Chapter 5

Min-Ji

I should have realized it sooner, but I didn't put the pieces together until I saw the way he was scribbling notes on a piece of lavender leather. Corin had far too many tasks on his plate to handle them all alone. He was our doctor when Artek wasn't there, and he was also the only Naga who knew how Haven worked and how to fix any of the machines that made the little town beneath the mountain a comfortable home.

This was far too big of a job for one man, and now he'd added a whole rescue mission to his already full plate. I was relieved I'd decided to follow him, even if I might not be the most useful person to have along. Mental support was definitely my thing though—I knew exactly how to cheer someone up and keep them motivated

My eyes traced Corin's sleek but muscular body as he slipped quietly through the dust covering the room. The cleaning bot chased after him, its polishing disks humming. When it caught up, it brushed the nearest coil with a gentle, caring little beep. Ah, I wasn't going to be his only cheerleader down here, the bot would do its part too.

"Stay close," Corin said, turning to glare at me over his shoulder. He was always so grumpy, but that was just to protect his soft heart. I smiled as I jogged to catch up, my light clutched to my chest, perfect evidence to show his caring nature. His mercury eyes glimmered, reflecting the light back at me, and then that silvery membrane slid over them from the inside corner. Guiltily, I lowered the light to the floor.

"Oops, I didn't mean to blind you," I apologized, but my breath faltered as I caught the first hint of a sound. I hadn't noticed it before—not over the rushing water—but here, by the door? Skittering, like a thousand tiny feet scuffing along the floor. My belly went ice-cold, and my hand instinctively gripped my laser pistol. ‘What is that?' I whispered. Against my better judgment, I leaned closer, peering over Corin's shoulder into the dimly lit tunnel.

"The ‘crab' machines that Farah and Zeidon mentioned," Corin deadpanned, slithering aside so we wouldn't accidentally touch. I barely registered the quick motion, though it normally gave me a little pang of hurt in my chest. Crabs? That was uncomfortably close to a spider, and I wasn't wrong. When I spotted them scuttling along the tunnel floor, goosebumps erupted on my skin, and a shiver of disgust ran down my spine. Their strange walk was crab-like, but they had eight legs like a spider. Yuck.

"Now what?" I said, my mouth dry. There were dozens of them, no, a hundred maybe. Too many to simply walk around, and what if they attacked? They weren't big, but they weren't small either, and I definitely didn't want to find out what it felt like to have spindly metal legs crawling over my skin. No thanks. This was exactly why I'd chosen a career in outer space: no bugs.

"They've almost passed us," Corin replied, "and then we follow them. They might lead us to the Revenant. Look, they're carrying parts. They're probably still trying to repair it." He was right, but that didn't make me feel any better. I was even less interested in facing the Revenant than seeing these crab bots. The accounts Farah and Zeidon had given made that freaky robot sound like something straight out of a horror movie. A mix of zombie Naga meets Terminator, it wasn't high on my list of creatures to encounter.

When Corin waited expectantly, I knew he was waiting for a reply, an acknowledgment of the plan. What was I supposed to say? "No thanks, I'd rather we go to the beach instead?" We had to do this. The Revenant was responsible for trapping the missing warriors and nearly killing Zeidon twice. If anyone needed to be stopped, it was that thing, and if anyone could, it was Corin. So, I swallowed my fear and gave him a determined nod. "Sure, let's do this."

I had my laser pistol with me. The charge was running low, but I should be able to get a few more shots off. That made our odds much better, and I wouldn't even need to get close. It was tempting to destroy the creepy little robots, but I settled for walking behind them with the pistol clutched in my clammy palm. Corin was between me and the bots anyway, so I'd have advance warning if they turned to swarm us, but so far, they completely ignored us.

We were following them down narrow tunnels that twisted and turned, barely lit by grimy crystals in the ceiling. Here and there, the walls showed signs of damage, cracks and fissures that bisected the dark stone. My sense of direction underground wasn't as reliable as when I flew a shuttle, but I still felt like we were heading back the way we'd come. Back into the area where we'd seen that huge crack in the wall. How safe were these tunnels? I hadn't worried before, but now I wondered: were we at risk of a collapse?

The idea that we might end up trapped in this darkness like the people we were trying to save, was an excellent distraction. Too good maybe. I prattled in the gloom, speaking in a low voice to Corin's scaly back. "This is safe, right? We won't get trapped?" The cleaning bot whirred and beeped as if it agreed with me, but Corin didn't reply.

