Fire Rage

by Chris Ward

  Jake nodded. ‘I’ll authorize a droid.’

  As Jake headed off into the ship to find a droid capable of entering the fuel store chambers to remove the loaded rods, Lia found herself thinking about another droid. What was Harlan5 up to now? Where was he? Was he still with the Matilda?

  ‘You’d better be looking after my ship,’ she muttered, heading off the bridge and back down to the airlock.

  The Matilda’s cramped bridge, with its putrid smells and battered, barely functioning controls, felt a million galaxies away, but she found herself craving it like she had rarely done before.

  19

  Harlan5

  Beth, Paul, and Davar looked awkward wearing what Harlan5’s historical database labeled as adapted snow-shoes. With nothing in their packs of any use, Harlan had fashioned them from pieces of old wood they had collected, a cutting wheel from his toolbox, and a couple of spools of spare wire kept in one of his supply compartments. Tied over their boots, the shoes looked bizarre, but they were effective, spreading their wearers’ weight to allow them to negotiate the moss’s springy surface.

  The climb up to the upper surface had been the hardest. Paul, gung-ho as always, had tried to scale the thick root strands, before Davar had pointed out that it might be easier to find a tall tree with a decent set of branches, climb that until the moss’s upper layer became too thick, and cut the rest of the way through.

  Harlan5’s basic programming didn’t officially allow him to like or dislike anyone. However, the part tainted by corrosion and a lack of regular servicing tended to put people into categories: partly for risk assessment and partly for his own amusement.

  Davar and Beth fell into the “likeable” category.

  Paul, on the other hand, was in the “dangerous-but-good-entertainment” group.

  ‘Robot,’ Paul shouted, as though on cue, interrupting Harlan5’s thought processes. ‘Give me a leg up here.’

  Harlan5 lifted an arm and operated a long-unused extension function which saw his hand glide effortlessly upwards on an extending rigid cable, until it reached the branch that had broken under Paul’s weight and pushed the dangling foot up to a position of safety. Ahead of him, Davar was hacking away at the moss with a large knife, Beth pushing the cleared vegetation aside to create a tunnel. Every few seconds, she would lose her grip and the spongy plant would spring back, briefly sandwiching Davar inside.

  ‘Careful with that,’ he muttered flashing her a smile as she pulled it back, then tried to jam herself into the opening to keep it from crushing him.

  ‘I’m doing my best. It’s too springy.’

  ‘We should just blast though,’ Paul said. ‘Robot, you’ve got that shoulder cannon. A couple of shots and we’d have a borehole.’

  ‘And a flare to alert those ships,’ Harlan said. ‘Don’t give up. You’re doing fine.’

  He waited a few more minutes for Paul to establish himself at a stable point in the tree’s upper branches then shimmied quickly up, using retractable claw-tips in his hands and feet. It was a marvel really just how versatile he was. Wasted in the Matilda’s flight cabin, correcting the navigational errors of the captain and Caladan, out in the field he was a whole new robot. His programming suggested it was refreshing.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Davar said from a few meters up among the moss, Beth just below him as he poked and prodded his way through.

  ‘Smells like Oufolani dung.’ Paul sniffed. ‘It’s a wonder they can stand it.’

  ‘There should be a couple of stoppers in your jacket somewhere,’ Beth said. ‘That will help.’

  ‘Evattlans have no sense of smell we would understand,’ Harlan5 pointed out. ‘Nor taste. Their eyes too are limited due to the long period they spend underground in incubation. They can detect movement, but that’s about it. They eat the moss because that’s what their jaws are designed for. Snapping and tearing, then chewing. Plus, they have no decision-making skills. They possess instinctive intelligence, but all decisions are made by a hive-mind.’

  ‘How can they make good foot soldiers?’ Beth asked.

  ‘A little engineering and training. I’ve encountered Raylan’s troops before. They’re centrally controlled by a droid or human commander. You can defeat them by taking out their command chain, if you know where it is.’

