As if reading her thoughts, the massive ship fired another plasma blast toward the Forge station, and another huge explosion bloomed bright in the distance. A pair of shots streamed back toward the ship, fizzling to nothing against its shields. Was that the station defending itself, or the Fridge battlecruiser, or both?
Not her problem. She turned back to the robot waiting in front of her. Maybe she should take the chance. But why would this robot help her? What did it want? What did any of them want?
A flash of laser fire lit her peripheral vision, and she had to leap forward to avoid being hit, stumbling to right herself and stick her one gravboot to the Gate. Overhead, a fighter zoomed past, barely visible except for some reddish lights running along the bottom of the craft. It wasn’t Fridge; her commlink still had the friend-or-foe codes, and this ship wasn’t broadcasting anything that remotely resembled known chatter.
Alabao, Eva thought. If a robot can turn into a bike, can it turn into a spaceship?
She shook her head. It didn’t matter. She had to focus on what she was doing, or everyone was fucked regardless.
“Bueno,” she muttered, climbing onto the fidgeting bot in front of her. “I need to go that way.” She pointed toward where the next tunnel should be, hoping her ride would understand.
With a twitch of acknowledgment, the vehicle took off, racing along the surface of the Gate fast enough that Eva clung to the handlebars, legs clenched around the eerily familiar shape. How did a robot know what a skybike looked like? Was it psychic? Had it pulled the image from her head?
Her thoughts were interrupted by more laser fire, this time coming toward them, twin blasts from the same robot fighter. Eva cursed and the bike-bot wove and dodged, angling closer to the outside edge of the Gate. The void loomed to Eva’s left, and she resisted the urge to guide the bot away; it knew what it was doing, presumably, the same way Min knew her own body best. Still, it was hard to just hang on and let it zip forward, especially when the fighter came around for another pass. Somehow, the robot managed to slow down and execute a sliding twist that avoided the lasers, but shot them over the edge and onto the rim of the Gate, where it continued speeding along as if this were a joyride on a random planet.
“Mierda, we passed it!” Eva shouted as the access tunnel receded behind them. The bike skidded to a halt and turned around, managing to backtrack a few meters and get onto the Gate surface again before it suddenly rose on its back wheel and shook like it was trying to dislodge its rider.
Eva took the hint and let go, activating her working gravboot so she didn’t bounce away into space. Up ahead, the fighter that had been chasing them hovered, then landed and changed its form.
Unlike the bot she’d been riding, this one was easily the size of the last one Eva had encountered, and similarly bipedal. Large fins like wings rose from its back, making it half as wide as it was tall, and its design was stockier than the bike-bot’s other form had been. In the dim light of the Gate’s surface, its legs were pale, its eyes glowing an eerie red that matched its torso, and it looked down at Eva and her companion as if they were bugs about to be squashed.
It was also standing right on top of the access tunnel, because of course it was.
The bike-bot changed back into its original form, though it seemed taller than it had before, unless Eva was imagining things. A pair of wicked-looking blades emerged from its forearms, each easily a meter long, and it slid into an aggressive stance. Eva switched to a backwards grip on her own vibroblade and bent her knees, trying to project more bravado than she felt, given that she only had one working gravboot and was a tiny meat sack by comparison.
“Jódete, cabrón,” Eva said. “I didn’t get this far to lose to a glorified Ball Buddy.”
With a leap that would have made a dancer sigh, the bike-bot attacked the fighter. It deflected the blades with its own arms, pushing back and then throwing a punch like a pile driver. The bike-bot ducked and weaved out of the way, striking at the fighter’s back, but it pivoted and once again used its forearms to parry the blows. The two traded hits and circled each other like this was a pit fight back in The Sump, but faster than any bot she’d ever seen, and much more fluidly.
They have to be sapient, Eva thought. Even the rogue AI on Henope wasn’t this advanced. Sure, you could program skills and tactics and so on, but this was a whole other level.
And Eva had no chance of helping here whatsoever. She glanced at the dreadnought, which was at least a quarter of the way through the Gate. How many more shots could the Fridge and Forge forces take from it before they were utterly demolished? And what would it do when it was completely through?
All she could do now was what she’d been sent to do: cut the cable to the last power source to deactivate the Gate. At least that way, nothing else could come through until the Gate was repaired.
The fight in front of her proceeded as a dark blur of motion, glowing blue and red eyes flashing back and forth as the combatants slashed and leaped and dodged and punched. The smaller one was faster, vicious, but the larger one kept shrugging off its blows like nothing. They continued to be more or less on top of the access tunnel entrance, so Eva would have to maneuver through their legs to get inside.
Is this what Mala feels like when she’s trying to trip me? Eva thought. Qué mierda.
Moving slowly in the hope of not attracting attention, Eva skirted the fight in awkward bounces and boot-stomps, every step a careful negotiation between the laws of physics, her body, and the Gate. She managed to get closer, but she didn’t have a clear path to the damn entrance, not with the bots still going at it. Maybe if she could break the ship-bot’s concentration somehow . . .
An idea came to her in a flash. Eva smiled grimly, hefting her malfunctioning gravboot with her right hand. It wasn’t the same as throwing a chair, certainly, but since the fight was already in progress, this was probably good enough.
Squinting in concentration, Eva watched the bots move, back and forth and around. With a grunt, she threw the gravboot toward the taller one, watching it spin lazily as it moved. She fell backward as it went forward, her right gravboot still stuck to the Gate’s surface, bending her knees and once again landing on her right hand, then bouncing back up.
Both bots glanced up at the incoming boot, hesitating momentarily as they attempted to analyze the threat. As soon as it was in the right position, Eva activated it, and it shot toward the ship-bot. The bot tried to dodge, but the boot followed its motion and attached itself solidly to the bot’s head, with what would have been a satisfying clunk if there were any noises in a vacuum.
The smaller bot used this opportunity to push harder, faster, and this time managed to land several hits that seemed to bother the larger one, mostly at various joints. It stepped backward, giving ground until the access tunnel was open for business.
Eva deactivated her remaining gravboot and took a bounding leap toward the hole. She flew without resistance in a straight line, praying to all the angels and saints that she’d have a clear shot. As soon as she was close enough, she activated her boot again and shot toward the entrance.
A swipe from the larger bot went right over her head as she flew into the hole, missing her isohelmet by centimeters.
She hit the bottom of the tunnel like an arrow, the impact sending her flailing wildly with one foot planted until she could grab something to stabilize herself. Laser fire rained on her for a moment, and she deactivated her boot and pushed away to get out of range. Once she did, it was a mad scramble to reach the final power source, tucked into its relatively peaceful alcove like all the others.