Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (17 page)

"You don't (make?) ship weapons?" Thor asked.

"No, (new race) (make?) them. Ship (is?) lot people time (man-hours?). More (too?) (valuable?). We not (risk?)."

"How you (make?) (new race) not take ship?"

"They try. We lot (many?) more. They take we no trade (sell?) things they (want?) wait (until?) they give back. Next time cost lot more."

"They no go your planet. Take what they want?"

"Planet different. Lots weapons planet lots fight lots people on planet. Not like ship. They no take.

"(New race) things not same (different?) Badger things. No (make?) Badger no make (new race) no take. Badger, other people not (unknown) same (new race)." He stopped and his muzzle rippled. A new thing they hadn't seen.

"What the hell does that mean?" Thor asked the bridge crew. "Anger, disgust?"

"Frustration?" Lee guessed.

"Why you no make weapons for ship now? Same you got your planet?" Gordon asked.

"Not simple. Not enough got one weapon now. More later. Got be
better
(Other race) weapon, first time, second time, all time. Not do little now. Little later. Until works."

"Why not?" Thor asked.

"Got word
see
thing in hand," the Badger said, looking at his empty hand. (Want?) (need?) word see thing
in
head," he said, grabbing his head in both hands and closing his eyes.

"Visualize, imagine, picture," Lee supplied.

"What is
all
in head?" the Badger asked.

"Think," Gordon supplied quickly. "See in head.
No
thing in hand."

"Lot in head," the Badger explained. "See in head. Lot, lot more."

"All think," Gordon assured him. "Think word all things in head."

"What (need?) word – thing in hand," he said, peering in his hand again. "No see same in head."

"Delusional, nuts, crazy, insane," Gordon supplied.

"Lot words," the Badger observed. "All same thing?"

"Lot crazy in heads," Gordon admitted.

"You say
think
all things in head. (Other race) not think all same other people."

"He's trying to tell us the new guys are friggin' nuts," Thor said.

"Sure looks that way.

"(New race)" He struggled silently the muzzle rippling again. Then he put a finger to the side of his head and made a stirring motion.

The bridge crew erupted in laughter. It took a bit to die down. The Badger waited on them.

"Yes," Lee agreed. "We (make?) same hand move. Word is
gesture
," she supplied. "Here," she said, pointing into her own palm. "There," she said pointing off in the indefinite distance. "Come," she said, making an arch with her index fingers from away toward herself. "Come," she drawing both flat hands toward herself. "Stop!" she said loudly and sharply, holding one hand palm out flat and straight armed, toward the Badger.

"Two hand all (but?) stop. One hand stop."

"(Need?) want other hand (free?) weapon," she said, touching the dagger at her waist. "Say stop. You no try. You do."

The Badger made what they suspected was a smile.

"(Make?) lot gesture," Lee. Gesture say same things we think we (know?)(understand?).

That was the first time he'd called any of them by name.

"Give," she said, cupping her hand and lifting some imagined object toward him. "Get," she said reaching out before forming a cup and bringing it back to her. "Take," she said and snatched something from the air and brought it back to her. "Hold," she declared and grabbed above the hand she'd never opened from 'take' and held it to her breast double handed.

"Say other Badgers (make?) gesture. Go less time," he assured her. (Need?) lot word. You gesture word no."

Lee shook her head back and forth.

"You gesture word yes."

Lee gave short double nod rocking up and down.

The Badger hesitated. "You gesture lot yes."

Lee rocked her head more emphatically six times.

"Ahhh, yes!" he agreed and nodded his head the same way.

"Gesture word
make
. Word (make?) not yes not no.

"Word (make?)
uncertain
," Lee supplied, holding her cupped hands before her and lifting one and the other alternatively and looking back and forth between them.

"(unknown) (unknown) Lee. You (unknown) yes this Lee."

"Thank you," Lee said and dipped her head in a single bow she held a bit.

"Pretty sure of yourself aren't you girl?" Gordon said off mic.

"Yes," Lee told him, aware the Badger could see the by-play.

"I gesture make," Lee told the Badger. "Gordon I saw that extra sandwich you brought back to the bridge. Please let me use that and have somebody bring you another."

