Haywire, page 5
“Has it tried to communicate?” Laroux asked. A glint of curiosity entered his eyes, and Gimble latched onto it like a drowning man.
“Communicate?” he replied. “No, Sir. We hailed it but got nothin’ back. I bet there’s someone in it though. Dead, surely, but they still might be about to help us understand what it is and what it’s worth.”
Laroux stroked his goatee and then looked at him. “Go listen to it.”
Gimble took a half step backward. “Sir?”
“Are you deaf as well as stupid? Place your ear on that glossy bubble at the front and listen to it. If there is someone inside, you should be able to hear them. Perhaps they have locked themselves in and lost the key.”
The pirates around the captain laughed good and loud, but Gimble felt none of their mirth. Up close it looked alien, with strange markings stamped into the dark hull like lettering from a long dead language. But, knowing he had no choice, he took a deep breath and shuffled over to the ship. He then leaned forward and settled his head against the glass of what he thought was the cockpit canopy.
“Hear anything?” the captain asked. “Perhaps the tinkling of gold coins?”
The pirates burst into raucous laughter again, and Gimble grimaced as he focused on the glass beneath him. For several long seconds all was silence, but then he thought he heard mumbling, like someone speaking in another room. A series of dull thuds suddenly vibrated against his cheek and ear, and his heart skipped a beat.
“There’s someone in there!” he said, pushing away from the ship.
The captain’s eyes widened and his amused smirk vanished. “Are you certain?”
Gimble nodded and took a step back. “I heard ‘em talking and thrashing around.”
Laroux clapped his hands and waved his arms in a broad, sweeping gesture. “Well then, let us not keep them waiting. All of you, open it! Rapidement!”
Several pirates went to a workbench littered with various pieces of equipment. When they returned they had a large device with wicked looking pincers on one end and handholds on the other. After the pincers were pushed into the seam that separated the canopy from the rest of the hull, they pushed toward the ship and activated the device. Loud metallic grinding vibrated the air painfully. They didn’t have much luck at first, but eventually the tiny seam began to widen. When the canopy suddenly flew open with a loud pop, everyone nearby staggered back in surprise. Pent-up atmosphere billowed out of the cockpit, the air foul and moist.
“Sacré bleu!” Laroux said, reaching down to his hips for his pistols. The twin guns were drawn and pointed at the damaged ship in steady grips, but seconds ticked by without anything for them to shoot at. After half a minute of waiting, the captain pointed his left gun at Gimble and waved him toward the ship.
Swallowing his fear, Gimble nodded, drew his sidearm, and walked toward the vessel slowly. He had a horrible feeling in his gut that this day would be his last, and he wasn’t in any rush to get it over with.
Laroux stomped his right foot on the deck, sending a sharp thud echoing around the staging area. “Move! Stop dragging your stupid heels!”
Gimble jumped and nearly pulled the trigger on his gun which, given his luck, would have sent a pulse of energy straight into his foot. He ducked his head and dashed for the open cockpit. As soon as he was next to it he rose up to his full, if meager, height and jammed his gun forward, ready to shoot anything that moved. Instead he gasped and his arms fell to his sides.
“What do you see?” the captain asked.
A figure slouched in a pilot’s seat, as he’d presupposed there would be, but the person he saw wasn’t enclosed in the usual biosuit all spacefarers wore. Instead, the person was clad in armor, though armor that looked as smooth as skin and nearly as tight. Most of the armor was colored a shining gold, but bits of it around the boots, gauntlets, helmet, and torso were cobalt and crimson. After a few seconds’ scrutiny he realized the armor was worn by a woman by the curved shape of it around the waist, legs, and chest. She looked like a statue of a long forgotten goddess or Valkyrie, and he was awed of her savage grace, even while motionless.
Laroux coughed loudly. “Do not make me ask you again.”
Gimble turned his face to the right, but his eyes never left the woman below him. “Captain, I think… I think it’s a woman. She’s… I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Très bien, yes, a woman. Fine. Is she alive?”
