Catch a Falling Star

Scherzo 12  – The Debate in the Ready Room

In the ready room where the borrowed Tech Level 9 Vacuum Suits were stowed, Tiki Astro, Gyro Sinjarac, and Billy Iowa were all three busy trying to figure out how best to carry out their orders.  They had to prepare the five clunky-sized duro-steel deep-space suits to fit one normal-sized adult and four child-and-youth-sized bodies.

“It is going to be a difficult refit,” said Tiki, millions of calculations whirring through his Metaloid mind as he was thinking and talking.  “Gyro, you and Junior Aero are both ‘Nebulons, so you are really no bigger than ten-year-old boys of the humanoid persuasion.”

“Well, I don’t think you need to insult us just because we’re Space Smurfs,” said Gyro.

“You are calling yourself that name again, Buddy,” reminded Billy.  “That’s an insult to your race you know.”

“Oh, yeah… sorry.”

“No need to apologize to me.  I’m a Space Texan… I mean, Space Cowboy.  And neither of those names is an insult.”

“You are bigger than the Nebulons, but you are smaller than Ged Aero-sensei.  Your suit will have to be cut down to size too,” said Tiki.  “We best get started cutting and repairing.”

“Oh, no need for that,” said Gyro.  “My powers make it easy to shrink the suits to fit just by Psion ability alone.”

“Oh, right.  I am not familiar enough with how your powers work to add that to my calculations.”

“You don’t need to worry about the computer science-y stuff.  I can handle the modifications without that.  I just reduce the spaces in the atoms themselves with Psionic squishy-power.”

“Cool,” said Billy.

“Watch me fit this suit for Billy.”  Gyro’s hands began to generate a reddish glow.  He then touched Billy with one hand and the space suit with the other.  The glow transferred something unseen from Billy’s body to the bronze-colored vacc suit.  The suit immediately shrank to Billy-size.

Billy then tried the suit on.  Gyro had tailored it to fit perfectly without cutting it up and putting it back together again.

“That is much more efficient than the way I thought we would have to do this.”  The robot-boy tried to smile, but, being a Metaloid and clueless about how humanoids actually did that, it looked more like a pained grimace.

“Why do I get the sense that you have something evil in mind, Gyro?” Billy asked.

“Um, well… Sara’s the only girl on this mission.  I was just thinking…”

“She can read your mind better than I can,” Billy reminded him.

“But not if she doesn’t suspect anything.  And she does have mammary glands that the rest of us don’t have…”

“Breasts, you mean.”

“Yeah, um… I mean, I could just tell her because of those… well, she would have to be topless to make it fit right.”

“Is that actually true?” Tiki asked.

“Yes… um, kinda…”

“Tiki can’t read minds, and even he knows you’re lying,” Billy warned.

“Yes, but… well, for a chance to look at her perfect mammary glands…”

“Yeah.  She’s seen all of us naked.  But we never got to see her,” ruminated Billy, not-so-innocently either.

                                    *****

When Ged Aero-sensei brought the rest of the team into the ready room, Gyro and Billy were already suited up, all except for their helmets.

“Gyro has an easy fix for resizing the suits,” said Billy.  “All he has to do is read you by putting a hand on your shoulder and then resize your suits with his other hand.”

Junior Aero was wearing only a t-shirt and briefs, so Gyro demonstrated by slapping a small blue hand on his ,shoulder and then shrinking the vacc suit to the perfect small size.

“You have a really amazingly useful Psion power, Gyro-kun.  You are adapting to White Spider training really well,” said Ged Aero-sensei. 

Gyro grinned with obvious pride.

“He does have one small problem though,” said Billy.

“What is it?” Junior asked.

“Um… Sara, er… in the front you have… um…” Gyro gestured helplessly with both hands in front of him.

“The word in Nebulonin is spahnkharas,” said Junior helpfully.

“Oh, my breasts.  What about them?”

“To, ah… to shape the suit properly, um… you need to… take your shirt off?”

“Is that all?”  Sara quickly pulled her shirt off over her head.

Gyro’s eyes grew larger by a couple of sizes.  He reached out his small blue hand.  It was trembling.  He placed it on her shoulder hesitantly, never moving his gaze from those two gorgeous…

“Gyro, what’s wrong with you?” asked Sara, doubt creeping into her voice.

