goes back to the year 2000!
The eight occupants of Pioneer Station's Hiber-D chamber were dressed, alert (although still short of caffeine) – and disturbed. They'd just been rudely roused from hibernation – many weeks earlier than scheduled – and greeted by the sight of some of the station's android autocrew causing mayhem.
Things had gone quiet outside the door, so Helen slid it open a crack. This time, nothing flew at her head – the Janebots had clearly become bored and wandered off somewhere else.
"What now? " she asked. "Come on Madiwa, you're supposed to be in charge".
"Yeah, thanks." replied Madiwa Aquino, one of the station's command staff. "Ok, so we have no idea what's going on. Ideally we need to head for the command centre, but that's three decks up. I say we head for the hold first, it's close to here. If the droids have malfunctioned then I'd feel safer if we had something to defend ourselves. There's a weapons locker in the office and we can find crowbars and other stuff that will do at a pinch".
Apart from Dr Whitman, who wanted to stay put and wait for someone else to rescue them, there was little dissent. "Bullneck" Thompson took the lead, wielding a pool cue like a club, and they started on the short walk to the main cargo hold. As he rounded the first corner, Thompson froze.
"Droid" he hissed, as if whispering would prevent its sensitive auditory sensors from hearing him. "A 483".
"What's it doing?" asked Harker Spitz.
"Nothin'. Just standing, like it's in ready mode". He advanced slowly towards it and it didn't react. Feeling braver, he closed the distance to the droid and checked the display LEDs on its The First of the Bodies…back, then visibly relaxed a little. "It's OK, it's just in normal wait mode as far as I can see".
The rest of the group followed warily round the corner, and they could see one of the secondary cargo access hatches ahead.
Someone had the bright idea to send the droid in first. Helen, who was used to working with the hulking yellow automatons on a daily basis and so knew the sort of simple language that they understood, instructed it to enter the cargo hold via the secondary entrance and leave the hatch door open behind it. It clanked down the passageway, operated the large control plate and the hatch swung open.
The stench hit them as soon as the droid stamped inside. Thompson was first through behind it – and threw up almost immediately as he stopped just beyond the threshold. Madiwa pushed past Helen to follow him, and saw what had turned Bullneck's stomach.
Blood. So much blood…
SF28-221 – Corpse with Crowbar – £4.00 GBP
SF28-222 – Corpse on Desk – £5.00 GBP
SF28-223 – Corpse on Chair – £4.00 GBP
SF28-224 – Corpse on Medical Gurney – £4.50 GBP