Archaea 2: Janis (20 page)

Yak and Pauli almost collapsed in gales of nervous laughter, laughing until they were both choking and spitting. Despite an ominous sense of impending doom screaming for attention, I couldn't help but join in. If we were going to go down, we might as well go down with a serious case of the giggles.

The moment didn't last very long, unfortunately. As I watched the clouds of Solis below us rolling past, I knew the clock was ticking, counting down towards an inevitable conclusion, our fates were set. All I could do, was the best I could – and maybe a bit more if the opportunity presented itself.

“Sir, I am now tracking... forty-five fast-movers inbound  from 180, range... 16,800 kilometers, closing at 22km/s... designate Masters five through fifty.” Yak said in a voice that sounded admirably calm.

“Very well Yak, please keep an eye on them.”

“Sir I will... sir, targets are down!”

I raised another eyebrow. “Janis dear, nice shooting.”

“Thank you sir.” Janis said proudly, as she should be. She would have had to fire those intercepts before those torps were even in the tubes.

“Pauli--”

“Sir, we are almost in. The security of their network... almost there sir!” He leaned into the keys like he was trying to push them through his console.

I was just about to say something undeniably profound and incredibly motivating – but the deep phased vibration of the main cannon ramping up completely choked off my throat. I gasped as a subsonic rolling bass rumble made it nearly impossible to breathe. A nearly solid wave of sound rolled up through the deck and phased higher and higher, building to a peak, an impossible intensity that held true, a pure note of unbelievable destruction.

“Captain, weapons!” Shorty screamed in a voice I could barely hear. “Main cannon at ten-thousand-percent!”

I couldn't imagine what she must be going through back there – the Archaea was built for that gun, but it wasn't the same gun any longer. It was something none of us understood, something unknown.

“Captain, targeting! I have a firing solution! Target is massed ten-million tons at 115, range 15,935 kilometers, following orbit! Sir, I am showing this as Master-one!”

“Very well Yak!” I yelled back as calmly as I could. As desperate as our situation had become, I knew panic and fear were the real enemy.

“Sir, our network is under attack!” Pauli screamed, his voice almost completely drowned out by the sheer overwhelming chaos of the moment.

I ran through my options as quickly as I could.

“Pauli, do they have an AI?”

He nodded violently, unable to speak, his screens a frenzy of activity. We were in a tight spot, but the worse it got, the more confident I felt, the easier it became to let go and trust in my crew, my ship, and myself.

“Janis, please precess for firing solution on Master-one, make your target their command deck!”

“Precessing for target of command deck, aye.” Janis said, smoothly, as the Archaea started to tumble and rotate towards the target. The capital ship caught the light reflected up from Solis, and heliographed into our forward port. It was absolutely massive beyond belief. Even at this distance, it looked like it filled the sky.

“Holding on target, Master-one, sir” she said, a few moments later.

“Very well Janis.”

I waited a moment, thinking carefully about what I was about to do. That they deserved everything we could give them, I had no doubt. The children, they held the truth in their smiles, in their bright eyes. A promise I made, a promise I intend to keep. I slapped shut the hard-shell armor over the forward port, and allowed myself the luxury of a deep breath.

“Weapons. Fire-for-effect, ten second burn!”

“Firing for effect, aye!” Shorty shouted against the ocean of sound from the gun deck below her, and pulled the trigger.

              The Archaea shuddered intensely, a high-frequency shaking that I felt deep in my bones, my eyeballs jittered and I couldn't focus on anything. It seemed like it went on and on forever and then it was gone, followed by a climbing harmonic as the gun ramped up for another shot.

“Sir, direct hit!” Yak yelled, and Pauli cheered.

Though I felt the same way, now was not the time to leap about and shout. We were still at battle stations.

“Sir, she's breaking up” Yak said, zooming in on the gravimetric layer on his forward screen. I opened our forward port and we all watched silently, as the capital ship slowly rolled down into the upper atmosphere.

The pull of Solis was inexorable, undeniable. As the capital ship fell, it tumbled slowly, falling deeper and deeper into fire, glowing brightly as it slid further into destiny, plummeting towards inevitable ruin on the cold wasteland far below.

“All hands, secure from battle stations and rig for high orbit.” I heard myself say proudly.

Chapter 15

The Archaea was a playground, full of laughing screaming kids literally bouncing off the walls in null-g as we made our way back to Vega system through the Mallory Lights.

The kids loved 'Miss Jane' and absolutely adored Yak the Giant, but their real hero, of course, was our captain. He had a million stories, none of which were true, but he told them well, and as far as he was concerned, nothing was off limits.

Working on the bridge, in any classic sense of the word, actually doing work, was impossible. I was not going to be writing any code on this trip. We were completely overloaded with the most inquisitive, helpful, chaotic little beings in the Galaxy.

“All hands battle stations!” the captain bawled into the 1MC, mashing the general quarters and collision alarm klaxons at the same time. Janis added a siren and what sounded like a steam whistle. The kids loved it.

“Aye-aye sir!” Emily called out. She may have been a tiny little girl with pigtails, but she was our new executive officer, and a more stern subaltern had never existed on any vessel in human history.

