Robocalypse Now

Chapter 3: Blood

Wednesday

Fry fought against the arm that had an iron grip around his chest.

"LET ME GO!" he screamed, "SHE NEEDS ME!"

"Fry, you can't help her! We need to leave! Now!" Came Tom's voice.

Fry stopped fighting and the grip loosened slightly, Fry whirled around, rage boiling inside him, "I'M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT HER!" he screamed in the mercenary's face.

"Fry if you go back for her you'll die." The man said,

"I don't care!" he yelled, Life wasn't worth living without her.

"I'm sorry Fry, but we're going." Tom began to drag the delivery boy towards the building entrance where most of the defenders were beginning to congregate towards as their barriers began to crumble against the robot onslaught.

Fry began to struggle again, when he saw Jade, the sniper, put a gentle hand on Tom's shoulder.

"If it was me lying back there, you'd go back. No matter what anyone else said." She said quietly. Fry had figured out long ago that the two of them were obviously together even if they tried to pretend otherwise.

Tom's face softened, and he sighed, grumbling, "Fine. But you're not going." he said to Fry, "I'll get her mys-"

"I'll go," Jade interrupted, "I'm faster than you anyway." She made to run across the street to the dilapidated old building where Leela's body lay when Tom caught her arm with his free hand.

"Be careful…" he said, worry in his voice, "come back to me."

She responded with a slight smile "I always do." She sprinted off.

Fry heard the roar of the engines as the ship lifted off from the hanger and hovered above it, the landing gear still down.

"We're all loaded," came Hermes's voice from Tom's radio, "Get everyone to da tower and I'll pick you up from there."

Tom picked up his rifle and barked orders to the troops, "Half of you get to the roof and take Fry with you." He passed Fry to one of his mercenaries, "Everyone else: we need to hold out for two more minutes. Make your shots count. Plrr, you and I are covering Jade."

As Fry was hauled through the doors, he saw the massive burly Omicronian heft his minigun and began unloading a hail of laser fire into the robots in Jade's path as she sprinted towards where Leela lay. Fry lost sight of what was going on as he was pulled up the stairs to the top of the tower and aboard the ship.

He roughly shoved his through the masses of people to the cockpit and peered out the window. He could see Jade heading back towards the entrance carrying a limp Leela across her shoulders in a fireman's carry. A grenade exploded next to her, spraying Jade's unprotected face with shrapnel, she stumbled briefly but kept her footing and made it to the door, passing the purple haired woman off to Plrr, who easily hefted her limp form on his shoulder.

Three minutes later he could hear shouts coming from below as the remaining defenders ran up the landing stairs, "Go go go! They're right behind us!" Hermes raised the staircase and prepared to leave behind the now overrun Planet Express building. Fry could see robots filling the interior of the building, they accelerated and were soon on their way to the Nimbus

More shouts from below: "Take her to the bridge! I need a medic!"

Plrr emerged onto the bridge, followed closely by Tom, Jade, and a DOOP field medic. Plrr laid Leela on the deck and Fry's heart plummeted into his stomach, Leela's body was broken, blood seeping from many wounds and lacerations, her single eye stared straight up at the ceiling, glazed and unseeing.

Fry rushed to her side as the medic crouched down beside her. Fry could see the look in the medic's eyes as he took out a scanner and did a quick check of her. He slowly shook his head, "No pulse, no brain activity, a dozen broken bones, and massive internal bleeding. There's nothing I can do for her now; I'm so sorry but she's gone." He hurriedly packed up his gear and headed elsewhere in the ship to care for patients that he could still help.

Fry sat there numbly, he heard Amy try to choke back sobs eventually breaking down and crying into Hermes' shoulder.

Fry heard all of this but it meant nothing to him. His attention was entirely focused on the woman that lay on the deck.

Jade crouched down beside him, fry glanced over and saw that she was bleeding from a large gash on her cheek and dozens of small perforation on her face from the grenade shrapnel, she looked stunned.

"I'm so sorry Fry." She said, her words coming out in a rush, "I-I just couldn't her back in time. Her heart had probably been stopped for several minutes by the time I got her to Plrr. It was just too much ti-" Tom put a gentle hand on her shoulder, stopping the desperate stream of words. She looked down at the deck "I'm sorry." She whispered.

Fry didn't respond. He just scooped up her body with strength he didn't know he had. He turned and walked off the bridge.

People parted in front of Fry as he made his way through the corridors of the ship with soft gasps or quiet cries of "oh no" as they realized who he was carrying.

He made his way to her cabin and found it occupied when he opened the door. "Get out." He said, his voice dead and emotionless.

The people left quickly, somehow finding places on the rest of the ship. He closed and locked the door, gently laying her body on her bed. He knelt down beside her and tried to arrange her body in a way that looked natural, which was difficult because of all the broken bones in her limbs. Her blood began to soak into the sheets. He brushed a few strands of purple hair out of her face.

Her single eye still stared blankly at the ceiling; Fry moved to close it. As he slowly closed her eye for good, the full realization of what had happened came down on him like a ton of bricks. His world seemed to shatter around him and he collapsed, huge wracking sobs shook his frame as his tears mixed with her blood on the thin sheet.

