“Shit,” said Caleb, Natalie, and Spruck in unison.
“I’m sorry, Sherlock. Turn around and present your port again.” The robot did as it was told, and Caleb shut it down once more. He then took out his nerve disrupter from its holster and stuck the pointy end into the small cavity in the base of the robot’s neck.
Bert said, “That will likely permanently disable it, sir.”
Caleb pulled the trigger. The robot slumped over from its cross-legged position. The others, including Bert, stared at the heap. Caleb said, “We take it with us and dump it in deep space on the way back.” He holstered the disrupter and clapped his hands together. “OK. Chop chop. Bert, you stay and assist Natalie and Spruck getting this thing free of the container. Jen, I need you to suit up and help me reinstall the solar panels. They’re pretty beat up, but they seem like they could still soak up some juice.”
Jennifer finished getting out of the airlock as he arrived back at the shuttle. She spoke not a word but listened to instructions as Caleb had her climb up on the roof to receive the panels has he handed them up. They continued to work in silence. Finally, Jennifer said, “Can we have a private on 2?” They both switched to channel 2. She said, “Did you have to—”
He interrupted, finishing the sentence. “Kill it? Yes. That bot would not have undergone reprogramming willingly. It would have worked diligently to get back to its masters. It would have gotten us all killed. You said you have the skin.”
She was silent for a moment, then said, “I do. I’m just learning, like Natalie.”
“We’re all learning.”
“No. You clearly have a handle on this. The tough stuff anyway. I hope I’m not biting off more than I can chew.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Thanks, but gunning people down in cold blood . . .”
Caleb stopped what he was doing and tried to find her eyes through the reflective shield on her helmet. “It was a machine not a people. A computer with arms and legs.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“If you shot Bert in the head, it would be like you killed a friend of mine.”
Caleb started to protest, only to be interrupted by her this time.
Jennifer said, “But . . . but, I know, if Bert were to threaten any of us. If he was to take on the mentality of AI . . . I’d pull the trigger myself.”
Caleb began cranking in another bolt. “Good.”
Caleb and Jennifer refueled all of the ships, his pop-lock once again coming in handy with the fuel dock-lock. Twice more, Caleb threw rocks at the hovering drone, and Jennifer nearly nailed it with an impressive toss. The machine was like an annoying fly that kept buzzing at the ears but was otherwise harmless. It was nevertheless disconcerting to think of all the footage of their activity it was sending to wherever. Saanvi, meanwhile, kept a tight vigil on any unwanted company.
Spruck called out, “Um, we need help here.”
Natalie had wedged herself in the back of the generator container, her life-support pack firmly jammed between a handful of pipes running through a side wall of the container to the back of the generator. They could see only Natalie’s legs sticking up from behind the machine.
Natalie yelled, “Last fucking bolt. It’s not like this thing was meant to be ripped out of here. Not exactly user-friendly.”
“Did you get the last bolt?” asked Caleb.
“No! Fucking thing is just out of fucking reach! Can’t go farther and can’t back out.”
“Like Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit’s hole,” said Spruck.
“Winnie the what?” asked Caleb.
“Oh, come on; you can’t tell me you haven’t heard of Winnie the Pooh?”
Natalie said, “Who gives a shit about Winnie the Pooh? I need help.”
Spruck laughed. “You’ll just have to go on a diet for a week, Nat.”
“What? Fuck you, jackass! Get me out of here.”
Caleb pointed inside the container and asked Bert, as if the robot were a bad dog, “Have you tried to get her out? And why didn’t you get your skinny ass in there to remove the bolt?”
“I have attempted to dislodge her, sir. Natalie has managed to situate herself so that there is a ninety-eight percent probability that her exosuit will rip at the air exchange junction if she moves either direction. Such a tear will completely compromise the suit while leaving her with approximately a seventy percent chance of remaining lodged. As to my rear quarters, I fail to see how that could loosen the bolt. But I get the joke.”
Natalie piped in, “Annnnd my heads-up is telling me I’ve got fifteen minutes of air in the can. Maybe you guys can swap in another one while we sort this out?”
“Negative,” said Bert. “The access port on your suit, Natalie, is also blocked.”
