Daughters of Demeter

"All things considered she's actually in really good shape," the ravenette mechanic announced. "Sarah, Cam, I'm sure you don't need to hear me say it but you two did a great job repairing that engine. It couldn't have been easy doing that work out in the field either."

My blonde girlfriend smiled, "We managed. Fortunately we weren't far from Cammie's workshop, since we don't have all the necessary tools for that kind of work on board the ship."

Then Rebecca asked, "So what's your recommendation? We're good to keep flying? Or does the ship need any additional work?"

Tamsin replied, "The Demeter's good to go. Nick Mellis will be giving Helen the same information so she can give it to you in a formal report, but it's not going to tell you anything I'm not saying right now."

"Obviously there's always minor details that need attention," she added. "The port-side engine could use some work, it was probably pushed a little too hard when you brought the ship down into atmosphere and gravity on one engine. And three of your landing gear locking mechanisms are loose, which can happen when you have a particularly hard landing. Those aren't showstopper issues, but I do suggest you have them addressed as soon as it's practical."

Our captain nodded, "Alright Tamsin, thanks very much. We probably don't have enough time right now to work on those things, but we'll take care of that stuff as soon as we can."

The boss's friend hesitated, "So what are your plans? Will you be sticking around here for a while, or do you have to rush off again right away?"

Rebecca glanced at me before responding, "We won't really know what we're up against until we contact the bounty hunter and find out what his terms are. So I imagine that's going to be the next step."

"Yeah," I sighed. "We need to figure out how we're going to handle that."

Tamsin could obviously tell I was still upset and worried, and as much as she probably wanted to spend more time with either Rebecca or Sarah she likely realized that I'd want both of my girlfriends with me for now. So the young mechanic nodded, "Understood. I'd better get back to work anyways, so I'll leave you folks to it."

"Good luck Amanda," she added on her way out. "I'm sure everything will be ok."

Then Rebecca pulled me into a brief hug before asking, "How do you feel about doing some acting? This guy's basically asking you to betray me, so that might the best way to frame things."

I frowned as I thought that over, then finally agreed. "Yeah ok. I think I can do that. You figure it's time to contact him?"

"Yeah I do," my tall strong girlfriend nodded. "Before we can start any detailed planning we need to know where we're going, and how long we've got to get there."

"Right," I sighed as I started thinking about how best to contact the bounty hunter.

To make it seem like I was responding to Jamison's message without any of my shipmates' knowledge I took my datapad into the washroom of my and Sarah's cabin. Then I held it close and activated the camera, and after a brief pause I started speaking.

"Captain Nieves gave me your data crystal," I stated softly, and I didn't really have to do that much acting. I was genuinely worried and uneasy enough to look and sound convincing as I continued, "I'll do whatever you want, anything to get my sister back safely. Please don't hurt her ok? I'll do what you want, just tell me when and where."

Then I added, "Just, please promise you're not going to hurt Captain Piper? Ok? She's been a good captain, me and my girlfriend owe her a lot."

I hesitated briefly then finally asked, "So where do you want to meet? How do you want to do this? I'll be monitoring this frequency."

After another nervous pause I finally ended the recording. Then I played it back to make sure it looked and sounded right, before I headed back out of the cabin. Everyone else was waiting for me in the ship's mess, sitting around the table looking at me expectantly.

"I've made the recording," I told them. "I'm going to send it off now, then I guess there's nothing else to do but wait and see what he says."

Jenny offered, "Would you like me to send it for you? He gave a very specific frequency and encryption protocol."

I shook my head, "No thanks, I can handle it."

With that I turned and headed for the cockpit. I settled into my copilot seat and connected my datapad to the ship's comm gear, then began configuring the Demeter's FTL transmitter. It took a few minutes to get it all set up exactly like Jamison stipulated on his data crystal, then I double-checked everything just to be absolutely certain.

Once I was confident everything was correct, I hit the transmit control then uploaded and broadcast my short video message.

