Broken Episode One (2 page)

He rolled to the side, bringing up his whip and
collecting one of those slithering black tubes as he fired several
bullets from his gun and destroyed it.

Shifting to the side, he dodged as several
Rebuilders snaked towards his leg, trying to coil around his ankle
to trip him up.

'Christ, how many of you are there?' Josh stuttered
as he shot bullet after bullet at the black sea of pipes.

No matter how many he attacked, more took their
places.

If he wanted to contain this infection, he had to
destroy each and every last one of those pipes. Even a fragment of
Rebuilder could rebuild itself.

His plan of attack was to decimate the population
before setting up a land mine.

Packed
with sophisticated explosives, the land mine would obliterate this
entire cave system. From rock to water to metal
– it would superheat everything to temperatures
beyond the molten core of a heavy cruiser.

He couldn't deploy the mine until the Rebuilders
were so few they couldn't infect it. The very last thing he wanted
was to give them one of the most sophisticated explosives in the
Coalition arsenal.

So he kept fighting and fighting. Time passed, but
he wasn't aware of it. Hours could have ticked by, but it wouldn’t
matter.

He concentrated on one task alone. Not even a sun
going nova next to him would shift his attention.

Slowly but surely the Rebuilders began to thin. As
they did, they became more desperate. As their numbers dwindled,
their intelligence became fractured. Their moves were more erratic,
more chaotic.

Those black tubes flipped around like snakes with
their heads cut off.

“Come on,” he breathed to himself as the last few
Rebuilders twitched towards him.

Though he was on the verge of winning, he couldn't
afford to get cocky. He couldn't afford to lay aside his fear and
desperation, only to make a mistake.

So he kept on his toes right until the end.

The last Rebuilder shifted before him, its black
undulating body making scraping noises against the stone floor.

Josh took a single second to stare at it.

There were few enemies in this galaxy you could
indiscriminately destroy without a feeling of regret. Though the
Barbarians were vicious and by all accounts anathema to everything
the Coalition stood for, they were still alive, still sentient.

The Rebuilders were a virus. Devoid of true
sentience, devastation was programed into them. They would never
stop for reason, never stop for compassion. They were not
constrained by the same set of moral laws the Coalition army was.
The only law that constrained them was rebuilding.

So as Josh leveled his gun and shot the final
Rebuilder, he did so without blinking, without even a scrap of
regret.

Then he jogged into the center of the cavern,
un-latched the land mine from the holster on his back, and
proceeded to set it up. He worked as quickly as he could, his
fingers a blur as he programmed the land mine to explode as soon as
he got out of range. He also set it to continually sense its
environment and relay those scans directly to his armor. If
whatever scraps were left of the Rebuilders managed to rebuild
themselves before the land-mine exploded, Josh would head back into
the tunnel to begin the battle anew.

Once he was done programming the land mine, he
snapped to his feet, then he stared for a single second at the mess
of black tubes that had once been the Rebuilders. He waited to see
movement, and when he saw nothing, he pivoted on his foot and
sprinted forward.

He ran as fast as he could out of the cavern and
back into the light.

Before he’d set the land mine, he’d relayed a
message to his ship, instructing it to fly to the mouth of the
cave. So once he exited into the light, he saw it hovering several
meters away.

Dashing towards it, his feet a blur against the dust
and rock, he jumped into the air, latched his hands over the open
hatch, and pulled his body up, rolling until he snapped to his
feet. Then he commanded his small experimental shuttle to shoot
into orbit as fast as it could.

Seconds later the land mine exploded.

With it, it destroyed the cavern and every last
remaining speck of Rebuilder technology.

There would be more, though. Maybe not on this
planet, but out in the Milky Way. Josh’s task was endless. But it
needed to be done. He had sins to expunge, and every time he dealt
with a Rebuilder infection, he came a step closer to expunging
them.

“Don’t look now,” Bradley Marshal sniggered to his
friend, Mathewson, “it’s Buzz Kill.”

