Junkyard Cats

by Faith Hunter

  “You and those damn cats.”

  A tiny screen over the exit door brightened, flashed, darkened, and resolved into the vision of the road out front. “Invaders,” I said to Notch, knowing he understood a very little English, mostly stuff about food. “If they get onto the property, there will be no goat milk. No water.”

  “Sisssss,” he said, this one angry.

  “If the Puffers continue to replicate, there will be no more protein or kibble. And they will eat your young.”

  His mouth opened to show his canines, which were bigger than a normal housecat’s. “Sisssss.” Very defiantly pissed. Notch eased down the steps to the floor and walked to the outer airlock. Looked back over his shoulder and again at the door.

  “Timmy fell in the well,” I muttered, quoting a 2040 film about a modified cyborg Collie dog that could actually speak English. I opened the outer airlock. Much slower than his previous speed, and looking a little clumsy in the bandages he hadn’t tried to chew off, Notch stepped out into the night. Limping, he disappeared into shadows. I closed the airlock and said, “Mateo, engage security protocols.”

  “Engaging. Get to the ship. Looks like our visitors have heavy armament.”

  I switched my face shield to auto and raced through the dark aisles, past tons of older, rusted skids of scrap ready to be bulk-shipped. Prewar heavy equipment scrap from the top-down mining that had removed entire mountain ranges to provide granite cabinet tops for homeowners and coal for the power industry. Farm tractors from when this area had been fertile land instead of flat granite. Alloy car bodies that no one would ever buy, not in this day of lighter hemp-based materials. The scrap back here was all old stuff that had been here when I got here, and would be here forever, the perfect disguise for what we really were.

  In my face shield, a cat form showed bright golden red with body-heat, dropped six meters in front of me, and sat. I skidded to a halt.

  “Tuffs? What the—?” Ahead, on an adjoining aisle I needed to take, cats attacked a Puffer, ripping it to shreds. “Oh. Is anyone hurt?” Tuffs didn’t reply, not that I could have understood her if she tried.

  Mateo’s warbot body moved down the aisle on his modified three legs and scooped the busted Puffer into a bucket. “No more for now,” he said to the cat. “The Grabber will be busy. Just keep track of them, don’t kill them.”

  Tuffs moved to the side. I raced on, now seeing cats leaping from aisle to aisle and pile to pile, following me. Or leading me. Right to the ghillie-tech cloth that covered the side access hatch of the United States Space Ship SunStar.

  Beyond the tarp Mateo had rigged over the entrance, the ship’s exterior was still functional. Stars shone on the undamaged part, reflecting sky and desert and visions of the junkyard in the automated, actively-repositioning armor and Chameleon skin. It was effectively invisible unless someone stumbled on top of it or knew it was here and was looking for it. The ship had gone down in the middle of the war, in a major Earth-orbit battle. It had broken up and the front half landed here. For some reason it had never been found, even after the war ended.

  My Berger-chip must have sensed my uncertainty, because it chose that moment to chime in:

  The timeline leading up to World War Three was chaos. The tension created by stable WIMP engine technology—which led to active solar system colonization—was made worse with the appearance of Bug aliens in 2036 when a scout ship with some functioning technology crashed into the North Sea. The ship was captured by the EU and much of the alien tech was reverse engineered and shared with the United States and other allies. This new tech was later stolen by other countries—notably the People’s Republic of China, which refined and improved the Allies’ designs. The subsequent claiming and colonization of Mars resulted in a war that began in 2043 and ended when the Bugs appeared in large numbers and forced the peace treaty of 2045. Bugs divided Earth into major parties and some sub—

  “Shut up,” I told the Berger-chip.

  A lot of earth-based human tech had been lost in the war. The SunStar had space-going war tech, and some of it was lost as well—except for what ended up right here. The office had even more dangerous tech. All of it was banned. The power sources and weapons, if used, could be identified from satellites. So powering the main WIMP engines would be dangerous; it might draw attention to the junkyard. Instead, I would slowly power up a backup engine, and even more slowly transfer power from the SunStar to my equipment, batteries, and pre-war weaponry that—I hoped—no one could trace. But first, I had to make the power transfer happen.

