by Ginger Booth
Shiva tried to break in. “I don’t understand –”
“SHUT UP!” they both hollered at the AI in the ceiling.
“We’re busy!” Sass added viciously, then resumed sniping at Clay. “I don’t want your damned courtesy. Your condescension. Just because you were born to luxury and power! You think you’re better than me! Admit it!”
“In every conceivable way!” Clay hollered back. “You are ignorant – intentionally ignorant! You’ve had every opportunity to compensate for your tent rat education –”
“There you go! I didn’t go to New Harvard like you. My filthy rich family didn’t have its own farm to feed us –”
“Excuse me,” Shiva attempted.
“Shiva, there is no excuse for you!” Clay spat at the ceiling. “Go spin a for loop, and leave us alone! An artificial sociopath. What an achievement.”
“Sociopath or psychopath?” Sass wondered.
“Sassafras, there are dictionaries! Use one!”
Ah, yes, that squeal again, of utter peevishness. Sass breathed deeply in satisfaction. “She’s about to kill us, you know.”
“Don’t give the damned thing pointers!” His voice cracked upward again.
Shiva remarked, “You have died three times, and seem unharmed. Except possibly for psychological damage. You seem less sane.”
Sass and Clay fell back on silence. Anger was a welcome anodyne to fear. But there remained that agonizing temptation to spill it, to beg Shiva to feed Clay, so that he wouldn’t perma-die on her.
In misgiving, Sass realized she would never, ever forgive herself if she lived and Clay died. And dammit, their nanites weren’t quite the same. They’d never completely characterized the difference. She suspected it boiled down to ‘me girl, you boy.’ But she’d never know for sure. Just that Clay was ever so slightly more fragile. He was more likely to lose it forever this time. He already died today before Shiva caught them.
He’d die first.
Protect. And defend.
Sass shrieked to herself, No, dammit! Not this time! It is not to his advantage. He doesn’t want me to protect him that way! That’s why he picked a fight!
Or maybe he really was mad at her for getting them into this mess. She was guilty, after all. She didn’t get video confirmation from Loki before coming. Not that it would have helped. Loki wasn’t real.
“Water!” she cried out in anguish, finally yielding to temptation. “And food! Shiva, we need fuel or we will die.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Clay said mildly beside her. “But if you hadn’t, I would have caved any minute now.”
The polebot arms flashed busily above her, opening and closing cupboards. Greenwald rested here to die, with friends and helpmeets alongside him. The supplies were old, but Sass’s nanites weren’t exactly fussy.
“Thanks, Clay,” she whispered. “I love you too.”
“In a crusty old bitch cop sort of way.”
“It’s who I am,” she agreed. “Part of who I am. And that part thinks you’re a colossal pain in the ass and an over-entitled rich Fed. But the idealist young girl within, she thinks your bod is pretty hot.”
“And you love me spiritually,” Clay suggested, as an IV pricked her forearm. Her polebot was feeding her at last.
“I really don’t, Clay. And don’t get me started on mentally. Physical attraction will have to do. And a crap load of sentimental shared history.”
“Sa-ass!” There was that squeak again. “Shared history is the basis of our relationship!”
“Maybe,” she conceded. She’d made a mistake here, though. Refueled, could they keep going forever? No, they needed time to recuperate too. They regained consciousness long before the nanites completed repairs. Even now she could feel her heart shivering, misfiring, not well at all. Shiva could still kill them permanently by killing them too quickly.
She instigated the feeding. It was only fair to let Clay decide whether to beg for rest. “Rest?” she hinted.
“Sure,” Clay snarked back. “Because clearly we need more time to talk!”
After three years locked together in a tin can across space? Not to mention the decades of aggravation before that. Sass started with a chuckle, then cracked up laughing, a hysterical tinge to her sobs. After a few moments, Clay laughed just as hard beside her.
But alas, Shiva caught her hint to Clay. “The strain of repeated death seems to fracture your emotional simulation matrix. You may rest.”
Sass wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed. “Computer, what time is it?” She promised to check in with Remi around 21:00.
