by Justin Sloan
Kalan wasn’t so sure, but he kept that to himself.
After they’d passed through the airlock their helmet sensors blinked to alert them that the air was breathable, so they took off their helmets.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Bob said. “I hate that stuffy thing.” He struggled to keep his huge rifle balanced on his shoulder while removing his helmet with one hand.
Jilla shook her head. “You know you look ridiculous, right? Give me that.”
He reluctantly handed her his rifle while he removed his helmet, then quickly took it back.
They stood there for a few moments observing their surroundings.
Wearl broke the silence. “Well, this is…homey.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Bob muttered.
From his observations and monitor readings Kalan knew the dome was about a mile across, but in here their view was obstructed by numerous piles of junk.
The place looked like a mechanical dumping ground. Piles of scrap metal and rusted pieces of machinery and discarded equipment lay in haphazard piles twenty feet high. Kalan wondered where the hell all this stuff had come from and why it was gathered here.
“I assume there’s a home somewhere in here?” Jilla asked.
“One would assume.” Kalan turned to Daschle. “Any insights?”
Daschle shook his head. “Sorry. I saw the records of what Willom requisitioned, but it’s not like he gave us a map or anything.”
Kalan sighed. “Okay, then I say we head toward the center.”
They wove between the mounds, and the farther they walked the more nervous Kalan became. Between the communications they’d sent and the open airlock there was no way Willom didn’t know he had visitors, so why wasn’t he showing himself? Or if he didn’t want visitors, why leave the airlock unlocked?
Bob eyed the scrap as they passed it. He seemed more interested the farther they went.
As annoying as Bob could often be, Kalan had learned it was a good idea to trust the human’s instincts. “You see something interesting?”
Bob hesitated before answering. When he did, he said in a low voice. “Some of these parts look familiar. I can’t be sure, but I think these things come from robots.”
Kalan raised an eyebrow. “Like the ones that attacked us at Outpost Alpha?”
It seemed impossible that these rusted old parts were of the same ilk as the shiny and pristine machines he’d fought not long ago.
“Maybe,” Bob said. “Not as advanced, though. Maybe these are from older models? I wonder if—”
Kalan held up a hand to silence the man. He thought he’d heard something from the north, like clanking and grinding.
For a moment there was nothing but then he heard it again, louder than before.
“What is that?” Daschle asked softly.
Kalan drew his Tralen-14 and held it at his side. He didn’t want to appear threatening, but he needed to be ready if things got hostile.
He looked at the team, his eyes serious. “We don’t do anything unless they attack, but if they do…”
Bob hefted his rifle. “Don’t worry. If they do, we’ll be ready.”
A moment later, a robot clambered around a pile of junk thirty feet ahead of them. The machine was bigger than the ones they’d seen at Outpost Alpha, but it was oddly mismatched, as if it had been cobbled together from parts from a dozen other mechs. One of its arms was two feet longer than the other. Its right leg was spotted with large swaths of rust, but the left leg looked almost new.
It didn’t appear to be carrying a weapon, but its longer arm ended in a suspiciously weapon-like barrel.
Kalan raised his empty hand in a wave. “Hello. We’re here to see Willom. We have a few questions, and we were hoping we could speak to him.”
By way of response the robot raised its weapon-like arm and pointed it at them.
Kalan’s eyes widened. “Get down!” He dove to his left, ducking behind a pile of metal. The others scattered just as quickly, and Jilla took up a position next to him.
A moment later rapid gunfire filled the air.
Kalan looked around frantically to see if his team was all right. Jilla, Bob, and Daschle were upright and positioned behind mounds of parts. He couldn’t see Wearl, of course, so he’d have to trust she was playing it safe.
He listened for the sound of the robot moving or firing again, but it didn’t. He risked a glance around the junk and saw the robot standing perfectly still, its weapon still raised and pointed in their general direction.
He turned to Jilla and spoke softly. “Maybe it’s programmed to maintain a certain perimeter, and as long as we stay outside that it won’t attack?”
“Maybe.” Jilla sounded skeptical. “Or maybe it’s been ordered to pin us down until its friends get here.”
Kalan grimaced. If that was the case, then Willom had purposely attacked them. He’d much rather believe this was a machine operating on preprogrammed orders.
“Wearl?” he asked softly.
Her response came from right next to his ear, making him jump.
“I’m here.”
“Damn it, tap me on the shoulder next time or something.” He took a breath, forcing himself to relax. “You think you can take him out?”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
He felt her brush past him into the clearing and watched through a gap in the junk as she advanced. He was surprised to see the robot moving his gun arm smoothly, as if tracking her movements—
“Wearl, get out of there! It can see you.”
The machine fired, confirming his words.
Kalan felt an invisible hand on his shoulder.
“That’s impossible,” she said. “It can’t see me. That’s not how this works.”
Kalan stammered. “Well, maybe it can sense your heat signature or something. How the hell should I know? Point is, he was about to shoot you.”
Wearl let out a fierce sound that reminded Kalan of an animal growling. “Can robots feel pain? Because I really want it to feel pain.”
