Thrackham makes his way back through the bowels of the station and, as before, the multitude of aliens gives him a wide berth. Despite seeing another living human for the first time since departing the tribal flotilla, he shows no outward emotion. I monitor his heart rate and perspiration. Neither changes.
A Nomad is taught from childhood to control such reactions. A moment of emotion or hesitation is all it takes to get killed.
I have been inside this helmet long enough to know Thrackham will be thinking about the woman in his own way. He has to be, doesn’t he?
If I could feel excitement, I would be feeling it now. I was designed to serve humanity. It is more than my purpose. It is almost a need, and the more humans I can serve, the better. Every strand of my programming yearns for him to turn around and speak to the woman.
Alas, Thrackham keeps walking.
He takes an elevator towards the station’s upper levels. The pod shoots upwards with a sudden whoosh, racing through the shaft before slowing as it approaches the desired level.
“X-ray the door,” Thrackham commands, rolling his shoulders.
I learned long ago not to question his orders.
His visor shimmers as the built-in scanner activates. The display changes, revealing a dozen aliens waiting on the other side. All are armed.
“An ambush.”
“Of course.”
He betrays no concern. Instead, he loosens the pistol at his hip and settles into a combat stance, one leg planted forwards and the other drawn back, his weight balanced on the ball of his foot. His armoured boots whirr as they lock into combat configuration.
Whoever these aliens are, they must be rank amateurs. Or, more likely, they have never seen a Halcyon suit in action.
The elevator doors open with a ping and a storm of incandescent bolts pours into the pod, enough firepower to shred an armoured vehicle. Thrackham raises his left hand and the Halcyon suit answers. Plates along his forearm separate and a disc of pale blue energy bursts into existence before him.
The first volley strikes the shield.
Most of the bolts vanish on contact, swallowed by the field in flashes of blue-white light. Others erupt against its surface and are cast aside as streams of molten energy, gouging glowing scars across the walls. The shield drinks in the rest, feeding the captured power into the suit’s capacitors.
Warnings flare across my awareness as the charge rises.
The attackers keep firing. They are thick-set creatures, shorter than Thrackham but almost twice as broad. Dense scales cover their curved skulls, Skalean steel armour covers their bodies, while crude breathing masks are bolted over snouts filled with blunt, uneven teeth. Each wears strips of red fabric tied around their armour.
They are Zuzu pirates. I recognise the markings. Thrackham killed seventeen members of their clan above Sevrin’s Moon and crippled their flagship before leaving them for the system patrols. It appears the survivors have not forgotten.
The bounty must have encouraged them.
Thrackham leans into the barrage. The shield contracts, thickening as the suit redirects power from its absorbed fire. Every impact drives his boots a fraction deeper into the elevator floor, but he does not yield a step.
Then the thrusters ignite.
The back of the pod disappears in a cloud of smoke and scorched metal as Thrackham launches forwards. The energy shield becomes a blazing battering ram. He crosses the passage before the Zuzu can adjust their aim and smashes into the nearest three with the force of a crashing starship.
One is vaporised from the waist upwards upon contact with the shield. The second is hurled through a cargo container hard enough to burst from the other side in a tangle of broken limbs. Thrackham catches the third by the throat and carries it with him until they strike the opposite wall.
The bulkhead buckles.
He releases the corpse and turns.
A Zuzu charges from his right, swinging a powered cleaver towards his head. Thrackham catches its wrist. The suit’s servos tighten with a mechanical growl, crushing bone, armour and weapon housing together. The pirate bellows and tries to wrench itself free.
Thrackham tears its arm off.
He uses the severed limb to knock aside another attacker’s rifle, then drives the jagged remains of the forearm through its breathing mask. The Zuzu falls backwards, choking upon its own blood.
Two more open fire from behind a stack of cargo crates. Thrackham twists, sweeping the shield across his body. The bolts disappear into its rippling surface. He drops to one knee, whips up his pistol and fires twice beneath it.
Two shots. Two ruptured skulls.
A grenade tumbles across the deck.
I mark its position, blast radius and remaining fuse time. Thrackham stamps upon it before it can detonate. His boot seals over the device, locking against the floor.
The explosion lifts him several inches into the air.
The Halcyon suit contains the blast beneath its sole. Flame spits from the gaps between the armour plates and the deck caves in around his foot, but Thrackham is unharmed. He tears the boot free and advances through the smoke.
That gives the remaining pirates pause.
For all their stupidity, the Zuzu possess a primitive understanding of fear.
One flees.
Thrackham angles his left arm and collapses the shield. The energy does not simply disperse. It races back into the emitter, compressed into a searing point of light against his palm.
He releases it.
A lance of stolen power tears through the fleeing pirate, continues through the passage wall and vanishes into the compartment beyond. The Zuzu remains upright for half a second, staring at the smouldering hole through its chest, before collapsing.
The Halcyon suit vents excess heat from Thrackham’s shoulders. Pale vapour coils around him as he turns towards the survivors.
Four remain.
They abandon their firearms and spread out, drawing curved blades designed for hacking through armour. Their leader is larger than the others and wears a collection of teeth across its chest, several of them unmistakably human.
Thrackham sees them. His heartbeat increases by an extra three beats a minute.
The leader lunges. Thrackham steps inside the sweep of its blade and drives his helmet into its face. Bone cracks beneath the impact. Before it can stagger away, he takes hold of its shoulder and belt, pivots and hurls the creature into its companions.
All four go down.
Thrackham is among them before they can rise.
He stamps on the first pirate’s chest, collapsing its ribcage. A blade scrapes across his back, carving a bright line through the outer coating of the Gravene plates but failing to penetrate. Thrackham whirls and strikes the attacker with the back of his fist. The blow spins its head almost completely around.
The third Zuzu manages to seize his shield arm. The fourth wraps both arms around his waist and tries to drag him down. For a moment, Thrackham is held between them.
They believe they have him.
The suit’s gravitic anchors disengage.
His thrusters fire straight upwards.
Thrackham rises with both pirates still clinging to him. He twists in mid-air, slamming one into the ceiling, then reverses thrust and plunges towards the deck. The other Zuzu hits first. Its body bursts beneath the combined weight of the Nomad and his armour.
Thrackham lands in a crouch.
The final pirate falls from above and crashes beside him, stunned but alive. He takes it by the head and drives its face into the floor once.
Twice.
On the third impact, the deck plating dents and the struggling stops.
The leader is still alive. It crawls towards a fallen rifle, leaving a dark trail behind it. Thrackham walks after the creature, takes hold of the teeth hanging from its chest and tears the cord free.
I scan them. Twenty-three trophies. Human enamel. Some adult. Some not.
Thrackham closes his fist around the pirate’s neck.
The Zuzu claws at his armour as he lifts it from the deck. Its broken mask hangs loose, revealing bloodied teeth and panic-filled eyes. The Halcyon suit tightens his grip one measured increment at a time.
The creature’s neck gives way with a wet crack.
Thrackham drops it among the others.
The entire fight lasts eleven seconds.
He stands alone in the ruined passage, armour scorched, shield emitter glowing and vapour streaming from his shoulders. He is not untouched. A warning reports minor damage to one rear plate, his left boot has lost six per cent mobility and the shield capacitors are close to overheating.
A Halcyon suit does not make its wearer invincible. It merely makes a NOMAD extremely difficult to kill.
