Works in Progress of Carol Dennis...

The three-man patrol ship edged closer to Lode, a forbidden planet. “There’s no signal from the enforcement buoys and that moon isn’t on my chart, Sir,” said Communication Officer Bates.

“The chart came from the company that owns Lode.  You know private charts are never accurate.  Are the buoys physically there?” snapped Captain Peters, turning to view the weapons display.  Although they had been in space for some time, the captain’s uniform was immaculate.  He knew the crew called him Old Spit and Polish behind his back.  He wished they would follow his example.

“Yes sir.”  The communications officer scrambled to comply.  “The buoys are visible.  Fully charged, too,” he replied, checking his readouts, “but they appear deactivated.” ..

The captain swore, turning his head to glare at the disheveled officer.  “No one should have the codes to shut down those devices.  Is this .a ruse of the planet’s owners or advanced technology from an alien source?”

“Unknown, sir.  All I can tell is that they’re shut down.”

“We do have the information keys to turn those markers back on.”  .Captain Peters focused his attention on Weapons Officer Rodriguez.  “Rearm the buoys.”

“Planets get interdicted because of extreme danger to humans or sentient life forms.  What happened on Lode to make it restricted?” asked the communications officer as he rebroadcast the ship’s identification codes to the space markers when the weapons officer had finished rearming them.

Captain Peters scowled.  “I don’t know which applies to Lode.  My briefing package says the owners were furious over the restriction, although the pictures of the planet appears to be mined out. ”

“The buoys shut themselves down again,” interrupted the weapons officer.

At the captain’s nod, Communications Officer Bates initiated alert status, shutting off the main lights, leaving only the monitors glowing. “What about the outside monitor screen?”

“I thought there was an electrical short,” replied Captain Peters.

“It’s an intermittent glitch, which keeps me from finding the problem,” agreed Bates.

Suddenly proximity alarms shrilled.  The noise jarred the crew’s nerves until the small bridge actually seemed to vibrate from the wailing.

“Now what?” yelled the captain.  He turned back to the weapons display, willing the blinking alarm to comply.

“A ship lifted off the planet,” explained Weapons Officer Rodriguez.

“Battle stations!” shouted the captain over the racket.  He turned, staring at Bates.  “Well, talk to me!  Turn that damn noise off and challenge them.”

The communications officer reached for the weapons display and yanked the noisy alarm module from its socket.  He calmly reported, “No answer to our hail.  No transponder readings, either.  Scans show human life forms.  Vessel configuration unknown.”

“Should I rearm the buoys again?” asked the weapons officer.

“No!” ordered the exasperated captain.  “Why bother now?  The way things are going, the buoys might fire on us.”

Alarms shrilled again.  The captain glared at the communications officer who shrugged his shoulders and waved the alarm module in his hand.

“Unknown ship,” shouted the weapons officer.  “It’s computer-classified as alien and is on an attack vector coming from behind that moon.”

“Take out that ship with torpedoes,” commanded the captain as he activated and stared at the outside monitor screen.

“We don’t know who the humans are,” the communications officer reminded him.

“Doesn’t matter.  They know the penalty for landing on a restricted planet.  Stop questioning my orders.  Scan the planet and see if there are any more nasty surprises down there.”

“Torpedoes away,” reported the weapons officer, while he targeted the second vessel.  “First ship completely destroyed.  Having trouble rearming torpedo tubes.  Firing lasers on alien ship.”

“Faint human life signs remain on the planet.  No indication of weapons,” added Bates.

An explosion shook the ship, and it lost internal gravity.  Objects flew.  Sparks mixed with flickering lights.  The now-dead communications officer, minus an arm, tumbled across the control center.  Pipes, wires and loose tape dangled everywhere.  The severed arm remained tangled in the ceiling wiring.  Floating blood stuck to the stunned captain’s white uniform.

Captain Peters forced himself back to full consciousness.  “Report!” he gasped, wiping blood from his face.  The shrill alarms shredded his nerves and made his headache pound.  The stench of burning plastic left his stomach queasy.  He choked back an impulse to retch.  He recognized the symptoms of a concussion.

“Laser strike has shields at twenty percent.  Weapons and jump systems are off line.  Partial gravity back on.  Our laser arrays sustained most of the damage.  Full navigation power available,” replied Weapons Officer Rodriguez.

