Crucible: Records of the Argos

by Michael J. Farlow

The smile returned to his face, then faded as he lurched in apparent pain, his eyes going tightly shut.

  “Toor, help me. Where can we find him?” I still wanted to know Gurko’s plan, but I didn’t want to overload him. Gurko’s location was the first priority, and Toor was going fast.

  This time he mouthed something, but I couldn’t hear.

  “What? I couldn’t hear you.”

  “Ask… ask Larona.” His head rolled over as his muscles failed. Blood trickled from his lips, and he went silent. He was dead. I stared up at Sif and Doc with more questions than I started with.

  Chapter 12

  We were all a little depressed, except maybe Sif. We wanted Toor alive. We hoped he would be the key to unlocking some of the mysteries of what was happening on and around Tye, such as where Gurko could be found, what his true strength was, and what his plans were. There was a bright spot, however.

  “Nicky, wake up!” came the disembodied voice of Wizzy the magnificent.

  I was in the old captain’s quarters, just drifting off to a well-deserved sleep after twenty-four hours of seeking, chasing, and fighting.

  “Wa…what is it, Wizzy? Can’t it wait?”

  “Wait? No, this is important.”

  “Is it like the ship is on fire important, or like I lost my keys important?”

  “You lost your keys? Keys to what?”

  Now I was awake and not liking it. “Never mind, what’s so important that it can’t wait six or eight hours?”

  “Well, when you went to the Dreng, I sent a few of my bots along. You’ll never guess what I found.”

  “Spare me all the details and questions. Would you please just get to the basics, Wizzy?”

  “Oh, all right party pooper. The Dreng’s computer was still intact, sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Yes. I think the crew was starting to dump the data but were stopped by the blasts from the corvette. There was a dead crew member on the floor next to the computer core with a steel beam on his chest.”

  “I’ll bet that hurt,” I commented with a smile.

  “I don’t think so. You see, when the beam was taking the man down, he hit his head on the edge of a computer table and was likely dead before the full weight of the beam crushed him. Therefore…”

  “I get it, Wizzy. He was dead before he hit the deck. It’s a deck, by the way, not a floor. Now can we get to the part where you tell me about what you found on the computer?”

  “I was only trying to point out that the crew member didn’t actually feel anything when…”

  “Wizzy! The computer?”

  “Oh, yes, killjoy. The deletion of the data was only partially successful. There was still some residual data.”

  “Data on what?”

  I was hoping that everything we’d need from Wizzy in the future wouldn’t be so hard to pull from him.

  “Well, there were the last video records of the original crew of the Lotana. More important to us now, all of Toor’s storage sites and their inventories. There are more than forty of them on or near Tye, including, of course, the two we already know of. Oh, and the names of many of his cargo ships.”

  I was hoping there would be more information. It would have been nice to have a listing of all Toor’s agents, the names of all his superiors and their locations, all his passwords, and code words. But we were lucky to get what we had. But how would the storage sites help us? I guess we could gather up all Toor’s stuff and have a big garage sale, but that would only result in a large sum of script we didn’t need. Humm. The Resistance does need things, and so do we. Plus, I wanted to gain the Resistance’s trust and build an information network. I had an idea. But what about Larona? I decided there wasn’t anything I could do about her right now. Unless…

  We left the Dreng floating in space with a few of Wizzy’s bots on board to make her flyable again if that was possible. The Argos, now complete again with the Falcon nestled in, returned to Tye, where we parked in stealth outside controlled space above Viron. After finally getting some sleep during the return to Tye, I was in the Falcon simulator just outside of the bridge.

  “What’s the plan, Stan?” came the voice of Wizzy through my implant. I’d given up trying to figure out where Wizzy was getting the Earth slang that he was picking up and using. He didn’t seem to know what was old and what was new, however. I heard this one a long time ago from one of my uncles who was approaching 70 now. He told me he got it from a song by a guy named Paul Simon called 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. I never heard it. Anyway, I stopped my practice of high-speed attack turns and answered.

  “The first thing I want you to do is to determine what supplies and materials we need and what supply sites to visit to get them. Once we get what we need, you will transmit the locations of all the sites to the Resistance leadership. You know who they are, right?”

  “Sure. But why not just send it to Larona and let her deal with it?”

  “Let’s just say that my trust level of Larona declined a bit after Toor mentioned her name. It may be nothing, but this approach guarantees that the information will get to all the leadership. If something goes wrong, that will be another piece of evidence against Larona we can use.”

  “I can see how they could use the material, but why so kind-hearted?”

  “It’s less being kind-hearted than wanting to piss off Toor’s boss and get him to do something rash and expose himself or make a mistake.”

  “Ohhh, I see where you’re going. Not bad thinking for a chimp.”

  “Thanks for the compliment, Wizzy. Has anyone ever told you you’re an asshole?’

  “Hmm, nope.”

  “I just did.” He ignored me.

  “Then what?”

  “If you mean what will we do when Gurko makes a mistake, I don’t know yet. It depends on the mistake. If you’re asking what we’ll do if Gurko doesn’t expose himself, my idea is to be an annoyance. Maybe destroy or incapacitate some of his ships and his supply lines until he does make a mistake and reveals his location if we can’t find it in some other way.”

