"Don't worry, I've got this," Dori said.
A glance at her tactical screen told Spin that Dori was charging, her hull cutter focusing a beam towards the Centirion as it turned to face her. She wasn't luring it into the long open hallway so the Sector Jumper could blast it, but charging instead, Boro, Frost, Aldo and Nigel behind her. "Don't get closer!" Spin shouted, seeing the Centirion begin to rear up.
It tried to grab Dori, a few of its finer limbs failed to pierce her shields, and she took the hint, firing her beam weapon as she started to step back. "New plan, hold on, Spin!"
The walls of the station shook as if something was bashing into them from the outside. "That'll get it done!" Dori laughed.
The Centirion reared up again, and faster than before, its forward limbs lashed out from beneath it and wrapped around Dori, fighting through her shields. To Spin's shock and dismay, highly charged shocks jolted through two of the limbs, reducing Dori's energy shield enough so the Centirion could get a grip. With savage abruptness, the security bot yanked Dori off her feet and lurched forward, dragging her under its front half.
"I have a shot!" Hal shouted from the Sector Jumper.
"Don't shoot!" Frost countered. "Dori's under that thing!"
The Centirion's head was bashed to the side by a white hot, heavy round from the Sector Jumper's main weapon, made to knock shields down and bash hulls open. Spin was flung against the far wall as the machine's legs released her. A second shot caught the Centirion in the side of its fore section, reducing half the material to crushed and molten metal.
"Sorry! Holy crap, sorry! Is she okay?" Hal asked.
Spin had barely regained her senses before getting to her feet and rushing to Dori, who had been hurled against the wave of plastic covering the opposite wall. There were no breeches in her armour, her hull cutter was gone except for the backpack, which was partially crushed, and her vitals were good. "We okay, boss?" she croaked as her dark eyes opened. "I missed that last part."
Spin checked Dori's status on her heads' up display again; she was fine, rounds from the Sector Jumper missed her, and she was thrown clear the first time the Centirion was hit. "We're lucky Hal's a really good shot," Spin said, helping Dori to her feet.
The pair turned and looked at the inoperative, nearly headless Centirion half-filling the broad corridor. "God, that thing was a pain in the ass," Spin said, making sure it was really disabled by scanning it.
"I know. I kinda want one," Dori chuckled.
Thirty-Nine
"It's an improvised electromagnetic field that must interfere with some kind of scanner we haven't seen yet," Gavin said as Skylar led the way down the last service corridor leading to the outer hull of the ship. "Farrah must have tuned current and run it through one of the support structures for the maintenance halls."
"So she was making a path for her and Terry to use on their way off the ship," Skylar said. Gavin was one of the few people who she didn't worry about where multitasking was concerned. He could think about complex problems while doing something physical without slowing either one down. The tests said she was better at it, but she always thought it was wrong. If Gavin didn't realize he was doing it, multitasking seemed to come naturally, while she always felt she was missing something if she did more than one thing at a time. "Whatever protection that field in the ceiling was giving us is about to end, though. We're here." The pair looked to a hatchway at the end of the narrow hall.
The service corridor led into a main causeway running along the ship's inner hull, and there was a lifepod a few metres down the hall and across from them. It was large, made for seven occupants, and there were several more hidden every few metres on that deck. The others they'd found as they scurried down one maintenance hall after another had too many people, guards especially, near them. This one was the last they could get to on that deck without being noticed. One thing they both figured out was that they were very out of place outside the sealed environment of the garden. Their captors wanted them to stay there, and Corridor Fifteen was definitely not supposed to be open. How Farrah hacked through the thick security door that allowed them to get in and escape was a mystery to Gavin and Skylar. The security aboard seemed sophisticated and well implemented, but they both found panels along the way that were blank, as though the manufacturer just finished building the ship and left everything set to default without security enabled. She had a theory about why that might be but hadn't seen enough evidence for her to confirm and share it yet.
Looking at the closed hatchway, Gavin tilted his head. "They must know someone modified the wiring in the ceilings of these service ways by now, and I'm sure they're looking for us. I felt like there were eyes on us whenever we left our assigned quarters."
"I'm sure," Skylar agreed. "They might not know about the rewiring though, it's a huge ship."
"I'm getting tired of peeking through these hatches, seeing the hall outside is too busy for us to get through without someone stopping us. What if we just turned the scanner on and checked that way?"
Skylar thought about it for a moment. If they turned their scanner up high enough to detect what was in the hall outside, anyone looking for strange scanning signals would see them right away. "They'll know we're here."
"But we'd know exactly what we're facing, and if we're lucky, we could get across the hall and into that lifepod before anyone can stop us."
Skylar kissed him on the cheek and pulled the scanner out of her pocket, turning it up then activating it. The controls for the devices nearby - the corridor lighting, gravity, hull opacity, and three pods - appeared and synced on the small screen. "They don't have the security measures turned on, I can open the emergency access to three of the nearest pods, and there are two guards between us and the one across the hall."
