With John joining the melee, we stand a chance for survival. Confidence radiates through my limbs, joining the buzz of adrenaline. Before spinning around to concentrate on my own objective, I notice ARC10 trembling.
At first, it seems like my eyes are tricking me. But no, the whole ship is wavering in the air.
I need to get higher. Frantically climbing, I hoist myself up a stone wall to stand on a roof.
It's true. ARC10 is breaking apart. Agonizing screeches pierce the air as the sides of my ship break from the main, jagged body.
I drop to my knees.
No. I didn't see enemy fire. What the hell is happening?
Hope floods from my body.
How will we make it to NOHA? How will we survive this if our only escape is shattering mid-air?
The screeching metal death of ARC10 rings louder and louder. I look up, covering my ears, expecting to see it crumbling from the sky, raining metal sheets and our Earth artifacts onto this strange, inhospitable planet. I expect the heat of the explosion at any second.
But there's nothing. No explosion.
Five sides have broken off the ship and form. They attach to the girth of the ship at their middle. From those broken parts, another piece detaches. They bend like knees.
They begin to move, swiping at the ground in sync with one another. Their ends touch down.
Its abrupt scuttling is so familiar, I squint at it, consider it, try to connect it to all the biological entities I've ever known. Its malformed body rests among the five grotesque legs and for a second, I can't imagine any creature from Earth with a gait that haunting. Its staggered gait reminds me of an injured spider — one with legs made of two screws badly-welded together.
I balk.
It moves like John.
I fall backward on my ass, gasping and choking on the harsh intake of air.
ARC10 is one giant Xani.
There was no Xani army in the ship with us. It was the ship itself communicating.
As ARC10 lurches toward the rocky forest, hope returns.
The people are going to be just fine. We all will be.
My confidence is at full volume again — I leap off the small building and sprint with long strides through the streets, the bulls detect me and change direction back to the abandoned marketplace.
I need to find a Meltronian. They're the ones behind this. My gut knows it.
Yaks in various states of decomposition litter the ground. Some are nothing more than skin and bones — as if their insides had been sucked dry. The tentacles of sand still work at others.
Leaping over their hollowed corpses, I head for the dias and climb it to survey the scene.
ARC10 still rumbles in the distance, lifting its legs to squash whatever's underneath. Glittering soldiers line the ground smashed up with black sand streaking their bodies. I can see the white crowds of my people running for the ship.
Once we're back onboard, I'm going to have a serious talk with them about their Xani cultural relations.
Once I've confirmed all is still clear over there, I return to my current situation.
Bulls charge at me dead ahead.
I leap from the platform and take off in the direction I remember our container rolled from. There might be answers there.
"Halt!" A voice shouts. Three golden soldiers appear from around the corner and point their sticks at my heart. "Remain where you are."
"Like hell I will." I spin toward them, ducking down to grab the black sand. I throw it at the left guard's face. When he stumbles back, I grab his neck, throw him to the ground with my bare hands and kick in the second guard's knees. A gold spear hits me hard in the shoulder, slicing my skin. It stings. I pick up one of the fallen soldier's spears and aim it at the third.
The weapon is clunky in my hand.
Of all the objects I've ever trained with, this one has never been on the roster. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.
Trying to get the sharp end into the fleshy part of the soldier, I lunge. He ducks and easily slaps the spear from my hands. I roll and obtain it again, crouching down and mimicking his posture.
"Do not attempt to fight or flee–" his words are a calculated dance. I can almost hear the next sentence before he even utters them. "...and no harm will come to you."
"Sorry. People from Earth have major trust issues these days."
His brown eyes harden from behind his helmet. "We are from the same mother. I am also of Earth."
I pause. Confusion scrambles my previous thoughts.
Lies.
More and more lies.
I swipe my spear across his neck. He dodges easily.
"The people will be safe." He returns to his defensive position.
"Yeah, I've been hearing that a lot." I break the spear over my knee and wield the point like a knife. Much better.
He jabs at me, but now that I don't have a six-foot pole slowing me down, I drop to the ground and swing my legs under him. He falls and I cut right through the only part of him untouched by gold. Blood cascades down his neck. Another feast for the sand.
The others rise. I run before I have to end any more humanoid life.
I take another spear and break off the tip. Holding a spearhead in each hand, I search for more standing in my way.
No more golden soldiers follow me. No yaks either. I run through the streets, checking for signs of my son in each alley and cross street.
The city is eerie in its new silence. My bare feet pattering against the pebbled ground becomes cacophonous. Soon, a familiar sound joins.
Tik tik tik tik tik.
I pivot and face John, his head a misshapen bulb of goo dangling from his torso. I grimace away from his gelatinous jaw hanging from a thick chunk of the orange flakes that used to be his neck.
"John! I thought they killed you."
