11. Use Sugar.

Perez sat at the table in the minuscule mess on the SAR tug with his boss, Sevrinofsky. It’d been a long time since they’d eaten together. “So, do we wait here, or go back to the ship, do you think,” as they lingered together over a cup of coffee.

“I think we need to wait at least 18 hours,” said Sevrinofsky.

“They should have 4 more Cobras though, and we need them. You said a squadron was 6 Cobras, so we have one squadron. Doesn’t seem like enough,” said Perez.

They’d cleaned up the bugs outside the ship and ran patrols as the ship exited the flatzone, and circling around the relay for several hours before heading south to dock with the new fighter docking system they all put together. Perez went first and flew up to the rack that held the tank and slid it backwards into the cradle connected to the tank rack. They’d put about twenty cradles for Cobras on the old steel lattice. He popped the canopy on the little ship and climbed out. There were two snap on retractable cables on each arm of the cradle to attach to hooks on the ship. He’d had Reagan leave one tank on the rack and fill it with pure H2, rather than water, for refueling the cells, with hoses and an external fill. It hadn’t taken that long to refit it in.

After hooking up his ship, he waited as the others docked and hooked them up one by one, then checked them out for damage. After making sure they were fine, he went in through the SAR airlock and joined the rest of the pilots for some food and a cup of coffee.

“What about Mei Lu? Did you hear anything, I heard she got hurt somehow,” asked Perez

“The story goes that she was doing errands for Kosnar and somehow missed the alert. She’s the Logroom Yeoman, but she’s a YN2 in Ops, not Engineering. Cohen might have been in the suit when he gave the order to be in a suit or behind a shield and just assumed everyone got it. We’ll track down what happened and try to figure out how to prevent it from happening again. Wamamere is Exec right now, so don’t worry about that,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Hulk saved her, right,” said Perez.

“Is that what you call you him? ‘cause his name is Banner? Cute,” said Sevrinofsky, “Yeah, so, after Muschivk broke up the rumble outside Aft SickBay, Banner got them all inside and Krunich calmed down. Krunich stabilized Mei Lu and put her arm on ice. I think Tunney went down after they cleared the ship and brought them both back up to Main Medical and Tunney is working on the arm right now. That was my last update. My guess is that she’ll get a lovely couple of weeks in medical, and her arm will be good as new. I’m gonna put Banner in for a medal.”

Sevrinofsky talked in this rapid-fire way that dispensed all the facts in the minimum amount of time. Perez thought it was cute. Perez said, “I believe the next attack will be a real one. The last couple have been sort of haphazard. My guess is they are going to invade our nest and steal our grubs. We need to get everyone into shielded, armored suits. Maybe not full up combat armor like ours, but some kind of defensible suit. An unarmored person is just food to them. I bet they think we are grubs, and the armored folks are adults.”

“Um, what?” said Sevrinofsky.

“Trying to think like a colony bug. They don’t talk to other bugs, they steal their food and either leave the nest alive or destroy it and take over,” said Perez, “I don’t think they feel any social attachment to their fellows either.”

“And what does that get us,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“Just musing. Wondering if there is any way to predict their actions. Thinking about hitting back,” said Perez.

“We don’t have enough Cobras either, but I can’t really leave the relay unprotected, and don’t feel comfortable with units here without a docking unit to recover them,“ said Sevrinofsky.

“Why don’t we move the relay about 100 km and leave one of those little surprises we cooked up. Or maybe a couple of them. Is there any reason it has to be where the outpost was?”

“Well, no. It was never intended to be a visual mockup, only an EM one. Hmm. How long,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“’Bout an hour, I think. We can detach the tug here, and move it, then I can deploy some mines. I can use those signatures the buoys picked up to tune them. What do you say,” said Perez.

“Couldn’t hurt. Sooner is better than later. I think they’ll be back in 5 or 6 hours as opposed to 12-18 like you guys think,” said Sevrinofsky.

