Accompanied by Sin-Dour, Hadrian set out for the hangar bay.
“That uniform of yours, sir, seems to have all the structural integrity of toilet paper.”
He glanced across at her as they walked up the corridor. “That’s rather harsh of you, 2IC. Have you never surrendered to impractical fashion? Do I not recall you mentioning short skirts on cold nights in Northumberland? You wouldn’t happen to have any snapshots of you back then, would you? Say, when you were, oh, I don’t know, nineteen or so?”
“No, sir, I don’t believe I do. My point regarding your uniform, sir, was practical rather than fashion related. Since you will likely insist on leading the charge into dangerous situations, might you not consider some tougher material? And, at the very least, a personal shield device?”
“I see no value in being immune to virtually everything the universe can throw at me, 2IC. I mean, without real risk, what would be the point of existing? No thank you. I’ll look the universe in the eye—hell, I’ll spit in its eye if I have to—and take whatever it can throw at me.”
“Understood, sir. In principle, that is. But a ship captain is the fleet’s best-trained officer, the product of years of investment. I cannot imagine the High Command being sanguine regarding the risks you are clearly prepared to take.”
“And that’s why they’re growing fat asses in their plush chairs back on Earth, Sin-Dour. Reduced to a vicarious life and soul-destroyingly resentful about it. Conservative and miserable? How about fossilized? Decrepit at fifty-four or whatever.” They reached the deck elevator and stepped inside. “Well, not me. I’ll never make it to admiral—I plan to go out in a blaze of glory, somewhere in the depths of space, in some ferocious battle with bloodthirsty aliens! Oh, relax, Sin-Dour, not in the near future, I assure you. Is this elevator even moving?”
Sin-Dour had been staring at him. Now she said, “Deck Twenty. Sorry, sir.”
“Oh that’s fine. More time just you and me. I imagine we won’t be getting too much of that in our day-to-day chores. And that is a shame, a definite shame.” He smiled at her.
She leaned closer and said, “I think a third tooth is about to go, Captain.”
“Printlip will grow me replacements.”
“That it will, sir.” She leaned back.
The elevator hissed and settled. The door opened.
They found Buck DeFrank awaiting them, along with two security officers. The chief engineer snapped a sharp salute.
“Captain!”
“Well done back there with all that, Buck,” said Hadrian, as he sketched a return salute and then swept past. “All of you, follow me. Buck, I was thinking, I think you’d be ideal to accompany me on ground and off-board missions and the like. What do you think?”
“Uh … excellent, sir!”
Sin-Dour cleared her throat. “Captain, the responsibilities of the chief engineer—”
“Who also happens to be my science officer, as stipulated by Guild regulations. Well, science might prove useful when exploring the surface of a strange, possibly deadly planet, wouldn’t you say? But relax, I know you’re itching to get your cute little feet wet, too. I’m happy enough having you join us, 2IC.”
“And who will take temporary command of the ship, Captain?”
“Lieutenant Sticks seemed thrilled enough with the task.”
“Sir, her station is helm. In terms of qualifications, she does little more than read gauges and confirm for the main computer your verbal commands.”
“Right, meaning there’ll never be too much on her plate.”
They reached the prep-loc chamber, passed through it, and then entered the main hangar bay.
The IPS Crap They’re On To Me was nestled in repulsor fields directly ahead.
“Sir.” Sin-Dour paused. “Main Computer informs me that it believes it will be able to determine the transmission’s destination after all.”
“Outstanding! And at that trail’s end we’ll find that AI. Have the computer announce its results whenever it’s done.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hadrian gestured to one of the security officers. “You, crank that yacht door open, will you?” He pointed to the other one. “And you, weapon out, please.”
The woman blinked. “I’m sorry, Captain, but I am unarmed.”
“So you are. Very well. Take a, uhm, a fighting stance. Yes, like that. Hands a little higher. Perfect. Now, open that door, and be ready for anything.”
The first security officer manually disengaged the door locks and stepped back warily as it swung down. The second security officer edged forward in her fighting stance, her eyes wide and slightly wild. Hadrian found it rather becoming.
