Solomon Family Warriors II

by Robert H. Cherny

  Elizabeth’s hospital module would become an adjunct to the station’s medical center and would include a training venue and quarantine facility. The hangar deck would host some of the Security Service’s spacecraft and provide training for maintenance personnel. The battleship portion would become a large private residence for Greg, Kim, Peter and Rose who preferred its spartan atmosphere to their more lavish quarters on the station. Of course, should Elizabeth’s combat capabilities be required, they would be available from the stationary location.

  The logistical and technical challenges were addressed and solved as they became apparent.

  GENERATIONS - CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  FOUR PEOPLE STOOD in their flight suits facing Tracker and Huntress where they sat on Elizabeth’s bustling hangar deck. Greg’s eldest son and Avi’s eldest daughter had left a year ago to study medicine at Eretz. Peter’s eldest daughter had left at the same time to study law on Earth. Rose’s eldest son had gone with Peter’s daughter to study engineering. All pledged that when their studies were complete they would return to Stellar and support the company. Their decisions had been heartily endorsed and encouraged by friends and family.

  It was therefore little surprise that the second eldest in each of these families would one day stand and face these two venerable and honored warships. The truth was, for all the attention they received, Tracker and Huntress were bored out of their minds. They hoped that these four would change all that.

  Greg’s daughter spoke for all of them. “Our parents promised us that after our eighteenth birthdays we could ask you to take us anywhere we wanted to go. The last was yesterday. We have come to collect on that promise.”

  “Where would you like to go?” Tracker asked.

  “We have procured a Class Two cargo ship to use as a tender and provisioned it for a year’s voyage. We would like to spend the next year escorting convoys at the fringes of the system.”

  “What about munitions?” Huntress asked.

  “We have stocked the munitions magazines in accordance with the simulations we worked together. We believe we have an adequate supply.”

  “Do you have a convoy in mind?” Tracker asked.

  “There is one departing in three hours. We wish to join it.”

  “Very well, then, we had best be going,” Huntress replied.

  Elizabeth noted the departure and duly informed the appropriate parents. They all knew that this was but a step in the training that would one day put one of these four in the chairman’s seat of Stellar Interstellar Freight. When the time came, Greg would happily relinquish the seat to one of them as Timothy had insisted Greg take it when, too old and ill to properly manage the company, he had stepped down.

  No one expected the travelers back for at least ten years, but they knew once they returned, the future would be bright for Stellar Interstellar Freight well into the next century.

  GENERATIONS - CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  GREG LOOKED UP AS his younger son, the youngest of his three children and the only one still at home entered his office.

  “Hey Dad, are you okay? You look beat.”

  “We lost two ships in sector 305 and I’m concerned about increased pirate activity in that area. But that’s not important, not right now. I read an absolutely glowing report gushing with praise about you preventing a major collision in the yard today. I’d almost deny I knew you if I didn’t know better. The harbor-master was very impressed.”

  “I was just doing my job, Dad. No big deal. A courier missile came in from Huntress. It’s addressed to you.”

  Greg took the offered capsule and popped open the seal. He removed the data module and plugged it into his reader.

  “It’s your sister,” Greg said. “Come around. You can watch.”

  “Hey, Dad, Sector 305 is a little cleaner than it was, but we need to send more support to help finish the job. We recovered the ships and crews the pirates took but we could not save the cargo. The crews are a little worse for wear, but they will recover. We also rescued a colony ship. Slavers had just attacked when we arrived. It was a nasty fight. We’re at Depot 409. We’re coming home. Tracker and Huntress are so badly injured we had to shut them down. The tender held together for the trip to the depot, but it needs a major overhaul before it goes out again. We are leaving it here and hitching a ride on a super freighter. I know the crews in the escorts and they’re some of the best in the company. We’ll see you in a couple of months. Give our love to everyone.”

  “At least they’re finally coming home,” Greg said. “I never expected them to stay out fifteen years.”

  “Dad, they love it out there. You can’t tell me you didn’t love the action and adventure.”

  “I did for a while, but I don’t know, this is better.”

  “I get it, Dad. Oh, would you like me to contact Matilda so she can see what she needs to do to restart Tracker and Huntress? It’s been a long time since anyone tried to restart a sentient PI ship. There are detailed instructions in Peter’s logs, but I don’t understand them.”

  “Yes, please do. Tracker and Huntress are as much a part of this family as we are. We should consult Elizabeth. I’ll bet she can help.”

  “I’ll do that. I have more news. Gabby found Avi’s original logs. They include the time she was at the Academy and when she was traveling solo before she settled down at Homestead. Gabby sent me a copy.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Dad, I have a huge favor to ask. I know you and Mom want me to move out and get married and find a place of my own, but I would rather stay with you and devote my free time when I am not working to writing the family history. I have all the logs. The story deserves to be told from our side.”

