About mid-morning Poe brings us back over to the mine site. Muther does an inch by inch scan of the Pirate ship and declares there are no life forms inside. It’s a container of dead Pirates.
Beast sits out on the ramp of our loading dock and makes his report to Volar and asks if he can stop the continuous rain fall from the mine site. It doesn’t take long before the rain stops and the clouds disperse and the sun comes through on the utterly sodden site. The bloody grass we seeded is knee deep and I swear you can see it grow in the sun.
Poe keeps the ship off the site as we don’t want to kill the grass and make a big hole in the mud. Muther keeps control of the Pirate ship, and has dispatched an insect drone into the Pirate ship for inspection. Beast is scanning yet again for unexploded ordinance, and I have the dubious pleasure of digging up the dead Pirates, bagging them and getting them ready to haul into the Pirate ship. By early afternoon I am covered in mud and stuff I don’t want to talk about, tired and have all the Pirates exhumed and laid out.
Muther confirms the Pirate ship is devoid of any life forms at all. So we elect to lower the ramp and use one of the quad copters to haul in the body bags. The work goes quickly with Muther running the Quad Copter and stacking the bodies out on the inside deck of the pirate vessel. We finish the grizzly work and reseal the loading ramp after tossing in the camp paraphernalia they had used on the Firebase. All that remains is to attach limpet mines to the Pirate ship and hook on the lift device. Which is a piece of Muther’s high tech gear that essentially brings the weight and mass of the Pirate ship close to zero so Poe can tow it into space. I have no idea how the Weight/Mass Neutralizer works, Muther and the sisters said assemble these parts like this and use these schematics and these custom one-off circuit boards connected in this fashion and fastened into this back pack sized device. You place the four pads against the hull of the Pirate ship and switch it on and I could move the vessel with my own strength. I don’t seek to understand that which I do not have the mental ability to comprehend. It works and this is how I handle it and that’s enough for me.
I head for the shower to get cleaned up and Beast sits out on the ramp and has a chat with Volar. By the time I have the guck blown off me by the shower and get into clean clothes Volar is on the ramp with Beast.
“Good afternoon Volar, thanks for your help, I think we are all but done here, unless you are aware of something we missed.” I say.
“You and your group are very careful and thorough; we are especially pleased you have scanned repeatedly to ensure there is no unexploded ordinance remaining which my creatures might step on. Also it is a nice touch to remove the dead Pirates as it shows considerable respect for the sanctity of my Planet.”
“You are very welcome Volar”
“And I might add that the grass is just amazing, it grows so fast and my creatures love it for grazing.”
“Perhaps you would be interested in a bag of grass seeds, as you will have use for it when the Lynas Corp fixes your rock fall area.” xmits Beast.
“I would indeed be very pleased, thank you.”
“A pleasure meeting you Volar.”
“A pleasure meeting you Matt and Beast.” replies Volar as he rubs Beasts ears.
“Should things go awry with Lynas Corp you know how to reach us? I ask.
“Yes thank you, I can reach Beast.”
With a gesture of goodbye and his bag of seed Volar fades to nothing.
“Ok guys lets finish this off and head for home. Poe bring the ship around so we can attach to the Pirate vessel so we can tow it off planet, please”
Once hooked Poe takes up the slack and we begin the pull to get into space. It goes very well. Muther’s device on the Pirate ship makes it a relatively painless process to haul the size of mass. It takes us close to two hours to get it out remote from 55 Cancri e.
We are moving at a steady velocity so that the remains when we explode it will continue in the initial direction by and large. Wearing my combat suit I work my way down from our ship to the device of Muther’s, shut it off, and disconnect it from the Pirate ship hull. Then Poe retracts us back into our ship. The Pirate ship continues on velocity unimpeded on our original course heading while Poe recalculates and replots our course back to the Trade Station. Before the Pirate ship gets completely out of sight Muther detonates the limpet mines on the Pirate ship hull. It’s very anticlimactic, there is a flash of light and a smudge of the debris cloud and that’s all we can see. The sensors show more clearly that the Pirate ship has disintegrated into a cloud of shrapnel, just a junk cloud heading off into a remote area of space.
Down on the Virtual Reality suite I meet with Lynas Corp, the ever perfect Hennessey.
“The job as agreed to is complete Hennessey. Time for you to pay the bill.” I state.
“The disreputable beggars have been terminated as we agreed to?”
“Yes, they and their ship are now a debris cloud headed out into a remote quadrant of space.”
“Ah, excellent, then I shall be delighted to pay our agreed amount, complete with bonus of course. And thank you Mr. Southam as you have provided us with great services.”
I keep our discussion brief and to the point. I’m exhausted; want my belly full of hot food and then going to sleep for fourteen hours or so as we travel home. I’m really glad this is over and done with as I don’t care to do this again. Splitting the team was an unnecessary risky event. Yeah we made a fortune but we don’t need the money and we sure as hell don’t need the additional risk.
