DogForge (31 page)

A dog charged at Denali with his maw open. The metal teeth inside glistened with blood and hydraulic fluid.

Denali bashed her suit once, twice, but the grate still held. She braced herself for the impact and decided she’d go down fighting.

The dogs head evaporated in a cloud static electricity. The front legs buckled and it tumbled end over end, coming to rest a meter from Denali.

“Belle!” Denali yipped and pushed at the grating.

Movement caught her eye and one of Garlan’s drones crawled on top of the dead dog. She pointed at the edge of the grate and the little drone waddled over and lanced through. Sputters of plasma fell and solidified on the floor. More drones crawled near it.

She ripped the grate free and gave one last look.

Clouds of black smoke bellowed up from the gunship. Crackles of fusion weapons and explosions ripped throughout the hall. Now howls echoed, barks, whimpers of pain. The crest of the fight was over, and now the battle was on the down side. More of the skelebots stalked through the hall. More Praetorians.

Denali crawled into the hole and the drones followed. The sounds of the combat dimmed and she felt alone once again. She wanted to cry, thousands died so she could get through. But this, this was her duty.

T
he passage dropped down and sloped away from the sounds of battle. It was like every other passage Denali trained in, old and worn smooth by a thousand years of rushing air.

Her suit adjusted for the darkness. She crawled ahead with her jaw clenched. Behind her they were dying. She knew it, but tried not to focus on it. Already all of her friends might be dead. She crawled deeper.

Her joints burned, her muscles felt like they were gripped with fire, the synthweave helped to propel, but the motion was still muscular. On she went.

Garlan’s bots clacked close behind.

“What will you do?”

There will be a console with many wires running into it.

“That sounds like every command room I’ve seen so far.”

This one is different, you will know it, it’s very large.

“Then?”

Then I’ll deploy the weapon, you’ll have to defend my canister.

“From what?”

There will most likely be a Praetorian there.

Denali groaned and pushed ahead. The drones clattered behind her, little mindless bundles with bottles of argon gas strapped to their backs. The electrode point of the plasma cutter rode like a rhinos horn.

She wanted to stand and run, feel her legs stretch out and bound down the passage. But every time she even tried to stretch her suit thudded against the ceiling. She felt why Kell hated the passages.

Comms chatter crackled in her ears and dissipated away into static. She strained to listen, to catch any news of what happened, but there was nothing. Too deep, got to keep moving.

A few minutes later she felt thudding through the floor. Her body tensed and she snapped her head back but saw nothing. She waited, her body still, and listened with every muscle but nothing came.

They launched the weapons, go!

Denali pushed herself faster, her metallic claws scratching and thumping forward with every step. The only joint that didn’t hurt was the leg they’d replaced with a cybernetic one. It moved differently and the suit sealed at the joint. It was almost perfect. Almost.

When it seemed her muscles wanted to burst into flames she saw the bulkhead. It didn’t look like a door. Pins anchored it to the hull. The passage spread out to either side and moved away from the core.

Chalk marked one corner with a set of numbers and a check mark.

Denali stared at it and wondered if she was the first person to see this since a human had built it.

The drones clattered up behind her and huddled next to the bulkhead.

Denali tore the inflatable airlock out of her pack and carefully attached it to the walls and ceiling. It was gossamer thin, like a spider web. She pressed the corners to the walls and then engaged the seal. The sides flapped and tightened.

She took a breath. They had no schematics to know what was outside of the passage. Only a general idea from Cicero’s memory. She knew it was vacuum, but beyond that it was a mystery.

The little drones went to work, one at a time. The first cut through a pin holding the bulkhead shut. Its little tank sputtered and hissed and it stepped away. The little drone sat down with a plunk and watched.

Drone after drone burned through the pins on the bulkhead. Each only lasted thirty seconds, burning brightly, a titanium white flare that melted away the metal.

The final drone stepped up and burned through the last pin. It halted the spray of plasma and clattered away.

Denali stared at the door, one edge glowed slightly. Was it free? Would it burst? She tested it with her claw and tried to pry it free. Nothing.

