Casindra Lost

by Marti Ward

  The sliders whooshed open and closed, and Al intoned, “Captain on the bridge!” The Captain was followed in by Simba, Samba and the four one-year-old kittens, but Al continued without commenting on that or making a formal handover of the bridge. “Captain, I wasn’t expecting you – you are not due to be discharged for another week.”

  “That was fine when there was nothing happening, but now the game is afoot I want to be where the action is,” Sideris returned, although Al thought that for this kind of action, communicating with a remote probe, there was no particular advantage in being on the bridge.

  “Since the Automated Medical System has not objected to your discharge, but has encouraged gradually increasing exercise in gradually increasing gravity, I have reinitiated Life Support on the cargo deck. That will give you roughly 0.4 standard gravity on the cargo deck and biodomes if you want to visit the livestock, 0.5 gravity on the main deck, and eventually you can work up to 0.6 gravity on the engineering deck. While you are rehabilitating you will not be given access to the gym. AMS wants you to start your exercises with a week at 0.4G, then graduate to a week at 0.5G and a week at 0.6G before giving you access to a full gravity workout. However, walking on any of the LETO decks, and climbing between decks, is permitted.”

  “Thank you Al, your concern for my rehabilitation is encouraging. That does sound more reasonable than another week or so of artificial muscle stimulation – although it has worked reasonably well. I got here after all.”

  “Yes, Captain, although rather than holding the wall to walk on the main deck, perhaps you’d like to take an octolift up to the cargo deck and see if you can manage to walk unaided there while doing your inspection. You will find your weight and resistance training equipment set up in the aft shuttle bay on the cargo deck. They will be shifted to the main deck in one week unless you request a delay.”

  “One week sounds fine, Al. But I will want to do an inspection in engineering before then.”

  “Captain, we have heard back from the new EmProbe, designated EMP-J for Jupiter. It has confirmed that it has an extra EMP-sized mirror to set up a new gate. I note that expected transit time with a standard EmProbe mirror in combination with an MD mirror is 461 days. This could be reduced to 326 days if it has a spare EMP mirror to allow setting up a 2 EMP gate. For the EMP to return itself using the second EMP mirror would take 369 days.”

  “An EMP-sized mirror isn’t big enough for timely messages, Al. None of the turnaround times will get us the help we need before the asteroid is scheduled to hit, in under a year – not to mention that our proposed push on Pacman should start 95 days before that.

  “An M-drone could return using our mirror in 144 days, and the EMP itself could return in around 115 days. The EMP should be able to get here in 28 days, and would probably be sufficient itself to tip the balance in pushing Pacman away – in any case, there’d be plenty of time to get a couple of LETOs here to help. However, the EMP states that it is not subject to our orders”.

  “Oh,” the Captain bristled. “What are its orders?”

  “Coming through now,” responded Al. “Orders to EMP read: 1. Determine if Captain Sideris is alive and convey orders to return Casindra to SJL4 forthwith; 2. Ping ships, probes and message drones to determine position and status, and download logs and reports since May 2077 from all such vessels contactable wirelessly; 3. Locate, collect and retrieve the last two message drones from SJL4, plus all biological and geological samples that are ready for collection; 4. Ascertain status of the gate mirror at Paradisi-Tenebra Lagrange Point 4; and 5. When ready to return, set up or extend the gate mirror at PTL4 and use it to open a wormhole cavum to return to Sol-Jupiter Lagrange Point 4.”

  Al continued after a pause while a follow up message came in. “EMP-J is requesting a signcrypted bioidentity check from Captain Jerome Sideris, to determine status per objective 1. EMP-J is receiving log and report downloads from SS Casindra and EmProbes designated EMP-A and EMP-T, pursuant to objective 2. EMP-J has changed system entry deceleration profile to intercept EMP-A in 5 days at asteroid designated Rogue 1, to retrieve Ardesco biological and geological samples, pursuant to objective 3. EMP-J will rendezvous with SS Casindra in approximately 65 days. The request to deploy the new gate mirror to dispatch MD16 is denied as not required or permitted under these orders which explicitly requires that this mirror be deployed ‘when ready to return’.”

