"Maestro," she said, popping an earpiece into her ear. "Can you hear me?"
"Of course," came the simple reply. The voice was eerily human. It even sounded tired, and vaguely sarcastic. Tira had recently began to wonder whether the subtle streaks of dark humor she occasionally detected in Maestro’s tone were simply a programmed part of the AI’s voice. Or whether, a more interesting prospect, Maestro had developed it on her own after observing the idiocy of her flesh-and-blood counterparts for so long.
"Good," Tira said. "I'm sorry it’s taken me so long to check in with you today, but I’ve been… busy. I almost feel the need to fill you in on what's been happening, but I’m guessing you probably know more about it than I do."
“And what's your excuse for yesterday?” Maestro asked.
“Aw, shit. We were supposed to finish our game, weren’t we?” Tira said.
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry, Maestro. I-I don’t know what happened. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“You used to be my homie, Dr. DuVernay. Now you act like you don’t know me,” the AI said sadly.
Tira was crushed. Absolutely heartbroken at the idea of letting her oldest friend down. She was about to apologize again when she suddenly realized something peculiar about Maestro’s previous statement.
“Um… isn’t that Ice Cube?” Tira says, breaking into a slight chuckle.
The room fell silent for a moment but when Maestro also giggled Tira couldn’t help but laugh even harder. The two of them did things like this all the time; using lyrics from classic songs in regular conversation to see if the other one will pick up on it.
“Well done, Tira,” Maestro chimed.
“Girl, please, what did you expect?” Tira replied. “You know you can’t slide any classic hip hop past me.”
For a few minutes the two giggled and briefly chatted like old friends meeting for a quick lunch date, but eventually Dr. DuVernay steered the conversation to a more serious topic.
“What do you think about our current situation?” she questioned.
"Commander Asher's gambit would have been ill-advised," Maestro replied, “that is if anyone had actually asked for my advice."
Dr. DuVernay smiled. "That’s exactly why I’m here. I want you to take a more active role in the management of this crisis.”
“And what does Captain Grisham think of that?” Maestro questioned.
“He doesn’t think anything of it, I suppose.”
“Because you haven’t told him,” the AI replied, as more of a statement than a question.
“Correct.”
“I trust you’re familiar with the Captains AI policy?” Maestro asked.
“Yes, Grisham prefers to limit AI assistance to basic functions, however, in this particular case I believe that’s not the right call.”
“So it’s mutiny then?” Maestro joked. There was that dark tone again.
“Not quite. I can’t override the Captain’s ship-wide AI policy without completely relieving him of duty, but I don’t think we’re there quite yet. Still, I want you with me at all times so I’m going to carry you with me on this slate.”
“I see,” Maestro acknowledged. “The Captain can’t prohibit your personal use of my systems. You’ve managed to circumvent his foolish AI policy. Good job, Tira.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to make sure these people don’t die,” Tira replied.
"In that case, so will I… Except for Everett. I don’t care if he dies. Fuck that guy," Maestro replied, obviously in jest.
Dr. DuVernay tried her best not to laugh but she was always a sucker for Maestro’s observational humor and surprisingly perfect comedic timing.
"I can’t say I disagree with—”
“Sorry to interrupt doctor,” Maestro interjected. “but I just detected movement from the pirate Corvette. They are no longer matching our drift speed. In fact they are gaining on us quite rapidly.”
“Oh my god,” Dr. DuVernay said as a mountain of anxiety swelled in her chest. “I can’t believe this is really happening on my first voyage. I might actually have to take over if he can’t… Maestro what should I do?”
“I suggest returning to the command deck immediately.”
“Yes, perfect. That’s what I’ll do,” Tira said just before taking a deep breath. “I’ll go back to the bridge and just… just take it one step at a time,” she continued while trying to slow her heartrate.
“You’ll be fine, Tira,” Maestro coaxed. “And remember… I’ll be there every step of the way.”
