Chapter 9

The command center of the HMS Agamemnon was quite busy.

The ship had sent out a lot of crew who wanted to explore, and a lot of them were ending up needing rescue after getting attacked.

The attacks seemed to have started simply as regular events - muggings or gangs enforcing their territory - in an unusually violent city.

But, after the first few attacks, the news seemed to have spread that the strangers - the battleship's crew - had wealth in the form of spices, chocolates, and sometimes powerful high-tech guns. Consequently, even more attacks occurred, by folks trying to acquire those things.

Nobody had yet tried to contact the ship demanding ransom, but the way things were going, that would probably happen.

Captain Basil wanted to prevent that. He knew of only one way to reliably get what you wanted: by working for it. And the more you wanted it, the harder you'd better work for it.

So he had the full 10 Duplicates of himself in action right now, and he felt the severe toothache which came with having Duplicates.

But it was worth it.

They were getting their folks out.

Beth had volunteered for Duplication as well and had 10 Duplicates too. All 11 of her were working the ship's sensor consoles, plus the Communication Console.

They were invaluable, and kept feeding coordinates and situational information to Basil, manning the Teleportation Console, and to his Duplicates manning the command console - Abe's usual station from which he could control the ship's movement and fire its guns - and on the 3 "Cheating Consoles" as Ron called them, or "Luck Consoles" as Basil thought of them: the consoles labeled Determine Destiny, Probability Control and Order.

One more Duplicate of Basil was in the Mess Hall - where they were teleporting new arrivals - orchestrating things there, and using several GP and combat robots to help him.

And the last 3 Duplicates of Basil not in town, were running ferry boats full of jeeps with GP robot drivers. The Basil Duplicates were bringing those in to shore to provide alternate ways to rescue crew members, since the teleporter was so busy.

Boz was still amazed he apparently had nobody in the crew that knew how to pilot a helicopter. There were several nice helicopters available to them, but he'd found nobody who knew how to fly one. He'd resolved to learn.

Beth-7, on the Radar console and so not so busy as some of the rest, was handling scheduling and prioritization for the teleporter.

She was keeping a private communication channel open between her and Bas-Ket, the Duplicate in the mess hall, so he could tell her when the current group was all through the portal and it could be closed.

Every time Bas-Ket told her that, she fed the coordinates for the next portal to Basil, who opened the next portal. Basil always knew to be ready for that, since he knew what Bas-Ket knew when Bas-Ket knew it.

That saved time as far as communicating & was something they'd want to explore further, later

Beth-7 had the same kind of instant updates from the other Beth's, including the original Beth manning the Communications Console - they all knew what each-other knew the moment they knew it.

So Beth-7, without having to be told about it by Beth, immediately altered the teleportation schedule when she heard the latest call coming over the Communications Console.

That call had been talking about being stalked by some kind of metal junkyard-dog, mostly made of metal spikes and blades. It hadn't seemed urgent, especially when the caller had described hitting the monster with his particle beam and slicing off huge chunks of it, apparently disabling it.

But when, a moment later, it said "... unbelievable, it's getting up again! Now it's charging me again and I haven't reloaded yet! Help, it's about to..." and then dissolved in screams accompanied by tearing sounds and gurgling - that's when the Beths chose to act and arrange immediate teleport.

In the meantime, Beth-2, at the Sonar Console, and also not as busy as some others were, had told Basil about the call.

He had the portal up instantly to rescue the person being mauled by the metal dog.

But the man had a vicious metal dog all over him, and was unable to get through the portal.

Bas-Ton leapt from the Order Console to the Telekinesis Console.

Their telekinesis had the strength to separate the two combatants, but not the fine control: it was more like a forklift than a pair of arms and hands - it could lift a truck, but not type anything useful on a keyboard.

So Bas-Ton used it to shove both the distressed crew-member and the monster-dog through the open teleport portal.

The two entered the portal in an alley in Brockton Bay, and left it in the mess hall of the battleship, where Bas-Ket immediately had GP robots separate the two.

That proved to be easy, since the metal dog was in the process of turning back into a human - the super-powers that normally allowed him such a transformation were being neutralized by the ships Nullify Console.

Two other GP Robots carried the injured crewmember to the hospital, where folks were already ready to receive him and get him healed. In moments he wouldn't even have a scar - not even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, since they'd discovered the healing console included a version of Grandpa's Reset chemical in it. So the chemicals generated by the trauma and stress would all be processed, leaving only a bad memory, but one without the ability to cause real problems from unresolved issues.

The monster dog had not yet finished transforming into a masked man, when it tried to speak.

Bas-Ket cut him off, saying, "You still have my friends blood on your lips - you'd better wipe that off before trying to convince me of... anything."

"In fact," Boz continued, "You'd better give me time to forget about it. Some time in our brig - that's a ship's jail - should really help out there."

"Guppy and Goldfish," he said, addressing the two GP robots holding the masked mans arms, "Take him to the brig, lock him in a cell, and shoot him if he tries to get out of it."

