Mutiny in Space

by Rod Walker

  “Hold,” said Corbin.

  “That was a muzzle flash,” said Nelson.

  Three more flashes came in rapid succession.

  “And that was three more,” I said.

  “Nikolai, come with me,” said Corbin. “We’ll have a look, see if they’re friend or foe. The rest of you, wait here until I call.”

  I nodded, realized that was a waste of effort, and said “Roger” instead. I walked forward to join Corbin. He had his K7 at the ready, so I drew the machine pistol and keyed the safety off. It was clumsy in the suit, but the gauntlets were close-fitting enough that I could get my finger inside the trigger guard, and that was the important part.

  We moved forward as quietly as we could. Well, not quietly, since we were in a vacuum. But gently. Air or not, the vibrations of our footsteps would carry through the deck plates. Those commandos had all kinds of sensors in their helmets, so they would probably see us coming no matter what we did.

  Based on the flashes we’d seen, I had the impression that something else held the entirety of their attention at the moment, though.

  We reached the archway that led from cargo bay seven to cargo bay five. It was huge, large enough for two of the cargo drones to fly through simultaneously while carrying a full-sized shipping container. Corbin crouched at the starboard edge of the arch, and I ducked next to him, peering into the bay.

  There I saw the signs of a battle. Several stacks of containers had been knocked into disorderly heaps, and one of them had split open, spilling grain everywhere. About a dozen yards away lay one of the Social Party commandos, sprawled in an untidy heap… and it looked as if the top half of his helmet and most of his head was missing. The contents of his head were leaking into a puddle around the shattered helmet.

  I was suddenly glad I couldn’t smell anything but recycled air.

  Something huge darted overhead, and I looked up to see the missing cargo drone flying past. The antigrav units on its underside were sputtering, and bullet holes riddled its entire structure. The thing had taken what looked like dozens of rounds of high-caliber bullets, but it was still flying, albeit with an alarming wobble. As I watched, the drone banked left, releasing a large cargo crate of equipment.

  It crashed to the deck and shattered in silence, though the impact made my bones vibrate within my suit. As the crate shattered, I saw a half-dozen commandos take cover, ducking behind one of the overturned shipping containers. It looked as if they had been trying to fight their way to the starboard side of the bay, to the access airlocks to the ship proper.

  I blinked, astonished, as I realized where they were heading. To the control office for the cargo bay itself. Someone was there and they were using the massive drone as a weapon!

  Every cargo bay had its own control office, where a tech monitored the operation of the drones and the other cargo handling systems. In theory, everything was controlled automatically from the bridge. In practice, when moving tens of thousands of tons of cargo, something always went wrong, so it was a good idea to have a living man down in the cargo office, keeping an eye on the machinery. It was cheaper to pay someone to do it than to lose ten thousand tons of cargo because two of the drones decided to fly into each other. The office itself was a small room with a window overlooking the bay, about halfway up the wall, a set of metal stairs climbing to it. Hundreds of bullet holes marked the wall and slashed the transparent metal of the window.

  In the window I saw Arthur Rodriguez hunched over a console, wearing an orange pressure suit. He looked back and forth between the console and the damaged window, typing furiously. As far as I could tell, he was unhurt, although to judge from the amount of damage to the office airlock and window, he wasn’t going to stay that way for long.

  “Clever kid,” said Corbin. “He weaponized the cargo drones. He’s been keeping the commandos tied up down here all by himself! Nelson! Murdock! Bring up the rest of the men, fast and quiet. There are six commandos down here, and six more dead ones. That’s at least a quarter of Ducarti’s entire force, and if we move fast we have a chance to take them all out now.”

  Nelson and Murdock acknowledged, and I watched as the commandos sent another volley of fire at the office. The cargo drone swept before the wall, soaking up some of the fire, and released a crate of loading equipment from one of its claws. The crate struck the deck and bounced, again forcing the commandos to scatter and take cover.

  “Right,” I said. “How are we going to take them out?”

  “I’ll keep an eye on them,” said Corbin. “See if you can raise Rodriguez.”

