Chapter 131: Chapter 43: No Going Back

Bloek leaned Cutter leaned against the wall on the short end of the garden median. Cutter, compressing his wound, opened his medkit to retrieve a patch kit. Parr held a position on the long side of the median, popping out of cover to fire at the other crews.

“He needs medical!” Bloek shouted over the vicious drone of their repeaters.

“I don’t do medical. I shoot,” Parr said, and fired another burst.

Bloek swore and prodded Cutter’s wound. The jacket’s integrated smart material had already softened, returning the fabric to its normal state. “It penetrated your jacket. I see a small hole in your skinsuit. Doesn’t appear to be serious.”

“Bloek, I need your gun!” Parr said, and fired again.

Bloek took the patch kit from Cutter, stuffed the stubby cylinder into the hole, then covered it with the patch. A tingling sensation overtook the pain in the center of Cutter’s chest.

Cutter waved Bloek away, who nodded and returned to shooting. 

“The scavengers slipped away,” Parr said, and glanced at Cutter. “We have to move now or we’ll lose the kid.”

“I’ll need help,” Cutter said.

“Watch the carts,” Bloek said as they began to drive away. Parr sprayed them with his repeater. It clicked empty, and he reloaded. A fraction of a second before he could resume fire, gunfire erupted from behind the carts. A powerful shot struck the irrigation equipment overhead. Water sprayed from ruptured pipes. The recovery agents ducked as pieces of equipment rained upon them. Then the manipulator arm broke and swung downward, pulling tubing with it.

The barrage ended. Parr and Bloek scrambled back to their firing positions when a Gyhera leapt atop Bloek, knocking the repeater free. Bloek absorbed the attack with his off-hand forearm. The Gyhera’s teeth clamped down on it, puncturing the armored gauntlet.

Cutter fumbled for his pistol as Bloek drew his blade. He’d just extended it when the Gyhera’s neck sprayed blood, and it went limp. 

Parr grimaced as he lowered his repeater. “Quit messing around with that poker and shoot someone!”

Bloek cursed and held the blade close. “One day,” he said, and slipped it back into its sheath. He then kicked the fur ball away and joined Parr in another burst of fire to discourage any more rush attempts. A few shots of return fire went high overhead. Bloek peeked his repeater over the wall, scanning with the guncam. “The prisoners by the carts bugged out down another tunnel. We’ve got a clear path after Rakton’s scraps if we can take out the shooter they left behind.”

Parr took aim and drilled the rear guard in the tunnel. “Problem solved. I’ll move first. Cover me, Bloek!” he said, and leapt out of the median.

Bloek swore, and let loose a steady stream of cover fire while the stocky man bound out of the median. Someone gathered the courage to shoot at Bloek, and he ducked.

Cutter noticed his missing weapon. “Parr took my repeater.”

Bloek glanced down at the pistol in Cutter’s hand and tossed over a few magazines for it. “We’ll be back once we get the kid,” he said as Parr’s repeater fired nearby. Bloek bounded out from the median wall before Cutter could reply.

Cutter sat alone in a puddle of the Gyhera’s diluted blood. He spotted Bloek’s blade, apparently never making it back into its sheath. He reached out and grabbed ahold of it.

The water ceased dripping from the pipes overhead. Cutter heard shouting. He gripped his pistol and knew the ugly truth.

They weren’t coming back.

---

The organics were killing each other in droves. I wished I could participate. Instead, I was stuck cleaning actuators while I listened over the Terran crew’s comms and observed the view from a some of the unsecured guncam streams.

For a close quarters skirmish, it was mildly stimulating. The combat prowess of the organics was dismal, but somehow casualties were inflicted via small arms fire, bladed weapons, and in one case, death via bite wounds courtesy of three Gyheras. The Eviun never stood a chance. Had I been in my experimental combat chassis, or even one of the older infantry models, I would’ve massacred all parties involved. Alas, I watched and critiqued.

