Flash Fiction #486 -- Cyber Rats/5

 The six people running the port had been locked up and without supplies.  They were delighted to be released.  Alyn got their statements, made official seals on the recordings, and boxed them for Fisher.

Time to go... though they did pause long enough to send Smarl and Dyna on their last journey to the system's star.  A few of the enemy went as well,  with two of their own to see them off.  Then they went back to their rooms.

If Admiral Fisher had not been their official commander, Diamond would have just handed the prototype engine and the would-be pirates off to the first IWC ship they found.  However, they were her unique project, Cyber-Rats and all.

Instead, they tracked her down through half a dozen Inner Worlds and finally made port with her on Tempest.  The world lived up to its name. A significant storm system moved in, making them the last ship down until it passed.  It wasn't safe to leave the ship for more than twenty hours.  Everyone spent time on the control deck, marveling at the stupidity of people who lived on a world with this kind of weather.

Diamond finally went to bed.  Less than an hour later, Alyna woke him with a comm buzz.

"What?" he demanded

"Fisher is on her way," she said.

"Of course she is.  I'll be down in the bay."

"I'll join you."

"Thank --" the line went dead, "you."

He rinsed his face, brushed down his hair, and was out in the hall by the time Alyna came down from the control deck.

"Has the storm eased up?" he asked.

"Not that we noticed," she replied.  "Fisher can't like this weather, can she?"

"I have given up trying to decide what the Admiral likes or dislikes.  Though the honey was nice if we could have just kept the bees contained.  I'm still working on that one."

Alyna glanced at her comm.  "She's just putting down.  I can't believe anyone could fly an aircar in this weather.  Why do I get the feeling that there is something important going on?"

Diamond grunted agreement as they hurried to the bay's small airlock that was already cycling, reminding Diamond that she did command the Sunfire and could get in and out on her own.  He straightened up, and they both saluted when she entered with her usual aide, Lindsy.  Admiral Fisher waved off the salutes, a sure sign of trouble.

"We don't have time for. . ."  Her voice trailed off, and she blinked before she focused back on him.  "We need. . ."

"Tell me that's not..." Lindsy began and then shook his head and walked past them.

He went straight to the prototype engine.  Fisher followed her aide, and they both looked it over in silence for a couple minutes.

"How the hell did you end up with what I was about to send you out to find?" Fisher demanded.

So they explained.  By the time they were done, Lindsy was calling in the Port Guard to pick up their pirate guests and help move the prototype to a better location.

"I am sorry about Smarl and Dyna.  However, this certainly saves a lot of hair-pulling," Fisher admitted.  "I guess I'll just pick up the rats --"

"No way in hell!" Alyna exclaimed, surprising both of them.  Then she lifted her hand in apology.  "Sorry, Admiral.  Captain."

"It's alright," Diamond said with a pat on her shoulder.    He turned to the Admiral.  "No way in hell, Admiral Fisher, ma'am."

"You are not going to give Mik and Min back."

"No."

She blinked.  "What if I ordered --" Fisher stopped at the look on their faces.  "Well.  Huh.  I guess we'll call this one a success.  I would like to see them."

Diamond gave a quick nod to Alyna and hoped it didn't betray his worry.  He and Fisher talked about the prisoners.  They were taken off first with furious glares at him and the prototype.

Alyn, not Alyna, brought back Mik and Min, both sitting on his shoulders and wearing their uniforms.   They both looked worried when they saw Fisher and the Port Guards and IWC Whites, who were preparing to move the engine.

"Uniforms," Fisher said.  "They have little rat uniforms."

"Of course," Alyn said with a bright smile.  "We wanted them to feel like they belonged."

Fisher looked at Diamond.  Min chose that moment to jump to his shoulder and snuggle down into his arms.

"Well, okay then.  We're doing an extended Rat Experiment," Fisher said.  "You do realize that these are expensive animals, right?"

"One does not buy and sell friends," Alyn replied -- and sounded remarkably like Alyna just then.  Mik and Min were a good influence on them.

