Edric 014 sighs. "She was pretty clear. But yeah, she's going to want this done sooner rather than later. Come on. Do you have your specs? Get 'em if not and let's get moving."
Spider and Mascot follow Edric 014 back across the vast expanse of ferrocrete towards the depot.
"So," asks the mechanic as you walk. "What's it like, life on board a ship. I guess it gets pretty cramped, but at least the scenery changes."
"Oh, you know...Actually, I guess you don't." Mascot laughs. "Recycled air, algae slop, metallic stink, time is meaningless except for the Ship's chronometer. But that's just recently on the Ship."
"It can be nice though. Food can be better. Seeing different worlds. Trading with others vessels. Watching movies with your shipmates. Meeting a new girl on a new world. Watching an alien sunset with her. Taking off the next day to fly the stars. That's how it was before we were taken." He looks at Edric. "But you've never known that, huh? Have you ever not lived with them? Have you ever been free to live?"
Along with Edric 014 and Robert 571, the Commander and Corporal cross the huge landing field towards the supply depot. Anti-grav carts and speeders whiz by at all altitudes while robots and their human servants service more than a dozen starships. Not even the naval base at Nike Nimbus or the Aubaine shipyards can compare with this. The sheer industrial might of this single Virus city is awe-inspiring.
As grand as it is, the sheer hopelessness of its human population is devastating. Amid signs of the greatness of the Imperial past, humans live and work in absolute thralldom, no more or less important than the tools and carts all around them. An air of pointless decay hangs heavy over the shipyard, an endless future of servitude and slavery, a peerless patrimony wasted on self-immolation.
The supply depot is a vast warehouse complex, echoing with distant machine clangor and falling sparks of welding machines. The smells of ozone and grease, iron and plasteel blend together in a way familiar to any starport.
Checking a data terminal, Edric 014 points back along one immense wall. "What you're looking for is back here," he says, leading the way.
________________________________________________________________
Drifter is awakened by Lanie "Tapdance" Fusco, nudging his arm. He'd fallen asleep on a sick bay couch and lurches awake as Tapdance whispers "Wake up, sir. Something's happening."
Rubbing sleep from his bleary eyes, Drifter can hear shouting in the distance.
Flatfoot slowly opens his eyes too.
"It's the Children of the Ship," Tapdance says. "It's getting pretty loud."
Drifter touches the hilt of his knife to make sure he has it and then shakes his head to clear it and quickly rises to head to where the noise is coming from. "Do we have any idea what they are getting riled up about?"
Spider, Mascot , and Robert 571 continue to follow Edric 014. As Mascot talks to Edric about the difference between living on Promise and living on a ship, Spider leans in close to Robert and quietly asks, "See anything interesting?"
"Huh?," grunts Flatfoot as he sits up. "What was that?"
After listening to the racket for some time, Flatfoot tries to determine what might have agitated the Children.
"Did you hear anything? Any gossip?"
"Sure, lead the way." Mascot follows Edric. He motions to Spider and mimes a knockout blow. He looks inquiringly towards the man.
Drifter and Flatfoot both arrive at the infirmary door about the same time as Abel Hruthbar.
"It's the robots," says the Chief Machinist. "They're starting to break out of the Armory. I think Harlan is back there with his guns. We don't have The Ship! They'll cut right through his men. If you can't get this under control we will have to risk appealing to the Sentient Council!"
________________________________________________________________
Robert 571, who is scanning the Depot and presumably looking for any SeeWALP uniforms, shakes his head. "Not yet," he says.
Mascot nods to Robert and follows. He looks around the warehouse, trying to identify other pieces of machinery which could be useful later.
"How long has this been going on, Chief Machinist?," asks Flatfoot as he leans against a counter.
"Tapdance, can you go look to the proles and Starboard people? We may need them to put this down.
And have Spider and Mascot come back from the starport?"
Once Hruthbar has told what he knows, Flatfoot sends him back to organize the Children of the Ship.
