“Are you even listening to me, Noah?” the mayor demanded.
“Hmmm?” I inquired.
Jean-Claude looked to Camille at my side. “Is there a reason why the captain is not taking this seriously, Commander?”
“I’m sure the captain has reasons for everything he does, your Worship,” Camille offered, solicitously.
Jean-Claude looked at me again and then leaned over the desk. He hadn’t sat down yet. He’d been looming. Pacing. Hands waving and mouth spewing. For a normally serene person, he’d been exceptionally riled.
And I’d ignored practically everything he’d had to say.
I cringed internally and forcefully pushed the delicious, visceral memories of kissing Camille away. I knew the chief. If she thought for a moment that I couldn’t do my job because I was distracted by her body, she’d deny me her body. And wouldn’t that be a shame?
“My apologies, Jean-Claude,” I said, sitting forward and meeting his accusatory glare head on. “It’s been an unusual morning, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Of course I’m aware!” he exclaimed. “I’ve had three hundred messages from concerned passengers over the past four hours. Not to mention, my gel wall has been reconfigured to show a picture of the Rhine Falls.”
I arched my brow at the man.
“Really? That is concerning. The Rhine Falls and not the Trümmelbach?”
Jean-Claude threw his hands up in the air and started pacing again. While his back was turned to me, Camille swatted me on the arm and offered her own glare for good measure.
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair and then leaned back in my chair and said, “Vela, identify yourself to the mayor, please.”
The walls pulsed an ice blue, rather like the blue of the Trümmelbach glacial Falls in Switzerland. It was seriously creepy how the AI did that.
“Mayor Lambert,” Vela said through the invisible speakers in the gel ceiling. “There is no need for concern. Everything is in order.”
“What…” Jean-Claude said, turning around and piercing me with a narrow-eyed look, “was that?”
“I am Vela,” Vela said. “The artificial intelligence now residing inside the Chariot’s computer systems.”
The mayor reached out to the chair opposite my desk and fell into it; almost missing the damn thing. He looked ghostly white and about as bad as to be expected.
“It’s true then,” he whispered. “I’d heard, but…You don’t ever think…How did this happen?”
“The solar flare that took out the vessel Vela forced the AI Vela to find an alternate place to call home,” I said.
Jean-Claude stared at me for a long time and then said, “Do you have any Williamine?”
I nodded and reached into the bottom drawer of my desk, pulling out the last unfinished bottle Jean-Claude had brought with him. I pulled out three shot glasses and filled them to the rim, and then handed them out.
Camille held hers and stared straight ahead as if she had no desire to consume it. Jean-Claude stared into his as if it held the answers to the universe. I downed mine.
This had been one hell of a day.
“So, now we have an artificial intelligence inside the Chariot’s computer systems, keeping us all in line,” I announced.
Maybe that hadn’t been the correct thing to say because Jean-Claude downed his drink, reached over and grabbed the bottle of Williamine and then topped it up for round two.
He drank that also and then said, “So, are we an Anderson Universal vessel now?”
The liqueur suddenly felt like it might come back up my gullet. Sweat beaded my brow. My hands trembled until I got myself under control by force of will alone.
“Jesus,” I muttered, wiping a palm down my face as if I could wipe the realisation away that easily. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Did the presence of an Anderson Universal AI override the ESA’s ownership of the vessel?
“Well, I suggest you do,” Jean-Claude offered. “Anderson Universal always had a high opinion of itself. You can’t expect their AIs to be any different. Has it demanded anything yet?”
This just got better and better.
“I am not demanding anything, Mayor Lambert,” Vela said. “Save humanity’s survival.”
“‘Humanity’s survival,’” Jean-Claude repeated. He leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk and whispered, “Can it be trusted?”
I closed my eyes.
“It can hear,” I offered instead of answering that loaded question.
Jean-Claude looked suitably chagrined when I opened my eyes again. He sat back in his seat and said, “I have to advise the leaseholder.”
I knew he did, but I really wanted this handled in a controlled manner. I had no control over the leaseholder. So, I either had to make a ship-wide announcement soon or put a muzzle on the mayor. I looked across my desk at Jean-Claude. He had better colour in his cheeks now and a determined set to his jaw.
I sighed.
“Can you delay it for an hour?” I asked.
“Noah,” he said. “I am subject to the lease agreement, too. If I fail to advise him on this…”
He’d lose his pension.
“Half an hour,” I pressed. “That’s not long. It could take you half an hour to walk back to your office.”
“Down the hall,” he offered pointedly.
“Jean-Claude,” I said. “Even my crew are not aware, and I need them aware before the public is.”
He let out a frustrated breath and nodded his head. Either the notion that I hadn’t told anyone else before him calmed him. Or the fact that I was right. If the civilian passengers - and that included the leaseholder - spat their collective dummies over this, we all needed my crew, especially security, to be ready.
“Twenty minutes,” he said.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered. “And here I thought you were neutral territory.”
He spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders.
“Switzerland might have been neutral, Noah, but we were never unprepared.”
I held his gaze and nodded my head. Twenty minutes. It would be tight. But we could do it.
