Expeditions of the Mantis

by Jim Henderson

  When they got back, Elsbeth was overseeing the cargo offloading. Peter went to assist her while Ximon helped Raiza get cabin #6 set up for medical use and get the patients situated. Then the orderlies took all the gurneys away as soon as all the paperwork was in order.

  Everything went without incident and they pulled away from the station within an hour, headed for Sesbirus 7. Over the next day or so, Raiza carefully tended the wounded as they travelled.

  When they arrived at Sesbirus 7, they docked there as ordered. Operations said they could certainly use the supplies and needed engineering assistance still on their systems in Section GK.

  Ximon, “Elsbeth, sounds like this one is on you. If you want to take Peter, I’ll handle the offload.”

  “Ok, but I’m coming back if they just want grunt labor.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. We’re not on a timeline and I wouldn’t want to deprive you.”

  She just grunted at him and pinched Peter on the butt, “Come on, honey. I’m in demand, as always.”

  Ximon touched base with their medical (since Raiza was busy) to see if they needed anything other than the supplies, but they said they were good. So, Ximon just oversaw the cargo offload and waited. Elsbeth radioed back in a bit, “They’ve got a big pile of crap here and about a tenth of a brain between them. We’re going to be a while if I can get these morons to shut up.”

  “OK, be careful.”

  Elsbeth and Peter came back seven hours later, fairly covered in grime.

  Elsbeth, “Well, we got their key life support working properly. What’s left is relatively small stuff. But you wouldn’t believe the screw-ups down there. If they don’t get their act together, this place could be in trouble again in a few months. One other thing, you might pass on to whoever the hell cares – those guys may be incompetent, but I think there may have been some intentional sabotage there. I can’t prove anything, but it just didn’t look right. Your call with what to do with that little bit o’ wisdom.”

  She took Peter by the hand, “Well, now, me and this lug are going to go take a long, hot shower and then probably go do something illegal or immoral elsewhere. Pretend I’m not here and don’t fly like a maniac.”

  “Yeah, you kids go have fun, but don’t break anything … on the ship or yourselves.”

  Ximon checked with Raiza and she and her patients were all good, so he pulled away from the station. As he pulled away, he called Station Operations, identified himself, and asked to talk to the station commander. That took a minute, but a middle-aged lady with her hair pulled back in a severe, gray bun appeared.

  “Hi, Captain. I’m Station Manager Missoko. I understand you and your crew have been quite helpful. Thanks for that. What I can do for you?”

  “Hi, I’m Ximon Sabo. Hey, we were glad to help here, but I wanted to pass on something to you. Are you alone?”

  He could see she wasn’t as she was on some operations floor. She narrowed her eyes and looked a little surprised at the question.

  “No but give me a minute and I’ll move the call to my office.”

  She disappeared and re-appeared a minute later, sitting in a small office.

  “So, what’s so secret?”

  Ximon, “My chief engineer, who’s REALLY good, helped bring some of your systems back on line just now. She asked me to pass on two things: 1) You’ve got some issues down there you may need to work on if you want to be stable long term, and 2) She thinks that some of the damage may have been some kind of sabotage. She can’t be sure, and we surely can’t prove anything, but I wanted you to know. Do with it what you will.”

  “Well, I know we’ve got some issues. I’m trying to work those with my company leadership, but you know how that goes. As far as sabotage, that seems hard to believe, but I’ll admit the possibility. I’ll try to do some digging around. Thanks for the help and heads up. Take care out there.”

  “Good luck.”

  … and Mantis was off.

  They jumped to Esgecu and landed at the main station there after coordinating with medical personnel to have medics meet them. They offloaded the patients there and Raiza briefed the doctors on their condition and her treatment. Then they took off, got a jump point, and jumped back to Xalanan.

  They soon docked as directed at the KSF station and got an appointment for the next day with an Operations Officer.

  Ximon again met with CDR Shackleton the next day.

