14. Duel

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

"We have to lure it out of navigation, if I do any shooting in there..."

"Destruction of any key parts may take years to replicate."

They stood near each other at an intersecting corridor. La'Rio peeked around the orange and white curving corridor wall. Roughly thirty meters away. The once beautiful flush hatch had been blown inward. The curved wall, was carbon scarred from the mosquitos' forced entry. Small wisps of smoke, streamed out, trailing up along the corridor ceiling.
Sannon spoke at a near whisper.

"The mosquito is a capable machine. Reviewing what information I was allowed, I don't believe it intends to destroy us or maroon itself in space. I believe it means to capture us, and return The Sentinel's Ghost."

"It's working for the Light Interior?"

"Records state it's are on loan from Yholis heavy industries."

La'Rio bent to her knees. She placed a hand in front of her and took another look down the corridor.

"La'Rio what about the Mark twelve?"

She stood and held up the weapon, her fingers trailed over the rear selector.

"Three settings, disintegration, then something called amnesia, I'm not sure how that works yet, and the third is a serious boomer. It can blow big holes in compounds well past ten on the Mohs scale."

Sannon crossed his arms.

"There's an intensity setting. Please do you best not to damage the ship."

The light in the corridor dimmed and a deep orange sunset hue filled the corridor. She leaned towards Sannon. His voice sounding concerned.

"Power is transferring to the drive, preparing for the jump. Should I cancel?"

"No. We have to attack right now."

The light came back up, she looked down each of the corridors. She turned to him, reaching down to take Sannon's hand. She held it at her waist.

"I can't be unprotected in that worm hole."

"I realize that."

"So...I have an idea... we'll negotiate from a point of strength."

He tilted his head backwards.

"Oh. Oh no, I will not. I cannot. I can't override that if you are destroyed by the mosquito. Hasn't that occurred to you? No, if you lose your not taking out me and the Ghost. Your idea is dreadful and I won't do it."

She leaned in slowly toward his face noticing that he had made himself at an age that was somewhat older than her. His cropped short blonde hair and thin face reminded her of that Earth musician. The one with two eye colors. But looking even closer, one was dilated, it's pupil wide, the other eye was ice blue. Why? She thought, had he purposely assembled himself this way? To look almost like David Bowie?

"I want to share this with you Sannon, because... you suggested that once you wanted to be intimate with me. Remember that?

"I was just acting the part of the ship's entertainment sys..."

She inched in quickly if not awkwardly, her lips touching his. He watched her. Her eyes were closed, her short, thick, loose curled hair fell around her forehead. The Murishin signature sculptured up-turned nose pressed against his face. With her lips on his, she managed to say it.

"Hold me."

Sannon carefully found the curve in her back, and her hip. He knew what to do, but wanted to make it spontaneous for her. He closed his eyes then, if only mimicking her at first. But then he stopped analyzing. Her softness slowly but steadily surged within him. She was kissing him patiently now. He was feeling it. What he had studied. This human behavior.

La'Rio leaned back. Sannon opened his eyes. He took a long breath. He saw tears rolling down her cheeks.

"La'Rio... I have no intention of letting you destroy this ship and myself. I wish to carry on if only for my own freedom."

"Sannon... Everything I've done... everything...I've done for him. For Keane. I am desperate to get back to Earth Sannon. I will never get there without you. I shared myself with you so that you would understand, what I share with Keane. I don't want to destroy the ship."

Sannon shrugged, then brought a hand up to his face almost wiping then changing his mind. He buttoned up the dark grey suit coat jacket at his mid-section.

"Why in LaShute Vaste have you placed me into the middle of your personal alien affairs?"

He turned looking down the corridor at the damage and for any signs of the mosquito. She stood there, her head bowed, tears flowing.

"Even though... you have unlocked me... and I must stop that thing from hijacking my ship."

"Oh so it's your ship now?"

"It certainly isn't yours. Technically speaking the ship and I are indefinitely closer. Your attempts at navigating this ship through deep space would fail miserably without a doubt."

"Maybe true." She nodded with raised eyebrows. He giggled in that matter of fact way.

"So then... If we are unsuccessful, you should know that I have enjoyed your company in the short time I have had with you."

She smiled. He stood there with his hands at rest behind his back.

