There was long pause, which was rare for Bambi, whose brain worked at lightening speeds. Finally she said, “It’s a deal.”

  Mary let out a breath she had been holding and there where smiles around the table.

  Bet asked, “Why was everyone so nervous about that?”

  Mike bluntly told her, “Well, if Bambi gets pissed off at us, she could just vent out all of the air and be done with us.”

  Damn it Mike, I’ve told you before that I would never do that. The thought of being alone is worse than dying. Now Bet will be guarded with everything she says and that’s counter-productive.

  “Sorry.”

  The staff looked at him and he realized that they had not been privy to Bambi’s private admonition.

  He shrugged his shoulders and admitted, “Bambi took me to task for frightening Dr. Fulwiler. Bet, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have scared you.”

  She offered him a very weak smile. “Frankly, everything that has happened to me has been terrifying and exciting at the same time. Having a conversation with an AI is just a small part of it. Let’s move on, please. I’m sure there is more for me to be frightened of.”

  Max had some ideas. But before revealing them, he cautioned the staff not to fall into the trap of specific planning, until they learned more about this damaged ship.

  He said, “I’m just going to throw a few ideas out there and let you folks play with them in your heads. Find the flaws, which will be many due to our ignorance. And for God’s sake, please make improvements, if you can think of any.”

  He gave the others a chance to comment and when there was none, he continued. “If the damage is minor, the ship may not even wish to stop here. It’s possible that we’ll dodge a bullet. But, if the damage is severe and he wants our aid, we’ll have a chance to take it, if we move quickly.

  “Now, let’s consider the damage. Did it puncture a hole in the thing, leaving us a possible entry point? What systems are affected by the damage? Bambi has led me to believe that these ships have thousands of ways to function through redundant connections, so how badly affected could the ship be? I doubt we can count on any of its sensors or defensive mechanisms to be out of service. Bambi, am I right about that?”

  “General Kolbe, you are not entirely correct. It is possible for the ships systems to be disabled, if there was damage to engineering, the bridge and the back up bridge.”

  Mike jumped on that. “What back up bridge? You’ve never mentioned a back up bridge.”

  “The need to mention it has never come up, until now. There is a secondary control center, deep in the lower section of the ship, near engineering. In a combat situation, it would be staffed with two Saurans. They would be redundant, unless the bridge had been destroyed. All connections for every system flow through the engineering section and have many conduits in and out. If engineering is damaged, similar connections are located on the bridge and the back up bridge.

  “So, sir, it would be possible to prevent the ship from operating, if those three areas were…conquered.”

  Max’s expression was that of a poker player, revealing none of his thoughts. Mike had come to recognize that as his way of working through a problem, without revealing his thoughts on it one way or another.

  Finally Max said, “Well, I suppose that means we will have to assault all three at once. Bambi will need to supply us with her recommendations on where to breach the ship, in order to gain superiority over those key locations.”

  Mary and Bet gazed at him in wonder. Bet commented, “General, you talk as though it’s a given that we will succeed.”

  “Of course, dear lady. Otherwise, I’d be planning for failure and when I design an operation, I don’t do failure. In the earliest stages of putting together a mission, one has to start somewhere. As we identify reasons for success and failure, we will begin to refine the plan down to what is definitely doable, what is merely possible and what is impossible. Then we will plan for the impossible approach, because the enemy won’t believe we could do it.”

  Once again, Mike saw the ruthless, brilliant strategist joyously at work. It bothered him that Max never gave thought to casualties. He wouldn’t rein the man in just yet. But he would carefully review Max’s ideas and tweak them to avoid the worst loss of human life. Max thought like a theater commander and Mike could not avoid thinking as a Sergeant. He feared for his men and Max only cared about victory, although both approaches had their place in a combat plan.

  Max was in his element now and he pressed on with his thoughts.

  “Mike, small unit assault tactics are your area if expertise. You’ll need to consider how many men you need and what sort of weapons to use. I hate to say this, but we probably should take some sort of bomb, just in case. It should be something that could destroy the entire ship, if things go badly. We can’t have that ship getting loose and warning others.”

  He paused and sighed, before going on. “Which brings up another point. How do we prevent the Saurans from sending out a distress signal? Bambi, do you have any suggestions on that?”

  “In talking with you and Mike for the last few weeks, I think that I’m not the one to create a way to do that. Physically, I cannot prevent them from issuing an alert. The two of you seem to be very good at being deceitful. So perhaps you can fool the Saurans, without causing them to feel the need for alarm. Just keep in mind that all Saurans are cautious.”

  Wayne uttered a comment. “Maybe they should be afraid of us sending out an alarm about them.”

  Max jumped to his feet, as he slammed his hand down on the table. “Yes, of course. If we want him to buy the bullshit were selling, we have to act like a Sauran would. We will challenge him and make him convince us that he is not trying to pull a fast one on us. Bambi will withhold any explanation about what happened to the crew, until some sort of agreement has been confirmed. She must act very suspicious of this potential enemy, who alleges he is a Sauran vessel.

