by David Aries
My heart leaped.
Just one? Damn, we’re close.
Still, knowing our luck, it’ll be crawling with enemies.
As I saw the passage incoming, my breathing picked up the pace, and my hand prepared to draw my axe.
Alright… here goes!
I skidded to another halt and peeked down the passage I knew would bring our good form to an end.
It was empty.
I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Each I expected to be the key to lifting the mirage hiding the sentries from view. However, even adding a fourth and a fifth didn’t change the facts: there weren’t any metaleaters, rollerbots, or even drones waiting for us.
The coast was clear.
I exhaled and held my chest.
Damn, since when did I become such a pessimist?
“My Brandon,” Casella whispered. “Is something wrong?”
I glanced back. “Quite the opposite, actually. We’re in the—”
Something tapped my foot.
“Huh?” I said, looking down.
A roomba—or, at least, an alien equivalent—bounced alongside the baseboard, bumping itself against my foot.
I just kept looking.
Erm… what?
I’d been so focused on finding some threat, I’d completely looked over the tiny cleaning bot that had saddled up from my blind spot. It wasn’t the sort of thing that made my instincts surge.
After a few bumps, the roomba stopped still, as if it was staring back at me.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this…
An alarm raced down the hallway, followed by a robot voice that said, “Intruders detected. Intruders detected.”
“What?!” Akko squealed.
A familiar sound like a fleet of bowling balls rolling down an alley emerged as an accompaniment to the siren echoing around us.
“Dammit!” I snapped, stomping my foot through the snitch. “Let’s move!”
I knew that damn corridor was trouble!
The good news was there wasn’t anymore to pass. Our destination was close. We ditched any semblance of stealth and bolted toward the promised land with all the speed we could muster.
It didn’t matter how many bots this station had; if we could make it to the terminal, it was our win.
“There it is, Master Brandon,” DD said, pointing to an open doorway on our right.
“Got it! Once we’re inside, get to the terminal as fast as you can.” I led the way with a sharp turn. “We need to…” My voice trailed off at the same time that my feet came to a stop.
My eyes widened.
You’ve got to be kidding me…
It turned out the doorway wasn’t actually the entrance to the chamber we were looking for. In actual fact, it was the entrance to the entrance hall of the chamber we were looking for.
An occupied entrance hall.
On either side of the sealed door that protected the terminal we sought stood a huge mech I unfortunately recognized.
They were the same model as the beast that protected the Inner Core.
“Is this for fecking real?!” Sylvetty snapped.
“T-two of them?” Akko squeaked. “But even one was…”
“Oh my,” DD said. “I must apologize. The station’s database said nothing of this.”
Their eyes lit up. Each of the guards stepped forward and activated their mammoth room-filling shields.
I growled, held onto my axe, and prepared to square up against the sentinels… but I couldn’t take my eyes off our rear.
The security bots were getting closer.
Vay chuckled. “Now isn’t this a pickle?” She patted my shoulder. “Tell me, my king, which do you prefer?”
“Pardon?” I replied.
“These or the incomers. Pick your poison.”
It took me a moment to get what she was alluding to. “Are you serious?”
“Of course!” she said. “Scared I’ll lose? They don’t call me ‘The Indomitable’ for nothing.”
“People still call you that?” Faris quipped.
“Losing to a worthy stud and falling to tin cans are two very different situations.”
I took a deep breath and composed myself. “Can I trust you to watch our back?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said, stud?” While grinning from ear to ear, Vay drew her mighty sword and headed back to the hallway. “Don’t keep me waiting too long, lover! You know a bunch of journeymen won’t be enough to keep me entertained.”
I smirked. If there was anyone I could afford to trust with our rear, it was Vay. That meant I could give the murderous machines ahead all the attention they deserved.
The sentinels opened their free hands, revealing spiked balls.
“Faris!” I yelled as I drew my axe. “You’re with me. Everyone else, keep your distance.”
That was, of course, if being far away would help against a pair of psycho bots who could reach anywhere in the room they wished with their flails.
The pair fired their spiked balls at me and Faris.
We dodged past the room-shaking weapons and attacked the sentinel’s gargantuan shields.
Our weapons bounced off, doing nothing to drain the color from the barriers.
As expected…
It was the same story as last time; I could even see the tubes hooking them to the station’s power supply. However, there was no way to reach them unless the sentinel’s allowed it.
Unsurprisingly, they didn’t.
I jumped away as another flail came for my life, the head not shy about using its spikes early. It was an attack I remembered well, but this was the first time every point had been aimed at me and me alone. It took my best Fruit Ninja tribute to keep myself from being butchered as I was pushed against the wall.
Damn, this room’s tiny compared to the Inner Core.
There was hardly any room to dodge, especially if I wanted to avoid dragging everyone hiding in the back corner into the fight.
And there were other problems too.
Before I could finish recovering, a second flail came for my head.
My senses warned me early enough to allow me to roll underneath, but by the time I’d done that, the first flail was already incoming.
