Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

“What is this?” Molly asked Walter. “What did you do to the radio?”

“That’s the Bern talking,” Cat said, her voice a whisper. “It must be from the fleet.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding.” Molly grabbed Walter’s arm. “Walter, how did you—?”

He yanked his arm away, still pretending to be hurt. Molly realized the how wasn’t important. She spun in her seat to face Cat. “Do you understand any of this?”

Cat shook her head. “Not a lick. I heard it plenty in my day, though. Enough to know what it is.”

“Is there any way we can translate it?”

Cat frowned. “Everybody I know that speaks that language is… well, gone,” she said.

Scottie smiled. “I can give you a good guess. I bet they’re saying ‘Bern mother ship, this is Bern baby ship, over. Commence galactic domination on my mark—’”

Cat smacked him on the arm playfully, but the blow knocked him against the bulkhead. Scottie went to wincing and laughing at the same time.

“I wass decrypting the Englissh,” Walter grumbled. “Not thiss.”

“Wait,” Molly said. She held up a hand to silence Cat and Scottie’s jovial bickering. “What did you say?”

“The Englissh iss riding a carrier wave.” He pointed to his computer. “I wass decrypting it. For fun. Before you hit me.”

“Oh, gimme a break. I barely slapped your hand away. Now what’s this English? Can you play it?”

“It’ss sstill garbled,” Walter hissed. He wasn’t giving up the pouting without a fight.

Molly took over the flying from Parsona and decreased thrust. She wanted to hear more of the broadcast before they got inside the StarCarrier and the hull interfered with the signal. “Do what you were doing, but play it through the speakers,” she said.

Walter made a show of gazing out the porthole.

Molly took a deep breath. “Please, Walter, as your captain and friend, I’m asking you to do this for me.”

Walter fidgeted in his seat and brought his feet up underneath him. He brushed some nonexistent dust off his shoulder, then reached for the dash. He turned the volume down on the radio and did something to his computer, which began emitting garbled phrases, but clearly English.

“They’re not happy,” Walter said. “That’ss all I can tell.” He placed the computer on the control panel where its speakers could be better heard while he continued to adjust the virtual dials on its screen.

“—nothing we — do for —. Group — and — two — lost. Mo — or went down — Co —. Repeat, form — continue — planned.”

“Can’t you clean it up some more?” Molly glanced back and forth between his computer and the view beyond the carboglass. Parsona’s belly was literally sliding through the feathery heads of Lok’s tall grasses as she continued to pull back on the throttle and move into a hover.

“I already did clean it up,” Walter complained. “It doessn’t get any clearer.”

“— planet Lok. — can — confirm?”

Molly settled Parsona into a hover just a few kilometers from the StarCarrier. She keyed the cockpit door shut, and the four of them leaned over Walter’s computer. The small group fell silent, concentrating on every popping utterance and trying to surmise the missing gaps:

“Confirm. — am — speaking to?”

“Edi — on. I — member of Dre — — cil.”

“— the —”

“Confirm. — are — Exponent.”

“Did you hear that?” Molly whispered.

“Too much basss,” Walter hissed. He reached to adjust the dials.

Molly waved him off. “Don’t. Didn’t you hear—? Why can’t we get the rest?”

“Approxima — — ordinates —.”

“It’ss a carrier wave,” Walter said. “It jumpss frequencsiess oncse a ssecond. I’m jumping after it, but the sscanner tracse I wrote hass too much lag.”

He pulled the computer into his lap and fiddled with it. Molly looked up through the canopy at the steel cliff of StarCarrier looming ahead. Something about the garbled phrases kept tugging on her subconscious, begging her to understand. She heard Cat and Scottie whispering back and forth between themselves—and then someone banged on the cockpit door.

“Tell them we need a second,” Molly said, keying the door open.

While Cat and Scottie chatted with the climbers in the cargo bay, Molly turned to see how Walter was doing, then noticed her nav screen had gone blank. A single line across the top read:

LET ME HELP_

Molly leaned forward in her seat and reached for the keyboard.

HOW?_ she typed.

LET ME TALK TO HIM_

Molly hesitated. She turned and saw one of the Navy men by the door frowning at the unexpected delay. Scottie gestured and made excuses, and finally the man turned away.

“The boys in black wanna know what’s taking so long,” Cat said.

Molly keyed the door shut. “They’re gonna have to wait.” She flicked the speakers on. “Go ahead,” she said to her mom. “Talk to him.”

Cat and Scottie gave her a funny look, then her mother’s voice came through the speakers:

“Walter,” Parsona said. “Do you remember me?”

Walter looked at the dash, then at Molly. “You’re Molly’ss friend, right?”

Molly wondered what he meant, then remembered her mom’s ruse the night Byrne nearly killed her. They had spoken before, but Parsona had pretended to be radioing in from another ship.

“That’s right,” Parsona said. “Do you remember helping me with the missiles?”

“Yeah,” Walter said. “About that, I didn’t mean to be ssso—”

“No, that’s fine. You did great. Now I want to help you.”

“With what?” Walter asked. He looked to Molly and shrugged.

“I want you to give me that program you’re using. I can do the frequency switching a lot faster than your computer.”

“Okay,” Walter said. “I guessss that’ss okay.” He turned to Molly. “Sshould we go and meet her?”

“She’s in the computer, Walter.” Molly pointed to his nav screen, which had gone black except for a blinking cursor. “She’s a part of the ship.”

Walter stared at the screen. He reached forward and poked one of the keys on the dash. The letter ‘W’ appeared, and the blinking cursor shifted to the right.

He glanced over at Molly, then bent forward, typing out the rest:

WALTER_

He hit enter.

HELLO WALTER_

He smiled at the screen, then turned to Molly, beaming. “I thought you were talking to yoursself all thosse timess!”

“Can you type in the program, or do you want to interface with my computer?” Parsona asked.

“I’ll type it,” Walter said, rather hurriedly. He bent to the task, referring to his small screen several times. Molly looked back and widened her eyes for Cat and Scottie. They both shrugged and remained silent. The Wadi flicked her tongue out into the air.

After less than a minute of typing, Walter sat back, and the nav screens changed. Molly felt her stomach drop a little, realizing she’d just let the Palan write a program into the ship’s computer. When the conversation with her mom went blank, her heart stopped for a brief moment, but then the screen flashed and showed a display similar to the one on his portable unit with audio bar graphs dancing up and down.

The same radio chatter as before came through Parsona’s speakers, louder, though, and without the annoying pauses: