Haywire (44 page)

“
There’s a docking area,” Crowe said, point at a small opening on the surface of the asteroid. Compared to the main mining areas, it was tiny, but it was more than enough for their needs.

“
Good call,” he said before smashing into the pod one last time. The
Lady
was too big for the pod to struggle against, and seconds later they forced it into the docking platform. The pod hit the metal structure, slammed through it, and came to a stop with its aft sticking out of the rock.

Two hits rang through the
Lady
’s hull, then Artemis said, “Tha-a-at’s exactly what we needed. Thanks agai-in, Gimble. Yo-o-ou’ve done good today.”

The ship vibrated as the two Titans kicked away and slammed into the escape pod. Seconds later they tore through the pod and were gone from sight.

“
So where do we go from here, Mr. Gimble?” Crowe asked. “Back to Puerto de la Sombre?”

Gimble didn’t even have to think about his response. “No, I believe I’m done with all that. You, me, and the
Lady
here can do better, I think.”

“
You mean to become legitimate business men?” Crowe asked, a hint of a smile on his face.

Nodding, Gimble smiled back. “Legitimate” had a nice ring to it, and if Artemis was strong enough to give them a future, he planned on being strong enough to make the most of it.

“
I mean just that, Mr. Crowe,” he said, turning his ship to the stars. “I mean just that.”

Shawn and Artemis tore into the escape pod and found it empty of Titans, but as they climbed through its mangled remains and made their way into the asteroid, it only took a minute to find them. Thanatos and his Titans were a twitching mess, their armored limbs barely controlled as they shambled into a loading area, a hatch closing behind them.

Artemis didn’t waste time with speaking or giving Thanatos the benefit of a final exchange. She looked nearly as uncontrolled as the Titans they hunted, and the manic glow in her eyes said she wanted Shawn dead nearly as much as Thanatos. She was a blur of motion as she burst through the hatch and crashed into Thanatos, driving him into the wall to the right of the entranceway. Shawn followed her in, shocked by how small she seemed compared to her former commander. The armor that covered him looked as thick as a battleship’s hull, and it pulsed like a living thing as spikes and blades rippled up and down across it in waves. Shawn trembled in the shadow of the crazed Titan, and in that moment he felt lost.

“
Be-ehind you, Shawn!” Artemis said as her helmet snapped up.

Her words broke him from his stupor, and moving on little more than instinct he turned and unleashed his claws. From the left side of the shattered hatch came four twisted forms, all of them quivering and cackling. He didn’t need his enhanced vision to know that the madness of the virus was deep in them, but the extent to which it had warped them was astonishing. They could barely hold onto their forms, much less their minds. But, when one of them lunged for him with lightning speed and nearly tore his throat open, he knew that they were no less dangerous because of their condition.

Fending off one attacker was tough enough, but four of them was more than he could handle. As he dodged one strike, three more came in from either side of him. He ducked, jumped, and spun his way through their barrage, but they got closer with every second. It was only their madness that kept him alive. If they’d had their former coordination and skill, he would have been dead within moments.

Finally one of them made it through and tore a chunk out of his shoulder with a wild swing. The pain was intense, and it rattled his mental defenses. As his infection spread it drove him into a wild frenzy. He lashed out with his claws like a beast driven into a corner. He’d ceased to think, or react, or plan. His vision went red as blood pumped through his body in pounding beats.

The Titan that had struck him closed in to strike again, and Shawn leapt at him, driving him to the ground. His claws tore into the Titan’s chest, gouging through his armor and bones without mercy. He didn’t stop until he struck the deck. The Titan was dead several times over.

When he saw the savaged body, part of him recoiled in horror. He’d done that, torn a man to pieces. More than that, he’d enjoyed it. Horrified, he realized he was becoming the very thing he was fighting against, and he didn’t know what to do to stop it.