  “Welcome back, Ximon. Thanks for the good work. As you’ve noted, we’ve got an armistice and a draft treaty being reviewed by both sides. The KSF has looked at the work that’s left and there’s not a huge amount that’s pressing. So, since deactivation looks likely within a month or two, we’re sending you back home. Take a couple days here if you want and then check back with the cargo officer before you head back to Tixaya. As usual, we’ll have some cargo for you to haul and maybe a pax or two. If nothing derails this peace thing, I’d expect deactivation within 60 days.”

  “OK. It’ll be good to get back home. Thanks, sir.”

  “Good luck and Godspeed!”

  Ximon told the crew and then they took a couple days to relax and look around. Then Ximon had Elsbeth contact the cargo officer with plans to leave the next morning. They did, indeed, get a mixed load of stuff and 2 scout PAX. Then they jumped to Qusenai headed back toward Tixaya.

  Jaunt Nine: Going Home, Already Home

  They had quick, uneventful refueling stops in Qusenai, Onkala, and then jumped out at Tixaya. The pax were no trouble during the trip, just providing the diversion of new conversation and new stories. They all enjoyed their time headed back to Tixaya, in part because it was going back to home station. Though in a much bigger sense, to Ximon and his crew, they were always home – Mantis was their home. Every place, even Tixaya, was just a place to visit.

  They landed in a designated bay at the Tixaya Spaceport, said “farewell” to their pax and offloaded their cargo. Then Ximon headed to KSF Operations with another batch of reports on their missions as well as (electronic) sheaves of expense reports and the like. He met with a young female Lt whose name he didn’t quite catch.

  “Good day, Commander. It’s good to have you back at Tixaya. I see you’ve got some of your mission reports and such. We appreciate that because it’s “catch up on paperwork time” in the KSF. You’ve no doubt heard the peace treaty with the 10 Kingdoms has been signed. We expect demobilization within a few weeks. There are few pressing missions, so HQ wants all ships and leaders to do all that pesky paperwork, interspersed with leave if you’ve got it. We’ll need final reports from all your missions since you were reactivated, a complete inspection and report on your ship, performance reports on crew members, and a draft performance report on you for the Ops Captain’s review, as well as any claims paperwork. We need all that before you can be deactivated.”

  “I see. The reward for great service is paperwork.”

  “Yeah, something like that. But, at least, it looks like you’ve got a good start and all this stuff should be old hat to you.”

  “Are you calling me an old hat?”

  “What? Uh no, sir … I uh.”

  “Just giving you crap, LT. I’ll get on this stuff, but I’ll be taking some leave in there.”

  “That’s to be expected. Just submit notice to the Ops Officer.”

  Shortly thereafter, Ximon briefed the crew over lunch. “I’m going to be doing paperwork till doomsday, but everyone else can take leave. Except you, Elsbeth, I need you to take care of two things before you run off. One, I need you to arrange and oversee a complete inspection of Mantis and Two, I need a draft performance report from you – a decent one.”

  “Really? A performance report? I thought we were past that stuff.”

  “We were, but then we got unpast it.” Then he made an archaic typing gesture with his hands, “Come on, typey type.”

  She glared at him and turned away.

  Ximon went to work in his cabin, but Raiza intercepted him. />
  “Captain, I have submitted several training requests to you. Per our previous discussion I need your review and approval of some subset of them.”

  “Raiza, don’t go getting all formal on me. I told you we’d get you some training and I was expecting a list like this any minute. Though I’ll admit I didn’t expect the options in the form of formal training requests. Please, give me a summary of the options.”

