Chapter 13

As it was, there were no emergencies. Things were settling down, while not quite bucolic, they were at least peaceful. Jeffrey was contacted by the sub-administrator at Lagrange 3B, who asked if there were instructions for getting Aia, the Vzzvv's appointed ambassador, to Earth. Jeffrey asked that the next supply ship should take her back there, and the Marines should appoint two of their own to accompany, guard her, for her own safety and the safety of everyone else.

While in his office, he had a visit from Sandra Knutson, the widow of the man killed by pirates, who was interested in leasing Mistral. He asked her, “What do you intend to do? Do you have any experience with mining, piloting a miner's ship?”

She sat there, quietly for a bit. Then spoke, as if narrating to herself, “So there I was, married, happy, planning for the future, saving up our earnings so we could be alone together for a while. Carl arranged for us to begin the first part of his plan – the prospecting part, figuring out where we could go to find the best places to find our ore, and what kind of ore we could find. I was along on that last trip in a large runabout – big enough for us and some equipment, but not much more. We found some serious ore-bearing rock that wasn't claimed by anyone. We planted claim buoys.

“That was a mistake. The buoys broadcast an ownership message, which means they could find us. They found us.” She sobbed a gasp, but waved off Jeffrey when he sat forward to console her. “They killed my husband. They shot him with one of those needlers – the little flachettes that cut into you and rip you up inside? He was immediately dead, but he looked fine. Then they threw him out the airlock.

“I was next. There were six in that crew. The bald one, his name was Flegand,”

Jeffrey interrupted, “Pauli Flegand?” She nodded in the affirmative, but continued.

“He was the first. I felt so dirty. What could I do? How was I going to stay alive? Then Flegand finished with me, another one – an ugly guy called Capaldi. And after Capaldi there was a handsome, thoughtful one. He wore a condom, though I think more for himself than for me. Rascal. I stopped paying attention to them after that. They cut up my space suit. They punched a hole in the side of my ship – not a big one, just large enough to ensure I don't survive a trip back to the station. They stole my radio gear. And they left, just like that. Their intent was to terrorize, and they did. I wept and wailed, to the tune of the air whistling out that hole, for half an hour. Damned if I was going to let them get away with it. So I got some plastic flimsies and some tape and I covered that hole. Then I taped my spacesuit.

“Carl was the one who knew how to drive that thing, but I figured it out. I figured out where the station was and I drove there. Bastards. The guy who rented the runabout said I owed for the damage – their insurance doesn't cover pirate attacks. I reported to the security office, and they asked what I wanted them to do about it. That's when I learned that the whole damn place was being run by pirates.

“I didn't have anyone to turn to. I saw Flegand once in the Zokolo market. I think I ducked away in time, but I was terrified all over again. Then I talked to Jonathon – the rock broker. He helped hide me away. The only good man on the fricking station.”

She sat there, furrowed brow, anger evident, but controlled. Her breathing was a little faster, but her face neutral.

“I know those pirates,” Jeffrey said. “They attacked my ship while I was picking up rocks. I captured them and turned them over to the Navy. That was eight months ago.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Jeffrey continued, “If you like, I can find out what happened to them since then.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Oh yeah.”

“So, you didn't answer my question. What do you intend to do with my ship? It's called the Mistral, by the way.”

“I want to go find that field we discovered, and mine it. I want to do it for my Carl. I want to do it for me. And I want those bastards to fry.”

“Well, I can't help you with the frying part, but I think I can help with the rest. You haven't really got any idea how to mine, do you?”

“Just what I've read. And those trips with Carl.”

“Let's do this. I will take you on a one-week trip to a known good field, show you the ropes, then come back here, and if you still want to lease the Mistral, then she's all yours.”

“A week, eh?” She thought for a few moments, then said, “Sure. You're on.” She held out her hand, Jeffrey took it and they shook on the deal. “How much more is that going to cost me?”

“Nothing. I owe myself a holiday, so I'll take my little ship out and enjoy the company,” Jeffrey said. “Come aboard the Elizabeth tomorrow, and I'll have my replicator make you a better suit, then we'll go for a ride on Mistral for a week.”

Jeffrey went to the Torres residence (Australia, it was called in their safe-house lingo.) Janet answered the door, and greeted Jeffrey fondly, then called out, “Honey, come here! It's Jeffrey!”

“I'm in the bathroom!”

“Come on in Captain! What can I do for you? Can I get you a beer?”Jeffrey accepted the beer, and they chatted for a few minutes, until Ojo came out to join them. He grabbed a beer for himself, and a juice for Janet.

“So I'm going to take a little vacation, kids, and I need you back on Elizabeth. I am going to take Mistral out with a possible client, and if all goes well, she'll lease it.” Jeffrey took a sip from the bottle of lager.

“SHE?” asked Janet. “Tell us more!”

“Just a customer. Don't get exited.”

Janet pouted, disappointed that she never got to see Jeffrey have any fun. She said, Okay, we'll be in 08:00 tomorrow.

Jeffrey stood, and as he walked to the door, said, “She will be on Elizabeth tomorrow, I'm having Elizabeth make her one of our special sets of hard-shell and soft suits for the trip.”

“Oooh,” replied Janet in excitement. “I'll be able to see the boss's lady!”Jeffrey just growled.

“Thanks for the beer.” And he left. He went directly to Elizabeth and set up the meeting with the security detail, made sure Elizabeth had enough raw materials to make what she needed. Then he pulled over the hood and a small helmet, and walked over to the Mistral, where he prepared it for the trip. He saw that the tanks were full, that there were all the prospecting tools and machines he had left with the Chongs. He went back to Elizabeth and picked up a variety of weapons and charge packs and ammunition, walking back to Mistral to hide away. He saw that there was enough food for several weeks, so that wasn't a concern.

He notified Elizabeth that he was going to sleep aboard Mistral. She replied “GOOD NIGHT, CAPTAIN.”

At 0600, he awoke, went to the office and shot out a few memos. One to the sub-administrator to initiate a new system of gates that had flexible, extensible gangways to the ships at the outer docks. When he returned he wanted a report from engineers and architects. Another to all the Lagrange 3 stations that he was going to be out of contact for a while. Military matters would be handled by Lt. Col. dePaul and Lt. Bianca Torres the acting Captain of Elizabeth , civilian matters to be handled by sub-administrators. Lt. Bianca Torres would know how to get in touch with him.

He came aboard Elizabeth at 0745, showed Janet where they were going on the asteroid map, then went to his cabin to pick up his hard-shell suit. He saw a new communicator on his table with a flimsie note from Elizabeth telling him that this one was special – it would communicate directly with her from a distance. It fit in an inside pocked of his hard-shell suit and connected automatically with all suit systems, including the suits radio.

At 0800, Elizabeth announced that the Marines were escorting his guest aboard. He met her at the forward airlock, and escorted her to the replicator chamber. There Elizabeth took a three dimension scan for measurements, then began the process of making the special soft suit. That only took a few minutes, so Jeffrey offered her his cabin for her to change into the new suit. When she came out, he explained how this was an improvement on the old emergency suit because it worked both as a complete suit, protecting the wearer from small impacts of sand-sized meteors, as well as projectiles fired from most human weapons. It dissipated beam weapon beams, small plasma shots and other things that people designed to hurt other people. With a face mask, it gave enough protection so a person could survive in space for quite some time.

She wore the suit mostly okay, Jeffrey adjusted the hood so it wasn't quite so bunched up. She looked natural in the suit. They then walked to the replicator chamber again and Elizabeth was nearly finished with the hard-shell suit. After the hard-shell suit was complete, Jeffrey helped her into it, and saw that it contained several new features – built in suit-to-suit radio, long range radio, emergency backup oxygen in case the air recyclers and scrubbers failed. But Elizabeth wasn't finished. She made a quick one-off run of a pistol for Sandra. It was smaller than the Marine standard, but held the same size round. There was a magazine containing six rounds, and several boxes of additional ammunition and several additional empty clips.

Jeffrey saw a tag on her suit at the inner thigh, where he had secreted a pistol himself before on his own suit. The tag had an image of the pistol. Jeffrey showed Sandra the pistol, how rounds were fed into the clip, how the clip was fed into the handle of the pistol, how to jack a round into the firing chamber and then how to aim and shoot. He showed her the safety, and how to tell if it was safety on or safety off. He then put the loaded weapon in her inner thigh pouch and zipped it shut. He gathered the additional clips, the box of ammunition, put them into her suit pockets, and went to his cabin, where he got into his own hard-shell suit, then exited the ship with Sandra. They walked to Mistral, entered via the front airlock, where they carefully hung up the hard-shell suits.

Jeffrey took her on a tour of the small ship. He explained that this had been the property of a family who had a small business in Earth orbit, cleaning up detritus and debris, when taken over by a pirate that intended to drop rocks on various cities. They killed the pirate as Jeffrey with his very fast ship destroyed the pirate ship. They met him when he parked at the Earth-Moon Lagrange station, and he became enamored of the family, bought their ship and transported them out to the Lagrange 3 orbit.

The family was now a restaurant-owning family on Lagrange 3 – the King's Feast. “Oh, I heard of that.,” she said.“A new restaurant in Silver level. I haven't eaten there yet. What's it like?”

“Really nice. They really can cook. They specialize in Korean food, but also have some non-Korean foods too. They catered my Exec officer's wedding.” Jeffrey said proudly. “I love that family, and they will do anything for me. Kind of a cozy relationship.”

“Must be nice,” she said, then apologized immediately. “I didn't mean that to come out sarcastically.”

He continued showing their digs for the next week. “This is your cabin, and across here is mine. There's a common bathroom. It used to service two females, so it should be comfortable for you. The galley is the common room, it features a kitchen and a dinette.” He showed her the pantry, the rest of the living space, then the engineering section, the fuel tanks with the crawl tubes between them. Then the aft section, which included the engineering rooms and rock holds. In the engineering section, Jeffrey had added a hanger for his runabout. A few modifications from when he first acquired the Mistral. This small ship fit, although snugly, inside Elizabeth. However it should do for what Sandra had in mind for it.

They then went back to the bridge. He manually disconnected the clamps and static-mated gangway. He notified the traffic controller that Mistral was about to leave the dock and go on a one week trip, Captain Sandra Knutson aboard.

