by C. Gockel
“Volka!” Sixty roared from somewhere close.
“Here!” she cried, and a hand grabbed her by the back of her coat and by her shoulder and yanked her sideways. Next thing she knew the bat was ripped from her hands, and the child the Nan’bot had been holding was being crushed into her arms, filling Volka’s senses with the scent of sweat and frightened child. The boy’s mouth was wide, and his eyes were scrunched shut. He was wailing and it should have been deafening, but the crowd was already deafening. Volka looked up and saw Sixty above her, her bat in one hand, the hand of the other arm pushing her back and down. The crowd was everywhere, and she felt like she might be drowning in it. The bodies were as thick as the smoke. Every time she tried to breathe, someone knocked against her and the air was knocked out of her lungs. From behind her, hands pulled her down into darkness. Above her was thunder…
… And she could breathe again. She could hear, too, even above the thunder that was very close. The child in her arms was crying, “Nan! Nan!” The businessman was sitting beside her, saying to the child, “It’s okay, your Nan will be okay.” The human mother was on her knees, shushing her child. Outside the tiny circle of shelter, Volka could see the crowd through Sixty’s legs and past the Nan’bot’s skirts. The mob was roiling, bodies were being shoved and shoving. The screams and shouts were a cacophony. “Sixty!” she called. “There’s room down here for you and Nan’bot!” Volka glanced up.
“The table might be crushed if we don’t keep people off!” Sixty shouted back.
That’s when Volka noticed the nature of their shelter. It was a metal tabletop—they were under a picnic table. She noticed for the first time the metal pole behind her, thankfully solid. On the sides there were metal seats, each a quarter circle, bolted into the ground and sturdy. At that thought, Sixty was sent sprawling into one. The force of the blow made the metal bend, and she clutched the little boy tight instinctively. “Nan! Nan! Nan!” he called.
Volka heard a hover, and Carl, wrapped tight around her shoulders, bolted upright. “Tell Sixty and the dumb ‘bot to get under here!”
“Sixty! Nan!” Volka shouted. “Get down!”
Nan’bot listened. Her body shrank, torso sliding down over her skirts, collapsing like a telescope. The ‘bot rolled beneath the table, and the little boy stopped crying and tore himself from Volka’s arms and into hers. Outside in the crowd, Volka saw lights and heard more screams. Volka added her shout to the roar. “Sixty!”
Ignoring her, he protectively shoved a human under one of the metal chairs. Volka blinked and saw Michael, curled in fetal position, eyes closed, hissing in pain.
There was a bright flash of light. Sixty cried out, and his arm flew off his torso and out of sight. His torso sent out a shower of sparks at the severed spot, and smoke rose from rubber tendons. His shoulder began to glow, and then to shimmer. The shimmer spread all along his body, and Sixty screamed. Volka’s heart stopped at the sound.
Carl’s voice rang in her mind and the businessman’s rang in her ears. “A stunner couldn’t have taken off his arm. Someone phasered him.”
Sixty began to glow, and then he was shining like a star everywhere he wasn’t wearing clothes. More phaser fire was going off around him. He’d tell her that he could get a new body, but she knew he was fond of the one he had, and he hurt. Leaping up from beneath the relative safety of the picnic table, Volka grabbed Sixty’s coat and tried to yank him down. He took a half step back. His glow was blinding and she had to turn her head away. She saw hovercrafts overhead and phaser fire everywhere. Half the crowd was lying on the ground, the other half was running.
Volka yanked again, and Sixty crumpled. She got his torso under the table, but his legs were still partially outside. “Pull your legs up, pull your legs up!” Volka shouted, but Sixty was shaking in her arms, unresponsive.
A phaser bolt hit the back edge of the table, and the mother and child screamed. Volka smelled hot metal and burnt hair and felt heat on the back of her neck. She thought of all the reasons Sundancer wasn’t supposed to leave the port—and Sixty screamed again as his left leg was hit by a direct blast to his thigh.
“Sundancer. Come. Now.”
The thought wasn’t just hers. It was Carl’s.
