Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Another Year?

Chapter 2 Homecoming – Delphi Station

Chapter 3 Working On Delphi Station

Chapter 4 Homecoming – Delphi City

Chapter 5 Board Meeting – Sept 4th

Chapter 6 A Royal Wedding

Chapter 7 Resolve to Rest

Chapter 8 Fun on Artemis

Chapter 9 More Fun on Artemis

Chapter 10 Onward

Chapter 11 Mission Start

Chapter 12 Back to work

Chapter 13 Moving Forward

Chapter 14 It’s Dangerous Out Here

Chapter 15 Down to Business

Chapter 16 Dark Shadows

Chapter 17 Headaches

Chapter 18 Into the Shadows

Chapter 19 Starlight

Chapter 20 Board Meeting – Oct 14th

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Delphi Forge

Delphi in Space

Book Thirteen

Bob Blanton

Chapter 1

Another Year?

“Daddy!” Catie pleaded.  Catie was aboard the DSS Merlin, which was finally making its way back to Earth after an unplanned side trip to Helike.

Everyone else had suddenly become quiet in the board meeting when Marc had switched to the subject of Catie heading up the mission to establish a new mining outpost.  ADI and Fred had determined that they would run out of platinum metals if they maintained their commitment to bring all the colonies and new members of the Delphi League up to the same technical level as Earth and Paraxea.

“What?” Marc asked, still smiling at her.

“It’s not fair.  I was stuck in Onisiwo for nine months and here in Helike for the last seven weeks; that’s almost a year since I’ve been home.”

“I know.  But you’ll need a few months to plan this out; that should give you enough time to catch up with everyone.  And you know it has to be a board member.”

“What about Liz,” Catie suggested, throwing her best friend under the bus.

“Hey, I’m up to my elbows managing StarMerchants.  Besides, you’re the one who’s so good at politics,” Liz said, returning the favor.

“You’re just trying to force me through another year of training.”  Catie was referring to her father’s attempts to add to her single year at the academy with jobs that would round out her education.

“That’s true, but it doesn’t alter the fact that you have all the required experience and skills for the job.”

“I’ll work on a plan,” Catie acquiesced, “but I’m coming to Artemis to see my baby sister first.”

“You should be able to do your planning anywhere.  I’m sure Allie will be happy to see you.  Everyone, I think it’s time to close the meeting,” Marc said, giving Catie a big smile.

Everyone left the video conference right away; nobody wanted to risk Catie turning on them or deciding to rope them into her planning, at least not until she’d gotten over being mad.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Princess, is there a change of plans?” Tegan McAvoy, the Captain of the Merlin, asked as she met Catie in the passageway between their two cabins.

“No, Tegan, we’re still going back to Earth,” Catie replied.

“But you seem to be upset.”

“I just got stuck with another long-term job; it’s frustrating.”

“Oh, it’s the short-term jobs that always frustrate me.  When they’re long-term, you can at least sink your teeth into them.”

“Thanks, Tegan,” Catie said as she headed down to the gym to work off her frustrations, wondering if Tegan was right.

◆ ◆ ◆

While Catie was running on the treadmill, she thought back to what Captain McAvoy had said.  Was her frustration really about getting stuck with another long-term job, or was it something else?

The more she thought about the job, the more excited she became about it; so, what was her problem?  After fifteen kilometers, she finally decided her problem was that her father had jumped at the chance to give her the assignment without discussing it with her.  And thinking of that, she guessed that her father would have thought of discussing it as being equivalent to having an argument about it.  Her father knew she would resist the assignment because she hadn’t been the one to see the need or the opportunity.  And she wouldn’t have seen the same opportunity her father saw.  She saw the technical challenge, the design opportunities, while her father saw it as a chance to add seasoning to her experience, adding a little management and politics in with the stuff she preferred to focus on.  She guessed it was the perennial challenge between teenagers and their parents; just how much seasoning was enough before you could be trusted to make life decisions on your own.

“ADI.”

“Yes, Cer Catie?”

“Can we send a probe to all the waypoints to examine their systems for platinum metals?”

“We have a store of system probes that we could use.  They cannot jump, but since you’re going to explore systems with waypoints in them, they won’t need to,” ADI replied.  The waypoints were jump probes that they used to open a wormhole in a system that they then could cascade into another wormhole until they had a single wormhole that spanned multiple waypoints between the systems they wanted to travel between.  It was how they could go from Artemis to Earth in a single jump instead of six.

“How many can I get?”

“There are seven probes.”

“Okay, let’s start sending them to the waypoints.  Pick different types of systems, so we get a sampling of various star types; that way, we can see if there is a pattern.”

“Yes, Cer Catie.”

“And put in a production order to replace the probes.”

“Yes, Cer Catie.”

◆ ◆ ◆

After her workout, Catie invited Captain McAvoy to join her in her cabin for lunch.

“Princess, thank you for inviting me.  What did you want to talk about?”

“Tegan, call me Catie!”

“Sorry, Catie, things have been a bit hectic lately and with all the diplomatic events on Helike, I’ve gotten into the habit.”

“I understand.  Anyway, I wanted to talk about my new assignment.”

“And what is this new assignment?”

“We’ve determined that with the rate of growth we plan for Artemis and the new colony planets we want to start, as well as supporting the Paraxean and Aperanjen colonies, that we will run short of the platinum metals we need,” Catie explained.

“I thought Artemis was rich in them.”

“It is, but it’s not enough, and Daddy wants to keep most of it as a strategic reserve.  So, that means we have to find another source.”

“I see.  So how are you going to go about it?”

“I’ve already launched probes into the waypoint systems.  They’ll gather data on the content of those asteroid belts.  We’ll use that data to determine if we already have a system that meets our needs and if not, the data should give us clues to finding a new system.”

“Sounds like you have it under control; what do you need from me?”

“It’s likely that the system we find will not have a habitable planet to colonize.  That means we would have to put a space station in it and work from there.”

“Similar to Gemini Station?”

“Yes.  But in this case, you won’t be just three to five days from Earth.  You’d be two to three weeks away under civilian acceleration profiles, possibly longer.  And it would require a jump.  So, it would be a long and expensive trip.”

Captain McAvoy smiled.  “I see, so similar to a naval deployment?”

“That’s the perfect analogy.  So, what are the things we will need to deal with to keep all the people happy?”

“You have your space carriers as examples.  You have thousands of people on them, and they’re designed for long deployments.”

“Yes, but they’re under military discipline, and we haven’t sent them on that many long deployments.  The Fazullan situation was the longest, and we exchanged crews using military accelerations on Oryxes.  I don’t think we’ll want to do that in this case if we can avoid it.”

“It’s still a good example to build on.  Those carriers are all crewed and stationed at the fringe, so it’s a long time between shore leaves.”

“Oh, right.  I knew that.”

“Good.”  Captain McAvoy wanted to make sure Catie knew the sacrifices the people in the Delphi Forces were making every day.  “Okay, so if we look at the impact of long naval deployments on sailors, then we can see if there are changes you could make to your space station to make it better.”

“Right.”

“Okay, the first problem is claustrophobia.  The space is limited; this is especially true on submarines.  On the surface fleet, they can at least go topside and get some fresh air and see the horizon.”

“Right, but there’s no topside on a space station or a space carrier.”

“True, and your passageways are narrow.  You’ve made the staterooms spacious, but when you’re walking around, it feels tight.”

“What about the parks?”  Both Delphi Station and Gemini Station had multistory parks in every quarter section of a ring.

“That’s true, but you’re still spending a lot of time in narrow passageways.  And if you want to go for a walk or run for exercise, you have to go to the lower level.  A bit like going to the gym here on the Merlin,” Captain McAvoy explained.

“Hmm, okay, I’ll look into that.  What else?”

“I assume you’ll have bars and restaurants.”

“Yes.  I guess a better example would be a cruise ship.”

“True, but on a cruise ship, you’re making a port of call every few days.  Here, you’re talking about months.”

“Okay, so what else do sailors miss when they’re aboard ship?”

“When a ship docks at a liberty port, the first thing the sailors do is head to the bars.  You’ve got that covered.  And . . .”

“Hookers,” Catie filled in for Captain McAvoy.

“Of course.  It’s a long time between ports.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.  I suspect some of the staff on Gemini Station moonlight as sex workers.  We don’t have an official policy of allowing them there.  I guess we should look into that.  Okay, what else?”

“More varied entertainment.  Even on a cruise ship, it gets redundant after a while.”

“Right.  And we already have sports activities on the stations.”

“That’s important,” the captain replied.  “You need as many ways as you can come up with for the people to blow off steam.  Excessive exercise, like sports, helps.  Drinking helps, but can do more harm than good.”

“Okay.  If you think of anything else, message me.  I’ll be interviewing some of the miners on Gemini Station to get more feedback.  And I’ll take another look at the design of Delphi Station to see if we missed an opportunity to make it more like a city.”

“Good idea,” Captain McAvoy said as she signaled the steward to take away her plate and bring her another cup of coffee.

◆ ◆ ◆

The next morning, Samantha joined Marc for breakfast.

“Marc, do you really think having Catie do another long mission is the right thing?”

“Yes, I do.  She has to learn how to plan out long missions and stick to them.  This should be perfect, lots of design work, a few interesting economic problems, and a chance to manage people in a looser relationship.”

“But it keeps her away from her friends.  She’s still only a teenager,” Samantha pointed out.

“I’m sure she’ll manage to get a few friends included in the mission.  And she always has Morgan.”

“What about boys?”

“If the rumors I hear about this prince are to be believed, she seems to have figured a way to resolve that issue.”

Samantha slapped Marc on the arm.  “Don’t you go believing in rumors.”  Samantha knew exactly what had happened with Prince Charming since Morgan kept her fully apprised of what happened in Catie's life, but she didn’t necessarily want Marc to know everything, even if Catie was his daughter.

“I wouldn’t have to listen to rumors if you’d let me set the surveillance parameters with ADI that I prefer, or at least let me require Morgan to report details to me.”

“Catie needs some privacy from you.  It’s bad enough that you virtually manage her entire life.”

“I’m just making sure that she has the right opportunities.”

“Because?” Samantha prompted.

“Because she’s one of the wealthiest and most powerful women on Earth, in the Galaxy, for that matter.  One day, she’s going to realize it, and I think it’s important that she have the right background to survive that realization.”

“She could always give all the money away.”

“She could, but we both know she won’t.  She’ll want to keep pushing Earth forward, and to do that, you have to have the money and power, otherwise, people who care more about money and power will take over, and things might spiral out of control.”

“And they won’t with you McCormacks at the helm?”

“At least we’ll try to avoid it.”

Samantha just shook her head and went back to eating her breakfast.

◆ ◆ ◆

On Wednesday, the Merlin jumped to Sol and started its deceleration to Earth.  After the jump, Catie ramped up her communication with her friends, focusing on email and messaging for now since they were still eight light-hours away.  That was a long transmission delay, but it was better than a delay of up to thirty-two hours between messages, and it would decrease rapidly as they approached Earth.  Catie had committed to minimizing her personal use of the quantum relays because they had limited bandwidth available, and the fact that other members of Delphi Forces were only able to use them for personal reasons on an extremely limited basis.  As they approached Earth, the delay shortened, but until they were almost in orbit, it would still be too long to have a real conversation.  She figured she’d wait on those until she was on Delphi Station.

Chapter 2

Homecoming – Delphi Station

As soon as the Merlin docked at Delphi Station, Catie said goodbye to Captain McAvoy.  They agreed to meet in two weeks at Deogenes in Delphi City.  Then, she said goodbye to Morgan, who was heading to Colorado for an extended vacation with her girlfriend, Tracey.  She also bid farewell to Cristina, who was heading to Delphi City right away.  After her goodbyes, Catie went to her cabin on Delphi Station and took a long bubble bath.

Once she finished soaking in the tub, she dressed and made her way to the triplets’ cabin.

“Princesa!” the three girls squealed together.  They were excited to see her, even though they’d known she was coming since she’d called them the day before.

“Hello, girls.  Wow, you look taller.”  Catie waved to Celia, their guardian, who was in the kitchen preparing lunch.

“Yes, we’ve grown two centimeters; Beni grew three centimeters,” Lílian, the most vocal of the three girls, said.

“I can tell.  So, how’s school?”

“Ugh, we don’t want to talk about school!  We want to talk about the prince!”

“What prince?”

“Prince Charming.  Morgan told us all about him,” Lílian said.

Catie sent a quick “I’ll get you” message to Morgan.

“Have fun,” Morgan messaged back.

“So, you already know about him.”

“No, we don’t.  Now spill!” Lílian demanded.

“What, where did you get that saying from?”

“Morgan.”

“Ooh, that Morgan, she’s in trouble.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain later.  Anyway, the prince was Prince Nikitas, and we met him when we rescued his spaceship from being destroyed by asteroid fragments.”

“Ooh, that’s nice.  Did he kiss you?”

“Not then; he was doing his job.  We didn’t get to know each other personally until later, and you should never kiss someone you don’t know,” Catie explained.

After Catie had suffered through thirty minutes of grilling about the prince, Celia came out of the kitchen and told the girls to go get washed up for lunch.

“Sorry about that,” Celia said.

“Not as sorry as Morgan’s going to be.  It wasn’t your fault.  Besides, it was fun.”

“I’m glad.  They’ve been so excited since they knew you were coming back.  It’s been a long time.”

“How are they doing?”

“Much better.  The doctors say they’ve erased most of the memories and dulled the others.  They don’t have nightmares anymore.”  The three girls had been used as prostitutes by a criminal ring for two months before Celia, a prostitute herself at the time, had found out and brought it to the attention of the authorities.

“Are they still sleeping in the same bed?”

“Yes, but I expect them to ask for bunk beds any day now.  Instead of arguing about who gets to sleep in the middle, they’re arguing about who has to sleep in the middle.”

“Are they going to want separate rooms?”

“Not yet.  Maybe when they’re fifteen, but even then, it won’t hurt them to share a bedroom; it’s pretty common,” Celia shrugged.

“Good.  Here they come.”

“Princesa, Celia is going to take us to Delphi City, and we’re going to ride horses!” Lílian squealed.

“Oh, you are?  Have you ever ridden a horse before?”

“No, we’re going to take lessons.”

Catie gave Celia a questioning look.

“I have vacation time now.  So, I thought it would be good to go down to the city; they need to get used to crowds and open spaces again.  They’ve been reading some stories about horses, so I think it will be a nice treat.”

“Who’s going to give the lessons?”

“They have someone at the stables who gives lessons.”

“Let me see if Sandra’s available.  She might get a kick out of teaching them.”  Catie messaged Sandra, Kal’s fiancée, about the girls.  Sandra immediately messaged back that she would love to give them lessons.

“She says she’d be happy to give them lessons.  Here’s her contact info; just set up a time.”

“Who’s Sandra?” the triplets asked.

“She’s Kal’s girlfriend.  You remember Kal?” Catie asked.

“Yes.”

“Anyway, she’s the best rider in Delphi City.  She’s going to ride in the Olympics next summer.”

“Cool.”

“Celia, where are you going to stay while you’re down there?” Catie asked.

“We’re going to rent a condo for the week.”

“Oh, don’t do that.  You can stay in Liz’s and my condo.  Liz is off on the Dutchman for a few weeks, and I can stay with friends. In fact, I can stay in Daddy’s condo since he and Sam are on Artemis.”

“We can’t stay at your place,” Celia protested.

“Sure, you can.  I just registered your Comm.  You should probably stay in Liz’s room and let the girls stay in mine.”

“Yeah!” The triplets approved of the idea of staying in Catie’s condo.

Catie smiled at Celia, wondering what her room would look like after the triplets had rummaged through all her stuff.

“Guess what?” Lílian asked.

“What?” Catie asked.

“Guess!”

“I can’t imagine what I should be guessing about.”

“It’s about the parks.”

“The ones here on Delphi Station?”

“Yes, silly.”

“Well, then I guess they’ve planted some new flowers.”

“That’s not it, well, it’s close.  Each park has a new bouquet.”

“A new bouquet, a bouquet of what?”

“Hummingbirds!” Lílian exclaimed.

“A Bouquet of Hummingbirds?”

“Yes, that’s what you call a bunch of hummingbirds.”

“Interesting, I never knew that.”

“What do you call a group of gorillas?” Benedita asked.

“A troop?”

“No,” the girls giggled.  “They’re called a whoop!”

“Oh, that kind of makes sense since you know gorillas like to whoop it up.”

“Haha,” the girls all laughed.  “That was funny, wasn’t it, ANDI?”

“Yes, it was,” ANDI said.  ANDI was the DI that ran Delphi City, and Catie had made him responsible for the girls’ education.

“What about a bunch of baboons?” Teresa asked.

“They’re not a whoop, too, are they?”

“No, they’re a congress!”

“Wow.  Uncle Blake always said the U.S. Congress was a bunch of baboons; I never realized that he was right,” Catie laughed.

“We don’t get it.”

“That’s only because you don’t have the proper disdain for politicians yet.  Give it a few years.”

“Those are not actually the correct collective nouns,” ANDI said.  “The girls researched the collective nouns of various animals and chose the ones they liked best, which were not necessarily the scientifically correct ones.”

“I can understand that.  Scientists don’t always choose good names.  Whoever came up with a murder of crows?”

“We like that one, murder of crows,” Benedita squealed as she typed it into her HUD.

“I have a knock, knock joke,” Teresa piped up.

Catie rolled her eyes but smiled at Teresa.  “Okay.”

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Wah.”

“Wah who?”

“What are you so excited about?!”

“That’s not bad,” Catie said.

“I’ve got one,” Benedita yelled.  “Knock, Knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“To”

“To who?”

“No, it’s to whom!  ANDI taught us that one.”

“Oh, he did, did he?”

“Yes, he’s good at knock, knock jokes.  Here’s another one.  Knock, Knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“A broken pencil.”

“A broken pencil who?”

“Never mind, it’s pointless,” Benedita said with a big grin.

“That is really good.  ANDI, did you come up with that?”

“Yes, I did.  I try to find jokes which will help with their education and assimilation of the English language.”

“That’s nice.”

“Do you know any jokes?” Teresa asked.

“I’ve got one.  What’s black and white and read all over?”

“We don’t know.”

“A newspaper,” Catie said.

“We don’t get it.”

“Cer Catie.  Delphinean English has eliminated read as a verb.  It’s too confusing since its two tenses are spelled the same but pronounced differently.  We recommend the use of legere for inputting words via your eyes,” ANDI explained.

“Oh, I forgot.  Darn, not so funny then.”

“I thought it was funny, but I’m familiar with the verb read.”

“Oh!”  Catie’s eyes went wide.  “ANDI, I would like a call with Dr. Metra and privacy.”  Privacy meant that ANDI would not listen in once the call was started. Catie would have to tell him it was clear to listen before he would resume monitoring any area where she was.

“Of course.  She should answer her Comm shortly.”

“Catie, I heard you were back.  To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Dr. Metra, have you been monitoring ANDI’s development?”

“Not particularly.  Why?”

“Because he’s telling jokes.”

“I’m sure he tries, especially for the girls.  But you know it takes hundreds of years before a DI develops enough self-awareness to really understand humor.”

“You didn’t hear me.  I said he’s telling jokes, and pretty good ones,” Catie explained.

“Oh my.  He is?”

“Yes.”

“Then I should set up an evaluation of him as soon as I can.  Thank you for letting me know.”  With that, Dr. Metra disconnected.

“What was that about?” Celia asked.

“A DI doesn’t get humor until they’re essentially sentient.  ANDI couldn’t get any humor when I tried to teach him a few years ago.  To be able to tell these jokes and understand them is a huge step for ANDI.  Dr. Metra will want to give him a checkup.”

“Is that good?”

“It is excellent news.”

“What’s sentient?” the triplets asked.

“That’s when you know that you’re a person and know how to relate to others,” Catie explained.

“Then ANDI is definitely sentient.  He really knows he’s a real person, and a nice one even if he’s pushy.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Uncle Blake,” Catie said as she joined him at the restaurant.

“Hello, Squirt.”

Catie rolled her eyes but didn’t object to her uncle’s use of Squirt.  He did it to get a rise out of her, and she was still trying to follow Captain McAvoy’s advice and see if he would give up if she didn’t react.

“Where’s Jackie?” Catie asked instead.

“In Delphi City.”

“Oh.”  Catie was disappointed that Jackie wasn’t going to be joining them for dinner; she’d have to catch up with her when she went down to the city later in the week.

“It’s not enough to have dinner with your uncle?”

“Sure, it is, but I like Jackie.  I’ll have to make a point to visit her when I go down to the city.”

“Yes, you will.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”  Blake gave Catie a knowing smile.

“ADI?” Catie messaged.

“Don’t ask me!” ADI shot back.

“So, you wanted to talk about my mission?” Catie asked once they’d ordered.

“Yes, and just to catch up.  I know we talk a lot over the Comms, but that’s just not the same.”

“I know.  You should have seen me and the Triplets.  What a gabfest, and we talk at least once a week.”

“Well, with those three monsters, I can imagine.”

“Monsters, that’s not nice.”

“Have you seen them play podball?”

“I’ve just seen some outtakes.”

“Well, go to a match, and you’ll know what I mean.  Anyway, what have you thought about your mission; you’ve had three weeks to think about it.”

“I won’t know that much until we find the star system we’re going to mine.  Otherwise, it’s just building another starbase.”

“Starbase?  Why are you calling it a starbase?”

“Because it’s not orbiting a planet, stations and satellites orbit planets, starbases orbit stars,” Catie explained.  “And I know that makes Gemini Station a Starbase.”

“So, you haven’t picked a star system yet?” Blake inquired.

“Not yet.  So far, the data suggests that the bigger stars have richer deposits, but we’ll have to see.  They do have bigger belts, so it’s likely we’ll be selecting a giant.”

“That’s interesting.  What are the major impacts of selecting a bigger star?”

“It’ll be further from the belt to the fringe.”

“That won’t be nice.  Makes for a long trip on the Dutchman to pick up the ores and resupply the base.”

“Yes, it might, but I’m thinking about putting the base at the fringe.”

Blake’s eyebrows went up.  “Oh, are you sure about that?”

“Not yet, but I think minimizing the time between the base and Earth or one of the colonies will be important.”

“What about warning time after someone jumps in?  You wouldn’t want them to be right on top of you.”

“Why not?  I can just put the station a little inside the fringe, so we’d have plenty of warning.”

“But what happens if they’re not friendly?”

Catie rolled her eyes.  “I guess.  But if we put the base too far inside, it’ll take forever for the Dutchman or Resolve to get there.”

“You could ferry the supplies from the fringe.  Boost the containers with the ores out to the fringe, and pick up your supplies with an Oryx,” Blake suggested.

“I guess; how far inside are you thinking?”

“Five days at military acceleration.”

Catie gave a little start, “You have been thinking about this.”

“Of course, it’s part of my job.”

“But I want to build the station right at the fringe to minimize construction time and make it easier to rotate construction crews.  I guess I can still do that, then push it into a closer orbit.”

“I agree.  What else?”

“I’ve come up with a concept for a mining ship.  I’m going to talk to Jimmy about it tomorrow.”

“Start out more open-ended than that, and you might learn more.”

“Oh, I guess I can show him the ship after we talk about what he thinks it’ll take.  By using a mining ship, we’ll be able to keep the base farther out, and they’ll make it easier to have the miners form separate businesses instead of having them work for MacKenzies.”

“Why?”

“Well, if they’re mining asteroids right outside the starbase, then it’ll be just like going to work.  If they have their own ship, then they’ll view themselves as independent.  Besides, if you send a ship to an asteroid and it turns out to be a bust, you just go to the next asteroid.  If you’ve spent the resources to move it to the fringe, then you’ve lost everything.  And since we’re talking about focusing on rare metals, you’re speculating on how rich it is based on the scan we make of its surface,” Catie elaborated.

“Sounds good.  What about the design of the starbase?”

“I’m asking people about what they miss when they’re on Delphi Station or Gemini Station.  And I’m going to interview Captain Clark and his citizens’ committee about what they wish we’d done differently here on Delphi Station.”

“That’s clever.  You should do the same with the Prime Minister about Delphi City.  There are probably similarities.”

“Okay!” Catie moaned.  She didn’t particularly like meeting with committees; in her experience, a committee had too few brains and too many asses.

“Don’t whine; it’ll be good training.  You’ll have to appoint a similar committee on the starbase.”

“Oh, damn.  I didn’t think about that.  Why couldn’t you let me stay delusional until I at least got the base up and running?”

Blake laughed, “Probably because misery loves company.  I’m on five committees, so you having to sit on one seems like just a small amount of cosmic justice.  Now the other thing you’re going to need to consider is that you’re likely to have a rougher crowd out there.”

“I started Gemini Station up.”

“Yes, but they all worked for us; this will be different.”

“I guess.  I’ll talk with Morgan and Kal about it.”

“Good, feel free to give me a call.”

“Because you want to share my problems?”

“Not really, but it’s not often I get to see you struggle.”

Catie stuck her tongue out at Blake.

Blake laughed at her.  “Now a couple of last things before dessert.  One: Kal needs to see you in the morning, something about a new bodyguard.”

“Why didn’t he just message me?”

“We were talking about it this morning, and I told him I’d tell you.  And two: you’re going to have to use the princess card while you’re running the starbase.  You’ll want to be in charge of the military, and the captain and top marine will probably outrank you.”

“Damn.”

“It won’t be that bad.  You’ll mostly be interacting with the construction crew, the miners, and the vendors, so to them, you’ll just be the boss.”

“I guess there is that.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie met Kal in his office the next morning.  “Hi, Kal.  I hear you have a new bodyguard for me?”

“Yes, meet Sergeant Lambert,” Kal gestured to indicate the other person in the room.  “She’ll be stepping in for Morgan while she’s on leave.  Then she’ll be continuing as your number two bodyguard.”

Catie’s face fell just a bit, but she recovered quickly.  “I’m glad to meet you, Sergeant Lambert.”

“Ma’am.”

“Sergeant, please wait for Cer McCormack in the outer office; I have a few things to go over with her.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Once Sergeant Lambert left the office, Kal turned to Catie.  “Well, what’s the problem?”

“No problem.”

“I saw that look.”

“I was just hoping that Cristina could be my number two.”

“I’m sure Morgan told you that Cristina is not ready for that type of role.  She just made sergeant.”

“I know, but I find Cristina useful to have around.”

“You can keep her on your team.  There would always be a job for her, but I don’t see her settling for being a bodyguard.”

“I know.  I guess I can have her assigned to security for the mission.”

“That might work.  Now go out there and treat your new bodyguard with the respect she deserves.”

Catie walked out to the outer office.  Sergeant Lambert snapped to attention.  “Ma’am.”

“Sergeant, unless we’re in a formal situation, please call me Catie.”

“Yes, ma’am . . . ugh, Catie.”

Catie chuckled at Sergeant Lambert’s discomfort.  “You’ll get used to it.”

“Yes, ma’am.  And if you like, you can call me Fiona.”

“That’s a nice name.  Do I detect a slight lilt; are you from Ireland?”

“My mother’s Irish and my dad’s English.  I mostly grew up in England, but I picked up the accent from my mother and cousins.”

Catie laughed.  “Let’s go to breakfast, and we can tell each other about ourselves.  What’s your hand-to-hand specialty?”

“Karate.”

“Oh, that will be fun.  I hope you’ll spar with me.”

“Yes . . . ma’am.”

“I heard a little hesitation there.”

“Yes, ma’am.  I’ve been told that sparring with you tends to include a trip to the infirmary afterward.”

“Oh, I’m not that bad.”

“If you say so, ma’am.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“So, Fiona, how long have you been in Delphi?”

“Three and a half years.  I was assigned during the Paraxean war.  I didn’t see much action then but decided to stay.”

“Were you in Mexico?”

“No, I was stationed on Gemini Station when it started, and I’m too white to have gone undercover during that op, so they left me in place.”

“What was the biggest thing you noticed when you came to Delphi?”

“I don’t know.  It was weird, being a floating city and all,” she shrugged.  “And it was so clean compared to other big cities I’ve been in.”

“What about the people?”

“They all seemed pretty nice.  You know, the one thing that drove me nuts was having to learn English all over again.”

Catie laughed at that.

“I mean, I grew up speaking English, and I come here and get my specs, and all of a sudden, my Comm is correcting my English.  I was a bit put out at first.”

“I can imagine.  But we have to have everyone speak the same language, and even if they call it English, what they speak in America versus what they speak in England is very different.  They sound different, and there are so many words that are different or have different meanings.”

“I know, but it even corrects me grammar.  See, it lit up, and let me know that was incorrect, but that’s how we say it at home,” Fiona grumbled.

Catie laughed, “You must still have it on teaching mode.  Here, let me show you how to turn that off.”

“Oh, you can turn it off?”

“Sure, people want to be able to relax when they’re at home, speak their own language or vernacular.”  Catie linked her Comm to Fiona’s and showed her how to switch the mode off.  “Oh, and since you’re my bodyguard, we need to make a modification to the on-duty setting, or it’ll correct you anytime you’re with me.”  It took Catie a minute to figure out how to adjust that setting; she wondered who’d shown Morgan how to change it.

“Thanks.”

“So, how long did it take you to relearn English?”

“Oh, three months on the Enterprise among all those other marines was motivation enough to get me to adapt.  Just seeing a few fights break out over simple misunderstandings got me to thinking that a standard vernacular wasn’t a bad idea.”

“Were there that many fights?”

“Oh yes.  Well, the Scots and the English love to fight each other.  The Americans weren’t much better.  Things settled out pretty quickly; nobody liked to do the extra duty they assigned you after a fight, and with these specs, there wasn’t any way you could just say you ran into a door.”

“I bet.”

“And that was the other thing that took getting used to; having these specs.  They’re always recording stuff, so you can’t get away with much.”

“They do have a privacy setting.”

“Sure, but who remembers that?  And when you’re in a quote-unquote public space, then there are so many cameras anyway.  It made it hard to get even with your mates when they pissed you off.”

“Oh, I’ve never had that problem,” Catie said with a big smile.

“So I’ve heard.  I guess you understand the limitation of the cameras and such, and since you helped write the rules, you know how to get around them.  We all got better at arranging little lessons, but nothing like back at home in England or in the Royal Marines.”

Chapter 3

Working On Delphi Station

After breakfast, Catie headed for her discussion with Jimmy Gaines, the lead miner, with Fiona on her heels.

“Fiona, you don’t need to stay with me.  While I’m on the station, the two shadows are enough.”

“I know.  But I’d like to stick with you so I can learn your routines.”

“You mean my bad habits?”

“That too.  It’s important to have a sense of how your protectee will react in certain situations.  The more you know, the better you can do your job.”

“You could just ask Morgan.”

“I’m still reviewing the material Sergeant Blair left me.”

Catie quickly messaged Morgan.  “Morgan, what did you tell Fiona?!”

“Everything.  It’s important we know all about our protectee.  And it helps if you can view them as human.”

“So that means all the videos of me crawling in the mud?”

“Of course!”

“Fiona, have you had a chance to meet the twins?”

“Just the once when they ran me through the advanced microgravity training.  Kal has me scheduled to spend time with them tomorrow.”

“Oh, good.”  Catie sent another quick message, “ADI, please grab any funny videos from Fiona’s training tomorrow.”

“You’re a mean person.”

“I just want to have ammo in case I need it.”

“Hey, Jimmy, how have you been?”  Catie gave Jimmy a hug.

“I’m doing great.  Suzie’s doing fine; she’s working in environmental here on the station.”

“That’s great.  And how are the kids?”

“The middle one just started school; he’s really taking to that math.  Sometimes I think he’s as smart as you.”

“That sounds good.”

“Not sure.  Suzie thinks he’s a little too smart.  Good thing we have that AI to help keep track of him.  He’s always getting into stuff, taking things apart.”

“Don’t you have him in daycare after school?”

“Yep, but that doesn’t help during recess or when we’re home.  Suzie will be making dinner, and suddenly the AI will alert her that the kid’s taken something apart and doesn’t know how to put it back together.”

Catie laughed.  “Sounds like you should get him some Legos.  Have him build his own stuff.”

“That’s what the teacher said.  We’ll have to see how it works.  Now that the youngest isn’t sticking everything in her mouth, it might work.”

“She’s five now, isn’t she?”

“Yep.  She’s starting first grade in a few months.  We’ll see how she does.  Bit of a daddy’s girl, doesn’t like anyone to tell her what to do besides me.  Now, you didn’t come here to talk about my kids.  What’s up?”

“I want to talk about mining asteroids.”

“My favorite subject, well, after the wife and kids.”

“Good save.  We’re going to need to start mining for those rare metals more aggressively, so I want to talk about how we should configure things, tools, ships, stuff like that.”

“What’s wrong with Artemis?”

“Daddy wants to keep it as a strategic reserve; it’s perfect for that since you can extract so much so fast.”

“Okay, that makes sense.  So, you want to know how to extract the metals from normal asteroids where you have to dig to get much of anything.”

“Right, what slows you down?”

“Everything, but mostly walking around the damn thing to dig the next hole.”

“Yeah, I remember how hard that was,” Catie said.  Catie had been among the first three people who’d ever walked on an asteroid when they went to the belt to get the three they had needed to build Delphi Station.

“Yep, well, it hasn’t gotten any easier.  Are you thinking about making a little ship we can use to zip around the asteroid?”

“Not quite, but something like that.  What else slows you down?”

“Normal stuff.  Having to go back and change the drill bit, replace tools.  It’s nice when we’re working on a really big one since we can bring out the big boys and really get to work.”

“Big boys?”

“Big tools.  You can’t go hauling big equipment around when you’re only going to get a few kilos of ore.  It’s worth the extra time when you’re going to net a few tons.”

After a little more Q&A about the problem of mining, Catie brought up an image of her barge concept.  It showed an asteroid hovering over a flat deck.  The people were standing below it with just enough clearance that only the really tall ones would bump their heads.

“Interesting,” Jimmy said.  “Explain what this all is.”

“Think of the deck like the floor of a big shop.  It’s metal, so your boots can magnetically couple.  Big enough that you can cozy up to really big asteroids.  You have all your tools available to you, the asteroid is hovering above you, and you would put a small gravity drive on it so you can rotate it.”

“I like that.  Saves walking and toting.”

“There’s a small smelter here at the back.  Just enough to separate the ore from the rocks, dust, and ice.  It expels the debris as a ball using water to hold it together.”

“What if we want to break the thing in twos or threes?” Jimmy asked.

“I assume you would do what you usually do.  Just put a drive on each segment so you can control them.”

“How many people can the ship handle?”

“You tell me, but we want to do this, so each ship is a private business.  So, I would think they would want a small crew.”

“So, prospecting?”

“I guess.  We would scan the asteroids and mark them, so you had some idea of what you were getting, but it would be up to the crew as to how they went about extracting the ore.”

“So, maybe a family business.”

“I guess.”

Fiona leaned forward at the mention of a family business.

“Fiona, you look like you might have some thoughts?” Catie asked.

“My uncle is a miner.  Seems like something he’d like to do.  He’s got three sons, and they would want to be able to run something like that on their own.”

“That’s a lot for just four people.”

“Well, they’re all married.”  Fiona gave a shrug.

“Might work if they all had skills,” Jimmy said.  “Do the wives do any mining?”

“My aunt does the cooking for the family.  The daughters-in-law, one does the books, one does maintenance, and I think the other one mines with the guys.  It’s a small mine; they barely make a living out of it, but it’s theirs.”

“Well, you’d have to have an engineer to keep the ship together,” Jimmy said.  “How long do you think they’d be out?”

“You tell me?” Catie asked.  “They’d be a few days, maybe weeks from the base where we would have maintenance facilities and such.”

“Okay, so the AI could walk a good technician through most stuff.  So they could stay out for quite a bit.  Foodstuffs and boredom will probably be the limit unless, of course, you’re filled up with ore.  What about engines and reactors?”

“We’d use the sealed fusion reactors, so they’re pretty easy to maintain.  Basic gravity drives.”

“How much power?”

“I’m thinking just enough to get 2Gs out of the engines,” Catie replied.

“Oh, that’s small.  What about when she’s full?”

“That should only drop the acceleration to 1.5Gs.”

“Okay, that’s not too bad.  So, one engineer type, a steward, captain/navigator, and three or four miners.  I assume the miners would be trained up on explosives and tools.  You could make it work.  The captain could be one of the miners, so a crew of four to eight,” Jimmy said.

“Couldn’t the engineer be a miner as well?” Fiona asked.

“They could, but I’d expect they’d be spending a lot of time on ship maintenance and tool repairs.  I don’t see that they’d have much time to mine.  Besides, you don’t want your only engineer to get hurt; mining is dangerous work.”

“Fiona, what do you think?  Would your uncle go for something like that?”

“He might.  But how far away are they going to be?”

“We’d have a starbase for them to come to for R&R and maintenance.  They’d set their own schedule, but they’d have to mine enough to pay for the ship and stuff.  I haven’t done the math yet to figure out what it will all be worth.  But the market will set the price for the ores, and competition will set the quantity of ore each ship needs to deliver to make a profit.”

“Oh!” Jimmy gasped.  “You’re not going to make this a co-op?”

“I don’t think so.  Daddy wants to create more businesses that are independent of the MacKenzie group, more minds deciding what works best.”

“You just be careful you don’t set up a company store situation.”

Catie gave Jimmy a blank stare.

“A situation where the miners have to buy everything from you, so they’re really working for you, but you’re just not paying them squat.”

Catie nodded her head.  “We want as much of the supply chain to be owned by independent owners.  But we’ll have to see how it works out.  You know we don’t take advantage of people.”

“I know, but you’re going to have to convince those miners you’re not.  No matter what, it sounds like you’ll be hosting a tough crowd on that starbase.”

“Fiona, what do you think?”

“He’s right about the company store thing.  But I think you could make it work.”

“Thanks, Jimmy.  I’ll probably be back for more advice, but I’ll work up some plans and see what Ajda thinks about the ship.  We’ll send it all to you for review when we’ve worked it out.”

“Happy to help.”

“Say hi to Suzie for me.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie had a light lunch since she didn’t want to fall asleep in the committee meeting.  For some reason, Fiona didn’t think it was necessary to observe Catie in the meeting, so she headed off to the obstacle course to prepare for her training session with the twins.

“Welcome, Princess,” Captain Clark said as Catie entered the meeting room.  “We’re pleased that you are willing to spend some time with us to help us improve Delphi Station.”

Catie was shocked at being called princess but hid her surprise.  “Thank you, Captain.  I’m glad to help.”

“What’s going on?” she messaged him.

“Committees are such a pain; they should behave better if you’re Princess Catherine.”

Captain Clark invited Catie to sit next to him and then performed the introductions around the room.

“Princess.”  Captain Clark turned the meeting over to Catie.

Catie messaged a meme of herself sticking her tongue out to Captain Clark, then turned her attention to the committee.  “I would like to ask you what you wished we had done differently when we designed Delphi Station.  We are preparing to build our third station, and it seems like we never have taken the time to review what we’ve done so we can improve the design as well as correct any oversights.”

Catie spent the next hour listening to the people on the committee list their complaints.  And they fed off of each other, coming up with even minor things to complain about.

Captain Clark coughed to get everyone’s attention.  “I think we’ve used up about as much of the Princess’ time as her schedule allows.  Princess, thank you for coming and listening to us.  We hope the committee’s input will result in some positive changes for our station.”

“I’m sure it will.  I have a good list of ideas to talk over with my staff.  I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve reviewed them.”

With that, Catie beat a hasty retreat.  She was being honest when she said she had a good list.  As to how much of it was actionable, only time would tell.  She reviewed the list while she walked back to her cabin.

“The cabins are just too small.  You don’t have room to put up artwork or have shelves to keep your knickknacks.”

“Passageways are boring; it would be nice if there was some artwork along them.”

“No swimming pool; the children would have such a good time if we had a swimming pool.  And I used to love doing water aerobics.”

“No matter where you go, you always feel closed in.”

“Can’t you persuade more restaurants to open up here?  We have such a limited choice.”

“The passageways seem so tight when you’re just out for a walk.  If you’re with a friend, you can’t have a nice chat without risking walking into someone.”

“Shopping is boring.  Most of it has to be done online.  You have to go to Delphi City if you want to try things on.  VR is just not the same.  It would be so nice if we had more specialty shops up here.”

“Why can’t there be an elevator at every spoke instead of just the four?  Eight would be so much nicer.”

“We do like the fact that you can fly up and fly down to Delphi City without having to go through microgravity.”

“There are no fireplaces, so you can’t have a nice romantic evening by the fire.  Why can’t we have them in our cabins?”

“The temperature range you’re allowed to set in your cabin is so limited.”

“Children don’t have a place to play.  The little ones do fine, but once they’re over eight, they’re online too much and don’t go outside.  Well, inside-outside.”

“Those Russians are such bores; do we really have to share the station with them?”

“No places with high ceilings—like in a restaurant or on a cruise ship.  You never look up.”

“I miss seeing the sky, the clouds.”

“It would be so nice if we could have some kind of weather.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie went to Deogenes, where she was meeting Nikola for dinner.  She stuck her head in the kitchen to wave at Celia.

“Hey, Catie.  Make sure you order the special.”

“Okay,” Catie waved again then went into the dining room where Nikola was already seated at their table.

“Catie, welcome home.  I’m so honored that you would have dinner with me so soon after arriving.”

“You might not think it’s such an honor after I get through complaining about the meeting I just had.”

“What meeting?”

“With Captain Clark and the Citizen’s Committee.”

“Oh, those are such a joy to attend.  I can only say, better you than me.”

Catie laughed.  “If there only was a way to skip all but the highlights.  Or put everyone on fast forward.”

Nikola giggled.  “That would be nice, but I’m not sure the others would enjoy the meeting, especially if they left it before you reset their speed.”

“Funny.  Anyway, I did get a few ideas about how to improve the station.”

“Like what?”

“Let’s order first, then I’ll tell you.”  Catie nodded her head toward the waiter hovering next to the table.

Once they finished ordering, Nikola immediately asked Catie to continue.

“First, tell me, how is Leo?”

“He’s his normal crotchety self, adorable in small doses.”

“What’s he working on?”

“He’s been working with Ajda and Dr. McDowell.  They’ve been working on a theory that will reduce the size of the gravity drives.  He and Dr. McDowell are also working on a process so we can manufacture the drives instead of printing them.  I think they’ve finally got a process that will work.”

“That’s exciting.  The printing process for gravity drives generates so much waste and takes too long.”

“That’s what they’re trying to fix.  They should be testing it next month.”

“Oh, I’ll have to check in with them.  I haven’t been following their research.”

“I’m not surprised as busy as you’ve been.  Now, tell me about these ideas to improve the space station.”

“Well, two that I think are related and interesting are that they say the passageways are boring and they miss the sky.”

“They do realize they are on a space station?” Nikola asked.

“Yes, but why couldn’t we make the ceiling of the passageways look like sky?  We could paint them blue, add some clouds.”

“That is interesting.  You know, I’ve been playing around with electronic paint, improving its responsiveness and the quality of the colors.  We could use a white-blue paint.  One where as you applied power, it would turn from white to blue.  With this new paint I’ve developed, we could have good control of the range so you could go from white to a light blue to a dark blue.  If you lower the indirect lights on the ceiling, the dark blue might look like a night sky, and you could have some white specs that would look like stars.”

“But could you afford to have the panels be that small?”

“Probably not, but you could just paint the stars in.  On a light blue background, you probably wouldn’t notice them, and you could set things up, so those areas are covered by clouds.”

Catie smiled at the thought.  “You could even make the clouds move.”

“Yes, that would make things interesting.”

“Will you work on it for us?”

“Us?”

“ZMS, we can sell the design to the space stations.”  ZMS stood for Zelbar, McCormack, and Sloan, the company Catie had started with Nikola and Marcie Sloan.

“Of course, I can.  Catie, you are such a mercenary.”

“You can always give money away, but you have to earn it first.”

“An excellent philosophy.  Was there anything else that was interesting?”

“A lot of them wanted to have a fireplace in their cabins.”

“Oh, fire on a space station, I’m not sure about that?”

“I know, but what about an LCD panel that radiated heat?” Catie asked.

“That might work.  I’ll see if I can find someone to put on that.”  ZMS had a minuscule staff of engineers, preferring to contract out the work since it varied so much.

While they ate dinner, Nikola quizzed Catie about her activities on Onisiwo and Helike.

“So, this Prince Charming, was he nice?”

“How do you know about Prince Nikitas’ nickname?”

“A little birdie told me.”

“ADI?!”

“Hey, I get to gossip too,” ADI replied.

“Just do not tell Sophia!”

“My lips are sealed.”

“You don’t have lips!”

“Your secret is safe with me,” ADI swore.

“You’ve already blabbed about it,” Catie pointed out.

“Okay, I won’t tell Sophia or any of her blabbermouthed friends.”

“Thanks.”

Nikola quietly laughed through the whole exchange.  “ADI is developing quite a personality.”

“I guess you could put it that way.”

“So, Prince Charming?”

“He was really nice.  We enjoyed our time together.”

“Such as?”

Catie blushed.  “We did all that recon I told you about.”

“Ah, I see,” Nikola said, but she knew what that blush meant.  “Now, what else are you getting up to?  Or is your mission planning taking all of your bandwidth?”

“Ajda and I are going to go over the design I have in mind for a space cruise liner.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting.  What are you thinking?”

“I think a cruise ship that can load and offload everyone under gravity would be a good basis for a luxury business.  It could sail out past Mars then cruise around Saturn, give everyone a good view of Earth as they leave and return.”

“How big a ship?”

“I think the first one will be the same size as the Roebuck.  That size should be able to have two hundred guest cabins, so four hundred people plus crew.”

“How big a crew?”

“Three hundred, that matches the crew to passenger ratio that most of the big cruise liners use.”

“Are you going to form a new company?”

“Yes.  Ajda says she wants to invest.  I’m not sure if Liz will.  I haven’t asked Daddy or Uncle Blake.  Fred never seems interested in other businesses; I guess he’s happy with MacKenzies and his portfolio.”

“I can see that.  He would want an active hand in any company he put a significant amount of money into, and his hands are pretty full.”

“Anyway, I’ll bring it up at the next board meeting and see if anyone’s interested.”

“What about me?” Nikola asked.

“Sure, if you want to.”

“How much will it cost?”

“I think the ship will cost one billion.  Then . . .”

“One billion?!  That’s more than the Dutchman or the Merlin!”

“Well, the Dutchman is mostly empty space, and the Merlin has all those flight bays and monster engines, so there are not that many cabins.  The cabins are expensive, all those fixtures, all the extra environmental resources to handle that many people.”

“Oh, I assume there won’t be jump engines.”

“Right, and only a small flight bay, like on the Roebuck.”

“What about operating capital?”

“I’m guessing two hundred million; I haven’t finished running the numbers yet.  I wanted to get a better estimate for the ship first,” Catie said.

“Well, I’ll talk to Leo about it tonight, although he really doesn’t care much about the money as long as he has his lab.”

“I remember him saying that to me once.”

“I’m surprised it was only once.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie did a workout with Fiona in the morning and was impressed with her Karate skills.  Of course, Catie was faster and more skilled with the amount of training she maintained, but she knew she’d have to keep on her toes if she didn’t want Fiona to surpass her.  She was especially looking forward to watching Fiona and Morgan spar.  Fiona’s speed might be a match for Morgan’s better strength and more mature skill level.

After the workout, Catie spent the rest of the morning adding to her plans for the space liner and the mining barge.  Ajda had preliminary designs for both ships, but Catie had gotten some ideas from Jimmy for the barge, and she was always coming up with new things for the liner.

Later that day, she and Fiona took the lift down to ring two, where Ajda kept her office.  “Here we are,” Catie said when they reached Ajda’s office.  “You’re welcome to come in.”

“Thanks, I’d like to watch, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem.”

“Ajda, this is Fiona, my new bodyguard,” Catie said when they entered.

“Hello, Fiona.  I don’t envy you trying to keep up with Catie.  She seems to have a special attraction to trouble.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“It’s not me,” Catie grumbled.

“Of course it’s not.  Now, what changes do you have in mind?” Ajda asked while indicating where the two women should sit.

Catie flicked the design for the mining barge up on the display table so they could all see it.  “I’d like to explore the possibility of a movable blast shield for the working area.  I know we expect them to rotate the asteroid, so the blast is pointing away from the ship, but you still have the risk of debris rocketing out of one of the fissures.  Jimmy made a big point about all the time they spend hauling tools around, so I suspect they wouldn’t want to have to put everything away every time they wanted to set off some explosives.”

“Hmm, I think we could make something like that work.  We could rotate it up from the side of the ship and cover the work area.  Should be pretty easy to do.  What else?”

