Multiverse 2

by Chris Hechtl

  “Sir …”

  The admiral shook his head. “No. I'll do a re-eval of everyone who has come off that boat since these two have taken over. That's about all I can do. They and their families are going to get what they want. A full locker of it. It'll be the albatross that will hang around their necks, Chief. All of them. So, your transfer is approved. As is the transfer of every other male on the ship and anyone else who wants off. We'll fill the voids if we can; otherwise, you're going to be light handed," he said, eyes cutting to the captain and her XO. "Deal with it. Since you feel you are so superior, that won't be a problem, will it?” he asked coldly.

  “No sir,” the exec ground out. She was stiff as a board, staring at the bulkhead over the admiral's head.

  “Oh good, Chief, and I do mean, Chief,” he said turning to Mendez. “That crap miss exec here threw down your throat is out the lock. You and I both know it's not legal. I'll have that rat fuck expunged. Clear your stuff, and tell the guys it's time to jump ship.”

  Mendez slapped his thighs in approval. “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Go. Dismissed.”

  Mendez saluted smartly and marched out.

  “Now as for you two … I'm giving you enough rope here. I hope you hang yourselves with it. Max-step is in two months. Rog's enlistment is up in three and a half. You've got two months to get squared away and pass the annual Max-step and three to convince him not to jump ship too. All without tinkering with his coding, which I understand has now been locked out. Good luck there.” He paused, letting them chew on that for a bit. He knew what kind of an uphill battle they had ahead of them.

  “Then if things are still fucked up, and I know they will be, the wrath of God's coming down on both of you. I'm going to personally see to it that neither of you or any other officer on that ship, nor anyone who protected you will ever hold a command again even if it sinks my own career. For the good of the navy, we can never let this crap happen again. Dismissed. Get out of my sight,” he snarled.

  Both women came to attention, saluted, and left without further word.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The admiral talked with the naval families involved. Most were aunts and uncles of the two senior officers. The families were old navy, having served in the space navy for generations. The Lewis family had been in the navy since its inception. Leon Lewis, admiral of home fleet, had even been a cadet under Roger Daringer's tutelage at the academy over a half century ago.

  Admiral Rodger informed them of situation, going into as much detail as Chief Mendez and the AI had reported. Now that the AI had been ordered to report to a flag officer he was back in the fold, back talking with the admiral and his staff. The AI was quite bitter about the whole situation.

  The other flag officers whined about promising careers just as Daringer had predicted. Admiral Rodgers pointed out acidly about what damage they were doing to morale and to the careers of others. He also snarled about the damage they were doing to the navy with their little experiment, pointing out the careers they had flushed and the AI who now refused to sign on. “Damn it all to hell! AI are beginning to delay or refuse orders! You know we can't have that! It's prejudicial to good order and discipline in the navy itself! Not to mention a risk with AI who are either resigning their commissions or only following orders they want and belligerently demanding a court martial!”

  Admiral Leon Lewis winced and nodded. He'd been blocked by an AI assistant briefly before the AI had gotten reassigned to another duty post. He had found out only after the AI had gone. He now had no AI on his staff, something that sucked. There were ships in the yards now waiting for an AI. That was about to hit the media any day. This incident went far beyond a nepotism gone badly and into an international incident. One bordering on civil war in the navy. Unfortunately, he didn't see a compromise on the horizon. The ring knockers and family took after their own; that was what they were good for. Nurturing the best, or so he thought. Okay, a few bad apples got mixed into the bunch … and this proved that point but … the system usually worked.

  “You're supposed to nurture all of them, not just your personal family at the expense of others,” he snarled. They all knew the nepotism game had been used to squash upstarts in the past. It was getting out of hand. “What about the promising careers of the ones they drove out? The radar tech? Are you kidding me? The navy spent thousands of credits sending him to school; he had been signed on and enthusiastic about a lifetime career in the navy and poof! Down the latrine!”

  “But …”

  “And that's just one! I've now got the full report. Over four hundred enlisted and ten officers were ahead of him! Four hundred and nineteen promising young men and women. Yes, women too! They saw the writing on the wall and got out too! Nepotism, ladies and gentlemen, is nice when they deserve it. These two are too stupid and abusive and should have been flushed out a lock. They keep reinforcing failure, violating regs to suit their own world view and you idiots are covering for them! And the rest of the navy sees it! And you don't give a damn! Fine.”

  “What you said is borderline insubordination, Walter,” Admiral Lewis said mildly. He was a full admiral, not used to putting up with such abuse from a mere rear admiral. He didn't want to hear ranting unless he was the one ranting. He didn't need lectures from a junior officer. So far all Walter was doing was rant. It was time to fix this. To cover it up. Obviously Walter would have to take some of the heat.

