“Is that you, Chunglie,” Isamary hissed. He was crouched behind a desk waving his gun blindly. There was a locked door opposite the hole I’d entered. “I can hear someone moving but I can’t see a thing.”
“Never tell people you are blind in a gunfight,” I said. “You’re not a warbot. Where’s Daisy?”
“She said for me to wait here and she would clear a route out of here. We seem to be in the offices.”
“What gave it away- the desk you’re hiding behind or the pencils stuck in your fur? With your deductive skills, you could be a detective.”
“There’s no need for sarcasm, this is my first war.”
“This is a light skirmish, kid,” I said, trying to tone down the sarcasm. I checked my weapons and found them to be good. “Let’s go find the marshal and LB.”
I opened the door a crack and peeked out. The corridor beyond was dark and there were bodies on the floor. Well, bits of bodies. I wondered how many Rehd Shirts there were.
“I wonder what happened to Doc and Schemiedan?” Isamary asked. “Do you think they’re okay?”
“Probably, they’re not the kind of people to die off screen.”
I scuttled to the end of the corridor, yanked open the door, peeked out and found four Rehd Shirts peeking back. The duckfoot pistol dropped them in one shot. I looked out on a large warehouse. There were three Starfighters parked along the far wall and pallets of boxes stacked in the middle.
“Wonder where they got those,” I said. “No one’s built a Starfighter for centuries.”
“Never mind that,” Isamary said. “Where’s my dad?”
“Never mind that- duck!”
The Rehd Shirts had spotted us and opened fire. I leapt on Isamary and carried him to the ground as Daisy returned fire. Neshers stood out in the open, guns held sideways, and easy targets for a warbot. But the Curran crept through the pallets, staying in cover.
“Thanks, Chunglie, I can’t seem to get my head around this battle thing.”
“Focus on staying alive, kid. Your dad would never forgive me if I got you killed.”
Rehd Shirts ran at us from all directions. The Curran were bolting large calibre weapons to the floor. It wasn’t looking too hopeful. In slow motion, I reared up, targeted all my guns and cut loose. A fifty calibre hole appeared through Daisy. A blast burned away my favourite two limbs. Another holed my third segment.
It looked like the rescue mission was over.
CHAPTER 19
Under the circumstances, the sound of the roof bursting and a large yellow taxi falling to the floor was a relief. InyagoM crushed a machine gun nest and Doc and Schemiedan piled out, shooting.
“I’ve got you,” Isamary yelled, grabbed my second segment and dragged me across the warehouse floor. I looked back. Daisy toppled as a third hole blew through her hull. A golden braid dropped to the floor in slow motion. Production values were that high.
“I’m okay,” InyagoM declared. “Nothing a bucket load of cataloy can’t fix.”
It burst into flames, Rehd Shirt bodies flew through the air. We reached another cluster of offices and Isamary beat in the door with his great grandmother’s gun. Probably the best use he’d made of it so far.
“Why don’t they build fire proof machines?” Doc asked, piling in behind us. “I mean, we got flame resistant pillows and couches now, but shoot a couple holes in a car and boom! Up it goes.”
The readouts on my cyber dashboard were flickering. The oxygen pump that pushed air through my body had stopped. I turned it off and then on again. Oxygen started flowing, I would live.
“Can we focus on finding the marshal, people?” I said.
“Look at that!” Isamary pointed. Schemiedan had drawn both swords and attacked. A graceful ballet of death ensued as he spun, slashed and leapt his way through a group of Rehd Shirts. I was jealous because I have fourteen left claws.
“Be easier just to shoot those guys,” Doc opined.
Isamary shoved his gun out the door and blasted away until the power pack was empty. The trigger clicked, and he leapt back into cover as the Rehd Shirts returned fire.
“Congratulations, kid,” Doc said. “You’re the first person in history to shoot at a group of Rehd Shirts and not hit a single one.”
My sensors were working, and I had my breath back. I reloaded my weapons and cocked the triggers with a satisfying click.
