by Scott Baron
“Um, okay, if you say so.”
“Daisy,” Fatima said, handing the ship back to her, “that wasn’t a specific ship I gave you. It was a box of random parts. Sid and Mal ran simulations, and they came up with several likely configurations, but nothing like this.”
Daisy felt a warm flush rise to her cheeks as she fought to suppress the proud smile that threatened to split her face into a beaming grin.
“I…” she found herself at a loss for words.
For once.
Fatima pulled another bin out and dumped it on the table.
“I was planning on saving this one for tomorrow, but let’s see what else you come up with, shall we?”
Daisy put the model down, and with a little grin, began digging through the bin, feeling better about herself than she had in days. As she worked, quickly fitting pieces together, Fatima looked directly at the tiny video feed link in the corner of the room and smiled.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Commander Mrazich said from behind the monitor in his private conference room. “It seems your Ms. Swarthmore is finally finding her groove. And none too late. We need to get our mission back online, and we need it to happen now.”
Captain Harkaway nodded his agreement, eyes stuck to the screen as he watched Daisy run through a new configuration of ship components he’d never seen before.
“Amazing,” he said. “Utterly amazing.”
Daisy lay in bed that night but found herself unable to sleep. Her mind was buzzing with possibilities. What else could she do? Were all of the others somehow missing things that to her seemed obvious? It boggled her mind.
“Sid?” she said, keying the comms unit open.
“Yes, Daisy?” the AI replied.
“I was wondering. I mean, I know some early ship models aren’t modular like the newer ones, but are there any built-in restrictions on ship configurations?”
“What exactly do you mean?”
“Like, are there any design factors that would restrict use of components that maybe aren’t common knowledge? You and Mal and Bob would know, since they’re both ships, and you used to be one.”
“Technically, we aren’t ships, exactly. Mal and Bob are integrated with ships at the moment, yes, but the cornerstone of our level of AI technology is our ability to repurpose from device to device. I, for example, was able to swap from a fairly large command ship to a massive moon base. It took some adjustment, of course, but we were designed to adapt this way. Of course, some AIs might be a bit locked into their ways. Conditioning, you could say, but given time, any of us from the higher-tier systems should be able to reconfigure.”
“And the ship designs themselves? Mal didn’t seem to have any detailed files in her systems, and I haven’t found any here, either. At least not beyond the most basic maintenance schematics.”
“That’s because when I was installed in the base, I found that the original Dark Side AI had already been destroyed, melted to its core by the AI virus. It was gone, along with all of its files, lost when the surviving crew purged the systems.”
“You say it, but with the other AIs, you always talk of each other in the gender you’ve adopted.”
“True, but the purge left no record of the previous operating system. I use the neutral ‘it’ because I simply do not know what gender it had chosen.”
“Oh, got it.”
“But back to your original query about configurations. I don’t see why there would be any restrictions. The underlying premise of the system was to allow for rapid assimilation and recovery of damaged ship components, and in the original design phase the engineers made sure that only compatible units could integrate. So far as I’m aware, you could not make non-compatible parts join in a stable unit, no matter how hard you tried. Is that of any help?”
The gears were already turning in Daisy’s head.
“Yeah. Thanks, Sid.”
“My pleasure. May I ask why this question arose?”
A smile teased Daisy’s lips.
“Ideas, Sid. Just ideas.”
The powerful AI waited a moment, a quiet pause over the comms.
“Very well, then. Sleep well, Daisy.”
“I will, Sid.”
Daisy keyed off the comms and lay back down in bed. Her mind was racing, but sleep finally took hold of her, relaxing her body as her slumbering mind dreamed of ships never before imagined.
Chapter Eleven
Daisy found herself flying backwards in the low gravity until she bounced roughly off a pile of debris a good fifteen meters from the hidden stone door.
“I told you not to kick it.”
“Blow me,” Daisy grumbled as she got back to her feet. Fortunately, she had remembered to mute her voice-activated comms when she reached her destination.
Daisy was dusty, but unharmed. She had been frustrated, and had quite foolishly thrown a powerful front kick into the solid stone blocking her path. The result in low gravity had been less than surprising.
“But daaaaang. Look how far back you went. Your legs are getting really strong, if you managed that.” Sarah chuckled. “Now imagine if you could do that against something other than a rock wall.”
“Door.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
Daisy brushed the moon dust from her suit and trudged back to the secret control panel.
“Is it just me, or do those lights look a little bit brighter?”
“Definitely brighter. I think your trickle charge may have finally gotten those batteries to a functional level again.”
“And yet here I am, stuck outside this door more than a full week later with nothing to show for it besides a bruised ass and a dirty space suit.”
Daisy had made near-daily treks to the distant panel, rushing through her other tasks while allowing Fatima to believe they were taking her far longer than they actually did. She felt bad lying to her, but the draw of the mysterious door put any guilt solidly on the back burner.