Mimi ignored him. Mimi was very good at ignoring
snide comments, especially from idiots like Marshal. She smoothed
the smile back on her face, checked the holo recording device on
her wrist, and marched towards him. “Excuse me, do you have time
for an interview?”

Marshal visibly rolled his eyes, his friend cackling
at the move.

Mimi took the opportunity to flick her device to
record. As soon as she did, the hovering ball above her left
shoulder turned towards Marshal and started to scan him.

“Hey, I didn’t say you could start recording,”
Marshal snapped.

“Cadet Marshal, this is Mimi Chester for Galactic
Source News. What are your views on the current communications
blackout in the Carq Cluster?” Mimi forged ahead, always keeping
her pretty smile locked on her lips.

Her father told her success came from a smile. Well,
a smile and a heck of a lot of hard work.

Marshal snorted, blowing a breath of air against his
floppy fringe. “Really? I thought you were going to ask me a smart
question. Everyone knows the communications blackout is caused by
background cosmic radiation. It happens every two to three years,
and it’s hardly newsworthy.”

“What are your opinions about the upcoming Galactic
Leaders' summit? Do you think having all those heads of state on
the same planet is a security risk?”

Marshal now snorted even louder. “Really, Chester?
Do you come up with these questions all on your own? Because they
are cutting.”

“Are you worried about the recent increase in
Barbarian activity along the Coalition’s eastern boarder? Do you
think it’s an ominous indication of what’s to come?”

Marshal tipped his head back and laughed, his friend
joining in.

“You are on the news,” Mimi reminded him in a
professional tone.

“No, Mimi, I’m not on the news, because this is
never going to be broadcast. It’s illegal to record an interview
with an Academy officer without their express written
permission.”

“You’re not an officer.”

“I’m close enough,” Marshal pointed out
threateningly. “Now you either hand over your recording, or we’ll
wipe your device, deleting all your other cutting edge journalism,”
he said harshly. Pausing for little more than a second, he brought
up his watch and typed something into it.

The recording ball above Mimi’s left shoulder
started to spin erratically. “Hey,” she said quickly, “you can’t do
that.”

“Already did,” Marshal laughed, “now get the hell
off Academy grounds before I call security.”

“These grounds are public.” She latched her hands on
her hips. “I have rights you know.”

“Nope, pretty sure you don’t. You’re nothing more
than a lowly buzz kill. And you don’t work for Galactic Source
News. Admit it, they’ve never accepted one of your stories, have
they?”

Marshal’s friend laughed harder now.

If Mimi were the kind of girl to care what they
thought, she’d be turning red in the face. Instead, she smiled
harder, albeit with an irritated edge. “You can delete my
recordings, Marshal, but you can’t silence me.”

Marshal erupted into laughter. “Listen to her,” he
said, “she honestly thinks she’s a journalist, upholding the truth
or something. Get it through your head, Chester, you’re a failure.
You were kicked out of the Academy, despite your daddy’s influence,
and now you’re playing at being a journo.”

Mimi could ignore most things. She didn’t just have
thick skin; the damn stuff was made of diamond. There was one
thing, however, she could never forgive.

“He didn’t help,” she said through bared teeth.

“What was that?” Marshal crossed his arms.

“My father never intervened on my behalf. I’d never
let him do that.”

Marshal now laughed lower, and it had a dangerous
kind of note to it. “You expect me to believe that? Your father is
head of one of the largest corporations in the Milky Way. The only
reason you weren’t court martialed for what you did is because of
him. You should be rotting in prison, not waltzing around
pretending to work for Galactic Source News.”

Mimi took a hold of herself. Before her anger could
boil over, she drew a calm, collected breath.

She wasn’t going to be derailed by a man like
Marshal.

Instead, she did the one thing she could do, and
smiled.

It was her secret weapon. It always unsettled
someone if you smiled through their vitriol.