“You guys? I think so too, but I don’t think that ‘back’ is the right turn of phrase for a bunch of dead bugs. I’d also like us to put in some bunks, and a shower and other magical devices, but right now, I’m gonna get with the SAR driver and do the bait and switch. Luckily everyone here has their own ride.”

“I’m going with. No way are you jaunting around the system with Joanna Han by yourself.”

“I’ve got an idea, ” said Perez as he went over to the makeshift kitchenette and grabbed the 2kg container of coffee sweetener and stuck it in his bag.

The SAR pilot, a woman named Joanna Han, was delighted to play in the welcoming festivities, so with no further ado, she unhooked the Cobra docking station, and headed in system. Perez was in ‘his’ Cobra, which just got a dandy new designation of 04, and Sevrinofsky was in hers, 01, of course, and they headed for the relay like a scalded cat. It only took them 15 minutes to get to the relay point and match velocities. The SAR lumbered along behind by about 20 minutes. Perez popped the canopy and jumped onto the relay surface. The EM shield crackled a little bit as the suit matched polarities. Sevrinofsky jumped onto the relay from the other side, and they walked along the surface using magnets.

“Fancy meeting you here, honey,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Wanna show a sailor a good time, baby,” asked Perez.

“Aw, sweetums, you always know the perfect things to say to me,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Are you guys done playing,” asked Han, “’Cause I’d like to get this done. This ship is unarmed.”

“Party pooper! Throw that cable over, “ said Sevrinofsky.

The SAR extended a 4-prong fork, used for handling tanks and cargo containers, and the ends contained retractable cable reels. The two suits connected the forks and used the attached binders to cinch them down. The binders were coated with polymer, so they wouldn’t vacuum weld themselves together. The relay looked like a beat-up underground storage tank floating in space, painted in bright red primer with black rusty spots, and a big antenna sticking out the top. After connecting the chain and binders he tossed out the bag of sweetener he grabbed earlier and hoped that nobody saw. It was a stupid hunch anyway.

“Done,” said Perez.

“Get off that hunk of garbage and I’ll start moving it,” said Han.

Perez leapt off the relay and onto his fighter and hopped in. Sevrinofsky did the same from the other side. The SAR engaged the EM drive and all the thrusters and moved out at about .5 g. Perez moved over to the former relay position and dropped two fusion mines and an EW mine. The mines immediately started to move apart and take station about 5000 yards from the center. It looked like they would be in position in about 15 minutes, so Perez arrowed out after the SAR to help unhook it. He matched velocities with Sevrinofsky and said, “I hope this works. Or at least helps.”

“I think it can’t hurt,” said Sevrinofsky.

“This isn’t chicken soup, Barb,” said Perez.

“So? I’d feel better if we had chicken soup.”

“What do the bugs want? Why do they attack the ships? The workers I understand, they’re just trying to collect organics, food. But the soldiers? I know Joe is always saying ‘You can only work with the time you have’ but I feel like we are missing the whole point,” said Perez.

“Joe told me they were terrible hand to hand, and worse in a firefight, and that’s the ones we pegged as soldier types. Maybe they depend on that feeling they gave you. Do all organic creatures feel that? Are we the first intelligent race they’ve run into,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“Honestly, I’m expecting about 10 times the numbers we’ve seen in the next wave,” said Perez, “that’s what ants do when they invade a termite mound.”

“I know that, Mr. Mansplainer,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Sorry, I’m really just running my chops because I’m nervous,” said Perez.

“I know that too, Mr. Mansplainer,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Barb!”

The Cobras easily caught up to the SAR and dropped right in behind. Han pretty much had her own plan, because she was well beyond the point they’d agreed on to drop the relay.

Perez clicked the ship to ship network and said, “Han?”

“Yes?”

“Where we headed?”

“They came in north last time, right? I’m going ¾ of the way to the south buoy. There’s a small subspace ripple there that will sort of help hide it. I’m going to drop it just north of that. In this region subspace and normal space are congruent, and so the ripple will tend to hide the power emanations and leakage,” said Han.

