Free Rocketship Patrol by J.I. Greco Page B

somewhat gracefully executed tuck and roll tumble, ending up in an alert combat crouch.
    “Okay, that one was on me,” Loy said, warily keeping her raygun trained on Feh and slowly coming out of her crouch. “Now, I repeat, you’re under–”
    The butt of an autorifle came down hard against the back of her head. Loy’s eyes rolled to white and she collapsed forward, unconscious.
    Behind Loy, Dag lowered the rifle. He prodded at Loy’s side with a fleshy toe. “Yep, she’s out.”
     

     
    “We have incapacitated the cop!” Dag yelled from the back of the hold. “Should we space her?”
    “No,” Cortez called back. “She’s just doing her job. Badly, but still… Make her comfortable!” Cortez was leaned back against the Exalted Refuse ’s command nest-station, her legs crossed, the rent-a-speedship’s recovered data core on the floor in front of her. A patch cord connected the core to Exalted Refuse’s radio. Her palm holoflat blinked:
    DATA TRANSFER COMPLETE. BOOTY ONE DATA PACKAGE MOVED FROM PATROL ROCKETSHIP 8724 SHIP’S BRAIN SECONDARY MEMORY TO DATA CORE MEMORY MATRIX.
    Cortez yanked the data cable from the data core, then twisted around to look up at Vei, crouched in her nest-station. “This thing ready to go superluminal yet? I’ve got a schedule to get back on.”
    “We’re ready. You sure about this?” Vei asked. “We haven’t used the superluminal engine in a while – too expensive. There’s a good chance it will blow up, take us with it.”
    “I’m feeling lucky,” Cortez said, patting the top of the data core.
    Vei’s shell heaved with a shrug and she reached for the controls.
     

     
    Igon banged his claws against Patrol Rocketship 8724 ’s inner airlock hatch. “Open! Open!”
    “Would you please stop that?” 8724 asked. “Your ship has already undocked.”
    “Well, don’t just sit there,” Igon said. “Chase after it!”
    “I don’t take orders from you. Anyway... you destroyed my rockets, remember?”
    Igon gave the hatch a frustrated head-butt. “It can’t end this way! I really really really want to be stinking rich. And to propose... Propose?” He banged his head against the hatch again and started pacing. “Enough with the crazy love talk. She dies. That beautiful, wonderful piece of meat dies. And I get stinking rich. Has to be that way... Unless, dare I think it, she says ‘Yes’. We’ll honeymoon on the third moon of Varienk 3. It’s so romantic there, the way the methane rivers sparkle in the–” He stopped pacing. “Has it gone superluminal yet?”
    “No, but it appears to be powering up.”
    “Good… All right, listen, ship.  You are going to shoot me out this airlock.”
    “Technically,” 8724 said, “I’m not allowed to do that. Safety protocols.”
    “Damn the protocols! Shoot me! For love! And money!”
    “Oh, didn’t say I wasn’t gonna do it,” 8724 said, and popped the inner airlock hatch open.
    Igon jumped into the airlock. The inner hatch closed and locked behind him as he skittered up to the outer hatch and went up on claw-tips to peer out its portal. The Exalted Refuse was getting smaller and smaller, slowly thrusting away, its rusty hull beginning to glow green. “Hurry!” Igon pleaded. “They’re going superluminal.”
    “If you insist.”
    The outer hatch snapped open, ejecting Igon in the rush of escaping air.
    Limbs flailing, Igon shot out in a straight-line vector away from Patrol Rocketship 8724 towards...
    Empty space.
    Panicked, Igon swiveled his bulb eyes around. The Exalted Refuse was way over there to his left, the green glow of her superluminal envelope growing stronger.
    Igon let out a curse, lost to the soundless void.
    Thruster pods popped out of his cylinder near his ass end. The pods oriented themselves and ignited, sending a twisting Igon around in a graceful arc aimed at the Exalted Refuse . He pulled his limbs into his cylinder and thrust faster and faster, closer and closer.
    Just as the glow