Starship Repo

by Patrick S. Tomlinson

  “All right, if you insist.” First stood up from the IT desk. “I’ll meet you down there in a half.” The connection dropped. First locked down the network and shut everything off. She considered leaving a message for Quarried, but she’d be gone and back by the time the Grenic had a chance to listen through to the end, so instead she grabbed her jacket and closed the door behind her.

  Making the docks from the interior in half a larim was a rush at the best of times, but it was the middle of most beings’ workdays, and First found favorable tailwinds. She made it to their secure slip in the private docks with time to spare. From the bulkhead, she could just see Hashin pushing something bulky on a cart. She called out in greeting, but he passed through the All-Seal before hearing her.

  No matter; she’d either catch him inside or on his way out. First settled onto a bench and waited for Sheer to arrive. It wasn’t a long wait.

  “Sheer!” First stood and waved as her chitinous friend scuttled through the bulkhead. “You look … pink.”

  “The proteins in my carapace darken as they harden. Give it a few days. How can I help?”

  First pointed to the All-Seal. “Step into my office, we have … oh, he’s done already.”

  Hashin came back down the boarding ramp, minus his cargo. He noticed the two of them sitting on the bench and took a hard left for the door.

  “Hashin!” First waved. “Hold up!”

  He locked eyes with her and doubled his gait. “I’m busy.”

  First jogged to intercept him. “Sheer’s out of her nest. Come say hi.” She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

  Instead of turning around, a hand snaked up and clamped down on First’s wrist with stunning speed and pressure. Before she knew it, First spun around and landed flat on her back. Her side cried out in pain from the rib held together with glue, but she’d come up on the mean streets of PCB and knew how to keep her wits, even when caught flat-footed.

  First focused through the fireflies buzzing across her vision and saw the foot coming down on her face just in time to duck out of the way. Instead, the foot caught her hair against the deck, costing her a clump as she jerked away from the blow.

  Now, she was pissed.

  First didn’t know enough about Lividite anatomy to know where their vulnerable spots were, but she was sure as hell going to learn. With both hands, she grabbed the foot with her hair still trapped underneath it and twisted hard. At the same time, she brought her right leg up to knock out Hashin’s knee from behind. The combination sent him sprawling backward and to the right to avoid tearing the ligaments in his leg, which was suddenly being held at a very unusual angle.

  The Lividite tried to stay upright on his remaining foot, but First brought her other leg up and swept it out from under him. She’d been in a scrap or two and knew two things about a street fight. They almost always ended up on the ground, and few people knew what to do once they landed on their backs.

  The ground was the great equalizer. The ground gave you the chance to push away, escape, or jab an opportunistic thumb in an eye. Nobody liked a thumb in the eye. Not even aliens, provided they had them, and Lividites had two great big oval ones.

  But even as First flipped and threw a leg over Hashin to take a superior position, his skin grew dark and slick with a viscous oil.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, Hashin?” First screamed at him.

  “That’s not Hashin!” Sheer shouted from the sidelines.

  First looked over at Sheer, What? queued up on her lips, but it was cut short by a knee to her injured ribs. She doubled over and quickly found herself on the bottom of the scrum, except now her opponent was greased up like a pig at the McCoy Family Reunion.

  First managed to kick away and get a ragged breath into her lungs, over the objection of her broken rib. The imposter Hashin tried to pull away, but First kicked his leg out from under him again, and they were back scrambling around on the floor like two pats of butter on a hot skillet.

  Then a new voice appeared, and the whole calculus of the fight changed irrevocably.

  “Why are Hashin and First fighting?” Jrill asked, surveying the fracas outside the Goes Where I’m Towed in confusion.

  “That’s not Hashin,” Sheer said as she and Jrill watched First wrestle on the floor with the doppelgänger.

  “So who’s on First?” Jrill asked.

  “Shut your goddamned beak and help me!” First shouted as she struggled with the Lividite. The imposter reversed and got the upper hand, pinning First to the deck.

