The small figure in front of the wall moved forward and lifted its arms. The soft buzz that only a robot could hear warned of a protective shield, but even the drones could not react fast enough.
They hit the shield. It shimmered and sparked with light, and the drones dropped to the ground. Inactive but not destroyed.
He and OxeroidR lifted their arms, deployed the proper weapons for a shield assault and began to fire, targeting in a pattern that would weaken the shield and give them data about the strength, coverage, and durability of the shield.
It was only a matter of time before they defeated it.
From behind the wall, he saw two rounded domes appear. Each held a weapon.
They must be the two humans. They wore gear that dampened their heat signature. Perhaps it was armored, too.
But no amount of armor would save them.
Neither of them returned fire.
They did not need to.
Yet.
“They excel at this,” Valyr murmured through their comm, as the relentless fire continued to hit Siru’s shield. They fired in a discernible pattern to, he assumed, help them analyze the strength of the shield while they depleted it. Siru could not hold them off forever, but if they did not stop firing how were they to talk to them?
“They are good,” Rachel agreed. She had the longer of her weapons lying on the top of the barrier, but neither of them had returned fire.
Bangle was playing a song about taking chances. Incredibly Rachel was tapping her free hand to the beat. She had appeared nervous, but now her shoulders moved slightly, too. She was a woman of many surprises.
“How long can Siru take that kind of fire?” she asked.
“Not much longer,” he admitted. But Siru was analyzing their fire for him. The data he received was…troubling. These robots were powerful. The scientist in him was impressed, intrigued. The man—he glanced at Rachel. “They are powerful robots. Our body armor will provide limited protection.”
“Then let’s see if we can get them to stop,” she said. “Time to try talking, Bangle. Cut the music, please.”
The sudden silence was as disconcerting as the sound had been. For a second or two, the robots continued their assault on Siru, and then the zing of weapon’s fire on the shield tapered to a stop. They backed closer together, their weirdly red eyes scanning for new threats. They hadn’t looked behind them yet.
“That’s better,” Rachel said, her voice now coming out the intercom system.
Bangle added some emergency lighting, very low, leaving the corridor behind the two robots in deep shadow.
Rachel stood up, not hurriedly, shouldering her weapon at the same time. But with the barrel down, though it could lift quickly, he knew. But not fast enough for this adversary.
He bit back a protest when the robots reacted as expected by shifting, so their weapons’ barrels pointed at her. Valyr stood up, to act as an additional target. Despite himself, he was fascinated by the sight of them. The larger of the two was a black, heavily metaled, powerful figure. The only thing that relieved the black were the slits for his red visual array. The second robot, though somewhat shorter and more square, was a grayer black, also heavily armored, and wore a hood on its cranium. Though its weapon had moved to target Valyr, he sensed the robot could and would act quickly to protect the other robot. It was curious that a being so devoid of humanity could nevertheless project protection so clearly.
In the silence drew out uncomfortably. No surprise it was Siru who broke it. t
“Why did you try to disassemble Siru?”
The cranium of the larger robot tilted downward.
“We wished to disable, not disassemble.”
The voice lacked inflection but was not totally robotic.
The little robot rolled closer, his cranium angling so that it could study the larger robot.
“I protect Valyr.”
Now it was the smaller robot who looked down.
“That is your programming.” The robotic tone managed to be dismissive.
Siru puffed up, his moving parts extending and contracting. “I am AI. Rachel said so.”
The larger robot might have stiffened though he hadn’t moved since they stopped firing.
“Are you the sentient who protects this outpost?”
“I protect Valyr.”
The red gaze shifted their way, tracking over Rachel and then him.
“I am Valyr,” he said.
“You are human.”
Valyr gave a sharp nod.
“Me, too.” Rachel nodded her chin.
The red gaze shifted toward her. Valyr felt ice in his veins though no expression showed on the metal face.
“You are the female human.”
“I’m a girl, yes.”
“Kraye requires a female,” the other robot said.
Before Valyr could protest, Rachel asked, “Who is Kraye?”
She might have sounded a bit uneasy. What concerned her about this Kraye? She could not know him, could she?
“He is our human.”
The large robot half turned and gestured toward the shadowed corridor.
“This isn’t the time for the dating game,” Rachel said, then hissed on their comm, “get down!”
She dropped back behind the barrier as a long hiss emitted from both robots. He followed her just in time. An energy beam passed through where he had been standing.
“So much for the easy way,” Rachel muttered.
15
CabeX fired from fury, using all the force of his most lethally weaponized arm, the other hand reaching for the small robot, but it had already rolled out of his reach and deployed its force field. He did not wish to destroy sentient life.
He lifted an arm and OxeroidR ceased firing, too. In the silence, his olfactory sensors picked up the tinge of singed metal and chemical burn where weapons and shield had clashed.
“Where is Kraye?”
“Your guy is fine.”
This was another female voice, a different one, from the rear. He spun around, but there was nothing to see, even with his enhanced opticals. Before he could send in a drone, she spoke again.
