Last Voyage of Delilah, Episode 303: Net Results, Part Two
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Rachel belatedly realizes that the comms aren't working due to the power being cut off. She'll have to leave the bridge to tell Valentine directly. She makes her way through the darkened ship and finds him assisting Tian in surgery. It's the only brightly lit space aboard. Poco spies her making her way through and follows her.
Rachel: They're pingin' us.
Poco: Actively or passively?
Rachel: Passive.
Poco: Well, that was gonna happen anyway.
Rachel: I know but … FYI. How's Eli doin'?
Tian can't talk to Rachel. She's too busy trying to save Eli. Under her hands, Eli takes a sudden turn for the words and the med alarms start screaming.
Tian: (to self) This is not going as well as I hoped …
Valentine: And it is different from any other situation on Delilah how? All we neeed is the Alliance jumping out of Eli like a girl out of a party cake …
Okay, probably not the best imagery ever but Valentine is trying for a little levity here. Things are tense enough as it is. He's hoping to keep Tian's fugue state from taking hold of her. He's … partially successful. Tian becomes hyperaware of the blood coursing through Eli's veins. She can see it leaking from another bleeder she'd somehow missed. The fugue state descends and she starts getting lost in it. Her perception shifts and suddenly she's incredibly small and getting sucked into the universe of Eli's body, riding the blood in his veins like a submarine under an ocean of red. All the cells and molecules are singing to her, siren sweet.
Valentine is right there and sees it the second it takes hold of her. He says loud enough to be heard but quiet enough not to startle the doctor into making a fatal slip:
Valentine: I cannot finish this surgery, Doctor. Period. No parentheses. No commas. No chance. Dr. Grace. Doctor. If he dies on the table, there will be nothing left to see. So stay with me. Stay with me. And to be honest, you don't have enough blood left in you.
And if that wasn't enough, Poco adds to the problems piling up.
Poco: Uh, Boss? We're runnin' outa air, by and by.
Valentine: Breathe less.
Poco: I'm just sayin' you might wanna hurry things up. Either get it over with or get it over with.
Valentine: Just keep us alive, however you can help.
Under Tian's hands, Eli's stats start circling the drain.
Tian: Cào nĭ mā!
Working feverishly, she rigs up another line to deliver blood directly from her to him. That seems to stabilize him long enough so she can sew everything up to rights and close him up. When she finally steps away from the table four hours after she stepped up to it, she and Valentine heave a sigh of relief.
Eli's numbers hold. They aren't fantastic, but they have at least stopped their downward slide. As Tian watches Eli, Valentine calls out, his voice echoing through the ship.
Valentine: The remainder of Delilah's crew, surgery's over. If we can turn on the power to get air, then please do so.
Valentine starts washing up alongside Tian. As they soap up and scrub, Tian starts to waver on her feet. Valentine takes her elbow and steadies her.
Tian: Val. I need you go to go the kitchen.
Valentine: What do you need?
Tian: I need protein.
Valentine: For the blood loss. Right.
Tian: And I have to give more.
Valentine: You don't have enough in your body to spare.
Tian: If I don't, he's going to die.
Valentine: (sighs) If you're going to give extra blood, try not to paint the walls with it.
Tian: (weak laugh) Bastard!
Valentine makes sure she can stand on her own two feet before going to the crew galley for that protein. In the engine room, Poco turns on the engines and gets the life support working before turning to Vikki.
Poco: I think we're gonna have to find a way to fool those sensors.
Vikki: Okay.
On the bridge, Rachel's thinking about the nature of the pings we're getting. The first was likely a very vague scan but there was enough information in it to cause a second less vague scan of us. She goes down to the engine room to tell Poco and Vikki her suspicions.
Rachel: We've got two passive scans and that second one was probably enough for them to go, "There's a large object drifting but fairly quickly."
Vikki: Okay, so that second one's probably got the ping on us. I'll bump up the gain on our passive sensors.
Vikki thinks that there's a way she can make Delilah's sensors more sensitive so that it can detect an approaching ship's pulse beacon far enough away to give the crew a head's up.
Poco: But if we were tapped into the whole gorram array?
Vikki: That would be awesome. Can we do that?
Poco: There's two things that it buys you—not that I've ever done this before—(ignoring Vikki's snicker)—the first thing that it buys you is you know where everybody is. The second thing it does is that it allows you to say "This floatin' piece'a debris went that way" when we're goin' in a very different direction. Quickly.
Rachel: It's like you never done this before, Poco.
Poco: I know. You know, I read a lot of books.
Rachel: I know. It's amazin' what book learnin' can do.
If they get this wrong, they'll light up like a Christmas tree, something that asteroids won't do.
Poco: Unless it's the asteroid Gandalf's on.
Rachel: (teasing) Yeah, that's true. Gandalf's asteroid might be doin' it. That's it. We can ping as Gandalf. You know your boyfriend, Tink honey. You can fake him.
