Coffee Cup Dreams (A Redpoint One Romance) (12 page)

Except for lately.

It bothered him. Why now? Had Redpoint One
suddenly reached the end of its life-cycle?

A bot bleeped at him, a hand extended up to
him. Arthur rummaged in his belt and dropped several capsules of
graphite into the waiting hand. The bot left him, squeeing to
itself contentedly.

Arthur turned back to tightening the harness
holding a power conduit firmly in place. He leaned back and closed
the hatch, slipping a tool back into a loop on his belt.

A resounding crack had him ducking to the
floor, covering his head with his arms. He heard the worried
whistle and shrill calls of bots from all sides. He glanced back as
one of them raced past him.

Sparks flew from secondary power relay. Bots
converged, some reaching out with hands and tools, while others
sprayed out a fire-retardant mist.

He picked himself off the ground, frowning at
the new problem. The bots would have to tackle that one. He didn't
want to mess around with the central power structure. The one time
he'd tried had been a total failure.

A bot whistled up at him. He looked down to
find two eyestalks staring back up at him so close to his face that
he jerked back.

"And what can I do for you?" Arthur
asked.

The bot whistled again and backed away. It
turned and raced a short distance down the corridor. It stopped to
look back at him.

Arthur grinned. "I get the message. Lead the
way."

Probably another problem the bots thought he
could handle without their help. They did that often enough.
Sometimes he really wondered who was really in charge of
maintenance.

No, not true. He knew exactly who, or what,
and it wasn't him.

The bot rounded a corner, then another. Then
right out of the problem area.

"We're supposed to be repairing the station,"
Arthur called out to it.

The bot whistled back at him as it turned
another corner, leading the way right into an airlock with one of
the external maintenance pods docked outside.

Arthur stared at it through the portals while
the bot worked on opening the airlock doors. The fact it led him to
a pod and an airlock concerned him. "And you want me to do what?
Are we in danger of decompression?"

The bot ignored him. With the inner airlock
door open it moved on to the outer door leading into the
pod.

"Hey, boss. I have this area finished. What
next?" Rachel asked.

Arthur cocked his head. He could feel the
repairs still going on in the area he'd just left. There was a
minor problem with a ventilation shaft not too far away, but it
could wait.

"There is a coolant problem near the outer
East side. It might be interfering with the hull seal. Can you get
to it safely?"

"I'll let you know if I can't," Rachel said, a
beep indicating she'd signed off.

The bot let out a shrill whistle. It sat on
the floor in the maintenance pod, its eyestalks bobbing up and
down.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Arthur muttered as
he headed for the pod. "Do we need to evacuate this
sector?"

The bot moved back and settled on the other
side of the pilot chair, continuing its whistles and bleeps. The
sounds were urgent, but he didn't sense anything panicky in them.
If the sector was in danger, the bot would be acting differently.
So would the station.

Which meant it wanted him to do something
outside the station. Arthur settled in the pilot chair. With the
airlock closed he detached the round maintenance pod from the
station.

Arthur cycled the positioning thrusters to
come to a halt close to the outer hull. He glanced down at the bot.
"Okay, which direction?"

A twist and a movement of the eyestalks
started him on the journey. The bot didn't look up at him, instead
focusing all its attention out the small triangle window next to
Arthur's left foot. A wiggle of the body and Arthur adjusted the
pod's direction. The bot leaned forward, starting to
beep.

He scanned the hull. Below and to the right
was where the hull breach had occurred. The local area looked fine,
with no external damage at all.

"What am I looking for?" Arthur asked. In
response the bot whistled low, ending with a beep.

It was looking, too. Looking
upwards.

He brought the pod further up, watching the
surface for any signs of another breach. Maybe a problem with an
airlock? Or a blown hatch?

A face with wide eyes staring out the portal
of an airlock startled him. The bot whistled, nearly plastering
itself against the triangle window.

Arthur's heart sunk. The newbie.
Great.

"So, we were on a rescue mission." He shook
his head, starting the process of docking. "You could have just
come out and said it."

The bot ignored his flash of temper, as they
usually did. The moment they were docked the bot whirled around the
pilot chair to open the door.

"Calm down, I can get it."

But the bot didn't pay any attention to him.
It continued working the controls at a furious pace as if it
couldn't get to the other side fast enough.

With the door open, Tish Douglas collapsed
into the pod. "I'm rescued! Oh, thank you. I didn't know how to
contact anyone!"

The bot gave a series of encouraging long
beeps, moving back to allow her room to come inside.

"You're lucky there was a maintenance pod near
the repair site. Where's your wrist unit?" Arthur scanned the
inside of the airlock. "And don't you have any bots with you? Why
aren't you with Rachel?"

He reached down to help her up, noting her
hair was no longer restrained by the colored holographic
hair-bands. Long light brown hair flowed well past her shoulders,
softly framing her face. The sight of it did something to him
inside.

He stopped when the acrid smell of smoke
reached his nose. Good grief, the woman reeked.

