AL:ICE-9 (15 page)

Suppressing a giggle of her own, Patti offered, “Well, first of all we all now know the Wawobash don’t build boats. They run the premier spaceship manufacturing facility in the NeHaw Empire. Apparently, with the help of the Kortisht, the three-legged humanoids, they construct all the top combat NeHaw vessels. Our battleship was built by them and released just prior to its engagement here.”

“Kortisht?” Jake asked.

“Oh they produce all the repulser and faster than light drive systems for the ships. Apparently, they are some kind of wizards when it comes to fields generating systems. They can actually see the various gravitational fields they work with,” Patti answered.

Picking up his display pad, Jake started flipping through his notes until he found what he was looking for.

“So Sandy, reading from your negotiation notes, I quote, “The dog people build boats, not helpful to us” and then, “The tripods make stuff for the boats the dog people make.” Does that sound familiar?”

“Maybe,” was all she could muster in a very quiet tone.

After a few seconds of silence, Jake let loose with a belly laugh that soon had the entire room engaged.

“Honey, I am so sorry,” Jake offered after a moment, “I should have never put that all on you. You have such a great natural talent for negotiating. I never gave it a second thought about the need for a technical backup to assess the replies. I was so focused on everything else that I should have assigned a resource to help you understand what was being said.”

With a look of relief, Sandy shrugged and smiled, glad for the absolution.

“Jake, you know that does open up the question of the battleship? If the Wawobash did all the original work, maybe they can fix it up for us faster?” Sara asked.

“The idea had crossed my mind, ALICE what’s your thoughts?” Jake asked.

“With the amount of repair and rework required, it may be a more expedient solution to our current needs. In addition, we may want to consider some design changes in keeping with the successful experiments in nested vessel configurations,” ALICE offered.

“I would still want us to do the final installation of any stasis field equipment. Like ALICE, that’s a national treasure! It’s what gives us an edge against their superior numbers,” Jake added.

“What are we doing about the fact that we can’t drive it yet,” Sandy asked.

ALICE responded, “I believe I can pre-program it for an automated trip from here to the Wawobash Space Docks. Once in their space, it’s a normal function for them to pilot the ships to the appropriate locations with tugs. As much as we might like to think otherwise, we didn’t inflict as much damage as we might have wanted to on the battleship itself. The real strategy was to attack the NeHaw inside the ship. Our extended timeline for readiness is around the necessary conversions for human occupation, not battle damage repair.”

Jake turned to Linda, “Who do we have working on the shopping list?”

“After the emissary agreed to sell, I pulled a team together to go over all the recorded imagery, plus the NeHaw reference materials. I instructed them to create a pick list with a description of each ship type and its capabilities. I figured you would want to review it all and do a little shopping yourself,” she finished with a smile, and then sipped her wine.

Both Linda and Kathy seemed to be enjoying themselves and were very relaxed this evening, listening to everyone talk. They had put both babies to bed in Jake’s bedroom earlier, with bassinettes thoughtfully requested by Jake and Nanny ALICE on constant watch. He wasn’t sure if their behavior lately, of affectionate but distant, was a post-partum thing or had its roots elsewhere. He was starting to think that maybe the whole “rotation” thing really was all about doing their part to save the future, nothing more.

The conversation continued on, until one by one, everyone wandered off to their own rooms for the night. While Jake was seeing Sara to the door, Linda headed into Jake’s room to collect Tracy. As he was doing a little cleaning up, he heard Linda call from his room.

“Jake can you come help me please.”

As he stepped into his room, he found Linda on his bed, completely naked, and with one arm up beckoning him to join her.

At that point, Jake thought to himself, “Then again, I could be wrong.”

Chapter 15

The next morning Jake and Linda headed to breakfast together after dropping Tracy off with one of the human nannies. Uniform of the day was casual, and as either Jake or Linda designated its requirements, they made sure it was so.

Jake was moving a little slowly, as he had taken the opportunity last night of relieving Linda of the midnight feeding. Besides giving her a break, it allowed him some much needed daddy time with his daughter. Given his recent travel schedule, it was a rare treat.

Using the smaller dining facility on the quarter’s level, they found it packed and noisy. After entering, Jake scanned the familiar room, looking for any recognizable faces. Finally, from the far side of the room they saw Patti and Sara waving to get their attention. Getting her order, he sent Linda off in their direction, while he headed to the service counters.

As he stood there waiting for their food, staring at the service door, he realized he had no idea what went on behind the scenes. While he wanted to conjure up images of gleaming stainless steel fixtures with ultra-sanitized processes, he kept coming back to a grubby overweight fry cook with a t-shirt and a cigarette hanging from his lips.

Finally, the tray appeared, and as he slid it to him, he caught a glimpse of several “bots” moving in the background before the door closed, cutting off his view. Grabbing the tray, he turned and started toward the table he sent Linda off to earlier. He had to weave his way through the room, nearly colliding with several people before finally arriving at his destination.

