Chapter 3 Craze

The ground caves when I hit. Craters form as my heavy metal body punches into the fields just beyond the scrap plant.

Ranger's hibernation cell shatters not far away, filling the sky with lacerating glitter. I shield my face and head with my arms but don't wait for the rain to end. My brothers need me. One of us is already gone.

Ranger's code has vanished from our local network.

Now I know what Mother Besha meant when she said the Creators didn't want immortality.

Dust billows up in clouds, undoubtedly giving the Solcrue a clear target for our location. I force myself to climb, with heavy legs, out of my crater.

Scanners switch on in my vision. I follow the heat signals to Ranger's chamber in the adjoining crater. Glass rattles and clinks as I trek over it to his cooling body. He's powered down, and his husk is severely damaged.

Stumbling through the loose dirt and glass, I free him from the twisted frame, lug his body over my shoulders and hustle up the bank to find the others. I'm not salvaging his core. I'm taking him whole until I can restore him.

No cybersoldier left behind again, Brother. Screw my programming. I'll figure out a way to mend you.

We have to get out of here before the Solcrue find us. We need shelter.

PellucidLocal: …

I stall and search the pockmarked landscape but don't see any other plumes of dust.

CrazePellucid: Come again?

The name blinks in my chat window with a faint image of a room filled with women. Then it flickers out.

CrazePellucid: Please repeat.

After a few seconds without a response, I switch back to my brothers. I cannot connect to Titan Pellucid. Searching for them will have to wait. I have an immediate threat condition I have to deal with.

CrazeLocal: status report.

Axe pierced the ground and has dropped into an old tunnel. I'm not surprised. RamBash has found Axe. Both report they are damaged but upright. Macabre is severely injured after landing on a field of rocks. Tangle is unresponsive.

AxeLocal: We'll tunnel toward the mountains. Wait for coordinates.

If anyone of us left can carve a tunnel it's Axe. RamBash will help.

I easily find Macabre by the haze still in the air. Sliding down his crater, I hear the roar of a Skysprinter.

When I look up, a spray of fragmenting metal drenched in flames fills the sky. Far above us, someone in a starjumper's suit rockets back toward another lone soldier who's taken out a second ship.

Amp cries out for Cara so loud in our network that Macabre and I cringe.

Savage reports. Diesel's got her!

Cara took out a skysprinter? Macabre looks shocked. She took out her own kind for us?

The portal shimmers as it swirls with the promise of freedom for our brothers. I know it isn't their fault, and I'm grateful that even some Solcrue know we are worth saving. But I'm frustrated we aren't with them.

Poppy guides the LightBlade through. After two years, four months, nine days, and twenty three hours stuck in captivity, I am at least outside the walls of the plant. It's not ideal, but it's an improvement. It still gives us a chance to recoup and fight back.

Macabre has busted an arm and part of his ribcage is collapsed. His eyes drift up at the cluster of hibernation cells as they vanish through the portal. No other enemy ships arrive. No other Brothers fall. Still, we watch until the last unit disappears.

MacabreCraze: I sent Morbid a report. He knows who is left here.

Sliding myself under his good arm, I haul him up. He growls but doesn't resist. The weight of my brothers is immense, but we are trained and capable of carrying two full soldiers for days when fully operational. But I am far from my prime.

Solcrue starved us in the plant and kept us in the dark, hindering our power. Out here, in the sun, I am charging like the others. Still, my legs burn and my back aches from the weight.

I am not losing another Brother. I will carry them until I break.

Together, we limp to the rim of his crater. I scour the fields for Tangle. He's landed in a grassy area by the last recording his eyes relayed. As we hustle to his location, I scan for skysprinters and patrols.

There's a hoverdrone far out on the plains of Hyperion that turns toward us. It has weapons, though not as large as a Tacticat. But I need to move faster.

Sure, Titans don't need oxygen or food. We don't need gravity or heat. Humans and Solcrue do. And we're strongest with those things. But it still takes time to power-up in the sun, and I'm afraid I'm too drained for what is going to be asked of me today.

I wearily set Macabre down at the edge of Tangle's crater, rest Ranger's contorted husk beside him, and wade down into the soupy soil. Only a hand is visible in the grass of the slough. The rest of Tangle is buried in mud.

MacabreCraze: Hurry! The drone is almost on us!

It changed direction fast, likely thanks to parts we pulled off of brothers and salvaged under threat of the Solcrue using coilguns to punch out our ultromotors.

Just the thought of that gun snaking up my insides and eating a hole in my power core gives me the shivers.

Craze! Macabre shouts at me.

I lug Tangle out of the marshy mess, clear his mouth of mud, and set his sopping body down beside Macabre.

I'm not going to get them to cover in time. I know it when I see the drone racing toward us. The only thing I can do is be in the way.

Craze— Don't. Macabre resets Tangle's body but keeps tabs on my movements. Tangle's digibadge lights up. He chokes and spits up sludge but doesn't open his eyes.

I'm not thinking about the consequences as I walk into the path of the drone, dripping wet, muddy, exhausted, and furious. I rarely think. I wasn't designed that way. But I'm trying because I know my design is flawed. I can't smash my way out of this one and keep my Brothers close. One thing at a time.

