Rocketship Patrol (8 page)

“Uh,
my
plan?” Loy asked. Blushing, she glanced back at Hackenthrush. The Lieutenant Detective, a pouch of tequila in each hand, swiveled back and forth idly in his commander’s chair, softly singing an alcohol-slurred version of
La Cucaracha
to himself. Loy shrugged, and bit her lower lip in thought. After a moment, she said, “Protocol says first we ask nicely, then we ask a little
less
nicely. –8724, transmit the standard cease-and-desist order to compel their Ship’s Brain to turn off her engines and disengage.”

“Miss Swartzbaum?” 8724 asked.

“All right,” Cortez said with a slight nod as she watched Igon gesture emphatically at the Halgorian.

“Transmitting cease and desist,” 8724 announced.

“Any effect?” Loy asked.

“You tell me,” 8724 said, switching the main CRT over to a feed from one of her external hull cameras. The scavenger ship was slowly backing away, the glow from the converters on her plasma cannon getting brighter as it charged up. “My hunch is they don’t have a Ship’s Brain. And that they’re going to, as the robot threatened, put a hole in me wide enough to drive through. Which I must say, I am not looking forward to.”

“What kind of ship doesn’t have a Brain?” Rikki asked, squeezing in between Loy and Cortez. He gave Cortez a snaggle-toothed smile from behind the pouch of tequila he’d wedged inside his life-hood.

Cortez snorted. “The kind that would fire on a cop. –Ship, what weaponry are you packing?”

Loy answered before 8724 could. “Stock for a Corbel class patrol rocketship is two twin plasma cannon turrets, a compliment of six ship-to-ship mid-yield atomic torpedoes, and a grappling hook for boarding and rescue actions.”

“That’s it?” Cortez asked.

“More or less,” 8724 said.

“What do you mean more or less?” Loy asked. “That’s the standard load out for patrol duty.”

“That’s the standard, yes, but we have not re-stocked since Lieutenant Detective Hackenthrush and Rikki used all of my torpedoes destroying an asteroid whose orbit threatened to intersect a trade lane last week.”

“They used all six taking out a single asteroid?” Loy asked.

“It was my birthday.” Rikki hiccupped. “There may have been drink involved.”

Loy shook her head sadly. “Okay… So that leaves turrets. At least say they’re working.”

“They are,” 8724 said. “Can’t point the one backwards, and the other can only fire at half power, but, other than that…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Cortez said. “Plasma beams won’t have a chance of cutting through that trawler’s hull. How do you feel about ramming?”

“Generally against,” 8724 said.

“Hey, here’s a suggestion,” Hackenthrush said, tapping the last of both tequila pouches onto his outstretched tongue at the same time. “How about we run away?”

“They took out both rockets, sir,” Loy reminded him.

Hackenthrush grunted. “I know that, rookie… but we’ve still got a superluminal drive, don’t we?”

Cortez slapped her palm against her own forehead. “Son of a… where the hell is my head today? Superluminal engine still online, ship?”

“With your requested destination charted, yes.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Cortez asked. “Hit it.”

“I’d like nothing better,” 8724 said. “But alas…”

“What’s the problem?” Loy asked. “You said it was online.”

“And it is. But the battery lost the capacitor charge as collateral damage from the first explosion. It will take approximately one hour to recharge the battery to the point I can initiate the jump to superluminal. –I hate to be rude, but the robotic gentleman is getting quite insistent. He is giving us ten more seconds to surrender.”

“Guess we’re back to ramming,” Loy said.

“Nobody’s considering surrender as a viable option, then?” 8724 asked.

“I am,” Hackenthrush said. “And I’m all for it.”

“Ship, give me audio to the little bastard,” Cortez said.

A moment later, the video image of Igon reappeared in the CRT, with sound. “…two seconds,” the robot was saying, “…one second…”

“All right, robot,” Cortez said, “you want me. You got me. I surrender.”

“You do?” Igon asked.

“You do?” Loy asked as well.

“Know when I’m licked,” Cortez said to both of them.

On the CRT, Igon nodded cautiously. “Well, okay then.”

“Meet me at the airlock?” Cortez asked.

“I was just gonna suggest that.”

“Bet you were.”

Igon pointed a stubby single-knuckled finger at her. “No tricks. Bring my body,
and
the data.”

Cortez let her arms slide behind her, and out of sight of Igon, began tapping commands on the underside of her robomechanical arm. “Do I look like a kid, silly rabbit?”

She tapped a last key and her palm holoflat lit up.

INITIATING ROUTINE CONTINGENCY FIVE - BASTARD ROBOT CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD.
ROCKETSHIP CONTROL RELAY:
TRANSFERRING
BOOTY ONE
DATA PACKAGE FROM ROBOTIC DEVICE TO SHIP’S BRAIN SECONDARY MEMORY.

Junior Officer Loy drew her service raygun and leveled it at Cortez.

“Oh, now you remember you’ve got a gun?” Cortez asked.

“I can’t let you turn yourself over,” Loy said.

Cortez jogged her head at the CRT screen. “I don’t, the crazy robot there will blow us all up.”

“I will, too,” Igon said.

Cortez smirked at Loy. “See?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Loy said.

