Dyson’s Game

Book 1: Salvage Claim

Chapter 7

Efraim

It was hard. To watch your friend die of radiation poisoning. To see the blood drain from their scales, to hear them hack off their own lifeblood, choking to death on their own spit and blood. To be able to do nothing but watch, as she all but wasted away and took her last breath.

I just... sat there. Staring. Holding. Watching the far wall, caked with blood and a corpse slumped over a crate. Listened as the ship thumped with life once more, as that thing boarded went back inside the ship.

This time though... This time, things were different now. With Shisholi’s pad directly connected to the ship and its comms, any kind of ECM that thing could muster was gone. I could access the computers, I could access the crew’s final moments, I could access the System Weave itself... But that would mean nothing. Would be nothing, if that thing still found me and turned me to mincemeat.

My eyes shift towards Shisholi, finding her staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling. Far enough away that I wouldn’t get hit by any residual radiation coming from her co... from her body, but close enough that I could still make out some details through her helmet.

With a sigh and a shudder, I lean back against the outer hull, a soft thunk echoing throughout the cargo bay.

“Rest in peace, Shisholi.” I mutter, my maglocks thunking against the hull as I stood up. “... May the Broodmother give you peace.”

My MMI spools up, eyes narrowed into slits as I began browsing through the System Weave to find something – anything that I could use to reactivate that damn mass driver. My gun did nothing but peanuts, but browsing through its specs right now... well, it would work. It has to work. Bossman and the others would only be arriving here after a few hours, and I’m not sure I’d be able to survive that long.

I paused, before aiming my gun at the rover that we came in and letting off another burst. The bullets bounced off the plating, and themselves kicked up dirt this time around instead of just burying itself in the regolith.

The ship rumbles once more, before the vibrations stop, and I saw a figure darting through the regolith. I let out a breath once I saw that thing moving outside, quickly bending my legs as I jumped. The maglocks engaged once my hands slam onto the stairs, and I quickly push towards the direction of the next section of the ship while shutting off the damn maglocks.

It was like one of those afruusha games, the one where you have to keep bouncing a steel ball to reach its destination. My shoulder slammed against one of the walls that jutted out from the crew quarters, is but I managed to turn it into a roll and use my feet to propel me through the air once more. There wasn’t going to be much time before the thing returns back and starts trawling through every single section of this damn ship. Which meant limited time for me to get to the mass driver and get it working.

My feet all but slams against the walls, a gasp escaping my lips at the sudden decceleration. My eyes track the furious litany of knowledge that was now flowing through my MMI, the back of my neck all but burning from the load, and I quickly cut it short with a zip from my fingers right before I place a call to Bossman.

“Efraim.” He rumbles, flashes of light sparking across his visor, “I’m a little bit busy. Call me later.”

“Shisholi told me that the Ci’roles-pattern mass driver on this ship is still intact.” He pauses in his work, but I continue on. “I need someone to teach me how to reactivate this, so I can use it against the fucker.”

“That thing’s rated for use against asteroids.”

“Yes.” I dryly reply. “What do you think happens if I fire it at the thing that’s been hunting me down for the past few hours?”

Bossman glances up his helmet, before he lets out a sigh. “... Patching you to main base now.”

I breathe out a sigh of relief, just as the call ends and another one begins. “Prospecting Base Hokutt here. What’s the call for, Bossman?”

“This is Efraim.” I reply back. Slow, calm, steady, and not at all being hunted down by a Kal’Dari that had tubes jammed all over its body and can bounce bullets off its damn skin. “From the party that went out to scout the salvage. The reactor’s been turned on, and I need you to instruct me how to power on this Ci’roles-pattern mass driver that I’m currently looking at right now.”

“Wait, what?” I let out a sigh, hands twitching to tear my comm-bead off and all but scream at the idiots on the other side of the line. But that would mean tearing off my own helmet, and that wouldn’t be conducive for my own survival here. “I, you’re probably going to have to take this from the top, Efrai–”

“Get another member of the base to ping Bossman and corroborate what I’m saying.” I snap, eyes wide open and my mouth all but hissing at the fucking idiot. “But right now, I’m here in the middle of fucking nowhere with the temperatures around double-digit Ks, and there’s a fucking Kal’Dari that wants to rip me apart and string me by my organs, so you better give me instructions on how to activate this fucking mass driver OR I’LL HAUNT YOU FOR THE REST OF THE CYCLES THAT YOU SPEND HERE ON THIS FUCKING PLANET DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND?!”

The line was silent, even as I took a few seconds to take a deep breath and calm myself down.

“I said, do you fucking understand.”

Alright. Perhaps I was still a bit stressed. Maybe even little more than a bit stressed. But at the very least, it seemed to spur whoever was on the other side to stop beating around the bush and give me what I wanted.

The fact that there was a different person on the line was just something I’ll have to take care of if I survive this fucking mess. Apologies won’t matter if I’m dead.

“Alright, so first you need to check if power from the reactor is flowing through the mass driver itself...”