Fisher nodded.  "Right.  I'll have a new assignment for you soon.  Good work."

Fisher looked somewhat stunned as she and Lindsy left.  That was an excellent role reversal.

"Problem, Captain?" Alyna asked.

"I've finally noticed that people will argue with logical, calm Alyna, but they tend to just agree quickly with Alyn rather than get drawn into his version of the universe."

Alyna smiled.  Or maybe Alyn.  "Yes, we've noticed."

Maybe it didn't matter which one.

"Let's book the first chance to get off-world.  I'm sure Fisher will have something for us before this storm clears.  I don't think we're going to hire a new crew yet.  We'll do fine."

"Yes, we will.  Shall I go start a meal?"

"Alyn?  No.  Get Alyna on it.  I want my taste buds to survive."

"You need to live dangerously, Captain."

"I just went up against Fisher to keep the Rats.  I think that's enough for one day."

Min gave him a kiss on the chin.

Retra and Kyle supervised the IWC Whites as they took out the prototype.  Diamond hoped to find out what exactly they'd saved at some point, but today they were happy just to have the ship back to themselves.

The End

Flash Fiction # 485 -- Cyber Rats/4

 Diamond looked at the rats for a long moment.  They couldn't be that smart.  Really, just couldn't --

"How?" he finally said.

"Chit implant that passes pictures straight to the brain." That was Alyna.  "We'd been training them in associations already.  Also, the distinction between good and bad.  I worried that someone might try to grab them.  So we are 'good,' and others are 'bad,' and they should keep away from them.   When I asked where the bad people were ... well, it worked better than I hoped."

"And the battle bots?" Diamond asked.

"Even easier.  Alyn gave orders to disassemble the primary controls and hide the parts.  Alyn and the Rats have been playing hiding games ever since they came aboard."

Diamond nodded.  He nibbled a cookie and looked at Alyna again.  She shrugged.  "They must like us to bring their favorite cookies to share."

He did not get a warm spot in his heart just then.  Really.

It was not going to be easy to take out all seven invaders without others being warned.  Even if communications went down, the ship was not so large that yells wouldn't draw attention.  Diamond was also aware of his aching shoulder.  They needed something to give them an edge.

The others were already spreading out and would get off the Starfire if things went bad.  Alyna stuck with Diamond, though.  They were heading for the controls, but he stopped her at the first curve.

"Does Alyn still have those night goggles? Diamond asked.

Alyna gave him the brightest smile he'd ever seen from her.  "At last, something he's bought that might be useful.  Well, besides all the stuff for Mik and Min.  Wait here."

Alyna hurried off before he could protest.  Standing around didn't sound wise, so he opened the closest door -- Dyna's room as it happened.  He had purposely not thought much about her or Smarl.  He did not look at the walls with pictures or the bed that had not been made.  It did not help.  He stood next to the door and listened until someone arrived and paused.

Alyna -- she'd dropped Alyn's flashy jacket off --  looked annoyed until she glanced past him to the room.  Her face changed.

"I have the goggles," she said and held them out.

"You should wear them," Diamond said and touched his shoulder.  He'd been doing his best to ignore the pain.  "If they try to get away, disable them.  If they try to kill us, do what you have to.  I assume Mik and Min are already at work?"

"Any moment now.  I sent warnings to the others."

This was why he liked Alyna.  She thought of those pesky little details.  The ship went dark in the next breath.  In fact, everything went silent, too,  as the ship went entirely dead.

Then the little guys switched the ship from planet gravity to zero gravity.

People screamed.  Diamond cursed and grabbed at the wall, hoping for a handhold.  Alyna sighed.

"I must not have made that plain enough.  You know,  I think they've panicked," Alyna said from somewhere ahead of me.

They weren't the only ones.  At least Diamond could hear Alyna and knew she had the goggles.  They were getting closer to the others, who didn't sound any less panicked.

"There's some alien creature in here!" a man shouted, his voice probably three octaves higher than it should have been.  "Something small with fur!  Get out of the way!  I'll kill it!"

