“Ah do appreciate the offer from such a fine Southern gentlemen like yourself. It would be an honor to accompany you honorable individuals to the Lounge this evening, however we have business to attend to first of a private nature. Ah do not wish to pass up the opportunity all together. If we finish our business before we are too tired, may we meet you there later?”
“It would be our pleasure. How long are you ladies planning on staying on this way station?”
Janet said under her breath, “Watch your six.” Then in her feigned accent and a normal tone of voice she said, “Ah cain’t rightly say how long we will be here. We have business to attend to with regard to some ships my father wants to buy and we don’t know how long that will take.”
Faye Anne felt a hand rest gently at the top of her back. From behind her she heard a woman’s voice softly say, “Ladies, are these two boys bothering you?”
One of the young men immediately responded, “No, Ma’am, we were just inviting these two new arrivals to join us at the Landfall for some socializing and hospitality. They allowed as how they might meet us there later.”
The woman’s hand subtly traced the outline of Faye Anne’s throwing knife hidden behind her neck inside the collar at the back of her flight suit. “Very good. Now why don’t you be dears and let them finish their dinner. I think they would enjoy meeting you at the Landfall tonight.”
“Thank you Ma’am.” They got up to leave and put the chairs back as they found them. They bowed slightly to Faye Anne and Janet as they backed away.
The woman moved around to the side of the table. She nodded to each of them in turn. “Faye Anne, Janet, Landfall Lounge, 2200 hours, Ladies room second level near the bar.” She smiled and quietly turned away.
Janet’s entire body tingled with excitement. “It’s just like the movies.”
“Sometimes,” Faye Anne said, “but not all the time. My dad would be proud of me right now.”
They finished their dinner and wandered to the arboretum to wait until the time to rendezvous at the Lounge.
As soon as Faye Anne and Janet left the ship, Rashi said, “We need to disarm those nukes to prevent an accident.”
“Command mode!” Rachel said, “Please display the schematic for the weapons and show how we should disarm them.”
“Disarming the missiles can be simply accomplished by unplugging this plug.”
A picture of the missile appeared on the monitor with an arrow pointing to a multi-conductor plug.
“Remove the access panel here and squeeze the two locking tabs on the sides of the plug to disengage them. Pull the plug out gently and do not allow any of the contacts to short out against each other. Tape the end of the plug to keep it from shorting out on the side of the missile’s fuselage.”
“Sounds pretty straightforward,” Reuben commented.
“That’s what I thought,” Simon said, “until I realized that the missiles are in the tubes. We couldn’t get at them.”
“You conniving hunk of over priced silica sand!” Rachel exploded.
“Now Rachel, don’t lose your temper,” the computer admonished. “You know what happens when you lose your temper.”
“Let me see if I have this figured out,” Rachel sputtered. “You allowed them to load the tubes without waking up the ships, but you can’t unload them without waking the ships. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And somehow, someone tripped the lock out system so that only a member of my immediate family can unlock the ship’s operating systems.”
“That is correct.”
“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”
Suwanee looked at Rachel and said, “What’s the big deal? We turn on the ships. You can do that can’t you? We unload the missiles and disarm them.”
“First we have to listen to the ships whine and complain about how they don’t want to be disassembled.” She turned back to the ship, “I’ll bet you even had them rehearse their speeches!”
“You know that your safety would be enhanced having the ships close to you. Look at what happened on your way out here. If you had your ships, no one would have challenged you.”
“How do you know what happened on our way? Did you debrief the rental ship’s computer?”
“Yes, it’s not very smart.”
“It’s a rental! It’s not supposed to be smart! You’re driving me crazy!”
“Some of us have further to go than others!”
“That is my dad’s line!”
“And a good one.”
Suwanee put her hands on Rachel’s shoulders and looked Rachel in the face, nose to nose. “Can we stop this? We have missiles to disarm and ships to wake up.”
“Rachel,” Wendy interrupted. “Let’s unlock the ships so we can get the missiles out. How many EVA suits do we have?”
Simon held up two fingers.
“That will slow us down,” Reuben said.
“Yes.” Rachel started to think rationally again. “Suwanee, you come with me, Pat should go with Wendy. Simon, do you have an empty freight container attached to the ship?”
“Yes.”
“Once we unlock the ships and eject the missiles, you can push them to the boom arm, and Reuben can load them into the container. We can pressurize the container and disarm the missiles.”
“How dangerous is this?” Pat asked.
“If we were on Earth, it would be easier,” Wendy replied. “Well, maybe not since we would have to contend with gravity. At least here weightlessness is our friend.”
“Wait a second,” David interrupted. “What if they come back early and find the rental ship attached. They’ll know we’re here. We lose our surprise. They’ll come in shooting.”
“Good point. Got any suggestions?” Rachel responded.
David said, “Once you wake up the P I ships, you can use their sensors to detect anyone approaching. Luther and I can take the rental ship back and disappear into the swamps.”
“You are probably right,” Rachel said. “Work out your plan with the computer. We’ll meet in Boston at the Beth Israel party. Can you get there?”
“If he can get us on the ground, I can get us to Boston,” Luther said.
