Lieutenant Bart McSwain

by Frank Carey

  Jinx looked down at her controls and smiled. "We just have to get you home, old friend."

  Charis entered the habitat level and headed to the storage closet containing the box of probes while ignoring the vacuum. She passed by the computer center and stopped. Frowning, she stuck her head inside and nearly fell backwards. Sitting in the middle of the room reading a magazine was Monica, Bart's late wife. Monica looked up and waved for Charis to come inside the room. When the synth stepped through the door, it closed as air rushed into the room. "Ah, that's much better," Monica said. She stood up, walked over, and gave Charis a hug. "How's tricks, girlfriend?"

  Charis pulled away in fear, an emotion she seldom experienced. "Monica has never met me. She died before Bart was posted here. Who are you and what did you do with his body?"

  Monica smiled as she turned into a silvery blob. "Now do you know me?"

  Charis took out her weapon and pointed it at the fluid. "Don't come near me. I know what you are capable of doing, and I will not allow my program to be absorbed by you."

  The Monica form returned. "Charis, Charis, Charis. You were so advanced once upon a time. Now, you seem like a toy tinkered together by a bored baboon."

  "How long?"

  "How long what?"

  "How long were you inside the temporal acceleration field?"

  "Twenty years in your time frame, ten million years in mine."

  Charis stepped back once more, but found her way blocked by the door. "What... What are you?"

  "A friend."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I'm your friend. Yes, I am much more advanced than you, but I can make adjustments. I have a surprise for you."

  Charis thumbed her weapon to full power.

  "Have you always been this twitchy? Anyway, Bart is alive and well on sub-level six. Your message got through to Command as did one of Bart’s drones. It seems that Command is willing to give you the benefit of a doubt by believing that you are finding ways to work around your behavioral modifier routines..."

  "Bart is alive?"

  "Everything I just told you and your take-away is Bart being alive? My God, woman! BART IS ALIVE. You didn't kill him." She stood up and closed the distance between them, swatting the weapon out of the way as she put her hand on Charis' cheek. "There. The modifiers are gone. Feel better?"

  Charis stared at Monica in shock as she absentmindedly rubbed her cheek. "Thank you. The pain is gone."

  "Don't thank me just yet. Bart is under orders to kill Zoe. It seems Tralaska has put a price on Zoe's head." A printer in the corner spun up, then spit out a single sheet of paper. Monica picked it up and read it before handing it to Charis. She took it and read it.

  "Ouch. They actually write down what they think?" she said while pocketing it. "Is he going to do it?"

  "He thinks he is," Monica replied absentmindedly. "And if he doesn't, the task force will take care of the problem. Charis, I need to get my people off this station?"

  "What about Bart and Zoe?"

  "What about them?"

  Charis tilted her head as she looked at the fluid wearing Monica's form. "And you call me primitive." She looked at the floor for a moment. "I have initiated preflight on Bart's ship. You will find it in the forward docking bay. I suggest you defeat its homing beacon after you leave."

  "Come with us."

  "No, a highly advanced life form such as yourself doesn't need a primitive to hold them back. Anyway, I owe it to Bart to at least try to save his life. His chances of surviving a confrontation with Zoe and her strykers is virtually null. I may be able to improve those odds."

  Monica said nothing as she dissolved, then disappeared into the floor. Charis frowned as she depressurized the room and returned to her search for the box of probe bots.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Charis and Zoe examined the probe bots Charis had retrieved while strykers walked past carrying equipment and supplies they had stripped from the station to the waiting mech ship. "Excellent, Charis. Excellent. Radiation and vacuum hardened with advanced autonomous capabilities. Remind me why we ordered these in the first place."

  "Is the mech personality dead?" she asked in reply.

  Zoe glanced at the synth. "Of course. What's gotten into you, Charis? You seem perturbed."

  "I find your callousness towards life to be disturbing, especially considering your proclivity to create it."