  “What if he decides to hunt us first?”

  That was an interesting thought. But with Argos’ design capabilities, I wasn’t too worried about being the hunted. With our superior stealth capability, we would be impossible to find. But forcing Gurko to come out after us might be another way to pin him down and assess his strength. A thought for later maybe if we couldn’t find him and complete our intelligence responsibilities easily. This mission was not turning out to be as easy or as straightforward as I thought it would be. We had been lucky in many respects so far, except in capturing Toor alive. Could that continue with just the four of us, five if you count Wizzy? It seemed unlikely the longer we were forced to stay here.

  “Interesting thought, Wizzy. But I don’t see it happening right now. Maybe later.”

  “Can I make a teensy-weensy suggestion?”

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “Why not capture and turn over all the ships to the Resistance? They could certainly use them.”

  “Believe it or not, Wizzy, my tiny brain already thought of that. It wouldn’t do any good. Gurko’s pirates would just capture them all back, and our position would be the same.”

  “Oh. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I was starting to see that as smart as Wizzy was, there were a few shortcomings in that massive brain of his. An interesting difference from the old Harry.

  It took less than a day for us to get the supplies we needed from a few of the sites. Then Wizzy contacted the Resistance with the remaining storage site information. Before he did, I told him to add the information about our sabotage. I didn’t add the information that Toor gave us. If Larona was a spy, mentioning her by name in wide distribution would be a bad intelligence move until I could talk to somebody I could trust.
After that, we started looking for the ships from the Dreng data. I also made sure Wizzy didn’t tell the Resistance what we were going to do with the ships or even that we knew about them. I really didn’t want the hassle that would come from their objections, above and beyond the possibility of a leak getting to Gurko.

  Wizzy had a good idea in that we should first locate as many of the ships as possible before causing any trouble. He would remotely secure an ID tracker on each ship before we started our attacks, if that was the right word. That took us a whole day, even with Wizzy’s ultra-smart brain. Unfortunately, of the more than ten ships on the list, we could only find five around Tye. I figured that would be enough, and Wizzy successfully attached a beacon on each one and logged its location. Three were over Viron, and two were over Kiber.

  Amini suggested that whatever sabotage or attacks that we intended to do, we should try to make it happen at the same time on all the ships. Her thinking being that if two or three ships went down first, the others might be spooked and have a chance to get away. I didn’t like that plan. Too complicated.

  I remembered stories my uncles used to tell about the Italians placing mines under allied ships during World War II. Each mine had a propeller that turned when the ship moved and after so many revolutions, the mine blew. The explosions occurred well away from the ports where the mines were attached, and the ships just disappeared. Nobody knew exactly what happened. I explained this concept to Wizzy.

  “Can you build something like those mines that we can attach to each of Toor’s ships?”

  “Sure, I can. But, Nicky, they won’t work.”

  “And why not?”

  “Duh! There’s no water in space and no airflow to turn the propellers.”

  I have lots of nice hair, but I didn’t feel like pulling any of it out.

  “I know that, shithead. I assume that with your magnificent brain, you could figure out another way to cause the explosions to happen when they’re far away from Tye.”

  “Oh,… I see. Hmm. Yes, I can do that. All I have to do is use the fabricator to make something like an ion counter that would be tuned to the ship’s plasma generator. Then…”

  “Spare me the details, Wizzy; can you make five of them?”

  “You bet, already started.”

  True to his word, in less than two hours, Wizzy had ten mines made in case we needed more later. He had even programmed two stealth drones to deliver them. That made it easy to attach mines to the two ships over Kiber before we relocated to space above Viron. Then everything went to crap.

  “Nick!” Amini called out urgently from her position on the Argos’ bridge.

  “Multiple messages from the Resistance on our secure link. They are being attacked at the larger storage sites. They need help.”

  “Put it on speaker.”

  “Argos, Argos, Argos. We are being attacked by armed forces at sites 9, 20, and 35. Urgent. Need help!”

  9, 20, and 35 were the three largest and most valuable storage sites on Toor’s data file. All contained munitions and most contained valuable minerals and food supplies. Damn! How did they know the Resistance was going after the sites? It had to be from the general message we sent to the Resistance. Yet more evidence of a spy. Was it Larona? Possibly and maybe likely. On top of what I told them about the sabotage via message, they had to start adding two and two themselves.

  Amini must have alerted Doc and Sif because they quietly entered the bridge and took seats.

  “Put those locations on the Tye projection map on the main viewscreen.”

  Instantly, three pulsing red circles appeared on the map. 9, the smallest of the three, was pulsing its position less than fifty miles from Kiber. The other two were equidistant between Kiber and Viron, out in the middle of nowhere but within a thousand yards of each other. We all studied the map for a few moments when Doc spoke up.

  “What in the name of our ancestors are we supposed to do? There are only four of us.”

