Shorty said, “The pilot is out cold. I don’t think she is going to be any help.”
“Can you crack in? If Ace can’t fly around it, our only chance is to slow the tumble.”
Shorty said, “Let me see. This is good security, Boss. It may take a while. Wait a minute! I recognize that program. Taz built this security. I wonder if he left the same backdoor he always used to. There you go, Boss. Routing control to your console.” I switched over to controlling the saucer. I wasn’t as good a pilot as Nikki, but slowing a rotation is easier than matching it. I got it stopped, relative to us, and Ace slid around it. Ozzie sang out from the back, “Good dock, Boss. Shut it down.” I shut it down and opened the door before I cut off the link to the saucer.
Then, I went back to see what we had. Now that it was stopped, it was easy to recognize Lyla’s saucer. Julie and Rhonda were bringing her out, Julie carrying her, and Rhonda keeping pressure on a wound. Rhonda said, “Get the autodoc ready, Boss. She needs to be in it right now.” I ran ahead and got it open and starting up. The ladies got her into it and got her clothes off. Julie motioned me out of the way, and started programming it. When she had finished, she said, “That was too close. We got her in time, but it was a near thing.”
I said, “So, she’ll be okay?”
“She will, but not soon.” Ozzie poked his head in the door. “What do you want done with the folks in the other ship, Boss?”
“Do we have good ID’s on them?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Let me call Bill and see if he has the budget to take them off our hands.” I pulled out my comm and called Bill.
“Mr. Wilson! Good news, I hope.”
“As good as it could be, under the circumstances. Did your bounty budget ever get refilled?”
“It has, how much damage are you going to do to it?”
“Not a clue. I’ll text you some ID’s, and you can tell me.” Ozzie shot me the file, and I forwarded it to Bill. Once he had a chance to look it over, he said, “I can cover this bunch, but you better go back to whatever you were doing that was keeping you out of my sky, at least for a while. What were they doing when you caught them?”
“They had done some damage to a saucer, and left it for bait. They had a beacon set up, to bring whoever came to the rescue out of FTL right in the middle of their ambush. Pure luck, the circuit that reacts to beacons is broken on this old tub, so we were able to keep away from them.”
“Tell me again how it is that your eyes aren’t brown?”
“Good genes?”
“How soon will you be here with these fine specimens?”
“Our ship isn’t big enough to bring theirs aboard, so we’ll have to fly them in their own ship. That will take a little longer. Call it about ten hours.”
“Will I see you then?”
“If it’s all the same to you, we’d like to bring their ship in on remote, and be on our merry way. I’m already going to be later getting home than I told Nikki. If I want to sleep indoors again this year, I better get going.”
“You said something about a ship left for bait. Were you able to rescue them?”
“Yep. Everybody’s favorite reporter, Lilacrious Bongwater.”
“Was she alright?”
“Nope, but we got her in the autodoc in time. It won’t tell us how long it needs, yet.”
“Sounds like you folks have it under control. Thanks for the assist.”
“Any time, Bill. Talk to you later.”
“Bye, Bob.” I looked at my crew. “That settles that. We need to go to Earth system before we head back to Charlie’s.”
Ozzie asked, “Do we get to play with the Air Force while we are there?”
“No, Ozzie. We’re just dropping this load of idiots at the Patrol base. We’re not even going home.”
“Oh well, a bot can dream.”
I got on the com with Abe. “Do you have your prisoners well secured?”
“We put on the nighty-nights, cable-tied them, put them in the bunkroom and welded it shut, after we checked it for weapons.”
“The cable ties aren’t tight enough to cut off blood flow, are they?”
“No, Boss. We were careful to make sure they would get to the Patrol in good shape.”
“Excellent! I’ll send Ozzie over to fly you there.”
“See you later, Boss.”
“Later, Abe.” I went back to talk to Ozzie. He said, “I heard, Boss. Anything special you want me to do?”
“Run diagnostics when you get over there. Make sure it will make it to the Patrol base before you leave. We’ll wait, in case you need something. Come out of FTL about a light-year short, so we can bring you guys across before we get to the base. Keep weapons handy in case those prisoners manage to pull something.”
“Yes, Boss, I’ll be careful. You do the same. Taz, Ruth, and Topper will never forgive me if I fail to bring you back.”
“Sure you wouldn’t rather work for Dingus?”
“Mr. Sloan is nice, but he’s not our Boss.”
“Get on out of here, and let’s get underway.” It took Ozzie a few minutes to run the diagnostics, and get the drive software updated to let him get a little more speed out of it. Then he called me and said, “Okay, Boss. I’ve got this bucket fit
