Rogue Derelict, page 18
“Blick, if you don’t finish up, I’m sending Lefty back there to finish you up,” Nori said.
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” Blick muttered.
He teetered out from behind the crates. Out of necessity, he’d been forced to use one of the female suit designs. His relatively diminutive size made it a reasonable fit—at least a fit as reasonable as it was for the women—but the styling differences were somewhat more glaring in his case. Little design flourishes here and there around the chest and hips seemed rather odd on an anatomy where there wasn’t much to accentuate in those regions. And the scandalous translucency was less titillating when all it revealed was some chest hair and the legs of a pair of scrunched-up boxer shorts. The waist was also visibly tighter than the rest, giving him a mildly corseted appearance that didn’t make breathing any easier.
“Who the hells had the bright idea of putting heels on this thing?” he muttered, clomping over to his jumpsuit to slide into it.
“That’s what I said,” Benita agreed.
“You two just don’t appreciate what a sleeker leg can do for you,” Nori countered.
He tried and failed to adjust the seat of the suit before shoving a foot into his overalls. “I’m gonna be singin’ soprano for a week if I get through this. This is the opposite of dying with dignity.”
“How much time to you think we have?” Benita said, looking out the massive windows to the tip of the ship. “Without the sensors, how will we know if the radiation is getting close?”
“If the radiation monitor starts buzzing, it’s close,” Blick said. “And if evil robots start pouring in here, they’re close too.”
“I’d prefer a bit more warning than that.”
“And I’d like to be able to take a deep breath without moving my organs out of the way first. You can’t always get what you want. You about ready, Lefty?”
Blick grabbed his equipment, lashed it to the hovering drone, and guided it toward an airlock a short distance away.
“You ladies just about ready to do your part? I don’t want him pointing any guns at us while we’re basically nothing but very fragile targets scooting through the cosmos,” he called.
“We’re still working on—” Benita began.
Nori silenced her with a raised hand.
“These suits have radios. I distinctly remember the line on the sales page. Will they work with the PA system?”
“Sort of. It’s not a standard setting, but if you set it to analog and sort of tease it through the channels, you can get close. I did that to freak out Lefty a couple of weeks ago, remember?”
“That was you?” Lefty snapped.
“Excellent. Benita, you and I will be on the PA channel and/or one of the lower digital channels. The two of you, pick a channel and stay on it, something between just the two of you.”
“We won’t be able to communicate with you then.”
“That’s fine. You’ll know if we did our job if the drones leave you alone. We’ll know if you did your job if the various threats to life and limb suddenly vanish. Once you’re on your way, we’ll get on the PA and let the Mind know where we are. The drones will redouble their efforts to get to us, and once they get here, we’ll keep them busy. Now go. The sooner you get on the job, the sooner keeping them busy won’t be a problem anymore.”
They each grabbed their borderline ridiculous fishbowl-like helmet. A rush of cool air pressurized the suits, but the skintight nature meant that they only really felt it on their heads. Blick struggled with the inner door of the nearest airlock and got it open, then herded Lefty inside and secured the door.
“You and I will chat on digital channel one when we need privacy,” Nori said, her voice raised such that Benita would hear her through the muffling of the two helmets.
“But we don’t—” Benita objected.
Nori again silenced her with a raised finger and fiddled with the controls on the collar. The PA crackled and broadcast a distorted scraping sound of her fingers on the hardware.
“Hello? I am addressing the Mind and the collection of puppets and drones he would have us believe are a crew. By now you realize that you’ve been duped, outsmarted, and otherwise made a fool of by a tiny collection of the same non-Kirians you insist are infinitely inferior to you and yours.”
The PA crackled again, and the squawking voice of the crew answered. “You have not outsmarted us. You are cowering and hiding. Already we have nearly linked our drone control to the station’s systems. We are coming for you. You know full well that we are the superior—”
“Wrong, darling,” Nori said with a grin. “We are not hiding, we are waiting. Presently we are nestled safe and sound in the top deck of this station, a delightful future luxury venue we’re calling the atrium. If you truly wish to illustrate your superiority, I challenge you to face us directly.”
“You shall have your wish…”
Nori switched to Benita’s channel to find her accountant was midrant.
“—are you doing? Are you trying to get us killed?”
“Calm down, darling. What is the problem?” She pointed to Blick and Lefty, each drifting along in the narrow space between the ship and station as the drones dragged them forward. “Look, our crew is on its way. There is no sign of anything targeting or seeking them, and having riled the ego of our foe, he shall surely focus intently on us.”
“But we haven’t decided what we are going to do to keep them distracted once they get here.”
She waved her hand. “A minor detail. They may not even reach us by the time Blick and Lefty finish their end of the task. And if they do? Well, the knowledge of their approach should provide additional incentive to produce a proper plan swiftly.”
“… You’re one of those people in college who would cram the night before exams and still get an A, aren’t you?”
“Goodness no. Too much trouble. I was one of those people who seduced the dean. Now let’s not waste time. There is a ruse to plan.”
