by J. N. Chaney
I aimed my HDK Dominator at the machine gun protruding from a thin slot in the metal turret. The reticle in my Reaper vision improved my accuracy, allowing me to put rounds into the opening, silencing one of the three guns shooting at my friends. There were other weapons, but those were the only three close enough to do damage right now.
Everything happened quickly despite the slow motion quality of the scene. I divided my attention between my friends and looking for the next threat, realizing that Locke had lost contact with the surface of the Nightmare.
This time, Horvath lunged and grabbed Locke by his foot, nearly losing his own connection with the ship. Elise grabbed Horvath, apparently having expected this would happen. Her instincts were good, and she learned quickly. One near-death spacewalk experience amid the ruins of a secret Union base had taught her what took years of training for most people to learn.
Sprinting across an open area, magnetized EVA boots locking and unlocking a microsecond out of sync with my movements, I fired at the other two guns that had an angle on this area of the deck. Not checking to see if I hit my targets—but let's be honest, I probably did—I jumped and grabbed Elise by her foot.
The four of us twisted and snapped through the void as my momentum drove us into the side of one of the main point-defense turrets. The massive thing looked like a bunker with a gun pointed out of one side.
I locked on with my boots and stood about forty-five degrees from the surface of the ship.
"You scared the shit out of me," Elise snapped.
I hauled her in, then Horvath, then Locke. We weren't able to rescue Gunner’s body.
"No time for that. This isn't a place we can sit on our asses," I said, again returning fire on one of the anti-personnel guns protecting Necron’s AI signal relay. The only reliable way to silence them was to shoot into their barrels.
Locke, Horvath, and Elise squatted against the exterior of the point defense turret and jumped downward, sailing away from the path of the barely visible anti-personnel rounds. There was an element of illumination to the tracer rounds Union forces sometimes used in the void of space, but it wasn’t the glowing version used in the atmosphere of a planet. The result was both ethereal and frightening.
I rolled down the side of the shell turret like it was a regular surface, then ran to a better position of cover, my EVA boots still slightly out of sync, which made me nauseated. The initial wave of adrenaline was gone, which allowed me to relax and make better decisions despite my discomfort. Today, the responsibility for maintaining my battle calm was all on me; X-37 wasn’t able to help.
That sucked because I would probably need an artificial boost in the very near future.
"Sound off with your status," I ordered as soon as I was sure I wouldn’t get blown to pieces by the anti-personnel machine guns. They didn't make a noise in the void. These weapons were magnetized railguns that didn’t rely on gunpowder or shell casings to move the projectiles. Without atmosphere, this was like fighting in one of the sound deprivation chambers during my Reaper training.
"What’s with these guns?" Elise asked over the EVA helmet comms. "The cycle rate is ridiculous."
"Nebs doesn’t follow Union SOP, so far as I can tell. I bet he has his own weapons research and development team," I said, not thinking about my answer as I spoke it. It was true, I was sure it was. But how Nebs did business on a daily basis and what kind of ship we’d captured was a topic for another time and place.
Three panels opened on the deck. Magnetized spheres rolled out, bumping into various obstructions and irregularities in the Nightmare’s complex surface. After about ten seconds, the spheres exploded with brief flashes of light—just enough to show thousands of razor-edged bits of metal radiating outward from the blasts. Had we been near Necron’s version of grenades, there would have been problems.
Everything about this battle was visual except for our helmet comms. I heard the ragged breathing of each member of my team and waited for X-37 to read off my vitals, but he didn't.
"What does Nebs do, sit around inventing new ways to kill people?" Elise asked. "I’m safe for now. But holy hell."
"Exactly," I said, shifting my position. "Locke, report."
"We're behind cover," Locke said. "Can you see Gunner from your position?"
"I can't see him, but my HUD is showing that his locator is active. We’ll pick him up later," I said.