“Crap,” I said as I took the hit with my shield, flinging me into the far wall.
A throb of anguish kicked me in the lower back.
“Dammit,” I grumbled, well aware that the second flail was already on the move.
Before it could get me, Faris jumped in and clubbed it with her spear, diverting its attention toward her.
And that of the other flail as well.
“No chance!” I yelled as I hooked its chain with my axe before it could swat Faris out of mid-air.
Sure enough, that earned me the ire of the other sentinel, forcing me into a quick escape.
I gritted my teeth as my heart raged in my chest.
What is this?!
It was ridiculous. I hardly had a chance to breathe, never mind counter.
Like that would do any good.
We only knew one way to beat the sentinels, and there’s no way that would work against two of them. And it wasn’t like they were the only opponents we had to best. The noise of smashing metal and xioth laughter was pouring in from the hallway behind.
Even Vay couldn’t hold back the entire base’s security forces forever. We had to hurry… which, technically, we already were.
Away from the flails coming for our lives.
I snarled through my gritted teeth as I stayed locked on a firm defense where remaining still for a solitary second would end in destruction.
Stupid sentinels. Can’t you back off for one moment?!
They did not. Without so much as budging their feet, the huge metal titans forced me and Faris to dance for our lives.
Lasers shot across the room, smacking off their shields.
“Leave them alone!” Casella yelled as she opened fire.
“Stop! You�
��ll get their attention!” I roared.
Sure enough, one of the sentinels fired its flail to their corner of the room.
I growled and swung down on the extending chain.
My hit forced the flail to jerk up, helping my screaming mates to run away from the spiked ball which totaled the corner they’d been hiding in.
“Oh, so that’s how it is?!” Trez said, stopping in the middle of the hallway. She heaved her railgun onto her shoulder and took aim. “Eat this, motherfucker!”
“Trez, don—”
My voice was drowned out by a blue beam that looked like a scaled-back version of what the orbital cannon released, which still made it as thick as one of my thighs. It shot across the room, exploding into the shield of the sentinel who had tried taking my mates out.
Speaking of that, Trez was propelled back off her feet and only saved from a hard landing by the mass of bodies she flew into… and wiped out.
“Girls!” I yelled.
“Brandon,” Faris said, demanding my attention.
As much as I didn’t want to ignore the pile of bodies strewn in the room’s corner, I followed the sound of Faris’s voice and ended up with my jaw hanging toward the ground.
The sentinel that Trez had hit… its shield was gone.
“Hurry!” Faris ordered, unable to do so herself because of the spiked ball chasing her down.
I nodded and got moving. Clutching my axe tight, I hurdled the chain going after Faris and jumped at the stunned sentinel. With all the force I could, I delivered a blow to its chest.
The combined force of my axe and my leap shattered the sentinel’s front and toppled it to the ground, crushing the tube it was using to keep itself fed.
Before it could even think about recovering, I withdrew my axe and smashed through its head.
That’s one down.
Now for the secon—
“Brandon!” Faris said.
I felt it. Before the spiked ball wiped me out from behind, I darted forward.
So did the sentinel. The metal giant lunged, bashing me with its shield.
I grunted as the solid barrier smashed me in the front, and again as my side nicked against the flails spikes as I was shoved halfway across the room.
“Are you okay?” Faris asked as I rolled straight to my feet.
“Fine,” I replied as I rubbed the fresh cuts which had snuck between my armor. “Since when can these guys move?”
The sentinel edged forward with its shield ahead like a tank leading a dungeon raid. It sucked its flail back into place and fired again.
Faris and I jumped back, uniting when it was time to fend off the incoming spikes.
“At least we’re down to one,” Faris said once we’d beaten away the last.
I was about to agree, but I couldn’t. My gut knew something was wrong.
Rather than drawing its flail back, the sentinel dashed toward it.
On instinct, I hopped away from the rampaging bull until my heel clipped against the wall.
Stupid small room!
Wait a second…
The hall seemed even smaller than earlier, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out why: our foe had closed down the space. Its shield was pretty much a wall in its own right.
A wall that was boxing us into the corner.
I clenched my jaw and burst to the side.
The sentinel fired the flail in my path, spikes ejecting before it landed.
I had no choice but to jump back or find out what it was like to take that monster sphere, point blank.
That gave the sentinel the time it needed to finish getting into place. It braced ahead of us, trapping me and Faris in a triangular prison built from two walls and a giant barrier.
“No!” I snapped as I drilled my axe into the sentinel's shield.
There was no give. Its tube was still intact and safe from harm with the pair of us contained. Our combined hits couldn’t get through, unlike the sentinel’s. It retracted its flail and fired.
We dodged away, taking advantage of the limited space we had available. It was enough to avoid a wrecking ball, but its spikes were a different story. They shot out, piercing into the pair of us.
I bit back a groan as several points stabbed into me. The majority were blocked by my armor, but a couple dug into the slots between with one slicing across my cheek.