Tish waved towards the station. "They stayed
inside. Crimson led me to the airlock once the smoke filled the
area. I couldn't breathe."

"Crimson?" Arthur echoed, his mind trying to
place the name with a face on his maintenance team. He helped her
into one of the two jump seats behind his seat.

"My bot. She, I mean he, I mean it insisted
that I follow it." Finding him staring back at her, Tish gulped. "I
mean, one of the station bots. They're still working. Um, with my
belt."

His mind processed the short bursts of words,
working to come together with a full explanation. With a shake of
his head, he turned back to the controls. When they'd undocked, he
asked, "Are you okay?"

"Coughing a bit. It was pretty bad in
there."

"Did you see what caused the
smoke?"

"Something in the computer relay system." At
his groan, she quickly added, "The bots were all over it. They even
took my personal wrist computer to make repairs with. I'm sure
that's when I lost my identification band, too."

"You wore a wrist computer while on
duty?"

Something in his voice must have warned her,
because she answered with a squeaky, "Yes."

He took a deep breath, ordering himself to
calm down. He'd told her to put everything nonessential in her
locker, but maybe he'd forgotten to say why? The past few weeks
hadn't exactly been normal.

"For future reference, leave all personal
items behind unless you are willing to lose them to the bots. They
view practically everything on your person at their disposal for
repair work," Arthur said.

"Does that include clothing?"

Arthur had to laugh. He'd asked the same thing
when he'd signed on eight years before. "So far, no."

"Sorry to take you away from your work. How
did you find me?"

"You can thank the bot."

A bot that wasn't at the triangle window. He
glance down around the seat, finally spotting the back of the
curved body to his far rear left. A reflection in the window told
him the thing was facing Tish, watching her intently.

"Boss, problem in Sector 1157," a voice said
from his wrist unit.

"Go ahead, Damien." And he hoped it wasn't
another hull breach. They still didn't have the first one
fixed.

"We have a burst liquid nitrogen valve down
here."

Arthur frowned. "How did that
happen?"

"Ricardo installed a new valve the wrong
direction. On reactivation of the local life-support system twice
the line pressure hit it and it couldn't hold. I've evacuated the
local area. It'll take a few hours to fix and clean up."

Arthur tried hard to stop the profanity, but
it still slipped out. "And the bots?"

"They tried to warn him."

Arthur cut off the connection. He bit down
hard to stop a private tirade over the lack of good help. Because
he wasn't alone.

He glanced down at the reflection. Tish sat up
straight and tense, looking out a side window with the bot still at
her feet.

His anger eased. It was amazing how quickly
the station and the bots took to someone or they didn't, and they'd
obviously taken to Tish if even half her story about how she came
to be in the airlock were true. To judge by the bot sitting at her
feet it was.

Well, one new technician out of the five who
tried in the past month was a better ratio than usual.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TISH FLINCHED AT the suppressed harsh profanity. Arthur did
not sound happy at all.

Why should he? Not only did he have to leave
his work to rescue her, but another new hire apparently was making
as many mistakes as she was.

The pod accelerated, running parallel to the
station hull. Tentatively she asked, "Are we heading back to your
repair?"

"No, I'm dropping you off at the maintenance
platform."

Tish's heart sunk.

The bot bobbed its eyestalks at her while an
arm carefully cleaned the soot and dirt off her knees and shoes.
The small action by the bot was oddly soothing. The things could be
so cute sometimes. Already she knew she would miss them with their
expressive sounds and watchful eye sensors.

Maybe if she apologized for her mistake well
enough she would be allowed to stay long enough to learn how to do
things right. After all, she hadn't caused the smoke or damage to
the computer relay system. Something went wrong there long before
she arrived.

Not like Ricardo, who couldn’t even be trusted
to listen to the bots. She knew better than that her very first day
on the job.

The pod altered course, moving into a gaping
slit running all the way into the center of the body of the station
into the transit tube. A freighter slowly moved past as light
danced across its skin as any remaining hyperspace radiation was
neutralized.

Half-way through the pod turned again,
slipping in through an open rectangle. Arthur maneuvered to park
along a wide bench in-between several other pods.

As Arthur reached for the door Tish took a
deep gulp of air, her eyes darting to the still-open
entrance.

"You're fine. Atmospheric forcefield," Arthur
said as he opened the side hatch.

Tish let out her breath. "How can you tell the
places that have it?"

"Simple. The hatch wouldn't have
opened."

Not as complex an answer as she expected. She
slipped out of her seat and through the hatch. The bot stayed
inside, but beeped a goodbye at her.

She took a deep breath. Time for the apology
about her job performance.

But, Arthur spoke faster. "Go through that
door. The corridor will take you past the supply rooms and directly
to the maintenance platform. Head straight for the medical bay. If
they release you, then I will see you at the platform tomorrow
morning for your next shift. If they don't then I'll get an update
and we can schedule when you start working again."