Mantis rising, p.24
Mantis Rising, page 24
“It’s not going to hurt. Would you get it and bring it to sickbay, please? Explain it to Doctor Crawford as best you can.”
“Of course, my Captain.”
Raglin asked, “What was that about?”
“We’re on a ship built by an alien race — the Uvaloothi, if that means anything to you. Humanity fought them in the Big War, centuries ago. Mantis is both the name of the ship and the name of the AI that is integral to it. So yes, they tortured humans. We probably tortured any of them we captured. She’s helping us get this ship reactivated.”
“And you trust it?” She sounded somewhat incredulous.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it? Yes, I do. More than I expect I will trust you until I get to know you better. For future reference, it is a she. She appears as a human female. I expect her to be treated as a person.”
MC rejoined Helen and Jarmon on the shuttle after she left Mantis and Crawford consulting about Raglin in sickbay. As she took a seat in the passenger compartment with the other two, she said, “We estimate it will be two or three more days before you can safely exit the shuttle, unless you want me to carry you in. How are you holding up?”
Jarmon said, “I think we are OK, Captain. Bored, but OK.”
MC nodded. “Did I understand correctly that you both want to join my crew?”
Helen sighed. “I do, if it will get us off of this rock. Jarmon hasn’t had any training on much of anything other than hunting lizards.”
Jarmon said, “I was ten when we crashed here. The nomads took us in.”
Helen nodded, “The others on our ship either died in the crash or died after the crash. At any rate, they were gone before the nomadic peoples who make their home here found us. Like my son said, they took us in and taught us how to survive on this world.”
MC smiled at them. “Survival skills are always good. OK, Jarmon, you’re welcome on my ship. Until you learn something useful, you’ll probably be assigned to housekeeping. For what it’s worth, I have a cadet bridge officer who started there. She’s about your age. Helen, I’m our only pilot. I could use a spare.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever called me a spare before. Which ship are you restoring, Captain?”
“I’m glad you asked. Did you review our surface scans when my shuttle crashed here, like I asked you to do?”
“I did. Nothing out there looks the least bit space-worthy.”
“You’d be surprised. With the help of its shipboard AI, we’re restoring the purple ship that still has most of a Concordiate on top of it. It’s a Karabreesh Mantis.”
Helen shook her head. “I don’t know what that is. And who paints a ship purple?”
MC grinned. “Aliens. Except it’s not really paint. What it is is an enemy warship with an artificial intelligence that wants to work for me. At the moment, it’s not the most comfortable ship I’ve ever been on — we’re working on that. Frankly, I can’t pilot it, either. We’ll learn. If we have to, we’ll splice in human control panels.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“It is, but it’s the only thing here that might possibly get us out of this gravity well. Now, tell me about the ship you came in on.”
“Of course, Captain. We claimed to be a scientific expedition. I suppose we were, although I don’t think it was science for the sake of knowledge. We headed here to collect dinosaur embryos. They aren’t really dinosaurs, of course, but it would be easy to convince a rube who hasn’t ever seen a real dinosaur that the reptiles here are the genuine article, imported from Old Earth.”
MC said, “I could be mistaken, but I don’t think there were any dinosaurs left on Old Earth by the time of the colonization effort.”
“Hell, I don’t know. As far as we were concerned, it didn’t matter. Someone fucked up — I guess it was probably our drunken engineer — and we crashed.”
“What caused the crash?”
“A fucked up drunken engineer. We had an abrupt loss of all power to the drives, the thrusters, and to — well, to everything. The explosion that tore off our stern didn’t help anything, either. What brought your shuttle down, Captain?”
“We were escaping from pirates when we took a missile in the ass.”
Helen nodded. “That can do it in something as flimsy as a shuttle. No ship to get back to?”
“No. It had already been destroyed. Listen, Helen, let’s assume we get my new ship in the air. While we’re doing that, do you think you can find the one you came down on?”
“I imagine. Why would you want to?”
“Because, on this planet, we’re forced to be scavengers. If there’s anything useful, or even salable, on your ship, I want it. When my freighter was destroyed, I was carrying a cargo I’m going to need to pay for.”
“If you come up with anything that is, as you say, salable, I want a cut.”
MC laughed. “It doesn’t work that way. Your cut is getting you off this planet. I’ll pay both you and your son a generous salary. And just so there are no misunderstandings later, I expect complete loyalty from my crew. Some of us are on the run. If you or anyone else betrays any of them, I’ll see that your life abruptly ends.”
“Tough bitch, ain’t you, Captain? However, your terms are acceptable.”
MC nodded. “Good. In your opinion, can your ship be driven across the desert to the junkyard?”
“I seriously doubt it, Captain. I may have exaggerated about our ass being blown off, but it is probably scrap. Like I said, we lost all power. If you can figure out why — and turn it back on — then, yeah, maybe. The hull was pretty seriously damaged, though. That much I saw with my own eyes. The whole ship could be filled with sand by now. Damn stuff gets everywhere.”