I looked up at Camille. She met my gaze with an unwavering one of her own.
Twenty minutes to circle the wagons. We could do it. Possibly. Probably.
I grimaced. And offered the mayor a glare.
Twenty-Five
My Money Was On You, Camille
Camille
The captain’s public announcement was playing on repeat when I entered the officers’ mess. Several officers were staring up at the screen, their meals untouched. Some were drowning their sorrows in their allocated liquor allowance. I slid into a seat beside Jerry and started digging into my dinner.
The doc watched me for several long seconds and then picked up his own drink and took a swallow.
“How’s Noah?” he asked.
“Busy,” I said, shovelling in food as if at any moment the alarms would go off and I wouldn’t get to eat again for another shift cycle.
“Slow down,” Jerry instructed. “You’re going to choke on something. And I’m off duty.”
I lowered my fork to the plate and tapped it quietly, then took a deep breath and forced myself to scoop up the glop that passed as nutrition in this part of the Chariot more slowly.
“That’s a good girl,” Jerry said dryly.
“Screw you,” I muttered.
“You know, Chief, you’ve been spending way too much time down in the bowels of the ship, mucking about with the midshipmen.”
“That sounds decidedly prejudiced, Doctor,” I said. “I assure you, there were lieutenants present. I’m an equal opportunity commander.”
He sniggered. Then sobered as the recording of Noah began again.
“Why don’t they switch that off?” he muttered.
“SOP,” I said. “To ensure everyone on board sees it.”
“We’ve got wrist comms,” he mumbled into his drink.
> “And we’ve got an AI who could circumvent them. This way, it’s out in the open. Any tampering would be obvious.”
He shook his head. “Is it really that precarious, Camille?”
I pushed my plate away; I’d lost my appetite. For the past two shifts, I’d been trying to get a handle on the trojan code I’d written. And Vela had changed when he’d first been introduced to it. It had soon become obvious that I needed to rewrite it again. I’d isolated it to a datapad disconnected from the servers. But no matter what I wrote, none of it had been good enough to fool Vela.
I had an appointment with the captain after this. I had to tell him I couldn’t hack into Vela’s backdoor without the AI being aware of it. That it continued to change its parameters as if expecting such an attack.
We’d been careful. We’d whispered into each others’ ears. Nothing had been communicated over the ship’s systems. It had all been extremely personal. Face to face. Or, to be more precise, lips to ear.
And still, Vela knew we were up to something.
“Camille?” Jerry pressed. “It’s as bad as it seems, isn’t it?”
“Do you ever wonder, Doc,” I murmured, “whether we became too clever for our own good?”
“You mean allowing an artificial intelligence to surpass our level of genius?”
I nodded my head.
“Every damn day,” Jerry muttered.
“When the solar flares hit, we had no way of predicting them,” I whispered, well aware that Vela could hear me even at this reduced volume. “We had to do something.”
“So, instead of rising to the challenge,” Doc said, “we cheated and found another way. An easier way. We let the computers figure it all out for us.”
I nodded my head and reached over and picked up Jerry’s drink. There wasn’t much left, but I downed it anyway.
“Always a pleasure,” he said, deadpan, “sharing spittle with you, Commander.”
I chuckled. There wasn’t much to laugh about right now; you had to take the levity wherever you could find it.
I pushed up from the table and picked up my half-eaten tray.
“It’s as bad as it seems, Doctor,” I said and walked away.
Clumps of crewmen stood at various intervals along the hallway of Deck B. Milling around outside the mess and bar. Some congregating inside the gymnasium. I almost went in there; demanded to know what they were up to. They sure as hell didn’t look like they were working out. Or even planned to.
Several saluted me. Some half-heartedly. And then I walked past a security officer who stared at me defiantly, hands balled into fists at his side.
I wanted to hit something. I had half an hour before I was due at the captain’s ready room. Half an hour to sort my shit out and come up with a solution to a problem that was too big for me to solve. Half an hour before I let Noah down.
But I couldn’t walk past such blatant insubordination. Not right now. Not when the ship was a powder keg waiting for a spark.
“Crewman,” I said, coming to a halt before his little sycophant followers. “Have you got something to say?” Or do. Like, salute me, you imbecile.
“No, ma’am,” he said, standing to attention. He was going to make me demand it, then.
I almost sighed, but showing that sort of weakness and frustration would only fuel their disgruntlement.
“Have you forgotten something, Midshipman…” I leaned forward and read his name off his ID tag. “…Smith?”
“I don’t believe so, ma’am.” He had an American accent. I hadn’t picked it up before. It was strange, but not entirely inappropriate. The Sector Four Fleet was out of UK/Europe. Most of our crew and passengers were from that region. But he could have been an import; moved to that part of the world before the first solar flares struck.
Travel afterwards became that much harder. Nobody wanted to be in the air, stuck in a small tin can, flying at forty-thousand feet when a solar flare hit Earth.
I stared at him, and he stared defiantly back. His mate shoved his shoulder as if to make him do the right thing. To not push this any further. I didn’t have time for this. Nor the patience. We had a situation. Couldn’t this upstart of a junior crewman get his shit together?