“Wow, Nat,” said Caleb. “Been there.”
“Fuck you. Get me out of here.”
Chapter Twenty: Pooh in Rabbit’s Hole
“Heehaw! Yippie-ki-yea, motherfucker! Nailed you!” Caleb watched with deep satisfaction as the pest of a drone dropped and bounced like a dying beachball across the ground. He held up his finger like a pistol and pretended to blow smoke off the tip before putting it back in an imaginary holster.
Behind the generator container, Spruck was holding a cutting torch steady against the aluminum, the flame casting bubbly little shadows across his sweaty face.
Natalie slurred, “Guys, I’m getting sleepy.”
Spruck said, “Working on it, babe!”
Saanvi said, “Natalie. Don’t speak, hon. Just relax as best you can.”
“Also, my feet have that tingling feeling like when they are going numb.”
Jennifer stood by with a spare air canister and anxiously shifted from foot to foot, the mother planet and its magnificent rings filling the sky behind her. Spruck finished the second part of an L that would eventually become a square.. “Man, I hope this thing has enough fuel. Jennifer used a lot when we were getting off Albiorix.”
“I used what I had to.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
While he waited, Caleb bounced over to the fallen drone and kicked it, noting the Hanson PD insignia on the belly. Friend or foe? His eyebrows rose as he took in the built in laser on the thing. It hadn’t fired at them. Was it the police suit?
Twenty minutes later, Natalie was unresponsive and Spruck was only three quarters of the way to cutting a hole big enough to get her out. Caleb sat on the edge of the crater and kicked his legs, while Jennifer paced. For the hundredth time, she paused at the open end of the container and stared at Nat’s legs sticking up from behind the machine. Her eyes scanned the space in desperation for another answer before settling on a ring that was bolted to the lower center of the generator. She pointed to it and asked Caleb, “What’s this ring do?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s for hoisting and transporting the thing. My plan is to hook the shuttle’s harpoon cable to it. When we finally get it unbolted, we let the shuttle drag it out right to its back door.”
“Well, shoot. It’s just one bolt left that she was reaching for. Why don’t we hook it up now? One bolt could break, right?”
Spruck looked up from his work. “Do it! I’m not going to get in there in time!”
Caleb jumped to his feet, bouncing headlong for the shuttle. “Saanvi, get to the harpoon control and release it!”
“On it.”
He scrambled under the shuttle and grabbed the pointed end of the harpoon. It wouldn’t budge. He yanked and yanked again. “Saanvi did you release it?”
“Uh, its asking me if I want to fire. It doesn’t just unlock.”
Caleb jumped back. “So fire it!”
The harpoon buried itself into the hardened landing zone. Caleb stepped forward and pulled without budging it. “For God’s sake! Uh, does it retract manually versus automatic?”
“Uh, I think so. Hang on.”
The cable suddenly jerked, pulling the springs on the lan
ding gear down tighter to the ground, bumping Caleb hard enough on the top of his helmet to knock him to his knees. With a pop, the harpoon came free. Caleb shook the stars from his eyes and yelled, “Neutral. Hit neutral if you can.” The cable went slack letting the harpoon slowly move back and forth like a pendulum. Caleb reached out and yanked it again, pulled it free and bounce-skipped back toward the crater. “Spruck, we’re going to need some type of heavy duty shackle!”
“Attaching it now.”
Caleb jumped off the edge of the crater with the cable in tow. He landed with a bounce that sent him into a tumble. Jennifer grabbed the harpoon out of his hand and ran the extra few meters to the gennie where Spruck snapped a ring on the back of the harpoon to the shackle. “Retract the cable, Saanvi.”
The cable snapped tight, flinging dirt into the air. Caleb stepped clear as the cable quivered with tension. Inside the shuttle, Saanvi heard the landing gear creaking as it dealt with lateral forces it was never intended to support. “Um, I’m getting a flashing red warning in here. Overload.”
The container that held the genni scraped a few inches across the ground, then the cable loosened and slowly dropped to the dirt.
Saanvi said, “Uh, says safety trip. Some kind of automatic release.”
