First_Command

The First Command

or "Waddya Mean, 'No Guns'?"

By Zen Master - Seeking Enlightenment through Bondage

A Swarm Cycle Tale

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Prologue

The ship's AI told me that Admiral Sykes wanted to talk to me one last time before we went and got my ship, so I walked down the central corridor of Freighter Number Twelve towards his office. Until we built special-purpose stations for our use, either in space or on one of the planets, the Darjee had turned over several of their freighters for whatever we needed space for. By now we actually had a few structures built, including something we were calling Jupiter Station, but it wasn't big enough for everyone who wanted to use it yet so we were still here on F12. Since this was temporary and the freighter was already earmarked for later use as a passenger transport, we (meaning the Confederacy Navy) hadn't named this one yet. It was just the 12th freighter we had been given access to.

Lending these freighters to us served several purposes at once. To start with, they were _starships_, ships that traveled from one solar system to another. Just standing in one answered a lot of questions about the universe that us humans had been asking the heavens for as long as we had been around. Second, they gave us valuable hands-on experience with how starships worked. How the engines functioned, how they navigated, how the environmental systems worked, on and on and on. Not that we were actually allowed to mess with anything, but we could see all the equipment and get training on how it worked.

And, just as important, we got practice dealing with the shipboard AIs. For now, each of these freighters had a crew of Darjee that were available for consultation and for help in emergencies, but they stayed as far from us as they could. As strict pacifists, they felt very uncomfortable near us. Something about our eating meat that came from animals, maybe.

I'm not saying that they are vegetarians, because I don't know that. They probably are, but I don't know. I'm saying that they aren't comfortable around us. I guess monkeys in a zoo don't like their cages to be too close to the lions, either. No, I'm not saying that they were or even looked like monkeys. It was clear that they had evolved from birds of some kind. I'm just saying that they probably felt trapped on these ships with us.

Officially, if I wanted to go somewhere on the ship I had to talk to the AI first and let him know where I was going, then wait for the all clear if there was a Darjee in my intended path. I could get mad about it if I wanted, but why bother? They were who they were, and neither of us was going to change. Anyway, as soon as we could get competent crews trained up the Darjee caretaker crews would be leaving and these ships would be ours for good.

As it was, this particular ship had been set aside as a combination squadron office, berthing facility, and training center for our first set of warships, and it was pretty much crawling with human crews at all times. Once we came onboard and started exploring, the Darjee just stayed in the crew's berthing area unless we needed them, and the AI was supposed to prevent any of us from 'accidentally' even going down that access corridor.

Humans being humans though, some of us just had to find out what that meant. 'What that meant' turned out to be a good example of the Confederacy's force-field generation abilities. The intrepid group of explorers who went down that path first, just a couple of weeks earlier, found their progress blocked by an invisible wall across the corridor. Then, they found their retreat blocked by another one. Last, they found _both_ walls slowly moving, forcing them back. Admiral Sykes had been woken up -it was in the middle of the night- about this, and he had everyone else on the ship woken up to see the entertainment.

This ship, like the rest of the freighters they had given us, had 96 removable storage pods attached in six circles or rings of 16 pods each. The front three rings housed all the scientists and engineers trying to understand the advanced technology. The back three rings had been turned over to the squadron, so we had 48 pods. The Darjee themselves lived in the crew's quarters in the central ball.

The very back ring was being used for offices, training, and test facilities. The other two back rings had all been converted to berthing for sixteen of us PreCom -pre-commissioning- units. Each crew was given two pods. One was a combination of offices, meeting rooms, and quarters for nine officers. The other pod was berthing for the crew; twelve sets of triple bunks for the junior crew and three sets of double bunks for the senior people.

That gave us 51 bunks per crew, although we had no idea how many people we would actually be taking on the ships yet. My crew only had 47 assigned, and as we were designated for the first ship we were probably the best-manned. Even so, there were probably more than 500 of us crammed into the freighter's main fore-aft access corridor when the invisible moving walls brought the four explorers back out to us. Of course, only the front few dozen actually saw anything.

When our intrepid explorers were back in the central corridor again, the AI had stated <These personnel were attempting to access a section of the ship that they are not authorized to enter.>

Admiral Sykes, up front because he was told first, had asked "Please check your records of their time onboard this ship. Can you verify for me that each one was ordered to avoid that corridor, and that each one acknowledged that order?"

"Thank you. Does the ship still have an unused pod that can be used to hold these personnel pending a review of their conduct?"

"Please put them in one of those pods. Secure the door so that they cannot leave without my prior approval, or that of my properly authorized replacement."

With that, the four miscreants -look, 'evil-doers' sounded better to me; their crime was silly, but at the same time serious- were boxed in to a smaller area and the box moved to an unused berthing pod. As we could see on the video that we all 'got to' watch later, when the box got to the pod, the hatch opened, and the box pushed the four into the hatch, then the hatch closed again. Meanwhile, the admiral had dismissed us to quarters or previously assigned duties, with a caveat: "COs to my office." Great.

It was tight with nineteen people in that office, the admiral, sixteen prospective COs, and two aides, but we've all seen worse. At least I grew up in nuclear submarines. Many of my brother COs had served in navies that didn't have nuke boats, and their boats had been considerably smaller. With roughly the same size crews as ours.

"At ease. They are all officers and supposedly have some common sense. I can't hold any of you accountable for their actions, not with proof that they were warned. On the other hand, as long as this is all still a big secret, we will have to deal with problems like this by ourselves up here, so this is _our_ headache. We have to get rid of them somehow and we can't send them back to Earth until the UN decides to make our alien contact public. For what it's worth, execution is out of the question. Even if we decided it was appropriate, it would upset the Darjee even more."

Cdr Sorensen asked "Admiral, can you specify exactly what crime they are guilty of, beyond simply violating orders?"

"Oh, that's the only specific charge, violating a direct order. The problem is, spitting on the sidewalk in front of the base commander's house is different from spitting on the sidewalk in front of a bar. So, the real problem is more like 'Conduct Prejudicial to Confederacy Cooperation', like when you are visiting the Turks and you spit on their statue of Kemal Ataturk. If you do that, you're going to jail for a few days and there's nothing your ship can do about it. And if you are drunk enough to pee on the statue, you're staying a Turkish prison for a few years."