  “Roger that,” I said. Corbin started giving orders over the suits’ radio channel. I switched channels. “Arthur?” I got nothing but static. I tried to remember the channel for the cargo bays, failed, and started cycling. “Arthur? Arthur? This is Nikolai Rovio. Arthur, talk to me. Arthur?”

  “Wait!” Arthur’s voice hissed over the helmet speakers. “Wait! This is Rodriguez. Is someone there?” I heard a metallic thumping over the speakers, and realized it was the sound of bullets slamming into the wall of the cargo office.

  “It’s Nikolai,” I said, watching Arthur peer out of the office window. “We’re here to get you out. No! Don’t look! The commandos don’t know we’re here yet.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw Murdock and Nelson and the others come up, weapons ready. The cargo drone swept in front of the office again, and the commandos ducked for cover, though this time Arthur didn’t drop anything on them. I recognized one of his favorite tactics from Gunno-Tatakai—keep the enemy guessing by being unpredictable.

  So games had real practical applications! I suddenly felt my entire childhood had been justified.

  “How are you still alive?” said Arthur. “I thought they had taken over the whole ship.”

  “They have,” I said. “Well, sort of.”

  “Nikolai!” said Corbin, overriding my suit’s radio settings. “Can you raise him or not?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “I got him. We were just talking. Hang on.” I fumbled back to Arthur’s channel. “Arthur! Switch to channel four. My uncle’s got an idea.”

  Static crackled inside my helmet, and then Arthur’s voice came on. “This is Rodriguez.”

  “Rodriguez!” said Corbin. “Good to see that you’re still alive. Nice work with the drones.”

  “Hey Rovio,” said Arthur. “I’m keeping them off me for now. Do you know what is going on and who is trying to kill us?”

  “The captain turned out to be a secret Social and he surrendered the ship to some Social Party raiders,” said Corbin. “So we’re going to take it back from them. How are you controlling that cargo drone, anyway? The captain locked us out of the ship’s systems.”

  The drone swept before the office once more, soaking up another volley of gunfire. “My damage control assignment was in here. I figured that while I was waiting, I could do some tests. That idiot Murdock said my code was unoptimized–”

  “Still alive here,” said Murdock. “Good to see you too, Rodriguez.”

  “Oh. Hey. Likewise,” said Arthur. “Anyway, I came down here to recompile and run some test routines while I was waiting for any sign we were taking damage. I saw the central systems were locking up, and I was worried that blockade runner was hacking us. So I cut off the cargo office’s computer from the rest of the network. Then those pirates showed up and demanded I surrender. I figured that was a bad idea.”

  “So you started dropping crates on them,” said Corbin. “You got six. Well done.”

  “I may have broken a few safety protocols and procedures,” said Arthur.

  “All of them,” confirmed Nelson, with approval in his voice.

  “We need to get you out of there,” said Corbin, “and we might need that computer. Here’s what we’re going to do. Murdock, Nelson. Get the others deployed in the archway. Nikolai, stay where you are. Make sure you have clear lines of sight, and choose your targets. I want at least one gun on every commando.”

&n
bsp; “Got it,” said Nelson, and he began barking instructions over the channel.

  “Rodriguez,” said Corbin. “Can you have the drone to come low over the deck, like, say, a meter? Have it swoop down towards the commandos, and then head for the ceiling?”

  “Yeah,” said Arthur. I saw him type something on his console. “Yeah, I think so. The antigravs are working well enough for that.”

  “Good,” said Corbin. “Get that going. Nelson! The commandos are going to hit the deck when the drone dives toward them. When they do, we’ll open fire.”

  “We’re just going to shoot them all in the back?” said Nelson.

  “Exactly,” said my uncle.

  “If it troubles your conscience, try to remember they were going to kill everyone on the ship,” said Corbin. “Rodriguez, you ready yet?”

  “Just a second,” said Arthur. The commandos sent another volley of fire at the office window, and I saw Arthur duck under the console for a moment. “Hang on… yeah. It’ll execute as soon as I hit the button. Tell me when.”