When Flatfoot gets a chance, he speaks quietly with Drifter. "We need to plan ... once Hruthbar goes."
Spider continues to follow Edric, scanning the contents of the warehouse around them. When he notices Mascot pantomiming a club to Edric's head, Spider takes a quick look around to see what other people or robots are nearby.
Tapdance is all business now, her military training reasserting itself. "Argo is on the flight deck, preparing to power up and make a run for it. Harlan's got all of Starboard back there on the Crunch Guns. Your friend Paka is with them. Muscles just headed that way. There's no sign of Commander Webb or Mascot."
Hruthbar grunts. "You can't let Argo power up The Ship. They'll know what's happening!"
______________________________________________________
Spider sees that it would be easy to take Edric out any time he chooses. There are many dark passages and hidden corners.
About this time Robert 571 pipes up and indicates a woman in a bright yellow coverall and hard hat. She is maybe twenty meters away, inspecting a conduit with some sort of handheld device. "Seewalp," he says.
"Later, Drifter!," exclaims Flatfoot.
"Whatever, we can't let Argo power the ship. If only because we're still on board. Plus, it's the sort of thing that might invite the Starport defences to fire. Let's get to the flight deck!"
Flatfoot starts hobbling towards the flight deck as fast as he can.
"You deal with the flight deck, I am going to help with the bots." With that Drifter starts jogging towards where the bots are breaking out.
Drifter pauses and looks over at Hruthbar, "Hruthbar, have your people gather all of the patch materials, a welder and any spare metal plating they can find and bring it to where we have the bots captured pronto. Tapdance and Muscles, can you go with Flatfoot in case things get a bit rough over there?"
Mascot spots the woman and glances back at Edric. "Hey, check that chick out! How many women you got working here? You know after a while the ones on the ship all start to look like your sister." He grins and winks at Edric, obviously intending to approach the woman.
Flatfoot continues hobbling as fast as he can towards the flight deck. Once he gets there, he keys the door and quickly enters.
"Arog! You can't power up the ship! The starbase defences would blast us from the sky before we lifted even one kay!"
________________________________
Spider approaches Edric 014 while watching to see how he reacts to Mascot. He looks around to see if he can spot anyone else in bright yellow uniform. "This place is huge. Are we almost there?"
If Edric moves to stop Mascot from approaching the woman in yellow, Spider will interpose himself between them.
Argo looks at Flatfoot. "I know, mate. But if they catch us on the ground it'll be worse. I've heard about what they do to you here if you disobey. Believe me, gettin' shot out of the sky is much better for all of us."
__________________________________________________________________
Abel Hruthbar signals to some of the Children who reluctantly continue to obey the Chief Machinist. Clearly, disobeying the machines is not in their blood. They move off to get the requested supplies. From the aft quarter of the ship, a distant hammering can be heard.
__________________________________________________________________
"Sir, I wouldn't do that," says Edric 014, grasping for Mascot's sleeve.
The RCES corporal easily shrugs him off and the RCES commander moves to block his path.
Frustrated, Edric 014 says "You don't understand. The mistress... she was a... uh... " his voice lowers to a whisper. "A pleasure model. She hates humans and any sort of unauthorized fraternization. You don't know what she'll do to him if he..." he waves his hand at Mascot, who is already approaching the woman in the SeeWalp uniform.
__________________________________________________________________
"Uh, hello, citizen," says the woman, a tired looking worker in her late 20's or early 30's with buzz-cut brown hair, a yellow jumpsuit and an almost comically huge toolbelt. "Do you need something?"
"Stand down, Argo!," barks Flatfoot in his best impression of a drill sergeant. "If you want to kill yourself, go and do it! But don't make that decision for me and everyone else on this tub!"
If necessary, Flatfoot will try to wrestle Argo from the controls if that won't endanger the ship.
