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  Externally, the ship was an elongated cylinder with rounded caps at each end. While the ship had the same S-jump capabilities as Ranger, its skin was glass smooth. No dimples, no edges, no pods, cupolas, projections, or any attachment points. The joints in the hangar bay hatches disappeared completely when they closed.

  Traveler had translated the Surron's ship log, but we didn't have time to look through it. I had her delete the last few days of the log. No one needed to read about the cruel death of a fine crew, or our hijacking.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We war gamed the next part of our plan. Roger and I on the Red Team with Mica and Dodger on the Blue side. Then we switched. We had to iron out some wrinkles, look at probabilities, come up with contingencies, and action paths if the main thrust of our parley with the Eshalax went sideways.

  All things being equal, the next encounter would be our two ships against their four. With Traveler, we were more than a bit equal. We had the time, so before we jumped back into our galaxy, I took one of those fighters for a short joyride.

  Since the Surrons were built a bit wider and boxier than humans, I had plenty of room in the primary pilot seat. Traveler had modified the seats in the ship and in the fighters and transports to better fit our physiques, but she had kept the extra width. I liked the added space. The fighter was a left and right two seat design. I was going to fly solo.

  On this ship, there was no catapulting or being shot out of a cannon. When fighter transit was engaged from primary control, the fighter and I just emerged outside the ship. Gentle as can be. I checked the scans of local space.

  All clear. I kicked it in the ass with a big yahoo. It was a thrill to be in a fighter craft again. It had an always-on defensive shield and the same hyper-slicer weapon as Ranger had. And just like Ranger, there was no need to point the fighter in the direction you wanted to shoot. After a while, I settled down and used my Q-Com to control the ship and weapons. It provided a faster response time than hands-on but was not as satisfying.

  Getting back inside Traveler was a different process than leaving. The pop-out equipment was not on the fighter. That equipment was inside Traveler's hangar bays. To get back in to the bay, my fighter was auto-directed through a small recovery hatch, then automatically docked in its slot.

  In less than two days, we had stolen a huge Surron ship and made it our own. We were ready to make a run at the Eshalax ships blocking our path to the rift planet. We popped out just shy of where we had first detected them.

  13 Hey Diddle Diddle

  Even this far out we could tell there was something different. There were now six ships in the area of the rift planet. It was getting uncomfortably crowded out here at the galactic edge.

  As we popped in closer, our passive scans showed that the two new ships were definitely human, military, and damaged. Those were corralled inside the Eshalax perimeter, which had closed tighter than before. The Eshalax ships had their defensive shield up and were no longer cloaked.

  Our immediate plan was for Ranger to contact the Eshalax and let them know we were there to non-catastrophically close the rift. There would be no need for a suicide action on their part. Their race knew about the Zees and would listen to him before talking with mere organics. We hoped that having such a visibly powerful Surron ship would lead to a reasonable discussion.

  Ranger made contact with their AIs. I swear I could see those Eshalax ships flinch on the screen when he made his contact ping. We had placed a series of cloaked Surron built communication drones out on a sweep alignment starting on our port side at 50k klicks to the furthest at 1000K klicks. We didn't want to be in the center of a drone deployment. That would make it too easy for them to guess our location. Ranger Q-Com’d through one of our drones using Surron transmitters to make contact.

  Traveler focused on our protection and other concerns, such as contacting the two navy ships. I was hoping there was a crew left alive to answer. Using a ship to ship communication-beam, I broadcast, “This is Captain Bonner onboard the ship Traveler contacting...” I paused, then continued, “contacting the damaged military ships at the following coordinates.” Traveler communication-beamed their coordinates to them so there would be no doubt that I was trying to contact them specifically. There was no one else around for a hundred and eighty light-years.

  “Captain,” Traveler reported, “the Eshalax have a disruptive communication-blanket over the entire volume covering the human ships. I think I can tunnel through it with focused coms, but that will reveal our location since it would have to come from this ship. The drones don't have enough power.”

  I thought for a moment. “Ranger, are you making any headway with the Eshalax?”

  “Some, but it's slow. They seem to have a command and control problem between their ships. I'm spending a lot of time waiting after each exchange.”

  “Could you override their AIs from here?”

  “I did get a peek at their AI structure before they slammed the door. I made it look like a standard communication handshake request. Or at least one that served that purpose for them over six million years ago when we last had contact with them. They have numerous AI trap doors meant to capture any Zee who came this way.”

  “Traveler, energize our defensive shield, close-in, at ten percent and drop our cloak. Ranger, shift your coms with the Eshalax to Traveler's communication equipment and keep pressing them. Let the drones go dark and have them dock back aboard us.” I thought about releasing our fighters under AI control but dropped that idea as they might be easily swatted away or we would have to abandon them if we had to make a quick jump-out. I didn't want a fight. We had to keep our eye on the ball. The ball was getting the rift closed.

  “Traveler, see if you can burn through. Send those navy ships our basic contact signature, just ship’s name and my name, no classification, be sure to use current human protocols. Ask them if they need any assistance.”

