"Wait, Jesse." Alekai raised up a finger.
"Alekai, we don't have time to discuss this all night!"
"I said wait!" He tapped her nose with his finger. "Did the scorpion captain say how he was planning to extract the scorpions?"
Jesse shook her head. "We didn't get to that point in our conversation. It was very brief."
Tom shook his head. "We cannot just allow them to enter the ship and look around. There are too many top secret things inside, not to mention the weapons and advanced technological machinery within."
"Could we bring the scorpions out to them?"
"How, Jesse?"
She compressed her lips for a moment. "Could we do the same daisy chain thing we did for the Gears, you know, the tractor beam thing."
Alekai blinked. She wanted them to tractor beam out the entire cyclone of scorpions? Was she nuts?
Not only was it something that would cause the entire population living within the United Coalition of Star Space to go ballistic, it would also be creepy as hell!
He closed his eyes as he tried to imagine pulling behind him a horde of frozen near-dead scorpions and could barely keep from shuddering. He was a snake, but scorpions gave him the creeps. Still, he couldn't show that in front of Jesse.
"We can't do it alone. Our Gear could handle maybe 50 if we're lucky."
"We can try calling Jeremy, see if he is willing to make one more haul." Jesse suggested hopefully.
Alekai squeezed his eyes shut. He could not believe he was actually giving this serious consideration.
"Our gear is still in charge mode. I don't know if it is completely charged up." He muttered.
Immediately, Bessie's Gear status popped up on the virtual monitor.
"Jesse, we're barely at 50%. We can't do anything right now."
"But what if we use one of the Gear we took back from the Krystabella?" Jesse bounced up and down on the bed in excitement. "We have twenty Elite Gears to choose from! Don't you want to see how those work?"
"Now, wait a minute, young lady." Tom held up a hand. "Just because you and Alekai brought the Gears back from the Krystabella does not mean you get first dibs on it."
"Why not?" Jesse stuck her chin out in a stubborn manner. "Who else is more worthy than we are? Did they slave away and risk their lives trying to haul that payload back? Did they expend any effort or energy at all?"
Tom scratched his head. When she put it that way, the truth was, those kids had more rights to that haul than any of the engineers and Scouts who were cleaning and fine-tuning the Gears at this very moment.
"Fine. Let me put a call through to the Engineering Deck." Tom responded and signed off.
"Let's go!" Jesse jumped up and pulled on Alekai's arm. "Come on! Get dressed and let's go!"
Alekai reluctantly uncurled from his comfortable position on the floor next to Jesse's bed. His long legs poked out from under the comforter.
"I'm not getting dressed. I'm just going to be sitting inside the Gear. It's not like anyone can see me through the face plate past my chin."
Jesse still had her hand on his arm, pulling. Her eyes narrowed with thought. "You can't wear shorts inside the Gear."
"Why not? It's more comfortable."
"It gets cold in the Gear!"
"No it doesn't. You always keep it a balmy 70 degrees."
"Well, I can't wear this night gown. I need to get dressed in my Anastasia bodysuit so I can work properly."
"Did you get more than one suit?" Alekai raised an eyebrow.
"No. We each only got one."
"Then you're out of luck," Alekai chuckled. "The room service people picked up our suits for cleaning. It's supposed to come tomorrow."
Jesse's eyes widened. "Oh no! What are we going to do?"
Alekai yanked a strand of her hair to get her attention.
"Just wear what you're wearing now. Who's going to see you, sitting inside the Gear's chest? All they'll see is your face, peering out of that chest plate."
She grimaced, looking down at her thick white sheath nightgown. "But I can't do my work wearing this thing. I look like…".
Alekai laughed. "You look like a really pretty blonde Wendy from Peter Pan."
Jesse pressed her lips together for a moment, blushing to the roots of her hair.
"Okay. Let's go." She threw a glance back at Alekai's boxer shorts. "At least put some pants on or you're going to be hanging out all over the place."
Alekai laughed and went to grab his jeans.
As they ran to the Engineering Lab, they were chatting with Tom on Alekai's wrist mobile device.
"They know we're coming?"
"Yeah. They even know what for. Just go straight to Lieutenant Bill Hae and he will get you the Gear that's most suitable for the job."
"What about Jeremy's team?"
"They're on their way."
The Engineering Lab was only one hallway away from the Engineering Hub, but it was a long hallway. Even at running speed, it took Alekai and Jesse another five minutes of running before they were able to burst through the double doors.
As they ran through, the doors swooshed shut behind them. Hundreds of Gears folded into their squared stand-by mode were scattered across the floor.
There were two Gears that were in their upright standing position and a man was kneeling in front of one, giving it final adjustments.
"Ah. There's the Cracker Jack Team Vartis!" The pale man with black hair looked up and smiled.
"I reset the codes for this little baby and downloaded Bessie," he squinted his eyes, "…is it Bessie?"
"Yes," Jesse nodded.
"That's like, a cow's name. Why would you name a high level state-of-the-art weapon system with a cow's name?"
Jesse waved her hand. "Never mind about that. Tell us about this Gear."
"Well, you're in luck. Since we got our hands on the Elite Gear first, those were the ones we worked on first. This little baby is brand new. Nobody's ever used it before, and now it's yours."
Jesse's eyes gleamed. "Oh wow. Thank you Lieutenant Hae!"
"It's my pleasure. You guys were slated to get one of these anyway. The one you were originally assigned is far too lightweight for the kind of heavy-duty work you've been doing."
"Heavy-duty work?" Alekai looked at him questioningly.
"Yep. Blasting scorpion ships out of the sky. Hauling a hundred Gears from one ship to another. And now hauling a cadre of scorpions to their mother ship."
He stood up and grinned good-naturedly at the two standing in front of him. "These are all high level heavy-duty work. You can't be doing that with a tiny light-duty Scout Gear."
He patted the Gear in front of him. "This one is a beauty. She's gonna make your job a lot easier. I guarantee. She's all fully charged and all her weapons are filled. And oh."
He turned to look at Alekai. "Your controls specifications were downloaded from the other gear as well so your—you know." He made a motorcycle gear turning motion with his hands, "bike handlebars have been reconstructed just like the other Gear has."
Alekai grinned. "Thanks."
"You're welcome!" He threw his hands out. "Well what are you waiting for? Get in and give it a whirl!"