“We board the Des Moines tomorrow,” Mosovich said. “We’ll hash out the details and routes there and work on our situational awareness. The Des Moines doesn’t have the same configuration but we can work with it in VR. Start getting it on.”
“Mentat Chan,” Captain McNair said as he greeted the party at the boarding tube. “Welcome, again, to the Des Moines.”
“Captain,” the mentat said, bowing slightly. “I believe I should ask for permission to board.”
“Y’all come ahead,” Daisy Mae said, grinning. “We ain’t particular round here.”
“That means permission for your party to come aboard is granted,” Captain McNair said, rolling his eyes. “Mentat Shaina, I see you.”
“Captain McNair, I see you,” the Indowy said, nodding his head. “Entity Daisy Mae, I see you,” he added, actually adding a slight bow. As he bowed he saw a small carnivore, brown and furry, stropping the legs of the entity called “Daisy.” Shaina filed that information away for future analysis.
“Y’all’s set up in a section of the officer’s quarters,” Daisy said. “Put in some appliances for makin’ y’all’s food and a supply for about a week. All the room there was. Y’all need anything, you just announce it. I can ignore things if you don’t want me to see but seein’ as I am the ship, any time you talk to me I’ll hear it.”
“The point to this is that you should require minimum interaction with the human crew,” Captain McNair pointed out.
“My thanks, Entity Mae, Captain McNair,” the mentat said, nodding his head again.
“I’ll lead y’all to your quarters,” Daisy said. “Pretty sure you know the way but it’s fittin’.”
“I cccoulllddd llleaddd thththemmm, Dddaisssy,” said the small carnivore.
Fascinating, though Shaina.
“Daisy Mae is an interesting entity,” Mentat Chan said as the captain led the way to his quarters. He’d been installed in the captain’s cabin. There was, in addition, a small captain’s day cabin near the bridge which McNair would use for the trip.
“She’s a handful,” McNair admitted, while thinking, Actually, she’s at least two handfuls. “But it makes running the ship easier that’s for sure.”
“I think I was actually referring to her entire being,” Chan said. “The reality of it approaches, if you do not mind my saying so, the metaphysical. She is more than just an AI that took on the appearance of a minor actress and her being infuses the ship far more than the nannite systems can account for. In a way, it seems more that the ship infuses her.”
“Ships have souls,” McNair said as he opened the hatch to the cabin. “All good ships and certainly any that have been used for long enough. Daisy doesn’t talk about it much, but the AI she used to be got… changed by being hooked into the Des Moines. The original one that is. I hope that making this new one hasn’t… killed something.”
“I do not think it did,” Chan said looking at the small cabin.
“Sorry it’s not larger,” the captain said, shrugging. “But, you know there’s only so much room on a ship.”
“I was actually thinking how wasteful it was of space,” Chan replied. “Humans who are not Indowy raised are simply used to so much room. I will probably share this with my students.”
“Well, we’ve got bunking for them, too,” McNair said, looking at the cabin. He always found it mildly claustrophobic.
“No, this is sufficient for all of us,” Chan said. “I’m sure that someone has been discommoded by our presence. Since we will be comfortable sharing this room, it is better to let them have their space back.”
“I’ll leave you to get settled in, then,” the CO said. “We’re breaking dock right away. We’re on tight time to make the intercept.”
“Indeed,” Chan said. “Haste is an unfortunate necessity.”
“Hot bunking,” Mueller said, grumpily.
“It’s a warship,” Mosovich replied. “We’re going to need to start work-ups as soon as the mentats are ready. I’m not sure they’re up to keeping up with us.”
“That’s going to be fun,” Mueller said, grinning.
“Y’all don’t do a whole bunch of physical training, do you?” Mosovich said, frowning, as the junior mentat bent over and threw up.
They had started, he thought, with the easy stuff. There was a route in the Des Moines which was pretty close to the route they were going to have to take to get to the place they thought the Imeg might be. So with all the blast doors open they had hoofed it from the notional entry point to the target compartment, working on coverage and general movement.
The SRS team was loaded for bear with leopard-suit space gear, heavy body armor, cloaks and full load-out. The mentats, after Chan’s assurance that they could prevent injury from random shrapnel and bullets, were just wearing cloaked leopard-suits.
About half way to the compartment, Mosovich had had to slow down to let the mentats catch their wind. By the time they got there, two of the junior mentats were pretty much useless. And even Chan wasn’t looking all that hot.
“We do, yes,” Chan said, breathing heavily. “But it is… spiritual based and… very low impact.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Not very aerobic come to… think of it.”
“Reality is we’re probably going to have to be stopping to burn doors,” Mosovich said, not even breathing hard despite wearing better than a hundred pounds of armor, ammo and battle-rattle. He figured that, all things considered, they were more or less going to have to think in terms of clearing the whole ship. He was not going to run out of ammo. “So you’ll get a chance to catch your breath, then. But I bet you’re not much use sohon wise at the moment.”
“No, we are not,” Chan admitted. “And, yes, we must get in better shape. Fortunately, there are excercises we can perform to enhance our advancement in that regard. By the time we reach the target we will be prepared. You have my word.”
“Uh, huh,” Mosovich said. “Hope you’re right. Cause it’s gonna be all our asses if you’re not.”
“Cutting paste.”
The hangar bay was the only place large enough to hold the training facility. Even with VR gear it helped to have a mock-up of an assault area. A series of light walls had been installed indicating the bulkheads of the area they believed the Imeg to be quartering. Heavier doors had been carried along to simulate the hatches they’d have to breach. In some cases they were planning on burning through the bulkheads but most of the time the hatches were a better bet.
Payback, the Alpha Demo specialist, pulled out a length of what looked like silver rope and put a man-sized oval of it on the hatch. The cutting paste was self sticking so he just laid in a detonator and rolled to the side of the door, holding up the activator.
“It may be possible, depending upon many factors, that we will be able to override the hatch controls,” Chan noted on the command frequency. His left hand was gripping the back of the harness of Master Sergeant Field, the Charlie second stick NCOIC who was called, for reasons that even a mentat could not comprehend, Lieutenant Penis. Each of the mentats had a designated SRS lead. It was anticipated that they were going to have to concentrate on controlling the Imeg and couldn’t be expected to also figure out where to go. So they just held on and went.