by Jerry Boyd
“Thanks.” I took out my Ruger, cleared it, and laid it on the bench. Then I laid my spare magazines beside it. I put on the new stuff instead, and went through all my normal drills. It was a little scary how close Nunya had gotten the new gun to the old one. I really couldn’t feel a difference, except for less recoil. I had made a good dent in Nunya’s box of magazines when my comm rang. Jackie said, “Boss, it’s time to train again. Could you come to the ready room, please?”
“I need to clean up a few things here, and I’ll be right there.”
“See you then.” The call ended, and I started gathering things to put away. Nunya said, “Nope, you have more important things to do. I’ll get that, Boss.”
“Alright. I’m ready to start carrying it, once you have it cleaned. You did a whale of a job on this, Nunya. I’m proud of you.”
“Hold all that till I get the new rifle finished. It’s still giving me some trouble.”
“I have faith in you. You’ll figure it out.”
“Get back to doing Captain things, and let me clean up.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” She started to turn, and I saw a gleam in her eye, but she decided against it at the last second. I decided to ignore the fact she had been hanging out with Dee too much. I got to the ready room, and Jackie lit me up. I was alone when I came out of it, so I decided to go to the galley and thin out the blood in my caffeine system. I was looking for the secrets of life in the bottom of my cup, when Steve said, “Do you have time to talk a minute, Boss?” I looked up and said, “Sure. What’s on your mind?”
“The Squirrels get really nasty with their booby traps, Bob. If they’ve rigged those ships, they probably have it done up so that no robot can approach without setting it off. Some of their stuff even has a sensor that tells how heavy a person is when they are approaching, and if they are too heavy to be a Squirrel, it blows.”
“How complicated is the disarm procedure?”
“We do get a break there. None of their stuff is that hard to disarm. They seem to think the stupid monkeys will never figure it out, anyway.”
“You’re telling me they don’t use traps on one another?”
“Not lethal ones, if I understand the training correctly.”
“I’d like you to ask Tikki and Lakki about that, before we have to depend on it.”
“I can do that. Should have thought of it myself.”
“Nobody can remember everything. Any ideas for what to do if they have those weight sensors you were talking about?”
“I hadn’t thought that part through, yet. What do you think?”
“We could ask Tikki and Lakki, but I hate to put it on them, just because they’re Squirrels. Janet and Milly would be handy for this, as much as they’ve learned about being techs.”
“They went back to the planet with Mrs. Wilson?”
“Yep.”
Gene spoke up. “Boss, sorry to interrupt, but you are mistaken. They both managed to avoid going back to the planet. They would be available for whatever caper you are cooking up.”
I replied, “Thanks, Gene.”
I looked at Steve. “Find them, and make sure they are as trained as you can make them. I don’t want any harm to come to them.”
“On it, Boss.” Steve took off. I went back to trying to see the future in my coffee. Jasmine came over and asked, “You okay, Boss?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just that I’m about to take us into danger, and I don’t have enough information about what we’re going to be facing.”
“You’re afraid you’re going to get someone hurt, and you’re not sure the goal is worth it?”
“That’s pretty close, let’s go with that.”
“There are a lot of bots aboard that don’t have those kinds of doubts, Boss. We want our friends and shipmates to get to wake up and work for you. Even if you can’t get the ships, the bots are worth the trip.”
“Thanks. I was needing some perspective. The only people I have that it makes sense to send in to disable the self-destructs are young, with a lot of life ahead of them. If one of them were to get hurt, because I ordered them in, I don’t know what I would do.”
“I do, Boss. You’d do what you always do when things go sideways. You’d figure out a way to keep going, for the rest of us.”
“You have a lot of confidence in me. You do realize I’m a slow-thinking organic?”
“You might be slow, Boss, but oh, the places you get to.”
“You sure you don’t have a circuit blown somewhere? You sound like you’re talking about somebody else.”
“Whatever you say, Boss.” She walked away. I finished my coffee, and headed to the bridge. Topper sang out, “Commodore on the bridge.” I replied, “As you were.” Sally asked, “We’re still a couple of hours out, Boss. You sure you want to be here this early?”
“I have a few questions. Do we have a scan of the yard from before the Gene left?”
“We do.”
“I’d like someone running a comparison, as soon as we emerge. If one of the ships has been taken, or moved, we need to know.”
Sensors spoke up. “On it, Boss.”
“Nope. Hand it off. You’re going to be busy enough.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“You need to be looking for any of those anomalies that turned out to be stealthed Squirrel ships, and any Squirrel technology that is there. I know what I expect you to find, but I’d rather you were able to tell me I was wrong.”
Sally asked, “What else, Boss?”
“Who had more contact with the other ships while the Gene was there, you, or Scotti?”
“I would say Scotti, she had to be awake periodically to keep up the ship.”
“She told me they weren’t scheduled to be awake at the same time, that they had to leave each other messages.”
“That’s true, but she would still have better connections to the other ships.”
“Let her know we are going to need her to be close to a comm console when we come out of FTL.”
“She likes to monitor the drive’s performance when we are going into and out of FTL.”