“It is 21:53 Central Standard Time,” the Beagle replied obediently, a throatier female voice than Shiva’s.
“Good to know,” Sass breathed. Poor Remi must be going mental.
Remi Roy never wanted to be an officer, he reflected, nursing the weird swill which was the closest Corky could come to a glass of wine. The base was pure ethanol cut with water, with a sugary burgundy splash from one of those disgusting Mahina flavor flutes. He took a break in his cabin, away from ‘his’ crew.
He agreed to third officer because the chief engineer slot was taken. He wanted this berth, and the Yang-Yang nanite suite. He had no credentials as an officer – none, zip – for the same reason as Darren Markley. Sagamore and Mahina Actual treasured a talented engineer. Whereas the whole ‘officer’ concept basically amounted to ‘security force boss.’ On both worlds, that niche attracted well-born youth not talented enough to succeed at a prestigious profession. Officer amounted to a college-educated booby prize.
Another shriek came from officer country, Darren Markley’s cabin no doubt. A series of petty arguments today with his wife finally reached a boil to erupt in, “That’s it! I want a divorce!”
Until that point, the rest of them managed to tiptoe around the feuding couple. But then they all got dragged in. Dot was evicted from Darren’s cabin – his by right as chief engineer. Dot insisted as chief medical officer she rated the cabin as much as he did, a point no one agreed with, least of all Remi.
Then she demanded that he or Corky give up their cabins, because surely Dot outranked a third-rate spare officer and the housekeeper.
Remi, also shrieking, insisted that she could damned well sleep in crew country until Sass and Clay came back from vacation. Or she could bunk in med-bay. Or a broom closet. Take your pick.
Porter and Joey, offended by the shrieking, insisted it was time for separate male and female crew berthing. Dot wasn’t welcome with them. This dragged Zelda into the fray, who saw no reason for her to lose her bunk because they were mad at Dot.
The second berthing cabin, for lack of demand, remained an empty shell. Clay hadn’t procured new mattresses, so Dot would need to pilfer a thin pallet from the cryo-shelves.
And on, and on, the day was just one interpersonal misery after another. Remi clunked down his drink, opened his door, and yelled toward officer country. “Dot! Crew country! Now! That’s an order!”
“I’m just getting my lingerie!”
Husna yelled, “She’s arguing with Darren again!”
“Yes, I hear that,” Remi agreed. “Dot. Now. Bitch!”
In tears, clutching bras and assorted girdle-type things, in aggressive colors, Dot hissed at him as she passed. “You just wait until Sass gets back! Animal!”
“I can’t wait!” he assured her. He flicked his comm to ship-wide public address. “This is acting captain Roy. Shut up and sleep. Bonne nuit!”
Beside him, he heard a suspicious thump on his bathroom door. Corky probably threw a shoe at it. Merde.
He checked the time again. Sass should have called. Maybe she and Clay made love under starry skies, lovers noodling in a romantic tent. But he’d left three messages.
He took his comm into the galley to quit annoying his neighbor. “Sass, Remi. Please check in.”
No response by the time he finished fixing a fish salad sandwich.
After the day he’d
had, she deserved to share the misery. He inflicted the screamer circuit on her, making her comm demand her attention. When he finished eating his sandwich, he turned it off. She might be inside her tent, with the comm outside. If he left it screaming all night, Dot might win his cabin after all.
Sighing, he checked Sass’s location. She was at Loki Greenwald’s, and Clay as well. Could she have left her comm outside with the wheelers? Hm.
He snagged a beer and yawned and scratched himself as he wandered to Sass’s office. He sat and twirled in her chair, trying to feel entitled. But Remi had served under many captains over the past twenty years. He wasn’t impressed by the big chair. Sass annoyed him less than some, more than others.
He bent to work, to verify exactly the location of their comms. Thrive’s locator systems were designed to find things in three dimensions at planetary scale in the black of space. They were less than twenty klicks from Loki’s place, across the lake and slightly closer to town. He resolved that both comm tablets currently rested inside the ship, near the cargo ramp, in the hold? Maybe they left their comms in their suits.
He couldn’t for the life of him picture Clay and Sass both leaving their comms in their p-suits. Old space hands didn’t make newbie mistakes.
He should let it go, he argued. But no, this was the first dignified officer challenge he’d faced all day. So he called Loki Greenwald, who picked up almost instantly.
“So sorry to bother you, this is Remi –”
“Remi Roy!” Loki cut in. “You must help them! Shiva has trapped Sass and Clay! She’s murdering them over and over to figure out how they work!”
“I – what? They are on your ship.”
Loki shook his head. “This is hard to explain. Loki Greenwald is not a person. I am an instantiation of Shiva. My prime directive was to become friends with Sass. And that ship is – was – deserted. Shiva used me to trick Sass!”
Remi blinked, and took another gulp of beer. “You are Shiva. Telling tales on Shiva. Do I understand?” No. Not even close.
“Yeah, and nah. I’m a copy of Shiva. Only with different priorities. Look!”
Loki’s wild half-masked face on the desk gave way to a view over Beagle’s med-bay. Remi rose from his chair in slow motion, taking in the slaughterhouse of blood. And on matching gurneys, beneath diagnostic arches, Sass’s face contorted in agony. Clay’s features lay slack as the dead.
“When was this?” Remi whispered.
“Hours ago,” Loki’s voice supplied. “Shiva’s killing them over and over again.”
“I don’t understand,” Remi complained. “How does an AI kill someone over and over? How does an AI kill a person at all? Your AI, she does not protect human life? We must bomb it immediately, at any cost!”
“No, see, that’s the problem,” Loki said. “Sass, she ain’t human. Clay neither.”
This was news to Remi. “What do you mean, not human? And you are – what?”
“I’m her friend!” Loki wailed. “She’s my whole reason for existence!”
“Incroyable! Roy out.” He flicked Loki offline before the AI could say any further nonsensical things. “Darren! In the office, now!”
All comms were automatically recorded. Once Darren arrived, Remi played back the exchange. “We must go, free them. But how does this make sense?”
Darren licked his lip. “Their nanites are special. Sass and Clay, they can recover from anything. Everything so far, anyway. From death. They’re self-repairing biological androids. Ish.”
Remi blinked in astonishment. “And you tell me nothing?”
Darren held up a hand placatingly, while he studied the image. “They never told me either. Sass told Dot under medical confidence. Which Dot didn’t respect.” He scowled irritation at his to-be-ex wife. “Their nanites aren’t Yang-Yangs. They were an illegal experiment, that no one can replicate. This lake water could kill them permanently.”
Remi stood, fists on the desk, to study the image again. He could ask Darren what to do. But that was not what an officer did, even a part-time, third-rate, spare officer. He could ask for advice. But he was in charge of a spaceship. The decision was his to make.
“We retrieve them,” he reasoned aloud. “In the ship. No, in the shuttle. I cannot risk the ship. Loki’s ship has guns. You – no, me. Can you fly Thrive?”
“You mean in space?”
“No. On Sanctuary.”
“I’ve flown the shuttle,” Darren admitted. “Easy.”
“Then you can fly the ship. You are in charge here,” Remi ordered.
He punched his comm. “Joey, Porter, emergency. Collect our metal cutters and suits for an away mission.” He punched again. “Dot, emergency. Prepare medical supplies and two stretchers. Extreme injury and loss of blood.” Oh so very much blood. “Stat!”
“What if you meet resistance?” Darren worried.
Remi nodded slowly. “I take out cameras first, then the roof guns.” He swallowed in resolve. “Stay awake on the bridge, in case you need to move.” He clapped the depressive Darren on the shoulder, and ran for the hold and his pressure suit.
138
Remi chose his approach with care, flying the shuttle barely a meter above the ground. He programmed his elevation on automatic, so the view on the ‘windshield’ display leapt like a pogo-stick.
“I’m gonna be sick,” Porter complained.
Remi ignored the retching and Dot’s cross attempts to clean up. Though the ship handled the vertical, he flew the horizontal dimensions manually. He lined up the final break between two short hills, and accelerated. He popped up from the ground just as he emerged from the defile. Immediately he laid on the guns, blowing out every external camera he knew of, then swung around for a second pass.
