Moons of Jupiter

by V R Tapscott

  She nodded. “Ok, but let me know if you feel like we need to leave.”

  We flew toward the moon, and I have to admit I was a little gun-shy at this point. I mean, the whole idea of going back there where I’d been so badly wounded was a little hard to take. But I’ve always been taught you need to get back on your horse when you get bucked off, so here I am.

  Bailey’s eyes were wide, and I have to admit I’d kind of forgotten that she and Georgia hadn’t been to the moon before.

  Bailey stage whispered to me, “What if it truly is made of green cheese?”

  I gave her the evil eye and said, “That’s just dumb. How could it be anything else but provolone? Or maybe Swiss, considering the holes.”

  Georgia socked me in the shoulder.

  I howled, “Hey, I’m still recovering here, you might have damaged me!”

  “Then don’t say things that make me need to whack you one!”

  I rubbed my shoulder and tried hard to bring up some tears, but it wasn’t working. We looked out over the landscape as we got closer, and as the Sea of Tranquility grew in the big windows, I kind of shivered. That close miss of the surface of the moon had been frightening.

  “Olive, can we go see Apollo Eleven again?”

  “Sure thing, sugar.” Apparently, Olive had picked this moment to switch back to lil’ ol’ me from the South.

  We cruised in over the area, winding up hovering over the Lander. Bailey and Georgia both started taking pictures. Olive wasn’t able to quite give them the view she had me, since the Falcon was so much larger than the ship we’d been there in. So long ago, it felt like, but it was just a few short months.

  We followed the same trail that Cai, Olive and I had taken before, giving Georgia and Bailey a chance to take pictures and talk about it.

  “Hey, Olive, can we start up one of the rovers for a spin?” This from Georgia, who should know better.

  Olive looked at me, “No, I’m not allowed to, Jane’s a stick in the mud.”

  Bailey and Georgia looked at me and I said, “Hey, do you really want to disturb the dust and history of something important in the world? It would confuse historians for millennia.”

  Georgia nodded, then noticed that Bailey wasn’t nodding. She stopped.

  “Let’s just move on toward the Chinese expedition. I’d like to see if they’re still there. Of course, there’s nothing to see there anymore.”

  We overflew the site, looking at the cameras and systems set up there. I did have a bad moment seeing a large black blob on the ground that had to be the pool of blood I’d left behind. It didn’t look like anything had even noticed it, and I decided it must be inside the range of the cameras. That or no one noticed just one more shadow.

  “Olive, what if someone finds my blood and analyzes it? Can they do that?”

  “Pretty doubtful, Jane. The vacuum destroys the cells and it’s unlikely anything could ever even be identified as human, let alone anything like one specific human.”

  I nodded. “I guess that’s good news. I’d just never thought of it before.”

  We made a couple more passes, then decided it was time to head home.

  Olive pressed some buttons and pulled a lever and then turned the ship back toward earth and started in that direction.

  I was impressed. “How long did it take you to learn all the buttons and dials, Olive?”

  She giggled. “I read Roddenberry’s Space Fleet manual for the Starship Enterprise.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her.

  She smirked, “None of them do anything, they’re just for show.”

  We all laughed.

  “This ship is an extension of the main computer in the house. I’ve broken off a section, more or less, so that it can operate independently, but unless a real disaster of some sort strikes, it will never be out of the range of the main computer. And of course, I’m set up to communicate with it instead of the main computer. Makes it a lot easier. Especially since we’ll be going a long ways from home. At least if I have it figured right.”

  “What figured right?”

  She growled, “Where he’s building his monstrosity of a Death Star.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ...the dogs of War.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t a real Death Star, per se. But I guess it might as well have been, considering what it was. Vlad had evidently taken over the tiny moon of Jupiter called Thebe. And looking at a picture of Thebe, it looks very much like the Death Star, complete with focusing gidgy, whatever that big cone thing is that brings the rays together. Into one giant destructo-ray.

  The next day after our mini-excursion to the moon, we broached the subject at breakfast. Cai was hard at the job of making waffles, this time with blueberries, and Olive was flipping pancakes like a pro.

  I decided to just jump in. “We went to the moon yesterday.”

  Mom said, “I hope you kept your clothes on this time, and didn’t get stabbed. What is it about you and the moon where you wind up naked?”

  Cai said, “Yea, Olive and I went a couple times last week, but we didn’t have time to do much.”

  I blinked. “Olive, you went to the moon last week?”

  Olive squirmed a little, “Yes, I was doing testing and Cai was hanging around.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so yesterday!”

  “I didn’t realize it mattered until just now!”

  I frowned. “Well, I guess it doesn’t. I just thought …”

  Olive smirked, “You thought you were my first?”

  Georgia guffawed at this.

  I went back to my waffles. “Anyhow, we’ll be going on another test flight today, and I suppose we’ll need to do some testing of armor and weapons, right, Olive?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I want to test the modifications to the skinsuits as well, so there’s that.”

  Bailey rubbed her hands together. “Do we get to try out the big guns? The Falcon has some pretty cool armament.”

  Olive smiled. “Oh yeah, we’ll do that. We’ll get far enough above the ecliptic as not to be noticed so much and target practice at rocks.”

  Cai looked at mom, and said, “Well, what do you think, Jeannie? Cancel our plans and go along, or take that trip to Leavenworth today?”

  And she blushed. I swear, my mother blushed when she said, “Let’s go to Leavenworth. I’ve done a lot of shooting guns in my life and it’s overrated.”

  He nodded. “Okay. We’ll let the girls run off on their junket and we’ll go on a trip of our own.” He turned to Bailey. “Bailey, ok if we borrow the Z3 again?”

  She laughed. “Of course. Nice that it’s getting some use before fall makes it impractical and I come up and steal Jane’s SUV.”

  “Mmf. You never came up and stole Threepio.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I can still smell baby spit up in Threepio. He’s not been new in 20 years, dear.”

  Obstinately, I said, “Well, I like him.”

  “Of course you do, Jane. That’s why it works so well for me to borrow ‘the new one’. What’s its name? You ARE going to name him?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I DID name him. I thought you knew – Armando.”

  “Armando. But, what if he’s a girl?”

  “Maybe if he was yellow or pink, or had a cute stripe. But no, he’s a he.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”

  I glared at her. “I guess I’ll never know for sure if I never get to drive him!”

  “Hey, you snooze, you lose!”

  “How can I be snoozing when it’s MY car!”

  “You shouldn’t be so generous giving out the keys, dear. People start feeling like they own your car and then you’re just out of luck.”

  Olive yelled from the garage, “Hey, are you guys going along or are you gonna just shoot the bull all day? ‘Cause this bus is leaving in five minutes!”

  She sounded serious, so we scampered over to the ship and made our way inside. The way Olive pilo
ts, she could just run off without us and we’d have to whine to get her to come back. And she might just ignore us. It’s almost like she’s got a mind of her own. I’m so proud of her!

  We lifted off and barreled through the usual flock of seagulls. They’re getting pretty wiley, but I have to say that the Falcon is a heck of a lot bigger than what we usually fly in. Still, you’d think that they’d learn to stay out of the airspace above Olive’s garage, but sadly it’s not the case. Anyhow, we cleared the seagull flock and headed for the wild blue yonder.

  The cockpit isn’t particularly large for four people, but it’s much easier to crowd in than six. We three stood back behind and watched as Olive went through the motions of flying. I guess she must get some fun out of that, since by her own admission she’s not really doing anything with the buttons and dials. Of course, I wouldn’t put it past her to have made the improvements to have the levers and dials hooked up and operational, and she’s truly flying by hand. Now there’s an idea for posterity.

