Rocketship Patrol (7 page)

Nothing.

Loy listened to the silence for a half minute before sighing. “All right, 8724’s either off-line or unresponsive as well. So, no radio. No controls. No Ship’s Brain. No anything. I don’t know how she managed it, but she did.”

“You know,” Rikki said, “I’m starting to think Miss Swartzbaum isn’t a very nice person.”

“She’s a psychopath,” Loy said.

“I’ve dated worse, but still, I think this time, it’s a deal breaker.” Hackenthrush leaned back in his commander’s chair and yawned. “Pity… –Rikki, grab me a pouch of beer, will you?”

“Beer?” Loy asked.

Hackenthrush slapped his thigh. “You’re right. Situation like this calls for the good stuff.”

“Powdered tequila coming up,” Rikki said, walking across the bridge to the First Aid locker set into the base of the curved bulkhead. He popped the lid open and reached in, taking out three shiny metallic pouches.

“There any of that margarita mix left?” Hackenthrush asked.

“Not since Cinco de January,” Rikki said, tossing a pouch into Hackenthrush’s impatiently waiting hands. He held out one of the other two pouches at Loy. She pursed her lips with disapproval and shook her head curtly. Shrugging, he stuffed it into a pocket and tore the top off the third pouch with his teeth. He raised it at Hackenthrush. “To you health, my good sir.”

Hackenthrush raised his pouch. “And to yours as well, my good fellow.”

Loy crossed her arms over her chest as the two “clinked” pouches. “We can’t just let her take over the ship.”

“She’s already taken over the ship,” Hackenthrush said, tapping glittering brown dehydrated tequila powder from the pouch into his mouth. “And she did a damn nice job of it, too, I have to say.”

Loy glared at him. “We should at least try to take it back.”

Hackenthrush gave her a displeased shake of the head. “Oh, no, rookie. You said it yourself, she’s a psychopath. We’re better off locked in here. Best to leave well enough alone, sit tight, and enjoy the downtime. See how it all plays out.”

“We can’t just sit tight–we have to do something,” Loy said. “We have a–”

Hackenthrush held up a warning finger. “Don’t say it.”

“–duty” Loy finished.

Rikki chuckled. “Heh heh, you said
duty
.”

“Told you not to say it,” Hackenthrush said.

“Lieutenant, sir, please… Who knows what she’s up to out there?”

“Whatever it is, what can we do? We’re stuck in here.” Hackenthrush crumbled his empty tequila pouch and let it drop to the deck onto the pile of  other crumpled pouches already there around the base of his chair. “The hatch is bolted from the outside, and there’s no other way in or out of the bridge.”

“Except for the superstructure maintenance shaft,” Loy said flatly.

Hackenthrush’s left eyebrow went up. “The what now?”

Loy pursed her lips and pointed at the section of bulkhead between the Tertiary Rocket Control and Navigation stations that was clearly marked REMOVABLE PANEL // SUPERSTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE SHAFT ACCESS.

“As you are no doubt aware, it runs the whole length of the ship between the outer and inner hulls,” Loy noted. “It’s fairly narrow but I should be able to squeeze in, and from there I can get the jump on her.”

“Oh, well, obviously, yes, the superstructure maintenance shaft,” Hackenthrush said, clearing his throat and squirming in his commander’s chair. “I was just going to suggest that myself…”

“I’ve completed charting the course to the Otulak system,” 8724 announced over the mess’ intercom. “Now, are you at all sentimental about your life boat?”

Sitting with her boots up on a table, Cortez said “No” around a mouthful of Dagwood. She lowered the sandwich and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Why?”

“I can’t go to superluminal speed with it attached.”

Cortez reached for the glass of iced tea on the table. “Then by all means, cut it loose.”

“Undocking. Give me a minute and we’ll be  on our way.”

“Gracias.” Cortez said, sipping the iced tea through a pink bendy straw. “Think I might make another sandwich.”

“Make that two,” a woman’s voice said.

Cortez slowly put the iced tea down and looked back over her shoulder. Junior Officer Loy stood in the mess’s hatchway, panting, her service raygun out and pointed almost confidently at Cortez.

“Don’t tell me this old model has Jeffries tubes?” Cortez asked, and took another bite of her sandwich.

“Nothing that fancy,” Loy said, catching her breath. “Just a good old fashioned superstructure crawl space between the hulls.” She glanced down at her formerly intact uniform, now covered in dirt and dust, with several fresh rips and snags in the fabric. Her hair was disheveled under her crumpled pill-box cap. “And it’s a lot tighter in there than the schematics would lead you to believe.”

“It’s so hard to judge scale from those things,” Cortez said. “So… you wanted a sandwich?”

“Gladys Swartzbaum, a.k.a. Didi Hershell, a.k.a.
etcetera
,” Loy said, thumbing the raygun’s safety off and reaching behind her to pull a pair of handcuffs from her belt, “I’m placing you under arrest.”

“Sure, why not?” Cortez chuckled. “For what?”

“Hijacking a police rocketship for a start.”

Cortez popped the last of her Dagwood into her mouth and licked her fingertips. “Well, here’s the thing about that–”

BOOM!

The explosion came from somewhere aft. It shook
8724
’s bulkheads, flickered her lights, and sent her tumbling end over end briefly before her attitude thrusters kicked in. Loy reflexively dropped down into a crouch, throwing her arms over her head. “What the hell was that?” she asked.

“Sounded like a rocket engine blowing up,” Cortez said, casually swinging her boots off the table and standing. “Ship?”

“It was indeed a rocket engine blowing up,” 8724 said. “One of mine. We are being fired on.”

