“Block the hatch. Make sure he doesn’t get past you,” Cain ordered. The Wolfoids stood upright, side by side, blocking Briz’s escape.
“Come here, you sandy little butthole!” Cain crouched and approached in a wrestler’s stance with his hands wide. Briz jumped for the top of the enclosure and missed once again. When he hit the deck, Cain was there.
Briz rolled to his back and kicked Cain, barely missing the human’s groin.
“I’m gonna get you for that!” Cain howled as he dropped to a knee, shook off the pain, and resumed his hunt.
The Rabbit bolted behind the coolant tanks. “Ellie?” Cain asked softly.
“Can’t do it. I have to work with him and you should probably save some of your energy,” she said suggestively.
Cain was still tired from the day’s heavy gee workout, but he was recovering quickly the more he was active.
“I see you!” he yelled, looking between two tanks. Briz stuck his tongue out. “Stinky!”
The Wolfoid dropped to all fours and bounded past one end of the tanks. Cain jogged a few steps the other way and waited.
Briz emerged as if he’d been fired from a cannon, crashing into the major like a furry white projectile. He and Cain went to the deck together. They grappled briefly and Briz kicked, trying to get free. Cain had his arms around the Rabbit’s chest, riding him like a wild boar. Cain pushed off an equipment case and drove Briz to his side, where Cain held him down.
Stinky joined them and they flipped Briz onto his stomach. Between the two Marines, Briz finally stopped fighting.
Cain pulled a small aerosol can from his pocket and quickly sprayed the top of the white Rabbit’s head and ears pink. Cain kept spraying down Briz’s back until the can was empty, leaving a wide pink stripe down the chief engineer’s back that ended just above his white cottontail.
They let him up.
Stinky looked at the pink paint on Cain’s hands. He had rubbed them on his pants, but it had already dried.
“Kind of makes the med bot’s point, don’t you think?” Stinky said, his vocalization device echoing an emotionless thought.
“Come on, Briz, we’re going to chow, show everyone that we’ve made up.” Cain grunted as he lifted the dense rabbit, depositing him on his feet. Briz glared at Cain.
Cain glared back. Jolly stuck his head between them, turning it unnaturally to look at one then the other. “And what, pray tell, is this endeavor all about?” he asked.
“You can close the hatches now, Jolly. The exercise is over.” Cain looked at the too-close projection.
“Of course, Major Cain. Will you require further assistance from me?” Jolly asked, smiling broadly.
“We will need your assistance, as always Jolly, but not right now. Thank you,” Cain told the AI. Cain brushed himself off and turned toward the hatch, where Night Stalker was biting her nails.
The Wolfoids had a cross between a hand and a paw, retaining the necessary features of each for their survival. Their hands had developed naturally after the initial genetic engineering, with their fingers growing longer but the heavy black nails of the wolf remaining.
“I’m not really that hungry,” Briz said softly through his vocalization device. He headed for his console, but Cain intercepted him and funneled him toward the hatch.
“Ellie, my love, care to join us?” Cain said warmly.
“Sure. Everything is running just fine. Another week to exit the gravity well. Jolly, take over here while us lowly humans recharge the batteries,” Ellie said, joining her classmates and taking Cain’s hand in hers.
Cain looked at their hands and saw how natural they looked together, how right it felt, and not because they were a thousand light years from home.
Briz walked along reluctantly, unsure of what he looked like. He accessed his neural implant and asked Jolly to provide a picture. It was worse than he thought.
His head, ears, and back were hot pink--the same color that construction workers in the shipyard used on their suits when operating in open space. Briz’s gait changed to that of one headed to his own funeral.
The Marines surrounded him as they climbed the stairs one deck and traveled the corridor to get to the mess deck. They ushered Briz in, pushing him to the front of the line as he tried to hide behind Stinky.
Tandry showed up with Mixial, and Lieutenant Peekaless appeared moments later. Brutus and some of the other ‘cats popped through the hatch when the captain opened it.
Briz wasn’t convinced it was a coincidence.
Corporal Starsgard walked in without limping, happy with the premier medical care that helped him to recover nearly one hundred percent in no time flat. The ankle brace he wore provided support to get him through the last of the healing process.
Each person took the time to slap Briz on the back and thank him for his work with the ship and wished him happy banking, the refill of the dark matter so they could jump space. Those two events caused most engineers the greatest amount of stress.
Before the Cygnus-12, also called The Olive Branch, spaceships didn’t fly themselves into the gravity well. Briz had nurtured the EM drive and reveled in flying the ship within the heliosphere, but the accident that left a terrible scar across his chest and one of the engineers dead happened during an ISE activation, the drive that vaulted the ship nearly a thousand light years in an instant.
The ISE operated using dark matter, which was dangerous when forced to energize the interstellar drive.
“Well done, Briz!” Captain Rand said, slapping the Rabbit’s small shoulder as he passed, heading for the rack to pick out a meal.
Allard and Beauchene arrived and hurried up to their fellow Rabbit. “What has the big, scary Marine done to our friend!” they lamented, casting harsh Rabbit glances in Cain’s direction. The three Rabbits commiserated by putting their heads together and keening.
