She was strapped into a seat behind the pilot, feeling damned uncomfortable not being in control of the rig. Not enough time for training, and besides, as leader of this squadron, she had to concentrate on the task of taking it through that hole, dealing with any Jaxdron defense … and then finding Cal. No time to worry about piloting a fighter. Still, she missed the sense of complete control she had in her XT, that feeling of power. Even in sturdy battle armor, she felt extremely vulnerable.
Hannibal, the pilot, went through the ignition procedures, while Eisenhower, the gunner, sat by him making sure his guns were ready. They fairly shone with military competence, yet Laura was still impatient. “C’mon guys, let’s hustle it up so we can hit ‘em while their pants are down!” she commanded.
“Operating at optimum efficiency,” Hannibal said even as his fingers manipulated the banks of controls. “I suggest the human quality of patience.”
“Patience! My brother is in there!” She examined the other robots. “Your guns ready to blast?”
“Yes,” they answered in unison.
“Good. Lock and load! I wanna see some Jaxdrons getting their first taste of hellfire!”
Soon, the pinnace thundered up on its antigravs and retros, navigated through the doors and took its position beside the other pinnaces hovering a hundred yards beyond the Starbow.
“Any signs of activity?” Laura radioed Gemma Naquist in the next ship.
“None,” was the response.
“Okay if I go first?”
“Are you sure you’re ready for that kind of thing?” Arkm Thur asked from the other boat.
“I’m about as ready as ever be. Besides, I’m better at this than you guys.”
“Also more humble,” returned Thur.
Laura led the raiding team through the blasted hole into a larger chamber. At first there was no defense. But when all three pinnaces had landed, a door opened and fighting machine robots erupted, holding blasters.
The Jaxdron robots were only able to get off a few blasts before the pinnace lasers blew them apart. They continued streaming out and as they did, the pinnaces picked them off easily until all that was left was a smoking pile of rubble.
“No further robot activity detected on sensors,” Eisenhower declared.
“Okay,” said Laura. “Let’s land and get this over with.”
The pinnaces put down. Within moments all but the pilots had run down the ramps, collecting into a single party. “How’s it going, Lasster?” asked Laura. Chivon Lasster had insisted on accompanying the raiding party. She had gone with Arkm Thur.
“You don’t forget how to do this kind of thing,” the woman answered. “You just forget how exciting it can be!”
Laura grunted with approval. This lady might turnout to be okay. She might even survive, if she kept her hands off the captain. Still, Arkm Thur was looking at her in a peculiar way.
Fondly? Laura sure as hell hoped so!
“Still want to go first?” Gemma Naquist asked, adjusting her helmet.
“You bet,” said Laura. “C’mon!”
They picked their way over the remains of the Jaxdron robots, into the next room.
They met no more.
“I don’t understand,” said Arkm Thur. “Why so little opposition?”
“Mish said something about the Jaxdron being preoccupied,” answered Laura. “Let’s see.”
Laura at the lead, the party blasted through the next door, and found itself in a long corridor.
“What you got on your sensors?” asked Laura.
Eisenhower looked down, fiddling with his combat data pad. “Definite biological movement at the end of this hall.”
They made their way three by three, weapons ready. At the end of the hall, another door opened. More robots, more guns.
“Good heavens,” said Chivon Lasster, raising her gun.
“Take cover!” Laura ordered.
“What cover?” Naquist asked, but she knew what Laura meant.
The humans in the party stepped behind the less vulnerable robots. Laura pulled her weapon up, found the closest robot in the cross hairs and pulled the trigger. Energy erupted like the blossoming of a deadly flower. The fire slammed into the metallic torso of the thing, but did little more than warm it up a bit. Laura kept the blast up.
With a little smile, Lasster winked at Laura through the vuport of her armor, lifted her gun and let the robot have it right between its optical sensors. The blast caused the robot to stagger back. Lasster swung her beam down, blasting off one of the nodes extending from its neck. The robot, with a keening screech and a halo of radiation, stumbled, then crashed to the floor.
“Not in the chest, Laura. You must find their vulnerable parts.”
“Yeah,” said Laura, exasperated at not thinking of this sooner. She turned her attention to a robot racing close, calmly drew a bead on one of its neck nodes, and slammed some firepower where it counted. The blast tore off the node. The robot kept coming, screeching metallically. Calmly, Laura raised the crackling beam, cutting a burning scar up the thing’s “face” until full power was cutting into the thing’s optical sensors. That stopped it!
The robot began a strange little dance, and then, with the welcome help of a few additional beams, went down for the count.
Suddenly a beam of fire erupted from out of no where, slashing straight into Hannibal’s faceplate, slamming him back so hard against a wall that he fell to pieces.
Chivon Lasster fell to the floor, rolled to avoid the zigzagging beam, then nailed the bastard who was delivering it. Hot damn, thought Laura. There’s a lot more to this woman than I thought!
Slashes and gashes of fire crisscrossed madly for what seemed like only moments, but must have been minutes. Smoke was billowing. Crashes and screechings echoed through the hallway. The servomotors in Laura’s battle suit strained to deal with the smoke and the exertion she was placing on them.
