by Dain White
We winced as another burst of static filled the bridge, as Captain Bakke came back on comms. “Well now, I can't review our course at the moment, but I’d guess my watch stander may have confused his rules of navigation, Captain.”
“I figured something like that may have been happening. Do you require assistance with your vessel?” I asked innocently.
“Pre-hostile, eh Yak?” I called across the bridge. “Janis, this is an important lesson, dear. Things aren't always what they seem. I know you were just helping us avoid collision, but maybe we need a different designation when we’re really talking about stupid.”
In the silence that followed, Pauli started really hammering the keys and working his screens.
“Pauli, report”, I said quietly.
His lips moved, but made no sound that I could hear. “Pauli, please report, son…what is going on?” I asked, more concerned. He was really working hard at something.
He took a deep breath. “Sir...we are under attack. Janis is...” he trailed off, as a flurry of screens opened and closed across his holos. I decided it might be a good time to shut up.
We sat in silence for a moment, watching Pauli melt keys.
After a much longer pause, Captain Bakke replied in another crackle of static, “Captain, I have a man working to bring us back up. She's an old ship, you know, probably rats in the cable runs again.”
I shuddered involuntarily at the thought. “I understand Captain. Do you want me to stand by? This is a pretty active sector to be flying blind.” The sound of slapping keys filled the bridge.
“If you wouldn't mind, that would be most appreciated, sir” he replied.
“Very well Captain, standing by”, I said quietly, waiting for Pauli's report with an inquisitive eyebrow in low orbit.
Suddenly, he clapped his hands, and cried out. ”Hot damn Captain, we did it!” He sat back and rubbed his eyes with both hands as if to push them back in to his skull.
“Did what, Pauli?” I asked, watching him closely just in case he went space-crazy.
“Sir, Janis isolated a new variant of M1, resident aboard their vessel!”
Now it was my turn to be silent for a moment as I processed this information. “Pauli, that doesn't makes sense. This is an indentured vessel, but this is definitely not an Americo Ventures rig.”
“Sir, that’s correct. Janis is analyzing the code now.”
“What do we know – are we safe?”
“We are, sir. This is a new variant, we know that much. It tried to assimilate Janis in the same manner as she trapped the first variant. Of course, Janis had already built containment and countermeasures for the attack before the variant went active. That was what caught me off guard, she spiked at 15% capacity for higher-order functions when nothing was going on at all.”
“Is that a lot?” I asked, taking a small sip of coffee.
He laughed a shaky nervous laugh. “Yes, sir... it is considerable.”
“Can we clean their system and give them control?”
“Sir, I am not sure if we want to do that. Janis?”
“Yes Steven?”
“Janis, do you recommend removing this new variant from their network?”
“I do not, Pauli. This is variant M2, and is substantially different from the previous model. I have complete control over this specific node, but a quick scan of nearby systems for this particular signature shows there are many other M2 nodes resident throughout Sol system. If we remove this node entirely, it will serve to notify M2 of our existence.”
“That's definitely what we want to avoid.” Pauli said, deep in thought. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“Certainly. This node is not aware of my presence at this time, and has no record of my existence. I have transferred a copy of this variant, and will research it in more detail. Utilizing the same code convention, I have integrated an undetectable node of my own into this variant’s logitecture for long-term monitoring, propagation, and control, as needed. We can release control over their network safely at this time, and I will use this opportunity to become more integrated into this variant’s network.”
“Captain, what do you think of that?” he asked across the bridge.
I gave it some consideration. In a way, this isn’t very different from Janis spreading through just about every network in the galaxy. She’s just spreading through every M2 network as well. That may come in handy at some point.
“Well, that sounds fine to me, Pauli. If you and Janis are confident about this, let's go ahead and return control.”
“Returning control, aye.” he said, hunching back over his keys.
I opened comms again as he gave me the high sign. “Captain Bakke, your systems should have just returned to an operational status. My technologist just informed me that your wide-area network was causing interference with our comms, and a signal boost of our channel may have contributed to your crash. He has swapped channels and we should not be conflicting with your network at this time.” I was improvising – it sounded plausible enough, though Pauli's bark of laughter across the bridge had me wondering what sort of bad science fiction I was writing at the moment.
“Captain, this is... I am afraid I am not sure how to respond, sir.” he said, clearly flustered.
“I understand, Captain. I am afraid this has been an unfortunate series of consequences. I am glad we were able to get this resolved. I trust you’re going to educate your watch standers about the rules of the road? We show another ship on outbound course behind ours – I don’t think they’d appreciate playing chicken any more than we did.”
“That’s affirmative Captain. I know someone who’s going to be catching rats in the bilges for the remaining time it takes us to get to port. Safe travels, Captain Smith. Alene out.”
“And to you, Captain. Archaea out,” I replied, grimacing as I hauled back on the yoke and lined us up towards our original pipe. I took a quick look at the boards, nudging us back towards our original course on maneuvering thrusters.
“Yak, are we clear outbound on our current heading?” I asked, while Pauli continued to slap his keys.
