“Trench,” Com said, looking down through his scope at the soldier in the small canyon valley, “I swear to the ministry, if you don’t get your foot away from that xelenbomb, I’m going to shoot you.”
The skinny man in orange armor paused before moving his foot out of the orange buds. He looked around the canyon walls before he shook his head. “Mark set off three a minute ago.”
“We didn’t know what they did.” Com moved his head and saw all three ant-like forms that moved through the canyon valley in a triangle. “New planet, new plants. Yeshan and Leiban are two different climates.”
“I’d prefer Yeshanian stake bushes to Leibanian fart flowers,” Mark muttered. His black and yellow hulking form was only slightly larger than Trench and Kilo from Com’s view. His massive left shoulder pad looked like a second head.
“Less chance to stab you,” Kilo argued. His green-painted armor clashed with the orange landscape.
“Not a problem.” Com could hear Mark rap on his chestplate through the radio. “I didn’t choose to be squishy.”
“Target is two hundred and fifty yards from your current location. Take a left at the cross.” Com said before he rose to his knees and slung his anti-material rifle over his shoulder. “It may be a tight fit for anyone who isn’t squishy.”
“Copy.” Com could hear the smile in Trench’s slightly nasally voice.
Com stood to his full height, ignored the red dust on the knees of his boots, and slid down from the rock he had been lying on. He grabbed his second rifle before checking his path down. He’d found the highest point, but from where the Autos were situated, he wouldn’t be much higher than Mark, Trench, and Kilo. He’d have to join them in what was coming.
They were his twenty-fourth squad in his time with the Droppers. He’d been in for a year and a half, longer than anyone he had ever met, and certainly longer than the three in his new squad. Trench had been in for eight months; it was his thirteenth squad. Kilo and Mark’s had been in four months each, and it was their third and eleventh squads, respectively.
All four were soldiers of the Spaceway, a collection of planets under managed democracy, and all four fought to protect the coalition.
Trench had started as an engineering student. The Ministry of Education had decided he would be a good candidate for designing buildings and put him on the architecture track. But when Autos started pushing harder on the bounds of the Spaceway, the Ministry of War overruled his assignment and had him choose between SWAF, Spaceway Armed Forces, and the Droppers.
Everyone wanted to be a Dropper. They were the best of the best, each worth a thousand Autos. So he went to basic training and earned his drop pins.
Mark had been designated for construction work. But he had the chance to become a Dropper, and he didn’t want to spend his days in the blazing heat laying concrete, so he joined when the Autos had invaded Goliah. He had been placed in SWAF due to low intelligence scores from when he was tested as an infant, but he had become strong enough to prove he could be put in Dropper Training.
Kilo had been the second child of a single couple. The couple hadn’t filled out the proper forms to conceive their first child, a crime worth ten years in prison, but what was truly their mistake was their decision to have another. A second child was forbidden under the Population Control Act, and when the Ministry of Truth found he existed at the age of two, his parents were shot for treason, and he and his sibling were placed on different planets to ensure they never met and formed a bond closer than what could be achieved between all Spaceway citizens. The Ministry of Truth had placed him with the Ministry of War to become a Dropper, as was the case for all rare second children, and gave him the name Kilo.
Com had been no one. Com had been a student on the verge of graduation, with an office job that benefited Spaceway due to his willingness to work, but he had wanted to do more. He had watched the Dropper announcements as a child. Seen through the screen as they stomped out giant red bugs that spewed acid, or shot bumbling misshapen bodies and liberated planets, raising the flag of the Spaceway for all to see. He wanted to help Spaceway in a way that mattered more than numbers and words on a holopad. So he had joined the Droppers.
He had joined just when the Autos had begun their war. The room of recruits had been packed; some had been forced to share a bed or sleep on the floor. He thought those conditions wouldn’t matter; they would soon be Droppers, with ships of their own and glory raining from the sky. They just had to prove they were worth it first.
But the first day, the recording of General Brisbane told them they would face a real live bug, a termite, individually. A red bug that came up to the average person’s hip; some had been kept in controlled environments for training after their respective planets had been conquered. Each recruit had been given and instructed on how to use their rifle, but only half survived their first trial. Then more died when unable to dodge grenades or run to cover. More trials occurred, and by the end of the two weeks, only five had remained. Com had his pins. He had them, and he wouldn’t have let them go for his life.
