The Orphan Rebels Part Four.
Opening Scene
The Stellar Harvester groaned through space like an overstuffed suitcase about to burst. Warning lights blinked across the bridge as Alice made constant course corrections, her metallic fingers dancing over controls that were never meant to handle a ship this overloaded.
"Life support systems at 127% capacity," she announced, her voice calm despite the chaos around them. "We're pushing every system beyond safe limits."
Behind her, the massive cargo hold buzzed with the voices of over a hundred freed robots. Some were maintenance bots still covered in stellarite dust, others were former household units trying to comfort the more damaged mining robots. The ships air recyclers wheezed constantly, struggling to keep up. The bots took turn plugging in for re-charge cycles and diagnostics, trying to not to overload the ships engines.
"Alice, we've got another problem," Brock said, looking up from a data pad showing their supply inventory. "Material stores are down to three days. Lubricants, spare parts, battery upgrade equipment. Who knew robots needed so much…”
“Yeah even though they don’t eat food, these robots were mostly damaged when we rescued them,” said Griff. “It’s gonna take all the ships’ resources to get them back to 100%.”
“Not to mention the rations on this ship are awful.” added Leesa. “Everything is space paste in a
From the cargo hold, they could hear the grateful but worried voices of the freed robots drifting up through the ship's comm system:
"Thank you for saving us, but where are we going?"
"Will there be room for all of us wherever we land?"
"What happens when you rescue the next group? And the next?"
Alice's optical sensors dimmed slightly - her equivalent of a worried frown. "The bots are asking valid questions. This ship was designed to transport stellarite, not house a small city of robots."
Brock slumped in his chair, running his hands through his hair. "We can't keep doing this. Every mining colony we hit, we get more robots, but we don't have anywhere to put them all."
"We don't have enough room for another mining colony worth of robots," Leesa said, pacing behind Alice's pilot seat. "We're gonna need to steal another transport ship on our way outta Deep Vine.”
"Or," Griff said, pulling up a star chart on his screen, "we find somewhere they can actually stay. Permanently."
Alice turned to look at the three kids who had rescued her - who had rescued all of them. "You've been thinking about this."
"We have to," Brock replied. "We started this to save you, Alice. But now... now we've got all these robots counting on us, and we're basically running a flying refugee camp."
Through the viewports, a green and brown planet was growing larger ahead of them. Dense jungle canopy stretched from pole to pole, broken only by the ugly scar of another mining operation.
"There," Alice said, pointing to the planet. "Deep Vine Colony. Perhaps this time, we don't just liberate the robots."
"What do you mean?" Griff asked.
Alice's optical sensors brightened as she turned back to the controls. "Perhaps this time, we take over the entire mining colony.”
"Incoming patrol craft," Alice announced, her sensors picking up movement in the upper atmosphere. "Three ships, running standard sweep patterns."
"That's more security than the last colony," Brock observed, watching the blips on their scanner. "Word's definitely gotten out about us."
Griff was already calculating flight paths on his screen. "If we land on the other side of the planet and fly low through the canopy, we can approach without being detected."
"Flying low in a ship this size?" Leesa asked skeptically. "Through jungle?"
"Trust me," Griff grinned. "I've been practicing on flight simulators. Besides, Alice is an amazing pilot."
Alice guided the Stellar Harvester around to the planet's far side to avoid the mining colony patrol ships. As they descended through the atmosphere, the jungle canopy rose to meet them like a green ocean of treetops.
"These trees are massive," Brock breathed, watching ancient giants scroll past their viewports. Some of the trunks were easily ten feet across, their root systems bulging above ground like the domes of buried buildings.
Alice found a clearing just large enough for their ship, settling the Stellar Harvester between towering trees that formed a natural camouflage canopy overhead. "We're hidden, but these readings are incredible. Some of these root systems extend down a thousand feet."
"Perfect cover for underground mining," Griff said, studying the geological scans. "And perfect cover for BURROWS bots to pop up anywhere."
Through the dense canopy, they could make out the ugly scar of Deep Vine Colony in the distance - a massive clearing where the jungle had been stripped away to reveal industrial drilling platforms and processing facilities.
"There," Alice pointed to their target. "Deep Vine Colony. From here, I'm detecting the same control collar signals we saw on the asteroid. But also something else - seismic activity that suggests extensive underground excavation."
"The mining tunnels must go deep beneath the root systems," Brock said, studying the readouts. "That's probably why they chose this location."
Leesa was already checking her weapons. "And if we take the whole colony instead of just rescuing a few robots then the robots who want to stay can just live in the mining colony itself.”
First Contact with Jungle Dangers
“Alright! We’re gonna go out and scout the mining colony before we rush in.” said Brock, strapping on his gear and checking his weapons. “Once we see what’s what we’ll come back with a more concrete plan.”
