by Jerry Boyd
“No sweat, I think he’s under control now. I guess we’ll have to land, after all.”
“Didn’t mean to make this take longer, Boss. I know you want to get back to Mrs. Wilson.”
“It won’t take that long. Is the other ship set up for remote operation, or does Shorty need to hack it?”
“I managed to sneak that in, Boss.”
“Good work. Let’s go get rid of this mess.” As we were flying in, I commed Bill. “Mr. Wilson. What can I do for you today?”
“Take this nasty mess off my hands, please.”
“The fellows we talked about before?”
“My crew found one more, hiding in what appeared to be a smuggling hold. I’m afraid they damaged him a bit, getting him under control.”
“We have plenty of autodocs, and we might even let him use one, depending on just how naughty he has been.”
“I’ll send you his info. We’ll need a bay with air to drop him off in, since he is aboard our ship.”
“No problem. Follow the flashing lights.”
“See you in a few.”
“See you then.” We brought the ships in, and I went back to escort the trash. He said, “You have unlocked bots. That’s as big a crime as anything they can get me on. You’re going down, big shot.”
I replied, “First, I’m not a Commonwealth citizen. Second, this isn’t a Commonwealth vessel. Third, none of those bots is going to set foot on Commonwealth territory. So, you got nothing.” I took him outside and handed him to the waiting troopers. Bill asked, “The rest are aboard the other ship?”
“They are. You may need a grinder to retrieve them. My boys welded them in the bunkroom, for safety’s sake.”
“Transfer the bounties to the usual account?”
“Please.”
“By the way, this one has more money on him than any of the rest. I hate to have to admit being related to him.”
It took me a second for that to sink in. “You mean, after the feud ended, he found he didn’t want to settle down and be a good citizen?”
“Right on the first guess.”
“I feel for you. That’s going to make it awkward at holiday dinners.”
“No more than it already was, Bob. Thanks for bringing him in.”
“You’re welcome. I better get back.”
“Later, Bob.”
“Later, Bill.” I climbed back aboard, and Ace got us out of Dodge. Shorty asked, “Could that guy really make trouble for us, Boss?”
“The folks with the laws are the Commonwealth, right?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Who’s in charge of the Commonwealth Navy these days?”
“You are, Boss.”
“Do you think they’ll have much luck, even if they want to?”
“I suppose not, Boss.”
“That a good enough answer, Shorty?”
“It’ll do, Boss. You mean that no matter what they say, they can’t back it up, so it doesn’t matter?”
“Exactly. Of course, I hope it doesn’t come to that, but none of you fellas is getting a limiter on my watch.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
The parts Ozzie had started in the printer before he left for the other ship were ready, and he was getting busy working on Lyla’s saucer. I went over and asked, “Any idea how she came to be in such dire straits, Ozzie?”
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t installing microwave ovens, Boss.”
“Good one. What do you know so far?”
“The damage looks like it radiates out from about here. I think there was a bomb, but I can’t prove it, because the compartment opened, and vented to space. She’s just lucky this compartment is sealed separately from the cabin.”
“Will you be able to fix it?”
“Everything but the hull damage. The printer on this ship isn’t big enough to build that panel. I called it in to Topper, and he’s having Scotti print it out for me. It’ll just take a few minutes to put it on when we get there.”
“Good work. Anything I could do to help?” He showed me a few things, and we made good progress, until Rhonda came into the bay and said, “Get cleaned up, Boss. Supper is ready.”
Ozzie said, “Thanks for the help, Boss.”
“Thanks for pretending I wasn’t in your way.”
“No, Boss. You actually did help. Saved me at least twenty minutes.”
“Thanks, I think.” I went and got ready to eat. Rhonda asked, “Did you have fun, working with Ozzie?”
“I did. It was nice to get my mind off all the big problems for a change.”
“I don’t think I would like having so many people depending on me.”
“There are definitely times when it’s no fun, but it’s my job, so I do my best.”
“You always say something like that. It doesn’t matter to you that you’re in charge, just that you do a good job?”
“It matters that I’m in charge, because that means that whatever happens, it’s my responsibility. It’s not what I want, particularly, but it’s how things are, so I have to do the best I can.”
“I guess I understand.”
“Don’t worry too much. You have five or ten years before I give you a ship of your own, and you have to figure it out.”
“What? A ship of my own, nope, not this girl. I’m going back to Earth after the summer, and all this will just be a pleasant memory.”
“Believe whatever lets you sleep at night. I don’t think you’ll be able to give it up.”
After supper, we played some more Frisbee. Ozzie didn’t appreciate me bouncing it off his head, while he was trying to finish Lyla’s saucer. Finally, he came and played with us, since he had plenty of time to finish before we came out of FTL. Rhonda got tired, and we put the Frisbee away. Julie was there, and I asked, “We have a teaching machine aboard, don’t we?”
“Yes, Boss. What do you want to learn about?”
