Sol Survivors Chapter 4: Purge

Chapter 4: Purge 

The spoke corridor stretches ahead, wide enough for two lanes of traffic for cargo haulers but feeling narrower with every step. Red emergency lights pulse overhead, throwing long shadows that make the walls look like they’re breathing. The air tastes of burnt wiring and copper. Somewhere far behind them the wrecked samurai robots cool, metal ticking as it contracts. 

No one speaks for the first hundred meters. Toku leads by half a step, the too-long katana carried low in both hands like a nodachi he’s still learning the balance of. His dreads sway with each measured stride. Rand watches the man’s shoulders, relaxed but ready. No wasted motion. No twitch toward the blade every time a distant clank echoes down the passage. Discipline. Rand files it away. 

Lila trails a pace behind. Her breathing is too shallow, too quick. The graze on her arm has stopped bleeding, but the sleeve of her jumpsuit is stiff with drying blood. She keeps her SMG up, barrel tracking the shadows, but her eyes are glassy. Shock settling in like frost on glass. Rand has seen it before. Seen kids, soldiers her age, hold it together until the fighting stopped, then fall apart when the adrenaline ebbed. 

He glances sideways at her. She catches it, straightens her spine like she’s been caught slacking. 

“You good?” he asks. Low. Not soft. 

She nods once. Too fast. 

“Bullshit,” he says. No heat in it. “You just strolled through your first battlezone and blew up two killer robots with a power cell and a prayer. That’s worth being a little rattled.” 

“I’m not rattled.” Lila swallows. 

“Sure you’re not.” Rand lets a beat pass. “When I was your age I once pissed myself in a firefight. First real one. Didn’t even notice till it was over. Still made it back to the bird. I said it was a beer that an insurgent threw at me when we busted doors down. Luckily the chemical smell of the bomb factory we raided masked the actual smell.” 

She blinks. A small, surprised huff escapes her, almost a laugh, strangled. “Classy,” she mutters. 

“Very. Point is, body does what it does. Doesn’t mean you’re broken.” He nods toward the SMG in her hands. “You’re still pointing that thing the right way. That’s what counts.” 

Lila looks down at the weapon, then back up at him. Something shifts behind her eyes, not calm, but steadied. She wipes her mouth with the back of her good hand and they both hear her stomach growl. 

“Thai food.” she says suddenly. “I’m just thinking about Thai food. Keeps my mind on something else,”  

Rand raises an eyebrow. 

“When we get out of here. First thing. A whole fucking spread. Pad Thai, Spicy Shrimp Soup, Massaman Curry, Mango Sticky Rice… And a cold drink that isn’t recycled piss.” 

“Deal,” Rand says. “I’ll even spring for the good shit. No off-brand garbage.” 

Toku doesn’t turn, but his head tilts slightly. Listening. Measuring. Rand feels the weight of it but doesn’t call it out. 

They keep walking. 

The corridor ends at a pair of massive bay doors, easily 10 meters across, built for heavy cargo haulers. A smaller personnel hatch sits to the right, access panel glowing dull amber under the emergency strobes. 

Lila steps forward without being asked. She kneels and her eyes lose focus. In her head her hacked Neuro-T implant calculates the combination to the door code, knowing that if she doesn’t get it on the first three tries, they’ll be locked out. Fingers move fast despite a tremor. This is her being useful, contributing, not being a burden. Rand covers the corridor behind them; Toku takes the left flank, nodachi held in a loose guard. 

“Power’s still live,” Lila mutters. “But the lock’s on emergency lockdown. Give me thirty seconds.” 

“Take twenty,” Rand says. 

She doesn’t argue. Between attempts she pauses as her implant recalculates. She laughs a little to herself realizing that she doesn’t have to worry about alarms going off if she fails, unlike when she’s hacked locks in the past. Alarms have been blaring in the station already since their awakenings. The panel beeps once, then the hatch hisses open a crack. Lila shoves it the rest of the way with her shoulder. 

The central hub opens before them. 

Warehouse-sized. Crates torn open, food packets and ration bars scattered like confetti across the deck. Blood mixed with hydraulic fluid in long smears. Bodies everywhere. Sol Libertatis fighters in mismatched armor, prison guards in charred black fatigues, LegionaryX robots slumped with limbs twisted at wrong angles. One guard’s torso ends at the ribs; the rest is somewhere else. 