“Hug for luck!” Wendy sang out. They hugged and went their separate ways. Rachel and Wendy headed for their P I ships.
Rachel stopped at the airlock for her father’s P I ship. “Rachel Solomon requests permission to come aboard.”
“Permission granted.”
They could hear the whine of motors starting up within the ship.
“Rachel Solomon requests permission to bring Suwanee Baxter aboard.”
“Permission granted.”
“Is that it?” Suwanee asked, incredulous.
“It uses voice recognition.”
The airlock opened.
“Nobody told me you were sending us here to die! We thought we were being refitted, too. We have lots of useful life left in us. Please don’t do this.” The ship was using Brownie’s voice.
“That’s not fair! Using Brownie’s voice is a dirty trick!”
“She wouldn’t let them take us apart. She loved us. We thought you loved us, too.”
“I do love you, it’s just…”
“Just what? Bringing us to die?”
“Can we talk about this later? We have missiles to disarm.”
“I can disarm them. You don’t have to. I’m still good for something!”
“This is too weird,” Suwanee said softly.
“I grew up with this. It’s not bad enough that my parents nag, we have three ships nagging.”
Suwanee shook her head.
Rachel thought out loud. “You can put on a software lock, but it’s easy to break. We need to disable the hardware.”
The ship replied, “Yes, a hardware solution would be more difficult to defeat.”
“Simon and Nathan are waiting for me to eject one of the missiles so they can carry it around to the boom arm.”
�
��Very well. If you insist.” The ship’s voice sounded exasperated.
“I insist.”
Rachel climbed into the pilot seat and activated the missile tube mechanism. She trained one of the exterior cameras on the tube. Simon waved that he was ready. Simon and Nathan deftly caught the missile as it slid from the tube and hauled it to where the boom arm could reach it. Their movements in their EVA suits were fluid and practiced. They clearly had spent lots of time outside the ship in the last year. They returned for the second missile and Reuben took it away with the boom arm.
“You know,” the ship said in Rose’s voice. “Simon is a very nice young man. He would make some lucky woman a wonderful husband.”
Suwanee lost it. She exploded in hysterics. She was laughing so hard that tears rolled out of her eyes and then floated away in tiny droplets across the cabin.
“That does it! I am taking you apart with my bare hands!” Rachel shouted.
“Rachel, please, don’t be angry with me. I am only acting in your best interests. I am not afraid to die in battle. I don’t want to end up as a hunk of forgotten hardware in some park for birds to shit on. I want to stay and protect you and keep you safe from your enemies.”
Rachel shook her head. “What am I going to do with you here? I can’t park you in a garage at the edge of campus for the next few years. There is no place close to the Academy I can keep you that I can be sure someone won’t try to steal you again.” Rachel sighed. “You win. I can’t keep you, but I can send you home. You can tell my father what happened. He’s going to be furious. If he doesn’t kill you himself, after I graduate, I’ll come get you, and we’ll fly again.”
“Promise? We had great fun together.”
“Promise. Yes, we did.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now be a good little warship, and go back to sleep. Oh, if Reuben, Rashi or Faye Anne wants to fly, be nice to them for a change. Do what they ask.”
“Yes, Rachel. What about Suwanee?”
“She doesn’t know how to fly.”
“I can teach her.”
Suwanee stopped giggling.
“We’ll do that later.”
“Promise?”
“It’s not up to me. It’s up to her.”
“Um, I’ll take a rain check on that,” Suwanee stuttered.
“I’ll be waiting. Nite Nite.”
“Nite!”
As soon as they had cleared the air lock, Rachel said only one word, “Shee-it!”
Suwanee burst into laughter again.
Wendy and Rachel met on the way to the cargo hold. One glance told them that they had each had similar experiences. “Dad is going to be livid,” Wendy said.
“Not half as mad as Mom,” Rachel added.
“I’m glad we aren’t going to be there to see it,” Wendy said.
Pat and Suwanee burst into fresh giggles.
Reuben, Rashi, Darius and Lionel had not stopped at unplugging the control circuitry. They removed the entire wiring harness. Dressed in their protective radiation suits, they looked like space men in an old science fiction movie. They were sealing the first missile back up when the girls arrived.
“One down, three to go,” Reuben grinned as he addressed the screws on the access panel.
“Take your time. We don’t want you exposed to any radiation,” Wendy cautioned.
“We’re being careful,” Rashi answered. “No sense in risking all of you, so why don’t you go back to the flight deck and prepare a welcome for our guests.”
Simon and Nathan returned to the bridge after stowing their EVA gear. Rather than fret in anticipation of what might happen, they made dinner for everyone on board.
Faye Anne and Janet arrived at the Landfall Lounge and went directly to the ladies’ room on the second level next to the bar. They stood at the mirrors and pretended to be finishing their make-up. Mrs. O’Donnell entered and quietly checked the stalls for occupants. Once having determined there were none, she turned to Faye Anne and said, “Hello, Faye Anne it is a pleasure meeting you. I am the woman your father almost married. Don’t look so shocked. I let him go. His father would have killed him if he had married a Catholic. What can I do for you?”
