Starship Armstrong - Season 1

Part 64 - Dragon Slayers (XIII)

"Yeah, see, your problem is you can't sustain a sensor link in all that noise," said McAfree "You're asking for too much of your equipment, and more than you need. Foundation tech is always as redundant as four pairs of socks. You can get more than enough input to put together a perfectly adequate output if you just maintain a pattern of sensor pulses rather than a single sustained lock. I just had to set up the system to compare the results of the individual pulses so it can discard anything that's been clearly corrupted. You'll have a delay, maybe five standard minutes tops at any given point, but it should otherwise be able to tell you everything you could otherwise pick up."

"Wait," said the Captain "Had to? Past tense?"

"Yeah she's finished already," said Marceaux "I didn't know you could do that kind of stuff with the sensor software."

"That's why I write everything in machine code," said McAfree "Programming languages may be quicker but you can't get top-level results being lazy."

Wagner turned his head to look the Captain in the eyes, and the two enjoyed a moment of perfect nonverbal communication. "Exhibit A," said Wagner, with his eyes.

"So I don't know the protocol but am I dismissed or do you have more chores or..." asked McAfree swirling her hand in the air "Because I'm sort of busy..."

"You're dismissed," said Littlecrow, making an imperfect attempt to hide her smile.

Just shy of twenty minutes after she arrived on the bridge, McAfree had solved the sensor issue and breezed out.

"Should I ask what she's busy with?" asked the Captain.

"If I had to guess, I'd say she's probing the Armstrong's computer systems for weakness. She and Dr. Kang are trying to disconnect the Science Department from the rest of the ship again. But you didn't hear it from me."

"You did good, Ensign. I'm glad to see there's at least one person in the Science Department who I can count on."

"Thank you, Captain," said Wagner "I appreciate that."

"So... Ensign Marceaux," said the Captain, turning slowly to face ops "What have you got for me?"

"I'm reading all four insignias," said Marceaux "Three are together, one is by the crash site. All four are attached to living humans."

That was Marceaux's way of saying everyone was okay.

"What's the delay like?" asked the Captain.

"Minimal, just a few seconds," said Marceaux "It'll go up and down depending on how many pulses get garbled at any given moment."

"Gather as much data as you can," said the Captain "Keep me abreast of anything unusual."

* * *

The last thing Ensign Gul wanted was to be alone with his thoughts, and yet here he was.

Keo was dead. They had both been willing to die when they signed on to the Armstrong, but Gul had never considered if he had been willing to lose Keo. It wouldn't have seen like a legitimate threat to him even if he had. They had been so optimistic then...

Ensign Gul was pleased for the distraction when he saw four distant figures approaching. The figures were men riding beasts that resembled furry, slavering spiders with toothy mammalian maws. They growled and screeched as the riders rapidly approached.

Gul waved at them.

"Greetings," he shouted "I'm Ensign Gul of the Huxley-"

The two riders in front drew wicked looking swords from rusty scabbards with an ugly scraping noise. The two in back notched arrows into bows.

"-Foundation-"

The archers in the back loosed the first two arrows at him, barely missing, while the swordsmen began to gallop ahead straight towards Gul.

Ensign Gul slung his coilgun off his back and lined up the sight.

An ion weapon was precise and elegant. A coilgun was different. Effectively a man-portable mass driver, the coilgun fired metal slugs at a significant fraction of light speed. The resultant explosion was not particularly elegant and anything but precise.

It had seemed to Ensign Gul like a good weapon with which to work through some of his emotions.

Gul fired three quick shots, and accuracy was largely superfluous. All three hit close enough for the explosions to violently dismount the four targets. They fell to the ground in a heap, accompanied by a good portion of the surrounding terrain. Two died instantly. The other two were mangled and broken.

Gul slowly walked up to the survivors, bracing his gun on his shoulders.

"As I was saying," said Gul "I'm Ensign Nasir Gul with the Huxley Foundation Starship Armstrong."

He aimed his weapon in the general direction of the fallen riders.

"We come in peace."