“I need a firing solution on the pirate frigate off the starboard bow.” Captain Smith was of course deep into a terrible battle against Red Martigan, the scourge of the deep spaceways.

“Weapons. Prepare firing solution if you please,” Emily barked out, while a tiny little boy all of 6 years old at Yak's station made shooting noises as he attacked an endless swarm of ships Janis was drawing on his screen.

“I have shot them all Emmy!” he squealed in excitement.

“Very well mister”, Emily said, turning to the captain. “Sir, I am pleased to report weapons officer Timmy has killed them sir.”

“Nicely done. Please come about to course heading two-two-niner.”

“Flight control officer Sally, make your course two-two-two-number!” Emily bawled across the bridge.

“Aye aye Emily!” Sally said. She was missing her front teeth, and made sure we all saw it at least two or ten times per day. “I have come about to... uh... numbers!” she said.

“Sir, flight control has us on course. Are we under attack?”

“No, I thought we were... but it was just a blip on the target computer.” the Captain said, then leaned in really close to his screens. “They are behind us! ALL HANDS BRACE FOR IMPACT” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

The kids just about went out of their minds. Timmy was shooting everything in sight, Sally was suddenly navigating through a terribly thick asteroid field, and Emily, in the center of it all, “Mister Timmy, clear those pirates off my screen! Sally, I want you to come about to behind us, and make it snappy.”

“I am come abouted, Emily!” Sally yelled.

“Don't shout Sally, we need to stay calm.”

“Aye Emily, sorry.”

Timmy must have killed a few million enemy raiders at this point, I think Yak was going to need a mop to clean the spit from his console from all the shooting and blowing up noises.

“Sir, we are ready about!” Emily said proudly, as the captain laughed with tears rolling down his cheeks.

*****

“Mister Gene, are you busy sir?” a serious faced little sprat said, leaned as far in as he could get, holding on by his toes to the outside of the hatch so I couldn't get grouchy that he was in here.

“Of course,” I said gruffly. “I am always busy. These mechanicals need constant attention.”

“Constant attention. Check.” he said, with a scowl so perfectly suited to the moment that I broke into a smile.

“What's your name, son?” I asked, warming up to the lad despite my best efforts.

“My name is Den Janson, and I am ten years old, sir. Are you an engineer?”

Oh, he had me now. I was powerless, and I knew it.

“Yes son, I am. But I am not just any engineer, I am the Chief Engineer.”

“Are you as good as my Daddy? He was an engineer too”, he said seriously.

“Son, I doubt it. Did you and your Dad ever build things together?”

“No, he was always working in the mines. I haven't seen him for a long time. Are we going to see him?”

I was caught off-guard by this question, and didn't quite know how to answer this innocent-faced little guy.

“Son, I hope so... say, do you want to help me in here? I could really use a junior engineer-of-the-watch, this is too big of a job for me.”

“Would I!” His face lit up, and he kicked towards me like a pro, catching a grabber at my station and scowling at my boards. “What are we looking at here, Mister Gene?”

“Well Mister Den, we have to check our coolant levels.”

“Coolant?”

“Yes sir. This big round thing over here is called a tokamak.” I smiled as he said the word quietly, under his breath a few times. “The tokamak is a fusion reactor. Inside it, is a star!”

“A real star?”

“Well, close enough for government work, as we like to say. There is a stream of super-hot plasma spinning around and around inside there.”

“I'll bet it gets pretty dizzy.” he said with a stern look. “I get pretty dizzy when I spin around.”

I laughed, “well, if it stops spinning, it runs out of energy. Do you ever run out of energy?”

“Sometimes, if I run around and get hot and sweaty, I get tired.” he said, leaning in close to the screens, clearly dying to touch them, but showing remarkable restraint for such a young lad.

“That is exactly what this tokamak does. When it spins, it gets very hot as well, and if it gets too hot... bad things happen.”

“It has to take a nap?”

“Yes, I suppose it does. Do you like to take naps?”

He shook his head at me, looking at me with his eyes opened wide so I would know beyond any doubt, that he was wide awake.

“Mister Den, engineers need their rest, son. When the mechanicals are all running well, the gauges are all green, the hum of the precision parts all doing what they're supposed to be doing... sometimes even Chief Engineers take naps.”

He considered this a moment. “Well, I will take naps when I am very tired, but I am not tired right now.”

I laughed, “well, that's good, son. We don't have time for naps right now.”

He looked at me seriously, then took another look at my screens. “So what do we need to fix, Mister Gene?”

I laughed, he had it all figured out. Things are always broken.

*****

I kicked aft of the pandemonium on the bridge, and made my way down the companionway towards the pandemonium of the gun deck.

“Shorty, what are you doing?” I asked, as kids were all over the deck, on both sides of the danger line.

“What?” she yelled back over the shriek and chatter of a bunch of kids all talking at once.

“What are you doing on the gun deck?” I yelled.

“It's not a gun deck, it's the fun deck, Pauli!” she laughed. Yak was all the way aft, by the inner lock heading to the cargo bay with his hands over his eyes.