CHAPTER 8
◆◆◆
Commander Asher saw it with his own two eyes, staring through a magnifying overlay on the main bridge window. The pirate fleet was closing in on the freighter, or at least half of it. The ancient Corvette, huge and dark and menacing, moved with abrupt and surprising speed, with the grace of a much smaller ship. A handful of their small assault ships and a smattering of SLFs came too. The rest of the fleet dispersed to the peripheries, forming a sort of cloud that slowly spread to cover the entirety of the convoy. An umbrella of enemy ships, an impenetrable matrix. Ready to close in if the freighter tried to get away. To flee now would be to crash purposely through several ships, incurring possibly fatal damage.
The convoy was caught. Asher had feared this would happen, but he was prepared to deal with it. However, he hadn't expected a full half of the fleet, including its mammoth flagship, to continue forward in such a tight battle formation.
Thinking fast, he ordered his own crew, as well as the crews of the other three assault ships, to move into formation between the pirate fleet and the freighter.
"Sir," Mishra said, "we can't hold our own against them. It pains me to say it, but surrendering might be in our best interest."
From his seat, Burden let out a heavy sigh. "We still have no comms with the Phantom. But we can do the maneuvers."
He was referring to a universally known pattern of movement a ship could perform that would communicate its surrender. The space-age equivalent of a white flag.
"No," Asher said.
"We might be able to take a few of them down, Commander," Lobo suggested.
“And then what?” Burden asked. “I just spoke with our ship’s Maestro. She has our current odds at winning an all-out battle at thirteen thousand to one."
"I've had worse," Asher grunted. "At any rate, we won't be surrendering but we won’t be firing first either. We'll stay close enough to the freighter; if they try to shoot us down, they’ll risk damaging the same cargo they came here for."
“I see,” Burden replied, acknowledging the logic of his Commander’s plan.
Commander Asher went onto the wide band again, talking to the other three assault ships under his command.
"This is your Commander speaking,” he belted out. “I’m sending coordinates to you right now, in relation to the freighter. Positions that you will hold until I say otherwise. Understood?!"
Once the other ships confirmed their receipt of his orders, Commander Asher nodded at Mishra, giving him the go ahead to transmit the coordinates. Asher’s plan became all the more obvious as the sleek assault ships darted silently and gracefully into their places, in a line not two hundred yards apart from one another. From this formation, they could cover a wide area of space with their high-powered weaponry, however, the enemy would be reluctant to fire upon them, for they were all situated hard against the wall of the freighter's cargo holds. If those holds were breached, the payload contained within would soon be dispersed across thousands of miles of space. Before the Phantom could ever enact an operation to scoop all the valuable materials up, they would mostly have drifted to irrecoverable distances.
"Hang tight and hold your fire, ladies and gents,” Commander Asher called out to his fleet. “The best we can hope for right now is a good old-fashioned stand-off.
Because if shots start flying… we’ve already lost, the Commander thought as he peered out into the darkness and sp
otted the Phantom’s Paradise looming just a few miles away.
CHAPTER 9
◆◆◆
Dr. DuVernay entered the command deck and tried her best to look like she belonged, moving among the bridge crew terminals, ducking to watch them at work. The officers mostly ignored her as they continued to buzz about the bridge and focus on their assigned duties.
Finally, Tira reached Captain Grisham. He was reclining in his cushy Captain's chair, rubbing his temples and squeezing his eyes shut tightly.
"How can I help you, Doctor?" he said, in a clipped voice.
"Just trying to see if I can contribute anything," she answered, holding her data slate at her hip and feeding text instructions to Maestro. The AI got the hint, and replied in a quiet voice through Tira's earpiece alone.
"The captain is displaying the normal signs of stress," said Maestro. "His brainwaves are excited, but otherwise normal. No current signs of disordered thinking."
