by Z D Dean
“What stuff do I need to grab?” he asked Ann as he scanned the room.
“All of it,” she responded with an unmistakable note of hunger in her voice. “The rectangles are storage devices and the spheres are processing units. With this added to my current capabilities, I will be the most advanced ship AI ever created.”
“Take it easy there, Hal,” he chuckled at his wit before continuing. “If you become all-powerful, what’s to stop you from going rogue and trying to kill me?”
He’d gotten a little gun shy about AIs after the fiasco with Mur, and he felt uneasy about giving Ann so much more power without fully understanding the capabilities she had.
“Nothing.”
The statement was as unsettling as it was short.
“But,” she continued, “I will pose this question: what stops you from turning on me? What stops Samix from turning on you? What stopped your men from turning on each other when you fought back on Earth?”
He thought of all the things driven into his skull while in the army. Words like duty, honor, country ran through his mind. He thought about all the ethics conversations he had had during his service. The more he examined all the things he thought prevented treachery, the more he realized they only dissuaded treachery. Those few words from Ann turned his entire perception of service upside down.
“Nothing,” he said dejectedly. “There was nothing that could stop any of those betrayals from happening if someone had their mindset to commit them.”
“Correct,” she said, her tone taking on a lecturing yet compassionate lilt. “All one can do is surround themselves with individuals who share the same goals. Every creature’s true goal is self-preservation. You don’t turn on me because you fear how I will react. Samix doesn’t turn on you because she fears your response. Your men didn’t turn on each other because they feared retribution from the others.
“You find yourself in a difficult position. You must get stronger to protect your species. If nothing changes, you will fail to defeat the Unity or the Galactic Domain. The quickest and only way to ensure the safety of your planet and your people is to make me stronger. We share, quite literally, a symbiotic relationship. As I strengthen, so do you and vice versa.”
He sat down, trying to wrap his head around the implications of Ann’s statement. He didn’t agree with her depiction of his men. Even knowing how crass they could be, he couldn’t accept that they were such basic creatures, risking their lives simply out of fear of retribution for disobedience. There had to be something bigger than that motivating them. Her statements did help him put his new reality into perspective. Even species advanced enough to travel the stars were driven by survival. Space was the wild west and power was the ultimate goal. With power, one could survive and even thrive.
“Very well. We work together to get stronger. I get to protect my species, and you get to bring the Groz back to prominence with humanity at the helm.”
He began filling the remaining space in his bags with the spherical processing units. It took fourteen trips, but he got all of the spoils back aboard the Ananna. The first trip took the longest because he had to identify the equipment he found before stowing it in the armory. He simply had to put the AI equipment on the deck of the ship and Ann would absorb and integrate it. With nothing left to pick from the old ship, he found himself in the forge room tinkering with his equipment. After adding mount points to his backplate and left thigh plate, he fabricated power cells for the rifle and pistol he had found.
“You do realize we will have to do things differently if we want the Groz to expand back into the stars,” he said quietly, knowing Ann would hear him.
“How so?” she asked as she appeared in the room with him.
“It seems like the Groz were only focused on power before they were wiped out,” he said, finally voicing a concern that had been bothering him since Ann had told him about the Groz. “That made them a threat to all other sentient species. If we don’t temper that lust for power with some ethics, we will be hunted and eradicated in the same way.”
“There is value in that line of thinking,” Ann said. “Continue to strive to get stronger, but do it in a way that minimizes our threat level. How do you suggest we accomplish this?”
“Right now, it’s easy. We only do bad things to bad people,” he said quickly. “As we get larger, it will become more difficult. Alliances will need to be made. We will need some to think of us as friends to prevent everyone from thinking we are enemies. But that is the future.”
His train of thought was interrupted by a new icon on his visor. It showed Samix’s name, her job on the ship, and her vitals in the top left corner of his field of view. He assumed it was one of the benefits of having a command-specific helmet.
“Once you are fully awake, come down to the armory,” he said to Samix through the comms in the helmet. “I have more presents.”
“Give me a minute,” she said. “That pairing was crazy and a little disorienting. I feel like I know everything about flying the ship, and I have more access to data than I’ve ever had before.”
“The ship is now running on its own power once again,” Ann chimed in as Zade turned his attention to gathering the armor and weapons he planned to give to his pilot. “All of the Unity technology is stored in the cargo bay. Samix will need some time to get familiar with piloting.”
Within a few minutes, Samix was standing beside him, hungrily eyeing the equipment laid out before them. After showing her how the weapons functioned, he helped her put on the new armor. He didn’t expect her to be in too many firefights, but with all of the modifications that could be done to the armor, he was sure a full set would help her become a better pilot. A freshly outfitted Samix followed him into the forge room where he explained what he knew about the piece of equipment. She had some residual charge in her helmet, and she began looking through the modifications she could make to her equipment. Zade headed to his quarters for a much-needed nap. He left Samix working at the forge, completely focused on the technology in front of her.