After that there was nothing more to do but wait for the bounty hunter to reply. Jenny was monitoring that frequency so whatever he sent would be caught and recorded. My girlfriends and I ended up sitting together on the sofa in the ship's lounge. The two of them were on either side of me so they could both hug and cuddle with me, which helped keep me calm.

Cammie and her two girlfriends retired to their cabin for now, either to give us privacy or maybe the three of them wanted some time to themselves as well. Either way it was nice, but not enough to get my mind off Nyssa's situation. Even cuddling in my girlfriends' arms wasn't enough to make me feel better while I was waiting to hear back from the man who kidnapped my little sister.

After what seemed like an eternity but was actually only about two and a half hours, Jenny announced over the intercom that we'd received an FTL video message back on that same frequency. She and Jenna and Cammie joined my girlfriends and I in the lounge a few moments later, and our AI had Jamison's reply appear on the large screen on the wall in front of us.

He was standing in his ship again, it looked like was in the same place as in his first vid. Now we knew that was in his ship's hold, since it was next to the cryo equipment.

"I'm glad you're prepared to cooperate Amanda," the bounty hunter stated. He was acting confident, almost smug in fact, like he figured he'd already won. "Please listen to my instructions carefully, because any deviation will result in your sister's immediate termination."

The camera panned briefly to the cryo tube where Nyssa's frozen face was just visible through the inspection window. Then it swung back to Jamison again, to record him as he began reciting a detailed set of orders for me.

"We'll be meeting on Regulon-4, but not at the mining colony," he stated. "I want you to take the Demeter there, and I'm impatient so you're going to have to use Jump-1 to get there on time. When you arrive, you'll dock the ship at the colony's spaceport like usual. Then you're going to get yourself and Rebecca Piper into e-suits and board your shuttle. Leave the Demeter at the spaceport, and come by shuttle to a set of coordinates I've appended to this transmission."

He added, "Once you have Piper in an e-suit I want you to restrain her. Wrists immobilized behind her back, and something on her ankles to restrict leg movement. I understand you're a medic, so sedate her if you have to. I appreciate manhandling your captain might be difficult to do by yourself, so if you require assistance you can enlist the help of your catgirl shipmate. Nobody else though."

"When you reach the coordinates you'll land the shuttle then wait," Jamison continued. "I'll be monitoring your progress, and if I detect more than three lifeforms on board the shuttle your sister dies. Likewise if I detect the wrong people on board, your sister dies. Piper, yourself, and if necessary the catgirl, but nobody else. Once I'm satisfied, I'll set down next to your shuttle and we can make the trade."

The camera panned over to Nyssa in the cryo tube again while the bounty hunter stated, "This pod has a twenty-four hour battery back-up, and it's pressurized so your sister will be safe outside the ship as long as nobody opens the door. I'll be handing her over like this, and you can take her back to the Demeter and thaw her out yourself. Odds are you'll do a better job reviving her than I could."

"Finally, I'm sure I don't need to say this but let's be clear," Jamison added as the camera turned back towards him again. "If I see or detect any weapons, your sister dies. You have forty-eight hours Amanda, if I don't see you and Piper in your shuttle at the rendezvous coordinates by then, you guessed it. Your sister dies."

The transmission ended there, and as the screen went dark Jenny spoke up. "The coordinates map to the middle of a crater on the opposite side of the planet from the spaceport. I estimate it would take the shuttle about a five hours to reach the location. With a one-hour margin of error that means the Demeter would need to be docked at Regulon-4 in no more than forty-two hours from now."

"It's a two hour trip from here to there at Jump-1," Rebecca added. "Add another two hours for screwing around with traffic control and getting clearances and vectors, that leaves us thirty-eight hours to plan and prepare."

I slumped back on the sofa and covered my face with my hands and sighed, "What are we going to do? We can't just hand you over and let him leave with you. He knows I'll be busy with Nyssa, he knows it'll take another five or six hours to get her back to the Demeter. He could literally have you on Ecclestone's World and in the Kelsonian family's clutches while we're still stuck in the mining colony spaceport."

