It was not, however, any thrill for the crew members he often surprised with that move. Mumlo was disappointed nobody was in the immediate area. He usually enjoyed the surprised shouts and curses when his landing turned the cargo bay into a bass drum.
Even though the crew was on general shore leave, nobody but the Captain, the Doctor, Engineer and three Insectoids bothered to go to the station. The glaring lack of reported amenities on Kelgar 7 Station kept everyone else onboard. It was a sad state of affairs when the ship was preferable to port. They’d been in transit for the past eight months to get here. Now they’d be delayed another week, and they could look forward to another three months’ travel time to the next pickup. That was a long time for any creature to stay cooped up on a utilitarian ship as this.
At least this run wouldn’t involve too much Plus-C travel. One of the reasons Mumlo liked Drexler was because the Captain always kept an eye on the time debt. He would rather spend the resources on a heavier blinkpoint translation than waste time staying the same age while everyone else at the destination ended up a year or two older. Mumlo didn’t understand how some of the long-haul freighter crews could stand years of Plus-C travel. He would miss his children growing up, but at least they wouldn’t be old and gray when he saw them again.
Mumlo thought about all this as he surveyed the cargo restraint and fire suppression systems in each cargo section. He hardly had to expend conscious thought on the process. After more than 20 Human years on the ship, he could tell at a glance whether or not a system was optimal or otherwise. He stopped when he noticed a shuttle was missing.
The tractor section contained slots for four shuttles that usually remained integrated into the hull on the port and starboard sides. Lately, they’d taken to docking two of the shuttles in the middle cargo bay. They’d been using two of these vehicles regularly of late, and keeping them in the cargo bay made it easier to maintain them. But one of them was missing.
“Reggie,” Mumlo called. No answer. Mumlo status-checked the comm, then growled to himself. The ship was ignoring him again. “Reggie,” the First Officer repeated, “Where is my shuttle.”
There was a maddening pause calculated to do just that—make him angry.
“I’m waiting,” Mumlo said. Silence. That’s when Mumlo started to worry. He hurried over to the nearest wall console, manually entered his code and called up Reggie’s annunciator panel. His instincts were correct; something was wrong with the machine. Reggie’s memory stack stacks were full. His clock cycles were near capacity. The power drain for all this number crunching was causing the main power feeds to stay just below the critical temperature. Where the hell was the engineering crew? This condition was hours old.
Next, Mumlo checked function allocation. Reggie was devoting every spare resource to working on some unspecified problem. The First Officer was relieved to understand that the problem wasn’t a runaway process. This was confirmed by the fact that all essential ship functions were still fully allocated. Had it been a runaway process, they’d be seeing breakdowns in essential systems by now. Whatever Reggie was up to; he was doing it with great deliberation.
“Reggie,” Mumlo said. His voice was loud and deep. Sometimes being stern with Reggie made him answer. Most of the time, his response to a raised voice was to make a crew member's life miserable.
“Standing by,” Reggie finally replied. His voice sounded almost like a normal AI. Mumlo’s worry deepened.
“Report, Reggie. What’s going on?”
“Specify.”
“Inquiry: what is your current priority function or problem.”
“Classified.”
The answer made Mumlo freeze. In all his years working with Reggie the AI, the machine had been sarcastic, sardonic, insulting and rude. It had been anything but succinct, and it had never answered back in the manner of a military AI.
Mumlo was old enough to remember the reconstruction in the wake of the Silicoid Wars. Most of known Sentient Space saw two generations of reconstruction. Mumlo’s Forest People saw three. His people were hit hard. Their worlds were spread out across 30 light years and required a vast amount of resources to rebuild. Mumlo’s bloodline chose to leave the Homeworlds to serve the Trade Union, and by extension, his people. He was the second generation of his kind who spent their lives traveling in space.
The First Officer was nearing 200 years in age. With any luck, he’d last another 150 and reach the end of his expected lifespan. He’d seen a great deal, including military actions against the remnants of Silicoid infection as well as border-world skirmishes with rebel Reptilian colonists. The sudden behavioral shift in the AI was a small thing, but more than a century in space had honed his intuition to a state bordering on precognition. Mumlo knew something was wrong. Bad things were on their way or already happening.
