I smiled at my girl, then said, “We're all fine.” I took the chance to be opportunistic since parts were like pure platinum and gold down here and the floating cities were stingy. “But we'll need to requisition a crapload of parts to get them all running optimally.”
She chuckled out, “Of course Fixit. You sure - - don't want a career - - politics? You're devious enough.”
I chuckled back, “No ma'am, then who would keep you in your supply of strawberries?”
Vash smiled at that. Strawberries were her mother's guilty pleasure. I had almost been killed for them the day I met my ebony haired ranger.
The woman chuckled and said, “I see more and more every day - - Vashon chose you, Vega. Hold tight and - - have tumbrils at your doorstep.”
I almost signed off but remembered. “Umm... remind the pilots to come in low, below the photonic shields unless they want to be in need of emergency evac themselves.”
She responded with good humor, “I'll be sure to remind them. - - Peregrine out.”
I smiled and said, “Agri-grid A1 out.”
I turned to my girl as she stopped cranking. “You're mom's coming to drive you home, love. You best get ready.”
She smiled at me and moved in seductively, draping her arms over my shoulders as she said, “It'll take them time to mobilize then do a deorbit and do a descent burn before they get here in oh, fifty minutes and thirteen point seven seconds, give or take.
By the lords of the cosmos, she knew calculating like that turned me on. Glitch and Blip trundled off quickly squeeing and warbling what sounded suspiciously like, “For the love of God,” as my Sky Guard ranger showed me what she could do in fifty minutes and thirteen seconds, right there on my office floor.
Chapter 7 – Evac
I was floating in the clouds when the next call came in over my iso-pad this time. Vash was collecting my research into rejoining her emotion with her old memories onto a storage crystal at the time.
I turned to her after I signed off and said, “Doctor Germaine's transport and a Sky Guard escort tumbril will be landing by the habitation modules in five. To evac us and take the Betweener and his fallen comrades.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at me and smiled as we moved own to the exit on the repair bay level, Glitch, Flower, Blip, and Wrongway following behind to see us off. I was complaining to them as we stepped out into the diminishing storm, keeping an eye on the light display of the rest of the storm being attenuated by the photonic shield, “Really guys, it'll be just fine. I'll be back in two weeks when the floating cities complete their descent into the gravity wakes in the lower atmosphere.”
They were acting like we were going to be away indefinitely. I had to remind them, “Who'll keep you guys and our harvesting pingers in tip top shape if I don't come back before we have to re-plant after the Perihelion Pass is over?”
I knew they were going to miss me, and I was going to miss them too. I got a sly smile on my face as I asked innocently, “Unless of course, you want to visit New Terra with us?”
All of the irises in their optical ports widened, and Glitch squealed in alarm, remembering his last visit there. They were all shaking their heads almost violently. I grinned, “I thought not.” I won't share what they said to me using their new binary language when they realized I was teasing them. Suffice it to say that Vash is wearing off on them.
We reached the modules just as the huge transport and the Sky Guard tumbril touched down. The sky guard were out first, five armed men and women jogged our way. They straightened when they saw Vashon and saluted. She pointed. “The Betweener bodies are in unit A, a prisoner in unit B in need of medical assistance.”
They saluted and took off at a jog again. When they started entering the storage units, that's when the transport's huge bay door finally lowered to become a ramp. Men and women dressed in riot gear like the Sky Guard but armed with more advanced looking weaponry and gear flowed out, followed by a concerned looking Anna Germaine and three techs.
She didn't even bother with niceties. Her scanner was already moving down Vashon's body as she reached us. She glanced at me and hissed out, “What have you done to her systems? You've butchered up almost everything...”
Vashon pushed her scanner away. “Yes, it is good to see you too Doc. What's that? How am I? Well, I'd be dead right now if Vega hadn't hacked your systems and kept my implants operational. Thank you for asking.”
