by Olson, Ry
“Why of course, you go ahead. Age before beauty, after all.” Alysis simpered giving Briton a toothy grin.
“Sad, but true my dear.” Briton smiled over his shoulder as he headed for a cart of appetizers. “But, poor girl, when is it ever going to be your turn?”
“Oh, touche’” Alysis snickered, following behind Briton.
Gypsy pulled Martin down to her. “Are they . . .” She whispered waving a hand in the air.
Martin grinned. “I don’t ask, they don’t tell and I really don’t want to know.”
Over the next few minutes several more familiar faces arrived including the other two Bozos. Martin was enjoying himself kibitzing when the vidphone buzzed. Doctor Swain popped on the display when Martin answered. He transferred Swain to a large wall display. At Swain’s request Martin brought up another display and was surprised when Burp appeared.
“Burp, what are you doing here?” Martin smiled.
“Doctor Swain said I might enjoy joining you in a smaller gathering of your kind.” Burp’s amiability was mirrored in his bright swirling coloring.
“Aww, I wish you could be here for real.” Martin laughed easily.
Burp’s colors swirled wildly and the faint aqua rings faded into the mix. “Even if I could survive in your atmosphere, I don’t think I would survive physically or mentally. You kids just play too rough.” The Koth tittered. “I’ll be fine like this.”
Commander Briton looked over the group. “May I have every body’s attention?” The group quieted down. “Martin doesn’t know why we’re having this gathering, so I guess it’s time we tell him.”
On cue someone asked to come aboard. Martin glanced at Briton’s guarded smile before inviting the person in. Martin’s mouth fell open in surprise when Reese appeared, with Leena on his arm. “Leena?”
“Hi, Martin.” She answered shyly.
“My God, what happened?” Martin stuttered, working his way through the shock of her sudden appearance. “I just talked to you a couple weeks ago.”
“I volunteered to be the first temporary cyborg.” She smiled up at Swain. “So far so good, Doc.”
Swain nodded with a huge smile.
“Temporary cyborg?” Martin wilted. “Put me down as confused.”
“Just don’t worry ‘bout it.” Reese rumbled. “I’ll fill you in later.” He turned to Gypsy. “Gypsy.” He greeted with a nod. There was a strange glimmer in his eye.
“Hi, Reese.” Gypsy answered quietly.
“This the girl you told me about?” Leena asked sizing up Gypsy.
“Yep, this is her.” Reese nodded.
Leena held out a spread hand to Gypsy with a soft smile. Gypsy studied the hand for a moment and gave Reese a questioning look.
“For once in your life just go with it girl.” Reese rumbled then gave her a rare smile. “It’ll be ok.”
Gypsy looked at the other tiny woman with questions burning in her eyes. She placed her hand in Leena’s and slowly pulled it free, they both flinched at the slight shock.
Leena reached out and took Gypsy’s hand in both of hers. “Gypsy, do you know a Joanna Kathleen Stoner?”
Gypsy’s eyes grew big. “That was my mother’s maiden name.”
Leena’s smile grew huge. “She was my aunt, I never saw her before she left for the outlands. Gypsy, I’m your cousin.”
“My cousin.” Gypsy repeated slowly. She looked up at Reese. “Reese, I have a cousin.”
“Yeah, and looks run just a little deep in that family.” Byron muttered just loud enough to hear.
Gypsy shot him a thankful glance then turned back to Leena’s smiling face.
“Actually Gypsy, you have several cousins, I have two brothers and your uncle Luke has two more.”
Gypsy’s eyes started to tear up and Leena pulled her in and hugged her. Gypsy looked over Leena’s shoulder at Reese. “Reese, I have family.”
“Yep. I reckon you do.” His smile was huge.
She bowed her head and sniffled, holding Leena for a moment. She let go of Leena and pulled Reese’s head down to her. She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you Reese, thank you for everything,” she whispered. She turned back to Leena. “We have a lot to talk about I think.”
Leena nodded and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
“Oh no, this just has to be one of Martin’s shindigs.” Alysis glowered. “Women bawling their eyes out all over the place.” She waved in Burp’s direction. “An alien wearing a chandelier.” She glared at Swain. “The good Doctor Frankenswain eavesdropping on us.” She heaved a theatrical sigh. “All this and not one get buzzed quick piece of bootleg software to be found.” She looked shocked and surprised. “Oh wait a minute, what’s this.” She held up a memory chip.