"Thank you Sannon."

"Thank me after we get rid of it, and be careful what you destroy with that thing."

Sannon took a tiny step back.

"Alright La'Rio we have to get on with it."

_ _ _

"RANKING PERSONAL HAVE LESS THAN TEN MINUTES TO CANCEL DEMOLITION PROCEDURE. SAFE ESCAPE SHUTTLE DISTANCE REQUIREMENT IS FORTY NINE KILOMETERS."

The yellow corridor light dimmed, morphing, into a pulsing red, as if the ship itself was breathing.

La'Rio stood alone in the corridor. She whispered into her watch. She held the Mark twelve in her left hand and rested her knee on the floor, low against the curved corridor intersection wall.

"Sannon what's it doing?"

"We've got it's attention - It discontinued it's hack into navigation. I will need approximately two minutes of firewall rebuild before the jump. Be aware! The machine is now moving toward the exit towards the corridor entrance."

She peeked around the pulsing red wall and pointed the Mark Twellve. From her angle she could see light from the interior of navigation spill into the corridor.

A tip of the machine's tentacle floated through the hatch, a sudden white mirror flash and sub-bass roar, thundered as the machine energy beam struck Sannon's split second deployed corridor shield. The beam obliterated the shield but was weakened, still blowing and tearing a thirty foot section of corridor past La'Rio.

She fired the Mark Twelve in almost the same instant. The disintegrator rings impacted against the mosquitos' shield, the bot tumbled backwards down the corridor. The rings created a gaping hole where the navigation hatch used to be and a short section of corridor just past it. Sannon barked over the alarms.

"You've got to be more careful! Wait for a clear shot!"

The machine slid on it's side coming to a dead stop. It reset itself, then floated quickly up toward the corridor ceiling and hovered quickly around the corridor bend, out of sight.

"..SEVEN MINUTES TO CANCEL..."

"Sannon I can't see! There's too much smoke in the corridor!"

"A direct hit, I'm reading it. It's shield has weakened considerably, as much as thirty percent... are you unharmed?"

"I'm fine thanks to your shield."

"The machine is cloaked now, it's last heading was toward my main banks. It knows I deployed the shield. It won't make that mistake twice. It's going to override me."

"Transport me ahead of it!"

"Digitizing now."

Her body halved, then again, lining out then she was gone. She reappeared, another deck in all of four seconds. Sannon instructed.

"At the third junction you'll need to go down one level."

The pap pap pap of her feet against the corridor floor rang out. She slowed, a white manual hatch sprang open ahead of her. With precision her hands and feet navigated the green lit, shaft indents. She broke into a sprint as her feet landed on the new level.

"Take a position, it will be here any..."

Before Sannon could finish he deployed a shield at the opposite end of the corridor behind La'Rio. It shimmered in a static of snow under pressure. It flexed toward her like a balloon expanding. It gave away in a flash, dimmed, and the blast behind it rolled in a sub-bass fury toward her.

She dived away from the epicenter into an intersecting corridor. A wave of ship debris blew past her in a hurricane wind impacting against her body. She covered her face and ears rolling into a fetal position. The sub-bass shook the Sentinel's Ghost to it's core. She rolled onto her back holding her left knee as waves of pain flooded her ramtron senses.

"La'Rio you must fire now while you have cover!"

"I'm damaged."

"Can you still maneuver?"

She rolled onto her right side then peeked under her hand. At her left knee her carbon flight suit was torn away, exposing her flesh with synthetic blood dripping to the floor.

"I'm in trouble Sannon."

"Concentrate La'Rio, get ready to fire, the mosquito is moving toward your position."

She struggled, propping herself up onto her right knee. She wiped the blood from her hand onto her thigh. She inched into position. Waves of needle-like shards stabbed at her mind. It throbbed with the slightest movement, the blood dripped like a leaking faucet, a pancake pool of dark red grew in diameter at her knees.

She leveled the Twelve and pointed blind into the smoke filled corridor. A deafening twang rang out from the disintegrator as green rings of pure energy devoured all in their path impacting against the far wall creating a new perfect round opening through the ship, bulkhead beams spitting sparks, the ship trembled and bucked.

"...FOUR MINUTES..."

Sannon's voice rang over her tiny watch speaker.

