Derelict: Halcyone Space, Book 1

by Lj Cohen

  "What's wrong?" Barre asked, his voice tight, breathless.

  She studied the error messages piling up in a separate window from the scrolling diagnostic code. Closing her eyes briefly, she offered up a prayer to the programming gods in general and to Dauber and May in particular.

  When she opened her eyes again to look at the error messages, she decided there had to be a special place in hell for whoever had constructed the virus that downed the AI. Much of the virus had attacked one specific part of the personality subroutine — the decision making algorithms. The code in the error-checking and hierarchical-reasoning centers looked like Swiss cheese.

  "Huh." That didn't make a lot of sense. Everything should have been clean after she ran the patches and overrode the damage with fresh source code. Unless her tinkering had reactivated the virus as well. That made things more interesting in ways she didn't need right now. "Keep listening to our friend, here. If the song changes, tell me right away." She didn't even wait for Barre's acknowledgment, but hunched over her micro, her hair falling forward, shutting out the rest of the bridge.

  "Where are you hiding?" Ro slowed down the seemingly endless stream of error messages, looking for patterns. She could spend hours disinfecting each sector, one by one, but she suspected that way would trap her in an endless recursive loop.

  If Micah was right and the virus had been originally deployed in ansible packets, Ro would have to pick her way through the comms architecture for clues and hope that the AI wouldn't have another freak out.

  "Okay, baby, hold still, I'm just taking a look."

  Carefully picking her way through the computer's basic architecture, she identified the communications subroutines. Ro wiped her sweaty hands on her pant legs before tweaking the display again, this time looking for the corresponding errors for this part of the code. A self-resurrecting virus had to set its hooks in the registry but it also had to hide somewhere so it would reinitialize after every boot. The blasted thing covered its tracks well. She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed any sign of it.

  A slow process, but Ro would have to track each error back to its source for clues. If only Jem could help. It would take too long to train Micah or Barre on what to look for.

  She paused and looked up from her micro, her hair swinging away from her face, and blinked in the suddenly bright room. Could it be that simple?

  "All quiet," Barre said. "Anything?"

  "Maybe," Ro answered and returned to the blinking display. She went back into the file system, searching for the hidden caches of old ansible messages that had to be there. It was the only thing that made sense. "All I have to do is find the virus, figure out how to extract it, run a fresh set of scans, and then convince the system to reboot. All without trying to kill us all or self-destruct."

  Barre barked out a strangled laugh.

  "Easy, right?" She set her search parameters to look through all the hidden, temp, and system files. "I know you're in there," she muttered. The micro beeped once and a list of suspect ansible files blinked on the display. "Ha! Knew it." The system kept a hidden backup for ansible traffic. The poor bastards. Every time they thought they cleared the system and rebooted, the message would trigger as new and reinfect the AI.

  She paused, frowning at the file list.

  "What are you waiting for?" Barre asked.

  The question was, how sophisticated was the virus? If she were coding something like this, Ro would have added a fail-safe against direct extraction. Her stomach knotted up, a combination of the ration bars, fatigue, and paranoia.

  "Ro?"

  "I'm on it," she said, her hands trembling as she manually purged the suspect files. A minute crawled by and then another without any kind of response from the AI. It didn't calm her stomach down one bit. "Rescanning now," she said. This time, she set the diagnostics to obliterate any questionable files and to quarantine the damaged sectors.

  The micro beeped again, and Ro jumped, nearly fumbling the device. She clutched it tightly as her pulse slowed down to something approaching normal. She did it. No, she corrected herself, looking up at Barre, they'd done it.

  "Now, can you convince our patient to reboot?" She forced a light tone in her voice as a cold sweat chilled her arms.

  "I think so." Barre had that faraway look in his gaze again.

  She shivered.

  The seconds crawled by as she sat, unable to do anything but imagine scenario after scenario that ended with the damaged ship crashing them into an asteroid or flying them into a star or through an unstable wormhole.