Vikki: Actually … That's not a bad idea.
Rachel: (laughs) Yeah, because that won't freak them out, having an asteroid suddenly ping as Gandalf.
Vikki goes through the code Gandalf sent her, looking for anything she can use to spoof his signal. She finds enough and using Poco's criminal expertise and Rachel's knowledge of Delilah's systems, she starts hacking into the sensor array. She tries arranging a false signal to put the Feds off their tails as well as finding a way to get information on anything else in the array. If they can get advance notice of people moving in their direction, that would be god, thank you.
She managed but somehow Delilah's batteries get drained in the process. Nevertheless, she's successfully logged into the array and data starts scrolling on her pad.
System: System active.
And right under that, she sees what appears to be a command to the system, possibly from an Alliance ship.
System: Drone dispatched. System ignore. Await drone results.
Poco and Rachel peer over Vikki's shoulder.
Poco: So …?
Rachel: What're we seein', y'all?
Vikki: Well, you see …
On the screen, the designator for a destroyer class ship, IAV Garrett Voerge, pings on the sensor net. Given its size and position, it's obviously a ship on deep space patrol. And it's headed our way.
Rachel: Aw hell. Now what?
Poco: Baby steps, Mama Bear. Fool the drone or we can fool the sensor array. Then, sneak past the destroyer, which is a whole 'nuther puzzle to crack.
Rachel: But outrunnin' the drone'll activate us up like a light bulb.
Poco: But we're not in the destroyer's sensor array yet. They're usin' the sensor net. All we gotta do short term is fool the sensor net which we have access to. So while it might not be easy, it shouldn't be impossible. So, step number one: fool the drone by foolin' the sensor net. If it's got its own sensors, we need to fool it into going the other way, then rabbiting outa its flight path.
Rachel: What do we know that's in the area we can pose as? Can we feed it data that we're just a big spinnin' rock?
Vikki: How about looking like a glitch in the program, like a radar ghost?
Vikki reads the information on the drone. Most drones in current use are highly sophisticated. They have their own artificial intelligence, got a really good sensor package, nice engines, armaments … pretty much all the bells and whistles. While a mere sensor drone is probably unarmed, it will have programming to allow it to evade attack. Attempts to take it out will be like trying to take out a fighter in a dogfight. If Delilah was a fighter craft, she'd might have a chance of out-evading the drone and destroying it or otherwise taking it out. But Delilah isn't anything like a fighter, being more like a flying barn, and the drone's onboard evasion protocol will have it steer clear to avoid collision, as with a massive asteroid.
Poco: So far they don't have anything but a vague impression of something here on the sensor net. So all we gotta do is move that vague impression away and make it slowly fade away while we move in the opposite direction. They'll think it's a ghost on their sensors. And then, assumin' we don't get killed doin' that, we gotta get past the destroyer which has a lotta sensors.
Vikki: Okay, one thing at a time.
Rachel offers to go up to the bridge and scramble the drone's transmitter. It would look suspicious and it might attract the attention of the destroyer Hedge our bets? Have someone standing by to do the scrambling but let's see if we can spoof the signal to fool the drone so that the destroyer will turn back without investigating. Poco points out that we're not on the drone's own sensors yet. It's still working off the array feed to find us.
Fool the feed, fool the drone. Give it a ghost signal going elsewhere to draw it away. When it finds nothing there, it will signal back that there must have been a glitch in the program. And then it will beam back the glitch report to the software developers and wait six months before the fix comes back as a download …
Vikki: And by then, we'll be long gone.
Vikki gets to hacking via her keyboard and after a few close calls, she's successful in spoofing the ghost signal. The drone sees it and starts chasing it. However, that brings it closer to Delilah. Vikki hacks a little further into the sensor array, making a blank spot in the coverage all around the ship, effectively making it invisible. This requires Vikki to stay glued to her keyboard while the drone is near, making continuous adjustments to the sensor feed in a game of I-see-you/No-you-can't.
With Vikki effectively hiding Delilah from the array and the drone, Rachel is now free to fly the ship in the opposite direction. Poco spins up the engines to idle. Rachel keeps a steady hand on the yoke. All she needs is the all-clear from Vikki to start moving.
Vikki watches the drone's progress, monitors the feed on the array, watches the data scroll by … and is seized by a sudden temptation. She's already hacked into the array and misleading the drone. What if she lured it alongside Delilah, take it, and harvest its tech? It's high end, military grade, and at the moment, it has no idea that she's even there. She could hoodwink it right up to the second she turns it off and hauls it aboard. Once that's done, the threat of the drone is completely neutralized. Oh, the things she could do with its CPU alone … The possibilities bloom in her head, shiny and seductive.
Her responsibility to the crew battles with the compulsion to tinker …. and the idealistic inventor side of her nature wins, convinced of the good she could do with the tech.But how will she get it aboard without anyone finding out?
