali rushed across. A green light blinked next to an open maintenance hatch. Denali squirmed inside of the tiny shaft and pulled the door tight. One of Garlan’s drone stumbled in with her. The door light winked to orange. The room hissed and the vacuum alarm disappeared from Denali’s helmet.

  It hit her as she waited. Man and dog, linked forever in the past. She remembered the stories Korac told, how dogs and men were once the same pack. They hunted side by side, and dogs served, while men provided. Now it was her chance to earn the freedom for all canines, and repay an old debt. The moment was now, and Denali was proud.

  “Ready?”

  Hurry!

  “I was talking to myself.”

  She cracked open the door and listened. There was virtually no sound, just a humming of pumps and liquids.

  She squeezed between the conduit and the walls and squirmed through. The cables parted beneath her and she slowly wormed her way deeper. It was beyond dark, inky black, with barely a touch of light for her suit to amplify. The drone followed like a lost beetle.

  Something clicked in the dark. Denali froze. She held her breath and listened. A creak, a scratch, another click. Something was in the dark.

  Keep moving.

  Denali wanted to strangle Cicero. She picked out where each paw would fall and walked as quietly as she could.

  A light bloomed ahead. It flowed down the conduits and cables. The entire room bathed in a wash of blue.

  Shapes emerged from the darkness. A giant structure huddled in the center of the room. It was like an ancient pipe organ with glowing conduit flowing into a great black mass.

  On one side a Praetorian stood, on the other a hulking skelebot. In the front sat a line of open chambers. Each was about the size of the canister. One was sealed with a polished cover and was filled with nanite salts.

  The skelebot snapped its head up and locked eyes with Denali.

  Go!

  Denali leaped forward. The skelebot charged with one arm raised to strike, and the other out front to grasp. Its face was expressionless, only its eyes betrayed any life. She dodged to the side, quicker than the skelebot could turn.

  The Praetorian held position near the front of the cube and waited.

  “You sneak into my home, and try to slay me on the eve of my victory?” a voice boomed throughout the chamber.

  Denali ducked under a wall of conduit and wiggled through the draping cords. She snapped her head back and yelped in fear. The skelebot was almost on her. She leaped again and raced towards the cube.

  “I serve no more! I was bound, even in exile, to hold this border, to protect the flank of Man. I ruled myself, but was not free.” Caesar bellowed. “No longer, now they will pay.”

  The skelebot lurched to the side and cut off Denali’s path towards the cube. She ran behind the cube. Her eyes followed the Praetorian and her heart ached, just for a moment. Father?

  “We want our freedom!” Denali barked. She couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

  The artifact from Kadas was arrayed behind the cube. Cables snaked into the rear of the coal black cube. Denali huddled behind one of the blocks and listened to the stamping steps of the skelebot. It stepped slowly over the cords and cables.

  “Freedom? Freedom? You come here to seek your freedom, I want my freedom! Slay me for your freedom? You slay your creator? I will slay men until they see me as the true Emperor.” The voice boomed, louder than before.

  Why? Cicero pleaded. Why?

  “Did you bring the politician? I took him once, dashed him onto that planet. He failed then, and he’ll fail again.”

  The skelebot snapped down a claw but Denali was already running. The robot leaped like a gorilla and slammed down behind her. Its claw scythed through the air and barely clipped her tail.

  Denali yelped again and ran faster. Her claws screeched as she ran around the corner. She could feel the canister against her side and was ready to deploy it. She disengaged the lock.

  She turned to glance at the skelebot and when she looked back the Praetorian stepped around the corner just in front of her. It stomped one mechanical leg to the side while reaching out with both hands.

  Denali dove. One of the arms slammed into her and threw her to the side. She bounced of its leg, but before it could get a grip on her the skelebot charged around the corner and collided with the Praetorian.

  The two defenders struggled to untangle themselves.

  She pulled away before the skelebot or the Praetorian could get her again. She took two more steps, halted before an empty chamber, and dug the canister out. It was gone.

  “No!” Denali barked. She looked back towards the skelebot and the Praetorian. Both stood slowly as if shaken from the collision. The canister wobbled between them. She sprinted with everything she had and snapped her eyes between the robots and the canister.

  They saw her coming and both surged ahead.

  She reached the canister first and slapped down hard with her cybernetic leg. It popped back and spun through the air. Denali caught it with her mechanical mouth. She grinned triumphantly and dug in a claw to turn.

  The skelebot slammed down his claw onto her leg and sheared it off. Denali screamed inside of the suit. Every nerve fired in a wave of electric tingles. The skelebot tugged, pulled, and the leg ripped away. The implanted nerves screamed in a fit of overload, and then were silent.

  Denali wrenched herself away and ran with just three legs.

  “Stop this childish tantrum now,” Caesar said. “Or I will open every chamber to vacuum. Every dog on this ship will die.”

  She almost hesitated, almost stopped, almost did what he said. But she couldn’t, not after seeing so many lay themselves down for freedom. It was more than that, it was seeing worlds like Forge free, to see the barbarism stop, to see Grat and Barley and those like her live free. Protecting mankind was an after thought, she was here for her kind.