“Okay, by now the marshal will have freed LB and the kids and led them to cover. We just need to find them and—”
The shot came out of nowhere and blew a hole through Schemiedan’s back. He dropped to one knee and Fouler Welch ran out of cover and shot him in the chest.
“Son of a bitch,” Doc shouted and ran out the door with both guns blasting. I followed. There were Curran in the rafters, I dropped them. It seemed like we were moving in slow motion. Bodies toppled forward off the rafters. For a moment, I was happy. Then a shot hit Doc and blew her to a cloud of feathers. I spun, saw a gun at an office door and cut loose. The last Rehd Shirt fell to the ground as I took a shot in the second segment. I staggered, twisted into a ball and dropped.
“You okay?” Isamary asked. He was kneeling by my head, I had no memory of how he got there. I looked round at my body, counted eight functional legs and stood.
“I’m fine, go find your dad, but be careful.”
I covered him as he kicked open office doors, and by that I mean I tried to stay conscious while the kid did the work.
“I sent a team in to execute the marshal and her deputy,” Fouler Welch growled. He limped out of hiding, holding a pistol as if it was the heaviest thing in the world.
“She already found a way out,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “Harry is smarter than your whole gang put together.”
He dragged one leg as he circled me. There was blood over his stomach and his tail was gone. The gun seemed to get heavier.
“You’re all shot up, Bug.”
“I’ve seen you looking better.”
He laughed, or growled, hard to tell difference. I holstered the only flegmatic pistol with charge left in it.
“I’m old school,” I said. He stopped moving and looked me over. Licked his lips. “I passed a coffee machine, over by that wall.”
“I have people in a ship in orbit. But I can’t be seen to lose my crew and run away, you understand.”
“Of course. I think you should stay here and die.”
He looked at the gun in his hand. So did I. It was a ghastly purple, with gold scroll work. Hideous, but functional.
“I’m not the one who will die here.” He raised the gun, I drew, and we fired. The heat of the blast scorched my antenna. My shot caught him in the chest and he dropped on his face.
“I give that fall a nine,” I said. “Points for going down on your face but the finish was an untidy sprawl.”
Isamary came running back. He had smoke coming from one charred ear.
“I found them, barricaded in an office at the back. Dad shot my ear before I could say it was me.”
“Is the marshal okay?”
“She’s fine. I helped her un-dislocate her thumb.”
“That’s nice.” The floor rose to meet me and the lights went out.
CHAPTER 20
The lights came back on and I was looking at a row of upside-down faces. They had cute big brown eyes and a burst of long hair on top of their heads. They chattered in a language I could not place. My AreUAsleepApp, indicated I was awake but pulsed a small electric shock through my brain just to be sure. Definitely awake. I drew my head up and looked around. I was in the office and a robot medical system was cementing my carapace back together.
“Told you he wasn’t dead,” Marshal Harry said. She was sat at her desk, LB had the chair in front and Isamary was tying his left leg in a sling. It matched the sling on his right arm for sheer incompetence. The cute faces were attached to hairy bodies hanging by long hooked toes from a frame. There was another frame set up agains
t the wall, with another row of cute hangers on.
“This will not work,” LB told his boy. “How am I going to get around?”
“I’ve got a floatiechair for you,” Isamary said. “That will carry you to the ship and we’ll get you a real hospital once we are back home.”
“About that—”
“Who are all these people hanging about?” I asked.
“These are Loow’s kids,” Isamary said, grinning. “They don’t have anywhere else to go, so the marshal said they could sleep here tonight. We’ll take them to Drover’s Moon tomorrow, there’s a Heedyin colony there.”
“Any Rehd Shirts left?” I asked hopefully. My body ached all over and I was in the mood to shoot someone.
“No, apparently Daisy Tubes wasn’t as badly damaged as she looked,” LB said. “She finished off the last of the fighters before she headed home.”
“Damn.”
“You’ve had enough action for one day,” Marshal Harry said. “You were in a comma for six hours, people were getting worried.”