Gyro smiled.  “I can see your naked front parts, Sara.”

Sara smiled back at him.  “Just do what you have to do, Gyro.  Or I will ask Junior to remove your… What’s the word in Nebulonin, Junior?”

“Spahnschloop ar nembhis,” said Junior.

“Yes, your personal private parts.  With those gone you won’t be able to think that way so much anymore.”

Gyro turned a bit blue-white and quickly finished resizing and reshaping her vacc suit.

Once they were all suited Gyro and Billy were the last to place their helmets on.

“Gyro, honestly, that worked amazingly well,” said Billy.

“Yes, we got to see something quite beautiful,” Gyro answered.

“Put your helmets on while you still have all your spahnschloop ar nembhis.  She’s a powerful enough telepath to know what you are saying even though she has her helmet on,” warned Tiki.

“And don’t you forget it!” both boys heard her say in their minds.

Canto 119 – The Debate on the Bridge

The control panel on the bridge of the Super Rooster was made up mostly of the remnants of Dr. Naylund Smith’s old space ship, the one he had crashed and eventually junked a mere two hundred twelve years before.  But it was like riding a bicycle to sit in front of the familiar controls.  That, Naylund supposed was why Ged had asked him to be the pilot, taking over the role that Ged would’ve much preferred had gone to his brother Ham, but he would not take for himself.

“Thank you for organizing this mission, Naylund-sensei.  I am not used to doing the job of a space captain myself.”

“It is nothing, Ged-dono.  Sitting in front of these controls is a little like arriving home again.  And this is the first time in the history of Gaijin that the planet can mount a response to an incoming possible threat.”

“Have we learned anything more from the scanners?”

“Not much.  It is coming up on the viewscreen now.  It is still 5,000 miles away.  Computer, enhance viewscreen 500 percent.”

The image enlarged in the holo-digital viewscreen.

“That looks like a big piece of driftwood with a flower on its side,” said Sara, looking over her father’s shoulder.

“The sensors indicate the whole thing is alive,” said Junior Aero, sitting behind Ged.  “It functions as a space ship, though.  It maneuvers.  And it orients itself to the gravity well of the planet like an incoming spaceship.  It has to be something like the living space-whale ships of my people.”

Junior was born a Nebulon, blue-skinned and red-cheeked, and later adopted by the Aero Brothers.

Naylund looked at the plant-like thing and squinted.  Hoping to see… what exactly?

“I don’t think it’s connected to your terrorist, Ged.  It’s like some sort of seed pod.”

Ged looked at Naylund skeptically.  “It seems almost impossible that it would be a coincidence, Naylund.”

But Jai Chang, the ninja under the Avenger helmet, was a native-born Gaijinese who had never been off planet and never known to have any off-world contacts.  If there was a connection, it was not an obvious one.

“Sara, can you tell anything about it with your telepathy?” he asked his daughter.

“I hear voices, but it’s confusing,” she answered.  “Could the whole thing be a disguise?  I can read alien minds there… but it’s all garbled.  I can usually understand anything the mind I read understands.”

Junior suddenly also looked quite confused.  “I can’t read any computers on board, A-I or otherwise.  How can they navigate?”

“They can’t.  No starship we know of can operate without a computerized brain of some sort.  Anything less than Tech-level Nine wouldn’t be able to find its way through jump space.”  Naylund could only guess at the weird alien technology behind this interstellar seed-pod.

“There is a breathable oxygen-nitrogen-carbon dioxide atmosphere inside,” said Ged, reading the latest sensor scan.  “We will have to go inside.  Time to use your antique vacc suits, Naylund.”

“Be my guest.  I will fly the Super Rooster and wait for your return in the ship.”

“You and the robot-boy, Tiki Astro.  That should be enough problem-solving help to leave on this end.  I will take Sara, Junior, Billy, and Gyro with me.  We have five usable suits.”

“Don’t take any unnecessary risks, Ged-dono.  I am trusting you with my daughter, after all.  Something I would only do with the one true White Spider.” “I promise, Naylund-sensei.  On my life, I promise.”