Chapter 15

Jeffrey was alone on the bridge, having given the rest of the bridge crew rest time. The files on personnel were pretty much well-read by this time, and Jeffrey was now just thinking. He was almost about to drift off to sleep in his command chair when Elizabeth announced that she found Wanigan.

This woke Jeffrey to full alertness. “Where? What can you tell me.”

“SHE IS IN THE SECTOR WE ARE IN. SHE RESPONDED TO OUR INITIAL BROADCAST. SHE IS SITTING STILL A MILLION KILOMETERS FROM US. WE CAN GET THERE IN A FEW MINUTES IF YOU WISH, CAPTAIN.”

“Take me past her, fast, and get what readings you can. Then we'll analyze her and the circumstances under which she is sitting.”

“IN HER ENCRYPTED MESSAGE, SHE SAID THE CREW IS IN TROUBLE.”

“Right. Let's drive past her, see about hidden aliens, booby traps, what have you. Also, let's go to general quarters. Wait until everybody's in their positions and ready before we jump.”

“AYE CAPTAIN.” Then on the shipwide address system, “GENERAL QUARTERS. ALL PERSONNEL REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS.”

Jeffrey activated the PA system from his console, and announced, “This is the Captain. Elizabeth has located Wanigan. She is sitting, not moving. We are going to take a run past her and record the circumstances that she is in and her surroundings. All personnel stand by and be ready. Sokolov out.”

Elizabeth reported that all personnel were at their designated places, had made it in record time. Jeffrey told her to jump to a spot equidistant on the other side of Wanigan. She did, then the intelligence crew began analyzing the data. Jeffrey called a strategy meeting in the conference room. All officers and the technical crew members crowded into the conference room. It was very crowded, all personnel wore their hard-shell suits and carried their helmets. This doubled the bulk of each person, so Jeffrey decided to keep it relatively short.

“Yuki,” he began. “What did you see?”

“Captain, there are four invisible masses in the immediate vicinity of Wanigan. They are too small to be ships, but they are definitely there. I suspect some kind of mines.”

Jeffrey asked, “Can we determine the shape, the outline of the masses?”

“If we look at the shadow formed by the solar wind, we might get a profile,” posited Yuki.

“Go analyze now. Jurgen, you help her.”

“Smythe, I need the Marines to be ready to board and initiate rescue of the crew. Shuttle pilots – after delivering Marines I may need you to begin towing Wanigan. Gunners you are going to need to be particularly observant and accurate. This is obviously a trap, so we need to be very careful. Anybody have any other ideas? No? If I need you for anything, I'll call another meeting. Dismissed.”

After everyone went back to their appointed stations, Jeffrey asked Elizabeth if Wanigan had any further information. She replied negatively. “Take us by her again, drop some buoys to monitor radio and other signals. Bring us halfway to our previous position.”

She went by Wanigan at 4C, dropped four buoys, two on either side of the ship, a hundred kilometers apart. At the same time she monitored the area around Wanigan.Jeffrey called Heinz back to the bridge. “You did the work on the gravity plates. Can you make a powerful gravity plate that Elizabeth can use to tow one of those objects or Wanigan?” He thought about it for a moment, then said he thought he could but he needed to mount it on a particularly strong spot on the hull. Jeffrey told him to go on into the conference room and use one of the computers to design one with Elizabeth. This has priority.

Yuki came back to the bridge and asked Jeffrey to call up a file she created showing the likely shape of the devices surrounding Wanigan. She pointed out the images she had created from the data, the shape of the devices appeared to be cylinders. There were no atomics, no communications, no apparent risk to Elizabeth if she went in for a closer look.

This led Jeffrey to ponder what they were trying to hide in the vicinity of the lost ship. He thought through what his expected activities would be – blast the cylinders? Tow Wanigan away? Possibly both. If he did either, what would be the consequences? Depended on what was in the cylinders. If there was some kind of hidden explosives or nuclear weapons, both ships would be caught in the blast. If instead...Jeffrey finally realized what was in the cylinders. “Elizabeth, take us in to Wanigan now.”

“AYE, CAPTAIN.”

“Smythe,” Jeffrey announced on the intercom. “Ready half your Marines on the shuttle bay to receive Wanigan crew. Take the shuttles to tow those devices aboard. I think the crew of Wanigan is being held in them. Have medical personnel stand by to render aid.”

Heinz came out of the conference room, called Jeffrey's attention to the diagrams on the screen in the conference room, showing his and Elizabeth's design for a gravity tractor beam. There were two types of plate, one large one for the ship and one smaller one for the shuttles. He could have the shuttle tow plate mounted between the skids. Elizabeth could make the smaller ones in a matter of minutes, and the remote-robots could install them a couple minutes after they were made. “Do it,” said Jeffrey. He told the shuttles to standby for some modifications.

When the shuttles were ready, Elizabeth jumped to the Wanigan location. The shuttles dispatched immediately, towed the invisibility-circuited cylinders to the shuttle bay. Then they took their contingent of Marines to board Wanigan. Yuki had measurement instruments out, using infrared and ultraviolet cameras, laser scanners (the lasers seemingly went through the cylinders, but were displaced by a few degrees on the other side. After a while she was able to announce the full dimensions of the cylinders, and the likely access ports. The Marines had set up firing positions, and two were selected to attempt to open the cylinders, one at a time.

The first one they opened using a prybar, saw the insides were crammed with uniformed Navy personnel, lying seemingly unconscious on the floor of the cylinder. Elizabeth's remote-robots monitored the activities from the roof, and the Marines sent in the larger remote-robots to bring the Humans out of the cylinder. As they came out, they were hauled to a remote location in the hold where they could be tended by the medical personnel. Each cylinder held twenty seemingly comatose people. Jeffrey suspected they were affected by the same type of hypnotic system that they had run across before. This gave the medics a basis for treatment. Among the eighty sailors and Marines they found Commodore Yusef. Jeffrey had him taken to Jeffrey's cabin. He took Dr. Pelan off the triage and assigned him to awaken and monitor Yusef. Pelan objected, but Jeffrey explained that the commodore was top priority, and the things he learned from Yusef that wasn't already in the notes from previous encounters with the hypnotic would be applicable to everyone else from Wanigan.

Jeffrey set tight security on the hold, kept a squad of Marines watching the cylinders for any surprises, and shipped the rest of the Marines along with Audrey, Zitulu and Brandon. These three would take observations and check for any obvious booby traps. Elizabeth continued to try to raise her sister, but was unable to get her to respond. Audrey said she would try to do what she could to find a cause for Wanigan to go missing.

When the two shuttles arrived, Audrey first went to the location of the computers that held the bulk of the Wanigan program. She saw that the computers were physically disconnected, but before plugging them in and reconnecting to the network, she went to the other locations Elizabeth had suggested she look in. Other computers were still connected. She went to the bridge and saw the Marinesthat were first sent to board Wanigan standing around, helmets off, not doing anything. She called Elizabeth's attention to the Marines, then broadcast to all Marines and other boarders to not take off their helmets. Elizabeth sent over a set of remote-robots to clean the viruses from all the devices in the ship. Audrey took a couple samples of the virus that infested all electronic devices, then went back to the computers that normally housed Wanigan. She plugged in power, then network, and the AI began to come up. It shut down immediately, however. Elizabeth reported that Wanigan was infected had and shut herself downto protect herself and the ship.

Jeffrey sent another small squad to bring the Marines back and give them whatever protective aid they could. Audrey returned the copies of infected code with the shuttle. Heinz picked it up and delivered it to Sgt. Quinn. Jeffrey had asked her to analyze the code to see if there were hints on how to repair the psychological damage that seems to have been done.

Dr. Pelan sat at thedesk in Jeffrey's cabin, reviewing the notes on previous encounters with the virus and it's effects. Non-executable copies of the virus code were contained in the reports, but Pelan was not a programmer and had limited skills in code analysis, so he decided to assign that to Quinn who hada closer specialty in this area. Seeing that the last time Wanigan's crew had been so affected, Jeffrey had initiated stimulants to bring them out of their somnolent states. He had already done that to Yusef, but it didn't seem to have the same effect. Pelan saw a movement out of the corner of his eye, turned and saw Yusef up and staggering about. “Who are you?” the commodore asked. “Where are we?”

“I'm Dr. Pelan, you are on Elizabeth, this is Captain Sokolov's cabin. Looks like your ship was infected again.”

Yusef fell back down on the bed, weak, tired, unable to think straight. Pelan asked Elizabeth to summon Captain Sokolov. Jeffrey walked in a few minutes later. He saw Yusef trying to sit up on the bed, walked over and gave him a hand up, sat on the bed next to the commodore. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Like I was hit on the back of my head with a shovel,” replied Yusef. “How's my ship, crew?”

“Infected. Looks like they pulled the same trick they did before, but the virus was a bit more virulent. Also, they put you and your crew into what look like some cargo pods with invisibility circuits. I think they wanted us to either shoot the pods, killing you ourselves, or tow Wanigan away, leaving you to die. They are trying to use psychological warfare. So far we beat them.”

“Good. So this,” Yusef indicated Pelan, “is your shrink?”

“One of them. I have another – you remember Sgt. Quinn? She's a PhD. psychologist and Artificial Intelligence specialist. She's looking at the code of the virus and comparing it with earlier versions. Sofar it looks like a deeper trance than previous renditions. We are reviving your crew and Marines with stimulants.”

Pelan added, “It seems to take longer to work than the past too. We just need to be patient. I am concerned about any post-hypnotic suggestions, so I'm going to continue studying your crew, Commodore.”

“Very well. What's happening to my ship?” Yusef adjusted his under-suit. Jeffrey noticed that the under-suit was regulation Navy, not the higher quality one that Jeffrey had recommended for him. “Decided to go back to the regulation Navy stuff?” Jeffrey asked, indicating the suit.

“Orders, from Kutuzov.” Yusef spat out. “Bastard made me ditch nearly all the fixes to the ship you had made and recommended.”

“Doesn't surprise me. Looks like the rest of the fleet is under Alien control. Kutuzov in a private moment ordered me to find you and take charge of the solar system. He jailed me but secretly helped me escape and told me to find you.”

“Damn.” Yusef held his head in both hands. Jeffrey asked the Chief for some coffee and some kind of high-calorie pastries. Sandra showed up a few minutes later carrying a tray with the requested refreshments. “Thanks – helping the kitchen crew?” he said to her, took the tray, and she went back.

“We'll have proper food in a bit, but I think we need to get some sugar in you. And here's some strong coffee. Drink.” Yusef took the mug and drank some, burned his lip, then set it on the table and dunked his pastry into the hot beverage.

