The Monkey and Squirrel fight for freedom. (2 page)

Not long after that conversation the date was agreed, it would be the next Christmas. Countdown to Christmas 2095 began with the start of the preparations, all had to be ready for one very big event, whether it was good or bad depended on your perspective. Suitable “meteors” were found, plated then hidden in the vacuum storage areas used for repairs or new projects, humans rarely visited those. Launchers were made from old storage bins with a spring inside, a simple mechanical firing mechanism, which was tested with a net to catch the 'meteors'. A frame held the launchers to the load mounting frame, coupling it all to the runabout. The station weak points were reinforced, as they were not designed as a spaceship. The structure had to absorb forces the original design couldn't, but they were confident the new one would hold together under the maximum thrust of the Ion engine. For reasons of survival the conspirators decided to only use fifty percent thrust unless events left them with no other options.

The stations built by the Monkeys and Squirrels, all looked like large Drums. The accommodation modules, including all the offices, ran on bearings inside each end, travelling in opposite directions, to maintain the micro gravity of the factory. All very practical for a micro gravity factory. Human built ones looked like collections of pipes bound together with a thick band, at a distance.

Tension mounted, nerves frayed, worrying if somehow they had given the game away, the wait was painful.       

The big event arrived midnight Earth standard time. When most of the unofficial Christmas eve parties were in full swing and most humans were under the influence of drink and drugs. For the non-humans it was supposed to be just another day, but this time it was otherwise.

The fake meteor storm was unleashed, progressing around the Earth like a real major meteor storm. As hoped and planned nearly all humans rushed off to the escape pods, without checking the control room, but there were a few stragglers. With most it was just a case of leading the over indulged to a pod. On Tman's station three refused to go, suspicious of the volunteer guides, the guides called the Just In Case back up squad. This was made up of those who could, zapped the humans with Tasters from behind, fed them two sleeping pills and a tranquilliser apiece washed down with a shot of whisky. Then unceremoniously dragged to a pod, dumped in and launched. With the last pod under-way the ion engine was started, slowly brought up to fifty percent power as the station aligned its self on to the pre set course.

Chapter 2

Flight

A few days later in the cafeteria.

“I don’t like it, it is too slow” signed Chatty.

“Well you know why we have to have low acceleration; if it was higher the station might come apart, it wasn’t designed to be a space ship.” signed Tman impatiently.

“I know, but I can’t help it, they could catch on any time Tman.”

“Yes, they detected the change in altitude after a couple of hours and they wanted to know how and why we were moving the stations. They were told that we were using the runabouts to move the stations to safety, as we could not evacuate. Our existence being illegal on earth, we would be destroyed immediately on arrival at the surface, if not before. And they accepted that, as the 'meteors' have gone into orbit, it is considered too hazardous to send up a shuttle to supervise us.” explained Tman.

“What happens now we are clear of 'the danger' surely they will question why we are still accelerating?” asked Chatty.

“We are just panicky animals to humans and will keep going until we run out of fuel, it's the rationalisation of the situation they have come up with. You must have heard the news with the expert's opinions, they are surprised that we had the initiative and the application. We are doing very well or have been very lucky not to have run the stations into other orbiting objects yet.” replied Tman.

“But they will spend more time arguing about who’s at fault for not spotting the meteor storm before it arrived. Humans they love finding someone to blame when things go wrong. Only when the sacrificial victim has been found do they think of fixing things.” signed Chatty.

“Our biggest danger is if Mars gets a message directly through to Earth, before we are far enough out and both discover the same thing has happened in both places at the same time. Not many humans are stupid enough to accept a coincidence that big.” signed Tman.

“They accepted the moon station being effected.” stated Chatty.

“Including the moon stations was a big risk, an unavoidable one but the Moon is close enough to be just sufficiently plausible for it to be  caught in the same meteor storm. The experts are puzzled that a debris field that large was not detected before hand.” explained Tman.

“What's the shortest time until we are discovered?” asked Chatty

“If the experts don't work it out, and if Mars doesn't make direct contact beforehand, it will be when we keep accelerating past the point that the runabouts fuel should have run out Chatty.”

“That late?”

“Yes, they won’t want to believe we are capable of outwitting or deceiving them, except for the most paranoid. Happily no one important down there is listening to them at the moment.” replied Tman.