"You fire blindly, and you'll kill us!" the woman in charge snarled.  "Just -- something bit me!"

People began firing.  In the odd flashes of light, Diamond could see Alyna near the opening to the crew's lounge.  Mic and Min were heading straight for the exit, moving as though they were creatures born to zero gravity.  Alyna had her weapon up and ready, but Diamond had the feeling they would not need it.  The others were shooting each other while Mic and Min swam through the door and grabbed hold of Diamond.  He held them tight.  

Alyna took his arm, and they backed away.  One of the Rats jumped to her shoulder and held on.  The other stayed nestled up against my chest.  Min, he thought.

"Good work, guys," Diamond told them.

Min gave me a kiss on the chin.

Within an hour, it was over, and the Cyber rats had reset in ship gravity back to normal and turned on the lights and in-ship systems.  The loss of Smarl and Dyna became obvious now as they locked up the group in the now-empty rooms -- Alyn cleared them out, and the rats made sure the doors could not be opened except by Alyn or Diamond.  It was odd because he suspected even Alyna wouldn't have been able to do it.  He might have to take lessons from the rats.

The crew met up in the lounge.  They looked caught between elation and disbelief.  The rats were handing out treats.  They knew who liked which kind, too.  That was just bizarre. But Diamond took an oatmeal cookie with a nod of thanks.

"What do we do with them?" Diamond finally asked.

"We keep them!" Alyn said indignantly.  "We know they can be trained, and --"

"The people we have locked up, Alyn.  Not the crew.  But just so you know -- yes, we keep them."

He'd made Alyn very happy.  Mik and Min, too, from the looks of things.  Hell, the entire crew, including him, looked brighter for the news.

"If you mean the humans, we keep them locked up and take them back to Fisher, along with whatever they dragged into the ship," Alyna said.

"Prototype engine of some sort," Quince said.  "I'll look it over while we track down Fisher.  No, I won't take any of it apart, but scans should tell us a few things."

"Good.  Get to that.  I don't want to head off-world if the thing is too dangerous to transport.  We better check on the people running the port."

Flash Fiction # 484 -- Cyber Rats /3

 Diamond wanted to come up with some ingenious plan to save them all.  If he fired the engines, they might make it back to orbit.  Or the sudden change in direction and velocity might tear them apart.

If this was as bad as he imagined, they might be stuck here for a long time.  This was not the most popular planet.  Supplies?  He didn't imagine there would be any left behind --

Ten seconds.  Diamond had no ideas.

They put down on the pad in a near-perfect landing.  Amazing what the brain could do without interference from the mind.

Everyone was quiet.

Make some decisions.

"Any comm?" he asked.

"Nothing.  Picking up some internal signals at the outpost.  It all looks good there.  Maybe when the ship crashed... something happened, and they lost communications."

"Maybe," Diamond agreed.  He stood.  The others did as well.  "Alyna should have the lasers out by now.  I don't know what is going to happen, people.  Be careful."

Dyna and Alyna had the weapons.  They handed them out.  Diamond wanted to say important things again -- but he just sighed.

"They're at the airlock," Retra warned.  She had her pocketcomp in hand.  "Waiting.  Do we test their patience?"

"Let them in," Diamond decided.  "Quince, Breta, Kyle -- find some cover."

No one argued.  Diamond himself went to open the airlock.  For a brief moment, he thought they were fine.

"I suppose you IWC types don't have much choice but charge in, do you?" a woman asked as she stepped forward.  "Fools.  Are you Captain Diamond?"

"Yes."

"Good."  She brought up her own laser and shot him through the shoulder.

It was a deliberate shot and not meant to kill him, but the others were shouting and firing before he went down.

Distraction.

"Hold!" he shouted, and his own people obeyed, though they didn't stand there and wait to be shot.

By then, it was too late anyway.  Two fully armored bots surged through the doorway and began taking down anyone who was not already fallen or dead.  Smarl and Dyna didn't survive.  Quince had a burn on his leg, and Diamond had a shot in the arm.

Their unwanted visitors had kept behind the bots and came through fine.  The bots caught Alyn -- not Alyna, which surprised Diamond.