He handed it over silently.

"Oh good, it's ham and cheese. Egg salad would have been a  mess."

Lee held the sandwich up for the camera. "Sandwich," she declared. She changed the camera angle to make sure it showed the slight shelf in front of her console. She laid the bread ham and the cheese out in a line in front of her. "Bread, ham, cheese, she said, pointing at each in turn. "
No
sandwich," she said, looking back and forth like she was searching for it. "I make sandwich." She assembled them again and presented it to the camera. "I
made
(make?) one sandwich," she said proudly. She took it back apart.

"Parts," she declared, "All parts," she said waving her finger back and forth across them all. "Some parts," she declared shifting a slice of bread and ham away from the other slice of bread and cheese in front of her. "Some parts here, Some parts there," she said, pointing in turn. "Those parts away," she said with a dismissive hand flop. "Closer," she declared moving together them a bit. "Closer," she repeated with another small move. "
Much
closer," she declared bring them most of the distance together. "
Very
close," she said leaving only a finger's width between them. "Touching," she said. Letting one corner of the bread just contact the other.

"Word gesture, very close word
show
," she instructed him.

She reassembled the sandwich, pulled the dagger from her belt and cut it in two. "I
cut
the sandwich," she said. "Two parts," she said, "equal." She cut one half well off center. "Two parts,
not
equal. "No word and not word, very close," she told him. "Word equal, word same, very close."

"Bridge, we see the word count going up in the software stats. A bunch went from tentative to confirmed. Are you doing that up there?" the ward room workers asked.

"Yeah, Lee is teaching the Badger a few terms," Gordon admitted.

"A few? She added more than we did all morning."

"I suspect things will move better now. The Badgers will likely start using her methods."

"Send her down here when you can spare her. She can show us directly."

"That's a pretty good description of what she's doing," Gordon said. "I'll ask her," he promised.

"After a while. I want to see what the new guys do before leaving the bridge."

Gordon nodded. "After we finish up this session," he told the translators."

"You say (New race) crazy in head. I see," Lee agreed.

"You (need?) know. (New race) word (name?) you grass eaters. Not see you equal."

"Oh, that's OK," Gordon agreed. "Uncertain we see (new race) equal," Gordon told the Badger, copying Lee's weighing gesture.

The Badger looked alarmed. Wide eyes and a slightly open mouth must mean the same thing in these creatures as similar as they were.

"You (wanted?) know word (new race)," he demonstrated on his own hand, biting it.

"Biters! Isn't that lovely," Gordon said. He couldn't help himself. He smiled. The Badgers had never seen a Derf smile. They'd been careful not to. It was interesting the Badger
could
look even more upset.

"And they have factions that hate each other so much they can't give their crews liberty on the same station without having a riot," Lee said to the bridge, but muted her mic. "Nice people."

"And they are scared to try to arm against them, unless they know they have better weapons right from the start, because they are crazy. No telling what they'd do I imagine," Thor said, just to them.

"Say one time again. You (want?) us send message to Biters?"

"Hey!" Lee called out to the Badger and got his attention back. "Sandwich equal Biters," she said. Then she took a big bite out of it and turned it so the chunk missing was obvious and smiled.

The Badger looked at her, silent and turned back to Gordon. "You (want?) send message?"

"Yes. If (uncertain?) they (want?) something (thing?) they can talk (say?) to
me
," Gordon said.

"OK, we do," the Badger said and left the desk to another doing mundane translating. They shut down the feed to the bridge, letting the Ward Room crew carry on.

"How long for them to react?" Thor asked.

"Within five minutes if they have a temper," Gordon predicted. He thought about it a little bit. "All ships, enter targeting data for the aliens surveillance drone in your system for beam weapon fire. Run a check on greaser systems to confirm they are ready. Confirm our clocks are synchronized."

One by one the readiness and system status reports came in.

"If I order fire on the drone do so at the next full minute tick."

The screen came on and showed a new creature they hadn't seen.

"The new ship is backing off of the station," Jon, the com tech announced.

