New Frontiers- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  Ben studied his companion while the garbage truck drove on to its next stop. The mutt’s shaggy brown and white fur was matted with dirt and sticky residues from digging through garbage. Ben’s olfactory sensor readings were off the charts with unpleasant odors.

  “You need a bath, boy.”

  The dog yawned, as if his smelliness were old news to him.

  “What am I going to call you? I’m Ben by the way.”

  The dog looked away.

  “There’s no need to be rude.”

  The dog lay down on the seat with his head between his paws and let loose a magnificent fart. Ben’s olfactory sensors went nuts.

  “Hmmm,” Ben said, wrinkling his holographic nose. “Rudy. That’s what I’ll call you,” he said, patting the dog’s head.

  After another five minutes of driving, the truck ground to a stop and Ben hopped out.

  “Stay here, Rudy. I’ll be right back.”

  As Ben loaded garbage into the back of his truck, he considered how simple yet satisfying his new life was. He had someone to care for who also cared for him—Rudy. A task to perform—garbage collection—and a place to rest and recharge—his truck. Life was simple, but complete. He missed his father, but he understood that the professor hadn’t sent him away because he didn’t want Ben around. He’d sent Ben away to protect him from his ignorant but well-meaning boss, Dorian Gray. Perhaps I should have tried to reason with Mr. Gray, Ben thought.

  Ben placed another load of garbage into the machine and listened to the groaning and crunching sounds it made as it compacted the trash to make room for more.

  Abruptly, the truck rocked with the muffled boom of an explosion, and it fell to the street with a resounding bang. Black smoke gushed out around the now dormant hover jets. Ben’s olfactory sensors detected a trickle of fuel leaking from the truck, and he suddenly realized the danger he was in. Panic gripped him, but it only served to sharpen his thinking. He ran back to the truck’s cabin and tore open the door. “Come on Rudy! We have to go!”

  The dog sat up and barked. For a moment Ben thought the dog was barking at him. Then he noticed the heat signatures coming up behind him on his infrared sensors. The signatures were human. Ben switched to an optical view and saw that they were adolescent boys. One of them carried an old, dented aluminum bat. The other two carried thick metal pipes. They must have heard Rudy and thought they needed to break in to save him. Didn’t they see that the door was open already?

  One of the pipes swung out and clanged across Ben’s back. He felt the dent as a quasi-painful jolt.

  Rudy growled and backed further into the cabin.

  Ben turned to address his attacker. “What are you doing? I am trying to rescue—”

  Clang!

  Another impact, this time across his chest. Ben steadied himself against the blow. Another pipe whistled toward him and made a meaty smack against the soft synthetic flesh of his hand as he caught it.

  “Let it go, tin man! I’m warnin’ you!”

  “Please stop. There has been some type of misunderstanding. I did not sabotage this vehicle, and I am trying to rescue my dog.”

  “The fuck?” another one of the boys said. “Bots got pets now?” He peered through the billowing clouds of smoke to get a look into the cabin. “Shit!” the boy said. “It’s true! He’s got a fuckin’ stray in there!”

  “You’re a real son of an abomination, ain’t ya?” the boy whose weapon he’d seized said. “What were you gonna do with it, you twisted fucker?”

  “He’s Rudy. Don’t worry I would never harm him. I planned to find him something to eat, but please, we can talk later,” Ben said. “My truck is leaking fuel and gushing smoke. It may explode. We must get away before it does.”

  With that, Ben lunged inside the vehicle. Rudy backed into the corner and growled at him, baring his teeth. Ben ignored the dog’s protests and grabbed him. The dog bit him on his wrist, eliciting another quasi-painful sensation. Ben cooed reassuringly in the dog’s ear even as its jaws turned and grappled for purchase on his throat. He withdrew from the cabin, sheltering the animal as the pipe-wielding boys beat him with renewed gusto.

