The mothership touched down outside of Zed Steadman. The hatch opened and one by one the Komodos lumbered out. As they honed in on the location of the human transmission, the members of Tartarus Squadron chatted excitedly amongst themselves over the radio: how many people they were hiding, how pitiful the attempts at resisting would be, and all the fun things they could do with hospital equipment once they were down to the last few survivors.
Sure enough, hidden from air by a natural rock outcropping was a cave mouth with what was clearly a paved and marked road leading downward. No turrets, no security checkpoint, no guards, not even a gate. Truly these humans deserved what was coming to them.
"I'm going on point." said Lance, "I can't wait to meet the traitor's friends."
THUNK. PING! THUNK. PING! THUNK. PING!
Each heavy footstep echoed off the cavern walls in time with the xylophonic pinging of the metal tension coils tightening and relaxing. Lance switched his headlights on and saw that after a few yards the natural cave gave way to an artificial tunnel, reinforced brick walls on either side.
"Oh man, I bet they have kids in there! With armpits!" Pitt could barely contain his excitement. Lance was barely through the cave entrance before the axolotl slid behind him in single file.
"I gotta see this!" quipped Rema, following in turn.
Stubbs hesitated. This was bad form, they should have hung back and let Lance clear the way first. Usually Lance was the one keeping the others in line. He was being sloppy. All of this felt bad.
But the deer knew that if he hung back the guys would make fun of him for months. It would make Lance grumpy to have his authority challenged. And they wouldn't save much for him.
So Stubbs descended as well.
THUNK. PING! THUNK. PING! THUNK. PING!
The Komodo footsteps echoed off of the walls as Tartarus descended downward in the glaring white light of their headlamps.
Every member of Tartarus Squadron with fur felt or feathers felt them stand on end for a split second and then there was a deafening crackle of electricity. It was joined by a chorus of pops and then the mechanical arpeggio of a walker engine shutting down as they were plunged into absolute darkness.
"MOTHERFUCKER!" screamed Lance in the jagged shriek of a pained rabbit.
He was so angry he slammed his paw down in the darkness and felt a bolt of agony from flesh and fur colliding with metal and glass. All he could see was the hot red of rage.
It's okay. A voice in Lance's head assured him, They don't have anything that can crack open a Komodo. It'll take ten minutes tops for this thing to fully reboot. No way an operation like this has an EMP that can rearm fast enough to keep us from getting inside.
*Calm down. Just calm down, wait, and let the system power back up. Maybe think about what you're going to do to whoever came up with this rinky-dink plan once you're inside.*
In the quiet stillness of the tunnel, only the low whirr of the passive life support backup was audible to them. Their cabins were perfectly sealed, soundproofed from reinforcement against sonic weapons. Even with the Komodo fully powered down, a separate shielded battery would keep life support going for days.
They didn't hear the heavy crunching thud of the Jerboa leaping down from its hidden perch atop the entrance. If they had looked closely, they might have recognized the rock formations in the background of the panda's transmission when they approached the entrance. That had been his idea, open the hatch and let them see the landscape so they would be less likely to question the spoofed transmission from the the middle of nowhere. He had actually been parked right there the whole time, they just didn't notice because he was right over where the human transmission was being made. He was hiding in plain sight.
Stubbs, in the rear, was the first to see the small headlamps of the Jerboa light up the tunnel from behind him. Oh fuck, somebody's here. He realized, still fumbling in the dark to try and find the emergency lantern to illuminate the cabin and begin the complicated manual reboot sequence from within the cockpit. Even if it's just the Jerboa, its light machinecannon could crack through one of these cockpit bubbles in a few minutes of sustained fire.
The headlamps stopped moving. Buster's Jerboa squeaked down and the hatch opened. The big bear leapt out, pausing only a moment to grab the active disassembler off the cargo hook. It was nearly three feet long with a round steel casing and a bulky stock. The stock housed the battery, looking more like a magazine loaded into an assault rifle than a mechanic's multitool. In Zed Steadman's vehicle bay they had mounted it onto a mechanical arm mount for ease of use.
The active disassembler was so big and heavy that none of the humans had a chance of moving fast enough with it on their own. Buster was the only person who could do this.
In the time it took for Tartarus Squadron to arrive, volunteer researchers at Zed Steadman had dug up Komodo schematics and repair manuals on one of the databanks that Buster had stolen. He knew exactly where to go and what to do.
He switched on the heating element. By the time he had hustled over to the rear of Stubbs' Komodo, the tip was glowing white hot.