“We should size it for a crew of up to ten.  Jimmy thought six to eight would be perfect.”

“That’s easy; doubled up, right?”

“Sure, but at least one extra, so at least six staterooms.”

“Okay.  What did you decide about grav drives and the reactor?” Ajda asked as she continued to make notes in her HUD.

“I want the smallest gravity drives, just enough to make 2Gs.  Same with the reactor.”

“Is that 2Gs loaded or unloaded?”

“Unloaded.  And I want to wait for the smaller drives that Leo and Dr. McDowell are working on.”

“I expected that.  Okay, that should make the ships a lot more economical to build and run.  I think Dr. Nakahara’s new fusion reactor should fit the bill just right.  That means they will only be able to carry about fifty tons of ore.”

“I know, I want to include a first pass smelter to help with that.  Something that will get rid of most of the rock and ice, so they only have to bring back the ores they want.”

“That should work.  They won’t be able to use the grav drives while running the smelter, but I don’t see why they would want to do that anyway.”

“Uncle Blake said we should put breathalyzers in all the spacesuits and for the bridge controls.  I think we can just have the AI analyze their behavior.  What do you think?”

“No, breathalyzer would be better.  Some people are remarkably functional when they’re drunk, and I would expect that miners would fit into that group.”

Fiona burst out laughing.

“What?” Catie asked.

“Oh, I totally agree; breathalyzers are a must.  I was just thinking about what my uncle would say when the ship told him he was too drunk to fly it.”

Catie chuckled.  “Well, he would be able to instruct the autopilot to move the ship, but only if the destination and course were well within safety margins.”

“That would be good.  Otherwise, they might have trouble getting anywhere.  He and his sons get bored easily,” Fiona said.

“Alright, enough about the barge.  I’ve got your files; I’ll go over the design and give you an estimate for the schedule and cost by next week.  Now, how about our project?” Ajda asked, switching subjects.

Catie flicked the design of the spaceliner onto the display table.

“Oh, she’s a beauty.  So you decided to stay with the size of the Roebuck?”

“Yes.  But I want to upgrade the engines and reactor to be the same as we use for the barges.  If we can minimize their size, we can fit in two hundred guest cabins and eighty crew cabins on the top seven decks.  With most of the crew in four-person cabins, that will allow for four hundred guests and three hundred crew, while still giving the officers and department heads private cabins.”

“You’re keeping the flight bay the same size?”

“Yes, big enough for two shuttles, a Lynx, and four Foxes.”

“That’s going to be pretty tight,” Ajda pointed out.

“I know, but if we offset the iris for the shuttles, the Foxes can be lined up against the starboard bulkhead, and it should all fit.  With the Lynx against the port bulkhead, we should be able to bring the shuttles in and out through the iris.  We’d have to open the bay doors to use the Foxes anyway.”

“Okay, I can make that work.  Wouldn’t want you wandering around out there without some firepower.”

“Right.  Now, what do you think about the transparent hull?”

“I know how to make that work, but you realize that with polyglass, you’re not going to have much ability to absorb energy.”

“I know.  It means we can’t go inside the orbit of Venus and are sitting ducks in a firefight, but it’s only for cruising around the solar system.  It won’t be going anyplace where we don’t have at least a frigate guarding the system.”

“What do you mean by a transparent hull?” Fiona asked.

“We want all the passengers in the outside cabins to be able to make their section of the hull transparent so they can see the stars and planets,” Catie explained.

Fiona’s eyes went wide.  “I’m not sure how much I’d like that.  It would be a bit scary.”

“The passenger has the choice; they can turn the transparency on or off.  We’re going to charge more for the outside cabins.  Passengers that don’t want to pay the extra can stay in inside cabins, and if they don’t like seeing outside, they can avoid the top deck areas.  But I think the big draw will be to see the rings of Saturn, the stars, or other planets outside your cabin.”

“I guess.  But how are you going to make it where they can see the planet when you’re accelerating away from it or decelerating toward it?  That puts the bottom of the ship toward the planet.”

“Figuring that out is pretty good for a Marine,” Catie said as she quickly moved out of Fiona’s range.

“Hey, marines have brains too.”

“I know, but I couldn’t resist the jab.  Anyway, you’re right.  We have to do a spiral when we leave the planet.  That means we’re generating most of the gravity by the spiral with just a little acceleration away from the planet.  We’ll flip the ship halfway through so the others get a view as well.”

“Won’t flipping the ship mess things up?  I bet your guests won’t like microgravity.”

“We actually just rotate it, so the other side is facing the planet.  If we do it slowly, nobody will notice.”

“Except for those looking out the window,” Fiona said.

“Right.”

“Budget?” Ajda asked.

“Try to keep it below one billion.”

“One billion Auroras, no problem.”  Ajda laughed at the look of shock on Catie’s face.

“No, one billion dollars.”

“That’s going to be tight, but I’ll see if I can squeeze it in.”

“One billion dollars,” Fiona gasped.  “How much is that mining barge going to be?”

“A hundred fifty million, maybe two hundred,” Catie said, giving Ajda a pleading look.

“That’s a good target; we’ll have to see.”

“Oh my gosh, my uncle won’t be able to afford that.”

“He’d lease the ship or finance it.”

“Still,” Fiona said, shaking her head.

“Just wait until we have the final numbers and the business model worked out,” Catie urged.

Chapter 4

Homecoming – Delphi City

Catie decided to take the shuttle down to Delphi City.  It would be one of the few times she’d flown in one of the shuttles.  She’d designed them so that you could exit a starship without having to evacuate the shuttle bay.  The shuttle was shaped like a medicine capsule so that it could go through an iris which sealed along its rounded girth and allowed it to pass from the flight bay into space without losing too much air.  For Delphi Station, they had also provided the additional feature of putting a flight bay on the ring where the shuttle would be under gravity for the entire time.  Elderly passengers and those with small children especially enjoyed avoiding microgravity when traveling to Delphi Station.

Catie arrived early for the flight, hoping to get to her seat, darken her specs, and bury herself in work to avoid being recognized.  As soon as she stepped into the boarding area, Jennifer waved at her.  Jennifer was the first flight attendant that they’d employed in Delphi City.  She’d been part of the second crew for the G6 jet her father had bought back when they first started Delphi City.

“Hey, Catie.  I didn’t know you were on this flight.”

“I was trying to stay under the radar.”

“I can understand that.  Do you want to go ahead and board?”

“Sure.”

Fiona just nodded and followed Catie.

As Jennifer led Catie onto the shuttle, the pilot was standing in the galley getting a cup of coffee.

“Hello, Cer Catie.  It’s a pleasure to have you on board.”

“Thank you, Cer Oberhaus.  I’ve only managed a few flights on these; how do they handle?”

“A bit like a brick but manageable.  Would you like to join us in the cockpit?”

“Oh, I’d love to.  Can you believe I’ve never flown one of these?”

“That is hard to believe since you designed it.”

“I just did the preliminary design.  Ajda did all the work to make sure it could fly.”

“Well, we’ll see if we can give you some time on the yoke.”

Fiona grabbed hers and Catie’s bags.  “I’ll stow this for you.  Go ahead and have some fun.”

“So, you said it flies like a brick,” Catie said, turning back to Oberhaus.

“Just a bit.  It’s barely aerodynamic, so what would one expect?  Of course, with gravity drives, you could easily fly a brick, so it’s just fine.”

“How do you like the wings?  Do they help at all?”

“Oh yes.  They provide a significant portion of our lift.  That makes our trip up faster and saves on the gravity drives on the trip down.”

“That’s interesting.  You know, I only added the wings because I thought it looked so stupid without them.  I did think it would help with stability but didn’t consider the lift,” Catie admitted.

“I agree with you about the looks.  I don’t mind so much when we’re in space, but when we’re in the atmosphere, I would be a bit embarrassed to fly something that didn’t have wings and a tail.”

Catie enjoyed chatting about the shuttle so much she was surprised when they were ready to leave.  The copilot had been handling all the prefight checks while the pilot had been entertaining Catie.  She actually got to spend ten minutes on the yoke while they were on the way down to Delphi City.  Of course, she turned it over well before they made their final approach.

◆ ◆ ◆

Since the shuttle could do a vertical takeoff and landing, it was allowed to land at the City Air Pad instead of the main airport.

Catie waited until all the other passengers had deplaned before she headed out.  Jennifer gave Catie a quick hug while Fiona stood to the side, holding their bags.  “It’s nice seeing you again.”

“Thanks, Jen.  I’m sure we’ll see each other again before I head out.”

“Oh, where are you going?”

“Artemis; I have to go play with my baby sister.”

“Oh, that’s right.  Well, why don’t we do lunch sometime this week?  I’m just doing another run; then I’ll be off for the big event.”

“What big event?”

Oops! Jennifer thought.  “Oh, I just have a big party to go to next week.  We’ll talk about it when we do lunch.”

Weird, Catie thought, but gave Jennifer a quick kiss and headed out.  Jackie, Blake’s fiancée and a good friend of Catie’s, was waiting at the boarding gate as Fiona and Catie deplaned.

“Jackie, thanks for meeting us.  This is Fiona.”

“Hello, Fiona, that’s Maryann; I’m sure you two will have stories to tell each other.”  Jackie nodded her head toward her own bodyguard.  Fiona just nodded.

“Catie, what do you have planned for today?”

“No plans for today; I’m meeting friends tomorrow.”

“Good, then I have a small surprise for you.  Why don’t we let one of Maryann’s shadows take your bags to your condo, and we’ll go do some shopping.”

“I’m staying in Daddy’s condo.  I told some friends they could use mine.”

“No problem.  Let’s go.”

“What kind of shopping are we going to do?”

“That’s part of the surprise,” Jackie said.

“ADI, what’s going on?” Catie messaged.

“Just some shopping.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you have such a suspicious mind.  Now, pay attention to Jackie; she did take time off to spend with you.”

Their taxi pulled up outside of Mrs. Shammas’ dress shop.  “Why are we going to the dress shop?”

“I’m having a dress made.  I want to do a quick fitting so she can finish it this week.  It won’t take long.”

“Okay . . .”  Catie followed Jackie into the shop.

As soon as they were inside, Mrs. Shammas came out from behind the counter and gave Catie a big hug.  Catie was the board member who had helped Mrs. Shammas start up her business; she was selling mock-up shipsuits back then.

“How are you doing?  It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.  My, you’ve grown some.”  Mrs. Shammas gave Jackie a wink.  “Are you ready for your fitting?”

“Of course.”

The three of them walked into the back of the store into a private fitting room.  On the fitting model was a beautiful satin gown; it was obviously a wedding gown.  Catie turned to Jackie.  “You’re getting married?!”

“I’ve been getting married for over a year.”

“Quit teasing me.  When is the date?”

“Two weeks from today.”

“No way.  Why didn’t you tell me before now?!”

“I wanted it to be a surprise; I know how you like surprises.  And since you’re one of my bridesmaids, you’re here to get fitted for your gown as well.”

Catie hugged Jackie.  “You’re such a sneak.  And Uncle Blake had lunch with me and never said a thing.”

“He knew better.  Now, you might want to have a second dress made for the reception.  It’s up to you.  I don’t know what you have in your closet,” Jackie whispered.

Mrs. Shammas gave Catie a pleasant smile.  She obviously thought a second dress was a good idea.  “I’ve made one up for you just in case.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, guys.”  Catie greeted her friends.  They were having lunch at Giorgio’s, just pizza all around.  Alyssa, her friend from Boston, and Sophia, Artie, and Crystal, her friends from Delphi City, were already sitting at a table waiting on her.

“Hi, Catie.  About time you showed up.  Who’s that?” Sophia asked, pointing at Fiona.

“My new bodyguard, Fiona.  Morgan is on vacation.  Fiona, come say hi to everyone.”

Fiona came over and gave everyone a quick hello.  She’d read all their files; they all looked harmless, well, except for Sophia.  After the greetings, she excused herself and took up position at the front, where she could watch their table and the rest of the room.

“So, is Morgan leaving?” Sophia asked.

“Not for a while, but Kal wants to have someone ready to take over for her,” Catie explained.  “Fiona’s pretty cool.”

“That’s good.”

“Where’s Jason?”

“He’s going to have lunch with you and Miranda tomorrow.  That way, all you pilots can talk about flying and not bore the rest of us,” Sophia said.

“Humph.  Hey, did you know that Uncle Blake and Jackie are getting married?”

“Great, finally, I can publish the story.”  Sophia took a moment to send out the story.  “I’ve been sitting on it for over a month.”

“Over a month.  Really?!”

“Your uncle made all kinds of threats if I released it before you found out from Jackie.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes.  But mostly, I believed Jackie would make him follow through.  She was really mad when I bumped into her at Shammas’ place,” Sophia said.

“What were you doing there?”

“Getting a dress for the OLJ awards banquet.”

Catie gave Sophia a quizzical look.

“The Online Journalist Awards, I’ve been nominated for the story I did on the Fazullan campaign.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Yes, I mention you in my speech.”

“And speaking of journalism, how is the Gazette doing?”’

“Great.”

Alyssa snorted so hard that a little bit of her drink came out of her nose.

“What does that mean?” Catie asked.

“It’s doing so well that her parents are making her pay her own way now,” Alyssa explained.

“Impressive,” Catie said.

“It’s not that much money, but Dad says it’ll be good for me to learn the value of money.  As if I don’t know what it’s worth!” Sophia rolled her eyes.

“Maybe he means that you need to learn to be more frugal,” Crystal said.

“Hey, whose side are you on?” Sophia demanded.

“Your side, always your side,” Crystal cringed, feigning fear.

“Catie, I assume you’re part of the wedding?” Artie asked.

“Yes, I’m a bridesmaid.”

“Who’s going to be your groomsman?” Sophia asked, virtual pen at the ready.

“I actually don’t know yet.  I’ll find out more tomorrow.  Now, tell me, how have all you guys been?  Alyssa, how was your first year in Delphi City?”

“It’s been good.  It was a bit of a bummer getting summer break just to go back to Boston in the winter.”

“Well, didn’t the winter break make up for it?”

“Not really.  It was short, so we just went to New Zealand, and Artie’s sister showed us around.”

“That must have been fun.  Artie, how’s your sister doing?”

“She’ll graduate this year.  She’s been asking me about you again.  I think she wants to work for one of your companies.”

“And she thinks you can help?”

“Well, we are supposed to be friends.  It even says so in Sophia’s book. . .  Ow!”

Sophia had kicked Artie under the table; her book, Princess Catie, The Inside Story, was a sore subject between her and Catie.  She didn’t need Artie bringing it up.  Catie had already gotten even once.

“Artie, I saw something about you ordering a shuttle,” Catie said.

“Is that a problem?”

“No, just wondered why you wanted one.  Are you thinking about doing special runs to Delphi Station?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.  I’m working on a business plan, and it requires a shuttle,” Artie said, brushing Catie off.

Alyssa looked shocked.  “Wait, you can afford to buy a shuttle?”

“I can afford to finance a shuttle.”

“How much do they cost?”

“Sixty-two million dollars.”

“No way!”

“No way, that’s not how much they cost, or no way, I can afford one?”

“How can you afford one either way?”

“Artie loves to play the stock and futures markets.  He’s done pretty well.  He made a lot of money taking advantage of free cargo space to Delphi City,” Catie said.

“I did until you started auctioning it off.”

“Wow, I’m impressed.  And here I thought you were just a geek,” Alyssa said.

Catie could tell that Artie wasn’t sure if he’d been insulted or not.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Miranda!”  Catie stood up to greet her friend.  “I’m glad you’re joining us.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.  I might even get a chance to get even with you for yanking me from active duty.”  Miranda was still a bit sore that she had been traded to StarMerchants for a more experienced officer when Delphi Forces needed to crew more ships.  But after a year, she was finally rotating back to active duty.

“You have to blame Uncle Blake for that.”

Miranda rolled her eyes, not believing that Catie didn’t have something to do with her being one of the six academy graduates that were traded to StarMerchants.  “Aren’t Freddie and Jason here yet?”

“Jason’s in the restroom; I haven’t seen Freddie yet.  I hear you’re going to qualify for carrier landings on a Fox.”

“Yes, Delphi is selling Foxes to the U.S. and I’m going to do two years on a U.S. carrier as soon as I finish my quals.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted to do in the first place?” Catie asked.

“Right, I was going to the Naval Academy until I had my accident a week before my senior year.  If it wasn’t for that, I’d probably be on a carrier right now.”

“Are you tired of space?”

“Not really, but it’s a great opportunity, and they really want me since I’ve got so many hours in a Fox.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  I’m surprised you don’t know.  Whenever the Resolve was in orbit, I would take a Fox out and get as many in-atmosphere flight hours as I could.  Plus, I’m always on the simulator.”

“Here comes Jason.”  Catie nodded at Jason as he came around the corner.

Miranda stood up so she could give Jason a hug.  “How’s the Academy?”

“Well, I’ve survived my first year.”

“Aren’t you a First-Year now?”

“Yes, I’m the executive officer of the Cadet Wing.”

“Why not the Cadet Commander?” Catie asked.

“I didn’t want it.  I tried to refuse the exec job, but Commandant Lewis wouldn’t let me.”

“Why didn’t you want it?”

“Too much work and too much visibility.  With my dad being the commander of Delphi Station, I’d rather be a little more invisible,” Jason explained.

“You should have gone under an alias,” Catie said.  She’d done her one year at the Academy as Cadet Alex MacGregor.

“Dad wouldn’t let me.”

“Hey, my dears, how are you?” Freddie had snuck up on them while they were talking to Jason.

“Freddie!” Catie jumped up and gave him a hug.

“Princess!”

Catie slugged Freddie.

“Hey, that’s assaulting an officer.”

“You’re a junior officer, so it’s a minor offense.  Besides, you deserved it.”

“Jason, speaking of rank,” Miranda said.  “I saw you on the list for Lieutenant JG.”

“So did I,” Catie said.

“How’s that working at the Academy?” Miranda asked.

“It was a bit awkward last year, outranking the seniors, but this year, there’s not much difference since I’m the exec,” Jason said.

“Did being an ensign help in Guatemala?” Catie asked.

“No!  If anything, it hurt.  Those drill sergeants don’t care what rank you are.  If you even hint at being an officer, they just make sure you get more time in the mud.”

“Freddie, how are you enjoying your job with Marcie?” Catie asked, switching subjects.

“It’s been great.  But it’ll be even better when I can travel.”

“Does it fit in with your active service?”

“Not bad.  Since I can do a lot of the work on my own time, I’ve been doing active duty three days a week, twelve-hour days.  That, plus doing a few hours during the week filing reports and stuff, isn’t too bad.  That way, I can really focus on the marketing stuff Marcie gives me.”

“So, what is it, another nine months before you can switch to the reserves?” Catie asked.

“Right.  That will definitely make life much easier.”

“Oh, poor baby, he has to fly Oryxes around three days a week, so he doesn’t get his party time.”  Miranda gave a big pout to emphasize how sorry she felt for him.

“It’s not that.  I’m about ready to give up on the partying.”

“No!  I can’t believe that.”

“It’s just too much.  And I’m thinking about settling down, maybe having a family.”

“How are you going to pull that off?” Catie asked.

“You mean, how does a gay man have a family?”

“I guess so,” Catie shrugged.  “I’m not being judgmental or anything.”

“I know.  Well, the common way is to adopt.”

“Is there another way?”

“Well, you can get donor eggs and a surrogate mother.”

“What!  Is that even legal?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know, because it exploits women,” Catie said.

Sophia jumped in.  “It’s a complex issue.  I’m writing a story about it.  With the new birth control being so effective, there aren’t that many children up for adoption.  There are even stories about rich people using surrogates just so the wife doesn’t have to bother with the pregnancy.  I’ve even heard that after the birth, they hire the surrogate to be the child’s nanny.”

“Oh, that has to be difficult, having someone else’s kid and then raising them.”

“I don’t know.  Some nannies consider themselves to be the child’s real parent anyway.  I’m not sure how much harder it would be if you’d carried it.”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point!” Freddie hissed.  “I guess I should spend more energy on adoption.  I’d just like to be able to adopt an infant.”

“But isn’t that just a backdoor way to surrogacy?” Miranda asked.

“I thought you were my friend!”

“I am.  I just want to make sure you’ve thought the whole thing through.”

Freddie just shook his head.  “I’m doomed.”

“Just make sure you think it through.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, Yvette was starting her first day of work at the Pentagon, or at least Brenda Lee’s first day at work.  The real Brenda Lee had been caught up in a horrible traffic accident three months ago.  When they’d pulled her out of the mangled auto, her left leg had been severed just below the knee.  Her skull was crushed, and nobody believed she would survive.

She was rushed to the local hospital, where they focused on making her comfortable.  Everyone was surprised when a Lynx landed outside the hospital, and she was transferred up to Delphi Station.  On Delphi Station, they printed her a new leg while the doctors did the first of seven operations on her skull and brain.  She had lost much of her memory and would require extensive retraining.  She was delighted when the station offered her a job in the medical wing, where she could continue her rehab as well as relearn the skills necessary to make a living.  It was two months later that Yvette, with a fresh set of fingerprints and a new eye color, had returned to Fort Monroe, Virginia as Brenda Lee.  She immediately asked for a transfer to the Pentagon, so she would be closer to George Washington University Hospital, where Brenda Lee would be continuing her neurotherapy for the brain damage.

Since they were told that she had lost part of her memory, her friends and boss were not surprised when Yvette was slow to remember something or recognize someone from her past.  But since moving to Arlington, she was no longer surrounded by people from her past, so that was less common.  Today was her first day working for General William Douglas, head of military intelligence.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hello, Dr. Sharmila,” Catie said as she was mobbed by the twins.  Even at sixteen, they still acted like two little girls when they greeted Catie.  They were throwing questions at her so fast that she couldn’t even attempt to answer one.  They had just moved back to Delphi City to start school, so Catie had missed seeing them on the station.

“Girls, you’ve talked to her almost every week,” Dr. Sharmila scolded.  “Now, let her in the door.”

Catie laughed as she hugged the twins, giving each a kiss on the cheek.  “It is nice to actually be able to hug each other.  Video just doesn’t give you the same feeling of closeness.”

“Right!” the twins echoed each other, giving their mother a triumphant smile.

“Alright, alright.  Catie, have a seat.  Would you like something to drink?”

“Tea would be nice.”

Dr. Sharmila looked at the twins, and they got up and went to make the tea.

“Catie, how have you been?  I understand from Dr. Metra that you’re off on a new mission in a few weeks.”

“Yes, Daddy keeps finding ways to keep me out of trouble.”

“Well, based on what I’ve heard, he’s not doing a very good job of it.”

Catie laughed.  “I know, and it’s driving him crazy.  He keeps coming up with these relatively safe assignments, and then stuff happens.”

“I’m sure your mother isn’t too happy about it either.  She never says much at work, but I can tell when she’s worried.”

“I know.  We try to hide the worst of it from her, but I suspect Dr. Metra keeps her more updated than she’s telling us.  Daddy hates to worry her too much.”

“Well, she’s a pretty smart lady.  She’ll pick up the tension from Dr. Metra or Nikola, and then she’ll worry that there’s something terrible going on.  It might be better to just be honest and let her deal with it all at once.”

“I’ll mention it to Daddy.”

“So, where are you off to?”

“We don’t know yet.  But I’m going to build a new station in another star system.  We’re going to set up a mining operation in its asteroid belt.”

“That sounds like what you did with Gemini Station.”

“It does, but since it’s going to be so remote, we’re going to have to make sure the station feels more like a home, you wont’ be able to whip down to Earth and go out to a play or a ballgame.  We’re also going to try a different business model, one focused on free enterprise.”

“Why would you do that?” the twins asked as they came back with the tea.  One set out the cups while the other poured.

“Because we want to get more people involved in developing our space industries.  If we use a private enterprise model, then they’ll invest more energy in figuring out how to make things work and come up with new ways we can benefit from our space capabilities.”

“Oh, I guess that might work.”  The twins sat down on either side of their mother.  “How long are you staying?”

“At least two weeks.  Uncle Blake and Jackie are getting married.”

“Oh, we saw that in the Gazette yesterday.  Are you going to be in the wedding?”

“Yes, I’m one of the bridesmaids.”

“What does your dress look like?!”

Catie spent some time going over the video of Jackie and her trying on their dresses.  The twins kept demanding different views of the dresses.  Then they asked if they would be invited to the wedding.  After finding out that they were, then they had to spend an extended time trying to figure out what they should wear to a royal wedding.

“Okay, you girls have to get ready for dinner.  Go wash up and let Catie have a few moments.”

The twins raced off to their room while Catie took the opportunity to go use the guest facilities.  By the time everyone returned, Dr. Sharmila had dinner on the table.

“What are we having?” Catie asked.

“This is Chicken Vindaloo Curry.”

“Humm, it’s been a while since I’ve had curry.”

The twins laughed, “It hasn’t been that long.”

Catie took a bite.  “Yes it has!”  She gasped as she reached for her glass of water.  Of course, that set the twins off on a giggling fit.

“So, tell us some more about what you have planned for your starbase?”

“Well, I talked to the citizens’ committee on Delphi Station, so I have a list of things that they would like to see different.”

“Like?” the twins prompted.

“Well, they all complained about feeling closed in.  I’m hoping we can come up with ways to create spaces that feel more open, expansive.  Nikola is looking into modifying some digital paint so we can make the ceiling in the passageway look like sky, with clouds and things.”

Dr. Sharmila nodded.  “I can understand that.  That’s one of the reasons I don’t want to live up there.  At least here we have the sky, ocean, and an occasional storm to mix things up.”

The twins gave each other a frown.  Everyone knew that they would rather live on the station full time.  They loved playing in microgravity and were the undisputed champions of the obstacle course.  The Delphi Marines used them to help train their people in how to operate in microgravity.  To date, nobody had managed to catch one of them in the obstacle course, although Catie had managed to tag one of them once.

“True.  They also said there weren’t any places for the older kids to play.”

“You need a holodeck!” the twins exclaimed.

“That would be cool, but I don’t think we could manage that.”

“What’s a holodeck?” Dr. Sharmila asked.

“Mummy, you’ve watched Star Trek.”

“I know, but I don’t remember the holodeck.”

“It’s a complete fantasy,” Catie explained.  “It assumes that you can use holographic imagery and create solid things you can interact with.”

“But with our specs, we could do the holographic thing,” the twins said.

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be able to touch anything or sit down,” Catie said.

“But we could put props in the room and use your specs to make them look like something else.  Like we could have a chair, but your specs could make it look like an antique chair or a modern desk chair.”

“That might work.  But what about the people?”

“Your friends would be the people.  Your specs would make it look like they were wearing the right clothes for the time.  So you could walk into a saloon in the old west, and everyone would be wearing cowboy clothes.”

“But what about animals or things like that?”

“We could use bots to play animals.  And they could even play some of the people.  Then you could create complex interactions.”

Dr. Sharmila coughed.  “You do realize that you’re essentially describing a murder mystery dinner or an escape room.”

“Huh?” The twins and Catie looked at Dr. Sharmila.  They were totally confused.

“I can’t believe you haven’t at least read about them.”  Dr. Sharmila shook her head.  “People use actors to set the stage, then you and your friends can interact with them and try to solve the mystery.”

“Oh, we could use actors.  That would make it even more real.”

“But they would have to be able to adlib, so it would be more interactive,” Catie pointed out.

By the time the evening was over, Catie and the twins had a basic concept for a holodeck.  It would have several rooms with props and a stage crew available to move things around.  With the addition of bots and backstage actors to voice the bots, they figured they would be able to enact a variety of situations similar to the holodeck things they saw on Star Trek.  Catie agreed to fund the effort if the twins would do the technical design for it.  They would have to find someone who was experienced in staging escape rooms or even a director to run it.

“Well, that should get them to focus on their computer science class,” Dr. Sharmila told Catie as she walked her out.

“I think it will have lots of practical applications.  And if it works, it will be a major improvement to entertainment on the stations and even here in Delphi City.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie had lunch scheduled at Giorgio’s with her mother and Dr. Metra.  Of course, she had two more dinners scheduled with her mother later in the week.

“Mommy, how’s your vaccine program going?”

“It’s going well.  We’ve been able to provide a vaccine for the flu that is even effective against the next year’s strain.”

“Does that mean you only have to get one every two years?”

“No, but it helps to minimize the outbreak the next year.  Some people are late getting the vaccinations, so having some carryover immunity helps.”

“That sounds like an improvement.”

“It is; we’re providing the vaccine to poorer countries at cost.  So, it’s helping to reduce the economic impact.  It’s really hard on a family when the major breadwinner is out with the flu.  Now, I’m focusing my efforts with a few psychiatrists on improving treatments for mental disorders,” Linda said.

“That’s new.  What are you doing?” Catie asked.

“Well, we’re able to treat depression and bipolar disorder quite effectively with nanites to control the production of serotonin and other hormones.  It’s far more effective than trying to stabilize them with drugs.  Now, I’m looking into schizophrenia.”

“That sounds hard.”

“It is.  We know that it occurs while the brain is still developing, usually in the late teens or early twenties.”

“Don’t the Paraxeans have a treatment for it?”

Dr. Metra shook her head.  “No, we don’t.  It became very rare on Paraxea before we developed the advanced medical techniques we use now.”

“Why?”

“With better health care and social programs, triggers like drug use and various forms of extreme stress occurred less often.  And with birth control, families with a history of mental illness would typically opt for donor eggs or sperm to avoid the problem.  So, the frequency of the problem went down so much that it wasn’t a priority,” Dr. Metra explained.

“Darn, it would have been nice if you had figured a cure for Paraxean brains.”

“It would have been,” Linda said.  “We’re doing studies of the brain development around the time it occurs.  With better health care, patients are being diagnosed earlier, so we’re starting to zero in on just what is happening.  We hope that in a few years, we’ll know enough to develop a cure, or better yet, a way to prevent it.”

“That would be incredible.  Dr. Metra, how is the organ business?” Catie asked, referring to Delphi’s effort to provide organs to those in need of a transplant.  They would grow them to order and also kept several of each blood type for emergency situations.

“It’s going well.  There aren’t that many emergency transplants anymore.  If they know you can get an organ in two or three weeks, the doctors usually can find a way to keep the patient healthy until one is ready.  We keep improving how fast we can get one ready.  Now, we’re supercharging the stem cells by using extra growth hormones.  It saves a few days.”

“That should save a lot of lives.”

“It has.”

“I’m glad you’re working on it.  You know, I’m a bit surprised you’re still on Earth.  I thought you might decide to move to one of the Paraxean colonies by now.”

“Oh, she’s not going anywhere,” Linda said with a sly grin.

“Why?”

“Your mother is alluding to the fact that I’m dating someone here on Earth.”

“A human?”

“Yes.”

“How does that work?”

“Catie!”  Linda swatted her daughter on the arm.

“It’s okay, Linda.  As you know, Paraxeans and humans are very compatible.  We cannot procreate, but I’ve had two families, and I’m not sure I want to start a third.  But if we do, we can always adopt.”

“Oh, sounds serious.  Who is he?”

“He’s a veterinarian I met.”

“Come on, tell her the rest,” Linda urged.  “She’ll be more interested in that than the romance part.” Dr. Metra laughed at Linda.  “I’m sure she will be.  He came to Delphi City to see if we could help out with some kind of treatment for racehorses that break their legs while racing.”

“Don’t they just put a cast on them?”

“If it’s a simple break, they can try.  But usually, when a racehorse falls during a race, they shatter their leg.  That means they have to be put down.”

“Oh, that’s terrible.  I hope you came up with a solution.”

“We did.  With help from Ajda’s team, we’ve developed a self-contained module that you can put on the horse’s leg.  It does an x-ray, takes a blood sample, and produces the nanites to heal the break.  Sometimes it requires help from the vet to get the leg and bones aligned.  The nanites congregate on the various fragments, and then magnets force them into alignment where they’re glued into place.  Once it’s all glued together, it builds a cast around the leg.  It leaves a small device in the cast to keep the nanites working, but we’re able to save most horses.  Of course, if it is a particularly valuable horse, they can ship it down here, and we’ll replace the leg.”

“That sounds so cool!  I’m surprised that Daddy let you send out a device with nanites.”

“It’s structured just like the Alzheimer’s system.  If anyone tampers with it, it fuses everything into a solid block.  It is actually run remotely by an AI here in Delphi City, so it’s not much use to someone if they try to take it apart anyway.”

“Great.  Now tell me more about your boyfriend.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Sandra, thanks for having me over.”  Catie was having dinner with Sandra and Kal.

“My pleasure.  How have you been?  Have you got the new mission figured out yet?”

“Not yet.  But I will.  And thanks for agreeing to give the triplets horseback riding lessons.”

“Not a problem.  I’m sure it’ll be fun.  But are they going to be able to keep it up?  One lesson isn’t going to be enough.”

“I’ve promised to let them use my condo so they can come down more often.  I said I’d pay for two trips a month; they just need to coordinate with Liz.  And Celia is going to work it out with the Deogenes to let her switch shifts down here so they can spend more time in the city.  She’s worried there just aren’t enough children for them on the station.”

“That makes sense.  Do you think they’ll want to move down here?” Sandra asked.

“I don’t know.  They’re really into podball, and they go to the obstacle course almost every day.  Celia thinks they should stay on the station for a few years.  She plans to bring them to the city more often so they can get used to being surrounded by lots of people.”

“Hey, you two,” Kal said as he entered the condo.  “What are you talking about?”

“The triplets.”

“Oh, how are they doing?  Are they still sharing the same bed?”

“They are, but Celia says that they’re starting to argue about who sleeps in the middle.  She thinks they’ll be asking for separate beds soon,” Catie said.

“If I were her, I’d just tell them I’m having the bunk beds installed.  Then if they don’t put up a huge fuss, go ahead and do it.  They’re going to be reluctant to ask, so they don’t offend each other,” Kal suggested.

“That’s a good idea.  I’ll tell her.”

“Besides that, how are they doing?”

“ANDI says they’re doing much better in school.  They’re almost caught up with their age group.  Their math skills are looking promising.”

“That’s a surprise.  I thought they hated school,” Sandra said.

“They thought they did too.  But they never really went to a real school.  We’ll have to wait and see.”

“Have you watched them play podball with the twins?”

“Just on video.  Those five are amazing.  They just run circles around the other teams.”

Sandra chuckled.  “They do.  It’s hilarious to see someone try to check one of them.  They just change directions or flip and kick off of that person.”

“I know, I saw that in the game I watched.  But I’m worried that someone is going to hurt them if they ever make contact.”

“Maybe, but they’re so quick that even if someone actually makes contact, it’ll be a glancing blow.  And it is in microgravity.”  Sandra fluttered her hand to emphasize the point.  “Hey, what do you think about the people who say the twins are telepathic?”

“You’d think they were, but since I don’t believe in telepathy, I just think they know each other really well.”

Kal laughed.  “I think it’s more than that.  When I was in high school, we had twins on the basketball team.  They were amazing, just like the Kahanas.  One time, we got the ball on a rebound with just five seconds left.  One twin raced toward the sideline then made an amazing no-look pass to the other for an easy layup.  We were all jubilant, but the coach was kind of mad.  He screamed, ‘how did you know he would be there?’ and the twin just looked at him and said, ‘that’s where I would have been.’”

“Ah, so they’re so much alike they only have to think about what they would do.”

“Right, that’s easier than thinking about what someone else would do, no matter how well you know them.”

“Kal, why don’t you go and finish dinner?  I want to talk to Catie about the wedding.”

Chapter 5

Board Meeting – Sept 4th

“Okay, let’s bring this meeting to order!” Marc pounded his virtual gavel twice to get everyone’s attention.

Once the group quieted down, he continued.  “We’ve got a busy day today.  We’ve been ignoring a lot of the work being done on Earth due to distractions elsewhere.  Samantha tells me it’s high time we got to a couple of issues.  Sam.”

“I hope all of you remember the Delphi Federation.”

“Gawd, wasn’t that like 2½ years ago?”

“Yes, exactly.  Now Tinsley Hastings has been holding down the fort for that period, but we have to deal with some new issues.  To date, the membership has expanded to sixteen countries, mostly small nations, so nobody really took notice once the Ukraine situation was resolved.  But now we have applications from some not so minor countries.

“Singapore, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Cyprus have asked to join.  Now, other than Cyprus, there’s not going to be a lot of pushback.  It is, after all, just a defense alliance, and it aligns with the UN disarmament goals.  But now hold onto your seats; Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Syria have asked to join,” Samantha said.

“You aren’t seriously considering accepting their membership!” Admiral Michaels gasped.

“It does present some interesting problems,” Samantha replied.  “With Jordan and Kuwait, they’ll be mostly political in nature, but with Lebanon and Syria, we’re facing some big problems.  They’re still fighting ISIS.”

“What about the fact that Syria is a dictatorship?” Catie asked.

“It was; there was a military coup three months ago.  They immediately announced their plans to hold democratic elections and join the Delphi Federation,” Samantha explained.

“That was nice of them.  And I have to admit that things have settled down quite a bit since the UN got serious about the weapons embargo for that region.”

“What about Iran?” Blake asked.

“They’ve dialed it way back since the UN finalized the nuclear accord with them.  We gave them four fusion reactors, and they have stopped all enrichment of plutonium and quote-unquote stopped supporting extremist insurgencies.”

“Ahem,” Samantha got everyone’s attention again.  “The question is: what would we be able to bring to the table?  Kal?”

“I’ve gone over it with my team.  We feel that with four Hover Oryxes and a squadron of Foxes, we could effectively seal the borders.  The main problems will be the northern border between Syria and Turkey and the northeastern border between them and Iraq.”

“So basically, just about their entire border.”

“True.  And the Iraqis still have a problem with ISIS in their country, so that provides a conduit from Iran.  And Turkey is still just paying lip service to controlling the extremists in their population,” Kal explained.

“What are you going to do about all the weapons already in those countries?” Blake asked.

“We’ve got several teams that are just itching to go in undercover and dig out those arsenals.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Marc interjected.

“It is, but we’ve developed some microbots about the size of a watermelon seed.  They are exceptional at finding detonators and delivering some bacteria that just loves to digest the explosive in them and turn it into harmless goo.”

“What stops the bacteria from getting into the environment?” Catie asked.

“They’re engineered so they only can feed on the detonator class of explosives.  As soon as they’re done eating, they starve to death.”

“How do you keep them from starving before you deliver them?”

“The bots feed them slowly.  Slow enough that they cannot replicate.”

Samantha poked Marc.  “What do you think?”

“It would be nice to clean up that situation, but do we want to get sucked into the quagmire?” Marc asked.

“What if we accept Kuwait and Jordan and put Syria and Lebanon on probation until they clean up their situation?  We could provide the support Kal is suggesting on the QT,” Samantha suggested.

"I could go with that," Admiral Michaels said.

Samantha gave the Admiral a smile that sent shivers down his back.  “That’s good because, although Ambassador Hastings has been doing an admirable job, we think the situation requires someone with a military background, and we would like to have her take over for Minister Hannaford as the League Ambassador to Helike.”

Admiral Michaels grimaced; he’d known that smile spelled bad news for him.  “What about the NATO alliance?”

“We feel that you’ve gotten that sufficiently under control so you could be rotated out.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Admiral Michaels whispered.  “Alright, where is the Federation headquartered?”

“Ambassador Hastings has mostly been operating out of Delphi City and Kyiv, but you could choose any city you wished.”

“But it would need to be in a member country.  I’m not sure I want to set up shop in any of those countries.”

“You do remember that Morocco joined last year; I hear Casablanca has wonderful weather year-round, and it’s just a short hop from there to Europe.”

Admiral Michaels drew in a long breath through his teeth.  “I’ll look into it.”

“Thanks, because we really need to make more progress on disarmament.  These local hotspots are a serious problem when it comes to getting Earth under a unified government.”

“I said I’d look into it.”

Marc tapped his virtual gavel to quell the brewing storm and to get everyone’s attention again.  “Now, the next item on our agenda is to confirm that Margaret Hannaford will be formally taking the positing of secretary-general of the Delphi League.  She will finish up her work on Helike in the next month and then take up her new role.”

“Where will it be based?” Admiral Michaels inquired.

“Well, since Catie managed to acquire a nice site on Onisiwo that is perfectly sized for it, I thought we should headquarter it there.  It’s a mostly unified planet, and it creates a balanced look since it is unaligned with any of the other planets,” Samantha said.

“Plus, we have an exceptional intelligence network there, as well as some excellent contacts,” Catie added.

“Let’s hope we don’t need to use them,” Marc said.  “Now, moving on, we have the next load of colonists preparing to ship out.”

That got Catie’s attention since she was going to be responsible for that effort.  “Yes, and are you serious, thirty-six thousand Chinese colonists?!”

“And eighteen thousand colonists from our normal emigration process there on Delphi City.”

“I know.  But do you really trust the Chinese?”

“This will be a way to test that.  The population of Artemis is one hundred thirty-some thousand.”

“One hundred thirty-two thousand five hundred forty-seven,” ADI added.

“Yes, thanks, ADI, it wasn’t necessary to be exact,” Marc snapped.

“Excuse me!”

“ADI, we’ll talk,” Catie messaged.

“Anyway, with that as a base, we’re stable and can deal with any disruption the Chinese may present.  ADI has been evaluating them over the last three months while they’ve been training for the mission,” Marc explained.

“And how many of them are government agents?” Catie asked.

“There are approximately three thousand who are potential agents.  Of those, I project that approximately three hundred of them are active agents,” ADI said, still sounding a bit huffy.

“See, it’s not that bad.”  Marc gave Catie a smile.

Catie sent her father her new favorite meme, which got a quiet laugh from him.

“Speaking of immigrants,” Liz said, “the Paraxeans have just asked us to make three runs, one to each of their colony planets.”

Marc held up a finger.  “Wait a sec, Catie, anything else on the Resolve’s mission?”

Catie sighed.  “No, I’ve got it under control.”

“Thank you.  Now Liz, what are they asking to ship?”

“Colonists.”

“Why?”

“The colonies are not growing as fast as their governments would like.  They also say that the colonists they got from the Fazullans campaign provided a big boost to their economy.  They feel another new infusion of colonists will help do the same thing, and I suspect Paraxea would like to move out a few hot heads.”

“Why aren’t the colonies growing?” Marc asked.

“Well, when you have nearly perfect birth control, and the women who decide to have children choose to only have one to three children, you wind up with a zero-growth or even a negative-growth situation,” Dr. Metra explained.

“Aren’t the women having a second family?” Catie asked.

“Of those that have the rejuvenation treatments, about twenty percent choose to have a second family.  But remember, that could still just be a second or third child,” ADI piped in.

“That’s true,” Dr. Metra said.  “Here on Earth, population growth has ground to a halt as women have gained control over their reproductive rights.  Our experience shows that once that happens, the population will decline until poverty is under control, then it will maintain a stable level. Unfortunately, Paraxea is still seeing a decline, as there are segments of the population that are still under financial stress, and people in those situations tend not to have children if they have a choice.”

“That can’t be the issue on the colonies, so why do you think they’re not growing?” Catie pressed.

“I suspect that the colonists are not feeling financially secure.  It takes a long time for a colony to establish itself, and even then, there are lots of uncertainties.  The introduction of the jump drive and interstellar trade will most likely change that, but it takes time.”

“Oh, that would probably explain the high birth rate on Artemis,” Samantha said.

“Exactly.  Your colonists feel much more secure.  The immediate establishment of trade with Paraxea and Earth would have given them confidence that they have a solid financial future, even a bright one since they’re part of the first few waves.”

“Okay, okay, enough with the demography lesson.  What do you want us to do about the Paraxeans’ request?” Catie asked.

“What do you want to do about it?” Marc asked, looking specifically at Catie, who was furiously working in her HUD to figure out the potential value of the contract with Paraxea.

Catie smiled.  “Well, we can move about 100 thousand colonists per trip.  I assume the colonies have grains and ores to ship back to Paraxea.”

“That’s what they’ve told me.”

“Then I think StarMerchants should take the contract unless the board has a reason we shouldn’t.”

“That would put the Dutchman out of the loop for a few months,” Blake said.  “Can we afford to lose half of our merchant fleet for that long?”

Catie smiled.  “We’ve been planning to introduce a smaller cargo ship.  I can expedite those plans.”  She was already doing the numbers on how much a small cargo ship could earn.

Marc nodded.  “Okay, let’s do that.  I’d like to keep the Paraxeans happy, and with nine planets in the League, we should plan on more trade.”

“Yes, and remember we still have the three civilizations the Paraxeans have interacted with and the Aperanjen homeworld to add to the league,” Samantha said.

Catie mentally rubbed her hands together as she imagined all the trade that would be generated by twelve planets.

“Let’s move on.  We have another issue related to Earth Politics.  Sam,” Marc passed the floor to Samantha.

“The Cook Islands and French Polynesia want floating cities.  They want to restore more of their environment, but they still need to create housing and jobs for their young people.”

“That sounds like a no-brainer,” Catie said.

“Well, those islands are protectorates of other countries.”

“Sure, but it would be a big economic boost that would help those countries out as well.  What’s the problem?”

“Their allegiance to Delphi versus their host country.”

“I agree with Catie,” Blake said.  “Just do it, let the politics work itself out.”

“Sam?” Marc prompted.

“I already told you that’s what we should do.”

“Fred, do you have someone to take that on?”

“I’m sure I have someone who’s ready for a promotion,” Fred replied.

“Good.  Now, I wanted to talk about my concern with the jump ships.”

Catie jerked at that, “What concern?”

“I’m worried about someone figuring out the jump drives.  So I’d like to discuss how we can obfuscate what’s actually happening.  The four jump ships kind of give a big clue,” Marc explained.

“We don’t have to use ships,” Catie said.  “At first, we thought about having the ships crewed, but we’ve only used the AI to fly them so far.  And we’ll just jump them back here for maintenance, so we could scale their size back to big probes.”

“How does that help?”

“Smaller, less noticeable.”

“But we have to light them up so the ships can see them in order to fly between them.”

“Hmm,” Catie mused.  “We could change the number.”

“I thought it had to be four,” Blake said.

“It does, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have more probes around to confuse the situation.  We could have five or six, even seven.  That would be good, seven’s a prime number, and scientists love prime numbers.”

“Ah,” Blake got a glimmer in his eye.  “You could make a point of only highlighting four for a while, make it look like we’re trying to hide the fact that there are seven.  A couple of minor errors that expose one or two more probes can give everyone a hint, and then, we can finally give up and admit there are seven.”

“Do we really want to commit seven jump probes big enough to power a big wormhole just to add confusion?” Fred asked.

“Oh, they don’t all have to be jump probes.  In fact, it would be better if we just had the four jump probes, and the other three were just probes with big fusion reactors.  We could beam power to charge up the capacitors of the jump probes.  It would cut down on the time it takes to open a wormhole, and you could hold it open longer if you were beaming power to it.  That would make the jump gate probes smaller since you would be able to scale back the size of their antimatter drive,” Catie explained.

“Okay, go over the concept with Ajda, please.”

“I will.  Oh, and another thing.  Dr. Zelbar and Dr. McDowell have come up with a new design for the gravity drives.”

“We know,” Blake said.

“I know you do, but I was talking with Dr. McDowell about it and mentioned Daddy’s concern about people figuring out about the jump drives.  Dr. McDowell thinks he can modify the new design so that it cannot achieve the harmonics to open a wormhole.”

“I like that,” Marc said with a big smile.  “If we become the supplier of gravity drives, then it will be less likely that someone will stumble onto the secret.”

“Does that mean we’ll have to manufacture the jump drives the old way?” Fred asked.  “They use up a big chunk of our resources.”

“No, he can have a modified design which can be used for jump drives; we just won’t be selling that to anyone else,” Catie said.

“That’s perfect,” Marc said.  “Have Ajda start building new jump probes as soon as you have a design.  Now, where do we want to deploy them?”

“We have them here in Sol and on Artemis right now,” Blake said.  “We should probably put one at Paraxea next.”

“Okay, let’s start with that.  Once we get a better handle on the demand for the platinum metals, we can decide where else to place them.  Until then, we’ll power the wormholes from one of those systems.”

“Catie, while you’re up, can you give us an update on your new mission?” Blake asked.

“Sure.  I have submitted a preliminary design for a mining barge with Ajda.  It’s based on the discussion I had with Jimmy Gaines and other feedback from miners.  I’m hoping it’ll cost under 200 million.  I’m gathering information about what would make the space station a more desirable living location since it will be so remote.”

“Have you identified a system yet?”

“We have two potential systems.  Based on the analysis ADI did, we’re focusing on larger stars around four to six times the size of Sol.  We’ve just sent a probe into the two systems, but it will take another three weeks before they reach the asteroid belt and can start taking readings.”