“That was quite a feat,” Sara said while laughing, “I thought you were going to lose your tray twice,” she finished by pointing to the open seat next to her.

Both she and Patti were only about half way done eating, so they had not arrived much before Jake and Linda. As Jake sat, he leaned into Sara, giving her a quick kiss.

“Jake, I’ve been thinking,” Patti said after he started eating, “even if we have the Wawobash refit the battleship, we won’t be able to man it properly for a long time. By the way, what are we going to name it?”

After swallowing what he had in his mouth, he replied, “Yeah, I was thinking about that as well, the refit, not the name. For the refit, we need to add as much automation as possible. Speaking of automation, I also want to pursue some automated mining equipment from our Alien trading partners. I would normally expect us to do better looking for gold stores stashed around the world, but with the detailed NeHaw survey reports, we have the precise location of naturally occurring precious metals deposits all over the world. They show China and Australia to be a particularly target rich area.”

At that Sara choked, “China and Australia? We haven’t even got the US under control yet!”

Jake laughed, “Once we get the transports completed and delivered from Jacob, we will be able to make runs between the continents as easily as we do between the ALICEs today. China is a good bet, but I have always wanted to visit Australia.”

Sara just shook her head and went back to her meal.

“Anyway, that’s in the future. For now, we should probably run over to Texas and check in with Robert, Bonnie, and their progress. That’s the main source of our funds at the moment,” Jake commented after another bite.

With the mention of Bonnie, Jake noted that look again between the women. It seemed everyone knew something but him, and he was getting irritated about it. He took a breath and let it pass.

Continuing, Jake said, “I was thinking we would try out the new jet conversion Seven recently completed and tested out of Alaska. There is supposed to be one here. She took one of the passenger jets, as you used for the Hawaii trip, and replaced the nacelles with repulsers. They don’t require rotating like the nacelles do, and it’s supposed to be Mach 1 fast.”

Seven was the name the ALICE facility in Alaska had chosen for herself.

“Why would someone want to mock one?” Sara asked in a confused tone.

----*----

After breakfast, everyone split off to go their separate ways, Sara sticking with Jake. Since they agreed a trip to Texas was the next adventure, Sara suggested it would be better to give Bonnie a call first. It was just courteous to call before appearing on someone’s doorstep, so to speak.

ALICE directed them to a small office, and they made the call. As they had maintained the differing time zones, Bonnie was well into her day when they reached her. She was delighted they were coming and updated Jake on their latest finds.

Apparently, Robert had located a precious metals' storage facility in New York and had spent the better part of two days breaching its physical defenses. That was a week ago, and they were still shipping regular loads to Dallas, the facility, not the city. Dallas was the name the Texas ALICE selected.

From the sounds of things, they would not need to worry about funds for quite a while. So with the call placed and the mornings goodbyes completed, they headed to the hangar and waiting aircraft. As part of a relaxed security policy, ALICE and Jake had come to an agreement with non-combat travel. So long as protective equipment and uniforms were available on transport craft for emergencies, standard clothing was acceptable for facility-to-facility travel. ALICE could hardly object as she was doing all the driving.

Jake had to take a minute and inspect the plane. The airframe itself was a very familiar corporate or government jet in shape. It looked to be a smaller eight to ten person version, although he knew they had larger 18 person models in inventory.

While it maintained the tail rudder with high elevator configuration, the wings were entirely gone and in their place were the cylindrical repulser motors at the wing roots. Since lift was no longer an issue, as the repulsers provided that service, he suspected the tail simply aided in inflight maneuverability.

Boarding the craft, and finding a comfortable seat for himself and Sara, he simply asked ALICE to handle the flight.

----*----

MeHak sat at the head of the High Council table. While technically round, she sat in a raised position, above the others. This gave her the ability to see anyone speaking. In reality though, it was more of a statement about her status.

What she saw before her was total panic among the members. The feed from the two destroyers had bypassed all the normal communication channels with delivery directly to the council members in its raw form. While her power was impressive, it was not absolute. As such, every member of the council had received the transmission at the same time as she. They called this meeting as a result.

All had witnessed the events leading up to the engagement with the apparently renegade cruiser, the exchange of fire, and the final destruction of both destroyers by technology unfamiliar to any at the table, herself included.

What concerned MeHak was not the loss of the ships, the unknown weaponry, or the uprising in Nu Tau Beta. These were familiar events that occur all too frequently in every council-ship. However, the decisive nature of this enemy is what had unsettled her. She had replayed the events repeatedly in private, her evaluation fundamentally the same each time. This was a dangerous adversary, and one the NeHaw hadn’t seen for a very long time.

They were aggressive, resourceful, and decisive. She had admired their battle tactics of shoot first and give no quarter. They would be a worthy ally, which unfortunately, MeHak could never permit. The NeHaw didn’t like to share.

