Willful Child

  The doppelgänger blinked up at him, and then smiled. “Well of course not. What an absurd scenario, oh twin of mine. After all, I am locked into this position, possessing no freedom of movement beyond this chair. And the firewall between my independent program and the overall ship’s system is impenetrable.”

  “Really? How do you know that?”

  “Isn’t it time to shut me down now, brother?”

  “Shut down and out the bilge hole with you, oh twin dearest!”

  “Now that’s unfair! How do you know you won’t be needing—”

  “Off!”

  The doppelgänger vanished.

  “Extract file and sever all links,” Hadrian said.

  A small cube extruded from the top of the desk. Collecting it, the captain went to the disposal chute and sent the cube through the decontamination energy field. “Out the bilge hole, beloved twin. Next time, I’ll devise a two-point-oh with the IQ equivalent of a gibbon’s brain, see how you like that!”

  He knew the perils of command on a deep-space mission, the unexpected dangers at every turn. He did not plan on taking any chances. Well, actually, he did. Plenty of them, in fact. But that wasn’t the same as carelessly letting some holographic doppelgänger wander through the back shunts of the ship mainframe. Who knew where it might pop out.

  Hadrian departed the office and strode onto the bridge, only to find that he was already sitting in the command chair. “Damn you—I just deep-sixed you!”

  His simulacrum smiled up at him. “Ah, dear twin of mine. I took the liberty of copying myself, just to be on the safe side. However, this stipulation of appearing exclusively in this seated configuration is rather awkward—”

  Sin-Dour cleared her throat and said, “It just materialized in the command chair, sir. While I was occupying it.”

  Hadrian blinked at her. “Shouldn’t that be more difficult to contemplate? Never mind. Computer, shut this thing down and wrap it up tight and then erase it with extreme rancor. Then scour your systems and make sure it hasn’t dropped off any more packets.”

  “Oh that’s not fair—”

  But the doppelgänger got no further, as it vanished.

  Jimmy Eden spoke from comms. “Captain, the admiral requests—”

  “He’s always requesting something. Set up some static on the lines, will you?”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me.” Hadrian sat in his chair and fixed his attention on the huge screen. He leapt to his feet. “A strange planet! Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “Sir,” said Sin-Dour, “that is Neptune.”

  “We’re still in-system? Who’s manning the oars on this tub?” He glanced over at the engineering station, saw no one there, and hit internal comms. “Engineering. Buck, you there yet?”

  “Yes, sir,” came the tinny reply.

  “Fire up the T drive. Once past this planet here we’re bugging out, understood?”

  “Sir!”

  Hadrian leaned back. “That’s better. Buck takes orders, no questions asked. Pay attention to Buck DeFrank, everyone. He’s showing you how it’s done. Now, let’s do a deep scan of Neptune, in the manner of a dry run.”

  The adjutant, who had been positioned near the science station, now spoke. “Captain!”

  “What is it, Tighe?”

  “The Purelganni have seeded Neptune, sir, as a gift to the Terran system. There are now amorphous semigaseous life-forms in the upper atmosphere. Primitive and benign, to be sure, but a deep scan would ignite those beings that are in range.”

  “Ignite, you say? Like, Chinese lanterns?”

  “No, sir. Ignite, as in explosively.”

  “Well, go ahead with the scan anyway. Why not have some fireworks to send us off?”

  “Regretfully, sir, as Affiliation liaison, I must object.”

  “So noted,” Hadrian replied. He initiated internal comms again. “Buck? Since you’re not here at the science station, do a scan of Neptune from down there.”

  “Sir!”

  “Ah!” Hadrian gestured at the screen. “Now, isn’t that pretty? Come on, admit it, Tighe.”

  “Captain,” barked Jimmy Eden. “We have a picket patrol ship on an intercept course!”

  “Would that be our marines?”

  “No, sir. Interdiction Patrol Vessel, two-person crew. A black-and-white. Their commander is hailing us.”

  “Hmm, could be a special mission. Now we’re talking. On speakers, Jimmy.”