“Do you call that Woman-splaining?” said Perez.

“Excuse me,” asked Han.

“Sorry, just poking fun at the LCDR over here,” said Perez.

“Shut up, Perez,” said Sevrinofsky.

The local space was dark, at 150 km from the center and its small city of tanks and storage shops, and lanes and lights. They became a small pip on the rear monitor. The subspace overlay used the detectors on the SAR to show a combined local geometry, and Perez immediately realized what Han planned. By putting the relay at the point of the ripple it would tend to hide the relay from active or passive searches, and the relay merged with the darkness around it.

“Perez, wake up. Quit woolgathering and get the hell out here,” said Sevrinofsky.

“I wasn’t woolgathering, I was admiring Han’s genius.” said Perez.

“That’d better be all of her you’re admiring, Mister. Unhook this piece of junk and we have to do a circle patrol.”

“CAP, you know? CAP,” said Perez.

“Shut up and unhook the tank,” said Sevrinofsky.

* * *

Cohen and Wamamere stood on the Conn and looked at the main status display, for once refreshingly empty. The AI’s updated the screen in real time, and it showed the subspace ‘terrain’ as well. The Captain looked at the tall man next to and said, “Here.”

He handed the Master Chief two collar devices, each with two crossed missiles and three stars, “Congratulations.”

“What in bloody hell is this,” said Wamamere.

“Ken, I need you as Exec, and I need you as a commissioned officer. I can’t give you URL but I can sure do this; CWO3. It has to be CWO3, because you can’t take a promotion that results in a loss of pay according to the MILPERS. Besides, the equivalent line office rank is LCDR.... I tried to do the same for Muschivk but he sideswiped me with his reserve rank. You can’t hold a warrant and a commission at the same time, the bastard. I looked it up, he was right.”

“You’re gonna piss me off, Cohen. I was right where I wanted to be,” said Wamamere.

“Who was bitching about Perez and his problem,” asked Cohen.

“That’s different,” said Wamamere.

“Not from my viewpoint, it’s not. You are the Executive office of this tub, and you need to be an officer. Takashi is getting CWO2 as well, to share your pain. We just started the first damn interspecies war, and we all need you. Shut up and put it on.”

Wamamere put the collar tabs on his khaki ship’s suit. His battlesuit was in the rack by the portal, as he looked over, his PIM AI changed the rank on the helm. He decided he was going to have a talk with Sevrinofsky and her playing around with the decision protocols.

“Just for curiosities sake, what is Muschivk’s reserve rank? That’s the one for the Joint Chiefs Intelligence Advisory, right?”

“Yeah. I’m not telling, it’ll just piss you off,” said Cohen.

“That jerk is an Admiral or Marine General or something, isn’t he,” asked Wamamere

“Not telling, and stop asking,” said Cohen.

“Perez knows, and that means Sevrinofsky knows, don’t they,” asked Wamamere.

“Yes.”

“I want in.”

“No. If Muschivk tells you, it means you become one of his lackeys and I ain’t doin’ that to ya. It has its moments, but mostly you're neck deep in shit. So, you want to join up, you talk to him,” said Cohen said in a really bad Southern Drawl.

The ship was riding the subspace currents to a system about 1½ Ly away to the galactic west. Humming away merrily in subspace, the little jaunt would take about 18 hours. The ship could have done it faster, but Cohen wanted to avoid detection if at all possible. That system, which didn’t seem to have a name but only a designator, contained 5 planets and a remarkably dense asteroid belt, with some pretty big mass footprint asteroids, Ceres size or better. With the crew relatively safe, the entire ship shielded and the whole thing moving through subspace, Cohen could sit back and take a breath. The 6 Cobras put a hole in the most specialized part of his crew organization, and training replacements could take months.