  Jrill reached down and grabbed the imposter by the shirt and lifted him bodily into the air, but he wiggled out of it and left Jrill holding the empty, oil-soaked garment. She took a swipe at him with her other hand, and her claws connected, leaving three deep gashes transversely across his shoulders as he scrambled to get away.

  “Sheer, don’t just sit there. Intercept!” Jrill shouted.

  “Sorry, no strenuous activities. Doctor’s orders,” she said as the assailant slid past.

  First got to her feet, then almost fell flat on her face again from the patch of oil the Lividite left behind. Jrill gave chase, but he already had a step on her and made it to the door before disappearing into the crowd.

  “How’d you know it wasn’t Hashin?” First asked Sheer as she stood there panting.

  Sheer waved one of her chemical-sensing fan antennae. “Smelled wrong. Hashin uses a different brand of moisturizer.”

  “What the hell was that all about?” Jrill said between hard breaths once she returned to the slip.

  “Whoever they were, they got on board the Towed somehow,” First said.

  “What did they take?”

  “Nothing,” First said. “They left something behind, though.”

  “What do you mean ‘left something behind’?”

  “I don’t know, a crate or something.”

  Jrill and Sheer looked at each other and cursed in their respective tongues.

  “What?” First asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “What does someone usually break into a place to leave behind?”

  It took a moment for the answer to detonate in First’s brain.

  “Oh, that’s bad.”

  “You think so?” Jrill pulled out her handheld and linked to Loritt. “Boss? Better come down to the ship. We have a big problem.”

  * * *

  Half a larim later, First, Jrill, Sheer, Loritt, and Hashin—the real Hashin—stood over the package their uninvited guest had left next to the Towed’s reactor bulb shield casing.

  “So,” Loritt said. “How karked are we?”

  Sheer put down her portable positron scanner and crossed her eyestalks. “Up the cloaca with a laser drill.”

  “That sounds … thorough,” Hashin said.

  “Oh, it is.” She laid the scanner down flat on a nearby bench and fed its findings into an overhead diagnostic screen. “What we’ve got is a good old-fashioned chemical explosive wrapped around a copper cone, a shaped charge. About as primitive as you can get. But the jet of liquid metal it would create on detonation is more than hot and focused enough to burn right through our reactor’s casing and pierce the core.”

  “And that’s bad,” First said.

  “It’s ‘back half of the ship is reduced to molecules and the hard radiation renders this slip and three others in each direction unusable for a dozen cycles’ bad.”

  First swallowed. “Shouldn’t we be calling the bomb squad or something?”

  “No,” Loritt said. “This is personal. We’re handling it in-house. Which is why now Sheer is going to share her brilliant plan for disarming it.”

  “Sorry, boss, but no.” Sheer pointed at two blacked-out areas on the scan. “The explosive isn’t the only primitive thing about it. There’s no computer, no data ports, no wireless—it’s completely analog. No way to hack into it, and these dark areas, they’re coated with some sort of metamaterial that makes them opaque to even a positron scanner.�
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  “What are they, do you think?”

  “They’re junction boxes for all the wires, probably battery boxes, too. Thing is, I can trace which wire goes to what right up until they enter those boxes. Then I have no idea what’s coming out the other side, so I can’t draw up a wiring diagram.”

  “So you can’t know which wires are safe to cut to disarm it,” Jrill said. “Dead simple, but dead clever, too.”

  “It’s kind of beautiful,” Sheer said. “From a purely engineering perspective.”

  “I’d admire the craftsmanship more if it weren’t pointing a dagger at my ship’s heart,” Loritt said. “Can’t we just remove it?”

  Sheer’s eyestalks bobbed. “Nope. The little piece of glot welded it to the deck, and these leads here look like grounding wires to me. If we cut it free, it knows it’s not attached anymore and blows up.”

  “So what’s the trigger?” Hashin asked. “If there’s no wireless or radio antenna, then it can’t be detonated by remote, right? So what will make it blow? A timer?”

