“Brayden, you okay?” Carolina was above me, dragging the limp robot off of me. She did it fairly easily so it must have been fairly light, though it had felt plenty heavy to me.

  Mental note: hit the gym next time we're in transit.

  “Thing got my ankle good, but I think I wrecked it up before it was able to do more than that. Help me up?”

  Carolina offered her hand and helped me to my feet.

  Well, almost to my feet.

  When I tried to put weight on my crushed foot I let out an entirely manly scream and blacked out a little.

  Carolina caught me and I noticed we weren't alone.

  There was an older man in a suit that seemed to identify him as staff of the starport. Or, you know, a Barrista at space starbucks what did I know.

  The other was... I could only describe him as a dudebro, long khaki shorts, a loose hawaiian pattern shirt, heavily styled hair, lots of muscles. He went over to the robot and kicked it.

  “Yeah, that's what you get.” The dude-bro called.

  “Hey, hold off.” I said

  “Why? You some robo-lover? Fucking robo apocalypse and you on their side?” the dude-bro fired back. I could tell he was itching for something to fight.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “That robot has been trying to shut itself down ever since the berzerker infected it. It has been fighting this entire time, and that is the only way I was able to stop it.” I replied.

  The man looked like he was going to snarl at me.

  However, a woman came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to speak to her while the uniformed man moved to speak to me.

  He approached furtively, wringing his hands.

  “Did you say Berzerker's?” He asked

  I tore my gaze away from the dudebro who I was certain was going to be a problem. “Sure did. I fought them in orbit. Think we got all of them but they were dumping virus's at us the whole fight in every way we could possibly receive them. Lord-Captain Hannity and myself are the only survivors of the fight in orbit. Hannity I think was able to deal with the virus's through...” I looked over at Carolina.

  She looked at me, then nodded and turned to the uniformed man. “Imperial ships combat Berzerker virus infection by simply switching any compromised system to manual and locking out electronic systems. However Captain Brayden and other C.O.G. Vessels have a more proactive approach” This time she shot me a look. I was enjoying this. Also it seemed to be disconcerting the man in the uniform AND the dudebro who had turned to pay more attention to us instead of his girlfriend.

  “I was able to wipe out the virus from my vessel instead of just sequestering it like Baron Hannity, and when we realized that all communication from the planet had ceased, I came down to render assistance in the same way. As much as I am able to at least.” I said.

  The uniformed man gave me the side eye, and glanced back and forth between me and the downed robot.

  “So... what made the bots go insane.... It's a virus from the berzerkers.” He said.

  “Yeah, that's about the long and short of it. Probably messing with anything and everything on this planet not properly hardened against cyber attack.” I said.

  He eyed the dudebro and his girlfriend, who now that I looked closer appeared to be wearing something skimpy(as expected of a dudebro's girlfriend) but it had kind of a … religious feel to it? It was white, and crossed over her breasts before wrapping around to her hips and connecting to a white skirt that fell to her ankles, with slits up both sides.

  It had strange symbols worked into it in gold cloth.

  “And you are with C.O.G. Yes?” The uniformed man asked, his gaze traveling up and down my very cyberpunk looking suit.

  “Yes I command a C.O.G. Vessel.” I said, suddenly wary at this line of questioning. The dudebro was scowling even more.

  “And you are able to purge this infection from our systems?” The dudebro's girlfriend asked. Something about the way she said that struck me as off, almost as if it had a religious fervor to it, but I nodded.

  “If we can run a hardline to my ship I should be able to purge a significant chunk of your network. The virus is smart but without an active berzerker directing it I should be able to deal with it... I think. At least the one in that bot felt easier to deal with than what I was fighting up in orbit. I will say however I will not be able to get ALL of it. If the virus has sequestered itself in something without a connection to whatever network you can hook me up to, I will not be able to reach it, and it will be able to infect other systems if it comes back into contact with the network after I am gone.” I replied. I was suddenly really wishing I had paid more attention to my compsci courses in university.

  The uniformed man's shoulders drooped.

  “Which is why if you can I also need a way to contact someone in charge, ideally your president or monarch... whoever represents your government to help them work up a way to contain the virus.” I said.

  At this he brightened.

  “I'll get right on that! We have an old radio system in the tower, I can try to get ahold of someone with that.” The uniformed man replied.

  “Can you get someone to run a hardline to my ship?”I asked.

