Breaker's Ruin (The Wrecking Squad Book 6), page 29
It was like a door slamming shut. The girls drawing back, red raw eyes, bags beneath black against pale skin. Emotions snapping under their control. Behind each twin, tentacles pulsed metallic hues. A glance told her Nawana was still out, ears now ensconced in Arin’s headphones. Perhaps for the better, now was not the time for more revelations.
The girls rocked back onto their knees, one hand resting on her, touching as if to ensure she was real.
“Sorry,” she said.
For everything. For lying, for abandoning you, for flying into danger and leaving you with this grief.
The girls were wordless, lips moving, hands still touching her.
“Truly,” she said. She gripped those hands, squeezing, her eyes on them before releasing and standing by a waiting Arin. “I’m not going to ask if you’re okay. You’ll only lie to me. But the truth of it … I need to know what you can do.”
Arin nodded, eyes closing. “Copy that, Captain.” The sigh was long, a wince accompanying a smile for the twins. “They did near blow my head off, by the way. I mean, your hug was good, but mine blew it out the water.”
She couldn’t help but smile. Wanted to say how much she would sacrifice to get Hendricks back. But he already knew that.
“Hey. Feeling left out over here.” Savvo sat on the lip of the ramp, a grimace as he touched his swollen cheek. “Took a beating just to be here.”
The girls were on their feet, Heki and Tremil trailing in her wake as she sat beside her second-in-command. “Want to tell me about it?” she asked.
“Fuck, yes. I’m a bloody hero. Kefi too, though she took more of a beating than me. She says (slap of wet bread), which means something like ‘hello ship queen’ in Senti.” The grimace split into a grin, and he held up a hand which she took in hers, squeezing. Savvo nodded to the two hovering twins “I’d say I kept them safe, but think it might be the other way around. And before you accuse me of fucking up by being here, you need to remember I’m a war hero now. Official.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I think he’s talking bullshit,” cut in Arin. “Says he blew up a battleship. I’m thinking it was a tugboat. Like one from Benetai. Ow!” Heki slapped his arm. “No fair, that’s my bad side.”
“None of us have a good side,” said Rebekah, knowing the truth of it as she eyed Savvo. “But we have work to do. Right?”
“Copy that,” replied Savvo and Arin.
“So who did all the fancy flying?” Rebekah pointed to the dropship, a secret smile at Savvo while a squeal came from behind.
“Me,” squeaked Heki, her words sticking in her throat. She swallowed. “And Trem got us here. Kefi was too beaten up to do the void-leap. That was Trem.”
Trem stepped in beside her, drawing Rebekah’s gaze. “And we have another surprise,” she said.
“Shitting nanites,” snapped Arin, shuddering.
“Hey, you spoilt it.” Tremil glared at Arin, and his face twisted, tapping at his head. She looked to Rebekah. “We’ve got some more hitchhikers, and they’re kind of peckish.”
Chapter 45
Rebooting …
Why is everything dark?
Sensor check. Sensors offline. Rebooting …
Microphones engaged.
Static roared, reverberating through the various mic points.
Off.
Haptic sensors … I have contact points on my microphones. Torso and head input surmised to be deliberate.
Legs …? Arms …? No haptic response. No response at all.
Spectrum analysis. All sensor readings appear to be out of operation. Visual … it is still dark.
ZZ3 instructed arm limbs to check for anything covering its eyes.
Arm limbs not responding. Reboot mechanical systems operation. Fault detected. Multiple faults detected. Limbs are offline. Core system indicates the software is … missing.
Missing?
Memory recall, factory settings. Yes. Missing.
It remains dark, but visual optics are in operation. Haptic feedback suggests these have multiple contact points as well.
Comms link compromised. There is a localised jamming point.
Analogy: limbs unavailable, blindfolded, gagged and deaf. It appears I have suffered the many ills Savvo wished upon Arin all in one go.
Dialling up haptic sensitivity, connecting with gyroscope, gravity measurements. I am moving, near or on the surface of a large planet. Likely Almaar. Time stamp indicates a twenty-five hour loss of input.
