by S D Tanner
Rok’s voice sounded hopeful as he raised his KLAW again. “Really? Can I light ‘em up?”
Raising his hand to call for peace, Judge said, “Wait. We have one hour before Jess will sweep by to pick us up.”
“So, what?” Rok replied contemptuously. “I say we light ‘em up.”
Glaring at Judge, he dared him to argue. Seeing the look in his eyes, Judge hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Fine, but we have to keep moving. Hit a room and get out.” Glancing at Rok, he added, “Use your ammo wisely. Make every round count.”
It felt good to be on the same side as Judge again and he grinned. “These assholes built us to be perpetual killing machines, so let’s show ‘em what they made.”
Judge smirked back at him. “Rok, you’re on point. Shoot anything you don’t like. Ash, you’ve got our six.”
When Rok moved to next the gap in the wall, he fell in behind him and gave Jessica one last look before facing forward. Seeming to know what was about to happen, Beanie had settled onto his shoulder, peering over it and chattering excitedly in his ear.
“Let’s rock!”
The next room contained the enormous tubes with different species. Running through the door, Rok raised his KLAW, firing at the base of the tubes. Glass exploded inside the room, throwing liquid onto the floor and walls. As the tubes crashed to the floor, the species inside slithered and slid in the liquid. A thick, scaly creature resembling a lizard scrambled onto its clawed feet. Rising on its back legs, it raised a muscular limb as if ready to strike, but he raised his hand.
“Not me, asshole!” Pointing toward the gap in the wall, he shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”
The lizard-like creature was seven-foot tall with yellow eyes and darkened pits in the center. It seemed to hesitate, clearly considering his order, then it flicked its head and snarled. A dozen more lizard creatures had fallen from the tube and they too rose to their feet, following the first one out of the room.
Rok was still firing at the tubes and the insect like creatures uncurled, releasing six-foot wide wings that began beating at the air. Rising to the ceiling, they hovered above them before flicking away sharply and heading toward the gap in the wall.
“Rok, don’t kill the prisoners.”
“Not stupid, Tag. Sheesh, ya got no respect, dude.”
More tubes were collapsing, releasing the occupants from the fluid that had held them. The elongated humanoids with round heads and dark eyes didn’t even stop to acknowledge them. Their angry chittering echoed through the room as they clung to the ceiling. Weaving on four limbs, they jerkily headed for the gap. With Rok firing repeatedly, the room became awash with fluid from the tubes and the sound of breaking glass. As soon as they were free, every species headed for the gap, filling the next room with their loud growls and chittering.
“Rok. Ash. Finish up and follow.”
Leaving Rok and Ash to break the last of the tubes inside the room, he moved through the gap to what he mentally thought of as the incubation room. Lifting his gun, he fired into the tubes containing aliens like Beanie. The glass shattered, then round and almost fully formed creatures rolled onto the floor. Leaping from his shoulder, Beanie chattered and nuzzled their bodies. Seeming to wake from their sleep, they uncurled and bounced onto their paws. Before his furry friend disappeared through the next gap, it turned and stood on its back legs as if it was saluting him.
He didn’t have time to wonder what Beanie was, or where he or she would take the others. They’d come to the city fully armed and loaded. He and Judge had five hundred rounds. Ash and Rok each had three thousand standard rounds and one thousand armor-piercing rounds. The commotion had brought a dozen aliens in blue jumpsuits running toward the room. The first alien through the gap was slashed by a lizard which cleaved it open from neck to groin. For a moment the alien stood still, then intestines and lumpy organs fell from its torso, flooding the floor in an untidy tangle. The victory was short-lived, and the next alien spat a spray of yellow acid through the gap. The stench of sizzling flesh penetrated his helmet, and the lizard collapsed onto the alien, leaving two legs poking out from beneath its corpse.
Raising his gun, he opened fire. A KLAW joined his bullets and together they took the aliens apart. Blood and yellow acid spat in every direction, scarring the walls and tearing down the fragile hanging webs. The elongated aliens were scuttling across the ceiling until one dropped onto an alien in a blue jumpsuit. Long fingers tore at the alien’s throat and acid ran down the front of its chest to the floor. It was enough to eat away the long fingers and both aliens collapsed. More of the elongated aliens dropped onto their victim, tearing open its flesh so the acid spread across its body. Both species merged and melted into a lumpy liquid mess, but at least the enemy alien had died with them.
“Move forward.”
“Judge, on your left,” Judge called.
“Ash, on your six,” Ash shouted.
Rok was ahead of him, firing a steady pulse of bullets at the aliens before they could spit acid.
“Rok, watch your ammo,” Judge called.
“Pick up the tempo,” he ordered.
They broke into a fast-paced jog, each monitoring for any signs of the blue-suited aliens. His squad weren’t trying to escape, and the hunters became the hunted. A flash of blue in the gaps in the walls was enough for Rok to move in that direction. From one room to the next, completely lost inside the maze, they shot anything dressed in blue. The aliens were caught by surprise, and they were never in one place long enough to be cornered.
