Chapter 341

Deep Space

The Captain was in his quarters continuing his "research" into this ... porn of the Earthlings when he was interrupted by a request to enter from his First Officer.

Quickly turning off the viewer, the Captain stood to adjust his tunic, then instructed the door to allow his visitor to enter.

"Sir," the First Officer began, "there has been a release of suspicious energy on the other side of the asteroid belt."

"So? What is it?" the Captain snarled, aggravated at being interrupted.

"We don't know at this juncture. It was just a short blip of undefined energy, barely detectable on our passive scans."

"Surely you have gone to active scans..."

"Yes, Captain, but the distance and the number of asteroids between us and the energy release preclude us detecting anything. I suggest that we move closer to investigate."

"Why? These..." the Captain waved his hand, "rocks are forever colliding with one another. Why is a little energy release suddenly so important?"

The First Officer hesitated. What the Captain said was true, but he had reviewed the weak energy burst and it seemed more sustained than a mere collision would produce. Of course, the asteroids could have had several near instantaneous collisions if one had hit a dense enough group of others, but still..."

"That is true, Sir, but it just seems... wrong somehow. I suggest we move the ship to the other side of the field to investigate further."

"Nonsense," the Captain snapped. "If you are worried about these Earth creatures, you must remember that we have thoroughly assessed their level of technology. There is no real comparison between their weapons and ours. They, like the other systems our race has encountered, are totally defenseless against us, and with the level of technology these creatures have at their disposal, I have little concern for their ability to harm us, even if we were in orbit above their planet. Out here ... We have not detected a ship warping in, have we?" he finished with a sneer.

"Uh, no, Captain."

"Very well then. It seems obvious that this energy release must have come from a collision. And besides that, the Chief Engineer has requested that we maintain very conservative energy expenditures while he is trying to rebuild and tune our coils. Although I hate to agree with the bastard, our reserves are very low at this point, compounded by our recent move to this side of the belt. Are you suggesting that we further deplete our meager reserves to go look for this phantom energy release?"

The alien Captain was arrogant to the extreme, but he wasn't stupid. When the First Officer did not immediately back down, the Captain thought for a moment. What if his First Officer should be correct? Could this energy source be from a ship?

After a moment, he sighed. "Very well. You may investigate, but I still forbid expending the energy to move the ship unless we have hard evidence that there is a ship out there. You may assign two of the tenders to investigate, in addition to continuing your active scans. But keep this in mind: if we deplete our meager energy reserves, we will have to operate one of the coils to recharge. Currently, we are only doing that when the engineering crew takes a sleep break, since they cannot work on the coils while one is running, even at its lowest energy levels. I do not wish to give that asshole of a Chief Engineer an excuse to take additional time off. Is that clear?"

"Sir. Should we not send a Paladin to investigate? The tenders only have minimal weapons."

"Investigate what? The collision of a rock with another rock? Were you not listening? Now you want me to send a warship and waste all that energy. You have your orders."

"Yes, Captain. I will initiate a search pattern using two tenders while continuing active scans, only."

"If you do not locate the source in two short cycles (roughly two hours), discontinue active scans and have the tenders return to their regular duties. I remind you that active scans use many times more energy than passive ones. Even this much extra energy expenditure will force me to allow the engine crew another half cycle off to laze around. Do I make myself clear, First Officer? And remember; you can be replaced."

"Very good, Captain," the First Officer said as he backed out of the Captain's quarters. Fucking idiot, he thought, but he was far too smart to utter the comment aloud for fear that one of the Captain's "secret" listening devices would record it. With a stone face, he hurried toward the bridge.

The Prison Planet

Morales sat on his rock, the first aid kit by his feet. Taking a breath, he yanked the piece of splintered arrow out of the back of his left hand. There had been only a little blood before the splinter was pulled, but now the wound began to bleed freely. "Shit. Must have hit a vein or something," he muttered as he grabbed a pad from the aid case to put pressure on the wound.

While he was waiting for the bleeding to stop, he walked over to the small mirror that hung on a nearby wall. Holding the lantern up, he examined the half inch cut in his forehead while dabbing at it with another piece of gauze. Band aid will fix that, he thought as he made sure there wasn't any wood left in the cut. After wiping his forehead and nose clear of dried blood, he returned to the rock. When the wound on his hand had stopped oozing, he put some of the antibiotic cream on it and wound a bandage around the hand, tying it at his palm. No use using tape when I can just tie it in place. There is plenty of bandage, but when the tape is gone, there won't be any more.

After dabbing a bit more of the antibiotic cream on his forehead and slapping a band aid over it, he closed the case. Startling him, Lobo got up and walked over to sniff at his bandaged hand before lying at his feet.

"My new arrow blew up when I tried to shoot it," he told the wolf as if it could understand. "Don't ask me why, 'cause I don't have the foggiest. Something even made the string jump its pulley, but I don't think the bow is hurt, at least I can't see anything wrong with it other than that. Guess I'm lucky some of those wood splinters didn't hit my eyes. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I'm fairly sure I remember seeing a pair of safety glasses when I emptied the rolling case. If I ever make another arrow, I guess I had better look them up before I do any more testing."

For some reason, he had gathered up the larger pieces that had fallen at his feet when the arrow exploded. As he critically examined what he had recovered, he continued to the wolf, "The other half of my arrow was floating down the stream the last time I saw it. And not only did I somehow destroy the arrow, but I lost all the work I put into shaping the arrowhead."

