by Christi Smit
caught before its sharpened bone claws could reach him. Artemis watched it squirm in his grip for a second, analysing its mutation before turning it into pulp. He tossed the body away, dismissing the creature before the next brave but foolish one took its place.
Another tried to lunge at Artemis as he passed an intersection, razor-edged bone lances instead of limbs aimed from the shadows at Artemis’ vital parts. This creature was a little smarter than the rest, side-stepping Artemis’ first blow, lunging at the metal giant as the giant followed through with its swing. Its higher intelligence granted it only a few more seconds to live than the others. Artemis grabbed the lunging creature with astonishing speed, pulling it off balance and bringing up his knee into its disfigured face. The blow hit the monster’s neck and head, plunging through flesh and bone without stopping. Artemis caught the creature’s other arm as it went limp and life escaped its ruined body, he used some of his vast amounts of strength to tear it in two, throwing the scraps in his wake.
“Report,” the great one suddenly asked over the private channel he had been told to listen to while his mission was on-going.
“Sixty seconds to objective. Please stand by,” Artemis replied.
The great one did not say anything else. Artemis understood the silence as a wordless order to get a move on. He did not want to anger the great one already, and did not wish to disappoint anyone QC0021-13 cared for.
“Breaching bridge access momentarily Captain.” Artemis had reached the door leading to the bridge of the Argent.
All he had to do was gain access to the bridge, download entries in the Argent event recorder and then call for extraction. Easy, he thought to himself as he steadied his body to breach the door in front of him.
But, as Artemis would soon discover, nothing was easy in the real universe outside of his prison cell.
The door was jammed. Artemis would have to force it open with his metal hands to gain entry to the Argent’s bridge.
Artemis looked for any place to find purchase for his hands to grab onto the thick metal door separating him from his objective. He could see none. Most vessels in the known sectors had strict security protocols when a ship’s reactor went into emergency mode. It shut down all exits and closed the bridge off to protect the vital ship commanders from whatever was going on in the rest of the ship.
Perhaps the command crew was still alive and unable to contact the outside world due to the automatic security protocols enforced by the vessels on-board OS. They could also have been infected and what waited for Artemis on the other side was probably starving and pretty pissed off because of it.
Artemis pulled back his right arm and hit his hard metal fist into the centre of the bridge’s door. He aimed his blow at the sealed crack were the doors from either side locked into place, forming a single slab of impenetrable steel separating the bridge from the rest of the Argent Divided.
The door buckled slightly under Artemis’ extreme power, splitting the crack far enough for him to grasp one of the doors with both of his hands. Artemis used all of his considerable strength to pull the door away from its counterpart. Servos in his elbows and shoulders whined and growled as the thick door fought back from the intruder trying to break it open.
For a few seconds Artemis and his greatest foe so far, the Argent’s bridge door, was frozen in a deadlock. A groan of metal giving up under heavy pressure escaped from within the door’s frame and a few moments later it warped and tore free from its hinges and secure housing. As soon as one part of the door was free the other one gave up as well, losing its strength due to its other half going missing like two lovers saying their goodbyes. Artemis removed the second piece without any trouble, tossing it and its warped partner aside. He stepped inside the bridge, his systems scanning every shadow and every console as he moved to the centre of the Argent’s bridge.
In the centre he found an empty command chair, thick blood covered the steel chair used by the captain of the ship to make all decisions. A blood smear led from the command chair to a dark area between two consoles. Artemis turned his shoulder mounted lights on the shadows between the two navigation consoles. The bright lights illuminated a truly horrific scene. Nestled in between the two large consoles, in a space smaller than a standard ship latrine, was the missing bridge crew. They were piled on top of each other, their bodies stripped to the bone and most of the remaining flesh rotten or crawling with insects always present when there are dead humans around.
Artemis counted at least thirty bodies, packed together so tightly that you would need lifting and salvage equipment to separate them from one another. He did not pause for long. The scene was horrific but to an artificial mind like his own he felt nothing except caution. Whatever had feasted and stored those humans was still around, and Artemis’ guard immediately went up.
