Terror at Roschin Colony

by Scott Lucas

  After the new students had arrived and all of the members of the dormitory were present, the prefect began her speech. She was a tall, robust, blonde, young woman with a crew cut. Her voice, like her appearance, was brusque and militaristic.

  “Welcome to Baldock Academy. My name is Alma Ward, and I am the final voice in this dormitory. You are here because you were lucky enough to be healthy, able, and mostly first-born children of some of wealthiest and the most powerful families in the Realm. Here is where that luxury ends. Today, you earn it. If you cannot handle it, you are free to leave whenever you like and join the Economic Consortium to grow fat and weak.”

  The upperclassmen laughed.

  “Your lives here will not be easy, but those who make the cut will know they have earned the rank and privileges that befall a knight of the Realm. First, we start with your hair.”

  An upperclassman shaved their heads. Some upperclassmen were rougher than others. It occurred to Tem that so far he had not seen a single teacher. Everyone appeared to be students, the younger deferring to the elders.

  The broad-shouldered upperclassman who had shaved Tem’s head handed him a broom. He did not do so with any kindness, but he was not mean-spirited about it either.

  “Sweep,” he said. Tem swept.

  One boy refused to sweep, claiming this work was for the peasant class and he was of royal blood, and he would never lower himself to such work. Alma pointed to the door. Two upperclassmen escorted him out of the dormitory and returned him to his parents, who were still attending the alumni party. Two other older students helped repack his plethora of belongings and returned them to the boy’s parents. Expulsion from Baldock’s on the first day was a big dishonor and shame to the family.

  Tem swept and cleaned the dormitory as instructed, along with all the other new arrivals. He did not view the menial labor as punishment nor beneath him. He saw it as earning his keep. The Baldock Consultant his family hired had earned his salary by helping Tem understand the smaller expectations of the school. The consultant had made Tem sweep the tournament room in the palace on the first day. When Tem protested like the expelled fat boy, but the tutor explained the school taught much more than learning and fighting. Tem might have grumbled along with the other new students if he had not known better.

  Tem understood that everyone had to earn their place in the world. Training to become a knight was more than just studying and fighting. It was about tempering one’s self and becoming, as the words above the archway had said, a person of true gentleness, trusted to protect the Realm from harm.

  Chapter Six: First Night at Roschin Colony

  Tem’s attempts to meditate before the colony’s evening meal proved difficult with so many things buzzing inside his head. He had met several new people and one of them could be the traitor. The chamber communicator chimed.

  “I have been instructed me to inform you it is dinnertime,” said the voice from over the intercom.

  “Thank you,” Tem said. “I shall be there.”

  Tem stood and checked himself in the mirror. He used his laser-shaver to remove his facial stubble. His new formal uniform was tidy and crisp. When he was satisfied with his appearance, he headed for the mess hall. Still unfamiliar with the station, he had to ask the AI directions to the mess hall.

  The various conversations did not stop when Tem entered, but they lowered to a murmur. The mess hall was a cafeteria environment. Tem chose his meal from the rehydrator selections, which prepared his meal in seconds. Tem picked up his tray and scanned for a place to sit.

  The Baron Administrator waved Tem to the executive table. “Come over here.”

  No better place to start than at the top, Tem thought.

  Tem sat at the head table located at the far end of the room. The people seated at the executive table were most likely to have information pertinent to his investigation. The people at the head table welcomed him even if they appeared somewhat restrained.

  Vosper Chu sat next to Arno Wurth, but conversed with a woman seated on his other side. She was middle-aged with her more blonde than gray hair tied back from her face. She had exceptional posture, rivaled only by the equestrians on Tem’s home planet. As Tem approached, the woman raised a hand to Vosper, who became silent.

  “Our consultant, I presume,” she said.

  “Temirlan Blaev, ma’am.”

  Vosper gestured towards the woman, who remained seated. “This is Vice President Orba DeWilda.”

