The nav comp dinged once, signaling that it was done plotting a safe course through the asteroid field. Renée murmured that she was initiating docking procedures. Fifteen sweaty-palmed minutes later we had passed safely through the rocks and Renée settled herself onto the docking bay next to the two Wheri fighters I had purchased a few months back. Barry poked his head into the cockpit and jerked his head in the direction of the ramp.
I nodded and stood. “Standby for now, Renée. I’ll get the bots down here to give you a good greasing as soon as I get inside.”
“Thank you, Donnivan,” she murmured.
Our steps echoed in the chill stillness of the docking bay as we walked to the doorway into the base, my glance taking in the spotless deck and cams situated in the upper corners. Everything seemed to be in order. I punched in my code and the door hissed upwards, and I found myself staring into the hollow eye of a blaster.
“Jesus, Donnivan. It’s you.”
The red-haired woman holstered her pistol and launched herself at me, her arms wrapping me in a hug. I was content to move my hands across her bottom but Barry coughed once behind me, reminding me that we weren’t alone. She stepped back and stared at him through narrowed eyes. She nodded at Barry slowly, then her gaze moved back to me.
“I wasn’t sure it was you, Jeff.” She ran a hand through her hair and motioned for us to follow her. “The radar’s been down for five hours now, along with the perimeter cams and defense grid. I’ve been working damn near ‘round the clock trying to rewire the system, but every time I get part of it back online another section goes dead.”
I had a premonition. “Any clue what’s causing it?”
She nodded curtly. “I’m pretty sure it’s Ferdalis.”
I looked over my shoulder at Barry. His look was all I needed to see. He knew what was going on just as well as I did. “Son of a bitch,” was all he said as he shook his head slowly.
“Is he still in the north wing?”
“Locked in tight. He’s also blocked the terminal so I can’t get in. And I don’t know how he’s managed to hard-wire himself into the system since there are no terminals in that wing after we removed them before his arrival. I haven’t been able to get down there since he sealed off the doorways. I was keeping an eye on him with two hidden cameras until he found them.”
I didn’t waste time on suppositions. “Maevis, get the ships prepped and ready for take-off. Barry, get to the Core and start downloading all the files from there to Renée. Send a message to the Womb, let them know we’re about to lose Five. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that Ferdalis invited company.”
I didn’t wait to see if they listened. I began to run through the gray corridors towards the north wing, praying that my intuition was off and that I was just over-reacting.
My fingers tapped in the code and the keypad beeped angrily at me, just as Maevis had suggested. The bastard had changed the codes. I grunted angrily, pulled out a multi-tool, pried the face of the pad off, and fiddled for a few minutes. The door into the north wing opened. The main room was dim, but the living quarters beyond were lit and I made my way through. There, seated at one of the tables, was Ferdalis, his balding head shining in the light from above, his wrinkled face crinkling even more as he smiled up at me.
“Donnivan!” His voice was eager, and he sounded far too pleased with himself. He motioned at the cups set out on the table. “So good of you to drop in and say hello. Please, have a cup of coffee with me.”
Three strides and I was there, reaching down and hauling him out of his chair by the lapels of his coat. “What the hell did you do to my base,” I hissed. “I swear, if you think you can get away with this….” I trailed off as my eye caught sight of a handmade terminal resting against the side of one of the bunks, all spliced wires and scavenged parts. He’d cut a hole in the wall somehow and hacked his way in. I laughed then, almost hysterical with disbelief. “You son of a bitch.” I said as I shoved him away from me, my hands shaking with the rage coursing through my veins.
Ferdalis slowly pushed his way to his feet, using one of the bunks for support. Blood trickled down his forehead from a gash where his head had slammed into one of the beds. He smiled again. “Temper, temper, Donnivan!” His voice had a mocking tone that grated against my ears.
I looked at his skeletal smile. Mocking me, the grimace of death. I made to reply when the comm in my pocket dinged.
