Simon raised his arm to shield his eyes from the bright light of the blast, which overpowered the ominous red lights from the ceiling. The heat didn’t even reach him. Not even a second after the fire appeared, it disappeared into a silvery mist that vanished in moments. An invisible shockwave hit Simon with a deep ringing noise, and he felt the Spirit inside of him shiver violently, as if it had been doused in ice water.
The drone stood unharmed. One of its four clawed arms was raised, the crystal in the center of its ‘hand’ glowing. Kate stared dumbstruck, then leaped to the side as one of the other arms pointed at her. A silvery lance-like projectile formed and shot out from the crystal on the drone’s arm, flying through the air and striking the wall. The lance broke apart against the wall, like glass, before dissipating. Simon didn’t think it would shatter like that if it struck flesh.
Kate dived behind a console, out of sight. Simon saw the drone turn to him, and his eyes widened. Right, he was a part of this fight, not just an observer. The drone lifted another hand. Simon ran for cover, but he felt his feet lift off the ground. He hovered in the air, stuck, losing any sort of leverage. The air shimmered with silvery light around him. The drone had captured him in some kind of gravity manipulation. It wasn’t using conventional weapons; it was using skills.
The last arm lifted. Simon wasn’t sure what this one would do, but he had no way of escape. He curled up, trying to make himself a smaller target. The crystal pulsed, and Simon squeezed his eyes shut.
He felt a friction graze his arm, as if he’d just fallen off a moving car and skidded across asphalt at eighty miles an hour. Surprised he wasn’t dead, Simon opened his eyes to see Kate grabbing onto the drone’s arm, wrestling with it.
The drone gripped her by the leg and pulled her off. The drone gripped her leg and yanked her off, hurling her toward a desk. Simon braced for her to crumple to the floor on impact, but she halted mid-air upon contact, landing nimbly on her feet.
Simon felt the pull of gravity and gasped in shock as he fell to the ground. His Opal reactions kicked in, and he somehow found himself landing gracefully on his feet.
The drone looked back to him, then Kate. It raised its arms defensively, claws clicking. Simon forced himself to think. Each of the arms had used a different power in turn. If it used skills, did it have a cooldown?
Another blast of fire erupted around the drone’s left side. It was a much smaller blast than the first. The drone turned, but Simon noticed something. One of the arms that had taken the brunt of the attack lagged slightly behind, almost like it was limp.
“Kate! Aim for the joints!” Simon yelled.
He wasn’t sure if she’d heard. The drone raised one of its arms. Another lance-like projectile formed and shot out towards Kate, who managed to duck under the attack. The extended arm of the drone erupted in a small fire. When it cleared, the liquid joint trembled, and the arm lowered, swaying slightly.
Simon counted under his breath. It had used the same arm for both lance attacks.
The drone must have realized that range didn’t have much of an advantage for it, and it began to move. Unfortunately, it was quick. The drone's legs moved as smoothly as its arms, and it quickly advanced towards Kate. That kinetic skill of hers would still be on cooldown. Simon cursed. Before he could think about how stupid of an idea it was, he charged.
The drone shifted to face him. Simon jumped, hoping to maybe get onto the drone and strike one of its red eyes. Instead, an arm swiped through the air and struck him in the stomach. The wind was knocked out of him, and a second later he landed hard on the ground. He struggled to regain his breath, but then a searing pain erupted in his side, making him forget all about less pressing things like breathing. Simon forced himself to move, the pain scraping across his hip as he rolled behind a nearby desk.
Simon looked down, seeing his clothing torn where the pain had been. The flesh beneath was raw and bloody, the skin shredded away. What the hell was that? An abrasion beam? It felt like being hit with a sandblaster. That must have been one of the arms’ skills, but he hadn’t seen which.
Simon pressed a hand on the wound and used his healing skill. He felt a surge of relief as the pain quickly subsided. He checked the cooldown, which was less than a minute. That attack hurt like a bitch but didn’t seem nearly as dangerous as the opening attack.
The sound of a fiery blast pulled Simon back to the present. He pulled himself back up to his feet. The drone had shifted its focus back on Kate.
“Simon, call your clone!”
