Burt scowled as he ducked down, dodging a blast one of the Rail Skimmers shot. As it hit the wall behind him, he tried to keep calm. He had been in a lot of battles, but this was the only one against Robots! Every time he encountered them, he always ran away from these things. He was someone who once thought that he could handle anything the world threw at him. Over his journey, he had handled everything he could have thought of when he was young. From supremacists to slavers, from monsters to people. He had fought them all, and he had stayed alive when everything was against him.
But the more he fought these hunks of metal, the more he thought that these things might end his flow. No matter what he did, or how many he killed, they just kept coming. He thought that he had seen something else after he had destroyed the third one that came at the barricade. To his horror, a minute later two of the ‘destroyed’ bots had come back to life.
“Come one man, you can do this! Just hold on, just hold on! They are handling this, they’ve got it!” Burt cursed to himself as he fired, blasting off the ‘head’ of one of three Rail Skimmers attacking him. This one he had put down twice already, and now the others were using it as a battering ram! Without even thinking, he moved backward, moving to the side. The only chance he had now was to try and hit the one behind the first at an angle. That way there would be two of them as nothing but wrecks for a while. Hopefully, then he’d be able to hit the ‘Repairer’ when it went for them!
As soon as he moved towards the angle he needed, he felt something, something he’d only felt a few times. Without wasting a second, he dropped down and something passed through where his head was. Unfortunately, when he had dropped down, he lost his plasma rifle. Looking up he could see it a few feet away on the empty floor. But then something moved in front of it.
Looking at it, he saw a strange mechanical thing. It had a round body and five metal tentacles three feet long shooting out of it. One had openings all around it with tools, the next was a red glowing point and the last three were for moving it around. In the center of the body was a large red camera eye, and he saw it focus on him. He stared, feeling his anger spike as he took in the source of the enemy's revival. He didn’t know how, but, something told him that this thing wasn’t alone. That meant that this thing was just here to keep him occupied. But even if he knew that he had no choice but to fight this bot. All he could do was hope that the barricade would hold, that he could handle this one and keep the rest out!
The Repair’s shot out its tool tentacle, and Burt dodged to the right. His free hand pulled out his knife and he flicked a switch. As the hum filled the air, he sighed as he prepared to use his vibration dagger. The blade was something that was hard to recharge, taking days to regain enough power to work. He had held it back because the idea of wasting it on something made of plants was just too much to even think of.
As the burn tentacle came at him, he dodged again and slashed out with his blade, severing it five inches down. As the heat head hit the floor, he saw it start to melt into the deck. The damage it could have done to his flesh, the very idea! With a hard gaze, he slowly looked up and stared into the enemy’s ‘eye’, gripping his blade.
“Oh, I’m sending you to the compacter!” He bellowed as he charged forward. The Repairer jumped away, and he lunged for his weapon. It realized what he was doing and leaped at him, but he reached his rifle first. He grabbed and raised it, firing one-handed right at the camera eye. The blast shot straight through the robot’s casing, and it fell to the floor.
Without wasting time, he looked towards the barricade and saw it had opened enough to let them in. From where he was, he saw one of the robots moving through the gap. He didn’t wait a second, firing at it. As the plasma bolt hit the Rail Skimmer, one of the ‘skimmers’ was blown clear off. As the Rail Skimmer fell to the floor, Burt almost grinned. But then the robot exploded, and he was flung into the air. He hit the wall next to the other door and groaned as he fell down to the floor. As he landed, he looked up and saw three of the Rail Skimmers moving through the broken barricade. Groaning, he tried to get behind the last barricade, but the Rail Skimmers all moved to block him. Before he could react, something slammed into his back. He looked up and saw three metal tentacles on each of his arms and he felt more on his legs.
As they aimed their weapons at him, he felt a slight pang of disappointment. “So I lost then? Well sorry, Mom. Looks like I won’t see you again.”
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Before one of the burn tentacles could touch his eye, they all went still. In a moment they had all released him and moved towards the door into the ship. He blinked before he started to laugh, wildly and he rolled onto his back. Finally calming down, he grinned, chuckling as he did so.
“He did it! Oh, talk about a victory at the last second! I owe that punk a round once we have something good to drink!” He said with a chuckle as he slowly stood up. He looked around, then he looked at the door to the bridge. His smile fell as he didn’t hear the others coming back towards him.
“Once more into the fire!” He said with a wicked grin.
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The Grand Scientist kept talking as Racha was recording everything for later. Let the enemy talk, then use the information to defeat them. And an old saying from the Service.
