Chapter 9

With a bulbous nose and rosy cheeks, the former pirate SurLeon, now Earth Liberator SurLeon, prepared the heavy asteroids in his mining ship, Mistral. It wasn't really his, or at least didn't used to be his, and in a little while, it wouldn't be his again, but for now, it was his. Or that was his plan. He had orders and plotted the target. A rock for Beijing, a rock for New Delhi, a rock for Seoul. Other former pirates, now Earth Liberators, had other targets. All of them were particularly good at mathematics and physics. They could plot to a meter the best way to roll a rock down the gravity well for the greatest damage.

But he was, for the most part, patient. The Chong Sul family cowered in the small galley, more like a kitchenette, bathroom, and privacy partition for Chong Sul's fourteen year old daughter, Chong Kim. His wife, Chong Lee had done what she could with the small ship, but there was hardly room for food and air tanks let alone privacy that a fourteen year old Korean girl really required, but they did what they could. The family of Chong Sul planned to send the young lady to the boarding school and college on Selene City, but that was still six months away.

SurLeon redid his calculations. If the timing was right, he had to be over the Manhattan skyline when he released the first of his rocks, the others to follow in strict timing order. Manhattan came around every four hours, so that gave SurLeon a little time to rest, to stretch his legs, to entertain himself. That fourteen year old girl and the Mama-San were looking somewhat tasty.

It became evident in the evil man's eyes what he had in mind for Chong Sul and his family. Mr. Chong's mind began plotting furiously – what to do, how to do it, the evil man didn't leave him many options. But he would watch and discover advantages where there didn't appear to be any. He looked at his wife of twenty years, wordlessly understanding that she knew what the score was too.

SurLeon took the disruptor pistol out of its holster and pointed it at the Korean man. “You are going to see a demonstration of manhood that will surprise even yourself!” said the French-accented pirate turned Earth Liberator. “I have impressive credentials.” He waved the disruptor to indicate he wanted Chong Sul to lay face-down on the deck. He secured the man's hands behind his back with the plastic ties he carried on his utility belt. He looked around the crowded kitchenette, found a large roll of commercial plastic food and cargo wrap and proceeded to wrap the Korean man in it. “This, my friend will hold you in place, like an Egyptian mummy, no?”

Knowing what was coming, and in order to forestall the evil man's designs on her daughter, the forty-year old Korean woman, loving and loyal wife, unzipped her station jumpsuit. Her skin became taught with chill as she shrugged out of the jumpsuit, letting it drop to the floor, leaving her in her underwear. Her daughter grasped the meaning of her mama's actions and whimpered, but a sharp look told her to be quiet.

She picked up the jumpsuit, folded it carefully and placed it on the chair. Then she pulled the elastic and silk brassier over her head, releasing her small, round breasts. She looked to SurLeon's crotch, and saw that she was having the desired effect on the man. He put the disruptor back in its holster, dropped the utility belt and opened his own jumpsuit. Mama – Chong Lee began moving rhythmically, like a dancer in a strip tease. Her daughter just looked on in disbelief. She looked down at her father, who smiled a quick smile, then let his face become blank again.

The Chong Sul family kept the gravity down to .6 g, which was adequate to retain bone mass, but took far less energy. The temperature was kept a bit cool in the cabin too, again to conserve energy, but this was not a problem for the family. However it did have an effect on mama's skin which goose pimpled in an enticing way. And that was having even more effect on the evil man. He dropped his jumpsuit on the floor and kicked it over to where the woman's husband lay, landing on his head.

He stood in his underwear, decided he couldn't wait and dropped his shorts.

Mama knew what she was up to. The naked man walked over to her, touched her intimately. It hurt mama, but she didn't react. He then put her onto her chair, on the folded coverall. She reluctantly obeyed his demands.

The big man began to rape the mother. It hurt, but she let him. He had difficulty commencing his activity, but he was persistent. Mama was still aware of the shame and family-destroying activity, and she was sure that she was going to have to explain to her virginal daughter what she did and why. She hoped her husband would forgive her what she did to save his life.

As the big man started a rhythmic movement, mama devised her own strategy. Exhaust this manas best she could. Keep him busy. Keep him entertained. Keep him distracted. She moved in such a way as to build up his pleasure and wish to continue it for a very long time.

While his wife was distracting the evil man, Chong Sul, his face covered by the man's coverall, discovered a folding knife clipped to the pocket. He took it in his mouth, gently removing it from the pocket. His wife noticed the movement, and cried out “Oh, oh, oh, more, more.”The big man thought he was doing a good job, enjoying the sex, and making this woman want more of him. His ego liked being stroked like that.

He touched her in ways only her husband had in twenty years of marriage. Her body responded despite her mind's determination not to, but it was only a body.

Eventually he felt he was going to ejaculate, and he became more frantic in his movements. He was so close, so close. Almost there. Then in a wild frenzy of movements, he came. Mama, looking exhausted fell to the floor next to her husband. She stole a glance at the girl, nodded secretly, and bent to assist her husband.

The fourteen year old saw that her father was still not ready, so taking thecue from her mother, opened her jumpsuit to reveal a t-shirt and panties. She pulled the t-shirt up, which showed the man her taught little breasts. Mama looked exhausted and fell to the floor. The big man didn't notice or care. He had a little girl to fuck.

She reached up, touched his face,and said in her Korean-accented English. “I am a virgin. Please don't hurt me.”

His organhad begun to become flaccid but, now was fully erect again. Wet with semen and mother's vaginal juices, She touched it in fascination. It was huge.

Father and mother together opened the knife, mother took it, and walked up to the man. She kissed him on the ear while her daughter had bent down to do something unthinkable only moments before.

The man was as distracted as he was going to get. Mama, sliced the knife across his throat, severing both carotid arteries and his wind pipe. Too late, the evil man, SurLeon, realized that he had got his early wish to die having sex with two women. But it was the women that killed him, not the sex.

The woman and the girl ensured that the man was dead, then the woman went over to her husband and cut away the plastic wrap and ties. “You are a brave woman. You risked shame for our family's sake. I honor you,” he said, hugged her, and continued. “Now, let us clean up this mess and dump this garbage outside.”

He called his daughter over. “Kim, you have behaved badly, and for this I thank you. A lesson must be learned from this incident.” He stood up, hugged his daughter. “We must do whatever we can to keep the family alive and going.” He paused and indicated the blood still spilling onto the deck. “Help your mother clean up this mess. I will eject this evil...thing...from our ship.”

“Oh father,” said Kim. “I did not want to do these things to that man, but I needed to give you and Mom time to take care of it. Will you forgive me?”

“Daughter, you did what had to be done. There is no shame. Our family has survived because of you and your mother. But if you wish me to say it, I forgive you. Now clean up this mess. Then you and your mother need to clean yourselves up. Use vinegar.”

The girl looked up at her father with question marks all over her face. “Your mother will explain.”

“CAPTAIN,” Elizabeth reported. “THERE IS SOMETHING UNUSUAL WITH MY FIRST TARGET. IT APPEARS A BODY IS FLOATING JUST OUTSIDE THEIR AIRLOCK. THERE ARE TWO SHPS, ONE LARGER THAN THE OTHER. THE LARGER ONE IS ONE WE RECOGNIZE AS A SUSPECTED PIRATE.”

“Really,” said Jeffrey. “Interesting. Can you just target the known pirate ship?”

“COMPUTING..... YES. IT IS TETHERED TO THE SMALLER SHIP, THE TETHER MAY CAUSE SOME DAMAGE TO THE SMALLER ONE, BUT IN LIGHT OF THE REST OF THE MISSION, AN ACCEPTABLE RISK.”

“Ok do it.”

“FIRST TARGET IN TWENTY SECONDS.”

The Elizabethflashed by the Chong's ship Mistral much faster than their systems could announce. The first notice they had of anything out of ordinary, if such a day could have been called ordinary, was the tugging on their little ship by the much larger one. Chong Sul looked out the small viewing port, and saw the pirate ship had multiple holes in it, it was venting plasma and gas, and was tugging the smaller ship on a taught line.

In short order, he climbed into the turret that controlled the manipulator arm and severed the cable with the cutter tool. “What was that?” Chong Lee asked her husband.

“That evil man, was just joined by his ship. Something blew holes into into it – look, you can see the ship in the viewer.” His wife went to the control console and saw the collision warning light, but the radar only showed a distant image blue-shifted, and just about to leave the radar's range.

“I don't understand this,” she said. “There is only one ship and it is a thousand kilometers away – it's no longer on our scope.”

“Really?” He pondered for a moment. “Was it blue-shifted?”

“Yes, but according to the chart, the color shift would indicate it was going much faster than is possible.”

At that moment, another huge explosion occurred, it appeared to be in the same orbit as the Mistral but much farther away, almost ninety degrees of arc from the Earth. Then another at another ninety degrees. The recently traumatized family was treated to a total of six explosions in orbits around the Earth. Chong Kim, the fourteen-year-old daughter had the bright idea to switch their radio back on – the pirate had shut their equipment down.

“THIS IS THE NAVY RESERVE SHIP ELIZABETH. ALL PIRATE VESSELS THREATENING EARTH WITH BOMBARDMENT FROM SPACE HAVE BEEN DESTROYED. ANY OTHER VESSELS THAT ISSUE THREATS WILL BE DEALT WITH SEVERLY, AND THEN FATALLY”

The message repeated several times before Chong Kim turned the volume down. “Father,” she said. “May I change my name to Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth shot toward where the Moon would be, speed boosted by her swing around the Earth. She spied a ship in geosynchronous orbit above Selene City, and soon identified it as one of the pirates on her list. Because the moon's gravity is roughly one-sixth that of the earth, in order for rocks to get a significant enough velocity to do enough permanent damage, the rocks had to start from much farther away than was ideal. So the pirate in chief did what he had to do. His ship started from sixty kilometers up, and he released the four rocks as soon as he heard Elizabeth's broadcast. He figured he could get away from the moon, build enough speed to get lost in the debris and space junk cloud that surrounded the Earth orbit outside the orbit of the moon, a matter of only a couple million kilometers, long before any Navy vessel could look for him.

But Elizabeth had other ideas. Now shooting along at thirty percent the speed of light, she would be at her target in a matter of minutes, not days, as would have been expected. Her optics were excellent, acquired with the purpose of visually locating asteroids which were usually far distant. Jeffrey had tied a digital connector to the optical lens, thus giving him greater utility out of his purchase. But because he made such a purchase, Elizabeth was able to discern details around the target.

She saw the rocks drifting toward the surface of the moon, picking up enough velocity that would ensure the rocks would cause a crater deep enough to bury the memory of Selene City. She modified her course slightly, but timed the release of her weapons with amazing precision.

Elizabeth explained to Jeffrey what she was doing – targeting first the ship, then going for the four rocks heading for Selene City. She would attempt to blast the rocks into smaller pieces to spread out the damage. She also hoped her calculations were adequate to deflect the rocks from their intended target.

Jeffrey gave his blessing – after the fact, of course. The pirate ship didn't know what hit it. It vaporized in a puff of steel and rock and plastic. Twenty milliseconds later the four rocks became four hundred, and they began to spread out in a cone of destruction. Elizabeth calculations were pretty close to spot on – she only missed a few small rocks in the middle of the cone, and these were going to land on the city center of Selene City.

The little rocks indeed crashed through the city shield, which promptly began self-healing. They continued on to crash into the quarry around which the city had been built. Water had filled the quarry, and the rocks smashed into the water, vaporizing and throwing the vapor and liquid high into the sky. Which was the dome. The small hole was already being serviced by micro robots, but the water escaping into the cold of space and quickly froze, and in freezing built a layer of protection that the engineers who designed Selene City hadn't counted on.

But that was the extent of the damage by the pirate's rock throwing exercise.

Wanigan made rendezvous with Elizabeth at the trailing Earth-Moon Lagrange point, on which there was an orbital Navy base. There had been some damage to the base, and there were no combat ships stationed there, so the crew on the base felt almost useless in the most recent altercation.

Elizabeth had arrived at the base first, but declined to dock until after Wanigan had also arrived. When she showed up, Captain Yusef docked immediately. As his ship was being reprovisioned, he asked Jeffrey to dock Elizabeth, so they brought the smaller ship onto the base.

Jeffrey accompanied Captain Yusef to the Admiral's office. He noticed the large contingent of well-armed and well-armored Marines in all the corridors. Several outside the admiral's office. As soon as they arrived in the ante-room, the yeoman asked them to go on in. Admiral Kutuzov stood, accepted Captain Yusef's salute, and bade them to sit in the comfortable seats.

Admiral Kutuzov started the conversation by tossing a small package to Captain Yusef. Yusef opened it and saw Commodore's insignia. In his gruff voice, he said, “Well, as long as we've got a fleet out here, I suppose we could use someone to do the forward thinking. Congratulations, Commodore Yusef.”

To Jeffrey, he said, “I don't have much for you except gratitude. You handled everything well.”

“Thanks,”Said Jeffrey. “I don't know how much you know about what we've been doing...”

“You mean with the faster than normal engines?” Kutuzov interrupted.

“Yes, sir.”

“It was my idea to give you one. And now look, you broke it!”

Commodore Yusef interrupted, “Sir, if I may?” The Admiral nodded, as did Jeffrey. “We never gave Captain Sokolov one of the engines, only the specs. His AI, Elizabeth, built it out of recently mined gold and other minerals. She, along with our high speed specialist, Yuki Ohara, a Comm Tech from Wanigan, made a much improved engine. At one percent power, it pushed the Elizabeth to point eight light, instantly, with no build-up time.”

He then related the incidents from the Asteroid Belt that rendered his ship and crew unable to perform, but his ship's AI, a clone of Elizabeth, ran off for help from the only one who could provide it. He gave Jeffrey credit for saving his crew and ship., and uncovering what may very well be a secret alien invasion. Which, of course must tie in, somehow to the activities of the pirates.

Kutuzov charged the two men with the safety of the outer reaches of the solar system, that all the other ships in the fleet were now Yusef's to command. To Jeffrey, he asked that he continue being the 'force for good' out there..