Belatedly she remembers something that Valentine said to her when she revealed she'd taken the robot Dori aboard: whenever she needs to do something crazy, ask him first because he might let her do it.
With the drone deactivated, she no longer needs to stay glued to the keyboard. She can spare a few minutes away to ask. Poco is busy in the engine room. Rachel's on the bridge. No one is nearby to stop her. Vikki ditches the keyboard to find Valentine.
Meanwhile, Valentine has gotten enough food and drink into Tian to keep the woman from fainting dead away from blood loss—erm, donation. She's incredibly pale and rocky looking, but she's able to stay on her feet and tend Eli.
Tian: Eli's not out of the woods yet. He won't be for days.
Valentine: All right, then you should go take a nap.
Tian: I'm too jacked up on adrenaline.
Valentine: Oh, is that what we're calling it?
Whatever we're calling it, Valentine could use some. He's feeling a bit rocky himself, thoroughly fatigued from the emotional and psychological toll of maintaining Tian's sanity. He's not at his best when Vikki pops her head through the med bay door. He has trouble keeping up as her mouth goes a mile a minute.
Vikki: Val?
Valentine: (weary) Yes, Vikki?
Vikki: I can hack that drone. I can catch that drone. I can do itIknowIcandoitWe can use its CPU for—omigodsomuchstuff!
Valentine: Vikki, I trust you. It's fine. If it's what you need to do, just go ahead and do it. I still have a bunch of other things going on.
Vikki: Okay!
And she's out of there like a shot.
Rachel is still on the bridge waiting for the green light from Vikki. When the wait gets too long for her to bear, she hits the comms.
Rachel: Give me a gorram cigarette! I don't think I can handle this! She ain't really got any idea what she's doin', ain't she?
Vikki: Hang on, hang on! I got an idea!
Rachel: All right. Hurry up!
Vikki gets back on the keyboard and starts sending commands to guide it alongside Delilah without reporting her and to turn the drone off. Instead of turning it completely off, Vikki activates its internal self-diagnostic mode, effectively taking it out of commission while it stops to run it. If Vikki can get it aboard and deactivate it all the way before it's finished, that drone will never give their position away. Once she's got it deactivated, she can open it up and start harvesting its parts. Vikki leaves the keyboard for the cargo deck, thinking if the forward airlock isn't in a good position, she can use one of the shuttle bays. Once she's in a suit, she can grab the drone and pull it inside.
Easy, right?
Vikki hits her suit comms.
Vikki: Rachel, can you get closer to the drone please? I've stunned it but I need to drag it inside to kill it.
Rachel: Do what now?
On the bridge, Rachel looks askance at the comms. Did she hear the girl right? Poco breaks in on the channel.
Poco: Mama Bear, I notice the engines ain't moving yet.
Rachel: Yeah, I'm waitin' for Tink to tell me to go, so … (switches channels) … Tink, come again? I thought I heard something that wasn't "Let's go."
Vikki starts babbling about flipping the drone and making it tell the Feds anything we want.
Vikki: I can do it, no problem. We just have to get the drone onboard, hookitup to my data pad andhackintoitsCPUand—
Rachel: Babygirl, how is that gonna—
Vikki: Val said I could and I—
Rachel: All right.
Rachel turns the volume down as the torrent of words spill out of the comms. Girl has a motor mouth on her and it's damned too distracting. Blessed quiet restored, Rachel ably nudges Delilah into place. Vikki gets the shuttle bay airlock open and she pulls the drone aboard. Air hisses as she cycles the airlock shut and she's already dragging the thing further inside. Vikki quickly opens the maintenance panel on the drone, plugs her data pad up to it, and deactivates it all the way.
Vikki: (smug) Heh. Tell me you love me. (smacks it)
Rachel turns up the volume again to ask Vikki for an update but Poco breaks in first.
Poco: Mama Bear, I can't help but notice we still haven't moved the ship anywhere.
Rachel: Well, Poco, Vikki wants to bring the drone aboard and Val said it was okay. I couldn't understand a damn word she said in between those two phrases.
Poco: She's bringin' it aboard?!
Rachel: Although it can't find that it's inside'a us, so I reckon it can't tell us that we're there. Oh hell, Poco, I need a beer, honey.
Vikki's oblivious to anything but making the drone tell her all its secrets. As a result, she misses a little tell-tale blinking light of an outgoing transmission before she cuts power to the drone. On the decks above, the rest of the crew is trying to piece together just what happened. Poco walks into med bay to ask Valentine what the hell is going on?
Poco: Did you tell Tink to bring the drone on board?
Tian: What drone?
Valentine: She said she had to do something and that it was necessary, so I said that I trusted her to do what was necessary.
Poco: I don't know whether to be impressed or kill her.
Valentine: (catching up) What? What drone?
