by Henry Vogel
Suddenly, the robotic arms jerked to a halt, the claws sprang open, and I fell. By sheerest instinct, my hands groped for a handhold. I caught one of the claws with my left hand, arresting my fall, but immediately felt the claw slipping through my sweaty palm. I made a desperate grab for the robot’s arm with my right hand, catching it just before my left hand lost its grip.
My elation proved short-lived, as the entire upper half of the robot slowly bent toward the pool. I pulled my feet up and managed to hook them over the robot’s shoulder. As the first robotic claw dipped into the acid, I wrapped my left arm around the robot’s head and pulled myself up to sit on its shoulders. I shoved myself onto my feet with my hands, bent my knees, and sprang from the robot’s slowly tilting back.
For a split second, I stared down at the acid a meter beneath me. Then I crashed down to the floor next to the pool and slid to a stop. It wasn’t the most graceful landing, but it was definitely one I could walk away from.
A hand grasped my arm, pulling me up. Then Kath asked, “Are you okay?”
I let her help me to my feet, noting she held my blaster in a white-knuckled grip. A glance back at the robot showed Kath had shot it so many times that most of its lower chest was gone. As I watched, the last bits of metal connecting the top and bottom halves of the robot broke. With a soft splash, the robot’s top half disappeared into the pool.
Wrapping an arm around the girl, I gave her a quick squeeze. “Thanks to you, I am.”
Even as she returned the hug, Kath handed the blaster back to me. “I think I broke it. It stopped working after a while.”
Taking the gun, I checked the power meter. Yep, the power pack was depleted. Disentangling myself from the girl, I changed packs. “It’s not broken, just out of power.”
I gave myself a mental shake to clear the images of my near-death experience and looked around the hydroponics room. Other robots went about the business of tending to the crops, paying no attention to us, just as they had when I first came into the room. Though, now I understood why the AI’s valuable robots were doing work humans could do. No person could sit still and watch the robots kill dozens of teenagers without rebelling against the AI.
The door we’d come through was closed, but I saw no sign of the children or any of the fully functional robots. Four damaged robots rolled in circles between us and the door. I made a quick count of the destroyed robots. Adding in the four circle-spinners, thirteen of the robots were out of commission, leaving about a dozen chasing after the children. Without weapons or any kind of leadership, those kids had no defense against their pursuers.
“Are you up to running after the others, Kath?”
“I’m up for anything that gets me away from that pool,” the girl said with a shudder.
“I know exactly how you feel, Kath,” I said, taking off toward the door.
Half a minute later, I scooped up my discarded pad, used one of the wristbands to open the door, then Kath and I sprinted after the others. I remembered the path back to D Section, but would the three kids who’d come from there? And even if they did, would the other kids follow them?
Faced with that uncertainty, I stopped at the first cross-corridor and listened. Sounds echoed oddly, but I thought I heard robots to our right. I turned that way only to stop when Kath grabbed my arm.
“Not that way,” She pointed to the left. “They went this way.”
“Are you sure?”
Kath nodded. Praying her younger ears were more sensitive than mine, we raced down the corridor to the left.
“Um, what should I call you?” Kath asked as we ran.
I was tired of playing the Captain and said, “My name is Nancy.”
“Nancy. Got it.”
A couple of minutes later, we reached another cross-corridor. Again we stopped, but this time I didn’t need Kath’s superior hearing to know which way to run.
From the right corridor came the sounds of screaming children and blaster fire.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Arktu's New Allies
I dashed down the hallway, one hand checking my supply of blaster power packs. I counted four spare packs—more than enough for the coming battle, but far too few for me to keep running through packs indiscriminately. But whoever was down there with the teenagers had a blaster, too. God knows I could use the help, but who was it? Maybe the Fringer mercenaries had caught up with us?