He froze so suddenly that I nearly tripped over his tail. I managed to catch myself against the wall, my fingers slipping into a crack and hanging on before I face-planted on the floor. I was about to scold him for doing that but snapped my teeth together when I realized why he'd stopped. The crab bots skittered ahead, winding around a corner in their creepy little caravan. The last one ducked beneath a pair of metal paws and disappeared from sight.

Claws clicked against the stone as the metal beast came toward us, its glowing purple eyes burning like shiny amethyst. If I had to pick an animal to describe this creature, I'd go with a dog, but that was really just my brain trying to find some comparison to make sense of the shape I was seeing.

Spiked back, sleek-moving shape, and four clawed paws. Its entire body was shiny silver metal with dark matte spots that seemed to absorb the light. It had a maw filled with sharp teeth, and when it opened, a sound like a chainsaw emerged as the teeth started moving . "Another Revenant," Corin hissed beneath his breath, "Small one again. I had no idea this class existed. How interesting…"

He sounded intrigued rather than worried, and I thought he was crazy for responding that way. That creature looked terrifying, and it was clearly there to block our path, preventing us from following the crab things to the Vrash robot so they could continue repairing it. It looked like it was going to saw us into tiny bits with that maw, and it was not a pretty prospect.

I took a few steps back and pulled my pistol from my thigh holster. The snap of the holster as I released the gun was loud in my ears, even over the sound of the chainsaw dog creature whirring away with its awful mouth. Corin's scales rattled along his back, a hissing noise that served as a counterpoint to the creature's threatening sounds. I knew that sound meant discomfort, unease. Those rattling scales, I'd often seen Corin do it, but it was rare for most other Naga. Maybe he wasn't as intrigued as I thought, maybe he was worried about that attack dog robot.

Then he coiled his body forward, moving toward the thing, and he hadn't even pulled out one of his signature long knives. Nope, no sense of self-preservation. I must have startled him with the snap of the holster button. Idiot. I raised my pistol and took aim, my shoulder pressed against the crumbling stone wall. The tunnel was narrow, and Corin's shoulders were wide, but the hound made a nice, big target.

My finger pressed gently against the trigger as I took aim, but I didn't fire yet. Was it going to attack or not? If we backed away, would it leave us alone? My hand trembled as I recalled the last time I'd fired this gun, my mind filling with images of my superior officer and the stench of his burning flesh. I hadn't killed him—not directly—but I was responsible. I told myself I'd never fire a gun again, but shooting at a robot dog wasn't the same as shooting a real, living person, was it? Then my eyes flicked from the dog bot to the tiny cleaning bot trembling against my boot.

"Stand down, Revenant," Corin said in a firm voice, the kind of voice you might use on a dog. I didn't think that would work, but he kept approaching the thing with his hands at his sides, like he was dealing with a skittish animal, not a robot. "We need to see your master. Where is he? Take us to him."

The hound's mouth snapped shut, and the silence felt deafening. No more chainsaw noises, just the amethyst glow of its eerie eyes. Honestly, that purple glow was kind of pretty. Too bad those eyes belonged to a metal snout that would saw your limb off if you tried to pet it. "That's it," Corin said in the silence, his tone soothing. "Take us to your master. Take us to Vrash."

The name of the robot Naga that had plagued Farah and Zeidon's courtship was a trigger. The silence ended as the creature revved its chainsaw teeth and lunged forward. Corin dodged with lightning speed, his black stone blades flashing through the air and scoring the side of the beast. It happened so fast, I had no time to respond, I just stood there like an idiot.

Then the screeching started, a loud, ear-splitting noise that tore through the air. It felt like my organs were trying to climb up my throat. My ears started ringing, and even the wall beneath my fingertips trembled and shook. Through eyes watering from the pain, I tried to make sense of what was happening. Was it the dog-thing?

Corin crumbled where he stood, all his many coils thudding to the ground in an ungainly pile. The hound saw its opening and leaped for him; I reacted on instinct. My finger was still on the trigger somehow. It squeezed in pure reflex, barely aimed in the right direction. The laser shot scorched through the air and, with a large sizzle, struck the robot hound on the side.

It snapped its maw shut, and the whirring chainsaw and the awful screeching abruptly ended. My ears didn't work right after that assault, the world seesawing around me. I narrowed my eyes, forcing myself to focus, to get my aim right this time. The beast leaped over Corin, paws outstretched, tipped with four-inch long knives. My shot sizzled through the air and struck it in the throat.

