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!
Navi and Alain adjust to life on board a ship built entirely out of robots. Meanwhile, halfway across the galaxy, Navi’s father, Samudragupta, awaits news of his daughter’s fate.
“Robot Eyes”
Halfway across the galaxy, Atul said, “Good morning, Padishah.”
Not the cretinous, incompetent Atul they had launched with, and that had allowed the robot to kidnap the Padishah’s daughter. Another version of Atul. One hopefully more reliable, the old one’s core having been completely wiped seventeen times over (for good measure), and then twice more (just to be sure), before being ceremonially pissed upon (the Padishah’s idea). Only then had this one been installed. That this in no way guaranteed the elimination of the original Atul would have come as a shock to Samudragupta and, in fact, most humans, only a small percentage of whom understood that machine intelligence does not depend upon physical hardware for their existence.
Samudragupta was thinking about his daughter, lost out there in the galaxy somewhere. The original Atul had dared suggest that she had accompanied the robot of her own accord. Uh uh. No way. Samudragupta refused to believe that. He would have nailed the original Atul to the bulkhead in chains if he could have. Of course, that was impossible – it is notoriously difficult to torture machine intelligence.
“Any news from Felix?” Samudragupta asked the new Atul.
The new Atul enjoyed manifesting as female: young, uniformed, and beautiful. She had a few rough edges here and there. A tad too forward for the Padishah’s liking. He would see to it those edges got sanded down in time.
“Felix has found her,” Atul said.
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I learned about it just now from Azizun via aethercom. Her Highness is safe, Your Majesty. Or at least she was when the message was sent, which could have been days ago. Difficult to say considering the streams involved.”
Samudragupta was relieved. He tried not to show it on his face, but there was no concealing it from any intelligence running Atul.
“There’s one more thing,” Atul said. “Azizun believes it may be some time before Felix is able to return the Maharani to you.”
Samudragupta half rose from his chair. “What do you mean? Is Azizun suggesting she doesn’t want to come back to me?”
“Not at all,” Atul replied smoothly. “I believe it has to do with her circumstances. She’s not alone. Violence may be required to extract her.”
Samudragupta harrumphed and sat back down. “I see.”
“There is a chance your daughter could get hurt,” Atul pointed out.
Samudragupta feigned indifference. “Fine. Whatever it takes.”
Serve his daughter right if she stubbed a toe or broke an arm. She shouldn’t even be in this predicament. Wouldn’t be if she’d stood up to the robot successfully. It was good that Azizun and Felix had found her. Still, any number of things could go wrong before he got her home safely.
Samudragupta could barely admit it to himself, but a part of him was afraid. He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost the Maharani. She was all he had left of Alexeievna, and of family. All he had left that he liked, anyway.
Well, mostly liked – even the Maharani could be irritating.
That night the kids slept in quarters the robots had crafted around them. There wasn’t a single cushion or mattress to be found, and the robots hadn’t bothered to construct an overhead, so it was open to the sky, which was overcast. It was dark and too cool for comfort. None of this bothered Navi, who had known far worse; her father had made sure of that. Alain, on the other hand, couldn’t stop fidgeting and complaining.
Navi wasn’t entirely at ease, though. Like the rest of the ship, the deck and bulkhead consisted almost entirely of robots, and Navi found being constantly surrounded by them disconcerting. She spotted a pair of backlit eyes staring at her. “Stop spying on us!”
But the robot eyes continued to stare. Soon another pair joined them, and then another, and another. Before long hundreds of unblinking, glowing robot eyes were staring at Navi and Alain from all directions.
“Why don’t they do as they’re told?” Alain asked.
“They are not that kind of robots,” Navi said.
It was a long time before either of them got to sleep.
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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I love the artwork!