James Wittenbach - Worlds Apart 08

by Hellfire

  “It’s fascinating to me how you fly this ship without a direct neural interface,” Driver told Aha, when the others had left. “Our neural links allow us to access all the ship’s instruments and feed date directly to the processing centers of our brains. But you are completely dependent on visual inputs.”

  “That is not entirely true,” Aha corrected him. “I can also feel and sense the motion of my ship, and I can hear changes in her engines and hull. These are useful operational aids. How would you pilot your ship if your neural interfaces failed.”

  “They don’t fail,” Driver told him.

  Aha, in his understated way, was astonished. “You mean you have no manual control whatsoever? Not even as redundant systems.”

  “I can revert my ship to manual inputs through the neural interface, but maintaining the interface is critical for navigation. I would be as blind without them as you are without your sensor readouts. I could land the ship, of course, but guiding over long distances would be almost impossible.”

  “Hm,” said Aha.

  Eventually, Johnny Rook wandered up from the rear of the ship. “I’m bored. Remind me why I am here again?”

  “In case the Solarites attack,” Driver explained to him. David Alkema, Pegasus’s chief tactical officer had held a nearly identical conversation with both warfighters in Pegasus’s landing bay. Alkema had missed out on the trip, and was back on Pegasus with his family instead of in a rickety shuttle flying through the hellish outer atmosphere of a blazing giant sun.

  Alkema was probably seething in jealousy.

  “I meant why am I here, specifically?” Rook asked. “There are 500 primary warfighters on Pegasus. I’ve been sent to the Crux planet, to Yronwode, and now here. When does somebody else get a chance to go on these glamorous, heroic warfighter missions?”

  “The Prime Commander likes us,” Jordan said with gusto.

  Rook pointedly ignored him, and Driver answered as best as he could, “The Prime Commander is using other warfighters on other missions, mostly preparing Pegasus against Solarite attack and serving as bodyguards at the trade negotiations.”

  “That’s another thing, If the Solarites attack, why am I only allowed one sidearm?” Johnny Rook asked, and he indicated his right arm, where a gauntlet with a pulse weapon would normally have been. Not only did the Hellions limit the crew’s armament, they had also insisted that all weapons be kept disarmed in large storage packs.

  “Because Hellions are afraid of guns,” Max Jordan offered in a helpful tone of voice.

  Change had put it differently.

  “I’m not talking to you,” Rook reminded him, without looking at Jordan. “Unless I have to.”

  “What are even the chances of a Solarite attack?” Rook asked Driver. “This ship has been drifting out here for how long?”

  Aha answered. “Liminix CH-53 sent a distress signal fifteen-point-six cycles ago.”

  “That’s about what? 5.4 standard years?” Driver asked.

  Aha shrugged. “The odds of a Solarite Pirate attack are very good.”

  “Even after so long?” Driver asked.

  “Solarites are patient,” Aha said. “We have seen this type of behavior before. The Solarite Pirates have damaged a valuable ship, leaving it disabled but not destroyed. They know this way, they can keep both the original ship, the salvage ship, and the salvage crew.

  That is why the Company no longer sends salvage ships, and in this case, dispatched one of the oldest shuttles on this type of mission. They are expendable.” He paused meaningfully. “As are their crews.”

  “That sounds kind of grim,” Jordan said.

  “This is a harsh and unforgiving place,” Aha finished quietly, but with respect.

  “And yet, almost unbelievably boring,” Rook added. With that, he returned to his jump-seat, and tried to find the inner strength to take another nap.

  Section 02

  Liminex CH-53

  Eliza Change, Ono, and Mata picked their way through the silent ghost ship, weightless, held down only by their magnetized space boots, and illuminated only by the light of their helmet lamps, which produced a very slight haze in the radioactive gases that had seeped into the ship from the star’s atmosphere.

  After an initial check of the area around the airlock, Ono dispatched Mata to inspect the decks for any sign of Solarite presence or booby traps, then picked her way up to the bridge, four decks up from the airlock, with Change.