The alien was wide and squat. Some of it was hidden by the desk or console it was behind. It's prominent feature that jumped out at them was wide hooked beak like a raptor that dominated the face. The beak was shiny black with a roll at the back like a cuticle. The eyes forward looking, the forehead low. The top of the head flat with grooves on the side that might be for ears.

"Check that hide out," Thor said.

It was different than any race they'd seen. Pebbled flat plates and spikes and horns along raised areas and places needing extra protection. The color was dark blue, but as its head turned and it looked at its own screen it shifted to green and then got yellow streaks. When he spoke his tongue was dark grey and pointy.

"You make (demands?) grass eater? We give (gave?) you a hundred of thousands your seconds get drone. We take (gift?) back. We take (remove?) now." He turned his head and said something beyond the translation program to somebody off camera.

"Missile launch from big ship. Looked to be about ten meters long. Chemical rocket to get it away from the ship, then it switched to an ion drive right quickly. Lost it on optical tracking. Do you want me to use radar?"

"Don't bother, Jon. We know where it's going. Time how long it takes to kill our drone and tell me it's acceleration," Gordon ordered.

Gordon started the translation program to respond. "Do I look (like) same (a?) grass eater?" Gordon asked, smiling extra wide for him. The alien's eyes were like black marbles and didn't react, but a mustard yellow frill on the back of his neck spread a little.

"We do same. (Remove?) you (your?) drone," Gordon said and cut the translator. The clock was just passing the minute, perfect. "All ships, fire beam weapons on their drone at the full minute tick."

At the minute and a few milliseconds the drone became an expanding ball of plasma, before the missile got to theirs.

The feed from their drone terminated and Jon announced," Sort of slow for a missile. It averaged a bit over twenty Gs. Light coming in from the detonation shows a chemical signature. I read carbon and nitrogen. Maybe they don't have nukes?"

"I wouldn't assume that," Thor said. "They might have been reluctant to use one near their station and after all, the other races don't have ship weapons, so a conventional explosive is plenty. It certainly is
cheaper
than expending a nuke, even if they have them."

Brownie their navigator volunteered an opinion. "If they had them these guys act like they'd use one just to intimidate us."

"He might have the right of it there," Thor admitted.

The alien was back on screen and two others lurking behind him. They brought the translator back up.

"You no move. We move closer (to?) you. This (our?) star system, we look see all weapons you got.  Biters in suit go to you. Tell you go or tell you not go (stay?)."

"If you (want?) us go. Say now. (Ask?) others on station they want we go. You no come here now (after?) you shoot. You come here we destroy you. (Understand?) Make you not."

"(Understand?) you try, eater (vegetation?)."

"Cheeky fellow," Lee said.

"Go ahead and launch our jump drone back into the last system," Gordon ordered." The ship lurched from the launch in just a few seconds.

"Alien is maneuvering," Jon warned. "Assuming an intercept course with us. Activating radar, but it doesn't appear to be in a targeting mode."

"Who is our technical expert on what these Fargone missiles can do?" Gordon asked. "Get him on com with me."

"Engineering – Ames here. How can I help you sir?"

"Are our new missiles from Fargone capable of directing a beam accurately enough to hit one
end
of ship?"

Gordon could hear him clicking his keys, calling up data. "The primary beam straight ahead, within a couple degrees of the weapons long axis is very accurate. The further you get off that, the less accurate secondary beams are. To nip off one end and not miss or take it in the middle by accident? Yeah, we can do that if we get within eight thousand kilometers. Ten thousand, maybe. That's stretching it for, uh, the aliens who shot our drone I assume?"

"Yes, they are headed for us with the stated intention of boarding."

"Maybe," Lee said skeptically. "Don't
plan
on it. They may have lied, they may have changed plans once we threatened to destroy them. They may not brake but just blow past and shoot."

"Ten thousand kilometers then. They are a bigger target than the others at the station. Assuming we can get one that close. We haven't seen what close in defenses they have. And of course you can't bore in from straight off their bow and shoot the rear. You'll have to program a dog-leg and shoot at them from broadside. Perhaps I'm assuming wrong. Do you want to blow off the
front
? That would likely remove their bridge if they build like everybody else."