Hunted: Chapter 3

The Droid

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Padoan fired three bursts into the homeless man's chest as Raun ducked into the garage.

'What the hell is going on?' Sasha screamed as she sprinted down the ramp.

'Bzzt buuup,' Z3 chimed and floated up and down in the air.

Trent lay on the floor of the garage, one arm hooked over the hydraulic arm of the ramp, a pile of orange splatter at his feet adding to the ones in the passageway. Padoan hoisted him up and gently pushed him in the direction of Sasha on the ramp. 'Take him to his bunk.'

'Oh Trent,' Sasha sighed and put her arm round him, 'when you gonna learn not to drink with Cassius.'

'I only had...' Trent stumbled up the ramp clinging to Sasha.

Padoan ran his fingers over the fresh carbon scoring on the Firethorn's hull. 'Well, at least that's just cosmetic. Anything on the bodies?' He spotted two silver streaks in the paint carved by the garage door on entry.

'Nothing on the first one,' Raun flipped over the body of the homeless man, searched his pockets, his neck, wrists, and boots. 'Nothing. No jewellery, cards, keys, cash. Nothing. Professional.'

'Too professional, military would have dogtags, assassins wouldn't get so close, muggers would have... something.'

'Let's just get off this rock and on with our job,' Raun slung the two new lasrifles over his shoulder with his own.

'We don't need more guns.'

'Not leaving a lasrifle for anyone to find. These things are dangerous,' Raun ducked under the hull as he climbed the ramp. 'Besides, good to have spares.'

'Are they even a good make, Tarikay or?' Padoan followed him aboard.

'Who cares. Lasrifle's a lasrifle,' Raun slapped the ramp close button.

'I'd have thought a former special operations soldier like yourself would care about the make, the factory it came from, reliability, ammo type.'

'Don't care, made good use of the worst and bad use of the best. Long as it shoots it's fine by me and I wasn't spec-ops, I was irregulars,' Raun discharged the lasrifles, stowed the power cores in one locker and the guns in another.

'Mae, take us into orbit,' Padoan said into the comms terminal in the armoury. He lifted his finger and the comms clicked off, 'Irregulars, spec-ops, what's the difference? You did stuff off the book and without the usual rules to follow.'

Raun shook his head and said nothing.

'Cover your ears,' Mae's voice crackled over the comms terminal. The ship rumbled to life and crunched into the roof of the garage. The deck vibrated hard enough to blur Padoan's vision as the hull screeched along the walls of the bay and out into the city.

'Mae, remind me never to let you choose a bay again.'

The Firethorn broke into orbit as Padoan reached the cockpit. The traffic of freighters, ferries, and frigates still clogged the skies of Anker, the spaceport, and the orbit, even the uninhabitable moon was growing a crown of ships. 'Take us out so we can jump to the Munon System.'

'Munon? New job?'

'New job,' Padoan dropped into the co-pilot's seat and lounged back, his feet on the console.

'Captain,' Mae sighed.

Padoan sat up straight, his feet on the deck, 'Sorry,' he murmured. 'Can't we go any quicker?' Jaktan military fighters patrolled the ships waiting to dock or land. At least he thought they were Jaktan, it didn't matter. They had cannons and missiles with a single cockpit and the ability to doughnut round the Firethorn in three seconds on thrusters alone. Though their hull was paper thin and they lacked FTL drives.

'Police, military, whatever can be called the law here is patrolling and have imposed strict speed limits, search procedures, and a whole slew of paperwork you don't want anything to do with.'

'Guess we won't be seeing Cassius anytime soon then...' Padoan pressed his nose to the glass. A freighter overhead had had the decency to paint a naked woman wrapped in a white and blue flag on the underside.

'No loss there.'

'Maybe, least I won't have to drink Visivian Red next time.'

'He had Visivian Red?' Mae shot a glare at Padoan. 'Did you take a bottle?'

'No, stuff is vile.'

'It's delicious. Can't believe you didn't think of your poor little pilot and engineer stuck on the ship dry as a bone, tut tut Captain.' A siren blared from the console, red lights flashed over the local scanning screen. 'Get on the guns!' Mae shouted. She raised three switches and an electrical sheen washed over the ship. Lasfire crashed into the ship, the shield's warped and discoloured in response.

