Iron Vanguard

Ghosts in the Gear

The zero-gravity vault transformed into a chaotic arena of flying metal and blinding energy. The machine moved with a terrifying, jerky speed, its heavy iron limbs clawing across the ceiling and bulkheads as if gravity were merely a suggestion. It ignored the vacuum, driven entirely by an ancient, unyielding command to destroy intruders.

"Scatter!" I yelled, kicking off the engineering console just as the drone’s massive kinetic drill slammed into the metal where I had been standing a second prior.

The impact tore the heavy distribution hub completely off its mountings, sending a cloud of shattered copper wires and ancient insulation drifting into the room. I floated backward, my boots searching for a solid surface, while my hands scrambled to pull the plasma pistol from my holster. I lined up a shot and fired three consecutive rounds directly at the drone's rotating optical sensor.

The plasma bolts struck the machine's headpiece, melting the protective casing and causing the crimson light to flicker violently. The drone shrieked, a deafening sound that traveled through the deck plates and straight up into my suit. Blinded but furious, it began to spin its massive drills, flailing wildly in the zero-gravity environment and tearing chunks of metal out of the surrounding walls.

"Jaxx, the underbelly!" I shouted into the localized short-range comms, hoping the signal could cover the short distance between us. "The armor is thinner near the hydraulic lines!"

"I see it!" Jaxx roared. He had anchored his magnetic boots to a structural pillar near the ceiling, giving him a stable firing platform. He leaned out, his heavy rifle humming as he charged a maximum-output plasma slug. "Eat this, you junk pile!"

The blue bolt erupted from his rifle, lighting up the entire engineering bay with a noon-day brilliance. It caught the drone right beneath its front shoulder joint, burning through the weakened metal and severing the primary hydraulic fluid lines. A thick spray of synthetic oil erupted from the wound, freezing instantly into a cloud of black, floating ice crystals.

The drone’s left arm went completely limp, dragging uselessly behind it as it drifted away from the pillar. But it wasn't dead. The machine used its remaining functional limbs to pivot in mid-air, locking its damaged optical sensor onto Jaxx. It fired a pneumatic harpoon from its chassis, the heavy steel cable whistling through the space between them.

The harpoon caught Jaxx dead in the chest plate. The force of the blow shattered his magnetic lock on the pillar, sending him flying backward into the darkness of the upper levels, his rifle slipping from his grip and drifting out into the open vault.

"Jaxx!" I yelled.

"I’m good! I’m good!" his voice came back, strained and breathless. "Suit integrity is holding, but the damn thing broke my manual thruster controls! I’m drifting!"

The drone began to winch the cable back in, dragging Jaxx toward the spinning drills on its functional arm.

I didn't have time to think. I activated the emergency burst on my own boot thrusters, launching myself across the chamber like a kinetic missile. I drew the vibro-blade from my back, the high-frequency hum vibrating against my palm as the energized edge lit up with a pale blue glow.

I collided with the drone's main chassis, the impact jarring my teeth inside my helmet. I wrapped my left arm around a venting pipe on its back to anchor myself, raised the vibro-blade with my right, and drove the weapon down into the exposed mechanical neck joint.

The blade sank deep, cutting through fifty years of reinforced wiring and hardened computer cores. The drone bucked beneath me, its remaining limbs thrashing wildly as thousands of volts of static electricity discharged from its dying battery core. The shock traveled up my blade, short-circuiting my suit’s HUD and sending a blinding flash of white light across my vision.

I held on, gritting my teeth against the pain, and twisted the blade.

With a final, pathetic shudder, the red optical sensor went completely dark. The spinning drills ground to a halt, and the massive iron beast became nothing more than another piece of dead weight drifting in the graveyard.

I released my grip, floating backward as my vision slowly cleared. The engineering bay was a complete wreck, filled with floating debris, frozen oil, and the smell of ozone that had somehow penetrated my suit’s filtration sensors.

"Jaxx, you still with me?" I panted, looking around the dark chamber.

A flashlight beam flickered from the far side of the room. Jaxx was floating upside down, using his cybernetic arm to hold onto a severed pipe. "Still here, Captain. Nice riding. I give it a nine out of ten."

"Let's get those relays and get out of here before its friends wake up," I said, using a low-power burst from my thrusters to navigate back to the ruined console.

The first relay was still secure in my pack. The second one had been ripped free during the fight, floating near the ceiling. I snagged it out of the air. The third relay, however, was still trapped inside the crushed housing of the distribution hub. I used the vibro-blade to pry the bent metal apart, carefully sliding the final alloy block out of its slot.

"Three relays secured," I said, packing them away. "Let's move."

We climbed back up the elevator shaft, our movements slower now, heavy with exhaustion and the bruising reality of zero-g combat. By the time we reached the jagged breach in the hull, the radio static began to clear, and Lyra's voice came through, loud and panicked.

"Peter! Jaxx! Do you copy? You need to get back right now!"

"We have the parts, Lyra," I said, hooking my harness back onto the mechanical tether. "What's wrong?"

"The debris field didn't hide us as well as we thought," she said, her voice shaking. "An Alliance scout ship just dropped out of hyperspace on the outer edge of the system. They're running a localized ping. They're looking for us, Peter, and they're moving fast."