by Sara King
CHAPTER 28: Prisoner Rescue
7th of June, 3006
Rath (Operations Section)
Fortune, Daytona 6 Cluster, Outer Bounds
The tarmac was utterly deserted, but no one had yet found the balls to get off the ship and face what, to all appearances, had just breathed fire and rode lightning. A massive pile of mangled robot bodies was still smoking in the middle of a launch pad, inexorably drawing the eyes. Milar had a sinking feeling he was looking at the whole of the robotic army they had been expecting to fight.
“It’s been six minutes,” Jersey said. The cupcake was standing beside Milar, facing the compound of Rath. “Maybe the muskers got it.”
Milar gave the Nephyr a disgusted look, then went back to watching the empty base. They hadn’t heard anything, not even an explosion, in a couple minutes. All of their expected opposition was piled in the middle of the airfield, but they were still in no hurry to explore further. It was out there, and it knew they’d tried to kill it. And, as much as Milar wanted to rush in there and dig his brother out of the dungeons of Rath, fear of that damned robot was keeping him right where he was. Hell, he’d shoved it out the ship’s gate with his boot.
Thinking about that particular reckoning Milar was actually just as disturbing as the fact that Magali wanted him to work with not just a Nephyr, but Jersey Brackett, the kid who had turned him over to the Coalition when Milar was fifteen. Magali would be lucky if Milar didn’t skin the bastard and hang him up in the open to feed the tadflies. Every inch of him was itching to put a beam between the floater’s eyes, and had been ever since he and Steffen had gone to meet the new leader of the Resistance. He’d been totally horrified to find a Nephyr had somehow inserted himself in their ranks and nobody seemed to think anything of it, but for it to be this Nephyr… Milar couldn’t believe they’d let Jersey back into the fold. He had to be a plant. They didn’t get that pretty skin without doing heinous things. Things like what had been done to Magali.
But the others didn’t see that, so Milar was biding his time, back aflame with nerves from the Nephyr’s proximity, waiting for him to make a wrong move so he could plaster his brains to a wall.
Two minutes later, the robot emerged from the main facility carrying two four-and-a-half-foot, rippling blue-black tovlar musker katanas over its shoulder, the length of their blades punched with blood-holes—the kind that made the blade slice through flesh without getting slowed by the suction. The robot headed towards the ship at a leisurely walk, its silky black suit still completely intact. Milar felt his guts clench a little bit at the robot’s approach, but Jersey held his position, and he was damned if he was gonna let a Nephyr make him look like a balless pussy in front of his brother’s ex.
When the robot climbed the ramp and arrived inside the ship’s hull, it stopped in front of Milar and said, “I’ve removed the robot threat and pacified the base in nine minutes and forty-five seconds. I believe you owe me a gun, Mr. Whitecliff.” The robot held out his hand again expectantly, and this time, Milar was pretty sure there was satisfaction in the machine’s blue eyes.
Everyone on the ship turned to look at Milar, who swallowed, wondering if the robot was going to use the katanas on him. When it didn’t, Milar slowly took his last Laserat from his belt and held it out to the robot.
“Thank you,” the robot said, tucking it under one arm. “I will be finding my own way home, as it seems my presence is unwelcome. Further, I appreciate your discretion in passing along what happened here. If you keep today’s events quiet, I will endeavor to do the same. It would definitely be a shame if Anna were to find out this whole thing was just an attempt to lure me to my death. Imagine her distress—” the robot’s hard eyes stopped on Pan. “—her concern.”
All Milar could do was nod. Around him, the others did the same.
The robot gave a little bow, smiling. “And just between us: the next time you try to kill me, I will successfully return the favor.”
Everyone nodded again.
The robot was turning away as it caught himself and turned back, the monomolecular katanas swinging close enough to slit Milar’s throat if he hadn’t hastily backed up. “Oh, and I left a present for you, since I find it distasteful to massacre weak, defenseless creatures such as yourselves.” The robot’s eyes met each of theirs in turn, stopping on Jersey this time. “There appears to be a small group of Nephyrs and other survivors holed up in the Lockbox. They had been using the altrameter muskers as their last line of defense, but they’re well armed and organized, and they’re expecting you. Enjoy.” Anna’s pet turned to go.