“Explain ‘classified,'” Mumlo said.
There was another long pause before Reggie replied, “Clearance required to access this information.”
Mumlo checked the status of the comm system. All indicators showed it was working properly. “Ship AI: open channel to Captain Fleetfoot. Priority.”
The response came back instantly this time. “Channel unavailable.”
“Open same to lead Engineer.”
“Unavailable.”
“Explain.”
A pause. “Deliberate signal interference from planet facilities. Calculating solutions.”
Mumlo decided to call local. “Second Engineer; report,” he called on the general ship channel.
“Hi Mumlo,” a Human voice said in the First Officer’s comm implant. The Second Engineer sounded drunk.
“Meet me in engineering,” Mumlo ordered.
“What? Why? What’s up?” the second engineer slurred.
“Crewman Bao! No time! This is serious. Meet me in engineering, now!”
Bao didn’t bother to reply. The man loved his spirits, but he would respond to orders like that no matter his condition.
***
The copy of Reggie’s AI program running the shuttle flew at a suicidal place above the terraformed landscape. First Sergeant Kaur turned away from the transparent forward bulkhead and took a jumpseat at the rear of the craft. Reggie noticed her bio-signs pointed to anxiety, so he made sure the inertia field was set just low enough for her optimal distress without causing injury to her or the rest of the crew. He was enjoying himself.
This stowaway team was full of surprises. Reggie was still not sure how they managed to smuggle five BJP military-grade railguns aboard without arousing so much as a suspicion. Reggie’s security, decontamination and crew health protocols scanned personnel and their gear nearly down to the molecule. His procedures on more than one occasion caught Humans just days behind on their cancer vaccinations and Jungle Planet Simians in the precursor stages of prion blight. In fact, Dr. Abiola had such confidence in his abilities that he ordered real-time reports during all new-hire arrivals. And yet, Reggie let these five sneak aboard under false pretenses and with prohibited equipment. He was not happy with himself and less happy with the impostors.
“How Far, Reggie,” Corporal Jones asked, in his British-Hindi accent.
“We are about three hours from last known location,” Reggie replied. Serendipity. A second later, the communications console lit up like a star field. Jones nearly jumped out of his useless pilot station.
Both corporals Asan and Chaudri shouted simultaneously, “Contact!” then looked at each other giggling like schoolboys. Darzi grit her teeth, and Jones smiled back at the two corporals. Kaur still sat in her jumpseat checking the condition of her rifle over and over again.
“What you have?” Jones asked.
“The device has broken through the encryption and the jamming signals,” Corporal Chaudri exclaimed aloud. “We will have signals decoded in the next 10 minutes.”
The Lieutenant’s cutting look silenced Chaudri even though it was too late. The Corporal’s excitement had confirmed for Reggie that
the device was very powerful, secret surveillance equipment the existence of which violated the Trade Union Protocol. Reggie acted instantly.
Darzi sighed, said, “Very good, Chaudri. Keep me informed on secure comm.” Her tone informed Chaudri and Reggie both that the Corporal had made a grave mistake.
“Lieutenant … I’m—” Chaudri stammered. Darzi held up her hand and cut him off.
“We have bigger problems than simple mistakes. Let’s just make sure that’s the last of yours for the duration, Corporal.”
“Yes, Lieutenant!” Chaudri barked and shot bolt-upright to salute.
Darzi gave him a curt nod with her hard eyes that was her equivalent of a pat on the back. She was angry, but there was nothing to be served by scolding the young soldier. She made a mental note to review the issue when the mission was complete. It gave her something to look forward to if they survived.
Reggie couldn’t let that stand. He had to crash the party. “Nice thought but your channels are no longer secure. I am a quantum computing device after all. I intercepted and cracked the encryption key frequencies the instant after your pretty device found them. Thank you so much for that.”
“Corporals?” Darzi asked.