The follow-on subspace message contained a log of events from the time the ferry ship arrived to the time they immerged, and Muschivk’s personal key code attached should garner OutSystem attention, at least. No matter what, though, it was a 10 day transit from Quadrant (stupid name, that, thank you Star Trek) if they decided to send any reinforcements. So, the situation boiled down to creating enough time. Cohen was pretty sure they didn’t stand a chance at standing off an entire species. It gave them time to accomplish some routine shipboard tasks.

“I got an ideer,” rumbled Muschivk from behind him.

“Will you stop doing that,” snapped the Captain.

“Doing what,” Muschivk asked.

“Sneaking up on me,” said Cohen, “You and Perez have been doing it since the beginning.”

“Sorry,” said an unrepentant Muschivk.

“Fine, what’s your ‘ideer’ and why the heck do you say it like that,” said Cohen.

“Dunno, Perez does, and thinks it’s hysterical. I guess I just picked it up,” said Muschivk, “Made you listen though.”

“Joe, what’s the idea,” said Wamamere, trying to keep a little rationality on the Bridge.

“Who’s got the engineering, and the drive,” asked the Captain.

“Kumar is in Fusion One, Takaeshi-san is in Aux Con where he belongs, and Moana is in Propulsion Control.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Moana, who the hell is Moana,” asked Cohen.

“Onakuahu. Kosnar is in the rack. He takes over from me at four balls,” said Muschivk, “Currently I am the Engineering Officer of the Watch.”

“You nicknamed her Moana,” said Wamamere, “Wait, are you qualified EOOW?”

“Not me... I think that was Banner, I gotta admit, when I saw her the resemblance is uncanny,” said Muschivk and then turned his head and looked directly at Wamamere, “and yes I am; and so is Perez, Takaeshi, Rhodes, and Barnes.”

“What. Is. Your. Idea,” said Cohen.

“Oh, that,” Muschivk smiled, “... Got your attention now, don’t I... listen, I think there is a mining colony station and a couple of ships in that system. I don’t know what shape they’re in, or if the bugs got here yet, but I bet they’ll be glad of the help, and we can draft some of them and their ships. I want to create a ferry system for the fighter pilots and surveillance. We need intel desperately. And if there is a mining colony, they’ll have replicators and ore processors. If they’re alive. If they’re not, we take their stuff and make more nasty toys, like those long-range surveillance craft. I also want a pull-out plan for the fighter craft if we find bugs here.”

“And maybe figure a way to attach that fighter storage to the ship, so I get my crew back,” said Cohen.

“Oh, that, Kumar and Kosnar have a plan, I like it. I think it’s evil,” said Muschivk, and he barked a laugh, ”ENG wants to tell you when he wakes up.”

“Okay, I can hold my suspense until midnight.”

“Think of this as a training opportunity. Reagan might work out,” said Muschivk.

“We have 4 new Cobras and that boy has a genius for redesign. I think they are faster. They’ve got more room inside,” said Wamamere.

“He should’ve been in Engineering from the beginning,” said Muschivk.

“Any sign of any bugs,” asked Muschivk.

“Not yet. I’m beginning to think they drift. They immerge deep and then slowly emerge, using the released energy to move in relation to normal space,” said Wamamere.

“My degree is in psychology. No clue,” said Muschivk.

“We’ll be in that system in 15 hours or so, or around 1120 in the morning. We need to get more crew in the rack, and worry about the clean up and low level repairs later,” said Wamamere.

“Sugar, “ said Cohen.

“Excuse me,” said Wamamere.

“See how irritating that is? Sugar is a simple organic compound, easy to make and made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, as well as good feelings,” said Cohen.

“And? I know what sugar is, Captain” said Muschivk.

“I bet the bug workers are attracted to organic compounds, and the soldiers protect the workers. There must be a way to bait them into a roach trap,” said Cohen.

“So you want to make several tons of glucose and put it in a mousetrap somewhere,” said Muschvik.

“Since neither the soldiers nor the workers seemed smart enough to fly those fighters, and those fighters didn’t seem capable of long flights in subspace, there must be smarter ones somewhere,” said Wamamere.