  Greg looked at his son and carefully said, “You explain this to your mother. I’m just as happy to have you stay with us, but I think she has other plans for both of us.”

  “I know. that’s why I intend to ask her help in writing the book.”

  Greg laughed. “Don’t give up your day job.”

  “I won’t, Dad, I promise.”

  “Let’s go before your mother shoots the both of us for being late for dinner. You know, I seem to remember a certain young lady who taught history in the junior college that you liked a lot a few years back. Perhaps she could help you write the book. Is that a smile I see on your face?”

  “Yes, Dad, I already asked her and she said she’d be thrilled.”

  “And you can write many more stories together, perhaps even a lifetime of them.”

  “One step at a time, Dad. One step at a time.”

  Father and son laughed as they walked together in the direction of dinner.

  GENERATIONS - CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I WAS ON DUTY when Tracker and Huntress arrived. The in-system interceptors that had escorted the freighter to the dock had sent ahead images so I knew what to expect. Still, I was stunned by the scope of the damage. Any other ships would have been abandoned or pushed into a star rather than hauling them so far in the hope of repair.

  I was the only one in my family who could view the arrival with the professional detachment required of a harbor traffic controller. My family is not known for emotional outbursts but when Greg saw the remains of the two ships he wailed like he had been sliced with a hot knife. Aunt Avi openly cried. Uncle Peter stood stunned, too shocked to even speak. Aunt Rose simply fainted to the ground.

  I always thought I understood the relationship with these ships, but on that day I realized I had only the vaguest clue as to the depth of the sentiments that passed between these people and the ships. These ships had been their playmates, their protectors, their tutors and their weapons. The ships had shared their joys, their triumphs and their grief. At first I thought it strange that they would act this way. But as I watched the tears flow down my father’s face, I realized that losing these ships was like losing a child, a parent and a sibling all at the same time. It didn’t matter whether these ships were truly sentient or merely well programmed and appea
red sentient. To these people grieving at the observation window next to the dock, these ships were people.

  I guess I should have expected what happened next, but it caught me by surprise as much as it did the others. Less than an hour after arriving home, my sister and her traveling companions announced that they were going out again. They were not staying. They had no intention of being locked up in the council rooms and they had unfinished business to attend to. They had arranged to take an escort out with a convoy leaving in a few hours and they might never be back. I had never seen my father shout in anger, but he did for an hour. He and my sister screamed at each until they were both hoarse.

  Suddenly he capitulated.

  He told me later that he realized he was at the point where if he did not back down he would drive her away forever. That was a mistake he would not be able to live with. They reconciled before she left. I hear from her at random intervals and she has been home a couple of times since, but she’s never coming home to stay. She’s much too dangerous, and she knows it. She enjoys killing people. She devotes her energies to tracking down pirates, slavers and traffickers in contraband. Even the Swordsmen fear her, although she has never attacked them.

  Matilda and Elizabeth did everything they knew to find replacement parts to fix Tracker and Huntress. Short of manufacturing all the parts from the shop drawings, there was no way the ships could be salvaged. However, after gleaning bits and pieces from Peter’s log, Greg’s log, and Avi’s log, they determined that they could take the central processors and memory banks from Tracker and Huntress and transplant them into convoy escort ships.

  Dad ordered three specially equipped convoy escort ships. The transplants worked. Matilda went on the maiden voyage and did not return for a long time. Elizabeth left behind a variant of herself named “Victoria” and while my kids think Victoria is a wonderful friend, I know she’s not Elizabeth.

  I hear from Elizabeth, Tracker and Huntress about as often as I hear from my sister. The last I heard from them they were in Sector 574 gleefully annihilating pirate bases. They use social networking to recruit human crews who stay with them for a year or so and then head off to live the rest of their lives, much improved for the experience.

  Matilda returned recently. She came back pregnant. She refuses to identify the father, but she has enough supportive family and friends that the child will be well cared for and have plenty of male role models in its environment.

  Dad is mentoring one of Timothy’s granddaughters to take over for him when he retires. She currently chairs the junior council and is well respected. I have liked her as long as I have known her. She will be the first woman to hold the title and will do an excellent job.

  Gabby sent me a copy of the family tree she has been working on most of her adult life. We’re into our eighth generation since Greg and Avi landed together on Homestead. There’s a lot of us when you include the Rothschild family. We’re a diverse lot and I guess that is as it should be.

  I think it’s time to wrap this up. At some point you just have to say the book is done. Supper is ready and I don’t want to be late.