  The Vice President arched a fair, almost invisible eyebrow. “Executive Bashir speaks highly of you. I hear you have been of service to him in the past.”

  Tem nodded. “I hope to be of equal service to you, madam.”

  “If your skill with a blaster matches your courtesy. We may put this messy business behind us.”

  Tem found that he had approached without being aware of it. DeWilda’s security man Fletchley Garrow pulled out the empty chair at the Vice President’s side for the new security consultant.

  Baldock Academy offered diplomacy courses as an elective for advanced training. His father strongly advised his son to study diplomacy, stating, “Diplomacy is as important to learn as combat training.”

  Tem ate and listened to the conversations at the executive table, and watched for their tells.

  “Tell me,” said DeWilda, turning to Tem. “In what capacity did Mister Bashir employ you?”

  “Personal security.”

  Vosper leaned forward and told her, “I heard Executive Bashir say that his family owes this man their lives several times over.”

  “How so?” DeWilda asked.

  Tem answered, “I served as a security consultant for Executive Bashir’s corporate partners at various locations under the Nytech omniglomerate’s umbrella before promoted to serve as the Bashir family’s personal bodyguard.”

  “Where did you serve?” asked the Vice President.

  Tem gave the prepared answer. “My homeland of Riktors. I helped keep the enemy out of orbit.”

  By ‘the enemy,’ he meant the Paladins and those who supported them, but in this new fabricated persona, he had trouble referring to his fallen brothers as “Paladin scum.”

  “A pilot, then?” said DeWilda. “That may prove useful against the pirates. What have you been up against recently?”

  “Avoiding Confederate patrol ships.”

  The company laughed.

  Vosper added, “As if they have nothing better than to harass and annoy random starships. Tem, where are my manners? Let me introduce you to the others at the table before Orba steals you all for herself.”

  “Careful, Vosper,” Orba giggled.

  Vosper continued. “On Orba’s right, we have Dr. Carrie Ford, Chief Medical Officer; Dr. Sin Rama, Chief Station Engineer; Dr. Veda Potts, our Xeno-geologist; Reg Sharpi, Defense Coordinator; Yakamoto Kazuka, Fusion Specialist; Fletchley Garrow, Chief of Security, whom you have already met.”

  Each greeted Tem in their own way.

  “Good to meet all of you.” Tem raised his glass. They followed suit and they all drank together.

  When Orba DeWilda reached for a cup, the ring on her hand captured Tem’s attention. Its gold band housed several small red and black stones, arranged in the shape of a rose. Tem froze. The hands that killed his brothers wore that same rose on their hands, or around their necks, or on the lapels of a golden jacket. It honored the near-extermination of an entire way of life. As always, he suspected people who would wish him dead surrounded him.

  Chapter Seven: A View from the Watchtower

  Android technician, Rhonda Colgate bit into a meatloaf sandwich in the corner of the cybernetics lab. Rhonda chewed her sandwich while contemplating the damaged android laying on a trolley in the middle of the lab. The other technicians had sent it up after the android inexplicably collapsed en route to a new excavation.

  Rhonda had long ago become accustomed to how much a broken android resembled a dead body. She figured it was the same for someone w
ho worked in a morgue.

  The technicians scheduled the repairs for the next morning, but Rhonda wanted to take a crack at it now before Dr. Wurth returned. She did her best work when her boss was absent.

  Rhonda chewed thoughtfully, thinking a collapsed android was peculiar. Typically, an android would start twitching, or one of its limbs would seize up and get stuck mid-motion. This one had just dropped.

  Brain damage. Rhonda thought as she chewed on a grizzly bit of the meatloaf. We must go inside his head.

  She heard there was a faint creaking similar to stretching rubber, then silence.

  Rhonda studied at the android. It was perfectly still, but she could have sworn it had not been looking at her before.