“So the further we go, the more doubtful they become until the penny drops, how marvellous! Our greatest ally is their belief they are innately superior. We must get our own little sayings and culture, it is so irritating using theirs.” Chatty signed emphatically.

“Programming! Those info packs, which they give us so we can understand and obey, we have to remove the embedded obedience controls. Think how long it took us to subvert them while under control. The problem is too much of what makes us what we are, is integrated into them, we can't just rip them out.” seethed Tman.

“Yes they had to look uncorrupted when the 'welfare officer' gave us our annual check-up.”

“One way or another the pain of enslavement has ended now!” rejoiced Tman.

“When will those on the human built stations be joining us?” asked Chatty.

“When trying to carry on the deception is pointless, they will come out on the evacuation ships they have built from their stations.” answered Tman.

“They are building them now?” asked Chatty.

“Their cover story is that those stations have been damaged by the meteors and they are trying to maintain a habitat. You should really come to more meetings Chatty.”

“They're boring! I just ask you the interesting stuff then I can tell my people. I only go when you can't.” replied Chatty.

“What if something had happened to me and you had to take over?” asked Tman.

“Then I would have to go every time, but recruiting one of your people to replace you for the group would have been hard work, most are on the young side.” replied Chatty.

“Yes, the death rate for maintenance is quite a bit higher than admin. Being the oldest on the job I usually manage to prevent the new ones killing themselves and others these days. If the humans hadn't kept steeling my best people for other projects, I would have a solid core of activists.” replied Tman.

“Freedom means the end of the cost based euthanasia. If you can live, you will unless you choose otherwise; not just on the cost of 'repair' against the cost of replacement. The death rate for maintenance should go down, and having your people spread all over space, helped the cause greatly.” explained Chatty.

“But the new work we will have to do, could bring the death rate back up again, to design, build and test everything we need. It is going to be exhilarating, inspiring and dangerous. I have written a guide to safe working practice and published it on the engineering network, that's all I can do for now.” Tman pointed out.

“I hadn't thought of that angle, how has it been received? Do you doubt we can do it?” asked Chatty.

“Quite well on the whole, some have suggested amendments and additions, issue two will be ready soon. As to doubt, the performance of the ships we have made out of the old human stations should give us a measure of how good we actually are.” answered Tman.

“But we build human designs no problem?” asked Chatty.

“Yes, but this is a case of learning as you do, not the best way to make something your life depends on. We have read the books, we know how to build and we have done all the calculations and checked them ten times. But did we miss something? Human history is littered with disasters caused directly from such oversights. Or stretching a technology until something formally negligible becomes critical at exactly the wrong time!” replied Tman.

“Where do you get off telling me not to beat myself up with worry, you’re a bigger worrier than me!” retorted Chatty.

“About five times bigger.”

“Was that an attempt at humour?”

“Of course!” signed Tman.

“Why try? you know we can’t do jokes!” asked Chatty.

“Just another way of cracking human imposed restrictions! You know why they tried to block any sense of humour in us?” responded Tman.

“They didn’t want to be mocked?” signed Chatty tentatively.

“No, the Turing Test for artificial intelligence, if we don't have humour, then we cannot be self-aware, in other words we cannot be people!” explained Tman.

“How do you know all this? None of it is in any of my information packs.” demanded Chatty.

“My owner back on earth a spoilt rich kid, she just bought all the option packs on the list including those for humans. They took the money and just load them into my mind, politics, history, economics, maths, science, Law and business management eighteen packs in all.”  Tman signed with a shudder at the memory.

“How did that affect you?” queried Chatty.

“A splitting headache for over a month! Once that cleared, the true horror of my situation sank in. Pampered pet I was not, humiliated, degraded and abused for the amusement of a teenage girl, I will never tell anyone about the things she did to me or had me do! I was working on the suicide option, when I was sent to my first station. Being sent into space to do dangerous work was a great relief I tell you.” signed Tman.

“So I should be glad that I missed that?” asked Chatty.

“More than you can possibly imagine! I have just had a thought! We may not be able to tell jokes, but I think we can do practical jokes very well.” signed Tman with a broad grin.

“What do you mean? I have not heard about any practical jokes.” asked Chatty.