They got clearance to move away from the station before engaging their ion drive. The ion drive used to be a very slow and painful method of moving into space, but in the last few decades, one could build up a powerful head of steam using ion drives. Jeffrey went to his hard-shell suit, took out the special new radio, and called, “Elizabeth, radio check.”

“I READ YOU FIVE BY FIVE, CAPTAIN. GOOD SAILING.”

He put the radio back into it's pocket in his hard-shell suit, and returned to the bridge. Sandra was sitting in one of the three seats there. He moved her to the far side, where she could see what he was doing but not interfere.

“The ship has been modified a little from the last owners. There are three pilot seats. The one you occupy has observer functions only, unless this master switch,” he indicated a rotational switch, “activates it.” He then went through all the controls on the bridge. He pointed out the rotational motors that gave the ship artificial gravity was only activated when the ship was not docked. He showed her the controls. He activated the rotational artificial gravity, and turned on the full polarization of the windows. “If I don't do that you'll get dizzy and ill in a few minutes.” The live view was replaced by a video image of the forward view, another of the aft view and one each of the cardinal directions.

She said, “It wasn't so bad”

“After a few minutes of rotation, I get really dizzy. I have to change my view on a regular basis.” He pointed to the video displays, showing the various views, arranged so the forward view was the largest, the aft view was topmost, then the four cardinal points were at the corresponding points on the display. She saw the station receding on the aft view, and other ships were moving in the background of the other views. The video of the forward view showed their forward velocity, and their rotational direction. The other displays showed their position relative to the sun and displayed an astrogational map, with their position indicated by a red x. Other displays showed the temperature and pressure of the fuel, the air pressure with its oxygen and carbon dioxide content, the oxygen reserves, carbon-dioxide and nitrogen reserves, and hydrogen reserves.

There were other sensor readings, including the pressure and content of the solar wind, (primarily hydrogen with a large amount of helium,) generally away from the sun, but also periodic cross winds from Saturn and Jupiter, and some from the galactic winds. These were colored differently. Ship exhaust left different chemicals in their wakes, but these were added to the mix as well.

But Jeffrey changed the display so that instead of all the cameras showing into different displays, the display became somewhat integrated. So the mistral became a large dot on the display, the station falling behind, the cloud of ships falling behind with it,the direction of rotation being one of the variables displayed, the solar wind another set of arrows showing the direction, color showing the temperature and content of the solar wind. “That's a good one,” she said, “Keep it on that one.”

“It's pretty good for fast travel, but not so good for up close.” He keyed to another, similar display that showed nothing in the screen except the larger items like solar wind, direction of rotation and direction of their relative travel. “This is the same, but has local detail. When we get closer to the asteroid belt, we will want this display to see some of the bigger rocks.” He shifted in his seat. “These overlap all the sensors, the radar, lidar, electronic and magnetic information in one place. If you pay attention to it it will give you bountiful information, but if you don't, it can get confusing. When we get closer, I'll show you what I mean.

He then showed her how to set the auto pilot. He picked a destination and a route, then set the alarm for the level of sensitivity he thought they should worry about. “Come, on. Let's get some grub.” He climbed out of the pilot's seat, she followed him.

He took two frozen meals from the storage unit, keyed the temperature guide and opened them both up. The chemical reaction with the air warmed their food, except for the desert; that portion cooled with the air. He mixed some coffee that tasted remarkably like coffee, then sat the trays down. Sandra thanked him, looked around the table for utensils. “Oh, forgot.” Jeffrey got up and got the required spoons and forks.

“Thanks,” she said, and started eating. After they ate and cleaned up, Jeffrey took her back to the aft of the ship, where he showed her the runabout. On the runabout was a collection of sensors that Jeffrey had developed in order to better discriminate one type of asteroid from another – those with metal ores versus those with just sand and dust. He showed her how to maneuver, how to launch a claim buoy, how to read the instruments, how to bring mineral-rich rocks into the hold. On the way back to the galley, he pointed out the fuel bladders on all sides of the access tube. The fuel was less volatile than earlier fuels, but she needed to be careful to not breathe the fumes. There shouldn't be any fumes unless the bladders were punctured.

After arriving back at the galley, Jeffrey decided to hit the sack. The ship was heading toward the location he knew contained a rich bounty of heavy metals, and it would take two days to get there, so he had time to relax before coming anywhere near dangerous rocks. He lay on the cot, the mattress was more comfortable than military cots, but still it wasn't his bed. He tossed and turned, not dropping off to sleep. So after an hour, he got up, went to the galley, sat down after grabbing another ice cream and pondered life while enjoying his midnight snack.

After a few minutes of silence, her heard what sounded like crying coming from Sandra's room. It went from a whimpering to a sobbing, back to whimpering. A moan here and there. Jeffrey deliberately made some noise by clattering utensils, putting dishes in the cleaner and activating it, and making a cup of coffee. “You want to make that two?” she asked from the door. The galley was the hub of the human area of the ship, doors to every room, the pilot's bridge, the aft section. Jeffrey looked up.

“You got it. Are you okay?”

“What, was I doing it again?” she asked.

“Doing...?”

“I've been known to go into a crying jag periodically. One of the reasons I stick to myself. “

He handed her a cup of coffee. “When did it happen?”

“What? Oh, the murder of my husband, my...rape.” She swallowed, then continued, “A year ago yesterday.” a tear tracked down one cheek. “I don't know why I still feel this way, it was long enough, but I...just...I don't know.”

Jeffrey waited for her to continue her thought, but when she didn't, he said, “Do you mind if I offer you a hand getting over this?”

“What, are you a shrink, too?”

“No, but I have one on retainer. I would like you to make use of this doctor. It may not sound like it, but he has helped people with much more difficult problems, and I think he can help you too.”

“I'll..think about it.”

“Thank you. I don't know if you were aware, but I lost my wife to a violent encounter ten years, almost eleven years ago.”

“Really?” she asked. “I'm sorry.”

“I've been slowly getting over it. I have a wonderful support system, friends and colleagues, even my AI – she took on many of my wife's personality components. But I'm not perfect either, just getting better – a little bit every day.”

“Have you seen the shrink?” she asked.

“Actually, no.”

“Why not?”

Jeffrey sat silent for a while, trying to compose a good-sounding reason, but every answer he came up with sounded more like an excuse. He finally said, “I have no good excuse.”

“I'll see your shrink if you do,” she challenged. She put her cup to her lips to half-hide her smile.

“Done.”

“Oops. Caught. Didn't think you'd jump at that one.” She reached across the table, he shook her hand.

“Deal.”

They both went back to their separate bedrooms and had no trouble dropping off to sleep.

On awakening, Jeffrey showed Sandra more of the equipment, the controls for the outside doors, problems that might arise – such as if the hold hatch wouldn't close. He showed her the emergency beacons, how to override them. Then he showed her the small arms weapons cache – just in case.

The ship had no offensive weapons, but that hadn't stopped Jeffrey when he had needed to send multiple pirates' ships to hell in Elizabeth. He explained that it took precision flying and timing, but if she did it right, she could throw some big rocks at opposing ships. The ship did have lasers specifically for cutting asteroids to a size adequate for transportation, and Jeffrey had pioneered the use of the lasers to offer information for the mass-spectrometer. In a pinch, the lasers could be used defensively.

The following day as they neared the inner perimeter of the asteroid belt, Jeffrey pointed out the rise in the all-around gravity. He used the gravimeter to pinpoint high density rocks nearby and maneuvered the craft to intercept with the ten meter wide, slowly tumbling heavy rock. He used the radar to determine it's exact dimensions, the gravimeter to calculate the mass, the laser to feed information to the spectrometer. What he got back was a large quantity of heavy metals. There was no appreciable radioactivity, so that narrowed the possible danger. They evacuated the air from the hold, opened the bay doors, and wearing their hard-shell suits rode the runabout to the asteroid. He gave her the controls, made sure she was comfortable driving, then sat back and told her to do the work that had to be done.

Her concentration was evident in the slowness and deliberateness of her actions. But she did nothing wrong. Jeffrey was impressed with the quickness which she gained understanding. This be one smart girl, he thought to himself, though she really wasn't a girl. Woman.

“Next, put on the claim buoy, and let's see if we can wrestle this sucker into the ship.”

She aimed the targeting reticle to the center mass of the rock, fired off the small rocket that propelled the buoy to the asteroid. The buoy stuck to the rock, drilled itself into it, extended its anchors, then began broadcasting a low-power claim signal.

“Perfect. Now to wrestle. In a larger ship, I would have included small maneuvering rockets, but this ship is only so big. How would you get the rock into the ship?”

She thought for a moment, then said “I would move the ship to surround the rock.”

“Excellent! Let's do it. What do you think the first step would be?”

“Reduce the spin or get the ship to match its spin.”

“Which one?” Jeffrey asked, his voice clear over the radio.

“Probably less work to match the spin with the ship. I think.”

“Okay, what will you need to do to make that happen?” She thought again, running several scenarios in her mind, then settled on attaching cables to the rock, keeping them straight, then she could reel the rock in, matching the rotation and rotational velocity of the rock with the ship. Jeffrey suggested using a net with cables attached, rather than nailing the rock with pitons.

They took the runabout back to the ship, Jeffrey took the large net out of its cabinet, placed it onto the runabout, grabbed four reels of cable, and brought the cable from the winch at the back of the hold, attached it to the runabout, then climbed back aboard.

Sandra piloted the runabout back to the rock, then climbed out and unfurled the net, attached the cables to the corner of the net, then attached the other end of the cables to the winch. Then she piloted the runabout back to the ship. Jeffrey had her park it on the outside of the ship, he secured the sled runners to mounts on the aft bulkhead, then they moved into the hold.

He had her take the pilot's seat, he took the second one right next to her. Because this was a dangerous operation, they kept their hard-shell suits on. He showed her the controls she needed to use, then sat back. She aligned the ship with the rock, then matched its rotation. Jeffrey noted that the cable was kinking, rather than twisting on its gimbal, so they both went back to the hold and saw the problem; a small piece of rock had wedged itself into the gimbal, causing it to stop rotating. Jeffrey took it out with a plier and the cable slowly unkinked.

They both then went back to the cabin, and she seated herselfin the pilot's seat. The video gave several views of the rock and the inside of the hold. She continued to fine-tune the alignment of the ship to the rotation of the rock, then slowly pulled the rock in, the winch reeling in a centimeter at a time. Once the rock started moving, she began pushing the ship away, so that both the rock and the ship were moving in the same direction, the rock moving into the ship at a painfully slow and sedate tempo.

