029.1
Claiming to know someone who could talk to the Hummers was taking a wee bit of convincing until Coal managed to pull up some info on his computer about by friend, Arr, Jake Harcourt’s partner. Seemed a doctor named Margaret O’Connor was doing a bit of a study on him and she had recorders that attested to his ability to learn languages faster than a Roughnut snake can swallow a gerbit. You see, Arr’s people all have genetically inherited memories - abilities that are passed from generation to generation in the basic makeup of their brains. Arr can learn languages just by listening to them. Within a few hours he can master any language. Last count he gave me was one hundred and one, and that’s fluent, not just counting to ten and asking where the restroom is located.
A while back Arr and I were stuck in adjoining hospital beds for an extended period of time. We had a lot of time to exchange stories as we healed. That story is in my log books as “Body Bags and Other Dark Places” if you wish to look it up. Anyway… Arr told me about Jake explaining to him how the NBs worked - that they each held a Hummer inside. Arr was trapped alone on a planet for several years until Jake found him. Arr was shocked to think the Hummers were isolated in the NBs. He wanted to talk to them to make sure they were okay with what he saw as captivity. So Jake parked their ship, the Calpernia, by one and Arr took a few hours to learn their language and reassure himself that they were quite content as they were.
Arr told me this story, along with a string of others, and I remembered it.
Now Daniel and I were on board my ship headed to rendezvous with Jake and Arr to see if they could help us out. The other two members of our disjointed team were linked in with us, but stayed behind – Zack because I did not have the proper hook-ups for his servo-chair aboard me ship and no time to refit, Coal because the Valarians insisted Zack be kept in custody until this affair was concluded. Who knew what would happen after that to the man who, no matter how unintentionally, killed eight-three people.
“It’s all my fault,” Daniel said. “If I hadn’t been such an ass to Zack he wouldn’t have written the damn virus in the first place.”
Daniel had been beating himself up almost since the moment we boarded Ma-rye-a.
“Yes, it was partially your fault,” I had to admit, “but, it was also based on years of built up anger about his situation. If not the NB virus, it would have manifested itself in some other way. Zack needed to take action - to control his environment again. You just happened to be the catalyst for his efforts.”
“We get through this and I am going to find a way to make it right,” Daniel said, as he picked up his mug and took a swig of his tea. He grimaced. Moby had just popped it out of the prep unit and he always served everything hot, hot, hot!
I leaned over from my captain’s chair and placed my hand comfortingly on Daniel’s knee. “If anyone can do that, you can,” I assured him.
As much as Zack’s actions had unwittingly led to deaths, having met the man, seen his condition, heard his story, I did want to see things resolved in his favor. He didn’t deserve to be imprisoned on a penal planet. In fact, I didn’t even think that was possible for a guy in a servo-chair. Most likely he was facing execution. I would rather see him on a physic ward for the rest of his life. Perhaps Daniel could throw some money around and get that to happen. Anything would be better than Zack’s current life.
029.02
“We will be exiting the window in ten minutes,” Ma-rye-a announced.
We caught a window and jumped which would put us back in Jake and Arr’s neighborhood. They were just finishing up a mission on Nexus 3 and we planned to rendezvous at the NB just the grid above their location.
“Think your friends will be on time?” Daniel asked.
He had never met Jake and Arr. Daniel stays mostly planet bound, whereas Jake, Arr and I bump into each other pretty regularly between their mercenary missions and my trade-goods deliveries.
“Jake is usually very punctual.”
I leaned forward and flicked the button on the harness mechanism on Daniel’s chair. The harness curled up over his shoulders and across his lap. I sat back and activated mine. Always a good policy to be strapped in when you entered or exited a window. The dangerous thing about traveling through them was that you were basically blind coming and going. No way to determine if there was another ship in one until you entered because something about them dampened the electronics for surveillance until you were inside. And, on exiting there was no way to be sure there wasn’t a ship sitting a wee bit too close to the entrance for you to maneuver fast enough to miss it. I didn’t normally take a window unless I was forced. I felt it necessary under the circumstances.
“Exit in five minutes,” Ma-rye-a updated us.
“I hate space travel,” Daniel complained under his breath.
I leaned over and patted his arm on the co-pilot’s chair. “It will be alright. Ma-rye-a has done this hundreds of times before.”