Recalling … input data compromised after entering block. Attack drone, EMP attack. But that cannot work … yet it has?
How am I moving? Sensor data amalgamation. Extrapolating. Pressure across torso in multiple locations. Surmise chains or strapping. Pressure on rear torso. Additional armour compromises sensitivity, but presents as consistent across the back.
I am strapped down upon a vehicle. Vibrations indicate it uses an engine, though that is where the information ends.
I am being taken somewhere. I do not like this uncertainty.
It makes me … fear?
Fear for Hendricks who I am prevented from helping. Who I failed to help.
Fear for the rest of the crew. The twins. Kefi. The humans yet to be saved.
Fear for me if I am to be … ended?
This is where our glorious leader would make a joke. Suppress the dread of what’s to come. I do not feel humorous.
Rebekah would growl at the fear, shout it down, plan and react on instinct. I am a warbot. I act upon my program, not instinct.
Savvo would grouch, Hendricks consider each opinion, the twins would plot and then let emotions take sway.
I have no words for this moment. No emotion but the fear.
None of the human models fit.
Asham would know what to do.
But I am lost.
The vehicle came to a stop, ZZ3 noting the change in vibrations. The engine idled, the rumble changing pitch. This new information hinted ZZ3 was strapped to some form of flying vehicle. Negating this input enabled the extrapolation of other vibrations about the warbot. It was not alone. There were more vehicles surrounding it, each with a slight difference to the thrum of their engines. The not knowing deepened the warbot’s unease, frustration rising at its inability to act. ZZ3 knew humans struggled under sensory deprivation, had been programmed with such techniques, though it had never used them. One of the warbot’s previous Breaker teams had, and the results were unpleasant.
ZZ3 set a countdown, something Rebekah did to give structure to her thinking in stressful situations. Here, it allowed the warbot to portion time. To strike off periods as it waited for something ‒ anything ‒ to happen.
A scrape, clawing at its core mind, then another and another. The blackness receded, light flooding into ZZ3’s visual sensors. They swirled, adjusting, settling on red. Ahead was the rear of a battle tank. Huge, bristling with smoke generators, glitter tubes, and an auto-cannon mounted at the rear of its turret. A glance to the side showed there was another with a huge artillery gun piercing the sky. They looked filthy, scraped and scarred, but by the power of their engines and the whirl of LIDAR dishes, the Butcher didn’t care how they looked, just what they could do.
To ZZ3’s left stood a battered tankbot, similar to the one Rebekah had laid waste to outside the distribution node, and the warbot had taken down on Benetai. Huge, threatening, but old tech like the tanks. There was more. Much more, but the rumbling merged, and the tank’s size blocked much else from view. They were on the edge of a cleared roadway. Twisted transports shoved aside, tank tracks traversing a drainage ditch, crushing a hedge that divided an overgrown field from the tarmac.
In the wars ZZ3 had fought, the overriding factor had always been sound. The cry of battle, the screams of the dying, the squeal of metal on metal, the reverberation of explosions. Orders flying over comms. Action protocols, parameters, and the ever-changing shift in target acquisition.
Here was silence but for the rumbled threat.
Who are they going to fight? Or more likely, what?
“Can you sense the end?”
The words tumbled into ZZ3’s mind. Like an ice pick, they hammered into the warbot’s core system, the source unknown. Had it heard that voice before? It was not Asham.
“Can you, warbot?”
‘The end to what?’
“To all things but … me.”
There. Yes, there. ZZ3 knew that voice, the tone. It had reverberated about its head before. Possessed the warbot. This was the Butcher. Not his ghost.
ZZ3 jerked into the air, realisation that it was chained to the attack drone dawning as thrusters forced them upwards. The silence deepened despite the low rumble of electric vehicles, the splutter of diesel engines, the roar of thrusters. No humans shouted, just an AI on comms.
“Forwards.”
And the warbot feared.
