Chapter 10

Two ferries - each 75 feet long, 28 feet wide, and looking a lot like WWII landing-craft - pulled up to a beach a little to the north of Brockton Bay.

Boz snorted - for all he knew, they might actually *be* WWII landing craft. Grandpa Issac had served with the British military during WWII, first as a mechanic, and later as an analyst spending his time examining German special weapons, including the Komet rocket-plane and the Tiger tank, both of which had fascinated him.

So it was no wonder that many of the things scanned into the Replicator Console were from WWII. They were things from both sides that had interested Grandpa.

The ferries made their final approach slowly, until they grounded on the barely-submerged sand. Then they lowered their front ramps onto the beach.

From each, 12 jeeps emerged, driven by GP robots. Some had a Duplicate crewmember as a passenger.

The jeeps went down the ramps, splashed into two feet of water on the beach, then drove up towards the nearby road into the city.

Two more ferries were doing the same thing to the south of the city.

Three more ferries were just a mile behind these.

Boz was tired of half-measures. He wanted to rescue all the crew and be done with it.

So he'd sent more than enough jeeps to get the remainder of the explorers in town. That way, he'd have some capacity left in case of complications.

And this town was great at causing complications.

Many of the crew had started with vehicles they'd driven from the ferries that had brought them here in the first place. But many of those had been stolen or shot-up.

Boz had sent enough new jeeps to carry everybody, plus a third as many again.

And the GP robot in each jeep had a couple heavy weapons just in case: an M60 machine-gun with a backpack full of ammunition, plus a rotary-magazine grenade-launcher.

If this town wanted to play rough with inoffensive sightseers...well, they had chosen the rules of engagement and would get to see how that worked out.

"Ready to fire"

Basil looked up from the ships visual scanners where he'd been watching the ferries, looked over at the Beths operating the ships consoles labeled Detect Hostile Intent, Detect Affinity for Hurting Others, Detect Danger, and Detect Mind, and asked "is the area still clear of everything but hostiles?"

Four of the same voice said "Yes" in perfect unison.

"Fire" Basil directed Abe, at the Command Console.

The ship shook as two of the smaller cannons - the 9.2 inchers - fired guided high-explosive fragmentation shells at groups of gangsters who had been gathering to attack members of his crew holed-up in an abandoned convenience store and an abandoned shoe store, 9 and 11 miles away respectively.

His crewmates had been held in place by sniper fire while more gang toughs arrived and waited, in a growing cluster, for there to be enough to attack in overwhelming force.

They would not get that chance.

Boz didn't use the visual scanners to watch the impact. He'd done that once and that was more than enough.

What one 380 pound fragmentation shell did to a bunch of men wasn't pretty.

But they had chosen to bring deadly weapons, and use them. That set the rules of engagement.

And the world was a better place without such people in it anyway.

A moment later, the Beths confirmed that most of the clustered hostile minds had 'gone out'.

Jeeps would be arriving shortly at those locations, and all others where he had crew, to extract the crew as safely as possible.

Boz sometimes wished he had some smaller artillery on the ship. The biggest in use by the army of the USA back home was a 155mm - or 6.1 inch - cannon. It fired a 95 pound High Explosive shell.

If Basil had had some guns that small, he could have fired at more groups of bad-guys.

But as it was, he needed a very large area around any potential impact to be clear of bystanders, functioning businesses, busy roads etc. Otherwise he would not let himself fire.

Offhand, he wondered if Grandpa Issac had come up with any trick ammunition for the Bofors 40mm CIWS guns. They were set to shoot down incoming missiles, planes etc, but maybe they could be fired in another mode - manual at worst - to lob their little 2-pound shells like artillery.

He'd have to look into it later.

Boz went back to watching jeeps headed into town. He wanted to be ready to send help as needed, or instructions. The robots were quite capable, but they had no imagination nor initiative. They'd follow instructions, even broadly-phrased general instructions, but could not come up with solutions on their own.

Boz was ready to help with that, at need.

As the jeeps began to split up, each jeep heading to the coordinates it had been given for its pick-up, Boz had to choose which to watch.

He settled in to a rotation of watching a few of the ones most likely to get complicated soonest.

His crew had met all kinds of reactions in the city.

Almost all had started peacefully, with just a few doing things like unknowingly wandering into gang territory wearing the colors of an opposing gang.

But those few fights, and a few random muggings, had started rumors that strangers who tried to fit in but didn't quite manage it were all over the city, and were quite wealthy by local standards.

Soon his people were unknowingly attracting all sorts of attacks by greedy, vicious locals.

Some of the crew had stayed in commercial areas or safe neighborhoods and were fine.

