Chapter 61: Chapter 27: Confrontation

The throughway outside the dockyard was quiet—enough to hear the distant hum of the commercial district infused with chants from the protest. News streams from the opposite side of the ring habitat captured the size of the event, organizers and participants aiming torches and other sources of light overhead.

Had Wesley not been preoccupied with their potentially life-or-death predicament, he would’ve been there as a volunteer medtech. Where he fell on the politics side of it was another matter. He’d always been in favor of the Commonwealth’s existence, but their recent power grab post-Auturia had disturbed him. The Praxa Prime Administration appeared to be in the same predicament, having yet to offer an official stance on the matter. They would drag their heels on the matter as all political entities did. Despite the lockdown and the visitation restrictions, they could only delay for so long.

Wesley watched the loading cart pause in the access gate of the Stardancer’s docking bay while it processed their credentials. The gate opened, and the cart rolled through with their gear, leftover food, and weapons hidden within. His stomach had started to growl, and he reconsidered his offering of his cheeseburger meal to Dash. Something he could address as soon as they were safely aboard the ship.

He sat on a bench while Dash paced the throughway. The captain tilted his flask for another hit and came away with only a drop. They watched their surroundings carefully. The Nova-Reds were surely upset about SecForce’s apparent interception of the package. If the Nova-Red contact was true to his words, the group would seek revenge against the crew. Memories of the stories of horrific Nova-Red “cleansing” ceremonies began to creep into Wesley’s mind when a large vehicle emerged from the access tunnel in the distance. Relieved, he announced, “Captain, they’re coming.”

“I can see that,” Dash said. He lightly swung his arms across his body as if loosening up for a workout.

Wesley’s gaze shifted between the bus and his captain. “Have you thought of a plan to get us aboard the ship yet?”

“I have,” Dash said as the bus neared.

Wesley stared at him. “Are you going to tell me?”

Dash placed his hands on his hips and rotated his waist in circles. “The plan is, no matter what happens, go along with it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will soon enough,” Dash said, reversing the motion.

The bus stopped at the loading zone, leaving Wesley with no chance for further questions. Dash strode over. Wesley stood and scurried after him. The doors parted. Pulsing music and beams of light spilled out. Gaius’s Galaxy Battles followers filtered out sporting glazed eyes and wide smiles. As Gaius emerged, a blond woman slid in beside him, and clung to his arm. The others cheered. The ops crew came out last with Milia in tow.

Dash shouted, “Hey, asshole!” His voice drew the attention of everyone from the bus and a few nearby strangers. Gaius froze, jaw hung open. Milia moved close behind him. Wesley watched with utter confusion while Dash confronted his pilot. “Thanks for inviting me to your event.”

“What are you talking about?” Gaius said. “You told me to schedule it!”

“I expected you’d thank me by inviting me!”

Wesley remembered Dash’s previous words, and—having no idea where the captain was going—went along with it. “Uh, I am most disappointed as well!”

“We should all calm down,” Milia said.

Dash looked over the group of fans, his face scrunched in disgust. “These are the losers that worship you?”

The followers booed and hissed at Dash mercilessly. The blond woman leaned close to Gaius and said, “Commander, who’s this jerk?”

“That’s my captain, and our medtech,” Gaius answered.

The blond pointed at Dash. “So you’re the tyrant who’s always ragging on the Commander?” Her glazed eyes shifted to Wesley. “And you’re the uppity nerd diluting the shares?”

Before Wesley could explain that he was not in fact taking any shares, Dash said to Gaius, “You complain to your fan club about us?” He shook his head, then said to the enamored woman, “He deserves it. Do you know how many dents I have in my ship?”

Wesley said, “Numerous dents.” It hurt him to see the offended expression on the pilot’s face.

“That’s not fair!” someone shouted.

Another said, “You won’t pay to have the maneuvering thrusters recalibrated. How’s Commander Gaius supposed to work under those conditions?”

“The thrusters are fine. I calibrated them myself,” Henrik said, the rest of the ops crew behind him.

“And you must be the lousy chief engineer,” the enamored woman said.

Henrik’s face flushed. He shouted, “I’m the only one keeping this ship running, lady!”

“Thanks for ruining my event,” Gaius said to Dash. Milia shifted past the enamored woman to get between the captain and pilot.

“It’s not ruined yet,” Dash said. Wesley watched as Dash grabbed a plastic bottle from the hands of a follower, then dumped it over Gaius before Milia could stop him. “Now it’s ruined.”