I throw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his torso. His upside-down, flopping chin pokes me under my armpit. I nuzzle the flaky skin of his chest.
I'm about to let go until I feel the heat radiating from his core. One of his spindly legs presses down on my shoulder.
"We have to go." I step back.
John whizzes in that same excited fashion I know so well. He spins around as if to head back to ARC10, his orange torso rising, waiting for me to follow.
"No, this way." I walk in the opposite direction.
His legs jitter.
"I'm searching for my son. I won't go back until I find him."
He pounds his front claws into the ground.
"No."
Under his torso, he whistles low as he releases steam from his hydraulics.
"You can come with me or go back, I don't care. I'm going this way."
We're at a standstill. His body points toward ARC10, mine toward the heart of the city.
After a few beats, I realize John isn't going to help. I give him one final frustrated grunt before storming off in the other direction.
His shadow overtakes me. The gears under his belly rattle as he rises over my head.
I skid away from his pounce. "What are you going to do?" I yell. "Carry me back? With what hands, John?"
He pounces again, this time knocking me on my back.
"Get off! Help me or get out of my way." I kick at his underside. His gears slash my already busted feet.
One of his legs extends. It cracks at its minute joints until it curls.
I see what he's doing. "Don't you dare!"
Fast as a flash, he traps my ankle in his grasp.
"Why the hell does everyone think they can drag me around like this?" I attempt to pry his leg off me. "I can do what I want."
He ignores me.
"Let me go," I scream, struggling to lift myself up and grab at his sharp leg as it cuts into my skin.
I barely register the shadow that creeps up behind me. A flash of light catches my eye, and as I swivel around, I see the glint of gold pulled from the breast pocket of a long black coat by a black-gloved hand.
"John, move!" My panic rises. He must sense it. He rolls to the side, clutching me close to his underbelly with his legs.
"Most repulsive unit yet." The blackened figure says, circling us, his boots crunching the gravel so softly, I barely realize he's moved.
I force myself to calm down. To tell John that we can fight this thing together, but he has to let me go. As soon as the thought occurs, he whips me out from under him, propelling me to stand on wobbly legs, righting himself at my side.
The sand consumes the blood under my feet. I dance in place as my old fighting instructors taught. On top of it all, I have to worry about the sand from sucking me dry and killing me too.
The black-coated figure's single eye widens as he watches me hobble about. The gold socket remains complacent.
I know this man.
It's the drunk from the bar. I remember the gold socket, the strands of black hair obscuring the intense gaze from his natural eye.
He throws his head back and laughs. "This was the planet all along? Oh, Juno. You tricky bitch," he says, staring at the tentacle under my foot.
I hop closer to John.
The man snaps back to attention. "Are you trying to die? Get away from that thing." He thrusts the gold bar clutched in his black-gloved hand down, expanding it to a long spear of pure gold. He rushes toward us, the spear high above his head.
John and I shove away from each other. I roll to the ground far enough away to watch the man swing around and hew John's head clear off his neck.
"No!" I rush to his side. His head lands in a crater of little black pebbles, his nose and what is left of the left side of his face protrudes. It lands as if he's peering out of the ditch, his mouth wide and silently screaming into a darkened, friendless void.
His mechanical body crumples.
"John! No!" I can't take this anymore. I can't handle the death of everything I care about. As I kneel by his head, the tentacles slurp at the blood under my feet. I don't care. I'm done. The only sensation my body perceives is the heat of rage burning from my ashy heart.
The man holds his followthrough position while gawking at me through his curtain of thick black hair. "Who the hell is John?"
I rush at him, my two spearheads clutched in my battered, hands. His neck is an easy target until he ducks and bashes me in the ribs with the stick of his spear. The wind knocked from my lungs, I pause to fill them, consciously regulating my breathing until they're inflated again. I glare at the ground, squeezing the spearheads between my fingers.
Lifting my gaze, setting my sights on his neck, I charge again.
He sidesteps, avoiding my knives aimed for his gullet. He smacks me in the back, shoving me to my knees. I attempt to kick his legs out from under him, but he jumps over them. He spins the stupid spear above his head like the old helicopters and drops down, poised to strike. I leap up and charge again, ducking under his arms to stab at his ribs.
He dodges my every move.
We weave around each other, circling and circling back until I'm breathless. I spin around and jab under his armpit. He pivots around me and whirls the spear in some fancypants bullshit move that gives me the perfect opportunity to knee him in the balls.
He crumbles to the floor, groaning. "I'm trying to save you, you idiot."
"You just cut off my friend's head," I scream at him, dropping onto his body, straddling his chest and holding his arms to his side with the strength in my legs.
He wiggles below me. "Are you serious?"
I cross the sharpest edge on the spearheads over his throat. His Adam's apple bobs against the metal.
"You killed my friend," I repeat. "Now I'm going to kill you."