“Dispatch a message torpedo with a complete recording of the alien contact here.”  The captain struggled through his pain to give his final command.  “Ram that ship!”  Consciousness fled as he slumped in the command seat seconds before impact.

 CHAPTER ONE

 

              “Trav, do you think you can pilot the smuggler’s ship back to Galactic Center?” asked Captain Everett of Guardian Cruiser Wasp.  “Now that the cargo ship of iritree wood is off planet, I want to get to our next mission objective without putting a salvage crew on Dair’s ship.”

                “Yes,” replied Trav.  “The controls are not that much different from those I qualified on at the Academy.  I’m available.”  Trav felt secure as Guardian, but looking around the room at those who spent their lives in space awed him.  Command time on a space ship would help his Guardian status.  Trav realized the physical conference room didn’t help his confidence.  The stark metal walls combined with chrome furnishings could have made this a dining room or worse – an operating room.

              Trav jerked his mind back to task.  “I agree with the need to get this ship underway quickly.  Those criminals in your hold must be removed from Wald.  The settlers are building a lot of hostility because the logjackers caused the iritrees to prepare to kill all human life.  One of the best ways to solve a potential problem is to remove the temptation.”

              “Spoken like a true Guardian.  What can we do to help Trav?” asked the captain.

              The engineer officer of the Wasp replied, “The logjacker ship’s flight control system is hardly state-of-the art.  It may be a hundred years old.  There’s no weapons system, and the communications are even more ancient.  The only modern system is the shields and they’re more stealth-oriented than protective.”  The engineer looked at his captain.  “Those shields are why you instinctively call the vessel a smuggler’s ship.

              “I’ve found an old operations manual in our ship’s library, complete with computer simulation program that matches over ninety percent of the smuggler’s vessel systems.”

              “I don’t suppose the logjackers’ leader, Natha Dair, has been of any help?” asked the captain.

              “Not that one,” replied the exec.  “She clammed up until legal counsel is there to confuse things.  The tech is scared out of his mind that Dair blames him for Trav capturing them, so he’s not talking either.”

              The engineer broke in.  “The ship is ninety-nine percent cargo bay.  All the hold partitions are knocked down and stored.  That bay is quite modern.  The thieves planned to haul irilogs.  We’ve confiscated the workbots for our vessel.  They are more technically advanced than anything we’ve got.  The log handling equipment is first class, especially the web-slings.  It’s the best logjacking system I’ve ever seen.”

              “Interesting,” observed the exec, “but not what the captain asked.”

               “Sorry,” said the engineer.  “Only three people could get in the smuggler’s control room at any one time.  I believe the ship’s previous captain ran it single-handed.  The tech probably helped in an emergency.  The ship is more computer operated than our vessel.  Trav can fly it.”

              “I agree.  I haven’t heard anything to reduce my confidence,” pointed out Trav.  “All I need is to practice on the simulation you found in your ship’s library.”

              “Plus some luck,” said the exec with a chuckle.  “Actually, I’m jealous.  I wouldn’t mind the assignment to captain that ship myself.”

*          *          *

              Trav frowned as he attempted to confirm that the control system matched the handbook he was using.  He couldn’t believe that he had jumped at the opportunity to pilot this ship without realizing how confining it would be.  He had long hours of space travel alone staring him in the face in a small control room.  After all the time he had spent outside with the farm animals, sentient races, and the wilderness on Wald, this control room confinement required a mindset change.

              The Chief Engineer had written a piloting simulation program attachment to what he found buried in Wasp’s library.  Trav had been practicing while the settlers, iritrees and cougcats had been busy with what the lawyers called discovery.

              Trav was happy that the Guardian ship had left before the issue of sentient races was fully exposed.  The Wald Council had set up a three-race council to discuss issues.  Trav hadn’t figured out how to keep these facts out of official documents, which always leaked.  Wald needed time to evolve in secret.  One way to get the problem off his back would be to appoint Guardian Representatives and let them communicate with bureaucracy.

