“First Citizen Kalana awoke earlier and said she needed to see to her assistants about several issues. She requested that I contact her when you awoke so she might dine with you this morning.”
“Thank you Piesew, if you would be so kind as to notify her that I am awake. I shall shower in the meantime and dress.”
“Very well sir, would you care for me to lay something out for you, or do you wish to select your own attire for the day?”
“I think I will choose my own clothing, thank you, Piesew.”
I got out of the bed, noticing that I didn’t seem to have any of the stiffness or difficulty that I had on previous days and I felt more limber. I showered, and then while using the depilatory device to remove the stubble from my face, I noted that my scars had faded in color considerably in past few days; they were now almost a normal pink flesh color. Kala had told me that even the raised scar tissue would vanish as a result of the nanobots restructuring my flesh as it healed. I was in the process of cleaning my teeth, when suddenly Kala came into the bath area and slapped me on my bare bottom.
“Hi there, lover!” She said in a happy tone.
“Well hi there yourself.” I replied, equally as enthusiastically.
“You put on a pretty good show for an injured man last night.” Kala chuckled.
“I seem to be healing pretty fast.” I commented. “Look-- all my scars are healing and are pink now instead of bright red, and all my bruises are gone-- except for this one near my groin.”
“A’hem... I’ll have you know that is not a bruise… that’s a love bite from last night.” Kala said wickedly.
“Oh… OH!!!” I said as I recalled more of the detail from the night before. “Well in that case, may it last forever!”
“Well if it doesn’t, I can refresh it as needed.” Kala winked.
It was about a week later that I found myself in the gym again. I was slowly starting to regain some of my sense of balance and movements, but I still was slower than I had been in the past. A’Lappe had explained that the synthetic nerves which replaced the ones I had lost in the crash would probably not work as well as my natural ones; I was hoping to prove him wrong. By now just the faintest lines of my scars remained, and I only had a few more weeks to wait before I would have a new eye. I was just finishing up my practice set of exercises when I heard a commotion at the other end of the large gym. A crowd had gathered around the combatants, and there was a lot of cheering going on. I decided to see what was attracting so much attention. As I drew closer, I could hear the sounds of objects being struck together in a clacking sound. I approached the crowd, and some people saw me and cleared a little space so I could see into the center of the circle. What I saw there totally surprised me. Kerabac and Jenira were sparring with short wooden sticks, about the same length and weight as the swords that Jenira showed me earlier. Kerabac was stripped to the waist, wearing only a pair of exercise shorts. His black skin glistened with perspiration; Jenira wore an exercise leotard that was common for both men and women on the ship. I could see dark damp patches on her uniform, which didn’t surprise me, with the speed at which they both were moving. The practice swords they used were a blur of motion. I was surprised to see that Jenira aggressively held her own and fought fiercely with a look of determination. Likewise, Kerabac also seemed to be fighting with determination, but I was surprised to see him retreating at times from Jenira’s fierce attacks. I didn’t think for a moment that Kerabac was deliberately letting her think she was better than he was. The way she fought was astounding, there was a smoothness and grace in her movements; one flowed naturally into another with blurring speed. I wondered how much of her skill came from the learning headbands and how much was a natural ability.
In the end it was Kerabac who landed a winning jab with one of his mock swords, catching Jenira under the armpit. Jenira flinched and threw her swords down in frustration. She quickly regained her composure, however, and placed the back of one palm against her forehead and the other palm inside the first and made a slight bow to Kerabac who bowed back in return without the hand gesture. I found out later that this was a traditional way for ending a practice bout between the defeated and the winner. Both Kerabac and Jenira were breathing hard, but Jenira seemed to be recovering faster than Kerabac. With the bout ended, people started moving in, patting both Kerabac and Jenira on the back and complimenting their skills. Eventually, Jenira moved off toward the shower room, leaving Kerabac talking to one of the crew members. Once he noticed me; he made a few comments to his companion and then walked over to me.
“Did you see Jenira sparring with me?”
“How could I miss it; I think almost everyone on the ship was here,” I said jokingly. Kerabac grinned and said, “The crew must have shrunk in size, I only saw about 50 people.”
“Tell me, is Jenira really that good, or were you just making her look good?”
“Trust me Tibby, she is very good. I was afraid for a while that she was actually going to beat me. She is incredibly driven and fights like her life is on the line with every match. Padaran is good, but Jenira beats him every time now. At the rate she is going, she will be beating me in a few more days.”
“Do you think it is wise for her to be using the swords?” I asked.
Kerabac gave a sigh. “I honestly don’t know. Back on Hugulsa, before we joined the Federation, only males of the Ruwallie Rasson were permitted to carry and use two swords. We did have a few women warriors, but they were only permitted to carry and use one sword. I’m not sure what customs are like there today, but I know they are far more liberal than they were back then. I’m not sure how people in general will take her carrying two swords, but the Federation is pretty open to the many customs of other planets; very few people will really take notice unless she draws them.”
“How well do you think she would hold up in a battle with one of the Ruwallie Rasson warriors back on Goo’Waddle?”
