John Scalzi - Redshirts

Show up, do your job, get out of there. It’s the smartest thing you can do.

So Dahl nodded and got out of there.

Finn caught up with him outside the bridge a moment later. “Well, that was a complete waste of my time,” Finn said. “I like that.”

“There’s something seriously wrong with this ship,” Dahl said.

“Trust me, there isn’t a damn thing wrong with this ship,” Finn said. “This is your first posting. You lack perspective. Take it from an old pro. This is as good as it gets.”

“I’m not sure you’re a reliable—” Dahl said, and then stopped as a hairy wraith appeared before him and Finn. The wraith glared at them both and then jabbed a finger into Dahl’s chest.

“You,” the wraith said, jabbing the finger deeper. “You just got lucky in there. You don’t know how lucky you were. Listen to me, Dahl. Stay off the bridge. Avoid the Narrative. The next time you’re going to get sucked in for sure. And then it’s all over for you.” The wraith glanced over to Finn. “You too, goldbrick. You’re fodder for sure.”

“Who are you and what medications aren’t you taking?” Finn said.

The wraith sneered at Finn. “Don’t think I’m going to warn either of you again,” he said. “Listen to me or don’t. But if you don’t, you’ll be dead. And then where will you be? Dead, that’s where. It’s up to you now.” The wraith stomped off and took an abrupt turn into a cargo tunnel.

“What the hell was that?” Finn asked. “A yeti?”

Dahl looked back at Finn but didn’t answer. He ran down the corridor and slapped open the access panel to the cargo tunnel.

The corridor was empty.

Finn came up behind Dahl. “Remind me what you were saying about this place,” he said.

“There’s something seriously wrong with this ship,” Dahl repeated.

“Yeah,” Finn said. “I think you might be right.”

“Come on! We’re almost to the shuttles!” yelled Lieutenant Kerensky, and Dahl had one giggling, mad second to reflect on how good Kerensky looked for having been such a recent plague victim. Then he, like Hester and everyone else on the away team, sprinted crazily down the space station corridor, trying to outrun the mechanized death behind them.

The space station was not a Universal Union station; it was an independent commercial station that may or may not have been strictly legally licensed but that nonetheless sent out on the hyperwave an open, repeating distress signal, with a second, encoded signal hidden within it. The Intrepid responded to the first, sending two shuttles with away teams to the station. It had decoded the hidden signal while the away teams were there.

It said, Stay away—the machines are out of control.

Dahl’s away team had figured out that one before the message was decoded, when one of the machines sliced Crewman Lopez into mulch. The distant screams in the halls suggested that the second away team was in the painful process of figuring it out, too.

The second away team, with Finn, Hanson and Duvall on it.

“What sort of assholes encode a message about killer machines ?” Hester screamed. He had brought up the rear of his away team’s running column. The distant vibrating thuds suggested one of the machines—a big one—was not too far behind them at the moment.

“Quiet,” Dahl said. They knew the machines could see them; it was a good bet the machines could hear them too. Dahl, Hester and the other two remaining crew members on the team hunkered down and waited for Kerensky to tell them where to go next.

Kerensky consulted his phone. “Dahl,” he said, motioning him forward. Dahl sneaked up to his lieutenant, who showed him the phone with a map on it. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to one corridor. “The shuttle bay is here. I see two routes to it, one through the station’s engineering core and the other through its mess hall area.”

Less talk, more decision making, please, Dahl thought, and nodded.

“I think we stand a better chance if we split up,” Kerensky said. “That way if the machines get one group, the other group might still get to the shuttles. Are you rated to fly one?”

“Hester is,” Dahl heard himself say, and then wondered how he knew that. He didn’t remember knowing that bit of information before.

Kerensky nodded. “Then you take him and Crewman McGregor and cut through the mess hall. I’ll take Williams and go through Engineering. We’ll meet at the shuttle, wait for Lieutenant Fischer’s away team if we can, and then get the hell out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” Dahl said.

“Good luck,” Kerensky said, and motioned to Williams to follow him.

He hardly looks liquefied at all, Dahl thought again, and then went back to Hester and McGregor. “He wants to split up and have the three of us go through the mess hall to the shuttle bay,” he said to the two of them, as Kerensky and Williams skulked off down the corridor toward Engineering.

“What?” McGregor said, visibly upset. “Bullshit. I don’t want to go with you. I want to go with Kerensky.”

“We have our orders,” Dahl said.

“Screw them,” McGregor said. “You don’t get it, do you? Kerensky’s untouchable. You’re not. You’re just some ensign. We’re in a space station filled with fucking killer robots. Do you really think you’re going to make it out of here alive?”

“Calm down, McGregor,” Dahl said, holding out his hands. Beneath his feet, the corridor floor vibrated. “We’re wasting time here.”

“No!” McGregor said. “You don’t get it ! Lopez already died in front of Kerensky! She was the sacrifice! Now anyone with Kerensky is safe!” He leaped up to chase after Kerensky, stepping into the corridor just as the killing machine that had been following them turned the corner. McGregor saw the machine and had time to make a surprised “O” with his mouth before the harpoon the machine launched pushed into him, spearing him through the liver.

There was an infinitesimal pause, in which everything was set in a tableau: Dahl and Hester crouched on the side of the corridor, killing machine at the corner, the harpooned McGregor in the middle, dripping.

McGregor turned his head toward the horrified Dahl. “See?” he said, through a mouthful of blood. Then there was a yank, and McGregor flew toward the killer machine, which had already spun up its slicing blades.

Dahl screamed McGregor’s name, stood and unholstered his pulse gun, and fired into the center of the pulpy red haze where he knew the killer machine to be. The pulse beam glanced harmlessly off the machine’s surface. Hester yelled and pushed Dahl down the corridor, away from the machine, which was already resetting its harpoon. They turned a corner and raced away into another corridor, which led to the mess hall. They burst through the doors and closed them behind them.

“These doors aren’t going to keep that thing out,” Hester said breathlessly.

Dahl examined the doorway. “There’s another set of doors here,” he said. “Fire doors or an airlock door, maybe. Look for a panel.”

“Found it,” Hester said. “Step back.” He pressed a large red button. There was a squeak and a hiss. A pair of heavy doors slowly began to shut, and then stalled, halfway closed. “Oh, come on!” Hester said.

Through the glass on the already closed set of doors, the killer machine stepped into view.

“I have an idea,” Dahl said.

“Does it involve running?” Hester asked.

“Move back from the panel,” Dahl said. Hester stepped back, frowning. Dahl raised his pulse gun and fired into the door panel at the same time the machine’s harpoon punctured the closed outer door and yanked it out of the doorway. The panel blew in a shower of sparks and the heavy fire doors moved, shutting with a vibrating clang .