by J. N. Chaney
The arm on its injured right side flailed toward me, trying to grab anything it could get its metal hand on. I traded my position on the robot’s back for an arm bar then wrapped both my own arms around the right arm of the robot, positioning my legs over its chest. I used my entire body against the one injured limb.
If the robot’s side had not taken the damage from the turnkey, there was no way this would’ve worked, but the arm was already half falling out of its socket anyway.
Using my legs, I pressed down on the robot’s chest while my arms and back arched backward to tear the limb away from the body.
The robot tried to fight back, but I was a dog with a bone. There was no way on this green planet I was letting go. Tapping into the deepest part of my reserves, I ripped the robot’s arm from its body. Both the useless arm and I fell to the ground.
The robot stumbled in front of me, smoke and sparks coming from where its right arm used to be. It wobbled on its feet for a few seconds before finally falling but still refused to quit.
“Oh come on,” I said, frustrated. I pushed myself to me feet, feeling woozy from the lack of food and blood. “Just go down already!”
The robot was on its knees, its single hand trying to push its way back to its feet one more time. I almost felt sorry for the hunk of metal as I straddled its back and wrapped my right arm around its neck. Almost.
With the rear naked choke, I applied pressure on the already damaged head and neck area. When the turnkey flung the robot across the room, the robot had landed head first, caving in the left side.
I knew this was it. If I could rip the head the rest of the way off, or even the wires and gears within going to the head, it would be over.
Metal dug into my arm where I applied the choke. I ignored it. Not holding back, I pulled for everything I was worth and used all my anger as fuel.
Ripping sounds from somewhere within the robot’s neck cut through my own heavy breathing. Wires and gears in it were strained past their intended points and ruined.
With a final sigh, the robot fell dead underneath me. I didn’t even move to roll off the thing, I just lay there trying to catch my breath.
“Bravo! Bravo!” Jezra said, clapping her hands together.
I didn’t even look up. It was a weird feeling to want to punch someone who was cheering for you at the moment.
“I am going to free your friends immediately as well as get you care and sustenance,” Jezra announced.
I finally looked up to see her pressing buttons on the keyboard in front of her furiously. The smaller screens next to her showed the doors of the cells everyone else was in opening.
Just needing a minute to gather myself, I rolled off the robot and lay on my back, staring at the white ceiling. Jezra was going on and on about some nonsense of being on her way and I would be fine and our future was bright and blah, blah, blah.
Eventually, the doors to my chamber opened and everyone poured in except Ricky. Stacy fell to her knees, worry etched on her face, and Mutt licked at my hands, whining low in his throat.
I could hear Tong and Jezra going at it in their own tongue, and Arun appeared over my head a second later.
“You look horrible,” Stacy said. Her sarcasm was there, but I saw pity and concern as she looked over my bloody face.
“You should see the other guy,” I said with a grin.
“Can you sit up?” Arun asked. “What happened? One second, I was watching over Ricky, the next we were locked in the medical wing. Then Tong came for me saying that you had defeated the tribunal.”
“I’ll explain everything,” I said. “I just need some painkillers and food. I feel like I’m going to pass out.”
“Right,” Stacy said. She and Arun helped me to my feet, each putting one of my arms over their necks to support me.
Tong and Jezra were still hissing and clicking at one another. I had never seen him so worked up. I hoped he was cursing her out at the moment, calling her a dirty bag gecko or an old bat lizard woman.
Jezra broke off her conversation with Tong when she saw me approach.
“I’ll meet you in the medical wing with food. After a shower and rest, you’ll be as good as new,” Jezra promised.
“You think we’re just going to be friends with you now?” Stacy growled. “You gassed us and nearly killed Dean.”
“The gas only put you to sleep with no other side effects and the Great Dawn needed to be tested. It was unfortunate, yes, but it needed to be done,” Jezra said with a shrug of her shoulders. “This is the only way things could have happened and so they have.”
I was too tired and in too much pain to deal with Jezra now. I just shook my head. Stacy and Arun took me to the medical wing as Stacy filled Arun in on everything she’d missed, and I filled both of them in on my robot battle royal.
When we entered the medical wing, Ricky was awake and propped up in his bed. His lower jaw dropped as he saw me carried in.
“Do you feel as bad as you look?” he asked.
I took his own appearance in as Arun and Stacy laid me on the reclining chair next to his.
“Worse,” I said with a smile. I regretted the action immediately, as pain shot into my lip.
Tong came into the room a moment later, rushing over to grab a stool and examine me.
“I just want you to know that I had no idea what she was going to do,” Tong said nervously. “I apologize on behalf of my people. I—”
“It’s all right,” I said to the Remboshi, cutting him off. “I saw you take a lump on the back of the head. I know you didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Wait, what’s going on?” Ricky asked from his bed. “How long was I out?”
Stacy was about to answer him, when Jezra rushed into the room, a look I had never seen before on the seer’s face.
“It’s Legion,” Jezra said, staring at us with wide, panicked eyes. “It’s attacking the Orion.”
24
“What do you mean?” Arun asked.
