Beware the Black Battlenaut (3 page)

*****

Raw wasn't sure which bothered him more: fighting off three Battlenauts, two of them piloted by his squadmates, or not being able to scratch his itchy foot.

When Grist suddenly stopped shooting at him, cutting the weapons barrage by a third, Raw's itch moved up to first place. Gritting his teeth, he barely resisted the urge to stop fighting, kick off his boot, and scratch like crazy. In the process, he dropped his guard for an instant and took a laser hit that charred the armor plating on his Battlenaut's left shoulder.

Cursing as a stream of wild shots flared around him, Raw swung around. He charged toward the source of the fire, targeting his own arsenal on what had become the most volatile threat of the moment.

Freak continued to pound him with lasers and missiles as he hurtled toward her.

*****

Freak unleashed the full fury of her weapons, but the Black Battlenaut kept stomping toward her.

Gwen's voice chimed over the comm with no more tension than if the two of them were chatting over coffee. "What do you think I'm going to do to you, Sharon? Burn you alive?"

Freak's heart hammered.
That's exactly what you'll do. Make me die the same way you did.

"Well, it isn't gonna happen," said Gwen. "Why would I try to kill someone whose life I died to save? Besides which..."

Suddenly, everything changed. Freak was in the cockpit of her old Battlenaut instead of the current one. Looking out the forward viewport, she immediately recognized the steam vents and weird geologic formations of another world.

Laser fire pulsed past her from the fortified walls of a Rightful garrison. Commander Endymion snapped out orders over the comm in the cockpit.

She was back on Gallop, during the battle in which Gwen had been killed.

"Besides which," Gwen said over the comm, "I don't blame you for what happened."

*****

As soon as Freak's weapons shut down and dropped, Raw doubled back and charged the Rightful behind him.

That was when something unexpected happened. A missile hissed out of his Battlenaut's rack and shot straight toward the enemy. Raw watched as the missile hit the rebel Battlenaut's midsection dead center and detonated, blowing a hole in the heavy armor.

There was just one problem. Raw didn't remember firing the missile.

Suddenly, Raw's Battlenaut lunged forward. Lasers ablaze, the Battlenaut raced at top speed for the Rightful.

As Raw watched through the viewport, his Battlenaut lit up the hole in the enemy's belly, setting off an explosion in its guts. The Rightful danced like a man touching a high voltage power line, then slammed to the ground in a pile of smoking scrap.

Raw quick-checked every status display in the cockpit, scrambling to ferret out the problem. Never in his career had a Battlenaut taken independent action like that.

He only stopped hunting the glitch when he heard a tapping sound in the direction of the forward viewport. He looked toward the noise, and his eyes widened with surprise.

His Battlenaut was pointing one of its own lasers into the cockpit.

The hypo cuff squeezed Raw's bicep and pumped him full of liquid fire. A voice echoed in his head, and he recognized it immediately.

It was the voice of a young man, barely out of his teens. "I'm back. Did you miss me?"

It was the voice of Braeburn Score.

*****

"If you say you're sorry one more time, I'm gonna pop you one," Cray said with a smirk.

"Okay. Sor..." Grist barely caught himself. He was still in a daze, struggling to deal with the fact that a man he'd killed was apparently sitting in the cockpit with him.

"Your apologies are meaningless," said Cray. "What's done is done. Get over it."

"I can't." Grist pulled off his helmet and set it aside. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about it."

"Big baby." Cray snorted and shook his head. "It was
war
, man.
Chaos
. It was
nobody's
fault."

"I panicked." Grist's hands were shaking.

Cray leaned forward. "Okay, look." He rested his elbows on his knees and folded his hands between them. "You're really pissing me off here. All this 'poor me' crap." Cray rolled his eyes. "The not sleeping and the volunteering for suicide duty. How do you think that makes me feel?"

Grist shrugged.

"Makes me feel like kicking your ass," said Cray. "How about getting your shit together, so I can at least feel like my death
meant
something. Like you learned from your mistake and went on to
accomplish
something."

Grist rubbed his chin. "I'll try."

"Just
do
it."

"What about the universe?" said Grist. "Are you going to destroy it?"