Caleb took off running for the Diamond Girl. “Jen, follow me.” He leaped up to the exosuit platform, spun his back to the hatch, and hit the lever to reattach. “I’m gonna release this one’s harpoon. Drag it over to Spruck. Spruck, we need another shackle.” He flipped open the hatch and heaved himself into the ship. He brought up the harpoon on his pilot’s display, hit release, and let it spool in neutral. “Grab it, Jenny.” He watched out the window as she came bouncing out from under his ship with the cable in tow. Spruck grabbed the harpoon from her and once again went through the procedure to attach it to the ring.
Caleb said, “Saanvi, you figure out the reset?”
“Yes.”
“On three we pull together.”
Both cables snapped taut. The generator shot out of the container and plowed through the lip of the crater, catching and shredding 782-WLawrence across the landscape like a smeared mechanical bug. Just as the generator was about to get yanked in two directions, its trajectory putting in place between to the two spaceships, Caleb hit neutral on his harpoon and watched in satisfaction as the machine was dragged to within a meter of the shuttle where Saanvi let it come to a rest.
Caleb held his arms up like goal posts. “Hah! Two birds with one stone.”
Bert said, “I have Natalie. I am heading for the shuttle.” He came leaping up from the crater holding Natalie effortlessly in his arms. The robot expertly ran to the airlock of the shuttle, which Saanvi had prepped to receive them.
Jennifer crawled out of the trench, brushed off her knees, and looked at Caleb standing in the Diamond Girl’s cockpit. “Bert still just a bot, Caleb?”
Caleb watched the shuttle’s airlock close behind the robot who gently held the limp Natalie. He pointed at the 782-WLawrence smear. “Same model as that. Programmed to save human life at all costs. Emphasis on programmed.”
Moments later, Saanvi said, “I’ve got a heartbeat. Shallow breathing.”
The gang erupted in a cheer. Then Caleb noticed the alert scrolling across the heads-up on his windshield. His long-range scanner had picked up an inbound ship. “Code red!”
“What’s code red?” asked Spruck, who was bouncing toward the generator, his tool box in tow.
“We have company coming. Fast. An hour out, max. I’m coming back out to help.” He opened the hatch and climbed back into his exosuit.
It took fifty-nine minutes to get the beast of a fuel cell generator into the shuttle, Caleb’s cop helmet flashing a proximity warning across his heads-up every minute of the way. As he, Spruck, and a surprisingly spry Natalie, sat in the airlock waiting for the ding-dang thing to de-pressurize so they could get back to their own ships, his helmet blared the warning one last time with the added note that a ship was now descending upon their approximate location. As they stepped out of the airlock, a quick glance up had them looking at the belly of a formidably armed drone. Its mother ship hovered perhaps ten kilometers above it, a heavy-duty, commercial-looking vessel of medium tonnage. The drone shifted and aimed a barrel full of who knew what at them. Static suddenly filled all of their helmets and was just as quickly replaced by a cockney accented male voice. “Steady now, lads, lass. Be a shame to spill blood. Harry Tate yaaahr business ere.”
Caleb said, “Uh. We have business here. What’s yours.”
“We’ve an interest en this ’ere site. Clear off and no ’arm comes ter you. Sorted mate.”
“Huh? This lab is off limits. You clear off.”
Spruck and Natalie both looked at Caleb with raised eyebrows. He gave them a wink as if to say, I got this.
The cockney said, “Awright geeezzaa! A distinct disadvantage you is in, in me ’umble opinion. Bugger off now or your right said Fred.”
“Huh?”
“Brown bread dead, dig?”
Caleb touched the mute button on his wrist, then spoke to his ship. “Arm and lock on intruder vessel and drone.” He could see the display in the cockpit flash colors on the interior walls, then a text scrolled across his helmet: Intruders identified and locked onto.
“Whoa!” said the Cockney. “Fancy rig yew ’ave. Cop auction? Bacon rind if we ’and, and ’ave a chat? Innit.”
“If you’re asking to land. No. You should go.”
