Jethro: First to Fight (31 page)

In the morning he was embarrassed to be
seen leaving the building. He waved to the Neo women. The Leo teased him about
the first time they had done that as kits. He was even more embarrassed.

“What will the matriarch think?” he
muttered. Hrriss gave him an amused look and ear flick.

“Who do you think put me up to this in
the first place man? She said you're wound tighter then a drum! I was to get
you here or she'd do it herself!”

Jethro was shocked. He stared at the Leo
as the Leo laughed and laughed, slapping his thigh. “One way of relaxing. Want
seconds?” he teased pulling him back to the cat house. They could hear amused
Merrows from the females inside. Jethro fought the urge to look back.

“I had seconds and thirds and even
fourths and on and non. Right now I'm
hungry
,” Jethro said yawning and
stretching. “Maybe later,” he joked. Hrriss roared a laugh, slapping him on the
shoulder.

...*...*...*...*...

“Got it?” the leopardess asked in the
shadows of the open hatch. She made certain the panther was long gone before
she approached the cat house.

“But of course,” the cougaress replied,
holding up a clear baggie with condoms inside.

“How many?” the leopardess asked, taking
the package.

“Six,” the cougar replied with a
Cheshire grin. And boy am I sore!”

“I'll bet,” the leopardess teased,
flicking her ears in amusement. “I'm sure he is too.”

“Maybe,” the cougar chuffed a laugh.
“But that boy has energy to spare. Much better than last time,” she said.

“Did he remember you?” the leopardess
asked, now concerned.

The cougar shrugged. “Maybe. We can tell
by smell aunty. Why don't we ever tell the males what we do?” she asked.

“Because dear, some males are more
important than others,” the leopardess replied. “My nephew for example. His genetics
must not be lost so we take steps to make sure they are passed down to the next
generation. And he has no need to know,” she said, smiling as the put the
baggie away.

“Oh.”

“We've been doing this for centuries with
the men none the wiser. Don't worry, as long as they don't know we slip the
occasional kookoo in the nest there won't be any problems.”

“Ah.”

“I'm glad he performed so...
voluminously this time,” M'wvekii said, taking the bag out to look at it once
more. Semen oozed out of some of the condoms. “Quite the performer.”

“Much better than last time,” the cougar
replied with a chuff laugh. “He wasn't so eager this time, and he kept control.
Much better than when he was younger.”

“All of what? Four years ago?”

“Shows what he could store up in that
time. I guess Marine discipline was good for him. And he learned a great deal
about consideration. See?” she pointed to the condoms. “He even used 'her
pleasure' ones.”

“I see that,” the leopardess murmured.
“Such a good boy,” she murmured in obvious approval. “Now, we'll have to get
Letanga here sometime.”

“Your son? Um, doesn't it bother you to,
um, I don't know...”

The leopardess chuffed. “No, it doesn't.
They are in high risk jobs and I want grandcubs. So, I'll take whatever steps
are required. And I've lined up a nurse who can mix and match the donor eggs
and sperm. Now we just need a surrogate mother,” she said.

“Well, don't look at me,” the cougar
said, backing off, hands up. “I like doing the deed too much to be stuck
pregnant for six months and miss it. Not to mention nursing and stuff,” she
said shaking her head.

“Don't worry, we'll figure it out. I'll
just go put this on ice and then see the matriarch,” M'wvekii said, putting the
baggie away once more. “Good work,” she said with a nod.

“I'll call you when the next one comes
around,” the cougar said. The leopardess nodded as she padded off.

Back in uniform Jethro went back to
training and working with the suits. They delved into new tactics for boarding
and landing ops, as well as other things. Gunny Schultz wasn't around. When
Jethro asked about it, Fonz had just shrugged the question away. The bear had
shown up before he could get more information from someone else and they'd
dived into the project. Captain Pendeckle, Major Forth, Lieutenant Myers, and
Lieutenant Harley had all dropped in to sit in on their work so Jethro couldn't
pull the bear aside to ask where the Gunny was.

Valenko commented about the lack of
remote probes and other gear. When Firefly reminded him about milspec he in
turn reminded Firefly they can always use civilian.

"What do you mean Ensign?"