  ‘If we could wipe out those ships, it would certainly dent Climlee’s resources, wouldn’t it?’ Paul said.

  ‘It would be a distraction, no doubt.’

  Paul punched a hand into a fist, his foot slipping at the same time. Harlan5 caught him before he fell, but Paul looked up, his face hard, as though oblivious to his near-accident.

  ‘Then that is our mission, people,’ he said. ‘We take down those transports.’

  ‘With a hunting knife and a pair of wooden…what are these? Clogs?’ Davar said.

  ‘With whatever it takes.’

  Beth punched the air and shouted, ‘Yeah!’, then winked at Harlan5.

  ‘OK, we’re through.’

  Davar went up through the cut hole first, followed by Beth and Paul, then Harlan5. As he climbed out and took a few steps forward, the moss creaked beneath him. In a single motion, the moss sprang back into shape, the thick mattress of sponge expanding to leave no trace of their entrance.

  The landscape on top of the moss was like nothing contained in Harlan5’s databases. Rolling hills of dark green stretched in all directions as far as they could see. In a couple of places, tall trees still protruded through the upper surface. There was more cover than Harlan5 had expected, with some protruding moss flowers, tall stems with light pink cones on their tips, but otherwise they were as exposed as a boat in the middle of an ocean.

  ‘There’s one,’ Beth said.

  From behind the rise ahead of them glided one of the circular transports, lower thrusters glowing as it hovered above the moss blanket as though awaiting orders. As they approached, walking awkwardly over the springy surface, the other two came into view, hovering a couple of hundred meters overhead.

  In the sky, the tiny dot of Frail Star hung low to the horizon. ‘It might not be long before the Evattlans begin to emerge,’ Harlan5 said. ‘It might be wise to attempt to return to the Matilda, where we will be safe during the feeding period.’

  ‘We didn’t come all the way up here for nothing,’ Paul said. ‘Not with those scum taunting us.’

  ‘What’s the plan, then, captain?’ Beth said.

  Davar had sat down and pulled a pack out of his bag. Harlan watched as he picked a strand of moss and pushed it into a portable analyzer. The machine beeped, and lines of code appeared on a small screen. Davar frowned.

  ‘A good job we didn’t use our blasters,’ he said. ‘This stuff is highly flammable. It contains traces of trioxyglobin, which I would suggest is the energy source that keeps the Evattlans comfortable during their long dormant periods.’

  ‘Which means we could set it alight?’ Paul asked.

  ‘We could, but we’d be incinerated in seconds.’

  ‘Robot, could you protect us?’

  ‘What from? Your own stupidity?’

  ‘Can’t you create a fireproof screen or something?’

  ‘I’m a robot. My own frame is resistant to temperatures up to one thousand, five hundred degrees Celsius, but I have no way to protect you. I’m not a spacecraft.’

  ‘But the Matilda could protect us, right?’

  ‘It could if we got back to her in time.’

  ‘Quick! Down!’

  Beth threw herself against the moss as something detached from the nearest spacecraft. Davar fell flat beside her, but Paul stood gawping until Harlan5 pushed him down. Harlan disengaged his foot pads and immediately sank up to his neck, from where he watched the shuttle pass overhead.

  A Shadowmen reconnaissance ship, likely checking the locations of the nearby Evattlan burrows. It had flown right overhead, but luckily hadn’t been searching for them or it would surely have seen them.

  ‘Where’s
it going?’ Paul asked.

  ‘It’s on an assessment mission,’ Harlan5 said. ‘It won’t be looking for us, but it might spot us on its return. I suggest we head for that tree top just in front of that large moss hill. It provides a little cover.’

  His three companions scrambled up and hurried over, running awkwardly. Like blind chickens was an expression his database suggested Caladan would have used. Harlan5’s programming told him he ought to smile. However, the danger would return soon, so he hurried to catch up, making the shelter of the tree’s upper branches as the timbre of the distant thruster changed, indicating the ship was returning.

  ‘What’s that big ship doing now?’ Beth pointed through the branches. The transport had risen a little farther into the air, and wide doors on its lower surface had opened. A wide black rippling object lowered to just above the moss, then stopped.