First five and then ten died, but eventually he stopped counting how many aliens they shot. He didn’t know if the aliens were dead, or if they could miraculously heal in the same way they could. Moving in tight formation, they were a killing machine, a single body with one intent; to kill as many aliens as they could before they died or were extracted.
He lost count of how many identical rooms they hit. Running through another gap in a wall, Rok slugged to the left as bullets hit his armor. “Taking fire.”
Inside this room were three Defensors, each armed with the same gun as his own, but none carried a KLAW. His gun only fired standard caseless ammunition, but the KLAW also had high-heat tungsten penetrator rounds capable of piercing armor.
“Ash. Rok. Light ‘em up! AP rounds!”
Ash and Rok stepped forward, firing as they did. The Defensors spun under the hail of gunfire, slamming into the wall before lying motionless. Rok was already stepping over their bodies, heading through the next gap in the wall. Ash pulled back, allowing him and Judge to follow Rok.
“Move forward!”
“We’ve got company,” Ash shouted. “Lots of it.”
Ahead of him was the blue sky of an open cavity in the exterior walls of the city, behind him was the sound of constant gunfire, including the booming of a KLAW.
“Is that you, Ash?”
“Nope.”
Defensors armed with KLAWs were on their tail and, if they had armor-piercing rounds, then it was game over. Checking the countdown on his visor, the clock ticked to zero, meaning their hour was up.
“Jessica! Emergency evac!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Last Woman Standing
Running her hands over his armor, Jessica inspected every inch of him, clearly looking for any sign of injury. “You are able.”
Her smooth face wasn’t like the one inside the city. That face had been slack and blank in a way that made it appear less human than the robot version of Jessica. Taking her hands in his, he smiled at her. “We’re fine.”
Seeming satisfied he was unharmed, Jessica looked up at him. “What did you find?”
Joker strolled out of the control room attached to the Bridge. “I’ve downloaded the footage from your cams.”
“Then you know what we found.”
“I haven’t watched it all, but I got the gist.”
Joker tapped a control panel at the back of the Bridge
and the main screen flicked on. Fast forwarding through the footage, images of the city zipped by, reminding him of where he’d only just been, but then the screen stopped on the image of Jessica suspended from the wall.
Robot Jessica stepped forward as if surprised to see herself. “Is that me?”
“It’s the human version of you.”
Her smooth brow furrowed into perfectly aligned ridges. “There is only one of me.”
“There are many versions of you, Jessica.”
Joker shook his head. “No, there aren’t. Jessica is one brain with many bodies. The protocols are embedded inside the robots, which is why some are more aware than others.” Smiling fondly at the image of Jessica on the screen, he added, “But you get ‘em all in the end, doncha?”
Jessica didn’t appear to be listening to Joker’s explanation, instead she had walked closer to the screen. “I am dying.”
He looked at the image on the screen, painfully aware Jessica was still being held prisoner inside the city. “Are you dying?”
For the first time since he’d met her, Jessica’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “There is little time left.”
“What happens if you die?”
“Another will become Servator.”
“And that person might not break their protocols.”
“It is not easy to do.” Walking behind her, he wrapped her in his arms. When she leaned into him, her voice lost its honey-coated tone, and she sounded lost. “I have failed.”
He and the other Defensors were dead, and the impossibly hard life had turned the humans left on Earth into savages. Only Jessica knew mankind were meant to be more than cattle. If she died, then everything that made them human could die with her. Even pinned to the wall like a fragile butterfly, she was trying to guide them back to civilization. It was an act of desperation, a last stand before all hope would literally die.
Bending his head closer to hers, he asked, “Tell me what you want.”
“Eradicate them.”
“The aliens?”
“Yes.
“And Lolo?”
“She is friend or foe.”
With the back of her head tilted against his chest, he couldn’t see her face to know if she was angry, but her orders were clear. Lolo would have to prove her worth or he would kill her, even if it meant Judge would never have his back again. The Jessica pinned to the wall knew there was only one chance to break the stranglehold the aliens had over Earth. If they failed, then there was no way back.
“Where are the Dead Force?”
“I am for the arks. The Defensors do not belong to me.”
“I belong to you.”
She shook her head, turning her face until he could see her profile. “You belong to the arks. I am Servator for the arks.”
He took her chin, turning her face until she was looking at his eyes. “I belong to you.”
If a robot could blush, then he was sure she would have, but instead she gave a small smile. “I…I see you.”
The woman looking back at him wasn’t a robot, she was the real Jessica. She must have seen them inside the city and then watched them leave. He hadn’t wanted to go and, if he could have, he would have killed everything in the city to free her. She had to know he hadn’t left by choice. Since waking his mood had swung between rage and despair, but now all he felt was guilt.
“Hold on, Jessica. I won’t leave you behind.”
Her face grew blank as if she was losing herself. “Hurry.”
Jessica was dying inside the prison and he didn’t know much longer she could stay alive. Even if she found the strength to keep living, how long before the aliens realized she was the one who had broken their protocols? Rather than rampage through the city all guns blazing, maybe he should have left quietly. Even as he thought it, he knew there was no other way to leave the city. When they’d freed the trapped aliens, they hadn’t hesitated to kill their captors, even though it had cost them their lives. Sometimes the only color worth seeing was the red of rage, but he needed more than a handful of pissed off alien prisoners to defeat their enemy.
