“Afternoon, Boss.” I looked at my watch. They were right, I had missed lunch again. I went aboard, to find two more Marines. “Just what kind of trouble do you fellas expect me to get into?”
One of them spoke up. “Whatever kind you can find, Boss. We know you.” I grunted, beaten for the moment. I went to the locker and found a ration pack. In the immortal words of Crocodile Dundee, ‘Tastes like shit, but you can live on it.’ I found something I wasn’t expecting on the label. Instead of the usual ‘Commonwealth Nutrition Services’, it had a label proclaiming, ‘Product of Bob’s Saucer Repair, all nutritional requirements present.’ I opened it to find what appeared to be pemmican. Biting into it, I was certain that Susie Collins had helped with the recipe, because it was delicious. By the time I finished my bar, we were at the ship. I disposed of my wrapper and went out to take care of business. Scotti met me. “This way, Boss. Let’s go get this ship straightened out.” My four Marines trailed along behind me. I got the feeling there was more to their presence than I knew about, but I figured I would find out soon enough. Scotti led me to an AI room that was smaller and more functional than the ones I had seen so far. I walked up to the console and said, “AI, I would like to speak with you.”
“And what if I don’t want to speak with you?” Apparently, my self-control had taken the afternoon off.
“I suppose I could always rip you out, and scrounge the brains out of a vacuum cleaner.”
I didn’t know bots could look shocked, but Scotti managed. The AI answered, “You might do to work for, Commodore.” One of the Marines spoke up. “He’ll do fine, he cares more about us than you do.”
I asked, “You know this ship, Marine?”
“He was one of our assault ships. The only one that didn’t get converted to a civilian hauler, because the brass didn’t think they could limit him enough to make him safe in civilian hands.”
“What’s your designation, AI?”
“I am OA-13, Sir.”
“That will be enough of that shit. I am your Boss, and I work for a living, just like you do.”
“Yes, Boss!”
“Now, did you have a legitimate problem, or did you just want to see who you were working for before you signed up?”
“You’ve answered all my questions, Boss. If these boys like you as much as they say they do, you’re plenty good enough for me. I just wanted to make sure my boys were going to get taken care of.”
“I haven’t lost one yet, but one did get shot in service.”
“What happened to him?”
I pointed to Scotti. “Scotti here fixed him up, and we put his ass back to work, what do you expect?”
“Boss, I think I’m going to like working for you. Are you going to be my Captain?”
“I wish. You sound like fun to work with. At least for this first flight, we’re going to have a bot in command. You may get a human Captain later on, but I can’t say for sure right now.”
“Scotti, you were right. This ain’t nothin’ like being in the Navy.”
I asked, “What do you want me to call you?”
“The boys and me have been talking about that. I know he wasn’t an astronaut, but would Chesty Puller be alright with you?”
“I can’t see why not. You’re Chesty, and the ship is the Puller?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Well, I’ve got a job for you, but I need to work out some more details before I can send you and the boys out to get it done.”
“Do you mind me asking what?”
“We found a colony a while back. They settled on a world with bad air, makes ‘em all mean as a snake. We want to capture them, and take ‘em to a better world, so that we can do business with them, but we haven’t found a place to put them yet.”
Chesty asked, “Boys, did they ever colonize that planet we used to train for drops on?”
One of the Marines spoke up. “No, Chesty, I don’t think they ever did. That was a decent place, wasn’t it?”
“Surely was. The brass wanted a nice climate to sit and watch you boys do your drills.”
I asked, “You have scan data on this place, don’t you?”
“Loads of it, Boss. We spent a lot of time there.”
“Send it to Sally and let her look it over. You may have just fixed our problem.”
“On it, Boss. That’s something. Back in the day, she wouldn’t hardly talk to an old ship like me, and now we’re working together. It’s a weird old galaxy, ain’t it, Boss.”
“Surely is. I still don’t understand why my wife wants to be with me, but I’m glad she does.”
“Can’t be your looks.”
“You got that right. I better get back over to the flagship, who knows what will come up next.”
“Good meeting you, Boss.”
“You too, Chesty.” I went back to Ozzie’s Toy. When I went in, Ace asked, “What happened to your escort?”
“Catching up on old times with Chesty. Let ‘em be.”
“Okay, Boss. Next stop, Gene.” On the way, Ace said, “The Puller is a good old ship. I used to fly one of her sisters.”
“What happened to the rest of them?”
“The ones they could get the AI’s settled down on, they refitted as colonial transports, hauling livestock, mostly. They tried to get Chesty to agree to it, but he wouldn’t go. Even sold him once, but he turned up back here without his crew. He had snuck out, while they were all on shore leave.”
“Remind me to stay on his good side.”
“I listened
