Level Up Bitch

by N M Tatum

  “This place isn’t as cutting edge as StrobeNet’s Rever station, but it’s close. Rever was a next-gen facility, in terms of station design. Jasob’s HQ is at the top of the current gen spectrum. Most of it is automated, including the security system, which we will have to contend with. Like Rever, the station can’t be accessed remotely—as a method of keeping its proprietary information secure—and the last person to evacuate failed to turn the security system off. So, at least until I can access it onsite, the station will try to shoot us.”

  Cody checked his scatterblaster, then, satisfied, stuck it in the holster on his back. “Speaking of Rever, Jasob would really like us to not blow up their station. The loss would sink the company.”

  Joel raised his hand to interject. “Did you tell them that, as long as their station isn’t swallowed by a giant space bug, we will do our best not to blow it up?”

  “I did.”

  Joel winked at him. “That’s why you handle customer relations.” He squatted down and strapped a piece of Rapoo teeth plated body armor around Peppy.

  The team, now outfitted with upgraded body armor and weapons, felt ready to tackle the Rapoo threat.

  “Since we’ll be landing in the hangar bay substation, we’ll clear that one first,” Cody said. “Then we’ll move into the central hub, where I’ll access the main system. From there, we’ll move systematically through the station. Questions?”

  Reggie secured his gatling to the straps around his shoulders. Sam slipped her arm into her shield gauntlet.

  “More of a comment really,” Joel said. “Great briefing. Top quality. Also, I brought these.” He pulled a tube about a foot long from a duffel bag he’d carried from his workshop. From the tube, he produced a metal rod that measured about the same length.

  The others eyed the rod as though it were as plain as it seemed. Joel watched their eyes as he pressed the button on the side. He delighted in their wonder.

  The rod expanded with blink-and-miss-it speed to four feet. It came to a sharpened point on one end. The tip glistened in the light.

  “Spears.” He handed it to Sam, who marveled at it. “Tipped with the diamond enamel, of course, for maximum killing. They’re perfectly balanced and weighted for efficient chucking and impaling of nasty little shits.”

  He produced two more, which he handed to Cody and Reggie, and then a fourth for himself. They tested them, making sure they stood a safe distance from one another before expanding them.

  Reggie slapped Joel on the back. “You continue to impress, dude. These are awesome.”

  A notification beeped on the monitor, drawing Cody’s attention. “We’ve reached the proximity arrays of the Jasob Station. I’m going to steer us in manually, and, hopefully, not get shot out of the sky.”

  Cody and Sam returned to the bridge, while Joel and Reggie strapped into the chairs in the cargo bay.

  The tips of Cody’s fingers tingled as adrenaline surged through his body. His vision narrowed on the control panel. He’d put in dozens of hours of flight practice in the week since they’d bought Ragnarok, but he’d yet to see real action from behind the yoke. The churning in his gut was a mixture of excitement at getting the opportunity and fear that he would fail, and they would all die horrible deaths.. It was probably seventy percent excitement. Maybe sixty-five percent.

  The monitors were all backlit in soft blue, signifying that Ragnarok was on autopilot. The lights turned red as Cody took over the controls.

  “Here we go.”

  Sam did her best to maintain an air of confidence, though Cody’s apparent lack of it did not help. “You got this.”

  An automated message sounded over the comm. “Unidentified vessel. You do not have authorization to enter this space station. Present your authorization code now or turn back. If you fail to do either, you will be fired upon.”

  “Is it too much to hope the client gave you an authorization code?” Sam asked.

  “Yes. They did not,” Cody answered. “The system administrator was in the process of changing all the access codes, as per routine, when they announced the evacuation. He apparently didn’t think that leaving the security system active with no way to shut it down was a problem.”

  “I hope he gets fired.”

  An alarm sounded on the panel next to Cody’s left hand. They’d been targeted.

  “Me too,” Cody said.

  Luckily, he’d planned on this happening, so he had an idea of how to handle it. With his approach, no evasive maneuvers would be needed; he’d land the ship safely before any shots were fired.