Kalan ignored the comment. He needed to come up with a plan fast. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Jilla could be right. The robot could be pinning them down until reinforcements arrived.
“Bob,” he called. “You ready to put that big ugly thing to use?”
Bob stared at him from behind the next pile, blinking dumbly, but after a moment he said, “Oh, you mean the gun!”
“Yes,” he whispered loudly, not sure if the robot could hear them from where it stood or whether it could even comprehend language. It didn’t seem to matter at that point. They had to do something. “You and Wearl have the biggest guns, so when I say go start firing at the thing. I don’t care if you hit it or not, just hold its attention. Got it?”
Bob nodded and shifted his rifle to a ready position.
Kalan tapped Jilla on the shoulder and motioned around the pile of junk the long way. She nodded her understanding.
He caught Daschle’s eye, but the Skulla shook his head and crouched low to the ground. Kalan sighed. Not everyone could be a fighter, he supposed.
Taking a deep breath, he readied himself. “Go!”
Wearl and Bob started firing at the robot immediately, and the robot fired back.
Kalan and Jilla moved quickly and quietly around the back of the junkpile. If they could get behind the robot maybe they could find a weakness, or at least attack it from two sides.
He silently wished Valerie were there. She would probably tear the damn thing in half with her bare hands.
The booming sounds of Wearl’s Shimmer weapon and the deep rapid sound of Bob’s and the robot’s similar rifles filled the air as Jilla and Kalan moved into position.
“There,” Kalan whispered excitedly, pointing at a small gap between the armor of its head and shoulders where he saw a mess of exposed wires. Most robots were built with central processing units in their heads, because most designers replicated the design of living beings instead of put
ting it in the much better protected chest cavity. If they could damage the connection between the head and the body, they might be able to disable it.
He crept forward, but Jilla put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a look. He paused, then motioned for her to go ahead—this was no time for pride. While he was a better pilot and much better at hand-to-hand combat, she was a crack shot. He couldn’t match her in that regard.
She crept forward and trained her pistol on the robot’s neck, then stopped and took careful aim.
But before she could fire, the robot slumped. It was as if whatever power had been coursing through it had suddenly been switched off.
“What the hell?” Kalan muttered.
“Hey,” Bob called, “I think I got it.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but that was me.” The voice came from a little ways off, behind another pile of scrap. “I apologize for my guard’s lack of manners. I wasn’t sure who you were, and I wanted to feel you out.”
He stepped into the open, showing himself.
Kalan had been expecting to see a Grayhewn and this guy was that, but he was much more.
The Grayhewn stood a bit taller than Kalan and had a similar flat nose, but that, along with his size and the color of his skin, was where the similarity ended.
His arms and legs were as mechanical as the robot’s, and he had a small control board with green buttons implanted in the back of his metal hand. His face and body appeared to be his own except for his eyes, which glowed a pale blue.
“My name’s Willom,” he said, looking them over with his cold eyes. “I’d like to welcome you to my home. Now what the hell are you doing here?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tol’s Moon
Flying back to the moon was an edge-of-the-seat experience for all aboard the Grandeur. While they couldn’t see the ships from this far off, taking down an enemy vessel in space required only proper tracking and aiming. Since Talrok now had the entire space station and the surviving ships, mechs, drones, and whatever else there was under his command, the shots were coming hot and heavy.
“We shook them!” Flynn called as the screen showed another missile losing lock.
“Does that take us out of their reach yet?” Robin asked. As calm as her voice sounded, she couldn’t hide the way she was gripping the armrests or how white her cheeks were.
“While they have the Aranaught we won’t ever be truly out of their reach,” Arlay interjected, “but I might have some ideas about that.”
Valerie turned to her, waiting.
“Care to hold us in suspense a while longer?” Flynn asked. “It’s not like we’re in a high-stress environment or anything.”
“I served under Talrok long before that thing took over,” Arlay continued. “Or at least I likely did, based on assumptions I’m making regarding his changing behavior. He taught me a thing or two, and if the Aranaught is jacked in, meaning spread throughout all its various pieces, I might be able to get in there and do some damage.”
“You mean hacking?” the Bandian asked, eyes wide.
“Someone up this false-Bandian’s dosage and put him back to sleep,” Valerie commanded.
“It’s all used up,” Flynn replied. “I guess we assumed we’d be done with him by now.”
“Yet you aren’t,” the Bandian replied, “and I can actually help here.”
Arlay furrowed her brow, but nodded. “It’s true. If he had an early hand in all this—”
“But there’s no way we can trust him,” Valerie interrupted. “Not a chance.”
“You don’t have to,” the Bandian replied. “If she knows anything about this, she’ll know what’s bogus and what’s not. I can walk her through enough of it to get past the security protocols, at least the first and maybe even second lines of defense.”
A glance at Arlay confirmed this.
“And why would you do that?” Robin asked. “Why help?”
He hung his head, then looked at their feet. “Those are my people too, on Tol. You might say I let power get to my head, you might say I was a ruthless, terrible leader—”
“No might about it—we’re saying it.”
