Chapter 11

Bas-Teal's ferry pulled up by HMS Agamemnon and stopped. Moments later, it was lifted out of the water by the Telekinesis Console, manned by Bas-Ton.

As the ferry rose, shifted to the side, and settled lightly to the front deck before Turret #1, the people in the ferry all moved to one side next to Bas-Teal's 10-wheeler truck full of food. That part of the ferry was over the battleship's deck, while much of the rest of the ferry hung over the edge of the bigger ship, and would have fallen over and into the sea if not still supported by telekinesis.

They'd normally have landed it on the rear deck, which had more space, but it was busy just now.

They double-checked things, then dismissed the Replicated ferry, jeeps, and other things they didn't need.

The 10-wheeler and crew dropped a couple inches to the deck of the battleship, but they were ready for that.

The crew scattered to various parts of the battleship, going about their business.

Bas-Teal waited by the truck for a moment, while Bas-Ton switched consoles.

Moments later, Bas-Ton used the Shrink Console to make the 36 foot truck shrink down to 3 feet long.

Then he switched back to the Telekinesis Console, and lifted the 3 foot truck to the helicopter hangar on top of the boxy superstructure, where the smokestacks had been back in the ship's earlier days before it got fusion power.

The truck full of food - almost 30 tons of it - would stay there in an out-of-the-way corner until they delivered it to Mars Colony.

Bas-Teal was already on the way to the brig before the truck got settled.

He walked along the deck at the edge of the ship, on the right-hand side - the starboard - of the ship, towards the hatch leading into the superstructure.

While he walked, he noticed things - checking on all the usual things to see if there were any problems, by habit, and then settling on looking at the new thing, which was the crew formed up in various types of Replicated lounge chairs on the rear deck, all facing out to sea over the starboard side, watching a movie being projected there.

Just this morning, he hadn't known his ship could do that.

He'd known he had a great, and very complicated, entertainment center in a console in the mess hall. They'd used it to show movies and play music in there.

This afternoon, after rescuing Tom and friends with a teleport portal, Basil had recommended showing a comedy film to relieve the stress of having been in combat.

They'd done so, and had sent more and more crew to watch it after they'd been rescued and fixed up in the hospital.

But someone had wanted to adjust the display, and, with Basil off doing other things, had tried to do so himself.

And, in fiddling around with the controls, had managed to shift the picture off the projection screen entirely and into the open air.

That led to further experimentation, and had resulted in them learning to project the movie just about anywhere, and make it be fully 3d.

So now the crew were watching movies in 3d at twice life-size, projected out over the seaward side of the ship.

Other than being suspended in mid-air, the people and things the movie portrayed looked 100% real.

They'd just started showing a new movie - one that Boz knew well.

His grandfather had commissioned it, having enjoyed the series of "Abbot and Costello meet..." movies about the comedy duo meeting famous monsters, and wanting them to meet one of his favorite monsters: Go-Jira. Grandpa had always insisted that that was the correct original Japanese pronunciation, not "Godzilla" like western folks typically said.

Since he paid for it, that was the pronunciation and spelling used in this film, but it hadn't caught on - people still usually said "Godzilla".

Bas-Teal could see the movie was still in its first phase - where Abbot and Costello were at sea in a small rowboat, trying to fish, and having various funny mistakes, pratfalls, and misunderstandings. He knew that would continue for quite a while, with both of the comedy greats getting dunked overboard, tangled in things etc, before they finally got a fishhook out in the water. Then would come the big reveal, when Costello hooked something, and, after various mistakes, the thing that was hooked surges out of the water and is revealed to be Go-Jira.

Boz smiled as he tried to remember the series of jokes the two comedians told as they clung to Go-Jira's knees and rode him to shore, as un-noticed by the monster as if they were two trivial pieces of seaweed.

Still trying to remember specific jokes, Boz reached the hatch, spun the wheel to open it, and went in. Closing the hatch behind him - he was tidy like that - he went down the hallway, and to the brig.

He stopped there only long enough to get a box of stuff from the guard's outer-office.

Though even in that short time he heard acrimonious bickering, from at least 3 voices at once, coming from the cells.

Then he was off to scan the stuff in the box. He wanted to Replicate the high-tech armor they'd taken from the bearded man who had assailed Big Tom on one of his rescues.

A few minutes later, Bas-Teal was standing in his Replicated armor, trying to walk down a hallway, and finding it quite difficult - this stuff was heavy and really needed a powered assist - when he heard someone say "You're not Arms-Master."

