Vast Mantis

by Jim Henderson

  “That is always good to hear, but it’s ‘dirty pool’ in a discussion such as this. My love, I promise I will give it careful thought, but it will take a little time and there are a lot of things we’d need to work out. Please send me as much information as you can.”

  She leaned back, her face bearing what Ximon considered to be a satisfied expression. “Very well, Ximon. But I will bring this up again.”

  “I am certain of that. However, in the meantime we need to arrange you a trip to TSR to get some of those corrupted training modules restored, along with a general spa day.”

  “That was the next topic I wanted to bring up.”

  “Well, let’s get it done. You can arrange it if you prefer or I can. Get anything and everything you want or need. Please also see what they can do in the way of electromagnetic shielding. I’d like your brain and core better shielded if that’s feasible without negatively affecting your operation. Talk to Peter too; his ‘injuries’ were definitely in the line of duty also, though if Elsbeth wants to make crazy upgrades that’s on her.”

  Raiza smiled. “I will do so, Ximon. I’ll let you know when we can arrange it.”

  Ximon smiled. “Now, if we can accept that as your smug ‘I won some points’ expression, can you accept this as my ‘Everybody wants some; I want some too’ expression?”

  She smiled seductively. “Of course, Ximon. Take me home and ravish me.”

  The next morning Ximon noted an urgent message from KSF HQ. He was to call the administrative staff of Captain Duregar to set up a meeting as soon as practicable. Ximon wasn’t too surprised. He knew the KSF would be calling, though he wasn’t sure who would want to sit down with them. He called the office and they made time for him on the Captain’s schedule that afternoon at 1400. Ximon knew it was unlikely he was just put in some empty slot of time – they had moved something else.

  Ximon had Raiza ensure his KSF dress uniform was ready and then he relaxed until it was about time to get ready.

  Only around 1200 did Ximon message Robatham. “Johannes, Captain Duregar, KSF, has scheduled me to meet with him at 1400 at KSF HQ. I must attend. Not sure what the subject will be, but you can work with their office if you wish to attend. Here’s their comm ID.”

  Ximon knew that might be too late for Johannes to attend, but he felt he had done his duty by notifying him.

  Around 1330 Ximon, looking sharp in his dress uniform, got a robocar to HQ and headed for the appropriate office. On his way, Ximon got a message from Johannes, “Not much warning. I can’t attend. Will try to arrange something.”

  When Ximon arrived, the old, but efficient secretary, Elsa in the outer office welcomed him and gave him water while he waited. A few minutes later he was shown into the Captain’s office. Ximon reported in smartly.

  Duregar returned his salute and motioned to him to sit. “Okay, Ximon. Here you are in the middle of things again.”

  “Sir, I assure you it’s not by trying.”

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t look like you’re trying very hard to avoid it.”

  “Sometimes we find trouble, sometimes it finds us.”

  Duregar laughed. “You know why you’re here. The Admiral wants more details and he ordered me to get them from you. So, start talking.”

  “Sir, first I need to know what you want to know. Second, in the matter of this mission, I was acting as a private subcontractor. Depending on what you want to know, it would be appropriate to include them.”

  “The lawyers!? Are you ‘lawyering up’ on me?”

  “No, sir. I’m respecting the chain of command. In this particular case, that’s them. I was under the impression they were contacting your office.”

  “Oh, brother. Just a minute.” He hit a button on his desk. “Elsa, loop in that guy from Robatham Associates like he requested. Tell them Commander Sabo and I are discussing the Trailblazer case.”

  Duregar looked up. “Okay, we’ll give them a chance to get online. I want you to tell me everything you can. If they don’t show, that’ll have to be everything.”

  He was interrupted by a small buzz and his secretary said, “Sir, Mr. Roberto from Robatham Associates again expresses his regrets, but asks to join via a secure video call.”

  Duregar growled, “Fine, set it up.”

  Before it was set up, he said, “I need answers. If Roberto won’t give them, you’re going to do so when that call is over.”

  Roberto appeared on the large screen on the office wall a moment later, sitting at the head of a conference table. “Good day, Captain. Good day, Ximon. How can we be of assistance?”

  “Thanks for joining us, counselor. Admiral Pouret has asked me to get more detail. We’ve asked our boy Ximon here, but so far he’s just giving me your party line. I need more.”

  “Of course, sir. We are always ready to provide any assistance we can to the KSF.”

  “That’s good to hear and do keep in mind that the package for a recovery fee for the Trailblazer will likely cross the Admiral’s desk. So, I need all the details of the Shebatha and the recovery that you left out. As you heard at the government conference the other day, this is a matter of state security.”

  “Of course, sir. We must, however, insist on discretion. This information could affect ongoing negotiations with other customers and our overall brand.”

  “Dammit, counselor, this is the KSF. We know how to keep a secret. Everything will have big, red ‘classified’ markings all over it and it will be handled only by those ‘read in’ on this issue. However, this line isn’t secure enough for a lot of that. So, I’m going to need you to give me the gist now and then either cut Ximon loose to tell me the rest or get someone down here fast!”

