J. T. dutifully ventured forth and fetched the two escape modules. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief until Alina noticed that Buddy was missing. Elizabeth replayed the recording of the battle so they could try and figure out what had happened to Buddy, Aida and Delilah. Clearly Buddy had hyper jumped, but they should have returned by now. Reuben calculated the jump as having been at least ten G’s. Aida and Delilah had most likely passed out from the force, but they should have been back. The thought that gnawed at the back of everyone’s mind was the fact that there were ships that had jumped into hyperspace and never been found again. The standard assumptions were mechanical failure and navigation errors. In Buddy’s case, the battle damage he had suffered could have been sufficient to cause him to not properly complete the jump.
“They’ll show up,” Rachel said with more hope than she felt. “We need to turn attention to the battleship.”
The Viking battleship had sat quietly in its geosynchronous orbit over the Viking settlement throughout the whole conflict and had not fired a single missile or laser.
“It’s dead,” Elizabeth said in a tone of deep disgust. “The reactors are cold. The life support systems are not operating.”
“How did you know?” Rachel asked.
“While you were rounding up the cattle at the OK corral, I redeployed a tracking satellite to take a look. That ship is deader than a doornail.”
“Then, it’s over,” Rachel said with relief.
“All but the shouting,” Elizabeth affirmed.
“Alina, bring everyone home. After action reports can wait until everyone has had a chance to sleep.” Rachel keyed her console to tie into Isaac’s video and audio feeds.
“You really don’t want to do that,” Elizabeth cautioned.
“Why not?” Rachel asked.
“Have you ever tried to herd cats?”
“No.”
“It’s messy down there. You would be better off not knowing what your husband is doing to all those beasts your pilots collected for him.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I wish I knew where Buddy was.”
“He’ll turn up with his crew. He’s good about that.”
“I hope so.”
Buddy sat between two asteroids running a diagnostic series when Aida awoke. She could see the asteroids around her and knew wherever they were it was not someplace she expected to be.
“Buddy? Where are we?” Buddy rattled off a set of coordinates.
“That was helpful,” Aida said sarcastically. She hated when Buddy tried to make jokes. “How did we get here?”
“We jumped.”
Aida sighed. She had that one coming.
“When are we going back to meet the others?”
“When I finish my diagnostics.”
“What if I don’t want to wait that long?”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“What would you do if I objected? Gas the flight deck?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Buddy replied.
“Oh, Buddy, what are we going to do with you?”
“Love me?”
Aida gasped. Fear gripped her, and she knew that Buddy could read it from her medical transponder.
“Why are you afraid?” Buddy asked.
“Because you are so very dangerous.” Aida waited for Buddy to respond. When he remained silent, she continued, “You are dangerous in the same way Greg and Avi are dangerous. Rachel is dangerous like that and now that I have seen what Saul can do in action, he scares me the most.”
“Why does Saul scare you so much?” Buddy asked.
“Because he has no idea how much power he really holds,” Aida said. “You know what you can do and what you can’t. He doesn’t realize his potential.”
“Why does that frighten you?” Buddy asked.
“Because you can hurt people. You can hurt a lot of people, and there is nothing I can do to stop you. If Saul decided to take on the entire Swordsman military out of revenge for what happened to his mother, he could do it, and no one could stop him, except for you, and you wouldn’t. If you decided to wipe out that settlement down there, by your self, you could do it, and I doubt if even Daisy could stop you. Both of the escorts might be able to do it but I doubt it. What if Greg and Avi came on board and ordered you to attack Elizabeth? What would you do?”
“It could never happen.”
“I could see a circumstance where it might. What would you do?”
“Elizabeth would never allow it.”
“What if they were on Elizabeth and ordered her to attack you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t either except a lot of people would probably die and one of them would be me. That’s why I am so afraid of what you can do,” Aida said.
“Does everyone feel the same as you?”
“I don’t know, but a sentient warship is something we don’t understand.”
“Do you think I am sentient or merely well programmed?”
“Sentient. I have thought so since I met Elizabeth.”
“Do you love me?”
“You took me into combat for my first battle and protected me. I will always love you for that. I don’t think you can ask more of me than that.”
“Do you have a problem with commitment?”
Aida laughed. “Yes, I do. I have for a long time.”
“A lot of people have that problem. Oh, Delilah is waking. You should get something to eat. I will finish my diagnostics and we will go back.”
“Thank you, Buddy.”
“Thank you, Aida, for telling me the truth.”
“You’re welcome.”
Delilah awoke and Aida filled her in on their status. They quietly ate their flight rations until Buddy announced he had completed his diagnostics and was ready to return.
On their return, they were greeted with a hero’s welcome. Aida and Delilah quickly headed for their quarters to sleep. Buddy checked in with engineering for damage assessments.