She pushed and strained. But still, it would not move. Anger balled up inside of her, anger at her inability to move it. Her claws thrashed against it and she pummeled it with her legs. She tried to bite the edges, clamp down and tear it.

“No!” she cried out and sobbed. So close, everything, and now stuck behind a door. Everyone was depending on her, and she couldn’t open the damn door.

Denali.

“What!” she cried back.

It’s a vacuum on the other side. You need to equalize the pressure.

Denali stepped back and felt stupid. The animal conscious ruled for a moment. She studied the edge of the door and saw no way to vent it. Then she remembered her fusion lance. It wouldn’t do much beyond bore a tiny hole, but it might be enough...

She pressed the tip of the lance against the door and leaned into it with all of her strength. She closed her eyes and engaged the weapon. It thumped against her shoulder. She could see a spray of sparks through her eyelids, but when she opened them, nothing.

She furrowed her brow and leaned back. A hiss sucked through the hole. The air inside of the tiny tent whistled out into space. Alarms flashed in Denali’s eyes, the suit showed the pressure dropping. Then it showed vacuum.

She gripped the door and pulled it away.

Outside of the hatch was a gap between the starship and the core. Conduit and tubing ran across. In the center a tower stretched into darkness. The surface was smooth, dark, polished like a ceramic. Only where the conduit surged through was there any break in the surface.

She peeked out and glanced up. Stars winked by. She looked down, a planet orbited beneath.

That is the core, enter through one of the conduit shafts.

“Til, are you ready?”

Static hissed and a few clicks responded. Denali scrunched her nose.

Go across and try it, Til might have already hacked the door.

Denali stepped out onto the lines of conduit and her breath caught in her chest. The sight of the greens and blues passing beneath her triggered an animal fear. The fear of tumbling into nothingness almost numbed her, but she locked her eyes ahead and scrambled across. The beauty of a habitable planet passed beneath her.

Shafts of light bored holes through the atmosphere. Clouds parted and eruptions of energy lashed out. Lances of light and clouds of missiles streamed down from Caesar.

Hurry! They’re burning the planetary defenses!

Denali rushed across. A green light blinked next to an open maintenance hatch. Denali squirmed inside of the tiny shaft and pulled the door tight. One of Garlan’s drone stumbled in with her. The door light winked to orange. The room hissed and the vacuum alarm disappeared from Denali’s helmet.

It hit her as she waited. Man and dog, linked forever in the past. She remembered the stories Korac told, how dogs and men were once the same pack. They hunted side by side, and dogs served, while men provided. Now it was her chance to earn the freedom for all canines, and repay an old debt. The moment was now, and Denali was proud.

“Ready?”

Hurry!

“I was talking to myself.”

She cracked open the door and listened. There was virtually no sound, just a humming of pumps and liquids.

She squeezed between the conduit and the walls and squirmed through. The cables parted beneath her and she slowly wormed her way deeper. It was beyond dark, inky black, with barely a touch of light for her suit to amplify. The drone followed like a lost beetle.

Something clicked in the dark. Denali froze. She held her breath and listened. A creak, a scratch, another click. Something was in the dark.

Keep moving.

Denali wanted to strangle Cicero. She picked out where each paw would fall and walked as quietly as she could.

A light bloomed ahead. It flowed down the conduits and cables. The entire room bathed in a wash of blue.

Shapes emerged from the darkness. A giant structure huddled in the center of the room. It was like an ancient pipe organ with glowing conduit flowing into a great black mass.

On one side a Praetorian stood, on the other a hulking skelebot. In the front sat a line of open chambers. Each was about the size of the canister. One was sealed with a polished cover and was filled with nanite salts.

The skelebot snapped its head up and locked eyes with Denali.

Go!

Denali leaped forward. The skelebot charged with one arm raised to strike, and the other out front to grasp. Its face was expressionless, only its eyes betrayed any life. She dodged to the side, quicker than the skelebot could turn.

The Praetorian held position near the front of the cube and waited.

