Rock'em Sock'em Robots

By Jeffrey Von Hauger

All Rights Reserved 2017

Mox sat across the table cursing the situation under his breath. He should've stayed on the ship, not bothered to set foot on this moon at all. It was definitely a dicey idea.

The multisystem conglomerate Profitus Maximus Transstellar Broadcasting System Incorporated, LLC had purchased the only moon of Grandor 6 for more money and bribes than you could possibly imagine. Half the moon was a series of interconnected hotels, casinos, and gigantic arenas. The darkside of the moon was one colossal broadcasting dish. It was the center for galactic competitive sports of every imaginable type. It was smarmy and vapid and gauche to no end, a plastic fantastic playground destination for interstellar couch potatoes from worlds in that sweet spot of development where their populations had nothing better to do than watch meaningless happenings and bet on their outcomes. One might call them Romes ready to fall. The moon's only planetary law: Honor Thy Bets. Needles to say, galactic mob bosses loved the place and enforced the one rule with a more than vicious death penalty.

Zandar Vandar Blunt had requested to stop here because of a reputation for developing the best deep space transceiver equipment. The Brick was badly in need of an upgrade, its current transponder was over a thousand years old. It was going to cost almost everything they had. Not just credits, but valuable artifacts, the entire supply of Varan lobsters, all the diamond ore, and half the best weapons. Which is why Mox decided to talk with Harvey.

Harvey P. Splector was a major Robot Death Fighting™ promoter and owned 57% of the current robot champion, The Obliterator. He had been begging, grovelling, offering bribes of all kinds over the last half hour. He wanted Mox's Sentinel droid to get in the ring.

"Look Harvey, I don't want the entire universe to know about my robot or everyone will want to take a crack at him."

Harvey gave reassurances that they could paint him and hide his identity. It would only be a one time fight.

"What makes you think he is so tough anyway?" Mox asked.

Standing behind Mox looking like a decaying chunk of metal was the Rust Sentinel, a one of a kind robot of an ancient design. In thousands of years of space travel Mox had never seen one like it. It was constructed from an ever rusting impenetrable steel, the work of the infamous outcast metallurgist Slag the Alchemist. It was just under three meters tall with meter wide shoulders. It was all squares. Rectangular legs met the floor like stumps with no feet. Its torso was a big square. Its arms were rectangles with three chucky square clamp like fingers on each. Its head, another square, sat on its broad shoulders. The only facial feature was a glowing red electrical orb of an eye, which was powered down at the moment. The Sentinel was for all intents and purposes indestructible.

If Harvey knew what the Sentinel was thinking right then, he might drop it and walk away. For even though it appeared to be powered down it was always watching Mox. Its thoughts where his, its motivations were his. It knew Harvey was annoying Mox and it was quietly running a calculating rubric and continuously making the decision whether or not to simply kill Harvey right then and there.

"Ok, I'll pick up your new transmitter cost, on the house." Harvey smiled, his golden teeth glimmering in the dim light of the casino bar.

"That's not the only issue, what if I win?" Mox had no desire to get sucked into rematches.

"If you win, you'll make a fortune! You'll have the most famous robot in the quadrant!" Harvey leaned in, his twitchy third eye giving him away. "You won't win though, no one beats The Obliterator."

"But if I do and your droid gets wrecked, you won't hold it against me? Nor any of your fellow investors?" Mox knew this was a major issue.

"Of course not, we know the risks." Harvey leaned back. "One top of the line galactic transceiver cube and ten million Grandor credits. And a written guarantee of no reprisal from every investor. They'll hold us to that here and you know it."

He could tell by the look on the lizard's face he was closing the deal.

"And I want a transport to sneak my ship and whatever's left of my robot out of the system the second the fight is over."

"Deal."

"One more thing."

"Name it."

"What does the P stand for?" Mox knew that was his most closely guarded secret.

Harvey stretched out his chubby three fingered appendage and shook Mox's green clawed hand. He leaned in close and said, "Pekar."