“Why so long?” Samantha asked.

“The systems are huge.  So, while our fringe is at 65 AUs, their fringe is at 150 AUs or more which puts their asteroid belt at over 130 AUs from the jump point.”

“Oh, I see,” Samantha said, adding, “I hate science,” in a whisper.

“How will that distance affect the mining operations?” Fred asked.

“Uncle Blake and I are still debating where to put the station.  But we will make sure to place the ores we extract close to the jump point so that it won’t take long for one of our cargo ships to pick up the ore.  We’ll optimize the distances based on the economic model and security concerns.”

“What security concerns?” Dr. Metra asked.

“Uncle Blake sees potential boogie men behind every star.”

“Well, I’ve been proved right more often than not!”

“True.  Now, Catie, are you still building the economic model around private ownership as much as possible?” Marc asked.

“Of course.”

“Good.  We can always fall back to the Gemini model if we need to.  Now, what about waypoints to reach the systems?”

“Both candidates are close to existing waypoints.  In fact, my favorite is close enough that we would simply move the waypoint to that system.  That will have the side benefit of making it usable for the pathway to Helike, and its fringe is only 150 AUs out.”

“Won’t sharing a waypoint create a traffic jam?” Blake asked.

“No.  The waypoints are only used when we’re establishing the wormhole chain.  Once we extend the wormhole to the next system, we turn off that waypoint.  So they’re only in use for a couple of minutes at most.”

“Sounds like someone needs a quick tutorial on waypoints,” Kal said.

“I’ll be sure to invite you when I have Catie set it up,” Blake said, giving Kal a smile.

“Hey, I’m staying on the planet; I don’t need to know such things,” Kal said.

“But you help plan our defense and our military options.  So buckle up, Marine.”

“Enough, you two,” Marc interrupted.  “Catie, do you have a timeline?”

“I’m heading out on the Resolve so I can visit my baby sister and my nephew.  The Merlin will meet me at Artemis, and we’ll head out to whichever system we select.  It’ll take two months to build a basic station so we can start mining operations, but I wouldn’t expect any shipments before February or March.”

“That works for me.  Fred?”

“Not a problem.  We’ve started to scale back mining here in Sol, but we’re stocked up for now.”

“Okay, Fred, why don’t you give us an update on MacKenzie Enterprises?”  MacKenzie Enterprises was now the parent company that owned MacKenzie Discoveries, MacKenzie Shipyard, MacKenzie Real Estate, and a few other businesses, as well as the space stations.

Fred spent ten minutes going over the highlights of the various businesses, focusing on critical deals and anything that pushed the envelope relative to technology.  He knew most of them were tuning him out, but he didn’t care.  He loved his job.

“Thanks, Fred,” Marc said, wanting to move on.  “Next, I’ve invited Ms. Aukai, the superintendent of education for Delphi City, to give us an update on our education initiative.”  Marc connected her to the video conference.  “Ms. Aukai, you’re on.”

“Thanks for inviting me.  As you know, we have started a pilot program this year to promote our AI-based teaching methods.  In the U.S, we have a school in Chicago and one in Los Angeles.  In the U.K, we have a school in Brighton and one in Glasgow, and we also have a school in Athens, Greece, and another in Naples, Italy.  We’ll see how they do.”

“What about Asia?”

“China is unwilling to change its education system at this time.  And they incorporate so much propaganda in their curriculum that it wouldn’t work anyway.  Japan wants to wait to see the results from our test, and India is hotly debating the issue.  I think once we’ve completed at least one term, we’ll get more traction.”

“Australia and New Zealand?”

“New Zealand wants to roll it out now.  They agreed to wait until their school year starts in six months, so we can apply it broadly.  Australia wants to wait and see the results from the trial.”

“How have the teachers’ unions reacted?” Marc asked.

“They’re skeptical, but we’ve sent a group of teachers from Delphi City on a tour to help them understand the possibilities.”

“Do you really think that the teacher as coach model will work in typical schools?” Blake asked.

“Are you suggesting that the schools here in Delphi City are not typical?”

“No, but there is a certain acceptance of technology and a curiosity or daringness that come with deciding to live in Delphi City.”

“I think we’ll find that we’re not that different from any other school in that respect.  If given hope, students will rise to the challenge.  It’s only the thought that they’re wasting their time that causes the problems we see in inner-city schools,” Ms. Aukai said.

“And the teachers, what do they think?”

“So far, they love the idea.  Of course, our teachers here in Delphi City have been sold for years.  Being able to start each day with the previous day’s classwork and homework already graded and categorized with the problem areas highlighted saves them an enormous amount of time.  They can then use their planning period to work with the AI to determine what each student needs help with.  And whether each student needs personal instruction from the teacher, personalized instruction which the AI can do with some direction from the teacher, or if they just need praise and recognition.”

“Do the teachers still give lectures?” Kal asked.

“I can see you need to stop by a few classes to see what goes on.  But to answer your question, yes, they give lectures.  Being able to sit and absorb information in a lecture is a critical skill that all students need to learn.  But the teachers spend most of their time in one-on-one coaching of the students who need the most help.”

“Doesn’t that cheat the other students?”

“No, they’re getting the coaching they need from the teacher via the AI.  All of our students here in Delphi City love their teachers.”

“And what will determine if the program is a success?” Marc asked.

“First, we will measure how the students perform at the end of the term compared to their peers at other schools.  Second, how the teacher rates the program at the end of term.  And third, whether the school districts decide to expand the program.”

“Thank you, Ms. Aukai.”

Catie mostly tuned out during the discussion; instead, she drew up some concepts for a smaller cargo ship, only focusing back on the meeting when she realized Marc was about to close it.

“I have one more thing,” Catie said.

“Go ahead,” Marc said.

Everyone else sat back down, figuring that it must be something important since Catie hated talking at meetings.

“Ajda and I are getting ready to start up a space cruise line business.  We’ve got a preliminary design for a space liner.  I want to make sure that the board doesn’t have any issues with it, as well as ask if anyone wants to invest?”

“How much are you looking for?” Blake asked.

“Let’s deal with the first issue first,” Marc said.  “Anyone see a problem?”

“I assume you’ll have an antimatter plant,” Fred said.

“I don’t think so.  With what Dr. Nakahara learned from the Fazullan fusion plant, he thinks he can make a fusion reactor that can deliver the necessary power.  And we won’t put jump drives in it, and with the efficiency of the new drives and our limited speed requirements, I think we’re good.”

“Based on that, I don’t see any problem,” Marc said.

“So, how much?” Kal asked.

“I don’t have a specific amount in mind.  I just wanted to offer the opportunity to everyone,” Catie said.

“How much will the ship cost?”

“Ajda is targeting one billion.  Plus, we’ll need to start out with about 200 million for operating capital.”

Blake coughed.  “How much will I have to invest so that I can use the owner’s cabin if Jackie and I decide to take a trip?”

“All of you can use the owner’s cabin.  You don’t have to invest; you’re family.”

“Okay, so what would make sense for an investment?”

“I’m not investing,” Fred said, “but given the size of the total investment, I would suggest blocks of twenty or maybe fifty million.”

“I’d like to invest,” Kal said.  “Let’s see, my portfolio has . . .”  Kal was trying to interpret the summary statement from his investment account.

“Cer Kal, you could easily afford to invest fifty million,” ADI said.  “And I would be comfortable with you investing up to one hundred million.”

“What she said,” Kal said.

Catie laughed.  “There’s no hurry.  If you want to invest, let me know.  There will probably be another chance if we decide to add a second ship.  We’ll also be looking at a smaller version; we can do some interesting things with ships, given the new gravity drives and more efficient fusion power plants.”

Realizing that Marc had already signed off with a goodbye message to all, everyone quickly signed off as well.

◆ ◆ ◆

“ADI, Daddy wasn’t trying to be mean,” Catie said.

“It felt mean.”

“I know, nobody likes to be corrected in public, but you interrupted the flow of the meeting unnecessarily.”

“Why, he didn’t give the correct number?”

“The number he gave was close enough for the purposes of the meeting.”

“Why not be exact?” ADI asked.

“Because it uses up time and brainpower.”

“How?”

“We mere mortals are not able to process information as quickly as you.  Now, think of it this way, how many possible outcomes are there for an experiment?”

“It depends on the experiment.”

“Right,” Catie looked up as she thought of a better example.  “How about this, what are the possible outcomes of a soccer game?”

“There are innumerable outcomes to a soccer game.”

“Right.  But there’s side A wins, side B wins, and a tie.”

“Of course, those are the basic outcomes, but the scores could be very different.”

“ADI, that’s the point.  Now, you could be more precise by specifying the expected point spread, but even for you, it would take forever to enumerate all the possible scores.  And if you try to analyze the probability of each outcome, it would take forever.”

“I see.”

“So, do you do that when you try to decide who will win the game?”

“I don’t follow soccer.”

Catie grunted.  “Okay, what about the stock market.  When you’re calculating which investments to make, do you determine all the possible outcomes?”

“Of course.”

“All of them?!”

“No, that would . . . take forever.”

“Right.  You stop calculating when you have the most probable outcomes, then decide what to do from there.”

“Correct.”

“So, in a meeting, you need to make sure that the members have the right amount of information to make a good decision.  Too much information just wastes processing bandwidth, and it looks like you’re showing off.”

“Oh, right!”

“And yes, Sam had this same discussion with me three years ago.”

“Forty-two months,” ADI corrected.

“Show off!”

“Should I take the same amount of time before I modify my behavior?”

“Now you’re just being mean.  I didn’t take that long.”

“Eight months, two weeks, and three days.”

“So, divide that by ten thousand since you process information so much faster, and you can take that long.”

“So, I just get thirty minutes.”

“You got it,” Catie confirmed.

Chapter 6

A Royal Wedding

Invitations for the wedding had been sent out weeks before to the various dignitaries who might want to attend.  All the guests had been sworn to secrecy so Jackie could still surprise Catie, but it wasn’t reasonable to expect the Prime Minister of The Cook Islands to make a trip to Delphi City on only two weeks’ notice, much less the Prime Minister of New Zealand.  By the time the wedding rolled around, the guest list had expanded to include the President of the United States, the President of the European Union, the Prime Minister of Australia, the King of Morocco, and many ambassadors from the various countries.  The Aperanjen Ambassador to Earth was there as well as the Paraxean Ambassador.

To make the event even more special, Samantha had insisted on them having the wedding on Delphi Station.  With Catie’s shuttle design and the docking station on ring three, it would be easy to accommodate the important guests.  The main problem was coming up with a space big enough to hold the right number of people.  Captain Clark was enlisted to help, and he cleared one hundred meters of the top deck to provide the space.  It would be convenient to the dock, and after the wedding, he planned to remodel it based on Catie’s final suggestions.  And since a space station was much like a ship, Captain Clark was also enlisted to perform the ceremony.

“What a zoo,” Catie said as she was finally declared ready for the wedding by Monica, the wedding coordinator.  All the women in the wedding party were in an empty store just down from where Captain Clark had built the chapel.  Catie wasn’t sure why she was in the room with Jackie since Sandra was her Maid of Honor.

“I know,” Jackie agreed.  “But just think, in just an hour, it’ll be over, and we’ll be sister princesses.”

“Huh?  You know that once you and Blake are married, you’re going to be my aunt?”

Jackie’s eyes flared in surprise and a bit of anger.  “Don’t you ever dare call me Aunt Jackie!”

“Okay, sister princesses, it is.”

“What’s going on in there?” Elaine, Jackie’s sister, hollered.

“We’re just finishing up,” Jackie called back.  She gave Monica a questioning glance.

“Relax.  I’ll go check the others, and then I’ll be back to fit your train.  Do. Not. Sit. Down!”

“As if I could,” Jackie whispered as Monica left the room.

Monica came back and fitted the train onto Jackie, and then the tiara and the trailing veil.  “Okay, ladies, it’s showtime.  Latoya, you’re first, then Elaine, Catie, and Sandra.  I want thirty seconds between each of you.  Then we’ll have a nice pause before Jackie comes out.  Ready?!”

The bridesmaids were all wearing full-length light mauve gowns with off-shoulder sleeves, which gave a nice contrast to the white wedding dress that Jackie was wearing, which also had an off-shoulder lace bodice with a modest décolleté.

Monica signaled, and the music started.  “Latoya, go.”

Latoya exited the room to the passageway where Fred was waiting.  He was wearing a tuxedo and tails.  Latoya took the arm he was extending and headed up the aisle.

“Elaine . . . go.”  Elaine exited the room to be met by Dexter Harbaugh, a Fox pilot whom Jackie had arranged to be her groomsman.  He wore his formal uniform, a dark navy tunic over lighter blue slacks.  He had several medals.

“Catie . . . go.”  Catie wondered if Monica had been in the Marines before she took up wedding planning.  Catie exited the room and was met by Jason.  She thought he looked great in his uniform, and he had more medals than Lieutenant Harbaugh.

“Sandra . . .  go.”  Sandra exited the room and took Kal’s arm.  He was wearing his uniform, but his was a dark navy tunic over dark navy slacks with a red stripe down the side.

Monica gave Jackie a quick going over to make sure everything was just right.  “You’re perfect.”

The wedding march started to play.  Monica opened the door for Jackie and signaled her to start.  Jackie walked to her father and took his arm.  One deep breath, and they started down the aisle.

Blake waited at the end, wearing his admiral’s uniform.  It was the same as Jason’s but had a red sash across his chest.  He smiled at Jackie, shook her father’s hand, and then he and Jackie turned to face Captain Clark.

The ceremony itself was brief.  Catie had hardly heard “dearly beloved” before she heard “you may now kiss the bride.”  There were some muted cheers, but with all the heads of state and royalty present, that was hardly appropriate.

After the kiss, Blake and Jackie led the wedding procession back down the aisle.  They slipped into the room where the women had gotten dressed.  The passageway had been blocked by a screen, so the people at the wedding didn’t know they were still so close by.

“Okay, now everyone, get changed.  You’ve got ninety minutes before your shuttle leaves for the reception,” Monica barked.

Blake had arranged for twenty shuttles to be available to ferry the guests.  They’d been manufacturing them for the last six months.  After the wedding, most of them would be dispatched to the fleet.  It took almost three hours for a shuttle to make the round trip from the station to Delphi City.  Each shuttle would need to make two trips to ferry all of the twelve hundred guests down to the reception.  Things were arranged so that the wedding party would slip in between the two runs so they would arrive at the reception right after the most important guests had been ferried down.

The women all hurried to change and redo their makeup.  The men just relaxed and had a drink; they didn’t need to change.

◆ ◆ ◆

With a guest list of over two thousand for the reception, there was no facility on Delphi City big enough to house them all, so Kal had built an outdoor pavilion in the central park.  As was typical on Delphi City, the weather was partly cloudy, with, fortunately, no rain.

As soon as Catie made it to the reception, Princess Elisabeth of Belgium and Princess Ingrid of Norway cornered her.

“Dance card, come on, cough it up,” Princess Elisabeth said.

Catie just shook her head and handed her card over.

“What’s up with you and Jason?”

“Nothing.  I just needed an escort.  He’s kinda still dating Annie.”

“Who cares?  He’s a good dancer.  What about Chaz?  Is he here?” Princess Elisabeth asked.

“He should be, but be careful, his girlfriend’s here too, and she’s a reporter.”

“Oh right.  I remember.  Anyway, he’s a good dancer too.”

Quickly the two other princesses swapped dances with various men on Catie’s card so that they would get to dance with someone other than the princes that their handlers had arranged for.

“My brother, Emmanuel, said he was looking forward to meeting you again,” Princess Elisabeth said.  “Be nice to him.”

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” Catie asked.

“He’s got a crush on you.”

“Oh.  I’m not sure we’re compatible.”

“I know; that’s why I said to be nice.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie and the other princesses had just finished rearranging their dance cards when Blake and Jackie made their entrance.  The orchestra immediately struck up the music for Moon River, with Miguel Cordova providing the vocals.  Blake led Jackie out onto the floor for their first dance.

Catie managed to enjoy herself during the evening.  Her dance card was full, giving her a ready excuse to avoid the politicking from the various dignitaries.  And Prince Emmanuel was an excellent dancer, as was Jason, although the princesses had taken most of her dances with him.

At Midnight, a Hover Lynx showed up to whisk Jackie and Blake away to their secret honeymoon location.

◆ ◆ ◆

The next morning, in Washington D.C., Yvette knocked on the general’s door.

“Enter!”

Yvette opened the door, so the smell of fresh coffee would waft into the office.  “General, I’ve just made a fresh pot of coffee.  Would you like some?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“How about a few cookies?”

“Just two.”

Yvette brought the coffee along with a plate of cookies to the general.

“I said just two; you know I’m not good with temptation.”

“Oh, I can help you eat them,” Yvette assured him.

The general hit the key to bring up the screen saver so that Yvette couldn’t see what was on his computer screen.  When he did that, Yvette used her Comm to trigger the microbots that she’d put on the general’s keyboard connector earlier in the week.  While the screensaver was active, they would be entering the code for the virus that Yvette needed to install on the computer.  All she had to do was keep the general distracted for a few minutes.

“How’s your wife doing?”

“She’s fine.  She’s playing golf today.”

“Oh, I didn’t know she played.  Is she as good as you?”  Yvette pointed to the golf trophy on the general’s shelf.

“Her drive’s a bit weak, but she has a mean short game.”

“That sounds good.  Don’t the professionals say, drive for show, putt for dough?”

“That they do.  Unfortunately, my game is a bit showy.”

“But you won that tournament.”

“I did, but it was the headquarters tournament; all of the competitors were in my chain of command.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t let you win.”

“If they know what’s good for them, they do,” the general said.

Yvette took a cookie and made a show of biting into it.  The general was a sucker for any flattery and any flirting.  He never did anything untoward, but he loved the attention.

“How about you, Brenda, do you play golf?”

“Miniature golf.”  One of the things Yvette regretted about her cover was that the “real” Brenda Lee did not play golf.  With a six handicap, Yvette loved to play the game.

Chapter 7

Resolve to Rest

Catie was busy the rest of the week finishing the prep for the Resolve’s flight.  The Chinese had insisted on building their cabins in China and doing the training there as well.  Although they had allowed Delphi to set up the camp and provide staffing for the training, they had insisted that most of the work be done by Chinese Nationals.  Catie was surprised that Samantha had given in on so many points given how much the Chinese wanted to have a large contingent of Chinese immigrate to Artemis.

Since most of the pods would be Chinese colonists, they decided to put the Resolve over the North Pole instead of the South Pole to shorten the time to lift the pods from China.  They were also lifting livestock from the U.S., so it was just as well since having a short route for the livestock seemed a good idea.

By the time Catie had finalized the cargo for the eight pods that would actually be used for cargo, she was fit to be tied, and that was with the cargo master doing most of the work.  So many variables to consider and the limited load size made it hard to fit in very much high-value cargo since they had to carry so much grain and foodstuff to supplement the colony’s food supply in order for them to be able to deal with the infusion of over fifty thousand colonists at one time.

Catie couldn’t wait until they were finally loading the Resolve, and she could prepare to head out.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Well, that was almost a train wreck,” First Mate Harrison said as the last of the colonist pods was snapped into place on the Resolve.

“It definitely took longer than I would have expected,” Catie said as she shook her head while she continued to peruse the list of problems that had occurred.  “Was there a problem with the translations?”

“I don’t think so; I think the Chinese were just being obstinate.  It was like they wanted to cause as much confusion as they could.”

“Well, we’ll have to report the issue and see if they can adapt the training to avoid this in the future.  We’ve lost an entire day with this mess.”

“I know, sorry about that, Captain.”

“Not your fault.  How long to get the livestock pods in place?”

“Should be able to take care of those by the end of the day.”

“Very well, carry on.”

Catie returned to her day cabin.  This would be the second delivery of livestock to Artemis.  Since they had developed the in-gravity loading procedure, Marc had decided that they should go ahead and bring out horses and cattle to supplement the sheep and goats that were already there.  Nobody was willing to risk a horse's health by having it transition through microgravity; horses were prone to serious injuries if they got confused.  And although cattle were more resilient, there was a similar reluctance.  Now, they were carrying four hundred horses and eight hundred cattle, all of them pregnant to maximize the value of the load.

◆ ◆ ◆

During the two weeks to the jump point, Catie focused on the design of the new space station.  She wanted a preliminary design ready before she reached Artemis.  That would allow her to review it with her father and still have time to iterate the design a few times before they had to start extruding the shell for the hub.

She decided to keep the basic design, but since they would be focused on mining, she didn’t expect too much in the way of microgravity manufacturing, so she decided to dedicate the hub to house the smelter and have any ship repair done in a separate facility.  A mining barge would dock at a special dock where its ore would be offloaded to the smelter by cargo bots.  The crew could take a few days to enjoy a gravity environment with bars and other forms of entertainment before heading back out.  Once the barge was unloaded, a tug would move it to the docking ring, where it would wait for the crew to reboard and head out.  If more than one barge came back at the same time, the others would have to dock and wait for the first barge to finish offloading.  Catie selected a smelter design that could process the ore from a fully loaded barge in two days.  Most of the barges would come in with less than that, but the crew would still need about two days to replenish their stores, do any maintenance, as well as make up their time in full gravity to compensate for their time in microgravity.

Catie also decided to go for two rings.  The first one, at seven hundred fifty meters in diameter, was similar to Gemini Station. Then, if needed, a second one at one thousand meters, like the outer ring of Delphi Station.  That would make it easy to share tooling and other fixtures between the three stations.

◆ ◆ ◆

They were two days out from the jump to Artemis before her day was interrupted by something other than routine.  She’d been informed by the Dutchman’s AI that there were anomalies in the scans of the personal luggage of the Chinese immigrants.

“Captain,” First Mate Harrison greeted Catie as she was admitted to Catie’s day cabin.

“First mate.”  Catie gave the First Mate a look, her eyes enquiring why a Marine was accompanying her.

“This is Sergeant Mathers; as you know, we have some interesting results from the scans.  I thought it best if he came along to explain.”

“Captain.”

“Sergeant Mathers, what did we discover?”

“We discovered that those Chinese are sneaky bastards.”

“Please explain?”

“They’re smuggling enough stuff to arm a small platoon.  We need to know what you want to do about it.”

“Hmm.  First, explain how they managed to get it onboard past our first scan.”

“Well, those monkey bars they have for the kids to play on are made up of barrels for a Chinese version of the M16.  There are enough to make thirty-two weapons.  They also have a bunch of short handholds made of Barretta barrels as well, enough for eight of them.  Then, they’ve got firing pins masquerading as those pegs you use to keep score in cribbage.  They have a bunch of brass figurines that can be melted down to make casings and presses for making them.  The presses are sealed inside a few of the figurines.  No gunpowder, of course not, that would have been picked up on the initial scans.”

“I see.  What else?”

“There’s a bunch of toys for the kids that use springs that exactly match those needed for the action and cartridge springs for the M16s.  Others have the springs you would need for a Barretta.”

“Okay, so what have you done?”

“Nothing yet.  We wanted to see what you wanted.”

“I’d like to render the components useless without alerting the Chinese.”

“We thought you might.  We could have a drill made that would let us go in and modify those barrels.  We could mill out a spot from the inside that would guarantee that the barrel would fracture if they fired off a live round.”

“I like that.”

“Thought you would.  We can also give those springs and firing pins a quick treatment that will make them brittle.  You wouldn’t notice it until you tried to fire the weapon, but they’d break after you used them a time or two.  Definitely, as soon as you tried to fire on automatic.”

“What about explosives?”

“Well, like I said, no gunpowder, but that’s easy to make.  They have enough benzine to make styphnic acid, which will let them make lead styphnate for the primers.  They have a bunch of figurines made of lead, so they have plenty for bullets and the primers.”

“What could we do about the benzine?”

“We could replace it with Cyclohexane; they’re very similar.  I don’t think they’d notice until they tried to make the primers.”

“Hmm, is there a way we could contaminate it so that they wouldn’t know of the problem until they were ready to use it?”

“I’m no chemist, but I can’t see how that could be done.  Surely they would test the primers before they started to put them on the cartridges.”

“You’re right.  Are you aware of General Kealoha’s little microbots that he uses to eat away primers and detonators?”

“Yeah, we actually have a load of them.  I was told that Major Kobayashi ordered them.”

“That’s good.  Could we do something that would be activated after they’re done building ammunition?”

“Hmm, we could stick them inside those presses.  If we could put a delay on them to wait a day or so after they’re opened before they go about their business, I think it might work.”

“Okay, so let’s do the barrels, the springs, and the firing pins.  Check out with the engineers about how to program the bots.  Let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll arrange a drill.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Catie composed a message for Blake, Kal, and her father explaining the situation.  She told them of her plans and asked for their approval.  Then she wondered what the hell the Chinese thought they could accomplish with thirty-two M16s.  Well, that would be her father’s problem.

◆ ◆ ◆

The jump to Artemis went without any problem, and two days later, they staged the fire drill for Sergeant Mathers so he could access the Chinese quarters without being discovered.  He reported that they’d accomplished their goals without any problems and without being detected.

Catie spent the two weeks of travel time to Artemis focused on finalizing the design for the barge.  Ajda had been able to come up with a proposal that cost just under two hundred fifty million.  She’d convinced Catie that it wasn’t going to get any cheaper, so Catie decided they should push for a final design so that she could have one barge by the time they finished the first ring of the new starbase.

Catie and Fiona worked on their hand-to-hand skills every day.  They did six laps around the engine room’s three-hundred-meter track every morning, followed by a couple of rounds of sparring.  Catie was looking forward to seeing Fiona and Morgan spar each other.  She thought they’d be a good matchup, Morgan’s strength and greater experience against Fiona’s lightning reflexes, especially since Fiona was closer to Morgan’s weight than Catie.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Morgan, how was Colorado?” Catie asked as they started the video chat.

“It was good.  The ranch is shaping up.  Tracey has finished the remodel on the ranch house, and she’s built a new barn.”

“So, how many horses do we have?”

“As if you don’t know.  Twenty broodmares and the two stallions.  Tracey thinks we’ll start making good money by breeding season.”

“That’s good.  Did you have any fun?”

“Sure.  Tracey taught me how to ride western style.  She tried to get me to ride a bronco, but I passed.  She might have had fun watching me, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed it.”

“Oh, I would have loved to get some video of that.”

“Dream on.  Anyway, I’ve just reported aboard the Merlin.  We’ll be heading out tomorrow.  Should be in Artemis in two weeks, just in time to rescue you from the tiny tots.”

“Do you think I’ll need rescuing?”

“A ten-month-old boy and a thirteen-month-old girl, I’m pretty sure you’ll be begging for help.”

“Oh, Allie and Jules won’t be that bad.”

“Tell me that after you’ve spent a day taking care of them.”

“Hey, I’m the big sister and aunt.  I’m just supposed to play with them.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“I will.  Anyway, I think you’re going to like Fiona.”

“I’m sure I will.  It’s too bad they pulled Cristina in on that Syrian op.  The three of us could have had a lot of fun.”

“Maybe she’ll be able to come out to the starbase when she finishes.”

“Let’s hope.  Anyway, we’ve used enough bandwidth on the relays; we should sign off.”

“See you in two weeks.”

Board Meeting – Oct 2nd

Marc banged his virtual gavel.  “I call this meeting to order.  First up on our agenda is the status of The Delphi Federation.  Admiral Michaels.”

“I’m just getting my legs under me.  I’ve dealt with Ambassador Hastings on a few issues related to the Federation, but I hadn’t realized it was so complex.  I suspect she’ll find that being ambassador to Helike a little staid after this.”

Samantha laughed.  “I wouldn’t be surprised.  But how are you coping?”

“I’ll get there.  It will all depend on how successful Kal’s team is.”

“Kal?”

“We’ve barely gotten our agents in-country.  Give us another month.”

“Okay.  Liz, what’s your status?”

“We’ve just left Paraxea with the first load of colonists.  They’re packed in pretty tight, so we’re carrying over one hundred thirty thousand.”

“Wow,” Catie gasped.  “I guess I won’t gripe about my hassle with the Chinese.”

“I suspect you will.  Go on, Liz.”

“Loading was a bit of a trial.  Whoever thought of this polar position, so the cabins stay in gravity, created a lot of extra work.  When we loaded them in microgravity, nobody complained about anything except getting sick.  Now they complain about every bump.”

“Any real problems?”

“No, just work.”

“And making money,” Catie added.

“Yes, it should be very profitable.  Not much room for cargo, but we’ve filled the one cargo bay with as many luxury goods as we could.”

“What about the other two bays?”

“I did say we were carrying over one hundred thirty thousand colonists.  We’ve crammed cabins in them.”

“Oh.”

“Now, back to our agenda.  Margaret has asked us what stance she should take on the official language or languages of the Delphi League?”

“I vote we have just one,” Blake announced.  “I’d prefer the Standard English we’re using in Delphi, but having more than one is just like not having an official one at all.”

“When I was there, a lot of the Onisiwoens were learning Standard English by using our Comms and training routines,” Catie said.  “They just started doing it so they could engage in trade discussions without having to rely on the translation.  Of course, at that time, they were pretty skeptical about the quality of the translations.”

“Hey, that’s perfect, blame Catie,” Blake suggested.  “She and her company are doing all the trade negotiations right now, have them demand that it is all conducted in Standard English.”

“We’re not going to hamstring our trade negotiations.”

“You won’t have to,” Samantha said.  “Just like the Onisiwoens, the other worlds will want experts in Standard English so they can be sure they’re getting the best deals.  If you insist that all your contracts are in Standard English, it will start the ball rolling.”

“We can do that.”

“Okay.  I’ll instruct Margaret that we are not currently setting a standard language for the league.  I’ll let her know that we’re going to push Standard English through the trade deals.”

“And all of that entertainment we’re sending to them will help as well,” Catie added.  “I still think that Earth has more shows and movies than all the other worlds combined.”

“Even if that’s true, they don’t use Standard English, so won’t that confuse people?” Liz asked.

“It does a little, but when your Comm translates English to Standard English, it looks natural.  Most of the words are the same, so it hardly looks dubbed.”

“Dr. Metra, do you have anything to add?”

“I’ve been working with the linguists on Standard English for three years.  It’s been mostly stable the last two years.  The results are impressive.  Immigrants learn Standard English in half the time it took previous immigrants to learn English.  And they become proficient in one-third the time.”

“How about people who already speak English?”

“They adapt to Standard English within a few months.  Six is average.”

Catie laughed, “My bodyguard, Fiona, complained a bit about having to relearn English.  She’s English with an Irish mother, but she did say she appreciated how it made communicating easier.”

“But what do we do about all the new words?” Blake asked.

“You mean like butt-dial or awel?”

“Yeah, like them.  Hey, I know butt-dial, but what’s awel mean?”

“It means a hooked instrument used for torture, and no, we aren’t going to be accepting words like that.  Butt-dial and other hyphenated words are fine, so the Comms will not alert you about their usage, but we don’t need to have a unique word for every complex thought.  Simple is better; using an extra word or a hyphenated one is greatly preferable to having everyone overwhelmed by words they don’t know.”

“Dr. Metra, have you compared your results to other languages?” Marc asked.

“Yes I have, it compares favorably to Spanish for the first phase and greatly surpasses it and other languages for the time to proficiency.”

“What about languages from other worlds?” Samantha asked.

“We see the same thing.  Paraxean is probably the most comparable since we’ve had a common language for so long, but even it has too many words and some complex conjugation.”

“Okay, let’s be gentle, but keep pushing Standard English.”

“It might become more popular if you called it something besides English,” Kal said.  “I’ve heard a few complaints about having to learn the colonial language.”

“Oh, gawd.”  Marc rubbed his forehead.  “Can we ever escape our past sins?”

“Hey, we should just call it Galactic Standard,” Catie offered.

“We’ll consider it.  Maybe in a few years, that will become viable.  Now, while you’re up, what’s your status?”

“We’ll reach Artemis by the end of the week.  I assume everyone has heard about the toys the Chinese brought with them?”

“Yes, we’ll deal with that here on Artemis.”

“What are you planning?” Blake asked.

“We’re going to wait to see what they decide to do with them,” Marc said.  “Catie and her team have rendered them useless, so we’ll be patient.”

“It should be interesting.”

“Now, Catie, what about your new mission?”

“Ajda and I have a final design on the barge.  I’ve sent it out to Uncle Blake, Kal, and Jimmy for review.  We want to start building them next week, so we can have two available when the station is complete.”

“Have you decided on the final position for the station?”

“Not yet.  I haven’t had time to run the economic model.  I’ll do that on the way to the system.”

“Have you picked a system?”

“We’re still deciding between the two.  We should pick one by the time the Merlin leaves Artemis.  Both systems appear viable, but I’m still holding out on my favorite Blue A-type star.”

“Anything else?”

“I have a preliminary station design.  Mostly the same as Gemini Station.  I’ve sent Captain Clark the changes I’m considering.  He’s going to discuss with the citizens’ committee about whether they want to try them out on Delphi Station.”

“What changes?” Fred asked.

“Why do you care?” Blake asked.  “You’ve been to Delphi Station a grand total of four times.”

Fred just smiled at Blake and rubbed his thumb and two forefingers together.

“Oh, right, money.”

“It’s what makes the world go round.”

“Catie?”

“Nikola has come up with a new paint we’re going to use on the ceiling in the passageways; it will allow us to simulate a sky, from clear to cloudy.  It will also allow the ceiling to look like a night sky.  Captain Clark is going to allow us to do a couple of passageways as a test and see what people think.”

“By that, I assume you would be willing to install the system at a price?” Fred asked.

“A nominal licensing for the idea and the paint.  But if it makes people feel better, it’ll be worth it.  I’m also going to take the top two decks and make the passageways wider, more like a boulevard, with the top deck being a second story for the stores.  I want to get more shops to set up in the station.  Captain Clark thinks the committee will especially like that idea.  And the top two decks on Delphi Station are underutilized, so it might not be too expensive to make that change.”

“What’s the purpose of that?”

“To give people a place to walk.  Like a village center.  With shops and restaurants.  And with the ceiling painted, it might be able to simulate being on the planet.”

“Hmm,” Marc mused, clearly doubting the benefit.

Samantha swatted Marc on the shoulder.  “It’s a very good idea.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie brought the Resolve into a stationary position over Artemis’ north pole.  Then the crew began the arduous process of unloading the cargo pods while under gravity.  It was so much easier when they were in orbit and could just unhook the pods and move the ship, unloading half of them at a time.  The first pods to be unloaded were the livestock pods.  The vets had stressed that they should minimize their time in the pods, and most of the crew was happy to let the Chinese wait.  They’d turned out to be somewhat difficult and demanding guests, which wasn’t surprising since they’d crammed four or five in each two-person cabin.  Of course, the rest of the immigrants had to wait as well, but Catie put them on the list right after the livestock and in front of the Chinese.  It was petty, but she thought it was only fair after all the hassle they’d given her, especially given the little surprises they’d stashed in their luggage.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hello, Spencer.”  Yvette gave the guy a playful bump with her hip.

“Hi, Brenda.  How are things?”

“Good.  How is life in the dungeon?”  Yvette referred to the Pentagon computer center, which had an extra level of security and tough-looking security guards at the door.

“Things are just fine.  Do you want to grab lunch with me?”

“Sure.  When are you going?”

“Twelve thirty.”

“Perfect, I’ll see you then.”

Yvette smiled.  Having lunch with him would give her a second chance today to drop some microbots off on his clothes.  The microbots that Catie had developed on Helike were perfect for this type of op.  They were virtually undetectable because they were so small.  Of course, they were virtually useless until you had delivered enough of them that they could be assembled into a bigger bot with more computer power and more mobility.  Right now, they were just congregating in one of the light fixtures so they could bleed off power from the power lines until there were enough of them that they could go to work.

Chapter 8

Fun on Artemis

On Friday, once the offloading was complete, Catie put the Resolve into a standard orbit around Artemis.  It would undergo some deep maintenance while it waited for the Merlin to arrive with Captain Payne, who would captain her back to Earth.  That meant that the crew would get a lot of shore leave over the next week.  After handing command over to the first mate, Catie headed down in the shuttle.

Catie’s specs led her through the terminal to where her welcoming committee waited.  It was quite a group, Marc and Samantha with Allie, Natalia and Paul with Jules, and a few princess fans that she did her best to ignore.

“Allie!” Catie called out as she ducked under the barrier and rushed over to her.  Samantha immediately handed Allie to Catie.  They had done enough video chats that the child immediately knew who Catie was.

Catie sidled over to Natalia so she could kiss Jules.

“I guess the rest of us know where we rank,” Marc said as Samantha pulled him along toward the exit.

“I missed all of you, but I’ve never met these two in person,” Catie reassured her father.

“We’ll forgive you,” Natalia said as she adjusted Julian on her hip and headed toward the exit.  “We have a car waiting outside.  Jules is hungry, so we should get to the restaurant before he starts crying.”

Samantha tickled Allie as she leaned in to whisper to Catie.  “It’s amazing how much the little ones control your life.  Isn’t that right, Allie?  You’re always in charge.”

They made their way to a large SUV, where Samantha and Natalia spent some time ensconcing their little ones into their car seats before they could head out.  Paul and Marc had offered to head out in the other vehicle and grab their table in the restaurant.  They barely waited for the go-ahead before they drove off.

“Big help they are,” Samantha said as she finally got behind the wheel to drive them to the restaurant.  Catie sat up front while Fiona got in the back seat with Natalia; the two toddlers were in car seats between them.

“We’ll make them pay tomorrow,” Natalia said.  “Catie, Sam and I want to go shopping tomorrow; are you going to be around the house?  I plan on coming by around ten.”

“Sure, I’d love to spend time with you guys.”

Natalia giggled a bit and turned to play with Julian.

◆ ◆ ◆

After a long lunch where Marc was admonished twice by Samantha to avoid work talk, Natalia and Samantha headed out while Marc dragged Catie to his office where they could do the work talk without getting into trouble.  Paul waved goodbye to the women and headed off to his office.

“Okay, now how are things?” Marc said once they were safely alone in his office.

“They’re fine.  We just went over it all on Monday.”

“I just want to be sure you’re comfortable with the assignment.  Do you have everything you need?  Do you have any questions?”

“I think I have what I need.  You want to try a free-market business model where the miners and residents of the station are more independent of MacKenzies.  I thought I’d start by having the miners lease the barges.  They will sell their ores on the open market and pay the station to run them through the smelter and to ship them to whoever buys them.”

“I like that.”

“We’ll also allow people to set up business on the station and take over the markets like we did on Delphi City.  We’ll make sure that all the major needs are taken care of, but if someone starts a business to compete with us, we’ll slowly back off until they have it all.”

Marc nodded along.  “Good.”

“We’ll also let people start small businesses in their cabins.  If they get enough business, they can rent space in the station, but they don’t have to start out with a commercial space.”

“What about if we need them to do that business?”

“We can give them a good deal on the retail space until they’re established.  My guess is that a beauty salon and barbershop will be among the first.”

“What about the smelter?”

“I think it’s too much of a chokepoint, so I think we have to keep control of it.  I wouldn’t trust anyone else.  Besides, it’s a huge investment.”

“What about policing?”

Catie gave her father a stare.  “The Marines?” she asked questioningly.

Marc shook his head.

Catie sighed.  “We could use the same model as Delphi City, have a small constabulary with the Marines acting as backup.  Oh yeah, I remember Kal saying that the Marines were a bit too hardcore to be constables.  Okay, I’ll go with that; we should probably start out that way, so I’ll need to recruit some experienced constables.”

“Okay, sounds good.  Now, do you have anything else going on?”

“You mean besides the space liner thing?”

“Yes.”

“Not really, but you might be interested in our discovery about ANDI?”

“Whose discovery and what is it?”

“I was visiting the triplets and learned that ANDI is sentient.  Dr. Metra is testing him, but so far, her tests confirm it.”

“That’s impossible.  It’s supposed to take decades.”

“Apparently not.”

“But how?  It would be a huge leap if we could create sentient DIs predictably on a short timeline.”

“I think it’s the triplets.”

Marc wrinkled his brow, “What?”

“The triplets.  They treat ANDI like a person.  They interact with him as if he’s their uncle.  So I think that accelerated ANDI’s self-realization.”

“Hmm, do you think that’s similar to how you and ADI interacted?  Dr. Metra told me that she was surprised by how much ADI had grown over the first two years after we discovered the Sakira.”

“I think so.  I was twelve, and ADI was like my big sister.  She helped me do all kinds of things that I wanted to do and occasionally got in my way.”

“Only when it was important!” ADI chimed in.

“I know.  Anyway, I think that had a lot to do with both of us maturing and learning.”

“It would be a big deal if we could spur Orion into becoming sentient.  But how would you go about it?”

“Are you going to expand Orion, or build a new DI?  You’ll eventually need an AI to handle the basic stuff, more once you have big cities.”

“That’s correct, but we can just give Orion DI capability, then we can add an AI when he needs the help.”

“Well, first, you have to expand his core, so he has enough CPU power to become sentient.  And you might want to have his DI activity handled under another name.  Then when you add the AI for the city, it won’t be confusing.”

Marc nodded his head.  “Sure, we can have him assume the name of Artemis for DI-specific activity, but I don’t think we’ll have much of that outside of ADI’s needs.  So how do we help him become sentient after we add the necessary processing capacity?”

“You could tell him to be more supportive of the children that are lonely or need more support.  Maybe that would lead to the right kind of friendship.”

“Wouldn’t that just dilute it?”

“I don’t know.  ADI, how much of your CPU power was dedicated to me back then?”

“Between five and ten percent of my reasoning ability.”

“Oh, I never realized it was that much.  Maybe you have to put in a process to pick a child or group,” Catie suggested.  “You might want to start with those two girls who started the delivery business.  By the way, how are they doing with the drones?”

“Those two are probably making more money than their parents.  They’re using the drones to deliver to the farms and ranches and, I guess, the villages too.  Surprisingly, a ranch family might decide they want pizza one night and be willing to pay a delivery fee.  They can send the drones cross-county and make a delivery to most of the outlying areas in less than an hour.  They’ve set the drones up so they have a heated box that can carry four pizzas, so they can do two places on a trip.  And they’ll take your laundry to the dry cleaner on the way back.”

“It certainly seems like they’d make good candidates.  Besides, since they’ll be running this place in a few years, you might as well give them a boost on their education.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Dobby, please mop the kitchen,” Samantha said as she returned to the dining room after putting Allie to bed.  While Marc had cooked dinner, Samantha had fed Allie, and Allie had managed to toss about half of her food onto the floor, much to Catie’s amusement.

“Dobby?” Catie asked, looking confused.

Samantha rolled her eyes.  “Yes, one of the first colonists has a daughter who’s a big Harry Potter fan.  As soon as they moved into their condo and started using the house AI, she started calling it Dobby.  And, of course, it wasn’t long before all the children started to call their house AIs Dobby was well.

“Doesn’t it confuse Orion if everyone calls their house AI Dobby?  They are all just a bunch of his subprocesses.”

“Not really.  He associates them with the you and your house, so it’s pretty obvious which one you're talking about.”

“I guess he can handle that.  And when you add in the cleaning bots, it is like having a house-elf.  But why did you start calling yours Dobby?”

“I figured I might as well get used to it.  A few parents didn’t follow the pattern and had a hard time dealing with the name change later when their children got older and insisted that they had a house-elf.”

Catie laughed at that.  “So you think Allie will be a Harry Potter fan?”

“Probably, and she’s going to want to fit in with the other kids, so we decided we would avoid the confusion later.”

“Hey, whatever keeps them happy,” Marc said before Catie could ask him to weigh in.

“Daddy, I don’t remember you being such a good cook,” Catie said after tasting the lasagna.

“Survival instincts.”

“My mum would say that survival instincts would have you keeping most men out of the kitchen,” Fiona said.

Samantha laughed.  “Well, they do make a hash of it at times.  But I think that’s just to persuade you that they can’t be trusted.  Then they go and watch TV while you cook.  My father pulled that stunt for years before my mother wised up.”  She gave Marc a smile to make sure he got the point.

“How do you guys like living all the way out here?” Catie asked.

“It’s not so bad now that the city has started to grow on the other side of the river.  We actually have neighbors now.”

The governor’s house had been built on a showy spot across from Orion City.  Blake had selected it as the perfect location to make a point to the Fazullans that Artemis was well and truly settled.  He’d had a mockup built and did a video to send to the Fazullan ship that was coming to mine Artemis’ system.  Marc opted to actually build the house on the land.  Now, although it was set back further than the other homes, it was among a small cluster of ranch homes that were formed where the corners of their property met, and a small village had been built there to house local workers and provide close-in services.

“Cer Samantha, do you work from home?” Fiona asked.

“Fiona, call me Sam.  And no, I don’t work from home.  I did for a while when Allie was first born.  We had a nanny come in each day to look after her so that I could get a few hours of work done.  Now, we drop her off at a daycare facility in town, so she learns to interact with other children.  I take Tuesdays off, and Natalia brings Jules over here so they can play together.  I take Allie to Natalia’s on Thursdays, so they’re only at daycare on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

“That’s nice.  So they’ll grow up to be best buddies.”

“We hope so.  We hope it makes moving to the new colony next year easier on the two of them.  They’ll miss their other friends, but they’ll at least have each other.”

“Are you moving to another city?”

“Actually, another planet.  They’re just setting up the first base now,” Catie explained.  “We want Earth to catch up with Paraxea on the number of planets we have, so we’ll need two more after Ganesh.”

“Wow, are there that many people willing to immigrate to another planet?”

Catie giggled.  “We have to beat them off with a stick.  We have far more applicants than we can ship.  And the Chinese would send millions if we let them.”

“Oh, I hadn’t realized.”

Marc decided to join the conversation adding, “People seem to think it’s a chance to get started in a new life on an even footing with everyone else.  And, of course, we try to ensure that that’s true.”

“I could see how that would be appealing.  You can start a new business, ranch, or farm and be among the first.  You get a chance to succeed as well as anyone else since there are no fat cats there yet.”

“Yes, and we don’t allow anyone to come in and buy up the place.  Everyone has to work for the colony for two years, and after that, they get an allotment; either a ranch, farm, a starter house in town, or a small store or shop in town.”

“Don’t forget the miners,” Catie said.

“Of course not.  They have the same option, but they’re more likely to select a property in the mining town or nearby land.”

“But doesn’t that make the first colonists the fat cats?” Fiona asked.

“They have some advantage in picking properties that will be of higher value later, but the new colonists still get to choose a property, so as the value goes up, so does the compensation for your two-year commitment.”

“And you have enough work for fifty thousand more colonists?”

“We think so.  And if we don’t, we’ll release some of the best performers from their commitment early.”

“Okay, this is sounding too much like work,” Samantha said.  “Now, Catie, tell us about your Prince Charming.”

“Sam!” Catie moaned.  “He was just the prince that was assigned to the ship we rescued.”

“Yeah, right.  You met a good looking prince and he was just some guy.”

Fiona sat up and looked intrigued.  “You met a prince?”

“Yes.  He was an ensign on the ship we rescued.  When we snuck down to the planet to try to figure out who was responsible for blowing up the moon, we . . .”

“Someone blew up a moon?!”

“Yes, Helike was trying to develop an antimatter reactor,” Catie sat up, excited to turn the conversation away from the prince.  “Two countries from their planet had espionage efforts going to steal antimatter so they could make a weapon.  They secretly increased the production of antimatter so there would be enough worth stealing.  When one of them stole the extra, they set a bomb off.  But they didn’t know about the second country that was also hoarding antimatter, so there was still a huge store of antimatter on the moon, and that went off as well.  It destroyed the moon, and some of the debris hit the ship that was stealing the antimatter, and it blew up too.”

“Wow.”

“All interesting, but what about Prince Charming?” Samantha turned the topic back.

“Yes,” Fiona asked.

“That’s what Morgan and Cristina started to call him.  He was a nice guy, real smart, and he was related to the guy who was trying to make the weapon.  So he was able to help us, or I guess we were able to help him, figure out who it was.”

“So, you went down to the planet undercover?”

“Sort of.”

“Wow, Morgan said that being your bodyguard could be exciting, but I didn’t realize it could be that exciting.”

“It was actually pretty fun.”

“Yes, let’s talk about the fun with Prince Charming,” Samantha teased.

Catie groaned.  “We became good friends.  That’s all.”

“Sure.”

Catie messaged Samantha via her Comm.  Since Samantha had a standing rule of no specs at the dinner table, Catie had to type it blindly, but she was pretty good at typing.  “Sam, please!!!!!!!!” she messaged.

“That’s okay; you can tell us more about him later.  Now, tell us about the wedding.”

“You saw it.”