“Right…” He looked up now, determined. “You can say all that, but the point remains that the Skulla and even the other races of Tol are my people. What I was doing down there—it wasn’t to allow the Aranaught in. It was to placate her, to lead her on until I could find a backdoor, then slip in without her noticing.”
“And you did?”
He nodded. “Or I would have, if I hadn’t been interrupted.”
“Not to be the twelve-year-old boy in the room,” Flynn said, “but was I the only one here who found that all incredibly dirty? As like, a metaphor, I mean.”
“What?” Robin looked at him with disgust, then laughed. “Oh, yeah, now I get it. Backdoor and all that. Gross.”
“Can we focus, children?” Arlay said sternly.
She played tough, but Valerie was pretty sure she saw a glimmer of amusement in those eyes.
“The point is,” Valerie said, “that you have a way in. It might not be the best option, but in this case it’s all we have.”
“You could say it’s a small plan,” Flynn offered, “but in this case, size doesn’t matter.”
Valerie rolled her eyes. “Know when to quit.”
“Right, sorry. Stepping back.”
She glanced at him, wondering if the action had revealed who he really was or if this was how he coped with stressful situations. With a shake of her head, she turned back to Arlay and said, “You can’t do it alone?”
“I could try,” she replied, “but…having him might be of use. While I understand the basics, I’ve never actually been inside the Aranaught. His knowledge of her inner workings could be incredibly valuable in this situation.”
“It’s settled then,” Valerie replied, with a glance at the display that told her they were coming up on the moon fast. “What do you need?”
“There’s equipment in Outpost Alpha. If we could get one of the drones to plug into, that might be enough.
“Consider it done.”
“Wonderful,” Flynn interjected, pointing at a series of red dots that just appeared on the plot, “but we’ve got incoming.”
“Glad you’ve got your head back in the game,” Valerie replied. “Take over. Evasive flying.”
“The goal?”
“Outpost Alpha. While you two hack and do your computer magic, get your side set up, I’ll be working on getting us a drone to connect with.”
“Roger that,” he said, and selected their destination, already working on evasive maneuvers and setting up counter-shots.
The rest strapped in and braced themselves, and were soon diving through a barrage of drones and newly situated anti-aircraft coming at them. Shot after shot either nearly missed or hit the shields, and Flynn started screaming about shields going down.
“Just get us to that damn outpost!” Valerie replied, then turned with surprise as Arlay unstrapped herself and grabbed the controls, pushing Flynn aside. He was twice her size, but that didn’t stop her.
“You all fly like babies,” Arlay grumbled, maneuvering the Grandeur like an offshoot of her soul. “Did you learn to fly yesterday?”
“That’s not horribly off,” Valerie replied, watching in amazement as the Grandeur zipped and dove, tearing through enemies with a fusillade of well-placed shots. “How the hell are you doing that, magic?”
Arlay laughed. “A little trick I like to call ‘practice.’”
“Noted. Everyone here, get more practice.”
They all laughed nervously as they approached the ground and saw a platoon of unarmed mechs charging for them and soldiers moving in from behind.
“Worry about the mechs, not the rest,” Arlay said.
“You’ve got a plan?” Valerie asked.
“As long as you have some sort of system that will let me communicate with them. Can this ship broadcast?”
“Broadcast me.” Arlay did a pass over the mechs, nearly taking a shower of small missiles to the wing. One actually did clip it. “Now!”
Valerie flipped on the switch and replied, “Go!”
“To all forces of Talrok, this is Commander Arlay. The real Talrok was killed and replaced by an impostor. He has taken command of the Aranaught and is turning them against me. Fight against this injustice! Fight for Talrok!”
The ground forces weren’t their immediate concern, since another mech came at them with its plasma cannon at the ready.
“Missiles?” Arlay asked.
“On it,” Valerie replied, using her controls to aim at the hunk of metal and unleash.
The barrage made contact and the mech stumbled back. It started to come at them again, but more shots hit it. The ground forces were turning on the mechs!
Ka-BOOM!
“Contact!” Flynn shouted. “Left wing!”
“No shit!” Valerie replied, bracing herself as the Grandeur began overcompensating and then went into a tailspin, flinging all of them about in the ship like young teens on a carnival ride.
“Brace for impact!” Garcia called out, pulling Flynn into the seat next to him—the one that Arlay had occupied before she took over.
“Ahhhhh!” Robin was shouting, looking more pissed about the situation than scared, and then there was laughter—strange, maniacal laughter.
Valerie struggled to glance around as the force of the fall held her in place, and she saw the Bandian cracking up from the back, having a grand ol’ time. That was, of course, right before he suddenly looked sick and unleashed a river of revolting green and orange across the ship.
“FU—UCCKKKK!” Valerie screamed as some of it hit her cheek, then the ground rose up to meet them and they went skidding across like a rock on the water, tearing up the ground and sending debris in all directions. With a thwack, the ship came to a stop at the base of a small hill of rocks.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tol’s Moon: Willom’s Junkyard
Willom led them on a twisting path through the junkyard toward his home. He was silent during the journey, so they followed suit. They’d made their introductions—everyone but Wearl, who maintained her usual quiet-around-strangers approach—but they hadn’t spoken much since then.