Cameron glided slowly around the compound, scanning the environment for… anything.
“What’s wrong, sugar?” Thelma asked, “Your vital signs show a distinct lack of dopamine, indicating your current activity is lacking in proper mental stimulation.”
“You should have been a detective, Thelma,” Cameron said sarcastically.
“Aww shucks, that’s mighty sweet of you, sugar. Unfortunately, my programming only facilitates mechanical diagnostics and battlefield analysis, but a girl can dream.”
He chuckled softly, feeling a smile forming as he continued to gaze out across the landscape. The hills and craters of the asteroid, a pale rocky terrain providing a stark contrast to the star filled purple sky, shining brightly even as wisps of fog reached up and danced their way across his vision.
He blinked.
Then he looked down at the landscape once again, making sure he wasn’t seeing things. Sure enough, there was a wave a gray fog, wafting across the ground, rolling and coalescing together to make a large wall, as slowly inched its way into the compound.
“Um… Thelma?” Cameron said slowly, curiosity evident in his voice, “Does fog usually form on Asteroids?”
“Not generally, Sugar,” she said, “Why do you ask?”
“Care to explain what that shit is?”
“Analyzing,” She said, as a silver beam formed from the chest of his Headsman, crisscrossing over the gaseous wall. After a minute of a silent analysis, Thelma spoke up once again, sounding slightly anxious as she did.
“Erm, Sweetheart? I’d highly recommend reaching out to Mr. Rake, and urge him to skedaddle on out of here quick, fast, and in a hurry.”
“Why?” He asked, worry starting to bleed its way into his own speech now, “What’s up Thelma?”
“That’s no fog, Sugar. That’s a smokescreen.”
***
Logan stalked his way down the sterile, bare hallway, sweeping left and right with his rail pistol as they passed door after door, slowly making their way towards the location of the vault. Rifle fire cracked loudly throughout the quiet complex, as the smell of ozone and blood smothered the air with a stench of death. Eventually, he came upon a series of quarantine doors, doors ajar after having their locks melted open by a series of shots. Pushing inside, he saw what could have only been called a massacre.
“Holy shit…” He breathed, looking at all the half melted bodies of scientists and lab assistants sprawled around the room. Not combatants, not security, but civilians. Hell, judging by the location of where most of them had been slain, primarily being the back corners of the room, Logan was almost certain none of them even bothered to put up a fight.
“What’s the hold up?” Mendoza asked, his voice calm and neutral, as if he was merely discussing the weather.
Logan looked up to see the man moving bodies aside with his foot, callously pushing their remains aside as he appeared to search for something. He narrowed his eyes at the cold barbarity of the soldier and had to keep reminding himself where he was in order to keep his finger from squeezing down on the trigger.
“This isn’t right.”
“What isn’t?” Mendoza asked, not even bothering to look up.
Logan grit his teeth, grinding them slowly, “Can you honestly stand in this room and ask that question?”
This caught Mendoza’s attention, and he looked up, his gray eyes staring into Logans as he respond with a barely noticed shrug. “There are trillions of people in this galaxy rake. A few hundred is just a drop in the bucket.”
“They still didn’t deserve to die.”
“There’s millions that don’t deserve it, and yet they die all the same. Besides, if HQ tells me they deserve it, that’s good enough for me.”
Logan’s eye twitched, and he had to force himself to holster his pistol in order to stop himself from painting the wall with the soldiers brains. He took a breath, closing his eyes, and tried to mentally suppress the images currently burning themselves into his mind.
“Wolfhound!” Kremmel’s voice came from the back of the lab, through a series of double doors. Logan looked up in time to see him barging into the lab, throwing a thumb back over his shoulder and gave a nod.
“We found it.”
***
Cameron tentatively took a step toward the oncoming wall of smokescreen barreling it’s way towards him. He grabbed the sword tightly with both hands, feeling the pleasant warmth of the Physilight rods pulse gently in his palms.
“Thelma,” He said softly, almost as if whoever sent this cloud would hear him through the cockpit, “Give me a vision scan. I need to know what’s hiding in the smoke.”
Instead of replying as normal, Cameron’s eyes merely tinted a soft light green. Much to his dismay however, no matter how hard he looked, his vision wouldn’t pierce through the dense fog that slowly started to surround him.
“Well this isn’t good…” He said.
“No Sugar, I’d say not.” Thelma responded.
Thinking quickly, Cameron thumbed the switch for his speaker, and tried his best to keep the anxiety out his voice as he spoke.
“Whoever’s out there, Let it be known you’re currently interfering with an ongoing EarthGov operation. Stand down now.”
What happened next sent a chill down his spine, and for the first time in a very long time, elicited a primal surge of fear welling up from the pit of his stomach, as he received a reply from directly behind him from a voice as cold as the vacuum of space.
“Good thing I’m not here for them.”
***
Logan walked behind Kremmel as the two of them exited the lab through the double doors and entered what look like to be a giant supply closet. Brooms and mobs leaned against the wall on one side, while to the right, row upon row of research and office supplies sat neatly organized on a series of black plastic shelves, and situated in the center of the back wall, was a large steel vault door.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He whistled as they approached, his eyes going over the heavy industrial details of the door. It was thick and dull in color, with a giant unlocking wheel in the center, and keybad on the left hand side.
“I take it you have the code to get in?” He asked, turning to Kremmel.