Behind him two Titans ran at him and grabbed his arms. A fresh wave of madness broke through him, and he grabbed them in turn before swinging his arms and smashing them together. They fell in a heap before him, and he tore into them with savage abandon. They struggled to regain their feet, but he ripped the arms off of one before turning and tearing the throat out of the other. Even as they died their bodies grew weapons and struck at him, but he pounded and tore and struck until there was nothing left to fight.

His moment of victory was cut short when a terrible agony lanced through his stomach. He looked down, and a blade was sticking out of his abdomen. Wicked barbs grew out of the blade’s length, and then it disappeared as his attacker pulled it back out behind him. The agony that shot through him was something that went beyond feeling, transcending into a realm of sensation he couldn’t describe. He felt himself lifting out of his body as though it was nothing, ephemeral.

“
Sh-Shawn!” Artemis yelled out.

In his detached state he couldn’t believe she had time enough to worry about him. He didn’t know how she was fairing in her own battle, and knowing what she was up against it couldn’t have been good. But there she was, one eye on him, caring for him in spite of her own danger. In that moment he loved her, and that love snapped the fog from his mind.

He turned and faced the Titan that had run him through. The mad creature cackled like a crow and drove his blade forward again. Shawn felt it slip into him in nearly the same wound it’d made before. Instead of pushing the Titan away, though, Shawn grabbed the blade and hauled in further into him until the arm it was connected to was in reach. He heaved again, bringing the Titan even closer. The Titan’s eyes bulged in panic and madness, but they closed forever when he grabbed its head and twisted it with all his strength. The snap of its neck cracked through the air like tension wires pushed past their limits.

A scream rushed past his teeth as the blade and the Titan it was connected to fell away from him. Dark blood seeped from the wound until his armor closed over it and his nanites went to work repairing the damage. His stomach burned painfully, but it was the virus infection that worried him more. He could feel it filtering through his body like grains of sand, warping and twisting everything it touched. He built new firewalls to slow it, but he knew he had only minutes before he was raving and howling like the beasts he’d just slaughtered. The battle needed to end, and quickly.

Toward the far end of the room, Artemis and Thanatos were tearing each other apart. He hammered at her with battering ram fists, and she flipped and jumped to avoid him while lashing out with her blades. She made deep cuts in his armor, but the gouges lasted for only a moment before his metal skin repaired itself. He’d embraced his infection, so his body was in overdrive, an engine of hate and destruction working at a fever pitch. Alone she had little hope of defeating him, so Shawn leapt into the fray and raked his claws down the monstrous Titan’s back.

“
So-so the pup wants to play?” Thanatos said as he swatted Shawn away like a toy. “I do-o-on’t know who you are, child, or ho-o-ow you came to be, but you will die just like the rest.”

Shawn skittered to the right to avoid a hammering blow. “You’re a perversion. I-I was raised to admire you Titans, to worship you as heroes, and n-n-now look at you. The Hezrin might be gone, but they got you too. How pathetic.”

Thanatos’s armor shifted from black to red and long spikes rose up along his back as he bellowed savagely. “I am a-a God!” he shouted, “and you wi-i-ill feel my wrath.”

The crazed Titan barreled forward like a bull, his gigantic hands open and gasping. Shawn pushed against the floor to jump over him, but Thanatos bucked upward, and one of his spikes pierced the armor at Shawn’s waist. Another wave of boiling pain hit him. Thanatos grabbed him and slammed him down on the floor.

“
No-o-ow you die,” Thanatos said, raising his fists.

Shawn’s eyes were filled with the lowering blows. Before they could land Artemis raced around Thanatos’s flank and jumped at his neck, knocking him over. She wrestled him to the ground like a steer, but her advantage was short lived. His strength was too much. He grabbed her right arm, pulled it from around his neck, and with a savage twist he crushed the limb. The cracking of her bones was brutal, but it was nothing compared to the scream she let out. Her other arm extended into a long, curved blade, and she drove it into Thanatos’s chest with a mighty lunge. His howl echoed her own before she shoved her legs between them and kicked him away. The gigantic Titan hit the wall behind him and fell to his knees. He held his hand against the bleeding wound and shook his head, dazed.