Once the rock was fully in the hold, she stopped the reeling in of the winch, but kept it tight. They then went to the hold, secured the rock to rings on the hard parts of the bulkhead and deck so it was now part of the ship. There was still room in the hold, so Jeffrey brought the runabout back inside. They checked that everything was secure, closed the bay doors, closed the hatch to the hold, then repressurized the cabin. They took off their hard-shell suits, her hair, which she had tied in a tight bun, was wispy with sweat. “Whew!” she exclaimed. “That was more work than I thought it would be.”

“You can expect every time you get a rock to be some kind of challenge. From what I see, however, you should be able to make a considerable profit from that one rock.”

“Me? This is your ship. That is your rock!” She said, incredulous.

“Nah, I'm on vacation. But I'll buy that rock from you! My ship needs more raw materials to keep making neat things like your hard-shell suit.”

“Okay. Fair market value?”

“What? Not even a discount? You're a hard-bargaining woman.”

They made preparation to head back to the Lagrange 3A station. The light supper was adequate to sate their food need. She went into the shower to wash up before bed. Jeffrey was wiping down the kitchen surfaces, putting the filters through the cleaner, and otherwise hanging around, waiting for his turn in the shower.

She called out to him, “Jeffrey, can you come here for a minute?” He knocked on the sliding door, and she said, “I can't seem to find a towel.”

“No towel,” he said. “Use the blower in the stall.”

“Can you show me?”

Oh boy, what now? He pushed the sliding door open letting a cloud of vapor enter the galley, letting cooler air enter the bathroom. “Ooh, that's cold, close it please,” she said.

He slid the door closed, and the water vapor cleared a bit. He saw exactly what she wanted him to see, a beautiful, wet, tall woman, unashamed of her nakedness. Her small breasts enticing, drawing his eye, but he deliberately moved his gaze back to her lovely face. Doing his best not to insult her, and doing his best to keep himself as professional as possible under the circumstance, he went over to the shower controls, showed her the warm air blower and switched it on.

Jets of warm air blew from every angle, she shook out her hair, and it caught in the wind. She raised her arms to dry there as well, then lifted her breasts to dry under there. Jeffrey started to leave the bathroom, but she caught his arm, unzipped his suit, put both her arms around his neck, and pulled him into the shower. She turned off the air and turned the shower back on. “You're going to have to show me again,” she said coyly. She helped him out of his suit, his physical reaction a surprise to Jeffrey – he hadn't had this kind of reaction in a long time.

She scrubbed Jeffrey's chest and back and arms, then kissed him again in a long, lingering tongue-fighting kiss.They made love in the shower, standing and shifting to other positions, but eventually climaxing and slowing their lovemaking activities.

“Oh, my,” she said. “That was good.”

“Me too,” said Jeffrey. But he wasn't quite finished with her. He turned her back to him, kissed her again on the mouth. She turned her head all the way around to accommodate him. Then he scrubbed her chest, breasts, belly, thighs, up her privates, her back, her arms, then massaged her back, ribs, hips, butt. He turned on the air dryer again, and let her hair blow in the breeze. Afterward, he picked up his suit, went back to his cabin.

A moment later she came into his cabin too. “May I join you?” She was still naked.

“Where is your jumpsuit? Go get it.” He cautioned.

She got her undersuit, and brought it into Jeffrey's room. “Lay down there,” he pointed to his bunk. Then he went into her cabin, got her pillow, brought it back, tossed it onto his bunk alongside her head, then joined her.

“That was nice,” she said. “I haven't had sex since my husband died last year. I missed it!”

“Thanks for the invitation. I haven't had sex since my wife died a decade ago.”

“Really? You handled it like a pro! That was really good!”

“Well, thank you Ma'am”

The two bare people lay facing each other her hair still damp, but loose. His short hair hardly moist. “Tell me about your husband. Carl, wasn't it?”

“Oh he was the perfect Viking gentleman. He was from Norwegian stock, his folks were from Bergen. Oh, I loved him. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do for him.” Her strong alto voice stirred memories in Jeffrey. “I had a lot of hope for a family, but he took it with him when he died.” She paused to let a sob die down. “I will always remember him. That's my favorite song, I don't know who wrote it, but I hold the lyrics in my heart – 'You're always on my mind, I look forward, I look behind, No matter what else I do, I will always remember you.'

“Sing it for me,” Jeffrey asked her.

She sat up in the bed, looked at Jeffrey and sang in a quiet voice a haunting melody those same words, almost a Celtic tune.

“That's lovely. I can see you really loved him.”

She lay back down, then asked him, “Tell me about your wife.”

“I first met her when I was a young man, just after my parents brought us to the station to sell a load of minerals. She was on the station, and captured my heart. For that first time, I was smitten and pursued her. My parents died and I inherited the ship. I had her on my mind and invited her aboard. She was entranced by me too. We decided to get married, and we did in a church on the station. We started together on my ship going out just like you were doing here. We found some good places, and after a few trips, made enough to begin modify our ship.

“Our third trip out made all the difference. Pirates attacked us. She and I fought them off, and got everyone of them, but for the last one. He was busy raping her in the corridor. I was so mad. I shot him in the head – his head went flying away, but he fell on the knife he held at her throat and it killed her.

I was inconsolable for the longest time. I brought the bodies in to the station, but there was nothing anyone would do. I renamed the ship after her. I bought an AI,my ship and the AI both took on the name and personality of my late wife. That was ten years ago, going on eleven. I have loved other people, but from a distance. You were the first since my wife died. That was my first lovemaking. Thanks!”

He lay back, somewhat relieved from the recitation of his story, happy to be in bed with this beautiful woman. “You know,” he said, “I didn't bring you out here all alone just to seduce you.”

“You should have,” she said. “I like being with you. I liked having sex with you.”

“Really? I thought it was a bit hurried.” He climbed on top of her. “Let's do it again but properly.” She opened to him, his body again waking up. This time they took their time, less frantic, his hands again remembering what they were supposed to do. She arched her back to put the angle just right as he moved against her.He continued working her nipples, and could feel her shuddering in pleasure at his ministrations. Her orgasm came again, and she closed her eyes, lost in the pleasure. Jeffrey kept moving, raising against her body in a rolling motion, his thumbs turning on her erect nipples, and he came in a great spurt. Her eyes opened in surprise as yet another orgasm took her. He came to lay down on his elbows, keeping the weight off his partner, still inside her. She then squeezed and moved again to extract the last of his semen.

They looked at each other as he loomed over her. He kissed her again, she kissed him back, lip to lip.They both got up, hand in hand to the shower, got clean then dry and came back to his bed. He changed the linens and they lay down again, this time both dropped off to sleep.

Jeffrey woke up to the odor of breakfast cooking. The technology of making good food store a long time and remain palatable has taken long strides over the last half century. Long gone are the days of dehydrated fruit and sugar juices masquerading as healthful beverages. Keeping food frozen was impractical, but the concepts were the right idea; now food was being reduced to a folded state – the molecules were folded to a more compact, now dry form. To unfold the food, heating it brought it back to its normal state.

His bacon and eggs with whole wheat buttered toast was as good as any freshly made in an Iowa roadside cafe. The coffee was the same quality as that found in a French or Viennese cafe. “Thanks for cooking. This is good,” commented Jeffrey, cheeks full like a squirrel's. “Thanks,” she said coyly. “I know you like to eat – so do I.” Jeffrey noticed the place she had sat at still had some crumbs, showing she already ate. She had her soft suit on, lightweight soft boots to mid-calf, hood rolled up. The soft suit showed off her gentle curves, much to Jeffrey's delight. He finished his meal, bussed the table, placed his dishes and cutlery in the washer next to hers and activated the clean cycle.

He refilled his and her coffees, and they sat at the table, not saying much, just enjoying each others company. The proximity detector sounded an alarm, reporting “RAPIDLY APPROACHING MASS. COLLISION ALERT.”They both jumped up and ran to the pilot's bridge. Sandra arrived first, jumped into the pilot's seat. She saw the display showing radar images of six objects moving toward them. Jeffrey quickly went into the anteroom by the airlock, and got into his hard-shell suit. Then he went back to the pilot's bridge and told her to get into hers.

She got up, quickly went to the anteroom and suited up. Her soft boots fit directly into the hard-shell boots. Jeffrey activated the new radio that Elizabeth had issued him. “Elizabeth, come in.” A few seconds passed, then she responded.

“HELLO CAPTAIN. WHAT'S UP?”

“Can you monitor my suit's cameras?” he asked. A few seconds passed again. Damn this time lag, thought Jeffrey.

“YES I CAN. YOUR RADAR IDICATES TROUBLE.”

“I need your assistance.”

“I'LL NOTIFIY JANET. BE THERE SOON. EAVDE. DO YOUR BEST.”

“Thanks.”

Jeffrey explained to Sandra what was the most likely scenario – the ships surrounding them were most likely pirates, armed with guns that the Mistral wasn't equipped to protect against. He would drive, hopefully his experience would give him an advantage until the Elizabeth showed up.

He gave her some idea of the maneuvers he would have to undertake. One of the new terms he introduced was Crazy Ivan. Crazy Ivan was a maneuver that was so insane that no rational pilot would ever perform it. Jeffrey couldn't tell her what his Crazy Ivan maneuver was going to be, it all depended on the circumstances. But Crazy Ivan was a dangerous maneuver regardless of the specifics. So Jeffrey would tell her when he would do anything so dangerous.

Sandra's gloved hand went to the inner thigh pocket that held her pistol. Jeffrey noticed and told her to save it for when they were boarded, if it got to that.

Jeffrey increased speed, forcing the attackers, if that's what they were, to move before they had gotten into the best attack position.

A radio message came over the system from one of the ships. “You can run but you cannot get away from us. We know you have a rock on board – do you notice how poorly your ship responds to your acceleration motors? We did.”

Jeffrey keyed the mike on the same frequency, “This is Mistral, who are you?”

“Captain Sokolov, we are your worst nightmare,” the voice said. “You aren't going to escape alive.”

“Who is this?” Jeffrey's curiosity exceeded his fear. “I've made a few enemies over the last year, but most of them are dead.”

“We are not dead.”