"Good enough," Locke said, sounding grim but also like somebody who had been through this before in other battles. I doubted he would ever take the death of one of his soldiers for granted.
"We can't get past these guns, or those bomb thingies, or whatever tries to kill us next," Elise said, sounding pragmatic rather than defeated. "Is there another way around them?"
"There might be. I need to come to your position. You have good cover, so don't move. If you hear Necron’s anti-personnel guns going crazy, stay down and let me deal with it," I said.
"Okay, Reaper," Elise said. Her labored breathing betrayed her anxiety levels despite how cool she was trying to play it off. It was a good thing. I’d seen what happened to operators who got too cocky.
"X, can you read me?" I knew I wouldn't get an answer. My only question at this point was whether I would feel my limited artificial intelligence terminate. Would my nerve-ware burn with pain? Would my cybernetics seize up? Would I go blind in my left eye?
X-37 didn't respond, not even to tell me I was the cocky asshole about to get us all killed.
I took a deep breath, held it, then let it out to calm myself. I could do this. X-37 was only a tool, not my digital best friend and confidant. X wasn’t the boss of me. I could survive on my own.
"Dishonesty detected," I muttered.
"What?" Elise asked, sounding confused.
"Never mind," I snapped, then scanned the area around my position.
How long had it been since the last barrage from the anti-personnel guns? I stepped forward then back, drawing fire. The moment the rounds stopped slamming into the walls near me, I sprinted to the next protrusion on the surface of the Nightmare.
There weren’t many structures large enough to hide behind. This wasn't Dreadmax where the surface could have been a city built from metal and high density ceramics. By comparison, the exterior of the Nightmare was almost smooth with only a few armored maintenance stations and behemoth point defense turrets. Each of the workstations contained access points with reinforced frames strong enough to serve as airlocks.
I found one and got low, trying to ignore the strangeness of my environment. Additional railgun rounds decorated the space I’d recently crossed.
I low-crawled to a less vulnerable position, then sprinted between two of the main point defense batteries that were still aimed into the void, silent as museum pieces. Each time I reached safety and reassessed my situation, I expected X to give me an update. They never came.
Not having my limited artificial intelligence was unnerving. If someone had asked me several weeks ago whether I would miss X, I would've given a much different answer than I would give them right now.
Elise faced me. Crouched down, she held her weapon with both hands. There wasn't a lot of room to hide. Locke and Horvath took up most of the rest of their hiding place, so I stopped where I was.
"What's the plan, Reaper?" Elise was relying on her helmet comms to communicate, even though we were less than three meters apart.
"We'll do this Dreadmax style," I said. "All we need is an access point to get below the deck, then we can come up underneath our target and open it with explosives or pry bars, depending on what kind of hatch we find. Look at the bright side, kid, there won’t be any cannibals."
"Cannibals?" Horvath asked nervously.
"Long story," I said. "We’ll tell you about it later. Elise, let’s do this."
Elise shook her head. "It won't work. If that were an option, we could have emerged here in the first place without having to cross no-man’s-land. I have a better idea."
<
br /> "Elise, this isn't the time," I said.
"Don't do that," she said, her tone cutting like acid. "I'm not a kid, this isn't my first fight, and you're missing the obvious."
"I am?" I said. "Maybe you'd like to enlighten us on how we can defeat the Union's best AI."
"You're gonna have to swing me over the guns," she said.
I barked a laugh. "This isn't some video game. Get serious."
"I am serious. The antipersonnel guns stopped firing at Gunner once he was about three meters off the deck," she said. "You can swing one of us on a safety cable over their effective arc of fire."
I wanted to tell her she was wrong, a reckless kid about to make a suicidal mistake, but her plan had merit—and I was impressed she’d observed and remembered the detail amidst all the chaos and pants-shitting terror it caused.
"At this point, I would try about anything," Locke said. "But I have to agree with Cain. Your plan sounds reckless and untested. Sorry, Elise."
Horvath seemed unconvinced but thoughtful.
