Operation: Catspaw: A Gamer's Universe Story Read online

  But, still, the blister didn't rupture.

  Throd jumped next, his military experience conditioning him to obey orders no matter how suicidal they sounded on the surface. He cleared the rail and dropped out of sight, landing next to the drone.

  But the girl didn't fall with him. She twisted out of his grasp and latched onto the observation deck’s railing, clinging to it with both hands. Her tail whipped frantically to and fro, and the arrays on her head swiveled frantically. "Kitty! Help!"

  Heck couldn't wrap her head around what she saw next. A vaguely feline drone charged down the passageway behind the Ogre and pounced on its back, massive claws scything through the tank's armor plate like a sharp razor through tissue.

  Heck felt all the pieces fell into place. It all made sense, now. She knew how to make this work out for her outfit.

  Heck leaned over the rail and grabbed the young woman by the arm. "You want a job, kid?"

  The girl stared up into Heck's face, confusion furrowing her features. "Job?"

  The cracks in the blister widened, and air rushed past Heck with bruising force. Her hair whipped around her face, getting in her eyes, lashing at her forehead and cheeks. "You want to come with us?"

  The girl grinned, then nodded. "Can Kitty come?"

  "Hell, yes!" Heck shouted over the wind. "Have kitty knock that thing down here, and we're gone."

  Then, as the young girl squinted her eyes and concentrated on the drones, Heck pulled up her AR panel and activated a channel to the Network. "You guys got that, right? This one's officially a Metal Rat, as of right this second.”

  The network representative on the other end responded with an exasperated sigh. "Fine. But no more recruiting in the field. You have no idea how much paperwork this causes.”

  Heck swung over the rail and wrapped her arm around the girl's waist. She kicked off from the edge of the observation deck and tucked into a tight tumble, pinning the girl against her torso.

  It was a far fall, but Heck landed it with experienced ease. As soon as her feet hit the blister’s curved surface, she let her knees collapse and rolled, taking the impact across her shoulders. She’d have a head-to-toe bruise when this was over, but she and the girl were alive.

  She stared up at the drones fighting on the ledge overlooking the blister. The metal cat knocked the Ogre off balance, then drove it over the edge with a metallic roar that set Heck’s teeth on edge. The tangled combat machines plummeted toward the blister.

  "Here we come," Heck shouted into the comms channel.

  9

  The Ogre smashed through the blister, shattering the dome and spilling its occupants into the hungry void of space. The feline drone twisted, kicking the Ogre away and propelling itself toward Heck and the rescued girl. It caught up to Heck and wrapped its lithe, sinuous body around them in a tight, but careful embrace.

  Heck felt the skin of her face tighten against her metal implants, and knew she had only a handful of seconds to live. If Dragora was too slow, if they miscalculated, they were all going to die.

  Iris Station collapsed as the outfit tumbled through space. Explosive decompression through the blister tore the station apart, and silent explosions erupted across its surface. Cinder's ship, too close to the station to change course, caught a hunk of debris along one wing and spun out of sight, engines flaring crazily.

  Heck's lungs screamed in pain, and then she landed hard and fast. Dragora’s bay door slammed behind her and the air pressure normalized in the blink of an eye. She took a deep breath, and crawled out of the big drone's bearhug.

  Hive struggled to his feet, and Throd lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.

  The big man gasped and turned his head toward Heck. "That was a really shitty plan, boss."

  Heck struggled to her feet and groaned at the pain throbbing through her body. The ooze could fix most injuries, but the nanites didn't bother with contusions or other injuries that weren't life-threatening. She wondered if Dragora had any painkillers on board. If not, she knew where the rum was.

  "I don't think we introduced ourselves," Heck said to the rescue. "My name is Hecate, but the illiterate mongrels around here call me Heck."

  The girl didn't respond. She curled up next to her drone, scratching under its metal chin with her razor sharp fingernails. The noise was annoying, a high-pitched skritching that set Heck's teeth on edge.

  Heck watched the girl for a few more seconds, then cleared her throat. "You can talk, right?"