Poco: The one we were going to outrun before Little Girl decided that she wanted it and brought it on board. Oh and by the way, there's a destroyer out there too. And we're sittin' here drilling a well.
Tian: Oh—Tā mā de!
On the bridge, Rachel detects a signal being sent from inside the ship. *headdesk!* She hits the comms.
Rachel: Capt'n?
As she speaks, she gets an incoming hail.
Rachel: Vikki? Would you like to talk to the people that you just invited onboard to come and hail me on the comm?
Comms: Unknown vessel. This is the IAV Garrett Voerge.
Rachel: Vikki, the call's for you, honey. I'm gonna have a beer.
Comms: Repeat. Unknown vessel. This is the IAV Garrett Voerge. Please respond. Do not attempt to move away. We will interpret any movement as aggressive.
Rachel: Again, Vikki. Vikki? Vikki, this call is for you. Would you like to—.
Rachel, of course, hit the all-button on the internal comms. Everyone aboard can hear everything said. In med bay, Valentine sighs and thumbs his comm for the bridge.
Valentine: Rachel. Stop. The last thing you want is Vikki on the goddamn line with an Alliance destroyer.
Rachel: Why'd you tell her to bring that thing onboard?
Valentine: We'll talk about that later. It was not exactly what I thought it was, but it's not the time for it now. How far out are they? Somebody tell me how far out are they?
Out of our sensor range, at least. Long-range. But that could change pretty quickly. Valentine makes his way to the bridge.
Valentine: Rachel. Can we outrun them?
Rachel: No. … Probably not. … Maybe …
Valentine: Can we do that push-button thing?
We could hit the turbo boost and outrun the IAV Garrett Voerge but we can't outrun the speed of light. Garrett Voerge could just call ahead and have people waiting for us at the other end. A screen flickers to life on the bridge and a woman in the uniform of the Alliance Navy looks back at them. From her rank insignia, she's no mere comms officer. From her tone and bearing, she's not entirely pleased.
IAV Garrett Voerge: This is Commander Higgs of the Garrett Voerge.
Valentine: Commander Higgs, this is Captain Valentine Quick.
Cmdr. Higgs: your navigation beacon is not activated. This is a violation of Alliance regulations.
Valentine: I'm sorry it's not active. It has been a helluva trip. It if wasn't active I didn't realize it wasn't active and I apologize greatly for—
Cmdr. Higgs: Spin down your engines. We'll be there in a few minutes.
Valentine quits the bridge to find Vikki. That woman has some explaining to do.. In the shuttle bay, Vikki is quickly dismantling the drone. She looks up as she hears Valentine's voice over the comms. She's up to her elbows in the drone's innards and she's about to extract the CPU.
Valentine: Vikki?
Vikki: (still working) … Yeah?
Valentine: Where are you, Vikki?
Vikki: … Shuttle bay.
Valentine: Stay there.
Vikki: …. Kinda busy right now ….
On the bridge, Rachel sighs and kicks back with that beer. They've been caught by the Feds and they ain't goin' anywhere. Might as well enjoy what might be the last beer she'll ever enjoy as a free woman.
Valentine strides into the shuttle bay.
Valentine: (terse) Vikki?
Vikki: (still working) Yes?
Valentine: Explain to me why?
He points. She throws him a puzzled look over her shoulder. Is this a trick question?
Vikki: CPU. We need it.
Valentine: What do we need it for?
Vikki: What don't we need it for? Speed up our computing power. Upgrade our systems so they can go faster so we can go fasterwhenweneedit—ohhhh … this is awesome … the memory on this thing alone could—and I could ….oooh….
She's got the CPU in her hands and it occurs to Valentine at that moment that the light in Vikki's eyes looks rather like Tian's when she's in the grip of her Reaver fugue state. And now he has to snap Vikki out of it.
Valentine: Vikki. Vikki.
Vikki: (blinks) … what?
Valentine: Put every single piece of that drone—and I mean every single piece—in a small neat pile, right over there. Because when we get boarded in about three minutes by the Alliance destroyer Garrett Voerge—
Vikki: (blinks again) What? Sorry, go on.
Valentine stifles a sigh.
Valentine: Because I'm pretty sure that drone just gave them a signal telling them it knows we're here. One of the many things they're going ot ask is why the hell are you dismantling their drone and I don't have an answer for them.
Vikki is already dismantling the drone as fast as she can, making it look less like a drone and more like a pile of junk. Valentine grabs her wrist to make her stop.
Valentine: No, Vikki. They know we're here. No.
Vikki: You told me to take it apar—
Valentine: No. It's already taken apart. I told you to put it in a pile. A neat pile so we can return all the pieces to the Alliance.
Vikki: But I—okay.
Thoroughly derailed, Vikki has to reset her head. Okay. Pile, not parts. Right. As she starts gathering everything together, Valentine tries to hold off that emotional fatigue just a little bit longer.
