Free Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain by A. Lee Martinez

that’s something to be concerned about,” I said.
    The sensor interference meant my navicomp’s evasion protocols were hit-or-miss. The dozens upon dozens of obscuring pterodactyls made manual avoidance impossible. I punched in a standard evasive maneuver. Whoever was shooting at us had to be relying on unassisted targeting so it was worth trying.
    A projectile zipped by the cockpit. Too fast to identify. Several more made contact with the pterodactyls and exploded. The craft trembled with the concussions. The swarm dispersed, clearing an opening in the sky big enough to see the several hundred missiles speeding toward us from the island below.
    “Crude, but effective,” I remarked to myself.
    “For someone who claims to be a genius,” said Zala with a scowl. “You certainly do make glorious mistakes.”
    “That’s how genius works,” I replied.
    Several missiles hit my saucer, and we fell from the sky.

7
    The computer informed us with cool indifference.
    “Brace for impact.”
    Zala sat in her rolling chair, realizing it wasn’t going to do her much good in a crash. I left her to her own devices, locking my exoskeleton in its crash brackets.
    The crash wasn’t so bad. At least, not in the cockpit, which had its own inertia dampener, a stabilizing gyroscope, and an emergency ejection system. At the moment of impact, we were catapulted a safe distance away. Our silver sphere rolled several hundred feet, propelled by the force unleashed, tearing a path through the jungle. The systems worked, keeping everything so smooth that to the passengers inside, it wasn’t any more upsetting than riding a rough ocean wave. It took me a few seconds to notice we’d stopped rolling.
    I disconnected from the brackets and checked exo functionality.
    “You could’ve warned me that would happen,” said Zala.
    “Warned you about what?” I asked. “That my escape pod would work just as designed and that there was nothing to be concerned about?”
    “Then why did you secure yourself?”
    “I’m confident in my designs,” I replied, “but I’m not stupid.”
    I performed a few scans of the outside environment. The radiation interfered with the pod sensors. The peculiar waves of Dinosaur Island made precise readings all but impossible. Right now, all I was getting were dozens of life-forms, but the readings were inexact, unreliable. The jungles were teeming with organisms, and there was no way to know what was out there without taking a look firsthand.
    I pushed a button and the pod walls went transparent. Our ejection had torn a gash through the jungle. We’d crushed trees and flattened foliage, and seeing it after the fact gave me a certain pride in how well my design had worked. There were indications that we’d bounced several hundred feet without so much as a bruise to show for it. Aside from our path, we were enclosed by an impenetrable wall of green. The luminescent emerald skies above were clear, what little we could see through gaps in the canopy.
    “Why aren’t they pressing their advantage?” asked Zala, ever the strategist. “We’re vulnerable.”
    “I don’t know, but we can’t wait here for my man to rescue us.”
    “You have someone stationed here?”
    “Not really. He was already here when I set up shop, but I still rely on him. He knows the island better than anyone. Under normal circumstances, I’d say stick around and wait, but like you said, whoever attacked us probably isn’t going to give up now.”
    “Tell me, Mollusk. Do you ever get tired of walking into ambushes?”
    “It’s becoming a bad habit,” I replied, “but you have to admire their style, whoever they are. The real question we have to ask ourselves is whether they keep missing or whether they aren’t really trying yet.”
    “Why would they be trying not to kill you?”
    “Another good question. One I haven’t figured out. Yet.”
    She noticed my smile.
    “You’re enjoying this, Mollusk.”
    “Some of it.”
    I