  There was nothing more Ro could do now, except wait and trust in Barre to work his musical magic.

  "Done," he said.

  Her hands shook as she set the SIREN source code to deploy once more. While the patches ran, she stood and stretched, her whole body stiff from hunching over her micro for far too long. Her eyes felt gritty and dry and she'd probably trade the ship and her accidental crew mates for a hot shower and a real meal.

  "She's coming back on line," Barre said.

  "She?"

  He shrugged. "The voice feels feminine."

  "Incoming ansible transmission. Text only. Stand by."

  Ro turned quickly toward the sound and slammed her hip into the comms console.

  "Holy shit, it worked!" Barre shouted.

  The door to the bridge slid open and Micah raced inside, breathing quickly, his face red.

  The AI's voice did have a definitely feminine timbre to it. Still a synthesized voice, but it had a lot less hesitation and clipping than before. Ro exhaled, letting her shoulders relax. They did it. They really did it.

  "Ansible transmission complete. Downloading now."

  Downloading? Ro looked down at the comms console, but the display was dark and not likely to ever work again, given the burn scars across it. The main forward display still showed the unfamiliar stars.

  "Hey. Look," Barre said, pointing to her micro. He glanced down at it, shook his head, and looked up. "It's for you."

  She frowned, her eyebrows drawing together. "What?" He leaned over to pick it up and handed it to her. Shrugging at the absurdity of getting ansible traffic when she didn't even know where in the cosmos she was, she looked at the display. The pulse pounded in her ears and the soft sounds of the bridge disappeared. A short, plain text message spooled over and over across the small screen, but Ro saw a delicate, round face, framed by smooth back hair, eyes filled with laughter and curiosity and a wholly undeserved, unexpected kindness.

  Nomi.

  Chapter 28

  "Son of a bitch," Micah said, staring at Ro. "What the hell's your father doing there?"

  Ro stood, her hands on her waist. "Well, it's certainly not rescuing me. I'll give you one guess."

  Micah knew someone would come after them for their cargo. Part of him hoped it would have been his father. That way he could confront the bastard himself.

  "Look, I have as many family issues as the next guy." Barre glanced at each of them before shrugging. "But we have to get Jem to a real med-fac. That ship can't be too far away. Send a new signal. Tell Nomi to trace it back to us."

  At least Barre had a family to have issues with. Micah just had the senator. Sometimes it was easier to think of him as that than his father.

  "It's not that simple, Barre," Ro said. She ran her fingers through the tangles in her hair. "I still don't know how the AI will react."

  The cargo hold full of illegal weapons under counterfeit diplomatic seal was enough evidence to send someone to prison for a long and unhappy life sentence. Micah needed to make sure that someone wasn't going to be him.

  "It is simple." Barre looked at his injured brother and back to Ro. "If we do nothing, there's a good chance we'll all die." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "That Jem will die."

  "And if we can't get control of the ship?" Ro asked. "Then what?"

  Barre squared his shoulders. "I'm not going to let that happen."

  Micah wasn't sure if he meant the ship,
or his brother.

  Ro tapped her fingers across her micro's display, her lips pressed together. "If we get boarded, it would be best if we didn't have a bittergreen farm on board."

  Part of him knew it would come to this. At least he'd be able to save his data. "Barre, I could use your help."

  "I don't want to leave Jem again."

  "I'll watch him." Ro gestured down to her makeshift cast. "I'm not running anywhere fast."

  Barre followed Micah out of the bridge. Was this strange reluctance about his brother or about the bittergreen?

  "Look," he said, as they stepped inside Micah's shared lab space. "I'm in no place to judge, but dealing this stuff is stupid. The last thing we need is to get into a bittergreen turf war. If it's you versus the cartel, well, I know nothing is going to save you — not your charm, not your father's political connections, nothing."

  Micah stopped short and Barre nearly bumped into him. "Is that what you think? That I'm a dealer?" He held back a laugh and it emerged as a strangled snort. He walked through his field-airlock and into his living laboratory. "We need to toss the plants and break down the trays, the hangers, and the light stands. We can let the ship recycle the biomass. As for the equipment, it's standard hydroponics. Not unusual to find on this class ship." He turned to face the airlock again.