Boz turned slowly, being careful not to fall down in the awkward and heavy armor, as he replied, "yes, I know I'm not ... who did you say? Armaments Man?"

Boz saw a little blond girl, maybe 10 years old - he wasn't a good judge of that - standing with Simon in the hall.

She said "Arms-Master. That's his armor you are wearing, but you're not him. What have you done with him?"

Simon patted her on the head, "Dinah is a local we rescued from a kidnap attempt, so she's probably referring to another local. She's a good kid and has a super-power - which works again now that she promised to be good and I added her to the Allow List. Her super-power correctly answers questions of the form of 'what are the odds of...'. I've been showing her around - the non-classified stuff - since she has to stay with us for a while. She's not sure how long she has to stay with us, but she knows if she goes home right now she'll be kidnapped."

Dinah answered cheerfully. "I'm a lot more sure now with the headaches gone so I can use my powers more!" She gave Simon a quick hug. "Thanks again for that. The headaches were a real pain - ugh - and I didn't know why they came, but when I used my power here and got a headache, you took me to your hospital and they fixed it right up. Then I used my powers more, and got another headache, and got fixed again, and then again, and soon it was obvious that using my power more than a certain amount is what gave me the headaches. I'm soo happy to know that!"

Simon smiled "She's been practicing ignoring, rather than answering, questions of that type which she doesn't want to use her power on - stuff that people say in casual conversation for example."

She nodded and smiled, but then a creak from Bas-Teal's armor reminded her of the question she started with. She repeated "What have you done with Arms-Master."

Boz smiled "don't worry, Armed-Faster is alive, well, and safe. He got mixed up in a fight and got confused about who was who, so we had to disable him and capture him until we figured out what to do with him. Do you know if he is a good-guy or a bad-guy?"

Dinah laughed, "Arms-Master is a good guy - the leader of the Protectorate capes. That's the good-guy superheroes if you didn't know."

"Oh. Well, I guess that helps explain why he is so upset. Such people don't like being arrested when they are trying to arrest you, whether it is justified or not."

Dinah nodded seriously. "You have to let him go, and give him back his armor too."

"Oh, we will," Boz said, "But this isn't actually his armor - it's a Replica I made. I wanted to see what it could do, and whether it would be worthwhile to make more for us or not. But it doesn't work - not even a little. None of the lights even light up."

"Oh, that," Dinah laughed. "That's normal for Tinker-Tech. It can't be mass-produced or even handcrafted by someone else. What the Tinker makes, works, and whatever you do to try to duplicate it, copies made by anyone else never work. The Tinker has to maintain it himself too, whether it needs a lot of maintenance or just a little, or it stops working. That's why there isn't much Tinker Tech out there, even though it does such amazing things. Don't you guys know anything?"

"Not as much as we'd like to, Dinah." Boz replied. "Perhaps you'd consider identifying some folks we picked up in various fights, and now have in our cells along with Army-Minion? You don't have to go near them or let them see you - we can show them on a display screen."

Dinah nodded.

"OK, thanks," Boz said, heavily stomping in his awkward armor towards the nearest display screen that could show the prisoners.

"We didn't plan on capturing anyone, but some folks got involved in our fights and were too close to separate in the time we had, so we just swept them up. We've got a man that turns into some kind of metal dog made of spikes and blades. We have another man that seems to have some kind of brain damage - he can't say anything but swear-words. It's sad, really, to see him so desperate to communicate yet completely unable to - the only idea he can get across is that he is displeased with things. We'd feel sorry for him and let him go if we hadn't seen him slamming things around violently and maliciously just before we captured him. It will be good to get a better idea of what to do with him."

Boz shrugged and went on, "We've got this angry woman who was vigorously brandishing a vicious weapon, running around shredding everyone... verbally: with her tongue. Oh, and she was carrying an axe, too. She seems to have a mean streak a mile wide, and probably has a good lawyer too, since she keeps talking about utterly destroying us in the courts."

The sound of his voice faded as they all went through a hatch into the room beyond.

-0-0-0-

A few minutes later, Bas-Teal was standing at the railing on the left side - the port side as it was called - of the ship, with a small group of people and GP robots.

