Aramus (3 page)

To what?

That he didn’t specify, other than to indicate we would find some answers if we went there. He also stated that we should do so promptly, and expect resistance.

Aramus didn’t hesitate.
I’ll do it.

How did I know you’d say that?

Because Aramus never turned down an opportunity to fight, or kill, humans. He lived to hear them scream, lived to make them pay, and enjoyed the fear in their eyes as they faced their mortality as they paid for their crimes against him and his brothers.

When do I leave?

Slow down.

I thought you said the message demanded promptness.

It does, but I also don’t want to send you off half-cocked and poorly staffed. Or have you so soon forgotten the fiasco of your last mission?

Ah yes, the betrayal of their kind by one of the crew. He’d died for his actions, but his defection
had been a sobering reminder that not all cyborgs lived for their revolution and that they weren’t immune to blackmail.

So
, I’ll handpick the crew. I trust Aphelion and Einstein.

You can’t have Einstein. I need him here in his lab deciphering the mystery of these artifacts.

And so he and Joe bartered back and forth before settling on a small crew of eight plus Aramus. Eight cyborgs who possessed no ties either here on the cyborg homeworld or back on earth. Eight soldiers who’d proven themselves in battle against the humans. Eight of the best with Aramus to lead them.

There was no fanfare to their departure. No announcement or warning. They simply lifted off, on a mission into the unknown, facing danger yet to be determined, on a quest for who knew what.

Some days it was great being a murderous cyborg given free license to cause mayhem and havoc. Aramus almost bared his metallic choppers in an elated grin.
This is a mission I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy.

“What are you waiting for?
Cut him open already.” The voice barked right in her ear, and Riley flinched, the small jerk causing the laser she wielded to zigzag across the flesh she dissected.

Oops. She braced for the slap, which surprisingly didn’t follow. Instead
, she received a verbal version.

“You stupid bitch. Can’t you do anything right
?”

Inwardly, she seethed
—
Pompous prick!—
outwardly, she cringed. “I-I’m sorry. You startled me. Don’t worry, I didn’t damage anything of import.” As if the dead thing on her table cared.

Where the
company and the military kept finding these mutant bodies and why they kept shipping them to her dead, were questions she’d learned not to ask. The first beating had taught her that lesson. The subsequent ones made sure she understood she lived and breathed only so long as they found her useful. Fighting back wasn’t an option, not without weapons or a small army, and she wasn’t stupid enough to cause trouble. She’d noted what happened to those who fought or mouthed off. They left, usually kicking and screaming, in the grips of mercenaries and soldiers who didn’t care—and they never came back.

As she peeled back the skin and muscles from the chest
area of her specimen, she began her monotonous discourse on her findings, knowing everything was being recorded both audibly and visually for scientists back home. It seemed whatever had transformed these poor souls into monsters, was something to be feared or hidden. God forbid they accidentally introduced a mutant virus to earth. Better to do their research off-planet with a small team—an expendable team, which included her, willing or not. She didn’t get the impression though, what they dealt with was that contagious, given no one wore hazmat suits and the only decontamination she underwent was when they moved her from the transport ship to the company facility. She still shivered remembering the coldness of the spray. It seemed expendables, like herself, didn’t rate warm water.
Not to mention they took away my liberty and rights
. But to whom could she complain?

“As with the other subjects, the
specimen maintains most of the physical markers of
homo sapiens
with slight variations. I count fourteen pairs of ribs, the bone thicker than that of a human, and longer. The ends are fused together on seven of the sets forming an actual cage. The makeup of the skeletal structure is consistent with
homo sapiens
, with this specimen showing only two arms and legs, their structure implying a bipedal nature. They are however, comprised of an unknown material, a dark gray in color with a less porous texture than that of human bone. Further testing is required to elaborate on the actual substance. It should be noted that whatever the bone is comprised of, it is very durable, resisting impact and even deflecting attempts to cut by the power tools available to me.” The toughness of the skeletal structure often made her think of Wolverine with his adamantine bones.
Except these guys aren’t as hot.

