Razer Edge

by Jake Bible

  “You and me both, lady,” Roak responded.

  Four lines were tossed up onto the floor of the passageway. Pol shuffled forward and attempted to bend over and grab the lines, but he groaned loudly and put a hand to his back.

  “Hail? Would you mind, dear?” Pol asked as he tried to straighten up, groaning even more. “Oh, and Roak, if you’d cover us while we get these affixed properly.”

  Roak didn’t question the request. He turned, took a knee, and opened fire as Edgers came sprinting into the passageway. The Flott barked and whirred as the laser cluster spread took out row after row of the attackers.

  “How we doing there?” Roak called over his shoulder.

  “Almost done,” Pol responded.

  “Is this right?” Hail asked.

  “Very right,” Sath said, his head popping up from the edge of the lift shaft.

  “Perfect right,” Spickle added, his head appearing next to Sath’s.

  “Roak!” Hail cried.

  Roak fired twice more then holstered the Flott, turned on his knee, grabbed one of the lines, and threw himself over the edge and into the empty lift shaft. Hail was right next to him while Sath and Spickle helped Pol attach his line to a carabiner on his belt. Then the old man was whizzing past both Roak and Hail, his eyes wide and mouth open in a no-holds-barred yell of triumph.

  Then the two Maglors whizzed past Roak and Hail.

  “I think we’re moving too slow,” Roak said and adjusted his grip, letting the line slide quickly through his hands. “Doesn’t hurt!”

  Hail hesitated, but a few choice plasma blasts against the back wall of the shaft got her into gear. She began falling as fast as Roak, although she didn’t catch up since he had a head start on her.

  The party of five descended fast. Too fast for Roak to comprehend how the palms of his hands weren’t smoking hot or bleeding profusely. He kept waiting for the pain to kick in, but it never did.

  “This way!” Sath yelled.

  “Follow!” Spickle added.

  “Wheeeeeee!” Pol cried.

  Roak looked down and saw the two Maglors dive into an empty lift opening. They reached out and snagged Pol. Roak grabbed the line as tight as he could and he came to an abrupt stop a meter above the opening. He eased his grip and slowly slid down until he was even with the Maglors and the landing.

  He swung his legs onto the floor and held himself there until Hail reached him. She copied what he did, and with the assistance of the Maglors, the two were helped into the empty passageway.

  “We keep going,” Spickle said. “No slow down.”

  “No time,” Sath said.

  “Our friends are correct,” Pol said. “No time to dawdle. We keep going.”

  Pol walked a few meters then slowed and reached around to the small of his back.

  “You going to be able to keep going?” Roak asked, passing the old man.

  “I will, I will,” Pol replied and took a deep breath as he started moving faster.

  “Good,” Roak said. “I want to make sure you live through this so I can kill you myself.”

  “No kill,” Sath cried.

  “Please do not,” Spickle cried. “Pol good.”

  “Pol is a tech-thieving, conniving little bastard, is what he is,” Roak said, never slowing from the retreat away from the open lift shaft behind them. “He’s wrapped up with some bad folks and it almost got me killed. Might still. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that someone stole my ship and I’m going to blame him.”

  “That would be an error,” Pol said. “Your ship was not stolen. It is perfectly fine along with that marvelous AI partner of yours.”

  “Partner? She likes to think so,” Roak said.

  “I know,” Pol said.

  “What?” Roak snapped.

  Pol didn’t get a chance to answer as laser fire came from the open lift shaft. Roak spun on his heels and fired the Flott. The six Edgers that had dropped to their level were turned to mist as the laser cluster spread burst through them then ricocheted around the shaft over and over, slicing and dicing the men and women to fine particles.

  Roak barely lost a step.

  “Not happy with you two, either,” Roak said pointing a finger at the Maglors. “However you’re wrapped up in this, I blame you as much as I blame Pol.”

  “So petty,” Pol said. “We found you both and saved you from almost certain execution at the hands of the Edgers and this is how you thank us? Rude.”

  “Rude,” Spickle said.

  “Rude,” Sath agreed.

  “Where are we going?” Hail asked.

