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  Ranger kept up a constant shuttle service to Traveler, bringing back supplies and newly made equipment. We were going to have security drones by the hundreds parked in the stables. The bulk of them would be moved to the caverns after we had the caves ready to occupy. There were fifty armored combat bots to provide protection from land or air assault. I didn't see the need for so many, but Mica had plans to build an army in case we needed one where we were going in a few months.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The day the new human-conveyances arrived for Ranger, Traveler and Martin was exciting. But the day they opened their eyes was a real holiday. All five of us flew up to Traveler for the start of the constituting. In the Med-bay, we watched the med-bots unpack the crates. Hornblower had gone to the factory to accept delivery. No humans at that end were ever involved. No records of their construction were left behind.

  The first to be unpacked was Ranger's new body. It looked like a fit forty-year old male, anatomically correct. It would stay in the Auto-Doc for the three-day transfer process. Most of that time was spent converting the factory build shells into real human flesh and blood. Traveler used her Surron tech to get rid of and replace the non-organic bot materials with human tissues, including their brains. The factory shells were only used as a template.

  Martin's body looked exactly like he had on the rift planet, except he would stand erect and be healthy looking. I smiled at the familiarity. His body began the same process as Ranger's and Traveler's.

  Travelers new form was also very fit and about my age. She was an attractive female with all the right equipment. I insisted that the boys all leave before her body was un-crated. The bots interned her in another Auto-Doc. We set the timer on the ovens and waited.

  Three days later, Ranger's Auto-Doc opened, he sat up, looked at us and said, “Well, this is new.” Understatement of the year I'd say.

  I asked Hornblower and Mica to take Ranger to get him cleaned up and get some clothes on, I told them I'd give them a call when Traveler emerged. They were not to come back until I called. A woman needs a little time to get herself together after she wakes up, before receiving visitors. With the gentlemen gone, I waited.

  When her Auto-Doc opened, she sat up, looked at me and said, “Hey there, girlfriend.” I cracked up. She even laughed with me. Maybe I could teach her how to do girl talk after all.

  “What's that I smell?” she asked. I was still in the coveralls I’d been wearing to do some light equipment work that day.

  Looking down at my clothes and sniffing, I said, “Probably lubricating oil.”

  “I like it. It smells … pretty.” Yep, she will do just fine. Time to get her showered and decent before the men saw her. I handed her a robe, and off we went.

  When Traveler and I returned, we found the men waiting by the Auto-Doc. Martin's body was emerging. When he awoke, he was fascinated by his hands. Then he asked where his glasses were. He didn't really need them. They were just an affectation he liked. Martin announced that he would like to get a cat, a gray one.

  Neither Martin's, Ranger's, or Traveler's AI minds were fully transferred over. A human brain couldn't hold all that data. The new humans communicated with the part of them still in the AI cores the same way we did. Via Q-Com. They were now separate entities.

  After Martin was cleaned up and clothed, we all headed to the ship's cafeteria. It had been redesigned to resemble a cozy open-table restaurant. While in their former haunts, the Zees and Martin didn't have to eat. Their new bodies required the same nourishment as ours. I was amazed at how many groceries Roger and Dodger packed away at every meal. Their bodies were fully human. They had to eat, sleep, crap, and pee just like us.

  While the names Ranger and Martin fitted them, I insisted that the name Traveler was a horrible name, even as a spacer name. Besides, it would be confusing calling her and the ship by the same name. I asked her if she had any preferences.

  She blinked. “The name Abby seems nice.”

  Abby was christened. We all settled in for food and conversation. We were a tight little group of friends. Martin fit right in. Later, we would have the ship Ranger, re-registered as Sojourner.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Hornblower had big plans for our caverns. We were going to use them to stock excess supplies and equipment. We sent drones in to completely sample and map every nook and cranny. Looking at the surveys, we located several large domed sections that would be great for hangars and manufacturing.

  We even found an underground river accessible at the eastern section of the cavern system. We plotted all the air chimneys and had bots install filters, sensor monitored closures, and intake blowers. We bore new air exhausts to scatter the volume of air coming out of our fortress over a wide area. They were all fitted with heat exchangers to match the outside air temperature and humidity to prevent detection of the thermal blooms. Other bots drilled to form the large passageways between caverns. We had our redoubt.

  The last item added was equipment similar to what Martin had on the rift planet. That made the voids in our cavern look like solid rock when scanned. Even the hangar entry doors were concealed by hard-light technology.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  During this preparation and planning phase, we did get to go out and mingle with the locals. Every month, like clockwork, our fellow gentleman ranchers and farmers, along with their families, would gather for a super-mixer party in one of the three largest cities on the planet.

  The cities weren't like the mega ones found on older planets. They had grown and spread out in a planned fashion, avoiding the normal sprawling effects of fast-growing cities. Satchel's cities had a quaint, small town feel. The largest, including suburbs, covered over five hundred square kilometers. As good residents, we joined in these get-togethers. There's more to life than saving the universe, hunting an arch-enemy, and going on archaeological treasure hunts.

