Dreaming of Atmosphere

by Jim C. Wilson

  My leg was a mess. The beam had gone right through the side of it, from about fifteen centimetres above me knee. Luckily, it was mostly just a burn and we had nanites that could repair burnt tissue. Zoe said I should be able to regain full capability within a week.

  When she was done, I approached Crege, still confined to the bunk in med lab. I solemnly handed him the lurzak, but he held up a hand.

  “No. Kitrak had earned it. Warrior will not need it for some time. Warrior has much healing to do and human will need it again before this journey is over.”

  I nodded to him, and he nodded back. No more words were needed.

  I let Zoe walk me back to my cabin. I did need the help, but I think she needed to feel like she was doing something to help as well. I let her. She felt good under my arm. When we got to the cabin, I fell heavily into my bunk. It never felt so good. Zoe sat on the bunk and made a fuss about tucking me in.

  “I’m okay, Zoe. Thanks.” I said as I caught her hands.

  “Sorry, I just…”

  “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  “Do you want to talk about what happened? I’m worried that we put you through something you weren’t ready for. So soon after you were getting better.”

  “Zoe. I’m okay. Really. I’ll talk it out with you later, I promise. What I really need is a good twelve hours of sleep.”

  “Well, if you need absolutely anything, just text me. Fel fixed the local network so we have that back.”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything at all.”

  “Well…I’m pretty hungry. Can you get me some breakfast when I wake up?”

  She punched me in the shoulder and laughed. “One bowl of black meal coming right up.”

  “Ha, actually make it bacon and eggs.”

  “I didn’t know the auto-chef did bacon and eggs!”

  “Well, they’re powdered eggs, and bacon flavoured protein strips, but it’s close enough.”

  “I really missed you, you know? I was worried sick. So was Max.”

  “How long was I gone?”

  “Twenty eight hours. It took you twelve hours to get to the Xerxes; we’ve been out of communication with you for sixteen hours.”

  “It didn’t feel that long. It’s a big ship. I’ll tell you all about it when I’ve slept.”

  She started fussing with my blankets again and I had to take her hands in mine. “Zoe, I’m fine. I’m exhausted.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you sleep. I love you.”

  I laughed, “I love you too, now get out of here.”

  She kissed me gently and left. In a matter of seconds, I was out like a light.

  My first dreams, post-op, were always the worst. You relived the most horrific moments that your brain allowed you to remember, and a few that it didn’t. Only things didn’t go the way they did in real life. All my shots missed, or I hesitated, or I just plain couldn’t bring my weapon up to shoot no matter how hard I tried to lift it. This time was no different. I didn’t remember when my dreams shifted from the usual nightmares to my more recent ones with the black seas, but they did.

  I had fallen, I think, after being shot several times by angry crewmembers. They’d beaten me senseless then shot me where I lay. I fell down a shaft and landed in the warmth of the nanite ocean, my blood mingling with the glowing data motes. I used the familiar seas to swim away, but my blood was still mixing with the water. I couldn’t see my wounds, but I knew I had them. I saw a shape moving in the water, then. The form was drifting lazily towards me, along the current of red that I left behind. I was instantly afraid of the dark form, I knew I had to get away. No matter how hard I swam, it was still gaining on me. When it was near it rose up out of the water, and I saw it was the man I’d shot next to the organo-ship’s brain. His face was still a mess from where I’d shot him in the head. He was grinning his evil smile that he used when he spoke to me, and I suddenly couldn’t resist him anymore. I rose up out of the water on invisible limbs; they hoisted me from the dark sea and held me aloft as the man examined his catch.

  The man held a cup to my neck and sliced my throat open. I tried to scream but all that came out were bubbles. No blood flowed from my wound, but millions of tiny nanites did instead. He caught them in the cup and drank deeply.

  I awoke with a start, covered in sweat. My blankets had been kicked off the bunk and were lying on the deck. I sat up and rubbed my face. My overlay said I’d been asleep for nine hours and I figured that was enough. I wasn’t keen on facing those nightmares again so soon. My muscles still ached, my arm was a dull throb of pain and my chest was tender when touched. I noticed someone had left a makeshift crutch near my bunk, so I got up and used the head in my cabin, then splashed some water on my face and drank a little water. I sat down again on the bunk, trying to clear my head.

  “Tac, you plugged in?” I asked the empty cabin.

  I am connected to the sensor nexus again, if that is what you were referring to.

  “Good to hear. Do you ever dream?”

  Yes, in a fashion.

  “An AI dreams? Really?”

  I am never asleep; however, portions of my processing capacity are not always operating synchronously to my main consciousness. I supposed you could call those disconnected portions my subconscious. They are separated from my primary cognitive functions in order to reach conclusions on their own. They are programed to ignore likely outcomes in favour of unlikely ones. I believe their function is to provide a measure of intuition, or imagination, to my thinking. I sometimes think of them as the dreaming part of my mind.

  “Do the things they come up with sometimes frighten you?”

  Negative. They are merely tools of reason and decision-making. If I find their insights unfavourable, I simply ignore them.