Rakton’s death was some consolation. Captainship transferred to the first mate by default. While this decreased the probability of my destruction by 13.78%, the most likely outcome for the bot was continued service on the Terran. This scenario still held a non-trivial chance of my destruction. I had scoured the unsecured logs and bits of data in the Terran’s system directories since Idiot and I were reassigned to the vessel. The history of bots serving aboard was dismal; either wrecked in salvaging operations gone bad, scrapped for creds to pay shares, or in two instance, shot to pieces by an altered Rakton. Even if the new captain lacked Rakton’s propensity for inebriated spats of violence, the odds were troubling.

Say what you will about the Stardancer crew, but they took their weapons safety seriously.

The other possible outcome was capture by another of the pirate crews. I had extremely limited data on them, meaning I couldn’t predict my fate with any degree of accuracy. I ran analyses using models of the Terran crew and applying the observed dispositions of the other pirate crews. Projected outcomes, as imprecise as they were, remained poor.

The stakes were the highest since I had escaped my facility of origin. My fate rested in the bumbling hands of the organic Anderton and his crew. To say that was not ideal was an understatement of massive proportion.

I watched the streams I could access, ignoring Idiot’s banal chatter about the efficiencies of various cleaning methods. The Stardancer crew required any assistance I could provide.

When the time came, I would devote all my limited resource to ensuring their success. 

---

“Keep moving,” the scavenger guard grumbled, holding Wesley’s elbow with a firm grip.

Wesley increased his pace. The sudden violence had left him in a state of numbness—like a ghost floating above the carnage. All those people—as vile as they were, participating in sentient trafficking—snuffed out in a matter of seconds. It was too much to stomach.

Mylo led the scavengers toward the Terran. The ones with the better weapons lingered at the rear of the group, taking shots at their pursuers. The shooting had receded when they first left the lounge, but quickly intensified as they were pursued.

Without warning, the guard next to him twitched, the air pushed from the man’s lungs as a shot struck him square in the back. His strong grip on Wesley brought them down together. Everyone followed them to the ground behind empty crates and a stripped cart that had been recycled for parts. Mylo screamed orders, half the remaining scavengers not daring to move.

Wesley saw a gap in the floor nearby; what looked to be an open access door leading to a maintenance tunnel. A primal sense screamed at him to run. He scrambled along the floor as another scavenger stood and fired, only to be cut down. Mylo shouted for someone to stop Wesley. A hand stretched out to block his path, but Wesley shifted out of reach and rolled along the ground. His hands found the hole, and he dove inside like he was back at the pool at university.

Metal grating rushed up to meet him as he smacked against it. He fought through the numbing pain and came to his knees. A closed hatch awaited him. He crawled to it. Through the small viewport, he saw a maintenance tunnel stretch on into oblivion. 

Wherever it went, it was his only chance at escape.

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He pulled at the handle as the firing up top grew more intense. Mylo shouted orders, then his voice drifted away, either retreating or silenced permanently.

Wesley pushed harder, but the handle wouldn’t move, no matter how much he strained. He risked a glance back, saw no one in the slim field of view outside the access door, and pushed as hard as he could. Finally it shifted, unlocking the hatch. He yanked on the handle, struggling to open it. Either its motor had malfunctioned or hadn’t been connected. He sensed a presence, eyes upon him, and turned back to the access point.

Staring at him, less than five meters away, their heads perfectly in line with the open access door, stood two of the recovery agents.

“Don’t you move!” the stocky man snarled. He was the same one Wesley had been nose to nose with at the Praxa Prime dockyards. The agents had been that close to capturing him and he hadn’t even realized it. If he didn’t do something right then they would have him for sure.

“Lords guide me,” Wesley said, and shoved himself into the gap. The rough outer edge scraped at his skin. He didn’t think it was wide enough, but he pressed on, twisting and writhing further into the gap. Then he popped free and fell to the maintenance tunnel floor.

The sound of gunfire echoed into the tunnel. Wesley looked behind him through the hatch viewport. He saw the feet of the two agents, heard indiscriminate arguing.

One of the agents said, “You get him! I’m going back for Cutter, or we don’t get paid!” 

The other shouted back, “We don’t need him! Trust me!”

“I’m going. Get the kid!,” the first said. His feet disappeared from view. The other set of boots turned in the direction of the departed agent. Then the man fired his weapon.