"Now that I have your attention," the woman said with a snarky smile that would have annoyed Diamond even if she'd been an ally.  "Let's talk about getting off this ice ball.  Who is your pilot?"

"That would be me," Diamond said and gasped at a movement of his arm.

"Oops."

He was not amused.

She had him treated in the medunit and then locked in Kyle's small cabin with the rest of his crew.  They'd removed weapons, comms, and pocketcomps, of course.  They hadn't treated Quince's leg, but Diamond shared his own supplies.

The loss of Smarl and Dyna became more real now.  Alyn was here, not Alyna -- that took Diamond by surprise.  Alyna was the take-charge personality of the two, and for her to step back while carefree Alyn took control --

Only they didn't look carefree at the moment.

"They want the ship.  They don't have a pilot," Diamond said.  "We have room to negotiate."

The others nodded.  No one spoke much.  They got comfortable as they could, and they waited.  Every few hours, they traded off the bed.

"They're bringing in something down in the bay," Retra finally announced.  Her words startled them all.  She stood by the door and listened with nods sometimes.  "Something big.  From the time frame, I'd guess it came from their other ship.  Probably difficult to transport it here in this weather."

"They didn't drag us out to help," Quince added.  "I am trying to believe that means we'll survive."

"They need me as a pilot," Diamond reminded them.  "And that makes the rest of you hostages to my good behavior.  They're the crew from the other ship.  They might not need more than me -- but I can make it plain that if anything happens to you, I'll pilot us into a black hole."

He meant it, too.  He hoped they were listening.

Then they went quiet again.  Diamond slept on the floor and snarled at them to leave him alone when they tried to give him the bed.  Sleep was all he wanted.

And food, but he realized that wasn't going to happen.  No one else mentioned it, either.  He looked at the computer desk and considered tearing it out --it was how they monitored the group, and he could see them on the screen --

And then the screen blipped.  No more than an eye blink, and Diamond started toward it.  Only on the screen, he didn't move.

"Everyone mark where you are right now," Diamond ordered.  "Someone just put our feed on a loup."

"That would be Mik and Min," Alyn said with a bright smile.  He held up a pocketcomp.

"Where the hell did you get that?" Retra demanded.

"This is my room," Kyle reminded them.  "And they didn't look very well.  I get the feeling they're new at this pirating stuff.  I was standing by the bed and slipped it from the table to under the pillow."

"And I keyed into Mik and Min's private frequency.  They opened some lines for me, and I looped the video," Alyn added.

"Well done!"  He gave a startled glance at the air vent when it popped open.  Retra caught it before it fell.

Mik and Min leapt to the bed and rushed to Alyn.  They dragged two large pouches with them, and Alyn began handing out the laser pistols -- and the cookies.

Well, that made things better.

Alyn -- or more likely Alyna, despite the clothes, synced the five pocketcomps.  The first thing he saw was a map with dots.

"That's where everyone was about half an hour ago," Alyn said.  "Looks like there are seven of them --"

"Plus the battle bots," Breta added.

"Mik and Min took care of them." *

Flash Fiction #483 -- Cyber Rats/2

 

Captain Diamond found a pile of small and large boxes inside the bay.  They did not look like any kind of standard shipment.

He spotted Alyn all but bouncing as he came down the lift.

"Captain!"

"I assume these are yours?" he said with a wave at the boxes.  "Have you checked weight allowance --"

"They're not mine.  Well, not technically.  Sort of."

Diamond had a feeling he knew where this was going.  "Not Alyna's either, right?"

"Oh no," he said with a shake of his head, curls bouncing.  "She never buys much for herself.  The woman has no taste in clothing and accessories --"

"Alyn, tell me they're not --"

"Stuff for Mik and Min," he said with an energetic nod and began to wave at the boxes.  "A proper place for them to stay, special food and treats, uniforms --"

"Uniforms."  Diamond thought his head might explode.

"They're darling.  And don't worry, I made sure all of it can fit in the cabin with Alyna and me."