  “—Child, please respond!”

  “This is Captain Hadrian Alan Sawback of the Willful Child. Identify yourself and state your intentions.”

  “M-my intentions? How about logging our witnessing your wholesale slaughter of three hundred and sixty-eight benign life-forms in the gas clouds of Neptune?”

  Hadrian gestured and Jimmy frowned. Scowling, Hadrian hissed, “That gesture means put him on hold!”

  “Oh, sorry sir! Yes, sir! On hold.”

  Hadrian hit internals again. “Buck? We far enough past Neptune to engage our T drive?”

  “Just, sir. But System Protocols—”

  “Ten seconds from mark. Mark!”

  “Sir!”

  Hadrian waved at Jimmy. Who stared. “That wave means put him back on speaker, Jimmy.”

  “Sorry sir! Yes, sir. Go ahead.”

  “Captain Whatever-your-name-is, we’re about to go FTL. I suggest you veer off, if you want to save your puny Interdiction Patrol Vessel. Willful Child out.”

  At that moment, the scene on the screen blurred, shimmered, and was then replaced by the pitch black of T space.

  “Under way, Captain,” reported Buck from engineering. “All systems optimal.”

  Jocelyn Sticks turned in her seat to Hadrian. “Sir, we are three point two-one hours from Sector III-B.”

  “Thank you, Helm.”

  She swung back.

  “Oh, Helm?”

  She twisted round again. “Sir?”

  “Maintain course.”

  “Yes, sir.” She faced forward again.

  “Helm—”

  Sin-Dour leaned close to the captain and said, in a low, velvety voice, “Sir, excuse me for interrupting, but we have left the marine shuttle behind.”

  “Have we? Oh, darn. Well, they’ll have to catch us up, then, won’t they?”

  “Not in a shuttle, sir. That would take months.”

  “No doubt they can hitch a ride on some fast freighter. Don’t worry about them, Sin-Dour. They’re marines. They know how to improvise. They’ll take it as a challenge, I’m sure, and rise to the occasion, as marines are wont to do.”

  “Sir, I was wondering…”

  So was Hadrian, as he breathed in her heady perfume and felt himself tilting in the command chair, as if on some instinctive and wholly animalistic level, he wanted to sink his face between her breasts. “What were you about to say, 2IC?”

  “In your youth…”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you steal private transport vehicles?”

  “Steal?”

  “As in … joyrides, sir.”

  “Why, now that you mention it … but, why ask me this now?”

  “Never mind, sir.”

  She straightened, pulling away from him once more.

  “Why,” he persisted, twisting round to regard her. “Did you?”

  “Not on purpose, sir, but I once found myself in the backseat of a purloined vehicle.”

  “Was it moving?”

  “Sir?”

  “Did you have your clothes on?”

  “Ah, I understand. Yes, it was moving. And yes, I was fully clothed, or as much as a teenage girl living in Northumberland is ever fully clothed.”

  “Hmm, interesting tale, 2IC.”

  “It’s just that, sir, the feeling I had back then … well, I am experiencing it all over again, right now.”

  “How delightful. Take the science station, will you? We’ll leave Buck down with his wrenches and spanners. Engineers ar
e happy to be left playing with their nuts and whatnot, and I see no reason not to indulge him.”

  Adjutant Lorrin Tighe moved up to stand beside his chair. “Captain Hadrian,” she said in a low voice, “do you comprehend the diplomatic incident you are now responsible for? That was genocide!”

  “Genocide? Sin-Dour, what’s the total population of those gasbags on Neptune?”

  “Well, at last count, about twenty million, though it’s difficult to be certain.”

  “Oh, and why is that?”

  Sin-Dour was studying her screen. “Well, sir, it appears that they eat each other.”

  Hadrian rose from the chair and faced Tighe. “Adjutant, are you aware that in their home system, the Purelganni regard those gasbags as vermin? And that their ‘gift’ to us made us the laughingstock of the galaxy? No? Not surprising. Some things just don’t get talked about in official circles. Tell you what, Adjutant, assemble some gift boxes filled with cockroaches in anticipation of first contact. It’s a great way to make friends and signify our deep respect for the poor suckers we run into.” He swung round to address the others on the bridge. “We humans have been the butt end of galactic jokes ever since we stumbled into space. Well, that ends now. Space … it’s a helluva place to kick some ass!”