Jeffrey smiled, shook Kutuzov's hand, and left to supervise the off-loading of precious minerals that he had left aboard. After a short while, Commodore Yusef came to Jeffrey, accompanied by a squad of sailors and marines. The Marines took up guard positions at the ship, the sailors brought palette jacks full of crates and crates of...Jeffrey couldn't tell what.

Yusef told him there were some gifts of appreciation from the Navy. As well as some new tools. He should look them over before breaking from the station, but not to activate them within a million kilometers from any inhabited place. Yusef's Marines and Navy personnel that were lent to Jeffrey to complete his mission, were returned to Yusef. Yuki Ohara stayed on with the Elizabeth.

Jeffrey and Janet looked through the crates that the Navy men had placed into their forward hold. They discovered large quantities of Argentina beef, Spanish pork, German sausage, Russian fish, Chinese and Japanese and Korean and Vietnamese and Turkish and New Orleans, and Minnesota and Kansas and Montana meats and poultry and seafood. These were all flash frozen.Andthere were cases of eggs. There were also fresh vegetables from places that spanned the globe, artichokes and avocados, carrots and cauliflowers, green beans, mushrooms, and the huge variety of tomatoes and potatoes, squash and pumpkin. There was a wide variety of fresh fruits; citrus,apples, bananas, plantains, kiwi, and all the odd fruits that one would likely find in their full-service grocery store.

There were canned goods that were similar to the fresh ones; meats, vegetables, fruits, juices, and other liquids to be used for cooking. There were packages to make sauces with water or wine or oil. There were canisters of cooking oils, peanut, vegetable, rapeseed, corn, olive. There was pasteurized milk and cream, bottled in long-term storage canisters. There was frozen ice cream and yogurt, butter and other delights. A palette of bread flour, another of all-purpose flour. Another of pastry flour. And sugar in its variety of forms. Coffee, tea, cocoa.

A larger container included a pre-fabricated disassembled walk-in freezer. Another was a similarly pre-fabricated disassembled walk-in refrigerator. Another crate contained a complete military kitchen, including all the counters, tables, ovens, grills, pans, pots, knives, utensils, appliances, dishwasher, and coffee makers and of all things, a samovar.

Jeffrey sat back on his heels, saying “Now how the hell...” but was interrupted by a Navy chief.

“With your permission, sir,” began the middle-aged woman. We would like to assemble and modify your dining facilities.”

“Um,” began Jeffrey, already dumbfounded. “Go ahead. Chief, what's your name?”

“Cinny Mafiorte, sir.” Then she turned and took charge of the techs.

The installation of the kitchen took a little over three hours, but once the refrigerator and freezer were assembled and attached to Elizabeth's electrical supply, putting away the foodstuffs went very quickly. While the kitchen was being reworked, Jeffrey and Janet went through more crates, and discovered more weapons and launchers. Electronic equipment designed to detect mass nearby by measuring the gravitational displacement in space. They then found a collection of small crates that were stacked ten deep. They contained the universal symbol for 'Atomic'. Another series of crates stood against another wall. They contained the symbols for explosives. A smartly dressed petty officer walked over to Jeffrey and Janet, saluted, and introduced himself. “Sirs, I am your new quartermaster. I am Petty Officer Jon Jonson. He indicated his clipboard, and said “All the munitions are accounted for. I need to interface with your computer to make modifications to the crew quarters.”

Jeffrey eyed him with the jaundiced look he had been working on. “Let me see your orders.”

The petty officer handed Jeffrey the clipboard, which modified to show the orders signed by Admiral Kutuzov. “There are four more Navy personnel and ten more Marines, sir.”

“Very well,” he said. Then to the air, said, “Elizabeth, this is Petty Officer Jonson. Give him whatever aid he needs.” Then to Jonson, “Just use her name, and wait for her to acknowledge you.”

“Thank you sir,” and the petty officer saluted and did an about face. He walked away muttering, but Jeffrey could hear Elizabeth talking in low tones to the man.

“Well, so much for our happy little boat,” said Janet to her captain. A group of marines marched onto the ship, and the Sargent in charge walked up to Jeffrey.

“Sargent Alicia Quinn reporting, sirs,” she said, saluting. Jeffrey returned her salute, sloppily. “My team is onboard and at your service.”

“Very good, Quinn. Lieutenant Bianca will direct you to your quarters.”

“And sir,” said Quinn, “this is for you from Admiral Kutuzov.” She handed Jeffrey a packet that had a seal and a fingerprint lock. Jeffrey accepted the package. He signed her data pad in receipt of the package. Then Janet led Quinn to the hold which was being converted to quarters for the additional staff.

Jeffrey went to his cabin, sat down at the table and opened the sealed package. It contained a tablet computer that came to life. Admiral Kutuzov's image displayed. The image then spoke -

“Captain Sokolov, an emergency exists. Your analysis of the virus, tied in with other evidence, shows that the Earth, and the human race, is now at risk of attack from alien forces. They are insidious, and thus far the only evidence of their existence is circumstantial. Your ship is being enhanced to detect mass that may not be quite visible.

“We continue to do research on the faster-than-light, or FTL environment and physic. As we learn new things, we will supply you with tools based on that science and engineering. Some of the equipment included in your 'gifts' include some of those tools. I have also included technicians that understand the equipment and other tools. The Marines will pull double duty – along with being riflemen, these Marines are also communications specialists, medics, Naval weapons technicians, and intelligence analysts. Sargent Quinn is also a licensed psychologist and also an AI specialist. Use her.

“You are ordered to patrol the Asteroid Belt with special interest in the area you used to mine. That is where we are finding too many anomalies. Your safe house idea for Lagrange 3A was very smart. I approve similar safe houses for Lagrange 3B and Lagrange 3C. As well you know, getting permission is usually secondary to getting forgiveness. In this case, use your credits with some restraint, but do what you have to do.

“You will receive your orders usually from Commodore Yusef. If there are other specific issues, if Yusef is unavailable, if there are emergencies, you will receive orders from me. Attached is a file containing verification codes. If the orders do not match these codes, suspect them.

“For the most part, you are our ranger, do what you think is best for the safety and security of our system and humanity. Your intelligence and communications techs will regularly report their products to us. You are authorized to halt any such reports or create your own schedule. They have been so informed.

“Captain, we have taken you from your customary living style to one fraught with danger and peril. We hope that our compensation is adequate for your needs and desires. You are unique in our little space, and we want you to feel that you have our backs.

“Now, it has been brought to my attention that there have been instances of your modifying the Navy regulations regarding enlisted fraternizing with officers. I have reviewed the facts, and have ordered a review of the regulation itself. Consider your ship a trial. Quinn will be watching and report back to me on this issue. Good luck with it – I understand your reasoning and agree with it, but messing with a thousand years of tradition does have consequences.

“Captain Sokolov, you are our first line of defense. Keep us safe! Admiral Kutuzov End of Message.”

“Elizabeth, did you catch that message from Admiral Kutuzov?”

“YES CAPTAIN. IT APPEARS WE HAVE MORE PROBLEMS THAN WE KNEW ABOUT!”

For the next sixteen hours, the crew and Elizabeth's robots installed new equipment, various antenna arrays, new weapons systems, new sensors, and new computer arrays. Elizabeth was delighted with the additional room for her to grow in. Several of the computers, however, were separate from the network to prevent them from infection.

As they were about to leave the station, Jeffrey called the entire ship's complement to the hanger bay, which now had been outfitted with two shuttles, now permanently assigned to Elizabeth. Two uniformed squads of Marines, five uniformed Navy techs, Petty Officer Jonson, and the original crew. Plus a cook, the Navy chief who had assembled the kitchen.

Jeffrey began, “Up to a few months ago, I was a somewhat successful asteroid miner, my ship, the Elizabeth, has always had the highest levels of equipment I could afford. The reward for my foresight was to get myself drafted.

“I hold a rank of Commander in the Navy, and my ship has been designated an official Navy patrol vessel. However I have been given a lot of latitude in how I conduct my official duties. This is our mission – protect the innocent, prosecute the guilty. Piracy is rampant, it seems, in the areas we are going to patrol. And coordinated, like an old organized crime, or the first salvo of a coup against our government.

“And that brings me to the hard part of our assignment – it appears that Humanity is not alone. We are to detect, analyze and after reporting our findings, engage whatever alien forces we encounter. It would be nice if the non-human intelligence in our backyard is friendly, but it appears that there are some trying to manipulate humans and human machines to undermine Earth.”

Jeffrey paused, shifted his stance, and continued, “We are going to patrol the Asteroid belt and find these anomalies. And study them. And understand them. And if necessary dominate them.

“I don't know how much you have been told about this ship, but there are two things you need to know. This vessel has an AI on board that is as alive as you and me. Her name is the same as the ship – Elizabeth. Very few of us have full access or control of the AI. All of you will have some control. Any attempts to exceed your authorized control will be dealt with severely. The other thing is, this ship is at this time the fastest thing larger than a photon in this solar system. It is possible that we can exceed the speed of light. This is classified. If you brag about us in a bar, we will know it. You will be severely dealt with. If you are tortured, or if your prostitute wheedles information from you, you had better be certain that the information you give is about your Mom or Dad, or your liking apple pie.”

“Is this understood?”

The hanger rang out with “Sir, yes sir.”

“One more issue,” Jeffrey continued. “The Navy has a long tradition of enlisted personnel not fraternizing with officers. And good business practice generally prohibits supervisors from fraternizing with their subordinates. These restrictions are being lifted on this ship. But before you get all nervous or excited, this freedom comes with a strict warning. If your work is affected by the stress of canoodling with your supervisor, or your friend, or your underling, that canoodling will stop. There will be no gross public displays of affection. You will do your canoodling in private, and secret, even if your buddies know about it.

Sargents and petty officers will be responsible for your behavior – well actually you are responsible for your behavior. But your non-coms will be responsible to me. And Elizabeth is the worst snitch of all – she knows what is going on on this ship at all times. Do not think you are getting away with being sneaky. Are there any questions?”

One Marine raised her hand. “Sir,” she said when she was acknowledged. “What if we aren't...interested in the...fraternizing thing?”

“Good question. Just like in civilian life, that is your choice. If you are being harassed report it to your non-com. If it is the non-com doing the harassment, report to the Lieutenant. She is already engaged, so I don't think she will harass you, but in all cases, let Elizabeth know your concern. I too, will find out. Folks, this is an experiment. We will all be on our best behavior, because this ship and its crew will be under a microscope. Any more questions?”

When no one else raised their hands, Jeffrey said to Janet, “Lieutenant, dismiss the crew.”

“Dismissed!” cried out Janet. “Y'know,” she said to Jeffrey. “You can do that too!”

“Yeah, but it's so much more impressive if you can induce someone else to do it!”

“Right.”

As Jeffrey took his leave of the Naval Station, he began plotting his next course of action. He would head out to the asteroids again, hunt for some more heavy metals for the use of his own ship. He told Elizabeth to plot a course toward their old stomping grounds, the places they knew were large deposits of the heavy metals that they had used so well.

They took a leisurely pace – one tenth light. This gave Torres enough time to orient the Marines to the ship and run anti-boarding drills. The signals and intelligence crew members were having a field day mapping the gravitational anomalies between the Earth station and their current location. They watched the flow of the solar wind, like water flowing, causing ripples in the lee of obstacles. They plotted the location of each anomaly, its direction of movement if any, its size and mass.

Jeffrey took the time to look at their discoveries. One screen showed the section of space they were in as a sheet, and when shown a planet, the gravity well of the planet showed as a steep dip in the sheet. Scaling away from the planet, however, Jeffrey could see the sheet as a mostly flat plane. But there were mini gravity wells, and when Jeffrey scaled in, could see that some of them were relatively deep. Figures accompanied the display of each anomalous gravity well, including magnetic properties, mass, projected size and any electric leaking of the anomaly.

So far, the team reported they had located four of the suspicious gravitational wells along their path. Jeffrey assumed these were ships. Each of the gravity wells were consistent with the size of a large ship.

He began wondering what mechanism they used to become invisible. It was not perfect invisibility, for Jeffrey's new team had spotted them, but it would be a useful technique to have. He told the communications tech not to send any word to Kutuzov until they were clear of those anomalies.

Yuki took an interest in their work as well, spending time with the intelligence techs, offering ideas and analytical observations and suggestions. Elizabeth also took part in the discussions. She pointed out that the bow wave effect was another useful tool to use to locate mass anomalies in 'empty' space. When traveling on the wave, surfing as it appeared, they were able to watch how particles reacted to mass and magnetic anomalies – the compression and decompression of these waves were calculable, anything different gave the team new information. Yuki helped the techs set up the sensor array to passively observe the effects. Then they got the idea that if they could detect these anomalies passively, there had to be a way to generate a pulse, like radar, that would be able to define the outlines.

She spoke to Jeffrey about her and her team's (smart folks hanging with each other?) ideas. He agreed they could begin designing, but not to implement it yet. If the hidden ships, if that was what they were, were unaware that their locations were known, they would not likely become a threat.

After a few more hours after the last sighting the CommTech sent off a highly compressed, highly encoded message to Kutuzov and to Yusef, informing them of their discoveries and their current plan to just plot their locations and other details, not to let on they knew.

Kutuzov sent a return message that seemed odd to Jeffrey. The message had been authenticated, and came from the right place, but read;

On a bookshelf in your cabin has been placed a book. You will not recognize it. Page 55, paragraph 2, sentence 2.

Jeffrey went into his cabin, looked at the bookshelf, and sure enough there was a book on the shelf that he hadn't put there, nor recognized. He opened to the indicated page, found the second paragraph, which was a relief because he wasn't sure how to count partial paragraphs, read the second sentence.

The second sentence read;

Go back to the beginning of the book and read the first ten lines of page 1.

Jeffrey went back to page one and read,

* This is a code book. It and one other were printed and bound. No other copy exists.

* The use of this book is to verify communications between us and to initiate secret communications when it is suspected or known that security is compromised.

* As you saw, the recipient can be directed using a pre-planned sentence.

* Or a list of words that begins on page 120 can be used to tailor your message.

* You can spell out the words, being careful to misspell them, to confuse cracking systems.