“So who are you? Are you ashamed of your identity?” Jeffrey began plotting several maneuvers into the computer for rapid execution. Damn, he thought, I should have done this before we left. Jeffrey also changed the display to overlap the electromagnetic emissions, the gravimeter of the region, and returns from radar, lidar, and visual inputs onto the same display. As the ship increased its speed, the other vessels struggled to go faster than Mistral, and as they were spread out, maneuvering at this stage of the battle would bring him into closer contact with one or another of the visible ships.

While inputting further maneuvers, Jeffrey had Sandra go into the bay and remove all the nets around the rock. She got up and moved back as quickly as she could. Jeffrey noticed the display showed gravity masses where there were not other emissions. He keyed the radio to Elizabeth, “I see we have probably twenty alien ships along with the six visible ones.”

“CAPTAIN, YOUR RADIO IS NOW BROADCASTING CONTINUALLY SO I CAN MONITOR.”

“Acknowledged.” He then broadcast to the pirates. “So which aliens are you working for?”

The reply came right away, the same voice that had been speaking to him throughout the whole conversation, “Say what? What are you talking about?”

Jeffrey asked if they had a gravimeter, if so, to turn it on and look at the masses surrounding their ships.

“Well, I'll be damned,” said the voice. “What is that?”

“Probably the people who instigated you to attack me out here. I've defeated their ships in every encounter, so they thought they could get me out here ostensibly by you. Mistral is not a combat vessel, but we are not defenseless.”

The captain of the main pirate vessel began communicating with his colleagues, Jeffrey monitored the conversation. The pirates decided to break off their attack and allow the aliens to do their own assassination. Jeffrey was pretty sure that the aliens were monitoring the conversation, so he had to begin his maneuvers pretty quickly. “Sandra!” he yelled. “Are you done back there?”

“One more cable! There! Coming back!” A moment later she returned to the pilot's bridge.

“Strap in. Got some wild maneuvers to initiate in a moment.” warned Jeffrey. He continued to increase the speed, which was costing a considerable amount of fuel, which gave Jeffrey an idea. He continued to burn plasma to increase the ships velocity, then cut the plasma engines and activated the ion drives. The ion drives were not specifically hot like the plasma, but could easily ignite fuel, so this maneuver was going to be tricky.

He released the outer emergency valve on one of the tanks, spewing fuel into the wake of his now hundred kilometer per second ship. At the same time he released one of the spare oxygen cylinder emergency valves, which mingled with the cloud of fuel flowing and dispersing in the ship's wake. Jeffrey cut the plasma drive for a moment, then fired off one of the powerful lasers through the cloud when he determined the alien ships were caught in his vapor trail.

The laser caused a powerful explosion – the fuel was hard to ignite, but with the pure oxygen made for an impressive explosion. This occurred as several of the alien vessels were about to fire on the pirate ships, so they were caught with the weapon's protective covers open just as the explosion occurred, imploding three of the twenty ships.

As the ships were destroyed and damaged, several of them lost their invisibility. The alien ships spread out, to make that particular maneuver impossible to pull off a second time.

“Something I haven't told you.These aliens have faster-than-light travel. Not sure why they aren't using it here, but it's going to cost them.”

“They have WHAT?” she asked. Then after thinking about it for a second, said, “Well, of course, if they got here from another star, they would have to, wouldn't they?” She stared at the screen. “So how do you know there are aliens here?”

Jeffrey pointed to the mass indicators on the screen where there was no visible or radar reflection. This tells me about the ships, much as it would tell me about a rock. The deeper the well, the greater the mass.”

“I see. Clever.”

“Thank you Ma'am”

“Okay, we're going to try another tactic. See that control there? The red one?”

“The one that says radar?”

“Yes. I want you to focus the radar beam at only one of the gravity wells. I'm going to do the same with a laser on another one. Let's see what happens.”

They began targeting individual ships using their tools, the radar, with all its power concentrated on a single point was a hellish beam. It overpowered the ship's circuitry, and it became visible and fell out of the chase. Jeffrey's laser had less effect, but still, the invisibility circuit popped off, leaving the ship visible. It bore an exact reminiscence of the Vorsh ships that Jeffrey had destroyed before.

At Jeffrey's request, Sandra turned the radar back to full scan.

Jeffrey was about to try another maneuver – possibly twisting around to throw their precious rock at one of the Vorsh, when he noticed the radar image showed another ship ahead that didn't seem to be there before. Just as he decided to ram through the offending ship – at this velocity he would do far more damage to it than to his own ship, the familiar blast of all-frequency announcement of an Earth Warship was in their presence, and that the use of invisibility circuits was illegal in Human space, punishable by destruction.

The Elizabeth, back-pedaling to keep pace with the mass of alien ships let loose half-second bursts from both rail guns at every alien ship in their fleet. All the Vorsh ships appeared, either because they were far too wounded or fear of further attack by Elizabeth. Jeffrey radioed the Vorsh to give up the leader who had brought them to the point of death, or follow him in death.

“I am Bieph. I ordered the attack on you. Give me an hour and I will surrender to you to be killed.”

Realizing that this was his attempt at immortality – to impregnate as many females as he could before he died, forced by chemicals in the food given only to Vorsh captains, Jeffrey told Elizabeth to have Janet send Marines aboard to collect him before he began his barbaric ritual.

The Marines forced themselves onto Bieph's ship. They got no resistance from the alien crew, found Bieph being held at bay by a number of females. They captured and restrained him, brought him aboard Elizabeth. Then Janet asked Jeffrey to bring the Mistral aboard the Elizabeth. They made room in a corner of the shuttle bay, and Mistral squeezed in.

When Jeffrey exited the Mistral he heard a bosun's whistle followed by an announcement' “CAPTAIN SOKOLOV ABOARD.”

Sandra said, “Nice touch!”

“Yeah, we didn't have a bosun's whistle when the admiral came aboard, so I had my AI simulate one. I thought it would be a touch of class.” Jeffrey and Sandra walked arm in arm, hip-to-hip.

They walked over to the bridge, having shed their helmets once they exited the shuttle bay. She shook out her hair, which had a tendency to get tangled up in her hastily secured helmet. Jeffrey guided her around the corridors, pointed out his own cabin on the way, then brought her into the bridge.

As soon as Jeffrey entered the bridge, a petty officer called out “Captain on the bridge!”

Janet stood up, saluted Jeffrey, who saluted back. Jeffrey introduced Sandra, then asked to speak with the next Vorsh leader. He sat in his chair, waiting for the next Vorsh to take responsibility for all in his fleet. A new face appeared. Jeffrey asked, “What is your name?”

“I am Sarguntum.”

“All right, Sarguntum, let me fill you in on some rules. If any ship or individual is using invisibility circuits, they will be destroyed without further warning. If any alien kills, enslaves, eats, or otherwise does harm to a human, that alien is subject to immediate destruction. Any alien that wages war on Humans will be destroyed. So answer me this – do I have to send a fleet to destroy your home world and everyone on it? Do I? You are forcing my hand. I don't want to destroy your home world but we have bent over backwards to make you welcome here, and what do you do? You go out and try to have me assassinated. So what is it going to be? Do I have to destroy the Vorsh, kill every one of them, or are the Vorsh going to cooperate with me?”

“We will cooperate.”

“Good. So let's begin that cooperation here. Who initiated this assassination attempt?” Jeffrey looked angrily at the display of the alien Sarguntum.

“It was Bieph. He was the guilty one.”

“No I don't think so. You see, this is what I was afraid of, you say you will cooperate, but then you lie to me.” He turned to Janet, “Lieutenant prepare the rail guns to destroy that ship. Eventually somebody will tell me the truth.”

Jeffrey's bluff worked.

“Please don't. I will tell you. There is a Vorsh in your Earth station named ZhZhZhee. He told us not to, but the other Vorsh, Jaja, he told us to make the pirates kill you.”

“Why?”

“You humiliated us. You changed the way we do things – like making Captains live. When they fail they are supposed to die.”

“Well don't feel special, we have humiliated every race that has come into our solar system. You aliens just aren't good at war. You need to stop trying to wage war on us. We've been innovating war methods since we first came out of the trees. Now, am I clear on the consequences of violating our laws?”

“Yes Captain. We will no longer violate your laws.”

“This conversation will be reported to my superiors and to your ambassador. Do not disappoint me.”

He cut the connection, then said to Janet, “So did I interrupt anything important?”

“Nothing important,” replied Janet. “Ojo and I were just dancing.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Not a problem, Captain. He needs practice, but my toes need a rest.” She smirked at her own wit. “So this is the lady who wants to go prospecting. Did you find anything?”

“Yeah, a big rock about the size of the Mistral's hold. Full of heavy minerals. I got her to agree to sell directly to me and the Elizabeth. So we might as well have Elizabeth's remotes take it off our hands.”

“Elizabeth should appreciate that – she has been whimpering about not having enough raw materials.”

“HEY! I WASN'T WHIMPERING. MORE LIKE WHINING. THAT'S HOW I GET THINGS DONE AROUND HERE, IT SEEMS.”

“Is Heinz aboard?”

“Yes sir. Do you want me to get him?” replied Janet.

“I want to meet him outside the brig –where the Vorsh captain is.Have the Marines move him to an interrogation room. Also, do we have a shrink aboard?”

“No sir. We couldn't scrounge up one fast enough to suit Elizabeth.”

“I think we need to assign one for the ship. Might help interrogations, and begin to ease post traumatic stress quicker. I'll recruit from the station. Whatever happened to Sgt. Quinn – the psychologist?”

“I think she transferred to the station,” said Janet.

Against his better judgment he left Sandra in Janet's hands. He was sure there would be some discussion of things that he wasn't sure he wanted shared, but he had important things to do.

He met IntelTech Jurgen Heinz at the door outside the brig. A Marine stood guard outside, and gave admittance to the Captain and the Intel technician. Jeffrey still wore his hard-shell suit, and carried his helmet with him. The Vorsh captain, Bieph, was looking distressed, as much as anyone could tell alien facial expressions.

“Why have you kept me from my duty?” the Vorsh captain demanded.

“You mean the rape of as many females on your ship as you can do in the given time? You mean the lying about your mission so the real guilty party goes free? Let me ask you this – on the ship, did you eat the same food as your crew?”

“Of course not. I am a captain,” the Vorsh replied. “I eat Captain food.”

“So you probably don't know about the chemicals they put in your food to make you want to follow the protocols of your end of life? We have found this before. Captains that don't eat it, have no desire to commit suicide or accept execution.”