Lobo whined, yawned and closed his eyes for a nap.

Morales put the coffee pot on to reheat the leftover coffee before taking out his books to reread everything they said about making his own arrows, but he didn't find anything that would account for the arrow's disintegration as he fired it. Frustrated, he went to the topic on compound bows.

He had done little more than glance at the material on compound bows before, his major concern having been with shooting techniques. When he had read about making arrows, he had concentrated his attention on that, not on what bow they would be shot from. Now he would try to understand compound bows.

The coffee pot was empty and Lobo was snoring at Morales' feet when he finally closed the book. Force tables, acceleration tables, draw weights, formulas that he had no chance of understanding ... but finally there was a short segment that basically said wood arrows could not be shot from powerful compound bows. The way he understood it, a long bow or a recurve produced a fairly constant force on the arrow as the bowstring accelerated the arrow, but a compound bow was entirely different. With the pulley/cam system, approximately the first two thirds of the draw was very hard, then at the "break" point, the cams caused the draw to become much easier for approximately the last third of the draw.

This was great because the shooter had far less force exerted on his arms and shoulder when he held at full draw while he aimed. But, because of the lesser force at the end of the draw, the first third of the arrow's movement through the bow was much slower than with the other bows, then during the remainder of its trip through the bow, all the rest of the powerful bow's force was suddenly slammed into the arrow. Because of this, the arrow achieved the major part of its velocity across a much shorter distance in the compound bow when compared to that of a long or recurve bow, and ... that force exceeded what most woods could withstand. The result was the exploding arrow.

After closing the book, he sat thinking for a time. "Shit," he muttered. "I don't have a source of carbon arrows, but there has got to be a way to make wood arrows that won't disintegrate when I shoot them out of my bow. I am not giving up. Surely there's a way." After pausing for a second, he continued with his lament, "Shit. I suppose the same thing applies to my crossbow bolts. Shit. Shit. Shit."

He had already found a booklet and a set of Allen wrenches in his rolling case that must have come with the bow. It gave step by step instructions on how to change his bowstring and cable. With his bow at his feet, he carefully read through the process again, and taking careful note of the pictures, understood what was going on. Then with pressure on the limb, he locked it with an Allen wrench pushed through the hole by the cam and was able to put the string back where it belonged. With a little pull on the string, the Allen wrench fell out, freeing the bow.

He carefully drew the bow while watching the cams. Everything seemed okay, but he would have to test it before he trusted it. Unfortunately, it was now dark out. I'll use my other bow until I've tested this one, he thought as Lobo came to his feet, whined at him and looked at the entrance.

"Something out there, Boy?"

The wolf walked over to the bars and looked back at him.

Morales hung the bow on its peg before walking over to the bars to stare the wolf in the face. "We need to have an understanding. Granted, you can probably see a lot better than I can at night, but I know for a fact there is a saber-tooth that has me on his lunch menu, and ... he fucking comes visiting at night. So ... I don't go out at night. You need to get your pissing done before the sun goes down."

The wolf sat down and grinned at him, at least Morales thought it was a grin, but with all those teeth, it was hard to tell.

"Shit. All right. Let me get my stuff and we'll let you go piss, but if the shit hits the fan, don't say I didn't warn you."

The wolf looked back at him as he buckled his belts with his quivers of arrows and bolts, slipped his second bow over his shoulder and picked up his crossbow and lantern. When the wolf looked impatiently at him, "You might as well be patient. I don't go out without weapons, especially at night. Well, actually I don't go out at night at all, so don't you run your big ass off somewhere. Just piss, get it done, and we'll get back behind these bars in one piece. Okay?"

As they made their way down the short, but narrow passage between the bars and the outside, the wolf tried to push past, but Morales stepped in front of him. "I'm going first," he admonished. "It's only been a day since you got your side ripped open. A fight right now would get your ass killed."

Lobo whined at him, obviously having to pee badly. "Just squeeze your legs together and stay put for a minute," Morales said, then added, "I don't get in a hurry out here. So far, it's kept me alive. Stay!"

Morales held the lantern high, thankful yet again for its bright light.

Lobo seemed to understand that Morales wasn't pleased and even understood that the human wanted him to stay behind, but it couldn't understand why. It knew there wasn't any danger near its new home. Didn't the human's nose tell him that?

"All right. Come on. There's nothing close."

Lobo hurried by, raised a hind leg with an accompanying little yip of pain as his side objected to the movement, and let loose a river.

"Damn, Boy. It's a good thing we're on a hill or you would flood the cave."

Back inside and with the bars back up, Morales raised the bandage a little to check the wolf's wound. Lobo turned his head to look, but didn't growl at all. "Looks good as far as I can tell. It isn't bleeding and there isn't any pus that I can see. Still swollen, but I guess that's normal. Hell, your wound looks better than mine and it's not nearly as deep or long as yours."

Lobo got up to lap up more water – a lot more water.

"Damn, Lobo. Go easy on that. I don't want to have to go outside again tonight."

The wolf burped and walked over to stare at the panther meat hanging on the wall.

"Surely you can't be hungry again. Of course, as skinny as you are, I guess you could stand a few extra calories."

While Morales was cutting a chunk of the meat, Lobo went over and picked up his board/plate, and putting it near the human's seating rock, lay down to wait.