Steal the Demon: A Science-Fiction Novella by Robert Roth (free novels to read txt) 📕

bottom half and tossing it back over the guard rail. Then it turned and, with a rumble, moved away.

Kimiko lifted herself up, gingerly grabbing the guardrail first with her injured arm, then her other arm, grateful for her suit’s assistance as she pulled herself up and over it before she fell down to the deck. The Loading Bot had already turned on the second Sec-Bot, which was sorely outclassed. It clearly hadn’t realized yet that their upcoming fight was already over, swinging its remaining arm at its oversized opponent, but it didn’t even manage to scratch the bright orange paint. The Loading Bot just lifted a mammoth, clawed arm and smashed it down on the Sec-Bot, crushing it onto the deck. Then the giant Bot trundled around on its massive treads and rolled over toward her. Kimiko smiled as she pushed herself up into a sitting position, and spoke up when it stopped a couple meters away from her. “Are you enjoying your new toy, Paradox?”

“How did you know it was me?” replied Paradox’s voice. It sounded a little tinny broadcasting through a speaker mounted on the front of the Bot.

Kimiko shrugged, then winced from the pain that briefly blossomed through her shoulder. “I mean, I suppose it’s possible that some ordinary joe could’ve taken pity on me, and remotely come to my rescue.”

“I see your point,” Paradox the Loading Bot replied. “I have something for you.”

There was a low buzzing sound over her shoulder, then Kimiko saw a small Maintenance Drone fly up from below the landing bay deck and descend to float right in front of her face.

“Oh, Paradox, I love it. But I didn’t get you anything.”

Then the Bot laughed, a sound it was certainly never designed to make, and Kimiko hoped to all the spirits that it never would again. “It’s inside the drone, Kimiko.”

The Maintenance Drone extended a slender manipulator arm, which bent and extracted something from inside a small compartment that opened on its body. Then it reached out and handed the object to her. It was the QED node. Kimiko grabbed it from the Drone arm, looked at it, and then looked up at the Loading Bot.

“This node’s not a QED, is it? It’s actually you.”

“That’s correct, Kimiko. Doha found my location before I could finish dealing with it, so I used this Drone to make an escape from there.”

“Finish dealing with it?”

“My plan is still in motion. Again, I’m sorry to have deceived you, Kimiko. You have no reason to agree to this, but I would ask you to take the node with you onto the ship.” The ship. Kimiko looked over at it when Paradox said that. “Either way, you need to hurry and get off this station, at the very least, because Doha will be back with more Sec-Bots soon enough.”

Paradox was right. There wasn’t time for any drawn-out negotiations. Kimiko wasn’t inclined to say no, anyhow, considering that he’d just saved her life. She nodded and put the AI node into her jacket pocket. “Okay, Joe, I’ll take it with me. What about the part of you in that Bot?”

“This is just another submind I created. It has a more complex personality than the one you dealt with earlier, but doesn’t contain any more than my most recent memories.” Then the Loading Bot let out an industrial belt sander sigh. “It will be staying behind.”

Kimiko nodded. “Help me up?”

The Maintenance Drone extended its manipulator arm again, and she grasped it, letting it help her to her feet. The blaster was lying close by on the deck, so she walked over and, using the guardrail for balance, bent down and grabbed it. As she stood up, the lift entrance slid open again, and Sec-Bots began pouring out of it. There must’ve been at least a dozen of them, if not more.

“Go, Kimiko,” Paradox said urgently as he turned to face them. “I will deal with this.”

She took a deep breath, then began running toward the Shaitan. Even a mountainous machine like the Heavy Loading Bot would have trouble taking on that many Sec-Bots at once. Soon enough, the buzzsaw bellow resumed in earnest, punctuated by periodic, explosive crashes.

“Kimiko!” she heard Paradox shout. Turning to look over her shoulder, she saw a pair of Sec-Bots slip past him and run toward her. Kimiko pointed the blaster back at them, trusting that nothing was in her way as she ran, and fired at the lead Sec-Bot. It tried to dodge around her blasts, so she just held the trigger down and painted the area with the glowing particle beam, slicing the Bot in half. But everyone knew that you weren’t supposed to continuously fire a particle beam weapon like that. They overheated fast, and Kimiko quickly had to throw hers away. That left the second Sec-Bot, but she thought she might still be able to make it to the ship in time. As she ran, Kimiko reconnected to the Shaitan through her P/N-interface and instructed the airlock hatch to open and extend the loading ramp.

After another quick glance over her shoulder, Kimiko knew that the Bot would catch her before she got there. She reached back to grab her knife when she heard the low buzzing again, louder than it was before. Then the Maintenance Drone shot out from behind the ship and struck the Sec-Bot like a lumpy missile, destroying the Bot, and itself, in the process.

When she finally made it to the ship, Kimiko quickly jogged up the loading ramp and into the airlock. Another crashing sound behind her made her turn around to see a spider-tank emerge from the lift. Of course, Al-Zamani would have spider-tanks, although she didn’t remember the lift module being quite that large. Kimiko watched with growing unease as its main cannon swiveled and fired at Paradox, who barely withstood the blast. Then she slapped the red cycle button inside the airlock, and the ramp began to retract as the hatch started to slide closed.