He knew the creature was in the bridge with him. He could hear it moving somewhere behind him, but it was not ready to pounce just yet.
Artemis would not fall for the bait; he turned and ignored the monster waiting to ambush him, making his way to the centre command console.
“Objective located,” he said over the radio.
“Begin transmissions,” the great one replied.
“Transmission starting now.” Artemis pushed a few keys on the command console and a string of data started transmitting to the waiting Maiden of Flame circling the Argent.
“Mission over. Extraction in sixty seconds,” the great one stated.
“Wait. Extraction will have to wait. I have company Captain,” Artemis said. His scanners had focused on the monster moving silently behind him again. Judging by what his scanners were telling him it was a big monster, larger than anything else he had encountered before.
“Extract when you are ready then. Locke out.”
Artemis did not reply, the great one had signed off already. He had left Artemis to finish the mission his own way. Sudden movement behind Artemis told him that the beast was ready to fight. Before it could pounce Artemis turned his upper body on his hip servos.
“There you are!” Artemis said with great excitement.
Artemis allowed the barrel-chested mutant to tackle him. The momentum from the powerful creature lifted Artemis from the ground, allowing him to rotate his hips to align his body.
The creature’s face was a mass of scars and muscles, its thick shoulders and arms had Artemis in a vice-like grip. The tangled pair of mutated flesh and metal collided with the Argent’s command chair, completely destroying it as the pair landed. Artemis and the monster wrestled on the ground for a few seconds, each of them trying to get the upper hand.
Strong fleshy hands tried to find purchase on Artemis’ thick armour, but Artemis knew he had designed his armour plating against such futile efforts. Every rivet was double welded and every plate he had added to the original construct overlapped one another. It would take a team of expert miners weeks to find a weak spot in his suit. The only thing that would be able to penetrate his suit would be sheer force, anything less than a titanic effort would yield no result.
Artemis grabbed one of the beast’s flailing arms, trying to subdue it. The creature was as strong as he was, maybe even stronger. Servos groaned and his right shoulder joint sparked with effort. He calculated his chances as he held on to the arm of the creature assailing him. His odds were not good if he stayed pinned down underneath the bulky monster.
He let go of the arm, faking an opening for the creature to take advantage of. The monster took it almost instantly, raising its freed arm high into the hair behind it. It was going to punch Artemis, probably to try and crack the visor protecting his vital artificial brain.
But it never got a chance. Artemis was as fast as he was strong. He had paid special attention to his agility while he modified and created his new body, and now it was going to pay off. He used the same arm that had held on to the creature’s limb to hit the unsuspecting monster in the left side of its chest. The impact was hard enough to crack bone through muscle,
causing the creature’s face to contort in anger and pain. Its anger from the sudden blow made it pull back even further to land and even more powerful blow. But in its anger it had given Artemis the opportunity to free his other arm under the monster’s heavy, dead weight. He grabbed a piece from the broken command chair. It was a part of the mounting that had sheared off when the tangled pair had landed on it. It was a flat piece of metal with a sharp jagged edge. Artemis flipped it in his hand and stabbed the creature in its unprotected side.
An inhuman roar escaped from the beast’s muscular throat. Blood erupted from the wound as Artemis forced the piece of jagged metal deeper into the monster’s body. It screamed and shrieked at the metal tearing into its body, forgetting to throw the punch it was preparing to aim at Artemis’ visor. It reeled from the pain, raising enough for Artemis to get his body free beneath the monster, but he did not let go of the makeshift shiv stuck in the beast’s side.
No, he twisted it as he got up, enjoying the sound the creature made as he twisted and force the metal deeper.
“Now you die!” Artemis screamed. His voice echoed in the Argent’s silent bridge.
He swung his other arm at the creature’s head, connecting with a sickening crack. A second swing broke skin, and a third broke bone. The