"No, she’s right, for fuck’s sake. There isn’t a better way," I admitted, annoyed at how right she was.
"There's a good chance the ship AI has guns just for high-angle attacks. That would be the most likely threat. Something from an enemy ship—a boarding party of explosive specialists for example," Horvath said. "Not that I'm trying to spoil your extremely dangerous plan, Elise."
“Maybe,” I said. “But that isn’t how the Union boards ships. They start with shuttles, secure a landing bay, then run boarding tubes to really increase the number of assaulters they can put across the gap.”
“Dangerous, but probably effective,” Horvath admitted.
I drove my gaze straight at Elise, wishing we were closer together and that we weren't wearing helmets. A flash memory of Gunner’s reminded me how vulnerable all of us were right now. "Are you sure you want to do this, Elise?"
"Let’s get it over with," she said. "I'll come to your position. There isn't room over here to stand, much less swing me around on a cable."
"When you say it like that, it sounds even more ridiculous and suicidal," I said.
"Like something you would do," she countered. "I’m crossing to your position."
Before I could argue, she sprinted toward me and I wondered if her EVA boots weren’t better synced than mine. She certainly looked a lot more graceful than I felt.
Anti-personnel projectiles reached out from a gun turret I hadn’t seen. She cursed as a bullet glanced off the light armor of her extravehicular activity gear. Scrambling up to her knees, she twisted this way and that to avoid a heavy barrage of rounds.
"Are you trying to get killed!" I grabbed her when she got knocked down again, then pulled her the final meter and a half.
"Hands off!" She spat the words like a curse, striking away my grip with a self-defense technique she’d learned from Path.
I stepped back, raising my hands in mock surrender. "Hey, sorry, kid. Wouldn’t want to save your life or cramp your style."
"Just don’t be such a jerk about it. You don’t need to yank me around every time we get shot at," she complained.
I laughed.
"Not funny." She put her hands on her knees and bent forward to catch her breath. "Every time one of us moves, there’s a new gun." She stood, shaking off her discomfort like a pro. "I really hate you sometimes."
"Sometimes is not all the time," I pointed out, relieved to see the attitude I’d come to expect from her.
"Let’s do this," she said. "I’m worried about X."
"Unspool your safety line," I instructed.
Her hands shook as she rolled out the thin, durable cable from her utility belt. I tried not to think about Gunner and how we still wouldn’t have saved him if we’d had time to use safety lines while moving. Constantly attaching and reattaching cables would have slowed us down and made us vulnerable to the anti-personnel guns.
"Ready?" I asked.
She nodded vigorously, barely making eye contact. Through her visor, I could see her regulating her breathing and growing calmer but still pretty tuned up.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, Reaper, I’m fucking sure already," she snapped, her voice full of fire that would save her life when things got tough.
"I'll swing you on three," I said.
"On three, gotcha," she responded.
"One, two—" I heaved with all my might, swinging her up from the deck and through the darkness. Getting her moving was hard, but once she was sailing through the top of the arc, it was easy. The challenge would be adjusting her trajectory.
"You said we'd go on three," she yelled over the comms. Her nearly unintelligible words tumbled out rapidly.
My cybernetic left eye showed her flailing in the darkness, almost like she was trying to control her movement by swimming.
"I didn't want you to flinch," I explained. "You’ll thank me later when you don’t die."
"Get me down, Reaper." Her words didn’t sound like a request and I was impressed, not for the first time, at how pragmatic she was under pressure—assertive rather than dramatic or fearful.
She was growing up too fast. Union experiments and a life running from trained soldiers did that to a person.
And I was a bad influence. If we weren’t careful, she’d be smoking cigars and punching people in the face rather than talking to them—just like me.
I laughed with an absurd amount of almost parental pride, then heaved on the line to tow her downward.
Elise screamed.
I pulled harder but couldn’t drag her to the surface.
