by M. D. Cooper
“You told them already?” Rika asked, worried that she could face an AI mutiny if they weren’t willing to wait for her to find a solution. “Stars, Niki, this is a bigger problem than I need right now.”
“Yeah, and I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with that mess,” Rika interjected.
Niki didn’t respond, and Rika reviewed the seven AIs on her ships.
The two at the top of the cost list were Cora and Moshe. Cora was the ship’s AI for the Golden Lark, and Moshe managed the Perseid’s Dream. Cora and Moshe possessed large neural nets and complex interfacing systems required to manage warships—which upped their valuation.
Next up were Jane, Frankie, and Lauren. Those three were mid-grade AIs which operated as backup ship AIs, and also assisted in control of scan, weapons, and defensive systems.
Lowest in valuation were Potter and Dredge. They were company-level AIs that managed both supply and ground combat. Of all the AIs, only these two were under Rika’s command in M Company.
Then something occurred to her, and she checked Septhian Salvage law and Marauder company regulations.
“Niki…I think that under Septhian law, I might own you,” Rika said after a moment.
Niki replied with a ghost of a smile in Rika’s mind.
“It’s a bit nebulous, though. Technically, I took possession of you—well, my team did—while we were in foreign space, in the Politica. But that’s defunct now, a part of the Septhian Alliance.”
Rika scowled at the holo as she tried to make sense of Septhian law when it came to how an AI could become owned by someone.
“I can’t make heads or tails of this,” she said at last. “From what I understood before we went to the Politica, the Marauders had laid no claim on you, so you were free and clear. They mostly follow Septhian law, and Septhia does not allow for AIs to be placed into—indenturement, as they call it. But they allow for the sale of existing AIs that are already indentured.”
“So, do I own you?” Rika asked.
“That feels gross,” Rika replied. “OK, so from what I see here, there is a form I can fill out to free you, which gives you
‘personhood’ at that point.”
“Can’t they just tell?” Rika asked.
“I wonder…” Rika whispered as she pulled up Septhian law on asylum and prisoners of war. She had researched the Theban laws when she was first on Pyra six months ago. Their regulations had contained a statute of limitations on how long a person could be considered a refugee from a war. Rika had not been eligible any longer, but perhaps….
“Aha!” Rika cried out. “Septhian law on asylum is twenty years.”
“Well, if memory serves, before the war really started to go south, AIs in Genevia were free. There was no ownership of sentients.”
“Right,” Rika said with a curt nod. “And we know just how lawful those trials were. However, Septhia has recently declared the Genevian mech program a crime against humanity.”
“You know what that means, right?” Rika asked.
Rika stood from her desk and turned to look back over the world below once more. “No, it’s not news, but it gives us a leg to stand on if we claim that the same illegal courts which turned me—and half the people on these ships—into mechs, were also illegally sentencing AIs and ‘indenturing’ them.”
Niki made a sound like a low whistle in Rika’s mind.
“It’s enough to make a claim for asylum, though, right?” Rika asked.
“That both Major Tim and General Mill are going to be pissed with me?”
“Well, we’ll try it,” Rika said. “If it doesn’t work, then I’ll have to start saving my pay.”
Rika nodded slowly. “Lawyers. Lots and lots of lawyers.”
SPACE IN SPACE
STELLAR DATE: 04.21.8949 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Golden Lark
REGION: Iapetus, Hercules System, Septhian Alliance
Rika’s gaze swept from her XO, First Lieutenant Scarcliff, to the company’s Flight Leader, First Lieutenant Heather.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rika said at last. “This is a joke, right? Hazing your CO?”
Heather shook her head, her eyes deadly serious. “No joke, Captain Rika. The humans and the mechs both want to call the company ‘Rika’s Marauders’. I really don’t think there’s any stopping them.”
Rika’s lip twitched at the separation Heather drew between the mechs and the other members of M Company—specifically Heather’s categorization of mechs as non-human.
Given that Heather herself was an RR-3 mech, it was an unexpected attitude. Especially since the majority of the Marauders serving under Heather were not mechs.
“It seems logical to me, Cap’n. We’re all Marauders, just like any other Marauders in the regiment. But M company of the 9th Battalion are yours. We’re Rika’s Marauders.”
Rika caught a twinkle in Scarcliff’s eye and she shook her head at the FR-2. “You’re enjoying this—watching me squirm—aren’t you?”
Scarcliff chuckled. “Every second of it, ma’am. Smalls is loving it, too, but she’s got a way better poker face than I do.”
