the device.
Rias flung some of the liquid on the cube, then ducked under it as the beam shot. It sizzled past, missing him. It struck the stair railing, but the beam did not affect the black metal. The viscous liquid on the cube smoked red. Pungent fumes gagged the air as it oozed down the sides.
That did not stop the automaton from rotating toward Rias, its ominous red hole glowing. Before its deadly side disappeared from sight, Tikaya fired, aiming for the orifice shooting those beams. Her shot flew true, and the shaft lodged inside. But the red glow flared and a beam incinerated the arrow.
Rias found cover behind a column.
A hiss sounded behind Tikaya.
“ Look out!” Rias yelled.
She whirled. The door she had tried to lock opened, revealing two cubes on the threshold. Their holes glowed.
Tikaya leaped over the railing. The floor came quickly, and she landed with an ankle-jarring jolt. Two beams zipped over her head. Off-balance, she skittered into the shadows beneath the landing.
Gunfire echoed elsewhere in the lab. She sensed rather than heard the cubes floating down the stairs.
“ Over here.” Rias beckoned with an arm. “Zigzag your path.”
With a wary glance at the cubes coming down-they were only a few steps from the bottom-Tikaya raced across the open space toward Rias.
“ Zag!” he barked.
She angled left. A beam splashed the floor inches from her feet. After a few more steps, she veered right.
Something crashed behind her, but she did not slow to look. She skidded behind Rias’s column, nearly jabbing him in the face with her bow.
He gripped her shoulder and started to speak, but an agonized scream echoed from the back corner.
“ Curse Bocrest for not listening,” Rias growled. He pointed at the cube he had doused with the goop. It lay on the ground, part of its exterior burned away to expose silvery innards. “It’s working. I made it in the vehicle garage in Wolfhump. I wasn’t sure it’d be the same as-”
“ Those two are coming,” Tikaya said.
“ Right, yes. We have to get some of this on them, too, but I don’t have a chance unless they’re distracted.”
“ You want me to do that?”
“ Not ideally,” Rias said.
The cubes floated closer, no urgency to their movement, but an eerie inexorableness marked their flight.
“ This way.” Rias led Tikaya down the aisle to find cover behind the next column.
“ I thought you wanted to challenge me,” she said.
“ You saw how lethal one can be, and we’ve got two to deal with. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
More likely killed, Tikaya thought. She smiled bleakly. “If not me, who else?”
“ I’ll do it,” an emotionless unfamiliar voice said from behind them.
A young man-he could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen-stood there, wearing fitted black clothing and soft black boots. Several sizes of daggers adorned his belt, and a set of throwing knives was strapped to his right arm. He carried nothing else.
“ Go,” Rias said, hefting his jar.
If the boy’s appearance surprised him half as much as it did Tikaya, he did not show it. She lifted a hand, intending to protest sending someone so young on a suicide mission, but the youth had already jogged from concealment.
Two beams lanced toward his chest, but he anticipated the attack and dove, rolling beneath the cubes. They rotated to target him. This time he jumped to avoid the shots. Next, the mechanical assailants teamed up, showing a disquieting ability to work together. They tried to surround him, but the youth proved too quick. He darted away, keeping both cubes to one side of him.
“ If I get killed,” Rias said to Tikaya, “get the jar and finish them. It’s an acid, so don’t let any of the liquid touch your skin.”
Before she could say how little she thought of his get-killed option, he left. Tikaya nocked an arrow. The bow might not do damage, but perhaps it would help distract the cubes. Though the boy was doing a good job of that on his own. He dodged, darted, jumped, and rolled with the fluid ease of a well-trained natural athlete. Who was this ally who had shown up just in time to help? Even when a beam washed the floor inches from him, his face held no expression, though the intensity of his dark eyes promised nothing would break his focus.
Rias neared the closest cube, keeping its backside toward him. Tikaya fired at it. The arrow clanged off, and the cracked head clattered to the floor. Despite the distractions, the cube somehow sensed Rias’ approach. It rotated toward him.
He flung some of the liquid and dodged just before the beam struck. Red smoke fumes plagued the air. The second cube remained focused on the youth who led it around columns and over lab stations. Rias zigzagged back to a column adjacent to Tikaya’s with the tagged cube shooting after him. Smoke drifted from its surface, and the corrosive liquid burned through the casing.
“ What is that stuff?” Tikaya asked, shifting to keep the column between her and the cube as it approached.
“ A variation on royal water,” Rias said. “The black metal is particularly susceptible to it. We were trapped in a room with all sorts of chemicals, and I tried several things last time. I couldn’t read any of the labels, and I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself. It took too long, though. A lot of men died before I figured it out.”
The smoke thickened, inflicting the air with an acrid tang. It was nothing like the scent of burning wood or coal or anything else Tikaya had ever smelled. Before the cube reached them, it ground to a halt, then plummeted to the floor, innards exposed.
“ Next.” Rias headed toward the gunfire and shouts in the rear of the huge lab. “We lost ten men to these things last time. We have to hurry.”
“ Shouldn’t we get the one attacking the boy first?” Tikaya asked.
“ He’s the last one who needs to be rescued.”
They ran through the aisles toward the chaos. When they passed the spot where they had killed the creatures, there was no sign of the remains, not even a blood stain on the floor. The corpse of the marine was gone too.
Rias picked an aisle parallel to the gunfire and shouts of Bocrest’s squad. He jumped, caught the edge of a counter, and pulled himself to the top of a lab station. He knelt, his jar poised to pour when the mechanical assailant came into range.
Tikaya thought to wait on the floor, but the youth came into their aisle from the other end. His cube sailed in a few seconds later. Tikaya tossed her bow up, then climbed to Rias’s side, hoping to avoid the path of fire.
“ Admiral,” the youth said as he ran past.
Tikaya blinked, almost as shocked at the calmness of the boy’s voice as the fact that he knew who Rias was. Rias leaned over, prepared to pour his concoction on the cube following the young man. It seemed to detect the trap, for it slowed several paces back. Its glowing orifice rotated up, toward Rias and Tikaya.
“ Rust,” he muttered and prepared to jump.
“ Wait.” Tikaya jabbed the tip of an arrow into his jar, nocked it, and fired. The dripping missile spun into the red hole. A flash later, a beam incinerated the arrow. The cube floated closer.
“ Double rust,” Tikaya said.
“ It was a good idea,” Rias said.
They crouched to jump down into the aisle behind, but the cube slowed, then halted. Smoke wafted from the beam hole. The cube sputtered and thunked to the ground.
“ It was a good idea.” Rias clapped Tikaya on the shoulder and gave her an appreciative smile that warmed her soul, despite the dire situation.
Enemy of the islands, she reminded herself. She was not supposed to be pleased by his compliments anymore.
“ Think you can hit that target again to help these men?” Rias pointed to the marines scrambling in the other