Chapter 16: Trade Station
It seems to take an eternity to get back to the Trade Station, how odd the way the human mind plays tricks with the perceptions of time. I shouldn’t be surprised the mind plays all sorts of tricks with every other perception we have so why would I think time is sacred. As a matter of fact the human mind as wonderful as it may be is a horribly unreliable “piece of kit” as it is utterly subjective. I see why Artificial Intelligence requires algorithms to be fed trillions of subjective data points to be able to average and find the themes within the data. Even then it needs peer networks to compare themes and humans to interpret what they have found. Emulating a human brain could be considered a fool’s errand. Why attempt to emulate something that is flawed and fickle with emotions affecting subjective views. Better to engineer the emotion out and deal just with fact and logic. Let the humans fuss around with how the conclusions are perceived differently depending on emotion and subjections.
“Land ho, boss,” states Poe.
“What’s the matter Poe, you’re speaking strangely, well strangely for you.” I reply.
“Don’t be hacking on Poe, he has had to spend a lot of time around you and Beast and his vernacular has been contaminated.” replies Muther.
“I don’t remember contaminating Poe, it must have been da boss that did it.” xmits Beast.
“Regardless, Trade Station is on our scanners and we will be docking shortly.” replies Poe.
“Nice driving Poe, excellent work.” I say.
“Thank you sir, I appreciate your comment.” replies Poe.
After we are docked and secured to the Trade Station I say to Beast.
“Let’s go down to the Community Center and meet D.”
“Dandy, she’ll like that.” xmits Beast.
D was teaching a class when we got there and we didn’t feel it was good manners to butt in. Our sudden appearance can be detrimental to some of the teenagers and the condition they are in. It’s ok if you explain to them first who you are and what you are about, but to just bust in unannounced puts some of them in fight or flee mode, and none of them are stupid enough to fight. So we waited until the class took a break and D came out of the classroom. Man, I’ll tell you watching the expression on her face is like watching the sun come up bright and clear on a cold dark morning. Right then I realized again what a stupid thing I had done to split the team and run off to do soldiering for no good reason other than boredom. With a little cry of delight D
hugged me hard enough to crack my ribs. Then got into a wrestling match with Beast and he was singing his happy song. It was pandemonium for a few minutes and some of the students weren’t too sure as to what the hell was going on. I think it was a toss-up as to who spooked them worse, a three meter tall wolf, or a nasty mean looking soldier type. Somehow I suspect they trusted Beast more than me.
Well nothing would do but we had to join the class for the balance of the day. There were only a couple of hours of class time left so we used the time to introduce ourselves and talk a bit about what we do, have done, will be doing, life expectations, responsibilities and accountabilities. To tell the truth I think the class was more fascinated with Beast. Creatures are not common to this type of audience and least of all a huge Wolf named Beast. Once they got an explanation and could get up close and personal they relaxed a lot. There is much to be said about the beneficial use of animals in teenage therapy. Now whether D tipped Beast off as to which of the teenagers were in pretty tough shape or Beast just sensed it himself I never did find out, but I noticed that he paid particular attention to a thin small boy and terribly traumatized young girl. He snuffed them and convinced them they should scrub his ears and back and sang them his happy song, then communicated to D that he should take them for a ride out in the common area. D nodded agreement and I went along to keep an eye on things. I told them to grab a big handful of fur and hang on and squeeze their legs tight cuz he can run to beat hell. They hung on alright and when they came back you could see the flush and excitement in their faces. Beast gave them each an “excitement ride” and then let them both get on his back for an easy lope around the mall area. They attracted a lot of attention and laughter and no doubt a fair number of folks who would have been real pleased to get a ride too.
Anyway it sure looked to me like about six months of psychology had been accomplished with those two teenagers by just an hour of some good old animal therapy.
Chapter 17: Normalcy
It sure was good to be back and we had quite the evening telling everyone about our exploits, who we met, who we killed, how and why, the details of our PSYOPS campaign and so on. I made sure to explain the financial side of the mission and that brought appreciative grunts from those that had not made the trip.
Frosty brought us up to date on the Trade Station project work and the progress they had made. Their extremely extensive test regime has gone very well. And they were ready for Mongo and I to assist the local techs with the removal of the old hardware. So that’s excellent and I look forward to working with Mongo once again.
Once he had been brought up to date Frosty disappeared to re-synch Muther and the sisters on the ship and in the Trade Station data center and to make sure that Poe was running the latest code revisions. Not to mention giving Beast a once over and maintenance. Frosty is more computer and AI than the AI, it’s his world and he is such a clucker for the details.
D and I retired early as we had a lot of catching up to do. There was a lot of pent-up sexual tension that needed addressing on both sides. You might say we had a lot of maintenance issues that needed to be addressed. We didn’t sleep much that night and finally wore one another out close to dawn and slept for a couple of hours.
By the time we got up shared a shower, soap suds and had some breakfast it was midmorning. D was late for work and Muther would be pissed at me for buggering up her project schedule for not being at work on time. I hurried down to where Mongo was stored, got him up and running and we set off to the construction site. Well it is more of a removal site than a construction site. Anyway the techs were glad to see us so they could get to work on the high and heavy stuff that we needed Mongo for. It didn’t take us long to get back into the rhythm of the work. Sure felt good let me tell you and there was nobody trying to kill us. Maybe I’m getting old but being shot at and attacked is starting to lose its excitement and be replaced with considerable aggravation and annoyance.