The transceiver cube was delivered free of charge to the delight of Zandar Vandar Blunt. He also received a digital chip and retina scan to access the ten million Grandor credits, the most valuable currency in three sectors. Zandar took it all to the biggest, most parting, most outrageously flamboyant casino on the moon, Jersey Jakz's Disco Palace, and walked straight up to the betting counter.

"What's the biggest bet you will take on Robot Fighting?" Said the squat Gila Monster in leather pants.

A tall slender blue skinned female Zorr behind the counter assured him, there was no limit.

"Good, then I want to place ten million." Blunt told her the specifics of the bet he was making. The longshot payout was 700 to 1.

"Most excellent choice sir." She smiled wide eyed at him with true intrigue.

"What time do you get off work?" Blunt smiled back with his large flat black snout.

"I never get off work sir. But for a VIP like yourself I could arrange to watch the event from a private box." She suggested.

"That won't be necessary, I'll just watch from here in the casino." Blunt waved a friendly goodbye and walked over to a plush seating area filled with families from across the sector.

The place was crawling with Jakz, an amphibian species with a rather short lifespan. They were born, had a short childhood, partied way too much, bred like crazy, and died young. Their whole society was based around youth culture. The Disco Palace drew more than 50 million Jakz visitors a year. It was kind of hot and muggy inside for some species, but the Jakz liked it that way. Being a Varan lizard species himself, Blunt felt quite comfortable in the high oxygen environment.

A young Jakz approached him, he was about a meter and a half tall, with big bulgy eyes, basically a walking tree frog in platform shoes and bell bottoms.

"Heard about your bet, my man. Far out. Here, it's a 100 hit bottle so go easy. Good luck Daddy-O!"

The Jakz flipped a small crystal vial at Blunt and he caught it in his black claw. He looked through the clear glass at the fluorescent yellow liquid inside. There were tiny creatures swimming in it. It was the real thing.

"Thanks. How do you know what I bet?" Blunt was only mildly concerned.

"Oh, you know man, I bribed the Zorr to tell me the biggest play of the night. And you're it, man. I followed your lead. Looking at you, something tells me it's going to be a hell of a ride." The Jakz walked away to join his friends. "It's you and me baby!"

Mox and the Sentinel droid were ushered to a backstage prepping room. They painted the Sentinel black with seven coats of tar paint. Then covered him in sparkles and attached a head extension that made his eye look like his mouth. He was fighting as the Galaxy God.

Mox joined Harvey P. Splector in the VIP box on the forty seventh floor. It was a small gathering of about twenty odd individuals, all heavily invested in the outcome of the fight. Most of them would win no matter what as they all made proceeds off transector advertizing revenue. Mox had a brief talk with Harvey, confirmed the hanger number for his transport ship, and the robot removal crew that would deliver the Galaxy God's remains in the event of his inevitable loss. Harvey had tipped them all a little extra tonight since Mox was a little edgy about the whole deal. Harvey liked to keep people happy.

Mox noticed an extremely small fellow standing on the rail of the balcony. He grabbed a drink and walked out to talk to the little man.

"An Ursa Minor here, what're you up to?" Mox smiled at the tiny 11 centimeter being.

"Ah, a Varan, I could say the same to you. I'm Maximilian." He held out his palm flat facing towards Mox's chest.

"Hello Max, I'm Mox." He extended his hand in the same traditional Varan greeting, then touched the gnome's small chest with one finger.

"Your reputation precedes you as does my craftsmanship I prosume. It would appear we are opponents tonight, but you can trust my knowledge of you will not be shared with my colleagues here. As a member of the Ursa Minor Interstellar Robotics Corporation our client privilege is held in highest respect. However, I wonder if you would mind walking me back to the betting table, if the Galaxy God is who I think it is, well, I'd like to change my bet."