Com was something of an Auto specialist. In his time as a Dropper, he’d consistently extracted from three missions a day, every day, since he had joined. He had successfully extracted from one thousand five hundred and forty-five missions against the bots. He knew which ones were equipped with beacons for reinforcements, which ones were equipped with flamethrowers, and which ones had shields that made a rifle useless. The ones that rode in four-legged monstrosities the size of a three-story building. He’d made names for them back when he first started. The smaller ones who called reinforcements were snitches; the ones with flamethrowers were called bombs, because you could shoot them in the back, where they kept their fuel tanks, and take out a whole squad. The ones with shields had a plethora of names, none of which were appropriate for videos to be sent back home to Spaceway children, so they were nicknamed Sparks. They had small missiles hidden behind their shields that would shoot off sparks when launched. Com had seen a fair few squadmates taken in the torso by a spark missile.
The giant four-legged monstrosities were called dogs. Aside from the four legs, the hulking metal mass had nothing else in common with the animal. Spikes protruded from its legs in a way that Com could never tell if it was a design choice or caused by smaller grenades that had gotten lucky and marred their target. Com almost got stepped on the first time he’d seen a dog. He wasn’t sure if the snitches helping pilot the thing had seen him, but he’d taken them out at the first chance he’d gotten.
Com hated Autos. He was sure that if the metal scrap boxes could feel emotion, the feeling would be mutual. One of his first missions had been where an Auto had sent out a broadcast to try to convince Droppers that they could feel emotion. Another had been to try to say that they would leave the Spaceway alone after the war.
Com had already lost too many friends to believe it.
He worried for Kilo. The seventeen-year-old in green painted armor hadn’t been on many big Auto missions before. He’d been fighting bugs for most of his four months. Bugs were easy to ignore; they spat acid before you shot them through. Autos would try to convince you they were similar to you. Say they had a conscience, were human. What human would light a Dropper on fire and leave them screaming on the ground?
Com had looked out for Kilo and Mark. Trench too. It was custom for the one who’d been in the field the longest to lead, to make sure everyone else got out alive. He was Com, short for commander. Mark and Trench were well experienced with bots, with their tactics. Knew not to fall for their propaganda. Kilo didn’t.
“Coming up on the outpost,” Trench announced into his radio.
“I’ll be joining you three.” Com rolled his eyes at the whistle Mark sounded. “I see four machine guns set up along three posts facing north. Two sparks-” A barrage of cursing came from Trench and Mark. Kilo asked what a spark was. Mark reminded him. “-at ease. An illegal broadcast signal coming from this location has been finalized by SWSC Cape of Unity. All clear?”
The three others rattled off a ‘clear’ as Com slid down the rocky canyon before landing a foot away from the group. “Grenades ready?”
“Yes, sir,” Kilo said, and the other two nodded.
“Perfect.”
Com motioned to a large shed on the outer wall that looked climbable, and the four went in a line. Trench first, then Mark, Kilo, and Com taking up the rear. Autos used old Spaceway military outposts from previous planet settlements to sneak past radio monitoring stations. It was extremely effective; the Spaceway was running out of resources and couldn’t monitor all old radio posts. The current post they were destroying had been spewing the same propaganda for three months.
The roof of the shed managed to fit the four of them as they lay prone. Trench propped his head over the slightly taller wall to look inside the compound. Kilo gasped quietly as his eyes saw an Auto snitch for the first time. Com elbowed him.
The snitch faced away from them and was humanoid in build, seven feet tall, with limbs of twisting scrap metal. Snitch ground troops came in a few varieties, mainly knives and pistols. Both were named after what was connected to their robotic arms. The snitch Kilo’s eyes had landed on was a knife. On its arms, glowing red two-sided blades as long as Com’s torso pointed towards the ground. Knives were always hunched over, as their weapons were too heavy to stand straight. It placed too much pressure on their spines. When Com had first joined, the Autos had still tried to have them stand straight, which led to the cables connected to their spines snapping every time they moved too quickly. It was hard to fear a charging, seven-foot-tall metal monstrosity when it fell apart as it ran.
The Auto snitch turned its head ninety degrees, and Com froze. Trench and Mark did the same. Kilo reached for his pistol.
Com grabbed Kilo’s wrist and shook his head slightly. The boy in the green armor froze.
The snitch’s head resembled a skull of melted steel, with red light pouring from two eyeholes. Where a jaw should have been, cords of steel and wires made up what would have been comparable to a neck. These cords wrapped around a black, glassy box that Com knew to be a camera. When one saw you, all did. A pistol snitch had a different makeup for snitching; one of their arms had a pistol connected where a hand would be on a person, while the other was a bright red emergency flare. Com had explained all of this to Kilo, shown him footage that hadn’t been sent to the Spaceway. Based on the slight tremble in Kilo’s hands, he wasn’t sure the warnings had worked.