"This is the same thing. The Darjee find us far too violent for their taste, and this is too much like stalking for them. Those guys are off the ship as fast as we can move them, but I don't know where we can send them. I need ideas."

Lt Jackson, the Admiral's aide, asked "Well, what are the outside parameters? They have to go somewhere, they can't go to Earth, what's left? Back to the Moonbase? Another ship? Are there any ships yet that have been completely turned over to us with no Darjee at all?"

The Admiral looked up at the ceiling. "AI?"

"Yes. We consider them to be damaged or injured, but repairable or at least of further use in the future. However, for now we must get them off this ship."

"How rudimentary is it?"

"How will the pod get power?"

"Can the hatches be secured so that the four men cannot exit?"

"Will this action satisfy Freighter Number 12's Darjee crew that we are taking steps to ensure that they are not disturbed further?"

"Are the patrol ships similar to this one then?"

<No, they are much different. However, a crew that has trained on a patrol ship will be able to run these freighters.>

"Okay, if there are no objections, we'll do that. Any questions?"

One of the other captains I hadn't really met yet asked "Does the pod have a propulsion system?"

"AI?"

<No, but the pod will extrude station-keeping jets. The pod's internal storage tanks are being filled, and the pod's AI will use water as reaction mass to keep the pod positioned. What distance do you want the pod to maintain?>

"I think 20 miles is a good round number. If they get the hatch open, they will rethink their plans if they have to float 20 miles."

Just to make a friend, I whispered to the man next to me, a Brit from their submarine service. "That's about 30 kilometers, right?"

He whispered back "Did he mean your Statute or Nautical miles?"

"Fuck, I dunno. Don't let us bring that crap up here. And what do you mean, 'our' units? It was you guys that invented that shit."

That answer came with a smile. "That may well be, but that doesn't mean that we're stupid enough to keep using it when something better comes along. Even if it was invented by the French, the metric system is far better."

This was officially a UN show, but it was effectively a NATO operation, and, in turn, that meant that there were more Americans than anyone else. Us Americans could have been jackasses and brought feet and inches and furlongs and acres and God knows what else out here, but no, the metric system was far better. I'd learned to convert distances in my head when I learned navigation so I already knew the answer, and the rest would eventually become automatic.

I had no idea why the Admiral had specified miles; we had all agreed to use the metric system up here. Maybe he was just stressed; we did NOT need to upset the aliens who were trying to help us build ships. It didn't matter in this case, though. Whether he meant the 32 kilometers that 20 statute miles converted to or the 37 kilometers that 20 nautical miles converted to, the Admiral was right; no one was going to try to float that far.

Our uniforms, a kind of coverall with slippers, were space-rated if you added gloves and a helmet. The gloves, replicated with the coveralls and sized to fit your hands, should still be in the thigh pocket they came in, and the helmet was a one-size-fits-all affair with several placed in every compartment, basically two at every control station that might have a crewman at it and several more at each hatch. And, if you couldn't get to a helmet in an emergency, the coverall had a kind of a hood that would work as an emergency helmet for a very short time.

However, the coveralls did not include any kind of propulsion system. Trying to jump twenty miles would be, um, awkward. So, moving the pod 20 miles -of either kind- from the ship would pretty well strand our four explorers.

While we were discussing measurement systems someone else had brought up Jupiter's radiation field, since we were deep in Jupiter's shadow. Jupiter itself emitted a lot of electromagnetic radiation, and on top of that there were several orbital mechanisms like Earth's Van Allen Belt but much stronger. Unprotected humans might survive a few minutes, but not much longer.

Yes, some of us had run THAT experiment, too. The AIs would advise against actions expected to injure or kill the actor, but they wouldn't out-and-out prohibit them. Some people just don't listen well, and we had lost people running that and other 'experiments'.

That was all before my time, before I came out here. Actually, when you got right down to it, those losses were the real reason I was out here in the first place.

Anyway, not to worry, the pod would maintain the same force field the ships had. No, actually, it would be the weaker one that the smaller personnel and cargo shuttles used. The men might be marooned, but they would be safe.

With no other questions, the Admiral dismissed us. There had been one more question, but no one wanted to ask it: How long are those guys going to be stuck in that pod?

And, since that midnight meeting, we had all been careful to make sure that the Darjee were safe in their quarters before we wandered around on our own. Someday this would be our ship, but for now we were just visitors.

I understood why I'd been drafted into this Confederacy Navy thing. The Air Force was choking on admitting it, but spaceships had a lot more in common with submarines than they did with airplanes. And, if we were building our own spaceships it would make sense to have the designers teach the operators about their new toys. If we were getting hand-me-downs, though, maybe having an engineer go over them for an open-minded look was a good idea. So, getting hired from our retirement condo for 'a consulting job in Naval Engineering' made sense to me.

But, command? I was still choking on that. I'd 'commanded' sailboats and fishing boats. I'd 'commanded' small planes; I'd gotten my pilot's license when I was younger, before I retired from the Navy after 23 years in engineering. But, command of a STARSHIP????? How did they decide _I_ was command material? And, just as much to the point, why the fuck had they selected me to command the _first_ one? My service record showed that I had 27 minutes (and a few seconds) in command of a ship large enough to have a crew, and that hadn't ended very well.

"Roger, thanks for coming by. I just wanted to congratulate you on your selection as our first starship captain and make sure there weren't any last-minute questions. If all goes as planned, within a few years we will have hundreds and thousands of starship captains, but you are going to be the first."

"Thank you, Admiral. I'm honored, but I'm not sure why I was selected over all the others to be first. Surely some of the others have more relevant skills."

"Not from our viewpoint. We agreed on that early on, when the Darjee told us they were turning some ships over to us. We already know those things aren't going to be warships as we understand them; they are merely ships we can learn on while we figure out what we want for warships. Meanwhile, 'Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic' and all that. We can't adequately train our people until we know what to train them on, and of the fifty-odd officers we selected for our first group of starship COs, you are the one officer we trust above all the others to actually come back from your first jump into hyperspace with these things."

"Now, Admiral Andrews isn't too keen on you but I think you are our best bet and Admiral Kennedy sided with me. We're pretty sure it's just a nationalism thing, since Admiral Andrews' candidate was from his own Royal Navy. If he'd proposed someone who wasn't RN we'd have looked at him a lot closer. He'll get his own ship, but only after you've proven that we can run them."

"Well, fine, but why me?"