“Ha…” Kerabac snorted, “I doubt that there would be many who could best her, maybe one or two.
“She’s really that good?”
Kerabac just nodded and looked at me questioningly. “What’s really bothering you, Tibby? I would think you would be pleased that she can defend herself.”
“I am, at least I think I am, but doesn’t it bother you that she is not a typical young lady in the Federation. Instead of being concerned with the things that girls her age are, she’s only interested in becoming a warrior.”
Kerabac placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “Tibby if you look at what she has gone through, I think that the direction she is taking now is probably the best for her. Only time will tell what she will become, but I think she will be a good and wonderful person regardless. There are far worse courses she could take, and if she becomes a woman warrior, I am certain she will be one of the best.”
“Just how old is she? Do you know?” I asked.
“I’m guessing she is about 15 or 16, but she could be 14, or 17 and just younger looking than she is. We’ve tried to figure out her actual age but haven’t had much luck. She doesn’t seem to remember, much after her parents were killed, it’s like time stopped for her, and everything after that was just one long horrible day.”
As Kerabac finished his statement, Jenira came out of the shower room; she'd changed back to her normal ship’s attire and was once again wearing her two short swords on her back. When she saw Kerabac and me, she ran to me, hugged me, and started asking me in sign language if I had seen the match.
“Yes I saw, you were amazing.” I said. Jenira nodded but signed that she had lost.
“One cannot always win,” I said. “We must lose at times in order to learn, Kerabac tells me he was worried that you were going to beat him.”
Jenira looked at Kerabac as he was walking toward the showers and then signed. “He is really good, I want to be a good as he is.”
“He said that if you keep improving like you have been, you will be beating him soon.”
/>
“Did he really say that?” Jenira signed.
“Yes he did.”
Jenira beamed.
“Jenira, why do you want to master the swords?” I asked suddenly before I realized what I was asking.
Jenira immediately started signing. “So I can help and protect others, like you did when you helped Tanden and me. I want to be fast and strong so no one can beat me and so I can stop bad people from hurting others.”
“Those are good thoughts, but don’t you think it would be safer for you to let that for others? There are other ways you can help that are less dangerous!”
“You don’t think I am good enough?” She signed with a hurt look on her face, and I realized that I had said the wrong thing.
“Oh no, not that at all. You are very good, but you are still very young.” I replied hastily.
“If I had been armed and knew how to use these swords, Tanden would be alive now, and I would have killed Shydak, and you would not have been injured in the crash.” Jenira signed so fast I could barely keep up with her hand movements. Suddenly, I saw it; I realized that Jenira was blaming herself and her own weakness for Tanden’s death and my injury.
I was deeply moved by her statement and pulled her to me and hugged her. “Jenira what happened on Goo’Waddle was not your fault. Even if you had swords other things could have happened that would have ended in the same results. What happened to me was in no way your fault; it was totally my own. No one expects you to be responsible for life’s of others.”
“No one expects you to, either,” Jenira signed with a determined look on her face, “but you still take on that responsibility.” She had me there, and I knew there was no way I would win this argument. I gave her one last quick hug. “Well, Jenira, I can say that anyone under your protection will be fortunate, and those who go up against you will be fools. Now let me go shower-- I need to see what A’Lappe and Cantolla have been up to.”
I found A’Lappe and Cantolla sitting at an instrument console in the laboratory. The two seemed to be studying data on the screens before them.
“Something must be very interesting to have you two so mesmerized.” I commented.
Both Cantolla and A’Lappe turned their heads to look back over their shoulders; in A’Lappe’s case, he needed to turn his body more because his short neck restricted his motion.
“Tibby, you’re just in time.” Cantolla said.
“In time for what?”
“The readings we are getting from the probes we sent out, searching for another source of solbidyum.” A’Lappe replied.
“You’re getting readings already? It’s only been a few months since you sent the probes out; they couldn’t possibly be at the locations you were sending them to, let alone for the signals to get back to us.”
“That’s true, if we were waiting until the probes made it to their destinations, and if we were using conventional transmission methods.” A’Lappe replied.
“I take it from the way you said that you have discovered another method?”
A’Lappe grinned. “I didn’t but Cantolla did.” I looked at Cantolla, who sat there with a huge Cheshire Cat grin. Cantolla had initially disliked working with A’Lappe, primarily because she hated sharing the glory for discoveries; fortunately A’Lappe didn’t mind sharing the glory or even letting someone else take credit for them. In the end, the two worked out very well as a team, and though I didn’t doubt that Cantolla had made the discovery, I suspect that A’Lappe may have contributed greatly to steering her in the right direction.
“So what is this great discovery, and how did you make it? Or must I play 20 questions to get it?”
Cantolla grinned and with a tilt of her head began, “Well, it was sort of your idea Tibby, in an indirect way. I remembered you talking about sympathetic particles that you recalled from something you called Quantum Mechanics, I believe. It got me thinking, and I managed to get hold of some of the transmissions that the admiralty has been intercepting from your Earth. From that, I was able to learn a bit more about them from those shows you called documentaries. Very interesting stuff actually, how two sympathetic particles, no matter how far separated in the universe, will react the same way at the same instance. The most difficult part was isolating such particles, and to be honest, I had no idea where to begin to look. A’Lappe was the one to figure that one out, and the solution was ingenious.”