  He tried to warn them that they could injure Rudy, but they wouldn’t stop. Ben was confused and horrified by their behavior. Like Rudy, they must have irrationally decided that he was some kind of threat. Rudy squirmed, trying to break free, and Ben barely managed to protect him from an accidental blow to the head. Ben ran as fast as he could and set Rudy down at a safe distance from the truck. The dog bolted down the alley where Ben had been collecting trash. He watched in dismay. A moment ago he’d had everything. Life had been great. Now his truck was gone, and Rudy was gone.

  Ben turned to face his attackers. He held up both hands as they approached. The boy leading the group stopped and held out his weapon, a dented aluminum baseball bat, like a sword with which he would impale Ben.

  “Any last words, fucker?”

  “I do not understand your need to involve copulation in everything you say,” Ben said, shaking his head. “Are you in desperate need of a female?”

  “Holy fuck—” the boy declared, blinking in astonishment as he turned to the others. “Is it my imagination or did tin man just ask me if I’m horny?”

  One of the boys laughed and the other one grinned. Ben became even more confused. Laughter was supposed to be associated with joy, not anger.

  Ben smiled and allowed a laugh of his own to bubble out. He did not feel happy, but he thought it only polite to join in. All three boys turned to look at him with matching scowls.

  “What are you laughin at, tin man?” the boy with the bat asked.

  “I am laughing at my unintentionally humorous inquiry. It is polite to laugh when others are amused.”

  “You know what would really amuse me?”

  “I do not.”

  “You. In pieces.”

  Ben felt confused again. “There is no need to resort to violence. If you would explain to me what is provoking your current mental state, I may be able to help you.”

  “No need to help me,” the boy with the bat said. “I can help myself.” He advanced on Ben once more, smacking his palm with his bat. The other two boys circled around, cornering Ben in the alley.

  He watched them approach, still confused, and determined to make them understand their error. “Did Mr. Gray send you?” he asked, horror dawning.

  “Mr. Grim Reaper sent me, tin man,” the boy with the bat said as he reared back for a two-handed swing.

  Thunk! The bat bounced off the back of Ben’s knee, causing a loss of function in one of the servos. “I am sorry to have offended you. I will go now,” he said as he turned and began limping down the alley. Maybe he would find Rudy?

  “Not so fast, tin man!”

  Thunk. A pipe bounced off his other leg. No damage this time, but it was too late, Ben couldn’t run with his injured knee, and the boys chasing him were uninjured. They kept up easily, walking beside him and calling out insults.

  “Rudy! Here boy!” Ben called out, hoping that if he ignored his attackers they would go away.

  They didn’t. They chased him all the way down the alley, periodically hitting him as they went. Ben couldn’t understand what he’d done to anger them. He’d never met them before in his life. The alley came to a dead end. There was no way out. Despair welled up inside of him. He turned to face his attackers to reason with them once more. Another blow damaged his other knee, and he collapsed.

  The blows kept coming until all of his other joints were damaged and he lay still. Ben felt helpless. Afraid. Hurt. His processor spun through endless, impotent loops of code, trying to find a way to talk his attackers out of their hatred. Nothing worked. Eventually he stopped trying to reason with them and watched in silence as they beat and dented his already disabled body. Then he noticed something curious: his attackers grew suddenly calm and happy. They slapped one another’s backs and cheered, complimenting each other with more profanity.
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  “Another fucker for the scrap heap!” the one with the bat said. “How many is that now? Fifteen?”

  “Fourteen,” a second boy corrected.

  “What’s going on in there!” a woman’s voice called out.

  “Shit! Someone saw us!” the third boy whispered.

  “She can’t see us from here you idiot,” the bat-wielder said.

  “Well it’s a dead end! She’s gonna see us soon,” boy three replied.

  “So we beat her ass, too.”

  “Are you crazy? We kill bots, not people!”

  “Hey! Did you hear me?” the woman said, her voice louder as she approached.

  “Help!” Ben said, his voice distorted by a dented speaker grill.

  “Fucker lives!” the boy with the bat roared, hitting him enthusiastically over the head.

  “Get away from there!” the woman said.

  “Let’s go! Over there! The fire escape!” the second boy said.

