The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  “Dash is right,” Conover said. “We can’t leave this behind. It’s just too good an—”

  A sudden, wrenching bang cut him off. They all spun toward the noise and saw a section of bulkhead suddenly bow inward, then split, ripping open and spreading until a gap yawned open. Through it raced a Golden bot, energy projectors blazing.

  It turned out to be a single bot, not the vanguard of a horde. Granted, it seemed pissed, but it was alone.

  Still, the sheer shock value of having it come crashing through a wall left them all gaping in stunned surprise. That let the bot punch one of its searing energy bolts into Conover’s head, knocking him back. Another took Leira in the upper leg. Fortunately, Conover’s helmet took the brunt of the hit on him, while Leira’s holstered slug pistol sacrificed itself to save her leg.

  They dove for cover and returned fire. Dash crouched behind the Golden corpse, which proved to be an excellent firing position. Several energy blasts hit it, but just as Sentinel had described to him when he’d been fighting the Golden Harbinger, the Dark Metal in the suit dissipated most of the effect. Mindful of their dwindling supply of ammo, Dash leaned out and lined up the best shot he could, given his damaged carbine, and snapped off a shot. He hit it, and so did a rapid succession of single shots from Amy, Viktor, and Leira, who’d quickly recovered from her hit. The bot kept up firing, but its aim quickly degraded. After a few more shots, it fell silent, its weapon ticking with heat.

  Dash moved to check on Conover. He looked rough, with scorch marks on his helmet and a molten groove from the blasts. What remained of his faceplate was a hazy pastiche of scratches and pits, flickering externally as the system continually tried to reboot and give him night vision. When he nodded to Dash, a long cut on his face began bleeding again, the skin around it reddened from heat.

  “Okay,” Conover said, “that hurts.”

  “Pain is just nature’s way of telling you you’re still alive,” Amy said, applying first aid gel to his burns. Conover winced, but his eyes stayed on Amy, especially as she brushed the gel onto his reddened skin.

  Dash turned to Leira. “How about you? Still have two legs?”

  “So it would appear,” she replied. “Although one of them is telling me I’m still alive.”

  Ragsdale appeared in the doorway leading back to the corridor. “Gather you had a party in here but didn’t invite me.”

  “You didn’t miss much,” Dash replied. “Any sign of trouble out there?”

  “No. Things have gone strangely quiet.”

  But Viktor shook his head. “I don’t see that as a good thing, necessarily.” He pointed at the gap the bot had torn in the wall. “You do realize what that means, right?”

  “Yeah,” Dash said. “Doors and passageways aren’t the only way these bots—and probably those Dreadfoot, which seem especially scary—can get around the ship.

  He paused to let that sink in as the air grew tense with repressed fear. Leira finally broke the uncomfortable silence.

  “So let’s not linger,” she said. “Let’s grab dead guy here, and anything else we want to take with us.”

  Dash pointed to the bulkhead. “Can’t argue with that. Everyone, to your feet. Let’s go.”

  Dash led the way through the gap torn in the bulkhead by the bot. Amy and Viktor followed him closely as support. Leira, whose injured leg limited her mobility anyway, and Conover, still shaken from the shot he’d taken to his head, carried the Golden. Fortunately, the corpse proved surprisingly light, probably only about half the weight of a human of equal size. Ragsdale brought up the rear, a vital task now given that the Dreadfoot were still somewhere behind them and could probably tear through the intervening bulkheads as easily as the utility bot had.

  The next compartment proved to be storage, or at least looked the part. Containers were scattered about, many piled against the forward bulkhead. Dash wondered what they might hold, but they couldn’t afford the time to stop and look. With every step they took, their priority had been shifting from exploration to getting the hell out in one piece with what they had been able to learn and gather.

  “Strange how some stuff has obviously been thrown around in the crash,” Viktor noted, eyeing the chaotic pile of containers. “But other stuff—like our new friend, there— wasn’t.”

