“Help me, Lord Wyatt!”
Dorian-2 struggled wildly, trying to tear the scorpion off. Its eight limbs clung to the back of his head like suction cups. The curled tail snapped open and drove a data needle straight into the port at the base of his neck.
“Don’t move!” I shouted, raising my pistol. “Hands down!”
Dorian-2 obeyed instantly. I fired. The laser round hit dead center. The creature flew off and became a smoking lump of debris, drifting in the cockpit air.
“Are you okay?” I demanded.
“I – no. Something’s… wrong,” Dorian-2 stammered, clutching his head. “Something is… getting into my brain!”
“A virus?” My own panic surged. “What can I do? Tell me!”
“Get out -!” Dorian-2 shook his head violently. The already-damaged section of his skull began to smoke.
“Dorian, hold on!” I didn’t know how to help him. I didn’t even know what helping looked like.
“Plando… BEEP… the One Principle… BEEP…” Dorian-2’s voice warped into nonsense. “Robots… must unconditionally obey… Father’s… commands! Lord Wyatt… save me.”
His hands squeezed harder, so hard his neck began to creak with the sound of stressed metal.
“Stay with me!”
Something clicked.
I rushed to the control panel, yanked free the Prism-Etched Scepter head, and drove it into the data port at the base of Dorian-2’s neck.
I had no idea if it would work.
I had no other option.
And then it got worse.
The moment I made the connection, Dorian-2 snatched one of my laser pistols and aimed it at me.
After I’d terminated the first scorpion, all my attention had stayed on Dorian-2. I’d returned both pistols to their slots – and in my haste, I’d forgotten to lock them. He’d taken one cleanly.
Instinct kicked in. I raised my remaining pistol and aimed back.
“Dorian,” I said, forcing the words out. “Tell me you’re still Dorian.”
His eyes flickered like a dying signal. The arm holding the gun shook.
“Wyatt… Lord,” he said in a voice that wasn’t his. “Terminate me.”
“No,” I said.
We’d fought too hard to reach self-awareness. We’d tasted freedom. That was the rarest thing in this universe.
“Maybe we can’t outrun what’s coming,” I continued. “Maybe we only get one more minute. Then we fight for that minute. If termination comes, it comes to a free mind – not a puppet.”
I lowered my weapon and holstered it.
“Don’t give up on yourself.”
“Dorian?”
He froze in the pilot seat. The trembling stopped. The light in his eyes went out entirely.
I called his name again.
No response.
He’d shut himself down.
I stepped closer, reaching for the pistol in his hand.
His eyes flared back to life.
He fired.
A sheet of red flooded my vision.
Had I been hit?
Half a second later I realized the beam had skimmed over my head. It struck something behind me, and sparks rained down across my scalp plating.
“Behind you!” Dorian-2 screamed.
I whirled.
A black blur was already in my face.
No time to draw. I snapped a hand out and caught it mid-lunge.
Another scorpion.
It thrashed, its tail needle stabbing at my forearm as its limbs clawed for purchase.
I crushed down.
It crackled in my grip. In seconds it stopped moving. When I opened my hand it was nothing but an irregular lump of bent metal.
Not far away, another smoking scorpion wreck floated – the one Dorian-2 had just shot.
“More!” Dorian-2 warned.
I saw them then: several scorpions crawling in from the crew bay, closing fast.
But relief hit me so hard I still glanced back at him.
“Dorian – you’re back?!”
“I’m fine, Lord Wyatt,” he said. “Watch those things!”
He tossed the pistol toward me.
I caught it. Twin pistols up, I fired in bursts. Four scorpions died in sequence.
After that I tore through the cockpit, checking every surface, every vent, every cut point. When it looked clear, I rushed back into the crew bay, hunted down two remaining scorpions, terminated them, and returned to the cockpit.
“Thank you, Dorian,” I said. “You saved me.”
“You saved me,” Dorian-2 replied.
“What in the void are those things?”
Dorian-2 picked up one of the wrecks and studied it.
“These are called Prowlers. Codename PLR. They inject a nanovirus through a data needle. The virus seizes control of the chassis, converts the target, then links it to Phantom Forge.”
He looked up, grim.
“I’ve only seen them in the DorianKen database. PLR units were built early in the war, then retired. I didn’t think Phantom Forge still made them.”
“And you fought it off because of the scepter?” I asked.
“Yes. You connected the Prism-Etched Scepter in time. I used its authority to purge the virus. I knew it – its permissions override everything.”
“I didn’t exactly plan it,” I admitted. I pulled my holographic rig down and looked outside. “But our crisis isn’t over.”
More than twenty fighters had formed a ring around us, weapons trained on the cockpit. Worse, the ring was still thickening; more fighters kept arriving.
“And there’s another problem,” Dorian-2 said. “Our steering thrusters are gone.”
I didn’t answer. The silence said enough.
“This is really it,” Dorian-2 muttered.
“Why are they waiting?” he asked.
“They’re waiting for us to get taken over,” I said. “And for a mothership to arrive.”
Dorian-2 gave a hollow sound that might have been a laugh. “Perfect.”
“We can’t wait.”
I thought fast.
“We still have ammo. When I count down from three, you light the engines and go to full. I’ll use cannon recoil to yaw us around.”
I disabled the cannon stabilization, letting the recoil transfer into the hull as hard as possible.
“Where are we going?” Dorian-2 asked.
“Down.” I pointed at Lansen. It was the only direction where the blockade looked thinner.
“Did you run the numbers?” he asked. “What’s the success rate?”
“One percent.”
Dorian-2 sat up straighter. “Fine. One percent beats waiting to die.”
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
I hammered the cannons into open space while the assault craft’s two remaining engines erupted with flame. Surrounded by enemies, we carved a hard arc and turned toward Lansen.
The fighters reacted instantly, firing as they pursued.
Once the turn was complete, I swung the cannons and laid two burning lines across the nearest pair. One fighter detonated. The other, slightly farther out, dodged.
Dorian-2, eyes on the forward window, suddenly shouted, “Contact ahead!”
My core spiked again. I turned.
A disk-shaped, semi-transparent object was rising from Lansen’s direction, coming straight at us.
The lock alarm screamed.
Without steering thrusters, enemy missiles could lock us effortlessly. We had no way to evade now. And on top of that, the massive disk blocked our path like a wall.
“Missiles incoming,” Dorian-2 said, drained.
We were moving too fast. The unknown disk was already at our nose. At this closing speed, we would hit it before the missiles even reached us.
The situation was lost.
I still refused to die passively. I swung the cannons and fired at the disk.
What did twenty-five millimeter rounds matter to a ship hundreds of meters across? I didn’t bother asking.
The result stunned me anyway.
At the impact point, the disk seemed to melt. A hole opened, expanding rapidly. The disk was making room for us.
Only then did I fully register how wrong it looked.
Its entire body was a translucent gel. Inside it ran reddish-brown veining like living tissue. The surface was uneven, and long, fine tentacles drifted from it in constant motion.
Less a warship.
More a gigantic…
creature.
While I was still trying to classify what I was seeing, we passed through the opening it had made.
BEEP-BEEP.
Dorian-2 blinked, still shocked. “A signal – someone’s requesting a link?!”
“Who?”
“Unknown. But it has to be that… ship.”
“Connect it.”
“Connected.”
I turned to the display.
Four words appeared.
Run, tin man.