  ∆∆∆

  The conversation at the executive table drifted into company politics and corporate conjecture, which bored Tem. Everyone’s wrist communicators flashed red. A hologram of Rhonda Colgate appeared. “Rogue android on the loose in the cybernetics lab!”

  Fletchley Garrow charged from his position against one wall and stopped at Orba’s elbow.

  “Send a squad,” the Vosper directed.

  Arno Wurth elbowed in next to Garrow. “I’ve got a trainee posted down there.”

  “Damn!” Garrow’s hand went to the earpiece again. “A rogue android is loose inside the colony, making its way toward the living quarters!” He rushed toward the door, barking orders into his wrist communicator. “Keshla, get your squad to the living quarters. Clear the corridors.”

  “Right away, sir!”

  Tem jogged beside Dr. Wurth, who had also pushed his way into the corridor, both racing to the lab. The cybernetics chief was sweating. “That thing is between us and the lab.”

  “Your trainee?”

  He nodded. “Her name is Rhonda Colgate. It’s possible she’s the one who tripped the alarm,” Wurth gasped almost to himself. “I hope she’s all right. Unless it got her right after she tripped the alarm.”

  Tem focused on the threat heading for the living quarters.

  “I can get you past it,” he said, drawing his baton, reminiscent of Ancient West gunslingers and wished he had his pulse pistol at his side. He flipped the switch.

  They heard a crash from a connecting doorway, rapidly approaching footsteps, and a four-person security detail slammed out of a darkened doorway directly into their path. A tall woman with hair gelled high enough to hurt squared up to the door, wielding a blaster in her hand.

  “Flank the outlet. It’ll be hand-to-hand. We can’t afford to destroy it until we learn what went wrong.”

  She stowed her blaster and yanked a baton from her belt. The rest of the security detail produced similar weapons. Two of the security guards moved up the hall several meters, while she and another security officer backed up almost on top of Tem and Wurth.

  “Civilians,” she snapped. “Get to your cabins.”

  Tem flicked his own baton and sent a jolt of electricity dancing along its length.

  The woman nodded. “You must be the new guy.”

  “Tem,” he said.

  The woman primed her own baton. “Keshla.”

  The android appeared suddenly, so fast that it knocked over one of the security men immediately.

  The security man defending his end of the corridor swore and took a desperate swing with his extended baton. The android caught his wrist, yanked him off his feet and slammed his arm and shoulder into the wall of the corridor. Even over the sounds of the man Tem and Keshla screaming, something inside the man’s body snapped audibly.

  Keshla released a battle cry and darted toward the android, jamming her baton into the small of its back. The android dropped the security leader, who seemed more distracted than injured. The android swiped again at Keshla, who held her baton at the ready

  Tem charged and stabbed the android between the shoulder blades and electricity sent dissipating sparks down its shoulders and arms. Tem noticed a small panel behind the android’s head.

  The android turned toward Tem’s direction and swung the pickaxe. Despite the savagery of its movements, the rubbery humanoid face wore a neutral, non-threatening gaze. It was unnerving.

  The android swung the pickaxe with stunning speed. Tem fired another charge into the base of the android’s skull. It had no effect, and the android did more damage to its own situation by embedding its pick into the corridor's wall.

  Keshla and the remaining two security men surrounded the struggling automaton and fired charge after charge into its synthetic flesh.

  “It won’t do any good!” shouted Wurth.

  Tem had forgotten the cybernetics chief was still there. He looked shaken, his goggle-like glasses crooked on his nose.

  Dr. Wurth said, “We made these things to withstand environments unfit for humans. We constructed them to withstand subterranean cave-ins. They’re built to survive inside furnaces at temperatures shy of volcanic magma.”

  Tem’s hand tightened around the baton. “How are we supposed to kill a thing like that?”

  “You don’t.”

  The android thrashed and yanked its trapped arm ripping a bigger gash into the wall. It pulled free, and with backhanded swing, caught Keshla in the shoulder with the pick.

