“What are you doing here?” She asked and visibly relaxed when she spotted him, hiding in a ship without a weapon and in the outfit of a mechanic.
“Me? I’m working here, running some tests on the latest installations of a customer’s ship…” Robin responded and waved at the Melody, “But - if I may - wouldn’t the more pressing question be: What are you doing here?”
“Being funny, eh?” She grinned and the metal pieces in her face began to clink as they bumped together.
"Definitely not! So, how can I help you? Are you looking for money? I don’t think the boss has much stashed away in the workshop, but I could show you the office.” He tried to feel her out as he was still confused why a Cetro broke into this building.
“Cutie, shut up, will ya? Keep the money and show me the way to a ship with the callsign Melody II. I just have to get a package and then I’ll be on my way. No worries, right?”
“Uh, the Melody II? That’s a racing ship, why would it have a package aboard?”
She tilted her head for a moment and looked Robin in the eyes.
“Didn’t I told ya to shut the fuck up?” She waggled the gun that was still aimed at him, “Do I look like I wanna have a discussion right now?”
“Yeah, no.” He said, leaving it unclear which of her questions it was directed at and continued, “What package are you looking for? I cleaned that ship up just before, haven't seen any boxes there.” He shrugged, “By the way, don’t you know that one should not stand at the rear of a powered ship, directly behind the thrusters?”
She sighed when he didn’t stop talking, but it was obvious at this point that she didn’t want to shoot him before she got what she came for. The woman also ignored his safety warning but still took one step back. He wouldn’t be able to suddenly power up the thrusters anyways, the ship would immediately crash into the wall.
“That’s the one?” She asked, nodding her head at Melody, “It was in Beakrath a few days before and never left since it came back. You’re sure you didn’t find anything? I’ll give you a chance to rethink your answer carefully!”
‘Fuck, they are here for me? What do they think I brought back from Beakrath? Gumvar never gave us a package other than the one with the bomb. They can hardly be looking for that one, could they?’ Robin’s mind raced. He had a plan to get rid of the woman, but he wanted to make sure that they would not come after him personally next.
Deciding that this had to end right now where it began and not starting a landslide of shit later on, he dropped his act of being overly fearful and looked at her with cold eyes.
“Lady, I really have no idea what you are looking for. Do you honestly think I got a package from Gumvar and brought it back? Immediately after the explosion I was summoned by Beakrath Security, they checked my whole ship. Even if there would have been a shipment, the officials would have already seized it.”
Her eyes went wide as she realized who she was talking to.
“Yo… you… you are the fucker that blew up our ship?” She could hardly keep her voice in check, “Do you even know what we’ve lost, how much time we spent on building it? THAT WAS OUR FUCKING HOME!”
When she began to scream like a madwoman and his mutation warned him of the gun powering up, Robin realized that there was no way to keep civil relations with her. He immediately used his Interface, that was already connected to the ship, to activate the field dampener rig.
Before the woman could even react, the air in front of her began to shimmer and her arm that was holding the gun dropped to the ground. Blood sprayed out but couldn’t pass the nearly invisible barrier and splashed to the floor. The scene looked unreal, it was as if the red liquid was defying physics itself.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Robin and the Cetro both watched on and blinked a few times. Then her brain seemed to realize what had just happened and the pain kicked in. With wide eyes, she fell to her knees and screamed her heart out.
Meanwhile Robin turned off the rig again, grabbed his gun from the seat and took aim.
Slowly, without losing sight of the woman, he climbed down the ship and walked over. He was thinking about how to stop the bleeding, when suddenly a thin layer of liquid metal flowed out of the remains from her sleeve and covered up the stump.
Despite the shaking of her remaining hand, she took out a stim from her pocket and injected it into her stomach. After that she calmed down a bit and took a deep breath. Raising her head, she directly looked into the barrel of his gun.
“That looks like it hurts as hell!” He said with a grimace, “I warned you, you should read more safety manuals!”
"N... no… shit…" She stammered, still under shock, “Good move… no... now, what do you want? Kill m... me?”
“Nah, enough blood for today.” He said and threw a glance at the huge red puddle on the floor, “Here are my contacts. I don’t wanna have beef with you guys and there is obviously a misunderstanding. Tell your boss he can give me a call. I’ve never got a package from Gumvar and I have nothing to do with the explosion of his workshop. To clear the plate and don’t be at odds with you, I’ll answer all his questions. I’ve no interest in being visited by you fanatics again.”
Robin let his Interface publish his contacts and her device save the ID. There was no point in hiding it, as they already knew of the Melody II and could easily get his name. So better he invited them to the table than waiting for them to visit him at home in the middle of the night.
She didn’t answer him and looked at her hand that was still laying on the bloody floor.
“Yeah, grab it and leave. You should be able to reattach it if… uh... forget it. Just get out of here, I have to clean up!”
Originally Robin thought she could just let a medic or maybe a stitch reattach the hand. Sometimes accidents happen and when an arm is cut off, they can just put it back on. But when he saw her hand on the floor, he realized there was no hope in this case. The dampening field had cleanly severed her forearm. However, it wasn't done by a thin laser, cutter or blade. There was a section of her arm missing... a good 15cm's worth, comparable to the thickness of the shield.
‘Gross! …and fucking dangerous.’ He shuddered as he watched the woman leaving the workshop.
After he was alone with the Melody II again, he thought about what just happened and froze. “First of all, why the hell am I so calm in such a situation? I began to talk crap to relax the tension in the air, cut off her arm as if it was an everyday thing to do and finally told the boss of some criminal gang to give me a call…”
Pacing up and down he came to a stop near the service station. He kicked the metallic box where the cleaning bot was hiding in.
“Oi, get moving! There is blood all over the floor. Chop-Chop!” He kicked the casing a second time and a little round robot came out. It was a service unit for cleaning industrial buildings. It can handle oil and everything, so blood should hardly be a problem.
The little guy gave a few beeps, rotated once to scan the floor and shuffled off towards the bloody mess a few meters away.
Besides the service station was a small sink for washing with a mirror attached to the wall. When Robin saw his reflection, he paused and took a closer look. Visibly he hadn’t changed, the hair was a bit disheveled and his face dirty, but nothing else stood out. His eyes felt a bit colder, but that was probably just a misconception, wasn’t it?
“Did I get used to violence and stuff that easy? Is this what Slice was talking about, that the changes of my mind also change my character?” He rubbed his bearded chin, while he watched himself in the mirror.
“It wouldn’t be a bad change, if that’s it. I adapted better to the new life that I was thrown into…well I threw myself in. But I feel like I’m on the right track, so it’s good that I quickly learn to handle these unusual situations more levelheaded.”
He stepped back and watched the little robot doing his work.
“Wait, did that madwoman yell ‘you are the fucker that blew up our ship?’” Robin scratched his head, “What ship was blown up? A ship that they lived on…ohhh, right! Now I do remember the huge shadow in the depths of the workshop. Wasn’t sure if it was a small interplanetary ship or big one for planetary cargo. Well, now I also have an idea whose nuclear electric generator it was that blew up.”
The little bot finished its work, stopped at Robin’s feet and gave an angry beep, before it drove back to his charging station.
“I may have underestimated how pissed the Cetro really are…”