Chapter 12
Blick drifted through the void of space, dragged like a lump of inert cargo behind the drone. In what surely felt like an act of brilliance at the time, the designers had seen fit to include both turbines and thrusters, thus enabling the drones to operate in space where turbines alone would have been useless. What might have slipped their minds was the fact that the ineffectual nature of the turbines when in space meant the drones had barely half the thrust when not traveling in an atmosphere. At first that had seemed like a serious pain, as they were slow to accelerate. Now Blick looked at it as a blessing, because it meant once he was going in roughly the direction he wanted to go, his shaky one-handed operation of the controls meant he couldn’t go too far off course due to a wrong move.
He looked down, at where he knew the Perpetuity to be. Its stealth system was still active, which meant instead he saw a mildly distorted star field beneath him. This close, there was an odd curvature to the image, and if he squinted, he could see the seams where two artificial projections met, but the illusion was still impressive. A mild distortion in the stealth field also served as a handy indicator of where the radiation weapon was active, thus giving them something to avoid.
The plan, or at least the fraction of it they had been able to cobble together before they left, was a simple one. They couldn’t blow up the ship, because that’d destroy the station, too. And since they didn’t know how to shut down the radiation weapon, the only remaining option was to force the ship to undock and depart. Disregarding the questionable approach they were going to pursue to achieve this, sending the ship on its way without even robbing it was an unpleasant thought to the more mafia-minded members of the crew.
“Boy, I’ll tell you… I wouldn’t have minded getting my hands on this technology,” Blick said.
“Woulda brought a heap of tindarks on the smuggler market, huh?” Lefty said.
“Pretty much.”
Blick glanced aside. They were just about to the halfway point of the station, which meant they were just about to the halfway point of the ship. “Turn it around, we’ve got to start slowing down. These things don’t stop on a dime.”
He teased the controls to swing himself around. Lefty executed his maneuver with a bit less grace, bashing into his drone and spinning helplessly for a few seconds until the drone’s autostabilizer kicked in. Eventually he got it under control, but not before drifting through the stealth projection. He and his drone left an odd wake of brilliant blue light wherever they passed before the field finally resolved itself again.
“Son of a—” Lefty grunted.
“Whoa! You okay?” Blick called.
“Yeah. Yeah. Just feels like my whole body licked a battery. This suit don’t do much to protect you.”
“Tell me about it. I feel like there’s nothing between me and oblivion but a sandwich wrapper. At least we know we can get through the stealth thing without toasting ourselves. Listen, Lefty, seeing how deep into my bag of tricks I had to get to survive my last trip onto this ship, I think we ought to come up with some ideas to help keep us alive if things don’t work the way we hope they will.”
“All you gotta do is rig the ship’s thrusters, right? Drop a brick on the accelerator. You done that before.”
“I’ve done it on two-man patrol ships, not ancient relics. We’re going to need to hedge our bets.”
“I’m pretty much only good at punching things and shooting things, Blick.”
“Well maybe while I’m rigging the thrusters, you should go inside and punch and/or shoot the Mind.”
“Uh-uh.”
“I’d say it’s a pretty good idea. Him being dead couldn’t hurt.”
“Last time he got in my head. I didn’t like it.”
“So don’t get close. Less with the punching, more with the shooting.”
“Uh-uh. He’s weird. He’s got powers. It’s cold. I don’t like it.”
“We may not have a choice.”
“Then you do it. I’ll let you use my gun.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll go shoot, which is your thing, while you rewire these thrusters.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Yeah, Lefty! That’s kinda the point!”
“I ain’t goin’ in there, Blick. You can do one, then do the other.”
Blick clenched his teeth. “It’s a damn good thing you make good sausage sandwiches, because right now I’m starting to question what else you’re good for.”
“I’m good for punching and shooting things that don’t have mind powers.”
“Well a fat lot of good that’s doing us right now! Just follow me. We’re getting close.”
Blick guided the drone down through the stealth field. Lefty’s description was apt, as the field sent a tingly, sparky sensation across his skin and caused some worrisome error noises in the suit’s electronics. There were only a few yards of space between the field and the ship, so he had to quickly correct his flight to avoid being dragged across it. From behind, the stealth display was semitransparent and had a ghostly blue glow.
The bell of the first of six enormous thrusters approached from below as they continued to slow. It alone was larger than most of the ships Blick had ever been on, but that, at least, meant the cables and fuel lines leading to it were hard to miss. He drifted to a stop and eased carefully along the hull until a familiar node symbol appeared.
“Here! Hah! Same as on the station’s thrusters. The good stuff is right under this panel.”
Blick scraped his feet against the hull, discovering that not only were the boots of the suit high heels, they weren’t even magnetized.
“Of course. Why would they put something useful like that on the stupid suit? I tell you what, Lefty. I used to think ladies were just being whiny about their outfits, but if this is what they have to deal with, then I might have to change my mind.”
“I dunno. I kinda like mine.”