  Keshla shrieked, dropped her baton, and blindly swung her other fist toward the back of the android’s head. She accomplished nothing except bruising her own knuckles.

  The other two security officers hustled her behind them as they faced the android. The fourth guard, with one arm dangling useless at his side, scrambled backward toward Tem and Wurth.

  Fletchley Garrow arrived. He grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her out of harm’s way.

  “Where have you been?” Tem yelled.

  “I thought they could handle things without me. I was wrong.”

  “We have to fall back,” Tem told the group.

  “My trainee is still down there,” Wurth said, and made a move as though he might try to fight past the android himself. Tem caught the man without even looking at him.

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  Tem and Garrow handed Keshla off to Wurth.

  “Cauterize her shoulder!” Garrow ordered the cybernetics chief. “Get her out of here!”

  The two standing security guards made their way backwards down the corridor. “Give us your blasters.”

  The two of them dropped their blasters.

  “This android isn’t worth my life.”

  “Agreed.”

  The blasters had no effect.

  “No good,” Tem yanked them both behind him. “Run.”

  “Yark it!” Garrow yelled, discarding the blaster.

  The android marched toward him again, flanked by its flailing fist and pickaxe. Tem blocked the fist with his baton. The blow glanced off his with a rattle. Behind him, Tem heard frantic footfalls, curses from Garrow.

  The pickaxe came back toward Tem. He dodged it, and the pickaxe hacked another gash into the wall.

  The android swung the pickaxe again. Tem lost his footing dodging but he caught himself with one hand to keep from falling. The android’s fist struck Tem in the chest. Tem gasped, shrieked, and fell. He coughed and groaned; the android bruised some ribs.

  The pleasant face of the android loomed, raising the pickaxe behind it for a moment before it came plummeting. Garrow shoved the android before it struck.

  Tem rolled his breathless body out of the way as the axe bored into the grating of the floor just beside his ear. The android struck Garrow with a glancing backhand.

  The floor bucked and threw Tem into the android’s path again. As the android’s free hand swiped at him, Tem kicked its knuckles, preventing the automaton from seizing him, but did more damage to Tem’s foot than anything else.

  Garrow was back on his feet and told Tem, “Let’s get out of there.”

  He rolled off the rocking piece of floor and dashed for the end of the corridor. An open hatchway awaited at the end, made to seal tightly in case of a loss of
pressure in one part of the colony.

  Arno had his hand on the button, ready to close the hatchway behind Garrow and Tem as they sped through the reinforced doors, which slid shut on the android.

  For a moment it was quiet in the hallway save for the gasping of Tem, Garrow, Wurth, Keshla, and the security team. Then a mighty clang echoed from the hatchway as the android struck it, seemingly without flagging.

  They jumped back as the android threw its weight against the door again.

  “How long will this hold?” Tem asked.

  Wurth explained, “The doors and the androids are made from the same stuff.”

  “Yarking figures,” Garrow said.

  Tem glanced back at the security team. The two uninjured security men had each taken charge of supporting Keshla and their other injured companion.

  Tem placed a palm against the door, which continued to tremble with a regular blow every five seconds. “And we can’t kill it.” He turned to Wurth. “You designed the androids?”

  Wurth nodded and wiped his sweaty face.

  “I assume there’s a way to deactivate it,” Garrow said.

  “The remote kill switch, but it must be inoperative or someone in the control center would have turned this one’s lights out by now.”

  The door shuddered again. With his hand against the plexi-carbon door, Tem found it suddenly almost effortless to slip into the first phase of meditation. It was the rhythm of the blows. His pulse slowed.

  “We have to go right to the source,” Tem whispered.

  “There’s an access panel in the back of the skull.” Wurth shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s impossible. The thing’s too damn fast. You’d never get behind it for long enough.”

  Tem hummed in contemplative agreement. “And even if we could, we don’t have the cybernetic capabilities.”