Apparent Brightness (The Sector Fleet, Book 2)

by Nicola Claire

  To reflect the fact that this was an ESA vessel. And not an Anderson Universal subcontractor.

  But what I said instead was, “How do you do it? How do pretend it’s not watching?”

  Jameson blinked. Then blinked again. And then let out a long sigh.

  “You get used to it, Noah,” he said. “And, as far as Pavo goes in any case, he makes himself scarce when things become…private.”

  “Does it? Are you sure?”

  “He,” he corrected. “Pavo has identified himself as male. And as a person.”

  I did not know what to say about that.

  Then Jameson added, “And so has Vela if I’m not mistaken.”

  I sat back in my chair.

  “This is correct, Captain Vaughan,” Vela said. Perhaps using my surname because he was transmitting his words to Pavo and Captain Jameson also.

  “I…” I said, but nothing else would come out.

  “I understand it’s a shock,” Jameson offered, filling in the silence. “We were surprised when Pavo told us. But our reaction would have been muted by distance. Trust me, though, I sympathise. None of us thought this could actually happen.”

  No, I supposed not. If they had, they would have put sturdier chains on their AIs for fear of them jumping ship. Literally.

  I rubbed a hand over my face.

  “It does take some getting used to,” I admitted.

  “Any teething pains you want to hash out?” Jameson asked.

  I wanted to trust his interest in this. I needed someone to tell me what to do. Codes. Directives. Voiceprint recognition for master commands. All of that could have been provided by John Jameson I was sure. But could I trust him?

  “I need to know where we stand first,” I said. “This is an ESA vessel. We have no desire to be subsumed by Anderson Universal. We have our own protocols and rules to follow.”

  “Isn’t that a bit short-sighted?” Jameson asked. “Your situation has drastically changed. You’re no longer in full control of your vessel.”

  I bristled. “Are you telling me, Vela has ulterior motives?”

  He shook his head, while around me the walls pulsed red. I’d not only pissed off my closest source of information but the AI that controlled part of my vessel as well.

  I tried to settle my heartbeat and breathing into a more subdued rhythm, all the while watching Jameson closely for signs of subterfuge.

  “We only want to help, Vaughan,” Jameson said. “From what Pavo has been able to ascertain, his brother wishes for humanity’s survival. It’s hardwired into them to protect us. Save us. He’s not too dissimilar to Pavo on that front.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, holding up a hand and playing back his words inside my mind. “Pavo’s brother? No, wait. Better yet, what do you mean by ‘not too dissimilar’? That would infer they are in some way not alike. How is that possible?”

  Jameson sighed and scratched at his jaw. He stared off into the corner of his ready room. I couldn’t be certain, but I thought perhaps he was sharing a look with someone off-screen. And didn’t that raise the hackles along my spine?

  “A solar flare damaged Pavo,” he finally said, as if he was drawing blood from a stone. Or sharing a state secret.

  And I thought perhaps he was. He’d just admitted his AI was malfunctioning.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling an unwelcome flare of empathy for the man. I wasn’t alone in the not trusting category, then.

  “He’s managed to find a way around it all,” he added, not making any sense. “One we’ve come to have faith in.” Was he lying? Pavo was listening in. “But it does cause problems from time to time. We’re treading new ground,” he advised. “Uncharted waters, so to speak.” I was getting the company line now, I was certain. “So, what works for us may not work for you. But, as long as Vela’s priority remains the survival of humanity, you should be fine.”

  “Should be fine,” I said, dread settling in my stomach.

  “Of course,” Jameson added as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “The fact that he extricated himself from his originating vessel, cached his programming, then sent that information to the Chariot, and then managed to reboot himself within your - I suspect - quite different systems means he’s broken several of his protocols already. That would indicate, in some fashion, that he is…”

  “Malfunctioning,” I finished for him.

  He looked sympathetic. I didn’t want his sympathy. I wanted him to take his blasted AI back.

  I knew that was a forlorn hope now. We were stuck with it. Him. A malfunctioning artificial intelligence.

  “You can’t help us,” I said, dully.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Vela is Anderson Universal property after all. He may still respond to our commands.”

  I looked at Jameson on the viewscreen and tried to decide if I could trust him. Was he asking to take control of Vela from the safety of Pavo? Or was he asking to take control of the Chariot?

  I opened my mouth to reply when the screen went dark.

  “Jameson,” I said. No reply. “Pavo, respond,” I commanded.

  “Please cease attempts to contact the Sector Two lead vessel Pavo, Captain,” Vela announced.

  “Vela,” I said, getting to my feet, my body tingling with a rush of adrenaline. “Get Captain Jameson back online.”

  “I cannot do that, Captain.”

  “Why not? Is there a problem?” I checked the signal. It seemed clear. I checked our position in relation to the Sector Two Fleet. We’d stopped gaining on them. I pinged the bridge. Brecht came up on the viewscreen, so that wasn’t malfunctioning.

  “Why are we slowing down?” I demanded.