  “Where did the Crawler get in?” I asked Mateo.

  A single screen opened in the center of my faceplate, showing me a dusty, brownish, squat warbot, slowly crossing the border, the time-date marker a week ago. The original Crawler had all sorts of devices protruding from its carapace. There would have been dozens more devices and weapons inside on foldouts, all of them capable of independent drive and lethal measures. It was seventy-five or so centimeters high, less than that side to side and back to front, roughly squarish but with rounded edges. It was still that size when it entered the spaceship. What emerged three days later were two babies, each more than half the original’s size. They had taken on mass. From the spaceship.

  “It entered the exterior rear engine compartment,” Mateo replied. “So far as I can tell, the Crawler never made it to the bridge or to engineering. It spent all its time in the shielding bay, breaking up a spy drone.”

  “Copy.”

  I input the code Mateo had set when we first accessed the ship—Mateo, four, eight, one, six, alpha tango delta. I placed a palm over the viber, and my face against the scanner. The hatch opened with a measured whoosh and I stepped inside. Four cats slipped in behind me, Notch’s tail tip almost getting caught when the hatch closed with a sense of finality. He was moving great for a cat who had been nearly dead. The security lights began to glow as I opened the next hatch and entered the ship proper. The sensors showed green: a breathable atmosphere. Manually, I slid my faceplate aside. All the low-water-use air-scrubber plants in the niche boxes on the walls had died years ago, as evidenced by the metallic, stale scent of the air.

  In a jarring, unexpected Southern accent, SunStar’s AI said, “Welcome home, girl. ’Bout time you came to visit again.”

  The accent was odd, but not something I had time to worry about now. I raced into the dimly lit ship, searching the glowing schematics on the walls for the engineering department, or what was left of it after the ship crash landed. The floors—decks?—weren’t flat or horizontal and some had holes down to other levels; the ceiling tiles had shattered upon impact and were all over the floors, and the walls were cracked. All of it had worsened over time, making traversing the ship physically demanding and precarious. Sprinting down the halls (or decks, or passageways, or whatever space goers called them) was a little like racing over the blasted bedrock in the desert. I banged my shin into a chunk of wall.

  “Bloody damn,” I said.

  “Watch yo’ mouth,” the ship’s AI said over her speakers. Which nearly brought me to a stop.

  Into my earbud, Mateo said, “Moving into position at front gate. Intruders approaching from the west. No human or mechanical aggressors noted from other directions. Barriers are up and functional, leading to a single defensive point. All tire shredders and tracked wheel-disrupters are up and functional. Office weapons are auto-trained on front entrance. But all automatic armaments and defensive measures are slow to respond. We are seriously low on power, Shining.”

  I dropped into the engineer’s seat, hating that I was safe back here and Mateo was out front, facing an unknown onslaught alone. An attack with tech and hardware that might be better than what we could use—assuming the Angels had PRC weapons—and still stay hidden from sat-surveillance. I could only hope the upgrades we had done on Mateo’s suit and on the property were going to be enough. I strapped in, knowing that CAIT’s command center wouldn’t respond unless all the I’s we
re dotted and T’s were crossed.

  Mateo said, “Grabber in position. Power, Shining. I need power.”

  From his tone, his suit had injected him with enough ’roids and swamped him with enough synth-pheromones to enrage a rhino.

  “Powering up SunStar’s miniaturized backup WIMP-anti-WIMP particle processor engine,” I said, watching the readouts. “Ionized neodymium is present in sufficient quantities to generate antigravity and power. Initiating warmup on WIMP and transfer systems.”

  “Copy. Make it fast. ARVACs indicate it’s not the Law. Not the Gov. It’s . . . It’s a private army.”

  “No doubt?”

  “None.”

  “Starting power transfer to office batteries and direct power to your suit,” I said. Over Mateo’s comms I heard the roar of approaching engines. It sounded like a battalion. “Come on, come on, come on,” I whispered to the particle processor. In the cold void of space, WIMP engines provided gravity for personnel and antigravity for propulsion and weapons, and it happened fast. On Earth, powering on a WIMP engine that fast—even a miniaturized backup engine—created extreme temperatures and stressed the ship, and powering it on slow meant we were dead. I nudged the power system up faster than was safe, knowing that if a military satellite with the proper scanning systems was watching this part of the desert, they’d see the system come on and they would know what had happened to the remains of their space ship. Also, the heat emissions would melt most of the junkyard if I left it on too long.