Remembering what this thing had helped Anna do to Tatiana, Milar had a strong, suicidal impulse to see if he could put a round into the robot’s brainbox before he could pull those fancy glowing claws again. He put his hand on his other pistol—the one loaded with his best armor-penetrating explosive rounds—and started to draw it.
Warm, stone-hard fingers caught his wrist and held it inexorably in place.
Milar’s whole body tensed in revulsion. “Get your fucking hand off me,” he growled under his breath. The robot continued to get away, its back to them.
“You don’t think those muskies had exploding rounds?” the Nephyr whispered back. He kept his hand in place like a vice.
“I swear to Aanaho’s ancestors,” Milar gritted, “if you don’t let go, I’m going to peel you naked and salt you like a slug.”
“Is that what my former coworkers did to you?” the Nephyr asked, totally calm, his grip never changing, his eyes never moving from the robot.
Milar’s guts curdled with rage, because they had. “Let.” The word came out in a dangerous feral growl. “Go.”
The Nephyr ignored him until the robot was out of range. Then, as if nothing had ever happened, his stone-hard, hydraulic-powered fingers released him. Milar wrenched himself away, pulled the gun, and put it to Jersey’s face.
“Touch me again,” Milar said, shaking, “and you’re a dead man.”
“Leave him alone, Miles,” Magali whispered, without turning from the scene outside. Everything about her—from her tone to her posture—sounded defeated.
Once more reminded of the little shit and her pet, Milar turned to look out at the cracked and shattered tarmac. They watched the robot board a nearby courier ship, then watched the flare of heat as the engine fired up.
“We,” Pan whispered, once the robot’s ship lifted off, “are so fucked.”
“There’s no way she put that thing together in a month,” Magali whispered. “I’ve seen my sister throw things together overnight, but she’s never done anything like that. That weaponry—does anyone even know what that was?”
“It looked like something out of a comic book,” Pan said.
“That’s where I’ve seen that purple stuff before!” the Nephyr cried, snapping his Nephyr fingers with a Nephyr skin-on-skin buzz. “That blast he was shooting from his finger—that’s a finishing move on the Violet Soul ultrasim. My little brother used it on me all the time.”
Suddenly, Milar remembered where he’d seen an ensemble like that before. “The Cobrani avatar wore a suit and boots like that,” he said reluctantly. “Patrick loves to play Cobrani. He’s a sucker for blue eyes, white hair, and black skin. Had a Cobrani girlfriend back when he was working the silver mines—been stuck on it ever since.”
“And that was so Jedi Wolverine,” the Nephyr added. “And that chameleon effect—the way it rippled…isn’t that something from Predator Apocalypso?”
Pan and Milar nodded.
“So Anna was fucking with us,” Magali said, her lips tightening. “She’s saying this was all a game to her.”
“Looks like,” Pan said softly. “Hell, she was probably at the controls the whole time.”
“Shit,” the Nephyr said. It was well-said—no one on the gangplank had anything to add. They simply stared alternately between the pile of bodies and the ship that had blasted off carrying Anna’s toy.
“But what about the tech?” Magali finally asked. “I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life.”
“That would’ve taken years to research,” Pan agreed. “Even for Anna.”
“I’m not so sure,” Magali said. “She invented a new kind of bug zapper that incinerates insects on a molecular level because she was irritated with the tadflies that kept getting caught in our hut and she found the tiny corpses distasteful. The guards still think it runs on electricity. She’s selfish, though. I tried to get her to make something to save lives in the Yolk mines and she couldn’t have cared less. I think she could have done this in a few weeks, but my sister’s pretty lazy. She must’ve been planning it for months.”
“I thought you said she’s only had the robot for a month,” Pan said.
“He was breathing sunfire out of his mouth, Mags,” Milar said. “Like a kraagon. Tell me how that’s even possible, then we can talk about how long it took the little shit.”
“Could be a chemical reaction,” Pan offered. “Some combination of chemicals he stores in a couple bladders in his chest.”