“He’ll stay fine if I stay fine.”
You will not fight.
This new voice, this system voice stopped him more than the threat from the female.
You will talk.
The voice came from all around them. This outpost had an auditory system.
“I will speak to Kraye,” he said.
“Hang on,” the second female voice said.
He heard whispers of movement, other sounds he could not identify, then a small groan. His metal fingers curled into fists.
“Hey, Captain.”
No question it was Kraye.
“Are you optimal?”
“I will be.”
“Release him.”
This pause was long. They were conferring, he decided. How many hostiles?
Six.
When Kraye is safe, you deal with the threat to our rear, he told OxeroidR. He would not negotiate with a weapon at the head of his First. The soft rustle of movement and then Kraye appeared. OxeroidR began his turn to take care of the hostiles when pain exploded inside him and spread like fire along his receptors.
He swayed, felt OxeroidR at his side, supporting him. For once, all his processors focused on one thing.
The poison code punching through his systems on a course for his self-destruct code.
Through darkening opticals, he looked at his old friend. “Kill me,” he whispered. “Kill me now.”
Rachel jumped over the barricade just behind Valyr, as the square robot lowered the stricken robot to the floor.
Valyr snapped over his shoulder. “Siru to me.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Rachel asked.
“Virus,” Valyr said tersely.
She was aware of the other robot rising and retreating a few steps, his red gaze tracking between them, then returning to his
fallen companion.
“He must be…destroyed.”
Rachel looked up, considering the robot, who had lifted his weapon and pointed it at his…friend? That pause was telling. And interesting. Instead of answering him or moving, she asked Valyr, “Can you help him?”
“Perhaps.” His fingers fumbled against the plates of its cranium and he uttered what she assumed was a curse.
She reached into a pocket of her expedition jacket and held out a small screwdriver. Siru also presented an attachment that would work. With Valyr working on one side, Siru attacked the other. She looked at the other robot again. He still had a weapon pointing at his comrade-in-arms. What did he know that they didn’t? Actually, she had a feeling it was more what she guessed he knew, and she hoped she was wrong.
“Why do you want to shoot him?”
“The code will target his self-destruct code first.”
Yeah, it was as bad as she thought. “He self-destructs when his operating code is fatally compromised. Someone is trying to stop him doing that.”
The cranium moved in a decisive nod.
“What happens if the code breaches his self-destruct code?”
“It will trigger the self-destruct.”
“He’ll…blow up?” Suddenly her throat was bone dry.
“Yes.”
“How bad? What’s the blast radius?”
The robot did not hesitate. “It is possible some of this planet will survive.”
“And just when things were going so well.” Rachel’s hands moved faster than her words. “What happens if you shoot him first?”
“Only those of us in this room will die with him.”
Nice there was an upside.
“Let’s see if we can all live,” she suggested. “Don’t shoot him until you have to, please?”
The robot gave reluctant consent.
“What do we need to do?” Sergeant City appeared out of the shadows, the robot’s guy at her side.
“You should get your people out of here—”
“No, ma’am.”
Well, that was definite. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to push through shock and think, plan, figure something out. “We need to find the signal that is delivering the virus. It’s got to be coming from a ship, fairly close. Find that. And then we need a plan to stop them permanently. Bangle will help you, City.”
Rachel didn’t stop to see how City reacted to this. Or Bangle. Valyr was pulling clear, flexible cables from Siru and attaching them to places inside the exposed circuits. Rachel found her tablet and plugged into one of Valyr’s wires. Inside the robot, the complexity of the internals made her heart stop. She looked up and met Valyr’s gaze.
“What do you need me to do?”
“You work on stopping where the virus is coming into his system. I will work on the virus.”
“If you stop access, they will try another tack,” the standing robot told them.
She had thought of that. “I’m thinking of setting up a filter to clean the code where it comes in, rather than stopping it,” Rachel said.
“Do it,” Valyr ordered. He didn’t look up. He didn’t have time for looks anymore.
Rachel bent to her tablet, hoping it would be up to the job—blue streams of data flowed up from where her hand gripped side of the tablet. She heard a sharp intake of breath to her right.
“I’m okay. Don’t stop it.” She tried to relax as the streams began to flow across her vision. Through them, she could still see the control room. She pulled back from that, focusing on where the streams were taking her. Her brain wanted to stall out, it was too much, but now she felt the stream helping her manage it.
Later, she could panic later. If they weren’t dead. Even as the streams took her in, her brain was constructing the code filter…
She felt panic fade as the task shrunk in size if not complexity…
City didn’t waste time ordering anyone to leave or exclaiming in shock as Frank, and the Val-something guy got swarmed by shiny blue bugs. Okay, she almost shot Frank. You expected aliens to get covered in stuff. She’d find out later if she made the right call. Everyone else was in the radio loop and knew the score. Mostly.
“Bangle?” she muttered, glancing around. Was Bangle the bird back in the hanger bay? She didn’t see it anywhere.