After four days of trying everything imaginable to bypass the panel, Daisy had finally opted for Plan B. She switched tactics and focused on where the mystery controls might actually lead. She had jury-rigged a hand-held scanner to read electrical charge through up to a foot of rock and steel. Fortunately for her, what she was looking for was far more accessible than that, thanks largely to the alien assault that had smashed into the stone face and made the panel visible in the first place.
A small gash in the stone roughly half a meter from the panel signaled a weak charge, and Daisy had spent the next two days chipping away at it, trying to get access to whatever was underneath it. Under any other circumstances it would have taken massive power tools to make headway, the use of which would have drawn attention to her efforts, but the impact that had fractured the stone-covered metal and rent it open had also left her a slightly weakened stone matrix to work with. It was still very slow going, but Daisy had finally managed to reach the thick-shielded wires tucked deep in the crevice.
That was the good news.
The bad news was, since then, she hadn’t been able to make any further progress. Everything she tried, every bypass, be it mechanical or code-based, seemed to be a dead end. Nevertheless, every day she came back to try again, and every day the firmly sealed stone door silently laughed at her efforts.
“Come on, Daze. You’ve gotta get back. Clock’s running low, and you said you’d help Gus get the Váli fixed up.”
“Sturdy ship, that one,” she noted. “She survived a lot, that’s for sure, though given her name, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me.”
Indeed, the ship’s namesake, Váli, was one of the few Norse gods prophesied to survive Ragnarok—the end of days. While Earth’s downfall wasn’t quite the same thing, Daisy felt that perhaps it was close enough.
She packed up her tools and tucked them carefully into an indentation beneath a rock. She didn’t have to worry about vandals or thieves on the moon, but old habits die hard, and hiding them for her
next visit just made her feel more at ease. Daisy then wedged the piece of rock she’d been using to cover the control panel back into place and began her trek back to the airlock.
Gus and Chu were waiting for her in the maintenance hangar near the Váli when she finally returned.
“Man, Fatima had you out there quite a while today. What was it this time? Rebuilding Hangar Four while standing on your head?” Chu said.
“Ha-ha, oh-so funny,” Daisy replied. “Just more of the usual. She’s been on a kick having me get those solar panels reconfigured to feed the base. I guess when I tapped into the secondary array she didn’t know about, she and the commander realized that maybe it might be a good idea to get the rest of the base up and running if we can. I don’t mind, though. Beats fighting aliens down on Earth, that’s for sure.”
She swung her torque wrench into place and pulled free a forward shielding panel.
“See, this is the problem,” she said. “Too many years of travel and not enough proper maintenance. If we hadn’t been woken early, the ship might have very well fallen apart before it ever got here, and we’d have all died in our sleep.”
“Gee, thanks for that cheery thought, Daze,” Gus said with a sharp laugh. “Aren’t you the bright ray of sunlight on our otherwise dark day.”
“We’re on the dark side of the moon, Gus. Every day is a dark day.”
He laughed as he swung down from his lift and surveyed the banged-up hull of the ship.
“There’s no way around it,” Gus said. “The Váli needs some parts, and Dark Side simply doesn’t have what we need.” He looked at Daisy and Chu with a hopeful grin. “You guys up for a scavenging run to the debris field?”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Daisy joked. “All right, just give me fifteen. I need to run to my quarters for a minute to swap into a clean flight suit, then I’ll meet you two at Donovan’s ship.”
“I can’t,” Chu said. “I’m working on a project with Fatima, and I really need to get back to it.” He gave Daisy a funny little smile. “You should see if Vince wants to go. I’d say ask Reggie, but he and Donovan still have that macho pilot competition thing going, and I don’t think Bob would enjoy both of them trying to play captain.”
Gustavo grinned. “I already told Bob we’d likely be needing his assistance a little while ago. He should have finished his pre-flight warm-up by now, so all we need is to track down Donovan and Vince and we should be good.”
“I still don’t see why he insists on always piloting these missions. We’re all qualified, you know,” Gus said. “And besides, Bob can fly himself if he needs to. Any of us could make these runs.”
“Yeah, but he and Bob are buddies, and he doesn’t really trust his AI friend in anyone else’s hands,” Chu reasoned. “Anyway, he can run a recon scan while we’re doing our thing. Two birds with one stone, as they say.”
“All right, then. See you two at the ship in fifteen,” Daisy said, then trotted off to her quarters to change into a fresh flight suit.
“Watch it! On your starboard!”
“I see it, Vince. Stop side-seat driving. I got this.” Donovan gently feathered the compressed-air maneuvering jets and slid his ship around the floating debris.
Gustavo sat to the rear of the command pod, directly jacked into the scanning cluster via the port on the back of his head. He could have simply used his cybernetic eye to survey the area on top of Bob’s scanning array, but Gus always felt better when he was directly plugged into the ship’s systems. “I don’t know,” he would say. “Just feels better, ya know? Like I’m one with the ship. If I do it the other way, I worry I might miss something.”
Daisy sat behind them all, an extra set of skilled hands should they be needed. If the ship had any problems, even Vince—the head mechanic, no less—was no match for her knack for repairs on the fly.