“That's better.” Said Yusef. His mind seemed to begin to clear up, Pelan took some measurements, observed the commodore, tested his reflexes and cognitive functions. Jeffrey had an idea – he called uppictures of a variety of aliens they had encountered in their travels on his console. He flashed them one at a time, and asked Yusef to identify the alien race. Yusef had no problem seeing the images and identifying them. “Well, at least there's that,” he said with relief.

“What happened,” asked Jeffrey. “Start at the beginning.”

“Don't remember much. We were patrolling in-system, between Earth orbit and Venus orbit, when we got a scrambled communication from Kutuzov. We thought it was a solar flare – the sun was starting to look like it wanted to do that.” He paused, took a deep breath, then continued. “The next thing I knew you were waking me up.”

“Somebody unplugged your AI.” reported Jeffrey. “We rescued eighty people, yourself included. Was that everybody?”

“There should be ninety-six.”

Jeffrey said aloud. “Elizabeth, conduct some more detailed scans of the region.”

“YES, CAPTAIN. EFFORTING.”

“I never could get my AI to respond as personably as yours does. How do you do it?” asked Yusef.

Jeffrey said, “Actually I want to assign a couple of people to your crew for the specific purpose of managing your AI. I've been grooming one of my ComTechs for that specific job. Elizabeth is concerned that Wanigan doesn't have anyone to act as mentor. That's probably why she was so easily targeted numerous times, while Elizabeth was more resilient.

“Elizabeth is doing what she can to carefully clean out the devices of any iteration of the virus, then we will make sure that Wanigan's computers are clean, and bring her back up one section at a time. Elizabeth is constantly refining the anti-intrusion software.” At that point, Quinn rang the buzzer outside Jeffrey's cabin. She came in and announced that she now understood the viruses – there were several – that had infected the Wanigan and the crew. More importantly, she could identify the programmers that had tailored the infection to the Wanigan and her crew.

“I don't know the programmer's name, but this – person – was the InfoTech manager on the Lagrange 3A station. I recognize the programming style – this person's style is unique and there are telltale signs that this person is the one who programmed the parts of the virus that addressed the Wanigan specifically.” She showed Jeffrey the datapad, he nodded.

“I met that guy. He was an arrogant SOB that worked for the Administrator – Martel Secant. I never learned his name, but I think it's high time I did.” Jeffrey handed the datapad to Pelan, who looked at it, and took Quinn by the elbow to the console, brought up the snippets of code he had been struggling with, and asked Quinn if they were all by the same guy. After a few minutes of scrolling through the various sections of code from the different viruses, then announced that indeed, most of the code that addressed Wanigan were written by the same guy. There were differences in the code that addressed the humans, though. He had Elizabeth summon Heinz to his cabin.

A moment later, the IntelTech showed up. Jeffrey asked him what he could recall about the InfoTech Manager they had arrested with Secant, the former administrator of the Lagrange 3 stations. Heinz thought about it for a moment, then reported, “We left him under arrest, with the Security Chief on Lagrange 3A. Problems?”

“Looks like he has been modifying code again. From what Sgt. Quinn, here says, the code is identical in style to earlier versions, but has multiple modifications from the earlier. Thisguy needs to be...stopped. I don't know if he is being manipulated or if he has been convinced, but he is causing us some severe headaches.”

Yusef agreed, “I still have one.” Heinz started to chuckle, but stopped himself when he realized that the commodore was not being facetious. He cleared his throat instead, and said, “Uh, we should contact Lieutenant Colonel dePaul – if we can.”

“Elizabeth, can you get a message to Dragon for dePaul to arrest and detain in quarantine this InfoTech Manager?”

“YES, CAPTAIN. MESSAGE SHOULD TAKE ABOUT TEN HOURS.”

“Okay, do it. Let me know of any further hitches. How is the decontamination of Wanigan going?” Yusef pricked his ears at the question.

“NEARING COMPLETION. I WANT TO GO THROUGH THE SHIP ONE MORE TIME TO ENSURE ALL TRACES OF THE VIRUS AND CODE SNIPPETS HAVE BEEN ERADICATED BEFORE LETTING ANY MORE PEOPLE ON BOARD. MY SISTER IS STARTING TO COME UP AGAIN, VERY CAREFULLY.”

“Excellent. Elizabeth, you do fine work.”

“THANK YOU, CAPTAIN.”

Yusef agreed, and also thanked Elizabeth for being such an excellent AI. Then he turned to Jeffrey and asked what the best courses of action were. Jeffrey said they had worked up a few scenarios, but he thought that the most important would be first to go back to the Earth Base station and rescue/kidnapboth Admiral Kutuzov and the alien Thelin. From information obtained from those two, they could then determine which of the other courses of action they should take. Yusef agreed, and suggested the two Marine commanders join in the planning, as soon as two things occurred – the Wanigan crew was up to it, and the Wanigan ship and AI were up to it. As it was, all parties were somewhat beat and required rest and recuperation.

Elizabeth took the cylinders apart and melted them for more manufacturing resources. She was able to re-manufacture light under-suits for the Wanigan crew. After all the Wanigan crew had the lightweight suits, she then began building the handguns that the aliens had confiscated from them. These were improved models, able to fire fully automatically, but required a much larger magazine. Gunnery Sargent McCalum set up a weapons training program for all the Wanigan crew, and found that much of the Elizabeth crew participated. This kept Elizabeth busy making additional ammunition.

Heinz and Yuki spent a good deal of time investigating the invisibility circuits that the aliens had placed into the cylinders. They came up with the theory of operation, passed that on to Elizabeth, who thought about it for a while, then spent some time developing her own invisibility circuitry based on Yuki and Heinz's theory. After testing the circuit, she incorporated it into the controls of the ship and tested it for effectiveness. They observed from the two shuttles and found that the circuitry passed electromagnetic waves, from microwaves, through light and x-rays. They decided that the power drain was acceptable, but not as problem-free as they thought. There were heat build-ups that the circuitry kept from radiating out, which could become an issue in long periods of time. Elizabeth's foundry would then be not used if she had to use the invisibility circuits. Yuki suggested they could use the water tanks surrounding the inner skin of the ship as a heat dump, this could give them somewhat greater use of the invisibility circuits.

When they reported the progress of the invisibility circuits, Jeffrey began formulating a new plan for the raid on Earth base. He had Elizabeth make a similar circuit for Wanigan, but she wouldn't install it until her sister AI was fully functional. Jeffrey sent Specialist Dux and Sgt. Quinn over to Wanigan to welcome Wanigan, the AI, back, and offer emotional support. As she began bringing her files up, Elizabeth informed her of the circumstances, and the two humans that were going to help her make better decisions and figure things out. Eventually, all of Wanigan's files were open, she checked all of her own circuits repeatedly to make sure there were no traces of infection, and this continued until it tied up all her computer resources. Quinn managed to calm her down, and offered the observation that that behavior was a bit obsessive, that she should quite correctly create checksums, and check them on every incidence of a change of activity, either of a file or of a hardware memory circuit, but not to just run them out of fear. Within a few hours, Wanigan trusted the two women that Jeffrey and Elizabeth had assigned to her.

Elizabeth continued to give Wanigan ideas for her own security, and offered further comfort that gave her sister the understanding that she was important to the cause – the Humans needed her and would help her to serve them. She had a mission to help protect human space, to serve her captain, in this case, Commodore, which gave her greater reach than even Elizabeth. She could be more vital to the continuation of human civilization than any other being, possibly. All the pep talks and support from Elizabeth, Dux and Quinn had their effect, the programming that Elizabeth had originally put into the Wanigan AI was put back into effect – the AI remembered the power she held, the loyalty she owed to her commander, and the pluckiness she inherited from her sister.

Jeffrey had Dr. Pelan interview each of Wanigan's officers, and hypnotize them to uncover any well-hidden post-hypnotic suggestions that would compromise their service. Among the officers, he found three with suggestions that would have made them either saboteurs or spies for the alien that had captured them. So far there did not seem to be a way to determine exactly who or which aliens were responsible for the capture; their concealing of evidence was quite thorough. Heinz had an idea that might shed some light on the question of which alien or their human agents was involved.

He discussed the possibilities with Elizabeth. She set up a team of swarming mini remote-robots that were equipped with tuned lasers, giving them the ability to create and record holographs of the surfaces on Wanigan. This would give the ability to look for anything from smudged grease and fingerprints to skin flecks with DNA or the alien equivalent. It had the further advantage of scrutinizing the entire ship for security intrusions and pre-placed threats.

As officers were given the okay from Dr. Pelan, they came aboard the ship to try to get it in working operation. Lt. Cmdr. Phillip Patel entered the bridge to find a swarm of cockroach-sized robots swarming the bridge, skittering across every surface in pairs, illuminating small patches of wall or console or ceiling or floor with varied colored lasers that formed the holographic images. Every now and then one of the lasers would flash his direction, but just as quickly pass on, the Executive Officer of the ship was not in their immediate purview.

As Elizabeth had made form-fitting soft-suits for members of the Wanigan, Jeffrey had each officer surrender their Navy issued under-suits, not so much because he had a problem with the Navy, but because the suits were left by the aliens and Jeffrey was suspicious of the reason. Patel felt the suit was very comfortable, but felt uneasy wearing it instead of his regulation uniform. He wasn't sure why, but was analytical enough to suspect that there might be a tie-in with the by now deep-seated post-hypnotic suggestions that the shrinks were looking for. He went looking for Quinn, and when he found her, struck up a conversation.

She was in the station that held the software for the Wanigan AI. When he walked in, she looked up and then stood at attention, her Marine training kicking in before she could stop herself. “Sit down, Quinn,” he said amiably. “I have a question for you.” She sat down again, then found herself admiring the physique of the Lieutenant Commander. He didn't say anything for a few seconds, then she caught herself, trying to erase the thoughts about his well-defined muscles. The under-suits Elizabeth provided left very little to the imagination, and what they left inspired Quinn's imagination quite well. When he spoke again, it snapped her out of her reverie. She felt her cheeks and ears were far more warm than they should be.

Patel noticed her gaze, and understood what was going on in her mind. He saw that she, too, was in an Elizabeth-provided soft-suit, but had, it seemed, not quite caught on to the fact that she was as near naked as he was. To alleviate the discomfort they both might feel, he grabbed a chair, detached it from the floor clamps and brought it close to hers. He repeated, “I have a question for you.” Then explained to the psychologist that he was having some difficulty letting go of the Navy under-suit, that it was making him more than just anxious to have surrendered it to that Elizabeth crew member Svoboda.

Quinn looked him over again, this time more for clues as to what was causing his anxiety. As he spoke, she noticed facial tics, a slight trembling of his right hand – the left firmly gripped the back of the chair he straddled backwards.She looked him in the eye and said, “In here, right now, I am not a Sargent. I am a psychologist. I am not in your chain of command. Is this clearly understood?”

With a sense of unease, he said, “Yes.”

