by Saxon Andrew
She stamped her feet and went back out in the cavern and found another box. She ran into the bathroom and swept everything off the counter into it along with everything in the medicine cabinet. She went out into the cavern and opened a cabinet. She swept all the shampoo and soap into the box and stared at it for a moment before closing it. Bob came rolling up and she handed the box to him, “If there are any empty boxes in the ship, bring them to me.”
Bob flashed, and she went to another cabinet. She stared at the electronic devices in it and didn’t have a clue what they were. Grady stepped off the ship and shouted, “I’ll handle that closet!” Taffy opened the closet next to it and saw stacks of sheets and bedspreads. Grady was giving Robbie instructions and she waited until he finished, “What’s up?”
“I just had a thought and wanted you to tell me if it’s crazy.” Grady nodded. “The ship doesn’t have a bedroom,” Taffy replied.
“The ship’s too small as it is, Taffy.”
“I know, we’re going to have to sleep in the chairs. But what about this; why not move the mattress on the bridge and put it on the floor behind the chairs. I think there’s enough room and, though the chairs aren’t bad, the mattress would be much better.”
Grady considered the idea and he turned to Robbie, “Bring the mattress out of the bedroom and take it to the front room.” Robbie just stood unmoving. Grady exhaled sharply and saw Bob leaving the ship, “Bob, you and Robbie follow me.” The two robots followed him into the bedroom and Grady lifted the corner of the mattress, “Move this into the front room on the ship.” Both robots flashed and went to the mattress. Taffy ran to the closet and started taking out sheets. “WHOA!” Grady shouted. Taffy stopped and turned to him. “Only bring two pair of each; we’re running out of room.” Taffy nodded and put some sheets back in the closet and took out two bedspreads.
The robots folded the mattress and they followed them to the bridge. Grady ordered, “Put it on the floor behind the chairs.” The robots complied, and Grady stared at it for a moment, before ordering, “Turn it one-quarter turn.” The robots lifted the mattress and turned it. Grady smiled, “Now push it up against that wall.” The robots pushed the mattress against the back wall and Grady went to his chair and sat down. He stood up and walked behind the chair. He smiled, “We have enough room to walk to the corridor without stepping on it.” Taffy nodded. Grady turned to Bob, “Anchor it to the floor without puncturing it.” Bob rolled to the edge of the mattress and one of his arms pulled out the trim on the bottom of the mattress as another arm shot something through it. Four more anchors were shot into the floor and Grady commanded, “That’s enough on this side. Put the same number of anchors on the edge closest to the chairs.” Bob rolled forward and Grady turned to Taffy, “Can you think of anything else?”
“What about your clothes in the bedroom?”
“I have an identical store of them on the ship.”
Taffy thought a moment and shook her head, “I guess that’s all I can think of. I do hate leaving all the food in the freezers.”
Grady smiled, “You didn’t look in the bay, did you?”
“What did I miss?”
“I had the robots move the freezers into the bay and anchor them down. The dispensers can’t hold anymore, and we’ll be eating out of the freezers for a while; I hope you like steak.”
“I LOVE STEAK!” Taffy replied instantly.
“All right, let’s get this show moving!” Grady announced, and he went to his chair.
Taffy went to her chair and asked, “Why all the sudden urgency of leaving?”
Grady said over his shoulders, “Go to your charging stations!” The robots turned and went to their chargers. He turned to Taffy, “I used the satellite to scan the cities that were burned, and they are no longer radiating heat. If the aliens have done this sort of thing to another planet, they would time their arrival to right about now. I don’t want to be caught in the cavern again.” Taffy nodded and buckled her harness. Grady released a heavy sigh, “I hate the long warmup; the reactors are slow.”
Taffy turned to him, “Do the blasters still work?” Grady turned to her and nodded. “Why don’t you just fire one of them into the hull; that should speed up the process, wouldn’t it?”
Grady stared at her, lowered his head, and started chuckling, “Yes, it would.” He turned the forward blaster and dialed back the power slightly. He fired it into the hull and raised the power. He fired again and the lights on the bridge grew brighter as the thrusters grew louder. “You were right.”
“About the blasters?” Taffy asked.
“That and that you could help me if I allowed you to stay. That was an incredible suggestion. Are you ready?” Taffy nodded and gripped the arms of her chair. Grady pressed a button under his chair arm and the blast doors started going up. He hovered the ship in the cavern and raised the wheels inside the hull. He pushed the thruster control forward and the ship leapt out of the cavern. Grady pressed the button on the bottom of his chair’s arm and all the lights shut down in the cavern, the underground reactor went to standby, and the blast doors closed behind the ship. Grady pulled the steering wheel back and the ship went vertical and shot up into the morning sky. Taffy watched the monitor and saw stars begin to appear.
• • •
After three days passed, Taffy and Grady were sitting in their chairs eating dinner. Grady was staring at the monitor and Taffy was occasionally glancing at him. After a few minutes, she said, “Grady, there’s something that is bothering me.”
Grady continued to stare at the monitor as he replied, “What is that?”
