Rocketship Patrol (2 page)

Igon’s eye blinked on. “Hey, there, Gladys.”

It took Cortez a second to remember that was the name she was working under these days, and the only name she’d given Igon. “Hey there yourself.”

“Were you aware I can’t move?” Igon asked.

“That’s probably because I’ve only reactivated your brain, not your body.”

“Yet, you mean,” the robot said. “You haven’t reactivated my body
yet
. Right?”

Cortez spooled a length of fiboptic data cord from her robomechanical wrist and plugged it into a tiny socket inside Igon’s skull. “No, I’m keeping it off,” she said, tapping a command into the keyboard on the underside of her forearm. A moment later, a holoflat terminal appeared in the air above her artificial palm.

HARDWIRE CONNECTION TO ROBOTIC DEVICE ESTABLISHED. PASSWORD REQUIRED FOR ACCESS. EXECUTE PASSWORD DISCOVERY WORM [Y]ES / [N]O?

“May I ask why?” Igon asked.

She tapped
Y
. “It’ll make doing this so much easier.”

EXECUTING PASSWORD DISCOVERY WORM. ONE MOMENT PLEASE.

“What’s ‘this’?”

“I didn’t go to all that trouble to steal the data just to leave it behind, did I? Need someplace to store it, though. Someplace portable.” Cortez rapped a knuckle against the side of Igon’s open head. “Just have to make some room, first.”

“You’re erasing me?”

“Trying to, if this worm can figure out your password.”

“But that’s murder.”

PASSWORD DISCOVERED…

“Self-defense. You pulled a gun on me.”

IMASEXYBOT
ACCEPTED…

“I wasn’t gonna shoot you anywhere permanent.”

ACCESS TO ROBOTIC DEVICE INTERNAL OPERATING SYSTEM GRANTED.

“You know,” Cortez said, tapping a short command into her forearm, “humans can’t just get a new head if the original is needled into a puff of red mist.”

EXECUTING COMMAND AND CONTROL VIRUS.

“They can’t?” Igon asked. “What horrible design…”

LOADING MENU…

“Now,” Cortez said, “say goodnight.”

PRESS [1] FOR DIAGNOSTICS; [2] FOR SYSTEM CONTROL SUB-MENU; [3] FOR COMPLETE MEMORY ERASURE (WARNING: NO UNDO)

“Please, I’m begging you!” Igon whined. “Think of the children!”

Her finger hovering over the
3
key, Cortez squinted dubiously at the robot. “What children?”

“I don’t know... any children. Use your imagination—”

An explosion somewhere down in the belly of the rent-a-speedship rattled up through the deck, bringing down a shower of sparks and burning insulation from the corridor ceiling and throwing Cortez off balance. She stumbled back against the corridor wall, inadvertently yanking the fiboptic cord out of Igon’s skull. The cord automatically retracted back into her robomechanical wrist with a
snick
.

“I have taken a direct beam hit to the casing over my primary reactor,” the rent-a-speedship’s Brain announced in its unconcerned voice. “Force shields were unable to absorb the majority of the damage. Attempting to prevent a meltdown. I am not optimistic.”

“Ah-hah!” Igon exclaimed. “Didn’t think they’d use their weapons, did you?”

Cortez pushed herself off the wall. “Didn’t think they’d try to kill you, no.”

“Kill me?”

Cortez patted ceiling ash and debris off the armor-padded shoulders of her jumpsuit. “They’re aiming for the reactor. People only aim at it when they want to blow up a whole ship. So I guess maybe they figure they can salvage the data out of the wreckage… you, not so much.”

“Those bastards! Open fire on them or something!”

“I had to strip the weapons out of this thing to get past Berod’s security scans, remember? But... maybe if you tell your union buddies to knock it off, they’ll reconsider betraying you – and maybe I won’t need to erase you.”

“Well, then, what you waiting for?” Igon asked. “Open a channel.”

Cortez pulled her needler out and crouched to press its barrel against Igon’s forehead. “No tricks.”

“Do I look like a magician?”

Cortez huffed, then said to the ceiling, “Ship, re-activate the radio.”