He was addressing an armored, bearded man at the front of the group, saying "for the last time, Armed -Maestro, No, we're not going to let you arrest us too. Locals who we trust have identified you as an agent of the law around here, so we're letting you go. And you are welcome to arrest these others too, since they've been identified as HookWolf, who we'd been calling JunkYard Dog, SkidMark, who we'd just been calling FoulMouth, and Brandish who has just as vicious a tongue as he does, though in different ways."

He paused, cocked his ear for a moment, then said "Oh, I am informed that, apparently, Brandish is not a villain - coulda fooled me - so while she will be going with you, she's not actually your prisoner. From my perspective, you may want to consider arresting her anyway, just for being a real pain to deal with, and generally shrewish person, but that's your business."

"You have no right to resist arrest, lawbreaker!" the bearded man spat. "I'll be back, with plenty of support, and arrest the lot of you. You'll see. And I look forward to seeing you all in cold dark cells wearing only white boxer shorts with little pink hearts all over them like I was!"

Boz laughed at the memory. As a famous British comedian had said, "there is nothing funnier than impotent rage".

The little pink hearts had been a nice touch too.

Boz could see the armored man was about to launch into another one of his endless, self-important tirades, so he held up a hand and said "don't even get started. I've heard enough from you. One more word and we will duct-tape your mouth shut like we did the 3 others. I'd have been happy to reason with you, but you just won't listen, so just get out. Be gone, the lot of you."

Bas-Teal gestured to the waiting boat below.

"Help Amped-Monster climb down," he called to the GP robot waiting below in the Replicated Chinese Junk, "His armor is heavy and awkward and would take him right to the bottom if he slipped."

When the armored man gripped the cargo-netting draped over the side of the ship for use as a rope-ladder and started down, Boz leaned down and taped a page to the back of the man's helmet, saying "here's a picture of Judge Dredd. You'll need this, so you can go home and get your costume right."

The armored man was so focused on descending the cargo net safely - not easy in any case, and especially not in heavy armor that normally needs and uses powered-assistance - that he did not reply.

While the 4 former prisoners transferred to the junk - one by climbing down, and three cocooned in chains lowered down in another cargo net - all under the watchful gaze of 3 GP robots above and one below, Boz reminisced about the Junk.

His Grandpa had made it for him after he'd seen one in a movie and briefly become enamored of them.

When Basil had gotten tired of it, Grandpa had also improved it, adding, among other things twin JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) pods to its sides to give it a tremendous, though brief, burst of speed.

Part of Boz was still disappointed that the "Rocket Junk", as he called it, didn't actually fly. He'd heard "Jet-Assisted Take-Off" and assumed that meant it took off and flew, and never quite gotten over that. He was also a little bothered that, though JATO said "Jet", it actually meant "Rocket". He preferred things to be precise.

As the last of the three former prisoners in chains had their chains secured to the junk with padlocks and a strong electromagnet - in case HookWolf transformed - Bas-Teal called down "hang on tight! Your boat is pointed to shore, only a half mile away, and the start-off will be sudden and more vigorous than you can imagine."

He signaled to the GP robot in the junk, and it pushed the rocket ignition button, beginning the 4 second countdown.

The armored man in the junk couldn't resist one last jab, and yelled, "you're not fooling anyone! I still see right through you. I know you're Colombian drug lords even though you arrested your minion SkidMark and handed him over to me. I don't know all your evil plot, but I can tell you this..."

He screamed in fear, as he saw, rearing up out of the ocean on the other side of the battleship, Go-Jira, at twice real size and looking 100% real.

The other former prisoners saw and screamed also, as Go-Jira delivered its characteristic bellow of challenge and gaped its jaws wide.

Boz knew the scene by heart, though he still glanced to make sure.

He knew the former prisoners could not see Abbot and Costello clinging to the monster's knees, since the battleship blocked the view of Go-Jira below the waist.

He snickered to himself, wondering what the people in the junk must think.

Then the JATO rockets fired, and the screaming people screamed afresh for a new reason.

"Yah," Boz thought, "that take-off is kinda scary."

At least the GP robot on the junk was able to keep the Judge-Dredd wanna-be from falling overboard.

Boz couldn't see more than that, since the rapidly-moving junk quickly disappeared from view, both from the smoke of it's own rockets, and from the mist the battleship was still maintaining around itself.

"Well, that's fortuitous," he muttered to himself, "seeing Go-Jira like that ought to keep them guessing and off-balance. That's always to the good, when folks who oppose you don't know what to think. I wish I'd planned it in advance."