There. The left rear flank, in the gap between the thigh joint and the body. The triangular panel there was held in place by three lugnuts sealed under an inch of weatherized polymer to prevent tampering and protect the sensitive components inside. Buster pressed the heated tip of the active disassembler to the surface and plunged deep, the smell of burnt plastic washing over him. He had protective goggles on his eyes and a head lamp illuminating his way, but none of the human respirators could fit on his muzzle so he had no choice but to choke on fumes and heavy black smoke as he worked. Earplugs in his round ears made the deafening noise of industrial machinery survivable.
He pulled the trigger and yanked the lugnut out like a tooth from a rotten socket, dripping with mechanical ichor. In one smooth movement he let the backwards pulling motion send the nut flying off to the side and then plunged the impact wrench into the second disc. Then the third. Just like in the little practice station the engineers had set up when they gave him a crash course in active disassembly.
Buster let the impact wrench fall to his side, held snug by a shoulder strap. He grabbed a hook hanging at his side. He reached in with it, latching the curved end onto a ring in the center of the panel and forcefully pulling it off with a quick tug, the metal too hot to touch.
As the panel loudly clanged to the pavement below, Buster readied his active disassembler again. Turning on the cutting torch, he stuck the muzzle in next to the stamped metal box that housed the Komodo's terminal blocks. Pressing the superheated jet of plasma to the base, he leaned forward and messily sliced the entire box off of its mount in seconds. Dozens of severed wires sparked and frayed as the box and the components within clattered out onto the pavement.
Inside the soundproofed cockpit, Stubbs couldn't see what the panda was doing. He was panicking, he hadn't trusted his instincts and now he was going to die for it. The backup power could be used for emergency communications so he manually dialed in the signal and lit up the others' radios. "Guys, the fucking panda is here! This was a trap! He's right behind me in the Jerboa, I don't know wh-" was all that Stubbs was able to get out before the transmission ended.
As Buster cut out the terminal blocks, the deer's radio instantly went dead. The indicator lights flickered off and the background whirr of the life support cut short. Stubbs felt something he hadn't felt in so long that he had forgotten it was something he was even capable of feeling:
Fear.
The panda wasn't going to shoot him or infect him. He was going to leave him there, alone in the dark, to slowly suffocate in the sealed cockpit that was supposed to protect him. With nothing but his thoughts to keep him company.
As Rema's radio lit up with the voice of his squadmate, only to be abruptly cut off, the secretary bird furiously beat his wings against the console over and over, squawking and yelling. "FUCK! FUCK!! GODDAMMIT!!!"
He had to get out. There had to be some way. But he was too angry to think.
Beside the amber glow of the emergency power indicator, a red diode suddenly lit up. The power was starting to cycle again.
But it wouldn't be fast enough for the bird. Buster was sprinting to the next Komodo, active disassembler tucked under his arm, breathing heavily but determined.
Three lugnuts. One panel. The light turned yellow. Terminal blocks. Darkness.
Pitt didn't know what to do. Dying always looked so hot when other people did it, but now that it was his turn he felt nothing but sadness.
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Then Pitt was gone, and Lance was alone.
The jackrabbit was sitting with his arms crossed, scowling. If he was going to die here, he wasn't going to die cowering on his knees looking for an escape he knew didn't exist. When the emergency indicator light turned yellow he leaned forward, resting one paw on the ignition as his eyes focused on the light. The moment it turned green he was going to turn this Komodo around and...
And what? He had taken point. They had to walk single-file in the narrow cave. He had three Komodos just as sturdy as his blocking him in, and he couldn't even blow them out of the way because everything could cave in around him. Even if he took care of the panda, he had been fooled and he had no idea what was actually waiting for him in the other direction.
He could worry about that later. All that mattered now was that the panda had to die.
All that had to happen was the light had to turn green, and then he could handle things from there.
He was afraid to blink.
He was afraid.
Buster's scrubs were soaked with sweat, his fur matted, white turned grey from soot. He was panting, exhausted, starting to feel light headed. He couldn't run anymore. He shuffled towards Lance's mech with a sloping gait, leaning to one side from the weight of the active disassembler.
A fire burned inside him, brighter than the white-hot tip of the cutting torch. It kept him going even as he lost the feeling in his legs and he struggled to focus his eyes. Buster wasn't driven out of love or concern for the well-being of the humans who had their lives in his paws. He wasn't driven by determination or the need to survive. He was driven out of pure spite. White-hot hate that made him yank off the panel with a furious twist and then plunge the cutting torch in with a triumphant, feral roar.