“Done,” the rent-a-speedship’s Brain replied.

The radio came on with a burst of static. 

The FURCAP robot had been talking the whole time. “...let’s see how much you ignore us after another shot—”

“Uh, hey, guys.”

“Brother Igon? Is the data aboard?”

“The data? Yeah, the data’s aboard. And yes, I’m alive, thanks for asking. And I’d like to keep it that way, so can you not shoot at the reactor... or anything at all for the moment, okay? I’ve got the situation completely under control.”

“Scans are showing you’re immobilized.”

“A negotiating tactic,” Igon said. “Give me five minutes.”

“The data is secure, then?”

“It’s in the ship’s data core,” Igon said. “I hear those things can take a nuke going off next to it.”

“You have five minutes,” the FURCAP robot said.

“Ship, kill the radio,” Cortez ordered, holstering her needler. “Nice job, idiot.”

“Idiot? Why would you call me an… They’re not gonna give us five minutes, are they?”

“Not after you just confirmed to them that blowing us up won’t hurt the data, no.”

“That’s not going to affect our little not-erasing-me bargain, is it?”

“A deal’s a deal. I still need your body, but I guess I can upload you into the ship’s backup memory.” Cortez spooled the fiboptic cord from her wrist again and jammed its tiny jack into Igon’s open skull.

PRESS [1] FOR DIAGNOSTICS; [2] FOR SYSTEM CONTROL SUB-MENU; [3] FOR COMPLETE MEMORY ERASURE (WARNING: NO UNDO)

She tapped
2
, then clicked through the menu selections until
SHIP CONTROL RELAY:
CONNECTION TO ROBOTIC DEVICE ESTABLISHED appeared on her palm holoflat. “Should be enough room for you. Well, most of you.”

“You’re too kind.”

SHIP CONTROL RELAY:
UPLOAD ROBOT PERSONALITY-MEMORY MATRIX TO SHIP’S BRAIN SECONDARY MEMORY: [Y]ES / [N]O?

Cortez’s finger hovered over
N
. “It’s that or complete erasure.”

“Upload away,” Igon said.

Cortez tapped
Y
.

UPLOADING.

“Heh heh,” Igon said. “That tick—”

Igon’s eye went black.

Five seconds later, Cortez’s robomechanical forearm beeped and the palm holoflat displayed
SHIP CONTROL RELAY:
UPLOAD OF ROBOT PERSONALITY-MEMORY MATRIX COMPLETE. ROBOTIC DEVICE MEMORY EMPTY.

Two seconds after that, another explosion aft—larger and more intense than any before—rattled the rent-a-speedship.

“Well, that was never five minutes,” Cortez said.

“I have taken another beam to the primary reactor,” the ship announced calmly. “The casing has been completely breached. The cooling system is now offline. Backup systems have been initialized but nuclear meltdown can now no longer be prevented, only delayed. Evacuation is highly recommended.”

“Working on it.” Cortez tapped through another menu tree.

SHIP CONTROL RELAY:
DOWNLOAD
BOOTY ONE
DATA PACKAGE TO ROBOTIC DEVICE MEMORY: [Y]ES / [N]O?

Cortez tapped
Y
, then slapped the button to open the life boat hatch. The hatch cantilevered open with a hiss of out-rushing stale air, revealing the life boat’s cramped cabin – just big enough for a two-person couch, a limited navigation and communication console, and a ceiling-mounted locker of survival gear. 

Cortez’s forearm beeped.
SHIP CONTROL RELAY:
DOWNLOAD OF
BOOTY ONE
DATA PACKAGE TO ROBOTIC DEVICE MEMORY COMPLETE. DATA PACKAGE INTEGRITY: 100%

Cortez pulled the fiboptic jack out of Igon’s former body, letting the cord automatically retract back into her wrist. She closed the robot’s skull and gave the top of the head a sharp slap. The robot shell’s six limbs shot out, straight and rigid, then just as quickly retracted away into the central cylinder. A carrying strap popped out of the shell’s spine. Cortez picked up the cylinder and tossed it onto the life boat’s couch.

“You think you’re gonna get away that easily?” the rent-a-speedship’s Brain asked, its voice no longer calm.