“Who’s your commanding officer, Crewman?” I snapped.
“That would be Lieutenant Hammersmith,” Vela offered.
The entire group of crewmen jumped. I did sigh at that.
“Thank you, Vela,” I said, not taking my eyes off Smith.
The midshipman suddenly looked scared. I couldn’t tell if that was due to my identifying his superior officer or due to the fact that Vela had talked. But as Lieutenant Hammersmith was a fair if not curt officer, I felt it more likely he was shitting his pants over the fact that Vela had interfered.
“You have a choice,” I said quietly. I knew Vela could still hear me. They probably suspected it, also. But the lowered voice offered the illusion of privacy, at the very least. An illusion the crewmen very much needed right then. “You can man up and do what’s expected of you to help us get to New Earth,” I said. “Or you can spend the rest of the trip on probation. Having every move watched. Every decision questioned. Every, well, you get the point. We’re in this together, Midshipman. No one said escaping imminent death on Earth would be easy. Nor did they say survival was guaranteed. So,” I said with emphasis, “what’s it gonna be?”
He licked his lips, his eyes darting around the hallway. We had an audience, and I wasn’t talking about the AI in the gel ceiling. Then the crewman nodded his head, having come to a decision. I braced myself; prepared for that decision to be the wrong one.
But he simply lifted his hand and saluted, and snapped out a parade ground appropriate “Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
My heart attempted to right itself inside my chest cavity. I’d never liked confrontation much, but this had been a message I couldn’t have avoided delivering. One, that if not delivered, would have undermined the captain and his senior officers. Could have upset the functioning of this vessel when we needed it to run smoothly.
I nodded my head and stepped back, my eyes scanning those watching.
“Don’t you all have places to be?” I ordered.
Several “Yes, ma'ams” and “Aye-aye, Chiefs” followed. And when I turned back to the midshipman, I saw his posse making a swift retreat.
Jerry walked up to my side, peeling an orange.
“You know,” he said. “I had five quid on a fist being thrown.”
I snorted. “He wouldn’t have been that stupid.” Surely.
Jerry looked down at me and arched his brow.
“My money was on you, Camille. Not the kid.”
I watched him saunter off and realised my half hour was up. I was even more riled than before I’d confronted the crewman. More determined to hit something. Beating up junior grade officers even verbally had done nothing for my temper.
And absolutely nothing for that fact that I was about to face the captain with a problem and not a solution. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.
Then went to face the music.
Twenty-Six
Fuck, That Sounded Dirty
Noah
The message from Jerry had been cryptic. Until Camille stormed through my ready room door.
Tread carefully.
I stared at my chief pacing the floor before my desk, fire in her eyes, her fists clenched, her face a beautiful display of unmitigated fury. And suddenly I wasn’t tired anymore.
“Chief,” I said carefully. Yes, Jerry, this is me treading carefully. “Take a seat. You’re exhausting me.”
“I’m exhausting you?” she demanded, hands on hips, eyes flashing dangerously.
“It’s late,” I offered. “I’m tired. My bed is calling. Preferably with you in it. Tell me what’s the matter so we can deal with it and get to the good part of the evening.”
She blinked. Then let out a startled breath. And then finally walked forward and threw herself into the
chair opposite me.
“I can’t do it,” she said.
I stared at her. My heart pounding. Do what? My bed? Or…
She waved her hand. “What we discussed,” she clarified. God, were my fears written so clearly on my face for her to read? “It’s useless. I can’t do it.”
I watched her shoulders slump, and her bottom lip get sucked in between her teeth, and the woman who stole all air from the room fold in on herself, looking meek.
Camille Rey was not and would never be meek.
“Come here, Chief,” I said, patting my lap.
There were some decidedly excellent aspects to this entire clusterfuck of a situation. In order to converse freely, we needed to be close. Lips to ear close. In order to do that while I sat my tired arse down in a chair, Camille needed to sit in my lap.
Win-win, really.
She rolled her eyes at me but - thank you, God - stood up and sashayed around my desk.
Hello, sexy. I grinned. She arched her brow.
And then she placed her perfectly rounded bottom on my entirely too excited lap and let me wrap my arms about her. I nuzzled her neck; scenting green apples and Camille. I kissed her softly; tasting a day’s worth of sweat and Camille. I forgot about why I’d suggested she sit on my lap and feasted on her; laving her neck and behind her ear with my lips and tongue and teeth.
She sighed. Her body slowly lost its rigidity. She moulded herself to my frame, shifted her pert little arse on my erection, and melted into my touch.
I don’t think I have ever felt as big and strong and capable as I did right then. I’d tamed the beast. Calmed the monster. Bearded the lion. I could have gone on with the analogies, but Camille turned her head and bit my ear, and that was that, really.
I groaned. Spread my thighs beneath her weight. Let her body settle a little deeper into the gap I’d created. I rubbed myself unashamedly against her hip. My hand landed on her thigh and kneaded softly. My lips found hers and my tongue swept inside; she thrust hers out to greet me. My fingers worked their way up her leg until they found the V of her thighs. I ran a thumb down the crease in her uniform. She moaned. Loud.
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