Message for the Dead

by Jason Anspach

  Keel shrugged. “Even though I'm a legionnaire and you specifically know how well I do with my back to the wall?”

  Ravi led Keel farther down the corridor. “Of course I include all factors in my calculations, so I have taken into consideration your particular attributes, Captain Keel.”

  Keel waited to see if his navigator would supply him with an actual number. The silence was telling. Keel decided he couldn’t wait any longer. “Really? That bad?”

  Ravi’s eyes twinkled. “I will say that the odds of escaping are better than those facing you had you attempted to destroy the ship as you originally intended.”

  “Forget I asked.”

  “Technically you did not ask,” Ravi said. “You hinted. This is not the same.”

  They came upon an exit in the corridor, on the wall opposite the Deluvia. Other than the door into the ghost ship, this was the first door Keel had seen in the long corridor from the moment he’d first entered it with Skrizz.

  He checked both his weapons. “Well, here we go.” He activated the door.

  A swarm of small, spider-like bots was waiting to greet them.

  Keel leveled his blaster, but Ravi pushed forward, sweeping his blade through the bots. “Through these, we must run,” he said.

  Hot on his navigator’s heels, Keel dodged the bots that attempted to jump up on him. Ravi had once again done a remarkable job at clearing a path for him. But one spider-bot had avoided the holgram’s blade. It stood in Keel’s path, swaying from side to side like an athletic defender trying to halt Keel’s progress. Keel kicked the bot and sent it soaring past Ravi’s head. Still in mid-stride, Keel aimed his blaster pistol and shot the machine on its downward arc, sending a shower of sparks and ruined machinery to the ground.

  He gave a whoop of self-admiration. “Did you see that, Ravi?”

  “Yes, very impressive,” said Ravi, though he sounded anything but impressed.

  The corridor they ran down was unremarkable, white overhead lights shining on black floors, all going by in a blur as they ran, covering as much ground as possible. They passed a row of speedlifts, twenty on each side, For a moment, they were unimpeded; but only for a moment. At an intersection just ahead, a murderous cadre of bots, in all shapes and sizes, awaited.

  “This way!” Ravi called, taking a hard turn into a crossing passage.

  Keel followed the hologram as they cut left and right, taking a snaking trail of halls that seemed to him like a maze. All the while, he tried not to think about what might be chasing them.

  A Titan appeared ahead in the narrow corridor they moved through, practically filling the space. Ravi didn’t slow. He surged forward, slicing the machine in two.

  How do you stop something like that? Keel asked himself. And then it occurred to him that he couldn't. Ravi was raging through the ship like a force outside of nature. Only a similar force could stop him—or Ravi would have to stop himself. If Ravi really was the last of his species, and this species had fled the galaxy despite being capable of this…? What did that say about the “black wave” that was coming?

  Keel didn’t have long to think about it. The bots were everywhere now. He understood now why the odds were so low. Without Ravi, he wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting back to the ship.

  And what if there was no ship to return to?

  Keel needed to call the Six and let them know to wait a while longer. He ran past two nimble Cybar warriors, smaller than the Titans, perhaps two meters tall, and casually blasted one with each hand as he went by. Then he opened his comm.

  “Six, what’s your status? You still docked?”

  “Wraith!” answered Garret, sounding near panic. “It’s pretty crazy outside the Six right now. Leenah’s going to get us out of here, finally. She’s heading to the cockpit now. The shields failed twice!”

  “No!” Keel shouted.

  “She got them back up—”

  “No, I mean don’t leave!”

  “I thought you said—”

  “I know what I said!” Keel followed Ravi onto a balcony that overlooked a sort of courtyard. A gilded personal admin bot stood by the balcony rails, and Keel shouldered it off—just in case. It tumbled stiffly to the ground two floors below. “Ravi and I are on our way. Don’t leave without us unless you absolutely, positively have to!”

  Ravi engaged a Cybar Titan that had emerged from a ceramic panel in the wall, sending maintenance bots scurrying for cover. The navigator cut off the Titan’s arm, and the arm, along with its white shield, fell to the ground with a heavy clatter. Keel sent a bullet at the bot, boring a hole through its armor chest plating.