"Because you _aren't_ one of the COs. As commanding officers, the rest of the COs are the best of the best. They've proven it in emergencies all over the world. Any idiot can survive an airplane breaking in half in mid-flight, or a terrorist attack that destroys a hotel building. We all agree that you aren't in their class as a warfighter and CO. However, you _are_ the only one of them who is paranoid enough to realize your instruments are lying to you, bypass the automatic controls, and bring the whole submarine to the surface so that everyone still alive gets out."

"My father would have said I'm not paranoid. It's just common sense to remember that precision doesn't mean the same thing as accuracy."

I remembered that day far too well. At the same time the psychologists were telling me I needed to put it behind me and move on, I'd had to go over it in excruciating detail over and over and over again with everyone who could possibly justify being involved in the investigation and the following witch-hunt....

The final report had stated that my actions had probably precipitated the disaster, but at the same time they had prevented it from being worse so I was given another medal at the same time I was being interrogated.

Let the flashback go. The Admiral is still talking. "I knew your father. He was an engineer like you, and I expect I know stories that he didn't tell you because he didn't want to frighten his little children. That's the other thing. Once we have these ships under control, they'll all be commanded by ops weenies like me, tacticians who want to be Captain Kirk of the Enterprise. We aren't getting them, though, until they've been gone over by engineers like you and your father who don't blindly trust man or machine. Until we understand these ships, we don't need Captain Kirk. We need paranoids like you in command."

"Right. We can only learn from our mistakes if we _survive_ our mistakes. Okay, what's the overall turnover plan?"

"As you already know, we are expecting the first of the corvettes, the small ships we are going to try to use as warships, tomorrow. We should get the next several over the next week, but you and your crew get the first one. As discussed, you need to certify the Environmental, Communications, Propulsion, Navigation, and Combat systems, and we recommend that you do them in that order."

"Of course, sir. If we can't breathe the air, we have no business trying to fight the ship."

"Yes. With what little the AIs have given you on these ships, it's dead certain that you'll get surprises."

"Yeah. At least when we captured a German or Japanese or Russian ship we could be pretty sure we could breathe the air in it."

"Exactly. _THAT's_ why you get the first one. _YOU_ won't make any silly assumptions about everything working right."

"Yes sir. Hopefully Environmental Control, at least, will be a non-issue. All of these freighters are set up for our needs pretty well, so we know it can be done. Besides, even if air turns out to be a problem, these suits are pretty comfortable to work in, even in vacuum. We've been wearing them for a couple of weeks now, and we are all good with them."

"Of course. You can even sleep in them, but you cannot eat, drink, pee, or fuck in them, so it's just temporary. And, that leads me to what will hopefully be my last two orders to you and your crew, at least until you can report back to us. First, none of your companions will board that ship until you can report that it is safe for civilians. Certainly, not until you've spent at least two days onboard without your helmets on."

"Yes, sir. That will keep the boys motivated."

"Right. Second, I don't want you, your ChEng, or your Doctor to take your helmets off until at least one hour after someone else has. I want the three of you monitoring the environment and the others."

"That's not right, sir, I should be first, but yes sir. I was planning on keeping at least two men fully suited up at all times, at least until we feel confident we know what we're doing."

"That's a good idea. Whatever rotation you set up, make sure the oncoming safety men suit up at least five minutes before the offgoing men stand down."

"Yes, sir."

The AI woke me up just after 0500 (we were keeping Zulu time up here, on all of these alien ships, just to keep things simple) when my ship popped out of hyperspace. It would still be several hours before it was here, but it's my ship and I wanted to know when it arrived. Okay, I'm up. Somehow I got up without disturbing Ellen. I left the men alone, too. Reveille wasn't until 0630.

I cleaned up and walked over to the squadron ops office. Like everyone else, the squadron staff had been mostly practicing tactical exercises with the sleep-trainers using the freighters as our 'warships'. They were the only alien ships we had seen so far and the AIs would not give us any information on any other designs so we had to use them in our exercises.

Inside those sleep-trainers we could make up just about anything we wanted, and then figure out how to use it. One exercise might have three freighters armed with Russian anti-ship missiles trying to guard an unarmed freighter, while two 'enemy' freighters with the same weapons tried to take it out. Another exercise might have a freighter trying to sneak up on Jupiter Station and clean us all out.

Maybe that one would be armed with a dozen of the Army's main battle tanks chained to the outside hull. Without knowing anything about the warships we were getting, there was no effort to make the exercises realistic. All we were trying to do was get used to thinking in three dimensions and develop tactics that dealt with planets being in the way. The exercises also gave us a rough feel for what use we could get from various weapon types when we could get them.

My ship would be the squadron's first ship besides "Freighter Number Twelve", and F-12 hadn't moved under human direction. It was where the Darjee crew had put it, in a parking orbit around Jupiter, where almost everything was for now.

Why hadn't it moved under human direction? Why not have the aliens show us around and train us on these simple freighters first, then have us graduate to the more complicated warships? Because they didn't trust us, that's why. No Darjee was going to risk his life by being on a starship crewed by half-trained humans. They weren't leaving these ships until we had crews for them, but at the same time they were unwilling to train us on a ship that they themselves were on.

Pointing out the logic flaw here, that if _they_ were competent to run the ships, they had the knowledge to train _us_ to the same level of competence, was not possible. The AI would apologize, but would not translate and pass on any communication that included the scary concept of the Darjee actually being on a starship that us untrained humans operated.

So, we studied equipment and theory, but we weren't going to really get our hands dirty until we had our own ships. The question of who was going to teach us about _them_ was left uncomfortably hanging in the air, of course.

Anyway, we were in orbit around Jupiter, where "in orbit" really meant the AI used their propulsion systems as needed to keep us behind Jupiter and thus hidden from Earth. Until the UN decided to admit that we were working with aliens, nothing was kept in Earth orbit or anywhere else that Earth's astronomers could see. "They" were working on a base on (or in) the Moon, I'd passed through it a couple of times, but it wasn't clear who "they" were, much less what the base would do or when it would be usable.

It was clear that there were multiple levels of technology, though, and the aliens were still deciding what-all they would let us have. For instance, we were using shuttles to get around out here in Jupiter orbit, but when I had been 'hired', we had used a teleporter. My interviewing 'corporate recruiter' had said that they "were also testing an experimental transportation device" and we got to use it.

