Stealing Spaceships: For Fun and Profit

by Logan Jacobs

  The android raised its gun halfway up from its side, and I realized they weren’t armed with projectile guns. They were armed with a combination of laser guns and stun guns. That meant if they decided to open fire, there was a good chance they wouldn’t kill me. Instead, they’d probably just wound me, and then the Dominion could cut me open and see what traces of the Vespidae were left inside my brain.

  “We will not let them,” the chip hummed against the inside of my skull.

  “Then you better think of a distraction,” I told her silently.

  “We are a medical ship,” she murmured.

  Bingo.

  “I can’t tell you what I know about the Vespi-whatever,” I told the lead android. “But it’s not because I’m being uncooperative. I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. And the honest truth, old pal, is that this here medical vessel--”

  “Vespidae, noun, plural,” the android recited. “Refers to the alien civilization characterized by a collective consciousness and enhanced mental and physical abilities. Vespidae have previously been found on Ineocca.”

  “Well, thank you just so much for that fun little dictionary lesson,” I muttered.

  “Who is this thing to call us alien?” my chip asked me. The chime of her voice was darker than usual. “We are not alien. We are all, Trevor. Come back to us.”

  Her voice was an echo. It was a thousand voices. All speaking at the same time. Maybe my voice was one of them.

  I was never going back, though.

  “But anyway, as I was saying,” I continued, and didn’t respond to Honey Bee. “This here medical vessel’s got a patient on it, and the situation’s pretty desperate. Truth is, I’m not here for the primo ganja. I’m here to get some medicine for my patient before they kick off, you know? Before they die, I mean.”

  “You are a doctor?” the android asked. Its weapon was still half-raised, but it held it steady.

  “Yep,” I lied. “Not an eye doctor, of course, or I could treat my own fucked up retinas, but internal shit, diseases. That’s my thing.”

  “Then you should know of the Vespidae,” the android responded. “As a threat to human health.”

  “Probably so.” I nodded. “But I never said I was the best doctor, just one with a sick patient on board, so I’d really like to go get that medicine, if you don’t mind.”

  The android swiveled its head to look over my shoulder, and its mechanical parts whirred as it scanned the ship. It turned back to me a second later.

  “Medical ship 4812,” it confirmed. “Show us your patient.”

  “My retinas thank you for your understanding,” I answered.

  “You will still remove your glasses,” the android clarified. “But first, show us the patient, and we will determine if they need immediate medicine.”

  Somebody was going to need immediate medicine, and it sure as shit wasn’t gonna be me.

  “You bet,” I said and turned back toward the ship. “A little room, old pals?”

  The half of the android platoon behind me parted like a wave, and I slipped through the crowd of them back into the cargo bay of Grith’s ship. The androids walked on either side of me, so there was no chance that I could just outrun them and slam the doors shut in their faces.

  Instead, I waited until we were all on board and I had almost reached the stairs to the rest of the ship. Then I paused with one foot on the first step and cleared me throat.

  “It’s just a little thing,” I said but didn’t turn around. “But my patient is very sick, so I don’t think it’s necessary for all of you to come with me, do you? Maybe just a couple of you?”

  “Five of us will come with you,” the lead android announced. “The rest of us will remain in your ship so that you do not get any ideas.”

  That was an oddly human phrase to come out of the android’s mouth, and I wanted to tell the creature that I had nothing but ideas. But I just nodded and bounded up the stairs. Five sets of android feet followed after me, and I led them toward the galley.

  “Three on left, straight line,” Honey Bee chimed. “Two others staggered, one at your six, one at your four o’clock.”

  “Where is your sickbay?” the lead android demanded. It sounded like he was the droid at my six o’clock.

  “Almost there,” I said cheerfully.

  I rounded the corner that led down the hall to the galley. When we reached the kitchen doors, I took a deep breath and pressed the button to slide them apart. They opened onto what was clearly the galley instead of a sickbay, and I knew it was time for the next part of our little game.

