Minerva: An Alicia Jones Novel 06 Read online

  Kristi stuck her tongue out at me, which made everyone giggle.

  Nora asked, “So how is married life treating you Kristi? And Alicia, you need to tell me all about Bill, he’s gorgeous, is it serious or?”

  Kristi smiled, “So far so good. I think it helps that he’s gone most of the day, I really miss him by the time he gets back. We’re also working on our first child.”

  Senna smiled, “Good luck, you’ll have to invite us to the birthing.”

  Huh, another of those weird cross culture things no doubt. Baby shower and birthing all at the same time? I answered Nora’s question.

  “Bill and I are serious I think, he hasn’t proposed yet, but it’s still kind of early. I have no complaints, he’s a southern gentleman, a lot of fun, supports me, and keeps me happy. In more ways than one.”

  Actually he was a godsend.

  The last month hadn’t just been hard because of this ship, or working to get Minerva ready, or even missing the Earth and my family, it was mostly because of what I’d done to the Bugs. I knew all the arguments of course, and agreed with them, but my heart had not rested easy with the massacre I caused that day.

  Bill had helped me a lot that way, although it still continued to bother me at times. I didn’t think I’d ever really be happy with it, and when it came down to it I knew deep down that I shouldn’t ever be content with the actions I took.

  Kristi giggled, “So at least we know you’re thinking about marrying him.”

  I silently cursed the evil wine for putting holes in my brain to mouth filter, and then took another sip.

  “I guess I am. Still, I’m not in a hurry either.”

  Honestly I was fairly sure that’s where it was going. It was kind of a whirlwind courtship, and then suddenly were living together. Having separate quarters was pretty much just a fiction at this point, except for having a separate space for my stuff.

  The rest of the afternoon and into the evening we had a blast, mostly talking about the men in our lives. The conversations got a bit bawdy as well, in direct proportion to the amount of wine we imbibed. At the end of the day, we somehow managed to walk them back to their shuttle in a weaving pattern.

  Thank god for A.I.s that could fly spaceships, because they weren’t sober enough to operate a chair that had wheels, much less an interstellar vehicle. Not that I should’ve been throwing stones myself in that moment.

  Chapter Three

  Bill smirked when I got in, and I gave him a questioning look.

  He drawled, “Had one of my A.I.s report an infraction, turns out there were drunk people wandering around in the third ring. It was sad, I couldn’t even arrest them, and decided to overlook the rules this one time.”

  I frowned, “Really? Who would do something like that?”

  I looked at him innocently, and batted my eyelashes.

  He chuckled, “You have fun at least? I got dinner waiting for us.”

  I immediately felt guilty, “You didn’t have to wait for me, but thank you. I had a great time, it was good to see them. Food does sound good though.”

  I winked and headed over toward the kitchen.

  “Al, remind me to check with Karen to see if we got a lot of complaints today.”

  I thought it was rather strange that I hadn’t been interrupted once during the day. They must have conspired to give me a break.

  Al replied, “There were one hundred and forty-three complaints today, but a hundred and three were for the same thing.”

  Bill came in and served us dinner, and I tried to ignore whatever the complaints were, they would either be solved or wait for tomorrow. I asked questions to distract myself.

  “What’d you do today?”

  He smiled, “Well, the gravity restraining system was put to an interesting use today.”

  I raised an eyebrow, “What was that?”

  He cleared his throat and he got that deeper twang in his voice when he told a story. My soul reading told me this one was actually true.

  “Well see, this young man, a son of one of the scientists, fifteen years old and one of the older children aboard went to the park in the center of the ship, assumingly because he was bored. Now as you and I know, bored children know how to get into trouble. Anyway, this boy decides the keep off signs were actually an invitation to enter a grove of small trees where some new bushes were planted.

  “So of course, the security system warned him, twice, before it plucked him right out of there and dropped him at the entrance. The other kids saw it, and thought it was cool, so they started to… take rides by breaking the rules.”

  I started to giggle at that point, I could picture that, and it’s something I’d have done as a kid.

  “So needless to say, I needed to program in some new responses, so they all weren’t dragged off to the brig after the third violation.”

  He snorted, “I also set up a spot they could go to without breaking the rules, and of course now that it was sanctioned, they stopped doing it immediately. Kids.”

  I sighed, and wiped tears out of my eyes from laughing so hard, maybe I was just a little too tipsy, but his recitation had me in stitches, and the complaints were long forgotten.

  After dinner it was pretty late, relatively anyway, and we turned in for the night…

  The next morning, after coffee, breakfast, and more coffee, we found out what the most numerous complaints were and I called for a mid-morning brief followed by a question and answer session. I was once again behind a podium, but it didn’t seem so bad this time, just a room full of scientists, none of the families were here for this. I still wasn’t comfortable though.

  “Good morning. It seems that many of you have an issue with not having small fabricators in your lab space. There are many fabricators in the second ring, dedicated to your labs first, and then to other creations for living needs. I’m not sure what the issue is, you submit a build, it gets built, and it gets delivered. Perhaps one of you can tell me why this is a problem?”