  The office battery supply showed seventeen percent. Eighteen percent. Nineteen percent, climbing too slowly.

  “Bloody hell. Hurry up!” I cursed.

  “I warned you about the language,” the ship’s AI said. “’Sides. I’m doing the best I can.”

  “Shining,” Mateo said softly. Too softly. “They’re turning in. I need that power now.”

  Batteries showed twenty percent. Finally. Through my armored suit, I whispered to Mateo and to Gomez, the office AI, “Fire primary defenses.”

  Gomez’s metallic voice said, “Firing.”

  Mateo confirmed. The earth rumbled under my feet. Up into my bones. My teeth shook.

  The office battery dropped to thirteen percent. To ten. To seven.

  Primary weapons fire stopped. I nudged the transfer power system up higher and saw the office battery percentage rise to fifteen percent. Too low. Too slow. Damndamnbloodydamn. I stuck a ship earbud into my other ear. I was now tied into Mateo, Gomez, and the ship’s AI.

  “CAIT. Shining Smith in engineering command seat.”

  I heard a strange popping sound over Mateo’s comms and glanced at the direct power to his warbot suit. It looked off. Something was wrong. I commenced a suit system diagnostic while also searching for a way to tie directly into the office’s security system screens.

  “You’re leaking air and fluid,” I told Mateo. “Your suit’s power drain has increased to twelve above maximum drain. What’s happened?”

  Mateo didn’t answer. Tuffs leaped to my chair and sat on the armrest.

  “Orrrowmerow.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I muttered to her.

  The ship AI said, “Honey, would you like me to evaluate Mateo’s suit diagnostics?”

  I frowned. Honey? “Yes. CAIT. Run suit diagnostics. Mateo. Respond.”

  Mateo didn’t.

  I spotted a new switch, or rather an old retrofitted switch, part of the ship’s ongoing repairs and modifications, stuff Mateo did in his off time. It clicked when I flipped it, and the office screens blinked on, merging with the SunStar’s screens.

  “System override,” the SunStar’s AI said. “Input screens from off-ship are now merged onboard, which is interestin’ in a strange kinda way. Warning. Off-ship systems do not correspond to my natural default parameters.”

  “Deal with it,” I told the AI.

  “Dealin’ is what I do best, darlin’. Attempting to harmonize non-complementary soft and hardware.”

  I touched the screens, shoving them around, searching for one that showed Mateo. I found it. And stopped. Mateo was on the ground, eighty meters from the entrance. Surrounded by Puffers.

  “Orrrowmerow.” Tuffs batted the screen. “Orrrowmerow. Orrrowmerow. Orrrowmerow! Mowwww.”

  A dozen cats rushed toward Mateo, attacking the Puffers. More cats joined the fight. I looked at Tuffs, meeting her eyes. Hers were the green of fresh leaves and rainforest moss, things I remembered from my youth. She stared at me, as if seeing more than I could understand.

  “How did you do that?”

  She chuffed at me, a disgusted puff of sound.

  “Okay then.”

  The ship AI said, “The warbot suit has been compromised, sweet thang. Sealing off inner suit chambers. And by the way, you can call me Jolene.”

  “Jolene? What happened to CAIT?”

  “She’s boring. Jolene is feisty, dontcha think?”

  “I don’t really have an opinion.”

  I swiveled back to the screens and searched for vid that showed me the junkyard’s entrance. And found it.

  One manned Spaatz mini-tank and three Joint Light Tactical Vehicles from various branches of the military—all decommissioned and painted in black chitosan—were stopped out front. “Someone’s been stealing from Uncle Sam,” I muttered. Or the military had stabbed the OMW in the back and allied with the MS Angels. That would suck. For now, the equipment was trapped in the spiked tire and track traps that Mateo had raised.