“You done? The only reason I’m not rotting in
prison, Marshal, is because this is the Coalition, and we’re a
little more civilized than that. Oh, and a full hearing of the
Academy Board found me not guilty. It was an accident, end of
story. You may believe my father intervened, but he didn’t. Now,
what exactly is your opinion on the recent inclusion of a time
travel clause to the standard operating manual of the Academy?”

Marshal exploded with laughter, but one look at his
eyes and it was clear he was starting to get uncomfortable.

She had that effect on most people. You could hurl a
litany of insults Mimi’s way, but she would always pick herself up,
dust herself off, and smile.

“Do you find something funny, Cadet?”

“Just get out of here, Mimi.” Marshal turned to walk
away. “And seriously, where do you get these questions? Time travel
clause? What the heck are you talking about?”

“Reputable sources indicate a recent incident on
Remus 12 has caused the Academy Board to write a new clause into
the standard operating manual given to all active Coalition Army
members. What are your thoughts?”

“My thoughts are you’re crazy.” With that, Marshal
snorted one last time and flicked his friend forwards with a
wave.

The two men walked away, exchanging rude jokes at
Mimi’s expense as they did.

Not once did her smile shift.

In fact, she put more effort into it until her
cheeks grew so stiff it was a surprise they didn’t crack.

Eventually, however, she gave up, turned on her
heel, and checked on her recording ball. It was still jerking
around erratically. “You okay, Klutzo?”

Klutzo was her pet name for the recording orb, as
the darn thing had been wiped so many times, the constant deletions
had effected its navigations. It often flew into the side of
buildings, trees, people, or her head.

Klutzo gave a soft beep. “Feeling sad,” it admitted.
“Memory deleted once more.”

She smiled. “Same here. But that’s why you’ve got to
keep smiling, Klutzo.”

“Can’t
smile
– no mouth.”

“Okay, let me do the smiling, then,” Mimi promised
as she pushed up on her tiptoes, plucked Klutzo from the air, and
hugged him to her chest.

She nursed him until she made it back to her
apartment.

Once she was inside, she placed him carefully in his
cradle and set the computer to rebuild his databases.

When she was done, she collapsed on the couch.
Pressing her eyes closed, she tried not to let Marshal’s words
rattle her.

Mimi hadn’t always been a freelance journalist, or
Buzz Kill, as mean spirited folk like Marshal called it. A few
short years ago she’d been an Academy cadet.

She loved space. She loved exploring. And those
things were on tap when you worked for the Academy.

But her dream had died.

She pressed her eyes tightly closed now.

Approximately 2 years and 214 days ago, there’d been an
accident. A simulation had gone awry, killing a young cadet
– Lilly Williams. A name etched into
Mimi’s mind as if it had been burnt onto her brainstem.

They’d been prepping for a simulated battle
mission.

It had been Mimi’s job to check the equipment was
running properly. She’d done her best, but she’d missed a fault. A
fault that had cost Lilly her life.

Everyone
blamed Mimi. If she’d been better, if she’d been more careful, she
would have picked up that fault, and the promising Cadet
Williams would now be an
officer.

Though initially Mimi had blamed herself, she’d been
exonerated by the Academy Board. The fault had been no ordinary
mechanical problem. Only an experienced engineer would have been
able to find it. Mimi never had a chance.

She still thought about that day. She still
remembered, in perfect detail, watching the training craft explode
in a hail of sparks and hot white metal. She still remembered being
told by the investigating officers that she’d missed an error in
the engine cooling program that had gone on to cause the explosion.
And she still remembered, dear god did she still remember the
reactions of all her friends and colleagues.

They'd turned on her. Even Carinthia, who had been
Mimi’s best friend at the time. Carinthia, daughter of Admirals
Forest and Nok, practically led the witch hunt against Mimi. She
told anyone who would listen that Mimi had always been a careless
recruit.

But that was all ancient history, right? Mimi was
now a journalist, or at least an aspiring one.

So even though it was hard to push back the memories
of that day, she forcibly pressed a smile into her lips. In her
experience there was little smiling couldn't fix.