Bartoc Secret

by Clara Woods

“Where’s Corinna?” Martello asked as he crawled out of the hatch.

  Lenah pointed her arm. “Over there. We’re going after her.”

  Martello’s gaze flickered to his grandson. “Can you take it? You could barely walk just a half hour ago.”

  Cassius took a deep breath and looked at Lenah again. “Ready?”

  She nodded. “If we’re not back in a couple of hours, make your way back to the Star Rambler.”

  He nodded, his face serious, and for once showing his true age.

  “Good luck. Corinna can count herself lucky to have you.”

  Lenah shrugged. “She’d do the same for me.”

  17 Catching Up

  Lenah’s knee gave off sharp bursts of pain as she jogged at a quick pace behind the machine that had taken Corinna. Eager to catch up and suppressing the worry that her legs wouldn’t be able to sustain the tempo for long, Lenah bit her lip and jogged on, trying to relish in the feeling that at least her new lung didn’t find this an exertion. After a while, the pain had become part of her.

  Cassius kept pace, and though he was bathed in sweat, he didn’t ask Lenah to slow down. They could now see the black outline of the departing construct in the distance, and Cassius stared intently at it as if having to remind himself why he was going through this.

  Lenah almost felt like telling him to rest and catch up with her later, but she had to admit that she didn’t want to face this alone, she didn’t think she could do it. Reaching it was one thing, surviving and getting Corinna out of its clutches was another.

  Neither of them spoke as they pulled closer. The construct’s four-legged walk looked slightly off-balance, and Lenah hoped that would give them a much-needed edge.

  The sun sank low as they ran, throwing a warm light over the blue stone and making it appear almost green. It also reminded Lenah how long it had been since they left the Star Rambler and of how thirsty she was. She took deep lungfuls of dusty and ashy-smelling air, each breath scratching her dry throat.

  Cassius looked distinctly ill to Lenah, bathed in sweat but pale. She touched his arm and he jerked as if he had forgotten she was there. “You can fall back,” Lenah said, but he stubbornly shook his head.

  “I’m fine,” he said and stared forward again.

  Lenah tried to lower their speed a little, but Cassius took the lead, and she soon gave up. He was an adult who could make his own decisions. Hopefully.

  When they were less than a few hundred meters away, Lenah lifted her gun, trying to aim while keeping up the pace. She tried to soften her steps, which wasn’t easy with both her legs now screaming from exhaustion.

  Cassius also lifted his weapon. They both started shooting at the creature’s legs. Cassius lowered his gun and grabbed Lenah’s arm, pulling her forward. She stumbled, but before the complaint that had been on her lips could get out, Lenah heard a loud boom, followed by spraying rocks hitting her in the back. She’d been staring so intently at the legs that she’d missed the tail of the construct aiming at them. Thankfully, her jacket caught most of the sharp rocks.

  “Sprint?” Cassius asked Lenah once he had steadied her.

  She nodded, and he broke out into a run that Lenah wouldn’t have thought possible for him. She struggled to make her own legs work as she sped after him and toward the enemy.

  It was swinging its tail around, clearly seeing where they were and aiming for Cassius, who was getting very close to its legs again. Cassius jumped out of the way with a nimbleness that defied his exhaustion. He ducked, then lifted his weapon in one smooth motion and aimed. His laser hit another leg, charring it as the tail swooped at him. Lenah shifted her aim to shoot at the tail instead, but found herself the target as it swooshed by Cassius, missing him by the width of a hair and coming straight at Lenah. She ducked sideways so quickly that she lost balance. The ground approached her face, and Lenah instinctively dropped her weapon to soften her fall. A sharp pain erupted in her hand, but she was able to ignore it, already numbed to the pain that was constantly emanating from the back of her knee. Lenah rolled and was about to get up and begin pursuit again when she saw another construct approach from behind. It was still about one click away, but there was no mistaking that its path lay straight toward them.

  “Shit. Cassius, behind us!”

