Hecate

by J. B. Rockwell

  Didn’t see Shaw at first. Just heard her curses drifting from the front of the bridge pod, somewhere close to the floor. A few steps in and Henricksen spied a pair of legs sticking from under a panel between the Artillery pod and the Pilot’s station, the rest of Shaw’s body invisible, crammed inside an open access panel as she worked away at the electronics.

  “That you, Captain?”

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “Not really. Can you hand me that diagnosticator?” A hand appeared, finger pointing to an open toolkit.

  Henricksen walked over and squatted down, sorting tools out of the way to get at a couple of electronic devices.

  Didn’t recognize either of them. Had no idea what a diagnosticator was in the first place. Maintenance crew saw to the systems on the warships. Captains just flew them around, made sure they didn’t run into things.

  He picked one at random, held it out. “You mean this?”

  “Other one,” Shaw told him, waving the device off. “The electro-magno-differential-whatsis machine.”

  Henricksen swapped the one electronic device for the other, placing it on Shaw’s open palm.

  “You still got that wrench?” Shaw asked him, hand disappearing into the panel.

  “Uh. Yeah. You need it?”

  “Not really. Wrench that big isn’t all that much use when it comes to electronics.” Laughter in Shaw’s voice. Having a good time at Henricksen’s expense. “Drop it in the tool kit.” The pointing finger made a brief appearance before Shaw’s hand tucked under the panel again. “I’ll put it back where it belongs.”

  Henricksen slid the wrench in with the other tools in Shaw’s kit. Plucked a pair of pliers from the Pilot’s seat while he was at it. A coil of wire from the floor.

  “There.” Shaw wriggled from under the Pilot’s station, diagnosticator in hand, smear of grease on the end of her nose.

  “You’ve got a little something.” Henricksen pointed at Shaw’s face, tapped a finger to his nose.

  “Oh. Thanks.” Shaw turned her hands over, studying the grease on her palms. Swiped at her face with a sleeve instead, adding more grease to the spot on her nose. “Better?”

  “Perfect.” Henricksen flashed a thumbs up. “So what were you working on?”

  “Navigation linkage.” Shaw dropped the diagnosticator in the toolkit, dusted her hands before wiping them on her already greasy coveralls. “Had to disconnect everything while the engineers messed with the propulsion system. Idiots.” She grabbed the access panel and fitted it into place, tightened the bolts with a wrench pulled from a pocket. “Supposed to be a bunch of egghead brainiacs but they don’t know the first thing about ships outside design diagrams and systems specs.” She twisted, looking up at Henricksen, wrench in hand. “Spend all that time overhauling the systems and the first thing they do is try to fire up the engines without bringing the AI online. Can you believe that?”

  Shaw’s wrench swung wildly, narrowly missing Helm’s panel, just about clipping Henricksen’s knee.

  “Civvies,” Henricksen snorted, moving a step backward. “What’re ya gonna do?”

  “Fire ’em all and start over.” Shaw torqued on the panel’s bolts, making sure everything was tight.

  “Heard that’s what they did the last time.”

  Shaw froze, arm outstretched, reaching for the toolkit. “Heard that, did ya?” She opened her fingers, letting the tool drop. “They also tell you they fired my whole damn mech gang? Three damn years they’d been working on that chassis and then one day I come in to find they’re all gone.” Shaw flopped down in the Pilot’s seat, grabbed a rag and scrubbed angrily at her hands.

  “Hadn’t heard that. Not directly, anyway.” Henricksen settled into the station next to her, feeling odd and out of place sitting at Engineering. “Noticed, though. Couldn’t help but notice that first day I stepped into the mess hall.”

  Shaw grimaced, spat on her palm and rubbed vigorously at a stain. “That obvious, huh?”

  “Not to someone who hasn’t crewed a ship, maybe. But a few assignments and you get pretty good at picking the ones who know what they’re doing and the ones just pretending and hoping the others don’t figure it out.”

  Shaw grunted, nodding. “Moved the whole damn operation. Bet you didn’t know that.”

  Henricksen blinked, processing this newest piece of information. “No, I didn’t. Assumed the RV-N project was always here.”