“Gawdon Bennet! Not so fast. Let’s parlay. OK? Yaahr businesss ’ere seems dubious. Ours is potentially not aaht ov line wiv yaahrs. No poin’ wasting’ time wiv a Mexican standoff.”
Caleb looked at Spruck and Jennifer. Spruck voice-texted, I don’t understand a word this dude is saying except Mexican standoff.
Jennifer voice-texted, Ditto.
Caleb voice-texted them, They want to land and see if we have something in common.
Spruck texted, So they’re salvage workers like us?
Caleb paused for a long beat then texted, Sure.
Jennifer texted, We were about to leave anyway. Why not let them land as we take off?
Caleb texted, If they’re some type of tomb raiders, we should warn them about not cracking this place. It’s my guess that my ship is keeping us safe from any lethal force. I say we let them land. We’re in the business of dealing with folks like this now. Could be good networking opportunity.
Spruck texted, Networking? Really?
“Oye?” came the Cockney into their helmets. “We finished fnkin’ abaaht it?”
Bert texted, If it helps, sir, I can translate all languages and dialects in real time. If you wish, you can mute their side of the conversation and I can text you what they are saying in your standard American dialect.
Caleb texted back, I can understand them well enough. The helmet on this cop suit is supposed to do even better than that. Figuring it out.
Jennifer texted, I would like the translation. Thanks, Bert.
Of course, Jennifer.
Spruck and Saanvi chimed in with requests for translations also.
The nasty looking drone continued to hover over them as they watched the Cockney ship land. The ship was highly modified with robot arms and assorted pods attached to it, making it appear more like an avant-garde sculpture rather than something that could fly.
Caleb kept his ship tracking the thing the whole way in and stayed locked onto it even after it landed.
A ramp dropped from the front of the ship and three exosuited men walked out onto the surface followed by a tracked robot that looked roughly like a miniature version of its mother ship and a cousin to the nasty looking flying drone. The men’s suits were outfitted with extra packs, straps, and tools, as though they were heading out on a major expedition. The one in the middle was shorter than the other two and offered a slight bow with a roll of his right arm saying, “Bad day. Appears as thuff yew ’av already gotten started on jack t
he rippin’. We won’t get in yaahr way. Just needin’ to stretch arh scotch pegs, ’av a butchers and fetch a little sumfin from Hanson lied.”
To everyone’s helmets (except Caleb’s) Bert texted, Good day. It appears that you have already started stripping the place. We won’t get in your way. We just need to stretch our legs, have a look around and procure something from inside.
Caleb held up a hand to his companions indicating that he had this. “Yes, it seems that Hanson did lie. We are victims of his corrupt police force as well.”
The Cockney cocked his head and said, “You got white mice in your drain? We’ve da need for some gold mold een yon bonnie drab cab. Be just a Jimmy Handful of cock linnets to drill in it.” From Bert: Do you have ice in your brain? We need for a special mold from the lab over there. It will be just a few minutes to drill for it.
Caleb said, “OK. You got me. Bert, I’ll take the translation.”
While he waited for Caleb to catch up, Spruck, noting his taller stature while standing next to Caleb said, “Why is it always the little guy who is leading the bigger ones?”
“Who says I’m little?” said Caleb.
Jennifer spoke up to the Cockneys, “You can’t go in the lab. Just look what they did to seal it off.” She pointed at the hard foam covered entrance. “There is a nano pathogen in there that caused everyone in the lab to commit suicide.” She pointed at Caleb. “He and I saw it with our own eyes.”
The Cockney pointed a thumb at the industrial robot. “That’s wuf ees for. The Slant Rants pay a bloody bucket o bunse for ’t Auntie Nelly asper. X marks the spot on da room what av i en. That is what the tracked robot is for. The Japanese pay a very large sum for the smelly aspergillum mold. Bert added, I believe he means that they know where to drill for it.
“Dis Fred cab drab been our saahrce. Wacky saki dis eer asper be makin. Be done en two shakes, we will. No maar dan an argh.” This dead laboratory was our source. Powerful sake can be made with the mold. We will be quick about it. no more than an hour.
Caleb said, “Just be damn careful. The nanos won’t attack your bot, but they most certainly will go after you. Your exosuits can’t stop them.
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