  Though that was just a theory.

  Ragnarok came equipped with so many beautiful toys. One of the subtler ones, the gadgets with little flash that didn’t garner much attention from the others, was a signature cloner. It did exactly what the name implied. It copied the ship’s signature that any attacking ship would use to, say, lock on to it with a barrage of devastating missiles, and confuse the targeting system as to which target was real.

  It was a short-term solution, only capable of tricking an enemy targeting system for a maximum of ten seconds, but hopefully that’s all Cody would need.

  He activated the signature cloner and did not alter his course.

  “You’re sure this is going to work?” Sam asked.

  Cody’s knuckles turned white. “Never ask that question. It’s not a good question.”

  The targeting alarm continued to ring, but the station lost its lock on Ragnarok. Cody began the countdown in his head.

  Ten seconds.

  The hangar bay doors were in range. The shimmering blue shield across the opening that kept the interior pressurized while allowing ships to pass through looked like a pleasant tropical wave, lapping at the shore.

  Five seconds.

  Just a little bit closer. Cody could see inside the hangar bay now. He could see the spot where they would land. In one piece. Not the least bit exploded.

  Three.

  Two.

  “Target lock engaged,” Sam said with eerie calm.

  One.

  The shimmering blue shield that separated the vacuum of space from the pressurized interior of the station washed over the Ragnarok like they were passing through a waterfall. Cody set the ship down at exactly the spot he’d picked out, way back when total obliteration was at the forefront of his mind. Now the only thing he thought about was getting the job done.

  Sam clapped him on the back before leaving the bridge to rendezvous with the others in the cargo bay.

  One of the other pluses of Ragnarok? A much more comprehensive scanning system. They could run a scan of a ship and tell how many living creatures were on it, what species they were, and where exactly they were on the ship.

  “Initial scans show a strong Rapoo presence in the hangar bay,” Cody said over the general comm. He leaned in closer to the monitor, not sure he was seeing what he was seeing. But these scanners were top of the line. No way they were wrong. “And these Rapoo seem to be a bit larger.”

  “Of course they do,” Joel answered back. “How big we talking? Labradoodle? Sedan? Winnebago?”

  “Smaller than a Labradoodle, bigger than a Wheaton Terrier. They’re about forty percent larger than the ones we encountered on Kaufman,” Cody informed them as he rejoined the team in the cargo bay.

  They were strapped. They were ready. The landing platform lowered. And the battle began.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Blood splattered on Reggie’s face. He didn’t know if it was his or not. He didn’t have time to think about it. He didn’t have time to care, to mentally scan his body to see if he’d been dealt a fatal blow, if he was bleeding out, if his intestines were dangling out his front side.

  They weren’t. His intestines were fine. The blood wasn’t even his; it spewed out of the crushed face of the Rapoo that had lunged at him from the roof of a single pilot shuttle parked next to Ragnarok. Reggie pulled his diamond knuckles back with a wet, slick sound. The Rapoo’s fac
e was mush.

  The team got flanked by a pack of Rapoo as soon as their feet hit the hangar bay deck. Sam sliced one in half. Cody got off two shots from his scatterblaster before he was overrun. Joel holstered his pistols quickly. Reggie didn’t even try his gatling. The pack was too dense and too quick. Reckless fire at that close a range would only result in the Notches blasting each other apart.

  Joel and Cody drew their spears. A press of the button and they expanded, knocking the attacking Rapoo back a few paces. They swung in wide arcs, the spears allowing Joel and Cody to maintain the distance between them and the Rapoo.

  Reggie opted to pummel the creatures into paste. The sickening sticky sounds soon elicited an odd sense of satisfaction. As the dead Rapoo dropped to the deck, another flanked Reggie, slashing at his chest. He inhaled and braced for his heart to fall onto the floor. But the creature’s claws just glanced off the diamond plating. Reggie cracked the Rapoo’s skull with a quick downward punch.