Simon blinked in shock, looking around. It hadn’t been Kate’s voice that yelled at him. It was Justus, and it had come from above. Simon looked up and noticed for the first time that there were small intercoms in the corners. He only spotted them because Justus spoke again.
“My system is connected, but I can’t turn off the drone. There’s a manual override for the doors, but it takes two people. You’ll need to distract it. Simon! Stop looking at the speaker and summon your clone!”
Simon shook himself, recovering from the shock of unexpected help. With a snap of his Spirit, he severed the thin line that connected him to his clone. He ignored the memories. The familiar throb in his skull barely registered this time—an effect of reaching peak opal or just the adrenaline drowning it out. There was no cooldown on his Simulacrum skill; he focused his Spirit again, wisps of light flying from his skin.
The clone appeared, like a pale spectre in the red of the room, and charged the second it did. The drone was driving Kate into a corner as she desperately dodged its many arms. The clone came up from behind the drone. It leapt into the air and drop-kicked the eight-armed robot hard enough to make two of its legs stumble. The body twisted, the legs smoothly shifting under it. The clone raised its fists to its chin and hopped in place, boxing style. Simon felt a twinge of secondhand embarrassment, worsened by the knowledge that the clone was pretty much himself.
The display worked, apparently, and the drone swiped. While it was focused on him, Kate scrambled away towards the consoles on the other side of the room, hiding behind them. Simon followed behind her. Her labored breathing made it clear she was exhausted, but she seemed more angry than tired or scared.
“Where’s the override?” she asked.
Simon was about to tell her he didn’t know, but Justus responded first.
“The override is controlled by two switches near the front, on the two largest consoles. You need to hold down a square green button and then twist a red switch underneath it clockwise and hold them there for five seconds, then release the green button. You have to do it at the same time.”
Kate and Simon locked eyes. They shared a quick nod of understanding, then both got up and leapt over the station they were hiding behind. They rushed past the drone nearby, which was currently trying to grab Simon’s clone, only to narrowly miss with each swipe. The clone was no longer its usual bright white, but a light gray.
Simon crashed into the console, quickly scanning the dozens of buttons to find the one Justus was talking about. He found it near the top right and looked back to the drone. One of arms slammed into the clone’s side, and the light gray silhouette flickered, becoming more dull. The clone hit the ground and rolled, narrowly dodging a follow-up swipe.
“Simon!” Kate said, pulling his attention back to the task at hand. “On three! One, two, three!”
Simon punched the green button, then reached down for the red switch and flicked it.
Something crashed over him, causing his Spirit to shake violently. A rush of memories of a fight with the drone flashed through his mind. Simon knew what happened immediately, and his instincts took over. He abandoned the button and dove for Kate, tackling her to the ground. A fiery explosion erupted from the console, sending sparks and flames bursting from the metal frame.
Simon looked up to see the drone facing them across the room with an arm raised. He felt Kate pulling him and scrambled to follow her behind the workstation.
“Got a plan B?” Kate looked at the ceiling.
“Working on it. I’m trying to see if I can disable the lockdown, but half this interface is in a language I can’t read.”
“What about the hatches?” Simon asked, turning to Kate. Her eyes went wide.
“Distract it with your clone?” she asked.
Simon checked his reserves, then shook his head. “Only one more. If it’s destroyed, I won’t have the Spirit left to summon another.”
The thudding of the robot was getting closer. Simon peeked over to see it lumbering closer. It wasn’t moving as fast as it did while fighting Kate and the clone. Was it being cautious or conserving energy? The drone lifted a hand. Simon cursed and grabbed Kate by the arm.
The ground left their feet, gravity losing its pull on them. Both of them reached for the console but were pulled up too fast. Simon saw a glow come from the drone and turned to see its chest panel open once more, the crystals glowing.
“Sorry!” Kate said.
Before Simon could wonder why she was sorry, he felt both her feet smash into his hip. The kick sent her flying back and sent him flying forward. A rush of heat flashed between them with a deafening whine, vanishing in a moment into smoke. Simon passed the area of gravity distortion and fell back to the floor, landing on his back. He rolled and dashed up, heading to one of the buttons that controlled the hatches.
