Zero's Return (18 page)

Unfortunately
for Rat, when she was stuck in a hole, bored, waiting for a pickup, she often
wondered which would be the worst way to die.  And, despite daily dealings with
psychotic Huouyt, volatile Jreet, and bloodthirsty Dhasha day in and day out,
every time, she picked dying in a crash to be her least preferred method of
worldly departure.  On a ship, she was just a passenger.  She had no
control
,
absolutely no say in her demise.  And, however quick and painless it might be,
it was those blood-curdling seconds spinning towards the ground that she wasn’t
looking forward to.

Thus, it took
all of Rat’s willpower to say, “Get us on the ground.  I’ll take care of the
rest.”

“
These are
Congressional blockade bots, my lord,
” the ship warned her.  “
It is
their
job
to keep us from getting on the ground.
”  Even a Takki, Rat
thought wryly, could be sarcastic, given the proper circumstances.

“Just do it,”
Rat said.  “I’ll take my chances.”

“
As you
command, my lord,
” the ship replied.  “
If it pleases you, you may want
to secure your body with the overhead restraints and put your head and arms
into the crash sleeves, otherwise the impact might rip them off.
”

Rat swallowed,
feeling sick.  “This isn’t going to be fun, is it?”

“
Not for you,
my lord
,” the ship-Takki replied.  Almost like it was…looking forward to
it?  Then, before Rat had a chance to think about that, the courier ship began
a downward spin towards the atmosphere, using the tiny planet’s gravity to veer
away from their pursuers.

Seeing the world
begin to twist around her on the viewscreen, Rat quickly closed her eyes and
did as she was instructed.

Burning furg,
she thought, her stomach crawling into her throat. 
You are such a burning
furg, Rat…

An impact made
the ship rumble, and Rat reflexively cried, “What was that?”

“
That was a
Space Force explosive round hitting the hull, my lord,
” the ship explained
to her patiently.  “
It has ripped off the right side aero-gear and we no
longer have any way of controlling spin.  I can still get us to ground at a
reasonable descent, but we will likely be spinning with enough force to rip the
ship apart.
”

Rat swallowed,
hard. 

“
On the plus
side,
” the ship went on cheerfully, “
there was no rupture to the crew
capsule, so you will survive, at least until impact.  From there, you have a
twenty-two percent chance of being dismembered by the force.  Your odds of
surviving, however, are at least thirty percent, as long as you can stop the
bleeding before the government bots obliterate the wreckage.
”

Feeling sick,
Rat reminded herself why she never asked AIs for damage reports.

Another blast
rocked the ship, and Rat simply squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead
against the gel-like sleeve.  All around her, the ship was making an awful,
ear-splitting roar.  Two more concussive blasts heralded the screaming of
atmosphere against protrusions.

“
Thirteen
seconds to impact,
” the Takki voice told her after a moment.  “
And we’ve
only lost half the ship to enemy fire.  This is going better than I expected.
”

“Just get us
down,” Rat croaked.  Even through the sleeve, she was feeling a breeze, which
meant the hull had been penetrated, which meant she was now breathing alien
air.

“
Ten seconds.

Rat felt stupid—
stupid!
—for
not putting on her biosuit the day before, when the thought had crossed her
mind.  She was going into a war-zone, and she knew it, but she wanted to sleep
on the nice comfy couch for another day feeling the air against her skin before
being forced to don her stuffy, clingy, non-breathing suit.  After all,
Congress had said it wasn’t going to hit Earth for another three days.

“
Ten
seconds.  Try not to stiffen up.  That will only make the inevitable damages
worse.
”

“
Just
land
us!
” Rat screamed.

“
Five
seconds,
” the ship said.  “
I suggest you get away from the wreckage as
soon as possible.
”

Rat tensed.

“
The cockpit
medkit
,” the ship politely reminded her, “
is on the wall to your left.
”

An instant
later, Rat’s world exploded.  The impact was loud enough to deafen her
completely, leaving her ears ringing and blotting out all other sound.  The hit
itself was like taking a Dhasha’s paw full to the chest, and she felt ribs
crack.  Her chair, though part of the ship itself, somehow dislodged and sent
her rolling across the floor, breaking what seemed like every bone in her
body.  Rat shrieked as her left arm and one of her legs tangled under the chair
and, as the ship had warned, tried to get themselves torn off.