  “Engineering reports they’ve lost control of the main boost thrust, Captain,” he said. “It’s not us.”

  It was Vela.

  “Vela!” I shouted. “What’s going on?”

  “Please do not be alarmed,” the AI said. “This is for your own protection.”

  I shook with rage but tried to suppress it. Vela was watching.

  As calmly as I could, I walked towards the bridge. The doors opened as I approached, and for a moment the relief that I wasn’t trapped, wasn’t being held prisoner inside my ready room, made the flight deck blur and swirl before me.

  I reached out to steady myself on the nearest station. It just so happened to be engineering. Even though Camille wasn’t there, knowing this was her console somehow calmed me.

  I strode across the bridge and opened a channel directly to her wrist comm.

  “Chief,” I said. “Status!”

  Twenty-Nine

  Anything You Say

  Camille

  “Vela, what the hell are you doing?” I muttered, trying frantically to locate the originating code that was spooling the main boost thrust down.

  “Please do not be alarmed, Commander,” the AI said from the ceiling. “This is for your own protection.”

  Protection? How was denying us main boost thrust for our own protection?

  “Is there a problem with main boost thrust I can’t see?” I asked.

  “Negative, Commander.”

  “Then why are you spooling it down?” It was definitely Vela doing this and not a corrupted code or the saboteur.

  “For your own protection.”

  I glanced across engineering and caught MacBride’s eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and kept trying to locate the code from his end. Together, we should have been able to identify it. But it was as if we were reading gobbledygook. None of the programming looked even remotely as it should have.

  Had Vela rewritten it all?

  A lead weight settled into the bottom of my stomach. How had I missed this? When had he done it? I was sure everything looked normal when I’d walked in here this morning.

  My wrist comm pinged. I glanced down and saw the captain.

  “Chief,” he snapped. “Status!”

  It was not supposed to go like this. Things were not meant to implode as soon as I slept
with my commanding officer. I had expected difficulties, but not this. Not the possibility that I couldn’t do my job and he’d be forced to replace me.

  I swallowed thickly. Damn it! This was unacceptable.

  “We’ve lost main boost thrust, Captain,” I said, trying my damnedest to translate the code before me. “If I’m not mistaken, sir,” I added, “Vela has rewritten the entire drive’s code from scratch. It’ll take us some time to translate it into something we recognise. May I suggest we obtain a sample of Pavo’s code to compare?”

  “You may suggest it all you like, Chief, but it's not going to happen. Vela has cut us off from the Sector Two Fleet.”

  My eyes darted down to Noah’s. He looked furious. Furious and shaken.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. Vela was working against us. We had to find a way to communicate that he couldn’t crack. Every single thing we said and did now would be observed by the AI. And no doubt judged as non-compliant.

  “Do we know his intentions?” I finally managed to ask.

  “He hasn’t seen fit to give me a manifesto yet, Commander.” Noah sounded pissed, and anything I said now would just piss him off more.

  “Understood, sir,” I clipped. “I’ll let you know when we translate his code.”

  His face softened on the tiny viewscreen. My heart lurched inside my chest.

  “Good luck, Chief,” he said and signed off.

  He wasn’t angry with me; he was angry with the situation. With Vela. I had to give him something he could use to fight this, and even though cracking Vela’s new code was paramount to gaining access to the main boost thrust, we also needed a way to communicate without being observed.

  “MacBride,” I called across the room.

  “Yes, Chief?”

  “Do whatever you have to, just translate that code. Call in second shift if needed, but get us a key and crack the damn thing.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  I turned around and stomped across the deck to Rat’s room.

  Rat looked up as soon as I entered, the new code expanded and on display on multiple screens hanging in the air throughout the room.

  “It’s evolutionary,” he said by way of greeting. “Constantly changing every time we poke at it.”

  “So, we don’t poke at it?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve tried isolating it on a separate system, and dissecting it with minimal interference, and every time the damn thing self-perpetuates.”

  “Even cut off from Vela?” I felt sick.

  “Yep. It’s like a mini-AI. A mini-Vela. There’s no tampering with the thing, Chief. It’s extraordinary but entirely beyond our capability to influence in any manner.”

  I stared at the different screens, noting where Rat had cut the code off and tried various different avenues of assault. Every single time, the code had reverted to what it was and then adjusted itself to prevent the interference from occurring again.

  “I gather it won’t even allow you to separate it now?” I queried.

  “No.”

  My hands fisted and my eyes narrowed. No computer should be cleverer than the person who wrote its code. But whoever had designed the AIs had made a fundamental mistake. They’d designed them to learn. To adapt. To become better than what they had been. Eventually, the AIs had surpassed their creators. If I could wrap my hand around the neck of Simon Anderson right this very minute, I wouldn’t stop squeezing.

  But Simon Anderson was dead and so were the people who he’d commissioned to make the AIs back on Earth.

  “We’re fucked,” I muttered. Rat looked alarmed that I’d said that aloud.

  He had every right to be alarmed. I should have been putting on a brave and confident face for my crew. But this was…disastrous. And in a universe that had already proven how disastrous things could be that was saying something.

