by Viola Grace
“You heard me. I am not going anywhere without a fully accessible pilot. For the weaponry you have stocked me with, I require a completely accessible pilot.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I will share my memories with you and you with me. I will use your nervous system to give you feedback as to what is going on with my outer hull, and I will give you access to my archives for battle techniques.”
“I have to share my mind?”
“You do. That is non-negotiable.”
Nyvett stared at the lens at the front of the pilot’s area. “I don’t want you rummaging through my mind.”
“I don’t want you piloting my systems. We can’t have what we want.”
Nyvett blinked. “Why not?”
“You don’t take risks, you play by the book, and I need someone who will take it on faith that we are doing the right thing.”
Nyvett realized that while they were negotiating, she could hear blasts outside. “What is going on?”
“An alien species, the one that I remember from the first war, is launching projectiles toward Bot City.”
“That is impossible.”
“No, it is very possible, and unless you agree to pilot me in your fullest capacity, you will not be able to help your people. They are sitting ducks, as your folk say.”
Nyvett was shocked. “You are bound to help.”
“Only if I have a pilot. Are you that pilot?”
His voice hung between them, and in the distance, she heard the sounds of war beginning.
Nyvett lifted her chin. “I am that pilot, but keep your incursion to the necessary.”
“I will be a complete gentleman.”
The pilot cradle descended, and Nyvett stepped into it. She settled into his standing position, so when the neural connection hit, her body was already tense.
Fire streaked along every nerve; she wanted to scream, but her mouth, her lungs couldn’t pull in enough air.
Iff’s voice in her mind was a soft whisper. He was trying to sooth her out of the pain and panic. It wasn’t working.
Nyvett got control of his arms and found his targeting systems. She looked up at the incoming projectiles and focused all her fury and energy into cleaning the sky.
Iff was designed for rapid fire. He was a walking arsenal when he was fully outfitted, and even at half capacity, he had more than enough firepower to buy them an hour. Nyvett used everything short of the surface-to-air missiles.
When she was finished working her way into a partnership state with Iff, there were no incoming projectiles. They had time to regroup.
Nyvett used the coms. “This is Nyvett Norm piloting Iff, please respond.”
“Corbyn Leving piloting Myx.”
“Lido Padu piloting Cio.”
“Xaia Turo piloting Ai.”
Nyvett nodded. “What about the others?”
Corbyn answered, “No signal coming from Kab, and Len had an explosion.”
“In that case, I believe we should protect them until they can get going and help if we can.”
Xaia answered. “I am approaching Len. The fire is out, but there is an awful lot of blood around the remains of the fuelling station. Kab appears to be having a power issue.”
Nyvett turned Iff’s body, and she started the walk to Kab. “I believe I can solve the power problem, but they aren’t going to like it.”
Corbyn muttered through the com, “This is not the team I would have picked.”
Nyvett sighed, “This is not the way I was going to spend my evening, but here we are.”
Iff stepping over the rocks and chasms left by the shattered projectiles was tricky. He was not designed for any kind of dance. His body was heavy and loaded with ordinance. He was not the fastest bot in the survivor’s grouping, but he was the strongest.
They turned off the main coms when Iff asked, “So, why do you think your clan was stuck with me?”
She chuckled. “We were born from the bloodline of your last pilot. He was a fan of the rules because you are not.”
“What? He was an amazing warrior.”
“Together, you were amazing. On his own, he preferred rules and order, and it tempered your temper.”
Iff snorted. “Who told you that?”
Nyvett smiled, her body wired to the harness and walking slowly while controlling his limbs. “You did. Our little fusion moment showed me your time with him. There was a lot of deep sighing and manipulation on his part and a lot of pushback for more weaponry on yours. In the end, it was a compromise to make you the beast on two legs you are today.”
“It worked.”
“It did then, but the only thing you are going to get out of me you have already gotten. We are doing things by the book, as soon as I find the damned book.”
Iff was silent, but she could feel his amusement. He was going to keep pushing. She could tell.
They walked up to Kab, and Ai was next to them.
“Xaia, you are the specialist, can you see why he isn’t moving?”
Ai slowly circled Kab while Myx and Cio went to help Len to his feet.
“Kab has been shorted out. A chunk of debris hit it just as the pilot was being initiated.”
Ai paused and looked at Iff. Xaia’s voice came through the coms. “We can get them going if we work to send a shock through Kab. It will be deeply unpleasant, but it is doable.”
Nyvett opened Iff’s palms and started a thick wave of arcing energy between them. “Just tell me where to put this.”
Ai mimicked Iff and manoeuvred until Kab was right in between.
“Count of three. One, two, three.” Ai pressed the energy to Kab, and Iff did the same thing. The bot jolted, stood upright, and a duet of screams ripped through the com systems.
Nyvett pulled back, as did Xaia. The shuddering jerks of Kab’s first movements were painful to watch, but eventually, he calmed and turned to view the situation.
