"Steel, ready the dragonfire!" Riff cried.
The knight stood at a control panel, face hard, staring down at the gaping pit of the hub. "We are ready to burn them."
Seventy kilometers, read the head-up display.
Sixty.
Fifty.
"Hold on, everyone," Riff said. "We swoop. We blast out fire. Then we soar and watch this whole damn planet explode."
Forty.
We won't have enough fuel to fly home, Riff knew. We're too hurt, too broken, our hull punched full of holes. He clenched his fist. But we will get this job done nonetheless.
Riff stared down at the mechanical planet. He gritted his teeth. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He could barely see the rest of the battle now, only the odd flash of light. Below gaped the crater, this pit like an ear canal leading into the planet's brain. According to the tuloys, down there in the darkness pulsed the mind of the machine. The central processing unit of the Singularity. Its single point of failure.
And we're going to melt its circuits.
Riff engaged the thruster engines, slowing them down just enough . . . just enough to avoid a crash, just enough to hover above the pit, just enough to blow fire.
"Thirty-five kilometers away. Thirty-four. Thirty-three."
The thruster engines thrummed, blasting out gas.
Steel readied his finger over the button.
Nova was gone now, perhaps dead. Giga had fallen silent. Piston was nowhere to be seen. Riff's father no longer flew here, lost in the battle, maybe fallen.
But I'm still flying, Riff thought. Life still stands.
He sucked in air and adjusted the joystick, positioning the Dragon Huntress directly over the pit.
"For life," he whispered. "Steel, fi—"
And life rose.
Shrieking. Clattering. Pulsing.
Riff screamed.
A winged spider, its body glassy, leaped onto him.
Steel ignited the cannon, and dragonfire blasted out.
The spider tugged at Riff, clawing him, shoving him against the joystick. The Dragon Huntress lurched in the sky.
The dragonfire—the last plasma in the ship—spurted out into the darkness, streamed over the gaping pit, and vanished into the vacuum of space.
No.
Riff's heart tore.
Gods no.
The spider squealed and clawed at him, mad with rage.
Riff pulled out his gun and fired. Steel howled and swung his sword. The weapons slammed into the spider, cutting it, but the alien was too enraged to notice, and it kept attacking, tearing at them, and Riff's blood spilled, and the ship spun madly. Twig screamed, tumbled through the bridge, and slammed into the windshield. Riff fired again, driving a hole into the spider, and Giga laughed somewhere in the distance, and the engines roared and sputtered and fell silent.
Silence.
Nothing but silence.
Almost graceful, like a leaf gliding from an autumn tree, the Dragon Huntress fell from the sky.
Sound.
Roaring sound.
Screams of breaking metal, of shattering glass, of breaking life.
They slammed into the surface of the planet. They scraped across gears, showering sparks. They tore into towering structures of metal. Their engines sputtered, shoving them along, until they slammed into a canyon, and they fell into darkness.
Shadows and pain and cold.
Ringing, rolling clouds over silence.
Riff moaned, lying in darkness, lying in the wreckage of the bridge. His seat had torn free from the floor and lay against the cracked windshield. A metal beam torn from the wall lay across Riff's legs, pinning him down. Twig lay slumped in a corner, her eyes closed. Flickering lights flashed upon Steel; the knight was moaning on the floor. The lights of the battle above flashed, streaming across the floor, though Riff could no longer see the warships above. He could hear nothing but something dripping, maybe blood, a moan . . . and then a clatter.
Pulsing with azure light, the glass spider rose.
It towered over Riff, seven feet tall, organs thrumming within its translucent abdomen like beads of light in a lava lamp. The same breed they had fought back on the planet Adilor. The same breed whose mother he had killed.
Riff moaned, bleeding, head spinning.
Don't let me die like this, he prayed. Not like this, so close.
The spider reared above him, bearing its fangs. Venom dripped. Its translucent wings spread out, buzzing like the wings of a dragonfly.
Riff tried to reach his gun, but it was trapped under the beam. He tried to free himself but could not.
