In a Small Room by Barrdwing
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In A Small Room: Answers

 

All copyrights belong to the original creators . . .
but I own up to Teresa and Keefer 

 


Naturally, they beat him to the control room. From our end, it wasn't a very exciting match: the home team stood around tapping his foot in front of the elevator while the Visitors were swarming up the side of the tower with picklocks in hand and narcoleptic feathers stuck in certain of their teeth. The subofficer still unwisely lounging around up there went from vertical to coshed over the head and stuffed into a maintenance closet before he'd even finished turning around. As an encore, the team managed to make themselves invisible in a room full of nothing but wall displays, consoles with spaces for the knees cut out, and a few chairs bolted to the floor.

I was starting to lose my ability to be surprised by G-force. It wasn't so much a loss of wonder as a suspension of disbelief. If the Commander had announced that they were now going to defeat Zoltar's minions with a stampede of guinea pigs, I would have fetched some popcorn from the machine down on Rec 2 and made sure the recorders were all running normally.

The frog captain flung open the door to the control room with something of a flourish. "Hah! Thought I didn't see you up here, didn't you?"

My breath caught. "How did he know?"

The frog stomped into the room, throwing the door shut behind him. Glaring red eyes panned the place. "Oh, so you're hiding, are you? Come out! Come out and face me, you . . . stupid . . . coward . . . ." His voice trailed off into an asthmatic squeak as shadows emerged from the background of technological etcetera, straightening and redefining into tangible, living forms. One of them had snaked a dark forearm around his throat and was being tangible right behind him, although the bustle was giving it some argument about getting really close.

"Well, if you insist," G2 grinned into his ear.

The Spectran captain didn't seem to have much air left, to judge by the slowly graying trend of his pallor, but he wasted a little more of it in the traditional Spectran cry of dismay. "G-force!"

"Precisely,"
G1 agreed, checking the view from the windows. Satisfied, he took a quick step towards the sweating man. "Jason . . . oxygen-based life-forms, remember?"

"Y'wanna make it
easy for him?" G2 groused, but loosened his grip. The officer promptly sucked in a deep breath, and lost it again as G2's free hand came about and thumped him sharply below the breastbone. "You yell and we'll just have to take you back to the Phoenix where it's nice and quiet," he warned.

The officer risked a quick glance down. G2 had a quill stuck casually between the knuckles of his first and index fingers. The officer managed to go a little paler and jerked his chin up, then froze as G2 mistook the motion for a preemptive head-butt and thumbed him in the solar plexus again.

"Just stand still," G1 advised him. "We've got some questions for you, and we'd better get answers."

"Straight ones,"
G2 clarified.

The officer's round cheeks had gone purple: after two assaults on his diaphragm within the same ten-second span, the best breaths he could manage were shallow and uneven. He didn't respond to G1's statement, perhaps trying to choose between his immediate future if he didn't cooperate and what Zoltar would do to him later if he did.

G1 decided to make the decision process easier. Metal shlpped quietly against armor-cloth as he drew his boomerang. The wings flicked out with a muffled snap.

"Now you listen to me," he said in a quiet voice. "It's been a long couple of days tracking you down and I'm a little annoyed. You shouldn't have to think too hard about your options here. Either you cooperate by telling us what these ships are intended to target and when we can expect the follow-up attack, or we'll knock you out right here. Then we'll go back up to our ship and blow this asteroid apart. You can either get your men out first, or you can die with them."

The Spectran was staring at him: even through the mask, it was obvious. I was staring too.

"Didn't think he had it in him."

"He's very upset." 7-Zark-7 washed his hands nervously against each other. "I didn't realize Mark was feeling so much pressure about this mission. He must have been worrying about what Spectra might have in mind constantly since they gave him the slip two days ago. And now it looks as if he might even lose his temper."

You think he's serious? I think he's bluffing--he's too easygoing to follow through. But regardless . . . . I cast the robot an uneasy look. "He just told that captain straight out that if he cooperates, he'll let him go. If he does, he'll be leaving his back wide open."

"But Mark doesn't really want to blow up the station," 7-Zark-7 replied. "For one thing, Chief Anderson ordered him to find out what Zoltar's plan is. But even beyond that, if we can capture some portion of Spectra's installation intact, we can learn a lot about their technology. And who they've been stealing it from, most recently."