"You must get her through the shield," X-37 explained, his voice ghostly, distant, and hard to hear through static that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. "It is reacting to the EVA suit and her weapons."
"You’re back, X!" I pulled on the line with both hands, contracting every muscle in my body to pull harder.
"I never left. Necron is weak, ruined by Nebs' colossal ego and paranoia, but truly devious and clever when push comes to shove," X-37 explained, his words laced with a high-pitched whine that hurt my ears.
I twisted and pulled. Elise came down slowly and at the wrong angle. She would land on the far side of the signal relay station in a worse position than we started. And she’d be alone.
"Locke," I called.
"We’re coming," he replied.
Seconds later, all three of us were tugging on the thin safety cable as anti-personnel rounds and rolling bombs tried to kill us.
X-37 rattled off several nonsense words that I wasn't able to evaluate. Had my limited artificial intelligence just warned me of a complete shutdown? I couldn’t be sure.
"I'm freaking out here," Elise called, while overwhelming noise dampened features in my cochlear implant.
"Hang on," I grunted. "We're doing the best we can."
Something new whipped through the space between Necron’s signal relay and our position. Horvath let go of the line with one hand to block the projectile with his arm.
Bullets continued to zip past us. Another batch of bombs rolled from the seemingly random hatches and explode. It was hard to see what happened to Horvath. I only knew that he staggered away with his left arm bound to his body somehow.
"Horvath, what’s your status?" I demanded.
"I'm tied up in some sort of razor cable," he answered. "It cuts into me when I try to untie it. I think my suit might be slowly venting atmosphere. Struggling makes it worse."
"Stand back and stay still, Horvath. Cain, we have bigger problems," Locke said, still pulling on the cable to bring Elise down as he nodded toward the shield above us. "I think Necron is turning the ship guns on us."
"The shield is off," Elise screamed too late for me to stop pulling. She shot downward, arms and legs flailing.
Why would the shield turn off? Because Necron’s self-defense strategy had just changed. Vibrations radiated from the deck and through my EVA boots as one of the big guns started turning.
Throwing aside the safety line, I rushed toward where she had landed in a heap. Locke went to untangle Horvath.
"I don’t think the ship guns can be turned far enough to hit us. They’re for point defense, not surface security." Running distorted my words. On any other day, X-37 would have explained how wrong I was.
A row of red lights flashed to life one by one in the nearest point defense turret. The barrel lowered even as the base of the monstrous thing swirled on invisible gears.
"Elise!"
She pushed onto her hands and knees, moving too slowly to avoid the increasing rate of anti-personnel weapons. The big gun was nearly aimed at her.
"Necron, I will wipe you from the ship’s computer when this is over," I shouted, adding unintelligible curses as I dove toward Elise. I tackled her to one side a second before the point defense turret opened fire.
The difference between Necron’s anti-personnel rounds and the pulse turret was like the difference between a lightning bug and a lightning bolt.
A huge chunk of the deck exploded inward. Other sections of the armor plating spiraled into the void. Shock waves rippled across the surface around the impact, tossing Locke and Horvath upward.
This time, Locke was ready with his own safety cable. His quick thinking saved his life and Horvath’s but also exposed them to the smaller anti-personnel rounds that Necron immediately directed toward them.
For a second, I hoped our problems were over, then I observed the damage made a large circle around the signal station. Necron had fired danger-close, just like a team of frontline soldiers might call down artillery fire dangerously near their own position.
"Elise, where are you?"
"I’m going for the AI’s relay. We’re close!" Her words distorted in the comm link. "Follow me!"
"Cain," Locke shouted, his voice full of pain from a recent wound.
I grabbed his cable and pulled both of the Wallach men after me. Without the shield’s resistance, it was easy. Seconds later, I was diving through a hatch after Elise with Locke and Horvath on a collision course behind me.
Elise helped me up, converting my diving roll into a standing position that would have looked smooth as hell if not for what happened next.