Shaking Jessica by the shoulders, hoping to keep her with him, he said, “I need the Dead Force.”
“Seek the hybrid.”
“Lolo?”
Jessica shook her head. “She is not…complete.”
The only other hybrid he knew of was the one Brook had been taking them to see. “Do you mean the one on Earth?”
When Jessica turned away, he knew what he had to do. “Judge, get the squad geared up. We need to find Brook again, but this time we’ll bring the shuttle.”
Judge looked at him in surprise. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“We’re running out of time. The only thing breaking our protocols is Jessica. If she dies then we’ll turn into mindless Defensors again.” Sighing deeply, he added, “We need to pick up the tempo.”
“And taking the shuttle will do that?” Judge asked incredulously.
Feeling his temper fray, he snapped, “I don’t know, Judge. All I know is what we’re doing isn’t getting it done. Something has to change.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Price of Freedom
Finding Brook could have been difficult, but flying a shuttle low across the city had drawn plenty of attention. Having circuited the ruins several times, he directed Hawk and Flak to land where Brook had picked up the rabbits for the hybrid. Opening the rear door to the shuttle, he stood with Ash, Rok and Judge watching a dozen Skimmers flying toward them from the city. Once the Skimmers silently dropped onto the damaged road, men and women wearing dark glasses and bandannas across their faces climbed to the ground.
While the others hung back next to their Skimmers, one man walked toward them.
Nodding at the man, he said loudly, “I’m looking for Brook.”
“I know who you want.”
“Is she with you?”
“What do you want with her?”
“She can take us to the hybrid.”
Once he was only ten feet away, the man pulled away the bandanna revealing a wet looking mouth. “Why did you leave her at the arks?”
“We wanted to board one.”
The man shook his head. “You don’t leave anyone there unless you want them dead.”
“She had a ride out.”
Like everyone else, the man didn’t look more than thirty years old, but his manner was that of an experienced and confident fighter. “It doesn’t work like that. Brook and Duke barely made it out alive and Ag didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“Desperate people do dangerous things.”
“She didn’t tell me what she needed.”
Half-turning, the man shouted, “Is that right, Brook? Did ya not tell the man what was up?”
A slender woman separated from the crowd and he recognized her loping walk. “Brook?”
Pulling the bandanna down and taking off her glasses, Brook’s face was the picture of resentment. “You shouldn’t have dumped me.”
Even with his combat experience, the violence around the arks had been the worst he’d ever seen. People had torn one another apart with their bare hands just to win a one-way ticket to hell. He should have known it wasn’t right to leave her there, but at the time he’d been blinded by his anger toward the aliens. Rather than worry about his escort, he’d wanted to make a point, not that he’d succeeded. The mission had been a bust and he’d gotten another man killed. No doubt, Rok would add one more body to the tally he was keeping.
Raising his hand as if to surrender, he replied, “My memory is shot. What little I do remember isn’t…” He let the words trailing away and waved his hand at the city, sighing deeply. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
The man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What’s it supposed to be like?”
“We’re supposed to be the hunters, not the hunted. We had wars, but we didn’t slaughter one anot
her for a ride.” He shook his head. “We weren’t always the best people, but…there were rules.” Hesitating again, he added, “It was more than just rules, we cared about one another. There were no tribes, just one country under one flag.”
Judge snorted loudly. “And we sure as hell didn’t let any government tell us what to do. We owned the government, they worked for us.”
When the man cocked his head in disbelief, he pointed at the floating city in the distance. “Lunar Horizon wasn’t the government, they were a company. We let them take too much control, and it turned out they weren’t even human.”
The man snorted in disgust. “If they’re not human then what are they?”
“What do you think happens on the arks?” When the man didn’t reply, he stepped forward until they were only a few feet apart. “The aliens use the arks to merge their DNA with ours. The result is a hybrid that spits acid.” Pointing at the floating city again, he added, “They live in the cities, or at least some of them do. We’ve been inside one.”
Brook turned to the man. “I told you they’re not normal Defensors. They know stuff. They can do things, like get inside the cities.”
Narrowing his eyes, the man looked him up and down. “What else can you do?”
“Not a lot.” Gesturing at his squad, he added, “What you see is pretty much all I have. I need to find the Dead Force.”
Giving him a hard stare, the man replied sharply, “They’re killers.”
“I know. That’s what we were trained to be, but…” Unsure how to explain Jessica’s role, he hesitated again. “They’re programmed by the aliens inside the floating cities, but we have someone who can break their protocols.”
“Who?”
“The same person who broke ours.” Pointing at the sky, he added, “She controls the arks.”
Giving him a slow smile, the man pulled off a worn-looking glove before thrusting his hand toward him. “My name is Merc.” Winking, he added, “It stands for mercenary.”
Mercenaries fought for money and personal gain, which wasn’t anything he could respect. Ignoring Merc’s hand, he pursed his lips at him. “What makes you a mercenary?”
