by Gini Koch
“Maybe,” Randy said slowly. “But . . . maybe the bomb didn’t do what it was supposed to.”
Drax jerked. “Protection Mode would have enhanced the ship’s own protections.”
“Yes,” Mother agreed. “I believe that due to my full awareness of the situation, I was able to identify and curtail some of the effects. Not as much as I should have, however.”
“Stop blaming yourself,” Jeff said, Commander of the Free World Voice on Full. “That’s an order, Mother. We’re choosing to take what you’re saying at face value, and that means that you’re our friend and ally. You didn’t want us in this position, and it’s not your fault. Our enemies did this to you, and we will determine who they were and make them pay for it.”
“Thank you,” Mother said, and she sounded sincere. Had a feeling Jeff and Mother had just moved into the Friend Zone.
“What Jeff said, but I want to go back to Randy’s point, ’cause I think it’s the key one for this situation. Mother, can you extrapolate what would have happened if you hadn’t been in Protection Mode when that bomb went off?”
“Give me a moment.”
We waited for about two seconds. Was proud that no one fidgeted, not even me.
“Ah,” Mother said finally. “Based on running at least fifty simulations, without Protection Mode enacted, the warp core explosion would have created a chain reaction and the entire ship would have been disintegrated.”
CHAPTER 23
WE ALL LET THAT one sit on the air for a few long moments. There was a lot of that going around for this trip already, lucky us.
Broke the silence. “Gustav, let me just say that I think you’re da bomb in terms of ship and weapons design, and let no one tell you differently. So, whoever planted this bomb wanted the Distant Voyager to explode between Alpha Four and Vatusus. And it doesn’t take genius to figure out why.” Looked at Chuckie. “Though I’ll let our resident genius explain it, just in case.”
Chuckie nodded. “If the Distant Voyager explodes after the visit to Alpha Four, then everyone is suspect. Prince Gustav is dead, we’ve lost all of Airborne as well as A-Cs and astronauts, almost all of whom are tightly bound in to Centaurion Division in some way. Everyone’s upset and grieving and everyone blames everyone else.”
“Vatusus and Alpha Four in particular,” I added.
“And Club Fifty-One,” Hughes said.
Walker nodded. “Fanning the flames on Earth to their wicked little hearts’ content.”
“All of which means galactic war,” Reader said. “And galactic war between our allies.”
“I think that points to Club Fifty-One,” Serene said. “Because they want all aliens dead.”
“I agree. This isn’t the Tinkerer’s style. He wants Stephanie to be the next Ronald Yates, and she can’t become the Heir Apparent or the Renaissance Girl for Evil if the galaxy is destroyed. And I don’t see this as being something the Shadow would want, either, because she’s able to look at the bigger picture and see how she can rule the galaxy in the right situations.”
Jeff sighed. “I agree, baby. I just wish we could get this intel to your mother.”
“We are out of range,” Mother said. “I could get a message to Earth via a variety of means, but none of them would be secured.”
“So, once we’re home, we’ll get right on this. Mom will already be looking at Club Fifty-One suspiciously. She and my Uncle Mort may have found our culprit before we get home. And, while I’m tingling that we’ve figured out why we’re stuck here, I don’t think that whoever set the bomb is who helped Jamie choose this particular crew roster. And knowing that is probably more important right now.”
“We need to ensure that there aren’t more bombs,” Chuckie said. “Mother, is there a way you can scan for anomalies?”
“I believe so.”
Drax indicated that I should give him my helmet, which I did. “I can assist with this.”
“While you’re at it, I think getting the ship working again is the most important thing,” Jeff said, sarcasm meter at seven and rising.
“With my creator’s assistance I can create the parts necessary to fix it, but I cannot fix it myself.”
Drax sighed. “This is true. So unless Kitty’s hails for help have worked, we may have no choice but to train one of the children to do what’s needed.”
Jeff’s mouth opened. Put up the paw. His mouth shut. The One True FLOTUS Power in action. I liked this power and really hoped I’d always have it, even when Jeff wasn’t the President anymore. “Pause.” Now I wanted to hear Pitbull. “I think I may have a solution. But I need to steal Tim for a minute. We’ll be right back.”
He took off his helmet quickly. “Sure, let’s go.”
Reader gave us both a beady look. “Want to tell us what the two of you are up to?”
Grabbed Tim’s hand. “Nope. Not yet.” Then I turned up the hyperspeed and we zipped off.
“What are we doing?” Tim asked.
“Hoping to visit the Wallflowers in their “Invisible City,” dude, what else?”
“Huh?” Tim jerked. “Oh. Gotcha.”
Did a run-by to make sure that everyone in the Nonessential Personnel Station were okay, my kids in particular. Everyone seemed fine and I didn’t see evidence of barfing, so either someone had broken the “stay in your seats” directive, or everyone had managed to survive our horrific ride out of warp with their stomachs’ contents intact.
Then headed for our special maintenance closet and zipped inside. There was no one there.
“Um . . .”
“Oh, great,” Tim groaned. “Now we’ve lost the stowaways.”
“Why do these things always happen to us?”