  The young woman nodded, and shot Heck a shy smile, then went back to dragging her cybernetic claws across the drone's chin.

  Heck sighed. "It's polite to introduce yourself after someone saves your hide from a fate worse than death. What's your name?"

  The girl just smiled, and kept on scratching her metal cat's chin.

  "For fuck's sake," Heck snarled. "Fine. Skritch. Your name is Skritch."

  10

  Zotz kept Heck company on the flight deck. They took turns pouring drinks out of the bottle of spiced rum on the table between them, and watched the stars roll past Dragora's observation port.

  The technician sucked down the last of his drink and motioned for Heck to pass him the bottle for another. “What’d you pick for your level up?”

  Heck checked the status of her software update. The bright green progress bar was almost full. Another hour or so, and she’d have some shiny new programming to show off. “Thought about picking up some detection countermeasures, but I figure that’s something you should deal with. Settled for that targeting link I’ve had my eyes on for a while.”

  Zotz let out a long, low whistle. “You could shoot the nipples off a gnat before, now I bet you’ll be knocking bullets straight up the bad guys’ piss tubes.”

  Heck grimaced at the image, and tried to wash it away with a heavy swig of rum. “You have a very special way with words, Zotz.”

  They stayed silent for a few minutes, just enjoying their time together and soaking in the view. Floating through the dead void between the stars, Heck was always shocked at how comfortable she felt alongside the technician, and how much beauty there was to be had in their violent world.

  "I can't believe you pulled that off," the technician said, breaking the silence. He sipped his drink. "If we'd been a few seconds slower getting you on board…"

  The last of Heck’s drink disappeared down her throat in a noisy gulp. "Yeah, let's not think about what could have been. You’ll give me the shakes."

  They drank in silence for a few minutes more, before Zotz broached a sore subject with the outfit's leader. "How bad is it? Our score, I mean."

  Heck's hand ached for a cigarette. She hadn't smoked since she was a kid, but she missed it every stinking day. It wasn't just the jittery buzz of the nicotine, or even the soothing steps of the smoker’s ritual. It was the weight of the slender tube between her fingers, the rush of heat over her skin when she took a drag, the feel of the cherry crunching as she snuffed it out. Smoking wasn’t a habit, it was a lifestyle, and she missed the hell out of it.

  She'd have killed for a cigarette just then.

  Instead, she chewed on her upper lip to hide her smile, and said, "You know, it's pretty fucking good."

  Zotz's jaw dropped. "How is that even possible? Before they pulled the scores off-line to review them with the rest of the judges, we were deep in the negatives. Scrubbing the main objective was a real shot in the ass.”

  Heck poured them both another drink and leaned back into comfortable embrace of the acceleration chair. "Yeah, we lost a lot in penalties and a lot more screwing up the primary objective, which, you know, my bad for saving the kid's damned life, I guess, but we made up for it at the end."

  Zotz mulled Heck's words over and then an excited light came on behind his eyes. "They honored the collateral damage?"

  Heck's grin grew impossibly wide, an illusion exaggerated by the stark line between the flesh of her upper lip and cheeks and her metal jaw. "Not all of it. They wouldn't gi
ve us the whole station. But we got points for the Ogre, and a little extra for trashing Cinder's ship. The crowd went wild for that. I guess they hate that smug motherfucker as much as I do.”

  Zotz blew out a long, low whistle. "I can't believe they gave us the points for that. I mean, what you did was great and all, but you didn't exactly take out that Ogre. The girl did."

  Heck shook her head. "Everybody on the team contributes to the score. You know that."

  Zotz raised an eyebrow. "You're shitting me."

  Heck took another swig of rum. "I guess I just can't resist picking up strays."

  The pair shared a chuckle, and then went silent. The stars rolled by, and Heck wondered where they'd end up next.

  Thank you for reading!

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  Books by S R Witt

  The Gamer’s Universe Series

  Operation: Catspaw

  Operation: Snowblind (with J.L. Hendricks)

  Operation: Pirates vs. Drones (with J.L. Hendricks)

  The Electric Shadows Series

  Dragon Web Online: Inception

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