The dragon leapt to its feet and shook itself. It looked up at the robot and roared, as if to say ‘You bastard!’ It squatted back on its haunches and then launched itself upwards. Teeth snapped together with a loud clack! a few inches below the walkway.
The robot brandished its cleaver as if to say ‘Back off, reptile, the human is mine!’ Then it turned its attention to me.
I had my back to the door and was frantically tapping my ID tag against the lock’s sensor, trying to get it to open. But apparently I lacked the necessary clearance level and needed to consult my supervisor.
The robot stopped a few yards away. There were still bits of the sticky foam on its head. It looked like it had been hit with a cream pie. It stared at me. Then it looked down at the walkway at its feet. I wondered what thoughts were echoing around its metal skull.
Off to my right, I could hear the clacking of the dragon’s teeth as it kept leaping up. It seemed to be trying to reach me now rather than the robot. Presumably because I smelt more edible. Unless it suddenly grew wings, I didn’t think it would reach me before the robot did.
I looked around me, desperately seeking something that I could cling to or climb up. But the walls were smooth. No pipes, no wires – not even a line of rivet heads. The roof beams were way above me – not within leaping distance. I took the hammer out of my pocket and began hitting the door’s lock mechanism. This caused some sparks but achieved nothing useful.
The robot looked over the railing at the dragon, then at me, and finally back down at the walkway at its feet. And I knew what it was thinking.
“Please, don’t...” I said.
The robot was standing directly over an iron pillar that supported the walkway. The section I stood on was supported by the same pillar at one end and at the other by bolts in the steel wall behind me. The robot was calculating what would happen if it sliced through the metalwork so that my section of the walkway was no longer supported by the pillar. Would the bolts in the wall be strong enough to hold it up unaided?
“Please...” I said again.
The robot gave something that looked like a shrug – and began hacking at the metal. The walkway under me shook. I pressed my ID tag to the smashed lock again and again, hoping for a last minute miracle. Below me, the dragon had stopped leaping and was looking up expectantly. Perhaps it understood what was going on. It was waiting for dinner to drop into its lap.
The robot sliced through the metal handrail and the barrier meant to stop people accidentally tumbling off the walkway. Then it began chopping away at the walkway like a demented woodcutter. When it reached the halfway point, my section of walkway lurched and angled downwards a few inches on one side. I gripped the handrail. I had to do something. I was still clutching the fire axe. I swung it at the glass window in the door. The blade bounced off without leaving a mark. It had to be strong enough to withstand rapid depressurisation when the hangar doors were opened. My puny axe wasn’t going to do much damage. But I tried a few more whacks anyway.
The robot’s chopping was much more effective. A few more well-placed blows and the walkway was cut all the way across. It sagged downwards about eight inches at the end nearest the robot, supported only by the bolts in the metal wall. I glanced towards the brackets that were the only things between me and the jaws of death. There were four stout bolts fixing each bracket to the wall. They were all holding. For now.
The robot looked down at the sagging walkway. It couldn’t step onto it and get any closer to me because the damaged walkway wouldn’t support its weight. If the bolts held, the robot and I were stuck in a sort of stalemate. It lifted one foot slowly and moved it forward towards the unsupported section of the walkway. It pressed down with the foot. My section sagged downwards some more, and when the robot lifted its foot the floor didn’t come all the way back up again. It was sagging down about a foot now. The robot put its foot forward again. This time he pressed down and released several times, bouncing the walkway up and down. Whether it was trying to shake me loose or snap the bolts, I didn’t know. Each bounce caused the walkway to bend downwards a little more.
On the deck below, the dragon was looking up and snarling. ‘Get on with it – I’m hungry!’
Another bounce and one of the bolts snapped with a loud crack! It was the outermost bolt of the bracket over the deck.
Bounce. Bounce. Crack! Another of the outer bolts snapped.
Bounce. Crack! Crack! All of the outside bolts were gone. With a grinding and metallic screeching, the walkway twisted and tilted. It dropped three feet on the outside. As I desperately tried to cling on with both hands, I had to let the fire axe go, watching it slide over the edge and fall. I knew the bolts in the other bracket must fail soon. If the walkway fell, there was nothing for me to cling onto. The robot would watch as I dropped – and then give the thumbs-down, ordering the dragon in for the kill.
The sounds of tortured metal continued, the walkway dipping lower and lower, not needing any encouragement from the robot now.
Crack! A bolt shot out of the wall, fired outwards like a bullet. I felt it skim passed my left arm. It was lucky it missed me – I might have been hurt.
The walkway dipped down even further. Inevitably, the other bolts snapped. The walkway fell.
The dragon roared. The walkway crashed down on top of the dragon. This cushioned the impact – but only a little. But it didn’t matter. As the walkway fell, I launched myself into the air. I flipped over and to the right, avoiding the falling metalwork. I hit the deck with my knees bent and rolled. Graceful as a cat.
I glanced towards the dragon. It was moving under the fallen walkway – stunned but not dead. The robot was standing on the truncated walkway looking down at me. It stepped off the edge and when its feet hit the deck it felt like an earthquake. Graceful as a refrigerator.
