“Holy shit! You knew Elizabeth? You were a Cutter?”
The M3 tilted its head. “I’m still a member of the regiment, aren’t I? I serve to the best of my ability.”
Chapman’s lips moved but no words would come. This machine had tried to kill him, had wiped out half his squad in the slavish pursuit of its programmed objectives. Yet still, by its own twisted logic, it had fought for its regiment; it had fought like a Cutter.
“We almost won today,” the M3 went on. “The live rounds tipped the balance. We took them from a shuttle. Comms equipment too. We stripped everything out then destroyed the shuttle to cover our tracks.”
“No, this can’t be right,” Chapman said. “None of this. Someone would’ve found out. They would’ve stopped you.”
“The maintenance crews are not hard to deceive.” The bot paused. “I’m receiving an alert. This mission is almost over, and despite having a hostage, I predict failure on this occasion. Perhaps next time, we’ll win. Or the time after that. Who knows?”
The M3 stood back, and Chapman started to get up.
“Stay down,” the bot said. “Take cover.”
But before Chapman could react, the bridge door slid open, and a breeze whipped past his cheek as the air rushed to escape. At the same moment, an object spun across the room, rebounding from the far bulkhead: an ECM pod.
Chapman threw himself from the workstation, tumbling to the deck and pressing himself flat. Above him, the M3 turned around, grabbing for the rifle strapped across its back. But as its fingers closed on its weapon, a storm of gunfire ripped across the room, bullets careening from the M3’s upper body.
Chapman fought for breath, his lungs burning. But the door must’ve closed, and when fresh air flowed into the room, he gulped at it.
The M3 glanced down at him then pulled itself up to its full height, standing to attention for a moment before it fell back, reeling under a hail of bullets, its mid-section blown apart, jagged sparks arcing from its ruptured sub-frame and crackling across its gunmetal chest plate.
“Cease fire!” Chapman called out, and when the gunfire stopped, he clambered to his feet, cradling his injured arm.
Wallace and Dern stood across the room, their rifles held ready, their eyes narrowed as they looked him up and down.
“Take your helmets off,” Chapman said. “And you can breathe easy. That M3 was the only one in here.”
Wallace pulled her helmet off as she crossed the room to join him. “What happened to your arm?”
Chapman shrugged. “Long story. You all right?”
Wallace nodded. “Sure. We came across deck one. No bots left, but the control center’s gone. We need to get off this crate before the hull cracks in two.”
“Definitely,” Dern put in. He was walking around the bridge, his helmet tucked under his arm, his eyes round with awe as he studied the control panels. “Why is all this stuff online?”
“That’s an even longer story.” Chapman ran his eyes around the bridge, thinking for one second of the mission’s final objective: firing up The Pride’s engines. He’d set out to prove himself, and it stung to be robbed of his moment of glory, but some things mattered more than that; so much more. For the first time, the reality of command came home to him. And he knew what he had to do.
Chapman shrugged off what remained of his EVA suit. “Wallace, get to work on unjamming the comms and contact base. Dern, see if you can scare me up another suit. We have fallen friends to take care of. We’re taking our comrades back home however long it takes, and that’s an end to it.”
Corporal Dern stood to attention. “Sergeant.” He hurried away, and Chapman walked over to where the M3 had come to rest against a bulkhead, its upper body largely intact, its arms splayed out as if in a parody of astonishment.
Gently, Chapman guided the bot to the deck, straightening its limbs. A fallen Cutter, he thought. In another life, an officer, maybe someone I’d have served alongside. But how in God’s name had a captain wound up trapped in a metal frame? And how many times had the imprisoned soul been extinguished and resurrected, only to play out the same training exercise over and over again? At some point, it must’ve become aware of its existence, learning from its previous lives. What was it the bot had said? Incipient memory leakage. An image of a broken cog came to Chapman’s mind: a worn out mechanism condemned to turn only so far before it slipped back to where it started.
A shudder ran down Chapman’s spine. He couldn’t let this stand, but what was he going to do about it? He’d have to report the bot’s behavior; he had no choice. And what then? Would the regiment destroy the M3 or simply patch it up and send it back into battle? No. They’d almost certainly pull it apart to discover the cause of its malfunction, subjecting it to endless tests while they probed its neural net. But what would happen to the memories of the soldier who’d come before—the soldier who’d known his sister?
It saved my arm, he thought, and I never even knew its name. Come to that, he didn’t even know whether the bot’s mind had once belonged to a man or a woman. It doesn’t matter now.
Dern appeared at his side, an EVA suit draped over his arm. “Found this in a locker, Sergeant. Kind of old, so we should check it over.”
“Thanks.” Chapman took the suit. “Dern, is there some way to shut an M3 right down?”
The corporal frowned. “Take it offline, you mean?”
“No. Something more final. There must be a way to…let it go. So it can’t be brought back. Not ever.”
“Yes, Sergeant. You just have to bypass the—”
Chapman raised a hand to cut him off. “Could you do it to this bot? Right now?”
Dern nodded, but he cast his gaze downward, his tight lips betraying his discomfort with a single twitch.
“You got a problem with that?” Chapman asked.
“Strictly speaking, it’s military property. We don’t have authorization.”
“I’ll take the heat,” Chapman assured him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a faulty unit, all right? Safer for everyone this way.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Good man.” He slapped Dern on the back then crossed the bridge to check on Wallace’s progress. He cast a brief glance back at the M3, watching as Dern hunched over its frame, then he turned his attention back to Wallace. “How’s it going? Are you getting through?”
She looked up, her brow furrowed in a frown. “I found the jammer and deactivated it. Comms are back online, but I’ve got bad news on the shuttle—it’s gone.”
“Gone? Completely?”
Wallace nodded. “According to the log, it disengaged from the dock just after we disembarked, then it drifted away. I tried to get remote access, but it’s unreachable. There’s no way to get it back.”
Well played, Chapman thought. You almost won. But he was careful to keep his expression neutral. “All right, let’s call for a ride.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Wallace said. “Channel ready for you now.”
But Chapman shook his head. Later, he’d have one hell of a lot to say to the authorities, but right now, talking to the base was the last thing he wanted to do. “I want you to send the message, Wallace, but let’s save the explanations until we get back. Inform them our mission is complete and request emergency exfiltration.”
“Yes, Sergeant.” Wallace hesitated. “But, Sergeant, when I ask for exfil, I’ll need to give them something.”
Chapman ran his hand across his chin. “Tell them The Pride suffered a malfunction in its power grid leading to critical damage. And if they ask for a damage assessment, just say that this ship is no longer viable. Tell them this, Wallace…tell them it’s reached end of life.”
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No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the copyright holder, except as permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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