Welcome to Percotran -Part XX

By Richard Davidson

Dangling from the hair he clutched in his bloody hand was the Captain’s head, his eyes staring off at some faraway killer; the last thing he would ever see. His shirt was covered in blood, and his face was soaking wet with tears.

“This is all there was left of him,” Swig sobbed, collapsing to his knees in front of Kasheeba, who was stunned into silence.

She was staring at the head. From this angle, you could see the meat of the Captain’s neck, where it had been separated from his body. There was something strange about that, but Kasheeba was having trouble figuring out what it was, perhaps due to the shock of seeing him dangling from Swig’s fist.

“I didn’t see anything of the Security Robot,” said Swig, between sobs.

“The Captain was a warrior, and the last act of his life was to save us,” Kasheeba said, in a cold, flat voice.

Suddenly, Wilson grabbed the Captain’s head, yanking it from the grasp of the surprised Swig, and ran out the door.

“I will kill him,” announced Kasheeba predictably, as she ran out the door after him, her sword already flying through the air with a “swoosh.”

This was all too much for poor Swig, who pressed his forehead against the floor, and wept, his sides heaving mightily in the gloomy storage room.

Kasheeba thought she had lit out right behind Wilson, but suddenly she had no idea where he was. He hadn’t appeared to be particularly quick, but she had been in a momentary state of shock at seeing the Captain’s decapitated head.

Wilson’s move had wakened her up rather quickly, however, and she was now in full Warrior mode. She sniffed the air for his scent, but wasn’t getting it just yet. There was a strong odor of fish in the ship’s lower levels, and it’s hard to distinguish individual odors, even for Kasheeba, when such an overbearing smell is present.

What could possibly have motivated Wilson to commit suicide, by stealing the head of her dead captain? Her mind raced, but there was nothing like an answer forthcoming, she could tell. It simply didn’t make any sense at all.

She heard a single clank on the iron stairs between decks 2 and 3. She was there like a shot, but again there was no sign of Wilson.

Kasheeba searched the ship for two hours, and her frustration was growing. In her mind, she had exhausted nearly every possibility imaginable for Wilson’s horrible and grotesque death. There were so many ways to make it painful, and every one of them seemed more delightful than the last. She felt a kind of sadness that she would only be able to kill him once, but decided to look on the bright side, and focus on making that one time as satisfying as possible.

“That’s strange,” she thought, “I’ve never seen this part of the ship before.”

She’d gone through a door she’d always thought to be a closet adjacent to the forward hold. On the other side was a long hallway, decorated with scrollwork from ancient times. She heard a click, and then a hum, and a soft glow came from under one of the doorways.

“Wilson.”

Her first instinct was to run, slam the door open, and then start flaying at Wilson with her sword, until he was pretty torn up. She would probably follow that by pouring Kerosene over him or something, but something told her to approach with caution, which she did.

To her amazement, as she crept up to the door, she heard the Captain’s voice!

“You have done well, my friend,” he said. “I never would have thought it possible.”

“Thank you,” answered Wilson. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t do any better.”

She pulled the door open, and slowly crept her head around to look inside.

What she saw was Wilson’s back, and as much as she wanted to run, and bury her sword in it, she continued to slowly advance, unable to see beyond Wilson.

And then she could see none other than Captain Pearson, standing beaming at her.

“Good to see you again, Kasheeba,” the Captain said, in a friendly voice.

But something was different. His long, muscular frame was now bulky and mechanical. It was as if Wilson had simply mounted the Captain’s head on a Seventy-Fifth Century Robot body.

The result was a creature that looked truly freakish to Kasheeba, and she started to get a very bad feeling.

“Don’t be alarmed by my appearance,” said the Captain.

“This is only temporary. Wilson here has all the training necessary to return me to my original state.”

“And what state would that be?” asked Kasheeba, dubious and hostile.

“I don’t understand,” said the Captain. “You’ve known me for years; how could you ask that?”

“Have I?” asked Kasheeba.

Kasheeba didn’t like emotion. It was a waste of energy, and she had been trained with the greatest discipline, but she had always been in love with Captain Pearson, the only real man she’d ever known. Now she doubted whether he was a man at all.

In the Ninety Eighth Century, the Android trade was going full-swing. Companies were advertising that their Android was more realistic than their competitors, and everybody wanted to have a non-human slave, that would never question them. The race of Supermonkeys had become too independent, and the big, clumsy robots of the past simply weren’t practical. Androids looked like the answer, for awhile.

As the Androids were improved and perfected, model after model, they became too efficient. They began running people’s lives for them, and soon, people became lazy, and bored.