  “Do it on three,” ordered Corbin. “Everyone, as soon as the commandos take cover, start shooting. Shoot to kill, and don’t skimp on the ammo or the charges. We can get more from their dead bodies. Rodriguez?”

  “Standby!” said Arthur, ducking to avoid a burst of concentrated fire. The window to the office absorbed the volley, but the transparent metal was bending backwards out of its frame. If one of those Socials had the bright idea of throwing a grenade through the damaged window, it was over. “All right! Three!”

  He hit something on the console and ducked.

  The cargo drone spun back into sight, all its arms and manipulators in motion, and it plummeted towards the deck. Some of the commandos opened fire, but the drone continued its rapid descent, and the rear antigravs pulsed, tilting the drone’s nose towards the crouching commandos. For a moment it looked as if the big machine had lost control and was about to crash into the deck at full speed.

  The commandos threw themselves down, ducking behind the damaged shipping containers and other debris left over from the fight. I could hardly blame them. Even from my vantage point, it looked terrifying and it wasn’t about to land on my head.

  But they were now in the worst possible position to deal with an attack of prepared gunmen from the rear.

  “Open up!” said Corbin.

  I raised my machine pistol in both hands and started shooting. The thing had a nasty recoil, but my gauntlets helped me keep my grip. I aimed for the head of the nearest commando, but I hit him in the lower back instead. The bullet punched through his armor and his torso, and I saw blood spatter across the deck beneath him. Around me the others had also opened fire, and a hail of bullets and invisible laser blasts slashed through the vacuum of cargo bay seven.

  The commandos didn’t have a chance. Two of them lived long enough to turn, and one of them even got off a burst from his K7, but it came nowhere near any of us. A second, equally furious volley cut them down, and they joined their motionless comrades on the floor.

  I gripped my gun, breathing hard, but it was over. All the commandos were down.

  “Anyone hit?” said Corbin. “Everyone acknowledge now.”

  One by one we checked in.

  “Good work, everybody,” Corbin praised us. “Nelson, search the dead. We’ll need all the weapons we can carry. Do it quickly. I want to be on our way to the bridge in another five minutes. Murdock, take the techs and keep watch. I don’t want to be surprised like our dead friends here. Rodriguez, it’s safe. you can come out now.”

  “Rovio, I’m stuck,” said Arthur. “The bullets messed up the airlock. I need someone to release it manually from the outside.”

  “Nikolai, do it,” said Corbin. “Rodriguez, were you using the office’s portable terminal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bring it with you,” said Corbin. “A working computer’s going to be real useful soon.”

  “I’m on it,” I said, switching my pistol’s safety back on and shoving it back into the holster. I got it in on the third try. Funny that it was easier to shoot the thing than to holster it while wearing pressure suit gauntlets.

  I scrambled up the metal stairs to the cargo office, taking care to keep my balance. There were a lot of metal fragments on the stairs, bullets deformed from ricocheting off the wall, along with pieces of the cargo drone’s outer casing. The drone had taken a beating, but it was still flying. Whatever Starways had paid for the thing had been well worth the investment.

  I reached the top of the stairs, and saw Arthur through the damaged window. I also saw the displays on the office’s main console. Like all the displays in the engineering room or the bridge, they read SYSTEM LOCKED, but Arthur had a laptop-sized portal terminal on the desk, a maze of wires coming off the back. Usually drone operators had five or six full-sized displays, but he had been making the cargo drone dance with a little 14-inch screen.

  I knocked on the window, realized that was stupid, and then activated my suit’s radio. “Arthur?”

  “Nikolai?” said Arthur. “You’re there?”

  “Who else?” I said. “Ready?”

  “Hang on,” he said, mashing his fingers against the laptop’s keyboard. Below the drone swerved, and then flew back up to the ceiling, rotating itself into one of the cradles. “Just wanted to put that thing on standby. I dumped so many overrides into its task queue that I don’t want it to go berserk and start loading us into shipping containers or something.”