  “Why did you say you knew the AI on my ship considers herself my partner?” Roak asked at the same time.

  “Sewage lines,” Spickle and Sath said in unison.

  “Because I spoke with her,” Pol said.

  “What?” Roak and Hail replied.

  31.

  Roak had to fire a few more times before the Edgers gave up pursuing them. Or at least before that contingent of Edgers gave up. Roak had zero doubt that they were regrouping and looking for a new way to capture the rag-tag little party trying to escape the hell of Razer Station.

  “Sewer,” Spickle said as the two Maglors worked a narrow hatch open in the floor of a dead-end passageway where everyone was forced to stop. “Phew.”

  “Phew,” Sath echoed, waving his hands in front of his nose. “Not fun plan.”

  “Not fun at all,” Spickle agreed.

  “But it is a wise choice since the Edgers will not follow us, nor will Binter’s guards think to look for us down here,” Pol said. He tapped his ears then his eyes. “It is like a swarm of Ghoularian gnats up above us. So much activity.”

  “You’re watching the security feeds?” Roak asked. “The tech is back up?”

  “It never really went down,” Pol replied. “Tricky Edgers.”

  “You have access to all of that?”

  “I have access to everything again,” Pol said. “It took me longer than I care to admit, strictly because of my own ego, but I cracked the jamming. Oh, the Edger leader—Midnight, I believe her name is—is extremely angry right now and she has put finding us as an almost equal priority to stabilizing control over the station.”

  “Okay, you have access to Razer’s systems. Good,” Roak said. “What’s the word on the Skrang?”

  The Maglors hissed and spat.

  “Don’t blame you,” Roak said. “Pol? Talk.”

  “Yes, well, that is why we are in a hurry,” Pol said. “I believe I can navigate the station well enough to get us where we need to go, but the timing will be close.”

  “We’re not really going in there, are we?” Hail asked, pointing at the opening to the sewers.

  “What about the GF?” Roak asked Pol, ignoring Hail. “What is their status? Can you tell how many ships are on the way?”

  “GF? No, I cannot tell that yet,” Pol said. “But give me time. The data will show up in Razer’s systems soon, I am sure. Not that it matters. The Skrang are plenty to worry about for now.”

  “Yes, but maybe the GF will occupy the Skrang’s attention and give us a little more time,” Roak said.

  “No, I doubt that,” Pol said.

  “No, seriously, are we actually dropping into Razer’s sewers? This can’t be true,” Hail said.

  “Stinky true,” Sath said.

  Spickle nodded.

  “And the Skrang are our main worry, not the GF,” Pol said. “One massive enemy at a time, Roak.”

  “Like the Edgers aren’t enough?” Roak scoffed.

  Pol shrugged. “We should go. There is a long and arduous journey ahead for us.”

  “This!” Hail snapped, pointing at the opening. “This is not a journey! This is a nightmare! We’re going to suffocate down there!”

  “Oh, thank you for saying that,” Pol said and dug into the bag he had on him. “Here we go. Rebreathers for all. I have extras if yours becomes clogged while we’re down there. I
wasn’t sure how many would be coming along.”

  “Everyone else is dead,” Roak said.

  ‘‘Yes, I am aware,” Pol said, tapping his eye. “Except for Pasha, but I have lost her. She no longer shows up in the system.”

  “I’ll bet she doesn’t,” Roak replied.

  “You get your rebreather, Roak,” Hail said, snatching one away from Pol and placing it on her face.

  “I guess I do,” Roak replied and took his, strapping it on.

  He pulled at it to make sure it was snug and tight. Mold was one thing, but pure, raw sewage from thousands of beings of all races? No margin for error there.

  “And we drop in? That’s how this is going to work?” Hail asked. “Do we have guide lines or anything else? An Eight Million Godsdamn raft?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Pol said.

  “What is it with Maglors and using waste treatment escape routes?” Roak asked.

  “Direct way,” Sath said.

  “Fastest way,” Spickle added.

  “Okay, true enough. Which is why I’m keeping you and the monkeys alive—”

  “So rude.”

