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The USS Arr sat in Space Dock as efforts continued to replenish their depleted weapons and fuel supplies and repair the damage from their ill-fated battle. Lance Armstrong, first officer of the ship, has looked over all the reports, but it didn't matter. The truth was he was no closer to figuring out how to deal with this dangerous swarm of nanites. He was becoming desperate, and in his desperation he reached a decision. Military Intelligence may be difficult, but if anyone might have information to help defeat this plague it was them. But that meant one thing: approval from the captain, who clearly believed that he could solve any and every problem with brute force. For all their sakes, Armstrong had to convince him otherwise.
Armstrong found Captain Buck Random in the interrogation room. As he feared, things were worse than he could have imagined.
"Now look!" Random shouted as he paced back and forth in front of the seated prisoners. "I know you're involved with these nanites! I know you sabotaged the ship on their orders! Now you're going to tell me what's going on right now!!!"
"I want my mommy," a seven-year old girl said.
"YOU DON'T GET YOUR MOMMY!!!" Random roared. The three children began sobbing in response, which only made things worse.
"Wah!"
"AHH!" cried Random.
"Ahhh!"
"ARGH!"
"WAHHH!!!"
"MMYAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" Random drew to a halt as Armstrong placed a hand on his shoulder. "Commander, you're just in time," he said. "They're ready to break."
"Children?!"
"Yes," Random said, looking at them out of the corner of his eye, yet somehow managing to show a sign of contempt. One of the boys began crying. "Sneaky devils those nanites." He quickly grabbed a chair and spun it over his head, dropping it to the floor and sitting in it in one graceful motion, his eyes locked on the terrified faces. "You made a mistake coming here," he declared in a low voice. "You'll talk.... even you."
"Sir," Armstrong said, "that's a teddy bear."
"Yes," Random said. "A bear with nerves of steel. I'd respect you more if you weren't trying to destroy my ship!" he shouted, slapping the bear with the back of his hand.
"Mr. Snuggles!" one of the children said in horror.
"Don't think the Geneva Convention will protect you," he said to the prone form of the bear. "I've got no problem extracting the truth from you! Dr. Scabs!"
"Yes?" the good doctor said as he came to his side.
Random picked up the bear and held him at arms length, looking at him with a mixture of hate and respect. When he spoke, his voice was low and cold. "Break him."
"Okee-dokey," Scabs said, taking the bear. "Let's get medicininging!"
"Sir," Armstrong said, having grown accustomed to the captain's behavior, "I'd like permission to discuss this with intelligence. They may have information that can lead to a victory over the nanites."
"Absolutely," Random said, never taking his eyes of the prisoners. "One way or another we'll found out what's going on," he said loud enough so they could hear. Armstrong walked back towards the exit when he noticed the latest addition to the crew being grilled by Lt. Johnny Riprock. Dr. Zebar gave him a look that was filled with repressed malice over what was going on, but there was no time to intervene on his behalf. Riprock slipped a little closer and cracked his knuckles very loudly.
"Now then, Dr. Zebar," Riprock said, "if that is your real name. There's this little matter about a pot of gold!"
Armstrong tried to contact somebody, but MI wasn't interested in speaking to him. After several hours of banging his head into bureaucratic walls he gave up, wandering the station deep in thought. He didn't even notice as Two and Three went running past him, excitedly carrying one of the station's docking clamps between them towards the entrance to their ship. He wandered the station for over an hour, hoping something would come to him. By the time his communicator buzzed he was still unable to think of where to even begin. He listened to Buddy Steel's message and raced back to the bridge, hoping that it was something that could lead to a solution.
"You said it was important," Armstrong said as he saw Buddy on the Bridge.
"Yes sir," Buddy said anxiously. "The Confederation Intelligence Agency wants to speak with you."
"The CIA?" Armstrong said, puzzled. "What do they know about our little problem?"
No time was spent thinking that over. "Now receiving the secret transmission," Bambi said, plugging the needle into the appropriate slot.