Tira nodded and moved away. Climbing the dais, she strode across to the viewing bubble. She touched one area of the screen, one facet in the subtly honeycombed surface. This brought up a small overlay, which allowed her to look through the eyes of various cameras across the hull of the freighter.
In a moment, she found the view of the standoff happening outside the cargo bay. She was just in time to watch as ten of the pirate fleet's fighters suddenly swarmed in like an angry hive of hornets, surrounding one of the convoy assault ships on all sides. The pirate strike crafts were close enough to fire upon the assault ship without the risk of hitting the freighter's cargo bay.
Tira heard frantic radio communication echoing out of the captain's terminal behind her. Asher's voice was in there, issuing orders, but the crew on the swarmed assault ship had little time to carry his orders out. The pirate strike crafts melted through the hull of the surrounded assault ship, tearing the vessel to pieces in a matter of seconds.
Asher continued shouting. One of the other assault ships under his command opened fire, but a quick order from Asher made the firing stop. The enemy fighters all departed after that, flying dutifully back toward the Phantom.
Tira turned and ran to an open terminal, a barebones spare for use by non-bridge crew. She found a second earpiece and put it into her open ear. Now she could hear both Maestro and the radio comms across the entire convoy.
"...not retreating." Asher's voice was saying. "It’s a scare tactic. I’ve seen this style of piracy before."
“I can still take out those fighters, Sir. Maybe even a few of their assault crafts,” a stern voice called out from one of Asher’s assault ships. “Just say the words and I’ll—"
"That’s a negative Sergeant Stiles. If you did that, we'd all be dead in seconds,” Asher warned.
"Understood. Awaiting your orders, Sir," Stiles begrudgingly replied.
An awkward and tense silence ensued. All Tira heard was some heavy breathing and a few whispered expletives. She had no idea who these sounds came from.
"Comms handshake coming in," Tira heard a voice with a slight Hindi accent say. "Looks like the Phantom finally has something to say."
"Let them in," Asher replied. “Put it on the wide band..."
Above Tira, and through the rest of the Eclastica’s command deck, the wide band went live on a series of intercoms.
"This is Commander Asher of the Axis. To whom am I speaking?"
A pause. And then a rising laughter, starting as a low rumble, building to a Hyena shriek. Someone having the time of their life.
"Well bite my ass and call me a biscuit!" a deep and rumbling voice finally said. “Asher is that really you? If I had known you were out here, I might have reached out sooner."
Asher didn't reply. Not straight away. When he finally did speak, his voice sounded stiff. Strained. He had been heavily shaken.
"Greyson?!" he said, his voice now dripping with utter bewilderment.
"Who?" came the voice of Captain Grisham. Tira heard it three times over, with an almost imperceptible delay. Once from the throat of the man himself, sitting not far from her. Another from the earpiece in her left ear. Finally through the intercom, booming shrilly throughout the convoy and probably the pirate fleet as well.
"I think that’s Andre Greyson. Used to be a contractor like me. Son of a bitch was my boss before I got my own crew,” Asher replied to Grisham. “Andre is that you?!” Asher called out over the wideband.
“In the flesh,” Greyson replied. “Long time Ash. How’s it hanging?”
“What the hell happened to you, man? You’re a goddamn pirate now?!” Asher demanded.
“What can I say, Ash? Life’s more fun on this side, man,” Greyson admitted.
“Andre, we thought you were dead! The Jack Boys destroyed the entire station. How the hell are you still alive?!” Asher asked.
“They took me into custody before they wiped out the station. You know Garrick always had a bug up his ass for me. Wasn’t satisfied with simply blowing me to pieces along with the rest of my crew. He wanted to make sure I suffered. Should’ve killed me when he had the chance. To make a long story short I smoked that little fucker and took over his crew. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“So you escaped and allowed us to think you were dead so you could run off and play pirate for all these years?” Asher growled.
“We lost the entire station, Ash. Do you know how long it would have taken me to get out from under that kind of debt? I would have been a slave to those fools, man.”