It was Barry. “Don, we’ve got incoming. Renée said she picked up a signal outside of the field. Small ship, zoning in on Five.”
Ferdalis nodded. “My entourage has arrived, I see.” He wiped away the blood that was trickling into his eye. “You’ve grown lax in your old age. I, on the other hand, seem to have improved and gotten the better of you.”
I snorted. “Not if I can help it.” I grabbed him by his left wrist. “You’re coming with me. Let’s move.”
My mind was racing with possibilities as I shoved the old man in front of me. That incoming ship could only mean one thing: Richter and his friends. A goddamn setup is what this was, and I’d walked right into it. Maybe the old buzzard was right. Maybe I was getting too old for this.
I shook off the feeling of despair and clenched my teeth. Maevis came into sight ahead of me down the corridor, her pale face stating the obvious, that she had seen the incoming vessel while prepping the ships.
“Take him and chain him up in Renée.” I shoved Ferdalis and his frozen smile towards Maevis. “Then launch the fighters on auto at that ship. We need all the time we can get. After that, get on Renée and stay there. Barry and I will be along shortly.”
She nodded and started hauling Ferdalis down the corridor towards the hangar. I broke into a run and headed for the Core. My mind was still racing with all sorts of possibilities—and their various endings—none of which were painting very pretty pictures in my head. I cursed again, almost slipped as I dodged around a corner to find the elevator ahead of me. I punched the call button and waited, sweating and praying we had enough time. If that drop-ship reached the base… there was no way Barry and I could deal with more than one of those ‘droids right now. We just weren’t ready. My comm beeped again.
“Yes?”
“I’ve launched the Wheris, Jeff. ETA with that drop ship is about three minutes. Provided the asteroids don’t do any damage.”
I grunted once in acknowledgment, then leapt into the elevator as soon as the doors opened. I hit the maintenance level button and swore again. Damned thing was taking too long. Asteroids wouldn’t be a problem for those Wheri fighters. I had installed two of the priciest nav coms I could get my hands on into those ships, and they made constant sweeps of the field, continually plotting a course out through that random hell. Not like with Renee, who had to scan the field and spend fifteen to twenty minutes calculating upon her arrival each time.
The elevator door pinged and opened up on a catwalk that ran suspended from the ceiling above, the grid beneath my feet showing the mass of reactors and blue-hinged glow that made up the Core beneath me. Barry’s large form was hunkered down beside a small screen and terminal set into the base of the main reactor. I found the stairs and took them three at a time.
Barry looked up as I approached, sweat beading on his brow from the heat of the reactors. “I’m almost done here, Donnivan. Five more minutes and everything should be transferred.”
I wiped a hand across my forehead, surprised at the amount of moisture there. “I’ll finish up here, Barry. I want you on Renée. Make sure Maevis is on board with Ferdalis. I want you to get that ship out of the asteroid field as quickly as possible.” My heart was racing, a desperate plan forming in my mind. “Let the Wheri fighters distract that drop ship until you can get clear of the field.”
Barry looked at me, concern etched on his face. “What about you, Jeff.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about me. I want you and Maevis clear of his place before I blow it to the seven hells.”
He opened hi
s mouth to argue. I threw twenty plus years of friendship down the drain as I pulled my blaster and pointed it at his head.
“Don’t argue with me, Barry. Just do it.”
He stood there, staring. I saw his eyes make the change from anger to fear and then sudden reality. His shoulders sagged a little and he turned to walk away. He took five steps and turned around. “This is ridiculous, Donnivan.”
I fired a shot near his feet, the heat from the blast slagging the metal of the catwalk. “Stop talking and start running.”
His face turned to muted anger then as he gave me one final glance before turning to the elevator. I turned back to the terminal in front of me and saw that the system was two minutes from completing the transfer. Good. I flicked my com and keyed Renée.
“Yes, Donnivan?”
“Patch me through to that incoming vessel.”