A few of those expressed a desire to stay longer, even when contacted and told about the situation.

Some were in firefights or other dangerous situations - like being mugged a second time and trying to tell the attacker why you have nothing left to steal - and the teleporter, currently operated by Bas-Ton, was still quite busy working on those in order of urgency.

Jeeps were headed to each of those locations too, just in case. If they got there and the crew had already been rescued, they'd be given other coordinates to drive to.

And if they got there and the situation was still dangerous, the GP droid driving the jeep would get out and engage the threat. They were quite good at that, especially with the additional heavy weapons. So they had a good chance of successfully managing a rescue, especially since the Replicated robot could be left behind fighting while the crew took the jeep and fled.

As it turned out, the jeeps mostly had no trouble.

Apparently the GP robots were getting a reputation too, and when folks saw them, they left them alone and vacated the area.

A few got shot at anyway, but they responded with M60 machine-gun fire and the shooters were quickly silenced one way or another.

Captain Basil did have to step in with instructions a few times.

Four times he had to tell the robots what to do when they discovered unconscious or stoned crew-members in drug dens. It was not that the half-stoned guards were any problem. Rather, the situation as a whole was outside of what the robots knew how to deal with.

A little instruction was enough, and soon enough the guards were taken care of, the miscellaneous stoners being ignored, and the crew carried out to the jeeps.

As the crew were being hauled out and back to the ship, some of the stoned ones said that was how the local drug gang recruited - by kidnapping folks and getting them addicted.

Well, reflected Boz the addiction would be no problem - his ship's hospital console could cure that.

Then there was a situation where six crew members had been captured and were being held hostage in an abandoned bank.

When the first GP robot had arrived and pulled up in front, he had been told via loudspeaker that the hostages were being held for ransom and would be killed if anyone tried to rescue them.

Then the GP robot had been taken out by 2 RPG-7 anti-armor rocket hits.

Boz knew history, and history clearly showed it was a mistake to try to make deals with terrorists and the like. The mere fact of taking hostages and threatening their lives said the terrorists were willing to operate outside the accepted rules of society whenever they found it convenient and to their benefit, and thought they could get away with it. So it was a mystery why anyone would think such folks would follow society's rule about keeping any deals you made, while they ignored any other rules they chose to.

Actually, it was not a mystery - it was an act of wishful thinking. People wished for things to go back to normal, and wished that by appeasing the terrorists, the terrorists would go away.

But appeasing them had just the opposite effect - it encouraged others to try what they had tried, and apparently succeeded at.

The best way Boz knew to prevent further harm being done to the hostages was to take down the harmers, and do it the most effective way you could - no half-measures.

Boz had the area scanned, and was disappointed to learn that almost next door to the bank was a functioning glass-blowing business, with a hospice just a few doors down in the other direction.

Except for those, it would have been a great time to use his 9.2 inch chemical rounds to nauseate and exhaust everyone there.

But the bursting charge in the 380 pound shell would wreck the glass-works and the chemicals would spread easily as far as the hospice. The chemicals were supposed to be safe, but he didn't want to risk it on folks who were already hovering at death's door.

The bad guys had signed up to play for keeps - their neighbors had not.

So Boz scanned the area some more, until he found an approach route that those within the bank could not see. He gathered up 6 jeeps, with a GP robot each and 3 Duplicates as well - Big Tom and 2 of his friends had each sent 10 Duplicates to help in cases like this.

Boz had those 9 approach unseen until they were at the sturdy stone bank. Then they carefully worked their way around all sides of it.

While they were doing that, Boz had the Beth on the x-ray scanner console use it to map the building, then coordinate that with the Beths on the Detect Mind, Detect Hostile Intent, Detect Affinity for Hurting Others, and Detect Danger consoles.

He plotted the locations of everybody, worked out an attack plan, and communicated all he could to his assault team of 6 GP robots and 3 Duplicates.

It was tempting to wait for more reinforcements, special weapons, and information. But to do so would risk discovery and loss of the advantage they currently had.

And what they had should be sufficient.

So as soon as the assault group were in place, Boz started the countdown.

When it reached zero, the team went in.

Flash-bang grenades went in 3 windows and immediately detonated on contact with a floor or other surface.

Particle beams cut right through the stone walls, taking just a second to make new door-sized openings in the back wall and 2 side walls of the former bank.

And men and Robots rushed in those 3 new openings, as well as through the 3 windows, and 2 existing doors kicked in by GP robots.

Boz had wanted to send one down through the ceiling, but had been unable to think of how to silently prepare that. The more unexpected the entry point, the more unready the terrorists could be expected to be.