"It's still a big risk. That's a Spectran they're dealing with. He'd double-cross them in a heartbeat."

"Maybe. But every individual is different. Hush now. Let's see what happens."

`Hush now'? Bridling, I turned back to the screens. The tableau hadn't really changed, apart from a certain impatience creeping over G1's features.

"Well?" he prodded.

G2 shot him a disgusted look past the frog mask's hyperthyroid gaze. "Never mind giving him a choice! Let's go with Option B." He flipped his fingers open, baring the quill's sharp tip and a good inch and a half of its loaded spine.

The frog captain wheezed in frantic protest. G1 stopped his second-in-command with a raised hand and gave the frog his pointed attention.

"Why should I care about this bunch of dregs?" the frog inquired almost conversationally, but with a hint of anger. His voice rasped and he clearly was having to fight the words past G2's forearm. "The way they work, this operation's never going to be finished in time anyway."

"You might care about your own safety,"
G1 countered simply.

"Why let me go?"

"Ooo. Good point."

"Doctor!"

"Yeah! Why let him go in the first place?" G2 demanded, tightening his grip perhaps unconsciously. The frog gasped and flailed in a restrained manner, possibly wary of the quill held ready so near his abdomen. "He'll just run straight for the incoming Spectran ship and warn them."

"Think it through."
G1 folded his arms, seeming annoyed with both of them. "If Zoltar catches him, he'll be made an example of for everyone else to remember. Even if he does warn the second wave, Zoltar still won't be satisfied. You know him, Jason: he'll order this guy to blow up the base with himself in it or something corny like that."

The Spectran visibly winced.

"Right." G2 eyed his capture sidewise. "Well, is he gonna cooperate or not?"

"I will,"
the frog said hurriedly. "You've convinced me. You wanted to know the targets and the time of our next attack--"

"Not just yet,"
G3 interrupted. The Spectran started and gaped at her, rather in the manner of a man who has just been addressed by a chair. G3's short cape-wings bristled up slightly, but her voice remained calm. "The first thing we want is access to your main database."

G1 smiled a little. "Thanks, Princess. You always keep your priorities straight, don't you." He turned to the Spectran. "The database, Captain. And don't tell me you can't access it from this room. The station's memory core is right under our feet."

"Is
it?" I scrutinized the floor plan.

"Oh yes." A metal finger indicated a little icon next to the tower. "Most of the station's business took place in its bay, after all. Although the control tower's structure had to be heavily reinforced in order to protect the computers--in case of a runaway ship, you see."

"So that's why they didn't just break into the physical core." I nodded slowly. "All of a sudden G1's strategy is starting to make more sense."

"Just starting to make sense, hmm?" The robot clucked pityingly. "Doctor, I am sorry. I hadn't realized you were experiencing confusion."

And you're lying through your little flashing lights, I thought nastily. I'd bet a whole box of pecan turtles that you were stumped too for a while there.

A grunt from the screen brought my attention back. Wearing an expression of profound annoyance, G2 had braced a hip against the Spectran captain's spring-loaded undergarments and was now--there was no other word for it--frog-marching the man towards the largest of the keyboards.

"But . . . but . . . our database?" the Spectran squeaked. "But . . . that's everything!"

"We don't need all of it. Just certain parts."
G1 had moved closer to one of the windows and was keeping a wary eye on the scene down below.

The Spectran winced again as G2 slammed him down into a chair. Before the man could so much as blink, the business end of the quill was resting over the equivalent of his right carotid. "Make one move towards the PA," G2 remarked lightly, "and you'll wake up whistling."

The officer froze again. I wrinkled my brow.

"Whistling?"

"In Spectran mythology, ghosts whistle," 7-Zark-7 replied. "Mark's put that particular superstition to good use on several occasions."

"That clears up that minor mystery." I frowned at the gaudy figure of the captain, who actually seemed to be relaxing a little now that he was sitting down. This isn't going to work. How can they possibly force him to type in the correct code? When there're about a billion other things he can input instead?

The Spectran officer's white-gloved hands rested lightly near, but not quite over, the keys. "Of course I'll cooperate, G1. Did you want access to any particular section of our database?"