  She saw his eyes widen. He returned to the fight with desperate energy. Lenah rolled and took up pursuit as well. The robot stopped fighting, its tail lying flat over its back as it picked up speed. Was it running away from them? For the first time, Lenah realized how strange that was. This machine had flat out attacked them at the building. Now that it had Corinna, it was running away. What did it want with just one of them? Why was it no longer trying to kill them? Whatever it had planned, it couldn’t be good.

  Without having to look at each other, both Cassius and Lenah hastened forward, trying to catch up. Lenah also lifted her weapon, not because she had high hopes of doing any real damage, but because she wanted the construct to slow down in self-defense. A shred of her rational thinking told Lenah that getting targeted by that stinger weapon again wasn’t a good alternative. She told that part of her brain to shut up.

  Cassius broke into several giant leaps and jumped over the tail just as it came whirring down at him. He landed without his usual grace, then was lifted through the air as he was knocked by the tail. Lenah lost sight of him. She had seen the outer hook to the construct’s hatch.

  She leaped with all her might and caught a grip on the hook. With the weight of her body, Lenah pulled at it, but nothing happened. Instead, she felt air move close to her neck.

  Simply dropping to the hard ground probably saved her life. She was unable to control her fall, but the stinger only brushed her. Even so, the impact was enough to take her breath away, and Lenah felt hot blood on her neck. Cassius raced by, giving Lenah the strength to roll over. She groaned, feeling dread at the thought of having to sprint up to the machine again. Nonetheless, she got up, steeling herself for the ordeal. By now, her whole body seemed to throb from various injuries, numbing her to the point where she barely noticed how close the second construct had already come.

  Its tail was moving around wildly and jerking from one side to the other, then a loud boom sounded, and a shot went in the other direction.

  18 Sand Arena

  Cassius appeared next to Lenah. “Go, let’s go,” he yelled and grabbed Lenah’s hand. Seeing the fear in his eyes, Lenah instinctively complied, and they ran together, veering sideways.

  “Corinna!” Lenah tried to shake herself out of Cassius’s grip. But he was holding her with his enhanced hand and wouldn’t let go. Instead, he pulled her forward harder.

  Another shot from the second enemy hit the ground close to them, making a small crater a few meters behind Lenah, and she ceased her resistance and rushed away with Cassius.

  He took them in a circle, then slowed. “It’s not following.”

  Another shot, then the first construct, the one with Corinna, almost fell over.

  “It’s hitting the other machine,” Lenah panted.

  Cassius shook his head but slowed down even further.

  Lenah stared at the proceedings. The first robot was shooting back at the newcomer, a construction of the same build but with dusty blue spots and grass overgrowth on its back. It clicked in Lenah’s head.

  “It’s the crew!”

  She turned to stare at Cassius when movement caught her attention. Was that…?

  “Down!” she yelled before her mind could even acknowledge the source of the knife hurtling toward the back of Cassius’s head. He flung himself low just in time.

  And then Lenah heard it. The desert was no longer quiet, a constant clicking fell and rose like waves of solid sound as the group of aliens approached. Lenah saw a second knife, this time coming at her but missing by several meters. She swallowed dry dust.

  A group of at least fifty vaguely humanoid-looking creatures were running toward them. But their legs and arms were a
t least twice as long as any human’s. Covered in scales of the same blue shade as the planet, they had been invisible until they were almost on top of them. Huge, bulbous pink eyes stuck out the sides of their heads, giving them a 360-degree view. The small mouths were opened wide and producing the clicking sounds. Each creature’s thin and long arms held a device that reminded Lenah of an old-fashioned pistol. Before she could take another good look, Cassius pulled her toward him. Another knife hissed by and buried itself into the stone where Lenah had just been.

  “The others!” Lenah coughed, not able to hear her own voice through the eerie clicking sounds. But Cassius seemed to have understood her and pulled her by the arm toward the second construct that had stopped in its pursuit and instead turned toward them. The hatch in its back opened and Martello’s face stuck out. He waved, then vanished.

  A moment later, the machine came to a sudden halt, and its face connected with the ground as it stumbled over its own legs. Martello, with Zyr behind him, was thrown out of the open hatch.

  “Grandpa!” Cassius yelled, letting go of Lenah’s arm.