“Swain!” Briton howled, failing to cover his laughter. “Can’t you fix her somehow?”
Swain was laughing so hard he could barely talk. “Dammit, Commander, every time I try she just gets worse.”
“And what about that?” Briton pointed an accusing finger at the memory chip.
“I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing.” Swain shook his head decisively with his eye smashed closed; knowing any bootleg software Alysis had was top drawer and was no danger.
“I’ll drink to that.” One of the guests laughed.
“And I’ll drink to that.” Byron quipped, pointing at the memory chip.
“Be careful,” Reese chuckled, “she’ll eat your lunch, boy.”
Byron studied the older, slow talking cyborg. “But . . . will I die with a smile on my face?”
Reese broke into a toothy grin. “Yeah, I guess there is that.”
. . .
Martin wandered on to the bridge overlooking the lounge and settled into the captain’s seat, a minute later Prowler jumped up into the co-pilots seat. Martin reached over and scratched the top of his head. “What do you think fella, are they worth keeping?” He smiled watching the two tiny dark haired women having an animated discussion, accompanied by much hand waving. Reese was sitting next to Leena in an obvious bull session with Briton and Steve. Alysis was holding court by the food cart with several others; Martin didn’t even want to know what they were talking about from the tone of the laughter. Swain and Burp were yakking about who knows what, but from Burp’s coloring he was enjoying himself immensely. Martin looked back at Prowler. “This is how it should be.”
. . .
It was quiet in the lounge with just Martin and Briton left. Burp was still gazing out from his display. Swain had left and then rejoined the group as the others started leaving. Martin was filled with contentment. “I understand some of the temporary cyborg stuff.” He nodded toward Burp. “Give your people a well done for me.”
Burp’s color swirled at the compliment. “I will do that, Major.”
“But how in the hell did you tie Leena and Gypsy together.” Martin laughed. “Although, when you see them side by side the resemblance is striking.”
Swain smiled with a shrug. “When I started working up Leena’s tissue profile the system always cross checks previous cyborgs looking for problems that could be genetically induced.” He sighed. “I didn’t put Gypsy in her container, but I know the lady who did. She is very good. Gypsy had a real problematic conversion, some of it was technical, some of it was personality.”
Martin nodded. “She mentioned one time it didn’t go well.”
Swain raised his eyebrows. “To say the least. Anyway when I processed Leena’s sample, Gypsy’s experience lit up like a ten credit whore house. As Reese put it.” He laughed. “They were so close genetically that they had to be related somehow. Reese looked at Leena’s records and dug up her aunt’s name. A name he remembered way too well.”
Briton straightened up. “Why’s that?”
Swain shrugged and shook his head.
Martin hesitated. “Reese killed her sometime during the Slorr rebellion.” He said quietly. “Along with Gypsy’s father. At least that’s what she told me.”
“Yikes.” Swain shuddered.
“Oh my word.” Burp gasped, his color inverting momentarily. “You humans lead extraordinary lives.”
“Reese never said a word in all the time I’ve known him. He’s talked about Gypsy once in a great while, but never her parents,” Briton mused. “I think this conversation should be forgotten.”
“Ok. Just give me a second to isolate it.” Burp stated.
Swain’s eyes widened. “Now wait a minute, Burp. You mean you can actually erase a memory?”
“Well, not erase exactly.” Burp explained. “We designate one of our eggs as a bad memory egg. I guess the closest analogy would be that we can place memories in it, but we can’t get them back out or recall them.”
“A real bad egg,” Martin laughed. He grew more serious. “I don’t suppose you let those eggs mature?”
“No, for some reason they just disintegrate if they are separated from their host. Probably a good thing.” Burp conceded. The koth thought for a second with subdued colors. “You mean you humans can’t really forget a bad memory?” His coloring faded even further. “You remember everything that happens in your life, good or bad.”
“No,” Swain shook his head, “memories fade as they grow old unless they are recalled periodically, or were something very important to us.”
Burp was very quiet for several seconds. “I think the memory of this gathering is very important to me,” his colors swirled wildly, “no, to us Koth as a race. The joy and love Gypsy felt must never be forgotten, just as the wild, free spirit of Alysis must always be remembered. These are human traits we can only observe and never experience. But most of all, it’s the memory of you, the ones who accept me and treat me as one of your own.” Burp was a fabulous fountain of light. “I think you humans are going to be very good for my kind.”