Then I rounded a corner and the whole scene lay about forty meters ahead of me. Huddled in a big group, the teenagers slowly backed away from the robots. A blonde-haired, coltish girl—Lilla—stood between the group and the robots, chiding the kids to keep moving. She kept her laser pistol pointed at the robots, ready to shoot if a clear target presented itself. But the robots paid little attention to Lilla and the other children. In a flurry of motion, the robots wheeled and spun, claws clacking as they grabbed at a figure moving among them.
Sko, blaster in hand, twirled, twisted, ducked, and rolled through the pack of robots. With so many robotic arms reaching for him, he couldn’t stop moving nor could he make any plans beyond his next dodge. As I charged around the corner, he found just enough time to snap off a shot. With a clatter, one of the metal arms reaching for him blew free and clattered to the floor. Then he was moving again, searching for another spare second in which to fire.
“Kath, stay back until this is over,” I called over my shoulder as I ran to join the melee.
I resisted the temptation to fire while running. I could aim so I wouldn’t hit Sko, but I risked missing the robots entirely and hitting one of the kids, instead. Worse, fatigue dragged on me. Not only had I been on the move all day, I’d been involved in two firefights already. If I were a marine—not something I’d ever wished for in my life—fatigue might not be as big of an issue. But I’m a pilot and this kind of running and fighting isn’t something I expect to do often, or even at all. I was huffing before I’d covered half the distance to the fight.
“Help is coming, Sko!” I called between gasps for breath.
My intention was to alert Sko I was here. Instead, I distracted him. Sko’s head spun my way, a grin spreading across his face. He should have kept his eyes on the situation around him. As he came out of a roll, a claw snaked down and grabbed his gun arm. Another snagged his other arm and the third closed around one leg.
I slid to a stop, raising my blaster in a two-handed grip. But even as I brought the gun to bear, the robot lifted Sko until his body blocked the robot’s head and torso.
“What must I do to stop you, Captain Nancy Martin? Why will you not die?” Arktu’s voice boomed from a dozen robots at once.
“I guess I’m just stubborn like that,” I replied. Turning my aim on another robot, I added, “Release Sko and let us all go, or I’ll blast more of your precious robots.”
“Yes, I am certain you will do exactly that. Further, I am certain you will destroy more of my valuable robots regardless of what happens here.” Arktu paused for a moment as if considering something. I knew that had to be a programmed affectation, something to make the computer appear more human. AIs—even insane ones like Arktu—don’t need time to consider things. “As a result, I refuse to accept your demands. However, I have my own demand.”
The AI paused again, waiting for me to ask about the demand. Well, I wasn’t playing its game.
“I don’t care what your demand is—the answer is no.”
The arms of the robot holding Sko pulled in different directions, stretching Sko’s arms and his leg taut. Sko’s face screwed up in pain and a gasp escaped his lips.
“If you had but listened to my demand, you would know that I will have my robot pull Sko’s arms and leg off if you do not accede to my demand.”
“Don’t do it, Cap-”
As soon as Sko spoke, the robot jerked on his arms and leg. Sko’s eyes closed and his mouth snapped shut to keep a scream from escaping.
A bright light flashed from behind the robot. Then another and another. The
robot’s arms went limp, the claws opened, and Sko dropped to the floor. The robot’s head lolled in a circle and I spotted three round holes burned into the back of the head. The teenagers gave out a cheer as the light flashed again. It was Lilla firing her laser at the robots.
“I could use some help, Nancy!” Lilla called.
She was right about that. Without the explosive effect of a blaster bolt, Lilla had to shoot until she managed to burn through something vital.
“Hit the floor, kids. I don’t want to shoot you by mistake.”
As the teenagers dropped flat on the floor, I opened up on the crowd of robots. Then Sko rolled onto his back and joined in from the floor. Blaster reports echoed down the corridor as I walked slowly toward the robots, firing all the while. Realizing the robots couldn’t grab him without first presenting themselves as a target for him, Sko stayed on the floor. He rolled around to get out of the path of any approaching robot, but otherwise was in a great position to shoot robots.
