For a long moment, he considered the few alternatives open to him, then methodically erased from his personal database all records of the face he had seen.
* * * *
Although his enthusiasm for the project was sorely lacking, Kajic resumed his search. Unsure which he feared most — seeing the 'ghost' again, or not seeing it — he flicked aimlessly through the warren, wishing he had never started in the first place.
Hours passed uneventfully. He had thought, once, that all his problems would end when he had satisfied his priorities. Yet, in its own way, the return trip was turning out to be worse than the mission itself. Even disregarding the nameless doubts, the new priority kept his mind from wandering as freely as he liked, and the specter of his own possible fallibility, therefore, refused to dissipate.
Still, he would be home soon. Szubetka Base was located near an anchor point in deep space, so approach time was kept to a minimum. Within a handful of hours, if all went well, his mission would be at an end. A successful end, too.
And then ... ?
Having demonstrated that the ship/captain principle was sound, the Dato Bloc's greatest engineers would bend their minds — and those belonging to their new captains — to the task of making an entire fleet of similar vessels. A superfleet of mind-machine gestalts, enough perhaps to give the Presidium an edge over their traditional enemies. When that came to pass, Kajic would finally have like minds with which to associate. It was comforting to know that there would soon be others who could share his experiences.
But this led to a more disturbing thought. Progress was inevitable. He would remain in the service of the Presidium only as long as he was an advantage, not a hindrance. What would happen when he had been superseded? Routine missions? Cargo hauls for the Presidium? Or worse, a civilian fleet? With his body suspended in its life support capsule, his existence could be extended indefinitely, at a price, but would anyone wish to do so? Disembodied, essentially if not literally, he was nothing without his ship. How long before they wanted the Ana Vereine back, to give it a new captain ... ?
Kajic's sense of imminent victory suddenly faded. He was a tool. And the trouble with intelligent tools, he knew, was that they can never be truly trusted — no more than any other Human. Because he could be controlled, his future held a lifetime of priorities, nagging duties, and self-doubt. He would never be truly free until the day he died.
Yellow alert suddenly sounded throughout the ship, warning the crew of imminent departure. His priorities began to irritate again, an unsubtle reminder that he was neglecting his duty. With a sigh of relief, he halted the search of the warren and sent himself to the bridge.
His second in command awaited him, looking as tired as he felt.
"How long, Atalia?"
"Ten minutes, sir."
"Any problems?"
"None, sir. Crew and ship are in perfect shape."
"Excellent." Kajic smiled; despite the misgivings he still harboured, he was relieved on that score. He no longer suspected that the 'ghost' fiasco had been her doing; she had been as genuinely worried and had worked as hard to remedy the situation as he. If the crew had at last settled down and forgotten the incidents, whatever their cause, then perhaps she deserved much of the credit.
The matter of the kill-switch and the back door still had to be resolved, however, but he was prepared to admit that she had done her duty there, too — and done it well. Perhaps too well, at times.
"Paladin and Galloglass will precede us to Szubetka Base," he said. "Barring unforseen complications, we will follow five minutes after. Then Lansequenet two minutes after that."
"Yes, sir." She snapped a formal salute and turned away.
On the main screen, the four green dots of his small command rapidly approached the departure point. He watched them idly, letting himself be an observer rather than an active participant. His crew could handle the jump through the anchor point without his help. For the pilots and astrogators of a warship, even one as new as the Ana Vereine, jumping to hyperspace to achieve speeds he could only begin to comprehend was all in a day's work. His main role was to decide when and where to go; all the rest — the vectors, coordinates, and space-distorts — he left to the specialists.
If he desired, however, he could interface with the ship's main computers to boost his processing power, and thereby participate in the mystery. But sometimes it was better simply to watch, to be awed by the forces that people, with all-too-mortal minds, had harnessed.
Bubbles of folded space enclosed the two ships, distorting the light shining through them and making distant stars balloon and fade. Traceries of energy danced along the raiders' hulls, waving like hairs from the points of weapons and casting vast sheets along flat surfaces. Local space seemed crowded, for an instant, as the raiders' imminent supralight departure echoed back through time and collided with the present, cluttering the area with a near-infinite number of phantom ships.
An unexpected prompt sounded in Kajic's mind the very instant the two ships disappeared. Filled with a sudden sense of alarm, he turned his attention inward to see what had happened.
At first he was relieved. Nothing had gone wrong at all; the ship's computers had simply finished the search he had requested. But then, scanning the information that the computer had retrieved on the ship's 'ghost', his uncertainty and dread returned.
"Galloglass and Paladin have jumped successfully," the telemetry officer reported, when the data collected by hull sensors had been analysed.
Kajic waved distractedly at his second in command for her to give the order.
"Commence countdown," she said. "The Ana Vereine will jump in four minutes."