Boz liked naming Duplicates, or Replicated robots, rather than numbering them, and has called his first GP robot "guppy" since that's how he imagined he would pronounce GP.

He stayed with fish-themed names for other GP robots after the first, since doing so amused him.

The two GP robots hauled the masked man away, while Bas-Ket called for a couple more to be Replicated for him.

It was too bad, he reflected, that the Replicator couldn't just put a bunch of Replicated GP and combat robots right into town, to take on and defeat any problems there. But it only had a limited range - the stuff it created could appear anywhere on ship or within about a hundred feet beyond the ship, but no further away than that.

But at least some Replicated boats and ferries, carrying help, were speeding towards the town.

-0-0-0-

Quite a lot was going on at once in Agamemnon's mess hall.

One group of people were just finishing coming through the current teleportation portal, and two more groups were standing ready to go through the next 2 portals to open.

Big Tom and his group of 6 robots were next.

When the portal 10 feet to his left shut, a new one would open right in front of Big Tom's group, allowing them to rush through and rescue a group of crew-members who were currently trapped in a firefight in the city.

Tom didn't have to go. He wanted to. It was how he knew to prevent post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sure, they said that anybody treated in the battleship's hospital got some chemical named Reset which prevented PTSD, but he wanted to be sure.

And in his experience, it worked wonders to face what had scared you, and kick it's butt.

So he was going back into combat, personally, since he doubted it would work if he just sent a Duplicate.

The other groups going through like this were just Duplicates and robots. They wanted to play it safe.

Big Tom wanted to play it safe too, while still going. So we was wearing a fresh bullet-proof vest - you didn't want to re-use one that had been hit, since they weakened - as well as a riot-helmet. He was carrying a thick Lexan riot-shield too.

Beth-4, on the visual scanners, had a communication channel open to Tom and had described to him the layout of the battlefield he was about to enter.

A group of 4 crewmen had exited the White Lightning liquor store and been fired upon from the north. They'd gone to the south side of the store, depending on the shelter of its cinder-block wall to give them some cover while firing back.

Then another group had opened fire on them from the east.

They'd been hit, and called for pickup, while a couple of them hauled a dumpster around to the east for cover, then continued to return fire.

If they left cover to go south or west, they'd be in wide open areas and get killed. So they needed the teleportation portal.

And their turn was almost here.

Beth-4 had switched to giving Big Tom a countdown to his portal opening, and he tensed as it neared zero.

He'd checked his gear three times already.

The robots all had their instructions.

There was nothing to do but wait the last few seconds.

Then the portal opened and he was too busy to worry.

The two Combat Robots, which he'd named Ed-A and Ed-B, or just A and B to speed up giving them instructions - ED-209 was a mouthful when you're in a hurry - went through the portal first.

Ed-A went through first. It took one step through the portal, one more towards the crewmen sheltering behind the dumpster, stepped to its right to get clear of the dumpster, then went around the dumpster and started jogging towards the north and the attackers there.

Ed-B did similarly, but went east, towards the attackers there.

Both were soon the primary targets of enemy fire.

And once they started taking fire, they knew who to fire back at, and did so.

Each also popped a smoke grenade as soon as they were far enough past the dumpster for the smoke to interfere with the enemy, but not the rescue.

Tom went through right behind them. He had the riot shield in his left hand, and a rotary-magazine grenade-launcher in his right hand.

He fired 2 fragmentation grenades at the enemies to the north before the smoke grenade had really obscured them.

Then, using his infrared goggles to see through the smoke, he fired another fragmentation grenade at the enemies to the east, followed by an incendiary grenade aimed at the truck they were sheltering behind.

His grenades added to the storm of fire the ED-209 robots were putting out - autocannons, rockets, and auto-shotguns all firing at once, for all they were worth.

Judging that further grenades would be unnecessary, Tom kept a lookout for further trouble while holding his riot shield so as to block any stray shots that may arrive and hit the rescuees in the brief moment they were vulnerable in-between the dumpster and the portal.

The 4 GP robots that had followed Tom had already loaded the 2 wounded onto stretchers and were carrying them through when Tom heard an approaching motorcycle engine.

The engine grew louder as the unwounded crewmen started through the portal.

That sound caused them to hurry, and hurrying caused the last one to trip just on the other side of the portal.

So Big Tom was still on the dangerous side of the portal a second later when the motorcycle arrived, almost running Tom over.

That was deliberate. The portal was visible only from one side - the side where you could also go through it.

From the other side, by default, it was neither a usable portal, nor visible.

So the motorcycle rider - a man clad all in fancy metal armor that covered pretty much all of him but his beard - had intended to run Tom down.

The rider sprang off his bike, which continued on a few feet more before stopping upright - apparently using both automatic brakes and an automatic kick-stand.

The rider landed between Tom and the portal mouth, which was due to close in just seconds.

The armored man who'd arrived by motorcycle apparently had a loudspeaker built into his armor - as well as other gadgets if the number of blinking lights all over the suit was any indication - and used it to blast, at 90 decibels or more, the words "Halt, you're under arrest!' while standing just a foot in front of, and confronting, Big Tom.