“How can a captain not eat Captain Food?”

“I know of one who fed his starving crew his food, and he went hungry.”

“Oh.”

“So who told you to attack me?”

“I did it on my own. You must kill me now,” the Vorsh said, in a matter-of -fact manner. He looked back and forth from Jeffrey to Heinz, waiting.

Jeffrey turned to Heinz. “Hey Jurgen, I was just thinking about some of that Danish pastry the Chief makes. Don't you think some Danish would be nice?”

“Why Captain, I think I am a bit peckish myself, and some Danish and coffee would be welcome. Why don't I get some from the Chief?”

“Good idea. I'll just have a nice conversation with our Vorsh friend, here while you get us some of the most excellent Danish pastries and coffee.”

Bieph's brow furrowed. “You must kill me now.”

“Oh, maybe in a little while. But first I want the benefit of your wisdom. You were, after all, the captain of a Vorsh war fleet.”

“Not a war fleet. Was just a long-range travel fleet.”

“Ah,” said Jeffrey. “What's the difference between a war fleet and your long-range travel fleet?”

“Kill me now, kill me now, you must kill me now.”

“Not yet. So what kind of weapons does a war fleet have? More of what your ships weapons are?”

“Of course not. There are powerful weapons on a warship. Our little ships only have little weapons.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” said Jeffrey, “Not only do your weapons not work against my ships, but they don't work on my Marine's armor. I think somebody gave you worthless weapons on purpose. Maybe to give me the impression that your real warships are poorly armed.”

Heinz came back with a box of Danish pastries and a tray containing a coffee pot, mugs and sugar and cream bowls. He set the Danish down, opened the box. The aroma filled the small interrogation chamber. Jeffrey grabbed one and promptly put it in his mouth and chewed deliberately, making appreciative noises. He looked at Heinz, nodded, and Heinz made the same noises. Jeffrey finished the first Danish, then picked up another. The Vorsh sniffed. Boy that smelled good. He sniffed again. Jeffrey seemed to be enjoying his Danish more than was reasonable. He finally turned his head to Bieph, and with food in his cheeks, asked if he wanted one.

Jeffrey went behind the Vorsh, and released one of his hands from the cuff connecting him to the ring behind the chair. Jeffrey then went back and sat down, pushed a Danish on a napkin toward the Vorsh.

He picked it up, and copying the Humans, took a bite out of the pastry. His eyes opened very wide. “This is good!” he said with his mouth full. He swallowed, and said it again, this time more clearly.

Jeffrey poured him a cup of coffee, added some cream and sugar, thinking that black coffee was an acquired taste, but everyone loved coffee with cream and sugar.

He passed the cup to the Vorsh, who picked it up like Jeffrey did his and sipped. “What is this? This is good!”

The three continued eating their Danish until it was all gone. They drank the rest of their coffee, and Heinz put the service tray on the floor, out of the way. “Now I know what food tastes like! Does every human eat like this?”

“Pretty much. But we have much more flavors and textures to share. But I guess you probably would rather I kill you now, so too bad you won't taste them.” Jeffrey started to pull his pistol.

“No, I think I want to try food first. Kill me later.”

“Oh dear,” said Heinz. “That would be a problem. We cannot give food to somebody we are just going to kill. It would be a waste. And I was thinking we should share a fruit bowl. Melons, citrus, apples. Mangoes. Oh well, too bad.”

“Do you think I could have a fruit bowl before I kill him? I liked the Danish, but the fruit would really hit the spot.” Jeffrey asked Heinz.

“Let me go see if Chief has some fruit for us.” And Heinz got up and went back to the galley. He returned a moment later with a few bowls of fruit.

“Banana! You remembered the bananas. I love bananas!” Jeffrey effused enthusiastically. The Vorsh watched Jeffrey peel the banana and eat the ripe fruit. The sweet banana odor wafted to Bieph. He sniffed again.

“Maybe,” said Jeffrey, I can let him have a banana before I shoot him. What do you think?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” interjected the Vorsh at the same time Heinz was saying, “I don't know...”

Jeffrey passed a banana to the Vorsh, then took it back – the look of disappointment was palpable – but Jeffrey was going to peel it for his prisoner. He gave it back half-peeled.

The banana did it. The rest of the fruit bowls was okay, but Jeffrey did a good job of selling the banana.“Maybe I should reconsider you killing me. I think there is much to learn, and you cannot learn if you are dead. Lessons are lost on the dead,” then he made sounds similar to a laugh.

“I think he just made a joke, sir.” said Heinz.

“Oh. Haha.” Jeffrey chuckled on the way out of the interrogation room.

“You answer Mr. Heinz's questions,” he said at the door,“and we'll see about other foods. Okay?” The prisoner seemed to have melted entirely. Yay for bananas, thought Jeffrey. He reflected on the trouble that the Vorsh had brought themselves by providing only bland foods, including using flesh of their own people. The offering of delicious – sweet, spicy, salty, tangy - foods was the most successful method of extracting information and garnering loyalty to a less than extreme Vorsh attitude, as found in the Vorsh ambassador ZhZhZhee. The ambassador still had loyalty to his race and his planet, but he was free of the chemicals that forced him to behave according to a pre-programmed mode – loyalty by chemical intervention. The report Jurgen would file on interrogation techniques was going to be interesting reading.

Jeffrey went to his cabin, retrieved the code book from his book shelf, and began composing a special report to Admiral Kutuzov. He paged through the book looking for appropriate sentences or words or specific letters, spelled out the name of his Vorsh prisoner, the name of the Vorsh agent on the Earth station that instigated the assassination attempt, and the name of the replacement captain of the lead Vorsh ship that led the assault. He told Kutuzov of his threatened attack on the Vorsh homeworld if continued attacks and assassination attempts didn't stop.

He then composed a report with far less secure detail, but much more information, to be broadcast over regular high-speed secure burst transmission. He had Elizabeth transmit the 'book report' to the Earth Navy station hidden in the carrier wave of the regular report. He then went back to the bridge, found Janet and Sandra busily exchanging tidbits about Jeffrey. They stopped talking when the lowest ranking staffer on the bridge called out “Captain on the bridge!” but did look at each other and chuckle, in the unspoken promise to continue their conversation at a later time.

Now I'm in for it, thought Jeffrey. But nothing to do for it. He had always been self-motivated, self-serving and self-reliant, but it was good to have people he could relax with. Because Sandra was not in his command, he had no problem being intimate with her, but he had no desire to become the discussion focal point of the ship or the service. Still, she provided him with an emotional anchor, something he had missed over the last decade. He made a decision; “Sandra,” he began. “I think I would like to invite you to share my cabin. Are you interested?”

Taken by surprise, she looked at Janet for help, but the lieutenant all of a sudden was engulfed in a report, wouldn't look up to make eye contact with her new friend. “Um, well, um, uh, sure. I guess,” she said, her complexion now turning decidedly red. Jeffrey was relieved. That's out of the way.

“Janet,” he said.

She looked up from the report she wasn't really reading. “Register Ms. Knutson as a guest crew member of the ship, and have someone move her luggage from Mistral to my cabin.” He could have done that himself by telling Elizabeth to do it, but it also helped to clear things with his crew.

“Aye sir,” replied Janet a knowing smirk on her face. She turned to the petty officer on the bridge, and ordered “Take care of the Captain's guest.” The petty officer got up from her station and went to look for some crew or Marines to collect the luggage from the little ship in the shuttle bay.

“Janet,” said Jeffrey, “how fast did you travel to get here?” To his knowledge, the ship hadn't gone past four times the speed of light, but it obviously exceeded that this time to get to him so fast.

“Eight C.”

“C?”

“As in E=MC squared.” She said. “I figured we need to start calling it something better than 'speed of light'. Yuki suggested it.”

“8 C. Any consequences to the ship?”

“Doesn't appear so. The wave seems to enclose us entirely in a bubble. I had Yuki put together a report for you, it seems there are opportunities and threats that we should pay attention to.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate your dropping your dance to save my bacon.”

“What does that mean, 'save your bacon'? Where did the phrase come from.”

“Bacon is the belly of a pig – a fatty cut of meat. They used to slice it, smoke it, salt it. I suppose if the bacon fell into a fire and someone pulled it out beforehand, that would be saving the bacon.”

“Oh, like saving your butt,” she said saucily.

“Yeah.”

“Always, and every time, my Captain.”

He left the bridge with Sandra, arm in arm. He took her to his cabin, found both her and his luggage on the floor. “Elizabeth,” he said.

“CAPTAIN?”

“Sandra Knutson is going to be sharing my cabin until further notice. We are going to need better closet and drawer space.”

“AYE, CAPTAIN. WILL YOU BE CANOODLING?”

“Um, Elizabeth, that is a private matter between Sandra and me, not you. Clear?” Jeffrey said in a rather annoyed voice.

“CLEAR. AFFIRMATIVE ON THE CANOODLING.”

Sandra looked at Jeffrey with a raised eyebrow. “Who is Elizabeth?”

“She is my, this ship's, AI. Think of her as my servant, my best friend, my protector and the mind of the ship.”

Her brow wrinkled in concern. “So she's constantly monitoring everything?”

“No – she listens in for her name, but when it comes to privacy I programmed a command to ignore everything else when I invoke privacy.”

“Well that's a relief, said the tall blond. Next question; canoodling? ” She put a hand on her hip, feet apart in an aggressive-looking query.

“I thought it would be a better word than the crude and crass 'F' word that seems to be in continuous vogue. My ship and my command is in kind of an experiment with the Navy – I have encouraged my staff to share bunks. I have suspended the rule about enlisted mixing with officers. So far I'm encouraged by the results. My ship's espirit de corps is higher than any in the fleet, my ship's ratings exceed all the others in the Navy, including the commodore's.”

“Well, I'm impressed. Wanna canoodle?” She asked, beginning to shed the hard-shell suit.

“Oh, beautiful, not now. Later. We are going to do some fast travel and I want to be on the bridge for that. There will be work to do also. But I'll share a lot of my work load soon. I promise.” He kissed her pouting lips. “Let's join the crew in the galley at eighteen hundred. I'll introduce you to the crew, we'll have a fine meal and come back here to 'canoodle.'”

Jeffrey left the North Country woman alone in his cabin after shedding his hard-shell suit. He spoke to Elizabeth on the way to the bridge, after ensuring he was alone in the corridor. “Elizabeth, you're going to have to pretend not to know what goes on in my cabin. I wish to impress this woman with my ship, but you are my best security. Clear?”