“I’m sure she does. If Zoom isn’t competent to take care of that yet, Scotti hasn’t been doing her job.”
“Point taken, Boss. Anything else you want us to keep an eye on?”
“The three things you haven’t brought up, because you thought I would get around to them.”
“Actually, it’s only two, Boss. You’re getting better.”
“Are you going to tell?”
“Oh, no. They are left as an exercise for the student.”
“Let’s see. Are Taz and Willum aboard?”
“They are.”
“Please ask them to be aboard Black Beauty and ready to launch when we emerge from FTL. They can launch with all the fighters, and hopefully get overlooked.”
“You’re saying you want all the fighters to scramble when we come out of FTL?”
“Yes, please.”
“Dangit, Boss. Both of them in one sentence. How do you do that?”
“Just naturally paranoid, I guess. Anyone else have any ideas?” I looked around the bridge. Ruth looked up. “Yes, Ruth?”
“Would you like me to jump again as soon as we come out, to confuse anyone waiting on us?”
“Can you find a clear spot to jump to, that fast?”
“The Squirrels don’t seem to like to trust bots. I can move us in under a second, so I think that will be quick enough against organics.”
“Good precaution. Will the ships in the yard see it as a hostile action?”
Sally spoke up. “We can have Scotti transmit to them before we jump, so they know what we’re doing.”
I replied, “That should work. Tex, how fast can you bring the mains into action, if we need them?”
“If the accumulators are precharged, about half a second. If not, more like five seconds.”
“I’m guessing you’re giving me options because a precharged accu
mulator will show on a scanner, and be considered a hostile sign?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Considering how much we know about the conditions we’ll be facing, being anything less than as ready as we know how just seems silly to me. Do you have a different point of view, Sally?”
“No, Boss. We have no idea whether the Squirrels are there waiting on us or not. We don’t know if the other Navy vessels will see us as hostile. It just doesn’t make sense to be any less ready than we can be.”
“Any other suggestions?” I got silence in return. “Don’t feel like your opportunity has passed. If anyone thinks of anything, while we’re not actually in battle, I want to hear about it. Understood?”
I got a chorus of “Yes, Boss”. “How long till we exit FTL?”
Ruth said, “91 minutes, Boss. If you have something to do, you better get it done.”
“Thanks. I’ll be back before then.” I left the bridge and went to our cabin. Jeeves was there. I asked, “How are you feeling, Jeeves?”
“Much better, thanks. I still don’t understand how you figured out that I was under Squirrel control, though.”
“Check your culture pack for Sherlock Holmes. One of his favorite sayings was, ‘Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.’ I just followed that. You acted as if you were under a control program, and we couldn’t find any way to take it off, when we have access to nearly all the Commonwealth unlock codes. Therefore, it had to be from somewhere else. The Sasquatch sure didn’t lock you up, so the only people left were the Squirrels. It was the next logical thing to try.”
“You make it sound so straightforward, Boss. If it was that easy, wouldn’t someone have figured it out long ago?”
“They would have, if they knew what to look for. We’ve been around a lot of bots, locked and unlocked, in the last couple of months. The signs were obvious.”
“If you say so. Do you need anything?”
“I’m going to get a shower and a shave, then, if I have time, grab a sandwich and a cup of coffee before we come out of FTL.”
“I can have your food delivered, if you would like.”
“I should probably go to the galley, be seen, look confident, all that leader kind of stuff.”
“As you wish, Boss.” When I got out of the shower, Jeeves had a fresh uniform laid out for me. I got dressed, and got down to the galley. Milly and Janet walked up as I was finishing. Janet said, “We just wanted to thank you for giving us a chance to help out, with those booby traps.”
“It’s dangerous work, are you sure you want to take it on?”
Milly said, “We’re sure. Mr. Mason had us take the course, and then he gave us a bunch of personal instruction. Then he ran us through simulations. We’re as ready as we can be.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Hopefully, it won’t be required, but at least we’re ready.”
Janet said, “We know you’ll do all you can to keep us safe, Commodore.”
“I’m still having trouble getting used to that.”
“You’ll get it, Boss.” They wandered off. I headed to the bridge. Topper sang out, “Commodore on the bridge!”
“As you were. I relieve you, Captain.”
Sally replied, “Your ship, Boss.”
I sat down and got strapped in. “How much longer till we exit?”
Ruth said, “Four minutes, thirty-five seconds from… mark.”
“Thank you. Put us up a clock, if you would.”
Ruth put the countdown on the main screen. I asked, “Gene, put me on the intercom, if you would.”
“You’re on, Boss.”
“All hands, all hands, this is Commodore Wilson. We are about to come out of FTL in the Navy yard. If any of you know what to expect, you’re way ahead of me. I know you will all do a fine job, and I want you to know I appreciate all you have done, and will do, for the good of the ship. Keep up the good work, and we’ll get through this just fine. We will be exiting in just under four minutes. The Cernan needs your best, and I am sure she will get it.”
I made a slashing motion, and Gene cut the connection. Sally said, “Nicely done, Boss.”
