Starship Armstrong - Season 3

Part 14 - Mitzner's Card Game (I)

Author's Note: If anyone is reading the seasons out of order this episode is one of the reasons why you shouldn't. Fair warning.

Mitzner's quarters, like all the rooms on the Armstrong, were not exactly spacious. Still, once the bed was folded up, there was enough room for her to set up a sizable green felt lined table and seven chairs. This left just enough room for people to move around and use the kitchen.

Wagner was there already. She had said to come at 20:00 and he had arrived at 19:50. So the two of them were sat there at the table, trying to make small talk about the ship.

"The Armstrong will surprise you. There's more space in this old ship than the pressurized sections let on. We used to deploy Boudica fighters from this thing during the war," said Mitzner.

"When you say 'Boudica fighter', you mean the old Reunification War era Boudica IIs right? That is a fine machine. Made better use of old tech than we get out of current stuff," said Wagner.

"The two was a picture of elegance," agreed Mitzner. "You have good taste in obsolete military curiosities. But they had me in an S. All the twos I ever flew I stole."

"What do you mean an S?" asked Wagner

"Boudica model S," said Mitzner.

"I've never heard of that."

"The letter series Boudicas were all for the different kinds of posthuman soldiers. The S is the Special, the least interesting one. Just picture a two with half the computer junk yanked out and five times more sensitive controls. They were fine and everything but you could coax the same amount of performance out of a two if you knew what you were doing. Although back in the war nobody ever knew what they were doing."

"Did they have any special weapons, or maybe shields?"

"Ha, shields, I wish. Not that they'd do anything on a Boudica, you need somewhere for all that energy to go. We relied on being sensor invisible as our only defence. Of course we could only pull that feat off for two hours tops before we had to deploy radiators and become a giant signal flare to enemy sensors or else cook alive in our own ship. Either way you're toast. So you could never deploy appreciably far from the mothership. And the mothership was as visible as all get out."

"So what was the tactical advantage of using fighters then?"

"Fighter doctrine was just one of those things from the war that made no sense but nothing made sense at the time so it didn't seem odd. War technology was moving so fast you couldn't predict what was countering what on any given day so we just threw everything into the meatgrinder to see what made hamburgers."

"Metaphor got away from you for a second there?" asked Wagner.

"I knew I was in trouble as soon as I said 'hamburgers'," lamented Mitzner. "Anyway by the time I got involved in the fighting the Foundation had figured out that advanced autonomous weapons were more dangerous to the people who used them than their enemies so that's when they really raised the game vis-a-vis human driven weapons. All of the coolest, least useful war technology ever developed comes from that period when they were still deciding what worked. You'll never see a serious military develop something like the Boudica ever again."

"Military fleet still uses fighters for some operations," offered Wagner.

"Military fleet is a daisy chain of people with their heads up each other's asses," said Mitzner.

"So who else is coming?" asked Wagner, eager to get that image out of his head.

"Well, McAfree-"

"You invited McAfree?" Wagner interrupted "You know she's going to tell Dr. Kang everything everyone says."

"They're on the outs now though, aren't they?" asked Mitzner.

"Those two? No way," scoffed Wagner. "They hate each other even when their relationship is working so that means they can bounce back from quite a lot."

"I'll talk to McAfree then," said Mitzner, sighing.

"I'd also consider lowering the table stakes. She's a predatory gambler."

"You're so frightened of her. She's harmless. She's a baby bird."

Wagner wanted to say something witty in response to that, but he couldn't think of anything.

"So besides McAfree, and us, it's Gul, Solarin, Takahashi and Chen."

"Chen?" asked Wagner.

"Lieutenant Chen, the new Chief Engineer," said Mitzner. "He doesn't really know anyone on the ship yet so he's the perfect victim for my little morale boosting project here."

Mitzner's door chirped.

"Come in," she said, and it slid up.

McAfree walked in, her hair in two ponytails. Wagner didn't like it; it meant she was serious.

"Hello McAfree," said Mitzner, smiling.

"Hey McAfree," said Wagner.

"Hello all," replied McAfree.

She took a seat at the table directly across from Wagner.

"No glasses," said Mitzner and held out her hand.

"I always wear them," countered McAfree.

"Do you need them to see?" asked Mitzner.

"Obviously not," said McAfree.

"Then hand them over," said Mitzner.

"Are you accusing me of cheating?"

"Just give me the glasses."

McAfree did so.

"Is there any food?" she asked.