As the
debilitating wave of agony started pounding its way from her wounds and into
her skull, Rat realized there were more explosions nearby.  Ship weapons-fire,
hitting other pieces of debris.  She could recognize that sound anywhere, as
she had more than once been on the receiving end.  Panicking, now, she
extracted her broken body from the harness and, on one knee and one arm,
started dragging herself to the medkit in the wall.  At least her spine was
intact.  Thank the Mothers for that.

Her broken leg
was bleeding badly, and it took Rat a moment to realize she’d lost a finger on
her left hand.  More concussions were going off outside as her pursuers
obliterated the remnants of her ship, this time rocking the twisted metal
around her.

Realizing she
didn’t have time to go looking for her missing digit, Rat dove for the medkit. 
She didn’t have time to use it, or to gather her supplies.  “Max!” she screamed. 
“Where are you?!”

“
I’m over
here, Mistress.  To your left.
”  With the ship upside down, it took Rat a
moment to orient herself and find her gun still safe in his wall-sheath.  She
retrieved him with shaking, bloody fingers and, with her medkit in her mouth,
rifle sliding against the floor in her right hand, she started crawling towards
the gaping hole in the side of the ship.

“
You’ve
sustained severe damages, Mistress,
” Max commented.  “
Immediate medical
attention advised.
”

But Rat was
concentrating on surviving the next few seconds.  The bots were coming, she
knew, and she
had
to get off the ship before they blew it away. 
Please
let me get off the ship,
Rat prayed, though she knew it was utterly
hopeless—her end was coming just as soon as the bots found this last piece of
wreckage.  Still, her panicked mind chanted her prayer to the Dhasha gods
anyway. 
Mothers’ golden scales, please just let me get off this ship.
 
At that point, with Death swinging down on her in the silvered gown of a cold,
unemotional bot, she wanted, very much, to live.

She crawled
through the exit, dragging her broken leg through the heated alien dirt, then
out into the forest beyond.

She’d made it no
more than two rods from the ship before an explosion tumbled her another seven,
shrapnel, rocks, and trees gouging their marks in her skin.  Rat groaned as she
came to an abrupt rest against a tree, struggling with the tug of
unconsciousness.  She had fallen facing the ship, and she could see her plasma
rifle lying halfway between her and the twisted silvery wreckage.  In a moment
of horror, she realized she had dropped her medkit. 

Soot,
she
thought, fighting to stay conscious.  Arms broken, legs broken, it was
everything she could do just to lift her head a fraction of a ninth and look
around her.

The medkit,
being lighter, had flown farther afield from the blast.  It had landed amongst
a clump of boulders twenty digs from her, its waterproof black box now baking
in the sun.  Seeing that, knowing that she wasn’t going to live without
reaching it, Rat groaned and tried to take a mental tally of the damages.  One
arm was broken in several places, but the other was intact from the shoulder to
the forearm.  Of her legs, she had one that was still solid to the knee.  She
was pretty sure her nose and jaw were busted, and she either had a piece of
scalp ripped away or one of the rocks had punctured her skull, because warm
fluid was leaking down her neck, pooling along her spine.

She had to make
it to the medkit.  And, once there, she had to use it.  On herself.  Just the
thought of such a momentous task almost made her give up and close her eyes. 
Almost.  Then Rat remembered her mission, remembered her friend wallowing in
his own filth, and knew she was his only hope for killing his demons and
claiming vengeance.

Biting her lip
against the agony everywhere, Rat started dragging herself with her elbow and
knee, pushing through the alien grasses on her stomach, tackling the space a
half-dig at a time.

It took the rest
of the day.  Every ninth was a grueling, dizzy, soul-searching ordeal.  By the
time Rat finally reached the medkit, she actually found herself staring at it
for several minutes before her exhausted, pain-ridden mind finally realized she
was looking at it.

