by Dietmar Wehr
“I can hear you, Saren. I’m coming back out.”
“Dammit, Troy, you had us worried. What part of be back in 15 minutes did you not understand?”
As he approached the doorway, Remington checked the time. Fifteen minutes and forty-four seconds. So he was a few seconds late. Sometimes McKnight could be a real pain in the ass.
“I was unavoidably detained by the—” He stopped and wondered what he should call the alien female. Captain? Pilot? He made a decision. “—pilot of this ship.” By this time, he was pushing his way through the outer hatch. When McKnight replied, it was obvious that she thought he was pulling her leg.
“Let me guess. The Pilot is a beautiful scantily clad woman, and she wanted you to help her repopulate her species, right?”
Remington had to think about his reply for a second. “The answer to your question is: yes, no, yes and no.”
Nakatomi caught on first. “Are you telling us that there really is a live woman in there?”
Remington shrugged inside his spacesuit. “I’m not sure about the live part, but I was trying to communicate with a holographic image of a female who looked alien and also, by the way, beautiful. I think that image was what the woman looked like before her brain was removed from her body and installed into the control system of this ship. We were just beginning to communicate when my 15 minutes were up. I conveyed to her that I would be back with another person, so I think Yo and I should get back there before she gets the wrong idea. She seems to be friendly, and I think we should keep it that way.”
“My God, you’re serious,” said McKnight.
“Damn right I am. Come on, Yo. You’re gonna love this. Oh, by the way, Captain, you can have your gun back. I’m pretty sure I won’t be needing it.” He held the gun out to McKnight who took it reluctantly.
“Okay, I hope you’re right about this. How much oxygen do you have left?”
Remington checked and said, “I’ve still got plenty. Enough for almost two hours yet, but I won’t need it, because the Pilot provided a breathable atmosphere for me.”
“Well even so, I don’t. So I want both of you back here in one hour. Understood?”
“Understood, Boss, but don’t have a heart attack if we’re a few minutes late, okay?”
“Just get going already. The clock’s ticking,” said McKnight.
Remington and Nakatomi both laughed.
Remington went through the hatch first, with Nakatomi hot on his heels. He heard her gasp when she saw the light coming from what he thought of as the Bridge. The holographic alien was still there and still smiling. As soon as both humans were inside the room, the door started to close. Remington was ready for that.
“We’ll be able to open our faceplates in a few seconds, Yo, but the air is going to be cold and thin.”
“Did she say anything the last time?”
Remington realized that she hadn’t and wondered why she was bothering with the atmosphere when all communication so far had been using gestures. A possible answer came to mind.
“No, but I figure she wants to help us preserve our suits’ oxygen reserves so that we can stay here longer. Okay, pressure has stabilized. Go ahead and open your faceplate.” With that out of the way, Remington looked at the image and said, “Well, I promised that two of us would come back and we did. My name is Troy Remington.” He pointed to himself then pointed to Nakatomi. “Her name is Yoko Nakatomi.” He then pointed to the image. “Your name is…”
The alien face pointed to him and an electronic voice said, “Mynameistroyremington.” She then pointed to Nakatomi. “Hernameisyokonakatomi”
It was clear to Remington that she had no idea that his speech was made up of discrete sub-units. When she pointed to herself, he was expecting to hear his own words repeated again, but instead he heard the electronic voice say, “Val Ky Ree”. Remington and Nakatomi both looked at each other and smiled.
“Check to make sure, Troy,” said Nakatomi in a low voice.
He turned back to the image, pointed at her and said, “Your name is Valkyrie?”
She nodded. The electronic voice said, “Valkyreee.” With emphasis on the last syllable. He repeated the name with the same emphasis. Another nod from the image. Okay, so far so good. Now let’s get down to business here. On an impulse, he took off his helmet. Val Ky Ree’s smile grew even wider. After a brief hesitation, Nakatomi did the same. Val Ky Ree seemed to look closely at Nakatomi’s face, then at Remington’s face. She pointed to Nakatomi’s chest and then at her own chest. “Tonallee?” Remington looked at Nakatomi’s space-suited figure. Yes, the chest area of the suit did hint at female breasts, as did Val Ky Ree’s holographic figure. This is going to be interesting, he thought to himself.
