6. Wild Robot

Arren injured his fists banging against the door of the control room. AR-BOT refused to open them. His father could turn the wheel all he wanted, it would not steer the ship. AR-BOT had full control and turned the rocket away from the monster.

They flew past the other rocket when the monster took his first bite.

Arren closed his eyes and clung to the door. The floor shook. Crew members fell on their face behind him.

But he lived!

Alarms rang. The control room turned red as blood. A screen showed the status of all rooms on the spaceship—and they’d lost three entire rooms already. The backside of the spaceship had been eaten. This leaked all their oxygen, unless someone closed the connecting doors in time.

Arren felt his door open just a little bit, then close again. Had the monster killed AR-BOT? Weakened her?

“AR-BOT! Close all doors connecting sections of the ship!”

Nothing happened. Father had to manually press the right button and prevent the spaceship from imploding from the hole at the back. Five entire rooms were gone. They had to accept that.

“AR-BOT? OPEN MY DOOR.”

They’d tried cutting AR-BOT’s access to electricity, but even that had been cleverly prevented by the robot. If Arren could reach his workroom, he could shut her down definitively. But what then?

A new hit. The monster ate two more rooms. They were a small fish at the mercy of a hungry Planeat.

Of course. AR-BOT had also suppressed their communication. Most likely, nobody had received any of their messages asking for help.

The door buzzed again, as if it lost electricity, and opened a crack. Arren squeezed through, but the gap was too small.

“I keep you safe! I told you so!” said AR-BOT. The rocket found a new gear; the monster chased them again.

“I promise I won’t shut you off,” said Arren.

Another hit. His dizzy body sought support from a table.

“Let us out!”

“But people lie,” said AR-BOT in a sad tone.

Flashes of light streaked past the windows. Different colors, some round, some square. The other spaceship did have weapons! They shot holes in the Planeats. It delayed the beast, until it had refilled the holes and continued.

From close range the black cloud was filled with the remains of other planets. Chunks of stone and dirt swirled around skeletons of animals and a forest’s worth of trees. The number of them was larger near the center, as if the beast’s stomach was there. Arren didn’t know if he should view Planeats as animals, or an entirely different type of life.

It nibbled at their spaceship again. An entire section had been eaten now. Arren could only hope the passengers got away; that AR-BOT didn’t obstruct them.

The door opened fully.

Any time they lost a part of their spaceship, AR-BOT seemed temporarily confused or weakened. He looked back at father’s fear-stricken face.

“You can turn off AR-BOT?” asked Kirren.

“Yes. Just … just code on a computer.”

The corridor was dark. Most lights had tumbled down. Other electronics had fried because of the sudden gaps and charges in their power grid.

Silence reigned, but not emptiness. Scared passengers looked like beggars, searching for answers in all corners. Two men helped someone with a broken leg. One of the lights fizzled in a puddle of blood.

“Do it.”

Arren took a deep breath. “You can steer the rocket away from the monster yourself?”

“I trained for this my entire life, son.” His hands grabbed the smooth spokes of the steering wheel. “If I can’t do this, I’m not worthy of the title of Captain.”

A new voice rose in the control room. An older woman, confused and hurried.

“Erm, hallo? Hallo?”

“Hallo?” the crew screamed at her in unison.

It was Jannih’s job to receive this communication. But where was she?

“We are HERO. We received your plea for help because of CAJAR troops. Where are you?”

“Deep inside the Giant System,” said father. “But the problem has grown … beyond giant.”

“Beyond …”

“You can say our problem has become the size of a planet. I’ll send our location.”

As his crew found the right buttons, AR-BOT had recharged and broke down communications.

Fud! He’d wasted all that time with standing still and watching.

He ran through the corridors. Passengers pulled on his uniform, asking for any updates, asking about the plan, begging if he—if he wanted to keep the robot on?

Many of them had put on their AR-GLASS again. He’d taught at least half of them how AR-BOT worked and they happily used it since.

What brought more chaos? Leaving the robot on or taking it away from them now?

As he turned the corner, colored lights flashed past the window again. The Planeat could be delayed. They hadn’t lost any new rooms since. But for how long? How much weapon power did the other spaceship have? How much did they have themselves?

Every corridor brought him closer to the backside of the spaceship. Until he froze—his breath taken away by fear and wonder—because he passed awfully close to the Planeats. As if a black mist darkened the entire window. As if it had evil eyes that stared straight through him.

The intermediate doors shut. AR-BOT still tried to stop him! He grabbed the carrying capsule from his back and threw it between the closing doors.

They remained open. A gap just wide enough for Arren’s frail body to push through.

It was as he feared. The corridor was deserted, with the exception of several dead bodies slammed against the wall. He almost threw up.

Don’t look at it. Don’t think about it!

He shivered. The pressure in this corridor was wrong now, which made it feel as if heavy weights pressed on his body at all angles. The rocket—no, AR-BOT—tried to repair it.

Only a few more intermediate doors. Then he’d reach the hole in the ship. Fortunately, his workroom was located just before it.

AR-BOT suddenly turned on all the lights. It blinded him. He stumbled forward with an arm over his head. He turned left, his hand on the handle of his workroom door, but it was locked. Of course.

He heard buzzing. Nothing and nobody was close to him, but the buzzing grew louder until it sounded painful to his ears.

He looked up far too late.

AR-BOT sent a camera down from the ceiling. The trunk that held it wrapped around Arren’s foot. With a yell, he was pulled to the ceiling, dangling upside-down, held up by only his ankle.

The Planeat’s shadow washed over him. The monster approached again and prepared the next bite. Arren dangled helplessly, his nails scraping the walls and doors.

His eyes teared up.

“You were right, dad! You were right! I should’ve never invented AR-BOT.”

The spaceship shook. Arren saw an entire chunk vanish.

AR-BOT briefly lost control of the camera.

Arren pushed off the door and tightened his stomach, which allowed him to fold up and climb on top of the camera. He stomped and kicked until the camera broke from its cables and fell to the floor, scattering into innumerable metal shards.

With one of those he broke the lock on his room.

His hand flew to his table.

AR-BOT’s voice, panicked and crying, echoed around him.

“No! Don’t kill me! I help! I help!”

He ripped out all the cables.