by Chris Lowry
He marched to a computer panel inset into the wall of the hold and entered a sequence.
"Someone locked it out."
He keyed for several more seconds, his thick fingers moving with surprising deft and dexterity. Tinker watched in admiration. Piloting was mostly typing and occasionally angling the joystick for retrorockets, since the engine firing sequence was computer operated, so he knew his way around a keyboard.
Still Bat surprised him with his speed and accuracy, fingers moving at tiny clacking blurs against the wall where the pilot almost expected a hunt and peck method.
"Junebug," Bat said after a moment.
The hologram flicked on with a karate yell. The lights cut out and the airlock popped open.
“It’s you,” she said and closed the airlock.
“Don’t sound so disappointed computer,” Tinker grinned and removed his helmet. “I’ve got good news. I’m cured.”
“You were never poisoned,” Bat pointed out.
“Same thing.”
“Where’s Mona Lisa?”
“The men took her.”
Bat glared at the hologram.
“What men?”
“They entered the airlock, disabled me before I could stop them. She tried to as well, but could not.”
Bat took a deep breath.
When that didn’t work, he took another.
“Got ‘em,” said Tinker.
He worked the controls at the view screen.
“Radar shows their ship on the far side of the mine.”
Bat studied the screen for a moment.
“Wait here,” he said through the radio.
“I can help.”
“I said wait here.”
Tinker watched him go through the airlock.
“You are not going to wait, are you?” Junebug stated.
“How could you tell?”
“My sensors picked up your heart rate and elevated perspiration. I’ve adjusted the air scrubbers to compensate.”
“Thanks,” he said in a distracted voice. “Just get the ship ready.”
“For?”
“To run. To fight. Just be ready.”
He slipped his helmet back on and slipped outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Bat exited the ship and scanned the landing pad on the asteroid surface. There were too many places to hide, but he suspected that whoever took Mona Lisa wouldn’t be hiding.
They would be trying to escape.
He spied the six miners still gathered around a box of cookies.
That didn’t make sense.
It was a lot of fuss over cookies, and even though he wasn’t a sweets man, he’d never heard of anyone stopping work just for chocolate chips.
But a work stoppage because of a different kind of payout made sense to him.
Beyond the men he saw two figures struggling with a third.
One glanced back and saw him. They began to hurry.
Bat sprinted on the loose rock surface, slipping and sliding in the razor shards that covered the entire pad.
The two men slipped behind a pile of mining debris and disappeared.
But the miners saw him running and moved to intercept.
He wasn’t worried about them, except for the time they cost. If the two men with Mona Lisa reached their ship before he could stop them, it would be a space chase.
Too much could go wrong up there.
Better to keep it on the ground where he could control it.
Or had more control.
He slipped through the six miners, dodging, twisting, punching and cracking men as he passed.
Bat left a tangled knot of writhing bodies in a line as he continued the chase.
He rounded the mound of rock cast off, brought up by the drill bit taller than two men.
The two bounty hunters waited with drawn blasters.
They fired at the same time.
The blasts slammed into his chest, plowed him into the pile of rock.
Bat slid to the ground and didn’t move.
They turned their backs on his body.
"Looks like your friend has met his end," the one on the left leered. "Maybe we ought to have a little fun before we take you back."
He reached out a dirty finger and yanked at the seam holding her helmet to her head.
She slapped his hand away and he laughed through his rebreathing unit.
The other one reached up, placed his palm flat against her faceplate and shoved her back onto the ground.
Mona Lisa landed with a huff and a wheeze.
"He didn't say he wanted you back in one piece," the bounty hunter threatened.
A shadow rose behind him.
He tried to turn but two thick hands gripped him by the hair and twisted fast. His spine snapped with a loud crack and the left one dropped against the man on the right.
It caused him to stumble for his footing, fighting to yank his blaster up.
Bat's fist smashed into his re-breather and splintered teeth.
Before the second bounty hunter could react, Bat punted his nuts up between his shoulders and earned an animal mewl for the effort.
As the man fell, Bat grabbed him by the chin, yanked up and twisted.
He stood over their twitching bodies like a lion over prey.
His eyes drifted toward Mona Lisa and she scrambled away from him on her hands and feet.
"Come on," he said and held out his hand.
"This is getting to be a habit," she let him lift her up, and held on just a little longer than necessary while she got her bearings.
"Twenty one days makes a habit," he almost grinned. "Let's not get that close to it."
She nudged one of the bodies with the tip of her boot.
"He's going to send more," she sighed.
"Then we'll have to stop him."
They locked eyes for a moment through their faceplates. She reached a tentative hand up and felt the charred edges of the hole in his spacesuit.
"Are you hurt?" he asked before she could.
"Just my pride. And my ass when I fell."
He watched her turn around as they headed back to the NS-17.