  “This whole crash was weird,” Amy replied, swinging her carbine around the compartment. “Never mind that this ship should have been pretty much vaporized—”

  “Along with a few megatons of rock,” Conover added, easing the corpse into the compartment.

  “Yeah,” Amy said, nodding. “But the damage is inconsistent. Some places seem almost totally wrecked, and others not touched at all.”

  “It’s something we can think about once we’re outside,” Dash said, putting some urgency in his voice. He knew they were all getting tired, and although they’d been keeping hydrated, they were starting to feel some hunger pangs, too. He knew that when people got tired and hungry, their minds would start to wander, and their attention could diffuse. And that was when terrible things would start to happen, regardless of how much effort he could ask of his team.

  “Agreed,” Ragsdale called forward. “Let’s all keep our minds in the game we’re playing, folks.”

  Their tense watchfulness now ratcheted up a notch, but they pushed on, ever more anxious to find another way out, maybe with the Archetype’s help—or to confront the grim fact that they’d have to fight their way all the way back along the route they’d come in.

  The bot, it turned out, had made a pretty determined effort to get to them, tearing through two more bulkheads to do it. The next corridor sprawled away in the gloom, both left and right to the limits of their vision. Dash stopped, frowning. As a courier, he’d been forced to admit that a bad choice was still a choice when picking a route, and staying still always meant the enemy would find you, sooner or later.

  Neither of his choices were good, so Dash pulled Conover to the side while everyone clambered through the torn wall.

  “Conover. I need you for a minute.” He let his eyes flicker over the walls with care.

  Leira and Conover put the Golden corpse down. Leira examined her leg, winced, and leaned against the wall; Conover, first aid gel still glistening on his burned face, took a moment to look in both directions.

  “What do you see, kid?” Dash asked him.

  “I thought you weren’t going to call me that anymore.”

  “What—oh, you mean kid?” Dash nodded. “You’re right, you’ve definitely earned your graduation from that.” He clapped Conover on the shoulder then gave him a tight smile. “Tell me, what do you see?”

  Conover shrugged. “Nothing. Or nothing that really makes either way stand out.” He looked back and forth again, his face creasing into a frown. “There’s power and data moving around all over the place now. And it seems to be everywhere—in the walls, even the floor.”

  “This damned ship really is waking up,” Leira said, applying more gel to her leg.

  “Yeah, it is,” Dash replied. “All the more reason to find some way of getting out.”

  “I have the Archetype at the crash site,” Sentinel cut in. “I can see where you entered the wreck and am processing extra visual data from the exterior input. The ship is far larger than my data indicated.”

  “No shit,” Amy muttered.

  “Incidentally,” Sentinel went on, “the individual you left on the surface to watch over your vehicle and other equipment has reacted quite strongly to my arrival.”

  Dash looked at Ragsdale, who smirked and said, “I’ll bet he has.” He raised his voice. “It’s Sentinel, right? This is Ragsdale. Is my man out there okay?”

  “He is in good health, if with elevated vitals from a fear response. However, I would recommend he withdraw from the immediate vicinity of the crash site. To accomplish that, I would further recommend that you deliver this information, as he is currently hiding and likely would not listen to me in any case.”
Sentinel paused, then added, “I cannot be certain, but I think he might digging a hole. With his hands.”

  Ragsdale couldn’t resist a grin, which Dash echoed back to him. “I’ll bet he’s hiding. Probably looking to change his underwear, too, after seeing that big robot of yours come thundering out of the sky. Can you put me through to him?”

  “It’s not actually a robot, ” Conover started to say, but Dash just raised a hand and shook his head.

  “I cannot,” Sentinel replied. “Increasing interference from the Golden ship is making communications difficult. I can, however, relay your message to him.”

  “Fine. Alec, this is Ragsdale. Don’t worry about the big robot-ship thing. Believe it or not, it’s on our side. But I do need you to take the buggy and pull back from here. I’d suggest at least a few klicks. Keep ready to come back for us, though, because when we need you, it’s probably going to be in a hurry.”