Chapter 43
We Can Do This
MC sat at relative ease on the bridge of the oddly named Valiant Explorer. A week ago, she had left both Oleon and Raglin working with Mantis, restoring the Uvaloothi ship. Ferguson freely admitted that they would almost certainly be of as much use as he had been — he didn’t understand what Mantis had him working on, either.
Raglin was walking with a limp but had been able to keep her leg. Crawford was optimistic that eventually she would recover fully. He seemed almost as fascinated with the Uvaloothi healing device as he was with Oleon’s neurochemistry. Necrotic muscle tissue he had excised from the leg was growing back. Human medical science couldn’t reverse necrosis other than via a transplant. He had ordered a daily treatment for Raglin — it seemed to continue to be making a difference. Frankly, he seemed more interested in observing the machine than in the condition of Raglin’s leg.
Mantis had indicated that one of the Uvaloothi fighter craft should have come down with them somewhere nearby. MC planned to recover it when her time permitted. Who knew? If they could recover it and she could fly it, it might prove to be more useful than her Stealth Dart — which she hadn’t given up on retrieving someday. In the back of her mind, it had already occurred to her that Mantis just might be able to repair her Dart’s programming. Besides, if she was going to be running cargo, Narlarkic wasn’t a bad place to stop.
She left Lancome and Hamy hard at work harvesting the Concordiate’s hull and stowing the slabs in their cargo hold/flight deck. The portable grav-lift they had found in the smelting plant made it possible for them to move slabs that would have otherwise been too heavy for them. There were two other lifts that could possibly be repaired.
At the moment, she had more people than she had jobs. The others, including Helen, were out scavenging.
She had brought Ferguson with her to salvage Helen’s Valiant Explorer. She had brought Jarmon with them as her guide.
Ferguson said, “There’s very little wrong with this ship, MC, other than the fractured hull.”
“Can the hull be repaired?”
“In a shipyard, certainly. But not by us, I’m afraid. We’re stuck with Mantis if we’re leaving. That being said, this ship is only seventy years or so old. If I can restore the power plant, everything should work. I know you suggested transferring the controls from our shuttle to Mantis, but everything built into Explorer is far newer and far superior.”
Jarmon asked, “Why did we crash, Agnis?”
“Stupidity. Other than that, it’s hard to answer your question. Didn’t Helen say your engineer was drunk?”
MC nodded. “She did.”
Ferguson sighed. “I’m guessing, but it looks to me like he was trying to increase the power output of the reactor. Actually, his ideas may have been sound. If he had been sober, he might have even managed it. In that respect, I’m impressed. What happened though, is that he or she chose a bad time to experiment and the ship fell out of the sky.”
MC grinned. “You’re full of good news, Agnis. Fix it. Get us power. Jarmon, you’re temporarily promoted to engineering assistant. Get me power, gentlemen. I’m going to go and get us some reptile steaks. We’ll eat them raw if you guys don’t get the grill in the galley working by the time I get back.”
After MC left, Jarmon looked at Agnis. “Wow, she is one tough lady, isn’t she?”
“That she is.”
“She’s gorgeous, too. Is she available? Do you think I could ask her on a date?”
Agnis laughed. “Didn’t you grow up here? What do you know about dates?”
“Well, my Mom explained it to me when she told me how to make babies.”
Agnis shook his head. “Listen, kid. The Captain is almost your age. Under other circumstances, she might be considered available. But, first, she’s the captain. As a temporary assistant engineer, you’re not allowed to ask her on a date. She can ask you, but I doubt she will. Second, I don’t think she’s available, anyway. She seems to prefer females in her bed. If you’re looking for a girlfriend, see if the new woman, Raglin, is interested. She’s probably mid-twenties. I don’t think she’s hooked up with anyone else on the crew — at least not yet. Third, if you get fresh with Captain Jones, you might not live to try it again.”
“Raglin didn’t look too good when we brought her in. What about that other girl, Oleon?”
“Be polite and considerate and back off if she isn’t interested. She spends most nights with MC. It isn’t a possessive thing for either of them, but upsetting Oleon is more dangerous than I hope you ever learn. She’s at least as deadly as MC, maybe far more.”
“MC,” Ferguson said, “you haven’t been very open about what you’re planning.”
“Honestly, Agnis, I thought it was obvious. We have a working starship here that can never leave the atmosphere. As long as I keep it in the atmosphere, it can fly. I’m flying it to the junkyard.”
“I was afraid of that. I don’t trust the hull, Captain. If you give it too much power, you’ll crumple us like you crumpled the Enforcer.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t piloting the Enforcer. Believe it or not, Agnis, I understood that. We won’t go any faster than a fast walk. At the first indication of problems, I will slow us further. We need this ship, Agnis. It’s not just the control panels. We need the galley equipment. I want the lab equipment, including the incubator for dinosaur embryos. We can sell those even if Crawford can’t think of a reason to keep them. While I am impressed with what he put together, I’m pretty sure the entire medical suite is an upgrade to what he has from the older ships. Taking this thing apart, piece by piece, and porting it to the junkyard would take far too long.”
