The Empty Warrior

by J. D. McCartney

  “Captain, your presence is requested on the bridge,” a feminine voice intoned politely, breaking into his reverie. It was Endurant, sticking to protocol as computer minds always did.

  Mult sighed, momentarily thinking of ordering the ship to proceed with the braking maneuvers and the drop into sub-light without him, but then thought better of it. Endurant would file a report and the company would schedule a hearing and he would probably end up with a reprimand as he was in no way ill or incapacitated. All for not wanting to watch the ship perform a maneuver it had accomplished flawlessly a thousand times before.

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and placed his feet squarely on the thickly carpeted deck. He was for a moment still loath to leave his quarters. Instead he rubbed the three-day growth of stubble on his chin, thinking that he should shave before he left the depot to go home to his wife.

  “On my way,” he finally replied in a tone sullen with reluctance. He pulled on his boots, felt them tighten snugly around his feet, and stood; scanning the room for his uniform coat, and not seeing it. He walked to the closet and applied a bit of pressure to the door with his fingertips. It slid soundlessly to one side, but only to reveal that the sought-after garment was not within.

  “Endurant,” he asked, “where’s my coat?”

  “Specify,” came the curt, yet pleasant, reply.

  Damn fool ship, he thought. What other coat would I be looking for to report to the bridge in? But machines were machines and they knew only what one said, not what one meant. So Mult hid his annoyance as best as he was able. “My blue uniform coat,” he said evenly.

  “It is draped across the back of one of the two armchairs at the dining room table,” the voice said. Sometimes, as now, Mult almost got the feeling that there was a hint of peevishness in the ship’s replies to his more petty inquiries, but he knew very well that it was only his imagination. Endurant was not programmed to mimic emotional responses. She was built for commerce. Beyond the comforts of the crew’s and passengers’ quarters there was no unnecessary extravagance on board. That knowledge, however, did not make the constant and aggravating perfection of Endurant’s computer brain any easier to stomach.

  Mult shuffled indolently into the dining area. There, just as Endurant had asserted, was his coat. “I see it,” he said as cheerily as he was able. “Thank you.” His gratitude was false, of course, as it pained him to be civil to the ship. He would much rather have grumbled something uncharitable except for the fear that it would be overheard and understood.

  “You’re quite welcome,” Endurant replied in its pleasant and yet somehow infuriating tone.

  Mult most times suffered from a peculiar compulsion when shipboard, which as each cruise proceeded became progressively harder for him to contain. With each conversation between himself and Endurant he wished more fervently to simply scream at the blasted vessel; to tell it in no uncertain terms to take its omniscient precision and stick it up its star drive. He would have been elated to find something, anything; that the ship knew nothing about. He was Captain of this tow, but most times it seemed that was true only on paper. Endurant was really the one running the show, and it irked him mightily that not only was there so little for him to do, but also that the ship invariably acted so damned superior in every interaction that he had with it. All the while he was stuck doing those petty tasks still deemed insignificant enough to be left to a ship’s captain to undertake. Just once he would like to feel free to give full vent to his feelings in the matter, to tell the ship exactly how he felt.

  But he was certain that some company hack witnessing such an outburst after the fact would surely consider it a sign of mental illness, and as one never knew just how much of Endurant’s logs the company examined while the ship was in port or exactly what might be forwarded to the attention of some high muckety-muck, he always stifled any acerbic responses that came to mind. Besides, it certainly couldn’t hurt his career to be polite to corporate property; as far as he had heard a little brown nosing never worked to anyone’s detriment with the suits. So he swallowed his pride on this occasion as he had on all those previous and said nothing as he slipped into his coat and buttoned his shirt.

  Determined not to ask for help again, he made his way back to the bedroom to find his short-billed cap. After a somewhat lengthy search, he found it lying in a nightstand drawer. What had possessed him to place it there he could not say, but at least he had located it without assistance. He reached for it, donned it, and turned to look in the mirror.

  Not bad, he thought. He looked the part of a captain; a wizened spacefarer, tall and erect, with a piercing gaze and a high forehead. He leaned in toward the mirror adjusting the cap, cocking it slightly to one side, just for effect. Even the nascent beard he sported added to his persona, giving him an olden maritime look—a look of authority. He was a bit pale though, even for someone on a deep space mission. No matter. He would have plenty of time to spend lying on the beach once he returned to Keo Rocca.

  Setting his jaw in what he considered to be his steeliest expression, he marched into the foyer, saying “Unlock entry door, please,” as he went. At his approach the door slid to one side and he stepped out into the corridor.

  Once there his nose wrinkled involuntarily as the floral scent of his quarters gave way to the ozone-like electrical smell that permeated most of the rest of the ship. He found the odor to be most unpleasant.

  Not bothering with the lift as his quarters, like those of the others on the command crew, were close to the bridge; he turned and made his way carefully down the narrow passageway. Long experience of moving his lanky frame through the claustrophobic confines of space vessels had engendered the caution that now burdened his movements. He was particularly wary of low hanging conduits and fixtures as Endurant’s corps of autonomous repair robots was constantly upgrading the ship, and one was never sure when some new protuberance would appear on a bulkhead or ceiling to do damage to an inattentive crewperson’s head. And it would not do to arrive on the bridge with a welt laced across the side of his face.