  “Uh... no? I'm... I'm the only staff that made it through. And there are still bots running around outside.” He replied

  “Of course you are.” I rubbed my hands over the bridge of my nose as I thought through the problem.

  The Dudebro snarled. “So even with the bot-lover we're fucked, is that it?” He was looking like he needed to assert his authority in some way.

  Carolina got between me and the dudebro, defensively. It was actually rather touching.

  I turned to stare him dead in the eyes, and he flinched as I spoke to him directly, probably a bit more harsh than I intended. “Yes. You are fucked. Thousands, possibly millions are already dead and more are on the way. I can keep more from dying, and I will, despite your putrid voice in my ears. Now go take your bitch and find a corner to fuck while the adults fix this catastrophe.” I snarled right back at him. I was too tired, too sore, and too full of adrenaline from the bot fight to deal with this shit.

  The dudebro eyes went wide, surprised and incensed at the vitriol in my words, and puffed up like he wanted to take a swing at me, and I extended the plasma cutters from both of the tool slots in my suit.

  Carolina also tensed up, and after having seen me deploy the plasma cutters from my arm before extended something long and sharp from her own suits tool hardpoints.

  Once more, the lady who seemed to be intimate with the dudebro came up and soothed him. The snarl on his face was far more intense than before, and he shrugged her off the first time she put her hand on his shoulder and whispered something in his ear.

  In truth I wanted this dealt with now. I was confident I would be able to disable him with the suit, and even without it I had learned how to be a nasty infighter even with my condition. Being weak and sickly meant I had been attacked and bullied more often than not, and that's why I had drawn this out here and now. Better to put this guy, who would 100% be a problem in the future, down now than wait for him to stab me in the back later.

  His gaze flickered fearfully to the plasma cutters on my arms that were even now sparking to life, and then to the girl who was trying to soothe him and lead him away, at least I assume her whispers in his ear were attempts to soothe him.

  She stepped in front of him, almost protectively, and held a hand up towards me, as if warding me away from him.

  “Please don't hurt him, Abomination Captain, he is scared and confused.” She said, a lilt in her tone.

  I fired back. “What he is is stupid, and arrogant. I've dealt with things like him ever since old earth, so full of the need to bring others down so they can feel tall. They were worthless wastes of space then, as they are now. And the fact you defend him tells me all I need to know about you as well. If you wish your fuckboy, and you, to remain unharmed, keep him away from me. If he starts anything, I WILL deal with him, and you.” I added the last part by sweeping my eyes up to the dude-bro, whose eyes widened as he realized I wasn't just intending to throw him a beating.

  The girl, who I had figured was less likely to be the dudebro's girlfriend but more likely either a family member or boss or... something with authority over him, to act so protective of him, lead him over to one of the windowed walls that overlooked the tarmac.

  The uniformed man was visibly shaken by this encounter between us.

  It was awkward. I hate awkward. This awkward even more cause I knew I was the cause of the awkward.

  “My name is Brayden Cofey. You may call me Captain Cofey.” I said to the uniformed man.

  This seemed to snap him out of his funk. “Right, yes, let's get up to the tower. Um... I'm supervisor Derrick Moore.” The uniformed Derrick introduced himself.

  He looked fearfully off at the pair over by the windows.

  “Um... they are... I am responsible for them. I need to take them up with us, the tower is the only safe place. I can't leave them down here.” Derrick said.

  I sighed.

  “Just keep them away from me and keep them from starting shit. I haven't slept properly in...” I realized I had forgotten.

  “Three days, Brayden.” Carolina piped up, her eyes narrowed at me.

  “Right, three days.”

  He gave me a wary look, but called to the dudebro and his girl/priestess/whatever, I didn't care.

  I began walking towards the stairs, but my right leg buckled, and my HUD was filled with error messages from my suit. Apparently during the run and fight I had burned out several servos in the suit, and my vertigo and weakness were reasserting themselves.

  Carolina moved to catch me, Derrick Moore gave me an alarmed look, and the dudebro sneered at me.

  I ignored it and leaned on Carolina as we made our way through the door, past the half cleared barricade, and up a long flight of steps.

  I had to take several breaks up the stairs.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The dudebro and priestess, as I had taken to referring to them, came in the door after we did, and began piling the barricade back in place.

  Once I had finally reached the top of the stairs we entered through another door onto a circular control room, with glass all around us allowing a full panoramic view, through which, incidentally, I was able to see Hook, sitting where I had left it.

  Thankfully the ramp had drawn up, as it was now being circled by robots.