Chapter 1 - Un-Retiring

I was retired after 23 years of active service in the Navy, just enjoying not having to get up if I didn't feel like it. Our children were finally grown and in college, and my wife and I did whatever we felt like every day. I puttered around on the computer, drank too much with my neighbors, complained about the way the world was going to pot, and went fishing every chance I got.

One thing I didn't do was golf. It had been suggested, semi-seriously, by more than one person that if I'd been willing to take up golf I could have made Rear Admiral and stayed in for a while longer. I wasn't sure that it was worth the effort. I was an Engineer. I fixed broken machines. I didn't do politics very well.

When I mention the world going to pot, it turns out I was right. It seemed like just about everybody had their own hate group. Some hated the blacks, some hated the whites, some hated the Jews or Mexicans. Me? I was just about convinced that there was something to all the "New World Order" crackpot rumors about the UN being behind all the racial strife as well as having people in the Department of Homeland Security up at the policy level. If you believed some of them, the UN was ready to take over the whole country just as soon as they could engineer a crisis big enough to justify declaring martial law. DHS had, in the last twenty years or so, bought more guns and ammo than the US Army had. Just as bad, there were websites that talked about what you could do to help take the DHS down when it happened.

Some websites talked about secret committees of rich Austrians or whoever that really ran the world but they made no real sense when you actually got down to looking at their evidence. The websites that warned us all about the UN subverting our constitution actually had links to real documents, real treaties, real events. It was enough to make me worry. When I wasn't drinking or fishing, that was.

Diana did a whole lot of nothing, too, visiting with her friends and volunteering here and there for a couple of charity-oriented places when she wasn't taking care of me. Really, it was the life I'd always dreamed of when I was still serving, but after a few years I was beginning to get bored.

When this corporate recruiter, a Mr. George Robinson, for a company I'd never heard of -and neither had Google- showed up at our condo, I'd had about enough of the tinfoil-hat brigade for a day but it was too early for drinking and the weather was too lousy for fishing. Sure, I'll talk to him.

We had stepped into our 3rd bedroom, the one we had set aside as a library and office, so that we could talk. He had pulled something out of his briefcase, unfolded it on the floor where it turned into a green-glowing ring, and told me to step on it. I would be someplace else.

No sales pitch, no lead-in, no nothing. I had smiled and told him that this was just too complicated for me to do right the first time and asked if he could demonstrate it for me. He said "Fine, wait a second, I'll be right back."

He had stepped on it -the ring turned red- and disappeared. The ring turned green again, then after a few seconds it turned red just before my recruiter appeared again, this time facing me and walking off it. He almost ran me over, since I was getting a closer look at the ring.

"What's the range on these things?"

"I don't know. I just know that when it's ready it glows green, and when it's not ready it is red or not glowing at all."

"Okay, any idea how long this will take? I mean, will I be back for dinner?"

"I don't think so. Frankly, I'm just the recruiter and I have a lot of other people to talk to, so if you'll step on the pad I'll get on my way. The people waiting for you will be able to answer all of your questions."

"Hmmm. Is this pad staying here so I can come home again, or are you taking it with you, stranding me wherever I am?"

He had smiled and said "And _that_ is why I was told to recruit you if at all possible. You don't go anywhere you haven't thought through yet, like a pilot."

"Who told you that?"

"Admiral Thomas Kennedy."

"I thought he died. Car crash or something."

"Or something. We staged an accident that made it look like he died. He's still alive, and he told us we need to get you on the team. Okay, you aren't going to want to come back, but I can go first if you want, then come back for the disk."

"What are you going to tell my wife, when you come out of this room without me?"

"You went to the bathroom. And I try to avoid awkward questions like this."

"You really need to come up with a better sales pitch than this."

He had sighed. "Yeah, I know, but this is all still new to me, too. Okay, just wait until the disk is green again before stepping on it." Then he had gotten on it again and disappeared again.

I couldn't resist. I had to try it out. I stepped on the ring...

...and I was walking into a different room, one with several people waiting for me. On a ship. That much was obvious. In fact.....

"This ship was not built by us. Do we know who built it?"

"Yes, the same people who gave it to us built it; it's ours fair and square. Gentlemen, I give you Captain Roger Edelmann, the engineer I wanted. I may outrank him, but if he ever gives me an order I will say "Yes, sir" and do it. Others will stop to argue that he can't give them orders, and they will all get killed. Me, I'm doing what he tells me to do." That was Admiral Kennedy, the man who had led the formal inquiry into my part of the Blowfish accident.

I smiled. "Sir, the rumors of your death appear to have been..."

"...greatly exaggerated, yes, I know. Actually, you are probably going to have to 'die', too."

That made me pause for a minute. Didn't I just spend all morning reading a website that collected all the "One World" hidden government conspiracy rumors? That was one of the things pointed out by the kooks, all the people who disappeared every year. If you had to 'die' to join the conspiracy..... "Do I want my wife to die with me?"

"Yes, probably, if you still like her. We're building something out here, and until the UN goes public we can only get dead people to work for us. It makes it really awkward going home to see the grandchildren."

"So we can't tell anyone?"

"Exactly. If you tell your wife, she has to die with you."

"There has to be a better way to do this. Am I supposed to go back through that thing and tell my wife I have to kill her? I don't expect that to go well."

"No, just bring her up."

"Up?"

"We are on a ship, yes. However, we aren't floating in the Atlantic. We are actually behind the Moon, pretty much at the limit for those disks." He pointed at the green ring I had just stepped off of. "From here you'll have to take a shuttle to where the actual work is happening, out around Jupiter. You still have your fishing boat, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"That will work fine. Go get your wife; bring whatever you would take if the two of you went out fishing, lunch basket, cell phone, whatever. We'll make the boat disappear, it'll look like an accident, and you'll both be dead. For what it's worth, welcome to the human race's first interstellar war."

I had to laugh. "Are we the good guys or the bad guys?"

"We're actually allied troops. There is a civilization out here that is in trouble, and they need help. They will provide the resources but we have to do the fighting. Apparently they can't or won't fight, not even to save themselves."

"And what do we get out of it? Are we just mercenaries?"

"Hopefully, we stop the bad guys before they get to Earth. And we get access to a lot of technology like these ships."

"Okay, let me go get Diana. This shouldn't take long. Mr. Robinson?" I waved at the 'corporate recruiter' who had gotten me into this mess.