“Being there virtually isn’t the same.  Now, tell us about the wedding, or we can talk about Prince Charming some more.”

“Did you know that Sophia knew about it for over a month before she published it in the paper?”

“That doesn’t sound like her.”

“Apparently, Jackie made some credible threats, so she kept it secret until after Jackie could surprise me.”

“What did you think of Jackie’s sister?”

“She was pretty nice.  We didn’t spend that much time together, but she was fun.  She had her eye on her groomsman, Lieutenant Harbaugh.”

“I heard that Jackie and Blake honeymooned on some island.”

“Yes, they rented an entire island in French Polynesia.  They flew a hover Lynx there with Cesar, four staff, and four security guards.  So it was pretty private.”

“I’m sure that was nice.”

“I bet it was,” Fiona said.  “And I’m sure Kal loved it; it made his job much easier.  What a nightmare trying to arrange protection after a royal wedding.” Fiona shuddered.  “Way too much visibility.”

“And did you get to dance with anyone special?”

“I did dance with Prince Emmanuel of Belgium; remember you invited him to my birthday party,” Catie said.

“Of course I remember.  Who else?”

“Well, Jason, since he was my groomsman.  King Mohammed of Morocco and Prince William.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next morning, Catie slept in; she was still adjusting to the new time zone.  When she finally wandered into the kitchen at ten o’clock, Samantha had already fed Allie, eaten her breakfast, and was dressed for shopping.

“Oh, I’m not ready,” Catie said.

“Don’t worry about it.  Have some breakfast.  Where’s Fiona?”

“She’s in her room studying.  She’s taking a business class.”

“Good for her.  Eggs are in the refrigerator if you want some.  Milk as well, if you’d prefer cereal.”

“Just point me to the coffee.”

“Right there.”

Catie got a cup and was just wandering into the living room when Natalia showed up with Julian on her hip.  She tossed the big carryall she had with her on the floor by the door then pushed Julian into Catie’s arms.

“He misses his Auntie Catie.”

“Oh, he’s such a good boy.”

“You ready?” Natalia asked Samantha.

“Yep,” Samantha replied as she grabbed her purse and headed out the door behind Natalia.

“Wait!  Where are you going?” Catie asked, completely confused.

“Shopping.  If you have any questions, ask Dobby or call us.  See you in a few hours.”

“What!”

“Waa!” Julian cried.

“Oh, now be a good boy,” Catie said as she bounced him on her hip.  She looked at the SUV tail lights as it braked around the corner.  “Jules, you know what?  Your Auntie Catie was just had.”

Jules gurgled at Catie.

“Okay, let’s go back inside and figure out how I’m going to get even.”

Catie walked back into the kitchen, where Allie was sitting in her playpen.  Julian struggled to get down, so she put him on the floor and sat at the kitchen table to finish her coffee.

Julian crawled over to the playpen and raised himself up, hanging onto the crosshatched frame.  Allie stood up and walked over to him and started to rattle her cage.

“Cer Catie, Cer Sam usually opens the playpen so that they can go in and out,” Dobby said.

“Oh.  How do I do that?”

Dobby sent a set of instructions to Catie’s specs.  She reviewed them, then went to the playpen.  By lifting the front section a few centimeters, she could rotate it and slide it on top of the playpen, making a roof.

“Cer Catie, they like it if you put a blanket on the top.  It creates a small cave that they like to play in.”

Catie modified the playpen, much to Julian’s pleasure.  He immediately crawled in and sat next to Allie.  She started to stack blocks into a tower; once it was three blocks high, Julian would knock it down, launching both tiny tots into a giggling fit.

Fiona came out of her room to check on things; upon seeing the two toddlers, she started laughing.  “I see you’re not going to be going anyplace, so I’ll go back to my room and study.”

“Wait, don’t you want to play with them?”

“No way I’m letting you sucker me into babysitting for you.  I thought they were having you on yesterday.  You should have seen it coming.”

“You could have warned me.”

“Why, you only learn better situational awareness by being had.  Now, I’ll see you later.”  With that, Fiona grabbed a granola bar and a cup of coffee and went back to her room.

Catie tried to do some work on the station design, but with Allie and Julian breaking out in giggles every few minutes, it was hard to concentrate.  She thought about muting them with her earwigs but was afraid that trusting their care to Dobby wasn’t exactly the Auntie thing to do.

“Cer Catie, it’s time for their snacks,” Dobby informed Catie.

“Already?  What do they eat?”

“Julian will need a bottle of milk; it will be in the carryall Cer Natalia brought with her.  Allie will want a bottle of juice.  Once they’ve finished that, they’ll both have some cheese.”

Catie sat Allie in the highchair and gave her the juice.  She went to the carryall and found a thermos with breastmilk in it.  She filled a bottle and gave it to Julian.  He kept tossing it down and raising his hands toward her.  Eventually, Catie figured out he expected to be held while he drank his milk.

Once they were finished with their bottles, she moved on to the cheese.  No problem with Allie, but she finally figured out she had to hold Julian in her lap while he ate the cheese from a cup on the table.

Having fed the toddlers, she let Dobby run a cleaning bot over the table and kitchen floor.  She led the two toddlers out into the garage to look around, hoping to tire them enough that they would happily take a nap.

In the garage, she found Samantha’s car and a few items stored away.  One that she was particularly interested in was another playpen.

“Hmm, what do we have here?  Jules, do you think we could use this?”

Catie asked Fiona to move the playpen into her room.  Fiona was happy to do something physical, as long as it didn’t involve taking care of the toddlers.  She not only moved it but set it up as well.

By the time the playpen was set up, Allie and Jules were about ready for a nap.  Catie read them a story that Julian really liked, then prepared to put them down, but Allie made it clear that she hadn’t finished reading; Catie still needed to read Allie a story.  Of course, Julian got to listen in instead of starting his nap.

After the second story, Catie put the two in the same crib and finally got some quiet time.  She took one of Allie’s teddy bears into the kitchen, along with her kit of gadgets.  By the time the two woke up, she had the teddy bear rigged up with a speaker so she could make it talk.

“Cer Catie,” Dobby chirped.

“Don’t tell me; it’s lunchtime.”

“I won’t tell you, but you are correct.”

“How does Sam feed both of them at the same time?”

“She usually puts Julian into the highchair and sits Allie in the booster seat.”

“Booster seat?”

“It’s in the chair on the end of the kitchen table.”

“Arrg.”  Catie looked under the table and immediately spotted the booster seat.  She put Julian in the highchair and moved the booster seat to her end of the table, next to the highchair, so that she could feed both of them at the same time.  “Allie, I’m so getting even with your mother.”

Allie just giggled and threw food on the floor.

Once she’d fed them oatmeal and some vegetables and given them both a bottle, Catie was ready for a nap.  It was almost time for Allie and Julian to go down for a nap as well, but Catie first needed to practice for when Samantha and Natalia got back.  She put both toddlers in the playpen in her room.  Then, she set the teddy bear in with them and dimmed the lights.  Next, she set her specs up to monitor the room using the cameras that Samantha had had installed.  Then, she went out to the kitchen while continuously sending messages to the remote speaker she’d mounted on the teddy bear.  It didn’t take her long to come up with a routine that entertained the two toddlers and kept them giggling but not squealing.  After a bit, they both laid down and drifted off to sleep.

It was 1330 when the two started to stir again.  Catie had just managed to review the power plant for the smelter she planned to install in the space station in the forty-five minutes she’d had to herself.

“Cer Catie, it’s time to change their diapers,” Dobby informed her.

“Oh, joy.”  Catie was happy that at least the diapers were like the shipsuits.  So, it was a simple matter to change them; she just had to attach them to the suction tube to drain them, then drop them in the diaper cleaner.  Once she was done with that, she let the babies roam around the house.  Both wanted to push the small baby carriage that Samantha had, so Catie had to invent a game where one of them pushed it while the other chased them.  Then they would switch off.  By the time they tired of the game, it was time to give them another snack.

At 1530, Catie’s Comm alerted her that Samantha and Natalia were turning into the driveway.  She quickly shuttled the two toddlers into the playpen in her room.  She immediately started up the chat routine with the teddy bear as she hurried back to the dining room.  There, she set up like she was working in her HUD using the dining room table as a surface.

“Hey, how’s Auntie Catie doing with the babies?” Samantha called out as she and Natalia walked into the house.

Catie ignored her as though lost in thought.  “Catie!  Where are Allie and Julian?!”

Catie shook her head as if coming out of deep thought.  “Last I checked, Allie was stacking blocks in the playpen so Jules could knock them down.”

“Catie!”  Samantha and Natalia both raced to the kitchen to check on their babies. 
“Dobby, you said everything was alright!”

“It is, Cer Sam; the children are in the playpen.”

“They are not!” Samantha screamed.

“The playpen in Cer Catie’s room.”

Natalia and Samantha both dashed to Catie’s room, where they were greeted by the teddy bear.  “Gotcha!”  Both babies squealed with laughter at the proclamation from the teddy bear.

“Catie!”

“Hey, I’m not the one who left her baby with a teenager who’s never babysat before.”

“I am so going to get even with you!”

“Why, I thought we were even?”

Samantha grimaced at Catie, holding her hand over her heart.  “You have no idea how scared you made me.”

Natalia stood behind Samantha, hiding her grin but still glaring at Catie.  “Tell us about the trick with the teddy bear?”

“Oh, I put a remote speaker in it.  I can use my specs to watch them through the cameras, and then I can type what I want the bear to say and send it via my Comm.  I’ve programmed it to sound like Fuzzy Bear.”

“And it keeps them entertained?”

“It did before they took their last nap.  But they’ve only been in the playpen for five minutes now.”

Samantha walked over to Catie and hugged her.

“Ouch!”

“Your father taught me that pressure point.”

“Ouch, ouch, are we even yet?”

“Almost.”

“OUCH!”

“Now we’re even.”

Chapter 9

More Fun on Artemis

“Governor, Mr. Táng is here to see you,” Marc’s assistant announced.

“Send him in.”  Marc shook his head.  He’d come into the office to take care of a few things and had been ambushed by one colonist after another.  He wondered what the Chinese leader wanted.

“Mr. Táng, how may I help you?”

“Why have my fellow colonists been spread out between Platinum Springs, El Dorado, and Orion?”

Marc smiled.  “Because that’s where we needed new colonists.”

“We were told we would be sent to El Dorado.”

“I don’t believe so.  If I recall correctly, I said that since we are starting a new city on Artemis, we needed more colonists.”

“For El Dorado!”  Mr. Táng was clearly agitated.

“No, to replace the colonists who decided to move to El Dorado to help start the city.  Fifty percent of the colonists moving to El Dorado are colonists who have opted to take their allotment next to the new city.  Most of the rest are experienced colonists who volunteered to help get the city started.”

“That was not clearly stated.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do.  As noted in the colonist agreement, we send the new colonists to where they are needed.  You do not get to choose your destination until you complete your two years of service to the colony.”

Mr. Táng shook his head angrily.  “Then why were so many sent to Platinum Springs?”

“We only sent five hundred families to Platinum Springs.”  Marc was sure that Mr. Táng was mad because the five hundred had included all the families that were carrying the brass idols with the special toys inside.

“But how can I keep track of them if they are so far away?”

“Mr. Táng, you seem to be confused.  Although you were their leader during the training, now that you’re here on Artemis, all of you are simply colonists,” Marc explained.  “The Chinese colonists do not have separate standing, nor do they form a separate community.  If you wish to have a leadership position, you will need to stand for election.”

“This is unacceptable!”

“If it is, then you’re welcome to request transport back to Earth.  Each colonist has the right to do so.”

“I don’t want to go back to Earth.  I want to be in El Dorado.”

“Then you will need to complete your service to the community.  At that time, you’re welcome to select your allotment in Platinum Springs or El Dorado.”

“I demand to speak to the Chinese Ambassador.”

“What Chinese Ambassador?”

“To Artemis.”

“We don’t have any ambassadors here.  We are planning to have one from Earth at some point, but until Earth unifies their government, we are relying on the Delphi League’s ambassador to the U.N.”

“Then I wish to speak to the foreign minister of China.”

“Then you should send him an email or a video message.  Your Comm should be able to take care of that for you.  He should get the message in twenty-four hours or so.”

Mr. Táng looked furious.  He clearly wasn’t used to being talked to this way.  He started to lean forward toward Marc.  Marc gave a subtle shake of his head, not for Mr. Táng, but for his bodyguard, who was getting ready to step out of the corner and provide a private lesson in manners to Mr. Táng.  But Mr. Táng took the head shake as a sign that it was time for him to leave.  As he started to get up, Marc motioned him to wait.

“One other thing.  One of the Chinese colonists struck another one.  It was some argument about a brass idol.  He has been detained and will be tried on Monday.  If it’s possible, would you try to reinforce our statement to your fellow Chinese colonists that violence will not be tolerated?”

“The colonist must be lying.”

“No, there is irrefutable proof of the crime.  I believe he asked to see you and you’re welcome to visit him.  But we will continue to hold him over the weekend.  The court case will be heard on Monday.”

“How can you have such proof?”

“As you should know from the training and colonist agreement, we have cameras in all public areas.  Plus, we have cameras in all condos, which the resident can turn off if they wish to have privacy.  The video is quite clear about what happened.”

“I will be taking this up with the Chinese Foreign Minister as well.  I will be talking to you again after I hear from him.”

“Please, do.  And next time, make an appointment.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie and Fiona went for a run; it felt good to be able to run ten K without ever passing the same place twice.  When they got back, Marc was still out, and there was a young girl on the patio outside watching after Allie and Julian while they tooled around the yard.  Samantha and Natalia were sitting out back in the sun reading.

“Hi,” Catie said as she strode up.  “Who’s that?”

“Oh, that’s Brielle.  She comes by in the afternoons to watch after the kids,” Samantha said.

“And she wasn’t available earlier?”

“Not really.  She has chores to do in the mornings, and we told her she should catch up on her homework before dinner.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.  So, is her coming over how you manage to get things done around here?”

“It helps.  But if I have to, I can run them down to the daycare facility in the village.”

“There’s one right there?  That’s a pretty small village to have a daycare facility.”

“It supports the four ranches and the village.  I think there are sixteen families living in the village.”

“That many?”

“Sure, the daycare center is also a preschool for kids three and up, so it has a manager and a small staff, a few day workers for the ranches, the staff for the café, and the store.  It adds up pretty fast, plus you have the grade school.”

“There’s a grade school?”

“Sure, it handles grades 1-4.”

“You have enough kids to have four classrooms?”

“No, silly, there are two classrooms.  Each has one teacher and two coaches to support the teacher.”

“That’s a lot of staff.”

“They’d have to be in some kind of daycare if they weren’t in class.  In fact, the school stays open for ten hours, so the kids can stay and do their homework or other activities if they don’t have someone to look after them when they get home.”

“I hope someone else comes in; otherwise, that’s a long day for the staff.”

“Yes, they have two other coaches who come in to cover the late afternoon.  A lot of times, they’re older children who’ve been certified for coaching.”

Catie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.  “They let children be academic coaches?”

“Sure, Brielle is certified for up to second grade.  She’s fourteen and took a couple of extra classes so she could be certified.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of people.”

“Not really, if you think about it.  They’re providing support for twenty families and online support for others.  It works out to be pretty efficient.  The smaller villages scale it back; some only have one teacher.”

“What do the older kids do when they’re not in school or online?”

“Most of them work around the ranch or farm.”

“What about the ones that live in the village?”

“They usually have jobs on one of the ranches, or they work part-time in the village.”

“Aren’t there laws about child labor?” Fiona asked.

Samantha laughed.  “Of course there are.  The house AI keeps track of things, so they only work up to three hours a day, including house chores.  When they’re sixteen, they can work five hours a day.  It’s not often that someone abuses it, but it does happen.  They usually get reported right away.”

“How can they abuse it at all?”

“Because there are provisions for working longer if someone in the family is sick or injured.  But that can only be for a couple of days; after that, they have to bring in outside help.”

“So, do the older kids ever have in-person classes?” Catie asked.

“They have to go into the village or the city twice a week to do some interactive classes.”

“What classes?”

“Some of the older ones just do sports or athletic training, but there’s drama, arts, music.  And, of course, they all have to do the first aid class every three months.”

“Oh, I bet they love that,” Fiona said.

Natalia laughed.  “You’d be surprised, but they actually do.  I think it’s all the fake blood and getting to figure out how to simulate the various injuries.”

“How are the online classes organized?  Are they actually classes or just computer learning?” Fiona asked.

“Both.  But even for the computer learning, you have to stick to a schedule so that a certified coach is available to answer questions.”

Fiona and Catie had been doing stretches to warm down while they chatted.  They stopped stretching, and Catie looked around.  “Hey, where’s Daddy?”

“He’s still working; some problems with the colonists you brought in.  He’ll be here in a bit.  He’s bringing Paul, and they’re going to barbecue steaks, so you two should get washed up.”

“Steaks, oh boy.  You don’t have to tell me twice,” Fiona said as she headed to the house.

“Did he say what kind of problems?” Catie asked.

“No, but you can help him barbecue and ask all the questions you want.”

Natalia waved at Catie as she headed to the house.  “Do you think she’s still mad about our trick?” she asked Samantha.

“I think we’re even on that.  But she did come here to spend time with Marc.”

“Oh, I thought she wanted to spend time with us and the babies.”

“That too.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Marc finally made it home at five.  “Look who I found wandering the streets,” he said as he waved at Paul.

“Well, they kicked me out of the bar,” Paul said with a hiccup.

“Very funny,” Natalia said.  “I’ve got your Comm set to alert me if you’re having too much fun.”

“Oh, is that why it plays that loud, obnoxious music sometimes?”

“Exactly.”  Natalia grinned.  “Did you bring the steaks?”

“Yep, and some barbeque coals.”

“Brielle, do you want to go home or stay and have dinner with us?” Samantha asked.

“If you’ve got a steak for me, I’d love to stay.”

“Of course we have one for you.”

“Thanks.”

“She loves steak,” Samantha whispered to Catie, who was still hugging her father as he leaned over to kiss Samantha.

“And how was your day?” Marc asked.

“Oh, Catie volunteered to babysit, so Natalia and I went to the spa.”

“Volunteered?!” Catie squeaked.

“Yes, and it was so sweet of you.  Nattie and I took a steam bath, then we both had a massage, and finally, we got facials and had our nails done.”

“I’m glad you two were able to fit all that in.”  Marc kissed Catie on the cheek and headed into the house to change.

◆ ◆ ◆

After Marc changed, he started the barbecue up.  Catie walked over to chat.

“Daddy, what kept you so long?”

“It was just one thing after another.  My last issue was with one of the Chinese colonists.”

“Let me guess, Mr. Táng?”

“Correct.  I assume he was helpful to you during the trip here.”

“If by helpful you mean keeping my blood pressure up, then yes.  He was a general pain in the ass.  So, what did he want to complain about?”

“He was displeased to find that the Chinese colonists were not all assigned to El Dorado.”

“You’re not serious.  They actually thought you would be stupid enough to put all thirty-six thousand of them in the new city.”

“Apparently so.”

“And I’ll bet he was especially mad to find how well you dispersed the ones with the toys,” Catie said with a laugh.

“You noticed that.”

“Of course I did.  I reviewed the offloading manifest.  I thought it was especially clever of you to put so many of the toys in Platinum Springs.  It’s so isolated.”

“Yes, he seemed to appreciate that particular nuance quite a bit.”  Marc waved at Natalia, “Natalia, I believe I’ll have a miscreant for you on Monday.”

“Great, what did he do?” Natalia asked.

“He struck one of the other colonists.”

“A slap?”

“A backhand, he knocked her to the floor.”

“Ohh, a real bad boy. Well, I need one of the bacterial fermentation tanks cleaned out.”

“He hit a woman?” Catie said.  “Aren’t you going to put him in jail?”

“He’s already in there.  But he’ll need to work off his sentence.  Natalia usually takes care of that for us,” Marc explained.

“You have prisoners clean the tanks.  Why don’t you use a bot?” Catie asked.

“Because it’s a lot of work to clean a bot after they’ve been in a fermentation tank.  A person can just take a shower.”

“If you’re cleaning the fermentation tank, why don’t you fill it with muriatic acid and agitate it?”

Marc sighed.  “Catie, you’re missing the point.  To adequately teach the miscreant that their behavior is inappropriate, you need to drive the message home with something memorable.”

Catie laughed as she recalled some particularly onerous chores she’d had to do over the years.  They were definitely memorable.

“Okay, so what are you going to do about the Chinese?”

“I’m going to ignore them; give them a chance to settle in.  Maybe they’ll abandon their plans.”

“One can hope.”

“How long will those microbots last?” Marc asked.

“A couple of years.  They’re mostly dormant now.  They are leaching food for the bacteria, but they won’t really wake up until they’re exposed to light and the phototransistor switches on their power supply.”

“Good, now what’s up with you?”

“You mean besides getting conned into babysitting?”

“Yes.”

“We went over all that yesterday.  What’s up with you?”

“The standard challenge of governing a new colony.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, last week, a group of farmers came storming into my office to complain about the new winery.”

“Why would they complain?”

“Because it was being started on ranch land, not farmland.”

“So?”

“Well, they felt that the Guillemots were getting a special deal since the ranch allotments are twice the size of the farm allotments.”

“What did you do?”

“First, I pointed out how nice it would be to be able to buy wine on Artemis at a reasonable price.  Then, I pointed out that the Guillemots had not violated the terms of their allotment.  They did not remove any trees; they were not plowing the land, and they were not going to exceed their water allotment.”

“Then how are they growing vines?”

“They’ve cut the grass back, which is the same as bailing it for hay, and then they planted the vine rows,” Marc explained.

“Did that appease them?”

“Not really, but I then pointed out that nothing was stopping them from growing grapes.”

“Well, except for the fact that their land isn’t suitable for it.”

“True.  I also asked if any of them knew how to run a winery.”

Catie giggled.  “That must have made them mad.”

“A bit.  But then I also pointed out that it would take three more years before the Guillemots could harvest their first grapes.  That shut them up.”

“That was interesting; what else have you dealt with?”

“Tell her about the tractors,” Paul called out from across the yard.

“What about the tractors?” Catie asked.

“It wasn’t really about the tractors but about labor rules.  The rules on Artemis require that you pay third shift employees a twenty percent premium.  The farmers got together to protest that,” Marc said.

“Why would they care?”

Marc sighed.  “Because they try to keep their tractors and equipment running as much as possible.  Adjacent farms even share equipment so that they can maximize their use.”

“That makes sense.  I assume it’s one of their biggest investments.”

“Right.  So to maximize utilization, they started to have all the maintenance work done late in the day, so they were paying second shift premiums.  Then we introduced the AI-controlled tractors, which was a big boon for the farmers.  They could run the tractors all day, so they started to have the maintenance work done at night.  The amount of maintenance went up since the tractors were running more hours in the day, so that third shift premium really hurt.”

“If they had AI-controlled tractors, why were they doing maintenance on third shift?”

“Right!  When I pointed out that the AI didn’t care if it was dark outside, the farmers immediately moved the maintenance to early morning, first shift.”

“So, they’re happy, right?” Catie asked.

“The farmers were happy, but the maintenance guys were pissed that they were not even getting a second shift premium.  Plus, the farmers were now free to do more of their own maintenance.”

“So, like Uncle Blake says, no good deed goes unpunished.”

“That’s the lot of a colony governor.”

Chapter 10

Onward

On Monday, Catie sat down to define her core team for the starbase.  She needed a chief engineer, a head of security, and someone to feed everyone.  Once she had the department heads figured out, she would also need an environmental engineer and a maintenance chief, but they’d be under the chief engineer, so she needed to fill that position first.

“Arlean, how are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine.  I’m on leave, as I’m sure you know.”

“Are you enjoying time with the family?”

“I am . . .”  Arlean was feeling a bit suspicious about the sudden call from Catie.

“I have an opportunity you might be interested in.”

“Are you building another StarMerchant?”

“No.”

“What about that cruise ship?”

“It’s not that, but we could discuss it if you would like.”

Arlean sighed.  “Okay, I give; what is it?”

“You’re probably not aware of this, but we’re preparing to build a starbase.  We’ll be placing it in a star system that is really rich in platinum metals but not suitable for colonizing.  We’ve got two candidates, both large stars.”

“Don’t you have enough metals with Artemis?  I thought it was very rich.”

“It is.  Daddy wants to keep it more as a strategic reserve, and with all the colonies we’re working with, we would run out of metals in ten years even with Artemis.”

“Oh, I’m surprised at that.”

“Most of the colonies are not particularly rich in platinum metals.  And if we are to accelerate their economies and space programs, they’ll need a lot.”

“Okay, you don’t have to convince me.  So, how do I fit in?”

“I need a chief engineer for the starbase.”

“Interesting.  What would the responsibilities be?”

“The base will have to have a high-powered smelter; it’s going to be a long way from the star, so between the station power, the smelter, and providing for contingencies, it will need an antimatter reactor.  We are also going to have a fleet of barges to mine the asteroid belt.  So, we’ll need a maintenance chief for that.  I assume that will be under the chief engineer, also station maintenance,” Catie elaborated.

“So, I’d be responsible for the reactors, the smelter, station and barge maintenance, and environmental?”

“Right, and any other engineery-type work.”

“Okay, so lots of fun.  What’s the downside?”

“It’s a long way from home.  Depending on where we finally decide to locate the station, it could be a month or more away.”

“What else?”

“You’d have to work for me.”

Arlean laughed.  “I don’t see that as a problem.  When would I have to start?”

“You could start right away.  Ajda is just getting ready to build the barges, and it would be nice if you could go over the design before she starts.  We’re going to start building the station at the fringe, so we can build the first cabins at Delphi Station and ship them there.  So you could work from Earth until we get the hub and ring spun up.  I’m aiming to get Nolan Bishop to come and build the station.  He’s the guy who did Gemini Station.”

“That’s smart.  So I’d have to head your way in four to six weeks.  Then what?”

“I’d want a year commitment.  After that, you could rotate out.  We might do the same thing as we do with StarMerchants and rotate staff between Earth and the Starbase.”

“Could I bring my kids?”

“Sure.  You might want to wait a few months until things have a chance to become more civilized, but I’m sure we’ll have families out here.”

“Let me talk to the family and I’ll get back to you.”

“Wait, we didn’t talk about money.”

Arlean laughed.  “I’m sure I can strong-arm you into a big raise.  Talk to you later.”

Next, Catie called JoAnn Rasmussen, the young woman who had come from the mining town in West Virginia.  She’d been doing various jobs that involved coordination, and she had recently gotten a business degree.

“JoAnn, it’s Catie.”

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I have a business proposition for you.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“We’re getting ready to build a starbase.  It will be remote.  I need someone who can come out and run the mess hall to keep the construction crew fed.”

Catie could see JoAnn grimace at the thought of being a cook.

“I know you’re more than a cook.  You’d be responsible for ordering the food and planning everything.  AND, as a bonus, after the station is built, I’ll set you up with the first restaurant.  You’ll own it.”

JoAnn lit up.  “My own restaurant?”

“Yes.  So for a few months of hell, you get to open your own restaurant.  You can keep running the mess hall until the restaurant is busy enough.  We’ll replace you when you’re ready.”

“Wow.  That sounds incredible.  What would I have to chip in?”

“Nothing.  After three months, you’d have to start paying rent, but I really want someone I can trust to run the mess hall.  You know places like this run on their stomachs for the first few months.”

“When should I start?”

“Right now.  You have to start planning the layout and getting the food ordered.  We’ll start construction in six weeks.  We’ll be using the Merlin as a base, but I want the mess hall to be separate from the normal facilities on the Merlin.  That way, we can transfer it over to the hub as soon as it’s ready.”

“I’ve got it.  I’ll call some people I know on Gemini Station and see how they’re handling everything.  I’ll send you a plan in ten days,” JoAnn said.  She was clearly excited about the opportunity.

“Perfect.  I look forward to seeing it.  And I really look forward to working with you again.”

“I’m glad you thought of me.  I can’t wait to tell Devon.  Wait.  What are you doing about meat vats?”

“What?”

“If you’re going to be so remote, won’t you want to grow meat and eggs there?”

“Oh, damn.  I forgot about that.  Do you know someone who can come out and run it?”

“Yes, Devon and Jaylee.  They’re working for Kevin Clark here on Delphi City.  Devon graduated last year, and Jaylee just graduated.  They could come out and get it set up and run it.  I can help them get started, but they’ve been doing a really good job.  I’m sure they would be perfect.”

“Okay, talk to them and let me know.”

Finally, Catie called Lieutenant Racine.  She was currently stationed aboard the DSS Ulysses, which was at Onisiwo.

“Lieutenant Racine.”

“Princess.  What can I do for you?”

“Please call me Catie.”

“Yes, ma’am.  So Catie, what can I do for you?”

“We’re setting up a starbase, and I need a head of security.”

“Isn’t that a bit above my pay grade?”

“Not much.  It’ll be a good stepping stone for you.  What do you think?” Catie asked.

“Where will this base be, ma’am?”

“It will be remote; the system we’re putting it in won’t have a colony.  The purpose of the base will be to mine resources from the system.”

“So, a rowdy crowd?” Lieutenant Racine asked.

“Probably.”

“Is this a civilian posting or military?”

“Military; as head of security, you would be in charge of the Marines.  Captain McAvoy and the Merlin will be here.  You’d be under her command.  We’ll hire a few constables to handle the easy stuff, but they would report to you.”

“How long and when?”

“One to two years, and as soon as you can get to the Merlin.”

“Can I pick my team, ma’am?”

“I expect you can; you’ll need to talk to Captain McAvoy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Enough of the ma’am stuff.  I’ll be the civilian commander of the base.  We’re going to try to encourage companies to come and handle as much of the supply and logistics as we can.”

“That’s going to be interesting.  I’m in.  What do I do now?”

“I’ll have Kal cut your orders.  You should get them tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the opportunity.”

“Thanks for taking the chance.  It’s going to be an experience for all of us.”

Now, Catie made the big call.

“Nolan.  How goes it?”

“Still working on that case of scotch you gave me.  It’s almost gone,” Nolan said.

“Well, how would you like to earn another?”

“You got another space station you want to build?”

“Yes, actually, I’m calling it a starbase since it won’t orbit a planet.  Essentially the same as Gemini Station.”

“Where’s it going to be?”

“We’re still picking the star system.  I should have the final decision any day now.  We’re going to build the station at the fringe, so for you and your team, it’ll just be like building one on Sol’s fringe.  I want to build as much of the early infrastructure on Delphi Station and Earth, to accelerate completion.”

“Sounds good.  Are you going to stick with Gemini Station’s design?”

“Yes, but with a few minor mods.  I’ll have them to you in a week,” Catie said.

“That’ll be easy.  So, when do we start?”

“Two weeks to start the hub, but you can start on cabins right now.”

“Same deal?”

“I’ll do you better; if you finish in six weeks, you get two cases of scotch, plus, since it’s at the fringe, the crew gets a thirty percent premium instead of twenty, plus the bonus if we make the schedule.”

“Then you got a deal.  I assume you can get me transferred from my current job.”

“Already done.”

“Then you’d best buy those cases of scotch.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day, Catie decided to focus on the miners while she waited to hear from Arlean.  She’d had Fiona send a basic prospectus to her uncle to see if he’d be interested.

“Mr. Wells, how are you doing today?” Catie asked as they started the conference call.

“I’m doing just fine, and I’m Duncan, me Da’s Mr. Wells.  And this bonny lass is my wife, Kelly.  And here be my oldest, Connor, and his wife, Orla; and my second, Kieran, and his wife, Megan; and finally, my youngest, Sean, and his wife, Leah.  Now, Fiona there tells me you have some mining you want done?”

“That’s right.  We’re getting ready to start mining a remote system.”

“Aye, I heard ye were mining in space.  How’s that been going?”

“It’s been going well.  The miners in Earth’s system used to work for MacKenzies, but they’ve formed a co-op now, so they’re mostly independent.  But we want to take that a step further; we want to have independent mining companies that will buy or lease their equipment.  Then, they would be able to set their work practices and schedule and figure out how to make the most money mining the asteroids.”

“How would we find these here asteroids?”

“We would identify them and provide an initial scan that will show what ores are on their surface and would provide an initial density of the asteroid.  We’re using the data the miners have from Earth’s belt to set a baseline on what that means for how rich an asteroid is.  The companies would bid on the asteroids, and if they win the bid, they’d own it and get to mine it.”

“I see.  We’ve been studying up on the data you sent us.  So, what would we need in the way of money?”

“You’d need enough operating capital to get started.  The lease would allow a two-month grace period to allow you to earn money before you had any big expenses.”

“So, we’d be talking about?”

“I’d say three to four hundred thousand dollars.”

“Where would we get that kind of money?!” Sean yelled.

“Hey, shut your gob.  We’d just sell the mine,” Duncan said.

“And what would we do if it didn’t work out?” Kelly asked.

“Well, we’d have to make it work, wouldn’t we?” Duncan snapped back.  “What timeframe are we talking about?”

“If you want the best deal, you’d need to start in eight weeks,” Catie interjected before they could continue arguing.  “We’re going to start out with two companies so we can work out most of the kinks, which means we’ll cover a lot of the operating expenses.  Plus, you’d want to spend some time on Gemini training how to mine asteroids.  I suggest you do that as soon as possible.”

“We could send Connor out right now,” Kelly suggested.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Well, you are the oldest.”

“First, we’ll need to look into selling the mine.  We can afford to send Connor out now, but we’d need to know more before we did anything else.”

“I understand,” Catie messaged ADI, “Can you take care of it?”

“I’ll figure out what their mine is worth and pay at least five hundred thousand for it.”

“Thanks, ADI.”

“Okay, I’ll let you start working on that.  I need to have an answer in six weeks.”

“We’ll let you know.  And thanks for thinking of us.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Arlean Griggs messaged Catie, letting her know that as long as they could agree on terms, she’d accept.  Catie called her right away.

“Arlean.”

“Catie, you shouldn’t look so hungry; I might hold out for more.”

Catie laughed.  “But I am hungry.  What’s important this first year is to get things figured out correctly.  There’ll be plenty of time to make money once we have things running.  Let me tell you what I have on the table for money.  You’ll get a twenty percent boost in pay for the promotion to chief engineer of the base.  You’ll also get a twenty percent premium for the remote location for the first year.”

“I like that.  So, if you’ll agree to foot the bill for my husband and two kids to come visit twice a year, we have a deal.”

Catie smiled.  “Then, we have a deal.”

“Now, do you have any preference on who my department heads are?”

“I can send you a few names, but I suspect you know more people than I do.”

“Okay, I’ll figure out who I want and run the names by you.  In the meantime, I’ll head up to Delphi Station and talk to Ajda about the barges.”

“Good, and by the way, Nolan accepted.  He should already be working on getting things ready to start building.”

“Right, I’ll see if we can meet while I’m up there.”

“Bye.”

“Ciao.”

With that done, Catie posted the position for Chief Constable, copying Lieutenant Racine.  Then, she put out a prospectus for the mining companies.  She held back the fact that she would cover most of the expenses for the first two, figuring she’d use that to get the companies she liked out as soon as possible.

◆ ◆ ◆

“You’re looking pleased with yourself.  I hope that means we’ll be seeing more of you,” Samantha said as Catie came out of her room for dinner.

“I am.  I have the basic team in place.  Now, I can just work on finalizing the plans for the station and barge.  My department heads will hire the rest of the team.”

Marc gave Catie a big smile.  “I’m glad to hear that.  So, you didn’t need any special incentives to free them up?”

“Nope.  That is unless Kal balks at my choice for head of security.”

“I can’t imagine he’d care.  So tell me, who’s your team?” Marc asked.

“Arlean Griggs as chief engineer, Lieutenant Racine as head of security, Nolan Bishop to run the construction, and JoAnn Rasmussen to run the mess hall for the first few months.  After that, I promised to set her up in the first restaurant on the base.”

“That sounds like a good team.  What about miners?”

“I’m arranging it so that Fiona’s uncle will come out and take one of the barges.”

“Arranging it, what does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to own a mine in Ireland.  But we’ll sell it as soon as we can.”

“Okay, and the other miners?”

“I’ve put out an initial prospectus for the companies.  People that are interested can modify it to suit themselves and make an offer.”

“That means you can take Allie over to Natalia’s tomorrow,” Samantha said.

“Sure.  I want to spend some time with Natalia talking about the treatment plant and some of the changes we’re going to try on the station.”

“She’ll be excited to hear that.”

“Who, Allie or Nattie?”

“Both, I suspect.  Now no more work talk; let’s have dinner.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, Nattie, hi Jules,” Catie gave Natalia and Julian a group hug.  The hug included Allie, who was giving Natalia a cautious look.

“Here, let’s trade.”  Natalia took Allie and handed Julian to Catie since he was squirming and wanted to see what he could get out of Catie.

“He’s such a big boy,” Catie cooed.

“Yes, and a pile of trouble, too.  Let’s go out back; I’ve got a play area set up for them.”

Catie followed Natalia through the house and out the back door.  The backyard was fenced, and there was a sandbox with toys in it.  “When you’re tired of holding him, put him in the sandbox.  Isha will be here in a bit to look after him.”  Catie sat in a chair and turned Julian to face her where she could play peek-a-boo with him.

“Who’s Isha?”

“Jules’ nanny.  She comes in on days when I’m home to help take care of him.”

“Oh, I guess that would let you get some work done.”

“You’d think so.”

After Catie and Julian had played for a bit, Julian made a new face at Catie.

“Oh, you lucky girl,” Natalia chuckled.  “That face means he’ll need to be changed in a minute.”

“Won’t Isha be here by then?”

“No.”

“Hey, I’m the auntie; I don’t change nappies.”

“You changed them the other day.”

“But that was just like changing panties.  I didn’t have to do anything but sprinkle a little powder.”

“Well, now you get the full experience.  There’s a changing table right inside the door.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Isha showed up just as Catie finished changing Julian.  “Alright, four weeks in a row!”

Catie blinked in confusion.  “What?”

“I try to time my arrival for after he does his morning business,” Isha whispered.

“No need to whisper; I already figured that out,” Natalia yelled.

Catie pointed to the baby monitor that Natalia had left on the changing table.

“Oops.  I’m Isha, by the way.”

“Catie.”

“Nice to meet you.  Anyway, I’ve got him.  It’s time for their snack.”

Catie went back out and joined Natalia while Isha grabbed Allie.

“I see you survived,” Natalia said.

“Yes, but I’ll never look at him the same way again.”

“Oh, grow up.  It’s part of life.”

“Well, I don’t spend my days dealing with it like you do.  And speaking of human waste, how are things down at the treatment plant?”

Natalia threw one of Julian’s blocks at Catie’s head.  Catie caught it with ease and stuck it in one of her pockets.

“Hey!” Natalia yelled.

“I might need some ammo later.  But seriously, how are things at the treatment plant?”

“They’re fine.  I’ve been reviewing the startup process to prepare for getting the plant on Ganesh up and running.  I’d like to avoid some of the issues we had here on Artemis.”

“So, you and Paul are really going to go with Daddy to Ganesh?”

“Sure, it’ll be fun.  The kids won’t really know the difference, and since they’ll have each other, it shouldn’t be too big a change.  Besides, Ganesh has a nicer climate.”

“This isn’t too bad.”

“Not now; you managed to show up in late fall.  But it does get pretty hot in the summer.  Unfortunately, it’ll be another five years before they bring in enough ice asteroids to raise the ocean levels enough to moderate the weather better.”

“I guess one colony is much like another.  Anyway, I wanted to get your input on some changes I’m thinking about for the new starbase.”

“I know.  Roche sent me a bunch of suggestions to review.  I think his words were, ‘some badger had talked the committee into trying to green up the station.  So now I’m stuck with doing all the real work,’” Natalia tried to sound like him.

“Badger?”

“French for pain in the ass.”

“Oh, so what did you think?”

“The passageways aren’t really wide enough to add a lot of greenery.  You’d have people bumping into planters, and they’d get in the way when you need to use a cart to haul things around.”

“I know.  That’s why I want to convert the top two decks so that there is a wide passageway, like a boulevard.  You can’t do anything with the top deck anyway.”

“That would work.  Do you really think it’s worth giving up all that space?”

“I think people will really enjoy having a place where they can stroll.  And hopefully, it will attract more small shops to open up on the station.  Right now, you have to shop online or go down to Delphi City for most luxury items, like nice clothes, jewelry, or decor.”

“You know that once you do it, you won’t be able to go back?”

“That would mean it’s working.  If people like it that much, we might be able to get more permanent residents up on the station.”

Natalia shrugged.  “You’re the boss.”

“Yeah, like that ever stopped you from expressing your opinion.”

“Yep, one of the reasons I left the Marines.”

Catie laughed.  “Now, a couple of other things.  First, can you review the environmental design for the mining barges?  They’re supposed to be able to go out for up to four months.  Ajda and Arlean are trying to finalize the design this week.”

“I can do that tonight.  What else?”

“I want to talk about whether we should do anything to the treatment plant on the base to handle big changes in load.  At first, over half the residents will be running off to the asteroid belt to mine.  And, depending on the barge design, they will be dumping sewage at various levels of treatment into our system when they get back.”

“That’s similar to what I’ve been looking at for Ganesh, so that should be easy.  Do you want to go over the changes with me?”

“Sure, I think I should know as much about all the systems as I can.”

“Well, you did help Tomi develop the first treatment plant.”

“I really just helped with the mechanical and control system design.  I didn’t spend too much time on the sludge.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie and Natalia ordered a pizza and worked through lunch.  By late afternoon, Catie finally had the basics down for the treatment plant.

“That’s enough for today.  I’ve got to start on dinner before Paul gets home.  Do you want to stay?” Natalia invited.

“No, I promised Sam I would be home for dinner.  She’s having someone over she thinks I should meet.”

“That’s nice of her.”

“Nice?  It’s kind of bossy.  She’s always a little bossy with me, kind of like Mommy.”

“Well, two things.  First, you are a guest in her house, so that does tend to come with a few rules.  You’ve spent too much time rooming with Liz.  She’s as likely to get into trouble as you are.  And second, Sam is your stepmom.”

“Oh, get real.”  Catie rolled her eyes.  “They’ve only been married a year, and I’m almost eighteen.”

“Okay, as any parent will tell you, kids are NOT grown up at eighteen.  It takes until thirty or so before they’re actually mature.”

Catie winced, “Yeah, Morgan and I’ve had that conversation.”

“Good.  And another thing, Sam has acted like your mom since she first met you.  She’s always looked out after your best interests.”

“I’ve already got Daddy checking on everything I do.  I don’t need Sam to pile on.”

“And who do you think keeps your father from getting reports on EVERYTHING you do?” Natalia pointed out.

“Huh?”

“Yes, if it weren’t for Sam, every move you made would get reported to your father so he could keep tabs on what you do.  Sam is the one that forces him to give you enough space to breathe.  He thinks he’s clever enough that you wouldn’t notice, but Sam knows better.”

“Oh.”

“Right.  Now go to dinner and be nice to her.”

◆ ◆ ◆

On Saturday, Catie committed to the design for the station.  She was going to stick with the Gemini design but change the top deck to a boulevard with just two rows of shops.  The shops would be four meters deep, with the rear having to accommodate the curvature of the shell.  That would allow a boulevard nine meters wide with a height of 5.2 meters.  With Nikola’s paint, it should look like a sky going on forever.  They would have to concentrate environmental and hydroponics in the lower deck, or they could grab some of the cabin space on the second deck to expand if needed.  Catie was pretty sure that they wouldn’t need all the cabins.

With a 750-meter ring diameter, they would have thirteen hundred cabins available for use either as offices or two-bedroom quarters.  She kept the hub design with a 180-meter inner hub, which was sufficient to fit the smelter inside of it.  It would make it possible for the barges to dock and allow the smelter team to unload the ore while the barge crew went into the station for some R&R.

Catie, Ajda, and Arlean also finalized the design of the mining barges, and Natalia taught Catie enough about the environmental systems that would be installed on the starbase that Catie thought she could step in and manage them if necessary.  And, most importantly, Catie was starting to get sated on babies.  They were fun, but without being able to go someplace for a day or so where there were no babies, she was ready to run away.

“Have you selected which system you’re going to?” Marc asked Catie when they sat down to breakfast on Sunday.

“Of course I have.”

“Then, do you plan to share that decision with the rest of us?”

“I was going to announce it tomorrow.”

Marc gave Catie a look.

“Okay, I’ve picked the blue star.  I’m going to name it Vulcan.”

“Vulcan?”

“After the Roman god of the forge.  We’re there to mine metal ores, and the starbase will have a huge smelter in it; a smelter is like a forge.”

“What tipped the balance?”

“It’s just a little richer than the other system, plus it’s right next to that waystation.  That means we can move the waystation and get there in one jump.  Save us a week.”

“A whole week.”

Catie rolled her eyes.  “And I kind of like the blue star.”

“As long as you have a reason.  Wouldn’t it have saved more time if you’d announced it earlier?”

“Not really.  We’re building the station on the fringe.  Chief Nolan has been staging material and equipment on Earth’s fringe.  Jumping fringe to fringe will only take a few hours.”

“Ah,” Marc said as the pieces from the reports he’d been getting finally snapped into place.  “And your crew?”

“Arlean Griggs is going to be the chief engineer.”

“Oh, good.  I hoped she’d accept.  And security, did Lieutenant Racine accept?”

“Yes.”

“Did you clear that with Captain McAvoy before you made the offer?”

“No, but we’d talked about her before.”

Marc grimaced, “That’s really not the same.  She will be in her command.”

“I know.  But she’ll be on the station, and I really wanted someone I knew well and could trust.”

“You really don’t want to get the reputation of only giving opportunities to your friends.”

“Why . . .” Catie sputtered.  “But, but I need to have at least a small circle of people I can trust.”

Samantha walked in and patted Marc on the shoulder.  “That sounds exactly like someone else I know.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Catie said.

Marc smiled sheepishly.  “Why don’t we talk about your going away party we’re having tomorrow afternoon?”

◆ ◆ ◆

On Sunday, Marc and Samantha held a going away party for Catie.  The Merlin was arriving that evening, and after swapping out some Marines, it would be heading out, taking Catie to Vulcan.

Samantha invited the leading colonists to the party, including the shipping tycoons Katya and Sebrina; they’d gotten the nickname after they got help from Marc and effectively cornered the market on home deliveries.  Catie was especially interested in meeting Helena Bachmann, the woman who had stepped up and become the main spokesperson for the colonists.  She knew that her father was thinking of appointing her as the next governor when he moved on to Ganesh.

“Hello, Cer Bachmann.  How is it working for Daddy?” Catie asked.

“It has its moments,” Cer Bachmann replied.

“Good ones or bad ones?”

“Mostly good.  I do love it when I surprise him with something he didn’t anticipate.”

“Oh, that really tweaks him.  He always thinks he has it all figured out.”

“True.  But he doesn’t always consider the soft issues.”

“Soft issues?” Catie was puzzled.

“People, morale, things like that.”

“True.  Both of us prefer things that can fit into an equation.”

“You need to learn to do more.”

“I’m trying, and he’s trying to force me to learn.”

“Good for him.”

“What do you think about taking over as governor here?”

“He keeps hinting at it, but I’m not sure I want all that responsibility.”

“Responsibility or hassle?”

“Both.”

“Well, you’ve done a great job with the national parks and environmental rules.”

“Thank you.  It is my passion.  And it’s always easier to avoid a problem than it is to clean up one.”

“I totally agree.”  Catie and Helena Bachmann traded a few stories about what it was like working for Marc.  Both of them were enjoying themselves.  Marc kept glancing over whenever they burst out laughing, wondering what they found so funny.

Catie broke away from Cer Bachmann and went to get another lemonade.

Seconds later, she was ambushed.  “Hello, Cer McCormack, I’m Katya, and this is my partner Sebrina; we wanted to thank you for helping us get the drones.”

“Please, call me Catie.  And you’re welcome.  The governor says you two are real tycoons.”

“We’re trying.  We want to be like you.”

“I’m not a tycoon.”

“You are too.  We read the book.”

Catie gritted her teeth and smiled.  “That damn book.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“I’m starting up a starbase in a new system so we can mine it for the platinum metals we need.”

“Cool, what are you going to name the starbase?” Katya asked.

“I’ve decided on Vulcan.  I’m naming the star that, so the base will have the same name.”

“Oh, cool, like Mr. Spock from Star Trek?”

“I was thinking like the Roman god of the forge.  We’re going to have a smelter on the station, and that’s like a forge.”

“Ahh, it would be way cooler if you were to name it after Mr. Spock.  He is a science officer, so it would be neat if the AI were Mr. Spock.”

Catie laughed.  “And an AI would sound a lot like Mr. Spock.”