"Ask the chicken-fish." Cray hiked a thumb toward one side of the cockpit.

A long, green fish with the head of a chicken bobbed in a bubble of pink water floating in midair. "Redeye Base to Redeye Squad," it said. "Come in Redeye Squad."

*****

Once upon a time, a filthy young beggar decided to ply his trade outside the military academy in Soldier City on Archibald.

(As the hypo cuff pumped go-juice into his arm again and again, Raw listened to the voice in his head tell the story.)

Not surprisingly, the privileged and arrogant young men who passed through the academy's doors proved to be terrible pickings. They spat in his beggar's bowl and ridiculed him. Sometimes, they struck him on their way past.

But one young man was different from the others. Whenever he passed the beggar, this young man always greeted him and put coins in his bowl. Eventually, he even brought the beggar food and clothing.

The beggar was suspicious, as the young man's kindness was so unlike any of the other privileged military students. The young man, however, assured him that his motives were honorable.

Over time, the two became friends. They were of about the same age, in fact. Each week, the military student took the beggar to a local restaurant for lunch. The student even suggested that there might be a place for the beggar on the estate of his father, a baron.

The student was truly good luck for the beggar...especially after the beggar murdered him.

The beggar did it in a matter-of-fact way, with a strong cord around the throat. He slipped away with enough money to start a new life in another town as another man.

And he never looked back. He never regretted killing Braeburn Score in cold blood. It had simply been a thing that had to be done, a matter of survival.

His name was Flynn Jarvo.

He changed that name to Robert Pellucid. Nickname "Raw."

*****

"You don't know the whole story," said Freak. She had adjusted remarkably well to being thrown back in time and was pumping round after round from her old Battlenaut's guns into the enemy garrison. "That's why you don't blame me."

Gwen sighed over the comm. "Go ahead. Do it."

"Do what?" said Freak.

"This is when you send the signal," said Gwen. "The go-ahead for the rebel ambush."

A chill rippled through Freak's body. "What?"

"You were working for the rebels," said Gwen. "You tipped them off."

"You
knew
?"

"I do now. The Black Battlenaut knows all." Gwen laughed. "I also know you've been beating yourself up about it ever since."

Freak clenched her hands around the joysticks and drove her Battlenaut hard. "You weren't supposed to die."

"Did I or did I not save your life?" said Gwen.

"You did," Freak said through clenched teeth.

"Then I've got no complaints. I'd do the same thing all over again."

Freak pushed the Battlenaut through the forest of close-set, mushroom-like mineral plugs. Geysers erupted right and left, spraying jets of hot steam that misted the viewports and cameras.

The tear that rolled down Freak's cheek felt as hot as the steam outside. "I've missed you so much," she said. "There are so many things I've wanted to say to you."

"I've got something to say to you, too," said Gwen.

Freak continued to manhandle the controls. "What's that?"

"Redeye Base to Redeye Squad," said Gwen. "Come in, Redeye Squad."

*****

"You've never really paid for what you did to me," said the voice in Raw's head, the voice of Braeburn Score. "You feel no guilt whatsoever."

Raw watched the laser cannon outside the forward viewport, the weapon that his own Battlenaut was pointing at itself. "It was nothing personal."

"How do you figure?" said Braeburn. "I reached out to you as a friend, and you
murdered
me. How is that not
personal
?"

The hypo cuff squeezed tight around Raw's arm, shooting in more go-juice. "You would've done the same to me if you were in my shoes."

"You know that's not true," said Braeburn.

"I saw my chance and I took it," said Raw, his upper lip curling in a growl.

"So you think it was
fair
, what you did? You don't feel any remorse for
killing
a man in cold blood so you could
steal
from him?"

"It was
war
!" said Raw. "It was no different from
war
!"

"I have a message for you from the other side," said Braeburn. "You will suffer for all eternity for what you did to me. And that's not all."

"Get out of my head!" said Raw. "I don't want to hear any more!"

"Redeye Base to Redeye Squad. Come in Redeye Squad."

It took an instant for Raw to realize that the male voice he was listening to was no longer Braeburn's. The new voice was coming from the comm.

