by David Ryker
“We need to take care of those shields! Will a plasma round get through?” The smoke in the air was choking me, the noise deafening. I never realized how much the protection of the hull dulled the feeling that you were in a life-or-death fight. Everything always felt distant, and removed, but now I knew I was one stray bullet away from eating it for good.
“I am unsure. Without my full optic capabilities, analysis is limited.”
“Only one way to find out.”
I spun again, drawing my pistol with my left, heaving the Samson up across my body with my right to give me some sort of shielding. I stared through the gap between the grip and the magazine and squeezed off three shots, all into the same spot between the shields. The first one exploded in a mess of flame and plasma arc, the second warped the metal and ricocheted sideways into the wall. The third punched right through, and took out the knee of the Mech standing behind it.
The sound of groaning metal cut through the air and I saw one of them keel sideways into the other one, visible only through the pinhole I’d just made.
I stopped dead, squinting out at it. “You think we can put a sticky-bomb through that hole?”
“The chances are not—”
“Rhetorical!” I yelled, pulling my left arm up and squeezing off a couple of bombs. They arced through the air, the first two falling short and exploding in geyers of earth. It was near impossible without Greg’s telemetry. “Fuck!”
“Aim higher.”
I growled and pulled my arm up, popping off another one. It sailed clean over the shields and exploded in the distance,
“Lower.”
“I know!”
I twisted three-sixty, bracing fire against my back, and then swung around for a third attempt, trying desperately to ignore the bullets flying all around me. One glanced off Greg’s forearm and zipped over my head. Another plunged into the inverted screen on the open hatch. I flinched as a third clanged into the steel next to my ear.
I closed one eye, watching as Greg’s arm swayed in the air, and then hit the trigger. The bomb spat out of the barrel, and it shot upward in recoil.
The projectile seemed to hang in the air forever as it arced towards what looked like a keyhole from so far away. I held my breath, watching as it sailed too high, and then began to drop. And then it exploded.
The shields, lit up from behind, looked black, the bright flames enveloping them from the other side. The bomb had gone through, and by the looks of it, done some serious damage.
One of the Mech sprawled sideways in flames, dropping its shotgun. The other fell backward, both its legs missing. The fire stopped, the soldiers in shock.
“That was more effective than I thought it would be,” I said, holding back a grin.
“It appears that the close proximity to the shields created a concentrated explosion.”
“If that’s what you want to call it,” I laughed. “Looks like a piece of good luck to me.”
“Our chances of success have now improved. I would advise striking while we have the upper hand.” Greg’s voice was even, not a hint of sadism there, but I knew he was right.
I nodded. “Get Alice on the line.” My hand raised again and I popped off half a dozen sticky bombs in a line. They landed across the street from right to left and exploded one by one, driving the soldiers backward. I holstered the pistol and shouldered my Samson, raking back and forth with it until they sounded the retreat. I might have been exposed to their fire, but without the backup of their Mech, a single hit from my Samson would blow them apart.
“Red!” Alice’s voice rang in my ear. “You’re alive?”
“For now,” I laughed. “You safe?”
“Yeah, we got to my rig — took some doing, but we’re out. We’re making for the ship now. Volchec’s bringing it around to one of the maintenance ports. I’ll send you the details.”
A message icon popped up in the corner of the visor and then opened on my HUD, displaying a section of Notia which looked to be a maintenance area. An airlock was flashing in green.
“Can you get there?” she asked.
“Yeah, I can get there,” I said, sighing with relief as I watched the soldiers disappear into the distance.
“Good, then I’ll see you soon.”
I smiled, turning around. “See you soon.”
21
“Greg, find me a path,” I said, churning forward.
We’d already put as much distance between us and the fight as we could have, so I wasn’t sure if they’d regrouped or called for more backup. Either way, I wasn’t sticking around to find out. It’d given Alice and Everett enough time to reach her rig, and that was the important thing. They were already heading for the ship, and would get there before me, but so long as they got out safe, that was the important thing.
“Continue straight ahead, and then take a right,” he replied diligently.
“Right.”
“Correct.”
“No, I meant — just keep talking to me okay? I don’t want to slow down.” I couldn’t shake the cold feeling of dread creeping up my spine. Taking on that group hadn’t been easy, but considering there were so many armed TC on board, I was guessing it was only a matter of time until they amassed a much force to take us on. And that’s when the real fun would start.
“Red, come in.” It was Alice.
“I read you.”
“We’re just getting to the maintenance bay now — it’s crawling with TC, though. Keep your eyes peeled, we’re fighting our way through.”
“Got it. And Al?”
“Yeah, Red?”
“Be careful.”
She clicked off and I sighed, letting a little smile creep across my lips. They were practically home, and she hadn’t sounded too worried about what was between the ship and them. Maybe the TC weren’t that organized. Maybe they just didn’t have time to amass a decent force. Maybe they just didn’t care about Smith that much. I was practically laughing at it by the time I stumbled to a halt.
The smile was wiped from my face and the breath seized in my chest.