  “The Purelganni—” Tighe began.

  “Just got served notice by one Captain Hadrian Sawback. Enough with the crap. We play on a level field or we don’t play at all. The Purelganni will get over it. Nasty little creatures anyway and I don’t care if they look like seal pups. Besides, Adjutant, you have to admit, it was a pretty display, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know if anything you’re saying is true. I will be logging my report as soon as we drop out of T space, sir. You may well find yourself facing a general court-martial.”

  Hadrian snorted. “Terran Fleet has more important matters to concern itself with, don’t you think? Tell you what, call the scan an accident or something, and I’ll overlook your position at the bridge science station, which, it shouldn’t be necessary to point out, you have no authority to operate.”

  “It’s a smallish bridge, sir. Where was I supposed to stand? No, you’ll not be linking that scan to me at science station—not a chance!”

  “Keep your voice down, Adjutant, the janitors out in the corridor might hear you. Now, as for where you should stand, let me think. Ideally, I’d suggest the bar, Deck Eleven. Barely held upright by the rail and with a tall glass in one wobbly hand. But since you’re on duty, let’s add a bowl of peanuts. That way, I’ll always know where to find you.”

  “That, sir, is deeply offensive.”

  “Well, that’s the problem with you diplomat types, isn’t it? This is primarily a military vessel, Tighe. Best acquire a thick skin and fast. Now, please, do leave the bridge—as we’re in T space, after all, thus negating any chance whatsoever of unexpected contact or whatever. Who knows, if I get bored staring at this black screen, I might well join you. Deck Eleven I said, didn’t I?”

  He watched her march from the bridge, and then frowned at the screen. “Well, that’s a not very interesting view, is it? Helm Sticks—dare I call you Joss? Anyway, fleet regs being what they are, we’re stuck with static wallpapers, rather than some enticing sex drama or the like. So, run us through a slide show, will you. No, belay that! I’ve loaded a very old program, called a screen saver. It shows stars speeding past. Let’s go with that one. Ah, excellent, now it looks like we’re getting somewhere!”

  THREE

  Three point two-one hours later, the Willful Child dropped out of T space in the Blarad system.

  “On screen,” Hadrian commanded. He was grainy-eyed from staring at the screen saver program. His lower back ached. The ridiculous high-topped black plastic boots pinched his toes. “Now, let’s take us a look around, shall we? Science station! Sin-Dour, tell me what we’re looking at. That blue bulb there, is that Blarad’s sun?”

  “It is indeed, sir. Of course, we’re at the system’s very edge, as it were. The nearest outermost planetoid is a black carboniferous rock, pretty much nonreflective. We’re in its orbital plane.”

  “Carboniferous? As in … coal?”

  “Yes, Captain. It is posited that it is a fragment from a very old planet that—”

  “Can we light it up? Get some warmth in this damned system? I mean, there’s what, one and a half barely habitable planets here?”

  “And two gas giants, yes, sir.”

  “So?” He swung in his command chair to face her. She was leaning over, studying the station screens, presenting him with a nice, round backside only slightly undermined by the loose-fitting, black fleet-issue trousers.

  She twisted round to meet his eyes. “Sir?”

  “Can we light it up? Rig some kind of incandescent laser beam? Why, I bet it’d burn for years, don’t you think?”

  “Sir, I don’t—”

  “Look, can we reconfigure one of our sensor banks to produce something lethal? That’s what I want to know. I don’t mean torching a few gasbags on Neptune. I mean blazing, infernal heat, a welder’s torch, a damned arc gun of spark-spitting annihilation. Railguns are all very well, but honestly, we could really do with some kind of deadly coherent-energy weapons. Anyway, never mind that lump of coal, but flag the idea for some research.”