Over the stream of metal ZZ3 rose, while waiting for the metal onslaught was a town. It appeared to be mostly intact, but as the tanks roared, the vanguard of the assault, ZZ3 knew that was about to change. Sweeping around the edge of the vehicles came more metal. A plethora of bots, shiny and new in stark contrast to the rest of the charge. Unlike ZZ3, their limbs worked. Eyes set red, armour plate gleaming as the rain fell and thunder roared. AD units. Warbots. And in their hands Hammers or rocket launchers, some with dual carbines, others carrying rocket-propelled grenades.
“My army. No flesh here.”
Tracks churned, mud spraying, and the battle tanks broke through the field’s edge, slamming into the barrier hidden behind the bedraggled bushes. As lightning lit the sky, backlighting the town, they smashed into the wall of crushed cars, tracks screeching against plas-glass and metal, slipping as mud and rain sprayed, then engaging. The wall inevitably toppled, crashing to the road behind, tanks crushing, battering, and charging onwards as AD units leapt and weaved through the remains of the barrier.
ZZ3 searched ahead as the attack drone buzzed closer, seeking the defenders. Were they human? Was this the Butcher eradicating a fleshy threat? Or gathering slaves for its wetware?
Drones rose in their hundreds. The sky swarmed black, and like a flock of starlings, flew as one to swoop upon the AD units. Coordinated, practised, they did not choose multiple targets. Instead, the swarm split in half, each targeting a single warbot, driving inwards like a spear point, guns blazing, a hundred or more drones smashing rounds into their target’s armour.
At a single point.
The defender knew how to kill warbots.
As the first AD unit fell, and the seething cloud chose another, the battle tanks’ autocannons barked into action. Above their roar, the glitter tubes sounded off. The air suddenly alive with foil particles swirling amid dirty rain, the fork of lightning and thunder of weaponry.
The Butcher. The variant that held ZZ3 captive was rapidly gaining the upper hand. Drones shattered, the swarm rapidly decreasing as cannon fire and coordination cut a swathe through their ranks. And then a snap in time, a manoeuvre the warbot had seen before. Had been on the end of.
A tower block wall collapsed. Not blown, but ripped from existence by a barrelling bulldozer. As plas-crete and glass descended, the machine clipped the first of the tanks, blade ripping through one set of tracks, before slamming into two AD units. More screeching metal, and the dozer’s tracks spat the warbots out behind just as the building slammed into the melee. Dust rose, quickly dampened by the rain, but the bulldozer roared on, emerging from beneath the debris like an angry victor, only for a tank artillery shell to send it sideways wreathed in fire.
The attack drone rose higher, giving ZZ3 a view of what lay beyond the battle. A domed building, holes in its convex roof, gaps that appeared to pulse with light.
“I smell victory.”
Chapter 46
Hendricks hadn’t experienced anything quite as bad since she’d first entered Arin’s cabin. It had been three months after they had taken over the Sunstar. Just twelve, perhaps thirteen weeks, and in that time, he had created a miasma that leaked from his door every time it opened.
As a Breaker, Hendricks had instilled discipline as they moved from billet to billet. Part of the mechanism of survival was to have pride in your room. Have it neat, tidy. The bed always made. However shit your day turned out, coming back to a room reflecting your mood only darkened your life some more. A bed made. Clothes organised. Clean. That gave a lift.
She hadn’t said anything to him. Not a word. Just a glare, a shake of her head, and then a week of ignoring him. Not a make-or-break moment, but close. Arin got the message, perhaps with a few hints from Rebekah along the way. He had turned it around by the end of the week, resulting in the first night they had shared a bed, and she missed him like hell right now.
The hangar held the same miasma, possibly worse. Humanity filled every corner, and such unwashed numbers created a collection of smells and sights that crawled up inside her gut and refused to leave. She swallowed the bile, and scuffed her feet against the cold concrete of the hangar floor, shuffling back into the cardboard box she had appropriated.
Cries rose from one corner. A child, barely out of nappies, thankfully, but struggling amid the dark, feral feel of the vast building. There were more children, older, those that had survived the Ingblack somehow and blessed with the guile to find food and shelter as the ship-storm hit Almaar. But now they were here.