              Finally, Trav could delay no longer.  He refused to deal with the issue of leaving Samantha.  On the day of departure, Trav rode to the small space field on Aunt Sairy Meddle’s wagon.  He had taken leave of the forest and his irifriend, Sprout, at Aunt Meddle’s farm.  Hermit, Aunt Meddle’s significant other, drove the drays while Trav and the cougcat, Katzen, sat on the back of the empty hay wagon.  Trav had selected this method of leaving to imprint Wald in his mind forever.  Guardians seldom returned to a planet where they had fixed a problem.

              Samantha and Aunt Meddle waited at the space ship.  After hugging Aunt Meddle and her niece, Samantha, Trav walked to the ship.  Samantha didn’t seem to care that he was leaving.

              At the foot of the ladder, Trav turned and announced, “I’ve a little surprise for you two.”  He smiled at Aunt Meddle and Hermit.  “The Guardians wanted some Waldfolk to represent them on the planet.  I volunteered you both.” He climbed the ladder and entered the craft, not waiting to hear what Aunt Meddle might say.

              Trav had gotten into his flight suit and run through the liftoff checklist, preparing to leave, when Samantha slipped into the copilot’s chair.  She flashed him a smile that froze him in place.  He would bet fifty credits that Sam’s Aunt Meddle had instigated Samantha’s being here.  In Trav’s mind, Aunt Meddle had paid him back for getting appointed as a Guardians’ representative.

              Trav had spent hours feeling depressed over the idea of leaving Sam behind.  Here she was her long blonde hair spread across her shoulders in a flight suit that hugged her curves.  “I didn’t know Wald had suits like that.”  He straightened his baggy flight suit for emphasis.

              “It was one of Natha Dair’s.  The suit’s a little big in a couple of places, but Aunt Meddle had it ready, so it must be okay.  Natha always presented herself well, even in spacesuits,” replied Sam.  She continued as if there was nothing unusual in her being aboard.  “I’m going to the university.  I’d have to wait a whole year for a commercial flight.  Besides, I can help you fly this ship.”

              Trav shook his head.  This wasn’t included in the simulator program.  “You’d better buckle up.  This former logjacking ship control room has lots of glitter, but I don’t trust computers, so it requires more manual startup operations, which means the ride may be bumpy.”

              The actual liftoff wasn’t that rough.  Trav focused his attention on manually replotting the course to Galaxy Central.  When he finally finished and everything appeared normal, he turned to find Samantha fast asleep in the copilot’s seat.

              Nothing bothers that girl, he thought.  He had been upset with her behavior when he had been trying to stop the logjacking.  She wouldn’t believe her former boyfriend was involved.  Then, after her not keeping quiet caused a full-scale disaster, she helped turn the tables on the criminals.  She was darned attractive, book smart, and her physical abilities included being women’s martial arts champion three years in a row.  Where did that leave his longings?

              A low rumble coming from Sam’s lap caused Trav to lean over to investigate.  Sudden sharp pricks on his arm and shoulder right through the flight suit made him flinch.  Glancing at his arm, he saw a purple cougkit appearing out of nowhere like a Cheshire cat.

                My name is Trivia.  I know lots of things.  She immediately started purring.

              Trav had gotten used to cougcat mental communication with Katzen on Wald, but the kits’ ability to make themselves invisible surprised him.  The kit’s eyes slitted as she kneaded his shoulder.  “Ouch,” he complained.  “Don’t dig your claws in like that.”

              Suspicious of the noise, Trav leaned closer to Sam.  In her lap lay another purring kit.  Samantha had been a pleasant surprise, but baby cougcats – he sure hoped they were weaned.  More to the point, were they house broken?  This was too much payback for sticking Aunt Meddle with the representative position.

              Trivia’s mental giggle mingled with the purr. That’s my brother.  His name is Pickles.

              Trav frowned.  What had amused the kit?  Why should he care?  He had showed too many xenopathic tendencies on Wald – they would get him reassigned for sure.  He wanted to stay a Guardian, a peacekeeper, not spend his life talking to aliens.  He couldn’t see himself as a space-faring Dr. Doolittle.

              Trav had sensed the displeasure from his immediate supervisor at Galactic Command.  He had pointed out that finding sentient life was not part of Trav’s job description.  The supervisor’s requests for detailed written reports on the sentient life forms lay ignored, steadily accumulating.  As a trouble-shooter, Trav operated at a higher command level.

              Getting the humans on Wald to accept the rights of the iritrees and cougcats had been the real trick.  No way was he putting that into a report.  That would be his ticket to a different career.