We’d come out of the industrial section and into a maze of wide maintenance corridors. It was a straight shot to Alice and the others. An easy trip. Or so I thought.
I rounded a corner and stopped dead. Ahead of us was a blockade. Four Mech, two dozen troops, kneeling across the corridor in an impenetrable wall. I was staring into the muzzles of twenty-eight guns, all with fingers on their triggers, and ready to pull.
“Stop where you are!” one of the Mech boomed through a loudspeaker. “Disarm yourself and disembark from the mechanized unit, or we will be forced to fire.”
I froze. “Greg?”
“Yes, James?”
“How much smoke do we have left?”
“Half a canister.”
“That enough?”
“For what?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I sighed, flexing my toes into the thrusters. “Pop it.”
Everything happened at once. A plume of smoke exploded out of out vents, wrists, and abdomen, and the gunfire started. I drew with my left and pumped three plasma rounds into the gray sea, squeezing out a couple of stickies with my right.
I heard the explosions ripple and echo, the plasma rounds zinging off the steel bodies of the Mech, and yells of indignation and shock as everyone scattered from the explosions.
I was already moving the other way, pushing the thrusters as hard as they’d go, propelling myself along the corridor.
“Get Alice on the line!”
“Calling.”
“Red?” It was Alice. “What is it?”
“I’m cut off,” I said between panting breaths. I was searching the blueprint on my HUD but there was no other route to the maintenance bay without going all the way back around where I’d just come from. “I can’t get there. I’m going to need another out.”
I heard her curse under her breath. “Alright — give me a second —”
I turned anot
her corner and came face to face with a patrolling Mech and two humanoid guards. I didn’t stop, and I didn’t think. I pulled the plasma pistol up and put a round square into the body of the Mech, and then another right after it. It punched through and vaporized the pilot. Flames spewed out of the hole like a volcano and the soldiers dived out of the way of the molten debris.
I surged forward, twisted sideways and put the one on the left down with a shot from point-blank range, lashing out with my heel into the other. The head of the first exploded like a microwaved egg and he flew back into the wall, smoking. The second I didn’t see, but I heard and felt the crunch under Greg’s heel and he didn’t make a sound. There was no time to think about it. I just kept moving.
“Alice! I need that out.”
I could hear screams from behind me, gunfire. They were giving chase.
“We’re working on it — they’re locking down the entire station — I don’t think we can — shit — there’s nowhere… Red...? Red? You hear me?”
I ground my teeth, pushing forward with no idea where I was going, and only knowing that stopping and going back wasn’t an option. “I hear you! What do I do?”
“Keep moving — we’ve got to push off — we can’t stay here. Red — I’m sorry.”
I could see heart rate blinking furiously in red in my peripheral, my adrenal levels and BP spiking. “Greg, I need you. Find me an out!”
“I’m looking,” he said. I could almost hear the panic in his mechanical voice. “I have something.”
“What is it?”
“There is a bank of emergency escape pods approximately five hundred meters from here.”
“Take me.”
“James, I must tell you,” he paused momentarily before going on, “that these escape pods are designed for humanoids.”
“Right, okay? That’s fine — I’m human!”
“But I am not.”
I staggered a little as he said it. I regained myself and powered forward. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t let myself. “No. Find us something else.”
“There is nothing else. I am detecting a lot of communication on the Notia frequencies. Their orders have been changed from ‘apprehend’ to ‘shoot-to-kill’. This is your only chance.”
My throat tightened. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You have to. It is my prerogative to protect my pilot. You must live.”
“We both will. I’m not just leaving you behind.”
“You must, James. When we reach the pods, it is imperative that you launch as quickly as possible, or we will perish.” Despite what he was saying, his voice sounded calm and even, like this was always what was going to happen. Like there was no such thing as a partnership between a pilot and an AI. Like he was just disposable.
I gritted my teeth and kept going. “I’ll disengage your AI core and take that. I did it before.”
“It took thirty-five minutes to complete that process last time.”
“But you were walking me through it. I know what I’m doing now!” I was basically pleading, edging closer with each step to the escape pods.
“James, to remain stationary for any period of time would likely result in your death.”
“And leaving you behind will result in yours. I’m not doing it!”
My communicator started ringing. “What!?” I practically yelled it.
“Maddox, it’s Volchec,” she sounded stern. “We’re off Notia. We’re tracking your location. You’re heading for those escape pods, right? Jettison yourself as quickly as you can and we’ll pick you up. We need to get out of here, right now.”
“I’m not leaving!” It was like there was a boot on my throat. No one would understand. No one could.
“Maddox, this isn’t a request. It’s a goddamn order, you hear me?”
Her voice echoed in my head as I jogged to halt, staring up at a sign above me. It was another hundred meters to the pods, and I could see the big yellow EMERGENCY EXIT signs ahead. But I wasn’t looking at them. To my right was a doorway, and beyond it in a room that backed onto the cold vacuum of space. Inside, I could see six circular hatches, and above them the words TRASH AIRLOCKS - CAUTION.
“Maddox? Maddox?” Volchec was practically shouting in my ear. “What are you doing?”
