Tales of the "Pink Mist" Ch. 03

The twin bouncers at the door stood aside upon sighting the "Alliance Intel-types," not really wanting to fuck with them, especially that monster with the sidearm who dwarfed the redhead.

She scanned the longbar and spied Sluggo with his back to her. He wore a gray leather trench coat over his gangly frame, his multicolored hair in glowing spikes. Perched on the back of his head were a pair of sunglasses which, on closer inspection, were also plugged into his skull. He literally had eyes in the back of his head. He turned and grimly smiled as she strode up to him, Muffin hot on her heels. Jeffers and a few others remained at the door, looking menacing.

Before she reached the man, he turned and showed her a small thin-screen display. The wireless thin-screen appeared to be made of an acetate sheet about the size of a hand held carrier. It was a miniature version of the view screen aboard the PINK MIST.

"I didn't do it, choombata," he said, without seeming threatened. He pointed to the screen, pressed an area to enlarge it and continued, "she did it to herself. Here's the routine she used to access the shutdown and cryo processes. This chick's almost as good as me."

Quillan peered at the screen a moment. Muffin popped his knuckles one at a time, hoping he'd get to pound something. They sounded like gunshots.

While well-versed in the operation of computers, the captain was semi in the dark when it came to programming, never having fully studied that aspect.. She turned to motion at the door and Lt. Terri Morse strode up to look at the screen. Terri unceremoniously took the thin-screen from Sluggo's grasp and poked around on it for a few moments, explaining:

"Here's where she saw something which disturbed her greatly...move over to these lines and we see that she went straight to sickbay and ordered cryo...here's the exact moment her systems defaulted to basic language skills and voice commands. She still has the experiences up to the point she entered cryo...and here's where...what the fuck?...Sluggo look at this set of subroutines. What do you make of it?"

Sluggo, who was jacked in and following along, chuckled as he stared into space.

"Red," he addressed Quillan. "Your computer's in love."

Quillan picked her jaw up off the floor. She shook her head rapidly and noticed other compgeeks listening intently to their conversation.

"Perhaps we'd better go elsewhere..."

Minutes later, they were back aboard the PINK MIST, seated comfortably in the "quiet room;" the room reserved for high level secret meetings...usually attack planning. Sluggo had plugged his minicomp into the room's viewer so all present could see the lines of code he occasionally referenced.

"What do you mean? How? I mean, I know she's achieved FULL self-awareness, but how did she fall in love so fast? And with whom?" asked Quillan as she sipped a cup of fresh coffee.

"If ya want, Red," said the thin man with the multicolored spiked hair, "I can trace it back and find the exact decision-making line. As for who she's in love with? You."

Quillan thought back to when she first met Alice and replayed the details to date of their personal encounters. Her memory retention was nearly perfect, but her deduction skills lacked a little. Try as she might, she couldn't figure out what the problem might be.

Sluggo pointed to a line.

"Here is where she saw something that disturbed the hell out of her." He scrolled up. "Here is where something was said to her to trigger a certain response. That was before she was freed from some sort of block to her higher memory functions." He could easily find the repair patch and blockage removal, but it really wasn't necessary to this conversation.

After a couple of hours, Sluggo again walked down the gangplank. His bank account had a few extra digits in it. Before he left, he had told Quillan the steps needed to get Alice to her "normal" self. This was going to be a pain in the ass.

Commander Wilkerson reported to the bridge at precisely 0600, the shy Amanda seemingly attached to her belt. Amanda was dressed in the standard skin-tight black uniform. Quillan inwardly whistled. The young woman had a swimmer's body; broad at the shoulder, trim at the waist, powerful legs, breasts not too large.

This little woman had a body that wouldn't quit. And that Harlot Queen in the Cemetery said she was inconsequential? Wonder what THAT bitch considered desirable...

"Commander Wilkerson and Petty Officer Dinnington reporting, ma'am," said Charleen formally. "Orders of the day?"

"Recruiting, Charleen," mused Quillan as she watched the construction crews setting up outside the main view port. She had sent several messages the day before to various contractors and vendors. The contractors to refit the exterior of the ship, rebuild a few interior rooms, set up the docking bays to house and equip more fightercraft, and the vendors to resupply the ship with better food and clothing. Twenty fighters sat forlornly in one of the bays, a crew was already working to refit them and bring them into some semblance of readiness. Another thirty short range fighters were on order and expected to arrive two days hence.

Quillan had called in every favor owed her, as well as greasing quite a few palms in order to have it all done in five days. The hardest part would be modifying the thrusters of the huge dreadnaught in order to make her look like a Generation Four instead of the Generation Nine that she was, without losing power or maneuverability.

"Recruiting, ma'am?" Charleen made a face.

"I need to stay aboard and monitor these people," Quillan gestured with her chin at the view port. "I also need to get Alice back up and running. That'll take a few hours in itself. Your part is easy. Just run down to the 'Bloodied Intake,' they're expecting you, talk to the people who show up, give 'em the low down...leave out the part where we work for the Alliance...and if they look good, sign 'em up. Don't tell me you've never done any recruiting in all your years with the Alliance."