The smell hits hard. Copper, shit, burnt meat, spilled coolant. A LegionaryX’s coolant line still leaks in slow pulses, hissing like a dying snake. 

Lila freezes in the doorway for half a second. Then her stomach growls again, loud enough they all hear it. She focuses on her hunger as she steps over a dead Libertatis soldier, not looking directly at the corpse, boots crunching on shattered plastic. Kneeling beside a ripped-open crate of snacks she pulls out a foil bag of Watney’s Sweetfire Thai Chili Martian Potato Chips, tearing it open with her teeth. The first crunch is obscene in the silence. 

Rand watches her eat. Doesn’t say a word. 

Toku shifts his grip on the nodachi. His eyes flick to Rand, then back to the carnage. Still silent. Still measuring. 

Through the huge observation windows that line the ceiling, space stares back. Black. Cold. Rand sees uncountable cryo-pods drift slowly against the stars, ejected, tumbling end over end. Frost glinting on the glass. Faces frozen inside, mouths open in silent screams or maybe just sleep. Hard to tell. 

Rand’s gut twists. 

He remembers the hiss of his own pod opening. The alarm. The heat hitting his face after years of cold. Those people out there… same pods. Different betrayal. Someone flipped a switch and decided they weren’t worth keeping. The whole damn prison population, purged like faulty inventory. No trial. No warning. Just a button and vacuum. 

He keeps it inside. 

Lila crunches another chip, doesn’t look out the windows. 

“Sounds like fighting up ahead,” she says around the mouthful. “Docking bay’s that way.” 

Rand nods. Checks the AK2K one last time. Eight rounds. 

The trio moves out, boots crunching over shattered plastic and spent casings. Rand takes point now, AK2K low but ready, barrel sweeping the shadows between crates. Toku flanks right, nodachi carried in a relaxed guard that looks almost casual until you notice how the blade tracks every flicker of movement. Lila stays center, SMG up, the open bag of Watney’s Sweetfire Thai Chili Martian Potato Chips tucked under one arm like a grenade she might need later. 

They pick their way through the wreckage. Bodies lie where they fell. A Sol Libertatis fighter sprawls face-down, one arm stretched toward a spilled crate of ration bars as if he died reaching for breakfast. A prison guard’s helmet is cracked open, visor spiderwebbed, gray matter leaking onto the deck in a slow, viscous pool. LegionaryX robots slump against bulkheads or sprawl in heaps of twisted alloy and sparking joints. One has its head caved in, optics dark, a final burst of coolant still dribbling from the neck joint in wet, rhythmic pulses. 

Rand pauses long enough to kick over a dead guard’s sidearm. Empty. He moves on. 

Toku stops at a LegionaryX that twitches once, servos whining as a damaged leg tries to stand. The robot’s optics flare red for half a second. Toku closes the distance in two strides, nodachi flashing up and down in a single, economical arc. The blade shears through armored neck plating with a hard crunch. Hydraulic fluid sprays in a high arc, painting the nearest crate red-black. The head tumbles free, bounces twice with dull clanks, then rolls to a stop against a ration bar wrapper. The body collapses in sections, limbs folding like a broken marionette with severed strings. 

Rand doesn’t flinch. He keeps his rifle trained on the shadows beyond, covering the kill without a word. Toku flicks fluid off the blade with a quick twist of his wrists, then meets Rand’s eyes again. No nod. No smile. Just a brief, steady look that says we’re still breathing and I saw you cover me. Rand returns it. One beat. Then they move again. 

Lila watches the whole thing without blinking. She crunches another chip. The sound is sharp in the quiet aftermath. 

They reach the far end of the hub. Huge observation windows stretch along the ceiling and upper walls, giving a clear view of the docking arms and the black beyond. Two ships detach from their moorings as they watch. Thrusters flare white-hot. The vessels pull away from the station’s hub, accelerating hard toward open space. Exhaust plumes bloom against the stars, then fade out as the ships vanish into the dark. 

Lila stops chewing. 