  Liminix CH-53 had been a lean ship. Its passageways were barely wide enough for two people to pass each other, and Change had to hunch over a bit to make her way through them.

  The walls, ceiling, and floor-deck were all formed of a gray colored resin of carbon and silicon, with strips of metal inlaid to make it possible to walk on them with magnetic boots. Long pipes ran along both walls and the ceiling, and met control boxes wherever they came to a hatch. It was sparer and more utilitarian than even Pegasus’s underdecks. There were no lifts, and each deck had to be accessed by climbing a retractable ladder.

  Eliza Change was in paradise. This was the kind of ship she remembered from her days as a pilot and navigator in the Mining Guild. Granted, this ship was a century or two behind technologically, but the Guild was also known for keeping its ships as stripped down as possible. All the guild cared about was extracting ore and chemicals at the lowest possible costs then selling them at the highest possible price in the Element Exchange in New Halifax, or through the Ministry of Resources on Republic. Or, in come cases, smuggled through Barter Stations on some of the outer moons… hidden, unless you knew where to look, which Eliza Change did.

  In any case, Eliza Change found this ship, with its uncoated surfaces and complete absence of amenities much preferable to the luxury liner that was Pegasus.

  She was almost hoping the life-support systems would prove to be completely inoperable. Navigating the ship in full spacesuit and re-breather would be a special bonus.

  Although, that would make it hard for those who didn’t have spacesuits.

  She wasn’t sure mutant space lizard-rats could survive long in this environment, but if they were in a hibernation cycle, there might be even more fun yet to come.

  She touched her radio and transmitted, “The damage doesn’t look that as extensive on the inside as it did from the outside.” Her voice crackled heavily with stellar interference. They were, after all, in the outer atmosphere of a sun.

  Ono agreed, “Solarite pirates typically only cause enough damage to disable the ship and kill the crew. They will come back later, and in larger numbers, to claim it as a prize.” Change had known that. “I only meant that the ship appears to be in overall good condition. It looks in better shape than I expected.”

  Ono reported on her scanner readings. “Radiation levels appear to be within survivable limits. The shielding is still intact in most places.” Ono then addressed her other team. “Number One Team, Number One Team, report, report.”

  Tama answered her. “The number one airlock is completely destroyed, both inner and outer hatch. We will have to seal off the entire section.” Ono frowned. “Acknowledged. Seal off Number One Airlock section.”

  “With your permission, it would be more efficient if Technician Logo finished sealing the airlocks while I and the other one inspected the engines,” Tama said.

  Ono thought about this. “Proceed,” she decided.

  A few meters more forward and they came to a ladder that led up to the bridge level. At the top was an antechamber, which separated the bridge behind a double-hatch. Ono unlocked one of the hatches manually, and Change pushed it open.

  “Your people are remarkably strong,” Ono told her.

  “Our muscular structure is more dense than other human colonists we have encountered,” Change explained, as they stepped out onto the bridge.

  The bridge was laid out in a shallow, concave semicircle, occupying, as it did, the forward part of the sphere at the front of the ship. A sort of platform extend
ed from the back to the middle of the room, with a command chair at its center. The other stations were on a sunken level, around the periphery.

  Like the rest of the ship, it was a light gray color, except for the input and display screens, which were black. At one station, probably the helmsman’s, there was a large yoke and two joysticks. Chang tested them and found them thick and rubbery. Smaller black displays were for instruments and dials, and there were many, many switches.

  There were four viewports at the front of the ship, all covered by opaque armor shielding. The second portal from the left was gone. It was like the windshield had been blown out. There were two seats in the forward section of the bridge; the helmsman’s was directly in front of the place where the portal had been blown in.

  “This is a classic Solarite Pirate attack pattern,” Ono said gravely. “They attacked the ship from the outside, blowing the portal on the main bridge, then blowing the airlocks. Most of the crew was killed instantly. The survivors would have been taken hostage.”