Arktu eventually decided its best chance lay in grabbing some of the kids—something a sane AI would have figured out much earlier. Then again, a sane AI had programming blocks against harming humans. By the time Arktu reached that conclusion, only four robots remained functional. At my shouted warning, the children jumped up and ran away from the remaining robots, making it simple for Sko and me to run up behind the robots and blow their heads off.
Before the last robot’s head stopped bouncing down the hallway, Sko lifted me off my feet, swung me around once, pulled me into his embrace, and kissed me soundly. We only broke our lip-lock when we heard giggles coming from all around us. Opening my eyes, I found Lilla, Kath, and the rest of the teenagers gathered around us.
Flashing a grin far more knowing than someone her age had any right to flash, Lilla asked, “Do you want to borrow my compartment when we get back to D Section?”
I watched color rise in Sko’s cheeks and was surprised when I felt the same in my cheeks, which drew more giggles. Deciding to play to the crowd, I kept my arms around Sko’s neck, laid my head against his shoulder, and replied, “I’m going to need a few hours for that, and I don’t think we can spare the time right now.”
Amidst the laughter, I released Sko and asked, “How did you even get here? The last I saw, Mauris and Milla were going to lock you up.”
“Those two rely too heavily on respect for their authority and not enough on proper precautions. After we reached the room, Mauris tried to shove me bodily into it. I think he was showing off for Milla, something I ruined by knocking the breath out of him with a punch to the gut. I took their lasers and my blaster, took some things off their wrists that open the doors, and locked them in the room.”
Lilla added, “I found him wandering the corridors, trying to figure out where you went. After my talk with you, I couldn’t pass up a chance to help you, so we followed you. We’d still be trying to figure out where you went if Sko hadn’t heard the chase.”
“Thank you for believing in me, Lilla.” I looked around at all the kids. “Do any of you think Arktu is your friend and protector anymore?”
Sko and Lilla looked puzzled, but the other kids gave a resounding “No!”
“Good, because I’m going to need all the help I can get if I’m going to put an end to Arktu’s rule of the ship.”
A stunned silence met my pronouncement. Teenagers goggled at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a second head or something. Then an undercurrent of whispered comments sprang up around me, none of them loud enough for me to hear. I could only assume they were questioning my sanity.
“I don’t know about all these young ones, but I am with you, my Captain!” Sko exclaimed.
Lilla rolled her eyes with the expressiveness only possible from a teenager. “Come on, Sko, after that kiss don’t you think it’s time to call her Nancy?”
“Anyone can be called Nancy,” Sko replied. “She is the captain of my heart.”
Many of the girls sighed, swept away by the romance of Sko’s words. Most of the boys pretended to gag over the same thing. Either way, Sko had broken through the kids’ shock at my declaration.
“Do you have any questions before I start my explanation?” I asked. A mischievous glint sprang up in Lilla’s eyes, so I amended my question. “Make that, do you have any questions that don’t involve my love life?”
“Awwww,” Lilla protested, grinning.
As the girls tittered, one of the boys asked, “How can you end Arktu’s control of the ship? He’s Arktu. He knows and controls everything.”
I spun in a circle, looking all around me. “Hey, Arktu, you’re a pathetic pile of beach sand that’s not even fit to fill the litter box for my ship’s cat.”
None of those listening understood exactly what I was saying, but they figured out it was an insult. Gasps escaped their lips and most of them took an involuntary step backward. When Arktu didn’t smite me down or even respond, they crowded close again.
“Arktu does control the ship, but he doesn’t know all or see all. If there’s a robot nearby, assume anything you say is heard by Arktu. I think he’s let most of the monitoring equipment throughout the ship fall into disrepair. He can only manufacture enough parts to keep some systems running and I’ll bet most of those parts go to keep him and his robots operational.” I flashed a confident smile at the kids. “If I act fast enough, I think I can stop him.”
“What can we do to help, Nancy?” Kath asked.
