‘An ion blast would make it not function. ’
‘For how long? ’
‘Short while. ’
‘A short while? ’
‘Short while,’ Kel re-repeated seeming to enjoy Hayden’s nervousness.
‘But that means-’
‘Good we find him when we did.’
Over what felt to him like a few hours Hayden, all the while diligently on the lookout for the Sepians, watched and helped his new friend teach the robot commands. Speaking to it, taking turns for its electronic audio receptors to recognise their voice patterns. The mechan’s microphone-mouth picked everything up with extreme precision; answering their commands not in any humanoid language but in electronic hums. Varied in pitch, they were a communication of which Kel seemed quite familiar. As Hayden watched his new friend work with great interest, he suddenly realised something he should’ve caught on to earlier. ‘Kel?’ He asked and she turned sharply around to him. ‘You said this was a soldier mechan?’
She nodded.
‘Well-You can’t have a soldier without a war.’
Kel nodded again. ‘Very big galaxy. There is war.’
Hayden thought of his mother and his uncle, and Maddy and Monty and of all the people on the Copernicus, wherever they were. He hoped that they were alright and that he’d be reunited with them as soon as possible. The mechan might just be the tool to do it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The two teenagers carefully wound their way through the mountains of junk with their mechanized friend walking four or five paces ahead as point guard with its great feet flattening any piece of metal or coil or container that lay in its path. It was making noise as it did it, too, and that unnerved Hayden somewhat. It’d be good to have two, he thought, knowing it’d be unlikely to find another. It’d make twice the noise but be twice the protection.
Fssshht, fssshht, it stepped powerfully on, then stopped still.
They were at the other end of the room and had arrived at a junction. A large door in front of them marked the middle of a T-intersection with passages continuing off into darkness on both sides. The path at right, Hayden presumed correctly, led further aft as down it he could hear the thumping of the ships engines.
Kel turned to him and looking very serious pointed to the door.
‘If there is no ship in there, we take the bridge.’
Hayden was startled but not too surprised by the boldness of her plan. ‘Take the bridge! Are you nuts?’ He whispered.
Kel met his comment with a blank stare and a simple point toward the mechan. Putting his ear to the warm condensation covered door, Hayden heard nothing but how could he? Sepians communicated in silence.
Kel was first to notice the trails that led under the door and was quick to whisper that they looked fresh. It was news to which Hayden’s heart started to beat heavily again.
They could be old-preserved in this humidity?
He hoped and Kel, knowing what he was thinking, shook her head convinced that they weren’t. They didn’t know what was behind the door and could’ve ventured down the hall and into the engine room but Kel, as if reciting from an instruction manual, explained softly,
‘No shuttle can be accessed in hanger bay from the aft of any ship.’
Presumably, Hayden surmised, as it was just too dangerous to have any shuttles coming and going close to the fuel supplies for fear of an explosion. He moved away from the door and his vain attempt to hear anything from the other side. ‘I guess we should try and get in - if we have to? Is it ready?’
They both looked at the mechan standing over them in the low light. Hayden nervously tried a swipe reader but nothing happened as it would’ve been set for a Sepian’s tentacle.
Kel glanced at the mechan then at Hayden and though he wasn’t quite sure what she had in mind, he stood back just as she commanded as quietly as was possible but concisely ..
‘Open door.’
The ADS-4 moved forward a few steps, its heavy magnetic feet hitting the metallic floor with solid suctiony thuds as it positioned itself at the greasy door. Feeling for the join, the robot’s large brassy fingers found purchase and its powerful arms pulled in opposite directions sending each side of the door flying into their respective wall cavities with an echoing crash.
When the din had subsided the mechan lowered its arms and stood motionless as Hayden and Kel moved out from the protection of its bulk to see just what the room contained, if anything.
