“You’ll get there, I have faith. Later, Boss.”
“Later, Tikki. Thanks.” I turned toward the sensor station. “Sue, are our guests behaving themselves?”
“I think you got their attention when you punched out the one ship’s mains, before she even got a shot off. They’re working on their drives, and not putting any power at all on weapon circuits.”
“Tell me immediately if that changes. Better yet, tell Ruth and Tex, and then tell me.”
“Boss, do I understand you correctly? You want me to initiate action, and then inform you?”
“Would you rather wait around for a slow organic to get up to speed, and maybe give those idiots a chance to get a shot off, and hurt somebody?”
“When you put it like that, I see your point, Boss. Keep the ship safe first, and then worry about proper procedure?”
“Exactly. Good work, Sue.”
“Thanks, Boss.” I said, “Saucy, set me up a conference call with all the Captains, as secure as you can.”
Images came up on the screen, including some bots I didn’t recognize. More or less in unison, they said, “Hello, Commodore.”
I replied, “Hello. I see a few new faces, but I’m sure you wouldn’t be here, if you didn’t have the skills. I learned something moderately important while I was away, and I wanted to share it with you. The mechanical among you will be able to use it immediately, while we slow organics will take longer. The command courses, both Commonwealth and Squirrel, are sabotaged. I will send you a list of the courses you should actually pay attention to. It seems that Admirals don’t like competition, regardless of their species. That’s all I have right now, are there any questions?”
One of the bots I didn’t recognize asked, “Boss, how were you able to jump in so close to the Gene?”
“Shorty was studying the idea of seeing normal space from FTL, with sensor readings. He has made some progress, as you saw. I have high hopes, now that Scotti and Tikki are helping him.”
Another of the bots asked, “How did you know where to hit the Squirrel ships to disable them?”
“You will too, when you take the proper Squirrel course. It covers the vulnerable spots on the Squirrel ships, and how to maneuver to protect them. The folks flying our opponents today haven’t taken that course, apparently.”
The link stayed quiet for a bit. I said, “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you get back to your ships, now.”
When the conference died, Saucy said, “Captain Sloan would like to talk to you, Commodore.”
“Route it to my ready room and tell him I will be with him shortly. Topper, you have the ship. If one of those idiots tries to charge a weapon, make the weapon go away, and inform Captain Dressi that each ship’s allotment of walnuts just dropped to fifty pounds.”
“My ship, aye. No weapons to be charged, understood.” I walked across to the ready room. As I entered, I said, “Gene, tile the lodge.”
“Yes, Boss. Would you like me to stay?”
“Yes, please. Record, if you would.”
“Yes, Boss.” I sat in front of the screen, and asked, “How bad did I screw up, Dingus?”
“Screw up? What are you smoking? You did great!”
“I got lucky. If Natti’s nephew wasn’t there to take charge, we would have had to fight these ships. None of us but the Gene have all our guns working yet, do we?”
“The crews worked wonders while we were in FTL, but there’s still a lot that needs to be done. You’re right, it’s not a fleet I would take to battle if I had a choice. I’m not your wife’s favorite person right now, by the way.”
“You managed to keep her on the planet? Thank you, Dingus!”
“I did, but it was a near thing. I had to tell her that you would call me out, if I let her be part of the battle.”
“She didn’t want to see either of us get hurt, so she gave in?”
“That’s pretty much it. The next time we play paintball, she’s going to paint me right up.”
“You’ll live. Anything else I need to know?”
“Scotti and Zoom are mad as hornets at Rhonda, for stowing away.”
“That’s understandable. I did get her to do the courses they were trying to get her to take, maybe that will help a little.”
“More than a little. They figured she would con you into letting her take the pilot course, without the prerequisites.”
“She tried, but I smelled a rat before she got it done. She failed to be happy about that.”
“I bet she did. Then you got her to go ahead and do the other courses?”
“I did. Anyway, she was griping about how tired she was, I didn’t actually take the time to check up on her.”
“Scotti will, before she takes the pilot course.”
“Mike and Tina had come and gone before you got here?”
“They had. Nikki said they seemed satisfied. Of course, she didn’t take them to the mainland.”
“That’s my wife. Always thinking.”
“We haven’t heard any more out of Phonelia. Not even Will.”
“When we get some ships in good shape, we’ll send someone out that way to check on her. Right now, we have too much going on to do anything about it.”
“Yes, we do. I just thought you should know she had broken her pattern.”
“Thanks for telling me. I was nearly out of things to worry about. Any word from Steve?”
“They got the colonists rounded up. From the sound of it, it was quite the rodeo. The last I heard from him, he was going to FTL, headed for the old training planet.”
“I hope that’s as abandoned as the bots think it is.”
“Steve’s good help, he’ll deal with what he finds.”
“Unless you have something else pressing, I better