As
she itemized her findings, many of the aspects identical to other corpses she’d dissected before, she let her mind wander. After all, the novelty of discovering what hid beneath the epidermis of what, at first glance, appeared alien skin had worn off after the first few bodies.

To think she’d been so excited when they’d given her the first one
, back when she believed she was a valued team member.

“
A mutant human? What do you mean? Are we talking an X-Men-type being or something else?” She’d regarded her superior at the military run medical research center she worked for with disbelief, certain her coworkers played a joke.

“
Definitely something else. This is, of course, classified info. What I’m about to reveal to you goes no farther than this office. Understood?”

She nodded. She remembered well the clause in her contract that dealt with confidentiality. “I understand.”

“Excellent. We’ve gotten our hands on a corpse that is human in origin, but, at the same time, not. We want you to examine the remains.”

Less
examine than study it, looking for weaknesses and strengths. It didn’t take long for her to discover that the bodies on her autopsy table hadn’t died via natural means or by accident. The bullet holes through their eye sockets—because the skulls were too tough—made that glaringly evident.

Back then, months and months ago, when she still believed she worked for the greater good, she sought to question
, to demand answers. It was then she discovered that in some places the laws meant nothing. She meant nothing, and some people hid beneath a polite veneer to camouflage their evil nature. It still shocked her the way the most seemingly benign people could mete out violence without fear of repercussion. People so rotten to the core that they thought nothing of threatening her with horrible things, of carrying out torture in order to ensure her obedience.

Forget going for help
or reporting the perpetrators to the authorities. As soon as she balked at their demands and actions, they’d imprisoned her. No trial. No phone calls. Nothing. They kept her from her family and cut off any and all contact with the outside world. Then they’d moved her off-planet.

A r
espected forensic anthropologist back on earth, and they’d just erased all her rights, kidnapping and bringing her to her current location, buried inside a mountain on a planet thought inhabitable. Forget the bright future and life she’d once led. Now, she was little more than a prisoner with no hope of escape or rescue.  No one knew where she was in the galaxy, and even if she could get the word out, who would save her? Her family couldn’t exactly mount a rescue mission to the outer reaches of the galaxy. Nor did she dare put them in danger by identifying her captors. The military and the company—a secret organization that had no name—wielded the power to let her loved ones live or die, just like they controlled her life.

But not my mind!
While outwardly she appeared cooperative, inside, she plotted their demise. Of course, in her fantasy, she was a kick-ass heroine wielding a huge, freaking gun, screaming “Freedom” as she blew the bastards away. In reality, she’d probably play the part of a peeing-her-pants weakling hiding under the nearest table.

God, I hate my life.

At least, unlike some of the other female prisoners, she didn’t have to deal with rape. Apparently, she was too precious for that. They needed her mind intact to do her work and not have her a blubbering, suicidal mess. How smacking her around and beating her was any better she’d yet to figure out, but apparently, so long as she could stand and wield a scalpel, punishment was acceptable—whether it was deserved or not.

If only she weren’t so cowardly
, she would have taken her own life, turned the knife on herself, spite them with their own tools. But, she wanted to live, even if her life wasn’t worth much. In spite of all she’d suffered, they couldn’t extinguish the spark within her that refused to go out, a spark of hope, even if she’d given up on praying. She’d seen too much evil at this point to believe in God anymore. What god allowed men to perpetuate such vileness? None that she knew of and none she wished to know. And most definitely none she would ever worship.

The sudden blaring of horns startled them all. It was the first time since her arrival that she
’d heard them, and she couldn’t help asking, “What are those for?”

For once
, her query didn’t meet with a cuff to the side of her head.

“We’re under attack.” How incredulous her jailor sounded
, and with reason.

From what she’d gleaned
, since her arrival several months back, their facility was hidden on a planet considered uninhabitable by humans. Camouflaged within a rocky mountain, with only the barest of traffic allowed in or out under the guise of taking surface readings, no one should have known they existed. The company and the military had made sure of that.

