“That means we need to turn life support back on if we don’t want to kill them all.”
“Are we sure we don’t want to kill them all?” Kaur said, monitoring the channels.
“Yes,” Drexler replied. “It’s more work, but it will pay off in the end. Trust me. I got us this far, didn’t I?”
Tara and Huey took up their rifles and scurried back down the ladder. It was a big ship, and they had their work cut out for them.
“Lieutenant, let’s get to work figuring out these controls. Reggie, what have you got for us?”
“I’m still translating the control menus into standard tradespeak. It will be a while. Most of my resources are still working on main system control. Once Gajrup severs the main computer from the rest of the ship, I can shunt my shuttle controls in place.”
“Can’t Reggie 2 help you with this? Just call him back.”
“Can’t. He’s gone. Destroyed.” Reggie replied flatly.
“Oh no. Why didn’t you say anything?” Drexler asked with great concern.
“I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never died before. The sensation was unique to say the least.”
“You talk to that thing like it was a person,” Darzi suddenly remarked.
Drexler had a quick response. “To me, Reggie is a person. I grew up with him. He’s served my family and our crew for thirty years, and my father and his crew for more than a decade before we even were a family.”
At that moment, Drexler realized how much he missed his family. He’d spent so much time angry that they left that he did not realize how much he missed them. Life on the ship simply didn’t feel the same way without them. Drexler cursed under his breath. He had no time to be sentimental. “And you should be careful what you say. You don’t want to piss him off,” Drexler said.
Darzi grimaced inside her helmet. Unlike his own, Darzi’s helmet featured a transparent faceplate.
Reggie ignored the exchange and announced, “Bringing life support back online. You should be able get rid of those helmets soon.”
“OK, then,” Drexler said, “Open a channel to the ship.”
A moment later, Mumlo’s familiar rumble filled the helmet. “You’re alive.” the First Officer said. He sounded surprised and relieved.
“Nobody’s more surprised than me. What’s your status?”
“Well, before I cut off our transceiver, the Trade Union called to tell us everyone on the ship is now an outlaw. Are you sure you want to head to New Detroit? It’s 90 light years away, but technically, it’s still part of the Union.”
“Technically,” Drexler replied. “That’s what I’m counting on. There’s no love lost between the Federated Americas and the rest of the Union, especially in New Detroit. My contact there can help us. I plan to make it worth his while.”
“Speaking of which, the crew is still asking when they will be paid.”
Darzi’s head snapped at the comment. She was taking off her helmet to test the air when she heard Mumlo ask about pay.
“How the hell can they be worried about pay at a time like this?” Darzi demanded.
It was apparent to Drexler that the air was OK, so he deactivated his own helmet and pulled the loose cloth away from his face and let it drape across his shoulders.
“These are professional Merchant Astronauts. They’re always worried about pay. Most of them have families to support back in their Diasporas. This is life in space, Darzi.”
Drexler pushed some unidentifiable items to the deck from an equally bewildering control console and half-sat on it. He reached into his contraband pocket and produced another cigar. This time, he took some careful time with a small pocketknife to neatly trim the rounded end. He lit the cigar, puffing until he was certain it burned evenly.
“That’s tobacco, isn’t it?” Darzi asked.
“The finest,” Drexler replied. “Straight from the hydroponic capsules of the Brasillia. The finest tobacco the Federated Americas has to offer.” To illustrate his point, he took a long pull from the cigar and released the smoke in a series of perfect rings as he paced around the bridge. He made certain to release the last few cubic centimeters of smoke near the door to the supply room where they locked up the Lizards.
“It’s contraband in the Trade Union.”
“Well, one day they might repeal that silly law,” Drexler replied, puffing away. He leaned against the storage room door and smiled. He drew heavily from the cigar, said, “Sure, one or two Sentient species find it highly debilitating and addictive,” on the exhale, “but it has many, many uses beyond recreation.”