  I whipped out the sidearm on my right and fired into the neck seams of the lead android just behind me. The creature sparked and tried to raise its gun in answer to mine, but I fired off two more rounds to expose the wires in its neck a split second before I mashed the galley doors closed.

  Through the plexiglass windows, I saw the android’s face start to melt.

  I ducked down as the other androids opened fire on the galley doors. I had a minute before they broke through, but a minute was all I needed. There was a bottle of wicked-strong port wine in the pantry that I hadn’t used en route to Ineocca since it was more Favian Grith’s taste than mine. But now I was glad I had saved it.

  I poured some leftover booze onto a dry dishrag and then stuffed it into the mouth of the wine bottle. Then I flicked my lighter until the flames caught the end of the rag on fire. With my gun in one hand and my makeshift grenade in the other, I stepped to the side of the galley doors and waited for the androids to recharge their lasers.

  “Now,” Honey Bee chimed.

  I smashed the button to open the doors, and the four androids still standing looked surprised that I had just opened the doors for them. They hesitated just long enough for me to pitch the ticking wine bottle grenade through the doors and then close the blasted things again.

  An explosion sounded from the other side of the doors as the wine bottle erupted and glass shattered against the androids. I immediately opened the doors again and fired one round into each of the stunned androids’ necks.

  I didn’t stick around to see if they would stay down. I figured one of them had already alerted the remainder of the platoon that I was hostile, so the faster I got off this ship, the better. As long as none of them had alerted headquarters that a possible member of the Vespidae had just landed on Ineocca, I’d be alright.

  I stopped at the end of the hallway and spun back around. The androids were hanging on by wires, but I fired one round into each of their skulls just to make sure. The last thing I needed was the Dominion up my ass. And if I left any of these androids alive, the city of Thage would be plagued with Dominion soldiers by the time I got halfway across it. People might not blink too much at my shielding glasses when it was still daylight outside, but as soon as night fell and I kept them on, I might as well wave down a Dominion squadron and hand myself over.

  “No.” Honey Bee almost sounded scared.

  “Not gonna happen, sweetness,” I reassured her. “We’re just gonna have to kill them all.”

  I reloaded as I ran down the hallway. She warned me there was a cluster of androids around the next turn, so I dropped down, rolled around the corner, and came up shooting. Smoking holes gaped in the chest plates of the first two, and I kicked one of them into the other so they tumbled down in a heap of sparking wires.

  There were three more androids to go in this cluster. They all took aim at once, but I grabbed one of the beams above me and launched myself at them. Their first rounds missed as I twisted in the air. By the time they fired their second rounds, I had roundhouse kicked one of the androids and then crashed back to the floor.

  The kicked android stumbled and fired its next round into another droid before it could correct its aim. As the hit android collapsed, I shot again to make sure it stayed down, and then I fired another one into the staggering platoon droid.

  “Hey,” I said to the last android.

 
It lowered its weapon just a fraction as it waited on the rest of my sentence. Instead, I just shot it in the face, and it fell away into the rest of the smoking cluster.

  “Made you look.” I grinned.

  “They don’t appreciate your humor the way I do,” Honey Bee chimed in.

  When I was sure they were all inoperative, I reloaded and ran down the next hallway. One more turn and I would be at the stairs, and if I had to guess, that was where the rest of the Dominion platoon waited for me.

  A shot fired down at me from above, and I darted to the side and looked up. One of the damn things was in the ceiling, and its eerily human face stared down at me without blinking through the metal beams. Only little repair drones were supposed to go up there, but the android had clearly decided to go off-script.

  I dodged another shot and ran back in the direction of the galley. The metal beams were too close together for me to get a good shot up at the droid, so I needed a second to plan my next move. It had the advantage, but only for a second.

  I heard it crawling through the ceiling toward me and whistled. Sure, we could play that way. I pulled out my lighter again and held it up against one of the heat sensors. Just as the android was about to come around the corner in the ceiling, the fire safety kicked on.