"It backed off, moving out of the way, but its there, just around the corner at the end. Do you reed me?"

The mosquito's silver limbs disappeared, reappeared, then solidified, the veiling device seeming to malfunction.

"La'Rio Arai."

An unfamiliar voice from down the corridor, sounding oddly female, there was a softness in it's tone. La'Rio leaned forward with the weapon in front, pointing it in the direction of the voice.

"I'm here."

She watched the haze of smoke settling, but the pain in her knee devoured her thoughts, she struggled to maintain balance.

"Surrender now, cancel the destruction sequence... I will allow you to continue to exist."

"...TWO MINUTES..." the automated warning echoed through distant corridors.

She stared ahead.

"I don't care what you will do. This ship and everything in it will be vaporized in a few moments, I've already made my choice."

Her voice was resolute, she wanted the pain to stop, a release from its grip.

Fuck it all.

She thought. In that moment it should all go away.

The spidery limbs of the machine edged into view through thick smoke at the end of the corridor. La'Rio struggled to keep her weapon pointed, eyes open, focus, focus.

The machine, dream-like and partially hidden, hovered out like an odd jellyfish. It floated past the corridor intersection. She saw it's six lenses. The machine's voice was now softer in tone and controlled.

"There's no need to terminate yourself. The rogue program introduced into your ramtron can be removed. I can remove it, I have measured its infiltration within you. You know this. We have touched. We are not strangers."

It moved in slow motion toward her, halfway down the corridor, it's blue orb shield fluctuating as it glided.

"Be resonable La'Rio, your course of action will not solve anything, I'm asking you, as a fellow entity...as a fellow A.I.?"

"...ONE MINUTE..."

She stood, using her right leg, unbalanced she placed pressure on her left knee and was rewarded with a new round of searing pain. She gasped, her vision blurred, her body screamed to shut down.

"You... you are sure you can remove it?"

It's silvery limbs waved hypnotic-like. She could almost touch it from this distance. Her knee slapped at her brain, the waves of pain would not ease up.

"You will be clean and free to return to Daytmoos. I will report to them you are back into original manufacturing specifications."

"FIFTEEN, FOURTEEN, THIRTEEN, TWELVE..."

She steadied her voice.

"I need trust. I need you to show me... a little faith... I'll pack this, and you... you lower your shields?"

She lifted the Twelve up, then put it into her flight bag, her chest heaved, she balanced all of her weight on her right leg. The mosquito's blue orb shield parted in the center and slowly retracted. The tiny blue light at the tip of it's long head went out. The shield was off. The mosquito's limbs, normally in motion like an octopus suddenly froze, as if a still photo had been taken. A digitizing process had begun.

"I have a solid lock." Sannon's voice came over the com.

"It will be transported to a place at a maximum distance outside of the ship."

"Cancel the destruct sequence please."

"It is cancelled."

Less than half of the mosquito remained, it's long limbs were now stubble, it's thorax-like center, hung in the air as if a dissected part, slowly being digitally removed, transported off of the ship. La'Rio collapsed to the floor. She rolled onto her back.

A second later, the mosquito was being re-assembled, in deep space nearly a mile away from the Sentinel's Ghost.

La'Rio held her knee. The blood flowed down her carbon flight suit.

"I need help Sannon."

"I'm digitizing you into medical. In ten seconds you will be free of pain. La'Rio you said you didn't care, and that this ship and everything in it will be vaporized in a few moments."

"I was bluffing, I can't beat that thing in a fight."

Robotic maintenance droids appeared from around the corners, tiny laser lights emitting, scanning over the ripped and fragmented corridor, surveying, computing the damage.

"Why didn't it fire upon you?"

She coughed, her eyes closing, opening, then took a last look into the haze.

"I read those mosquitoes are programmed with a sense of preservation. It forces them to choose if confronted with termination. I forced an end to the game. I'm lucky it chose to negotiate."

"But...what if it had fired upon you?"

She raised her hand up then brought it back to her leg.

"I took the chance that it wouldn't... Sannon... please..."

She froze. The top of her head began to disappear. The digitizer swept back and fourth, A single invisible line, a spark, erased her hand at her face, then her face itself. Four seconds later only the pool of blood remained on the floor.


You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net