“Make sure she gets some flight time while I’m asleep,” he said to the ship as he began taking off his armor. “Maybe do some maneuverability stuff out here in the dark portion of the asteroid belt.”
∆∆∆
After scrolling through the forge lists and picking modifications she thought would be helpful, Samix took off her new armor and set it on the forge so it could begin updating. She sat down on a bench near the forge, and her mind began to wander.
After finding out what her father had done to her leadership, Samix had found herself adrift. She had always known that her father was focused on reputation and power, but she would have never expected him to kill for a perceived sleight. Once she saw his true colors, she knew she would have to get away from him. Sure, he and his wife had raised her after she lost her family, but he was no longer the man she thought he was.
She remembered thinking that the preparations to get herself off-planet would be relatively easy to complete. Without many friends, few even notice if she went missing. She had stopped by Zade’s ship a couple of times to discuss being part of the crew, but she was afraid of how he would respond to her. Once she worked up the nerve to talk to him, he was nowhere to be found. She figured Zade was out gathering supplies, intentionally avoiding her, or both. Regardless, she realized she would have to do something to get aboard without being noticed.
She had returned to the XES01 to finish some post-mission paperwork and think through how she would catch a flight with Zade when the opportunity presented itself. Mur notified her that Zade’s transport had arrived for his gym equipment. She quickly put on one of her envirosuits, and climbed into one of the crates before it was loaded onto the waiting transport. She didn’t expect to need the envirosuit’s functions since she was wearing it only to conceal herself.
As she felt the transport begin to move, she let out a nervous chuckle. She realized that if the transport was stopped and searched
by the port authority, she would be caught; that had ratcheted up her anxiety level. Opening the crate and finding her in an evirosuit would only be slightly less suspicious than finding her curled up naked inside. She had let out a sigh of relief when she heard the hanger doors sliding closed behind the transport.
Once she was aboard the new ship, she expected to hear footsteps in the cargo bay at any moment. Zade would surely want to set up the gym he had created as soon as it arrived, she thought to herself. When hours had passed, she realized the second major flaw in her plan: she couldn’t open the locked crate from the inside. As hours turned into days, she put herself in partial stasis to conserve both air and energy.
After what seemed like months of confinement, she felt the ship take off and start its arduous climb out of Xi’Ga’s atmosphere. Soon the buffeting of winds and atmospheric resistance stopped, signaling they had broken into orbit. The smooth sailing of space flight was quickly broken by what sounded like an impact on the side of the ship. Before she could even attempt to guess what had caused the impact, the ship began veering erratically. She assumed they were trying to avoid either debris or pursuers. She believed it was the latter, based on her father’s actions before she had stowed herself away. The only thing keeping her from being severely injured was the fact that the crates were clamped to the deck of the cargo bay and the fact that she had snugly wedged herself into one of them.
The ship shifted from the spastic flight to the eerie calm of a warp. Finally, she could hear the footsteps that she had expected days before. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the ensuing argument that would be had between her and Zade. When the lid to her hiding spot slid open, the creature that had discovered her was not the new captain as she had anticipated. Without warning, it reached down, grabbed her, and threw her into the bulkhead. Even with a protective helmet, the impact stunned her. She was terrified. Her plan had gone severely wrong. In her impact-addled mind, the only thing she could do was hold up her hands to placate the creature.
Undeterred by her gesture, it grabbed her by the neck and carried her towards the airlock. With nothing but panic in mind, she thrashed, kicked, and groped for anything to keep herself from being thrown into space. The thing threw her into the airlock before it decided to speak. When it did, she was taken aback almost as much as Zade was when she revealed herself.
He filled her in on the attack they had just survived, and she understood why he was suspicious of her. As he was leaving the cargo hold to return to his cabin, the AI warned her of a slight discomfort. Just as she had finished her warning, a bolt of electricity raced through her body. As Zade showered and rested, the ship AI showed Samix to her quarters. Ann stayed around for a while to answer questions, but she wouldn’t give any details about the capabilities of the ship or the strange armor Zade was wearing.
Samix tried to sleep to pass the time until she could talk to Zade again, but rest was elusive. Her mind raced. She knew Zade wasn’t the same as he had been on the XES01, and she feared the worst. She scared herself by imagining all of the ways her predicament could end. She figured that she had been locked in her quarters, but was happy to find the door unlatched. She quickly made her way to the galley for a cup of sloop and some food. As she was finishing her second cup, Zade walked in and sat across from her.
His guard was still up and she couldn’t blame him. Even though she planned on being completely honest and cooperative, she couldn’t handle how he was treating the conversation. He was treating her like he was interrogating some evil spy. She would not tolerate it. Not after everything they had been through together. After agreeing, she sat, absolutely transfixed, as he explained about the Groz and the technology they had run away in.
If she thought she wanted to be part of the crew before that revelation, it was nothing compared to how she felt about joining after. She knew, if Zade would have her, she could use the formerly unknown tech to make a real difference to people. She could save people like the young girl she once was. He seemed to accept her sincere desire to help people, but his eyes betrayed a bit of suspicion. He hadn’t accepted her back with open arm, and yet, she was making progress. He no longer wanted to space her.
