The little Nubarian whistled electronically and began to shudder at the joys of operating such a beautiful weapon. Instantly it ran a series of hoped-for simulations in which something really big, like one of the Republic carriers it had served on, showed up.
Imagine that thing being shot down, it chittered to itself in digital fervor.
“Alas,” opined the suddenly melancholic TALC-289. “The chances of such a thing happening are… well, quite statistically low, and I wouldn’t want to bore you now that we will be spending the rest of our fruitless existence inside this gunnery cupola located atop the loneliest level of the tower. Do you ever wonder what it’s all for?”
The Nubarian did not.
It did not wonder, because it knew what “it” was all for. To shoot things. Big things especially. But anything generally. That was its reason for existence, and it was quite pleased to have such a sense of fine purpose.
“If only,” moaned the melancholy bot, and it withdrew into itself in order to compose more koans.
No Republic carriers, or any sizable ships with a shoot-down confirm order, appeared over the skies of the fortress on Suracaõ. But that didn’t stop the gunnery bot from maintaining a good target capture engagement solution, or from keeping the guns always charged and active. Ready to engage at all times.
It muttered to itself over and over in its singsong whistles and beeps: You never know when you’re going to get to shoot something.
You had to be ready for the good things in life. Like shooting other things.
The bot promised itself it would be. It vowed this. It even aspired to be more it than it already was. And it realized there was a solid chance that given its current lust for the new weapon system it had been placed in charge of, there was a thirty-three-point-six-percent chance it would forget its secret kill mission.
This could not happen.
The bot would have its memory defragged and indexed in preparation for a long-overdue firmware update if it wasn’t able to perform the task assigned to it. The solution was to remember the secret kill mission while still appreciating the raw destructive power at its disposal. Only then would the galaxy align and be perfect.
Alas, the bot could not spend all its time with the main defensive gun. When Gat boarded his private ship to tour operations, the tiny bot was brought along and given full command of the ship’s forward turret array. This proved to be an impressive after-market weapon system with pirated AEGIS tech that allowed linked weapons fire from all three turrets, coded to the bot through its selective targeting arrays. The bot cooed with delight and hoped for a swarm of Repub fighters to come at it. What a firefight that would be! It ran endless simulations in which it shot down increasingly large numbers of fighters, whooping and ululating digitally with each kill. The scenarios verged on the ridiculous, in that they exceeded the number any three carrier groups operating in unison could actually deploy, but one could never be too careful. Too ready.
It was this commitment to its work, in addition to its valuable target-acquisition programming, that ensured that wherever Gat went, the little bot was sure to be assigned a gunnery position. The premier gunnery position, in fact. Now, above the Antibian Ocean on Suracaõ, the bot found itself in the portside forward gun cupola of the pleasure-maran, watching the spectacle and longing for something to shoot. All the while waiting for the event that “Boss” had indicated must happen before the secret kill mission could begin.
The event that triggered the bot’s special orders was Rechs getting swallowed by the giant tyrannasquid in the forsaken, bone-littered lagoon.
The bot watched it happen.
And then, with an excited warble of chirps and whirs, the little Nubarian gunnery bot opened fire.
07
The violence inside the tyrannasquid’s interior almost matched the violence of its exterior. Not only were the digestive juices extremely caustic, but the giant monster seemed to be convulsing inwardly, tossing about everything in its digestive tract. Tyrus Rechs found himself pummeled by powerful internal contractions and rapidly forced toward the squid’s stomach.
Research had prepared him for the bit that was coming up next. This was where the real fun began. The squid’s digestive juices were highly toxic and acidic. His best estimate was that he had about a minute before the armor would begin to break down. He’d be dissolved shortly thereafter.
Here we go, he thought as he fought to get a gauntleted hand onto his armor’s external controls, located along the opposite wrist. He would need the suit’s powerful defensive shield to come online as soon as he entered the stomach. Not just to protect him, but to cause a reaction that would make the squid sick—and hopefully force the tyrannasquid to eject him and all the acid-resistant bones resting in its gullet.
The plan was to lure the mass of armed murderers Gat surrounded himself with into thinking the threat was over now that the bounty hunter had been swallowed. Or better yet, make them believe that the threat never even was, seeing as how the notorious Tyrus Rechs hadn’t even put up a fight on deck.
Once he was vomited out, he’d have the element of surprise. Small, but larger than anything he could have achieved while on the sleds, especially if they were busy with the “secret kill mission” the little Nubarian gunnery