An alarm sounded somewhere, louder than even the phaser fire and the fading screams of the crowd. It was instantly recognizable to Volka from her time on technologically repressed Luddeccea. It was an air raid siren.
She felt confusion and saw the square as though from above, with hovers firing phaser cannons at the four street corners, and a bright glimmer between two such hovers on the ground. Bodies were everywhere, as was smoke, fear, and pain…but the confusion was the most prominent emotion of all.
“We’re seeing what Sundancer is seeing,” said Carl. “She doesn’t know where we are.”
Volka closed her eyes and imagined what Sixty looked like glowing through his clothes, leg now sparking—he’d been the glimmer Sundancer had seen. She filled in the picture for Sundancer. The woman with the child, the businessman, Nan’bot, and her charge, Sixty, even Michael who looked like he was in shock, and Carl sitting on her shoulder all under the table.
Phaser fire streaked directly overhead, and Volka hugged the shuddering Sixty tight. Carl curled around her neck. The businessman cursed. In the periphery of her vision, she could see the woman rocking her baby back and forth.
Only Nan’bot seemed unworried. “It will be all right, Drew,” Nan’bot said. “It will be all right. It will be all right…” A shadow settled above them, and bits of cobblestone from the street and glass from the pastry shop window pelted the table as phaser fire struck everywhere but directly on them, and Volka wished she could be a mindless machine and not be scared. The smell of blood was closer, thicker, but she was uncertain of its source.
Closing her eyes, wincing from the sting of debris, Volka willed with all her heart. “Hurry, Sundancer!” She heard her heart beating in her ears, and Carl’s hearts, the baby gasping for breath before another long shriek, his mother’s humming, the little boy’s whimpers, Michael’s moans, and Sixty’s machinery, still glowing, humming, and sparking. And then she realized that was all she heard. The noise of phaser fire was gone.
“Android General 1 saved us,” declared Nan’bot. “Just like I told you, Drew.”
“Nnnngggh…” said Sixty.
Volka opened her eyes. She was still under the table, and beneath her there was cement. Beyond Sixty’s outstretched legs was a circle of cobblestones, and beyond that was a familiar pearlescent hull. Sixty was covered with rubble and glass that would have hit her if he hadn’t been in the way.
“What happened,” asked the woman.
“Sundancer rescued us,” said Volka, running her hand through Sixty’s hair, almost kissing him. “Thank you,” she whispered to him and to Sundancer.
“What…is this the alien spaceship that was in the port?” the businessman asked. He sprung out from beneath the table, ran to the edge of the cobblestones, and tripped. Volka blinked. The man regained his footing, spun around, and gazed at the others, confusion plain on his face. Sundancer had managed to save the picnic table, seats, the cobblestones and pavement they were all anchored to, and, just at the edge, Sixty’s arm. “Overachiever,” she laughed as relief flooded her. She reached up and put her hand on Carl, tightened her arm around Sixty, and whispered again to the ship. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Butting her head, Carl said, “There are System 5 Local Guard firing on us.”
Sixty groaned. “Michael needs medical attention. As do you…ma’am.” His head lolled to the strange woman. The hand that he still had reached up and wrapped around Volka’s.
“Yes,” the strange woman said. “I think so.”
Volka’s mouth dropped open. The blood she’d smelled so close was from the woman. There was a long slender piece of glass protruding from the side of her arm.
Straightening his suit, the businessman said, “By law,
you must immediately turn over this ship to System 5’s Local Guard!”
Uncurling slightly, Michael hissed, “Wardman Chao.”
Volka’s lips pursed. This was going to take a while to straighten out—but Michael and the woman needed immediate medical attention, and Sixty needed real maintenance.
Carl hissed. “We’re blowing this two-credit system.”
Before Volka could ask exactly where they were going, everything turned to light.
11
No Rest for The Wicked
Galactic Republic Space
“Ugh…Where are we, Carl?” 6T9 asked when they were no longer light, and his Q-comm was online again.
“Home,” said Carl.
6T9 tried to sit up, but Volka held him back. He could have resisted but didn’t. “These humans need medical attention.” He gestured to Michael and the woman with the child and only managed to send sparks flying from his empty arm socket. His circuits dimmed.
