Page 6 of Exiles on Earth
Immediately, the gun turret eyeing up Arik spins to face Arture as the threat. Arik and I lash out with kicks at the same time, trying to crush the bot between us. We trap the bot but our blows don’t even dent it, and the barrel swivels between us.
Arture’s prosthetic shifts again, and this timehe fires up a blowtorch and begins cutting through the chain on his other arm, grunting as the heat hits his scales. I watch with muscles twitching; if he does irreparable damage to his wrist, he’ll need yet another attachment, and Arture’s keen to remain as organic as he can.
The welding gets the attention of the bot Arik and I are still holding, and it tries to pivot. I smash my foot into its aiming beacon, heel grinding metal, and duck as the other bot fires. I take a searing beam to the shoulder but my scales go hard just in time and the beam ricochets toward Dom.
Dom leans forward and headbutts the beam. It clangs off his headplate and into the other bot, which screams with singed circuitry.
“Nice bounce,” Arik says.
Dom grunts and grins.
Arture shears through the chain length, still with manacles around his wrists, and gets into a crouch underneath the bot’s spider legs. He slid so fast it doesn’t seem to see him. “Who’s next, Ilia?”
“Gara, he can help you decode the autopilot.”
“I only know ‘oh drok’ and ‘double drok,’” Gara protests. “Get Dom, he can act as a shield in case there are more bots in the gangway between here and the pilot’s console.”
As if it understood that, the bot Arik and I tackled between our legs seizes Dom’s throat between its pincers. Dom grunts, hands straining against the chains pinning him to the wall. His scales sweep up his neck, dark black to camouflage and purple for strength. The bot leans in, squeezing tight, and something gives in Dom’s neck, red flooding down his bare chest. Blood.
I roar, kicking out. The bot trying to slice Dom’s head off is bashed back, but it’s already too late.
It’s unleashed calamity.
Red ripples up my arms and I tear the chains off the wall as I lunge forthe bot. Muscles pulsing, I wrench it backward and stamp on crumbling circuitry, each blow pounding into the metal floor below, filling my ears with ringing. Once it’s crushed flat, I shove what remains into the other bot and send it whirling down the other side of the cargo hold, likely in a recovery status.
Without stopping to check, I press my manacled hands on either side of Dom’s neck to stem the bleeding, shielding him with my body. The big clone’s head lolls, eyes fluttering shut, and my hearts seize.
“He’s fine,” Arik says mildly, rubbing his own throat. “He spread the load of the injury through all our scales.”
Sure enough, Arik’s chained hands part to reveal his purple scales, dented blue and black with injury.
I close my eyes briefly, relief washing over me. Parthiastocks often spread physical and emotional effects across all three of them through their unique bond.
Dragging my own chains, I use the remains of my Gerverstock strength to rip out the couplings keeping my crew pinned, and heave Dom upright. My back aches, but I ignore it to pull Dom over my shoulder. “Get to the console. Arture will cut these shackles off us after we deal with the more immediate emergency.”
Nodding, they run bent double, gathering up the chains as they go. I bring up the rear, the remaining bot’s metal legs screaming as it tries to follow.
We crouch up the cramped corridor, stooping further as we get to the cockpit, and I have to lay Dom at my feet and tug him behind me. At the doorway, Arture hunkers down. “I don’t have the access codes to enter.”
“I don’t need them.” I look at my fist, a surge of energy racing up my arms.
Gara wraps his green hand over my own. “You’re using your strength too much, you’ll pull yourself apart.”
A fair trade for my crew’s lives, but the faces surrounding me are grim. “We’ve faced impossible odds before,” I tell them. “We’ve come out of it because we worked together. Arture, will cutting the power to it hack the door?”
He frowns for a moment, running some calculations impossibly fast. “I estimate an eighty six percent probability of success. Gara, we need some surgery.”
Gara crowds past Nevare to get to his side, chewing his lip as he surveys the panel. “One surgical procedure, coming up.” He beckons to Nevare. “You tell me when the electrical current shifts.”
“Yes.” Nevare squats next to him, eyes closed. Like his wave brothers Dom and Arik, Nevare’s a big male, his face settling into quieter, more serene expressions than Dom’s permanent scowl and Arik’s wide smile.
Gara punches through the panel, and yet another alarm adds to the blitz of noise. He grabs the wires seemingly at random, but he pulls together a power connection that bypasses the identification panel.
Nevare stiffens. “Now!”
Gara drops the wires, and lights flash once and then die, but the door doesn’t open.
“Drok na,” he mutters, fingers moving fast as he tries something else.