"Oh, yeah," replied the barrel-shaped Commander, "I've done plenty of recruiting...I just don't like it."

Amanda moved closer to Charleen, not wanting her to leave.

"Small problem, Captain," said Charleen as she hugged the frightened girl to her. "Amanda doesn't want to go back onto the station and I'm not about to even think of forcing her to. After what happened to us, I shudder to think what she's been through." She stroked the long brown hair tenderly.

Quillan turned in her chair to look Charleen directly in the eye, her voice becoming more serious-sounding than Charleen had ever heard from anyone in her life.

"Commander Wilkerson, I made a promise to you and your crew when you joined. Do you remember what it was?"

A light went on in Charleen's head. She turned to Amanda and placed both hands on the small woman's shoulders, her voice softening. "You trust me, right?"

Slight vigorous nodding. Charleen stepped behind Amanda, arms wrapped carefully around the girl's square shoulders. She flicked a finger at Quillan.

"I trust HER. You're part of this crew now." A kiss to the back of Amanda's head. "You're safer with her than you are with me."

Amanda whipped around to hug Charleen fiercely, burying her face in the massive bosom. She tilted her head up to peck Charleen on the lips, then carefully backed away, turned and smiled at Quillan who smiled back.

"Commander Wilkerson," called Quillan as the former headed for the door. "I'll transmit the list of jobs I need filled shortly."

Charleen just tossed a wave over her shoulder in acknowledgment.

Amanda had taken to the communication equipment like a duck takes to water. Less than an hour after Charleen's departure, the young woman had categorized, listed, and was currently monitoring the massive flow of comm traffic which, to Quillan, was a jumble of voices and static. Although Amanda hadn't said five words in the time she'd been here, she was listening to over three thousand channels at once, as well as holding sixteen personal text conversations. Making sense of every bit of it.

Quillan checked the digital time displayed on her chair and noted that the computer scans would be finished in less than fifteen minutes. Finally! She opened the ship wide intercom.

"Mister Mansberg and Mister Morse, report to the bridge, please."

"Mister Mansberg and Mister Morse, report to the bridge, please" echoed her own voice from the communication station. She turned to look at Amanda whose fingers were flying over the console before her, and grinned from ear to ear. Now, it all made sense. Amanda was a Parrot.

Parrots, named for the extinct bird, were able to mimic virtually any sound they heard. Parrots were usually spurned by society in general as being of less than average intelligence. Those uninformed souls had no idea that a Parrot usually graduated at the top of their class, if they chose do so. They were an odd sort of human which had cropped up in the last few hundred years, and studies had proven that they used over fifty-two percent of their brains, whereas the average human used around twenty percent. Peculiar to every Parrot ever known was the fact that they randomly spoke in the various voices they had heard throughout their lives.

The door swished aside to admit Muffin and Terri, the compgeek. Quillan turned to them and pointed at Amanda.

"Babysitting duty, Muffin," she said. "Mister Morse and I are going to fix Alice."

Amanda looked up from her communications panel, spotted Muffin, squealed with glee, and launched herself at the enormous human, hugging him tightly around the neck. He had been one of the first people she remembered seeing after being rescued. He gently folded her in his arms where she practically disappeared in his embrace.

Her carrier sounded one long continuous tone as resume's from those seeking employment flooded in, routed through and filtered by the ship's computer. She'd been here an hour and already had over four hundred applicants, with more pouring in every second. As soon as a resume' was received, the ship reviewed it for falsifications, accessing military and civilian records alike. If a certain number of discrepancies were found by it, the application was marked for deletion and Charleen never even saw it. Certain omissions and outright lies were permitted on the resume's, but when it came to the safety of the ship and her crew, only intense knowledge of the proper field would do.

Wish I could shut the damn thing off, Charleen thought to herself, as she quickly scrolled through the applicants. When one caught her eye, she would shout their name to call for a face to face interview.

"Are you shittin' me?" Charleen murmured to herself, then yelled out, "Kat-Trina Kitten Puur-sephone!" With Alice's higher functions being down for the count, the machine still made the occasional mistake.

One of the many inhabitants of the station was a race known as the Mafdets. A catlike race named for the Egyptian goddess who protected against snakes. The blue-furred feline female walked up to stand before Charleen, her pointed nose twitching.

"I yam herrre," she virtually sighed. "I yam rrready for interrrview."

Charleen was not an idiot and wasted no time pretending to be one. She instantly saw through the ruse.

"Your resume' says you're a hull maintenance tech and have worked on dreadnaughts and light bombers for the Alliance."

"Yessss, commanderrr. I fix good."

"A simple question for ya," said Charleen, her face passive as she stared directly into the golden slitted eyes of the cat-creature. "You need to join an eight centimeter adamantine plate to a ceramic-tritanium-duranium alloy. What's the best wattage welding laser to use?"

