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It was a dark and stormy night, and Zeke Wheeler had just crashed into both a marshy swampland and the first stage of stimulant withdrawals.
He shut down the engines and leaned forward, resting his aching head against the instrument panel of his fighter. For a minute, he just sucked in ragged breaths of sterile, recycled air and tried not to puke.
Once his stomach settled a little, he jerked upright and palmed across the onboard computer screen. Damn thing had cut out immediately after the lightning strike. Cheap crap, like all the other equipment he’d ever used.
The screen crept back towards light, one brightening pixel at a time. While Zeke waited, he ripped off his suit glove and pressed two fingers to his neck. Pulse thready, skin clammy. And hand trembling.
Already, the mental fog settled across him. Not as bad as it would be in the later stages of withdrawals, but immediately recognizable after how many times he’d tried and failed to kick the stuff. His thoughts caught and dragged, friction slowing them to a crawl.
At least he could still think enough to run on automatic, checking the status of his ship. He slapped at the computer again, and this time it started diagnostics. Info scrawled across the screen, numbers and words that normally would have meant something.
Right now, they just reminded him of his early days in flight school. At the start of the war, when the instructors had pushed all recruits to learn faster, more, better. The stims had given him the ability to keep up. Maybe just one pill, just so he could get this mission over with faster…
Zeke crammed the itch for the familiar, acrid taste of the pills to the back of his mind. A few deep breaths, and he tried to focus on the screen. One cracked landing strut. Damage to the exterior hull of one engine.
“And water damage in the engine?” he read off, heating up. “What kind of a fucking idiot designed a ship that can be damaged by water?”
The burst of irritation spiked his throbbing headache into an explosive one, sharp jolting pain spearing through him like lightning. Wheezing, he slumped back in his seat and closed his eyes. Deep breaths. Just had to keep taking deep breaths, and he could manage the symptoms.
But one little pill would make getting off this stupid planet so much easier. One was all it would take, and why not? It wasn’t like anyone cared about him, here or on any other world or ship.
If they did, he wouldn’t be damned to a permanent existence in a war zone, getting sent into the relentless chaos and terror of battle again and again. Watching as everyone around him died. New pilots came in, filled the seats in the ready room. And then, just as reliably, the seats emptied.
His mind slipped further into the haze, the ever present memories taking advantage of his weakened defenses. Bursts of fire cutting through the ship beside him, the panicked calls over the radio that cut off as another life ended. The endless rat-tat-tat of rounds striking his own hull. Just one lucky shot, and…
Zeke jolted out of the memory, shuddered, and rubbed at his eyes. No, the steady drumming against his hull wasn’t strafing fire from an alien ship. Rain, that was all. A much more novel experience than bullets.
The steady downpour even dulled the brightness of the lightning above. Zeke wiped his brow and pushed back dripping wet hair. That wasn’t from rain—the sharp stench of sweat flooded the cockpit. He was getting deeper into withdrawals now. No way he could fly, not like this.
It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t even supposed to be on this stupid cargo run in the first place. Should still be back on the Indomitable, sleeping through the worst of withdrawals.
“But no,” he muttered, fumbling for his canteen, “let’s just send our top fighter pilot to pick up some mysterious ‘package’. Not like we have anyone else who could do that while he takes his endlessly delayed time off…”
The radio crackled to life and let out an earsplitting shriek.
Zeke yelped and covered his eyes, cringing away from the barrage. He braced for the surrender or else message, the one that flooded comms during every engagement and haunted his dreams. We shall administer quick deaths to all who yield.
But a different voice came through the speakers. Not formal chanting like the aliens. This was mechanical. “—extraction. In imminent danger. I require extraction. Mayday. Mayday.”
Zeke stared at the radio in glazed shock, his sluggish mind oozing gradually towards a reaction. Normally, he’d react in less than a heartbeat.
Just one little pill…
Blinking away the haze as lightning split the sky, Zeke thumbed on his mic. “This is…” Callsign, what the fuck was his callsign, why was his mind so damn slow? “This is Duster, identify yourself.”
“Duster? Of the carrier Indomitable?”
Not feeling at all indomitable as the first wave of violent withdrawal tremors finally hit, Zeke choked, “Affirmative. Identify yourself.”
“This is Infiltration Unit Victor-Seven-Five-Foxtrot-Nine.”
“A robot?” Sudden heat flushed through Zeke, unrelated to the withdrawals, and he thumped the console with one fist. Typical. “Are you my damn cargo?”
“I am waiting for extraction. Still.” Robots were supposed to have emotionless voices, but this one clipped off the words in a weirdly familiar way, a way that mimicked impatience. “And I am getting rained on.”
“You and me both, kid.” Head throbbing, Zeke massaged his temples. This was ridiculous. He was supposed to be resting, recovering from over three months of nonstop combat. He hadn’t slept for longer than a few hours at a time, usually less.