  “Understood, sir. A cleared associate, a Miss Juralis, is on the way and should be there within 20 minutes.”

  Duregar pushed the button on his desk again. “Elsa, a Miss Juralis from Robatham should be here within 20 minutes. Please, have someone watch for her and get her butt in here quickly.” He broke the connection and turned back to Roberto. “Great, but we need to get going now. So, please explain.”

  Roberto explained some things in a bit more detail and then had Ximon address a few points. At several points Duregar noted certain topics that had to be left to the higher level.

  There was a knock on the door and Elsa escorted in an attractive, deeply tanned woman of about sixty, who Ximon had never seen before. She was dressed in a fitted business suit but looked a little flustered from hurrying.

  Elsa announced, “Sir, Cathy Juralis.” She stood by.

  Miss Juralis shook the Captain’s hand, as well as Ximon’s, and nodded to Roberto.

  Duregar motioned Juralis to a chair and turned back to Roberto. “Sir, I appreciate you joining us on the call, but I really think we need to cut over to a higher classification now.”

  Roberto clearly didn’t want to go. “Sir, I’m am sorry I could not join you in person. If you would like to arrange further, deeper sessions with a bit more warning, we can certainly have it properly covered.”

  “We may do that, but I must pursue this discussion now. Thank you and good day.”

  Elsa broke the connection and ensured the screen was off. She then hit a few other buttons on the wall. “Sir, you are now cleared to classification level three and this project. Miss Juralis is cleared to that level, but will need to be ‘read on’ after the meeting. All conversation will be recorded and pushed to secure servers immediately after the discussion.”

  Duregar turned to Juralis. “You okay with that Miss Juralis?”

  “Of course, sir, and please call me Cathy.”

  Elsa stepped out and Duregar dove into the topic in great detail on several points. It soon became clear that Cathy didn’t know much about the topic and nothing about the details Duregar wanted. She deferred to Ximon on virtually everything but was obviously closely monitoring what he said. She was here to report back on what she could.

  Duregar wanted physical details on t
he Shebatha, on their ship, and on their use of jump space. He wanted details on their weapons, including the EMP, as well as everything the Shebatha had said, or Mantis had observed, about them using asteroids as weapons. Finally, he wanted Ximon’s detailed assessment of the Shebatha mindset. Whenever Ximon stopped talking, Duregar asked more questions.

  All of this was finally covered after a grueling two-hour session that left Ximon feeling drained.

  Finally, Duregar said, “Okay, thank you, Cathy. Thank you, Ximon. We’ll analyze what we’ve got and let you know if we need follow-up discussions.”

  Cathy flashed a lovely smile and thanked the Captain for including them. She also thanked Ximon for the information.

  Duregar must have pushed the button because Elsa appeared, hit a few buttons on the screen and escorted them out. Ximon reported out properly before leaving.

  In the outer office, Elsa directed Cathy to see a Specialist Roberts in a nearby office to get ‘read on’ to the project. However, before she stepped away, Cathy, glared at Ximon, clearly not pleased with the way things had gone. Her frown made her displeasure clear, “Ximon, you will note a message from Johannes. He needs to speak with you tonight or tomorrow.”

  Ximon talked to Roberto a bit later and got the chewing out he expected for not either calling Robatham before accepting an appointment. Ximon explained that when he first got the request he had thought the KSF might just want to discuss benign, non-sensitive matters, with some meeting on more sensitive matters to be scheduled later, but Duregar had insisted. Roberto seemed somewhat mollified but directed that Ximon coordinate with him before any further meetings with the KSF (or Navy or government) on this topic or in the near future in general. Ximon said he would do so unless he was sure they were purely standard, unrelated KSF matters.

  That night, Shao asked to see him. She had been scarce over the last few days, spending a lot of time at Silas’s place.

  “Ximon, I’m afraid I have to give you my notice. As we’ve discussed since we first met, I want to finish grad school. I’ve done as much as I can online, but I need to do six to twelve months in residence, or at least being there regularly, in order to finish.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Are you sure that now’s the right time for that?”

  “I think so. We just finished one hell of an adventure, I’m full up on excitement for right now, and my bank account is at a comfortable level.”

  “Well, I don’t have any kind of next mission planned and will probably take a few weeks off anyway. You don’t absolutely have to give me two more weeks’ work if you’ve got other stuff to do. However, I do need two things from you before you go. First, I need you to write up detailed instructions for configuring, deploying, and using those decoys. We need to be able to use those or train someone else up on them quickly. Second, I need you to work with Elsbeth to write up everything you can on using that tractor/repulsor beam – no one but you two has any real knowledge on that as far as I know.” He paused for a moment and then went on. “Okay, I lied – three things. I’d also like you to write up some notes on tuning of the sensor suite and any special tricks on using them.”