“Why are we staying here above the planet?” Grady turned to her. “I mean, if the aliens are coming back to kill everyone that survived and then colonize the planet, we can’t go back to it. We should be going out to find a place to live, shouldn’t we?” Taffy stared at Grady’s expression and said, “You’re not telling me something.” Grady took a deep breath and turned back to the monitor. Taffy waited but Grady remained silent. “I promised you that I would do whatever you wanted without complaint. Please tell me what’s going on?” she asked.
Grady turned to her and sat back, “I don’t intend to allow those aliens to get away with what they’ve done.” Taffy nodded. “I intend to go out and find an advanced civilization that I can persuade to take them on.”
“I can understand that,” she replied.
“In order to do that, I must have something to offer a civilization and the only thing available is the blasters on this ship. If they can damage the alien warships, then I have something to barter with.”
“I thought you said the hull of this ship was extremely hard.”
Grady nodded, “It is. That’s why the admiral sent me to rebuild this ship. But no one knows why it survived and I’ve seen none of the others did when the aliens attacked.”
“Was it built the same way?” Taffy asked.
Grady’s expression changed, and he turned to the console, “Computer, look up the construction records of this scout and tell me if it was built like the others.”
“It was,” the computer replied. Grady sat back and asked, “There was no difference?”
“Only in the hull material. It was constructed the same way as every other scout.”
Grady’s eyes widened, “What was different in the hull construction?”
“The construction was identical, but the assembly line ran out of the alloy used for the hull material. Another alloy was substituted.”
“Computer, what alloy was that?”
“Beryllium-Oxide.”
Grady fell back in his chair and his eyes closed. “What’s wrong?” Taffy asked putting a hand on his arm.
“All these years I’ve spent rebuilding this ship were wasted.”
“Why?”
“All the admiral had to do was to ask his computer what I just asked, and he would have had what he needed to build a more powerful fleet.”
“But the computer
told you that nothing was different. You had to probe deeper to find out. I believe the admiral did ask his computer, but he wasn’t a scientist. You are?”
Grady turned to her, “And I never probed that issue the entire time I was working on the ship. It took you to get me to see it. Now…it’s too late; our civilization is doomed.”
Grady put his head in his hands and Taffy rubbed his arm. “Why does this ship grow more powerful when energy hits it. I noticed the first time we left the planet that once you moved out into sunlight that the speed skyrocketed.”
Grady sat up, “I had to develop a way so the heat transferred from the hull was controlled.”
“And how long did that take you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Answer me, Grady!”
“More than two-years.”
Taffy tilted her head, “And by that time, the Coalition had struck. The Union wouldn’t have had enough time to develop the systems needed to make a ship like this work and the result would have been the same.” Taffy thought a moment and then added, “When the scout was attacked initially, wasn’t everything inside it destroyed?”
“Yes.”
“Then simply adding this oxide wouldn’t have prevented the ships using it from being destroyed, would it?”
“But we could have fired heavy blasters into the hull material and…” Grady’s voice trailed off.
Taffy said quietly, “Then that would require all of your assembly lines to be modified to produce the hulls before anything else could be done. With all the Coalition spies in the Union, they would have found out about it and attacked earlier. No matter how you try to say this information would have changed things, it wouldn’t have. There just wasn’t enough time. I’m familiar with factories, my father owned hundreds of them, and the changes couldn’t be done quickly. The necessary changes couldn’t have taken place before the Coalition attacked.” Taffy was silent for a moment before adding, “The only difference would be that you and I would be dead.” Grady raised his head and nodded. Taffy looked around, “You built this ship?”
“I designed it; Bob and Robbie did the construction.”
Now you have two things to offer a civilization.” Grady turned to her and she smiled before saying, “You have the blasters and the hull.” Taffy paused and shrugged, “That means you’ll need to let them hit you with a blaster or two.”
“I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“I’m in this for the long haul, Grady. You’re the brains behind this and you need to do what you think is necessary. Don’t get me wrong, this does scare me, but as long as you’re with me, I’ll be OK.”
“I don’t know about me being the brains, Taffy.”
Taffy raised her arms, “Look around you; you built this! I could never do that.”
“Even so,” Grady replied.
Taffy smiled, “I think it’s time for you to hold me again.” She went to his lap and he pulled her close. It is what it is, Grady thought. She was right, the Union would have been destroyed no matter what happened. That was something he’d just have to accept and learn to live with.
• • •
Taffy and Grady were on the bridge the next day and Taffy turned to him, “It needs a name.”
Grady looked at her, “What needs a name?”
“This ship. I’m tired of calling it the ship. Don’t most ships have names?”
“Ships are given names when they’re commissioned,” Grady countered. “This ship has never been commissioned.”
“Didn’t the ship have a name before it was destroyed?” Taffy asked.
“No, it was performing its initial trials when it was attacked. It was not commissioned.”
“It still needs a name!”
Grady’s eyes narrowed, and then he shrugged, “Well, there’s no one alive with the authority to commission it, so I guess we can name it if we choose. Do you have a suggestion?”
“It’s your ship; you should be the one to name it.”
