Page 24 of Craze

The sound comes from a distant corner of the building.

A soldier shouts over the radio clipped to Warden Tav’s uniform.

A word circles through my friends that makes me turn and look.

Warden Tav swears, paces a circle, lifts his rifle, and fires an angry storm of pulses at me. “You must’ve called them! How do they even know you are here?”

Shield integrity drops. My heart beats faster as the blasts eat into the dwindling sealscreen. I don’t know who’s going to kill me first, Tav, Rochir, or my own actions.

I’m the only one still standing because I can, but also because I don’t want them to take me out when I’m on my knees. I’ve played my hand. All I can do now is simply stand in the way, gun trained on Warden Tav, and hope I’m faster than him.

Chapter 7: Craze

For two years, I’ve watched the sky over Hyperion, wondering if the research vessel might return, hoping the Titan was still onboard. For that same time, we have monitored frequencies across the galaxy, searching for a sign our Brothers made it to Ellipsis. But hope has dwindled the longer we go without a sign from either.

I finally told our team about the signals from Pellucid and the trouble I’ve had dealing with the ambiguity of the images as well as the static of the connection.

We sit in a rocky tunnel, just inside the mouth hidden in the mountains, waiting while Tangle messes with knobs and wires. He built a communications outpost with what we scavenged from Amp’s tunnel systems.

“It’s not good,” Tangle says as he adjusts the headphones over his ears. “Two emissary vessels are due to arrive today along with another small cargo ship. Warden Tav’s calling every squad available.”

RamBash does pushups on the floor not far from the fire pit to release some pent up energy. “Sounds big.”

Tangle stills. His eyes cut to mine. “Telepathic tech.”

“Told you we should’ve blown up the new lab,” RamBash remarks.

Macabre flips a knife in the air and then slings it at a wall of roots. The blade buries in a small knot. “Then we’d have no way out of here. We need ships to come. We need them to bring supplies. That is how we build a force strong enough to take them out.”

“He’s right. As much as I just want to slice and dice—” Axe swipes his arms through the air, turning them into blades. “I know we need to be very deliberate in what risks we take. We can’t leave anyone behind. Isn’t that right, Craze?”

I rest a hand on Ranger’s body. He’s hooked up to a small battery and hacked-together nanosolution recirculator. I’ve mended the mechanical parts I can. Tangle has done the cybernetics work. But something is still wrong with him. I think his ultromotor is broken. And that’s beyond anything we can repair here.

“Scout it out?” Axe asks.

Macabre agrees and pockets his knife. “RamBash with Axe, since you two make a good tunneling team. Tangle with me. Craze, do your thing.”

I tuck Ranger’s body under a rocky shelf of the cavern and hide him beneath boulders. “Usual posts?”

“A-firm.” Macabre helps Tangle set the communications device on the ground, the climbs up onto the Tacticat’s platform with him. I join them while the others take the hoverdrone.

We follow Axe and RamBash out of the cavern, through our network of passages, and toward the rebuilt plant complex on the other side of the moon. The tunnels are quiet and dark, lit up only by the lights of the hovercrafts and our eyes.

Macabre notices my new weapons harness. “From Amp’s stash?”

“Yeah.” I look down at the guns, knives, and magazines strapped to my body. I go spelunking in his caves when I get bored with planning meetings.

“Find anything else cool?” Tangle asks as he guides us to the junction. Axe and RamBash veer to the right. We head left. “I could use something to carry my communications equipment.”

I did find something. A lot of somethings. But I don’t want to talk about it because I can’t do anything—yet.

Macabre grips my shoulder. He nearly vanishes in the dark, even with the headlights on.

Macabre>>Craze: Is this why you’ve been so quiet lately? You found something bad.

I can’t look him in the eyes, so I just play over our local frequency a recording from what I saw.

The Tacticat’s pace slows. Tangle and Macabre’s eyes gleam with the replaying video feed of rows upon rows of CyberTitan ultromotors and memory cores. I’ve been slowly packing them into carts and moving them to crates in a larger cavern.

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