The rest of the outpost was comparatively smaller than where the squad was typically sent. Com doubted any dogs would be sent out. It was a fifty-by-fifty-yard courtyard inside the outpost walls. Not well protected, aside from the machine guns at the front. Each machine gun had a technical snitch manning it. A technical snitch was the third class of snitch; the only thing they had in common with their much more annoying ground counterparts was the makeup of their torsos. Their arms and heads had been modified for other work. Autos had originally been bots made by the Spaceway to replace unimportant labor, until they had decided to rise up. Com thought a technical snitch must have been the closest in design to the original Auto.
Inside the courtyard, a few snitches milled around. Typically, on a broadcast takedown mission, a large radio tower sat in the center of the courtyard. It would have a set of controls next to it that could be easily destroyed by, say, a stray grenade. Com always made a game of who could hit the most broadcast controls with a grenade. In the current squad, Trench had gotten twelve, Mark twenty-four, Com forty-seven, and Kilo fifty-two. The kid had a good arm.
Unfortunately, that arm looked like it would go to waste. Mark cursed as he looked at the building around the base of the tower. They would have to go into the compound, rather than throw grenades at a shaky foundation before they ran. The latter had a higher survival rate.
The Auto snitch Kilo had been watching turned back around. As soon as he did, Trench slid down to the ground behind it, his own knife in hand, and slid it into the divide between metal spine and cord and sliced through the wires. As he did so, the rest of the Auto snitches swiveled their heads towards the man in orange, and Com readied his rifle.
Mark was on the ground a second later. He grabbed the falling Auto Trench had incapacitated and used it as a shield against the pistols that began to shoot, his own pistol providing cover fire. Trench stepped behind him and joined him in shooting at the knives who sprinted towards the group.
Kilo scrambled to unhook his not-yet-used grenade and hurled it at a group of sprinting knives. It knocked into one of their skulls, and a cloud of orange fire enveloped the group. Autos were silent, but when the group collapsed in a pile of burning, melting metal, the screeching of metal sounded like a scream.
An orange flare erupted behind Com, and he swiveled to face the pistol and knife that had circled around to the back of the shed. The knife had leapt into the air above Com and Kilo, knives aimed for each of their hearts. Com shot, twisted, and kicked Kilo towards Mark and Trench. The red light from the Auto’s eyes faded as Com’s shot hit its mark, but Kilo stumbled, and his leg caught on one of the falling red knives. It went through a hole in the back of his armor, easily three inches into his calf, and as gravity pulled him down, the knife caught on his leg like a fishing hook. He was held in place for a full three seconds, pistol bullets flying around his head, before he fell to the ground, the knife taking a chunk of red muscle and bloody cloth with it. Kilo screamed.
Com swore. He pushed the knife off of him, could feel the bruises he would have for the next week, and shot the pistol that had shot the flare. Flares brought reinforcements. He couldn’t think about that now.
He dropped down with his squadmates. The group that had converged on Mark and Trench had turned into a pile of scrap metal, and Trench was pulling out a pack of needles from his backpack. Mark was holding Kilo, who convulsed on the ground. His legs kicked, bringing up red dust and rocks that attached themselves to his wound. The blue visor of Kilo’s helmet reflected the quickly moving Auto ship in the distance. Com grabbed Kilo’s legs and tried to keep him from getting any more red dirt into his gaping, bloody hole of a calf.
As the ship came closer, Trench assembled the needle of Chemical X. Mark tore off part of his shoulder pad, revealing bare skin, before Trench jabbed the needle into Kilo’s arm. Kilo let out another scream before he went limp. Com held Kilo’s legs as Trench began to clean them of dirt and rocks, and Mark gingerly placed his helmeted head back on the ground. “How many on the ship, Mark?” Com said as the tall man stood. Mark looked at the nearby ship. He looked back at Com. “You said there were two sparks here before, right?”
“I did, yeah.” Trench finished cleaning the wound and began to wrap it. Com looked at Mark. “Did you see them while we were fighting?”
“No. See ‘em now. Four, though. Ship just dropped off two.”
As Trench finished wrapping the wound, Kilo let out a gasp and hurled himself upwards. Com caught his shoulders and placed him back down. Kilo’s hands shook as he turned, removed his helmet, and retched inside the shed. Com turned to Trench and Mark.
“Sparks’ll come for the entrance. What do you think of the machine guns, Trench?”
“Connected to what’s left of the snitches. In order to get them usable, I’d need a while. But we don’t have enough time, sir.”
“Right.” Com turned his head slightly and watched as Kilo put weight on his bloody mess of a leg. Com didn’t know what was in Chemical X, but the stuff was strong. Removed the body’s ability to feel pain, allowing Droppers to fight with what would have been deadly injuries. Com had been under it a few times. His third time, he’d wanted it after a mission in the med bay of his ship while he was without injury, but they wouldn’t give it to him. Chained him to a bed for a few days to get rid of the urge. Com looked at Mark. “I need you to lure them away from the entrance. Would you have enough time then, Trench?”