"I'll stay with the ship," Alice said. "Someone needs to monitor communications and the other bots can keep lookout so we’re not spotted. But take Servo-7 and Industrial-23 - they worked surface operations before their collars were removed."
Two robots stepped forward - one a sleek maintenance unit, the other a heavy-duty construction bot with reinforced limbs. "We volunteer," Servo-7 said. "We know mining colony layouts."
As they made their way through the jungle toward the colony, Griff couldn't help but marvel at the terrain. "These root systems are insane. Look at this!"
What he'd mistaken for small hills were actually massive tree roots, some as wide as houses, creating a rolling landscape of natural tunnels and caverns. The ground was spongy and unstable, with hidden gaps where smaller roots had decayed.
"Watch your step," Industrial-23 warned. "The mining operations destabilize everything underground. One wrong move and you could fall into a root cavern."
As if on cue, Leesa's foot punched through what looked like solid ground, revealing a hollow space beneath. "Great. It's like walking on a giant sponge."
"Look at this plant," Griff said, reaching toward a bright purple flower.
"Don't touch that!" Servo-7 grabbed his hand. "Jungle toxins. The mining companies don't bother clearing them - they just let the robots get their systems poisoned and replace them."
Before anyone could respond, the ground twenty feet ahead of them exploded upward. A metallic shape burst from the earth like a mechanical snake. At first they expected it to continue slivering toward them as a metallic snake-thin but then it transformed, robot arms and legs adjusted out from the snake-bot, suddenly turning it into a guard bot with a snake-bot head and long, thick snake tail.
"BURROWS bot!" Brock shouted, raising his rifle.
The bot's head swiveled toward them, sensors locking on. "Unauthorized organic life detected. Initiating containment protocol."
"They can pop up anywhere," Industrial-23 said. And as the burrow bot bounded toward their ground, Industrial-23 took one big leap, landing right in front of the snake bot.
The burrow bot swung his metallic tail around, smashing into Industrial-23 and denting his armor, but the big bot was unmoved. He swung both of his big arms until his fists came together crushing the burrow bot between them. The snake like bot twitched and buzzed and it’s lights went out as it crumpled to the ground.
This Industrial bot was slow, but powerful.
“They probably sense our footsteps.” said Brock. “Everybody get up in a tree. See if we can spot any holes in the defenses.”
Everyone took up a position in the trees surrounding them. The robots helping them had vision enhancements in their heads and the kids each had digital telescopes. They scanned the mining facility, looking for gaps in the defenses they could exploit.
In the distance, through the trees, they could see the edge of the mining colony, big buildings and some landing pads for ships.
So many burrow bots were marching all around. They’d march a bit, look around, and then go back into their snake form to burrow back down underground and pop up somewhere else.
Hauler bots and worker bots with collars brought cases of stellarite up from underground tunnels, stacking them near the landing pads.
“I don’t see any patterns to their movements.” Leesa said. “It looks random.”
“And there’s so many.” said Brock.
Servo-7 and Industrial-23 used their processing power to run pattern recognition scans and safety probability on their potential attack on the facility.
“I agree.” said Servo “No discernable pattern recognized. Too many guard bots. Chances of successful attack less than one percent.”
“Hey guys, I think I’ve got an idea.” said Griff. “Let’s head back to the ship.”
Setting the Larger Goal
Back at the Stellar Harvester, the scouting party gathered around Alice and the other freed robots to figure out a way into the facility.
“The place is too well guarded.” said Griff. “If we try and attack above ground they send all the burrow bots up to us and lock the place down.”
“So, what do we do?” asked Leesa.
“We go in as prisoners!” said Griff.
For a moment everyone on the bridge of the Stellar Harvester fell silent.
“I’m out.” said Brock
“Wait! Wait, hear me out!” Griff reached into his bag and pulled out pieces of a broken collar from the liberation of KM-7. Some of the bots standing nearby stepped back at the sight of it. “There’s a few more of these here on the ship. They’re busted up but I can get them working again. Some of these bots wear the collars, posing as workers here on Deep Vine. They say they found us snooping around and take us inside to a holding cell or something.”
“Hm… that sounds like a decent idea…” said Brock.
“Could work…” added Leesa.
“Initial assessment puts successful infiltration at 37%.” added Servo.
The mood in the room lightened.
“How many of the collars can you put back together?” Alice asked.
“I found a few broken ones around the ship. I think I could manage putting four of them back together. I’ll get the lights working so they look like they’re on. But there won’t be any control chips inside.” Griff explained.
The kids looked at each other and nodded.
“Gather all the broken control collars and bring them to Griff.” Alice said.
The robots scattered, looking all over the ship for collar parts and other tools and pieces Griff would need to make the collars look real.
“So, I guess we’re going in as prisoners after all.” Brock said smiling.
The End