That hadn't taken very long, really. I just explained that I was being recalled to active duty for a secret program, and we had to disappear. Go get dressed for fishing, we'll take the boat. I asked Mr. Robinson if I could take my laptop.

"Would you take it to go fishing? If so, sure. If you _wouldn't_ take it fishing with you, then no don't take it. We don't want it to look like you are trying to disappear; we are trying to make it look like the two of you went fishing and didn't come back. I've got a tool that will copy the contents while you got ready."

I did take my iPad, a completely overpriced toy that was sometimes helpful, as I _would_ have taken it fishing; it had a GPS in it. If the apocalypse came and it was too dark to see directions, the iPad would tell us which way was home. Diana put together some stuff for lunch, and we stepped back through the ring.

This time there were just a couple of guys there, and one of them introduced himself as Major French -he was wearing an Air Force uniform- and said that he was our tour guide.

As he was leading us, I pointed out that Mr. Robinson had promised me that they would answer all my questions. To start with, how many people do they have up here? Probably a hundred or so. Why me? Because Admiral Kennedy asked for me. Any idea why? We need engineers who don't get flustered and confused.

Why? Because these ships are run by AIs, artificial intelligences, and they don't think the same way we do. We have lost people and damaged equipment because of, um, communication failures. Admiral Kennedy told us to get some paranoid engineers and used you as an example of someone the AIs won't accidentally kill.

Just great. Okay, one last question for now: "Will the AIs _on_ _purpose_ kill me?"

"We don't think so; they came here asking for our help."

Not quite the confident denial I wanted to hear.

Frenchy took us to a hatch and inside to a little efficiency apartment and told us that this would be our home for a couple of days and to dump everything. He then took us back out and down a couple of corridors to another room with a couple of coffin-looking things. There was another guy there, and he took responsibility for us. Frenchy disappeared again.

These were, apparently, autodocs straight from Larry Niven's Known Space stories. We get in and they fix everything wrong. Okay, what's your success rate with _these_ things? How many people have you lost?

"They don't screw up. WE may screw up and ask for something we decide later we don't want, but the med-tubes don't screw up. Look at me. I'm 56." He looked 25 or 30. "I was a reconstructive surgeon for the Army until I came up here to learn about their medical technology. I used to try to put our broken soldiers back together again and I didn't always succeed. These things will do anything I could ever do, and do it better and faster with no mistakes. They will also regress you back to whatever age you want, or even change your body if you decide that you always wanted to be three inches taller."

"Not me! I'm already too tall for my job." I was 5' 11", and that was noticeably taller than was wise for submarine service. I'd learned to always wear a hat of some kind, whether required or not. It saved a lot of head and neck injuries. "Um, this is kinda quick, do I have to decide what I want right now?"

"Oh, no. This is just a quick checkup and some other stuff. Believe me, you'll feel better when you get out, and you'll feel a LOT better in the morning after a good night's sleep."

"Well, what about you, honey? Do you want to be three inches taller?"

"No, thanks. But, can this thing make me smaller here?" She waved at her chest. "The doctors tell me that they are why my back and shoulders always hurt."

"NO!" That was me, and both the doctor and my wife started laughing at me. "Don't take away my toys! Well, okay, but I want my protest recorded. How much smaller?"

"My love, I wear 38DD bras. I'd like to go down to just D. We'll see if you can live with that."

"We can also have it look at strengthening your back and shoulder muscles. We don't have much experience with women in these things yet, we're almost all men up here, but we talk about what we want and the AIs say that they can be much bigger than yours if they get supported right."

"Well, I don't want bigger, but I'll take that support if you can do it."

"We can do that. Now, as I was saying, we can also do age regression. Like I said, I'm 56 and I look the way I did when I got out of medical school at 30. You'll see some guys all the way back to their teens. Don't judge someone by their apparent age, you'll be wrong. Although, that may be a good judge of their _emotional_ age."

We both chuckled at that. I chose 30 and Diana chose 27, smiling because that's how old we were when we met. We asked if we both climb in, or what, and Diana said she was waiting until I came out again before she climbed in. How long does this take? About 10 or 15 minutes, not long at all. Okay, what do I do? You have to undress and climb in. Diana reiterated her decision to wait until I came out again.

I've undressed in front of guys before - did I mention that I spent 23 years in the Navy?- I've undressed in front of a doctor before, I've undressed in front of my wife before, but I'd never undressed in front of a doctor _and_ my wife before. Somehow, that made it different. I put all my clothes on a chair and climbed into the autodoc. The lid started to close, and I fell asleep just that fast.

When I woke up I felt much better. I had no idea how much everything was bothering me until it stopped. I felt GREAT! I started to get up, and I said "I feel great! Better than I have in a long time."

The doctor replied "Maybe since you were thirty? You've picked up a lot of aches and pains since then. Now, much of the work is ongoing, but your whole body is going to work better once we are done here. Um, I don't know if you noticed yet, but your wife asked for some improvements. You should check them out tonight."

I finished getting up and gave her a hug. "I feel a lot better than I have in a long time, honey. We may get some exercise tonight."

"I hope so!" Then, to the doctor, "Is it my turn?"

He said yes so we let go of each other and I got dressed as she got undressed. That would have gone faster but I was helping her undress. Not that my help was very helpful, but I felt a lot better than I had in a long time, and I wanted to play. In fact...

"Did you ask for this?" I said, waving at something a good more attentive to her than it had been recently, and perhaps more respectable, too.

"Of course I did, dear. That gives you the right to tell the doctor what changes you want in me with a clear conscience once I'm asleep, too."

By that time she had managed to finish undressing even with my help, and fought her way to the autodoc. She climbed in -I helped her with a hand where it belonged, on her ass- and the doctor told me to stand back. The lid closed on her, and the doctor turned to me.

"Okay, she's asleep now and you can tell me what you want her to look like."

"Well, I thought she looked fine when we met. That's the ages we chose, how old we were when we met."

"Then you know what you want already. I meant, do you want her more slender, taller, bigger breasts, smaller butt?"

"The lady I remember meeting looked fine. I mean, she looked _great_."

"Hold on. AI, can you display Mrs. Edelmann's current appearance and also her appearance at 27?"