I checked the power couples. Circuit breakers, wires. Managed to ascertain that it was working fine, which meant booting up the mass driver itself and giving it a preset calibration. That, however, was going to make a lot of noise. No doubt that thing was going to come running as soon as I get it started. The tech on the other end of the line said that I could do it with my MMI, and while the ECM that came around with that thing would be enough to scramble any attempts that I made...

... I walked to the bridge, snatching Shisholi’s pad off the table and bringing up the diagnostics on the mass driver, just like what the tech told me to do. Numbers flew past, specifications for a fine machine that Shisholi would no doubt drool over, but the memory only made me shake my head. Klathi dead, to buy us time to get to this ship. Shisholi dead, her irradiated body still in the cargo bay.

No doubt she... she probably would’ve known what turning on the reactor would do. She was a technician. She... She turned it on all the same. Just so we could have a scrap of survival in this forsaken place. I...

I wouldn’t just throw away her sacrifice like that.

The pad beeped. I yanked it out from the holotank, and jumped out of the gash in the bridge just as the ship started vibrating once more. I watched as I cleared through the hull for a second, before immediately turning around and grabbing the hull of the ship itself.

My maglocks engage, causing me to stretch taut, and I quickly reel myself back on the hull to plant my feet on the ship. With another thump, the maglocks on my boots activate, and I start sprinting towards the mass driver, my boots plodding all across the hull.

I spared a glance back, only for my breath to hitch as the thing effortlessly flips around the gash in the hull and begins sprinting after me. It was faster, it was most definitely going to catch up to me, and that damn mass driver still wasn’t done calibrating.

And so, I quickly changed directions, sprinting off towards the top of the ship with the damn thing right on my heels. To my right, the mass driver was still moving jerkily, its barrels seeming like they were locking up, and I quickly bring up its diagnostic status on my MMI.

... Not that I have any time to see what it was on about, given the bone-chilling scream right on top of me.

Sound wasn’t supposed to travel that far out into space. Especially in Bries, where atmosphere was almost nonexistent. The fact that I managed to hear it nonetheless was the only thing that saved me from Klathi’s fate. Not that it stopped the indescribable pain.

A gasp escaped my mouth, my legs feeling like they were leaden weights as I stumbled face-first onto the ship’s hull. A wheeze escapes my lips, coupled by a wad of blood splattering the inside of my helmet, and it felt like ice had just been jammed into my veins at the sight.

Part of my helmet’s window dents from the impact, and I felt something grip it a second later. I scream, eyes wide open and tears streaming down my cheeks, as I was brought up to stare at the damn thing that had been responsible for butchering Klathi and Shisholi.

Milky-white eyes stare blankly into my own, its mouth open in a rictus of a grin. Saliva dripped down from its maw, splattering the inside of their helmet, yet even then I could see numbers, letters, and sentences flowing through their helmet’s HUD, scrambled into something that I couldn’t understand.

I gasp, and try to wrench his grip on my helmet away, but my hands were too weak to even get its grip off, and I can’t feel my legs why can’t I feel my legs what happened to them–

Pffht.

The damn thing staggers back, and I could see its helmet shake even as I scream in pain once more. It roars, its face behind the helm being blurred by spittle, and it all but drops me on the hull. My eyes widen, seeing the large gash on its chest, before another blue flash of light flits past the damn thing.

It screams once more, splattering its own blood over the hull, as parts of its suit was seemingly stripped away by the... by the,

whatever that flash was supposed to be. But it doesn’t stop. The thing slowly comes to a stop, its hand all but ripping away their helm’s visor and letting the spittle inside drift through the air.

My breathing begins to turn shallow as the damn thing begins to walk towards me once more, the visage of a cruel snarl on its face. By helmet’s HUD was beeping and flashing, alerts about a suit puncture, that I require medical attention, that my spinal column needed medical attention, and is that the reason why I couldn’t feel my legs–

NOTIFICATION. CI'ROLES-PATTERN MASS DRIVER HAS FINISHED CALIBRATION.

With my nape all but burning, my MMI whirs to life, willing the mass driver to aim and fire. Pop-ups immediately blare out across my vision, and I immediately toss them by the wayside. Fuck the safety protocols, override everything, and blast this fucking Kal’Dari into mincemeat DAMN YOU!

MANUAL OVERRIDE ESTABLISHED. FIRING.

My vision is replaced with a flash of bright light, coupled right after with an bang that deafens my ears. I scream – because frankly, that was all I can fucking do at this point, and close my eyes to shield them from the sudden flare of light. The ship beneath me thrums, no doubt vibrating from the strain of the mass driver firing, but it eventually dies down a few seconds later.

When I open my eyes a few seconds later, it was to see more alerts scrawling across my helmet’s HUD. I ignored it all, the beeping and screeching of my suit tossed to the wayside as I stared at where the damn thing is.

Or well... where the damn thing was.

There was nothing there now. Nothing more than a smear of blood, flesh, and pieces of scrap metal splattered all over the ship’s hull. The grisly sight makes me stare for but a second, before a chuckle bursts out of my throat.

A chuckle that turns into laughter a few seconds later, right before I slump on the hull and black out.