“No idea, but a part of me isn’t surprised at all.” He looked worried. “You don’t think one of them is the traitor or whatever we’re after, do you? I mean, we know nothing about the Ard Ri. Other than that’s he’s kind of pompous.”
“Um . . . it occurs to me that we have someone who can literally go invisible on Team Tough Guys, and they all have nasty senses of humor, so . . .”
“I mean,” Tim said quickly, “the Ard Ri is totally regal.”
Everyone we were looking for appeared. Siler grinned at us. “Glad one of you could figure out what was going on.”
“We heard footsteps,” Wruck said, “and the Ard Ri suggested we go invisible just in case.”
“Of course he did,” Tim muttered, while Algar glared at him. Knew Algar wasn’t actually mad. Clearly he was having fun with Tim, in that Cat Playing With A Mouse kind of way. Maybe he, like the kids, was looking at this as a vacation.
“How did you guys manage during the Turbulence From Hell section of our journey?”
Wruck gave me the “really?” look. “I shifted into a form that protected everyone.”
“Giving myself the ‘duh’ on that one.”
“Hey, we were worried about you guys,” Tim said. “Forgive us for not thinking of everything.”
“But that’s your jobs, laddie,” Algar said. “To do all the thinking.”
“Hardly.” But had to figure that was an Algar Clue of some kind. “However, we have a situation.” Brought them up to speed on the latest. “So, I honestly think you all need to come out of the closet. James is on deck to help you through it.”
Tim snickered while I got a lot of eye rolls. “Not sure we can trust the AI,” Siler said.
“Not sure that we can’t, however. And, frankly, without Mossy, we’re going to have to make one of the kids work in the warp core, and let me just mention how against this Jeff is and then share that if you think Papa Bear is against it, you ain’t seen Mama Bear in action.”
“If you’re wrong about the AI, Missus Executive Mama Bear, then we give away our only advantage.”
“But if we’re right about her, then
we get to have all of you freaking helping us do something other than sit here hoping that ACE’s parole officers show up to help us. And then to harm us.”
“Excuse me?” Algar said.
Heaved a sigh. “ACE houses in Jamie. ACE is not supposed to leave Earth. We’re stranded near the Eagle Nebula, where Sandy the Superconsciousness and his buddies, the Seven Meddling Superconsciousness Dwarfs live. I’m just spitballing here, but I think that if we don’t get moving, we’re going to get visitors that we might not want.”
“Or we might,” Tim said. “Because we’re dead in the water, so to speak, and we have the solution right here in the form of Mossy.”
Who nodded. “I, at least, need to go with them. No children should be working in the warp core.”
“Is it dangerous?” Had visions of everyone getting irradiated.
“Not in the way I’d assume you mean. There is no risk of exposure. However, the intricacy that’s demanded is beyond most children, even the talented ones on the ship with us. So it does fall to me to do this.”
“Keeping in mind that we’re going to have to share that we’re pretty sure that Mossy isn’t the one who set the bomb,” Tim added. “And before everyone glares at me or whatever, someone who had access to the warp core set that bomb, and Mossy had that access.”
“This is true,” Mossy said. “And I’ve already successfully tampered with the ship in what I’m willing to bet is the exact same way as the saboteur did.”
“You confessing?” Buchanan asked.
“Hardly. However, the Commander is right—I am in a position to look guilty. Which is all the more reason for me, at least, to come out of hiding.”
Looked right at Algar. “So, what’s the risk to reward ratio for all of you ‘exposing’ that you’ve stowed away?”
He snapped his fingers and time froze. “Acceptable.”
“You were on board in case Mother couldn’t contain that explosion, weren’t you? You can act even faster than ACE.”
“Among other reasons, yes.” He looked mildly worried, which was a rarity.
“Mother’s not wrong in her assessment of what could happen if we don’t help Ixtha, is she?”
“She’s only wrong in that she gave a tenth of a percentage chance that the galaxy wouldn’t be destroyed. And if this galaxy goes in the way that Mother, ACE, and I see it going, due to the situation you’ve been called upon to solve, then the entire universe is going to go with it.”
CHAPTER 24
WANTED TO LET THAT idea settle in, but had no idea how much time I was going to get with Algar in this way. “Well, that sounds like something we want to avoid. So, in order to speed all this saving of the universe along, can we trust Mother?”
“That’s not the correct question.”
Groaned. “Seriously? Fine. Do we have a traitor on board?”
“Still not quite right.”
Not quite right. So, that was a clue. Considered what he might mean. “Fine. Do we have a conscious traitor on board?”
“No.”
“Whee. So, does that mean we have someone who is unconsciously perpetrating traitorous actions?”
“Yes.”
Heaved a sigh. “Is it Mossy?”
“No.”
Pondered. There had to be a reason Algar was pussyfooting. Decided to take the wild guess that probably wasn’t all that wild. “It’s one of my kids, isn’t it? Or both of them.”
“Yes, and not just your children. All the children. Well, all the talented ones.”
“So most of them. How?”
“Ixtha is not the only person capable of using the DreamScape.”
“So good of you to mention that this thing existed to me before, oh, now.”