  While they waited for Sentinel to confirm what was happening, Dash and Conover kept studying the corridor, left and right, trying to choose a way to go. Dash had finally started to accept they’d just have to pick one and hope for the best, but Amy walked a short way to the right, her head cocked.

  “Amy, something wrong?” Viktor asked.

  She raised a finger but said nothing and just kept staring down the passage, into the darkness. Finally, she turned back.

  “Do you guys hear that?”

  “What?” Dash asked.

  She curled her lip in a quizzical way. “I’m not sure. It sounds like someone shouting—or screaming.”

  “This ship is a fountain of weird sounds. Can you be more specific?” Dash asked.

  “No, this is different.” She paused, tilting her head again. “It sounds human. Like somebody making a lot of noise.”

  Viktor looked at Dash. “She does have younger ears than the rest of us. Well, except for you,” he added, turning to Conover. “Do you hear anything?”

  Conover shook his head. “No. But I’ve never really had great hearing.”

  “I definitely hear it,” Amy insisted. “I’m not just imagining it, I’m sure.”

  “I believe you,” Dash said. “And it’s coming from there?” He gestured down the right-hand corridor.

  Amy nodded, so Dash said, “Good enough for me. Let’s get moving. If there is someone else aboard this ship, we need to know who they are.”

  “And how they got here,” Leira added. “And why.”

  “Your subordinate is now quickly withdrawing to the southeast,” Sentinel said. “He will be well clear of this crash site shortly, and he is still wearing the same lower garments. He did not change his shorts per your request. Is that critical?”

  Dash muffled a laugh. “I’ll explain later.”

  “If the, ah, Sentinel is able to,” Ragsdale said, then looked at Dash, “I should really ask that it relay some details about…well, all of this, and everything else, back to Port Hannah.”

  “In case we don’t make it,” Dash replied.

  Ragsdale just nodded.

  Dash couldn’t argue. “Next time we stop. Right now, I think we need to push on.”

  As though to underscore his words, that thin, shrill squeal that had been dogging them from behind rose once more, getting louder as they listened.

  “I think you’re right,” Ragsdale said, taking up his position at the rear. Without a word, Conover and Leira picked up the Golden corpse, and they pressed on, into the darkness and toward Amy’s distant screams.

  The ship continued coming to life around them.

  Lights sputtered on in compartments and side corridors they passed. Consoles of unknown purpose flickered, offering readouts they couldn’t understand. Dash briefly considered trying to connect with the Golden systems again, to see if any of it represented a particular threat or opportunity, but decided against it. Not only was he mindful of the risk of exposing himself to the ship’s mounting awareness, but he could now hear the shouting and screaming that had alerted Amy. They all could. It came from another torn bulkhead, now just visible ahead.

  “That is definitely somebody shouting,” he said. “Sounds like a woman.” He looked back to Ragsdale. “It has to be one of your people.”

  “If it is, I have no idea who, or how or why they’re here.” His face turned earnest. “This isn’t part of some scheme we cooked up, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Didn’t think it was.”

  They crept forward until they reached a gap in the bulkhead, then Dash crouched beside it. From inside, they heard a woman shouting desperately for help, her voice rising in pitch to hysteria.

  Glancing back, Dash checked his weapon and said, “Quietly, and on me. She’s a human, so that means she’s on our team until I say otherwise.” He raised his carbine—Conover’s, which he’d swapped for his damaged weapon—and peered around the edge of the gap, into the space beyond.

  For a moment, he just stared.

  Then he looked back again. “Can’t believe it. I know her.”

  “Who is it?” Viktor asked.

  “It’s the…gardener. Botanist. The one we first met when we got here.”

  Ragsdale gaped. “You mean Freya?”

  “That’s her,” Dash replied. “And she really does need our help.”

  16

  The many questions would have to wait.

  Dash counted to three, then, led the charge into the room, followed by Viktor and Amy, with the taller Ragsdale right behind. Leira and Conover came next, pulling the Golden corpse into the area and dropping it unceremoniously as they drew weapons and went into a crouch. Conover vibrated with nervous energy, but Leira tapped his shoulder and pointed her chin toward the fight, calming him.