“Great. Maybe Nori’ll put you in the show. Just keep your eyes peeled for drones, I’ve got to get busy.”
“Hey… Blick, is that a camera?”
Blick glanced up. A very short distance away, a recessed node with the unmistakable look of an omnidirectional surveillance camera lurked among the doodads littering the hull. It definitely had an excellent view of them.
“Great… well, we’d better hope the ladies have a darn good plan to keep him from checking his security footage.”
#
“… And then, once he gets through that, we shoot the drone… No, no. Won’t work. As soon as we shoot one, he might switch his attention somewhere that he’ll notice what Blick and Lefty are up to,” Nori mused.
Since the boys had left, Nori had been, with frustrating calm, working her way through potential ways to keep whatever member of the crew might show up busy. Thus far no ideas had arisen that were likely to do the job for even a full minute.
“We could demand to speak to the Ambassador, couldn’t we? Surely he’s not sending the Ambassador, and if we demanded to speak with it—”
“Blick shot the Ambassador,” Benita said.
“Ah, yes. That’s right. Still, he was only the same old drone with a fancy cloak. I can’t imagine it would take much effort for the Mind to scrounge up a new cloak to slap on.”
“I don’t think the Mind works that way. I think he considers the various members of the crew to be individuals, even if they’re all him.”
“That’s insanity.”
“Yes, Nori. It is insanity. He’s insane!” Benita said.
“Ah…” squawked the PA system. “There you are.”
They snapped around, looking first to the nearest speaker, as if that was somehow where the drone had appeared. Then a grinding sound became apparent. One of the soldier drones had appeared outside one of the lesser windows and was working to claw through the polymer of the pane. The mechanical scraping quickly caused a rupture. Air whistled and shrieked through the widening hole. Benita and Nori rushed for the nearest cover, which turned out to be a crate of supplies against one of the nets in the ring of tennis courts that dominated the atrium in its present state.
Benita trembled violently at the sight of the drone under the control of a lunatic. An old-fashioned ballistic weapon tipped the opposite arm, ready to shred their suits and bodies just as soon as it gained entry. In her shaking, she dislodged one of the small mesh balls, the space-age evolution of the old-fashioned tennis balls. A stunningly absurd idea came to mind.
“Nori, tennis!” she said.
Her superior, busy readying her pistol, turned and gave her a dismissive look. “The time for foolish ideas lobbed against the wall like so many handfuls of spaghetti has come and gone, darling.”
“Nori, if we challenge—”
Nori raised her hand to silence her. “Enough. Don’t waste your breath with—”
“Damn it, Nori, you’ve dismissed every last one of my ideas since I arrived on this stupid station, but you’re going to listen to this one!” she snapped. “I know you’re good at tennis because you’ve forced me to play against you, and you wipe the floor with me each and every time. If you challenge him to a game, he’ll have to stay focused on the game for as long as it lasts.”
“Why would something dead set on killing us suddenly decide a game of tennis is in order? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it doesn’t make sense! We haven’t been able to reason with the Mind because it is insane. It isn’t thinking rationally. If we’re going to outsmart it now, we have to use its own broken logic!”
“And what makes you think tennis is the weak link in its faltering brain?”
“There are tennis courts here in the station, there was a mocked-up tennis court on the ship. I don’t know if ancient Kirians in general worshiped the game, but the people surrounding this project certainly did. For the sake of the suns, Nori. The Mind had a psychotic break and fractured himself into the roles he felt were necessary for the mission. He picked a navigator, an ambassador, a technician, and two players. Forty percent of his fictional crew is dedicated to tennis! This. Will. Work.”
Benita had fire in her eyes, her fists balled tight, and her teeth clenched. Nori glanced from her savage gaze to the rapidly failing window.
“Very well, we’ll give it a try,” Nori said.
She slipped the pistol back into her coat and instead selected a ball and a racket. Without a whisper of doubt or concern, she stepped out to the court and rested one hand on her hip.
Metallic fingers finally broke entirely through the window and clawed it out. The safety glass crackled but remained in large plastic-coated clumps rather than shattering. A deafening gust of escaping atmosphere pushed the drone back. Even with half the deck separating her from the window, Nori staggered against a wind that fluttered her heavy coat. The drone’s thrusters flared, and it charged inside just ahead of an emergency shutter irising closed to seal the broken window. It spoke, its voice filtering through the internal speakers of her helmet, echoing the PA system.
“Huddled away from us, shivering before the might of Kirians undiminished and undiluted by years of—”
“Fine, fine. You can have all the bluster you like, but I’ve yet to see any evidence at all that the Kirians were anything but a gaggle of weak-minded, accident-prone oafs who tried to solve their problems by throwing brute force and numbers at those who would oppose them. You lack grace, elegance, and finesse.”
“We are the apotheosis of grace and finesse.”
“Then prove it,” Nori said.
She bounced the ball once. It seized the heavily built drone’s attention. The bulky mechanism may as well have been an excitable dog the way it watched the ball bounce.