               In Trav’s circle of friends, xenopaths were considered weird because they were able to understand alien races.  He’d heard tons of stories about a crazy admiral who was the lone acknowledged xenopath still in the service. 

                Trav knew his experiences on Wald had changed him.  Still, he planned a long and glorious career as a peacekeeper.  No more aliens, he promised himself.  He completely overlooked the fact that the cougcat in his lap was an alien.

              Thank heaven he was out of the woods – no iritrees.

              My name is Seedling, flashed into Trav’s mind.

              His yelp of surprise woke Sam.  The purple furball in her lap now had its eyes wide open.

              Trav glanced around the cabin, searching.  He located the potted three-foot high iritree sapling wedged in a corner along with Samantha’s duffle bags.  The little sapling wasn’t very imposing compared to the massive trees shrouded in mists back on Wald.

              “Is – Is this collection of stowaways all Sairy’s doing?” Trav stammered.

              “I really don’t know,” replied Sam.  “By the way, that’s Aunt Meddle to you, buster.  Only her relatives call her Sairy.”

              “I thought the night we spent together on Wald meant you and I are engaged,” Trav said with a grin.  “That’s what you claimed.”

              “Being in different bedrooms in the same house hardly counts as together.  Anyway, that doesn’t matter here in space without the Waldcodes.  I won’t be restricted by planet rules.”

              Trav chuckled.  “Waldcodes are only good on the planet?”

              Samantha ignored the question and their engagement, returning to the subject of stowaways.  “Having the kits and iritree is what you deserve for trying to put one over on Hermit and Aunt Meddle,” observed Sam without pity as she gently stroked the purring feline.  “You’ll rue the day you appointed my aunt and Hermit Guardian’s representatives.  They’ve demonstrated your lack of ship security by filling it with my duffel, cougcats and a tree.  Why, they probably already outrank you.”

              Trav laughed at the concept of rank affecting him.  He was already ignoring one supervisor.  When your action orders came directly from an admiral, middle office management found themselves limited to reports.  After all, it only took one Guardian to straighten up one planet, like Texas Rangers of old.  He remembered his grandfather saying, “One riot, one Ranger.”

              “Come on.  Let’s divvy up the crew’s quarters and find a place for Seedling and the rest of Aunt Meddle’s surprises.”  The boredom of solitary space flight wouldn’t trouble Trav on this trip after all.

              The next morning Trav tried to get Sam occupied so he could return to his report writing task.  “The computers on this ship have antiquated input-output devices.  We have an old printer hooked up.

              “The good news is that at some time in the past, university courses were loaded into the ship’s computers.  That means Sam, you can get a head start.  At the very least you can determine what you want to study.  I’m going to be tied up writing my full report on the Wald assignment.”

              “That’ll be challenging,” commented Sam with a thoughtful look.

              Trav nodded.  “I’d like you to critique it to make sure I don’t disclose any unnecessary information that Wald would like to remain secret.  Filling computer files with details is not as important as getting the inhabitants to work together.”

              Two purple fluff-balls streaked across the control room in exclamation.  We need to learn to work together, too, added Trivia with a mental burst of energy.

              Several hours later, Trav had his report spread over the galley table.  Sam was safely tucked away in her quarters, working on the ship’s study computer.  She had left her numerous opinions on his report in red.

              An alarm sounded.  Incoming message, announced Seedling.

              Startled, Trav gave Seedling a look.  The tree’s leaves were shaking.  How did the tree know about the message?  Was this a sign of more iritree abilities?  He hurried into the control room.  Might as well use what existed, Trav thought as he punched the ‘print’ button.  Trav picked up the message and swore.  “This is a fine kettle of fish.  Command doesn’t know I’m carrying a complement of passengers.  They’ve diverted me to another planet.”

              “Well, tell them,” snapped Sam who had come of her room, “or will you get in trouble for having us aboard?”

              Better yet, tell me.  Where’s the fish? asked Pickles.

              “Taking a relative of a planet’s high representative somewhere is pretty normal.  Carrying unknown sentient beings is another story,” answered Trav, ignoring Pickles.

              “I can’t seem to transmit a reply to Central.  I’ve tried connecting to Wald with the same unproductive result.  Maybe this ship doesn’t have the energy system to send messages that far, only receive.  Radio communication problems aren’t that unusual.  Luckily, the engineer gave us several message torpedoes.”

