Xenotech Queen's Gambit: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 2)

by Schroeder, Dave

  “Uh, okay, I guess,” said Pomy.

  Her eyes flipped from sparkling to downcast.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” said Barbara, contritely. “Old habits die hard. What’s your good news?”

  Pomy’s eyes flipped from downcast back to sparkling. Her smile was as bright as a congruency connected to a stellar corona.

  “Dr. Liddell-Scott offered me a job at the museum through the end of the year,” said Pomy. “I’ll be working with the Roman and Greek artifacts in their collection.”

  “That sounds perfect for you,” said her mother.

  “Way to go,” I said. “It will be nice having you around.”

  I gave Pomy a hug and absorbed some of the excited energy she was radiating.

  “I start on Monday,” said Pomy.

  Her body couldn’t keep still. She was a perfect exemplar of Newton’s First Law—a body in motion stays in motion.

  “I’m so happy for you,” said Barbara, getting with the program. “You can stay with your sister.”

  There might be plenty of room for Pomy to stay at Poly’s place if Poly decided to live with me. I’d have to try hard not to get too far ahead of myself.

  Perry was beaming almost as much as his daughter.

  “This will be an excellent career move for Pomy,” he said. “Dr. Liddell-Scott knows everyone who’s anyone in classical archeology.”

  Pomy agreed. If there’d been a ceiling above the Quadrangle, Pomy would have had to be pulled down off it.

  The brass ensemble moved to its next selection, Charpentier’s Prelude to Te Deum. It’s stirring chords were worth listening to. Pomy and Perry took their seats on either side of Barbara and we all tried to calm down and focus on the ceremony.

  Then there was activity on the stage. Several humans in doctoral robes came forward and sat to the right. Diágo and two other members of the Queen’s Guard, Lohrri and Naddéo, came forward and took up what must have been prearranged positions on the lawn in front and to the sides. Next, Tomáso walked on stage and stood to the far left.

  As the brass ensemble neared the climax of the Te Deum, Princess Terrhiluundramaki, Spike and Queen Sherrhiliandarianne the Second took the stage. The crowd cheered and applauded. Terrans have always loved royalty and a queen was a queen, even if she stood eighteen feet tall and weighed more than a bulldozer. When the final notes sounded, the humans sat down, but the Dauushans didn’t. There wasn’t room on the stage for the redwood-sized logs Dauushans used as chairs.

  Terrhi spotted me and waved. Queen Sherrhi put three sub-trunks around her daughter and pulled her close. Being royal requires a certain level of decorum and waving to friends probably isn’t on the list of acceptable princess behaviors even if you still have your juvenile spots.

  When the applause and cheers quieted down, the ensemble started to play Berlioz’ Triumphal March. Faculty members marched in and stood at their seats on the right. I saw Professor Urrrson and Professor Murriym, looking tall and elegant in their colorful robes and was surprised to see Mistress Marigold marching not far behind them. I’d forgotten she was also a member of Emory’s faculty, teaching one or two courses a year. Then the strains of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, the traditional music used for graduation ceremonies, filled the air.

  Parents leaned out into the aisles and took photographs as the graduating students began their march toward the section reserved for them on the left. The students came forward, looking for their families. They smiled and waved without the constraint of maintaining royal decorum. Several Dauushans and Tōdons were in the student procession and found spots to stand below the stage not far from Tomáso.

  Once all the students had entered and the music stopped, one of the humans on the stage—I assume the university president, since that was what was printed in the program—walked to the podium.

  “Be seated,” she said.

  The faculty and the students sat. I pulled out my backpack tool bag, removed Chit’s bottle, and popped its lid.

  “Hey little buddy,” I said, “do you want to see this ceremony live, or on screen?”

  Chit stuck her head out. Her wing cases were painted in Emory’s colors of blue, white and gold.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said. “This one promises to be a lot more interestin’ than the last one.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said.