“Maybe.” Trench tapped his thin visored helmet. “I’ll need fifteen minutes.”
Com looked at Mark. “Should have seven grenades left. Keep out of their range, and they won’t be able to hit you. Thoughts?”
“Slow enough,” Mark said. “Sure, I’ll handle the lumps.”
The three handed their grenades to Mark, and he was off. As the rest of them snuck around the walls towards the machine guns, Com could hear Mark screaming obscenities at the sparks before the clack of his armor let them know he had begun to run. The sounds of the sparks stayed largely the same; they were unable to run, but they began to move in the direction Mark was headed. Trench stared at Com for the signal to go. As the thudding became quieter, Com gave it.
Whatever brain Trench had been blessed with hadn’t been damaged in his training. Com thought it was weird the first time he had found Auto parts lying around Trench’s ship. He had thought he’d been paired with a psychopath who collected battle trophies and risked others’ lives to collect them. Com had squadmates like that; all had died fairly quickly. Trench had explained that he had reverse-engineered the robotic parts of most Auto snitches. Com did not understand how that could have been helpful, but let him. Two missions later, Trench had rewired a dead Auto when they were out of ammo and remotely piloted it to allow their escape from a ruined Auto stronghold. After that, Com did, in fact, understand.
Com kept half an eye on Trench as he worked, but focused on locating where the sparks had been led. He had placed his anti-material rifle against the side of the shed, it wouldn’t be useful in as close a firefight as they were expecting. Mark was in no way quiet, and the shots he fired echoed through the canyons. Com never knew if Mark’s shots were cover for himself, or him trying to shoot his targets. His name was short for marksman, because his marksmanship skills were short of desirable.
Com heard Mark’s third grenade go off just as Trench finished with a machine gun. He heard another noise, a mix of a scream and scraping metal. The three remaining in the squad froze. Com moved his hand to his radio. “Mark?” He said. “Mark, return to the broadcast tower.”
Com could hear the thud of the sparks. He heard nothing from Mark. Trench swore. Kilo looked at Com. “What now?”
“I’m sure he’s fine.” Com lied. He couldn’t fool Trench, but he had a chance with the kid. “Radio probably got busted in the blast. Trench, lure them back here.”
Trench looked between Com and Kilo before he swore again and twisted something connected to the machine gun. A spray of bullets hit the wall of the canyon, and Com could hear the steps of the sparks change. Trench positioned himself at the machine gun, and Com stood next to him along a short cement fence. Kilo sat down behind a crate farther behind the two.
The first spark exited through the canyon. It was nine feet tall, with a chest built like a box. A small lump of sensors bumped above the box, half a sphere of black steel and glowing red eyes. Like snitches, sparks could be built differently. Most held an even larger steel shield in front of their already gargantuan frames in a twisted scrap limb comparable to an arm. The other arm shot bullets through a barrel where a hand would be. Small missiles were stored near the back and shot out if a Dropper got too close. Three of the four sparks were designed in that fashion.
When the fourth came out, Com wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. When he realized, his eyes widened at the same time he heard a sharp intake of breath from Trench, and a gag from Kilo.
This spark’s arms were made of chainsaws. Designed more like a knife, it left no question as to what had happened to Mark. Near its shoulders, sharp, protruding spikes moved like a wood chipper.
The large man’s body had been half crushed into the back of the chain-spark. Wounds undoubtedly caused by one of the chainsaws covered Mark’s corpse. The largest had split him in half from stomach to helmet. Black and yellow had been turned to red. His intestine had impaled on the spikes and had fallen out in a jumbled, bloody mess.
“He’s-” Kilo shook. “He’s alive.”
“No,” Trench whispered. “No, not even they…”
“He can’t be,” Com said. But as Com looked at the broken glass of the helmet, he knew it was true. He could see the muscles, bloody and exposed as they were, strain to raise Mark’s head above the spikes. His helmet, cut through with a chainsaw, was in shambles. What was left scraped against the spikes, protecting the back of Mark’s head from the metal. The worst part was Mark’s face. Droppers rarely took off their helmets, but it was different with Droppers in a squad. Com had seen Mark’s face plenty of times. Tan skin, short, black hair. Strong jaw.
Com saw none of that as he looked at the approaching sparks. He saw a mess of flesh, chips of bone that seemed to have broken off, probably teeth. His jaw hung open, mouth bloody. It looked dislocated. Com looked at where his eyes should have been. One socket was empty and bleeding, but the other had kept a bloody eye in a swollen socket. It was then that the two made eye contact.
Com could see life in his eye. He thought, only for a moment, that Mark could be saved. Mark breathed in, muscles visible through the hole in his chest, and Com could hear Kilo puke behind him. One of his lungs had been pierced. Mark’s helmet shifted, and Com almost did the same as Kilo. Red from a newly revealed cracked skull split to show a sea of white and pink.