  "Wait, where are you going?"

  "I need to encrypt the remaining data to my micro, then eliminate any breadcrumbs."

  It just about killed Micah to trash a lab full of healthy, thriving plants. Damn it, but he was so close. If he'd had another few weeks for this crop to set its flowers, then he could have collected the pollen and waited for the seed heads to form. But they didn't have weeks. It wasn't Ro's fault. Even if she hadn't been messing with the AI, he wouldn't have had the time he needed.

  Following his instructions, Barre tore the leggy plants from their perfectly controlled environment. Turning his back on the little biosphere he'd set up, Micah started to collect any equipment that might betray the work he'd been doing. The notes and files would be next.

  It was easier to just start cleaning and breaking down the assay hardware than brood on the loss. A thorough wiping with ethyl alcohol and formalin would obliterate any evidence of biologicals. Once the bittergreen was disposed of, the rest of the contents of his lab shouldn't raise suspicions, given Mendez's approval and his registered course load. He could try again.

  Barre emerged through the now useless airlock with a large tub filled with dejected looking bittergreen. The lab had the abandoned look of old storage. "Thank you." Micah set the nozzles to spray a fine mist of his decontamination mixture. "There's what looks like a working recycler in the mess. We can try it. If it doesn't run, we can just jettison the stuff, I suppose."

  Barre shared his rueful smile. "Seems like a huge waste."

  "Not worth the risk. Come on." The decon cycle would be done by the time they finished with the bittergreen and he could dismantle the rest of the hydroponics setup. Then it would be done and far more of a waste than Barre would ever know.

  ***

  Nomi nearly fell out of her seat when her micro buzzed for an incoming text.

  Sorry about breakfast. I guess I owe you one.

  She blinked back tears and glanced around the crowded mess hall, making sure nobody noticed, before staring down at the small display. A blinking dot replaced the words. Nomi's heart knocked against her chest as the transmission continued.

  Likely more than one. Had some static here, but we're mostly five by five now. Could use a tow home, but can't id where we are.

  What did the "mostly" refer to? She nibbled on the edge of her lower lip, a thousand questions for Ro bubbling through her mind, but with the vagaries of ship-to-ship ansible communication, she'd have to make do with this disjointed, asynchronous conversation.

  Ro was alive. She wanted to jump up and shout, but this wasn't the time or place.

  Don't trust my father. Stay away from him! Promise me.

  It was sweet that Ro was trying to protect her, but Nomi needed to keep an eye on him for both their sakes.

  Going to send out another broadcast if we can. Keep an ear out for us. We're counting on you. Over.

  She stared at her micro for a moment more, even though she knew that was the end of the transmission. At least they had this ansible version of a message-in-a-bottle. If Ro were here, she'd probably be able to track her own message back using a piece of wire and an empty cup.

  Now that was an interesting thought. Nomi drew her eyebrows together. It might be possible to track the ansible path it had taken, even if the ship had moved since. If nothing else, it would narrow down the search area.

  She rested her fingers back on the small virtual input. What should she write back? How long would it take for Ro to get her response? And more importantly, how could she use Hephaestus's resources to sniff out the message path without raising questions? One thing at a time. She smiled and started writing.

  Her table mates stood to leave. She glanced at the big clock in the mess. It was still nearly an hour until she could report to comms for her next shift. If she showed early, she'd have some explaining to do. Pushing back from the table, Nomi tossed her tray into the recycler, and wondered how she was going to kill the next forty-two minutes. She opened the ship's schematics, looking for a common space. Even on a ship this small, there had to be somewhere for the crew to blow off steam. A twenty minute run would clear her mind and still leave enough time for a cleansing cycle. Then she and her uniform would be ready for duty again.

  "Nakamura!"