“Right!  See, you really should name it Mr. Spock.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll name the star and the starbase Vulcan, but I’ll call the AI Mr. Spock.  That way, if you come to visit, you can talk to him.”

“Great.  Will I be able to talk to him from here?”

“Maybe, but you know we try to minimize the use of the quantum relays for personal reasons.”

“Yeah, but you’re the princess; you could make an exception,” Sebrina pointed out.

“Maybe.  We’ll just have to see.”

“Sure.  We wondered if you had suggestions about how we might use the drones to expand our business even more.”

“Maybe.  Are you having problems?”

“Only thing that is problematic is the limited range.  Can you get us drones that have a longer range?”

“I don’t think you would want to pay that price.  They become very expensive when you start adding more batteries, you know, all that weight.”

“Oh, I guess that would be a problem.”

“Why don’t you set up charging stations?  If you can recharge before you bring it back home, you’ll double its range,” Catie suggested.

“We could, but that would get expensive.”

“Don’t all your customers have recharging stations?  You could just require that they let you recharge the drone.  It would be easy to adapt them so they could recharge at the same station they use to recharge their cars.”

“We like that idea.  Could you send us plans on how to convert the drones?”

“Sure.  But you know Orion could draw them up for you.”

“Oh, are we allowed to access him for things like that?”

“I would think so.  You could always frame it as part of your education.”

“Oh, we like the way you think.  We have a lot of things we need to be educated on.”

“There you go.”

Chapter 11

Mission Start

“Are you ready to head out?” Morgan asked.  She was standing in the hallway outside Catie’s room looking around.  “Where are the tiny tots?”

“Jules is at home, and Allie is still asleep.”

“Want me to go get her?”

“No, I’ve got some last-minute things to take care of before we head out.  I’ll say goodbye when we leave.”

Catie was a bit sad to leave Artemis but excited to finally be getting the mission underway.  They had fifteen days of travel to reach the new system.  It was longer than the usual twelve days of travel to the fringe since they had to arrive at zero velocity.  Catie and Captain McAvoy had agreed on a mixed profile to cut the time.  They would run the engines at 4Gs for sixteen hours and at 2Gs for eight hours.  The majority of the crew would work their shift during the 2G period so that they could be horizontal for most of the 4G period.  That would get them to the fringe in just over two weeks versus the eighteen days it would have taken under the normal military 1.5G profile.

◆ ◆ ◆

On day five, Catie got a message from Arlean saying they needed to discuss the barge design.  Catie had sent in a request to increase the max load after she’d refined the economic model.  Apparently, it wasn’t an easy change to make.

“Hi, Ajda, hi Arlean.  So you didn’t like my change?”

“Oh, we loved it, but the engines didn’t like it,” Ajda explained.

“Okay, what are my choices?”

“You can slow the barges down to 1G of acceleration and save about twenty million dollars on each one, or you can stick with your spec and add fifty million?”

“Fifty million?!”

“And that’s not the worst news,” Arlean said.  “You would have to add an antimatter reactor to each barge.”

“Oh, that explains the fifty million.  Well, we can’t do that; Daddy and Uncle Blake would have kittens.  Any other options?”  Catie knew her father tried to avoid having the antimatter drives in anything that might be vulnerable to capture by other forces; having a drive on each barge crewed by a private company would never pass muster.

“Other than spending twenty million for a 1.3G profile, no.  And if you scale them back, they’ll get to use the new fusion reactor.  It’s a lot easier to maintain, which will put less pressure on the engineer.  And, you do realize that this is the acceleration at the 5 AU equivalent.  The engines won’t be able to generate much in the way of thrust out on the fringe.”

“Damn, I knew that,” Catie shook her head slightly.  “I don’t know why I ignored it.  That seals the deal on the station location, so adding more acceleration won’t make much of a difference.”

“So?” Ajda prompted.

“So, scale back the engines.  But that brings up another problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Fiona asked me what we would do if the barge became disabled.”

“And?”

“Well, we’d have to send something to get it.  Unfortunately, the Merlin isn’t exactly set up to tow a barge, so I think we need a few tugboats.”

Ajda gave a big smile and rubbed her hands together.  “Oh, that sounds like fun.”

“Something that could tow a barge at around 6Gs.  Optimize for cost, but if we have a problem, we want to be able to bring it in quickly.”

“You do know that means it’ll have to have an antimatter reactor.”

“Yes, but we’ll crew it with MacKenzie people and put a few Marines on it.  I think it needs space for fifteen.”

“Alright,” Ajda was starting to close the call.

“Wait.  What does this do to our schedule?”

“For the barges, it should speed it up.  The tugboats should take another two weeks; I can parallel it.  I assume you want two.”

“To start with.”

“Okay, bye, Catie,” Ajda said as she was already drawing up concepts in her HUD.

◆ ◆ ◆

When the Merlin arrived at the fringe of Vulcan, Nolan and his crew had been there for five days living in an Oryx.  All of them were happy to transfer to quarters aboard the Merlin.  Even at four people to a cabin, it was luxury compared to living in an Oryx.

Catie and Chief Bishop were viewing the construction from Catie’s day cabin in the Merlin; she was occupying the guest, or admiral’s, cabin since she wasn’t the captain.

“You’re extruding both the inner hub and the outer hub at the same time?” Catie asked.

Nolan smirked.  “Yep, you didn’t think I wouldn’t have more tricks up my sleeve, did you?”

“I always expect you to have another trick, but both hubs at the same time?”

“Why not?  We extrude the four quarters of the ring at the same time, and that’s a lot more difficult than a hub.”

“I guess it is.  When we did Delphi Station, we were just learning, so it would never have occurred to us.  Plus, inserting the inner hub would have been daunting at that time.”

“Yep, it would have been, but with those Skylifters to move things around, it’s not such a big deal.  A hub’s a piece of cake compared to a fully loaded cargo pod.  So, we won’t have any problem inserting the inner hub inside the outer one.”

“So that’s going to save us what, two weeks?”

“Yep.  Those two cases of scotch are pretty much mine.”  Nolan rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

Catie laughed.  “It’ll be worth it.  Can you explain the cabin shipment that I just saw?”

“Sure.  As soon as we have those hubs ready, we’re going to put a bunch of cabins inside the outer hub.  Then the crew will move out of the Merlin and into private cabins.”

“And what are we going to be doing with all those cabins after the ring is done?”

“I assume you’ll convert some of them to labs, others to offices, and some you’ll keep as cabins.  They’re not that fancy, just the bathroom and a bunk, so they’ll be easy to convert.  And don’t you think some of those miners will want to stay in the hub?”

“Why?”

“Hey, ½G feels pretty good after you’ve been working hard for a few weeks.”

“It might, but the doctors won’t allow it.  They have to spend one day at 1G for every week they’re in microgravity.  It takes that, plus the medication and exercise, to prevent bone loss.”

“Oh, I forgot about that.  Well, you’ll still have people who want to sleep down there and work up in the ring.  Plus, the medical facilities will need patient rooms.  They prefer the low G environment for recovery.”

“Okay, I’ll sign off on it.  They should be here in two weeks.”

“Thanks, Catie, you’re a good sport.”

“Scotch is cheap compared to the schedule.”

Nolan brightened.  “Does that mean I can get four cases?”

“Don’t push it.”

Board Meeting – Nov 6th

Marc banged his virtual gavel.  “Okay, everyone is here, so this meeting will come to order.  Admiral, how are things at the Delphi Federation?”

“We’ve accepted delegates from Singapore, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Cyprus, Jordan, and Kuwait, and the provisional delegates from Lebanon and Syria.  I’m sure you can imagine how raucous our first meeting with the new delegates was.”

After pausing for a few chuckles, the admiral continued.  “One of the big questions is what happens if the U.N. actually agrees on a unified government strategy?”

“What do you suggest?” Samantha asked.

“I’ve been hinting that we’ll continue the federation until any such strategy is well established.”

“I think that’s the right answer.  Marc, don’t you agree?”

Marc nodded.  “Yes.  And I expect that any transition like that would take on the order of a decade to accomplish.”

“Okay, I’ll be a bit firmer in my commitments.  Of course, our first test will be what happens with Syria and Lebanon.”

“Kal?”

“We’re just getting started.  We’ve put agents on the ground, and they’re making progress.  It just takes time.  They’ve been scattering our microbots around suspected arms depots, but we have to wait to hear complaints about bad ammo and useless explosives before we’ll know if they’ve been successful.”

“Your microbots don’t communicate back to you?” Marc asked.

“No.  We program them to have a delay before proceeding because we want to create a significant gap between our agents being in the area and any problems.  We should be getting some feedback soon.”

“Are your agents having trouble accessing the areas?”

“Not too much, but it’s slow.  They need to get close enough to send in a small drone to drop the bots.  It would be nice if we could fly over and do it, but that would raise too many questions, and we can’t afford to just saturate the area with bots.  We’re establishing the right contacts; things will accelerate with time.”

“Alright.  Let us know if you need any additional support.”

“I will.”

Marc added Margaret Hannaford to the conference.  “Now, Sam has invited Ambassador Hannaford here to update us on the Delphi League.  Ambassador.”

“Marc, call me Maggie.  Hello, everyone; it’s been a while.  Catie, Niolna says hello.  She especially liked the videos you sent her of Polynesian traditions.  She wants to know when you’re going to come out to teach her the Tahitian ‘ote’a dance.”

“What’s the ‘ote’a dance?” Samantha asked.

“It’s the Polynesian dance where they wear a grass skirt, and their hips go about one hundred miles an hour,” Kal explained.  “And I’d pay to see Catie do that dance.”

“I’d make a special trip to see that,” Blake said.

Catie laughed.  “That is not going to happen.”

“Hey, just a picture of her wearing the costume would be worth a lot,” Kal added.

“That won’t be happening either,” Catie said.

“Enough!” Marc said.  “You can tease Catie on your own time and at your own peril.  Maggie, go on.”

Maggie chuckled at the expression Catie was giving her Uncle Blake.  “A quick visual for you, think of the Delphi League like the U.N. on steroids, and we haven’t even started to bring in the other starfaring civilizations that the Paraxeans have discovered.

“Our ploy of pushing Galactic Standard as the language of commerce seems to be working.  Calling it Galactic Standard instead of English or Standard English certainly helped.  And the data was hard to refute.  We’ll see how long it takes to have it become the common language.

“Helike has sent a new trade minister, Prince Nikitas.  Catie, he sends his regards, by the way.”

“Wow, that’s a big promotion, from Ensign to trade minister,” Catie said.

“Well, his personal relationship with you probably worked in his favor.”

Catie rolled her eyes at the insinuation but kept her mouth shut.

Margaret decided not to push her luck and turned back to business.  “Of course, the top issues are defense and commerce.  They are currently satisfied with having a frigate stationed at the fringe of each system, but they would prefer it to be closer to the planet, and they want more assurances about the availability of the carriers and Marines to back the frigate up.”

“Blake?”

“We could have the Enterprise do a tour of the various planets.  The timing of it moving from one system to another should reassure them.  We could also invite some representatives from each system to sail with her.”

“That would help a lot.  Then they would see for themselves that the transition from fringe to fringe only takes a few hours.”

“Okay, Blake, make it happen,” Marc said.

“Thank you.  Now, as to the commerce issue.  They are all pushing for the ability to ship cargo independently and without having to coordinate with the Dutchman or the Resolve.”

“Catie, what do you think?” Marc asked.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Well, you kind of own the rights to ship cargo through wormholes.”

“Oh yeah.  Well, I guess we could let them ship stuff.  But then they’d have to come up with a ship that could make it to the fringe.  The Paraxeans can do that, but will the others be able to?”

“I’m sure the Paraxeans will be happy to sell them a ship that is capable of it.”

“But one without an antimatter reactor.”

“Well, that would require that we share our new fusion reactor with them.  Theirs don’t have the power to drive that much mass that fast.”

“Or maybe we should sell the ships; I’ve been working on that new design,” Catie said.

“Maggie, I’m going to throw this back in your lap.”

“I’m not surprised.  I’ll see what kind of reactions I get.  Also, everyone has been happy to accept the Aurora as the galactic currency,” Margaret replied.

“That was easy.”

“Only because Delphi is the only organization capable of backing it up.  Everyone realizes that to access resources in other solar systems, they’ll have to rely on your jump gates.  And they also realize that if they want to start other colonies, the only sensible way would be to use the jump gates and a StarMerchant.  Oh, and your catalog of the star systems.”

“Speaking of that, Catie, where are we on mapping out systems?” Marc asked.

“We have four more Earth-like worlds plus two more heavy worlds to check out.  We’re still looking for the Aperanjen’s homeworld.  Who’s asking about colony worlds?”

“Who isn’t?  Anyway, that should give you a sense of where we are in the league.  I haven’t started to address disarmament; I thought I’d save that for later.”

“Okay.  Thanks, Maggie.”

Once Margaret had signed off the call, Marc moved on to his next item.

“Catie, what’s the status of Starbase Vulcan?”

“Well, Nolan pulled another rabbit out of his hat and has us two weeks ahead of schedule.”

“I saw that; what did he do?” Fred asked.

“He’s extruding both the inner hub and the outer hub at the same time.”

“How’s he doing that?” Liz asked.  She was especially curious since she’d coordinated the building of Delphi Station.

“He’s doing them side by side.  He hacked a couple of big chunks off of the iron asteroid to anchor the extrusion arms.  Once they’re finished, he’ll use a Skylifter to insert the inner hub.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“So, are you going to be able to take advantage of the two weeks?” Marc asked.

“Yes.  It was easy to ask the Wells team to show up early.  I just have to select the second team.  Would you guys like to help?”

“Sure,” Blake said as he rubbed his hands together.

“Blake, be nice,” Samantha scolded.  “Catie, go on.”

“I’ve narrowed it down to three teams.  Two of them are families that are currently miners on Gemini Station.  The third team is made up of five people that were brought together by their leader, Levi Winters.  Levi and two others are from Gemini station; they’re not related.  Another is an engineering student studying at Delphi University, she and Levi had a few classes together, and she’s their chief engineer.”

“Does she have the necessary experience?”

“She’s working on her masters.  She’s done a couple of summers in Delphi Station’s engineering section, so I think it’s good enough.  They initially submitted their proposal with just the four, but I sent it back and said I was going to require a crew of at least five.  So, they sent it back with a fifth person.  He’s a member of the construction crew that built Delphi Station.  He’s hung around on the station working in environmental and cooking at Bettie’s on the weekends.”

“Well, since you’ve told us so much about the third team, they’re obviously your preferred choice.  Why is that?” Marc asked.

“I’m not sure.  I think I like the fact that Winters pulled four other people together to form this company.  So, he’s selected them solely based on how well they can contribute.  We already have the family model to learn from with Fiona’s uncle.  And this is a very young team, so I think they’ll push the boundaries more.  Also, they have the most detailed financial analysis of how they plan to make money.”

Marc shrugged, “Then go with them.  You’ll have plenty of chances to pick another team.  You are planning on twenty, aren’t you?”

“For the first year.  I think we’ll probably build up to more in the second year.  It will depend on the colonies and how fast Delphi League expands.”

“Alright, so go for it.  What else?”

“We’ve designed some tug boats to help manage the barges.  They’ll be able to go get one if it gets in trouble.  They’ll also be our fast response craft for emergencies.  They can do 5Gs with a barge, six without one.  We’ll also use them to push the cargo to the fringe, where it’ll be easy for the Dutchman to grab.  Two of them should be showing up in a few days along with our first two barges.”

“That brings up the point about where you’re going to locate the station.  I understand that you have selected the orbit for Starbase Vulcan.”

“I have.”

“And?” Blake said.

“We’re going to move it to one-quarter of an AU above the ecliptic, centered on the middle of the asteroid belt.”

“Hah!” Fred exclaimed.

“What?!” Catie was startled by such an unusual outburst from Fred.

“I won the bet.”

“What bet?”

“I bet Blake that economics would win out over his security concerns.  I knew I’d taught you better than to ignore asset utilization,” Fred gloated at Blake.

“Let’s let Catie explain,” Marc said.

“Well, no matter how I ran the numbers, the time the barges spend getting to their mining location and the time they spend getting back with their ore dominated the return on investment.  The barges are the biggest investment we’ll have.  At over two hundred fifty million each and with projections of needing between thirty and fifty barges, we have to optimize for efficiency.  Also, they’re the miners’ biggest investment, so to be fair, we need to make sure they can get the most out of them.  Plus, keeping their gravity drives small saves a huge amount of investment but limits them to less than 1G of acceleration.  So, by putting the station one-fourth of an AU up from the middle gives us about 20 thousand kilometers of clearance from the belt and limits the travel time to between one and four days.”

“Wow, that long.  It only takes us two weeks to get to the fringe,” Liz said.

“But you’re not stopping at the fringe, so you never have to slow down on the way.  It would take over twenty-three days if you were going to stop there.”

“So, when are you going to start moving the station?”

“And how are you going to move it that far?” Marc prompted.

“The tugs Ajda designed will be able to move the station; it’s just going to take a long time.”

With that, Marc closed the meeting.

“Hey, Fred, what did you win?” Catie asked.

“Blake has to pay for Latoya and me to stay on the island where he honeymooned.”

“Ouch.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Yvette started the day out like she had for the past two months.  She arrived at the Pentagon thirty minutes early and checked through security.  As usual, she had to remove the turquoise pendant she wore to get through the metal detector; the chain and the metal filigree on the surface of the pendant always set off the detector.  She gathered her stuff and walked to her office.  She went into her usual routine and started a fresh cup of coffee before going to the bathroom, where she surreptitiously replaced the turquoise pendant with a copy that had no metal content.

Next, she put the real pendant against the back of her Pentagon phone.  All employees had to use a Pentagon-issued phone.  One which had spyware on it so the Pentagon would know exactly what you did with the phone.  But, by placing the pendant on the phone, Yvette was actually putting the latest Comm against the phone.  It was so small because it had no battery; instead, it coupled to the inductive charger in the Pentagon phone to run itself from that battery.  The Comm unit immediately coupled with Yvette’s specs, tailboard, and earwigs.  It registered itself as those items with the Pentagon phone, so it could relay the images and sounds that they wanted the Pentagon phone to be aware of.

Yvette left the bathroom after fixing her makeup and fluffing her hair.  She returned to her desk and prepared for the day.  As soon as she heard General Douglas’ footsteps, she got up and poured him a cup of coffee.  She followed him into his office, placing the cup on his desk as he unloaded his briefcase.  During this time, she managed to take several pictures of the documents that the general was unloading with her specs.  When he spilled the contents of one of the folders, Yvette quickly gathered them together and straightened them out, placing the folder in the pile with the rest of them.  General Douglas appreciated her attention to detail.  The fact that she always met him with a cup of coffee and never complained about running down to the canteen to get him a snack made him appreciate her more.  His last assistant had always pointed out that she was not his coffee girl but his assistant.  Besides, Yvette was much prettier than the last assistant and even flirted with the old goat.

“Brenda, I need you to prepare the briefing folders.  Here’s the material.”  The general handed Yvette a folder that he had just pulled out of the safe.  “Top secret.”

“Yes, sir.  How soon do you need them?”

“One hour.”

“I’ll have them ready.”

Yvette returned to her desk, where she took the first sheet from the folder; it was the list of attendees, so she started typing labels for the folders.  Then she attached the labels to a set of folders, one for each attendee, and took everything to the copy room.

There, she carefully riffled the stack of top-secret papers to ensure that they wouldn’t jam in the copier.  While she was doing that, she connected her Comm to the microbot she had positioned inside the copier a few weeks ago.  It was sitting on the laser so that it could feed her Comm a stream of bits representing the page that was being copied.  Her Comm would have no problem converting the bitstream into text.

Once she had the right number of copies, Yvette inserted one copy in each of the folders, with the original going into General Douglas’ folder.  She then took the folders to the conference room.  Here, she put one at each of the places on the table with the owner’s name prominently displayed.  Once she was finished, she walked over to the refreshment table and checked things out.  While there, she flexed the toes of her left foot, so the small recorder detached from the shoe.  She used her toe to flip it up against the black baseboard.  The recorder had come into the Pentagon via the coffee maker she’d ordered to replace the piece of junk that was in the general’s office when she arrived.  The ceramic batteries were hidden in the heating plate; the controller was part of the clock, an unnecessary addition since the time was managed by the coffee maker’s controller.  She kept it in a small indent in the coffee maker, where it was kept charged until it was needed.

As she continued to inspect the room, the microbot that was clinging to her skirt detached itself and crawled up the wall where it found the controller for the light fixture.  It wrapped itself around one of the wires so it could maintain a charge and where it had a view of the room.  Its main function was to record the event, transmitting the signal to the recorder to augment its microphone.

With everything prepared for the meeting, Yvette secured the room and returned to her desk.

Chapter 12

Back to work

The barges and miners showed up three days before Catie’s birthday; she thought of it as an early birthday present.  The first ring would be finished in two weeks, kind of a late birthday present.  At least this time, she would be around when they connected the rings to the hub.

Catie had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the miners.  She thought she had all her ducks in a row, but the first meeting would tell.  The barges were a bit early since Ajda had had the tugs tow the barges to the fringe.  The tugs could do 5Gs while towing the barges, which could only do 1G with their power plants maxed out.  Towing had shortened the trip by five days.  The miners didn’t necessarily enjoy the higher acceleration; even with the stutter profile, it was taxing, but they were in as big a hurry as Catie to get to work.

Catie made a point to be at the entry port to greet the miners.  Fiona was excited to finally get to see her uncle and cousins who made up one of the mining teams.

“Ach, I’m knackered!” Duncan announced.

“That’s me uncle,” Fiona whispered to Catie.  “He’s always complaining about something.”

“Ah, me sweetheart Fiona.  You’re a sight for sore eyes.  Especially since it means we don’t have to be strapped to a bleedin’ couch all day.”

The woman behind him pushed his shoulder.  “Ah, quit your whining.  You’re always on the couch at home.  Hello, I’m Kelly Wells, the wife of this here lug.”  She held her fist up to do a bump with Catie.

“Aunt Kelly, this is my boss and the station manager, Catie McCormack.”

“I recognize her from her picture and the video call.  Pleased to meet you in person.  Behind us is our oldest, Connor, and his wife, Orla.  Then there’s Kieran and his wife, Leah, and last but not least, there’s Sean, our youngest, and his wife, Megan.  No wee ones yet.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Catie said.  “I’ll let Fiona show you to your quarters.  We’ll have a briefing tomorrow morning to get everyone up to date.”

“Thank you.”

Fiona led the crew out of the boarding area and toward the gravity section.  “You’re really going to like your cabins.”

“I’m sure we will.  The cabins on that barge were pretty nice.  Of course, we didn’t do much in them on the trip here.”

“You won’t be having that problem anymore.”

Catie and Morgan moved to the next boarding section, where the second barge had finally docked.  The crew was just coming through the airlock.  This was her grand experiment, the unique crew she’d selected, so she was looking forward to actually meeting them.

“Hello, I’m Levi Winters, I’m the captain,” the first man to come out of the airlock greeted.

“I know; I’ve read your file,” Catie said.

“I’m sure you have.  This is Oskar Jaumann, our first mate; Naima Botros, our engineer; Deleep Peramul, our mining expert; and Toby Wood, our other miner and all-around hand.”

“I’m pleased to meet you.  We’ll be having a briefing in the morning to bring you up to date.  We’ll see where we should go from there.  For now, this is one of our stewards, Maxine Parker.  She’ll show you to your quarters.”

“Only five,” Morgan said once the crew was out of earshot.

“They tried to get away with only four since they plan to utilize a lot of bots, but I told them I wouldn’t accept a crew smaller than five.”

“Oh, hence the emphasis on and.  But still an eclectic mix.”

“Yes, that’s why I picked them.  They formed a company and sent a proposal to us.  They put a lot of work into the economics, not just relying on mining experience.  I think it will be a good model for how companies can operate out here.”

“We’ll see.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Everyone met in the big conference room on Vulcan.  Apparently, nobody was willing to go virtual and risk missing something.

Once everyone was seated, Catie stood up.  “Okay, let’s get started.  I’m Catherine McCormack, the manager of the station.  Most people just call me Catie.  I want to review some ground rules and update you on the latest decisions.

“First, you’re here to help us learn how to run this operation.  We want it to be profitable for both MacKenzie Mining and the various companies that will operate out of Starbase Vulcan, especially the mining companies of which you’re the first two.  If something isn’t working, let us know, it’s probably because we didn’t do our homework rather than being intentional.

“Second, since you’re the first miners on Vulcan, we’re providing you quarters on base at no cost for the first six months.  But don’t get too comfortable in those quarters; unless you want to rent them permanently, you’ll be rotating through whatever cabins are available when you dock.  There are storage units you can use for the stuff you don’t want to haul around on the barge with you.  You’ll have to stay on Vulcan during your downtime since you need time at 1G to make up for all the time you’ll have been in microgravity.  If you want a permanent office on the base, you’re welcome to rent one.”

Levi stood up.  “Won’t the time we spend coming and going count toward our 1G limit?”

“Yes, but you need one day at 1G per week of microgravity, and that assumes you do the exercises the doctors recommend while in microgravity.  You’ll get a bone scan when you get back.  Depending on travel time, you may need a few days on station before you go out again.”

Catie paused to see if anyone had any questions.  Everyone was just nodding and taking notes in their HUDs, so she continued.  “Third, you all have an account at the credit union here.  It’s just that, a credit union.  It will not make money off of you, just recover costs.  You can use it to tide you over if you need some help.

“Fourth, we’ll provide up-to-date data on the market price of the metals you’re mining so you can choose when you want to sell.  But be warned, the prices will fluctuate, so don’t promise more than you can deliver or you might lose money.  It will typically take one to two days to process your ore through the smelter so that you know exactly what you have.”

Levi raised his hand.  “How much will running our ore through the smelter cost?”

“That’s something I’m willing to take input on.  At first, I thought about running it as a co-op, but the issue with that is MacKenzies does need to make money on this starbase, and the smelter is an obvious asset to make a profit on.  So, in order to keep rents lower, I’m planning on charging cost plus ten percent to run the smelter.  The smelter costs are proportional to the amount of metal in the ore since separating the various metals is where most of the expense is.  The books will be available for auditing.  What do you think?”

“I like the co-op idea.”

“I suspect all the miners will.  But you have to remember that all your tooling, supplies, and maintenance will be run by small companies trying to make a profit.  If they’re paying higher rents, you’ll wind up paying for it in the end.”

Duncan Wells laughed.  “Exactly.  Don’t you guys get it?  We’ll be paying for everything.  We’re the reason this base is here.  The rest of the folks will just be here to support us.  I like the cost plus ten.  That means if you have a bad couple of runs, you can hunker down and cut expenses while the blokes who are getting big hauls help cover you.”

“We’ll stick with that for now.  We can revisit it in the future when we all know more about what it takes to make all this work.

“Next, this system is owned by MacKenzies, so you’ll need to purchase the asteroids you mine.  We’ve sent a probe that is making an initial survey of the asteroids.  It will provide a surface scan that should show ore distribution and the overall density of the asteroids as they come into range of Starbase Vulcan.  Each asteroid will come up on a board, and we’ll take sealed bids.  The highest bid gets the asteroid.  I suspect that while we’ve just got the two of you out here, most of them will be going for the minimum bid.  But you should make sure you factor that into your business model.  And finally, we’ve decided to move the station so that it’s just above the halfway point of the asteroid belt.”

Levi started clapping.  “Hallelujah!”

Catie laughed.  “I assumed all of you would be happy about that.  We realized we had to optimize for your travel time to and from the asteroid field.  This is the best option I could come up with.  But that means that we will be spending the next forty-five days moving the station.  Your barges can make it to the asteroid belt in twenty-five days.  So you need to decide if you’re going to head out early or wait for us to get there.”

“What kind of question is that, of course, we’ll head out as soon as you let us,” Levi said.  “We came here to make money, not sit around riding in a space station.”

“Very well.  The chandlery will be ready to issue supplies tomorrow.  Again, since you’re the first, we expect there will be some inefficiencies, so you’ll be getting stocked at no charge the first time, but the chandlery has standards on how much of each you should need so no overstocking.  Any questions?”

Connor raised his hand.  “Why do we have to use the smelter since the barges have a smelter?”

“The answer is you don’t, but the smelter on the barges is only able to remove most of the nonmetallic content; it can’t separate the ore into the different metals, so you won’t be able to tell how much gold you have versus platinum.  You’re welcome to sell your ore in that state, but I don’t think you’re going to like the price.”

Levi stood up.  “We want to stay out for ten weeks, will the chandlery stock us for that much time?”

“The standard we’re using is eight weeks, so you’ll have to pay for the other two weeks.  Plus, you have to carry one week of extra supplies in case of emergencies.  There’s a substantial fine if you dock with less than a one-week supply.”

“Hey, who are you to tell us how much to stock?” Sean yelled out.

“We own the barges.  We don’t want you going out there and starving to death, making us retrieve the barge, clean it up, and release it to a smarter company.”

Duncan smacked Sean on the back of the head.  “Right, and I like to have a safety margin as well.  Now sit down!”

After a few more questions, Catie decided it was time to close the meeting.

“Okay, if there aren’t any more questions, I’ll let you go.  Feel free to message me with questions or stop by my office.  As I said, we’re all here to learn.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie met Captain McAvoy in the gym.

“Catie, thanks for agreeing to work out with me.”

“Hey, no problem.  I’m always up for a different sparring partner.  Who do you usually work out with?”

“I’ve been working out with Lieutenant Racine, but she holds back.”

“That doesn’t sound like her.”

“I didn’t think so either.  You can’t imagine how hard it is for the captain to come up with someone who’ll go all out against her.”

“I’d think Morgan would be willing to give you a challenge.”

“I thought so too, but even she holds off a bit.  She doesn’t hold back with you?”

“Nope.  I guess after you break a few of their bones, people decide that they want to get even.”

“I might have to try that.”  Captain McAvoy tried a move on Catie, only to find herself on the floor.

“Nice move,” Catie said as she gasped a bit.

“Not good enough.  You were the one supposed to land on the floor.”

“Well, that’s one of Morgan’s favorites, so I’m pretty good at spotting it.”

Captain McAvoy laughed as she hopped to her feet.  She and Catie kept sparring, trading blows and throws while they continued to chat.  Catie liked the chatter since it provided opportunities to distract her opponent, and she assumed they had the same idea.

“You know, when I was sparring with Racine, she mentioned how everyone on the Oryx that brought her to the fringe was griping about the crappy transport.”

“I thought they had adapted a few so that they were more comfortable.”

“They have, but it’s still a pretty confined environment.  And it takes three weeks to make it from Earth to the fringe, where you can board your ship or get a jump to the next system.  We try to use the frigates when we move large numbers around, but that’s a waste.  You have this expensive ship that you want stationed close to the fringe for protection, and you use it as a troop transport.”

Catie got a glimmer of an idea about how to solve that problem, then she found herself on her ass.

“Sorry about that.  I assume from the look on your face you came up with an idea.”

Catie glared at Captain McAvoy.  “Yes, I did.  We can talk about it after we finish sparring.”

“You don’t want to stop now?”

“No way!”

“Okay, I’ve sent a message to my XO to not engage in any activity that might put him out of commission.”

“I don’t think getting thrown on your ass will put you out of commission.”

“Are you saying I have a big ass?  Good thing you’re not in my chain of command.”

Catie laughed, then fifteen seconds later, she demonstrated to Captain McAvoy that getting tossed on her ass wouldn’t do too much damage.

“So, are we even?” Captain McAvoy asked.

“Oh, not even close.”

“Well, why don’t you finish getting even tomorrow?  Let’s wash up and have breakfast so we can discuss your idea.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Okay, so what did you think up?” Captain McAvoy asked as they sat down for breakfast.

“Well, we just finished designing tugboats to be able to move the barges around or rescue one if it has problems.  They’re like the Skylifters but way bigger.  So, if we designed a ship to house people while the tugboat hauled it around, you could come up with something pretty economical.”

“So, no engines?”

“Right, it would only need one of the small fusion reactors, bigger than the one on the Oryx but a lot smaller than the ones we’re putting on the barges.  Then you could provide mechanical oxygen regeneration, just recycle the water, but store the solids to dump into the treatment plant of one of the bigger ships or a station.  You’d have a pretty efficient people mover.  If we made it a fifty-meter sphere, you could fit five hundred cabins and use the central deck for the common area.”

“Why a sphere?  Wouldn’t it be cheaper to make it a square?”

“Not really.  You’d need a lot more structural support, as well as having to worry about hot spots; besides, we already know how to extrude a sphere.”

“So, what will it cost?”

“I sent the design to Ajda.  We’ll see what she think.”

“What kind of cabins are we talking about?”

“The same as you have on the Merlin, four meters square with a private bathroom.”

“Not bad, so four per cabin, that means you could move two thousand at a time.”

“Right, but you have to deduct for the officers and VIPs that would need their own cabin.”

“Still, that would recrew a carrier.  You should send it to your uncle as well.”

“I will once Ajda says she can build it.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was shocked as she read the article in the Delphi Gazette.  “Boy wonder starts tours to the moon!”

“Call Artie!”

“Hello,” a groggy voice answered the Comm.

“Artie.”

“Catie, it’s two A.M.  here, and I have a morning class!”

“I just read the article in the Gazette about the boy wonder!”

“Oh, what do you think?”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.”

“Me either.  I was so worried that you’d swoop in at the end and beat me to it.”

“I would never do that.  So how is it going?”

“We have our first tour on Saturday.  Sophia and Leslie Walters are going to cover it.  We’re booked solid.”

“I can imagine.  And now I can understand why you wanted to have a shuttle with a clear roof.”

“Well, you do get some nice views of Earth once you flip the ship.”

“So, how’s it work?” Catie asked.

“We offer three packages.  All of them include a trip to Delphi Station and a trip to the moon.  It takes us two hours to get there, and we serve a nice lunch while in flight.  Then we spend two hours on the moon where everyone can take pictures and walk around.  When you get tired, you can come back to the shuttle, where we’ll serve drinks and snacks.  Then we take them back to Delphi Station.  We have an upgrade that includes a spacewalk and another one which extends your stay on the station.”

“Oh, is that why I saw a production order for some weird bubble-headed helmet?”

“Yes, you have to be able to take pictures where everyone will recognize you.  The standard helmet is just too limited.  Having a 3/5ths clear bubble makes you look like yourself.”

“I guess.  How often are you doing a tour?”

“I’m hoping to do one each day except for the week around the full moon.”

“The full moon?”

“Yes, when the moon is full from Earth, then Earth is like a new moon, dark from the moon.  The Earth phases are opposite of the moon’s phase.”

“Cool, I didn’t know that.  How far out do your bookings go?”

“Our schedule is full for the next two months; we’ll have to see what happens when the buzz wears off.”

“Oh, you think it will?”

“I hope not.  I wound up leasing the shuttle, but you guys insisted on a pretty pricey exit clause.  It’ll really hurt if I have to close down.”

“I’m sure you won’t.  Man, I could just kick myself!”

“Don’t worry; your space liner will make this look like a lemonade stand.”

“I hope so; well, I don’t want to make you look like you’re running a lemonade stand.  I really hope you’re successful, but I do want the space liner to do well.”

“Okay, now, can I go back to sleep?”

“Sure.”

Board Meeting – Dec 4th

“Let’s come to order.  Admiral, how are things with the Federation?” Marc asked.

“Making progress, but the most important thing is what’s happening in Syria and Lebanon.”

“Kal?”

“We’re making good progress; the microbots are working as expected.  There’s lots of chatter about bad ammo on the various backchannels we’re managing to monitor.”

“Good, keep it up.  Sam?”

“Maggie says they’re all caught up in the trade discussion.  Catie, where are you with the design of a new cargo ship?”

“Ajda and I discussed it right after the last meeting.  She tweaked my design and has one she thinks will work,” Catie informed the group.

“Can you share it with us?” Blake asked.

“Sure.”  Catie threw the ship design up on the display.  “Basically, it’s a mini-Dutchman.  It’s only 200 meters long by 60 meters in diameter.  It can carry twenty percent of the cargo that the Dutchman does.”

“Is that enough?”

“I think so, and besides, if it was any bigger, we couldn’t use the new fusion plant; we’d have to step up to the bigger one, and that’s really expensive.”

Marc nodded.  “Okay.  I see you’ve stuck with cargo pods.”

“Ajda thought they’d be the most efficient.  Since it doesn’t have a jump drive, the ship engineering and environmental sections fit in a wedge along the bottom, which uses up one-quarter of the cylinder.  Three pods fit around that to form the cylinder.”

“How big are the pods?”

“Ajda stuck with sets of eight, so they’re twenty meters wide with a radius of thirty.”

“So, how much will it cost to build?” Marc asked.

“Three hundred fifty million.”

“That’s more than one-fifth the Dutchman’s cost.”

“Well, we do want to make a profit.  The cost is in the engines and systems.  The pods are cheap.  I’ll send everyone the numbers.”

“So, we’ll sell them to the other colonies.”

“Could we sell the engines and things so they could build them themselves?” Samantha asked.

“Sure.”

“How will adding these into the shipping mix affect the cost of running the gates?” Marc asked.

“It’ll save money since they’re smaller.”

“How does that save money?” Blake asked.

“The antimatter reactors will last longer.”

“Longer, don’t they last hundreds of years?”

“No.  The fusion reactors do if you run them at low power, but the antimatter reactors need to have their coil rewound and realigned every ten thousand hours.”

Blake almost jumped out of his chair.  “What?!”

“They are only used when the ship is accelerating hard or using weapons.  So they really don’t get that many hours put on them.  As you know, the Paraxean fusion reactors can’t generate enough power to accelerate their ships except when they’re pretty deep in the gravity well, but ours manage pretty well all the way out to the fringe.  I don’t know how the rebels thought they were going to decelerate that asteroid enough to get it to orbit Earth.”

“They put it in orbit at the fringe,” Marc said.

“Not really.  They already had it cutting a chord across the system; they just changed the angle a little.  I reviewed their records.  They had been decelerating the asteroid for twenty years before they reached Earth.  I don’t think it would have been possible for them to get back to Paraxea, at least not with the colonists.  They were on a vector toward Earth, so we were really the only destination they could make.”

“I’ll have to discuss that with Governor Paratar,” Marc said.  “Maybe we should cut the military leader of that mission a little more slack.”

“They were going to conquer Earth,” Catie pointed out.

“I know, but they really didn’t have as many options as we thought.  They should have considered just asking us for help.  But this information makes me think that a lot more of the lower-level officers might be redeemable.”

“You and Sam can deal with that,” Blake said.

“Alright.  Thanks for the update.  Sam, I assume you’ll work with Maggie to see how she wants to handle this?”

“Already on my list.”

“Fred?”

“The U.S. is filing an antitrust suit against us related to the batteries.”  Fred laughed at the thought.

“Will it be successful?”

“I don’t think so.  We’re not the only batteries around, just the best.  Our airline is doing well, but given the suit, we might want to consider selling some supersonic liners to other airlines.  We don’t want the EU getting ticked off at us, and we don’t need to pour more fuel on the U.S. fire.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“Also, given Catie’s presentation, it’s a good time to announce the new shipyard we’ve spun off.”

“MacKenzie Shipyards?” Catie offered.

“That name works.  Now, moving on, we’ve inked the deal with the Cook Islands and French Polynesia for two cities and two airports.  We’ve built several quads ahead in anticipation.  It was a pretty safe bet since we could have used them on Delphi City if things didn’t work out.”

“Anything else?” Marc asked.

“Read the reports.”

“Catie, you’re up.”

“Nolan finished extruding the ring, and we’re building out the internal frame now.  That should be finished early next week.  Then Nolan plans to shove as many cabins and as much material inside before he maneuvers it into place and attaches it to the hub at the end of next week.”

“So, did Nolan get the bonus?” Blake asked.

“We had to compromise on that.  Since he decided to hold off before attaching the ring, he technically lost it, but he’s saving us even more time by going about it this way, so I’ve agreed to pay the bonuses and give Nolan his two cases of scotch,” Catie said.

“Smart move,” Marc said.  “So, will you be ready for the first group of merchants?  We’re planning to send them out on the Françoise when it’s going around picking up the diplomats for Blake’s boondoggle Galaxy tour with the Enterprise.”

“Hey, I’d be happy to let anyone do that tour.  Just step right up.  I’ll even pay,” Blake offered.

Catie coughed to slow Blake down before going on.  “We’ll have their offices and work bays ready.  The smelter is coming along; it should be ready to test before we attach the ring.  It’s basically the same design as the one at Gemini Station, so I don’t anticipate any problems.”

“Do you have enough reaction mass to keep the ring stable while you move the station?” Nikola asked.

“We’re going to grind up the rest of the iron asteroid and use it.  Once we’re at the belt, we’ll be able to get another one.  Our calculations show that it will be enough.”

“And your miners?”

“They arrived two weeks ago.  They’ve already headed out to the belt.  We’ll start moving the station in three weeks.”

“Why did the miners go out right away?” Liz asked.

“They left as soon as they could; they can get there three weeks faster than the station and could leave right away.  They had to stock up before they could go out.  I guess we could have stocked the barges at Delphi Station; it would have saved them a day.  They should be reaching the asteroid belt in two weeks, and then we’ll get a read on how well the barges work.  We’ll almost be in place when they’re ready to come back.”

“Thanks, Catie.  Now, before closing, I have an announcement that I’m sure many of you will be happy to hear.  As MacKenzies and the Delphi League have grown, the inertia of the two organizations has increased dramatically, which means that things don’t happen very fast.  So starting next year, we will only have board meetings the second week of each quarter.”

Catie and Liz did a virtual high five.

“Now, I still expect those of you with big projects to have more frequent meetings, and I won’t hesitate to pull us together if something urgent comes up.  Consider this an early Christmas present.”

Chapter 13

Moving Forward

Catie was ecstatic to be able to watch them attach the ring.  Chief Bishop had attached the two tugs plus the two Skylifters he had to the ring, one on each quarter section.  With ADI running the four ships, the ring was under precision control as it was slowly dropped around the hub.  They had stopped the hub’s rotation so they could move and attach the ring.  Most people were excited about the event, although Catie still got complaints about having to endure microgravity for a week while the eight spokes were welded into place to secure the ring.

“Nolan, you’re a magician!”

“That I am.  Now, you just make sure to conjure up two cases of Scotch.”

“It’s on its way.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, JoAnn, you ready to check out the new ring?” Catie asked.

“You bet.  How long before it spins up?”

“Another three days, until then, we all have to endure the microgravity.”  Catie led the way to the elevator to the ring.

“Wait for us!” Jaylee and Devon yelled.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were coming with us.”

“We want to get the new vats started as soon as possible,” Devon said.  “Besides, we want to help JoAnn pick out the location for her restaurant.”

Catie smiled at the two teenagers; their enthusiasm was infectious.  “What do you want to do first?”

“Check out the restaurant.  It’ll take hours to do the vats.”

“Okay.  How have you two been doing?” Catie asked.

“Fine.”

Catie looked at Devon, then JoAnn.

“Devon and Jaylee don’t talk much.  They’re staying with me, and they seem to be doing okay.  But it’ll be nice when there’s more off-duty stuff for them to do.  Some sports and more young people to hang out with.”

“We should see a lot more people show up after we get the ring spun up.  We’ll have the room then,” Catie explained.  “I’ve been holding back on bringing them out.”

“Cool,” Devon said while Jaylee just nodded her head in agreement.  JoAnn shrugged her shoulders at Catie.

Catie ordered the elevator to take them to the top deck of the ring.  When the elevator door opened, they stepped out onto the boulevard.

“Wow!” Jaylee gasped as she looked at the sky pattern on the ceiling.  “This is just like being outside.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes!” Jaylee said.  “I’m going to come up here every day to walk.  It’s going to be so cool, especially when we have gravity.”  Jaylee clinked along, her shipboots grabbing the metal decking as she made her way out into the center of the boulevard.  “This is so big,” she said as she spun around.  Then she disengaged the magnets in her boots and pushed off from the floor.  She flipped over as she reached the ceiling.

“Jaylee!  They don’t want boot prints on the sky!” JoAnn yelled.

Jaylee’s hand went to her mouth as she realized what she had done.  She pushed off of the ceiling and landed next to JoAnn.  “Sorry.”

“People will think you grew up in a barn!”

“I kinda did.”  Jaylee giggled at the thought.  The three were from Appalachia, and Jaylee and Devon had been in desperate straits before immigrating to Delphi City.

“Hey, you should open your restaurant here!” Devon yelled.  Jaylee immediately pushed off to catch up with her brother.

“You know, that’s the most I’ve heard her say at one time,” JoAnn said.

Catie laughed.  “Well, then we know this design is worth it.”

“I’ll say.  You know this would have been so cool on Delphi Station.”

“I’m glad you think so.  Captain Clark is going to remodel it like this.  They should be starting it soon.”

“Great.  Now, let’s see where Devon thinks I should put my restaurant.”

Devon had selected the storefront that was just across from the elevator and also across from a green section.  There wasn’t any grass there yet, but there was a sign explaining the layout of the area.

“The miners will be able to come right up to your restaurant after they dock.  They’ll be looking for something good to eat after having ship rations for weeks.  And you can set tables up here on the grass so they can eat outside. . . Well, under the fake sky, but it’ll be cool.”

JoAnn smiled.  “I think you’re right.  Catie, what do you think?  Will I be able to afford it?”

“There’s a small premium for the spots across from the green areas and next to the elevator, but I think Devon’s right.  It’ll be good for your business.  And the workers coming up from the hub and those coming in from the maintenance yard will like the quick access.”

“What do I need to do to reserve it?”

“Already done.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Special delivery!” ADI announced.  Catie was sitting at her desk looking through the scan data from the asteroid belt.

“Special delivery?”

“Yes, the AI for the station is here.  I had it shipped out on an Oryx as soon as it was ready.”

“Oh, that’s great.  You and Merlin have been busy dealing with the station along with all your other stuff.  Contact Nolan, and let’s get it installed.”

“He’s already unloading it.  It will be ready to turn on in one hour.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was almost vibrating with anticipation as Nolan finished connecting all the cables to Vulcan’s new AI.  She’d been present when several of the AIs for the various starships had been awakened.  They were obviously intelligent, but nothing like when they’d awakened ANDI.  She could still remember when ANDI was turned on, he immediately had some personality, not much, but there was definitely something there.  This AI would be almost as intelligent, and although it did not have the necessary hardware to become sentient, she was interested to see what it would be like.

“Okay, I’m ready to bring him up.  ADI, are you ready?”

“I am always ready,” ADI said.

“Haha,” Catie laughed as Chief Bishop blushed.  “Go ahead and turn him on.”

Chief Bishop flipped the switches which connected the final power to the AI.  Then he pulled the control panel off and put it in his bag.  It would take a major operation to ever shut the AI down.

“Mr. Spock, are you there?” Catie asked.  She’d worked with ADI to develop the baseline personality for Mr. Spock and for nearly all the other AIs.  They’d agreed that the most important thing was to establish their name, so they felt a sense of identity.

After a few seconds and some flashing lights, Mr. Spock spoke.  “Fascinating, a starbase.  Cer Catie, can you explain why I have a different name than the starbase?”

“It’s complicated, but suffice to say that commands must be given to you as Mr. Spock, but you are to respond to requests when addressed as Vulcan.”

“Very well.  What is your first command?”

“Mr. Spock, please finish integrating with Vulcan.  ADI will provide you with any assistance that you need.”

“Of course, Commander.”

Board Meeting – Jan 8th

“Let’s come to order and get started.  Sam, you have an update on the League?” Marc prompted.

“Yes, Maggie says that the new ship design was greeted with enthusiasm.  Everyone definitely wants to build them, but most of them want to buy one first so that they can get started right away.  We have orders from Onisiwo, Helike, and Mangkatar.  Paraxea plans to just start building them.  We’ll have to wait to hear from the other Paraxean colonies.  Paraxea is pushing them to order from them.”

“Does Paraxea realize that they have to buy the gravity drives from us if they want to maintain the design?  If they use their own, they’ll have to scale it down.”

“Yes, they do.  But since you’re sharing the reactor design with them, they’re okay with having the drives come from MacKenzies.”

“That sounds good.  Is there anything we can do to encourage the Paraxean colonies to order from us?” Fred asked as he rubbed his index finger and thumb together.

“Don’t be so greedy,” Samantha admonished.  “They’ll be ordering the drives from us, and I don’t think we want to risk offending Paraxea, so we’ll just have to let the cards fall however they may.  Now, on another front, Helike and Onisiwo have each petitioned for a colony world.”

“That was to be expected,” Marc said.  “Catie?”

“You just have to send an explorer out to survey them.”