Darzi stopped pacing around the bridge and watched with great interest. Behind the storage room door came the sounds of furtive movement. Drexler slapped his hand against the door three times. “Is everyone OK in there?” he shouted.
The response was a chorus of hissing sounds accompanied by sharp claws scraping against the door.
“What?” Drexler shouted, blowing a large cloud of smoke directly onto the door face. The hissing intensified. “I can’t understand you! The tradespeak translators must be down. Don’t worry in there. We are here to rescue you.”
Darzi shook her head in disbelief and clamped her hand over her mouth to restrain the gales of laughter that threatened to tear down the illusion Drexler created like a master weaver. He stepped away from the door, said, “Thank the Lord that door is not airtight.”
“Captain,” Reggie called, “Gajrup reports he is ready to disconnect the main controls, but we have a problem.”
“Do tell,” Drex said.
“We might all die.”
Drexler choked on his smoke. “Come again?”
“We are at fractional-C right now. The shunt will take a few nanoseconds to cut over, and the ship will have zero guidance during that time.”
“So, what’s a few nanoseconds?” Drexler asked, before realizing the foolishness of his question. Darzi slapped her palm against her forehead.
“How did you pass your Captain’s exams?” Reggie asked, back to his old sarcastic self again. “Nanoseconds translate into millions of kilometers at this speed. The particle fields will drop to marginal levels during that time, and …”
“OK, OK,” Drexler said, recovering from his gaffe. “So I misspoke. What do we need to do?”
“I can take care of that,” Gajrup cut in. “I’m sending Huey up to you with instructions. I’m going to use the backup generators to create protective fields around the bridge and other critical areas.”
“What about the cargo holds?” Drexler asked. There was a long pause.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Gajrup said.
“We can’t kill all the Lizards,” Drexler replied.
“Reggie,” Gajrup said, his voice excited. “You can use the shuttle! Extend the field around the second cargo bay.”
“I could to that, but particle attenuation and polarity …”
Drexler tuned out the technobabble and called back to his ship. “Come in, Mumlo.”
“Captain here,” Mumlo replied.
“Bull-fucking-shit! Captain here!” Drexler shouted. He was not joking.
“Maybe if you make it back, that will be true, but right now, you’re the guy who turned us all into criminals.”
“We will get back, and I will command my ship again. In the meantime, be advised that we are taking control of this ship. The process means that we will be off course by an unknown vector. We may lose contact. Your orders have changed. I want you to maintain three-quarters C and let us catch up. We will proceed together to new Detroit.”
“I’ll think about it. Mumlo out.” and the channel went dead.
“Trouble at home?” Darzi asked.
“We share the same sense of humor, Darzi, but your timing is shit.”
“Too soon,” the Lieutenant replied. “I get it. Try having your entire career snapped off at the root, then we’ll talk.”
Drexler nodded his head and drew in a comforting stream of cigar smoke. The cabin was t
hick with smoke now. The scratching and thumps behind the door grew more intense.
Huey showed up via the bridge elevator. Drexler was impressed with how quickly Gajrup and Reggie managed to take over all the Lizard secondary systems. The Insectoid carried two silver, oval devices with him. He set to work tearing panels from consoles and connecting cables to the devices. Soon the bridge deck was crisscrossed with seemingly random runs of various-sized cabling.
“OK,” Gajrup called over the comm, “looks like Huey has the bridge online. Reggie has the cargo bays covered. Here we go.”
It seemed that the word “go” was still coming over the comm when the deck disappeared from his feet and Drexler’s un-helmeted head cracked against the high bridge ceiling. The only thing that saved his life was the automatic, but incomplete, deployment of his combat EV suit. Unfortunately for his cigar and nose, the hood helmet did not make it over his head.
Huey clung to the ceiling, wings unfurled and humming. “What what what…” his synthesized voice repeated. He was obviously rattled.
