Chapter 5 #2
The name of the robot Naga that had plagued Farah and Zeidon’s courtship was a trigger.
The silence ended as the creature revved its chainsaw teeth and lunged forward.
Corin dodged with lightning speed, his black stone blades flashing through the air and scoring the side of the beast. It happened so fast, I had no time to respond, I just stood there like an idiot.
Then the screeching started, a loud, ear-splitting noise that tore through the air.
It felt like my organs were trying to climb up my throat.
My ears started ringing, and even the wall beneath my fingertips trembled and shook.
Through eyes watering from the pain, I tried to make sense of what was happening. Was it the dog-thing?
Corin crumbled where he stood, all his many coils thudding to the ground in an ungainly pile.
The hound saw its opening and leaped for him; I reacted on instinct.
My finger was still on the trigger somehow.
It squeezed in pure reflex, barely aimed in the right direction.
The laser shot scorched through the air and, with a large sizzle, struck the robot hound on the side.
It snapped its maw shut, and the whirring chainsaw and the awful screeching abruptly ended.
My ears didn’t work right after that assault, the world seesawing around me.
I narrowed my eyes, forcing myself to focus, to get my aim right this time.
The beast leaped over Corin, paws outstretched, tipped with four-inch long knives.
My shot sizzled through the air and struck it in the throat.
I felt the brush of a claw against my belly, slicing through my shirt.
Stumbling back, I fell over, my ankles tangling with the cleaning bot huddled against my boots.
This was how it ended, I thought. But I’d had that thought before, and I didn’t enjoy having it again.
With an angry scream, I locked eyes with the glowing amethyst orbs of the beast, my pistol firing again, straight into his freaking chainsaw maw. “Fuck you, die!”
My pistol fired once, laser fire burning, and then it sputtered out.
The glowing eyes were right above my legs as it kept prowling forward.
Fear filled my throat, my belly ached, and I was definitely filled with all kinds of regrets.
Mostly, I was angry that I hadn’t managed to convince Corin to kiss me.
Ah, Corin! Was he dead? Had that awful screech killed him?
The metal beast collapsed so suddenly that I was left blinking at where its eyes had been for several seconds before it finally registered.
The weight that hit my shins—the cold metal, the hot maw of sharp fangs—and Corin rising above it with blood streaming from his ears, dripping down his throat and chest. My eyes focused on the metal disk on a leather cord he wore, how the blood seemed to funnel toward it.
His mouth moved, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying over the ringing in my ears.
I raised a hand to touch one, worried I might be bleeding like he was.
My fingers came away clean, so that screeching had struck Corin harder than it had me.
I wasn’t sure if I liked knowing that, but I was infinitely relieved to be alive, and that he was upright and moving.
Okay, moving was a bit of a stretch. He was hunched over the downed robot attack dog, his upper body half-collapsed on top of it.
I could see the leather-clad hilts of two of his long blades sticking out of the side of the beast, stuck between a pair of metal ribs.
The dog was out, but it was starting to look like Corin was going to collapse a second time. Pass out, I mean.
“I’m fine,” I said, my words sounding funny to my ears.
The ringing was fading, and as it did, I felt less dizzy.
The robot was heavy, and Corin, lying half on top of it, wasn’t helping.
I tried to shift my legs and couldn’t. “Please help me get out from under this thing. Then I’ll look at your poor ears.
Can you even hear me?” I was prattling again, and I realized that Corin was staring with laser focus at my moving lips, his mercury eyes glowing.
If he heard me, that was an entirely different thing.
He didn’t get off my pinned lower legs, and his eyelids were drooping.
If he passed out, I was going to be stuck under him and the bot until my legs went numb.
With no charge left in my laser pistol, that was going to be a terrifying time…
I had to do something now! I tried pushing, but no matter how hard I heaved or pulled, the robot didn’t budge enough for me to shift my legs free.
Its dimmed eye sockets glinted balefully at me, as if accusing me of this predicament.
“Come on, Corin. Stay awake a little longer for me, please! You can do that, can’t you?
Help me out so I can help you.” He blinked, the weird semi-transparent inner eyelid sliding shut and then open beneath his normal eyelids.
He groaned when he tried to move. His hands shot up to clutch at his head as if it hurt, but his weight shifted off the dog.
It wasn’t enough, and he was flagging, my worry for him growing.
This wasn’t good; that screech had done a terrible number on him.
I recalled that Zeidon and Farah had dealt with a similar weapon from Vrash, but I was pretty sure Zeidon hadn’t been as bad in that recounting as Corin was reacting now.
A brush against my hand made me squeak with fear, and Corin jerked upright, his body swaying, but his hands raised, holding a third knife he’d pulled from somewhere.
It was just the bot, no longer trembling from fear.
It beeped a few times gently as it scooted past me in the cramped space.
“What are you doing?” I asked, though I knew it was silly to expect an answer.
“Beep, bop, beeeeeeep,” the bot responded as it scooted itself beneath the shoulder joint of the robot.
Its round dome top made a scraping sound as it made contact with the metal.
Then the little bot raised itself a little taller with another determined-sounding beep.
Holy crap, it was doing it! It was just a tiny bit of space, but that was all I needed to yank my legs free from beneath the metal beast.
With a wild spinning move, the little bot freed itself from beneath the robot carcass, and I swore it danced for me.
A triumphant little spin and twirl after a successfully completed task.
It was freaking adorable. “If you didn’t name it,” I said to Corin, “then I’m declaring its name is now Triff. For centrifugal force.”
I raised my eyes from the triumphant little robot and looked at my silvery-blue Naga companion.
“Ah, fuck!” He was about to collapse again.
My legs ached fiercely as I clambered to my knees.
Pins and needles—the whole kit and caboodle.
I ignored it and scrambled over the downed robot to get to Corin, hands outstretched so I could touch his still-bleeding ears.
At the last moment, I froze in place and stared. If I touched him, it would only succeed because he was too hurt to move out of my way. It felt wrong to take advantage of that. But how could I help without crossing that boundary?