*****
“RUN!” Jake shouted into the com-link. His voice exploded over Ma-rye-a’s ship wide communications system.
“What?” I asked stupidly. We’d just exited the window. I had enough time to take in the fact that the Calpernia, Jake’s ship, was waiting for us before I noticed the two Tiltode vessels in hot pursuit.
“Tiltode vessels within firing range,” Sam, my security officer IA informed me.
“Well then, by all means fire!” I shouted at Sam. I heard the Maximum Jacket Drivers start to whirl into place taking aim at the closest Tiltode vessel, then felt the slight rock of Ma-rye-a as Sam began to unload on the enemy ship. It turned from its bombardment on the Calpernia to address us, its new target.
“I said, Run!” Jake shouted again. “Get back through the damn window.”
The Tiltodes were no other specie’s friends. They were a violent race to be avoided. I had no idea what Jake and Arr did to antagonize them, but I did know the Calpernia, even though she was a fighting vessel could not stand up against two of their ships.
“Not going,” I said in a calm voice back at Jake. “What did you do to piss them off?”
The Tiltode ship the Calpernia was concentrating on took a direct hit from Jake’s ship. It rocked violently to one side and began to expel pressurized air from inside. It was out of the picture. Jake turned the Calpernia on the second ship just as it let lose an intensified laser blast at Ma-rye-a. I was glad I had the forethought to strap us in because Ma-rye-a practically rolled over to do an evasive maneuver to keep from getting hit. She was smaller and faster. That was all that saved us.
“Get out of here!” Jake hollered.
I was getting tired of him yelling at me, but could see his point. Against the Tiltode ships my Maximum Jacket Drivers, my only weapons, were like poking a Walmite with a toothpick. Now that we had stalled the other ship long enough to level the playing field for Jake and Arr, I was willing to retreat.
“Meet you on the other end and we can regroup,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jake said in a hurried tirade. “Go! Get! Leave!” With each word he spoke the Calpernia hammered another volley at the Tiltode ship until it swung round away from us and back toward Jake’s ship. “Go!” he shouted one last time and we went!
Claiming to know someone who could talk to the Hummers was taking a wee bit of convincing until Coal managed to pull up some info on his computer about by friend, Arr, Jake Harcourt’s partner. Seemed a doctor named Margaret O’Connor was doing a bit of a study on him and she had recorders that attested to his ability to learn languages faster than a Roughnut snake can swallow a gerbit. You see, Arr’s people all have genetically inherited memories - abilities that are passed from generation to generation in the basic makeup of their brains. Arr can learn languages just by listening to them. Within a few hours he can master any language. Last count he gave me was one hundred and one, and that’s fluent, not just counting to ten and asking where the restroom is located.
A while back Arr and I were stuck in adjoining hospital beds for an extended period of time. We had a lot of time to exchange stories as we healed. That story is in my log books as “Body Bags and Other Dark Places” if you wish to look it up. Anyway… Arr told me about Jake explaining to him how the NBs worked - that they each held a Hummer inside. Arr was trapped alone on a planet for several years until Jake found him. Arr was shocked to think the Hummers were isolated in the NBs. He wanted to talk to them to make sure they were okay with what he saw as captivity. So Jake parked their ship, the Calpernia, by one and Arr took a few hours to learn their language and reassure himself that they were quite content as they were.
Arr told me this story, along with a string of others, and I remembered it.
Now Daniel and I were on board my ship headed to rendezvous with Jake and Arr to see if they could help us out. The other two members of our disjointed team were linked in with us, but stayed behind – Zack because I did not have the proper hook-ups for his servo-chair aboard me ship and no time to refit, Coal because the Valarians insisted Zack be kept in custody until this affair was concluded. Who knew what would happen after that to the man who, no matter how unintentionally, killed eight-three people.
“It’s all my fault,” Daniel said. “If I hadn’t been such an ass to Zack he wouldn’t have written the damn virus in the first place.”
Daniel had been beating himself up almost since the moment we boarded Ma-rye-a.
“Yes, it was partially your fault,” I had to admit, “but, it was also based on years of built up anger about his situation. If not the NB virus, it would have manifested itself in some other way. Zack needed to take action - to control his environment again. You just happened to be the catalyst for his efforts.”
“We get through this and I am going to find a way to make it right,” Daniel said, as he picked up his mug and took a swig of his tea. He grimaced. Moby had just popped it out of the prep unit and he always served everything hot, hot, hot!
I leaned over from my captain’s chair and placed my hand comfortingly on Daniel’s knee. “If anyone can do that, you can,” I assured him.
As much as Zack’s actions had unwittingly led to deaths, having met the man, seen his condition, heard his story, I did want to see things resolved in his favor. He didn’t deserve to be imprisoned on a penal planet. In fact, I didn’t even think that was possible for a guy in a servo-chair. Most likely he was facing execution. I would rather see him on a physic ward for the rest of his life. Perhaps Daniel could throw some money around and get that to happen. Anything would be better than Zack’s current life.
029.02
“We will be exiting the window in ten minutes,” Ma-rye-a announced.
We caught a window and jumped which would put us back in Jake and Arr’s neighborhood. They were just finishing up a mission on Nexus 3 and we planned to rendezvous at the NB just the grid above their location.
“Think your friends will be on time?” Daniel asked.
He had never met Jake and Arr. Daniel stays mostly planet bound, whereas Jake, Arr and I bump into each other pretty regularly between their mercenary missions and my trade-goods deliveries.
“Jake is usually very punctual.”
I leaned forward and flicked the button on the harness mechanism on Daniel’s chair. The harness curled up over his shoulders and across his lap. I sat back and activated mine. Always a good policy to be strapped in when you entered or exited a window. The dangerous thing about traveling through them was that you were basically blind coming and going. No way to determine if there was another ship in one until you entered because something about them dampened the electronics for surveillance until you were inside. And, on exiting there was no way to be sure there wasn’t a ship sitting a wee bit too close to the entrance for you to maneuver fast enough to miss it. I didn’t normally take a window unless I was forced. I felt it necessary under the circumstances.
“Exit in five minutes,” Ma-rye-a updated us.
“I hate space travel,” Daniel complained under his breath.
I leaned over and patted his arm on the co-pilot’s chair. “It will be alright. Ma-rye-a has done this hundreds of times before.”
*****
“RUN!” Jake shouted into the com-link. His voice exploded over Ma-rye-a’s ship wide communications system.
“What?” I asked stupidly. We’d just exited the window. I had enough time to take in the fact that the Calpernia, Jake’s ship, was waiting for us before I noticed the two Tiltode vessels in hot pursuit.
“Tiltode vessels within firing range,” Sam, my security officer IA informed me.
“Well then, by all means fire!” I shouted at Sam. I heard the Maximum Jacket Drivers start to whirl into place taking aim at the closest Tiltode vessel, then felt the slight rock of Ma-rye-a as Sam began to unload on the enemy ship. It turned from its bombardment on the Calpernia to address us, its new target.
“I said, Run!” Jake shouted again. “Get back through the damn window.”
The Tiltodes were no other specie’s friends. They were a violent race to be avoided. I had no idea what Jake and Arr did to antagonize them, but I did know the Calpernia, even though she was a fighting vessel could not stand up against two of their ships.
“Not going,” I said in a calm voice back at Jake. “What did you do to piss them off?”
The Tiltode ship the Calpernia was concentrating on took a direct hit from Jake’s ship. It rocked violently to one side and began to expel pressurized air from inside. It was out of the picture. Jake turned the Calpernia on the second ship just as it let lose an intensified laser blast at Ma-rye-a. I was glad I had the forethought to strap us in because Ma-rye-a practically rolled over to do an evasive maneuver to keep from getting hit. She was smaller and faster. That was all that saved us.
“Get out of here!” Jake hollered.
I was getting tired of him yelling at me, but could see his point. Against the Tiltode ships my Maximum Jacket Drivers, my only weapons, were like poking a Walmite with a toothpick. Now that we had stalled the other ship long enough to level the playing field for Jake and Arr, I was willing to retreat.
“Meet you on the other end and we can regroup,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jake said in a hurried tirade. “Go! Get! Leave!” With each word he spoke the Calpernia hammered another volley at the Tiltode ship until it swung round away from us and back toward Jake’s ship. “Go!” he shouted one last time and we went!
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