"All systems green, Commander," telemetry announced.
"Good." Then, perhaps sensing that something was amiss, Makaev approached the podium. "Captain, is everything in order?"
"I'm not sure." Kajic called into being a window in his hologram, not caring that it opened where his chest normally was. "Do you recognise this face?"
Makaev studied the picture for a moment, then shook her head. "No, sir. Should I?"
"No, I suppose not. I certainly didn't."
Makaev waited a moment, then prompted, "Sir, I'm not sure I follow — ?"
"His name is Adoni Cane. Or rather, it was. According to shipboard records, he disappeared over two thousand years ago after ordering an attack on a civilian colony that resulted in the death of nearly four million people."
She glanced at the picture again. "Forgive me for saying this, sir, but: so what?"
"I took his picture this afternoon, down in the warren." Kajic bestowed a wry smile upon his holographic image. "At least when we have ghosts, we have ghosts with class!"
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, uncertainly: "I see, sir."
"What's the matter with you?" He leaned closer, bringing the picture in his chest with him. "I've found our ghost! I don't know what any of it means, but at least we know who it is."
Finally she moved. With a disapproving frown, she raised her eyes to those of his hologram and said evenly:
"What ghost?"
He stared at her, dumbfounded. He wasn't sure exactly how he had expected Makaev to respond, but certainly not like this. Not with blank incomprehension.
Before he could reply, the red alert warning sounded. The Ana Vereine was about to jump. Filled with a sudden and overwhelming fear that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong, he turned to face the bridge crew.
"No — wait!" he cried.
return to Szubetka Base
Fighting his built-in prompts every step of the way, he sent his mind deep into the ship's programming, trying to halt the ship's departure.
"We can't — !"
priority gold-one
But it was already too late.
With a soundless rip, the Ana Vereine tore through the fabric of the anchor point and entered hyperspace.
* * * *
"What's /
/ happening
/
/ to /
/ me /
/ ... ?"
Kajic flailed in the darkness, lost in a void impossibly dark and empty. This was no ordinary jump, part of him realised. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He could sense nothing at all around or inside him. There was only the blackness, and the voice — a voice that shouldn't be there —
The voice burned into him like a brand, the words stabbing at the very core of his soul.
Kajic suddenly realised what had happened: he had broken down at last. First the mysterious glitch in continuity, then the matter of the 'ghost' that Makaev had known nothing about, and now this. The strain had finally been too much for him.
In a way, the knowledge came to him as a relief. What point was there in fighting madness?
Then —
Light.
He opened his eyes — or attempted to. Eyes? No; that was an old habit, one he'd thought long forgotten. He tried again, this time sending the impulse through the proper channels.
"Translation completed," said a voice. Memory attached it a label: telemetry.
priority gold-one
He was on the bridge of the Ana Vereine.
"Atalia?" He felt his hologram fraying around the edges as he tried to regain his grip on reality. He remembered something about voices, but nothing definite. His memory of the moments preceding their arrival was hazy.
"Yes, Captain?" His second in command stood beside him, watching him.
"Weren't we ... ?" He felt dizzy for a moment, but fought the sensation. "Before the ... " He could remember nothing that had happened during the jump. "Weren't we talking about something?"
"I don't think so, sir." She leaned closer. "Is anything wrong?"
He pulled himself together at last. "No, nothing." He didn't want to ask about jump time; instead he glanced at the main screen, which showed him nothing at all. "We've arrived?"
"Residual effects clearing," said telemetry. "Local space will reconfigure in sixty seconds."
"Very good. Contact the commanders of Paladin and Galloglass to confirm our safe arrival."
"Yes, sir."
As the telemetry officer went about the task, Makaev leaned unnecessarily close to his image. "Are you certain you're feeling all right, sir?"
He glanced sharply at her, suppressing any hint of confusion in both his voice and image. "Are you questioning my competence, Commander?" he asked coldly.
She took a step away from his image, her face flushed. "No, I — "
"Sir," said telemetry. "I am having difficulty contacting Galloglass and Paladin."
"What sort of difficulty?"
"They're not responding at all, sir. I am picking up some coded traffic, but it's not our code."
"Whose, then?" asked Kajic.
"It's not our code, sir," telemetry repeated with a shrug. "I am unable to translate it."
Beside him, Makaev stiffened. "An ambush!" she hissed.
"Impossible," Kajic said. "Only a fool would attempt an attack anywhere near Szubetka Base. How long until those screens are clear?"
A pause, then: "Fifteen seconds, sir."
"Maybe then we'll know what the hell is going on." Kajic glanced again at his second.
priority gold-one
"Ten seconds, sir."
"I have a bad feeling about this, sir," said Makaev without moving her eyes from the screen. "To have something go wrong now — "
"A little faith, Commander," he said, and heard his own unease creep into his voice. "Everything will be fine."