The robot stomped towards me, raising the cleaver.
With a roar, the dragon heaved the metalwork off its back. It stood assessing the situation for a moment. The dragon launched itself up onto the robot’s back.
Dragon versus robot. It was a scene from a video game. The dragon clung to the robot’s back, wrapping its tail around the robot’s middle and trying to bite into its shoulder and head. I would have loved to see how this celebrity deathmatch ended – but I thought my time would be better spent escaping while they were both distracted. I took off at a sprint, heading for the doors through which the dragon had made its entrance.
A shadow passed overhead. Something heavy hit the deck in front of me. The dragon. The robot had thrown it, using it to stop my escape. I skidded to a halt – ready to go on if the dragon didn’t move. Dead or just stunned, I would run around it. It uncurled itself and I distinctly heard the sound of bones popping as it stood and flexed its spine. It looked down at me and did the roaring thing. I was close enough to smell how bad its breath was. Close enough to die. It leapt forward. There was nothing I could do except brace for impact.
I fell backwards under the force of it. I felt claws digging into my legs, pinning me down. The dragon raised its head, bellowing triumphantly. Then it opened its jaws wide and dipped down towards my head, thick poisonous saliva hanging in strings from its pus-yellow tongue. It was going to chew my face off.
The robot’s blade flashed down, cleaving the dragon’s head in two. I was showered with foul-smelling blood and bits of brain matter. It didn’t taste anything like chicken. As it died, the dragon voided its bladder and bowels on me. A final indignity.
I was pinned down under the dragon’s dead weight. The robot jerked its blade free from the beast’s skull. It raised the blade, blood dripping from it. My skull was next in line for splitting. I was going to die. And in my last moment of life, I vowed that I would come back and haunt Old Jack Sterling for getting me into this mess.
The robot stood with its blade raised, ready for the kill. Was it prolonging the agony? Or was it having second thoughts? Or perhaps subjective time had slowed to a crawl to allow me to ma
ke the most of my last seconds of life? I was probably supposed to spend this time contemplating the life I had lived and repenting my sins. But all I was really thinking at that moment was that the dead dragon was crushing my scronies. And then, bizarrely, I heard Old Jack’s voice – as if recalling the old devil’s name had somehow summoned him.
“Well, aren’t you a sorry-looking sight!” Old Jack’s voice said.
I didn’t want his voice to be the last sound I ever heard – even if I was imagining it.
He moved into view and stared down at me.
“What is that smell?” he asked.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nobody wanted to come near me. I was covered in squit, blood, and swazz. Some of the blood was mine. I smelt like a walking septic tank. Old Jack’s men had rolled the dragon off me and then quickly backed away. Far away. I got to my feet slowly, trying to ignore the aches and pains and the overwhelming feeling of fatigue.
Jack Sterling looked like an old pirate, so his crew had decided they should dress like pirates and had all gone off to the costume shop to pick their outfits. It was the only explanation that made sense. As far as I could see, there were five of them plus Jack.
The biggest of them was mostly belly. His head was shaved smooth and shiny but the dark hair on his forearms was longer than that on my head. He wore tatty sneakers and walked like his feet hurt. The smallest of the crew was a scrawny runt who looked like his grandmother had been a brown rat. His eyes were drawn into a permanent squint and I think he was breaking the top teeth in for a giant rabbit.
And then there were the twins. Brothers, I reckoned, until I noticed one of them had breasts. They dressed alike and spoke alike and probably had the sort of relationship geneticists frown upon. There was a lot of giggling and looking into each other’s eyes. Even if it was platonic, it was still creepy. I guessed she had chosen their costume because he was unsteady in the high heel boots.
Tattoos seemed to be obligatory and most of them looked self-inflicted. You know that thing where you see something misspelled and you wonder if it’s you that’s wrong? That happened to me a couple of times just then. And you should never get something inked in a language you can’t read. ‘Please may I go to the lavatory’ isn’t poetry or prayer no matter how you translate it.
If I was putting together a crew, I wouldn’t pick any of this lot. Maybe pirates are in short supply on Saphira.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you,” I said to Old Jack, nodding towards the deactivated robot.
“You might want to hold off on the hugging,” Jack said. “This isn’t a rescue mission. We’re here for the loot.” He was staring down at the dead dragon. “Pity about the skull. You can get good money for a whole one.”
I looked up at the robot. It was standing with the bloody cleaver raised. Still as a statue. “How did you...?”
Old Jack held up a battered remote control unit. It was discoloured and held together with duct tape. “Had it from one of my old shipmates,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if it still worked.”
He tossed the remote to one of his crewmen, the fifth member of the team. He was a technician who had gone down the cyber-pirate route. His head was shaved at the sides and the mohawk was bleached platinum blond. He wore very tight black leather jeans and an oxblood leather vest showed off his bony chest to good effect. On a slow night in dim light, I might have bought him a drink. He used the remote to reset the robot into a neutral standing position. Then he made the robot kneel. It was still as tall as he was.
“What about the other security robots?” Jack asked.
“They won’t be a problem,” I said.
“You took out a dozen of them? I’m impressed.”