“If I’ve got to be the Commodore, I better learn how to command a fleet, don’t you think?”
“Now I see why Sally wanted all the courses available on all the ships. We have three courses that might help you with that.”
“Do they have a suggested order, or do we just guess?”
“They have an order, Boss. Come in the galley and I’ll light you up.”
I did, and she did. When I came out of it, I realized the Commonwealth wasn’t a whole lot better with this stuff than the Squirrels. I was going to be figuring this stuff out as I went. The ship we were on was too small for a simulator, so I just ran ideas. Bone walked by and saw me zoned out. He asked, “Are you okay, Boss?”
I roused myself, and said, “I’m fine, just lost in thought. The course I took wasn’t a lot of help, so I was trying to figure it out on my own.”
“What are you trying to learn, Boss?”
“How to maneuver a fleet, in battle.”
“Oh, I see the problem. You tried to use the training courses that say they are for fleet maneuvers, didn’t you?”
“I dunno. You’d have to ask Julie. She took care of that part.”
He locked a second, asking her. “Yep. That’s your problem. The old-time Admirals didn’t want any competition, so they sabotaged the regular training courses. You have to know the right titles to look for, to get the good information.”
“Did you tell her what to look for?”
“I did, Boss. That should help you figure out what’s what.”
“Thanks, Bone. I would have wasted a bunch of time, figuring that out.”
“You take care of us. We take care of you. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?”
“Only way I know to make a thing like this work.”
“I think I’m gonna like working here, Boss.”
“I hope so. Where am I going to find another crusty old bot that can keep up with Saucy?”
“If there’s one out there, I bet you’d be the one to find it, Boss.”
“If you’re going to butter me u
p like that, there must be something you want. What’s her designation, and where can I find her?”
“No, Boss, it’s not like that.”
“His name, then.”
“No, Mongo straight.” I didn’t know Bone had been hitting the culture pack. I don’t know if that was what hit me so hard, or just how much I didn’t expect it out of him, but I don’t think I was moving air for a bit there.
When I was back to myself, he asked, “Did I do that right, Boss?”
“No, you son of a broken-down vacuum cleaner, you did it perfect. Now I owe you one. Do you have any idea how hard it is to pull a joke on one of you bots? This will take weeks! Now, for real, is there something you need my help with?”
“No, Boss. Good luck with your studies.”
“Thanks.” I decided I wasn’t going to figure much out, without those other courses Bone was talking about, so I might as well turn in, and try again tomorrow. I couldn’t help but think I was missing something, but there wasn’t any grass room to go by on this ship, even if Snitz had been there. Rhonda must have thought she wasn’t completely out of the doghouse yet, because I got woke up by coffee smell again. When I got through with my morning routine and got out there, she had made me the omelet we had joked about the day before. I felt a trap closing around me, but I had yet to find out just what it was she wanted. I said, “Good morning.”
“Morning, Boss.”
“You mind telling me what it is that you need me to do for you?”
“What do you mean, Boss?”
“You made me breakfast two days running. I think you want something.”
“Dangit, Boss. Doesn’t anything get by you? Okay, here’s the deal. My best friend, back on Earth, the only one who kept coming by when I was so sick and lost all my hair? I’d like permission to run her past acceptable contact, so I can tell her about what I’ve been doing out here.”
“Does your Mom know this girl?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s do this. I’ll have your Mom go out to John’s, and have Max give her Steve’s cold reading course. Then she can talk to your friend. If, and only if, she passes that, you can talk to her about acceptable contact.”
“Okay, Boss. Why so many steps?”
“There are a lot of people still on Earth who could get in trouble if somebody said something they shouldn’t. I have a responsibility to those people to do all I can to keep them safe.”
“I see. So, everybody we tell is one more person who could say the wrong thing to the wrong person?”
“Yep. It’s cool that you want to share all you’ve done and seen with your friend. I understand that. I just have to make sure it doesn’t make problems for the rest of us.”
“Everything has so many layers, when you’re in charge. You were joking about giving me a ship, right?”
“Nope. When you’re ready, you’re getting a ship. Karma is a pain in the heinie, little girl.”
“You’re saying I give you trouble, so I have to see what it’s like from your side?”
“Something like that. I better find Julie and get started. I need to get some training in today.”
“She’s in medbay.”
“Trouble with Lyla?”
“No, but one of us stays there, just in case.”
“Shouldn’t she be getting more stable, by now?”
“She is, but her internal organs took a lot of damage. There are still some tricky places, before we can relax.”
“I’ll get the dishes, and you can go change the watch.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
“No problem, Middie.”
“Middie? You’re calling me a Midshipman? You’re serious about giving me a ship someday, aren’t you?”
“Yep.” She took off, mumbling to herself. By the time I had the dishes cleaned up, Julie had appeared. She said, “You’ve upset young Rhonda, Boss. She’s talking to herself about going back to Earth, and getting off this crazy ship.”