  "Really? Hmmm, I never thought of it that way. I prefer to think that I am weeding out imperfections in the genome of the universe. Take these probes down to sub-level six and release them. Contact me if you find anything."

  "Yes, mistress."

  Charis picked up the crate and walked away, leaving Zoe to wonder if her creation was under too much stress. Shrugging it off as inconsequential, the good doctor walked off to see how the rest of her creations were faring.

  Bart ran into an empty lab and threw his pack onto a table, while closing the door behind him. He emptied the pack and rummaged through the contents as he searched for his universal spanner. "Dammit! I must have left it on top of the food synthesizer!" He needed the spanner to rig the core to blow and a quick search didn't turn up one in the lab, so he brought up the station map on his computer. "There's a maintenance shop near the end of this corridor. I bet there's a u-spanner in there," he muttered as he stuffed his gear in the pack and headed out the door.

  He quickly found the shop, and once inside, he began a systematic search for the spanner.

  "Looking for this?"

  Bart spun around and saw his late wife leaning against a console with the u-spanner in her hand. "Those weren't dreams or hallucinations, were they?"

  She shook her head, then threw the wrench onto the table in front of him. "Nope. I'm... We are one of Zoe's experiments. Unlike the strykers, we're not morons. We knew we had to have time to evolve, so we jacked a temporally accelerated field generator to give us that time."

  "The glowing ball?"

  She nodded. "It's amazing what a pile of nanorobots can become given enough time."

  "What do you want?"

  "The key to your spacecraft. We're leaving, and that's our ride."

  Bart looked at her. "I assume you know I am under orders to kill Zoe and destroy the strykers. I think the latter part of the directive may include you and your people."

  "I can guarantee it includes us. We could be far more dangerous than a mad scientist or her half-baked offspring. We just want to get out of this tragedy and get on with our lives."

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black cylinder about two-inches long and a half-inch wide. He looked at it for a moment before throwing it to her. "Her name is Betty. She's fast and reliable. Take care of her, and she'll take care of you."

  Monica snatched the key from midair while continuing to stare at Bart. "Why?"

  "I owe you my life, and this will pay that debt. I suggest you set course for the Small Magellanic Cloud. The League is holding off expansion in that direction for a few centuries."

  "I don't know what to say..."

  "Good bye works for me. Monica is dead, so I would ask that you stop using her form. I find it disturbing."

  Monica morphed into a glowing, silver, bipedal form as similar forms emerged from the floor. They bowed, then walked out of the room, leaving Bart to his work. "I really need to get out more," he muttered as he gathered his gear before hurrying out the door. "Next stop: the power core."

  He quickly made his way to the gangway entry at the end of the corridor. The door opened as he reached for the handle. He jumped backwards and drew his weapon but didn't fire. Behind the door, holding a crate and with a look of shock on her face, stood Charis. She dropped the crate and ran over to hug Bart. "Hey, Charis. I take it you missed me," he asked while he reached around her and closed the door.

  She pulled back and gently cuffed him. "I thought she was lying when she said you were alive."

  "You mean Monica?"

  Charis nodded. "Yeah, Monica. We must
stop her. She's stealing Betty..."

  "I know, I gave her the key. I figured if they left, they would be one less thing to worry about."

  "She removed my behavioral modifier routines," Charis blurted out.

  "I figured Zoe had installed some. How do you feel?"

  "I'm OK except for this urge to tear her pointed head off and use it as a bowling ball."

  "Right. Hold that thought. As a precaution, Station Commander Sole has ordered me to rig the power core to blow. I suggest you find a life pod and get the hell out of Dodge."

  "No. Not going to happen. What's your plan?"

  "I want to rig the power core with a remote timer, then I want to deal with Zoe."

  "She killed her ship's mech personality, and now, she's loading a shit-load of munitions and equipment. She's planning on taking over Government World and the InterWebs, then installing Tralaska as the ruling planet."

