Jayce Hunter heard a commotion outside the records lab. Weapons fire preceded the sounds of small engines and shouting. Then a banging sound. She checked her weapon and leaned far enough into the mangled doorway to see what was going on.

The intruders appeared to be engaged with an enemy behind them. Flashes of more weapons fire strobed in the hallway. A few seconds later, Echo came barreling up the corridor, emergency lights in full operation and sirens blaring. Butterfly was escorting her from a few feet overhead.

“Acey! Acey! There’s bad guys back there!” Echo screamed through the door and skidded sideways to a halt. Butterfly arrived a moment later and pivoted in the air, apparently ready for more action.

“Are they hurt? Are they hurt? They’re hurt!” she exclaimed. “Echo, we have to help them!”

“Okay!” Echo said, revving up alongside Lieutenant Sutherland.

“Klivers first,” Jayce said. “He had the worst injuries. We didn’t have the equipment to stabilize him.”

“Acknowledged,” Echo said as she swerved around and parked by the wounded man’s shoulder. Her wheels locked and she deployed her sensors over his face and chest. An indicator panel rose from her dorsal chassis and began to display the wounded officer’s vital signs. A small clamp reached out and fastened itself around his arm. A pressure-operated intravenous system went into operation and began to restore blood volume, fresh plasma and oxygen levels. Almost immediately his condition improved.

Lieutenant Sutherland stared in blatant disbelief. She thought the words “mobile trauma unit” were just talk. But here she was: a robot with the apparent personality and voice of a girl not yet out of elementary school treating her wounded comrade like a veteran battlefield medic.

“Don’t worry! He’s going to be okay!” Echo said, her little lightbars still going. “He’s just tired ‘cause he got hurt.”

Sutherland couldn’t help but smile. Echo sounded like she was on a weekend excursion to the park to fly kites. Butterfly had landed nearby and was busy monitoring the local area communications channels. Little indicator lights blinked all around the lower edge of her airframe.

“Our transmissions and reception are still being jammed, Acey,” she said. “I can’t hear Rebel, Wave or Lunar!”

“We’ve got to find that jamming unit,” Hunter said. “Until we put it out of commission, we’ll never be able to re-establish communications with the Fury.”

“What about the rest of the mini-bots?” Huggins replied. “They can’t take on the entire enemy force alone. Can that VLF unit communicate with the task force net?”

Jayce shook her head. “Range is too short. We can get simple messages from one side of the station to another, but we don’t have the power to transmit very far beyond that.”

“Next time, we’ll just have to remember to bring more army with us.”

“That’s affirmative, XO,” Hunter said. “But you know, there’s still one thing we can try.” She pulled out the VLF transmitter again. “Butterfly, did you see any airlock facilities on Deck Five on the way over here?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the little helicopter replied.

“Yeah!” Echo agreed. “There’s an emergency one right by the corner at the end of that hall!”

“Lunar, this is Acey. Can you hear me?”

The progress bar on the unit moved gradually from one side of the screen to the other as the antenna converted the message to data and slowly transmitted it across the limited bandwidth available. Seconds passed. A light appeared on the unit and another progress bar crawled across.

“This is Lunar! Standing by!”

Commander Hunter keyed her message into the unit manually, using Lunar’s op codes instead of his voice interface. After several dozen keystrokes she hit the “enable” key and closed the channel.

“What’s the plan, Skipper?”

“I planted a message for the Task Force in Lunar’s memory. He’s going to open the airlock and fly it out to the Fury courier-style.”

“Yay! Lunar gets to go to space!” Echo cheered. “I love it when he talks about going to space.”

“Then all we have to do is hold out for reinforcements,” Huggins said.

“And hope Rebel and Wave don’t get vaporized in the meantime,” Hunter replied.