“Tilt your head a little further
toward me,” the dentist instructed.
I obliged and felt the jaw mike
snap into place over my back molar.
“That should do it,” she
announced. “Give it a try.”
I ordered the mike over a year
ago, but hadn’t been anywhere with the facilities to install it. This layman’s
variety of a jaw mike, unlike the Galactic Forces model, was not actually
installed in the jaw surgically. Theirs was far more sophisticated. For this
model the wearer had one of their back molar’s ground down like you were
prepping for a crown, but instead the mike was fit over the tooth.
I leaned up and took my “Ear” out
of my pocket and stuck it in.
“Just touch the top of the mike
with your tongue,” Dr. Hval instructed.
I placed my tongue on the top of
my now ‘mike-tooth.’ The mike was remotely locked onto Ma-rye-a.
“Ma-rye-a can you hear me?” I
asked my ship.
“Loud and clear Captain,”
Ma-rye-a answered clearly in my Ear.
I could hear background cheering
from all my AI crew. We had been waiting for this for over a year. This kind of
device would keep me in contact with them. It had an almost unlimited range.
“Well?” Dr. Hval asked.
“Perfect.” I smiled at her.
“As advised earlier in the
literature I sent you, I would encourage you to have it checked and a maintenance
run on it once a year,” she said as she put my chair back up into the full
upright position. “If you call ahead we can have a tech handy to run the check
right after your annual cleaning.”
“Thank you, doctor,” I said and
extended my hand.
“I hope it is as useful as you
anticipate. I hated grinding down a perfectly good tooth.”
I was blessed with great teeth.
Not a cavity or crown among them and straight as fence posts.
“I appreciate you doing it for me
even if it was against your better judgment,” I said, as I slipped out of the
chair.
*****
“How did it go?” Marstead asked.
I slid into the seat next to him.
He insisted on accompanying me to
the dentist. He said it was either him or one of Luchin’s officers. He was not
going to let me go unprotected until they caught the folks who ransacked my
parent’s quarters on the UOA campus. I tried to assure him I could take care of
myself, but he was having none of it. I could see the bulge of his blaster
under his suit coat. I, on the other hand, wore mine quite visibly on my hip. I
had my license handy if someone questioned me, but it wasn’t likely. This was a
port city and folks were used to armed citizens.
I leaned over close to him with
my Ear next to his so he could hear the spillover.
“Say hello to Marstead,
Ma-rye-a,” I said.
“Hello, Admiral,” Ma-rye-a
replied in a raised voice.
“Nice,” he said as he leaned back
in the seat and smiled. “I must admit I do feel better with the installation of
it.”
“I’m surprised you never had one
installed in all your years of military service.”
Many of the upper level military
had them. Once they were connected to the LE address of you designated receiver
it was the most efficient means of communication.
“I did at one time, but had it
removed and the tooth replaced years ago after I retired. I didn’t have any
more use for it. Who was I going to talk to…my house monitor?”
Marstead was right. There were
computers, flats, cuffs and slap-ons that you could use to do the mundane
things in day-to-day life. I could sell my slap-on now that I had the jaw mike.
I might even get a nice price for it since it was a newer model, lightweight
and Daniel had even programmed it with a few games to help pass the time while
I was waiting for deliveries and not on board Ma-rye-a.
“Carrie? Can you put my slap-on
up for sale on the NET? See what you can get,” I said.
“Will do,” Carries confirmed in
my Ear. I was enjoying this instant gratification already. If I had been using
the slap-on just now, instead of the mike, I would have needed to pull up my
sleeve and do some fancy finger work before I could give orders. This ‘talk’
and have done with it was great.
“I’ll be home is a couple of
hours,” I told my crew. I knew they were all listening. “Going to spend some
quality time with Marstead before I head back.”
“We’ll be waiting for you, Cap,” Sam
said.
I ran me tongue over the top of the
mike to turn it off. “I am all yours for the rest of the afternoon,” I
announced.
“Great.” Marstead leaned forward
and punched an address into the cruiser’s controls. “Next stop lunch.”
*****
I almost choked on my luncheon
roll. My eyes must have grown wide because Marstead leaned across the table and
placed his hand over mine in a show of concern.
There was no need to remove the
EAR receiver earlier when I was finished talking to my shop. It is designed to
allow normal sound to filter through. So, I was not necessarily surprised when
I heard Ma-rye-a whisper in my ear. I was however surprised and shocked by what
she was saying.
I pulled my hand out from under Marstead’s
and jumped to my feet.
“Someone has broken into my ship.
We have to go! Now!”
*****
By the time we arrived Marstead
had already notified Luchin, Luchin had sent back-up and they were there with
the culprit in custody. The Captain of the Galactic Forces had not speared time
or staff in executing a team to take the perp down. I could count more than ten
men there including the Captain himself.
Luchin’s men were pushing the guy
into a GF van as we parked.
The Captain strode up to the
cruiser.
“He disabled your security and
was working on shutting down the ship totally so there would be no evidence of
his being there, when we arrived. I’m taking him to headquarters for
questioning.” He nodded to his second in command and the man hoped in the
cruised to speed away. “We did a sweep of the area. He appears to be alone. I
want you to look over your ship. He didn’t have anything on him, but I want you
to make sure nothing is missing,” Luchin said. “He took down your security
pretty damn efficiently, so he may have tech that could have transported
something out before we got to him.”
I nodded and rushed aboard
Ma-rye-a.
“Ma-rye-a? Are you alright?” I
asked as I stepped up on the platform.
“I am fine,” she responded, “but
Sam is gone.”
“Gone? Like shut off, right?” I
asked.
“No,” she said quietly. “He isn’t
here anymore.”
“He has to be,” I said anxiously
as I sped though the ship to the bridge.
“No,” she said again. “The
intruder wiped his program.”
“We didn’t know he was gone until
it was too late,” Horus explained. “We all felt the ‘space’ as soon as it
happened, but then…” His voice trailed off.
“What will we do?” Carrie asked.
“He’s always been here.”
Carrie sounded as lost as I felt.
Sam was my second AI and the most important of my crew this side of Ma-rye-a. I
didn’t know how to function without him. I sat down in the pilot seat and broke
into tears. I thought I didn’t have any more tears to shed after my parent’s
death, but like a mother who had lost a child, I cried for the loss of Sam.
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