[Aye.]
I waited for several intolerable milliseconds. What could have taken Mack out like that? Or was it just a communications issue of some kind?
[SCUT Link relay has been acquired to several onboard roamers. Vessel is heavily damaged, replicant is offline.]
“What? Give me a connection to one of them.”
Guppy handed me a connection and I entered the roamer.
I stared, shocked, at a view of empty space through a huge rent in the side of Mack’s vessel. Shards of metal and pieces of equipment floated around and caromed off of walls and other flotsam.
What the hell caused this?
I thought immediately of the Others. Could they have sent an expedition here to learn more about us? No, that didn’t make sense. They didn’t know about this system.
Then, movement. An outline shifted against the starry backdrop. I ran image analysis against several frames from the roamer’s video, and was able to extract a silhouette.
Medeiros.
The bastard must have coasted up to Mack’s location and hit him with a missile from short range.
There was no time to deal with the rage, though. I left the roamer for a moment, jacked myself up to maximum frame-rate, and pondered the situation.
Two milliseconds later, I returned to normal time, and sent an all-Bobs text at high priority. Medeiros in 82 Eridani. Mack taken out. Need Bobs to locate and connect with all available AMIs. Coordinate with my Guppy.
“Guppy, inspect and inventory. Get me a report on the state of Mack’s vessel.”
[Aye]
Without waiting for a response, I returned to my roamer. Medeiros’ exact plans were unknown, but there were several possibilities, all of which had to be blocked.
Several texts came in from Other Bobs who had connected with other roamers on board or out by the autofactories. I began giving orders.
Bobs on board: protect replicant matrix, sequester or destroy any SCUT, SUDDAR or weapon tech. Check reactor for possibility of self-destruct. If anyone can get a roamer onto Medeiros’ ship, do so. We need him tagged.
Bobs at autofactories: Gather and inventory printers. We have to be prepared to keep them out of his hands.
Any other Bobs, check in.
I returned my attention to the Brazilian craft, which was edging up to Mack’s ship. At that moment, Medeiros performed a SUDDAR scan on us. I froze, as did every roamer on board. No sense showing him what was still active. The scan lasted less than a second, and the Brazilian kept edging in. The safest thing would have been for him to blow us up. Either he was hoarding his missiles, or he wanted the Heaven vessel as intact as possible.
A text from Thor came in. Mack’s cube is intact.
The image that Thor had sent with the text left no doubt. Mack’s cube had escaped the zone of destruction. That was both good and bad. Good, because we hadn’t permanently lost a Bob. Bad because it was one of the items that Medeiros might be going for. A cube could be put up on a cradle and either infected with something, as Homer had been, or even tortured.
Thor, get the cube out of here. Just jump. If it looks like you’ll be captured, destroy it.
Thor responded immediately. Ten four.
Who’s got eyes on the reactor? I asked.
Oliver responded. It’s toast. No possibility of a self-destruct.
Damn. That meant this would have to be done the hard way. It also meant we were running on power cells. At some point, the SCUT transceiver would give out, and that would be it for our access to 82 Eridani.
I didn’t have time to ponder the alternatives. Okay, guys. Disassemble all tech, start flinging pieces. Nothing survives. Oliver, can you gather the SCUT and a few power cells?
Will do.
Movement from the Brazilian attracted my attention. The cargo doors opened, and a number of roamers jumped in the direction of Mack’s ship.
I sent a general alert. Prepare to repel boarders.
In moments, a half-dozen roamers joined me at the rent in Mack’s hull.
There were twice as many of them, so I had no real illusions about winning the battle. Our roamers had no particular advantage in this situation. The best we could do was to hold them off until the sabotage crew could get it done.
The enemy roamers came straight in, no finesse, no feints. And why shouldn’t they? Straight numerical advantage was a strategy all its own.
The battle lasted almost two minutes. Roamers are very tough devices—they’re specifically designed to be able to operate with up to half their legs missing. The plasma cutters were the weapon of choice on both sides. The battle resembled, no kidding, one of those old Errol Flynn swordfight melee scenes, as long as you imagined giant spiders instead of actors in tights. Roamers parried and riposted all over the cargo bay, the occasional errant leg floating through the mix.
Finally, though, they took us out. The last roamer, crewed by Jacques, put up a great fight, wedged into the axial corridor so that no one could get by. But an attack from two opponents at once took out his cutter limb, and that was it. In moments, he was scrap.
How did we do? I group-texted. The situation was far too volatile for any kind of VR meetup, and in fact, I imagined everyone had given up VR for the duration.
Mack is well out of here. Two roamers in attendance, Thor responded. We’ll slice and dice if necessary.
All remaining onboard SUDDAR and SCUT tech is toothpicks, someone else added.
Except for the transceiver, Oliver said. And I’ll destroy that if it looks like it’ll be taken.
I thought for a moment. Okay guys, let’s do as much damage to this asshole as possible. Let him have the hulk; instead, let’s go for his vessel.
There were acknowledgements, and I watched from a piggyback feed as the five surviving roamers still onboard leaped across space toward the Brazilian.
Unfortunately, Medeiros was ready for us. A half-dozen roamers leaped out of his hold to intercept. Another cutter-fight ensued, this one in free-fall between the ships. Roamers had small compressed-air nozzles for free-fall maneuvering, but those wouldn’t last long. Our roamers attempted to get feet on metal as quickly as possible, with the opponents attempting to block us or toss us off.
Less than a minute later, we found to our surprise that we’d won the fight. Two of our roamers still survived, one only barely. But on a last man standing basis, it was enough.
Medeiros apparently thought so as well, because his ship backed rapidly away from the area before we could land on his hull. I had a pretty good idea what was coming. A few seconds later, my suspicions were confirmed, as a missile appeared from the distance.
Looks like we’re done, guys.
The missile arrived, and once again, I was back in my VR.
“Guppy, what do we have?”