Despite the sounds he’d heard earlier, the figure in the cockpit hadn’t moved since he’d approached, so he wasn’t sure how to answer the question. “I don’t know. She could be.”
“Could be? What kind of answer is ‘could be’? Reach in and find out, you imbécile.”
The last thing Gimble wanted to do was put any part of himself into the cockpit, but the guns aimed at his back were powerful motivators. His right hand continued to hold his gun while his left reached in. To his surprise, when his fingers touched the armor it wasn’t the cold metal he’d anticipated feeling. Instead it burned like feverish flesh. And not only was it hot to the touch, but a throbbing sensation pounded beneath his fingers like the beating of a heart.
“Captain, I think–”
The armored woman’s helmet swiveled in his direction. His shocked expression reflected back at him in the smooth amber faceshield. He didn’t have time to gasp before she grabbed his gun and crushed it in her hand like it was made of cheap plastic. With her other hand she shoved him in a savage push that sent him flying backward almost ten meters.
Laroux yelled, “Fire!” before Gimble’s plump behind could hit the deck. Charged packets of energy slammed against the cockpit, each one hoping to take down whomever was inside it before they could become a threat. Moving almost too fast to see, the woman leapt out of the cockpit in a high, arcing jump. She landed on the metal deck with the deep ring of an old church bell. Gimble felt it vibrate through the floor plating.
“Take her down!” Laroux’s twin guns barked in a constant barrage.
To their credit, the pirates managed to land several hits on the armored woman, but they didn’t faze her in the slightest. In a blur of motion she ran toward the nearest standing pirate, and from her hands emerged blades, each one as long as her arms. The swords gleamed brightly in the lights of the dock, but then they were covered in blood after she sliced the pirate’s head off in one fluid cross swing. Another pirate fell to the deck a second later, his body bisected at the chest and internal organs sliding out of him as he tumbled. She moved toward another, but after taking three quick steps she faltered and fell to her knees. The pirates that remained fired until their clips were empty, but her armor shrugged it all off.
“Arrêt!” Laroux said, stopping his men as they reached for fresh energy clips. “Stop! No, this… this cannot be. But, I think… yes…”
Gimble couldn’t believe what he’d seen. In less time than it would take to retell the story later, the woman he’d thought dead had jumped from her heavily damaged ship, grown blades from her arms, and killed two of his fellow crewmates. Why she’d stopped, he didn’t know, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with the weapons brought against her. He stared at her in disbelief, and when her swords withdrew into the armor of her forearms as though they’d never existed, he wasn’t shocked. He had no more surprise left in him. But, when her helmet dissolved and melted into the metal around her neck like quicksilver, he discovered a deeper layer of astonishment and gasped.
“Yes!” Laroux’s voice tightened with excitement. “I knew it!”
The olive-toned face that appeared from beneath the helmet was beautiful and tragic. Her skin had the smooth tightness of youth, yet her pale green eyes were haunted, full of death and unending sadness. Faded scars crisscrossed her checks and forehead, testifying to the pain she’d endured, and he could only imagine what marks might lay under the rest of her armor. But, what tugged at him most was how much she reminded him of his first wife, Marie. It wasn’t any one feature, but all of them, especially her sadness. Cancer had slowly stolen Marie from him bit by bit, and at the end of it she’d been a husk that only wanted her pain to end. When the armored woman looked up at him, he saw the same sort of pain written on her face. Tears burned at the backs of his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Not in front of the men. Certainly not in front of Laroux.
“Please,” she said, raising her head and reaching out. “I’m-I’m sorry. I’m not your enemy. I’m–”
Tremors shook her body, forcing her silent. She hunched over and tucked her arms against her sides. Gimble was dumbstruck when her muscles moved beneath her armor as though the metal was merely paint on her skin. The idea that it was something apart from her quickly left him. It wasn’t a suit. It was her.
“You what?” Laroux asked, keeping his distance.
“I-I-I need your help,” she answered once her shoulders no longer shook and she could sit upright again. Her green eyes shimmered wetly.
