Hunted: Chapter 9

Revelation

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The rotating warning siren continued to screech unabated. The emergency lighting offered little light beyond the faint yellow glow illuminating the arrows up and down. A deep boom rumbled up from a level far below Padoan and the others. A second one, a little closer, sounded swiftly after.

'Recommend immediate evac back to the Firethorn, Captain,' Shogun called out. He was hunched, with his lasrifle in both hands as he stalked towards the upward stairwell. He peered round the door frame, 'Clear.'

A third detonation thundered through the base. Padoan shoved Commander Grayson's corpse off of him, wondering how he escaped the cable ties – not that it mattered now – and stumbled to his feet. 'Raun, Trent, are the ion cannons disabled?' he hobbled towards Shogun.

'Overloaded the power grid by diverting all the power to the cannons, should have burnt something out and destroyed them. Popped the main reactor too. Would take a total rebuild... I think,' Raun's hands swam over his lasrifle, checking the cell, the sight, the barrel, all of it.

'You think?'

'Some systems have protections against it, most do, just not at that scale, except a very select handful of super-heavy battleships and installations of similar magnitude,' Raun fell in behind Padoan, lasrifle ready.

The base trembled with another detonation. The concrete floor cracked beneath their feet as a blazing fire roared up from the floor below. 'Time to go!' Trent shoved Raun forward.

Shogun sprinted up the stairs, Padoan close behind cursing as no matter how much he tried not to move his arm it hurt anyway. 'Hurry, Captain, I have no desire to be melted down on this benighted moon.'

Padoan leapt up the stairs two at a time, wincing with each step. Sweat poured from his forehead as the heat of jungle was intensified by the fire blazing below. Had Grayson incinerated his own troops or had Varis Peak make him sign a waiver for the heart rate bombs? It didn't matter now but Padoan made a note not to deal with Varis Peak Interstellar Consortium in the future, either as friend or foe.

Fresh air caressed Padoan's cheek as he scrambled outside behind Shogun. The jungle teemed with insects clattering their mandibles and vibrating their wings, birds sang from the tree tops, toads trilled in symphony, and behind it all was men shouting. Shogun scanned horizontally and then vertically, 'Someone is coming this way, we should hurry back to the ship, Captain.'

'Agreed,' Padoan said. 'Back to the ship, double time,' he mopped sweat off his brow, not just from the heat of the jungle and fire, and set off at a run back to the Firethorn.

The Firethorn sat in the clearing overlooked by the cliff edge with vines beginning to crawl up the sides of the hull. Young green leaves tentatively unfurled at the base while budding vines began ensnaring themselves around any length of metal they could find. The ship was sealed tight and sunlight dazzled in a cornucopia of colour across the shield. The corpses left from the attack lay half chewed and mangled, two were missing save for a streak of crystallising blood leading off into the jungle. Whatever scavenger was out there had thick claws and long teeth judging by the puncture wounds in the abdomens of the corpses left behind. Padoan padded through the undergrowth of waist high foliage and brightly coloured, and obviously poisonous, flowers until he reached the ramp. 'You connected?' he asked Shogun.

'Always.'

'Sasha. Let us in,' Padoan said at the droid. There was a burst of static from Shogun and then the ramp began descending.

'Something is broken...' Shogun reported. 'The imitator appears to have removed a vital node for long distance communication.'

'The ships right here,' Raun leapt atop the ramp before it had finished opening.

'Do you organics always have to be so glib?'

'Part of our charm,' Trent said, following Raun up the ramp.

'Hardly,' Shogun said.

Padoan shivered, his arm and shoulder growing colder by the second even while he sweated. He staggered up the ramp to find Sasha standing triumphantly, hands on her hips. 'She will fly! Weapons are hot! Shields at maximum! She needs a hull replacement, probably a couple of bones too but we can worry about that once we're in the sky.'

'When can we leave?' Padoan closed his eyes and leaned against a bulkhead. Fatigue didn't begin to describe how he felt.