  “Fuck...” I said aloud, leaning on one of the control panels before collapsing into a chair.

  Derrick and Carolina moved to see what I had sworn about, and Carolina echoed my invective.

  “There goes the idea of just running a line to your ship.” Derrick exclaimed.

  “Yeah... can you show me to your comms panel? Maybe I can work something wireless.”

  “Isn't that dangerous? If we do that you are opening your ship up to hostile takeover by the virus.” Carolina added, nodding to the bot swarm.

  “You aren't wrong.” I said, as the priestess and dudebro came up the stairs. “I'll have to clear the systems here before I can even connect, and even once I do, I don't dare send any proper commands to the ship. If I do the bots outside will most likely try for a man in the middle attack, and without me fire walling the ship they could do anything from overload the reactor to firing weapons, either of which would end us all real quick.” I continued.

  I sat there, brooding.

  “I'm going to start clearing out the systems, if any of you come up with anything... well I won't be able to hear you, so write it down.” I muttered, as I pulled the connector out of my wrist tools and connected to the system, at the same time letting my suit link into my neck plug.

  I sunk into the virtual space, leaving awareness of my body behind, focusing instead on the dozens of instances of code that were suddenly being thrust at me from the system as the virus tried to infect me.

  I was growing used to this and deflected their attacks, or ignored them altogether. I was getting the hang of handling incoming code attacks, and while I had initially thought they did nothing I was realizing they simply did very little. The code was adapting to try to cause effects in my actual biology, the interconnected nature of the spaceports computer systems allowing the virus to enact a more in depth attack on me than the keypad or the robot. I could see in an overlay on my vision my heartrate spiking as I absorbed code bundles designed to mess with my system, but from their perspective they couldn't be certain anything they sent worked, so the few attempts that did get a response from my body were not attempted again. Unlike most computer systems, I didn't have to respond in any way that they could detect to their probes. Or maybe they could detect it, they just didn't understand what an elevated heartrate or plunging O2% meant.

  I fought them in the virtual space for a long time. I hadn't told anyone, but I had figured the only real way to deal with the robots outside to both allow us to run a cable out to it and return to it in general was to clear the spaceports infected systems and use them to connect to the robots when they either returned to recharge or through whatever system the spaceport used to keep the robots organized and tasked with... whatever they needed to. I had already tried to wirelessly connect to the bots and it kept hitting me with connection refused.

  This time, unlike with the bot and the keypad, it was a slog. At first I tried a broad attack, to take out all of them all at once, but none of the viruses were the same. It was like each time they spread they randomized themselves somehow, so I had to use different tactics for each one.

  Eventually I wound up locking down certain systems one by one.

  First I locked down, then purged the security camera systems, allowing me to have eyes over the whole of the facility, which was nice actually. Since I had drifted into full synch I hadn't had any sense of what was going on outside. Now that I brought up the cameras I could see the robots patrolling outside the starport, many were gathered around my ship...

  But even more were gathered around a second ship that appeared to have just landed. There were small jets still firing as it settled, and robots were already closing. It was small, less than half the size of Bait, so the size of a big passenger airliner from my time, it even had wings similar to one which told me it was designed for planetary travel.

  As I watched the robots started climbing up the sides of it.

  I jacked up my reference frame as high as I could, which in my damaged suit was only 10x, and started searching for what could be the robot control system as fast as I could.

  I hit on one system that I thought looked right from what I could make of it from the outside. The system ID had been scrambled by the robots but it appeared to be taking inputs from multiple systems and pushing other numbers out.

  It turned out it was the luggage control system. I managed to clear it and wall it off, but there was little more I could do from inside it.

  I pulled out, and instead of blindly reaching for another subsystem, I scanned the camera's.

  It took some time, though, at 10x speed it was somewhat less than I felt, but eventually I found what looked like... something weird.

  There were a series of five... showerheads? Arrayed under an awning on the outside of the building, along with what were either races or restrains for something basically humanoid, possibly clamps to hold and keep stable arms, legs, and a torso while it was shut down.

  It looked like my best bet, and I began searching for a system that might be that.

  It was at that moment that I saw something in one of the cameras that made my heart quicken all on it's own, without the need of the code that's still being flung my way.

  The robots were all over the new ship that had come in, which wasn't surprising, it had been... god I'd been at this for nearly two hours.

  What was surprising was that one of the robots had actually breached the door on the side, and was currently peeling it off the hull.