"Well sir, I was thinking we can
make remotes for cleaning right? Civilian or military grade right?" the
bear rumbled. “We can still make them?”

"Yes," Captain Pendeckle
replied, nodding encouragingly. He was fairly certain where the bear was going
and kicked himself for not thinking of it himself. It just proved that the bear
was an out of the box thinker. He didn't let an assumption stop him. If you
can't get the answer you want change the nature of the question or downgrade
you're expectations. Adapt, overcome, here was another life lesson.

"I see where you're going with
this," the Major said nodding himself. He looked a little sheepish to the
other senior officers. "It's something we should have considered,” he said
and then turned back to the bear. “You're saying we can adapt a cleaning droid
to use as a UAV?"

Valenko nodded. "Yes sir. Tear the
cleaning stuff out, shrink it down and you've got the essence of a remote.
Maybe toss in bigger better batteries and sensors or a mission pack and it'll
have more range and abilities."

"It... That is an interesting idea
Ensign," Firefly commented. He paused as they looked at him and then
nodded again. "A worthy idea. We can attempt it. The basic design could be
used, since everyone overlooked cleaning and inspection remote approaches to
the problem. This idea definitely has potential for intel gathering in many
forms if we use the stock civilian shell as well. Major if you'll submit a
request we'll push it through channels and get a design team organized. I
believe we have some IT people who need to keep busy."

Major Forth smiled.
"Excellent."

A ship's sudden arrival startled the frigate
Wendigo on picket duty at the B101 Alpha jump point. Fortunately they were
classed as a civilian ship and the frigate stood down the defenses before the
mines clustered around the jump point tore the ship apart.

The crew didn't know how lucky they were,
another half second and they would have been torn apart. First Lieutenant
Aisyah binti Tam, Neo orangutan Captain of the Wendigo took the horn. “Do you
people realize another half second delay and you would have been torn apart?
When you get an identity query from a navy picket ship you damn well better
answer smartly or it'll be on your head!” she snarled.

“Sorry, sorry,” the voice said over the
communication channel. “We didn't expect anyone on the other side of the jump
point.”

“Right. New to the system. State your
purpose for being here and where you came from,” the simian Captain demanded,
voice cooling from the practical shriek she'd been fighting. She felt her fur
slowly dropping to normal. That had been entirely too close. Perhaps having an
orbital fort on hand to be in charge instead of her would be better. Having
life and death decisions thrust on her with little time to think them over was
one thing, but she'd much prefer someone else have to deal with the
consequences if some idiot civilian didn't respond and was blown out of space.

“Sorry, as I said, we didn't expect you
here. Um...”

“State your purpose for being here,
where you are coming from, and where you are going,” the Captain said
patiently.

“Oh, oh right yes, sorry. We are the Old
Nelly out of um, Finagle I guess you could say. We've been traveling a long way
and we'd like to drop off our cargo of people and move on if it's okay with
you.”

“Old Nelly?” the Captain asked and then
chuffed.

“Yes, we're um...”

“A freighter. Or in your case a liner?”

“We're certainly feeling that way at the
moment,” the still unnamed voice replied with a sparkle of exasperation in his
tone of voice. “We're overloaded with passengers and our life support and fuel
are... iffy I guess you could say.”

“Do you need resupply?” the Captain
asked. “And who am I talking to?” she asked.

“Sorry,” the other voice said. She
winced at the slight squeal in the radio channel. She waved a long hand to the
communications and sensor rating manning his post to filter it. He nodded
silently. “No, we're good till Anvil the Captain said. Um... Sorry, this is
Dwayne Webe of The Nelly. I'm, well, I guess you could say I'm second in
command?” he asked, voice rising in inquiry as he turned away from the
microphone.

“Try third,” a new voice said dryly.
“Soon to be fourth if you don't get on with it Dweeb,” the voice concluded.

“Aye Captain,” Dwayne replied, sounding
hunched over. “Nelly is out of Finagle as I said, we're passing through to um,
Gaston? Is that right?” After a moment he grunted. “Yes, we're headed to
Gaston, and then from there I don't know. But we're coming here to well...”

“Drop your passengers off,” Captain Tam
replied dryly.

“Oh you know about them already?” the
man said, sounding dismayed.