While he ran, wisps of light trailed from him and formed into a clone. The clone charged the drone. Simon didn’t waste time looking back. He reached the panel and lifted the small glass cover before slamming the button down. The sound of scraping metal filled him with relief. He turned to look where the sound had come from, noticing the hole on the floor.
“Kate, it’s open, come—” His momentary victory fell apart when the open hatch slammed shut, much faster than it had the first time. He looked up, where Kate stood, having already been rushing to the now closed means of escape.
Simon leapt over the workstation, out of sight of the drone still occupied with trying to get rid of the clone. Kate vaulted over him a few seconds later, crouching down to take cover. She looked up.
“Justus, what happened?”
“The lockdown must be affecting the escape hatches. I’m trying what I can, but I don’t think I can override the lockdown. I’m going to make my way to you. My decay skill might let me weaken the doors enough for you to take them out with a kinetic blast. Try not to die before I get there.”
“Real motivational,” Simon muttered. “I’ve got a different idea. You get to the hatch and wait. I’ll press the button, and you go in as soon as it opens.”
“What about you?”
“I have a clone, I’ll have it—”
Just then, a blur of grey streaked above them and slammed into the wall. The clone burst into weak wisps of light, which faded to nothing. It hadn’t lasted much more than half the time it had before. The drone was getting better, learning as it fought.
“Just go!” He told Kate. “I’ll figure out something.”
“I’m not leaving you! Figure out something now. I’ll distract it.”
Simon reached out to stop her, but Kate was already moving. Simon heard a blast of fire as she used her skill. He cursed under his breath, smacking his head on the metal back of the workstation in frustration. He had to think. What did he know? Concentrating, he looked back on all the information he had, trying to find a way where this didn’t end with both he and Kate dead.
Simon’s eyes widened. He jumped up, looking at the drone. Kate was once again on the defense and losing ground. She was being backed up toward the entrance of the room, near the captain’s chair. Simon leapt to his feet and vaulted over his cover, heading towards the other side of the room, to the first button Kate had said she’d touched. The drone raised an arm to him while the other three swiped at Kate. As a lance formed, Simon found himself with no cover to run to.
Kate jumped towards the arm, brushing it with a finger just as an arm hit her in the stomach. The brief contact was enough. A rush of kinetic energy poured into the limb, blasting the arm upward. The lance rocketed toward the ceiling, shattering into a hundred quickly fading pieces. Kate was sent sprawling, hitting the ground and smacking into the captain’s chair. She pulled herself up, shaking. One of her arms hung limply, the elbow twisted at a sickening angle. The drone, maybe sensing her injury and weakness, advanced toward her.
“Big fire on my mark!” Simon shouted, tracking the drone's legs carefully. He didn’t check to see if Kate had understood. There was a chance the plan wouldn’t work. If the opportunity never came…
But it did. The back left leg landed right where he wanted.
“Legs, left side!” Simon yelled. Fire engulfed the drone, only ten feet from where Kate stood. The fire licked at her skin as she raised her good arm to shield her face. Simon slammed the button.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The drone’s leg sank as the floor beneath it opened up. The two right legs adjusted to keep the drone upright, but the front left lagged. The joint wobbled with its weird liquidy movement, unable to move efficiently after being blasted with heat, just as it had before. The drone lost its balance, falling back. The egg-like shape sank partway through the hatch as it fell. Then the hatch snapped close.
The metallic scraping of the hatch was drowned out by the sound of the drone’s body crunching as the hatch’s cover clamped down on it like a bear trap snapping on bone. The drone's limbs tensed, then froze. The glowing red eyes on the dark metal dimmed, then blinked off.
Simon sank to the ground, letting out a deep sigh. His hands shook, and he rested one on his chest, feeling his heart racing in rhythm to the pounding in his ears. The deep red lights above them shifted, becoming a warm yellow-orange.
“Not sure I’m cut out for this adventuring shit,” he muttered.
Kate nudged the robot with her foot, snapping back as if she expected it to be playing dead. She finally relaxed after giving it a powerful kick and getting no response.
She’s cut out for this. Simon thought. She did all the work.
“What did you say?” Kate said this as she walked over to stand next to him. She leaned on the console. Despite the heavy breathing, she seemed much more in control than Simon.
“Just complaining. Nice work.”