And then it hits him. He recalls Commander Higgs' face from their brief conversation on the bridge. She's tired. She's been on deep space patrol for who knows how long with relief possibly nowhere in sight. She and her crew are as fatigued as Valentine is. Any deviation from expectations is getting more and more difficult to face and deal with. All anyone wants is smooth sailing until they can all get relieved and go home.
He can use that.
If Valentine can give Higgs a good reason to turn away, to dissuade her that he and his little ship are too insignificant a catch for the amount of work they'll have to do …
Valentine turns to Vikki.
Valentine: (firm) Everything in neat piles and if they're in anything but that condition, there will be hell to pay.
He stalks out of the shuttle bay to find the rest of his crew. There on the bridge where Rachel's sharing that bottle of beer around. Valentine walks in just as Tian takes a swig and he doesn't even break his stride as he says:
Valentine: You've just given 4 pints of blood, Doctor. Put that down.
Tian: (swallows) … It was worth it.
Valentine: I don't care. Give me a reason—give them—a reason not to board us. What would be such a pain in the ass to come aboard for, aside from the fact that we're a living cancer factory, that they'd rather deal with something else. Because I have enough as it is on my plate and she—(he points at the approaching Voerge)—strikes me as someone who would really rather not go to the trouble.
That starts a verbal avalanche from the crew.
Rachel: Maybe a dumbass newbie crew who's just bought a freighter and are just learnin'? Need a tow, got ourselves in trouble? Or we got a brand new navigator and the owner was a casino owner?
Poco: Our Captain is worthless.
Valentine: I'm okay with the Captain is worthless.
Rachel: Or our pilot is senile. Our Captain worked for a casino. We're left out here on our own. Our power's out.
Tian: We got no power, our Captain's drunk, and we got emergencies that need medical attention.
Valentine: If we make Eli our navigator it all kinda plays in to how we got here. Our navigator was for-suck anyway and navigated us right into a comet and immediately got hit.
Rachel: We're a dumbassed beat-up ship.
Tian: (eyeing the sensors) Talk fast, people.
Yeah. Easy to say. Just remember that we don't want to paint a picture that will compel them to come and help us.
Valentine: So what can we tell them so they don't want to come and help?
Rachel: We're okay but we're …?
Tian: If we were headed for home, headed for White Sun anyway, would they bother us?
Rachel: Yeah. They're keepin' us from goin' there. We're in a restricted military zone, honey. An' we got a dumbass navigator who navigated us wrong.
Tian: So … "Can you point us in the right direction home again?"
Rachel: Yeah, cuz he got hisself injured by a meteorite. He's stable so we don't need a medical transfer but we need some directions home. Cuz if they could give us a ping home or to a planet nearby that would help us greatly.
Poco: Just don't make it too much of a sob story or they'll come help. Sure, they could give us the directions to the right pinger but we don't have the fuel to not be goin' through restricted airspace.
Tian: We'll just tell them that because we got off course we're low on fuel. We need to get home. If they could point us the straightest route we'll stick to the path they give us but we might not have enough fuel.
Poco: And that would have us keep goin' through military space.
Tian: And so maybe they could refuel us.
Poco: If they do that, why wouldn't they board us?
Tian: They've got no reason for it.
Refueling can be done midflight in space using remote controlled fuel lines. No one need leave their ship to hook anything up. No one need board anybody.
Valentine: Again, I think they'd just rather see us on our way without taking any trouble. It's just a question of what story we can tell them that's harmless enough that we're not worth paying attention to.
Tian: Our navigator was wrong, got us lost.
Rachel: Is he in any condition to contradict that story?
Tian: No.
Rachel: Then that's the story. That poor old sod's gonna have to be the navigator.
Poco: No. We don't have to be a completely newbie crew.
Tian: Yeah, cuz we don't want anybody to come out because we got nobody to help us get out of here.
Poco: The thing is to say that our navigator got us off course, off charts, and if someone could point us to the right course, we could get back there.
Valentine: And what if the right course is back the way we came?
Poco: That's when we say we need fuel.
But wouldn't that bring them closer when we want them farther? We're chasing our tails here. We need to decide on a plan.
Rachel: Captain, I trust you to think on your feet.
Valentine: We can't think of every scenario.
He takes up the comm and keys the screen live to talk to Higgs. She's looking away from the feed, obviously talking to someone offscreen, then turns to the camera.
Cmdr. Higgs: (offscreen) …. Calm down! … (sees Valentine) Yes, are you the Captain?
Valentine: I am the Captain, Captain Quick.
Cmdr. Higgs: Captain, you know you are in a restricted entry vector?
Valentine: I did not know that before we passed the beacon, so to speak—
Cmdr. Higgs: Why didn't you turn around?