* You can use foreign language words, misspelled. Like the French 'toot sweet.'

* You can use computer ASCII character numbers.

* Do not use images in this code, as it will likely point to the subject of discussion and invalidate the codebook.

* You may share this book with your AI. She is pretty crafty.

* Good Luck and God Speed. Kutuzov out.

Jeffrey assumed that the course he had set was approved by Kutuzov because it hadn't been belayed in the message. He put the book back on the shelf, destroyed the message flimsy and called Janet to his cabin.

She arrived a minute later.

“Yes sir?”

“Sit down,” said Jeffrey. When they were both seated at the table, Jeffrey explained the situation with the anomalies, his encrypted report to Kutuzov, and the reply that Kutuzov sent. He then showed her the book and the instructions on page one. After reading the ten lines, she put the book down.

“Makes sense,” she said. “But only for communications that we don't want breached. We need to continue sending regular reports on other activities, otherwise the opposition will know that we know something.”

“Okay,” said Jeffrey. “I knew there was a reason for keeping you around.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“All right, that's all.”

Jeffrey decided to pick up the pace. He went back to the bridge, Janet was at the Captain's chair, and she started to get up, but he moved her back down. “I want to boost to ten percent light.”

“Wow, sir. Okay. But before we do, shall we alert the crew? Shall we take measurements?”

“Jeffrey said, “Of course. Take care of setting up the scientific stuff. Then let me know you are ready. We will alert the crew just before we activate.”

“Aye, sir.” She then picked up the headset, entered the intercom unit for Intelligence.

“I-3, IntelTech Heinz.”

She said, “This is the bridge. We are going to boost to ten percent light. Set up whatever scientific metrics you need and inform us as soon as you are ready.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Elizabeth,” she said.

“YES JANET?”

“You likely heard that we are going to ten percent light. Is there anything else we need or should do before we commence?”

“NO. I THINK EVERYTHING IS STRAIGHTFORWARD. INCREASE THE RANGE OF SENSORS, RADAR, AND OTHER MONITORING DEVICES, BUT YUKI AND HER FRIENDS ARE ALREADY ON THAT.”

“Thanks, Elizabeth.”

“YOU ARE WELCOME.”

The I-3 team reported they were ready. Yuki said she was ready. Janet called Jeffrey, who came to the bridge. He said, “Elizabeth, announce shipwide that we are going to ten percent light.”

“AYE, CAPTAIN.” then over all the loudspeakers on the ship, “ATTENTION! THE SHIP IS GOING TO TEN PERCENT OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT IN LESS THAN A MINUTE.”

Jeffrey looked at Janet, she looked at him, and he said, “Hit it.”

The ship gracefully leaped to the determined speed, and ran like a ballet dancer – turned sprinter. The intelligence geeks in I-3 were having a rich harvest of useful data that they could compare to previous data captures. Jeffrey noticed that the stars in front of them seemed to blur. He said to Janet, “Kick it up another notch. Take it to twenty percent.”

“Aye, sir. Elizabeth?”

“AYE, JANET.” then on shipwide,“ALL HANDS. WE ARE NOW INCREASING TO TWENTY PERCENT LIGHT.”

Again, the ship leaped like a ballet dancer, gracefully extending herself to the task. After a moment, the I-3 IntelTech Heinz called the bridge. “Captain, can you please come to I-3? Now? Sir?”

At I-3, he entered. Yuki and Heinz were at one console, the other techs were monitoring other devices. “Over here, sir,” said Yuki. Heinz pointed out the display which showed a small silhouette of the ship, with bow wave in a cone-shaped expanding waveform. A similar wave formed at the stern, and superimposed was the golden wave they were surfing. Yuki explained, “Sir, these are the images reconstituted from the data at our original speed. And here,” Heinz opened up a larger window, “is us jumping to ten percent. The bow wave became more pointed, the stern wave too. But behind the ship was a third and fourth wave. “Heinz, take it back to when we jumped from one percent to ten percent.” He did, and Jeffrey again saw the waves in the wake. Then the ship leaped forward, and the aft two waveforms went away for a few seconds, then caught up with the ship.

“Now, sir, watch as we go to twenty percent.” The same thing happened, the aft wave forms were left behind, only to catch up rapidly. “When we saw that, we focused our magnetic and mass detection gear at the spot behind us, and this is what we found,” she indicated to Heinz, who switched to the sheet map of their local space. The map showed Elizabeth at the bottom of a gravity cone, and a similar, but slightly larger cone following them.

Jeffrey turned to the CommTech and said, “I want you to gather all the raw data and send a report to Admiral Kutuzov. Use standard encryption. Explain that we tested ten percent light and twenty percent light, and these are the data. No further comments.”

“Aye sir.”

In the Ay-Yuyuyah ship following Elizabeth the leader Thelin updated the data from the probes that had been attached to the human's ship's aft. This was not a perfect probe and likely would need to be replaced soon. You grow them, train them and expect them to perform according to their genetic instructions, but life near this harsh sun has been causing all manner of genetic disruptions. The skin of the ship was also reporting failures. Frustration was not a trait of the Ay-Yuyuyah, but if it were, Thelin would have it in spades.

As the human ship drove out toward their asteroid belt, they passed six hidden ships, two ofthem Ay-Yuyuyah, the rest were Vorsh, despicable, violent, vile and unpleasant creatures, the whole race was trouble. It seemed the humans were unaware of the hidden ships, which was good; if the Vorsh suspected they had been detected, they would use their standard swarming practice of overwhelming the target and utterly destroy it.

But the humans were seemingly oblivious. The way they always are. The Ay-Yuyuyah had watched the humans for ten thousand years, only in the last few decades were they sufficiently developed to be considered a threat. Their learning was recent, it was almost as if one of the other races were providing a boost up the evolutionary ladder. But now, they had ships that could transcend the normal speed limit. For a few hundred years it had been considered the absolute speed limit, thanks to peoples like the Ay-Yuyuyah, but these monkeys were thoughtful and clever, and as oblivious as they were, they also paid attention to things they didn't understand. Until they understood them. Thelin was now half the size he was when he started out on this expedition. Thelin would likely need to acquire food in the next year or go home. But home would mean Thelin's death, lack of food would mean Thelin's death. Thelin needed to observe. That is what Thelin did. All the subordinates on the ship that were left were also thin and losing mass by the day.

Thelin considered the language issue, when Thelin first started surveying the humans, they had a huge patchwork of languages, then the little general forced French to most of the European area, India began to speak English under the stern eyes of the British. Spanish began to obliterate all the beautiful languages of the Inca, the Nazca, the Arapaho, the Apache. Russian never caught on, Chinesewas spoken mostly in China. When the technological people started in the Americas, English became the universal language, spoken by ship and aircraft captains, controllers and tax men.

It had become easier to understand these humans now that they all spoke the same language. Thelin had watched many wars, the behavior of men towards each other was almost as bad as the Vorsh. Almost.

But the humans in the ship ahead of Thelin were different. They destroyed evil ships targeting the Earth with very gross and deadly intent, but left a victim of one of the ships survive. They have mercy. This is a concept that Thelin was still trying to get his mind around. The Ay-Yuyuyah had no such concept. If one of their own needed saving, then they would save themselves. The Ay-Yuyuyah served the Ay-Yuyuyah, but at times, humans helped other humans, not to serve the race, but to serve the individual. It made Thelin's mind hurt.

Thelin picked up radio traffic from the ship ahead of him. It was a trivially encoded message in a marginally short burst, that told Thelin that they had actually seen the evidence of ships where Thelin had seen them. A return message from a human called Kutuzov was more bothersome. It was, as usual, trivially encoded, but it referred to a book, with page numbers and paragraph numbers and it made no sense. This also hurt Thelin's mind. Usually Thelin was able to decode and understand all codes. Thelin was like the London bus passenger who was an enthusiast for crossword puzzles, usually got it in a few minutes. During the second world war, when the Axis powers began broadcasting instructions to the submarines, Thelin understood their orders before they did. Thelin's mind hurt. A lot.

Then the humans did the unexpected – they shot up from one percent the speed of light to ten percent. Thelin immediately jumped to match their speed again. Then after a half hour, they jumped again, this time to twenty percent. Again, Thelin jumped as soon as Thelin's aching neurons, or the Ay-Yuyuyah equivalent, would allow. So what were these humans up to? Did they discover Thelin's ship?Thelin's mind was aching in ways it hadn't before. Then a lightly encoded message was broadcast from the human ship. It said that their speed experiment was concluded and included data. Some of the data bothered Thelin, but nothing to be done about that now. It was possible that none of the humans would notice the gaps between Thelin's wake and the lack of wake for a short time. Maybe. Ow. Mind hurts.

Elizabeth reached the home claim in record time. Digger and Sneaky took some Marines with them in the runabouts and located some rocks with molybdenum, titanium, gold, silver, mercury and many other minerals. Elizabeth's small robots began roving the outside of the ship, looking for damage. What they found was beyond interesting. It appeared to be a biologic – a not-quite hard shell, but impervious to the cold and hot and lack of pressure. Other remotes found others, but while they were recording, the others disappeared. The one the first remotes found, however was not able to. Another remote brought a stainless steel container to capture the biologic. It started to wiggle, but couldn't disappear. The remotes brought it in the hanger. Navy personnel and Marines in hard suits watched it warily as Elizabeth's robots manipulated it. On the aft, other remotes investigated the locations where the biologics were last seen, but could not see any evidence of their continued existence. But Elizabeth had an idea. She ordered the robots to shoot the locations where the biologics had been. The lasers failed to burn the outer plating, but one by one, the biologics appeared, burned to a crisp.

The biologic in the hanger lay still. One of the remotes aimed its laser at the biologic, and it made a plaintive noise.

Thelin, maintaining distance behind the human ship, was able to observe the humans imperfectly, the biologic was failing. The humans in the runabouts delivered their cargo to the aft hold and parked into the hanger, where they found hard-shell suited Marines and Navy people. They surrounded a blob in a box on the floor of the hanger.

Sneaky walked up to the box, saw the biologic, and reached into her outer pocket, withdrew an energy bar, broke off a piece and tossed it into the box. The biologic expanded slightly, onto the piece of energy bar, and began to dissolve it. The biologic began to look better immediately.

Thelin, whose mind was disintegrating with pain, observed the biologic and the humans in their space suits. The image was poor, the communication was poor. The biologic had similar pain to Thelin's. Then an oddthing happened, one of the suited humans gave food to the biologic. Then the image cleared up. The Humans were now much clearer, the communication was much clearer. The biologic's mind stopped hurting.

Now, Thelin saw a group of Vorsh sneaking up on the human ship. Thelin backed off slightly so as not to get caught in the massacre. The biologic was stuffed in the metal box with a lid, so Thelin didn't see the Marines and Navy personnel scatter.

Elizabeth armed all the weapons at once, announced general quarters, and told Jeffrey what she saw.

“SIX ANOMALIES DESCENDING ON OUR POSITION FROM MULTIPLE DIRECTIONS. THEY ARE NOW ALL WITHIN RANGE OF OUR FIREPOWER. READY TO COMMENCE AGGRESSIVE ACTION ON YOUR ORDERS.”

“Commence aggressive action.” Jeffrey said.

Elizabeth jinked, fired off rockets, lasers, mines, her rail gun, and the plasma burn of her ion drive. She jumped from one locale to another to another. Massive explosions occurred in three of the targets, one of the ships became visible, and its weapons seemed to be charging up. Elizabeth dropped a nuclear bomb on it. It was vaporized.The last of the anomalies began to retreat, but Elizabeth pursued it. The two rail guns poured heavy ammunition into the location of the anomaly. Finally it became visible, the weapons charging down.

Janet barked over the intercom broadcast, “A Squad, prepare to board. Shuttle two, cover shuttle one. B Squad, backup in shuttle two.” The two shuttles took off, shuttle one heading directly to the enemy ship. The ship was similar in shape to an old nautical submarine – two hundred meters long, fifty meters in diameter. The skin of the ship was similar to the biologic's skin. The A squad found what appeared to be a door, pried it open with a crowbar, and filed in, weapons at the ready.

Jeffrey orderedYuki and Heinz to go over and collect whatever intel or technology they could. It took a minute to shimmy into their hard suits, then went to the runabout, and Yuki drove them over. They entered the ship with pistols drawn. They found what appeared to be a radio room, and took equipment from the room. The first squad had herded the aliens, which appeared to be a cross between a spider and a gorilla, a carapace with two arms and two legs. They had a helmet over their heads, which gave them both oxygen and communications.

There were ten of the aliens. The marines had secured their arms behind their backs with strong nylon ties. The aliens were quiet and compliant. The Marines had them all sit, and secured their legs with wider ties. They would be able to walk, but hobbled.

The shuttle came to an aft hatch, to the location where the prisoners were. They were herded to the back of the shuttle, where they were secured to the benches. All ten of the aliens were placed onto one shuttle, guarded by alert Marines. Yuki analyzed the atmosphere within the alien ship, and determined it was essentially the same as Earth normal, with slightly lower pressure. Thus assured, the pilot took the shuttle to Elizabeth and landed in the bay. They took the prisoners to the vacant hold. Torres took charge of the prisoners and secured them to rings on the floor.

The second shuttle with its squad of Marines then entered the alien ship. They took what appeared to be food to the shuttle, as well as the equipment that Yuki and Heinz had salvagd. Yuki and Heinz then went to what appeared to be the weapons system and figured out what they had found was just a plasma weapon. They continued to look for other systems, including the system that rendered the ship invisible.They continued to search, and found a locked hatch. They called Marines to assist. A large Marine took a crowbar to the hatch and forced it open. Inside was an alien who was surprised at the intrusion. The alien had no helmet, but held what appeared to be a weapon. The Marines yelled at it to drop the weapon, their voices augmented by the suit amplifiers. They pointed their rifles at the weapon and pointed to the ground. The alien didn't respond. Yuki had an idea. She walked up to the alien, took hold of the device, and removed it. This resulted in the Marines stopping their shouting. They took the alien into custody.