And yet someone
had come snooping.

Whoever it is, I hope they kill this bastard.
The bastard in question, Arthur Dennison, who took perverse delight in tormenting her, shoved her out of his way instead of going around. The jolt rammed her into the unforgiving surface of the autopsy table and bruised her hip. She dared a glare at his retreating back. M
ake that, I hope he dies painfully.
A glorified pencil pusher, he held no medical degree or military rank, but for some reason, he was her supervisor, and a sadistic prick. He’d made it his personal mission to make her life a living hell.

Dragged back to her cell
by excited mercenaries who chattered in a language not English, she made no attempt to fight or get away. If they were under attack, then she’d rather hide. In a battle she would only get underfoot. She was better off waiting it out and hoping that whoever invaded came to save and not just destroy.
Because anything has to be better than this hell.

If I believed in Hell, it would probably look like this planet.
Or so Aramus thought as he got his first glimpse of the blistering surface of his destination.

He double
-checked the coordinates. They were correct.
Did Seth send us on a wild chase?
It wouldn’t be the first time the damnable cyborg had played a prank.

This fucking
overgrown asteroid isn’t hiding a secret.
Unless it was one of how to survive on a planet comprised mostly of volcanic rock, lava, and smoke. Nothing organic could exist on its surface. Even cyborgs, versatile bastards that they were, would find the excessive heat more than their circuits could handle. But, within the stone…that proved a different story.

“Sir, I’m detecting faint radio waves emitting from the large mountain
the coordinates have led us to.”

“
Can we tell who they belong to, Kentry?” Aramus asked his communications officer. Who as in military, civilian or pirate. None of them were cyborg friends, but at least in the case of civilian, they could usually bluff their way to getting what they needed. A reputation as killers came in handy at times.

“I believe
it’s a mixture of all three, sir.”

“Explain.

“I’m picking up traces of Russian, Spanish, English, and the use of military jargon. I think. The magnetic properties of the stone are making it difficult for me to get a more accurate recording.”

“Bring up the planet’s statistics again.”

On screen, there appeared a recap of what they knew, facts that his BCI already had stored. However, Aramus sometimes found it easier to spot items of interest when given a visual representation.

Discovered less than ten years ago, the planet
, dubbed Pahoehoe, rotated on a figure eight axis around two stars, close enough to make the surface a melting, hot mess. Weak in metals, with no sign of life or water, the planet had been deemed unfit for colonization and useless for mining. In other words, it was junk.

H
e returned to a specific entry, actually, a specific name. “General Boulder signed off on this planet? He was the one to designate it non-inhabitable?” Now that was interesting. Knee deep in the cyborg program, General Boulder was a top player, which in turn, meant anything revolving around this particular general raised a red flag.

“Yes, sir.”

“So here we’ve got a useless planet, and yet, according to the space logs we stole a while back from that military freighter, there have been regular visits to it, supposedly to get readings. Readings of what? How fucking hot it is?”

“No idea, sir. But it does seem suspicious. Should we sweep in for a closer look
?”

“No. We’re already close enough as
it is. Here’s to hoping they don’t have any of that fancy new technology, or any hope of surprising them is already lost. Park us out of sight, Aphelion.”

“Aye
aye, captain.”

Smartass. Once the most serious of cyborgs, ever since the stint of time spent in Bonnie’s presence, Aphelion sported a more relaxed method of speech and mannerisms. Curse
the humans and their habits that seemed to spread like a virus, corrupting perfectly decent, mission-oriented units. Thank fuck Aramus held better control over his actions. He wouldn’t succumb to useless emotions. He’d give himself a lobotomy first.

Circling to the far side of the questionable mountain and its mysterious emissions,
Aramus and his crew held a mini meeting to decide their next move.

“I say we go in
guns blazing.” Xylo, like Aramus, preferred the direct approach.

“We don’t know what we’re facing. We could end up walking into a trap.” Aphelion
, as usual, proved the annoying voice of reason.

“
Just in case we’re dealing with aliens, we should try making contact first,” interjected Kentry, who, like Kyle, believed in the whole alien scenario.

