Kashikoi opened fire, aiming for the metal tendrils. Sparks flew from the blaster bolt impacts. The mini explosions forced the tendrils back enough for them to retract into the gloom before Kashi shot the door controls and shut the metal barrier.

There was a loud thud followed by another and another. Dents began to form in the door as the neko’s ears flattened. It was going to get in.

“Oh, geeze. Oh geeze. What do I do?” Kashikoi bit her lip before she looked up.

“No, really? Isn’t that a tad cliché?”

The ventilation duct lay above her.

Another loud thud sounded.

“Well if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Kashikoi nodded as she stood on the chair and pulled the grate loose.

“Here’s hoping all my chocolate indulgence hasn’t gone to my butt.”

Kashikoi squirmed and wiggled as she pulled herself up into the shaft. She made sure to pull the grate closed behind her. On all fours, she shuffled down the shaft as she heard the thing hammering away at the control room door. Immediately, the neko took a left as soon as she came to a fork. There was the loud sound of the door finally giving in and collapsing.

“Great, it’s probably going to figure out exactly where I went too,” Kashikoi whispered.

She kept crawling. She had to get anywhere except for where that thing was. She took as many turns as she could and didn’t stop moving until she came to a section with a hole in the floor. It was far too wide to double back. She dared not double back anyway. Kashikoi took the plunge and fell.

“Nyah,” she exclaimed.

The neko landed with a thump on her rump in the middle of a large room.

“Oooohhhh,” Kashikoi moaned as she rubbed her rear where she landed. Her tail flicked in annoyance as she stood up.

Kashikoi took in her surroundings. There were bodies, beds, wall lockers, and personal items. This had to be the barracks. Warily Kashikoi scampered away from the hole in the ducts and took cover behind a flipped over bed. When it became clear there was no pursuit, the courier drew in her breath and sighed.

A temporary respite. Whatever she had encountered though was still loose and apparently it had wiped out the entire outpost by itself. Just what was it? It was mechanical, that much was obvious. The late Captain Gascal had mentioned it had been purchased from a merchant; a piece of technology from the ancients.

Kashikoi flattened her ears as she thought. Nothing good ever came from the ancients’ technology in her experience. She thought this as she raffled through a wall locker for anything useful. From the cursed drones that still carried out their destructive missions at random, to a floating weapons platform, and now some sort of killer robot. Was it any wonder the ancients were no more? Kashi often thought this.

The neko flattened her ears and wrinkled her nose as she searched the locker. Finding several lewd pictures of fox eared and tailed girls, she tossed them aside. Nothing useful there. She moved to another locker and pulled a drawer open with her mouth falling open at what she found.

Chocolate bars. Lots of chocolate bars.

Kashikoi held her hands to her face to contain the squeal that was threatening to break out, her tail was straight up.

“Get it together Kashi. You’ve still got to survive this.”

The woman nonetheless stuffed her bag and pockets with as much chocolate as she could carry.

“This guy must have cornered the black market for chocolate. Gotta respect that. At least I won’t let it go to waste,” she muttered to herself.

Scavenging a bit more Kashi found a datapad that still had power. It was a standard manual for operations in the outpost, but the best part was the schematics it included.

Before she left the barracks, via the busted down door she paused as she spotted something useful. One of the dead soldiers with a still smelly charred hole had a hand grenade. Luckily, the beam that had done him in had narrowly missed the explosive.

“Sweeeeet,” Kashikoi stated as she snatched the grenade for herself. “Yeah, bring it killer robot.”

Speaking of that, where was it?

Tail lashing the air, Kashikoi moved on warily. Her keen feline eyesight piercing the darkest corners of the outpost, gun at the ready. What good was her gun anyways? The thing had murdered an entire military outpost by itself and her shots had only forced metal tendrils back with no real damage.

“Oh, how did I get myself into this mess? Why, oh why? Why couldn’t the baron have just made me like a chef or something?”

