Patchet wasn't worried. He was busy targeting everything he could.
A bleep came from the HUD. Jamie checked to see what it was bleeping about.
What was this? Large forms were appearing through the jump point, one after another. The largest of them was at the front.
Jamie couldn't believe his eyes. Whales. And coming through the jump point. For a moment he wondered why he hadn't seen them on the HUD before they jumped, before he shifted gears and realized this ship didn't have anything like Seasprite's sensor package.
The whale pod came after them at an unbelievable speed, and very soon was nearing the rear pirate ship, which opened fire. A stray spray of fire crossed the nose of the lead whale. It turned and charged the pirate ship. The pirate couldn't get out of the way in time, and the whale ploughed into its side. The whale seemed dazed but not very hurt.
Patchet used the opportunity to launch missiles at the ship, and a few seconds later, it disintegrated into debris. The whale sailed through the debris, seemingly otherwise unhurt.
Two other whales detached themselves from the pod, and chased two other pirate ships. The pirates turned and fired directly on them, injuring the whales, but not killing them outright, only making them more enraged. They headed straight into the ships through the hail of gunfire, and pushing them off course. The two pirate ships collided with each other, one exploding, and the other being engulfed in the fire, with further explosions cascading as ammunition stores must have exploded. One of the whales was engulfed in the flames. A scream of anger and anguish filled the com system, and they looked on in disbelief.
The other whale was clearly injured, perhaps blinded, as its head oozed liquid, and its eyes were obscured. It blindly careered into another pirate ship, the force not as great, but enough to spin it out of control. The ship crashed into one of the other ships, with the same outcome as before.
The lead whale had come around. Pirate ships were retreating, and Jamie took the opportunity to bring the ship around on an attack course. Patchet fired everything he could at everything in range, as fast as he could aim.
Two pirate ships were now hanging in space, damaged beyond repair, their life support down. Escape pods were being launched, but only very few. The remaining ships fled, and Jamie came around after them, with Patchet still firing.
The lead whale turned, and came towards them.
"Brace yeselves!" Jamie yelled.
Nothing happened.
The lead whale hung in space facing them, and Jamie quickly brought the ship to a stop nearby. It emitted a haunting, melodious, low tone, a call across space.
The whale slowly came closer, but not in a threatening way. It seemed to have been hurt, but not seriously, however liquid was oozing from a cut on its head. The other whale remaining from the fight, was hanging also, surrounded by other whales and bleeding profusely, its companions singing mournfully.
The first whale nodded its head. It was definitely a nod, up and down, up and down, as if in recognition.
Jamie was stunned. He recognised the whales, from the encounter with them in Seasprite. Then, they'd not fired directly at the whale, and helped it by healing it. How could it know Jamie was on this ship?
Dodgers was at the coms station, playing the whale's song back, and trying to get the translation program to work with the song.
Patchet looked at Jamie.
"What are these things?"
"Whales," said Jamie, wiping his forehead, and looking over at Patchet, he quickly explained.
"How could they possibly know it's you?"
"Dinna ken. But that's wha' seems to be happening."
"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. But what do we do now?"
Jamie thought quickly. They'd healed the whales last time, by using medic droids to spray them with a healing mixture.
"We help them. The whales helped us."
"Whale things. Well, I never."
While Patchet was working on setting up their one doc-droid, Jamie took the recording of the whale's song, patched it through the coms system, and transmitted it into space.
The response was immediate. All the whales seemed to come alert at the same time, and turned to face Patchet's Workshop.
Dodgers was trying to get the translator program to analyse some more of the whales' song, but the program had nothing like this to work with before. It was taking time. She wasn't a programmer, but was doing the best she could.
Patchet returned from setting up the doc. It was lucky he had one on the ship, but he was a bit of a hoarder, and you never knew when things like this would come in handy. The salvage droid it was now on had definitely seen better days, but it was functional enough for this task.
Jamie started to help Dodgers with the translator program, while Patchet gave the salvage droid instructions. It exited the ship through a droid airlock, and flew over to the nearest Whale. The doc-droid started spraying what they hoped was the right stuff onto the whale.
The whale song changed. More singing came from the whales, and the translator had more to use.
The doc-droid completed spraying the first whale, and moved to the other injured one. The singing changed again. Jamie concentrated the translator on the first whale.
And finally, a breakthrough. The translator program produced a line of text on a pop up screen.
"You are the healer."
Jamie read out the line.
"They recognise me. How can that be? This ship looks nothing like Seasprite."
"However they know, don't look a gift horse in the mouth," cried Patchet.
"Ok, ok."
Jamie typed a line of text into the translator, and a low song beamed out from Patchet's Workshop.
"We want to help."
The whales seemed to acknowledge the song. The doc-droid finished the other whale, and headed off towards the severely burnt one. It hung in space with a few other whales around it. The doc scanned it, and began spraying it. The salvage droid plucked the doc off itself, and headed back to the ship, returning with more of the mixture. The doc continued spraying until most of the surface of the whale had been covered. It headed back to the main pod, and went straight to one of them. The burnt whale moved tentatively, and the four of them very slowly moved back to the rest.
