A loud metallic knock on the bulkhead door broke Akeela from the daydreams of verdant jungles and prowling hunters. He sighed as he set the book gently to the foot of his bunk. "What?"
"It's Ettin. We'll be setting down for the maintenance check soon," came a deep basso voice through the door.
Akeela stood from the cot, stretching as he took the three steps to door. He placed his hand on the latch and pushed the door open, meeting the gaze of the small, lithe man holding an olive drab sack loosely in his hands.
"He's always much smaller than he sounds." Akeela thought with a smirk. He glanced past Ettin a moment into the dim corridor. "Were you able to get what I asked for?"
Ettin glanced over his shoulder as well, checking the corridor behind. "Yeah. . . though Deca is curious as to why the hell I wanted this."
Akeela stepped away from the door, moving to sit back down on the edge of the fold out bunk. "Did you tell him anything?" Akeela asked as he reached under the bunk, grabbing what apeared to be a rather full tool bag.
"Just that I wanted to check the portables over for the sake of something to do. . . I think he believed me." The small man shrugged vaguely.
Akeela smirked as he took the shabby book from the bed and placed it into the bag.
"You're really doing this, aren't you?"
Akeela furrowed his brow and looked up at Ettin. "You were on the screens the night I talked to them. Did you think I was just playing a practical joke on them? Taking all the trouble to arrange this?"
"Well, no but. . . " Ettin sighed. "I mean. I never expected you to be the sort to change sides. It's not that bad here for you is it?"
"I'm not changing sides Ettin. I'm just. . . taking a different approach. With a more like minded pack."
Ettin shrugged again as he scratched his head. "I. . . I'm just surprised then, I guess."
Akeela looked over Ettin a moment. Here was a small man who's frame and behavior betrayed his voice. Always quiet, to himself either pondering over code or tinkering away in his quarters. The rest of the crew here treated him like a part of the ship. It had its function and no need to deal with it further on that. Akeela had been the only one of the crew on this assignment who had taken the time to actually try to know him.
"And now I am leaving and I feel quilty." he thought.
Ettin opened up the sack and pulled out the portable transmitter. "I checked it over. It's working fine...even boosted the range a little." He smiled slightly.
Akeela smirked and shook his head as he took the transmitter. "Couldn't help yourself, could you. You're lucky I don't tell the captain about all the modifications you do. Putting our equipment out of spec--"
Akeela grabbed the edge of the bunk as the whole room seemed to shudder and groan. Ettin grabbed a conduit on the wall and held it until the room seemed to settle again. They both could hear the buzz of the pads slowly fade away. The sound of the craft powering down reminded Akeela of an erie mechanical sigh.
"I convinced the captain to let you go out and check the pads. That should give you an easy window."
"Thanks Ettin. Really."
Ettin looked down at the floor a moment before stepping out back into the corridor.
* * *
Their motions as they moved was otherworldly. Smooth, quiet with every arm trailing behind like a silvery frayed veil. Their cluster of red eyes gave a gaze of cold malice and predatory calculation. As they moved about they conjure images of a school of fish moving through the dark ocean. Hunting, feeding, searching.
Tonight they were searching. The signal they had now locked on to had disappeared, somewhere several levels and junctions below. The signal was an intruder. It was not part of the system and could not be allowed to continue its presence here. The group of sentinels moved as one, silently, smoothly into a vertical shaft leading to the deeper tunnels below.
* * *
Akeela's lungs burned as he moved swiftly around the debris of the tunnel floor. Getting away from the craft was easy enough, but in a few minutes they would finish the internal checks and reboot the ships systems. Then they would know. Akeela looked over his shoulder a moment, squinting through the murky dark at the few visible landing lights on the craft. The Kaida was a large craft, designed for long range use over extended periods of time. But even now he could only barely make out the shape of the hovercraft.
Akeela wiped the sweat off his brow, still panting. He still had several hundred meters until the next juction. There, a horizontal maintenance line would be his hideout until the other hovercraft came to pick him up. Whenever that was. He honestly had no clue how long they would be. He only had enough food and water for a day or so. Either way, machine presence here was minimal at best. He felt he had little to worry about concerning their patrols.
"Come on man, keep moving. Only half way there. . ."
He turned reshouldering the bag and started down the tunnel again, moving only a few meters before freezing in his tracks. Up ahead, several dim points of red light had appeared. Akeela cursed and scrambled over to a pile a scrap nearby, finding a small niche under a panel of corroded steel. He peeked out over the haphazard roof and watched as the sentinels slowly approached.
His mind raced. He couldn't possibly outrun the sentinels. The would catch him and rip him apart before even made one hundred meters. He peeked again and watched as they passed overhead, moving swiftly towards the landed and vulnerable hovercraft. Swiftly, he kneeled down and unshouldered the tool bag. Digging through it a moment he pulled out the portable transmitter. He switched it on and tuned it to the Kaida's frequency.
"Ettin! Dammit man! ETTIN!"
Akeela checked the frequency on the panel and was about to shout into the transmitter again, when all comprehension failed him. One of the sentinels at the rear of the group had turned around, and was now heading straight for him. All rational thought gone, he turned and ran towards the junction. Primal instinct had taken over, his adrenaline peaking through his body. He coursed swiftly around scrap and debris in a vain attempt to out run the sentinel.
He heard the metal construct as it crashed down hard behind him. He veered towards the tunnel wall hoping for a clear path to escape along. Akeela heard the sound of metal scraping on metal as the thing tore through the piles of scrap to get to him. As he veered sharply around a large girder he felt a wave of heat warm his back with a metallic hissing noise. The smell of molten metal suddenly assaulted his nose. It had fired at him and missed. Akeela veered again around a pile of dilapidated steel. He was almost to the tunnel wall.
The pursuing sentinel leapt up in the air and overtook him. Akeela, guided by instinct or second sight, hit the floor of the tunnel hard. The sentinel's thrashing arms had only succeeded in grazing his back, ripping through his worn shirt and coat to only the top most layer of flesh. He quickly scrambled to his feet and reversed direction away from the sentinel.
His back burned from the newly inflicted wounds, but that rattling of the mortal coil had only seem to make him move faster. He hadn't noticed that his footing had changed from solid stone and steel to rusted grating. The sentinel leapt again turning midair to face him as it landed. It landed hard, shaking the grating that the both of them now stood on. It gave Akeela little time to react as it lunged towards him, several arms streaking toward him it open claws.
Akeela whirled and barely dodged the first arm as it struck his previous position and drove through grating. The floor shuddered and Akeela felt gravity shift. This shift had caused the second arm to miss barely above his head. Akeela had to lean forward to keep his balance as the world continued to disorient itself. The sentinel had stopped attacking and was swiftly scrambling close the distance left between the two of them. Akeela's feet finally slipped from the grate and he fell hard, sliding across the floor into the suddenly open air. The arms of the sentinel flailed in a desperate attempt to shred him as he slipped away, but found only empty space.
Akeela's stomach lurched as he rolled downward through the air toward the engulfing darkness. His arms flailed to find anything with reach. Then with a sudden, harrowing motion Akeela felt his free fall end and begin to slide downward along some surface. He did his best to control his movement, but it was becoming difficult. With another harrowing halt, he felt time suddenly slip from him as dove into the realm of the unconscious.
With an echoing rattle, the transmitter bounced along the shaft and landed several meters away from Akeela. It's crystal display was flashing red. The fall had somehow caused it to begin broadcasting a low power signal. . .
((edited for some grammar I missed.))