Mox laughed a contagious laugh that spread to Maximilian and three other spectators out on the balcony. A Varan laugh was something everyone joined in on. He scooped up Maximillan and walked him over to the betting counter. Since Mox had long been an ambassador for the Ursa Minor Corporation he tipped Maximilian off to the realities of the situation. Max decided to let his current bet ride as a cover and triple down on another option.

The two returned to the balcony to watch the fight. Mox got an earful of battle robot design form Maximilian throughout the contest. He was the preeminent battle droid designer and a true master craftsman. Mox set him on his shoulder and soaked up his chatter like a sponge. He was by far the most interesting person around.

Down in the colossal arena filled to capacity with a million screaming fans, a huge three story door opened and The Obliterator walked out onto the expansive cement parking lot that was the fighting ring. He was huge, easily 10 meters tall, humanoid in structure with rediculously big steel boots and spiked shoulders. His head had a kind of samurai looking helmet built into it and his eyes glowed green. He was completely constructed out of a brilliant white spaceship metal. The white knight had turbo cannons in his chest, flame thrower fingers with a death grip functionality, laser eyes, and a mouth full of pure diamond teeth with double hydraulic press jaws. He was epic in scale, a classic good guy, he waved his giant golden scimitar around and shot fire into the air. The crowd ate it up.

Mox shifted the conversation to neural transmitter robot control and Maximilian was thrilled with the topic. He could casually rattle of a dissertation on the subject.

The opposite arena door opened and out walked the much smaller, chunky, sparkly Galaxy God. His red orb flashed with electric lightning which also showed up in his slit fake eyes. He reached to his back and produced two chucky battle axes that jumped to life with the same red lightning. The crowd booed with all its might.

"They don't seem to like him much. They're in for a surprise." The gnome paused his treatise on neural control momentarily. "So like I was saying..."

The Obliterator fired flames at the Galaxy God, only to remove his sparkles and make him look more intimidating. He fired his chest turbo cannon, but the Galaxy God dodged them. The Obliterator lifted his huge boot and brought it down completely eclipsing the droid. The Galaxy God was lost under the giant foot, presumably crushed into the ground or flattened. The crowd cheered. A moment later, red light appeared around The Obliterator's ankle. The Sentinel was inside his foot, spinning and cutting a perfect circle. When The Obliterator lifted his leg his foot came off. And from within it, out jumped the Galaxy God with a smashed head.

The Obliterator hopped on one leg and swung its gold sword down only to have the quick smaller droid swing both its axes and break the golden sword in half.

At this point the entire place went totally ape shit. The network announcer was on the edge of his seat screaming about some kind of reverse David and Goliath story. It was pandemonium.

The Obliterator still stood three times the size of the Galaxy God and he fired his laser eyes and chest cannon again. This time the blasts hit dead on. There was a series of huge explosion and a fireball of death.

The announcer bellowed, "Nothing could withstand such a beating!"

When the smoke cleared the blackened and rusty looking Sentinel stood in the arena. The joyous announcer described the sad state of the now trashed looking robot, whose head was gone and only had an electric mouth left.

Then the Sentinel fired its rocket booster feet, lifted from the ground, dodged the swing of a half golden sword, and hacked off the arm of The Obliterator. The entire stadium was on its feet.

The Obliterator tackled the droid and body slammed it to the pavement, firing its chest turbo cannons point blank. Suddenly there was an explosion of such a scale it sent a huge mushroom cloud billowing up into the air above the stadium.

The screens in the VIP box all changed to an aerial view of the fiery cloud bursting out of the top of Robot Death Fighting Stadium.

The smoke started to clear and the Sentinel crawled out from below The Obliterator. The white giant pushed himself up on his only arm and fired his green laser eyes at the Galaxy God. The Sentinel raised both its axes and brought them down, splitting the white samurai helmet and the head of The Obliterator in two.

At this point there wasn't a person on the moon not watching the fight. The champ was down! The Galaxy God, looking like it had been dredged from the bottom of the ocean after rusting for one hundred years, lifted its axes into the air above its fallen opponent. The crowd was hysterical!