  Sheer pointed at a sensor near the edge of the device pressed against the reactor casing. “This looks like a gamma detector. Pretty sure it’s meant to send a signal once the reactor powers up. We spool it up for departure, boom!”

  “Insidious,” Loritt said. “Even if you hadn’t spotted our friend delivering it, whoever planted it has to know it’d be discovered before we got under way. This is a leash meant to keep us tethered to port and out of action.”

  “Watch your back,” First said. “Our mystery friends strike again.”

  “Not so much of a mystery,” Loritt said. “Any idea who the Lividite imposter was?”

  “He wiggled away before I could ask,” Jrill said.

  “How hard is it to follow a half-naked, oil-slicked Lividite through a crowd?” Hashin said.

  “Have you seen all the weirdos on the promenade lately?” Jrill clapped back.

  First snickered. “Define ‘weirdos.’”

  “Enough,” Loritt said. “We can worry about the interloper after we’ve dealt with the bomb. Sheer, you really can’t see any way to neutralize it?”

  “Not without seeing the future, boss,” Sheer said. “I’m sorry.”

  First rubbed her chin. “Seeing the future…”

  Hashin perked up and turned his large almond eyes her way. “You have something?”

  “No, well, maybe … actually, yes.” First drew herself up. “I have a plan. It involves a sewer and some nets.”

  “So just like the rest of our plans lately,” Jrill said.

  “No time for haters,” First called back as she raced out of the compartment, suddenly full of energy. “I’ll be right back.”

  * * *

  “Bilge,” First called down the sewer tunnel, shining the light from her handheld to keep her bearings. She double-checked her location on the tunnel schematic. This was the place, provided Bilge hadn’t moved on to happier hunting grounds.

  “Bilge? Are you here? It’s First. I could use a, um, tentacle.”

  An eyestalk popped out of the sludge. “Oh, greetings, First,” the voice came from behind her. She turned to see the swirling mass of tentacles and teeth rise out of the water. “Are you hear to listen to that Welsbar piezo-electric?”

  “Next time, I promise.” She held up the four butterfly nets in her arms. “Right now, I need you to go on a hunt with me.”

  “What’s our prey?”

  “Timeflies.”

  Bilge’s tentacles quivered. “Ha! I’ve been down here for cycles. Never caught a one. Annoying little bastards.”

  “You haven’t.” First held out a pair of nets. “And I haven’t, either. But I think both of us together can. If we coordinate and come at them with a net from every direction at once, they’ll be boxed in. No escape.”

  “Why bother?” Bilge said. “There’s not enough meat on them to matter.”

  “I need them for … let’s just say something else.”

  “I don’t know. I’m pretty busy.”

  “What if I threw in a backstage pass to a Wolverines concert?”

  Bilge’s eyestalk bulged even more than usual. “The Wolverines, from Earth?”

  “The one and only. I kinda know the lead singer.”

  Two tentacles reached out to snatch the nets out of First’s outstretched hand. Not out of aggression but exuberance.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  First smiled. “I thought you might say that.”

  * * *

  First reappeared in the Towed’s engineering bay to four concerned faces, and Fenax, who still looked concerned.

  “Where have you been?” Loritt demanded.

  “And what’s that smell?” Sheer added.

  “I know where she’s been,” Jrill said, “and you don’t want to know.”

  First stuck out her tongue, then set the little aquarium down on the maintenance table nearest to the bomb.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you”—First pulled the old shirt off the tank she’d been using to hide the contents, revealing its buzzing, bumbling inhabitants—“the Firstname Lastname Timefly Predictive Engine!”

  “Oh no,” Hashin said. “She’s gone around the bend.”

  “We’re all going to die,” Jrill said.

  “Wait, hear me out.” First held up a hand to interrupt the growing pessimism. “These things’ nervous systems exist a few rakims in the future, right? That’s the only reason they’re so hard to swat. So, when Sheer opens the bomb up and prepares to snip wires, if they all drop dead, we know whatever she’s about to do sets it off and she can stop herself from doing it.”

