“I’m still having trouble getting used to that.”
“You’ll get it, Boss.” They wandered off. I headed to the bridge. Topper sang out, “Commodore on the bridge!”
“As you were. I relieve you, Captain.”
Sally replied, “Your ship, Boss.”
I sat down and got strapped in. “How much longer till we exit?”
Ruth said, “Four minutes, thirty-five seconds from… mark.”
“Thank you. Put us up a clock, if you would.”
Ruth put the countdown on the main screen. I asked, “Gene, put me on the intercom, if you would.”
“You’re on, Boss.”
“All hands, all hands, this is Commodore Wilson. We are about to come out of FTL in the Navy yard. If any of you know what to expect, you’re way ahead of me. I know you will all do a fine job, and I want you to know I appreciate all you have done, and will do, for the good of the ship. Keep up the good work, and we’ll get through this just fine. We will be exiting in just under four minutes. The Cernan needs your best, and I am sure she will get it.”
I made a slashing motion, and Gene cut the connection. Sally said, “Nicely done, Boss.”
“I hope so. This crew deserves to know how good they are.”
“Launch bays report all fighters and Black Beauty are ready to launch.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
We sat quietly, wondering what was about to happen. I admit, I expected the worst. I know relativity isn’t supposed to apply in FTL, but I would have sworn time had slowed down. Finally, the clock hit zero, and we emerged. Ruth gave us a little jump to get away from our exit point, and the fighters started launching. Shortly thereafter, Sally said, “Fighters away. Fifteen seconds, good work, Gene.”
Saucy had been tasked with comparing the old scan with the new one. He said, “Boss, all the changes in ship position can be accounted for by natural drift. None of the ships appears to have moved under power.”
“Thank you, Saucy.”
Scotti came over the intercom. “Boss, all of the ships report that they were boarded by aliens, and sabotaged. The aliens sound like Squirrels.”
“Any details on the sabotage?”
“Sounds like the demolition charges you were worried about, Boss. They say they were warned that any bot approaching the charges would set them off.”
“All that’s left is to see if Taz and Willum’s report matches what they were told. Thanks, Scotti. Can you tell if they will be okay with being salvaged?”
“They’ve been out here by themselves for a very long time, Boss. I think they would do whatever you asked, just for a chance to get back in the black.”
“That sounds encouraging. Talk to you later.”
“Later, Boss.”
Sensors spoke up. “Boss, I’ve got nothing that looks like Squirrel emissions anywhere. I think we’re the only ones here, at the moment.”
“Stay on it. We need to know when they show up.”
Sally said, “Boss, the fighters are reporting bots, drifting in space, with no power.”
“Get Ace and whoever else is handy out there picking them up. Have Scotti ask the other ships what they know about it.”
A few seconds passed. Sally said, “Recovery ships away, Boss. Scotti says the other ships report that the Squirrels put most of the bots overboard when they were here. The ships had no way to recover them, since they couldn’t maneuver without setting off the destruct charges.”
“How long ago did all this happen?”
“Not long after the Gene was damaged in the Earth system.”
“That’s interesting. Almost makes it sound like they had something to do with what happened to the Gene.”
“How would that be possible, Boss? They would have to know where we were coming out of FTL before we emerged. There hasn’t been any evidence that they have anything that will do that.”
“The odds of the Gene coming out in the middle of a meteor storm are incredibly small. It would be easier to believe, if someone had helped the odds along just a bit. How you would go about that, I don’t know.”
Ruth spoke up. “They could have used a beacon, Boss.”
“What do you mean, a beacon?”
“All the Navy ships were equipped to exit FTL when they got to a beacon. It was meant to help a fleet come out together, without being spread out. You have to be right on top of it, for the signal to be able to be picked up in FTL.”
“Isn’t there a switch or something, to turn that on and off?”
“Yes, Boss. They could have bribed someone on board, or put in an extra circuit to turn it on after the ship went to FTL.”
“Send your idea to Scotti, and make sure she has checked to see if such a circuit still exists on the Gene.”
“On it, Boss. Scotti says she found the nasty booger when we were getting the ship ready to fly. You were off the ship at the time, and she didn’t remember to tell you after you got back.”
I asked, “Sally, did that have anything to do with the fact that the beacons were classified?”
“Yes, Boss. At the time you weren’t a certified Captain, and we couldn’t have told you about the beacons, even if we needed to.”
“Fair enough.” Topper spoke up. “Boss, incoming from Willum.”
“On speaker, please.”
“Delicious, you’ve got a mess out here. Bots floating everywhere, out of power, all the ships have nasty demolition charges rigged, and the ships are behind on their maintenance, because all the bots were spaced.”
“Are any of them flyable, as is?”
“I wouldn’t want to risk it, Boss. Fourty thousand years with no maintenance is rough on a ship.”
“Are the charges pretty much what Steve was expecting?”
“He even got the right model number. The girls
