Nanotroopers Episode 13: Small is All!

  ***Very well, if you insist--***

  Moments later, the same stinging in his eyes proved that the master bot and most of her brood had poked their way back into his head.

  “Skipper, I’m having trouble recalling my ANAD,” Reaves said. She already had the capsule port open on her hypersuit shoulder. “He’s not responding.”

  “Same with me,” admitted M’Bela. “Something’s interfering with the coupler link.”

  Winger had a suspicion that Dana had something to do with that, but he didn’t say as much. Instead: “Try your emergency override commands. It’s the Excalibur file…use those.”

  After a few minutes, and with some complications, all the troopers reported that their ANAD masters were finally coming home and leftover replicants were self-destructing. The dust and the twinkling fog had begun to clear inside the shattered cabin.

  Tsukota reported, “Skipper, I just sent a medevac alert. Farside hasn’t responded yet.”

  “Keep trying. We won’t move out until they do.”

  Tsukota repeated his emergency calls. “Any station, any station…this is hopper Bedbug, declaring a level one emergency. We have casualties here. Any station, any station…Bedbug transmitting in the clear from—“he rattled off the latitude and longitude from the nav screen “—declaring a level one emergency. Mayday, mayday—“

  They didn’t have long to wait. Even as Tsukota was rummaging through the rations locker in the aft galley, the radio crackled to life.

  “…Bedbug…this is Hopper Rescue out of Farside Station. We are inbound, closing on your position…descending through ten thousand…Bedbug, turn on your approach beacon immediately, if operable…we’ll maneuver and land as close as we can—“

  The pilot, Lou Siobhan, located the powerful lights and switched them on. Outside, the rock fall and canyon walls were bathed in a yellow glow. From ten thousand meters up, Bedbug would flare like a supernova in the black of the oncoming lunar night.

  Tsukota and Lou settled back to munch on some crackers. They both knew the next few hours would be grueling and nerve-wracking. But at least they had one satisfaction.

  One by one, the rest of the troopers were already squeezing their way out of the wreckage that was the little hopper cabin and boosting off into the distance on low, flat trajectories, scattering in every direction to approach Tian Jia from multiple bearings.

  Operation Moonglow would go on.

  The closer he got to the Chinese base, Winger found the more active and agitated the Dana bot in his head become.

  “Dana, what the hell are you doing up there…my head feels like it’s in a vise.”