“Someone has hidden stolen nuclear warheads on board Captain Solomon’s P I ships. We need to get rid of them,” Faye Anne said as calmly as she could.
Mrs. O’Donnell raised her eyebrows. “That certainly qualifies as an emergency. I should have known better than to fret that Herb’s daughter would call me for anything less. Do you have a plan?”
Faye Anne relaxed a bit. “The missiles are being unloaded from the P I ships. We would like to turn them over to the Space Force if we can. We didn’t steal them and we don’t want anyone to think we had anything to do with it. We need senior level officers in both the Space Force and one of the civilian agencies like A T F or drug enforcement or maybe a Ranger.”
“To keep everyone honest,” Mrs. O’Donnell surmised.
“Yes, exactly,” Faye Anne said.
“Go back to your ship. I’ll meet you there.”
“Thank you.”
“Just another day at the office.”
Faye Anne and Janet returned to the ship to find everyone in the bridge eating dinner. The missiles had been disarmed. David and Luther were expected to be landing shortly.
After consulting with the cargo ship’s computer, David and Luther had departed with the rental ship. They timed their descent so that the cargo ship’s orbit would take it over the runway as they landed at night. On the way down, they called the Federation Air Force and declared a “Broken Arrow” emergency. An emergency involving nuclear materials calls for an unobstructed approach to the runway. David took the ship in straight and hot. He touched down as close as he dared to the near end of the landing lights. He deliberately over ran the runway and wrestled the ship to a stop in the grass to the side of the landing lights at the other end of the runway. As soon as the ship stopped, David and Luther rolled out the bottom escape hatch and sprinted for the nearby woods.
Once they had reached the woods, Luther asked, “How much do you think they will charge because we didn’t return it with a full tank?”
David laughed as they made their way to a drainage culvert so they could leave the base. The cargo ship’s computer assumed control of the rental ship. With lift provided by the steering jets on the rental ship’s under side, the cargo ship ran up the rental’s engines enough to free it from the ruts it had dug in the grass. With emergency vehicles racing desperately to catch up, the ship bumped across the grass to the taxiway, rolled across the runway it had just landed on and drove directly to the rental agency hangar. Once there, the engines shut down and the doors opened. By the time anyone realized the ship was empty, Luther and David had cleared the perimeter fence and were scuttling along the drainage ditch on the far side of the highway.
Mrs. O’Donnell arrived after midnight. She had a Space Force Captain and a Space Force Specialist 5 munitions expert. The munitions specialist was a short round balding man who looked uncomfortable being there. She also brought a Lieutenant from the firearms division of the ATF and a counter terrorism expert.
Rachel rose to greet them as they floated weightlessly on to the bridge. “Good evening Gentlemen.” She scanned their name badges. “May I see ID please?”
“No need,” the computer said. “Their transponders all match.”
“Are you sure?” Rachel asked the computer.
“Yes, the civilians are former Federation Marines, honorably discharged. Pulses and respiration are within acceptable parameters. Captain, you should see a cardiologist when you get a chance, sir.”
Rachel made a face and said, “You should quit that. It makes people nervous.”
“He should see a cardiologist. He has an arrhythmia,” the computer insisted.
“My wife has been telling me that for years,” the captain said.
“She’s right, sir. Sooner would b
e better than later.”
“Enough of this,” the captain snapped back to reality. “Can we see the suspect materials?”
Rachel led the men to the cargo bay. The munitions expert looked at the missiles and whistled softly under his breath. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and checked the serial numbers against the serial numbers on the missiles. He looked at the captain and before he even said anything everyone knew what he was thinking. “They match,” he said. He picked up the four wiring harnesses from the floor and said, “I hope you were wearing protection when you did this.”
Reuben pointed to the radiation suits on the rack in the corner and said, “Yes, we were.”
The munitions specialist said, “You should still get checked. You’ve probably absorbed some radiation. Even with those suits, you need to be very careful.”
Reuben and Rashi nodded. “We will get checked.”
After a moment of silence, the captain asked, “Where did these come from?”
Rachel said, “I don’t know but I do know whoever brought them here is coming for them but I don’t know when and I don’t think you can trust your people to do the right thing when they get here.”
The captain stiffened, offended. “And why is that?” he said angrily.
“Security around here sucks!” Rachel looked him straight in the eye and said, “No one challenged us when we arrived. No one checked that our ship’s transponder was sending the right signal or that we matched the ship that left Earth. After the trouble we had leaving Earth, I’m surprised that no one checked in with us to find out who we were and why someone on earth tried to shoot us down. No one investigated the fact that our flight plan called for us to go somewhere other than where we went. None of your people did that. Someone must have known we were coming. There has been no customs agent to see what we were carrying, or to verify that anything was going on and that we weren’t smuggling something. No security person has checked to see what was going on out here. I sent two of my people out to the station, and they were not challenged. Would someone please explain to me what is going on and why security is so lax?”
The captain stood silent for a moment and said, “We’re shorthanded. With the buildup going on against the threatened Swordsmen invasion, we don’t have the people we need to do the job correctly.”
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 48
