“Wouldn’t do for usto slap paint all over our nice stealth coating,” Hennessy agreed.He looked down the row at his pilots.
It was pretty much whathe’d expected. The guys who’d flown real fighters were making ashow of how little the physical strains of the practice session hadaffected them. The guys from the republic, noticing the difference,quickly tried to do the same.
He took it as a goodsign. “Shower-hour,” he shouted. “I want you all in theready-room in one hour.”
Another squadron leaderwould be running drills for the next hour. The third was off in theouter system as security picket, probably surprised at how boringspace-fighters could be.
He wanted to debriefhis people and then get them fed and rested. He only had threesquadrons to work with and he had to balance training withoperational readiness.
You never knew what wasout there.
He went to his quartersand stepped out of the armor. He was tempted to just drop on the bedfor a moment but he’d never live it down if he dozed off and missedrunning the debrief.
He tossed hisunder-armor suit into the laundry-chute, chuckling at hisconversation with the indignant PO running the laundry room.
He couldn’t reallyfault him for assuming it was one of the pilots. Hennessy could thinkof half a dozen ‘phantom-shitter’ incidents, off the top of hishead, and they’d all had pilots as the prime suspects.
It had stoppedhappening after a few days, though. Bill had pointed out how thatmightindicate a colonistnot understanding what the chute in their cabin was for.
A pilot would likelystill be doing it.
He stepped into hisshower. “Standard,” he ordered and the water started falling. Heturned to let the jet of water work on the muscles at his neck andshoulders.
He woke with a startwhen he inhaled water up a nostril, just in time to get dressed.
By the River of Babilim
Babilim Station
“I don’t think itwas like this when the builders lived here.” Gabriella tossed abundle of vines off the balcony and a machine that had been followingtheir activity since they’d arrived let out a subtle warblingnoise.
A largercollector unit appeared and the vines were gathered.“I haven’t seen any deadfall around here,” she explained toher mother. “The fields arepristine, even though most of the produce endsup composted by the collectorunits. The wild growth comesup to the barricade but it doesn’t set a single cell over a certainlimit. I think some park areas justran wild because therewas no staff to direct themachines.”
“You rock,Jeeves!” she shouted down to the robot, which seemed to consideritself their personal assistant.
“Shut up, baby,I know it,” thesmall orb insisted. Itfloated off to inspect the rear of the house they’d moved into.
The damned thinghad scared the hell out of them whenthey’d first met it. The house they’d chosen was in one of themillions of natural areas, this one less than three hundredkilometers from the main base. Several others were living out here inthe heavy masonry houses that were spread throughout the dense jungleareas between the fields.
There was a clearboundary between inside and outside. The jungle growth encroached asfar as the pavers surrounding the house and there they stopped. Thepath out to the main road was also perfectly maintained, waiting forthe first footsteps in more than a hundred thousand years.
Inside neededwork, though. Some kind ofornamental indoor plant hadgrown wild and then died out, probably unable to reproduce on itsown. There were a lot of dead vines to pull out before the placecould be put in order. A lot of work, maybe, but they both loved theplace too much to settle forsome other homewhich, let’s face it, would have its own problems after all thetime it had sat idle.
Clearly, the automatedarmy working outside was not allowed to change anything inside thehouse.
On their firstday, Gabriella had beentrying to pull down a wall ofvines from the vaulted stone ceiling. She’dfinally remembered how, even though her armor’s bionetic musclescould make her feel lighter, the suit was actually pretty heavy.
She’dput it on and returned to the main room, grabbing the tangle oflong-dead plant material and giving it a mighty heave. The vinesripped loose so easily, they might have been a veil of facial tissue.She fell on her butt with asquawk, covered in a net of vines.
She threw them off,muttering a few curses under her breath, the sort she figured her momcould ignore if she’d overheard. She froze.
A collection oflights in the dark room she’d just made accessible flickered tolife. The constellation wasdominated by two large red slits that looked like eyes. They began moving, in concert, clearlyall attached to the same object.
Andcametoward her.
“Don’t mulchme!” she’dsquealed, scrambling backwards on her backside, helmet snapping shutin reaction to her heightened adrenaline levels.
The lights passedout of the shadows, revealing themselves to be attached to a floatingorb. It was roughly the size of a Human head andit was covered in a thick layer of dust.
The thing must havenoticed the dust at the same time as Gabriella. A hum emitted fromthe orb and the dust vibrated off to drift down in a ghostly trail asit moved toward the pile of vines.
It halted and turned upat a gasp from the upper gallery. Adelina was there, leaning over therailing, mouth hanging open in shock.
The thing’seyes turned blue and it resumed its progress across the room,stopping above the pile of vines. “Kiss my ass, vines!” itsaid.
It shook the lastof the dust off onto the vines, thenit turned and – Gabriella was certain of this – floated off in ahuff.
“Huh!”Gabriella had looked up from the floor, wonderingif her mother had been listening when she fell.“Wonder where it learned that…”
“Oh, I know where.”Adelina’d glared down.
Jeeves, as they’dcome to call it, was a pretty helpful, if somewhat foul-mouthed,assistant. In the week since they’d met the small bot, they’dcome to rely on it.
Gabriella watched fromthe front balcony as the last of the detritus from the house wascollected under Jeeves’ watchful… eye? Her mother headeddownstairs.
Aside from the slightlyunnerving automated equipment, you could almost forget you were in astation around a star. She knew there was a ceiling above them but itwas simply too far
