War Dog Read online

  “Mitty, you old otter. We’re not seeing anything happen here. Can you confirm we were successful?”

  “Indeed, you were, Commodore. The atmospheric pressure in the impacted area is climbing and is already at seventy-four millibars. I would recommend allowing the level to rise to no less than eight-hundred millibars before you attempt to enter.”

  “Understood,” I acknowledged. “Please advise when the internal pressure matches the rest of the ship. We’ve waited this long… we can wait a little longer to avoid even a minor explosive decompression between the various sections of the ship.”

  As luck would have it, the pressure in the recently repaired areas reached the ideal levels at about the same time I wiggled my way out of the Jefferies tube. I had thought it was bad going in… it was ten times worse having to push one’s self backwards through the tubes. It was a good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic.

  Whiskers, Daniels, Lori and Mitty met me at the sealed hatch that separated the part of the ship we had been living in from the part of the ship we had just restored environmental services to.

  Before I could tap in the command override on the door, Mitty stopped me.

  “I must warn you Commodore. No one has entered this section of the ship since we were attacked on our way out of G.O. space. I have very limited access to the remaining sensor feeds in this area of the ship. There will most certainly be the desiccated remains of the engineering staff in there. Also, although I have a mobile emitter with me… there is a possibility that I will lose holographic coherence in this area of the ship until more repairs are done.”

  All of this I had anticipated and so I was ready with a plan.

  “If your mobile emitter fails, we’ll carry it back for you when we leave the area. If you need to, transfer to the battle bridge and use the comms to keep in touch. Our engineering optics can be used if you need to point anything out.”

  “Understood, Commodore,” Mitty replied without even wrinkling his nose. I still didn’t know that that meant. So much for my genius IQ.

  Our engineering optics were a pretty nifty doohickey that Lori and Whiskers had cobbled together. They were basically old-style gas-permeable contact lens with high-resolution semiconductor nanocrystals, or quantum dot, displays built in. The Gilboa’s AI could virtually augment what we were seeing.

  ***

  We had covered about a third of the area… maybe sixteen rooms… when we found the first body. It looked like explosive decompression had been the cause of death. There was no question the victim was a J’ni. Three more J’ni were found in what looked like a sealed lab.

  This time it appeared that the deaths had resulted from a lack of oxygen. The survivors had managed to close the airtight door to the room, but they had no way of replacing the O2 they were breathing. In my mind, this had to be a terrible way to go. To know that death was coming and to be able to do nothing about it.

  I hoped when my time came… it was something better than laying on a floor with people I cared about waiting for a death that I could not prevent or avoid.

  Amazingly, we found only one more body… or at least part of one. It was right outside the hanger area that had been breached. There were char marks on the corridor wall near where the body had been found. Mitty speculated that there had been more personnel in the hanger… but that they would have been sucked into the vacuum of space… again, not a good way to go.

  Sadly, that was the way of war. Plenty of ways to die… and precious few to live… unless the leaders prosecuting the war could be convinced to talk.

  I think that was one of the things bothering me most about this, as yet unknown, enemy fighting the Galactic Order. The absolute refusal to communicate with anything other than a metaphorical sword meant a lot of innocent folks were going to die… had in fact, already died.

  “I’m still surprised we are not finding more corpses,” I said to Mitty. Whiskers was inspecting the burn marks on the wall.

  “I’ll take a sample of this carbon scoring on the wall for the doctor to evaluate. But you’re right sonny… I mean Commodore… I can’t see how all them J’ni would have been in the hanger deck. There should have been well over sixty of them and we’ve only accounted for what… five… maybe six of them. Doesn’t add up.”

  “I agree with the Commander,” Mitty said. “There is another possibility, but I consider it an unlikely one.”

  “You mean the stasis pods?” I asked.

  These were pods meant to hold injured crew members in suspended animation until they could be transported to a medical facility prepared to address their injuries. In addition, ships like the Gilboa kept a large number of such pods onboard so as to reduce resource consumption in the event of an extended voyage.

  My newly acquired knowledge of the layout of the ship told me that we were two decks above where we would find the pods in question. I wasn’t willing to trust the turbo lifts. With my luck the grav-plating would continue to work fine but the safeties on the lifts would fail and I’d become the first Commodore in the history of the Federated Fleet to end his illustrious career in an elevator accident. Yet another in my ever-growing list of ways I didn’t want to use to check out of this life.

  Given my feeling on that matter… and because I was the boss… we used the vertical access ladders to move between decks. These were like the Jefferies tubes, but thankfully, much more spacious.

  When we arrived on the deck in question… Mitty’s holographic emitters flickered and went out. At the same time our comms went dead. I had no idea what was happening… and I’ve never been a fan of ignorance.

  Lori pulled out her medical tricorder. It was one of the few pieces of Terran equipment we still carried and used. In truth, we didn’t use it for its intended purpose because the GO equipment was far superior. That said, it had a large display and she carried it because it was loaded with a game called mahjong.