  I really enjoyed Abby's company during these events. I got her all fixed up with a nice wardrobe and other female doodads. While we could get what we wanted from our fabricators, it was fun to go shopping together. It would have been out of character as local rich folks not to.

  Abby quickly learned that in her new body, people watching, was much more fun than monitoring them as an AI. We spent more time than we should have window shopping some of the local boys. I showed her how to do social search and destroy missions. Some of her comments were hilarious and a few quite salacious.

  More than one group of rich farm boys engaged Abby and me in some playful banter. We bantered right back. On this planet, men and women didn't settle down with marriage contracts until well into their late thirties or early forties. Human science provided for long, healthy life spans and retarded the aging process considerably. To the local boys, we were just something new and shiny in their circles.

  I loved watching the local lassies make runs at Roger and Dodger. I guess those girls wanted to try their hands at mountain climbing.

  Hornblower and Mica attracted their share of interested women, too. Martin found himself being a target for a few of the more mature but still attractive gals. He played his part to the hilt as the retired gentleman grandee.

  A few times, our circle of eight was invited to other family’s farms. Traveler had concocted new iron clad IDs and back stories for us. We were known as the Richard's family. People assumed that Martin was the head of our little enclave.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Meanwhile, we worked for another three months, planning and refining a trap for Mr. Big. Before we could spring the trap, we needed more bulk stock for the fabricators and Nano-compilers onboard Traveler and for those installed in the caverns. We ordered the stock and had it delivered to the shipyard. Nothing would look out of place going to a resurgent shipyard that needed everything.

  With Traveler's increased manufacturing capabilities, coupled with what we had dirt-side, there was nothing we needed to buy on the local open market. But the fresh food was wonderful. I even tried my hand at manu
al meal preparation. Not my best talent as it turned out. Martin was a superb cook. He accumulated hundreds of herbs and spices.

  All ground-based preps were completed. The shipyard renovations were moving along smoothly. We even had eight Surron fighters in the cavern hangers, one for each of us. A more human looking transport was flown in under stealth and parked there also. Twenty more fighters and two transports were in Traveler's flight bays. Between our ground base, Traveler, and the shipyard, we had over a thousand bots and double that many drones. We were locked and loaded.

  18 Hide and Seek

  We were ready. All that remained was to set the trap. We weren't so naive that we expected Mr. Big himself to knock on the door. This was going to be a series of gentle nudges outward to see who took notice.

  We opened our bait company for business. That would be the only one not buried in the noise and false paths of shell companies. Hornblower Enterprises, with Hornblower, Mica and I listed as owners, was quietly opened for business as a freight transportation company. We began advertising our services in the delta quadrant.

  By now, we were sure that Mr. Big had gotten word, through either the stories spread by the navy crews we had rescued or through official naval dispatches, that we had a large interstellar freighter in our possession. After all, we were stinking rich, and to all appearances, could afford to buy one.

  After two weeks, we started getting nibbles. Mostly inquiries about availability. The ship-bound AIs did a lot of invisible backtracking from the sources of those nibbles. The Zees thousands of years’ experience studying humans and billions of years watching and communicating with other races had honed their investigative and research tools to a micro-fine edge. But even with that, we couldn't be sure Mr. Big’s resources hadn't created an air-gap or two between him and those few nibbles.

  Searches of government, military, and media records were made to match up similar attempted kidnappings, ship bugging, and use of highly illegal weapons. Because of the huge number of brute force kidnappings in the galaxy, we dropped that line of investigation.

  Traveler was covertly using some very high-end AIs, in dozens of systems, that were designed for criminal investigation and profiling. Mr. Big was most probably very rich and well-connected to not only military, political, and commercial worlds but also to organized crime.

  A thorough background check on the now deceased Ms. Jeanette Parker, picked up a personal connection between her and ASF Dunbar's First Officer, Amanda Wright. Now that was interesting. I was hoping we would be meeting her again. I could smell her dirt from halfway across the galaxy.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The high-priced legal eagles we had on retainer were employed to find out the particulars of why the ASF Dunbar's captain had been told we were of interest to the authorities in the Ambigon system. Turns out that it was a 'clerical error'. The records had now been expunged after the threat of a big legal hammer.

  Apparently, the Argrona Navy had been simply doing a cross-system favor for the Ambigon Space Force. Military units never saw much action, beyond war games with other systems. For them it was just a nice diversion with the chance to flex some muscle while standing over a little guy.

  The Argronian military had received a Q-message from Ambigon Military Command, which later proved to be fake. When the Argronians had asked for more information on our status, the lower levels of the real Ambigon Navy had simply sent them the bogus file they had in their records. The Argronians hadn't asked for verification of the first message. After the fact, there was quite a dust-up at both ends of that message traffic. After all, the Argronians had lost two very expensive ships as a result.