“Not exactly,” Kremmel said, before reaching into his pack and pulling out a chunky black square sheet. He began unfolding it and soon, the square had unfurled into a large rectangular sheet, large enough to cover the entire door. A series of metallic tubes glinted in the light as they formed a ring around the threshold, and Logan’s eyes went wide as he read the words painted onto the front of the fabric that now faced him.
“Thermite?” He asked.
Kremmel shrugged, looking back at him with a knowing grin, “I’m lazy, what can I say?”
Without another word, Kremmel pushed down on a plunger he had in his palm, and the room went awash with a bright white light as all the cannisters of the sheet ignited at once. Within seconds, the metal of the door was burned away, causing the massive slab of steel to crash to the ground in a loud echoing thud.
“Open says-me” Kremmel said with a chuckle as he Logan stepped over the door and into the vault. Logan’s eyes widened as they adjusted from the sterile light of the rest of the lab, to the dim gray glow that illuminated the vault. Inside, Logan’s eyes widen as he found it’s source.
Perched atop a platform and connected to a series of tubing and wiring, was a small glass canister, large enough to fit snuggly in a hand, and stuffed full of elctronics which pulsed with a dim gray glow.
“Woah…” Logan said softly.
“Never seen an A.I. before?”
Logan shook his head, “Never. For some reason I thought it’d be… bigger.”
He reached out, and wrapped his hands around the device, marveling at the warmth the cannister was giving off. With a twist, he pulled the tube free from it’s alter, exposing a long set of brass prongs on the underside.
“Well…” He said, bringing the device close to his face in order to study it further, “That was e-”
“Mayday! Mayday!” Cameron’s voice cut through the relative calm moment like a crimson hot blade, jarring Logan and nearly causing him to drop the tube.
“Kid?!” Logan said, stuffing the A.I. into a secured container on his belt, “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not fucking okay!” Cameron screamed, terror causing his voice to quiver, “I’m in a smokescreen and my right hand is gone! I need help!”
***
Cameron turned his boosters on full blast as he did his best to weave and dodge through the thick plumes of smoke that now comprised what he feared would be his tomb. A soft whistling sound came from his left side as he banked hard to the right and, moving by instinct and training, he broad his blade up just in time to feel the powerful reverberations of tungsten colliding with tungsten, as a series of class smacked against the flat mass of his sword, sending him flying back at an awkward angle, crashing into the dirt.
As the purple light of space greeted his eyes, he breathed a sigh relief for being knocked out of the gaseous tomb. That relief only lasted until his vision of the sky was blocked by a figure of pure death, as his assailant leaped into air, raising a clawed hand high in an attempt to impale him. Thinking quickly, Cameron rolled to the right, narrowly avoiding the two meter long claws which plunged their way into the dirt. He looked up, straining to peer through the upturned dust, and finally catching a good look at his attacker.
The mech wasn’t so much the color black, as it was that of Darkness. It didn’t reflect the light as much as it absorbed it into the endless void of it’s chassis. It was lean and wispy, standing a head taller than the Headsman, and nearly half as wide, the only bulk of it’s whole setup being it’s weapons, with a large clawed gauntlet on it’s right wrist, and a weird, cannon-like device on the left. Black bandages clung to each of it’s extremities and it’s two pin prick eyes grew red with a calculating malice.
Cameron used a boost to shoot to his feet, and spun rapidly, bringing his sword around in a wide arc, wanting to cleave the skinny bastard in two.
“Just. Fuck. Off!” Cameron bellowed using the boosters in his elbows to drive the blade home even faster.
It was a shame it hit nothing but air.
In a flash, the black mech had disappeared, vanishing into the ether in the blink of an eye as Cameron’s blade made a crater in the dirt.
He seethed with fury, struggling to bring his sword up with just the one hand, “Where the fuck are you!”
“Here.”
“Cam, watch out!” Thelma screamed.
It was too late.
Schunk
Cameron gasped a choked, gurgling, scream as a pair of blades pierced through his back and out of the front armor plate of his cockpit they glistened in the night sky with equal parts of blood and oil. He shuddered and twitched, feeling a warm sticky liquid beginning to coat his thighs, as his vision turned double.
“You’re not as good as you think you are… Pellyn.” The strangers voice said in little more than a whisper.
Cameron felt the blades being wrenched free, as boot kicked hard into his sending him sprawling to the ground, eyes unable to move from their position, gazing into the sterile white light of the open door of the laboratory, now darkening with the shadow of a humanoid figure
“Oh no. Just hang on Sugar!” Thelma cried, “I’m beginning diagnostic and medical triage now! Well get you- AHHHHHHHHH”
Her words were cut off in an instant, replaced by a digitized scream that faded off into an ether as blast of purple energy enveloped his cockpit.
“T-Thelma…” He groaned silently.
In reply, a toneless robotic voice greeted him, “Virtual Intelligence Module has sustained catastrophic damage. Entering shutdown mode.”
He felt the headsman beginning to squeeze and compress itself, as it started to press painfully into his uplink threads. Not that he could feel much anymore to begin with. Instead, he simply focused on the figure running towards him now. It was male, he knew that much, built wide and bald, with dark skin and golden eyes, his mouth opened in a blood curdling scream of his name that carried him into unconsciousness.
“CAMERON!”
*** Continued in Book 2 ***