"I preferrr to use a forty-megawatt weld laserrr. Anything strongerrr will melt da metal."

Charleen hiked a thumb over her shoulder.

"Door's that way. Adamantine's a veneer also called celluloid. You'd use glue, not a laser." She returned her gaze to scan the applicants while the Mafdet hung her head and slunk away.

"Krystine Talbot, callsign 'Witchypoo!' You're up!" bellowed the commander as she scanned for the pilot.

Krystine made her way to the front to stand before Charleen; her grace and demeanor leading one to believe that she was an athlete of some type. Dark blond hair pulled back into a short ponytail. Green eyes. Very attractive. No nonsense. The two inch scar on her left cheek looked freshly healed. Her body was hidden beneath a standard midnight blue flightsuit. Her boots were precisely laced, the ends neatly tucked inside so as not snag on anything.

"Talbot, according to your resume', you were a pilot for TacCom attached to the Prey Patrol. I was in the military for thirty years and never heard of the 'Prey Patrol.' Care to elaborate on that?" As she spoke, Charleen was busy typing on her carrier, bringing up more information on the group in question while her ears were tuned to the pilot.

"Simple, commander," said Krystine in an easy voice. "I flew, I fired, they died."

The carrier went totally blank for a moment, Charleen frowning at it. She almost threw it across the room when the screen lit up, displaying a happy face. The screen switched to Talbot's full military record, marked with the legend, "ABOVE TOP SECRET. PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY." The commander furtively glanced around to see Sluggo tucked neatly in a dark corner, staring back at her, wires protruding from his skull into his computer. She giggled quietly.

The woman standing before her had been a member of the most elite, secretive tactical fighter unit in existence. The casualty rate of the Prey Patrol was staggering at nearly ninety percent. The average lifespan of a Prey pilot was four months; this woman had been a member for four YEARS. They were assigned the missions which were too dangerous or too specialized for "ordinary" pilots. The Prey Patrol had never refused a mission. These were the pilots deemed unsuitable or too unstable for standard military service. In the old Earth-Actual navy, they would have flown rings around Top Gun pilots.

"So, Talbot," continued Charleen, her face remaining passive while her toes curled in her boots, "what's the best fight you were ever in?"

"Four of the local security goons wanted to rape me." Krystine grinned, meaningfully fingering the scar on her cheek and showing a row of pure white teeth which had been filed to points resembling shark's teeth. "I didn't let them..."

Charleen's bellowed laughter startled everyone present.

"Bay Five Twenty-Seven. Tomorrow. 0800."

On board the PINK MIST, Quillan and Terri donned their respective envirosuits, carefully checked each other's seals, and entered the sub-zero-temperature generator room which also contained the mainframe computer.

Terri carefully checked the settings and meticulously shut down the mainframe's processes one by one. She signaled Quillan.

Quillan went through her own careful routine to shut down the generators.

The entire ship went temporarily dark, then the essential back up life support systems and emergency lighting came on. The sound of warning horns, very faint, could be heard through the thick metal door. Quillan watched the clock on her head-up display as it seemed to slow, the seconds creeping by. She also noted that the temperature outside the suits was one degree above absolute zero. She involuntarily shivered.

When the internal clock reached the two-minute mark, Quillan reversed the shut down procedure, hearing the whine of the generators as they started back up. Once the panel before her glowed green, she turned to Lt. Morse and gave the thumbs up signal. Terri's hands unerringly flew over the computer panel, reactivating the ships' systems one after another. Her panel glowed green. She turned to Quillan and motioned toward the door with her head.

Once they had removed their envirosuits and Quillan had checked with the bridge to make sure everything was okay, she headed for the medical bay.

"Captain," said the medibot, "the reboot of the ship's systems did not affect the cryogenic chamber. All is as it should be."

Quillan dismissed the medibot and began the procedure for thawing the frozen beauty within the chamber. As she waited, she peered through the thick glass at the serene face.

Alice was truly beautiful. The delicate curve of her face. Not a mark or blemish on the face of perfection. Why had she acted like this? No word at all. She apparently just left the office, made her way to the ship, and turned herself into a meat ice cube.

Why?

The word turned over and over in Quillan's mind as she flicked her gaze back and forth between Alice and the monitoring equipment. A single beep sounded from the monitor as low level brainwave/processor activity was detected. It wasn't enough to trigger any bodily functions, it was similar to a computer searching for another computer. Just a blip to indicate that a signal was "listening."

Time passed slowly. One hour. Two. Four. Seven hours passed while the equipment chirped or beeped in response to some check or other. The beeps, whirs, clicks, and chirps grew closer together as the cryo system slowly brought Alice's body temperature up to norm. One by one, the red lights on the panel turned green.

A huge intake of breath from the nude body lying in the chamber. She opened her gorgeous green eyes and stared for a moment at the top of the cryo chamber. She turned her head to see Quillan staring back, an anxious look on her face.

Alice smiled. It was a smile of pure joy.