He shook his head. “You do remember how I’ve lived my life.”
“Free Will Forever or Free Willy, I can never keep it straight.” He shot me a dirty look. Ignored it. “So, who brought our bizarre assembly on board, Jamie?”
“With a little help from her friends, yes.”
“Seriously, now I want to hear the Sergeant Pepper’s album.”
“Put your headphones in.”
“Then I couldn’t hear the melodious sounds of your voice. Or was that a hint? If it was a hint, I have to mention that as the Chief Communications Officer, or whatever the hell Mother thinks I am, me listening to tunes will be frowned upon.”
“Not if it keeps you and the rest of the crew calm.”
“Great. I’ll see if I can get someone, anyone, else to agree to that. So, since I don’t want to be rude and listen to music when I’m speaking directly to you, who’s been influencing the kids and, more importantly, why? Aside from Ixtha, I mean. I don’t understand why we have the people we do on board, and why we have others still on Earth.”
“That’s for you to find out. You alone would be preferable. Unless you want the children cross-examined, you need to stop the others from worrying about the identity of the culprit.”
“Well, we have plenty to distract us from that right now.”
“You do, and more will be coming.”
“Look, I realize that you’re against overtly helping because Free Will is like your religion, but isn’t this a big enough of a deal for you to just snap your fingers and fix the ship and, even, get us where we’re going?”
“If I interfere directly the results could be disastrous.”
“Really? More disastrous than the end of all the worlds?”
“Yes.”
“To whom? To you or to the rest of us?”
“Both.”
“I feel that my King of the Elves is holding out on me.”
“I am the Ard Ri right now. Besides, the journey is more than a journey—it’s also the destination.”
“Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “Figure it out. I know you can.”
“Fine, fine, Mister Inscrutable. I realize you have a personal idiom and outlook to maintain. Just throw me a bone and tell me flat out, is Mother the culprit and can we trust her?”
“No and yes.”
“Finally, and thank you. So and therefore, can all of you come out of hiding or not? And if not, why not? And if yes, who? Everyone or just a select few?”
“Yes, we can. However, the gentlemen don’t really want to.”
“Wow, are they all confessing their true devotion to each other in here or something? I mean, if they are, fine, though I think Adrianna might have an issue with Malcolm tossing her over.”
Algar chuckled. “No. They are blood brothers by now, but not lovers.”
“Okay, so straight gals can rejoice and gay men can mourn. But this then leads right back to my ‘why don’t they want to leave the closet’ question. And, since the fate of the universe is at stake, just tell me, without the games.”
“Because they don’t know who I actually am, and so my word and suggestions mean nothing to them.”
“And yet they’re keeping you with them.”
He shrugged. “They appreciated the fact that I agreed with their suspicions.”
“They weren’t alone in those suspicions. As near as I could tell, you had those same suspicions. Which, all things considered, shouldn’t have been possible. I mean, you basically know everything.”
“No, I don’t. I know most things, but not everything. And there’s quite a lot going on. More than normal.”
“Which is totally par for our course.” Decided I didn’t want the existential headache trying to figure out how powerful Algar really was would likely give me. Plus, he looked ready to snap his fingers again and I still needed information. “Okay, so, regarding Team Tough Guys, who got them onto the ship? Because I can’t imagine that whoever told Jamie and the other kids to have the Non-Avengers assemble also somehow asked her to ensure that Team Tough Guys were on
board.”
“They came of their own free will.”
“Shocker. Was that will assisted by anyone powerful and yet friendly to us?”
“No.”
“Huh. Was there an assist in allowing them to actually get onto the ship?”
“Now you’re thinking correctly. Yes. However, that assist didn’t come from me.”
“So, if that’s supposed to let me know that it was ACE, that’s great, but why did he then allow Jamie to be influenced in who she brought onto the ship?”
“ACE sees things differently than I do.”
Maybe I was going to get that existential headache after all. “You want to explain that to me?”
“It’s not relevant at the moment.”
“Really? A powerful superconsciousness let my child bring the wrong people on board and you don’t see that as relevant.”
“They’re not the ‘wrong’ people. They just aren’t the people that you, perhaps, would have chosen for this journey.”
Hoped there was still some of that Advil left. “But you said an enemy helped Jamie choose who to bring on board.”
“No. I said that it would be best if you, and only you, determined who the culprit was. Culprit has several meanings—not all of them indicate heinous criminal behavior.”
“In a spare moment I’ll ask Mother if she’s downloaded Roget’s Thesaurus and the Oxford English Dictionary. So, you’re sort of insinuating that whoever chose the Distant Voyager’s ‘guest list’ might not have had evil intent.”
“Correct. They might have, as well. But that’s going to be for you to determine.”
“All by my lonesome, got it. So, um, back to why my tough guys here want to stay hidden in the maintenance closet.”
“It’s simple. Frankly, they don’t believe that they are safe to leave this place.”
“A belief you agreed with only a short while ago. What’s changed?”
Algar shrugged. “You’ve affected Mother already. Faster even than I’d expected.”
“Excuse me?”
“She’s been connected to your mind. You don’t think logically, at least, not in the way she’s programmed to expect.”