"No, I don't think so," Tom responded, while trying to move around the man and get to the portal.

The bearded man shifted to block Tom from moving and said, at an ear-splitting volume, "you're not going anywhere! Don't add resisting arrest to your list of crimes or I'll get rough with you."

"Go arrest real criminals. I'm in a hurry." Tom said, dropping both his grenade-launcher and his riot shield to get his hands free and ready.

He noted the rider had an axe on a long pole which he had left on the motorcycle, apparently not thinking he would need it against a target with a grenade-launcher.

And indeed, it would have been suicide to fire a grenade-launcher at a target as close as this.

But the launcher was not Tom's only weapon.

Nor was the pistol in his ankle-holster.

He was an Aikido master as well.

The armored man yelled "don't backtalk me - we know all about your plans to enslave the whole city to drugs using your cocaine-laced spices and chocolate. We're on to you and you're going down!"

Then he grabbed for Tom.

Never grab for an Aikido master.

It was trivial for Tom to seize the offending appendage, and get it in a wrist-lock.

But he didn't stop there.

He was in a hurry - he needed to get through the portal before it closed any second now.

So there wasn't time to get around the blockage gracefully, or to just shove the man, who was obviously braced for such a frontal-assault anyway.

So Tom stepped in close, halfway around his opponent, and pulled his opponent with him through a turn.

Then, having thus set it up, he executed a rear-sacrifice circle throw, maintaining his high grip on the foe such that, as the foe was thrown, Tom went with him, and ended up straddling the armored man, on the safe side of the portal, which closed immediately behind them.

Tom noted the little lights all over the man's armor had gone out. He said "Now that I have introduced you to my friend, the judo throw Tomoe Nage, maybe you will believe me when I tell you to behave yourself or you'll meet my other friends."

The man, still stunned from the force of the throw, didn't answer.

The mess hall still had all the busy chaos from a minute before, when Tom had left thru a portal..

A new portal had just opened and a group of robots went through with a Duplicate crew-member.

Two more groups of robots were forming up to go through the next portals.

And everybody was staying out of the way of the just-rescued folks headed next door to the ship's hospital

Bas-Ket emerged from out of the chaos and strode up to Big Tom and the armored man pinned beneath him.

Bas-Ket held a laser pistol - safer to use in a crowded room like this than a disintegrator - and leveled it at Tom's prisoner's beard, while calmly asking "what have we here?"

Tom laughed, "the wing nut here, thinks we're from Columbia. He tried to detain me."

The armored man, getting over being stunned, reacted "It's obvious! You're rich. You're not from here. You've got things from South America, like spices and chocolate, and you're spreading them all over the city as though they're worth nothing to you."

He tried to struggle free, but Tom held him down easily and added, "he thinks we've laced the spices with cocaine in order to addict everyone."

The man pinned to the deck ceased struggling and sullenly declared, "we can't prove it yet, but we will! And then we'll make you sorry you ever came here!"

Then his right hand, though pinned to his side, punched some disguised buttons on the leg next to it, after which he cackled dramatically and tried to leap to his feet.

Tried.

But his armor provided him none of the help he obviously had expected it to, and his attempt to surge to his feet ended up looking more like the spasm from a sneeze.

He kept trying, but just appeared to be shivering from cold.

Tom, observing this, remarked "It looks like you're expecting helpful surprises from your armor. Don't bother - we have counter-measures for such things here."

To try to cover his attempts, the armored man kept talking.

"You're attacking two of the three major gangs in the city, across most of the city, yet notably leaving the drug merchant gang alone. It's obvious they're your local sales arm and you're their Colombian suppliers come up north to seize control of the market. Who else but Colombian drug lords could afford all the combat robots you've got here?"

"You see why I called him a wing-but?" Tom asked, getting to his feet and hauling the man with him, using a joint-lock where the man could either come along or have his arm broken.

"He's loony tunes, divorced from reality and no longer on speaking terms with it."

Bas-Ket laughed and called two GP robots over, instructing them "Go with Tom here, follow his orders, and if the armored stranger tries to escape, subdue him."

Tom addressed his prisoner. "We're going to toss you in jail with the rest of the loonies until we can turn you over to the local law."

The armored man drew himself up and indignantly proclaimed, "I *am* the law!"

Tom considered for a moment and said, "Ok. That puts a bunch of things into context. I can see now that the high-tech, tricked-out, motorcycle and metal armor are a great attempt, but you've got all of the details wrong. So even though you got the quote right, I can't give you better than a C- for your cosplay of Judge Dredd. It's like you've heard of Judge Dredd but never actually seen a picture."

Tom started marching the man off towards the brig, adding, as they went, "you might want to be careful, though. There are people out there who have actual superpowers, who might take exception to your running around pretending to, while claiming to be the law."

Bas-Ket called after them, "Make sure to take his gear away - I'd hate to have my nice cells marred by some hidden hacksaw or something. But do provide him a with pair of boxer shorts and, if he insists on remaining masked, give him a paper bag to put over his head."