"Oh, I'm sure that's going to go over well.  Alyna is going to have a few things to say."

Alyn grinned.  "She wasn't happy about it until I pointed out she'd have more of a chance to keep an eye on them."

Diamond supposed he should be happy for paranoid alter-egos.  Besides, at least he didn't have to look after them.

Two days later, they launched and headed back out into IWC territory.  As much as he enjoyed visiting Earth, there was always a feeling of relief to get away from some of the rabid Earth Only people.

He didn't see the rats for the first few days.  They did fix the glitchy door on level 2.  Smarl and Retra took them down to the engine room, but Diamond only learned that afterward.  His heart probably missed a beat, but Smarl and Retra were ecstatic in their praise of the creatures.  He just nodded numbly and wondered why he'd failed to ask Fisher how long they'd have the rodents.

The following week, Diamond did see Mik and Min in the lounge working on a wonky screen.  The little uniforms were adorable.

He did not tell Alyn that, though.  In fact, he'd only seen Alyna for the last few days.  She didn't look as annoyed as he had expected.

Best not to mention any of it.

By the time they were out to the Pegasus Fringe, Mik and Min were familiar sights in the corridors.  They liked to sit on the bench in the control deck and watch as they came off of slide.  Retra made them special harnesses to keep them safe from any sudden shifts in direction or of gravity.

The crew didn't take as good of care of him.

The Pegasus Fringe was light on colonies, especially since the one major world, Summer, had started into its centuries-long winter.  That was less than a decade ago, and it already looked like a giant ball of ice.

Mik and Min chattered with an unhappy set of squeaks.

"Yeah," Diamond agreed.  "But the lone outpost pays well for deliveries, and we won't be sticking around for long."

And when the hell did he start talking to the rats?

Dyna smirked.  Alyna did not look at him, but he could imagine her face.  Lucky for all of them that the landing beacon kicked on and took their attention.

Diamond was sure he didn't hear anyone snicker.  He went to work on the coordinates, watching the white world coming closer.  He'd never liked the snow, and an entire world of it didn't appeal to him.  The others were intent on their own jobs now, and he did the work he loved.  Landing on a new world always pleased him.

Though maybe not this one so much.  Diamond read the wind speeds and then the temperature.  If he hadn't already committed, he would have pulled out and waited for better weather, like in a few centuries.

"This looks ... unfriendly," Kyle said from his post at communications.  "And I'm not picking up anything but the beacon so far."

"I can't imagine they sit around waiting for guests to arrive," Alyna suggested, but she sounded uncertain.

"We're almost below the cloud cover," Kyle reported.  He made constant corrections to interior gravity and atmosphere.  "Not that it's going to help much.  It is snowing."

Snowing was not what Diamond imagined it to be.  This was a wall of white, a wind from hell, and temperatures that made him shiver without feeling them.

"Something wrong," Kyle said.

And that sent another chill through him.  "What do you see?"

"There is a ship about two kilometers outside the port.  Down on its side and only showing a small residual power source.  I don't know what brought it down -- but there ought to be at least a distress signal from it."

"Damn."  Diamond made a quick check.  "I can't pull out.  Besides, they might need us."

"We need to be ready for trouble," Alyna warned.

"Yes."

She knew what that meant and left the control deck, despite the danger from sudden moves.  Diamond glanced back as she reached the opening --

"Hold on.  Get Mik and Min out of here.  Into the ventilation shafts would be best.  Box up their stuff and make it look like a shipment for somewhere else.  Dyna, help her."

"Yes, sir," they both said, grabbed the rats, and hurried away.

At least those two were going to be out of sight and safe.  If there was a problem at the outpost, he didn't want the little guys drawing attention.  He imagined shooting them would be the first answer.

Diamond feared it might be the same for the crew, though.  There would be no easy way to hide any of them.

"If it's trouble -- scatter.  Get clear of the ship If you can.  That's the only reason they'd be silent.  They want the ship."

"I do not want to be stuck here," Kyle said.

"Not my favorite spot, either."

But they were almost down.