She caught herself staring at the slender data cable feeding into Gustavo’s head. It just wasn’t natural, but she had long ago accepted that while she may not like artificially enhanced humans, she was stuck living with them.
Donovan fired a small thruster and slowed their progress. Drifting like a piece of junk amidst the countless pieces of wreckage, he deftly maneuvered through the field while staying off the alien scans.
“Take a look at that,” he said, pointing out the thick window. “Do you think that’ll work for you?”
Reggie and Gus sized up the chunk of ship drifting alongside them. It was far larger than the ship they were in, but several of the pieces they needed could be salvaged from it if they were careful.
It was tricky work, retrieving components from drifting debris, the riskiest part being the EVA required to reach them. For smaller pieces, Bob would just use his robotic work arms to grab them and pull them into his cargo bay, but for anything large enough to potentially damage him if it shifted course, an extra-vehicular activity was required.
Fortunately, the EVA suits were in excellent working order, and the crew was kept nice and warm within them—a crucial thing, as they couldn’t fire up the ship’s heating systems while there was any chance of being picked up on scans.
“We’ll be right back,” Vince said, locking his helmet into place. Gus stood to follow.
“Hang on,” Daisy stopped them. “Why is Gus going? He’s our scans guy. We need someone monitoring while we make the retrieval.”
“Excuse me,” Bob interrupted. “I am fully capable of running the scans myself, you know.”
“Yeah, but—and please, no offense, here—Gus is outfitted with far more modern equipment than you are. The ship is solid, but just a bit outdated.”
“There is logic in your assessment,” Bob said after a slight pause. Daisy couldn’t tell if he sounded hurt. “I will continue to interface with Gustavo while you make the retrieval. Good luck.”
Daisy locked her helmet on and met Vince at the airlock door. “You ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s be quick. Get in, get out.” His face hidden from the others, he smiled and winked at her.
Daisy couldn’t help but feel a quick flush at his double entendre, but she stomped it down, turning her back on him and opening the inner door.
“Okay, we’re heading out. I’m going to run two extra retrieval tethers to haul in the pieces, so don’t let the ship drift too far or they’ll get tangled. Got it?”
“Yes, Daisy. We’ve done this before, you know.”
“Sorry, Donovan. I know. Didn’t mean anything by it, just wanted to be one hundred percent clear.”
“All good.”
“You two done?” Vince said as he closed the inner airlock door behind them. “Because we’re on suit air, so it’s kind of a ticking clock now.”
Daisy entered the decompression command and waited. A moment later the green light came on, and the outer door unlocked. She keyed the sequence and it silently slid open.
“Okay, let’s go.”
She and Vince lightly pushed off from the minimal gravity of the ship. While they couldn’t run full grav-systems for fear of being scanned, Bob was able to divert fractional gravity to specific parts of the craft to allow ease of movement for the skeleton crew.
The pair drifted toward the imposing wreck in front of them. From the outside, against the darkness of space, it felt akin to a tiny fish swimming up to a massive whale, its full size hidden by the murky waters surrounding it.
Vince touched down first, clipping himself to a twisted loop of conduit. Daisy arrived a moment later, but she simply extended her arm, snagging a piece of bulkhead with her gloved hand and using the rebound kinetics to spin her body to a standing position within the gaping hole on the flank of the long-dead craft.
“Nice moves.”
“Thanks. I’m going to pull the conversion coils from the drive pod. You want to start on the shielding panels?”
“Sounds like a plan,” he replied. “Keep your comms open, and be careful in there.”
“Yes, Dad,” she replied mockingly.
Vince began the slow glide along the ship’s skin to unmount and collect the components the Váli needed for her own hull, while Daisy floated to the pod door and snapped the manual override crank into place.
Sonofabitch is sticking.
“You have the pocket torch?” Sarah asked.
Yeah, but it’s got a limited charge. Don’t want to waste it in case I need to cut through something later.
“There won’t be a need for it at all if you don’t get this door open.”
Good point.
Daisy pulled the small unit from her pouch and fired it up to its lowest setting, directing the heat to the metal housing in front of her. After a minute, she switched it off and stowed it in her bag, then tried the crank again. The long-frozen gears silently strained, and then finally began to move. Once they started to spin in their housing, the door opened the rest of the way easily.
Now for the coils.
Daisy knew the layout of the ship, just like she knew the layout of every ship.
Maybe Fatima’s training is paying off, she grudgingly acknowledged as she rounded a corner, tugging the retrieval line behind her. Okay, they should be right through here, she thought, certain in her mental layout of the ship.
The door was open a few inches, but that was all. Daisy inserted the manual crank into the access port beside the doorframe and began slowly turning it until the door crept open.
“Accessing the drive room now,” she said into the comms. “How’s it coming out there?”
Vince continued unbolting the panels as he spoke. “Making good progress. Looks like it had a couple of tiny space rock hits, but nothing to worry about.”
“Okay, just be careful.”
“Yes, Mom,” he joked.
Daisy smiled and opened the door enough to squeeze through, then slid herself into the murky blackness of the dark space. She felt the bump of random debris and reached for her flashlight as she moved through the room.