Dangerous Toys (Part Twenty-two)
Genie spun about again, this time paying closer attention to her mission. The Incice AI was now in a state of madness as she corrupted every function and stole every bandwidth. It was now simply five ships hurling towards the Dangerous Toys but, as she had learned long ago, never underestimate stupid. The Incice ships continued to fire upon their last target, the Dangerous Toys resting dead in space. She watched as pods began to drop into the safe hands of the Wellerman. Behind her, the wreckage and lifepods of the lucky few began to fall into a new orbit.
Wellerman began twisting about to collect the crew of the Dangerous Toys. He was impressed that she had made it this far and was curious to meet this /Longnose/ and his Engineer. And his dog. He began updating his translators to prepare for the event.
Patrica left guiding the life pod to Oscar, privately hoping it would keep him busy for a little while. Loki had made himself comfortable, serene and unworried since he had his pack beside him, ‘NewHomeSoon?/Walkies?/Treats?/’ Patrica ran her hands under his chin, ‘/NewHome/ManyWalkiesandTreats/Longnose/Scentofhappy/Soon./’ Loki sniffed his approval and laid his head on her lap and closed his eyes. She closed her own eyes and tried not to recall how badly rescues sometimes went, silently counting the variables and trying not to let the stress of the battle reach too deep. She had lost her ship and that was enough to think about for the moment.
The Genie watched as the five ships continued to fire, closing the gap while she kept a close eye on her distance. The Incice ships seemed oblivious to her now so she blew two of them apart as they closed on the Dangerous Toys. She sniffed that it was only two, she had been hoping to hit the hat trick again. Then she stopped dead in space and watched with interest. She had forgotten to mention all the terms and conditions about her changes to the shields but, fuck it, the ship was empty.
Three ships continued their assault, pushing the shields a darker and darker shade of red. Finally, some threshold was passed. They began to waver and split, pulling back from the incoming fire and leaving the hull almost undefended.
The Genie called the Wellerman, “Hi dad, you might want to get the Engineer to watch this.”
Wellerman was already watching and turned to Patrica, recently released from her pod. Oscar and Loki stood together taking in the new ship, “Patrica if you don’t mind, please join me in my quarters.” She nodded and moved into the tiny cabin that passed for Captains quarters on this skiff. Wellerman closed the door, “Sorry Captain, you need to see this.”
Out in the dark, she watched her ship under attack, with three enemies attacking without response. The Genie was dead in space for some reason. Bitch. The strange shields were failing, twisting oddly and the colour began changing, the red turning into a deep purple. Then it happened, almost too fast for the eye to see as the shields seemed to rear back and her ship exploded, then the dark red fields reached out and powered the burning debris straight through her attacker’s shields and hull, shredding them into broken wreckage. The red faded, leaving only the glare of three burning wrecks.
The Dangerous Toys was gone.
Wellerman turned away from the screen and took a deep breath. “My condolences Captain O’Neill. I must now report the Dangerous Toys lost to enemy action, all crew recovered. Do you agree that you have seen and witnessed this?”
Patrica sounded hollow, her voice far away but she found the words. “Seen and witnessed. My ship is lost and my crew recovered. You may inform the XCC.”
Wellerman nodded, “Seen and witnessed. Please take this,” He handed her a whiskey.
“The room is yours. You can call your crew from here. I’m sure XCC will be calling shortly for details. They always do.” He left quietly, pausing only to let in Loki who was growling at the door. As he walked back to the bridge the crew were silent, the victory overtaken by the death of one of their ships. He stood them all down and issued whiskey to be sent to the canteen. Tradition said it should be rum but he couldn’t stand the stuff. It had been a long day and he could take them all home, drunk or sober.
Genie was busy scanning all the wreckage and giving herself points for style. Any of the life pods she sent towards the Wellerman, totally disinterested in rescue or wetware. When he complained she just messaged him, “I’m going back off the grid and I don’t carry luggage. When the Engineer starts asking questions remind her that she evacuated a Human Diplomatic Scout and I am not permitted to leave one of those sitting abandoned in unfriendly space.” Then she went back to stripping out the machine Intel and ignoring his calls. When she got bored with doing that she pointed herself back into dark space and left without another word. Wellerman smiled to himself, she was proud of herself and for some strange reason never strayed too far from his Orbital. It wasn’t just curiosity that had driven her here at top speed and armed to the teeth, prepared to take on the entire universe single-handed. He shook his head, some people just prefer the dark. She would turn up to talk when all the fuss had died down. Kids.