  From what I could tell, the human component of the assault team hadn’t expected resistance. Several had left the protection of their Tac vehicles and had begun trying to free the tires and tracks when Mateo and the office opened fire. Their armor hadn’t survived the combined firepower. I counted four humans on the ground, unmoving. The mini-tank was rocking back and forth on its track system. The tank was heavily armored, was handled by a human, and had a missile system mounted on top. With Mateo down and the office defenses on standby until the batteries recharged, I needed to damage or immobilize the missile system. I also needed to knock out any drones they brought. If the Spaatz tank got free, it had firepower the office couldn’t withstand without the particle shields up, and the mini-tank was small enough to maneuver around the aisles and find stuff it shouldn’t.

  I needed more power faster. The office systems’ shields and the USSS SunStar’s power siggie could be seen from space if military satellites were currently actively looking for it, but I didn’t have a choice.

  I checked the batteries. Still too low.

  I cursed foully. Tuffs looked at me and flicked her ear tabs, amused. Jolene said nothing.

  “I really don’t want to do this.”

  I didn’t have implants to interact directly with the ship, so this was not gonna be fun at all. Taking a deep breath, I pulled off my armored sleeve and shoved my hand into the engineering command sleeve, screaming, wordless, knowing what was coming. The sleeve contracted around my hand, fast, painfully tight. Needles punctured into me and engaged my nervous system. It hurt. It bloody well hurt. My scream went up in pitch. My breath shuddered as I forced myself to accept the pain and the input and the sensory overload.

  I was damaging my arm. I was bleeding. I would deal with the injury later.

  “That wasn’t the brightest thing you ever done, darlin’.”

  I grunted. I increased the WIMP production and shunted more power to the office batteries. I could power up the office defense system and the AG Grabber or I could use some of the scant power to launch the office’s other ARVACs now and take longer to get the systems up and running.

  I needed intel. I launched the flying drones and set them to auto-scan. The office went into brown-out again. Now I had 102 seconds until I had sufficient power transferred to activate the weapons and the Grabber. I hoped the intel was worth it.

  Melded with Jolene, I pressed my eyes against the command faceplate showing me the ship’s external sensors, as the AI searched the skies. I
spotted one enemy drone. Locked on. Sliding my bleeding hand to the left, I engaged the weapons array that was least likely to draw satellite attention. I fired.

  Silently, the ship’s EntNu-based offensive laser array took it down.

  Gomez said, “Alert. Armed incursion from the western boundary. Six, on foot.”

  I pulled up the office cameras and spotted the six-man team, armed with automatic rifles, making their way into an older section of the yard. The scrap there backed up to a series of mine cracks, the main one wider than most and a hundred meters deep or more. The rock there was rotten, hundreds of unstable cracks forming when an old underground mine had caved in. I had scanned the area once and found traces of arsenic, benzene, and toxic coal dust. I hadn’t bothered to explore further. I had no idea what the invading team might be after.

  “Do not engage,” I told Gomez. “Maintain observation via ARVACs and stationary camera system.”

  For now, I let the invaders go, curious what they were looking for. Or maybe that was Jolene’s curiosity. It was already hard to tell as her sensors merged with my senses.

  “You need to let me merge fully with the extra-ship defensive system you’re using, darlin’. This three-way we’re having is not working for me.”

  Again, the accent threw me, but I let her merge into the office AI.

  “Oh. My. Ain’t you jist the cutest li’l thang,” Jolene said to the AI. “Gomez. Nice name. Your English translated coding ain’t the best or the brightest but a lonely gal sometimes has to make do.”

  “Flirt later,” I muttered. Far faster than I could have before, my mind slipped into the office vid scanners and checked around. There were more strangers in the junkyard, these close to the office. Two humans were at the rear office airlock. I fired everything I had at them. They went down. I slid through the screens, searching for more movement.

  In the aisles, two cats were down and in pieces. I checked Mateo. He was still down. Eight Puffers were down near his suit, but as I watched, a Puffer pried apart an ankle seam in one of the three fully automated warbot legs. A second Puffer fired a small caliber weapon into the under-armor, round after round. “No,” I whispered. I counted eighteen rounds, a full mag for the Puffer. The first Puffer rolled back and tore into the opening. They were working together. That was freaky.