Jericho:WtTDS excerpt 2
The pirates scattered in all directions, most heading for the executive dormatory. A pair of pirates approached the unit of waste removal droids. The taller of the two, the one with most of his teeth, who appeared to be mostly human, looked at his less than human accomplice. "Whaddah we do wit dis lot?" the tall pirate asked.
"I dunno. Target practice?" snorted the pirate with precious few teeth. What few he had compensated by being outragously large and jaggedly sharp.
"Nah, I dun think so. Theys in good shape. Should we bring'em aboard?"
The short pirate shoved a dirty finger into a large nostril, obviously to aid his thinking process, "I could use a slave droid!" he said at last.
"Sos could I!" the tall pirate beamed frighteningly at YZ-6771, "Follow me pal Dom, here. I'ma your new mastah. Youse listen and do wha I want and you won't get dismangled." YZ-6771 signaled to the rest of the troop that he was the new leader and to fall in behind him. They obeyed. Being traded from one owner to another was fairly common. There was no such thing as android loyalty, in times of crisis, even less than usual. Programming dictated that a droid not in the middle of a crisis was more likely to survive said crisis and achieve a longer service expectancy. When the shorter pirate, Dom, began walking toward the lander, YZ-6771 and his unit troopped after, leaving the HoverBin behind. As YZ-6771 entered the ship, he took more more look toward the dormatory he had serviced only fifteen minutes ago. A melee had ensued, there were bodies everywhere and at least three buildings were on fire. He entered the lander, when the last of his unit was abord, the lander lifted off for the man-o-war.
******
All seven droids in YZ-6771's waste removal unit boarded the man-o-war, they had been fitted with interfaces to the main computer and had instructions to wait for further instructions. They had been left in a locked room with a recharge port. The dull throb of the main engines and the sounds of small warheads cracking against the quadrupal hull filled the air with sound and vibrated the deck plates. They each took a turn to recharge based on need. Then, they went into power conserve mode to await further instructions. A few hours later, a large explosion brought all of them to full power, in case they needed to evacuate the area. They all took another turn on the recharger and resumed conservation mode. Ten hours later, they came out of conserve mode and again took turns recharging. They didn't really need the carge, but since they had nothing else to do, their programming demanded they remain fully charged and ready for work.
This pattern repeated itself for the next two standard days. The man-o-war was taking a pounding, but probably giving as good as it got. Running foot falls could be heard in the corridor outside their room, but no one ever came in. They regularly recharged and conserved. They had no need for entertainment or information on what was going on, their only need, if it could be called a need, was fulfilled by the recharge port. They waited for instructions because that is what they had been instructed to do, and they would wait until they got them.
On the third day, the war outside the hull was still going, but it had lessened. Foot steps could be heard approaching the door to their room. The droids came to full power and fell in behind YZ-6771, since he was still listed as leader. The door opened, and the two pirates that had captured them stood there. They were probably smiling, it was hard to tell. YZ-6771 didn't have any emotions, but he did understand that extreme emotions in biological sentients often had unpredictable results. However, the two pirates stood in the door, unmoving. They seemed to be admiring their booty. YZ-6771 soon understood some of what was going on, his sensors picked up simple alcohol vapors, lowered metabolism rates and elevated surface temperatures on both pirates. They were drunk! This could produce even less predictable than usual actions.
Finally, the tall pirate reached out lazily and touched the panel for the door, it slid closed.
******
(BTW, only a thousand words last night. This is harder than I had hoped.)
"I dunno. Target practice?" snorted the pirate with precious few teeth. What few he had compensated by being outragously large and jaggedly sharp.
"Nah, I dun think so. Theys in good shape. Should we bring'em aboard?"
The short pirate shoved a dirty finger into a large nostril, obviously to aid his thinking process, "I could use a slave droid!" he said at last.