  One of them stood up, and said, “It’s a security issue, if we share a fabricator, others will be able to look at our designs.”

  I frowned, “Okay. Let’s leave off the fact that this is an open source type of effort, where there should be no huge secrets. That defeats the purpose of our gathering, and denies any synergy others might have to build upon or even help with your project.

  “That said, you’re incorrect. There’s no security issue. The fabricators will work per user, no one else will be able to see or use a design you submit, even if they use the same fabricator, unless you specifically share it with a colleague. Your pieces will be delivered by A.I. in controlled artificial gravity fields, so there’s no way for someone to steal your stuff without getting caught. Did you not read the manual? Or even simply ask your A.I.s? They have access to that information.”

  Damn scientists, they obviously didn’t R.T.F.M., even worse, they didn’t ask their A.I.s before complaining.

  The guy looked annoyed, but sat down.

  I went to ask if there was anything else, but held my tongue and felt amused as I heard them all murmuring to their A.I.s. A moment later three quarters of them got up, gave me a rueful grin, and then left the room.

  “Something else going on?” I asked the remainder of the scientists, about thirty-two or so by a glancing count.

  One of them cleared his throat, “Not about the lab no, we were led to believe this was a fully functional city. Some of our spouses have complained about the lack of night life or things to do.”

  I nodded slowly, “I can relate.”

  There were a few small smiles at that, and I continued, “We believed the best route to take was to offer support jobs in the city to the families of the scientists, that way your spouses would have something to do if they were interested in working. We’re working on getting some people in for that.”

  I paused for a moment and then said, “We are just starting out, yesterday was the launch of our colony, and I ask eac
h of you for a little patience while we get those things sorted out. It won’t be long. Most new worlds start out with much less than we’ve provided.

  “In the meantime, until that is established, you can always visit your home world for a weekend or another world altogether. I’m not sure what else I can do about that. Anyone else?”

  Another cleared his throat, “Some of our wives have seen on the news that you’re wanted on Earth, and there is speculation that they may come to get you? We were all told by our governments that we’d perfectly safe, but they never really said how or why. Still, is there anything we might tell our spouses to assure them we aren’t in danger by being here?”

  I frowned, damn state secrets. But then I wasn’t eager to talk about my military superiority either. Which… I supposed that made me just like them.

  “The systems I use to ensure your safety are top secret, but I can say this station stood off more than a thousand Earth ships a month ago without any fatalities, and most of your governments had ships here in system and witnessed it. The details of that have been classified by all worlds involved.

  “Earth may be angry, but they are not in a position to follow up on that right now. As I’m sure you all know, I took care of eighty-five Bug colonies with that same technology, without assistance from any other worlds, and with only six ships. We are safe here.”

  They didn’t look entirely happy about my partial answer, but they also seemed to have expected it. Things broke up after that and they all went back to work. I decided to do some of that myself and went to my assigned lab space, which honestly was more like an office, since my actual lab space was still out in the void.

  It was a place of privacy that wasn’t my home. I suppose it lent some normalcy that way, keeping my off time and work time separate.

  “Al, anything going on I should know about?”

  Al cleared his throat, “Earth is developing a new type of ship, I believe it is a large scale stealth ship built in the style of Tressia’s. Of course, like all stealth ships and the stealth sensor net, it is fully visible in subspace.”

  He paused a moment to indicate a change in subject, “Your family is being audited and otherwise pettily harassed by government agencies the last couple of days. Finally, the ten million light year scan database will be completed in two days and eight hours.”

  “Wait, go back, harassed?”

  Al replied, “Just questioned I think, about you and what you were like as a kid. I think they want to get inside your head. However, that is pure speculation on my part.”

  Damn, I hated that my family had to go through that, but it was probably inevitable, and could be worse.

  I sighed, “Alright, hopefully they’ll back off soon. What else?”

  Al continued, “Earth is sending a representative to talk to you, they should be here later today. Karen also wants to speak to you if you have time today.”

  When he didn’t go on I asked, “Any progress figuring out the Drenil communications through shield manipulation?”

  Al sounded almost amused, “No, I would have informed you.”

  I sighed, so no science, just more admin crap. I got up and headed for Karen’s office, might as well get it over with…

  Chapter Four

  “Hi Karen, how’s the family?”

  She smiled, “Dr. Jones, thanks for coming by, Al said he’d arrange it. They’re doing good, a little bored but I’m working on that issue. There are… problems.”

  I smirked, and took a seat, “I figured there would be, what’s the major road block?”

  She sighed, “It’s mostly the not getting paid part. I get that they’d have free access to build and make whatever they wanted, far more than they could get access to back home on their current salaries, especially for such jobs as waitressing, running a storefront, or even the manager of a club. Even the severance retirement package if they decide to move back home where they’d need money doesn’t seem to be enough.

  “I think you’re just too evolved for most people. I like the concept, and my apartment is loaded with crap I don’t use that I could never have afforded before, but I think that’s the stumbling block. It’s purely mental I think, they hear no pay and their hackles go up and they ignore the rest of the information that makes it make sense.