“I’m sure Fleet will be here within a few minutes,” Carl replied. “Ask them to send down a medical team with whoever they’re going to have grill us. It will be faster than going to the emergency room.”
6T9’s eyebrow lifted. “I doubt that very—”
Bracelet pinged and said, “Miss Volka, you have an incoming message from Admiral Sato.”’
“Huh,” said Carl. “That was even faster than I expected.”
“At last,” said Wardman Chao.
“Answer please, Bracelet,” Volka said, still keeping one arm around 6T9’s chest. The hand of his intact arm wrapped around her wrist…just to check her pulse. It was fast, but strong. He didn’t let go, just to be sure.
Nan’bot said, “Do you see how Miss Volka, the General’s companion, is kind to machines, Drew?”
Volka whispered in 6T9’s ear, “Another ‘bot who knows your nickname!”
And that was something 6T9 didn’t want to think about…because, well, it could only mean one thing.
“Does ‘companion’ mean married?” asked Drew.
6T9 almost launched into a data dump on that archaic institution with its origins in the dehumanization of women, but a holo of Admiral Noa Sato sprung from Bracelet, and the expression on her face was so severe it cut him off. In the holo’s glow, she was sitting behind a desk. James was standing behind her. A man 6T9 had never seen, with gray hair and features which a human would naturally attain in their mid-fifties, was sitting to her right. Noa rapped her fingers on the desk. “Volka…what sort of…” Her lips tightened as though she were holding back some word that might not be best said in front of children. “…mischief…have you gotten yourselves into now?”
Behind and beneath 6T9, Volka tensed. “We rescued five civilians—two of them children—and a Nan’bot from a mob and then overzealous security forces. If you don’t mind, we are in need of mechanical assistance for Sixty—he lost an arm and had his leg shot for his troubles—and two of the civilians need medical assistance.”
Sixty’s circuits sparked, and he scowled. Asking for mechanical assistance first would have gone against his programming.
Noa touched her neural port, and then waved a hand and said, “A med and mech team are at the ready.” Her fingers rapped against the desk again. “I have an ethernet report from a Wardman Chao that you’ve kidnapped him.”
Volka’s head snapped toward Chao, and she growled.
Carl hissed.
The woman with the baby spoke up. “Admiral Sato, my name is Jennifer Song. I want it on record that Volka and the 6T9 ‘bot rescued my baby and me from excessive force used by S5O4’s overzealous security forces.”
“Jennifer Song…you’re not related to Anette Song by any chance?” said Chao.
“She’s my aunt. I was visiting her,” Jennifer said. Her eyes narrowed on Chao. “You’re the Wardman whose reelection campaign she funded…the one who was trying to institute a draft to defend us from the so-called aliens?”
Carl’s necklace crackled. “The aliens are real.”
“They are?” said Chao and Jennifer at once.
Volka exhaled, and her pulse skipped a beat under 6T9’s fingers. His own circuits dimmed and sparked rapidly. Chao—a government official—didn’t believe there were aliens? And yet he was trying to institute a draft...the protestors’ fears weren’t unfounded.
“They’re real,” said Volka and 6T9 in unison, and he marveled that her biological processor and his Q-comm had been in sync.
He squeezed her wrist gently. She’d lost her…friend...Ben to the alien Dark. 6T9 knew it had hurt. It had hurt 6T9, too; it always hurt him to watch humans suffer and die. He’d seen enough of suffering and dying since falling in with Carl and Volka to last several human lifetimes. At that thought, his Q-comm stopped humming. Suddenly, the weight of Volka’s single arm on his chest, the softness of her body so small but holding him aloft seemed to take up a disproportionate amount of his sensory processors…If he hadn’t fallen in with Carl, he would be alone on the asteroid now.
Still lying on his side, Michael said, “I’ll also want it on record—”
Chao lunged toward Bracelet. “I withdraw my report of kidnapping, Admiral Sato.”
Noa’s fingers rapped her desk. “Wonderful. Sixty, if you’ll open the airlock hatch to your asteroid, our shuttle will follow you in and meet you on the surface.”
