Jethro 3: No Place Like Home (44 page)

They didn't have a ship AI, no AI at all. Jethro felt a flicker of indignation and realized its source. “Sorry,” he muttered to Bast. “Okay, so we've got one AI. Do you want to come out and act like an AI? Maybe help? I'm sure the crew would appreciate it Bast,” he said. Bast just meowed and then looked at him with sad eyes. He sighed and shook his head. “Yeah, thought not,” he said.

Jethro stretched. He had slept in the suit again, and despite Bast's comforting presence he was getting tired of sleeping in it. It felt like he was trapped, stuck in it. He didn't like the idea of being stuck in it for another...he frowned, cocking his head. Finally he gave up. They'd post the schedule for when they were set to depart, and when they would arrive in Pyrax eventually.

The crew was light, but apparently all experienced spacers. That was good, they had their work cut out for them. But they had a problem, by the time the manning of Oasis had been thought out they'd been light in the engineering department. In fact Ox only had six ratings to help him and the other Marines out. That was a problem Jethro thought. He winced when he checked. There was one active reactor; it and the sublight drives were being monitored remotely since they didn't have anyone to man the watches in person.

One thing he did know, they weren't going to trust the prisoners in anything but the brig. Hell, he didn't even trust them there! He shook his head. It was definitely going to be a long trip.

Many of the crew he'd seen or met during his aborted exploration of the ship. The panther noted none of the new Marines from Admiral Irons or the new recruits from the other ships were on board. The crew and Marines were all old hands, veterans. There was some friction there, between the navy crew and the Marines, but that was to be expected.

Jethro decided enough was enough and went to breakfast.

When he got there he grabbed a tray from the stack, then hit the food replicator. He turned, listening with an ear to the ongoing debate in the dining hall. There were a few people off duty; they had compared notes and then got into a discussion. Some apparently want to explore the vast bowels of the ship, others want to restore the ship to her former glory. The panther sat, thinking they were cracked, that was way out of their meager crew's ability.

Others didn't want to touch anything so the media could see it all for themselves. As Jethro finished eating his egg and sausage concoction a compromise on that suggestion of just improving the areas they needed to be in was reached. “Make them livable, like here,” a tech said, waving a hand. The others apparently agreed.

Jethro snorted softly. Apparently the Admiral's return had revived spirits and renewed an interest again in not just living, but improving and rebuilding things. Of not just accepting things as they were as if they could never be changed.

“I'd like to see the Horathian flags down,” Jethro said idly. That sparked a guilty look from a few of the crew. They looked up to see the draperies and frowned. Grimly a few nodded. One even got up and started ripping the things down. He had to go up on the balcony to get to some of the red swirls of cloth.

---( | ) --- ( | )---

Firefly had taken light damage. She had lost one force emitter pod, she had light damage to one bow graser mount, two missile tubes had been destroyed, and one counter missile tube damaged in the engagement. Some of the parts made up the damage, but they hadn't had time to focus on the ship. Since her damage wasn't drive oriented, priority had gone to the other ships. Once the other ships had their own crews Firefly attempted to at least do some repairs to the ship. After all, once they were in hyper they wouldn't have the opportunity to do external repairs.

The hull repairs were slowed when buckling around the damaged sections was found. The areas had to be carefully stripped down, the damaged sections cut out, and then replaced. It was judged a yard job, so they locked the repairs down for later.

Firefly's crew had repaired most of her internal damage and had stuffed parts and replicated equipment into every nook and cranny on the ship by the time it was time to leave. They were gratefully off-loaded to the freighters and other ships in the scratch fleet. Some put the material to immediate use in their own repairs or upgrades while others stored them to be installed when they were in transit.

A day before they were set to depart the queues had run out of material but had not been refreshed or stopped. Firefly directed crews to reload their material hoppers while directing repairs. The delay had cost them an hour to transport the material; a precious hour that could not be replaced.

Firefly would act as the flagship of the returning ships. The Apollo class corvettes dubbed
Tweedle dumb
and
Tweedle dee
, had been slated but had been swapped at the last minute for the single Apollo class named
Charley
. She would be out on the convoy's port flank. The gravely wounded Manta frigate,
Jumping Jack
, would be on their starboard flank. There was some concern that the two ships could handle the duty, but both bridge crews had managed to pass the sim she'd thrown at them. The reefer turned stasis ship Gypsy Rose with a mostly volunteer crew, the Lagroose bulk freighter Minerva Alabama, The Oasis of Space XCIV, the Clydesdales, Colombian Express and Sabrina 99, the Express class light freighter Speedy Express Delivery 81374, and the Moth class Spaceways Whale 14 were in the pocket. Four of the six civilian vessels were loaded with their civilian refugees. The Arboth class Xavier would play rear guard. Four gunships were attached to the large warships, two each on Firefly and Xavier. All were Terran HK models.

Firefly was to be the point ship, which meant she had to hold her speed down to the slowest of the ships. The other ships would take their course and bearing from the heavy cruiser. Some had barely trained bridge watches on board; they'd be hopelessly lost without Firefly to guide them along their way. The transit would be in the low octaves of beta; the best speed ships like Oasis could handle in their current state. That would double their transit time, putting them behind in Firefly's scheduled arrival time.

Firefly and Captain Mayweather had debated sending a ship ahead but decided against it. Most of the ships were damaged, and there was a very real concern that any ship other than Firefly who emerged would be fired upon the moment they exited hyper. Which meant the cruiser would have to talk fast when they emerged, and stagger the other ship's arrival sufficiently behind them so as not to get them destroyed by the defenders in Pyrax.