  When he at last stepped through the hatch that led onto the bridge, he was pleased to see that both of the other members of the command crew were already present. Hyra Cofi sat wedged into her navcom station, a look of total ennui etched across her mien. There was nothing for her to do or even monitor as long as the ship’s velocity remained above the light barrier. Absently twirling her short black hair between the fingers of her right hand, she stared vacantly at the blank screens of her station and waited. Mult made an unspoken bet with himself that she saw as little need to be on the bridge at this moment as he did.

  He bent over and leaned into her station. “Good day, Hyra,” he said, smiling. She started slightly, as if Mult had snatched her away from a pleasant daydream, but quickly recovered.

  “Good day, Captain,” she replied, meeting his eyes and then looking sheepishly away. “I was just… thinking,” she said.

  Mult had shipped out with Hyra before and knew that she brought along a lover whenever possible. For whatever reason, she was alone this time out, and he felt sure that her mind had been fixated on the imminent reunion with whoever had been sharing her bed prior to the ship’s departure.

  “Not a problem,” he said. “But we will be going sub-light momentarily, so let’s try to concentrate on the business at hand, shall we?”

  It bothered him a bit to be so hypocritical, but his captain act would at least make him look professional and competent in the logs.

  He ducked out of Hyra’s post without waiting for an answer and turned to face the payload station where Jarad Mustacka sat. He found the man surprisingly busy, his monitors lit with columns of moving numbers while he spoke somewhat urgently into his intraship com link. Besides five non-company passengers, there were only a half dozen other people on board—all engineers, all of whose stations were buried deep within the bowels of Endurant. It was their job to watch over the computers and the robots. If Mustac
ka was on the line to one of them, and he almost certainly was, it might be of import.

  “Trouble, Jarad?” Mult asked.

  Mustacka glanced up at him, shaking his head. “I don’t think so,” he replied. “We’ve got a higher than normal temperature reading in one section of barge forty-eight. Probably just a bad sensor. I just checked with engineering, and they told me Endurant had already put some repair bots on it. There should be something more from them any moment now.”

  “Well, let me know if there’s anything to it,” Mult said, relieved. With the exception of a few artifacts, they were hauling only raw ores this trip. There was nothing in any of the barges, or at least nothing listed on any of the manifests, that was either sensitive to environmental changes or capable of producing heat, so there was very little to worry about in that regard. He left Mustacka to deal with the anomaly and continued up the short, narrow aisle that split the bridge into two sections of jumbled electronic gear. At the end of the aisle, the most forward spot in the compartment, was his station—the captain’s chair.

  He reached it, turned with as much aplomb as he was able, and sat down, sinking slowly into the heavily padded, leather-covered cushions. He nonchalantly spun the chair around until he was facing the bow. His com link hung from the console to his right. In rote imprinted motions born of a thousand repetitions, his hand grasped it, hooked it over his ear, and pressed the tiny speaker into his auditory canal, all without a glance or a conscious thought. He adjusted the slender wand that held the microphone until it was directly before his lips and then spoke. “Captain to crew. Communications check. Navcom?”

  “Ready.” Hyra’s reply seemed alert enough now.

  “Payload?”

  “Check,” replied Mustacka. “And I’ve got something of forty-eight. It was a bad sensor. The bots are replacing it now. If that doesn’t correct the problem I’ll get back to you.”

  “Please do, Jarad,” Mult responded in his best captain’s voice. “Engineering?”

  “Receiving,” came the short but friendly reply. The voice was that of the chief engineer, Gunter Tock. He was a terribly efficient officer, approaching retirement and long past overweight. It was rumored that, due to his multitudinous excesses, he went through bodies faster than any crewmember in the corporate fleet. Mult was sure the man’s exuberant lifestyle hurt the company’s bottom line, health expenses and insurance costs being what they were; but he was simply too competent, and too stubborn as well, to be disciplined into a more profit-conscious lifestyle, and he certainly could not be let go. He was one of the best the company had, and both they and he knew it.

  Any ship on which he served he considered his personal property, and he was never too shy to give an executive a piece of his mind any time he thought the powers that be were skimping on maintenance or in any way neglecting the general welfare of the ships that comprised the company’s fleet. That in itself was enough to endear him to Mult, and over the years the two had forged a fast friendship. They shipped out together whenever possible.

  “So how’s my girl, Gunter?” he chided.

  “My girl,” Tock replied, “is doing quite well. Her engines are all humming sweetly, well within nominal limits. The robotic contingent is operating at 100 percent efficiency. And the network is running smooth as silk. Apparently her mind is totally uncluttered. Deceleration and orbital insertion should be a breeze. Everything’s a go down here.”

  “What about that sensor in barge forty-eight?” Mult asked.

  “Yeah, we saw that. She took care of it though. The new readings just came in a few seconds ago, and there’s no temperature variance now.” Even through the com link, Mult could hear the pride in the man’s voice.

  “Good job, chief. When we hit the depot, the drinks are on me.”