              “What are you going to do?” asked Sam, bending to stroke Pickles.

              “Divert.  Maybe the next planet will have facilities to send communications or fix this system.  You’ve seen one typical command shortcoming – communication is one-way.”  Trav chuckled.  “Sometimes, it’s true even when the radios work.  I’ll send a message torpedo.  We have several problems to investigate.”

              Trav missed the two kits giving Seedling a look.  Trav didn’t know all three could reach Wald mentally.  No one volunteered the information.

                The kits’ eyes were wide with excitement and their tails trembled.  Action at last!  Trivia told Pickles.

              I still want that kettle of fish, complained Pickles.

              Sam asked, “What’s the assignment?  How far off course will we be?”

              “A patrol ship got in trouble at another restricted planet like Wald.  They want me to investigate the incident.  We’re less than a week out.  There’s a visual attachment, I’ll project it on the wall.  At least we have a big screen output device.”  Together they watched the replay of the space battle.  Sam paled when the communications officer lost his arm.  Waldcodes had prevented this type of mayhem in her life.

              Trav grumbled, “I’ll got a weapon system to reinstall.  I hid the weapons from the engineer’s inspection to keep them from being recorded.  Sam, I need help.  If we get attacked, this ship isn’t automated enough to pilot and fight at the same time.  I’ve got simulation software so you should manage training in the few days before we get to Lode.”

              “The Waldcodes teach that using weapons is wrong.”

              “That’s another reason I hid them.  The Waldfolk would have been upset to know the ship had weapons.  Even the Wasp had its weapons masked.

              He looked at the expression on Sam’s face.  “You’d follow the Waldcodes out here in space?  You were ready enough to throw them away when I kidded you about being engaged.  Now you cite them to favor someone probably capable of blasting us into smithereens?”  Trav couldn’t believe it.  He watched as Sam frowned, considering what he had told her.  As he looked, her face cleared.

                  “Piece of cake,” she answered, adjusting to life off her home planet with a pragmatism that surprised him.  “How did the Guardians get those pictures?”

              Trav scratched his head.  “I’d guess a message torpedo.  They must have originated from ship’s cameras.”

              “How does this message torpedo that you keep talking about work?” asked Sam.

              “It’s pretty simple.  There’s a compartment for tapes and messages.  You put the information in, flip a switch and jettison the torpedo.  A rocket motor kicks on after a time delay and an electronic sensor in the nose clamps hold of a signal broadcast from Command Center and it’s off,” explained Trav.

*          *          *

              Piece of cake, too?  Pickles asked his twin, ignoring the humans.  Where?

              All you ever think about is your stomach, Trivia replied.  She sat primly with her tail neatly tucked around her front paws.

              Let’s check the galley.  Pickles leaped into the corridor.  The low artificial gravity doubled the length of his jump.

              Instantly, Trivia made a try for her sib’s tail.  Missing, she rolled into a corner.  Wait for me.  Trivia scorched in Pickles wake.

              If he didn’t find anything else, he would be opening Aunt Meddle’s canned gherkins or his favorite dills, for which he was named.  Trivia liked human food, too, but not as much as her brother did.

*          *          *

              “What’s our mission?” asked Sam, shuddering as she replayed the attachment on the screen.  “I thought Guardians always went unarmed.”

              “Lode is a first contact gone bad.  In addition, humans fled from the planet’s surface in a strange ship.  We need information.  Was the strange ship the same configuration as the alien?  If we can recover the patrol computers, that information will be there.

              Guardians only appear unarmed.  That’s how we’re trained, but it doesn’t hurt to have a hidden edge.  On some planets our martial arts training classifies us as a weapon.  Now, thanks to Hermit, I’ve added Waldskills.”  Trav started after the pair of kits to protect his report only to be stopped by Sam.

              “Maybe this weapons business isn’t as easy as I thought.  I seem to be having trouble getting the training program started.”

              With a smirk, Trav punched a few keys on the weapon’s computer to put Sam online.  He returned to the table in the galley and roared with outrage.  Both kits literally disappeared.

              Sam rushed to his side.  “What’s wrong?”