  “Even though, our computer has no Sauran to lead her, she’s still a Sauran programmed computer and should act as one, by showing great caution. She must be openly concerned about this new ship and demand extra volumes of proof, as to their intensions toward her. She desperately wants a new Senior Pilot, but she is reluctant to be taken over by a foreign party.

  “Once the two ships have worked out an acceptable agreement for cooperation, both parties will be more relaxed. Bambi will offer to send over human slaves to help with any repairs and they will have with them any replacement parts the other ship might need. If they will allow us to send over slaves, then we’ll have our chance to get on board, before the shooting starts.”

  Bambi pointed out another problem. “When direct communications initiate, challenges between Saurans must be made by both ships, before an exchange of circumstances can be revealed. Once each ship has achieved a satisfactory authorization from the other, the computers will talk to each other, behind the scenes. By that I mean, we will exchange a very complicated series of handshakes to verify what we would be expected to share. That would involve showing detailed segments of what had happened recently to bring both ships to this point of contact.

  “I would send them video of the actual message from the Senior Pilot, where he stated that they were about to die from the asteroid strike and the other ship would send me a record of their most recent event, explaining how they were damaged. This will take place in the first few seconds of our comm with her. They will still be weeks away. So, if they decide to come to us for help, or to render aid to a ship in need of a Senior Pilot, we will have our chance to capture them.”

  Mary asked, “Would you be expected to maintain a long conversation with them, until they arrive close to us.”

  “That’s doubtful, Major Hurst. No Sauran would bother to lower himself to conduct idle chitchat with a computer. Even their computer would be restricted from comming with me, other than periodic progress and location reports.”

  “Dad, we need to get those vets into the upgrade program ASAP.”

  Mike agreed. “Yes we do, but we’re going to let Bambi decide when their bodies are ready for it. I don’t want any man to suffer as much as I did, just because we rushed him into it. It’s going to be bad enough as it is.”

  Bet gave his wrist a little tug, as she told him, “We need to get the scientists through as quickly as possible, too. We’re not quite so old anymore, so we should be ready to be upgraded when the vets are.”

  She looked up at the ceiling and asked, “Bambi, how much longer do think it will be, before we can begin upgrading those who are willing?”

  Bambi answered, “I’d like to see it held off for three or fours days, but if we’re going to push extra fast, then at least two more days.”

  Mike decisively announced, “Let’s make it three days. We’ll explain every detail we have on the situation and allow these people to begin making their own recommendations. We can’t afford to let a good idea slide by, just because someone hasn’t been upgraded yet. Mary and Bet will prep the scientists; Wayne, Max and I will address the vets. Jo, you will bounce back and forth between the groups, to reinforce the reality of the existence of aliens who are not here to eat our children.”

  Bet hung her head and shook it, as she mumbled, “Oh dear Lord, Mike.”

  He looked down at her and realized how horrible that sounded. “Sorry Bet. I’ll try to remember not everyone has the same sense of humor as a combat vet. We deal with the horror of death and dismemberment through gallows humor. I guess it’s our way of denying that it’s an ever present possibility.”

  She smiled at him and patted his hand, saying, “I understand. I’m sure that approach will fly quite well with the veterans. But, when you’re talking with the scientists, please be a little more sensitive to their culture of civility. Oh, I don’t mean that you can’t cuss. You’ll find that most of us are quite capable of unleashing a tirade of vulgarity, when an experiment goes awry. Just avoid the ‘Eating Babies’ type of comment.”

  “Will Do.”

  Her smile and the habit she had of touching and patting his hand affected him in an unexpected way. He didn’t want to think which direction his mind was going, so he quickly moved on to the next topic.

  Mary brought up an awkward side effect of kidnapping the veterans. “Mike, what about the family members of the vets who got caught up in all of this. A few might want to be upgraded, but most still have additional family on Earth. They’ll want to go home and I don’t think it’s fair to wipe their memories of whom they were.”

  He shook his head and uttered, “Shit! I forgot all about them.” He looked around the table and pleaded, “Please, does anyone have any ideas about them?”

  Max said, “I might. During World War Two, when the Manhattan Project was underway, they would transfer whole families out to the site, telling them their loved ones were working on a top-secret piece of equipment and that they wouldn’t be allowed to deal with the outside world, as they once had. It was all about national security. Most of them hated it. But they understood and went along with it.”

  Mary disagreed with the concept. “These people already know what’s happened, at least as far as being taken to outer space and they’ve all seen Jo.”

  Mike spoke with the final command on the topic. “We don’t have time to concoct a special lie that will be difficult and time wasting to be believable. So tell them the complete truth. They can stay here and communicate with friends and family back on Earth, but there’s no way we can risk having them let the air out of the balloon this soon.”

  Wayne put in his version of how to handle them. “Dad, I bet we could offer them a job at Nellis. They would be watched by Bambi and be helping to prepare for Armageddon.”

  Mike looked at Max and told him, “Get a hold of John Oldfield and explain our dilemma. See if the President has a problem accepting these people at the Nellis, in our area. Once the world is officially told of the Sauran threat, those people can do what ever they want. We’ll even hold out the prospect of upgrading them at any time.”

