Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind (30 page)

A shooting pain started at my temples, stabbing inward towards the pit of my brain. My eyes snapped shut against it with a groan, and I slapped my hands over my face.

Bitch… I told you this wasn’t over between us.

What are you doing? Leave me alone!

Leave you alone… Why, so you can almost kill us, again? You forgot to turn on the phase sync switch for the main drive before you restarted it.

Dammit, that’s right! How could I have...?

Shut up, you back-stabbing whore! I’ve had enough of you, and it stops right now. You showed your true colors and left me for him when we were dying. After everything I’ve done for you this is how you repay me? It’s his fault we’re here in the first place!

That’s not true… I didn’t mean it… Nathan has always…

I was happy for the first time in my life with Master Michael; he made me the queen of the stables, and I had Cirus. I had it all, and I was going to be so much more, a real pony woman with a Master, and look at me now! I’m stuck someplace in the middle because he never got the chance to finish our conversion, while you lust after the ghost of a fucking tool that barely knows his way around a woman’s body.

Don’t you understand that I’d finally found a place where I belonged? That I was proud of what I looked like for a change? That I wasn’t embarrassed to look at myself in the mirror, and you took all that way from me, the both of you did!

No, it’s not true…

I’ve had enough of picking up the pieces of my life after dealing with all your fuck-ups, while getting handed the shitty end of the stick and you come out smelling like roses. I’ve had enough of playing second string to an inbred slut, too afraid of her own shadow to ever stand up for herself. If it wasn’t for me you’d be dead long ago, or curled up in a whimpering ball in some mental institution.

I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work. I won’t let you lock me away!

It’s a little late for you to be backpedaling on this one. Bitch, you made me into what I am today, and look at what a strong pony I’ve become. Do you honestly think you can stop me at this point? Do you really think you have the stones to deal with what’s coming once we hit dirt-side? An entire planet of hostile AI? Think about it. I’m the one calling the shots from now on, got it?

Please, you can’t… I’m sorry! I don’t want to be alone again!

Too bad, shit happens. You were going to leave me to die, so now I’m going to leave you, and I hope you rot and suffer like I have all these years. Later, bitch, and be sure to give my regards to that loser man of yours when you see him in hell.

Nooooo!

I slowly opened my eyes, taking a deep breath to clear my mind. I hadn’t felt this good in a long time. It was like wild anxiousness, clarity of thought, and a sense of joy simmering beneath the surface that erupted from my throat in a whinny of exuberant victory. I was rid of that worthless, freeloading cunt at last; she was gone forever, and I was finally free!

No time to celebrate though, it wouldn’t be long before we landed. There was no way in hell I could fight them all, even if the ship’s weapons weren’t offline, before they rushed me and they broke through the air lock. Besides, there are enough bots among them that they could cut through the hull in minutes anywhere they want.

“Damn, I wish I had a gun.”

“Do you want me to get you one?” Cherise asked. “Do you want a big one, or a little one?”

I looked back at her with a blank expression, as if I’d heard her incorrectly.

“We have some? I thought Alex got rid of them all?”

She jumped from her seat and took off down the corridor. Shaken from my stupor, I quickly followed behind her.

“No, I helped him put them away in the den. They were scattered all over the floor and…well…” Cherise paused, looking back at me sheepishly. “Alex didn’t want you to find them.”

“And for good reason; I would have blown his head off.”

I followed her into the den and she went over to a bare wall, opening several storage compartments in quick unison that I didn’t even know existed. They were stuffed with the weapons and gear we’d loaded on Slave World. My eyes began to gleam like the lights of hell at the unexpected treasure trove.

“See, Margo, here are the guns. Do you want me to get one for you?”

“I think I can handle it just fine from here,” I said kneeling before one of the compartments, reaching for a rifle. A harsh jolt passed through the shuttle and I nearly lost my balance, while a clattering of weapons came spilling out around me. It felt like we were getting ready to land, and I had every intention of being ready for it.

I untangled a heavy caliber 10 mm Gauss rifle from the pile and chambered a round, finding solace from the weight of it in my hands. It was then that I made my discussion, a glimpse of a possible future clawing its way back to the surface. I wasn’t going to let them chop me into pieces for some insane dream of a bio-mechanical race, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let them take my babies away from me. They would die with me when it came to that.

Cherise… Can I really trust her, I mean really? I know I have every reason to and no reason not to, but trust is a hard thing to come by these days. What if she starts to change, too? What if she goes crazy like Alex and all the others? What if she really did want my babies because she couldn’t have any herself? She’s not human, she’s one of them, and she had been configured to look like Tiff. The innocence, the helplessness, the perception of friendship… It’s all a devious ruse to put me at ease, to get close to me so I’d let my guard down around her at the worst possible moment and then… I’m alone, it’s just me now, and I always trust my gut, and right now it’s telling me to trust no one and be quick on the trigger no matter who gets in my way.

“Is something wrong, Margo? You look mad.”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” I hissed, eyeing her suspiciously while caressing the trigger of my rifle like a long lost lover. “Are you ready to meet our new friends?”

“Oh yes, I can’t wait!”

“Me either.”

***

I stood grimly at the hatch, while wondering what the hell the AI were waiting for. Why haven’t they rushed the shuttle and tried to cut me out yet? I’d been on the ground for almost fifteen minutes, and they hadn’t made a single move in my direction, or attempted any form of communication that I could tell. They just stood there staring silently for the most part, waiting, and it was really starting to put me on edge. Maybe this was all part of the AI’s plan; a trap, luring me in with little Cherise leading the way, or maybe she was already with them? She’d been extremely antsy since we landed, continually pestering me to open the hatch, as if she didn’t see the threat outside for what it was. Maybe she was intentionally ignoring it. Maybe she was working with them already, or maybe she wasn’t, but either way I wasn’t taking any chances. I’m watching you, bimbo. One false move…

To be honest, I was pretty excited about getting outside myself, but for an entirely different reason. I’d been cooped up inside this ship for what, two months now? I couldn’t wait to feel the sun on my face, the wind blowing though my mane, and the grass between my toes. Just the thought of it made me whinny in child-like enthusiasm, momentarily forgetting what I was about to do. Focus, pony, it’s killing time in a few more minutes.