The axes fizzled out. Then the red lightning orb went out. The Galaxy God stood there lifeless with arms raised for just a moment. Silence filled the arena. You could hear a pin drop. Smoke swirled through the air. Then the Galaxy God slowly fell over and slammed to the ground with a thud.

The announcer was beside himself. "A double death match! UNBELIEVABLE!!!"

Harvey ran out to the balcony and slapped Mox on the back. "Worth every penny, our ratings just went through the roof!"

With both robots destroyed there would be a whole new season of battling robots to the death to claw their way up to the Champion of the Universe. Harvey lost a shit ton on the fight and so did his fellow investors, but it reset the game and that was an opportunity for Harvey to make yet another fortune.

Zandar Vandar Blunt slid out of his comfortable chair and casually walked back to the cashier window to collected $7 billion credits.

Mox parted with Maximilian, who was immediately commissioned by Harvey and company to build a new fighter, and went down to the field. The robot removal crew had loaded the dead Galaxy God into an unmarked vehicle. Mox got in the front seat and told a rather cute synthetic driver in plain clothes where to go.

"Hangar 18."

Mox and the female synthetic rode on in silence down the back streets of Casino Way. When they hit the small industrial warehouse district on the outskirts the spaceport, they came to a rather pointless stop when no one else was around. The synthetic was an assassin model, that was for sure. She pulled a gun and aimed it at Mox's head.

She was fast, even for Mox, who was unarmed as weapons were technically discouraged on the moon. But luckily for him, she was also talkative.

"This is from Boss Magnus, he lost forty million on that fight and he'll be taking your ship in return."

In the mind of the manufactured humanoid assassin, she decided to pull the trigger. But before the electrical impulse could command her finger to act, she disappeared into the back of the van. The Sentinel had punched through the back wall of the cab and grabbed her by the neck. Then it pulled her entire body back through the hole. Her blaster pistol bounced on the seat and fell to the floor of the cab.

Mox slid over into the driver's seat.

"Excellent work tonight." Said Mox and the Sentinel sensed his approval.

Its primary function was being Mox's bodyguard. It followed its programming to a T with extreme prejudice. The only response was a muffled groan from the synthetic and then silence. The Sentinel sensing the potential usefulness of the synthetic assassin stuffed her inside his chest cavity for safekeeping.

Thirty minutes later Mox pulled into Hangar 18 and there was Harvey's transport ship just like he promised. It huge bay door was open and inside was The Brick. Mox backed up to his ship. Its only door opened. In a rusty flash the Sentinel was inside. Mox drove the truck back out and walked into The Brick. The large transport zipped up and pulled away from the moon.

When Mox and the Sentinel got up to the control room, Zandar Vandar Blunt was there talking to an extremely beautiful and lanky Zorr in a casino uniform.

Blunt turned his attention to Mox. "Any trouble after the match?"

"A little, there's a hitman crunched into a ball inside the Sentinel. Who's your friend?"

"This is Crystal Blue Persuasion. The Jakz bought her out of her contract, because she tipped them off to my bet. She's real grateful and asked if she could hitch a ride off the moon. I figure the least we can do is drop her off at one of the Zorr home worlds or somewhere a little more friendly toward her species." Blunt had a big heart beneath his poison gland.

"Or I could tool around with you two for a while, until I get back on my feet." Smiled Crystal.

Mox sized her up for a moment, she was persuasive alright. Blunt was an epic judge of character so his initial instinct of thinking she was a plant when he walked in drifted away.

"We'll have to get you some better clothes." Mox stepped forward and offered a hand.

Crystal placed her palm on Mox's chest. "I bring you no harm and I speak the truth."

Now, he was a little suspicious again. "Where did you two meet?"