“Six hours?” I checked my cybernetic chronometers, and couldn’t believe it. “I must be getting old, getting shot full of holes never used to keep me down for more than an hour.”
“Comes to us all,” LB said. Isamary began winding a bandage over his head.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“When Marshal Harry dislocated her thumb and freed everyone, I helped jump the guards in the room with us.”
“And that’s when you got hit on the head?”
“No. Then we tried taking the kids out a window but were beaten back by perimeter guard bots.”
“Oh right, that’s when you got hit on the head?”
“No. Then we picked up the fallen Rehd Shirts’ guns and fought our way into a corridor. We heard someone coming and hid in a room.”
“That was me,” Isamary admitted. “Looking for you guys. I kicked open the door—”
“And smacked me in the head with it.”
“I said I was sorry,” Isamary said.
“I know you did, but you are a big lad and that was a heavy door.”
“How about,” the marshal interrupted. “We go over to the bar and put Loow Alsh’s murder to bed?”
“You know who did it?” I stated.
“When I was lying there with a bag over my head, I finally realised what had been bothering me from the start.”
“A reconditioned warbot and its owner shooting each other?” Isamary asked. “Because that seemed unbelievable to me.”
“No, I—”
“The door being shot from the inside?” I guessed.
“No, I sol—”
“All the money except the shroom being stolen?” LB took a shot at it.
“No! I worked those out,” Marshal Harry said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
“I want to see this,” LB said.
“I’ll get the floatiechair,” Isamary said, heading for the cupboard.
“Don’t bother, I’ll manage.” LB pulled the sling off his back leg and we limped across the street after the marshal.
“It was one or more robots,” I decided, as I looked around the lounge. “We found no organic residue, and it takes real firepower to blow holes in a warbot’s hull armour.”
“You’d think so,” Harry said. “Scan the safe and those blast holes in Sam.”
We did. I had Isamary under my claws and Long Barnacle leaning over me.
“He blew the safe with a shaped charge,” Isamary said, running his fingers around the hole. “I can see that from here. I bet the other holes were made by explosives, too.”
“Absolutely right,” Marshal Harry said.
“I didn’t serve five years in the Cubs for nothing,” Isamary said. “I learned things.”
“You’re saying someone used small explosives to blow holes in Big Sam,” I said. “And then shot the holes, to make it look like a powerful gun did it?”
“That’s my theory,” Marshal Harry said.
“But why?” LB wondered. “Blast the front door, blast the office door, okay, I could see someone doing that to get at the safe. But why make holes in Big Sam after disabling him?”
“To hide the obvious,” Marshal Harry said. “Anyone got smokeweed?”
LB held up a black stick. I didn’t ask where he got it.
“Light it, please.”
“If you want a smoke,” Long Barnacle said, reaching for his satchel. “I’ve got something even better for humans.”
“That will do,” Marshal Harry said. She took the smouldering stick, climbed onto a table and held it under a smoke detector. Nothing happened. She blew on the embers and the smoke alarm shrieked.
“Oh no,” I said. “We’re going to get—”
The sprinkler system activated, pouring expandable foam into the room. Guaranteed to get everywhere, I’d be picking dried foam out of crevices for weeks. I drew a flegmatic pistol and checked it was on stun. I had a feeling I would need it.
“Fire!” the marshal shouted. “C’mon, everyone shout, nice and loud: fire!”
“Fire!” I had the volume on my voice box maxed. Well, I am the deputy marshal, I have to join in however daft the order. The others looked confused but joined in. The wall between the lounge and the bar opened with a click. A Hublian male stumbled out of a hole carrying a large bag and a gun.
“Armed marshals, drop your weapon,” Marshal Harry said, but the Hublian aimed his weapon at her.
“Anyone moves and the girl gets it,” he said. His scaly green skin was covered in a cryogenics suit. It even coated his webbed hands in plastic.
“I am not a girl,” Marshal Harry said. “I’m a twenty-six-year-old detective marshal.”
The Hublian side stepped to put the marshal between him and my gun. I could rear up for a shot but not fast enough to beat his finger.
“You have to get past me to reach the front door, and the staff out back are armed,” I said.
“Drop the gun and we’ll take you alive,” Marshal Harry said.
“The bar staff won’t stop me,” he scoffed, backing away and pulling the marshal with him.
“Then you have to get past us,” Long Barnacle said, moving a hand towards his holster. “And you murdered our friend. Drop the gun.”
“Make me, you steaming pile of—”
I fired... twice.
Marshal Harry’s eyes opened, rolled up into her head and closed. I’d never shot a human before and worried the stun setting was too powerful.
“C’mon, Marshal, we need you to explain what just happened,” I said. The eyes stayed shut. “Okay, do it.”
LB poured a measure from an ancient bottle into a shot glass, pinched Harry’s nose and poured it into her mouth. Harry choked it down and sat bolt upright.
“That was quick.”
“I think it was a reflex,” LB said, peering at his patient.
“Marshal Harry, do you know me?” I asked, waving a claw in front of her face. She smiled beatifically.
“Jim.... You’re... Jim.”
“More,” I said. LB shrugged, tossed the cork and emptied the whole bottle into the marshal.
“What the hell happened?” Harry spluttered. I could tell she was angry, she never uses the H word.
“I shot both of you. Stun setting,” I said. “Sorry, but it was the only way to save your life.”
“Ah...” Harry looked around. Isamary was holding the Hublian by the ankles in one hand while he took a selfie. Then he traded with his dad, and Long Barnacle held the Hublian trophy while Isamary took a picture.
“Why are they doing that?” she asked.
“They’ve never been the good guys before,” I said. “They’re recording the moment for their social media pages.”
“Fair enough, they stopped him getting out the back way.” Harry climbed gingerly to her feet, smacking her lips. “Why is everything green? Do I want to know what was in that drink?”
“Probably not,” I
said. “Ancient Moordenaap recipe. So tell us how you worked out that guy was hiding in the wall, and who the hell is he?”
“He’s the first owner of the bar, Oui Lee Big,” Harry announced. That got an open-mouthed stare, and LB held Oui Lee higher to peer at his muzzle.
“The first owner of the bar?” he said. “How did you know? None of us were around when he was here, not even Doc.”
“When Oui Lee Big disappeared, they found only a hand. People can survive without a hand. It occurred to me that he might have escaped his debtors by...” The marshal pulled the hidden door wide. “A cryogenics pod. A timer wakes him every fifty years. He exited, saw Loow sitting over there outlined by the poster and fired.”
A camera eye on the cryopod looked at Harry, looked to Oui Lee Big and said: “Sorry, boss, I heard shouts of `fire` and thought I better let you out.”
“Smart technology,” Isamary said, poking the cryopod. “Not so smart.”
“He went straight for the safe in the office, didn’t find the cash and worked back from there,” Marshal Harry walked over and swung the vault in Big Sam’s chest shut.
“But Big Sam would have protected Loow,” I pointed out.
“Oui Lee bought Big Sam, so I bet he had a backdoor and admin privileges to Sam’s operating system. But leaving the warbot turned off would have been too obvious, so he covered his tracks by making holes in Sam.”
“Chunglie said this bag must have the loot from all the robberies in it.” LB held up a holdall sealed in an evidence bag. “So we kept it safe for you. Unopened.”
“Proud of you, Dad,” Isamary said. “You didn’t even try to keep some of the cash.”
“Hey, I might cut corners, but I’ve robbed no one. Marshal Harry, Chunglie tells me you are short-handed,” LB said.
“Usually,” Marshal Harry admitted. “Sometimes things happen all at once.”
“In that case, I volunteer to join the Marshal Service as your deputy. If you check my record with our military police, I’m sure you will find me suitable.”
That stopped me. Isamary stared at his father.
“You can’t become a marshal at your age,” he said. “What will Mum say?”
When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set Page 17
