The fallen robots made no attempt to right themselves. I glanced towards the three still standing, but there was no response from them – not even a sideways glance or a smirk. Flat batteries, the lot of them. And I didn’t want them getting all recharged and coming after me.
I was rapidly running out of equipment, but I still had a screwdriver in my pocket. I used it to take the heads off the six sleeping robots. I took the controller chips from each of the heads, pocketing them, and then set the gleaming domes on the floor next to their bodies. Then I took the heads and chips from the two robots that were still standing. Two? Did I miscount?
I half-turned and a straight-armed swipe from a security robot whizzed past the top of my head. He must have been expecting someone taller. I dodged another attempt to decapitate me, feeling the draft caused by the passage of the robot’s hand. If any of those karate chops made contact the result would almost certainly be a broken bone. And it would hurt. Backing away from the robot, I almost tripped over one of the heads on the floor. I ducked under another swipe and picked up the robot head, holding it in front of my like a shield. A hand swiped down in a swift and brutal arc, shattering the skull and breaking it in two.
Ducking and weaving, I picked up two more of the heads, hurling them like boulders, and the security robot knocked them aside sending them clattering against the walls. Its arms slicing through the air, the robot forced me deeper into the room. A quick glance behind told me that there was a wall and a door – some sort of inner office – and I would soon be forced up against it with nowhere to go.
The door was locked and my pick was now a puddle of melted metal. Still trying to stay beyond range of the wildly waving arms of the robot, I edged sideways, looking around the room for something I could use as a weapon or as a tool to open the inner door. But there was nothing. This was a bare room that served only as a recharging station for the machines. Robot corpses littered the floor and I had to step carefully to avoid them. I stepped between the two headless bodies that were still standing, trying to put them between me and the kung fu robot. I ducked behind one of them, holding onto its upper arms and turning it, hiding behind it. Chop after chop cracked and splintered the decapitated robot, sending bits of debris flying in all directions. A particularly savage blow to the shoulder cracked the joint and left me holding the arm. I considered using it as a club to fight back, but then I saw markings above the wrist that gave me another idea. This was the robot’s identification number and an old-fashioned quick-scan code. I pushed the remains of the dead robot forwards so that my attacker was momentarily entangled with it.
I rushed to the back of the room and pressed the code on the arm up against the scanning pad of the lock. Surely a security robot would have the necessary clearance level to get me through the door? There was a crash behind me as the robot tore itself free from its dance partner and shoved the obstruction aside. As robot Frankenstein goose-stepped towards me there was a long moment when I thought the lock wasn’t going to yield. I really didn’t want ‘Oh, squit!’ to be my dying words.
Click. Shush!
The door slid open. I dashed into the inner office and slammed my palm back against the mechanism, hitting the control that would shut and lock the door. I pressed one of the robot fingers to the button that would seal the door shut, not allowing anyone to enter from outside.
Finding that its own code didn’t work the door-opening magic, the robot outside began battering the door. I could see small dents appear but I felt fairly confident that the door would hold firm. This was a door on a security deck, you’d have to hope it would be a good one.
Catching my breath, I turned around, half-expecting to see the missing three robots standing behind me with fists raised. But there was only a desk and chair. A supervisor’s office. In one corner was another robot charging station, but this one was bigger than those outside. I was pleased to see that it was vacant. On the desk were a jacket and a backpack. My jacket and backpack. I wasn’t sure if one of the robots had brought them in – they certainly hadn’t rolled into there and bounced up onto the desk – but I was definitely pleased to see them. The red axe was lying on the desk too.
Pulling on my jacket, I felt much less vulnerable. The gun belt and pistol helped a bit with that.
The hammering on the door ended and the silence came as a relief. I woke Trixie and got her to scan the area for robots. She reported no activity. Hopefully, that meant the robot outside had exhausted whatever little charge it had left in its batteries.
There was a uniform jacket hanging from a coat hook in the corner behind the desk. I took it down to look at it. It would have been great to wear to a War-themed fancy dress party. Handling it gave me that weird feeling again. It had belonged to a man who had probably died on this ship. According to the security tag clipped to his breast pocket his name had been Kyle Rose. I hung the jacket back on its peg but
