by Z D Dean
“You gentlemen need a ride?” She asked, hoping some humor would deescalate any bad blood that was created by watching their only ride fly off, leaving them stranded.
While she waited for a response she locked onto their interface signals. Judging by the map they had covered almost two-hundred-kilometers since she had left them. A distance that meant that they had either been there much longer than the ship was in flight or that they had been forced to move at a relatively fast pace. Neither situation was ideal, and Samix became very anxious as she waited for a response. Minutes passed, time which the ship closed with the planet, before Samix got a response. It took three tries but finally Zade’s voice popped into her head. The two exchanged details, albeit in very broad strokes, and Samix had learned that her hypothetical situation of being perused across the planet wasn’t too far off base.
After giving the men an estimated time of arrival, Samix headed to the robotics lab to arm herself. In route she filled Axis in on what was happening and instructed him to meet her in the robotics lab. Both would have to be present to make this rescue work. Axis had beat her to the lab and was working on setting up one of Zade’s new weapons.
“Son of a bitch. When it rains it pours.” He said as she entered the lab. They were both phrases Zade had used, and after he had explained them to Axis, he started using them too.
“That’s exactly what Zade said. Never mind, what are you getting at over there?”
“Zade showed it to me before he went planet side. Said it’s a high caliber, high rate of fire, door gun. I need to attach it to one of the pack mules to get it ready, but you’re going to need to fire it. I’m not good at sensing things on the ground when I’m on the ship.”
The gun wouldn’t look out of place, sticking out the door of a helicopter or out the top of an armored vehicle. It had eight, .45 caliber railgun barrels arranged in a circle, a butterfly trigger and a pindle mount. Axis hooked the weapon into the top of a waiting pack mule then instructed a maintenance SSILF to attach the twenty thousand round magazine to the bottom. Theoretically the weapon could lay down withering fire, ten times faster than the fastest weapon on earth, or at least Zade claimed it could. The weapon would run off the ships power once the pack mule got into position. After loading, Axis instructed Samix on how to use it. Instructions that were far simpler than she had anticipated. Point, squeeze the butterflies, hold on for a wild ride.
With the door gun set up, Axis turned his attention to arming himself. He chose a small carbine that fit his frame and did a quick functions check. The weapon would work perfectly. He knew he couldn’t engage the ground forces, but if anyone set foot on the ramp who wasn’t Zade or Jorloss he could incentivize them to leave quickly. The two rescuers moved into the cargo bay with the door gun in tow. Samix watched in amazement as the pack mule worked its way up the completely vertical closed ramp. When it got into position at the dead center of the leading edge, she could see a green light come to life between the triggers. Axis explained that green signified that the weapon was ready to use. Yellow meant that the magazine was half empty, red meant there was only one hundred rounds left.
Time crawled by but, eventually Samix got the notification that the ship was in the planet’s atmosphere. She opened the ramp and took up position behind the door gun. Expecting it to feel awkward, she was surprised that she felt completely comfortable behind a weapon that could kill a building. She had been familiarized with handheld weapons and ship weapons while at the Academe, but never a handheld ship weapon. The idea that a ship might have to support ground forces was completely alien to the Unity. Ship to ship weapons were required in space, but were fired from a console giving them an impersonal feel. Person to person weapons were meant to be carried by troopers and were relatively small compared to the door gun. Depending on how it worked, Samix made a note to introduce the idea when she got back home. Minutes that felt like days passed before she got contact from Zade again.
∆∆∆
The welcoming sound of a sonic boom from the ship entering the atmosphere greeted Zade’s ears. It was however, accompanied by the sound of the approaching mob. When he and Jorloss had entered the desert it had sounded like they had finally lost the pursuers. They must have massed on the edge of the desert because the sound of hundreds of people moving through the desert cut the reprieve short. It was going to be a figurative foot race to see who reached the stranded crewmen first.
“Come in southeast of our position with the ramp pointing north. Keep the ship hovering about eight feet off the ground, don’t want the locals getting any ideas.” Zade instructed the team on the tactical channel he had created. It allowed open voice communications, to prevent any information lag.
“OK.” Samix replied, the sound of wind signifying that she had already opened the ramp.
“You might want to put your foot in it though. It sounds like you’re going to get to us at the same time as the mob of pitchfork wielding bumpkins.”
Zade had hoped that pitchforks were the largest weapon that the locals had, but based on the earlier portion of the pursuit he figured he wasn’t that lucky. After repositioning, the somehow always unconscious at the wrong times, Jorloss to the southern face of the sand dune Zade climbed to the crest and peeked over. The mob was now fifty feet away from his position and he was right about being unlucky, they were all carrying what appeared to be rifles. As soon as they saw him they opened fire, spraying sand all over him. They were all good shots; the rounds were impacting inches away from him.
He crawled back to the relative safety of the southern side of the dune and thought about his situation. He had his pistol with one full magazine, which meant that at best he could take eight of the mob’s bravest once they got closer. Zade slid halfway down the dune and watched the ridge. The only way for the locals to get to him was over the top which, assuming they didn’t have explosives, gave him the advantage. The first local to crest the dune was a large orange male. Zade’s round relieved him of the left half of his torso before knocking him back down the other side. Local two through seven went down just like the first one.