  The team slowly gained ground, pushing the Rapoo back from the landing platform. The Notches moved outward in a semicircle, slashing through the beasts, dropping them to the deck in pieces. Joel shoved his spear through the side of one. Cody used his spear like a staff, batting the Rapoo away from him.

  Peppy tore through the hangar bay like a torpedo. He ripped a Rapoo’s throat out without slowing down, moving on to the next creature before the first had hit the deck. The air became tinted with a red mist that then fell like rain, making the deck slick. Peppy didn’t realize how slippery it was until his front feet slipped out from under him, and he fell onto his chest. He slid twenty yards until he crashed into the wall.

  Peppy had killed half the pack before he fell. Before he was back on his feet, the team had killed the other half.

  The adrenaline burning off, the team became aware of the damage they’d taken during the skirmish. Nothing serious; Joel’s updated armor protected all their vital bits. Reggie had a gash in his shoulder, though. Sam’s left leg was cut just above the knee. Cody and Joel both had a few cuts and scrapes. Peppy’s pride was wounded. But they were alive and standing.

  Another benefit of Ragnarok’s updated scanners was that Cody could patch into them with his wristcom. The hangar bay was clear.

  After patching themselves up, they moved on. The tunnel connecting the hangar bay to the main hub was hardly larger than a standard hallway. The team could walk shoulder to shoulder, but just barely, and Reggie could touch the ceiling if he jumped. It couldn’t have made for an easy flow of traffic, but this wasn’t a commercial station like Rever—it wasn’t designed to keep people moving from store to store.

  They paused at the entrance to the main hub. Joel didn’t need to hear Cody’s assessment of the scans to know there were Rapoo on the other side of the door. He could tell by the way Peppy snarled. But Cody gave it anyway.

  “The main hub is swarming. There’s got to be at least ten separate packs in there, probably ten Rapoo per pack.”

  “I’m pretty good at math,” Joel said. “And that sounds like a terrible situation.”

  Cody was silent as he studied the scans. “It is. But I have an idea to make it slightly less terrible.” He expanded the window on his wristcom for all to see. “The Rapoo are moving back and forth from the substations to the main hub. If I can get to the main server and hack in, then I can control the tunnels. We push the Rapoo back, I shut down the tunnels, trapping them, then we tackle them just a few packs at a time instead of this massive horde all at once.”

  The team agreed.

  “But how do we push them back?” Reggie asked.

  Joel patted his bag. “Flashbangs. Trusty old flashbangs.” Peppy pressed his head into Joel’s hand. “And Peppy can herd them.”

  Reggie hoisted his micro-gatling and stood ready at the door. The team fell into their standard breaching formation. Cody opened the door.

  The main hub was a portrait of chaos. The Rapoo had completely overrun it. For the first time, Cody noticed tribal behavior in the beasts. Different packs were fighting each other. It seemed like mostly posturing, the creatures baring their teeth and snapping their jaws, putting on a show for potential mates, trying to intimidate their opponents into vacating the territory. But some of the altercations had turned deadly. Cody spied a few corpses scattered across the deck.

  This would work to their advantage. The Rapoo were divided. Not only were they not presenting a united front, but they were at each other’s throats.

  The Rapoo hadn’t even turned their attention on the Notches when Reggie opened fire. A group of them close to the entrance scattered. Reggie didn’t stop to study the landscape; he just ran forward. The main server was in the center of the room, which was a cavernous space of multiple open levels. They looked like lofts stacked on top of each other.

  The Notches followed in his wake. Sam and Cody protected the flanks. Joel followed Peppy along the perimeter of the room, pushing the Rapoo toward Reggie’s barrage. Joel threw a flashbang as hard and high as he could. It ricocheted off the wall and fell behind a cluster of Rapoo. The explosion sent of shockwave of light and force through the room, hitting the Notches in the chest. But they had been prepared, and braced themselves.

  The Rapoo weren’t anywhere close to prepared. The flash put them in a frenzy. They ran into each other, tripped over themselves, snarled at everything. Peppy ran around behind them and herded them into the tunnel connecting to the residential substation.