“You just told me. This is Captain Tam
of the Wendigo. Welcome to Pyrax.”

“If you don't mind my asking, what are
you um...”

“We're navy. Long story short? We're
here to kill pirates.”

“Oh. Um, cool.”

“I'm sending you a data packet now. You
are entitled to a free health and welfare check at the navy annex.”

“We are? Um, our passengers are
interested in that. Or will be when we um, tell them.”

“Right. Well, it's not just for your
crew and passengers, it is for your ship as well. We send engineering crews
onboard to inspect your systems and offer advice on how to fix what needs
fixing. We also clean your computer software for free.”

“Oh! Well! That sounds downright
neighborly of you! I'll um, let my Captain know. You said something of data?”

“Sending it now,” Tam said, indicating
the rating with a nod and finger wave. The communications rating nodded and
tapped at his controls for a moment, then turned and gave her a thumbs up.

“Nelly, we've sent you a course, please
follow it carefully and do not deviate until you get past the all clear point.
Wendigo clear,” Tam said, sitting back and running a hand through her hair.

“Um, Nelly clear,” Dwane replied,
sounding disappointed. The channel was cut. The rating snorted.

“Well, that was exciting! Now we get to pick
it apart for a shift or two, then go back to being bored out of our minds,” Tam
said, face twisting in a puckering smile.

“I give it a full day Captain,” the
rating said, smiling and shaking his head.

“Sure, splurge why don't you. People
will pick that apart for a while, nothing better to do I suppose. Run a
tracking exercise on her, we might as well get our credit's worth.”

“Aye Captain,” the rating said, nodding.

...*...*...*...*...

There was a great deal of interest in
Old Nelly from the Naval Intelligence staff. Horatio, Monty, and Teague were
highly suspicious of the ship. Crews stripped her software, they found out she
had been remarkably well taken care of by her passengers and crew over the past
year. That coincided with her taking on the Chimerian clan.

Her chimerian passengers had kept her
software in good order, cleaning and maintaining it on a daily basis. The naval
techs and dumb AI copied the ships database, her sensor records, as well as her
flight recorder. Casual interviews with her crew didn't expose any spies so the
ship was allowed to debark a few days later after taking on fuel. She passed
through the Gaston jump point nearly a week later.

...*...*...*...*...

Ox, Riley, and Veber's team finally
finished fiddling with enhancing the performance of the shields. They had
passed the construction on to a few Marines and engineering techs. They turned
their attention on another project they had back burnered, the sensor remotes.

Jethro tested they first prototype
remotes a week later. The things darted around like a bug or hummingbird. It
was a bit disconcerting to watch, people ducked a lot. Everyone was wary of the
little things, they were like giant insects. “They are like baseballs that you
don't know where they are going or what they are going to hit,” Riley
commented, then batted at a sensor that got too close. “Get that damn thing
away from me!” he snarled.

Jethro chuckled, moving the probe away.
“It's like having another set of eyes,” he said, concentrating on the link.

“Why do you have to move them so fast
though? I'd get a headache. Or dizzy. Aren't you dizzy?”

“No, I'm not focusing on the visual
feed, I'm focusing on the map,” Jethro showed him the map the sensor was
forming. It was of the room and was updated by the lidar and camera every few
microseconds. It gave the panther an outside view of the room and ball.

“Okay, cool,” Riley said. The ball tried
to overcompensate when it swooped to close to a bulkhead. It corrected with a
flap but the flap touched the bulkhead. It spun out of control before it
corrected.

“Some of that's not me. It's the
computer in the ball. It's mapping the room. Veber said the computer is still
learning how to control the thing.”

“Ah,” Riley said. “I'd hate to see them
in combat. Little things darting around would draw a lot of attention. Fire
too. I doubt they'd hit the blasted thing,” he muttered.

“Which is part of the idea. Oops!”
Jethro said, he watched the sensor bump into an overhang and then spin out of
control to the ground.

The sensors tended to crash a lot, so
they remade them with flexible plastic shells that could rebound or be replaced
easily. A tech hit upon the idea of using blow apart foam parts. If the device
had a hard landing it came apart but could be put back together easily as long
as nothing broke or was cracked. That was a big hit once it was tested.

