Chapter Seventy-Two (Daxin) (2/2)

Daxin blinked, returning to reality, leaving the Purrboi's memories.

He'd known the Goliath was old, but he had never expected that it was that old. That it would be old enough for that.

Daxin knew how to kill it, his rage and hatred wouldn't let him do anything less. If he didn't kill it, it would eventually return and then it wouldn't leave others alone.

That's all he'd ever wanted. Since he had been a ganger in the lower levels of the arcologies. Since he'd scrapped and scraped and fought for every last calorie.

He'd just wanted left alone.

He loaded the template into the creation engine in his chest and waited. It didn't take long to make, a standard charge. Small enough to be easily moved, but large enough to do what needed to be done.

He extruded the Purrboi again, touching it, giving it instructions, and watched as it changed form, changed color, picked up the implosion charge and stream away.

Waiting took forever, but waiting forever was something that Daxin had long ago gotten used to. Just holding still, waiting, letting time slowly move by.

When you had been alive as long as Daxin an hour was a mere eyeblink. The Purrboi almost flew down the corridor to him, climbing his leg, and oozing into the specially designed slot, leaving behind the specially designed frame.

Daxin turned and ran for the limit, pushing his legs, pounding through the corridor. He activated his chainsword, swiping a robot a quarter of his size into four parts with a long-practiced and long used pattern, turning the chainsword off and slapping it onto his hip so the magnetic scabbard system could take effect.

Past the five mile mark, sprinting for the exit, for his ship.

The Goliath suddenly could feel the Feral exit the blank spot, running, fleeing down a tight maintenance tunnel. The Goliath snarled, feeling the equivalent of anger roar up. The Feral had wasted precious time, consumed precious resources, delayed the Goliath's plan to eliminate the other Goliaths around its home system to add their resources to its own.

It ordered every robot, from maintenance to observation to combat, to stream toward the Feral, to find it, smash it, kill it, and drag the corpse to one of the surgical laboratories and rip it apart.

Daxin ran, keeping to the narrow maintenance hallways despite it adding an additional three miles to his trip. He kept moving, using his superior tech, superior armor, and the battle-screens that should have been mounted on a light tank rather than a full conversion cyborg, to bull rush the machines out his way. His shoulder cannons fired, ripping apart machines, the laser howled as it sliced apart machines, the magack heavy pistol in his hand bellowed, and the chainsword roared as he hacked at everything in his path.

He got lost.

Hacking at Ants, at Rigellian Saurians, at Combine troops who intended on destroying every last Cyborg now that the war was over, at the digital sentience piloted craft, at the Imperium troops, at the Heretics, at the Treana'ad, at the Socio-Police, at the gangers.

It didn't matter what they were, what they called themselves, that they were only in his memories and all long dead.

The machines the SIA sent after him fell to rage that knew no bounds, that had no limit. Daxin roared through his speakers loud enough that it shook the armored walls around him, that the SIA could track him based on the vibrations. Every machine that tried to engage him found itself ripped apart by cannon fire, lasers, or that roaring ripping chainsword wielded in the hand opposite of a 20mm Magack autocannon.

The Goliath ground its electronic teeth in anger, sending everything it had, ordering machines to tear through the walls if they had to, but to KILL THAT FERAL THING!

Daxin reached the passage, reached where he had left the stealth-airlock. Climbing into it, up into his ship, firing through the open airlock and shattering the forward section of the machine that looked up into the airlock. Density collapsed neutronium tips shredding armor before the flecks of antimatter exploded. It fell, streaming vaporized metal, sparks crackling from shattered circuitry.

Daxin didn't bother to button up the airlock, just brought his ship online, bypassing the computer's welcome, and bringing it up, out of the crater, swinging it around and punching the engines. The Goliath began throwing missiles at the tiny mite that had itched and stung and bit for so long. The craft corkscrewed up, dropping chaff, dazzlers, flares, and two decoys.

In his brain Daxin saw the counter reach zero.

In the Strategic Intelligence Array Housing the isotope decayed far enough and was no longer able to hold apart the mechanical relay. The relay clicked shut and the basic mechanical device went into action.