  “There is another problem. For non-scientists to get a support job and move here, there is the rule they have to work, or they can’t stay, but if they do work they get everything they want. Like I said though, most aren’t biting the offers. The other problem I mentioned is for the scientist’s families, there’s no rule that says they have to work or leave, they’re here with their spouses who have a job.

  “I’m afraid human… humanoid nature is asserting itself. They can already make or have anything they want without working, so right now they are taking the lazy way out, and then complaining because they’re bored and have nothing to do. After all, why work if they can live in luxury without it?”

  I frowned, “I have a lot of money, but I can’t afford to pay everyone, not if we are giving away the tech that is discovered here. Any ideas on how to fix this?”

  She looked amused, “Of course I do, I called you in here to fix it.”

  I laughed, “Fine, I deserved that. I can’t change it now, if we start paying then we become just another company, because we’d have to sell the inventions, which takes away the whole point and draw of the place for worlds to send their scientists to us.”

  Karen nodded, she clearly got the crux of the issue, but how could we fix it?

  I tilted my head, “Add on a free personal shuttle capable of interstellar flight, if they stay for a year. If we can get them here and show them the advantages of this type of society for that long, hopefully most will stay after that.”

  Karen frowned, “Don’t they already have free use of a shuttle to visit home if they move here? The hangar is filled with them.”

  I nodded, “Sure, but you said they weren’t reading into it very far, once they see no-pay they run away. So put free interstellar shuttle right up front, which most people could never afford, and avarice will urge them to read the whole thing and make a more reasoned decision.

  “Plus, the shuttles are just for borrowing, these will actually be theirs. If they leave after a year they get to keep them, unlike the shuttles in the bay. We’ll have to limit the technology on them of course, no triple shielding, or weapons, but the rest should be okay.”

  She grinned, “That might work. I’ll get on it right away. Is everything good with you?”

  “Yes, just busy. I’d complain, but all this was my idea so I need to suck it up. Umm, you wouldn’t happen to know what the Earth rep is about, who it is, or why their coming?”

  Karen nodded, “Nadia Avdonin, the only why is and I quote, to discuss matters of state. I assigned her one of the guest suites.”

  I blew out a breath, not sure how I felt about seeing my old friend again. We hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, but not the worst either.

  “Alright, thanks Karen. Let me know if the ads still have trouble, and we’ll try and think of something else.”

  God only knows what…

  It was just a few hours later that I stood outside the door to the landing pad assigned to Nadia. Kristi was along as well, for moral support if nothing else. The earth battlecruiser had entered our solar system, and Nadia launched a few minutes later in a shuttle.

  Al reported, “Shuttle has touched down, and is secured.”

  I sighed, and opened the door.

  Nadia came out and walked over with a tentative smile on her face.

  “Alicia, Kristi, it’s good to see you. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry things went so wrong.”

  I sighed, “Nadia, it’s good to see you, a little unexpected though all things considered. Would you like to see your accommodations or go somewhere we can talk?”

  She shrugged, “Both?”

  I nodded, so much for keeping it on the p
rofessional level. We walked to ring two, it wasn’t that far all things considered, the pad she’d been assigned to, was as close to her assigned quarters as possible. We went into the three room suite.

  “Drink? The place is stocked with sodas, coffee, and we can get some wine here if…” I trailed off.

  Nadia smiled, “Coffee works.”

  I could use one myself, which was no surprise to anyone. We went into the kitchen, and they sat down while I put together a pot of coffee.

  Kristi asked, “So how are things on Earth, I’ve heard things are more split than ever.”

  Nadia shook her head, “It isn’t good, half the population wants to string up our world leaders for chasing their heroine away, and the other half wants to string them up for letting you escape. If it makes any difference, I voted no on the idea of surrounding your ship like that and trying to take you into custody. Gerald and Jonas did as well. We were outvoted though, four to three by China, Japan, the U.S., and Germany.”

  I hit the brew button and started to gather cups, sugar, and creamer. Then I turned toward the table and leaned on the counter.

  “It eases my mind somewhat, but it doesn’t change anything. I’m surprised the Russian president didn’t want me taken though.”

  Nadia cleared her throat uncomfortably, “He actually did want you taken. I thought that was pushing things too far though, and voted my conscious, I’ve been paying for it ever since. Worse, it didn’t even make a difference.”

  Kristi asked, “Then why are you here, I mean why didn’t you get recalled?”

  Nadia smirked, “Polite fiction. When the world got pissed at us for what we did, and the results, the president pointed out how Russia abhorred the way our united space forces dealt with the issue. In other words, he used my decision to score political points. He used my vote and made it seem like it was his idea, so he couldn’t very well turn around and fire me right away.

  “Still, I’m in the dog house, and it’s only a matter of time before I get recalled, after enough time has gone by so people don’t make the connection. No doubt I’ll be honored, and then quietly put in a post where I can’t cause trouble.”