On the First Day Arrived the Drone
Slurping his Pepsi and peanuts, Andrew, the air traffic controller and chanic of Old Dodge, was showing around his garage to Miles, rembering nebulous anecdotes from every tool he owned, and every ship part sleeping under a shroud of dust. Nonchalantly smacking his sugar-coated lips, he was done talking about an old radar system supposedly purloined forty years before on Admiral Westmorland’s flagship, the T.M.S. kong, and asked: “Did we et before, boy? You look vaguely familiar.”
Toying with the propellant pump of the old Baltimore-VII taking pride of place on the main workbench, the Alliance man retorted: “Ran into a lot of Philipinos around Saturn?”
“I’ve been to war. I’ve run into my share of people.”
“I’m not a Marxist Belter.”
The old soldier heaved. “Didn’t matter back then. Doesn’t matter now…” Moving aside a burnt dog tag tingling on a nail, he turned on the radio. Arican Pie spirited the open workshop located beneath the control tower. Lost in his thoughts for a second, Andrew ca back to reality tapping the thick hull of the humming nuclear core in front of Miles with the steel fingers of his exoskeleton. “Been around one of those bad boys before?”
The Alliance man shrugged.
“First engine to reach the dwarf planets,” Andrew explained. “Well… first Canadian one. As the Reds actually reached the asteroid fields before the United Morons. With a double VBD-2400, nonetheless. Von Braun’s always been a mad bastard. Hell of a genius…”
“Wasn’t he a Nazi?” Fate intervened.
As Lady Carnegie had left for the undertown half an hour earlier, she had decided to rest on a dusty tarpaulin hanging from the ceiling like a hammock; spinning an empty gel applicator around her index.
Andrew seed offended. “Wernher Von Braun used to build rockets—beautiful rockets. The Kremlin snatched him good in ‘45. The rest is History.”
Miles raised an eyebrow. “Which side were you on during the Red Uprising?”
The chanic made his tallic fingers dance over a row of greasy nuts. Staring at the Alliance man for an awkward mont, he ended up bursting into laughter. “Good one, kid!” He whistled, through his straw. “Wanna learn sothing chuckleso?”
“Go ahead.”
“This wobbly gear. Right here.” Andrew pointed to a bright red lever with his own shaky finger with no nail. “Added it myself, alongside the well-known faulty secondary nozzle. If you pull it while switching the right reactor’s cycle. Bye-bye, Miss Arican Pie! You’re gonna crack the goddamn moon like an egg.”
Miles’ gaze turned from the gear to the giggling chanic. “Interestin’.”
“Interesting? Carefully mastered, this addition on a on B-VII cracks a reaction that can give you a trendous starting push!” Andrew explained, eyes on his diagnostic console while playing with the dangerous stick. The Forlorn pilot stepped back. “You’d probably carbonize half your opponents behind you on a SASCAR starting line but—” Pondering, the crazy man lifted his head from his monitor. “SASCAR…”
“Ca out with a plan Miss Carnegie?” Miles asked while turning around.
The nuclear reactor sputtered hot steam and luminescent fireflies. Behind him, the child moon-owner back from her office in town appeared to be providential.
“Yes, Mr. Jim. The board and I decided we will just let Calamity Grace in,” she replied in a firm voice. She resud once back at the feet of the tower: “Dialogue is our first priority. I will negotiate the last stock of old di-shots and anti-rads we have. The protein harvest remains out of the equation. Andrew? Be ready to send a ssage.”
“Right away, Lady Carnegie!” the chanic replied, already climbing the tower ladder, lifted by the four spider arms of his chanical exoskeleton.
“Are you certain you want to negotiate with freebooters?” Fate went on. Miles heard her jump from her hammock. She was irritated. She still couldn’t fathom how a child would run a space corral, or engage a pourparler with pirates.
The plan also didn’t seem to please Miles’ feathered partner who, flying from their ship, loudly expressed his disagreent.