Valentine: We don't have a lot of fuel. Our navigator, curse his gorram name, is terribly new and as it turned out, not terribly good at his job. He ended up navigating us into the tail of a comet. He ended up paying for it, cuz he's currently in our med bay with a piece of comet-hole in the middle of chest. So we're pretty much low on fuel and we're without a great set of charts. So if you could do us the favor of a relatively accurate heading and maybe a little fuel, we'll be out of your hair and out of your restricted zone. We have no desire—.
Cmdr. Higgs: We are not a refueling depot here.
Valentine: That's fair enough. I get that you're not. Look, what's the big deal about giving us just a little fuel? If you want us out of your hair, clearly you do, and we're not trying to be trouble. We lookin' for a little fuel and course directions.
Cmdr. Higgs: Is your pulse beacon not operable? We can't let you into Alliance airspace if it's not operable.
Valentine: It's probably operable it's just probably inoperable at the moment. And I get it that your long-range sensors can't really see up close what our ship looks like but if you could see it up-close and personal, you'd probably understand why we occasionally have these times where the pulse beacon goes out and we didn't realize it. If you've never flown through the tail of a comet in a ship smaller than a destroyer, a lot of things go wrong. And it turns out, now that you've thankfully informed us, that the pulse beacon is not working. We will work on putting it together.
Poco: (sotto voce) I'll start working on it.
Valentine: My engineer's heading there, right now. He's more solid than our navigator so he should get it up and running.
Higgs can't see anything to the contrary because Poco's got the good sense to stand out of the camera's pick-up. He steps further to the side and lights a cigarette. It wouldn't do to turn the beacon on right away. He's got to pretend he's working on it. Luckily, that isn't hard. Neither is it hard to be sincere when Valentine says:
Valentine: I am sorry to be in your hair.
Cmdr. Higgs: You don't have an Alliance flag on that pulse beacon so where do you hail from?
Valentine: Yànwō.
Cmdr. Higgs: All right. … (sighs, glances down at something) … I probably should inspect you at the very least just to make sure you're not carrying contraband or anything of that nature …
Valentine: I'll tell you, we don't have the money for contraband. I'll be honest, I wouldn't be against the idea if I thought I had money to buy any but you cannot bleed this stone any longer.
Our story, though a trick, is still mostly true. It lends conviction to Valentine's performance and Valentine can see it is working. He can see Higgs wavering. How to capitalize on that?
He thinks back to his conversation with Vikki … was it three hours ago? four? … where he had a conversation with Vikki and it felt like a good conversation, like they trusted each other and they weren't going to do anything to harm the ship. And then, three hours later, she's abusing that trust to—well, maybe he deserved that, considering how he manipulated her crush on him. But he'd done it for the sake of the crew. And not, he admits privately, for her mechanical boyfriend/AI, Gandalf. But now she's got Dori and that robot might well become a Gandalf surrogate and …
Wait.
Is he really concerned about being replaced in her affections by a machine? Really? Jeez, Val, get your head back in the game.
He sighs and gets back on track. He sees that the destroyer is closer and now scanning Delilah. Before he can say anything to Higgs, who's still on-screen, he sees her look aside again as someone (probably a tech) off-screen on the destroyer informs her:
Tech: (offscreen) Captain, we're showing numerous anomalies on our scan.
Valentine: That's the kindest word I've had anybody use about our ship, really. We've had people refuse to board before.
Cmdr. Higgs: Can you make it to these coordinates on this vector?
She sends the data right over. Rachel shakes her head.
Rachel: (softly) There is no way we can do that.
Valentine: (to Higgs) No, sir. Ma'am.
Cmdr. Higgs: (to Tech) How much fuel do we have?
Tech: (offscreen) Well … if we hook up to that supply ship.
Cmdr. Higgs: Levi?
Tech: (offscreen) That's the closest one.
Cmdr. Higgs: (to Tech) Uh-uh. I'm not letting him on my ship again.
Valentine and the crew watch all this avidly. What happens next is up to a woman deciding who she wants to deal with least—us or the Captain of the Levi. Higgs weighs her options and after what seems like years, she looks back at Valentine again.
Cmdr. Higgs: All right … we're reporting your pulse beacon frequency and we're reporting it to the authorities on your best trajectory which should take you to … (she checks something offscreen) … if you follow this path it should take you to Ariel. I'm reporting you there. Arrive and submit yourself to inspection.
Valentine: Of course.
Cmdr. Higgs: If you do not report in … (to Tech offscreen) … How much speed do you think this ship can manage? … (to Valnetine) … One week. If not, we'll issue a BOLO on you.
Valentine: A week will be tight but I think we can do it.
Cmdr. Higgs: If you find yourself in need of assistance … (she cracks a tired smile) … call Levi. It's a resupply ship at this vector.
She sends the date over and one gets the sense that she's going to enjoy passing the buck to Levi.
Valentine: Much appreciated. We'll be right along shortly.