The 8 attackers who went in first each had one target assigned to them. They knew where their targets had been, what they looked like, what they were carrying, and who else was near.

All eight hit their targets and took them down quickly. Three attackers got hit in return.

The ninth attacker was Big Tom's Duplicate. He had the hardest job of all: getting to the inner room which had been a bank-manager's office, and taking out the bad-guy there before that bad-guy killed the hostage he was with.

Tom and Boz had discussed options for how best to go about it, and settled on one that had more obstacles but should be faster, given how acrobatic an Aikido master can be.

There would be a lot of broken glass around, from the flash-bang grenades. That would normally make acrobatics very risky, even considering the Kevlar Tom was wearing.

But Tom didn't have to worry about cuts from rolling in broken glass, since it was just a Duplicate, and if it lost an ear or got a kidney pierced, the Duplicate could just be dismissed.

And Tom said he wasn't worried about the pain from such things.

That made choosing his route easier.

So when one GP robot jumped into the bank through a window, Tom jumped in right after him.

He figured he would move fastest if he leaped head-first and turned his landing into a forward-roll to spring to his feet.

He did so, rolling through some broken glass in the lobby and getting cut a bit before coming to his feet facing the bank counter.

He leaped over it the same way, passing over it head-first - getting scraped on the way by the remains of the teller's window - and landing in a forward-roll on the other side, his outer clothes shredded with multiple cuts and even some cuts in the Kevlar underneath.

He came up in a short hallway with the remains of the vault - emptied long ago and left open - on his right, with one office on his left and the bank-manager's office - his target - directly in front of him. Its door was closed, but it had a window, which had been shattered by the grenades.

With wry amusement at the thought that this would never work in a movie, because 3 of the same maneuver would be assessed as being too boring - he did the same forward leap through the office window.

As he rolled to his feet in that office, he ran into, and bowled-over, both the bad-guy, and his hostage, who had been struggling with each-other over a knife.

The hostage was stunned and ceased struggling.

Tom had a fresh cut on his forehead, with some blood in his eyes, so it took a moment to orient himself as to who was who.

And the bad guy, who didn't care who was who, plunged his knife into Tom.

Tom broke the bad-guy's neck and called "all clear in the office" before the Duplicate, about to expire from the knife wound, was dismissed.

Boz still hated to see a friend - or what looked like a friend - die, even though he knew the Duplicates were as disposable as napkins as long as the original was safe.

He steeled himself and got back to work.

Captain Basil watched as the 6 former-hostages went with their remaining rescuers out to the jeeps, got in and drove away.

Those jeeps joined streams of other jeeps, all full of other rescued people on their way to the ferries.

While he watched, he reflected that they hadn't run into many so-called capes yet.

He hoped that maybe that was because they were not starting any fights: they were only finishing them.

But the realist in him said it was more likely something else. He hoped that it was not because they were gathering for a concerted assault of some kind.

He watched the first two ferries fill up with jeeps and head out to sea, towards the battleship.

He sighed in relief - it wasn't over yet, but it was well on its way.

Then he looked up at a distraction.

An angry woman stomped into the command center, saying "Captain, I must protest. I understood we could go sightseeing, but when I went, I got shot at! Look!"

She hefted a shopping bag, which was leaking fluids out of a couple bullet-holes, and she slammed it down on the nearest surface for emphasis.

That surface, the Teleport Console, shorted out and died in a shower of sparks.

The woman seemed to think that was a fitting emphasis to her complaint.

Boz wanted to have her shot.

Instead, rigidly controlling himself, he said "you may have just killed several of your crew-mates. Go straight to the brig and lock yourself up. If you say anything more, or go anywhere else, I will have you walk the plank in shark-infested waters, or maybe keelhaul you. Or something. Just get out and let me cool down and work on fixing this."

A Duplicate of Ron - he had several around the ship working with the crew and helping sort things out - had followed the woman in while trying to calm her down. That Duplicate now gently but firmly took her arm and led her out, while murmuring soothing words.

Boz, Beth, and their Duplicates, got to work re-organizing the schedules for the remaining jeeps, while repair robots went to work on the broken Teleport Console, and Abe brought the ship in close to shore as fast as he could, to improve transit times for the ferries.

They had a tense few minutes. But resources in the city were more than adequate to rescue the remaining crew, and soon all were headed on jeeps to the ferries.

Some of the wounded may not get to the hospital in time, but that would either work out, or it wouldn't - they'd done all they could do.

The repair robots indicated the Teleport Console could be repaired, but it would take something on the order of half an hour.

Bas-Ra had stayed in the city as a sort of a rear-guard until everyone was safe, so he could offer support at need.