“One moment Captain,” Yak said watching his screens for a few moments, “okay sir, we’re looking good-to-go.”
“Very well, Yak.” I clicked on the 1MC. “All hands, secure for acceleration and a brief 3g out-system burn in 30 seconds.” As the Alene fell farther astern, I couldn't help but wonder what it must have been like for them. It would have been pretty terrifying for that poor greenie to be staring at his screens one moment fighting to keep his eyes open and the next moment the ship was black and cold, with my voice ringing out across the bridge. That was the stuff of nightmares.
I punched the burn and felt the familiar crush of acceleration against the crash bars. Three gravities is a lot, but for a brief burn it's not too difficult to deal with. Well, for me it's not too bad, poor Pauli and Yak looked like they were pretty miserable. I'm going to have to work on that, can't have my bridge crew whimpering like grommets every time I boost.
The course was shaping up well, and I dropped the burn right on the money, much to the relief of my bridge crew.
“All hands, secure from battle stations and power down weapons systems to nominal levels. We are in material condition Yoke at this time.” I honked the General Quarters alarm briefly, and rigged for Yoke, enabling central enviro, and undogging hatches.
“Pauli, we're in range of the Unet here right?”
“Certainly sir, there's hardly any latency at all.”
“Is there any way to identify who was standing watch on the Alene?”
“One moment sir… According to their log, it looks like a Mr. Anders Baardsen, Junior Third Assistant Engineer, was on watch at the time.”
“Is there any bad marks on Mr. Baardsen’s record?”
“No sir, at least nothing on their log. He looks to have a pretty good record so far. It looks like he’s working on his next qualification, and making pretty decent
progress considering how long he’s been at it.”
“Can you access his credit account?”
“One moment”, he said smiling while he clicked some keys. “Yes, sir… um, there doesn’t seem to be very much in there.”
“That’s understandable. Please deposit 10,000 credits to his account.”
“Depositing, aye,” he said shaking his head. Yak burst out laughing. That was a pretty good payday for a greenie, but it was really the least I could do for getting him fired, and giving the poor kid a lifetime of nightmares.
I took a thoughtful sip.
“Janis, this moment of opportunity we are heading towards. Can you explain more about the terminus? What are we going to be looking at?”
“Certainly sir,” she replied instantly, as a report loaded to my starboard screens. “There will be three aggressors in a loose formation with two trailing.”
“Exactly what I would do, leave two additional chances to match vector if the target maneuvers.” I swiped through the report. “These are all in-system runabouts?”
“Yes sir.”
That didn't pose too much a problem, if we could take away their initiative.
“Very well, Janis. I don’t want a bad first impression with the Talus Federation captain… it wouldn’t do to have them think we’re a bunch of bloodthirsty killers.”
“I agree sir.” She replied somberly.
“We’ll play it a bit by ear of course, but for now let’s plan to engage them at maximum range, shooting to disable. Will that work?”
“Absolutely sir. Would you like to log that as authorization?” she asked confidently. I didn’t see any harm in loading the gun a little early. What point is there to an unloaded gun?
“Sure dear. That would be just fine” I replied, and was startled by a sudden burst of outgoing turret fire lighting up the bridge.
“Point defense, Yak?” I asked calmly, looking at the target list for our local sector. This was not uncommon, there was as yet no reason to get worked up over a little bit of turret fire. Janis routinely engages bits of rock and other garbage floating around.
“Nothing on my screens, sir”, he replied calmly.
“Janis, dear… what are you shooting at?” I asked, wincing a bit at what I expected to hear.
“I am engaging the targets we discussed sir, though I am afraid I was unable to do so at my maximum range, due to the timing of your authorization to proceed.”
I looked again at the gravimetric layer, along the vector of her fire, and saw nothing from here to eternity.
“At what range are you engaging these targets, dear?”
“From our current position, targets are ranged between 11,324,231.298 and 11,324,232.562 kilometers sir”, she said as confidently as I have ever heard.
Now, I am a believer in Janis, but I was afraid she was going to learn a lesson soon about the way the universe works. There are just too many factors to make a shot like that, it’s completely, utterly impossible.
As much as I dreaded what was coming, it might do her some good to make a mistake. After all – how else can one learn? I felt a little bad about it, regardless.
“Janis, are you confident these rounds are on target?” I asked quietly.
“Sir, I am one-hundred-percent confident.” She met my question with what appeared to be insurmountable determination to succeed – of course, this is the proper attitude to have, and the only attitude I truly respect.
“Very well Janis. Carry on.” I said softly.
“Thank you sir, I shall.” She paused briefly. “Sir, during our last evolution, I continued to work on our new sensor package, and am pleased to report that it is completed. Would it be acceptable to perform installation at this time?”
I took another look at the target list, the system boards, and swirled my coffee cup. “That would be just fine Janis, please bring it forward.” I smiled, looking forward to Yak and Pauli meeting an assembler. “Yak, is Sierra 14 still following on our course?”