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He sent a couple of his ships to pick up the prisoners and turned for home.
The first person Patrica called was /Longnose/. It was his ship that she had lost after all. She swallowed the whiskey and reached for another glass. She didn’t know if he drank alcohol but, fuck it, the way she felt right now she would drink for both of them. She was so far off-duty that she might never wear a suit again.
/Longnose/ carried /Scentofhappy/ in his arms. His puppy didn’t like all the strange smells, /Loki/Engineer/AllSafe/NewHomeSoon/TreatsandWalkies/’. He smiled as that seemed to work. Patrica had assured him that dogs would forgive you anything for those, provided you never broke the promise, and it seemed to work. /Scentofhappy/ relaxed into his grip. He stepped onto the bridge and took a deep breath, inhaling the unknown. Some of it he recognised, some of it just seemed to make sense in context, ‘/HumansatWar/Relief/Victory/Regret/Bloodprice/survivalJoy/.’ The ship didn’t feel like a proper crew, scents from many, many sources but they were all humans. This was more humans than he had ever seen in one place and the scents seemed to be.../hardwired/ or something. Like it didn’t matter that they didn’t know each other. Perfect strangers going to war together seemed even stranger than that they went to war at all. He slowly rubbed /Scentofhappy/. Humans were truly alien. Except one.
/Scentofhappy/ yipped at him, ‘/Packmate/sadness/lost/alone/’ at his startled owner. /Longnose/ scanned the bridge, cursing his eyesight. He smelled no-one that he knew. Certainly not /Crew/. He put /Scentofhappy/ on the floor and watched to see what she would do. He followed as she ran to a small human, a child and yelped to be picked up. She licked the child’s face as he held her as if checking for wounds. Whose child was this? Then it hit him, it was the Dangerous Toys, not the crew but the /scentofengines/, the /smellofconsoles/. The /airconditioningOldfood/ that burned their way into your nose after a week or two. He stepped forward, “Oscar?”
The boy nodded, ‘/Captain/DeepRegrets/ShipisLost/’, then he broke into human, “I’m sorry Sir, we couldn’t save her. There were just too many.” /Longnose/ had been a Captain for a long time and he recognised the pain. Sometimes you can ask for too much and forget the cost. Young Oscar had been dragged into a battle and felt he had failed. “Oscar, you and the Engineer saved everyone on my ship. You restored my honour and the honour of my ship. You defeated a conspiracy to poison your worlds. She may have been destroyed but she did not die. You carry her heart.” He let his words sink in a little, “And now I must ask you to hang on to /Scentofhappy/ while I talk to the Engineer. I suspect she is feeling the same.” His dog yipped in agreement, hearing only the pack-leader comfort a packmate. “See if you can take her for a walk somewhere, she disliked the life pod.” He smelled the familiar scent of his engines purring. Peculiar but understandable.
Outside of the small cabin, he could already scent the unhappiness of his Engineer. Well, not his Engineer anymore. He opened the door and found her standing and staring at the screen with a glass in her hand. “Patrica?”
Patrica stood watching the ships burning in the distance, just embers glowing against the endless night. If the Genie had already taken their Intel they would never be recovered, simply left to fall into the local sun or drift forever. Everything that made a ship a living thing had been taken from them and now they would be left to the cold. Except for her ship, burned in strange fires and revenged. The Dangerous Toys had died a warriors death and only smoke and memories remained. She silently raised a glass to her passing. She heard the door open and turned, not knowing what to say.
Loki did, leaping from the floor and reaching up to lick /Longnose/. She watched as the two of them scuffled and sniffed as they had the first day they had met, assuring each other that they were healthy and happy. Reluctantly it brought a smile to her face. A meeting that had triggered a treaty and a war. She finished her whiskey and bowed to her Captain. “Sir, will you have a drink with me? In honour of the ships passing? She played a part in history that we could never have imagined back on the day Wippene ran away from the elevator.” That brought a bark of laughter from the Captain and he felt the mood lift.
Much later as Oscar sniffed his glass and the Orbital grew close /Longnose/ sighed, a strange reluctance for this moment to end. “Patrica, where will you go now? I will be given a new ship. In fact, I could probably just buy one. I’ll always need an Engineer. You could join me.” Patrica nodded and poured the last measure out between them, “Captain, my Captain. When they made the Dangerous Toys a human diplomat ship and stuck me as Captain I had to sign up again. I’m back in the fleet. I have no idea where I’ll be next but I do know it won’t be up to me.” They sipped their drinks and watched the future grow larger outside.