I looked at A’Lappe who just sat there blinking his eyes in that almost hypnotic manner. “Well?” I said, “Must I do some special trick to get you to tell me?”
“No,” A’Lappe said with a grin, “I was just wondering if I might be able to bargain telling you this in return for information on how you know when I am present even though cloaked. But then I figure if I don’t tell you, Cantolla will. Okay, here it is, plain and simple-- I use the replicator.”
“Of course, why didn’t I think of that?” I said in one of those “DUH!” moments.
“Well it wasn’t quite as easy as all that,” Cantolla added, “It took some configuring, since our replicators are not capable of replicating some things, and most of what they do replicate tends to be organic materials. However, we are able to replicate some synthetics, like plastics, and there is one conductive plastic molecule that it can produce that could be reconfigured to suit our purposes. It took a few months, but while you were busy on Goo’Waddle and recovering from your accident, it gave us enough time to get it worked out. The trick was in the receiver; we had already placed the transmitting particles on the probes, but the receivers weren’t completed and had never been tested. They still are a bit crude, but we are able to get simple information from the probes and extrapolate from that.”
“So? What are you discovering? Have you found a new source of solbidyum?”
“Ahh… no!” A’Lappe said somewhat dejected. “However, we may have found something new, and almost as good. We’ve been detecting some substance in the area of that collapsed black hole that is emitting energy of a nature similar to solbidyum, it would not be quite as powerful as a solbidyum fueled reactor, but more powerful than the 10X fusion reactors.” A’Lappe paused; Cantolla picked up where he left off. “We won’t really know until we have a chance to get there ourselves. The readings we are picking up now are from the probe when it is still a long way from the pit.”
“Pit?”
“The pit is what A’Lappe and I call the collapsed black hole.”
“Oh I see.”
A’Lappe spoke again as Cantolla finished. “I think we can assume, if our assumptions are right, that there is a lot more of whatever is producing this energy than there was solbidyum at the site where the Federation found it. We speculate there will be enough to supply it to our ships and those of the Federation, and it will have ample energy for cloaking and RMFF shields as well. There would not be enough to power an entire planet like solbidyum does, but for a ship not much is required.”
“That’s great news,” I responded. “Is there any chance we will be passing near this area on our way to Earth?”
“I’m sorry Tibby, but the answer to that unfortunately is no. The pit is in the opposite direction and quite far off as well.”
“Damn!” I exclaimed. “It’s just going to have to wait until we finish our trip to Earth. In the meantime, see if the two of you can improve on this sympathetic particle stuff and see if you can develop a means of transmitting visual data with it. The Deep-Space Communicator you developed is great; I am impressed with the security of the system, but we need a system of communication that allows us to transmit visual data as well and to more than one person at a time.”
“We’ve been working on it Tibby, but it's more complicated than it sounds.” Cantolla replied with frustration in her tone. She was about to say something else, when suddenly klaxons began sounding. At the same time Stonbersa’s voice came over my com link. “Tibby, this is Stonbersa. We’re picking up what appears to be a fleet of ships ahead of us, and from the data
we are picking up, one of the ships appears to be a Tottalax ship.”
“I’m on my way to the bridge.” I responded. “A’Lappe and Cantolla, I would like for you to join me.” I was headed for the door when A’Lappe stopped me.
“Tibby, where are you going?”
“To the bridge! You heard what the Commodore said.”
“Yes, Tibby but you’re not planning on walking all the way there are you? It’s at the other end of the ship; it will take you over 30 minutes to walk there.”
“Well how else are we going to get there? Don’t tell me you’ve invented a teleporter?”
“No, Tibby we can use one of the tube shuttles.”
“Tube shuttles?”
“Oh come on now Tibby, don’t tell me you’ve owned this ship for nearly 3 years now, have lived aboard it half of that time, and don’t know about the tube shuttles?!” Once again, I realized I was about to learn how ignorant I was about my own ship.
A’Lappe and Cantolla walked over to a door arch bordered by a light-blue frame. I saw numerous of these arches about the ship near the outer hull, but I had never given them any attention. I didn’t see any door button, which is probably why I had never opened one in curiosity. “Shuttle!” A’Lappe said while facing the door.
“Shuttle arrival in 20 seconds” a voice responded. A’Lappe turned and looked at me with a smile. Twenty seconds later the doors opened, revealing a small shuttle with four seats. We entered and each took a seat. “Destination?” the voice requested. “Bridge” A’Lappe replied. “Bridge arrival in 3 minutes and 27 seconds, “the voice responded as the shuttle began moving.
“Have these shuttles always been here, or are these something new that has been added that I never heard of?”
I heard Cantolla sort of snort and chuckle at the same time. “Really Tibby, all this time and you never have used a shuttle on this ship?”
“Ahh no… I’ve pretty much been walking everywhere.”
“And Kala never mentioned them to you or showed them to you?”
Solbidyum Wars Saga 4: Too Late for Earth Page 8