'What the hell?' Padoan scanned the dark for signs of their attacker but there was only bulky cargo ships and transport shuttles.

'We need to fire back.'

'No. Hold course. Shields up. The place is crawling with military.' The ship rumbled as something crashed into it.

Sasha's voice crackled through the comms, 'Someone is shooting our engines again,' she screamed.

'We need to return fire.'

'No, we don't.' Ripples poured down the cockpit window, the shields holding.

'Firethorn this is Navigator Trovian, Jaktan Navy, hold course while we apprehend your attacker,' a lilting voice said over ship-to-ship comms.

'Trovian, this is Firethorn, thank you for the swift response. We shall continue on our way, and good hunting,' Padoan said.

'Thank you, Firethorn,' the Navigator responded.

'When we get beyond their speed limit thing, burn it and jump as soon as,' Padoan growled.

Mae held the throttle tight, her eyes flicking to the local scanner screen for that thin green line.

Alarms beeped and lights flashed as the warning systems detected weapons fire, none of it was aimed at the Firethorn, not this time, but it was too close for the sensor's comfort. Padoan craned his neck in search of the fighter and hunter. Stray bolts of lasfire scorched over the cockpit, the wrestling ships nowhere to be seen.

'Firethorn, this is Navigator Trovian, your attacker has been neutralised, please hold position for questioning,' the thin plectrum-like fighter sidled up on the port side, the Navigator gesturing out his cockpit for the Firethorn to stop.

'Captain?' Mae swallowed hard.

'FTL ready?'

'Yup.'

'Passed the limit?'

'On the edge, bit fuzzy.'

'Firethorn, this is Navigator Trovian, arrest current course and respond.'

Padoan counted to five. Questions would lead to investigations, investigations would lead to restricted travel, and that would lead to being trapped on Anker for a time. Or it wouldn't and a few questions would be a few questions. Padoan tossed his thoughts aside, 'Punch it.'

Mae pulled the throttle to dead stop, the thruster working overtime to slow the ship, and lifted the cover on a little orange button. It clicked and the Firethorn's FTL engines quaked into action. The ship darted forward, the stars vanished into thin streaks of light that overlapped until space was a white sheet, a pinprick black dot ahead of them. 'Sixteen hours until Munon. I'm going to grab some sleep,' Mae peeled herself out of her seat and yawned.

Padoan sat back staring at the destination ahead of him. That black dot so many light years away.

'Captain,' Sasha's voice quavered through the comms. 'Got something to show you.'

'Why do organics insist on half jobs?' the rusted droid remarked, its ridiculous letterbox “mouth” flashing orange as it spoke. The oxidised face plate was flecked with what remained of the polished durosteel beneath, or whatever ultra-light and strong material it had been made with. The droid poked a finger through a gaping hole in the left side of its torso, 'This is unacceptable.'

'We can sand you down and give you a paint job?' Padoan leaned against the hatch to the workshop. Sasha and Z3 were on the opposite side of her workbench, seemingly keeping it between them and the droid.

'A pointless endeavour when I have memory cores unconnected, servos missing, faulty power cores, and there is no sign of my custom lasrifle and sidearm,' the droid sounded angry, furious even, its modulated voice between robotic and human, as if it were affecting an accent.

'Alright, you can remain looking like you were dragged arse first through a recycling plant. What are you made of and we can start on repairing your chassis?'

'Hexasteel version four, you won't find it this side of the Core.'

'I've never even heard of it and there's no way your from the other side of the Core. How do you know we even are?'

'Ahh, I see you are intrigued and a little scared, fleshy-one. Exactly how I like it. I have already tapped into your ships systems. Very poor security it must be said, such rudimentary wireless. We're headed to Munon. You found me in a mining facility to the galactic south-west of here, my... memory core from that time is... damaged,' the droid made an attempt to roll its eyes by turning off the diodes on the bottom half and flashing the top half in sequence. Its “eyes” were concentric circles of light diodes around a sensor cluster.

'You snuck aboard.'

