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

The shaking stopped abruptly. The robot rose to its feet. We all took another step back.

“Robot! Stand on one leg,” Jack said.

The robot lifted one leg from the deck. Its balance was perfect.

“Rub your stomach,” Jack ordered.

The robot’s right hand began making circular movements over the spot where its stomach would have been – still balanced on one leg.

“Clockwise,” Jack said.

The robot changed the direction of its motions.

“Pat yourself on the head with your other hand,” Jack said.

The robot did as it was asked.

“Looks fine to me,” Old Jack said to the crewman. “Now get to work.”

“Aye, aye, cap’n,” the crewman said. “Robot! Follow me.”

The robot walked after the departing crewman, still patting its head and rubbing its tummy.

“Machines are stupid,” Jack said. He turned and looked me up and down. “You’ve looked better, Quin.”

All I could do was shrug.

“We should get those wounds cleaned,” Jack said. “Who knows what filthy diseases that ugly scracker was carrying.”

I had puncture wounds in both legs from the dragon’s claws. They weren’t deep but the old man was right, there was a real danger of infection. “There’s a medbay down the corridor,” I said.

Old Jack indicated that I should lead the way. He walked with me – but he didn’t get too close.

After I stopped screaming, Old Jack said, “You’ve done that before.” He pointed to the fading scar on my thigh. I’d used the meat-stitcher to fix the puncture wounds.

“I fell into a tree,” I said, rubbing the old wound. I was sitting in the medbay in my underwear and having that déjà vu thing.

“Into one?” Jack said. He was sitting on the other bed watching me administer my own treatment.

“Long story,” I said. “How did you get here?”

“We flew,” Jack said, choosing to take my question literally. “Cargo lifter. We landed it next to the ship.”

Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course, Jack Sterling had the advantage of having been here before – he knew the lay of the land.

“And the prison?” I asked. “I thought you were a lifer.” I helped myself to more of the outdated antibiotics.

“Bribery,” Jack said.

I nodded. “I’m going next door to take a shower and find some clothes,” I said.

“I’d just burn it,” Jack said.

“This jacket and I have been through a lot together,” I said. I was holding it under the shower, trying to scrub it clean. There was no soap and when I’d stood under it, the water had been cold and had a faint metallic smell. But it still made it into my top ten best showers of all time.

I ransacked the closets in a couple of crewmen’s rooms and found myself an outfit similar to my last one. I kept my boots and jacket – trying to pretend they didn’t smell of lizard incontinence.

Old Jack was following me around, pretending to be my best friend. He didn’t trust me. The feeling was mutual.

“What happened to your computer?” he asked, pointing to the scorch mark and missing loop on the shoulder of my jacket.

“Trixie is gone,” I said. I could have told him the whole story, but I didn’t. That would have made things too easy for him. I was waiting for him to come out with the question he really wanted to ask. The only thing he cared about.

“Did you find the vault?” he asked. There it was. He tried to make it sound casual.

“This whole thing was a set-up, wasn’t it?” I asked. “The treasure map – all of it.” I’d seen him scratch his arm earlier – there was no sign of the scar he’d shown me in the jail cell.

Old Jack stared into my eyes, trying to decide whether to lie to me. He shrugged. “I needed a thief. A good one. The last time I came out to the Celestia I lost two men. Barely got away myself.”

I’d met his lost crewmen. Mr. Skellington in the airlock and the Man-With-No-Hands in the vault.

“You knew who I was,” I said, “when we were in the prison?”

“Before that,” Jack said. “Maurice worked for me.”

Maurice was One-Eyed Jack, the poker player I’d won the sand yacht from – and the reason I’d ended up in jail. This old pirate had engineered the whole thing.

“You bribed your way into the prison, didn’t you? Into my cell.”

“The warden and I are old friends. Usually I pay him to let people out.”

“Augie and Paulie Pickles?”

“They work for me too,” Jack said.

“And my escape?”

“The guards were asked to look the other way,” Jack said, “and the night-watchman.”

This was the second time in six months that I’d been conned. I was definitely losing my edge.

“Are you going to open the vault for me, Quin?” Jack asked.

I stared into his eyes, trying to decide whether to lie to him. I shrugged. “It’s open.”

Old Jack smiled broadly, revealing a gold tooth I’d never seen before. “I knew you could do it.”

“Getting in was easier than getting out,” I said.

Old Jack slapped me on the back. “Come on, lad, we’ve got work to do.”

As it turned out, he meant I had work to do.

Old Jack hadn’t been exaggerating – they had landed the cargo lifter next to the Celestia. Right next to it. The lifter looked pretty ancient. I wouldn’t want to risk trying to take it up into orbit, though technically it was designed to shuttle cargo from a planet to a space station or orbiting craft. It was effectively a cockpit at the front connected by a long spine to the engines at the rear. The space in between was occupied by a large detachable container that you could fill with stuff. Stolen loot in the present instance. The pirates had opened one of the battleship’s larger hatches so they could get in and out with their takings.

The robot was standing immobile on the jungle floor between the two craft.

“That thing almost killed me,” I muttered.

“Lucky for you we came when we did,” the crewman with the platinum mohawk said. The others