“…… And those fools at the Grand Laboratory thought I would roll over!? How dare they!” The Grand Scientist roared as he finished his rant. “So you see why you should surrender to me!”
“Yeah, not really. I don’t go down!” Racha barked and the Grand Scientist laughed a little.
Racha knew these kinds of people, they always thought that they and they alone were going to win. Just keep them talking, keep them focused on their egos. Keep them from thinking that they had any kind of real threat. That was the best thing to keep needling him until she or Al had a moment to strike first.
“Foolish woman! I might not have any forces here now, but they’ll….. they’ll,” The Grand Scientist went still as its dead body suddenly stopped. Then the being roared, taking a step forward. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?”
At the same time, Al fired his weapon, and the head of the ‘Grand Scientist’ jumped off its body.
“Abomination, decayed thing! The path of true Knowledge will always defeat such as you!” Al roared as he fired again.
The head moved, dodging each blast as Racha watched, her mouth dropped open in shock. A thud caused her to turn her gaze, and she stared in shock. She could see the neck of the dead body that the head had been on was all metal. From what she could see, the body had metallic ‘vines’ snaking from a central location. That had to be how this thing was able to walk, but what was it? The body had to have been modified after it was dead…… and she winced. By the thing’s feet was a skull, and from the marks, it might be from the corpse the ‘head’ had been riding. All in all, this was nothing but nightmare fuel for her.
As Al stalked towards the machine head, Racha finally got back in the game. “Capture only Al! We need to know what that is!”
“No, we have to destroy it!” Al snarled as he fired again, and the head dodged
“It’s a rider! It’s nothing but a remote unit! We need to find this thing’s operator!” Al bit back in anger.
As Raccha stared in shock, the head moved to the right side of the bridge. And to her horror, it still kept monologing as it moved.
“That’s the problem with those who restrain themselves, no mind to think clearly! Why bother with going into danger yourself? Much safer to use such as this to explore and access data where you need it! But then why are you here otherwise!? What false temple are you from fool!?” The head demanded and Al kept firing at it.
All Racha could think was that this was something that they had to know. The words the pilot said throughout the unit, had her thinking. And if she was right, then they had to capture it alive. Otherwise, she just knew that this was going to be so much worse for them.
“I mean it, capture it alive! That’s an order!” Racha barked as she ran in front of the head. As it moved towards her, she waited and prepared to grab it, hoping that she would grab a weapon it might have on her.
“Foolish female! That’s the problem with your kind! Mercenaries who only want to get more money! I disown such actions!” The head roared before it jumped up and then it started to screech!
As Racha and Al both brought their hands to their ears to block the sound causing them pain, the head kept moving.
“See you fools!? I win! My crowd control system will keep you down for an hour!” The head cackled as it moved towards the door. “And this is the simple reason that I got this!”
Racha gritted her teeth and tried to stand up, but the pain was just at the edge of overwhelming her. She was beating herself over her head in her mind as she tried to fight through the pain. There was nothing that felt worse than how it felt when one of those mad types proved to be smarter than she was. The pain resonated in her very bones, and she couldn’t even think, all she could do was feel pain. She actually felt her mind as it was attacked and the agony was beyond anything that she had ever felt.
“Well, parting is such…….” The head stopped speaking as the pain disappeared.
Racha blinked and looked up, seeing the head fall. The head was missing its top.
“You guys okay?!” Burt called out.
Looking up, she saw him at the entrance to the bridge, his rifle pointing at where the head had been.
“Great shot!” Racha bit out as she felt the pain start to lessen. She tried to stand up, but her nerves couldn’t follow orders. As her legs flopped, she gritted her teeth. “And I can’t move. What about you Al?”
“Same here!” Al said bitterly.
Racha looked up as Burt ran to her, grabbing her body and setting it against the wall. “Thanks.”
“No problem. You guys saved my ass from those robots out there. What was that thing?” Burt asked as he moved to Al.
As Burt helped Al up, Al snorted in anger.
“An abomination of my faith! Those things have no limits to what they will do! That thing was one of the Taboos! We don’t mess with the dead!” Al said with horror in his voice.
“Hu? The dead!? “ Burt asked as he looked around, finally finding the dead body with cybernetic parts. “Oh.”
“Yeah. And we’re stuck here for an hour!” Racha said bitterly.
“Everyone is in the hangar. I even sent all the robots there to back them up. In time, we’ll get back to them all,” Al said with a hard edge to his voice. “Despite what they’re facing there!”
“Yeah,” Racha said as she nodded. Then something that Al said made its way through her brain and she blinked. “Wait! In spite of what!?”