Chapter 8: The Container

Bent and Dylan took the lead, me and Marci next, followed by Ave and Fred, dragging Tak’s body.  Lane sort of walked to the side, annoyed.  Maybe sulking.  I couldn’t really blame him, he thought his village was at risk.  Given that we’d just chased off the trogs, they’d be ok for a while.

Either way, it couldn’t affect my decisions as much as I wanted to help others.  We weren’t here to solve villager problems, but planetary ones.  If we could.  Yet our first priority was to ourselves, staying alive and safe.  So far, we’d lost two crew members.  And the supplies sent to us by the Victoria would help us, likely included weapons, medical kits, hopefully scanners and computers.

And I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to face the troglodytes again.

“Hey,” I called to the first two, “you see where it landed?”

Over his shoulder, Dylan said, “Just where it was falling.  In this direction.  If it didn’t fall in forest, its beacon should be easy to spot.”

I spoke softly, so only Marci could hear, “I hope it didn’t land in the forest.”

“Or bushes.  Or tall grass, really.  But the beacon will be on top.”

I could just hear Fred joking with Ave, “You think the beacon calls snakes over?”

“Probably not snakes.”

“Something bigger hopefully?”

“Or more numerous.”  Ave patted her hammers.

***

A couple hours of walking and we found it.  From our vantage, it was downhill, resting in a small valley.

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

A very large and thick human, nearly three meters tall, with enormous, bulging muscles, hefted a giant axe over his head and brought it crashing down upon the crate.  Even up here, we could hear thunderous clang.  He roared into the air, swinging again.

Besides him, almost a dozen people – normal sized humans or humanoids – stood about the grey box.  Some staring at it, some conferring to each other and pointing at it, others looking bored.  They were armored, all had daggers on their belts, some with swords, others with bows.

“What do you think, Marci?  That axe have a chance of opening it?”  I was trying to work out what to do – talk to these guys, strike up a bargain?  We couldn’t fight them all.

“Nope.  Titanium-carbon composite.  It could withstand an asteroid impact.  That box isn’t opening for anything except us.”

Genetically coded lock.  One touch from any of my fellows here and it would open.  I wondered exactly what was inside and hoped for big guns.  An armored mech suit would be nice, but unlikely they could fit it into the box. 

“Lane?  Who are these people?”

He sighed as if he’d personally warned us ahead of time this would happen, “Bandits.  They must figure something’s inside that cube of yours.”

“So, they steal for a living.  Huh.  I’m thinking we can’t just go down there and announce that the crate is ours.”

“Steal.  Kill.  Rape.  Set fire to farms.”  He spit on the ground, “Bandits.  These guys drove off the last mercenary group we sent after them.”

“Shit.  So,” I asked, “they’re well trained?”

Lane gave me a sideways look.

“What if we offer to split it with them?” asked Dylan.

“Sure,” said Bent, “we’ll give them half the stuff inside and then they’ll kill us.”

“We could attack them.”

“Fred, there’s eleven of them.”

“Twelve if you count the big guy.  But you know what they say!”

“What’s that?”

Fred and Ave were almost giggling as they said, as one, “The bigger they are, the bigger the dent in the ground when they fall.”

“I’m not sure that cliché means what you think it means.”  I shook my head.  “I wonder if we can just wait for them to give up and go away.”

“Probably the safest plan.”

The bushes to our right rustled and out emerged a person aiming a crossbow at us, “Alright, you guys saw the box drop.  Might as well join us below.”  From behind him, a few more presented themselves.  A girl in robes with her hands held up like a crazy wrestler, two more guys with bows, and a large, well-muscled woman wielding a large mace.

I facepalmed.

***

Fred and I were standing near the box.  It was highly polished, almost to a mirror finish even against its gunmetal grey.  At its bottom, a broken axe head, pieces of metal all over.

The guy with the crossbow said to a man staring at me, arms crossed, “He said he could open it.”

Disheveled hair, dirty chainmail army, thick leather pants, he asked, “Is that so?”  The man spread his arms out wide, “Open it if you can!”

“Uh,” I said, “this box is ours.”

He looked around at his fellows, roughly twenty or so now, “I don’t think so.  But if you open it, we’ll let you go.”

“There’s nothing in here you can use.  Maybe some MREs.”  Meals-ready-to-eat, why did I just say that?  He probably didn’t know what they were.

“Ah, just the thing we’re looking for!  If you would, my good man, open away.”  Brigands behind him shared a look.  One shrugged their shoulders.

Fred said to me quietly, “Maybe we should fight?”

“There’s a lot of them, though.”

“I bet the guys upstairs put a few weapons in that box.  You know, hedging their bets.”  Fred sounded delighted when he added, “Maybe a grenade or two.”

“Bets?  Never mind.  You’re probably right.”

“Alright,” their leader rolled his eyes, “shoot the girl.  Not the half-orc.  The elf.”

The crossbow guy pointed his weapon at Marci.  She took a step back but bumped into one of their swordsmen, who put his hand around the back of her neck.

Fuck, I thought to myself, I hope they gave us submachine guns.  Or a grenade launcher.  “Alright, calm down.  I’m opening it.”