“Bastard,” I snarled as I wrapped my arms around all the metal threads I could, not prepared to give them back.
“What now?” Faris said as she did likewise.
“I don’t know, but if this prick thinks he’s going to beat us, he’s got another thing coming.”
The sentinel wanted its arm back, but I wasn’t letting go.
You trap us, we trap you.
The question was: could we afford to make this a stalemate with Vay all alone? She was still alive, my senses knew as such, but that wasn’t guaranteed to last.
Think, Brandon, think! How can you beat—
“Pull!”
That was neither a moment of inspiration from me or a command for me to follow. The word came from behind the sentinel, whose tube had found itself in the clutches of my mates and DD. Together, the five of them tugged the pipe hooking the sentinel to the main power supply, ripping it from its socket.
An instant later, the sentinel’s head was under attack from a crazed girl and her hammer.
“Now let them go, ya fecking blighter!” Sylvetty said while beating the back of its neck.
The sentinel spasmed, and its shield flickered.
Faris and I didn’t share a word. We both released out metal prisoners at the same time and drilled our weapons of choice into the sentinel’s stomach.
Axe and spear worked in unison, puncturing deep into the robot built to take hits with its shield rather than its body.
Sparks sprayed from the sentinel’s shattered midsection as its arms fell limp.
That wasn’t good enough. We drew our weapons free and struck the robot in the jaw, popping its head off like the cork from a bottle of champagne.
And that made two down.
“My Brandon!” Casella said as she rushed over.
I breathed out, my first chance to do so in a while. “Thanks for the save.”
“Never mind that, sweetie!” Akko said. “You’re bleeding.”
Sure enough, there were a few red patches on my armor matching the stabbing pains beneath. “I’ll live. More importantly, can we get inside?”
“DD’s already on it,” Trez said while cradling her smoking railgun and glancing at the android toying with the door’s console.
“Do I hear the sound of a battle concluded?!” Vay yelled from outside.
“Yeah! We’re opening the door now!” I replied.
“Good. Very good! Holding back these robots was starting to prove problematic.”
My eyes sprung to a stare. It was my first real opportunity to check on Vay’s battlefield since she’d started fighting. The area looked like a scrapheap ruled by a mighty green queen, beset on all sides by robot invaders. Her every step crunched the army’s worth of carcases beneath her feet as she moved to eliminate another foe.
“You killed all those by yourself?!” I said.
“Why, of course!” she replied with her usual cheer, even though blood trickled down her body, notches sullied her great sword, and her red shield flickered at the end of its life. “It seems like the entire station has come to greet us!”
That didn’t appear to be an understatement.
“Beep boop,” DD said from the other end of the hall. “Opening the door now.”
The metal barrier crawled open.
“Everyone, inside!” I ordered as I helped Vay keep the incoming security machines in check.
My mates offered support from a distance, picking off whatever they could hit with their blasters.
“Hurry, sweetie!” Akko yelled when everyone was on the other side.
“You heard them!” Vay said as we edged bac
k toward the door, an entire wave of rollerbots and drones on our tail. “After you, my stu—”
“Ladies first,” I said as I forced her behind me, using my shield to deflect the incoming lasers. As soon as my feet left the entrance hall, I yelled. “DD! Close it!”
“Right away, Master Brandon,” she said.
The robots tried to follow us inside, but seeing how they’d failed to get past Vay, it went without saying that they didn’t stand a chance.
With a thud, the door closed tight.
I held my chest and exhaled. “I’m glad that’s over. I seriously hate robots.”
DD’s eyes burrowed into me.
“Apart from you, of course!”
She giggled and curtsied. “Thank you for the kind words, Master Brandon.”
“Would ya cut the flirting?!” Sylvetty said as her eyes wandered. “Where the feck are we?”
It was a good question. The room we’d arrived in—the one which contained the terminal we sought—wasn’t anything like any other part of the station we’d spied, nor was it similar to The Core. Sure, it was still sci-fi in design—there was no missing the sleek metal architecture boxing everything in—but it wasn’t the kind of place I expected to find in a floating faux-moon.
It was… a garden.
Chapter 24
A gentle waterfall trickled down two tiers of tree-filled tower, collecting in a circular pond dyed pink by the petals floating on its surface. Their source was likely the numerous blooms, some pink while others were red or white, that sat upon the pool’s bank, shielding it from the advances of a maintained lawn. The kempt grass spread to the edge of its bed where a procession of blossoming trees stood tall and proud, sheltering hearty bushes that came in every color of the rainbow and more.
“It’s beautiful,” Casella remarked as her wide yellow eyes soaked in the surprising view.
I couldn’t stop myself from gawking. “Is this real?”
“That is correct, Master Brandon,” DD said.
“But… what—”
“What the fuck’s it doing here?!” Trez said. “We were supposed to be coming to a computer room, not a greenhouse.”
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Faris checked.
“There is no mistake. The terminal is located on the top floor,” DD replied. “Come, let me show you the way.”