"We'll keep that to ourselves."
G1 nodded at his second, and G2 promptly touched the quill to the Spectran's bare skin--only touched--then knocked his hands away from the board. G1 flashed G3 a quick handsign. "Go to it, Princess."

"Y . . . you tricked me!"
the Spectran hissed as G3 moved to a different keyboard, seated herself, and began calmly ripping up the console cover.

"Not really," G1 returned. "We knew there were two high-volume access routes in this room: one was installed with safeguards, one wasn't. You were too willing to give it a try at the unguarded location, so we know you must have been using the guarded one."

"And since it's
our equipment you're using," G2 grinned, "we know how to get around the safeguards. Don't move, Jeremiah."

The officer carefully lowered his hand again. Meanwhile, G3 was busy yanking wires and lacing them back together in a totally new pattern. "Keyop," she said absently, "you can try accessing the system now. Use the Tau 140 protocol."

"Yip-paa."
G4 flopped down in the chair next to hers and cracked his knuckles, then bent to the keyboard. The Spectran watched him, one corner of his mouth pulling back sourly.

"Kid," he muttered.

"Old fart," G4 retorted without looking up or missing a keystroke.

"Keyop!" G3 dealt him an affronted look. "What have I told you about your language?"

"Yeah,"
agreed G2, hanging over the Spectran's shoulder like a hungry vulture. "If you've got one shot at an insult, Keyop, don't waste it. Call him something good, like `junior high science project'."

G4 whooped and G3 looked daggers.

"Jason!"

The Spectran's mouth pursed disdainfully. "That's not much of an insult."

"Oh yeah?"
G2 grinned at him. "Got a little imagination exercise for you, Captain. There's this room with a bunch of tables. Add thirty young teenagers, half of whom are getting their first taste of testosterone and the other half of PMS, and a bucket of dead frogs. And every table has a complete set of scalpels, scissors, forceps, pins . . . ." The grin grew wider as the Spectran's mouth dropped open. "Yeah. I see you're getting the idea."

"He's good," I said enviously.

One of the robot's antennae twitched. "When there's no fighting going on, Jason prefers to keep his opponents off-balance."

"Captain." G1 had sunk briefly into the background, just watching the Spectran while the team bantered. Now he moved in. "We're not finished with you yet."

The officer gave him a hunted look.

"Oh yeah." Grayed glassteel hid the expression in G2's eyes as he tilted his head at his leader. The dead neutrality of his voice left me undecided whether that was annoying or just as well.

"We need to know what your orders are regarding those parasite ships out there." G1 waved a hand at the window behind him. The gesture wasn't necessary--the frog captain could hardly misunderstand which ships G1 was talking about--but it did confer a different sort of understanding as the light flashed on the open wings of the boomerang in G1's hand. The frog swallowed convulsively.

"You've got our database," he protested feebly.

"Humor us," G2 monotoned past his ear.

"To begin with . . ." G1 half-turned away from the two of them and stared out across the floor of the bay, ". . . what are your targets?"

The Spectran scowled. "Anything that looks good. --All right, all right," as G2 shifted position. "We're mostly a distraction force. Our orders contain a lot of high-flying trash about confusing the enemy and establishing an advance base. We'd use the Remoras to hijack or sabotage ships all over this system, and hopefully keep you too busy to think." He paused to make a curling, guttural noise in his throat. "We weren't really expected to survive too long."

"When was the main attack supposed to arrive?"
G1 was still watching the floor.

"I dunno. Zoltar was supposed to check in after a while and see how things were going?" His voice squeaked up and broke as G2 planted a hand on the back of his head.

"We need answers, Captain."

"It's the truth, I swear! Zoltar's gonna keep an eye on this system from the outside and move in when he sees fit!"
Sweat rolled past the gaping mouth of the mask: the quill rested ready at the side of the Spectran's neck.

G1 turned around, and the blue-gray warning in his eyes sent the other silent. "When?"

"One . . . week . . ." the Spectran gasped, and sagged in relief as G2 moved the quill back a few millimeters.

"Thank you." G1 shifted his gaze to his Second, then glanced at the hacker squad. "How goes it, Princess?"

"I think we're in the right section,"
G3 replied, massaging a wrist with her fingertips. "Keyop's just dumping the files right now."