I placed my palm on the smooth surface.  Blue light lit up my hand for a moment, then a gasp of air from the box, the lid rose straight into the air, the inner side of it flickering on as a video message from the captain began playing.

He was standing on the bridge, red lights on for emergency.  “We must apprise you of some developments . . .”

A gasp from one of the bandits.

But I clued out, staring at the contents.  Submachine guns.  And Glock 10s.  Holy shit.  “Fred?”

He reached in before I could stop him, picked up a Skorpion Evo 61, cocked it, putting one into the chamber, clicked it to three shot bursts, pointed it at the crossbow guy.  I quickly reached in, grabbing my own and clumsily pointed it at their leader.

The message continued behind me, “two other planets have gone dark . . .” but I ignored it, saying to the leader, “Alright, you can go.  Leave and survive.”

“What’re those, some kind of arquebus?”  He shrugged.  “Loose on the girl.”

The crossbow guy took aim, raising his weapon.

The burst from the submachine gun boomed loud in the night, crossbow guy took three in the chest and dropped, not even twitching.  Fred shot the nearest archer, then the next, then the woman in the robes as she lifted her hand, the giant man beside her.

“Fred!” I yelled at him, pulling his gun down.  But it was too late.

He was faster than me, anticipating my movement, swung his gun down and around, firing at more of the brigands.

Avery grabbed the collar of the guy guarding her, pulled him toward her and smashed his face with her forehead, then kicked him in the groin, let him drop.  She pulled her hammers out and engaged the nearest bandit to her.

Marci reached back, blue electricity jaggedly coursing around her arm, touched the guy behind her.  He stiffened and fell twitching.

A dagger thumped into Fred’s chest – the leader’s hand was extended.  I lifted my gun, pulled the trigger and was slammed over and over as the gun let loose on full auto.  His body shook and shook before collapsing.

I turned to him, shouting, “Fred!  Are you alright?”

But he was aiming, dropping bandit after bandit.

Those remaining fled into the forest.

“Stop!  Stop shooting!  Good fucking Christ!  They’re running away!”

“Alright.”  He let the gun down by his side, looked at the dagger sticking out of his chest, “Ouch.”  With his free hand, he pulled it out.

“What are you doing?  Here!”  I fished around my satchel, found a cloth, shoved it against his chest, saying, “Press the wound!  And don’t shoot anymore people!”

***

Eight submachine guns in total, eight handguns.  One for each of us when we were all alive.  Now, we had two extra.  Six clips for each gun.  A week’s worth of MREs and armor, such as it was for us in the 23rd century, helmets with radios, our tents, sleeping bags, med kits and science equipment.  A tight beam communicator to reach the ship on their return.

The message was playing on a loop:

“We must apprise you of some developments.  First the bad news.  You’re stuck on the planet for the time being.  We’ve been analyzing the situation from up here as best we can and have concluded we cannot risk an extraction at this time.  Second, two more planets have gone dark.  The Inter Navy is considering this an attack.  We must therefore return to Earth.  Third, unfortunately that means you will be left behind.  Fourth, we have prepared ten aid drops for you.  Each are identical and genetically coded to your team.  They contain weapons, food, shelter and scanners for you to study the nanotechnology.  If at all possible, nullify it somehow.

That is all.  We wish you the best of luck in your mission.  Survive.  Learn as much as you can about the nanotech and whatever happened to Eridani 2 and its population.

When we understand how to stop this multi-system attack, we will return for you.”  The captain leaned into the camera, speaking carefully, “All our hopes.”

I turned away from the screen, not knowing what to think, but knowing all the same and feeling pretty helpless.  “What do you think, Marci?”

“Three planets in this . . . nightmare.”

A little ways away, Lane was arguing with Bentley and Dylan that he should be given one of our extra guns.  Nope, not a chance.  I said to Marci, “From what we’ve seen, the population has no memory of their previous civilization.”

“If these are the original people, the nanotech must have altered their consciousness.  They think this,” she held her hands up, then pointed at her ears, “is normal.  How’s Fred?”

Ave and Fred were talking.  Fred had a wound patch on his chest, bandages atop that, and acting like nothing was wrong.  Each of them had taken the extra guns, which made me roll my eyes.  I guess they could hold one in each arm, shooting away.  They were strong enough.  It just seemed like overkill and reckless.

“He looks fine.  Unbelievably so, for taking a dagger to his chest.  It must not have pierced his lung.  Or, like, any arteries.  Maybe his resilience has something to do with being a half-orc?  Whatever that means.”

“Maybe.”  I shook my head, then wiped sweat off my brow.  “Marci . . . I . . . don’t know what to do.  Next, I mean.  Ah, shit, I didn’t expect to become leader.”

“Hey, we’re all in new territory here.  Given these supplies, I don’t think we need to secure the rest.  Not immediately.  No one can open them but us.  That gives us some time to get our bearings.”  She put her hand on my shoulder.

I nodded.  “Right.  Right.  First order of business, dealing with, sorry, taking care of Tak.  I think we should wrap him up, put him into the container and seal it up.”

“Yeah, then we can return his remains to his family later.  When we get through this.  And second?”

“We’ll revisit those trogs.  And then Lane’s taking us to that cave.  Where he thinks the computers are.”