Mike Stackpole - Ghost Book Two - The Death Machines

“It is… good to be strong,” she said as she stumbled in. “It is a joy to be fast, but… but the voice in your head. The spy inside you. The mind–slap if you think a bad thought.” She shook her fist at the ceiling. “This is not what you promised me, Cochise! This is a living—”

“Silence,” said the AI.

Athalia dropped to her knees in sudden agony, metal hands clutching her metal head.

“Get out!” she howled. “Get… out!”

Another wave of pain racked her and she collapsed to the floor. She looked up at me, her monitor–blue eyes drilling directly into mine. “Ghost. I’m sorry. I never wanted to betray—”

Her voice cut off and suddenly the AI’s voice was coming from two places, the speaker in the ceiling and Athalia’s mouth.

“We see that you will not be convinced,” it said as Athalia’s body stood, but without her familiar grace or gestures. “You are a bad result. You will be eliminated.”

And then she attacked me.

Her first punch nearly cracked a rib on my left side, even through my chitin. Her second knocked shrapnel out of the concrete wall behind my head as I ducked. I clocked her with the butt of the meson cannon. It hardly moved her, and she grabbed my neck in both hands and started to squeeze. Fortunately the chitin was strong, so my head didn’t pop off immediately, but I could feel the ceramic plates creaking in her grip and the blood started to pound in my ears.

Around me, the others were beating on her, not daring a shot for fear of hitting me, but their blows did nothing. She took them without blinking and kept squeezing.

“Athalia, please.”

Her eyes would not look at mine.

I worked the meson cannon around and jammed it into her abdomen. One shot and she would be slag, but…

“I… can’t. I just can’t.”

“Allow me, sir,” said Vax, and with a quick twist he tore Athalia’s head off her neck.

The rest of her slumped. Her fingers slipped from my throat and slid down the front of me like a last caress as she hit the ground.

A sob escaped me and I almost fried Vax where he stood for what he’d done, but then I lowered the gun and turned away from him.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, thanks.”

Everybody was staring at me. I turned away from them too.

“Fuck off. Just turn that thing on and let’s get this over with.”

Vargas nodded. “Sure. Okay.”

He and Angie did something at the console, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I just kept staring at Athalia’s head, which Vax had dropped next to her body. Bad enough to watch her die once…

Angie touched my shoulder. “Come on, Ghost. We’ve gotta find the key receptacles.”

“Okay.”

I followed them out and helped them fight their way to the four rooms with the four key receptacles in them, but honestly, my head was such a mess that it was all pretty much a blur for me. I know we started in the room with all the dirt and junk in it, then went into a robot maintenance facility, then some kind of electronic security section, and finally something called the OSHA room, whatever that meant, but I just kind of plodded along behind the others, doing what I was told. In each room we fought various robots and took out various defenses, then opened up small square rooms in the furthest corner. Each small room was numbered “One” through “Four,” and each contained a command terminal and a wall slot for a key, and we tried the various keys until we got the right ones in the right slots.

I woke up a bit again as we were fighting to get into the last small room because it was taking fucking forever to kill the robot that was guarding it. It looked like the Octotrons we’d fought before, only bigger — way bigger. It was almost as tall as the ceiling and its eight arms had a twelve foot reach.

“What the hell is that thing?” I asked.

“A Fusion Octotron, sir,” said Vax. “The biggest in its class.”

“Does it have any weaknesses?”

“Only superior firepower, sir.”

“So… just keep pounding at it is what you’re saying.”

“Precisely, sir.”

And so we did. We ran from it when it charged, and fired at it when we could, and after several decades we finally wore the big bastard down. It was terrifying and exhausting, but not what you’d call exciting. More mind–numbing. Still, it was damn satisfying when it finally tipped over on one side and smoke started leaking from all its joints.

We edged around the thing and broke into the fourth station. By that time, I was awake enough again to watch Angie turn the key and wait with the others for something to happen. For a long second, nothing did, and I could see the others start to get nervous, then the button finally came on and a female voice spoke from a speaker.

“Safety Procedure 1342–666 initiated.”

Before we could figure out what that meant, the door to the chamber slid shut, locking us in. It was polished steel. We could see our frightened faces in it.

“What the fuck?” snarled Hell–Razor.

We looked around, expectant, but nothing else happened. The button pulsed a soothing green. The air conditioning dried our sweat. That was it.

“So now what?” asked Ace. “Are we supposed to push the button?”

“And have the base blow up while we’re trapped in here?” asked Hell Razor. “Fuck that.”

“It’s fine,” I said, aiming the meson cannon at the door. “I’ll just melt through the door.”

I held down the trigger and started drawing a door–sized square on the door, but before I got more than a yard, everybody else started screaming and diving for cover. The meson beam was bouncing off the door like a sun ray on a mirror — and shooting right back at us! I ate linoleum and the violet death went over my head to scorch the rock wall behind me.

When the light faded we all looked up. The door didn’t have a mark on it.

“And a hand grenade won’t work either,” said Hell Razor. “There’s no place to duck and cover. We’ll blow ourselves to pieces.”

“So we’re dead either way,” said Vargas. “Terrific. Well…” He slapped the console’s glowing green button. “Might as well get it over with.”

Everybody yelped and shouted at him, but then the female voice filled the room again. “Sequence violated. Procedure aborted.”

Behind us, the door slid open.

Angie blew out a relieved breath and glared at Vargas. “What the fuck, Snake? Ghost’s craziness rubbin’ off on you?”

He gave her a weak shrug. “What else were we gonna do?”

“And what are we gonna do now?” I asked. “I don’t get how this thing works.”

Ace chewed his lip. “I think I’ve got it. Half of it at least. A base this important, they weren’t gonna let some nut job just run around and blow it to pieces, so I’m guessing each of the terminals needs someone to punch a button. They probably have to be hit in the right sequence and in a set amount of time — faster than one guy could run to all four rooms. And if the buttons aren’t pushed correctly, nothing happens.”

Angie nodded. “Okay, but what’s the right order?”

Thrasher cleared his throat. “The name of the procedure is 1342–666. I’m guessing we hit ‘em that sequence, one, three, four, two.”

“So what does the 666 stand for,” I asked.

Ace raised an eyebrow. “The hell that will be unleashed.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” I should have got that, but I wasn’t exactly with it just then.

“Right,” said Vargas. “Chances are we all die the second that last button is punched. I need to know you all understand that. We all good?”

“Where was that speech three minutes ago?” drawled Hell Razor.

“I’m making up for it,” said Vargas. “Are we good?”