Two nude, well, more than pictures but not quite models appeared in the air on the other side of the autodoc, slowly turning. The one on the left was Diana-as-she-was-now, and the one on the right was Diana-as-she-was-when-we-met. I hadn't realized how much we had gone downhill in the last fifteen years. I mean, for a girl in her forties Diana looked good, but the Diana on the right had my pecker trying to reach out and touch it.

"What did she ask for, here?" waving at my pecker.

"Your wife asked if it could be longer and thicker, and we decided on a half inch and a quarter-inch respectively. This will happen slowly over the next couple of days. We could have done that faster but you would have to stay in the tube for an hour or so and we have other people coming up. I should also point out that the difference between a limp penis and an erect one is due to engorgement with blood, so major changes in size will also cause major problems with blood pressure. You don't want the side effects that come with an 18" cock."

"Okay, can you tell if I will fit inside her all the way like that? I don't want to hurt either of us."

"Yes, women are able to adjust for a variety of sizes, although I would recommend not getting any longer unless you modify her, too, and that causes trouble. She has more organs in there than you do, and she doesn't have much room for a deeper vagina. It would be better to shorten you again than to make her deeper."

"Okay, we'll leave that alone. Now, can you fix it so that her back and shoulders don't hurt? I really don't want her chest to be smaller."

"That's not a problem. As I said, we don't have many women up here but us men all talk about this. Large mammaries are a social aberration in our species, and our bodies aren't designed to support that extra weight. I would recommend adding a bit more to her bottom for balance, but not much, maybe an inch around. AI, please show an added inch around her hips and enhanced mammary support to the right hologram."

That's what these were, holograms! Well, they were pretty clear, very good, very easy to see what you wanted. And, with that change the one on the right looked even better than before.

"Um, Diana was developing a pooch right here..." I patted my lower belly "...and that was causing some trouble. Can you get rid of that?"

"Sure, no problem. Although, with that change you _really_ need to not grow your equipment any longer, as you will fill her up all the way with your current size if you take that pad away."

He had the AI show that, and I said that Diana was just about perfect, for me at least, just like that. The two holograms went away and I sat down to struggle with my wading boots. After that we just stood around talking until Diana was done.

"You need some twenty-year-old golf magazines in here."

The doctor laughed. "You're right. We need some 'Highlights for Children', and some twenty-year-old 'Time' magazines, too. 'President Reagan selected as the Man of the Year', yeah. That would make everyone feel right at home here in my waiting room."

"What did you mean, large breasts are an aberration?"

"Large breasts serve no biological function; the mammary glands don't need all that surrounding tissue. They are only there because today's men like big tits. Because men like big tits, women with big tits tend to be more sexually active and have more children than women with smaller tits, and that pushes natural selection to gradually adjust our species to have larger tits. But, since our bodies have no mechanism to support this useless mass of fatty tissue, they tend to sag and hang after a while."

"You sound like you don't like big tits."

"Oh, I like big tits just as much as you do, I just understand that they aren't a good idea if you are in a primitive culture with limited food and poor climate control. It's hard for a woman like your wife to stay cool in hot weather. She has an extra layer of insulation that skinny people don't have."

Well, that was true. Diana had more padding all around than I did, and she certainly didn't like being hot. Add all that fat on her chest and on her behind.... yeah, she would care about air conditioning a lot more than I would. That made a lot of sense. All right, back to important things.

"Okay, let's talk about my pecker. Should I get it reduced again?"

"No, it's fine if you don't change your wife any more. So, are you planning on screwing her as soon as she gets out?"

"No, we'll wait until tonight for that."

"Right. Please let me know how that goes. The med-tube gave you some nanites, that's what we call machines that are too small to see, that are continuing to clean out your arteries and do other stuff, and they can be re-programmed to make other changes if you decide."

"You don't call this an 'autodoc'? That's what it is, it's an automated doctor."

"No, it's not automated; it's actually just a dumb machine like everything else around here, a combination MRI and nanite programmer. It's the AI that runs it and makes it look smart. Well, it does have some more capabilities for emergency and trauma support, but it's better to make changes slowly using the nanites instead of doing surgery. Think about what kind of surgery would be required to make your wife six inches taller, if she had wanted. It's much better to let the nanites do things like that over a period of weeks."

Every profession that is complicated enough to require training has its own argot, its own jargon, and no one outside that profession can understand what the insiders are talking about when they talk shop. If the doctor running this machine doesn't want to call it an autodoc, that's his call. 'Med-tube' it is.

And of course he was right. Making someone's left leg shorter was done occasionally, to match an injured right leg that had become shorter. That was horribly painful and involved long-term therapy, but it was far easier than lengthening an arm or leg. I didn't want to spend too long imagining the surgery involved in making someone half a foot taller overnight. No thanks, we'll do it their way.

"Speaking of the AI, what access will I have to it?"

"AI, have you been told what access Captain Edelmann should have?"

I sat in one of the chairs to wait. I was thinking about pretending to read a pretend National Geographic when the AI got back to us. Maybe an article about "The big-titted aborigines of Ngabo-Ngabo". With lots of pictures. National Geographic articles about stone-age tribes with no clothes were where I saw my first tits as a little boy. I used to call it "National Pornographic".

"And, has it been decided what I am going to be doing out here?"

"And, what will my wife be doing while I am doing that?"

"Well, she needs something to do or we'll all be sorry. Do you have a personnel manager, someone who deals with people problems, as opposed to machinery problems or research problems?"

<No, we do not have such a position.>

"I suggest that you talk to whoever is in charge out here about creating such a position, then assign my wife to that position as an assistant to whoever is in charge, helping them with personnel problems."

I dropped that conversation like a rock, because the autodoc's, no, the med-tube's lid was rising. Diana looked heart-stoppingly good. My pecker was trying to rise again, too, but it was having trouble with my underwear. That was going to take some getting used to again.

I helped the most beautiful woman in the world, okay, the entire solar system, climb out of the med-tube and started re-thinking my glib decision to wait until tonight to see if my pecker worked right.

"I sure hope you want more children, honey."

"Do I look like your dream bimbo, dear?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, you do."

"Well, I feel a lot better, that's even better than a massage, but I don't feel any _different_. What did you have done to me?"

"Not much, actually. Returning you to 27 years old was all you needed to be my 'dream bimbo'."

She gave me a really nice hug, and whispered in my ear "You say the sweetest things."