  “What happens to the hostages?” Change asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” Ono assured her. “The outer shielding has closed the breach, so the bridge should be able to retain an atmosphere when it is pressurized. We should inspect the engine control room. Follow me.”

  They left through the rear hatch and crossed to the back of the sphere before dropping one deck down. The Engine Control Room (ECR) was a larger, backward version of the bridge, but without a ledge for the commander to sit on and watch the crew work. There were two seats back here, and four large standing workstations labeled “Engine 1,” “Engine 2,” “Engine 3,” and “Engine 4,” in the Hellion language, which was, according to Lingotron, similar to the Mandar language of Ancient Earth.

  The ECR had all the charm of a janitorial closet. Eliza Jane Change liked it. Very functional. Very straightforward. She felt right at home.

  “We can restore power to the ship through here,” Ono told Change, then she spoke to the other team. “Technician Logo, inspect the deuterium and tritium fuel tanks. Make certain the Solarites have not drained them.

  “All we have to do now is turn it on,” Change told her. “I’m going to examine the ignition controls, so we will know for certain that the engines can be restarted.”

  “We will delay that as long as possible,” Ono said. “The Solarites often wait nearby, waiting for the energy signature, to let them know when to attack.”

  “Even for 54.6 cycles?” Change asked.

  “Solarite Pirates can be most patient,” Ono assured her.

  “The solar radiation should camouflage us, as long as we keep power levels at minimum,” Change said as she removed the access panel below the Engine 1 Workstation.

  “There will be a power spike at the time the reactor is initialized,” Ono said. “It will be detectable for millions of kilometers. And the Solarites will be waiting. We may have only minutes from the time of start-up to get the ship moving. Or, we will all be dead.” It would have been different in the home systems, Change reflected. A ship like this, adrift in space, would have been picked clean of spare parts, engines, tools, and fuel within days. There would be a race between the pirates, the legitimate and semi-legitimate space salvage crews, the Mining Guild, the insurance company, and (if the ship happened to be abandoned in the Republic System) the Republic Space Transport Authority (RSTA), to get to the ship first. In the Sapphire system, salvage rights went to the first ship on the scene. In the Republic system, salvage rights went to the RSTA, so, part of the challenge would be towing the ship beyond the Kuiper belt before the authorities found it.

  However, even the pirates of the home systems rarely killed people, unless they were silly enough to resist salvaging. In fact, custom required any surviving crew to be given sufficient ale for several days drunk and left within one day’s flight time of the nearest ship or outpost.

  Change had never been captured by pirates, but she had spent a rather interesting and sexually explicit weekend with one on Ronin IV, many years earlier. She wondered if he had ever shown up to claim the accounts she had left to him when she left the Guild to join the Odyssey Project.

  Elsewhere on Liminix CH-53

  Midway between the Engine Control Room at the front of the ship and the engine pods at the rear of the ship, Technician Tama and Lieutenant Jeff worked silently at repairing the control interplex that linked the engines to the control room. A power spike at some point had blown it to pieces, but Lieutenant Jeff thought he could put most of it together and by-pass the rest.

  Technician Tama had finished re-working the manifold controls and bent down to check on Jeff. “Let me assist you with that,” she said, thrusting a calibration wand into the control space.

  Lieutenant Jeff gently put Logo’s hand aside, “Don’t touch that please, that’s a precision instrument.”

  Even through the mask and radio, Tama sounded peeved. “I only thought my assistance would enable you to complete the task more quickly.”

  “This system isn’t as intuitive as those I am used to,” Jeff told her.

  “I thought you were an expert on ion-drive systems?” Tama challenged him.

  “I am a certified ion-engine specialist with talent on-loan from the Allbeing. I know the ion-drives on an Accipiter like I know every inch of my glorious naked body,” said Jeff. “But this is a completely different kind of design … altogether. I can’t tell if that ring-shaped apparatus is a catalyzer or a disgronifcator. Plus which, I’m trying to do it while wearing a fishbowl over my head and a pair of Wallyball mitts on my hands. So, this is a slightly trickier situation than I am used to. However, like I said, talent on-loan from the Allbeing, your certified ion-engine specialist, committed to excellence in ion-drive repair. Stand back and be amazed.”

