Chapter 8

Agrats are ugly, mean scavengers about the size of a house cat. Somehow they managed to stow away on spacecraft from their home planet to every junkyard, slum and sewer in the known universe. They have been around for so long no one knows which planet they originated from.

Agrats are easy to trap and integral to our plan to get by the robot guard. Admittedly Odion 450 Class C robots were old technology but still very effective at close range. Originally they were designed to guard warehouses and restricted areas from intruders. So by design, short-range protection. I imagine they were used around the minefield because they were relatively cheap.

A hovercraft was able to drop us three and a half klicks from the minefield. We walked from there and found cover where we could observe the Odion 450 Class C robot that patrolled around the maintenance door. Mom took a position that would allow her to blast the robot if she felt the Odion 450 Class C robots presented any danger to Oxy when she went to disarm it

I released the four Agwats just outside the robot’s range. The Agwats ran straight away from me toward the minefield and into the robot’s field of fire: blam, blam, blam. Three Agwats were turned to smoking dust. I hit the timer; blam. Yes, precisely four-point-five seconds before reset, the fourth Agwat gave up its ghost.

Our practice run would be repeated twice more to ensure the timing was consistent and that we could reach cover undetected.

We finalized our plans and went over the route from the maintenance door to the lock-up and escape for the hundredth time. When Mom was satisfied, we had done everything we could; she told Captain Renaldo we were ready. The next day a hovercraft dropped us off 30 minutes before dusk.

I released the four Agwats just outside the robot’s range. The Agwats ran straight away from me toward the minefield and into the robot’s field of fire: blam, blam, blam. Three Agwats were turned to smoking dust.

I held my breath as Oxy left her cover and took off in a sprint, dived and rolled to come up right under the Odion 450 Class C robot.

“Pull your leg in, Oxy, pull your leg in,” I shouted. Oxy pulled her leg in as she hit the release for the maintenance door and pulled the manual kill switch. I heard the hiss as the robot shut down and hovered in place. I ran in and hooked up my handheld to hack the memory and got a digital copy of the minefield layout. I put the robot on permanent standby and hoped nobody realized that it had been powered down. Being on standby would show up on the monitors as solar cells recharging.

Ten yards to our left was the start of a path that zig-zagged to the maintenance door. I led the way watching my handheld to make sure we followed the proper path to the maintenance door. It wasn’t until we reached the door that I noticed how much I was sweating.

Mom used the stolen code to unlock the steel door. Oxy opened and held the door. I was the first one through with my needle gun at the ready. The area was clear, and I motioned Mom and Oxy to follow me into a large 20 by 20-meter room with a five-meter high ceiling used for storage. Large and small crates were stacked higher than I was tall. Electronic equipment was in bays and on metal shelves. The lights were set on low and cast a lot of dark shadowy areas that made me nervous. I checked the hand-drawn map we were given, and the door we needed should be on the west wall. We made it about 10 meters into the storage room.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here? Three stupid rebels ready to die for the cause.”

Shit, the one thing Captain Renaldo warned us about that could be a problem. A random patrol had come out from between a stack of crates in the dim light behind us. I put my needle gun down and turned to face them with raised hands. Mom and Oxy did the same. After our smooth but dangerous crossing of the minefield, we were caught like a bunch of amateurs.

Three uniformed Mercs approached us, two male and one female, with blasters trained on our stomachs.

The large burly Sergeant barked orders, “Get on your knees, scum and put your hands on your head.”

We quickly complied.

With more enthusiasm than I liked, I heard the Sergeant’s male subordinate ask, “Can I kill them now, Sergeant Block?”