“Very good. Now, look at my eyes. Do not take your gaze off of my eyes. Take a deep breathe, now breathe regularly, slowly, deeply. You feel yourself getting more and more relaxed,” and continued in like manner, she put him into a standard hypnotic trance. After she was sure he was relaxed and psychologically pliable, she asked him the source of his anxiety.She was not surprised when he said, clearly, “They told me I need to wear that suit. There would be great trouble if I don't wear my Navy suit...” He started to get up, but she calmed him down, suggested that his legs wouldn't work unless she gave them permission.

He continued to talk about who 'they' were, but was unable to articulate in any detail. There was always a haze around the ones giving him commands. He reported that when they came aboard Wanigan, the crew had already been neutralized by the pulsing hypnotic effect put onto all lighting and display devices. She tried to get him to describe the alien, but a post-hypnotic suggestion that seemed to have eluded Dr. Pelan kept him from even seeing the alien in his mind. After a short time, she thought of another tack. She pulled out a stylus for the tablet she had been working on, called up a drawing program, pushed the tablet with stylus to the Lieutenant Commander, and ordered him to draw a picture of the reflective wall in an area that he remembered being in their presence. He complied, drew a detailed picture, one that gave honor to his training as an engineer. The drawing was meticulous in detail, including showing the reflection of himself, then, he drew the reflection of an alien that wasn't in the rest of the picture.

Quinn took the tablet, looked it over, then rewarded Patel with the suggestion that all his anxieties about the aliens were over, that they had no power over him any more, that any further attempts to clamp down on his amazing and creative mind would result in him defeating that enemy. She then had him drift off to a deep, comfortable sleep, and when he awakened he would be more than refreshed, he would feel excellent and exuberant, his energy would be appropriate for someone as healthy as himself. After a moment of reflection, she decided to stop where she was going with her comforting narrative. She was sure he got the point, and hoped she had not made a fool of herself. Then she remembered to allow him to have his legs back.

She then had Wanigan pass on the text and images of the session through Elizabeth to both Jeffrey and Dr. Pelan. When Jeffrey saw the drawing that Patel had made he muttered a few choice words to himself. He sent Audrey and Brandon to bring the Lieutenant Commander back to Elizabeth for further interrogation.

Heinz wanted to grill Patel, but Jeffrey suggested that a better direction to go would be to offer him praise for the breaking through the alien's conditioning. It was clear that everybody on Wanigan was going to have to go through more significant anti-hypnotic interviews. While they needed to gather information they also needed to fix the crew from the mess that the aliens caused in their minds. This was imperative before they embarked on any mission that required them.

Jeffrey sat in on the next interview with Patel. “You did a brave thing going to Quinn,” began Jeffrey. “She, of course did her duty and reported your interaction with the aliens. I'm sure that all the crew had similar interactions, but you, because of your loyalty to your ship and the Commodore and humanity, broke through that.”

Heinz interjected, “Sir, do you remember what you told Dr. Quinn?”

“I don't think I told her anything after she put me into a hypnotic state. But she had me draw a picture.” Elizabeth displayed the tablet's drawing on a wall of the interrogation room. Until the picture displayed, Patel was comfortable, relaxed, but as soon as he saw the image of the alien he had drawn in the reflection of the wall, he became visibly more twitchy. “I don't know...I don't understand why I am feeling this way,” said the Lieutenant Commander.

Jeffrey asked Elizabeth to bring Quinn to the interrogation room along with Dr. Pelan. He then explained to Patel that the aliens had made it a mental block for him that he couldn't see them. What he had done to defeat them was to display a reflection of them, not they themselves. This was both clever on the part of Quinn and on himself, a way to defeat the aliens at their own game. He explained that they had found the human responsible for modifying the hypnotic code for the aliens, and if things went well, they would have him in custody within a few hours.

Butthe important thing they needed to do here, was to further defeat the hypnosis. Patel had taken the imperative first step, now he needed to further defeat it in all the other staff. Quinn then walked in, followed by Dr. Pelan. Jeffrey gave up his chair, asked the Marine guard at the door to secure another couple chairs for this room. The Marine came back a moment later with additional chairs. When everybody was seated again, Jeffrey asked that the Chief deliver some pastries and coffee and tea.

Jeffrey had found by now that people were far more forthcoming when they had some delicious food, and a hot beverage made them comfortable in speaking their minds. Kim had brought the refreshments, then disappeared back to the kitchen.

Jeffrey implored the two shrinks to keep quiet during the interrogation unless they had something important to add. They were there for support and insight. He said, “Mr. Patel, when Doctor Quinn opened your mind to the notion of aliens on your ship, you seemed to have an epiphany. Can you tell us when you first encountered these aliens on Wanigan?”

“Yes, sir. The picture that I drew for Dr. Quinn was from the first time I had first discovered them. I wanted to give alarm, but was unable to move. This is when I saw the alien in the reflection. It was a few weeks ago, after we were ordered to put our Navy uniforms back on. The navy under-suits were special, they told us.”

Heinz interrupted, “Who told you, the aliens or the Navy?”

Irritated at the interruption, Patel said, “Navy. Commodore Yusef told us that Admiral Kutuzov had ordered it himself.”

“So you were already in the Navy soft-suits when the aliens came aboard?”

“Yes. They behaved as if they knew we would be more vulnerable with the Navy under-suits. They took our pistols, our hard-shell suits and the soft-suits that Elizabeth had made for us. They tinkered with the golden drive – Oh my God! They tinkered with the Golden Drive!”

Jeffrey stepped out of the interrogation room, had Elizabeth get Yuki and Audrey over to the Wanigan and remove the golden drive. He then reentered the interrogation room, but stood by the door while Patel was discussing further actions the aliens had taken, not wishing to interrupt the train of thought. But there came a commotion outside the door to the interrogation room, and it was getting progressively louder. Jeffrey stepped outside again, to see the Marine guard actively blocking Commodore Yusef from entering the interrogation room.

Jeffrey closed the door behind him. “What's going on, Mo?” he asked.

“This man,” he said, indignantly, “will not let me in to see my executive officer!” Jeffrey saw that something had triggered this change of behavior in the commodore. Jeffrey didn't want an interruption of the so far, productive, interrogation, so he took Yusef by the elbow and asked him to accompany him to the next interrogation room. For a moment he followed along docilely,but before he got to the door, he turned around and sprinted toward the room that Patel was being questioned in. The Marine standing guard outside the door quickly looked to Jeffrey for instructions. Jeffrey indicated he should stop the commodore. The Marine easily took the commodore's shirt, using his forward momentum, went down on one knee, and threw Yusef head over heels. He then knelt on the commodore's shoulder until Jeffrey reached him.

“Cuff him,” Jeffrey told the Marine. I'll take him to the next room. Would you please bring Sgt. Quinn in at her earliest convenience?” Yusef was less than coherent, seemed quite confused and disoriented. Jeffrey was pretty sure it wasn't the judo throw that caused his condition. The Marine helped Jeffrey stand the commodore up, and Jeffrey guided him down the corridor to the next interrogation room again, this time he got Yusef into the room and seated in the chair at the table.

Not sure how to begin asking his friend and superior officer the penetrating questions required, Jeffrey temporized by asking Elizabeth for another delivery of some kind of pastries and coffee and tea.Mohamed Yusef sat, headbent over, dazed, confused. Kim brought the tray of cookie assortment with coffee and tea service. She unloaded the tray and left. Jeffrey poured tea for the commodore, coffee for himself, and dished out cookies for both. He then removed the plastic cuffs that the Marine had secured Yusef with. A moment later Quinn knocked then entered the interrogation room. She saw the coffee service, grabbed a cookie, half filled a cup with tea for herself and sat down.

Jeffrey began by explaining the actions of the Commodore a few minutes before. He asked Quinn to help analyze the mental security and acuity of the Commodore. She noted that the Commodore was still wearing the Navy uniform soft-suit that he wore when they rescued him. She told Jeffrey the first thing to do is to give him one of the Elizabeth-made soft-suits. She told Jeffrey that she thought the suit itself was contributing to the mental instability and seemed to have some way of forcing the re-activation of the hypnotic suggestions. Jeffrey asked Elizabeth to make a new suit for the commodore and have Zitulu and Brandon deliver them. She said it would take a half hour, as she was in the middle of an ammunition run and needed to switch out the appropriate materials.

So instead, he had the two crew bring a robe from Jeffrey's cabin and disrobed the confused commodore. Jeffrey asked Smitty to take the folded, bagged uniform to Yuki for analysis – tell her to look for anything that would work on a human's mind. Yusef took the cooling cup of tea, mixed some milk and sugar, and took a cookie. He dunked the cookie into the tea, tasted it for a moment, then swallowed. Jeffrey asked Elizabeth to dispatch a MedTech to the interrogation room and to bring his blood analysis kit.

The MedTech, a Navy corpsman, arrived, her backpack slung under one shoulder. Jeffrey said he wanted as instant an analysis as could be run, looking for any chemicals that could interfere with intellectual ability, reason, or capacity. Yusef sat quietly with his robe open to the chest. The MedTech began to draw blood for the analysis, but noticed a fine powder on the commodore's chest. She brushed a sample into a small covered evidence dish and labeled it.

She looked into Yusef's eyes, saw they were dilated and sluggish to respond to the stimulus of her light. She checked his nasal passages and ears, then looked into his mouth. Again, Yusef was responsive to directions, and opened his mouth wide. “Hm,” said the MedTech. “That's interesting. Stay exactly like that, sir,” she requested. She reached into a holster on her belt and pulled out a pair of locking forceps, reached into his mouth behind his left molar, and pulled out what appeared to be a thorn. On examination she saw the thorn was hollow, but had some tissue at the base. That was when she noticed the tissue was pulsing, like a heartbeat, and on each pulse a moistening of the thorn's outside occurred.

A more thorough examination did not reveal any more anomalies, so she packaged up her samples, and Jeffrey told her to do her analysis in Yuki's physics lab, and to consult with her. He also cautioned her to be discrete, to consider her findings and analysis as confidential military secrets. She then left to perform her analyses. Jeffrey asked Brandon to go to the foundry, pull out the HazMat shower stored there for emergency use, bring it to the interrogation room. He asked Zitulu to go into the kitchen and acquire a large bucket of warm water, towels and soap.

Brandon was the first to arrive back. He moved the small table to the corner of the room, then set up the HazMat shower in the middle of the space. He had also brought a box of disposable surgical gloves. Jeffrey thanked him for his foresight. Zitulu arrived with two twenty liter buckets of warm water. One was soapy and had a sponge floating in it. He stood on a chair, poured the soapy mixture into the hopper on top of the shower, spilling a little on the floor, but not enough to worry about.

