The Gilded Cage by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hard Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, ai, Galactic Empire, Space Opera, Science Fiction, action adventure, Space Exploration, Two Hours or More (65-100 Pages), hard sf, Literature & Fiction
Publisher: Knotted Road Press
Published: 2015-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

BOOK SEVEN: DJAMILA

Part One

It wasn’t Mielikki, but it was still an improvement over that short–range airborne autonomous remote Javier had hidden her in when the pirates first captured them. A girl could stretch her legs out in here.

Suvi completed an inventory of her upgraded suite of toys. The new remote was eighty–three percent faster to process and had nearly forty–three times as much non–volatile memory. Javier had even added a whole library of new movies and musicals for her to watch when she had time.

The shell had been reinforced, as well. After she had cracked her egg killing the bad man, the remote’s frame had never been the same. She could compensate, but having to was a pain. The new shell was much tougher, with a layer of charcoal gray painted hull metal padded underneath with nearly a centimeter of good sprayed–foam material, double wrapped in cloth. She was hurricane–proof now, too, instead of just rain–proof. Bigger batteries, more lift potential, refined sensors.

It almost made it worth it.

Still, she missed being a starship. She’d have to convince Javier to buy or steal her a ship one of these days, upgrade the hardware, and pour her soul into it. Oh, to feel the solar wind on her face again.

At least she’d finally met Dr. Teague. Finding out Javier had given that woman all of their reward money from the mine field treasure above A’Nacia, that he’d added years to their sentence of servitude, that had hurt. She had been all set to hate the woman, especially after finding out that now she wanted their help to rescue the big, mean dragoon, Sykora.

I mean, really, the nerve of some people.

But Wilhelmina had turned out to be good people. Really nice. Probably good for Javier in ways Suvi couldn’t manage, unless they built her an android body with big boobs.

Pygmalion be damned. A girl could dream.

Dinner and talk and stories and plans, plus a lot of food. Javier obviously trusted Wilhelmina with his life, with both their lives, so she must be good people. Really nice, too.

And now, a costume party. Well, for the organics. Actually, no, her too. Nobody would realize that the little remote had a person inside.

And other surprises.

Suvi cycled her attention back down to the new entries in her encyclopaedia entitled Q–section. Javier had added some new capabilities when he updated the hull of the new remote. It wasn’t her old dorsal twin pulsar turret on Mielikki, but she could still take down a moose with the little pop–up pulse turret she had now.

Were there any moose in space?

Suvi made a note to update her xeno–biology and seeding histories to look for programs to introduce large ungulates on terraformed planets. Or, alternatively, to locate bio–equivalent creatures on non–seeded worlds. You never knew when you’d need that kind of information handy.

Q–ship. A very boring–looking freighter in a war zone, sailing happily along as bait for an enemy raider. Armed and armoured, but hidden. Prepared to absorb lots of damage. All set to sink the poor bastard who thought he was all that and a bag of chips.

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