"What? No code blocking all that control?" Gavin asked as he looked at the readout on the hand scanner.
"I have a thought; that the people running this ship stole it, don't have enough people to man it properly, or don't know all the systems well enough to implement all the ship's security systems." She opened the access hatches to all the nearby lifepods, watching the images of the guards in the main corridor beyond the service hatch look around, confused. "Only three of the ship's reactors are active, and none of the accommodations are assigned to specific people except for the contained garden we were in," she said as she checked the ship status. "It's like they're just using this ship as a ferry, transporting whatever they have in the tanks that take up half the space in the hull."
"They have a lot of people manning weapons right now, they're in full combat mode," Gavin said.
"There, the pod doors are open," Skylar said, watching as three emergency hatches finished lifting out of place, to allow access to the lifepods. "Those two guards are inspecting the nearest one, their backs are turned."
"Now or never," Gavin said with a nod.
To Skylar's surprise, Gavin strode to the narrow hatch at the end of the service corridor. She hurriedly pocketed her hand scanner and caught up as he threw the hatch door open and charged. The pair of guards their scanner picked up were in the broad causeway right in front of them, looking into the entrance of one of the lifepods, which was already powered up and waiting for someone to climb in.
To Skylar's amusement, Gavin bent low, dodging one of the guards as he turned and swung to grab him, and to the guard's surprise, Gavin pulled his knee from behind and punched him in the stomach. That left the nearest guard stunned, on his back, and Gavin had his sidearm in hand an instant later.
That left the more aware, and still sure-footed guard in Skylar's way, and he was already unslinging his rifle. She leapt at him, catching him high on his chest with all her weight and propelling him into the lifepod behind him beneath her. She yanked his rifle from his hands as she straightened up, noticing how his green, thick skinned armour protected him from most of the impact. He fought hard, but she was able to jam her foot under the chin of his helmet and press down wit
h all her weight and leverage as she turned the rifle towards him. "Stop struggling or I'll start testing your faceplate." To her surprise, the rifle responded to her button presses. It looked very different from the ones she trained on, but all the basics were the same. Power levels, firing rate, discharge type, and safety controls were all next to the trigger with a small screen beneath the crosshair.
The guard stopped struggling, and Gavin pulled the lifepod hatch closed. He found the system interface panel at the front of the seven-person vessel and performed a quick pre-flight check muttering; "I can't believe we're using another lifeboat. It's like we're re-enacting the story of the Luckless Wanderer."
It was a holographic drama they watched while they were on their way to the Geist system. Most of the viewing time was spent cuddled up in their room, and the memory made her smile. "That wouldn't be so bad, it ended with him and his dog still alive."
"But still homeless and penniless," Gavin said. "I see your point, though. It could be worse. Ready?"
"What are you doing?" The guard asked, alarmed. "You can't go down to Termire! It's a war zone, there's no order down there!"
"This ship has a hyperspace system, we'll find our way away from here," Skylar countered. The sound of someone shooting at the hatch behind her was enough motivation for her to force the decision. "Now or never, lets' go."
Gavin hit the launch button and, to Skylar's surprise, the lifepod smoothly detached from the ship's hull then started accelerating towards the green and grey planet. "No security code?"
"No security at all," Gavin said.
"You don't get it! Scan the area! There's no way out unless you have a heavy warship. The blockade is keeping everyone but the most heavily armed in unless they can negotiate their way past, and you two have nothing to trade."
There was something artificial and practiced about everything the soldier said and how he was saying it, as though he was reciting memorized words and faking his emotional reaction. Over Gavin's shoulder, Skylar could see red flashing notices from the local Navnet system advising them that the only routes they could follow led them down to the planet. There were several Navnet paths on offer, as though they were openly competing.
"Tactical scan shows that your ship is fighting someone, launching attack ships on the planet, why?" Gavin asked as he rapidly looked through the navnet paths.
"I don't know. I'm just a grunt! Stationed on the ship to maintain security on this run."
"Take off your helmet," Skylar said. He did so and she recognized a face she saw before aboard the Citadel ship they just left. She pulled the scanner from her pocket and took a reading on him, finding a framework matter generating skeletal structure. "Turn over," she told him. "Onto your belly, now."
"I'm a synthetic, everything on that ship is, you shouldn't be surprised, you're just a different kind of synthetic," he said as he turned onto his stomach as instructed.
"Hurry, I need you at the controls. You're the better pilot," Gavin said.
Skylar pulled the restraints from the soldier's belt and secured his hands together, adding the strap to the restraint just in case he knew a way out of his own cuffs. She took the pilot's seat and looked at the tactical screen. There were three small warships, destroyer class, closing in on the Citadel carrier, which was launching wave after wave of fighters. A trio of fighters were turning towards them, and the quick two-man ships were equipped with some kind of line and claw grabber system. "We have to head for the planet, it's the only chance we have of getting away," she said. "And we can't follow Navnet."