  Reggie pushed the packs back past the main server. It was a raised platform, open on all sides, a computer terminal in the center. He took up a position between the server and the horde.

  Cody climbed the platform after Reggie and dropped his bag. He sat at the computer terminal and opened a window on his wristcom. This system, like the one on Rever, wasn’t networked, so he couldn’t access it remotely, even when standing right next to it. He pressed a button, and a port opened on the side of his wristcom. He pulled on the cable that extended from it and plugged into the station’s main server.

  “Keep them off me for two minutes,” Cody said.

  Sam stood beside him, her sword and shield at the ready. “By your command.”

  Cody glanced at her. “Did you just make a joke? This isn’t the right time for you to start doing new things. It throws me off my game.”

  Sam smiled, but said nothing. She instead batted a charging Rapoo aside with her shield, and then stabbed it.

  Joel and Peppy fell into a rhythm. Joel would toss a flashbang into a pack of Rapoo. Once disoriented, Peppy would herd them into one of two tunnels, either the one connecting to the residential substation, or the one connecting to the R&D substation. The Rapoo didn’t offer much resistance. A couple did snap at Peppy as he herded them, but the vest Joel had designed for him kept him protected.

  By the time Cody had hacked the main server and dropped the doors on each of the tunnels, none of the team had received any new injuries.

  A handful of Rapoo stragglers were left in the main room, cut off from their packs. Sam and Peppy made quick work of them. The team huddled on the main server platform, taking the time to rest while they weren’t facing a horde of hostiles. Joel patted Peppy and gave him a treat, rewarding him for being the very bestest killing machine ever.

  “The hangar bay is secured, and now, it’s sealed off.” Cody maximized the schematics of the station. “That leaves the residential and R&D substations. Preferences as to which one we tackle first?”

  No one expressed a desired target.

  “Then we’ll take residential,” Cody said. “That’s the smallest of the substations. And it’s got the most simplistic layout, so it shouldn’t take us too long to work our way through.” He brought up an infrared scan of the residential substation. “And it looks like the bulk of the Rapoo are in R&D. We’ll take the easy one first.”

  Reggie stretched his arms over his head and arched his back. “Sounds good to me. That gatling is a terror on my arms and lower back, even w
ith the antigravity assist. I can’t keep it going for long.”

  “I don’t think you’ll need it much, once we get into the substation,” Cody said. “There isn’t a lot of open space. Mostly narrow corridors and cabins. I’m thinking we’ll be using spears and small caliber weapons from here on out.”

  Sam wiped the blood off her sword and twirled it before sheathing it. “Sounds good to me. All that blasterfire is giving me a headache. You boys ready to fight like men? Hand to hand?”

  Reggie dropped his micro-gatling, opting to shed the excess weight if he wouldn’t be using it. He pounded his knuckles together. “Let’s do this.”

  The team lined up at the door to the residential tunnel like it was a starting line. Their melee weapons at the ready, their hearts pounding.

  “Ready?” Cody asked.

  They nodded.

  Cody raised the door in front of them, while lowering the door at the other end of the tunnel, trapping the Rapoo inside.

  The team stormed the tunnel. The Rapoo seemed to still be disoriented from the flashbangs. With the pack condensed and left with nowhere to run, the tunnel turned into a shooting gallery—or, more accurately, a stabbing gallery. The Notches charged forward like Spartans, stabbing everything that moved.

  The tunnel was cleared in short order.

  The residential substation was organized like a hotel. Floors of identical cabins were stacked on top of each other, each floor identical to the next. After clearing the first three, the team started to feel a mind-bending déjà vu every time they stepped off the elevator onto a new level.

  Still, wandering through the cabins, it was hard for Sam not to wonder what it would be like to live in one. She’d never had a steady living environment, no place to lay her head for more than a few months. She’d hitched rides on ships, sometimes getting lucky enough to score a bed, but most of the time sleeping in the cargo hold. When she was planet-side, she was either tracking a job or between jobs. The former meant she was always on the move, probably sleeping in abandoned buildings or camping in the woods. The latter meant she was either looking for work or in the hospital.