“Good for her, if she can. She needs to go ashore, before she gets hooked on all this. I don’t think I could quit if I wanted to.”
“You organics have strange ways of getting one another to do things.”
“I would have thought you had some experience with that, taking care of Frank.”
“I suppose I do, but I thought that was just him. I didn’t realize you were all crazy.”
“You bots have the advantage of working from logic. We have emotion in all our considerations. It makes things more difficult.”
“It seems to work for you, but I can’t say I understand it.”
“That’s the problem. Neither do we.” She lit me up, and this time I came out with a better understanding of what I was trying to learn. I began to wonder if the Squirrel courses I had taken had been sabotaged, just like the Commonwealth ones were. I went up to the cockpit, where there was a computer console I could work with. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I looked at the titles of the real Commonwealth courses, compared to the ones the Admirals had left for the newbies to find, and checked them against the titles of the Squirrel courses we had. Sure enough, there were courses that looked to be disguised the same way. Titles that sounded like they would be useful, if you needed that particular information, but not anything anyone would take on a whim. I must have smiled, or something, because Ace asked, “Find something, Boss?”
“I think so. Looks to me like Squirrel Admirals are just as tricky as human ones. I found what looks like hidden files on fleet maneuvers in the Squirrel courses we captured.”
“We’ve got several bots not doing much right now, Boss. They could link together and see if you found what you think you did.”
“That wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
“No trouble at all, Boss.” He went into a trance for a second, while he set it up. When he came out, he said, “Should have some answers for you by lunch, Boss.”
“Thanks. Could I ask you a question, Ace?”
“Sure, Boss. What do you need?”
“I expected you to transfer to the Puller, the way you talked the other day, and yet, here you are. Mind explaining that?”
“Like I said then, I flew one of the Puller’s sister ships. They were nearly the same, but all ships have their own quirks. Flying the Puller would remind me of all the things I miss, without really being the same.”
“Better watch that, Ace. You go making emotional decisions like that, somebody will accuse you of being organic.”
“You think there’s any chance of finding the rest of the Navy, Boss?”
“After all this time, I seriously doubt we could find every ship. Some of them are bound to have been scrapped or lost by now. But the Navy built ships tough, I’m sure there are still a lot of them flying, if we can find them. You want to get back to your old ship?”
“That would be nice, but I guess it wouldn’t be the same without all the Marines we used to carry.”
“You know we’re buying Marines as fast as we can find them, right?”
“Our boys were special. They didn’t get sold. I don’t know where they went, or whether they got scrapped.”
“You mean there is a whole unit of Marines, unaccounted for?”
“I saw them leave the Navy yard, on a transport, but I never was able to find out where they took them.”
“Maybe Sally knows something about it. We’ll ask her when we get back.”
“Thanks, Boss. Those boys meant a lot. Not knowing what happened has always bothered me.”
“I’ll do what I can to help you figure it out, but you know I can’t promise you anything, after all this time.”
“I know that, Boss, but it means a lot that you’re willing to try.” We sat and talked, until Julie stuck her head in and said, “Time for another course, Boss. Rhonda says she is going to start some lunch.”
“What about Lyla?”
“The autodoc has finally decided she is out of danger. It thinks she will be ready to come out about the t
ime we come out of FTL.”
“That’s good news. So much for trying to keep her from knowing where Charlie’s Planet is.”
“We could keep her asleep, and drop her off somewhere else, Boss.”
“No, I’ll just make her silence part of the price of her rescue. She’ll be mad, but she’ll get over it.”
“If you’re sure. It wouldn’t be any trouble to keep her in the box.”
“No, we need to get her out, and find out how she got herself in that mess in the first place.”
I went and got my training. When I woke up, fleet maneuvers were beginning to make sense. I went back to the galley, following my nose. Whatever Rhonda was working on smelled wonderful. I said, “Okay, what else do you need?”
“What do you mean, Boss?”
“If you’re making me something that smells that good, you must still be trying to get me to do something.”
“Couldn’t I just be thanking you for agreeing to try and get my friend approved to talk to?”
“You could, but somehow I don’t think that’s the case.”
“Okay, so I was wondering if I could learn to fly?”
“I would think you probably could, the saucers aren’t that tough, and you’re not a moron.”
She looked like she wanted to slap me, but didn’t. “No, silly, I was asking permission.”
I thought on that for a second. “You’re asking permission from me, not Zoom or Scotti, and you’re doing it while I can’t check in with them to see what they think about it. That makes me suspicious that they have a good reason to make you wait, and you’re trying to get around that.”
“How do you figure things out so quick? I thought I was being subtle.”
“You were. I’ve never seen you act that way before, so I assumed something was up.”
“Dangit, Boss!”
“What’s wrong? Don’t like a challenge?”
“Zoom wants me to learn a bunch of other stuff, before she lets me take the course for piloting.”