  “Not originally. Started out on Kepler. Hush-hush base the Meridian Alliance had on the planet. Something happened, though.” Shaw frowned, shaking her head. “Not sure what—Kinsey never told me. Never told anyone, as far as I know. Just packed everything up and shipped it off. Never even heard of Dragoon until they brought us here. Whole damn thing’d been mothballed. Took an age to get the smell out of the berthings and common areas.”

  “It’s still there,” Henricksen told her.

  “Really? Huh. Guess I’ve gotten used to it.” Shaw ducked her head, smiling ruefully. Looked up at Henricksen, considering a moment. “So. Back to our original subject: what brings you here at this late hour, Captain?” A last swipe at a still dirty finger and Shaw gave up, tossed the rag into the toolkit. “Not that I mind the company but I’ve never seen you so much as set foot in the hangar before now.”

  Henricksen grunted. “Spend a lot of late nights in here, do you?”

  “Deadlines.” Shaw shrugged her shoulders, lips twisting in a lopsided smile. “Can’t have your star jockeys waiting on my girl here. Ain’t that right, sweetie?” She patted a panel, looking up at a camera.

  “Let me at ’em, Chief,” the AI quipped.

  “That’s my girl.” Shaw smiled fondly, stroking Helm’s panel.

  “She?” Henricksen quirked an eyebrow. “What’s makes you think it—she’s a she?”

  Generic voice to his ear. Nothing particularly male or female about it that he could tell.

  Shaw winked, tapping a finger to her nose. “Mechanic’s intuition.”

  “Okay,” Henricksen said slowly. “So, does she have a name?”

  “RV-N-26.”

  “That’s not much of a name.”

  Shaw flipped a hand. “She’ll pick a better one eventually. Two-Six is good enough for now.” She smile widely, looking surprisingly proud. “She’s one of the originals. The best of that first batch they churned out.” The smile slipped, Shaw’s face turning thoughtful, a touch sad. “The only one that’s left now, as far as I know.”

  Henricksen shook his head, giving her a blank look. “Meaning?”

  “First manufacturing run cranked out thirty RV-N chassis.” Shaw sat back, folding her hands over her stomach, kicked up her feet, resting them on Helm’s panel. “You mind?” she asked belatedly.

  “Not so long as you clean up after yourself.”

  “Aye, sir.” Shaw smiled crookedly, tossing off a saucy salute. “Half of them failed outright—got chopped up and used for parts in the others.” She waved vaguely at the bridge door, indicating the stealth ships in the hangar outside. “Rest of them…” Shaw sighed, dropping her eyes, fingers lacing together as she twirled her thumbs. “Test pilots thrashed them mercilessly. Ran them to failure. Blew most of them up. But Two-Six here,” she touched the panel beside her, proud momma smile reappearing, “nothing could take her down. Been working overtime to get her ready. Make sure she’s upgraded and dialed in. Everything just right.”

  “Let me at ’em, Chief!” the RV-N repeated, genderless voice filled with exuberance.

  “Not exactly a talker, is she?”

  Not like Hecate. The gender confusion was part of it—easier to identify with an AI when it emulated more clear-cut traits—but there was a distance to the AI he wasn’t used to. A feeling of sitting back and watching, interacting when prompted, but otherwise just standing on the edges.

  Noticed that in the sims, too, when the other pilots ran them. AI observing, but not participating. Not really engaging unless asked to, or
absolutely necessary.

  Could be problematic in combat.

  His first consideration, each and every time. Combat required quick decisions and seamless interactions. Better no AI than one that hesitated. Wasn’t sure when to step in and when to butt out.

  “Specs say the AI’s eleventh generation. Dreadnought’s cousin or some such.”

  Shaw considered, head bobbing side to side. “More or less. Engineers started with the Dreadnought specs and then tweaked them to give the stealth ships more…personality, I guess you’d call it.”

  “Really?” Henricksen eyed the watching camera skeptically.

  “Really. Oh, she’s shy right now, but wait’ll you get to know her.” Shaw patted Helm’s panel again. “Takes a while for an AI to mature, you know. Develop a personality. New ones…they’re almost like kids, ya know? Still learning.” She tilted her head, considering Henricksen a moment. “Your last ship—Hecate, right? Aurora?”

  Henricksen nodded tightly, swallowing around a lump in his throat.