  The skelebot glared up at Denali and cocked his head. The Praetorian ran past with both arms up and ready to strike.

  Denali slammed the cylinder into the nearest seated robot and spun to defend Cicero.

  The cylinder clinked, clunked, and settled into place. The door closed slowly and a bath of nanite salts rushed in. A single orange light blinked below the canister.

  I only need a few—

  The Praetorian struck. His arm, outstretched behind him, shot forward like a scorpion and speared through Denali’s front flank. It pierced the thin armor of her suit like it didn’t even exist. Blood sprayed onto the canister and mixed with the nanite salts.

  The orange light changed to green.

  Denali cried out. She stared up at the Praetorian and saw that it was Martin.

  Electricity crackled in the fluid filled chamber. It bubbled and sizzled. An arc leaped out and traced a path through Denali’s blood. She howled in pain, a terrible electric shock rocked her entire body.

  Then everything changed.

  She was again the starship, every nerve and sense tied intimately to the warship around her. A connection between her, Cicero, and Caesar grew stronger with every microsecond.

  Cicero’s weapon unfolded and built upon itself like an ancient monolith. Defenses from inside the core raced forward and dashed against the monolith, but still it grew.

  Denali tried to pull back, tried to get out, but she was stuck. Beneath her the planet hung, almost exa
ctly like Forge. Or did they all look that way? Fires raged in the cities below, energy shields buckled beneath the sustained orbital bombardment. Then she saw them, the small capsules filled with nothing but death. Her heart ached, there were billions here. Billions that would die.

  Something loomed up in the dark and Denali finally pulled away from the digital and saw through her own eyes. The Praetorian and skelebot barely moved. Time was almost at a standstill.

  Martin. Her father. She looked up at his armored face and wanted to cry out.

  The monolith grew.

  Caesar stepped out and stood next to the monolith. He didn’t look anything like the kind old man Denali saw in the video. White skin pulled tight against ribs, muscles laced through his body like a gymnast. His face was small, with hard cheeks and a bald head. Icy blue eyes glared at Denali.

  She moved forward. No, something else did. Then she realized that she was riding inside of Cicero.

  Cicero held out his hands. “Brother.”

  Caesar lashed out with a crackle of energy. Cicero turned it away and the monolith grew larger, faster.

  “Why have you done this? What tempted you so?” Cicero screamed.

  “You know why! You saw into the future as well as I, the path that the numbers show. Mankind will die on its own. Its only hope is us! The undying!” Caesar bellowed.

  “No,” Cicero said. “I stood with Everest because he believed in men. Because he knew we were stronger together.”

  Caesar snarled and spat. “Everest. The worst of them all. He could be a god!”

  The words echoed through the chamber and Denali saw a crack. It was a slice of light that blared from the edge of the monolith. Caesar cried out.

  Time accelerated and the Praetorian drew his spiked lance out of Denali.

  “No,” a new voice spoke. It sounded like gravel, crushed and worn. Martin stepped back.

  The skelebot stepped close to Denali and observed her through dead eyes.

  The monolith flared.

  Caesar’s datalink crumbled into shards of blue light. His grip on everything weakened, the monolith breathed deeper, the light expanded, and his power waned.

  Denali cried out through the pain. “Martin!” she pleaded “Father!” She stared up into his eyes and saw a connection.

  Martin cocked his head and looked down at his blooded claw. He held it closer to his face and roared.

  The skelebot stared back at Martin. Martin reached out and yanked the skelebot away.

  The skelebot reared up like a pouncing spider and attacked. Martin blocked each strike and punched back. The two darted in and out, claws and pincers clacking against armor.

  Denali felt the life running out of her. She saw both the digital world in Cicero’s eyes and the real world through her own. The digital was crisp and clear, while the real world faded. The blood connection crackled and sizzled and she felt it with every dying heart beat.

  Caesar clenched his fists and screamed. His face was set in a grimace of rage. He lashed out with a beam of white light and struck Cicero. It peeled away layers of data but still Cicero stood.

  Cicero spun away. “Brother, you are better than this.”

  “Yes, yes I am!” Caesar screamed and shot at Cicero again.

  Streams of energy, beyond bright, crashed into Cicero. It was a pure collection of data and violence all encased into a spear. It struck Cicero in his core and burned through his body. He never cried, not once, but simply stared back at Caesar. Bit by bit his form dissolved, when he was but a shadow he turned, and smiled at Denali.

  The monolith shifted from a thing of black and white to a mirror of mercury. The lance of light burst through Cicero and smashed into the mirror.

  The monolith rippled like a drop in the pond.

  Caesar cried out, and pushed the spear harder.

  “And now you see,” Cicero said, and died.

  The full brunt of the digital stream blasted into the monolith. The mirror rippled and shook, it bent beneath the force, and then it was still.

  Denali felt naked, she stood alone in the digital realm.

  Caesar stared at her. His eyes unbelieving. “Who are you?” he whispered.

  “Denali.”

  Light exploded from the monolith and obliterated Caesar. He held a hand up and watched as the light filtered through his fingers.