  ‘A net,’ Harlan said. ‘They’re getting ready.’

  ‘What for?’

  The moss hill nearest to where they had been lying just moments before began to vibrate. A flower protruding from its upper surface shuddered, sending a fountain of light pink seeds cascading down over the surrounding moss as something black and shiny broke through the surface. A triumvirate of pincers snapped at the air then a chrome-colored body appeared. The last seeds settled across it, giving it a comical speckled design, before its jaws snapped through the stem and shoveled the flower into a maw beneath.

  ‘Robot, I thought you said they were smaller than that,’ Paul said. ‘That thing’s massive.’

  Harlan5 shrugged. ‘My database isn’t complete when it comes to many of these outlying worlds. My programming suggests that what we’re looking at is not a simple worker insect, but one of the much larger drones, the protectors of the others.’

  The three pincers clicked at the air. The head spun around, coming to stop in their general direction.

  ‘Harlan,’ Beth said. ‘It’s looking right at us. I thought you said it couldn’t detect us if we didn’t move.’

  ‘Well, my programming would like to point out I was part of a line of affordable models built for general use. My database is not the most up-to-date, and it’s rare I’m even updated because of the electronic trail that would leave for anyone who might want to find me. I guess it’s possible that since my last update was logged, they’ve…evolved.’

  20

  Caladan

  He’d been tortured before, and it always fell into two categories. One was torture for intent, where he was expected to reveal some nugget of vital information to his captors if he wanted the torture to stop.

  The other was for general amusement.

  In many ways, the first was preferable, because it was essentially a business transaction: the ending of his suffering in exchange for something of value. As a long-term smuggler, gambler, criminal, traitor, liar, and general all-round scallywag, Caladan was adept at both spinning a web of deceit and doing it to be convincing.

  The second was far more disconcerting. It was done through boredom, with no real reason or hope to an end, particularly if the only intent was to keep him alive as long as possible.

  He’d screamed like a baby at the first hair they pulled out of his skin, tugging slowly to maximize the pain as it popped out of the follicle on his chin. In reality, it hadn’t hurt all that much, but it had distracted their attention from other, less repairable forms of torture, and now he had a bare patch the size of his palm around his chin and neck. The cretins insisted on calling out the number of each hair they removed. Caladan, delirious from the pain, was only too aware that of his full extent of beard, no more than ten percent had so far been removed.

  There was a long way to go.

  ‘Seven thousand, nine hundred and eighty-three!’ came the cackle of laughter, followed by the tug and the sharp prickle of pain as the hair came free.

  ‘Eighty-four!’ shouted his torturer’s companion, who received a slap across the misshapen head for his assertion.

  ‘Quiet, Lump!’

  The one called Lump—so called, it seemed, because of the cone-like bump on the crown of his head which had spurted hair like a miniature human volcano—made a face that was something of a pout. ‘You’ve been off nearly sixty now!’ he shouted back, this time receiving a cuff with a piece of broken plastic. He squealed and fled off into the junk stacks.

  The other torturer leaned over Caladan. ‘Just me and you now,’ he sneered out of a single eye, the other seemingly absorbed back into his face to make way for a mouth that was a crescent with the top side wider than the other. ‘Let’s double down, shall we?’

  Caladan tried to shake his head. ‘No more, please.’

  ‘Beg all you want, it won’t make no difference.’

  ‘No… Ahhhh!’ Caladan howled as the creature ripped two hairs free at once. It hurt more than he’d like, but at least they weren’t stripping off his skin. Beards grew back a lot quicker.

  ‘Seven thousand—’

  Lump reappeared out of the stacks, holding a wet piece of cloth to his head. ‘Boss is coming,’ he said. ‘Better let the prisoner be.’