  Chit climbed out and flew up to perch on my left shoulder. I hoped she wouldn’t snore when we got to the boring parts. When she was that close to my ear she got loud. My phone climbed up from my belt to my right shoulder and extended a pseudopod with its mutacase to whisper in my ear.

  “You’ve got a video call from Hither, Jack,” it said. “Should I put her through?”

  “The ceremony is just starting,” I said, “It’s not really convenient. Can it wait?”

  “She says no,” said my phone, “but she doesn’t need to talk to you. She wants to show you a video. She says she just shot it.”

  “Fine,” I said, softly. “Roll tape.”

  My phone climbed around to my lap where I could see Hither’s video by looking down. I watched the images flash by. It was footage of the old Atlanta Falcon’s Mercedes Benz stadium. Slowly, the flower-like petals of the stadium’s retractable roof slid open and ten giant robots, hidden inside its unused dome, blasted into the sky heading east towards Emory.

  So that’s what Shepherd was doing at the carnival.

  It looked like this ceremony would be a lot more interesting than the last one.

  Chapter 41

  “Chaos in the midst of chaos isn’t funny,

  but chaos in the midst of order is.”

  — Steve Martin

  I wanted to shout “The robots are coming, the robots are coming,” like Bilbo Baggins in a bad sci-fi remake of the Battle of Five Armies in The Hobbit, but I didn’t. I sent a couple of texts. I also had to get word to Diágo, Tomáso and Queen Sherrhi as fast as possible. Tomáso’s phone would probably be on silent, or set to only vibrate if Diágo wanted to reach him. I didn’t have Diágo’s number and this was too important to try calling Terrhi and getting her in trouble with her mom if she still had her phone in normal mode and it rang. Thankfully, I had a better solution.

  “Hey Chit,” I said, “Could you please fly over and tell Diágo, Tomáso and Queen Sherrhi that ten two-hundred-and-fifty-foot combat robots are on their way here?”

  My little buddy stretched her wings and replied.

  “I was right,” she said. “This one’s gonna be a lot more interestin’ for sure. See ya later, bucko.”

  She took off and hovered beside each of the Dauushans, passing along my message. None of them seemed surprised. We all knew giant robots were on the agenda, we just didn’t know when they’d make an appearance.

  Another human speaker was droning on about the many milestones in the history of the university during the four years the undergraduates had been on campus when Queen Sherrhi nudged him with a sub-trunk. He stopped talking. When Queen Sherrhi nudges you, you notice.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, and beings of all species,” she began. “We have been notified of an emergency situation. Please vacate the Quadrangle immediately. Proceed in an orderly fashion.”

  Unfortunately, not even the voice of royal authority could change human nature. Thousands of people stood up and began milling about in a panic, behaving more like a demented mob than proud parents, grandparents and siblings. Then the robots appeared overhead—they were more like Megatron, the evil Decepticon from the Transformers movies, than the relatively more friendly eagles Bilbo saw. Everyone in the Quad looked up and gasped. Queen Sherrhi and her entourage were big, but the robots were enormous.

  Three giant robots landed in open spots recently occupied by the Dauushans and Tōdons about to receive t
heir diplomas. The rest landed around the periphery of the Quad wherever they could find places to put their feet. The robots closest to the stage reached down to pick up Queen Sherrhi, but their huge metal hands were butted away by Tomáso’s bulk. Lohrri and Naddéo were heading for the ramp at the rear of the stage so they could help, too.

  “Now,” I told my phone.

  “With pleasure,” it said.

  The shiny chairs we’d recently been sitting on began to reconfigure themselves. Their legs got longer and their curved tube backs opened and extended. Soon all two or three hundred chairs in our VIP section had morphed back into octovacs. Thank you, Khufu, Limited.

  “Sic ’em,” I said.