“I’m coming out. Lock onto my location, and be ready.”
“Wait, Maddox—”
I cut her off and took a deep breath, pulling out my pistol.
“James?” Greg asked. “What are you doing?”
I took a deep breath. “Getting us out of here.”
I moved into the room and scanned around the doorway. It was an automated blast door — which was perfect.
The chutes loomed and I choose the middle one. My hands were shaking in the controls as I reached for the pistol.
“What are you doing, James?” Greg asked.
“I’m going to blow a hole in this garbage chute.”
“I don’t understand. You will only succeed in breaching the hull and causing a vacuum effect in the station. There will likely be an automated protocol that will activate, segmenting off the affected area, and trapping us here, too. If it is your intention to suffocate the Trading Collective guards in pursuit, then—”
“It’s not.”
“Then I’m not sure I see the purpose.”
I growled and jammed the muzzle against the chute, pumping the trigger. My arm jerked back and a flare of white-hot sparks exploded around it. I shielded myself with Greg’s other hand and kept firing. It took three shots to get through the inner chute airlock, and four more to puncture the outer. The dull thuds as the projectiles hit the cladding vibrated through Greg’s arm and into mine, shaking my bones. When the fourth punched through, there was no denying it.
My ears almost burst, even inside my helmet. The sudden pressure change caused a windrush toward the breach, the sudden howl of wind rushing toward it from the ship enough to strip skin from bone.
An alarm sounded behind me, a deep wail, and then the churning of metal joined it. A siren began strobing in orange and the blast door started chugging closed.
“The door is closing,” Greg said. “We must leave now, or we will be trapped.”
“The hell we will,” I muttered, arming the sticky bombs.
“If you deploy a bomb in such close quarters, we will be heavily damaged, and possibly destroyed.”
“Let me work!” I pulled the muzzle of the pistol out of the hole in the chute and jammed the launcher against it. I tapped the button to shut the hatch and it started whining closed.
In the corridor I could hear more shouting — people yelling, guards coming. It didn’t matter if they knew what I was trying to do or not, but I’d just told everyone exactly where I was and all they had to do was follow the wind.
I took one breath, waited for the hatch to close down to a sliver and then pulled the trigger. The hatch sealed as the bomb went into the hole, and then it went off.
The force blew the chute apart, enveloped us in flames, slammed me back against the seat, and then all at once we were sucked into space.
Without Greg’s cameras, I was blind, spinning weightlessly in the dark before I knew what was going on.
The cabin was flashing madly in red and alarms were ringing signifying heavy hull damage.
A chill gripped me in seconds, the pressure in the cockpit dropping.
I couldn’t see anything on the black screens. I had no way to see outside, and if I popped the hatch the pressure change would kill me instantly. The only thing standing between death and me was the layer of metal in Greg’s hull. I knew it was airtight — I’d survived the fall to Draven because of it, but something was wrong this time.
As the thought popped into my head, a huge red warning sign appeared in front of me and started blinking. My blood ran cold. HULL BREACH. AIR PRESSURE DROPPING.
I started breathing hard, hyperventilating as quickly as I could to flood my brain and body with oxygen. Though the cam
era feed from outside was shot, the screen was intact and able to give me readings of what was damaged. It seemed like the arm I’d used to let off the sticky bomb had been maimed. His hand had been blown off at the wrist. Similarly, there was heavy damage to the left side and left leg. That's where the breach must have been. I could hear a high-pitched whine as the air drained out.
“Greg, can you hear me?” I asked, my breath already short.
“I can hear you, James.”
“Where… Is… Volchec…” I gasped, fighting for breath.
“I am unsure. My transmission capabilities were damaged in the blast.”
I raked in a few more ragged breaths and held the last one, knowing I wouldn’t get another. I was shivering all over.
“James,” Greg started, “for what it’s worth, thank you for trying. Few pilots would have risked their lives for their Pilot’s Assist System. When they review the recorded data leading up to your death, they will not understand, but I do. Thank you, James.”
I cracked a weak smile and held my eyes shut against the cold, struggling to keep the breath in my shuddering lungs. I pulled my hands out of the controls and pushed them into my armpits, trying to warm my fingers with what little heat I had left.
There was silence for what could have been seconds or minutes. My brain seemed to just fold in on itself like waves on a beach, ebbing and flowing closer to oxygen deprivation with each slow beat of my heart — the only thing I could hear in my head — and then we hit something.
There was no noise in the vacuum of space, but I felt it. Metal hitting metal.
Everything felt heavy all of a sudden and then we fell to the ground.
A deep hiss filled the air and my hatch groaned.
Warm air rushed in, and I blinked my ice-crusted eyes open to see Volchec and Alice staring in at me, the lights of the cargo bay above.
I could see the wash of nitrogen and oxygen in a thin mist spreading around the hold as the pressure finally equalized, my eardrums retracting to their normal positions.
I felt Alice’s hands around my helmet and then it slid up over my nose and ears, stinging them.
“Jesus Christ, he’s fucking blue!” Volchec exclaimed.