"Hurrrit rit rit . . . only got . . . one cube,"
G4 warned. "Gotta reedeedee . . . make it count."

G2 pulled a face. "We have got to have a word with those designers. Either they get us a cube that holds more files, or build you another belt compartment."

"Rarra,"
G4 agreed, small hands stretching mightily to cover the keys.

"The problem is he's running out of belt space." G1 raised an eyebrow at the youngster. "No offense, Keyop, but you haven't got much waist to work with."

"And he already carries half again as much gadgetry as the rest of the team," I said with a snort. "There's the explosives, and the homing bug, and the bola, and the spare bola, and the powdered explosive for the bolas, and the infrared personnel detector for his communicator, and now the high-density memory cube . . . ." I paused, remembering a longago discussion in the lounge about that cube. "Lord love a duck, he's already carrying the best cube on the market! We go any higher in the memory department and the resolution'll drop below our own equipment's ability to reconstruct."

"So it may be necessary to--once again--redefine the field." 7-Zark-7 raised his hands and seemed to be flicking dust off imaginary cuffs. "Ah, well. A robot's work is never done."

"You?"

"Why, naturally." The robot gave me a funny look. "I am, after all, programmed for many capacities. In addition to my work here in the Nerve Center, I also formulate preliminary plans for adjustments to the Phoenix and to the Team's equipment. As needed, of course."

"So why the hell do they need us?" I muttered, disgusted. The Phoenix's design, huh? It's a wonder it didn't come off the production line with a big angry chicken face painted on the front!

"You misunderstood me, Doctor." The Tin Can dealt me a sage look. "I am just a think tank. When asked to improve on an earlier design, I produce several acceptable solutions. It's up to the human research and development personnel to determine which of these is the most applicable to the current constraints of finance, time, equipment, and productions capacity." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Then the working models must be turned over to our testing and evaluation department. I must say that over the years we have seen an impressive drop in the percentage of rejected designs. It's very flattering."

"But what about Dr. Gast and his cronies?" I rallied. "I thought they were the Center's dream team."

The Tin Can bridled. "We all contribute our part," he said sharply. "Really! I don't know why some people insist on disregarding my role as a conceptual designer. I hate to accuse anyone of bigotry, but sometimes I have to wonder if it's because I'm a robot."

"Hey, I'm just trying to set matters straight here." I waved my hands placatingly.

"Hmpf. Well." The Can's antennae relaxed. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I'm afraid you got caught by a long-standing complaint of mine. You see, many people don't realize just how much work I do. I'm not complaining about the demands on my time--I am a robot, after all, and we take pride in working at full capacity--but I'm rather hurt when people don't acknowledge my contributions. Especially my equipment designs." He shrugged. "I'm not saying that we don't need our human conceptual designers. That would be foolish. The more minds and points of view we have working on a problem, the likelier we are to find a solution that really works. But many of my designs have gone into production, and it just doesn't seem fair that so few people are willing to give me credit."

"I had no idea." Feeling awkward, I looked away. I bet he's exaggerating. But still, I can see it happening. He's a high-tech robot; he's got a supercomputer for a brain and oodles of memory. He's much faster than a human, and less likely to turn out flawed design plans. And what happens when you throw someone like that into a crowd of people who're used to being hailed as geniuses?

They get jealous. They get nasty. They do their damnedest to ignore him. The poor guy.


"Well, there's nothing I can do about it." The Can shrugged again, showing every sign of being prepared to forget the matter. That kind of reasonableness would also drive his detractors in Design crazy. I fought with myself for a moment longer--I wasn't fond of him either--then gave in.

"Maybe you can't change their shortsightedness, 7-Zark-7, but you're a better person than they are. I've met some of the Design gurus--" well, one, exactly . . . and here's where I get you back, Dr. Gast! "--and as a human myself I can tell you they're not all that pleasant to be around. My experience is that they've got egos the size of Jupiter and absolutely no idea how to relate to people less bright than they are. They're snooty, they're abrupt, they're impatient, and they may be brilliant thinkers but they sure don't get invited to any beer parties. So ignore them right back and let events speak for themselves. That's my advice."

