In an abrupt move, the Quatralyan yanked its arms from the street tough's form and Whipsaw crumpled to the floor. Daintily, the chickendog stepped over the spreading pools of red as more and more tentacles snaked out of its impossible body; ten, twenty, thirty. It became a Medusa's head of wiggling limbs on doggy paws. The living nightmare turned its potato head towards the street gang and fiendishly gargled at them again.
“Waste that thing!” Hammer snarled, drawing an Army Colt .45 from under his jacket, and the Bloody Deckers attacked.
Razor-sharp throwing stars, shurikens, appeared and disappeared in Chisel's talented hands. The Quatralyan dodged the whirling blades and came at the boy. Twin switchblades snapped into existence and the young blademaster circled to the left. Torch, her hands full of iron hooks, moved to the right. Drill pulled a stiletto from his boot and charged straight at the monster. Crowbar produced a motorcycle chain, and twirled it to near invisibility as he deliberately stepped in front of Hammer.
“What the fuck? Get outta the way!” the ganglord yelled furiously.
But Crowbar pretended not to hear him. Hammer tried to angle past the man, and again Crowbar stepped right in his path, preventing Hammer from using his pistol. This couldn't be any better. Right on TV he would show the world that Crowbar didn't need a gun to make him tough, and bikers would flock to him. He’d have his own gang then. Crowbar's Commandos! No more a nobody. He’d be the boss. Yeah, the time was ripe. Time for Crowbar!
Gnashing his teeth, Hammer eased his grip on the pistol. No way. Crowbar couldn't be stupid enough to be doing this on purpose. Got to be a mistake. The ganglord thumbed back the hammer on his weapon and tried once more for a clear shot.
With a martial-arts cry, Drill threw himself at the Quatralyan, who hopped out of the way. Hitting the floor and rolling, Drill twisted about and came up swinging, right where the creature was supposed to be. But it wasn't. Sensing a trap, the quatralyan had darted between Chisel and Torch. Neither of them close enough to stab it, though both tried. For an instant, the beast was in the clear.
Assuming a firing stance, Hammer leveled his automatic and Crowbar again got in the way. The ganglord cursed violently. The smug thug allowed himself a quick victory grin and released his chain, the four feet of linked steel flashing across the room like a silver arrow that slammed the pudgy alien off its feet in a tangle of limbs. The Quatralyan tried to stand, and failed, then weakly bleated in pain. Without pause, the street gang came charging in from every direction.
Grinning openly, Crowbar unwound a second chain from his waist and went to help with the kill, his traditional biker's weapon expertly wrapped tight around a scarred fist.
The Quatralyan poked a lumpy head from the jumble of its body and mournfully bleated again. Yet oddly, no damage was showing. No blood. Hammer didn't like that and got a hunch.
“Watch out!” he yelled in warning. “The dust mop's doing a suck play!”
Not completely stupid, Crowbar heeded the ganglord and fired off his second chain in a hip shot that cannonballed towards the ropy alien. Jerking aside, the Quatralyan let the metal missile pass by, not wishing to be hit again by that strange weapon. The monster gargled nastily and ran to kill Crowbar, the closest of its enemies. Hammer tried to zero in on it anyway, and the creature moved to the far side of the gang member as if somehow understanding what the function of a gun was.
Crowbar then unlimbered his last weapon. From inside his pants pocket he withdrew an Italian gravity knife, and waited for the attack. More blade then handle, the weapon was like a butcher's axe, made for chopping. His hand held high, the grim man braced himself to cut the thing in two with a single stroke. Dr. Guillotine meets The Spaghetti Monster.
But flashing knives from Chisel bracketed the beast, forcing it back. Then in another mad roll, Drill sliced open both of the hind legs of the creature. The Quatralyan screamed in real pain now. No mere bleat, but a steam-whistle keen that went through Crowbar's head like an icepick as he chopped downward. Several of the monster's tentacles hit the floor, the stumps oozing yellow.
Off balance, the chickendog stabbed holes in the gang member's flapping jacket, the rigid limbs scoring bloody trenches along his ribs. Crowbar stabbed with a knife not designed for the purpose and missed. The Quatralyan reared, its snake nest body poised to strike. Death filled Crowbar's eyes.
Then Torch buried her iron hooks in the monster's plump rump.
The Quatralyan shrieked like a million smoke detectors and the laughing woman jumped back, but not fast enough. Pivoting about, the wounded creature rammed all of its remaining arms straight into the human.
As they jerked out, blood formed a fountain from her riddled body and the woman fell limply to the floor. Just then, the thunderous reports of the Army .45 filled the air as Hammer finally got his unobstructed view.