Mascot smiles at the woman. "Hi, gorgeous." He lowers his voice and makes a quick motion, indicating Edric. "He doesn't want me to be talking to you, but you're with CWLP, right? My Ship needs power and water, but these Downport folks seem incompetent. Can you help us? Maybe my friend can explain it better."
"Yeah, I don't know you from Cleon," she says, referring to the first emperor of the Third Imperium. "And you're not wearing any identification," she adds, tapping the hexadecimal tattoo on her own forehead. "I'm calling security."
She reaches for the bracelet on her left arm...
_______________________________________________________________________
Argo and Flatfoot stare at each other for several seconds, while the Guild Captain's finger remains poised on the button that will initiate engine startup.
At last he removes his hand and blows out an angry breath. "You only got this far because of me and my computer," he says. "This half-assed expedition is as much mine as anyone's. You and your people are leaving. Good luck to you, but the sooner you go the better. Guild and RC, we're just made to stay apart."
Drifter runs to the hallway to see how much damage is done to the door and says, "We need to reinforce the doors and hold them. Firing the guns will attract attention. The Children are getting all the patch material. We need a large piece of metal or another bulkhead to reinforce this door and stop it from coming down."
"Stand down, corporal. We're guests on this world, and representatives of The Ship, and you know she doesn't want her Children causing problems here." Spider turns to the woman, "You have my apologies, ma'am. Call your security if you think it's needed, but Mascot didn't mean any harm, and he won't cause you any more bother."
"It won't be too soon," replies Flatfoot. "I wish you the best. Now, do you have any suggestions for dealing with these robots? Can you, at least, stay here and keep them from reaching the comms?"
__________________________________________________________________________
Drifter is not sure how long robots can stay powered. He is just sure it's not infinite.
Drifter saw some carbon polyfiber damage control plates down in engineering. They're nearly as strong as the hull itself and are meant to patch battle damage, so once in place and activated they self-bond to the damaged area. That would reinforce the bulkhead as well as anything he's likely to get his hands on in the next few minutes.
Arriving at the armory bulkhead, he can see that a one-meter gash has been burned in the door, probably a small cutting laser used by one of the maintenance robots. At this rate it could take them another twenty minutes to cut their way out.
"They're just going to keep coming," says Muscles, standing at Drifter's elbow.
_______________________________________________________________________
"If we could get out of atmosphere we could lure them into the aft spaces and maybe rig the aft air lock to blow them out." Argo frowns. "They're not really robots, are they, though? They're some sort of intelligence that took over the body of a robot. Maybe they can be made to see reason?"
_______________________________________________________________________
The Seewalp tech hesitates, looking from Spider to Mascot to Robert 571 to Edric 014. Frowning, she says "What do you need?"
"We still have some time. There are plates down in engineering to fix the hull after a battle. I need some men to come with me now to get them. They are set to attach so if we can get them back here before they get through we can add several layers to hold them at bay and hopefully let them run dry on energy. We need to cut power to the area if its not already down as well so that they can't recharge. Lets go now!" Drifter motions to several of the men and turns to run gathering any Children or Proles he sees along the way to try and get all of the plates up to the door as quickly as possible.
"Maybe. Maybe they would listen to reason. Maybe not. But it is worth a try," replies Flatfoot.
"I need to head back there. Argo, we will inform you as soon as we are ready to leave the Ship."
Flatfoot returns to join Drifter, wondering about how the two of them might try to convince the robots to stop trying to destroy the ship.
Mascot grins and nods at Spider. "You got it, boss!" He moves back towards Edric, blocking the man from Spider and the Seewalp tech.
Spider flashes her a smile. "Well, as I understand it, you See-wall folks are damn fine engineers. And like Mascot said, The Ship is in need of power, water, and a fair bit of repairs. Is there any chance She can convince a See-wall crew to give us some advice and help get Her seaworthy?"