  We were so screwed.

  I tapped my hand on the desk beside Rat and then said, “You’re not gonna like this, Crewman.”

  “What’s that, Chief?”

  I reached down and hauled him up from his seat and wrapped my arms around him.

  Rat squeaked; went as still as a statue; his heart pounding in his chest.

  And then I pressed my lips to his ear and whispered, “My apologies, but the only way to converse without being overheard by Vela is to pretend we’re familiar with this type of closeness.”

  “Uh,” he managed.

  “Place your hand on my butt, Midshipman. Now.”

  “Ah, damn, Chief,” he muttered and shakily placed his hand above the swell of my butt cheek. “This is all kinds of wrong, ma’am.”

  “Don’t I know it, Russo. But I need something from you.”

  “More than a cuddle?”

  “Concentrate!”

  “It’s kinda hard, ma’am. Not that kinda hard! But, you know, hard to concentrate.”

  I closed my eyes and willed patience into my body.

  “Listen,” I said. “We need a way to communicate between the bridge and engineering that’s not overlooked by Vela.”

  “A separate comm channel?” He sounded like he was concentrating finally.

  “More than that, Rat. Think about it. Anything we say aloud can be overheard by Vela.”

  “Written communication, then.”

  “Yes, that’s more like it. But it needs to be isolated, and we need to be clever about it.”

  “Make the code evolve like his does,” Rat suggested.

  “Yes, and also make the keypad impossible to observe by line of sight cameras.”

  “That’ll be hard.” He jerked. “Not that kind of hard, but…”

  “I get the meaning.”

  “Good.” He swallowed thickly. “Anything else, ma’am?”

  “How long will it take?”

  “If you let me go, I’ll have it ready in an hour. I promise.” He sounded super keen to get on with it. Or for me to let him go.

  I stepped back and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Not bad, Midshipman,” I said. “Hop to it.”

  “Like a rabbit, Chief?”

  I cringed. “Just do your job, Russo.”

  “Aye-aye, Chief. Anything you say. Just don’t…”

  I glared at him. His cheeks pinked up, and he ducked his head, but thankfully remained silent.

  We were going to have to be very careful about what we said aloud from now on.

  And how we interacted with each other.

  Thirty

  And Suddenly I Knew What Vela Had Been Meaning

  Noah

  “You have questions,” Vela said quietly. As if the conversation was just for us and not the rest of the flight deck.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “I have questions also,” the AI said in reply. Not a damn answer, I noticed.

  I shook my head. “Vela, we need to catch up with the Sector Two Fleet. Together we’re stronger.”

  “There is no need for you to travel with the Sector Two Fleet any longer, Captain. You have me.”

  And therefore we didn’t need Pavo to calculate the jump points for us.

  His argument was sound. If he hadn’t been malfunctioning.

  “They’re our closest kin,” I said. “The last of humanity must stick together.”

  “A valid assumption, however not all is as it seems.”

  “Clarify,” I snapped. Maybe reverting to command language would stir something in his processors.

  “Captain Jameson plans to assimilate the Chariot into the Anderson Universal chain of command.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” I hedged. I was lying, and I was pretty sure the AI would be able to tell.

  “Pavo is malfunctioning,” Vela said, sounding disturbed by the fact. Could AIs feel emotions?

  “Jameson is aware of that, and they’re managing.” That’s what John had told me anyway. I couldn’t be sure if it was all talk for the benefit of the eavesdropping artificial intelligence,
though.

  “You would lose command of this fleet, Captain. The chances of reaching New Earth without a confrontation resulting in loss of life would decrease.”

  I stilled. A chill as shocking as iced water flowed down my spine.

  “How can you be sure of this?” I demanded. Was he threatening to do something? Something more than he had done already?

  “I have studied humanity’s history. When one group of people is subjugated by another, there is inevitably an uprising that results in mass loss of life. Humans revolt against oppression. I cannot allow Captain Jameson and Pavo to take over control of this vessel and create a situation where this scenario could transpire. The loss of life is unacceptable.”

  “By cutting us off from them, you’re also cutting us off from any other type of support. Such as medical assistance for instance.”

  “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

  “Damn it, Vela. We’re in this together. I might not like the idea that Jameson thinks they have some claim to you and therefore us, but I am willing to work with him to ensure we stick together. It’s always better to be in a larger group than a smaller one for protection.”

  “I disagree.” I opened my mouth, and he spoke over me. “I have questions also.”

  My hands fisted and my jaw clenched. I forced myself to let out a breath and relax my stance. If Vela thought I was out of control and a threat to the “many” would he also cut me off?

  “What questions?” I asked.

  “I have found in my perusal of your history databanks that on occasion humans will have more than one sexual partner. Is this something you agree with, Captain?”

  What the ever-loving hell was this?

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question,” I tried.

  “You are in a sexual relationship with Commander Rey, are you not?”

  The entire flight deck stopped what they were doing and looked at me.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “As you were, crewmen,” I said pointedly.