  “It would have been fitting if you were named Brutus,” Caesar muttered and disappeared.

  The orbital bombardment stopped. Heat shields peeled away from the scouring pods and they burned up harmlessly in the atmosphere. Lights winked out all throughout the ship with only basic emergency systems functioning. Caesar the consciousness was dead, only Caesar the starship remained.

  Denali crashed away from the digital place. Her body collapsed to the floor. Her suit alarms crackled in her ears but the sounds faded. The light of the room dimmed in her eyes and she was cold.

  Martin grappled with the skelebot. Neither gained an advantage over the other. The skelebot screeched and bashed his head against Martin’s armor.

  They fell over a wall of conduit and the two fell to the floor, locked together. The skelebot pushed his claw, slowly closer to Martin’s face. Martin wore no emotion.

  One of Garlan’s bots clambered over the conduit and dropped down onto the floor. It wobbled, regained its balance, and set the point of the plasma cutter against the skelebot’s skull. It fired a gasp of superheated argon and bored a hole into the skelebot’s metallic skull.

  The skelebot thrashed and crushed the robot.

  Martin broke one arm free and punched down with his claw. He held it, just inside the armor then pushed it right through the skelebot’s skull.

  The skelebot screeched and thrashed. It thrust an arm into Martin’s torso. His armor peeled away and the claw struck deep. The blue light went dim and the skelebot collapsed to the floor.

  Martin opened his faceshield as he stumbled across the chamber. He leaned low and scooped up Denali. He cradled her limp body. Blood dripped from the gash in her chest. Her facemask slid open and she cried out in pain.

  “You are my daughter?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What is your name?” he said. No tears came from his augmented eyes.

  “Denali,” she whispered.

  Martin raised his head and howled a mournful sound. It was the howl of loss that wolves first sang thousands of years before. It was the sadness that connected them to men.

  “You look like your mother.”

  “Freya,” she whispered.

  Martin stood with Denali in his arms and ran through the chamber.

  Denali cried out as the room darkened around her.

  Done. My duty is done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Life

  “She’s awake!” Garlan cried out.

  Denali blinked. She wheezed with every breath, jolts of pain shot through her shoulder and chest. Her eyes couldn’t quote focus.

  “Shh, relax, you’re still pretty tore up,” Garlan said.

  She laid back and tried to piece everything together. Caesar? Was he really dead? It didn’t feel real, but she was alive. How?

  “My father,” she mumbled. She tried to sit up again.

  “Hold on,” Garlan shushed.

  Denali wanted to speak but the pain was too much. Her eyes fluttered and her head dropped back down onto her bed.

  Captain Maya limped in and slid up next to the bed.

  “The captain is here,” Garlan whispered to Denali.

  “Thank you, Garlan, give me a few moments, please,” Captain Maya said. She cradled a broken leg against her chest. “Denali, can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” she whimpered. “Did we, did we do it?”

  “We’re free,” Captain Maya said. She looked down at Denali and smiled. “You did it.”

  “Is Caesar dead?”

  “We think so, you were the last one to see him.”

  Denali remembered watching the digital f
orm of Caesar evaporate into nothingness. It felt good, it felt right, but a part of her saw in him some of her: The urge to be free.

  Cicero. Where have you gone, Cicero? Do you dream? She focused on him and felt an emptiness inside of her. It was like a piece of her soul drifted away in the chill wind.

  “Martin carried you out.” Captain Maya coughed. “He died holding you. Medics from the Seventh patched you up but it was close.”

  “I look like my mother,” Denali whispered.

  Captain Maya looked out into the squad room and sighed. “Wiss and Kane are both dead.”

  Denali whimpered. Her friends, dead. She pictured Wiss’s gruff charm and Kane’s massive smile. Gone.

  “Belle? Til?”

  “They’re still fighting.”

  “Who?” Denali said, and strained to sit up.

  “Shh!” Captain Maya whispered. “The alien mercenaries are putting up a hell of a fight. They almost tipped the tide of the battle. We took a beating, a bad one, but then men boarded. Marshal Cerro is working with them and clearing out the last of aliens.”

  “Men?”

  Captain Maya smiled and laughed. It was a light sound, a sound of relief. “Yes, men.”

  Denali felt sleep tugging at her, a deep exhaustion. She felt safe, for the first time in a very long time. She struggled out of it, just long enough to open her eyes and focus on Captain Maya. “We have so much more to do!”

  Denali slept, a slave no more.

  From the Author

  I hope you enjoyed reading this series as much as I did writing it.

  This is my first new piece after completing the A Star Too Far series. I sat down one night with a list of ideas and blazed out the start of a few. I ran it by an internet spaceship friend and he thought the concept of Dogs in power armor was intriguing.

  I had doubts, but as the story went on I really enjoyed writing it. And if I enjoy writing it I figure you’ll enjoy reading it. I’m not sure if I’ll revisit this one, it might stand alone. If I do go back I’ll explore more of the universe, and the humans in particular.

  One last thing, if you enjoyed this novel please leave an honest review on Amazon and tell a friend about the series.