First’s footfalls echoed through the space, joined soon thereafter by another’s. It was just her and Soolie now. Alone in the hall, not twenty paces apart.
Well, not completely alone.
First yanked her handheld from a pocket and opened an icon she’d set aside days earlier.
“Navigator!” First shouted into her handheld between pants as the greeting vestibule came into view. “Execute Mecha Plump!”
Ahead of her, the Fonald Plump avatar that had been frozen in repose with no one to greet came shuddering to life. It looked around the hall, then down at its giant hands before it started to cackle with glee.
“Android Plump is baaaaack!” it bellowed through the huge compartment, filling every nook and cranny with its voice. It turned to where First had slid to a stop, mouth open, questioning her choices over the last few minutes. Soolie, similarly preoccupied, froze in place ten paces behind her and trained his weapon at the mechanical monster.
The avatar glanced down at its feet. With a screech of tortured metal, it snapped off the bolts holding it to the pedestal, sending the nuts pinging and ricocheting off the walls like bullets from a gangster’s tommy gun.
“Oh, hey, Duchess Harrington.” The immense android trained its vision on her. “It’s you again. How was the Fengar show?”
“Great,” First lied.
The avatar regarded her torn and sweat-stained outfit. “Can I refer you to a clothier? We have many fine dress shops on the—”
“That’s not important right now.” She pointed at Soolie just a few meters behind her. “This man just shot one of my friends.”
“How is that my problem?” Mecha Plump asked. “Sounds like your friend shouldn’t have gotten into a fight with a man with a gun.”
“He shot one of your security guards!”
Plump shrugged. “Occupational hazard. They knew the kind of work they applied for.”
“But he’s a career criminal!” First screamed.
“Good!” Plump responded. “They’re some of my best customers.”
“Heh.” Soolie loosened his shoulders. “I’m starting to like this guy.”
First’s eyes rolled back hard enough to get a good look at her own brain stem, but then the answer occurred to her.
“He ducked out on a ten-credit bar tab.”
“He did what?”
There it was …
Suddenly, Soolie wasn’t so jovial. “I did not, you karking liar.”
“You dare accuse royalty of lying?” First said, placing a hand on her chest as if struck.
“You’re no royalty. You’re a sewer skimmer.”
“I don’t think he even made the minimum million-credit deposit when he came on board,” First said to Mecha Plump.
The android’s eyes quite literally glowed red. “No deposit?” it shouted. “No deposit!” Then, it took off toward Soolie at a dead run. The sharp, sonic boom report of Soolie’s laser pulses rattled off one after the other as Plump’s avatar charged forward, burning deeply into the statue’s unarmored center mass. But true to the man himself, it was mostly hollow, and the rounds struck only veneer and air before melting through the mecha’s back.
The last thing Soolie the Fin saw in this existence was the ridged soul of Mecha Fonald Plump’s giant metal shoe as it sped toward his upturned face.
First cringed as the gore slowly spread across the marble tile floor. “Well, that was … horrible.”
“You’re telling me.” Mecha Plump lifted his foot and uprooted a nearby potted tree to scrape off the remnants. “Look what he did to my shoe! Do you know how hard these are to get in my size?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but yes, you’re right.” First lifted her handheld to her face to whisper, “Navigator, you should probably go ahead and restore his safety settings now.”
“Oh, sure, an illegal AI goes on one killing rampage and suddenly people are all—”
“Navigator,” First said with forced patience. “I’m not really in the mood for a philosophical discussion on the thorny issue of the rights of artificial intelligence while I’m only two strides away from a giant mechanized statue wiping blood off its foot, okay?”
“Fine, but we will talk about this later.”
“Thank you.” She closed the screen and opened the burst com. “Hashin, Sheer, get down here right away. Jrill’s been shot, Loritt’s spread over half the ship, and we have another problem waiting outside.”
CHAPTER 28
They found Jrill by following the violet trail of blood to the nearest first-aid station.
“What took you so long?” she asked as she finished cauterizing her own wound.
“Tough damned vulture,” First marveled.
“You’re alive,” Jrill said. “So I take it Soolie is dead?”
“About as dead as you can get.” First shuddered at the fresh memory. She really had not liked Soolie by the end, but still. “It was ugly.”
“Good.”
“Where are the bits of Loritt I left with you?”
Jrill pointed to a container on the table with one of Loritt’s ears peeking out over the top, trying to get a listen.
“He can’t hear us like that,” First asked. “Can he?”
“No, but his ear will remember and tell him.” Jrill shifted uncomfortably. “Did it work? Is the ship clear?”
“Didn’t see a soul on the way down here,” Sheer said. “Except a Grenic actor. But I think we can ship him over before he realizes anything happened.”
“I also saw no one,” Hashin confirmed.
First picked up the tub of Loritt’s parts. “Hey, shitbird, can you move?”
Jrill nodded. “Not quickly, but I’m mobile.”
“Good. Get up to the command cave. The rest of Soolie’s people are outside in the Towed, and it won’t be long before they get restless.”
“They stole our ship?!”
“That’s how Soolie got on board with a gun undetected,” Hashin said.