Yuki looked over the room, opened drawers and cabinets, didn't see anything to indicate the nature of the room or the hidden prisoner, so they continued their search. They soon found another locked room, called the Marines back, and they crowbarred the other room. Inside was another alien, again, without helmet. The room held no more clues than before. Then Yuki realized that the ship was not spinning, but they had gravity. They took a closer look at the floor plates and saw that the plates contained an artificial gravity generator. Yuki had the Marines take the prisoner to the shuttle. She and Heinz pulled several of the plates and took them to the shuttle a well.

They then went back and continued their search.

One more room with a locked door. But this time, when the Marines forced the door, they were shot at from within the cabin. They saw the heat of the blasts searing into the steal of the wall, so whatever kind of weapon they had it could do considerable damage. The Marines put their rifles on their backs and drew the pistols that Jeffrey had insisted all Marines and Navy personnel carry.

The alien fired once more, they had noticed a pattern to the shooting. It seemed that after every three shots the gun had to charge up. So they timed their attack after three shots. Sure enough the third shot left the gun unable to blast for a few seconds. After the alien fired the third shot, the Marines rushed in, one fired at the alien's foot, which caused a good deal of blood and meat disjointed from the alien, and a mournful wailing. It seems the pain was intense.

Yuki called for the medic, who had come with the second shuttle. She came over and dressed the wound, but was reluctant to give any medications not knowing alien physiology. The Marines took the alien to the shuttle on a stretcher.

Yuki and Heinz continued to search the ship, and finally found what they thought was the circuitry for the invisibility module. But it was very hard to determine, other than a process of elimination. They had found a kind of golden engine similar to Elizabeth's. And another. And another. Three of the golden engines. The circuitry that they thought might be related to the invisibility feature was connected to one of the three engines. These engines were much smaller than Elizabeth's, so Yuki and Heinz thought they could bring them aboard Elizabeth for study

They had some Marines take them away after they had disassembled them. They continued their circuit of the ship collecting interesting things here and there, mostly ignoring any room with the door open. With the exception of one whose door was open but the lights were turned off. Yuki turned her face plate to display a light enhancement and infrared. She then saw an alien in the corner holding a larger weapon than any of the others had. She called for more Marines. But just before they came, the alien fired its large bore energy weapon. The alien fired directly at Yuki's chest. Nothing happened, much to her surprise. Then she fired four shots from her pistol into the hand of the alien, the weapon and two shots into the wall. “Medic!” she called out. The alien let out a mournful, pained whine as it held its mangled hand out.

The Marines bundled into the room, secured the alien, treated the wound and the medic and another Marine took the alien back to the shuttle. They decided that the two smart people should have a Marine escort for the rest of their searches.

So they continued on their tour of the big alien boat.

Thelin was not feeling well. Thelin's mind was giving up. Thelin was going to die now. Thelin had eaten the last of Thelin's crew member, and none of Thelin's biologic agents were left alive except the one in the steel box. That one had eaten and was feeling fine. Thelin's ship was also suffering. If the humans were able to defeat five Vorsh ships and make a sixth come out of hiding, what chance did Thelin have against it. And yet, and yet.

“Mercy” the word clearly articulated from the steel box in the hanger. Elizabeth was paying attention, and she called her captain. “Sneaky, check it out,” called Jeffery.

Audrey “Sneaky” Svoboda went back to the steel box in the shuttle bay. She flipped the lid off the steel box. The biologic said again, in a British accent, “Please, have mercy.”

“Who are you,” she asked.

“I am the alien blob in the ship to your rear. I will do you no harm, I need your help.”

“Captain!”

“Yes, we see it. Weapons are trained on it.”

The blob in the box, the biologic, said, “I do say, let up there. I will become visible. Let's not get our knickers in a twist and go shooting the nice alien, eh, wot?”

Thelin then deactivated the circuit for the invisibility feature. Thelin's ship because visible. The ship was the size of a large municipal water tank, about thirty meters in length, ten meters in diameter. It was cylindrical with protuberances at various places around the circumference. The blob in the box said, “Please help the alien in the ship that just became visible. He is hungry and needs food.”

Audrey asked “Are you speaking for the alien in the ship that just became visible?”

“Indeed, I am”the biologic blob in the box said. “I am a remote tracker and information gatherer. The alien directs me and takes my information. I am speaking with his voice.”

“How do we get you out of the ship,” asked Audrey.

“He will come here.”

The alien ship from which Thelin was in, started breaking apart. Thelin floated to the aft end of Elizabeth and entered the hanger bay. Thelin floated to where the biologic was, in its steel box, and settled down.

Audrey looked at the alien and asked, “What do you eat?”

The alien said, through the biologic, “Meat is good. Vegetation. Minerals. Whatever have you.”

“How do you like your meat cooked?”

“Cooked? Really?”

“Elizabeth, please get the cook.”

“Elizabeth? Who and where is Elizabeth?”

“Never mind. She's getting the cook.”

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A moment later the cook came, entered the bay, and said, “Holy Mother of...What is that?”

“Chief, that is your new guest. It needs food. It wants meat, and seems to think cooking it is too much,”said Audrey.

“How much meat?” asked the chief.

“Quite a dollop, I'm afraid.” said the blob in the box. I have been without for some time.”

The chief went back into her walk-in refrigerator and selected half a side of beef and put it on a wheeled stainless steel cart. She rolled the cart out to the shuttle bay and presented it to Audrey, who took it to the formless alien. “What do you think?”

“It might do for a while. I do so enjoy my meat.”

Audrey placed the half side on the floor of the hanger and the alien rolled over it. By the time it was fully on top of the beef, it had absorbed it in its entirety. “Ah,” said the blob in the box, “Hit the spot.”

“You seem to have picked up English pretty well. What's your name?” asked Audrey.

“I am Thelin. My people are the Ay-yuyuyah. I am in your debt.”

Audrey asked, “What can you tell us about the other aliens who attacked us?”

“Ah, yes. That.” The alien blob seemed to take it's language skills from broadcast television, notably the British Broadcasting Corporation. “It seems you have attracted the ire of the Vorsh, a violent and singularly brutish people.” Thelin never changed expressions but the voice that came out of the steel box containing the biologic was as expressive as any BBC news announcer. “I am surprised at how well you did against them. They usually defeat their prey within seconds.”

“Why did they attack us?”

“Probably because you noticed them hiding.” Jeffrey had entered the shuttle bay and listened to the conversation, but interrupted here. “We noticed you hiding, and see that you didn't attack us.”

“Alas, there are agreements among the races not from around here; we do not attack each other.”

“Sounds almost civilized,” said Jeffrey. “And which of you 'Not From Around Here' people have been messing with our people and technology?”

“Whatever in the world do you mean?” the alien blob asked indignantly.

Jeffrey retorted, “There is a fine line between guest and prisoner. At this moment you are our guest. We have fed you.” He changed his stance, appearing to loom over the alien, “But if we are not going to have more productive conversations you may as well join the other prisoners.”

“Prisoners? What prisoners?”

Audrey answered, “We captured some of the, what did you call them? Vorsh.”

“Oh no! You didn't!” the alien blob in the box cried out. “How could you?” a pause, then more curious, “how did you?” Then it commenced mumbling to itself. “We're all doomed. Oh dear, oh dear.”

Jeffrey turned to Audrey and said, “Get those I-3 people here, now. Also, begin salvage operations on the abandoned ship of our guest.”

“What?” cried out the alien in the box. “You cannot do that, I forbid it.”

Jeffrey looked at the alien with as stern a visage he could muster. “Guest, prisoner. Guest, prisoner.”

Audrey went to comply. After a few minutes, Yuki and Heinz came onto the deck of the shuttle bay. They were dumbfounded to see the alien blob talking through a steel box that contained another alien blob.

Elizabeth chimed in, “CAPTAIN, OUR SYSTEMS ARE BEING SURREPTIOUSLY SCANNED BY SOMETHING ON BOARD, SOMETHING IN THE SHUTTLE BAY.”

Jeffrey again looked at the blob. “Guest? Prisoner?”

Thelin then asked, “Oh, did I do that? How unfortunate of me. I'll stop right now. You do have some sensitive instruments.”

Jeffrey asked, “The surviving Vorsh warship – where is it's captain?”

“Ah, that would be ZhZhZhee, He would be attempting to impregnate as many females on his ship as possible before he expires. You would likely find him on the command deck at the middle of the ship.”

“Elizabeth,” said Jeffrey, “relay that to the Marines. I want him alive.”

“YES SIR.”

“No! You don't want him alive,” the alien blob articulated. “If he stays alive, the entire order of their system falls apart.”

“Thanks for the advice,” said Jeffrey. “I don't know much about society outside of the human family, but this is Human space, and in Human space, you do what Humans want. If he needs to die, or if you need to die, for that matter, that can be accomplished, but not until I am done with you or him.”

“Oh dear, no, no, I don't need to die. I like living.”

The Marines continued rounding up survivors of the alien ship. The shuttle brought the captain of the alien ship, ZhZhZhee, to the hanger, swaddled in a kevlar blanket. He was rolled in on a medical gurney. He could not move any of his limbs, but when he was rolled out of the shuttle, he spied the Ay-Yuyuyah ship's master. He struggled mightily, to no avail, but the Marines continued their alert observation of ZhZhZhee without flinching over his movements.

ZhZhZhee began speaking in his own language, in what Jeffrey assumed was an accusatory manner toward Thelin, but he couldn't understand any of the words. Jeffrey asked Thelin, “Do you understand his language?”

“Why, yes, of course,” said the Ay-Yuyuyah.

“Please translate for me.”

“Certainly. This is Captain ZhZhZhee. He accuses me of collaborating with you so you could defeat his ships. He has called me some rather unsavory words.”

“Tell him for me that you had nothing to do with it, and are also being held.”

“Oh, sir, may I assume you are the captain of this vessel?” asked Thelin through the blob in the box.

“I am Captain Jeffrey Sokolov of the Elizabeth.”

“Captain Sokolov, you may speak with the Vorsh captain yourself, he speaks English.”

“Thanks.” Jeffrey then walked over to the swaddled Vorsh captain. “Captain ZhZhZhee, I am Captain Jeffrey Sokolov. You are my prisoner. Do you understand?”

ZhZhZhee just looked at Jeffrey. His simian-like head expressionless. Jeffrey continued. “I defeated all of your ships in a matter of seconds. I have gathered all your females. Any that you impregnated will be killed. You will fade into oblivion.”

This had an effect on ZhZhZhee's facial expression. It was as if he finally understood his position in the world, and it wasn't good. “No. Do not kill them. Let them live.”

“That depends entirely on you, Captain.” Jeffrey shifted his stance from a more aggressive one to one that approximated parade rest. “I have questions, you have answers. Give me answers, your offspring lives, do not give me answers, your genetic line dies here. But we will continue to keep you alive.”

Jeffrey had calculated that ZhZhZhee would desire more than anything else, to leave a genetic legacy, and if he threatened that, on the one hand, he would gain a fearful compliance, the other hand was the reward of a continued genetic legacy, and perhaps the peaceful death he desired. So far it appeared he was having an effect.

ZhZhZhee said in a deep rumbling voice. “What is it you want to know?”

Jeffrey was quick to answer, registering in his mind that his analysis was correct, “Why did your ships attack me?”

“We did not. You attacked us,” the alien said.

“Your ships took up positions surrounding us and preparing a cross-fire zone. That is an attack.”

“We did not shoot. Therefore we did not attack.”

“Let me see if I understand your position. If you prepare to attack but wait until a time of your own choosing to attack, that just constitutes a peaceful coexistence? And if I determine a threat to my ship has been commenced and defend it preemptively, that is the aggression?”

“Yes,” the gruff voiced alien said in satisfaction. “You have attacked our peaceful gathering.”

“Ah,” said Jeffrey, “what was the purpose of this peaceful gathering that brought you, hidden, to surround my vessel?”

“That is the business of the Vorsh, Human. Nothing you need to know.”

So many ways to go with this interrogation, thought Jeffrey. “Why are the Vorsh in my solar system?”

“The Vorsh are concerned about the Humans developing new technologies. They need to be...contained.”

Jeffrey turned to Thelin, “Is this a consensus among the Aliens in my solar system?”

“Alas, Captain, it is. All of us have a desire to keep fledgling civilizations like yours away from the real galactic civilization. We have been watching and intervening for hundreds of thousands of years, so we don't have to worry about your kind among the rest of the universe as a whole.”

“And this latest attack on Earth by pirates – this was your doing?”

“We only made the suggestions, they carried out the work on their own. We were quite disappointed that you were able to thwart their plans.”

Jeffrey turned back to the Vorsh. “What did you have to do with these attacks?”

“Nothing.”

Yuki then stepped forward. “Captain, if I may?” Jeffrey nodded. “Captain ZhZhZhee, among all the things you left on your ship, what would you most like us to salvage?”

The line of questioning confused the alien, then his mind caught up and he thought about it. “In my cabin is a console that contains personal thoughts. That would be good.”

Yuki responded, “You mean the one that contains the virus that infects all machines and even people's minds? Yeah, we already got that. Anything else?”

How had these humans discovered his virus? Had they defeated it? Wait, weren't they infected once before? How did they survive? Are they more clever than we gave them credit for?

“Females. Bring me females.”

IntelTech Heinz stepped forward, “Captain, let me recommend that we segregate this officer from his men, keep him isolated. We can question him further. I also recommend we isolate the other alien and his blob.”

Thelin said, “Prisoner or guest, prisoner or guest?”

Jeffrey replied, “On this ship they are two sides of the same coin. My guests have limitations, my prisoners more so.”

Thelin replied, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

They separated the hard-carapaced male prisoners from the female prisoners; ten males, twelve females, and their captain. Three separate cabins assigned to jail the Vorsh, and another to jail, or entertain the Ay-Yuyuyah and its blob. Marines had to double up on their quarters, semi-permanent canoodling couples were told to move in together to share space. This gave a release from the pressure of crowding too many Marines in too few cabins.

Yuki and Heinz reported to Jeffrey to brief him on their take, so far, of the alien vessel. The golden drives were the first point of discussion. “Sir,” said Yuki, “their drives are smaller than ours, and we traced connections from one of the drives to a sort of generator. We think the generator powers the antigravity floor plating. We brought the engines over and several of the floor plates for analysis.”

