Rocketship Patrol (15 page)

Thirty minutes later, the
Exalted Refuse
was docked up snug against the belly of the Warlord Klakraw’s
Battlerock
, a massive battleship built within a hollowed-out heavy-metal asteroid, seventy times the scavenger ship’s size. The rocky surface of the
Battlerock
was a dense array of beam turrets, rocket launchers,  defense system pods, and charred craters testifying to innumerable battles.

Klakraw was waiting for Cortez when she stepped out of the airlock into the
Battlerock
’s expansive receiving entryway. A tall, feathered Vilopian in a dark gray lab coat stood respectfully at Klakraw’s side, and an honor guard of twenty eyeless, vestigial-winged Jelustri Xenobat marines in scaled body armor stood at rigid attention behind him, double-barreled autorifles tight against their chests in salute.

The viscous liquid inside Klakraw’s environment head-tank rippled as he fluttered his tendril-fins in greeting. “Welcome aboard.”

“Oh, come here and give me a big hug, you little monster.” Cortez scooped the warlord into her arms and lifted him up for a enthusiastic bear-hug.

Arms stiff at his side, Klakraw didn’t struggle. “Put me down, you tree.”

“It’s been too long.” Cortez lowered the warlord to his bare gorilla feet. He barely came up to her waist. “That a new body?”

“No, just dyed the hair,” Klakraw said. “I got tired of purple.”

“Shame, I liked the purple.”

“Wasn’t intimidating enough–”

“Ahem,” Igon said, hopping out of the airlock. He trotted up to Klakraw, extending one claw. “George Igon Stewart 99931-Gamma, sir warlord sir, at your service. Gladys’ provisional betrothed.”

“Gladys must be thrilled,” Klakraw said, ignoring Igon’s offered claw and leaning to look around the robot into the airlock as Loy stepped out. He craned his head-tank back and pressed his glowing eyes against his head-tank’s faceplate to take her all in. “Speaking of wives... who might this candidate for my ninth be?”

Loy swallowed and backed up.

“Watch it, Kla,” Cortez said. “She’s a cop.”

Loy shot Cortez an accusing glare.

“That so?” Klakraw said, nonplussed. “I would have guessed candy gram stripper.”

“Ex-cop,” Cortez said. “Gun for hire, now. Pretty good one.”

Loy relaxed and managed to smile down at the warlord. “Charmed. But don’t get any ideas. You couldn’t afford me.”

“I pay pretty well for firepower,” Klakraw said.

“Not what I was talking about.”

The liquid in his tank broiled and a sound like paper tearing spurted out of his voice modulator. “I like her.” He turned his faceplate up towards Cortez. “Now, where’s my database?”

“Where’s my money?” Cortez asked.

“You won’t mind my techs looking at it first, would you? You know, just to confirm I’m not paying for copies of old
My Mother the Car
episodes.”

“I thought you liked
My Mother the Car
?”

“Charlene…”

“Not just gonna take my word for it?”

“Would you take your word for it?”

Cortez smirked, tapped the underside of her robomechanical forearm. “Dag,” she said into her palm, “grab the core, bring it out.”

Klakraw turned to the Vilopian standing beside him. “Report the results as soon as you have them, Dr. Barranco.”

“Of course, sir.” The Vilopian nodded and ducked through the airlock.

“Dag, technician’s coming in to help,” Cortez said into her palm. “Full cooperation, understand?”

“No problem,” Dag replied through her hand’s tiny fingertip speaker.

Cortez tapped the radio off and looked around the receiving entryway. “So, which way’s dinner again?”

“My apologies.” Klakraw gestured at a doorway on the far end of the room. “Come on then, I think we can manage to get a decent meal together for you.”

The warlord spun and lunge-walked for the doorway on all fours. The Xenobat honor guard parted to let him through, then fell in to a rhythmic march behind him.

Igon rushed after the warlord, trotting up to his side. “Sir warlord sir, I can’t say how much of an honor it is meeting you. And for the record, you can afford me…”

Cortez chuckled and shook her head. She glanced back at Loy. “You coming?”

“Little close to the bone there telling him I’m a cop,” Loy said.

Cortez pointed up at a camera cluster in the ceiling. She lowered her voice. “He probably ran a background check the second we stepped in the airlock. If we hadn’t mentioned the cop thing it would have set off a big red flag. We don’t need him more suspicious than he naturally is.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Loy said. “But what are we waiting for? He took the bait–he’s here. Close the trap already.”

“What’s the rush?” Cortez started for the doorway. “I’m starving.”

The deck under their chairs shuddered and a soft hum vibrated
through
Patrol Rocketship 8724
’s mess hall.

“What was that?” Rikki asked, his head snapping left right up and down in a panic. Before they’d returned to their own ship, P’lau and his fellow Rolm pirates had placed Rikki’s and Hackenthrush’s chairs back-to-back and applied another wrapping of memory sheet around them, binding them and the chairs together. Only their heads and bare feet were free of the tacky, constricting material.