The robot had gone very still. He didn't say anything for a good half a minute after I wound down, and I began wondering a little apprehensively if I'd gone too far. Still, it wasn't as if I'd criticized anybody's work or their competency, and I hadn't named names. Just stating a personal opinion. No law against that.

"Doctor--" the Can said at last, "--would you mind doing me a favor?"

"Depends," I said cautiously.

The robot gave me a direct, red, insect-eyed stare. "Please call me Zark."

My mouth fell open. "Uh . . . I . . ." --where did this come from?!-- "um . . . okay."

"Thank you. My friends call me that."

I ran through the list of people he had contact with on a fairly frequent basis, plus the people that actually seemed to like him, and came up with a common set of six. The Chief didn't seem to be friends with anybody, which left . . . G-force. Whoa!

"I'm . . . flattered you think of me that way." And how the hell do I deal with this? Just because he thinks of me as a friend doesn't mean he's not the Tin Can any longer!

"You care about how I feel. You treat me like a person, not `just' a robot. I think that's reason enough to call a person a friend."

I treat you with respect because if I screw up here, too, I'm out the door so fast the friction'll singe my eyebrows. But you've just paid me one hell of a compliment. I can handle calling you by your little pet name.

"There's just one other little thing," the robot said. His tone was rather stern, and I looked at him in suprise: now what? "Now, as a matter of strict policy, consumption of alcohol is not permitted in Center Neptune. These `beer parties' you mentioned--?"

I snorted and relaxed. "Only on shift vacation time, Zark."

"Oh. That's all right, then."



It was another twenty minutes (on top of the time the Can and I had spent babbling at each other) before the file dump was complete. Most of the little row of green lights across the top of the cube had gone yellow; one was flickering indecisively between yellow and red.

"Got a corrupted file in there," G2 commented to G4. "Or a worm virus."

"Barrit reetoop . . . better not be."
G4 gave the Spectran captain a look from under beetled brows.

"It wouldn't be one of ours," the frog retorted. "Worms are too slow. Give me a good file-melter any day."

"Don't worry about it, Keyop,"
G3 soothed. "That cube's got the best safeguards Zark could devise."

I shot that worthy a quick glance, but the robot only hummed quietly to himself, antennae bobbles coasting on some inner stream of thought. Well, he's modest, I thought. That's more than some can say.

"So now what, Commander?"
G2 queried, almost absently twitching the quill he still held. His elbow rested on the back of the chair the captain sat in; the quill rocked and jerked its little dance about six inches from the man's neck. The Spectran seemed mesmerized by it.

"Now we clean up." G1 raised his wrist. "Mark to Phoenix. Tiny, how's it going up there?"

"Quiet,"
came the reply. "Downright borin', if y'really wanta know."

"Well, I've got a job for you."
G1 watched the Spectran captain as he spoke. "Establish a weapons fix on these coordinates."

G2 gave his leader a sudden narrow look.

"Those coordinates right where you're standin', Commander?" G5 sounded concerned.

"This is the main bay, Tiny, and the center of Spectra's operation. We're standing in the control tower. Don't worry, we'll be well away from here in a few minutes."

Brief silence, then G5's voice returned. "Okay, I got the fix. When do I fire?"

"When I give the signal,"
G1 said, "or--and this is important, Tiny--if my communicator sends back a Code Blarney. Do you understand me? The Spectran captain's sitting right here, and I want to be sure there's no confusion."

A muffled snort escaped the communicator; searching through the screens, I finally found the one still showing a view of the bridge. G5 had a hand clamped hard across his mouth; the other beat aimlessly at the air. His eyes, squeezed tightly shut, began watering.

"Tiny!"

G5 struggled frantically for control, found it, and addressed his communicator with only a faint tremor in his voice. "I read you, Commander!"

"Good. If anyone gets close enough to disturb my communicator, we'll be in serious trouble anyway. A missile into this bay should stir things up enough to let us escape."
G1 lowered his wrist and smiled faintly at the slack-mouthed Spectran captain.

"What are you, some kind of fanatics?" the officer managed. "I never heard an order like that, not even out of Zoltar!"

"If nobody gives us trouble, that order won't be necessary,"
G1 responded. "But it never hurts to take out a little insurance."

Behind the captain's head, G2 was fighting hard against either laughter or nausea. "A Code Blarney! Mark, you've got no mercy at all."