The first Sepian stood from the many that were seated in the mess and drawing its weapon, fired upon the intruders, followed by a second and a third and a fourth and so on until it seemed what must have been the slave ship’s entire crew were firing at and advancing upon the two kids and the mechan standing in the entrance. Hayden and Kel, at first sight, had taken refuge behind their giant. Standing still in the middle of the doorway, flashes of enemy firepower glanced from its armoured body from at least forty or more of the approaching cephalopods. As Hayden hid with Kel behind it, he heard a low buzzing come from the back of its metal torso. The mechan’s blue eyes turned red and ferocious.
From its backpack extrusion, two golden tubes extended with a loud whirr over each shoulder that straightened out to face its targets. Seeing this, several of the Sepians turned without hesitation to slither away, firing backward as they fled.
From the top of the Mechan’s overly thick left wrist, a panel slid aside and out popped a magazine filled with around fifty tiny white, orange tipped missiles and its lower right arm expanded to reveal what looked to Hayden like a fat mini-gun bracelet.
Several more squid men retreated rapidly but the majority continued to advance, firing their weapons accurately but futilely at the seemingly invincible robot.
The mechan, so sturdy, was only being rocked slightly by the blasts, never even having to reposition its feet. Hayden covered Kel with his body as she clung low to the back of the robot’s immense right calf structure. Raising its right arm the mechan aimed at the slithering pirates only several metres away from it and with a click -nothing happened! Hayden stuck his head out slightly and looked at the amassing Sepian horde, their ugly heads and unnatural sliding movement across the floor at the same time both intimidating and sickening. Looking upward he saw the mechan’s eyes dim to nothing. Worryingly, he looked back at the horde then at Kel who, very concerned herself, moved out from under Hayden’s protection and climbed carefully onto the back of the mechan’s leg, reached up and whacked the armour plate on its back as hard as she could with her little fist then jumped back down.
Hayden looked back up and saw the Mechan’s eyes glow red again but this time they glowed much more brightly.
He shut his eyes tightly as the first explosive- packed rockets from the shoulder tubes took out four Sepians close by and several behind them in a riot of gore and flame.
Then the bracelet, when it hummed to life, swept across the room, mulching the enemy as if they’d been hit by bottled lightning.
The tiny wrist rockets let fly next and upon contact, exploded with surprising force, obliterating everything they accurately hit.
It was all over in seconds.
As the grey-black smoke cleared to the whirr of the cooling mini gun, the mechan stood silent, remorselessly unaware of the carnage it had rained except for the kill-count registered in its CPU. Hayden and Kel warily ventured out from behind their guard and moved just as cautiously toward the middle of what was now a true “mess” hall.
The sight and smell before them was confronting. Burnt tentacles and body parts strewn all over. Bluish blood splattered against the walls and floor and dripped from the tables. Most of the dead were lying glued together in a large pool of deoxygenated blood that had dried to an opaque crust from the intense heat of the explosions. The Sepian’s gelatinous bodies hadn’t stood a chance. No one’s would’ve. ‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ Hayden muttered, looking pale. He’d never witnessed anything like it and he wasn’t sure how he felt.
Scared but relieved and anxious for he knew he could experience similar again.
‘A shuttle!’ Kel’s voice echoed with excitement and with relief as she pointed through an archway to a tender that lay in an adjoining hanger. Such was her hurry that Hayden had to grab her arm as she took off toward it so as not to be left behind.
‘Be careful,’ he cautioned as he squinted into the bay looking for others that might harm them. Kel didn’t reply but stopped and picked up a gun from off a table. Hayden searched for the same as he didn’t want to be left unarmed. It didn’t take him long to find a pistol by a table leg but when he lifted it by one of its barrels, a half charred tentacle slipped lifelessly from the funnel-like stock.
There was an awful taste in his mouth as he looked at it on the floor, one half of it burnt black and the other half, the half that had been inside the gun, white and almost cooked but for the very tip where a few of its remaining iridophores sparked brown to purple then nothing. Hayden took one last horrified look at the devastation around him then hurried to join Kel who was running toward the ship, the mechan plodding vigilantly and obediently behind him.
The tender seemed further away each step they took.