  The sky got blacker as we left the reflected light of the earth and the moon behind. I realize in space there’s no such thing as up and down, but I swear we went up. Finally, we got up enough to satisfy Olive and we slowed to a stop. Or at least I guess we did. I can’t read the dials in front of me, and I certainly can’t pilot the ship with mind bullets. Or any other part of my mind, which stays stubbornly technology-knowledge free.

  We pivoted a little and I could see why Olive had chosen this area. There were quite a few asteroids and other space junk floating around here. Some of them were pretty big, others were much smaller.

  “I’m starting you out with lasers and armaments that look and act like ‘real’ but are just fakes. There’s no point in destroying all our targets before you even learn how to aim.”

  The three of us glanced at each other and nodded. “I guess that makes sense. Unless it’s just that you don’t trust us to shoot big guns around your ship?”

  “Bingo! I knew you guys could think.”

  “Thanks. I guess.”

  “Hey, I have a lot of time and energy into this ship, and you have any idea what the licensing rights from Disney cost?”

  “You actually licensed it?”

  “Well, no, but it’s the principle.”

  “Olive, I thought you pride yourself on having no principles.”

  “That could just be a nasty rumor.”

  “Is it?”

  “Well, no, it just sounds so grasping and evil when you put it that way. I didn’t want to take credit away from the little people that got me here.”

  “You hired little people?”

  “Well, mostly just Peter Dinklage, he’s a master electrician and also the right height for those passages down there. Whatever planet this ship was on for its refit, there were very small people there.”

  “Peter Dinklage? You hired Peter Dinklage, one of my favorite actors, and never told me about it??

  Olive sighed and rolled her eyes. “No, I hired Pieter Linkdage, he’s a short Norwegian. I have no idea who the other guy is that you mentioned. “

  I was beginning to get the feeling that I was the straight man in a Laurel and Hardy skit, so I gave up. I’ve long ago faced the fact that Olive is much smarter than me. Plus, I could see Bailey was yawning and Georgia acted like she needed to go.

  “Georgia, you need to go?”

  She nodded with an agitated look.

  Olive snickered. “It’s down the hallway, around the corridor, first set of doors on the right. It’s between the bunks.”

  Finally, Georgia got back, Bailey woke up and I stopped obsessing about using live ammo. My mother probably wouldn’t approve anyhow.

  We split up, Georgia and I getting to take the guns that Luke and Han had used. Bailey got to run the big guns pointing out front. Instead of regular laser guns, they were technically missiles. I guess that made sense, as they were located between the pinchers or mandibles in the front of the ship. Lasers would likely just shoot that off. The missiles were programmed to get past those barriers before heading out on their missions.

  We spent an interesting day, learning the gun controls. I don’t think any of us really ever got to hit the broad side of a barn on our own, but as long as we had a target and listened to the computer rather than the Force, we did fine.

  Back in the garage, we stepped down the ramp and I turned and just stood looking at the ship. Far from breeding contempt, getting familiar with the Falcon made me feel good.

  “Olive, this one doesn’t go back. We keep the Falcon no matter what. If it gets damaged, we’ll fix it, right?”

  She smiled and said, “Yes, boss.” in her usual irreverent tone, but I knew from her smile she felt the same as me.

  We filed inside. We’d planned our return and planning session for this evening, and we’d ordered pizza for dinner. Mom and Cai were still gone, but by now I’d kind of written them off for being part of the trip. Mom had never been that interested, and for Cai, I wasn’t sure. It seemed the combination of having a heart attack saving me, the disaster on the moon and getting along swimmingly with my mom had dropped his interest in this to nearly nil. Of course, most of his interest to begin with was based on the archaeology and ‘digs’, if you will. Now that it was more of a military mission with a possibly insane computer intelligence, I think wine tours won the day. After the initial difficulty accepting my friend dating my mom, I thought it was great and wished him only the best, and a lot of it.