'I... may have. I don't remember, there is no guarantee these memories are being recorded as your engineer has done a half job,' the droid glared over at Sasha and Z3. 'And don't get me started on that ball of hers.'

'Hey! Z3 helped more than you know! You're on, aren't you? More than can be said for the Qing engineers you were with.'

The droid snapped to attention, 'Faulty memory core. Purging corrupt data. Attempting re-synchronisation of essential systems,' the lights of its eyes spun like a clock for a full rotation. The droid shuddered back alive and pointed one of it's rusted fingers at Sasha, 'If this is your best work I cannot imagine the horrors that have been inflicted upon this ship... Firethorn. It almost brings my processors to pity.'

'How did you learn the ship's name?' Padoan said.

'Rudimentary wireless security, like I said before. Do those funny flaps of flesh on the side your head work, Captain Padoan?'

'My ears work fine. What's your name?'

'I have had many names,' the droid stood tall and proud, clamping a hand to his chest, 'Death Machine, Master Assassin, Hunter, Life Eater, Doom Bringer, Judgement, Fear Itself, Shadow Warrior.'

'Alright, stop with the fantasies. Warbots have never resembled humanoids. What are you, really?' Padoan stopped him.

The droid cocked its head and regarded Padoan as a hawk regards a field mouse. 'You wound me, fleshbag. Those are accolades I earned over a thousand missions for hundreds of clients and masters,' the droid winced. 'In certain systems, many light years from our present location, my visage is enough to make soldiers surrender, for warlords to sound the retreat, and for presidents and kings to think twice before declaring war.'

'I'm not calling you any of those ridiculous titles. What is your original name, the one the factory that created you encoded you with?' Padoan rubbed his eyes, something about faster-than-light travel always made him weary.

'I never came from something as pedestrian as a factory.'

'Here we go,' Sasha sighed. 'You're a machine, a droid, a robot, you have a function and you exist to fulfil it. You aren't special or unique.'

'I take it you didn't root around in my memory cores very much did you?'

Sasha remained silent.

'Couldn't crack the encryption?'

Sasha gave a barely perceptible shake of the head, 'Nor could Z3,' she whispered.

'Don't feel ashamed, no one would be able too. Only me and my creator have access, but he is long, long gone,' a faint smugness overcame the droid.

'Did you kill him?' Padoan asked.

'Oh my, no, that's abhorrent. You don't kill that which gave you life.'

'Right. Of course,' Padoan scratched his forehead. He'd heard of droids designed for conversation, for crunching data and analysing it in military and political settings, even going so far as having officials be droids for a short time but this was beyond that. This machine was unique, at least in Padoan's experience. 'Your name?'

'Shogun.'

Padoan inhaled meaningfully, 'Alright, Shogun. What is your purpose?'

'Violence.'

'Against whom?' Padoan wished he'd kept his sidearm on his belt.

'Currently, no one. I seem to not have any requests, though my auxiliary memory core is disconnected. My employers have never left me without a mission before so I would start by connecting that core to my central processor.'

'I don't have the cable, it's a unique port,' Sasha said. She pinched her lip as she studied Shogun.

'Of course it is, I am unique, I was built to be unique. Spare parts did exist, once, and I vaguely remember a previous employer attempting to construct a replacement... I forget what,' Shogun paced the length of the workshop.

'I'm sorry did you say vaguely and forget? You're a droid!' Sasha spat.

'Bbzztt fuurp,' Z3 chimed.

'You said it, Z3.'

'That orb you call a maintenance droid is lucky I am unarmed,' Shogun slammed his hands on the workbench, denting it.

'Woah,' Padoan coughed. 'I wouldn't have thought you were so strong.'

Shogun stood straight, holding himself with a regality that was ill-suited for a droid, 'Yes. Well, as I said. I am unique. Captain Padoan, you are on a new job are you not?'

'Yes.'

'And you're a mercenary company? Quite small, much more my style, though I prefer going solo I will lower myself to joining your crew.'

'Excuse me?'

'You will be engaging in combat?'

'That is likely.'

'I am a combat droid of the finest calibre, it would be foolish not to utilise me in your plans,' Shogun's rectangle mouth lit up in an unconvincing smile.

'How can I trust you?'

