by Jake Bible
“Then say that,” Roak snapped. “I don’t need a full Eight Million Godsdamn essay on the whys.”
He couldn’t make out the words, but he distinctly heard Hessa mumbling under her voice. Roak added that to the list of annoying sentient affectations she used.
The doors slid open and a smell worse than the current room hit them all.
Pol peered into the darkness that was the next room then turned his gaze slowly on Roak.
“There must be a leak,” Pol said.
“Oh stinky!” Spickle said. “So stinky!”
“No,” Sath said, planting his feet. He shook his head over and over. “Not go in there.”
“Then stay here,” Roak said and walked through the open doorway and into the darkness of the next room. “I really don’t care.”
Roak could make out the shapes of row after row, column after column, of the twisting, snaking, convoluted turns of the massive array of pipes that filled the room. Down the center of it all was a single walkway. A grated walkway that stretched into complete darkness and hung suspended over what had to be levels and levels of more pipes below.
Roak glanced down and could see about two levels below him before it was too dark for his eyes to make anything out. Each level had its own length of grated walkway. Roak looked to his left, to his right, but didn’t see a ladder or stairs that would take anyone down to the lower walkways. There must have been only level-specific access.
Roak shrugged and kept moving. He was a good twenty meters before he heard the first footsteps on the walkway behind him. Then more footsteps and the sound of the doors closing. The room turned to total blackness until Roak cracked a light stick he pulled from a pocket on his armor.
“Crack ‘em if ya got ‘em,” Roak called over his shoulder. “No auto lights in this room, looks like.”
Pol cleared his throat and Roak looked back. The old man and the Maglors stood there, not moving.
“I do not have any form of illumination,” Pol said.
“No lights,” Spickle added.
“Fine,” Roak said and pulled several more glow sticks from pockets and threw them at the three.
The Maglors plucked the sticks out of the air with ease. Spickle handed one to Pol then cracked one for himself. Sath did the same and Roak was quickly joined by the three.
“Can you reach the pipes?” Roak asked, noting the distance between the walkway and the closest pipe.
“No,” Pol said. “It is good fortune then that we have two beings with us that were born to climb.”
“Where?” Sath exclaimed and spun around in circles until Roak reached out and slapped him.
“He means you two,” Roak snarled.
“Yes,” Spickle said.
“We should keep moving,” Pol said. “Get a little closer to the center of the room before we attach the disc.”
“Yeah, sure, let’s keep walking,” Roak said and gulped air to steady himself before he took more agonizing steps.
Roak was pretty much dragging his leg by the time they went another twenty meters. He had to pull himself by grabbing hand over hand along the railing that bordered the walkway.
“This should do,” Pol said.
Roak slid to his ass and eased the back of his head against one of the railing’s support poles. “Tell me when we’re good. Gonna rest a second.”
“Oh no,” Spickle said.
“He look like shit,” Sath said.
Eyes closed, Roak pulled the Flott and aimed it at Sath. The Maglor gulped.
“Please,” Pol said and gently pressed his fingers to the barrel of the pistol, lowering the aim until it was down at the walkway. “We are in this together now.”
Roak grunted, but didn’t raise the weapon again.
“Here you go,” Pol said and handed Spickle the disc. “See that pipe up there? If you could climb and place this disc on the underside, that would be excellent.”
“I can do,” Spickle said, taking the disc.
He was gone in a blink, his body lost to the shadows as he hopped over the railing and began climbing the pipes to Pol’s indicated location.
“Roak, if you could have your AI alert us to when the disc is active, that would be appreciated,” Pol said.
Roak gave him a thumbs up.
Spickle landed on the walkway, a huge smile on his face.
“I have done it,” Spickle said. “It smells worse up around pipes.”
“Does it?” Pol asked. “Interesting.”
“Yeah, super interesting,” Roak said. “Hessa? We good?”
“What smell like?” Sath asked. “I know smell. We know smell.”