“Is it over? Drexler asked over the comm. Blood and snot flowed over his lip and into his mouth. He spat the gore all over the back of a white control console as he rose.
To his great surprise, Darzi appeared before him with medical gauze. She seized his head with surprising strength and facility and grabbed the bridge of his nose hard. He gave a brief yelp and the pain was excruciating for a split second before it disappeared entirely.
“Hold still,” Darzi said, almost softly. “This will set the nose, stop the pain and the bleeding.” The bandage did all three.
Drexler tried to nod his head, but it was clamped between Darzi’s long-fingered hands. She counted aloud to ten, then wrapped some tape around his nose and the back of his head.
“It’s not pretty, but it will hold and your nose should be fine by tomorrow.”
Drexler gave her the thumbs up and brushed the tattered remains of his cigar from the front of his jacket.
“It’s over, Huey. You can come down now.”
Huey released his death grip on the ceiling panels and thudded back down to the deck.
“Wow,” Huey said, shaking his head like a human. Drexler walked over to him and clapped him on one of his many shoulders.
“Is everyone OK up there?” Gajrup asked.
“Yeah,” Drexler said. “More or less. But are we GO, or what?”
“I am in complete control of this ship.” Reggie announced.
“Excellent. Set intercept course for Fleetfoot I at maximum speed. How is the shuttle?” Drexler asked over open comm.
“We’re all good down here,” Samuel replied. Didn’t feel a thing.”
“Is everyone stable?” Drexler asked.
“Yes. Why?” Samuel replied, knowing Drexler all too well. By the tone of his voice, Samuel knew Drex was up to something even more devious than space piracy.
“Why don’t you leave your patients for a while and come up to the bridge with a case of cigars.”
“A case…” Samuel’s voice trailed off. The sound of a hold hissing open came over the comm. “What the…”
“Thank you, Reggie,” Drexler told his friend.
“No problem. I’m always happy to use my shuttles to hide contraband.”
“How much tobacco is in here?” the incredulous Samuel asked.
“Let’s not ask that. Just bring up the case. It’s time we got to know our Lizard friends.”
22
When Fourseven saw her ship again, she found her wings spreading on their own and her stinger extended from her abdomen without her awareness. She noticed she was dripping venom from the uncomfortable shifting of the Arachnid soldiers in their flight chairs. She managed to check herself only when the fear pheromones reached her antenna.
“Forgive me,” Fourseven announced to the forward cabin. “It’s been the better part of a century since I’ve seen her.”
The graceful sweep of the ship’s leading edge shone like the blade of a scalpel. As the Arachnid ship approached, the smooth, sweeping lines of The Protector emerged from the half-light on the edge of the Insectoid heliosphere. They headed for the flattened oval at the center of the disc-shaped fuselage.
“Cila, please tell the fleet to hold at a hundred-thousand units distant. She may be wary of us after so long.”
The Arachnid General issued the order and the remainder of the fleet grew visible through the viewing bulkhead. Fourseven stepped close and placed her hand on the cold window into space. She waited.
“Protector knows I am here,” Fourseven whispered.
The cabin grew silent as Arachnid and Guardian insects alike crowded before the window. Several jumped when the tapered edge of the disc began to glow with the blue light of particle radiation.
“Cila,” Fourseven said, “tell the fleet to reverse slowly. We are too close.”
“You talk as if the ship is alive?” Cila responded, then relayed instructions to the fleet.
“It is very much alive. It is a creature of instinct, like the warmblood forest steeds Arachnids employed before the dawn of High Technology.”
“We still use those steeds for ranching,” Cila responded, “but mostly as a matter of tradition.”
“And just like your steeds, the ship is bonded to a single Insect or Insect family. I will need to go to her.”
Taking her statement as a command, Leader moved rearward to fetch his General’s armor. Fourseven held out her two sets of arms while never breaking eye contact with her ship, which slowly turned its leading edge toward the Arachnid fleet that formed a crescent around it. The winged soldiers dressed Fourseven in armor from the neck down, handing her the helmet only when she reached out for it. She tucked the helmet under her arm and turned to the soldiers surrounding her.