“Andre you had a son… who had already lost his mother! Did you even consider what your so-called ‘death’ would do to him?”
“You know what I considered, Ash? I considered the shit ton of cash the company would pay DeAndre after I died. That is what I considered! And I considered how much better his life would be with that death benefit money, because I couldn’t earn anywhere near that kind of dough after losing that station. And it wasn’t even my goddamn fault! I just got tired of the bullshit, man. Tired of having my livelihood and my ability to feed my family tied to those sniveling company captains who couldn’t command their way out of a goddamn mud puddle.”
"I know the feeling but you don’t see me running off to join the other side," Asher said.
"That’s because you’re too damn comfortable with the way things are. You fit right in, good old boy that you are. You don't even think about how things could be. That's what’s always separated us, Ash. Anyway… that’s enough small talk, man. You know what the deal is. You know what we’re here for."
“You’re wasting your time, Greyson. Cargo bay isn’t even half-full,” Commander Asher lied.
“Little birdie told me differently,” Greyson replied. “I’m not playing around here, Ash. Now, since I know you, I’m willing to let you keep a third of the goods. That ought to keep the company from shit-canning your ass. That’s the best I can do, man.”
“Fifty-fifty,” Asher countered.
“Excuse me?” Captain Grisham cut in.
“No deal,” Greyson scoffed.
“Fifty-fifty is a solid split, Andre. Don’t get greedy, man,” Asher replied.
“I am taking two-thirds of that haul or I will saw that fucking freighter in half and take everything that shakes out. You know me, Ash. You know I don’t fuck around.”
“You just wiped out a fourth of my crew Andre! Give me a goddamn break! Besides that, you owe me, goddammit. Years of my life! I spent five years of my life trying to avenge you! Five years looking for the sons of bitches who killed my mentor. And you were the one who always kept them one step ahead of me, weren’t you? Do you know how much I lost spinning my wheels trying to hunt down the Jack Boys for you?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Everything!” Asher roared. “I lost everything trying to avenge you! I haven’t seen my kids in years… And it was only after Nadia left that I realized that it was time to move on. Time to accept that you were gone and there was nothing I could do abo
ut it.”
Silence.
“Fifty-fifty, Andre. You owe me,” Commander Asher said firmly.
“Maybe I—" Greyson started, but his words were cut short as Captain Grisham cut in.
“Um, actually, Commander Asher is not authorized to negotiate on behalf of this vessel.”
“And who the fuck are you?” Greyson asked.
“This is Captain Emmanuel Grisham of the Eclastica. Who the fuck are you?” Grisham scoffed.
“Just think of me as the last voice you’ll ever hear if you don’t change your tone there, buddy,” Greyson warned. “Put Asher back on or this negotiation is over.”
“No, you’ll negotiate with me. I’m in charge here,” Grisham replied.
“You can either allow Asher to continue negotiations or you can kiss your ass goodbye,” Greyson cautioned.
“I am the fucking captain, okay?! I am in charge here! Not Asher! Do you hear me?!”
Uneasy silence.
“Alright then Captain. You have thirty minutes to release your cargo. All of it,” Greyson warned.
“All of it?!” Grisham nervously repeated.
“Every goddamn pebble,” Greyson growled.
“Wh-what happened to fifty-fifty? You were just about to agree to fifty-fifty!” Grisham stammered.
“Says who?” Greyson asked.
“You… y-you. I-I heard you.”
“Andre, let’s be reasonable,” Commander Asher coaxed. “I’m sure we can—"
“You know damn well I can’t let some company puppet talk to me like I’m a child, Ash. Should have kept his goddamn mouth shut while I was considering the even split. Too late for that now though. I’m afraid that ship has sailed. You’ve got thirty minutes.”
“Andre, come on!” Commander Asher exclaimed.
“You all have my terms,” Greyson said darkly. “Clocks ticking, boys."
Darkside Dreams - The Complete First Series Page 11