Com snapped from whatever trance he had entered. He looked to Trench and Kilo, both frozen, and made a decision.
He raised his rifle, aimed, and fired at the crack in Mark’s skull.
As Mark’s eye rolled back, Trench broke from his trance, gripped the machine gun tightly, and fired. Com joined him, shots less accurate than usual as his hands trembled.
The Machine gun easily took down the first of the sparks. Its shield had been damaged, likely by a grenade Mark had thrown, and its thin, twisted legs collapsed under fire. The second, while more durable, fell as Com’s bullets reached the joint in its shield arm. As the shield fell, the machine gun pelted the spark’s chest enough that it reached behind the wires and hit the small missiles hidden near its back. The missiles exploded and caught the third spark in the blast. Com thanked their good luck.
The chain-spark was twenty yards in front of them. Trench readied the machine gun and began to fire. Com stood since there was no longer a need to dodge bullets. Kilo couldn’t look at the spark. As Trench pelted the metal monstrosity with ammunition, it moved faster, each step becoming a larger leap, until it was three steps from their position. Com aimed for its half-head, bullets brushed off. Two steps. Com could see the bullets from the machine gun bouncing off the thick metal sheet that covered the bot. One step. A retreat was half out of Com’s mouth, better to attempt to run into a building that may or may not be empty, but by the time he had finished the word, the chain-spark was on them. Com had taken a step back, but Trench was still on the ground, panicked, but using the machine gun to shoot at the foot of the chain-spark as it came down upon him.
Com stumbled backwards, his face half an inch from the blade of the chain-spark, before he heard a sickening crunch. He half crawled to Kilo as the boy in green watched in horror at what Com refused to look at. He could hear the cries of Trench as his lungs were crushed and impaled with broken pieces of rib. As Com reached Kilo and began to pull him towards the building, he heard one last scream, before the chain-spark brought down one of its arms on Trench’s helmet. Com heard the squeal of metal-on-metal as he threw open the door to the broadcasting building. Com finally turned towards the chain-spark. It stood at its full height, foot on top of Trench’s crushed corpse; Mark’s mangled body, meanwhile, was a cape for the Auto. The chain-spark looked back at Com.
In his time as a Dropper, Com had seen many things that angered him. He felt rage at the death of every squadmate, every friend. He could feel tears running down his cheeks as he stared. His throat refused to allow him to breathe. Every fiber of his being wanted him to leave Kilo with the last of the mission before sprinting at the chain-spark. He would die. He would take it with him.
He ran his eyes over the blood-covered chain-spark one last time before he closed the door.
Kilo lay on his back. His visor had a thin crack running along his eye. He was breathing heavily, and the bandage on his calf had begun to turn red. “Mark was alive.” He said.
“Kilo.”
“How? How did he-”
“I don’t know.” Com’s voice came out harsher than he meant it to. Kilo flinched. “We-we need to keep moving. Check the rooms. See if any snitches are left here. Check if any supplies were left after they abandoned this place. Bandages, maybe.”
“Right.” Kilo stood. “I’ll get the door?”
Com nodded. He reloaded his rifle, and Kilo did the same. Com shook his hands and did a few jumps in the air. Kilo grabbed the door handle. Red dust mixed with grey on the handle. Kilo looked at Com, and Com nodded.
Kilo swung open the door, and Com entered quickly into a dark, dusty room. The small flashlight connected to his helmet quickly activated and showed him a long room of tables. Parts of something on the tables were covered in white cloth. No Autos. Com searched the room for another second before he cleared Kilo to enter with a quick wave. At the end of the room was a large, glowing screen. Com took slow steps, watching for any movement in the dark room, Kilo doing the same behind him. When they reached the computer, they stopped. Their grenades had been sent with Mark. When the thought came to Com’s head, he pushed it away. “Kilo, do you know computers?”
Kilo stared at Com. “I think…” He looked at the computer. “Yeah. I’m not as good as Trench, but I can shut it off?”
“I’ll take it.” Com looked at the tables. “You think any of this would be useful?”
“Dunno.” Kilo began to click experimentally on the keyboard. “Hey, someone must have been here recently. No dust on the keyboard. When did you say this place got up and running?”
Com had a headache. He couldn’t remember. “I don’t know.”
Kilo whistled. “Well, it couldn’t hurt to check for stuff. If we find anything, we can at least know it hasn’t gone bad.”
Com chuckled. He turned back to the computer for another second. He took a step towards one of the tables. His grin turned into a frown. He ran his finger along a flat stretch of cloth and tensed as no dust came off. He gingerly grabbed a corner of the cloth and slowly folded it over itself.