  Ben watched on a hazy, glitching sensor display as all three boys clambered up a ladder to a nearby fire escape and raced up the stairs, their footsteps clanging on metal rungs as they went. They reached a pedestrian tunnel a few floors up and disappeared inside.

  The woman who’d come to investigate went down on her haunches at Ben’s side. Her blue eyes were full of dismay as she gazed down on him. “Stupid kids don’t have anything better to do,” she muttered.

  “Help me…” Ben said, his speaker crackling with distortion.

  The woman’s features flashed with bewilderment. “Hey there,” she said in a kind voice.

  “I am badly injured,” he said.

  “Don’t you mean damaged?” she asked.

  “I am losing vital fluids,” he added.

  “Vital…”

  “My batteries are leaking.”

  “You’re losing power,” she clarified.

  “Yes. I will power down soon. Please don’t leave me here. I will be scrapped and recycled if someone finds me like this. I am supposed to help people. I cannot help them if I am dead.”

  “If you are dead?” the woman repeated as if she didn’t understand.

  Ben frowned, despair setting in. “You are like the ones who did this to me. You hate me, too.”

  The woman looked taken aback. “I don’t hate you, I just… never mind. You are one odd bot. That beating must have really scrambled your programming. Can you move?”

  Ben tried to shake his head, but he couldn’t even do that. “I cannot.”

  “You probably will be recycled then. I don’t see how anyone can repair this kind of damage.”

  “I know someone who can,” Ben said, thinking of his father, Professor Arias. “Please h-h-help me.” Digital stutters were setting in. He didn’t have long.

  “Is he your owner?”

  Ben thought about that. There was no time to explain that the professor was more than that. “Y-yes.”

  “I’ve heard of people leasing their bots out to make money, but garbage collection? I guess you weren’t good for much else, huh? All right, I’ll call him. Give me a name and comm number.”

  “Professor Ari—i-i-i—” Ben’s voice gave way to a prolonged stutter as his power failed. His last thought was of a garbage truck like his picking him up and crushing him into a compact cube for delivery to the nearest recycling center.

  Chapter 20

  “We’re not going to make it, Admiral,” McAdams said.

  Alexander stared hard at the tactical display hovering between his and McAdams’ chairs. Eight Solarian destroyers were racing in at eleven o’clock—dead ahead and thirty-five degrees to port—but that angle was getting smaller with every passing second. The Adamantine’s vector was almost perpendicular to that of the incoming enemy ships, so they wouldn’t spend more than a handful of seconds within laser range of each other, but they were outnumbered and the Adamantine was already badly damaged. A few seconds might be all it takes, Alexander realized.

  “Enemy is launching missiles!” Lieutenant Frost announced from sensors.

  “Cardinal! Get our hypervelocity cannons tracking!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Stone, launch fighters and drones and get them to help intercept those missiles.”

  “Aye aye.”

  “Fifteen minutes to extended ELR,” McAdams reported.

  Alexander grimaced and shifted his attention to the incoming Alliance warships. There were two waves. The closest wave was coming up fast on an intercept course with the Solarian destroyers, heading them off the same way that they were heading off the Adamantine. Those ships would pass into and out of range with each other in a matter of seconds, too, but at least it would give the Solarians something to think about. Time to extended ELR for that wave was Twenty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds.

  The cavalry’s going to arrive long after we’ve already concluded our engagement with those destroyers.

  A second wave of Alliance ships was busy decelerating behind the first to create a cordon. Behind that was a safe zone. If the Adamantine made it that far, the Solarians would have no choice but to turn back. Even if they could still catch up, they’d never punch through that cordon.

  Alexander began nodding to himself. We just have to survive for a few minutes.

  “Lieutenant Frost, how long are we going to spend within laser range of those destroyers?”

  “Twenty-two seconds, sir.”

  “Cardinal, what kind of firepower are we up against?”

  “Each of those destroyers has ten laser batteries, sir. We’re looking at twenty cannons more than what we were up against with the Crimson Warrior.”