“Ten seconds out. We have visual.” Samix informed him.
“Roger.” Zade replied while simultaneously engaging the eighth local.
Out of ammunition and low on options, Zade holstered his weapon and drew his combat knife. Obviously unaware of how bullets worked, the locals kept cresting the dune in the same place. A ten-foot-wide red patch denoted their route and Zade began climbing up to it. If he could get within arms-reach of one of the locals he might be able to get his weapon.
Well, “killed fighting monkey men on a distant world” wasn’t the worst epitaph I’ve ever heard. He thought to himself.
Samix urged the ship on, she had to meet up with her lost crewmen. Zade’s last transmission was backed by the sound of gunfire which meant that they were in imminent danger. Zade had agreed to the rules of the ship, the most important being don’t interfere with the locals unless absolutely necessary. If he was firing, the team had to be in danger. As the ship closed the final distance, the situation unfolding was not a good one. Zade and Jorloss had nothing but a sand dune standing between them and an angry mob of one hundred locals.
The ship settled above the crewmen and Samix opened up with the door gun. She fired over the heads of the locals, hoping the sudden appearance of a spaceship coupled with the roar of her weapon would cause them to change their minds about attacking her team. Her tactic wasn’t a total success ideally, they would have tucked tail and ran away from the team, instead they began firing at her. Forced to defend herself, Samix strafed the crowd with the death machine she was firing. The brutal efficiency of the weapon was both awful and awesome at the same time. The left flank of the crowd was reduced to nothing more than a pile of detached limbs and disemboweled bodies.
As Samix ripped off the first burst from the door gun, Zade began to shoulder Jorloss. Somehow, he had felt heavier than before, and while completely un
conscious was difficult to get into a stable position. With the scientist draped across his shoulders, one arm and one leg secured across his chest, Zade eyed the ship. The unfriendly conditions that they had been living in had greatly sapped Zade’s strength, which made covering the twenty-foot gap between his position and the lip of the ramp a slow arduous process. Zade coiled his legs and made the jump to the ramp, with Jorloss’ additional weight he could only clear the ramp to his waist. Samix was too preoccupied with keeping the crowd at bay to lower the ship. Zade didn’t know the controls well enough to try himself and feared that if he did, he would drop it on top of himself, so he resorted to plan b. Turning back to the ship and craning his neck to see behind him, Zade jumped again. This time when he cleared the ramp, he released Jorloss’ arm and leg dumping him unceremoniously on the ramp.
With Jorloss’ unconscious frame taking up the entirety of the ramp on the left side of the door gun, Zade moved to the right side of Samix and again jumped, this time catching the edge of the ramp and hauling himself aboard. Getting to his feet Zade moved to help Axis drag Jorloss inside as the ship began to climb. Samix was still manning the door gun but had ceased firing on the crowd. No one was in danger any longer, and she was maintaining an aggressive posture to keep it that way. As Zade got to Jorloss he realized something was wrong.
“Shit.” Zade exclaimed, to nobody in particular, as he realized the men had left the bag full of plant specimens on the north side of the dune below.
Zade quickly grabbed the carbine Axis had been using to cover the door and took a few steps back to allow himself a running start. He had been marooned and almost killed on this mission and was not going to make it for naught by leaving the objective behind. Samix turned just in time to see Zade, at full sprint, leap out of the now closing ramp back down to the planet’s surface.
“What the hell are you doing?” She asked.
“Be back in a second. Having to deal with Jorloss made me forget the god damn weeds we came here to collect.”
The ship had gained some twenty feet since he was aboard, but the sand below made for a soft landing. As calculated, his running start landed him right at the crest of the dune and his momentum carried him down the face of it. With their quarry escaping many of the locals turned their attention to tending for the remnants of their fallen comrades. A few, driven by fear and vengeance, were still firing at the ship. When they saw Zade exit they turned their attention to, what they felt would be a more attainable target, him. Zade came out of the combat roll, which he used to spend his momentum, into the kneeling firing position and began systematically neutralizing threats.
With the near threats taken care of, Zade methodically moved towards the abandoned assault pack and shouldered it. Knowing not to take his eyes off the threats Zade began the tedious and slow process of picking his way backwards up sand dune. Unlike the silent casualties Samix had created, the ones Zade had engaged were screaming and writhing in pain. The noise of these fallen drew the attention of others back to Zade, who was now at the top of the sand dune. Realizing that his situation was getting worse fast, Zade turned to make a run for the ship. As he did, he caught three rounds in the back: one in his left calf, one in his right thigh and one in his right shoulder. The pain block was almost instantaneous, and the shots felt more like being hit by a fastball than small pieces of lead ripping through his flesh, but the damage was real, and he was not going to be able to make it back to the ship.
