"I'm sick," she said.
He looked past her at the vomit.
"That's cute," he said making a face. "You maggots can just live with it. I'm not going to tell you again. Take the shirt off the camera."
"Now that isn't very nice," Stratton said backing away from the door. The people in the cell with her did the same.
"What are you lot up to?" he asked.
"I wanted to use you as a shield," she said with a smile.
"Shield?" he asked in confusion.
"Yeah, I wouldn't want the people across the way to get hurt." She threw one of the balls as she and the other prisoners turned their back to the door. The ball landed at the bottom of the door and exploded. The bars blew apart sending scrap metal into the guard and slinging him against the cells on the other side of the hall. Sirens started wailing, a music the crew was starting to get way too used to.
"Come on, let's go," Stratton said to the others.
"It's no use, Stratton," Mallory said. "They just activate the GSH's and Elites, recapture us or worse. We can't win."
"Yes, we can," Stratton screamed. "Now just come on. We have to bust everyone out of here. We have to make a diversion so that someone else can take care of the GSHs." She reached down and took the com-link from the twitching disembodied arm of the dead guard. She held it up. "Hey it still works!"
"In here," Bradley said, removing the cover from the conduit. The four walked in and he shut it back again. "This way." He led them to a huge junction where six service conduits met. About two dozen maintenance men were there waiting for them.
RJ smiled, glad to see them. She started pulling the camera looking units from the bag. "All right. Now half of you will go with Poley, and half will go with Topaz. This is what you're going to do
. . .
"
Stratton had used the explosives to blow the main gate. After overpowering and killing the guards posted there, they were sitting in the brig's main control room, systematically deactivating every lock on every cell in the brig.
Soon all the prisoners were out again, but this time they had a specific purpose and informed leadership. This time they would do something more than just cause a little trouble.
"Are you sure that this damn thing is not going to affect us?" Levits asked for the third time as they walked down the hall.
"Of course I'm sure," RJ said. "I wouldn't be messing with it if I wasn't completely sure."
"There are guards posted outside the front door," Bradley said. Just then the sirens started blaring, signaling that Stratton had successfully accomplished her part, and that they were running a little behind.
They stopped at the door to the bridge, and Bradley showed the work order.
"I'll need to see your IDs" he said.
Bradley pulled his out and showed it. Then the guards looked expectantly at Levits and RJ, and they handed him the IDs they had just taken from two of the other maintenance people.
When they scanned through as being clean the doors opened, and they walked in.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Yumby demanded.
"Moving the emergency switch as ordered by Briggs, Sir," Bradley said.
"I'm in the middle of yet another prison break!" Yumby screamed. "Whole damn place is falling to pieces, and you're moving a freaking button!"
"Just following orders, Sir," Bradley explained.
"Damn! Well I guess it won't be any real problem. You need all that stuff?" Yumby asked, looking in disbelief at the two large toolboxes and the armload of equipment..
"It's more complicated than you would think," Bradley explained.
"Well, just do it and get it over with then," Yumby ordered. "If Briggs gets back alive, we wouldn't want him to have yet another thing to bitch about."
RJ smiled and she and Bradley went to work as Levits, trying to act like he was handing them tools, watched their backs.
"Can you believe it, Drex? They're actually moving the damn button! We have to threaten to blow them out of the sky to get them to fix the hole in the side of the ship, toilets backed up everywhere and food services completely non-operational, but the
button
they're going to fix. Right now, no less!" Yumby said.
Fifteen minutes later when they were still working on it, Yumby asked impatiently, "How long can it take to move a freaking button?"
"It's tied into emergency systems, Sir," Bradley explained. "As such, you have to override a lot of safety features."
Yumby walked a little away and started pacing. It didn't seem to Bradley that he was doing too much to solve any of the problems on the station. Mostly he was just walking around trying to look important.
Bradley smiled.
He looks like a freaking idiot. Pompous ass. He's so ignorant you could tell him anything. He doesn't know how anything works, so he doesn't know that a switch could be moved in less than five minutes, and he certainly can't tell that we are planting an ancient alien weapon on the bridge of his ship
.
Ten minutes later Yumby said, "Aren't you finished yet? I have a commanding officer in a possible fire fight on the surface of a third class planet, mass class riots all over my station, and a huge hole in my transport bay to deal with. I'm really getting a little tired of having to step over one of you every three seconds."
RJ finished the last splice on a fiber optic, looked at Bradley and smiled. She brushed her hands off on her coveralls and stood up.
She raised her com-link to her mouth. "Poley?"
"Yes?" he answered.
"Have you finished yet?" RJ asked.
"Yes, we have finished," he answered.
RJ lowered her arm. She took a pair of headphones from her pocket, put them on her head and clicked them on. She turned, looked at Yumby and smiled. "It's ready to go, want to try it?" Not waiting for his answer, she punched the button they had just installed.
"No don't!" Yumby screamed. "Hey! It doesn't work."
"Yes, it does," RJ said. "It just doesn't work on you." She jumped through the air and landed a well-placed kick to the bridge of his nose.