There was a few seconds of sputtering static then the sound of steady breathing, the distant hum of their vessel, and the throb of the reactors around me.
“I’m waiting.”
There was a sudden intake of breath from several different sets of lungs right before I cut the contact and put the comm back in my pocket, my eyes staring at the screen in front of me. I sat down and crossed my legs, the keyboard resting across my knees. My fingers flew across the keys, my eyes riveted on the dull gray screen in front of me. If I remembered how to reroute the circuitry…. Yes! Cams were back up in the hangar. I caught a quick glimpse of Renée’s shining hull disappearing from the bay and a sudden wave of fear rolled over me. My ship, my home, and on her my only friends in this vast galaxy.
I shook my head, sweat flying out in droplets. I dampened the sleeve of my coat again as I wiped my forehead and peered back into the screen. A boxy looking ship suddenly swung into view on the cams, maneuvering for docking within the hangar. Apparently my Wheri fighters hadn’t been enough. I began to sweat more profusely. I still didn’t have the defenses back online. If they reached my position before I was finished….
I was halfway through the prep phase when I glanced back up at the cam display and saw three figures depart the drop ship and approach the main door into the base. I cursed again and typed faster. They moved with cat-like grace, almost floating towards the door, every step bringing them closer to me. The lead figure reached out and his hand shot forward too fast for the camera to pick up anything more than a blur. His fist crashed through the door. I stared in disbelief, fingers still, as I watched the first one rip the door out of its track and toss it casually across the hangar. I had the sudden urge to groan, then there was a blinking on the screen in front of me, and the defense systems suddenly flashed back on. “Gonna be close,” I muttered to myself. I jumped up and ran the teen feet across to the other side of the main reactor. There was a small, blue screen about three inches across inset on the side of one of the bell-shaped reactors. I pressed my thumb against the screen. It flickered once, then a small keypad flipped out below it and I typed the sequence in. A small compartment opened then and I took the small, glass rod out of its case.
A moment of apprehension stole over me. If anyone ever found out that I had a working copy of the Devix device, there’d be hell to pay. Every android operating in the known ‘verse would put a price on my head. Not to mention there were several government orders stating that if I ever did use the device again I was to be incarcerated from here until eternity for keeping a copy of the technology. Of course, all of that assumed I made it out of here alive.
I slipped the rod into my pocket. Just as I did, I heard the muted sound of blaster fire from somewhere above me; the defense grid was doing its job. An alarm started to sound and I ran back around to the displays. The monitors showed two twitching, smoldering corpses lying in the hallway, and two more working their way down the main hall to the elevator, towards me. I looked back to the terminal screen and saw descending numerals. Somehow something had triggered the auto-destruct sequence before I was ready. I forced my eyes back on the door to the elevator, my heart in my throat.
I didn’t have long to wait. The ping sounded, the door to the elevator slid open, and two Richters stepped out, their pale faces and soulless eyes staring at me with such malice that I shivered as I fired two shots and one of them dropped, his head melting into a distorted blob of metal and plastic that dripped through the catwalk. The final copy jumped down and landed less than a meter from me, the mass of its body denting the steel of the catwalk, and nearly knocking me off my feet. I pulled the trigger on my blaster and fired two blasts in his direction as I hastily backed up, both shots going wild and burning a hole into the walls beyond.
I glanced down. It was thirty feet or so down to the slithering mass of wires that covered the floor of this level and I forced myself not to think about the heat and metal and sweat and fear and electricity. I kept my left hand in my pocket on the glass rod and my blaster trained on the android in front of me. It was then I noticed the scar running across its face from left temple to right chin. I remembered that wound, that one cut I had managed to make before sending him to his electric death all those years ago. I nodded slowly. “So you came back for me, then?”
His face split open in a wicked grin, a cry rising from his throat as he threw back his head and howled. For one of the few times of my life, I felt honest terror as the fear gripped me. “Get it over with, you twisted hunk of metal. I don’t want to delay this any longer than necessary.”
