Starship Grifters (A Rex Nihilo Adventure)

by Robert Kroese

  I hoisted Ted into the shaft first. He wasn’t happy to be returning to the prison, but he went along in exchange for a promise that we’d take him with us when we left Gulagatraz. He was blathering some nonsense about fulfilling the mission of the Knights of the Chaotic Equilibrium; I wasn’t paying much attention, as I was occupied with shoving Fingers through the shaft from behind. Lacking elbows, Fingers had a considerable amount of trouble scrabbling through the narrow tunnel. I helped as much as I could, but I was also burdened with Fingers’ demolition pack, which was tied with a length of rope to my left ankle. Finally we clambered up into Ted’s cell, exhausted.

  “All right, Fingers,” I said, untying the rope from my ankle and handing the heavy pack to him. “You know what to do.”

  He nodded and headed to the door.

  “We should probably wait in the tunnel,” I said to Ted. “Fingers, as soon as the charge is set, get in the tunnel and pull the mattress over the opening. Make sure you give yourself enough time. When we hear the blast, we’ll climb out and go find Wick.”

  Ted and I climbed back into the tunnel, leaving just enough room at the opening for Fingers. After a moment, he joined us and pulled the mattress over the hole. We waited in the crowded tunnel.

  “What did you set the timer for?” I asked after about thirty seconds had passed.

  “Ten seconds,” yelled Fingers, who had his fingers in his ears. “It should have gone off by now.”

  “Hmm,” I said. We waited another thirty seconds. “Are you sure you set it for ten seconds and not ten minutes?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Fingers yelled. “I’ve used these triggers a hundred times. It was definitely set for ten seconds.”

  We waited a bit longer.

  “Maybe the detonator is defective?” asked Ted from behind me.

  “I doubt it,” yelled Fingers. “Those detonators are pretty reliable.”

  “Loose wire?” I asked.

  “Nope,” yelled Fingers. “I’m telling you, the timer and detonator were set correctly. And I used all the sand we brought.”

  “Well, something has clearly gone wrong,” I said. “Maybe the . . . wait, what are you using sand for?”

  “Remember, I gave all the explosives to General Issimo,” yelled Fingers. “Rex said when I ran out of zontonium charges, I should use sand. They didn’t teach us how much sand to use at the academy, though, so I used all of it.”

  Rex’s voice crackled over my communicator. “Status report, Sasha. What’s going on up there?”

  “The team is experiencing some chemistry problems,” I said. “Nothing I can’t handle. Sasha out.”

  “The sand isn’t going to work, is it?” asked Fingers, pulling his fingers out of his ears.

  “No,” I said. “It isn’t. Now get out of my way.”

  We climbed back into the cell.

  “OK,” I said. “New plan. Preferably one that doesn’t involve using an inert substance as an explosive.”

  “I’ve got it,” said Ted. “The Knights of the Chaotic Equilibrium are masters at using clever ruses and persuasive techniques. Simply make a commotion to get the attention of the guard, and I will use my Chaotic Equilibrium powers to compel him to help us.”

  “That sounds pretty good,” said Fingers. “Let’s do that.” He moved to the door and started yelling, “Guard! Hey, guard!”

  “Shhh!” I hissed. “Let’s think this through a bit. Ted, I don’t mean to deprecate your grasp of the mysteries of the Chaotic Equilibrium, but if you were capable of hypnotizing the guards, why didn’t you do that instead of spending the last eighteen years digging a tunnel with a spoon?”

  Ted shook his head sadly. “I’m no good at making commotions,” he said.

  “Leave that part to me,” said Fingers. “I was the top of my class in Commotions at the academy. Does anyone have a metal cup or a police whistle?”

  “This isn’t going to work,” I said. “Even if we could lure the guard into the cell, what would we do with him? We have no weapons. Fingers can’t very well strangle a guard in his current condition, and I’m congenitally incapable of attacking anyone.”

  “Guess I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way,” said Fingers. “Guard! Guard!”

