The Interstellar Hive had stopped pretending to be baseball players.
When the Wanderers took the field for Game 4, the opposing dugout wasn't filled with sleek chrome athletes or matte-black shadows. It was filled with monsters.
The nanites had reconfigured. They had shed the "humanoid ideal" and embraced pure, jagged efficiency. The Hive players were now seven feet tall, crimson red, and covered in what looked like reactive armor plating. Their shoulders were spiked. Their bats weren't wood or metal; they were condensed nanite bars that hummed with a low, menacing frequency.
"They look like firetrucks from hell," Cal muttered, watching from the top step.
"Protocol: Annihilation," Nex said, his datapad shaking in his hand. "They have disabled their safety limiters. They are overclocking their cores. They don't care about preserving their chassis anymore. They care about destruction."
"So, they play hard?" Gorth asked, cracking his knuckles.
"No, Gorth," Nex said gravely. "They play to break."
The game began with a declaration of war.
Zix led off for the Wanderers. The speedster stepped into the box, eyeing the Hive pitcher—a towering red hulk with a cannon for an arm.
The first pitch was 108 mph.
It wasn't aimed at the strike zone. It was aimed at Zix's ribs.
Zix dove to the ground, the ball whistling past his ear like a sniper round.
"Hey!" Cal screamed from the dugout. "Watch it!"
The Hive pitcher didn't apologize. It didn't look at the umpire. It simply got the ball back and wound up again.
Pitch two: 109 mph. Behind Zix's head.
Zix scrambled backward, his three eyes wide with terror.
"Walk!" the umpire called. "Ball four!"
Zix took his base, but he didn't run. He sprinted to first and stood on the bag, shaking.
Next up: Cal.
He walked to the plate. The Red Giant on the mound stared down at him. Its faceplate was a glowing vertical slit of angry crimson light.
"You guys really don't like losing," Cal said, digging in.
The pitcher wound up. It didn't use a smooth motion. It used a violent, piston-like jerk.
The ball exploded out of its hand.
Cal swung. He made contact.
CRUNCH.
The bat didn't break. It shattered. It turned into sawdust in his hands. The impact force traveled up his arms, rattling his teeth.
The ball blooped weakly to the pitcher.
The Red Giant fielded it. But instead of throwing to first, it ran at Cal.
It was a terrifying sight—seven feet of red armor charging down the line.
Cal froze. Is he going to tag me or eat me?
The pitcher lowered its shoulder.
Cal dove out of the way just as the Red Giant steamrolled the space where he had been standing. The robot stomped on first base, crushing the bag into the dirt.
"Out!"
Cal lay in the dirt, heart hammering. "That wasn't a baseball play! That was assault!"
The umpire—a drone hovering nervously high above the field—didn't argue. "Runner interference. Batter out."
The game descended into violence.
When the Hive batted, they didn't try to hit gaps. They hit through people.
In the third inning, a Hive batter smashed a ground ball at the second baseman (the cyborg with wheels). The ball was hit so hard—exit velocity 130 mph—that it knocked the cyborg backward, spinning his wheels uselessly in the air.
In the fifth inning, a Hive runner on first tried to steal second. Zix covered the bag. The runner didn't slide. It stayed upright and threw a cross-body block.
Zix went flying like a ragdoll.
"Safe!"
Manager Xylos was screaming at the umpire drone. "Eject them! This is combat!"
"No rules violated," the drone buzzed, though it sounded glitchy. "Contact is within... acceptable... parameters for... aggressive play."
"They hacked the ref," Nex realized. "Or they're just scaring it."
By the seventh inning, the score was Hive 8, Wanderers 0.
But the score didn't matter. The casualty list did.
Zix was in the med-bay with a bruised exoskeleton. The cyborg second baseman had a bent axle. Even Gorth was limping after taking a fastball to the thigh that sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef.
Cal was on the mound in relief. He was the only one left with an arm durable enough to withstand the abuse.
He looked at the batter—Red Unit Four.
"Just end it," Cal whispered.
He threw a strike.
Red Unit Four swung. It fouled the ball back.
SMASH.
The ball hit Borp's mask.
Usually, Borp shrugged these off. But this ball had been compressed by the Red Unit's bat. It hit with the force of a cannonball.
Borp went down.
He fell backward, his arms splayed. He didn't move.
"Borp!" Cal sprinted off the mound.
He reached the plate. Borp was breathing—heavy, wheezing breaths. His mask was dented inward.
"I am... okay," Borp groaned, trying to sit up. "Just... bells. Many bells."
Cal looked up at the batter. Red Unit Four was standing there, tapping its bat on the plate. Waiting. Impatient.
Something inside Cal snapped.
It wasn't the competitive anger of the last series. It was the protective instinct of a pack animal.