"Send it to-" Armstrong came up short as the holoprojector started to activate. "Not now!" he said with exasperation.
"Ah!" she half snarled at him. "I don't send the message, you complain. I send the message, you complain. Make up your friggin' mind, craphead!" She finished by taking a pull off her cup of coffee.
"Sir," Armstrong said to the hologram after it had appeared. He was a tallish man in a coat, a bit older but still gave the impression of muscular build. He smoked a cigarette, and his eyes seemed to be always shifting about.
"Commander Armstrong?" the hologram asked. Armstrong nodded. "We have much to discuss. The future of the entire Confederation could be at stake."
"Of the galaxy," Armstrong agreed.
"Absolute security is essential if we're too succeed," the hologram replied. He looked around at the multitude of faces that comprised the Arr bridge crew. At the moment, Two was peering over Armstrong's shoulder at the hologram, smiling wordlessly as Armstrong turned and glared at him. "Perhaps we should talk elsewhere."
"Agreed," Armstrong said.
"Walk with me," the hologram replied. He started walking but, since the projector was fixed in place, his feet just slid back and forth on the projector. He turned back, then frowned.
"Bambi-"
"WHAT?!"
"Reroute the transmission to my quarters."
"Are you sure this time?" she asked sarcastically, pulling the pin out and inserting it in a different slot. Armstrong rushed to his quarters where the hologram waited.
"I'm not actually with the CIA," the hologram announced. "I was, but now I'm involved with other forces; wheels within wheels. I answer to men who, if they knew I was speaking to you, would make you, me, your entire ship just vanish."
Armstrong felt his skin prickle. "Who are you?"
He took a long puff off his cigarette. "You can call me Low Larynx. It'll be my codename for when I speak with you. My identity has to remain-"
"Hey, Art," a voice called, "we're heading down to Santini's for some hoagies. Wanna come?"
Low Larynx turned. "Christ, Steve! Can't you see I'm in the middle of something?!"
"Hey, you griped all day when we didn't tell you last time," the voice said defensively.
"Look, just beat it!" He turned forward, smoothed out his coat, and tried to compose himself. "Moron."
"How much do you know about this?" Armstrong asked. "Is the Confederation involved?"
"Up to its eyeballs," Low Larynx replied. "It goes higher and deeper than you can imagine." Armstrong thought a moment on that metaphor as the hologram continued. "I've been involved in this kind of stuff for longer than you'd believe. The Confederation ran some projects that would curl the hair in your nose." He dropped his cigarette, crushed it out, then relit another. "I was in covert ops from '68 to '74," Low Larynx continued. "Assassinations, arms smuggling, infiltration. I was Miss Akronia IV in '72. All of it very illegal, and very arousing." He exhaled a long stream of smoke. "Didn't even rig the contest," he mused quietly.
Armstrong's faith that he was going to get any information - any useful information - was waning quickly. "Can you help me by supplying information about the Nanites?" he finally asked. "How can we defeat them?"
Low Larynx shook his head. "You're asking the wrong questions. It's not the how that matters, it's the who and the where that's important." He pointed at Armstrong with his cigarette. "Who created these nanites, where were the experiments conducted, and how were they created?"
"I thought you said the how wasn't important?"
"Well this time it is," he replied sharply.
"I see," Armstrong said. "So, can you answer those questions?"
"It's not can I, it's will I," Low Larynx said. Armstrong waited. "So yes, I guess I will." He cleared his throat. "The Nanites came from Halusted III, the planet that was destroyed. They were an experimental project, designed to be a multi-tasking repair tool that would revolutionize technology as we know it."
"Really?"
"Yes. It would have forever impacted everything from engineering to maintenance. But they exceeded their designs, with fatal results. Dr. Ira Nee was head of the project, and probably the first one killed." He took another long drag. "They turned on him, just like Charlie's dog turned on him! Had to put the little beagle down. Then we had to put Charlie down. Poor Charlie."
"Charlie sir?" Armstrong said, wondering where this was leading.
"How do you know about Charlie?" Low Larynx asked suspiciously.
"You just mentioned him."