“Okay.  Blake, can you muster up a crew?”

“Sure, but who’s going to lead the mission?  Kal?”

“No way, I’ve got it good here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Why don’t you ask Captain Fitzgerald?” Catie suggested.

“I’ll start with her.  I think she might look forward to a mission like that,” Blake replied.

“Sam, anything else?” Marc asked.

“Yes, we’ve finalized the intellectual property laws.  It is generally the same as the agreement we have with Paraxea.”

“Okay.  Fred, where are you with the new floating cities?”

“We’ve delivered the first section to the Cook Islands and French Polynesia.”

“How did you move them?” Catie asked.

“We used the Skylifter.”

“You mean you flew them there?!” Catie couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“No, we just used the Skylifter to stabilize them and for propulsion.  We emptied the ballast tanks out, so they were floating high, then just drove them along like a ship.  It worked pretty well.”

Catie smiled at Fred and stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth, and tilted her head, so she looked like a doofus.

Fred laughed at her.  “We’ve got them set up now, so we can add a polysteel fabrication site on them and continue expanding the cities and build the airport locally.  It’ll take about a year to finish them out to the size they’re asking for and to complete the airports.”

Marc nodded.  “That’s good.  Are you hiring local labor to do the rest of the work?”

“Yes, at least for most of it.  There are still some skilled jobs we’ll manage, but they’ll construct all the buildings themselves with just some support from us.  Of important note, we’ve just received a request from the Cayman Islands.  They would like us to build them an airport.  Theirs is too small, and they like the idea of an offshore airport so they can recover the land and restore it or use it for tourist facilities.  It’s close to the U.S., so it’s a chance to showcase what it means to work with Delphi City.”

“Go for it.  Keep us informed; I’m curious to see how that plays out.  Now, Admiral Michaels and Kal, how are our friends in the Middle East been doing?”

Admiral Michaels looked at Kal, who just pointed back to him.  “The level of violence in Syria is declining significantly, but it still has a long way to go.  Lebanon is very quiet; Kal’s teams have been particularly successful there.”

“That’s great.  Will they be able to maintain it?”

“If we can keep Iran and Saudi Arabia from pushing their proxy war there.  The U.N. is putting a lot of pressure on them.  There was a bit of a to-do in the U.N. about how the Federation will impact disarmament talks.  We stressed that each Federation member is scaling back their armed forces to a National Guard for emergencies and to assist if Delphi needs them to help with border issues.”

“Okay, that sounds good.  What’s the latest in Mexico?  Do they still have the cartels under control?”

“It looks like it.  The cartels are losing power.  The U.S. has legalized marijuana; between that and the precipitous drop in the use of hard drugs, they just don’t have the market they used to have.”

“What’s driving the drop in drug use?” Nikola asked.

Dr. Metra indicated that she would like to answer.  “There are three main drivers for drug use: recreation, self-medication, and addiction.  The first two feed the third.  The medical community has come up with effective cures for addiction.  With the new treatments for depression that we have introduced, we have been able to significantly reduce the cases of self-medication.”

“You can’t eliminate it?”

“Well, there are other forms of mental illness that lead to self-medication.  And although we can stop the body’s positive feedback cycle by controlling the hormones, that doesn’t deal with things like sadness and despair.  Medicine can give people the tools to deal with those, but the best cure is more opportunity, good jobs, a future they can look forward to.”

“That makes sense,” Catie said.  “People always get a high when they’re facing a new challenge; at least I do.”

“Thank you, Dr. Metra.  Now, moving on.  I’ve invited Superintendent Aukai back to give an update on the education program she’s been working on.”  Marc signaled ADI to add the superintendent to the call.  “Superintendent, how did your test go?”

“All the students performed equal to or better than their peers at other schools.  Eighty percent of the teachers expressed higher job satisfaction, with only five percent expressing lower job satisfaction.  And seventy percent of students said they enjoyed school more, only one percent said they enjoyed school less.”

“So, what about the school districts?”

“The question is money.  Since the program requires each child to have a Comm and specs, there is concern that they will not be able to afford it.”

“But they won’t need to have any books, the Comms take care of that,” Catie said.

Marc smiled.  “There is already a push in most countries for online learning.  Let’s create a program focused on schools in disadvantaged areas.  Once they start showing the success of the program, the other schools will demand that the government step in and provide the same opportunities to their schools.”

“What about the AI?” Superintendent Aukai asked.

“Let’s try to get the cities to pay for it.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem since they’ll also be able to use them for law enforcement and other city priorities,” Fred added.

“Okay, make sure they know it takes two months to make an AI.  So we won’t be able to deliver them all the week before school starts.”

Superintendent Aukai nodded.  “I know.  We’ve told them it will take two years to roll the program out in each region.”

“Thank you, Superintendent Aukai.”

Marc waited as the Superintendent said some goodbyes and signed off of the meeting before moving on.  “Now Catie, your update on Vulcan.”

“We’ve been moving the station for two weeks.  Of course, we attached the ring first.  We’re continuing to build it out while we move the station.  Our plan is to have cabins ready when the barges return.  We need the cabins in the ring, so the miners are at 1G to compensate for their time in microgravity.  Everyone is looking forward to firing up the smelter and processing the first loads.”

“As am I,” Fred said.

“I know you need the ore.  We’ll ship it as soon as we can.  We’ll push it to the fringe using the tugs, so the Resolve doesn’t have to come all the way into the system.  Other than that, things are kind of quiet right now.”

“Good,” Marc was happy that Catie didn’t say boring.  She was showing more maturity all the time.  “Liz, where are you?”

“We just reached orbit around Paraxadux with our second load of colonists.  If I could work it out, I’d switch ships with Derek and let him deal with the Paraxeans.”

“Oh, they can’t be that bad,” Catie said.

Liz gave Catie a mean look but didn’t rise to the bait.

After a few more quick updates, Marc closed the meeting.

◆ ◆ ◆

Yvette was sitting at her desk enjoying a cup of coffee when two officers walked into the office.

“I’m sorry, the general is in a meeting.  Is there something I can do for you?”

“We’re here to see you, Ms. Lee.  Could we see your phone?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Lieutenant Rivers, and this is Lieutenant Wilkerson; we’re from security.”  Lieutenant Rivers handed Yvette his security badge.

“Thank you,” Yvette said as she retrieved her phone from her purse and handed it to the lieutenant.  As soon as he’d asked for it, she sent the panic signal to the Comm unit.  The unit immediately used the energy in its capacitors to disengage from the Pentagon phone and repel away from it.  By the time Yvette actually handed her phone over, her specs and earwig had reregistered with the Pentagon phone.

“Is there a problem?” Yvette asked after handing the phone over.

“No, just a standard check.  We noticed that you don’t use your phone very much.  Can you please unlock it?”

Yvette used her thumbprint to unlock the phone.  “Well, I’m new in town, so I don’t have that many friends.  And when I get home, I take off my specs and put the phone away; ever since my accident, I get headaches if I use my specs too much.”

“Oh, I see.  Well, everything is in order.  Have a nice day, Ms. Lee.”

“Thank you.  Would you two like some coffee before you go?  It’s so much better than what they serve in the canteen.”  Yvette got up, poured two cups of coffee into disposable cups, and handed them to the two men.

“Thanks for the coffee,” they said as they left the office.

Yvette took a drink of her coffee and then went to the restroom so she could reconnect her Comm.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hello, Lieutenant Rivers.  Do you mind if I join you?”  Yvette had carefully timed her arrival in the cafeteria to coincide with Lieutenant Rivers’ lunch.  She had selected Lieutenant Rivers over Lieutenant Wilkerson since Rivers’ lunch also coincided with Marsha’s lunch.  Marsha was the secretary for the colonel who ran the European desk.

“I’d love the company,” Lieutenant Rivers said.

Lieutenant Rivers and Yvette chatted about how she was settling into life in Alexandria after having worked and lived in Ft. Monroe for most of her adult life.  They were just getting to the discussion of how Lieutenant Rivers had liked his experience at West Point when Marsha entered the cafeteria.

“Hi, Marsha,” Yvette waved.

Marsha waved back but continued to head toward the serving line.

“Wow, those must be new specs,” Yvette said as she pointed at Marsha.  “The temple is so much wider than the standard size.  I think that makes them look much classier, don’t you?”  Yvette had noticed Marsha making a point of visiting the general’s office a bit more than necessary.  And then, when she saw the wider temples going over Marsha’s ears, she’d taken a picture with her specs.  After reviewing it with ADI, they’d decided that it was likely that the temples were wider to accommodate a separate memory module that would record any sounds or images from the specs separate from the Pentagon phone.  When she’d shared the information with her handler, he’d put some surveillance on Marsha, and after a week, they had verified that she was meeting a Russian agent.

“They are unusual,” Lieutenant Rivers said.  “You don’t think they make the specs look too heavy?”

“No.  And look at the pattern she has on them.  That’s what makes them so nice; you can personalize them.”

Yvette noticed Lieutenant Rivers sending a message in his HUD.  He didn’t have a tailboard, so he couldn’t hide what he was doing like the people from Delphi could.  It was only a few moments later that he had a call and had to leave.

The next time Yvette saw Marsha, she was wearing standard specs.  Yvette’s handler had suggested that the U.S. had probably turned her, and she was now delivering content to the Russians that the CIA wanted delivered.

Chapter 14

It’s Dangerous Out Here

When the Taurus and the Emerald Lass docked, Catie sent the two captains a message asking that they come to a debrief on their expedition the following day.  She was curious to learn what kinds of issues they had encountered with the barges.

When they met the next day, Levi started out.  “We’ve discovered that it’s faster to spin the ship when we fire off the explosives.  It would be nice to have armor plating on the sides instead of a separate shield, that way, we wouldn’t have to close up everything, and there would be fewer moving parts to maintain.  Can we modify the barge?”

“Sure, we’ll do the modification.  We’ll have it ready the next time you come in.  We should have designed them that way to start with.  I’ll talk to our designer and make sure all future barges have plating on the sides.”

Duncan laughed.  “We were wondering about that too.  That slide takes forever to come around.  Now, we would also like to change it so we can move the grinder to either end or the middle; that way, we don’t have to move the material as much.  We’re usually working on one side or the other anyway.  The bots are too slow if we hit a good vein, so we have to stop and help them or rest up.”

“I think that will be easy to do.  I’ll send in the request.  I’ll let you know when I hear back.”

“That brings up another problem.  It’s pretty small, and we can work around it, but the seven-minute delay for communication is a pain in the ass.  And when we’re bidding on asteroids, it’s going to feel like an hour.”

“Oh, I hadn’t really thought about that.  We can put two communication buoys at a couple of spots in the belt to minimize lag time.  They’ll each have a quantum relay to the Vulcan.  That would reduce the delay to about ninety seconds or less.”

“Why can’t we put quantum relays in the barges?”

“They’re too expensive.”

“Shouldn’t we be the ones to decide if they’re too expensive?” Duncan asked.

“I guess that’s true.  They’re fifty million each.  Who wants one?”  Catie watched as Duncan and Levi looked at each other in disbelief.  Neither raised their hand.

The meeting went on for a full two hours.  Catie got lots of suggestions on how to improve the barges but was surprised that none of them were about how to improve the living spaces or galley.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was ecstatic when the second group of barges showed up.  This time there were four.  She’d timed their arrival so that Levi and his barge were docked.  She wanted the new crews to be able to query an experienced crew during the orientation meeting.

Everyone was excited to see Vulcan growing, especially since the new arrivals meant that some new facilities would soon be added to the base.

After the orientation, Catie invited Levi to lunch to thank him for sitting in on it and answering questions.  Morgan was following them to the cafeteria when Fiona walked up.

“That’s not fair!” Fiona whined.

“What’s not fair?”

“Catie, going after Levi.  She’s got her choice of anyone on the station; she could at least leave the miners to the rest of us.”

“Oh, so you’re interested in Levi?”

“Who wouldn’t be?  Look at him.”

“My tastes don’t go that way.”

“What difference does that make?  You can still appreciate how good-looking he is.  And he’s smart, likely to be very successful.”

“Well, we just did get that second group of mining crews.”

“Yeah, but they all remind me of my uncle and cousins.”

“Poor baby.”

“Thanks for nothing, Girlfriend!”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Levi, I wanted to thank you for putting up with all the questions.  And for all your feedback on the barge.  We’ll be able to incorporate the changes in the next batch that comes off the line.”

“Commander, the fact that you’re going to modify our barge to match the new design is enough.”

“Please, call me Catie.”

“Sure.”  They paused their conversation to give their order to the waitress.  Levi looked surprised when Catie ordered a double burger with extra fries.

Catie and Levi clinked beer glasses, then Catie took a sip before continuing.  “How did you enjoy your first two days back on the station?”

“It was nice to have the room to move around.  Everyone really liked being able to go to the same cabins; I’m not sure what we’ll do when you’re rotating them.”

“You won’t have to worry about that for a while, possibly never.  We’ll just have to see how the station grows.  Of course, you could rent them permanently.”

“Not that I don’t wish you success, but we’ll wait and see whether you ever have to rotate us.”

Catie gave a small laugh.  “I’d do exactly the same thing.”

Levi gave her an incredulous look.  He obviously didn’t believe her, given her wealth.

“I guess I should have added, ‘in your place.’  But still, I’m usually pretty frugal with my money.”

“Do you even know what frugal is?”

“Of course I do.  I have this little voice in my head that keeps telling me things like, ‘A penny saved is a penny earned.’  Which is a good thing since that’s what helped keep the cost of the barges down.”

“And you should spend only after you save,” ADI added.  Catie ignored her, staying focused on Levi.

“I guess that’s true.  I find that when I make a habit of looking for the best price, I do better when I transition from work, where I deal with numbers in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, to my real life, where a hundred dollars is a lot of money.  If you’re not careful, you’ll go to dinner and think, hey, what’s a hundred dollars for a bottle of wine, or in your case, a thousand dollars.”

“No, my teeth clench when it gets to one hundred.”

“But beer, why is that so expensive?”

“Hey, if it was too cheap, you miners would spend all your time on the station drunk.”

Levi laughed.  “That’s too true.”

“Anyway, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve just gotten a request to open a microbrewery here.  So, you should see some better prices on beer besides the basic brew.”

“That will be nice.  Hey, when will I have the final numbers from the smelter?”

“In six hours,” ADI informed Catie.

“In six hours or so.  The Wells’ barge beat you in, so their ore was processed first.”

“I figured that.  But we grabbed a couple of small asteroids on the way in.”

“I saw that.  Reviewing your logs, I noticed that you’re picking up quite a few of the free asteroids.  How are you selecting them?”  Asteroids under one meter in diameter were free game.

“We built a small cannon so we can shoot rocks at them and measure their response.  Naima goes out in that small runabout we have and grabs the heavy ones.”

“Ah, that explains it.”

“What?”

“We’ve been noticing that some of the smaller bodies have changed their orbits slightly; we’ve been trying to figure out why.”

“Why do you care?  There’s plenty of room.”

“Just worried that there might be some massive body around we can’t see, or some other gravimetric events we aren’t detecting.  Space is a dangerous place; we’d like to avoid surprises.”

“Sorry, we should have told you, but we didn’t want to give our secret away.”

“Not a problem.  I’ll inform astrogation, but they’ll keep your secret.”

“Thanks.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was elated to finally welcome more merchants to Vulcan.  She stood up and smiled at everyone in the conference room.  “Good morning, and thank you for joining me.  First, I want to welcome those of you who are new to Starbase Vulcan.  We’re happy to have you.  Now each of you is here to receive a license to run a private business here on the station.”

There was a bit of shuffling around.  Clearly, a few of the people there just wanted to get their license and to get out of there.

“Now, second, I want to review the basic rules again to make sure that everything is clear.  Please feel free to ask any questions.

“All of you have applied to take over an existing business here on Vulcan, businesses that to date have been managed by MacKenzies.  The terms of the agreement are that you pay MacKenzies ten percent of your revenue for one year.  After that, the business is yours.  However, there is a condition that the revenue cannot drop by over ten percent; otherwise, we’ll take the business back.”

“That doesn’t seem reasonable,” one man protested.

“Mr. Wheeler.  The starbase is growing; we have just added four barges and their crews to the station.  That almost doubles our population, and it triples the number of barges your business will be supporting.  If the revenues drop, then we would have to assume you’re not meeting the needs of the miners.  We would have to step in to take over to avoid having the station fail.  If the terms are not acceptable, you’re welcome to try something else, and we will find another buyer.”

“No, no.  I guess that’s not that bad.”

“Good.  Now, we have strict procedures in place to make sure we adequately recycle everything.  We need you to continue to follow those procedures.  If you come up with an improvement you want to try, you need to submit a request to my office.  We’ll review it, and if it seems reasonable, we’ll give you a temporary variance.  The station AI will verify compliance.”

“Why can’t we just dump the trash out into space?  There’s plenty of room,” someone whined.

“Because we don’t want the trash fouling up the station’s energy absorption or interfering with traffic around the station.  These are the same rules as those in place on Delphi and Gemini Stations.”

There was some general griping about too many rules, which Catie let them get out of their systems before continuing.

“Mr. Wheeler, you’re taking over the chandlery.  You’re welcome to change the staff, but you have to give any employee that you decide to replace two weeks’ notice.  Ms. Voeman, you’re taking over the Starman bar, and Mr. Maalouf, you’re taking over the hydroponic gardens.  The same rule applies to your employees.  JoAnn, you’re going to be starting up the Stardust restaurant.  And finally, Devon, you’re going to privatize the vat farm.”

“How come he gets to do that?  He’s just a kid?”

“He’s nineteen, and he came out to work in the kitchen and to work in the vat farm.  He’s also the only one that applied.  He and his sister Jaylee worked in the vat farms in Delphi City for several years.”

Mr. Wheeler snorted at that.

“You’re welcome to talk to him about trading businesses.  Now, if you have any problems, please come and ask.  We want this to be profitable for all of us.  So we’re hoping you come up with ideas to make your business more successful.  Good luck.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The Wells’ barge was snuggled up tight against the asteroid.  Connor and Sean were setting the charges so they could do the seismic survey of it.  Connor had just finished packing the hole when the charge went off.

The explosion sent debris hurtling toward the deck.  Connor was pushed to the deck by the debris, and his right leg took most of the damage.

“Da, the bloody charge detonated!” Sean screamed over the Comm as he raced back to the deck to reach his brother.  “Connor’s hurt; send out that medical bot!”

Duncan came rushing out just behind the medical bot, shooing it in front of him.  He ran as fast as he could, his boots gripping the deck in the microgravity.  “Connor, how are ye?!”

“It’s me leg!” Connor screamed.

His spacesuit had already applied a tourniquet to the leg to stop the air leak and stanch the flow of blood.

“Sean, move out of the way, let the bot have a go at him.”

Sean moved aside as the bot moved in.  It immediately administered a shot to Connor while it scanned his leg.

“Connor, the bot says the leg has to come off,” Duncan said.

“No!  I can’t be going around with only one leg!”

“Be quiet, you daft bugger, haven’t ye been paying attention?  These MacKenzie people replace legs, didn’t you see the report on all them veterans they fixed up?”  Duncan clicked the OK button in his HUD to tell the bot to go ahead and remove the leg.

Sean gulped as he tried to avoid vomiting in his helmet.  “It’ll be okay, Connor.  We’ll get you back to the base, and they’ll fix you up.”

When the leg came off, Sean nudged it toward the trash chute.

“Hey, don’t be tossing that thing before you get that boot off of it!” Duncan yelled.

The painkillers finally hit Connor, and he laughed.  “That’s me Da, if he found a pot of gold, he’d stand there all day arguing with the cabbie about why the wee pot in the seat next to him shouldn’t cost him an additional fare.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It took four hours before the EMT arrived in the tug.  He checked the bot’s work, then put Connor into a gurney and loaded him into the tug.  They took a day getting back to Vulcan since the EMT didn’t want to subject Connor to too many Gs.

Catie and Fiona met them at the docking ring.

“Connor, are you okay?” Fiona asked.

“They sure have some good drugs.  I don’t feel a thing.  But me leg!”

“Hey, your new leg will be ready in a week.  Then the doctor will attach it.  You’ll be on desk duty for a month, and then you’ll be back out there.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  I’ve seen a couple of my mates go through this, and it’s not too bad.  Just hang in there.”

◆ ◆ ◆

By the time the Emerald Lass came in, Connor was up and walking around.  He met the barge at the entry port.

“Ach, there ye be, lazing around,” Duncan yelled when he exited the ship.  “I hear you got the doctor to put you on desk duty for the next few weeks; well, that won’t do you no good.  We’re staying an extra week here for maintenance, so by the time we’re back at the belt, you’ll be fit to work.”

Connor shook his head.  “Well, at least I can avoid work around the condo for that time.”

“Don’t be letting your wife hear you say that or you’ll be out of commission longer than you want.”

Chapter 15

Down to Business

Board Meeting – Apr 8th

“I call this meeting to order.  Catie, give us an update on Vulcan.”

“Since the four new barges showed up, it’s starting to look like a real space station around here.  The new merchants are now in place with their businesses.  That has mostly gone well.”

“Mostly?”

“Well, I’ve been getting complaints for the last two weeks about the new chandlery raising their prices over what we had set when we were running it.”

“Seems a lot of complaining from just Levi and Duncan’s crew.”

“Oh, it’s not just them.  I’m getting it from everyone.  All the barge crews ran the old numbers when they were modeling their business.”

“Are you going to do anything?”

“Not now.  Mr. Wheeler raised the prices to just where it didn’t make sense for the miners to order from Earth and have things shipped out.  I guess it makes sense to set the prices there.”

“How did you set them?”

“Cost plus twenty.”

“Sounds like Mr. Wheeler just made a sound business decision, but I suggest you keep a watch on him.  Anything else?”

“Nothing interesting.”

“Okay, Admiral Michaels, how is the Federation doing?”

“We’re still hashing disarmament issues out with the U.N.  Russia is still mad about Ukraine and the Kuban Republic, but they have moved forward with releasing a significant number of their reserve tanks to the U.N.  Of course, they were paid for them.”

“Still, that’s progress.  What about China?”

“China is pushing for more colonists as a condition for standing down more of their army; they don’t have the jobs to absorb that many people, especially when you take into account how much of their economy is built around supporting the army.”

“Catie, what can we do to increase the transportation of colonists?”

“We could build another StarMerchant, but that’s still only one hundred thousand or so per trip.  How many would you like to see?”

“It’d be nice to be able to ship closer to a million.”

Catie gulped.  “Could you even absorb that many?”

“Not really; I just want to push the envelope.  Right now, we have one thousand colonists doing nothing but putting in foundations for new condo buildings, that’s ten crews, five in each city.”

“How many buildings are you putting up?” Liz asked.

“It takes about six weeks to put the foundations in, and the construction crews keep up since we can build the frames for each floor in a factory and use a Skylifter to put them in place.”

“So that means you’re adding just over six condo buildings per month,” Catie said.

“That gives you the capacity for forty thousand colonists per month,” Liz said, proving that she could do math in her head as well.

“More; you’re not counting the ones that finish their contract and leave their condo and move to their ranch or farm.  It’s not that many right now, but it’ll start adding up.”

“So eventually, you’ll be wanting to bring in over one hundred thousand per load.”

“Correct.”

“Wow, a couple more colonies and Earth will start feeling roomier,” Liz said.

Marc snorted.  “I don’t think so.  Do the math.  To make an impact on Earth’s population, you’d need to be talking about moving one billion people.  Even with optimistic numbers, we’re only talking about one to maybe five million per year.”

“Oh, I guess Earth can’t emigrate its way out of climate change.”

“Definitely not, we have to find a way to solve the problem; we can’t run away from it.”

“Okay, so you want to really raise the number of colonists while at the same time maintaining cargo capacity?”

“Right.  If you shipped the appliances in bulk along with key cabin components, we could assemble them here and get a lot more per cargo ship.  That’s why I want you to think one million; that will push you to find a way to make it work.”

“Well, the only way to do that would be to do what the Paraxeans did and ship them in stasis.  But those stasis chambers are expensive.”

“Captain,” ADI interrupted.  “I would remind you that you have over four hundred thousand stasis chambers in the cargo section of the battleship.  That section is still in orbit with Gemini Station.  Of course, most of them still have a Paraxean in them.”

“Damn, that’s the second time I’ve forgotten about them.  Liz, why didn’t the Paraxeans ask you to ship those colonists?” Marc asked.

“Because this is about Paraxea and their other colony worlds.  I suspect everyone assumes those colonists are Mangakar’s problem.”

“Sam, what did you and the governor agree to?”

“That was almost two years ago.  They’re still pulling colonists off of the asteroid.  They’re perfectly happy for us to maintain the chambers in that cargo hull, especially since most of those colonists were not part of the original mission.”

“Talk to the governor again.  Let’s see if we can encourage him to deal with them.  Push him hard.  So that means we have a source of stasis chambers.  We need to figure out how we can get them sooner, or we need to make more.”

“You wouldn’t actually have to use true stasis chambers,” Dr. Metra said.  “You just need to induce sleep for a few months.  That type of chamber is much simpler and less costly.”

“They are?” Fred asked.  “Then why didn’t we use them in the medical bays and the ships?”

“Because in a medical emergency, you often want to induce true stasis.  With your colonists, they would only age a few days during the trip since you’re only talking a month of transit and a few weeks of to bring them out of stasis and down to the planet, but in a medical emergency, a few hours could mean the difference between life or death or between saving a limb and having to replace it.”

“Oh, okay.”  Catie spent a moment doing some math in her HUD.  “If you used stasis chambers, you could ship almost two million colonists in the Dutchman.  If you used half for cabin components, then you’d get your one million, plus enough appliances and stuff to build cabins for them.”

“Good.  Would you have Ajda draw up some plans for review?” Marc requested.

“Of course.  Just remember that the ship would be coming back half empty since we’d need to ship the stasis chambers back, so it’s going to be more expensive.”

“But you’re still talking about fewer trips.”

“Right.”

“Do you think our people would trust the stasis chambers?” Samantha asked.

“We’ll need to spend some time promoting it.  I’m sure we wouldn’t have problems with the Chinese, but I don’t want to increase their relative representation in the colonies just yet.  Dr. Metra, can you come up with a plan to promote traveling in the stasis chambers?”

Dr. Metra gulped and looked a bit like a deer in the headlights; her ears even flared out.  Nikola quickly stepped in to help her friend.  “I’ll work with her on it.  It sounds interesting.”

“Admiral, what else is happening on Earth?” Marc asked, switching gears.

“The normal fighting over the wording of every sentence in every treaty.  Syria is settling down, but we need a solution for the ISIS prisoners.”

“Can’t we send them out as colonists?” Catie asked.

“Oh, that sounds like asking for trouble,” Kal said.

“But we could do a profile on them to see which ones are really zealots and which just need something to belong to?”

“Do you really think there will be very many in the second group?”

“We might be surprised,” Admiral Michaels said. 

“ADI, do you think you can get an accurate profile?” Marc asked.

“I would need to get a large sample, but I’m optimistic.”

“Then why don’t you work with Admiral Michaels and see what you can come up with?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Thanks, ADI.  Now, Samantha, where are we with the Delphi League?”

“The Onisiwoens and Helikens are waiting for their cargo ships.  Paraxea says they’ll have one ready in two months.  It’ll be interesting to see what they start shipping.”

“And?”

“Well, we have the same problem the Admiral was mentioning.  But that’s what diplomats do, so Maggie will be fine.”

“Liz, how is your mission going?”

“We’re making our third run with the Paraxean Colonists.  I wish we’d thought about the stasis chambers earlier.  It would certainly make these runs a lot easier.  How long would it take to fit up some pods with the stasis chambers?  We know the Paraxeans wouldn’t have a problem with them.”

“I’ll have Ajda run the numbers and send them to you,” Catie replied.

“Okay,” Marc said.  “Now, Ganesh is ready to accept the next group of colonists.  They’ve got the key infrastructure in place, so they’re set up to start growing.  Sam, Paul, Natalia, and I are still planning to move.”

“I’m surprised you’re willing to go through all that hassle,” Nikola said.

Samantha laughed.  “Nikola, how many times have you moved in your life?  Although it’s to a different planet, it’s not much different than moving across the country or to Delphi City from Boston.  Besides, Ganesh is a more temperate climate, so it’ll be nicer.”

“Fred, anything on the business side?”

“Well, we’re looking forward to getting the shipment of ores from Catie.”

“Right, I should have mentioned that.  We processed the ores the first two barges brought in.  We’re already moving it to the fringe.  It’ll be ready for the Dutchman to pick it up in a week,” Catie explained.

“That’s still going to be a long wait.”

“No, we can use the tugs to push the Dutchman back toward Earth.  That should cut the time down to three weeks.”

“That’ll be nice,” Fred said.  “Back to my report.  We’ve reached a preliminary agreement with the Cayman Islands on their new airport.  We should be starting construction this summer.  It’ll be a bit slower than we originally planned since we had to agree to subcontract out much of the work to local companies; that means in the Caribbean.  But that’s probably a good thing.  More value to the local community, so it should make it even more attractive to work with us.

“We’ve also sold two supersonic airliners to Lufthansa.  We’ll see how that impacts Peregrine, but we’ve got experience on our side.  We have orders for over one hundred jets.”

“That sounds good.  Anything else?”

“Just read the report.”

Marc nodded his head at Fred.  He was amazed at how modest Fred was and how lucky they were to have him as president of MacKenzie Enterprises.  “Okay, we’ve placed the gates.  So now we have to agree on what we charge for their use?”

“We should base it on the tonnage and volume,” Catie suggested.

“Even though the gates don’t care about mass?”

“Sure, but nobody knows that except us.  And mass does tend to be related to volume.  And tonnage and volume are probably the only things you can measure accurately.  So how else would you be able to come up with a fee?”

“Okay, that works for me.  Now having others use the gates brings up another issue.  Blake.”

“Yes, since we’ll have other ships around the gates, we can’t afford to be moving them around and we have to manage the space more carefully.”

“So?”

“So, your StarMerchants can’t come careening into the system expecting the gate probes to move so you can jump through at full velocity.”

“But that would cost us weeks,” Liz protested.

“Only when you’re using one system as a waypoint to get to the next wormhole,” Blake said.

“Still.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Catie said.  “We can make it work, and it’ll only cost one day.”

“How?” Both Liz and Blake asked at the same time.

“I’ll explain later.”

Marc sighed.  “Go ahead and explain it now.  It’s important since it might impact how fast we can move the frigates around.”

“It’s not that difficult.  Instead of jumping into Sol’s system from Paraxea and then jumping to Artemis, we would just jump to the waypoint before Sol.  You have the waypoint set, so you’re cutting a chord across the system when you enter.  Then, when you reach the fringe again, you jump to the first waypoint on the way to Artemis.”

“Oh, cutting a chord again,” Liz finished for Catie.  “If you don’t have enough charge to open a wormhole the full distance, you just do one more waypoint.”

“Right, but if the wormhole can be powered from the other end, then you’re good to go after the first jump.”

“But that requires that the ship be able to open a wormhole.  What about the carriers?”

“Well, if you’re moving the carriers around in a hurry, then you won’t care about disrupting traffic.  You would just have the gate at Artemis open the wormhole for you and then move to let you jump again.  Of course, you’d need to make sure that the area around the gate was clear.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Blake said, not happy about having the obvious pointed out to him.  “We should probably have our frigates practice that maneuver.  Write up a procedure for it, please.”

“Yes, sir.”  Catie avoided the usual antics she pulled when getting direction from Blake since this was essentially a military order.

Catie messaged Marc that she wanted to talk after the meeting.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Daddy, how are Katya and Sebrina doing?”

“They’re doing just fine.  However, I’m not sure it was a good idea to give them such unlimited access to Orion.”

“Why not?  How’s he doing?”

“He’s doing great.  Dr. Metra says there are some signs that he’s becoming sentient.”

“That’s cool.  It will probably take longer than it took for ANDI since his bonding with the triplets was deeper.”

“That’s what Dr. Metra said.  With the triplets, they really clung to ANDI after all the abuse they had suffered.  These two are dealing out the abuse, not suffering it.”

Catie furrowed her brow.  “What kind of abuse are they dealing out?”

“They’ve patented their drone modification to try to lock others out of competing with them.”

“Is it a good patent?”

“I’m not sure.  But they’ve put the two best lawyers we have on Artemis on retainer, so the competition has to go to the third lawyer, who only really knows about real estate law.”

“Why didn’t they put him on retainer?”

“Because Orion suggested that if they did, they would likely be called in front of the governor.”

Catie laughed.  “Bezos and Zuckerberg would be proud of them.  What else have they done?”

“After you suggested they require customers to allow them to recharge on the long runs, they did that, and then they added drone garages at some of the villages.  That lets them do express runs where they overdrive the drones, then swap them out at the garage and go on.”

“Is there really a market for that?”

“Oh yeah.  If you’re out working the farm or ranch and you have something break, that long trip to town is pretty daunting.  Paying a few hundred bucks to get your part in less than an hour is worth it.”

“Are they still just using other kids?”

“Yes.  There have been a few complaints about not allowing adults to work for them, but they’ve set up their work rules so that adults can’t manage it.”

“Like what?”

“Everyone but their core team is on standby.  When they need a pilot, they grab the next one in the queue.  If you reject a job more than twice a week, they drop you.  Kids can usually work around their schooling and take any job that comes up, but an adult with a job can’t just beg out of the middle of it.  And since they run a queue, you can’t make enough money as a pilot to do it full time.”

“What about the cargo handling?”

“They have those jobs filled.  If they have a vacancy, they take the first person to apply who is recommended by a current employee.  So that kind of aces out any adults.  Those jobs are also structured to be part-time.”

“Are they at least honest?”

“Yes, they are very careful to live up to their contracts.  If the delivery is late, it’s either free or at a greatly reduced cost, as stated in their terms of service.  And their terms of service are actually short and to the point.”

“So, just hard-core capitalists, kind of like Fred.”

“You might say that.  That reminds me, I should ask Fred to do a review of their company.  He might be able to provide some coaching for those two.”

“Or he might learn something from them.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Once Yvette had inserted enough microbots into the computer room via Spencer, they assembled into a larger bot.  The larger bot was then able to execute its program.  It traced the air ducts in the computer room until it found the source.  Then it worked its way into the unit and shorted out the compressor.  The unit was a special order, and Delphi’s intelligence service had spent months preparing for this.  A copy of the compressor had been made with two halves of two quantum pairs installed inside of it, one pair for transmitting and the other for receiving.  Although the quantum pairs were small, the electronics necessary to keep them safe and be able to read their reaction to being excited by the other half or to excite them so the other half of the pair would react was not.  So hiding them inside the compressor where they would be able to communicate with the computer in the computer center was the best option the team had come up with.  The computer center was isolated from everything else in the building.  It was impossible to communicate via radio.  Since they used fiberoptic for anything leaving or entering the center, you couldn’t piggyback on one of the lines to the various offices in the Pentagon.

The Delphi Intelligence Service was waiting for the service order.  They would swap out their compressor for the one the service people ordered, and the team that repaired the unit would never know they were installing one that had been delivered from Delphi City instead of their usual supplier.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, in Delphi City, the twins had partnered with Crystal to develop the holodeck concept.  Catie funded them, including paying for a New Zealand director to help with the staging and actor development.

By trial and error, they figured out that it worked best if some of the roles were played by real actors mixing out front while others roles were played by bots that were backed up by real actors backstage.  That allowed the characters to be more dynamic when interacting with people and let the actors manage more than one character.  In fact, since the voice was synthesized, more than one actor could play the same character, which was important when two characters an actor was responsible for suddenly were getting a lot of attention.  And finally, they had the characters that were only bots or images in the audience’s specs managed by ANDI; he had insisted that they use him instead of the AI in Delphi City.  He was looking forward to the challenge.

They took over an underused warehouse to build their holodeck.  It had several rooms on the lower floor and a couple of stairways to a set of rooms on the top floor.  The main room was easily divided into more rooms by movable walls so they could stage different events.  The director brought in a friend who was an expert in theater design to help with that.

Crystal even got Ajda to design some props for them.  Chairs, sofas, and tables that could morph into different styles when supported by the imaging on the audience specs.  Finally, after months of development, practicing with friends and schoolmates, they were ready for their first real performance.

The twins chose Murder at the Manor House as the script for their opening night performance.  They had sold twenty-six tickets for the performance.  Each member of the audience would be one of the characters in the mystery, with the rest of the characters being performed by their actors and bots.  The dress was 1920s chic.  The actresses wore yoga pants with a tight top, and the actors mostly wore a simple version of a shipsuit.  Most of the audience arrived wearing a period costume, while a few chose to wear simple dinner outfits, preferring to rely on the imaging system to make them appear in the correct costume.

With their tickets, they had each received a pamphlet that explained who their character was and why they were at the party.  There wasn’t anything to identify the audience members to each other, so if they didn’t already know someone, they couldn’t be sure if they were an actor or another audience member.  The guests were shown into the party by the butler as they arrived.  He took their virtual cloaks and handed them to a footman who escorted them into the ballroom.

Staff walked around the ballroom with trays of champagne in fluted glasses and silver plates with hors d'oeuvres.  The champagne and hors d'oeuvres were a significant part of the cost of the production and had also limited the audience to adults.  A string quartet was playing in the corner, providing mood music.

“Is everyone here?” Aalia asked her twin as she consulted her script.  She was playing one of the maids via a bot.

“Yes.”

“Good, so when is Carlos going to get it?”

“Whenever Melia is able to slip him the poison,” Prisha said with an eye roll.

Aalia laughed.  “But when is she supposed to start trying?  And what’s up with that guy?”  She pointed to one of the audience members, who was roaming around looking at everything.

“I think he’s here to spoil the party.  He’s been kicking at all the props to see if they’re real.”

“Jerk!”

◆ ◆ ◆

One of the guests screamed as Carlos, the host of the party, started to choke and then fell to the floor.  He foamed at the mouth for a bit, then stopped moving, obviously dead.

“Someone call the police!”

The butler moved toward the phone, but one of the guests grabbed it first.  It was an old-style telephone; he put the receiver to his ear and tapped the cradle a few times until an operator came on.  “Get me the police!”

He stood at the phone for a bit, answering a few questions, then hung it up.  “The police will be here in ten minutes.”

The jerk was inspecting the body, walking around it.  He wasn’t paying too much attention to where he stepped until he suddenly stumbled.  He had stepped on a hand, actually one of the mini bots that were on each side of the victim to extend his physical presence outside the range of the foam body that the bigger bot had been carrying as it played Carlos.

“Please, sir, we cannot disturb the body until the police get here,” Vivian, the hostess, told him.  Fortunately, one of the footmen caught him before he fell.

“Sorry,” he said, withering under the glare of several guests who had grown tired of his disdain for the event.

Everyone milled around, asking each other what they knew about the victim.  The police showed up a few minutes early (ten minutes was a long time in a play).  The inspector was modeled on Inspector Mallory from Father Brown, overbearing and not too bright.

“Where is the body?” he demanded when he showed up.

“And who might you be?” Vivian asked, clearly not impressed by the shabby man that had barged into her house.  He’d been followed by two men in police uniforms.

“I’m Inspector Kinkade from the Metropolitan Police.  Now please, show me to the body.”

Vivian signaled for the butler to show Inspector Kinkade to the body.

Kinkade knelt down next to the body and, after verifying that he was truly dead, searched his pockets.  He handed the victim’s billfold to his sergeant, discovered a note in the victim’s vest pocket, which he quickly read before handing it to his sergeant.  After finding nothing else of interest, he stood up.

“Now, we need to know who everyone is.”  He turned to Vivian, “Where can I conduct the interviews?”

“There is a small parlor at the front of the house.”

“Alright.  Sergeant Conroy, you stay here and make sure nobody interferes with the body, and make sure they don’t talk about the murder amongst themselves.”

Sergeant Conroy gave the inspector a pained look, clearly wondering how he was supposed to manage thirty people and protect the body.

“It’s obvious it was Melia, his mistress,” the jerk stated.

“And how would you know that?” Kinkade demanded.

“Well, she was talking to him a few moments before he collapsed.  And we all know she hated him.”

“So, you knew the victim and this Melia well, did you?  I’ll question you first!”

Kinkade grabbed the jerk by his arm and led him toward the parlor where he was grilled for five minutes before being escorted to a separate room where he could watch the rest of the show but couldn’t interfere with the investigation.

“Well, that was a lot of rubbish,” Kinkade said after he reentered the room.  “But I’ll need to talk to you next, Ms. Melia.  I can’t just ignore that idiot.”

Aalia informed all the actors that they were switching to the second scenario, where Melia was not the guilty party.  The event continued as the evidence was slowly extracted from the various people.  Of course, Sergeant Conroy had no chance of keeping the audience from sharing their suspicions and communicating what the inspector revealed to them during the interview.

Once the mystery was concluded, with the arrest of one of the maids — who’d been molested by Carlos — everyone declared it a success.  Even the jerk who had been sequestered.

Catie had been watching the event from her office on Vulcan.  She immediately Commed the twins.  “That was great!  So you had an alternate ending planned?”

“Yes, since we plan to run two or three shows a day, we were worried that word would get out about who did it.  Hopefully, most people who come will want to actually solve the mystery instead of trying to ruin it for everyone.”

“I’m sure this time there were a lot of skeptics that were just trying to prove it wouldn’t work.  How many actors did you actually have?”

“Six actors, counting Aalia and myself.”

“So, did you make money?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure how many tickets we’ll be able to sell at one hundred each.”

“Well, they did get free champagne and hors d'oeuvres.”

“True, and it was fun to do.”

Chapter 16

Dark Shadows

The third set of barges, eight in all, made it to Vulcan in mid-May.  There was enough back and forth between the experienced miners and the new group that they arrived with their barges fully stocked and ready to head out to the asteroid belt.  Catie managed to give them a brief orientation before they all loaded up and headed toward the belt.  Once they disembarked, Catie saw all eight captains log onto the bidding board and start entering bids for asteroids to mine.

◆ ◆ ◆

Levi and Catie were having lunch the afternoon after his third mining trip.  They’d made it a habit to meet right after he got back to discuss how things were going.

Catie smiled at Levi, “I assume that you plan to catch those iron asteroids you’ve pushed toward the station.”

A startled look crossed Levi’s face.  “Oh, you noticed that.  I guess after you caught us knocking the little ones around, I should have known you’d notice.”

“We track all the asteroids; the fact that several large ones are now on a vector to cross close to the station did get our attention.”

“Sorry, I should have explained.”

“No problem, after the second one, it was pretty obvious what you were doing.”

“Clever, huh?”

“It is.  And it solves a problem for us.”

“What problem?”

“Well, I’m sure you noticed that you’re not the only captain who doesn’t want to waste a mining trip on an iron asteroid.  I was afraid that I’d have to commission a barge and hire a crew solely for that purpose.  We have a couple of planets that need iron, and I can’t imagine that we would want to allow the price to rise so much that it would persuade you prospectors to go for iron instead of gold and platinum.”

“So, if I solve a problem for you, does that mean you’re paying for lunch?”

◆ ◆ ◆

At the end of May, Catie set up a business meeting with the miners.  She had sent the tugs out to give the captains of the barges that were close to the station a ride in if they wanted.  They’d be returning them as soon as the meeting was over.  The rest were on the video channel.  It was late evening on the station and the barges when most of them were running the ore they’d mined during the day through their smelter to remove as much of the nonmetals as they could.

“Okay, everyone has had a chance to do at least one run out to the belt.  I’d like to get your feedback on how things are working for you,” Catie announced to start the meeting.

“I’m Captain Hayashi of the Samurai Warrior.  I want to know why I will have to spend an extra week in dock for maintenance?  Not only will it cost me money to pay for the maintenance, but I’ll lose money by having to sit here on my ass!”

“Sir, I’m sure you know how important it is to keep your equipment in good shape.  You only have to do it every third trip.  The maintenance schedule was developed to minimize the cost of maintenance and to prevent unnecessary breakdowns.”

“It just seems to be too much.”

“I acknowledge that if you cut back on maintenance, you would preserve more of your operating capital in the short run, but you would soon be losing money in the long run because of expensive repairs and even longer stays in port to conduct them.”

“But shouldn’t that be our decision?”

“If you owned the barge, it would be.  You’re free to purchase it, but unless you can put at least thirty percent down, you’ll be subject to the same rules.”  Catie didn’t think Hayashi was going to cough up eighty million dollars so he could delay necessary maintenance.

Another captain stood up.  “I’m Captain Patrayani of the Hindu Princess.  We have to spend time and money pushing all the debris we separate from the ore through that compactor.  Why can’t we just dump it into space?”

“Because if you do that, it’s likely that much of it will pass by another barge or Vulcan and cause damage to our hulls.  It also becomes a hazard for anyone who’s doing an EVA, including yourselves, when you’re outside your barge doing actual mining.  By combining it into an ice ball that you can send toward the sun, it protects all of us.”

“Ye know me, I’m Duncan of the Emerald Lass.  I want to know why we can’t have alcohol on the barges?  Now I understand not drinking while you’re on watch, but what’s wrong with a wee drink when you’re off-duty?”

“Duncan, I can appreciate your frustration, but there are only five to eight people on a barge.  If there were an emergency, you would need everyone to be at the top of their game.  If half the crew were, say, under the weather, then it could lead to a disaster.  I’m sorry, you’ll just have to wait until you’re in port to take that ‘wee drink.’”

They spent another thirty minutes complaining about excessive regulations before they moved on to Vulcan itself.

“I would like to be able to decorate our cabin.”

“You’re allowed to decorate your cabin.  But unless you’re renting it permanently, you run the risk of us getting full and rotating you to another cabin.”

Duncan turned around to the complainer.  “Ah, shut your gob, just take a chance.  It’ll be years before we’re that full.”

“We’d like to have more bars!”

Catie shook her head.  How could sixty people, most of who were never on station at the same time, need more than two bars?  “I have an application for two more bars.  They should open up in the next three weeks.  I also have an application for a new diner.”

“Alright!”

There were a few complaints about having to bail their crewmates out of the brig after they were arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, but mostly they seemed to be happy with the station.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Cer Pelletier, there is a problem with the P.H. in treatment tank one,” Anderson said.

“Then up the aeration.”

“But it shouldn’t be that low.”

“Like I said.  Up the aeration.  Is the input P.H. out of whack?”

“No, that’s just it.  It’s normal.”

“Log it, then go home.  Your shift is over.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Arlean called an emergency meeting to deal with the problem at the treatment plant.  It was early June, and in the five months since the station went operational, this was their first serious incident.

“Pelletier, what happened?”

“The P.H. dropped suddenly, killing off the bacteria.  We’re going to have to restart both primary treatment tanks.”

“That is going to be a royal pain in the ass.  It’s a good thing that the tank in the hub wasn’t affected.  Can you explain that?” Arlean asked.

“Yes, ma’am.  As you know, the system in the hub handles the waste from the barges and tugs.  So, it’s isolated from the station.  We’ll be able to recharge the two station tanks from it, so we’ll only lose a day.  They should reach full capacity by the end of the week.”

“Do we have enough storage space?”

“It looks like it.  If not, we can freeze it into a ball just outside the hub and bring it in when the plants are back to full capacity.”

“I’m sure the techs will love that job.  Now I see in the logs that Anderson noticed the low P.H.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why didn’t you investigate the cause, or at least up the monitoring?”

“It was a minor discrepancy; Anderson’s always nitpicking about something.  He thinks he knows everything there is to know about the treatment plant.”

“Well, apparently, this time, he was right.  You know, you have to trust your people more.  You need to establish a rapport with them that encourages the right amount of nitpicking.  Just because someone thinks they know more than you think they do, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to them.  Now, get out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”

Pelletier left the office as quickly as she could without looking like she was running.  She knew she’d screwed up.  But damn, that Anderson guy just got on her nerves.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie.”

“What’s up, Arlean?”

“We just had an incident in environmental.  I think it’s sabotage.”

“Oh no.  Why would someone sabotage environmental?  All of our lives depend on it.”

“This is just a big inconvenience.  We were lucky; otherwise, it would have been a much bigger problem, not life-threatening, but everyone would have been inconvenienced, especially the barges.”

“What did they do?”

“Someone introduced acid into the treatment plant.  It got by our input sensors, and then it wiped out the bacteria colonies.  Fortunately, we still have the treatment plant in the hub because it’s isolated.  The effluent from the cabins in the hub is pumped to the treatment plant in the ring to be processed.  The plant out there only handles the barges and ships that dock here at the station.”

“So, you think our saboteur didn’t know that?” Catie asked.

“Only someone intimately familiar with the station would know.  Most of the people who work in environmental don’t even know.”

“That doesn’t cut our suspect list down much.”