'Ahh, well the engines are cold and will take a good hour to warm up. You can't turn these things on and off like a datapad. So get comfy while she gets up to speed,' Sasha squinted. 'You don't look well.'

Mae came down the corridor, her datapad slipped from her hand, 'Medbay, now!' She grabbed Padoan's wrist and dragged him down the hall, through the mess and into a cupboard with a bed shoved in on one side.

'We don't have a medbay,' Padoan fell onto the bed and crashed back against the wall.

'Medcupboard then,' Mae tore the wrapper off a syringe and jammed it in Padoan's neck. 'For the pain.' She ripped into another one and stabbed him again, 'For the fever.' He barely felt the third one. 'For the infection. Now to bandage you up, cool the muscle, and hopefully you won't lose your arm.'

Sasha leaned against the door frame, arms folded, and whistled, 'What gallant heroics did you get up to?' Z3 bobbed beside her.

'Not now, Sasha,' Mae sighed.

'The Captain proved himself most apt in combat,' Shogun said. 'While Mae repairs him, I need you to repair me,' Shogun undid the fastenings on Ixion's chestplate. The shiny chrome fell away to reveal three fist sized holes in Shogun's body.

'How are you still on, let alone moving?'

'Expert craftsmanship of a level you should aspire too.'

'Right... to the workshop with you.'

'First, Captain. Do you have those parts I commandeered?'

Padoan felt himself slipping into a daze but he rummaged around his pockets and pouches, handing everything he found to the droid. 'Here,' he meant to say but it came out as, 'Hrrrr.'

Shogun thanked him, tossed half the stuff onto the bed, and retreated to the workshop with Sasha. 'I don't want that spiteful orb tinkering with my parts.'

'Your wish is my command,' Sasha rolled her eyes.

'Bzzt grrt,' Z3 chirruped.

Sasha finished installing a module, she didn't have the tools to check what it was or what it did but Shogun needed a replacement and he was confident it was the right one. She clipped in the cables and the module's cooling fan began to spin. 'A fan seems a little archaic. No heatsinks, liquid cooling, or, you know, half decent parts?'

'It came from the imitator, a far inferior model, but it will have to do,' Shogun said. 'Next core, I believe it is a memory core with a library of combat initiatives.' The droid stood with its arms out to the side, internal parts on display and its torso casing resting on the side.

'You certain?'

'New ways to commit violence are worth the risk.'

'I don't see why you can't create your own methods,' Sasha reached for the memory core, about the size of her fist with an elaborate swirling etching on the left side shielding. She didn't recognise it.

'Embarrassing to admit but that was an ability I was created with but the necessary module and libraries have been stolen. It may have been on the Qing mining base or before as I likewise am missing the memory core associated with that time period.'

'You know if you weren't a droid I'd feel sad for you,' Sasha unhooked a pair of cables from Shogun's Central Core and clipped the new memory module to his spine. Usually Z3 would help with something so small but he was assigned to the Engine while Sasha worked on Shogun. The cables connected easily enough to a pair of ports on the underside. There was a click, a buzz, and Shogun jolted back and forth. 'What did that do?'

'Analysing...'

Static blared from the speaker and Mae's voice followed, 'We have hostiles in-bound, one of them is high ranking judging by his lapels. Raun, Trent, get to the cockpit. Padoan, stay in the medcupboard.'

'If you could analyse a bit faster, we may need those new methods of violence soon,' Sasha prodded Shogun in the forehead. She walked over to the workbench for the next addition.

'I remember...,' Shogun said, his voice lilting upwards with revelation.

Sasha turned, there was a flash of lasfire and a burning sensation from her stomach. Smoke coiled upwards, the stench of burnt oil, leather, and skin all merging into a vile concoction that stung her nostrils. Grunting, she staggered back and fell against the workbench. She slid to the floor, 'The droid shot me.' Her words breathless as she fell unconscious.

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