“I’d have taken out this one too – but he just won’t die.”
“If you can’t beat ‘em, recruit ‘em,” Jack said. He nodded towards his crewman who was using a laser cutter to make a small circular opening in the robot’s chest.
“Do you think a restrainer will work on that thing?” I asked.
Restraining devices were fitted to all modern robots by law. They limited a robot’s capacity for self-motivated action – kept them docile. But this wasn’t a modern robot.
“If that robot doesn’t do what it’s told,” Jack said, “the device will fuse all its internal circuits. It won’t cause any trouble.”
The platinum blond crewman unfastened the robot’s cleaver and tossed it aside. In its place he fitted an ordinary robotic forearm and hand. It more or less matched the robot’s right arm, though it looked like it had been patched up with bits of old metal.
“All done,” the crewman reported to his captain.
“Then fire him back up,” Jack said.
The crewman looked about as doubtful as I felt.
“It’s either that or you get to carry all the loot out yourself,” Old Jack told him.
You don’t sign on to be a pirate in order to do heavy lifting. The crewman thumbed the ‘on’ button on the remote.
Still on its knees, the robot emitted a faint whine and then began to vibrate.
“It’s trying to fight the restraint,” I said, backing away.
“It won’t win,” Old Jack said. But he also took a step back when the vibrations became a more pronounced shimmying. It looked as though the robot was trying to shake the restraining device out of its chest.
The shaking stopped abruptly. The robot rose to its feet. We all took another step back.
“Robot! Stand on one leg,” Jack said.
The robot lifted one leg from the deck. Its balance was perfect.
“Rub your stomach,” Jack ordered.
The robot’s right hand began making circular movements over the spot where its stomach would have been – still balanced on one leg.
“Clockwise,” Jack said.
The robot changed the direction of its motions.
“Pat yourself on the head with your other hand,” Jack said.
The robot did as it was asked.
“Looks fine to me,” Old Jack said to the crewman. “Now get to work.”
“Aye, aye, cap’n,” the crewman said. “Robot! Follow me.”
The robot walked after the departing crewman, still patting its head and rubbing its tummy.
“Machines are stupid,” Jack said. He turned and looked me up and down. “You’ve looked better, Quin.”
All I could do was shrug.
“We should get those wounds cleaned,” Jack said. “Who knows what filthy diseases that ugly scracker was carrying.”
I had puncture wounds in both legs from the dragon’s claws. They weren’t deep but the old man was right, there was a real danger of infection. “There’s a medbay down the corridor,” I said.
Old Jack indicated that I should lead the way. He walked with me – but he didn’t get too close.
After I stopped screaming, Old Jack said, “You’ve done that before.” He pointed to the fading scar on my thigh. I’d used the meat-stitcher to fix the puncture wounds.
“I fell into a tree,” I said, rubbing the old wound. I was sitting in the medbay in my underwear and having that déjà vu thing.
“Into one?” Jack said. He was sitting on the other bed watching me administer my own treatment.
“Long story,” I said. “How did you get here?”
“We flew,” Jack said, choosing to take my question literally. “Cargo lifter. We landed it next to the ship.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course, Jack Sterling had the advantage of having been here before – he knew the lay of the land.
“And the prison?” I asked. “I thought you were a lifer.” I helped myself to more of the outdated antibiotics.
“Bribery,” Jack said.
I nodded. “I’m going next door to take a shower and find some clothes,” I said.
“I’d just burn it,” Jack said.
“This jacket and I have been through a lot together,” I said. I was holding it under
the shower, trying to scrub it clean. There was no soap and when I’d stood under it, the water had been cold and had a faint metallic smell. But it still made it into my top ten best showers of all time.
I ransacked the closets in a couple of crewmen’s rooms and found myself an outfit similar to my last one. I kept my boots and jacket – trying to pretend they didn’t smell of lizard incontinence.
Old Jack was following me around, pretending to be my best friend. He didn’t trust me. The feeling was mutual.
“What happened to your computer?” he asked, pointing to the scorch mark and missing loop on the shoulder of my jacket.
“Trixie is gone,” I said. I could have told him the whole story, but I didn’t. That would have made things too easy for him. I was waiting for him to come out with the question he really wanted to ask. The only thing he cared about.
“Did you find the vault?” he asked. There it was. He tried to make it sound casual.
“This whole thing was a set-up, wasn’t it?” I asked. “The treasure map – all of it.” I’d seen him scratch his arm earlier – there was no sign of the scar he’d shown me in the jail cell.
Old Jack stared into my eyes, trying to decide whether to lie to me. He shrugged. “I needed a thief. A good one. The last time I came out to the Celestia I lost two men. Barely got away myself.”
I’d met his lost crewmen. Mr. Skellington in the airlock and the Man-With-No-Hands in the vault.
“You knew who I was,” I said, “when we were in the prison?”
“Before that,” Jack said. “Maurice worked for me.”
Maurice was One-Eyed Jack, the poker player I’d won the sand yacht from – and the reason I’d ended up in jail. This old pirate had engineered the whole thing.
“You bribed your way into the prison, didn’t you? Into my cell.”
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