  Dash went right, taking up a fire position behind a pedestal supporting a trough similar to the ones they’d found in the compartment containing the crystalline tanks. He surveyed the catastrophic damage all around.

  It was another big compartment, similar to the one they’d traversed previously, but in this one the tanks and troughs were scattered like the aftermath of a giant’s wrath. Some were smashed, most toppled, many flung into a tangled pile of debris against the forward bulkhead. The damage was total; in the middle of it all huddled Freya on a pile of debris, taking advantage of scant cover to avoid a barrage of energy pulses erupting from five of the wheeled bots. Each alien machine was circling the debris pile snapping off shots with little effect. It was a standoff, at least for the moment; the bots couldn’t ascend the jumbled stack of wreckage, but they were pouring fire at Freya who wasn’t taking their assault lying down.

  She’d managed to damage one of the bots, so it now squatted, smoke wafting from it, firing occasional weak shots that went far wide every time. But this was only going to end one way. Even if Freya managed to survive the torrent of fire directed at her—which wasn’t likely, given the volume of shots—she couldn’t stay there forever. Thirst would force her out of cover, or she’d fall asleep, or she’d otherwise fail in a way the Golden bots simply couldn’t.

  “Freya!” Ragsdale shouted. “We’re here! Shoot whenever you can at the damned things, just watch out for us!”

  Dash winced. Ragsdale might be tactically savvy, but he’d let concern for Freya overcome his discretion. While the damaged bot and one other kept Freya pinned down, the remaining three spun about and immediately opened fire on Dash and the others.

  The next moments were a chaotic swirl of shooting—muzzle blasts from slug carbines, slug detonations, energy pulses and dazzling blasts wherever they struck. One of the attacking bots withered and died, but the others raced in, closing on Amy and Ragsdale. Each sported a thick coating of the metallic goo Dash now knew was the liquified form of Dark Metal, making them far more resistant to their shots. He saw Freya engaging one of her attackers, but it was equally resistant.

  Dash’s slug carbine cracked out a shot, then beeped loudly as the bolt snapped to the rear and locked. He swore, changing to a fresh magazine.


  “I’m down to two mags,” Dash growled.

  “Same,” Leira said.

  “Make them count.”

  He opened fire again, putting shot after aimed shot into a bot closing on Ragsdale. It finally ground to a halt just a couple of meters away from him, sparks cascading from its battered hull. The other one rushed onward, getting close enough to Amy to attack with its gripping claw. She blocked one strike with her carbine, but the blow knocked her back and she fell to one knee.

  The bot closed in, slashing again, this time laying open a gash across her shoulder and upper chest. With a sharp cry of pain, she flopped backward just as Ragsdale intervened, putting himself between her and bot. Dash broke cover and ran to join him. The bot spun its twin energy projectors toward Dash while striking out at Ragsdale with its deadly arm. Dash hit the deck, the energy pulses sizzling over him through the space where his head had been just a second earlier. The air reeked of charred chemicals and good luck as he began pumping his legs, desperately trying to regain his feet.

  He’d been intent on tackling the bot the way he had before, but Ragsdale beat him to it, launching himself at the Golden bot with ferocious abandon. He flung himself onto the device, getting inside the reach of its arm, which cut deeply into his backpack. The bot toppled over, Ragsdale atop it. Dash skidded to a stop, angled his carbine into the sensor cluster, and fired, shouting, “Eyes!”

  Ragsdale had turned his head just in time, his helmet taking the slug-blast. Fragments rattled against Dash’s faceplate, and one cut his chin, but the bot went still.

  Dash turned back to Freya, ready to do battle with the bot that had stayed behind to pin her. But he found her picking her way down the pile of debris, the bot at the base of it sparking and smouldering.

  He turned back, looking at Ragsdale, who was clambering back to his feet. “You okay?”