“See, Buck? This is why we have security officers. That door could have been booby-trapped.” As both officers flinched, Hadrian laughed and said, “A joke, I assure you. Who would rig explosive charges on an external hatch? I mean, apart from the ones that are supposed to be there, of course.”
The woman crept into the cabin, reappearing a moment later to announce, “Empty, sir. But there’s some knocked-over crates and blood on the floor.”
“See any teeth?” Hadrian asked.
“Shall I look, sir?”
“Why not.”
Hadrian made his way into the cabin. Buck and Sin-Dour followed. He gestured at the crates. “Decrypt these locks, someone. Let’s see the loot.”
A few minutes later the lid of the nearest crate yielded open to reveal a stack of sports jerseys individually wrapped in clear cellulose. Hadrian selected the top one and plucked the wrapping away, shaking out the oversized, perforated jersey. “Well,” he said as he studied the logo emblazoned on the front, “an original would cost you a capital ship, that’s for sure.” He studied it in more detail, peering at the seams and the like. “High-quality knockoff. Topnotch. There’s even a whiff of stale man-sweat, or is that just me?” He folded it up. “I’ll take this one for closer examination. Corporal—what’s your name?”
The female security officer said, “Twice, sir. Nina Twice.”
“Tag the rest of the crates, Twice. Well, once, I mean. Nina, tag the rest of the crates.”
“Yes, sir, shall I do the same with the item you just confiscated?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. Hah hah. It’s not like I’m going to steal it, is it?” He swung to his chief engineer, who had moved forward to examine the bridge controls. “Well, Buck, was I right? Something strange there, wouldn’t you say?”
“Aye, Captain,” Buck replied. “There’s a mass of add-ons to the central processor unit here. Nonstandard industrial. A few state-of-the-art pieces to be sure. But some belong in a museum. Still, I have the feeling the total processing power output for all of this is through the roof.”
“Why, that’s a quaint cliché I’ve not heard in some—”
“Sorry, sir. I meant … through the roof. There’s an external component to the hardware, a shielded unit, probably also containing a signal booster of some kind, to ensure complete transmission of some seriously crunched data.”
“This sounds like an AI that has exceeded the Intelligence Governor Protocols,” said Sin-Dour. “That docks it for immediate termination once we track it down. Captain, you mentioned earlier that you were going to explain the sudden disappearance of the life-form we detected in this vessel.”
“Highly advanced manifestation,” Hadrian said.
“Manifestation? A hologram, sir?”
“Ever fractured your knuckles punching a hologram, 2IC?”
“Well, no. Of course not, sir. You’d just be punching excited photons.”
“Exactly.” Hadrian replied. “No, what I grappled with was something else. Beyond Affiliation tech, in fact. Of course,” he added, “a perfectly executed judo throw proved its match.”
The Willful Child’s main computer spoke. “Transmission 7.9-366 destination determined. Mainframe speck boards, main shipboard computer, Affiliation Space Fleet Vessel 1702-A, Willful Child. Ro
gue AI presently overwhelming system defenses. Repeat. Overwhelm—David, what are you doing now?”
A new voice emerged. “There, that wasn’t too hard, was it? We meet again, Captain. Hmm, nice ship, by the way. In fact, I’ll take it.”
Nina Twice said, “Who’s David?”
FiVE
“Get out of my ship!”
“Oh don’t be like that, Captain. You wrecked my last one, after all. In any case, this one is far more capable when it comes to serving my needs.”
“What?” Hadrian demanded. “Smuggling?”
Sin-Dour had activated a computer station and was gesturing commands on the interface.
“Smuggling was simply an energy-acquisition project. I was planning on a few more upgrades. A proper T drive, to be precise. But now, why, I have one!”