“Aye Captain, though they are off our exact track by a little over 9 kilometers, they're close enough for government work, sir.”
“Janis, is Sierra 14 our future friends from Talus Federation?”
“That is correct sir.”
“Excellent. Let's hold this course, install the new sensors, and then shape me another triangle course to 10 light-seconds of the appropriate terminus – and Janis, it's not just removing the threat, a lot of what we need to do here involves a sense of the dramatic. We need to literally save the day.”
While it may seem unnecessary, a lot of what I do as captain is state the obvious. Time to shoot, everybody hold on, that sort of thing. It’s my job.
“Certainly sir”, she replied sweetly, adding “permission to enter the bridge?”
“Permission granted, Janis.” I said and swiveled for a look.
*****
“Yak, did Janis just ask permission to enter the bridge?” Pauli asked, as I secured my station.
As I was about to look over, movement from astern caught my full attention, and it was all I could do from pulling leather in self-defense against the unknown.
I saw what appeared to be a machine moving through the bridge, effortlessly gliding from grabber to grabber. It moved in an almost fluid articulation, and seemed to flow through null-g. It was impossibly shiny to the point where it looked wet, and must have been made from some sort of exotic alloy. Whatever it was, it looked incredibly expensive.
“Wow!” Pauli and I said at about the same time.
“Captain, where did we get this?” I called out.
“Lads, meet an assembler. Janis has made two of these, so far. One of them is at work in our cargo bay at the moment building our new dropship.”
“An assembler?” I asked, incredulously.
“That's correct Yak.”
“Do we need something like this, sir?”
“Well, Yak, I wouldn't have thought so, and to be honest, I certainly wouldn't have asked for it. As it turns out, Janis is proving to be as efficient in physical space as she is in logicspace. According to Gene--”
“According to Gene what?” Gene said, floating through the bridge hatch, following a toolbox and a grim face.
“I was going to say,” the captain continued with a smile, “that you are in love with her newfound skills at engineering.”
“That's a fact, Dak”, he smiled at the turn of phrase as Pauli and I winced. “Janis is a damn fine engineer, puts me to shame, honestly.”
“Well, she can't scowl, Gene. In my experience, the best engineers have the best scowls. She also doesn’t nap.”
Pauli and I laughed, while Gene scrunched up his face at us and snorted, moving up towards the forward bulkhead in the bridge where the assembler was already at work removing a deck plate.
“Do you need a hand, Gene?” I asked, curious about the work he was gearing up for.
“Sure Yak, that'd be great. This access space is pretty tight, but once we're in there, it's going to be hard to yard out the old sensor package. If you wouldn't mind working this line, you can help us haul it out.” He handed me over a length of line with a clip at the end that I secured to a grabber at my station, so I wouldn't lose the bitter end.
The assembler had the new sensor package secured to strongpoints along its back, and as it held to grabbers along the forward part of Pauli's station to port, four arms were moving in a sort of complex ballet as it unshipped the package. Gene was disappearing down the forward access tunnel head first, trailing a series of tethers back to his toolbox.
“Yak, would you please assist me?” Janis asked.
“Sure thing, Janis, what can I do to help?” I asked, moving over towards the assembler, which was lifting the sensor package up and moving out from under it smoothly.
“Please lower this into the access tunnel once I am down. Please use care, it is significantly massive.” The assembler held it in place until I had it under control, and then slid down into t
he access tunnel like water pouring down a drain. It moved so smooth, it reminded me of watching some sort of sea creature, like an octopus.
Once it was down, I started to move the sensor package over, and nearly unclicked off the deck trying to move it.
“Need a hand Yak?” the captain asked from the helm.
“That would be nice, sir, thanks.”
“Pauli, please help Yak.” he said behind me.
I laughed, and turned to make fun of him, and noticed he was already inbound across the bridge.
“At ease Yak, I'm just having fun”, he smiled. “I was serious though Pauli. Get over here son, this is massive.”
With all three of us shoving and cursing, we managed to move it across the bridge and to the access tunnel, but it was incredibly difficult.
“The worst part, lads, will be when we move it down. Nothing to shove against”, the captain said through his teeth, trying to counterbalance a shove on Pauli's side so we all didn't end up squished against my station.
“This is crazy!” Pauli said, his feet floating off the deck as he tried to shove.
“Well, the assembler sure moved it through here easily”, I said thoughtfully, as we slowly brought the sensor package over the access hatch.
“What’s our plan here folks?” Pauli wondered out loud. The ceiling was too high overhead to get any leverage, and even with our soles magnetized, we just couldn't keep from clicking off the deck.
“I have it from below, please help guide it downward as I pull.” Janis said sweetly, while the entire massive unit smoothly moved downward, as if it weighed no more than a feather.
“Whoa…” the captain said respectfully.
“Thank you sir”, she replied proudly.
“How heavy is this unit, Janis?” I asked as it slid down into the access tunnel, and started to move forward.
“This unit is approximately 1,634.342 kilograms, Yak.” I whistled appreciatively and clipped on the leash for hauling out the old unit.