Chapter 10

Justice Nelson began fiddling with the course selected by Merlin almost immediately. They were small changes, but as soon as one was entered and took effect, she made another.

Merlin: 'Jay, aren't we going to be awfully close to the sun. Well inside normal military parameters.'

Jay: 'Do you consider the pinnace to be a USN ship, Merlin? Or are we half of the space navy of Yerowl, now?'

Merlin: 'I think that is a distinction without a difference. You and Robertson are USN personnel; I am a creature of the USN software mills.'

Jay: 'And what about our primary armament – Shakespeare and Krayshall?'

Merlin: 'Primary armament? ... Oh ... I see your point and will modify all our log entries back to the day Shakespeare came on board under his new name. What about a name for the ship?'

Krayshall: 'Can we name her after mom?'

Jay: 'Good idea, Kray! The Meriah I, she is.'

I had thought the interior of a pinnace was virtually dust free, but some space dust seemed to get in my eyes, and I had to wipe away the moisture with my fore-paws. I guess that several decades of loving my Meriah could not be pushed to the background all the time.

Merlin: 'So ... back to the original question: Why are you changing course to bring us dangerously close to the sun?'

Jay: 'It is only "dangerously close" under USN normal military procedures. First, we are not under USN procedures any more. Second, this is not exactly a "normal" situation. Third it will give us faster time to the target. And finally, because it will give us better camouflage when we come out of the slingshot effect of the sun's gravity.'

I didn't understand any of the technical details but I understood the ideas. We were going to sneak up on them as much as possible and have a few – very few, I'd guessed – seconds in which to make our attack. I hoped she was right.

Merlin: 'Krayshall, the box on the seat next to you contains emergency patches. If we are hit by anything and the skin of the pinnace is punctured, and if you can still reach it, place one of those patches on the hole. But do not touch the adhesive side of the patch. It will adhere to almost anything, and... '

Kray: 'I know, Merlin. We have gone over this a hundred times. I can do this and still maintain my duties as Dad's second in command.'

Me: 'Kray, you can scan at greater distances than I. You need to help me identify first the communication creatures, then the weapons creatures, then the... '

Kray: ' ... then the command creatures, then all the others. I know, Dad. Please ... can we just do what we've discussed a hundred-hundred times. Unless something has changed.'

Merlin: 'Cutting off hyperdrive in five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... NOW. Jay, we are totally ballistic at .81 light. At this speed, small changes to the thrusters please.'

Jay: 'Yes, Merlin. I know. I won't change anything until we get a better fix on how many ships are out there and exactly where they are.'

Merlin: 'Jay, I know you know. It's just... '

Jay: 'We're all a little nervous.'

We ghosted along at .81 of light speed, that's "only" 243 thousand meters per second. That sounds very fast, and it IS very fast. But it would still take us over eleven minutes to get to within my range to do any damage, and any second might mean they've found us and could shoot at us with their weapons. Their weapons made up of whatever – no human had ever seen a Bug ship, so even telepathic hexapumas had no idea what we were about to face.

At about six minutes into our flight, the big red blip suddenly shifted into four very close, smaller red blips.

Merlin: 'Resolution improved. I make it one large and three smaller ships. The big one is about the size of a USN battleship, and is likely armed to the teeth. Most likely it's the command ship. Two of the smaller ships are destroyer class. The last is about the size of a large cruiser.'

Human colloquialisms are strange: "Armed to the teeth!" What can that mean? ... But I digress.

Jay: 'Designate targets: Alpha 1 for the BS, Alpha 2 for the CS, and Alpha 3 and 4 for the DSes.'

Immediately the display changed to show a 1, 2, 3, and 4 inside the red blips. Also the red dots changed in size. They were facing left and down a bit, with 1 in the center while 3 and 4 were on her wings. The 2 ship was above and behind the phalanx.

Jay immediately began entering a series of course changes.

Merlin: 'We're apparently going to come across the formation – the whole formation. We're going to cut from above 4, in front of 2, between 1 and 3, and then down and out of range ... hopefully.'

I watched as a dotted line appeared on the display showing the planned route. The display was enlarged and some of the asteroids appeared. There were only two on the display: one very large and one smaller one. The large asteroid seemed to be in traction in front of the 2 ship – the cruiser sized one. Even in a crowded asteroid field such as this, the mountainous space rocks were still hundred of thousands of kilometers apart.

We were coming up on four minutes to the target and the round red blips on the monitor resolved themselves into oblate spheroids: One very large, two smaller and one almost boxy with a giant, empty, semi-cone at its front. The mountain of the asteroid was hovering in the center of the empty semi-cone. Merlin supplied the "oblate spheroid" term and its description, namely: "An oblate spheroid is obtained by rotating an ellipse about its minor axis." To put it in Old Earth terms, it's about a blimp shape.