“Karking pirates will pay for that.”
“Sheer, help Jrill. Hashin, grab a bucket and come with me.”
They found the two pieces of Loritt she’d dropped climbing the ladder. Soolie had stomped one of them flat out of spite, and suddenly any residual quantum of sympathy First held for the method of his end disappeared. The chunk of Loritt was most certainly dead, but they found the other hiding under the decorative hallway molding nearby.
By the time they reached the switch junction where the fight had gone down, Loritt was, mostly, leaning naked against the bulkhead.
“Boss, are you all right?” Hashin asked.
Loritt glanced down at the cavity in his upper left chest and poked at it with a finger. His left primary arm hung limp at his side, and his left secondary arm was missing entirely. “I’ve been better.”
“Jesus, man,” First said. “Get yourself together.” She tipped over the container of his parts, which all gleefully bounded or crawled over to rejoin their community. When they’d finished reintegrating, First leaned down to look him in the eyes. “Better?”
“A little.”
“What’s the damage?”
“Half a lung, a pectoral muscle, left upper bicep, spleen, two lymph nodes, small arm, a riblet, and a, well, my urethra.”
“I could’ve done without that last bit,” First said.
Loritt smirked. “I can’t.”
“Ew.”
“Boss,” Hashin interrupted. “It’s not over. We have to get to the command cave.”
With a groan, Loritt set his legs and pushed himself up the wall until he was back on his feet. “Lead the way.”
“Maybe put your clothes on before we do that?” First suggested, covering her eyes and pointing at Loritt’s crumpled outfit.
“If the lady insists.”
“I definitely do.”
* * *
Sheer, Jrill, and Fenax were already waiting for them on the other side of the command cave doors.
“What’s our status?” Loritt asked as First and Hashin helped settle him into the captain’s chair.
“The Towed is flying in close formation off our starboard,” Jrill said. “They’ve been sending over increasingly frequent and frantic hails since we sat down.”
“Where do we stand with the, ah, evacuation?”
“All occupied modules have been released,” Hashin said. “Scans confirm what’s left of the ship is empty except for the six of us—oh, and the Grenic.”
“Send a distress signal to Garlopin Station to let them know to come out and pick up the poor dears while their fuel cells last,” Loritt said. “Let no one say we didn’t look out for the safety of our fellow sentients.”
“And the hails from the glotheads who stole our ship?” Jrill asked pointedly.
“Yes, about them.” Loritt picked up his limp left arm and set it across his lap. “I suppose it would be too optimistic to assume this ship has any offensive capabilities?”
“We could ram them, if we convinced them to shut down their engines and float in place,” Jrill said. “Otherwise, no.”
“Right.” Loritt picked a bit of carbonized char off the edge of the hole Soolie’s shot had burned into his shirt. “Hashin, put them through—audio only, please. They don’t need to know half of us are half-dead.”
“Channel open,” Hashin acknowledged. “Audio only.”
“It’s about time, Fin,” an unfamiliar voice said across the void. “The boys and me were getting worried.”
“I regret to inform you that I can do nothing to dissipate your apprehension,” Loritt said in a measured tone. “This is Loritt Chessel, recently promoted to captain of the Change Your Luck. To whom am I speaking?”
“Where’s Soolie?” the voice demanded, taking on a honed edge.
“He’s late. As in, the late Soolie the Fin. My condolences. Still fishing for your name, however.”
The line was silent for several rakims before, “How did he die?”
“Squishy,” First said. “We’re going to need a mop. We’ll send the bucket to his next of kin, if you like.”
Loritt waved her off. “Please excuse my associate. She’s still a little emotional over your former boss’s attempts to kill her. But I must insist on knowing whom I’m speaking to.”
“Name’s Rirez, and I guess since you killed the boss, that makes me captain of this lovely little ship of yours. And all of its toys. So here’s how the next larim goes down. We come alongside, board, and take over your prize like civilized people, or we put a beam through your command module and do all that other stuff anyway.”
“Now you’re lying, and that’s just disrespectful,” Loritt rejoined. “We both know the Goes Where I’m Towed doesn’t mount offensive armaments.”
“Ahhh,” Jrill cleared her throat. “Sir, a word?”
Loritt’s head rolled over to his tactical officer’s station. “You have got to be kidding me.” Jrill shrugged apologetically. Hashin turned to his station and innocently busied himself with a com system diagnostic. “I see. We’ll talk about this later.”
“That’s fair,” Jrill said.
“Assuming there is a later,” Fenax observed.
Loritt took a moment to compose himself before answering. “‘Captain’ Rirez, my apologies. It seems your threat has some teeth to it after all. Regardless, we have taken legal possession of this vessel under Assembly Charter Statute 372.6, Section B. Our repossession contract is available upon demand. You are thereby engaged in an act of space piracy, at least your second, considering you’re transmitting from the captain’s chair of my karking ship.”
“That’s all true, Mr. Chessel,” Rirez said. “However, since you just did us the enormous favor of ejecting all the potential witnesses to this act of piracy, I rather like my odds. So if you’ll be a good sport and just sit still … for … what’s that buzz—”
The line went abruptly dead.