“I think she’s asking if I’m female like her,” said Nakatomi.
“I’m sure of it,” said Remington, “Go ahead and nod.”
Nakatomi did one better. She nodded, pointed to her chest and said, “Tonallee” and after a short pause, “female”. She then pointed to Remington’s groin and said, “Male”. He was certain that he was blushing and hoped Val Ky Ree didn’t notice.
Val Ky Ree nodded, pointed to herself and said, “Female”, then pointed to Remington’s groin and said, “Male” followed by “Nallee” Was it his imagination or was there a different tone to that last word?
In a low voice he said, “If she starts to remove her holographic uniform, I’m outta here.”
Nakatomi giggled and managed to say, “You and me both.”
Val Ky Ree didn’t seem to understand why Nakatomi was giggling but waited patiently for her to stop. Remington was expecting her to say something else, but another holographic image appeared, and this time it was several smaller versions of Val Ky Ree, plus three more muscular figures that Remington immediately thought of as his alien male counterparts. Val Ky Ree pointed to each figure in turn, saying “Aesir,” each time. She then looked at Nakatomi.
“I think I know what she’s trying to convey, Troy. She seems to expect me to reply.”
“That’s fine with me, Yo. Go ahead.” He relaxed a little as Nakatomi started speaking. He had a feeling that a female pilot would have more in common with a female engineer than with a male pilot. He hoped his blush was fading by now.
Chapter Two:
McKnight checked her chronometer for the nth time and cursed again. Why did she even entertain the possibility that they would be back on time? They were almost ten minutes overdue, and she was now asking herself how long she should wait before doing something. Not that she had any idea what she would do. Taking the ship and leaving this system was simply out of the question. Going into the alien ship herself was also a bad idea because if something happened to her, there was no one left to pilot her ship back to base, and the ship’s disappearance would be a mystery compounded by the negative impact the loss of one of only three human-controlled ships would have on human survival.
“…have to….power unit. We can…for a while,” said Nakatomi.
McKnight gave a silent thanks that Nakatomi’s static-filled voice meant that they were clearly returning to the hatch. “You people are determined to give me a heart attack, aren’t you?” she asked in an exasperated voice. She saw Remington’s helmet appear through the hatch opening as he spoke.
“Sorry about the heart attack, Saren, but wait ‘til you hear what we’ve learned.”
McKnight waited, and when it became clear that Remington wasn’t going to say anything else, she said, “Okay, I’m waiting.”
Both Remington and Nakatomi laughed. “Sure, but can we tell you inside the Flush? I don’t know about you, Captain, but I’ve been in this spacesuit long enough, and I need a break from it.”
McKnight was about to insist they tell her immediately, but realized that she was getting tired of the suit too. “Fine. Back to the ship it is.”
When all three of them were inside and had taken off their spacesuits, they floated over to the area that served as crew lo
unge and kitchen. Remington started preparing coffee for all three. “Why don’t you start the briefing, Yo, while I make the coffees?”
“My pleasure,” said a grinning Nakatomi. She took a deep breath and began speaking. “Okay, we’ve managed to exchange quit a bit of information in the limited time we had. The intelligence that’s controlling that ship is called Val Ky Ree. Troy still thinks she’s a biological brain that’s been transplanted into a cybernetic connection with the ship’s systems. I think she’s actually an artificial intelligence that’s developed sentience and a personality, maybe a personality modelled after a living individual. Anyway, Val Ky Ree clearly thinks of herself as female.”