  Like hosts of ghosts overwhelming the ships of the Corsairs of Umbar in The Return of the King, dozens of octovacs swarmed over each robot, removing any components their manipulative tentacles could reach. Before their pilots could react, the giant robots were stripped down to bare skeletons. Soon even the skeletons were disassembled and the octovacs had disappeared to the north, carrying components. Ten captured robot pilots were lined up under octovac guard in front of Diágo. An octovac makes a very effective set of handcuffs—they might even hold a Pyr.

  While the octovacs disassembled, the shocked crowd continued to mill about. Once they realized the robots were no longer a threat, their priorities shifted from trying to get away to trying to find good vantage points for the show. Some even got popcorn. There are times when I despair for the lack of common sense in my species. When the last robot had been disassembled, things began to calm down.

  Then I saw two more giant robots arriving overhead from the south—Mike and Martin. Better late than never. Unfortunately there were also two more robots coming in from the west. Columbia Brown and Agnes Spelman must have found other companies like WT&F to make replacements for the robots we’d captured. The sisters had been holding these two in reserve.

  The four robots landed in the vacant space near the stage. They were all painted matte black and bristling with weapons. Thankfully, Mike had told me he was going to paint a large “X1” on the forehead of his robot, and a similarly sized “X2” on Martin’s. Go Team Xenotech!

  Before any machine guns could be fired or missiles launched, pairs of robots grappled. The octovacs were gone, transporting components away from the Quad, so they couldn’t help. At this point I was less concerned with which side might win than I was with potential casualties if one of the giant ’bots fell over.

  Mike must have been reading my mind. He grabbed one of the enemy robots under the arms and powered them both into the sky. His boot rocket blasts were directed against the sides of one of the university’s libraries, not at any of the clumps of nearby spectators. The battle of behemoths continued hundreds of feet overhead.

  Martin and the remaining robot were no longer grappling. Instead, they were trading punches like a pair of super heavyweights. Body blow after body blow landed, sounding like crushed cars falling on steel plates at a salvage yard. The scent of overheated hydraulic oil filled the air. Spectators were giving the two combatants plenty of room, not just because of what might happen if one of them fell over, but because chunks of metal were falling off the robots’ frames whenever truck-sized steel fists landed.

  Then I looked up. The two robots in the air weren’t as high as they’d been. They were spinning together and their boot rockets were only pointed at the ground a fraction of the time. The intermittent thrust wasn’t enough. They were starting to fall. It looked like two giant robots would crash into the center of the Quad, crushing hundreds of people, when one of the robots shifted its grip and grabbed its opponent around the knees, not the shoulders. From that vantage it could control the direction of the other robot’s boot rockets and add the force of its own. The two of them were no longer tumbling together. It wasn’t even Buzz Lightyear’s falling, with style. It was a rocket propelled collision, but not with the people in the Quad. Instead, a small adjustment in vectors resulted in the second robot smashing head first into the trees in the Baker Woodland.

  The first robot managed to pull up at the last minute. It had “X1” written on its forehead. Then my phone chirped. It was Mike.

  “How did you like that flying,” said Xenotech Support’s first employee.

  “Nice,” I said. “Emory won’t thank you for taking out so many trees.”

  “They’d be a lot less happy if the robot had taken out parents and graduates,” said Mike.

  “True enough,” I said. “Well done. Please give Martin a hand if you can.”

  “Will do,” said Mike.

  But Martin didn’t need any help.

  Like the old game, Rock’em Sock’em Robots, that I’d discovered in a thrift store when I was seven, Martin had stopped throwing body blows and had shifted to defense, looking for an opening in his opponent’s offense. When he finally saw it, he threw a massive uppercut, assisted by a brief blast from his boot rockets. The punch was so powerful Martin’s opponent’s head flew off and arched into the air toward the stage. Mike and his robot caught the errant head in mid-flight and gently lowered it to the ground on a clear spot next to the stage.

