Chapter 8

-Mr. Black-

"Do you have the vest made up?" Black asked as Green frowned at him.

"Yeah, sort of," Green replied. Before Black could ask the obvious question he continued. "The gel is setting up and will be ready at the same time everything else is. It'll go off; no problem. No, the problem is the detonator; actually the remote activator for the detonator. This wasn't exactly in the mission plans so we didn't bring that kind of equipment with us. I was able to adapt an old raghead trick and rig a disposable com-link to the detonator. Call it and boom. The problem is it's not instantaneous. The answer, link and activation of the detonator take three or four seconds and anyone who's ever been near one will know exactly what it is, especially if they see it's a prayer vest."

"Three or four seconds," Black mused. "Do you think Brown will know what it is when he hears it? If he does, could he do anything about it?"

"Doubt it, either of them," Green admitted. "But people around him might. There're plenty of veterans out there."

"With four seconds what could they do except pray for their own souls?" Black grinned. "It sounds more than acceptable. Just make sure Brown doesn't know anything about it. I'm sure he'll enjoy the surprise."

Green just laughed.

-Daniel-

The first thing I thought — check that — the first thing I felt when I saw that tattoo was rage and blinding hate. The next thing was me thinking I'd killed that son-of-a-bitch far too quickly. After that I clamped down and went into combat mode. It's really surprising how quickly that can come back to you.

I see you already have most of the following conversation from Mike's side so I won't bore you by repeating it. I, of course, was a tad bit curious as to what one of The Brotherhood would be doing on the Xanadu, in the same bar I was, shooting up the place. I'm not one who generally believes in coincidences; they happen far too often to be just a matter of chance.

I was thinking at the time that Brian was probably right: it sure didn't look like the fucker was after me specifically. I mean if he was he could have pulled and drilled me anytime before he set off on that poor waitress. I know these people are crazy but I didn't think they were that stupid also. The most rational explanation — if you could call anything dealing with these creeps rational — was the idiot went bug-nuts and it was just unlucky happenstance I happened to be there at the same time. Although now that I think about it if I hadn't been there Sumalee could very well have been hurt or killed so maybe it was a lucky happenstance I was there. It's the story of my life: I just happen to be somewhere some clown is shooting and it's a good thing. If there is a God, all I can say is he has a lousy sense of humor.

Just on the outside chance it might have been something personal I did put Sumalee in a sort of lockdown. Well, I asked her to stay in my cabin, not to call anyone and wait for me. I asked her to trust me and she said she did but her tone of voice gave me plenty of warning that there was going to be some serious enlightenment required from certain parties and I don't think she felt the need to explain anything right then. I'd gladly make my apologizes and grovel later; right then there were more important matters to discuss.

"The question is," I said to no one in particular, "if I just happened to be at exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, then what in the fuck was he doing there and was he alone?

"That name still bothers me," I muttered. I know the male members of our species aren't supposed to be intuitive or listen to our inner "feelings" but I've always had hunches and over the years I've learned to go with them; most of the time they turn out to be correct. I like to think of it as my hind brain working on these complicated problems involving fitting disjointed and seemingly unrelated pieces together while my conscious mind paid attention to the really important stuff like drinking, smoking and getting laid. Right now my hind brain was pointing like a birddog and it was alerting on fuck-wad's name of all things.

"Blue, Blue, I don't think I've ever met someone with that name before," I mused.

"There are only sixty-three citizens listed in the database with that surname," Weird added helpfully. "But he isn't one of them."

"It's a fake identity," I continued to mutter. "But why use one that's so uncommon?"

"Why use one at all unless you're up to no good?" Brian interjected.

"Good point," I nodded. "Captain, I think we have to assume our stiff here was up to no good, although the pistol made that pretty obvious from the start. I think to be on the safe side we also should assume he didn't smuggle a piece onboard just to shoot up one of your nearly empty bars. The question is was he just a lone kook or are there more of them and if so what in the hell do they have planned?"

"You are paranoid," Stubing chuckled.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you," Mike announced as she lounged back against a bulkhead, or wall or whatever. I'm not sure what the damn things are on a ship the size of a small city. I suppose she was feeling cockier now that she figured I was distracted away from her earlier fuckup. She was partly correct but she and I were still going to have it out later and she was going to apologize to Sumalee; it didn't matter that Sumalee didn't even know about it. What Mike really needed was a spanking but I didn't have an army big enough to accomplish that without it becoming just a novel method of committing suicide. I'd deal with her later.

"Damn, this is going to drive me nuts," I said. "Weird, how many passengers have a surname that's a color?"

"Primaries only? English or any language? This may take some time and a little interpretation by Olivia," Weird shrugged.

"Ah, crap," I muttered. "Make primaries and secondaries; English only. Let's see what we get. Oh, male only." Weird just nodded and his eyes unfocused for a moment.

"Male only?" Stubing inquired.