Heinz then said, “We collected their radio equipment, their computer equipment, their sensors and controls. It seems the only offensive weapon of the ships is a plasma generator. The capacitors for this one were fully charged.”

Then Yuki said, “Sir, one of the females shot me in the chest. It had absolutely no effect on my armor or under-suit.”

Heinz nodded, saying, “I was really concerned, but then saw she was okay. Boy was I relieved.” Yuki blushed, glanced out of the corner of her eye at the IntelTech, who also was blushing.

Jeffrey thought to himself, young geeks in love. E-gad. “Heinz,” he said. “I want a private word with Miss Ohara. Please wait outside my cabin.”

After Heinz had left, Jeffrey asked her bluntly, “So have you two been canoodling?”

Yuki looked embarrassed, hung her head, but said, “No.”

“But you want to?”

“I like him, sir. I just, I don't, I...I'm not good at this sort of thing.” She wrung her hands, looked up. “I think he likes me too.”

“Yeah, just what I thought. I'm going to shove you two together. If it takes off, then there you go. If not, well then, there you go.” Then he summoned Heinz back into the cabin.

“Heinz and O'hara, I want you two to share the same cabin. Heinz, move into Ohara's. Any questions?”

“Sir,” said Heinz, “I like Yuki, but we never.....”

“Great. And if nothing comes of it, then there you go. And if something comes of it, there you go. As long as it doesn't affect your work then lets see what happens. And Heinz,”

“Yes sir?”

“I have a particular affection for this young woman. Treat her like the Captain's daughter. And Yuki,”

“Yes sir?”

“Don't even think of taking advantage of my affection for you. I expect a happy relationship, regardless of where it goes.”

“Yes sir.”

“Now get out of here. Move in together and set up a separate laboratory to analyze these alien artifacts.”

Aye, Captain.”

He then called Janet to his cabin. When she arrived he offered her tea. She declined, but sat at his table. “We need to send a report to Kutuzov using the book. I want you to word it.” He let his breath out in a long exhale. “This is going to be a long time alert, so both of us are going to need to be at the top of our game. Have Kutuzov send Wanigan to our location. Then you take a break. Twelve hour shifts until relieved, you and I.

“Have you and Torres been getting along Okay?” He stirred the tea in his cup, there were some undissolved sugar crystals in the bottom. The spoon passing in the liquid generated eddys, but the steamrose straight up, rather than reflecting the turmoil in the cup.

Janet fidgeted in her seat, then said, “We're okay, sir.”

“I see you haven't moved in together. Any reason?”

“No, sir, I thought there should be times of privacy that that kind of arrangement doesn't allow.”

“I understand. In your position you do need that quality time with your self. Do the message then get some sack time.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you sir.”

After Janet left, he said, “Elizabeth? What do you think?”

“CAPTAIN, I THINK JANET IS HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT TORRES. TORRES SEEMS TO BE SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP, BUT NEITHER HAVE TALKED ABOUT IT.”

“Let me know if there are any issues with them that could affect the operation of the ship.”

“YES, SIR.”

Over the next ten days, the technicians spent long hours investigating the alien artifacts taken from the two races' ships. Jeffrey and a team of specialists interrogated the prisoners, from the ten warriors to the twelve females, to the captain of the Vorsh. Jeffrey spent much time with Thelin, discussing the greater galactic community, the races that inhabited it, and the nature of space-time. Through these discussions, Jeffrey learned of the tastes and nutritional needs of his guests and prisoners, and gave instructions to the cook to prepare just the right mix of foods.

One of the things Jeffrey learned was the captain of the Vorsh ship, ZhZhZhee was not considered a competent commander. It wasn't just that he failed to die when he was supposed to, he just didn't understand everything that a commander needed to do. Such as provide adequate food for his crew, volunteering his ship for longer term duty than necessary, all for his own personal aggrandizement.

This intel proved useful in questioning ZhZhZhee, who loudly and continually demanded females. At one session when the demand was getting more and more irritating to Jeffrey, he replied, “We have spoken to all the females. None are willing to come to you on their own.”

“Of course not. That's why you must bring them here to me. I will take care of the rest.”

“Sorry, that's not how it is done in this solar system.” Jeffrey stood up, having concluded that days questioning, and added, “but if any volunteer, I'll be sure to let you know.”

“Volunteer? What is that?” asked the Vorsh.

Ten days later, Elizabeth announced that Wanigan was due to arrive in one hour. During their time sitting among the wreckage of the Vorsh and Ay-Yuyuyah vessels, they had kept a watch on the magnetic, mass and electrical fields in the vicinity. As Waniganhove into range, sensors picked up anomalous readings reminiscent of the readings they had used to detect the Vorsh.

“General Quarters,” Jeffrey said to Elizabeth.

“ALL HANDS, GENERAL QUARTERS.”

All ships personnel that were already on station became more alert. Canoodling couples fell out of bed together and took less time to dress than normal. The pilots of the shuttles took their stations in their pilot seats. The Marines who were not assigned to patrol, assembled in the hanger and squatted at ready.

The Elizabeth turned to face the direction from which Wanigan was arriving. Elizabeth sent a private message to Wanigan to pass on to Yusef, that the Elizabeth was at general quarters and they should follow suit, pass Elizabeth and take position at her aft.

When Wanigan arrived, she drove past Elizabeth and Elizabeth moved into Wanigan's wake. This blocked the six hidden ships that had been following Wanigan.

Jeffrey had Elizabeth broadcast on a wide variety of frequencies the announcement, “THIS IS EARTH WARSHIP ELIZABETH. TO THE SIX UNIDENTIFIED ALIEN VESSELS THAT WERE FOLLOWING EARTH WARSHIP WANIGAN. YOU ARE TARGETED FOR DESTRUCTION. PLEASE SCAN THE DEBRIS FIELDS SURROUNDING THIS LOCATION. YOU WILL SEE THAT WE EASILY DESTROYED SHIPS ATTACKING US. UNLESS YOU COMPLY IN TEN SECONDS WE WILL BEGIN OUR DESTRUCTION. ANY AGGRESSIVE MOVES AGAINST US WILL BE DEEMED AS AN ACT OF WAR AND WE WILL DESTROY YOU.”

“TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN,” At this point, the alien ships became visible. They all looked alike, and like the Vorsh ships that had previously attacked Elizabeth

Thelin said to Jeffrey, “Demand the name of the coward in charge of the fleet who sneaks and ambushes your ships. I would use those words.”

Jeffrey had Elizabeth broadcast those words. In a moment a reply came from one of the ships. It was in the language of the Vorsh.

Thelin told Jeffrey, “They are playing games. They all speak English.”

Jeffrey then had Janet target an antenna array on that ship's bow, and fired a blast with the rail gun. The pieces of antenna flew off into space.

Jeffrey then had Elizabeth broadcast “THE NEXT TIME ANYONE COMMUNICATES WITH US WILL BE IN ENGLISH. IS THERE A DEPUTY COMMANDER OF YOUR GROUP?”

Another ship broadcast a reply, with the image of a Vorsh. “Do not attack us. We will not attack you.”

Jeffrey decided to keep the conversation going via Elizabeth.

“WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS HERE?”

“We are a peaceful people just passing through.”

“THE NEXT TIME YOU LIE TO US WE WILL DESTROY YOU.”

One of the ships began to back off, Wanigan moved to intercept. It stopped its movement.

“IF YOU WISH TO TRADE WITH US, WE WELCOME TRADE. IF YOU WISH TO EXCHANGE IDEAS AND THOUGHTS WE WELCOME THAT. IF DESTRUCTION AND DOMINATION ARE YOUR INTERESTS, YOU MAY AS WELL STAY HOME. WE DO NOT FEAR YOU. IF YOU PERSIST IN THOSE ACTIVITIES WE WILL FOLLOW YOU TO YOUR HOMES AND DESTROY THEM. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

The one who spoke before said, “We understand. Were there any survivors of the battle you had here?”

“YES THERE ARE SURVIVORS ON BOARD THIS SHIP.”

There was a long pause, during which Elizabeth reported there was quite a lot of communications between the alien ships.

“We would like to talk to the survivors of that previous engagement.”

“THAT IS NOT A PROBLEM. SEND A DELEGATION TO THIS SHIP. YOU MAY ENTER THE FORWARD AIRLOCK. THE DELEGATION WILL NOT BE ARMED. THERE WILL BE NO ATTEMPT TO INFECT ANY OF THE SHIPS EQUIPMENT OR PERSONNEL WITH THE VIRUS THAT HAS BEEN INTRODUCED INTO OUR SYSTEMS BEFORE.”

Thelin commented, “Captain, it is likely that the Vorsh will send over their people directly from their ship to this without a shuttle. I would open the airlock for them.”

Jeffrey had the Marines at the forward airlock open the outer airlock door. Sure enough, the Vorsh delegation jumped from the Vorsh ship that had resumed communications. The first ship that initiated communications had sent out their own technicians to repair the antenna array that Elizabeth had shot away. When the delegation reached Elizabeth, the Marines ushered them aboard. The Marines were clear that they were armed, and they searched the aliens for arms. Then they escorted them to the elevator that brought them in synch with the rotating simulated gravity. The delegation consisted of two Vorsh warriors. Jeffrey queried them in English. They looked as if they didn't understand.

Thelin, watching from his cabin said in a a radio link, “They are feigning ignorance. They all speak English.” Jeffrey heard it on the ear bud. He acknowledged the silent message,and said, “If you do not speak English, you might as well return to your own ship.”

The aliens looked confused.

“Marines, escort these aliens off my ship. Shoot them if they give you any trouble.”

“No!” cried one of the two of the delegation. “We speak English. Do not make us the cause of failure of this mission!”

Jeffrey looked sternly at the two aliens. He noticed that they had crossed over from the other ship without space suits, only helmets for breathing and communication. He pointed out to the Marines escorting them, “Please notice the carapaces. This gives them considerable protection. To do the most damage to them, use your pistols.”

“Sir, Yes Sir!” the Marines replied in unison enthusiastically.

“What do you mean?” asked one of the delegation aliens.

“We have found that a large bore projectile shot at nine hundred meters per second does serious damage to the kind of armor you wear. They may protect you from space and lasers and other electronic weapons damage, but once past your carapace, it ricochets back and forth inside turning your meat to a sticky paste.” Jeffrey smirked at the Marines, who seemed to be enjoying the discomfort of the aliens.

“Elizabeth, please invite the Commodore aboard.”

“AYE, CAPTAIN,” she replied. After a moment passed, she announced, “COMMODORE YUSEF WILL BE HERE IN FIVE.”

To the Vorsh, he said, “Because part of your job is to gather information about this ship, our capabilities and our intent, allow me to show you some of our facilities, before we take you to your people.”

“We would rather get right to seeing our people, if that is all the same to you,”invoked one of the aliens.

“It is not all the same to me. Your presence here is a message. My showing you some of the things I intend is a return message. You are the messenger, so shut up and pay attention.”

Jeffrey began the tour by showing the bridge. Lieutenant Bianca was in charge there, and greeted the Captain. The aliens stared at her. One stammered out, “But she's a female!” The other tried to shush the first, saying in its own language, “Don't point out the weakness – this is a tactical advantage of our people.” But as soon as it finished Elizabeth spoke the translation of the Vorsh's words on the loudspeakers in the bridge. The two Vorsh looked at each other, realizing that there was no secrecy in their exclusive language. They couldn't know thatElizabeth had been studying the Vorsh language by listening in on the conversations of the prisoners and discussing it with Thelin.

Jeffrey ignored their embarrassment, and asked them to follow him. He then went to the new electronics laboratory where Vorsh equipment was laid open on the workbench. Diagnostic equipment was connected to most of the various black boxes. One of the techs said, “Wow, did you see that? As soon as those Vorsh guys came in here, the equipment started to spike!”

Jeffrey then took them to next cabin, which was the New Technology Testing room, formerly Sneaky's cabin. She finally decided to move in with Smitty. This brought to mind his personal characterization of the pair – the ballet dancer and the klutz. In this cabin, a section of Vorsh ship floor was being tested for anti-gravity characteristics, including spillover of the gravitic effects on nearby surfaces.

“CAPTAIN, COMMODORE YUSEF IS ON BOARD. PLEASE BRING YOUR GUESTS TO THE GALLEY.” announced Elizabeth.

“Ah, good.” said Jeffrey. He led the parade back to the galley. The two Marines took their posts inside the Galley, while Commodore Yusef's Marine bodyguards took posts outside the room. Before they entered, one of the Marines guarding the Vorsh delegation told the Commodore's bodyguards what Jeffrey had told them about projectile weapons. They had only carried needlers, blasters and stun guns. The guard asked Elizabeth to have a courier bring two handguns with ammunition and holsters for the Commodore's bodyguards.

The guard said, “When they come, strap them on. If you have to shoot, turn off the safety.” He pulled his own weapon and indicated the small button. “To shoot, just pull the trigger, once for each shot. Be careful, there is a bit of a kick, so after each shot, reacquire your target.” He then showed how to exchange clips of ammunition, and went back inside the galley to stand guard.

Jeffrey, Commodore Yusef, and the two Vorsh sat at a small square table. The Vorsh carapace seemed to be able to bend, which meant they were able to sit. So Jeffrey noticed the sliding articulated plates of the rear carapace.

The two Vorsh took off their helmets. Jeffrey inquired about their dietary needs, if they would like water, tea, coffee, soup or something more substantial. Not being thoughtful diplomats, the Vorsh started salivating as soon as the conversation took on the thought of food. “Do you prefer something with vegetables, or meat, or both? Or something else?”

The aliens asked for something with both. Jeffrey asked the cook to bring them both a vegetable beef soup. A few minutes later, she appeared with a tray, containing the soup for the aliens, coffee for Jeffrey and tea for Yusef.

“I don't know how much you know of our culture, but the soup you are being served is warm, nearly ninety degrees. Enjoy it.” Jeffrey sat back and watched the aliens first look at their soup, wisps of steam rising from their bowls, they looked at the spoons alongside the bowls in consternation. But before Jeffrey could show how to use the spoons, the both bent their heads, pursed their large, simian-like lips, and sucked in the contents of the bowl. There was pain in their eyes, but satisfaction too.