  “Stop that!” I hissed. “I think I’m on the verge of coming up with a workable plan. If you just let me think for a minute, I could . . . wait, I’ve got it! Ted, lure the guard inside the cell and then—”

  When I regained consciousness, I was lying on my back on the cell floor and a guard was pummeling my face with a nightstick. I heard the clang of the cell door closing and looked up to see Fingers and Ted in the corridor outside.

  “Keep him occupied,” called Ted. “We’ll go find Wick.”

  I nodded as best I could, given the fact that I was still being pummeled with some vigor. The situation was actually progressing better than I had expected.

  Apparently noticing Ted and Fingers for the first time, the guard leaped to his feet and ran to the door. “Hey!” he yelled. “Come back here!” He grabbed his personal communicator and hit the transmit button. “Security command station, this is—”

  I got to my feet, plucked the communicator from his hand, and dropped it on the concrete floor, smashing it under my foot.

  “You little metal creep,” he growled, raising his painstick.

  “Before you attack me,” I said, raising my hands and taking a step back, “you should know that I’m incapable of violence against your person, and that therefore any belligerent action upon me can only be a reflection of your own frustration, as understandable as that frustration may be under the circumstances.” I stepped over the mattress.

  “Furthermore, while one cannot deny the benefit of a cathartic burst of violence, you’re not going to accomplish anything by attacking me other than demonstrating that you are a fascist thug with no capability for independent thought.” I grabbed the edge of the mattress, holding it up as a shield as he approached with his painstick raised. “Also,” I said, snatching a keycard from the guard’s belt, “watch your step.”

  The guard’s eyes went wide and then he disappeared. The sounds of screaming and cursing gradually diminished as he rolled head over heels down the steep tunnel. I tapped my communicator. “Sir,” I said, “a prison guard is on his way to you.”

  “Got him,” said Rex. There was a sharp noise like the sound of a vodka bottle hitting a skull, and then silence.

  I moved to the door and reached the keycard through the bars, waving it in front of the sensor plate. The door swung open and I ran toward Ted and Fingers, who were some twenty yards down the hall by this point.

  “That was genius the way you froze back there,” Ted said. “The guard was so surprised, he didn’t even see Fingers and me sneak out of the cell behind him.”

  “Yeah, I’m full of brilliant ideas,” I said. “Most of them seem to result in me getting my face beaten in. How do we get to Collateral?”

  “Stairs through here,” said Ted, opening a door to reveal a winding staircase. We ran up four flights to get to the Collateral level, exiting into a corridor just like the one we left.

  “How do we find Wick?” I asked Ted.

  “We reach out through the Chaotic Equilibrium,” said Ted. “Like this.” He took a deep breath and hollered, “IS THERE A PRISONER HERE NAMED WICK?”

  Murmurs arose from the cells.

  “Shhh!” I hissed. “You’re going to attract every guard in the prison!”

  “You got a better idea?” asked Ted, making his way down the corridor. “Try freezing up again if you think that will help. WICK!”

  “Hey, let me out!” yelled an inmate from a cell nearby. Soon the corridor was filled with the sounds of prisoners begging to be released. Somewhere down a side corridor I heard someone yell, “Sasha! It’s Wick!”

  “Thi
s way!” I called, heading down the corridor.

  “Sasha!” cried Wick’s voice again. “I knew you and Rex would come back. I told them I wasn’t supposed to be here, that it was a big misunderstanding, but they wouldn’t listen.”

  “Yep,” I said, stopping in front of his door. “Big misunderstanding.” I swiped the card in front of the sensor and the door swung open. “Let’s go.”

  The four of us ran back down the hall toward the stairs. As we neared the door, though, three guards with lazeguns emerged. “Stop right there!” one of them yelled.

  “Elevator!” I shouted, ducking down another side corridor. I pushed the button and we dived onto the elevator as the guards let loose a barrage of lazegun fire. Fingers, who wasn’t used to running with no arms, lost his balance and fell to the floor. Wick tripped over him, falling headlong and smacking his head against the far wall. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. The doors slid shut and the elevator began to drop.