"You're going to get yourselves killed," the guard protested. "Getting there, or after, when you get stuck on Termire."
"What do you know about the situation down there?" Gavin asked as he brought up a small control screen so he could help scan and navigate.
"All I know is that I'm to avoid that place. It's dangerous, even I could die there. That's all I know."
"Those fighters will catch us unless we go atmospheric," Skylar told Gavin, turning the surprisingly agile lifepod, shaped like a long oval with a ring of thrusters built along three edges and a long, larger duo-directional that could fire forward or backwards built into bulge on the underside.
"We'll have to deal with whatever's down there," Gavin told her. "At least there's no weapons fire coming from the surface."
Forty
The peaceful robots came from every corner, through every shaft and hall that led to the corpse of the Centirion. Some poked at it, others worked to get the monkey like repair bot free from the plastic trapping him. With construction class tools and medical solvents, it didn't take long. He leapt to Dori, then Spin, where he balanced on her shoulder and looked at where the twisted and melted parts of his model mates were strewn. "I'm Leaper Three now," he said, his sadness palpable. "The ones who are left, one and two, barely know me. They're from the main levels of the station. All my friends are gone."
Boro watched as Spin instinctively stroked the monkey's cheek - a soft pouch for carrying small parts that moved with its words like a mouth - while she looked at the Centirion and the vault doors further down the corridor. He scanned the pieces on the floor, then the parts that were twisted in the front recycler of the Centirion, what anyone fighting would call its maw, and shook his head. The Leaper was right; the Centirion made such quick work of the monkey's companions when they got too close that no one had a chance to see how thoroughly destroyed they were. He could put together one Leaper from the parts scattered around, but with no whole surviving memory storage, it would be a new being, not a recovery. It was the same as buying a new Leaper, only with much more part fabrication, straightening and repairing. "I've always wanted a little repair assistant," Boro said. "I could straighten that leg for you and replace your tail if you come work with me. That's if Spin doesn't need you more than I do."
"I'm all thumbs when it comes to making repairs," Spin said. Then, looking at the Leaper, she went on; "You'd be busy with Boro, and he's one of the nicest people I've known."
"Is he going on your ship when you leave?" Leaper asked.
"I'd like him to," she said, turning her brown eyes to him, smiling a little.
"Anywhere she goes, I go," he said. "Hope you can afford me as your senior tech, that's if Nigel doesn't mind working under me again."
"Yeah. I was in a little over my head, to be honest," Nigel admitted. "As long as that Leaper bot doesn't replace me, it's cool."
"Don't worry," the Leaper said, hopping from Spin's shoulder to Boro's. "I'll go where you can't."
"Welcome to the crew," Boro said, offering his little finger for the Leaper to shake. "Between Nigel and me, you'll be busy and learn a hell of a lot."
The Leaper let out a screech and threw its hands up, clapping and flipping in place for a moment before settling down. Spin was already turning her attention back to the vault doors, where a few of the robots were connecting to the panel controlling them, probably trying to communicate. Boro followed her as they walked past the Centirion's remains. "I'm sorry I wasn't more help in that fight," he said. It was both an admission and an apology. He felt like a flat-footed idiot, holding back as planned, then watching her and Dori nearly get torn apart. He was supposed to fire from a distance, to draw it out into the open so the Sector Jumper could get a clean shot down the hallway at it, but things were more complicated in the end, and he didn't feel like his contribution mattered. "We almost lost you and Dori. I should have been right up there with you."
"You followed the plan, it should have worked," Spin replied, not looking away from where the robots were trying to contact the vault dwellers or open the doors. The hall behind them was closed, and the area was pressurized, so the people trapped inside would be able to come out without containment suits. "It was Dori and I who weren't patient enough. We should have stuck to the plan and lived with those consequences. Either we would have been able to taunt it into position or it would escape again and we'd have to figure something else out. I should
never have put myself in that much trouble, so if there's anyone who should be apologizing, it's me."
"Still, I should have been closer, been able to do more. When you were about to go under, when it had a hold of you I panicked. You didn't see it, but my finger wanted to hold down that trigger, and I started charging."
"Thank you, Boro." Spin took his hand and glanced at him. "I'm just glad we made it through."
The belief that they had lived through a jinxed moment and come out the unlikely victors was only partially secure in his mind. The Leaper on his shoulder and all that he'd lost was the only reminder he needed for the precariousness of their situation to be clear. Spin was just cured, and the little superstitious nature he had left told him to watch her, protect her, hide her away for a while, since he'd seen so many crewmates run into extreme good luck right before getting themselves killed. The threat in his mind wasn't entirely irrational, and he knew it. They were surrounded by robots, each one with their own personality and questionable programming. Something serious had been done to those machines that profoundly changed their thinking, and none of them could be trusted, not even the charming Leaper on his shoulder.
"We've gotten through," announced Med Three, meeting them as they arrived at the foot of the doors.
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