  I realized I didn't have time to fuck around and started sending pings and alerts throughout the system, focusing hard on finding override access to the doors. It was fairly easy, as they were looped into the same system with the cameras.

  The door controls actually opened up a lot of new connections to me, including certain I/O ports that were wireless and definitely meant to interface with robots, and I was quickly able to secure it..

  Unfortunately I didn't have time to check them out, as the robot a the door of the recently arrived vessel flung the door away.

  And promptly disintegrated under heavy gunfire, it's arms flinging away, followed by it's head and torso. It's legs flopped to the ground.

  Out of the now breached door a half dozen men all wielding some kind of sub-machine gun, all in suits of a style I didn't recognize, and wearing some light body armor burst out of the side of the airplane and began gunning down all of the robots near them. If I could control my body I would have let out a whoop.

  And then my stomach dropped out from under me. All across the tarmac, it was like someone had thrown a rock at a beehive as dozens, or more like hundreds, of robots began swarming towards the plane.

  The men with the guns waved at the ship and a tall woman in a tight business suit and blonde hair dropped out of the door with another gun wielding man, and started running for the terminal.

  Cursing to myself as I tried to figure out the door controls and what door they were going for, I JUST managed to get full control as they hit the halfway mark.

  At this point the swarm had reached them, or at least it reached the two men who had fallen back from the group and were currently pouring fire into the swarm, to little avail.

  It looked like, while they did have some exposed critical components, hitting anything else on these robots did little to nothing, so spray and pray was not going to cut it, least of all on a horde like this.

  As I watched the horde swarmed over those two, and I winced as the first was slammed down onto the ground and three robots gave him CPR at once... all the way through his chest and into the tarmac.

  He popped like an overcooked sausage. If I could still feel my body I probably would have thrown up in my mouth.

  The other was... I don't know if I would call it lucky, but it looks like it took less time. A robot came up behind him and wrapped it's arms around him as if to perform a heimlich, and with a single contraction broke the man in half. The robot then dropped him and turned towards the rest of the group.

  The men's sacrifice hadn't been in vain, the rest of the group, the five security personnel and their VIP had almost reached the main doors.

  Which I had just found the controls to.

  I triggered the doors, opening them enough for them to fit through single file, and as one the group formed into a line, with the original escort for the VIP woman in front, the VIP, and then the four gunmen trailing.

  The last of them made it through with but a few meters between them and the front of the horde.

  I hit an emergency override and the door slammed itself shut behind them.

  The VIP leaned against the wall and put her hand to her chest, I assume breathing heavily. I had to assume because if the security cameras had any audio capability I couldn't find it.

  I panned my the camera to get a good look at the g-men in their suits.

  They were a variety of races from what I could tell, and all of them were at least six foot and ripped, even under their suits/uniforms and their body armor I could tell that.

  They all had crewcuts, but they at least had different hair colors, which let me differentiate them.

  The man who had accompanied the VIP out of the ship had black hair with streaks of snowy white through it, and a nose that had been broken many times and badly reset at least once. His face was a weather-beaten off-white and it wasn't hard to tell that he was the senior security personnel here, if not the others' boss.

  Of the four remaining bodyguards one was a ginger, young, no scars to be seen and pale as driven snow, another was a brunette with dark skin and a scar across her eye, no cybernetic replacement and it looked milky, possibly blind. The other two were blonde and appeared to be twins.

  I wiggled the camera back and forth panning across them until one of the bodyguards looked up and pointed at the camera I was currently looking at. Once they all looked up and saw me the VIP started talking to the camera. Instead of trying to mime things with just a camera I swivveled it to point towards the tower where I currently resided.

  I used other cameras to keep an eye on them until they started moving in my direction, one of them it seemed had gotten the message, and I set all the other cameras to be looking in the direction of the tower.

  I came out of full synchronization and blinked my eyes in the light of the tower.

  “It looks like we have someone important comOOOOOW! What happened to my face!” I began explaining before the sensation of pain hit me like a ton of bricks. This shouldn't have happened... when I put on the space suit I didn't lose sensation in my body even at 100% synch.

  I looked around, the dudebro was sitting on the floor in the corner, the priest/bitch/lady in the skimpy outfit standing between him and Carolina, who had extended both plasma cutters in her suit and had them sparking, ready to go. I also noted that the dudebro was clutching his arm which... had been almost cut off. And cauterized in doing so it seemed. He was alternating between whimpering and snarling.