  Emory security and City of Atlanta police officers pulled the shaken pilot out of the head—it was Penn. He didn’t look like he’d be escaping from prison anytime soon. Penn hadn’t been wearing his safety harness. He’d been knocked around enough when his robot’s head detached that he might as well have been the recipient of an uppercut directly from Martin. I’d bet that Princeton would be found in the pilot’s chair of the robot Mike had dealt with.

  Several octovacs had returned from wherever they’d gone to dispose of robot parts and my phone assigned them to disassemble the headless robot and its detached head. Other octovacs continued south to deal with the robot in the woods.

  Mike and Martin flew their robots a few hundred yards and touched down on two large concrete pads on either side of the entrance to the Carlos Museum on the far side of the Quadrangle. That was a smart move, because the Emory Buildings and Grounds folks would already have quite a time filling in the deep depressions left in the turf where the fourteen robots had stood. It could have been worse—at least they only had to fill in footprints.

  I was pleased to see they were restarting the ceremonies. Emory’s Facilities people wheeled out carts filled with traditional folding chairs and replaced the missing VIP octovac chairs with them. We resumed our seats. A few minutes later, the brass ensemble started playing Pomp and Circumstance again. The human speakers picked up where they’d left off and the audience—after ten minutes of terror—was glad to get back to what was usually a boring and predictable ritual. I was thrilled when Poly’s name was called to receive the Asa Griggs Candler award for academic excellence. She smiled and waved at us from the stage and my phone caught the whole thing on video.

  Pomy squeezed my hand with joy for her sister and Barbara and Perry looked proud when I glanced their way. Our seats really were great. I didn’t need binoculars to see the stage and we could hear and understand all the speakers. Several dignitaries spoke—at great length but with little substance. After an interminable wait, it was time for Queen Sherrhi to give her speech. We’d survived so far without giant robots capturing her or Terrhi. I counted that as a win.

  The Queen stepped forward, with Terrhi and Spike by her side.

  “People of Earth,” said the Queen, “esteemed faculty, distinguished guests, and graduating students…”

  The Queen took a deep breath. Even Dauushans don’t have unlimited lung capacity.

  “We have come together today to celebrate the start of a new stage in the lives of these students, and a new stage in Dauushan-Terran relations.”

  A smattering of applause came from the spectators.

  “There are three parts to this new relationship,” said Queen Sherrhi. “Firs
t, Dauush will be working with Terran pharmaceutical companies to mass produce vaccines for new diseases as they are created, so that any delays between development of a reliable vaccine and its widespread availability are minimized.”

  This announcement was a big deal and lots of people clapped enthusiastically. The Dauushans were the galaxy’s leading high volume manufacturers, and we couldn’t seem to make vaccines fast enough here on Earth. The planet had lost thirty-five million people to the Nicósn Neue Flu in 2019 because of production delays. Come to think of it, Mistress Marigold had been one of the researchers instrumental in creating the Neue Flu vaccine. She hadn’t said she’d found a similar cure for the Compliant Plague.

  “Second,” Queen Sherrhi continued, “Dauushan authorities have agreed to work with multiple branches of Terran law enforcement to stop the illegal flow of grajja from Terra to Dauush.”

  There was even more clapping this time. It was only six weeks ago that twenty Dauushans, hopped up on grajja powder sprayed on them by Earth First Militant terrorists, had gone on a mad rampage down Peachtree Street at the First Contact Day parade.

  “And third,” said the Queen, “my appearance here today is my own gambit to draw out radical Earth First Militant groups and encourage them to come forward to disrupt these proceedings. I stand before you as bait, so to speak. Until now, we’ve only been successful in capturing minor minions. Moving forward, we hope that we can learn enough from the prisoners currently in custody to identify the movement’s ringleaders.”

  There was less applause and more head scratching after this royal announcement. People were working out that Queen Sherrhi had expected a terrorist attack from the beginning and hadn’t warned any members of the audience. They were all inadvertent participants in the Queen’s ploy to smoke out her enemies. Once the spectators figured that out, it wouldn’t do much to improve Dauushan-Terran relations.