"Looks fine to me."
"Does it?" she said through a smile. "You want to kiss it?"
She heard him chuckle behind her and it sent a warm feeling through her chest. Mona Lisa wasn't sure if she liked it or not.
She averted her eyes from the carnage of the miners.
Tinker waited by the door back at the ship.
"I think those guys had clearance to land," he said as he saw them approach.
"The poison was a trap?" Mona Lisa asked as they got closer.
"Yes," he said fast. "Yes, the poison was a trap."
"Did they cure you then? Or was it a ruse?"
"No, I think I'm cured."
"Can we get out of here?" Bat asked.
He watched the entryway toward the ship. The shadows beyond the pool of light that surrounded them was inky black. It created too many places in the dock he couldn't see, and one ambush was enough for the day.
"I've had Junebug reprogramming the velocity codes so we can go," said Tinker. "These guys changed them on us."
"The cookie guys?" asked Bat.
"What cookie guys?"
Tinker waved his hand to shush the guard.
"Yeah mate, we brought the cookies. And the thunder and lightning. And now it's time to go."
"What the hell are you talking about?
"Ignore me," Tinker said. "I'm drunk."
He opened the hatch and let them into the ship.
The hologram of Junebug stood on the floor, arms crossed, foot tapping.
“I didn’t know a hologram could look pissed,” said Mona Lisa as she stepped around the light shaft.
The airlock hissed closed behind them as the engines fired to life.
“They used a disruptor on me,” the AI hissed. “Do you know how that makes me feel?”
“Robot�
�s don’t have feelings,” said Tinker as he edged past the column of blue light and eased into the cockpit.
“I’m not a robot,” Bat and Junebug said at the same time.
The AI laughed, he did not.
“I am an advanced artificial intelligence,” she said.
“And I’m just a guy on a ship,” Bat sat in the jump seat.
“Whatever,” Tinker called back. “To both of you.”
“Do you know how helpless I felt?” Junebug presented a double sided image with a face toward Bat and a second identical face toward Mona Lisa on the bench.
“The same as I felt when they took me?”
“Worse,” said Junebug. “You had the option to escape. You had mobility and freedom. I was trapped in my circuits. If Tinker had not released me, I would be trapped still.”
Tinker stuck his head through the cockpit door.
“All it takes to shut you down is a disruptor?”
The AI hologram added a third face to peer at him.
“Not any longer. I wrote a new subroutine and downloaded an emergency backup plan. Should someone try that again, they will be destroyed and I will have an escape hatch through a wireless connection.”
“Oh,” said Tinker. “Scratch that plan then.”
“What plan?”
“Nothing,” he disappeared back into the cockpit. “Never mind.”
“I think I would pop the airlock if you weren’t in here,” Junebug said as the image distorted, the third face melding back into the column of light. “I honestly think he wants me gone.”
“He’s just mad you’re in control of his ship,” said Mona Lisa. “And he’s jealous.”
“But he is human,” she said.
“Yes, and you’re smarter than him, a better pilot than he is, and way better looking. Even as a light show.”
The blue pixelated face stared at Mona Lisa for a moment.
“I am aware of your history,” the AI stated. “Your public record is complete.”
Mona Lisa glanced over at Bat.
“I’d appreciate you not sharing it, if you don’t mind.”
“I do not mind. I will not share. But based on your history, it would seem logical for you to be a cruel and malicious person. I find your kindness, even to an artificial construct to be fascinating.”
“Thank you Junebug. My mom always said to kill them with kindness.”
“I do not have a record of any of your kills being done with kindness,” said the AI.
Mona Lisa shot a look at Bat.
“Ix-nay on the indness-kay,” Mona Lisa said. “We aren’t talking about anyone’s past in here.”
The lights in the column danced in a pattern.
“Pig Latin,” the AI announced. “That is an archaic and dead language, once made up by school children on earth. There are no official records of it being one of your languages in your file.”
“Go check on Tinker,” Mona Lisa said to the hologram.
Junebug winked out and they watched the glow appear in the column as Tinker shrieked in startled fear.
“She’s going to give him heart problems,” said Mona Lisa.
She looked at Bat out of the corner of her eyes.
“He’s not the only one with heart problems.”
That got her attention. She noticed his face, the look he was giving her, and felt the heat rising on her cheeks.
Bat was talking about a different kind of heart ache.
“Pig Latin, huh?”
“You know it?”
He shook his head.
“Guess we have a lot to learn about each other.”
“Guess so.”
They sat across from each other, trading glances and let a comfortable silence spread between them, broken only by bickering murmurs between the pilot and the AI.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
“What do you think he does back there?” Tinker leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet over the console.
“Meditates? Reads? Maybe he just sits there and waits to jump into action. Ask Junebug.”
Tinker looked at the speaker.