-0-0-0-

Bas-Ra was still in Brockton Bay, in a local grocery store, making lists of things - things to trade to them and things they had which he could trade for, when a call came. It came straight to his inner ear, from the Communications Console, and said, in Ron's voice "Houston, we have a problem."

Bas-Ra knew when Ron made that joke, things were serious.

He put away his notepad and subvocalized his reply "go ahead, you have my attention."

Ron's voice said "I finished the headcount and check-in, and not everybody made it back like we thought."

"That's bad."

"It's worse," Ron continued, "Beth is on sensors right now, so I gave her the list of the missing. When she saw the names, she almost fainted - they're almost all her friends from the astronomy club."

Boz knew that would be hard for her.

Beth's father had given her a telescope for her twelfth birthday. She had tried it, liked it, and had plunged in to learning more about astronomy and telescopes. Then she'd loved it.

Then she'd founded the astronomy club, and run it for years - all through high school and college - inviting all her friends and acquaintances to join. Many had tried it out, and some stuck with it.

And they'd mostly come with her when she decided to go to space with the Agamemnon.

These missing crew-members included most of her closest friends.

"OK," Bas-Ra replied, "Basil knows and is on it. He was taking a short break but is now headed to the Duplicating chamber & real soon he and the Duplicates will take over on sensors duty to give Beth a break."

Ron laughed. "Good luck with that! Beth didn't stay 'almost fainted' or anything like it. She got to work, and is going at it furiously - like her life depended on it. And I guess her friends' lives do. Or at least they may. Anyway, I don't think Beth or her Duplicates are likely to step away from the sensor consoles - or the Communications Console either: she tried calling the missing and none of them have answered, but she hasn't stopped trying. On the bright side, she has a bunch of data for you already, which we'll have waiting on screen for when Boz gets here."

"Got it," Bas-Ra responded, "Try telling her that I need to plan a rescue mission, and having Duplicates at all the sensors is the same as being at those consoles myself, so I'll get the best possible idea of the situation, and get it immediately, without having to waste time talking."

"OK, but I'll re-phrase it first - for one thing, women do not like to hear talking classified as a waste of time. What else do you need?" Ron asked.

"Let's start with our assets. I'm here in a jeep with one GP robot, our personal weapons, and a machine-gun and grenade launcher. Do you know what other assets we have left in town?"

"Well," Ron said, "when the last ferry got back and we thought everybody had returned with them, we dismissed the ferries, the jeeps, the robots that were with them, our Duplicates...pretty much all that stuff. But, the robots that had gone thru teleport portals to help with those rescues are mostly still active. We left them in place and operating for... well, call it what you will: sour grapes, spite, justice or whatever. They'd been told to shoot anyone shooting at them, and leave others alone. So we figured the longer they keep doing that, the fewer predatory vermin there will be stalking the streets there. Anyway, last I checked, most were standing idle, a few had been destroyed, and a couple were still in combat. I'll get on that and give you their numbers, locations, and status as soon as I can."

"Great, I'll need that. Get them started moving in the right directions too. I'll designate gathering points as soon as I can. I'm in public right now, but let me get back to my jeep and start looking at some maps. I'll need the locations of the missing too - how many are missing and how spread out are they?" Bas-Ra asked, as he left the store and headed for his jeep.

"Ten are missing, and all are in the same place."

"That's not casual kidnapping then. It also suggests they're probably defended too." Bas-Ra commented grimly.

"Here is confirmation of that: Simon just arrived with Dinah. She says the location where the ten missing crew are being held is a brothel near the center of the territory of the local gang called the ABB. She says that gang is well-known for kidnapping women and girls, enslaving them, and forcing them to work in their brothels. The silver-lining to that is that our crew are unlikely to have been hurt much - that was a worry when they didn't respond. Rather they are likely just unconscious for now."

Bas-Ra sensed through the other Duplicates of himself that a group of them had just arrived on the bridge.

A flood of information started arriving as those Duplicates started looking over the shoulders of Beth and her Duplicates, with a couple left over to start operating Sensor Consoles that had not yet been in use.

"I'll get back to you Ron. Out" Bas-Ra said, driving off towards his first objective - a jeep brought in by a group of exploring crew when they'd first arrived, and which had been abandoned when the crew who had brought it had been rescued by teleport portal.

They'd need that jeep, and a couple others, to help bring out the missing once they had been rescued.

The teleport console was still estimated to be half an hour from being fixed, since complications had arisen and driven the original estimate back a bit.