The Director of Sciences looked at her a moment, the inclined her head. “Of course. Systems diagnostics?” Now I finally understood the way Doctor Germaine had treated her on New Terra when I was there last. She had started with scanning her then too when she met up with us. As much as I wanted to like the woman, she didn't see Vashon as human. She was an experiment to her. She worried about her research done with her more than the person it was keeping alive.
I tried to keep the sour look off my face as the woman raised her paddle again and scanned my girl. She was muttering, “How is this even functional? This wouldn't... she hacked the core processor? Impossible... and this harness...”
She looked up and smiled at Vash. “It is a miracle you kept your core operational. Don't worry. We'll have you fixed up and ready to present to Lady Peregrine in record time. There have been some advancements since your retrofit.”
Vash held up the memory crystal and said like she wasn't being treated like a favorite toy, “Fixit thinks it's possible to rejoin the emotional engrams with my... prior... memory engrams. We just need the original brain scans you took from me, not just from my memory regions.”
Anna blinked at her and stared at the crystal, then at me. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Whether it was because she had tried and failed in the past, or that she still suspected I was the one giving my pingers sentience.
She plugged the crystal into her isopad and flipped through my notes, her eyes widening. “So by creating a distributed learning node system instead of a central cluster... this is beyond the AI we're currently implementing in...”
She pulled the crystal and pocketed it almost greedily as she licked her lips in anticipation. Then she said, “Come along Vashon. We need to get you to New Terra before this bastardized kludge of a power harness fails.”
We started to follow her until the armed guards moved between Vashon and me, blocking my way to the transport. Their weapons pointing at me all powered up with a whine.
With roaring squees of challenge, all my pingers were in their faces, electric welders sparking in their grapplers or plasma cutting torches. A deafening horn blast sounded from Turk who started rolling over, calling the other harvesters out of the repair bay.
Glitch was actually growling, and the guards looked stunned and afraid that pingers were threatening them. I thought o myself, “That's right you crystal licking bootwaffles, my family doesn't have Asimov inhibitor chips. They can hurt you or worse.”
Vashon was there sliding between them and me, yelling, “Stand down!” They moved their guns from her and toward my family. Anna called out, “Go ahead, stand down.”
One woman said as she aimed at Flower while squinting her eyes at the plasma torch that was close enough to her face that beads of sweat were rolling down her face, “But ma'am... the pingers... they're attacking. That's not possible.”
Anna Germaine looked past them to me, then she smiled. She looked entertained as she made a lowering motion with her hand, “It's ok. Stand down. Fixit's pingers and me are old friends.”
Glitch shuddered at that.
After they lowered their weapons, Flower pivoted her orb toward me and squeed out a two-tone inquiry that sounded sort of like, “Fixit?” I nodded, and she lowered her torch, the other pingers following her lead.
The Director of Sciences said, “Sorry about that, but we knew you'd insist on coming, thus the armed escort. But we can't let you see our work up there. You shouldn't even know about Vashon. But I guess there's no getting around that now. Lady Peregrine seems to feel she is in your d
ebt.”
I blinked at that and Vashon prompted, “And you never thought to just ask?” Then her eye widened. “No. You just wanted to see how Vega's pingers would react.” She raised her voice, letting her anger show. “How the fuck do you think they'd react to a family member having guns shoved in her face?”
Germaine just shrugged and smiled. “Can't blame a girl for curiosity.” Then she got serious. “But she can't go to the bio lab with you.”
I was frustrated, but I understood. These were the black labs they hid from the Galactic Federation, the labs where they had saved Vash the first time. I'm sure I'd become a liability if I were to know the location, and I'd have some sort of unfortunate accident.
Vash looked at me, and I exhaled loudly, “It's ok love. I have work to do down here in preparation for the Pass to be over. Call me when you're ok?”
She nodded and then gave me a heated kiss that had Anna looking a little confused like maybe Vash was more human than she believed. Just wait until she tried powering her down like she had before, I left a little gift in the code for her. Then they headed into the transport. At the last second I yelled out, “And I want my original multi-tool back. Your stupid lockouts almost cost Vashon her life!”