  Lenah jogged toward Zyrakath, but the drone had already gotten itself out of the dirt. “In!” he said, his voice sounding shriller than normal. Taking a quick look over her shoulder, Lenah saw that the approaching horde of aliens had all stopped to stare, still clicking but in a changed rhythm. Lenah thought they almost sounded perplexed. She scrambled behind Zyr and climbed into the construct, then helped Martello in, who was covered in dust but otherwise looked whole. Cassius came last, closing the hatch and enclosing them in semi-darkness.

  Lenah crawled deeper into the interior until she reached the bridge. Doctor Lund crouched there in an awkward position, trying to use the screens and hooks that had clearly not been built with humanoid features in mind.

  ​“Zyr, thank the stars!” he exclaimed when Lenah approached. “How do I get it up?” He turned, seeing that it was Lenah. Behind her, Zyrakath flew by.

  “You’re a useless pilot, make room for the captain,” Zyr said in an accusing tone.

  Doctor Lund immediately stepped aside, relief showing on his face. “I never claimed to be one. All yours, Lenah.”

  “Umm.” Lenah scooted up to the control station. “You seemed to be doing a decent job.”

  “He landed us nose-first into the dust!” Zyrakath hissed.

  “He got you here, thank the stars. And just saved our lives,” Lenah hissed back, trying to understand what she was looking at. Had she known that she would use this machine—that is was even functioning—she’d have paid closer attention before.

  Doctor Lund crouched next to her. “That’s the thrust.” He pointed at a dark-green hook that, despite her kneeling, only hung at Lenah’s hip level.

  “This is direction.” He pointed to several yellow hooks. “And that’s the outside screen,” he finished.

  Lenah followed his gaze and had to blink several times. It was a screen, a large physical one, propped up almost horizontally over the station. Lenah had to crane her neck to see it. Faint yellow and purple shadows were moving, and Lenah realized only after several seconds that it was a recording of the outside. The figures were mere shadowed outlines, in pale yellow, but she recognized the long limbs. A large purple outline, shaped like a Bartoc, stood in their midst. The other construct was still trying to get away, but the horde—that was the word that popped into Lenah’s head—was pressing against it with half of their numbers. The other half, Lenah realized to her dismay, were making their way over toward their robot, which was still hanging awkwardly with its nose against the ground. She had to get the construct upright again; otherwise, the strange aliens would swarm them within seconds.

  Lenah touched the thrust hook and pulled at it lightly. Nothing happened, and she quickly learned that—unlike for human ships—she didn’t need to be careful. She pulled fully and gave a backward thrust with the smaller yellow hooks. Doing this wasn’t easy; both controls were far away from each other and uncomfortably low. But the construct moved.

  Doctor Lund nodded. “I knew you’d be better at this than me.” He sounded utterly relieved.

  Lenah didn’t answer as she struggled to make the construct stand. It jerked off the ground and swayed dangerously, but she adjusted the thrust and they evened out. And not a second too soon.

  Violent clicking and loud bangs from the hatch indicated that the aliens had caught up to them.

  “What are they doing back there?” Lenah asked Martello and Cassius, who were crouching close to the hatch, weapons lifted.

  “Breaking in, girl. We seem to look like the perfect dinner,” Martello said. “To shit with this planet and all its creatures. If I could—”

  “You might want to get us away quickly,” Cassius interrupted his grandfather.

  Lenah grunted, then doubled her effort to get the construct walking forward toward the other one, the one that still had Corinna. She couldn’t tell very well on the yellow and purple screen but thought the aliens were trying to break in. Corinna’s presence was still there but not reacting to Lenah’s prodding. Corinna was still unconscious, though being unarmed as she was, she would not have been able to defend herself.

  The construct made a jerky step forward, and Lenah almost slid away from her position. She turned to see if there was anything to strap herself in, but apart from hooks on the floor that probably served that purpose for a Bartoc body, she couldn’t see anything.

  “How did you even think to make this work?” she asked Doctor Lund.

  “It was my idea,” he said proudly. “I pulled a few hooks and it came back to life. After the initial shock, we decided that going after you was better than simply waiting and not helping.”