“You too. How did you know it would shut that hard?”
“Didn’t. Honestly, I thought at best it might trap its leg and give us a chance to hide and wait for Justus.”
“Speaking of,” she said, looking up at the speakers on the ceiling. “Hey! Justus!”
There was no response.
“Think he’s okay?” Simon asked.
“Probably. Even if he came across one of these things, I’m pretty sure he’d be fine.”
Simon wasn’t so sure, but he nodded anyway.
“Let’s just stay here and wait,” Kate said. “Now that the drone is down, we can—” Kate’s words were cut off by a wince as she moved. Simon looked up and noticed for the first time that her broken arm was still hanging at her side.
“Shit, sorry, let me—”
“It’s fine. I’ll have Justus set it when he gets here. There might still be danger. If you use your heal now, it won’t be off cooldown later when we might need it more. I’ll be fine. You can heal it later when we’re safe in town.”
“We’ll still need to get back through the cave,” Simon reminded her.
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated, her voice firm. Simon knew she wouldn’t change her mind. He didn’t like leaving her in pain, but it wasn’t like he could force her.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
Simon held his breath, trying to hear any noise in the quiet room apart from the rhythmic pounding noise from his stress. He did hear something, maybe. A dull, regular beeping noise.
“What is that? Sounds like an alarm clock.”
Kate shushed him, and he shut up. She cupped a hand around her ear, moving her head to pinpoint the sound. Her moving stopped when she faced the broken drone. With careful steps, she moved closer.
“It’s coming from the robot, somewhere inside. Do you have something I can use to pry the panel?”
Simon patted his pockets. He felt the familiar silver coin in his pocket. He stood up and headed over. The hatch had smashed into the front panel of the machine, partially denting it at the bottom. He pressed the coin into the small opening created by the dent and used it to pry the panel open. The panel popped with a snap and lifted up automatically.
Both of them jumped back as they saw the glowing crystals. The drone wasn’t charging a beam attack, though. The glow was dim this time. Once he realized it wasn’t attacking, Simon relaxed a bit, but he still avoided standing in front of the drone just in case. Above the crystals and copper coil thing, Simon noticed a screen he hadn’t spotted before. There were those strange symbols, red and flowing, and somehow looking mathematical.
“What is it? Looks like one of those videos of the shapes that zoom in forever.”
“A Mandelbrot set? Yeah, a bit,” Kate said.
“Nerd,” Simon teased as he leaned in closer.
The shifting symbol shifted, not fluid like it had been, but flickering. A subtle ache in Simon’s mind buzzed under his ears. Then it was gone, and the flowing pattern on the screen flashed and became something he recognized: numbers. The numbers flickered again.
“Uh, did it just turn into a countdown for you too?”
“Yeah…”
The numbers ticked down. A minute and a half. Until what? Simon looked down at the crystals, which seemed a little brighter than they had before. Realization dawned on him.
“Oh fuck, I think it’s a self-destruct.”
“That’s crazy! It’s still on the ship. Why would it do that?”
“What else could it be?”
Kate looked around. “The chutes. You can use your clone to open—”
“Don’t have it, remember? I burned through most of my Spirit using it twice.”
“Fine, then I’ll open one and you go down,” Kate said. She rushed to one of the consoles, looking for a button.
“And leave you here to blow up?”
“I have my Deflection skill; I can absorb the blast. Which hatch does this one open?”
“Kate, this is—”
“Do you have a better idea?” she snapped.
He didn’t.
“I’m pretty sure this button opened the hatch over there,” she said, pointing. “Get ready to jump down on my mark.”
Simon didn’t like it, but he glanced at the drone, whose crystals were glowing bright now. Every second he wasted gave her less time to prepare. There wasn’t time enough to argue. And if he was completely honest, Simon wanted to run. Cursing himself for being a coward, he ran over to the hatch.
“Ready… now!” Kate yelled.
Simon stepped forward, and his foot landed on the floor, where he could see the faintly visible seam of the hatch he stood on.
“Kate?” He asked.
Kate cursed and slammed her fist on the button a few times, then kicked the workstation.
“It’s not working!”
“Why not?”
“I don’t fucking know, Simon!”
Kate looked over to the drone, her face creased with worry. She looked up to the speaker.
