RX spun from the horde of waving metal tentacles now glowing bright yellow/blue from their activated arc torches. The little bastards would shave him into pieces if they caught him. It was true that RX's processors were more than an order of magnitude better than the swarm bots’ circuitry. He also physically outclassed them by more than that. But it didn't change the fact that he had to run. A large enough pack of canids could take down a tigron. The pack chasing him was big enough to make the concern of being crushed by a minor planetoid secondary.
RX rushed toward the gap that had housed two recent multi-megaton collisions and followed the course his navigation analytics had plotted to the stealth cruiser. Absently, he prayed to anyone who might be listening. "Please let the third time be the charm!" Somewhere in the multiverse, there had to be a pantheon of positronic gods, Right?
RX's EM strobe pinged the closest group of swarmers at approximately twenty-five meters behind. The bots' smaller frames and relatively oversized thrusters allowed greater mobility. But RX's Water Attunement made up a lot of that ground as he twisted, dodged, thinned himself to fit in narrow spaces, and stretch-looped his augmented battle frame through the layers of rolling torus. Exactly how many units were chasing them was up for debate. The clusters of asteroids between him and them were dense enough to prevent his sensors from getting a conclusive count. It was upwards of a hundred based on how many he could see at any one time. The pursuing cluster closest moved within twenty meters.
Just close enough.
His appendage extended, stretching his upper graspers and torso toward a boulder-sized asteroid fifteen meters in front of him and leveraged the mass of his battle frame against it by pulling himself forward. A lot of acceleration was added to the chunk as he leap-frogged over it and sent it to crash into the cluster.
Several of the bots were instantly pulverized into waste-plas and scrap metal against the larger rock they had been scurrying over. His combat facilitators reported on observed damage.
[Seven swarm combat units disabled. Five additional units with significantly reduced pursuit capability.]
Twelve, Not bad... RX's rear sensors confirmed this. Seven crushed frames of the swarm bots spun out behind him in widening spheres of their own broken pieces. Then RX realized the true extent of their danger as the five with guttering thrusters were overtaken and swallowed from view by the cohort of the primary pack. A massive roiling ball of activated arc torches capping lashing, segmented-tentacles and backlit by the groups brightly glowing crimson cluster arrays.
Instinctively RX drew more Essence from their joint pool and squeezed his thrusters for more acceleration. Only a quick dissection of their nonadamite parts awaited them if he was slow enough to get drowned in that horror.
RX accelerated to go straight over the top of a cluster of rocks heading to a central collision. Their sizes ranged from that of a transport shuttle to the dimensions of the stacked living quarters humanoids preferred in major cities. The chasing mass of bots split to the left and right.
Separating and rejoining like a raging river around rapids. The swarm's hivemind shut the door on any possibility of RX using the body of the asteroids as a line-of-sight shield to double back the way he had come.
At the apex of his climb, RX looked for another boulder to hurl at the point where the primary cohort would rejoin. Spotting one the size of a ground transport, he stretched his front graspers out and grabbed it—
A streaking mass of fifteen swarmers flowed over the crest of a spinning asteroid in front of him and sprang in ambush. Their wide-spread tentacles and yellow/orange bright burn arc-torches slammed into him like weighted artillery shots. Impacts reverberated through his battle frame and dome as they latched on with hundreds of tiny, segmented graspers that were all too similar to a biologic millipede's legs. Once secured, the bots lazed into him. Brightly burning yellow/blue light filled his visual sensors.
RX's immediate response of “Ahhhh!! Get 'em off me!!” was surprisingly humanoid. It would have pleased his father, Masamune, to no end to see that RX's basal instincts were those of a spirit being. But, fortunately for the big mech, his screaming like a little girl was accompanied by the reflexive locomotion of his graspers pulling the asteroid he was holding toward his chest while his rear thrusters accelerated his frame forward. RX's front sections crashed into the rock's surface so hard and fast that the boulder shattered into a kaleidoscope of tumbling chunks and dust containing the crushed and now lifeless husks of the swarmers that had latched to his front plates. His combat facilitator reported,
[Nine swarm combat units destroyed.]