Getting the box
open was just as agonizing as physically dragging herself over to it.  Her
hands were useless.  Using her teeth, her weight, and one shoulder, she managed
to trigger the latch mechanism, then let out a sob of frustration when the
contents spilled out over the ground from their rough handling.  The nannite
solution was intact, though, and by levering the vial in her weak, half-open
palm and using her teeth to remove the cap and dip the needle, she actually
managed to dose herself by then jabbing it into her bruised and blackened arm.

Utterly
exhausted, Rat couldn’t find the energy to re-cap the vial.  She tried—she
wanted
to—but, as the nannites began working their magic, the pain that had been
keeping her conscious quickly became a warm fuzz, and Rat lost herself to the
void.

#

“Think she’s
dead?”

“Yeah, looks
it,” a young male voice said.  “Look at that leg, man.  No saving her.”

“Hey, holy
crap, look at this!  You ever seen a gun like this?!  Dude, this is like, what,
a Congie gun, right?”

“Save that. 
We’re gonna need it…”

#

No,
Rat
thought. 
They’re taking Max!

Rat groaned and
sat up in a panic, only to realize she was still holding the nannite vial in
her hand and ended up spilling two thirds of it over the ground.

“Ash!” Rat
cried, quickly capping it.  “You ashing
furg
, Rat!” she screamed at
herself, watching several hundred doses of life-saving bots vanish into the
ground—bots that this planet wouldn’t see for another Sacred Turn.  “Mothers’
talons, you are such a burning furg,” she whispered to herself.  With shaking
fingers, she tucked it back into the medkit, the entirety of which the
scavengers had left behind.

The
gun
!
she remembered, horrified.  Rat pushed herself up to her knees, only to find
that one arm and one leg had healed improperly, due to her lack of proper
bone-setting before dosing herself.  Of her two arms, one of them barely even
worked, having been bent underneath her when the healing began.  The leg was
much worse, the bone still protruding from her skin.  The nanos there were an
angry buzz of activity, trying to finish their ‘chores,’ only to be stymied by
bones that weren’t even within ninths of each other, so refused to knit.

Looking at the
awkward bend in her forearm, Rat came to the sickening conclusion that she
would have to re-break her arm long before she could go hunt down whomever had
stolen her gun.  And, considering that she had just spent almost an entire
daylight-cycle sleeping, she needed to do it soon, if it already wasn’t too
late.

The idea of
spending the rest of her short Earth-life as a cripple in the middle of a
Space-Force-inspired apocalypse left Rat with a queasy feeling in her stomach. 
Willing to do anything to avoid that fate, Rat propped herself up until she
could put her twisted forearm between two of the boulders in the outcropping
behind her, then, with a gut-deep yell to encourage herself, slammed it
sideways with as much force as she could manage.

The
recently-knitted bone snapped free again, and this time Rat screamed and bent
over with the pain, the shrieking agony in her arm leaving her gasping, just
trying to stay conscious.  She panted for several moments, unable to see
through the tears.  Slowly, she pulled herself upright, then, with trembling
fingers, uncapped the nannite tube, dipped the needle into the silvery solution
in the bottom, then jammed it into her arm near the wound and dosed herself
again.

Then, before the
nannites had a chance to run their course, she propped the foot of her
un-healed leg into a crack between a boulder and a tree, then, as adrenaline
surges spiked lines of acid through her veins, pulled her leg straight.

She held it in
place for as long as she could before she flopped back onto her back and stared
up at the orangish sky.  Orangish, she realized, from smoke.  The whole world,
it seemed, was on fire.

And the first
thing I did upon getting here was crash my ship, lose Max, and dump my nanos on
the ground,
she thought, disgusted with herself.

She stayed on
her back as long as she dared—it was a general rule not to put much pressure on
nannite-knitted bones for at least two Standard days—but eventually, Max called
to her.  It was a sleek, rugged, AI-embedded, Huouyt-made sniper’s weapon, one
that she had never worked up the courage to ask Mekkval how much it had
originally cost him.  All she knew was that a Sui’ezi Rodemax was worth more
than most people’s lives, to those who could use it.