Samix watched, in horror, from behind the door gun. Her worry for Zade quickly morphed into a rage at the locals. She let loose with the door gun once again and didn’t let off the trigger until every local she could see was turned into red paste. Some however, were smart enough to take cover behind the dune, meaning that she was one-man short of being able to get Zade. Axis couldn’t use the gun to cover the ground and he wasn’t large enough to get Zade, meaning she had to be in two places at once. She was quickly losing hope as she struggled to formulate a solution.
Mur watched the events unfold from his perch on the ceiling of the cargo bay. He had climbed up there like some nightmarish lizard so he could watch the crew without violating any of the commands Axis had given him. The cargo bay was two stories so technically he was still on the second deck while the rest of the crew was on the first. He knew this was his chance. During his forced isolation from the crew, Mur dug through the data file to try and find out why the crew was so hostile towards him. What he found crushed him, his previous version had a personality defect that caused it to attempt to kill the crew. It was an unforgivable betrayal that he had to atone for. He understood that he hadn’t made the attempt, but he also understood that organic lifeforms like the rest of the crew had difficulty differentiating between him and his previous versions.
“I can help.” Was all he said to the crew as he released his foot clamps and summersaulted out the ramp.
Samix was attempting to keep the remaining locals suppressed but two managed to close with Zade and were trying to drag him back to the mob. They had disarmed him and were too close to him for Samix to engage them without risking hitting Zade in the process. Mur’s red frame landed causing an eruption of sand and dust. While in freefall he had identified the two threats and as soon as he landed, he took off towards Zade. The AI covered the gap in three steps and, before the locals could react, he had their heads firmly grasped in his hands. After a violent shake to free Zade from their clutches he started to squeeze. The locals struggled at first, but at around five hundred and fifty pounds of pressure there was a crunch and Mur’s hands closed completely.
“Don’t worry, I was rebooted and am here to get you back to the ship.” Mur said to Zade before grabbing him and moving to the ship.
Zade’s nanites had done their jobs, the bleeding was stopped and both his entrance and exit wounds were almost completely closed. Almost the instant he was hit notifications for the nanites requirements appeared in his field of view. The process was slower than usual because of his poor diet while on the planet. Within seconds the two were back on the ship and Mur was taking Zade to the medical bay. After depositing Zade on the medical bay previously occupied by Samix, Mur headed down to the subdeck once again adhering to the protocols Axis had put in place.
After closing the ramp, Samix grabbed Jorloss and took him to the medical bay with Axis in tow. As the ship broke for orbit, the two able bodied crewmen began providing medical aid for the two injured, Axis for Zade and Samix for Jorloss. With both patients stable both Samix and Axis headed to the galley for some much-needed sloop.
Axis was first to speak, “That went bad fast.”
“I know, but I’m happy everyone is back on board.”
“How about Mur jumping into the action? We couldn’t have done it without him.”
“I think we can lift the restrictions on him. After a reboot he is a completely different entity. He views his previous versions as different person, and we should remember that.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea? He did try to kill all of us.”
“I do, he is a completely different AI than before the reboot.” Samix answered as she ordered Mur up to the galley.
Axis begrudgingly lifted the restrictions and both he and Samix sat quietly waiting for Mur to arrive. Before Mur came in Samix voiced one final thought on the subject.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m calling the mission; we are going home. Mur won’t have any more chances to strand anyone.”
With the revelation that he would be seeing his family soon, Axis first checked on Zade in the medical bay then went to his room for some sleep. Samix meanwhile waited for Mur. Mur was on the subdeck performing maintenance and cleaning himself up, which was the reason for the unusually long delay between when he was summoned and when he appeared. The AI walked into the galley and sat at one of the benches. After analyzing the previous data about his actions prior to reboot, Mur decided to take on as many organic idiosyncrasies as possible to calm the crew. The main
one being that he would stay in his frame when interacting with the crew, followed by trying to match their behavior as much as possible when interacting with them. Samix informed the AI about what was going on then asked him if there would be any issues with his programming for the duration of the trip.
“First, thank you for lifting the restrictions. It may not seem possible that an AI could develop attachments but being segregated from the crew was becoming difficult for me. Second, while I was segregated, I searched through the data, identified the personality malfunction, and completely rewrote that part of my code. There shouldn’t be any more issues.”
Satisfied with his answer, Samix instructed him to have maintenance SSILF clean the cargo bay, disassemble and store the door gun, and for him to set course back to Unity space. The jump would take thirty days, time in which she hopped that Zade and Jorloss recovered. The ship would either land at the Pez space station where the crew would take landing shuttles down to Xi’Ga or land directly in the capital spaceport. For the original crew this would be pretty standard, but for Zade it would be a first-time experience that she wanted him awake, recovered, and able to enjoy.
Mur left the galley to plot the ship’s warp back to Unity space. Most of the trip would be spent in interstellar space, time when there was no need for navigation stops. He would have to focus on the navigation when the ship was passing orbital bodies. With the AI gone and her mug empty, Samix headed to the medical bay to check on the injured crewmen. She entered to find Zade sitting on the edge of his bed, working to remove the various monitoring instruments from his skin.