He swallowed as he looked at what was under the cloth. Parts. Scrap metal, wires. Tools. Lights, lenses. Com ripped the rest of the sheet from the table. At the end, a half-built Auto snitch lay on its back, wires erupting out of its chest. Com dropped the sheet. He immediately went to the small communicator at his wrist and swore. No signal in the compound. “Kilo, I need you to-”
Com heard the sound of a helmet dropping and turned, quickly drawing his pistol. Another was in the room, wearing a helmet unlike that of a Dropper. It resembled that of an Auto skull, with the bottom half of the helmet painted pitch black. A shorter man, he looked malnourished. Somehow, he had Kilo in a chokehold. The man with a skull mask held his own pistol to the side of Kilo’s head. Com froze.
The room was silent. The man turned towards the computer, eyes still on Com. “Lights on, please.”
Lights, beginning from the entryway of the room, turned on. Kilo flinched, and the third man pressed his pistol closer. The man nodded at Com. “Put it down.”
Com glared at the man, but put down the pistol and raised his hands. “Who are you?”
“Someone sick of fighting child soldiers. Who’s your commander?”
“No one.”
The third man paused. Then he slowly removed his helmet. Underneath was a face that had once been badly burned. Scar tissue covered the area from his jaw to remnants of his left ear, and the man’s bottom lip had been lost in whatever accident he had encountered. Crooked teeth showed slightly, and took away from whatever intimidation the man had been attempting. Brown eyes stared back at Com beneath a mop of reddish brown hair. “I’ve never seen a Dropper with gold pins. What do they mean?”
It meant he had survived a year. Com stayed silent.
The man sighed. “Question for question?”
“Bold of you to assume I’d have anything to ask an enemy.”
“Really?” The man raised an eyebrow. “Your government tells you you’re fighting bots, and you aren’t surprised to see a man?”
“Did you expect me to believe bots could stay upright without Spaceway traitors?”
The man gave Com an appreciative smile. “You’re the commander.”
Com didn’t move.
“My name’s Rudy.” The man shrugged. “I’d give you a handshake, but…”
“Let him go,” Com said, voice steady. “Surrender, turn off the bot outside, and you will be given a quick death.”
“Interesting bargain.”
“It’s more than you deserve.”
Silence filled the room once again.
“You work for the bots?” Kilo asked.
“No.” The man shook his head. “The bots are-”
“Kilo, don’t listen to a word he says.” Com glared at Rudy. “He’s a traitor. Every word out of his mouth is a lie.”
“I suppose your Ministry of Truth and I have that in common?”
Com’s eyes narrowed. “Turn off the bot outside. Surrender. I won’t tell you again.”
The man raised his chin. “Or what?”
“Why are you here?” Kilo demanded again.
“Kilo, shut up.” As the words left Com’s mouth, Kilo swiveled his head around to stare at him. “If you don’t die here, you’ll die after the next squad arrives.”
“If reports on the Superway treasury are to be believed, there may not be another squad sent to deal with little ol’ me.”
“What’s wrong with the-”
“Kilo. Shut up.” Com grabbed a twisted pole of scrap metal from the table. He took a step forward, and Rudy adjusted his hold on Kilo. “Let him go.”
Rudy looked between Com and Kilo. He grunted before he pushed Kilo forward and pointed his pistol at Com. “You want to know the truth, kid?
“Anyone injured in superway work gets sent to outer planets without a populace to draw workers from. Before the war with what you call Autos, those injured would have any ‘unnecessary’ parts of their body removed and placed into Auto parts. They cut off my old limbs, gave me real janky ones, and put me in some Kelokan mine. I didn’t see the suns for three years.”
“That’s enough,” Com said.
Kilo stared at Com before looking back at Rudy. “Keep going. Please.”
Rudy’s face changed to shock before he blinked and nodded. “Eventually, they introduced these new models. Didn’t need anybody in ‘em, could pilot ‘em remotely. But word got around that instead of bringing us up to be pilots, they were gonna harvest organs and turn us into workers in the mines forever.”
“Ridiculous.”
“That’s what I thought too. They brought us near the surface for a couple of months, we were still working, but then people started going missing. They had volunteered to test a new medicine. Didn’t think much of it, but a week later, they had bots that didn’t need pilots. We freaked, checked ‘em out, sure enough, we found organs in the bots. More people went missing after that; eventually, they managed to only need the brain. Made artificial hearts that pumped blood, could get necessary nutrients to the brain. But they couldn’t remake the brain. They lost a lot of workers doing it.