Much to my shock and frustration, the stranger chuckles. It's a single note, drummed from the depths of his chest between my legs, resonating like an echo in a cave until it bursts out.
"It doesn't need a head." He continues his loud, mocking laughter. "I've shocked its nerve-wires. It'll be back."
"He'll grow his head back?"
"No."
"Then how is this going to be fine?" I press the blades closer to his throat. "Maybe I should give him yours."
"Jesus fucking Christ, what kind of feral inbred stupidity is running rampant on that shit-stain of a planet? Are you all this moronic? I'm trying to save you from being impaled by this murderous, mindless, robot ghoul."
I squeeze my legs tighter around him. "I don't need anyone to save me."
Squirming again, he scowls. "How about the rest of those worms down there?" His eye shifts toward where I know ARC10 must be collecting civilians by now. "They all seem pretty pathetic. I can protect them on my ship."
My knees are getting tired from keeping his arms in my control. But I have to continue. "Which ship? That one?" I nod behind me toward the vessel shaped like a gold mountain.
"No. That hell hole is not my ship. Mine," he slips his arm from under my knee to point at the shimmering blue ship.
Lifting my leg, I stomp down on his hand with my bare, bloody foot. I hold the other arm down with my shin.
"Mine is the far superior ship in which you and the remaining population of Earth are all willingly invited to inhabit if you'd stop being so fucking stupid and listen to the voice of reason when it's trying to save your ass."
I don't do well with commands from anyone who is not my own superior officer. This dude can fuck off.
I squeeze the spearheads closer together, drawing a line of blood around his neck. "We're not going anywhere with you."
"You an especially thick one, aren't you? There is a universe out there that is cruel and harsh and unlike anything your infantile experience could ever prepare you for. Do you really think you'll survive?" He sits straight up, throwing me off him.
He barely bends his knees before, in a strange rush of superhuman strength, rises, looming over as I crab walk backward. When I bump into John's remains, I realize that I'm not dealing with just any regular man. There's something very different about him.
"You will come with me. You will do as you're told. And you will not do anything to make me fucking mad."
Who the hell does this guy think he is? I'm about to scramble up and bolt when one of John's legs juts out from behind me and pierces the asshole through the gut.
I grin as I hear John's motor clink to life. Just in time.
To my horror, the stranger doesn't even appear to be shocked at being impaled.
He takes one patient breath and exhales. "Are we done here? May we go now?"
I pat John gently and use his frame to help me up off the ground. "Keep him busy while I go find my baby." I turn to sprint away.
"It's your baby?" the man says, dangling off of John's spike.
My heart stops. I spin around slowly. "What do you know about him?"
"I know who has him."
"Tell me and I'll have you released."
"Come to my ship and I'll tell you. But on the condition that you leave this demonic toolbox behind."
This feels childish. "How do I know you actually have the information?"
The man rolls his single eye. "Tiny, underdeveloped weakling fetus, locked in a vitali-can injected with what I assume is a cocktail of your placenta along with a dash of miscellaneous preservatives and juices from our friends around the galaxy. Does that sound familiar?"
My heart flutters.
"I know who has him."
A direction. But can I trust this man? John doesn't seem to think so. But it's my child. I need to find him. I need to bring him home.
"Fine," I say. "On the condition that the people of ARC10 remain on my ship and trail us."
He is about to protest. I can tell. But he doesn't. It's the same open-mouth, pinched look is one that is oddly familiar. It's one I'd seen on Dean a million times before when he reluctantly concedes.
"Agreed. But first, tell your robotic cockroach to let me down."
I remove my hand from John's leg and nod. He lowers the man to the ground. As he steps back, the wound on his chest closes as if nothing was ever wrong with it to begin with. Lines of blood trickle from around the hole where a blade used to inhabit in his chest. But the man seems completely unharmed.
He stands straight and gestures toward the ship behind him. The one that glimmers blue like an ocean. An ocean right up against a mountain.
As I walk past him, I decide that if this man is going to be the one to help me get my baby back, we might as well start on better terms. I did try to kill him, after all. "I'm Commander Janika Lorn of ARC10, Reaper of Earth's militia and commanding officer of the 2nd battalion of SOCOM VIPER."
He grumbles as he falls in line next to me. John ambles drunkenly behind us. "None of that means anything to me."
This guy really knows exactly how to get under a person's skin. "So who are you?"
He swivels his spear until it retracts. When it's the same length as his forearm, he drops it into an inner breast pocket and closes his coat. As we approach the busy city where blue soldiers relentlessly slaughter the cows and push back the gold soldiers, his voice rumbles low and clear. "Captain Shin-Hyun Moon of the HMS Valediction."
I raise an eyebrow. This guy's a ship captain?
"And your new commander."
I can't help it. I don't why it happens. I snort and laugh.