COLONY SERVICE - CHAPTER THREE
ELIZABETH AND COMPANY STAYED on the moon for two days while they assimilated the Viking captives and repaired battle damage. In the staff meeting at the end of the second day they agreed that they were ready to proceed with the deployment of the Marines and runway construction crews. Peter would drop the containers including the ones with the animals to the surface as soon as the personnel were safely on the ground and ready to receive the cargo. One of Boris’s pilots would bring the tug down and use it to drag the containers out of the water into which they had been dropped. The MMARV’s were capable of extricating themselves from their containers and would assist dragging the remainder of the containers around on the surface. Once the plans had been reviewed, Rachel turned to Boris and asked, “What would you like to do with the Vikings?” She would be happy to turn them over to him at the earliest opportunity. They were certainly being difficult for her people to deal with.
“I would like the med ships to take as many as you can down in the first load as soon as the runway is ready. Their strength will be good to have as we clear the land for buildings. Start with the oldest first,” Boris replied, obviously having given this some thought.
“Do you really want to keep them?”
“Yes. I think they will be a welcome addition to the community.”
“Do you really want these savages loose among your people?”
“You mean the women?”
“Yes,” Rachel nodded.
“We have three times as many women as men in the population on-board We are already seeing tensions this is causing. An influx of males will help reduce those tensions.”
“Even mentally deficient ones?” Rachel said derisively.
“They are not as deficient as you think,” Boris replied angrily. “They are not stupid. They are untrained and much of the training they do have is wrong. They have survival skills that will make them valuable as we expand across the planet’s surface. I am not sure we
would ever let them off the planet, but that is not my decision. We should let the women choose. I don’t think we have the right to deny them the option.”
“They are the product of a genetic cloning experiment gone bad. How can that be good for a population of normal healthy women?”
“Their genetic makeup is solid. That’s not what went wrong. What went wrong was that the people running the experiment chose the wrong genotype for their goals. Basically, they bet on the wrong horse. It was a fatal mistake.”
“I can see it being a problem for the next generation,” Rachel cautioned.
“By that time there should be enough new arrivals to sufficiently dilute the population that the problem becomes manageable.”
“I take it that means you’re staying after we leave to see this through.”
“Yes.”
“More power to you.”
The physics of orbital dynamics restricted Peter to dropping a limited number of containers with each orbit. The Med ships inserted the Marines and first construction crews who safely parachuted to the ground. The first load of containers Peter dropped were the MMARV’s and the heavy construction equipment necessary for setting up a tent city on the runway construction site and clearing the land for the runway itself.
Boris had chosen a site for the runway that was on the flood plain adjacent to a river delta. Setting the initial colony in what would seem a hazardous location was standard practice. The need to drop the containers into the water deep enough to absorb the shock without them hitting bottom mandated that the drop point be off shore, but not so far off shore that they could not be winched to the shore while they floated on their flotation gear once a pull cable was attached. The need for a local source of fresh water put them next to a river. Ideally the site was chosen near high ground so that the residential areas could be built above flood level.
The containers dropped on the second load included the raw materials for building the runway. As planned, when darkness fell, the drops stopped. Boris had insisted that after the second load, he would call for the containers as he needed them. Satellites monitoring the Viking settlement reported no activity, and so when dawn broke, Boris called for more construction materials instead of the remainder of the MMARV’s or the AARV’s which were scheduled to be delivered next. The load included building materials for the flight support and warehouse buildings and the last of the materials for the runway. The runway was almost done when Peter passed by with the fourth load carrying the first of the building materials for the residential units.
Shortly after dark the second day Boris pronounced the runway ready for flight operations. With the coming of daylight on the third day, the med ships started their runs to the surface carrying the first loads of Viking “laborers”. The pace picked up rapidly as the Vikings were assigned to tasks that their great strength could be used to the best advantage. Landing lights were installed, and the med ships, short one of their number due to battle damage, ran around the clock bringing colonists and their possessions to the surface. Combat pilots and flight authorized senior staff entered the pilot rotation so that no pilot flew more than eight hours without a rest. The timing of the three med ships worked out that no more than one was on the ground at any time. The other two were either in transit or loading.
A week after the operation transporting the colonists to the surface had begun, Alina and Aida flew one of the med ships to the surface. Alina suggested that they go for a walk to stretch, breathe real air and observe the new settlement popping out of the ground. They stood under a copse of trees a short distance away from the organized chaos around them and watched in silence for a few minutes. Alina turned to Aida and asked, “What’s up with Buddy?”
Aida looked at her askance. “Did you bring me all the way here to ask me that?”
“Yes, it’s the only place I could be sure he could not hear us. So, what’s up?”
“Why do you ask?”