  I used to love to play it with Lori. Sadly, it had become a boring game because I now had an eidetic memory. I still played but it was because I loved being with my wife.

  In this particular instance, I was pleased that she was enamored with the game and kept the small device with her at almost all times.

  The light from the screen lit the hallway. It was a strange sight. Row after row of man-sized glass tubes extended from holes in the floor. Many were dark. Some had opened, and bodies lay on the floor where they had fallen out. I could see lights flickering on some of the tubes a little further down the row.

  “Follow me,” I yelled.

  I started jogging down the tube-lined corridor. I suddenly knew what was going on and, if I was right, we didn’t have much time.

  Chapter 6: Top Dog…

  The stasis tubes that had lights on them were near a central hub. Status tubes branched off from that hub like spokes on a wheel.

  Whiskers rushed to the main console and began evaluating the readout. He began to bark instructions to Daniels. I joined Lori at the first of the tubes that appeared to be active. There was a J’ni inside the tube and he seemed to be in distress. The creature was writhing from side to side as if it was trying to get out. There was a look of panic in its eyes that transcended species.

  “We have to get them out,” Lori yelled.

  I grabbed the tube and tried to lift it, but it wasn’t moving anytime soon. Option one was a no-show. Option two was up. I turned to Whiskers. “We need to get these stasis tubes open… yesterday if at all possible!”

  “Your wish is my command,” my Chief Engineer said with a grin.

  Immediately the lights came up and each of the remaining active stasis tubes began to decant their occupants. At the same time Mitty flickered into existence beside me and our comms opened up.

  Lori wasted no time contacting her medical support team. I did her one better and ordered all personnel to our current position to aid in recovery operations.

  The J’ni that had been in the tube in front of us seemed to realize we were there to h
elp him. Lori cradled his furry head in her lap and gently stroke his fur and whispered encouraging words.

  The creature chittered something unintelligible back at her. It was obvious that he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Whether that was from exhaustion or something far more serious I couldn’t tell.

  “J’ni Maktoo wishes to express his gratitude for saving his life. He wants to know how his shipmates are doing?”

  “Tell him we are doing everything we can, but he should know that several… even many… did not make it,” Lori said with tears in her eyes.

  Mitty chittered something back at the J’ni.

  The creature’s eyes welled up in tears that matched my wife’s. A single lightly furred paw reached up to touch her cheek where a tear had fallen. He chittered once again. It seemed more solemn this time.

  Mitty turned slightly and bowed to Lori. “J’ni Maktoo is honored and blessed that you, a stranger, would share grief-water with him and his clan. You are Maktoo now.”

  I had no idea what that was all about but over the next few days I would learn. It turned out the J’ni had no vocal cords and so were unable to form sounds the same way we did. Fortunately, they typically wore devices that could translate their clicking and chittering sounds in the various languages used by the Galactic Order.

  Some of the crew members were starting to make their way into the stasis chamber. They obviously did not share the same concerns about the turbo lifts that I had… or at least they had decided the risk was worth it given what was going on in here.

  I started moving among the stasis tubes… trying to make sure none of the J’ni were missed. In the end, I was surprised to learn we saved fifty-eight of the original engineering staff.

  The last stasis tube we reached held a surprise. It was a larger version of Mitty. Apparently, the crew of the Gilboa had included some Archons. A single living one had made it into a stasis pod. I knew that others of the political caste-race had survived the attempted genocide, but I had no idea I would meet any of them while we were still in the Sol system.

  As I was helping the female Archon out of the chamber… and don’t ask me how I knew she was a female… I just knew, Mitty materialized next to me.

  “Is she…” The little guy’s voice was strangely strained.

  The Archon’s eyes fluttered open and then she barked. It sounded like a sea lion. She scrambled away from me… obviously scared.

  I put my hands up and backed away so as to reduce the appearance of a threat.

  The female turned to Mitty and began to bark and growl in a complex pattern of sounds that were clearly a language. Mitty responded in kind and then moved towards her and wrapped his webbed paws around her in a loving embrace that could have taken place in any airport in the world.

  Finally, Mitty stepped back and touched the female’s head. The tips of his fingers flashed briefly. A couple of weeks ago I would have been in the dark about what was going on… but now, thanks to the Da’Tellen device I knew the Archon female had an engram transfer interface embedded just under what passed for the dura mater in her skull.

  Mitty turned to look at me. The little bugger seemed to be in shock. I didn’t even know an AI could be in shock. It soon became apparent as to why.

  “Commodore Riker, allow me to present she who would be my wife. You would not be able to say her name, so she has agreed to go by Shella.”

  The larger otter looked up at me. “Well met Commodore Riker.” Her voice was gentle in ways her eyes were not. I wasn’t sure to be happy for my friend Mitty or not.

  ***

  A day later, and with most of the survivors secured in the med-bay, I finally had a chance to ask Mitty for answers to the long list of questions that had been forming in my mind.