Lieutenant Heather, who Scarcliff had only ever referred to as ‘Smalls’, let a ghost of a smile slip onto her lips for just a second. “I have no idea what the XO is talking about. I’m pretty sure that he’s mistaken. I don’t enjoy anything.”
Rika eyed the RR-3 Flight Leader for a moment before sighing. If there was one thing she knew about Heather, it was that the woman loved a good joke, so long as it was at someone else’s expense.
“Don’t you have dropships to look over or something?” Rika asked her.
Lieutenant Heather nodded. “In fact, I do. I need to make sure they’re tip-top for Rika’s Maraude
rs.”
A groan slipped past Rika’s lips. “There’s no stopping it, is there?”
“Nope,” Scarcliff grinned. “Smalls and I will make sure it sticks. You’re doomed.”
“And if the Old Man takes issue?” Rika asked.
“Then we blame you,” Heather deadpanned.
Rika ran her hand through her hair and looked into Drop Bay 11, at the entrance of which they stood. “Is this all you two wanted to see me about?”
Scarcliff shook his head. “No, it was just an amusing diversion. Smalls and I actually wanted to talk about space allocation on the ‘Lark.”
Rika drew in a deep breath. She knew what this would be about.
“Particularly the Drop Bays,” Heather added. “The Golden Lark has twenty-four flight bays. At present, we have six allocated for our dropships, and they have eighteen for their fighters.”
“I know this,” Rika said. “They have sixty-four fighters, four per wing, each wing has a bay.”
“Right.” Scarcliff nodded and leaned against the bulkhead, his shoulder making a brief scratching noise and scraping the paint. “But they could fit two wings in a bay if they had to. Or even split some wings. We could get another two bays in the mix with minimal disruption for them.”
“We have three platoons on the Golden Lark, each of which has eight dropships,” Heather added. “Dropships are a hell of a lot bigger than fighters. We’re cheek-to-cheek in there.”
“You know how Major Tim will view a request for more room aboard his ship.”
“Yeah, well, our mechs need a lot of supplies on hand when they board the dropships for a mission. Hell, a K1R has a supply pod nearly as big as a dropship. I’ve got them hanging from the rafters in one bay. This isn’t apples to apples here. We need more room.”
“It’s more like apples to pineapples,” Scarcliff added, glancing at Heather. “Really small apples, and really big pineapples.”
Was that a hint at something between them?
Heather’s eyes sparked as she stared at Rika, her skin reddening slightly. Scarcliff had no such tells, largely because he had never opted to have his face reconstructed.
That was another thing that Rika had to consider time and time again: which mechs were adapting well to their situation, and which weren’t.
Despite his appearance, Rika probably didn’t need to worry about her XO. He’d been with the Marauders longer than her. Heather, on the other hand, had been a liberatee from Stavros’s Politica.
She’d opted to have her face recreated as soon as possible—something General Mill had offered for free to all mechs—and had periodically mentioned saving up to get more of her human body back.
On the surface, the distinctions Heather drew between mechs and humans—which were often mildly derisive to humans—seemed to contradict her actions. She wanted to be more human, but always separated them out as less desirable. It was clear to Rika. She knew the signs of self-loathing all too well.
That was the direst enemy her company faced. Free of their compliance chips, the mechs were now able to forge their own future, and many were terrified of what lay ahead.
Rika realized she’d been staring at her XO and FL a few seconds too long without replying and they were staring at her impatiently.
“OK, I’ll talk to Major Tim,” she said after a few more moments. “But don’t expect miracles. Lieutenant Carson also wants more room for the repair and maintenance equipment.”
Scarcliff snorted. “Bondo always wants more room. Give him half a chance, and he’d fill the entire ship.”
Heather rolled her eyes at Scarcliff and thumped a fist against his chest. “Bondo’s put you back together a few times. You’d be in the scrap heap if it weren’t for him.”
“Doesn’t mean he needs a whole freakin’ starship to put a few hundred mechs back together.”
Rika had never considered that before. All told, there were over three hundred and fifty mechs in her company—what if they suffered significant combat damage? Would Lieutenant Carson’s Repair and Maintenance platoon be able to put them back together, let alone triage a few hundred damaged mechs?
Niki’s voice was calm and comforting.
Rika clasped Scarcliff on the shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do. There are a lot of places on the ship where we can set up triage and repair areas. Surgeries and more advanced repairs can be moved deeper into the ship.”
“See, Scarcliff?” Heather gave a small smile, one that almost reached her eyes. “I told you the CO would know what to do. She’s got it handled. Now why don’t you come with me and help explain to Whispers why he can’t paint his fireteam’s insignia on my dropships.”