  “Rude Roak.”

  “—but how in all the Hells do you know where it is we need to go? Where I need to go is not necessarily where you need to go.” Roak glared at Pol. “Tell me why my interests intersect with your interests, and why my desire to rip your head off shouldn’t come first.”

  “As I said before, I have spoken with your ship’s AI. Lovely program. Hessa, is it?” Pol said. “Yes, simply a lovely AI and so very polite. I am unsure how she manages to deal with you, Roak.”

  “You want me to count to three before I kill you?” Roak growled.

  “I am taking you to your ship. Or a rendezvous point, at least. No way to take you directly to the ship since it is no longer docked on the station.” Roak opened his mouth to respond, but Pol snapped his fingers and Roak closed it. “The reason I am taking us to your ship despite your constant homicidal threats, is because your ship is the only one that can get us out of this system before the Skrang destroy everything.”

  “Including what you have stored in that tech brain of yours,” Roak said. “The plans to the new trans-space travel thingy.”

  Pol smiled and nodded. “I’d try to lie and say I am unsure what you are speaking of, but the time for lying no longer exists.” There were shouts from a couple passageways away. “Oh, I have become distracted. We need to go now.”

  Pol clambered over the edge, his own rebreather in place, and was lost from sight.

  “You two,” Sath said.

  “We close hatch,” Spickle said.

  “I don’t know,” Hail protested. “I don’t think I can do it.”

  Roak pushed her in. Hail screamed until there was a splash and then silence. Roak didn’t hesitate. He followed right behind.

  It was warm. Very warm. A lot warmer than Roak thought a river of sewage would be.

  In fact, within about two meters, Roak realized it was downright hot.

  Even through his armor, he could feel the heat. And his exposed arm was close to boiling right off his body.

  Roak wasn’t the only one that thought so as the Maglors dropped in behind him and began screeching at the top of their lungs. Luckily, they had managed to close the hatch above and the rebreathers muffled their screeches somewhat. Not completely, but enough that the raging torrent of filth they found themselves in muted the remainder of the noise. Roak only heard them because they caught up to him quickly as they started paddling past.

  Roak would have shouted after them, but he saved his breath for the rebreather and decided that the Maglors’ strategy was best. No reason to float in the hot stream of multi-species feces when he could swim his ass off and get out of the literal crap as fast as possible.

  Hand over hand, Roak stroked and swam. He dug deep and pushed his arms to their limits, quickly catching up with the Maglors. Their smaller arms didn’t have the length and power to stroke as fast as Roak did and he passed them after only a few seconds.

  Roak caught up to Pol next, the old man simply floating along the lazy river of shit like he was on vacation or something. Roak almost punched him, but refrained and kept going.

  Hail was harder to get to. She was full-on panic swimming, desperate to get out of the stream of crap as much as Roak was. The only reason Roak managed to get to her was because he had spent ninety minutes in a med pod recently and Hail hadn’t. Roak had the extra energy to burn when he turned up the speed.

  Roak reached Hail and slowed himself, matching her strokes so they swam abreast of each other. Hail barely gave him a glance, her entire focus on swimming hard and keeping the sewage from splashing above her rebreather and into her eyes. She lost that battle. The rebreathers covered mouths and noses only, not eyes. Nor ears.

  Roak didn’t want to think about what diseases he was contracting via the mucous membranes around his eyes, or the wide open ports that were his ear canals. Once again, he’d need a med pod, or a hundred kiloliters of what the Marines called “Bug Juice,” unless he wanted his brains to be crawling with bacteria and microbes that even Gwreqs feared.

  Hail began to tire and her rhythm slowed considerably after what Roak guessed was maybe an hour of swimming. After another hour, the woman could barely move her arms, and she resigned herself to roll over and float on her back. Roak joined her, but neither of them said a word. Opening their mouths, even with rebreathers in place, was not a palatable option.

  The third hour was when the Maglors caught up and began pointing past Roak and Hail. Roak rolled front first again and saw what they were indicating. A small platform, not even big enough for all of them to stand on, was about half a kilometer ahead. Roak adjusted course and swam directly at it, hooking his exposed and burning left arm through the sparse railing the platform possessed.