After a few seconds, Allard and Beauchene hopped away to get a fresh salad. They deposited one in front of Briz before leaving the mess deck to return to their precious garden where they could eat surrounded by the plants they loved.
Cain knew they didn’t need to come to the mess deck to eat as they usually helped themselves from the garden, eating a wide variety of vegetables and leaves.
Briz looked much relieved since no one laughed at his new pink coloring. Tandry sat on one side of Briz while Stinky and Stalker sat on the other.
Across from the others, Ellie sat close to Cain, keeping one hand under the table to gently stroke his leg.
He had a hard time focusing on anything else.
“Look at us!” Stinky declared. “Class Beta 37. We’re going to be the first ones to see earth in over four thousand years and all because Briz figured out how to defeat the vines on the Traveler.”
“To Briz!” Cain raised his glass in a toast. The others joined him.
When Tandry’s glass reached her lips, her hand lost its grip. The glass fell and she doubled over. Mixi let out a long and piercing yowl. Brutus hopped up on the table, sat down, and licked a paw to clean his face.
‘It’s time,’ he told Cain over their mindlink.
“Time for what?” Cain asked, still wondering why Tandry was in so much pain. Ellie squeezed his leg mercilessly until he looked at her. She pointed to the ‘cat under the table.
He pulled his feet back. The two Wolfoids stepped back and then crouched to be closer to Mixial.
“What do we do?” Briz asked, more flustered than Cain.
‘Nothing,’ Brutus told them all. ‘Sit back and enjoy the show. Mixial knows what to do.’
The ‘cat yowled constantly as the first fuzzy orange head appeared and slipped onto the floor. Three more kittens were born in rapid succession. The last one took a while, but it was the size of the other four combined.
‘Isn’t that interesting,’ Brutus said in his thought voice. He’d moved to the floor and was licking Mixi’s ears as she cleaned her brood.
Cain looked at the four, small orange
kittens and the large gray one “I think Spence has some explaining to do,” he whispered at Ellie. She slapped his arm and bit her lip to stifle a laugh.
“Congratulations, Ensign Tandry. Mixial’s kittens are the first ever born on a starship,” Captain Rand said from the corner where he sipped his coffee and relaxed with his feet on the next chair.
“This place is off-limits until I can move the kittens,” Tandry told the assembled group.
“What?” Rand asked, taking his feet from the chair and putting them on the deck as he leaned forward. “Tell us what you need and we’ll help, because I can’t go without eating.”
After some back and forth, Cain and Ellie ran the corridor to the med lab, where they removed the stretcher from its rack outside the door. When they returned, the others had already moved the table.
“Where are we going to take them?” Cain asked as the mother gently placed the kittens onto the soft matting of the stretcher.
‘They need warmth,’ Mixi replied. Cain immediately looked at Rand.
“Jolly,” the captain said to the ceiling. “Please connect me to Commander Daksha.”
The Ghost in the Machine
Rand turned around in his chair, instead of turning the whole chair. Daksha floated at the back of the bridge, a strap held tightly in his beak-like mouth. His eyes were closed as he bounced gently off the bulkhead.
Rand shook his head and faced forward, meeting the gaze of his pilot.
“Transiting beyond the heliosphere, sir,” Pace reported softly. The ship rocked slightly over the course of the next fifteen minutes as it passed through one of the more intense layers. The edge of the heliosphere was the point at which the solar winds dramatically dropped off. The heliosheath was a warmer and denser area of space at the front of the solar system as it moved through interstellar space. Interstellar winds picked up beyond the heliosphere to further compress the heliosheath.
All of that made for a bumpy ride, but Pace was an outstanding pilot and rode the crests and angled to lessen the impact. When the ship calmed, Pace gave the thumbs up. “Jolly, please inform the chief engineer to begin banking dark matter.”
“Already underway, Captain,” Jolly reported, standing to the side of Rand’s chair.
“With that, I believe we have a staff meeting to discuss the issue with our missiles. Lieutenant Pace, you have the conn.”
Jolly disappeared as Rand headed for the hatch, but stopped when he saw that the commander’s eyes were open. “Staff meeting, Master Daksha, if you’re up for it.”
Daksha turned his head slowly, twisting his neck slightly to look up at the tall human. “Did you know that Tortoids can go seven days without sleeping or eating?” he asked through is vocalization device.
“I’ve heard something like that,” Rand replied cautiously.
“If there was an accident where Brutus, Mixi, and those kittens were flushed out the airlock, I’m not sure that I’d be upset. I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but do you know what ‘cats do in the sand? What they’re doing to my sand?”
Daksha let go of the strap and swam to the captain’s side.
“We’ll have your sand cleaned and disinfected by the maintenance bots as soon as the ‘cats leave your quarters, Commander,” Rand said, trying to sound sympathetic.
When they’d first asked, Daksha cordially invited the ‘cats without hesitation.
He regretted that decision within minutes of the ‘cats’ arrival. A week later, he found himself unable to return to his quarters.
The captain and the commander moved slowly down the corridor. They passed one of the sensor suites, where Tandry was sound asleep at her post. The captain thought about waking her, but knew that she was burning the candle at both ends. He let her be, checking in quickly with Lieutenant Chirit to make sure that systems were operating properly and there was nothing to report.