Laroux, gaining a bit of confidence, holstered his guns. “And how can we mere mortals hope to help a Titan, eh?”
Gimble sucked air in so quickly he nearly choked on it. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, words from school books he barely remembered, yet it made too much sense to not be true. It had been a hundred years since the Titans were last seen, the ancient soldiers now more myth than anything else, but here one sat, and try as he might he couldn’t deny it.
The woman rose to her feet on legs wobbling like a newborn doe and staggered toward Laroux. The captain took a step back, but the flinch that crossed his face was quickly smothered.
“I need… to find the doctor.” Her face fidgeted as she spoke, as though she struggled to find the right words.
Laroux chuckled. “Mademoiselle, if by ‘doctor’ you mean Diederik Groesbeck, then I am afraid you are about a century too late. The doctor is long dead.”
The armored woman stuttered to a stop, and her eyes stared into a distance no one else could see. “No,” she replied in a whisper. “Has it been… that long? Yes-yes, it... has... Then is there no hope?”
Gimble shifted around and got to his feet. She was nothing like Marie, yet so much like her, and he wondered if he wasn’t dreaming as he walked to her. She seemed so lost and alone. She was bigger than he was, faster and more powerful, but her desperation pulled at him. He hadn’t felt heartbroken in a very long time.
“There there now, Miss. Surely it isn’t as bad as all that. I’m sure we can help.”
“Gimble, you idiot,” Laroux said, raising his voice. “Can’t you see she’s–”
The woman fell to her knees again. Her shoulders and arms shook violently, her armor rippled like liquid, and then long spikes shot up all across her back. The quills vibrated in the air before dissolving back into her armor, leaving not a trace behind. Her arms flew out from her sides, and the blades reappeared. She swung them around madly, and when they hit the deck they cut into it, leaving long slashes in the metal plating. Like the spikes, her blades disappeared, and she balled up her gauntleted hands into fists and hammered them into the ground. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and her mouth twisted into a grimace of extreme pain. Her hammering blows rang and rang, and deep dents were pounded into the deck. After half a minute of twitching and flailing, she fell onto her side and gasped.
“What’s happening to her?” Gimble asked, scared to move.
Laroux shook his head and stared. “I have not a clue, but something is obviously wrong.”
Gimble gulped and looked back at the woman. “Is she really a Titan?”
“Oui, I believe so. As a child I was fascinated by them. I read everything I could and watched every archived vid. She certainly looks like a Titan, and her armor... Oh yes, she is a Titan without doubt. How she still lives, though, I do not know. Perhaps that mad scientist Groesbeck not only gave them the strength of gods, but also the eternal life.”
Crowe, who had smartly moved as far from the salvaged vessel as he could once the fighting broke out, stepped forward. “Pardon me for saying, Sir, but she doesn’t seem eternal to me. In point of fact, she doesn’t look long for this world at all.”
Laroux dropped to his haunches and rubbed his chin. “Perhaps so. But, even dead or dying, she is valuable. Gimble, for an idiot you have done very well.”
Pride wanted to swell up in Gimble’s chest, but he couldn’t feel elation while he looked at the fallen Titan. The history books said they were the saviors of humanity, yet here one was, reduced to a quivering commodity. A lump formed at the base of his throat, and he had a hard time breathing around it.
“P-Please,” the woman said, raising her head from the floor. “You m-m-must help me.”
Laroux laughed and rose to his feet, the look on his face pure self-satisfaction. “Help you? Mademoiselle, no one can help you. Groesbeck is dead, and the Titans have all but faded into history. I do not know where you came from or how you came to be here, but now you are alone and dying. It is over.”
Using her left arm, the woman pushed herself into a sitting position, but she trembled as she moved, and she didn’t appear as though she had the strength to stay upright for long. “But-but they’re coming.”
“Who?” Laroux asked, tilting his head as he looked down on her. “Who is coming?”
The woman’s eyes lost focus, and her lips quivered as she started mumbling. Gimble leaned forward, his fear diminished by his desire to help, and tried to hear what she said, but her words were lost in the background din of the dock.