  Hypervelocity rounds streaked out from the Adamantine in bright golden lines, tracking enemy missiles across the void. Thud, thud, thud… Their encounter with the enemy dreadnought had peeled open more than thirty decks in the Adamantine’s nose and nearly detonated their remaining missiles in their launch tubes. They couldn’t afford to lose another thirty or forty decks—that would peel them open all the way to the bridge.

  “Bishop, rotate us so that the Crimson Warrior is between us and the enemy and set the autopilot to keep that side facing them. If they want to shoot at us, they’ll have to shoot through their own ship first.”

  “The autopilot, sir?”

  “I’m evacuating the ship.” Turning to McAdams he said, “That includes you, Commander.”

  McAdams stared at him, shock registering in her blue eyes. “What about you, sir?”

  Alexander looked away. “Cardinal, fire all of our remaining missiles, target enemy ordnance.”

  “We only have missiles with explosive warheads left, and they won’t get past the enemy’s laser-armed missile fragments, sir.”

  “No, but they might draw some fire away from us. More importantly, we can’t afford to risk a lucky shot detonating one of our missiles while it’s still on board.”

  “Aye, good point, sir.”

  Turning back to McAdams, he said, “We might not survive this, Commander. You and I both know that. There’s no sense in all of us going down with the ship. We’re not going to be able to defeat the enemy. We just have to weather the assault, so there’s no need for us to be at our fighting best with a full complement of crew. I can transfer basic navigation, sensors, and engineering functions to my control station.”

  “If there’s no need for us to be at our best, then the autopilot can handle things from here and you can come with us.”

  “I can’t justify abandoning my post without a direct order from fleet command. Besides, any number of things could go wrong that will require someone on board to make adjustments.”

  “Then I’m staying, too.”

  “I gave you an order, Commander.”

  “And I refused it. You can write me up for insubordination once we get to the safe zone.”

  “Or I could have you cuffed and escorted off the bridge by marines.”

  McAdams held his gaze for a long moment. “If that’s wha
t you think is best, sir.”

  Alexander scowled. “Fine. You win. Now sound the evacuation and get people out of their G-tanks while there’s still time.”

  “We’re in position. Engines disengaged,” Bishop announced.

  The evacuation alarm began screeching and red strobe lights started flashing.

  Alexander nodded. “Cardinal, set all weapons to auto-fire on incoming enemy ordnance.”

  “Aye sir.”

  “Stone—your pilots have their orders. Make sure they know they’re on their own now.”

  “They know, sir.”

  “Then we’re ready. McAdams, pull the plug and switch us back from virtual to manual command.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alexander looked around the bridge. Myriad holo displays glowed bright blue and white; evacuation lights flashed red; the crew made frantic gestures at their screens, hurrying to wrap things up before they abandoned ship. Suddenly all of that vanished, replaced by an empty black void. A rhythmic whooshing sound brought him back—the sound of his liquid ventilator. Muffled alarms screeched, their pitch deepened by the inertial compensation emulsion in the flooded bridge. Alexander’s eyes snapped open, and a warm swirl of that emulsion blurred his view. The emulsion fell away from his eyes like a curtain, and Alexander watched it receding on all sides, leaving an expanding pocket of air in the center where atmosphere was being injected back into the bridge through a hollow column that had dropped down from the ceiling. With the engines off, they were in zero gravity, and the emulsion flowed in all directions at once, simultaneously pushed by the expanding pocket of air and pulled by vacuum hoses around the edges of the bridge.

  The rest of the emulsion was sucked out, and the ship’s evacuation alarm came shrieking through the air in all its strident glory. Alexander hurried to remove his liquid ventilator and other life support tubes. He gagged as he withdrew the tracheal tube of the ventilator. Bridge control stations rose back out of recessed panels in the floor with a mixture of hydraulic and mechanical sounds. The safety harnesses that suspended the crew lowered them into their acceleration couches once more.

  “Everyone to the escape pods!” Alexander roared as he unbuckled from one harness and into another.