“So to begin,” said Commodore Yusef, “We need to...”

But he was interrupted by one of the delegation. “More? We want more.” And they both lifted their empty bowls. They licked their lips, chops, and chins of any remaining soup.

Jeffrey looked to the Commodore, who nodded. He then requested two more bowls of the same, and some plastic mugs and a pitcher of water. When the kitchen chief brought them, she also brought a tray of Danish and French pastries. The aliens repeated their unusual method of consuming soup. They winced in pain, but licked their lips. Then Jeffrey poured water in the mugs and handed them to the two Vorsh. They drank of the water and again licked their lips. Then they sniffed, and looked longingly at the pastries.

Jeffrey, not having had siblings, spent much time reading books about families. He also had enjoyed watching vids of family life. So, rather than passing the tray of sweets, selected one for each of the aliens, who picked them up and crammed the pastry in their mouths. Oddly, the aliens kept the pastries in their mouths. Jeffrey saw their eyes signaled “Ambrosia!” They still did not chew or swallow, just holding the flavor, allowing the saliva which mingled with the sugary, fatty, fluffy bread, to drip down their throats.

The Commodore said, “Well, that's something you don't see everyday.” Yusef took a delicate French pastry and ate it over a period of a couple minutes. The Alien's pastries were still in their cheeks. Yusef drank his tea. Jeffrey drank his coffee. The Aliens seemed transported to a happy place they were reluctant to come back from.

Jeffrey told the chief to clear the table, that they needed to get down to work. He looked to the Aliens, saw that they were still transported to their culinary dream world. Having had enough, he said to the Commodore, “Perhaps they just sent us worthless or useless Vorsh to distract our attention from them. Maybe we should destroy one of their ships to show we mean business.”

The two delegates brought their attention back from their happy place and swallowed. It seemed miraculous that they didn't choke, but the first one with a clear mouth called out, “No! We are ready!”

“Yes,” said the other one. “Ready.”

Commodore Yusef then introduced himself. “I am the one in charge here. I am Commodore Yusef. Captain Sokolov has discovered many things about you. Let me discover one myself.” He paused. “Your ships have too little food. Your crews are starving. Am I right?”

The alien's responses were almost out of an old comedy routine. One said, “Yes,” while the other at the same time said, “No.” They looked at each other and both switched their answers. “No.” and “Yes.”

“So if I offered your captains some food, they would accept it?”

“Yes.”

“All right, we'll consider that.”

“Next, tell me why the Vorsh are in my solar system.”

“That is difficult, Commodore Yusef.” said one of the delegates. The other continued, “We would want to, but there are not adequate words to explain.”

Jeffrey chimed in, “Perhaps I can supply some of the words. Your people are too crowded and you want to conquer our world.”

“Yes. NO! That's not it.”

“You have run out of your resources and don't have the technological ability or the cleverness to reverse your problem.”

“That is closer. Our civilization is an old one. These ships are designed thousands of years ago. We have not had to change them because they were perfect. Now they are not. We don't know how to do things except for one way, and that way is not good enough anymore.”

Jeffrey leaned back and spoke to the chief,“Bring out some grapes or cherries. Some small, sweet fruit.”

A moment later, she brought a bowl of cherries and placed them in front of Jeffrey. Jeffrey gave a cherry to the one who disclosed the decline of his civilization. The other then piped up, “The weapons of our ships used to be the fear of all the civilizations. Not any more.”

Jeffrey then tossed that one a cherry. Commodore Yusef immediately caught on to what Jeffrey was doing – positive reinforcement to reward giving information. Jeffrey continued, “What is it you want to talk to the crew of the surviving Vorsh ship about?” The two tripped over each other's words to be the next one rewarded. The strength of Earth ship. The number of females the captain had impregnated before he died, and which ones were they? The amount of knowledge the Humans had extracted from the Vorsh warriors. What the Vorsh warriors wanted to pass on to their next of kin before they were killed.

Jeffrey was pretty well satisfied he understood what was in the minds of the Vorsh. He just passed the bowl of cherries to the two.

After they finished off the cherries, they looked so happy. Jeffrey said, “Before we get any farther, let me ask you another question. What would happen if the captain of the ship hadn't died?”

“Oh, no. That would not happen. He has no way not to die. He is programmed to die.”

“I see,” said Jeffrey. “Commodore, do you have any more questions for our guests?”

“Not at this time, Captain.”

“Then let's take the delegation to see the warriors.”

The two Marines guards in the galley took the lead, Jeffrey followed them, the two delegates followed Jeffrey, followed by the Commodore and his personal escort. He noticed that they had acquired pistols in shoulder holsters, like Jeffrey's Marines.

They arrived at the hold that contained the ten crew members from the surviving Vorsh ship.Jeffrey reminded the delegation that they needed to speak only English. He secretly had one of his Marines run off to grab some candy.

The Marine came back with a small container of soft jellied candies. Jeffrey then had the other Marine open the locked door. The Vorsh languished against the wall, sitting or reclining as their bounds allowed them. There was a tub of food from their ship, that looked like a porridge with chunks of meat. The tub had been taken off their ship, and there were dozens of similar tubs that were being kept in the walk-in cooler.

The delegates looked with pity at the ten. “This food is emergency rations. It tastes bad.”

“It was the only food we could find on their ship.”

“We all have been using this food. It is bad.” The delegate looked sad. “It is made of some algae. And dead Vorsh.”

“Elizabeth, have the cook prepare soup for all these prisoners, have Audrey bring some Marines to remove this tub,” commanded Jeffrey.

“AYE, CAPTAIN.”

Jeffrey had planned to use the candy as a further behavior modifier, but decided to give the prisoners a treat. He tossed one piece to each of the prisoners, then put one in his own mouth. They did the same, and they began to chew. Saliva began escaping from the corners of their mouths. He tossed another and another.

Soon, the chief brought a cart containing soup bowls and a tureen with additional soup.

Jeffrey personally passed out the food. The prisoners reacted the same way the delegation had; with enthusiasm. He refilled their bowls, and gave them water. He then apologized to them, saying that he thought that the food they had taken from their ship was their custom. They would be fed better from now on.

He then encouraged the delegation to go ahead and ask their questions. They asked the same questions that they told the captain and commodore that they would. As often as not, the answer was “I don't know,” “We don't know.”

Jeffrey then interrupted, saying, “You don't need to worry about being killed. This is not going to happen if we have anything to say about it.”

Then Jeffrey had the cook bring the tureen of soup along to the dozen females in the separate cell. They fed the females, much to their delight. The delegation began asking their questions about the captain impregnating, but they never got to finish their questioning. The delegation was pelted with bowls, fortunately the food had been consumed first.

Jeffrey ushered the delegation out, brought them back to the galley, had the cook bring out some more Danish pastries. He then told them to stay there, and posted both sets of Marine escorts with them. He then took Commodore Yusef to his cabin.

“Commodore Yusef,” he started, after they sat down at the table in his cabin. “I have an idea. We may very well find ourselves in trouble if these Vorsh have brought hungry,desperate people. Let's offer them an exchange – their technology for food. We can teach them again how to raise food. Learn what we can from them, but encourage them to go back to their own worlds and practice a more moral way. “

“If we don't already have superior technology,” said Yusef. “I, for one am not impressed.”

“From what I hear,” countered Jeffrey, “the Vorsh are not the only alien species who have an interest in us.” He then recounted his conversation with Thelin about how a council of alien races were concerned with the vicious nature of the humans, and feared them coming out among the rest of the galaxy.

Commodore Yusef then asked, “Did you capture that ship captain?”

“Yes, sir. I thought I would keep that information from the delegation, because they were under the impression that he couldn't live after losing his ship.”

“How about we negotiate with the rest of those ships here to make that captain an ambassador?”

“Commodore, that explains why you hold the rank. Of course, if we can do it, it would make sense.”

Yusef then added, “I think we need to arrange offering food to any alien ship that comes to any of the Human space stations. But we need to find a way for them to go back to their own worlds.”

Jeffrey commented, “That shouldn't be too difficult. Farming on Earth and Selene more than supports all the humans in the solar system. It can easily be ramped up to support alien life – of course depending on how many there are. Probably something we need to find out.

“One more thing, sir. I have a representative of another race on our ship. When it saw we discovered its location, it turned visible, then destroyed its ship. We collected debris and have been studying that along with the debris and remains from the Vorsh ships.

“This other alien seems friendly, and has been useful in giving us information, but it exaggerated the power of Vorsh weapons, and didn't clue us in on the starving condition of the Vorsh.”

Yusef asked, “What is this alien called?”

“It's name is Thelin, it is a member of the Ay-Yuyuyah.”

Yusef thought about this for a moment. “We could probably offer it an ambassadorship also. We need to get back to the Earth Station and encourage Admiral Kutuzov to develop navigation rules for aliens, along with strategically located registration points at the Oort cloud.”

“Sounds like you have a plan, sir. Let me introduce you to Thelin.”

They made their way to the cabin in which Thelin was housed. The two marines outside the door saluted the two officers. They entered, Thelin was situated in a corner of the cabin, Jeffrey looked around and did not see the biologic, but its empty box was on the deck. “Elizabeth! The small biologic is not visible here. Locate it please.”

“EFFORTING.” A minute later, she reported back, “CAPTAIN, I HAVE REVIEWED THE SECURITYRECORDING AND SEE THAT THE ALIEN AY-YUYUYAH HAS CONSUMED IT.”

To Commodore Yusef, Jeffrey said, “That was the only method of bilateral communications.

“Have you fed it?” asked the Commodore.

“Yes, sir, a half side of beef two days ago.”

“Well, if it can't communicate with us, it serves no purpose. Get rid of it.”

The walls and floors began to vibrate, it changed in pitch, then the voice of the biologic that Jeffrey had gotten used to, the British raconteur tone and accent, emanated from the surfaces,“Wwwait. Wait. I can communicate. Don't do anything drastic!”

“All right,” said Jeffrey, “Talk. Why did you eat your biologic?”

“You probably do not understand – that biologic was designed to act as a server to me. It originally was a sensor, then became my mouthpiece, and then served to nourish me.”

Why was the food we gave you not enough? Is your metabolism so poor that it couldn't sustain you with enough food to sustain a squad of Marines for a week?” demanded Jeffrey. He was still jolted at the cannibalism he had discovered on his ship.

The commodore introduced himself, “I am Commodore Yusef. I understand you are Thelin. Thelin, you have been surprising us with your actions, and allowing others to surprise us by misinforming us, or failing to inform us, on the actions of aliens in our vicinity. To continue your usefulness to us, you are going to have to be far more forthcoming than you have been.”

“It is with great regret that I seem to have withheld vital information from you, I only do so with self-preservation in mind. I will forthwith endeavor to be far more elucidative in my loquations.”

The commodore looked to Jeffrey, “What did he say?”

“Seems to want to cooperate more, now that he got caught with feathers on his chin.” cracked Jeffrey.

“Indeed, sirs,” said the Ay-Yuyuyah. “If I could start with a clean slate I would.”

“Well, your chance for a clean slate may have just arisen,” said Commodore Yusef. “We have a proposal, but it would depend on your being entirely truthful as part of the deal.”

“What, sir, if I may ask, is this deal of which you speak?”

Jeffrey spoke before the Commodore could, “It comes in two parts. First, as an adviser to the Human Navy. Tell us everything we need to know about the other galactic races, tell us what we need to know about you – from your dietary needs to your intellectual, social, communicative and other needs.”

Yusef took his cue, “The second part, is when we are ready, you would become an ambassador of your people to our people.”

“This proposal seems, on its face, to be a reasonable and acceptable use of my vast talents. I will be glad for the opportunity to serve in both capacities. Perhaps bothat the same time.”

“No,” said the commodore, “One at a time. If you wish to advise us when you become a diplomat, then you would be advising us out of loyalty to your government. We need you, when advising us, to be acting entirely in our interests, as we define it.”

“Ah, I see your point. Yes, Commodore Yusef, I will be your advisor.”

“And will we be able to trust your advise? I think you should understand that if your advise and instruction prove false, that if you betray us for any other cause, there will be severe consequences.”

“My advise will be through and truthful, to the best of my ability.”

“Good,” said Jeffrey. “First question, Where is your home world?”

“Oh goodness, how can I say? If only I had a map,,,”

“Elizabeth, display a map for the Ay-Yuyuyah.”

One of the wall plates illuminated and displayed a map of the galaxy with arbitrary zones inscribed, from the galactic center to the edge, and in concentric circles like a flat map from earth showing longitude and latitude. It indicated the location of the solar system on one of the galactic arms.

“Ah, I see,” said the alien. “Your sun is at position zed-Y sixty-four. Can you bring the detail up on your sun?” The vid zoomed in to the near-solar system neighborhood. The larger lines were replaced with more fine lines, and the labels of the zones now included sub zones. The zone around the sun was ZY-64. There were zones in all the areas surrounding ZY-64, the nearest star to the sun was in ZY-63. This was Alpha Centauri. “My home world is in ZW-60. It is some hundred light years away.”

“What is the nature of your faster-than-light travel?” Jeffrey asked.

“Much the same as yours, Captain. It took a year or so for me to get from home to here.”

“And how long have you been here?”

“You do ask pertinent questions, don't you? I arrived about the time your world discovered aviation. Around 1750.”

“How have you been reporting your findings back home?”

“I have sent a few reports by building small ships and sending biologics home in them.”

Commodore Yusef asked, “How many other galactic races are in Human space now? And who are they?”

“Well, you met the Vorsh, there's me – no other Ay-Yuyuyah – then there are the Plang, the O, the Fizzies, and perhaps a few other minor individuals.”

“How many of the Vorsh are in our system?”

“About a hundred thousand.”

“Where is the Vorsh homeworld on the map?”

“XY-64”

“All right, now about your dietary needs...” began Jeffrey.

“Ah, yes. Perhaps a more steady diet will work better for me. If I had three meals a day, mixed vegetables and meat, at around a thousand calories per meal, I should be able to sustain myself nicely.”