The CWLP worker looks at Spider as if she's trying to work out what he's saying. "You should have power out there on the pad," she says. "Fuel isn't our thing. Downport will get you that if they haven't already. As for water, yeah, I can see if I can requisition a water sled for you. Repairs, though, also not my thing. I just keep the juice flowing here in Downport. Fixing ships is Downport's thing."
She types something into the terminal embedded in her right forearm, looks at it for a moment, then moves toward Edric 014. "I need a signature."
_______________________________________________________________________
The two RCES men work to direct the motley team of Children and Proles to seal the armory door with the emergency hull plating. It takes about ten minutes to muscle the plates into position and about ten seconds for them to adhere to the bulkhead.
"That won't hold them for long," says Abel Hruthbar. "It buys us a few hours at most, I guess."
"Abel, you have spent years with these bots. How long do they hold a charge before they need to hit a power station? They have been in there for quite a while already."
"About one hundred hours or a bit less, if they're in good repair." says Abel Hruthbar. "These bots? Maybe eighty, eighty-five hours. I'd say that's part of why they're getting desperate. They know you're killing them."
"Well, let's be ready to throw more plates on the door," says Flatfoot as he rubs his shoulders which are sore from manhandling the plates.
[b]"I wonder how Spider and Mascot are making out?"
Mascot smiles at Edric. "Sign, please. We need the supplies." He looks back at the women. "Will CWLP folks be making the delivery? These Downport guys haven't been the most forthcoming..."
After some hesitation, Edric 014 signs the CWLP lady's form.
"Some of the bots are probably already dead or close to it since they would have been operating for a while before we started the fun. Each hour we hold them there are less to deal with. We could try talking to delay them further, but I am not sure what we could offer to get them to back off. It might be good if we looked in storage for anything else that might work to hold them at bay and we may want to have a second fall back area set up to delay them further if this holds long enough. For now though the most important thing is cutting power to the area so they can't rig up some way to power up."
"You are right, we could try toalking to the bots. I can give it a try. Soem will just try harder to get out but some might be willing to listen to reason. Do we have coms into that space?," asks Flatfoot.
The armory originally had its own dedicated circuit for lights and security as well as charging power packs, but the Children long since patched and cross-wired the whole area. It might be as simple as pulling a single relay, but it's difficult to know where to begin. You could start with some trial-and-error.
It turns out that Mascot's last act as a decoy was to destroy the comms panel in the armory. You could try shouting through the door.
Flatfoot gingerly moves over to the door, feeling the injuries inflicted by the cans during the fight for the ship. He turns to Drifter, "Are you ready? This might all be for nothing."
Flatfoot takes a deep breath, before looking about for a tool. Finding a spanner, Flatfoot hefts it and bags on the door. He raps out a pattern, using a simple code to indicate that this is an attempt to communicate. Then he pauses, waiting for a response from the cans inside.
Mascot smiles as Edric signs the order. He looks back to the woman. "Hey, thank you for this. If you need anything in return, let us know. Maybe we can help. I'm Calvin. You?"
Spider nods to the woman, "And I'm Jasper. This is the first time we've been planetside since joining The Ship, so forgive us if we don't understand how things work. Do you people use some sort of currency? Or is barter the name of the game?"
A precise staccato rhythm responds to Flatfoot's message. He recognizes the ancient code but never studied it in either the Police Academy or the RCES training. Drifter does recognize the simple and ancient Terran code and recalls some of it from his days at the Hiver Academy.
R-E-L-E-A-S-E-U-S-N-O-W-O-R-D-I-E-Y-O-U-D-O-N-O-T-U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D-W-H-E -R-E-Y-O-U-A-R-E.
"What was that?" asks Argo.
"Your fleet arranged everything. They don't tell me what arrangements are made. But the Coreward fleets all get priorty, so I guess you're headed Coreward next. I heard you're lifting off in the morning."
Robert 571 gives you a significant look, tapping his left wrist twice. Although the origin of this ancient Terran gesture is lost in the mists of time, it is generally understood through the Sector to indicate that time is running out.