“I doubt we’re dealing with ETs,” Aramus stated. “Or have you forgotten the reports of survey vessels going in and out of this area
, not to mention the speech patterns we’ve picked up?”

“Speaking of getting in, where would we penetrate?”
Kyle raised the most important question. Given they didn’t know what to expect, they couldn’t just blast a hole in the mountain to pay its occupants a visit. Not if they intended to rescue or question anything inside.

“
I’m not detecting a landing zone in the area large enough for a spacecraft. While they could be dropping supplies in, it seems unlikely given the high winds could carry their cargo right into a crevice where recovery would prove impossible. There’s got to be a hidden entrance of some kind. Some kind of bay doors to let the ships in,” Kentry replied as he pored over an aerial map.

Aramus snorted. “
Hidden or not, it does us no good. It’s not like we can just walk up to their front door, knock, and ask for entry. Given the lengths they’ve gone to to hide it, I’m sure they have a shoot-first policy in place.” He knew he would. “That said, though, if this installation is built along more or less traditional lines, then they’ll have at least two access points. A large one for vessels or cargo and a smaller entrance, on the opposite side or not so close, that can be used in an emergency for escape.” Because, as humans learned early on when building within mountains and planets, if shit hit the fan, having only one exit during a calamity ensured an almost hundred-percent fatality rate for humans. Especially if cyborgs controlled that exit and decided to not let anyone pass. Aramus almost smiled in fond recollection at the invasion of the military base on the fifth moon circling Saturn. What a fun time he’d had.

“Scanning the mountain for
a concentrated area of metal indicating a portal,” Kyle announced, his eyes staring off for a moment as he set his inner BCI to the task.

“Once we do find our way in, what are we looking for?”
Xylo asked. “You haven’t told us much.”

“Because we don’t know much. You are all aware Seth disappeared
?” Heads nodded all around. “Well, before he did, he gave Joe a message telling us to come here. That we’d find some of the answers we seek at this location.”

“Answers to what?”

Aramus shrugged. “I can’t tell you because I don’t know. All I know is apparently we should expect some kind of resistance, but at the same time, we need to not eradicate everyone in our path, as we might need to question them.” A waste of oxygen if you asked Aramus. The only good human was a dead one. Then they couldn’t spin lies to justify their actions.

“So we should set our weapons to stun and incapacitate?”

He nodded. “But, if your life is in danger, do not hesitate to use deadly force. A cyborg life is worth more than any human
’s.”

“I found
the entrances!” Kyle interrupted. “Take a look.”

Making us
e of the holographic technology embedded in the table of the meeting room, Kyle pulled up a three-dimensional image of the mountain. It rotated slowly on its axis, a perfect composite drawing that showed every nook, cranny, and abnormality on its surface. Shading of a different color showed density of the rock while minerals and metals appeared as different hues. It wasn’t hard to spot the service bay doors. Their big purple outline stood out in stark contrast to the rest of the diagram, but it was the two smaller portals to the east and south of the mountain that truly grabbed their attention.

“As you can see,”
Kyle stated while pointing unnecessarily, “there are two doors, here and here. The east one seems to be where they dump their garbage. Scans of the area show tread marks and piles of ash from the burning of trash.”

“What about the south entrance?”

“Seems like it’s currently unused, probably because a lava channel, a recent one according to previous surveys of the area I found stored, decided to run a path too close to the entrance.” While environmental suits could handle high temperatures, lava was too much for them. Lava was too much for anything, even cyborgs, who could handle extreme conditions.

“
South entrance it is. We’ll need some kind of diversion to keep their attention away from that area, as we can’t land close by and will need to travel by either foot or small craft to our target zone.”

“I think I can easily arrange a diversion.”
Aphelion actually smiled and even cracked his knuckles in a human-like gesture that made Aramus frown. “I’ll take the ship in for a closer peek and try to hail them. That should get their alarms screaming and grab their attention.”

“While the humans are keeping an eye on the front, we’ll sneak in the back.”