Shawn raced to Artemis’s side and knelt over her. “Artemis, le-let me help you up.”

She shook her head at him, and blood seeped from the edges of her mouth. Her armor was quivering, rippling, and the gouges in it didn’t close. He didn’t want to count them, but Shawn’s sensors detected over a dozen wounds across her body, all of them open and bleeding. She was dying.

“
I-I can’t,” she said. “I’m barely hold-hold-holding onto my mind. I don’t have lo-long.” She patted her right hip with a grimace. “We must use the Zeus n-n-now, before he re-regains his stren-n-ngth.”

In the heat of the battle Shawn had forgotten about the grenade she’d hidden within her armor. She was too broken now to use it, but he could. “Then give it to m-me, Artemis. I’ll end this.”

She nodded and looked down at her side, but her armor did little more than ripple around the area where she’d put the grenade. She gritted her teeth and whimpered, her abdominal muscles spasmed, but her nanites were too far gone. Her body was no longer her own.

“
It wo-won’t come-come out!” she said, crying mercury tears.

“
Then w-w-what do we do?”

She looked at her side again, and then at him. “You-you have to dig-dig-dig it out of me.”

Shawn’s stomach leapt into his throat, splashing bile all the way. “N-no! I can’t!”

“
You mu-mu-must,” she urged. “Do it! Now! Be-e-efore it’s too late!”

To emphasize her point she grabbed for his hands weakly and put them against her.

Hot tears fell down Shawn’s cheeks, and he could feel vomit at the back of his throat, but he knew she was right. There was no other way.

“
I’m so-sorry,” he said as he grew his claws and drove them into her side.

Artemis screamed, and her fingers clamped onto him like vices, but he ignored it and dug. His fingers cut through muscle as he searched through her, scraped past bone, sliced through armor, but finally he found it. The grenade clicked against his fingers, and he pulled it from her body. It was still intact, in spite of everything. Artemis, though, was not. Blood and nanites pooled around her in an ever-widening sea.

“
G-g-go,” she said, her words barely above a whisper. “Finish it.”

Shawn bowed his head, then turned. Behind him Thanatos had gotten to his feet. The wound Artemis had given him was closed, but blood streaked across his armor and the floor. He was hurt. That didn’t stop him from rising up to his full height and flexing his armored muscles though.

“
It’ll ta-ta-take more than you, boy, to take m-me down,” the Titan said.

Shawn wanted to reply with a witty quip, like the heroes of his favorite vids always did, but he was too tired, too hurt to think of any, and too ready for the fight to be over. Digging down deep he found what was left of his strength, and he ran at Thanatos. The Titan threw back his shoulders and howled, then he charged. The two armored fighters raced toward each other, murder in both their eyes. The air crackled. Deck plates dented beneath their feet. The asteroid reverberated with their lust for death.

Thanatos’s massive hands reached for Shawn’s throat, the tips of his fingers growing into claws that were sharp enough to slice him in half, but the Titan never got the chance to use them as Shawn dipped to the left and leapt at the Titan’s neck. Thanatos jerked beneath him, but Shawn made a blade of his hand and punched into his chest. With a savage glee he tore past armor, muscle, and bone until he’d ripped a ragged hole open. Quickly his other hand shoved the grenade into the wound and pressed the recessed button on one end of it as he pushed away.

Thanatos grabbed for his chest, but the infected armor was already closing over it. Frantic, his fingers cut into his own flesh, tearing chunks of his body out, splattering more blood onto the floor. “No!” he shouted. “I-I am a god!”

When the grenade detonated, all Shawn heard was a dull roar from within the Titan. Blood erupted from Thanatos’s mouth, and he fell onto his back. For a moment nothing else happened, but then he saw the Titan’s armor blacken before drifting to the ground like ash. His nanites were being destroyed from the inside out by the kill switch. It worked. But, as it left the Titan’s body, it drifted toward Shawn and Artemis as though it knew they were there and that its job wasn’t completed yet.