The doc-droid meantime had approached a wound on the side of the whale body, where a rail slug had hit it. Text came in from the droid asking for instructions. Patchet told it to remove the slug if it could. The droid started back towards the ship, and the unhelped whale started to get agitated.
Jamie sent "Wait." The whale calmed.
The droid collected medical tools from the small med-bay, and returned to the whale. The slug was removed, and the wound sealed. The droid checked all the remaining members of the pod one by one, and removed another half dozen slugs.
Once the healing was complete, the doc-droid returned to the ship, and the whales sang a long low song. Jamie looked at the coms screen, and read out the message.
"How can we thank you?"
Jamie grinned, and typed in some text.
A low song beamed out into space.
Jamie could see the whales reacting.
Patchet had seen what Jamie had typed.
"You're mad, you daft Scots git, You know that, don't you?"
Jamie grinned again, and sent another line of text as the whales responded.
Patchet groaned.
"Whale things. And a crazy Scots git."
He shook his head.
Forty Six
Snark was really pissed off.
The route Mouse had calculated had proved to lead into a dead end, with a jump point which supposedly led directly out towards the outer rim, actually not being there. The nav maps all had the jump point, but after two days searching, they'd given up. Tranquil had the best search sensors, and she looked well away from the normal positions for such points, and nothing. They'd had to retrace their steps, and take a major dog's leg.
They'd lo
st a week, and they were still days away from Argathea. Fitzy had chased down where the last map upgrade had come from, and found a Brotherhood agent. Unfortunately, they identified his dead body, and had no idea if this was a deliberate tactic to slow them down, or just general sabotage. If the latter, there were probably other issues with the map, spread across the sector.
Warspite had gone ballistic, but Tranquil calmed him down. There was no way of protecting themselves from this sort of thing, at least until they'd mapped the sector themselves. For all they knew, pirates had corrupted the maps available in order to give themselves ambush points.
The Seasprite crew were now thoroughly bored. No-one blamed Mouse, but he felt responsible for it.
Snark was reading his emails. This doing it in your head malarkey was really something, he thought. Suddenly, he saw one, and immediately thought it couldn't be right, but opened and read it.
It was from Jamie.
"Bloody mop head!" he exclaimed, and jumped over to the others on the bridge. They listened with astonishment, and then joy. Patters and Sissness hugged and jumped up and down, Mouse grinned, while Snark kept saying "Bloody mop head!" over and over again, driving the others nuts.
Jamie.
Anna couldn't believe it.
She had to sit down, and take a deep breath. She read through her own email, and then read it again and again.
He was alive, and he was in contact. He was coming to find her. So strange, apart from the vision of the standing stones and the birds, she'd had no further intimation of where he could be. But she'd known he was alive, and she knew him so well. He wouldn't stop, wouldn't give up, in an effort to find her. She felt she hadn't searched for him enough. Had she let him down? She scotched that thought. It didn't matter, he was alive and well, and coming for her.
She composed a return email, and sent it off. She knew it would take a while for it to get to him, but she was sending her love with it.
Later, when Jamie's position was calculated, and the distances involved revealed, the team felt deflated. It would take so long for him to get just to the Cat Homeworld, let alone to meet them on route. By the time he caught up with them, Seasprite would probably be on its way home. Mouse was busy calculating the figures again, and trying to come up with a solution.
"If Jamie could retrofit Patchet's ship, using the latest Hunter's Run advances, they could have a chance of meeting us," Mouse chirruped.
"They'd need to get to a shipyard which could do it," returned Snark.
"It still might be possible."
Mouse kept putting figures into his tablet.
"Keep going, come up with something feasible, and I'll run it by Warspite," said Snark, the fluff on his back rising.
If Jamie could join them, it would feel like the old team was together again. He sniffed. He missed the Scot's crazy human optimism, and their verbal sparring.
Patters stopped hugging Sissness, and thought for a moment.
"What if we slowed down to let him catch us up?"
Snark considered it briefly, but knew he didn't even have to run it by Warspite. They were making good time, and the plan was to get to the Argathea system as fast as possible.
"We'll talk to Warspite, but I don't think it's going to work. We'd need to stop completely, to let him catch up, and that's not in the plan."
Snark looked across at Anna, who seemed in her own world. He jumped onto the console where she was sitting, purred, and put a paw on her hand. She looked at him, smiled, and then kissed him on the cheek.
Snark smiled back, then rubbed his cheek crossly with a paw, and jumped back into the captain's chair.
"No time for sentimentality," he said. "Time to make plans!"
He was trying to be decisive, but everyone saw through it. He was obviously as chuffed as they were.
Forty Seven
"How are you going with getting Jamie here?" Anna asked Mouse, looking nonchalantly down at her hands, but fooling no one.
Mouse looked uncomfortable.
"Not good I'm afraid. Patchet could squeeze some extra speed out of their ship, but it's not enough. There's nowhere near them where he could install any modifications to help either." He looked over at Anna. "Sorry, I shouldn't have got our hopes up in the first place."