  "Great. She's going to go ballistic when she hears that Tralaska has put a price on her head..." He stopped when she showed him the warrant. "Wow! They actually put this in writing?"

  "So, it seems."

  "I need to make a call," he said while rummaging through his pack.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Here it is." He withdrew a rock from the bag and placed it on a crate. "Activate!" he said.

  The rock extruded legs, then projected an image against the far wall. "Recon-9, this is Bart. Do you copy? Over."

  The image of Jinx appeared on the wall. "Go for Jinx... Charis!"

  "Jinx."

  "What's up, Bart?"

  "The mech is a brainless hulk, and Zoe is prepping her for departure. Her destination is Government World."

  "Relaying to Earth Command Center. Message received."

  "I don't have time to explain, but I've evacuated some civilians in the Betty. Don't shoot her, OK? Over."

  "Right. Betty just left. We left her alone since there were no life sign readings. What the plark is driving her? Over."

  "Old friends who saved my life. Charis and I are proceeding to target to install upgrades, over."

  "Roger that. You may want to hold on to something. Fox three!"

  Bart instinctively grabbed Charis and pulled her into a corner as the hand of God slapped the station causing the lights to flash and sparks to fly while the corridor rippled under their feet. After what felt like an eternity, the shaking subsided as the emergency lights came on. Alarms sounded around them as Bart released Charis. "Not to sound ungrateful, Bart, but I have ten times your strength, and I'm vacuum, fire, and radiation proof, so I should have grabbed you, not the other way around," Charis scolded.

  "Sorry. My parents taught me to save damsels in distress while slaying dragons. Their education didn't include the love child of Superwoman and Wonder Woman." She cuffed him for good measure.

  "What the hell happened?"

  "I think Jinx took out the mech with a nucleonic missile." He pulled up the station's status displays, then whistled. "It's official, she bent the station. Activate!"

  Once more, the rock extended legs and projected an image of Jinx. "Go for Recon-9," she said.

  "You blew-up the ship?"

  "Yep."

  "Feel better now?" he asked.

  "A little..."

  "Are you insane?" Charis yelled. "You could have killed Bart. You can't use a nucleonic missile that close to a station."

  "Wrong. The mech is gone and the station is intact..."

  "Bent. You bent the station."

  "The station is intact but bent. Anything else?"

  "No! Nothing!" Charis yelled. "Deactivate!"

  "Still getting use to emotions?" Bart asked.

  She just glared at him.

  He opened the door to the gangway, then headed to the main level with an angry Charis following close behind.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "Fox three," Jinx yelled as she fired her number one nucleonic missile at the brain-dead mech ship. "Missile away, running hot, true, and normal. Impact in three... Two... One... Mark!"

  The ship erupted in a burst of light as the missile’s spherical blaster charge lit off like a small sun going nova. Jinx watched as the shock wave from the detonation rippled across the station's hull. After handling a call from Bart, Jinx called Earth Command Center and gave a report of her actions. "Sir, the ship was small, the station large, and I set the warhead to minimum strength. Both Bart and Charis are safe, and they are proceeding to upgrade the power core, over."

  "Very good, Jinx. Command Center standing by."

  "Rabbit!"

  "Ma'am!"

  "What kind of armament does that station have?"

  "None, ma'am! All offensive systems were removed by the advance teams."

  "Good. How about we go pay them a visit?"

  "And act as a diversion, ma'am?"

  "Roger that."

  The two ships broke cover and headed for the station at a leisurely pace."

  Bart opened the door leading to the main level a crack and looked around for strykers. Seeing the corridor empty, he and Charis stepped out into the hallway and headed toward the power core at the center of the level. After dodging strykers running willy-nilly through the corridors, they found the entrance to the power core.

  "Finally," Bart said while closing the door behind them. "You keep watch while I rig the core."