“Yes, Roak, we are good,” Hessa replied over the comm. “Disc is operational and I am now gaining access to new parts of the station’s systems. Running a scan for closest med pod. If you’ll give me a…”
Roak stiffened. Hessa’s tone had changed when she trailed off.
“Help me up,” Roak snapped.
Pol did his best to help Roak up onto his feet.
“Is there an issue?” Pol asked.
“You need to leave,” Hessa said quickly. “Now. I did a full scan of the room you’re in.”
Roak sighed, holding up a finger to Pol.
“How bad is it, Hessa? We got hostiles? Where?”
“Everywhere, Roak,” Hessa exclaimed. “Hundreds!”
Roak looked all around, but didn’t see any movement.
“Hessa, I’d be able to see hundreds of beings. The room is big, but not that big.”
“I know smell,” Sath muttered.
“Not beings, Roak! Not sentient races! You have—”
“KWEETS!” Sath roared. “Kweets! Kweets! Kweets!”
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Spickle screamed as he fell onto the walkway, suddenly covered by a dozen creatures.
“Kweets,” Roak said matter-of-factly as he took aim at Spickle and fired.
14.
Kweets were cat-sized, spider-like creatures that devoured any living thing they could find. Great for pest control, but not a smart choice since they multiplied fast and took over a space as their territory within minutes of being introduced. But they were cheap and one hundred percent effective.
They fit in just right with Razer Station.
“Get him up,” Roak said to Sath as the husks of the scorched Kweets fell from Spickle’s squirming body. “I got them in time.”
Sath wasn’t there. Roak spun around, as fast as his body would allow, but saw zero sign of the Maglor.
“The smell in here is their excrement,” Pol said.
“Thanks for the heads up,” Roak said. He continued to search the room for Sath, his Flott leading as he turned this way and that. “We move. Now. And fast.”
Roak fired as another dozen Kweets leapt from the darkness at him. The beauty of a weapon with a cluster spread was that one trigger squeeze meant multiple targets hit at the same time. The Kweets burst open and burned up as lasers tore through them.
“I said fast!” Roak shouted as he leaned down to grab Spickle, his eyes on their surroundings.
Roak’s hand hit open air. That Maglor was gone too.
Roak pointed a finger at Pol, shook his head, and started moving quickly down the walkway. “Follow me. Now.”
“A second ago you were barely able to stand,” Pol said, struggling to keep up. “How are you mobile?”
“No other choice, old man,” Roak said. He fired two more times and Kweets dropped to their left and to their right, burning motes of brief light in the near perfect darkness of the room. “If you’d rather have a sit down and die, go for it. Not how I roll.”
More laser fire and Kweet after Kweet exploded like small fireworks, their blood combusting into showers of stinking sparks.
A shape moved to Roak’s left and he turned, but it was gone. What was there were several dozen empty Kweet husks smashed against the pipes that were visible. Roak noted the sight, but didn’t slow down. He knew if he slowed at all he’d
fall on his ass and never get back up.
The agony in his leg was all that kept Roak moving. He focused his anger on that agony, treating the pain as if it was an enemy in of itself. Between Flott shots, he mumbled curses and threats to the pain, telling it what he’d do when he finally got into a med pod.
“You are an interesting study, Roak,” Pol muttered.
“Shut it,” Roak replied through gritted teeth that were about to crack under the pressure Roak’s jaw was putting on them.
A tsunami of Kweets flowed over the walkway about three meters ahead. Roak had no choice but to head straight for them. There had to be at least a hundred Kweets scurrying across the grating, their multiple eyes locking onto Roak and Pol.
Roak raised his Flott and the Kweets rushed him.
The little monsters never made it more than half a meter before they were set upon.
Roak had seen a lot in his life and career. He’d seen so many shocking actions that very few sights could bring him up short anymore. Very few.