'Same way I trusted her when I came aboard. She could have broken me down and sold me for scrap but she didn't.'

'She is called Sasha,' Sasha growled.

'Yes, well if you'd repaired a little more of me then perhaps I'd be able to remember your name,' Shogun folded his arms.

Padoan sniggered. 'Alright, fine. We won't arrive in the Munon System for fifteen hours so until then repair yourself, sleep, power up, down, sideways or whatever it is combat droids do for fun.'

'Violence is fun, Captain. Routine maintenance is a bore but one I must grow fond of once again.'

Lightspeed travel had an unrealness to it. The air was charged and seemed taut, yet utterly silent. The white space was unbroken, unending, and unmoving, the black dot also. It didn't grow, nor shrink, it simply was. Padoan could stare out into for hours and never be convinced he was moving. Mae reappeared in the cockpit with twenty minutes on the countdown, 'Damn, I'm early.'

'Huh?' Padoan slipped his feet off the console.

'Now I have to hang around when I could have slept a bit longer,' Mae slid into the pilot's seat. 'Saw the droid.'

'Shogun.'

'That's his name?' Mae scoffed. 'Alright. Might as well have called himself Lord of War.'

'That may have been one of his titles, I can't remember,' Padoan said. 'Anyway, he's a combat droid and seems not to have an employer so he's on our crew.'

'You took longer to vet me.'

'You're piloting my ship, Shogun wants to take lasfire for me, different requirements.'

'Oh I see,' Mae checked the countdown on the FTL screen. She sighed.

'Good morning,' Trent croaked in the doorway.

'Feeling better?'

'Much better and I didn't throw up in my bed,' Trent yawned. His stubble was patchy grey around his chin and his hair had grown long on his mission. 'Checked my wallet,' he held up his datapad. 'Money all accounted for, at least Cassius is good for one thing. Where we headed?'

'Munon.'

Trent err'd and walked a few steps closer, 'Where in Munon?'

'Bethsemanni.'

Trent groaned, 'Not the Kalgoss-Talasar War?'

'The same.'

'By Ribald's hairy arsecrack, you cannot be serious!' Trent shouted and appeared in Padoan's face, breath hot and stale from sleep.

'Oi, don't blaspheme,' Mae said.

'Ribald is your god, not mine,' Trent winked at Mae.

'It's paying exceptionally well and our job will be on Duln, not the planet, and we will be infiltrating a merc encampment. No issues of allegiance or anything like that,' Padoan leaned as far back in his chair as he could.

'Duln... Duln...' Trent paced the short width of the cockpit. 'That's-' before he could finish the rusted droid appeared.

'I heard shouting, do I need to start cracking skulls?' Shogun punched his right fist into his left palm.

'No, no. Trent here was just asking about the mission.'

'And what is there to be emotional about, Trent?' Shogun stepped into the room. His gait was stiff but surprisingly light.

'I'm from Bethsemanni, though my people have left due to... let's just say this war is personal. Why didn't Cassius tell me?'

'He did, you were passed out on my shoulder.'

'I don't remember. Duln...'

'Trent is clearly unfit for this mission, recommend he stay behind.'

'Like hell I am! Who brought the glorified calculator aboard anyway?' Trent leered at Shogun.

'A calculator would struggle to compute one billionth of my functions. I am Shogun, combat droid extraordinaire and I brought myself aboard, though the memory is hazy on recent history.'

'Oh great, a mysterious droid appears with attitude that's worse than Sasha and Z3s. Are you with Sasha?'

'Not a chance, that woman is engineer by default on this ship, anywhere else she'd be lucky to carry a screwdriver,' Shogun mocked.

Trent chuckled, 'Well, we at least agree on that.'

'Sasha has kept this ship running through fights and battles that, frankly, we should have been vaporised in,' Padoan barked. 'And she got you working when Qing engineers couldn't!'

'Won't mention it again, Captain,' Trent ran his hand through his hair.

'I'll tell her myself,' Shogun sparked.