“There are two of them?” Ricky asked, seeing Jezra for the first time.
“Show us,” Stacy said in a hard voice. It was clear she was far from forgiving Jezra for gassing us.
I felt strangely indifferent toward the old bag. I knew I should be pissed. She gassed me then made me fight two of her robots. I would’ve liked to think she wouldn’t have let me get too messed up in the second fight if I had lost, but who knew? Either way, I only wanted to lay her out a tiny bit at the moment.
Jezra made her way over to a screen on the medical wing wall. She opened the keyboard below it and typed in a command. A moment later, a view of her low-flying satellite showed the Orion. It was dark outside. Jezra clicked a few more commands and heat signatures popped onto the screen in bright red forms.
My heart stopped. There were thousands of them. Larger inhuman animals showed that Legion had infected more than just the survivors. A variety of creatures swelled the ranks of the human survivors.
We watched, spellbound. As one, they moved out of the forest to surround the Orion.
“What are they doing?” Arun asked. “Attacking at night?”
“I feel like they’d be running or sprinting for the gates if they were attacking,” I said. “Remember how that infected rhinoceros thing came at us before? That was an attack. This, this is a—”
“This is a siege,” Stacy said, taking the word out of my mouth.
“Legion will wait on—on what?” Ricky asked, trying to piece the events taking place in front of us together. “He’ll wait until we have to go out? The Orion has plenty of food and water housed inside the craft. They can stay in there for a long time to come.”
“Maybe Legion doesn’t know that?” Stacy offered.
“It knows,” I said. “It’s doing something else.”
“A show of force to decimate morale?” Tong offered. “Maybe this is all to incite fear into the survivors of the Orion.”
“Whatever it is, we have to get back,�
�� I said, trying to sit up from my chair. A wave of dizziness came over me. I would have completely fallen out of my seat if it weren’t for Stacy. She came over to me and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, pressing me back down.
“We will go and help, but we’re not going to travel at night anyway, and you need to get stitched up,” Stacy said, looking over at Tong. “Tong, can you get Dean put back together? Arun and I will go over the supplies we need to take back with us.”
Stacy paused a moment and looked over to the ever-blinking Jezra. The older Remboshi held her gaze.
“You’ll show us where all the weapons are kept and let us know if Legion makes a move against the Orion,” Stacy instructed, her tone brooking no argument. “Oh, and I want our weapons back.”
Jezra didn’t seem offended to be talked to this way. She nodded and led the other two women out the door.
“Lean back, Dean,” Tong said, going to work on his monitor. Metal arms identical to those that had worked on Ricky moved down from the ceiling. I ignored the pain the needle brought to dull my aching body.
Tong started cleaning my wounds and closing my cuts as Ricky started the line of questioning.
“So there are two of them now?”
“Yeah, Jezra’s the seer that told of the prophecy of us coming,” I said. “She built that mist wall and the creatures in it too.”
“What the—? I didn’t see that coming,” Ricky said.
“None of us did,” I answered.
“And she can see the Orion?” Ricky asked. “How?”
“A low-flying satellite.” I sucked in my breath as Tong closed the wound on my head.
“Sorry, almost done,” Tong said.
“Man, get laid up and miss all the fun,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “I feel good enough to help wherever you need me. Just let me know.”
“As much as I want to get going, Stacy was right,” I said as Tong finished his work and replaced the monitor. “We shouldn’t travel at night, even if Jezra can control those mist monsters. If Legion isn’t attacking the Orion right now, we have some time. I don’t know how much good I’d be in a fight right now.”
“You need food and rest.” Tong jumped to his feet and hurried out of the medical room. He called over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back, just a moment.”
“This place is crazy,” Ricky said with a cough.
“Brother, you have no idea,” I answered. “How much do you remember after getting shot?”
“Just bits and pieces,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “Something like being in the crawler then driving through mists and a pyramid. Then I woke up here with Arun looking after me. I thought I was in heaven.”
“I bet you did,” I said, laughing. I reached a hand to my ribs with a grimace. It seemed the pain meds Tong gave me had their limits. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much.”
“Man, look at us,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “Two mechanics from the slums now side by side in an alien pyramid. What the heck happened?”
“You got me,” I said, letting a long exhale escape my lips. “In all seriousness, you should know Arun seemed pretty twisted up about you. I don’t want to give you any false hope, but—”
“You’re saying I’ve got a chance?” Ricky looked over at me from my left. “Dean, don’t mess with me here. Was she like crying? How worried about me was she exactly?”
“I mean, I didn’t see her cry, but she was worried for sure,” I said.
“Excellent,” Ricky said, his lips curving up to form a dopey smile.
“Here we go.” Tong returned, interrupting our conversation with two huge trays of food. There was no spaghetti-looking, tuna-smelling stuff on this one. Mutt looked up from his place by my reclined chair and licked his chops.
Tong placed a tray on my lap after sitting my chair up, then did the same to Ricky. The one thing I needed more than sleep was food. Ricky and I tore into the meal like savages.