The sight of two rage-mad Maglors diving into a swarm of a hundred Kweets was one of those actions that caused him to pause. Once he did that, he had to put his full weight against the walkway’s railing to keep from falling to the grate. All of his strength began to drain from him as he watched the two beings shred and rip and eat every last Kweet in sight.
Then they were gone, leaving only husks and Kweet blood behind.
Roak tried to spot them. He cracked a few glow sticks and threw them into the pipes, but the darkness swallowed up the small light and all he caught was a glimpse of a Maglor here, a glimpse there, and several Kweets being thrown through the air like discarded tissue.
“I see them,” Pol said, stepping to the railing by Roak. He pointed to the side they were on. “I believe Sath is handling this part of the room.” He turned and pointed to the opposite side. “And Spickle has this part.”
Roak nodded, not bothering to ask how Pol saw them. Implants, obviously. The bounty hunter checked the charge on his pistol and growled. Five percent left. That meant a few single shots or one last cluster spread was all he had. Roak considered recalling the Blortas from the Maglors. The small pistols would be more efficient in his hands than in the monkey men’s hands.
A Kweet landed on the walkway, eyed Roak and Pol for barely a fraction of a second, then scurried away as fast as it could. It made it a meter before it was squashed into the grate, its guts popping out and dripping to whatever was down below.
Sath stood there, foot grinding the dead Kweet against the metal, his fangs bared, chest heaving up and down from his exertion. Roak stared at the Maglor until he finally looked up and met the bounty hunter’s gaze. Wildness lived in those eyes. An animal had been let loose and only primal violence was left. Sath snorted then was gone into the darkness and the tangle of pipes.
“Should we keep going?” Pol asked. “Can you walk?”
“I can drag,” Roak said as he started pulling himself along the railing, hand over hand, dragging his leg behind him as he used his good leg merely for stability.
“I do have more strength than you might think,” Pol said as he followed close to Roak. “I cannot fully carry you, but if you lean on me, I think we’ll make better time.”
“You got a ship to catch?” Roak asked.
Two dozen Kweet husks flew across the walkway and were lost from sight. A second answering volley came from the opposite side.
“Give the monkeys time to do their thing,” Roak said. “Know when you got the right guys on the job and let them work, Pol. Okay?” Roak sighed. “We got time.”
The walkway shook, another far off explosion rocking the station, as if to counter Roak’s statement. He snarled, but didn’t pick up the pace or offer his arm to Pol. The old tech shrugged and kept in step with Roak, his head swiveling back and forth.
“You see the little guys get taken down, you tell me,” Roak said, his eyes centered on the far-off exit at the end of the walkway. They’d moved far enough along that a slight illumination could be seen from the keypad next to the exit doors. “We lose our Kweet killers and then I’ll lean on you.”
“Yes, of course, understood,” Pol said. “I will keep you informed.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Roak growled.
The death rain of Kweet husks continued for several minutes. A few of the little beasts tried to survive by landing on the walkway and scurrying their many-limbed asses towards the exit. Roak had no idea if the things were smart enough to work a keypad or not, but the thought was moot since the Kweets never made it more than half a meter before one of the Maglors leapt from the darkness and squashed them.
By the time Roak and Pol were in reach of the exit, Roak’s assessment of the Maglors had changed considerably. They were no longer in the Venn diagram of worthless and annoying. They still had a foothold in the circle of annoying, but worthless was off the page.
Roak reached out and steadied himself against the wall by the exit doors. He turned slowly and pressed his back against the metal, but didn’t allow his body to slump to the floor, no matter how much of a burden gravity had become.
The Maglors landed with perfect agility next to Pol and Roak gave them a nod.
“Good job, boys,” Roak whispered. That was all he could manage.
The Maglors beamed at the bounty hunter, bright-toothed smiles slashed across gore-coated faces.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Spickle said.
“We do good,” Sath added. “Yes. Do good.”
“I did not know Maglors hated Kweets so much,” Pol said.
“They awful things,” Sath said, shaking his head. “Awful, awful things.”