Cmdr. Higgs: All right. Voerge out.
The screen goes black. The crew wilts. Bullet dodged.
Rachel: Well done, Captain.
Poco: Crew beating—I mean, meeting.
Ah yes. There is still the matter of a certain wayward inventor to address. Valentine hits the comm.
Valentine: Vikki.
Vikki: (small) Yes?
Valentine: Meet in the lounge.
Vikki: 'kayyyy ….
He snaps the comm off. Rachel raises a ginger brow.
Rachel: I dunno. I wanna see what we almost died for.
Valentine: Meet in the lounge and we'll discuss if afterwards.
Tian slips into med bay to check on Eli, our much-maligned fictitious navigator. Luckily the lounge is right outside med bay so she doesn't miss the meeting. Vikki trudges up the stairs, knowing what she's in for. She'd very much rather not get taken down by Valentine. Poco is happy to oblige her when she puts herself front and center of the Captain.
Poco: (growling) Of all the stupid things—!
Vikki cringes but stands her ground.
Valentine: (quietly) Vikki.
Vikki: …. yes?
Valentine: I may regret this but can I ask—and let's keep it short—why you thought it was a good idea to capture an Alliance drone in the middle of restricted airspace?
Vikki: We needed its CPU.
Valentine: Why did we need the CPU? Did we need the CPU to escape the destroyer? Or get to the Core?
Vikki: Yes.
Poco starts to cough. Valentine shakes his head.
Valentine: Wow. In gambling, they call this doubling down.
Vikki: You told me to keep it short.
Valentine: Would you like to clarify it a little of that that means for the rest of us?
Vikki: With the CPU and hacked into their system—assuming we escaped, that is—we could have done so much more to disguise our tracks. That was Thing One.
Valentine: Uh-huh.
Vikki: Thing Two. With the CPU I could have done that decoding task that you asked me to do, which you said was First Priority.
Valentine: When it didn't come to escaping a destroyer, yes.
Vikki: Thing Three. With that CPU we could have increased out onboard computer's multitasking ability so we could do more at the same ti—
Valentine: I'm going to stop you right here.
Vikki: But I had two or three more.
Valentine: Oh I know you did. But that's a pile of Nice-to-Haves instead of the Need-to-Haves. No, I guarantee you, when the portside toilet is still blocked, getting more CPU power is not a priority. Unless that CPU can automatically flush that problem.
Rachel: Or if that CPU could tell us that toilet's blocked faster than the ship's CPU could. Like now.
Valentine waves Rachel behind his back to shut it.
Valentine: The worst thing was coming to the med bay and sort of implying it was a Need-to-Have and then being told by my pilot and my engineer that it was not a needful thing and that we were supposed to be doing something else. Like … escaping the drone and the destroyer. Is that fair?
Vikki: … (deep breath) … I don't think that there is anything I can say to anyone in this room to explain why I did what I did or how I came to the conclusion to do what I did.
Poco: (grumbles) Well, she ain't wrong.
Valentine: Okay. Vikki, you ought to think about that some, because you almost got us all arrested and you almost got us potentially killed. I'll admit that I'm—maybe not the first, let's say the second or the third on this ship—to say that these credits that we're heading towards are likely to ever hit our pocket but let's say they do. Let's say some portion, even. You could buy a lot of CPUs with that amount of money. You could probably buy yourself some black market Alliance drone CPUs and not even blink an eye. You and I are going to talk, because this can't happen again.
Vikki: (very quietly) Oh, yes. That's definitely happening.
Valentine: In the meantime…
He turns to Tian.
Valentine: Doctor, are you going to pass out? Be honest.
Tian: Maybe soon.
Valentine: So you're going to go to your room and pass out there instead of in the lounge. Now that the power's on, we will hear if Eli has another heart attack or anything else goes wrong with him.
Rachel: Heart attack? What?!
Oh, that's right. She has no clue to the close call Eli suffered.
Valentine: I'll discuss that with you in a minute.
Tian: He coded on the table.
Valentine: You need to sleep.
Tian: Three times.
Rachel: Darn it.
Valentine: You need to sleep, because if you die …
Tian nods her acquiescence from the couch. Valentine sweeps his pilot and engineer up with a look.
Valentine: Rachel. Poco. I apologize. I was tired. I was extremely tired and in the middle of doing surgery, but that doesn't excuse me from asking and clarifying what was happening before giving an order or sending someone out to perform an order.
Vikki is absolutely mortified to hear Valentine take on even a portion of the blame. Oh god, just kill her where she stands.
Rachel: Naw, Rosalie used to do that all the time. Young'uns do things like that.
Valentine: Rosalie can do whatever—
Poco keeps his trap shut, reckoning that now would not be a good time to throw any stones, not when it comes to offspring. Rachel pats Vikki's shoulder.
Rachel: It's okay.
Poco: I just didn't expect it from Tink. I didn't think she had it in her.
