A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) by Paul Tomlinson

Author:Paul Tomlinson [Tomlinson, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-10T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

“The scene of the crime,” I said.

Harmony shifted uncomfortably. This was the cave where she had tricked Floyd and removed his head. It was now our temporary hideout. The cave mouth was wide enough to drive the Trekker inside. It sat there now, complete with its shiny new windshield. Harmony and I were sitting outside in the sun waiting for Danny. She had sent him a message and he was on his way.

We didn’t feel we could just drive back down Cicada City’s main street, given that I was an escaped criminal and had been chased by the sheriff’s posse when I made a run for it. Damaging police vehicles had most likely been added to my list of crimes.

A dried-up stream bed ran in front of the cave and Harmony was tossing small pebbles into a spot that had once held a shallow pool of water. I was poking the dried and cracked ground with a stick.

The sound of a dislodged pebble made us both reach for our guns – but it was Danny walking along the stream bed up towards us. We had been expecting him to come from the direction of town, but he must have come a different way.

“Hey,” he said, “sorry I’m late. I was over at my parent’s place.”

“How are they doing?” I asked.

“They’re okay,” he said. He didn’t look me in the eye when he said this and it was obvious there was something wrong.

“What is it?” Harmony asked.

“I was just... I was helping them pack up their things,” Danny said.

“They’re leaving?” Harmony said. “Why?”

“The Colonel’s men set fire to his crop,” Danny said, his voice thick in his throat. A mixture of anger and impotence choking him. “A field of maize gone in not much more than an hour. We’ve got nothing left.”

He cast a sideways glance at me when he said this. There was more to it than he was saying.

“Danny, I’m sorry,” Harmony said.

“I’m going with them,” he said. “I have to. I’ve left the robots helping them to load up Dad’s truck. We’ll sell them to raise enough for a new stake. Start over somewhere away from here.”

“Did they use my robot to set the fire?” I asked.

Danny didn’t want to answer that, but his eyes told me everything I needed to know. In my head, I saw an image of Floyd wielding a flame-thrower.

“It’s not his fault,” Danny said. “He just did what they told him to do. He’s only a robot.”

I wished that was true. Colonel Hodge was using the big blue robot to terrorise the local farmers. And Floyd, the artificial sentience was trapped inside, unable to do anything.

“No, it’s my fault,” I said. “I brought him here.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Harmony said.

“I came back for Floyd,” I told Danny. “When I have him, we’ll make this right. We’ll stop the Colonel.”

“You should just go,” Danny said, looking from me to Harmony. “Both of you. The town’s finished. And you’ll never get to Floyd. The Colonel’s place is a fortress.

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