No time to hesitate, RX recklessly pushed forward and rocketed through the debris cloud he had just made. The ambush had slowed him for the primary pack to gain ground from behind.
There were still three swarm bots uselessly trying to cut into the adamite plates covering his dome section, and three behind that were much more successful hacking into the metal between his armor that made up his delicious soft, chewy center. RX shrunk his plating together as close as possible while quickly launching spikes at the latching bots. Each was speared multiple times and pulled off him to be cast aside.
RX's game theory and logic facilitators sent a priority override evaluation.
[Recommend evasive and unpredictable action. 93.4% probability of planned ambush by awaiting enemy forces in the next 7 micros.]
Ya think! Was all that RX's neurosynth could spare his MCU and its impersonation of Captain Obvious. Still, the big mech surveyed the narrowed alleys of void around him as they filled and unfilled with the chaotic destruction of the two shattered moons. "There's not a whole lot I can do about it at this point!" He shouted back in frustration at his higher functions. Then all he had time to think was, Void Guano! When twenty more bots ambushed him in the exact same manner from an overhead passing planetoid. The swarmers' armored frames staggered RX as they impacted with the force of a herd of gravoderms from Anak's home world. Then they got to business, securing themselves to his chassis with their grasping hooks.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
RX pushed on toward the source of the signal, but the second ambush had slowed him enough for the front runners of the pursuit pack to catch up. They latched on to the dangling tentacles of the already attached bots. Multiple dragging chains of locked-together bots started streaming behind him. The growing line arched parabolically as he continued to swerve around incoming asteroids.
RX could see there were a lot more than one hundred now that his battle frame was wearing the mass of arc-welding murder machines like the iteration's largest set of dangly earrings. His sensors picked up over five hundred as they formed their link chains and spiraled up the chassis ladder like scurrying insects to get at him.
RX immediately speared the nine bots attached directly to his torso. And not just once. Multiple extensions of his liquid metal punched through their vital systems, terminating their functions. But their hive mind had already seen this trick. And apparently, they were adapting.
Crap...
Deactivated or not, the swarmers were stuck to him by the physical interlocking of the countless leg hooks. Their bodies continued to serve as a lock-on point for those from behind running up the swarmer chains.
It didn't take input from RX's combat facilitator for him to realize the jig was up now that the little monsters had a handle on him. Once enough made it up the chain of bodies, they would start cutting into him.
RX switched from focusing the Water-attuned limber skill to their Earth fortification skill. Immediately a familiar golden/orange light glowed internally from his plates, and he became firmer. "Enjoy chewing on this, you little rodents! RX waved his right upper grasper to the mob behind him.
When the drones made it to him, they would find it significantly harder to hack his pieces away. On the other hand, the bots would get up here much faster. RX could no longer spear them with liquid metal without his limber skill. And they were now climbing unopposed along the cohort chain. A quick check of his posterior sensors demonstrated that the first newcomers were on his battle frame and nudging each other for space at the buffet...
...But that was ok...
...Rx had made it to the large rocks held in place by the stasis beams of the stiletto cruiser. With whatever he had left in his propulsion systems, he accelerated. The jets of his thrusters exploded, and the thick chains of climbing swarm bots being dragged behind him traced after him as he angled for a head-on, ninety-degree impact.
"Get ready for the bambooyan pillows, kid! I might be out of it for a second when we hit!" Anak's five-point chest restraint tightened, and the impact system activated before the little tamarin could ask what was happening. All that came out of his mouth was a small gasp when the form-fitting protection instantly inflated around him. RX tried to squeeze out every last burst of speed from his thrusters when his battle frame ram-wrecked straight down into the flattest part of the anchored capital-ship-sized fragment.