  Crews never went directly home from a ship. Once Endurant was ensconced in high orbit, a company shuttle would be dispatched with a harbor pilot and a fresh crew to oversee the barge disbursements and the space-docking of Endurant for her service checks. When the shuttle departed it would take the mission crew with it, carrying them en masse to the nearest orbital depot. From there they would each catch different flights that would take them closer to their respective destinations. But there was generally a long wait for even the first of the departures, and Mult knew how Tock liked to relax after a voyage. As soon as his bags were off the shuttle and stowed, he was certain make a beeline for the nearest bar.

  “I hear that, Cap,” Tock answered with his usual informality. “And I’ll hold you to it, too. Engineering out.” Mult smiled to himself at the thought of a little drunkenness with the Chief. His wife wouldn’t like it if she found out, but then Keo Rocca was a long way from orbit. Even if she happened to make a careful check of the family expenditures, he could always claim to have been entertaining the entire crew, and he could sleep off any aftereffects from the binge on the many layovers and flights it would take to finally deliver him to Kuthboca station, where she and the children would be waiting to take him home.

  “Endurant,” he asked, “how long before the drop into sub-light?”

  “Twelve minutes, forty-six seconds,” was the unruffled reply.

  Before he could acknowledge, Tock’s voice was back in his ear. “Captain, we’ve encountered somewhat of a deviation down here. It seems we’re pulling a tiny bit more G-force than we should be at this point, and Endurant says it’s getting progressively worse.”

  “What’s causing it?” Mult asked.

  “I’m not sure. The diagnostics show no problems, and she’s nailing the deceleration curve right down the line. I would hardly call it serious, but something’s not right. I’d bet a week’s pay it’s some kind of instrumentality glitch, but I can’t tell you why Endurant hasn’t found the fault. I suggest we send some bots back in the barge line, out of the dampening field. They can use a gravimeter from there. Then we’ll know if these readings are real or not.”

  Despite the chief’s unperturbed assessment, Mult felt a chill creep beneath his ribs, filling his chest with unease. An involuntary shiver shot up his spine. Whenever there was anything wrong, the ship always knew what the problem was. The fact that this time she did not was disconcerting, to say the least. Mult mentally took back his wish that Endurant should be mystified by something. Now was not the time.

  “Do it,” he ordered the engineer, “but do it quickly. We aren’t inserting around some outland colony. There’s too much traffic here for the damn ship to be screwing up.”

  “Aye, Cap,” Tock replied laconically. “Engineering out.”

  Mult waited, staring into space and again absently kneading the stubble on his chin between thumb and forefinger. In a short time he found himself wanting the results from the robots at once, but he resisted the urge to bother the chief prematurely. He told himself that Tock would get back to him as soon as he knew anything and besides, it certainly would not be good form for the captain to appear ill at ease over something that was almost certainly utterly inconsequential.

  But despite that reassuring rationalization, he began to feel a palpable wrongness within the ship. Even through the dampening field and the vast superstructure that lay between where he sat and engineering; something, not a vibration really, but something perhaps akin to that, radiated from the deck plating into the soft soles of his boots, then up his legs and into his breast, where it planted a cold dagger of fear in the pit of his heart. The engines simply felt wrong. It was as if the ship itself lay trembling in terror at something unknown and fast approaching.

  Finally Tock’s gravelly voice grated against his eardrum, surprising him even as he waited and causing him to sit suddenly more erect.

  “I have the results from the bots, Cap. I was wrong. These readings are real. We’re definitely experiencing more gravity than we should be, and the gap between what we’re getting and what’s nominal is definitely increasing, and increasing more quickly the closer in we get.”

  Tock advanced no further th
eory, explanation, or solution. That was very unlike him, and the idea that there was something happening on approach that neither his ship nor his engineering staff understood instantly catapulted Mult’s mood from simple unease into unequivocal consternation.

  It took him less than a second to come to a decision. “Override the approach program,” he ordered. “I want this ship sub-light in two minutes.”

  “Aye, sir. But that’ll be hard on the drives and really ramp up the G’s when all we’re liable to gain from it is a long glide into orbit.” It was clear Tock did not like mistreating the engines without more substantial proof that it was a necessity.

  Mult, however, had no such qualms. “I don’t care, Chief,” he snapped autocratically. “Just do it!” He had no wish to pull rank on his friend, but something was not right, he had no idea what was happening, and he was not in the mood for any arguments about what to do next.

  Instinctively, he whipped his chair around to face aft and immediately afterward was pressed more deeply into its padding as the inertial dampeners struggled to compensate against the suddenly increasing deceleration. Normality was restored momentarily and he spun his chair back into his station. The chief engineer’s voice was already in his earpiece.

  “New parameters are engaged. Sub-light speed in one minute, fifty four seconds. Stress levels are high, but manageable. She’s handling it as if she just came out of the yard, sir.”

  “Very good, Chief,” Mult said. “Endurant, start a countdown at sub-light plus twenty seconds.” The ship acknowledged and he waited, continuing to nervously squeeze the skin beneath the whiskers of his unshaven chin. When the ship finally spoke he was yet again startled.