G3 stepped adroitly in front of G4. Her face, at least, was under control. Indistinct snuffling noises drifted around her until she snapped a hand back and made a grab.

"All right." G1 checked the bay floor one last time, then nodded at G2. The frog captain wheezed as a hand dipped down the back of his neck and hauled him to his feet by the collar. G2 dragged him around and levered him towards the door, the rest of the team closing in around him like a litter of sheepdogs around a single sheep.

"Where are you taking me?" the frog inquired apprehensively as the little cluster exited the tower and moved down the hall towards the lift.

"We're not taking you very far at all," G1 replied. "We'd just like to get you a little further from the control room. I don't appreciate having doors slammed in my face."

The frog captain grimaced but made no further comment, instead shifting his weight from bandy leg to bandy leg as the lift descended. G2 loomed behind him, contriving to be menacing without moving a muscle. The Spectran kept flicking little glances back at him.

"I'll still be standing right behind you when we reach the bottom," G2 said to the air, gazing casually past the other's eyeball-crowned helmet.

The frog grimaced again, grinding his teeth. He stood docilely enough, though, as the lift reached the bay floor and slid its door open. The team formed up in a sort of horseshoe around the Spectran and moved out and back along the spur linking the tower with the bay wall, making for a screen of piled equipment and boxes. There was a closed door in that direction, too: smaller than the one the team had used to enter the bay, and equipped with an iris instead of a rising door.

I waited tensely for the cry of discovery while the group made its way across the floor, relaxed a little as they reached the shelter of the screen without incident. The frog was behaving himself nicely. I unknotted a little more when they pulled up in front of the iris. G3 stepped past the frog captain, eyes intent on the iris's touchpad . . .

. . . and froze in place as the thing twisted open all on its own. Her teammates promptly locked up as well, leaving the frog captain standing in a half-circle of statues with living eyes. He, on the other hand, jerked in surprise when the iris opened and raised one hand in a warding gesture. The contrast of motion versus stillness might have excused the two Spectran soldiers in the doorway from reacting to his presence before taking a good look at the company he was keeping.

"Sir! Somebody got our guards at the rear of the bay!--oh no . . . ."

There was a sudden, short blur, and the speaker crumpled with nine inches of twitching white quill in his neck. The second soldier nearly beat him to the ground, going over straight backwards in an arc led by his chin: G1 had come in low and gotten a fist up before the other could so much as cry out.

"That was close!"

"Yes, it was." 7-Zark-7 shook his head critically. "I don't think that corridor is a good one for them to take, Doctor. It--"

"It's them!"

Order ended and chaos began as the group of soldiers coming along after the first two emerged from a cross corridor and spotted the team. Half of them went for their sidearms while the other half cut into full reverse; there being no spatial demarcation between the bold and the prudent, a good deal of shouting and shoving ensued. The racket echoed down the corridor and out into the bay.

"Come on!" G1 drew his boomerang and charged. G3 and G4 followed.

"In these quarters?" G2 groaned, eyeing the press ahead with disgust. He plucked two quills from his boot, squinted briefly down the hall, and threw one. The frog captain shuddered as the thing whiffed past his ear. "Move it," G2 ordered, planting a hand against his back. "I'm not leaving you loose to bring a crew up behind us. And you just better remember that you're the only thing standing between me and that fight up ahead."

The frog stepped out smartly. G2 tailed him closely, stepping over or around prone green-clad forms. The rest of the team was already ten yards ahead and clearing the way like a combine harvester. Most of the Spectrans had joined the prudent camp and were fleeing back down the cross-corridor. Thirty seconds later they were all gone, at least the ones still vertical, and G-force stood at the junction.

"Which way, Mark?" G3 bounced her yo-yo lightly, working out kinks in its cable.

"Dead ahead," G1 replied. "This corridor heads straight to the equipment bay where we left the starbuggy. We're going to make a run for it."

"What about me?"
the Spectran captain demanded. G1 eyed him coolly.

"You'll come as far as the bay. I don't blame you for what just happened, but I don't like it either."

To the Spectran's dismay, he shortly discovered that G1 really had meant it about making a run for it. Fitness drills were apparently not a part of Spectran officer training school: the visible portion of the man's face soon became bright purple with exertion. G2 pounded along behind him, making low-voiced comments whenever the captain appeared to be failing.

