Dangerous Toys (Part Seven)

Oscar was the product of a century of care, of kindness. Because his parents cared they told him the dark truth that in this long life that was being offered to him he would meet evil. He would meet those who sought to destroy those around him for the most trivial of reasons. Because they were kind they gave him the weapons to defend against that and push the dark a little further back. It was left understood but unspoken since the treaty but no AI was permitted to walk unarmed against what the humans laughingly called ‘the big dark’. He was spending his term with the humans to try and understand how they still found joy out here in the emptiness. That and the fact his mothers would have pulled out every capacitor he owned if he didn’t go.

He began by ripping down the network lines, bouncing meaningless noise at every receptor and listening for the echo. If the bandwidth was off if the voltage was running hot, if the lights weren’t right he cut them off at the root. He might not have everything yet but he controlled the power. Then he sent out his drones to check outside. He wore it as his own skin but the organics sometimes forgot the hull. He assumed the intruders had kept their own lights on.

Oscar hit system after system, comparing the Engineers notes against the outcome. She had told him to kill whatever he needed to except life-support and the coffee machine. Oscar was beginning to enjoy his first day in school. This was his ship now.

Loki was learning as he felt ship change around him. Old instincts called, old training remembered. His pack was truly in danger, the smell of death was beginning to fill the corridors. He could smell. ‘/blood/burning/deathdeath/victory/threat/FEAR/’. This was a true hunt and he felt his pack was small. He whimpered to himself that he would like /ScentofHappy/ to see him being this brave again.

Patrica felt the uncertainty from poor Loki and stopped. She knelt and patted him, ‘Brave/Goodboy/Packmate/SmellEnemiesFallen/PackHunts/PackGuardsYou/IGuard/’

More to herself than him she rubbed his ears and laughed, “Loki boy, anyone that tries to hurt you will answer to the human race first and all your /Longnose/ fans next. I would have left you in Engineering if I thought for a minute you would let me. Just keep your ears and nose open and let me do the rest.” All the technology in the world didn’t mean a damn as Loki took the muddle of words and the tone to mean that he was safe and protected. He licked Patrica’s facemask in thanks, his tail curling back to its normal position.

A thousand light-years away Patrica had created a powerful enemy. Captain Incice watched as ships system after ships system was cut away from him. He leaned back and held back the urge to shout. He was only a ‘Captain’ in supply, a nice lowly title in an obscure discipline but he owned most of the Fleet and half the system. He wasn’t about to lose it over a human. Fine. He had built-in redundancies for all of this, it just pained him to use them. The cargo was lost, time to suck it up and make sure that this was a story never told. He hit his comms, calling the Warlord of the Skies, a deeply irritating man that cost him a lot of money for days like this. “Sire, I regret to inform you that the freighter ‘Dangerous Toys’ has been lost with all hands and cargo. Please send any and all ships that we have in the area to search for survivors. I don’t expect any, but we must make the effort.”

The Warlord of the Skies quickly agreed. If Incice wanted one of his own ships dead, well that was what he was here for. It never even occurred to him that Incice was already making another call.

“Good evening Secretary, I am sorry to disturb you so late but I thought you might need to know that there may be a problem with the humans.”

The Secretary for Peace simply nodded, “I believe our relations with that species are adequate at the moment. What do I need to prepare for?”

Incice grinned to himself, enjoying briefly the fear his voice was causing, “I believe the Warlord of the Skies may regrettably cause the death of a human engineer through his sheer incompetence and badly-worded orders. I’ll let you know more as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, Captain. I will serve as best I can. Such tragedies arise in space, alas. Keep me informed.”

Incice killed his Comms and pulled up his Intel on this creature that was costing him so much money. From what he could see, she was nothing important. Her first tour, mistakes were made...He hit the Comms again. “Make a note that we don’t use any more ships with a human Engineer. Fuckers are more trouble than they’re worth.”