A dry voice came through the coms. “That really sucked.”
Nyvett laughed in relief. All six bots were moving. It was time to make a plan. She loved plans.
Chapter Seven
Hima enjoyed talking about the new arrivals with her clan. Several of them were also in the medical field, so the chance to talk shop was never wasted.
Lonna and her partner, Jinia, came up to say hello. “Well, sister, are you going through with it?”
Hima looked at her elder with a smile. “Of course. It is an honour to maintain Len. I was ready to do it the last time.”
Lonna shook her head.
Jinia smiled shyly. She did everything with that shy look. “I would be terrified to drive out. It is bad enough that the other clans use zip lines, but to be there at his feet would be frightening.”
Hima blinked, “Don’t you do your... oh. Right.”
Jinia blushed. “I am not born to the Dbor clan. I was born Padu, and so, I am not allowed to work on any of the bots anymore.”
“I am sorry, Jinia, I forgot.”
“It is all right, little sister. I forgive you. When do you leave?”
The roar of the crowd indicated that the burn had begun.
Hima smiled. “As soon as the waves of heat fade, I will be on my way.”
The blast could be felt where they were standing. Len’s kneeling position meant that the boosters on his calves and the soles of his feet could send out flames hundreds of feet long.
The moment that the monorail activated, Hima took the pole to the valley floor and climbed onto the cycle from there. It was an honour to refuel Len. He had always been friendly and welcoming to Hima when she was working on his systems. He had been the one to let her know that she was suited for a medical career.
The silty soil of the valley flew away as she cruised along the well-travelled path. The refuelling depot for Len was as different as the mode of transport. The automated systems didn’t work quite right. Human h
ands had to guide the connection. It seemed that Len was sinking into the soil with his centuries in his single position. Each Burning Day sent him deeper down.
She parked her cycle at the base of the fuelling station and went to the access pad. She started the pump’s release from the station, and she walked over to Len. A quick scan of her hand let her open the access port for fuelling, and she caught the incoming pump nozzle, locking it in place.
With the bulk of her job done, she looked up at the sky. There were shooting stars in the heavens. It was a glorious night.
The moment that the fuelling was done, she uncoupled the nozzle and sealed Len. She had taken two steps toward the fuel station before she heard the alarm.
She never heard the chunk of debris that crushed her cycle and lit the fuel station in fire, but the explosion would haunt her.
Hima coughed and sat up—or tried to. She was being pinned by wood and steel. Her face was wet, and she tasted blood. She tried to move her limbs, but she was disappointed. It was her left arm that was missing from the equation. More blood came out on a rattling cough.
The alarm was still sounding. It must have been only a few minutes.
Hima turned her head. The blast had thrown her against Len. She had gotten lucky. She grimaced and whimpered as she used her right arm and leg to lever the wood off her. The fire at the fuel depot was dwindling and her cycle was nowhere to be found.
She got to her feet and cradled her left arm against her. She still couldn’t look.
Hima used Len to brace herself as she dragged her feet toward the entry port. Getting into Len was tricky under normal circumstances. His access was sideways. This was going to be deeply unpleasant.
She knelt slowly and pressed her palm to the screen. She croaked, “Pilot access requested. Len-Dbor-Wekkon.”
“State identity.”
She chuckled as the blood began to well out of her right palm. “Hima Dbor. Status, critical.”
The secondary screen didn’t send tendrils to take her blood. Her abraded skin had done the job for it.
“Access granted. You are welcome to the bridge.”
The door slid open, and Hima crawled inside, wheezing blood and feeling every cracked and broken bone. When the lift started moving, she let out a choked scream and passed out.
Hima woke in the tiny space and the floor was sticky with her blood.
“Hima, please. I need you to make it to the pilot’s cradle. I can help you. I can keep you alive, but I need you to get here. Can you do that for me?”
Len sounded so concerned. Hima looked around. The room was grey with fuzzy edges. She coughed blood again.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am very serious. You are a midwife, right? Would you let your patients give up when they were almost to their goal?”
She grimaced. “Don’t use that kind of logic on me.”
“Fine. Shut up and get to the chair.”
“It would have to be suspended in the middle of the fucking room.”
“Language.”
Hima sighed and started crawling. It took forever. She could hear the other bot pilots calling, but until she got into the cradle, she couldn’t do anything, so she was going to get into the damned cradle.
Hauling her body up and into the seat took the last of her energy. As she lay with the world going bright and then dark, she muttered, “Satisfied? I am in the bloody chair.”
* * * *
Len began the protocol immediately. He had never had a pilot so badly wounded, but there was a first time for everything.
Shattered arm, punctured lung, fractures along every major bone, internal bleeding and lacerated skin. He used his connection to inject her with the micro repair bots that he normally kept for his own neural maintenance.
With his pilot unconscious and the nanites working on her, he did something else he had never done before. He tried to rise.
