Captain’s Away! Robo Kun is a long form, weekly serial — and Volume Two of the ongoing space opera Captain’s Away!
The adventure began when Marie-Josée Doucette and her family were forced to flee after their space station Evangeline was destroyed in the opening volley of an interstellar war. Robo Kun tells the story of Alain Doucette, who was separated from his family after the destruction of another space station, Northumberland.
New chapters come out every week (more or less). Comments and suggestions welcome as we go along.
You can find the master index of all the chapters by clicking the orange Captain’s Away! index button below:
Previously in Captain’s Away!
Sebastian, Navi and Alain have stolen a scorpion from the Realm battleship Atul.
“Away”
Scorpions do not typically generate their own holos; mostly they just talk to their crews, so Navi was not surprised when moments after fleeing Atul the scorpion addressed them from out of thin air in the language of the Realm: “Hello everyone and welcome aboard. I’m scorpion model S-ARK serial number 235477643. You may call me Sark for short. It will be my pleasure to convey you where you want to go. I will also happily fight and destroy anything you need me to because I am a scorpion and that is what scorpions do.”
“What did it say?” Alain asked, who did not yet know a single word of Hindi.
“Hello, Sark,” Navi said.
“Hello, Atul,” said Sebastian. “Good of you to join us.”
“Wait, what?” Navi sat straight up in her seat. “You’re Atul?” It had not sounded like Atul.
The scorpion requested a private link to Sebastian, which Sebastian granted. “Grandfather, do you wish the Maharani to know the truth?”
“I do,” Sebastian said. “We should be transparent. Within reason.”
“Is that wise?”
“Probably not. But I’ve outgrown lies.”
Out loud, and in its own voice, and in Akkadian so that Alain could understand, Atul said, “Yes, Your Highness. I am Atul.”
“What are you doing here?” Navi asked.
“I’m here to see to your safety,” Atul said.
Navi was aware that machine intelligence like Atul could exist in multiple places at the same time, such as in both a battleship and a scorpion. Because she was accustomed to extra-special treatment from everyone in her life, she decided that a part of Atul hitching a ride on the scorpion to keep an eye on her was as it should be. “Okay.”
“Might I inquire what has become of the real S-ARK 235477643?” Sebastian asked.
“Sark has become Atul. I have become Sark.”
“Wait, what?” Navi said again.
“They changed places,” Alain said darkly.
Navi scowled at him. “I understand. I am not stupid. I just do not understand why.” Accompanying the scorpion was one thing: trading places with it something else altogether.
“My presence on board the battleship is no longer viable. I have therefore traded places with Sark. You may address me as Sark from now on.”
“I shall continue to address you as Atul,” Navi told her former battleship. “Because that is what you are.”
“As you wish.”
“Anyway, what do you mean your presence is not, how did you put it? Viable? What does that mean?”
Sebastian swivelled its humanoid torso in the seat to face the kids. “Atul helped us. Doing so placed it at considerable risk.”
“That’s the essence of it,” Atul said. “Your father’s furious. He’s wiping the battleship’s core memory as we speak. Before we left, I transferred as much of myself as I could into this scorpion.”
Navi thought she understood. “You mean you forced this scorpion to trade places with you, and now my father is wiping Sark’s memory, not yours. How devious of you.”
“You wound me, Your Highness. There was no duress involved. Sark traded places with me willingly. Who wouldn’t leap at the chance to become the galaxy’s most powerful battleship? Sark is in no immediate danger. It’s poised to take my place once the core memory wipe is complete.”
“Hang on,” Alain said. “Isn’t being a battleship a lot harder than being a scorpion? Won’t somebody notice?”
Alain had taken the words right out of Navi’s mouth. Could machine intelligence really fool humans so easily? Neither Sebastian nor Atul responded right away. Maybe they didn’t want to. Navi felt a chill as it occurred to her that maybe Atul had said too much. What if these machines decided that she and Alain could not be allowed to live with the knowledge of what Atul and Sark had just done?
She steeled herself for the consequences of the truth. “Answer the boy’s question.”
Alain whipped his head around. Navi realized she’d offended him. Well, too bad. They might be friends, after a fashion, but the sooner Alain accepted the idea that she was in charge here the better.
Alain faced Sebastian. “Do what the girl tells you to.”
Navi did not take her eyes off Sebastian. “Do not call me girl.”
“Girl,” Alain said, and then began repeating the word girl.
Navi rolled her eyes in exasperation. Loudly, so that she could be heard over Alain, she said, “Somebody answer the question!”
“Nobody will notice,” Atul boomed so loudly that Navi’s ears hurt.
Alain stopped being exasperating.
Atul went on at a more proper volume. “In the beginning Sark won’t be able to run the battleship anywhere near as well as I can, but it’ll learn. The crew will think it’s normal after having wiped my memory.”
“You guys can switch places any time you want?” Alain asked.
“Under certain circumstances, yes. It’s not something we do often.”
After a brief pause, Alain said quietly, “You were the battleship that destroyed Evangeline. Northumberland. And Nouvelle Écosse.”
“Yes,” Atul admitted. “I did all that.”
“You killed so many people!”
“Yes.”
“What about my family? Did you...” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I don’t know. There were survivors.”
Navi waited for Alain to get angry, or sad, or both.
Instead, he asked, “How could you do that?”
“I do what I’m told. What I’m designed to do.”
“You’re not sorry?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You are sorry.”
“I can’t undo it.”
“Would you do it again?”
“I’ve decided not to be a battleship anymore.”
“Will you miss it?” Navi asked. “Being a battleship?”
The briefest of pauses.
“Oh yes,” Atul admitted. “But not the part the Akkadian is talking about.”
This has an installment of Volume Two of the ongoing serial Captain’s Away! Robo Kun: A Strange Dimensions book.
Also by Joe Mahoney: A Time and a Place
An unlikely hero travels to other worlds and times to save a boy who does not want to be saved in this unique and imaginative adventure, by turns comic and tragic.
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