“That’s… not good,” she says. Voice flat. “If our ride already left…” 

“It didn’t,” Rand interrupts before her words could influence their reality. “Not yet. It’s still here. Somewhere. We just have to press on.” He doesn’t sound as certain as he wanted. He feels the knot in his gut tighten as he feels the dread of the possibility. He looks up as the station is bleeding ships like a gut-shot animal, 2 more, a third, 5 now. Every second they waste is another chance their ticket out gets yanked. 

Toku glances up at the windows, then back in the direction they were travelling through the hub. His expression never changes. He just adjusts his grip on the nodachi and keeps walking. 

Lila exhales through her nose. She reaches into the bag, pulls out a single chip, and holds it out toward Rand without looking at him. 

“Want one? They’re actually pretty good. For Martian garbage.” 

Rand glances at the round, orange-dusted crisp, emblematic of Mars, then at her. A small, tired smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. 

“Stress eating is a team sport,” she says. Deadpan. “Besides. If we die in the next room, I don’t want to go out knowing I ate the whole bag by myself.” 

Rand takes the chip. Pops it in his mouth. The heat hits fast. He chews once, nods; the burn creeps into his face and makes his eyes water as he fakes a smile. “Not bad.” 

Lila offers the bag to Toku next. Toku looks at it for a second, then shakes his head once. Polite. Firm. No explanation. 

“Suit yourself,” she mutters. She crunches another one herself. The noise feels almost defiant now. 

They make their way through the crates and carnage as they approach the docking bay doors. Gunfire echoes louder here. Sharp cracks of plasma, the chatter of automatic weapons, a low, guttural roar that could be a wounded man or a failing engine. Something heavy slams against metal. Once. Twice. 

Rand raises a fist to signal they stop. Toku halts as Lika stares at Rand’s hand amid her munching before she finally stops so she doesn’t walk into Rand. They stop in front of the final set of doors to the docking bay. Like the previous cargo doors, a large pair of doors for cargo and a smaller one for just personnel to the side. A control panel glows amber beside them. The fighting sounds right on the other side. 

Rand checks the AK2K again. Still eight rounds. He looks at Lila. 

“Can you crack this one too?” 

She nods. “If it’s not completely slagged. Give me a minute.” 

Toku steps to the side, nodachi ready. He scans the corridor behind them, then the doors ahead. Silent. Watching. 

Rand keeps his voice low. 

“We breach quiet if we can. Peek first. See what’s waiting. If it’s bad, we fall back to the hub and find another route. No heroics.” 

Lila kneels at the panel. “All roads lead here, Boss, not really any other route.” Eyes lose focus again. The Neuro-T hums in her skull, pulling schematics, the map of the station, running probabilities, testing codes faster than fingers could ever manage. 

Rand and Toku take up positions on either side of the door. Covering angles. Waiting. 

The gunfire behind the door spikes. A scream cuts off abruptly. Something big crashes again. Closer this time. 

Lila’s fingers hover over the panel. A soft beep. The lock cycles. 

The door hisses open a crack. 

Gun smoke drifts out in lazy coils, carrying the sharp tang of ozone and cordite. Flickering orange emergency lights spill through the gap, painting the trio’s faces in harsh, shifting shadows. 

Rand leans in first, rifle up, eye to the sight. Toku mirrors him on the opposite side, nodachi low. Lila stays back a step, SMG ready, the half-empty bag of chips still clutched under her arm. 

The docking bay opens before them like a slaughterhouse cathedral. Vast. Echoing. Rand scans the lines of docking ports along the sides of the bay. All show red, their airlocks tight, their ships vacated. All except one all the way in the back that shows a green light, an open airlock, a docked ship. 

Between them and the ship, though, the fight rages. 

No Sol Libertatis soldiers in this fight. Not one. Just prison guards, black fatigues, riot helmets, the same type of men who probably locked them in cryo, fighting for their lives against the station’s own LegionaryX robots. The guards are down to maybe a dozen. They’re using overturned cargo loaders, tool benches, and the corpses of their own for cover. They fire in disciplined bursts, SMGs chattering, shotguns booming, their flechettes and buckshot ineffective against advancing metal skins. The robots advance in a relentless, mechanical line. No shouting. No battle cries. Just the flat, staccato sizzle of plasma rifles spitting green beams that melt armor and flash-boil blood. 