Then suddenly, with a hiss and a wail, the din stopped.
Slowly, the smoke dissipated.
The Jaxdron robots were now just rubble strewn over the floor. Here and there a joint squeaked, and digits twitched, but sensors showed the things to be no further threat.
The Starbow party had lost only two of its robots in the melee, and none of the humans had even been scratched. They were a little uncomfortable and worn-out in their overheated suits. A small price to pay for victory, though!
“Good job,” said Laura.
“Life signs continue,” reported Eisenhower.
“Anything resembling human life signs?” asked Laura.
“Not detectable.”
“Let’s go check this out anyway!” Laura declared, adjusting her proton gun for another round of fighting. She turned and looked at Chivon Lasster. “Thanks. You’re pretty damned good at this.”
“You forget, I’ve had Federation commando training,” responded Chivon coolly. “And I’ve kept in practice. You’d be surprised at the military and action training needed to push papers!” She smiled, warming.
“Well, I’m just glad we’re on the same side now, dearie,” said Laura, checking her weapon’s power supply.
“I’m finding it’s a good side to be on.”
They made their way to the end of the corridor, and through the door. There was no sign of any more robots. But a terrible din was coming from the end of the other corridor they had entered: the sound of another firefight.
“What the hell is going on?” Arkm Thur wondered out loud.
Laura could not hide her alarm. “Must be something to do with Cal. Let’s hit it!”
She ran ahead of the party, the heavy pounding of her battle suit echoing in the empty corridor.
After two turns of the hallway, she was confronted by the sight of a Jaxdron robot hurtling from a room. It crashed against a wall so
hard that it burst into pieces.
Smoke issued from the room … smoke and roars. She sprinted for the door. There she saw something even more incredible.
A gigantic cartoonish bunny rabbit was battling a group of Jaxdron robots.
At least twelve feet tall, it had droopy ears and goofy eyes and long fearsome teeth. It was colored purple and red. But as strange as the creature was, she’d seen this kind of thing before. Cal had used to draw them with magic markers when he was younger.
The beams the robots shot at this demented looking beast seemed to deflect magically from its furry hide. One by one it caught them up in his giant paws and smashed them against the wall, or stomped them with its huge feet until they were just piles of rubble.
Then Laura noticed the portal behind her, like a large sparkle-edged mirror, reflecting something entirely different from what was in the room.
By the time the others had joined her, she was over her surprise.
“What the hell … ?” murmured Gemma.
“No, it’s just a giant bunny rabbit,” said Laura. “Let’s help it.”
She and Chivon began blasting away at the Jaxdron robots. The other robots did likewise, but Gemma Naquist and Arkm Thur were so baffled by the sight before them that by the time they were able to raise their own weapons, all the enemy robots in the room had been dispatched.
The giant bunny rabbit began giggling as it settled back on its haunches. “Better be ready,” it said. “They’ll probably have more heading our way.”
“Cal,” said Laura, walking forward. “What have they done to you?”
“Oh, this really isn’t me, Laura. It’s just a projection from Omega Space. Here, let me put it out of the way so that I can scramble through and say hello properly.”
The giant rabbit grinned sheepishly. And then suddenly it just wasn’t there anymore. Instead, all that was left was the portal, about two meters high, hanging in the air.
A hand reached over its sparkling lip then another hand, a head. Cal Shemzak pulled himself up and over, flopping onto the ground.
“Cal,” cried Laura, trudging forward ecstatically.
“Mmmmmph,” said Cal, struggling to get up.
Laura grabbed him and squeezed him in a bear hug, forgetting the power of the servomotors in the armor she wore.
“Urrghh,” said Cal. “Stop!”
“Oh, sorry.” She let him go and then stepped back. “You are Cal, aren’t you? Calspar Shemzak?”
Cal leaned over, his breathing raspy. “Of course I’m Cal, you ninny! Who else could I be?”
“Like maybe one of those Jaxdron-tailored Cal clones.”
“How’d you know about those?”
“It’s a long story. But Cal … It really is you? We’ve come such a long way … It’s so hard to believe!”
“You think that’s hard to believe?” He gestured toward what lay beyond the portal. “That’s what’s hard to believe.”
“That’s Omega Space?” said Gemma Naquist, drifting forward. “That’s what we’ve been searching for all this time?”
“It looks like Kansas!” said Arkm Thur.
“No. Definitely more like Oz.” He turned around and looked in. “Hey, Ratham. Your friends are here. Come on through.”
And Ratham Bey struggled through, looking much the same as he had when he had fallen into the center of the Frin’ral ship.
“Hi, guys,” he said. “Thanks for showing up.” He peered around. “What about the robots?”
“I think we destroyed most of them,” said Arkm Thur.
“A wonderful thought. But the Jaxdron … what about them?”
“I’ve met the suckers. They’re much too weak on their own to be any threat,” said Cal.
“We should find them before they do something else,” said Laura. “Like maybe escape.”
She quickly alerted the Starbow, reporting on what had happened, and then informing them about the possibility of a Jaxdron escape.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Captain Northern’s voice crackled. “I’ve just taken the liberty of finding the vessels. They won’t fly more than two meters now.”