The day went smoothly and we managed to get caught up to where we needed to be in the project schedule. Additionally the work was inspected by one of Muther’s drones and deemed to be acceptable. A fact particularly important as a lot of supervisor positions and long term jobs were going to be arranged around how well the tech guys could work to the schedule and maintain proper quality levels.
Mongo and I moved from location to location removing the last of the heavy awkward equipment that was not required any longer. There wasn’t too much the local HVAC Techs had not removed, so we didn’t spend too much time at any one location. Beast accompanied us along with Fred on his back. Fred was ensuring we got all the old junk removed and collected for disposition. He had his list and a lifetime of knowledge about the Trade Station so he was an invaluable asset. It was unavoidable for us to be not seen by the general public as we moved from location to location. At least four stops per level of the Station. What an utterly bizarre spectacle we must have made. Two Trade Station Police Officers for crowd control, a huge wolf with an elderly gentleman riding on his back, myself trudging along and attempting to keep spectators and shoppers out from under the feet of Mongo, a couple of Muther’s inspection drones flying around patiently, and three or four HVAC Techs accompanying this circus of performers. Yeah, we got stared at a lot. I think Beast was the most accepted of our parade of characters as he had been seen around the Station many times and given rides to the kids. Mongo clumping ponderously along was the other huge draw. People just would not give him room to maneuver. The Officers and I had a devil of a time giving him room to move safely.
This parade and the removal of the un-needed gear took close to two weeks. We were quite pleased to get it done and not have to deal with the public and their presence slowing things down. A re-occurring thought kept flitting across my mind comparing the public to a herd of chickens. The least object, thing, event out of the ordinary and the cloud of chickens descend on the offending object to pick it to death in a flurry of hysteria. Yes, I know it sure says nothing complimentary about humans, but the flitting thought stayed and would not go away.
Chapter 18; Project Completion
Big Mike, Frosty, and Muther decided that we should have a project completion party for the folks who contributed so much to its success. Everyone likes to eat, drink, listen to good music, perhaps dance a bit and socialize. So that was the format for the event, including of course a few speeches and “Official Recognition” for the really stand up employees. Big Mike is a very competent public speaker as one would expect of a man in his position. However he understood how a little speaking goes a long way, so he endeavored to keep his speeches short. Of more significance was the “open bar” which allowed invitees to drink as much as they preferred and Big Mike picked up the tab. It’s an interesting concept as very quickly you can separate people into groups based on their alcohol consumption and their behavior. The open bar was actually Muther’s idea as the final acid test prior to awarding the new management structure to the employees of the project. If it turned out your perfect choice was a slobbering belligerent drunk you might want to rethink your choices. Some prospective supervisors and management prospective employees caught on to this tactic and kept themselves in close check while watching others go hog wild with free liquor and reckless abandonment. As expected some folks were cut off from the bar and removed from the premises as they had demonstrated no control over themselves at all.
D and I had a pleasant evening with Big Mike, Therese, Beast, Frosty and Fred. Fred is such a character, he had brought along a lovely attractive woman that complimented him nicely. They looked compatible and comfortable with one another. I have a suspicion that she had used the services of Renavatio Ltd as she was much younger than Fred but had the experience and mannerisms of a much older and wiser woman. Notwithstanding Fred is just a wonderful character at this type of venue and could have been a guest speaker. He was not of course and he used his considerable experiences to tell us the most outrageously humorous stories.
There
se, while with Big Mike wasn’t with Big Mike, if you understand what I mean. She had been a great asset coordinating the finer aspects of the project and had more than earned everyone’s respect for her abilities. She spent most of the evening close to Beast and always had a hand on him. Beast seemed to enjoy the attention. Now for some reason or another I had the sense that they were communicating by mental telepathy, chatting away like crazy on a plane that few others could touch. Now why in the heck would Therese have this capability? Unless perhaps she also had used Renavatio Ltd and had that capability built into the host. I made a mental note to investigate that in the future. Then I caught myself and felt poorly as it could be something as simple as being an animal lover or perhaps she had owned a large dog at some time that had suffered an accident or perhaps even her significant other at one time had a dog she really loved. I have to keep myself in check sometimes as my nature is such to always investigate the “why”, and sometimes that is rude.
I also wondered in passing how well D would get along with Therese. Both were stunningly beautiful and sometimes, often times, bitter rivalries and territorial disputes arise amongst females when in such a public setting. But as far as I could see there was no animosity between them at all. And that fact made me wonder all the more about Therese. However I did have to keep in mind that D was in fact a low time neophyte human and as an AI really had little firsthand experience with the subtle nuances of inter female rivalry. She probably didn’t realize there was a female contest afoot with Therese or any other beautiful women in the place. So I made another note to talk at some length to D about such matters.
Chapter 19: Betrayal
“Matt, can you take a video call from Therese right now, it sounds important as it seems she is under some duress?” asks Muther.
Daria 5 Page 6