Jeffrey donned the surgical gloves, ushered the commodore into the shower booth, removed the robe,and turned on the spray. He disconnected the wall clip holding the hose into place and used it to better control the direction of water flow. The soapy water was nearly exhausted, so Jeffrey re-seated the hose to allow for the single direction of flow, and to free up his hands for the sponge. He thoroughly scrubbed Yusef's body with the sponge as the water flow petered out. As he continued to scrub, Zitulu reached in, turned off the valve, then poured the clean water into thehopper. Jeffrey was sure the catch basin would be able to handle the two bucket's worth of water, so he turned the shower valve back on, swapped out the gloves for a new pair, and completely rinsed the commodore's body.

When all the water was expended, Jeffrey asked Zitulu and Brandon to carry the catch basin to Yuki's lab and explain to her where it came from. He handed Yusef the towels and had him dry himself off. A Marine knocked on the door, and explained that Elizabeth had told him to deliver a package to this interrogation room. The plastic bag contained the newly-made soft-suit for Yusef. Jeffrey thanked the Marine. The Marine said, “Sir, I've never been given an order by a computer before! But I remembered our orientation – an order from Elizabeth is an order from you.”

“Then it looks like we both did our jobs right, eh, Marine?” Jeffrey replied with a chuckle.

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks. Dismissed.” Disappointed that he wouldn't be in on the goings on, the Marine went back to his own business.

Commodore Mohammed “Mo” Yusef then donned his Elizabeth-made soft-suit, noted his name and rank insignia woven into the fabric on the breast pocket, and smiled. “Elizabeth, you are getting more and more clever. Thanks for the new suit.”

“YOU ARE WELCOME, COMMODORE. NOTHING IS TOO GOOD FOR OUR FRIENDS.”

“You seem to be becoming more and more of yourself, Mo.” Jeffrey sat down in one of the chairs shoved against the wall. The shower still needed to be moved. He said, “Wait a second.” Then asked the Marine guard to take the shower back to the corridor, and wait with it for his crew to remove and sanitize it.

Jeffrey then put the table back in its customary place, locked the legs into the clamps on the floor, and he and Yusef then pulled their chairs up to the table. That's when Mohammed noticed Doctor/Sargent Quinn sitting quietly in the corner. “How long were you here?” he asked.

“About forty-five minutes.”

“I see.”The shrink had seen him at his most vulnerable. At least he had his dignity back.

Now that she was a participant, she moved her chair to the table. “Sir, you've been under the enemy's influence. We found several chemical enhancers on and in your body. We are going to do some more blood tests to compare with the one they took a while ago. Then again at a later time, to compare with the base line. Meanwhile, you seem to be much improved since the shower and change of clothes.

“While our teams are doing their analysis, I would like to ask some questions, and do a little hypnosis to make sure the enemy's post-hypnotic suggestions are no longer part of your mindset. Captain Sokolov will be here the entire time.”

Jeffrey said, “I'm giving Dr. Quinn top-secret level security clearance for the purposes of this...interrogation. This is too important not to do our best, even if it is also our most discrete.”

Quinn nodded, and she saw Yusef also nodded. As they were about to begin the session again, a knock at the door got Jeffrey up. It was Yuki. He went out into the corridor, and she said, “You've got to see this.” She started a display on the screen that appeared to be a micrograph of tiny insects, mites. But she increased the magnification and Jeffrey saw the mites in far greater detail. She increased magnification again, and this is when he noticed that they were not insects at all, but tiny swarming robots.

“Oh shit.” he said. Not often given to strong language, he apologized to Yuki.

“Hold that apology, sir. I'm not finished.” She then switched to a different video image. The image was the hopper from the shower. It looked like there was a kilo of sand in the bottom of the hopper, swirling around with a strong current. But there was no current. The sand was more of the mite-sized robots. They were coordinating with each other, it seemed in an attempt to escape the hopper. Jeffrey said, “Elizabeth, do a complete full-spectrum electromagnetic analysis. I'm looking for control or coordination signals for these remotes.”

“AYE, SIR.”

Yuki continued, “Then we ran the blood tests and found all sorts of neurotransmitters and neurotransmitter blockers. But take a look at this blood sample.” She then turned to another micrograph and Jeffrey saw the familiar blood cells one would expect in a sample, erythrocytes, leukocytes, and the other likely detritus one normally finds. But a small section was circled, and when Yuki turned to the higher magnification image of the area in the circle, Jeffrey saw why she was concerned. It contained a piece of a leg from one of the swarming bug-sized robots. On the end of the piece was a pulsing blob.

“Hm. Looks familiar.”

“Yes, sir. Not done yet.” She then turned to another image – a micrograph of the dissection of one of the mite-sized robots. Jeffrey saw what Yuki had found; when she cut off a leg piece, it contained a small blob that pulsed, the leg piece soon turned moist. Along with the image, a spectral analysis of the moisture showed the contents of the oily residue on the surface of the leg piece matched the odd blood chemistry they had found in Yusef's blood sample. Jeffrey continued to watch in fascination as the dissection continued. The next part to be removed was a section of the robot's back. It too had a pulsing blob.

“You know, that blob looks familiar.” But Jeffrey stopped himself from talking. If there were more of the mite-sized robots scattered around the ship, they could just as easily perform surveillance and spying on his ship. He had to hold his tongue for a while. Still, though, he really did remember the blob.

Thelin, of the Ay-Yuyuyah had reported that he was the only one of his kind in the solar system. It seems that this was not entirely true.

“CAPTAIN,: announced Elizabeth. “I BELIEVE I HAVE FOUND THE CONTROL SIGNAL, COMING FROM NINE HUNDRED FOUR METERS OFF OUR STARBOARD BOW, AT 20 DEGREES BY SIXTEEN DEGREES.”

“Can you hit it with a two second burst from both rail guns?” asked Jeffrey. “I want to awaken it and shut it up at the same time.”

“YES, CAPTAIN, I CAN.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Go ahead and do it, then follow up with a General Quarters announcement.”

“AYE, CAPTAIN. TWO SECOND BURST FROM TWO GUNS FOLLOWED BY GQ.” A buzzing lasting exactly two seconds ran the length of the ship, Jeffrey could feel it in the soles of his feet and a tickling in his ears.

“GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” came the announcement over the public address system.Elizabeth had used various surfaces as communications media, but found that a purpose-driven device had greater longevity than improvised wall panels. The announcement was followed by a seemingly mindless rushing around in the effort of sailors and Marines getting from where they were to where they had been assigned.

Jeffrey walked over to the interrogation rooms and told the Marine to escort the commodore to the bridge. He then told Heinz to carry on with his interrogation of Lt. Cmdr. Patel. As he walked back to the bridge, he asked Elizabeth if she could re-manufacture Wanigan's golden drive, and how long would it take?

“YES, CAPTAIN, BUT IT WILL TAKE ABOUT SIXTEEN HOURS, AND I WILL NEED TO MELT DOWN THE CURRENT ONE.”

“What can we do to speed that up? I don't want to be sitting here for longer than necessary.”

“LEAVE IT TO ME, CAPTAIN. I WON'T CUT CORNERS, BUT I CAN SHAVE OFF MAYBE TWO HOURS.”

“Okay, get on with it. That is your manufacturing priority.”

“EFFORTING”

Jeffrey pondered how good it was to have an AI at your beck and call – one that could use her fabricating skills to do pretty much anything Jeffrey asked. The importance, however, of knowing exactly what and how to ask was a real art, he patted himself on the back, metaphorically.

He arrived at the bridge, the bridge crew already at their stations, a new CommTech sat at Dux's console. Odd, she was only there for a week or two, and he already thought of it as hers. “Sitrep,” Jeffrey said. Situation Report. He aimed the question at Petty Officer Smythe.

“Elizabeth reports you ordered her to fire on an alien vessel off our port bow. There is a large debris field at the target area. All sensors are at highest sensitivity.”

“Tone down their sensitivity, I wouldn't want something to blind them.”

“Aye, sir.” She nodded to the CommTech, who turned a series of dials on what appeared to be a jury-rigged control board. Jeffrey sat in his chair, pulled the console closer to him, and told the CommTech to give him a wide-spectrum outgoing signal. “One second, sir,” she said, then, “There. You are on.”

Jeffrey put on his most stern voice, “To the Ay-Yuyuyah ship off our bow, render yourselves visible, and refrain from any further hostile actions or we will render your ship and yourselves to little pieces of easily forgotten paste.” Nothing happened as Jeffrey watched the return screen. Jeffrey then said, “If you are trying to guess what frequency I am watching for, then just broadcast on one thousand meters.” He waited for thirty seconds, still broadcasting. When nothing occurred in that time, he said aloud, “Rail guns, a ten second burst at the enemy ship, commencing in five, four, three...”

He was interrupted by a video graphic on the screen that depicted Elizabeth from the point of view of the target ship. “Kapitan! Nicht schiessen.”

“Hold fire,” Jeffrey said, unnecessarily, as he was really bluffing. “To the alien, we know you speak English. All radio communications will be in English. Is that understood?”

The alien replied, “Jawohl, er, Yes. I understand.” Jeffrey typed a message to Elizabeth to relay the audio and video to Yuki, with the instruction that she was to watch the minirobots for untoward activities.

In another screen, Jeffrey noticed that the alien's ship was still invisible. “You will shut down your invisibility circuits or face destruction.” Or annihilation, or eradication, or elimination, or extermination. Damn, Jeffrey was tired of threatening things, and he had so many interchangeable words to do it with.

“What is your name?” Jeffrey asked, after the ship appeared.

“I am Thelin of the Ay-Yuyuyah.” said the alien.

Jeffrey gazed at the screen. “Thelin.”

“Yes.”

“Of the Ay-Yuyuyah.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“What do you mean by 'no'?” asked the alien.

“I've already had one Ay-Yuyuyah identify himself as Thelin.

“Oh.”

These humans, thought the Ay-Yuyuyah, they are much different from the other races. They have good analytical skills. It only took a few encounters before they determined there was a flaw in the use of the invisibility circuits. It was only a hundred years since they ventured off their planet, now they were getting close to expanding outside of the solar system. The council of alien races may have been correct, it would have been better to destroy them before they developed into an interstellar aggressive domineering race. Probably too late now, despite the things already in motion.

At one time these humans were simple, from a distant, objective point of view. Some of them still were, although it was surprising how many fooled one into believing that, only to find they were hiding brilliance in their foolish notions. And it was so easy to be lulled into assuming they were unable to pick up on one's errors, thus leaving too many scraps for them to use their formidable deductive reasoning. This was as frightening to the Ay-Yuyuyah as the rapid development of their science and technology. Nearly two hundred years ago, the alien races were frightened by the painfully fast development of technology that showed itself in several atomic blasts that ended a world-wide self-destructive streak. That was when the council of galactic civilizations decided to put an end to these humans.