"If this is The Brotherhood," I responded. "Then it's he-men only. None of the weaker sex allowed. They're supposed to be home cooking, cleaning, barefoot and pregnant." Mike snorted but at least she kept her mouth shut. Who says you can't train a cat?

"There are one hundred and twenty six Whites; forty-three Greens and another seventeen spelled G-r-e-e-n-e; only the one Blue; eighty-four Blacks; no Reds, Yellow, Orange or Purple; although there are two Violets," Weird finally said.

"Well, if my hunch is on track at least that's a start," I shrugged. "Can you track back Mr. Blue's movements and see if he came within say a meter of any of those passengers?"

"Sure Captain, I mean Major, but it'll take awhile."

"Daniel, you're assuming they would meet after coming on board," Brain said. "If it were me planning to do something I'd have us stay as far away as possible from each other."

"True, but maybe they would call each other? Weird, can you tell us who he's called?"

"No one," Weird answered after a momentary pause.

"No one at all?" Weird just shook his head. I stood there in thought for a moment. Don't laugh. I can do it; I just try not to do it too often.

"Hmm," I muttered. "Okay, how much time would it take to track the movements of our color people backwards from now and see if any of them come close to another one? Oh, I just thought of something, eliminate the ones that are here with family groups. By the way if we do that how many of each color do we have?"

"Using the same name berthed in the same cabin as a family group there are..." Weird paused for another moment. "There are fourteen Whites; two Greens, none spelled G-r-e-e-n-e; one Blue; five Blacks; no Reds, Yellow, Orange, Purple or Violets."

"That narrows it down a bit," Mike said from where she was lounging.

"All right, using that group how long would it take to track them and see if any of them came close to each other?" I asked Weird.

"Minutes, hours, days," he shrugged. "Depends on if they actually do or when. Olivia is a good AI but she isn't Space Command's Sky Tracker. This is a bit like trying to track individual molecules in a drop of water. Why work backwards and not from when they first came aboard?"

"I think Brian was right," I explained. "If it were me, I wouldn't want us to meet either until right before we made our move, if then. However, unless this little stunt was a diversion, which it might have been, I'm thinking this was a nut-case that flipped out before he was supposed to and if so it had to throw them off schedule. That being the case I would call everybody together as soon as possible and either call it off or start it moving quicker."

"You're assuming there is some kind of conspiracy here," Stubing noted.

"Sure," I shrugged. "If there isn't then I just look silly but—"

"If you're correct then somebody shooting up a bar is the least of my worries," he finished looking grim. "You know you don't have to do anything, Daniel. You and your friends are my passengers; I'm responsible for your safety and not the other way around. I know you people were good but you're civilians now; you don't have to do anything. I have to call the NIS about this anyway; we can let them take care of it."

"I'd rather not have to swim home, if it's all the same to you, Captain," Brian grinned.

"The Xanadu is unsinkable," he grunted.

"Of course she is, Captain Smith." I couldn't help but take a jab at that.

"Point taken," he huffed. "But this isn't the Titanic; the X was designed so that even if she broke apart, the parts would float."

"Depends how many pieces she broke into," I mused. "If they can smuggle guns aboard I wonder what else they could get hold of." I turned back to Weird. "Go ahead and run that tracking program and is it possible to track calls between passengers the same way."

"Could," he acknowledged. "It would be faster than the other search but running them both together would slow everything down."

"Run the call track first," I nodded. "I have a hunch they called before getting together; I would. How else would you find everybody on this thing?" Then I glanced back towards Stubing. "Captain, do you have somewhere where we can look over the ship's schematics?"

"We could do it here on one of the screens," he nodded. "But it would be better on the holo-tank in the Control Room. What are you looking for?"

"The best way to disable, destroy or take over your ship, of course," I said with a smile. "Once I know how I would do it I'm betting we'll have a damn good idea how they would do it."

"Then let's go. The CR isn't that far," he said showing us out. We were the last two out the door and he grabbed my arm causing me to pause. "You know, Daniel," he said grimly, "if this is the real deal I'm going to owe you big time."

"Let's just hope I'm nothing more than a burned out paranoid psycho, Jack," I whispered.

He could only nod.

We spent the next few hours arguing how we would go about pirating or destroying something bigger than a small city. We even had Stan in on the discussion over Sara's net. He was our demolition expert after all.

"I figure about fifty, sixty kilo's of C12 and I could make a pretty nice hole in the water," was his final conclusion.

"Impossible! How could you do that?" Stubing demanded.

"Using your hydrogen tanks," he answered evenly as a disembodied voice. He was talking about the two tanks each carrying about one-hundred-thousand tonnes of liquid hydrogen used to feed the ship's fuel cells, one in each hull. I probably didn't mention it but the Xanadu was built like a catamaran with two separate hulls containing the engineering spaces, crew quarters and storage. The passenger section rested like a big box on top just like a huge pontoon boat.