“No problem, that's a little less than we feed our Marines. Is there anything else we can do for you?”

“I am concerned about wastage. What do I do with it?”

“I'll send in an engineer who will ask you enough questions to get to the correct solution.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Outside the cabin, Jeffrey asked Elizabeth to have an engineer talk to Thelin about waste disposal. But before that engineer started any project to talk to the captain. He thought it would be prudent to have a system to monitor and analyze the output of the alien guest.

“Eventually we will have to start pushing the speed of these buckets to light plus,” said Jeffrey. “But I have the feeling that we need to get this alien project under way.”

“That's true,” said the commodore. “But it is also important to understand our drives. Keep your physicist and engineers studying the operation, and make sure they document everything.” They walked back to the galley and sat down with the two Vorsh delegates. Jeffrey ordered ice cream all around. The Vorsh asked how it was traditionally eaten, so Jeffrey showed them how to use their spoons.

The delegates attempted to eat the ice cream slowly, but their enthusiasm was too much for them to bear. They ended up with more ice cream inside than out, but barely. Jeffrey handed them napkins to wipe down their carapaces and faces.

Now that their attention had been brought to the fore, Jeffrey asked, “What if, by some miraculous event, the captain of a defeated ship survived?”

“No, no. Couldn't happen, sorry.” The two delegates repeated themselves.

“Why? What is it that makes the captain die?” Jeffrey leaned back in his chair.

“It is one of the things captains are selected for. They are given special food to make them want to do things the traditional way.”

“Ah,” said Jeffrey. “So if the captain had not taken any of that food, might he not die?”

“Oh, that would be bad. How can a captain not do what he was told?”

“How indeed.” Jeffrey sat forward, put his elbows on the table, and said, “If such a thing happened, would the captain be a good person – could he be trusted for an important job?”

“I don't think he would be trusted if he failed to eat the food that makes him do traditional things. That is how they are controlled.”

“All right, here is the rule. Every Vorsh that comes to an Earth-based station, will get free food. They will also get technical information that will enable you to grow food for yourselves. You may take this information back to your home world. The other part of the rule is, every alien in the Human solar system will make themselves visible. Any attempt to hide will result in that ship being destroyed. We can detect your ships, but it is better if we see them. Do you understand these two parts of the rule?”

They both nodded.

Yusef then said, “And another part of this is we will expect to have an ambassador to represent your people to us and us to your people. We have just the Vorsh in mind.”

“Yes? Who?”

“It is the captain of the surviving ship.”

The two looked at each other then said in unison, “We must talk to him!”

“That can be arranged in a little while. Perhaps you would like some more ice cream?” Jeffrey orderedsome for them, then he and Commodore Yusef left the galley. Jeffrey led Yusef to the cabin that he had kept the captain of the surviving Vorsh ship.

The Marine guards at the door came to attention as the two officers arrived, one unlocked the door, and the two entered. The Vorsh captain sat on a bench. He was tethered to a secured ring in the bulkhead.

Yusef said, “Have you been fed yet?” Captain ZhZhZhee nodded. “Good. If you need more, let us know.” Again the Vorsh captain nodded. “We are told that captains that lose their ships all die. Why did you not die?”

ZhZhZhee paused for a while, then said, “They serve a food that makes you want to kill yourself. I fed it to my hungry crew and went hungry.” He bowed his head in shame. “The suicide ingredient didn't work on them. They survived, I survived. Females wanted nothing to do with me.”

Yusef waited to be sure the alien was done, then said, “We have a way that we think you can serve your people and help us to help them. Are you interested?”

“What do you want me to do?” the dejected captain asked.

“We want you to be an ambassador, from your people to us, and from us to your people. Could you do that?”

“I would have a hard time convincing my leaders to accept this deal.”

“I think we could help you with that. I just need to know if the job were offered to you, would you accept it?” Yusef paused and raised his eyebrows in expectation of an answer.

“Yes, I could work with you. I could be a good ambassador.”

“Very good,” said Jeffrey. “In a few minutes some representatives of some Vorsh ships we caught attempting to attack us like your ships did, will come in here to talk to you. They will try to make you feel bad about surviving. Just remember what we spoke about.”

Jeffrey and Yusef left their erstwhile ambassador alone with the delegation for a short time. While waiting, Yusef asked Jeffrey about the pistols. Jeffrey told him that the carapaces of the Vorsh absorbed and deflected the power of most lasers and other energy weapons, but could not stand up against the large-bore pistols. That plus the psychological benefit of a weapon that the aliens didn't have.

“Can you make a bunch of these for my team? With ammunition, of course.”

“Sure. I can have the replicator throw together enough for your officers and maybe your Marine sargents.”Then to the air, “Elizabeth, can you do that for Commodore Yusef?”

“I CAN HAVE THEM READY FOR HIM BY TOMORROW.”

“You are going to have to get one of those replicators. All sorts of useful,” said Jeffrey.

“I suppose,” replied Yusef, “But I don't have a lot of room, and I don't have the raw materials.”

“Nothing that can't be fixed,” retorted Jeffrey.

The delegation exited the cabin in rather a hurry. “We couldn't talk with him! He has no sense of pride in his position! He is an ingrate!”

Jeffrey then escorted the delegation to the airlock, and told them to present the messages that he and Yusef had enumerated. They then got into the airlock and jumped to their own ship. Jeffrey then took Commodore Yusef to his cabin to further discuss strategy. He had informed Janet of the impending departure of the delegation, and to be wary of any moves that the ships might make, either aggressive or recessive.

In his cabin, Jeffrey and Yusef discussed the disposition of their Vorsh prisoners. “Things are going to turn around pretty quickly,” said Yusef. “Once the Navy agrees with our plan,” he paused, interrupting himself, “that is, if they do, we aren't going to have a lot of time to do what we need to do.”

“I should take these prisoners with me to the Earth station.”

“Sir. If I may?” Jeffrey interrupted his boss, “I would like to give the females the option to go with or stay, in the odd chance that our Vorsh consul might seduce one or another, thus keeping his aggression in check.”

“That makes a little sense, Captain. Let's go and address them now, and see. Then I'm going to have to get back to my ship.”

They walked to where the females were held, and Jeffrey asked them, as a group, “First,” he began, “You are prisoners of Earth Navy. Second, things are changing, so that you will have some choices to make in both the near future and later on. One of those choices is, you get to stay on board this ship, you get to interact with your former captain. Or you can go with Commodore Yusef, here, to the Earth Navy station.

“Do I have any volunteers for staying and interacting with your former Captain?”

Two of the twelve indicated they would be willing to stay, the rest wanted nothing to do with their former captain, ZhZhZhee.

Jeffrey arranged for transport of the prisoners to Wanigan and he sent additional food to help keep them alive. The alien Thelin was to continue to advise Jeffrey, and if there were any important news, Jeffrey would send it to both Kutuzov and Yusef. Jeffrey decided to give Yusef a collection of their own pistols rather than await delivery tomorrow, because “You never know.”

He showed Yusef how to use the projectile weapons in space – when near a gravity well, you had to do some calculations, such as the acceleration of gravity, wind (if in an atmosphere,) and leading the target if it is moving. That involved knowing the speed of the projectile you have loaded, among the other variables. However in short distances, point, assure the safety is turned off, and shoot. Be careful of the kick, and reacquire your target, and repeat as necessary.

They parted company, Yusef taking nearly all the aliens off Jeffrey's hand, his Marines on particularly strict alert and watch. The shuttle did not have a separate cabin for male and female prisoners, so all the prisoners were told to behave themselves under threat of immediate and painful termination. That seemed to work, there were no problems on the way to Wanigan.

After the delegation returned to their ship, it was about a half hour before message traffic began passing from one ship to the others, then back and forth, almost like a discussion. Meanwhile, Yusef sent off reports to Kutuzov and the other ships in his small fleet, informing them of the new state of affairs with the newly discovered alien life, and new standing orders.

The chief Vorsh called on Yusef, requesting timelines for implementing the new laws and regulations. When can they go get their free food? Commodore Yusef told them that the food won't be available for at least ten days – they neededto stock the stations from Earth. But the invisibility part began an hour ago. They had best get the word out. Of course Elizabeth monitored the conversation and reported its contents to Jeffrey.

They parted company with the Vorsh, heading in towards the Earth Navy headquarters. By the time they took off, Kutuzov had been briefed and gave his tentative approval to Yusef's plan of action. Orders had gone out to all stations – all theLagrange point stations and all the naval vessels. Food was ordered delivered to all the stations for this specific purpose. Elizabeth was ordered to accompany Wanigan inbound. Jeffrey was to give the Vorsh ambassador-in-training, ZhZhZhee a primer on what was expected of an ambassador, and how he was to accomplish his mission.

Jeffrey began the tutorials, but soon decided Janet was better suited for that type of work. Between the two of them, along with Elizabeth, the ambassador actually seemed to be learning his tasks.

After the first day, traveling at the stately pace of one tenth the speed of light, Jeffrey decided to test the golden drive's faster-than-light ability. After signing off with Yusef, he had all personnel prepare for the experiment. With Yuki monitoring the instruments for the golden drive,Heinz monitoring instruments for the ship, Janet at the pilot's seat, and Jeffrey in the captain's chair, all other personnel scattered throughout the ship for security and safety, they slowly increased the ship's velocity to approach light speed. This occurred smoothly, as they neared .999 light, a subtle vibration in the bones of the ship occurred. The vibrations increased as the power to the golden drive was increased. They broke through the light speed barrier, it felt almost as if a membrane was being pierced by the ship, but as they continued to accelerate, all the vibrations, all the tension left. Everyone felt euphoria over the successful test of their engines.

Janet reported that the speed they held to was twice the speed of light. There was plenty of room on the controller to increase their speed far beyond that. Jeffrey brought the experiment to a close, considering how crowded the inner system was with ships and junk and planetary bodies. The test lasted twenty minutes at twice light speed. Jeffrey slowed to .05 light speed to allow Wanigan time to catch up. A few hours later, she did. The two ships compared notes on Elizabeth's experiment, which gave both ships tools to use to plan their use of the golden drives. Yusef agreed that the golden drives should not be used in-system except in an emergency.

They compared clocks and saw that Einstein was right – time seems to slow down the faster you go. Elizabeth'sclocks showed a very small discrepancy from Wanigan's.

Both ships accelerated to half light and rode toward the place the Earth station was going to be when they arrived. They soon discovered that there were interference patterns that they needed to avoid if they wanted to ride smoothly – the two ships generated their own waves, and the wakes spread out from behind them as the waves carried them forward. Where the waves and wakes clashed they caused interference patterns in space, that made for a choppy trip. By more carefully aligning with each other, they found they could more easily avoid those interference patterns, thus avoiding the choppy ride.

Yuki was in her own version of heaven. She was composing a paper on the foibles of faster than light, and near light speeds. Her organized mind pretty well had it composed as soon as she thought of it. If only her mind was as fast as the ideas that sprung from it! When at last she decided it was time to get rest, although reluctantly, she went back to the cabin she shared with Heinz. She didn't turn the light on, for fear of awakening him. But she got undressed and climbed under the covers in his bunk. She dropped right off to sleep, she was so tired.

When Heinz woke to discover his roommate in his bed without anything on, all sorts of thoughts filled his mind – did she intend something from him? Was she all right? Did she get into his bed by mistake or on purpose? Heinz was a good man, not prone to taking advantage of a vulnerable woman, so he gingerly reached over her, down the other side to brace himself, and lifted himself over her to the floor. He began to walk away, and she took that moment to awaken. She looked at him from under the cover, and said, “Where are you going?”

“I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, so I was going to go to my lav and get dressed.” He felt rather conscious of his morning-and-naked-girl-in-your-bederection, so he didn't turn around.

“Come here, and take your pajamas off.” she commanded. He obeyed.

Within a few more hours, they came to the place Earth station was supposed to be, but it was off by a few degrees of arc. Jeffrey asked Yuki about how they had missed. She seemed to be more perky this morning. She confirmed that the trajectory error had to do with the clock being off due to the faster than normal travel. Another paper to write!

Elizabeth and Wanigan both recalculated how to merge with the station's orbit, and waited for the station to catch up with them. When it did, they merged with the orbit of the station, and Wanigan began to dock, when Janet pointed out that she saw several anomalies following the station, small gravity wells, indicating that the station was being stalked by invisible ships.

Jeffrey told Wanigan to stop docking, and go to General Quarters. He also had Elizabethgo to General Quarters. They broadcast a message that any ships using an invisibility circuit was in violation of Earth space law, and were at risk of immediate destruction.

Janet reported, “Captain, I am getting a spike in power from one of the anomalies, like a capacitor charging.”

Jeffrey said, “Forward rail gun, give a two second burst at that anomaly.”

“Aye, sir, two second burst.”

The sound of the gun reverberated through the ship – a loud buzz. The target materialized with its entire antenna array shot away.There were more holes in the structural skin of the ship, atmosphere was out-gassing through the holes.

Jeffrey broadcast, “No ship may offer a threat to any Earth-based vessel. Violations will be met with destructive force.”

None of the other anomalies materialized, but they also did not charge up their weapons. Jeffrey ordered the aft rail gun to select a target and give a half second burst. One of the anomalies began moving away from its current orbit. The rail gun captain, a Marine gunnery Sargent, selected that one,and gave its half second burst, the buzz again reverberating throughout the ship. The anomaly turned into a disabled Vorsh ship.

“This is the Earth warship Elizabeth, any further delay in shutting down your invisibility circuits will result of our ships firing on you. You have ten seconds to comply. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. When they got to six, the rest of the anomalies undisappeared. There were twenty of the alien ships, mostly Vorsh, but some of a completely different configuration, leading Jeffrey to believe that they were a completely different space race.

“This is the Earth warship Wanigan.All alien ships in Earth's solar system are prohibited from using the invisibility circuits. From this point on, when they are detected and ships are not visible, they will be summarily destroyed. All aliens may have free food at any Earth-based space station. To claim this benefit, ship captains must register with that station.”