“Who’d be stupid enough to fire on the cops?” Loy asked, lowering her arms and coming out of her crouch.

“I’ve got an idea about that,” Cortez said, heading for the hatchway. She called back at Loy as she stepped into the corridor: “Well, you coming or what?”

SIX

“What the deuce is going on?” Lieutenant Detective Hackenthrush asked as a second explosion rocked
Patrol Rocketship 8724
.

“How should I know?” Rikki asked, yanking an EVA-life jacket from an overhead supply locker. He unfurled it and shrugged into it, zipping the half-suit’s transparent hood closed over his head. “Whatever it is, it’s every man for himself.”

“Well that goes without saying, doesn’t it?” Hackenthrush snapped back, cautiously peering out from his hiding place behind his commander’s chair.

A sharp
cah-lunk
came from the hatch in the deck and it swung open.

“Miss Swartzbaum! You’re alive!” Hackenthrush called out as Cortez climbed up through the hole into the bridge. He hurriedly got to his feet, patting the wrinkles out of his uniform jacket and then reaching up to straighten his toupee–only to discover it wasn’t on his head. He swallowed, spotting it lying on the deck, thrown free in the panic after the first explosion. He quickly picked it up, then spun around to place his back to Cortez as he put the toupee back on. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

“Take your time,” Cortez said, walking past him. “Ship, restore power to the bridge and give me a situation report.”

The red emergency lights in the recesses of the bridge’s ceiling blinked out, plunging the bridge into darkness momentarily before the normal lights came back on and the various system stations with their assortment of indicators and gauges lit up.

“An unidentified vessel approached me from a telemetry blind spot and opened fire without warning,” 8724 said. “I have taken direct hits to both of my rockets, rendering them inoperative. I have managed to arrest the spin caused by the explosions, but except for maneuvering jets, I am otherwise immobile.”

“Let’s see it,” Cortez said as she stopped in front of the main CRT.

“Image coming right up,” 8724 said, the main CRT blinking on. “Sorry, it takes a couple seconds for it to warm up sometimes.”

Cortez nodded absently, staring at the bulky ship coming into focus on the screen.

“You recognize it?” Junior Officer Loy asked, stepping up beside Cortez. On the screen, the ship fired sputtering maneuvering thrusters to come to a lumbering stop in front of
8724
.

“Does nobody in this system use a ship that’s less than a hundred years old?” Cortez asked.

“Hey, that looks like an old Poytr B-Hull cargo trawler,” Rikki noted. Everyone looked at him, wondering how he knew. Rikki shrugged. “My grandfather was a janitor on one.”

Loy pointed at a cluster of armatures on the ship’s prow. “Those cargo cranes look like they’ve been modified for in-space salvage recovery.”

Cortez nodded. “Of course.
Scavengers
. –Ship, give me a connection between us and them.”

“Connected,” 8724 said.

The image of the scavenger ship on the CRT blinked away, replaced by a black-and-white image of a short, triple-eyed robot standing in front of some kind of nest made of wires and shredded, mucous-hardened paper. The robot was singing in a high-pitched warble. “...oh where oh where has my little sheep gone...”

Cortez winced, recognizing the tone of voice if not the voice itself. “Hello, Igon. That is you, right?”

Igon stopped singing. “Hello, dead girl.”

Cortez smiled curtly and jogged her head at the frog-headed Halgorian crouched behind him in the nest. “Aww, you made new friends. And got yourself another body. A really crappy one. Congrats.”

“It’ll do until I get my old one back. You still have it, I take it?”

“And here I thought you just wanted to see me.”

“Lieutenant Detective,” Loy said out of the corner of her mouth, “isn’t there something you want to say?”

“Umm…” Hackenthrush said as he rummaged around in the First Aid locker. “Anyone else want a drink?”

Rikki nodded inside his life-vest hood. “An Old Fashion would really hit the spot about now.”

“I think there’s some Bitters powder in here somewhere…”

“Okay, don’t know why I’m surprised,” Loy said. She nudged Cortez out from in front of the CRT and cleared her throat nervously. “Robot… you are firing on a DUPES patrol rocketship.”

“Yeah, so what?”

Loy swallowed. “Um… please power down your vessel and prepare to be boarded.”

Igon laughed. “Oh, she’s quite the hoot, isn’t she?”

“Look, robot, I’m completely serious. I’m an officer of the law.” Loy’s voice cracked only slightly. “And if you surrender now… you still might avoid the death penalty.”

“The death penalty?” the Halgorian interrupted. “The death penalty was not part of our deal, robot. Neither was firing on the authorities, for that matter.”

Igon swiveled his oblong head around 180 degrees at the Halgorian. “I already said I’d give you an extra one percent to open fire.”

“One percent won’t begin to cover our legal expenses if we’re caught,” the Halgorian said.

“Alright – two percent extra, then,” Igon told them, throwing up his hands. He swiveled his head back around to look at Loy. “You’re dead in space, cop. The next shot will put a hole through your hull wide enough to drive through. But it doesn’t have to come to that if you hand Gladys – and her luggage – over. I’ve got no beef with you – hand her over and you get to go on with your lives.”

Loy squared her shoulders. “DUPES does not negotiate with criminals. –8724, cut audio.”

“Umm,” 8724 said, “Miss Swartzbaum?”

“Cut it,” Cortez said.

“It’s cut,” 8724 said.

Loy sneered at Cortez. “Anytime you want to hand control of 8724 back, feel free.”

“Let’s see how the rest of the day goes,” Cortez said. On the CRT screen, Igon soundlessly waved his arms at them and jumped up and down, trying to get their attention. Cortez ignored him and turned to Loy. “What’s your plan, Junior Officer?”