“You’re going to use the transits like Paris taxis?”
Abe thought a moment, looking up the reference. “Exactly. Do you have anything to add?”
“Sounds to me like you’ve got it under control, Abe. Thanks for the good work. I better let you get back to it. We’ll get settled in. How long till the excitement starts?”
“About three minutes, Boss.” I wanted to minimize casualties among the Squirrels, but I knew we didn’t have enough fighters to be able to do anything about that. We had to survive, before we could worry about anything else. Charlie got settled into a place he could snipe from, and I found a good spot. The Squirrels didn’t bother to hit everywhere at once, so we got word they were venting compartments before they did it to ours. Gave us a chance to pull up our hoods and find handholds for when the air rushed out. As soon as the compartment was blown out, they started coming through the gap. We made them pay, but eventually, they managed to get a few people into the ship. If this was Abe’s idea of a fighting retreat, I’d hate to see him trying to hold a position. I managed to show myself a few times, without getting my fool head shot off. I could tell some of the Squirrels recognized me, because they started trying to get to me. Supposedly, there were only a thousand Squirrels, but it seemed like three or four times that many, just in our bay. I hoped the other bays were holding, but I was too busy to find out. Slowly at first, and then more often, more Squirrels showed up to our fight. Abe was careful not to nail too many of them as they came in, even though that wouldn’t have been that hard. Finally, they stopped coming in, and then things began to happen. First, a patch made its way over the hole they had come in through. None of the maintenance bots carrying it was careless enough to expose itself to enemy fire. Soon, red spots were evident, where they were welding it into place. As soon as Abe was sure that the Squirrels couldn’t get out of the bay, he turned loose his reserves. They took a terrible toll on the Squirrels. Very few were willing to surrender. In the end, we won, but it took an awful effort. Bots were down, all over the bay. I looked at Charlie, and noticed his arm was bleeding. I said, “I thought you weren’t going to get hurt?”
He pointed at my leg and said, “I thought you weren’t either.” I looked down and saw that I was losing some blood from my leg. I got out a field dressing, and started to work on it. Charlie said, “Let me, and then you can do my arm.” He patched me up, and I got his arm in shape. Abe came walking up. “Boss, we have ten prisoners, five of them need to go to medbay. The rest fought to the end.”
“How many of our boys need to go see Scotti?”
“Thirty-seven. As soon as they get that patch pressure tight, we’ll start moving people out. What should we do with the bodies?”
“Is there anyplace we can put them in cold storage? I don’t want to just space them.”
“Yes, Boss. There is a place. You mind if I ask why?”
“We had to kill them, but we can at least treat them with respect. I’m trying to get the point across to these hardheads that we are people, too.”
Abe said, “A noble goal, but what we’ve seen so far doesn’t make it seem that achievable.”
“I know that. You have any suggestions on how to get the point across?”
“No, Boss. You’ve done all anybody could ask, trying to make peace with these idiots. Almost seems like they would rather fight.”
“Stopping their fleet cold should wake them up, but I don’t think it will. Seems like every move I make is wrong, and I can’t figure out why.”
Abe replied, “Pretty sure that’s above my pay grade, Boss.”
“Lucky you.” Abe took off to get started organizing the aftermath. I asked Gene, “Connect me to Topper, please.”
“Hey, Boss. Good to hear that you’re still sucking wind. My XO was pretty concerned.”
“She’s not half as glad as I am. Did the other breaches get under control?”
“Yes, Boss. Compared to the bay you were in, everybody else had it easy. Yours is the last bay to report being back in control.”
“That was the plan. Lure them in here, thinking they could capture the infamous monkey, and then pound the snot out of them.”
Nikki’s voice came over the comm. “So, you didn’t get hurt?”
“I got a little boo-boo on my leg, it doesn’t amount to much. Charlie got hit on the arm, I’m not sure, but I think his might be the worst of the two.”
“I should have known, with you two together, that you would wind up comparing injuries.”
“We had to patch each other up. The hull isn’t pressure tight here yet. Gene is pumping in air, but I’m sure we’re losing some. Probably making it harder for the bots doing the repair to get it welded, just to keep us organic types something to breathe.”
“You had to cut your suits to bandage your wounds, didn’t you?”
“You would rather we bled out?”
“You need to take the battle first aid course. There’s a command to get the suit to open around a wound, in a way that it can repair quickly.”
“Now you tell me. I’ll get on that, as soon as we’re back to something that looks like normal.”
“Glad you’re okay, Caveman. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Topper asked, “Anything else you need, Boss?”
“Nope. Talk to you