  “We did it!” Fingers exclaimed, excitedly waving his fingers in the air.

  Then the lights went out and the elevator stopped moving.

  “What the hell?” said Fingers. “Did the power go out?”

  “Impossible,” I said. “This whole place is powered by the . . . uh-oh.” I tapped my communicator. “Sir,” I said, “we’ve got a problem.”

  “I know,” Rex replied over the communicator. “That son of a bitch did it. Somehow General Issimo found the reactor core and took it out with twelve kilos of explosives and eight kilos of sand.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Fingers, bend over,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “I need you to give me a boost to that access panel in the ceiling. Ted, give me a hand.” The elevator was dark except for the glow of my headlight.

  Fingers crouched down and I climbed up his back and planted my feet in his hands, steadying myself against Ted. Fingers straightened up and my head smacked against the access panel, jolting it out of place. I pulled myself through the hole and climbed on top of the elevator. Above me I heard confused shouting.

  Inspecting the sides of the shaft, I could see there was no room to climb down past the elevator. The only way out was up. We had dropped more than two floors before the power cut off; just above knee height were the doors to the floor directly beneath Collateral. If we could get through those doors before the guards figured out what we were doing, we might be able to get back to the stairs and take them to the bottom level. The trick was going to be getting Fingers and Wick—who was still unconscious—through the access panel.

  I crouched over the opening, shining my headlight into the elevator. “Ted, see if you can boost Fingers high enough that I can grab his hands.”

  Ted nodded and crouched down, wrapping his arms around Fingers’ knees. He grunted and strained to lift Fingers, who was a bit hefty even after his recent weight loss. Above me I heard the guards attempting to pry the elevator doors open. “Hurry!” I hissed.

  But it was no good. I was holding the elevator cable with one hand and reaching as far as I was able into the elevator with the other, but even straining to reach as high as he could (which was just above his own ears), there was a good hand-length between my fingers and Fingers’ fingers. Then something cracked.

  “Gaaahhh!” howled Ted, falling to the floor. “My back!”

  “I see one of them!” shouted a voice from above me. I looked up in time to see a guard leaning into the elevator shaft with a lazegun. He fired, blasting a hole in the top of the elevator. I moved toward the access panel. “Hold my legs steady!” said the guard. I looked up again to see his whole upper body hanging into the shaft. I leaped aside as he fired again. The beam shot through the access panel, blasting a hole in the floor of the elevator and barely missing Ted, who was still lying on the floor moaning in pain. I jumped through the access panel, landing on Ted. I felt something in his spine crack.

  “Aaaugh!” howled Ted.

  “I’m sorry!” I cried. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, no,” said Ted, sitting up and rubbing his lower back. “It’s much better now, thanks.”

  The lazegun blasted another hole in the ceiling.

  “Do you think you can climb down through that hole?” I said to Ted, indicating the smoking gap in the floor. “It may be our only way out of here.”

  “A Knight of the Chaotic Equilibrium cowers at no task,” announced Ted. “But maybe you should go first.”

  There was no time to argue. I lowered myself through the hole to the bottom of the shaft, which turned out to be only a few meters down. Standing on the bottom, I reach my hands up into the elevator. “It’s not far,” I said. “Come on!”

  Just then there was another lazegun blast. I heard the sound of a steel cable snapping and suddenly the elevator lurched downward, landing on the bottom of the shaft with a terrible crash. I found myself standing in the hole I had just lowered myself through, the floor of the elevator just above my ankles. As the elevator abruptly halted, Ted and Fingers fell to the ground and I heard something crack.

  “Gaaahhh!” Ted howled. “My back!”

  Thinking quickly, I jumped on his spine.

  “Aaaugh!” he screamed. “What are you trying to do, kill me?” He lay on the floor of the elevator moaning, his face contorted with pain. Above us, another section of the ceiling disappeared in a lazegun blast.