The little shuttle stood on four stout hydraulic legs, a ramp suspended only centimetres from the deck, tantalizingly close.
Kel moved up first but Hayden, although following immediately behind, paused for only a second to check on the Mechan when a single shot rang out from across the hanger. The force of the hit to his shoulder caused him to drop his weapon and be thrown to the floor where he writhed in intense pain. Kel ran quickly back down the short ramp to his aid as the mechan, standing just behind the crumpled body of one of its new masters, swiveled round and zeroed in on the would be assassin as it slid menacingly across the floor toward them aiming to finish Hayden off. It was either blissfully unaware of the annihilation meted out to its comrades minutes before or was the most stupid creature in the galaxy. It had advanced only a few metres when their metallic bodyguard with the aid of a single wrist-rocket, fired perfectly. The tiny projectile twisted rapidly through the air and into the Sepian with liquefying impact, fanning its upper body backward across the floor in a fiery gelatinous spray and leaving its tentacle legs eerily still standing.
Kel helped Hayden stand and obviously in agony, he bit down on his bottom lip. Holding her salvaged weapon with intent, Kel hauled Hayden aboard then ordered the mechan up the gang plank. Once inside, Hayden was placed on a small bunk in a cubicle behind the cockpit where he immediately passed out. Kel, still gripping her captured Sepian weapon tightly, instructed the robot to stand guard outside. The ADS-4 then magnetised its feet to the floor with such force that nothing would move it.
The little Devonian ran to the cockpit and started switching controls madly, noticing with horror that there was another slightly larger Sepian ship outside the slaver presumably awaiting shuttle docking clearance. It would be minutes if not seconds before anything left alive on the ship would send them a distress signal if they hadn’t done so already. Kel fired up the engines, checked the fuel ratio and hoped that it would be enough to get them somewhere safe. If they did get away safely, she could bring up the NavCom and find out where they were exactly. All systems checked, the only obstacle registered on the heads-up display was that the docking bay shield was up. There was no chance of getting clearance from control even if anything was alive and definitely no chance of ramming through the shield in such a small vessel. She looked for the shield engine and with relief, saw that it was an outdated model covered in conventional metal armour. A giant gunmetal grey snail shell was what it looked like and it sat mid-way along the floor by the edge of the dock. The freedom of space enticingly just beyond it. It was risky but Kel pulled back on the control stick and the tender lifted off, withdrawing the boarding ramp and hovering a few meters above the floor she maneuvered around to face her target. She knew that civilian shuttles weren’t usually armed with anything larger than a licensed blaster rifle or two locked away in a gun case but hoped, as this was now Sepian, they would have tricked it out after they had more than likely stolen it. Searching across the dashboard for anything that might help, she found nothing and was considering desperately ramming the generator when she ran her left hand underneath and felt the unmistakable contours of a missile switch. There was no time to get out and search for where they could have mounted the weapon that she hoped it activated, she banked the shuttle to port, lined up the shield engine’s conical plating with the nose-cone of the tender, flicked back the cover and fired. With intense relief, a sun bright energy torpedo sped from the shuttle’s prow, hitting the target directly. Flame, sparks and smoke erupted and Kel lowered her shielding arm from her face to watch pieces of metal thud and ping over the deck. The shield had to be down! She swung the ship back starboard and prepared to accelerate into the void beyond.