A hologram appeared over a workstation looking table.
We can work here, Sergeant City.
Okay. Apparently, Bangle wasn’t a bird. With a last glance at the group around the stricken robot, City moved to the hologram. As she passed the guy they’d downed, who had a bit of a dropped jaw going as he stared at the blue computer geek grouping, she said, “You can help me.”
She made it sound like an order, so she wasn’t surprised when he followed her.
“I’m City.”
“Kraye,” he rubbed the back of his head. “I’m Kraye.”
“Their human.” It had almost sounded like “our pet” when they said it, but he didn’t act like he was owned. Yet. For some reason this made her think about the bird in the hanger bay. He’d look good on this guy’s shoulders. He wasn’t a bad looking dude, a bit scruffy for her tastes, a better-looking space pirate version of Jack Sparrow.
He half shrugged, his expression losing its tenseness.
“If I could make contact with the Najer we could assist in the search for the source of the attack,” he said.
City glanced back at Frank, but she was busy getting bluer and keeping them from getting blown up. She hoped.
“Can you manage that, er, Bangle?” Where had that name come from? Lots of questions. She hoped she lived long enough to get answers.
The hologram split into two. On the new hologram, another robot visage appeared. He was as badass as the other two, but there were differences. She didn’t want to say expression because none of them had any. Coloring maybe? They all owned looking lethal, and she’d met some pretty lethal people. She was glad it looked like they were going to be buddies. Or all die together.
“We are aware, First,” the visage said.
She thought it odd it didn’t ask—
“They’re connected so they already know what’s going on,” Kraye said. “When they speak it’s for my benefit.”
“That makes sense.” And triggered a new cascade of questions without answers.
“The attacker is close,” the ship robot said.
“That’s BoomerJ,” Kraye said. He nodded her direction. “City.”
There are two bogeys. They dropped out of comet drive space on the other side of this planet’s moon.
Comet drive space? What was that? “What about interdicting them? Can we take them out before—”
BoomerJ shook his head in a decisive negative.
None of us are close enough to reach them in time.
“Okay, we need to bring the CAG in on this discussion,” City said. “This is above my pay grade.” Without waiting for permission, Bangle—City’s eye twitched—opened a channel to Colonel Carey.
A video feed.
“Sergeant? What’s—” He stopped, as he apparently took in the various elements in the control room.
And, just in case things weren’t weird enough, music began to filter softly out a hidden speaker system. “Walk like an Egyptian?” Bangles. Bangle?
Rachel needs music to work.
The music helped, no question. Rachel moved her shoulders as her mind traveled through blue space. It wasn’t as hard as to find the access as she’d thought it would be. The virus had cut a black, ragged path through the robot. It was a fast hammer, not meant to take care but to take control. Maybe they thought they could fix him up later.
It felt a little like flying, following the damage. Her stomach even gave a little bump as they landed next to the breach point.
“Got you.” Now she began to construct her filter around the breach. It was super weird to see her code in 3D, watching it weave back and forth, see the flow of dirty code began to thin as
it hit her filter and then emerge on the other side as a shadow of its former self. She didn’t stop for a victory dance. This wasn’t over until the bad code sang its last. Whoever had done it, holy crap they were good. Good enough to sense their code was getting filtered? Possibly.
“I’m gonna shut off all incoming data but this point,” she said. That was easier than trying to find leaks. The robot seemed to quiver, but it nodded. “Hang in there—”
“He is called CabeX. He is our captain.”
Such flat delivery and somehow so much grief. Rachel looked up, met his gaze. “Call me Rachel.”
“I am OxeroidR. We are free robotics warriors.”
Free. This attack was on all of them then.
“Let’s keep it that way, OxeroidR.” She frowned through the data stream. “You’re not under attack are you?”
“I am not.”
Not yet, he meant. Well, one robot at a time. She triggered the isolation code, and CabeX quivered again. Was the red glow of his opticals dimmer? Was he weakening or feeling the lack of contact with his peers?
“Will you all, will your ship survive if—?”
“Our ship will go on.”
Then Valyr’s voice strained to breaking point said, “I require your assistance, Rachel.”
Valyr had never seen such code. That something so perfectly constructed could steal this robot’s will—it was a glorious abomination. Even as he tried to contain it, it slipped away, as if mocking him. “I require assistance, Rachel.”
“I’m here.”
Through the data streams, he saw her and felt her support. Felt his efforts gain strength and focus.
“Dang, that’s pretty in a mean ugly way. Huh. It kind of looks like a DNA strand.” Rachel’s presence in the stream circled it, weaving code strands as she moved.
“DNA?” The question was forced out between gritted teeth.
“The strands of life, our human code.”
Human code. Of course. One could be too close to something—he moved out, making the code slowly spin in the streams of data. Like Rachel, he circled the strands, studying it in the context of a human code. Interesting that this had not triggered the robot’s defenses.
Lost Valyr: Project Enterprise 7 Page 20