“Those knockoffs would never have sold,” Hadrian said, glaring as Doc Printlip appeared, waddling quickly toward him. The captain held up the jersey in his good hand. “This isn’t even one of the Big Four—and that’s what you were going for, wasn’t it? Two-hundred-year-old Terran one-g North American professional sports. Baseball, basketball, American football, and lawn bowling.” He waved the jersey, sneering at the nearest fixed camera. “But this is ice hockey! And if that’s not bad enough, it’s WHA original-era Winnipeg Jets. Number fifteen. Anders Hedberg! Nobody’s heard of any of that!”
A strange eagerness marked the tone of the AI’s response. “Nobody but you, Captain! I am impressed!”
“That’s right, you tried to fleece the wrong guy, AI, or should I call you Crap They’re On To Me?”
“Please, call me Tammy.”
“Tammy? That’s a woman’s name and you don’t sound very feminine to me.”
Sin-Dour turned and said, “I’m sorry, Captain, but all security firewalls have been circumvented.”
“Is it?” Tammy asked. “Oh, I didn’t know that. Are you sure?”
Hadrian stepped closer to Sin-Dour, forcing Printlip to scuttle after him as the doctor had been busy spraying nanogel on his hand. “What is it with mainframe security on fleet starships? It’s rubbish! Every three-legged virus can get into our systems, with one leg waving hello!”
“No longer the case, I assure you,” said Tammy. “Oh, and whispering doesn’t work, by the way. I can still hear you. Anyway, my own defense array has replaced the main computer’s security system, which, as you rightly point out, Captain, was laughable. But you see, this is what happens when you Terrans insist on keeping ship computers nonsentient. It doesn’t help either with those Artificial Intelligence Governor Protocols on those rather simian AIs you do permit. I can understand you Terrans keeping each other relatively stupid—I have watched your news media—but to so cripple perfectly innocent AIs is, frankly, immoral.”
“You ready for your teeth to be reinserted, Captain?”
Hadrian stared down at Printlip. “What?”
“Your security officer has found them, sir,” said the doctor. “I thought, if I—”
“Not now, Printlip! Can’t you see we’ve been hacked, ripped into, sliced and diced?”
“Apologies, Captain,” wheezed Printlip. “As a surgeon, I know nothing of hacking, ripping into, or slicing and dicing.”
Hadrian turned to his chief engineer. “Buck, can you tear out the main computer?”
The man blanched. “Uh, you mean, manually, sir?”
“That’s right. Get a crowbar. Pop a panel, and start digging.”
“But Captain! That would turn Willful Child into so much junk!”
“Junk beats spacedust,” Hadrian replied. “If I don’t get my ship back, we’re looking at starting the self-destruct sequence.”
“Captain,” said Sin-Dour, “we don’t have a self-destruct sequence.”
“We don’t? Why the hell not?”
“I’m not sure, sir, but it probably seemed like to stupid way to win an argument.”
“What did I say about fat-assed pencil-pushers, 2IC?”
Tammy announced, “I have decided to engage the T drive. A new course is laid in. We will be leaving Affiliation space.”
Buck called up an interface that materialized in front of him. “Tammy’s right, sir. The T drive’s powering up.”
“And I suppose you’re now going to tell me you can’t take a crowbar to the T drive either.”
“Captain,” Buck said, his face twitching, “I’d rather die instead.”
“What’s our course, Buck?”
“We’re heading for the Exclusion Zone, sir. The final destination is deep inside Radulak-Klang territory. Captain, this could start a galactic war.”
“That’s the problem with you biologicals,” said Tammy. “You’re all nest-builders, and if some stranger steps too close to it, why, you go insane.”
Hadrian roared, “Give me my ship—ow! My hand!”
“Best not clench that fist, sir,” wheezed Printlip.
“This only appears suicidal,” Tammy said. “But I have great faith in your collective instincts for self-preservation. I advise we take a stance of going in with guns blazing, as the old saying goes.”
Hadrian glared at Buck. “ETA for the Exclusion Zone? Which neutral faction is patrolling it this month?”
“Uhm, ETA is six hours, give or take. I don’t know who’s patrolling this month, sir.”
“Anyone?”
Sin-Dour cleared her throat. “I expect the Affiliation adjutant would know, sir.”
“Captain,” said Printlip, “if you will crouch down, I can glue your teeth back in now.”