We need a fast way out of here. All of us. And I've found one. It's just not going to be easy or fun.

MacabreCraze: You're too low on power. It's not worth the risk to be—

CrazeMacabre: Myself?

The hoverdrone's guns point at me and glow as the front claws open. Based on its low and flat profile, it's a standard model with one important limitation—it's hovering capability.

MacabreCraze: This is lunacy!

Desperation, my angry friend! I correct.

I sprint over the uneven, rocky ground toward the drone as it lights up the sky with rapid fire. Green bullets rip by me, trailing threads of scorching heat. I have to stop the drone before it shoots up my defenseless brothers.

Impact ETA: Three, Two, One—

Hoverdrones can't pass ten meters off the ground without a full thruster array, so as the drone approaches, I jump. As my body drifts over it, I scan the system, isolate the rotary guns on either side, and slam down on its flat top.

It bobs with my weight. I grab the guns as the drone carries me away and disconnect the power systems, shutting them off. It is one thing about hoverdrones I have not forgotten in two years.

"Craze!" Macabre shouts after me.

It is strange hearing the physical voice of a brother. We used to talk aloud more, back when hope and strength were two things we still possessed, before CSP turned on us and the war shredded my Brothers. Then, only our private network was trustworthy.

MacabreCraze: We need to stick together!

Wind scrapes at my synthflesh and tugs at my worn tactical pants. After years without more than elbow space, without weapons or armor or freedom, our escape feels like chaos. To our human Creators, chaos was overwhelming.

They designed me to excel in its midst, to adapt moment to moment with little thinking time.

CrazeMacabre: Hang on. I'm working on it.

I scan my databases for a logged recording of a drone with more information. As the mountains grow closer and my brothers further behind, I find what I'm looking for in the critical information downloads.

Videos load in translucent windows in my visual field.

Pulling from Savage's experience, nearly three years ago, I find the control panel at the rear of the unit like he did and pry it free. I pull out the wiring harness with a host of glassy chip cards. Savage notes which wires to pull to shut the unit down, but I don't want to do that. I want the drone to fly my injured brothers to safety.

I search my memory further.

Green wire stops it. Black shuts it down. I follow Hotwire in another video. Blue tied to white-striped engages manual mode.

His help is bittersweet.

I miss all of my decommissioned brothers as I pull the wires from the harness and twist them together. They did not deserve their fates. It was torture to sort their parts in the plant, knowing some were my fault. I was good at my job, but that didn't involve saving them—a design flaw I still fight to overcome.

Ranger's body is evidence I haven't learned jack shit.

The drone slows, stops, and flips a manual steering panel toward me. Solcrue do everything with wrist controls, remotes, and access codes. We have to get our hands dirty.

I take control and guide the drone back. As I do, I watch more recordings for pulling the tracker and disengaging remote access. When our ride is safe, and the guns are in manual mode, I close the claws.

Macabre limps toward me as I glide up beside him. "You're insane."

CrazeMacabre: Impulsive.

"Why don't you wish to speak to me? Do you not miss it?"

CrazeMacabre: voice recognition or trackers. I don't trust this moon.

MacabreCraze: Fair enough.

I haul Tangle onto the drone's platform, and then help Macabre.

Skysprinters race around the darkened portal like an angry hive as I pick up Ranger and lay his broken body beside Tangle's.

CrazeMacabre: Do you think they figured out where our Brothers went?

MacabreCraze: No. If they did, they'd ignite the portal or race out of here. By my best guess, our Brothers, Poppy, and Cara, are safe for now.

I think of Pellucid as I get us headed for the mountains, wondering where they are in this mess. Turning us toward the nearest ridge, I scan for anyone or anything else that may have discovered our location.

Two other drones race after us from the plant. Overhead, the ships Cara and Diesel took out before their departure illuminate red, trailing flaming debris, as they near Hyperion's surface.

Patrols are never going to end. Solcrue know we're here. We have to go where they won't to be safe.

I aim for the terraforming tunnels Amp spoke of. Solcrue still fear dark confined spaces. It's why their ships are so large—to offer spacious accommodations.

The sun sets, glazing the mountains in amber hues like the last light in Ranger's eyes. My insides shudder like dry gears. I'm sorry, Brother.

I'm the only undamaged unit—mostly. My hands and arms have been shredded of synthflesh. But with time, my nanos will repair it. The raw muscle pistons and joints sting, but I block the signals from my mind.

In the shelter of the towering cliffs, we slip into a vent channel and hover down a deep shaft into the cold dark heart of the moon.

I have to find Axe and RamBash and close our access point so the drones don't find us. It's up to me to get supplies, to repair the injured, to defend my brothers until they can fight from their own two feet again. It's easier if we are together. We're stronger that way.

I slip into one of the tunnel systems and fire behind us, closing the access shaft.

MacabreCraze: I hope that wasn't our only way out.

His thoughts reflect my own—in hindsight.

CrazeMacabre: Right now, it's our only way to live.