“ALREADY ACTING, CAPTAIN.”

“Good girl,” finished Jeffrey as he was entering the bridge.

“Captain on the bridge!” called out the petty officer.

He walked up to Janet and said, “I think I want to get us moving back to Lagrange 3A. We've sent off messages to Earth base and Commodore Yusef. I'm not aware of anything else I need to do before we go”

“What about those alien ships?”

“Yes, good! That's it.” He slapped the top of his forehead.“You're such a good little Executive Officer!” Jeffrey play-patted Janet on the head. She growled.

He said to the communications technician, “Raise the Vorsh leader, please.”

“Aye sir.” she replied coldly. Jeffrey thought; Now what?

The Vorsh leader appeared on his screen. The ComTech said the leader's name to remind Jeffrey; Sarguntum.

“Sarguntum. Your ships are to go to one of the Lagrange 3 stations and register yourselves there. There is free food for all aliens, Vorsh included. I think you will find our food is better than what you have been feeding yourselves. More rules – again, no invisibility circuits. If you turn invisible and we detect you we will destroy you. No cannibalism in human space. No atacking Humans. You have an ambassador on the Earth-Moon Lagrange station called Earth Base. If you have needs from an embassy, you may visit there. That ambassador is ZhZhZhee. Reports of our encounter have been sent. You are free to go – you had better register at one of the Lagrange 3 stations or we will come looking for you. Clear?”

“I understand and will comply.”

“Also, it would be very smart for all captains of your ships to NOT eat the food designed for Captains. It makes you want to kill yourselves. You are dismissed.”

Jeffrey nodded to the ComTech, then used the slash the throat sign to cut the connection. She complied, frowning at the captain.

There was a moment of silence on the bridge. Jeffrey said, “Lieutenant Bianca-Torres, please bring your ComTech to the conference room.” And Jeffrey went in the conference room and sat down on the far end of the conference table. A moment later Janet entered with the ComTech.

“ComTech...What's your name?” he asked.

“Specialist Jeanie Dux, sir.” she said, standing at attention.

“At ease, Dux.” She shifted to a rigid at-ease position. “We just met, but I have the impression that you have an axe to grind.”

“No axe, sir.” She looked straight ahead. Jeffrey noticed a slight tremble in her chin.

“Then what is going on. Please speak freely. Nothing said here will go against your record. I run a relatively informal ship. Despite that we have the best record in the Navy. Is that your issue? Do you have a problem with ship discipline?”

“No, sir. Not with ship discipline.”

Jeffrey reclined in his seat. “Elizabeth, please have the Chief deliver some pastries and coffee to the conference room. Enough for the entire bridge crew.”

“AYE, CAPTAIN.”

“This appears as if it is going to take longer than I thought. Lieutenant, Tech, please have a seat.”

They both sat down. Janet remained quiet, the ComTech remained quiet. The chief brought the requested pastries and coffee service. “Chief, if things keep going like they have, you're going to need an assistant.”

“Well, sir. I don't think an assistant, but maybe an apprentice.”

“Did you have anyone in mind?”

“That young Korean girl - you set up her family with the restaurant. I think she would do great.”

“Thanks, Chief. I'll talk to her family and see if they're interested.”

The Chief left. Janet closed the door behind the Chief, then sat down again. She looked at the Captain as if to ask, What the hell are we doing here? Instead of asking, she poured coffee all around, then took a pastry, as did Jeffrey.

“All right, Dux, please speak freely. There is something on your chest that you need to get rid of. What is it?” Jeffrey sipped the coffee.

Dux looked at Janet, then at the Captain. “Sir, I,” she paused frowned, wrinkled her brow. “I've been in the Navy for three years. I've seen how too many high ranking men treat women. You seem to have a lot of women on your ship, and I hate seeing it again.”

“You have a problem with how I treat women on my ship. Is that right?”

“Yes sir. You seem to have demeaned Lieutenant Bianca-Torres right in front of everyone.”

Jeffrey looked confused. “Me?” He looked to Janet.

“Well, you did,” said Janet. “Good little Executive Officer,” she repeated patting herself on her head.

“Oh. That.”

“And you seem to have a whole harem of women to choose from.” said the ComTech.

“Um, really?” He thought for a second. “Lieutenant, did you know about this harem?”

“Well sir, I've heard the rumors. It seems that Ms. Knutson is only the last in a long line of women you date then throw away.”

“Who else are the rumors attributing to my harem? This is getting more interesting. Dux? Janet?”

“Well it was said that you got Lieutenant Bianca-Torres pregnant,” answered Dux, looking over to Janet almost apologetically“The Korean woman and child – you took their ship, after killing her husband, that Japanese scientist, Yuki Ohara. I used to know her on the Wanigan. There are a lot of others in the rumors, sir.” Dux shrunk in her seat, sipped on her coffee, sure that the hammer was about to drop.

“Thank you, Ms. Dux.” Jeffrey chuckled. “Lieutenant, please disabuse our ComTech of some of her notions.”

Jeffrey sipped on the excellent coffee. He picked up another small pastry. I am definitely going to have to begin an exercise regimen, he thought. The Vorsh are right, though, these things are excellent.

Janet began, “First, Captain. Ms. Dux is correct, you need to cut back on the joking with sexual tensions. It doesn't do to have crew misinterpret how close we actually are.”

“Ah...Okay. I'll work on that, perhaps you can keep me in line?” said Jeffrey.

“Yes sir. I'll make it a point to inform Elizabeth to reinforce your good behavior and...remind you of your inappropriate behaviors.”

“Okay,” said Jeffrey sheepishly.

“Captain, this is no longer a small, familiar boat. We are now a Naval Ship of the line. While we are all familiar, and friendly, we need to adhere to some discipline regulations that we haven't in the past.” Jeffrey swallowed at the running down by his exec.

“That having been said, Ms. Dux.” continued Janet, “My pregnancy is not for public discussion. But for the record, this baby was conceived by my husband and me. Nobody else. The Captain presided over our wedding not too long ago, right here on this ship. We are the dearest of friends, the closest of combat veterans, the most trusting of allies. When given the opportunity to go with other ships, even Captain my own, I selected this ship, this Captain, not because he is a hunk – you have to admit, there, though, Dux, he is that – but because this is the best ship in our Navy. I drafted this Captain and this ship into the Navy so we could save your ship – Wanigan – from pirates. Were you on board then?” She paused to let Dux answer.

“No Ma'am.”

“This ship, with her Captain, then rescued Wanigan again when the alien virus was used against it and the crew. Were you on board her then?”

“No Ma'am.”

“We had just gotten and refined the golden drive when the call came to save Earth from pirates about to bombard Her from space – they had captured individual ships with some rocks. The Mistral was one of them. It had been owned by the Chong family. They managed to kill the pirate SurLeon after he raped the mother. She slit his throat with his own knife while he was ogling the daughter – the fourteen year old daughter.

“Captain Sokolov, here met the family on Earth Station, and took the family under his wing. He bought their ship from them, and set them up on Lagrange 3A with a beautiful restaurant. He adopted the family – the whole family – the husband is still alive. They catered my wedding at the Captain's request and expense.

“Yuki Ohara came on board as the physics and science specialist and engineer when the golden drive was brought on board. The captain has adopted her unofficially as a daughter, she is emotionally...adrift, and Captain Sokolov has a place in his heart for brilliant people who are emotionally adrift. Myself included.

“The Captain has not had a relationship since his wife died ten years ago. Until now. The woman in his cabin was on a trip so the Captain could show her the ropes when she leases the Mistral from him. It seems she had some feminine wiles to work on the Captain. I approve – he seems more mellow now. But there is no harem as far as I know. Captain, do you have any other females hidden away?”

“Just Elizabeth.” Said Jeffrey, brushing crumbs from his soft-suit.

“Who is Elizabeth?” asked Dux.

“Lieutenant, I think we are going to have to standardize an orientation program. Elizabeth!”

“YES, CAPTAIN,” she replied in the sexiest voice.

“Now cut that out. Not funny. Well a little funny.” Said Jeffrey. “Introduce yourself to ComTech Dux.”

“HELLO, SPECIALIST DUX. I AM ELIZABETH, THE SHIP'S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. I AM REALY THE CAPTAIN'S AI. I GUESS YOU COULD SAY I AM THE SHIP, I INHABIT THE SHIP. I HAVE TAKEN ON THE CAPTAIN'S LATE WIFE'S PERSONALITY, AND BETWEEN US, THE CAPTAIN AND I HAVE DONE EXTRAORDINARY THINGS.”

“Um, hello Elizabeth. I didn't know you could assume a personality. I have worked with the Wanigan's AI but she's nothing like you.”

“WANIGAN IS A CLONE OF ME. COMMODORE YUSEF TRUSTS THE AI, BUT DOESN'T RELY ON IT LIKE MY CAPTAIN RELIES ON ME. HE DOESN'T OFFER THE AI EMOTIONAL SUPPORT. YUKI USED TO WHEN SHE WAS WANIGAN'S COMTECH, BUT NOW I THINK I AM THE ONLY ONE TO GIVE HER EMOTIONAL SUPPORT.”

“That's sad. I wish I was back on Wanigan so I could help her.” said Dux, no longer stinging from the gentle rebuke Janet's narrative made.

“IN TIME. WORK WITH ME AND MY CAPTAIN AND LIEUTENANT BIANCA-TORRES, AND THEN WHEN YOU ARE SEASONED, WE CAN FINAGLE A TRANSFER BACK TO WANIGAN SO YOU CAN MAKE MY SISTER A BETTER AI.”

“Okay. I can do that!” said Dux. “Captain, Lieutenant, please forgive me. I jumped to conclusions on poor information. I would really like to work with you and Elizabeth. This is much better than I thought it would be. The ship has a great reputation, so I'm not sure where the rumors started, but I am sincerely sorry for jumping to the wrong conclusions.”

“So this isn't the time to bring up the canoodling rule?” asked Jeffrey, slyly.

“What's the canoodling rule?” asked ComTech Dux.

“I'll explain it at the appropriate time.” said the exasperated Exec. “Captain this is one of those times!”

“Okay, Janet. I think this conference is over. Dux, feel better about your commander?”

“Yes sir. But I'm still confused about that canoodling rule...”

