By David C. Daoust
“Why are those even a thing?” Dakota suddenly exclaimed, completely oblivious to how anyone else felt on the matter.
The four-armed metal snake monsters flickering charge, sent chills down her spine as the sound of their metallic bodies scraped and sparked across the metal floors of the Red Faction’s ship. The thundering clang as the first monster crashed into the elevator doors, just as they were whisked away, caused her heart to race.
Clutching at her cane, she heard a second crash. A crash which put the image in her mind of the monster ripping through the closed doors beneath, and charging up after them, through the elevator shaft, which just made her tense even more. Dakota braced herself against the wall in fright. The sounds, though, suddenly fell away, replaced by the mundane sound of a normal elevator ride. She quickly realized that it wasn’t real, just a trick of the terror she felt, as the small group had avoided the encounter.
“Whoa!” Vincent suddenly announced, the excitement clear on the small girl-bot face he now inhabited, “I’d never seen bots like that!”
“Those were bots?” Craiden asked in disbelief.
“How do you know what they were?” Mari asked, skeptically.
“Oh they were bots,” Vincent’s gravelly voice reassured, “Trust me. The majority of the people aboard have ALL been bots.”
Dakota, taken aback by this news, could not believe that those were bots. She felt her racing heartbeat slow, as the tension released throughout her body.
To the good doctor, and to many others throughout the Onion, bots were just cute, harmless toys, or stunt-bots, like Margo. Very rarely did the smartest of them have the intelligence level higher than that of teenagers. Though witnessing the Commissar’s vacant body was proof enough. Considering it was the Commissar she had made her deal with, he certainly had a higher intelligence level, than what Dakota believed a bot was able to achieve.
“It stands to reason that they were bots,” Major Sims explained quickly, signaling them all that they should fall silent. The elevator walls suddenly fell away as they entered a clear part of the shaft. With a lurch of motion, and silent whoosh, they suddenly halted, and the elevator doors parted abruptly.
Dakota’s eyes widened at the prospect of those monster-bots suddenly appearing around the corner, the small group of soldiers, though, seemed to have the situation covered. The blue-banded soldiers systematically fanned out from the elevator doors, each taking a separate direction. Dakota felt somewhat silly, or maybe just under trained, as she was ushered into a landing bay. The soldiers were all ducking for cover, moving in unison, or smoothly alternating from position to position, all the while, she, and her small group of civilians, followed behind clumsily seeking out cover.
The hangar bay was a central piece of the barracks ship. It held a massive gaping bay door, which was basically a giant hole into the blackness of space. The bay door was sealed with a force field that was protection enough against harsh environment outside; a force field strong enough to fill its purpose, though weak enough for ships to pass through unharmed. Within there were vehicles of all types, from bashed up APC’s and transport ships, to a small Wing of red starfighters.
They found no resistance, though this was not their first time through the hangar bay. Dakota knew that the majority of Red Soldiers had stayed behind on Twin Crown, to help dismantle the powerless Battle-Drones before the Ion Cloud dispersed. Several Red Soldiers, ones without the blue armbands, were still lying about, stunned unconscious from earlier battles. She wondered just how many were human; bots would be useless on the moon at the moment.
A small firefight burst out to her right, and Major Sims pulled her lower to the ground. A single mechanic, it seemed, had erupted from inside a transport ship, the very same transport ship they had planned to requisition for their escape. The small scatter-blaster shotgun, clutched in the mechanic’s hands, knocked the nearest soldier to the ground with a loud *boomf*. The mechanic was quickly dropped by a hail of weapon fire, before two more men scooped up the injured soldier, and carried him into the transport’s hold.
Dakota was taken aback by the efficiency of it all.
Suddenly, she felt all too aware of the real threat of weapon fire around her. The small handgun, which she had acquired from the pile of clothes formerly known as Colin, could be felt up her sleeve. She wondered how it worked, and wondered why had it grabbed her, and attached itself to her? She wasn’t sure how to use it, though as she flexed her forearm, it suddenly flipped out of her sleeve with a tiny mechanical whir sound. Dakota just blanched at it, unwilling to take it within her palm, thus it just jutted out oddly. Flexing again, retracted the weapon.
Behind her, she noticed Mrs. Haul arguing with her son, the pair had stopped some distance away. Dakota could barely understand what they were arguing about, though it seemed Mari was trying to get Craiden and Vincent to go on without her, which was just puzzling to Dakota. Especially considering the giant snake monsters! The good doctor just wanted to go to the woman, and say, ‘Did you not see the GIANT SNAKE MONSTERS?’ The Major had a good grip on her arm though; Dakota was ushered into the Transport’s hold behind the injured soldier.
Dakota immediately inspected the injured, found the damage superficial, most of the impact was deflected by the armor he wore. She quickly healed the man’s bruises with the high-tech cane. Scatter-blasters weren’t really built to kill, more to knock someone on their ass, or hold them at bay. Not that an unarmored hit couldn’t lead to serious injury, especially at close range.
Craiden and Vincent both followed her into the small ship. Dakota was dumbstruck as she peered out into the hangar bay, to see the war hero, Mari Swan, hop in one of the Red Starfighters that lined the far wall.
“What is she doing?” Dakota asked as the pair trudged into the ship.
“I’m not sure,” Craiden said with a worried grimace, the mechanics discarded Scatter-blaster clutched in his grip.
Vincent shrugged, dropping the useless rifle, he’d still carried, onto a bench as he peered out of the hold, ‘little girl’ hands on his ‘little girl’ hips.
Dakota watched as the small red starfighter launched into a hover just as the transport’s door closed, sealing them into the small ship’s hold.
“She said she had a request to fill, to ‘repay a favor’,” Craiden informed cryptically.”She wouldn’t let me go with her…”
Dakota didn’t really get a say in the matter. She knew the soldiers wouldn’t care one way or another; their mission parameters only included Dakota.
Dakota moved through the hold of the small transport ship. She found the Major had jumped into the pilot seat. The small ship hummed to life. Dakota watched as the small squad of snake bots suddenly tore into the hangar bay, having finally caught up with the fleeing group of invaders.
The small transport launched into a hover, Sims flipped the shields on, just as the snake monsters arms suddenly transformed into assault rifles.
“Why would they even have those?” Dakota suddenly exclaimed again as their shields were assaulted with a barrage of weapon fire.
Major Sims turned the small transport ship, hovering in the air, towards the gaping door, a door that peered out into the nothing.
Dakota caught the sight of the snake bots being blasted into oblivion by Mari’s small red fighter that still hovered within the hangar. Considering starfighter blasters were not built for such close quarters, it was an impressive feat, truly a testament to Mari’s skill in a starfighter.
The stolen transport ship shot out of the hangar of the Barracks-ship. Mari’s fighter followed tightly behind. They made a clean escape.
The Major mentioned his amazement that they weren’t being blasted by the barracks turrets, Dakota’s mind, though, was too preoccupied with what she had learned of the Red Faction, to formulate a coherent response. Once the two ships reached a safe distance from the enemy ship, the fighter suddenly flew off in the opposite direction.
“I hope your friend knows what she’s doing,” the Major said, flipping switches over his head as he laid in their course.
“Me too,” Dakota said, worried, as they watched the small star fighter dart away.