With things quiet at the moment, he took the opportunity to stop by a pay-phone and call Lisa.

The call connected and a female voice said "Hello?" He didn't recognize the voice, but he had not heard it much in any case and never over a phone.

Bas-Ra heard music and the sounds of cheerful people in the background.

He said, "I called to speak with Lisa, who I met in the grocery store earlier today."

"Basil! It's great to hear from you. I'm glad you called. You need something or you wouldn't have, though - so what do you need? I'm in a great mood and happy to help."

It was a little hard to hear her over the cheerful happy voices of other people having fun in the background.

He asked "I can hear there's a party or something going on there - is this a bad time? I can call back later."

"We are having a great party!" Lisa replied. "My, ah, co-workers and I had a close call today, but we made it through fine and we're celebrating. We're all in better moods than we've been in ages. But still, now is the time for you and me to talk. You ask your favor first and then I'll ask mine. Go."

"Ah, OK. It should be a fairly small thing for you to do, but we've had, ah, difficulties in town and would rather not risk more just now." He coughed. "Anyway, I was wondering about the wrecked ship which is sunk across the mouth of the bay, and whether it's possible to register to salvage that? Is that something you could do for us?"

"Bas my friend - they do call you Bas don't they? - I am already on it. I have a connection to City Hall right here and...yes, there it is: one SeaWayMax class freighter - the biggest that can fit through the Saint Lawrence Seaway - christened the Fat Mermaid, of 25,000 tons displacement and 26,000 tons cargo capacity, currently sunk across the mouth of Brockton Bay... is now registered as the property, via right of salvage, of the new company named Captain Bas Space Futures, LLC. In short, it's yours, all you have to do is collect it. For most, that task has been too daunting, which is why it is still there, making the bay all but unusable. For you, it'll take, what, an afternoon?"

Bas-Ra, flustered at how much she managed to infer about him without being told, managed to say "Uh, thanks, I appreciate that. It's, uh, very helpful."

"I'm in a great mood and happy to help," she exclaimed cheerfully. "And now, there is a teeny tiny little favor you could do for me if you please."

"Shoot."

"Funny you should say it that way, my dear Bas or should I pronounce it Boz - yes, that's right. Anyway, it does indeed involve shooting. Mine that is. See, I have a gun to my head - not literally at the moment, but literally nonetheless. A super-villain named Coil has forced me, at gunpoint, to work for him, doing things I'd rather not do. I have been unable to evade or defeat him. But I expect you can. And I gather you'd like to anyway - you are the type that wants to go do good deeds, help others, etc. Here is your chance. I and my co-workers will benefit, as will all the people Coil would have hurt, directly or indirectly."

"Tell me more."

"That is music to my ears my dear Boz. Coil has some kind of probability-control power that, get this, I can't figure out the details of. Let that sink in for a moment. You know how good I am at knowing things I haven't been told. But I can't figure out what Coil can do."

She paused, then resumed. "On top of that, he has a mercenary army and a secret base under the city. His secret base is rigged with explosives and other traps, so it would be very hard to assault it. I have to go meet with him in an hour to explain why our latest mission failed. Normally I'd be afraid of that meeting - he can be very mean - but for some reason, I'm not worried about it this time. Not that it isn't dangerous, just that, for some reason, that doesn't bother me much. Weird. Anyway, if you want to know where his secret base is, you could track me, but you'd have to do it very carefully, since he scans everybody coming and going for electronic listening devices and similar things, plus he scans for transmissions in and out. You have a way around that, don't you?"

She paused and Bas-Ra didn't think he'd even begun to respond yet, yet she resumed "Oh, good - I'm glad that you do. So, I think we're set then - is there anything more you need from me?"

Bas-Ra said "Hold on a sec," and moved the phone away from his ear, then covered it with his balled-up jacket.

Beth's voice sounded in Bas-Ra's inner ear via the Communication Console "Captain Boz has been keeping me updated on this end, and we've found her by voice match using the Sonar Console paired with the ESP Console. The Communications Console now has her coordinates and the Detect Mind console has the, well, call it the 'shape' of her mind - it's unique 'fingerprint' - scanned and saved now. We can find her anywhere within range."

"Thanks." Bas-Ra unwrapped the phone and put it back to his ear "Thanks Lisa, I think that's all we need for now. If not, I'll call you again."

"I'm sure you will. Thanks, and tell whoever is helping you I said Thanks too. Bye."

He hung up and Beth spoke in his ear again "FYI, I've got a ferry boat ready and loaded with repair robots about to head out to the wreck. I had a moment and it seemed like a good thing to get started on."

"Good job" Bas-Ra managed, as he got back in his jeep next to the waiting GP robot there.