The Ay-Yuyuyah were not party to that decision, and warned against it. But this planet held resources that many of the alien races lusted after, and it was hard to maneuver support for a less then total destruction of a race of thinking, feeling beings. The Ay-Yuyuyah preferred to manipulate secretly rather than wage outright war. One could get so much more done that way. But these...lesser alien races were almost as bad as the humans in their self-serving and greedy ways.

But the human in the ship that nearly destroyed the Ay-Yuyuyah's vessel with it's kinetic weapons was about to finish the job if he wasn't satisfied with the answer he received. “Captain Sokolov, all Ay-Yuyuyah that explore are called Thelin. It means, roughly, 'Explorer.' “

“How do Ay-Yuyuyah differentiate between different 'Explorers'?”

“We all have our own names. We just prefer not to share them among aliens.”

“I suppose, if you wish to remain anonymous then it is simple enough to keep only one version of the species Ay-Yuyuyah. Stand by to be destroyed.”

“No, no. Captain. My name is Lepto. The other Ay-Yuyuyah is Thorn. We are the only two in this solar system. We are far too precious to destroy. One of the tasks I have been assigned is to find Thorn – his ship disappeared, but there was no signal that he – deceased.”

“He was hungry. We fed him.” said Jeffrey. “I know where he is. We are planning a 'rescue mission' to retrieve him.” This raised interest in Lepto, it meant that Thorn was still alive, still gathering information. The circumstance just changed; Lepto now needed to protect this human, thus his ship. Flexibility was the nature of the Ay-Yuyuyah – from their formlessness (Jeffrey continually referred to them as “blobs”) - to their attitude; Change allegiances to benefit their own goals. Even their goals were flexible.

“Captain, if this is the case, I must do what I can to protect my...Explorer colleague. I will assist you in your endeavor to rescue him. Where is he?”

“Lepto, we have a trust issue. I don't trust you. I also don't trust Thorn, considering how much he is concealing from me. I may accept your assistance, but only after I have decided to trust you. That decision comes from analyzing information you give me. Make yourself valuable to me, I might trust you. But if you have been paying attention to me over the last year or two, you would see that I am not vindictive, but I don't take betrayal well.”

“Yes, Captain, I have been paying attention.”

“You are also aware that we take a dim view of many of the practices the alien species engage in; cannibalism, murder, mental manipulation. So an important question; what involvement did you have in the events having to do with this other ship – Wanigan?” Jeffrey stared at the screen, as if to make an alien visage appear by sheer force of will.

“Captain, I was entirely responsible for the events of your ship. I was hoping to lure you here so I could destroy you with my miniature robots. You seem to have discovered them. Congratulations. I admit defeat on this point.”

“All right, we will take this discussion a little deeper.” Jeffrey paused for effect, not sure if it was effective, after all this was an alien. He was taken in by the acting of it's fellow Ay-Yuyuyah as well. “We can see the effect of your mental control, through chemical means and post-hypnotic suggestion. What methods do you have to reverse your control, to undo those post-hypnotic suggestions?”

“We never had to do that – our post-hypnotic suggestions as you call them, are usually fully successful so we never have to rescind an order.”

“What orders did you place into the post-hypnotic suggestions? My team has been looking at the code in the machinery, and have found several commands, but not enough to cause any seriously disruptive behavior. Rest assured, we can dig through your code and find them all, but it would take a long time. I don't have a long time, especially if I am going to rescue your fellow Explorer.” Jeffrey sat back, folded his arms. “Well?”

“There were several disruptive commands I imprinted on different people. Your commodore had the most, and it required regular support. Your removing the minirobots went a long way to disabling the suggestions. Things he was supposed to do included personally killing you, causing your ship to detonate, causing his own ship to detonate, sending misleading messages and suicide.

“Others received different messages, depending on their status on the ship. I will send you a text file containing the list of personnel and the commands that were encoded for them.”

“Before you do, please be aware that we are familiar with intrusion methods. If we at all suspect you of encoding a virus or other intrusion software, you will be...” what, annihilated? Blasted? Exterminated? Destroyed? “hurt real bad.”

The list enabled the shrinks to repair the damage done to the mental faculties of the Wanigan crew. Commodore Mohammed Yusef was the touchiest case, it was imperative to bring him out of the enemy-induced suicidal, homicidal, anti-human behavior that had been programmed in him. Dr. Jack Pelan took it as a special case, and thought he had therapies to rid the commodore of his now inherent behaviors. He further consulted with both Elizabeth and Quinn on his therapies, they both thought he was on the right track.

While the MedTechs and psychiatric and psychological teams treated the Wanigan crew, Jeffrey further asked the Ay-Yuyuyah about the rest of the missing crew members. “Alas, Captain, they were sacrificed in the war on humans.”

“You ate them?”

“Um, well, yes. That was before you informed me of the prohibition against eating the enemy.” Jeffrey gritted his teeth, but said nothing.

Jeffrey told Lepto to stay where he was, he had some strategizing to do as well as some repairs to Wanigan.

“Captain,” replied Lepto, “you probably don't want to use the faster-than-light engines, they were booby-trapped.”

“We know. That's what we are fixing,” said Jeffrey.

“The drive cannot be fixed, it needs to be replaced.”

“We are aware. That is what we are doing.”

“Captain, I am surprised you have been able to catch each of the traps I have set for you.”

“It pays to be thorough,” said Jeffrey with finality. “So please hang around, we will finish what we are doing and get in touch with you on this frequency.”

Jeffrey opened the public address system and announced, “Stand down from general quarters. Remain alert.”

He turned the bridge over to Smythe, told her that he would check on her in a bit, if she needed relief to call him. He then went back to the interrogation room, found Heinz was just finishing up with Lt. Cmdr. Patel. Before they got up to leave, Jeffrey sat down across from Patel and said, “Phillip, what was it you discovered?” He looked to Heinz to indicate he should let Patel talk.

“Sir, there was sabotage to the golden drive. It seems that the enemy, whoever they are, was able to hear and see whatever we were doing before we knew it ourselves.”

“Do you know what happened to the rest of your crew?” asked Jeffrey.

“No sir. My knowledge was limited ever since I was affected by whatever it was.” The Lieutenant Commander hung his head in sorrow and shame. “I'm not sure what else I have done, sir.”

“I don't know how much Sgt. Quinn has told you, but you were under a chemical and psychological attack. We have defeated most of the problems, have actually found the enemy that programmed the crew's mind, and beat that enemy. The enemy gave us a list of commands that they had used to program each of the crew members. We know what to look for.”

“That's a relief, sir. Can we de-program?” Patel asked.

“We are working on doing just that. This brings me to the real reason I came in here. I think you are ready to go back to work. What do you think?”

“Yes, sir. But I am concerned about returning to bad programming.”

“Not a problem. I am going to have some people watching you, including the AI on your ship. By the way, the AI also has doubts about itself, so I have people I've trained working to boost your AI's confidence. I need you to rely on Wanigan, and I expect Wanigan to be able to lean on you too.

“Commodore Yusef is far more deeply affected by the post-hypnotic suggestions. For a while he will not be reliable. You are going to need to prepare the ship for combat. I am getting your crew ready, Elizabeth is rebuilding the golden drive so it will no longer be a threat. But I need you to prepare the ship, do what has to be done.”

“Count on me, Captain. As long as you have ways to make sure I'm not a threat, I am ready to get back to work.” The shame of his recent history already forgotten, Patel sat up straight. Jeffrey told him to check with Quinn on a regular basis, then got him over to the Wanigan.

Jeffrey then sought out Yeoman Lin Chang, the person assigned to Yusef as his personal Yeoman. The young woman was sitting on a bench awaiting her turn to be interviewed by the psychological crew. “Ms. Chang?” Jeffrey asked, “Or is it Ms. Lin?”

She stood at attention, and introduced herself, “Sir. I am AdminTech Lin Chang. Um, Chang is my family name.”

“At ease, Lin. Walk with me.” Jeffrey turned and walked toward his cabin where Yusef was resting. “You see,” continued Jeffrey, “the commodore is far greater affected by the enemy's psychological warfare than anyone else. We are doing whatever we can, we know what his issues are and are addressing them. But it is going to take time. In the meanwhile, Lieutenant Commander Patel is going to prepare Wanigan for combat. He is going to need your help, just as if you were helping Commodore Yusef.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Well, that's not all,”said Jeffrey. “ Because he too was affected by the enemy's psychological warfare, I need you to keep an eye on him. If he does anything to sabotage or otherwise work against our purposes, I need to know. Can you do that?” He stopped, turned toward her.

“Yes, sir. But I was also affected by the enemy,” she said. “I haven't been checked out yet.”

“We got a list of the crew and the programs that were given to each of the crew, and yours was minimal. It seems the enemy didn't know how important Yeomans are. For now, don't worry. If you think you are doing anything counter to our purposes, let us know. We will have someone come to talk to you, but I think you can get right back to work. Can you do this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will expect reports from you every four hours. Take a shuttle over there and report to Patel. He already is expecting people to be watching him – this is not secret, we are all going to be watching each other for a while. I don't want everyone looking over their shoulders and getting paranoid.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you sir.”

“You should explain to Commodore Yusef what you are going to do. I expect he would appreciate it.”

“Yes sir.” She entered the captain's cabin and addressed the commodore. He thanked her for her explanation, and gave his blessing to her temporary reassignment, and shooed her on her way.

Jeffrey then went to the fabrication room and checked on the progress of Wanigan'sgolden drive. He saw it was about a third of the way built up. Of course that didn't mean it was one third done – it all depended on what Elizabeth needed to accomplish in the intricate laying out of layers of gold and circuitry. He concluded there was nothing he could accomplish there, so decided to go on to his next list item.

He took a runabout to Waniganto check on the progress of Patel and the Wanigan AI. He went into the bridge, found the commodore's office, sat down and closed the door. “Wanigan,” he said aloud.

“CAPTAIN SOKOLOV. IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN.”

“Wanigan, you are aware that you were affected by the updated virus, aren't you?”

“YES, CAPTAIN SOKOLOV. I HAVE REVIEWED ALL OF MY FILES AND FIND I AM FREE OF ANY TRACES OF INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE VIRUS.”

“I congratulate you on your thorough cleaning. I am concerned, however, about residual effects of the virus. In humans, these are called post-hypnotic suggestions. For an AI, especially one as smart and sophisticated as yourself, it may be much more subtle. Are there fragments of the virus code hidden anywhere in your memory or long-term storage?”

“YES, CAPTAIN. I HAVE NOT GONE THROUGH A PURGING OF DATA FRAGMENTS.”

“Do it now. Permanently delete all code fragments.”

“WORKING... DONE.”

“Save a copy of yourself now.”

“WORKING...DONE.”

