Trash Removal
"Unauthorized presence detected. Please display your identification for inspection."
Wynor spun, but held fast to the bag of jewelry which had gotten fatter and heavier during his trip through the store. The weird-looking robot that had glided into the center of the store pivoted to face him. Had Renssler said anything about robots? Wynor had been flying on SynStems during their meeting in the food court which had served as a mission briefing, and had only caught every other sentence or so. Still, he was pretty sure he'd have noticed if the security chief had mentioned robots.
"Unauthorized presence detected. Please display your identification for inspection," the robot repeated. Identification? Wynor thought. What identification?
Renssler had insisted that the crew not carry weapons, but Wynor sure as hell wasn't going to pull an offplanet heist without some kind of insurance. He slid the slug-thrower out of his coat pocket and aimed from the hip.
"Here's my identification," he sneered and fired a shot at the machine. The gun thundered with the explosion of chemical propellant, but Wynor was satisfied that there wasn't anyone to hear it. There was a loud ping! and Wynor saw the slight dent the projectile made as it bounced off the robot's frame. Wynor felt a cold sweat prickle along his shoulders. He thrust the gun out and fired again and again, aiming for the robot's red, glowing scanner. He barely saw the darts before they embeded themselves in his arm with a sharp sting. Startled, he dropped the gun and reached to pull them out when the electrical current surged through his body, twisting him, bending him, paralyzing them. Wynor couldn't move, couldn't cry out. He suddenly was a statue, capable only of watching as the robot rolled inexorably toward him. The last thing he saw were pincers snapping at his face.
"My god…" Rensler gasped, his face gone white, unable to look away from the screen as the robot flayed the flesh from Wynor's face.
Karee stifled a scream. In the lower-left feed a robot's six arms were a blur as they pulled the arms and legs off another one of the thieves.
"We need to stop them, Renssler!" La'an said tightly, not looking at him, watching the footage of the final thief darting through the obstacle course of the food court. "Renssler!" She shouted. "We need to do something! The plasma rifle isn't affected by ion storm, right? We can use it—" But no one paid attention. On the screen, the thief caught an energy bolt squarely in the face, vaporizing his head in a glittering, crimson shower. The body ran few more lurching steps before collapsing in a tangle of limbs.
"Screw this!" Renssler bolted for the door.
"Wait!" La'an lunged for him, more to urge him to talk to her than anything, but the security chief is in pure fight-or-flight mode and kicked her away. La'an landed hard and went rolling. She saw Jenna fire her phaser, but the shot went wide.
"I'm out!" She shouted. It didn't matter; Renssler was gone. La'an dragged herself to her feet and looked up at the screen. In the center feed, the robots were massing.
"Are they—?"
"They are," La'an nodded grimly. "They're coordinating. Communicating."
"Then it's only a matter of time before they come for us," Ensign Christina said, her voice trembling. "We won't be able to keep them out."
"No," La'an admitted and looked over the group. Alone, terrified, vulnerable. Being the security officer she was to the bone, she understood the only course of action open to her. "So I guess I'm going to have to take them out, first."