A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) Paul Tomlinson (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

your friend, she must have got a better offer,” Casey said. “She just took a pod and jumped ship.”

“It’s so difficult to find good help these days,” I said.

“That’s the advantage with robots,” he said. “They always do what you tell them.”

My experience with Floyd didn’t back this up, but I didn’t say anything. He was a special case.

“Have a seat, we’re almost home,” Casey said, nodding towards the co-pilot’s chair.

I sat down. What else could I do? I’d run out of options. The robot took up a position directly behind me. But he wasn’t pointing a gun in my ear anymore.

“Your new friend is a bit clingy,” I said.

“He has instructions to kill you if you try to interfere with the functioning of the ship,” Casey said.

“What if I try to kill you?”

“He’ll shoot bits off you until you stop.”

“What’s his name?”

“I call him ‘robot’.”

“You should give it a proper name. Something like Maisie. Or Daphne.”

“You think he’s a she?”

“It reminds me of a woman I know. Well put-together but deadly.”

Casey smiled. “I’ve met a few like that.”

I turned and looked the robot up and down. He didn’t look exactly like the others I’d seen in the container. This one wasn’t uniformly grey. There were flashes of red on his shoulders and a stripe down the middle of his face.

“This one’s the boss,” I said. “It carries the artificial intelligence that controls all the others.”

“I knew you’d figure it out,” Casey said. “This one’s a replacement for the one Happy Hawkins was supposed to deliver to us.”

“The one that the road bandit blew up,” I said.

“Yeah, the one ‘a bandit’ blew up.” Casey looked at me to make sure I knew that he knew.

“Does the Colonel know?” I asked.

“Not yet. You’d better hope he never finds out.”

I’d been avoiding all thoughts of what my future might hold once we landed back at the Colonel’s compound. I felt certain it would involve pain and fairly sure it would include death. Eventually.

“If this robot is in charge of the others, it should definitely have a name,” I said. “How about Doreen?”

Casey shook his head. “He’s not mine to name. The Colonel will probably name him after a famous military leader.”

I looked over my shoulder again at the motionless machine. “He doesn’t look like a Napoleon. Or a Genghis. Maybe he’s a Caesar.”

“The Colonel’s heroes are all from the last war,” Casey said.

“Is he planning to start the next one,” I asked, looking back towards the hold.

“He’s only interested in winning the one battle,” Casey said.

“Isn’t this overkill for a fight over a woman?”

“I would say that depends on the woman,” Casey said.

“No disrespect to her, but Patricia Brennan is hardly Helen of Troy.”

“In the Colonel’s mind she is,” he said. “Buckle up, we’re almost there. And I’ve never landed one of these things.”

I turned my head sharply, wanting to be sure he was joking. Casey grinned, showing me the pointed canine teeth.

I didn’t know whether Harmony had managed to place all of the explosives around the container full of robots. Even if she had, I had no way of detonating them. I would like to say that if I’d had the detonator in my hand, I would have blown up the ship with me in it. But I’m not sure if that is true. I should have told Harmony to detonate them if she got off the ship and I didn’t. I think she would have been able to do it.

Up ahead I could make out the town of Cicada City. And off to the right, the setting sun was lighting up the Colonel’s big white mansion house like a beacon, guiding us in.

“Brace for impact!” Casey said. “Just kidding.”

Yeah, the impacts would come later.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Casey brought the freighter in to land in the desert a few miles east of Cicada City. I guess it was the nearest flat space that was big enough to accommodate the ship. There was a small group of vehicles waiting including a truck with a flat trailer ready to take the container.

Casey kept me close to him while the other men dealt with the cargo.

“An army in a box,” I muttered as the container was lifted out on the freighter’s crane and lowered onto the truck.

“You ride with me,” Casey said, leading me towards a black 4x4.

“I hope you drive better than you fly,” I said.

We led the convoy back towards the Colonel’s compound. I tried to memorise the route as we went, in case I decided to come and steal the freighter at a later date. It’s always good to have options. Especially when an ACID Interceptor is on its way.

The rest of the vehicles turned into a gate at the back of the Colonel’s house, driving straight into the compound. Casey drove me around to the front of the house. Apparently, I was deemed worthy of a proper reception. I’ll admit that I was a little nervous about my first meeting with Colonel Damian Hodge. I had learned much about him during my time here but had never caught even a glimpse of him.

The outside of the Colonel’s house fell comfortably into the ‘wealthy villain’ cliché, but the interior had none of the eccentricities I would have expected to find. No stuffed animal heads on the walls, no suits of armour, and no life-size sculpture of Genghis Kahn. I could easily imagine that the owner of the house had held a gun to the head of an interior designer and said, ‘I want a sense of timeless elegance – and none of your pseudo-Victorian nonsense.’

Casey led me into the Colonel’s study. There was no one behind the big oak desk. We both stood there waiting. He looked almost as uncomfortable as I felt.

As with the other rooms, there was a coldness in the study that had nothing to do with ambient temperature. Everything seemed to have been chosen and placed to create an effect. It was like one of those museums where