              “Look at what happened in the time it took to install a weapons program!”  Trav pointed to his report.  Empty pickle jars littered the galley table on top of his report.  Pickle juice adorned his work.  A partially eaten fish lay on his chair.

              Sam giggled.  “Hermit would be ashamed of you.  Remember the Waldskills he taught you?  They emphasize mental control as well as martial arts.  Scaring those poor kits.  Next time, don’t leave your work spread out in such a mess.”  Sam marched back to her simulation, hiding a grin.  Smirk over her not understanding how to run the weapon’s program, would he.  The kits were wonderful equalizers.

              Trav stared with disbelief at her back.  Who was the injured party here?  Poor kits indeed, he thought.

*          *          *

              A week later they arrived at Lode, the interdicted planet.  Trav had replayed the transmitted battle scene many times.  He still had questions.  He convinced Sam she didn’t need to be in the weapons pod incoming.  The first thing Trav noticed was the wreckage of two ships.  At least they weren’t tangled together.  No visible sign of the destroyed third ship remained, but the moon was missing.

              Trav forced himself to remain calm.  “I’m going to arm those enforcement buoys.  That was the first mistake that patrol captain made.  Correctly activated, the buoys would have helped defend his ship within range of the planet.”  Trav made sure their ship broadcast the right identification code before he rearmed the buoys.

              “Now, we’ll apply what we learned from that battle tape attachment.  We’re going to explore every place a ship can hide.  Man the weapons system, Sam.”  Trav guided the cargo ship toward the nearest asteroids, not mentioning the missing moon.

              “Some weapons system.  One firing pod, behind the control room, requiring visible sighting,” observed Sam.  “No wonder you could hide it so easily.”

              “We’re no war ship.  If we are attacked, that pod is enough to show we are armed, which isn’t normal for a freighter.  The surprise element is as important as any damage we might do.”

              “What would the engineer have done if he found the pod?” asked Sam.

              “Left it alone, but recorded it.  The Captain would have included the information in his decision about putting some of his crew aboard.  I wanted to avoid the recording of the system.”

              An uneventful four hours later they returned to the space debris.  “Being keyed up and staring at weapons displays is tiring,” exclaimed Sam.  “I see why you didn’t want me coming into the planet area with weapons hot.”

              “Right.  The ship’s alarm system gives us time to react when entering a planetary sphere of activity.  Blasting in, weapons hot, can promote confrontation in addition to leaving the crew fatigued when they need to be alert.  Now, we know it’s safe to investigate those hulks in order to find things we can salvage for the lab techs to use in studying this fiasco.  We might even find something we could use on this ship.  I wish you could go with me.”

              “Any chance of survivors?  Those ships look awfully small.”

              Trav explained, “I had the sensors scan the wreckage for life forms when we first came in – there are none.  These are scout ships.  That’s why they’re so small.”

              “You seem more interested in salvage than finding out what happened.”

              “To me salvage and investigation are the same,” explained Trav.  “If I can retrieve the ships’ computers, we might learn a lot.  The patrol ship was armed to the teeth.  I don’t know about the alien vessel.”

              We want to go, too.  The purple kits bounced up and down with excitement.

              “I don’t have space suits to fit you,” replied Trav.

              We don’t need space suits.  We can form mind shields around ourselves and store air under our skin like that earth animal stores water.  You know, the four-legged one – the horse.  Pickles, with his big purr motor going, landed in Sam’s lap.  We’re treasure hunters.

              “Horse?  Show me a mental picture.”  A second later Sam said, “You mean camel.”  She laughed.

              “This all sounds too convenient.  Where are they getting this stuff from?” demanded Trav.

              He showed us how to access the university computers, explained Trivia, jumping to Trav’s shoulder.  She indicated Seedling with a nod before brushing her tail against Trav’s face.

              “I notice you always get the female,” observed Sam, chuckling over the antics of the kits.

              Trav was busy trying to see around the kit.  “Well?” he directed at Seedling.

              I had nothing to do, so I hitched onto Sam’s mind when she studied, explained Seedling.  Then I found I could interact directly.  It’s a thousand times faster.  The printer started to chatter.  I’ve been through the weapons training.  See the printout?  My weapons simulation scores are much better than Sam’s.

              The pilot’s course is a snap – watch.   The ship moved closer alongside the derelicts.  I communicated directly with the ship’s computer when I moved us.

