Salvage Race by David Alan Jones

Author:David Alan Jones [Jones, David Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theogony Books
Published: 2024-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Dairdra wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to suffer a panic attack until the moment it happened. She’d already been in shock, she realized, but watching the cascade of fabricants pouring in from overhead sent her mind reeling. A spasm of fear made her curl up behind the bin where she hid, and though she yearned to scream a warning to her clan mates, her mind refused to open the channel. She cowered, unable to wrest her gaze from the falling bodies dressed in lightweight armor of black and mauve.

The fabricants represented every weller race Dairdra had ever seen, and more beyond. Some had skin unknown to humanity, like a green woman and a man with blue and white tiger stripes. Most fit into the common types, though: tan to black skin, dark hair, a range of eye colors. She wouldn’t have been able to distinguish the average ones in a crowd had there been one or two. Grouped together like this, however, gave them away. First, because they appeared weller, but pulled themselves through the bay like Zo, gliding smoothly on magnetic envelopes. Even without that telltale signature, however, the way the androids moved was too smooth, too efficient, too perfect to pass for mere human.

The fabricants’ front line, comprised of seven men and three women, reached the nearest raiders a full second before someone shouted a warning over the clan freq. Dairdra braced herself for utter mayhem. She knew from her own experience the sort of strength the machines possessed. Given the advantage of surprise, they could have easily broken necks or even ripped limbs from their enemies’ bodies. To Dairdra’s surprise, they didn’t attack. Working in teams of three, they came to grips with the Zo, immobilizing the raiders before stripping them of their weapons.

<<Above!>> Uncle Bymen shouted to the company. <<Raiders! Above you!>>

Dairdra couldn’t see him. There were too many bins full of ship parts this low to the deck. She idly wondered if his expression matched the urgency in his broadcast thoughts. He hadn’t sent feeling across the clan freq, the man was too much a professional for that, but there was no way he could feel anything other than pure dejection at the sight of so many androids dropping on his forces. The first ten were just the start. Dozens more plunged into the bay, falling like rain on a weller world. He had to know his warning came too late. Too many fabricants had already appeared for the Zo to defeat them, and the flood continued unabated.

Uncle Bymen made a last-ditch effort to rally his troops by leading ten raiders into the heart of the enemy force. Rifles spitting laser and plasma fire, they hurled themselves upward with valiant cries of defiance over the clan freq. Some of their shots injured or even incapacitated the odd fabricant or two, but the enemy force had grown too large for their paltry attempt to do more than annoy the machines, who swarmed them. In seconds, the fabricants subdued and disarmed Bymen’s squad.

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