Battleship Raider by Paul Tomlinson (book recommendations website .txt) 📗

the bear out and tear its head off. This proved to be a bad move. As I lifted the toy, something shifted under it and there was a click. An alarm sounded somewhere outside the vault.

The cameras on the walls all turned towards me. And then the lasers all turned as well. In a fraction of a second, I would be toast. I did the only thing I could. I jumped into the Navigator’s casing, pulling the lid shut as I did. I knocked the pieces of girder out as the lid descended. The last thing I saw before being swallowed by darkness was a bright red flash as the first of the lasers fired.

Inside the box there was complete silence and I could feel only the slightest vibrations. Outside, I could only imagine that the vault was criss-crossed with bolts of energy. I held Bertie the Bear close and waited for the nightmare to end.

I was lying on top of the robot arm and I felt it begin to move.

“Stop doing that,” I said.

“Why, have you got something better to do?” Trixie whispered in my ear.

“I need to conserve oxygen,” I said. “I’m not really into that asphyxiation thing.”

“Kill the moment, why don’t you,” Trixie said.

“It’s stopped,” I said.

“You told me to.”

“No, outside. The lasers have stopped.”

Trixie’s sensors confirmed this so I decided to open the lid of the box enough to peek out. All I could see was swirling smoke. The drone floated out and scanned the area and it drew no fire from the lasers.

“All clear?” I asked, ready to push the lid open and climb out.

“Not quite,” Trixie said. “The security robots are just outside the hatch. Hatch is opening.” She called the drone back into hiding and I pulled the lid back down, leaving a tiny gap to allow the drone to watch what was happening. It fed video that Trixie projected for me to watch.

Three robots identical to those I had encountered earlier entered the vault. Identical except for the fact that these carried weapons – stubby rifles with long, curved ammunition clips. They scanned the inside of the vault. Apparently satisfied, two of them slung their weapons over their shoulders and reached down to something on the floor. They lifted the smoking remains of the skeleton and dragged it out. Hopefully, they would decide that Mr. Skellington had triggered the alarm in the vault. The third robot scanned the vault a final time and then followed the others out. As it left, I pushed up the lid of the box and jumped out. I wanted to get to the door before it closed. I slid one of the cut sections of girder into the gap to stop the door closing fully.

“We need to get out of here,” I said. I slid Trixie back into her loop on the left shoulder of my jacket. I put the fire axe and the robot arm back into their slots and put my arms through the straps of the backpack. The pliers had been blasted into a molten mess by the lasers. I left Bertie sitting on top of the Navigator’s coffin. Keeping a wary eye on the lasers, I moved to the door. A quick glance showed the corridor outside was clear. I slipped out, allowing the door to the vault to swing shut behind me.

“What now?” Trixie asked.

“We leave,” I said. “But not the way we came in.” I was worried that the dragon might still be lying in wait outside the hatch.

“If we head north,” Trixie said, “there are fewer cameras and sensors active.”

“Which way’s north?”

Trixie projected the outline of a compass onto my retina. As long as the arrow was green, I was heading in the right direction.

“Where are the robots?” I asked.

“Last known position is a hundred and two metres north-west of this position,” Trixie said. “They’re not showing up at the moment, so presumably they’re in an area where the sensors aren’t working.”

If we headed north, there was a chance we would run into the security robots. The armed security robots, I reminded myself. And as well as the three robots, there was evidence to suggest that there was someone else on the ship. Another person. Someone had been responsible for the primitive booby traps in the vault and for the Bertie the Bear booby prize in the Navigator’s box. Robots didn’t really do boobies of any kind.

“Are you picking up any other life signs?” I asked.

“Negative. But again, I am restricted to data from a limited number of working sensors on the ship. Do you think there is someone else on board?”

“Somebody has definitely been here. We should keep an eye out.”

“I would suggest having a drone ten metres ahead of us and one ten metres behind.”

“Do it.” I drew my pistol and we started forward, heading north.

As we made our way through the deserted corridors, I started to get a sense of how big this ship must have been. And the chunk we were in was only the middle third.

At the coming together of three corridors, we found a metal spiral staircase.

“Let’s go up,” I said. “Maybe the robots will stay down here on the security deck.”

The hatch at the top of the stairs was locked, but Trixie and I knew our way around the systems now and soon had it open. I felt more comfortable back on the dingy grey metal deck. It was a couple of minutes before I realised that the lights were on. The deck was no longer bathed in red emergency light. Perhaps because we were in a different section. Or perhaps for more sinister reasons.

If there was someone else on the ship, who might it be? Could it be a survivor of the crash – one of Old Jack Sterling’s crewmates? I started to imagine a wild-eyed lunatic with a massive grey beard and long hair – a cross between Robinson Crusoe and Ben Gunn. Perhaps this shipwrecked soul would be unaware that