Tyger regretted his having agreed to leave the soldier to her separate work. He didn’t like being alone out here, especially with those jigsaw monsters still creeping about.
What am I to her anyway? He thought. One moment, she was stoic and near-fatalistic when given an opportunity for combat; the next moment, she was aggressively flirtatious in word, action, and scent, drawing him into bed with her.
Forcing that lurid avenue from his mind, he refocused his thoughts down a more productive avenue. Would he be able to isolate the virus as easily as he suggested? As much as he hated to acknowledge it, he was being slowly consumed by the distinct impression that he might not be able to save the ship.
And even if he did, and he and the soldier managed to escape this rock in one piece, what would become of them both?
“I don’t really even know her,” he at last admitted to no one.
And no sooner than he’d spoken, another thought intruded into the already crowded room that was his working mind. Perhaps there was little else to know about her. She wasn’t free to think as his crewmates were. They were branded as traitors and made pariahs for daring to have an independent thought. At the end of the day a strict routine of indoctrination meant that aside from the dubiously happy coincidence of learning about sex, she didn’t truly know how to be anything but a soldier.
And yet, he still cared for her. Creator only knew why.
A certain familiarity began to assert itself into Tyger’s surroundings as he pressed on, and he found that he was no longer lost. When the unnerving barricade between himself and the clearing now loomed before him, his momentary confusion gave way to relief, and then, fear. Recalling his mate’s warnings, Tyger drew his machete and stepped warily towards the building’s open door.
My kingdom for some riss, he thought. Though he rarely indulged in the narcotic aphrodisiac, he liked how it made him feel. But in situations of high stress, where fear was little more than a massive inconvenience, it was a godsend, bringing clarity and more courage than should have been legal.
So far, so good, He thought as with great trepidation, he stepped into the spacious hangar, and made his way hurriedly into the El Tigre’s open lower starboard personnel door. Leaving nothing to chance this time, he pressed the button and sealed it shut behind him instead of leaving it open.
An urgent premonition drove him on, up the ladder and into the cockpit. Sheathing his machete, he crawled awkwardly to the next level, risking a peek first before rising fully onto the floor of the bulkhead. Satisfied, he slid into the pilot’s seat.
“Okay, you green jigsaw assholes,” Tyger murmured as he opened up the code interface for the ship’s computer, “we can’t chop through your root, but I’m betting I can hack your root code to hell.”
Pip, the Shadow Star’s diminutive tech tank had been a good teacher, even better than the veteran techies from his years in the Gestalt pits on Siberna. She did however, lack a sense of sportsmanship. She would have had no qualms about infecting an opponent’s CPU with extreme prejudice for a quick win, but Tyger’s sense of fair play had yet to trump the need to show off his skills. Today, however, he threw that inhibition to the wind. He worked as quickly as he could and discovered to his fortune that this thing was vulnerable to a variety of false back doors and feedback loops that he installed with relative ease.
Actually, for lack of a better word, they were downright stupid.
“Well, that was easier than expected,” he said to himself after witnessing the ship’s obsolete OS display the swiftness of the intruding code’s reaction to his alterations. It stopped –at least for now– to follow what amounted to be an endless path of junk subroutine breadcrumbs leading nowhere. However, if they were growing in intellect, there was no telling how long this makeshift breathing space would last. But at least it was something.
A sudden, distant booming noise, followed immediately by a slightly closer, yet still distant rattling sensation, brought a renewed piercing fear into his heart like a halberd to a Gestalt’s chest cavity. Tyger leaped from the pilot’s seat, and sped across the cockpit. Grabbing his machete, he slid down into the cargo bay –and promptly fell flat onto his backside, having lost his footing in his rush.
A swift, unexpected movement caught his eye as he attempted to stand. He flinched at the last second, his left ear feeling the sharp graze of a solid black bludgeon from the creature that had awaited him below. Judging from the massive dent it created, he realized that he’d narrowly missed having his head taken off.
“How nice of you to finally show yourself,” Tyger growled, half in relief, half energized by renewed adrenaline. He rolled across the floor, attempting to move out of the creature’s range. But his tail trailed behind him, and was the last to make it to where he was. He was informed of this fact in no uncertain terms by a tidal wave of sudden pain that ripped through his body directly from the hapless appendage. Through a scream of agony that he would later assume could be heard from space, combined with tear-blurred vision, Tyger squinted in the direction of the bio-mechanical nightmare, reeling, and struggling to concentrate. It had leaped closer, its dense wheels landing on the end of his tail.
It swung for its face, but Tyger managed to dodge with inches to spare. He grasped at the vine that held the bludgeon and yanked it back, the force of his heave causing the creature to clatter across the floor. It gave him enough time to gain at least some of his bearings and use the ladder to heft himself to his feet. He lurched to his right, his sense of balance skewed by his injury. Pain was flooding through his spine from his tail and he was fairly certain that several bones had been crushed.
Like the robot toys that he owned as a child, the creature righted itself in a flurry of appendages, then charged forward. It spun its bludgeon in the air, and hurled it towards him. Tyger dodged again, keeping a narrow crate between him and it, using his grip to maintain some semblance of steadiness, while his opposite hand fumbled for his machete. Suddenly, the creature leaped forward with astonishing speed, careening over the crate and towards him. Tyger punched wildly –and connected– sending it clattering back on the ground about seven or eight feet away. It spewed a mist of black webbing from its underside that gave off an acidic stench when it hit the floor. Taking the initiative Tyger closed the distance between him and the creature.
The monstrosity managed to right itself the moment he arrived. As it reared its bludgeon back for a well-aimed blow, Tyger thrust his machete forward, still half-blind with tears of pain, bisecting what he supposed was the creature’s face.
He shuffled back as far as he could go, avoiding the dissolved part of the floor as the creature’s wrecking ball slammed wildly back and forth making thunderous pounding noises in the echoing cargo bay, foul black ichor pouring from its wounds. The creature flailed madly for a few moments before finally slowing down, and eventually stopping. Using a nearby crate as purchase to rise to his feet, Tyger stepped ungainly back towards the unmoving creature. A swipe with his machete sliced through its appendage, releasing the black ball soundly onto the floor. In a similar move to that of the soldier hours before Tyger sliced through the remaining flesh of the creature and used his foot to separate the halves leaving the pulp that used to be its body shuddering like the death throes of a crushed cockroach.
After letting his blood pressure settle before the next unwelcome adventure, Tyger wrapped his tail gingerly about his waist, grimacing with each shock of throbbing pain that shot through its end. He ascended the ladder and located the first aid kit in its compartment behind the cockpit. Within a minute, he’d shot himself full of nanomeds.
“Dammit,” Tyger muttered, staring at the kit’s contents strewn out on the console. The nanomeds were a quick and dirty fix at best. They would repair the damage to a certain extent and deal with the pain, but for the bones to set properly, he knew he would need proper medical care, or else they would have to be broken again.
He had barely a moment to catch his breath when he heard another distant rumbling, one that came through the walls of the ship. Now in a better position to act, he slid back down the ladder into the cargo bay, moving more cautiously, and warier for the possibility of another creature.
As he made his way to the hatch, avoiding the pockmarks, acid burns, and puddles of slippery, nauseating ichor, then pressed it open, the soldier’s voice reached his ears, her war cry piercing the surrounding silence of the hangar. No sooner than the hatch had opened wide enough to squeeze through, he barreled out of the El Tigre, urgency and fear nearly overriding common sense. But the dulled pain from his wound slowed him, and he pushed forward with more caution than he’d started. Whatever the commotion outside was, he was eager to reach it, as well as and his mate, praying that she was okay.