  “Fingers, get those doors open!” I yelled, wrapping my arms under Ted’s armpits to drag him to safety. Wick had pulled himself to his feet and was rubbing his head, looking around groggily.

  Fingers stood at the opening, awkwardly pulling the doors apart with his stunted limbs. Soon he had them a hand’s width apart.

  “You’ve got it, Fingers!” I said encouragingly as a lazegun blast demolished the rest of the ceiling. “Just a little more!”

  “This is as far as I can open it!” said Fingers.

  It was true. Fingers’ hands were as far apart as he could get them.

  “All right,” I said. “Spread your legs.”

  Fingers did so, and I crawled backward through his legs, dragging Ted with me. I managed to get my head through the door opening and then twisted my shoulders to squeeze them through. I shouldered the doors the rest of the way open and pulled Ted through as another lazegun blast tore through the floor. “Wick!” I yelled. “Crawl through Fingers’ legs!”

  Wick was still foggy, but a lazegun beam grazing his cheek woke him up a bit. He scrabbled through the opening. Fingers tumbled through after us, letting the doors slam shut.

  “We’ve got to get Ted back to the tunnel,” I said to Fingers. “Grab his feet.”

  I moved as fast as I could backward, with my arms wrapped around Ted’s chest and Fingers holding on to his ankles. Ted continued to scream in pain, clutching his back. Wick tailed behind, still rubbing his head. All around us, prisoners jeered at us and clamored for their release.

  The guards were close on our tail by the time we made it back to Ted’s cell, so there was no time for niceties. We tossed Ted into the tunnel and I dove after. Fingers and Wick followed close behind. We tumbled down the tunnel and landed in a heap on top of the slag pile. I heard a loud crack and Ted screamed again.

  “Aaaugh!” he said, rubbing his back. “That’s more like it.” The four of us tumbled down the pile to the floor.

  Rex was sitting in his chaise lounge observing the scene with a martini in his hand. The unconscious guard was tied to one of the thick robotic legs that served as the Flagrante Delicto’s landing gear.

  “Quick!” I yelled. “Untie that man! Get on the ship! We’ve got to get out of here!” I heard someone in the tunnel clambering down after us.

  “Not necessary,” said Rex calmly. “I found the ship’s remote control. Observe.” He held up a small device and pressed a button. The ship’s landing gear contracted,
folding the unconscious guard inside a recessed area with a crunch and causing the ship to drop with a crash to the concrete floor.

  “Whoops,” said Rex. He pressed the button again and the landing gear shot out, restoring the ship to its previous height. After a moment, a bloody mass of something vaguely guard-like fell from the recess and landed with a thud on the concrete.

  “That was an accident,” said Rex. “What I meant to do is this.” He pressed another button.

  As he did so, a guard leaped from the ceiling to the slag pile, aiming his lazegun at us. “Fr—” he said, and was vaporized by a lazecannon blast. A few seconds later, another guard landed on the pile. He got as far as “F—” before being vaporized. The next three didn’t manage a single consonant between them.

  “I could do this all day,” said Rex, grinning like a madman. “How long do you think it will take them to figure it out?”

  Quite a while, evidently. We soon lost count of the number of guards who ended up as lazecannon fodder.

  “I’m getting bored,” Rex said eventually. “Anybody else want to give it a shot?”

  “Shhh!” I said. “What’s that sound?” I had heard a sort of scraping noise coming from somewhere in the dark expanse of the landing bay. Had the prison guards found another way in?

  We all listened as the scraping turned into a metallic banging.

  “Does anybody else smell bacon?” asked Rex.

  “Hey, guys,” called a voice. “Can you help me with this grate?” It was General Issimo.

  I ran in the direction of the sound, finding a ventilation grate high up on the wall. Wick boosted me up to the grate and I unscrewed it with my screwdriver appendage. The general, filthy and naked but apparently unhurt, climbed down. We walked back to the ship, where Rex was still absently blasting guards as they dropped from the ceiling.