“Love the new voice, Igon,” Cortez said, ducking through the hatchway into the life boat. She plopped down on the couch next to Igon’s former body and strapped herself in. “Took you long enough to find your way into main memory, though.”

“Real stupid move, human, transferring me. I’m in control of the ship, now.”

“Well, the intercom, anyway.” Cortez leaned to pull the hatch shut, yanking down the lever to seal it closed. “Just in time to enjoy the meltdown.”

“The what now?” Igon asked.

Instead of answering, Cortez just hit the large launch button in the middle of the life boat’s control console.

An imminent launch siren wailed and the life boat shot out, rear-end first, from between the rent-a-speedship’s dorsal arch, throwing Cortez against the restraints that crisscrossed her chest.

“Hey,” Igon called over the radio in the rent-a-speedship’s voice, “you wouldn’t happen to know how to stop a meltdown, would you?”

“There is one way,” Cortez said, typing commands into her forearm, “but you’re probably not going to like it.”

SHIP CONTROL RELAY:
NEW COURSE SETTING CONFIRMED AND ENTERED.

“I promise,” Igon said, “I’ll like it.”

SHIP CONTROL RELAY:
ENGAGE THRUSTERS [Y]ES / [N]O?

“Okay,” Cortez jabbed her finger down on the
Y
. “If you insist.”

She looked up. The FURCAP gunship was coming about to aim its weapon-bristling nose cone at the life boat. It managed to swivel a whole five degrees towards the boat before the rent-a-speedship’s overpowered thrusters lit to a searing green-white full strength.

“Hey, who turned the thrusters on?” Igon asked over the radio. “Aww... crap.”

After a few seconds, dead-weight inertia was overcome and the rent-a-speedship lurched forward, plowing into the unsuspecting FURCAP ship. The two ships slowly accordioned together, hull plates rippling and sliding over each other as their bulkheads twisted and crumpled. Atmosphere escaped in spurting jets. Explosions bloomed at the merge point, those explosions triggering larger and larger explosions that rapidly spread to consume both ships in a final fireball.

Cortez instinctively shut her eyes as the expanding shockwave of super-heated plasma and debris swept over and past the life boat, shaking it ever so slightly.

When she opened her eyes, all that remained of the two ships was a scattered cloud of debris, getting smaller and smaller as the life boat continued along its straight-line escape trajectory.

Cortez let out a breath. “Life boat?”

“I am here.”

“Where’d that little bastard strand me?”

“Drantini system.”

“Drantini? What the hell is in Drantini?”

“Drantini is a class five system of two inhabited worlds and fourteen worldlets, home to over seven billion—”

“Okay, it’s a total backwater, I get it. Start scanning anyway. Might get lucky.”

“What am I scanning for?”

Cortez smirked thoughtfully out at the void. “A ship with a superluminal engine I can... borrow.”

TWO

Docking tube retracting, the massive triple-nacelled, fifteen-rocket DUPES
Cruiser Rocketship 17
peeled away from the much smaller single-nacelled, twin-rocket
Patrol Rocketship 8724
. Cruiser
17
’s rockets lit and she flicked away, leaving the patrol rocketship all alone in the barren outskirts of the Drantini system.

“Welcome aboard, Junior Officer Loy.”

Duffel bag slung under her shoulder and a wide-eyed mix of nervous anticipation and excitement on her open, freckled face, Dana Loy stepped out of
8724
’s airlock into the corridor encircling Deck 4. Raven-haired, Loy’s athletic build was accented by the severe lines of her freshly pressed DUPES uniform. The DUPES shield on her pillbox cap was showroom-floor new, polished to give off a near-blinding reflection. “Thank you, ship.”

“Not at all,” the ship said, its voice authoritative yet subordinate, the standard for a DUPES Ship’s Brain. “For your convenience, you may also refer to me by my service designation,
8724
, or simply,
Hey, Circuit Board
.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry,” 8724 said. “I’m not really programmed for funny but Lieutenant Detective Hackenthrush insists I keep trying. Supposed to expand my horizons, but so far it just confuses people.”