The spider screeched, then dived down to bite.
With a red flash, three prongs of metal drove into the spider's head.
Juices spurted. The spider shrieked.
Riff turned his head to see Romy standing beside him, holding the shaft of her pitchfork, driving the tines deeper into the spider. Tears streamed down the demon's cheeks, and her body shook with sobs. Shreds of cobwebs hung across her shoulders and clung to her legs.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Frank, I'm sorry I'm sorry."
The spider turned its pierced head toward the demon, and its eyes blinked, and it mewled, a soft, almost sad sound, an almost human sound.
Why? it seemed to ask. Why, Mother? Why?
Romy wept. She tugged her pitchfork free. She thrust it forward again, driving the prongs into the spider's body.
The abdomen shattered like glass, spilling out the glowing organs within. The spider gave a last gasp, then fell over dead and lay still.
Groaning, Steel struggled to his feet and limped over. He grabbed the beam trapping Riff, and with Romy's help, managed to lift it off him. Twig crawled over, coughing, smeared with oil.
"We . . . we have to reach the hub," Riff said, voice hoarse. He grabbed a control panel and pulled himself to his feet. "We have to stop this. To stop the Singularity. Space suits. We go. Take all your weapons."
They looked at one another, then back at him.
"Captain," Twig whispered, "we don't know what's in that pit. We need to hail another ship. To fill that hole with fire. To burn whatever's inside there. Not . . . not wander in with just a few plasma guns." She shuddered. "You saw what flew out from there! Thousands of metallic insects, each large as a cow."
Romy's chest heaved as she clutched her pitchfork, and tears still flowed down her cheeks. Steel stared back at Riff, eyes grim in his haggard face.
They're afraid, Riff knew. But they will follow me if I ask them to.
He limped toward the cabinet. The door had shattered, swinging open to reveal the space suits within. He pulled one on.
"The other ships are engaged in battle," he said. "They're falling fast. Even with gruffles, ashais, humans . . . they are falling. And the Singularity is evolving even as we speak. I don't know if I can stop this machine. This great consciousness of metal." He zipped up his suit. "But I'm going in there. I'm going down into this pit, this hub. And whatever's down there—whatever computer chips, cables, or robot king—I'm going to shoot it." He strapped Ethel to his side. "If you want to stay here, I understand. I . . ."
But the others were already putting on their space suits.
"No need for speeches, brother." Steel put on his helmet and raised his sword. "I'm only a simple knight, a man of piousness, of honor, of chivalry. I've never trusted computers. I quite look forward to smashing the biggest one in the galaxy." He stepped closer and placed a hand on Riff's shoulder. "I fight with you, my brother. Now and always."
Twig raised her electric wrench. "I went into the jaws of a giant tardigrade for you, sir. What's a giant computer the size of a planet?"
Romy hefted her pitchfork, and her tail gave a weak wag. "I'm with you, Captain." She saluted, tears in her eyes, and her lips wobbled. "Cadet Romy reporting for duty, sir. Always."
He nodded, and love for them sprung in his heart. They were his family. They were life—his life. They were wo
rth fighting for and fighting with.
"I don't know where Nova and Piston are," he said. "I don't know if they're still alive. I don't know if we can save Giga from the virus possessing her. But I know this." He held out their badges. "We are still the Alien Hunters. And there's a damn big alien computer out there to hunt."
They snapped on their badges, the words "Alien Hunters" gleaming upon them. Riff stretched out his gloved hand. Steel placed his large, strong hand upon it. Twig added her tiny hand, no larger than a human toddler's. Romy placed her hand on top of the pile; her space suit's glove had holes for her claws.
"For the Alien Hunters," Riff said.
"For the Alien Hunters!" they echoed him.
We were seven, Riff thought. Four remain. Four united, still fighting.
He led the way. They walked behind him, weapons raised. They stepped out of the Dragon Huntress and onto the surface of Antikythera, this massive planet coated with the gears and chips of the Singularity.
There ahead of them it gaped like a sinkhole. A valley of metal, a hole in its center like a drain in a sink.