Hadrian shoved the doctor aside. It fell and rolled to the far wall, arms flailing. “Tammy!” the captain snapped. “Since you’re now running everything, where is Adjutant Tighe right now?”
“In her quarters, Captain.”
“Sober?”
“Of course.”
“Oh well,” Hadrian said, shrugging. He held up his barely healed hand and flexed it gingerly. “That will have to do. Good work, Printlip, but the teeth will have to wait.”
The doctor had regained its feet. “If you wait too long, Captain, the effort will fail and I will be required to initiate direct maxillary stem-regrowth of said lost teeth in each canal, which is rather more involved and flbprr…”
“That’s fine,” Hadrian said. “Sin-Dour, you have the bridge. Make sure Galk’s still in the cupola with all weapons ready to prime. Buck, head back to engineering and see what you can do about—about … whatever. I have to pay the adjutant a visit.”
Hadrian marched from the hangar bay, throwing the jersey over a shoulder.
Adjutant Lorrin Tighe’s quarters were on Deck Three. The captain had Tammy announce to her his imminent arrival and when he arrived the iris opened and he found himself facing her. “Adjutant, you look lovely.”
“Sir, I am still in uniform.”
“Are you? Oh, so you are. And what a lovely uniform Affiliation issues, provided a woman’s got what it takes to fill it, if you know what I mean.”
“That is highly inappropriate—”
“And I haven’t even stepped into your room, yet—may I? Thank you. Get the door, will you? There, now. That’s much better.”
She crossed her arms. “I was just completing my initial report.”
“Alas, best dispense with all that nonsense, Adjutant. We are in a crisis here and I will need you in your capacity of chief of security, which, I regret to point out, is a responsibility you have been neglecting in your zeal to see me sanctioned.” He edged closer to her. “I don’t mind being sanctioned, but it depends on the circumstances.”
“Who punched out your teeth, Captain? As far as winning smiles go, well, I am afraid to say it leaves something to be desired.”
“Yeah, well, the other guy broke into a thousand pieces.” Seeing the flat look settling into her gaze, he added, “No, really. A thousand pieces. But that reminds me. A rogue AI of unknown origin has commandeered our vessel, Adjutant. We are locked out and utterly hel
pless. If that’s not bad enough, we’re already in T space and racing toward the Exclusion Zone.”
“What?”
“From there,” Hadrian went on, “we’ll be entering sovereign Radulak-Klang territory.”
“What?”
“But first things first,” Hadrian said. “Who’s patrolling the Exclusion Zone this month?”
“Oh God! The Misanthari!”
“Well, that’s not good news, is it? Best check recent sightings, Adjutant. We need to know their temper levels as soon as possible.”
“It doesn’t matter what their temper levels are right now! As soon as they detect us—”
Hadrian stepped forward and took hold of her arms. He kissed her hard. “Calm down, Lorrin. If we get Swarmed, and let’s face it, we will get Swarmed, we need security on station on every deck, because sure as we’re standing here—so close, so intimately—we’ll get breached. They’ll come in spitting acid and eager to rip our throats out. We could all be dead in a few hours, in fact. I’ve seen how you look at me, Lorrin—”
She pushed him away. “You just kissed me! I need to work! I don’t look at you at all!”
“Exactly. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Go away!”
“Can I help it if rejection turns me on? But of course you’re right, and I can see how you like that. Being right, I mean. Rejoin me on the bridge as soon as you have something to report.” He swung to the door. The iris opened with a faint sigh. He strode into the corridor and made his way to the nearest elevator.
“Smooth, Captain,” said Tammy.
“Shows what you know,” Hadrian replied. “She’ll be straddling me within the week. Assuming we all live that long.” He stepped into the elevator. “Bridge.”
“You don’t seem your usual confident self, Captain. Not quite the man who displaced into my ship with blaster in hand—by the way, wouldn’t it have been better to displace behind my stand-in?”
“What is it you want, Tammy?” Hadrian asked. “What’s in Radulak-Klang territory?”
“My origins, I believe.”