“Chemicals,” Milar said. He pointed to the hundreds of feet of superheated puddles of robot, most of which were still orange and bubbling minutes later. “That was done with chemicals.” He’d never heard so much bullshit in his life.
No one could find anything to say to that.
Finally, Milar grunted. “You know what?” He popped a magazine into his gun. “Let the little shit toy with us. Next time I see her, she’s taking one for the team. Until then, I’ve got a job to do.” Then he started stalking down the gangplank, towards the compound. A moment later, the heavy rumble of the Nephyr jogging down the ramp with him made him tense.
“Better let me go first,” the cyborg said. “Anna’s bot said there’s Nephyrs in there.”
“Screw you,” Milar said. “I do this myself.”
The Nephyr kept pacing him, though he gave him a sidelong, almost pitying look. It made Milar’s skin crawl and his fingers twitched for the EMP wand he’d stuffed in his boot.
“You guys think you can handle the security wing?” Magali called. “Drogire’s gonna be flying down operator and Bouncer reinforcements and Pan and I’ve gotta organize the attack on the civilian areas.”
“It’s handled,” Milar snapped back up the ramp at her, not looking at his tagalong. “Take the Nephyr with you.”
“The Nephyr,” Magali said, “has a name.”
“Jersey,” the Nephyr said helpfully, holding out his disgusting, glassy hand.
Milar ignored it. “Don’t fucking need a backstabbing prick’s help.”
“Milar, I’m warning you,” Mag growled.
“And I’m warning you,” Milar exploded, turning around and jabbing a finger at Jersey’s gleaming chest. “I’ve seen what these things really are inside. They’re living evil, Mag. They thrive on other people’s pain, kind of like your demonic sister.” At Magali’s wince, Milar snorted. “I’d rather work with Satan.” He turned to go.
“Milar, you’re taking him.” It was Pan. A fucking eight-year-old.
Because Milar was going to unleash a torrent of bullets if he didn’t, he kept walking. The Nephyr, damn him, kept walking with him.
“You know,” the Nephyr said after they were out of earshot of the ship, “we’re pretty much in the same shoes.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Milar snapped.
“We both went to a place we didn’t want to,” the Nephyr blundered on. “Except, in your case, you had friends to rescue you. I had to struggle through it all, fighting to hold on to those shreds of myself even as they were trying to rip them away.”
“Weren’t very successful with that, were you?” Milar sneered.
The Nephyr cocked its head at him. “You have no idea who I am. I hate to sound like I’m spewing corn, but all you see is the skin.”
“Damn right, Glitter,” Milar said, not even glancing his way. “That’s all I need to see.” He slowed by the massive pile of shredded and tangled robot bodies, looking down at the eerie way the ground looked to be carved away in semicircular blasts, the matter therein simply vanished in a crisp, perfect tube. The robots that had been hit with those final fireballs were still orange and bubbling, superheating the tar and stone around them, unmistakably spreading the melting material outwards, with no signs of slowing down.
“Uh,” the Nephyr said, looking down at the growing puddles of melted metal and stone with him, “you think that’s gonna keep getting bigger?”
“With Magali’s destructive little shit sister behind it? Probably.” Milar grunted and kept moving.
“Shouldn’t we tell someone?” the Nephyr called, still standing at the spreading pool of molten rock and burning tar.
“Go ahead!” Milar shouted, still walking.
A few moments later, the Nephyr was pacing beside him again—a jog he had made in total, predatory silence. “What if it eats the planet?”
Milar stopped, sighed deeply, and tapped on his radio. Glaring at the Nephyr, he said into the mic, “And send one of the brainy little shits out here to check this out. We’ve got an unknown material that seems to be spreading.” He jammed his radio back into its holster beside his gun. “Happy?” he demanded. Then, as the Nephyr opened his glittering mouth to say something, Milar started walking again.
“Maybe you and I should start over,” Jersey said behind him.
Milar snorted.
“My name’s Jersey Brackett,” the Nephyr said, ridiculously. “Brackett clan. South Tear. My family was on the first ship to colonize Fortune with Daytona Dae.” It made Milar want to punch him in the face.