“Justus! Justus, can you hear us? We need help!”
No one responded.
“Come on! Let’s get behind cover,” Simon said, grabbing her by her good arm and pulling her to the opposite end of the room, near the large glass display and behind the largest workstations. He glanced back to see the crystals glowing as bright as they had before the drone’s beam attack. There was a humming noise coming from the drone now, growing louder with each second. He had to yank Kate down with him. She kept staring back at the machine. She winced in pain as the movement jostled her broken arm.
“Get down, idiot!” Simon said.
“I have a plan. I’m going to absorb it.”
“What? Are you stupid? You can’t absorb an entire explosion, and we don’t even know if it’s a kinetic blast. What if it’s like that beam from before? You’d get incinerated!”
Simon expected an argument or for her to try to pull away. He gripped her arm tighter in anticipation. Kate didn’t do either of those things. Instead, she moved closer to him. Simon had no clue what she was doing until she pressed her lips against his in a short and frantic kiss.
His mind stuttered, thrown off by the sudden kiss. Then she’d thrown him backward and dashed away. Simon scrambled forward, reaching too late to pull her back.
The crystals were glowing with a blinding light now, the hum ringing in Simon’s ears painfully. Kate ran towards the light. She stood for a few seconds, then glanced over to where Simon was still hiding. She jumped onto the broken robot, wrapping one arm around it.
The crystals flashed so bright it lit her up from beneath. The humming became a deep booming pulse as a blast erupted from the machine.
The explosion wasn’t what he expected.
An eruption of silvery white light, so dense it was like a solid sphere, burst from the drone. The light expanded in a flash, passing over them. Simon felt pain erupt in his Spirit as the light washed over him. A red box appeared in his vision, flashing with urgency.
When he recovered, he was lying on the ground, curled up and shaking. His Spirit hadn’t diminished, but it ached like it did during the few times he’d really pushed himself for training. The red box still flashed at the center of his vision.
Warning!
Spirit Assault Detected
Entering Low Power Mode to prevent System Break
Simon dismissed the warning and pulled himself up, looking back to the drone. Kate was on the ground next to it. She wasn’t moving. Shaking off the deep ache, Simon dragged himself over to her. Each step took effort. It was like his Spirit was working against him, moving like dead weight he had to carry with him.
He fell to the ground next to her, letting out a relieved sigh when he saw she was breathing. Simon laid down, catching his breath. Even breathing with his Spirit like this was It was difficult; it felt as if a fifty-pound weight were pressing down on his chest. Moment by moment, he felt the connection between his body and Spirit healing, slowly knitting back together like a torn piece of cloth.
The carpeted floor pressed into his hand as Simon pulled himself into a sitting position. Kate was still not moving, save for the rise and fall of her breathing. As he looked at her, he remembered what she had done moments before her suicidal plan. His ears grew warm in the cool room. Had that just been a move to distract him and stop him from arguing? It didn’t fit what he knew of her. Kate was decisive in a fight, but she was still incredibly shy. Her first instinct for a distraction wouldn’t be something like that. She had done it for another, more obvious reason.
Simon’s mind flashed to all the times she’d blushed at his teasing jokes and the times that made him think she didn’t like him. Heat grew in his ears as he realized how wrong his assumptions might be. Had the signs been obvious? Simon had never been good at understanding girls. He’d dated a few, but it had never lasted very long. Eventually he’d blunder it, and they’d get angry, saying he took nothing seriously or treated the relationship like a joke. There was truth to that; intimacy and sincerity had always been uncomfortable for him.
Simon looked again at Kate, really looking at her for the first time. Her sharp features were pretty, and she might grow to be beautiful in a few years. He preferred darker hair, but her blonde hair fit her nicely. Even the small mole under her right eye didn’t seem like a flaw, just an accent that drew your gaze towards hers.
Yet Simon had never seen her that way, not until now, when he purposefully looked for it. Even now, in the dim orange light of the room, he could see the ever-present tired look around her eyes. He saw the slight frown that she wore whenever she wasn’t training or giving a rare small smile. In his mind he could picture that look of intensity when she was training, as if she was channeling an anger she silently carried around with her constantly. There was more to her than he knew.