  Unceremoniously, the Maglors climbed up and over Roak to get onto the platform. They were both small enough that they could fit at the same time. They chattered to each other in their native language then came to some sort of understanding. Sath gave Spickle a thumbs up then climbed hand over hand up the slick wall towards a strange half-door that was recessed into the wall a couple meters up.

  Spickle was lost from sight as Hail then Pol joined Roak at the railing, all three floating in the current of crap as they waited for the Maglor to return. About fifteen minutes passed before Spickle appeared again through the half-door.

  “Clear way,” Spickle said. “Climb up.”

  Sath was gone in a blink.

  Roak would have followed the Maglor up and out, but Pol struggled to get from the railing and onto the platform. Hail glared at Roak until he helped the old man out of Shit River. Then Hail clambered past Roak and gave Pol a boost up through the half-door before she followed right behind, leaving Roak as the last out of the sewage.

  He grabbed the edge of the half-door and climbed out onto a wide ledge that overlooked nothing but empty space for as far as his eyes could see. Space that was lit by far off halogens that glowed dimly in a ceiling that Roak could barely make out.

  “Oh no,” Sath said a couple meters along the ledge.

  “No fun,” Spickle added.

  That’s when Roak heard them.

  Eight Million Godsdamn Kweets. Again.

  32.

  Roak wasn’t surprised there were Kweets that close to a river of sewage. It made sense since the nasty buggers were designed to eat any pest they could get their hungry mouths on and sewage drew pests. But Kweets multiplied too fast for the pest population to sustain them.

  So, once again, Roak found himself in a situation where starving Kweets smelled fresh meat. He, and Pol and Hail, being the fresh meat.

  But, and Roak was extremely glad about the turn of events, with this encounter he had an ace up his sleeve. Unlike last time, Roak now had a Flott with plenty of charge at his disposal and wasn’t ten kinds of broken inside. He also knew how Kweets fought.

  “S
ath! Spickle! Stay to my right!” Roak yelled as he pulled the blaster and adjusted the power so that the laser cluster spread range could go much, much wider.

  Roak didn’t need heavy firepower to pop some Kweets. He only needed the Flott in his hand to maintain its lethal accuracy. He squeezed the trigger and watched as the darkness the Kweets had been clinging to was lit up by a hundred different beams of laser light.

  Kweet after Kweet exploded into a mushy mess of blood, guts, and Kweet husks that began to rain down on everyone. Hail and Pol crouched low on the ledge, Hail covering Pol’s body with her own as the torrent of Kweet offal assailed them all.

  Roak didn’t let up. He fired the Flott as fast as he could, never waiting for it to fully charge between trigger pulls. The hundreds and hundreds of Kweets that filled the cavernous space were being decimated. Add to that the Maglors’ physical assault on the pest-eaters and Roak began to think they had the threat handled.

  There was a screech then a roar from deep down in the massive, dark space below.

  “That’s new,” Roak said aloud.

  “Oh no!” Spickle shouted as he landed next to Roak, his body coated in Kweet goo. “Oh no no no!”

  “Oh no!” Sath echoed, landing next to Spickle. “We run!”

  The screech and scream were repeated, but much closer. It sounded like it was coming from directly below the ledge.

  “Talk to me,” Roak ordered, still firing the Flott.

  “Papa,” Spickle said and shivered.

  “Daddy,” Sath added.

  “We dead,” Spickle said.

  “So dead,” Sath agreed.

  “Daddy? Papa? What does that mean?” Hail asked, looking up at Roak.

  “I don’t know,” Roak replied. “Monkeys? What does that mean?”

  “Boss Kweet,” Spickle said.

  “Always boss Kweet,” Sath added.

  “There was no Eight Million Godsdamn boss Kweet the last time we fought these buggers,” Roak said. “Why is there one now?”

  “Space,” Spickle said. “Space to fill. Always one Kweet be boss Kweet when space.”

  “Always,” Sath said.

  “We run,” Spickle said, looking at Sath.