  We were in the recently reopened bridge of the starship Gilboa. I don’t know why it was… but the bridge of a starship, no matter what race built it… always seemed to look like the bridge of a starship. This one had a central seat; a big forward view screen; numerous primary consoles like navigation, sensors, weapons as well as a number of secondary ones for engineering etc. The only thing missing was a popcorn machine. More ship’s bridges needed to have popcorn machines.

  I tugged at the collar of my new Galactic Order uniform. It was similar, at least in color, to my old Federation uniform but rather than being multiple pieces, it was a single-piece, formfitting, lightweight jumpsuit. The reason for the change in uniform was twofold.

  The new uniform was based on advanced Galactic Order tech. It could serve as an emergency survival suit with the addition of a special helmet and matching protective gloves. These items were fabricated in a way that allowed them to form an airtight seal. The uniform and the rebreather built into the headgear could keep a person alive even in a hard vacuum for a few minutes (until the power cells drained and the rebreather failed.)

  The second, and perhaps more importantly, as a clone, I was no longer entitled to wear a Federation uniform. Although it pained me to admit it… my genetic progenitor was the only one with that absolute right to wear that uniform. The other human members of my crew, with the exception of my wife – who was also a clone, were either civilian contactors or retirees.

  The new uniforms, which Mitty had suggested we wear, helped to establish an esprit de corps.

  The Gilboa’s holographic AI was at the First Officer’s station. He was verifying that the ship’s status displays were correctly updating as the various systems throughout the Gilboa were repaired. Things were beginning to move a bit faster now that Whiskers and his staff had a clue about what they were doing. I was hoping the addition of the J’ni would help speed repairs up even more.

  Shella was with Mitty. The fact that she was… was a bit of a surprise given she had spent as much time in the stasis pods as the rest of the original Gilboa crew. She seemed to be made of sterner stuff than the J’ni.

  That said, as we would learn over the many months to follow, the sole remaining living representative of her species was profoundly sad. To know that you will be the last of your kind can do that to you.

  Lori had wanted to keep her in the med-bay, but the Archon would have none of it. Lori released her when Shelly had threatened to bite a nurse that had been foolish enough to get too close.

  It seemed the female Archon’s were the more aggressive or at least the more head-strong of the two genders. I would learn over the years that would follow that pissing off a female Archon, especially Shella, was never a good idea.

  I started talking as I walked over towards the station Mitty was working at.

  “So, I’m curious. With your nearly omnipresent knowledge of the goings-on on the Gilboa… How is it that you didn’t know about the stasis pods? We could have prioritized them, if we had known they were there and were failing.”

  “It was and is truly regrettable. Commodore, you have to understand that I was brought online only as a part of an emergency protocol. The ship’s primary AI created me from stored engrams as a means of communicating with you. I was not present during the battle that resulted in the damage that we have been repairing. The Gilboa’s AI was unaware of the stasis tubes, and so, as a result, I too was unaware of them.”

  “So how long have you been… I don’t even know the word to use… operational?”

  “I came online six minutes after your wife was cloned. Based on conversations with her, it was decided to ‘recruit’ you.”

  I shook my head. ‘Recruit’ would not be the word I would use but that was old news at this point.

  Shella has holding Mitty’s holographic hand. The female Archon seemed upset. Still, it was obvious that the two were or had been very much in love. It was nice to know that God had allowed such niceties to transcend the vastness of space.

  All that said, and as nice as it was to see Mitty with his mate, I was still getting some strong negative vibes from her. As I said before… she was upset. It could be a result of, what was for her, the recent space battle where
she lost some friends… or it could be something else entirely.

  “So, as I understand it, the J’ni are your engineering types. It would certainly explain why so much of the ductwork is narrow.”

  Mitty didn’t say a word so I soldiered on. “My brain download,” I tapped my head, “didn’t include social dynamics. My understanding of your society is that you function very compartmentally. Humans cross-train as a matter of course. Soldiers can be medics, engineers can even be teachers. How are the J’ni going to react to working with humans who don’t fit the ridged molds of your society?”

  Shella stood up and walked over to me. She seemed to have a good understanding of human personal space because she encroached on mine and glared up at me. If I had to guess, I was about to learn why she was so upset. As a point of reference… there are times when I hate being right.

  “Human, your questions are offensive. How the J’ni handle their affairs… is by definition… their affair.”

  “First, let me say that referring to me by my species is considered impolite. Second, how the crew interacts is very much my concern.”

  Mitty’s ‘better half’ glared at me in a way that convinced me that Archon women were cut from the same stuff as human women. Maybe this was something universal… the thought reinforced my belief that God had a sense of humor.

  “It is not your concern because it is my concern… human. I am the Archon. You are… whatever it is you are.”

  I could see that Shella and I were going to be butting heads if I didn’t find some way to address this situation. The problem was, we humans were already committed by virtue of Galactic law. If I didn’t win this power struggle, the human members of this crew… and any potential offspring, would be forced into a societal mold that we were ill-suited to live within. I had never been the type of guy that always colored within the lines and I wasn’t about to start now.