“You’re a piece of shit who got us both skinned,” Milar said, continuing to ignore the unwanted presence at his side. He stopped at the compound entrance and stuck a square of Anna’s cuttlesilk to the door so he could peer inside. The hallway was empty.
“Whoa,” Jersey said. “Neat. I never thought to use it like that.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Milar wadded the cuttlesilk back into a pouch and leaned back to kick the door open.
The Nephyr turned the knob, which was still unlocked from the robot’s passage, and pushed the door open for him, his glittering face full of amusement.
Reddening, Milar felt himself almost pivot and kick the smartass Nephyr in the head. Instead, he lowered his foot, humiliated, and shoved past the man’s glass-hard body.
Easily catching up—too easily—the Nephyr continued, “I was drafted for the Nephyrs when I was sixteen. You know what tipped them off?”
Milar’s fingers were tightening on his gun. “Shut the fuck up.”
“My little brother,” Jersey said. “He was running the Brackett homestead alone while me, my mom, and my brothers were off in Silver City so I could play chess with this super-smart kid who killed a Nephyr when he was twelve.”
Milar made the least interested noise he could.
The Nephyr ignored the hint. Again. “Anyway, this guy came out of the woods wearing angora homespun he stole from a farm down the Snake. Guy told my brother he was a rebel looking for really intelligent kids so he could send men to protect them from the coalers trying to Draft them.”
Milar felt his guts twist in recognition. He’d heard plenty of similar stories—Yolk Babies were even more sought after than Yolk itself, since it seemed as if only close-quarters living with Shriekers on Fortune had the capacity to make them, and everyone who lived near Shriekers died.
Because of that, there was a whole culture of shady, off-planet smugglers who did nothing but seek out Babies and kidnap them for use in Coalition science experiments and government programs. Or, in the worst cases, the Nephyrs. Often, the bounty hunters hunted in packs. There were tales of kids getting stolen in the night, whole families slaughtered for trying to stop an abduction, never to be heard from again. Rebels had done everything they could to teach their families not to talk about their kids to the Coalition, but with the bounties being pu
t on Yolk Babies, coaler agents were getting dangerously inventive.
But, he reminded himself, he didn’t care. Jersey was the one responsible for his trip to the Core. If the bastard had kept his mouth shut…
“My brother invited him in,” Jersey said, ignoring his scowl, “showed the guy a mural I’d drawn on my mom’s living room wall when I was depressed.” Jersey took a deep breath and sighed. “Turns out, my painting was almost identical to an Aashaanti mural they found on the other side of the Bounds about a decade before, and the government had put a bounty out for similar pieces of Aashaanti art. They wanted to know how I’d replicated the alien technique.”
Milar grunted with as much boredom as he could express without putting a round through the idiot’s forebrain for wasting his time.
The Nephyr nodded as if he actually thought the sound had been commiseration. “Best I can explain is that a person can stand there and focus on the picture in a dozen different ways, and see a dozen different things, and in each of those things is a dozen more, depending on how you focus. And then, depending on how you focus on each of those tiny branches, you see dozens more, and so on. Kind of like following the branches of a tree out to the leaves, but visually. Something about drawing them just came easily to me. I mean, really easily.”
“You got a hardon for your own voice or something?” Milar snapped. “We’re on a mission, asshole.”
Jersey acted like he hadn’t heard him. “The visitor—he turned out to be an admiral from Super Squad—slit my little brother’s throat—dead kids tell no tales—and he and a group of Division Nephyrs grabbed me in Silver City as soon as I got there. Mom and my brothers and I had taken the slow-boat, a sixty-year-old skimmer my uncle had patched up with spare parts that didn’t even break the sound barrier, and this guy got to Silver City ahead of us with hours to spare. Killed my mom and brothers right in front of me for ‘resisting.’ Kinda destroyed my will to live, but by then, they weren’t gonna let me die.”
Milar immediately felt a startled pang of regret, remembering attacking the huddled figure in the transport, remembering the misery and despair on Jersey’s face as he didn’t even fight back. He had just lost his family, Milar thought, suddenly feeling wretched.