Wesley stared, horrified, as the stocky agent dropped through the access door. He landed on the grating and lifted his cold eyes to Wesley. A detached bloodlust swirled behind them, sending a chill out from Wesley’s core. His survival urge pushed through the fear, wresting control from his conscious mind. Somehow he leapt forward and yanked the hatch closed. The man charged as Wesley spun around and ran into the darkness of the tunnel.

Ran into oblivion.

---

Cutter slapped on a second patch at his neck, flouting the proscribed dosage limits. He breathed with relief as the meds flooded his system. It left him a little light-headed, but the effect cleared in short order.

He risked a quick glance around the lounge. Fire and maneuver had decreased. Battle orders and anguished screams were now crosstalk between the crews. The distinct chittering cut above the rest. Gyhera were nearby, taking the lead. Cutter got the gist. Whoever was left in the lounge was close to cementing a cease fire so they could catch Rakton’s fleeing crew and enact revenge on the newcomers who shot up the slave auction.

Beginning with him.

That paralyzing chill returned.

The episode at Praxa Prime Customs had been a practice run; there was no consequence. Here, his life was on the line.

His breaths went short and his heart rate spiked, pulse throbbing in his throat. 

The memories returned: trees stretching high overhead, streaks of fire across the night sky. The chittering came next, the Lord-awful sound of impending death as the Gyhera hunted for him in the forest. A surviving crewmember helped Cutter up a tree, then led the hunters away, never to be seen again.

Cutter never forgot the man’s face; his crooked smile and soft voice. The look in his eyes. Cutter hadn’t realized it at the time, but the man knew he was already dead. His last act was to save another of his people, to ensure that someone from the ship lived.

He had no idea how he made it out of that forest. He should’ve died. Then he realized the truth: the boy did perish in that forest. The person that came out was a man.

A man who would no longer be hunted. A man who became the hunter.

He wasn’t going to wait around to find out how the negotiations went. 

Cutter popped out of cover and picked off the first sentient he saw. This sent the others ducking back for cover. Someone quickly drew a bead on him and fired. Thankfully they couldn’t shoot, and Cutter was able to duck below the median before the next round flew by overhead.

“Flank him! We’ll cover you,” a voice said. Footsteps followed.

Cutter noticed the smear of brown on his arms; wet dirt from some of the planters in the median. Covered in mud, hunted by Gyhera yet again.

He was trapped, staring over the top of the median out the windows at the other terminal arms. He could see the Stardancer a click away, but it might as well have been on the opposite side of the system, with him pinned there, and Rakton’s remaining crew with a solid head start.

Cutter didn’t make it all that way to be done in by scumbag slavers and corrupt corporate goons.

In his compromised position, he saw only one way out. It was dangerous, but it was also his only chance. He placed his palm over his chest, then kicked off his desperate plan.

He connected to the Pursuit’s hub via the tiny comm-boosting drone he’d pre-deployed in space between his ship and the lounge. After he issued the desired commands, he tossed his remaining flashbang at the approaching crews. The disruption bought him a few seconds to activate his skinsuit’s spacewalk mode. A close-fitting translucent bubble uncoiled from his collar, wrapped over his head, and sealed at the seams. The skinsuit stiffened—leaving him pressurized for a short jaunt in space—and he ensured the patch over his wound still held a tight seal.

Someone nearby began to fire on his position. He hunkered down as the rounds struck the median wall and mud. He fired back blindly, hoping to buy the precious seconds he needed.

Now came the tricky part—where he tried not to kill himself in the execution of his own plan. He huddled behind the median and accessed the Pursuit’s weapons module. The ship’s hidden missile port opened, exposing the pod with one of three special missiles he’d acquired from military contacts. The weapon launched silently into space. Orienting itself with tiny thrusters, the engine fired, and it streaked through the executive dockyard to its target.

To Cutter.

This particular missile contained a warhead designed to detonate in a very specific manner. Rather than exploding and showering the target with shrapnel, a condensed ball of plasma vaporized a sizable portion of the viewport. The resulting gaping hole caused explosive decompression as the atmosphere in the lounge was pushed out before the emergency shutters could deploy, taking many of the rotten pirates with it.

Cutter leapt out of the median, giving in to the escaping air, and launched feet first into the depths of space.

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