The hub.
The four Alien Hunters walked together, heading toward the chasm and whatever lay within.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
DUEL
My own brother shot me down.
Nova lay in the wreckage of the scorpion jet upon the surface of a mechanical world. Blood seeped down her leg, and she moaned in pain. Shattered glass and metal lay around her, and the great battle of her generation flared above, countless ships flying in a great symphony of light and destruction.
Senka, my baby brother, the little prince . . . shot me from the sky.
She sneered. Ignoring the pain, she shoved herself to her feet. She stood in the wreckage, her armor battered and scratched, the visor of her helmet fogging up. She was hurt. She was alone. But she still held her whip, and she hit the button on the handle, sending electricity crackling across the lash.
"I still fight," she whispered.
She looked around her at the surface of planet Antikythera. It felt like being a microbe standing on the motherboard of a home computer. Circuit boards the size of glaciers rose around her. Cables twisted everywhere like the roots of trees. Gears the size of warships rose and fell and clicked and turned. Transistors blinked, motors hummed, and lights flashed. Nova could not see the Dragon Huntress; she had crashed too far, kilometers away.
Yet near her, only a hundred meters away, lay the nose of the scorpion jet. From the wreckage he rose, his armor charred, his whip crackling.
"Senka," she hissed.
The Prince of Ashmar came walking toward her across the circuitry and gears and cables. The lights of the battle above flashed upon him, and his green eyes blazed like headlights. His whip flailed like a living serpent, casting out sparks of electricity.
"The throne of Ashmar is mine, sister." He cracked his whip. "You tried to steal what is mine, and so here, far from home, you die."
Nova growled and ran toward him.
He charged forward, screaming.
Their whips swung and slammed together, showering sparks, entangling. They tugged back, and the whips pulled free. They swung the thongs again.
"You fool, Senka!" Nova shouted. "I'm not your enemy."
"You became my enemy once you left our home with the ape." He swung his whip in an arc, and Nova ducked, dodging the electric lash. "You became my enemy once you returned to steal Ashmar's throne from me."
"All of Ashmar will burn if we don't stop the Singularity!" Nova swung her whip, and Senka raised his own lash, parrying the blow. "There will be no throne to rule."
"Then I will rule over ashes!" Tears now filled his eyes, but rage too. "Then I will watch the cosmos burn and you burn with it."
He leaped onto a gear that jutted up from the ground, raced up its teeth like racing up a staircase, then plunged down toward her with a battle cry.
Nova leaped toward him, whip lashing.
His lash cracked against her chest, blasting electricity through her, nearly cracking her suit of kaijia armor. Her own whip slammed against Senka's helmet, raising sparks. The bolts of electricity tossed them apart. They both flew through the emptiness and slammed onto their backs. Nova gasped with pain.
She shoved herself back onto her feet.
He charged toward her.
They vaulted over a chasm, slammed together, then fell apart. They tumbled. She grabbed a cable and swung, leaped into the sky, and landed on a moving gear. The gear whirred below her, tossing her aside, and she flew again and her back slammed against a towering circuit.
Before she could even hit the ground, he was running toward her again.
She rolled aside, and his whip drove into the circuit, shattering it. She lashed her whip and he dodged it.
"Senka, stop this madness!" she shouted. "Help me reach the hub. Fight the Singularity, not your sister!"
He lifted a flashing bulb at his feet, tore it off the metal ground, and tossed it her. Nova swung her whip, halving the projectile.
"After you die, sister, I will tell the people that you died crying, cowering from the enemy." He laughed. "All will know who you are—a coward who lies with apes. And after I kill you . . . I will kill your ape lover too. I will kill Riff Starfire and toss his body between these gears."
Nova shook with rage. Riff needed her. The Alien Hunters needed her. And more than she cared about Ashmar's throne, she cared about the Alien Hunters now. They were her new family.