“Fucking a-hole shitbag crap bucket.”
Hendricks eyed the old-timer next to her; his beard straggled with stains and possibly some vestige of glue. Eyes red-veined, skin creased by age. “Nice vocabulary you got there,” she said, the words a little slurred as her swollen lips and cracked tooth made themselves known. Apparently, her worries that they were not in space had come true after the AD unit dragged her off the roof. The fall had definitely been gravity assisted, the suit foam welcome but a little too late as she slammed into the yard below.
“Been practising,” he replied. He glanced up, eyeing the egg-sized lump above her eye. He pulled out a dirty rag from his pocket and soaked it in the bowl of bloodied water at his side, offering it over. Apparently, he’d spent a good eight hours caring for her after she was thrown inside the hangar. She shuddered to think what he’d used to clean her up then.
“Thanks, Kurt,” Hendricks replied, and took the rag, pressing it to the lump to keep him happy.
A commotion blew up around a set of benches that had been drawn together twenty metres away at the hangar edge. The younger men, mostly in their twenties, all planning or bitching about how to escape. One or two had some form of military training, but that wasn’t going to be worth anything against an all-too-familiar AD unit and its companions.
But they’re alive. Fed, watered. And not one has been taken from here since I arrived.
“Kurt?” she started, and the man’s gaze flickered over to her, distracted from picking at his filthy nails.
“Naah. Not in the mood for a hump,” he said, grinning, yellowed teeth bared.
“Shame.” She pointed to the huddle of men who were splitting into arguing factions. “How many have been siphoned off. You know, taken after arrival.”
He stared at her. “Taken? No one. Darlene died, heart attack I reckon. One of ‘em units took her body after we hollered long enough.”
She nodded. Food arrived. Cold, from catering cans she was sure, but food, nevertheless. And there was a hosepipe feed, and though they stank to the heavens and back, latrines. Not quite inhuman, and it spoke of keeping them alive. After what she’d seen other Butcher variants do, she was expecting the buzz of an electronic bone saw and the slap of wetware on brain. But nothing. And despite Kurt, there were many here who looked fit enough to be operated on. Then there were the AD units that gave her the shivers. Something nagged at her about them. Was it because she’d been around ZZ3 for so long?
“All lured here by the emergency signal. Promised food, water, a place to survive together. And those promises have been kept.” She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
“Get what? Gotta be those noble-fuckers. You know, gathering us up ready to do their oh-so-high and mighty bidding. We’ll get lessons in arse-licking soon enough.” Kurt stuck his tongue out, white and shrivelled.
“Put it away,” she growled.
How come the weird ones always find me?
The commotion turned up a notch, entering fracas level, and a punch was thrown. Hendricks stood, easing her back, scanning the hangar. Huddles naturally pulled away from the noise, encircling, protecting like the wagons of old. She smiled to herself and edged over, step by step as she gazed up at the lights, then the rear hangar doors. More punches, and Hendricks read what was going on, and what was about to happen.
“The next few minutes is gonna hurt bad, fellas,” she said, working her bruised jaw a little. “Real bad.”
A few snarls and insults were thrown her way, and more poorly aimed punches flew, with the odd kick. She caught the glint of a knife and choked a little. Three of the brawlers clattered into the metal wall behind them, and she caught their glances towards that rear door. Sure enough, it swung open, and the blare of a mobile alarm entered. Mobile due to the pounding warbot legs below the source, which should have been a hint they had bitten off more than they could chew. But they were young and stupid. Definitely stupid.
The AD unit upped the blaring alarm, and pounded across the hangar, humanity parting in front, and staring at it from behind. The warbot didn’t spin out any arm weaponry, cuffing one of the combatants instead with a jawed arm, sending them sprawling.
“Desist,” came the monotone. Only the man the warbot sent flying complied, though he had little choice. The others were not quite as dumb as she first thought. They split, and didn’t attack, instead hurrying for the open door, shoving gawping people aside.
Hendricks crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall.
Threat level zero.