  “We’re not going to budge it on this, Al. We’ve got to make it do what we want as a necessary consequence of following its orders. A rendezvous with EMP-J in 65 days will not permit a response from Solar Command in time to participate in or otherwise affect our asteroid diversion mission. We could note that we need to rendezvous with EMP-A and EMP-T in relation to our asteroid diversion mission, and meet EMP-J there in 35 days – but that would have us leaving New Eden unnecessarily early. Alternatively, we could request it to rendezvous with us at New Eden in 35 days on the basis that Casindra has its own mission objectives to deal with – we could plan a trip to Ardesco on the way to Pacman. We either have to speed up to a lower orbit near Ardesco’s, or slow down into a higher orbit near Praelium’s, in order to rendezvous with Pacman.”

  Al could tell Sideris was being very careful and somewhat tricky here. The fact that we planned a route that gave us time to spend on Ardesco didn’t commit us to that visit – we’d already nominally dropped planned visits to both Ardesco and Tenebra. The Captain was proposing to avoid an outright lie by referring to this as a plan – and it was a very reasonable plan that was consistent with our formal mission. The fact that Casindra had been ordered to return was irrelevant, because without a LETO-sized gate mirror Casindra couldn’t return. So they probably should return to their formal mission – especially as it was consistent with their new asteroid shepherding mission.

  Moreover, the data being recovered by the Volcans from New Eden was reducing in value, and mainly just confirming existing knowledge – and the Captain wasn’t going to be fit to travel to the surface for at least three weeks, and in any case had already thoroughly explored his Mouseketeer Channel Islands. In fact, he should move somewhere else – whether another small island, or a continental visit with a quite different climate, environment and ecosystem, or a new but rather inhospitable planet with resources unavailable or inaccessible on New Eden.

  Moving onto Ardesco was a good idea. Al couldn’t tell whether this was a conscious intention, an unconscious inclination, pure deviousness, a serendipitous outcome, or just another example of the convoluted way the Captain’s brain worked – and how he needed a confrontation to come up with the most appropriate course of action.

  “I like your plan plan.” Al quipped back, noting in his personal log that was the first time he’d ever made a deliberate joke or pun. “Should I initiate the bioidentity check?”

  “I’m not sure… You have a better idea how my cognitive function and other bioidentity tests match up after my coma. The AMS refused to give me access. Would the identity test fail? What is the advantage to us of completing a successful identity test? What would happen if I failed the identity test? Let’s leave the ball in EMP-J’s court… They are EMP-J’s orders not ours… How can we even verify that EMP-J is really from Solar Command and not some other group that has taken over? Maybe the missing logs were due to an attack on the Ida gate at SPL4 during recovery… This is yet another violation of Solar Command protocol after all!”

  Al was again impressed at the Captain’s inspired logic and tortuous imagination. Yes, he was back…

  Al

  13 April 2078 00:35

  EMP-J had matched velocity and acceleration with EMP-A, locking together scissorhatches to transfer the Ardesco samples. Interestingly, this actually did engage EMP-J in helping push Rogue 1 for half a day. Al and Sideris had also decided not to unload the final samples from the two Ardesco Volcans but to have them undock from EMP-A and be picked up by EMP-J. While it was docked to EMP-A, VCA1 and VCA2, and its own three message
drones, EMP-J’s scissorlatch capabilities were fully occupied.

  Al pointed out to EMP-J that there were two message drones at PTL4 it was required to retrieve, and suggested swapping one of its message drones to EMP-A so that it could fulfil its mission objective of retrieving the SJL message drones, which Al had designated MD16 and MD17. The EMP-J AI was convinced by this logic and transferred one drone to EMP-A, which Al designated MD18.