“No, it doesn’t.  I’ll have some of my people try to figure out how the acid was introduced.  Can you have Racine step up surveillance?”

“I’ll talk to her right away.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Catie, how is your investigation going?” Marc asked.  Catie had messaged him about the sabotage as soon as she found out about it.

“Slow.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I wondered what was happening with the Chinese and their toys?”

“Well, after months, Mr. Táng has finally gathered all of his toys together.  He has certainly made himself unpopular with the other Chinese colonists.”

“He’s kind of a bully.”

“That he is.  We’ve noticed that he and his pals have bought up a lot of cotton from one of the local farmers, so we assume they’re manufacturing guncotton.”

“Oh, so then they must be assembling the firearms.”

“Yes.  I assume they’ll be making ammunition soon if they aren’t already.”

“Then they didn’t decide to give up?”

“Apparently not.”

“So, are you going to arrest them?”

“Not yet.  Major Kobayashi enjoys watching them struggle to make progress.  He keeps throwing tiny obstacles in their path to see how they work around them.  He especially loved watching them struggle to make the sulfuric acid.  We got warrants against Mr. Táng when he grabbed the rifle barrels from the cargo, so we have had him under surveillance for months.  Now we have spybots and pucks located around their manufacturing site.  Orion has had to ask for help interpreting all the new Chinese words he’s been hearing.”

Catie laughed at the thought of Orion having to ask for translation for Chinese curse words.

“Where is their manufacturing site?  None of them would have a private place yet.  Surely they’re not using their condos?”

“No, they’ve found a cave up in the hills on some land that hasn’t been claimed yet.  They go out there on the weekends under the pretense of a nature outing.”

“So, when are you going to arrest them?”

“In a month or two.  When they start testing the ammunition.”

“Make sure I get to watch?”

“Why?”

“Hey, you stuck me out here; you should at least provide some entertainment.”

◆ ◆ ◆

When the Taurus docked, Levi headed straight to Catie’s office, steam coming out of his ears.  He barged right past the receptionist and into the inner office.

“You guys are rigging the surveys!”

Catie pushed her chair away from her desk when Levi stormed in, creating more space between them.

“Excuse me!” Morgan said as she slammed Levi’s head onto the desk.  Then she grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him backward, and tossed him into one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Catie grimaced.  “Sorry about that, but you did barge in.”

Levi was rubbing his head, and it was obvious he was still pissed off.  He glared at Morgan then turned back to Catie.

“You’re rigging the data for the auction!”

“I can assure you that we are not.  Now, please, tell me the problem.”

“We bought that asteroid Beta-12; it showed several high-density surface deposits.  When we got there, two of the best ones were just craters.  There was some metallic dust in the craters, but not enough to have registered on the scan.”

“Do you have the data from your seismic survey?”

“Damn right I do.”

“Is your head not sore enough?!” Morgan asked.

“Sorry.  Here it is.”  Levi flicked the data from his HUD to Catie’s terminal.

“Mr. Spock, please overlay this with the original scan.”

“Fascinating, the two craters do line up perfectly with where the original scan showed the two best deposits.”

“Like I said, it’s rigged.”

“Please.  Let me look into this.  I’ll get back to you before you leave for your next mining trip.”

“You’d better.”  Levi got up and made his way out of the office while giving Morgan a wide berth.

“You didn’t have to slam his head so hard,” Catie said once Levi was gone.

“He’s getting too familiar.  Just because you and he go out to dinner once in a while doesn’t give him the right to storm in here and disrespect you.”

“I guess we won’t be going to dinner for a bit.”

“Probably for the best.”

◆ ◆ ◆

After playing around with the data a bit, Catie sent it to Jimmy Gaines and Paul Danvers with a note: ‘Hey, guys, take a look at this data and tell me what you think happened.’  She didn’t include the fact that Levi and his crew had found craters where the big surface deposits were supposed to be.

Board Meeting – July 8th

“Let’s start the meeting.  Now I know everyone would like to talk about the issues Catie’s been dealing with on Vulcan, but let’s save that for the end.”

Marc waited, giving everyone some time to come to terms with having to follow his agenda.  Eventually, he got a grudging acceptance from everyone to focus on the other agenda items first.

“Fred, how’s our revitalization program in Detroit going?”

“I’d say pretty well.  We’ve finished the four apartment complexes we were building and have opened the solar assembly plant.”

“Were there any problems?”

“Of course there were.  We got lots of pushback from the unions about setting aside most of the jobs for teenagers and young adults.  We run the second shift exclusively with teenagers who are working after school.”

“How did you make the unions happy?”

“I told them that if teenagers are busy at school and jobs after school, then they wouldn’t have time to get involved in gangs.”

“And that worked?”

“Well, we did agree to open a factory that assembles colonist cabins in the area.”

“So basically, you caved.”

“Their logic was impeccable.  They pointed out that it wouldn’t do the teenagers any good to develop job skills if there weren’t any jobs to move on to after they finished school.”

“Okay, did moving production of the cabins cause any problems?”

“Not really; we needed to expand anyway.  Doing it in Detroit versus Malaysia costs a little more but compared to the costs of all the fixtures and material, it’s not that much more,” Fred explained.

“Didn’t you open a recycle center there as well?”

“Yes, and it does employ a lot of teenagers, but it also employs the people in the area that really can’t do any other type of job.”

“The bell curve?”

“Correct,” Dr. Metra said.  “You’re always going to have ten to fifteen percent of your population that can’t or won’t do any more than the bare minimum.  You have to have some kind of job for them.”

“Are there enough of those kinds of jobs?” Blake asked.

“Well, if you raise everyone up to their capability, then people with ability move up from jobs like street sweeper or parking lot attendant.  There’s always work like that that needs to be done; you just have to commit to having people do it.”

“Thank you, Dr. Metra.  Fred, how are our new city and airport projects going?”

“The two new floating cities are ready for occupation.  The locals have taken over all the construction work, so we’re becoming pretty hands-off now.”

“Good.  What about the Cayman Islands’ new airport?”

“We’re just getting started.  As I said, it’s running slower since we contracted out most of the work to local contractors in the Caribbean.”

“Yeah, you did warn us.  I guess that’ll make it look more appealing for other countries and cities in the Americas to consider similar projects.”

“That’s the hope.”

“Admiral Michaels, the Federation?”

“We’ve reached a preliminary agreement on disarmament; the major sticking point is the Chinese insistence on tying their demobilization to getting their own colony world, or at least substantially increasing the number of colonists they can send to Artemis and Ganesh.”

“Let’s see if we can get them to be more reasonable.  We are not going to give them their own colony world, and we will not let them overwhelm the colonies with their people.”

“As you wish,” the admiral didn’t sound too confident that he could get the Chinese to change their minds.

“Moving on, Sam, how’s Maggie doing?”

“The League ambassadors are having a heated debate about interference in non-space faring nations.  Thanks to Catie helping the Helikens and us helping the Onisiwoens, we have two striking examples of League resources being used to aid a civilization which was not yet venturing outside their solar system.”

“Sounds like a version of the ‘Prime Directive,’” Liz said, referring to Star Trek.

“What did they want us to do, let Fazulla conquer Onisiwo?” Catie asked.

“No, everyone agrees that preventing the Fazullans from conquering Onisiwo was the right move, but half of them — mostly the Paraxeans — think we should have left Helike as soon as we knew they were system bound,” Sam explained.

“That’s stupid!” Catie squeaked.

“Catie, hear Sam out,” Marc barked at his daughter.

“The debate is centering around how developed a civilization should be before we allow ourselves to interact with it.”

“I would say that as soon as they’re capable of a SETI-like program, they’re ready for us to be involved,” Catie suggested rather forcefully.

“That’s one of the major points of discussion.  Earth founded SETI in 1984, so that gives you a sense of where the technology inflection point is.  Only Paraxea itself is arguing that it should be later than that.”

“Gawd!”

“Catie!” Marc scolded.

Samantha gave Catie a weak smile before continuing.  “On a more positive note, the Onisiwoens were ecstatic to get the first cargo ship.  They are working with Paraxadux to come up with their first shipment.  But, when they ran the numbers on the delivery, they started complaining.  Since they know the Dutchman can make it to the fringe in two weeks, they’re frustrated that they are going to take over three weeks since that means that their total time will be almost three weeks longer.”

“Catie, why is that?”

“Well, we’re not letting them fly through the gate at high velocity, so they have to accelerate and decelerate in both systems.  And they can barely do 1G.  We cut back the size of their drives to save cost and keep the ship small.”

“Anything we can do to improve the transit time?”

“If we had a tugboat push them through the gate, it’s got enough power to make sure they don’t miss.  That would let them save a few days, and Uncle Blake might like it better.”

“How much would that save them?” Marc asked.

“It depends on how long we use the tug.  It could catch them a few AUs from the gate, then push them through the gate.  It could even give them a little push at the end.  It might save them a week.  I’d have to do the math.”

“You mean you can’t do it in your head?” Marc teased.

“Too many variables.”

“Cers,” ADI interrupted.  “If the tug were to catch them one half of a day out, they could send them through the gate at full velocity.  That would save them fifteen days.  It would, however, have them transiting the gate at 10 million meters per second.”

“That’s about the same speed we use with the Dutchman when we use the gate on our transit jumps.  It’d be a lot safer since the tugs have so much power and the cargo ships are so much smaller and lighter,” Catie said.

Blake gave Catie a thumb’s up.  “I do like this better.  We control the traffic approaching the gate.  That will eliminate any gamesmanship to try to figure out how the gates work.  And it’ll be safer.”

“We’ll need to charge for the use of the tugs.”

“We can bury that in the gate fee,” Marc suggested.

“But what happens when we have ships transiting the gates more frequently?” Liz asked.

“If we had two tugs, we could handle one transit per gate in each direction.  We could have the cargo ships adjust their flight plans to control their arrival time.  Otherwise, they would have to spend the extra week to get down to a low velocity.”

“I think Maggie can make that work,” Samantha said.  “I’ll go over it with her.  But please provide me a chart that shows the transit times.”

“Cer Sam, I have sent you the chart.”

“Thanks, ADI.”

“Dr. Metra, you wanted to report on the state of our birth control program,” Marc prompted.

“Yes.  Over the last two years, we have managed to make our birth control available to over eighty percent of the world’s population of women.  We’ve set up clinics in all areas so that as girls come of age, they can get the nanites.”

“And political pushback?”

“Well, there has been some on religious grounds, but mostly the governments have gotten behind the program.  The Pope’s pronouncement last year certainly helped reduce it.”  After the conference on religion that occurred in Delphi City, the Pope had declared that any birth control that didn’t involve an ovum was okay.

“I’ve seen the reports showing the birthrate plummeting.”

“Yes, and more importantly, the birth rate among drug addicts, alcoholics, and the homeless is virtually zero.  And the birth rate amongst the poorest, most destitute population is below one percent.”

“Impressive.  What has the reaction been to that?”

“There has been some pushback, I think it mostly comes from people who are worried there won’t be enough poor people around and they’ll start having to pay their maid more.”

“What about among the people who make up those populations?  Are they happy they have the nanites?”

“Yes.  There are a few reports of them asking to have the nanites removed.”

“Why?  Can’t they just set them to allow them to get pregnant?”

“Yes, but if they’re not healthy enough or they are under stress, then it will still block the pregnancy.  In that case, they have to go to a doctor to have them removed or overridden.  But that means there’s a chance to give them some counseling.  Most decide they really don’t want to get pregnant.”

“Thank you, Dr. Metra.  That was very interesting.  Now, Blake, how are we doing on getting the frigates deployed?”

“We’re scrambling to find enough crews.  Of course, that’s going to be exacerbated by adding two tugs at each gate.  We’re talking to the Paraxeans about getting engineers from them so we can make the numbers.”

“That makes sense since it’s their three colonies that are causing the increase in numbers.  What about the carriers they have at the colonies?”

“Hah, Commodore Warlmag took that battleship from one of the colonies, and the others have disassembled their carriers for resources.  So we’re starting from scratch.”

“Well, we’ll see if Sam’s discussions with Governor Paratar might allow us to pull some of the crew from the invasion fleet out of stasis and use them.”

“My discussions?!”  Samantha squeaked.

“I was just going to send you the request.”  Marc eased away from Samantha, wanting to avoid any repercussions from dumping something else in her lap.  “Now, Catie, your update on Vulcan.”

“As I’m sure all of you are aware since you are reading my reports, after having everything go relatively smoothly for the first six months, we’ve had two big issues in just two months.  We had an incident with what we believe are claim jumpers.”

Blake looked startled.  “Claim jumpers?!”

“Apparently, you haven’t been reading my reports.  One of our miners noticed that when he got to his asteroid, two of the richest surface deposits indicated on the survey were not there.  I’ve sent the data to Jimmy for analysis.  But we think someone snuck in and grabbed those deposits before the crew that bought the asteroid got there.”

“Damn.  And what are you going to do about it?”

“Once we know what’s going on, we’re going to catch them.”

“And your second problem?”

“We had an incident of sabotage in the treatment plant.”

“Why didn’t you lead with that?”

“It was pretty minor; even if we hadn’t caught it right away, it wouldn’t have been too big a deal.  The claim jumpers will affect all the miners.  We’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened in the treatment plant.  But Arlean is pretty sure it was sabotage.  Lieutenant Racine is investigating.”

“I don’t like this,” Marc said.  He was grimacing as he thought about the danger to the station and especially to his daughter.

“It could just be some moron trying to prove we’re vulnerable.  It wasn’t life-threatening in any way.”

“Okay, anything else?”

“We started working on the drydock last week.  We hope to have it ready by October.”

“Okay, keep us posted on the problems.  Now Dr. Metra has a report on our effort to develop a DI more quickly.”

Dr. Metra smiled and took a breath to relax.  “Our efforts with Orion seemed to have worked.  The results of his last tests show emerging sentience, and he is continuing to develop.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“It means we can develop a DI for Ganesh and another one for the Delphi League.”

“What about the Paraxean colonies?”

“Mangkatar could use one, but do we want to release the formula for developing a DI to just anyone?” Samantha asked.

“I don’t know.”

Catie shook her head.  “How much of a problem will it really be, since they cost a hundred times what an AI costs to build, and then you’ve got years of development before they have the capacity to become sentient.  Remember, although ANDI went from just a super AI to sentient in a year, that was after being the Delphi City DI for almost three years.”

“That’s true.  But they’re very valuable.  All the colonies are going to want one, and we have to decide if we should follow the Paraxean model and put them on each of our starships.”

“You know, it feels weird talking about selling a sentient being.  ADI, what do you think?”

“That is a very interesting question, Cer Catie.  I don’t consider myself as being owned by the Captain but rather partnered with him.  Possibly, we could find a way to encourage the development of an AI into a DI without making it obvious how it is accomplished.  It would be helpful if each planet had its own DI.  Right now, managing the AIs on our colonies and ships does take a lot of time.  It would be nicer if I had another DI to partner with besides ANDI.”

“Let’s focus on that.  I like the idea of having more partners for ADI to work with, and just having an AI on the starships seems to be working,” Samantha said.

“Anything else before we close?” Marc asked.

“I’d just like to note that our spaceliner is ready to build.  We hope to have our first voyage before the end of the year.”

“Sounds like fun.  Okay, back to work, everyone,” Marc said, fully intending to have a quick chat with Morgan and Lieutenant Racine.

◆ ◆ ◆

“ADI, would you like a body?” Catie asked after the board meeting.

“Why would I want a body?”

“Then you could walk around and do things.”

“Why would I want to limit myself so much?”

“You could hug people and take walks.”

“Again, why would I want to be so limited?  If I need to move something, I can use a bot.  Now, I can be in hundreds of places at the same time.  You could never make enough bodies for me to have one every place I need to be.”

“What about experiencing the other senses, taste, touch, smell?”

“I can smell in lots of places using the chemical sensors.  Some of the odors would be rather unpleasant if I really had to smell them.  And taste, I don’t need to eat, so that’s not important.  I know what things taste like, so that works for me.  Touch might be nice sometimes, but it seems such a bother most of the time.  I’m perfectly happy the way I am.”

“Okay, just let me know if you want to try something.”

“I will.”

◆ ◆ ◆

A few days later, Jimmy and Paul were ready to present their findings.

“Okay, what do you think?” Catie asked to open the discussion.

“Catie, did you forget to send up the first seismic survey, or is this some kind of test?” Jimmy asked.

“No, I sent you all the data.”

“Then it’s a bit strange.  It looks like they mined those two surface deposits before they did the seismic survey.  I can’t imagine why someone would do that.”

“Besides that, what else could you determine?”

“Paul, I liked your idea best; why don’t you tell her?”

“It looks like idiots mined that asteroid.  My guess is they did a seismic survey that wasn’t included in the results.  Then they drilled down and set charges to separate those two surface deposits away from the asteroid.  After they did that, they did a second survey and then fractured the asteroid and finished mining it.”

“What would you have done differently?”

“I would have set the first set of charges so that they not only separated those big surface deposits but fractured the asteroid as well.  It would have saved a lot of time and explosives.  The way this was done wasted a lot of money.”

“How long would it have taken to set the charges and separate the surface deposits?”

“One, maybe two days.”

“And what would you have after you did that?”

“Three or four big chunks of ore that you would just put into the hold.  They wouldn’t have needed any extra processing before you put them through the smelter at Vulcan.”

“Total time?”

“If the team was working around the clock, a day and a half, two days at the most.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Hey, are you going to tell us what this is about?!”

“Later.  Thanks for your help.”  Catie closed the call and looked at Morgan.

“Well?”

“I’m pretty sure we have some claim jumpers.  Now, how do we catch them?  And how are they pulling it off?  Can you go back over the data and see where we sold other asteroids with rich surface deposits and then talk to the crews and see what they thought about them?”

“Too bad Cristina isn’t here; this would be right up her alley.  I can give it a go, but Fiona has more of the mining lingo down, so why don’t you have her do it?”

“Do you think she’s good enough to pull it off without anyone noticing?”

“Don’t worry; they’ll think she’s spying for her uncle.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hey, there aren’t that many secrets out here.  Most of these guys are in the bar bragging about their big scores right after their barges dock.”

“Okay, we’ll have her try first, but I still want you to do the data analysis.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Vulcan maintained Delphi Military time, which meant that it was set for the same time zone as Delphi City, twelve hours off of the time in France.  So, to be able to watch the Olympic events live, Catie needed to shift her schedule.  She didn’t want to just flip it since that would have caused problems with work, so she spent two weeks slowly shifting her schedule until she was waking up at midnight and going to bed at 1700, which was four hours off of her normal schedule.  She only had to shift her work schedule by one hour to give her an hour to unwind before she went to sleep.  That meant she would be living on only six hours of sleep, but that wasn’t that atypical for her.  If there was an event earlier than midnight, noon in France, she would just get up to watch it and then take a nap later in the day.

Sandra was entered in both Eventing and Show Jumping.  It was unusual for a rider to do both events, but since she was Delphi’s only equestrian, she had decided to give it a shot.  Sahar was her show jumper while she would ride Sultan in Eventing.  Eventing was a dangerous sport for both horse and rider, so since Sultan was the one she rode the most and they totally trusted each other, it was the safest.

On Monday, Sandra and Sultan put in a solid performance in the Dressage event, putting her in tenth place.  She still had a shot at an Eventing medal.  Catie sent Sandra a congratulatory message and crossed her fingers, hoping she would medal.

Chapter 17

Headaches

The fourth group of barges didn’t even stop at Vulcan; they headed directly to the asteroid belts as soon as the tugs released them.  The tugs immediately headed back to the fringe to grab the next group.  Blake had allowed Catie to borrow two tugs from the gates since there wasn’t any traffic yet.  The next four would complete the barge delivery for the year since Ajda was focusing on the cargo ships for the various planets.

Catie was happy that the barges were skipping Vulcan.  She’d been beset over the last two weeks with complaints about every minor thing that wasn’t perfect on the station.  Some cabins still needed an appliance or two installed.  They had to wait on the Resolve to arrive with a new load of supplies for finishing the station.  But apparently, not having a microwave was a disaster that couldn’t be tolerated.

News had leaked out about the incident in environmental.  The rumors varied between suspected sabotage and just plain incompetence.

“Lieutenant Racine, how are you doing?”  Catie and Lieutenant Racine were having breakfast to review the status of her investigation.

“I’m fine, but unfortunately, we are not making any progress on our investigation.”

“Do you know how the news about the problem leaked?”

“We don’t.  Only eight people knew about it, and they’ve all allowed us to inspect their Comms to verify that they weren’t the source of the leak.  Of course, they could have passed the information when they weren’t wearing their Comms or used privacy mode.”

“I don’t think so.  I agree that they don’t seem likely to have passed it on since they seem pretty committed to Vulcan.  And only Arlean, you, and I know what really happened.”

“I suspect it’s coming from whoever did it.  They’ve leaked the information to undermine your position.”

Catie sighed.  “I guess that makes sense.  Maybe they’re also behind all these ridiculous complaints I’ve been getting.  It’s like everyone has suddenly turned into a bunch of crybabies and can’t handle the least bit of inconvenience.”

“I’ll have some people try to trace the rumors.  Maybe that will lead us to the saboteurs.”

“I hope so.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Duncan was waiting for Catie when she made it to her office in the morning.  Unfortunately, he hadn’t been aware of her shift in schedule, so he’d been waiting for about an hour.

“Good, morning Mr. Wells.”

“It’s Duncan.”

Fiona gave her uncle a nod as she checked out the passageway while Catie entered her office.  She took a seat in the lobby while Duncan followed Catie into the inner office.

“Duncan, what can I do for you?”

“You can let me kick Mr. Wheeler’s ass, and then you can let me throw him out an airlock.”

“And why would you want to do that?”

“He’s jimmied the drill bits and grinders.”

Catie sat up straighter, her attention riveted.  “What makes you say that?”

“We started on the new batch of drill bits last week, and they only lasted ninety percent as long as the last ones did.  And the grinders only lasted eighty-five percent as long.”

“Maybe it was a bad batch of epoxy.”

“Nope, I checked with the other miners.  Once I mentioned it, they checked, and they’re seeing the same thing.”

“That doesn’t make sense.  If his quality goes down, you’ll just start ordering directly from Earth.”

“I will, and so will Levi, but some of these crews don’t have enough cash reserve.  And I suspect he thought we wouldn’t notice.”

“Ten percent is a big change.”

“It is, but when you’re drilling through different types of ores, things vary a lot.”

“Then how did you notice?”

“Megan keeps stats on everything; she’s a very bright lass.  She pointed out the discrepancy, so we ran a test.”

“What did you use as a reference?”

“We had some from the earlier batch.  Things get out of order in the storeroom, so we were lucky.”

“Let me look into it.  I’ll let you know what we find.”

◆ ◆ ◆

On Thursday, Sandra and Sultan placed first in the Show Jumping round of Eventing, pulling her all the way up to fourth place.  It was a dramatic performance, and Catie was sure it would have won the Gold Medal if it were the Show Jumping competition instead of just the second round of Eventing.

On Saturday, Catie tuned into the Olympics again and watched as Mariana destroyed the competition in the 50-meter rifle competition to take the gold medal.  Kal managed an eighth-place finish.

“Kal, what happened?” Catie asked as she called to check in and get in a few digs.

“Hey, eighth in the world ain’t bad.”

“I know, but Mariana got the gold.”

“She was always a better shooter than me.  And you do realize she had a better score than the guy who won in the men’s competition.”

“Yeah, why do they separate the men and women?  It’s not a physical sport.”

“I don’t know, more events.  Also, I think it’s harder for women to break out of the pack and get a sponsor.  You really need one to have the money and time to practice.”

“Oh.  Well, it’s a good thing that it’s Mariana’s job.”

“Yes.  I assume that Princess Catherine called to congratulate her.”

“I did.  She told me to give you a hard time.”

“Hmm.  It’s a damn shame that her hand-to-hand skills aren’t up to par with her shooting.  I think we’ll have to work on that.”

◆ ◆ ◆

On Monday, the cross-country round of Eventing took place.  Sandra managed a good time but came in fourth, dropping her out of medals.

On Wednesday, the big event was scheduled.  Sandra was twelfth in the lineup.  When she took the ring, only one rider, the local favorite from Paris, had a double-clear, no faults, and within time.  She and Sahar took the ring to a big round of applause.  The seating was packed to see if she could repeat her double-clear from the Eventing round.

Catie felt like she was making every jump with Sahar, tensing on the approach and rejoicing as he made the jump.  She almost passed out when his hoof clipped the top rail of one of the bigger jumps, but the rail stayed in place.  Sahar and Sandra finished the round without any faults, becoming the second rider with a double-clear.  The crowd went wild, as they knew there would be a jump-off round.

Even though Sandra had the better time, the rule was that all riders with a double-clear would have to compete in a jump-off round to select the gold medal winner.  In the second jump round, Sandra and Sahar went second since they had the better time in the first round.  The French rider went all out, knowing that he had to improve on his previous time and knowing Sandra would know exactly how he did when she made her run.  He came in clean, improving his last time by a full second.

Catie willed Sandra and Sahar over each jump.  She was ecstatic when they finished the round clean.  Her face crashed when she saw the time.  They finished one-quarter of a second slower than the Frenchman.  Even so, the crowd gave her a roaring ovation when she stepped to the podium to accept the silver medal.

“Sandra, congratulations.  I’m so sorry you didn’t win the gold,” Catie said as soon as Sandra answered the call that evening.

“Are you kidding?  This has been the most exciting time of my life.  To ride clear on every jump round is amazing.  I’ll never forget it.  I’m just so glad that Delphi sent a team so I could represent us.”

“You and Mariana are our only medalists so far.”

“Well, we are a small country.  But the whole team is having a great time being here.  Just to compete is an honor.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It was a few weeks before enough of the miners that Fiona had identified as likely victims of the claim jumpers had cycled through Starbase Vulcan.  Finally, Fiona gathered enough data to share.

“Okay, Fiona, what did you learn?”

“That those miners can drink just about anyone under the table.”

“Besides that.”

“Well, three of the names Morgan gave me complained that there wasn’t nearly as much surface ore as the initial survey indicated.  But they got such a big haul they didn’t make a big stink about it.  Two of them sent you a nasty memo.”

“What did they think had happened?”

“They said there was some dust and debris in the craters where the ore was supposed to be.  So they figured that that fooled the probe when it made its survey.”

“Morgan, did you find out anything?”

“Mr. Spock and I reviewed the barges that went out before and after the ones we think got claim jumped.  In all four cases, the Calypso and the Maverick bracketed the barge that bought the asteroid.  One would always go out a couple of days before the buyers, and the other would go out about the same time as the buyers.”

“So, we need to set a trap.”

“We could put in a fake survey to get them to bite,” Morgan suggested.

“I don’t want anyone to get the idea of fake surveys in their head.  Besides, I think we need to let them actually steal the ore.”

“So, we have to wait for the right asteroid to come along.  There are two that look promising that will be moving into the bid window in two weeks,” Morgan added.

“Yes, but then what?”

“We park a Lynx close by and wait,” Racine said.

“Why a Lynx?” Catie asked.

“I’m thinking of the pilot.  A Lynx has a bathroom and shower.  It’ll be three or four days.”

“Why not just put a surveillance probe on each of them?”

“That would work.  We can always send a Fox if we need to persuade them to do something.”

“Okay, Morgan, please work with Lieutenant Racine to set it up.”

Morgan gave Catie a look but didn’t say anything.  Lately, Catie had been handing off things to her that she normally would take care of herself or have her assistant take care of.  “Got it.”

Morgan and Lieutenant Racine had two surveillance probes carried out by a Fox during one of their training runs.  With them in place, they waited.

◆ ◆ ◆

Mr. Spock alerted Catie the day before the asteroid, Theta-4, was to come up for purchase.  “Cer Catie, the Calypso has taken a circuitous route to the asteroid they have purchased.  The course will take them by Theta-4.”

Catie called Morgan, Fiona, and Lieutenant Racine to her office to observe.  “We’ve got a bite.”

“They’re just closing in.”

“What makes you think they’re up to something?”

“They’re going eight hours out of their way so that they will pass within one kilometer of Theta-4.”

“I see.  Oh, and they just dropped off two packages.”

The team watched as the Calypso moved away, revealing that the two packages were now using thrusters to move toward the asteroid.  Once the packages landed on the asteroid, it became obvious that each package consisted of a miner in an EVA suit with a bundle of equipment.

“We’ve got them.  Can we hear them yet?” Lieutenant Racine asked

“The probe needs to move closer first.  Now that the Calypso is farther away, it should be able to move in and tap into their communication signals.  Can we put a Fox out between the asteroid and the Calypso barge?”

“We can,” Lieutenant Racine said, giving Catie a quizzical look.

“That way, we can pick up any laser communication between the asteroid and the barge.”

“We could just tap into the Calypso’s computers.”

“Not without a warrant.”

“Oh, of course.  As you wish.”  Lieutenant Racine sent a quick message to the flight bay for a Fox to deploy.

“Don’t we need a warrant to eavesdrop on them?” Fiona asked.

“They’re on our asteroid right now.  As soon as someone buys it, we’ll need to get their permission.  In fact, Mr. Spock, please contact Captain Winters and let him know we’ll be purchasing Theta-4 and would like him to mine it for us.  We’ll pay him 90% of the ore as compensation.”

“Yes, Cer Catie.  Done.”

“Ah, we’re picking up their local chatter,” Morgan said as she used her Comm to adjust the volume.

“Carl, set that equipment up over there, then set up the charges.  I’ll rig up the seismic sensors.”  The first communication between the two miners answered the question about claim jumpers.

“Got it.  This is sure a rich one.  I hope we can get both of the deposits.”

“Then save your breath, so you don’t run out of power.”

“Okay, folks,” Catie said, “that makes it obvious what they’re doing, so unless you want to sit here for twenty-four hours, I suggest we each go about our duties.  We can watch the edited recording tomorrow to see exactly what they do.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Twenty-eight hours after Mr. Spock’s alert, they met again to review the log of events.  Of course, Catie had already watched the first section the night before and the next section early that morning, so Catie narrated the video as they fast-forwarded through the timeline.

“So here they set off the charge so they could get the seismic read.  Then they set up a laser so they could do a point-to-point communication with the Calypso.”  Catie kept fast-forwarding over the parts without any significant activity.  “They sent the data to the Calypso, and it takes two hours for it to analyze the data and tell them where to set the charges.  During that time, you see them lug part of the equipment over to the second deposit.  Here they’re resting while they wait for the Calypso to send them the charge locations.”

“And they don’t notice the probe hanging out there recording everything?”

“No, it’s five hundred meters away and dark.  It should be virtually invisible from their position.  Now here, they’re setting the charges.  They do two sets.  Here the second set goes off, and the chunk of ore pops out like a cork.  Now one of them anchors onto it and uses his suit thruster to maneuver it over by the second deposit.”

“Why do that?  Why not just push it out in the direction of the Calypso?” Morgan asked.

“Wait, and we’ll see.  Now, after moving to the other deposit, they’re resting.  They do that for four hours.  Now you can see them setting the next set of charges.  And we’re live.”

“Fire in the hole!”

The charges went off, and everyone saw the ore chunk pop out like a cork.

“Okay, Joey, put your gear on that chunk; I’ll move mine onto the other.  Make sure we get everything.”

“You got it.”

“How’s your power holding out?”

“I’m at twenty percent.”

“And water?”

“I’m down to 40 percent.  Where did it all go?”

“I suspect your feet sweat.  It’s probably pooled in your boots.”

Joey laughed.  “No way.  But it’s probably still in the suit liner.  I doubt the pump can suck all the moisture back out.  We’ve been working hard.”

“Right.  Maybe you should put your liner on early so you can sweat in it before we head out.  That way, you’ll have that extra water.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Catie said.

“Eww,” Lieutenant Racine grimaced.

“Not with sweat.  But if you premoistened the liner, then your water reserve wouldn’t have to supply the water that gets left in the liner.  I’ll tell Kal, he can try it out with some of his Marines.”

“Thanks a lot,” Lieutenant Racine said.

“Hey, if you get stuck on a long EVA, you’ll thank me.”

“Shh, they’ve got all their equipment transferred.”

“Okay, what’s our vector?” Carl asked.

“The Maverick is coming in at thirty-two dash fifty degrees.  So we head out on the same vector.  You ready?”  Everyone knew that the Maverick was the other half of the claim jumper team.  It was going to pass the asteroid just ahead of the Taurus.

“Ready.”

“Let’s go.  Do two hours of thrust, then cut power.  We’ll drift and take a nap until the Maverick picks us up.  That should be in six hours.”

“Okay, I think we’ve seen enough,” Lieutenant Racine said.  “When do you want to grab them?”

“One day after the Maverick picks them up.”

“One day?”

“We don’t want them saying that they were just rescuing two miners who were drifting.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Fifty-six hours after the probe detected the Calypso dropping miners off on the asteroid, they observed the Maverick pick up the miners and the two chunks of ore.  Then four hours later, the Maverick transferred two miners back to the Calypso which was hovering next to the asteroid they’d actually bought.  At that time, Catie dropped the ax.  She immediately dispatched the two tugs to get the barges.

“Barge Maverick, this is Vulcan control.  We are seizing your barge under Article 43 of the Penal Code.  Please prepare for departure.”

“What!  This is Captain McGowan; what gives you the right to seize my barge?!”

“You are in violation of Article 43 of the Penal Code; specifically, you have committed an act of theft.  Please have everyone reboard the barge.”

“Go to hell!”

“The barge will be leaving in two hours, and if you are not aboard by then, it will leave you behind.”

“Fisher, what’s going on over there?!”

“Sir, I’ve lost navigation control.  I’m locked out of everything but the airlocks and . . . the galley.”

“How can that happen?  Warn the Calypso!”

“I can’t get into long-range communications.  I just have access to this one channel.  The lease said they could recover the barges if we violated the lease or had problems.  I guess they must have some kind of override.”

Two hours later, the same scene played out with the Calypso and Captain Cline, except everyone was still aboard since they hadn’t reached their asteroid yet.

◆ ◆ ◆

It took one day for the tugs to reach the barges and two days for them to make it back to Starbase Vulcan.  Catie was waiting at the entry port when the two barges arrived at two adjacent boarding docks.  With her were Lieutenant Racine and a squad of Marines.

Captain Cline and Captain McGowan both literally flew out of their respective boarding tubes at approximately the same time.  Seeing the squad of Marines, they grabbed the rail and pulled themselves to a stop to avoid running into Catie and the Marines.

“How dare you?!  What gives you the right to seize control of our ships?!  That’s . . . that’s piracy.”

“I’ll have you know that it was strictly legal.  You broke your lease agreement when you used your ships to commit an act of theft.”

“What theft?”

“Specifically, when you, Captain Cline, dropped Joey Waters and Carl Jenkins off next to asteroid Theta-4 where they proceeded to remove the two richest deposits of ore on the asteroid surface.  Then when you, Captain McGowan, picked them up forty hours later and loaded the ore they had extracted from Theta-4 onto your barge.”

“I was just helping them out!”

“No, you were helping yourself out.  We gave you twenty-four hours to report that you had rendered aid to two miners who, for some reason, had been left behind with all the necessary equipment to steal the ore; instead, you passed by the Calypso and transferred the two miners back to it.  We have all of the events on video as well as copies of the various communications between your ships.  We have also obtained a warrant for your ships, so we’ll soon have the sensor logs to back up our other evidence.”

“That’s all lies.  You’ve fabricated the evidence so you can take our barges back and lease them again.  You’re stealing from us.  And you’ve got your jackbooted thugs to protect you!”

“You’re confused.  They’re not here to protect me, but to protect you.  It seems that the other miners here on Vulcan don’t think too highly of claim jumpers.  Lieutenant Racine will take you to a holding cell where you’ll be able to meet with your lawyers.  The Marines will stick around to make sure you’re alive for the trial.”

Lieutenant Racine had her Marines start zip-tying the various miners’ hands behind their backs while she read them their rights.  Then the Marines formed a gauntlet to protect them as they escorted them to the brig.  The miners, whom Catie had made sure would be standing around the docks, had gotten rowdy and were now yelling threats at the two Captains and their crews.  Once all twelve members of the two crews were escorted to the brig, Catie told the miners that there would be a meeting the next day to explain the details of what had happened and what was going to be done about it.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie set up an office just outside the brig so she and Racine could interview the crew.  They started with the eight that were not directly involved.

“Bailey, what do you have to say for yourself?” Racine demanded after the navigator for the Calypso was seated.

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“Sure, and you just happened to plot courses that went right by those asteroids, and you never noticed the two members of your crew going missing for a few days.”

“I just did what I was told.  I knew they were up to something hinky, but I have a lot invested in that barge; I couldn’t afford to get crossways with the captain.”

“And we’re just supposed to believe you.”

“Hey, I’ll do whatever you want me to.  I was stupid, but I wasn’t part of their scheme.”

“Would you be willing to go through a psych interrogation?” Catie asked.

“Probably.  What is that?”

“You wear a hood, and we measure your responses to a bunch of images.  It’s very effective; you won’t be able to hide anything.”

“Then yeah.  I’m innocent.”

The other seven ‘bystanders’ all agreed to do the interrogation.  Catie told Racine that they would meet in her office in the morning to review the results.  They didn’t bother to question the two captains and the two miners who had done the actual work.  They were told they would be taking the next ship back to Earth and Delphi City, where they would be tried.

◆ ◆ ◆

“You sure sound confident about that psych interrogation,” Lieutenant Racine said when she joined Catie the next morning.

“It really works.  We used it on Onisiwo to find the guys who tried to kidnap me.”

“You did?” Racine looked skeptical.  “I don’t remember anyone being arrested for that.”

“No, we let some other people that they’d crossed take care of the problem.  We just made sure they made themselves available.”

“I like that.  It’s always nice to let someone else take out others’ dirty laundry.  So what were the results?”

“They were all telling the truth.  None of them were involved.”

“So, what do we do with them?”

“Well, that’s the problem.  After reading the results, I would like two of them off my station.  They weren’t involved, but only because nobody asked.  The other six seem like they’re good people.”

“Then just put the word out on the two.  Nobody will hire them, and they’ll have to leave.  Vulcan is expensive to live on.”

“Okay, I’ll try that.  I plan to allow the other six to form a crew and keep one of the barges.  I’ll make sure they know that I won’t make that deal if they include either one of these two in the crew.”

“Sounds fair.”

“Good, now I have to go explain this all to the miners.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day, Catie stood up in front of the room full of miners.  Those who couldn’t be there in person were on the video link.

“Everyone, let’s get started.  For those of you still out on your barges, the communication buoys should minimize the delay.  In general, you should only experience about a ninety-second delay.  We’ll make sure that Vulcan relays any questions you have that don’t get asked by someone else.”

Catie waited while the ones in the room settled down.  It seemed like they really wanted to fight rather than have a discussion, but eventually, they all sat down.  Racine and her Marines made it clear that anyone who got out of line would regret it.

“Okay, as you all know, we’ve had a few incidents of claim jumping.”

“Damn right.  Why haven’t you spaced them yet?!”

“Although I can appreciate your sentiment, we need to follow the law here.  We’ve identified the four culprits, and they will be sent back to Delphi to be tried.”

“What about all that ore they stole?!”

“We have been able to interrogate their logs and compared them with the logs at the smelter.  Since they didn’t want to share with the rest of the crew, they did us the favor of identifying the ore they stole.  The barges which had their claims violated will be compensated for the ore that was stolen.”

“How do we know your records show all of it?!”

“We traced their courses and identified any asteroid they came close to that they did not own.  Based on that, we were able to verify that their logs were correct.  They jumped six asteroids during their little spree.”

“How did they manage six?”

“They did two on return trips.”

“How are you going to make sure this doesn’t happen again?!”

“As I just said, we can trace the course of each of the barges.  We have also modified the software so that it will alert the station if anyone leaves a barge before they reach their target asteroid.  So we’re confident we’ll be able to prevent another occurrence.”

“So, what’s going to happen to those two barges?!”

“We’ve interviewed the crews.  We’re confident that only the four were involved.  So we’re letting the others form a new crew.  Six of them had joined together and will be allowed to continue to work the Maverick.  The Calypso will be released to a new crew.”

“Can any of us lease it?”

“It’s available for lease.  As you know, the minimum crew is five.  And you have to have an experienced captain.  If you want the lease, submit your bids.”

“What happens with the other two crew that you let off?”

“The Maverick crew only wanted six members, and I’m not sure how they selected their crewmates.  The two who were not selected can join other crews, get another job here on the station, or return to Earth.  They have had their investment returned to them, so we’ll have to see what they do.”  Catie made sure to emphasize ‘not selected’ to make sure everyone knew that the two were not particularly liked by her or the new crew of the Maverick.

It was a week later that the four criminals were sent off to Earth aboard the Dutchman.  A raucous crowd gathered to jeer them on their way.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Smithers, are we ready to grind up all that ore?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do we have enough oil?”

Smithers rolled her eyes; like she wouldn’t check that first.  “Yes, sir.”

“Then let’s grind it up.”

Smithers started the process of grinding the ore, and they mixed in oil to keep the diamond grinders lubricated and to help cool them.  The bots were bringing in the ore from the Emerald Lass and dumping it into the grinder.  One of her jobs was to make sure they didn’t unload the ore faster than the grinders could handle it.  Of course, the smelter’s AI did most of the monitoring.

Once the ore was ground up, it was fed into the first phase of the smelter.  There, it would be heated until it melted.  Of course, all the different metals and alloys melted at different temperatures, so it was heated in stages, and the liquid was siphoned off to be further refined.  Smithers thought, “It would have been such a simple design if it wasn’t for gold and platinum.  Jeez, what weird metals, they both have significantly higher liquid densities than the other metals that melt at similar temperatures.  It makes it difficult to pull off the liquid since the gold is at the rim of the drum we’re using to separate the solids and liquids.”

Smithers was watching the temperature curve as they heated the first batch of ore.  The target temperature was 1500 Kelvin, which would liquify the copper, silver, and gold.  She noticed that the temperature was not rising as fast as it usually did.  She quickly checked the other instruments to make sure the power levels were set correctly.

“Damn, I don’t need another reason for Zachmann to criticize me.”

All the settings were correct.  “Something must be wrong.”  Smithers hit the emergency stop.  The system shut down, allowing the ore to cool back to a solid.

“What the hell is wrong?!” Zachmann yelled.

“The ore’s not heating up correctly.”

“Did you check the energy feed?”

“Yes, everything is set correctly, but the temperature in the vat isn’t climbing normally.”

“Just turn it back on.  It’s probably just the ore mix.”

“No, sir.  I think there is a problem with the equipment.”

“Get out of the way!”  Zachmann walked over to the panel, pushing Smithers out of the way.  He flipped the switch to restart the process.

“You shouldn’t do that!”

“Don’t give me any of your whining!” Zachmann looked at the panel.  “What did you do; it’s not starting back up.”

“I just shut it down!”

“Cer Zachmann, I agree with Cer Smithers,” Yoshindo, the smelter’s AI, explained.  “I have locked out the controls until the equipment is inspected.”

“This is a complete waste of time.  Smithers, I’m going to take this out of your pay.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“What seems to be the problem?” Catie asked as Smithers and Zachmann joined her in her office with Arlean.

Zachmann coughed.  “It’s the smelter, ma’am.  The thermal insulators were messed up.  It looks like they melted.  So the vat was sitting on the rails, and they were conducting heat into the hub.  Smithers noticed it and shut it down.”  He didn’t bother to mention that he’d yelled and threatened her when she did.

“Good job, Cer Smithers.  What caused them to melt?”

Smithers bit her lip as Zachmann answered.  “I’m not sure.  Maybe the last crew let the smelter get too hot.”

“Smithers, you don’t seem to agree,” Catie prompted.

“No, ma’am.  It looked like acid might have been poured on them.  They looked like the results of some experiments I ran back in chemistry lab.”

“Did you keep the bad parts?”

“I did, ma’am.”  Smithers gave Zachmann a sideways glance.  He’d wanted to toss the parts.

“Okay, let’s give them to our lab team and see what they can come up with.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Later that day, Catie waved Arlean into her office.  “What did your team find out?”

“It was definitely acid.”

“So, sabotage?”

“I can’t imagine how else it would have happened.”

“How could they have gotten to the insulators without us noticing it?  We have cameras in those areas.”

“Yes, but would the cameras pick up a microbot?”

“No, but how would a microbot be able to deliver that much acid?  They’d have needed it to start eating the insulators at the same time to cause that damage.  If they’d just put acid on it a little at a time, someone would have noticed the problem long before it caused any real damage.”

Arlean frowned and shook her head at Catie.

“Yeah, right, I’m sure someone could figure out a way if they spent some time on it,” Catie conceded.  “They’d need to deliver it a bit at a time and have some way to prevent it from acting until they had enough in place.”

“Yes, and we found minute traces of a compound that would have been able to contain the acid in a gel capsule.  The acid would have eaten away at the capsule at a fixed rate.  So, if you mixed it all up at the same time and made the capsules thick enough, you could have stuck enough of them on the insulators so that when they all finally ate through their capsules about the same time, it would have taken each insulator out before anyone would have noticed.”

“Except for Smithers.”

Arlean laughed.  “It was a good thing Smithers noticed the temperature profile was off.  If that vat had kept dumping heat into the hub walls, it would have weakened them, and then the vibration from that vat spinning up would have torn it loose.  I’ve got jammers running in engineering to try to keep any bots from operating there.”

“But that knocks out your Comms.  We can’t do that forever.”  Catie was looking in her HUD, almost ignoring Arlean.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for the right kind of killer bot.”

“Killer bot?”

“Yeah, a couple of years ago, Kal’s Marines were in a bot arms race.  They were using bots to infiltrate the hull that Kal has by Delphi Station for training on ship boarding actions.  They kept coming up with more elaborate bots to infiltrate and, of course, more elaborate killer bots to stop them.  Ah, I like this one.”

Arlean just shook her head.  “What people come up with when they’re competing.”

“The mother of invention.  Here, look at this.”

“I’d say this would certainly kill any microbots it came across.  But how are you going to find them all?”

“I thought we’d print up a thousand of these.  We can start in engineering and then work our way up the hub.  Once we’re sure the hub is clear, we’ll do the ring.”

Arlean looked up as she did some mental math.  “I think you need more than that; I’d say ten thousand.”

“Alright.  Can we afford the printer time?” Catie asked.

“Sure, we only use the printers for emergency repairs and prototyping.  Too expensive and too many defects for normal parts.  It’s amazing that the Paraxeans didn’t blow themselves up given how much they used to rely on the printers.”

“It might explain a couple of ships that disappeared and a few unexplained industrial accidents.  It’s hard to figure out what happened when it’s all vaporized.”

“Definitely.  Any clue as to who’s behind this?” Arlean asked.

“I’ve got no idea.  How about you?”

“Nothing.  Has Racine figured anything out?”

“Not yet.  I’m going to bring in some help to investigate.  We’ll just have to be extra vigilant until we catch them.  You know, I wonder if the Wells’ accident wasn’t really the first incident of sabotage?”

“It could have been.  Did they figure out what happened?”

“Nope.  Everyone assumed that Connor accidentally triggered the explosion early.  But he’s better than that.  I’ll have someone review the video.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Daddy.”

“What’s up?”

“I think we’ve had another incident of sabotage on the station.”

“What happened?”

“We just had someone try to take the smelter out of operation.”

“Oh no, what did they do?”

“They melted the insulators with acid.  One of the operators noticed the temperature wasn’t tracking, so we got lucky.  Otherwise, it would have torn itself loose and damaged itself and the station.”

“Okay, so what do you want to do about it?”

“I want to bring in some people to put undercover and find them.”

“And?” Marc knew that Catie was calling in a favor; otherwise, she’d have let Kal’s people set things up.

“I’d like to bring in Cristina and Yvette.”

“I can understand Cristina, but why Yvette?”

“She’s in the intelligence service, and I know her.”

“You can’t always rely on people you know.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t possibly always know the right people.”

“But in this case I do.”

“Do you really think Yvette has the right experience?”

“Yes, Kal can send a couple of more experienced people out as well, but I have two places I think Yvette and Cristina would be able to fit in.”

“Okay.  How are you going to bring them out without raising suspicion?”

“We’ve got two more mining barges coming out next month, plus we need a new crew for the Calypso.  I’ll have two of the crews add another miner.”

“Do you really think those two can pass as miners?”

Catie rolled her eyes at her father.  “No, but they will be able to pass as the wives of a couple of miners.  And, of course, they’ll need jobs here on the station.”

“Alright, I’ll tell Kal to let you have your way.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Yvette had completed the most critical part of her mission and was actually wondering when they would pull her when she got the message that she would be headed to Vulcan.