“He doing that again, Smalls?” Scarcliff asked with a groan. “Dude’s never gonna learn. Maybe we should get Bondo to hack his HUD so he thinks he sees his damn flaming speargun thing on ships even when it’s not there.”
Smalls laughed—a real laugh this time. “Now that’s a plan I can get behind.”
The XO and FL turned to walk into the drop bay while Rika looked up Second Lieutenant Carson’s current location. She saw that he was in Bay 128, his main base of operations for mech repairs and maintenance.
Carson was a good man, one that clearly understood that those under his care were humans as well as advanced machines. He could molecularly fuse a new knee joint into place just as well as he could replace a heart.
He was, without a doubt, the best asset M Company had at their disposal.
Bay 128 was also where he performed facial reconstruction surgery, which had caused the mechs to rename it the Baptism Room.
Rika had no idea what it meant until Niki had explained that it was a religious rite from the Temple of Jesus—a religion that was widespread in the Praesepe Cluster.
It turned out that baptism symbolized a second birth, something Rika understood all too well. She still remembered the first time she’d looked in a mirror and saw her own face staring back, and not the matte grey ‘flesh’ the GAF had given her.
She’d cried until her tear ducts dried up.
The reconstructive surgeries Carson performed made him one of the most beloved people on the ship; though that still didn’t stop anyone from calling him ‘Bondo’.
Rika checked the bay’s scheduled operations to make certain she wouldn’t be interrupting before she walked through the ship to Bay 128.
The Golden Lark was no small vessel, coming in at 1,284 meters long and containing over half a cubic kilometer of interior space.
Granted, much of that space was taken up by engines, fuel, and reactors to power the ship’s weapons. Any space that wasn’t needed for those things was filled up with her mechs, or the equipment to support her mechs.
Back during the war, the Genevian Armed Forces had never massed mechs on a ship like this. From what Rika understood, the brass had always been worried too many mechs together would turn out badly—and it very well may have. Because of that fear, even cruisers the size of the ‘Lark were only designed to carry two-dozen mechs at most.
It also meant that much of the ship could not easily be traversed by mechs. Her five K1Rs had an especially hard time of it, being unable to leave the drop bays unless their human cores were pulled from their mech bodies
Rika only had two smaller mobile frames for the K1R mech cores, so they had to trade off ‘going for walks’, as they termed it.
The K1Rs were at the top of the list to get off the ship and down to Iapetus as soon as the training facility was ready for them.
A group of ship personnel pressed against the bulkhead as Rika walked past. She was glad—not for the first time—that she was the build of mech best able to maneuver the tight confines of a starship.
RR and F
R models could manage most of the corridors on the Golden Lark as well, but the AMs had trouble navigating many of the side passages.
More than once, she’d seen an AM required to apologize and back down a passageway to let an officer or NCO from the ship’s crew pass by.
That one thing probably created more animosity between the mechs and the ship’s crew than anything else.
She knew that several of her people wanted a rule stating that mechs had the right of way, but Rika knew trying to force that on the ship’s crew would be a disaster. No navy was going to back down on thousands of years of history that gave senior personnel the right of way.
It was just another of the hundred things that Rika had not expected to deal with when General Mill put her in charge of this company.
When he’d given her the promotion, she’d been heady at the idea of having her own command. She’d been ready to kick ass and show what platoons consisting entirely of mechs could do.
In reality, dealing with minutia dominated her days, and she barely had time to work on the tactics and strategies she wanted to test and practice.
Normally it was Barne—who had accepted the role of First Sergeant—who dealt with these issues, but he was down on Iapetus with Chase, working on establishing the training facility.
That left tasks such as this to her, and her alone.
After another hundred meters of twists and turns in the bowels of the ship, Rika came to the doors leading to Bay 128.
Initially a food storage room, this was chosen to be Carson’s main operating theatre because it was situated close to the main power conduits, and was equidistant from the docking bays on either side of the ship.
The cooks had been annoyed—another thing Rika had never expected to have to deal with—but they’d been mollified by how grateful the mechs all were to have real food, and not NutriPaste. It only took a couple of people crying from how amazing it was to taste food again after a decade or more, for the cooks to lose any trace of animosity toward the mechs.
For their part, the mechs were generally so happy to eat with their mouths, that their requests began to dominate the menu; eventually the selection in the mess turned into something else that caused tension on the ships. In the end, Major Tim and Captain Penny had to set up a menu selection lottery to keep the ships’ crews from complaining that the cooks were playing favorites.