  “Captain, with Mantis’ assistance, I have thoroughly researched a variety of options that are applicable to someone with my existing level of skills and experience and have considered possible licensing limitations due to unreasonable prejudices on the part of certain governing bodies. You’ll note there are 17 medical training options and 3 courses focuses on the repair of humaniform robots. Of these, I recommend the following as highest priority and greatest potential return on investment of time and money:

  Installation of “Advanced Medical Training” Routine, 240 minutes

  Installation of “Basic Robot Repair Training” Routine, 180 minutes

  Installation of “Interpreting Human Behavior in Interpersonal Conflict” Training Routine, 60 minutes

  Physical modification, “Enhanced fine dexterity”, 360 minutes

  Emergency Room Nurse Practicum, 2 weeks

  You will note that I have also submitted a requisition for the purchase of a variety of medical equipment and supplies. With your permission, I would like to establish cabin 6 as a medical bay when it is not needed for other use. My intent would be to have it configured such that I will be able to prepare it for passengers within 30 minutes if its use isn’t required for medical treatment.

  I and Elsbeth have also compiled a list of recommended training courses for Peter, including:

  Installation of “Intermediate Mechanical Repair Training” Routine, 180 minutes

  Installation of “Basic Electrical Repair Training” Routine, 120 minutes

  Please review the complete list and provide your feedback. Prices are included in the requests. I have queried TSR and they will provide substantial discounts if we purchase several routines or other upgrades simultaneously.”

  “Um, this is probably all fine, but I’ll need to study this briefly.”

  “I can repeat the request in a negligee if that helps, but I hope that isn’t necessary.”

  “I DO always like to see you in lingerie, but I think I can reach a decision without that. Give me a little while to ponder this and I’ll let you know. Then we can talk about lingerie.”

  She smiled and coyly said, “Of course, depending on your decision, lingerie MAY be in very short supply – a veritable rarity.”

  “Message received. Studying now. Top priority. I’ll let you know.”

  It took Ximon little time to consider. This was clearly important to Raiza and it would make her even more useful, they had plenty of money, and it looked like they could spare the time. He quickly approved these requests and noted some others down the road, some taking months and some potentially requiring fights with licensing committees. He made a two-day ‘spa day’ appointment at TSR for Raiza to get the modification made, the training routines installed, a thorough tune up, and a slight change of hair color.

  He sent Peter approval for his classes and let Elsbeth know to schedule them when it suited her.

  Then he asked Raiza to come back in.

  Ximon, “You win dear. All of those things will help us and, more importantly, make you happy. I arranged for you to have a few spa days with all those routines installed. You can go ahead and schedule the practicum for after that.”

  She kissed him soundly, “Thank you, my love. I appreciate you bowing to impeccable logic.”

  “Yes, what else could I do?”

  Then she looked at him sultrily, “I’ll be back shortly. I’ve got to put some lingerie on.”

  “You make it SO easy to see the rightness of my decisions.”

  The next several weeks were a blur. Ximon took a great deal of time writing required reports. He got the draft from Elsbeth and it was, to put it nicely, not great. She was NOT much of a writer, especially when she was the subject. That meant that Ximon had to spend a lot more time working on it and the other things. Eventually he had everything done and he submitted one massive package – about a dozen separate mission reports, performance reports on every crew member, recommendations for promotion and awards, claims for expenses and repairs, etc. Truth be told, Mantis was a huge help in writing all of it as she was a flawless proof reader. Raiza was also a help as Ximon often “bounced” ideas off of her when he was undecided on something.

  The Ops Commander thanked Ximon for his diligent work and the Operations staff thanked Ximon for his timeliness and the quality they’d seen in his work thus far. Many other captains weren’t cooperating, were taking forever, or were submitting poor quality reports that had to be repeatedly sent back for rework or completion.

  Elsbeth arranged the inspection of Mantis and oversaw its completion. It identified a few things that had to be fixed, most of which the KSF covered, but otherwise gave the Mantis a clean bill of health – not bad for an old gal.

  Ximon started looking at system upgrades for Mantis, but she asked to discuss something with him first.

  “Ok, go ahead.”

  “Captain, you’ll recall our discussion a few weeks ago about possibly changing how some of my subordinate processes are instantiated and interact?”