  The monster calling himself Ken Norf-Oven appeared. He shoved Lump aside then waved off the other torturer. ‘Your lucky day,’ he said. ‘Your girlfriend has come through with her side of the bargain.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Caladan muttered, ‘but if you’re offering—’

  Ken prodded Caladan in the stomach with a steel rod, making him wince. ‘Silence. This is a one-way conversation. You’re a chip to be bargained, goods to be sold. Wils, Lump, get him up and clean the blood off him.’

  Wils scowled then instructed Lump to remove Caladan’s bonds as Ken disappeared again into the sea of junk.

  ‘You think we should feed him?’ Lump said. ‘He looks hungry. We don’t want him to die or Boss’ll be mad.’

  ‘Shut up. Did I say you could speak?’

  ‘No, but—’

  Wils threw a block of something at Lump. It struck Lump’s shoulder and deflected away. The creature let out a wail and clutched his shoulder, pouting again as though he might cry. Caladan watched the exchange with interest, wondering if he could find some way to use it to his advantage. The likelihood of Ken just handing him over to Lia was remote.

  From a short distance away came raised voices as Ken and some others called for order.

  ‘Quick, get him up.’

  Wils and Lump cooperated long enough to get Caladan on his feet. With one monster holding each leg, he was walked through the junk until he found himself standing at the front of a crowd.

  All warring and marauding activities had paused for Ken to stand up on a shaky pedestal and speak into an amplifying device.

  ‘People, at long last, our time has come. The infidels who created us have returned with a ship. Pack whatever junk you call possessions and be ready to leave in an hour. We take to the stars, united together, but anyone who doesn’t want to come is welcome to jump into the furnace to fuel our last days in hell.’

  Cheers rose from parts of the crowd, while others didn’t seem to understand what was being said. In a couple of places, scuffles broke out, pops sounded as guns went off, and screams came from the hurt or dying.

  ‘Stop that! Anyone who has a beef may step forward. The forced circumstances of our situation means we must return our hostage, but not before we show him how much his species have hurt us.’

  Wils and Lump brought Caladan forward. Most of the monstrosities not fighting among themselves got into a line while Caladan was tied to a pole, hands over his head.

  ‘Punish him!’ Ken shouted, waving his minions forward. ‘You get one strike each. Try to keep him alive!’

  Caladan was already numb from several hours of gradual beard removal, but now he realized his legs had felt fine as the little monsters approached one by one and struck him with whatever was close to hand. No one blow was great, but as the numbers racked up, he began to ache, and his skin broke. Lump stood beside
him, wiping away the blood, occasionally offering Caladan water from a flask as the nightmarish procession came on.

  ‘Sorry about all this,’ the monster muttered a couple of times. ‘Not the most pleasant way to go out, for sure. I tried to convince Boss you’d been punished enough but he never listens to me.’

  Unable to reply, Caladan just moaned. Lump seemed to take this in a positive way, because for those monsters stepping up without something to hit with, he handed them the softer of the tools lying nearby rather than those that really hurt. Caladan wished he could order his thoughts enough to be thankful.

  Before he blacked out, Caladan was certain some of the monsters had ignored Ken’s instructions and doubled down for a second go, the snarling, vicious faces laughing as they crashed lumps of plastic against his chest and thighs.

  ‘Caladan?’

  He opened his eyes. The pain was absolute, but the lovely face above him made up for it. ‘Lia? If there was anything more beautiful in the whole wide galaxy, I don’t think I’ve seen it.’

  ‘No, it’s Jake. You’re delusional. Stillwater?’

  The flask pressed against his mouth. Wishing he was dead, Caladan drank, hoping he would choke. ‘I’ve died and gone to hell,’ he spluttered. ‘How could you torment me so after what I’ve been through? Reveal yourself.’

  Lia smiled. ‘It was a joke. I thought a bit of a laugh might make you feel better. Jake’s over there, picking through the junk these people left behind.’

  Caladan squinted. It was her, unless she was playing a cruel double-joke on him. ‘Kiss me better. That’s the only way to be sure you’re not lying.’

  ‘I’d rather kiss an Oufolani’s dung.’

  Caladan smiled. ‘It’s is you. Why and how am I still alive?’