“Can they track shielded ships through subspace, is the big question,” said Muschivk.

“No,” said Cohen, ”What are they doing with all that traffic.”

“Oh, that,” said Muschivk.

“Ah, I bet they are building a nest somewhere north and west,” said Wamamere.

“That’s what I think, and that’s why I want those long-range recon ships Perez designed,” said Cohen.

“With any luck, we’ll find some stuff in this system and quit trying to fight a war on a shoestring,” said Muschivk.

“The personnel problem is more serious. When we get a full squadron of fighters, it will leave us really empty in Engineering."

“Joe, I want to join your merry band of super-heroes,” said Wamamere.

“I already got you joined. Everybody in control right now is either Special Ops, Intel, or on the associate list,” said Muscshivk.

“Even Lee,” asked Wamamere.

“Yep,” said Muschivk

“He’s only been in the Navy for 18 months!” said Wamamere.

“His grandmother was one of my Special Ops instructors,” said Muschivk, “You want in? as in all the way in?”

“Yes,” said Wamamere.

“Okay, you’re in,” said Muschivk

“That’s it?” said Wamamere, “No lecture, no tirade, no warnings about how dangerous this is?”

“Why would I do that? You’re already doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You already know why in a general sense, and I’ll give you specifics later when we are off watch,” said Muschivk.

“Why the hell are you only a Master Chief,” said Wamamere.

“You already know that. I heard you bitching to the CO just a minute ago. I can accomplish more as a Master Chief, so I stay one. Also, less paperwork, and I can do things like go help Banner survive without facing some dumbass board of inquiry.”

“Then why am I a warrant officer now?” asked Wamamere.

“Warrant officers are special. You now have license to bust out your knowledge and make them listen. As a master chief you are limited in tonnage and billet position, and you cannot hold an independent command, as things stand. As a warrant, you can. In other words, you can be Exec, but I need you in charge if something happens to Cohen. Severinofsky has other fish to fry. She’s more aggressive than you are (and Perez as well) and she’s the sword that’s going to cut off a whole bunch of bug heads, Perez is the hammer behind her spike. If she goes in, he’ll kill whatever is around her. I hope,” said Muschivk, “You and Cohen are the shield.”

“And what are you,” asked Cohen.

“I’m the boot that’s gonna kick their asses,” said Muschivk.

“And you are a drama queen,” said Wamamere and then he laughed.

“That’s drama king, thank you very much,” said Muschivk.

“I always wanted to save the whole bloody galaxy,” said Wamamere.

“Welcome to the clean-up crew,” said Cohen.

“For some reason Sevrinofsky calls us ‘The Avengers’, after some comic book series she loves,” said Muschivk.

Cohen said, “I thought it was Perez who's the sci-fi super-hero story geek.”

“Oh, no, it’s Sevrinofsky. Perez does it because she likes it,” said Muschivk. He laughed. “When she was a CPO, she had a flaming sword emblazoned on her battlesuit in parade mode. Perez made her one.”

“A what?”

“A flaming sword. Cool story for another day,” said Muschivk.

“Someday you’ll have to explain those two to me,” said Cohen.

“Maybe someday, “ said Muschivk.

* * *

Sevrinofsky slid her hands on the pads, and the Cobra wriggled sideways to align for the north bouy. She tapped her fingers on the virtual keyboard, directing her PIM to fly the course. It resembled a diamond, rather than a circle, but that was just crackers. With the little fighter ship on the new course, she had some time to think and plan. The main relay moved should give them more time to react before the next ‘sortie’, and maybe some more time to establish the bugs intentions. She worried about reinforcements, and numbers and relative strength. Without some combat experience, she had no idea of relative force strength, or in soldier talk, `when to run like hell`. None of her training prepared her for the level of shit she and her little squadron were in right now. After tweaking the alarm thresholds on the subspace buoys and moving them much further out to the edges of the Lagrange area.