“If you think about it the right way. Our bid for freedom is one of the biggest practical jokes ever! And I for one intend to spend the rest of my life laughing at it.” stated Tman.

“This one we have pulled off, I grant you that. Anyway how are the other groups fairing?” Chatty enquired.

“Mars had it easier; the station was down to three humans covering for about twelve others that were officially there. When the meteor alarm sounded the humans were out of there so fast, the station had to searched to sure all the humans had left. As the Mars station controls all communications between Mars and the rest of the solar system. Mars is condition normal to all humans not actually on Mars. Those of us on human built stations, have moved into their evacuation ships now and have 'drifted clear' of the debris, and are just waiting for the signal to boost out.” reported Tman.

“How long will it take to get to the mines and sort out our future properly?” asked Chatty.

“All going well, we should meet up with the evacuation ships within three weeks. We will get them and as much of their equipment, food and parts aboard we can. From there it will take about nine months to get to the mines. We estimate we will have about two to three years before we expect any interference from humans.” replied Tman.

“Do you think that they will come in guns blazing?” asked a worried Chatty.

“They will want to, but they also want the mines intact, they are vital for their space based industry. All the mines have at least one mass driver, which will be modified into a rail guns. Instead of a hundred tonnes to Earth, it delivers one tonne of one kilogram projectiles at a hundred times the velocity, not something anyone would desire to be on the receiving end of.” explained Tman.

“So they will negotiate? Could we use the rail gun?” asked Chatty excitedly.

“All we can do is hope, they will of had plenty of time to cool off and become rational. Using the rail gun against vessel carrying humans is a last resort; we would use them to stop missiles first.” replied Tman.

“So if they come to blast us out of existence, they see our rail guns in action and decide caution is the better part of valour?” asked Chatty.

“That is the plan if we can't avoid confrontation.”

“With that amount of egg on their faces, our only hope of avoiding confrontation is to effectively disappear.” ventured Chatty.

“That's it, be ready for a shoot out or be gone before they get there. It's back to work for me. We have to keep checking, try to catch the little problems before they become big ones!” confirmed Tman.

“Me also, most of the work we used to do sort of disappeared with the humans. The internal logistics works like clockwork, without constant interference! Every area of administration functions on automatic. We spend most of our time running communications, monitoring the news broadcasts and a careful radar watch. I just don't know how the humans found so much administration for us to do.” replied Chatty.

Four days later they passed the point that the fuel should have run out. The next day, control demand an explanation, why were they still under acceleration? That was the trigger for the evacuation ships to boost out.

The hot exhaust plumes of the boosters delivered the unmistakable message. Shock and disbelief rang round the global news net. The value of all space companies plummeted on the stock exchanges of the world. Regardless of how much, if any of their business depended on the disappearing stations! All the financial experts started talking about a global down turn, after carefully arranging to profit from one! 

Next day the ex-slaves detected the first concrete response, five space planes fitted with auxiliary boosters, each armed with a high power laser and two rail guns. An observation relayed from an evacuation ship they fired on in passing, fortunately nothing vital had been damaged.

Shortly afterwards the leadership announced a briefing,

“We have called you all to the canteen to give you an update on the situation. This is something we have never been able to do before and it is being recorded for the station net! For those who don't know me I am MEIQ120B45/786, Tman to my friends, otherwise known as organiser M” he announced, signing from a platform.

“I'm Chatty to my friends, full identity is SEIQ110B115/649 or organiser S.”

“So as your people handle communications you lead off Chatty.”

“OK, first the bad news, earlier today one of the evacuation ships was fired on by five space planes, luckily no one died and they should still make it to the meeting point. The other bad news is each of the space planes is on an intercept course with the largest stations and we are one of them! Over to Tman.” 

“As you know we fooled the humans with a fake meteor shower, they abandoned us and believed our story of towing the stations out of danger. As we are still accelerating after the fuel should have run out, they realise we've been deceiving them. To maximise our chances thrust is being increased slowly towards 90% of maximum.” explained Tman.

“Why slowly” came a query from the audience.

“Because our station is literally held together with gaffer tape and string, hit it with a hammer and it'll collapse. All maintenance crews are constantly monitoring the structure for any sign of failure. Remember this was not designed as a space ship. So far the space planes have not yet adjusted their course for our change in acceleration.” explained Tman.