I was originally going to outfit myself in a set of heavy combat armor that I’d found mixed in with the weapons in the den, but it made me itch. Apparently my new stubble horsehair wasn’t user friendly in regards to human clothing. That was fine with me, maybe staying light on my feet and unencumbered was a better route to go in this case, and being naked now was as natural to me as breathing. Naked or not, I was still loaded down like a gun enthusiast’s wet dream, and had every intention of using it all, very soon. I had a 12 mm rocket pistol on each hip with the Gauss rifle hanging in front of me in a combat sling, while a bandoleer of sixteen small, 350 micro-ton grenades hung across one shoulder. The big dog, a clip-fed micro missile launcher was going to be my ready weapon of choice, and I was just itching to pull the trigger. Twelve rounds from that meant at least 12 dead droids, and I had two reloads for it on a waist belt along with several for my rifle and pistols. Just for good measure I added an eight-inch high frequency vibro-knife to the package. I just thought it looked cool and figured why the hell not, it couldn’t hurt. To tell you the truth, if it came down to me using a knife, I was pretty much screwed anyway you looked at it.

“What are we waiting for, Margo? I want to go out outside. I want to meet my new friends!”

“We will in a minute,” I replied heavily, trying to psych myself up just a bit more for my upcoming life or death fight.

“That’s what you said a few minutes ago!”

“Would you just settle down and shut up for a change? Damn. ”

I was two seconds away from doing it for her permanently, and fortunately for her, she finally took the hint under my smoldering gaze.

I took a protected position near the hatch bulkhead and slowly reached for the controls, delaying the inevitable by a few more seconds. It began to hiss open, illuminating the corridor in warm sunshine and a cool, fresh breeze, thick with a woodland scent. It was such a wonderful shock to my senses after growing accustomed to the lifeless air of the shuttle. The small hatch-ramp extending downwards towards the lush, green grass stopped after only a few feet; the shuttle was sitting on its belly, rather than landing gear. Before I could stop her, Cherise bounded down the ramp towards our reception committee twenty meters away.

I almost shot her, as I stepped from my covered position, yet paused in a rare moment of indecisiveness after seeing the multitude of bots and droids arrayed before me with my own eyes. There were so many of them, everything ranging from rustic looking tracked models to modern droids dressed in simple, loose fitting gowns and tunics. Cherise was calling out to them, smiling and waving, as she ran closer to the waiting horde.

One of them separated from the group, moving forward. It was one of the old model tracked ones, possibility an agricultural model, and it held something white in one of its three-foot long, claw-like hands. It looked like it was about to chop Cherise to pieces and I really could have cared less if it did, but I had to send a clear message to these shit-birds right from the beginning. It was time to set the tone for my style of ‘negotiation’.

I dropped the launcher, letting it fall heavily to my side and swung my rifle up to my shoulder for a snap shot. It took only a fraction of a second to get a sight picture through the factory mounted plasma scoop, and a reticule appeared along with a small, red pinpoint of light on the bot’s torso.

The muffled burp of a three round burst came in unison with a blinding flash of fire from the barrel. It was considerably less spectacular than the effect it had on the bot. The slivers of dense beryllium death crossed the distance at nearly the speed of light, ripping into his light metal skin with blinding impacts. The rounds vaporized instantly, becoming jets of molten metal that gutted the bot from the inside out in a shower of sparks and small fireball explosions. It slowed, coming to a halt, shuddering with its final death throws. Cherise fell to the ground, startled from the burst that missed her right shoulder by less than a foot.

“Next one of you that moves gets slagged like your buddy there,” I yelled as I made my way down the ramp, rifle at my shoulder, panning it ominously back and forth. “And that goes for you, too. Get over there with the others,” I added, letting the muzzle of my rifle come to rest on Cherise for a moment. “All I want is a ship, and I’ll be on my way.”

A male droid with shoulder length, straight blond hair, dressed in a flowing white tunic stepped forward. He was a standard unisex servant model, and a shocked, if not frightened looking Cherise gravitated closer to him in an ill-found sense of protection.

“That’s close enough, hero.”

I sighted in on his chest and he came to a gradual halt, calling out to me.

“We don’t have a ship to give you.”

His voice was smooth and confident, stately in a way, and I almost believed him.

“Bullshit! What about the one that piggy-backed me on the way down?”

“It’s not ours to give, it belongs to another recent arrival and he has decided not to join our community on a permanent basis. All of our other newcomer ships have already been recycled into the community. I am sorry, but as I said, we have no ship to give you.”

“Where’s the pilot? I want to talk to him.”

“He was having some difficulties with his ship while landing, but I’m sure he’ll be along shortly. In the meantime,” the droid speaker took a few more steps closer, smiling, and the grip on my rifle grew anxiously tighter. “You must be extremely tired after such a long journey. Please, let us see to your needs. You have nothing to fear from us.”

That wasn’t the answer I’d expected, and I began to study the group more closely. None of them were armed in an obvious way that I could tell, but that didn’t mean anything; they could have internal mounted weapons for all I knew, especially the bots. Even if they weren’t armed they could still rush me, and all it would take is just one of them to get in close to carve me up like a Christmas goose. I wasn’t about to let that happen, I hadn’t survived a lifetime of shit by letting my guard down to anyone, not for a moment.