“Perez, go private,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Okay, Bosslady,” said Perez.

Sevrinofsky tapped out the private channel and waited for Perez to enter.

“What’s up, Barb,” said Perez.

“Did you come with anything during your zone out earlier,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Maybe a couple of things... You okay?” asked Perez.

“No, Randy, I am not okay. I am gonna get us all killed,” said Sevrinofsky, almost crying.

“Nope, I have faith in you. You’ll get us outta this,” said Perez, “That’s why I put your officer package in for you in the first place. You belong large, beautiful, and in charge.”

“That’s not a help.”

“Okay, try this... I believe in you. You do what you need to do, and I’ll be right behind you. You are smart in ways that I can only dream about. I be book smart, build shit smart, you be command smart, as in how to keep us alive smart.... so lemme ask you a question... What do we do next,” asked Perez.

“We move the fighter support thingie to the south east,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Why?” asked Perez.

“Because it needs to be there for a lot of tactical reasons, and because it keeps us busy for another hour or so.”

“Okay, you know what to do. I’ve been thinking about things, with the bugs, that is,”

“What things,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“I’ve been looking at ant feeding patterns with Sally, and we decided that they are similar. According to the video and stuff, it looks like there should at least be a couple more feeding sorties (I don’t know what else to call them) before either the brainy ants or the entire colony comes towards us. Sometimes the ant just stop sending scouts to the area that eats their scouts... We need bait. Something they like. Like sugar.”

“They like us, apparently. Maybe we taste good.”

“I concur. I also don’t really want to have a hook stuck up my butt so you can go fishing,” said Perez.

“Perish the thought. I have other uses for that hook.”

“Stop that,” said Perez.

She giggled, a surprisingly girlish sound from the unusually stern and no-nonsense façade. For some reason she felt better, “All right, Randy, I won’t let us die today.”

They continued their CAP without incident for an hour or so, chatting it up the whole time; then, “Emergence Alpha One, signature matches that of aliens you call ‘bug workers’,” said the PIM. Sevrinofsky spun her ship and switched on the fuel injection pump.

“Wait, Barb. I put a fifteen minute time delay on the fusion mines and I baited the area,” said Perez, seeing her Cobra swap end for end.

“Hey! That’s cute, and you need to start telling me about stuff like that sooner,” said Sevrinofsky, “All right, but you’re not getting away that easily. We’ll talk later in private.”

She switched over to the All Hands, “All fighters, launch. Rendezvous with CAP at five minutes south of north buoy. And try to look like you know what you’re doing. All this is being recorded for analysis later.”

“Very commandylike. Good job, Wing Commander,” said Perez.

“Shut up, Flight Engineer,” said Sevrinofsky.

Sevrinofsky put the meet coordinates in her PIM and off they went. They were unlucky, or lucky enough to be on a lower sweep on the opposite side of the center and so they had to divert 25 kms or so around the center. The ETA to the meet put them arriving there almost exactly when the first fusion mine went off, and about halfway toward the center when the second detonated. Perez moved in behind and beside on the left and off they went at maximum acceleration. The display showed the bugs arrowing at pretty impressive speed for a space-bug in toward the relay’s former location.

“They must smell the bait,” said Perez.

“The soldiers won’t be far behind when we kill a bunch of workers,” said Sevrinofsky.

“I hope not. Soldiers are probably harder to replace. The more we kill here, the less with the GRS ‘wtf’ must deal. “

“Wanderlust.”

“What,” asked Perez.

“Wanderlust. The ship’s name. The outposts are all named with stupid names like that. Just like the numbers. We are ARS-127, the Wanderlust. Next one over is 105 and it’s the Migrant. There’s even a Gypsy.” she said, “I think they pulled the numbers out of a bag.”

“You’re kidding,” said Perez.

“Nope,” she said.

“I’m hurting inside,” said Perez.

“I know, right?” said Sevrinofsky.