Being in a vacuum, the sight of RX's accelerated crash into the asteroid with the chains of clawing swarm bots dragging behind wasn't spectacular. The head of the multi-tailed metal comet struck the rock surface and released a relatively small, hazy cloud of pulverized space dust. This cloud was still spreading as the locked chains of swarm bots bent in fanning parabolas to their own impacts and created much smaller poofs of dust. There wasn't even any sound. Just the sudden stillness and an unsettling gray/white haze. But this anticlimactic perspective could only be shared if you were watching from a distance... Not directly involved.
RX struck the asteroid with over 250 gravities of force if he had been standing on the surface of Noha-3. Enough to crush the armored chassis of every attacking swarmer flat as the breakfast cakes Anak liked to eat. The kinetic impact generated enough static electricity that his EM circuits overloaded many micros longer than the triple Darkstar detonation they had just been through.
But RX didn't know any of this yet...
Grey static. Sudden deep blackness resolving into a white background.
[Systems restoring. Estimated time of incongruent consciousness flow: 80 micros.]
RX sat up, pushing the layers of super mashed swarm bots off of his torso. His dome rotated drunkenly, surveying the top of the asteroid. A wide field of still-sparking wreckage and twisted tentacles filled the space in front of him. None were still moving, at least not purposely. Several drifted among the terrain’s jetsam.
RX sensors came online one by one. Rebooting individually like lights on a runway. His internal sensors would be offline until last again, so he checked on Anak through their Essence union as he had before.
Anak! Kid!! Are you alright?!!
No response.
His internal sensors came up faster than they had last time. Perhaps the result of increased processing speed from their new Attunement. Anak was unconscious, but his vitals were within normal limits and stable. No significant injuries were detected on the bio scans, but bruising from a concussion would show up after his brain had had a chance to swell. RX would have to watch him. But no matter what, the kid would likely have a bad headache when he finally came around.
The mech pushed the last of the crushed bots off himself and stumbled to his feet. He had expected whoever was in the ship to have come out by now... Having knocked on their front door and all—
The capacitor net came from the left after he had rotated his dome section's main sensors to the right.
Won't these guys ever learn?
The cataclysmic discharge of electricity that arched over his fame was disruptive after the damage to his systems from the impact. But RX would still be functional with his and Anak's underlying Essence union.
RX’s neural synth prepared to launch a counterattack at the lone humanoid form that had just phased into visibility. He stood a handful of meters away in a complete set of white exo-power armor plates. The full-faced oval reflective visor prevented the mech's sensors from identifying the type of being behind it. He only received his own reflection, wrapped from being embroiled in the discharging blue/white electrostatic waves on his optic sensors.
A superseding informatic from his combat facilitator jumped past his main comp unit's que.
[Ranged weapon of uncertain origin and capacity. Body language assessment at Class A with melee attacks. Assigned status of significant threat in physical combat. Based on probable status as an undead Cultivator.]
Wearing Armor? Unusual. Most spiritually risen undead went without it, even in space.
RX noted that this net's links were significantly thicker than the one Otak had shot at him. The battle mech enhanced his body with Earth fortification, and he was illuminated in the comforting golden/orange internal glow of increased strength. The kid wasn't awake to open the floodgates of Essence to replace their pool, but there was more than enough left. RX could feel it. The mech flexed his upper and lower graspers around the two-centimeter-thick metal strands of the net as the last waves of discharge dissipated into the depths of the asteroid—
Hundreds of nodes at the cross-links of the net's mesh flashed purple and green lights that slowly blinked in a random pattern. His Earth fortification fled. RX's sensor input narrowed and dimmed across all spectrums. A quick tug and RX pitched forward as he deactivated. The last thing saved onto his random memory was the up-rushing surface of the asteroid as his lock-limbed form was pulled to the ground by the undead humanoid in the white plates of exo-armor.