  The Cybar looked down, stunned but unharmed.

  Keel had meant to shoot the bot in the head. But Ravi had been standing in the way and had thrown Keel's aim off. Or that’s what he told himself. He was growing tired.

  He fired again, and this time his aim was true. The bot locked up with its legs bent mid-stride, tottered, and fell to the ground with a thud.

  Keel continued running, clearing the machine in a single hurdle. His lungs were aching even with his suit doing all it scientifically could to keep him at peak performance. His legs didn't feel so hot, either, and there was a coppery taste in his mouth. It was probably just from the run, but he worried it was damage caused by the squeezing he’d endured outside the Deluvia. He couldn't say for sure, but with the pain that stabbed him with every breath, he worried a rib was cracked. This was agony, pure and simple. The likes of which he hadn’t experienced since Legion Selection School.

  Garret had held his tongue—he must have sensed the action, and that Keel was in no position to talk—but now he resumed the conversation. “Okay, so I tell Leenah that now you’re coming and that she shouldn’t take off?”

  The sound of the Six’s burst turrets raged in the background as Garret spoke. Things were hot in the docking bay, positively torrid. Keel wondered just how long they could hold out.

  “Right,” Keel confirmed, struggling to keep his breath even. “Don't take off unless you absolutely have to. And then, when the time comes, wait another five minutes. Wraith out.”

  “Okay,” Garret said meekly. “I’ll let everybody know. Hey, is Skrizz with you? We haven’t seen him yet.”

  Keel muted his comm and let out a sigh. What did Garret think he’d meant when he said, “Wraith out?” He needed to be focusing on running and shooting the machines that kept trying to kill him, not talking to the kid.

  “Wraith, are you there?”

  “He left a while before I did and I haven’t seen him since,” Keel panted.

  “Oh, okay,” Garrett said as though he were wrapping up a casual conversation with his parents. “Well, I’d better let you go.”

  No kidding, Keel thought to himself. This time he didn’t bother with a reply. He was growing aware that his reserves were fading.

  “Ravi,” Keel said, resenting the level of exertion it took just to speak the name. “I can’t keep this pace up forever.”

  The corridor they moved through appeared like so many of the others, and Keel had no idea where they were. Ravi was doing most of the work of tearing through the bots that appeared before them, but even so, each fallen bot was a new obstacle Keel needed to sidestep, spin around, or jump over.

  “Yes, I understand your physical limitations, Captain. However, stopping in this situation would mean almost certain death. There will be no reprieves.”

  Keel didn’t reply. He wouldn’t use any energy unless it was to propel him forward one more step or kill the enemy. He dug deep. He KTF’d until even his fingers felt utterly fatigued and useless. When the slug thrower was out of bullets, he holstered this most useful of weapons, and jumped over another Titan. He didn’t get as high as he needed to though, and he clipped his foot. He stumbled on his landing but managed to maintain his balance and keep running forward. He slammed a new charge pack into his Intec blaster pistol, leaving the empty behind.

  Ravi took a hard left ar
ound a corner, and Keel followed, his fatigue sending him drifting to the right. The move saved his life, as arcs of blaster bolts soared from behind them in this crossing corridor, slamming ahead of where he’d just been.

  He glanced back over his shoulder as he ran. Two squads of the smaller man-sized bots with the N-6 variants were in hot pursuit. But these were matte black. And they were fast.

  Faster than Keel.

  They would catch him.

  “Ravi! Any more blind corners coming up?”

  Ravi look back at Keel, and then to the corridor ahead of him. It seemed that he was vacillating between turning to face the pursuing attackers and pressing forward to wade through the prepared defenses standing between them and the Indelible VI.

  Keel pulled a time-delayed charger from his webbing and cupped it in his hand.

  Ravi’s gaze fell on the device. “Not a corner, but the blast door ahead will work as well.” Ravi nodded ahead at an open quad-paneled blast door.