“You’d be the first to know,” the Hawkoid replied.
The hatch slid open and the captain and the commander entered. Cain and the others were already there and stood as a sign of respect. There were no holographic projectors so Jolly appeared on the wall screen in two-dimensional form. Next to him was Briz’s Rabbit avatar. The chief engineer couldn’t break away for the meeting, but he was able to attend virtually.
Corporal Starsgard was there, looking uncomfortable, despite the fact that he had a PhD and was the most learned person on the ship when it came to astrophysics.
Cain had Stinky, Pickles, and Stalker. None of the ‘cats came, although Carnesto said he wanted to attend.
Cain knew that was a ruse. He couldn’t imagine a Hillcat volunteering to sit in on a meeting about computer systems.
The captain sat down while the commander swam through the air to the front of room, close to the screen where Jolly waited patiently.
“Shall we, then?” Captain Rand asked. Cain pointed to Starsgard.
“I guess it’s my turn,” the corporal said. Cain motioned for the man to continue. “After we left the planet, I ran the usual system diagnostics, the same ones that I ran the day prior, but this time, all the missiles were showing up as fired. A physical check showed the missiles were still in place, so I asked Jolly for help. Jolly?” Starsgard deferred.
“I dug into the system and found snippets of code that were coordinated and integrated. It was the most complex programming I’ve ever run across,” Jolly stated, enunciating clearly as he always did.
Daksha swam in front of the screen. “Who is capable of such programming?” the Tortoid asked, afraid of the answer.
“Holly,” the AI mouthed. His image on the screen maintained a neutral expression.
“Holly?” Cain blurted, standing up. “Holly is the insider causing all the trouble?”
“I’m not sure I would go that far. I’m talking about the missile programming. In defensive mode, the missile system functioned perfectly, but during some of the exercises, they were switched to an offensive mode and this created a dichotomy within the programming, an issue that Holly had built in during installation.” Jolly pointed to Cain, who had raised his hand.
“When I was back on Vii, being haunted by insiders, I worked with Holly to carve out a niche where he separated his core programming from everything else that was running. He said it wouldn’t be a problem, but I told him that we can’t exist as two different versions of ourselves. I was worried about him. Did I cause him to start acting weird?”
Cain was ready to come down hard on himself.
“Not at all,” Master Daksha replied before Jolly could speak. “He was acting up before you asked him to carve out a piece for you. I think this goes back much farther in our history, to the security protocols that President Micah established. We have recently asked to override those. We have created a conflict within that wonderful intelligence that is Holly.”
“And he doesn’t even know that he’s schizophrenic. When we return to Cygnus, I will have a worm prepared that will be able to hunt down and remove the erratic code. And then there’s the direct approach where we talk with Holly and reestablish the security protocols in a way that does not create a conflict.”
“And that will be the most difficult. Holly doesn’t know that he has problems,” Cain agreed, furrowing his brow as he thought of his friend, the confidante of his great-great-grandparents. “We can only hope that there is nothing to set him off between now and when we return.”
“Can we purge the code and get control of our weapons systems?” Captain Rand asked the screen.
Both Jolly and the Rabbit avatar nodded. “It is already done. Once we knew what to look for, we hunted them down and isolated those errant pieces from the rest of the programming,” Briz said. His avatar wore glasses, oddly, and he peered over the top of them as he talked. “I’m working with Jolly to write the cleaning worm that will cutoff the dysfunctional code from the rest of the system. We don’t want to delete anything. The AIs are sentient beings. We cannot haphazardly cut out parts of their brain
s. We will use only the sharpest of scalpels.”
The analogy caught them all off guard. No one spoke, a couple clenched their jaws, and others hung their heads.
Master Daksha nodded slowly to the images on the screen and then turned to face those at the table. “This is a challenge with ethical and moral implications. We seem to find those challenges readily way out here in the middle of the universe,” the Tortoid’s vocalization device registered a light tone, not the grave nature one would have expected.
“This isn’t about fixing a machine. We are talking about working with a friend to help him through his emotional troubles caused by his commitment to serve the flawed creatures of our world. We have unwittingly given him conflicting direction. It is up to us to fix that, but humanely. Holly is the friend of all humanity. I wonder if we can simply talk with him, help him take care of the problem that is causing conflict?”
All eyes were riveted on the commander. Jolly’s image showed a variety of facial expressions as he tried to find the right look to convey the emotions raging through his AI psyche.
“When we return, I suggest that Jolly, Briz, and I meet with Holly. Maybe we get Admiral Jesper and Dr. Johns to join us. Then we lock ourselves in a room and talk with Holly until we can remedy the issues.” Daksha stopped blinking as he looked at the table, unfocused, weighing the enormity of the task. “I, for one, am opposed to taking a digital scalpel to the being who lifted our civilization from the stone age we thrust upon ourselves. Holly made it possible for us to return to space. He deserves the very best care delivered in the most respectful way.”
Cygnus Arrives: Humanity Returns Home (Cygnus Space Opera Book 3) Page 4