Chapter 29

Wearing a spacesuit, James entered the huge structure that held the remains of two Planet Busters. The Dactites were swarming over the two ships doing the kinds of things that Dactites enjoyed doing. Ken floated over to him and said, "They've removed the computers."

"That is good," James said looking over in the direction of the ships with envy. So far, the best time he had in space was when he was trying to interface to the computer with the help of the Dactites and Dromat.

"We've gotten some very good data," Ken said.

"That's nice," James said knowing that he wouldn't get to see any of it until a hundred people had prepared it for him.

"We found a ten foot tall ape," Ken said.

"Oh," James said with a frown. He wondered what an ape would be doing here.

"You aren't listening to a word I'm saying to you," Ken said.

"I am. You've removed some computers, found some data, and discovered a ten foot tall ape," James said.

"What's the matter?" Ken asked.

"I don't get to do anything that is fun," James said. He gestured to the wreckage and said, "I'd love to be over there going through the electronics and stuff."

"You're just a geek at heart," Ken said.

James replied, "That's right."

Ken looked around and said, "Get over there. I'll tell everyone you're in an important meeting."

"Second Lieutenant Powell won't be too happy about that," James said.

"Second Lieutenant Powell?"

James said, "I gave him a raise."

"You mean a promotion," Ken said.

"Right," James said looking over at the wreck.

"Does he know?" Ken asked wishing that he could see the expression on James' face. Unfortunately the helmet hid his face from view.

"Not yet," James answered, "I figured I would have him write a memo to that effect."

"I'd love to see his face when you tell him that," Ken said shaking his head. He was going to have to explain to James how things are done. It dawned on him that James may not have followed procedure. He'd have to look into it.

"I'll make sure you're there when I do it," James said still looking over at the wreck.

"Go on and get over there," Ken said realizing that he only had half of James's attention.

James went over to the ship that had held the admiral they had captured and joined the Dactites that were working in the area. For the next four hours, he poked and prodded various parts of the ship. There weren't any surprises until he noticed that there was a weird periodic glow to one of the space suits worn by one of the Dactites. The glow was so weak that it was almost unnoticeable.

James floated over to the Dactite and, using the short-range radio, said, "Stand right there and don't move."

"Yes, sir," the Dactite said.

James called out, "Would someone turn off the lights?"

After a minute the lights went out. James told the Dactite, "Move to your right a half a step."

The Dactite moved as instructed and the weird glow stopped. James said, "Move to your left a half a step."

Confused by the instructions, the Dactite did what he was told to do. The weird periodic glow returned. James said, "Move to your left another half a step."

The weird glow increased when the Dactite moved. Excited, James grabbed the Dactite and moved him around a little at a time until he discovered the source of the light that was causing the glow. The Dactite wasn't exactly thrilled with the process. After a few minutes, James exclaimed, "There's some equipment here that is still operating."

That little announcement brought a dozen Dactites over to investigate. There in the middle of the console was a small light that was flashing in the ultraviolet. It was only because of an unusual property of the Dactite spacesuit that they were able to see it. One of the Dactites said, "We have to see what this does."

For the next hour, James and the Dactites traced down the circuit. It was a difficult task, but they discovered that the wires led to a device that was attached to something that looked like an antenna. One of the Dactites hooked up a probe to the device. Excited, it said, "This looks like it is receiving data from somewhere."

"It does, doesn't it?" James said looking at the output. He started to trace one of the output wires but realized that he was too large to follow it to its destination. He pointed to the wire and said, "Trace this to its destination."

One of the Dactites climbed into the cabinet and traced the wire. It terminated on a computer. It didn't take the Dactite very long to hook up an adaptor that allowed their computer to receive the data.

It took Ken an hour to track down James. He said, "James, it is time to go."

"No," James replied absently. He didn't bother to even look up from the computer.

"You have a meeting that can't be rescheduled," Ken said.

"Reschedule it," James said. He felt that he was just a few minutes away from getting a handle on the data that was streaming through the feed. Without looking away, he said, "We need a Dromat."

One of the Dactites ran off to find a Dromat.

The brain trust was gathered around the table waiting for James to arrive. They had been waiting for days to have an after action report about the engagement with the enemy, but James had kept postponing the meeting. Everyone there knew that the battle had not gone exactly as envisioned despite the fact that they had won. The act of ramming the umbrellas had taken everyone by surprise and that concerned them. They were hoping that James could explain what happened.

Ten minutes late to the meeting, James entered the room and took his seat at the head of the table. He looked around at the members of the brain trust wondering what the purpose of the meeting was. Deciding that he would discover the purpose at some point, he said, "Let's get this show on the road."

Used to the odd vernacular that James often employed, Cousin Itt asked, "Have you had a chance to study the battle?"

James wiggled his head from side to side and answered, "Somewhat."

The Anticore member of the brain trust, Captain Monroe asked, "Somewhat?"

"Yeah," James said. The fact was that he hadn't given the battle a single thought ever since they had found the operational computer that was still receiving data over the antenna.

Captain Beac asked, "What is your opinion?"

"About what?"

"About the battle," Captain Beac said.

James smiled broadly and answered, "We won."

Whip said, "We know that. We were just a little concerned that the battle didn't go the way we thought it would."

Captain Monroe said, "We wondered about the attempt to ram our umbrellas. It wouldn't have been good for us if they had decided to ram our ship."

"Yeah, that was kind of surprising," James said a little distracted. He had forgotten all about that. He scratched his cheek for a second before he said, "It makes you wonder what other kinds of surprises we'll encounter."

There was a long moment of silence around the table. Finally, Cousin Itt broke the silence and said, "You haven't given any thought to the battle."

"I've been kind of busy," James said.

Well aware that James had been working on something with some of his people, Fixit said, "I know that you've been spending a lot of time on the captured ship. When I asked what you were doing, my people said that it was secret."

"Yes, it is a secret," James said nodding his head.

"What were you doing?" Cousin Itt asked.

"That's a secret," James said.

Ken rubbed his forehead and said, "James."

"What?"

"You're supposed to be sharing your discovery with us so that we can start planning the next engagement," Ken said with a frown.

"I haven't finished discovering everything yet," James said wishing that he was back in the captured ship. They had discovered a whole lot of neat equipment that they were still trying to reverse engineer.

Fixit asked, "What have you discovered so far?"

"Well, we've got a real-time feed as to the position of all of their ships," James answered.

A dozen pair of eyes all turned to stare at James. Even without much of a military history, every race around the table understood the significance of that little announcement. Unable to believe that James hadn't mentioned it as soon as he had discovered that little fact, Ken asked, "We do?"

"Yeah. They got a bunch of ships spread all over the place," James said.

"How many ships?" Captain Monroe asked. His little claws were making clicks which were a sign of extreme nervousness.

"A bunch," James answered. He hadn't bothered to count them.