He wasn't going to make it this far just to let to let the jackrabbit wriggle out of his snare at the last minute.
The light would never turn green.
Lance would never escape.
As the terminal blocks clattered to the ground, the panda let the active disassembler fall with it. His paws were trembling so badly he could barely work the canteen off of the shoulder strap and unscrew the cap, chugging the electrolyte-tinged water inside with deep satisfaction as he walked around to the front of Lance's walker with delicious leisure.
His throat had been parched, and he wanted to have one last talk with Lance.
"Hey Lance!" he greeted with a playful wave of his paw, throwing the empty canteen aside. "Bad news, buddy. You've got about eight minutes of air left."
In the bubble window of the lowered cockpit, Lance and Buster were at eye level for the first time. The jackrabbit sat, arms crossed, scowling. The panda stood, paws on hips, grinning. Their eyes locked, burning with mutual hatred.
The panda then playful smacked his forehead, "Oh right, these things are soundproof! That's why I didn't hear your buddies crying for their mommies when I killed them. Hold up, I gotta turn your intercom on, it should still be good."
Buster shuffled around the back of the mech again and returned a few moments later. Lance had allowed himself a sliver of hope that the panda's cockiness might get the better of him, but the instrument cluster stayed dark even as he heard the soft chirp of the intercom. He could hear the panda, and the panda could hear him.
"Anyways, like I was saying, you've got about seven minutes off air left." Buster grinned maniacally.
Lance had never seen him so happy. Not even on the day back in high school when the panda had finally beaten up that wolverine that been bullying him. In all his years as a mercenary, Lance had seen a lot of wild men but none of them ever hit quite like that first time back in high school: watching the fat panda knock the wolverine to the ground and wrap his paws around the his neck. Squeezing the life out of him with cold fury until two teachers pulled him off.
Lance had spent all quarantine trying to coax that evil back out of the panda and here it was in front of him, ascendant.
"So this is what the humans stand for, huh?" was Lance's opening jab.
Buster only grinned wider, hunching over a little with glee. "Oh, they don't know I'm doing this! They think I'm just cutting your main power, that they're going to come out here and have four prisoners. Instead of four corpses!" he laughed at that last bit, "This was all me, baby! I don't care how much intel we're gonna lose, I don't care how many prisoners of war we could have traded you for, all I care about is that you hurt me and now you're not gonna be able to hurt anyone ever again."
Don't give him the satisfaction. thought Lance, Don't admit you lost. Don't respond to his childish insults. Die with dignity, it's the one thing you have that he never will. Just let him incriminate himself.
"Feels good to say it, man. Here underground, no cameras, no microphones, no tracking collar, and anything hidden on your Komodo will still be disabled. Nobody can hear us, nobody else is ever going to talk to you again, I can say whatever I want." Buster taunted him, his voice taking on a childish lilt.
"Exactly. You're just being a sadistic little creep and toying with me instead of letting me die in peace. Your impotent flailing means nothing to me." Lance said with affected coolness but a knowing smile. He removed his helmet, and his large ears splayed back behind him because of the cramped cockpit.
The man who had taunted Buster beneath a cloak of human flesh was no longer standing before him. This was just a sad, tired Obrigar ready to begin its long journey to nowhere. It couldn't hurt anyone anymore, there was nothing to be gained from tormenting it. No good reason to keep hurting it other than to feed that same sickness in someone else.
That was what made it so fun!
"Hey Lance, do you remember what you told me back when you and your friends raped and murdered all those humans for no reason? Because I do! I'm never gonna forget it:"
The panda scrunched up his face and began talking in a crude barking imitation of Lance's voice. "There's only two types of people left on this awful little rock: the people out here, and the people inside. The people living life, and the cowards hiding from it. I hope you're happy with the side you chose. Because I can tell you, we're having a blast out here! And if you're not, it's never too late to change."
The panda's face relaxed into his sadistic little smile. His black eye spots didn't look cheerful and clownish, they looked like a skull. They looked like death. They looked like a darkness seeping out of him that could spread to envelop the entire universe.
"Well, you were right! And I changed, and now you're the one inside and I'm the one out here! You were right, feels great!" He took a nice big sniff of the air, unable to hide a wince of disgust at the potent chemical fumes still lingering in the air. "And I'm very happy with the side I'm on. They're so nice! They're good people, maybe the first good people I've ever known. They trust me now. I'll have a home here. I'll get help. Maybe one day I won't be like this anymore. Maybe I won't have this live wire of misanthropy that I have to avoid stepping on every day and I can be the big friendly teddy bear I always wanted to be. But until that day comes, I'm glad that nice people like this have a fucked-up psycho like me on their side to protect them from people like you."