  Al then tried to persuade EMP-J to link SECASMs with EMP-A to expedite sending back MD18, opening a wormhole direct from PTL345 orbit. Just using EMP-A’s mirror would take 461 days, using EMP-A and EMP-J’s mirror would take 326 days, and deploying the new gate mirror – that still resided in EMP-J’s cargo bay – would reduce transit time to 266 days. But Solar Command, as reflected in EMP-J’s orders, was in no hurry to get messages back expeditiously, and EMP-J refused to cooperate – it was not programmed with any sense of broader mission urgency, such as the survival of New Eden.

  Al decided to wait for Sideris before making a decision, given the 461 day transit would not help with the 350 day timeframe until devastation of New Eden. Moreover, since EMP-J had been ordered to collect MD16 and MD17, it would be their only chance of reporting on the asteroid problem (if sent now) or resolution (if sent at the end of the asteroid diversion mission). Assuming Casindra survived, and didn’t spend all its thorium deflecting Pacman, it could return using a gate mirror formed linking up the EMP-A and EMP-T mirrors with EMP-J’s two mirrors for a faster transit, if they survived and could be retrieved.

  One final argument would be that the combination of the four mirrors was necessary for Casindra to obey its orders to return to Sol. But on the one hand, EMP-J had not been ordered to deploy its mirror to help Casindra return, and on the other hand that would leave the fate of New Eden in the hands of Solar Command and their ability and willingness to send a couple of extra LETOs to Paradisi immediately – it was too tight to succeed with two LETOs if Casindra didn’t start her push on time.

  Tomorrow was the end of the first week of ambulatory rehabilitation for the Captain, and he had been doing well. Sideris was still reporting to medbay daily, and his cardiopulmonary effectiveness, brain oxygenation, energy metabolism and muscle tone were all improving. So Al arranged for the bots to bring his exercise equipment down from the cargo deck to the main deck for increased g-force, but dialed back band tension to compensate so that he could take the extra gravity gradually. This meant that the Captain would have to lift more of his own weight, but less effective weight would be added by the exercise machines tension bands: it would get added back slowly over the next week.

  Sideris

  12 May 2078 06:30

  Jerome Sideris was starting to feel himself again, to feel like he was Captain again. He had been back to working out in the gym for over two weeks now, although he had not yet regained full fitness and was still operating on a reduced form of his standard exercise regime. But he was spending much more time in full gravity than was usual for a captain on board a LETO – Al had functioned for the best part of a year without him, not just due to the shockwave aftermath but due to Sideris spending his shift on missions to New Eden rather than on the bridge.

  Al was more like a colleague or fellow captain, and while they made all long term plans together, Al continued to make decisions on his own when Sideris was asleep. Although the strategy of getting EMP-J to bring them the Volcan had been worked out between them, the success in getting it to reassign MD18 to EMP-A seemed like a stroke of genius – it gave them much more flexibility than just leaving it at a new PTL4 gate without an EMP to provide local cavum entry and exit programming. It was brilliant exploitation of the flaws in Solar Command’s orders to the EmProbe.

  The old Al wouldn’t have been able to explore out of the box like that. Al had attributed it to learning from the best – he had developed metaheuristics based on the behavior of Sideris both in their chess games and in the solving of mission problems. When heuristics, objectives and orders were too constrained to allow a solution, his metaheuristics allowed exploring things that would normally be rejected as appearing to head towards an unacceptable outcome according to the heuristics, objectives or orders. Al used to call it thinking ‘illogically’ and ‘chaotically’, but now he called it ‘extended logic’, ‘abduction’ and ‘metaheuristics’.

  EMP-J would arrive today with the Ardesco samples, and would expect to pick up all the New Eden samples that were ready for collection. EMP-J was resistant to any logic concerning the safety of New Eden, the actual colonization mission or the need for early redundant sending of message drones with stratified samplings and full logs. It was programmed to return to SLJ-5 with all available samples from all planets – with all those eggs in the one basket, baskets that were not necessarily totally reliable when faced with a long wormhole subject to radiation and shockwaves across an effective length or 2.5 million light years.

  Al and Sideris had determined that only half their New Eden samples were ‘ready for collection’ with others logged for experimentation and food supplementation. Al had also arranged for EMP-A to log a portion of the few biota samples from Ardesco as being part of experimental studies.