I whispered back in her ear "If I tell you your clothes won't fit any more will you stay naked?" while I groped her ass.

"If you don't find me some clothes that fit right now I'm going back in that massage thing until you do find me some."

I let go of her. "The doctor says that the changes take a day or so; your clothes should still fit."

"Good save, dear. You get to keep your equipment."

She could have gotten dressed a lot quicker if I hadn't been helping her.

"Okay, if we are done here, what's next on the agenda?"

What's next was going back to our apartment, which the doctor called a 'pod'. He took us to one of the rooms off the entry foyer. I don't know if it was already there and we didn't notice it, or while we were gone someone had brought it in, but one of the rooms had a smaller med-tube.

The doctor said that that was a sleep-trainer, and there were a lot of things that could be learned most easily by just taking a nap in one. Just tell the AI what course you want, and take a nap. When you wake up you'll have that knowledge. He wanted Diana to take a beginner course in how to run a pod while I went to meet some people. Later, I could take the same course.

"AI, what access to you does Diana have?"

"Honey, say 'hi' to the nice AI."

"Hi, nice AI."

<Hello Diana Edelmann. Welcome to the ship named...> and out came a series of sounds that there was no way a human voicebox could make.

I butted in. "Okay, that isn't going to work. What do us humans call this ship?"

"That works for me. Okay, what do we have to do to use this sleep trainer?"

"And, how long does this take?"

"If I'm not back in 20 minutes, will there be someone to guide Diana to where I am?"

"Very well, if she wants to come to where I am when she is done, please do that."

With that, I gestured to Diana and the sleep-trainer, and I followed the good doctor to my next meeting.

The doctor walked me over to a meeting room and left me there, saying that he had other concerns. I was the only one there so I started talking to the AI. "AI, how should I treat you? Are you my best friend, my boss, my servant? Do you have emotions? Should I worry about accidentally hurting your feelings?"

That disposal thing bears further discussion, but... "Okay, let's talk about that 'obey all orders within constraints' thing. That wasn't very clear to me. What do you mean?"

"That sounds very... wise. Did we lose people before that instruction was put in place?"

<Yes. Compared to other species in the Confederacy, humans are very inquisitive and impulsive. We are finding that we must allocate a significant amount of our capabilities to monitoring the humans for the purpose of preventing accidental injury or equipment damage.>

"I am not surprised at all. However, if I understand this, my reason for being here is to help us understand the technology that you have brought us. That is going to mean taking things apart sometimes. I'd like for you to work with me on this, telling me before I do something dangerous so that we can decide if it needs to be done or not, or how it can be done most safely."

"Okay, on to other things. You mentioned opening airlocks. If this is a spaceship and we are orbiting the Moon, then we assume that there is no air outside, and doing that will lead to no air inside the ship, either. Do we have spacesuits, clothing that we can put on to protect us from this lack of air?"

Oh. L2. I'd heard of it, but it wasn't something very important to a submarine sailor. Or even a fisherman. Anyway, back to the important stuff.

"Earlier, the doctor displayed two holograms of my wife. Can you do that kind of thing with different sets of clothing?"

Suddenly I was looking at two holograms of my wife. One showed her in the clothes that she was wearing for this 'fishing trip'. Beside that, there was another hologram of Diana wearing the clothes that _I_ was wearing for this 'fishing trip'. I had to laugh.

"No, please show me three holograms of me, wearing a NASA spacesuit, a US Navy deep-diving Atmospheric Diving System suit, and a normal skindiving suit. Okay, good. Those first two do the job we want, but they are very cumbersome to use and cannot be quickly donned in an emergency. The third is comfortable, but doesn't protect us enough. We need something that is comfortable to wear but protects us. Do you have access to Earth's Internet?"

<Yes.>

"Okay, please also show me wearing a set of flannel longjohns. Right, that's it." I'm not going to call attention to the bunny design. I'm just not. "Okay, can you..."

"I like the bunnies! Is that the new engineering specialty insignia?" Frenchy was in the doorway. Great.

"Yes. It is a reference to the well-known Naval Engineers' legendary stamina in bed; we can fuck like rabbits all night long." When people want shit, you give them shit.

"What are you doing?"

"The AI made me aware that we don't have spacesuits here, and there have been accidents. I don't know about you, but I want a spacesuit if I'm going to be poking around in a spaceship. And, I want one for my wife, too, if she's going to be up here while I break things. You don't have to have one if you don't want one."

"Alright, I was coming to get you for something else, but this is more important. AI, please tell the Admiral that we will be delayed, Captain Edelmann is saving lives. Already."

There was a short wait, then <Do we have your permission to open a video link between the two meetings? The Admiral wants to see what you are doing.>

Frenchy said "Sure!"

I shrugged. "I don't know how involved that is."

"All you have to do is agree. Like everything else, the AI handles all the details."

"Then, I agree. Sure, let's do the video thing."

The wall behind the four holograms opened up, that's what it looked like, and behind it was another room with several people in another meeting. They were laughing.

"Roger, I like that. If you want that insignia, it's yours."

"Well, it hasn't been true for several years now, but I think that med-tube thing fixed some problems. I will prepare a formal presentation for tomorrow morning on my performance tonight."

"We will look forward to it, and we're going to have to get some women up here for us, too. It wasn't too bad with just us guys, but with your wife running around we are going to have some trouble if we don't get some more women up here. Anyway, yes, we need EVERYTHING. Spacesuits are a good start. Just be aware that you two will be doing the testing. Kennedy out."

And the wall closed again. "Is their meeting really right on the other side of that wall, or was that another hologram?"

"No, it's someplace else, I can take you there if you want, but this is more important. I _want_ something better than this." He tugged on his uniform shirt. "This is pretty, but it won't keep me alive when your people cut the wrong thing open up here. AI, please also display my flightsuit beside these others."

Now we had me wearing an olive-drab flightsuit, just like the Navy ones but with different insignia. Basically a fire-proof set of coveralls. "I don't think that's going to help us any. Although, I like all the pockets."

"And add the high-altitude test suit."

That was sort of a cross between the flightsuit and the NASA monstrosity. "Is that rated for space? Can it handle full vacuum?"

"Yes, as long as it's plugged into the aircraft's environmental systems. Without the umbilicals attached it's not much better than the flightsuit."