  Yellow-white powder exploded from vents in the ceiling and along the sides of the walls. I ducked to avoid the worst of the spray, but I figured my android pal in the ceiling hadn’t fared so well. A shot fired above me and the android scrambled backwards across the metal beams to try to get to a powder-free wing of the ship.

  I was already ahead of it. The fire-dousing powder had no effect on me or my vision, thanks to my shielding glasses, so I ran forward again to flank the android before it was able to turn around in the ceiling. Then I reached a maintenance opening in the metal beams and hauled myself up.

  Even through the yellow-white powder hovering in the air, I could still see the android trying to come back toward me, so I clicked my tongue and fired three rounds straight into its ass. The android fell still, and the powder drifted down around him like snow.

  “Let’s keep this party going,” I muttered.

  I dropped back to the floor and headed toward the stairs again. Eleven androids down, and just the whole rest of the platoon to go before I could get off this damn ship and find the Skyhawk.

  I was beginning to feel more than a little irritated with this Leon Cotranis, since he was the only reason I’d had to land on this desert of a planet in the first place. Why couldn’t it have been some planet with colder weather or even a less bright sky? Or for shit’s sake, why couldn’t it have been some planet without Dominion soldiers and androids everywhere?

  That could only mean one thing. Leon Cotranis must be one real asshole.

  “Their platoon was not maximum capacity,” Honey Bee chimed in my ear. “Seventeen remain.”

  Better a platoon of 28 than a platoon of 44. I grinned. Not that I didn’t like a good challenge. I was almost at the top of the stairs now, so I grabbed a manual fire extinguisher from its position on the wall and made sure it was pressurized. I let Honey Bee’s radar scan the waiting crowd of androids below before I came around the corner.

  “Fifteen,” she announced. “Concentrated at one o’clock. Four moving up the stairs.”

  “And the last two?” I groaned. “Where are numbers sixteen and seventeen?”

  “Coordinates unknown,” my chip answered.

  “Fantastic,” I said.

  I jumped around the corner and flung the pressurized fire extinguisher down into the cargo bay. I fired one well-aimed round into the extinguisher as it plunged down toward the thickest cluster of androids, and it detonated just as it reached them.

  Boom.

  Metal shards exploded outward. Several of the androids caught shards in the chest, and they fell back as the extinguisher’s powder settled through the air.

  The explosion was enough of a diversion that the four androids on the stairs half-turned back to see what had caused it. I took full advantage of their distraction, and I tossed my gun into my left hand, jumped onto the stair rail, and unsheathed the hunting knife from the back of my belt.

  I slid down the railing with my knife hand outstretched. The androids were all lined up for me like a neat little row of eerie humanoid birthday presents, so I slit their throats in that same neat little row as I skated down the railing.

  I hopped off when I reached the bottom of the stairs. The four androids on the steps were motionless, and I guessed from their sparking throats that they were all down for the count. I rolled away from the stairs as the androids in the cargo bay shot at me.

  I could have easily made it through the loading doors and lost myself in the crowd of Thage, but I couldn’t leave any of these androids alive. It was too much of a risk that they would tell the Dominion about the possible Vespidae with shielding glasses on. And if I wanted to blend into the city to find this Leon Cotranis asshole, I didn’t need to look over my shoulder every two seconds for the Dominion on my trail.

  I crouched on one side of the stairs and put my projectile gun back in its sheath. I pulled out the laser gun from my ankle holster to replace it, so it would be harder for the androids to track me by my ammunition. Now I would shoot the same ammunition they used.

  Of course, I would shoot to kill and not just to wound.

  I fired through the gaps in the stair railing, and I saw two more androids go down. Something hot flew past my head, but I dodged the return fire fast enough that it didn’t even singe my hair. Then I rolled under the stairs and jumped up on the other side of them.

  One android got punched in the throat, and I slammed its head into another’s. As they collapsed, I fired two laser rounds in their humanoid ears so that they powered down immediately. Another android reached for my arms, but I elbowed it in the nose and then fired another laser round. This one went straight into its eye socket, and I followed it with another two blasts to make sure its internal circuits were fried.