              “No more moving the vessel without my command,” ordered Trav, shuddering.  The possibilities of an immature iritree directing the ship horrified him.  Trav punched code into the main computer that required a response from him before the ship could be repositioned.

              Seedling continued, I taught the kits, but they use the mouse like Sam.  All they want to do is read stories – fiction.  It’s disgusting.  They should be studying science and math.

              “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”  Trav groaned.  “I haven’t yet completed my report about all the things that happened on Wald.  I’m trying not to record that the iritrees planned to destroy all the settlers with poison pods.  Humans aren’t forgiving when their race is threatened, even reading reports about the incident light years away.  The iritrees would have the stigma of “unreliable” attached to their résumé, ignoring the provocation of the human logjackers cutting living trees.

              “Now I’ve got another complication, iritree direct communication with computers – another simple ability.  Why not?”  Trav looked at Sam in despair to see if she was sympathetic.

              Sam was much more practical.  “That means I can go, too.  We know Natha’s space suit is on board.  Seedling, can you monitor both our suits?”

              Seedling’s leaves twitched in disdain.  Of course.

              “Okay, Hotshot, what are we looking for over there?” asked Sam, glancing at Trav.

              “Like I said earlier, we want to salvage the patrol ship’s computers.  Based on Seedling’s ability, we should try for the alien ship’s system.  We have plenty of room in the cargo bay.  I need message torpedoes, too.”  Trav was already busy donning his space suit.  He stopped to stare when Sam stripped down to her underwear before grabbing her spacesuit.  “You’re – You’re going to have to cut your hair,” he stammered, trying to ignore the rush of testosterone. “These helmets weren’t designed for long hair.”

              Forcing his mind in gear, he continued, “ I need to find out why the patrol ship’s weapons torpedoes didn’t fire at the second ship.  Some ordinance torpedoes might come in handy if we can locate any.  We still don’t know what may be lurking in the area.  Right now, I’m missing a moon.”

              Sam shot him a look like, you’re kidding, right?  “I’ll concentrate on retrieving the patrol computers.  I don’t want any part of a ship built by an unknown race.  You take care of all the weapons, too.”  She turned and shook her finger at the bouncing purple balls of fur.  “One of you is going to have to wear a collar.  I can’t tell you apart when you leap around.  I don’t want you kits making trouble,” instructed Sam as she crossed to the equipment locker and picked up the shears to cut her hair before wriggling into her suit.

              Trav was going to remind her who was in charge, but was still distracted by her lack of clothes.  He groaned in exasperation as a swath of hair sailed into the ship’s disposal system and disappeared.  He knew the haircut was required, but he didn’t like short hairstyles on women.  Worse, this cut wasn’t a style.  It looked like a berserker had sheared it with a battle-axe.

              Bossy, isn’t she? remarked Pickles, oblivious to Trav’s reaction.  This provoked a swat from his sister.

              I didn’t know alien females would defend each other, observed Seedling, shaking his leaves in amusement.

              Trav decided it would be safer to ignore that remark. He had a few qualms about leaving an alien intelligence running his ship, but having seen Seedling’s competence with the ship’s computer, he was willing to take a chance.  “Seedling, I know our ship’s systems aren’t much, but see if you can pick up anything about that planet while you’re monitoring us.  Above all, warn us if the buoys disarm,” requested Trav.

               “You’ll have a chance to test out your suit in the cargo hold,” Trav told Sam.  “There’s no air, gravity or working lights, so power up everything in the suit.”

              As they went through the connecting airlock, Trivia leaped on top of Trav’s helmet, dangling her tail over his faceplate.  Trav recycled the air out of the lock and opened the hatch into the cargo bay.

              Once in the hold, Trav saw Sam had trouble moving without gravity.  He used the air jets on his suit to catch her when she floated off in the wrong direction.  He showed her how to use the suit’s controls before he opened the main lock to space.

              Their headlamps reflected off the walls so Sam had some sense of being contained.  She took one look at the blackness outside the hatch and screeched.  “I’m not going out there!”  Forgetting to make small moves, she pushed off the deck with too much force in the wrong direction, flailing her arms, then clutching Trav for support.

              He, unfortunately, was standing in the doorway.  The momentum sent them both spinning out of control through the open hatch into space.