Then looking out through the clear dome of the pinnace, we could see blue tendrils going out from the 1, 3, and 4 ships. The tendrils latched on to the 2 ship, and the whole formation started moving forward. Then there was a big WHAP that came out from where the 2 ship was connected – sort of – to the asteroid: the semi-cone shaped thing. The formation stopped moving forward and took a "step" backward. Only there was no sound to the WHAP – we were all (except Merlin, I guess) waiting for the WHAP, but of course, there's no sound in space. Then the asteroid jumped away from the cluster of increasingly large blips and headed toward the sun. Then the blue tendrils dissipated as we looked out into space.

I searched through Merlin's memory and the closest think I could come up with was an old-time slingshot.

Robertson: 'That's just incredible.'

Jay adjusted the trajectory with minute puffs from the thrusters. 'The change in position, slight as it was, will change our time in contact with them. You're going to have less time than before, Shakespeare.'

Me: 'No difference to me. I didn't have enough time to do a careful job as it was.'

When we were about one minute away from my maximum range, Kray said: 'The communications creatures are talking to each other. Their signatures are like this, dad.' He sent me complicated mental structure, unlike anything I had ever seen, or imagined. 'Sorry but I can't get the meaning of what they're saying.'

Me: 'I wouldn't expect you to, Kray.'

Kray: 'The 3 and 4 ships seem to be all comms. The 1 is all weapons and only a few comms. The 2 is the rock shooter. It has some comms too.

'The weapons people are actually linked to their machines, sort of. Their mental signature are... ' He sent me some very strange mental structures.

'The commanders are simple.' He sent some complicated structures. Maybe they were simple to him, but not to me.

'And there are some creatures I can't scan.'

Me: 'Tell me about the ones you can't scan, Kray.' We were approaching thirty seconds to the formation. I'd be in range in a few seconds.

Kray: 'I can't, dad. I don't get anything at all. It's like they are shielded. There aren't many of them, but they're all in the big ship.'

Just before we got into my range, Kray said, 'Dad! They are all females. The shielded ones. All the others are males.'

I heard that, but couldn't do anything about it. I got my first scans of the 4 ship. At the rate we were traveling, it was only a part of a second before I'd get my scans of the 3 ship – the farthest from us.

Merlin: 'Their weapons are coming up.'

Suddenly we were engulfed by a tsunami of white hot explosions. Our little pinnace was tossed about, but none of them was a direct hit.

Merlin: 'No direct hits, but these nuclear heads won't need a direct hit to disable us.'

We'd agreed that Kray would keep up a running commentary for the benefit of the human and abiological members of the crew of the Meriah I about what I was doing.

Kray: 'Okay. They are starting to fall. Comms on 3. Then 4, 1 and 2 ... Now it's the weapons creatures on 1.'

The tsunami seemed to cut off.

We were passing in front of 2 and above 1.

Kray: 'Command on all ships. There's one that's struggling to stay up on 2 ... okay he's down, too ... wait, 'he' is a 'she.''

We passed between 3 and 1 and were below all of them and heading away at a high rate of speed. Jay entered some commands and everybody was surprised when we flipped over.

Jay: 'Merlin. Max black hole, NOW.'

The Bug flotilla was still large enough to see without the computer display but it was moving away from us – rather, we were moving away from it. We could sense the little pinnace shudder to stop and accelerate back toward the cluster of Bug ships. Before we started going toward them again, I was out of range. Kray wasn't.

Jay: 'Merlin, plot a stop just above the 1 ship.'

Kray: 'Dad! There are new male creatures appearing with the females. It's like they are being created out of nothing.'

When we got back into range I scanned again and found that Kray was right (of course!). I killed all the Bugs I could sense, but of course, that excluded the females.

Jay, having completed her course corrections and such, said, 'Shakespeare, did you ever scan the organization of a bee colony? The queens produce only eggs. Almost all the eggs that hatch are males – workers – drones. She's stepped up her production of worker Bugs.'

Me: 'I can keep killing them. Kray can do that, once we're close enough. But we can't do it forever.'

Jay: 'I know, Shakespeare. You're going to have to kill a lot of them. Not anything like the many you've already killed, but lots. I'm going in after the women.'

Robertson: 'Not alone, you're not. I'm going with you. Merlin can keep the pinnace on station.'

Jay thought about it. 'Okay, ' she thought at all of us. 'We have to get suited up. Find a way into the ship. Find all the females and then hope the handstars we have will do them in.'

Merlin: 'What if their ship was self-aware? What if it has got an alien AI running it?'

But Jay had an answer to that one. 'Wouldn't we be dead by now?'

She was already in a "skinsuit." It fitted her like a second skin, what else? Robertson, the same. I had thought, from scanning humans for the past several months, that humans were body shy, but I saw none of that in dealing with the skinsuits. They fumbled around a bit with some items they described as 'plumbing machinery' and then they put a helmet of nearly clear plastic on their heads. Merlin described the see-through parts of the pinnace cockpit as "glassteel" and the skinsuit helmets were seemingly made of the same material.