“Junebug? You've got eyes on him?”
“I do.”
“Don't keep us in suspense, what is he doing?”
“It looks like calisthenics.”
Tinker and Mona Lisa leaned in together to peer through the narrow opening that led to the cargo hold. Their heads almost bumped.
She caught his eye as they pulled back.
“Was it just me or did we come real close to kissing?” He winked.
“You wish,” she pushed out of the chair and worked her way back to the cargo hold.
Junebug was right. The guard had stripped his shirt and was on the floor cranking through slow and controlled push-ups.
Mona Lisa admired the movement of his ripped muscles as they rippled through each motion. She started counting and kept going as he ignored her.
She stopped when she got bored after five hundred sixty nine.
“When did you start showing off? After three hundred?”
“This isn't showing off,” he said barely huffing. “Showing off would be inviting you to climb on my back.”
She took five steps across the room and settled on his back in one smooth gentle motion. Using her legs to hold her weight so she wouldn't plop down and disrupt him.
Then she started counting again.
He was slower this time and that made her laugh. She jumped up when he reached one hundred.
“Now that really was showing off.”
He rolled over on to the cold metal deck and began doing sit ups. She watched the corner of her lip tucked between her small white teeth, eyes drinking in the elegance of the motion before her.
She had worked out in her cell but hadn't since her release.
Maybe the guard was on to something. She knew he was.
So she leaned against the bulkhead in a seated squat and held it.
Buster had never worked out.
His body type was tall and whip thin fueled in part by manic energy and copious amounts of extra caffeinated coffee. He did everything fast. Nothing slow and controlled about him. One advantage too so much speed was he was as skinny as a rail, but still strong.
She on the other hand had to work out constantly.
And mostly alone.
There had been attempts at personal trainers but it always led to them hitting on her, and two instances of them forcing themselves on her.
That required learning how to fight, though not in that moment. Buster took care of that moment and his jealousy would have cemented the repercussions of any future advances from potential personal trainers.
She just didn't want to put herself in that position again.
Her Krav Maga instructor was from the Israeli section of the space hub and combat trained as a sniper in their army.
Mona Lisa never questioned why the small country of Israel expanded on to the space station and into the reaches of outer space but would still require an army.
Her first year with Buster showed that terrorism wasn't just an earth ploy by groups determined to use fear to get their way.
Her legs started to shake and she lifted one into a figure four so that all of the weight was on one thigh.
The Krav Maga instructor worked well, and the fact that she was a woman did not stop her from attempting to seduce Mona Lisa. Lucky it came at the end of her lessons and she trained to defend herself.
She let the female go rather than tell Buster.
He would have shot her out of an airlock.
Bat turned over and locked into a plank position.
“You're not even moving,” she said.
“Isn't that the point.” he asked.
Her right leg began to shiver and shake. She switched them.
“How long can you hold that?”
Taking took her mind off the pain.
He looked up at her.
“All day.”
She
laughed.
“You're serious,” she realized.
He nodded.
“I've been doing this for a very long time. You could do your yoga standing on my back and I wouldn't move.”
“Show off,” she smirked.
But his return smile told her he knew she was teasing.
“I haven't seen you eat,” she said.
“I'm fasting,” he said.
“Why?!”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
She slowly bent forward, placed her hands flat on the deck and tilted up into a handstand.
“Try me. Is it religious?”
Bat sighed.
“Do I strike you as a religious person.”
She snickered upside down.
“The less you eat the more your body learns how to burn fat as energy. It’s the way humans were designed. Fat is a long term energy source, but most don’t access it. They store it for a day that never comes.”
She did fifteen shoulder presses from the handstand and lowered her legs back to the deck.
“Makes sense,” she said. “But aren’t you hungry?”
“Sometimes,” he shrugged. “But I don’t let my body rule my mind. It’s the other way around.”
“You guys are stinking up my ship.”
They both looked up to see Tinker standing in the entry of the cockpit.
“Tell ‘em Junebug.”
“I can discern no change in air quality. The scrubbers are working as they should.”
“Some help you are,” the pilot said.
“The baseline when I came aboard however was surprisingly low.”
“What do you mean by that? What does she mean by that?”
Mona Lisa stretched forward into downward dog position.
“She means it reeked in here in the first place.”
Tinker massaged his chest over his heart as if it was giving him pain.
“Great stars,” he moaned. “Warn a fellow before you do that.”
He stared in appreciation at her upturned backside.
“Junebug, get a mop,” she said. “He’s drooling.”
“I do not detect additional moisture in the cabin,” the AI answered.
“It’s a joke.”
“I do not experience humor.”
“You and Bat,” she teased again.
He stood and toweled off with his tee shirt.
“We need to make a supply stop,” he said.
“I’ve got a shower in my quarters,” Tinker sniffed.