Laroux stepped toward her. “Answer me.”
Slowly turning her head, the woman looked at him, and her eyes regained some of their focus. She raised her right hand, and up from it sprang a holographic image. It looked like a three-dimensional blueprint for a building, with structures both above and below a rocky surface.
“Dr. Groesbeck might be de-dead,” she said, “but he can still-still help. I… I need to go to his facility… on Callisto. There I’ll find what I need.”
The pirates that stood behind the captain chuckled.
“Oy, that’s a good one,” one of them said. “Yeah, let’s see what we can get from that smoking crater.”
The woman looked at the pirate, her face draining of what little color it had left. “Crater?”
Laroux nodded and stared at the image hovering over her gauntlet. His eyes sparkled with the holographic light “The Hezrin destroyed most of Dr. Groesbeck’s facility on their way out of the system. It is a museum now.”
The Titan’s head dropped and her armored shoulders sagged. Her hand began to lower, but Laroux rushed forward and held it up. She twitched at his touch, but didn’t stop him. Gimble didn’t think she had the strength.
“Wait!” he said. “This… yes, this is different.” He reached into a pocket of his biosuit and pulled out a small computer pad. His thumb danced across its surface, and within seconds a construction schematic appeared. His eyes went back and forth between the pad and the hologram several times before he suddenly let loose a high-pitched laugh. “I knew it!”
“Captain?” Gimble asked.
Laroux looked at the crew around him with a broad smile on his face. “Years ago I acquired blueprints of all Groesbeck’s facilities, thinking eventually I’d break into them and help myself to whatever trinkets might be left of my childhood obsession. The image she’s projecting is of the Callisto facility, which the Hezrin blasted to pieces on their way out of the system, killing Groesbeck and ending the Titan project in one fell swoop. But, her plans show areas that mine does not. If this Titan knows about areas of the facility no one else does, then perhaps there are more than trinkets to be had.”
One of the pirates behind Laroux stepped forward and rubbed his hands together. “So it’s an assault on this museum then, is it, Sir?”
“Non,” Laroux replied, standing up and pocketing his computer. “This will require a bit more subtlety than that, I think. If we are going to search the museum for hidden treasure, then we will need a way in that won’t raise alarms and alert the Alliance. And, I think I know just the way.”
Gimble stepped forward, his feet like hundred pound weights. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Cap’n? She don’t… she’s not right, and a not-right Titan seems like a dangerous thing to have about.”
“Does she seem dangerous to you?” Laroux replied with a casual wave of his hand toward the cowering Titan. “Whatever power she had is obviously now gone, leaving her a simpering thing, but she could still be of value, so she stays with us. But, if it will alleviate the fears of the less hearty amongst us, someone get some restraints. The strongest we have. That should remove whatever fight might be left in her. Everyone else, get to your ships and make ready. The Dieu Le Veut sails within the hour. We are going to Callisto.”
On the floor, the fallen Titan looked around with eyes as lost and afraid as a child. She mumbled quietly to herself, her lips barely moving. Gimble scuttled over to again try and hear what she said. Once his ear was close to her mouth, the sound of her voice was clear.
“They’re coming,” she whispered. “They’re coming.”
Chapter Six
When Shawn’s alarm clock beeped cheerfully at six in the morning, he wanted to send it sailing into the nearest wall. He’d never been a morning person, and he didn’t imagine he ever would. It just wasn’t in him to enjoy the thought of leaving a comfy bed for work or school or anything else.
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning,” his mother said. Her voice was so clear it sounded like it came from right above his head. He rolled over to find her standing in the doorway of his room dressed in burgundy colored silk pajamas covered by a matching robe. In her hands was a large mug with steam rising from it, lacing the air with a warm, chocolaty aroma.
“Frogs? That’s disgusting.”
“It’s also true.”
He sighed and pressed his head into the pillow beneath him as hard as he could, determined to soak up as much of its comfort as possible. “According to who?”
