I heard a swish as the robot entered another room, then as the door closed behind once more, I was plunged into darkness. My breath caught in my throat as my imagination conjured up horrible fates that might await me in the dark. However, the robot was untroubled and kept rolling forward for several seconds before jolting to a halt.

I sat in the dark behind the curtain. Listening intently, I tried to pluck up the courage to venture out. There was a faint hum or a fan or motor running, and occasionally something clicked in the distance, but there were no voices or sounds of movement. Eventually, I reassured myself that it was safe to emerge.

Parting the curtain slowly, I peered around the room. The dim glow of a screen embedded in the far wall allowed me to see my bot had parked neatly in a row of identical robots, perhaps as many as twenty deep.

Pulling carefully at my legs, I forced them to slide out of my hiding hole, eventually extracting myself from the cramped space under the cart. Pins and needles shot along my legs as I stretched and staggered over to the light, which turned out to be the galaxy's least exciting control panel.

T-34 Storage Room Control Panel

Requisition T-34 View Past Activities Search Database

Great, I'm stuck in the spaceship equivalent of a janitor's closet. Still, it could be worse. My excursion appeared to have gone unnoticed so far.

Tapping on the screen brought up more information. There were a LOT of these bots, and they all had assigned automated tasks. According to the logs, there was a lot of cannon fodder to feed. My squad was just a small cog in a vast machine. No wonder the briefings were so dispassionate. There must be hundreds of similar teams on board.

Playing with the search function, I confirmed my earlier suspicions, both the Skitters and Arachnia were listed. The Skitters still had a delivery assigned to them, so it was likely that there were still survivors from that group. However, the deliveries for the Arachnia had been canceled, confirming that we had wiped them out entirely.

Figuring there was little else I could figure out from the limited actions available on the console, I brought up the information assigned to squad 304 - my squad. The next scheduled delivery was in ten hours at 08:00 tomorrow. Smiling, I altered the schedule, inserting an additional delivery in place to occur in fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, I was tucked into my trolley, waiting patiently for it to start its journey. A smirk lit up my face. I might have dug myself into this hole, but I might crawl out of it under my own steam yet.

The buzz of a motor further down the line of bots told me something was wrong. My robot remained inert, and another bot jolted out of line, headed for the door.

Fuck! I'd scheduled the delivery, but apparently, the same robot isn't used each time. Scrambling out of my hiding place, I loped along desperately behind the departing bot.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

I skidded into the back of the departing cart as the doors opened with their customary swish. Staying close, I followed it into the corridor. Breathing a sigh of relief as I confirmed there was no one outside.

I felt far safer once I was tucked within the cart with the curtains obscuring me from vision. There was little difference in the corridors we rolled through, each was the same sort of bland military whiteness that demonstrated a functional purpose and little personality.

The urge to stretch my legs was increasing. Small pains were shooting through my muscles where the cramp was setting in. I should have just sent the little cart directly back to home base, but instead I'd requested it make a pit stop first. The armory hadn’t looked far on the map, but either I hadn’t understood the scale involved completely or I’d messed up the directions.

The pain was becoming unbearable when the cart jolted to the right and stopped in front of an imposing set of doors. Unlike the other entryways I'd seen so far, these had yellow and black tramlines zigzagging across them.

A snakelike tube emerged from the wall above the door, swivelling down to survey the cart. As it moved a red light played over the area. Letting the curtain drop fully, I moved away from the edge as silently as I could.

My heartbeat seemed to echo loudly in the enclosed space as I waited to be discovered.

Then ten seconds later, a swish indicated the door had opened, and the cart rolled quietly forward into a formidable armory. Large cabinets lined the room's walls, and an array of weapons were stored in racks between and above them. Then yet more hardware was assembled on the floor in front of me.

My vision blurred as the nanobots attempted to identify everything for me all at once. I closed my eyes, then opened them carefully, forcing myself to concentrate on a single item at a time. I'd hit paydirt. This was going to be the military version of supermarket sweep. I'd programmed the bot to wait here for ten minutes before proceeding back to my squad's room. The clock was counting down. It was time to go shopping.

The rack of impressive-looking rifles propped on tripods in front of the cart was labeled Aries Perimeter Defender.

Aries Perimeter Defender

Specifically designed for the Aries Sunblast special forces. This smart rifle can be set upon its tripod in sentry mode, after which it will automatically fire upon intruders.