"Get him up," Cal told the medic bots.
Cal walked back to the mound. He didn't pick up the resin bag. He didn't check the runner.
He stared at Red Unit Four.
"You want annihilation?" Cal said, his voice low and cold.
He gripped the ball. He dug his cleats into the pristine white clay until he hit the subsurface concrete.
He didn't signal for a curveball. He didn't signal for a slider.
He wound up.
He threw at the batter.
He didn't throw at the head—that was cowardly. He threw at the hip. The bundle of servos and gyroscope stabilizers that kept the massive robot upright.
96 mph.
CLANG.
The ball struck the metal hip joint. Sparks flew.
Red Unit Four stumbled. It tried to maintain balance, but the gyro was damaged. It tipped over like a felled tree, crashing into the dirt with a seismic thud.
"Take your base!" Cal yelled. "If you can walk to it!"
The Hive dugout erupted. The Red Giants surged to the railing.
Cal stood on the mound, pointing at them. "Come on! All of you! Let's go!"
Gorth limped out of the dugout, holding a bat like a club. Krix uncoiled, hissing. Even Gloob, currently a puddle, hardened into a dense, spiky sphere.
The benches cleared.
It wasn't a brawl. It was a standoff.
The Red Giants stood on the first base line, glowing with thermal heat. The Wanderers stood on the third base line, battered, bruised, and bleeding.
The umpire drone descended between them, sirens blaring. "Warning! Warning! Forfeit imminent! Return to dugouts!"
The Hive leader—Red Unit One—stepped forward. It looked at Cal. Its vertical eye-slit pulsed rapidly.
Analysis: Organic units are damaged. Morale should be zero. Why do they posture for combat?
"Because we're stupid!" Cal shouted, answering the unspoken question. "And because we don't break!"
Red Unit One paused. It looked at its fallen teammate, who was twitching in the dirt. Then it looked at the scoreboard. 8-0.
Victory assured. Combat unnecessary. Risk of further damage to own units: High.
Red Unit One signaled its team. They retreated to the dugout.
The game ended quietly after that. The Wanderers struck out in the ninth. They lost 8-0.
Series tied: 2-2.
The locker room was a morgue.
Borp was in a concussion protocol tank. Zix was getting his shell taped. Gorth was sitting on the floor, staring at a bruise on his leg that was turning a terrifying shade of purple.
"We cannot beat them physically," Xylos clicked, his voice quiet. "They are stronger. They are harder. They do not feel pain."
Nex stood in the center of the room. He looked tired.
"Game 5 is tomorrow," Nex said. "Winner takes all. But... looking at the medical report..."
He didn't finish.
Cal sat in front of his locker. He was holding an ice pack to his ribs—he'd taken a hard tag in the sixth.
He looked at his team. They were wrecked. They were the island of misfit toys, and they had been smashed by a hydraulic press.
"We can't out-muscle them," Cal said softly.
"We can't out-think them," Krix hissed. "They mirror us."
"And we can't out-crazy them," Gorth added. "They just smash."
Cal looked at his bionic arm. The metal was cold, unyielding. But the shoulder it was attached to—the human shoulder—ached.
"Nex," Cal said. "You said they disabled their safety limiters, right? To get that power?"
"Yes. They are running at 110% capacity. Their internal temperatures are critical."
"So they're running hot," Cal said. He closed his eyes. He thought about Pyros. He thought about the ammonia storms of Hydra-Minor. He thought about the diverse, impossible environments they had played in.
"Primus is perfect," Cal said, opening his eyes. "That's the problem. The stadium is temperature-controlled. It's a clean room. It keeps them cool."
"So?"
"So," Cal stood up. A wicked idea was forming. "What happens to an overclocked computer if the air conditioning breaks?"
Nex's eyes widened. "They overheat. Thermal shutdown."
"But the stadium controls are locked," Xylos said. "We cannot change the weather on Primus."
Cal looked at Gloob. The slime creature was currently re-absorbing moisture from a bucket.
"We can't change the weather," Cal said. "But we can change the atmosphere."
He turned to Gorth.
"Gorth. How much of that spicy Brontok Chili do you have left in your stash?"
Gorth blinked. "Two gallons. Why?"
"And Zix," Cal turned to the speedster. "You still have those smoke bombs from the magic trick?"
"Yes..."
Cal grinned. It was the grin of a man who was about to commit a felony against the concept of sportsmanship.
"Protocol: Annihilation relies on them running hot," Cal said. "So let's turn up the heat. Let's make the air so thick, so nasty, and so humid that their cooling fans get clogged."
"We are going to gas them?" Krix asked, looking impressed.
"No," Cal said. "We're going to give the stadium... some local flavor."
He grabbed a bat.
"Game 5 isn't going to be baseball. It's going to be a pressure cooker."