Rand’s gaze sweeps upward, searching for any path around the killing floor. The ceiling is a lattice of heavy I-beams and exposed conduits. Thick cargo straps and chains dangle from them, suspending rows of massive metal crates and sealed shipping pods. Some of the straps look frayed from years of strain, others taut under the weight of overloaded containers. A few crates sway gently with the vibration of gunfire. If he could reach those chains, cut a couple, drop one of those crates on the robots or the guards, maybe create a gap. But the fight fills the entire width of the bay. No flanking route. No high ground. Just a straight run through hell to the Solvo’s airlock at the far end. 

He exhales through his nose. No way around it. 

They’ll have to go through. 

The guards are losing. 

Badly. 

Rand’s eyes narrow. He remembers the large sword wielding robots in the corridor. The way they carved through anything that moved. He has cold realization that the station’s defenses weren’t broken. 

They were upgraded. 

Something wants every human in this place dead. Prisoners. Soldiers. Guards. Doesn’t matter. The purge is surgical. Impartial. Absolute. 

One of the guards, a man in higher-ranking black with red piping on the shoulders, breaks from the defensive knot. The warden? He sprints forward, low and fast, while the rest of his men lay down fire to cover him. Green beams return fire to the guards; not one hits near the warden. 

He reaches a large, unmarked metal storage crate sitting against the inner hull. The kind of crate that gets unloaded from supply ships and forgotten until someone needs it. The warden, because that must be the warden, slams a palm against the emergency release. The front panel drops with a heavy clang. 

Inside is a mech suit. 

Not some jury-rigged industrial loader turned prison security exoskeleton. This thing is military-grade. Heavy plating. Thick, articulated limbs. A backpack full of power cells and coolant reservoirs. A weapon mount on the right arm that looks like it could chew through hull plating. 

The guards see it. A ragged, desperate cheer goes up from the survivors. 

The warden doesn’t hesitate. He climbs into the suit. Servos whine as the armor closes around him like a coffin sealing itself. Hydraulic clamps lock. A deep thump of power-up cycles through the bay. 

When the suit turns, the trio finally gets a clear look at the man inside. 

He was not entirely human. His face was heavily augmented; optics glow red where his eyes should be, sweeping the bay with cold precision. Visible linkages snake into ports along his neck and collarbone, syncing his internal wetware with this combat suit. He raises one massive mech arm. The limb ends in a multipurpose rifle the size of a man’s torso. A selector clicks audibly across the bay. He doesn’t turn to the advancing robots. 

The cheering stops. 

The warden opens fire. 

Full auto. No warning. No hesitation. 

Bullets tear through the guards in a sweeping arc. Armor shreds. Bodies jerk and spin. Blood sprays in bright fans, painting the deck, cargo containers, and compatriots in wet crimson. Screams rise, then cut off as men are cut in half at the waist or punched backward into crates. One guard’s head disappears in a red mist. Another tries to run; the warden tracks him, stitches a line up his spine. 

The last guard falls to his knees, hands raised. The warden pivots. One burst. The man’s chest explodes outward.  

Bullets not only ripped through the guards, but through the inner wall and the larger cargo bay door next to where the trio hides, causing it to clank slightly apart from the damage. Silence falls. Broken only by the drip of blood and the low hum of the mech suit’s reactors. 

Rand stares. 

The last full humans that are probably left on the station, besides the three of them, just got executed by their own commander. 

The warden turns slowly. Optics sweeping the bay. Searching. 

Has he seen them yet? What range do those optics have? 

Rand eases back from the door. His voice is barely a whisper. 

“Close it. Quiet.” 

Lila’s fingers move. The hatch hisses shut. The lock cycles with a soft beep. 

They stand in the corridor. Breathing hard. 

Toku’s grip on the nodachi tightens until his knuckles pale. 

Lila’s hand shakes as she crushes the empty chip bag, her face and shirt dusted in red spice powder 

Rand looks at the sealed door. Then at his two companions. 

“We’re not getting to that ship without going through him.” 

He checks the AK2K one last time. 

Eight rounds. 

Not enough. 

Not nearly enough.