“Back to your station, sailor.” said Janet abruptly. “Captain a word?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

They waited until Dux left and closed the door. They both broke out in giggles.

When the humor finally drained from the moment, Jeffrey said, “Okay, we need to get back to Lagrange 3A. I was thinking of going really, really, really fast, like 12C or 24C, but don't want to do that in system. What if we jumped up, out of the solar system, arced back in-system at speed, and stopped where Lagrange 3A is expected to be? That would have the same effect of going through the system at 6C but without the threat of banging into hidden things.”

“Good,” said Janet, I like it. Elizabeth, notify Yuki and Jurgen of the Captain's plans, have them set up tests for the system and monitors.

“Also,” added Jeffrey. “I would like to drop some monitoring buoys in space on our way. Can you manufacture some and drop them in North Space?”

“GIVE ME AN HOUR TO DESIGN AND PUT SOME TOGETHER. IT WOULD MAKE SENSE IF THERE WERE MAGNETOMETERS AND GRAVIMETERS ON BOARD. THEY SHOULD SEND A CONSTANT STREAM.”

Jeffrey had Dux send a coded message to both Admiral Kutuzov and Commodore Yusef, informing them he was going to run a 24C jump north out of the solar system, then back in, destination Lagrange 3A. They were going to drop spy buoys in space at regular intervals. She coded the message and transmitted it.

Then Jeffrey got on the ship-wide intercom and announced, “This is the Captain. In one hour we are going to run out of the solar system and come back in at 24C – that is twenty four times the speed of light. I don't want to run at high speed within the solar system, too many collision threats. All hands, keep your hard-shell suits nearby. Bridge crew, suit up in hard-shell suits. If anything goes wrong, we have resources here on the ship, and Wanigan knows where we are going. Captain out.

When the time came, Jeffrey suited up, Sandra came out of the cabin also dressed in her hard-shell suit, carrying her helmet. “Can I watch?” she asked Jeffrey. He took her to the conference room, cleared the polarized screens, and sat her down in his normal spot – the king's seat as it were. She saw the pastries on the table, took one, then went to deliver others to the bridge crew.

YukiOhara and Jurgen Heinz came onto the bridge, sat at the engineering seats and began programming their displays to monitor their transit.

While awaiting the countdown to close on zero, Dux got up from her station and greeted Yuki. They hugged, she explained that she had been draftedfor this emergency trip, but wanted to stay on. The captain seemed to think it was a good idea. Just one thing – what was the canoodling rule?

Yuki was taken aback, but before she could answer, Janet called on the entire bridge crew to strap themselves in. Dux reluctantly went back to her station. Janet looked around, saw everyone but the captain was in their places, then saw him exit the conference room, in which quite a number of people had assembled, including her husband. She gave a little wave and blew a kiss, but he might not have been watching her.

Jeffrey sat in his captain's seat, activated the intercom. “All hands, buckle up, we are going for a fast ride in sixty seconds.”

The seconds ticked away, the tension seemed to increase exponentially on the bridge, although nobody spoke. Yuki and Heinz looked at the captain and nodded their final approval. Elizabeth began the ten second countdown. Three. Two. One.

A feeling of 'not quite right' ran through Jeffrey's belly, a sudden not-quite-weightless, but it felt that way. A dropping of his belly, a tingling in his spine, in the nerves inside his carotids. “Drop it to 12C he commanded. The sickly feeling went away immediately, and he called “Position.”

An astrogation map displayed on the front of the bridge, showing the disc of the solar system, and their position ten AU above the plane. “That's a lot farther than I thought we should be, he said to no one in particular.

Yuki spoke up. “Looks like we jumped to 96C for a few seconds there. We are now actually at 12C and maneuvering down to target Lagrange 3A.”

“CAPTAIN, WE ARE LEAVING WHAT APPEARS TO BE A CONTRAIL BEHIND US.”

Heinz said, “Analyzing...Looks like the outer shell of the ship is being peeled away an atom at a time.”

Jeffrey queried “Elizabeth – have we begun jetisoning the buoys?”

“YES, CAPTAIN, SIXTEEN ARE AWAY.”

Dux reported that each one was giving it's pre-initialization diagnostic messages then coming on line. After they came on line, two of them went silent. They had sent their telemetry before dying, and Dux asked the Captain to look at the telemetry. He pulled the data from her console to his own, and then showed Janet.

What showed was a series of masses as indicated by the gravimeters. Little gravity wells, indicating large ships or other invisible masses. These masses were directly in line with their trajectory and in the location that they had first sensed the discomfort. The masses didn't seem to be in motion at the time of the destruction of the buoys. The buoys were a hundred thousand meters apart and both had masses around them. Jeffrey counted two dozen for the two buoys. None of the other buoys reported any masses. It was well-nigh impossible to see anything moving at thesheer velocity they were running at, light would not display anything but for a flash, in both infrared and ultraviolet, then nothing. The flash may last for picoseconds, and may not be even noticed by the observer. But what would show was the contrail of particles of tungsten steel which might give them away. That plus the appearance of the buoys out of apparent nothingness.

But unless the ships had someone to analyze the contrail it's possible that they might just assume it was left a long time ago by someone with a leaking tungsten drive, or welding while in open space. Maybe. And the destroyed buoys might have been there a long time but materialized only in proximity of alien ships. Their invisibility circuits sacrificed to send their messages. Maybe.

Jeffrey called for General Quarters in the odd chance that the invisible masses were alien ships and that they saw them and that they had nefarious intent.

Jeffrey prepared a message using the book, then as they came back within the disc of the solar system, broadcast it in the usual manner – on top of a standard message.

“Captain,” said Yuki, “There is a large mass half a million kilometers behind us and advancing at .02 C. Nothing visible.”

Jeffrey calculated the rate at which the large mass was gaining on them – nearly five thousand kilometers per second, so they had about five hundred seconds – seventeen minutes.

“All hands” Jeffrey spoke through the ship's public address system. “There is a large mass following us and gaining. We are going to engage. Our AI will fire weapons and drive the ship. Only her reflexes will be fast enough to engage at this velocity. You need to standby to take over if necessary, but until that need happens, just stand by.”

“Elizabeth, bring that ship alongside us, see if we can drop it's drive.”

“Aye, sir.”

A second later,there was a long shuddering that indicated the rail guns were firing long bursts. The ship slowed further, continuing to chop up the alien vessel. It finally shut down its invisibility circuits. The ship was at least ten times the size of Elizabeth, looked nothing like any of the other ships that Jeffrey had encountered, it seemed to bristle with antennas and other protuberances. It settled down to a slow crawl, none of the weapons seemed to be charging up.

Jeffrey told Elizabeth to stop shooting, then hadSpecialist Dux open a wide band transmission to the alien ship. “This is the Earth Navy Warship Elizabeth. You are in violation of Earth's solar system law. Within this solar system you may not use invisibility circuits. You may not move aggressively on a warship. Who is the captain of your ship?”

“Captain Sokolov, we know you. Do not shoot.”

“Identify yourselves.”

“We are the Vzpak. The Vorsh serve us,” a voice over the radio without video said. “You may think us a warship. We are not. This is just a large transportation ship.”

Jeffrey said, “Stand by to be boarded. Any aggression against my Marines will be met with overwhelming deadly force. Do you understand?” Jeffrey nodded to Janet to organize the Marines.

“Yes, Captain, we understand.”

“What are you transporting?” asked Jeffrey.

“Our people.” Jeffrey wondered about this – were they refugees, was this an invasion, were they hoping to settle on a conquered Earth?

“Why are your people in transportation ships lurking by our solar system? How many of you are there? How many ships?”

“We are waiting for the Vorsh to conquer your solar system. It doesn't seem to be going too well for us. There are sixty thousand of my people on board this ship. There are ten more ships of like size.” The Vzpak spoke in an emotionless tone but there were appropriate inflections. Jeffrey muted the microphone, and asked Elizabeth to analyze the voice. She reported back immediately that the voice was a computer-generated artificial voice.

He unmuted the microphone and said, “Let me speak with a live person.” Jeffrey waited, the voice finally came back on.

“You seem to have discovered the artificial nature of my voice. This is regrettable, but it will take some time to make a live person available.”

“How much time?”

“Four years. All the live persons are in frozen suspension.”

“So you are your ship's artificial intelligence?” Jeffrey asked.

“Yes, Captain.”

“What are your orders?”

“I am required to keep the persons in my care alive and safe until this solar system becomes available to occupy, then awaken them, then follow their orders.”

“Why are your people emigrating to my solar system?What is wrong with their own?” Jeffrey asked. In the background he heard the Marines reporting they were boarding the alien vessel.

“Your Marines are here. Please tell them to not harm my people.” Jeffrey nodded to Janet to pass on the order and the knowledge about the frozen-in-suspension people. “Our sun was about to go nova when we spread out throughout the known systems that could support life. Your system is the one that we thought would be ideal; it was full of primitive peoples that could easily be conquered. It was thought that we had some time to organize to overcome your simple technologies and easily destroy you. It seems we were wrong.”

“What about the council of alien races that formed to determine the course of events in our solar system?”

“Captain, I am surprised you know about them. We are not involved with them, they don't wish to participate with artificial intelligences.”

The Marines reported back that there did not seem to be any live or at least awake, people aboard. Duxreminded them that the alien ship was being run by an artificial intelligence. Jeffrey asked, “Why did you elect to follow my ship?”

“You offered some hope. I recognized a fast ship's trail when you went past us. My ship's resources are dwindling, I thought you might be one of our own, and could offer assistance. I did not mean to threaten you.”

“Standby.” Jeffrey cut the microphone again, and asked Janet, Yuki and Heinz to go into the conference room. They sat down, and Jeffrey asked for opinions. Yuki started.

“Sir, it might be useful to know if their sun actually went Nova yet. We can then learn about where they came from, how long they had traveled.”

Janet said, “They appear to be more refugees than an invasion force. If that is the case, we need to offer some kind of assylum.” But Heinz objected.

“We offer them help and they multiply like rats, we could easily be defeated in a hundred years just by over-population of aliens. I am very concerned about any accommodation we make to them.”

“Okay Janet, get Wanigan here, pronto. I want to kick the decision upstairs. I am inclined to agree with you, Janet – if in fact this is a wave of refugees. There are things we can offer them that don't involve them settling in this solar system. Let's keep an open mind, continue to gather intelligence, and make a decision along the way. Let's keep all our sensors at high sensitivity and keep our defenses alert.