----*----

Jake and Sara arrived in Texas just short of an hour later. Jake was sure ALICE was showing off as the jet was her design, he had left it up to them to work out his idea. It had been a smooth, comfortable ride, and while he and Sara hadn’t engaged in his favorite in flight distractions, they did have a pleasant trip.

Once the plane had settled onto the hangar floor, Jake and Sara were able to deplane. As they came down the steps, there was a small delegation at the bottom to meet them. Bonnie and Robert led the group, with Becky doing her best to upstage her sister.

Sara reached the bottom first, embracing her sister, Bonnie, and then greeting Robert with equal warmth. As Sara passed Bonnie, Jake stepped up and received a warm firm hug. As he went to kiss her though, he found a cheek presented in place of her lips. Not missing a beat, he kissed her cheek and then turned to find Robert with his hand out.

Shaking hands, he then found Becky in his face. She was all lips and no cheek, in her typical over exuberance. Giving her ample time to show her affection, she finally relented, and he was able to speak.

“OK so let’s see this storeroom of yours,” Jake asked.

“This way,” Bonnie replied, as she turned and led them away from the main access doors.

Following Bonnie across the open hangar to the far side, he had expected to enter one of the small storage rooms. Instead, they entered one of the aircraft storage and maintenance hangars. As they stepped inside, Jake stopped in his tracks. In front of him was pallet after pallet of gold bars.

“Each pallet holds 200 bars, weighing about 27.3 pounds per bar,” Robert offered, “It seems to be the standard of some kind for this storage facility. We are still transporting several pallets a day, but at over 5,000 pounds per pallet, we can only do so many at one time.”

Without saying a word, Jake stepped forward and picked up one of the bars. The bar was clearly marked with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As Jake recalled, this was just one of several Federal Reserve locations, but he thought this was the primary location.

“ALICE, what do your records say about this location? Do you have any notes on its last known inventory,” Jake asked.

“I have no direct internal information relating to the Federal Reserve Bank specifically, they were never attached to my network. However, I do have public records referencing the facility contents of both US and international holdings. They list over 550,000 bars of differing shapes but all at 400 troy ounces. Assuming Robert’s 200 bars per pallet, we will eventually need space for 2,750 pallets or 15,015,000 pounds of gold.”

Jake did some quick math in his head and realized he only needed eight bars to buy a cruiser, and that included a tip. With this one find, Robert had addressed all their short-term needs. Who knew what the future held. 

Placing the bar back on the pile, he turned back to the group and said, “Great job Robert, now who’s going to tell me what’s going on?”

Both Robert and Bonnie had a complete look of panic. It was then that Jake saw Robert take Bonnie’s hand before either spoke. With that one motion, Jake held up his hand indicating neither should speak.

“Bonnie, are you in love with Robert?” Jake asked slowly.

Bonnie paused, looked at Robert, and then nodded yes.

Jake then looked at Robert and asked, “Robert, are you in love with Bonnie?”

“Yes sir,” Robert replied and then started to continue before Jake cut him off with a wave.

Jake stood there for a moment staring at both of them, then in one swift motion he swept Bonnie up and spun her around.

“This is wonderful!” he shouted before setting her down, he then turned to Robert and grabbed his hand, shaking vigorously. Both Sara and Becky were standing back, neither expecting this turn of events.

“But Jake, what about Julie?” Bonnie asked.

“What about Julie? She is still our daughter and I love her with all my heart, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve your own happiness. Does Robert make you happy?”

Bonnie stopped for a second, and then turned to look at Robert and said without turning back, “Yes he does.”

“Then be happy. You, me, Sara, Becky, and all the others, we agreed that our original arrangement was based on the understanding that I felt you all could do better. You never believed me then, do you now?”

Bonnie turned to look at Jake for a minute and then said, “Falling in love is not doing better. It’s having the best there is.”

With that, he hugged her again and then said, “Let’s all go inside.”

With Sara on one side and Becky on the other, Jake turned and led the way back to the main facility. Bonnie and Robert followed them out, walking behind, hand in hand.

----*----

Jake spent the following three days in detailed reviews of all the existing Wawobash ship designs. Sara had offered to assist, but Jake knew all too well it was not her thing. The aliens had provided a complete virtual model of every ship currently in inventory, as well as those they were capable of manufacturing. By running the holographs in a virtual reality room, like the rooms in Alaska for training the fighter pilots, he could walk the entire ship.

While the NeHaw cruisers were very familiar to all, the destroyers were a mystery and actually much smaller than he realized. The bridge, high and in the back of the ship, was only large enough for the four operations stations and a commander’s chair in the middle. The layout was semicircular, with the pilot and navigator directly in front of the command chair, weapons and communications to either side. The unaltered view from the bridge looked out over most of the ship.

What impressed Jake about the destroyer was most of what you saw from the bridge was guns. This thing was a mass of firepower across the top of the hull. In addition, there was an equal amount of firepower below the hull, not visible from the bridge.