Another Sepian ship loomed a few kilometres out from the dock and had either received a distress call or was reacting immediately to the ship being blasted. It had had taken up a battle position and was ready to fire as its six forward torpedo tubes starting to glow warmly. Kel saw this unmistakable aggression and pressed forward on the controls so that the shuttle lurched toward the rapidly approaching exit, the lower bow-fin briefly bouncing off the deck. The little pilot worried but didn’t have to. The shield was down fully as they blasted into open space and raced toward the much larger armed ship in waiting. With a prolonged blast from its rockets, the tender fled into the blackness narrowly avoiding the six torpedoes sent furiously against it. Kel looked into the rear view screen just in time to see the deadly ordinance hammer into the hanger bay deck they’d just left and a massive fireball flash brilliantly then disappear as quickly to reveal the mangled debris of the Sepian pirate ship floating eerily in the cold vacuum of deep space. Kel could imagine the Sepian’s surprise when they blew up their own ship but she could also imagine their anger. She had to get them as far away as possible. The giver of this fiery and unintentional destruction turned on its helm in the direction of the tender and began pursuit
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Streaming through space at incredible speed on autopilot and on a course punched in by Kel, the small shuttle had covered a huge distance. There was no visual sign or reading of any other ship about them so Kel switched to manual control and the ship slowed considerably, the shuttle controls melding into her hands.
She was a good pilot. A great pilot, she’d been told. Trained by her father from a very young age, she loved to fly because of the freedom it allowed. A universe before her, she felt she could go anywhere but today, she thought of nothing but getting home or as close to it as possible and making sure the boy from earth she’d collected received the help he needed.
Looking out of the cockpit view screen at the immensity beyond, she could see the Devonian system, her home system and all around them billions of other stars that lit millions of other worlds.
She looked down at the nav-com and checked their position and fuel reserve. Fuel cells were at one quarter capacity. Salar-One was now far behind them but reachable within their range. Kel shrugged that thought off though as it would be suicidal after what they had just done. Sepians loved that place.
Kel calculated that they would have just enough fuel to reach Kuhl-Agev, a smaller planet in the Devonian system. Fortuitous in its proximity as that was where Hayden’s wound could be tended, she could restock the ship’s fuel and supplies and then leave for the shortish trip to Devonia and for her home.
She checked their heading and reengaged the autopilot.
Kel unclipped her harness and moved aft of the cockpit to check on her new alien friend.
Standing dutifully outside the cramped cabin, the mechan swiveled its head immediately at sensing Kel’s approach then, on recognising her, moved aside, its feet clunking off and onto the floor as it repositioned. The door opened and when she stepped inside was surprised to see Hayden sitting on the edge of his
bunk. He was wincing, his hand on his shoulder.
‘Lay down you stupid boy!’ She ordered as she checked on him. By the look of him, he’d just woken.
‘Where are we? ’ He asked groggily.
‘Kuhl-Agev is near,’ she answered, knowing by his reaction that he had no idea where that was. ‘Your wound can be fixed there.’
‘It’s no trouble,’ Hayden lied, longing for his mother’s help. He winced again as he looked at the large burn across his shoulder.
‘We arrive soon. Get more rest.’ Kel requested with some urgency. Hayden wouldn’t hear of it and began to stand but Kel pushed him back down firmly being careful not to hurt him.
‘I’ve had enough rest. I want to see where we are.’
‘You. To sleep!’ She ordered and Hayden knew she meant it so obediently lowered himself back onto the narrow bed and wondered if Kel knew who he was meant to be? And even if she did, would she, feisty as she was, even care?
Kel leant over him and looked at his nasty wound. The blast had seared across the top of his shoulder but the nature of the weapon had ensured the wound had cauterized and so any chance of infection was hopefully bypassed. Kel patted Hayden’s head as if he were a pet and stood to leave but before exiting, turned and smiled. ‘I will look for medical supplies,’ she said, holding her own shoulder as if it were Hayden’s and Hayden raised his head slightly, nodded then dropped it back down onto the flat gel-filled pillow. He fell asleep instantly.
The mechan’s electronic eyes followed Kel as she left and watched her disappear up the narrow passage and out of sight.
*
Checking all the cupboards and shelves for anything remotely resembling a bandage, Kel found a small cupboard door next to a power conduit and on opening it, was pleased to see a shelf filled with medical aid. Unfortunately the majority of it was designed solely for Sepian biology. She thought that nothing would be of use until she found a wide, thick gel tape on the bottom shelf. Grabbing it, she headed back to Hayden who had not long been asleep when suddenly the ship jolted.
The Blake Equation- Discovery Page 13