Gaius blinked his eyes as the liquid dripped down his face. Every bystander stared in silence at the scene before them. Gaius looked at Dash, mouth agape. His hand shook. Wesley couldn’t stand by any longer. He went to intercept, but was too late. Gaius’s hand shot forward in an awkward looping motion and slapped Dash on the ear.

Dash bent over and swore, clutching the side of his head. “You slapped my ear!”

Gaius hesitated, but then his face grew determined, and he stood up tall. “You deserved that!”

“That’s it,” Dash said, and grabbed Gaius by the shirt. He bared his teeth, grunting and shoving with his pilot in the middle of the stunned crowd.

“Stop it, Captain,” Milia said, and stepped toward the wrestling match.

“Leave our Commander alone,” the enamored woman said, and joined the ruckus. The mass of bodies closed in, hands clawing and shoving. Then someone threw a punch, and Wesley prayed to the Lords that this was all part of Dash’s plan as the brawl began.

---

The world turned to a thrashing mass of flying limbs and angry faces.

Dash threw up his hands to protect himself as bodies pressed on him from all sides. Fists deflected off his shoulders and forearms, open palms reaching for his hair and clothing. Shouting and cursing filled his ears, and all he could do was turtle up and hope SecForce got there fast.

Then the crowd parted, bodies spilling away, and he was left standing alone, like a fleeing herbivore who suddenly lost the protection of the herd. A green arm flashed by, Gaius spilling atop a pile of bodies. The pilot’s fans and the ops crew went at it, Brock roaring in the middle. The Crekzel follower leapt on Draug, slapping the Ghupto with his tentacles. Draug let out a frightening roar and spun, tossing the Crekzel away.

Out of nowhere, two men rushed in. In one glance, Dash caught sight of the plain utilities and brand new boots and knew they were Nova-Reds. Their eyes swept the chaos for an easy target. One of Gaius’s followers—a lithe man dressed in a bright green fake flight suit—leapt at Dash. He tossed the man aside in time to see the two Nova-Reds grab their victim—Wesley—from behind. He ran at them, but the lithe follower latched onto his leg.

Wesley struggled, but couldn’t stop the Nova-Reds from dragging him away. Then another newcomer appeared out of nowhere, a stocky man charging into the fray like a maniac, shoving aside would-be assailants with ease. He reached the two Nova-Reds, who sensed his presence too late. The nearest one swung at the stocky man’s face. He ducked and drove a stunner into the Nova-Red. The second released Wesley and drew a gun. This appeared to anger the stocky man further, for he smacked the weapon away and drove the stunner into the Nova-Red, then kicked his legs out from under him.

The stocky man snarled, looking entirely too comfortable in the melee, and grabbed ahold of Wesley. The medtech struggled with all his might, but the man’s powerful grip held.

Dash kicked the lithe man off his leg and charged Wesley’s attacker. The stocky man caught sight of the captain and jabbed the stunner out with his free hand. Dash pulled up at the sight of fang-like prongs and grabbed ahold of the man’s wrist. He struggled beneath the man’s strength, wincing at the imminent skull-splitting pain, when Henrik stumbled in like a drunken rumbleball blocker. His eyes were upon Dash, fist cocked for a strike, when his gaze shifted. He bellowed, “I remember you!” and swung not at Dash, but the stocky man.

The man ducked the wild punch, pulling Dash toward him. The three of them fell to the ground, Dash pressing the man’s arm into his own torso. He cried out as they landed.

Dash had time to catch sight of the unconscious stocky man, Henrik moaning, and Wesley staring ashen-faced at the carnage. Then flashing lights swept over the sea of bodies, most now lying on the ground—sweating, bloodied, and winded. SecForce officers and bots swept over the melee participants like an ocean wave crushing a sand castle, and the fight was over as suddenly as it started.

---

“Something happened. His vitals report shows he’s alive, but he’s not responding,” Cutter said through a clenched jaw. “I told him to wait.” He disengaged the transport’s autopilot and zoomed around the bus he’d been tailing. He set the guidance for the dockyards.

“I know, but to be fair, that mystery team ran in there. They might’ve been after the kid,” Bloek said, doing the same with his transport on the other side of the commercial district.

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“And they might not have. Either way, he should’ve waited, and ambushed them if need be.” Cutter checked the map for his and Bloek’s location relative to Parr. “You’re about ten minutes out from the dockyards. I’m a little longer.”

“These things are speed-capped. I can barely pass the bus.”

Cutter swerved through traffic. He went to pass an emergency services vehicle when he saw the crowd ahead. The protest had spilled beyond the barriers surrounding the plaza and onto the transportation lanes. A line of sentients about twenty bodies wide blocked the way. Those in the vehicles exchanged harsh words with the protesters.