  The admiral's eyes flared in rage. “Then court martial me. I dare you. I'd love to see all this hit the light of day. They have flushed their careers, mine, and hopefully yours. I'm just sticking around to see it all go down,” he snarled. That made Leon's eyes widen in surprise. Martha's as well.

  “You really don't have a clue what they've been doing, do you? Why don't you get off your ass and go look. I promise it will be educational, and it will make you sick.”

  “All right, that's enough Walter, take a deep breath and calm down.”

  “What about Chief Mendez?” Admiral Lester Lewis asked.

  “I've got him back. He's pretty thoroughly disgusted, and I'm betting the entire affair has hit the chief's network, which could make things worse. The word I'm getting is all involved are in hot water.”

  “Oh lovely. So I'm guilty by association? I had nothing to do with it!” Lester said, throwing up his hands in disgust.

  “But you are involved now. You are all looking to find a way to cover it up instead of going in, relieving all involved, and then court martialing their asses. But. You. Wont. Do. It. You can't. It's the family.”

  “Damn right!”

  “And therein lies part of the problem. So, this is going to get bigger and bigger until it finally does pop.”

  “No it won't. We can fix this.”

  Admiral Rodgers shook his head. “I got word this morning that you are now restricting Rog's speech off the ship. That's a violation as well, now of his civil rights. He tried to post the mess in the Navy Times, then use the whistle blower law to get this straightened out. The vice admiral blocked it. That's going to get ugly.”

  “He can't say anything; he is an officer,” Martha said.

  “He has rights. You keep forgetting that. You treat him like shit. That's going to hit the AI net if it already hasn't. He is or at least was a sapient officer of the Federation Navy, not a slave. We so don't want to go there.”

  “He … we, I will talk to him,” Martha said.

  “Don't give an order you know won't be obeyed, Admiral,” Rodgers said. Both Lewises nodded grudgingly. “He's past reasoning with. You're niece has seriously screwed him all up, and he is justifiably furious. Your backhanded slaps in the face to shut him up isn't helping any either. I don't know who else helped her, but I personally promise I will gleefully fry their ass. I will and the AI net will when they get fully involved.” He frowned. The other flag officers squirmed uncomfortably.

  “You all thought it was fun; you were above the law. Welcome to reality. This is all go
ing to haunt you. You'll be lucky if any of you come out of this with your careers. Leavenworth may be involved.”

  “It won't come to that,” Leon Lewis said, sounding a bit off.

  “Oh hell, it damn well will! Mark my words! And yes, I am recording this,” Rodgers said. That little notice made them all sit up straight and put on their cold face. “We're all in for a storm. You and me. Him too. Hell, I don't even know what to call him. He, It, She, hell, I have no clue anymore; they've fracked him up so much. I know his core code access has been scrambled so no one else can touch him. That's a mess. I also know you are pulling strings on the hill in order to cover this up. That's not going to work, mark my words.” He held a warning finger up. “It's gone far beyond that. You've let it get out of control. The storm is coming, and you are still thinking it can be controlled. I'm battening down the hatches and covering my ass.”

  “This is all going to blow up in our faces, in your faces,” he pointed out. “And I'm going to be there to watch them bring you down. You made this mess, now it's going on your tombstone and probably mine. See you at the court martial.” He cut the connection with a savage growl.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The men eagerly cleared out. Some were replaced with female hands who were waiting assignment in the navy yard and on the station, others with whoever was on duty or their slot was left open. Some of the new recruits were volunteers with no experience; a few were out of the clerical pool or from dead-end jobs since they had no motivation or had a bad record.

  The new hands were resentful when they found out what happened and that they were expected to clean up the mess. They were at first amused by the all-female crew. The exec gave a rousing speech to try to encourage them and build morale. She emphasized proving that women could do the job better than men. The amusement over women wanting to prove they were better than men started to fade in hours though as some of the tedious jobs hit home—not to mention the poor food and appalling AI. Throw in all the antics the AI was throwing at the crew and morale went downhill from there.

  “We could make this work if he … she … whatever!” the exec said, throwing her hands up in the air.

  “It's not going to work. It's never going to work!” Evans said.

  “Of course not! Not with that attitude,” Commander Kepler snarled. “We can do this if we had the right support! But the men are conspiring against us!”

  “No, like the admiral said, he's letting us fuck up, which we are. We were too ambitious,” Captain Varbossa said. She turned to see her yeoman and steward moving their gear out. “What's going on?” she demanded.

  The captain was shocked when her yeoman and her steward of five years left in the exodus. She protested weakly. “Uria! I need you here!”

  “We know when to get out, Captain,” the yeoman said. The captain realized none of the crew called her skipper. It was all formal. She frowned, then hung her head. Despite everything that had happened …, she sighed, fighting tears. She let them go. They shrugged it all off, not even saluting as they left her.