Yellow blood and feathers sprayed into the air under the impact of the soft lead bullets and the ganglord brutally fired again and again, the heavy slugs from the booming Colt punching the screaming alien across the room, leaving oily smears on the white floor. Its death scream peaked into the ultra-sonic, then abruptly stopped as Drill brutally slit the monster's throat with his stiletto.
Completely unable to help, the population of the world watched as the mangled pile of flesh that had once been Torch reached out a hand to her chief. Hammer rushed over. Kneeling by her side, he took the woman's hand in his and gently gave it a squeeze. She raised her head to speak, causing more blood to well from her hideous wounds. Hammer bent close, and she whispered something too soft for him to hear. Then her hand went stiff in his, her body trembled in a spasm, and Torch died, lying sprawled in a pool of blood and intestines.
In unaccustomed tenderness, the ganglord closed her only intact eye and bowed his head in sorrow. Chisel turned away from the scene, ashamed of his unmanly tears. Stiffly somber, Drill walked to the Quatralyan's body, retrieved his friend's hooks and laid them next to her battered corpse. And showing great wisdom, Crowbar stayed in the background.
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Then Hammer stood, his face a cold mask of fury. He had the blood of a good friend staining one hand, and a smoking .45 Army automatic in the other. The youth squeezed those scarred hands into hard fists and glared hatefully at the clean white ceiling so far, so goddamn far, out of reach.
“NEXT!”
he roared defiantly.
“Magnificent! They were magnificent!” Boztwank squealed, beside himself with pleasure. The joyful mushroom flew across the control room to congratulate his Leader. “Oh, I do apologize, Idow. You were absolutely correct. These Dirtlings are wonderful. Wonderful!”
“Yes,” Squee agreed with a toothy lizard smile. “They are very good, indeed.”
But the starship's Leader heard neither of them. “A distance weapon,” Idow muttered, faintly echoing himself. He leaned forward in his seat, the chair automatically adjusting itself to the new position. “They have a distance weapon. Gasterphaz, why was I not informed of this?”
“Because I did not know,” the Choron Protector replied honestly. “Metal is metal, and they’re covered with it. It's in their mouths, nose, ears, any orifice you care to name. And what is not hidden inside their clothing is holding it together. My sensors indicated no weapon grade energy sources, and so I reported them unarmed.” Gasterphaz's veneer cracked. “Sorry.”
Magnanimous as any Leader, Idow brushed the matter aside. “Accepted, my friend. So tell me, what weapons do they have with them?”
Deep in thought, the rocky giant drummed his fingers on his control board, rhythmically denting the metal. “Well,” he started.
“Thin knives, thick knives, folding knives, throwing knives, round throwing knives,” Squee interjected, reading from a list that he had made during the battle. “Chains, short hooks, the projectile weapon, which by the way I want for my collection . . . sss . . . I believe that is everything they carry.”
“One of the edged weapons is not properly a knife,” Boztwank sang, his electronic pot weaving and dipping in a ritual dance of joy. “Better list it as a cleaver.”
In the ensuing feeling of good fellowship, Squee made the appropriate notation on his list, instead of ignoring anything the mushroom said as he normally did. Besides, to a collector there was no such thing as useless information.
“And the small Dirtling stole a spike from one of our drones in the first test,” Gasterphaz added, trying to salvage his shattered reputation as a Protector. Though he rarely used them himself, weapons were his specialty.
Bent over the list, Squee clamped his elongated jaw down on his forked tongue in concentration. “Did he use it against the Quatralyan?” the lizard asked excitedly.
The Choron frowned. “No, but he still has the spike on him.”
In annoyance, Squee crossed out his last notation. Okay, maybe there was such a thing as useless information.
Watching his own reflection, Idow toyed with the silver microphone of his viewscreen. “Boztwank, is Trell still in the reactor core?”
“Yes, my Leader,” the fungi replied gaily. “Why? What has he done wrong now?”
“Nothing,” the blue being mused. “But get him out of there and have him send in the cleaning robot. I want the arena immaculate for the next test.”
Gasterphaz perked up at this. “Suitable for recording and adding to our video library?” asked the Choron shrewdly.
Idow just smiled.
Excellent, thought the Protector. The third test had always been his favorite to watch.
“Then I hereby announce that the bank is closed. All bets must ride.” This announcement astonished nobody, as Chorons were notoriously dirt cheap. “And I shall prepare the warobot for immediate use. Half-speed as usual?”
“Let's try full speed this time,” Squee suggested cold-bloodedly, the luminescent controls of his tech station brightening at their master's anticipation. “I think our Dirtlings can handle it.”
