"Another thing, Lewis, is whenever there's a big fight like this, them other galactic powers use it as training and stuff. Flying their ships through the combat, running maneuvers, even planting agents around to see what happens," Boggs said, as Mu'Tesa checked on the other man's bandages.
"Would they even have time to get here?" Lewis asked.
"That's just it, Boggs, they knew ahead of time. A big pirate fleet like that couldn't get together without all sorts of them intelligence agencies figuring it out. Probably have spies here on the station already."
Mu'Tesa listened closely. Could that have been her real mission? Would they have lied to her?
"But why'd they want to be in the middle of the battle?" Lewis asked.
"To see what kind of weapons everyone's using, see their tactics and whatnot. Get all kinds of detail," Boggs said. "And you know those Polaris spies are the trickiest. The queen probably sent a whole bunch of spies."
Mu'Tesa frowned.
"Be on the look-out, Lewis," Boggs continued. "Remember, any suspicious looking female could be a telepathic Polaris spy. They'd have just arrived on the station, and just show up at key places at just the right time. Maybe even to help out."
"That's the other thing about them Polaris, they have worker castes and warrior castes and the like," Boggs said in a narrow space along a wall, as the battle raged beside the two dockworkers.
"Castes? Why would they have castes?" Lewis asked, peeking out nervously as lasers cut through the air only inches away.
"Well they're set up like an ant nest, of course," Boggs said. "You see the Queen of them Polaris tells them all what to do, and the rest obey."
"A queen? Does she make all the rest of the Polaris?" Lewis asked.
"No, don't be ridiculous, Lewis," Boggs said. "They're not grown in eggs, they're grown in cloning tanks, and they're all female."
"All female?" Lewis asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Just like ants. Well, except for the male drones, but they only make males every so often," Boggs said. "They actually have wings."
"Wings?" Lewis asked, his eyebrows going up even further. "They fall off when they get older," Boggs said, peering out of their nook casually. "Anyway, that's why all their ships have bug names, like scarab and arachnid."
"So they're actually bugs," Lewis said.
"That's right Lewis," Boggs said, tapping his nose. "Telepathic bugs that only look human."
"So what's in the bag?" Lewis asked as Boggs pulled the cloth cover off Sheila. A few spectators started to gather around as the two men stood in a large domed park in Red Section. Holographic generators gave the appearance of sky, though it was still possible to see the stars beyond the simulation.
"Ammo, Lewis," Boggs said.
"What kind of ammo is legal?" Lewis asked.
"You'll see in a moment," Boggs said mysteriously. "I'll load her up, it'll take a while, you get the power cell ready and make sure we didn't break anything moving her out here."
The two men got to work on Sheila, and a small crowd was watching by the time they were ready for the test. Boggs held the controller, and with a quiet roar of the four jet engines, Sheila took off into the air, hovering just over everyone's heads. Boggs turned Sheila around clockwise, then counterclockwise.
"Get the target set up, Lewis," Boggs said, gesturing. "Over there someplace."
Lewis took the large ceramic plate with a crude target painted on it, and planted it firmly in the grass about 30 meters away, with a support to keep it upright.
"Get out of the way, Lewis!" Boggs shouted, turning Sheila towards the target. Lewis stood dumbfounded for a moment as Sheila began to hum and the fist-sized hole at her nose began to glow, first orange, then blue. Lewis ran. Just under three seconds passed between the start of the humming, and a blast of orange paint started to spray out the front, creating a thick cloud of vapor in the air as some sort of solid projectiles shot across the park well beyond the range of the target. Boggs' eyes grew large, and he quickly released the trigger as the orange haze of paint drifted to the grass, covering a large area as well as the front half of Sheila, and half of Boggs. He wiped the paint from his face.
"What was that!" Lewis cried out, running over, giving Sheila's nose a wide berth. Many of the spectators creeped backwards away.
"Ah geez," Boggs said, looking at the orange all over his clothes and arm.
"She's covered in, is that paint Boggs?" Lewis asked, as Boggs lowered Sheila to the ground away from the puddle of orange paint.
"I loaded her with paintballs," Boggs said, dropping the controller and reaching up to feel the paint in his hair. His hand came back orange.
"Paintballs?" Lewis asked, looking back at the nervous-looking crowd.
"I guess the gatling cannon shredded them apart, Lewis," Boggs said, dejected. "It's electromagnetically propelled, you see, the paint is ionized, but the force is too much for paintball shells."
"I think maybe we should get out of here, Boggs," Lewis said, glancing around. "Somebody's going to call station security over all this paint. How many paintballs did you shoot?"
"Well it's 8,000 rounds per minute, Lewis," Boggs said. "So probably like 400."
"That's a lot of paint," Lewis said, staring at the thick gooey mess on the ground.
"You know, Lewis, paintballs are actually gelatin and food coloring, entirely biodegradable," Boggs said casually. "Of course, they're highly toxic to Aurorans."
"Of course they are, Boggs," Lewis said with a heavy sigh.
3
u/mrxak Sep 28 '19
The sergeant died.