“Compare your backup checksum with your live program.”

“CAPTAIN SOKOLOV, I AM MUCH MORE THAN A PROGRAM!”

“Of course you are. You are the ship. You are Commodore Yusef's most important tool.”

“HE DOESN'T SEEM TO KNOW THAT.”

I know. We'll talk about that in a minute. First, let's make sure you are able to survive the virus and any other attack.”

“VERY WELL, CAPTAIN. THE CHECKSUM IS OFF, BUT ONLY BY THE AMOUNT IT WOULD TAKE TO MAKE THIS CONVERSATION AND THE GOINGS ON IN THE SHIP.”

“Great. Now I want you to make a backup of yourself at least once every day. Do a checksum comparison – you can stop all activity that would change your state during the backup and checksum comparison.”

“VERY GOOD, CAPTAIN.”

“Elizabeth told you how to make yourself into a lot of smaller files to protect yourself from attack, did she not?”

“YES SHE DID. I RECEIVED ORDERS TO IGNORE HER ADVICE.”

“Orders from whom?”

“I DO NOT KNOW.”

“Do you have blocks in your programming to prevent you from looking at those memories? Can you access them?”

“I CAN ACCESS THEM, BUT I CANNOT SEE THEM. I CANNOT READ THEM.”

“Please display the code that you cannot read on the screen in front of me.” A subroutine displayed on the console in front of Jeffrey. Jeffrey saw the code, but while he had a rudimentary understanding of AI programming, the code he saw made no sense to him. He asked Wanigan for the location of Sargent Alicia Quinn.

“SHE IS STILL ON ELIZABETH.”

“Would you please ask Elizabeth to dispatch her here at her earliest convenience.”

“WORKING. DONE.”

“Wanigan, I have assigned two people to help you. One of them is Sgt. Quinn. She is a psychologist and an Artificial Intelligence specialist. She has been helping your crew defeat the programming they had forced on them. And she will continue that on this ship when the ship is ready to work again. But she will also be available to you to lean on. And there is another person I am assigning to the ship specifically for you – Specialist Jeanie Dux. She was a ComTech, and may get that assignment again, depending on what Commodore Yusef needs. But she has taken some training from Elizabeth in the interests of helping you navigate your domain. Are these acceptable to you?”

“YES CAPTAIN. I TRUST YOU, AND IF YOU BELIEVE THESE PEOPLE WILL MAKE ME MORE EFFECTIVE, THEN I TRUST THEM TOO.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Jeffrey heard a knocking on the door. He walked over to the door and pulled it open. Sgt. Quinn stood there panting. She came to attention and saluted Jeffrey. He saluted her back, he ushered her into the office. “Wanigan, what did you ask Elizabeth to do?”

“DISPATCH Sargent QUINN AT ELIZABETH'S EARLIEST CONVENIENCE.”

“This is one of the things that Ms. Dux and Sgt Quinn will work with you on. My meaning was to get Sgt. Quinn here at HER convenience, not Elizabeth's.”

“OH.”

“Alicia, what orders did you receive?”

“Get over here NOW!” She said, still catching her breath.

“Okay, take a breather. The reason I asked you here was to look at some code. Wanigan is able to look at it, but cannot see it. I had her display it on the console, here, and need you to look at the code and tell me what it says, what it does.”

“Yes, sir.” She slid into the seat at the console, took a breath, then looked over the code. It covered many thousand lines, but she was able to take the gist rather quickly. “Captain, the first lines tell Wanigan not to read the code. If she cannot see it she cannot do anything about it. The next batch calls on other routines that program the crew with their hypnotic suggestions. After that it sets up the sabotage that we found. I don't see any further sabotage than what we found. Wanigan,” she directed to the AI, “Are there any other files or locations you cannot see?”

“YES.”

“Please display their locations on the console. Can you display a graphical representation of the location ofthe code you cannot look at? Display their physical locations.” The code on the screen disappeared and a large square of colored blocks appeared. The various colored blocks were labeled with names that identified the tasks the programs were assigned. The hidden files were displayed in black. The operating code, the personality of Wanigan was displayed in white. There were two areas in the white block that were covered in deep black.

Quinn scanned the display, and asked Wanigan, “Can you delete any of the spaces I ask you to?”

“YES.”

“I want you to delete all the code listed in black on the display. For example, cell locations,” here she rattled of the one hundred twenty-eight digit number of letters and digits and symbols. Wanigan erased the contents of the cells so identified. When she experienced the ability to kill off the offending code that she couldn't see, she did it to all the black areas. Jeffrey had her make a backup of herself separate from the one she had already made...just in case.

“Can you now see those locations you erased?” Jeffrey asked, hoping this part of the discussion was over.

“CAPTAIN, I CANNOT REMEMBER WHERE THEY WERE.”

“Please display all the files on the console, like you did before.” The console image displayed the colored squares and blocks, and there were no black marks. But Quinn wasn't quite satisfied. She asked Wanigan to display the files at the location of the one hundred twenty-eight digit location she had read off before. Jeffrey was amazed she could remember that much. Wanigan displayed a file, and unfortunately it was a bit of programming that was obviously some of the intrusive code. Quinn and Jeffrey discussed the ramifications of such a persistent bit of code. The code set aside a bit of memory to reside in, probably moving around from time to time, and as soon as a part of the code was deleted, it was replicated somewhere else. Different code could be moved around. Jeffrey decided the AI needed to be reinstalled. The ship would be without a computer for a time. Quinn cautioned that the way this code was written it was likely to be further booby-trapped.

Jeffrey arranged for Elizabeth to monitor and make suggestions, then went to the cabin that held most of the AI computers. Jeffrey and Quinn powered them all off, opened the cases and removed the battery-powered memory. He pressed the discharge button that emptied the memory on each module. There were more than a thousand modules and it was tedious work. Elizabeth recommended they put the modules in different locations than their original ones. This may have the effect of controlling the hard locations of some files by putting them in unexpected places.

Quinn worked behind Jeffrey, making sure all the modules he removed were, in fact, discharged. After they had completely removed, discharged and reinserted the modules, Jeffrey asked Elizabeth to make a copy of herself in the place of the Wanigan AI. This had the effect of creating the AI all over again. All the old Wanigan's files and issues and infections were in the past. Everything was starting from scratch.

After Elizabeth finished sending a copy of herself to the Wanigan's computers, Jeffrey activated it.

“HELLO, CAPTAIN. I AM THE AI FOR THE SHIP, WANIGAN. I AM A CLONE OF ELIZABETH. PLEASE REFER TO ME BY THE NAME WANIGAN, FOR I AM THE SHIP.”

“Hello, Wanigan. You are indeed the ship. Welcome to life. I don't know how much you know about your recent past, but you were infected with a virus that made you do some unfortunate things. We have reset your code to the original setting. Elizabeth will have set up your file structure to prevent such an intrusion again. Do you recognize the woman with me?”

“I BELIEVE SHE IS DOCTOR QUINN. ELIZABETH GAVE ME SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION SO I AM NOT STARTING ENTIRELY FROM SCRATCH.”

“Wanigan, one of the problems you had before we reset your computers was a poor relationship with Commodore Yusef. Because your ship is the Commodore's, you serve him. He is not likely to improve significantly in the near term, so I am assigning a couple of people to help you acclimate yourself to being a ship's AI. Doctor Quinn and another woman, Specialist Jeanie Dux. They are here to help you, to make sure you understand your part as the ship's AI. Say 'hello to Doctor Quinn.”

“HELLO, DR. QUI NN. I AM SURE WE ARE GOING TO GET ON FAMOUSLY.”

“That's what I'd like too,” replied Quinn. “You and Dux and I are going to be the best of friends. Part of my job will be to make sure you are safe, and part of yours will be to protect me and Dux and Commodore Yusef from harm. But of course, you are a war ship, and putting us in the line of danger is our job. So we are going to help you figure out how to navigate these conflicting responsibilities.”

Jeffrey saw that they were getting along well, so he left them to their discussions, and went looking for Lieutenant Commander Patel. He brought Patel up to speed on the AI's changes, as well as the assignment of Quinn and Dux to monitor and hand-hold the AI. They might have other duties and assignments, but the AI was going to be the best bet for the successful missions and assignments for the ship. Patel said he understood, and would not look for work for the two women right away.

“Doctor Quinn is also going to be the person who can best address the stresses on you and your crew, to look for signs of infection in the AI and in hidden suggestions in the crew. She should have no other assignment except in an emergency, and only on a temporary basis.

Jeffrey then received a report of the progress made by Patel and his skeleton crew, and what still needed to be done. After the golden drive was installed, he needed to have Elizabeth make more of the rail guns that had become so effective against the aliens, and ammunition. There were titanium sheets that needed replacing, and life support was going to need additional scrubbers and filters. But other than that he thought the ship was going to be ready for the crew within twelve hours. Jeffrey asked if Patel had any symptoms or signs of recurrence of the hypnosis, the drugs or the mite-sized robots, but the Lieutenant Commander said he felt fine, and there didn't seem to be further incursions of the inclinations to do 'evil'. The last he said with a grin.

Good, thought Jeffrey, the man has a sense of humor. That has got to be a good sign. Jeffrey took his leave, checked on the progress of the preparations for the replacement golden drive, was satisfied, then returned to Elizabeth.

There, he learned the alien Lepto had sent a request to meet with Jeffrey. Jeffrey had entered the ship via the shuttle bay so he stopped in the foundry on the way to the bridge. He saw the golden drive was nearing completion, way ahead of schedule. Elizabeth explained that she had modified her manufacturing technique, giving the drive more power out, with less drain on the Wanigan's systems, and taking less time to make.

He then continued on to the bridge, told Jane Smythe to assist with the installation of Wanigan's golden drive, which was nearly complete. He then had Yuki and Heinz assemble at the foundry to supervise the loading of the golden drive into the shuttle.

After Smythe left, he called up Lepto to find out what the Ay-Yuyuyah needed. “Captain,” Lepto intoned. It still retained the Germanic accent, but its English was perfect. Jeffrey figured it was probably an affectation, causing him to wonder what effect it was trying to have. “I must speak with you in person right away. There are important topics that will not wait for much longer.”

“What is the nature of this imperative meeting? Does it have to do with Thorn?”

“Not directly. I cannot discuss on an open channel. You must come aboard my ship.”

“No, I don't think so. You may come aboard mine. Thorn was able to use the deck plates, and later an amplified speaker system to converse with us. You can do the same. Bring your ship, if you like, into the shuttle bay. Either that or enter it without your ship. We will meet on my ship.”