Lance rolled his eyes. Not talking wasn't going to work, the panda would just monologue him to death. May as well go out swinging. The air was starting to taste stale on his wriggling nose. "Yeah, you've obviously changed. You were able to make it through all that without crying."
Both as a kid in school and as an adult in the lab, a barb like that would usually be enough to shut Buster down for the rest of the day. Now in the dark tunnel he was simply delighted that he had gotten to Lance enough for him to fire back. Now he could really have some fun.
"You know, while I was busy putting all this together and practicing I had one of the researchers decrypt the personnel files I stole to get everything they could on you. I don't care about the rest of Tartarus, I'm knives out for you, baby!" he pantomimed scratching at the air with his claws, right up against the glass of the cockpit.
Buster was giggling, he was so excited. He had been on the receiving end of this just a few days before, so he knew just how much it was going to hurt.
"Why didn't you tell me had a wife and kids? A man your age, with a family, rolling with a crew like that? For shame! No wonder she left you." Buster scolded playfully.
Lance winced. Figures, even dying in the dark on a strange planet my bitch of an ex-wife would find one last time to get to me.
"You're one to talk. You know, all of Nakuna knows that you're the most divorced man alive. They haven't found your ex yet, but when they do I bet she's going to have some really embarrassing stories for the propaganda people. I bet that's why she left you, people like us can't hide their darkness forever. And one day, the same thing is going to happen with the humans: they're going to realize that they made the wrong choice, and then you're going to have nowhere to run. If they even let you run." Lance said in a low snarl, the air was starting to become distressingly thin.
"I'm not running anymore. I'm almost 40. I'm too old to start over again. This is my last hurrah, if the humans can't help me then I'm perfectly happy to call it a night. As far as I'm concerned, everything after today is just a bonus. The important thing is that I took you down with me." the panda said curtly.
Lance didn't say anything. His breathing was getting strained. Buster knew he didn't have a lot of time left, time for the really big swing.
"Would you like to know where they live now? Your wife and kids, I mean. One of them is nonbinary now! Wanna guess which one?" Buster taunted.
Lance was trying to look cool and collected
die with dignity
but he was sweating and starting to slump down in his seat. This was really it. And he had a horrible realization dawn on him.
"What are you going to do to them?" asked the jackrabbit.
"Oh, nothing." he said pleasantly.
Lance tried to think, if only to distract from the looming specter of his own end. "Already plotting the site of your next massacre, huh."
Buster stuck his wide pink tongue out. "Of course you would think that. No, my extermination days are behind me. I just thought you might appreciate knowing that they're having a wonderful life without you. The world's a better place without Lance Mōdel, and they got a head start on the rest of us."
Lance's chin was resting on his chest, his eyes were closing. "Weaksauce. Bullshit. Fucking. Sad."
"You were wrong about me before. That's why you'll never get to be wrong about anything else ever again. Die." his voice lowered into a playful ursine growl at that last word, and he pressed his face up against the glass to watch the light leave the jackrabbit's eyes. The body let out a few pathetic convulsions.
Lance was dead. His perception had ended. His personality no longer existed. All that remained was a rabbit in a trap.
Buster tapped on the glass, more to amuse himself than to check if Lance remained. He could see how men like him lived the lives they led. Hate was a hell of a drug.
Much like on Martenwol, he felt only elation at succeeding in his plan. On a rational level, he knew that starting off his new life with a big lie was a defeat: As bad as he felt and as much as he wanted to change, when finally given a choice he chose death and deceit over mercy and honesty.
In the story his mother had told him, the wicked panda woman did not make it to paradise. When the bamboo shoot was lowered to her, she grabbed on not to be uplifted but to selfishly take back what was hers. She had screamed to let go and give it back, that it was her shoot and they had no right to take it. And so she fell, with nothing else to uplift her.
He had been offered redemption and squandered it, just as the panda in the story gave up paradise for a mouthful of wilted bamboo.
He knew it. And he thought to himself: Maybe I am an Obrigar. Maybe I am no better than Lance. Alright then. Paradise is lost to me.
For now.
Regardless, I will keep doing good deeds. I will keep helping people who need help.
The people in paradise might never find it in them to pull me back up again, so I have to live as much of it as I can while I'm still here.