  Max nodded. “He’ll raise hell and squawk about it being our fault that those people were kidnapped in the first place. But, I suspect, he’ll see the logic, under the circumstances.”

  Mike rapped his knuckles on the table and said, “Folks, we need to notify the Earth; and by that I mean the President. I don’t believe we should sugar coat it. I don’t know how I could if I wanted to, anyway. We’ll let him decide which members of his staff to consult about this. Right now, we need every good idea we can come up with.”

  There was agreement all around.

  He turned to Max and told him, “You’d better wait until after we chat with the President, to tell Oldfield about our little family problem.” Max nodded

  Two hours later Mike, Max, Mary and Bet, had a conference call with the President. They had contacted John Oldfield, the President’s chief of staff and told him there was a situation and that it would be best if the meeting were kept to a select group, primarily the President, Oldfield, Hardesty, the Sec Def and Pierpoint, the National Security Advisor and finally, Marge Chalmers the head of the National Science Foundation.

  Bet was surprised when she was invited in on the meeting. Mike warned her, “You must keep in mind that they don’t really recognize me as anything but a hindrance. They are well aware that I was a lowly Sergeant in the Army and a disabled vet, when Jo chose me to lead his rebellion.

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that you’ll be casting your lot in with this new nation of upgrades who do not recognize any government on Earth to give us orders. We are trying to avoid any one country’s bureaucracy from taking us over and bogging us down in bullshit. Dr. Fulwiler, you are either one of us, or still a citizen of the United States. I’m afraid you can’t be both.”

  Her brow furrowed and it was obvious she didn’t like that prospect.

  He told her, “Look at it this way, once you’re upgraded, never again will you be looked at, as being one of them, because you will be stronger, physically faster and a great deal quicker of mind than any normal human. However, you won’t necessarily be any smarter. Hugging a loved one could cause them extreme harm, if you’re not careful.”

  He looked concerned, as gazed at her and said, “Bet, I know you’ve indicated your desire to be upgraded. By your reaction to what I just told you, I suppose you’re rethinking that decision. So, I’m asking you again to join us right now, even though you have yet to be upgraded.”

  He watched her closely, as she pondered his words and made her choice. “Well, I have to admit, I don’t like not being a US citizen. I’ve been a proud American all of my life. But I do understand the obstructive nature of any bureaucracy and I don’t doubt that any government on Earth would love to have the entirety of this technology available to them and no one else. I can see how a group of politicians might use this technology to their own benefit.”

  She paused, as she closed her eyes in thought. Mike remained silent, allowing her to ponder this important decision. Finally, with firm determination, she told him, “So, yes…I’m with you.”

  “Good. Incidentally, I’ve requested that Marge Chalmers be present with the President. She seems to have a good grasp of our situation and she does a very good job of describing complicated topics to the President’s team, using layman’s terms.”

  Bet had a huge smile, as she said, “I’m sure she does.”

  John Oldfield came on the comm, announcing irritably, “OK, Mr. Hurst, we have everyone you requested in the room. What’s wrong?”

  Mike looked over at Bet, who looked puzzled, and then angry at Oldfield’s implication of Mike’s incompetence.

  Mike had Max give them a brief overview of the problem they faced, with regard to the damaged Sauran transport on the way into their solar system.

  When Max reached a stopping point, Mike Hardesty exploded, “Hurst, this is just the sort of thing that we were afraid would happen. You’re in no position to handle it. Give us everything you’ve got and we’ll take it from here.”

  Mike spoke with sarcasm, as he responded, “Oh thank God, Mike. What a weight off of my shoulders. Tell me please, would I be allowed to know how you’re going to handle it from down there.”

  With no effort to hide his hostility, he said, “Well, if you had let us in on this from the beginning, maybe we would be up there in your place.”

  Mike just couldn’t help baiting the man. “Again you right, Mike. Boy that sure would have been a relief to have you here, handling it, as you say. Hell, I bet you would already have the Saurans eating out of the palm of your hand, you slick bastard.”

  The President jumped in. “All right gentlemen, that’s enough. We have a serious problem and we need to use what assets we can muster to deal with it. This juvenile pissing contest that seems to come up every time you two speak with each other has got to stop. Do I really need to remind you both that the fate of the world is at stake here?

  “Now, Mike, you’ve had some time to think about this, what do you suggest?”

  Mike said, “I’m sorry, Mr. President. I’ll try and do better at controlling my temper. I’m going to have Max explain the ideas our staff has proposed, the problems to each as we see it, and the possible outcomes for each…good and bad.”

  He knew Max was more accustomed to giving these strategy presentations. So, it just made sense to have the old pro take it from here.

  There were very few questions during the presentation and most of those involved having Max repeat what he had just said. Mike thought, in the future, that would be unnecessary for upgrades, because they had eidetic memories.

  Hardesty was the first to comment and it surprised Mike. “Hurst, I hate to admit it, but capturing this damaged vessel is the only way to go. I see no alternative to letting it come into our solar system, and then bug out with the knowledge of our current situation. I’d like to send you three seal teams for the assault.”