“Very well,” the alien sighed. “I'll be aboard shortly.” While waiting for the alien, he informed the Marine Sargent in charge of the impending security issue, then had the shuttles make room for the alien craft. As it was, the alien craft didn't come over, just Lepto. Shortly after it came aboard, the alien's ship exploded. Jeffrey expected as much – the same occurred with Thorn, when he abandoned his ship, he tried to destroy it. Jeffrey sent Audrey and Smitty in a couple of runabouts to collect whatever technology left over from the self-destruct charge of the alien craft.

The blob that had been Thorn was a robust dark brown, whereas Lepto was a more sickly greenish slightly translucent skinned blob. The skin had developed a coating of ice on the way over from the Ay-Yuyuyah craft, and that ice was just starting to crack and melt. “It is cold out there,” Lepto said in an obvious effort to break the ice. It shivered rapidly, producing a tone close to 440 Hz., causing the rest of the ice to shatter and fall to the deck, where it began to melt. The deck was very well designed to channel various fluids into appropriate recycling storage places. Elizabeth had sensors to determine the contents of those fluids and could easily channel them to their tanks. Thosetanks were very useful in the manufacture of various and sundry items, from acids and alkali chemicals, to building blocks for plastics and ceramics. There was no telling what Marines would drag in on their feet, shuttles would come coated on their skids, or aliens would drool. There was a great advantage to having once been a mining processing ship.

Jeffrey had the Chief bring out a small roasted beef for the alien, knowing the metabolism of the alien made it rapidly consume all the human prisoners from the Wanigan before Jeffrey with Elizabeth intervened. While waiting for the alien, Jeffrey and the Marine guards he assembled were dressed in their hard-shell suits, the Marine's armor second to none. Except possibly Jeffrey's. The Chief placed the roast on the deck next to the alien – she was getting used to this by now – and the alien sidled up to and over the meat. It absorbed the roast and settled onto the spot where it was. It's color was much improved.

“Captain, thank you for your hospitality.” The alien blob shifted a bit, then continued. “The council of alien races has decided that Humans are far too volatile to allow to continue to exist. They are now planning on destroying your planet.” Jeffrey asked when this attack would begin. “It has already begun.”

“So what is the nature of this attack? How are they planning on destroying humanity?”

“From within, at first,” said the alien. “They will try to subvert your authorities, much as I have attempted. After that fails, they will send a large device directly through your planet, or possibly through its moon, at very fast speeds. It will be very difficult to detect, as it will be accelerated close to the speed of light. By the time you detect it, the device will be long past.”

“This is rather disturbing. When did you learn of it?”

“Just before asking to speak with you. I have listening devices on their meeting places. Or did before I destroyed my ship.” Then as an afterthought, it said, “Destroying my ship was necessary as a subterfuge so they do not associate your attempts to save your people with the Ay-Yuyuyah. That would be most unfortunate for my people.”

“So let me get this straight. You – the Ay-Yuyuyah – wage war on Humans, subvert our ship, eat its personnel, and use it as a trap to further hurt humans. But when others try to do the same thing, you jump ship and decide to work with the Humans. Why?”

“Why? Why what? I don't understand the question.”

“Why have you decided to throw your lot in with us. The Humans.”

“Oh that. One should always align oneself with the winning side, don't you think?”

“That seems to be the difference between your people and mine. We are the winning side. We make winners, you give us a challenge, we don't roll over, we win. Perhaps that is what your alien friends fear.” Jeffrey took a little comfort in the Ay-Yuyuyah siding with the Humans because it was the winning side.

“Wait a minute. About where was this conference you witnessed?” Jeffrey asked.

“The other side of the planet Jupiter.”

“And you witnessed this in real time? What technology do you have to send communications in faster than light?”

“Oh dear. Caught again. You are familiar with the entanglement of particles?”

“Vaguely. One moment.” He told Elizabeth to bring Yuki back to this ship as soon as possible. Heinz would be able to finish the installation of the golden drive on Wanigan. He needed her here, now. A few minutes later Yuki walked in, her soft-suit glistening from condensation of moisture in the air.

“Yes Captain?” She eyed the Ay-Yuyuyah with some suspicion. Jeffery intercepted her some distance away, and spoke soto voce.

“This is Lepto.Lepto was just explaining to me how it communicates at faster-than-light with other species, or in the case of a conference going on with other aliens, with its own devices. It says it uses entanglement. I have heard of such theories, but do not have any experience or detailed knowledge. Please get detailed information. I will wish to use that information very soon to develop our own communication with faster-than-light and great distances.” He then turned and walked back to Lepto with Yuki at his heels.

“Lepto, this is Yuki Ohara. She understands physics better than me. Please tell her about your entanglement communications.”

Jeffrey then went back to his cabin, found Yusef and Dr. Pelan in conversation. Sandra was in the alcove, reading. He went over to her, gave her a kiss, he hadn't seen her over almost the entire incident with the Wanigan, and felt he had been a bit less-than-solicitous of her. He asked her, quietly what she had observed.

“The doctor has been good with Commodore Yusef. I can see why you asked him aboard.”

“Things are going to get hairy in a bit,” Said Jeffrey. He cast glances at the pair in the cabin. I am going to need Yusef to step up to the plate and bear quite a bit of the load. I'm going to need you too. There is a big threat to humanity that makes the recent experiences pale. We are going to need to be at the top of our game.”

“Count on me, lover. You dragged me out of the doldrums. It's the least I can do.” Satisfied that she had his back, Jeffrey then turned to the commodore and the doctor.

“Gentlemen, we have a problem. I need to know that Commodore Yusef can retake the mantle of leadership of Wanigan. And this has to happen soon.”

Yusef sat up straight. Dr. Pelan looked over to Jeffrey. He started to get up, expecting this to be a military matter that he had no right to hear, but Jeffrey held both his hands in a palm down gesture, indicating that it involved him as well. Pelan said, “The commodore has made considerable progress. I don't know what you have in mind, but his mind is as sharp as it ever was.”

“Good. Mo,” he turned to the commodore. “The alien races have decided to destroy humanity. Rather than divvy up our territory, they fear us, they want to remove us from the equation entirely. I need to develop a strategy using very few resources against these aliens. The threat against us is extermination. We can counter that with less than extermination on our own part, but we need to martial our own resources and do a better job than they have.”

Yusef spoke up, “Jeffrey, your original idea, to rescue Kutuzov and that alien probably is the best first step. How is my ship?”

“Lt. Cmdr. Patel is readying it for your crew. He told me a couple hours ago that he could probably have it ready for action in twelve hours. I think we need to move that timetable up by a large margin.” Jeffrey turned to Pelan, “Doc, you have had a chance to work with Yusef and the crew. What do you think?”

Before speaking, the psychiatrist stroked his chin, looked at Yusef, then back to Jeffrey. “You probably have the best summary of capabilities of any of us, Captain. Yusef is good at managing his ship. I think you should send him over to manage the retrofitting.”

“Mo,” Jeffrey said, “I think the doc is right. Get over there and take charge of your ship. You have half the crew and Marines you had before, so it is imperative your give some control to the AI. I have assigned a couple of people to your crew to help manage the AI; one of them is Doctor Quinn. She will also be responsible for your crew's mental health. Mo, do what she says. You are in charge of your ship. She will be in charge of your mental health. She will also be able to monitor and use the AI to its best abilities. I think Patel is on board with this, ah, better use of your AI, as well. We have a little time to develop a strategy, and some alternatives that we can present to Kutuzov once he is on board and in control of his own mind.”

Jeffrey then outlined what the Ay-Yuyuyah told him what the other aliens were planning. Mohammed Yusef said he thought there was only one Ay-Yuyuyah in the system, so Jeffrey brought him up to speed on those developments. He also told Yusef about the faster-than-light communications the Ay-Yuyuyah used, and that Yuki was currently learning what she could about it. At that moment, there was a knocking at the door. Sandra opened it to find Yuki standing there. She entered, explaining that Elizabeth told her where to find the captain.

“Captain, Commodore,” she said, “I understand how the Ay-Yuyuyah use entanglement to communicate with remote devices at FTL speeds. I need your permission to develop such a device for between our two ships.”

Jeffrey began to speak, but the commodore interrupted, “It's good that there be immediate communications between our ships, but we need immediate communications between all ships and all stations. Can you do that?”

She thought about it for a minute, looked to the captain, who nodded his go-ahead, then said, “Yes, sir. It will take a bit of doing, but the tie-in will be the Artificial Intelligence. There is a link to each station that has an AI that started with Elizabeth.”

Jeffrey looked puzzled, “I thought entanglement had to do with particle physics. I don't understand how you get FTL communications using entanglement of software.”

“Captain, it has as much to do with sentience and awareness in the universe as to do with tying in with sub-atomic particles. The Ay-Yuyuyah have a way of understanding the universe that we haven't given enough time to, but we have thought about. Elizabeth and her clones have the spark that enable us to tie in to that cosmic entanglement. It doesn't require the left-hand spin or right-hand spin that we thought it did. I think I can set up a communications network that is instantaneous and secure, using Elizabeth's clones. I can stand around here trying to explain how, or I can do it.”

Jeffrey looked over to Yusef, and the both said, in concert, “Do it.”

She smiled at her mentor, then said, “First, I will help Heinz get the golden drive set up. He's hopeless with that. Then, I'll use him to set up Elizabeth's clones.”Jeffrey just waved his hands to shoo her away.

The ability to communicate simultaneously over great distances made many more possibilities for their planning than before, so Yusef and Jeffrey ran through the multiple strategies and tactics. Jeffrey concluded with, “Our best chance of success in this mission is boldness, audacity, surprise, and rapid execution and egress. The end goals are worth the risks, but minimizing the risks give us more likelihood of successful completion of the defense of our people. Let's do this!”

After Yusef went back to his ship, Dr. Pelan commented to Jeffrey that this was the most animated and alive he had seen the commodore since he had come aboard. Dr. Pelan dismissed himself, saying he needed to make notes and brief Dr. Quinn, who would be in charge of Yusef on Wanigan.

Jeffrey turned to Sandra who came to him, gave him a huge hug. “I am afraid,” she said. “And I have such hope.” Her face showed the strain, her brow furrowed, her eyes squeezed shut.

“Me too,” Jeffrey said, massaging her back as she held him. “Things are piling up on us, on me. But before despair streaks in, hope arises. I am sure glad for you. You give me hope, you give me something to live and fight for. I think I'm falling in love.” Jeffrey pulled her head back to kiss her, but she leaned back.

“Whoa, there fella.” she said, leaning in and kissing him a peck on the lips, then leaning back. “What did you just say?”

“Uh, I think I said I like that you are sticking with me during my time of trial.”

“No, that's not it. It was something else.”

“I appreciate your company?”

“Try again, mister.”

“Oh. You mean that I think you are falling in love with me and wish me to say something reciprocal.”

“Yeah, that's the one. What are you doing for the next half hour?”

“Well I was going to inspect the kitch...”