They tried to adapt coding but in the
end they had the coders work on it. Veber and his fellows hacked and slash code
segments from other bots then create a learning algorithm. Jethro was amused to
see the two boys he rescued from the asteroid in on the project under the
guidance of the Centaurian named Veber. He couldn't remember the kid's names
but they waved and smiled politely to him whenever he came by.

...*...*...*...*...

Veber's other project was the packbot.
Early on the Marine officers realized that in combat the teams would be
hindered by carrying supplies or moving wounded. At first they thought that
implants would compensate for the problem, and for a short time that seemed to
be the case. But as they simulated extended fire fights they quickly ran into
the dilemma again.

Veber had done his research, the large
Centaurian had found several different methods of dealing with the problem
going as far back as the 19
^th
and 20
^th
century.
Unfortunately they didn't have the designs for the more advanced robots, nor
their keycodes, but they did have some pretty good tinkerers.

Their first prototype was the packbot, a
quadruped robot that could carry up to 200 kilograms and was about a meter
tall. It could move at nearly 40kph even under load. The Major had suggested an
android but they convinced him that it would be better to remain focused on the
redundancy of a quadruped.

The packbot prototype went into limited
production as the packbot 1.1. Veber was busy refining the design, but had
given up on the dream of an antigrav version, at least for now.

Each squad would be assigned three
packbots,  one per every four men. Since Valenko's squad had been involved
in the design through Ox they were given the first three bots to field test.

...*...*...*...*...

A request for a Marine squad to guard a
classified warehouse on Anvil was put through channels. Fonz, Asazi, Letanga,
Hurranna, Sergei, and Jethro were tapped to play guard duty.

“What the hell are we guarding anyway?”
Fonz demanded.

“Ours is not to ask questions, just shut
up and soldier,” Hurranna quipped, cleaning her gear.

“Well, whatever it is, that lawyer guy
Roland was involved. And Doc Thornby. They came by when Asazi and I were on
shift.”

“Oh?”

“Where did that stuff come from? The
admiral?”

“Nah, that's in the annex and the yard.
No, this stuff came in on that new ship, the Old Nelly. The one Wendigo damn
near blew up a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh.”

“I wonder what's so important?”

“I dunno. Thornby was pretty protective
of it. Roland had some cheese ball with him taking notes. I didn't hear a lot,
echo in the room was wicked.”

“Right,” Asazi snorted. “But you did get
something?”

“Well...” Fonz shrugged. “I did get that
the doc doesn't like the sleaze, and from her look that stuff is pretty
important. Something medical, and she did say priceless.”

“Ah.”

“So now we know why we're guarding it,”
Asazi mused. “If it's priceless you can bet your paycheck someone wants to jack
it. Which is why she's got us on it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So don't shoot anyone unless you
have to. But you may have to before we get it into the annex.”

“Shit.”

...*...*...*...*...

Doctor Martel smiled tiredly as they met
up in lift. “Going my way?” she asked, smiling politely to doctor Thornby.

“That depends, are you heading to the
shipment?” Thornby asked. They both knew they were going to the shipment,
neither one could stop goggling at the riches.

“Maybe,” Doctor Martel drawled.

“Wicked,” Thornby teased. “New toys to
play with. I bet you can't wait to get started. Have you finished reading the
manuals?”

“That's why I'm going now, I finished
with the gene sequencer, but I forgot to grab the uterine one. The beta one.
I'm not sure it will suit our purposes with the Ssilli, though we might be able
to adapt it for the initial stages of conception.”

“I'm not sure if that is wise to move
the fetuses. It might be better to have a machine that can go through all their
development stages.”

“But they're eggs. We'll need some sort
of incubation system after birth. Well, not really incubation, they are birthed
in long strings in warm pools.”  She shook her head as the lift bounced
and then changed tracks. After a moment a green light lit and they continued,
this time moving sideways.

“Isn't it nice to have these things
working? Can you imagine going all the way there on foot?” Thornby asked,
smiling.

“You'd probably say screw it and either
look at the gear through a camera or go EVA and get in from an airlock.”

“Maybe,” Thornby replied with a slight
smile.

“Lazy,” Martel teased, hip bumping her
boss.