McKnight heard Remington chuckle. Nakatomi continued. “She was created by a race of beings called the Aesir. Apparently they fought a huge battle with an alien race that attempted to invade our galaxy from the Andromeda Galaxy. We’re not sure how long ago that battle took place, because converting her time units into ours is a little difficult, but there’s no doubt that this battle took place a long time ago. Her ship, which by the way seems to be one of the smaller warships the Aesir used, was badly damaged, and because her power levels were so low, she had to basically go to sleep in order to keep her brain viable. She’s asking us for help in repairing her ship. From the limited technical information that we were able to understand, she has the capability to repair her ship herself if she has enough power-generating capacity. One of our backup generators would be enough for her to get the repair process started. As soon as she has repaired her own damaged power units, we could take our generator back, and she could carry on by herself. We didn’t agree to help her, because we wanted to get your approval first. You are the Captain of the Busted Flush after all, but Troy and I are convinced that we should do this if Val Ky Ree will agree to help humans in return.”
McKnight didn’t respond right away. Remington brought the coffees over to the other two, looked at McKnight’s expression and sighed. She didn’t look happy about the news.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to hand over our only remaining backup generator, which we might desperately need ourselves at any time if one of the main power units breaks down, so that an alien intelligence can repair a massive warship just on a verbal agreement that it will somehow help us humans. Have I got that right?”
Nakatomi looked like she was trying to think of how to respond when Remington jumped in. “Yeah, that’s basically right, Saren.” He ignored the frown on McKnight’s face when he used her first name again. “I admit that it sounds like she might take advantage of us and maybe even pose a threat, but think of what she could do for us if she’s trustworthy. If she can repair her own more advanced equipment, then she could also produce equipment that we humans could use. We wouldn’t have to continue to try to buy barely functioning junk from one of the Compact Races. If she’s also willing to let the Compact see her as a fully functioning warship that’s allied with humans, that would earn us a lot more respect and maybe offers of material and/or technical assistance, whereas right now all we’re getting is their equivalent of the middle finger. But there’s one more argument in favor of doing this that I think clinches the debate. If we don’t help her, she has no incentive to co-operate any further. The hatch will close and stay closed, and we’ll be back to a situation where our only remaining option is to sell the information about her location to a Compact Race, and they’ll get their hands on her technology, probably by tearing the ship apart. Who knows what they’ll do to Val Ky Ree’s brain, and we humans will continue to be the object of their contempt.”
McKnight said nothing and took a sip of her coffee. After pondering his comments for a few seconds, she looked at him and said, “I don’t know if this is a decision that I have any right to make considering the wider implications for the 4,977 humans who are left in the universe. If this Val Ky Ree ends up going rogue on us, she might exterminate us all by herself, and even if she doesn’t, if she goes on a rampage against any of the Compact Races, THEY will blame us, and I shudder to think of what they could do to us. No, I think we should head back to base, inform the Committee of the situation and pass the buck to them.”
“Oh Niflheim Saren, you know the Committee will play it safe and sell Val Ky Ree to the Compact! Aren’t you tired of being spit on by members of the Compact? I sure as hell am! Besides which—” he paused and looked at Nakatomi who nodded ever so slightly, “—I like this Val Ky Ree. If a member of a Compact race needed help and we had a chance to provide it, we would, because it’s the right thing to do. Helping Val Ky Ree is not only the right thing to do morally, it also has the potential to be a huge windfall for the human race if we handle it correctly. She doesn’t understand human politics and committees. If we leave now, Val Ky Ree will think we’ve turned our backs on her. Even if we return, she may not let us back in. We may never get another chance at this kind of thing! I agree with Yoko. We should take the spare generator back to her ship and offer it on condition that she help us after her ship is repaired.”
McKnight shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, I can’t agree to that. We leave as soon as we put a beacon on the hull so that we can find the ship again. That’s it!” With that she took her coffee and pushed herself in the direction of the ship’s cockpit. “You place the beacon, Yoko. Troy, I want you in the cockpit. You’ll calculate our exit vector while I evaluate your performance. Let’s get moving, people.”
