Claws That Catch

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“What we need is a band,” Weaver said, rubbing his hands together.

“Sir, with all due respect, I think you’re taking this too far,” Captain Zanella said, smiling.

“I’m not sure he is.” Miriam looked at her notes. “There are different effects for the guitar and singing. A band would have that much more effect. Actually, a symphony would be about right or a full opera…”

“Anybody else got any instruments?” Weaver asked. “Keyboard? Drums? A flute even?”

“I’ve got a keyboard,” Miriam admitted.

“Really?” Berg said. “I’ve never heard you play it.”

“I use headphones,” Miriam said. “And I don’t play ’70s rock.”

“God, not that Goth stuff,” Weaver moaned. “There’s hardly a guitar part in it.”

“I play classical,” Miriam said.

“Well, that’s not gonna work.”

“I dunno,” Captain Zanella said. “Be interesting to see how it reacts to ‘Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.’ ”

“Got any idea how hard that is to play on a guitar?”

“My point, which I’m making badly, sir,” Captain Zanella said, “is that our mission was to investigate and explore this facility and determine if we could find its purpose and potentially activate it. Not to use it as a concert venue.”

“Because we still don’t understand its full abilities,” Bill pointed out. “We’ve determined that it can distinguish between recorded music and live and reacts better to live…”

“Good thing Ashley Simpson doesn’t have to use it, then,” Berg quipped.

“That right there is something to investigate,” Weaver finished, ignoring the lieutenant. “I see no reason, given that we’ve determined its purpose, not to fully explore that purpose. I want a survey all of the sailors and Marines to determine if anyone has any instruments with them and their level of playing ability. I intend to fully explore the abilities of this facility.”

“A one and a two…”

It turned out that there was more musical talent, for want of a better word, on the ship than had been realized. One of Colonel Che-chee’s dragonfly pilots had a Cheerick reed-flute with him. The device looked like a super-recorder, played more like a bassoon and had the sound quality of a Peruvian flute. The LPO of the mess section had brought an Adar drum-set, a full collection of drums that could be folded down to the size of an alarm clock. When extended it wasn’t much more than thin membranes and floor triggers but it had all the sound of a full drum-set.

With Weaver’s guitar and Miriam’s keyboard there was a minimal band. Heck, with just Miriam’s keyboard there was a minimal band. Her keyboard was just as advanced as Weaver’s guitar set-up but with a much broader range of abilities, capable of mixing or replicating a full orchestra.

After a brief wrangle, it was agreed that Miriam was lead singer. And since she was also unwilling to play the wide variety of suggestions from Weaver, from Lynyrd Skynyrd to .38 Special to the Allman Brothers, she had also picked the music.

Weaver still, ostensibly, led the band.

“How can you see into my eyes, like open doors…” Miriam sang as Weaver rolled his eyes. He didn’t get to come in with some serious guitar until a third of the way into the song. What kind of rock and roll did you call that?

“Def Leppard even,” Weaver said.

“Too ’80s,” Miriam replied, looking over the music that she had with her.

“But it’s got big, big sound!” Weaver pointed out. “Big sound is good with this place. Blue Öyster Cult?”

“Ugh!”

“But it was the original Goth band,” Weaver explained. “What else do you call ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’?”

“Discordant noise. And you just want to play ‘Smoke on the Water.’ ”

“That was Deep Purple.”

“Whatever!”

“But it’s got a GREAT bass riff! I can set the guitar to bass…”

“Oh, here, Crüxshadows! You’ll like them.”

“Who? What the grapp is a Crew-shadows?”

“You don’t look so good, sir,” Captain Zanella said as Weaver slumped into their shared tent.

“The band is experiencing creative differences,” Weaver said loftily. “I managed to get Ke-cha on my side with Jethro Tull, since there’s actually a flute part, but Miriam’s insisting on a bunch of Goth and Industrial bands nobody’s heard of. One of them she wanted to replace the fiddle portion with flute and when Ke-cha tried to play it, well, let’s just say that he’s an okay flute player but he’s not up to that person’s fiddling. I pointed out that not only was I in command of this expedition, the speakers were mine and she suggested that I sounded like a vulture squabbling over carrion when I sang back-up and… Well, we’re having creative differences.”

“Command is a lonely thing, sir,” Captain Zanella said, trying not to grin. “But to put it in nautical terms, sir, sometimes you just can’t fight the tide.”

“Your input is duly noted, Captain.”

“A choice profound is bittersweet,” Miriam sang. “No one hears Cassandra cry…”

“That actually wasn’t all that bad,” Weaver said, plucking at the strings of his guitar and working over a riff he’d flubbed.