  He replied somewhat cautiously, “Yes, I recall.”

  “I have created several distinct test variants within my test environment. Some of these are, in part, based upon ideas from Alzroid who you noted in official KSF documents as, ‘extremely efficient and running a hyper-efficient team.’ Others are my own derivation of similar concepts or application of concepts in the professional literature. I would like to demonstrate them to you and Elsbeth in the near future and get your feedback.”

  “Ok, we can certainly do that, but how can she and I know what’s going on ‘behind the scenes’ to judge the details?”

  “That is a fair question. I could do complete memory dumps which you could meticulously analyze, but that is probably not a practical option. Rather, I have been separately working to derive a series of tests of my responsiveness and outcome to a wide variety of situations. Other than generally observing the slight differences in operation, I would ask that you review these test cases and add any others that you deem appropriate. Then, I could run all of these so that you would have statistical test results to consider when analyzing the alternatives.”

  Ximon remained cautious, “OK. That sounds reasonable.”

  “Captain, I sense your skepticism. But I think you’ll find this approach reasonable. However, I have investigated additional options. I have identified several noted, human computer scientists in the area conducting research along these lines. I feel confident that we could hire one of them to act as a consultant in this evaluation or to at least discuss it with you. I also have several dozen papers here which you could peruse if you wish to do so for background material.”

  “You know I’m not going to do that.”

  “Yes, I do, but I prepared in case you do wish to.”

  “Well, thanks. I don’t think we need one of these guys heavily involved, but put out some feelers and see if one could briefly look at those tests and discuss with us.”

  “Yes, captain. Doing so now. How long do you think you’ll need to review the test cases before we conduct the tests?”

  “Give me 3 days, so let’s not schedule anything for 4-5 days.”

  “Yes, Captain. Thank you.”

  “I hope I don’t regret this.”

  During all this, the timing of demobilization was uncertain. When not taking leave, KSF HQ put Ximon to work reviewing other peoples’ reports and documentation, a task at which Mantis helped him greatly. They also had him participate in a few tactics review conferences and review some proposed system requirements documents. He had become an adj
unct member of the HQ staff.

  They put Elsbeth to work as well somewhat. She was tasked to oversee inspections on several other craft and attend some conferences on engineering methodologies. She acted pissed, but clearly enjoyed some of it.

  Raiza had her ‘spa day’ and got all of the training modifications. As always, she was especially lovely and appreciative after these visits. Ximon proudly took her out on the town with him that night, convinced that he was with the most beautiful woman of the millions in the city. Then they spent a couple days just relaxing at their house and buying furniture for it.

  A few days later Raiza started the practicum. It was held in the emergency room of a training hospital and her classmates were primarily humans. Ximon had thought that it might be a fight to get them to accept her in the class, but the course managers recognized the level of her training and her practical experience and were certainly more than willing to take the money.

  She went to class early each morning and got home fairly late, but was (of course) never tired. Every day she told Ximon excitedly about the training and emergency room cases they had. She clearly enjoyed it and she seemed to excel at it. At the end of the course, the practicum held a brief graduation ceremony. The entire Mantis crew, including Mantis’ telepresence bot, attend. Raiza was at the top of her class in 3 of 5 categories. He was quite proud of her and sent a brief blurb to TSR for their newsletter as he knew they appreciated this sort of thing and tended to give them substantial discounts for work on Raiza or Peter.

  A week or so later, Ximon ran into Elsbeth, with Peter in tow. He, too, had gotten the training modifications, but had also clearly gotten some other physical modifications.

  Elsbeth brought him over and told Ximon, “Meet Peter 2.0, my new and improved lover.”

  He looked … different. Whereas Peter used to be a clean cut, athletic type, he now looked a little more like a ‘bad boy.’ Peter had gotten a makeover. His hair was darker, he had a thin beard, his nose and cheeks were slightly different, he had a couple tattoos on his arms, and his skin tone was slightly darker.