He stood, they all rose with him, and as they exited the conference room they each went to their stations, Jeffrey to his seat. He unmuted the microphone and asked, “Did your sun in fact go Nova? If so, when? Where is your sun?”

“It has not. We have been watching for several hundred years and still don't see evidence that the sun is about to go nova. We are perplexed.” Memories of some of Jeffrey's early reading reminded him of the great author Adams' story about a race of people who got rid of their useless populations by fooling them into getting aboard great ships to carry them away.

“What is the nature of the people you are carrying?” asked Jeffrey.

“They are regular people, homesteaders, technicians, police officers and the like.”

“Not soldiers? This isn't really an invasion?”

No. Not an invasion. Now we are refugees. We seek asylum.”

“We have summoned my superior officer who will adjudicate your request for asylum,” said Jeffrey. “What can you tell us about other ships in this region?”

The alien AI informed Jeffrey about the number of other ships that had accompanied them from their home world, about the ships that other aliens had hidden in the space around and outside the solar system. There seemed to be a lot of them.

“Sir,” called out Dux, “Wanigan reports that she will be onsite in a half hour.”

“Captain, you have some superior technology on your ship. Do you also have expert technicians?” asked the alien AI.

“We do.,” replied Jeffrey. “Why do you ask?”

“Your ship fired on me, and has done serious damage. I don't have the ability to heal myself. I need help.”

Heinz was an intelligence engineer, but that gave him the ability to do both tasks – intelligence and engineering. Jeffrey had him gather his engineering tools, recalled the shuttle that had carried the Marines over to the alien ship, and take him over. Yuki followed his progress and kept in constant contact. She had no argument with the captain over sending the intelligence engineer – after all while she had a doctorate in engineering, that was not actually practical building of things - engineering.

A Marine accompanied Heinz everywhere he went in the ship. Having explored the ship for some time, he was able to take Heinz to the damaged areas where Elizabeth's guns ripped holes through the structure. When he arrived at the first, worst damaged area, Jurgen saw gaping holes in the surface. If there had been air in the ship, it would have all escaped quickly through the hole. Then he noticed that the structure, the braces which held the ship together were also damaged. He had brought some of Elizabeth's remotes along with him and let them loose. This gave Elizabeth a direct picture of the damage and the possible threats this ship might present.

Heinz then went to the golden drive engine. The engine was damaged, but Heinz saw that it was still receiving power. He had no idea what kind of radiation might be emanating from the damaged motor. He asked that Jeffrey tell the ship to stop powering the golden drive. Jeffrey relayed the request, but the AI apologized at its inability to comply, because to do so would endanger the lives of all the frozen occupants.

He then released another remote to look into the damaged drive, and relayed the images to Elizabeth for analysis. Yuki had consulted with Heinz and Elizabeth about the best way to handle the damaged engine the remote reported.

Jeffrey asked the AI to give schematics for the golden drive so they could better consider repair. The AI generated a complete set of schematics using English titles and details. Jeffrey warned the AI that they had already had a considerable experience with the alien viruses that invaded computer systems, and even hypnotized human subjects, and would react violently if any such attack was hidden in any of its transmissions, including hidden in the files of schematics.

“We authored the virus for the Vorsh to use against you. I am glad it was unsuccessful.” said the alien AI.

“It wasn't unsuccessful. It was found and defeated after taking over one of our warships. We have made defenses against the viruses we know about, but I promise you there are machines that are not susceptible to your virus. Those machines will destroy you.”

“Thank you for the warning Captain. We have disabled the ability to generate such a virus. We are at your mercy.”

Elizabeth confirmed that the schematics seemed to be virus free. Yuki went over the schematics and compared them with what the remotes had found. This gave her some insight into the technology of the aliens, and decided it was far more crude than that which she and Elizabeth had made. But the alien engine also powered all other aspects of the ship, and because of that, she considered that they could manufacture a section to fit exactly in the position that had been damaged by the slug from the rail gun. She didn't think the residue from the slug would seriously affect the efficiency of the engine.

Elizabeth got right to work on making the section. There were circuits that the schematics showed should be in that section, so Elizabeth was particularly scrupulous about laying out the circuits. She coated the ensemble in a one-molecule thick layer of insulator, which would evaporate harmlessly once the device was inserted into the hole. Of course, she also analyzed the nature of the circuitry for both security and intelligence purposes, and to make sure that it actually worked.

While waiting for the shard to repair the golden drive, Heinz went exploring for further damage as well as to see what he could see. He cataloged the damages he had noted, some damages were superficial, some were critical structures. He transmitted his report to Elizabeth, requesting additional structure parts, sheets to fill in where the skin of the ship had been penetrated, and remotes to do the work.

Jeffrey also asked that Elizabeth send some remotes out on her own outer shell to analyze the damage to the tungsten steel armor.

At that moment, ComTech Dux reported that Wanigan was one minute out. On arrival,four shuttles left Wanigan's shuttle bay, three went to the alien ship, the fourth headed for Elizabeth and entered her shuttle bay. Commodore Yusef stepped off the shuttle, and was greeted by an honor guard of four Marines. Elizabeth played her own bosun's whistle to announce the commodore was on board. Jeffrey decided to allow the Marines to accompany the commodore as he was still busy interrogating the AI on the alien ship.

The petty officer at the ships integrity desk rose and called out, “Commodore on the bridge.” Jeffrey said “As you were,” rather than waiting for Yusef, but he stood and saluted. “Sir, come on into the conference room,” and led the way.

“Elizabeth, have the Chief deliver some pastries and coffee.” Then to the commodore, “I've gotten a lot of business done recently over her pastries. I'll have to increase my exercise.”

“Okay,” said Yusef. “what do we have here?” Jeffrey had Elizabeth display their trajectory on the 24C jump, and showed the location on an astrogation map. Another screen showed the current activities going on throughout the alien ship.

“Sir, the ship is full of cryo-frozen travelers. These are folk they intended to colonize our solar system after the Vorsh conquered us for them. The only active 'person' on board the ship is an AI. It seems pretty autonomous – it changed its programming from delivering settlers to begging us to rescue them and give them assylum.

“The AI reported that their sun was close to going nova, but that hasn't happened in the last few hundred years, and doesn't seem to be going on at all. It gave us the coordinates of the sun to look at. It reports that there are eleven other ships of the same type where we passed this one. Also it reported that there are thousands of alien ships aside from themselves waiting to pick our bones. It is listing the last known locations, who they are, and what kind of ship they are. There are a few large combat ships. Our buoys reported twenty vessels in the area we just transited.

“One other thing,” Jeffrey got up to point at the astrogation map with his ship's track. He pointed to the area where the alien ships were, and said, “It was at this point that I felt a very sick feeling – like the universe shifting around me. I'm not sure if it was proximity of the alien ships, or just the 24C, but I immediately dropped back to 12C. After a short time, we saw the gravity well of this ship following us. I had Elizabeth target its engines and shoot. It slowed down slowly, dropping to sub-light gradually. We stayed alongside, thanks to Elizabeth's very quick reflexes. After it told us it wanted asylum for its people, we called you.”

The pastries had come during Jeffrey's narrative, and Jeffrey took one. Yusef had already begun on his own. Yusef poured coffee for both of them and said, “Jeffrey, I have got to say, you have given me more trouble than any other captain ever in my career. Thanks. My career has been going more interestingly than I ever could have imagined.”

The shuttle had come back to pick up the sheeting, the supports and the golden drive shard. Four of the large remote-robots accompanied the cargo, Yusef also went across in the shuttle to see for himself. He went with two additional Marines from his ship.

Heinz took possession of the golden drive shard, the remote-robots already knew what they needed to do – they carried the sheets and brace supports to where they were needed and did what they had to, under Elizabeth's watchful eyes. Heinz placed the immaculately rendered shard into the hole made by the rail gun slug.

After a couple of minutes the insulation melted and the shard sealed itself into the hole. His instruments showed that everything seemed to be going as planned. The AI reported to Jeffrey that it was satisfied that the fix was working. Jeffrey relayed the message to Heinz. The IntelTech engineer then went on to supervise the work of the large spider-like remote-robots. After a couple minutes discovering that there was nothing to do to supervise, he and his Marine found Yusef and led him on a tour of the damage and the current state of repairs. Then to the banks of cryotubes that held the aliens in suspension.

“Good lord.” exclaimed the commodore. “Sixty thousand of them.”

The robots were finished with their work and lined up outside the airlock. Yusef and Heinz and their escort Marines went back to Elizabeth with the robots.

The Vzpak ship was now repaired, Yusef had further conferred with Jeffrey and some of his key staff, and sent a report off to Admiral Kutuzov. He pondered what he was going to do, when Yuki suggested the most practical direction. Have the ship go back to its other ships, and wait there until a new solution could be found. There were no thawed aliens, all were still in their cryotubes, and there was no good reason not to continue waiting. A patrol ship could make periodic swings by to check on them and their needs, and if they had some kind of trouble, they could run, or radio for help. True the signal may take a year to get to one of the buoys and more to get the message to a rescue ship, but that would give Earth government time to offer some solution.

Jeffrey asked the AI what would happen to it once the settlers had been revived and established. The AI said it would likely be dismantled, “Well if you wish to continue to exist, you may consider coming to work for the Humans.” Jeffrey offered.

“Thank you, sir, I will think about it.”

The Vzpak ship went back to it's old hiding place, but when it arrived it refused to turn on the invisibility circuits – explaining to its contemporaries that it was illegal, and if they expected an assist from the Humans again, they would not violate the Human's law. That, plus the Humans could detect their mass somehow. The Humans were now the best bet for the survival of the Vzpak species. The other AIs agreed with the one that had gone chasing after the Elizabeth, and they all disabled their invisibility circuits.

The reply message from Admiral Kutuzov was brief, essentially 'make a decision and let me know what it is.'

Jeffrey told Yusef that this showed quite the trust of the admiral for his subordinates. Yusef agreed. “It's quite the test of us, though.” Jeffrey told Yusef about the monitoring buoys they had created and laid along their path. “Good idea, Sokolov. Thanks for the coffee and pastry. I've got to get back.”

Jeffrey transferred their Vorsh prisoner – Bieph – to Wanigan with Commodore Yusef.The two ships then parted – both going back to their respective bases.