As McKnight left the lounge, Nakatomi maneuvered herself close to Remington’s head. “You need to keep her distracted when I disconnect the spare generator.” she said in a low voice. After a brief hesitation, Remington nodded. He was as good as his word. When she had her spacesuit back on, she went over to where the spare generator was located and disconnected it from the rest of the ship. That would normally show up as a flashing yellow indicator light on the cockpit control panel, but there was no query from McKnight, so Troy must have found a way to prevent her from noticing the indicator. Once she was outside the Flush, it wouldn’t matter if McKnight noticed, because there was nothing she could do to stop Nakatomi. Luckily the generator was small and light enough that she could maneuver it around in the zero gravity fairly easily. When she closed the airlock inner hatch and started depressurizing it, she jumped in surprise when she heard McKight’s voice.
“Hurry up with that beacon, Yoko. Navcomp is set up and ready to initiate.”
“Yeah, yeah. I still think this is a shitty way to treat Val Ky Ree, Captain,” said Nakatomi, thinking McKnight might get suspicious if she stopped being her usual argumentative self.
“Just plant the damn beacon and get back here asap.”
McKnight must have been using the external cameras because as soon as Nakatomi left the ship, the jig was up.
“Yoko! That’s not a beacon. Is that the spare generator?” There was a pause during which Nakatomi heard McKnight and Remington talking in the background, and then McKnight was back on. “God dammit, Yoko, you get that generator back in here right NOW, or I swear I’ll have your Ship’s Engineer’s Certificate revoked!”
“Plenty of work for a trained Engineer on the colonies, Captain. I won’t starve. This is the right thing. I’m sure of it. So is Remington. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to install this generator, so don’t count on me being back by a certain time.”
“You listen to me, Yoko. You’ve got three minutes to get back inside the airlock. After that, the ship is leaving, understand? You’ll eventually run out of oxygen, and you’ll die! I mean it, Yoko!”
Nakatomi heard Remington shout ‘no’ in the background as she laughed. “I suspect that with this extra power installed, Val Ky Ree can generate as much oxygen as I’ll need, and I’d be surprised if she couldn’t generate enough water to keep me alive too. Food would eventually become a problem, but you see, Captain, this generator is going to get installed no matter what you do. Whatever the Committee might think about lending this generator to Val Ky Ree, they’re not going to
be too happy about the murder of one of the few remaining trained Engineers, especially when my death won’t stop me from doing this. Do you really think anybody will agree to crew with you again if you’ve DELIBERATELY left one of your people behind?”
“Damn you, Nakatomi!”
McKnight must have moved away from the mic because Nakatomi heard both her and Remington shouting at each other in the background. Nakatomi looked at the hatch of Val Ky Ree’s ship. It was still open. When she got inside what Remington described as Val Ky Ree’s Bridge, the door slid shut, and the room began to pressurize. Val Ky Ree’s holographic image re-appeared and pointed to the generator with raised eyebrows. Nakatomi laughed and held her hand up in what she hoped would be understood as a ‘wait’ gesture.
As soon as air pressure stabilized, she took off her helmet and pointed to herself and then to the generator. “Humans help Val Ky Ree.” She then pointed to the image. “Val Ky Ree help humans?”
The Val Ky Ree image nodded, and an electronic voice repeated Nakatomi’s words. Nakatomi smiled and nodded, then pushed herself over to a display that seemed to show a schematic of the ship. Pointing to the generator, then to the schematic, she said, “Where…does…this…go?” To her surprise, the Val Ky Ree image held up her own hand in the same kind of ‘wait’ manner. Nakatomi heard a faint rushing sound and guessed, correctly as it turned out, that Val Ky Ree was pressurizing some of the corridors so that Nakatomi could move to the appropriate area without having to don her helmet and use up precious oxygen in her suit. Before too long, the door slid open without any loss of air. Nakatomi saw that a second, yellow line was now appearing on the floor beside the blue one. She pointed to her helmet and raised her eyebrows. The image shook her head. Okay, Val Ky Ree, I trust you. Time to get to work.