“Oh, I’m going to make this last, Donnivan. The lasting pain that I have endured all these years. The pain and agony that came with waiting, waiting for the day when I would finally have the strength to hunt you down and make you feel what I have felt for so long.” He smiled again, that voice all smooth silk and modulated voice tones. Emotionless. “You left me melted and broken on the cliffs of that gorge, and I have waited so long for this moment.”
His hands reached out to grasp me. Zero showed on the monitor to my right, there was the sound of some electronic component popping somewhere, my left hand grasped the slender rod in my pocket, my thumb pressed, and the world exploded around us in flame and darkness.
Pain, heat, the feeling of my flesh being peeled away slowly, like the layers of an onion. A moment of suffocating. I choked, coughed. A feeling of… transition. Of floating. I slammed into something, hard enough that my teeth cracked together with a resounding clack that I felt reverberate into my spine. I felt shards of teeth in my mouth and I spit, the taste tinged with blood. I blinked away tears, my left hand filled with the crushed remains of the Devix tube in my pocket, shards of it cutting into my palm. Someone’s hand reached down out of the darkness, grasping for my throat. I screamed hoarsely and fired my blaster several times in the direction the hand had come from. It retreated with a curse, and I fired again, just to be sure.
Darkness took me for a spell.
The scent of smoldering leather, burnt flesh, and singed hair finally brought me back to reality. I looked down at myself. My clothing was torched and melted in spots, and my skin felt raw on my face and hands. I winced as I pushed myself up into a sitting position, my blaster pointed towards my front as I blinked away the tears, tried to clear my vision. For some reason I was still here. I wondered momentarily if this was hell. It certainly felt like it.
And then it hit me. The Devix device worked by frying the circuitry within an android, forcing the synapses to overload in a spiral of exponentially-larger short-circuits until the positronic brain literally melted from the amount of electricity flowing through. I had never tested the range before, but we had always wondered how far it was. I knew it was at least a couple of meters. We had also always assumed it only worked on the specific circuitry within an android’s brain. I was less than ten feet from the auto-destruct computer and the reactor when I had triggered the device, and the only reasonable explanation that I could come up with was that the device had somehow melted the circuitry within the computer as well as the android.
I blinked away tear
s and lay there for a moment longer, my left hand filled with the shards of the device and my blaster now resting in my lap, my arm too weak to raise it. I looked beyond my own torched figure and saw the smoldering remains of Richter lying on the catwalk just a few feet distant from me, several holes melted into its body where my shots had slagged their way through moments before. It was still twitching. I summoned a last remnant of energy and raised the blaster and fired three more shots, just to be sure. Then darkness took me again.
Her voice was the one that woke me. Maevis. Well, hers and Barry’s. But hers was first, and when I peeled my eyes open it was her face I saw, her eyes wet with tears and a trembling smile on her face.
“You’re alive!” She made it sound as if it she wasn’t quite sure.
I groaned. “I am?” I didn’t feel alive. I felt like hell.
Barry squinted down at me. “You don’t look much worse than normal. In fact, it reminds of that time on Parlinv when—”
I cut him off with a hacking cough, the motion causing my burnt lips to crack once more. I nearly cried with the pain. “Just get me to my ship,” I whispered.
They did. As soon as we were on board, I felt a moment of peace.
“Donnivan?” It was Renée. She sounded concerned.
“Set course for the Womb, Renée.” I managed to mumble through my burned lips. “Barry, get to work on Ferdalis. I want my money.”
I leaned on Maevis’ shoulder as she helped me hobble to my room. I stifled a gasp as I looked into the mirror. My hair and eyebrows were gone and I looked like I’d spent weeks unprotected in the sun. The blisters were the worst. I grimaced in pain. I was going to need some burn cream and a few days in a med cocoon. I fell into my bed.
Bloody Knuckles (And Other Tales) Page 12