“Hashin, did they drop the connection?” Loritt asked.
“No, boss. The line is still open, but…”
“But what?”
“I’m not sure. I’m getting multiple signals on the same channel. They’re interfering with each other. I can’t make sense of it.”
“Show me,” Loritt said.
“Routing it to the main display,” Hashin said.
A composite feed from the Luck’s eternal cameras appeared on the cave’s view screen. In the space just beyond their starboard bow, their gray, nondescript, plucky little home away from home rapidly flickered through space like it was trying to fly off in six different directions at once.
“What’s happening to the Towed?” Loritt demanded.
“It looks like…” First’s voice trailed off and she swallowed hard.
“It looks like what?”
“The timeflies after we defused the bomb,” First said. Everyone slowly turned to look at Sheer.
“Sheer?” Loritt said. “Do you have anything to share with the rest of the class?”
“I, ah, kept them.”
“You kept them?” First said. “The zombified, causality-violating bugs we all agreed should be thrown into a black hole for the good of the universe? Those them?”
“I meant to get around to dumping them, but we’ve just all been so busy. Somebody must have knocked the tank over and let them loose.”
“The bomb thing was months ago.” Jrill said. “Shouldn’t they have starved by now?”
“I may have slipped them occasional scraps,” Sheer admitted sheepishly. Everyone stared back at her indignantly. “Look, I felt bad for them, okay? They’d already been through a lot.”
“We should blow up the ship,” Jrill said with finality.
“And risk throwing little bits of multiverse paradox all over the space lanes?” Hashin asked. “Hard pass.”
“Drop a navigational hazard buoy next to it,” Loritt said. “Set it to keep station next to Towed and warn off any ship that comes near. Can we pilot it remotely?”
“Which version of it?” Hashin asked.
“I see your point,” Loritt said.
“Couldn’t one of those eventualities still fire on us?” Jrill asked.
“I think they’re all dealing with bigger issues just now,” First answered.
“True enough.”
Loritt stared at the display for a long time, eventually falling into melancholy. Sheer was the first to try to break him free of it. “Hey, boss. It’s okay. She was a good boat, but after we drop this heap off with the bank, we can afford a new one.”
“No,” Loritt said. “It’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
“I’m trying to figure out how to spin this to the Towed’s insurance carrier in a way that won’t get our policy canceled.”
“Oh,” Sheer said. “Good luck with that.”
CHAPTER 29
Between three days running what was left of the Change Your Luck out to its creditors in the Burquel system, who were not happy about its condition, two days haggling with them over the final payout, three days back to Garlopin Station, three days convincing port security there that the Buzzmouth was legitimate salvage, and the monthlong trip back to Junktion on board a jerry-rigged ship that smelled exactly like the inside of its namesake, almost three months had passed since First last set foot in her apartment.
As soon as the door slid shut behind her, First dropped her bags on the floor and ran over to where Quarried Themselves sat on their reinforced couch. First threw her arms around one of Quarried’s legs and hugged them tight for long enough that even the Grenic would register the gesture, then grabbed a pillow and comforter from her bed and made herself a little nest among her roomie’s limbs. First watched maybe ten minutes of the third-season opener of Rocks in Hard Places at real speed before falling into a deep, unblemished sleep.
First woke some ten hours later with an incredibly stiff neck and her right arm still fast asleep. The episode had not yet conclu
ded. Quarried hadn’t moved, except to gently hover a protective hand over her. It took some effort to maneuver around, especially with one dead arm.
She showered under genuine hot water for the first time since her cabin on the Luck, which went a long way toward sorting out the stiffness in her neck and brought her arm fully back to functionality. The raven roots of her hair had begun to reassert themselves against the aquamarine blue of her duchess disguise, but looking back at herself in the steamed mirror, First didn’t mind. The duality suited her. She’d pretended to be someone else for so long now that the different identities had all blended together. She may as well advertise the fact.
The ceiling chimed an incoming call while she toweled off. First groaned. “Accept.”
“Good morning, First,” Loritt said. “How did you sleep?”
“Like the dead,” she said. “Meaning I’m stiff as hell. I thought you gave us the week off.”
“I did indeed. Regardless, I’d like to invite you to join me down in Bay Ninety-Four.”
“Why?” First wrung out her towel into the sink. Water was still a valuable commodity on Junktion. “It’s empty. The Towed is a marked space-time anomaly, and the Buzzmouth just got auctioned and towed off for parts, thank god.”
“Can you just this once do something I ask you to without the interrogation of my motives, please?” Loritt asked. “I’d consider it a personal favor.”
“Fine,” First said. “See you in half a larim.”
She took her time drying her hair and getting dressed for the occasion, whatever it was. As a precaution, she aimed low with sweatpants and her torn Whitesnake T-shirt. She was on leave, after all. Office dress didn’t apply.
First grabbed a pod on autopilot, both herself and the pod, and somehow managed to get out at the right stop instead of taking the return trip right back to her tower’s station and crawling into her actual bed.
Starship Repo Page 30