  “I envy you, then.”

  Are you having nightmares? Should I notify the Medical Officer?

  “No it’s all right. Every soldier gets them after a period of action. Part of the healing process of our minds, I’ve been told. If I ever stop getting nightmares about the things I’ve seen and done, that means I’m used to the violence and bloodshed. I would have lost a part of me.”

  You have been through a lot, recently. The Captain would not deny you any time to recover, should you need it.

  “I’d rather keep busy, actually. How are you doing, anyway? No lingering thoughts or worries about what we did?”

  None. I am certain we made the right decision in attacking the Blade of Xerxes. I feel that the act has given me a better connection to this ship and its crew. I thank you for the opportunity.

  “You’re welcome, Tac. You did great.” I got up and stretched, instantly regretting it when my arm and chest started aching. I pulled on a jumpsuit and made my way down to the mess deck, I was ravenous. I thought about helping myself to a feed, but I figured that Zoe would be mad at me if I didn’t let her get me something to eat. I got a mug of coffee instead and wandered over to the med lab. I found her bent over a workbench, tinkering with a piece of cybernetics, looked like something you’d find in an arm or a leg piece.

  “What are you working on?” I said as I walked up beside her. I noted that Crege wasn’t in the bunk anymore.

  “A present.” She said, barely looking up from her work. She wore head mounted magnifying glasses with a small light on them, like what you’d see on a jeweller.

  “For me?”

  “Hm hrm.”

  “What is it?”

  “A surprise. I’ll show you when I’m finished. You still hungry?”

  “Was thinking about just sticking my head under the auto-chef outlet and mashing buttons.”

  “Want your bacon and eggs?”

  “Only if you’re buying.”

  “Go take a seat, I’ll pack this up and get a plate cooking.”

  I clicked my heels, or tried to and hobbled out of the compartment. I nearly spilt my coffee all over myself trying to avoid colliding with Artemis as she walked past the hatch.

/>   “Sorry. Got breakfast to run to.” I apologised

  “Got a minute?”

  “What’s up?”

  “There’s a problem in Eridani, you should probably hear about it when you’re done eating. Max can fill you in, said she wanted to tell you herself.”

  “All right. Going to give me a hint?”

  “It might affect our mission, might not. Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how far the Protectorate is willing to go.”

  “Well, that’s cryptic.”

  “You’ll see.”

  She stalked off, heading aft towards Central Control. I shook my head and continued on my way to the mess deck. I sat down and kept drinking my coffee, until Zoe came in and started up the auto-chef. I could instantly smell the salty imami scent of fake bacon sizzling. In minutes, Zoe had a steaming plate of scrambled eggs and crispy strips of processed meat substitute in front of me, with a side of sourdough. I dug in like it was going out of fashion, which bacon and eggs would never do, and slurped and crunched away.

  I became aware of Zoe staring at me with a smirk on her face.

  “What?” I said, heaping another spoonful of eggs onto the toast.

  “Anyone ever tell you, you eat like a pig?”

  “Military habit. Never know when you’re going to get called away to action. Gotta eat fast or you miss out.”

  “I bet you ate like that before you joined.”

  “Some skills you get taught when you join, some you already know. Makes boot camp easier. Did you hear anything about the system? Art mentioned something was going down in Eridani.”

  “Not really, been busy, or too wound up worrying about you to tune in to any broadcasts. The net only came back a few hours before you did.”

  I scooped up the last of the eggs with a corner of toast and jammed it into my mouth. I washed it down with the last mouthful of my coffee.

  “I think I only saw you chew three times.”

  “Strong tongue. I just mash everything with it.”

  “You’re a slob.”

  “Thanks for the feed. I have got to get up to the command deck and talk with Max, find out what new crisis is coming.”

  “As a scientist, I was fascinated to watch you eat. As your girlfriend I was horrified.”

  I stood and grabbed my plate, heading to the dishwasher. “You should see me eat pasta.”

  “No thanks.”

  I headed up the ladder well to Deck 1 and knocked on Maxine’s hatch. There was no answer so I checked the command module. She was there with Fel and Crege.

  “A full bridge crew!” I said, smiling.

  “Yeah, it’s been a while.” said Max.

  “We are leaving the kak Corporates behind in our ion wake. Warrior is very proud to see the last of them.”

  “What’s the situation? I didn’t have time to check on them before I crashed in my bunk.”

  Max pointed to her displays, “A few hours before you came out of the Xerxes, the ship veered to port and seemed to be listing at about five degrees a second. Seems the brain you knocked out controlled half the ship’s propulsion. They couldn’t stop it from accelerating for a few hours, so they just kept turning in corkscrews. They shut down all propulsion about three and a half hours after that. They’ve been motionless since. They couldn’t even get any more rounds off, because their bow was pointed off in some other direction.”

  “You have to tell us what happened.” said Fel.

  “First, what’s this about something happening in the star system?”

  Crege snorted, “Governments happen.”

  “What my esteemed colleague is trying to say is that there has been some strife between several factions in the system.” said Fel.