All that was planned and discussed as they made their final preparations to move out. Renee was heartily sick of all the talk and excited to get moving by the time they were done. She couldn't wait to see the reaction in Pyrax when they arrived, not only whole, hail, and healthy, but with additional ships and people and the news of the Admiral with them. Pyrax was due for a major shakeup, and all she could think of was that it was about damn time.

---( | ) --- ( | )---

“So, everything as it should be, Gunny?” Valenko asked when they finally crossed paths.

“It's getting there I suppose. I'm still not happy about a few things though, sir, but we're working on it,” the panther said. He'd been unhappy about the division of labor and put all the Marine enlisted on a practical watch rotation. That had gotten a response from Ensign Esh'z who hadn't liked what he'd termed the panther's poaching.

Valenko had backed Jethro agreeing that all the Marines should have a watch both as part of the ship's crew but also as a guard. They couldn't afford to be lax, especially with their deadly cargo. One slip up because someone was over tired or just plain sloppy could lead to very deadly circumstances for many, if not the entire ship.

“Getting far with the armor?” The grizzly asked.

Jethro looked at the eyes on the HUD. They were sleepy, almost but not quite closed. “Somewhat sir. It's...under control I guess you could say. We're working it out.”

“I see. I was told light duty. You've been busy though,” he said. Jethro nodded. He'd let Bast take over and tested her out by having her move them through the ship on a course he set. While she walked and looked about he'd tried to assimilate the files the Admiral had uploaded to his implants.

The stuff he could understand were very basic...Most were public domain material on the history of the Cadre. Some were declassified general intel meant for forces that were chosen to interact or serve with Cadre in support of them.

There was little there he'd like to know, and most of it was dry reading. There were a few mentions of famous actions before the Xeno war, but that was just it, a mention. A name of a planet, or hostage crisis, even a couple pirate incidents and an incident with the Salamanders, but no details. Each had been resolved though.

He knew what was there wasn't the whole story. Bast had reacted in amusement when he'd read the general specs for instance, so he knew there was more to their shared abilities then what the public had known. That was to be expected.

He already knew about the cloak, the shields, and inertial dampeners. He'd known about the internal weapons, the previous power plant being an antimatter one, and that the suit could interface and use any hardware built for the Marines or Army. But again, maddening, there weren't any specifics.

“I think we'll make a good team, sir. Bast is...coming along. I need to cut her the slack she needs to grow into a person.”

“I see. Bast. Well,” the bear said, rubbing his muzzle. He nodded to the suit. “Welcome aboard Bast.”

“She doesn't talk, sir,” Jethro said. “She's...I guess you could say a baby still. A cub.”

“I see,” Valenko said. “I thought I'd lost you to the Admiral,” he said, pointedly meeting the panther's eyes.

Jethro stood at attention but squirmed internally. He had sent an e-mail to the Admiral that morning. He had agreed to becoming a Cadre member, apparently surprising Admiral Irons. The Admiral had sent a message back which explained such a project wasn't that simple though, and they'd have to wait.

“Until then you can use the armor but be careful with it,” the Admiral had said. Jethro had understood, and been grateful.

The Admiral's files did admit that the armor was keyed to Jethro or a close family member but didn't go into details due to the entire situation being highly classified.

He had found out that after a couple weeks he could cut back on the suit time. Weaning would be...unpleasant, but if he slept in the suit, it would allow the AI to get her fix in while he didn't look like an ass stomping around all over the ship.

“We've got about six hours before the fleet breaks up. If you need something replicated, you'd better get the order in quick. Not that I expect it to be filled,” the bear rumbled.

Jethro cocked his head thoughtfully. They had the two functional food replicators on board, both built for large groups. They also had a few small drink replicators, and one class one industrial replicator tucked away in the forward hold. “I think we're good. I checked the TOE; I'll check it again. Nothing really popped up in my mind as missing. The mechs are a good idea.”

“True.”

“How are we with getting the security monitors back online?”

“There we're getting somewhere because of our cargo,” the bear said. “We've bumped that up as a priority. Once the squids got their act together and got our computer network sorted out, it was only a matter of rebooting the system and then setting up the operating system. Or so Ox has assured me,” the bear said with a tight smile. Jethro snorted. “It apparently worked, because once the central net was on it has been letting the firmware in each of the cameras and sensors log in. We've got the prison hold and essential spaces covered. One thing I'd like to do is get the rest of the ship sorted out.”

“Well sir, if we can train a few Marines to diagnose a camera and make sure it's plugged in, I think we can get at least some areas online. Are the mechs tied into the system?” The panther asked.

The bear shook his head. “No, we're working them off our implants and a separate net. We don't want them going down if the main ship's net has a hiccup, which it does every time Ox or his people tamper with the computers. The thing is very shaky, so don't rely on the cameras.”

“I never intended to, sir.”

“Good.”

“Sir, can we work on the ship?”

“If you're asking the same thing our acting Captain asked, no. I'm not trusting the prisoners in work details outside the brig. Not now, possibly not ever. Not with our manpower issues. Even augmented, there are only thirty of us and six hundred and seventeen prisoners. Not good odds, even if you are in armor.”

“I know sir. One question, any chance of getting a medic? Even Gusterson?”

The bear sighed. “I tried, no dice. He's off playing ship's medic on Gypsy Rose, watching over the wounded.”

“Sir, they are popsicles in stasis!” Jethro protested.

The bear held up a restraining hand paw. “I know, I know, but I was overruled. Angel the other medic assigned to us is off on...I think Spaceways Whale or Xavier. Wait, no Xavier,” he said thoughtfully.

“So, if anything happens...” Jethro said, not liking what he was hearing.

“We use what training we've got. The basic first aid. If we've got a lot of injured, triage. Save the ones we can. Crew and Marines first of course.”