He flashed back to his fondest memories, of her. Their first kiss, the first time she said "I love you" just as they were about to plunge into a wormhole, the first day they met, the discovery that Lars was actually him from the past, the epic Holophonor opera he had wrote for her.

Each memory bringing on a fresh wave of tears. He wasn't sure how long it had been but eventually he felt the ship touch down on the Nimbus, the voices in the corridors began to die down as people filed off the ship. By this point Fry just felt empty inside,

But even in his emotionally dead and exhausted state, he felt confusion as the ship lifted off again.

A few minutes later there was a soft knock at the door; Fry didn't react or even try to get up.

There was some almost inaudible clicking as whoever was on the other side picked the lock.

Tom let himself in and sat down on the floor next to Fry. "How are you holding up?"

Fry looked at him pointedly, his eyes red and puffy.

"Fair enough." Tom said, a sad look on his face, "I'll leave you alone in a second, I just came to tell you that we're heading back to Earth."

"Why?"

"Because she made sure we made it out of there alive." He said nodding toward Leela's body, "The least we can do is make sure she didn't sacrifice herself in vain. DOOP gave us a squad of commandos; we're going to storm Mom Corp and disable the signal."

Fry nodded, "Thank you." He whispered, his voice ragged, "Make Mom pay for this."

The merc nodded sharply, "You can count on it."

Fry heard Tom leave the room, his boots clomping down the hall. He heard the merc bark orders at the assembled soldiers in the cargo bay.

Fry looked back at Leela; Tom's mention of Mom had awoken something in Fry, he felt the crippling depression begin to give way to something different. It's not fair, he thought, heat building in his chest, the universe just can't stand to see me happy, so it took her from me. He rose to his feet, his fists clenching, his breathing coming more rapidly as his rage increased, No, Mom took her away from me. She's the one to blame. He gently covered Leela with a sheet and ran out of the room, sprinting down to the cargo bay.

Fry could hear Tom shouting at Zapp's lieutenant, "I don't care what Brannigan told you, Kroker, I'm taking charge of this mission, if I ask you to go somewhere or do something during this mission, you should probably listen to if you want to get out of this alive. Are we clear?"

A chorus of affirmatives answered him. Fry rounded the corner and saw a collection of heavily armored beings: a squad of ten DOOP commandos and the ten mercenaries that were all that were left of Tom's soldiers.

He strode straight up to Tom, cutting straight to the chase "I want in."

Tom raised an eyebrow, "This is a military op Fry I can't bring you along."

That only made Fry angrier, "It wasn't a request." He said through gritted teeth.

"Hey!" shouted one of the mercs, poking a finger into Fry's chest, "You can't talk to him like that."

Tom waved a hand at the man, silencing him. "Why?" he asked Fry simply

Fry thought for a moment, but in his rage and grief the only thing he could come up with was, "She….She kill…. She killed her."

Tom nodded understandingly, "You're angry." Tom looked over at Jade, her face now covered with bandages; she shrugged, indicating that the decision was up to him, "Fine." he replied sighing, "Anyway the robots have taken over some military ships, if we don't take out the signal soon, not even the Nimbus will be safe. So if we fail down there you'll die either way. The way I see it, you might as well go out fighting." Tom began to walk away, "Gear up, we touchdown in five minutes."

Fry nodded, straightening his too-big body armor and snatched up a rifle, he went to stand on the cargo elevator next to Tom and Jade. There was mostly silence as the ship made its way back to Earth's orbit.

In the silence, Fry's thoughts flashed back to the love of his life, I'm never going to see her again, he thought, feeling tears begin to well up in his eyes, his rage and anger began to fade, being replaced by despair. He choked back a sob, Tom glanced over at him and saw the misery on his face.

"Hey," Tom said nudging him with his elbow, "I've been where you are before." He moved in front of Fry to look him in the eye, "I know what it feels like,"

"You couldn't know." Fry whispered.

"I lost someone very close to me." The merc replied, "And a lot of my friends were killed down there today, so yeah, I know exactly how you feel."

Fry looked at his shoes in silence.

"Im gonna give you some advice that helped me when I was in your shoes," He poked Fry gently in the chest with his finger, "Right now you need to focus on that burning, hot feeling in your chest." Tom looked down at his feet, "When she… when she died, that was the only thing that got me through the next few hours. There will come a time when it's ok to give into grief. But right now that rage, that hate is all that matters. Make every action you take from here on out bring you closer to your revenge."

Fry felt the burning in his chest; he thought of all the things that he'd never get to do with Leela, all the things he'd never get to tell her, and the burning grew hotter. The despair melted away, replaced by focused anger.

Tom saw the change and nodded at him, "That more like it, you're ready. Stay close and do exactly as I say." His wrist communicator beeped, "Two minutes to touchdown people! You all know your jobs; ready weapons and stand by."

The clack of twenty priming levers was his only answer. The ship made several passes by their landing site and Fry could hear the laser cannon spewing fire into the horde. The ship thudded into the ground hard. The cargo ramp dropped, dropping Fry back into hell.

Author's note: I edited a little dialogue in this chapter because it would have contradicted a story element I want to put on Chapter 5.