“This is Earth warship Elizabeth. All official communications will be in English. It is known that most aliens speak English. We are in the process of installing a Vorsh ambassador,and other races may suggest an individual for their ambassador. In the very near future, a Ay-Yuyuyah is being installed as a general purpose ambassador for those races who have none, or need special services. These ambassadors will be installed at this station.”

“This is Earth Navy Station at Lagrange point A-1. Ships companies are permitted to enter this station, with very few restrictions. Upon coming aboard the station, you will be given instructions on where you may not be. Welcome to Earth.”

After this drama, Wanigan resumed its docking. Elizabeth remained near the station and stood guard while her sister ship disembarked her non-volunteer passengers and her crew. They stood down from general quarters, but the gunners remained on station.

Admiral Kutuzov decided to keep Elizabeth on station, and took a shuttle to visit her there. Commodore Yusef accompanied the admiral, and they met with Jeffrey in the galley. There was much to brief the admiral on, so after ensuring that coffee and pastries were served, he began. “Several things, Admiral. First we were able to go twice the speed of light without any noticeable problems. There is much more where that came from. I'll have Yuki Ohara prepare a few reports for you. Second, the aliens. It seems we are not alone! I have an Ay-YuYuYah aboard this ship, and intend to retain it for a short time, while we gather information on the aliens in our system. I'll then bring it back here to work as an ambassador at large. Third, weapons. The rail gun seems to be an impressive defense against the current crop of aliens. For the Vorsh, their carapace absorbs laser and energy weapons, but are not proof against large-bore pistols. I recommend you engage some manufacturer to get you a large supply.Our AI, Elizabeth made an excellent modification of old Earth military pistols, that enable us to threaten armored soldiers. Fourth, replicator. As a miner I often had to make or craft parts for my ship. I acquired a large and sophisticated replicator, that enables my AI to build everything from a nut with a left-twist, to a runabout with impulse engines and static grips. We used the replicator to make higher quality golden drives than you provided, and on inspection, than the aliens use. I recommend them for all large combat ships. Fifth, I think it would be beneficial to have a sophisticated AI running all warships. They can communicate among themselves in ways undetectable by our enemies, they can be the best friend of any captain. And as we saw after the first attack onWanigan the ship saved the crew.”

“Impressive, Captain,” said Kutuzov. But I am going to take the alien Ay-YuYuYah off your hands so I can utilize it myself. Now, Commodore Yusef, what can you add to Captain Sokolov's briefing?”

Yusef informed the Admiral of the offer to give food to any alien that needs it. They had witnessed enough cannibalism on the two alien cultures they had run across, and the food served by the galley was far superior to anything the alien crews had been getting. He told him about the special food that makes Vorsh captains amenable to self-destructive behavior, that he gave his share of food to his crew, and it didn't have the suicide-inducing effect on the crew that it would have had on him. Apparently there was a genetic difference between the captain and the crew. But now that ZhZhZhee was free of the restraint of the food he was a free-thinker, and able to use his considerable talent and skills to work as an ambassador.

“I'll be bringing him with me too,” said Kutuzov. “As for the food, I have already informed the government that we need to increase production in food, and sent emergency supplies with officers to all the Earth stations. I established procedures for registering and distributing the food to the aliens.

“Captain Sokolov, how did you discover the invisibility powers of the aliens?”

“Well sir, when mining for minerals among the asteroids, you can judge mass by its gravitational effect.

I used that same technology that I have on all my runabouts, as well as magnetic and electrical sensors. But the simplest is to use the gravimeter to see anomalies in space.”

“I see. This kind of instrument is commercially available?”

“Yes, sir. There are varying levels of quality. If you have the option, get a survey level instrument. I would outfit all Navy ships with them, were I you.”

“Thanks, Captain, I will.”

“Sir, we captured quite a few of the alien's equipment that we intend to study,” said Jeffrey. “We haven't had a lot of time to do that yet. But our engineer has spent time on the alien's gravitational plates, which they use for artificial gravity. He thinks he understands the theory and application – he is about to experiment with making gravitic plates to test – we stopped him from testing while we were also testing the FTL nature of the golden drives.”

“Probably a good idea, Sokolov. Have him turn over his notes to us and give us the plates so we can continue the study.” Jeffrey frowned at this.

“Sir, he is working on publishing his notes. This would do well for his career.”

“I don't care about that. This is too important to let a third-rate engineer fool about with it. We have top people at headquarters, Top People.” Jeffrey heard the capital letters. “You have your orders, Sokolov,” the admiral said, standing up. “Get that equipment to me before I leave this boat.

“Speaking of orders, I want you to go back to Lagrange 3A and supply Lieutenant Omotunde with the food he will need to back up your and Yusef's feed-the-aliens-for-free program. Then patrol that region. Check out Lagrange 3B and 3C as well.”

“Commodore,” he turned his attention to Yusef, “Once you have refitted and taken on additional food, you are to patrol on the Mars orbit, service the stations in that area. And of course, martial all the fleet as necessary.”

While Kutuzov was speaking with Yusef, Jeffrey had Elizabeth inform Heinz to deliver all his notes and the experimental plates to Kutuzov's shuttle. Also the captured Vorsh equipment that they were preparing to study. And have ZhZhZhee and his female companions and Thelin report to the Admiral's shuttle for transport to the station.

By the time Admiral Kutuzov returned to his shuttle, the aliens and the crates of alien equipment were aboard, guarded by several no-nonsense Marines that came over on the shuttle. There were several palettes of foodstuffs that had been off-loaded from the shuttle, and two other shuttle loads were en route to Elizabeth to deliver more food for the Lagrange stations in the 3 orbit.

When the Admiral had disembarked, Jeffrey inquired of the crew if they needed anything on the Naval station. When none indicated they needed to go aboard, Jeffrey informed the station he was about to resume his patrol, but the station communications officer told him to hold his position until further notice.

Jeffrey relieved Janet on the bridge, who thankfully retired to her quarters. He summoned Heinz to the bridge, who arrived a few minutes later. “Heinz,” he began, “This has got to be a bit of a blow to your ego, but it isn't the end of the world. Do we still have any of the alien deck plates?”

Heinz looked at his captain quizzically, and replied, “Yes, sir. I sent what Elizabeth told me to send.”

“Good. And you still have your notes?”

Again, Heinz wondered what his captain was getting at. “Of course.”

“Good. You have a speed advantage over the Top Men that the admiral thinks can do better than you. I want you to design and produce anti-gravity decking for my ship. And I think Yuki should be involved, because there are other applications that she can come up with. But this is your project. I want daily reports.”

Understanding came to Heinz. “You mean, I can continue my research?”

“I mean exactly that. But with the eye to immediate practical application. I want antigrav floors.” Jeffrey stood and shooed the IntelTech engineer out. “Now get to work!”

Jeffrey puttered around the bridge, thinking about design changes he might want to implement. The bridge was large enough to hold six people at various stations, although there had never been that many people on the bridge at any one time. He liked the idea of having a secret secondary bridge, but that was attached to his own cabin, some distance away from the bridge.

Without the motors required to keep the ship rotating to provide a centrifugal gravitational effect, therecould be much more room to alter the interior layout of the ship. Also, the energy required to rotate the huge vessel could be better spent elsewhere.

During his reverie, Elizabeth announced that they were being hailed from a small inner-system mining ship, Mistral, whose owner wished to speak with Jeffrey.

Jeffrey absent-mindedly told Elizabeth to invite the captain on board. But Elizabeth said that they requested the entire family to come aboard. This piqued Jeffrey's interest. “Okay, let's see what we have. Have someone escort them to the bridge.”

A few minutes later, a Marine escorted the family of Chong Sul onto the bridge. They were still in their soft space suits, carrying their helmets. Their ship was tethered to the forward airlock and a flexible tube had extended to their ship and locked on, enabling them to traverse the gap between ships.

“Welcome to Elizabeth. I'm Captain Jeffrey Sokolov.” He shook Chong Sul's hand, then Chong Lee's, and their daughter Chong Kim's. “What can I do for you?” he inquired.

After a few false starts, Chong Sul said, “We wanted to thank you personally for saving our lives, Captain.”

The two females and their husband/father all bowed their heads in respect.

“Um, I'm not sure what you are talking about.”

They began to relate their story, when Jeffrey had them sit on the various seats on the bridge. He sat on the captain's chair, which gave him access to various screens of readouts. Elizabeth surreptitiously sent a graph of their defense of Earth and the first vessel they had destroyed, reminding Jeffrey that they had spared the ship it was mated to.

They continued to tell their tale, including the rape, their killing the pirate SurLeon, and the cleanup of their little ship. That was when they heard that their savior was Elizabeth. They vowed to visit and show some respect to the captain.

Jeffrey then told them he remembered the incident, but was not surprised at the evil nature of the pirate. He expressed his sorrow that he had not arrived early enough to prevent Mrs. Chong's sexual assault, but it appeared that she was a strong woman and was able to get over it.

“Captain,” began Chong Lee. “As far as my family is concerned, nothing happened that cannot be forgotten. But you have done a great service to the Earth and to our family in particular. You are to be commended.” She then turned to her daughter. “Kim?”

Kim reached inside her helmet and pulled out a wrapped package. She took it to Jeffrey, kissed him on the cheek and gave him the present. “Open it,” she encouraged.

He opened the package, carefully setting aside the wrapping paper, and saw a stack of several hundred sheets of paper connected at one end by string. He looked at the top, and in an inked lettering, read “Elizabeth.”

He turned the page and saw an ink drawing depicting the scene of the little family ship in orbit, collecting debris from the space around earth. The next page was almost identical, but slightly different. The next page, again different slightly. He was impressed by the meticulous detail in the obviously hand drawn work. He turned the next page and the next and the next. Finally, the fourteen-year-old could contain herself no longer, and said, “Here, let me help you,” and took the stack, flipping the pages for Jeffrey so the scene appeared to be a vid, showing that day from the little family's perspective. It showed the pirate ship attaching itself to their little space boat, then showed the inside of their ship, with the three family members, how orders were broadcast to the evil SurLeon, how he prepared to send rocks flying to Earth to destroy several Earth cities, how he planned to kill the father, rape the mother and daughter, then make his getaway, how he had used kitchen wrap to tie up the father, undressed himself after the mother offered herself to protect the family, how the fourteen-year-old began to catch his attention by opening her jumpsuit to display her own pubescent chest, and how the mother killed the evil man. And the next bit was how Elizabeth destroyed the evil man's ship and the other ships around the planet that were poised to drop rocks on other Earth cities.

The last picture was the little girl asking her mom if she could change her name to Elizabeth.

“Captain, this is the work of my daughter,” Chong Sul said. “But it fairly represents what happened to us. We want to show you our great respect.”

Jeffrey could not contain the tears streaming from his eyes. It was one thing to have an Admiral slap him on the back for doing good work or his crew grateful for good fortune, planning and discipline, but to have this small family remind him that he was in fact an important cog in the wheel of life, struck him in his heart. He began, but the lump in his throat required he begin again. “Thank you. You made my day.

He asked Elizabeth to have the chief deliver some pastries, coffee and tea to the bridge. He then told the family about himself, about how he lost his wife, and named the ship after her, how the Navy had drafted him when he saved the Wanigan from insurgents and pirates. He told the family that the attack on Earth was, while carried out by the pirates, was really directed by the aliens whose ships could be seen outside.

When the pastries and beverages arrived , Jeffrey asked the family what their next plans were. They said they intended to sell their ship and see if they could find passage to one of the outer stations, perhaps provide service in a restaurant or other venue. Jeffrey asked “How much would you expect to receive for you little ship?

Chong Sul said he thought he could get half a million credits for it, Chong Lee said that it wasn't likely to get that much, but whatever they could get would go towards establishing them at one of the stations.

“One moment, please,” said Jeffrey to the family. He entered a query for Elizabeth. She replied and he entered another query. After her next reply, he then turned back to the family. “How would you like to ride to Lagrange 3A with me?”

“Well,” began Chong Lee, “That would be wonderful, but first we have to sell the Mistral. We don't have a lot of money to spend.”

“As soon as we sell the Mistral,” said Chong Sul, “We will have a little freedom to work with, but until we do, we will be held to where we are.” Chong Kim had that look of disappointment every child eventually has when her dream began to be dashed.

“I have a proposition,” said Jeffrey. “I will buy the Mistral. I will take you, Mr. Chong, and your family with me to Lagrange 3A. I will hire you three to do some work for me.”

“What sort of work?” asked Chong Kim.

“Primarily, you will all work as spies. And as house keepers, and as an asteroid miner in my new ship, the Mistral. And other things as my mind comes to it.”

“Spies?” The Korean woman asked. “That sounds dangerous.”

“It can be. But for the most part, you are not expected to do anything more dangerous than mining and selling rock. And maintaining my safe house. And being a family to come home to, when I am able to come home. And perhaps, Mrs. Chong, you have some skill in the kitchen?”

“I am a very good cook with excellent kitchen skills, I'll have you know.”

“Very good. I will set you and Chong Kim up with a small Korean restaurant. Chong Sul, You will work for the Navy and for yourself mining rock using the Mistral. And you will keep your eyes and ears open. The Mistral will belong to me personally. The Navy will pay some of your salary, say fifty thousand credits? And you will report directly to me. You will appear to be an independent miner, and most of your work will be done doing that. As necessary, you will report anything that will pose a threat to Earth or the Navy. What do you say?”

“Spying doesn't seem to be a growth industry,” said the Korean woman. “I am concerned for my daughter. My husband knows a bit about rock mining, but he is no spy. I know something about cooking, but I am no spy. My daughter knows about being a teenager, and is no spy.”

“Most of your lives out in space, you will be nothing but a cook, a restaurant owner, a waitress. You will be a miner, Chong Sul. You will be a family man. But when I need information, you may be the best person to provide it. And when you report to my contacts, you will be far better protected then any of the other denizens of the station or of the asteroid belt.”

“This seems satisfactory to me,” said Chong Kim. “Husband?”

“I am satisfied,: said Chong Sul, “Daughter?”

“Father, I like this man. I trust him. If my father and my mother believe in him, then, I too believe in him.”

“Then,” said Jeffrey, let's get the Mistral aboard.”