“You have somewhere else you need to be, Captain?”
“No, I guess not. Look at it with a captain’s eyes, Agnis. The longer we’re stuck here, the further my crew’s morale is going to drop. They all expect me to get them away from here. Don’t you?”
“Well, yes. I guess I do.”
“Right now, they’re all excited that we have a ship and a plan for modifying it so that we can make use of it. I can’t afford to lose that momentum. We don’t have two years to travel back and forth to Explorer to scavenge before I lose all of them. Not only that, it’s a dangerous trip for everyone other than me.”
“I know all of that, Captain. I’m just saying, please be careful when you fly us out of here.”
“I will be, Agnis. You have my word.”
Chapter 44
Mantis Rising
“We’re ready to leave,” MC announced. “Before we go, I want to make sure all of you understand what to expect. This is going to be more of a lecture, and perhaps an explanation, than a discussion. Please hold questions and comments until I ask for them.”
They all sat around the conference table that had been scavenged from the smelting plant.
“First, I want you to understand what I really am. I am a cybernetically-enhanced, bioengineered assassin. My father ordered my birth, bought me from a lab, and forced me to undergo multiple surgeries to make me what I am. I suffered through rigorous training to make me what I am. I have been gang raped, beaten, and tortured — both physically and mentally — to make me what I am. I was forced to kill a woman I loved more than life itself to make me into what I am.”
She glanced around. No one looked amused. A few looked horrified. Beza was stirring in Oleon’s grip. Some of that was news to the girl, too. “I nuked him and his whole criminal organization when I left home. Some of you know some of that. Some of you have guessed. This is what I am. My past belongs to me. I decided to share it with you. None of you have my permission to ever share it with anyone else.”
She looked over the group. “I know that I often come across as hard. I am. I intended to devote my life, once I was free of my father, to hunting down and killing other evil men and women, whether they be human or alien. I wasn’t given the chance. I think you all have been told the story of what happened on Felix. I’m not going to repeat it here. That left me in command of a ship and a crew — a crew I never really wanted.”
She shook her head. “As your captain, I am responsible for all of you. As long as you are on my ship, I will do my best to protect you. I’ve said this before. Any and all of you are welcome to leave my employ at any time. Most of you are aware that there is a very enticing reward offered for my Cadet Trainee, Oleon. If anyone tries to collect, I will hunt you down and you will die as painfully as time permits. That is the only threat I am going to make. It’s more for the three newer members of the crew, although it applies to all of you, even those I’m fond of.”
She glanced at Oleon. “Oleon has decided that there is no world where she will ever be safe. She has requested that she be allowed to stay on Mantis. I granted her request. Because of that, we face a certain degree of risk that exceeds that which most freighters would anticipate. There are also rumors circulating that my crew includes one or more trained assassins. Those rumors, of course, are true. It seems assassins are a valuable commodity.” She nodded to Brak.
“Which brings us to this ship — to my ship — to Mantis. Humanity fought with the Uvaloothi for decades in the Big War. This used to be one of their warships. To put it in terms we should all be familiar with, this ship can defeat a Daphrin Enforcer. It would probably succumb to three of them fighting us in a coordinated task group. I think we won the war by ganging up on ships like this one. Are there any questions at this point?”
Ferguson spoke up first, of course. “We’ve discussed it, Captain, but I’m not sure you’ve spoken to everyone about it. What are your plans for your ship and your crew?”
She nodded. “We’re going to be hauling freight and, once we fix Mantis up to be more amenable, accepting passengers. It’s unlikely that we’ll incur expenses in terms of ship maintenance, but we will need to have funds for port costs. We’ll want to buy supplies. Frankly, the first time we put into a commercial port, I want to buy us new beds.” She got a round of laughter at that. She hadn’t intended it to be funny.
“I assume my crew is going to want to be paid. Doctor Crawford, if he decides to stay on as Medical Officer, needs to spend a fortune on medical equipment. Our current lack is hindering his research efforts.”
She glanced at Brother Mason. “I have invited the priest to stay on as Ship’s Counselor. You should all feel free to discuss anything with him. That includes problems you’re having with me. He will keep your confidences. That is, unless you tell him that you’re planning a mutiny. That is the one confidence he will disclose to me. For the record, I consider attempting to sell Oleon to bounty collectors to be mutinous.”
Her last statement was primarily directed at her three newest crew members — Helen, Raglin, and Jarmon. “Depending on Brother Mason’s workload, we may have him mopping the decks from time to time.” She grinned. “On the other hand, Brother, we’re attempting to build a human compatible interface to the Uvaloothi infonets. With your interest in history, I would be happy to have you as our chief researcher.”
