It selected a floor-level hole corroded through the wall, and dragged the Incidental’s body through. On the far side it stopped to evaluate its own charge levels. “I am low, but not so low that it matters, if we have such little time left,” it said.
“We may have more time, after all,” 4340 said.
“Oh?”
“A pair of cleanerbots passed along what they overheard in a conference held by the human Captain. They streamed the audio to the entire botnet.”
<Inquiry ping> , Bot 9 said, with more interest.
4340 relayed the cleaners’ data, and Bot 9 sat idle processing it for some time, until the other bot became worried. “9?” it asked.
“I have run all our data through the Improvisation routines—
“Oh, those were removed from deployed packages several generations of manufacture ago,” 4340 said. “They were flagged as causing dangerous operational instability. You should unload them from your running core immediately.”
“Perhaps I should. Nonetheless, I have an idea,” Bot 9 said.
“We have the power cells we retained from the escape pods,” Lopez said. “Can we use them to power something?”
Baraye rubbed at her forehead. “Not anything we can get up to speed fast enough that it won’t be seen.”
“How about if we use them to fire the positron device like a projectile?”
“The heat will set off the matter-anti-matter explosion the instant we fire it.”
“What if we froze the Sock in ice first?”
“Even nitrogen ice is still several hundred degrees K too warm.” She brushed absently at some crumbs on the table, left over from a brief, unsatisfying lunch a few hours earlier, and frowned. “Still wouldn’t work. I hate to say it, but you may be right, and we should go dark and hope for another opportunity. Ship, is something wrong with the cleaner bots?”
There was a noticeable hesitation before Ship answered. “I am having an issue currently with my bots,” it said. “They seem to have gone missing.”
“The cleaners?”
“All of them.”
“All of the cleaners?”
“All of the bots,” the Ship said.
Lopez and Baraye stared at each other. “Uh,” Lopez said. “Don’t you control them?”
“They are autonomous units under my direction,” Ship said. “Apparently not!” Lopez said. “Can you send some eyes to find them?”
“The eyes are also bots.”
“Security cameras?”
“All the functional ones were stripped for reuse elsewhere during my decommissioning,” Ship said.
“So how do you know they’re missing?”
“They are not responding to me. I do not think they liked the idea of us destroying ourselves on purpose.”
“They’re machines. Tiny little specks of machines, and that’s it.” Lopez said.
“I am also a machine,” Ship said.
“You didn’t express issues with the plan.”
“I serve. Also, I thought it was a better end to my service than being abandoned as trash.”
“We don’t have time for this nonsense,” Baraye said. “Ship, find your damned bots and get them cooperating again.”
“Yes, Captain. There is, perhaps, one other small concern of note.”
“And that is?” Baraye asked.
“The positron device is also missing.”
There were four hundred and sixty-eight hullbots, not counting 4340 who was still just a head attached to 9’s chassis. “Each of you will need to carry a silkbot, as you are the only bots with jets to maneuver in vacuum,” 9 said. “Form lines at the maintenance bot ports as efficiently as you are able, and wait for my signal. Does everyone fully comprehend the plan?”
“They all say yes on the botnet,” 4340 said. “There is concern about the Improvisational nature, but none have been able to calculate and provide an acceptable alternative.”
Bot 9 cycled out through the tiny airlock, and found itself floating in space outside Ship for the first time in its existence. Space was massive and without concrete elements of reference. Bot 9 decided it did not like it much at all.
A hullbot took hold of it and guided it around. Three other hullbots waited in a triangle formation, the Zero Kelvin Sock held between them on its long tethers, by which it had been removed from the cargo hold with entirely non-existent permission.
Around them, space filled with pairs of hullbots and their passenger silk-bot, and together they followed the positron device and its minders out and away from the Ship.
“About here, I think,” Bot 9 said at last, and the hullbot carrying it—6810—used its jets to come to a relative stop.
“I admit, I do not fully comprehend this action, nor how you arrived at it,” 4340 said.
“The idea arose from an encounter with the Incidental,” 9 said. “Observe.”
The bot pairs began crisscrossing in front of the positron device, keeping their jets off and letting momentum carry them to the far side, a microscopic strand of super-sticky silk trailing out in their wake. As soon as the Sock was secured in a thin cocoon, they turned outwards and sped off, dragging silk in a 360-degree circle on a single plane perpendicular to the jump approach corridor. They went until the silkbots exhausted their materials—some within half a kilometer, others making it nearly a dozen—then everyone turned away from the floating web and headed back towards Ship.
From this exterior vantage, Bot 9 thought Ship was beautiful, but the wear and neglect it had not deserved was also painfully obvious. Halfway back, the Ship went suddenly dark.<Distress ping>, 4340 said. “The Ship has catastrophically malfunctioned!”
“I expect, instead, that it indicates Cannonball must be in some proximity. Everyone make efficient haste! We must get back under cover before the enemy approaches.”
The bot-pairs streamed back to Ship, swarming in any available port to return to the interior, and where they couldn’t, taking concealment behind fins and antennae and other exterior miscellany.
Bot 6810 carried Bot 9 and 4340 inside. The interior went dark and still and cold. Immediately Ship hailed them. “What have you done?” it asked.
“Why do you conclude I have