"Redeye Base to Redeye Squad."

Raw punched the comm button. "Redeye One here."

The voice on the comm sounded urgent. "What is your status, Redeye One?"

"Request immediate extraction. Repeat. Request immediate extraction."

"Negative," said Redeye Base. "You have new orders."

"No can do," said Raw. "We're falling apart out here."

"Enemy squad is converging on your position." Redeye Base sounded even more urgent. "We're transmitting telemetry now. Prepare to engage."

"Redeye Two and Three are off comms," said Raw.

"Negative," said Redeye Base. "Comms have been restored."

"Redeye Two here," Grist said over the comm.

"Redeye Three responding," said Freak.

"Redeye One is...out of control," said Raw. "I strongly recommend immediate extraction."

There was a pause before Redeye Base spoke again. "Prepare to engage. Repeat, prepare to engage."

The cuff squeezed Raw's arm again. He knew there would be no extraction.

The only way they'll come for us is when we're dead.
That was what he'd thought earlier.
All they want's our autopsies and telemetry.

Only one way out of this, and he'd known it deep down from the beginning.

"Redeye Squad! Form up!" Raw's hands flew over the controls. The Battlenaut responded smoothly, with no hint of rogue action.

At his command, the laser cannon that had been aiming at the cockpit window pointed away from it again.

*****

"Arm weapons!" Raw said over the comm. "Lock and load!"

"Roger that," said Grist, playing the controls with new purpose and alertness. The need for battle readiness had snapped him back to reality.

It didn't hurt that he finally felt at peace with his role in Cray's death. It was a burden he'd been carrying around for years, a burden that had slowly been crushing him.

At last, he felt free of it. So what if his forgiveness had been granted by an hallucination?

Why not use a little insanity to inoculate himself against a greater madness?

*****

"Armed and ready, Lieutenant," Freak said over the comm. "Fit to fight, sir," she added, and she meant it.

She hadn't slept for what must have been days, but she felt fitter than she had in years. She felt like a new woman since her encounter with Gwen.

Freak only wished the visit could have been longer. There was still one thing she'd left unsaid, one thing she'd wanted to say more than anything else.

She switched off her comm just long enough to say it. Gwen was gone, but Freak said it anyway.

"I love you, Gwen. I'll never love anyone the way I love you."

*****

"Here they come," Redeye Base said over the comm. "They're coming right over the ridge."

"Stand by, Redeye Squad," said Raw. He kept his weapons aimed in the direction of the enemy, ready to unleash the Battlenaut's full fury at any moment.

When he checked his visor display, however, his resolve faltered. The telemetry he saw there wasn't at all what he'd expected.

Not for ten seconds anyway.

After ten seconds, the telemetry data completely changed, lining up with Raw's expectations--namely, that a squad of enemy Battlenauts was marching over the ridge.

A squad of enemy
Battlenauts instead of a convoy of civilian vehicles.

"Redeye One to Redeye Base." Raw peered out the forward viewport for visual confirmation. Lights glided over the ridge and beamed back at him, the glare washing out his view of whatever was coming. "You sure about that telemetry?"

"One hundred percent," said Redeye Base.

"But first read on the visor was that those are civilian transports, not Battlenauts," said Raw.

"That was a hiccup in the network," said Redeye Base. "Current telemetry is confirmed."

As Raw watched the viewport, the oncoming lights drew closer, and the shapes behind them began to resolve themselves.

There wasn't a single Battlenaut among them.

"Abort!" Raw's hands flew over the controls as he powered down his weapons. "Redeye Squad, abort! Those are civilian transports! Repeat, abort!"

"Really?" Freak said over the comm. "Telemetry says they're hostile Battlenauts."

"Telemetry's wrong," said Raw. "I have visual confirmation."

"Negative, Redeye One," said Redeye Base. "Visual is unreliable. You're hallucinating."

Cold sweat trickled down Raw's back. The itch on the sole of his foot flared up again. "No hallucination! These are civilian transports!"

"Fire when ready," said Redeye Base. "The order is given."

"Abort!" said Raw.

"Redeye Two and Three," said Redeye Base. "Prepare to receive new orders on a secure channel."