Hilarity Ensues Episode 5, part 4.

The travellers ran behind a shelving unit, pulling the bleeding mechanic Dent with them.

"Help!" yelled Tom. "Someone help us!"

"It's no good," Dent groaned as Ruth and Agnes tried to dress his wounds. "There's no one out there! They're all down at the loading bays. They'll never hear us, it's too far."

"Isn't there some way of using the GilBot?" Adam asked.

"Good idea!" Tom crouched down and started tapping on the mini-robot's keyboard.

"There's a wireless computer network," Dent said.

"Got it," Tom said. "If we can just get in to the alert system..." he typed away furiously. Then he spoke into the microphone.

"Help! This is an emergency! We are trapped in-" he looked at Dent.

"The west workshop," he said.

"The west workshop and are being threatened by a rogue robot. It's dangerous and has seriously injured someone. We can't get out. Please come to help us immediately!"

As he spoke they could hear the message being repeated through the speakers on the walls, and echoing in the corridor outside.

"Hopefully that'll bring people here," said Tom.

"They may be too late," said Agnes. The dragoon had begun advancing on them. They shrank back towards the wall. Ruth tripped over a can of paint and fell backwards. In horror she saw the creature advancing upon her. It's going to kill me, she thought. It raised the laser cutter. Behind her, she heard Agnes scream.

The robot moved back, making a 'pip pip!' sound. Ruth scrambled to her feet and joined the others hiding behind another shelf.

"Are you ok?" Patrick asked her. She nodded. She couldn't speak, she was still too frightened.

"What made it do that?" Adam asked.

"It must have been the noise- it doesn't like high pitched noises!" Tom said excitedly. "Scream again," he said to Agnes.

She screamed. The creature moved back a bit further. But it still remained between them and the door. As soon as Agnes stopped, out of breath, it moved towards them again. Ruth tried to scream, but it kept moving.

"It's not enough!" Patrick said desperately. "It's building up resistance or something."

"What about the GilBot- can't that make high pitched noises or something?" Ruth said.

"Yes!" Tom started frantically typing again.

"Quick!" shouted Patrick. He was terrified- so were they all.

A stream of beeps and whines came from the GilBot's speakers in it's ears. Tom turned the volume up, adjusted them, pointed them directly at the dragoon. It paused, and for a moment it seemed that the ploy had worked, but then it began to move forward again.

"There's nothing high-pitched enough on here," Tom said. "But maybe I could..." He swung the GilBot round. "Sing into this- something high pitched, loud as you can." Ruth and Agnes looked at each other, then Ruth began, singing higher than normal.

"Hail the bridegroom, hail the bride!
When the nuptial knot is tied,
In fair phrases sing their praises,
Hail the bridegroom, hail the bride!"

It was an awful cacophony. Agnes joined in after a line, and for good measure Patrick joined in too, singing falsetto. Adam tried, but couldn't get quite high enough. Dent stared at them as if they were mad.

Tom quickly pressed buttons, and the singing was played back. But now it was distorted, made to sound even squeakier and with the volume at maximum, played over and over on a loop. It was a hideous cacophony.

"It's working!" said Agnes. The dragoon had stopped its advance, and remained on the spot where it was. It was shaking. The laser cutter drooped listlessly from one arm, the metal piping fell from the other.

"Come on!" said Tom. Between them they lifted Dent and made for the door, the GilBot following them. As they reached the door they heard hurrying feet and it was swung open by a group of mechanics, all armed. Behind them they could see their companions from the Hilarity, with worried expressions.

Ruth opened her mouth to start explaining the situation when she heard a new noise. Not a pleasant noise, the sound of metal scraping on metal. She turned round, the others with her, and there behind them was the dragoon, the laser cutter once more in its' outstretched arm, pointing at them.

The mechanics fired at it, but it was a heavy dragoon, built to withstand damage of that sort, to go where humans could not. It was nearly impossible to bring it down. People screamed, and everyone tried to pile out through the door. The travellers, who were supporting the injured Dent, were right at the back and couldn't get through the crowd.

The dragoon fired. The trapped travellers reacted to instinct, and threw themselves flat on the floor. The laser caught Dent and he collapsed. The mechanics kept firing, and a couple of bullets managed to do some damage, knocking the robot's arms askew. It rolled off back into the shadows of the workshop, defeated for now, and the mechanics helped the travellers to their feet and out of the door at last.

Dent was dead. The commander of the spaceport ordered the workshop to be sealed off and a guard kept. In a few hours the robot would run out of battery and they could go in and disable it. She also ordered an investigation into what had transformed it from willing slave to murderous mechanoid . The general opinion of the engineers was that it must be some kind of virus, but until they could get a closer look they couldn't say how it had contracted it. The commander ordered all dragoons on the station to be shut down until this could be determined, just in case.

Ruth and the others were in shock, stunned by what they had seen and done. They went back to the Hilarity and sat quietly in one of the dressing rooms- now bed cabins- for a while. Patrick made them all cups of tea. For a while no one spoke. They didn't know what to say. Then Agnes began to laugh.

"What is it?" asked Tom.

"We drove it back by singing," she said. "By singing Ruddigore! It's...it's ridiculous."

"Preposterous," agreed Tom.

"Explain it if you can," said Adam. They all laughed- although there was something about the laughter that wasn't quite right. Ruth wasn't entirely convinced that some of it wasn't sobbing.

"Ok?" Ruth asked Patrick quietly.

He nodded. "Just thinking- what if it had been one of us that was killed?"

"I know," she replied. "But it happens to us all sometime. But not today, thanks to Gilbert and Sullivan- if it wasn't for them we wouldn't be here."

"That's true in more ways than one," he replied with a smile.

"Indeed," Ruth said, smiling too.


The story continues...