  Why any of the doors were working was a mystery. Keel imagined it was Garret’s doing; the kid was still frantically working on their behalf. But then again, maybe it was the AI. Maybe this CRONUS was enjoying all of this.

  Keel was not.

  “A blast door will do,” he huffed. The question was, would he be able to find the extra energy he needed to outrun the explosive’s blast radius?

  He activated the delayed charge with his thumb and dropped it onto the floor as though discarding a ration pouch. And then he ran until he felt as though his legs might refuse to carry his body another step. If and when that time came, Keel promised himself he would crawl.

  But his legs held, and he shot through the blast door like a sprinter crossing a finish line, moving too fast to hit the brakes, having to just… keep going. And maybe continuing to run was the best move. If Ravi didn’t close the door, he would need to get away from the blast or risk being cooked inside of his armor.

  The charge boomed, and Keel instinctively dove, looking over his shoulder as he did. A ball of flaming havoc enveloped the matte-black Cybar operators and continued to billow forward, advancing toward the still-open blast door.

  Ravi was manipulating the controls, and the door panels were closing swiftly. The flaming explosion hit the door just as it was nearly shut, and a pressurized jet of explosive fire roared through.

  Keel flattened himself against the deck. The blast shot over his head, burning out in the corridor’s ceiling until all that was left was thick, black smoke.

  An alarm sounded, and the corridor filled with a white anti-flame chemical. The same type as in the inferno-quenchers some legionnaires carried in their kit to put out localized fires. Keel’s bucket warned him of the rapidly diminishing oxygen levels outside, making him thankful for the technology in his heavily modified Dark Ops suit.

  Ravi was already continuing on. “The ship is not much further.”

  Maybe Ravi was telling the truth, and maybe he was just giving Keel something to keep him going. Keel was so tired and turned around, the Six could be the next door over and he wouldn’t know it. But he decided it would be best to tell himself that the run was far from over. That he would be sprinting for miles more. That he would run until his heart exploded if that's what it took.

  “I believe Garret has gained some additional control,” Ravi said, sounding impressed. “He seems to have sealed off our location to the bots.”

  That was a good trick. It was how Victory Team had survived its mission aboard the Pride of Ankalor. Most of them at least. A rogue Nether Ops agent had carefully manipulated the ship’s systems, allowing the kill team to save the day.

  Bringing up your life's history, Keel thought, is probably a sure sign in times like this that you're about to die.

  Another part of Keel’s psyche answered, Would that be so bad?

  He struggled to his feet just as a Titan battered through a small personnel door off to one side. He took a single shot with his blaster pistol, nearly depleting its charge pack. It worked almost as well as the slug thrower, deactivating the bot.

  Ravi was busy with more of the spider-bots that had poured out of a quick-courier panel. He eviscerated the machines to the last.

  Keel had killed his tens of bots, but Ravi had killed hundreds. Keel thought about shaking his head in amazement, but was too tired.

  They reached another blast door. The panels opened as the pair approached, and there, on the other side, was the blessed sight of the docking bay, and the Indelible VI.

  Less welcome was the sight of all the Six’s weapon systems firing frantically at a slew of Cybar, which seemed to be giving the Six’s shields far more than they should possibly be able to handle.

  Leenah must be working overtime.

  “We have arrived,” Ravi announced.

  “I see you,” Bombassa answered, and it dawned on Keel that his navigator hadn’t been talking to Keel, but rather the crew of the Six. “I can lower the ramp, but how will you reach it before we’re boarded and overrun?”

  Keel and Ravi stood at their place by the blast door as unseen observers, but the ship was indeed pressed on all sides by Titans and other combat bots. The only way to it was through so many bots that even Ravi couldn’t clear a big enough path. But with the bots punishing the ship’s shields, something needed to be done. Now. And Keel knew what that something was.

  The Six would need to take off.

  Without him.

  A roar sounded, and a concussion missile streaked away from the Six. Keel followed the trail of smoke to the eruption of a main battle tank that had been emerging from an adjoining bay. The tank was thrown three feet into the air, and as it landed, its burning wreck blocked the bay it had been exiting.