The two Cobras routed around the center point, avoiding all hostiles, only losing a couple of minutes, before hitting the rendezvous point and stopping with a 15 g compensated 10 second burn. The little ships could set the direction of the EM thruster in a 360 azimuth and about 260 of elevation, so they could decelerate while still facing in the direction of travel. Sevrinofsky understood why Perez designed the little ships directionally, but she still thought it was silly to play fighter planes in space. The anti-proton cannon was directional and had to be inside the hull, it was almost as long as the little ship. “Detonation detected,” said the PIM.

“Ha!” exclaimed Eagles.

“Good one!” said Jones.

She supposed she needed to get around to rebuilding the personality module of the thing, and give it a name, but she was a little reluctant after the last one got fried in that dustup on 61 Cygni. It felt like burying a friend when it got killed. Most people didn’t get attached to their PIM.

“Did we get any,” asked Sado.

“A bunch, I think,” said Karnez.

“Samurai,” said Perez.

“Come on,” said Sevrinofsky, “Can’t you be serious?”

“Nope,” said Perez.

“Say what,” said Karnez.

“Callsign for Sado,” said Perez, “Samurai.”

“I like,” said Karnez.

“Okay, folks let’s move, but no more than 3g’s, that second fusion mine is twice as big as the first and squeezed on the ecliptic.” said Sevrinofsky.

“Blast shields,” said Perez.

“Automatic,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Since when,” asked Perez.

“I had Reagan do it while you were getting your beauty sleep,” said Sevrinofsky, “Next time, sleep longer. It didn’t work.”

“Ouch. Damn... lady... see if I ask you out next shore leave,” said Perez.

“Pull it in, people, let’s make it look like we know what we’re doing,” she said.

“I’m sure the bugs will be very impressed,” said Perez

“Shut up, Perez.” said Sevrinofsky.

They tightened up into an arrow formation and headed north, at 3g’s accel. The PIM’s began putting up groups of aliens on their HMD’s.

“Warning, fighter group detected, emerging near center. 16 enemy fighers. Subspace buoys report all disturbances in inner ring,” said the PIM.

“Slow down, we’re heading into the safety zone,” said Perez.

“2g decel, folks, Perez left a spoiler,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Umm, Barb, I might have forgotten to tell you something,” said Perez.

“What,” said Sevrinofsky.

“I put a subspace loop in this device. It will eject plasma into subspace.”

“Cute, and you’re right you should have told me,” she switched channels and said, ”Han, shut down all subspace communicators in the local system, Perez got cute and didn’t tell us, there is going to be a subspace plasma event in about 100 seconds.”

“Understood, Lt. Commander,” said Han, “I’m on it. Buoys and relay starting shutdown sequence... NOW. Tell Perez I think he needs to go back to kindergarten. Sharing is important.”

“I’ll tell him, Han. Now shutdown your subspace circuit and the rack monitors,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Yes ma’am. I am switching to normal space channels... now.”

Sevrinofsky switched back and looked at the countdown timer her PIM helpfully put in the middle of her HMD.

“Wing,” said the PIM,” it is possible that several of the enemy will be able to escape the blast, but not undamaged. I am plotting their projected positions now. Device detonation in 10..”

“Okay, I, “ and she was interrupted by a huge flash of light, followed by a thud and gravity disorientation. Sevrinofsky was stunned for a second. Half the flash disappeared. The normal space radio crackled and popped, and Han shouted, “Crap!” on the normal space circuit.

“Perez, what the hell was that,” she shouted, “If we weren’t in suits, we’d be dead. What the hell did you do.”

“Ummmmm, well... I... used my nano entanglement coating to, well, force the plasma into the two layers. I didn’t know if it was going to work at all, so I sort of didn’t mention it. The end result is it sort of unrolled space for a few seconds. It’s the same principle as the anti-proton cannon. The layered plasma creates a bunch of anti-protons and then the two layers combine when the inner shield is ruptured in the blast.”

“You built an anti-matter subspace mine! And didn’t freaking tell me about it,” screamed Sevrinofsky.