  While the AI's were busy chomping away on data and finding new paths for investigation, I spent some play time with Martin. He had a real interest in sleight of hand stage magic. Together, we worked up some neat electro-mechanical gadgets. Surron tool tech was great for miniaturizing things.

  Martin was very thrilled to be in a real body. Previously, he'd led only a virtual life. He said it had been a fully enriched existence. In his box, he could slice off parts of his intellect, effectively hiding their virtual actions from himself. Those parts could assume the quasi-independent roles of other people in the many millions of virtual lives he'd led. His characters had even died in the immersive dream-dramas.

  Martin told me he particularly like to draw from old human Westerns. I would have to look that up. I'd never heard of Westerns. Martin told me he liked the real McCoy physical existence in this body much better. Real McCoy, something else I'd have to look up, but I got the inference.

  When the alert came, Abby and I were in the game room locked into pods playing an adventure-based immersion game. Roger, Dodger, and Mica were in the adjoining lounge playing cards to sharpen their skills for future casino visits. I noted that Roger and Dodger had lost their ability to maintain stone-cold poker faces. I guess we humans were rubbing off on them. Hornblower, Ranger, and Martin were in the caverns stretching their legs spelunking. We received the same Q-Com signal, ‘Spacer Chaser'.

  That was the prearranged signal telling us we had a fish on the hook. Those of us at the ranch house gathered around the holo-display in the communications room. We watched as Traveler narrated.

  “The two individuals you see have entered our transportation offices. They were very good at disabling and spoofing the building security systems.”

  Our offices were leased spaces on a planet in the Delta quadrant. None of us had actually ever been to the planet’s surface. An office setup company had been hired to fill it with furniture, install a communication system, data center, and other normal items. Just things you would expect to find in offices of this type company.

  We had hired three temps to occupy the place, doing busy work during the day. Our office manager had a very nice operating budget. They received and stored bogus invoice data, business communications, and data on Traveler's past and future ports of call. For all they knew they were employed as cogs in a corporate machine.

  They did get very good pay and additional benefits from us, their contracted employer. Hornblower has a kind, soft heart. The only outside person our office workers ever dealt with personally was a local business attorney we'd hired to process all company startup records.

  We even contracted with a commercial cleaning company for weekly service. Just to make it easier for someone to pose as them so they could enter and snoop at will. What the cleaning company and our burglars didn't know was that there were a dozen cloaked Q-drones inside and outside the building, as well as in our offices.

  Traveler continued, “We have backtracked their local movements for the past week, using the city's surveillance system moles we inserted. While some attempt had been made to hide their employment, we have directly linked them as operatives in the security division of a corporation home based in the in the Galainia system. We are now doing an aggressive dive into their corporate records, both public and private.”

  We continued to watch, real-time, as they swept through the offices, copying everything. They were very thorough and tidy. They even got Traveler’s future schedule showing her next port of call. Traveler's previous movement records seem to have been corrupted. Imagine that.

  Another purpose of the virtual AI moles in the planets civilian surveillance system was to place a record of the visit Hornblower, Mica, and I had made to the new office when it was first established. We never actually went there.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  A day later, we had Mr. Big. He was a human. The Zees data sweep picked up damning bits of information. One of which was an unambiguous communication trail between the Ambigon, Tanner, and Argronian systems that perfectly fit the timeline of events. One of Mr. Big's low-level, off-the-books minion had been identified as the source of the bogus file that had been sent to the Argronian Navy. There were also several back and forth coms between Jeanette Parker and Mr. Big. We had expected that. Another eye opener was coms from Jennette to First Officer A
manda Wright, who was now employed by Mr. Big's company.

  We stopped calling him Mr. Big. He was a conglomerate mogul named Winston Frease, rhymes with grease … how ironic. He'd spread his tentacles far and wide through government and military circles, as well as civilian industries and services.

  His published personal history was fairly bland. He had come from a family who had owned a small service supply company. There was a standard looking primary education, followed by a degree in sociology and political science from a decent university.

  After that, a nondescript four-year military naval service obligation followed. No criminal, legal or military discipline problems. Toward the end of his service, his family had come into a large inheritance from a distant uncle who had left no direct descendants. After his parents died, he took over the family business and semi-fortune and moved the business to a new system. He began to build his empire.

  By age fifty-seven he had accumulated several billion credits in assets and a few billion in personal wealth. He was a local mover and shaker.

  The part about a family inheritance smelled like a week-old dead rat to me. Through very deep digging we learned that his entire back story was a total fake. There had been a family by that name with a son. Same public background. They had owned the company. But Mr. Frease was not that son nor related to them at all. He had appeared from nowhere and assumed the son’s identity. The real family had disappeared.

  In the early years, his mercenary company was contracted by large corporations to legally strong-arm corporate world settlers. He got paid at both ends by extorting the colonial leaders into giving him credits from the planetary establishment funds. He was stealing from the corporations that had paid him to watch the colonists. Large amounts of credits came his way.