A sound plan. A perfect plan. One that went off as intended, without a hitch. How boring.

Let off behind a volcano about three miles from their target,
and dressed in suits made to withstand extreme heat, including some annoying helmets, Aramus and his infiltration team, comprised of himself and five of the crew, waited for the signal.

We’ve been noticed,
Aphelion messaged him.
They have not responded, but their communication channels have all gone silent. I’m going to keep hailing and demand entry.

Excellent.
Move!
Aramus sent the message via their neural interface, their proximity not affected by the strong and disruptive magnetic properties of the planet. Given the low gravity, they’d opted to not use an all-terrain vehicle and instead, relied on their space training and innate acrobatic skills to get them across the hostile surface quickly. Running and leaping, they bounded from rock to crag, the low gravity giving them momentum and height. They bounced over streaming rivulets of molten rock to land on porous shores, only to jump again, making their way rapidly overland.

A more poetic cyborg might have admired the harsh landscape, its red hues where heat predominated contrasting with the dark where the heat had waned
, leaving behind twisted formations, pockmarked with air bubbles. Despite himself and his dislike of all things that reminded him of humans, Aramus couldn’t help but contrast the scenery once again with that of the biblical Hell most religions believed in.
The only thing missing is some evil military grunts chained to the rocks tortured by devils.
He’d gladly play the part of demon if he could find a human or two to punish.

Hoping Aphelion
had managed to keep the humans’ attention, Aramus and the others reached the southern entrance. Without hesitation, Kentry went to work on the door, yanking off the control panel and slicing through wires. First, he disarmed any alarms opening the portal would set off, and then he began fiddling with the circuits, needing to create a manual override that allowed him to slide the door open. In they piled, crowding the pressure chamber, but they wanted to waste as little time as possible when they breached the inner door to the installation itself. Kentry slapped the inner button, and the exit to the surface slid shut. Air hissed as the room pressure stabilized.

“On my count,” Aramus muttered
, keeping an eye on the clock. “Three, two, one.” Pressure equalized, the door swung open, and they dove out into the larger service chamber, rolling and bounding to their feet, weapons pointed at…nothing. It seemed their arrival went unnoticed. While a distant alarm clanged, no attacking force waited to greet them.

What a shame. Nothing like starting a mission off with some head
-bashing and shooting to get the blood pumping.

The
portal to the outdoor chamber clanged as it slid shut. “Spread out. Mute all communications unless it’s an emergency. Remember what I said about casualties. If you can take those you come across prisoner, great, if not…” He shrugged. “Don’t let them scream and warn the others.”

“And most of all, have fun!”
Xylo couldn’t help adding, his visor hiding the grin they could all hear in his voice.

Their dark chuckles
echoed in the dusty space but cut off as soon as they hit the exits, one to the left and one to the right. Where they’d end up and what they’d find was anyone’s guess.

Aramus jogged
ahead, leader of his group, gun loosely held in one hand, a knife in the other. He’d found for close-quarter combat a blade did a better job than firearms. It didn’t give the same satisfaction as using his bare fists, but when it came to efficiency, he liked the silence and projectile ability of a good knife. Not all of his kind shared his preference. Some units had grown soft since their liberation and eschewed weapons with sharp edges, claiming they were too messy. Aramus didn’t know what their problem was. A little bit of cold water always rinsed the blood out.

The corridor they traversed
was rough in the extreme with the height varying from a lofty ten feet plus to, at times, a hunched-over five. The surface was porous rock with lights embedded at intervals with the floor underfoot sporting some kind of rubbery layer that made the lumps and bumps less noticeable. By his observation, the tunnel was natural not manmade, old lava routes long since cooled that had left behind a maze of corridors and chambers, one of which they spilled into, surprising the staff clearing the dishes from the latest meal. Gun already set on stun, Aramus simply aimed and fired, dropping the chubby human before he could open his mouth to yell. Kentry immobilized the younger one, who, hands full with a basin of dishes, hit the floor with a clatter.