  Doc was right. I couldn’t see how four of us could help. Sif had been giving us all combat training during FTL flights. That would help. In Iraq, I was an intel officer, not a combat officer. However, in addition to the training before this mission, I had additional combat training prior to deployment in Iraq, and I felt I could handle myself under most circumstances. But I was never involved in significant ground combat. When I left Earth for space, I had plenty of exposure to fighting with and in ships. That plus my intel experience is what pointed to my selection to command this mission. Some might say that it helped that my father was now the commander of all allied forces. I like to think he wouldn’t stand for that. So, the idea of engaging and even leading combat dirt side was not something I would put in my resume, at least not yet. All that being said, I could exercise the “deal with the unexpected as appropriate” part of my orders. Then there was the moral pull to a call for help. We all had some training, but there just weren’t enough of us to make a difference.

  “Ahem,” came the voice of Wizzy, whose holo image appeared on the bridge. His arms were crossed, and one foot was tapping up and down. I’d say tapping on the deck, but he was floating in front of us. “Am I not part of the crew, Doctor? By my count, that makes five of us.”

  Doc’s face flushed as he realized what he had done. “My apologies, Wizzy. But even with five, that still seems much too few.”

  Amini nodded. “That’s true, Nick. What can we do?” Sif just watched and listened, probably not understanding the reluctance to fight.

  I was ahead of them in some ways. Five, including Wizzy, was a small rescue force not likely to make a big difference, except maybe in air power.

  “We can man two shuttles, one for each location. They are armed with lasers and a rapid-fire cannon (Wizzy had upgraded the shuttles to add a cannon, which fired the larger of the explosive-tipped rounds found on the hulk near the moon Ledo). Wizzy can handle the Argos while we’re gone.”

  Sif finally spoke. “That will be good, but the fight, like all fights, will be won on the ground, and we don’t have enough for that.”

  That put a damper on our hopes when Wizzy spoke again.

  “My, my. Are you all forgetting the robots?”

  “Robots?!” four of us exclaimed at the same time.

  “Yes. We have ten, you know — part of our initial loadout. AND I have been improving them over time. They are now a bit taller, faster, armored, and can carry improved weapons, including rifles with explosive-tipped rounds. As before, they can be controlled by me or any of you in battle armor.”

  My eyes opened wide. “You mean like the Battle Bots on the Discovery channel back on Earth, just bigger and better?”

  “Puh-leasssse. There is no comparison.” Wizzy answered, arms outstretched.

  I paused for a moment, then asked as my anger grew, “And why haven’t you mentioned these battle bots before?”

  “Didn’t need to. We had no use until now.”

  My fists balled up, and my face turned red. Amini broke the confrontation.

  “Take it easy, Nick. Wizzy is right. Plus, there is nothing we can do about that right now.” She turned from me to face the holo image. “Wizzy, are these, um, battle bots ready to go?”

  “Of course.”

  Amini turned back in her nav chair to face me. “Then we do have an increased capability that could make a difference and save lives.” The moral pull just became much stronger.

  After I took a few breaths, I had to admit she was right, and a plan formed in my mind.

  Wizzy maneuvered the Argos midway between the two areas of confrontation and assumed a stationary orbit in stealth mode. Sif and Doc boarded one shuttle. Doc would fly, and Sif, in battle armor, would lead five battle bots. Amini and I were aboard the other shuttle, me in battle armor to lead my half of the bots while Amini flew air cover.

  Before we launched, Wizzy wa
s able to get a good view of the battle zone and relayed it to each of the four of us and the bots. We were also linked into the commander of each element of the Resistance. Needless to say, they were relieved that we were coming to help. They were near collapse from the armed pressure facing them as they held off the enemy from the shelter of the storage bunkers.

  I was sure this whole attack thing would be nothing for Sif with his combat experience, but I wasn’t quite sure about myself. That’s probably why Sif suggested I take the smaller site, 9, while he went after the two larger sites. That was okay by me.

  Amini landed several hundred yards away from the fight, the turbines kicking up dust as we set down. After we disembarked, Amini took off to provide cover and guide us to the site of the fight. I led off and was relieved to see that, without my having to say anything, the battle bots fell in on either side of me as we approached the fight. As I looked right and left for surprises, I was stunned when one by one, the bots disappeared. What the hell! I thought, then checked my helmet screen. There they were, five blue images in the same positions. They had turned on their stealth mode. Dumb me, I forgot that I had that same capability with my armor and quickly turned it on. For control, Wizzy had given each bot a number to make command easier, and each blue spot on my visor screen was now matched with a number.

  We climbed a slight rise, and the battle came into view below us. Sure enough, the Resistance forces were trapped in the overhang leading to the interior of the storage bunker. Daylight from Tye’s star was beginning to fade. However, there was enough to see the enemy arrayed in an arc in front of us in the shelter of rocks, at least thirty of them. By luck, I think, we were behind the enemy and above them. This might be easier than I thought, ran through my mind when I slapped myself on the side of the head for being too optimistic — failing to remember I had a helmet on. It didn’t hurt anything except my pride.

  “Resistance One, this is Support One. We see you and are prepared to engage.”

  “At last!” came the stressed voice in response. “We are trapped here. Be advised some of the enemy have armor.”