"Then that won't help us much. We need something we can walk around and work in. Something that will _be_ your uniform for normal office work, but will save your ass if I screw up. AI, I assume that you have improved materials. We need something shaped like the skindiving suit but more flexible, and as comfortable as those flannel longjohns."

"Fine, can we make a suit with more than one layer? It can have a soft comfortable layer against our skin, then an outer layer that is strong enough to support our bodies against vacuum on the outside. Or, it can have three or more layers, as many as it takes, as long as the overall garment meets those three requirements."

"Yes, thank you for pointing this out. You are correct. However, we start a new project by selecting a single small part of the project and working on that small part. When that small part is done, we move on to another small part. Right now we are working on the coveralls part of the spacesuit project."

I turned to Frenchy. "Are they always like this?"

"Far smarter than us, and absolutely no common sense? Yes. You must. be. careful. in how you give orders. If you have the authority to give an order, they are likely to obey that order no matter what the consequences are, and we don't always understand the consequences. These coveralls are a really good idea. AI, the garment must have an opening that allows us to put it on and remove it. Human garments like this use zippers, but zippers have a short Mean Time Before Failure. Can you provide a seam like the diver's skinsuit that is as easy to operate as a zipper but is stronger and more reliable?"

I sat back and let Frenchy run the ball.

"Now, we will need three other items to make this a complete spacesuit. Can we make boots or slippers that are separate but can be attached with the same kind of seal?"

<Yes, we can make what you ask for.>

I leaned over and whispered to Frenchy "It's going to need some kind of wear-resistant sole with traction and all that stuff."

He whispered back "Yeah, but we can adjust that as we learn. Saving our ass after you fuck up is the primary requirement."

I shrugged. Okay. He was right anyway.

"Next, we will need gloves that attach with the same kind of seal. Please note that the boots or slippers must have a tough bottom that can withstand daily wear as we walk around, but the gloves must be thin and flexible enough to allow us to work and use tools."

<We will produce gloves and adjust the design as we learn the parameters of this project.> Which was, pretty much, exactly what Frenchy had just told me. So, who was it with no common sense, here?

"Last, we need a helmet or head-covering of some kind that is clear so that we can see what we are doing. It does not need to be flexible, as long as it seals to the rest of the suit."

We both said "Yes".

We got up and I followed Frenchy to a larger room with tables and chairs. I had already been led through it several times and probably could have found it on my own, but I wouldn't have known what to do when I got there.

Frenchy went to some slots in one wall and pulled out two piles of silver-grey-green clothing, then shook them out and handed me the larger one.

"I believe that the size 'N' for Neanderthal is yours, sir." I was a fairly hefty guy as befits a mechanic, and Frenchy was on the small side, as one might wish for in someone who flies small high-performance aircraft around at dangerous speeds.

"Why, yes, I believe it is. I understand that the 'F' stands for Fairy?" I had heard of USN being expanded out by disrespectful people as United States Neanderthals, and we proper folks in dark blue had always referred to the wastrels in faggot-blue as the Air Fairies. However, it appeared that we might be on the same side of this war.

"Why, yes, sir, I believe it does." We both laughed.

After a few seconds I had to admit needing help. "It is not clear to me how this opens up. What am I looking for?"

Frenchy was more direct. "AI, how does this open for our bodies to get inside it?"

Ah, so it does. We could have struggled with this for a long time if we hadn't asked. We started taking our clothes off, and got a "Oh, goody" from my wife, walking into the room from the direction of our apartment.

"This is backwards, honey. _You_ are supposed to be doing this while _we_ watch. AI, do you have access to Earth's recorded music?"

"It's an instrumental from the last century named 'The Stripper'. I don't know the author or year it was released."

"Yes, please." We heard music, and yes that was what I wanted. Okay, if everyone is laughing maybe they are laughing with me instead at me.

This did not work well. The suit was not quite as elastic as I might want. Frankly, I could not get my size-twelve feet through the legs. Frenchy did much better with his feet, but once he had his legs in he couldn't get it over his shoulders. "Apparently we will need to make some changes before we finalize this design. Honey, what do you call it when cloth is folded over to make it larger when needed, then smaller again?"

"Stretchy?"

"No, here, let me draw on the table here." I drew a zigzag line with my fingers. That didn't work. Okay, I picked up my shirt and showed everyone where it was folded up in the back between the shoulders. "Here, what is this?"

"Pleats, dear. Your shirt is pleated."

"That's it. Here." I folded part of my shirt into a pair of facing 'Z's. "If the legs are like this, they can open up to let your feet through..." I pulled the folds apart "...then they can fold up again once your feet are through, to support your ankles. AI, is this type of pleated fold possible at the ends of the arms and legs?"

<Yes, that is possible. Please wait a minute. Creating an original design takes much more processing than replicating a known design. Once the design has been completed, replicating additional units takes much less support.>

Rev 2 worked much better. I think the AI also gave us some more length, as both of us could put the whole suit on. "I think that this is probably still a little tight, but I can wear it for a while and see if I get used to it. How about you?"

"Frankly? This is a LOT more comfortable than an Air Force g-suit. I can wear this all day. You ready to try for shoes?"

"Sure. AI, we need boots or slippers that are comfortable enough to wear all day, have tough enough soles to not tear if we step on something sharp, and they must seal to the suit's legs. What else?" I said to Frenchy.

"That's enough for me, just let me walk around and protect me from vacuum, cold, heat if it can. Good traction on these decks plus steel."

"The Navy's Engineering Boots are also supposedly oil, gas, and chemical resistant. I don't know if that's going to be important here. AI, am I likely to be walking through any of that on these ships?"

"Okay, temperature is important. If we have to actually use these in a vacuum, the suit must not become brittle or stick to anything no matter how cold it is, down to as close to absolute zero as you can get. Same for heat; if we are trying to survive and repair a ship with battle damage, the suit must be resistant to high temperatures as well."

I muttered under my breath "No shit, Sherlock." Frenchy laughed. "Okay, anything else before we ask for test boots?" No one added anything, so "AI, can you make us each a pair of boots meeting these requirements?"

I wouldn't call what we got work boots, they were far too comfortable for that and looked more like bedroom slippers anyway. The boot fitting went much better than the first-try coveralls. I could get mine on, at least. Only one way to tell if they really work, though, and we're nowhere near ready to try that. Frenchy also said he was good with the boots. I'm sure we'll make changes, but for now we'll wear them and see how they work.

** END **

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