  “That would be a bad end to the day,” I said, examining the door controls. The commandos had shot it up pretty badly, but the manual release was still intact. “I’m going to try opening the door now… there!”

  The door shuddered open. Had there been any air in the bay, it would have made a horrible squealing noise, so it was just as well we were in vacuum. The door managed to get about two-thirds of the way open before it gave up, so I squeezed through it and into the cargo office.

  “Ready yet?” I said. “Corbin wants to move out. We’re going to hit the bridge.”

  “Just about,” said Arthur, stuffing the laptop and its attendant cables into a bag. It looked like he had spare charges in there as well. It would not be amusing if we finally found a working computer only for the power to run out on us. He slung over the bag over his shoulder. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  “Great,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m just glad I get to leave at all,” said Arthur as I turned towards the door. “I thought I was going to die in here like a drone with a faulty… oh, wait!”

  “What is it?” I said, turning, my hand dropping to my holstered gun.

  “Almost forgot,” said Arthur, picking up a flat black portable drive from the console. A piece of silver cargo tape had been affixed to the side, marked with the handwritten letters GT. “I’m out of pockets. Can you take that?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, slipping the drive into a pocket of my suit. “What is it? Drone code?”

  “Our savegames,” said Arthur.

  I blinked several times.

  “If we live through this,” I said, “we’re totally going to finish the main campaign.”

  “Nikolai! Arthur!” said Corbin, his voice cutting into my helmet speakers. “Hurry up!”

  “On our way,” I said. “Come on!”

  We squeezed through the door and scrambled down the stairs. The others were ready, and bore considerably more weapons after looting the corpses. One of the men stepped forward, and I saw my uncle’s face behind the helmet’s faceplate.

  “Rodriguez, great work,” said Corbin. “You may have saved the ship.”

  “What’s happening, sir?” said Arthur. “These guys with guns. Pirates?”

  “Not exactly,” said Corbin. “Nikolai can fill you in. We’re heading to the bridge. Nelson?”

  “Better arm yourself, son,” said Nelson, handing Arthur a folded gun belt with a holstered burst laser pistol. “There was fighting
behind us, and there’s going to be fighting ahead of us.”

  “Fantastic,” said Arthur, taking the belt.

  “Good work with the drone, Rodriguez,” said Murdock.

  “Thanks. I wish we could take it with us,” said Arthur. “I thought you were dead, Murdock.”

  “He’s too cranky to die,” I said.

  “Everyone, shut up,” ordered Corbin. “We’re moving out. I’m on point. Nelson, Nikolai, keep an eye on the back.”

  Chapter 7: Modern Security Systems

  We passed through the remaining port-side cargo bays without encountering any more trouble. Corbin hot-wired the airlock, and we filed into the gloomy maintenance walkways. They were pressurized, so we could take off our helmets and our gauntlets, though Corbin and Nelson insisted we keep our suits on in the event of a hull breach. Fortunately, the suits’ belts had a magnetic grip for the helmets, which in turn made a handy bucket for holding the gauntlets.

  “Now what?” said Murdock.

  “We retake the bridge, rescue Hawkins, and capture the captain,” said Corbin.

  “And then shut down the resonance in the hypermatter reactor,” said Arthur. I had filled him in our adventures, and while he seemed unfazed by the prospect of getting shot to death, the thought of the ship blowing up troubled him far more. He always did like machines better than people.

  “That’s the plan,” said Corbin.

  “I suggest we split up,” said Nelson.

  “Why?” said Murdock.

  “Once we get to the bridge one team can go through the main blast doors, and the other can go through the access hatch to the maintenance walkways. If we catch the commandos in a crossfire, our chances of success will improve considerably.”

  “Agreed,” said Corbin, “but we’ll have to split up long before we get to the bridge, if I remember right…”

  “Junction 17,” I said.

  They all looked at me.

  “That’s where the maintenance walkways split up,” I said. “One goes to the bridge, the other goes to the dorsal corridor. If we split up, that’s the best place to do it.”