Tong tried to hide a look of wonder, or maybe he was appalled, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t care either. There were some leafy greens on the plate that I ate more because I figured it was good for me than for the actual taste. A thick slab of meat almost tasted like steak if I closed my eyes. There was pudding-like stuff that wasn’t half bad and a pitcher of something that tasted like fruit punch.
All in all, it was a meal fit for a king. By the time I was done with mine, I felt like a new man.
Tong cleared away our trays for us and dimmed the lights.
“Rest now,” Tong said. “After a full night’s sleep and a shower in the morning, both of you will feel so much better. Again, I want to apologize for Jezra’s behavior. So many years awake on her own has twisted her brain into something that does not see properly.”
“It’s not your fault,” I told Tong. “You just keep your eye on her and don’t let her get behind you. We’ll all have her under a microscope from now on.”
“Agreed,” Tong said, exiting the room.
After the alien left, I closed my eyes, ready to pass out into a coma.
Ricky let out a huge burp next to me. “Hey, Dean are you awake?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Oh, good,” he replied. “Can I ask you something?”
“I already told you I think you have a shot with Arun,” I said. “Just ask her out already and you’ll know for sure.”
“Yeah, after we fight back the living virus, get out of this mad mist, and defeat the Rung,” Ricky countered.
“Fair point,” I said.
“But that wasn’t what I was going to ask you,” Ricky said. “Do you think we have a chance of getting out of this alive? You think we’ll ever see Earth again?”
“That’s a big question, brother,” I said. I opened my eyes to the dull light in the room. “I don’t know if we’re ever going to get back to Earth, but I’m sure not going down to Legion or the Rung without a fight.”
“Me either,” Ricky said as if that was exactly what he needed to hear. “I dream about Earth sometimes. You know? Maybe they’re not even dreams sometimes. It’s like if I have my eyes closed for too long, my subconscious just drifts back home. Not like home had any real value. I mean, we lived in the slums in those apartments outside of the yard. Does that make sense at all?”
“I think so,” I said, staring at the ceiling. “I guess we just have to move on. Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting, but we’ll die in the present if we live in the past. That’s a lesson I’m still learning myself. Don’t think I have it all figured out, but maybe Lou and Jezra are rubbing off on me. Maybe there is some kind of plan behind all of this. At least I’d like to think so. Ricky? Rick?”
I looked over to see Ricky’s eyes closed. Steady snores drifted from his mouth.
“We’ll be alright, Rick,” I mumbled as I closed my own eyes. “We’ll be alright.”
25
It felt like I had only slept for a matter of minutes before someone gently shook my shoulder.
I opened my eyes to see Stacy above me.
“Hey, champ,” she said with a smile, looking down at me. “You think you can stand?”
“Yeah, yeah, is everything okay?” I asked.
“Everything is fine, or as fine as it gets around here,” Stacy said, helping me sit up.
I grimaced at the action. My body felt like one giant bruise.
“How we looking?” I asked. “What time is it?”
“You’ve slept for eight hours,” Stacy said. “This place is filled with everything we would ever need. Things are looking up. I mean, besides not being able to shoot Jezra.”
“I thought for sure you were going to knock her out,” I said with a yawn. “I mean, I almost did.”
“What stopped you?” Stacy asked.
“Probably the same thing that stopped you,” I answered. “In her own twisted way, Jezra was trying to help. There are too few allies on this planet. If she says she’s one now, then we’re not exactly in a position to say no. We need a
ll the weapons we can get our hands on. You saw what Legion is doing. Who knows how long it’ll be content to remain outside the walls.”
“I’ll never forgive her for what she did to you,” Stacy said, going over to wake Ricky. “Showers are down the hall to left.”
“What a minute; you were worried about me?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. “Little old me?”
“Don’t let it go to your head, Slade.” Stacy smirked. “And if you tell anyone this, I’ll deny it all, but you’re starting to grow on me. Maybe it’s that prophecy Jezra told us about or the fact that we’re about to die every turn we make.”
We stood there staring at one another in the dimly lit room. Stacy was easy on the eyes, even if her personality was the exact opposite. Her honey blonde hair was down behind her ears for the moment and her eyes alight with mischievous fire.
“Huh?” Ricky broke the tense moment. “What did I miss? Are we going now?”
“Shower and food if you can walk,” Stacy said, breaking eye contact and helping him into a sitting position.
Ricky’s injury was a lot worse than my own. Sure I’d lost a fair amount of blood, but things like a sore foot, cut lip, or even a laceration on the side of my head paled in comparison to getting shot.
Stacy helped Ricky get to his feet. It was too soon. Ricky stumbled, about to fall before Stacy and I got him back on his feet.
“I’ll get Tong to see if they have a seated shower or maybe he can wipe you off or something,” Stacy said when she saw there was no way Ricky was going to be able to take a shower by himself.
“No alien is going to touch the family jewels,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “I’ll manage somehow. Maybe you can get me in there and I’ll take care of the rest. Unless, Arun—”
“No, Arun’s not going to give you a sponge bath,” Stacy said with an arched eyebrow of her own. “Come on. I’ll help you get in.”