“I am getting rained on. If I become damaged, I will not be able to relay my intel on enemy—”
“You’re not waterproof either?” Zeke shook his head. What was it with these designers? An infiltration robot of all things should be able to infiltrate without worrying about shorting out. “How long before you die?”
“I cannot die.” The irritated tone increased. “But I will becoming irreparably damaged within the next hour, if not sooner. Will you extract me, or are you too busy playing solitaire?”
That voice really was familiar, and Zeke inhaled sharply. Shit. “You’re the robot we had onboard last month. You kept watching us play cards in the ready room, right?”
“Affirmative. You may call me Foxtrot-Nine.”
Right. Another pilot, Hopper, had tried to nickname the robot Victor, and it had objected in those same clipped tones. It also liked to point out when one of the pilots screwed up a play with the cards.
Hopper was dead now, overdosed on the same drugs that Zeke had been popping for years. One unexpected mission and one pill too many.
All the pilots from that group of card players were dead, all except Zeke. Some by overdose, most cut down by alien bullets. But Zeke was still here, for some reason, and so was that stupid water-damaged robot.
“I’m coming to get you, Foxtrot-Nine. Activate your beacon.” Zeke thumbed off his mic, hands shaking almost too bad to manage it. He couldn’t take off like this, let alone fly a rescue mission.
He pulled a little tin from his pocket, one emblazoned with the scorpion logo of his first squadron. Stingers. He slid the tin open and dumped two round white pills into his sweaty palm.
“So much for detox,” he muttered, and dry swallowed them.
The rush of the stims didn’t kick in immediately, but Zeke forced himself to act like it had. He ran through the pre-flight check, ignoring the pounding headache. Soon it would be gone, at least for now.
A sudden flood of energy crashed into him as the stims took effect. The world sharpened around him. Colors on his flight panel bright and clear, textures of the gloves crisp, the patter of rain an urgent call to action, as urgent as the rattle of gunfire.
Zeke flipped switches and mashed buttons, bringing his ship to life, then blasted off the ground at nearly full throttle. The fighter sliced through the downpour, rain sheeting off his cockpit canopy.
As he hurtled across the marshy landscape, his computer picked up the robot’s beacon. The computer beeped faster as he approached the beacon, racing like his heartbeat. He couldn’t catch his breath. He didn’t care.
Once the beep became a steady whine, Zeke dove back to the ground. He slammed the button for his landing gear and ignored the crunch of his damaged landing strut breaking off completely. The ship listed to one side, wobbly.
Zeke struggled out of the pilot’s seat, as wobbly as his ship, and kicked open the cargo hatch. “Foxtrot-Nine! Get in here!”
Vines and other soggy greenery shielded the mouth of a nearby cave. Glowing diamond eyes and an otherwise smooth silver face emerged, turning towards him.
Foxtrot-Nine crossed the mucky ground at a rapid limp, one metallic leg dragging behind it. As soon as it was in reach, Zeke grabbed a corroded arm and hauled Foxtrot-Nine inside. “Okay?”
“I am… repairable.” Foxtrot-Nine tilted its head, studying Zeke. “Are you okay? Your respiration and pulse are severely elevated.”
“Am I ever okay?” Still shaking—apparently the drugs were just making that worse instead of better today—Zeke stumbled back to the pilot’s seat, collapsed into it, and then buckled himself it. “Hang on to the cargo netting. This ship’s not built for passengers.”
The jitters only got worse as Zeke rushed through one final check. He launched off the ground again and yanked back on the stick, angling for a shot out of the atmosphere. His damaged engine whined, protesting the strain.
His heart pounded frantically, also protesting the strain. Was this it, the final dose of stims too many? And did it matter if it was? He was just a combat pilot, good but disposable. There was no hope of ever being anything else.
But as soon as the ship hit space, his natural habitat, his racing heartbeat slowed. Whole body shuddering, Zeke kicked on the autopilot and leaned back. No heart attack today, apparently.
“I am in your debt,” Foxtrot-Nine said.
Zeke grunted. “Just doing my job.”
“You could have left me, and no one would have known.” A pause, and then, “I bear valuable information. Once I deliver my intelligence, I will put you in for a promotion.”
“Uh-huh.” Zeke closed his eyes. “If they won’t go for that, I’d also kill for some R&R.”
Today, though, he hadn’t killed anyone. He’d saved someone. It was almost enough to make him feel good about himself for once.
If he lucked out, command might actually honor Foxtrot-Nine’s request. Robots were more valuable than humans, after all. More expensive to produce. Rescuing one wouldn’t get Zeke out of the war, but maybe he could catch a break from endless combat.
It was something to hope for, anyway. Maybe he could even make another go at letting go of the stims. Detox would be easier if he wasn’t getting sent on sudden unscheduled missions to rescue robots, after all.