“We need to warn all the other kids working down here. Since we ruined Arktu’s plans for you, he’ll probably decide to ‘promote’ some more workers.” That thought had a sobering effect on the teenagers. “Do any of you think you can find your way back to your sections?”
The kids exchanged worried glances before shaking their heads no.
“That’s what I expected, so don’t look so glum.” I held up the pad I’d been using. “We’ll just go back to D Section and get a bunch more of these.”
Lilla’s face screwed up in confusion. “How are plates going to help?”
I brought up the map and spun the pad so the children could see the screen. “This isn’t a plate, Lilla. It’s called a data pad and I can make it show a map of all corridors in the ship.”
Lilla broke out into a smile. “We’ve got a lot of those in the office in D Section.”
“I know. That’s why we’ll go there, first. We warn Mauris and Milla about the promotions and get data pads for everyone.” Most of the faces around me looked uncertainly at the pad. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you how to work the pad and we’ll make sure each group has someone who’s really good at reading the map to guide you. Okay?”
With relieved smiles, the kids nodded.
“Okay, next stop D Section,” I sang out.
Never one to let a teaching moment pass, I demonstrated how to use the map and led off. Unsurprisingly, hunter and tracker Sko learned map reading very quickly—so quickly I fired up the second pad, showed him how to load and work the map, and turned half the kids over to him to teach. By the time we reached the doors to D Section, Lilla and three other kids readily grasped the idea behind the map and comprehension was dawning for three more.
“Listen up, everyone. Lilla, Sko, and I are going to go into D Section alone. We’ll get data pads for everyone and then come back here.” Seeing worried looks on all of the faces around me, I pulled a red wristband off my arm and gave it to Kath. “You can use this to open the door. If you see any robots coming down the hallway, open the door and everyone come inside. Go to the left and try to hide in the shadows. You can signal us when we come back.”
The faces around me relaxed and a few smiles broke out.
“Good. Kath, why don’t you use the wristband I gave you to open the door?”
The girl touched the band to the contact plate. “Like this?”
With a jerk, the doors to D Section began opening.
“Exactly like that.” I turned away from the door to face the kids. “Do you
have any questions?”
“Yeah, I got one,” growled a man’s voice behind me. “Are you going to surrender peacefully or do I get to blast you in front of all these kids?”
Certain who I’d see when I turned around, my mind raced to find some way out of our predicament. The cocky confidence in the Fringer mercenary’s voice told me he had his remaining crew backing him up. They had the drop on us and had us outgunned, taking both fighting and running completely off the table. I didn’t save my group of kids from an acid bath just so mercenaries could gun them down.
I had no viable option except surrender—but maybe we could come out of this with some small advantage. Fortunately, Lilla stood right in front of me. Catching her eye, I whispered so quietly only she could hear me.
“I took your guns and forced you to help me.”
Lilla gave a microscopic nod. Even better, when I dropped my blaster, she let her laser pistol fall, too. With my body between her and the mercenaries, none of them could know we’d both been armed. I gave her a smile and spread my arms wide.
“Sko, drop your gun.”
The second Sko’s gun hit the floor, Lilla bent and scooped up all three weapons. “She forced me to help her out. I’m not with her. Tell them, Milla.”
“Don’t shoot—she’s my sister and a D Section manager.” Milla sounded nervous. Considering my experiences with the Fringer crew, I didn’t blame her. “She’s got to be telling the truth.”
I pretended to vent a frustrated sigh. “Yes, I made her come with me, but the rest of these kids are innocent, too.”
“Do tell?” The captain sounded barely interested.
“Look, do what you want with me-”
“Oh, we will, Fed.”
“But take the kids to the elevator and send them up to the inner world. If you don’t, the AI will kill them. It already tried once.”
Keeping my hands wide, I risked turning around. The Fringer captain and eight members of his crew stood in the doorway, blasters trained on Sko and me. Behind them, Mauris and Milla stood quietly watching the scene. Lilla, guns clutched to her chest, scurried between the men to join her sister.