Those were pretty fucking cool and would be a massive help in our next mission. Unfortunately, the tripods were fairly bulky. It took some time, but I managed to cram one into the cart. That left me with under ten minutes in which to stock up before my robotic friend rolled out again and very limited space in which to stash additional hardware.

The next items I grabbed were pistols, Aries Predators, according to the readout. These large metallic pistols had a weighty feel to them, and I could tell they'd pack a serious punch.

Aries Predator V

Upgraded with improved ergonomics and handling features, the Aries Predator V has superior stopping power and includes a smart gun system. Making it the pistol of choice for putting down unruly natives.

I pulled a mean-looking pistol with a massive barrel from the wall, figuring Robinson would appreciate something this ugly and vicious.

Paxius Roomsweeper

This weapon is loaded with flechette rather than solid slugs. It behaves more like a short-barrelled shotgun than a pistol. This is the gun to have when you absolutely must kill the mother fucker standing directly in front of you.

I pulled opening and closing drawers quickly as time ran down, looking for other items that might be useful. I threw some Plasma grenades into the cart along with a half dozen armored vests and a variety of boxes containing mines.

The next item which caught my attention was a Plasma whip.

Plasma Whip

When activated, a plasma whip will generate a plasma charge along the length of its whip. This weapon can be used to devastating effect against infantry or to cut through doors and other obstacles.

This was a short, smooth metallic handle, which resembled a sword hilt, with a long thin, flexible wire attached. It looked cool as heck. I'd grown watching the Lone Ranger and Wonder Woman using lassos. How hard could it be to use a whip?

I pressed the button on the handle's base, and the short whip lit up with a golden color. There was a faint hum in the air as I swished it to the side lightly. I'd intended to get a feel for its movement, but it slashed against one of the tripod weapons. Instantly slicing through it, like a knife through butter. The whip continued on its deadly curve heading back towards me.

Fuck.

I quickly stabbed the button again. The shimmer vanished and its deadly wire reverted to being just that, a wire. I placed it gingerly back in its drawer. The weapon was undoubtedly deadly, but I was just as likely to cut my own head off with it as I was any enemy.

That was it, time was nearly up, and I had to make sure I was tucked away before the security eye scanned the cart on the way out.

As the cart rolled towards the door, I looked gloomily over the room. I was sure that I'd left items behind that would have been more useful than those I had stashed.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. Settled awkwardly in my cramped hidey hole I had little I could do except mull over the events of the evening, I realized I should have discussed this plan with the others, perhaps even persuaded them to come along with me. Sarge or even Robinson would have been far better at assessing what weapons to take.

Still, as the robot approached the doors to arrive back at the squads quarters I reassured myself that this excursion had been a success.

Sarge’s gun swung up and he squinted suspiciously at the unexpected robot as it entered the room. His finger hovered over the gun's trigger and an uncertain frown has settled onto his craggy features.

I heard the distinctive click of a safety being released.

“Don’t shoot!” I pleaded, falling out of the cart into an ungainly heap. “Errr … did you miss me?” I continued awkwardly.

Sarge scowled at me and as he let loose, I realised that might not have been the best thing to say.

“Where the fuck have you been Peters?” Spittle flew out from his lips as he spoke. “Next time you disobey me, it will be the last time.” A vein on his forehead throbbed as he collected himself. Then more quietly he stated, “Do you understand me?”

My blood had run cold, he was on edge and I did understand him fully. Not trusting myself to speak, I just nodded in reply.

“Well, you’re here now. Report in.” Sarge muttered impatiently.

I ran through my sparse findings quickly, explaining that we were on a vessel of some sort and that our missions appeared to be some kind of gladiatorial weeding out of combat candidates.

Westcott and Robinson paled at this, but Sarge took it in his stride simply nodding in agreement with my findings.

“So now we know that, what changes?” Sarge asked. “You risked our lives to get this information, exactly how did your little excursion help us?”

Sarge had a point, none of the information I’d found out really helped our situation, still I risked irritating the man further by smirking like the cat who got the cream. “I didn’t just bring information back with me.”

With an exaggerated bow I pulled the curtain back from the bottom of the cart. The boxes and hardware I’d been balancing upon were revealed to the others for the first time. “Can you guys help me unload this thing?”