Briton laughed. “I know you Koth will be good for mankind, now that we’ve stopped killing each other.” His smile faded. “I’m afraid we have a bigger fish to fry.”
Burp faded noticeable. “And they will be back, stronger than ever.”
Swain sighed. “Let them come and do their worst. With the voluntary temporary cyborg program they’ll meet tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of warborgs, all with an attitude and packing Koth technology.”
Martin looked at Briton, Swain and Burp in turn. “To the future, gentlemen.” He said quietly saluting them.
“To the future.” Three voices repeated in unison.
Martin smiled; Burp was lit up so bright he did indeed look like a chandelier.
* * *
[1] Originally the aliens were known as Unknown Hostile Aliens or UHA’s. But early on in the fighting as a squadron of human fighters started their strike one of the pilots observed the three segmented enemy ships attacking the base station looked like moths flittering around a light. Another pilot responded they were killer moths. The first pilot quipped; A killer moth must be a Koth. The squadron was wiped out in the ensuing battle, but their command overheard the conversation. The name Koth gained popularity and was eventually formally adopted. The name Koth is a legacy to those brave pilots who made the ultimate sacrifice for humanity.
[2] Faster Than Light
[3] Deep space tugs working individually or in groups attach to hard points on unpowered cargo barges. Their specially modified FTL systems generate the FTL field around the barge, and phase lock the fields if working in groups. These phase locked fields are notoriously unstable and susceptible to cosmic ‘noise’. When the FTL field goes unstable the entire assembly drops back to normal space, while not hazardous it is considered a nuisance as re-establishing the field can take several minutes. These occurrences are minimized as the pilots learn the idiosyncracies of their individual ships.
[4]LK: Light Klick, one light second. Also commonly referred to as a klick.
[5] IFF : Identify Friend or Foe
[6] Hyper-Vel missile: A dumb missile (IE. no in-flight guidance capability)kinetic weapon with no warhead used for close in attack or barrage. Terminal velocity of 50,000 m/sec is achieved with a 500mSec slow burn fusion reaction in the base of the projectile. The projectile is composed of a pressure sintered lithium alloy with a twelve hour open space sublimation time. Standard launchers release one hundred projectiles per second.
[7] It is rare in the annuls of history to know exactly when a concept is born. The Gunfighter warship was designated as a fighter class ship in light of it’s single crewman. There was never a manned version of the ship developed due to the rigors of its mission profile. The main and only weapon on the ship was equivalent to a battle cruiser main ion cannon, with the exception being a prolonged cycle recovery rate, ranging from thirty seconds in the early series to less than one in the current models. The Gunfighter ships changed the course of space warfare. Large battle cruiser class ships and transports became unviable. They were easy targets for these quick deadly craft that would appear, fire and vanish inside of a few milliseconds, long before any defensive weapons could react.
[8] FTL drive systems employ a field that must be generated and balanced against the spacecraft they propel, hence every type of spacecraft will have a unique FTL field shape and density. Once an FTL field is established in normal space it is slightly unbalanced to achieve superlight velocities, to change direction while at superlight velocity the unbalancing is modified. Any change made to the FTL field causes it to resonate. A resonating field can be detected as a subspace distortion. The FTL fields degrade over time and must be regenerated, where as the spaceship does not lose any velocity during a regeneration cycle, this too causes the FTL field to resonate. For more information on FTL systems, FTL Basic Concepts by H. Storrs is recommended.
[9] Shortly after the Auxiliary Cerebral Tactical Medical Transport ship was registered this container type was adopted as the standard. All new warborgs were fitted with it and existing warborgs were retrofitted as their warcraft were replaced. Derivations of this container are still in use to this day and warborgs may visit Earth as they wish. As a side note, due to their pulsating FTL the common vernacular for these containers among the warborg is Buzz Bomb.
[10]The ‘oven timer’ is slang for a simple spring powered mechanical timer that utilizes a small self contained battery to re-start a ship that has completely powered down. Normally used in drone ships, but can be incorporated into any federation vessel, favored among scout ships and some warborgs.
[11] Extra Vehicular Activity