6T9 reached out to the ether, connected with the familiar asteroid computer, opened the first airlock, and felt Sundancer begin her descent.
Noa’s lips pursed. “Are you sitting under the picnic table Wardman Chao said you stole from System 5’s Central Square…on your starship’s bridge?”
Carl sniffed. “We will neither confirm nor deny—”
6T9’s computational programming kicked in unhelpfully. “We also have about 2.052 tons of the cobblestones and cement the table was anchored to.”
“Um…Sixty,” said Volka. “I think we’re not supposed to admit that.”
Chao said, “I, ah, want to drop those charges as well.”
Noa’s eyes narrowed. “How even...?”
A data dump started filling 6T9’s brain and overflowed right out his mouth. “The exact mechanisms by which—”
Making a cutting motion with her hand, Noa said, “Never mind. I’ll see you in person in just a few minutes.”
The holo flashed out and an unfamiliar ethernet channel with a Fleet suffix requested access to 6T9’s ethernet. He connected a moment later to the shuttle that was following them and gave them directions. Carl was right—treatment for the injured humans was going to be faster than they’d have received going to an emergency room—especially one overwhelmed by injured protestors.
“The admiral will be joining us?” said Chao.
Sixty’s Q-comm sparked white. Noa had contacted them too quickly; even with the nearby time gate she couldn’t have arrived so fast.
“Was she already here waiting for us?” Volka whispered, arms tightening around Sixty again. “We’re not in that much trouble, are we? I know we committed a few felonies…”
Sixty put out a call to Lauren G3 and began desperately downloading data about extradition treaties from independently owned asteroids to System 5. Hope brightened his Q-comm with such intensity, he thought he might start shooting sparks. “There’s no clear extradition treaty. We’re safe.” For a little while, anyway.
Carl hissed, and his tail swished. “It’s not us that they’re after.”
Volka swallowed audibly, and she leaned her head down against Sixty’s shoulder. “I feel it too, Carl.”
Sixty’s eyes closed at the sensation of the softness of her ear against his cheek. And then she said words that made his Q-comm go dark. “It’s me they want.”
Sundancer lifted from where she’d deposited the picnic table, Jennifer and her baby, Nan’bot and her charge, Chao, Michael, Carl, Sixty, and Volka in the garden. Volka was immediately assailed with the familiar scents of vegetation, deer, and a succulent note of rats. Not to
o far off in the trees she saw FET12, the android who looked like a boy of about twelve they’d rescued from pirates. She waved him over. Head bowed, he approached.
She sniffed. There was also the scent of hover fuel, metal, Noa, James, and a number of unfamiliar humans. Her ears swiveled to where they approached from behind.
Drew said, “Wow! Nan’bot, a mansion!”
Michael laughed low, and Volka in her exhaustion after the events of the day could feel his sense of betrayal. “You are rich.”
Her ears flicked in annoyance, and, in another instant, he and Jennifer, Nan’bot, Drew, and Chao were surrounded by Fleet medical officers. Volka wanted to ask Sixty about the strange knowledge of his nickname that all the ‘bots in New Grande had, but the admiral came into view with James and the man in gray just behind her. The man in gray filled Volka with an eerie sense of foreboding.
Standing just outside the hunk of debris left by Sundancer, Noa said, “Hi, Volka.”
“Hi,” Volka managed, still sitting underneath the picnic table, shaded from the artificial sunlight, 6T9 practically in her lap. Normally, Volka thought of Noa as warm as James was cold. And normally, Volka would smile, bow her head at the very least out of sheer politeness, but she was too tired at the moment.
Noa pointed to some men in Fleet Grays. “I’ve got some of our best android mechanics here. They can help Sixty.”
Volka turned to FET12. FET12 had been a sex ‘bot and been horribly abused and scarred. He was programmed not to make humans uncomfortable, and his scarring made humans uncomfortable, so he hid beneath long sleeves, trousers, and a hoodie. The boy ‘bot was exceptionally shy, but he’d come when she’d beckoned. It made her heart hurt.