Vikki: (stung) Hey!
Valentine: I knew she had it in her.
Tian: She has that insatiable curiosity on her side.
Poco: I dunno, but I didn't know it was paired with insatiable stupidity.
Rachel: She was pretty smart slidin' it in at that point, she had the trump card. That was pretty smart. (to Vikki) That doesn't mean I'm gonna trust you anymore.
Poco: It would've been smarter if it worked.
Valentine: It pissed me off, Vikki.
Rachel: But with all sincerity, like the child said.
Tian: (from the couch) It just seemed the thing to do. Everybody makes bad choices.
Valentine: She just needs to think about the bigger picture. I'll talk to her.
Vikki keeps her trap shut, suffering being spoken of as if she wasn't in the same room. In a way she isn't. She's a problem for the crew to deal with now, not really a person. Tian rises from the couch for her quarters to get that much needed sleep. Who knows? She might be exhausted enough to sleep without dreaming. On the way, she pats Vikki on the shoulder, bringing her back to the fold.
Tian: (whispers) We all do the dumbs sometimes. Hang in there, kiddo.
It's not like Vikki crashed Delilah into a Reaver ship or anything. Or sold illegal weaposn off her cargo ramp. Had she been successful in her play for the CPU, she would have been wildly successful. The crew even has a cover story—the Feds think Delilah's on her way to Ariel when in fact they're going elsewhere. Valentine doesn't dispute any of those points, but they're not the ones that immediately matter. As Poco had done with the weapons, so Vikki had done with the drone: they'd pulled an end run around their Captain. He will take Vikki aside and discuss it later. Right now, they have more pressing matters to attend to.
Valentine: Rachel can you get us to Albion?
Rachel: I can get you there.
Valentine: Poco, can you disable our pulse beacon or change the frequency on it?
Rachel: I don't think we need to disable it cuz they're goin' to be lookin' for it. We should just switch it.
Poco: Right this minute?
Valentine: That was not a right-this-minute order. When it feels appropriate, please do so.
Rachel: Let's get a little distance between us an' them. Y'all go on and go to bed. Y'all been wrung out you don't look much better'n the doctor does. Let the old fogeys fly the ship.
Valentine: Vikki, come with me.
Rachel: (groks) Poco, why'n't you keep me company on the bridge?
Poco: I just sat down and got a beer. Why? Are you tryin' to clear the room?
Rachel: (pointedly) There's more comfortable chairs on the bridge.
Rachel hauls Poco with her out of the room, leaving the floor to Valentine and Vikki. Once the coast is clear, Valentine says:
Valentine: Vikki. It's not about the CPU, it's about the fact that you abused my trust. But I'll be fair. I've done that in the past with you, when I thought it would get you to do something that would help our ship.
Vikki fixes her gaze on a stain on the deck in front of her. Valentine waits a beat to let her respond and when she doesn't, he continues.
Valentine: I need you to think of the bigger picture. I need you to think about the fact that we all could have died. That CPU isn't going to do anyone any good if we're all floating in deep space.
No response.
Valentine: And … (sighs) … You do lots of things awesome. And now that we have a CPU, I'm interested in seeing what you do with it but I want you to give some thought about why this might not have been the best moment to make that particular maneuver. And then think about how you can apologize to the rest of the crew. It wasn't just my trust. You were working directly with Rachel and Poco. I was obviously in the middle of surgery while this was happening so I can't be too sure on the details. Sounds to me that they were expecting X out of you and they got Y and almost got us killed.
No response.
Valentine: Just give it some thought?
Vikki: (quiet) Sure.
Valentine: And the doctor's right, by the way. We all eff up. There isn't anybody on this ship that hasn't done it multiple times. Including Poco. It's not how you screw up or how you fail, but how you learn afterwards. All right?
Vikki: (quiet) Yeah …
Valentine: Okay.
Vikki: (quiet) Got a lot to process …
Valentine turns away and thinks to himself: maybe you can use that CPU to process it. Uncharitable of him perhaps but gorammit, he's tired and all he wants is a little peace and quiet away from the drama. If he can't dodge the drama, he'll settle for a little bit of crew harmony and some sleep.
Vikki stands in the middle of the lounge, skunked seven ways come Sunday, and wonders if she'll be able to make it right with the crew … or with Valentine. He'll never look at her again with anything even remotely like respect. Or even liking. Just please, god, bury her where she stands.
Up on the bridge, Poco just drinks his beer. Coming at the end of a long irritating day, even warm it tastes pretty good.
Rachel quickly regains her perspective. As long as they ain't been bounced off another Reaver ship and they're all still flyin' and breathin', she's happy. Hope flies a ship as much as fuel, cements a crew as much as a Captain. She stores away the coordinates and the vector from Cmdr. Higgs and turns Delilah for Albion and the Core … and possibly to the payday they're all hoping for.
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