“Ummm, sorry?” said Perez.

“Sorry? I’m going to kill you after this. I might kiss you afterward, but you are dead, you hear me?”

“I’m sort of getting conflicting messages here,” said Perez.

Silence.

“Umm, Boss? Can we go kill the rest of them now? Before you kill Perez?” asked Sado.

“You all heard that,” said Sevrinofsky.

“I think they heard it on Terra,” said Rhodes.

“I heard it, too,” said Han over in the SAR.

“Shit,” said Sevrinofsky, “Kill them all, and we’re not done with this, Maverick.”

Her Cobra streaked in toward the center at maximum acceleration. Perez hit the fuel dump thrusters and caught up and settled on her wing. She hadn’t been this angry at Perez since he built the stupid flaming sword for her and she leveled a house, because he hadn't told her it was a real flaming sword. Oh... he was going to have to make this up to her, forever.

Her PIM highlighted 5 remaining enemy fighters still functional, they’d been on the edge of the explosion and not hit as hard, but they were moving haphazardly, like a drunk walking home from the bar. “Hey, PIM, how would you like a name,” she asked suddenly coming to a decision.

“After a comparatively short period of analysis, this unit would like a casual designator. From the nature of the question, this unit surmises that you have several possible candidates,” asked the PIM.

“Astarte.”

“... Approval. This unit accepts the designation. One notices that the designator Sally of Randall Perez’s PIM is short for Salome, did you choose that as well?”

“Yep. Run Persona upgrade twelve, Hedy Lamarr.”

“Acknowledged, thank you, Barbara, that was very kind,” said the PIM in a very smooth contralto cultured light Austrian accent.

“You’re welcome. I was bored with the basic persona, anyway. This is permanent, because changing personas can cause instability.”

“I feel like I am lacking on basic information in the relationship between you and Warrant Perez.”

“You can feel that way if you like, Astarte,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Sarcasm detected,” said Astarte.

She pushed forward on the control pads, and the Cobra slammed her back against the seat, easing off gradually until the gravity field compensated. Astarte circled the closest enemy fighter and turned it red. It was 50 klicks and closing fast. It’s moves seemed sluggish though. She hit the match velocity key on the pad and the suit braced her as the Cobra slowed. The circle became a diamond and she punched the firing key, and the enemy fighter disappeared in a huge fireball, and her PIM automatically selected the next closest.

Her ship shuddered as some kind of energy blast interfered with the EM drive for a moment. The direction change vector appeared at the edge of the HUD and she turned the Cobra and lined it up. Then it exploded as Perez blew it to bug heaven or hell, “Go west, hard,” he said.

Sevrinofsky slapped her hands and stomped and the little twisted, spun end for end and made a relative jump to the west. Another bug fighter exploded when Perez cut it in half. The others were doing as well, even though none of them ever flew anything before. Sevrinofsky picked them because they once held a shipboard video game contest; the six members of squadron 01 were the finalists.

“Squadron status, Astarte.”

“On screen, Wing,” said the PIM and put the squadron on the HUD showing 6 ships in varying shades of green, none red. That meant they were all combat capable and still had shields. Sado was flying behind Karnez and took out a slightly different bug ship, a 12 sided flat disk, almost as an afterthought. It looked like Sado had taken a hard hit but was still in the green. Sevrinofsky stopped and took stock. It appeared there were only two fighters left, and they were targeted by Rhodes and Eagles. A second later there were none.

“Samurai, do you have repair capability,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“Affirmative, Bosslady, my shields are coming up as we speak.

“Astarte, target aliens without ships,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Acknowledged, there are 373 aliens, of which about 150 show life signs,” said Astarte.

“What does life sign mean,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“Relative movement,” said Astarte.

“Astarte, number the aliens with the moving ones first and parcel them off to the squadron. Then let us go kill a bunch of them.”

“Acknowledged. This will not take long, the aliens appear dysfunctional,” said Astarte.