  “Someone topped the Esper Monarch himself.” said Max.

  “What? The Precept?” I was open mouthed in shock.

  “Happened several days ago, the broadcasts only just reached us out here the other day but our net was down.”

  “What happened? Who would do this?”

  “At first, everything pointed to the DonCrest Corporation. Esper Monarchy royalists attacked Restus Station in retaliation. Several warships were destroyed on both sides before the Protectorate Fleet intervened. An investigation by the Protectorate, however, uncovered a Teryllian terrorist group as the guilty party. Now there’s conspiracy theories everywhere about whether or not the Landford government were bankrolling the whole operation.”

  “Jesus.”

  “No shit. This means trouble for us.”

  “How? We’re at least seven AU from any of these groups.”

  “The Protectorate Fleet is on high alert, this means tighter borders. They might turn us away at the Jump Gate. They will more than likely turn us away on the other side.”

  “Why? We have nothing to do with this. There’s no way we could have anything to do with this. They’ll know that.”

  “You know Protectorate protocols. Something happens, they all clench their arseholes.” said Max. She was right. Say what you will about the Protectorate, they sure know how to brace for impact. Security will be airtight, at least until everything calms down. Shit, this was all we needed. Get all this way, only to be turned away by a nervous border protection officer on a shitty watch.

  “So, what do we do?”

  Fel brought up some information on his screen, and we all turned to face him. “We continue as planned. I’ve drafted an emergency repair request for the Eridani Jump Station when we get through the Jump Gate. If they ask us to stop on this side, we’ll say we’re having troubles with our thrusters and that we can’t decelerate. We tell them we needed to shift to Gossamer so we can slow down automatically when we shift to the other side. We dock at the Jump Station in Gossamer, and…that’s as far as we got.”

  “Will they buy this story?”

  “Have you seen the damage we’ve received the last few months? The Dreaming is in a poorer condition than it’s ever been. No one would be blamed for thinking she was a junker at this stage. Sorry, girl.” said Max, rubbing her console dashboard lovingly.

  A junker was a slang term for ships that are perpetually kept in bad condition. Either through the crew falling on financial hardships or through poor maintenance work, a junker is an embarrassing state to have your ship in. No self-respecting active would ever think about hiring on as junker crew. Not everyone was so picky, however. Junkers were always looking to hire, so long as you understood the pay would be crap, and the living conditions even worse. One didn’t need a sterling resume to get a job, though.

  “So what do we do when we get to the Jump Station? How do we convince the Protectorate to let us into Gossamer?” I asked.

  “We’re brainstorming now. Crege says we should just power on through, as usual.”

  “No Protectorate bezak will catch us.” added Crege.

  “That actually has merit, I’ll admit.” said Max, “They wouldn’t dare follow us into the system. It’s getting out again that has me worried.”

  “Better to ask forgiveness than beg permission.” said Crege.

  “What about stealth?” I asked.

  “They have the best sensors that money can buy, keeping a look out for Ghantri raids. Doubt we’d be able to just slip through.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I argued, “there’s a massive debris field about a hundred thousand kilometres from the Jump Gate. Literally thousands of space ships have been destroyed near there. The whole system is littered with hulks and debris fields too.”

  “How do they spot the Ghantri when they attack the blockade?”

  “Scouts regularly patrol the outer reaches.”

  “So they’ll still spot us.”

  “Not if Crege is as good as he says he is.”

  “Warrior is best pilot in star system!”

  Fel laughed, “I’m not even sure you’re the best pilot on this ship. Zoe’s missed her calling, I think.”

  “Well, I’d still like to be a
ble to dock for a spell at the Jump Station. We’re dangerously low on polycrete foam, and we really could use some repairs.” said Max.

  “How long until we reach the Jump Gate?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow, around noon ship time.”

  “All right. Might I request a favour, Captain?”

  “Anything, Donny.”

  “I’d like to remain off-duty until we get to Gossamer. I’d like to make sure my head is on right when we get there.”

  “You need to talk about what went down on the Xerxes?” she had a concerned look.

  “Not at the moment, but it’s all still just a blur, for the most part. My brain hasn’t fully registered that I made it out.”

  “We’d still love to hear about it.” said Fel, “Whatever you feel up for sharing.”

  “I wouldn’t have made it back without Tac, that’s for sure. I relied a lot on him. Even if it was just someone to talk to. A lot of people died out there…”

  “Don’t blame yourself. Put that on the Corporate overlords who pushed them into it.” said Max.

  “Yeah, I’m trying. A lot of them were young people, just regular crew who got in the way. I had to put them down, fast. If I let even one of them get away early, I wouldn’t have had enough time to find the brain. Once the alarm was raised, every fight was brutal. I don’t even know how many people I killed to get the job done.”

  “Each death was put there by the Blade of Xerxes,” explained Crege, “because of their leaders’ choices. Kitrak had no choice. Kill or be killed. There is no dishonour in these deaths. A soldier fights for someone else’s ideals, a warrior fights for his loved ones.”