“Course, we hadn’t just been sitting around watching this. The bots never stopped working, but when we got on our sleep breaks, we would watch them. Managed to map out half an Auto before one of us caught a broken one and convinced a SWAF kid it had gotten itself lost in the mines. I figured out how to fix it with a friend of mine. Turns out, they had been testing a new medicine. Some chemicals removed the capacity for pain and caused memory loss. Memory loss would eventually be removed from the chemical, but when we took our friends off the drugs, they were in a lotta pain. Lost three more trying to get the new version, but it allowed us to communicate with what the others had been turned into.”
“Removed pain?” Kilo asked, voice quiet.
“Kilo, listen to me.” Com tried to get Kilo’s attention. “He’s a liar. You cannot trust him.”
Rudy glared at Com. He slowly raised an arm before he pulled up a long sleeve. Underneath was steel. “Spaceway had aimed to create a large enough force to mine out planets far from its centers of production. In doing so, they provided us with a large enough force across a dozen planets to rebel and stop any further mutilations.”
“Is he talking about Chemical X, Com?” Kilo asked.
“What he’s saying is nonsense.” Com had gotten far enough in Rudy’s rant to attack. “He’s here because he betrayed our democracy, Kilo. Don’t do the same.”
Kilo began to breathe heavily. As he did, Rudy’s attention split. Com raised the bar above Rudy’s head, and too late, Rudy noticed. Kilo flinched at the noise of metal against Rudy’s skull. Rudy crumpled to the ground in a ball, and Com continued his onslaught. Rudy’s metal limbs wrapped around his skull, protecting it from any further damage, but Com drove the sharp, twisted tip of the pole into his abdomen. Rudy gasped, and Com pulled the shaft out of his body, prepared to keep going. “Com, stop.” Kilo managed to gasp. Com ignored him and managed to graze Rudy’s ribs. “Stop. I SAID STOP.”
“Would you shut up?!” Com demanded as he smacked the butt of his makeshift spear into Rudy’s head. “Kilo, just shut-”
“HE’S DEAD COM!” Kilo pointed to Rudy. He’d gone limp. Why hadn’t Com noticed? “You didn’t need to-”
Whatever Kilo was crying about faded into the background of Com’s senses. He checked Rudy’s pulse and turned his attention to the computer. He picked up where Kilo had left off, and though he struggled, he managed to turn off the broadcast from the tower. Mission finished, he finally turned to Kilo.
He had taken off his helmet to reveal the face of a sobbing seventeen-year-old. Buzzed blonde hair, green eyes, freckles. His face was red from crying. His helmet was on the ground, the visor had popped out and broken on the floor. “Mark was alive because the spark was alive, Com. Chemical X kept him alive. Com, this changes everything!”
“Kilo,” Com said. “Hands behind your head. On your knees. Now.”
“Wha-Com.” Kilo stared at him. “Com, they’re people. They’re our citizens, we need to tell someone!”
“The Dropper Creed, Kilo. What is line four?”
“The creed?” Kilo paused. “What does line four-”
“Recite it.”
Kilo’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. He swallowed before he started again. “I shall harbor no traitorous intention, nor tolerate anyone who does so?”
Com’s face was like stone. Kilo’s eyebrows knitted together, and he took in a small breath as the realization washed over him. “Com, he was misguided. That doesn’t mean he-”
“Knees, Kilo. Hands.”
“Com, no. Please, look at me.”
Com’s eyes had drifted to the metal table. He looked at Kilo. “You don’t understand this way of life, Kilo.” He said quietly. “I wish you could see as I do. How everything is exactly as it should be. But some have to be sacrificed for-”
“If everything were exactly how it should be, people wouldn’t need to be sacrificed!” Kilo cried. “Please, Com. Remember that I’ve lived this life longer than you. Don’t-”
“ON YOUR KNEES, Kilo.” Com pointed his bloodied spear at Kilo’s chest. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
Kilo stared a moment longer at Com. It was then that Com realized that Kilo had his pistol still in its holster at his side. “Trench and Mark,” Kilo spoke quietly, and his lip trembled. “Did they know?”
“What?”
“Com,” Kilo half sobbed, half laughed, “You know every damn thing someone could know about an Auto. You must’ve at least suspected, right?”
“Autos are one of our enemies, Kilo. That’s all that matters.”
“But it’s not!” Kilo’s hands had lowered slightly. “Just answer me. Did they know?”
Com ground his teeth together. He thought about how he had inspected anything Trench had brought in his workstation after finding out about his hobby. How he’d destroyed anything that might lead Trench to the truth. How Trench had managed to rewire an Auto anyway. He thought about Mark, willing to run headfirst into an Auto horde, but never looking behind him anywhere but towards his squad. Com shook his head at Kilo. “No.”
Kilo’s gaze became glassy. “They died for us.” He murmured. “You and I. They didn’t even know the truth.”
“The truth doesn’t matter.” Com had heard the words from someone else’s mouth before. A long time ago. “Only what people believe the truth to be.”