"She was the counter girl I placed the bet with. Needles to say, she wouldn't be having a good time back there after we cleaned the place out. The Jakz who bet alongside me made a fortune and offered me anything I wanted. The bit boss was screaming at her behind the counter, so I suggested they could help her out. Apparently, the guy was the 332nd cousin twice removed of a part owner of the Disco Palace, so they worked it out. You know Jakz, they'd rather have a good time than make money."

Blunt pulled the little yellow vial out of his pocket.

"Oh, and he gave me this. My thanks to you for getting the new transceiver."

Blunt smiled and flipped the fluorescent tube spinning through the air. Mox caught it with a mischievous grin.

Mox laughed. Blunt laughed a bigger black scaly belly laugh. And Persuasion, she found herself tickled by the sound and erupted in almost uncontrollable laughter. Her face started to hurt from giggling. She had never met creatures like these two before.

Mox got serious. "Is the new transceiver in place?"

Blunt slid into the pilot seat. The tin can co-pilot droid sprang to life and started manipulating control panels. A rusty version of a pilot droid sitting at one of the two computer terminals to the left of the pilots activated the communications and scanning array.

Styx the skinny rust droid spoke. "Klagstrom. Transmitter online. No negative activity. Clear to exit sector. Norg."

His rusty tube of a head spun around and looked at them. Its thin rectangular slit of an eye pulsed for a moment, then his head spun back around again.

Mox slumped down into the second row of two chairs behind the pilots. He gestured to Crystal.

She hopped into the seat next to him. "Ok, now what?" She was excited.

"Have the transport Captain open the hangar doors. We are getting out early, but tell him to keep his course and speed. He can continue to his destination."

The moon was just a small speck in the distance orbiting Grandar 6. The huge transport opened its cargo door and out slide a three story rusty rectangle. It was dark and seemed hardly noticeable in space. The Brick drifted back and the transport pulled away.

Styx chimed in again. "Blorg. Transport lost visual. Negative sensor activity. All. Clear."

Persuasion looked at Mox. "What does that mean?"

"It means they can't see us visually anymore, nor can their sensors pick us up. It's as if we disappeared. We probably look like an asteroid or something if we show up at all."

Blunt opened the blast shield over the one window on The Brick. The view was filled with stars and the transport engines flared away ahead of them.

Mox turned around. "Pull her out."

The Sentinel yanked the scraped up assassin out of his chest cavity, holding her off the ground by both arms. She glared at them and said nothing.

Styx spun his head around. "Blaorg. Explosives."

The Sentinel jammed a claw into the assassins back and pulled out a device. Mox shot out his tongue and the droid tossed the bomb to him. He looked at it for a moment and then pulled out the detonator pin. Then he set it on the floor. The assassin lost consciousness.

"Holy shit, how're you both calm right now!?" Crystal had pulled her legs up onto her seat and wrapped her arms around them.

"Don't worry they scan everything. I do appreciate your Varan pack of truth. It shows you do your homework. These droids would know if you lied and Zandar would know way before them. But I suspect you already understand us."

She nodded. Zorrs were intelligent and perceptive beings. She was alright.

Mox continued. "Get me Boss Magnus."

Blunt patched through to the moon. A nasty looked goon appeared on the view screen.

"The Boss says nice knowing you lizard." There was a beep. Then a moment or two of silence then the goon came back on again. "So I guess you found the bomb."

Mox held it up and spun the detonator around his finger.

The goon look pissed. "What do you want?"

Mox leaned forward. "Tell your boss, we are keeping his assassin, also tell him I'm not informing the authorities. But I am telling Harvey Splector that he is a poor sport."

The goon was crushed. "No wait..."

Blunt cut off the the signal.

"Wow." Persuasion had to admit these two walking Komodo Dragons were seriously unusual.

Mox held out the little glass vial. "I say we drop some of this Jakz Juice, set the ship towards Zorr space, and go down to the lab and see if we can reprogram this assassin."

Blunt locked in the coordinates, passed navigation to Styx, and got up. "Well, Crystal Blue Persuasion, would you like to listen to some music?"

She smiled at them both. "Do you have any Disco?"