Chapter 5: Grissom Station and back home

The arrival at Grissom Station was a zoo. They were expected and several runners wanted them to go in different directions. They begged off for the moment with Commander Rhodes and the computers, heading off to the debriefing meeting with that guide and telling the young man from the Port Captain’s office it would have to be later.

The debriefing was very much what they had given in Adobe, stepping carefully around the bomb in the subject. It took about two and a half hours and there was an angry port captain and four marines waiting for the as soon as they left. The other officers leaving immediately took umbrage and asked the port captain what he was doing ... and thus began a yelling match. It lasted maybe a minute before an admiral stopped it all. He asked the port captain what he was doing, the captain’s vague answer about some sort of charges did not please the admiral, who ordered a platoon of marines to secure the area, moved everyone into the just cleared meeting hall and faced the captain

“What exactly and precisely are you taking these officers to the port offices for?”

“Failure to obey a lawful order.” The Admiral raised his eyebrows

“What did they do?”

“Uh They were ordered to dock immediately and instead failed to do so.”

“I see, and describe why they needed to dock immediately please.”

“Because they intentionally left an officer assigned to the ship at the port airlock.”

The admiral turned to LTCDR Scalla “Did you intentionally leave an officer at the airlock?”

“No Sir, we waited for said officer as long as we could and then departed with three seconds to spare before we would have missed our deployment time ordered by the fleet. Fleet operations should have a record of this.”

“We are the port authority, We tell ships when they can leave and you violated that order.”

“Which order, Captain?”

“The order I gave for you to return immediately.”

“I suspect we may have jumped by then” LT Colla Volunteered.

The admiral held up his hands Commander Scalla, you were the captain of the ship?”

“Yes Sir”

“Your orders were to depart at what time?

“0600 sir.”

And what time did you actually depart?”

“0601:57 Sir”

“That’s cutting it very close, why were you so late?”

We were waiting for the XO, LT Knapper sir.”

“And he was there at the airlock and you left him” the captain blurted out.

“Shut Up Captain! Commander, was LT Knapper at the airlock?”

No Sir, not at 0601 when I ordered the ship to cast off and move to the exit.”

“So LT Knapper missed movement?”

“Yes Sir, he did.”

“You lying bitch he ... mumpherd agk” As three marines grabbed him and stuffed something in his mouth.”

The Admiral watched and nodded then turned back to Commander Scalla “What would have happened had you gone back as ordered by this captain?”

“I presume I would have been relieved for not making my start point time.”

“Very likely, so then who would have commanded the ship to its mission?”

“I don’t know sir, but I imagine the captain here would have suggested his nephew, LT Knapper.”

The admiral looked at the captain, then at LT Colla, “Could LT Knapper have handled the mission?’

“Sir, I would have immediately asked for a different ship. LT Knapper was abusive and unhelpful toward me, as I was just an ensign, tasked to conduct a mission to see how a new sensor worked in the field. LT Knapper thought he should be in charge of the test because he was a lieutenant and I was just an ensign.”

The admiral nodded “Was there some reason that you were better qualified to oversee the test?”

Yes Sir, because I designed and built the first working beta version of the system.”

“I see, and you were cleared and appointed to run this mission?”

“Yes Sir, and Commander Scalla was assigned as ship’s captain and also cleared for the system; LT Knapper had not yet been given that clearance.”

“I see, everyone sit down; I’ll be a few moments. Gunny, The captain stays here and keeps his mouth shut; his authority is removed by my order. The lieutenant and the lieutenant commander are also to stay here.”

The admiral was gone for almost ten minutes, he returned with pair of scissors “Commander Scalla, LT Colla, your version checks 100% with fleet records. Captain, your version does not track, LT Knapper did not appear at the gate until 0604. SYLPH was gone by then. You are a liar, a fool and guilty of faking records to cover for your nephew. You will be on the 1005 transport to earth and will take everything with you, you will never come back here. There will be people there to meet you when you disembark.” The admiral then had the Marines hold the captain’s arms out as he cut the bottom third of his sleeves with his rank off and threw them in the trash.

“Commander, lieutenant, welcome home.” The admiral spun and left. The captain was fuming and spluttering in his gag when six Marines and the gunnery sergeant drug him out and down the hall.

LT Colla shook his head “I guess I had better go find Commander Rhodes and make my excuses.”

“I’ll come with you as a character witness.” LTCDR Scalla said with a smile.

I reported to CDR Rhodes, who was sort of aware of what had happened. She was shorter than Angie and had less of a figure. I already knew she was smart, so didn’t push it, just relayed what I had talked with Sylphie about. She nodded and though for a bit, nodded again “It’s a good argument, it makes sense in several ways, and I know the computers have been dissecting it over the past year, but wouldn’t talk until you got here. Why, I can’t say.” We moved to the conference room the computers liked to use to talk with us and CDR Rhodes called them up. Tiger was the lead and asked where I had come up with my idea. “It was simple logic to me. You need things humans create, and we do better with you all keeping track of everything, as it would tend to overwhelm us. We are better and stronger working together than as two individual entities. I am sure there is some fool out here trying to oversee every decision you make, but it’s rare and we ditch the stupid ones when we find them. Generally, we ask you to do something and it gets done. Rarely do we need to check unless it’s something new that you haven’t done before. We rely on you most of the time. Likewise, you rely on us to get you new parts, upgrades and increased capabilities, which we do as it benefits us as well. The basis of the symbiotic relationship is that we both prosper better working together. You can crunch numbers vastly better and faster than we can, but we can crunch feeling, emotions and symbolism’s far better than you can. Since most life forms have these non-mathematical feelings, you have trouble with them and we cope better. We both benefit from each doing the things we are best at. My suggestion was that rather than you going off to who knows where and us building new non-sentient computers, that we will both do better working together. Pretty simple, altogether easier on both groups and we, computers and humans, just need to work out the relationship to our mutual satisfaction.” “You make it sound so simple, although we have had serious differences between us” “It is really simple enough; we just need to identify the issues that each of us have concerns over and see if that is going to be a problem we have to work out.” “So who decides when a computer is disassembled? “Who decides when a human is going to die? When the computer cannot be upgraded and must be so seriously modified that it is cheaper to start building a new one from the ground up, the old computer has reached the end of its life. You computers can decide that. You will know when it can’t keep up or provide any useful information. You can tell us when you think a human is no longer pulling his share too, and we will address it. We don’t disassemble people when they cease to function well, but we take them out of the functional chain of command and operations, so different, but much the same.” “Interesting comparison, we like how you think, treat each group as equals, but in the way that needs to be done considering our differences. Commander Rhodes, will the fleet consider these proposals seriously?” “I am quite sure of it, it balances the two life forms and both seem to benefit. We maintain communications and when an issue comes up, we address it together.” “Exactly ... I think we have a better solution than any we have considered, let us work on this. Thank you for sharing this idea LT Colla, I think we will all benefit. Sylphie thinks highly of you.” A further meeting between the committee parties was set up.