Anna reassured Mouse, although she was bitterly disappointed.
"It's alright, you tried, which is the main thing."
The team were sitting on the bridge, ready for another jump point. The ships were coming up to a system with a large and prosperous station, where the Seasprite team wanted to resupply, and break the monotony of the journey. While the military captains were all happy to keep going, they knew the humans and cats would want to have some respite from their ship. The troops were restless as well.
Navigating the jump point with no issues, it was not far to the station, as it was located as near as possible to take advantage of trade and traffic. They were coming nearer to the border with sector nine, and all were on alert to the proximity of the Badlands, and pirate activity, but there had been nothing on scanners to worry them recently.
The team were ready for a break, and some new scenery, while Seasprite and the other ships were restocked with food and water, although Mouse was a bit perplexed the larger fighting ships didn't need much in the way of supplies.
After getting permission to dock, the Seasprite team, feeling protected by their escort ships, felt they could all disembark, and take in whatever the station had to offer. Even Sissness was 'off duty' from work, with them all having plans to 'do their own thing'.
As Snark went through the airlock into the station proper, he was faced with a group of beings, holding out various types of recording devices, and yelling questions at him. He was shocked into immobility, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. Media? He'd had a bit of experience on the Cat Homeworld, but hadn't expected to be the centre of media attention on a station in space, especially one out the back of nowhere.
"Snark! Tell us your plans for finding the amulet!"
"Where is the Destiny Stone?"
"What will you use the Destiny Stone for?"
"Over here!"
"Snark!"
Snark didn't know whether to force his way through them, or retreat back through the airlock, but his mind was made up for him, as the other team members came through the airlock.
"Anastasia Romanova! Give us a smile!"
"What's the importance of the Destiny Stone?"
"How do you feel?"
"What are you looking for now?"
"Why are you here at this Station?"
"Where are you headed?"
Snark put his head down, and bulldozed his way through the assorted beings, including pigs, stick insects, and hippo beings, connecting with their knees and legs, and unbalancing several. The others followed, and they cut a swathe through the group, emerging at the other side into a concourse, where other beings were gawking at the media circus.
As the team made their way into the station, the media followed, until Patters turned, growling and with her claws extended and glinting wickedly. The media horde checked their pace in the face of hostility, several getting an angle from Patter's fury, and as the team increased speed, the media pack was left behind.
"We're celebrities," squeaked Mouse, who for protection and speed, was perched on Anna's shoulders.
"Don't get used to it," snarled Snark. "Nothing good about it."
"We should have been better prepared," commented Sissness, as she puffed to keep up the pace. "It's a bit weird though to need a media strategy."
"I totally underestimated how much this part of the galaxy knows about us, and what we're doing," worried Anna. "The Brotherhood don't need secret intelligence operatives to know about us. All they have to do is watch the vid news."
"I hope they got my best side," quipped Patters, as she caught up with them.
"Knowing the media," opined Sissness, "None of us will have a best side. The newsroom'll skew it to
suit whatever story they want to tell."
Snark spotted a bar, and knew what he wanted to do. The others all thought it would be politic to disappear out of the 'media spotlight' for a while, and let things calm down, so they followed Snark in for a drink.
After the first round was downed, and the second was on its way, a group of soldiers walked in. Most of them were human, and they all wore Hunter red. Snark gawked at them, and the others looked around to see what he was looking at, and did the same. The not humans were not-crocs. They towered over everyone, and occupied three times the space of everyone except the odd hippo. Mouse gibbered.
"These are ours?" muttered Anna.
The largest not-croc seemed to hear her, and turned to look. He straightened slightly, and saluted the Seasprite group, middle fist to mouth. The rest of the not-crocs followed, and the humans straightened to attention, and saluted conventionally.
Snark lost control of his lower jaw.
"At ease?" said Anna, not quite knowing what to do or say.
The soldiers dropped back into parade rest, paused for a few moments, and continued heading to the bar. Snark tried to make sense of the rank insignia on shoulders.
The two Majors started ordering in different languages. Snark looked at Anna, and found everyone else was as well.
"The two Majors are American and German," she said, "hence the different languages. I've no idea how the locals will understand the Germans though. Or the Americans for that matter, since their accents are so pronounced."
"They seem to be managing," said Sissness.
Indeed they were, as evidenced by beers being pulled, and taken away to tables. The last three to leave the bar were the two Majors, and the largest not-croc. They came over to the Seasprite crew, and pulled up chairs.
"Colonel Crocatoa," said the not-croc. "Majors Chuck Emerson the third, and Hans Schafer. We're your ground backup."
"Nice to meet you Colonel and Majors," said Snark, and the others nodded a greeting.
"What sort of name is Crocatoa?" blurted Anna, who blushed after saying it. "Sorry, did I say that out loud?"
"You did," laughed Sissness. "But it is a good question."
A.I. Destiny 5 Talisman of Tomorrow Page 18