Anna stared at me as the ramp raised, and gave me a single nod just before it shut. Good. I may be a hack that could cobble junk together to make some amazing things, but that didn't mean she could steal from me.
Now she was stealing my girl. At least I would be seeing her soon. After the End of Pass, worst case scenario.
I moved back as the Sky Guards returned with the bodies and the prisoner and I pulled back even farther with my pingers as they prepped for launch.
The engines kicked up a spray of muddy water, and I could see Vash in one of the transport windows watching me and pressing her hand against it, fingers splayed. My heart melted, and I held a hand up to her, fingers splayed. Then with a thrum, the two vehicles skimmed the ground until they were clear of the Agri-Grid and the photon shield.
Then in a flash of lightning that illuminated their hulls before they kicked in their main plasma drives to break atmosphere, they were gone.
I sighed and exhaled, whispering, “See you soon love.” Then I turned back to my pingers who were looking skyward, making sad sounds. I held my hands out, and Flower took one, Glitch the other.
I looked at my family, my protectors and asked, “Shall we go home?” With squees of agreement we walked back to the repair bay, hand in hand.
I couldn't wait until my girl called, I missed her already.
The End
---------------------------------------------
Novels by Erik Schubach
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Books in the Techromancy Scrolls series...
Adept
Soras
Masquerade
Westlands
Avalon (2018)
Books in the Urban Fairytales series...
Red Hood: The Hunt
Snow: The White Crow
Ella: Cinders and Ash
Rose: Briar's Thorn
Let Down Your Hair
Hair of Gold: Just Right
The Hood of Locksley
Beauty In the Beast
No Place Like Home
Shadow Of The Hook (2018)
Books in the New Sentinels series...
Djinn: Cursed
Raven Maid: Out of the Darkness
Fate: No Strings Attached
Open Seas: Just Add Water
Ghost-ish: Lazarus (2018)
Books in the Drakon series...
Awakening
Dragonfall
Books in the Valkyrie Chronicles series...
Return of the Asgard
Bloodlines
Folkvangr
Seventy Two Hours
Titans
Books in the Tales From Olympus series...
Gods Reunited (2018)
Books in the Bridge series...
Trolls
Traitor
Unbroken
Books in the Fracture series...
Divergence
------------------------------------------------------
Romance Novels by Erik Schubach
------------------------------------------------------
Books in the Music of the Soul universe...
(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)
Music of the Soul
A Deafening Whisper
Dating Game
Karaoke Queen
Silent Bob
Five Feet or Less
Broken Song
Syncopated Rhythm
Progeny
Girl Next Door
Lightning Strikes Twice
June
Dead Shot
Music of the Soul Shorts...
(All short stories are standalone and can be read in any order)
Misadventures of Victoria Davenport: Operation Matchmaker
Wallflower
Accidental Date
Holiday Morsels
Books in the London Harmony series...
(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)
Water Gypsy
Feel the Beat
Roctoberfest
Small Fry
Doghouse
Minuette
Squid Hugs
The Pike
Flotilla
Books in the Pike series...
(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)
Ships In The Night
Right To Remain Silent
Evermore
Books in the Flotilla series...
(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)
Making Waves
Keeping Time
The Temp
Books in the Unleashed series...
Case of the Collie Flour
Case of the Hot Dog (2018)
Case of the Gold Retriever (2018)
-------------------------------------------------
Novellas by Erik Schubach
-------------------------------------------------
The Hollow
Books in the Paranormals series...
Fleas
This Sucks
Jinx (2018)
Short stories in the Fixit Adventures...
Fixit
Glitch
Vashon
Descent (2018)
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Short Stories by Erik Schubach
(These short stories span many different genres)
-------------------------------------------------
A Little Favor
Lost in the Woods
MUB
Mirror Mirror On The Wall
Oops!
Rift Jumpers: Faster Than Light
Scythe
Snack Run
Something Pretty
Vashon Page 6