At last the team reached the iris at the far end of the corridor and pulled up. The Spectran promptly hunched over, planting his hand on his knees and wheezing loudly. G1 spared him a brief glance.

"Thank you for cooperating with us, Captain. I hope you won't take it the wrong way if I say I hope we don't meet again."

"That goes . . . double . . . for me,"
the Spectran retorted, straightening with painful slowness.

G1 smiled faintly. "All right, team, we don't know what's waiting for us out there, but at least there'll be more elbow room. Everyone ready?"

"Ready!"
chorused back.

G1 thumbed the iris open, and of course there were Spectrans out there waiting for them. Weapons came up with a nasty chorus of clicks, but colors swirled and all of a sudden only the frog captain remained in the doorway, with G2 right behind him.

The frog eyed the half-circle of muzzles staring back at him. "Any one of you who fires at me is headed for Sigma Minor in a leaky lifeboat!"

There was a sudden averting of firearms and a few embarrassed coughs. In that brief pause G2 tapped the frog on the shoulder and grinned at him.

"Fly."

Perhaps the captain's elaborate mask interfered with his hearing. With a howl of pure terror, he wrapped his arms around his head and started to crumple to the floor, but G2 backed up a step and dealt him a firm kick in the posterior. Propelled by the forces of muscle and spring-wound steel, the captain described a short but geniune arc through the air that terminated with rather less grace than it had started. By that time G2 was in the air himself, hailing quills down at the guards and grinning like a tiger blissed out on catnip.

There were plenty of targets. Somehow the Spectrans who had fled earlier had managed to stumble across about fifty of their friends, and convinced most of these to come to the equipment bay to lie in ambush. Only ten or so had remembered to swing by the artillery locker first, however, which meant that G-force was now facing a large number of angry Spectrans armed with only pistols while the ones toting rifles sidled around the perimeter looking for a way to hit foe instead of friend. G-force was quite aware of them. At least, that was the only sane reason for their determined plunge into the very center of the Spectran mob. Only G2 stayed clear, having vanished into the support beams overhead: after about half a minute, one of the rifle-carriers staggered back clawing at the quill lodged between his chest plates. Pretty soon the pattern became clear: G1 led his two teammates in a spearhead straight towards the hidden G-4, while G2 rapidly picked off the riflemen. From their expressions, they were desperate for a chance to strike back, but G2 was keeping to cover and moving in no particular order.

"Good thinking on G2's part," I applauded. "Bet we see some riflemen bug out before too much longer."

"Yes, but the rest of the Team could really use him," the Tin Can fretted. "There are more and more Spectrans closing in on them, and I don't like the looks of this at all."

Checking the other screens, I frowned. A steady trickle of Spectrans was emerging from various doors and running to join the fray. None of them carried heavy arms, but as the Can had said, this didn't look so good.

The fight snarled on, leaving behind a groaning and occasionally oozing carpet of Spectrans lying in awkward positions on the decking. Still, G-force seemed to be winning. G2 dispatched the last remaining rifleman (the other two having thrown their guns away in order to run faster) and swooped down to join his teammates, landing unceremoniously on the shoulders of a large soldier about to pound G4. I could see the hiding place of the G-4 now; fortunately, the Spectrans seemed to have missed it in all the furor. The team had gotten into a sort of maze of piled equipment and was taking advantage of their ability to jump higher than their opponents to negotiate it more directly than they could.

When things went wrong, they did so all in a rush. G1 touched down on a crate which wasn't balanced as well as it should have been and sent it crashing down, blocking his team's route. Since the Spectrans had by now remembered about their guns and begun taking potshots at any member of G-force who strayed too high, the team was forced to deviate towards the nearest wall. Then an entire squad of fresh soldiers emerged from another of those inconvenient extra doors and found themselves in the perfect position to complicate matters still further. G-force skidded right into them, the pursuing Spectrans caught up, and suddenly the situation became much uglier.

"Now what?" G2 yelled at the Commander, planting an elbow in the face of a Spectran fumbling for his gun.