She thought of herself working the kitchens. Her face would be covered in soot and the air thick with smoke. Yeah, she couldn’t cook to save her life and the baron would probably have her executed within a week for burning every dish she made.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Yeeeeaaahhh, okay bad idea.”

Despite everything, Kasikoi still had a problem. She dared not go back to the control room, the rest of the outpost was still locked down tight, and the ancient robot was roaming the halls.

The courier was so preoccupied with her predicament that she didn’t notice the cans on the floor until her foot kicked one. The can rolled down the hall to smash against a metal door ringing the portal like a gong.

Kashikoi cringed, her ears flattening.

There came the sound of something metallic clattering through the building.

“Oh no,” Kashi sighed.

It was coming.

She ran. Her boots echoed off the walls as the thud of metal was drawing ever nearer.

“I can’t die here! I just found a whole stash of chocolate,” Kashikoi protested.

A thought occurred to her, this was stupid, she couldn’t outrun a machine. Seeing a door ahead with a hole ripped into it, Kashikoi slid into the crevice and paused. The sounds of the robot thudded onwards and from her new hiding place she got a good view of it.

Like the recording, she had seen the robots main body was a conical shaped bit of metal, but now that was supported by six metallic spider legs. The metal tendrils jutted from all over the scorched and dented surface of the robot. Kashikoi held her breath as it thudded past.

She kept her ears pricked forward on alert as she listened to it thud along. Then to her terror, it stopped. In desperation, Kashikoi looked around at her surroundings for the first time for anything useful. She then realized she was in the medical lab. There was nothing but exam tables and emergency supplies.

Grabbing the grenade, the neko inched her way in further on her belly as she hid behind one of the tables. There was a door to a different wing, but it was far on the other side. The metallic thumping began to draw closer to her slowly this time as if the robot was methodically searching for something.

That something, Kashikoi knew, was her.

Closer and closer the metal thumped, and servos whirred.

Kashi knew it was only a matter of time before it found her. She could see its shadow fall in the bay as it entered. Her face lit up as she had an idea. Quietly and agonizingly slow she worked the pin loose from the frag grenade she had taken. Taking a breath, she tossed the object away from her as far as she could.

There was the clamor of metal rushing by her as the robot sensed the sound of the explosive hitting the ground. Kashikoi sprinted for the door to the next wing.

The robot whirled and spotted her just as the grenade exploded. The thud of the explosion echoed within the medlab, orange flames flared up briefly, and the scent of smoke and gunpowder hung in the air.

Kashi ran on, not even thinking to look back. She hurled herself through a half opened door and shut it behind her. Her ears were ringing from the grenade explosion. Kashikoi paused when she saw where she was.

“Oh why here of all places. Only thing that would be worse than this would be the waiting room.”

Casualty Processing

Fortunately for her, no cadavers were present. Everyone had died far too quickly to be properly collected. The neko’s tail twitched as she heard a clang. The robot was still active. Kashikoi did the first thing she thought of.

The only hiding spot she found was a bodybag. The irony was not lost on her as she zipped herself inside. There was the sound of a weapon firing and Kashi could smell the scent of metal. The robot had just melted a hole into the morgue.

Kashi held her breath as she lay huddled in the dark. There was the thump of metal a few whirrs of gears. There was the sound of something falling off of a shelf and the robots weapon discharging again.

Kashi held her breath as she heard the thump of the metallic monstrosity thumping away out of the morgue.

It had given up?

Kashikoi could hardly believe it.

She waited for it to return any second. Eventually though she dared to slowly ease the zipper open and kick herself free of the bag.

“Okay, that was disturbing. Never doing that again,” the neko whispered.

A thought occurred to her. The robot was attracted to sound. Perhaps the years of neglect or the fighting in the outpost had damaged something as it didn’t seem to “see” very well. Sound seemed to be what attracted it.

In a whisper Kashi spoke with a smile.

“I got a very, very, very, clever idea.”