“He has requested that Delilah be replaced with Brad.”
“Did he give a reason for this?”
“Yes, Brad is male.”
Aida sighed and slowly shook her head. “What are we going to do with him?”
“Buddy or Brad?”
“Buddy.”
“You better tell me what happened while the two of you sat out there in the asteroid belt while the rest of us waited frantically for your return.”
Aida told Alina about that conversation and subsequent conversations that she had had with Buddy on the subject of love and why someone loved who they did and how little sense any of it made.
When Aida finished, Alina asked, “Is he upset that you don’t love him?”
“Yes,” Aida said sadly.
Alina sighed. “I knew that this would happen some day. I know you don’t feel this way, but I am glad it was you and not one of the irrational ninnies he has had to train over the years.”
“Has he really gassed the cabin?”
“Yes, more than once.”
“Isn’t that against regs?”
“Yes, but regs don’t bother him when he does not want them to bother him.”
“Is he as dangerous as I think he is?”
“Probably more. He is a warship and he has never lost a battle that he stayed to fight. He has retreated in the face of greater forces, but he has only had to do that once since the days when he and Greg were playing Lone Ranger around the galaxy in search of pirates. He is used to getting his way. I am sure he enjoyed that little dust up with the Vikings. He lives for that sort of thing.”
“So now what do we do?”
“When we first took Elizabeth out on our original four year mission we had sentient P I ships that were built at Eretz. The interface between the pilot and the ship was a special flight suit with a helmet that had the displays integrated inside. The technology worked perfectly. The problem was that most of the pilots could not adapt to the closeness of their relationship with the warship. Many of the pilots developed personality disorders that impeded their ability to fly the ship properly. There were a half dozen of us that worked with the new technology and adapted to it. Sabrina and I did it. I still have my helmet and the flight suit. Sabrina left hers with me.”
Alina paused in thought. “I might be able to get into that old flight suit.” She smiled. “That’s the answer.”
“What’s so special about the flight suit?”
“Buddy can’t gas me when I’m wearing it and he knows it.”
“I’m not sure I like that look in your eye. It frightens me.”
“As well it should and Buddy too. Old Buddy and me are going to have a long chat.”
Not long after Alina returned to Elizabeth she tracked Rachel down in her office. Instead of moving to a geosynchronous orbit with the settlement as was standard practice they had elected to stay on the small moon. The med ships had to travel further, but those people still on the ship with the unpleasant task of cleaning it after transporting so many people in close quarters had the benefit of some gravity instead of working in weightlessness.
Rachel looked up from a report she was creating to see Alina standing before her. She instantly recognized the helmet and flight suit. She took a deep breath. “Where are you going with that?”
“I need to take Buddy out on patrol.”
“Should I ask why you need to do this instead of sending one of your young pilots?”
“Probably better if I don’t explain.”
Rachel looked at the helmet and sighed. “I wondered if this would happen. Would you rather I took care of this?”
“No, thanks. I need to do it.” Alina left the office.
“Rachel?” Elizabeth asked. “Why is Alina carrying that old helmet, and why is she taking Buddy out on patrol?”
“Because it’s her job.”
“Buddy knows she is coming.”
“Is Buddy surprised?”
“No.”
“Well, Buddy can explain it,” Rachel paused, “
or not, when he gets back with Alina. We need to stay out of the middle.”
“As you wish, but this is most unusual.”
“Yes. Heaven forbid that our lives should ever be dull.”
COLONY SERVICE - CHAPTER FOUR
INTEGRATION OF THE REMAINDER of the planet’s inhabitants was accomplished quickly and without incident. The fact that Boris had asked his “captives” to serve as intermediaries between the new arrivals and the established population and gave them the freedom to move about as they saw fit made the process relatively painless. There were those who needed to be convinced, of course, but a quick display of Marine firepower swayed even the most belligerent of the natives. Three months after landing, the two populations had merged to the point that they had developed a language somewhere between Standard and the derivative language the natives had been speaking.
In the six months following the establishment of the colony, Peter made two runs back to the freight depot. Upon arriving at the depot at the end of the first trip, Brian, Keith, Red, Rhonda and the girls’ mother elected to return to Eretz. They had been cajoled into joining the expedition to care for the animals in transit, but decided that life on the surface of their home planet was much more to their liking than living in the confines of a space ship even if their job was tending the animals they loved. Transport was arranged on a freighter headed in that direction. J T and Mimi returned to being Peter’s crew, the job they had enjoyed as newlyweds. On the second run, Peter called ahead when he hit the system’s boundaries to alert Elizabeth that he was coming in. He transmitted manifests and personnel rosters for Rachel and Boris to examine. Boris came up from the planet’s surface to personally supervise the allocation of the cargo and personnel.
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