  “Sir, beam weapons were researched early on in the Affiliation. Not even the Benefactors left us with anything like what you’re describing. We do employ lasers in our countermeasures system, primarily to burn out photon-sensitive tracking and the like.”

  “Yes yes. We all know that nothing beats the old flashlight in the eye.”

  She was frowning. “The problem is that space is not as empty as it needs to be. Countermeasures against beam weapons are a rather simple affair.”

  “And that was the flaw in the scientists’ thinking right at the start, 2IC. Sufficient energy will burn right through all that crap.”

  “And the source of that energy, sir? In any case, even should a beam strike an enemy vessel, ship hulls among all the spacefaring civilizations employ composites that absorb energy and, indeed, make use of it.”

  “Clearly,” Hadrian growled, “I need to talk to Buck about all this.” He leaned forward, squinting at the screen, and then said, “Eden, what’s the in-system chatter?”

  “Uh, this and that, sir. Border drones have detected our arrival and transmitted inward, but I’m not sensing any panic on the, uh, lines, sir.”

  “Smug bastards, aren’t they. Fine, we can play that game. Helm, light us up and take us in, point eight-five.”

  Sticks twisted round, eyes wide. “From standstill, sir?”

  “You heard me. There’s bound to be some decent brakes on this clunker.”

  “Sir, the strain on the inertial dampeners—”

  “Oh, a little plastering of our insides against the ribs never killed anybody. Let’s see the kind of strain those dampeners can handle. The sooner we know this ship’s limits the better. Besides, I lasted the longest in g-stress tests. Won a gold star, in fact. Nothing blacks me out. Except the hell of routine, that is. But to spare the rest of you, make it seven-five.”

  “Sir, even at seven-five we’ll overshoot the entire system before we attain that velocity.”

  “Precisely, this is a fly-through at insane speed. Watch ’em scatter like mice as we swoop in. Then we’ll come around, use the star to slow down, and take a look at what they might’ve dumped in their panic to get out of the way. Scare a smuggler and he shits contraband. I mean to end this Jersey War here and now. Light us up, Helm.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Split the main screen to port and starboard views. Damn, I forgot my white glove. But we’ll wave in spirit. Of course, the best view would be from any in-system ships in our path. Our antimatter nacelles should be lighting up like angry suns—”

  “Nacelles, sir?” Jocelyn Sticks asked.

  Hadrian grunted sourly. “Fine. Pods, then. Antimatter pods.
There? You happy now?”

  Even with the port and starboard views, there was little to see. Brief blurs of faint light, the occasional flare of lit-up engine pods, a lone rocky planet with ice-capped poles girdled by private stations and an inner ring of satellites, a heavy freighter rolling onto its side with thrusters blazing—ooh, that was close! See what comes with standardizing every approach on the ecliptic? Ridiculous, you’d think we were boats or something.

  Despite his thoughts, Hadrian said nothing, since his chest was being crushed by a giant hand and he felt the skin of his face spreading out to the sides and then back to bunch up against his ears. Vaguely, he saw Jimmy Eden fall from his chair in a delicate swoon, and this triggered a smile that swiftly grew painfully wide.

  The raging inferno of the star appeared onscreen as the ship’s hazard protocols kicked in with a display of imminent destruction, and then Willful Child was past, slipping between two small scorched moons still arguing with each other over which one was the planet and which one was the moon, and the tidal flows between these rocks battered at the Willful Child with thundering broadsides. Once they were through that, things settled down again, the dampeners caught up, and Hadrian was able to breathe.

  Alarms were ringing from the comms station.

  “Get me a new officer for comms,” Hadrian said. “There’s a reason that man came in fourth. Now, Helm, drop us down to two-seven-five as we come around. Oh, and next time, if there’s some fancy fucked-up planetoid tug-of-war going on close to a damned star, be sure to highlight it, will you?”

  Sticks was still gasping, and although Hadrian could only see the pulsing ebb of her back, he could well imagine what such deep breaths were doing to the front. “Yes, sir,” she said in a rather enticing whimper.