  The reply was an almost immediate two-way video link-up combined with reciprocal sensor connections. “This is Captain Schaffer aboard the ASF Dunbar. You said, you’re Captain Bonner? Captain Gene Bailey Bonner?”

  Sandy gave me a poke, and Mica raised his eyebrows. On the screen, Captain Schaffer looked harried and fatigued.

  “Yes, we are aboard the armed ship, Traveler. You look like you could use some assistance.”

  “Captain Bonner, we are units of the Argrona System Navy. We were sent out on a rescue mission two weeks ago to this location. The mission was to rescue you and your crew, who were supposed to be on a small ship listed as Ranger, registered in the Ambigon system. We arrived two days ago and were immediately attacked. We are disabled and being kept in a communications blackout. None of our weapons have proven effective.

  We have injured and dead. We’re currently trying to just keep our ships habitable and together. The attacking ships have not made any contact and don't respond to our communication requests.” I saw him look to his right to take in something. He turned back to me. “Just what kind of ship are you on? I've never seen a design like that. You seem to have a shield strength almost as powerful as a battle cruiser.”

  Well that was a lot to take in, but just about what I had suspected, except for the rescue mission part. Mica leaned over and muted the voice coms.

  “Captain, two weeks ago is when we left the Tanner system. Apparently, our hypothetical Mr. Big really, really, really wants to grab us, or make us dead, and he has the pull to get a system space force to do it. AND he knew where we would be before we knew it.”

  I reengaged the voice coms. Rather than answer Captain Schaffer’s questions, I replied, “Captain, I assume you are in contact with your other ship. Can you give us a full status of both ships?”

  His shoulders sagged, “All the senior officers on the Fletcher are dead. A junior officer and a senior enlisted man are in charge over there. All they can do is isolate damaged areas and attempt to stabilize the ship for salvage. We have shifted their wounded, along with their
medical officer, to the Dunbar and will soon be transferring their remaining crew over here. Our plans are to salvage equipment and supplies from Fletcher to attempt repairs to our propulsion systems.”

  “Between our two crews we have thirty-eight able crew remaining, nine severely wounded, and thirteen dead. Sir, I don't see how you can fare any better than we have. I request that you jump out and make to the nearest Q-Com platform system and relay our situation, ask for strong reinforcements. I'm sending you all the data we have on those four ships. We don't know who they are or where they came from.”

  I was reading a scrolling text commentary on my screen. Ranger was using it to keep me updated on his progress. The negotiations involved the navy ships as bargaining chips by the other side.

  “Captain Schaffer, we will do everything we can to establish a rescue for you and your crew.” I signed off and had Traveler terminate the burn through connection. I would let captain Schaffer think we were going to jump out and make a call for the cavalry. We weren't going anywhere.

  “Traveler, make preparations for receiving those navy crews, including their dead. Section off a large area and put together suitable medical, berthing, dining, and sanitary facilities of standard human design. Move all the ships from the port hangar bay to the starboard bay if you need to use that space. Also, create a triple lock passage area between their area and the rest of the ship. Put together a fake, but believable, standard freighter bridge mock-up with a conference room accessible to their areas. We need to keep them believing that this is a human built freighter. I know it's a big task. How quickly can you get all that done?”

  “Captain, if we combine Ranger’s bots with all of mine, I believe we can finish up in fifteen hours, a bit sooner if the engineer and Navigation Officers lend us some help in design and dimensions. Roger and Dodger would be a most helpful in supervising the bots.”

  I looked at Sandy and Mica. They both rose and headed to the conference room area just aft of the bridge. Roger and Dodger also left the bridge to join the effort. Any spacer worth his salt will go to extreme ends to help another spacer in trouble.

  “OK. Ranger, Traveler, I don't want any of that navy crew to even begin to guess at the capabilities or non-human origins of any of our ships. We need to keep them in the dark during their trip home. Since we can do instantaneous jumps, we can stay here and complete our mission while they think we're in transit to drop them off.”

  Negotiations were dragging until Ranger reported a break-through. He had agreed to give the Eshalax our Surron ship. It would be delivered to their home sector as soon as our mission was completed. The Eshalax believed that the Zees never lied. He told them that we didn't have the capability to construct S-jump drives for them here. However, their home system would be able to use this ship to meet them within a year.

  Ranger told me, that in their cultural structure, it would be much better for them to arrange for the ship to be delivered and turned over to their big cheese back home. They would suffer significant positional loss if they took possession here before he did. It was a big prize. Ranger had used that knowledge to take advantage of the Eshalax.

  In turn, they would allow us to make planet fall to close the rift. Three of their ships would begin the long transit home to meet their new ship along the way. They had no objection to allowing us to transfer the organic beings on the antiquated vessels that distastefully and shamefully shared this area of space with them.

  One of their ships would stay behind, holding a dead-man's switch connected to their equipment on the surface. If released, the rift would thin and destructively remove most of our local galaxy cluster from existence.

  To avoid any misunderstandings or unfortunate hasty actions on either side, Ranger requested their three ships depart before we moved in. The remaining ship would move off 500K klicks for the same reason. We needed elbow room to collect our passengers. All nice, logical and pretty please.