A booming sucking sound echoed through the ship, the white of space returned to black with stars, and the black dot in the distance turned a burnt orange. 'We're here,' Mae said. 'Bethsemanni is an hour away. Looks like there's traffic problems here too.' She guided the Firethorn toward the planet and pushed the throttle lever to maximum. The comms pinged with an incoming message. 'Unknown source, want to connect?' Mae glanced to Padoan.

'Connect.'

'Captain Padoan I take it?' a grizzled voice broke through the static. The video feed was a haze of pixels and distortion taking on a human face without any detail.

'Speaking.'

'I'm... sending... ver... rmatio... … … conn... ken...' the screen went blank.

'Marvellous beginnings,' Shogun warbled. 'Seems our enemy is aware of us already.'

'Did the file come through?'

'Some of it.'

'Make of it what you can,' Padoan opened the folder Cassius had given him. The front leaf of paper read BURN AFTER READING. 'Duln. Jungle covers eighty percent of the moon. Classified as neutral territory belonging to all of Bethsemanni. Blahblahblah. Trent, what's on the moon?'

'Research labs, zoos, wilderness experiences, joint military bases...' he clicked his fingers. 'The old planetary defences. Massive ion cannons built into the moon, designed to take out battleships and larger in time of invasion. They've been defunct for centuries, millennia maybe,' Trent paced the confined cockpit, frowning.

Padaon's pulse picked up, a curdling feeling in his gut. 'Does the moon rotate or is it a fixed orbit?'

'It spins, from some places on Bethsemanni's surface you could see the whole moon in one night. Great for dates and getting drunk under,' Trent said.

'Still recommend he be excused from this mission,' Shogun crackled.

'Shut up.'

'Right,' Padoan shut the folder. 'Any luck on the file from our unknown contact?'

'No, it's completely scrambled,' Mae said. She clicked through a few dozen screens of random letters, numbers, and symbols.

'Someone is trying to use the ion cannons and point them at the planet's surface. Our job is to stop them. Questions?'

'No,' Shogun said.

'A thousand,' Trent gasped, eyes wide. A bead of sweat bloomed on his forehead. 'You can't be serious. No one would use the ion cannons on the surface, the destruction would be apocalyptic. Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis. Not to mention potential hurricanes. No way.'

'Ahhh now that would be a thing to witness,' Shogun chimed, with an insidious smile across his rectangular diode mouth.

The three humans scowled at the droid. Padoan shook his head, 'We weren't asked to the planet, we were asked to the moon. Maybe we'll find something else but from what you've said, what Cassius said, and what's in here, the ion cannon is the biggest threat. We can work back from there. Mae, ETA?'

'Twenty minutes.'

'Don't bother with the planet, orbit the moon and see if we can contact our employer.'

The skies above Bethsemanni were clogged with starships, mostly freights and manufacturing platforms. Clusters of ships circled the three orbital stations while dozens docked at the shipyard orbiting the north pole of the planet. Duln, the green marble moon, was vacant of ships. Mae attempted to reconnect to the frequency that had contacted them but all that was returned was static. She cycled through the finer frequencies higher and lower but found nothing but static and ship chatter.

'Where's the fuel tanker? I've got flashing lights now.' 'Has anyone heard from Dockmaster Gaius since this morning, my permit was meant to be ready by now?' 'Yours and a dozen others. If he ain't bedridden then I'll make sure he is.'

Padoan reached over to the comms terminal in the centre of the pilots console and flicked it off. 'Waste of time, we'll orbit the moon and-' Firethorn swayed left and right as a similar sized ship soured over the topside. 'What the hell?' The other ship circled round and opened fire before the sensors could detect the charge. Green-blue lasfire seared the ship in a diagonal pattern. The pilot console sparked as the Lightspeed Drive went offline. Padoan engaged shields but it was too late. Trent was thrown to the deck. 'Hull breach!' Mae shouted, silencing an alarm. 'Engines non-responsive,' she grabbed the stick and began guiding the ship on thrusters. 'Engines firing at max speed,' she lowered the throttle. 'Sasha get me a response or slow them down yourself!' The green tropics of Duln filled the cockpit. The attacking ship made a second pass, aiming again for the engines. The Firethorn quivered. 'We're going down, Captain,' Mae flipped a dozen switches. The ship careened for the moon and burst into the atmosphere. 'Hold on!'

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