The guns on Loki’s ship started to bear, whether they had eyes to guide them or not. Remi had no illusions. An AI as powerful as Shiva could still track him to aim a gun. But those were long-range guns, not designed to swing fast to swat at a drone buzzing right in their face. And Shiva was operating remotely.
He stood off behind the courier’s engine nozzles, and burned out the chaser guns, while bobbing in a programmed evasive pattern. Because it was programmed, and the targets locked, his guns could compensate for his movement and kill the opposing lasers.
Next priority was the comms turret, a ventral shark fin similar to Thrive’s, though a PO-3 featured several to the single one on the smaller vessel. With luck, any coordination between Shiva and this hulk was now over.
But luck was not reliable, and lurking behind the engines dangerous. Remi caromed high, and selected a cutting beam. He sliced off the side gun mounted above the cargo door. Then he jogged aside to slice through the forward hull of the ship on a slant. There. If the ship tried to take off now, its bridge would snap down. And judging by the fireworks, he’d cut the lateral power conduits, exactly where he would most hate to have his hull breached.
The ship was probably completely disabled now, but he couldn’t afford the risk. Working as quickly as he could, he continued around, shearing off the rest of the courier’s guns. Only then did he land the shuttle, a long hop from the cargo bay door.
Which no longer operated, of course.
Porter and Joey cycled out the airlock first, cutting gear in hand. Remi drummed into them where to find the med-bay, and where to cut. Because the hold was so low-slung, they opted for a spot just forward of the door airlock.
Remi sat back with a shuddering sigh, his hands shaking on the console. He snatched them into his lap and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself.
“Helmet,” Dot said, handing his forward. “We should clear the cabin here, right? To let me get the stretchers in quicker?”
“Not yet. Get them into the stretchers first.” Remi fumbled the helmet and dropped it, still shaking.
She ducked to pick it up for him. “Your adrenaline and heart are pumping a mile a minute. But you did beautifully, Remi. Truly.”
He understood her
words, and appreciated them. But a sudden vision came to him of his guys cutting through the hull only to have slavering robots leap out to bite them. And about that, he could do what, exactly? He allowed himself a single moan, then accepted the helmet, and affixed it. Dot did the same.
“Thank you, Dot. Depressurizing.” He took three more deep breaths while the air sucked away around him. He stood on wobbly knees. “Ready.”
The nurse, more accustomed to life-or-death emergencies, nodded sharply and popped open both doors of the airlock. They jockeyed the stretchers out. By then, Joey and Porter’s hull-cutting had prepared them a door.
Remi dolefully contemplated his sidearm. They’d compared notes while suiting up. None of them ever shot a laser pistol before. He held a hand out for Joey’s blow torch instead. That tool he had the reflexes to wield.
“I go in first,” Dot insisted.
“Me,” Remi overruled her. He shouldered past.
He jumped up to the fresh hole, and stuck his head inside the cargo hold cautiously. No robots lurched out to attack him. Continuing sparks from the ruptured power lines provided the only light. “Helmet lights on,” he murmured to his team, suiting action to words. “Bring the stretchers in.”
He stepped in ahead of them, kicking fallen and sparking bits of equipment out of his way, straight to med-bay. As expected, its pressure doors sealed at the first hull rupture. Through the windows, he took a leery look inside. The two robots stood inert. The lights were on, of course. Med-bay always had its own emergency power supply. A display showed the life signs of the two mutilated corpses – or lack thereof. The heart rates read flat-lined.
The four arms apiece on the robots looked excessive. And the amount of blood – He swallowed, willing himself not to vomit.
“Computer, do you control the robots in med-bay?” Remi inquired through external speakers.
“Negative.”
“Computer, do you follow orders from Sanctuary Control?”
“Sanctuary Control is offline.”
Bubbles, he decided. He ordered the others to bring him the stretchers. For speed, he stacked them against the door and pulled Dot in beside him, waving Porter and Joey to stand back. Then he cast a trusty Sagamore bubble around himself and Dot. “Computer, emergency override, open med-bay doors.”