“Stop blaming yourself,” Jeff said, Commander of the Free World Voice on Full. “That’s an order, Mother. We’re choosing to take what you’re saying at face value, and that means that you’re our friend and ally. You didn’t want us in this position, and it’s not your fault. Our enemies did this to you, and we will determine who they were and make them pay for it.”
“Thank you,” Mother said, and she sounded sincere. Had a feeling Jeff and Mother had just moved into the Friend Zone.
“What Jeff said, but I want to go back to Randy’s point, ’cause I think it’s the key one for this situation. Mother, can you extrapolate what would have happened if you hadn’t been in Protection Mode when that bomb went off?”
“Give me a moment.”
We waited for about two seconds. Was proud that no one fidgeted, not even me.
“Ah,” Mother said finally. “Based on running at least fifty simulations, without Protection Mode enacted, the warp core explosion would have created a chain reaction and the entire ship would have been disintegrated.”
CHAPTER 23
WE ALL LET THAT one sit on the air for a few long moments. There was a lot of that going around for this trip already, lucky us.
Broke the silence. “Gustav, let me just say that I think you’re da bomb in terms of ship and weapons design, and let no one tell you differently. So, whoever planted this bomb wanted the Distant Voyager to explode between Alpha Four and Vatusus. And it doesn’t take genius to figure out why.” Looked at Chuckie. “Though I’ll let our resident genius explain it, just in case.”
Chuckie nodded. “If the Distant Voyager explodes after the visit to Alpha Four, then everyone is suspect. Prince Gustav is dead, we’ve lost all of Airborne as well as A-Cs and astronauts, almost all of whom are tightly bound in to Centaurion Division in some way. Everyone’s upset and grieving and everyone blames everyone else.”
“Vatusus and Alpha Four in particular,” I added.
“And Club Fifty-One,” Hughes said.
Walker nodded. “Fanning the flames on Earth to their wicked little hearts’ content.”
“All of which means galactic war,” Reader said. “And galactic war between our allies.”
“I think that points to Club Fifty-One,” Serene said. “Because they want all aliens dead.”
“I agree. This isn’t the Tinkerer’s style. He wants Stephanie to be the next Ronald Yates, and she can’t become the Heir Apparent or the Renaissance Girl for Evil if the galaxy is destroyed. And I don’t see this as being something the Shadow would want, either, because she’s able to look at the bigger picture and see how she can rule the galaxy in the right situations.”
Jeff sighed. “I agree, baby. I just wish we could get this intel to your mother.”
“We are out of range,” Mother said. “I could get a message to Earth via a variety of means, but none of them would be secured.”
“So, once we’re home, we’ll get right on this. Mom will already be looking at Club Fifty-One suspiciously. She and my Uncle Mort may have found our culprit before we get home. And, while I’m tingling that we’ve figured out why we’re stuck here, I don’t think that whoever set the bomb is who helped Jamie choose this particular crew roster. And knowing that is probably more important right now.”
“We need to ensure that there aren’t more bombs,” Chuckie said. “Mother, is there a way you can scan for anomalies?”
“I believe so.”
Drax indicated that I should give him my helmet, which I did. “I can assist with this.”
“While you’re at it, I think getting the ship working again is the most important thing,” Jeff said, sarcasm meter at seven and rising.
“With my creator’s assistance I can create the parts necessary to fix it, but I cannot fix it myself.”
Drax sighed. “This is true. So unless Kitty’s hails for help have worked, we may have no choice but to train one of the children to do what’s needed.”
Jeff’s mouth opened. Put up the paw. His mouth shut. The One True FLOTUS Power in action. I liked this power and really hoped I’d always have it, even when Jeff wasn’t the President anymore. “Pause.” Now I wanted to hear Pitbull. “I think I may have a solution. But I need to steal Tim for a minute. We’ll be right back.”
He took off his helmet quickly. “Sure, let’s go.”
Reader gave us both a beady look. “Want to tell us what the two of you are up to?”
Grabbed Tim’s hand. “Nope. Not yet.” Then I turned up the hyperspeed and we zipped off.
“What are we doing?” Tim asked.
“Hoping to visit the Wallflowers in their “Invisible City,” dude, what else?”
“Huh?” Tim jerked. “Oh. Gotcha.”
Did a run-by to make sure that everyone in the Nonessential Personnel Station were okay, my kids in particular. Everyone seemed fine and I didn’t see evidence of barfing, so either someone had broken the “stay in your seats” directive, or everyone had managed to survive our horrific ride out of warp with their stomachs’ contents intact.
Then headed for our special maintenance closet and zipped inside. There was no one there.
“Um . . .”
“Oh, great,” Tim groaned. “Now we’ve lost the stowaways.”
“Why do these things always happen to us?”
“No idea, but a part of me isn’t surprised at all.” He looked worried. “You don’t think one of them is the traitor or whatever we’re after, do you? I mean, we know nothing about the Ard Ri. Other than that’s he’s kind of pompous.”
“Um . . . it occurs to me that we have someone who can literally go invisible on Team Tough Guys, and they all have nasty senses of humor, so . . .”
“I mean,” Tim said quickly, “the Ard Ri is totally regal.”
Everyone we were looking for appeared. Siler grinned at us. “Glad one of you could figure out what was going on.”
“We heard footsteps,” Wruck said, “and the Ard Ri suggested we go invisible just in case.”
“Of course he did,” Tim muttered, while Algar glared at him. Knew Algar wasn’t actually mad. Clearly he was having fun with Tim, in that Cat Playing With A Mouse kind of way. Maybe he, like the kids, was looking at this as a vacation.
“How did you guys manage during the Turbulence From Hell section of our journey?”
Wruck gave me the “really?” look. “I shifted into a form that protected everyone.”
“Giving myself the ‘duh’ on that one.”
“Hey, we were worried about you guys,” Tim said. “Forgive us for not thinking of everything.”
“But that’s your jobs, laddie,” Algar said. “To do all the thinking.”
“Hardly.” But had to figure that was an Algar Clue of some kind. “However, we have a situation.” Brought them up to speed on the latest. “So, I honestly think you all need to come out of the closet. James is on deck to help you through it.”
Tim snickered while I got a lot of eye rolls. “Not sure we can trust the AI,” Siler said.
“Not sure that we can’t, however. And, frankly, without Mossy, we’re going to have to make one of the kids work in the warp core, and let me just mention how against this Jeff is and then share that if you think Papa Bear is against it, you ain’t seen Mama Bear in action.”
“If you’re wrong about the AI, Missus Executive Mama Bear, then we give away our only advantage.”