Her first test, both in piloting and ability to take orders, happened when they made it to the ancient Groz ship. She stood, just as awestruck as him, watching the monstrosity move past the windows as Ann scanned it. Zade wanted her to stay aboard the Ananna and keep an eye out while he went spelunking on the abandoned carrier. Her first instincts were to argue, making the point that they could complete the salvage faster with two sets of hands. Instead, she simply acknowledged his command and took a seat in the captain’s chair.
The wait on the ship was boring. After a while, she tried to raise the landing party of one via comms, but because he was so deep in the ship, she couldn’t reach him. She dozed off after checking ship readouts for the hundredth time. She didn’t know how long it had been when she finally heard his voice came across the radio. Even though he had the AI at his disposal, he wanted her to fly the ship around and scoop up the precious forge so it could be installed on their ship. She thought it had to be a test, but excitement overcame her nerves as she strapped herself into the pilot seat and initiated the decoupling procedures.
By the time she saw the break in the fuselage of the larger ship, she was sweating bullets. It was unfair of him to toss her right into the flames, but it showed that he trusted her to get the job done. All she had to do was prove that trust well-founded. She dropped the cargo bay floor as soon as she got a visual on the forge as it gently floated away from the large ship. Ann was helping her with spot corrections based on the size and shape of the new ship, but it was up to her to calculate the most effective flight path. She aligned the ship, so it was perpendicular to the flight path of the forge and aimed slightly ahead of it. As she closed with the equipment, and it disappeared under her ship, she held her breath. A single solid thud signaled that the forge had been grabbed by the grav-plates on the ramp. She closed the ramp and had Ann navigate the ship back to their docking point.
She pumped her fist when she saw the pressurization light for the cargo bay turn from red to a glorious green. After unclipping her harness, she headed back to start installing the device. If it was as powerful as both Zade and Ann made it sound, the sooner it was online the better. Ann would have to help her with the specifics, but she prided herself on being willing to work on anything she flew on. Zade had informed her that he would be checking out the front of the ship, and although she didn’t know how long he would be, she’d hoped it would be enough time to get the forge up and running.
The forge looked much larger in the cargo bay than it did when she saw it floating in the void. As she circled the device, Ann explained how it should be oriented and gave her some basic information about the forge. Samix asked Ann to control the strength of the grav-plating while Samix pushed the forge into the room designed for it. The most nerve-wracking part of the whole install was when she had to climb under the multi-ton device to connect it to the ship. She still felt as gun-shy as Zade around AIs after what Mur had done to her team. Once she was in position, Ann turned the gravity off in the room allowing her to climb underneath it to make the connections.
As she was finishing clamping the forge in place, Zade checked in to let her know he was headed back with some gear. Once he was aboard, she watched, baffled, as the floor flowed apart to accept the items that he had brought back for Ann. After the AI equipment was offloaded, they headed to the forge where he began examining the remainder of the gear he had brought back. Little did she know that the helmet he withdrew from his bag would forever change her life and her perception of spaceflight.
After he identified that the helmet was for the pilot of a small or medium-sized ship, most likely from one of the fighters on the ship, he offered it to her. She could see that the ugly black and green helmet had a myriad of different lenses across the faceplate. After instructions from Ann, sh
e popped it open and headed for her quarters. After closing it around her head, making sure not to trap any hair in the seam, she laid down and waited. Nothing happened. She was simply surrounded by the darkness of the armor.
At some point, the surrounding darkness began to lighten and she could see symbols appearing across her visor. As soon as the helmet paired enough to allow her to see out of it, she noticed that her field of view was significantly larger than the exterior lenses would have suggested. Unbeknownst to her, the pairing process was exactly like the one underwent by Zade just days earlier. Instead of dreams revolving around combat, the common theme of hers was piloting. Memories of flight school at the Academe were paired with scenes from Groz flights. Within a few hours, she was fully paired with her new pilot helmet.
Zade contacted her as soon as her eyes snapped open. The information fed to her oversensitive mind from the helmet almost caused her to overload as she tried to sit up. She instinctively knew everything about piloting the strange new ship she found herself aboard. As she laid back, trying to gather herself, she focused on clearing her mind. As she focused, informational readouts on her visor began to fade and disappear. Once she felt she had the situation under control, she opened her eyes. Her visor had cleared of all but a few important readouts about the ship.
She hustled to the armory, as per Zade’s instructions, where she found him standing in front of the armorer’s table. His plain under suit had been covered with pieces of black armor. Spread out on the table were matching pieces of armor for her. They were all basic components but were probably better than anything the Unity provides to even the most elite of their troopers. After he showed her how to fasten it all to her under suit, he headed off to his quarters for some rest. She noticed that he had been sleeping quite a bit since he had gotten the new ship, and based on what she had just experienced, deduced it was because of the pairing process with the Groz tech.