  “Not many concussion missiles left,” Bombassa growled over the comm. “We need a plan.”

  And then Keel had an idea. Through burning lungs, he gasped out an order. "”Clear… the… deck!”

  “What are you telling me?” said Bombassa.

  Still wheezing from exhaustion, Keel found himself only able to repeat himself. “Clear… the deck!”

  Leenah’s voice filled the comm. “He’s telling us to turn around and take off!”

  That wasn't the entirety of what Keel was saying. Clearing the deck, in featherhead terminology, meant taking off before everyone had a chance to get clear of the repulsor thrusters. Those too slow would find themselves cleared of the deck by the force of the ship’s departure. But that was only the first part of Keel’s plan. They would need to come back after that.

  He didn’t have the time or wind in his lungs to spell it all out. He’d have to trust Leenah to see the entirety of what he meant. “Yes… do it!”

  More fire was exchanged between the Six and the war machines as the Naseen freighter lifted gently off its landing struts and rotated until its thrusters were facing Keel and all the bots ahead of him.

  Pushing his body against the wall a few feet left of the door he and Ravi had just come through, Keel braced himself.

  The ship’s thrusters brightened into a purified blue, and the Indelible VI rocketed out of the hangar bay. The backwash sent even the Titans flying backwards head over feet. Several of the machines slammed into each other at high speed, sending broken parts in Keel’s direction like shrapnel. A Titan that had been right next to the Six’s thrusters spun like a top and flew straight through the nearby blast door, missing Keel by far too close of a margin. And then more bots flew his way. One of the smaller machines slammed into his armored thigh. It hurt so bad he had to fight the force of the repulsor-wind to look down and make sure his leg was still attached. The thin bot was destroyed, but Keel’s leg appeared intact.

  Buffeted by the warm repulsor wash, Keel felt his temperature increase, even as his armor attempted to keep to counteract the effect. Thankfully the wind passed him by as quickly as it came.

  He looked around.

  Bots were scattered across the docking bay, hanging from catwalks or lying deactivate
d against the walls where they had impacted. But many of them were already slowly rising back to their feet. Keel bounced on the balls of his feet, a rush of adrenaline bringing back his energy. “You can come back any time…”

  The Indelible VI was visible through the docking bay’s shielded exit. The ship did a quick loop and then re-entered the hangar, dropping its ramp and orienting itself so Keel could run aboard. Its landing struts pulverized a Titan that had been struggling to its feet.

  Keel assumed Leenah was the one flying it. She handled the ship gracefully; her mechanical genius translated itself quite well to handling flight controls. He willed himself forward through sheer, stubborn determination, legs protesting with each step. He needed time to build up into a jog and then a limping run. The effects of the bot that had crashed into his armored thigh were evident. He supposed he was lucky to be walking at all.

  Ravi had the luxury of feeling no fatigue. He was wreaking havoc on the bots that attempted to reinsert themselves into the battlefield. But the bots were recovering quickly, and there were soon too many for him to handle alone. It seemed the ship had an inexhaustible supply—which didn't bode well for the rest of the galaxy.

  Cybar raised themselves to their full menace and sought to oppose Keel as he made his breakaway. He responded with lethal blaster shots, dropping them by the wayside. But his already-depleted charge pack was soon empty, and he had no more charge packs. Nor bullets. He felt for more grenades. None of those, either. His knife was still embedded in that Titan back at the center of the ship. He was almost completely out of options.

  But he wouldn’t go down until he at least found out how well the machines could take a punch.

  He kicked one of the guard-model bots in its hips, and managed to topple it over. But in doing so he lost his momentum, which allowed a Titan to block his path and raise its tri-barreled N-50.

  Keel felt so weak now. His strength was utterly sapped. He felt faded and slow, decrepit almost. And though he knew that he was about to fling himself at the machine in the hope that he’d escape the shots, bounce off, and then run around it—anything to stay alive—a part of him wondered whether he wouldn’t be happier to just stand there and let the bot make all the pain he felt go away.