"Sos could I!" the tall pirate beamed frighteningly at YZ-6771, "Follow me pal Dom, here. I'ma your new mastah. Youse listen and do wha I want and you won't get dismangled." YZ-6771 signaled to the rest of the troop that he was the new leader and to fall in behind him. They obeyed. Being traded from one owner to another was fairly common. There was no such thing as android loyalty, in times of crisis, even less than usual. Programming dictated that a droid not in the middle of a crisis was more likely to survive said crisis and achieve a longer service expectancy. When the shorter pirate, Dom, began walking toward the lander, YZ-6771 and his unit troopped after, leaving the HoverBin behind. As YZ-6771 entered the ship, he took more more look toward the dormatory he had serviced only fifteen minutes ago. A melee had ensued, there were bodies everywhere and at least three buildings were on fire. He entered the lander, when the last of his unit was abord, the lander lifted off for the man-o-war.
******
All seven droids in YZ-6771's waste removal unit boarded the man-o-war, they had been fitted with interfaces to the main computer and had instructions to wait for further instructions. They had been left in a locked room with a recharge port. The dull throb of the main engines and the sounds of small warheads cracking against the quadrupal hull filled the air with sound and vibrated the deck plates. They each took a turn to recharge based on need. Then, they went into power conserve mode to await further instructions. A few hours later, a large explosion brought all of them to full power, in case they needed to evacuate the area. They all took another turn on the recharger and resumed conservation mode. Ten hours later, they came out of conserve mode and again took turns recharging. They didn't really need the carge, but since they had nothing else to do, their programming demanded they remain fully charged and ready for work.
This pattern repeated itself for the next two standard days. The man-o-war was taking a pounding, but probably giving as good as it got. Running foot falls could be heard in the corridor outside their room, but no one ever came in. They regularly recharged and conserved. They had no need for entertainment or information on what was going on, their only need, if it could be called a need, was fulfilled by the recharge port. They waited for instructions because that is what they had been instructed to do, and they would wait until they got them.
On the third day, the war outside the hull was still going, but it had lessened. Foot steps could be heard approaching the door to their room. The droids came to full power and fell in behind YZ-6771, since he was still listed as leader. The door opened, and the two pirates that had captured them stood there. They were probably smiling, it was hard to tell. YZ-6771 didn't have any emotions, but he did understand that extreme emotions in biological sentients often had unpredictable results. However, the two pirates stood in the door, unmoving. They seemed to be admiring their booty. YZ-6771 soon understood some of what was going on, his sensors picked up simple alcohol vapors, lowered metabolism rates and elevated surface temperatures on both pirates. They were drunk! This could produce even less predictable than usual actions.
Finally, the tall pirate reached out lazily and touched the panel for the door, it slid closed.
******
(BTW, only a thousand words last night. This is harder than I had hoped.)
posted by Jericho Brown at 11/03/2006 10:49:00 AM
3 Comments:
I didn't buy the pirates. I felt like I was reading a bad caricature of pirates, rather than being sucked into the scene.
The robots I am buying. Their behavior is deliciously robotic and their actions make perfect sense.
Yeah, the pirates aren't ringing true for me, either. Just the fact that they are pirates is problemtic for me. There are so many cliches so far - I mean, space pirates ... geez ...
When I sat down and got into it, two stories that have been sitting on my mental backshelf converged. One was of a gardener in a futuristic garden. I spent too much time as a teenager and a twenty something with a weedwacker in my hand to not have a story of a groundskeeper getting his revenge on the local, intelligent flora. The other was of a simple, primitive creature, captured and enslaved, who manages to, after a long term slavery, somehow return to his people as a victorious warrior.
So, originally, the droid was a gardening droid, not a trash droid. But, I wasn't getting the same menace out of an enraged, insane head grounds keeper as I was something more over the top, like pirates. So, now I had a simple droid and pirates - my recent struggles with our trash company and their inability to actually figure out how to pick up our trash without making it into day time drama influenced me - wouldn't it be nice to replace these assholes with something that just picked up the trash.
The pirates play a little truer in the next 1000 words, I think. We'll see if you agree.
You'd had best better. You wouldn't want me to get techy.
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