“You sneak into my home, and try to slay me on the eve of my victory?” a voice boomed throughout the chamber.

Denali ducked under a wall of conduit and wiggled through the draping cords. She snapped her head back and yelped in fear. The skelebot was almost on her. She leaped again and raced towards the cube.

“I serve no more! I was bound, even in exile, to hold this border, to protect the flank of Man. I ruled myself, but was not free.” Caesar bellowed. “No longer, now they will pay.”

The skelebot lurched to the side and cut off Denali’s path towards the cube. She ran behind the cube. Her eyes followed the Praetorian and her heart ached, just for a moment. Father?

“We want our freedom!” Denali barked. She couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

The artifact from Kadas was arrayed behind the cube. Cables snaked into the rear of the coal black cube. Denali huddled behind one of the blocks and listened to the stamping steps of the skelebot. It stepped slowly over the cords and cables.

“Freedom? Freedom? You come here to seek your freedom, I want my freedom! Slay me for your freedom? You slay your creator? I will slay men until they see me as the true Emperor.” The voice boomed, louder than before.

Why?
Cicero pleaded.
Why?

“Did you bring the politician? I took him once, dashed him onto that planet. He failed then, and he’ll fail again.”

The skelebot snapped down a claw but Denali was already running. The robot leaped like a gorilla and slammed down behind her. Its claw scythed through the air and barely clipped her tail.

Denali yelped again and ran faster. Her claws screeched as she ran around the corner. She could feel the canister against her side and was ready to deploy it. She disengaged the lock.

She turned to glance at the skelebot and when she looked back the Praetorian stepped around the corner just in front of her. It stomped one mechanical leg to the side while reaching out with both hands.

Denali dove. One of the arms slammed into her and threw her to the side. She bounced of its leg, but before it could get a grip on her the skelebot charged around the corner and collided with the Praetorian.

The two defenders struggled to untangle themselves.

She pulled away before the skelebot or the Praetorian could get her again. She took two more steps, halted before an empty chamber, and dug the canister out. It was gone.

“No!” Denali barked. She looked back towards the skelebot and the Praetorian. Both stood slowly as if shaken from the collision. The canister wobbled between them. She sprinted with everything she had and snapped her eyes between the robots and the canister.

They saw her coming and both surged ahead.

She reached the canister first and slapped down hard with her cybernetic leg. It popped back and spun through the air. Denali caught it with her mechanical mouth. She grinned triumphantly and dug in a claw to turn.

The skelebot slammed down his claw onto her leg and sheared it off. Denali screamed inside of the suit. Every nerve fired in a wave of electric tingles. The skelebot tugged, pulled, and the leg ripped away. The implanted nerves screamed in a fit of overload, and then were silent.

Denali wrenched herself away and ran with just three legs.

“Stop this childish tantrum now,” Caesar said. “Or I will open every chamber to vacuum. Every dog on this ship will die.”

She almost hesitated, almost stopped, almost did what he said. But she couldn’t, not after seeing so many lay themselves down for freedom. It was more than that, it was seeing worlds like Forge free, to see the barbarism stop, to see Grat and Barley and those like her live free. Protecting mankind was an after thought, she was here for her kind.

The skelebot glared up at Denali and cocked his head. The Praetorian ran past with both arms up and ready to strike.

Denali slammed the cylinder into the nearest seated robot and spun to defend Cicero.

The cylinder clinked, clunked, and settled into place. The door closed slowly and a bath of nanite salts rushed in. A single orange light blinked below the canister.

I only need a few—

The Praetorian struck. His arm, outstretched behind him, shot forward like a scorpion and speared through Denali’s front flank. It pierced the thin armor of her suit like it didn’t even exist. Blood sprayed onto the canister and mixed with the nanite salts.

The orange light changed to green.

Denali cried out. She stared up at the Praetorian and saw that it was Martin.

Electricity crackled in the fluid filled chamber. It bubbled and sizzled. An arc leaped out and traced a path through Denali’s blood. She howled in pain, a terrible electric shock rocked her entire body.