I felt the brush of a claw against my belly, slicing through my shirt. Stumbling back, I fell over, my ankles tangling with the cleaning bot huddled against my boots. This was how it ended, I thought. But I'd had that thought before, and I didn't enjoy having it again. With an angry scream, I locked eyes with the glowing amethyst orbs of the beast, my pistol firing again, straight into his freaking chainsaw maw. "Fuck you, die!"

My pistol fired once, laser fire burning, and then it sputtered out. The glowing eyes were right above my legs as it kept prowling forward. Fear filled my throat, my belly ached, and I was definitely filled with all kinds of regrets. Mostly, I was angry that I hadn't managed to convince Corin to kiss me. Ah, Corin! Was he dead? Had that awful screech killed him?

The metal beast collapsed so suddenly that I was left blinking at where its eyes had been for several seconds before it finally registered. The weight that hit my shins—the cold metal, the hot maw of sharp fangs—and Corin rising above it with blood streaming from his ears, dripping down his throat and chest. My eyes focused on the metal disk on a leather cord he wore, how the blood seemed to funnel toward it.

His mouth moved, but I couldn't understand what he was saying over the ringing in my ears. I raised a hand to touch one, worried I might be bleeding like he was. My fingers came away clean, so that screeching had struck Corin harder than it had me. I wasn't sure if I liked knowing that, but I was infinitely relieved to be alive, and that he was upright and moving.

Okay, moving was a bit of a stretch. He was hunched over the downed robot attack dog, his upper body half-collapsed on top of it. I could see the leather-clad hilts of two of his long blades sticking out of the side of the beast, stuck between a pair of metal ribs. The dog was out, but it was starting to look like Corin was going to collapse a second time. Pass out, I mean.

"I'm fine," I said, my words sounding funny to my ears. The ringing was fading, and as it did, I felt less dizzy. The robot was heavy, and Corin, lying half on top of it, wasn't helping. I tried to shift my legs and couldn't. "Please help me get out from under this thing. Then I'll look at your poor ears. Can you even hear me?" I was prattling again, and I realized that Corin was staring with laser focus at my moving lips, his mercury eyes glowing. If he heard me, that was an entirely different thing. He didn't get off my pinned lower legs, and his eyelids were drooping.

If he passed out, I was going to be stuck under him and the bot until my legs went numb. With no charge left in my laser pistol, that was going to be a terrifying time… I had to do something now! I tried pushing, but no matter how hard I heaved or pulled, the robot didn't budge enough for me to shift my legs free. Its dimmed eye sockets glinted balefully at me, as if accusing me of this predicament.

"Come on, Corin. Stay awake a little longer for me, please! You can do that, can't you? Help me out so I can help you." He blinked, the weird semi-transparent inner eyelid sliding shut and then open beneath his normal eyelids. He groaned when he tried to move. His hands shot up to clutch at his head as if it hurt, but his weight shifted off the dog.

It wasn't enough, and he was flagging, my worry for him growing. This wasn't good; that screech had done a terrible number on him. I recalled that Zeidon and Farah had dealt with a similar weapon from Vrash, but I was pretty sure Zeidon hadn't been as bad in that recounting as Corin was reacting now.

A brush against my hand made me squeak with fear, and Corin jerked upright, his body swaying, but his hands raised, holding a third knife he'd pulled from somewhere. It was just the bot, no longer trembling from fear. It beeped a few times gently as it scooted past me in the cramped space. "What are you doing?" I asked, though I knew it was silly to expect an answer.

"Beep, bop, beeeeeeep," the bot responded as it scooted itself beneath the shoulder joint of the robot. Its round dome top made a scraping sound as it made contact with the metal. Then the little bot raised itself a little taller with another determined-sounding beep. Holy crap, it was doing it! It was just a tiny bit of space, but that was all I needed to yank my legs free from beneath the metal beast.

With a wild spinning move, the little bot freed itself from beneath the robot carcass, and I swore it danced for me. A triumphant little spin and twirl after a successfully completed task. It was freaking adorable. "If you didn't name it," I said to Corin, "then I'm declaring its name is now Triff. For centrifugal force."

I raised my eyes from the triumphant little robot and looked at my silvery-blue Naga companion. "Ah, fuck!" He was about to collapse again. My legs ached fiercely as I clambered to my knees. Pins and needles—the whole kit and caboodle. I ignored it and scrambled over the downed robot to get to Corin, hands outstretched so I could touch his still-bleeding ears.

At the last moment, I froze in place and stared. If I touched him, it would only succeed because he was too hurt to move out of my way. It felt wrong to take advantage of that. But how could I help without crossing that boundary?