Mitchell's Revenge
U.S.E. shipyard, off EQ2, Karhu System

Lauri rubbed his eyes and stretched.He shook his head. The bench in front of him was strewn with computer flotsam. Chipsand circuit boards, bits of wire and switches. Directly in front of him thedisplay screen of the Universal Software Equipment Interrogation Tool, or USEITfor short, showed a string of zeros with a dash at the end.

“Hopeless!” he spat, and walkedaway from the bench.

He stood in front of the viewingscreen at the other side of the workshop and looked down on the repair podsbelow. He could still not work out what had caused the stealth ship to crash. Allthe data showed normal operation, but based on what Jake had experienced,something was not quite right. And Lucy. He couldn’t bear to think too muchabout Lucy.

Lauri, Tim and Erik were the onlyones who knew what had gone into the bionics that were now part of Lucy’s makeup. They knew that she would be faster and stronger than before. They knew thatshe would be able to see the hidden structures on board any of their ships andread metal fatigue, broken cabling or a lubricant leak.

They knew that her primary task wasto protect U.S.E. property, personnel, and the Stern family. They knew that shewould change as the bionics took hold of her system.

“Spooky,” thought Lauri. “We had noidea at the time that we were going to put her on board Mitchell’s Revenge asprotection crew! Lucky that we authorised it anyway.”

None of them were sure what to tellLucy.

“Maybe nothing,” he thought. “Maybeits better that she doesn’t know what we’ve done to her. Just let theenhancements reveal themselves as she needs them. That might be the best thing.”

He continued to stare at the repairpods. Technicians were reassembling the crashed stealth ship. They were able tosalvage the rear components of the ship and combine it with a new front end. Theystripped the FTL drive and the onboard computer and fitted a completely newsystem from their former supplier. The repaired ship would be ready for testingin a few days. The results of the tests would determine how they built the restof the ships on order for the Karhu System military.

Lauri strolled across the workshopto the viewing screen for the construction yard. Mitchell’s Revenge wassuspended in a cradle above the deck while the technicians below worked onvarious parts of the ship. They hadrefitted the cruiser with a new FTL drive and computer system. They were nowworking on weapons installation and were gutting the passenger quarters to makeway for parts storage.

Lauri was now attempting to workout how to retrofit stealth capacity to a ship not originally built for it. Andthat was going to be crucial to the safety of the crew. Once the intergalacticmafia got hold of the news of a repair ship carrying such valuable parts theywould be fair game in space. Jake was absolutely right about needingprotection.

When Ripley’s Revenge went missingfrom Standing Point refuelling hub, there were three crew on board. Universal StarshipEnterprises still had no news as to what had happened to the ship. They wereassuming the worst and that it had crashed or burned up in a sun somewhere.

Lauri watched Jake walking acrossthe deck below towards one of the technicians. They had a brief conversationand Jake began yet another inspection of the ship that was soon to be hiscommand.

“Like a father with his son,”thought Lauri. “Ah well, back to work.” He wandered back to the USEIT andtapped the display screen with his finger. Still nothing.

“More like USELESS,” he thought ashe pulled the power cable out and re-booted the unit.