Daxin had been deep in a fugue at the time he'd loaded the template, difficulty distinguishing past from the present, and the creation engine had simply built it according to the template, built the purrboi a new frame.

The charge was a standard implosion charge that just needed the application of power. The trigger was nothing fancy, although it would not be recognizable to most people who saw it. A pressure pincher made of cellulose with a steel pressure clip that snapped closed when the isotope ran out. Two wires, connecting a basic battery that was designed as a rectangle with a black base and a thin copper colored top, marked with DURACELL on it. It activated the pressurized gas container, which started to fill the mylar balloon.

The power hit the charge, and the small, for explosives, charge went off.

Destroying what had made Daxin go half-mad.

The loss of the Primary Directive Lobe by an outside explosion that had been preceded by a large metallic biped suddenly appearing inside the Strategic Intelligence Housing caused the security charges to be fired.

The interior of the Goliath gutted itself when the self-destruct went off.

”Leaning” back in the cockpit, Daxin watched the massive engines of the Goliath go dead, watched the Goliath start to tumble. The Goliath's shields went down seconds before Daxin whipped through the space. His astrogration program was running hard, finding out where the Goliath had panic Helljumped to.

The computer tickled him to let him know it had completed auto-location then started churning the mathematics needed for the jump. Daxin switched the ship's memory cores for the VI's to read only, freezing them in mid-thought, and 'gripped' the controls.

The computer beeped and Daxin hit the button, slamming the light cruiser up into hyperspace, into the upper bands.

It would take him a week to get where he was going, even in the upper bands which tore apart VI's and AI's.

He 'leaned back' and set his controls on automatic, told the ship's low end VI that could survive this high into hyperspace to awaken him if anything happened, and activated the dream generator.

He had not slept in ages. Had bypassed sleeping, running cyberwear to keep himself running.

His body that he no longer had felt tired.

Sleep came quickly, and Daxin began to dream, riding the upper bands of hyperspace.

Daxin looked down at his daughter, Taneea, and smiled. She was hugging him tightly, even as she cried.

”Do you have to go, Daddy?” she asked.

Daxin rested his heavy hand, scarred from too many fights when he was younger, on her head. ”Yes,” he half-lied. He'd volunteered, but that was part of it. The next part was the truth. ”It's this uniform that paid for your schooling, little one.”

She looked up and smiled, her green eyes sparkling. ”I'll make you proud, Daddy. The new nanites are working, repairing the damage to the plants. I'm going to Old DeeCee, to be part of the team to remove the carnivorous plants.”

Daxin smiled down at her. ”You'll do good. Better than me. Better than your mother. You'll change the world for the better.”

The whistle sounded and Taneea let him go, hurrying down the concourse, to the waiting shuttle that would take her to the ship, which would take her to Old Earth, where she would help get the ecology back under control, make the planet livable again.

Daxin watched her go, till she vanished with a wave that he returned with his cybernetic arm, then picked up his ditty-bag. He headed for the Combine Battle Cruiser he'd been assigned to. The Melacuse Colonies were pushing back against the Combine and it was time to show them who was in charge.

Daxin didn't mind. The Melacuse were part of the Biomod League, and they'd been pushing their ”Genetic Supremacy” bit a little too hard lately, stating that people were born into the proper place.

It wasn't until the Combine ship had reached Melacuse that they heard what had happened while they'd been in transit.

The Mantids had attacked. Had glassed parts of Earth. Were broadcasting it through the tattered and damaged SolNet, were sending it throughout Terran Space via psychic waves.

MajorDaxin Freeborn, Combine Armored Infantry, reached forward, his flesh and blood hand shaking, and touched the datascreen. He punched in the name, feeling his stomach clench.

FREEBORN, TANEEA L. - UNIVERSITY OF MARS PLANETARY RECOVERY TEAM: OLD D.C.

...

..

.

CONFIRMED DEAD

Daxin just stood and stared at the name.

One of the few good things in the universe, blotted away.

His men led him away, their words forgotten.

All he could hear was his own voice.

”You'll do better than me.”

In his sleep, Daxin was wracked by memories. Each one painful, jagged.

But his.

Reminding him of one simple thing.

He just wanted left alone