  “I unlocked the controls,” Zyrakath added. “They are programmed to work in automatic.”

  Lenah, trying to keep them steadily walking forward, nodded. “So, that one in front of us is not manned?”

  They approached Corinna’s construct. The clicking sounds from behind rose in crescendo. Lenah turned.

  “We’ll have company soon.” Martello’s voice was clipped.

  “Let’s try again with the stinger,” Doctor Lund said and reached over Lenah’s head to another purple hook. His muscles strained as he pulled it. Another screen turned on, and Lenah could see the indistinct silhouette of their own construct and its moving stinger.

  Doctor Lund squinted, apparently trying to see well. Lenah focused back on her own task, concentrating on Corinna’s mind instead of the screens to find the direction the other construct was moving. Scratching was audible from the hatch, and Lenah doubled her efforts to move faster. Something cracked and, moments later, the clicking got louder and more rapid. Lights from laser fire illuminated the corridor.

  Doctor Lund, his tongue peeking out between his teeth and lips, brought the stinger around and pulled the hook. A loud boom sounded, and the construct propelled forward.

  Lenah tried to regain control, but before she could adjust any of her hooks, she was thrown forward. Her head connected with the console as they tipped over and crashed nose-first into the ground. Zyr’s high-pitched yell sounded from behind followed by a bellowed “Got you” from Cassius.

  Lenah pulled herself upright, once more grabbing the hooks, and noticed the screen over her head had gone black.

  “Lenah, down!” Cassius yelled.

  Lenah instinctively bent forward again. Something zoomed right over her head—a knife—and dug itself into the front panel, then fell off and dropped on Lenah. She turned and saw Martello, Cassius, and Zyrakath engaged with a group of five aliens that made up the first row. Behind them, dozens more seemed to be waiting for their turn. From up close, their features looked strange, like scaled, upright fish with their tiny lips emitting the constant clicking. For the first time, Lenah also realized that they weren’t throwing the knives but propelling them forward using their pistols. Instead of a barrel, the knives were mounted to a long flat bar. They had to be reloaded after
each shot with a lot of shuffling as the creatures moved from the front into the back to pull out more blades from a pouch at their chest.

  “Arrg,” Doctor Lund moaned just before the construct swayed once more. Darkness fell from the hatch as the stinger whipped by, taking many aliens with it.

  Martello, Cassius, and Zyr started shooting frantically at the remaining ones, and Lenah, seeing her chance, concentrated on getting the construct’s nose out of the dust. They swayed harder than ever as she pulled at the hooks but then steadied. Lenah pulled at the thrust hooks with all her might, and they took off at a run, once more following the cloud of Corinna’s mind. She hadn’t gone far and didn’t seem to be moving away but was now circled by a whole cloud of other minds. It looked as if the creatures were one big mind, not many individual ones. As Lenah caught up to it, she brought up her power, sending a message to cease the attack. Nothing happened.

  “Corinna is in trouble!” Lenah yelled, crawling back out through the corridor. She picked up a gun she’d dropped halfway to the hatch. Cassius and Zyrakath were at the front, shooting at a group attempting to climb up their construct and another one trying to force its way into Corinna’s machine. Fortunately, the creatures weren’t doing a great job of it. They were busying themselves at the hatch and having a hard time bending down, their long legs looking too stiff for the task. But several had managed to get their knives wedged into the side of the hatch, and the material squeaked under their combined efforts.

  Cassius leaped right into the middle of the group, swinging his enhanced arm and felling almost a dozen of the creatures, who seemed utterly surprised by his arrival. They all turned as one, and under loud and sharp hisses, abandoned their effort to open Corinna’s hatch and came at Cassius, knives held out in front of them like lances. Cassius, by sheer speed, forced them back into Lenah’s and Martello’s fire. Zyrakath joined Lenah but dropped his gun. A knife had buried itself inside his wing. Lenah reached out and caught him before he could fall into the middle of the attacking group. She lost balance, but Martello reacted instantly and pulled both her and Zyr back in through the hatch.