The War Ballerina

“Got it,” Lassie says, her three-meter-long hair flowing around her in zero gravity.

“Setting course to the nearest black hole,” Kissy responds.

The object gripped by the robotic arm is hot and dances with strange energies. This is a boy superbomb of the latest design – capable of taking out up to one hundred star systems at once.

“Wait. Something’s different about this one. The readings are all off. It’s losing energy,” Lassie says.

“Why would it do that?” Kissy asks.

“Maybe it’s a dud. I can’t even establish a countdown prediction based on the buildup curve. There is no buildup,” Lassie says.

The ship arrives in orbit around the black hole. “We’re here. You can drop it,” Kissy announces.

“Hold on. If this is a dud, we can study it and reverse-engineer it,” Lassie suggests.

“Or it could be a trick. Do you want to risk the fate of every star system within twenty light years on a hunch?” Kissy asks.

“It just cracked into four pieces,” Lassie says.

“What?” Kissy asks.

“The bomb just spontaneously broke apart. It can’t reach critical mass now. Power levels have dropped to almost nothing. It’s no threat,” Lassie says.

“So, what do we do?” Kissy asks.

“Set a course for Tarrat,” Lassie says.

The entire galaxy is at war and both sides have superbombs. The girls lag behind, only able to build twenty-five superbombs per year at the planetary level. The boys on the other hand, can build ninety superbombs per year each capable of taking out multiple star systems at once. The latest innovation in superbombs link with the cores of up to one hundred of the nearest stars (and all other matter in the area), causing them all to explode together, leaving behind regions of space untraversable for millions of years. The radiation left behind will interact with normal matter and cause it to explode as well. Only at large enough distances of fifty to one hundred fifty light years is the radiation too weak to do anything other than moderately increase cancer rates. Fortunately, life crystal cures cancer.

Both sides are careful to keep their forces spread out and not create tempting targets. The boys move their capitol off Ninosa to a secret space station in interstellar space. However, both sides want to win and take territory. Any time there is a large enough region where the girls have driven out every boy, the boys blow it up – or at least they try. Girl patrol ships scan for the FTL energies the bombs emit and intercept them, whisking them away to drop inside of black holes where they can explode harmlessly in the infinite future.

One day, a superbomb fails to detonate. The Girlbusters are sent to intercept the bomb before its secrets can be revealed. Nathaniel, Jash, and Sot break into a girl warehouse on Tarrat, but find only empty boxes. “Why would the girls keep empty boxes?” Sot asks.

“Because it’s a trap,” Jash says.

As soon as he speaks, a high-pitch whirring begins behind them. The three boys turn around and see a robot dressed as a ballerina – complete with a steel tutu making six revolutions per second.

It attacks and the boys scatter. It is very fast and they barely keep ahead of it. Sot climbs up the latticework, but the ballerinabot cuts the supports. He falls and it chases after him. Jash and Nathaniel fire at it, but most of the energy from their guns is deflected. Finally, Sot finds himself crossing an open space. The robot catches up to him and runs into him at full speed, its saw tutu cutting him in half.

At this point, Jash yells, “Every man for himself!” Jash and Nathaniel run in different directions and elude the robot, eventually making it back to the ship and escaping.

It takes a couple of days, but their investigation leads them to a place where they can find out where the bomb went – a company on the planet Popmop that supplies scientific equipment that might be used to study it. They land outside the city and plan on sneaking over the bridge at night.
No sooner than they step into the open, they hear a whirring sound behind them. The robot has followed them. Nathaniel runs over the side of the bridge and climbs underneath. He sees the saw poke through the surface of the bridge and begin cutting in a circle around him. Not wanting parts of the bridge to fall on top of him, he leaps into the water right away and swims to shore before it comes loose.

He and Jash meet at the ship and retreat to the boy planet Loy to make better plans. While eating dinner at the safehouse, a saw suddenly cuts through the middle of the door! They grab their equipment, set grenades by the support beams, and run. The building collapses with the robot inside and they light it on fire. “Let’s get back to the company before the girls learn that we survived!” Jash says.

They return to Popmop and find the records they want. “The latticescope and radioprobe were sent to Torla,” Jash says.

“Great, let’s go,” Nathaniel says.

They head for the back door so as not to walk into the arms of any pursuers and hear a scratching noise behind one of the doors. “What was that?” Jash asks.

Out comes a small voice. “Help me.”

Tentatively, Nathaniel readies his gun and slides the door open. Katie immediately scurries out and cowers in the corner, shivering. “Katie? What did they do to you?”

“No play. No one to wrestle with. No fighting allowed,” Katie says. Nate can see her claws have been filed down and painted different colors.

“We’ll have to take her with us to Torla; there’s no time to go back,” Jash says.

Nathaniel nods and turns to Katie. “Come with us; we’ll bring you to Ninosa later where you can fight as much as you want.” Katie smiles widely, drool dripping from her large teeth.

Nathaniel, Jash, and Katie land in the golden blubbertree jungles of Torla at night. They find the secret lab, blind the motion detectors, quietly cut through the wall, and go looking for the superbomb. They find it inside a glass case illuminated by red light. Nathaniel disables the alarm system while Katie watches. Then Jash pours the maxamallanamine solvent on it, causing the energy crystals to liquify and hide their secrets forever. Then they return to the ship.

“I’m so tired I’m going to sleep for three days,” Nathaniel declares, stepping through the doorway.

“Oh yes, me too,” Jash says, turning on the light.

They freeze. Standing in the middle of the room is the ballerinabot. It is badly scratched up and its tutu is bent. It’s eyes glow red. Jash fumbles with his special taser he prepared in case they encountered the robot assassin again. It runs toward him as the saw starts to spin. Jash jumps high to stay above the blade, but the ballerina jumps too, flipping upside-down, slicing off Jash’s head.

Blocked from the door and not having his own taser, Nathaniel runs down the hall while Katie claws her way up the wall and across the ceiling. The robot chases Nathaniel into a corner. He shoots at it, but the lasers barely slow it down. Then Katie drops from the ceiling and buries her claws into its head. She rips out wires with her teeth until it collapses and the saw stops. Then Nathaniel and Katie return to Ninosa.

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