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!
After Alain learns from an aethernet feed that his family are still alive halfway across the galaxy on a starship called Beausoleil, the scorpion carrying him, Navi and Sebastian crashland on one of Earth’s oceans leaving the three adrift on a raft with limited supplies and no shore in sight.
“A Keen Practitioner of Hope”
The inflatable raft was large and sturdy and came equipped with jacklines, harnesses and two telescoping paddles. Sebastian made sure that it was functioning properly and that the kids were safe, and then watched with them as the scorpion sank beneath the surface of the ocean, slowly at first, then more quickly as the airlock began to take in water before Atul could get it closed. Soon all that remained of Atul was bubbles and froth on the surface, and then that too was gone, leaving only the vast and unbroken sea. Sebastian and Atul could still have communicated, for a while at least, but they did not. There was nothing further to say.
The water was deceptively calm. There were a few puffs of cloud, a hot, burning sun, and two birds circling high overhead. The paddles were attached to either side of the raft. Sebastian unfastened one, extended it, and began paddling. Alain unfastened the other paddle, dipped it in the water, immediately lost his grip on it, and watched forlornly as it drifted out of sight.
Navi punched him on the shoulder. “Good one.”
“I didn’t mean to do that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sebastian said. “Either of you paddling wouldn’t have made much difference.”
Sebastian completed an inventory of their supplies. It included dried food and the snacks and pastries that Alain and Navi had stuffed into their pockets the day before. There were also a few flares and Navi’s miniature chess set. Sebastian placed as much as possible in a waterproof container that was a part of the raft and zipped it up.
“If you ration properly, you have enough to eat and drink for fourteen days,” Sebastian told the kids.
“We will ration it properly,” Navi promised. She looked sternly at Alain.
Alain bristled. “What are you looking at me like that for?”
“You like to eat.”
“I do like to eat,” Alain admitted.
“How much trouble are we in, Sebastian?” Navi asked.
Sebastian took a millisecond to calculate their odds of survival. It estimated that if it began paddling immediately, and if the weather held, with the prevailing winds, factoring in the current, they could reach the nearest land mass in forty-three days, or twenty-nine days after the kid’s food ran out, or nineteen days after the food ran out if one of the kids ate the other one. It decided not to share most of what it had concluded. “A lot of trouble.”
While it spoke, it activated an emergency beacon within its chest that it had installed there half a century earlier for precisely this sort of situation.
At the looks on the kids’ faces, it added, “But all is not lost. You have food and water. I’m waterproof. And I’m not without other resources. You may well survive.”
“That is the worst speech I have ever heard,” Navi complained. “And I have heard a lot of speeches.”
Sebastian compared it to other historical speeches it had access to and was forced to agree. It tried again: “He or she that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe when the day is named –”
“Stow it,” Alain said. “The moment’s past. You blew it.”
“I may have botched the speech,” Sebastian said, “but I’m determined not to botch the rest of it. Though there is one problem I suppose I should tell you about.”
“What?” Navi asked.
“I need help. Maintenance. I had hoped to get it soon. If I don’t, I’ll be forced to shut down.”
“Shut down?” Navi repeated. “Out here? On the water?”
“Leaving us alone?” Alain asked.
Sebastian did not see any point sugar-coating it. “Yes.”
“You look fine to me,” Navi told Sebastian.
“I’m not. My body is old. It’s been through a lot. It will shut down soon, and not gradually. All at once.”
“What will we do then?” Alain asked.
“The best you can,” Sebastian said. “Somebody might come along.”
“Who?” Navi asked.
“Friends.”
“What friends?”
“Even robots have friends,” Sebastian said.
There was no guarantee that any of Sebastian’s friends would come, or that they would be able to locate a tiny raft in the middle of an ocean, even with the help of Sebastian’s beacon. Azizun might find them, but she possessed no means of plucking them out of the sea. No, the most probable scenario was that no one would come along to retrieve the children, and they would die out here on the sea, of hunger, or thirst, or exposure. That was likely, but it was not certain, and Sebastian was a keen practitioner of hope. Optimism, it believed, often made all the difference.
“Someone will come,” Alain said. “They have to.”
“Do you believe someone will come?” Navi asked Sebastian.
Sebastian nodded. “I hope so.”
“Hope?”
“Sebastian can’t tell us it knows for sure because it can’t lie,” Alain explained. “It has to tell the truth.”
“Won’t lie,” Sebastian clarified. “I have done everything possible to ensure that help comes. It is true that it might not. But it’s also true that it might. I choose to hope that it will.”
“I choose that too,” Alain said.
“Then so do I,” Navi said confidently.
After ten minutes, Sebastian said, “If I shut down before we’re rescued, don’t throw me overboard. I can be fixed.”
“How?” Alain asked.
“My friends will know what to do if they come. Just don’t throw me overboard. Promise me that you won’t.”
“We won’t throw you overboard if you promise not to throw us overboard,” Alain said.
“I accept your terms.” Sebastian used its free hand to unscrew its right eye from its socket. The blue one, not the brown one. It continued to glow azure blue. Sebastian offered the eye to Alain, who did not accept it right away.
“Take it,” Sebastian said. “Don’t lose it. Give it to my friends.”
Alain grasped Sebastian’s eye and held it in his palm.
Sebastian continued paddling. It had not broken its rhythm.
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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