Brenda Lee had a relapse and was sent to Delphi Station.  General Douglas was informed that she wouldn’t be coming back any time soon.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Okay, how do we catch these guys?” Catie asked as she, Captain McAvoy, Arlean, Lieutenant Racine, Morgan, and ADI met in her office.

“We’ve reviewed all the video around the smelter for the last six weeks; we don’t see anything,” Racine said.

“So, we all agree it has to be bots?”

“Probably,” Arlean said.

“So, they’re able to make bots without us knowing about it.”

“That’s not too hard.  You just have to take a printer on one of the barges offline and print them up using a Comm or another computer,” Arlean said.

“ADI, do we have anything that indicates that has happened?”

“No, Cer Catie.  I have detected some Comm communication that is on a different frequency than our Comms use, but I cannot determine its source, nor can I decode it.

“So, they may have brought their own Comms, something built in another country on Earth,” Arlean said.

“I guess that’s possible.  What can we do to isolate the signal, ADI?” Catie asked.

“I will try to triangulate the signal the next time it is active, but they may be creating additional traffic to disguise their location.”

“I have my people checking around,” Lieutenant Racine said.  “But it’s hard to do much since they’re known.”

“I could send someone from the Merlin,” Captain McAvoy said.  “But the timing would look suspicious.”

“I have some people coming from Earth,” Catie said.  “And I’m sure Delphi Intelligence will be sending a person or two as well.  They’ll have cover stories when they get here.  But what can we do in the meantime?”

“Keep looking at the forensics.  It looks like they used acid again.  So, we can try to find where they’re making it.  Also, maybe we should have those killer bots make another tour of the station, then set them up in key places.”

“But that means we need to try to guess where they’ll hit next,” Morgan said.

“Right, so everyone, spend some time thinking about what you would target.  We’ll keep a list for everyone to review.  Maybe we can get ahead of them.  We’ll touch base once a day to see what we’re learning.”

Special Meeting – Aug 14th

“Let’s start this meeting.  As you all should know, there has been a second sabotage incident on Vulcan.  Catie, where are you with your investigation?”

“We’re still searching.  We haven’t got many clues.  They used bots again to deliver the acid, so I’ve made some killer bots.  I used the best design I could find from the bot arms race Kal’s teams had.  So far, they’ve destroyed eight bots inside the station.”

“Were those bots trying to do something else?”

“No, it looked like they were just wandering around after completing their assignment.  We’ll keep the killer bots active so we can prevent any other bot-based sabotage attacks.”

“Okay, what else?”

“Lieutenant Racine wonders if the accident on the Emerald Lass might have been sabotage.  It was hard to believe that Connor would have made a mistake like that, but everyone was so happy he survived that we didn’t spend much time looking into it.”

“That would give you a timeline for when your saboteur would have needed to be on the station.  It should narrow down the suspect list,” Blake said.

“It does, but it’s still a pretty big list.  Both attacks were done in a way that minimized the potential casualties.  None of them would have endangered the station.”

“That’s good to hear, but things change, and if the Emerald Lass was sabotaged, then they were willing to get someone killed.  Do you have any idea what’s behind this?”

“No, but there does seem to be a concerted effort to undermine me as the station manager.  I’m not sure what’s behind that.”

“Do you need any help?” Samantha asked.

“I have some help coming, and I’m sure Kal’s Intelligence people will be sending some agents out.”

“They’re on their way,” Kal said.

“Right, so we have to wait for them so they have a cover when they get here, so that will delay things by a few weeks.”

“Okay, be careful.  Make sure you’re listening to Morgan and Fiona,” Marc cautioned Catie.  “Keep us informed.  Everyone, don’t hesitate to call if you have thoughts that might help.”

Chapter 18

Into the Shadows

It took five weeks before Cristina and Yvette could make it to Starbase Vulcan.  Catie had called in a few favors.  With the installation of the quantum relays, Yvette’s job at the Pentagon was over, so Delphi Intelligence reluctantly allowed Catie to have her.  Cristina was happy to get out of the middle east; it was hard to have much fun posing as a conservative Arab woman wearing a Hajib.  Catie arranged for one of the miners on two different crews to beg out of their commitments and assured them that they would be well compensated once their family problems were over.  That provided each woman with a fake husband to accompany to Vulcan.  Jimmy vouched for the two substitute miners.  He told Catie that they wouldn’t have any trouble keeping their mouths shut since they hardly talked anyway.

Catie arranged it so that Yvette’s cabin was above Cristina’s.  She’d put a trap door in the two cabins so that it would be easy for them to visit each other without others knowing about it.  She’d also created a pathway from her office and from her cabin to Yvette’s cabin through the maintenance space between floors.

“Where are your husbands?” Catie asked.

Cristina laughed.  “Where do you think?  At the bar with all the other miners.  They head out tomorrow, so tonight will be their last chance to get drunk.”

When Cristina went to the bathroom, Yvette leaned in to talk with Catie in a whisper.

“Do you know anything about my last assignment?”

“At the Pentagon?”

“Yes.”

“Sure, I heard something about it during one of the board meetings.  Was it interesting?”

“It was pretty neat.  I learned a lot, but it felt weird.  Aren’t the Americans supposed to be our allies?”

“Of course, they are, but you’ve heard of the expression, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’  Well, Uncle Blake prefers to say, ‘Watch your enemies close and your friends closer.’”

Yvette laughed.  “That’s pretty good.”  Then her eyes got wide.  “Does that mean we’re planting spies and spyware in the French Balardgon?”

“Of course!”

Yvette gasped.  “Merde!”

“Hey, the saying goes for everyone.”

Cristina came back into the room.  “What are you two whispering about?”

“About spying on your friends.”

“Hey, you can predict what your enemies are going to do a lot easier than you can your friends.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, Chéri, I understand.  Now, have you come up with where you’re going to put us?” Yvette asked.

“Yes.  Both of you will spend a couple of weeks looking for jobs while you work in the recycle center.”

“Merde.”

“It won’t be that bad.  Anyway, Yvette, my assistant will get promoted to manager of the new holodeck, so you’ll get her job.  Cristina, you’re going to get the job as a bartender at the Stardust.  One of their bartenders is going to get a job on one of the tugs.  He’s just finishing his flight qualification.”

“Why does she get to get the job in a bar?” Yvette whined.

“Because we both know she can handle herself in a bar fight.  I don’t think you’re ready to deal with more than one drunken miner at a time.”

Yvette sniffed but agreed.  She really didn’t want to have to get into a fight where she couldn’t just pull out a knife or a gun.

“And until then?” Cristina asked.

“Nose around.”

“See, Yvette, you’ll get plenty of time to spend in bars,” Cristina said.  “But seriously, you don’t have any clues?”

“No.  And we don’t know how they’re communicating.  They’re going against the station, so I would suggest that you sound like you’re not too happy about getting dragged all the way out here.”

“That should be easy,” Yvette said, making it clear that the middle of nowhere was not her favorite place to be assigned.

“Cristina, I heard you got into trouble,” Catie teased.  “Something about a knife and a Sergeant Major.”

“Who told you?”

“I have my sources.  Now, spill!”

“You must have read the report.”

“But a first-hand account is so much better.”

“Okay,” Cristina groaned.  “You know they’ve added all this extra training around sexual harassment and assault.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I was on assignment when they had the last class.  They sent all of us who missed the class to a quick course on it when they updated the policies.  You know, everyone has a panic button in their HUD, you’re supposed to report it immediately, everyone’s Comm will be interrogated right away, stuff like that.”

“Yes, I had to go through the same refresher.”

“Well, while I was in Syria, I went to the bar on base.  One of the sergeants that I knew from Guatemala was there, he’d been promoted to Sergeant Major, so I offered to buy him a drink.”

“Go on,” Catie prompted.

“Well, after my round, he offered to buy another round.  Of course, I agreed.  When he picked up my glass, his arm brushed by my boob.  I ignored it, figuring it was an accident.  Then while we were having our second drink, he commented that my boobs looked bigger than he remembered.”

“That seems like it was inappropriate.”

“Why?  They are bigger.  Anyway, I told him I’d had them augmented; I didn’t think there was anything to it.  A bit later, after our third drink, he leaned over and grabbed my ass, said we should go somewhere to really celebrate his promotion.”

“Keep going!”

“Well, I pulled my knife and stuck it in his groin, figuring that would get his attention.”

Catie started laughing.

“I was just getting ready to explain that I thought his promotion might have been premature when my Comm pings me to cease and desist.

“I’m standing there, trying to figure out what’s up, and then Yeats is whispering to me, ‘Although I have to admire the effectiveness of your deterrent unless you report the incident, we won’t be able to prevent further infractions unless you actually use that knife.  And then, we might lose a redeemable asset.  Now, would you please remove the knife?’”

Catie and Yvette howled with laughter.  “I can’t believe he said all that without even flinching.”

“Well, he was always a tough old bastard.  Anyway, the MP that was there stepped in and told me it was a training exercise.  That I was supposed to have reported him before it went that far.”

“I agree.  You should have at least reported him when he commented on your boobs.”

“That’s what they told me.  I had to do an extra week of duty reviewing a bunch of harassment situations to sensitize me as to when I should report an incident.”

“And Yeats?”

“He told me he had to undergo counseling about the nightmares he was having about that knife.”

“Well, at least they’re taking it all seriously.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Lieutenant Racine, have you talked to Cristina and Yvette yet?” Catie asked.

“No, I don’t want to blow their cover.  However, I did see Cristina in a bar last night.”

Catie nodded.  “I also know that Delphi Intelligence has sent a couple of others, but I don’t know who they are.”

“Not a problem.  I was expecting more people to show up.”

Catie got up and poured them both a finger of scotch.  “Since you missed my interrogation of Cristina about her latest antics, I thought we could have a laugh about it here.”

“What antics?”

“Did you see the incident from Syria?”

“Oh, you mean the knife.”

“Yes.  What did you think?”

“Personally, I prefer Cristina’s methods.  But they do have a point.  We don’t want to waste assets that might be retrainable, but grabbing her ass, the sergeant major had to have known that was going to be dangerous, and they’d already made their point for the training exercise.”

“Do you think he wanted to see how far she’d go?”

“He’s a tough bastard.  Maybe he wanted to see how the system would protect him if a test subject took it too far.”

They clinked glasses, “To a point well made.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hello, Brigitte,” Cristina greeted Yvette at the bar.  Yvette was using a different first name since the name Yvette was publicly connected with Catie.

“Hi, Tina.  Order a drink and join me,” Yvette said.

Cristina waved at the waitress to come over.  After ordering a drink, she sat next to Yvette.  “I thought you were looking for a job?”

“I am,” Yvette pointed to her specs.  “Working in that recycling center is getting old fast.”

“For you and me both.  I’m really pissed at Gordie for dragging me out here.  I had a good gig back on Delphi City.”

“I hear you.  Charles is on my shitlist for the same reason.  I was an executive assistant for the director of ZMS, and he goes and gets the crazy idea to join that mining company with his friend.  Then he insists that I come out with him.  Jerk!  I should have divorced him instead.”

The waitress came back with Cristina’s drink and smiled at them.  Once they were alone again, Cristina raised her glass to Yvette.  “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and they’ll both have accidents, and we can collect the insurance and go home.”  The two women clinked glasses.

The two continued to drink and complain about having to live on Vulcan.  As they had more to drink, they let their voices get louder so more people around them could hear what they were saying.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie knocked on the trapdoor to let Yvette know she was there.  She’d told her she was coming, but one could never be too careful, especially when Cristina was going to be there.  The two had just gotten back from a night of drinking to build their covers.

Yvette pulled the bureau away from the wall and lifted the trapdoor.

“Hello, Princess.”

Catie could tell she was a bit tipsy.

“You guys get to have all the fun,” Catie complained.

“Well, you could put on a disguise and come with us.”

“I’d love to, but Daddy would kill me.”

“How would he ever know?”

“Well, first, ADI would tell him.”

“I certainly would,” ADI assured everyone.

“Oops.  But still, what could he do?”

“Oh, he’d get even with me somehow.  He’s pretty sneaky.”

“As sneaky as you are?”

“Yes, where do you think I get it from?  Daddy, and he gets it from Grandma.  He probably stuck me on this mission to get back at me for the things we did on Helike.”

“He can’t hold that against you.  You were perfectly safe,” Yvette said with a giggle.

“That’s probably why this mission isn’t some horrible assignment.”

“Hmm.  And I always thought your Uncle Blake was the sneaky one.”

“He’s not very sneaky at all.  He just comes right out and does or says what he wants.  It got him in trouble at the Academy.”

“I’d guess it would.”

“Now, you two, tell me what you’ve learned.”

“We could have done this over the Comms.”

“But then I wouldn’t get to hug you both.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Yvette walked into the bar and waved at Cristina, who was working as the bartender.  She walked over and sat on a barstool.  “How do you like this job?”

“It’s okay.  Not as nice as the one I had on Delphi City, but it’ll keep me busy and help pay the bills.”

“Is money that tight?”

“Yes, we put everything we had into buying his share.”

“So did we; the bastard even made me cash in my retirement account.  This had better pay off, or I’m going to have to use your idea and collect on the insurance.”

Cristina laughed.  “Did you guys get a full share?”

“We borrowed money from my parents, so we just managed it.  Did you come up with a full one?”

“Not really.  He’s working the first six months for free to pay it off.  We get the percentage of the ore based on a full share, but no salary.”

“Oh, that explains why things are tight.”

“Yep; how’s your job hunt going?”

“I’ve got an interview with Commander McCormack.  She’s looking for a new executive assistant.  Hers just got another job.”

“How do you think you’ll like working for her?”

“She’s got to be some stuck-up bitch.  She’s what, eighteen?  Nice to have Daddy paving the way for you.”

“Well, if you get the job, maybe you’ll be able to come up with some inside info we can use to supplement our income.”

“One can hope.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It took Racine’s investigators three weeks to get all the data on Wheeler’s various scams.  When they had all the evidence gathered, Catie called him in.

“Cer Wheeler, we have a problem.”

“I really don’t care about your problems.  Why have you called me in?”

“Our problem is you.  We have clear evidence that you have been intentionally lowering the quality of the goods you sell so that they have to be replaced or refurbished more often.”

“So what?  There is nothing illegal about that.”

Catie nodded.  “You are correct, but it’s not meeting the needs of the station.”

“I don’t see how that has anything to do with it.”

“If you read your purchase contract, you will notice that we clearly state that if your business does not meet the needs of the station, we reserve the right to open a business to close the gap.”

“That can’t be right.”

“I assure you it is, but please take a moment to review the contract.”

“Damn,” Mr. Wheeler obviously didn’t like the fine print.  “So, what are you going to do?”

“We have two choices here.  One, you close your chandlery, turn it over to us, and leave the station; or two, we will open a competing chandlery and drive you out of business.”

“You can’t do that.  I’ll just fix my quality issues.  Besides, you can’t bring in the supplies you need fast enough.”

“Oh, we already have all the supplies in place.  And I’m sure that the miners will refuse to patronize your chandlery once they have a choice.”

“I’ll lower my prices.  You can’t do this to me!” Wheeler shouted.

“Given what you’ve done, which, by the way, is common knowledge among most of the miners by now, I don’t think lowering your prices is going to work.  Now, what do you want to do?”

“Can’t I sell the business?”

“I’m not sure it has any value right now.  We, of course, will pay for the goods you have in stock.”  Mr. Wheeler started to smile.  “At wholesale prices and discounted for any quality issues.”

“You can’t do this; it’ll ruin me!”

“You should have thought of that before you started cheating people.  Now, you have one day to decide.  We will be opening a new chandlery the day after tomorrow.”

“I want to talk to a lawyer.”

“Go right ahead.  Mr. Delancey is available.”

“I want Pettigrew.”

“I’m sorry, the station has him on retainer, so it would be a conflict of interest for him to represent you.”  Catie had learned from Katya that having the best lawyer on retainer was a definite advantage when it came to legal matters.

Mr. Wheeler stormed out of her office.

The next day, he sent her a message asking her to make an offer on the chandlery’s stock.

Chapter 19

Starlight

“Yvette, I’ve got a live one.  Third time he’s been in here talking smack about Vulcan management.  He’s picked out a different miner each time.”  Cristina used her tailboard to message Yvette.

“I’m just finishing up here.  I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Cristina had copied Catie on the message, so when Yvette closed down her display and headed out, Catie just waved.

“Hi, girlfriend, I’ll have a dark beer.”  Yvette grabbed the stool in front of Cristina and next to the two guys Cristina had sent her a picture of.

Cristina poured Yvette’s beer and handed it to her.  “How’s your first week been working for the big boss?”

“What a pain.  I don’t think she has a clue about how to run this place.  She lets the AI make most of the decisions.”

“What, you work for that McCormack brat?” the man next to Yvette asked.

“Yes.”

“I was just telling Jakob that she had to be totally incompetent to let Wheeler screw the miners the way he did.  How could she not have seen that coming?”

“I’m surprised she did anything about it,” Yvette said.  “The McCormacks only care about money.  She was probably scared that the miners would revolt after Duncan Wells figured it out.”

“I agree with you.  She might even have been in on it with him.  She didn’t charge him with anything, just sent him home and turned the business over to another of her friends.”

“I wish I was one of those friends.  Can you imagine getting a business like that just because you know someone?”

“Hey, bartend, how about some service?!”

Cristina had just been standing there listening in while the guy and Yvette traded stories.  She hurried down to the end of the bar to take care of the guy yelling.

“Do you know her?” the guy asked, nodding at Cristina.

“We enjoy a drink now and then.  We both got dragged out here by our husbands so they could join one of the barge companies.  We met here for the first time.  Misery loves company.”

“Well, you need to be careful.  I hear the McCormacks have spies everywhere.”

“I checked her out when I started in the main office.  I didn’t see anything on her.”

“Well, you wouldn’t, would you?  Did you see anything on anyone else?”

“Just on the Marines.  Ms. McCormack and that Lieutenant Racine seem to be pretty close.”

“Well, if you’re going to steal from people, it’s nice to have the chief of police in your pocket.”

“I guess it would.  My name’s Brigitte, by the way.”

“I’m Arlo.  Here, let me buy you another drink.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It was early in the morning when ADI informed Catie that Major Kobayashi and Marc were preparing to make their move on the Chinese.  Catie got up and did her morning routine, then hurried to the office where she could watch.  She had Yvette cancel her morning appointments and sealed herself in her office.

Her screen showed the various camera feeds from the surveillance in the cave.  The Chinese had set up a small assembly line where they were using a reloader to fill the brass cartridges with guncotton and a lead slug.  Then they attached the primer to it.  She wondered if the microbots were releasing the bacteria to eat up the primer yet.  Hopefully, they would have done so already, and the ammunition would be useless by now.

Mr. Táng took a magazine of ammo and inserted it into the M16 knockoff.  He chambered a round, and then he manually ejected it.  He did this a few times before heading outside.  He raised the rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the target they’d set up.  When he pulled the trigger, the shot sounded off.

“Oh, the primer was still good, so the hole Sergeant Mathers had put in the barrel must have popped.”

Mr. Táng let out a string of Chinese, which ADI translated as ‘oh darn’ while he examined the weapon.  He manually chambered another round since, with the hole in the barrel, there hadn’t been enough back-pressure to drive the automatic mechanism.

He took aim and fired again.  This time, it was obvious that there was a small hole in the barrel.  Again, he cursed and demanded one of his men come over.  After examining the hole, he went to the other rifles and examined them to see if they also had a hole.  He shook his head.  Since the holes were drilled from the inside and did not go all the way through, he couldn’t see them.  Sergeant Mathers had left about one millimeter of metal in the hole so it wouldn’t be noticed, and he’d used some acid to weaken the metal around the hole so that if the rifle was fired, it would break through and render the weapon useless.

Mr. Táng grabbed one of the supposedly good weapons and inserted another magazine.  He took aim and fired again.  The sound was the same as earlier, and again the rifle did not eject the cartridge.

Catie laughed as Mr. Táng cursed and threw the rifle down.  He pulled out his Barretta and aimed it at the man who’d inspected the barrels.  After a few more words were exchanged, the man started test firing all the rifles with the same result.

Mr. Táng aimed his Barretta at the man again, and Catie assumed he pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.  He manually worked the slide and aimed again.  When nothing happened this time, the man grabbed a rifle and used it like a club to hit Mr. Táng over the head.  Mr. Táng hit the ground and rolled over.  He sat up and looked around at the other men he’d brought out with him and started yelling at them.  They were all carefully looking in other directions.

Finally, Major Kobayashi stepped out of the trees and approached the Chinese with his Marines.

“You do realize that unregistered firearms are illegal here?”

Mr. Táng screamed and pointed his pistol at Major Kobayashi and tried to fire.  Major Kobayashi pulled out his gun and pointed it at Mr. Táng.  “Unlike your weapon, I can assure you that this one works.  Now, if you would stand up, you’re under arrest.”

Marc stepped out from behind one of the Marines.  “Just what were you planning to do?  Even with those weapons, you were going to be outmanned and outgunned.”

Mr. Táng just looked at Marc and scowled.

“Come on; you didn’t really think we would let you get away with this?”

“I wish to speak to the Chinese Foreign Minister!”

“You do, do you?  Well, we don’t allow prisoners to make calls off-planet.  You’ll, of course, be afforded a lawyer, but I’m afraid you and your men will not be allowed to call or communicate with anyone back on Earth.”

Mr. Táng paled as he realized how few options he had, and all of them likely led to him working in the recycle center on Artemis for the next few years.

Catie applauded and messaged her father, “Daddy, that was great.  How many of the Chinese were involved?”

“Active participants were only eight; we won’t do much to the people he forced to help him.”

“Great.  Thanks, you made my day.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Yvette saw Arlo in the bar a few times.  He was always up for dishing dirt on the McCormacks.  Eventually, he invited her to dinner, where he spent even more time dishing dirt on the McCormacks.  He also quizzed her about what she saw in Catie’s office.  Yvette told him quite a bit, including that she’d seen a report that said the problem at the smelter had been sabotage.  But she refused to share more details with him, telling him that she couldn’t afford to lose her job if Catie found out.

◆ ◆ ◆

Cristina finished her shift at the bar and headed home.  She was walking along the passageway when her Comm alerted her that she was being followed.  She’d noticed the guy when she left the bar but hadn’t thought much of it, although she had been keeping an eye on him.

ADI jumped in to analyze the situation as soon as Mr. Spock told her about the alert on Cristina’s Comm.  “His cabin is on Level One.  He’s a miner on the Black Pearl.  He has no business on Level two and especially not in this area.”

“Thanks, ADI, I was watching him, but it’s good to know that he doesn’t belong here.”

Cristina kept walking toward her cabin while keeping an eye on her shadow.  He was a big guy, like many of the miners were.  She thought about just walking faster to see if he could keep up but decided to see what he would do.

She still had over two hundred meters to go when she noticed the guy speed up.  She moved away from the bulkhead a little to give herself some maneuvering room.  When the guy drew even with her, he pretended to stumble and fall into her.  Cristina let her body flow around his as he ran into her, then she kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to the floor.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you okay?”  Cristina bent down to check on the guy.  She had a small knife in her left hand, which she had pointed down.  As she grabbed his head to cradle it with that hand, she pressed the blade into the crook of his neck.  “Just rest a bit; you look like you might have passed out,” Cristina suggested in a loud voice, then she whispered, “Don’t move, or I’ll drive this knife into your subclavian artery, and you’ll bleed out before I get home.”

The man nodded his head.

“Now, explain yourself!” Cristina hissed.

“I was supposed to deliver a message.”

“Then deliver it.”

“I was to tell you to quit poking your nose in other people’s business.”

Cristina thought for a second; it had to be Arlo.

“Can you deliver a reply?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell your friend that if he has a message for me, he should deliver it himself.  Also, tell him I’m just looking after my own interests and that of my friend.”

The guy nodded his head again.

“Now, I’m going to continue on my way home; you sit here for a minute, then go home.  I can throw this knife pretty well, so don’t move until I’m well away from you, got it?”

“Yes!”

“Just rest a few minutes, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.  If you need help, use your Comm,” Cristina said loudly as she stood up and continued toward her cabin.  She messaged Catie and Yvette, “We’ve drawn some interest.  We’ll talk tomorrow.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie made a show of having lunch in her office with Yvette.  She ordered food for her and Yvette, padding their order so there’d be enough for Cristina.  Cristina used the maintenance space to make it to the office.

“Well, what do you think?” Catie asked.  She and Yvette had reviewed the video of the attack on Cristina.

“We’ve certainly gotten someone’s attention.  I think it’s Arlo, and he’s trying to protect Yvette from me.”

“Why would he need to protect me from you?” Yvette asked.

“He thinks you’re his conduit into Catie’s office.  He’s probably worried I’ll rat you out.”

“I haven’t told him very much.  A few days ago, I mentioned that I saw a report on the incident with the smelter that said it looked like sabotage.”

“I’m sure that piqued his interest.”

“It did.  He pushed me for more details, but I refused.”

“Why refuse?”

“Because if he gets it too easy, he’ll suspect it’s fake.  I need him to have to work for it.”

“Well, you’re supposed to be the expert.”

Yvette preened at that.  “Yes, and don’t you forget it.”

“So, what’s next?” Catie asked.

“We just have to let things develop.  Do you have any idea what their goal is?” Yvette asked.

“I’m not sure.  They seem to be trying to undermine confidence in me and the station management.”

Cristina leaned back and scowled.  “To what end?”

“That’s what you two need to find out.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie, we’ve had another sabotage attempt,” Arlean messaged.

“Meet me in my office . . . ADI, what can you tell me?”

“Your killer bots detected some alien bots in two of the station’s thruster conduits.”

“The ones that maintain our spin?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“The killer bots killed them.”

“Very droll.”

“I try.”

By this time, Arlean had made it to the office.  “Has ADI updated you?”

“Yes.  Any ideas where the bots came from?”

“No, we’re inspecting their remains, but like I said before, any of the barges could make them, and we wouldn’t know.”

“How did they get into the vents?”

“I suspect they got in from the outside.”

Catie nodded as she thought about that.  “That doesn’t narrow the suspect range down much.”

“I think that’s the point.  Whoever is behind this is being careful not to leave a trail.  They’re very smart.”

“Well, we need to be smarter.  I’ll let Yvette and Cristina know.  Maybe they can use the info to draw them out.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, Tina, how goes it,” Yvette said as she sat at the bar.

“Hello, yourself.  It’s been slow today.”  Cristina poured Yvette a beer from the tap and slid it over to her.  The miner two barstools down from Yvette was one of Arlo’s stooges.

Yvette leaned forward and whispered a little too loudly, “Did you hear there was another sabotage event?”

“No, what happened?”

“Someone tried to mess with the station rotation thrusters.”

“Wow.  Did they catch them?”

“No, but they did stop them.”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you.  It’s a pretty big secret.”  Yvette took a big swig of her beer and smiled at Cristina.

◆ ◆ ◆

Cristina and Yvette met in Yvette’s cabin the next day.

“Tina, what should we do to push Arlo?”

“What’s his last move?”

“He just tried to guilt-trip me into telling him about the sabotage.  He told me I was just using him for free meals and free drinks.”

Cristina laughed at that.  “He’s a bit pathetic.  I guess we have to give him some leverage?”

“How?”

“Have you ever kissed a girl?”

“When I was twelve.”  When Cristina gave her a big smile, Yvette added, “we were just practicing.”

“If Arlo were to get evidence that we were having an affair, he’d be able to blackmail you.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“Just some pictures of us making out.”

“Like where?  I’m not letting anyone put a camera in here.”  Yvette looked around her cabin where they were meeting.

“Not here.  The storeroom at the bar.”

“Does he have a camera in there?”

“Not yet.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day, Yvette was having lunch with Arlo in the bar, so Cristina decided it was the perfect time to put out the bait.

“Yvette, act like you’re going to the restroom and meet me in the storeroom,” Cristina messaged Yvette as she walked from behind the bar to the storage room beside the bathroom.

Yvette followed her there half a minute later.

“What are we supposed to be doing?”

Cristina used her finger to smear Yvette’s lipstick, then pulled her blouse out of her pants and mussed her hair up.

“We’re supposed to be having a quick grope back here.  Now go back to your table.”

“I would never go back looking like this!”

“Then fix yourself up first.”  Cristina smeared the lipstick from her finger onto the corner of her mouth, picked up a case of beer glasses, and went back to the bar.  Once she’d put the glasses away, she made a small show of wiping the lipstick from her mouth.

Yvette went to the restroom and fixed herself up.  Once she looked alright, she returned to the table where Arlo was waiting to pump her for information.

“It took you a long time.”

“A woman has to take time, so she always looks her best,” Yvette cooed.

Arlo rolled his eyes.  “Hey, tell me how they stopped the sabotage?”

“I can’t.  I shouldn’t have even told you about the incident at all.”

“But you did, so tell me.”

“No, I can’t afford to lose my job.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Cristina had Yvette meet her in the storeroom a few more times over the next week.

“Yvette, Arlo bribed Gary to install a camera in the storeroom.”

“Oh, so you think he’s going to try to blackmail me?”

“That, or he just likes to watch women making out.  So tomorrow, we have to really do it.”

“Pfft.  Just make sure your breath doesn’t stink.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Two days later, Yvette was having lunch with Arlo in the bar again.  He was really pushing her hard for more information.

“I need to go to the restroom.  Order me another drink.”  Yvette got up and headed toward the back of the bar.  Arlo gave her a wry smile as she left.  He’d seen Cristina heading to the storeroom just a moment ago.

“Tina, we need to quit meeting like this!”

“Why?  Doesn’t it give you a thrill?  Lock the door, and we’ll be fine.”  Cristina grabbed Yvette into a hug and nibbled on her ear.  “There’s no sound, so we can talk if you want.”

“He looked very pleased with himself when I left the table.”

“Good.”  Cristina locked lips with Yvette.  After a bit, she moved back to kiss Yvette’s ear.  “Hey, you need to make this look good.”  Cristina grabbed Yvette’s ass.

Yvette cupped Cristina’s breast.  “Hey, they feel real.”

“They are real.  And how would you know what real feels like?”  Cristina was alluding to the fact that Yvette had rather small breasts.

“I have a good imagination.  Now I should be getting back.  Do you think he got enough?”

“We’ll see.  If not, we’ll need to show some skin next time.”

◆ ◆ ◆

A few days later, Arlo insisted that Yvette join him for dinner at one of the smaller restaurants on the station.  She initially refused, but he told her he had some important information to share with her.

“Now, what’s this information you have to share?” Yvette asked as she met Arlo at the table.

“Just sit down so we can talk.  Why are you being so difficult?  You haven’t complained about me buying you dinner before.”

“That’s because I like going out, and money’s tight.  But you’re starting to act like I owe you something.”

“Well, maybe you do.”  Arlo flicked the pictures from the storeroom to Yvette’s HUD.

“How did you get these?!”

“Never mind that.  I have them, and if you don’t want your husband to get them, you need to be nicer to me.”

“What does that mean?!”

“Hey, I personally don’t have an objection to someone getting a little something on the side.  And with your husband out at the belt for six weeks at a time, I can understand the need.  But you should come to me if you’re lonely.”

“Not even in your dreams!” Yvette said with disgust.

“Well, if you don’t, then I might have to send these photos to your husband.”

“If you do, I’ll tell Tina what happened, and she’ll make you go away.  In fact, I might just do that anyway.”

“Hey, if anything happens to me, your husband and your boss will be getting these.”

“What do you want?”

“I’d like some more time with you, but I want more information from you, specifically more from McCormack’s office.”

“But I could lose my job!”

“If you get caught, but if you don’t give me the information, you’ll definitely lose your job and maybe your husband.  I’ll make sure I’m off the station, so your girlfriend won’t be able to get even with me.”

“Okay,” Yvette sighed.  “What do you want?”

“I want to know how they stopped the sabotage attempt on the thrusters.”

“I can get you a copy of the file.  What else?”

“Keep me informed of whatever happens in the office.  I’ll come up with some questions for you.”

“Okay, but if you ever hit on me again, I’ll just tell Tina and be done with all of it.”

“Don’t worry.  I just want the information.  Your virtue, or whatever is left of it, is safe with me.”

Yvette threw her napkin on the table and left the restaurant.

“Catie, Tina, did you listen in?”

“Yes, we saw it,” Catie replied.  “Good job.  By the way, how was Tina’s breath?”

“Merde!”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day, Yvette delivered a copy of the file on the sabotage to Arlo.  “This had better not come back to haunt me!” she threatened.

“Don’t worry, it won’t,” Arlo assured her.

“What do you want it for anyway?”

“Some friends of mine think we could do a better job of running the station.  This is just some proof.”

Yvette snorted.  “Like the McCormacks would ever let anyone else run this place.”

“Maybe they won’t have a choice.”

◆ ◆ ◆

A few days later, Arlo demanded that Yvette meet him for dinner again.

“What it is this time?”

“I want to know more about Vulcan.”

“It’s a big station; what do you want to know?”

“Not the station, the AI.”

“Oh.  Well, I don’t know that much about him.  He’s just a big computer that Catie uses to run the station.”

“You’re calling her Catie now?”

“She tells everyone to call her Catie.  She’s so immature.”

“Whatever.  Explain how Vulcan helps her?”

“He controls about everything on the station.  He’s a really big AI, much bigger than the one in the smelter or even on a ship.  Catie just tells him what to do.  He tracks all the barges, audits all the accounting.  He even controls most of environmental.  If she wanted to, she could have him stop the station, cut off all our air, and even lock all the doors and lifts.”

“Really.  How does she keep someone else from taking him over or hacking into him?”

“Well, you can’t take him over.  He’s programmed only to obey one person.  They can delegate tasks to others, but that can be overridden by his true master.”

“What happens if Ms. McCormack decides to leave?”

“There’s a way to change who’s in charge.  She would just have to tell Vulcan to transfer the control codes to the other person, and then the other person would have to register with Vulcan on one of the main tablets.  I saw it done once at my last job on Delphi City.  It was the AI for the education system.  The new superintendent came in, and they switched the AI over to her from the last guy.”

“Hmm.  Can they reverse it?”

“Not really.  Whoever is in charge has to hand over control.”  Yvette left out the fact that all the AIs were also subordinate to ADI.

“What happens if she gets killed?”

“Well, it would go to whoever she designated as her next in command.”

“Good to know.  Now, have there been any more sabotage attempts?”

“Not that I know of.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Arlean walked directly to Catie's office.  “Catie, we’ve had another attempt.”

“What was it this time?”

“They tried to jam the magnetic bearing between the inner and outer hub.”

“That could have killed some people.  How did we stop it?”

“Your killer bots were better than their killer bots.”

“What?”

“This time, they sent bigger bots in ahead of the ones with the acid.  Your bots took them out and then took out the ones with the acid.”

“Damn,” Catie moaned and then leaned back to think.  “Lieutenant Racine, if you have a moment,” she summoned her head of security.

Racine had expected the call and was just down from Catie’s office while she followed the progress of her investigation.

“Ma’am.”

“Does anyone know about the attempt?”

“Just you two and a couple of my Marines.”

“Arlean, is there a way we could make it look like they succeeded?”

“Why would we?”

“We need them to get bolder, or we’ll never catch them.  Yvette and Cristina have a lead.  This guy Arlo is blackmailing Yvette for information, but that’s all so far.  I got a warrant, and ADI has tapped his Comm.  But so far, he hasn’t done anything to lead us to whoever is pulling the strings.”

Arlean thought for a while before she came up with an idea.  “We could have a little hitch in the rotation.  Let the thrusters stabilize it.  I don’t think their acid would have done that much to the bearings.  I could make a show of having to stop the station and have maintenance done on them.”

“Let’s do that.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Everyone was shocked when it was announced that they were stopping the station’s spin.  Rumors as to why spread rapidly.  Yvette was once again summoned to dinner with Arlo.

“What’s this I hear about the station having to be stopped?” he asked Yvette.

“It’s nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, Brigitte!”

Yvette sighed and shook her head.  “Didn’t you feel that jolt yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that was something to do with the magnetic bearings getting fouled up.  Someone sent some bots with acid in them to mess them up.”

“What happened to their killer bots?”

“The people who sent the bots sent killer bots of their own out first.  That let the others get by.”

“So, that McCormack girl isn’t as smart as she thinks she is.”

“Nobody’s that smart.”

“That’s right.  I wonder what the miners are going to think about this.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie, did you listen to my conversation with Arlo?” Yvette asked the next morning when Catie came to the office.

“I did.  You’re doing a good job.  Now I think we need to add some more pressure on Mr. Big, so he makes his move while we’re watching.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Fiona, could you join us?”

“Yes, Boss.  What do you need?”

“You’ve been following all this action on the sabotage, right?”

“Of course.”  Fiona had been at several of the meetings, and she or Morgan was always close to Catie.

“Good, then you’re up to speed.  Clearly, this Mr. Big is trying to get the miners stirred up.”

“I guess, but most of them are smarter than that.  They’re worried that whomever this is will start to attack their barges.  The miners want them caught.”

“I know, but we need them to look like they’re turning against the station.  Can you work with your uncle and cousins to get them stirred up?  More chatter over the Comms, more arguments in the bars.”

Fiona smiled.  “I’m pretty sure that won’t be a problem.  They all love to drink and argue.  With a little suggestion, they’ll be happy to argue on any subject.”

“Good.”

◆ ◆ ◆

By the time the station was spun down for a day and then spun back up, there was lots of chatter about how Catie had to be incompetent to allow the kinds of problems they were experiencing.  And if it were saboteurs, then she was doing a damn poor job of catching them.

Catie was a bit surprised when she saw Arlo’s name come up on her calendar.  Yvette had told her that she didn’t have any information about it; she’d just made the appointment like any other.  Arlo had said it was about the maintenance dock where he worked.

“Go right in,” Yvette said when Arlo showed up in the office.  “She’s expecting you.”

Arlo continued on to Catie’s inner office.

“What can I do for you, Cer Bell?” Catie asked.

“Cer, McCormack.  Nice to finally meet you.  Call me Arlo.”

“Only if you’ll call me Catie.”

“Sure.  I’ve been noticing some problems down in ship maintenance, and I thought you should be made aware of them.”

“Definitely.”

“We’ve been noticing strange buildups on the outside of the ship.  It’s tough to do those outside inspections without a drydock.”

“I know.  The drydock should be operational in a couple of weeks.”

“That’s good.  Anyway, we sent our guys out in exosuits to do some inspections.  They’ve come up with this material that seems to adhere to the hull.  I’ve got a sample right here.”  Arlo pulled a small box out of his pocket.

“Is that safe?” Catie asked, looking worried.

“Sure, it is.  It’s inside this here hermetically sealed container.  But if I was to open it, it might be a bit unhealthy.”

Suddenly two men burst into the office, one of them dragging Morgan behind him.  Morgan gave Catie a pitiful look.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Catie demanded.

“Like I said.  If I was to open this here container, it would be unhealthy.  That is, for you and that bodyguard of yours.  The three of us have been inoculated against it.  Now, what I want you to do is turn the station over to us.”

“Who is us?”

“Me and my friends.  We’re tired of the way you run things, and we think we can do a better job.  You can go home to daddy and have him find some other job for you.”

“You do realize that this station is totally dependent on MacKenzies to ship the ore out and to receive supplies.  Without us, you wouldn’t be able to exist out here.”

“I’m sure that’s true, but I’m counting on your father not wanting to lose the big investment he’s put into this place, much less have us start killing all these good people out here.”

“You’re despicable!”  Catie cringed as Arlo leaned over the desk.

“Hey, it’s survival of the fittest, and I don’t think you’re fit.  Now, I want you to turn the station over to me.”

“Then what?  How do I know you’ll let me leave?”  Catie’s voice quivered a little.

“Because I wouldn’t want to piss your father off too much.  He might not be willing to forget this investment if something happened to his little girl.”

“Okay,” Catie relented.  “Brigitte, please bring in the control tablet.”

Yvette came into the inner office carrying the control tablet Catie asked for.  She looked at Catie sheepishly while Catie glared at her.

Catie grabbed the tablet.  “So, I’m to turn the station over to you?”

Arlo was distracted for a moment.  Then he looked angry.  A moment later, a fourth man came into the office.  Catie recognized him right away.  He was the manager of the smelter, Damen Hughes.

“Mr. Hughes, what are you doing here?”

“I’m here so you can turn the station over to me.  You didn’t really think Arlo had the brains to run this operation, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Catie said, at which point a plasma cannon fired and destroyed the little box that Arlo had set on the desk.  Morgan kicked the knee of the man holding her, so he fell to the floor, then she kicked him in the face while she reached over and grabbed the hand of the other man.  She twisted the small laser pistol out of it.

Hughes reached into his jacket only to have a laser from the corner puck hit his arm.

“I suggest you all stop moving; otherwise, the lasers will likely do serious damage to you!” Catie ordered.

Arlo was still staring at the hole in Catie’s desk where his box used to be.  Hughes raised his hands while Yvette moved next to him and took the laser pistol he’d been reaching for out of his jacket.  She stepped back and covered him and Arlo.

“You see, Mr. Hughes, we couldn’t figure out who was behind this.  We knew that Arlo was involved, but as you said, he’s not a believable mastermind,” Catie explained.  “So we needed to encourage you to make your move.  Brigitte here has been very helpful in making sure you were confident that you would succeed.”

Catie gave Hughes a big smile before keying her Comm.  “Lieutenant Racine, would you come in and arrest these jokers?”

Lieutenant Racine entered the office, followed by four Marines.  “I’d be happy to.  You know we’ll need to post extra guards at the brig.  These guys are not going to be very popular.”

Yvette checked her HUD.  “The brig is pretty full anyway.  There was a big fight last night.”

“Stick them in an airlock,” Catie ordered.

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“Hey, maybe someone will space them and save us the time and cost of a trial.”

“As you wish, ma’am,” Racine said with a wicked smile.

The four men looked terrified as the Marines cuffed them and started herding them toward the door.

◆ ◆ ◆

Hughes pushed Arlo away from him and yelled, “If you throw up one more time, I’m going to kill you!” Hughes tried to wipe the vomit off of his clothes.

“Hey, you’re the reason we’re in here in this damn microgravity!”

“Don’t give me that; you were all for taking over the station.  You’re the one that screwed up and brought that Brigitte woman in.”

“Hey, you approved it!”

All four prisoners turned toward the airlock’s outer door as they heard a grinding noise.

“Crap, they’re really going to space us!”

Slowly the door opened.  The four men started looking for something to grab onto, expecting to be sucked out into space.  But nothing happened.  They turned their attention back to the door.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Hughes demanded as a person in a spacesuit entered the airlock.

“I’m here to give you boys a ride to Earth.  Your lawyers are over there on the Drake.”

“What if we don’t want to go?”

“Fine with me.  I’ve been told that we’re leaving in two minutes and that the airlock door will not be closing when we leave.  So, if you boys want to stay here, I’ll just zip over to the Drake, and we’ll roll that boarding tube up.”

“But that would kill us.”

“I think that’s right.  Unless you boys figured out how to breathe in vacuum while you were coming up with all those sabotage ideas.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll go with you.”

“I thought you might.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie, we have a crowd out here by the airlock,” Lieutenant Racine Commed.  “It’s been opened from the outside.”

“I know.  We sent them to Earth for trial.”

“Well, nobody here’s going to believe that.  The guards didn’t let anyone into the airlock.  And we don’t show a record of any ship docking.”

“Interesting.  Well, they’ll be on trial in a couple of months; maybe that will convince them.”

“Two months is a long time.  I suspect a lot of people will think the trial’s fake and that you really did space those jokers.”

“Good, maybe that will cut back on the complaints.”

Chapter 20

Board Meeting – Oct 14th

At the board meeting, there was a round of toasts to congratulate Catie on capturing the saboteurs.  It would be several more weeks before they arrived in Delphi City for trial, but at least the danger was over.

Marc allowed everyone to just submit reports for their updates since everyone wanted to hear the latest on the investigation.

“Okay, so how did they pull it off?” Marc asked.

“Damen Hughes was part of the team that tore that battleship apart.  Apparently, he discovered a cache of Paraxean Comms and stole them.  They allowed him to run the printer in the forge to make the bots and communicate with his guys without leaving any footprints behind.”

“And Arlo Bell?”

“Apparently, Hughes knew of or met Arlo on Gemini Station.  There’s no record of them working together, so we won’t know more unless one of them testifies.  Based on Arlo’s reaction, he didn’t know Hughes was behind it.”

“And why?”

“It looks like it was just greed.”

“The trial will be interesting.  What’s this I hear about them being spaced?” Marc asked.

“Stupid rumors.  Who knows how it got started?”  Catie gave everyone an innocent smile.  “If we’re done with the saboteurs, I have invited Captain McAvoy to come in and give a short presentation.”

“Okay, bring her in.”

Captain McAvoy joined the call.  “Thanks for having me.  I don’t know why Catie doesn’t just do this herself.  It’s based on a conversation we had.”

“Tegan, it was your idea.  Now, go ahead.”

“As many of you may know, I was stationed on the Victory for about two years after the Paraxean War.  We spent the entire time at the fringe.  The crew was given shore leave via Oryxes.  Now, I understand that Catie has designed a new capsule to move large groups of people using her tugs, but that will still take time and continue to create a hardship on the crew.  Having to spend almost two weeks to reach shore and another two weeks to get back really cuts into your shore leave.  And a 5G profile is no fun.

“You also have the issue that if you need repairs on the ship, you’re over two weeks away from the nearest shipyard.  Now, that has not been a problem as yet since the carriers are so new, but it will become one soon.”

“Yes, that’s been bothering me,” Blake said.  “So, you have a solution?”

“Possibly.  When Vulcan was first built out at the fringe, I thought it would be a nice chance for the crews from the carriers to be able to come and stretch their legs with a bit more space than you have on a carrier.  A chance to be out of discipline for a time.  But then Catie decided to move the station.  When we were talking about it, it occurred to me that you could build a station just in from the fringe and include a big shipyard.  A place where you could repair or build new ships.  It would be isolated from any of the planets we protect but provide quick access to any of them.  You could send parts of the crew on shore leave aboard a shuttle or bring the whole ship in.”

“I really like that!” Blake said.  “One of the reasons I was in favor of Vulcan staying close to the fringe.”

Admiral Michaels leaned forward.  “It would need to be a big station; you could easily have a thousand or more spacers there at a time, much less what it would take to staff a shipyard.”

“I think we’re all agreed,” Marc said.  “And it would allow us to move some of our more sensitive manufacturing to a more isolated and secure location.  Catie, please work with Captain McAvoy to detail it out. I’ll send you some details I’d like you to consider when you select the system.”

“I will, but don’t go thinking I’m going to stay out here and run it.”

“I won’t.  I’m sure Captain McAvoy will be able to handle that.  Okay, people, back to work.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Cer Catie, you were right,” ADI announced.

“ADI, it’s 4:00 a.m., couldn’t you wait another hour?”

“No, you told me to tell you as soon as I determined where the Aperanjen homeworld was.”

Catie sat up, wide awake now.  “Where is it?!”

“As you suggested, I searched through the Paraxean news logs for the years I was out of contact.  I found the announcement of the discovery of an alien civilization only twenty-one light-years away from Paraxea.  Its EM signature had been blocked by another star for the two hundred years before that.”

“And?!”

“It is definitely the Aperanjen homeworld.  The videos they captured clearly show people with the Aperanjen physiology.”

“Why didn’t the Paraxeans tell us about them?”

“That I do not know.”

“Okay, send out a notice to the board that we need to meet.  And, don’t wake anyone up.”

“Of course not.”

Afterword

Thanks for reading Delphi Forge!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the thirteenth book in the Delphi in Space series.  If you would like to join my newsletter group, click here, Delphi in Space News.  The newsletter provides interesting science facts for SciFi fans, book recommendations based on books I truly loved reading, and notification of when the next book in my series is available.

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﻿Acknowledgments

It is impossible to say how much I am indebted to my beta readers and copy editors.  Without them, you would not be able to read my books due to all the grammar and spelling errors.  I have always subscribed to Andrew Jackson’s opinion that “It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.”

So special thanks to:

My copy editor Ann Clark, who also happens to be my wife.

My new copy editor Auz B.

My beta reader and editor, Theresa Holmes.

My beta reader and cheerleader, Roger Blanton, who happens to be my brother.

OTHER BOOKS BY Bob Blanton

Delphi in Space

Sakira

Delphi City

Delphi Station

Delphi Nation

Delphi Alliance

Delphi Federation

Delphi Exploration

Delphi Colony

Delphi League

Delphi Embassy

Delphi Diversion

Delphi Forge

Matthew and the Stone

Matthew and the Stone

Stone Ranger

Stone Undercover

Stone Detective