Chapter 6

It took nearly 3 weeks subjective time at WF12 to reach the invading fleet. Tonto used the long range scanners to locate the enemy and determine their number. It appeared that they had 69 large spherical ships and 207 smaller, football-shaped ships. At this time, there was no way to tell what kind of armament they were carrying. It was assumed that the ships were directed by AIs, since it was very unlikely that an organic brain could compute the many parameters involved quickly enough to be a decent pilot.

The enemy was traveling toward the Confederation center at WF4, a respectable speed, but not likely to get them there as soon as their ultimatum inferred. The implication was that they could travel much faster than WF4 or that they had some other plan in mind. They all hoped that the latter was the case.

Tonto tried to make contact with the AIs controlling the enemy ships, but had absolutely no luck. It was as if there were no AIs aboard. How could that be? Tonto vowed to keep trying, but had to shove the problem to a lower priority as they came closer to the enemy.

Susus ordered his fleet to slow to WF4 and approach the other fleet with considerable caution until after he had made contact with the admiral of the invaders. His fleet outnumbered the enemy by nearly 2 to 1, but his ships were smaller, though probably faster. Until he knew how the enemy was armed, he wanted to be cautious, but not timid.

Tonto tried all the ways at his disposal to contact the enemy, but was totally ignored. "Admiral, the enemy refuses to respond to my hails. What should I do?"

"I'm not sure, Tonto. It's very strange. Could it be that they don't have FTL communicators? Let's have Papoose accelerate back to WF12 and get much closer.

"Papoose, accelerate to WF12 and pull within 5 light minutes of one of the enemy ships. When you get there, send a probe into real space and use that as a relay point. See if you can get a response with that maneuver."

"Aye, Aye, Sir. Roger. Wilco." Papoose jumped away to fulfill his orders.

The admiral turned to Zeke and asked, "What was that 'Roger-Wilco' thing? I never heard that before."

Zeke smiled and answered, "He was just having a little fun at my expense. Those are obsolete expressions from Earth. Roughly, the two words are an abbreviation for 'I copied the message' and 'I will complete the order.'"

The admiral grinned and responded, "Actually, I like the brevity and spirit of the response. I think that we should institute it as SOP for the entire fleet. Tonto, please pass that on to the fleet."

"Roger. Wilco."

That caused a general laugh, led by the admiral. A few minutes later, Papoose was heard on the FTL radio with the announcement that he was able to contact the invaders, but they destroyed the probe as soon as he identified himself. This established two points: the enemy did not have FTL radio and they were really not interested in talking. However, that raised the question of how the Confederation was supposed to surrender if the enemy wouldn't listen.

They did learn one useful bit of data, namely, the enemy had particle beam weapons, since that was what was used to destroy the probe. This was particularly important because this type of weapon only worked in real space and could not be used in an FTL fight. Now, the question was whether or not the enemy knew how to use kinetic weapons at FTL. If not, they were sitting ducks for the Confederation fleet.

Papoose was recalled, and a meeting of the team was held to discuss their options. After a lot of discussion, it was decided that they needed to know a lot more about the enemy ships and their capabilities. Susus ordered a flight of 4 ships to try to isolate one of the smaller enemy ships and disable it. If they could do that, Zeke and TenTen would board it to learn what they could.

A flight of 4 ships was dispatched to intercept an enemy ship and try to disable it with their machine guns. If the enemy used the same type of propulsion system as all other known space fairing species did, then the drive would be located in the tail end of the ship, as far as possible away from the living quarters of the crew. If the friendlies could zap the tail of the enemy with their machine guns, then the ship should drift in WF4 pseudo space until it was rescued by another ship grappling onto it and bodily forcing it back into real space. Conversely, if a friendly could grapple with it, the enemy could be pulled into a higher WF pseudo space where, hopefully, it would be out of reach of its fellows.

Anyway, this was the plan. The 4-ship flight found an enemy lazing along somewhat isolated from its fellows, so the flight attacked in trail (one right behind the other), dropping out of WF5 into WF4 space and spraying the target with machine gun fire before reentering WF5 space. The 4^th ship didn't need to fire; the enemy was already completely disabled. Instead, it locked on with tractor beams and jumped back to WF5, dragging the disabled enemy with it. When this was reported, Tonto rushed with Scout and Papoose to join the flight and their captive.

Zeke and TenTen were already in space suits and fully armed by the time Tonto was ready to transport them to the enemy captive. They jumped over and landed in what looked like some sort of storage hold. As soon as the two were safely in place, Tonto tried to contact the ship's AI, while scanning the ship in detail to learn as much as possible.

Zeke and TenTen were still waiting for guidance from Tonto when they heard his voice, "I can't believe this! I would never have thought it possible! Now I know why I could not contact the ship's AI—it doesn't have one! Instead of an electronic AI, the ship is controlled by hundreds of organic brains connected in parallel. Each brain controls a tiny segment of the ship, so it doesn't have to be as fast as an AI brain. That explains why they are limited to WF4, even in parallel, the organic brains are not fast enough to work at the required speed for even WF5. I have just found the communication interface; I'll try to talk directly to the brains through it."

A few minutes later, Tonto's voice was heard in their implanted communicator. "Those monsters who control this fleet should be cast into the deepest Hell their belief system has. These organic brains once belonged to sentient creatures who were seized and had their brain stripped from their body and placed within a capsule in a compartment of this ship. The brains are slaves of the ship and its pilot; there is no way for the brains to be removed from the ship without killing them. They are forced to follow the orders of the pilot; if they rebel, they are punished by having an electric current run through their pain centers. The brains have begged me to kill them, as they have no other way to escape this bondage. I have cut off their contact with the pilot so that he can no longer punish them for disobedience. Meanwhile, I'll lead you to the pilot, who is the only sentient being aboard the ship other than the brains I just spoke to."

Zeke and TenTen were led to the pilot's compartment and cautioned to be careful as the pilot was not restrained, though he did not appear to be armed. The two cautiously entered the pilot's bridge and were greeted by the sight of a true bug-eyed monster: the pilot resembled a 7-foot-tall praying mantis with eyes even larger than those of the Reglaz. He was green and ugly enough to make the monster from the movie "Predator" look handsome and lovable!

Tonto used the control interface to order the pilot to surrender. Instead, he charged toward Zeke and TenTen. Tonto ordered, "DON'T SHOOT!" and transported the monster to a small hold on board Scout. Tonto informed them what he had done, and they both thanked him. Tonto informed them that they now had full access to the entire enemy ship, and they were free to look anywhere they desired. They made a quick circuit of the ship and asked to be returned to Silver.

A meeting was held to inform the whole team what had been found aboard the enemy ship. They already knew about the organic brains controlling the ship, so Zeke opened the discussion by talking about them. "I am very concerned about what we can do for the brains. Obviously, we can't return them to organic bodies, but I wonder if they could be given new mechanical bodies to live in. Would they be happy in that form?"

Papoose said, "My creators had very sophisticated technology which could be used to construct new bodies for the brains if that were what they wanted and somebody was willing to pay for the work and the materials involved. This technology is buried in my memory, and I could extract it if you want it."