Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 45 - Post Mortem

With an almighty crash, the three-metre tall robot struck the ground, the impact driving its seized arms upwards. For a moment, it bounced into a roll to one side but then settled lifelessly back onto its front. Aron stared at it, mesmerised in fear.

Ekono stopped the buggy's motors. It was only pushing uselessly against the robot's frozen arms anyway.

"Is it dead?" Ekono screamed over the radio.

Aron scanned the robot, still paranoid that it would reactivate and climb back onto its wheels. Even the slightest movement would have thrown him back into panic, but there was none.

"I don't know," he replied. "I can't see any movement."

"Any way to be sure?" Ekono pushed, keeping his grip of the buggy's controls.

"No."

"Can we kill it while it's down?"

"Have we got anything that can get through its armour?" Aron asked.

"Here, take my sidearm and fire more rounds like you did before."

"I don't know if that will make any difference?"

"You damaged it. If you can damage it, you can kill it," Ekono replied.

Aron moved closer, took the offered firearm and lined it up with the side vent again. Five more deafening cracks caused no reaction from the prone robot. The problem was that Aron had no way of knowing if his actions were causing more damage.

"Any movement?" asked Ekono.

"Nothing I can see," Aron replied unsurely.

"I say we tie the winch cable around its wrists and drag it back to the Arcadian," said Ekono.

"We don't know if steel cable would hold it."

"Aron, we have no way of knowing if anything we have can hold it. Sometimes you just have to have faith."

* * *

Megan dropped off the bottom of the ladder just as the two-seater buggy came to a halt some ten metres from the base of the ship.

"I hear you three have been big game hunting!" she announced as they started to climb off the buggy.

Her mood saddened considerably when they described the events of the past few hours and showed her L.E.O. Cohen's corpse lying in the cargo area. Santiago climbed down the ladder and joined them.

The robot was still locked in the same position, even after being dragged halfway across the hangar.

"Are we sure it was wise to bring this machine right next to our ship?" asked Megan.

"There are more of these things in the corridor outside our airlock," Ekono explained. "Those are still alive and keen on getting to us. We need to work out how to kill them from a distance."

"How many of them?" she asked.

"We don't know," replied Ekono, slowly shaking his head. "I saw at least one more robot but the lights I saw in the corridor looked like two more at least. Can we open the airlock door just a little to see if they are still waiting?"

"The airlock door is either open or shut," Aron added. "I don't think there's any way to stop it part way through the sequence."

"So, until we find a way to disable these robots, we're trapped in our hangar?" asked Megan.

"Anyone heading out before then is committing suicide," replied Ekono coldly.

"Looks like this falls to you, Aron."