by Carl Derham
*
The Throgloid Captain had decided to use an electro-magnetic pulse to disable the ship’s computer. The pulse would temporarily knock out all the systems on his ship, but he would be able to work in torchlight, plant the charges and finally take control of the ship before it regained consciousness.
“Great plan,” sniggered Robbie, as he watched them wheeling in the bulky EM pulse generator, “except for the fact that all Annenian AI units are fitted with EM shielding.” A virtual smirk appeared across his circuits.
“This guy’s fun”, he said to Pardy as she danced excitedly on her perch. He hadn’t enjoyed himself this much since the last annual artificial intelligence round Annenia race of 33,022, which of course he’d won. It was a great annual race, where the best ships of the fleet had to race around the solar system of Annenia, collecting clues that were hidden on the other planets. The locations of the clues where given to them in three dimensional sixty four digit coded grid references, that they had to break on the way to the next planet whilst playing four dimensional telepathic Hacra against the top ten Hacra masters of Annenia. It was a fun day out. He turned the screen on so that Pardy could watch the game unfold.
Suddenly everything outside the ship went dark. There was no explosion, just a small flash and then nothing. Of course, all the lights inside the little ship were still working, but the Captain didn’t know that. Four Throgloids appeared with torches, watched silently by Robbie and Pardy. The Throgloids hurriedly planted charges under the ship, following the instructions of a very confident-looking Captain. It’s very odd, thought Robbie. They were all whispering as though they didn’t want to wake up the sleeping ship.
With the charges placed in the same position as before, they scurried out and the next instant there was a flash, the door opened and four Throgloids flew across the screen, through the hangar and exited through the fresh hole in the hull. They could hear the Captain’s howls from inside the ship and they could see his feet flapping at the entrance to the hangar. Pardy found herself wishing that he would let go and disappear into space but once again he managed to close the door. Both Pardy and Robbie were beside themselves with laughter. Robbie thought he was going to bust a circuit.