  “That’s genius,” Fenax said, watching from the command cave.

  “That’s insane,” Jrill said.

  “They’re usually the same thing,” Loritt said. “Sheer? What do you think? It’s your shell on the line.”

  “No.” First shook her head. “It’s my idea. I’m staying, too.”

  “You don’t have to do that, First.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Hashin stepped up. “Someone should assist Sheer. I’ll do it.”

  “Oh, lord,” Loritt said. “I can see where this is going. So are we all staying or…” Everyone raised a hand or claw. “Right. Fenax, you want off this bucket?”

  “I’m comfortable up here, boss,” the pilot said from their socket.

  “All right, I guess we’re doing this.” Loritt leaned back against a bulkhead and waved a hand at the bomb. “Proceed.”

  It didn’t take long for Sheer to remove the bomb’s outer housing and get at its internals, almost like whoever’d built it was so confident in their cleverness that they wanted their victims to be able to marvel at their masterpiece with their own eyes.

  Mistake number one, First thought.

  Sheer set the last exterior panel aside. “All right, we’re in. This bundle of wires here connects to the detonator; they’re the ones I need to cut to disarm it. All I need is the sequence. So what now?”

  “Pick a wire,” First said. “Very clearly announce your intention to cut it. You have to believe in your mind you’re going to cut it in just a rakim or two. Commit to it. Only stop if I say so.”

  “So there’s no confusion?” Loritt asked. “What’s the signal to stop?”

  “I think Stop! is clear enough, don’t you?”

  “Fair.”

  “All on the same page?” Sheer asked. “Good. Hashin, please hold up the bundle and space the wires as far apart as you can so I don’t snip two of them by accident.”

  Hashin nodded and obliged, splaying the bundle out as much as he could.

  “Okay.” Sheer’s mouthparts twitched nervously. “I am cutting the yellow wire with white stripe in three, two, one…”

  First watched the flies for any hint of change in their behavior, but nothing happened, so she stayed quiet.

  Snip!

  Everyone flinched as the click of Sheer’s claws coming
together echoed in the silent compartment. But they endured.

  Jrill patted herself down. “Well, I don’t feel exploded.”

  “Neither do I,” Loritt agreed. “Continue.”

  “Cutting the green wire with gray stripe, in three, two, one…” Sheer announced.

  Snip! Still no boom!

  Hashin exhaled slowly. “Even if it doesn’t explode, this is taking cycles off my life.”

  “Wait,” Loritt said. “Did you actually take an anxiety-promoting pill?”

  “Yeah, of course. Nervosin.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I wanted to share in the moment with everyone.”

  “This isn’t one of those moments sane people want to share in, Hashin.”

  “Anyway,” Sheer said. “Cutting the orange wire, black stripe in three, two, one…”

  Nada.

  “Two wires left, red and a blue,” Sheer said.

  “Because of course they are,” First said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just pick one and let’s go home.”

  Sheer adjusted her stance and brought her claw to bear on the blue wire.

  “Cutting the blue wire in three, two—”

  With shocking abruptness, all ten of the timeflies in First’s little case dropped out of the air and hit the bottom with a synchronized plop.

  “Stop!” First screamed at Sheer even as her pincer started to clip through the wire’s insulating plastic. Sheer froze in place. “What should I do?”

  “Nothing. Do nothing at all.”

  “Wait,” Hashin said. “If she doesn’t cut the wire, do the timeflies stay dead? Doesn’t that violate causality?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” First said. “Just don’t cut it or we all go up like the Fourth of July.”

  “Like the what?” Sheer asked.

  “Like fireworks! Big-ass fireworks!”

  Slowly, gingerly, Sheer released her pincer from the wire and stepped back.

  “Cut the red wire instead,” First said. “Then the blue; that’s your sequence.”

  Sheer followed her instructions. The bomb remained inert. It was officially disarmed.