Both my girlfriends were quiet for the next few moments, I figured they were trying to come up with a plan or some other options that didn't involve just handing one of my girlfriends over. I tried to think of something as well, but I was too distracted by worry to really think of anything useful.

Then Sarah asked, "Could we trick him with holograms? We still have those projector units we originally got for Jenny, maybe we could mount them on the shuttle and set up a holographic Rebecca? Or for that matter we could even pick up another HPD and program that to broadcast a fake captain."

"A hologram won't leave footprints," Rebecca pointed out. "And even if he doesn't see through it instantly, he'll know something's wrong when he tries to grab it or take it into his ship."

"He also indicated he'll be scanning for life-signs. A hologram would likely be detected immediately," Jenny reminded us.

Sarah replied, "That's actually not too hard to fake. It's pretty easy to rig something up that'll register on sensors as a heartbeat and the correct temperature. That's what most sensors look for when they're checking for life signs."

"If not a hologram then what about an android?" Jenna asked. "Particularly if we could configure something like Sarah just suggested, to mimic a heartbeat?"

Our AI immediately responded, "We can't risk you, sis."

Cammie added, "And you don't look nothing like the captain."

"I'm not going to send any of you in my place," Rebecca stated.

The android grimaced, "That's not what I meant, I wasn't actually volunteering. Sorry captain."

"What I meant was, this is the world where my chassis was originally designed and assembled," she continued. "Maybe we can find another android that looks similar enough to Rebecca that it wouldn't be too hard to make it into a suitable duplicate? It wouldn't need to be a top of the line model either, all it has to do is walk under its own power and possibly act drugged or sluggish. It just needs to fool the bounty hunter long enough to get Nyssa out of his clutches."

Rebecca seemed to think that over for a few seconds, then addressed our AI. "Jenny check the stores where you found Jenna's chassis, see if there's a suitable option out there."

"Sarah," the boss continued, "Assuming we get our hands on another android how fast can you upgrade it with better comms? Maybe with some kind of relay through the shuttle, so Jenny can control it from the Demeter?"

Our blonde girlfriend shrugged, "A new comm unit shouldn't take too long to install, assuming the chassis uses standard interfaces. Maybe an hour or two? The problem is range, the high-speed link Jenny uses for her HPDs and used to use for Jenna's chassis is limited to a few dozen meters."

"We can reprogram the new chassis so most of the work happens locally," Jenna said. "And my sister wouldn't need full sensory communication, basically just an audio and visual link plus the ability to send it commands."

The AI agreed and added, "It shouldn't take me more than an hour or two to reprogram it, once the hardware modifications are in place."

"And I've just located a suitable chassis," she added. "The height is off and the hair is wrong. Hair we can fix easily enough, the height might not be so critical while it's in an e-suit. The face is close but we'll need to do some work there. And again, hopefully the e-suit will help mask any discrepancies."

After a slight hesitation Jenny grimaced, "The only potential issue is the price? It's only a mid-range unit, but they still want almost sixty thousand ecks for it."

Rebecca responded with a wry smile, "Apparently the price on my head is two million, so sixty thousand's a bargain. Prepare a shopping list please Jenny, everything you think we'll need. Sarah and I will head out with the grav-sled and round it all up, then we can get to work."

"So that's the plan?" I asked. "I go out alone and unarmed with a Rebecca-shaped android, and hope for the best?"

My tall strong redheaded girlfriend pulled me into another hug and shook her head, "We're still working on the plan Amanda. We're taking it one step at a time, but you know we're on a deadline. The clock is ticking, so we need to get started working on the parts we've already figured out."

"I still have no intention of letting this guy walk away," she continued. "We're going to save Nyssa, and we're going to leave this guy's body in a crater on the far side of Regulon-4."

I sighed, "Ok Rebecca. Thank you. And please be careful while you're out with the grav sled. There's probably other bounty hunters out there looking for you."

The boss smiled, "I know Amanda. And I'm always careful."