Patrica reached the unmarked closet without interruption and decided to take her time. If they had made it common practice to hide things like this it might be better to find out now...she got no further in her thoughts when the door blew off, hurling her across the corridor and slamming her hard into the opposite wall. Loki yelped as the explosion clipped his back and sent him tumbling.

She shook off the daze, her suit sending swift supplies of anything it felt necessary. The sound of Loki’s painful surprise was enough to have her on her feet in seconds. Then plasma blasts rocked her back off her feet. Four attackers, confident of their successful ambush opened fire. ‘We got her boss, war-beast is down, she’s unarmed in the open and taking fire. Go on the bridge.”

As Patrica fumbled for her plasma-torch a bright flash of yellow came screaming from behind her, a nightmare from the long-forgotten dark. Loki was hurt, his sides aching from the blow but then he had smelled the burning fire, smelled the hate and watched his master fall. No command, no threat and no weapon was enough to stop him as he let out a roar of /Grief/Pain/Revenge/Grief/ and leap past his fallen packmate with furious loyalty and slammed teeth-first into the nearest murderer, tearing with his claws as he drove it to the ground and sought its throat. He found it quickly.

Patrica was not tall, not some hero deathworlder. She had chosen the most peaceful ship she could find to raise a dog and an AI. She had been shot at, stabbed at and now these fuckers had hurt her dog. She turned the plasma-torch to full and leap into the fight, slashing at the scumbags waving their plasma rifles at her. Fuck you, I’m Human Altered and my suit wins. She slashed wildly, relying on sheer rage to carry the battle.

It worked. A simple ambush, a certain victory had turned to horror as the humans beast had awoken from the dead and ripped the face from their teammate. Then the human had arisen unharmed from their fire as an avenging demon, slashing some plasma-blade like the angry dead. One fell immediately as the plasma cut him in half, the parts tumbling in different directions as they fell. The third held his ground and his nerve, firing repeatedly straight into the glowing orange suit until he lost his life in as she stabbed him through the eye and carved a path through his brain and neck. The fourth dropped his weapon and ran, but he ran knowing that it didn’t matter how fast he ran the Human War-Beast was chasing him. He was right. The creature leapt onto his back and dragged him down, tearing and ripping away his life. Incice watched it all happen until Oscar abruptly cut his access to the Cams. Perhaps he had underestimated the human.

The Captain found her leaning against the wall, covered in blood and surrounded by corpses. Loki had his head on her lap and seemed equally shattered. “Patrica? What happened. Your AI...Oscar called me and told me where you were. He says he is sorry. Engineer what…? His voice trailed off as the event played out for him in the air. ,/Ambush/explosion/packmatehurt/packmatedead?/revenge/bloodprice/’, the story spoke of one thing and one thing only. “You were hurt so he attacked, then you attacked because he was hurt. Truly an Alliance forged from long ages together.”

Patrica heard the Captain but right now she was just tired. She raised her mask, letting the Captain see the face. Tired and angry. “Sir, with all due respect this ship seems to want me dead. Twice Loki has saved my life. Where the fuck were you?” She turned back to her dog, stroking his fur. Loki didn’t do trauma, living mostly in the moment but when she had fallen he had taken it badly and he needed to know she was here for him.

The Captain saw the pain, the strange tracks her tears had made. He had been warned that making a human kill, even for food, could take them to some dark place that they seemed to fear. He bowed low, “Engineer, today many are dead or about to die. Forgive me if I seem callous. I need my Engineer right now to make sure that the enemy of my ship fails and not my crew.”

Loki’s nose sniffed*, ‘/Longnose/Packmate/ScentofHappy/Sleep?/*

Patrica stood up, “Yes Captain. My apologies if I appeared rude. Let’s find these bastards and end this.”

As he watched her step over the dead at her feet he realised that it wasn’t death that they feared, it was to become the bringer of death. He watched as she rubbed Loki’s head as they walked away from the bodies without looking back, both smeared with the blood and worse of their enemies.