  I was certain Ranger would never turn over any of our vessels to anyone or allow them to be captured. There would be one hell of a big explosion before that happened. Self-destruct is a difficult thing to sit on.

  Ranger knew something that the local Eshalax didn't. Their folks back home had attempted to raid some adjacent systems, and those people's galactic cousins had strongly protested. The Eshalax were wiped out over a million years ago. As a civilization, they no longer existed.

  We watched as three of their ships blinked out. Ranger's friends back home would be watching and tracking them closely to make sure they didn't change their minds and double back. Those ships were expecting to meet their space fleet's new ship in a year or so. They thought they would return as heroes. The remaining ship backed off.

  We still had eleven hours before we could transfer the navy crews. Facilities were still being constructed. In the meantime, Traveler drilled through to the navy sensor suites and degraded them to the point that they would not be able to pick up the remaining Eshalax vessel, which was now cloaked and still in the neighborhood. We had plans for that ship. I wasn't going down to that planet with someone in the cold dark holding a gun on us.

  14 Liar, Liar

  As the time to pick up the navy crews approached, I realized we were going to need to use our transports to get them over here. The Surron transports weren't exactly standard human-built ships. The navy crews would pick up on that as soon as they saw them up close, inside or out. I rubbed my eyes. It had been a very long day. I heard Sandy enter the bridge.

  “What's wrong, boss?”

  “It's our transports,” I mumbled, “they're Surron design and tech through and through. The navy crews ...”

  “Gotcha covered. Mica and I did a quick design mod layout for Traveler. We have one of the transports looking much like a slightly used standard model. It's mostly cover-ups and cosmetic changes. Roger, Dodger, and the bots just finished. The transport airlock is now a universal human design. If we keep them out of the pilot areas, they shouldn't know the difference. We even added some bogus exterior plates with mock-ups of standard mounted equipment, in case they get a look at the transport's outer hull. Anything else they might spot as strange will probably be chalked up to it being a new model they haven't seen yet. We also loaded in a medical module that can be slid out after moving the wounded over.”

  Mica and Sandy had always been great at improvising and thinking on the go. I reminded myself to rely more on their taking some initiative. Fifteen minutes later, Traveler announced that the area for our visitors was ready.

  I com’d the Dunbar. “Captain Schaffer, those other ships have popped-out. We are moving in to receive you and your crew. We'll be sending a transport to connect to one of your airlocks in a few minutes. I recommend moving the medics and injured over first.”

  “They're gone? Well ... thank you Captain Bonner. We only have one working shuttle, but it's small and can only hold six personnel. We will be ready to receive your transport.”

  Mica would be piloting. Roger and Dodger would go along to keep anyone from trying to get into the pilot area. I watched as he moved away towards the ASF Dunbar. Mating to the light cruiser went smoothly. We soon had the all the wounded, medics and Dunbar's First Officer on board and shifted into the medical facilities. Looking them over, I thought we might have overdone it just a smidgen.

  A freighter wouldn't have a large and well-equipped Med-bay. We were going to have to come up with a few cover stories. I waited in the now smaller, port side docking bay to await the remaining crews. Traveler had used some of the port bay, as well as an adjoining cargo hold, to build the hab areas for the navy crew. There were other areas on this large ship we could have used, but they were too deep in the ship and too far away from the hangar bay.

  As the Dunbar's captain came down the transport ramp on the last run, I greeted him as warmly as I could and assured him that we had adequate facilities for his crew for the trip back. I did ask him to order his crew to not wander around the ship and to stay in their a
ssigned areas. I extended an invitation for him and his First Officer to visit our bridge after he'd seen to his crew. Sandy volunteered to help get them settled in. Roger and Dodger left to go elsewhere. I noticed that they got a lot of looks from the navy crews. They had worn their armored suits. They had a big stencil front and back that said Security.

  A few hours later, while we were preparing for our trip down to the planet, Traveler relayed a communication call from Captain Schaffer. “Captain Bonner, I just want to, again, express my sincerest thanks to you and your crew for assisting us.” I noticed he didn't use the word rescue. He said he was looking forward to a visit to our bridge. I knew it was going to be more of a question session than a happy casual chat. I had some questions for him too.

  Roger escorted Captain Schaffer and his First Officer, Amanda Wright, to our mocked-up bridge, which was situated adjacent to the navy crews' area. Everything on the bridge appeared to be human design.

  The navigation, scan, and engineering consoles were showing fake data from Traveler. We wanted them to see what they expected to see. Sandy had even added a few scratches, scuff, and wear marks to the couches, bulkheads and equipment. If everything looked show-room fresh it might raise suspicions.

  Both officers gave a cursory walk around the bridge area. As they did, I remarked, “As you can see, we are in jump-transit. I have us plotted to the LaMain system, it's the closest Q-Com-linked system. We plan to drop you and your crew off there. We would have plotted a course back to your system, but that would take us well off our previous path. I'm sure you and your crew don't want to be cooped up in a freighter any longer than necessary. It would take us over three weeks to get you home. It will be much quicker to have your Space Force ships meet you there. We can be at LaMain station in four days.”