As he stared, a noise banged on the door. Simon shot up, looking around for anything he might use as a weapon. Would healing Kate bring her back into fighting shape? He wouldn’t need to find out. The bang came again, and he could hear a familiar muffled voice from the other side of the door, where the three had come in. Simon headed over.
“Justus?”
A muffled reply came from the other side of the door, but Simon couldn’t make out any of the words.
“What?”
Another incomprehensible reply.
“Dude, I can’t hear you. Can you get in or not?”
There wasn’t another reply, but a few seconds later Simon saw a small two-foot circle of the door’s metal flash. A heavy glittery puff burst from the metal, falling to the ground. Simon reached out, and his hand was coated with the glitter. He shook his hand and rubbed it against his clothes, which only succeeded in spreading the glittery, sand-like material. A bang followed, sounding higher in pitch than the ones before, and Simon heard a curse far more clearly than the words before.
“Justus?”
“Simon? Are you both alive? The lockdown shut off, but I still can’t get the door open.”
“We’re good. How did you make the door speakable-through?” Simon asked, not even sure how to word the question.
“You really want a physics lesson about how my skill works right now?” Justus answered, his voice sharpened with sarcasm. “Where’s Kate? What was that blast of Spirit?”
“She’s breathing, but she hasn’t woken up.”
Simon heard another curse, then the same area of the door flashed again, more dust filling the space. Another heavy blow echoed in the room, but this time the metal cracked. Simon stepped back, and seconds later the metal shrieked, tearing apart as a large hammer broke through. The hammer was pulled back, catching on one of the sharp bits of metal and tearing it off on its way. Justus beat at the circle of metal for a few minutes until there was a two-foot opening in the door. He stuck his head in, taking in the sight of the drone and Kate on the ground.
“Bring her over; we’re getting out of this place,” he said.
Simon listened, heading over to Kate and lifting her by the arms. He dragged her over to the door, then lifted her up. He struggled with the dead weight, but Justus reached through and helped. He was a lot stronger than Simon and did most of the work of carefully getting Kate through. Simon crawled through the hole afterward. His weakened Spirit had made the relatively simple task much more difficult, and he was panting for breath.
Justus wordlessly checked over Kate and noted her broken arm. He reached into his inventory, pulling out a splint, then a bandage. Simon belatedly realized something.
“Your stone didn’t freak out?”
“What?” Justus asked, pausing to glance at Simon.
“Can’t use my guidestone right now. It says it’s in low power mode to prevent a System something or another.”
“A System Break. It happens when the Spirit channels that make up the guidestone’s system are overwhelmed and destroyed. It’s how the Guild decommissions a guidestone. It can happen naturally, but it takes a concentrated dose of hostile Spirit. Higher-ranked stones are more durable, and proximity matters a lot.” Justus looked back at Kate. “It takes a lot of Spirit to make even an Opal guidestone go on standby, though. If it did that, I’m surprised that she’s alive. Her Spirit must have just managed to pull through. How did you stay conscious?”
“She was closer. She, uh, tried to absorb the blast. She thought it would blow up, like a bomb. We didn’t think it would be a Spirit bomb.”
Justus made a grunting sound, as if he figured as much, then went back to setting Kate’s arm. When he was done, he picked Kate up and threw her over his shoulder. It wasn’t very dignified, but she was unconscious, and Simon wasn’t in any state to help carry her.
“Come on, let’s go.”
Simon nodded and followed behind Justus. Just before they reached the airlock they’d entered in, Justus paused.
“Hold on. Almost forgot.”
He reached out, and the small bronze urn appeared in his hands. The ashes drifted to the floor, the lid thumping against the carpet, as Justus overturned the urn and shook it a few times. He tossed it aside, and the clang as it bounced off the floor and struck the wall echoed shortly. Simon stared at the small pile of ashes for a few seconds, then followed Justus to the exit. It was a sign of how eager Justus was to leave the ship behind that he walked past the pile of items they’d spent over an hour collecting.
Simon watched Kate sway over Justus’s shoulder as he climbed out of the ship. He’d almost left her, and there hadn’t been anything he could do to help. With his head down, Simon climbed the ladder after them.
What should happen when the crew gets back to Teshustoq?