“What is it, Napoléon?” he asked, catching the airborne nace during so kind of ‘kamikaze’ loop.
A sudden crash covered the bird’s unremitting cackling. Believing it to be an accident at the clamps holding the Forlorn Hope, Miles and Lady Carnegie imdiately turned to look at the third airlock.
“What on Earth is that?” Carnegie asked.
The crunching sound of steel on concrete quickly followed. At the foot of the Forlorn, a vulture with curled steel wings nearly 10 feet wide when fully extended crawled across the floor. Straightening, the machine chirped, almost piercing everyone’s eardrums. With its awkward gait, it was trying to reach the second plexiglass doors separating the giant airlock to the hangar.
“A droidodrone!” Fate exclaid. “A pilotless nightmare!”
“Quack!” the duck furiously intervened.
“Indeed, Napoléon. Another annoyin’ stowaway.”
“Andrew!” the moon owner yelled. “Andrew! Drop the fence!”
Halfway up the ladder, the Canadian chanic relayed the order to his wife, but he was too late. The chanical monster had taken flight and slipped between the closing transparent doors and security railings. Making the whirling turbines of its wings roar, it made a high loop before plunging towards the switchman.
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The latter couldn’t react in ti and was hit head-on. The exoskeleton counterbalanced the weak gravity, and he violently landed inside his workshop despite the desperate attempt orchestrated by his robotic subordinates to recover him.
“You! Shoot that thing down!” Aïssata ordered as she turned to Fate.
The latter instinctively looked for her rifle, and the droidodrone dived again, targeting the terrified supervisor with its long tapered pterodactyl beak. The moon owner cried, before being tackled to the ground by Miles.
Alone on her feet, the Japanese woman witnessed the drone soaring back towards the control room. “I cannot…” she heaved as the monster slid inside the tower after bending the door with its beak. The P-90 wasn’t loaded.
Gasping, Lady Carnegie stood up. After a glance at Andrew, slowly recovering in the arms of the androids who had taken him to safety, she brought her wrist-implant close to her mouth. “Ginette? Ginette!”
No answer ca from Andrew’s wife. Instead, the internal communication channel beca saturated with the incessant cackling of the droidodrone as all transmissions were being cut off. The steel vulture had hacked into the hangar’s computer system, as evidenced by the halogen lights going out and the old Baltimore reactor’s test bench in the atelier going haywire.
“That—that winged horror will open the doors and certainly all the airlocks to prepare an attack,” the nosebleeding corral supervisor hiccupped, hand over the heart as the ager LEDs on the ergency system lit up.
“If it ain’t already dumping the station’s oxygen right into space…” Miles replied.
His work completed, Calamity Grace’s drone poked its beak out of the tower. Its three pairs of red rotating eyes glowed in the darkness as it probed its surroundings. After a cackling sound that made Aïssata freeze in fright, it slowly turned its head towards its next targets.
His copilot beneath the arm, Miles grabbed the short lady’s wrist before the iron-feathered bird swooped again in their direction. Both started running towards the elevator facing the cells. anwhile, Fate grasped the grip of her empty weapon.
“Don’t use your stupid toy!” soone shouted. It was Andrew from his atelier. “Unless it shoots lasers, it’s probably useless against its armor. Take this!” As one of the robotic crewn tried to straighten the chanic up, the latter kicked into a buky nail gun. The heavy tool slid on the floor towards Fate, leaving a trail of titanium pins wide as a thumb.
She picked up the makeshift weapon to arm it. In the ager ti before a brutal incoming impalent, she fired precise shots whose magnetic-fuelled propulsion was covered by the shrill scream of the enemy drone. Three plastic prirs hit the floor as the droïdodrone spun towards a higher ground. Blinded, it bounced against the rocky ceiling near the only ventilation duct. Finally, it crashed against a silo in a gigantic explosion.