"Three seconds, sir."
"It has to be." This, barely a whisper to himself.
"Two seconds," said telemetry. "One second, and — we are scanning local space now, sir."
Kajic watched anxiously as the screen began to fill with data: visual light first, followed by the more exotic spectra, then by particle sources. All he saw in the initial moments of the scan were stars; only later did nearer, more discrete energy sources appear.
Three ships, not two, appeared in the void, and one very large installation less than a million kilometres away. Two of the ships were angling in toward it on docking approach; the third was leaving, arcing up and away from the Ana Vereine's position. As more detail flooded in, Kajic made out the nestled shapes of ships already docked — hundreds of them, all angular and angry, sharp-pointed sticks to hurl at the indifferent stars.
"Those aren't our ships," he said, his mind's eye narrowing.
"And that's not Szubetka Base!" rasped Makaev.
A chill enveloped Kajic.
"No," he said, his voice sounding hollow even to his ears. "No!"
"That's COE Intelligence HQ!" Makaev turned to face him, shock naked in her eyes. "What the hell have you done?"
Kajic reeled under the force of her attack. "I — "
"You incompetent fool!" She whirled away from him and darted for her station.
"Atalia!" he snapped, desperate to regain some control over his escalating panic and confusion. "What are you doing?"
"I'm assuming command!" she shouted back. "You have betrayed us!" Then, over her shoulder at the rest of the crew: "Someone get us out of here while I deal with him!"
Even as her words reached him via the microphone at her console, even as her face loomed large in the camera facing her chair, even as she reached for the twin datalinks waiting like snake mouths to accept her hands — he realised what she was about to do.
He froze, unsure whether he had the right to stop her.
priority gold-one
By the time he realised he couldn't, it was too late anyway. The commands input via her datalinks were already being processed.
priority override sequence 'Kill-Switch' #1143150222
He screamed, feeling the words cut into his mind, tearing him apart
disable core command
piece by tiny piece
disable ancillary processors
flaying him
disable support memory
layer by layer
disable MA/AM interface
stripping him
disable primary database
of his delusions
disable cognitive simulators
of his command
disable life-support
of him
disable
of him
disable
of him
disable ...
* * * *
When it had finally finished — then, and only then, was he free.
18
DBMP Ana Vereine
'954.10.38 EN
1595
Consciousness parted the thick, dark clouds as Roche opened her eyes. She found herself in a fairly small room, one decorated solely in gunmetal grey. The only piece of furniture it contained was the bed she lay upon. The single door to the room was shut, and the absence of any handle on her side suggested that it was intended to stay that way.
A cell of some sort, she guessed. And judging by the compact surgeon strapped to her chest, obviously a hospital cell in particular. But where?
When she tried to sit up, a familiar weight attached to her left arm dragged her back.
t respond, so she hefted the valise and gave it a brief shake.
Again, silence.
"Hello?" she called, aloud this time. Seeing stereoscopic cameras watching from opposite corners of the room, she removed the surgeon and stepped toward one of them. The unblinking lenses followed her every movement. "Is anyone there?"
When the echo of her voice had faded, silence reclaimed the room as impenetrably as before. There was no sound beyond the cell, either. To all intents and purposes, the ship she was in — she could tell that much from the vagaries of artificial g — appeared completely dead.
But until someone came to talk to her, she had no way to tell where she was. The surgeon looked the same as they did everywhere, the standard Eckandi design found on that side of the galaxy. The room itself could have been on any Pristine vessel, except — she sniffed the air — it smelled new. How many recently built ships were there in either the Commonwealth or the Dato Bloc? And why would they send one to collect a single AI?
What had she missed?
She shook her head. She didn't have enough information to guess what had happened to her. And the last thing she remembered was the battle on the top of the MiCom building: the flyers, the mortar bombs, the Dato trooper, and —
Cane.
The return of that memory stung. One hand rose automatically to touch her temple where he had struck her unconscious. No pain. No pain anywhere, in fact: in her ribs, her shoulder, or her recently shaved head. Physically, she felt better than she had for days.
After a few minutes, something finally broke the deathly silence. She heard, distant at first, but growing nearer by the second, the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside her cell. Two people, she guessed, marching in perfect time.
Seconds later, the door of the cell hissed smoothly open. A pair of Dato troopers stood outside, framed in the doorway like statues. Reflections glistened disconcertingly across their grey, ceramic shells as, in unison, they took one step forward into the cell. Two black faceplates stared impassively at her as she waited for their next move. Neither one, she noted, was armed.
"You are to come with us, Commander," one of the troopers said, the voice issuing a little too loudly from the suit's massive chest.
Evergence: The Prodigal Sun Page 32