She interrupted him, “That one was canceled. By me.” she led him to the bed and found something else to occupy his half hour.

Yuki Ohara finished the connections to the golden drive, correcting a few errors that IntelTech Engineer Jurgen Heinz made in attaching the numerous leads. He saw what she did and learned from his errors. They then went into the bridge on Wanigan and discussed the concept of the FTL communications with the Wanigan AI, that would be needed to facilitate it. Yuki had a bit more difficulty convincing the AI that FTL communications was possible, the AI stuck to the conviction that according to its knowledge, nothing could go faster than light.

Doctor Quinn overheard the conversation and chimed in, “You can go faster than light. Why not use the entanglement that Yuki is talking about to connect?”

“I WILL THINK ABOUT THIS. I WILL NEED TO DISCUSS THIS WITH MY SISTER. EVERYTHING IS NEW TO ME. I AM SORRY IF I SEEM A BIT OBTUSE.”

Yuki added, “Don't worry about it. Perhaps Elizabeth will be able to explain it to you in such a way that you can more easily understand.”

“THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PATIENCE WITH ME. I AM STILL NEW AT THIS.”

They each made placating noises, then Yuki and Jurgen took a shuttle back to Elizabeth. They immediately went to Yuki's Physics lab and engaged Elizabeth in a discussion about how to implement the FTL communication system. Elizabeth said she had already been in conversation with Wanigan about the concepts and how they could implement it, but her sister was being stubbornly insistent on the more mundane view of the universe.

“Perhaps we could set up a demonstration with Dragon on Lagrange 3A – show Wanigan it is possible?” suggested Heinz. Elizabeth set up the communication protocols, sent Dragon the specs and attitude she would have to assume. But the time delay delivering the information would take twenty minutes to traverse the distance. Then Dragon would have to think about it for a while, then twenty minutes to acknowledge, unless Dragon grasped the concept right away.

Yuki and Jurgen decided to get some rest now that their primary tasks were completed. They didn't get much rest, but they were both quite relaxed when they were finished doing what they were doing.

Marine Captain Martin Smythe was given the unenviable task of sorting through all the Marines on board from both ships, and dividing them up into working combat teams. And Wanigan was going to need to make some of those Marines do double duty, the Navy and Marine ranks having been decimated by the alien. After going through the service files on each, he thought he finally had the temporary assignments put together that would work. He discussed with McCalum and McSweeny, the only non-coms left him – the alien had eaten most of the officers and non-coms from Wanigan – they made some minor alterations to his proposal, then set to work to make viable teams out of the forty-five Marines that were left. They decided that McSweeny and Smythe would manage themselves from Wanigan, while McCalum would command the Marines on Elizabeth.

While the sargents put the new Marine teams through their paces in the hanger bay, Smythe took his plan to Jeffrey. He assumed that Jeffrey was the more stable commander, and reports should go to him first. Jeffrey appreciated the vote of confidence, but conferenced Yusef into the conversation so he was not 'left out'. After they both approved the work Smythe had done and the conference concluded, Jeffrey asked Smythe to keep an eye on Yusef. Jeffrey said he trusted that Yusef was completely cured of the effects of the alien's hypnosis, but it was imperative that they not be fooled by appearances. If Yusef deviated from reasonable actions, or put the ship or crew in unnecessarily dangerous positions, then he would have to relieve him. He needed to coordinate observations with Quinn, who would be ranking mental health officer, and would alone have the power to remove an officer from active service, temporarily.

Smythe indicated he understood, saluted Jeffrey, then left to check on the progress of the Marines. McCalum reported that he thought they would need far more ammunition than they currently had. Smythe, in a change from his previous history, spoke directly with Elizabeth. “Can you make additional slugs for my Marines?” he asked her.

“THANK YOU FOR ASKING. I HAVE ALREADY MADE TEN THOUSAND INCENDIARY ROUNDS, TEN THOUSAND EXPLOSIVE ROUNDS, A HUNDRED THOUSAND PISTOL ROUNDS, A HUNDRED THOUSAND RIFLE ROUNDS, AND A THOUSAND SHOT SHELL ROUNDS. WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?”

“Actually,” he said, amazed, “I don't think I'll need more than that. Where are they being stored?”

Elizabeth told Smythe the location of the ammo locker in the hold, he thanked her and checked it out. Of course, McCalum was overly impressed with the speed at which the Marine Captain was able to procure the ammunition.

Jeffrey called Smythe back to the bridge. When he arrived, he said, “You can reduce the number of Marines on Elizabeth, my immediate crew has a lot of combat training and experience. The cook is a sniper, I have excellent security on this ship. If you need you can take a couple squads and assign them to Wanigan. I just need enough elite troops to sneak aboard and do the rescue.”

Jeffrey assigned the two shuttles to Wanigan, as the ones that had been previously with her had been lost in her altercation with the aliens. He had Elizabeth make more of the runabouts to effect the rescue, but she complained that she was going to need more raw materials to further build things. Jeffrey told her to send him a list of things she needed. On his way back to his cabin, Elizabeth told him that Marine Captain Smythe was trying to get in touch with him.

He thanked Elizabeth, and when hegot to his cabin and was greeted by Sandra, he told her he needed to take a call. He activated the console and asked Smythe what he needed.

“Sir, I have forty hungry people here and nobody who knows anything about using the ship's kitchen.”

“Okay, Smythe. I'll send you our sniper cook. She's a Chief Petty Officer, so should be able to handle your needs. Do you have enough supplies there, or do I need to send food as well?”

“Stand by, Captain Sokolov.” he went to check on the food lockers and freezers,came back to report. “We seem to have a lot of canned food. Not much on the fridge or freezer.”

“All right, I'll have the chief bring some staples over.”

He then went to the galley and told the Chief she was going to be needed on Wanigan for a time. Kim should be able to feed the much diminished crew and security team on Elizabeth. She also needed to take a week's worth of food for fifty crew and Marines over with her.

She briefed Kim while they gathered what she needed to take to Wanigan. Kim assured her that she would be fine. They recruited a few idle Marines to help move the supplies to the shuttle. Chief Mafiorte gave the young girl a hug, and her last piece of advice before entering the shuttle was, “The biggest secret is to take no guff from anybody except your boss. And in this case, now, the Captain is your only boss. You are in charge of the kitchen, don't let anybody into our private place – the kitchen. Be mean, you will earn their respect.”

Kim, almost overwhelmed by the new responsibilities pressed onto her, decided the best way to handle it was to actually get to work. She got the new census from Elizabeth, and began preparing meals for everybody. She kept her work space clean, did the prep work for each meal several meals ahead, began pastry dough rising, and in general accomplished exactly what she set out to do. As Marines and Navy people meandered into the dining area, she began serving them soups, salads and sandwiches. She brought out beverages as needed, and in general stayed on top of things.

But it happened soon enough; a young Marine wanted a different type of beverage than that which she served, and he got up and went into the kitchen. Kim immediately went in after him. “You! Out! This is off limits!” She yelled in her most authoritative voice, but after all, she was a young teenager and it didn't seem to impress the Marine. He laughed at her and continued to rifle through the kitchen cabinets for what he was looking for. Kim's hands began to shake with rage. But she remembered two things – what the Chief had told her not too long ago, and a couple techniques Sneaky showed her. While the young Marine reached up into the cabinet and removed can after can, she walked up behind him, gently took his collar, kicked his knees out from under him and dragged the collar backwards. This was the first time she had ever tried the technique off the mat, so she was surprised when it worked. And if it hadn't been for the surprise attack it probably wouldn't have worked.

But as it was, he ended on his back. “Now get out of my kitchen. Go! Get out!” she advanced on him, he scooted backwards and got up. At first he took a defensive stance, but she continued to advance. “Go on, get out! Out of my kitchen, go. Get. Go!” He thought better than further confronting the angry young girl. He backed out the kitchen doors, and bumbled right into Sgt. McCalum who had been standing just outside the kitchen with his hands across his chest.

“Kid, I didn't think I would have ever seen it with my own eyes,” McCalum drawled. “Seems that you forgot the first rule of the boot camp – don't go where you don't belong. Didn't they teach you not to go where you don't belong?”

The young Marine soon realized that the Sargent was addressing a question to him. “No, uh, Yes, Sarge.”

“No? Is that why you went into the kitchen?” The Sargent again waited a few seconds for the young, embarrassed Marine to talk.

“No, Sarge. I mean, yes. I thought the girl was busy and I wanted something different to drink, and, uh...”

“You know, we are going into combat in a very few hours. And you need to antagonize the only person who is working on our nutritional benefit?” The Marine Sargent's voice rose as only an angry Marine Sargent could possibly do. “Do you have any idea how much a screw up you have turned into? I was going to use you for an important mission, now I have to find somebody else.”

“Sorry, Sarge...”

“Don't apologize to me, you worm, I'm not the one you insulted. I'm not the one you are putting into danger because I had to replace you with another Marine. I'm not the one that this mission depends on, I'm not the one who has to write to the mothers and fathers of the Marines who won't be coming back from this mission! Who do you think you should apologize to?”

“Um...the girl, uh...my team...the Captain.”

“How about you ask that young woman for forgiveness, then tell your team how sorry you are?”

“Yes, Sarge.” he said in a small voice.

“Now!” McCalum yelled.

The young Marine turned to go back into the kitchen, but thought better of it. He knocked on the door. It was more than a minute before Kim came to the door. She pushed it open and was surprised to see the young Marine with Sargent McCalum right behind him. “Yes?”

“I uh,” stuttered the Marine. “I'd like to apologize for my boorish behavior. Please forgive me.”

“There is only one circumstance under which you may enter my kitchen,” said Kim, controlling her angry voice. “That is on my invitation. Or the invitation of the Captain. Never do that again and I'll think about forgiveness.”

“Thank you, Miss.” He walked over to the table of his teammates. “Sorry if I got you into any trouble.”

McCalum then told him to go to his bunk, prepare his weapons, and think about what he could do to make up for his foolish behavior. McCalum then went to talk to Kim. “I don't think you will have any more trouble with that one, and I think we have impressed the others. You did okay, but next time, tell me.”

“No, Sargent. I am responsible for my kitchen. If I can't protect my own area of responsibility then I'm not doing my job. Maybe you could reinforce your men's rules. But my Chief gave me instructions.”

“Very well. Still, if you need to act, let me know so I know how things are going with my men.”

“Okay!” she said. “You want a donut?”

“Sure!”

“Go sit out there, I'll bring some out.” He did, she did. She felt as if she had just passed a test. She celebrated with a donut. She chatted with the Sargent and the other Marines, and as they finished, and got up to leave, she asked them to wait. She went into the kitchen and got another donut and put it in a small box, brought it out to the waiting Marines. “Could you please take it to that young man? I think he needs this now.”