While slowly walking back towards Fate, Miles whistled. “You nailed it,” he said.
Disheveled and her brown and yellow overalls caked with glimring tallic dust, she rolled her red eyes.
“You got gumption! I understand why the yaks didn’t want to let you go despite your poor fashion taste.”
“Say the man with a bright yellow oversized sweater and fuzzy hair.”
“Quack!”
Miles gently tapped the duck’s beak. “She accomplished more in two days than you’ll ever dream of in your entire poultry life.”
“Quack...”
As the pilot and his bellicose duck arrived at the woman’s height, Aïssata returned from Andrew’s garage. Dragging her long dress in the milldust, she seed as sad as angry. But also terribly diminished. “Those sackers…” she said at last in a half-voice, pointing to the silo. “Those bloody sackers!”
“Dialogue was never an option for Calamity Grace, kid…” Miles went on, watching the starting fire. From the burning tank emanated a thick brown smoke, but not a single sprinkler responded. “You will have to fight. In the hub. Since the Gatlings are done. ”
“Near the protein granaries? Are you insane? If they’re hit again, I—”
Fate dismissed her fear: “They will not blow up the silos nor the airlocks. The droidodrone was sent to take away the control of the hangar and disable the turrets. Calamity Grace wants to pillage your supplies.”
Lady Carnegie III agreed. Behind her, Andrew lumped all the way to them. Blood dotted his short beard.
“The flying can opener got Ginette…” he muttered.
“I’m deeply sorry, Andrew,” the moon owner responded. “Calamity Grace will hit us soon. We shall mourn her later.”
“I heard. It would be wise to wait for this witch here. Near the elevators facing the cells. We can take advantage of the darkness.”
“Are you sure?” Aïssata asked, browsing her implant’s luminous screen.
Andrew wiped discreet tears. “Bloody sure. With a few spotlights recovered from the pools, we can even blind their assault waves as they break through the plastic doors.”
“To hell with them all…” Aïssata sighed.
“We’re almost all proud veterans, milady. Won’t go silent while watching our hard work burn, eh?”
“I know that.” The supervisor turned to the three chanics who had just brought the fire under control with their foam lance spray. The froth ford a huge solidified cloud all around the silo. She then ordonned her folks to bring Ginette down and to pick up all the junk piled up in the maintenance area. She ordered to build a barricade in front of the elevators and the silos.
“Y’all heard the lady?” Andrew said.
The robots bowed then dashed off to perform their respective duties.
“How well do you know Calamity Grace?” asked Fate as Aïssata started touring the stations controlling the protein pumps. Her fingers smashed one by one the wide ergency button beneath the round CRT monitors. Underground pipes started draining her precious harvest soplace inside the satellite core. “What are our chances?”
“You can kiss goodbye to your scalps…” Andrew replied before leaving.
As Lady Carnegie disappeared in the darkness, Fate turned to Miles. With his hands in his sweater, the Alliance man eyed elsewhere, indifferent; and only reacted when she shook him. “Did you notice we are stuck in what appears to be a beyond terrible situation?” she asked.
“Gettin’ worse by the hour, even.”
“Have you not seen how this child treated Andrew? She would probably sacrifice her folks for the corral if she can. We will die too if we do not dust off! We have to leave at once!”
“Feel free to take the Forlorn. If the windshield doesn’t crack right away, Calamity Grace will nuke you even before Mr. Turban sees you beep on his radar.”
“Quack!” responded the bird, flying above their heads.
Fate’s growl was almost covered by the mooing protein pumps.“What did he say this ti?”
“Nothin’,” Miles laughed. “Napoléon’s just fidgetin’. As always.”
“Why is he constantly on edge?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s just a damn grouchy duck! But shouldn’t we get to work? Let’s die on a barricade. The Alamo style.”
“A barricade is more like Les Misérables…” she patronized him.
Allergic to French, the duck furiously bit her right earlobe.
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