"Keep going!" G1 retorted, sounding short of breath. He was standing in the middle of a ring of soldiers and disabling them as they got up the courage to attack him. G3 and G4 stood back-to-back a dozen feet away fending off another group, and G2 was rapidly developing a ring of his own.

"Keyop! Princess!" G1 took a moment to check out their situation and frowned. "Go with the two-man Whirlwind Pyramid if you have to. Jason and I will get out of your way!"

"Big ten!"
G3 responded. The Spectrans surrounding them realized the problems inherent in cornering any two of G-force and began easing back, eyeing the rings around G1 and G2 in a considering manner. Then the ring around G1 collapsed inward as its members launched a massed attack, and G1 disappeared briefly in a boil of green and drab. G2 snarled and made a leap, crossing low over the heads of the soldiers surrounding him (and apparently kicking several as he passed, to judge by the sudden epidemic of staggering) and dropping down into the middle of the confusion. Seconds later both he and G1 reappeared, guarding each other's back.

The frog captain hove into view around a corner and shrieked in dismay.

"Don't touch the communicator! Don't touch his communicator!"

Heads turned rapidly; even the Spectrans presently facing G-force hesitated, watching their captain dance up and down waving his arms with a combination of bemusement and alarm. Then came slow dismay as they realized that they stood more and more alone with every second: those soldiers awaiting their turn at the fight were sidling away. G1 and G2 exchanged a quick glance and lunged forward; looking severely confused, the Spectrans gave way.

"What part is the communicator?" one of them yelled.

"Which him?" demanded another nervously, as G2 backed him against the wall.

"Just stay away from their bracelets! And don't touch their helmets! There's a missile trained on us this minute!" The captain paused to smear ineffectually at the sweat pouring down his cheeks, and suddenly realized the impact of his words. "You idiots! Don't let them go!"

Too late. At the word "missile", Spectrans had begun vanishing from G-force's vicinity, slithering around corners and into cover like spilled mercury. G1 glanced about, found his team still standing and looking to him for orders, and jerked a hand.

Swishswishswishthudswish.

The frog groaned, casting his hands at the ceiling. His men cringed apologetically. "That's it," the frog announced. "I've had it. Last group out gets questioned by Earth Security." He turned on a heel and stalked back the way he had come.

"But sir!" somebody shouted. "They're running from us!"

"Forget it," the frog retorted without altering stride. "This mission's a wash. Get your sorry selves out of here any way you can. G-force got into our database. They know everything."

There was a collective howl of dismay, and the bay began emptying in earnest. Even the wounded were making a crawl for it, excepting the one G2 had kicked on his way out, who lay on the floor humming to himself.

"Zoltar was a little lamb, his fleece as black as coal . . . Baa baa black sheep, have you any men? Yes, lord, of course, lord, eight million and ten . . . ."

G-force reached the waiting G-4 without further incident, and somehow I wasn't surprised to see the cargo lift obediently hoist them back to the surface. It'd be too much to ask that some Spectran might think to disable the thing and at least inconvenience G-force. Nah.

As the little multi-purp vehicle rose on blazing rockets towards the Phoenix, G-force discussed their day.

"I still think we should've hit `em with a missile first thing. You let a lot of men escape back there, Mark. You know they'll just come back."

"I hate to sound like a nag, Mark, but he's right."
G3 cast her leader a worried look. "I'm not sure how Chief Anderson is going to take this."

"--Just who are you calling a nag?"


G1 looked at them, something like a smile lurking under his visor. "You're forgetting something," he said. "And I wouldn't be so sure about any of them getting away."

G3 frowned. "I could have sworn you said . . . ." she began. G2, goggling theatrically, cut her off.

"You, Mark? You lied to the captain about letting him go?"

G1 rolled his eyes. "I didn't lie. I only said I'd let him escape the base. I never said anything about what might happen once they were away. Our in-system defenses are on the hot seat after that fiasco two days ago when the Spectran attack ship got away clean. They'll have been watching where we went--and that means watching this asteroid." He cocked his head at his Second. "Incidentally, I seem to remember the captain got a little upset when we left the two of you behind in the corridor."

"Really?"
G2 inspected the scanner near his ear casually.

"What did you say to him, Jason?"

"I told him he was going to take a little trip. Can I help it if he misunderstood me?"









Finis.
But stay tuned . . . .

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