“I don’t have a clue on what to call it. Let’s do this, we’ll both think about an appropriate name and share them this evening.”
“OK,” Taffy agreed.
• • •
That evening, Grady looked at Taffy as he took a bite of his supper. After a moment, he said, “I’ve thought of a few names for the ship.”
“What are they?”
“The Destroyer, or The Fleet Killer, or how about Alien Slayer!”
Taffy was shaking her head at the first name, “Grady, this is our home. Would you want your home to have those names?”
Grady thought about it and asked, “Do you have a better idea?”
“I only came up with one name.”
“And it is…”
“Rabbit,” Taffy answered.
Grady’s head went back slightly and then moved forward, “You can’t be serious! Rabbit? How does that fit?”
Taffy raised a shoulder, “Well, we’ve only used the ship for short hops.”
Grady started laughing and finally managed to say, “I guess you’re right about that, but hopefully it will be making much longer trips if we survive our attack on the aliens.” Grady hesitated and added, “Rabbit is…just…”
“Not strong enough?” Taffy asked.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“What about Rex Rabbit?”
“Rex?” Grady asked.
“It is an ancient word that means King, Grady.”
Grady’s expression showed his incredulity, “You want to call the ship King Rabbit?”
“No! I want to call it Rex Rabbit.”
Grady kept his eyes on her and saw her slight smile. “You have another reason you’re not telling me.”
“How do you know that?” Taffy countered.
“Your smile is giving you away, Taffy. What’s going on?”
Taffy blew out a breath. “When I was five-years-old, my mother gave me a bunny. I loved that rabbit and I named it Rex.”
“Why did you do that?”
Taffy smiled, “To tick off my father.”
“Oh?”
“He wouldn’t let me have a dog.” Grady burst out laughing and Taffy’s smile grew bigger, “You should have seen his face whenever I told Rex to come. I loved that bunny.”
“If you had suggested bunny I would have rejected it immediately,” Grady interjected.
“That’s why I chose Rabbit instead; I knew you would.”
Grady looked at her and said under his breath, “Rex Rabbit.”
“It does have a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” Taffy asked.
Grady tilted his head as he shook it. After a moment, he looked up at her, “Rex Rabbit it is.”
“REALLY!?!”
“If it makes you love the ship, then I’m ok with it.”
Taffy lowered her eyes and he saw a mischievous smile, “Do you know the funniest thing about my bunny, Grady.”
“Tell me.”
“My father would get enraged at it eating his plants; he would order the mansion staff, put that animal in its cage! I’d die laughing watching them trying to catch Rex and they never did. My father was forced to order me to control my pet or he’d have it removed. A rabbit is almost impossible for one or two people to catch in open ground.”
Grady smiled, “Perhaps this rabbit will be just as difficult to catch in open space, Taffy. It’s a good name.” Taffy smiled and went to her sewing kit.
Chapter Seven
Grady was staring at the monitor and Taffy walked up and handed him a piece of material. He turned it over and saw two-brilliant-interlinked crimson colored Rs on top of a white rabbit’s head in the middle of a crimson circle. Around the inside edge of the circle was written, Uncatchable, Undefeated, Unbelievable. Grady shook his head, “This is beautiful.”
“I told you my mother taught me to embroider. Do you like it?”
“I love it.”
“Do you mind if I sew them
on your flight suits.”
“Them? You’ve had time to do more than one?”
Taffy laughed, “No, the one you’re holding is the one I did. I took it to Bob and told him I wanted him to duplicate it using the material from the top of the flight suits I cut off. I left him and when I came back to check on him, he had done fifty more. Boy! that Robot is good!”
Grady smiled, “By all means, put them on the left shoulder of my flight suits; this will be our unit patch.” Taffy hugged him and ran off the bridge.
Grady thought about Taffy’s blaster training. She had learned how to handle a hand blaster at an incredible speed. Her hand and eye coordination were probably the best he had ever witnessed. He wondered if her aerobics training had anything to do with that. Anyway, she had learned faster than he did during his formal military training. She was also becoming more proficient than he was at firing the Rabbit’s blasters. He was really thankful he didn’t kick her off the ship. She was an incredible asset and would only get better with time. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and he was coming back from the long years of solitude building the ship. He decided that she was right; he wanted this to continue for the long haul or as long as possible. The universe could end things rather quickly without warning.
Taffy suddenly appeared with one of his flight suits, “Take the one you have on off, and put this one on.”
Grady’s eyes opened wide, “You’ve already sewn it on?”
“No, Robbie did. The suit you have on is the last one.” Grady stood up and took the uniform off. Taffy threw him the flight suit and grabbed the one he took off just before she ran off the bridge. Grady shook his head, when Taffy had something to do, you better get out of her way or you’ll get run over. He put on the flight suit and looked at the patch. He started nodding, this was incredibly beautiful.
Taffy appeared in a few minutes wearing the pants she made from her flight suit and a long-sleeve tee-shirt with the patch sewn on above her left breast. He opened his mouth and Taffy quickly said, “Until we find a flight suit that’s not so tight in the chest, I’m wearing tee-shirts.”