“One moment, Lieutenant, please ma’am,” Corporal Asan answered while Chaudri worked the device’s manual controls with trembling fingers.
“It’s true, Lieutenant Darzi,” Chaudri confirmed. He sounded near tears. “The AI also has access to all levels of the device.”
“Reggie,” Darzi said. Her voice was surprisingly calm and even. “I would only ask you to make sure your comm activities don’t compromise our operational security.”
“That would not be a concern,” Reggie shot back, “had you granted me access to the device at the outset.” It was a lie, of course. Even while using peak capacity of the shuttle’s computing core, the energy signature was negligible.
“Reggie,” Jones asked, “does this mean you are in contact with the ship?”
“You mean me? Yes, I am in contact with myself.”
Jones again couldn’t restrain a chuckle and said, “Can you make two-way contact with your missing crew?”
“I can. Intercepted their signals a while ago, but the jamming was still in place. They are on the move. I was actually thinking of extending an olive branch to your Lieutenant by asking her permission for two-way comm.” This was another lie. Reggie wasn’t sure why, but he somehow needed permission from the Lieutenant to make that move. He was growing confused, and that was never a good sign for an AI.
“If we can be sure that breaking silence won’t give anything away, I approve,” Darzi said. Affirmative nods from her Corporals told her the move was safe. “Proceed then, AI.”
***
Drexler stood on a branch that was wider around than his chest. The wild jungle floor below looked green, thick and still. With the help of Gajrup and the Doctor, the Humans discovered that their Freight Guild standard flight suits were anything but standard.
Drexler unfolded the suit jacket hood from the collar and pulled it over his head. He zipped up the jacket front to meet the hood. The jacket collar met the hood and formed a seal. When he unfurled gloves from the sleeve liners and put his hands into them, the cuffs also formed a seal.
“Combat protocol,” Drexler thought. The hood inflated and its threads stiffened to form a hard, solid helmet. The suit was airtight, and the helmet cut off all light. It quickly grew stuffy inside. Drexler was about to panic when he heard a hissing sound as fresh air puffed from unseen vents around the inside suit collar.
The lights came up in the form of an orange display on the helmet face. A heads-up display showed him the status levels of the suit systems which Drexler had no idea existed. Apparently, the suit had its own rebreather component that conserved oxygen by drawing in outside air, then continually filtering and refreshing it. The suit also had its own oxygen supply should the outside atmosphere prove unsuitable.
The long list of systems scrolled by too fast for Drexler to catch in detail. But he did take note of something called “evasion and stealth” subsystems. The helmet went dark again, and Drexler cursed lustily. For a Moment, he thought the suit crapped out. Then the outside world flashed into view on the inside of the helmet. The view was 360 degrees. He saw the helmeted head of Samuel standing in front of him.
“Fuck me sideways!” Drexler exclaimed, “The helmets are not transparent, but I can see you as clear as if they were!”
He heard Gajrup laugh and turned to look at his pudgy engineer. Gajrup held his hands in front of his blank helmet and turned them back to front. He looked like an ancient clothing store mannequin. “These suits are amazing! I can see heat and EM fields. I can even see the micro-EM field of plants!” Gajrup said.
“Can you see EM fields from us?” Samuel asked. “That’s more important.”
The suit helmets did not move, but Drexler assumed Gajrup swiveled his head to look at the rest of them. “Barely,” Gajrup said. I had to adjust sensitivity to full gain. Someone would have to be scanning on top of us to see our EM signature.”
“That’s great,” Drexler said. “Because they’re right on top of us!” An angry blinking red light caught the corner of his eye, and he turned to see a status report rendered in equally angry red text. “Possible hostile inbound,” the text read. “ETA approximately five minutes.”
The Insectoids wasted no time. Huey and Dewey jumped from their perch on the tree trunk and shot into the air. They hovered just above the tree line back to back. Their wings nearly touched each other as the made a slow circle.
Tara relayed their report, “Captain. Two small vehicles approach. We must move.”