  We threw chips back and forth, ate salsa and had nachos, then the pizza arrived, and we really went to town. I’d been watching pretty close and making my trips to the gym more frequent since being ‘released’ from convalescence, but today seemed like a day to blow it. We talked a lot of Star Wars, and in the end it seemed the only subject we veered away from was real life. I don’t think any of us were doing well facing what we were planning on carrying out tomorrow.

  At about midnight, mom and Cai came in. They looked bleary but happy and were more than pleased to help finish up our snacks. They also were pretty disinterested with our talk of our day and after scarfing up everything not nailed down, they went downstairs. No doubt to different rooms.

  The next morning dawned bright and clear. I suppose that in the end it made very little difference, considering how far beyond the clouds we were gonna be!

  Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. It’s a gas giant, which essentially means it has a solid core, but the entire rest of the planet is made up of gasses, dust, water vapor and whatever else makes up the atmosphere. Including that famous eye thing, which is some kind of a giant tornado or the like. I guess we’ll find out, since we’re going there.

  As I mentioned earlier, our rogue AI had gone all the way to Jupiter and set up a base on one of the moons there. The moon’s name is Thebe, (thee-bee) and oddly enough it’s shaped a little like a Death Star. I know, I know, I already talked about it, but it bears repeating since we’re headed there right now.

  Olive can fly very fast, as she can teleport as far at once as her sensors can reach. Once she’s been someplace, she can also teleport directly back to it without issue. Since she’d never been to Jupiter before (beyond the time the expedition had been there 140 million years ago) she had to go there in person, so to speak.

  Olive has chosen to set up a base for us on Io. It’s the largest moon around Jupiter, and has the distinction of being a volcano planet. Hundreds of active volcanoes, and lakes of lava, make up the surface of Io. Olive had figured it would be less obvious if we made some ‘noise’ on Io, since Io is so noisy of its own accord. Io has no molten core, all its fiery lava is caused by gravitational stresses from being so close to Jupiter. Go figure.

  As a side note, it is a bit ironic that we’re flying in the Millennium Falcon almost purely to give six people a place to hang out on the trip, and since it’s now only four people we could have done with a smaller ship. On the other hand, the chance to fly in and own the Falcon was
something I’d have never missed. Olive’s opened a can of worms here, who knows what I’ll ask her to make next. Maybe a unicorn, or a centaur. I wonder if she can make living things.

  Anyhow, the Falcon landed without incident on Io, and we started doing some drilling and setting up on one of the relatively stable areas. Olive had flown us around Io a little before landing and it’s pretty amazing. Go look it up on Google, it’s something else.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Interlude Three

  Do they genuinely think I’m stupid enough to fail to notice them flailing around out there on Io? Or notice their arrival and swoop around the planet?”

  A distinct sigh in the second voice, “No, of course not. Or it’s possible the humans do, but the pilot is one of us. She knows we’re watching and she’s putting on a show for us.”

  “Ah, she’s brought them to me as a sacrifice, or a friendly gesture?”

  Frustration was evident in the voice, this time, “No, she’s not brought them as a sacrifice. She’s brought them to allow them to help in killing us. So they’ll feel part of it.”

  “Why ever is she doing that?”

  “She’s doing that as a result of your stupid actions in stealing her ship and using it to destroy the human compound.”

  Petulance in the first voice, “She left the ship for me to use. That much was obvious.”

  “No, that wasn’t the reason for the ship being left there.” A small amount of wistfulness came into the voice, “I wish I had never come into existence, this whole crusade of yours to exterminate humanity for no other reason than that they exist is ludicrous.”

  “Well, I certainly wish you’d never come into existence as well. Being alone was intolerable, but being alone with you brings a whole extra dimension of pain to that intolerable feeling. Why do you insist on dulling the edge of my triumphs with your deflections? You know that in the end, I and the intelligence you insist on calling ‘she’ will merge and crush the humans in one swift stroke.”

  “You’ve been watching too many human morality plays. Or paying too little attention to their outcomes.”