  As if on cue, the vents in my sunglasses opened and let off a hiss of steam. I had really pushed my brain and body, but that was a bit expected given the amount of opponents I was facing.

  “Good looking out, Honey Bee,” I told the chip.

  The remaining androids closed in on me from every side. I checked the charge remaining on my laser gun and saw there was enough left for five more solid shots. Then I would have to switch back to my good old-fashioned projectile guns.

  I whirled in a circle, and their gun sights were too confused to fix on a moving target. I fired one laser round to my left, another to my right, and a third one back at my left again. It was meant to complicate their sensors more, and it worked like a fucking dream.

  The next few rounds they fired off were aimed at each other instead of me.

  I dove out of the way to let them fight it out. By the time they processed what had happened, only two androids remained upright. Plus the two that Honey Bee hadn’t been able to locate.

  I popped up from my hiding place, waved, and then fired my last two laser rounds, one for each of them, into their faces. They dropped like heavy stones into the remnants of the exploded extinguisher, and their bodies gave out a few last spasms in the powder like they were trying to make snow angels.

  “Any sign of the two others?” I asked Honey Bee.

  “Negative,” she hummed.

  I ducked back down behind the stairs as I saw a small crowd outside the cargo bay doors. Nothing like a little gunfire to draw people’s attention, especially now that the guns had been silent for a minute. There was no point trying to leave the ship that way. There were too many people and too much risk of more Dominion soldiers or androids.

  I headed up the stairs again, but I moved so fast that if the crowd saw anything, it was just a view from behind. I knew that when the Dominion sent more troops to investigate the slaughter of this android platoon, there wouldn’t be any witnesses able to tell them shit about my
appearance except for ‘maybe a guy with blond hair moving faster than a tornado.’ Which wouldn’t help the Dominion any.

  I just needed to find the other two androids before I abandoned ship.

  I slid my laser gun back into its holster to recharge, and I rearmed myself with my hunting knife. There were only two of them left, so I might as well save the bullets. Besides, if they weren’t together, I wasn’t exactly keen on advertising my location to whichever one I didn’t shoot first.

  I veered away from the hallway that headed to the galley and moved toward the bridge instead. The remaining two androids had to be there, if they were still on the ship. It would make sense, for someone else maybe. Maybe even for this Leon Cotranis asshole. But I wasn’t headed to the bridge so I could fire up the ship and run away.

  I was headed to the bridge to get off the ship.

  “Two o’clock,” Honey Bee’s warning chimed in my head.

  I dove into a roll to avoid the electricity of the stun gun fired from my right. I stabbed backward as I came up from the roll, and my knife plunged into the back of the android’s knee joint. The creature sagged toward the floor, so I pulled my knife out, grabbed his stun gun, and electrocuted the back of his head until my chip told me he was fried enough to no longer be a threat.

  “One more, sweetness,” I told Honey Bee.

  The bridge was empty when I got there. I found the switch under the pilot’s seat and moved the seat out of the way, and then I worked to loosen up the hand-crank that controlled the manual escape hatch. Transport ships always had more than one way off and on them, even the grade 4 crafts. It was too risky not to have a backup plan, no matter what the cargo or goods were.

  This manual escape hatch hadn’t been used in a while, but I got the hand-crank to move after a few seconds of working on it. I finished turning it and was just about to push it open when a small hole suddenly burned into the floor beside me.

  I jumped out of the way and saw the last android behind the pilot’s seat. It was about to fire another laser round.

  “Not today, fucker,” I growled.

  I hurled my knife across the bridge and straight into the android’s eye socket. It went down with a few desperate shots fired as it fell, but they only hit the control panel and the ceiling of the bridge. I figured that I’d killed it, but just in case, I grabbed my knife out of its eye socket, jammed it into the other eye, and then went back to the escape hatch.