  “Sixth generation. Solid mindsight. Heard they used it as the basis for the Valkyrie’s design.”

  Henricksen shrugged and nodded, wondering where she was going with this.

  “Sixth generation that makes her, what? Close to two hundred years old?”

  “One hundred and ninety-eight. Hecate had just passed the anniversary of her commissioning date when she—” He broke off, ducking his head, lips pressed tightly together to stop them from trembling.

  “Hecate was legend.” Soft voice from the AI—a touch of the female tones Shaw hinted at coloring her speech this time. “Twenty crews and twenty Captains. Two hundred and fifty-two battles in her time amongst the stars.”

  “She was a badass, alright.” Henricksen swiped at his face, blinking back tears. “Fought her way across the length and breadth of the galaxy—and that was before I landed a place in her chair.”

  “You miss her.” Two-Six sounded surprised. But then, she’d never had a captain. Didn’t understand the bond that developed between an AI and the ship’s commanding officer.

  “I do,” Henricksen told her. “I miss her every day.”

  He could hear it now, more and more clearly. The tones and inflections, the higher pitched qualities that came with a female voice as the AI opened up. Crept warily from her shell.

  Shaw ducked her head, hiding a smile.

  “What?” he asked self-consciously.

  “Told you you’d like her.” She winked, smile turning mischievous. But it faded, Shaw’s face turning thoughtful after a while. “Two-Six doesn’t have Hecate’s years.” She barked a laugh. “Hell, she doesn’t even have a proper name yet because she’s only been around a couple of years.”

  “Three years,” the AI corrected prissily. “The engineers woke me three years ago, Chief.”

  “Alright. Three years.” Shaw dipped her head in apology, eyes flicking to the camera. “But that still proves my point.”

  “Which is?” Henricksen asked, baffled about where all this was going.

  “That you can’t just bust an AI out of a box and expect it to be all puppies and rainbows and a perfect fit for its captain. Takes time for it to find itself. Develop its own personality.”

  “Won’t really matter if the chassis isn’t ready, now will it?”

  “Oh, it’ll be ready,” Shaw assured him. “I’ll make sure of that. Even if it means I have to pump my crew full of stims and run ’em twenty-four seven for a week.”

  “It means that much to you?” Surprised him. Never worked with a mech gang boss who cared that much. Then again, a lot of things surprised him about Shaw. Her knowledge of AI, for instance. Her obvious familiarity with his record. “Why does it mean that much to you?”

  Shaw’s shoulders lifted. “Mechanic’s got her pride.”

  Truth, but not the whole truth—Henricksen read that in her eyes. In the lines of her face. “These engine modifications your crew’s been working on. Tell me about them.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, for starters, are the damn things gonna work?”

  Shaw shrugged again and leaned forward, dropping her feet to the decking. Braced her elbows against her knees, clasping her hands in front of her. “Data looks good. Ran every diagnostic I can think of and they all came back nominal. No substitute for live testing, though.”

  Henricksen grunted, lips curling in a bitter smile. “Funny. Kinsey said something similar at dinner tonight.”

  “Man’s not an idiot. Kinsey’s a lot of things—including a son-of-a-bitch, sometimes—but he’s not that.”

  “Unlike Karansky and his engineers.”

  Shaw barked a laugh. “All I’m saying is the man’s got a point. Simulation’s all well and good, but sometimes ya just gotta strap in and punch it. See what happens.”

  Henricksen was quiet a moment, staring at her. “That what those test pilots did? Strap in and punch it?”

  Shaw sobered instantly. “Made a lot of improvements since then.” Her eyes drifted to the camera, turned back to Henricksen’s face. “Dialed back the engines, for one thing. Tweaked the stealth system to reduce the vibrations and noise. Chassis’ a helluva lot more stable. Learned a ton from all the RV-Ns we lost.”

  “Guess I’ll have to trust you on that.”

  “Yeah. You will.” Shaw folded her arms, staring in challenge. “I run the mech gang and they service these ships. I wouldn’t vouch for Two-Six and the others if I didn’t think they were ready.” She paused, studying him, searching his face. “You think I want to send crew out there to be killed?”

  “Never said that,” he told her, shaking his head.