Hackenthrush raised a finger. “I beg to differ.”

“Quiet, the adults are talking,” Cortez snapped back at him. She turned to Loy. “Listen, you don’t understand what’s going on here. You’re gonna just have to let me do this and trust it’ll all work out.”

“Trust you?” Loy shook her head. “You’re our prisoner, and I have a duty...”

Cortez nodded. “And so do I.”

And then her robomechanical hand was flashing out and grabbing the barrel of Loy’s raygun. Before the Junior Officer could react, Cortez twitched her wrist and sent forks of electricity dancing over the raygun and into Loy’s hand.

Loy’s eyes rolled to white as she convulsed and collapsed to the deck.

On the CRT screen, Igon let out a laugh.

Cortez tossed Loy’s raygun down next to her. “Shut up, robot.”

“Hey there, now, missy,” Hackenthrush said, getting to his feet. “You can’t just–” Cortez shot eye-daggers at him and he collapsed back into his commander’s chair. “Carry on, then,” Hackenthrush said, avoiding Rikki’s accusing stare. “So… lock ourselves in after you’ve gone?”

Cortez headed for the hatch. “Could you, please?”

“Gladys!” Igon threw his arms wide open as one of the Halgorians pulled back the
Exalted Refuse
’s inner airlock hatch to let Cortez onto the trawler. “You came back to me!”

Igon’s old cylindrical body slung over her back, Cortez stepped out of the airlock and kept on walking – right past Igon and his new body and the two other Halgorians standing behind the robot. One of the Halgorians held an old, beat-up beam autorifle that didn’t look like it could fire, even if it had had a powercell – but the stunstick hanging from his belt, that looked like it was in working shape.

The Halgorian’s sloped heads followed her as she walked up to the engineering nest-station and laid Igon’s old body out on the rim. She absently looked out at the field of junk piles in the middle of the cavernous hold. “Nice ship you got yourself here, robot. Air’s a little dry,” she noted, and tapped a single key on the underside of her robomechanical arm.

Igon ran up to her and grabbed her arm, wrenching it around to try and get a look at the holoflat in her palm. “I do seem to remember telling you,
no tricks
.”

Cortez shrugged her arm free of Igon’s grasp. “Relax, I was just locking the cop ship down by remote. So they don’t give you any trouble.”

“Oh. Good idea,” Igon said, and turned to caress his former body. “There you are you handsome devil.” His eyes fixed on his body, he gestured over his shoulder at the Halgorians. “–Take her. And her hand.”

Rikki unzipped his life-hood and pulled it off as he crouched down at Loy’s side. He knocked on her forehead gently with a furry knuckle. “You okay?”

Loy groaned and batted Rikki’s paw away. “What happened?”

“Situation’s all taken care of, rookie,” Hackenthrush said from his commander’s chair, his feet up on the manual maneuvering jet control console. “Go back to sleep.”

Loy let Rikki help her sit up. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips and glanced around the bridge, then at the main CRT, showing an external video feed of the scavenger ship looming over
8724
, a docking tube connecting both ships. “You let her go, didn’t you?” she asked Hackenthrush.

Hackenthrush snorted powdered tequila off the back of his hand. “It seemed like the easiest thing to do. Besides, we’re still locked out of the command systems.”

Loy’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of cop are you?”

Hackenthrush shrugged, and licked the back of his hand. “The kind they stick out in the middle of nowhere to keep out of trouble. And believe you me, I’m gonna have a word with HQ about this. Sector’s getting way too busy for my tastes. You ask me, it’s in everybody’s best interest to reassign me somewhere quieter.”

“No argument here,” Loy said. She turned to Rikki. “Okay. He’s an idiot... but you could have done something.”

“Oh, no,” Rikki said. “I leave that kinda thing to you cops.”

Loy’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“Finally, something Miss Top-Five-Percentile doesn’t know,” Hackenthrush said. “Rikki’s not a cop.”

“But he’s wearing a uniform,” Loy said.

“I like the way it makes my ass look,” Rikki said.

“You’re not a cop?” Loy asked.

“Oh, hell no,” Hackenthrush said. “He’s just kinda… renting a room.”

“Renting a room?” Loy asked.

“I needed some extra cash, and we had the spare cabin.” Hackenthrush snapped his fingers at Rikki. “Which reminds me, rent’s due Tuesday.”

“Umm, yeah, about that,” Rikki said, “my bead-necklace mail order business hasn’t taken off as quickly as I thought it would, so I’m a little short this–”

“Idiots, the both of you.” Loy grabbed her service raygun off the floor and stood up. “You two do what you want. I’m going after our prisoner. Gonna arrest that robot and everybody on that ship, while I’m at it, too.” She holstered her raygun and tilted her head up. “8724, situation report.”

“That won’t do any good,” Hackenthrush said. “Miss Swartzbaum locked her down, remember?”

“No, it’s okay,” 8724 said. “I’m back.”

“You’re unlocked?” Hackenthrush asked.

“Seems that way.”

“Well, that was lucky,” Rikki said.

“Not luck,” 8724 said. “Miss Swartzbaum sent a remote release trigger when she boarded the scavenger vessel. And a message.”

“What’s the message?” Loy asked.