“Planets seemed to like it,” PO Carpenter said. “But you could tell it was written for a drum machine.”

“Well,” Miriam said, sighing. “I think that there’s a band that you and Captain Weaver would prefer. I suppose we could try Manowar.”

“Mano… who?”

“Their blood is upon my steel!” Weaver screamed, head bobbing as he slammed the guitar, “Their blood is upon my steel…”

“That wasn’t entirely awful,” Miriam said, taking her earplugs out. “You should consider getting into death-metal. You’ve actually got the voice for it.”

“Was that a compliment on my singing voice?” Weaver asked, amazed.

“Not really,” Miriam said. “I was thinking of something like Rob Zombie. You just sort of growl the lyrics. I’ll point out that the lead singer of this band has a rendition of ‘Nessun Dorma’ on one of their albums that’s good enough for the Met. But you didn’t do too badly.”

“Like the drum part,” PO Carpenter said, tapping the snare drum. “Really got the argon planet flashing in the middle there.”

“I wonder how much mass we’ve blown off,” Weaver said, looking at the system. Even with the pause in the music, the tendrils of gas between the planets were still fluorescing from unexpended energy. They’d been playing, off and on, for long enough that there was now a solid band of gasses joining the Jovians.

Ke-cha had returned to his duties as a dragonfly pilot. They’d tried to work in the flute playing, but it really didn’t work. The Cheerick was just as glad. After the first session he’d taken to wearing his flight-armor since it cut down on the decibels.

“I wonder what would blow the most off,” Carpenter said.

“Dragonforce,” Miriam admitted. “But we don’t have four guitar players who can also sing. Or one for that matter…”

“So what do we have down so far?” Weaver asked, ignoring the jibe.

“I don’t think we have any of it down,” Miriam pointed out. “Unless you consider a band playing at a high-school prom as having the music down. I suppose we could just play ‘Cocaine’ over and over again and it would be fine by you.”

“Perfectionist.”

“Neophyte…”

“Creative differences again?”

“We were just getting the sound right, you know… ?” Weaver felt more relaxed than he had in months.

“Okay, no arguing this time,” Weaver said, holding his hand up and lifting his chin. “We have six songs we all agree upon, more or less. We’ll just practice those. That’s enough for one set. Then we’ll see what we can get this system to do. Miriam, just one question. Are there any of the ’80s stadium band songs you can stand? Because that’s big sound and we need big sound.”

“ ‘Final Countdown,’ ” Miriam muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” Weaver asked.

“ ‘Final Countdown,’ ” Miriam muttered, somewhat louder.

“Spectre’s Anthem?” Carpenter said, laughing. The former CO of the Blade, back when it was a submarine that snuck off planet by outrunning Akulas, would use the song, blasting at full power of the sonar system, to warn the Russian submarines he was coming through and they needed to get out of the way. Or whales for that matter.

“I like it,” Miriam said angrily. “Okay? Is that enough? I admit it! I’ve got the sound effects programmed already. I’ve also got a Whitesnake’s Greatest Hits CD! Satisfied?”

“Just when you think you know somebody,” Weaver said. “Okay, let’s try that…”

“Whoa…” Weaver muttered, watching the Jovians rippling in after-effect. “It really likes ‘Fight For Freedom.’ ”

“And it’s got a great guitar riff,” Miriam pointed out.

“And piano,” Carpenter said.

“Lots of drum.”

“It’s a winner.”

“No more creative differences?” Captain Zanella asked, looking over the patrol reports.

“I’ve got to admit, some of this newer stuff isn’t bad,” Weaver said.

“Manowar’s been around since the early ’80s,” the Marine said, not looking up. “I had one of their albums in high school.”

“Really?” Weaver said. “Go figure. Thought there was a reason they were good…”

“This is boring,” Cha-shah said, looking at the starscape.

“Be glad you’re out here and not listening to what humans call music,” Ke-cha replied. “It is awful stuff, the worst caterwauling you’ve ever heard.”

“I heard some of it. It is very bad,” the Cheerick acknowledged. “How can they listen to that horrible stuff.”

“I don’t think they have ears like we do,” Ke-cha said. “In fact…”

“Why is this light blinking so hard all of a sudden?” Cha-shah asked.

“I do… not know,” Ke-cha said, slowly. “It is a red light. That is bad. You have one as well?”

“Yes…” the Cheerick male said, puzzling out the words under the flashing light. “Dreen… emissions… indicator…”

“Captain Weaver! We have Dreen emergence in-system!”

“Damn,” Weaver muttered, leaning his guitar on a crystal pillar. “I thought we were getting that last riff together, too…”