  “Then what—oh.” Shaw sat up straight, leaned back and folded her arms. “I see.”

  “See what?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

  “It’s not the ship.”

  Henricksen scowled. “What are you getting on about? Of course it’s the ship.”

  “No. It isn’t,” Shaw said quietly. “At least, not the chassis. It’s the AI. It’s Hecate.”

  “This is not about—”

  “I know you miss her. Hell, I was crew on Sardinia when she went down five goddamn years ago and I still miss the old girl.” Shaw flicked her fingers at the darkened hangar outside. “Worked my way into a station assignment just so I wouldn’t have to crew a ship again. Not afraid,” she told him, catching his eye. “Not afraid of dying. I just didn’t want it. Didn’t want to lose an AI, much less friends like that again.”

  Henricksen nodded. Different for her—crew never bonded with a ship’s AI the way a warship captain did—but the connection was there. The sense of family, of belonging that most ship’s crew formed.

  Auroras, anyway. Titans too, from his experience. Couldn’t speak to the Valkyries and Dreadnoughts. And from what he’d seen, the Bastion crew mostly lived in fear of their AI.

  “So why this?” he asked, waving at the stealth ship’s bridge. “Why sign up for the RV-N project if you were afraid of getting attached to an AI again?”

  Shaw flushed, looking embarrassed of all things. “Got tricked,” she admitted.

  “Lemme guess: Kinsey recruited you, just like he recruited me and Sikuuku.”

  “And he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details.” Shaw smiled ruefully. “Tells me Black Ops is all hush-hush and secretive so he can’t fill me in on the details of the assignment until I sign on the dotted line and get my personals moved in. Shoulda known why he wanted me, though. Warships are kind of my specialty,” she explained at Henricksen’s raised eyebrow look. “And these babies,” she touched at Helm’s panel, nodded to the camera watching from a corner, “they’re a challenge. Something different.” The smile widened. “How many mech chiefs get a chance to work on an entirely new chassis?”

  “Not many,” Henricksen guessed, studying her. Noting the fondness in Shaw’s voice. The way she touched at the ship’s systems, smiled at the camera. Talked to Two-Six and about her, hard
ly mentioning the RV-N itself. “This ship.” Henricksen waved vaguely. “Why do you care so much?”

  Shaw opened her mouth and closed it, tilted her head, looking up at the RV-N’s camera. “Because she’s my girl.” Her fingers moved, hand caressing Helm’s panel. “Crew works all the ships but Two-Six is special.” She smiled at Henricksen, rapped her knuckles against Helm's panel. “She’s gonna be yours, ya know.”

  Henricksen smiled indulgently. “Oh yeah? What tells you that?”

  Shaw winked. “Mechanic’s intuition.”

  “That again.” Henricksen rolled his eyes.

  “Hasn’t been wrong yet.” Shaw flashed a smile, showing every last one of her teeth. “But she’s gotta get flying first. Which means you gotta let Two-Six and her buddies out. Nothing sadder than a caged bird, Captain. Nothing at all.”

  “Haven’t even made crew assignments yet.”

  Shaw’s head tilted. “What’s the holdup?”

  “Funny,” Henricksen grunted. “Kinsey asked the same thing.”

  “Well, it is the question of the moment. That and when we’ll have the Ravens put back together. So what is the holdup?” she asked him, wiping a greasy thumb on her coveralls.

  “Training.” Henricksen shrugged his shoulders. “Crew…crew just wasn’t ready.”

  “And now?” she asked, eyebrows lifting.

  He grimaced. “Still not sure they’re ready.”

  But he was out of time. Kinsey wanted butts in seats. Crew assignments made so he could get his birds out of the hangar bar and into live trials.

  Shaw turned her head, staring through the bridge’s windows, finger tracing patterns on Helm’s panel. “You sure it’s them that’s not ready?”

  Henricksen bristled, face flushing. “Are you suggesting I can’t cut it, Chief?”

  “Nope.” Shaw’s head moved from one side to the other. She turned away from the windows and just sat there, studying him a moment. Thinking her words over before offering them up. “But I think your mind’s still on Hecate. I think—”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn what you think.”

  The words came out far more harshly than he’d intended. Harsh enough to hurt, but Shaw just nodded, completely nonplussed.