The ship's Leader had a momentary vision of small furry creatures being dropped into an active food processor, and he shivered in pleasure.
In total agreement, Idow nodded regally, the fringe of indigo hair around his face bobbing from the motion. “Let it be done.”
Upon hearing this, Boztwank scooted back to his post. Wow. Full speed. They had never done this before. Eeee! This was going to more fun then watching garbage rot.
* * *
His laser printer finally at rest, Sir John removed his reading glasses and polished them with the handkerchief that jutted from the breast pocket of his tailored three-piece gray suit. The handkerchief was silk, monogrammed with the designer's name, and the color of the fabric perfectly matched Courtney's blue silk shirt. Then he blew his nose on the handkerchief and threw it in the wastepaper basket beside his console. These were merely his work clothes.
“Would you like it straight, or condensed?” the millionaire Scotsman asked the room at large.
“Would we like what, straight or condensed?” Dr. Wu asked, strips of computer paper littering the floor at her feet.
The Chinese physicist had tied her console in with the computers at Cal Tech in an effort to discover how to crack the alien's force shield. As her printer reeled off another failed equation, she ripped the sheet free, made a note of something interesting in the formula on her clipboard, then crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it in the general direction of her wastepaper basket. So far, the score was; wastepaper basket: zero, floor: thirty-seven.
“World reaction to the events we have just witnessed,” Sir John politely explained.
“Condensed please, Jonathan. No lectures today,” Prof. Rajavur said, laying aside his earphones and giving Dr. Malavade the go-ahead signal.
Enabling a never before used section of his console, the Indian linguist started diligently, tapping complex commands into a computer keyboard.
Sir John cleared his throat. “Ahem. Hurrah for the good guys.”
With an expression similar to a man who has discovered a live eel in his underwear, Rajavur spun about in his chair. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, you wanted it condensed.”
“Elucidate,” the professor ordered in ill humor.
“It's the street gang,” Sir John explained looking embarrassed. “The majority of the world is cheering for them. The Bloody Deckers are heroes.”
“Heroes?” General Bronson stormed, slamming down the receiver of his hush phone so hard that the instrument rang, even though it was not equipped with a bell. “They’re loonies!”
“Heroic loonies,” Sir John corrected. “So nobody cares.”
“Well, Bill Paterson cares,” Bronson countered.
Sir John raised a questioning eyebrow. “And he is?”
“The police captain for Manhattan Central. He just issued arrest warrants on each gang member for carrying a concealed weapon. Apparently, the man has been trying to nail the Deckers for the past seven years. Captain Paterson is reported to have turned a cartwheel when Hammer pulled that gun in front of two billion witnesses.”
“Indeed. Well, I wish him luck in serving it.”
Bronson gave a half smile. “Yeah, me too.”
* * *
Taking their time, the Deckers went about the messy task of placing their dead friends side by side, and removing their leather jackets to covering their mutilated bodies. Afterwards, Chisel scurried about the test chamber recovering most of his knives. But that was okay. He still had that blade he’d stolen from the little robot. A secret weapon, yeah. Cool. Crowbar offered his spare chain to Drill, it was accepted, and together the two men were working the kinks from the metal lengths, getting ready for the next attack.
Taking full advantage of the lull, Hammer dug fresh bullets from his pocket, loaded the clip and slid it into the butt of the automatic pistol where it locked into place with a satisfying click. Eight more rounds and the Colt would be useless. He had to make every shot count, even though one of the bullets was already spoken for.
The ganglord had talked briefly to Crowbar, telling the stupid sonofabitch that if he ever disobeyed orders again, Hammer would blow the man's freaking head off. Torch was dead because of him, and the only reason Crowbar was still sucking in air was that the gang needed every stud they had to get out of this mess alive. But a single mistake and the bastard would be wearing grass for a hat.
The hissing noise of the arena's weird door opening made the Deckers glance up from their weapons, and though they had faced death a thousand times before, today the street gang almost wet their denims. This next test was going to be a grade A, bottled and bonded, four star mother.
Stepping away from the closing wall was a giant humanoid robot. The machine man stood twenty feet tall at least, with a shiny body made of smooth green armor. In its right hand, the awesome robot held a big metal bar, or maybe a club. But the weapon was huge, whatever it was. The thing looked like a telephone pole veined with energy cables, and there was a worn, pitted nozzle at the lower end. Nobody had to tell them that this was plainly a weapon of power.
Without any preamble, the deadly machine began to walk straight towards them.
“DECKERS!” Hammer yelled, and the gang rallied to the cry. Bravely, they charged their newest opponent, ready to fight to the death, because Deckers don't surrender.