“Maglors hate Kweets more than anything,” Spickle said.
“I gather that,” Pol said.
“Doors,” Roak said, slowly reaching out and slapping the still closed exit. “Now.”
“Yes, right, of course,” Pol said. “I was so taken by the Maglors’ performance that I…”
Roak didn’t hear the rest of the statement. He didn’t hear Hessa calling in his ear or the Maglors’ panic. He especially didn’t hear the sound his head made when it thunked against the walkway’s grate as his body finally gave out.
15.
The return to consciousness was a thrashing, fighting affair between Roak and the lid of a med pod. The med pod won since the machines were designed to keep even a pissed-off Urvein safely contained inside. Still, it took Roak a good full minute of fist punching before he realized the score and calmed down.
Or calmed down enough to not hurt himself.
“Get me out of here!” Roak shouted, not seeing a single soul in the small, dark room that housed the med pod. Not that he could see much out of the time-stained plastiglass lid. “Get me all the Hells out of here!”
One of the Maglors, Roak couldn’t tell which, came sprinting into the room, his hairy finger to his lips. Roak quieted his mouth, but his glare was as loud as a ten-meter-wide plasma casino sign on Ballyway.
The Maglor, Sath by the look of him as he got closer, worked at the controls of the med pod then banged his small fist against the latch before the lid would unseal and open up. Roak nodded at the being and sat up slowly, mentally assessing his physical state.
He felt good, but not great. That told him he hadn’t been in the med pod for long.
Roak stretched his formerly shattered leg and winced as he worked out the soreness. Then he hopped out of the med pod, stood on shaky legs for a few seconds, nodded at Sath, and said, “Clothes. Armor. Weapons. Where are they?”
Roak was stark naked and there wasn’t a sign of his armor or weapons anywhere in the dark room. He stood there, looming over the Maglor. Sath scrunched up his face then pointed a finger at the door to the dark room.
“You want talk them,” Sath said and moved out of the bounty hunter’s way.
“Them?” Roak asked, walking to the door. He paused. “How many them?”
“Six?” Sath repli
ed.
“You don’t know for sure?” Roak asked. “You can count, Sath.”
“Six,” Sath said with more confidence, but zero bravery.
Roak looked the Maglor up and down, which didn’t take long, and noted the lack of weaponry on him. No Blorta pistol on the Maglor’s belt.
“What kind of situation am I walking into?” Roak asked.
“You talk them,” Sath said.
“Is this talk going to hurt?”
Sath looked confused. He glanced at the med pod then back at Roak. “No hurt. They fix you. No hurt.”
“But…?”
“But they want talk.”
“About…?”
Sath shook his head and pointed at the door. Roak growled low in his throat, but the implied threat didn’t budge the Maglor’s extended finger.
“Fine,” Roak snapped and pressed the keypad.
The door slid open and Roak walked out into a good-sized living room with a small kitchen attached. There were a couple of ratty-looking couches and two recliners set haphazardly around the living room. Roak noted the five beings seated on the couches and in the chairs then turned his attention to the kitchen.
Seated on a stool, with his back to Roak, Pol was laughing and flirting with the last being in the group as the woman handed the old man a plate of food then set a glass of bright pink liquid next to the plate. The woman finally looked up and smiled at Roak.
“You live,” the woman said.
Lipians. All of them.
Roak took another look around and realized two of the women seated on the couches were the Lipians from earlier; the ones he’d taken the Blortas from. He nodded at them, eyed the two male Lipians that were in the recliners, studied the third young woman in the living room, then returned his attention to the Lipian that had addressed him and was busy fetching a plate from a cabinet.
“Clothes. Armor. Weapons,” Roak stated.
One of the men began to stand, but the woman in the kitchen held up a hand and he froze in place then settled back into his recliner.
“We don’t work for Mr. Roak,” the woman said.
“Roak. Just Roak,” Roak replied.
“I explained that to her, but Lipians can be formal,” Pol said.