  Nomi stiffened. Alain Maldonado's deep voice reverberated in the corridor. She glanced quickly fore and aft, but for the moment, they were alone. She turned to him, holding herself in a ready stance, though she wasn't sure what she was getting ready for. He stepped closer.

  "Maldonado," she acknowledged, standing her ground and staring up into his face.

  "I'm not stupid," he said, his eyes, the same shape and color as Ro's, filled with suspicion.

  "Sir?" Her mouth dried. Despite his poor service record, he did outrank her and she knew it would be better if she didn't antagonize him.

  He took a step closer. "She may be the better hacker now, but much of what she knows, she learned from me."

  Maldonado's eyes were bloodshot and, judging by the stubble, he hadn't cleaned up since Ro blasted off with the ship. To anyone else, he might even look the part of the worried father.

  "Shall I tell Targill that I intercepted an encrypted tunneled transmission?"

  The warmth leached from Nomi's face. Maldonado backed her against a cabin door. The hard, smooth surface pressed into her spine and transmitted its chill through her uniform. Goosebumps broke out along her arms.

  "A transmission I traced back to your micro?"

  The ship had a small crew, but surely someone had to come down this hallway. And then what? It wasn't as if she had any allies on Hephaestus. Even if she did, what could she tell them without incriminating herself?

  "What do you want?" She hated that her voice shook. She hated the flash of triumph that lit his eyes.

  "The same as you. To find that ship."

  "What about Ro? Don't you care about your own daughter?"

  Loud footsteps echoed from down the corridor. Maldonado turned to lean against the wall beside the cabin door. Anyone coming would just see two station-mates having a quiet conversation.

  "If you're worried about her, know this. Her best path to safety is to get off that ship as soon as possible. Better I should be the one to extract her than some others with a vested interest in it."

  He must be talking about Rotherwood. What did they want with the ship? It couldn't just be the bittergreen. Sure, there was money in it, but to risk going against the military or to challenge the cartel? That was pure crazy. "What's on the ship, Maldonado?"

  He leaned forward until his face was centimeters from hers. She shook in silent fury. Ro's words echoed in her mind:
Don't trust my father. Stay away from him! Promise me.

  "Trust me. Some questions are dangerous to ask."

  His breath heated the skin on her face. Nomi stiffened her spine and glared at him. Maldonado likely outweighed her by thirty-five kilos, most of it muscle, but there were ways to fight against much stronger and larger opponents. If he touched her, she would hurt him, superior officer or no.

  "I'm counting on you, Konomi. Her life is in your hands."

  For now, she forced herself to keep still. Let him think she had backed down. Let him think she was afraid of him.

  She watched him walk down the corridor and shivered.

  She was afraid. Not for herself, but for Ro.

  Chapter 29

  Ro looked up as Micah and Barre came back to the bridge. "All set?"

  Micah nodded as Barre hurried to check on his brother.

  It wasn't as if she was totally useless, but Barre was the one with medical training.

  "Whatever you're going to do, you need to do now," he said. "Jem's not going to just get better on his own."

  "I know. I'm not stupid," she said. "And I'm worried about him, too." It would be better for all of them if she could just establish full control of the damned ship and fly Jem back to Daedalus. Then they wouldn't risk getting tangled up with the military or have to worry about the cargo. She glanced at Micah, but he wouldn't meet her gaze.

  "Okay. I suggest we do a systems check and make sure we have access to all the ship's functions before we do anything."

  Micah did turn to her then and raised a single eyebrow. "Wow. The new and improved Ro."

  "You're an idiot," she said. But he was right and it wasn't only because of Jem. Nothing in this whole excursion had turned out the way she'd planned. If she was being honest with herself, she hadn't planned any of it. She surveyed her unintentional crew, not sure she would have managed this far without them.

  Micah opened his mouth to reply, but Ro cut him off. "Fine. I'm an idiot. But this is what this idiot wants to do." She started tapping on her micro. "I'm going to set up a system-wide diagnostic, section by section, starting with communications all the way through sensors."