  They had also contemplated arranging a boarding party of Casindra bots to capture the gate mirror, but had decided that there was too much chance of damage, both to the vessels and the mirrors, to risk it. The simplest thing was to repeat the sleight of hand they’d pulled with EMP-A. They’d arranged two Volcans full of samples as bait, and had informed EMP-J that the samples that were ready for collection were distributed across the Casindra and two of its Volcans, and that it would need to release its M-drones to Casindra on arrival in New Eden orbit. It had once again recognized the need to drop the M-drones and latch the Volcans.

  Only one problem… EMP-J had ignored the part about ‘to Casindra’ and ‘on arrival in New Eden orbit’ and dropped them off during their final deceleration phase to match the New Eden orbit. It was not concerned about creating artificial meteors or asteroids in an elliptic around New Eden, and it had not transferred control to Casindra as requested.

  Sideris made a quick decision, relaying it from the gym. ‘Al, set intercept course to catch the two message drones as they slip through New Eden’s orbit. We will not be transferring any samples to EMP-J until we have control over both message drones. Are you able to navigate Casindra to latch and hatch them? I presume your bots can safely replace the security chips if we need to physically override EMP-J’s control.”

  Al responded immediately and relayed a situation overview to the gym viewscreen. “Course laid in and executed; latch and hatch capability confirmed. I can get bots on board, but I cannot say whether autodestruct has been set on detection of a hull or computer security breach. Our message drones are set up to allow physical access but fry the computers on attempting to bypass security – secondary storage is not affected. The drones, which I am assigning designations MD19 and MD20, are still accepting log and report uploads. I recommended not initiating contact with EMP-J – make it negotiate with us.”

  “Good idea,” Sideris responded. “Let it negotiate from a position of weakness.”

  “EMP-J has already detected us leaving orbit, and is asking us why. It may be preparing to intercept us!”

  “Establish voice-link to EMP-J,” Sideris ordered.

  “Voice link established – you are live.”

  “Casindra actual to EMP-J, EMP-J is now in New Eden space under the jurisdiction of SS Casindra,” opened Sideris. “You have created a navigation hazard which we must deal with. Proceed to rendezvous with Volcans VC1 and VC2 and await agreed rendezvous with Casindra in polar orbit. Transfer control of the message drones you released to Casindra, with designations MD19 and MD20. EMP-J is in violation of system operations ordinances SS22a and SS22b. Transfer of control of MD19 and MD20 to SS Casindra is ordered under paragraph SS22c. Casindra out!”

  “EMP-J to Casindra, proceeding to agreed rendezvous
in New Eden polar orbit. Navigational hazard is acknowledged based on system operations ordinances. Jurisdiction of SS Casindra in New Eden space has not been established – please forward Solar Command’s signcrypted orders that establish jurisdiction. EMP-J out.”

  “Al, please ensure all logs are uploaded to MD19 and MD20, including the asteroid deviation plans with an emergency contingency flag, the exchanges with EMP-J with a system operations violation flag, and mirror deployment and wormhole initialization commands and cavum entry and exit parameters for return to SJL4 – with a New Eden emergency collision avoidance procedure flag. Initiate deployment of our SECASM and arrange a head-on collision course between Casindra and MD19.”

  “Calculating parameters and uploading flagged logs. That is a risky maneuver, Captain.”

  “Solar Command locking us out of control of probes and drones sent to Paradisi was a risky and unconscionable maneuver. EMP-J littering the system with uncontrollable space debris was a risky and unconscionable maneuver. Discarding and denying access to essential lifeline communications was a risky and unconscionable maneuver. My maneuver is neither… providing Solar Commands’ standard system operations procedures are followed – it will only be a problem if EMP-J decides to abandon system operations procedures, and override collision avoidance protocols flagged for the New Eden orbital space, and deliberately destroy Casindra and any possibility of completing its mission to return the samples we carry. Please make sure all communications, telemetry and navigational decisions are fully logged on all vessels, including EMP-J, EMP-A and EMP-T.”