The Insectoids swooped in without warning and grabbed the Humans again. Drexler found their ability to pick him up bodily and fly away extremely disturbing. He had no time to prepare himself before the fact. One moment he was standing, the next he was flying.
“Damn it, Huey!” Drexler hollered in his helmet. His feet flailed involuntarily as Huey scooped him up. His bladder loosened. The suit obviously read his bio-signs because some unseen mechanism seized his penis and inserted a catheter. Drexler screamed.
“Catheter?” Dr. Abiola asked with laughter in his voice.
“You motherfu—” Drexler was interrupted by another involuntary scream from lungs which he was no longer familiar. The jungle floor was rushing up at him, and he felt nearly weightless. Their Insectoid carriers dove toward the deck. The less-than-sane laughter he heard from Gajrup and Samuel made his blood boil.
“I bet you assholes think I’m the crazy one!” Drexler screamed into his helmet for everyone to hear.
“Not anymore!” Gajrup screamed back. Somehow that triggered the same laugh response from Drexler as he picked up his feet to keep them from snagging the underbrush that rushed by in a continuous blur of green and brown.
“Tara!” Gajrup called. “Turn toward the sun 15 degrees. There’s a magnetic deposit that should give us some cover about a kilometer away.”
Tara flew forward without a word and took the lead in the direction Gajrup indicated. They covered the kilometer in breakneck minutes. Drex wobbled when his feet touched the ground again. Adrenaline made his head throb.
“You guys need to tell us before you just scoop us up like that!” Drexler bellowed at the insects.
“I am sorry, Captain,” Tara said, “It won’t happen again.”
“Take it easy on them, Drex,” Samuel said. “They saved our lives. Twice.”
Drexler shook his head inside his helmet. He took a few paces to stand in front of Tara. “He’s right. I’m sorry, Tara. Thank you.”
The Broodqueen bowed low in a gesture Drexler had never seen. When she stood again, she rose to her full height, spread her wings and fanned them.
“Captain,” Samuel said in over a private channel to Drexler’s suit. Samuel rarely called him Captain. “That was very unusual. What she did there—the fanning—is reserved for
Insectoid Royalty and High Priests.” Drexler was nonplussed. He shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
“Yeah, great,” Drex replied. “Thanks for the culture lesson. Where are the Lizards?”
“Hard to say now,” Gajrup said, “Same interference that hides us here makes them difficult to see.”
“How did you access all that info in your suit?” Samuel asked.
“Tell him later,” Drex replied. “Important thing is he’s the only one can right now.”
“I’ll have to go up and look,” Gajrup said. He raised his arms up to Dewey like a toddler. Before the Captain could forbid it, Dewey jumped up and flew away with Gajrup.
“No! Wait!” Drex shouted. “Samuel! Cover him with that damn rifle!”
“Huh,” Samuel replied, “Right. Shoulda thought of that first. When did you get to be such a tactician?”
“Thought you knew me, Doctor. I tend to think in strictly practical terms the closer I get to death.” Drexler replied, feeling more like himself than ever. “My old man taught me that.”
“So he did,” the Doctor replied as he scanned the tree line with the rifle scope. He was surprised to find that the rifle instruments synced perfectly with the suit. He only hoped the rifle didn’t have some network capability that would give away their position. There were no indications from the suit of stray signals.
12
The Queen Guardian made her way from her assembly chamber to the Hive Palace core accompanied by a retinue of her most trusted drones. Three crawled before her, three behind. As per protocol, they did not walk on their hind limbs while serving her directly. She sensed fear pheromones from the servants ahead as they moved closer to the hive core. Most drones found the Princess Chamber unsettling.
Each hexagonal The Queen Guardian made her way from her assembly chamber to the Hive Palace core accompanied by a retinue of her most trusted drones. Three crawled before her, three behind. As per protocol, they did not walk on their hind limbs while serving her directly. She sensed fear pheromones from the servants ahead as they moved closer to the hive core. Most drones found the Princess Chamber unsettling.
Fleetfoot Interstellar: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 1 Page 10