Pausing in curiosity, the cleaning robot peered down at the beings running towards it and wondered what was the problem. The test chamber was a mess, but no more so than usual.
Crowbar and Drill reached the green giant first. They arced around the machine's legs, whipping the robot with their chains as they passed. The thin plastic armor cracked in a spiderweb pattern under the violent blows and bits sprinkled to the floor, exposing an inner framework of struts and circuitry. The gang took heart from this and bellowed their name again even louder.
Dispassionate as a doorknob, the machine scanned the damage. The waterproof casing of its legs wasn't intact anymore. With a robotic sigh, the janitor laid aside its electronic mop and bent over to retrieve the broken pieces of itself.
In an overhand throw, Chisel released his pride and joy, a two and a half pound stainless-steel Bowie knife. The Texas toothpick whizzed through the air and smashed into the robot's chest, lodging firmly between a circuit cube and a power cable. As a short circuit surged through its entire body, the machine flashed into overload, its control relays systematically burning out. Blind and deaf, the dizzy robot noisily crashed to its knees and sent an urgent plea for help to Those-Who-Command.
* * *
“They’re doing
what?
” throated Idow, rising from his chair.
“Attacking the cleaning robot . . .” Squee said, his voice fading away as his shipmates scrambled to their tech-stations. Oh, nobody ever listened to him.
Magenta with anger, Leader Idow slapped the switch activating the microphone on his control board. “Hey, you waste heads! Cut that out!”
In the test chamber the translation came as:
* * *
“STOP, FOOLISH ONES.”
As always, the Deckers paid no attention to what somebody in authority told them to do. Crowbar grabbed the robot's staff and dragged the pole away, almost straining a gut in the process. Fighting to retain its balance, the mechanical reached out a hand to steady itself. Hammer easily dodged the clumsy attack, and aimed the barrel of his .45 automatic pistol right between the sightless eyes of the rapidly disintegrating janitor.
“CEASE THESE ACTIONS. THAT IS ONLY THE CLEANING ROBOT.”
“Bullshit!” Hammer roared rebelliously, pulling the trigger.
With a jolt, the mechanical's head kicked back. In vain, the machine tried to stabilize its internal systems as two more steel-jacketed rounds were pumped into the sparking remains of its face. The ganglord was gambling here, for even the street punk knew that the brain could be anywhere in a robot; the chest, legs, arms, anywhere at all.
However it had been deemed that in a cleaning robot it was judged most prudent to keep the machine's delicate brain as far away as possible from the caustic reagents and potentially destructive chemicals that it handled on a daily basis. So the brain was located in the head. For protection.
As dead as it could possibly be, the robot stiffly pancaked onto its face, the lovely green armor peeling away from its overheating nuclear stomach like the leaves of a murdered artichoke. Fat crackling sparks crawled over the broken machine, smoke poured from its joints, and a leg fell off.
Then in crude humor, Chisel unzipped his pants and contemptuously relieved himself on the fallen Goliath.
* * *
Utterly flabbergasted, the aliens couldn't believe what they had just seen. This was almost beyond their comprehension. Exactly how primitive were these guys?
“By the Prime Builder's Waste Products,” Idow gulped, slumping backwards into his formfitting chair.
* * *
“Holy crap,” General Bronson gulped, slumping backwards into his padded swivel chair.
A prude at heart, Prof. Rajavur took umbrage at the mild profanity. “Really, Wayne, your language!”
“Is most appropriate,” Dr. Wu interrupted. The scientist was utterly flabbergasted. This was almost beyond her comprehension. “Holy crap, indeed.”
* * *
Chisel's base spectacle gave forth unexpected results. The smoke from the robot thickened, the sparks got fatter, and a vicious humming started. Justifiably frightened, the gang quickly retreated to safety.
“Hey, chief,” Drill whispered, crouching low, with the rest of the gang following his lead. “You know what? I think that thing is going to . . .”
It did. The entire starship shook as the tortured works of the broken robot whoofed into a fireball. Tendrils of smoke and shrapnel filled the air. As the force of the detonation knocked the Deckers prone, the gang gripped the floor like Moslems in Mecca. Every warning light in the starship winked on, klaxons sounded, bells clanged, powerlines snapped and the viewscreens in the control room went black.
* * *
Suddenly, the FCT found itself staring at the outside of the alien ship and the team cursed in six different languages.
* * *
As the force of the detonation dissipated, the rattled street gang got slowly to their feet.
“Everybody okay?” Hammer asked, straightening his leather jacket and checking for damage. Nyah, the coat was fine.
With a grunt, the dapper Drill tucked his sweaty T-shirt back into his worn denims. “Yeah. Sure. I just love getting dumped on my ass by exploding robots.”