  “But can you fix it?” Tama persisted.

  Zulu smacked the top of the control interplex with his sonic screwdriver. “I just did.” He ended by mimicking a trumpet flourish, “Dut Da-Da-Da!) and getting specks of saliva on the inside of his helmet.

  “Very well,” Tama grunted. “Now, we have to examine the reactors in each of the four engines and make sure they are intact and functional. Your task will be to prime the line-feeds to the electromagnetic containment chamber. Make sure none of the lines have been closed off.”

  Zulu stood and grabbed his work kit. “Let’s get those lines open.” Shuttle-3

  Eleven more hours passed. Then, twelve. And twelve was beginning to edge into thirteen.

  Max Jordan sat on the floor of the shuttle, bouncing a scooter ball against the far wall, with a rhythmic “Tha-Pok, Tha-Pok” sound.

  “96…(tha-pok)… 97… (tha-pok)… 98… (tha-pok) … 99… (tha-pok)… 100.” He caught the ball one last time and slid it into the lower side pocket of his tactical suit. “OK, that was fun, now what?”

  Johnny Rook grunted, and went back to reading a copy of The Fifth Testament, which Matthew Driver had, for some reason, brought on the mission.

  “Is it any good?” Max Jordan asked him, mainly out of continuing boredom. “I’ve seen quite a few people on the ship reading that.”

  Rook, angry and annoyed, told him, “I’m looking through the Sections on Divine Law.

  In particular, I am looking for the part where it says ‘Thou Shalt Not Let an Artificial Intelligence Simulate Sex with Thy Best Friend’s Wife,’” Rook answered.

  “You know, it really hurts me when you bring that up,” Max Jordan replied. “But this isn’t about me. It’s about you. I understand how this situation can be difficult for you. Let’s rap about that.”

  “And another thing,” Rook raged at Jordan now. “Do you have to talk like that? Ever since that… that thing zapped your memories, you sound like a Self-Sensitivity Counselor from the Republic Ministry of Personal Growth.”

  Jordan managed a weak smile. “Good. Let it all out. It’s good to get these things out in the open.”

  “Neg, it isn’t,” Rook insisted. �
��And it isn’t good to let a machine take the place of a natural human relationship. There are dozens of available women on Pegasus who would love to do for you for real what that AI does in your head. Plugging your head into a machine is unnatural and perverse.”

  “Not necessarily. Flight Captain Driver plugs his mind into a machine whenever he flies Prudence,” Jordan pointed out.

  Rook thundered, “And who is he married to? Nobody, that’s who. No offense, Captain Driver, I think you’re great.”

  Driver stared them down from the front of the ship. “Leave me out of this please.” But Rook was still on his tear, and rolled right on. “Max, I really liked you better when you were surly and indifferent. I could relate to you. Now, you’re like … some sort of guy… I can’t relate to. I’ve heard of guys who let females screw with their heads before, but this is insane.”

  Jordan became sad. “O.K., that hurts me, but I’m glad you got it out. Now, the healing can begin.”

  “Stop that!” Rook snapped.

  Jordan shook his head. “No, no, no, no. I’d like to say some things. First of all, Caliph only made me dream about having sex with your wife. It wasn’t my idea, and there was nothing I could do about it. Second, it was just the one time.”

  “I don’t care if it was just one time,” Rook protested. “You just do not have simulated dreamsex with another man’s wife. Especially not your best friend’s wife. You could have said no. You should have said no.”

  “And I’m sorry about that, but I can’t control what Caliph makes me dream about,” Jordan protested.

  “You still should have said no,” Rook insisted.

  “It’s really hard to say no to Caliph,” Jordan admitted.

  “Then, you should stop putting her into your head!” Rook insisted, even more.

  Jordan sighed, then asked Johnny Rook, “Would it have been better if I never told you?”

  “Za! Neg! I don’t know,” Rook nearly screamed.