He abandoned the transport in its lane and moved toward the crowd. “I’m delayed. Going to proceed on foot until I can get another ride.”

“I’m not going to do much better,” Bloek said. “SecForce just shut down the transportation lanes near that bay. I’ll have to go in on foot as well.”

Cutter eyed the crowd. A simmering heat flared within his chest. If Parr lost the kid, Cutter wasn’t sure what he’d do. He said, “Then you better run.”

---

I watched on an unsecured security cam as SecForce rounded up the Stardancer’s moronic crew. That was when the two suspicious Humans returned.

They left their maintenance station in the dockyard and walked parallel to the Stardancer. SCAM spat out all sorts of warnings. I focused the port cams on them. They began to talk. The directional audio quality was not great, but my audio module was able to boost it.

“This is too risky,” the slender one said. “SecForce is standing right outside the bay.”

“They’re busy sorting out the brawl. Like the Controller said, now’s the time to get aboard,” the muscled one said.

“But we lost our backup too.”

“Would you quit whining? They’re a bunch of altered haulers, not commandos. We have the element of surprise. All we need to do is hold out until more backup arrives.”

The slender one sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”

Had I been in my combat chassis, the problem would have solved itself in a spectacularly gory fashion. Even the current chassis would suffice given the element of surprise. I would play the part of naive and helpful mechanic bot, walk right up to the organics and crush their windpipes. Or perhaps I would choose another option among a myriad of ways to terminate their frail biological functions.

Lacking the ability to do so, I needed to get creative.

I brought up the list of dockyard services. There had to be some way to distract them, or frighten them away. I couldn’t bluff with weaponry or dangerous tools. This bucket of bolts didn’t even have plasma rock cutters I could swing in their direction.

I noticed something peculiar. A typical docking service the captain declined. I had my solution. I only needed to position them in the right place. It would require manipulation. They wanted a way in, I’d present them with one.

They reached the aft end of the ship. After casual glances around, they walked beneath it, looking for a hatch. I opened an electrical access panel on the belly of the ship. The slender one noticed right away, but didn’t move toward it.

“You see that?” he said. “A panel just opened.”

“Go look,” the muscled one said, clearly annoyed. “Maybe it’s a way in.”

The slender one slowly approached the panel. When he was a few meters away, I shut it. He swore and looked around, alarmed and confused.

“It closed.”

“You’d better not be messing with me.”

“I’m not, I swear!”

They shifted farther under the ship, beneath Engineering. The cam angles weren’t great. I took my best guess and opened the underside escape hatch. The ladder lowered to the deck, landing with a forceful thud fifteen meters away from them. They both noticed this immediately.

“Come on,” the muscled one said. He threw caution to the wind and walked straight toward the hatch. He was twelve meters away.

“Hold up,” the slender one warned his friend. “Something’s wrong here.”

“What did I tell you about whining?”

Eight meters.

“I’m telling you, something’s not right.”

At five meters, I didn’t shut the hatch. Instead, I opened the non-organic waste compartment. A mound of trash fell atop the sentients. They were pressed flat against the deck.

It was glorious.

A few hunks of metal components fell off the pile and clattered atop the deck. The mound was still. Odds were low that the organics had been terminated, but it was still a possibility. At minimum, some of their fragile tissues would be bruised. I didn’t want them dead, for practical purposes. That would draw SecForce’s ire, threatening my existence. But it was hard to go against my nature to kill organics.

The bay was unusually quiet. Then a robotic cleaning crew shot out of their storage alcove and drove up with their little warning lights flashing. As they began to clean up the mess, the pile shifted, and the two men crawled out. The bot spewed out something about medical assistance and filing an accident report, but they ignored it and stumbled away.

Then Idiot had to go and ruin it.

“Oh my. We’ve had a negligent non-organic waste discharge.”

“Really?” I said. “How could that have happened?”

“It appears a worker was attempting to empty our waste storage and didn’t follow procedure.”

Idiot was too stupid to review the security vids and realize the men were attempting to gain access to the ship. Made my job easier. “Captain Anderton didn’t request they do that. It’s their fault then.”

“We must report this to Port Authority since it resulted in a workplace injury.”

“There was no visible injury,” I said. “The workers just need a basic organic cleansing procedure.”

“We should inform the captain regardless.”

“It’s been filed in his daily operations report,” I said, hoping Idiot would finally shut up about it. Captain Anderton would find it in the middle of page 139 of the daily report.

“Excellent. We can now resume our maintenance task.”

“Please do,” I said.

That was stimulating while it lasted. Maybe next time I’d actually get to hurt someone.

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