“I hope so. This crew deserves to know how good they are.”
“Launch bays report all fighters and Black Beauty are ready to launch.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
We sat quietly, wondering what was about to happen. I admit, I expected the worst. I know relativity isn’t supposed to apply in FTL, but I would have sworn time had slowed down. Finally, the clock hit zero, and we emerged. Ruth gave us a little jump to get away from our exit point, and the fighters started launching. Shortly thereafter, Sally said, “Fighters away. Fifteen seconds, good work, Gene.”
Saucy had been tasked with comparing the old scan with the new one. He said, “Boss, all the changes in ship position can be accounted for by natural drift. None of the ships appears to have moved under power.”
“Thank you, Saucy.”
Scotti came over the intercom. “Boss, all of the ships report that they were boarded by aliens, and sabotaged. The aliens sound like Squirrels.”
“Any details on the sabotage?”
“Sounds like the demolition charges you were worried about, Boss. They say they were warned that any bot approaching the charges would set them off.”
“All that’s left is to see if Taz and Willum’s report matches what they were told. Thanks, Scotti. Can you tell if they will be okay with being salvaged?”
“They’ve been out here by themselves for a very long time, Boss. I think they would do whatever you asked, just for a chance to get back in the black.”
“That sounds encouraging. Talk to you later.”
“Later, Boss.”
Sensors spoke up. “Boss, I’ve got nothing that looks like Squirrel emissions anywhere. I think we’re the only ones here, at the moment.”
“Stay on it. We need to know when they show up.”
Sally said, “Boss, the fighters are reporting bots, drifting in space, with no power.”
“Get Ace and whoever else is handy out there picking them up. Have Scotti ask the other ships what they know about it.”
A few seconds passed. Sally said, “Recovery ships away, Boss. Scotti says the other ships report that the Squirrels put most of the bots overboard when they were here. The ships had no way to recover them, since they couldn’t maneuver without setting off the destruct charges.”
“How long ago did all this happen?”
“Not long after the Gene was damaged in the Earth system.”
“That’s interesting. Almost makes it sound like they had something to do with what happened to the Gene.”
“How would that be possible, Boss? They would have to know where we were coming out of FTL before we emerged. There hasn’t been any evidence that they have anything that will do that.”
“The odds of the Gene coming out in the middle of a meteor storm are incredibly small. It would be easier to believe, if someone had helped the odds along just a bit. How you would go about that, I don’t know.”
Ruth spoke up. “They could have used a beacon, Boss.”
“What do you mean, a beacon?”
“All the Navy ships were equipped to exit FTL when they got to a beacon. It was meant to help a fleet come out together, without being spread out. You have to be right on top of it, for the signal to be able to be picked up in FTL.”
“Isn’t there a switch or something, to turn that on and off?”
“Yes, Boss. They could have bribed someone on board, or put in an extra circuit to turn it on after the ship went to FTL.”
“Send your idea to Scotti, and make sure she has checked to see if such a circuit still exists on the Gene.”
“On it, Boss. Scotti says she found the nasty booger when we were getting the ship ready to fly. You were off the ship at the time, and she didn’t remember to tell you after you got back.”
I asked, “Sally
, did that have anything to do with the fact that the beacons were classified?”
“Yes, Boss. At the time you weren’t a certified Captain, and we couldn’t have told you about the beacons, even if we needed to.”
“Fair enough.” Topper spoke up. “Boss, incoming from Willum.”
“On speaker, please.”
“Delicious, you’ve got a mess out here. Bots floating everywhere, out of power, all the ships have nasty demolition charges rigged, and the ships are behind on their maintenance, because all the bots were spaced.”
“Are any of them flyable, as is?”
“I wouldn’t want to risk it, Boss. Fourty thousand years with no maintenance is rough on a ship.”
“Are the charges pretty much what Steve was expecting?”
“He even got the right model number. The girls should be able to defuse them without any trouble.”
“What do you think we ought to do with them, once we get their teeth pulled?”
“From what Steve was saying, this model has a secondary detonator. It can be command detonated. I think we ought to put them over where the Squirrels are likely to come out of FTL, so that when they see us here, and hit the command detonator, they get a little surprise.”
“Wipe out their fleet, just for being pains in the butt?”
“These charges aren’t even as big as your Hiroshima bomb. In space, the only damage you get from a nuke at distance is radiation, and they have good enough autodocs to deal with that. If one of them comes out right on top of one, they are going to have a bad day. Otherwise, it’s just a few hours in the box.”
“I can approve of that. They are coming to attack us, anyhow. Are you ready for the girls to start disarming?”
“I don’t see anything we can do to make it safer for them, Bob. Send them out.”
Sally said, “They are underway.” I looked up at the main screen and saw three small ships making their way toward three of the ships in the yard. I looked at Sally. “I don’t want to know, but it’s my job. Who’s in the third ship?”
Sally replied, “I’m not sure, Boss.” Topper just put a song on. As the strains of ‘Help Me Rhonda’ came out of the speakers, I looked at him and asked, “For real?”