As he rolled for cover behind the Captain's Chair, Levits pulled the laser from inside his coveralls and shot one of the guards who was standing at the door. RJ ran forward growling, grabbed the other guard by the arm holding his rifle and slammed him – rifle and all – into the wall. As he fell dead to the floor, RJ grabbed the front of her coveralls and ripped them off in one motion. She pulled her chain from her body, looked at Drex, checked his emotions, and then killed him by slapping the chain into his head.
She turned and looked at the others.
"Who else wants to die for the Reliance?" RJ asked quickly. The remaining members of the room were silent, and a quick scan told her that none of them were likely to become aggressive. "What? No takers?"
Bradley had pulled his weapon from where he'd hidden it in his toolbox, but he didn't get a chance to use it. He sort of wished she'd let him kill Yumby. It would have been the next best thing to killing Briggs.
RJ raised her wrist-com to her mouth again. "Stratton, come and take control of the bridge."
"I'm on my way," Stratton answered.
RJ looked at Levits and smiled. "So, are you staying here, or coming with me?"
"Why I'm coming with you, of course, dear," Levits said.
Without the GSH's to contend with, the rebels were able to take complete control of the station in less than six hours. They were now loading the last of the motionless GSH's into a convenient airlock.
"I still don't get it," Levits said. "How come it's effecting the GSH's and not us?"
"Because they're hearing is superior to that of normal humans. I simply moved the frequency to a level no human could detect. That's why I have to have a sonic disrupter," RJ answered.
"It looks like a simple set of radio headphones," Levits said.
"It is," RJ said with a smile.
"But GSH's have no emotions. They aren't afraid of anything," Levits said. "What could they be dreaming?"
"See, that was what I thought until something occurred to me. GSH's have been programmed to serve the Reliance; they have been programmed for loyalty to the Reliance. So they do have a fear. A fear of failing to please the Reliance, a fear of appearing to be less than devoted," RJ said.
They had loaded the last of the GSHs into the air lock. They closed it and walked away. Bradley opened the air lock and watched as the GSHs floated off into space. Soon their terror would end.
"We'll leave the weapon here," RJ said to Stratton. "Who knows? You just might need it again someday. The New Alliance will trade with the natives for the items they need. I trust the two of you to deal with them and with our people honestly."
"How will we get supplies from Earth here or from here to Earth?" Stratton asked.
"Do I have to figure everything out?" RJ asked with a smile. "I'm a woman, not a computer. I don't know
. . .
Commandeer the Kryptonite and use it to fly things back and forth. You're already connected to Mickey and to Marge. You set up a teleport station in New Freedom and you trade goods."
"How are we going to avoid being shot out of the sky by the Reliance?" Stratton asked.
"Get really good pilots," RJ looked at them and smiled. "Listen, you're smart people. You started this on your own. We couldn't have done any of this if you hadn't already had the ball rolling. I have faith in you. I'm sure you can figure something out. I have more important things to do. Aliens to see, planets to undo."
She started walking.
"Wait a minute, RJ," Stratton said following her. "We need help to set things up here."
"You need help, but you don't need
our
help," RJ said, she just kept walking. "As it is, the Reliance might decide to come and knock you out of the sky. I doubt it, though. Worthless planet only has a few things worth taking, and now has a violently aggressive native population that managed to blow up a fully loaded battle cruiser and has learned to hate them.
"Add to that a damaged station full of dissidents with no real place to go and with enough fire power to destroy several battle ships before they could take it out. Nah, I don't think they're likely to bother you. But me and my crew – we're trophies. If they could put our heads on plates, they could break the back of the New Alliance. Or at least they think they could. If we stayed here they'd send an armada out here and blast everything to pieces just to get at us. They wouldn't care about casualties; they wouldn't care about losses. So
. . .
when they figure out what's happened here, it will be better for you if we're not here."
"You can do this," Topaz added. They had reached the skiff that was their destination. Topaz hugged Stratton and then Bradley. He turned to Stratton. "I'm only sorry that we didn't have sex at least once."
She laughed. "Ah, me, too."
"Just get on the damned ship, ya old perve," Levits said giving him a playful shove. Levits got in and started suiting up.
RJ turned at the hatch, looked at them and smiled. "Good luck. I have to tell you – it isn't easy being a legend."
They watched in silence as the hatch closed.
"So, do you think we are legends now?" Bradley asked Stratton as they walked away from the hanger.
Stratton laughed. "To who? Do you really believe that in fifty years anyone is going to remember anything except that RJ, a seven hundred year old man, and a robot AI stepped in here and stomped the Reliance to pieces? You, me, Levits, David – even the Prince – we're all just people. We can't compete." She looked around her there didn't seem to be any part of the station that didn't at least look like a disaster area. "Come on, let's get to work. We have to figure this mess out."
David looked out the window of the throne room at the city below. He had been surprised at how fast the debris of the battle had been cleaned away. How quickly things had been returned to – if not normal – at least something cleaner and more organized.
He doubted that anything seemed at all normal to the people who lived here, and it was a sure bet things would never be the same again.
Janad walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"They aren't coming back for me, you know," David said.
"Yes, I know," Janad answered. She had known that two weeks ago when a ship had come to get Jackson, and the pilot had been surprised to see David still here. He had offered to take David to the Station. David had insisted on waiting for RJ.
"I can't say that I am not happy that they didn't come for you," Janad said in a whisper.