She said, “Your loss.”, as she opened a door and let me into another range. She handed me my new pistol, and a box full of magazines, all loaded. “We all got tired of loading them, so I printed up enough to have a good range session without having to mess with it.”
“Thanks.” I took out my Ruger, cleared it, and laid it on the bench. Then I laid my spare magazines beside it. I put on the new stuff instead, and went through all my normal drills. It was a little scary how close Nunya had gotten the new gun to the old one. I really couldn’t feel a difference, except for less recoil. I had made a good dent in Nunya’s box of magazines when my comm rang. Jackie said, “Boss, it’s time to train again. Could you come to the ready room, please?”
“I need to clean up a few things here, and I’ll be right there.”
“See you then.” The call ended, and I started gathering things to put away. Nunya said, “Nope, you have more important things to do. I’ll get that, Boss.”
“Alright. I’m ready to start carrying it, once you have it cleaned. You did a whale of a job on this, Nunya. I’m proud of you.”
“Hold all that till I get the new rifle finished. It’s still giving me some trouble.”
“I have faith in you. You’ll figure it out.”
“Get back to doing Captain things, and let me clean up.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” She started to turn, and I saw a gleam in her eye, but she decided against it at the last second. I decided to ignore the fact she had been hanging out with Dee too much. I got to the ready room, and Jackie lit me up. I was alone when I came out of it, so I decided to go to the galley and thin out the blood in my caffeine system. I was looking for the secrets of life in the bottom of my cup, when Steve said, “Do you have time to talk a minute, Boss?” I looked up and said, “Sure. What’s on your mind?”
“The Squirrels get really nasty with their booby traps, Bob. If they’ve rigged those ships, they probably have it done up so that no robot can approach without setting it off. Some of their stuff even has a sensor that tells how heavy a person is when they are approaching, and if they are too heavy to be a Squirrel, it blows.”
“How complicated is the disarm procedure?”
“We do get a break there. None of their stuff is that hard to disarm. They seem to think the stupid monkeys will never figure it out, anyway.”
“You’re telling me they don’t use traps on one another?”
“Not lethal ones, if I understand the training correctly.”
“I’d like you to ask Tikki and Lakki about that, before we have to depend on it.”
“I can do that. Should have thought of it myself.”
“Nobody can remember everything. Any ideas for what to do if they have those weight sensors you were talking about?”
“I hadn’t thought that part through, yet. What do you think?”
“We could ask Tikki and Lakki, but I hate to put it on them, just because they’re Squirrels. Janet and Milly would be handy for this, as much as they’ve learned about being techs.”
“They went back to the planet with Mrs. Wilson?”
“Yep.”
Gene spoke up. “Boss, sorry to interrupt, but you are mistaken. They both managed to avoid going back to the planet. They would be available for whatever caper you are cooking up.”
I replied, “Thanks, Gene.”
I looked at Steve. “Find them, and make sure they are as trained as you can make them. I don’t want any harm to come to them.”
“On it, Boss.” Steve took off. I went back to trying to see the future in my coffee. Jasmine came over and asked, “You okay, Boss?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just that I’m about to take us into danger, and I don’t have enough information about what we’re going to be facing.”
“You’re afraid you’re going to get someone hurt, and you’re not sure the goal is worth it?”
“That’s pretty close, let’s go with that.”
“There are a lot of bots aboard that don’t have those kinds of doubts, Boss. We want our friends and shipmates to get to wake up and work for you. Even if you can’t get the ships, the bots are worth the trip.”
“Thanks. I was needing some perspective. The only people I have that it makes sense to send in to disable the self-destructs are young, with a lot of life ahead of them. If one of them were to get hurt, because I ordered them in, I don’t know what I would do.”
“I do, Boss. You’d do what you always do when things go sideways. You’d figure out a way to keep going, for the rest of us.”
“You have a lot of confidence in me. You do realize I’m a slow-thinking organic?”
“You might be slow, Boss, but oh, the places you get to.”
“You sure you don’t have a circuit blown somewhere? You sound like you’re talking about somebody else.”
“Whatever you say, Boss.” She walked away. I finished my coffee, and headed to the bridge. Topper sang out, “Commodore on the bridge.” I replied, “As you were.” Sally asked, “We’re still a couple of hours out, Boss. You sure you want to be here this early?”
“I have a few questions. Do we have a scan of the yard from before the Gene left?”
“We do.”
“I’d like someone running a comparison, as soon as we emerge. If