“Okay kids, you know the mission, right? Stop the giant! Don't let Mister Yak get to the bridge, he's a space monster and you are our only hope!”

The kids all screamed with joy.  Terrible horrible scary monster Yak cowered in fear, and acted like he didn't see any of them, perched behind bulkheads, holding on to tubes and pipes, floating behind Shorty.

He kicked slowly forward, rotating as he flew towards the bow, waving his arms and making horrible monster sounds, while one at a time, the kids launched at him with their war faces on and their battle cries, each one grabbing on and trying to slow him down, to make him crash to the deck.

Soon, Yak had all of the kids riding on him, hooting and howling like banshees while Shorty, their secret weapon, came flying in on the attack, grappling and finally pinning Yak to the deck, but not for long. With a mighty roar, kids swinging off every arm, every leg, he leaped slowly for the companionway ladder. I couldn't resist getting in on this free for all, we might actually have enough to pull Yak down.

I was wrong, of course. Yak is a terribly strong, and extremely scary monster. Luckily for us, Captain Smith heard us coming and motivated the bridge crew for a final fight to defend the Archaea, and we finally won the day.

*****

We were coming up on our Mallory Lights transit, and as much as I didn't want to, we had to put our game faces back on.

My new crew was shaping up nicely, but I am not sure if my executive officer was quite ready for the big show. I had to hand it to her, Emily was one of the staunchest, most disciplined and serious little officers I've ever seen, she was going to be a Captain someday, maybe an Admiral. Not quite yet, of course, but it was hers when she wanted it.

“Gene, I am going to pop the bubble for our transit soon. Anything I need to know about?”

“Negative sir, we are good to go back here.”

“We?”

“Yes sir, my... ah... Junior Engineers. Den, and Tobe.”

I chuckled, thinking of dour old Gene, sternly tapping gauges while serious little children hang on every word. This, I had to see. We had some time.

“Executive Officer of the Watch Emily. I am going to step aft. You have the conn.”

“I have the conn, sir, aye!” she said.

I smiled and stepped clear, so she could dive into the helm. She grabbed the yoke, assuming absolute command.

I kicked aft and stopped by the galley for a refill. Jane was in, along with Tosh, Sally and a tiny little fellow with curly blond hair and the biggest blue eyes I'd ever seen.

“Hello Miss Jane, what's cooking?” I said, smiling at the little chap as he spun around and around in his chair until he flew off laughing and caromed around the galley.

“We're making some grilled cheese sandwiches, and tomato soup.”

“Soup!” the little fellow chirped.

“What's your name, mister?”

“My name is Gannon”, he said. “I am a mister!”

“Well hello there Mister Gannon. I am Captain Dak Smith. Do you like tomato soup?”

“What's a toma-toad?” he asked, laughing, bouncing around the galley from one wall to another.

“It's a bright red round looking critter, we squish them up and make soup.”

“I like soup!”

“So do I Mister Gannon, so do I. Miss Jane, I wanted to let you know that we have about thirty more minutes until we need to get everyone settled into their hammocks, we're coming up on a transit.”

“Sounds good, Captain. Do we have time for soup?”

“There's always time for soup, Miss Jane.” I said, kicking back to the ring ladder and pulling towards the 'fun deck'. Shorty was still deadly serious about any of us crossing the magic line of death, but for some reason our passengers enjoyed this strange, unknown softer side of her. It was good for her, I think, to spend time with people smaller than she was.

Gene struggled to keep his space strictly off limits, but of course that just made these kids even more interested. I was not really that amazed to see that even though we had only been slipping a few days, just about every surface in engineering was covered with strange doodles, scribbles, and other complex engineering designs.

“Attention on deck!” Tobe shrieked, and leaped to attention, launching himself in a painfully slow take-off to the middle of the room.

“I see Gene has been teaching you well, mister”,  I chuckled, as I hauled him back down to a grabber. “Where is Gene, Tobe?”

“Sir, Gene and junior engineer-of-the-watch Den are working in the access tunnel.” He gestured above me.

“And what are you doing down here, Tobe?”

“I am reading the specs, sir. When Gene has questions, he asks Den, who comes back and shouts them down, and then I read the answer here.”

“The answer is on this screen?”

“Yes sir.”

“And you read it?”

“Yes sir.”

“You can read?”

“No... but the screen tells it to me.”

I whipped out a severe level-three eyebrow and fixed him with a steely gaze. “Are you telling me this ship can talk?”

“Sir,” he whispered, “this ship is alive, honest!” His big eyes full of wonder.

“That's pretty interesting, son. I will expect a full report by the end of your watch. This needs to be investigated.”

“Aye-aye skipper!” he said, clicking his heels and saluting crisply, floating slowly skyward.

“Steady on son” I laughed, hauling him back down.

Right then Den dropped down out of the access hatch, hauling a tool bag streaming tethers, followed shortly by Gene. I was not at all surprised to see both of them with nearly identical scowls.

“How's it coming along, Gene?” I asked with a smile, as he followed Den down to the deck.

“Oh pretty good Da-- Captain. I... that is... we are trying to isolate a pressure leak in the helium line.” he winked.

“I see, Mister Gene. How serious is it?”