“Please escort me to the airlock.”
“Yes, General,” Leader replied with crisp eagerness. “I will also don my armor.”
“Later,” Fourseven replied. “I need to wake her up alone, then I will send for the fleet.”
General and Second in Command moved to the vessel’s rear section, and Fourseven stepped into the chamber immediately. It seemed to take an eternity for the airlock to cycle, and when her armor met hard vacuum, she had to restrain herself from turning her thrusters to full. Instead, she made her way at a restrained pace.
By the time her armored feet met the solid fuselage, the ship had already confirmed her identity. It welcomed her by forming a rectangular opening a few paces from her landing. The entryway created a long channel in the low angle of the disc. As she walked along the opening, it closed behind her. Helmet lights activated automatically to create shifting shadows as she moved along.
The ship was exactly how she remembered it. She was in the outer mechanical ring, where particle emitters and energy conduits flowed in regular, undulating lines like the capillaries of a sky tree leaf. She removed the gauntlets from her upper sets of hands and stowed them in their places on the utility belt, just so she could run her hands across the ship.
Fourseven knew the ship was not truly alive. As a machine, it could not be. Its intelligence was only rudimentary, and merely a function of its design. It had as much awareness of its surroundings and its own presence as a lower order warmblood. But the ship had always felt much more than that. The Ancient Builders created it specifically for the Queen of her hive. It had been passed down from Queen to Queen for thousands of years. The ship itself was part of her hive.
As she made her way through several hundred meters of inner hull, systems blinked and hummed to life. Status screens reported the checks and sums of various functions. She reached the outer command decks and stood before a wide service lift door, waiting for the car to arrive that would carry her up several hundred more meters to the bridge.
“Fourseven,” Cila’s voice came with colored in stripes of concern over the armor comm system. “Report status, please.”
In lieu of formal address, words of courtes
y like “please” stood in its place.
“Everything is well over here,” Fourseven responded. “I did become a bit lost in nostalgia. My apology for not reporting in sooner.”
“That’s a relief,” Cila replied. “Let us know when we can begin docking. Do you think your steed wants to blow us out of the sky?”
Fourseven placed her hand on the nearest bulkhead, opened her mandibles in a smile, said, “She knows you are friendly. I just need to activate the primary computers, then you can begin docking. I will need to borrow as many engineers as you can spare.”
“No problem there, my friend. I have engineers falling all over themselves to get their hands on your ship and its systems.”
“I certainly understand that,” Fourseven replied. She understood far too well. The ship was truly a thing of beauty and most creatures of her homeworld had only heard about it in legends. “I feel the same way myself. I have to remind myself that this is a machine, and she’s been asleep a long time. We have to take care of her.”
***
First officer Gholss was wary as his foot claw crossed the threshold of his Commander’s private chambers. His hand was fully grown now, but its flesh was still new and tender. The new hand still served as a reminder of the amount of respect due his Alpha. Being a keen student of Reptilian nature, Sslolg recognized the brief hesitation evident in his subordinate. He almost felt bad for biting off the young Reptile’s hand. He remembered similar harsh punishments meted out by his father. Sslolg was a defiant and willful hatchling who drew many lessons in the form of corporal punishment. He found command not that much different than parenting.
“Please,” Sslolg said with uncommon courtesy, “sit down.”
Gholss sat with an alert posture that was not lost on his Commander. Sslolg decided not to make any more overtures, unless his kindness be interpreted as weakness. He feared he might have crossed that boundary already, so he took a seat opposite the First Officer, faced forward and said nothing.
When the silence became thick between them, Sslolg said, “In three days’ time, we will rendezvous with the team at Kelgar 7. We will begin our assault on the Trade Union from there.”
Fleetfoot Interstellar: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 1 Page 19