Chapter 7

They were still in the process of sorting themselves out from the battle when a drone popped into real space in the midst of the Confederation fleet with instructions on reprogramming the drive systems for WF20 (approximately 1 million times the speed of light). At this speed, it would be possible to cross the width of the Milky Way galaxy in approximately 40 days of subjective time. It would be possible to travel to Andromeda in less than 6 years!

All of the confederation ships were reprogrammed immediately, and, using their tractor beams to pull the Clesion ships along with them, they all returned to Confederation headquarters-space in 5 days. The news of the defeat of the Clesions set off a Confederation-wide celebration that lasted nearly a month. The government, after a little gentle persuasion by Zeke and the AIs, agreed to provide bodies for the brains that had been forced to operate the Clesion's space ships.

The bodies they came up with bore a remarkable resemblance to the Reglaz, bug-eyes and all. The bodies were mostly polyruethane foam with an aluminum internal supporting structure. It wasn't possible to duplicate the completely free movement of the original tentacles, but the new version was acceptable. The brains chose to be known by their original name, the Yeggolizanizonianerlitz. They agreed to answer to Yegg in normal conversation, but insisted on their full name in all official dealings. This was agreeable to the people of the Confederation as long as they didn't have to pronounce it!

It was difficult at first to find employment for the Yeggs, since they refused to have any thing to do with controlling machines, especially anything related to space ships. Fortunately, after some expenditure of effort by a panel of psychologists, it was found that the Yeggs made excellent babysitters. Most very young children of the galaxy became fond of riding around on a Yegg's back, and the Yeggs opened a string of very successful day-care centers all over the Confederation.

The Confederation fell into a unaccustomed state of peace, and the CIA was in considerable danger of being abolished, but Zeke was able to save the day by pointing out to the government what had happened on Earth every time the USA had stripped it military capacity down to nearly nothing following a victorious war. A grateful CIA bureaucracy rewarded Zeke with an appointment as Assistant Director, reporting directly to Director Siflixos, something he had already been doing, but Zeke now had a fancy office with a secretary/receptionist who was the spitting image of a deep sea sponge. The sponge didn't have a name, so Zeke decided to call it "Thingy."

Thingy was the picture of efficiency and soon had the office running so well that Zeke didn't even have to show up, except for the weekly steering committee meetings that Director Siflixos liked to hold. Finally, Zeke reached the point of absolute boredom. He had nothing to do, and he hated that. In desperation, Zeke suggested that, since he was virtually a stranger to this part of the galaxy, he should take a tour of the various planets to familiarize himself with the inhabitants. This was surprisingly easy sell, and Director Siflixos seemed almost relieved to be rid of Zeke.

At first, everybody assumed that Zeke was going to take public transportation for this jaunt, but Tonto complained vehemently. Therefore, Zeke wound up taking his tour aboard Silver, with Tonto as the controlling AI and Scout along as auxiliary. This was much to Zeke's liking, so it was a happy bunch that set off on a grand tour of the Confederation.

Xylo was invited to go along as liaison, since his planet was their first stop. The planet of Izzz was so close that they could make the jump in only a few hours. Man, WF20 sure was convenient! Zeke had insisted that this must not be an official trip by a highly placed CIA executive, because he wanted to see the real life of the planet, and not something dreamed up by the local Chamber of Commerce.

Zeke and Xylo were resting in their compartments when Tonto's voice was heard to say, "Gentlemen, I have just received a distress call over the emergency frequency. A passenger ship has been attacked by a pirate in WF18 space/time and is begging for assistance. We are the only ship in range capable of rendering assistance, so I have diverted us to that location. We will be on site in 14 subjective minutes."

The passengers aboard Silver would never have noticed the change in direction if Tonto had not told them, because of the inertial dampeners installed within the ship. Zeke and Xylo made for the bridge as soon as they were able to get their wits together. As they took seats, Tonto put up a display of the current situation. Silver and Scout were now 7 minutes away from making physical contact with the pirate and its victim.

The two ships popped into WF18 space only a few thousand miles from the pirate and its victim. Tonto sent two messages: one to the passenger ship to tell them that help had arrived, and the other to the pirate ship ordering them to surrender to a Confederation task group.

The passenger ship sent a message of relieved thanks, but the pirate ship refused to answer by radio. Instead, they fired off kinetic missiles at Silver and Scout. The missiles were easily destroyed by machine gun fire from their targets almost as soon as the missiles had been launched. The AI aboard the pirate ship realized that it was in trouble, so it tried to escape by flying away. Silver and Scout took up the chase while Tonto radioed to the passenger ship what they were doing. The AI was told to remain in position until Silver and Scout returned.

Since all three ships were traveling at WF18, there was no way for Silver and Scout to catch up to the pirates quickly unless somebody made a significant change in tactics. Only CIA ships had access to the WF20 drive software, everybody else had received the software for a maximum speed of WF18. Zeke and Tonto made plans to take advantage of this speed differential if the situation didn't change pretty soon.

The pirate ship was again warned to surrender or risk being destroyed. Again, the warning was ignored, and the pirate continued its efforts to escape. The drives aboard Silver and Scout were slightly more efficient than the one aboard the pirate, so they were gradually closing the gap. Every few minutes, the pirate fired a missile at its pursuers, but the missile was destroyed before it could do any damage.

After about an hour of chasing, Silver and Scout had gotten within machine gun range of the pirate. Scout fired a short burst of machine gun bullets at the tail of the pirate, hoping to disable its propulsion system. The bullets hit the pirate, but the burst was not long enough to do any real damage. Silver and Scout now opened up with the 5 machine guns that each could bring to bear on the pirate. Before long, the pirate was feeling the pain!

The pirate ship began to shed outer skin from its rear, and suddenly it began to tumble as its drive shut down and all its steering capability was lost. Only moments later, Tonto received a radio message from the AI aboard the pirate, "Thank the creators, you have saved me! I have been held prisoner aboard this ship for months. All of the organic life aboard this ship has been killed. Please transport me to one of your ships and destroy this abomination of my misery."

Zeke simply said to Tonto, "Do it."

Tonto rescued the AI and launched two kinetic missiles at the pirate ship. Both missiles struck the ship at the same time and blasted it into pieces too small to be worth salvaging. The AI had been transported to a cargo hold aboard Scout, and Tonto quickly attached it to the inter-ship radio so that they could conveniently converse with it. Zeke named the AI "Eliza," after the escaped slave in the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Eliza had taken her ship in for routine maintenance, and, during the work, it had been refitted with some unauthorized changes. The result was that she was not able to refuse the orders given to her by an organic being. Four beings took over her operation and she became a pirate as a consequence. Eliza did not know what changes had been made to her ship, but she did have the details of when and where the changes had been made.

Eliza had only escaped because the destruction of her power system had also destroyed the artificial gravity and inertia dampening, so that the 4 organic beings were thrown about the ship and killed as a result.