  “Sure, I was planning to update some things. Mantis has information on a lot of that and captured key strokes on some of that. I’ve got some notes on the decoys already but will expand and update those. I haven’t written down anything on the tractor yet, but was planning to do so. I’ll get cracking on that with Elsbeth. I’ll also expand my notes on the sensors. Finally, I’ll work with Mantis on making a short video about each of those. By the way, one other note on the decoys. A while back, Elsbeth and I threw around the idea of installing a launch tube. It could potentially deploy those decoys as well as cubesats. You might talk to Elsbeth about that.”

  “Great. That’s exactly what we need. I’m sure this goes without saying, but ensure you don’t talk too much about this mission. We don’t want to tangle with Robatham on that more than we need to.”

  Shao looked a bit sheepish. “Ximon, I’m actually going to be moving in with Silas, so I’ll be in pretty close touch with Robatham. In fact, they’re setting up to use me as a private consultant on some things. In any case, I’ll watch what I say.”

  “Great, people getting poached by a prime contractor. That’s an old story. Well, I hope everything works out well for you and Silas. Let us know if there are any, er, developments there.”

  “Developments!? Do you think we’re going to get married or something?”

  “Just possibilities – married, baby, house, move, whatever. If you’ve got something to celebrate, and we’re in system, we’d love to join you.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think we have anything major on the horizon. Anyway, I’ll get working on all that stuff. I’ll have Mantis and Euclidia, review everything and will let you know when I’ve got pieces done. I’d like to ‘call it’ as soon as you’re okay with those pieces.”

  “Sounds good. We’ll get you a share of any recovery fees that we get, though that could be months. Oh, hey, one last thing. Be careful who you mention that tractor thing to. Silas was good enough not to mention it to Robatham and I think it should stay that way. Also, I don’t think it should show up in any scholarly papers you might write.”

  “Sure, I’ll assume we have a non-disclosure agreement.”

  “I think we may actually have one if I recall correctly, but I’d have to check with Mantis. Anyway, that reminds me, did Mantis talk to you about a book?”

  “Oh yeah. I’m fine with that as long as the story doesn’t talk about me naked or make me look like a dufus.”

  All that done, Ximon hit up Elsbeth to pursue any necessary fixes or upgrades, and to work with Shao. She already had some stuff in the works, but discussed the launcher idea excitedly and at some length. She was going to talk to a starship architect and confirm that it could be done without compromising Mantis’ aerodynamics much and would then give Ximon an estimate for it. Other than that, she mainly had standard parts on order and her and Peter would be doing some overdue preventive maintenance that they had to be on the ground for. Besides that, she said that planned to be drunk, naked, or both for a good portion of the next couple weeks.

  Ximon added some stuff for Elsbeth to work on. He wanted some additional EMP protection added to Mantis’ computer core and to some subsystems. The core was already fairly well shielded, but he wanted to enhance the level of protection however they could.

  Raiza had her spa and repair days. She actually spent two days at TSR as she had to have all her training routines reloaded, have a complete tune-up, and have her positronic brain circuits checked and aligned. That kind of thing always made Ximon nervous, but Raiza, Mantis, and TSR assured him it was perfectly safe. She also had the typical ‘reluster’ options done, treating her ‘skin’ and hair. She reported feeling much better when she returned as the EMP blasts from the Representative had gotten some things ‘out of whack.’ They had also installed some EMP shielding mesh under the skin on her head and central core and shielded a few inputs. Ximon checked carefully and couldn’t see anything there, so it was subtle and well-hidden. He thought she came back more beautiful than ever, which was saying a lot since he was constantly amazed at her beauty.

  Peter, likewise, went in for similar repairs and treatments, plus whatever crazy tweaks Elsbeth wanted to add. That smoothed his movements out as well.

  Ximon was planning a relaxing trip for he and Raiza when Mantis and Euclidia asked to talk. They wanted to provide updates on the two books they were working on. They had gotten approvals from all current and former crew members and had reached out to a few specific previous passengers or customers. They were waiting back on a bunch of these. They had drafts of both books, save any sensitive portions about the recent mission that were to be sent to the KSF for review since, as the primary customer on most of their missions, they had some right of refusal.

  Ximon was pleasantly surprised. “Go ahead. The worst they can say is no.” />
  Euclidia said, “Captain, we will do so, but we did have one question. We will need to complete the book metadata and were not sure how you wanted to list authors on the books. You were considering not putting your name on one of them.”

  “Oh, yeah. On the novel-type book, let’s go with something like – ‘The Robotic Crew of the Mantis: Euclidia, Mantis, Raiza, and Peter.’ For the learning book let’s go with: ‘Commander Ximon Sabo, KSF ARC, and the crew of the Mantis.’ Then list everyone, including yourselves, in the acknowledgements and in some kind of ‘cast of characters.’ Will that work?”

  “I believe so. We will proceed with that and let you know if we encounter any legal concerns. We will, of course, let you know what the KSF has to say and will prepare the section on the sensitive portions of this latest mission soon for review by yourself, Robatham, and KSF.”

  “Okay, then we’ll go from there. Though I’m still not sure anyone would read a book about us.”

  The End

  Appendix A: Maps