His brothers came to his sides and helped him get to his feet. He was running the motion commands through Hima’s brain, but he was on his own. It was a very frightening place for him to be.
Len did find the history of births in Bot City to be fascinating, and Hima’s mind had a bright record of all of the newest arrivals. It made for an interesting introduction to the current generation.
* * * *
Hima slowly regained consciousness. There was surprisingly little pain considering how badly she was injured.
She tried to move her head, but it felt stiff. There was something attached to the back of her neck. “What the hell?”
She attempted to reach up and touch her neck, but her right arm was strapped in place, and her left was in a weird silvery cast.
“What is wrong with my body?”
“You are injured. One of the projectiles fractured, and a fragment struck the fuel station and your vehicle. It was an explosive combination.”
She blinked. “Len?”
“Yes. You dragged yourself into the lift and then the pilot’s cradle with the last of your strength. We are standing now and were simply waiting for you to regain consciousness.”
“Why?”
“Because to run, I need a pilot, and that is you. I can only do so many workarounds using your neural pathways.”
“Why aren’t I dead?”
“Ah, well, I used the nanites I use for repair while in battle to stitch you back together. The first step was to plug the holes and, from there, getting the bones aligned took some time.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Twenty minutes. I work quickly when I have to.”
Hima chuckled weakly. “Yeah, I am guessing that. What about my left arm?”
“Your left arm was crushed. The bones are being repaired, but I will have to link the life support to you for additional repair. You need more nutrients to rebuild the bone.”
“What about the rest of me?”
Len helpfully filled in, “There were a multitude of abrasions, some deep. A punctured lung, over two dozen cracked bones, and internal bleeding from four major organs.”
Hima exhaled. “With that kind of damage, hook me up to whatever it takes to keep me going. You have my full consent and authorization to do whatever it takes.”
“Excellent. That is what I was waiting for.”
A medical apparatus descended from the ceiling, and an IV steered itself expertly into the band around her wrist, giving her a slight twinge but no other side effect. The fluid went from clear to a silvery pink as it dripped into her veins.
She sighed and moved the cradle into an upright position. “Well, if you can keep track of my vitals, we can join the others.”
“They are waiting for you to join the conversation. Iff has cleared the skies.”
“Excellent. So, we are truly under attack?”
“Oh, yes. There are over a dozen ships in the sky. They appear to be related to the original attackers from centuries ago. Oddly, the ships haven’t really changed shape.”
She chuckled and cleared her throat. “This is Hima piloting Len. I am up and ready for what happens next.”
The other pilots greeted her and seemed relieved that she was mobile, or that Len was.
The world looked so different through the eyes of a bot that she spent time looking over the now-empty stands that had so recently held the party that was supposed to celebrate a new start. The monorail was empty. The train must have been unpacked and it would have returned to the city.
There was no residual heat signature left in the stands or in the ground under them. The engineers of Bot City were safe, deep under the soil in an unauthorized bunker that only the society of ladies knew about. It was the kind of thing that was only achievable if you didn’t ask permission first. It was one of Hima’s favourite parts about being a member of the society. As long as you were competent, you could do whatever would be best for you and those around you. It was that ideal that had driven the ma
intenance of the bots and the creation of technologies that had never been seen before. Too bad no one could see them now.
Chapter Eight
Duel kept looking at the sky while the others around her concentrated on the bots. All of the observers were gone now, it was just metal and dust. Waves of heat were still coming off the valley floor, and those rippling waves blurred the sky above.
The stars in the sky were different. There were new bright beacons in the dark swath above them, and for Duel, that was a concern.
The last report of new stars in the sky had occurred before the attacks two centuries earlier. Duel thought about all the histories she had read during her time watching over the dead. This wasn’t good.
“This isn’t good, Kab. The night has a weird feel about it.”
When the fuelling equipment was stowed, she looked back at the observation decks. It was while she was looking back at the clans that she heard the first impact and the alarm sounded.
“Oh, no. Not good.”
The warning sirens started, and a blast of sound came through the com out and over the valley. “This is not a drill. Code Angur-dock. Get the bots to the city. We are under attack.”
“Damn, damn, damn.” Duel made sure that the fuel system was sealed and lowered back into the safety of the granite shielding.
Once she was sure that everything was tidy, she looked at Kab as she grabbed the pole. “Ready or not, you are getting company.”
She held onto the steel and slid to the ground, sprinting over to the bot access panel and going through the segments of protocol until her blood had been taken and the bot was inviting her inside.
“Hello, Kab.”
“Duel, my favourite engineer. What brings you inside my workings today?”
She wrinkled her nose. “The pilot protocol. We are under attack; we need to get you guys to the city.”
“Well then, come to the command deck and we will begin.”
The lift was the same snug fit as it always had been. Duel closed her eyes and imagined the schematic of the bot as she was pulled through one of his systems after another. It was a relief to pass the power plant and get into the chest where the insulating design of the reinforced shielding would keep the radiation from being a problem at close range.