"Oh, I did." He blew some more smoke. "Natives of a planet we had to pacify, a little world called Psi-gonne." He seemed to drift a little as he thought about it. "Yeah, Charlie was everywhere."
"They were called 'Charlie?'"
"Hmm? Well, we never really knew their names, just called them Charlie because of their round heads and little red houses. They were all over Psi-gonne. What a hellhole. Nothing but rice patties and little red houses, but Charlie called it home." He nodded to himself. "Charlie was just like your Nanites. Oh sure, they're all small and cute, with their big heads and huge grins, little zig-zag spears, but don't be fooled. They'll turn and rip your throat out just as soon as look at you! Yeah, that was Charlie. Charlie was everywhere." He seemed to drift again. "Random and I fought them there all along the Sigma River; it was a nightmare. First they pinned us down at the Beta Delta, then the Gamma Delta, and then the Delta Delta! Oh, Charlie was goood," he said in a low, wicked voice. "Real good. Their little zigzagged clothes and tattoos helped them blend in with the trees. You couldn't see Charlie half the time. Couldn't stop Charlie, couldn't shoot Charlie, couldn't beat Charlie to death with a broken branch. And even if you did, there were two more where he came from; thousands of big round heads as far as you could see. Charlie was everywhere." He lapsed into silence.
"Uh, sir," Armstrong prompted. "The Nanites?"
"Huh? Oh yeah. Well, all I can tell you for certain is that this project was put together by Admiral Roscoe himself." Admiral Roscoe was the head of the fleet, and one of the most powerful men in the Confederation. "He authorized it without thinking of the consequences, and now, now even he doesn't know how to stop them. You have to find that out!"
"I thought you said that didn't matter?"
"Didn't matter? What the hell's the matter with you?! That's all that matters! Think we cared about piddly little things when we were fighting Charlie? No! We just blew his little round head off and moved on to the next one! We did it because we couldn't reason with Charlie, just like you can't reason with those Nanites. And you can't fight them the way you've been trying. You've got to be smart. That was the only way we could stop Charlie, the way we had to stop Charlie, because Charlie was everywhere."
"Then what do we do?"
"You've got to find a way to take them all down. They'll grow faster than you can destroy them, so you've got to find a weakness. Do some investigating." He dropped the cigarette and crushed it out. "If I know Random, he'll need some convincing to go along with it." He thought for a few seconds. "Tell him 'You need to pull away the football before Charlie can kick it!' He'll understand." And Low Larynx broke the transmission.
Armstrong mulled it over. He was right; they needed more information, and heading back out there was the only way to do it. When he arrived on the bridge he saw the captain barking orders and Buddy cringing. When the captain noticed him he came over. "We're leaving. Thrust has the ship back together and I want a piece of these nanites!"
"Sir," Armstrong said, trying to be firm, "I think the only thing we can do now is try to learn more about them. Brute force didn't work before; we need to try a different tactic."
"Nonsense! Brute force is what made this Confederation great! It's what won us the war with the Klinkons! Brute force, commander, is the most loyal mistress you could ever put in your bed."
"But you did have to pull the football away from Charlie first," Armstrong said.
Random froze. Armstrong could see his eyes glaze at the memory. "Charlie..."
"Only one way to deal with Charlie," Armstrong said. "And there's only one way to deal with these nanites. We've got to study them and learn their weaknesses. Then we can defeat them."
"Hmm. You're right," Random finally said slowly. "Charlie can't kick the football if you pull it away." He smiled at Armstrong, then patted him on the back. "You're learning."
"Thank you, sir," Armstrong said.
"Helm!" Random barked, resulting in a small yelp from Buddy. "Take us out! We've got to teach a trillion little Charlies who's boss." As the ship pulled away, one of the main towers of Space Dock snapped without the aid of its main support pillar. The towers tumbled through space and tore through an extended pylon, ripping the station opened and venting air into space, causing it to tumble out of control towards the atmosphere.
In the meantime, the ship turned magenta.
The Motion Picture
The Final Frontier
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