“That was a tractor beam locking on to us,” 8724 said. “We are being drawn towards a large ship with a silhouette and mass that appears to match a vessel my DUPES database identifies at the
Battlerock
, the flagship of the warlord Klakraw.”

Hackenthrush looked up at the ceiling. “That pirate bastard really did sell us.”

“It appears he was a Rolm of his word, yes.”

“Well, either way,” Hackenthrush said, relaxing back in the chair, an almost sublime glint in his eyes, “can’t let the ship fall into criminal hands.”

“We can’t?” Rikki asked.

Hackenthrush snorted. “You remember what the Rolm said, this warlord fellow he’s sold us to likes to torture cops. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that I’ll cry like a baby if I’m tortured. No way I’m gonna let myself be embarrassed like that. So there’s nothing left for it but to initiate self-destruct. Get on that, 8724.”

“Umm,” 8724 said, “I’d rather not.”

“What do you mean you’d ‘rather not?’” Hackenthrush asked. “You disobeying an order?”

“No, simply reminding you that we have a mission to accomplish, and I imagine completing it will be the teeniest bit difficult if we’ve been turned into balls of irradiated dust by way of a atomic pile meltdown and explosion.”

“Oh, you’re no fun anymore,” Rikki said.

“Don’t know where you’ve been, 8724, but the mission’s over,” Hackenthrush said. “There’s no way we’re going to be able to get out of this and rescue the rookie now. We don’t even know where the rookie is.”

“I know where she is,” 8724 said.

“How the hell do you know that?” Hackenthrush asked.

“The scavenger ship is docked to the
Battlerock
.”

“It is?”

“Yes.”

“Great,” Hackenthrush said. “So this warlord guy can torture the three of us.”

“I’m confident Special Agent Cortez will not allow that to happen,” 8724 said.

“Special Agent who?” Rikki asked.

“Cortez,” 8724 said. “You know her as Miss Swartzbaum.”

Hackenthrush’s jaw dropped. “Gladys… is a cop?”

“Special Agent of the Galactic Authority Police,” 8724 said. “She ordered me not to divulge her true identity when she commandeered me, but now that we’re outside Galactic Authority space and jurisdiction, that programming block has been nullified.”

“Hmm, that does explain things,” Hackenthrush said.

“Like how she was able to take 8724 over,” Rikki said.

“Uh, yeah, I suppose,” Hackenthrush said. “But I was going to say that explains why she turned down my advances. You know, regulations. No fraternization.”

“Right,” Rikki said with a smirk. “That’s exactly why.”

“Damn it,” Hackenthrush said.

“What?” Rikki asked.

“We’re gonna die for no reason.”

“How you figure?”

“If Cortez is a special agent, and the rookie’s with her, there was no need for us to come and rescue her.”

“Guess not.” Rikki’s ears flattened against his skull. “Bummer.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t suppose she could rescue us, too, do you?” Rikki asked.

“She’d have to! Duty bound.” Hackenthrush’s face broke out in a wide grin. “That’s it then. All we have to do is get a message to her and she’d have no choice but to get us out of this jam. –8724, send a message–”

“Attempting to get a message to Special Agent Cortez may blow her cover,” 8724 said. “In fact, our mere presence here may do so. If we don’t take proactive action, her mission may be jeopardized, and all your lives forfeit.”

“We’re a little tied up here, 8724. How are we supposed to take action?” Hackenthrush asked. “We don’t even know what her mission is.”

8724 sighed. “I know what her mission is.”

“You do?” Hackenthrush and Rikki asked simultaneously.

“She told me when she commandeered me, as part of the required justification.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned that before we came all the way out here and got ourselves sold to a warlord?” Hackenthrush asked.

“I told you,” 8724 said, “there was a programming block.”

“Okay, so what’s her plan, and how can we help her?” Rikki asked.

“You’re not going to like it,” 8724 said. The hum from the tractor beam intensified, the beam growing shorter as 8724 was drawn inside the
Battlerock
.

“I never do.” Hackenthrush scowled. “Just tell us.”

“For a start, we let them torture you…”

“If you’ll just follow me.”

The Vilopian Dr. Barranco lead Dag and Feh, the rent-a-speedship’s data core slung between them in a hammock, through an open archway into the
Battlerock
’s cavernous topside hangar bay.

“My back’s killing me,” Dag said, struggling to keep up with Dr. Barranco’s long strides while keeping the data core from scraping the deck. “You guys don’t have a sled or a forklift or something? This thing’s a lot heavier than it looks.”

“Yeah, can we stop a minute?” Feh asked. “I gotta itch.”

“It’s not much farther,” Dr. Barranco said, pointing his beak up at the clamshell hangar doors, just now closing as
Patrol Rocketship 8724
, encased within a pulsing yellow tractor beam, was slowly being lowered to the deck.

Dag swallowed. “Isn’t that–?”

“A police rocketship, yes,” Feh said quickly. “One we’ve never seen before, right?”

“Right,” Dag said.

“As luck would have it,” Dr. Barranco said, walking towards a circle of  technicians and Xenobat marines waiting under the descending rocketship, “we just acquired it. It will make validating the data you’ve brought trivial.”