Cal clapped his hands together. “Wonderful! Can anyone let me borrow their gun? I’ve got a few repayments to make here.”
“No, Cal. We’ve got to capture them. Alive, they’ll tell us a lot.”
Cal’s eyes got big and wicked-looking. “Yeah!”
“Can you keep this portal open for a while, Cal?”
“Oh, sure …. As long as my brain is plugged into the clone array.” His face grew concerned. “We’d better hurry. They might try to destroy it.”
“We’ll station a couple of robots here,” Laura said. “You’d better come and show us where the Jaxdron are, Cal.”
“No problem. Bey, you stay here. Any problem, just sic Bugs on ‘em like I showed you.”
“How did you do that?” Laura asked.
“I’ll tell you later. It has a lot to do with Omega Space.”
“Right,” said Laura. “I’d give you a kiss, but this helmet is hell to get out of.”
“It’ll keep. Let’s go!”
Bey grinned. “Can I make my own monster next time?”
Chapter Twenty-three
Laura and her comrades crept through the halls, looking for any sign of the Jaxdron or their robots. It was quiet—perhaps too quiet.
Cal listened to Laura’s story of how the Starbow had surprised the Jaxdron. “They must have been so wrapped up in trying to figure out how to use my clone matrix to get their tails into Omega Space, they didn’t guard them properly,” he said. “Anyway, my evaluation of them is that they’re really not the fierce beasties the Federation has been touting them as. They’re not exactly on my list of favorite things in the universe, though … ”
“Yeah,” said Laura.
They threaded their way though silent corridors, following the directions that Cal had given them. Several minutes passed. Laura breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the Jaxdron weren’t the heavy hitters everyone thought they were! She relaxed as they negotiated the last bit, turning amused thoughts to a roomful of Calspar Shemzaks.
But the Jaxdron had not left themselves unguarded. There were twelve of them, Robots. Significantly superior to the others, capable no doubt of all kinds of mayhem. The search party stopped short, bringing up their weapons.
The robots advanced, aiming particle weapons at the party. Laura caught her breath, cursing her stupidity. But the metal army did not fire. Laura was more than surprised when one well-armed robot stepped forward and spoke.
“Greetings, Humans of the Starbow. How very well played! A most remarkable Game. We despise losing, but of course, in recapturing the principal playing piece, Cal Shemzak, you have accomplished a remarkable endgame, and we arc forced to resign. So now, if you take Mr. Shemzak wherever you like, we can repair our ships and be on our way, never to bother you again.”
“That’s what you think, buster!” Laura let the spokesrobot have it with a scorching pulse of energy. Lethal rays sizzled through the air.
“Cal!” called Laura to her unarmored brother. “Get back. Around the corner!”
Cal pivoted wide-eyed to run, but slipped. A robot arm swiveled automatically, tracking the action. Its gun barrel was glowing, getting ready to fire. Laura was too far away to be of any help.
“Cal!” she screamed, tracking her own beam toward the enemy robot.
In a flash, though, another armor suit was hurtling toward Cal. The robot weapon unleashed its energies—and the battle suit caught them full in the back of its neck.
It was Chivon Lasster’s suit! The blast knocked off a few attachments and sent Chivon spinning head over heels to crash into a wall. Cursing, Laura swung her beamer the rest of the way, blowing off the Jaxdron robot’s head.
�
��Chivon!” cried Arkm Thur, dodging a beam and letting one of his own slam into the enemy. He bounded back to where the former Friend lay in a heap against a wall.
“Ouch!” said Chivon Lasster. Even from where she stood, Laura could see the blood running from her mouth. “I thought these things were supposed to absorb the blows … ”
“Are you all right, Lasster?” Laura shouted above the sizzling din of weapons fire.
“Just banged up!”
Thur was bending over her. “She’s more than that,” he said, reading a dial. “But her vitals are strong.”
“Can she walk?” Laura blasted a robot, moving behind one of her own.
“Sure,” said Chivon, her voice weaker.
“Well, get her back to a pinnace and ferry her back to the Starbow. And, Chivon … ”
“Yes?”
“You die and I’m going to kick your butt.”
“Thanks, Laura. I don’t think I could take that indignity.”
Laura covered them as they staggered off back to the pinnace.
“Hey, they could have left me one of those suits!” said Cal. “I feel naked.”
“Shut up and stay out of range,” said Laura, readjusting her weapon’s power output. “We’ve got a little blasting to do!”
Energy rays sliced through the air. Laura was more than thankful for her battle armor as she again entered the fray. Rays caromed off walls, splattering molten metal. Laura shouted encouragement to Gemma Naquist and their robots. “Let’s crush these tin cans!” she cried, aiming at a Jaxdron robot. The energy beam coursed from her gun, blowing the robot to pieces. She turned quickly, fired from the hip and reduced another to scrap. Gemma took out another.
As the smoke cleared over the burning wreckage and insulation, Laura could see that all the Jaxdron robots had been wrecked. Mish’s robots must have been of superior design, because only three more, including Eisenhower, alas, had been casualties, their parts and burning bits mingled with the enemy’s.
“How’s Lasster doing?” Laura called into Thur.
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