My father uses me for his pride, she thought. I'm nothing but a symbol for him, a living scepter of royalty. To my brother, I'm nothing but a sinner, a traitor to kill. She sucked air through her clenched teeth. But Riff loves me. Steel, Romy, Piston, Twig, even Giga if her consciousness still lives . . . they love me. Her eyes dampened. And I love them. My family.
She raced across the gears, roaring. Senka ran toward her, and his whip lashed her arm, cracking the armor, then coiled around to bite her back, to tear her skin, but Nova kept running. She howled in her fury, and she leaped onto Senka and knocked him down against the metal ground.
"I used to beat the shit out of you when we were kids." She slammed his head against the ground. "And I'm going to do the same now, you little twerp. I've had enough of you."
He wailed. She grabbed his helmet with both hands and slammed it down again and again. He tried to fight back, to kick her off. She tore a chunk of electronics off the planet and drove it down hard, slicing through his armor, cutting his flesh. His blood spurted. He wailed. She swung the metal again, slamming it into his helmet, knocking his head against the ground. When he tried to rise, to shove her off, she tore a massive gear off the surface—it was large as a coffee table—and slammed it down onto him.
Senka screamed, the gear pinning his body to the ground.
Nova tore his whip out of his hand, stepped back, and held both electric lashes, one in each hand.
Senka lay before her, the gear atop him. He tried to free himself but could not. His head fell back, and he gasped for breath.
"Go on," he whispered hoarsely. "Go on, kill me. Do it."
She stood above him, holding both crackling lashes.
"Do it!" he shouted. "Kill me. Or are you a coward? Kill me! Let me die in battle."
She sighed. She turned off her whips' electricity. The flailing lashes drooped to the ground.
"No," she whispered. "No, you will live."
He roared, struggling against the gear that pinned him down. "I am a warrior! Warriors die in battle! Give me the glory of death. You are a coward! What kind of weakling shows an enemy mercy?"
She stood above him. "Mercy is not a weakness. Mercy is strength."
He spat. "You sound like a human."
"Then I'm proud. Because humans are not weak, brother. Their mercy, their compassion—it gives them strength. There is a reason Father fears Earth. There is a reason why Earth's fleets are larger than ours, why they colonize many planets while we colonize
only a few moons. There is a reason why Earth is the dominant power of the Humanoid Alliance while we ashais are forever playing second fiddle." She shook her head sadly. "I learned that among the humans. I learned that cruelty, rage, and hatred do not make one stronger. These have weakened us in Ashmar." Her eyes stung with tears. "It's love that makes one strong. It's love that led me here to fight with my friends. It's love that will lead me to them now. It's love that will defeat this heartless computer." She tugged the massive gear, pulling it off Senka. "And it's love for you, my little brother, that saves your life now. Rise, Senka."
She dropped her whip. She reached her hand down to him.
He stared up at her. Nova expected him to rail, to spit, to attack her again, to bite her hand.
But instead he began to cry.
"I'm scared," he whispered. "Oh, Nova, I'm scared. I'm so scared."
She knelt above him. She placed her hand against his visor. "Of the Singularity?"
"Of Father." His visor fogged up as his tears fell. "Of Ashmar. Of . . . of being a prince. Being strong. Proving myself to him, failing him." He looked down at his body. "I'm bleeding, Nova. I'm dying."
She pulled a roll of duct tape off her belt, tore off strips, and sealed his suit. "Never go into space without duct tape." She helped him to his feet. "Do not fight for pride, brother. Do not fight for glory." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Fight for life."
She turned around. The battle still raged above, the ships flying, tumbling, rising, crashing. Across the metal fields of the planet Antikythera, she could make out pluming smoke where the Dragon Huntress had crashed . . . where darkness waited.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
THE HUB
The four figures climbed down into the metallic pit. Two men, one armed with a gun, the other with a sword. A woman, her hair flaming inside her helmet, illuminating her red face and fangs. And a tiny figure, no larger than a toddler, holding a wrench.
Nova should be here with us, fighting with her whip, Riff thought as he clung to the steel cable, climbing down into the darkness. Piston should be here with his hammer. Giga should be on my communicator, guiding my way.
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