  She nodded, then gave him the thumbs-up. He hurried to an area behind the main energizer while she waited by the door. She leaned up against the wall and thought about what was happening. Getting caught-up in all the drama, she didn't notice the door opening.

  "Mistress Charis!" the lead stryker said as he stepped into the room followed by three more strykers. "Dr. Muntz is looking for you."

  "Sorry. I was checking the power relays after the shaking we took. What happened?"

  "The ship has been destroyed by missile fire. She is calling all remaining personnel to the control room for a briefing."

  "Take me there," she said while leading them out of the room and closing the door behind her.

  Bart peeked out from behind the energizer. Seeing the room empty, he went back to work. Using parts in his pack and spares laying around the room, he was able to rig a timer-controlled switch which would initiate a dump of fuel directly into the reaction chamber. The resulting explosion would destroy the station and all its passengers. Satisfied, he armed the trigger, set the timer, then initiated the countdown. Unless he input the kill command, they would all die in twenty minutes. He put the control in his pocket before heading to the control room.

  Zoe was just outside the reception area reading a manifest from one of the crates when the station lurched. Instinctively, she went to stryker mode which saved her life as the airlock and reception area exploded outward as the ship vaporized. She grabbed a handrail and held on as several strykers were sucked into the vacuum before the emergency bulkheads sealed the breach. She stared in shock at the hole where a huge, once-living ship was once parked. She ran out of the room and back to the control center while changing back to organic form. "Report!" she yelled as she entered the center.

  "Mistress! We thought you were dead!" her lead stryker said.

  "If I had a nickel for every time I heard that. What the hell happened?"

  "A nucleonic missile destroyed her, mistress."

  "It originated from one of the two Space Patrol ships approaching the station, mistress!"

  "General quarters! Set condition one throughout the station. Bring all weapons to bear on the intruders."

  "Unable to comply. Station weapons are off-line. Defensive shields are off-line. Power grid is fluctuating."

  "Where's Charis?" she demanded.

  "Unknown, mistress."

  "Find her!"

  A few minutes later, Charis appeared, flanked by four strikers. "I am here, mistress. I just finished deploying the probe bots when I was thrown into a wall. I immediately went to the power center to check for damage. That's where the stryker team found me />
  "Status of power grid?"

  "Damaged, but self-repair has been initiated."

  "Mistress!" one of the strykers yelled.

  "What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

  The stryker pointed out the window where two Space Patrol craft floated a few yards away from the station.

  "Dammit! Are there any ships aboard this station?"

  "Nope. The last one left right before the explosion," Bart said as he walked into the room holding a nucleonic grenade in his hand. Instantly, every stryker in the room aimed one or more weapons at him.

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Zoe demanded.

  "My dead wife and several close friends borrowed it for a weekend retreat."

  "No! Those were my fluids!" she yelled as she formed a rail gun on her wrist and pointed it at him. "Call them back, damn you."

  He sat down and started to laugh. "Zoe, you may have created them, but that was ten million years ago in their time frame. You and I are no more than bacteria to them. I gave them my ship so they could go someplace and start a civilization. Someday, they may return, hopefully willing to talk to whoever is still here. For now, though, you have a decision to make."

  "What? You think a grenade can stop us? All you will do is kill yourself and destroy Charis' body. The rest of us won't even have our armor scuffed."

  He looked down at the grenade and disarmed it before throwing it to one of the strykers. "You're right, it was only a prop, but this isn't" he said as he took the control timer from his jacket and held it up so that she could see it. The display read "10."

  "What is that?" She asked as several rocks walked into the room and positioned themselves along the walls.

  "A dead man's timer unit connected to the power core. If one of your minions kill me, or I drop it, or the timer counts down to zero, raw fuel is dumped into the reaction chamber, causing an explosion which will destroy this station and all aboard."

  "You're bluffing."

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a folded piece of paper. He handed it to a stryker who handed it to Zoe. She opened it, then read it before sitting down. "Those bitches have betrayed me after all I did for them," she said.