"But they're designed in the highly unlikely event of a catastrophic failure to blow outboard," he insisted. "It would be a mess for sure, but not disastrous."

"Sure, if the explosion came from within the tank," Stan continued. "But if you set off charges on either side and compressed it the same way you'd set off a nuke..."

"Mushroom cloud," Mike muttered.

"Not that bad," Stan admitted. "But there wouldn't be much left; that's for sure."

"Better have your security down there," I said to Stubing.

"They already are," he nodded grimly. "As many as I can spare anyway; we're not exactly overstaffed with security personnel."

"And we don't even know if that's their objective," I agreed. "So, what would we do if we wanted to take over?" That one was actually more difficult since the ship's AI controlled everything and her individual components were relatively decentralized. In fact if you didn't have someone like Weird — and I'm not sure there is anybody like him anywhere else — with access to a Sara, that is a combat AI designed with that particular ability as one of her specifications, it would be almost impossible.

While we hashed that out I had a few seconds to call and talk to Sumalee.

"Daniel, I was worried about you," she sighed.

"I'm fine," I assured her. "We might have some problems here but to be honest I'm in no more danger than anyone else right now. I'll tell you about it later but for now it would make me feel a whole lot better if you would stay right there. Will you do that?"

"I will if you want me to, Daniel," I heard her say. She sounded concerned, curious and maybe a little bit frightened. Well she had a right to be even if she didn't know exactly what was going on; of course neither did any of the rest of us. "I will not ask if everything is all right. I can tell it is not. May I ask if Teresa will be safe?" Again she sounded concerned but no more than any friend would for another friend. It shouldn't have made me feel as good as it did but since I'm telling you what was and not what should have been, there it was.

"Where is she, baby?"

"She should be in rehearsal in the forward theater," Sumalee explained. "She is a dancer." If anywhere should be safe it should have been the forward section of the ship.

"I think so," I answered. "If fact everything is probably fine. It's just that I have a nasty, suspicious mind that makes me ask you to stay there for now. That and of course I'll know where to find you later," I added.

"You will always be able to find me, Daniel," she giggled. I told her goodbye and signed off.

"What time is it?" I muttered and glanced up at the wall chrono. It was 1735. Shit, it was later than I'd thought.

"Got something, Captain," Weird called out excitedly. "Last night a couple of hours after your little dustup one of our Blacks made a few quick calls. Want to guess who he called? A White, Gray, Green, and a Mr. Brown! How the hell did you know, Skipper?"

"It's just been bothering me ... That's it! Now I remember!" I shouted. "It's an old movie about a bunch of guys who take over an underground train in old New York! They hold it for ransom and use colors as their handles! Damn, I can't remember what the name of it was, though."

"Taking of Pelham 123," Weird nodded. He must have had Sara do a search as I was talking. "That is an old one."

"Damn, Boss, and we call him weird," Mike shook her head. "So, you think they're going to do the same thing: set some explosives and ask for loot not to blow it?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Sounds about as good a guess as any. Can you find these clowns now?"

"Yep. Oh, and one more piece of conformation: all five of them met for a short time right after the calls," Weird added. "We're tracking them now and it looks like they're all on the move. Black is heading towards the portside lower decks; Gray and White look to be doing the same on the starboard while Brown and Blue ... Well they seem to be heading up deck. Can't tell exactly where just yet but it looks like it may be one of the dining rooms."

"I'll send my men after them immediately," Stubing nodded grimly.

"I'd be careful, Captain," I added mildly. "If they really do have explosives they may set them off if they see security where they don't expect it. Weird, how quickly are they moving?"

"Not fast," he replied. "They're not moving anywhere in a straight line but still towards those areas."

"If not my security personnel then what do you recommend, Mayhem?" Stubing asked.

"Let us see if we can intercept them," I answered. "I doubt they'd suspect a couple of passengers in the passageways."

"If the one from yesterday is any indication, they will probably be armed," Stubing warned. "I can't ask you to put yourself in that kind of danger and I have nothing I can get you quickly."

"Just have your people follow us for backup," I said. "You don't have to ask, it's our asses on the line too."

"It ain't like we've never seen a guy with a gun," Mike joked.

"But you'll be unarmed!" Stubing protested.

"I don't have a piece," she grinned. "But I'm not unarmed." Seemingly from nowhere a wicked looking 15 centimeter blade snicked out and was in her hand. "Boss, I told you these might come in handy."

"Where the hell... ? Never mind," Stubing muttered. He had some reason to be surprised; Mike was wearing her poolside attire which was little more than a bikini, a semi-opaque beach cover-up and a pair of platform sandals. There was some doubt as to where a blade like that could be hidden. I had a good idea but it isn't fair to tell other people's secrets, be they magicians or pretty girls with big knives.

"Yeah," I grunted. "Good enough. You feel like a threesome? How about the two heading down starboard? Brian, you want to take the loner on the port side? Weird and I will follow the two on the upper decks; I kind of have a bad feeling about those two."