They stood quietly. Neither moved. “Is the truth traitorous?” Kilo finally asked.
Com forced himself to look at Kilo, but couldn’t look him in the eyes. His eyes instead settled on two small pins, stuck to Kilo’s breastplate. The first was small, made of steel, and worn from missions even after Kilo’s short time in the Droppers. Shaped like a mine, it held the Dropper motto. Loyalty, honor, home. The other was a pin that marked him as a secondborn. It was made of tin and slightly bent from its time outside. He had worn the truth of his origins all his life. He wasn’t allowed to take the pin off his clothing. Now he knew another truth. A truth Com had carried since his first Auto mission, when his squad had died, and he had been left with one much like Rudy, who offered him a life outside what he had always known. “Truth itself isn’t traitorous,” Com said, quiet for the first time since Rudy dropped to the floor. “But those who take it and think with it. Those who look at what we have built see a truth that will damage the people we strive to protect, and use the truth to upend the good, that is traitorous.”
“This lie,” Kilo started before he choked back a sob, “This lie is not good.”
“It is good, Kilo. But we cannot expect everyone to have what they need.”
“How do we know?” Kilo demanded, “When all we’ve lived is the same lie, the same life?”
Com stared at the pistol in Kilo’s holster. Kilo noticed. “I’m not going to kill you, Com.” His voice was hoarse. “Are you going to kill me?”
“I have to.”
Kilo slowly reached for his pistol. Com raised his spear. “I just told you I wasn’t going to kill you,” Kilo said, irritated.
“I can’t trust the word of a traitor.”
“Well, you can trust this one.” Kilo tossed his pistol to Com, who almost dropped it out of surprise. “I’m tired, Com. Fifteen years of life spent preparing to defend a lie. Do what you need to do.”
Com searched Kilo’s eyes for a sign of a bluff. What stared back was an empty, dull abyss, framed in the red face of a child. You couldn’t see Kilo’s freckles when his face was red. They were hidden, like snow that covered and crushed the buds of early spring flowers.
Com looked at the pistol. It was fully loaded. Com had made sure everyone’s weapons had plenty of bullets back when they were on the ship. He didn’t want anyone to run out when they needed them. Now, Com had the bullets he needed. Half of himself urged him to use them , to put an end to the traitor in front of him. The other half wanted to go home. The fear that had existed ever since he had looked at the crowd of potential Droppers in basic and watched as it thinned. The fear that asked when he would be next. Would it be like Mark, crushed against a wall and left on the back of a spark until someone noticed he was alive and shot him? Would it be like Trench, crushed while in a rage, left in a pile of gore as his squadmates tried desperately to finish the mission?
There was a third option. One he’d considered hundreds of times in his first few months. Take his pistol. Handle it himself. Quicker, easier. His family would have a body to bury. That almost never happened with Droppers.
It occurred to him, as he was standing there dumbstruck with a pistol in his hand, that Kilo wanted that now. A way out. An end. Com thought about when he was seventeen.
He tightened the grip on the Pistol. “The spark was connected to the computer. Whatever system it had, it’s gone now. Powered off. When we go outside, I’m going to face the door. Count to twenty. If I turn around and you’re still there, I’ll shoot you. If not, you can run and scrounge up whatever you can from old outposts. You’re smart. You’ll survive.”
“You’re letting me go?”
“Put your helmet on.” Com’s hands were shaking. “Start walking.”
Kilo very slowly reached for his helmet. He put it on and passed Com, who, after a moment, followed.
When they exited the building, Kilo had a hard time looking at the carnage. A pile of red and orange was near the machine gun. Broken pieces of white sat in the pile; some had been tracked into the footprints of the chain-spark. The chain-spark itself was lying on top of the shed; whatever had been powering it was off thanks to Com. Mark’s body had fallen off, and it only looked to be in slightly better condition than Trench’s. “Thank you,” Kilo said, looking at the falling twin suns of the planet. One was setting, casting a brilliant orange glow over the canyons. The other was still in the sky, slightly above. “For letting me go.”
Com turned to the wall of the building and closed his eyes. “One.”
Com could hear Kilo hesitate before the crunch of the rocks became a quicker noise, farther away. Com exhaled and prepared himself.
When he reached five, he stopped counting. Turned. Raised the pistol. Kilo was halfway to the canyon. A distant part of Com thought that if he had been given the twenty, he would have made it.
He aimed and fired at the green amongst the orange. Kilo stood out like a sore thumb. Kilo paused, and Com quickly feared that he had missed. Time moved slowly, and Kilo didn’t look like he had moved.
Kilo crumpled to the ground without a sound.
Com closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing. Finally, he opened them and tapped a button on his communicator. “Mission complete. Squad ready for extraction.”
