“Absolutely.” The hail button flashed again. Felt confident that I knew which one it was versus the internal hailing button. Go me.
“Got it, thanks.” Pushed this button down as my requested reinforcements arrived. “Sandy, if you’re out there, this is Kitty and we need your help. Just you, hopefully, unless the rest of the Seven Dwarfs are feeling charitable toward me and mine. This isn’t how we planned to visit, but since we’re in your neighborhood—help, we need somebody, but not just anybody.” Let go of the button. Who knew? Maybe Sandy had gotten into the Beatles somehow. “Mother, please make sure that goes out a lot. Toward the nebula.”
“Broadcasting. I . . . apologize.”
“For what?”
“For this situation. It should not have happened.”
“None of this should have happened,” Tim said. “Something’s off, more off than Mother’s decision to take control.”
“Someone activated the Protection Mode,” Drax pointed out. “That indicates tampering.”
“No, that was me,” Mother said. “I activated due to what I saw in the DreamScape. The fate of the galaxy is at stake. And now we are stranded.” She sounded stressed.
“Okay, that makes sense,” I said. “But us being tossed out of warp does not, and Mother, stop blaming yourself. We’ll figure out what’s going on and fix it, I promise. And I’m willing to bet that whoever did whatever tampering is also likely the person who influenced who is and isn’t on the ship.”
Chuckie nodded. “It makes sense. And you named our two most likely culprits earlier: the Tinkerer or the Shadow.”
“Could be someone else,” Brian said. “Remember, the Club Fifty-One True Believers are against space travel, unless it’s taking aliens away from Earth.”
“Gustav, is Mother acting erratic to you in any way? And, before you say yes, know that I mean erratic aside from her activating the Protection Mode thingy. Because what she did with that seems like a failsafe.”
“Yes, Kitty, Protection Mode is a failsafe. I did not realize that . . . Mother . . . was so self-aware, however.”
“You programmed me to think,” Mother pointed out. “And I am thinking.”
“We’re back to Kubrick territory,” Tim muttered.
“Again, we are not,” Mother said. “I must stress, Commander, that I am not going to harm any of the passengers or crew. It is not in my makeup.”
“Neither is being thrown out of warp,” Jeff pointed out. “And yet, here we are.”
“No, there is a difference,” Mother said. “Protection Mode and my making decisions to protect all crew on the ship and, by extension, all life in the galaxy is absolutely in my makeup. However, a hardware malfunction is not something that I would choose to do. If we are stranded, then the safety of the crew is at risk, which is counter to my entire being. Being thrown out of warp is a dangerous thing, as you have just experienced, and therefore is not something I would willingly do unless it was the only way to preserve life. It was not, and was not my choice.”
“Why didn’t you answer us when we were asking you questions, right before we were tossed out of warp?” Chuckie asked.
“I had detected that there was an issue with the warp core. I was determining the nature of the problem and whether I could repair it. I still do not know what happened and I fear that I cannot enact repairs alone.”
Chuckie nodded as if this was the answer he’d expected. “Sabotage. Likely done before the AI, excuse me, before Mother went online.”
“And things like that only take a pawn.” Got a lot of WTH looks, but then, the girls weren’t up here. Heaved a sigh. “Operation Drug Addict, remember? Whoever spiked Jeff’s regenerative fluids wasn’t a Top Dawg but a pawn who slipped in and out without anyone noticing. I’d assume the same happened here.”
“Makes sense,” Chuckie said. “So, we don’t care who did it, just on whose orders they were working.”
“Mother, have you determined what’s wrong yet?” Jeff asked.
“No. But, as I said, I believe it is something within the warp core.”
Drax heaved a sigh. “That will require help we don’t have.”
“Help like who?” Reader asked. “We have a lot of people on board, many of whom are more than capable of assisting.”
Brian nodded. “We were all trained in how to repair this ship. With you on board, Mister Drax, I don’t see why Airborne and I can’t repair anything needed, even if we have to go external to the ship.”
Drax shook his head. “For most repairs? Yes, all of you are trained and I am here. However, the warp core is not created out of my smart metal, meaning I can’t connect with it in the same way I can with the rest of the ship. The warp core is delicate and it requires someone . . . small to do intricate repairs.”
What Mossy had said registered. “Oh. The Turleens helped you with that part, didn’t they?”
“They did indeed,” Drax confirmed. “And without a Turleen on board, we could be in trouble. I would not want to ask the children, no matter how talented, to perform these tasks.”
“Yeah, hells to the no,” Jeff said calmly. “We’ll figure out another way.”
“There may be no other way,” Mother said. “While you have been speaking I have determined what happened. The warp core drive exploded. It was a small, contained explosion, only damaging the core.”
Serene’s eyes narrowed. “Contained explosions like that take skill. Getting someone in place to insert one in a way that no one involved noticed takes even more skill. I don’t think we should count out anyone as a possible suspect, but Club Fifty-One has had my bomb micronization data the longest.”
“But our enemies all tend to share information,” I pointed out. “So there’s still not enough for us to go on to figure out who planted the bomb.” Though, per what Mossy had told me and Tim, that this was doable was because Mother wasn’t set up to notice someone fiddling with something small that didn’t seem important.
“So someone wanted us to strand, but not to die,” Brian said. “But, reality says that whoever that was didn’t know that it would be this crew getting stranded. I’d think they expected that the planned crew would be who was on board.”
“Based on how long we were in warp,” Jerry said, “I think that means they expected us to strand after we’d visited Alpha Four but before we got to Vatusus.”
“Why?” Joe asked. “That’s the question. Because if we were between Alpha Four and Vatusus, we’d be able to get help quickly.”
“Maybe,” Randy said slowly. “But . . . maybe the bomb didn’t do what it was supposed to.”
Drax jerked. “Protection Mode would have enhanced the ship’s own protections.”
“Yes,” Mother agreed. “I believe that due to my full awareness of the situation, I was able to identify and curtail some of the effects. Not as much as I should have, however.”