Companies began introducing Androids with personalities, that would work with humans, rather than for humans, and this craze lasted for over 300 years. Soon, the Androids became hard to distinguish from humans, and they started organizing for their rights, which meant they wanted to own property, and take vacations, just like their human partners.

It all got out of hand, and laws were passed forbidding the ownership of Androids. Police and Security Forces were soon issued various types of detectors that could distinguish Androids from humans, and in only the space of two years, all Androids were wiped out forever.

Until now. Kasheeba had no doubt that the Captain was an Android, because you simply can’t mount a human’s head on an old robot chassis, and bring a guy back to life.

Why would an Android become a Pirate? That didn’t make sense, either.

The biggest problem Kasheeba had with all of this was that Wilson, an employee and shareholder of Percotran International, had specialized training in Androids, which hadn’t been around for centuries. Kasheeba hated coincidences, and had very little time for them.

“Wilson will need the help of you and Swig to build my new body,” said Captain Pearson.

“Will I be able to count on the two of you?”

“Probably not,” thought Kasheeba.

“Of course,” answered Kasheeba, not the least bit anxious to tip her hand.

“But Captain, I’m not comfortable with you having secrets from me. You never told me you were an Android.”

“No, and I’m sorry about that,” answered the Captain. “I’ve always believed knowledge like that is dangerous, and I didn’t want you to take the risk, but I should have known better. You are a very capable woman.”

“Well then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I should have, Kasheeba, I really should have. I guess I just...”

He trailed off there, leaving Kasheeba to fill in the blank with whatever she most wanted to hear. It was a trick that worked pretty good on most people, but Kasheeba was disgusted with his idiotic attempt to use it on her. She had been recording the entire conversation with a tiny spy device that she’d never told anyone about, which she now placed casually in the webbing of the wicker chair to her left.

“I’d better talk to Swig,” she said in the most loving voice she could muster.

“Yes, I suppose he’s most distraught at this time,” the Captain said thoughtfully.

“Well, I’m sure I can bring him around, and get him to see what the best course is.”

“OK, you go on then,” said the Captain, thinking this might just work out all right after all.

Kasheeba walked out of the room with dignity, and then ran full speed back to Swig, who was still laying on the floor, sobbing.

“Snap out of it, Swig, we’ve got a real problem here!” she said firmly, stroking his head.

“The Captain is an Android, and I have a feeling he and Wilson were affiliated long before we raided Percotran.”

Swig had stopped sobbing, and was staring at her, wide-eyed.

“Look at this,” Kasheeba said, holding up a small viewscreen that was connected to her tiny spy device.

Swig gulped and hiccuped just a little when he saw the spectacle of the Captain’s head mounted on the clumsy robot body.

“Do you think they’ll help us?” Wilson was asking the Captain, brandishing a weapon neither Swig nor Kasheeba had seen before.

“They’re good, loyal Warriors,” said the Captain, “I’m sure they will, just as long as they don’t know you’re a Bogotron Spy.”

“Are you with me, or not?” Kasheeba asked Swig.

“Uh, ah,” Swig stammered, having absorbed far too much, far too quickly, “yeah. Of course I am, Kasheeba, you know I am.”

“Then follow me.”

The S. S. Ludwig Von Beethoven was equipped with a unique escape device, which was fired from it’s torpedo tube, far below the waterline. It was a miniature nuclear submarine, that was meant for a single person to escape in, presumably the ship’s captain. So much for going “down with the ship.”

Swig had the good fortune to sit in that submarine with Kasheeba draped all over him. They would be spending quite some time pressed up against each other, like a pair of lovers.

Kasheeba could more than sense Swig’s excitement, and reminded him to be a good boy, if he knew what was good for him.

“Do you care what I think about?” Swig asked, innocently.

“Yes, very much, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about that,” she answered.

“Are you sure you can launch this thing?” he asked, concerned.

“No,” she answered, as she smashed open the console, reached in, and with a shower of sparks, connected two wires.

“What are we going to do about those two?” asked Swig, as the torpedo sub started to shake, and the engine began to roar.

“This is a torpedo WITH a torpedo,” said Kasheeba with what might have been a smile, and then they were fired into the cold depths of Oceania. She was right. This torpedo submarine had a Globex 53K nuclear torpedo, that affixed itself to the hull of a ship, and then set off a blast just big enough to vaporize it, and no more.

“Did we just fire a torpedo?” asked Captain Pearson, looking at the blinking light above his head.

“Not that I’m aware of,” answered Wilson. “Maybe a system malfunctioned.”

Wilson frantically searched through the database for some tracking information, and as he realized that Kasheeba and Swig had used the torpedo sub to escape, he heard a “clink” of something on the ship’s hull.

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