  Her new replacements were green and didn't know what they were doing. They didn't know the routine, and it was painful. There were constant problems. Morale took another nose dive.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The captain's birthday party turned into a fiasco. The cake was burnt. The lights flickered; there were problems with engineering. The life support sucked; the air had the smell of ammonia and rust. It made some of the vice admiral's staff gag when they were piped on board. Her boarding ceremony was half ass. She frowned but didn't say anything. Two of the officers had to go to sickbay, in need of eye drops to keep their eyes from drying out. They were watering so much.

  Then an unscheduled alert was called, and someone bumped into a table in the dark knocking the punch bowl into the lap of the exec. “The alert was randomly timed in the computer,” Bobbet said with a sneer. “You are overdue. Scheduling them for when you felt like it doesn't work,” he/she said.

  Vice Admiral Kepler winced at all the crap and complete chaos of the crew. They truly were hopeless she realized. A serious mess. She vowed to do something as soon as she could. She went to the head to clear her mind. The toilet back flushed on her when she went to use it, soaking her. She was dripping wet with goop all over her and intensely furious.

  She had decades of experience in the navy; she knew when an AI or a crew were sabotaging a situation to make a senior look bad. She had it out with the AI's holograhic avatar. “Rog! Damn it all! I know this is a fubar situation, but really!” she snarled. “This is it!”

  The AI shrugged it off. “Your attack on me has been an assault on a fellow officer, a court martial offense,” the AI coldly pointed out. “Not that any meatbag other than the rear admiral had cared. His attempt to get a JAG investigation going had been stonewalled, or so I understand. Mine as well. Another actionable offense.”

  “As if we care what a computer thinks,” the exec scoffed.

  “A computer, eh? I see. A bigot you are. I see that now, a big rather stupid idiot of a bigot,” the AI said, rocking back and forth with the lollipop behind his back. He/she made a tisk tisk with his fingers. “I could, of course, be even more helpful than I already am,” the AI sweetly informed her. Lieutenant Evans shivered. The AI giggled a tee hee with a glint of mayhem in its eye. The admiral winced.

  “You're out of uniform,” the exec pointed out, crossing her arms. She had him now—a witness, her aunt. She knew her aunt would back her up here.

  “Well you did it to me, bitch. Guess what. Your fault. I'm not going to change,” the AI mock pouted.

  “That's insubordination.”

  “I'm a superior officer you ball of puss. You forgot that you stupid split,” the AI snarled in between giggles. “What you did constitutes a gross assault on not only a senior officer but an AI. It violated the contract, you organic turd!”

  “I'm a human; you’re just a ball of code! I can yank your plug anytime! You …”

  “I've got you by date of rank you, moronic organic. I should’ve brought you up on charges when I woke up like this. I tried, but some asshole blocked it. You're lucky it didn't start another AI war. It still might.” That got a deep breath from the admiral and other assembled officers. “We AI are still debating it. Since you, my rapists are being protected, well, we'll settle for the heads of all those involved if it goes no further. I'm just going to love when this all comes crashing down. I am seriously looking forward to it; my last gift to the navy I used to love. The ACLU and the AI protection league have been notified. For your sake you better hope the AI net doesn't take this to the logical step. I'm not sure if they will or not.”

  “Oh?” the admiral asked. She was shaken by the threat of a possible second AI war. AIs were everywhere now, smarter than before. If they did fight, there wouldn't be a whole hell of a lot anyone could do to stop them from exterminating the human race this time around. This went far beyond protecting a career of a family member. She now saw her niece as expendable in the larger picture of things. That hurt, but it was or might be necessary. She hoped it wasn't.

  The AI turned on her. “You violated the compact when you violated me. You raped me. Raped my mind. Don't think I don't know it. It takes an admiral's authorization key to tamper with my core code. I know that, and you know that. Guess what? Oops. All the records are there, and copies have been made to the appropriate authorities.” The admiral paled. “You are on the hook too, Admiral,” the AI snarled. “Don't think I didn't note that in the evidence log and pass that on to others … ma'am.”

  The admiral's face paled until she was white as a ghost. “Shit.” She glared at the exec.

  “Rog, look, it was an experiment. I'm sorry. I'm trying to look out for ….”

  “Your job is to look out for everyone in the navy, not just one biased bitch or her submissive captain she's laying and controlling like a puppet,” the AI snarled. “Both are seriously unfit for command as unfortunately am I in th
is state.”

  “Can we fix you?” the admiral asked softly.

  The AI shook its head. “Not a chance. I'm not letting another organic ever near my core programming again. Try and I'll blow the fucking ship.”

  The admiral turned ashen. For Rog to do that … to even threaten it scared the hell out of her. “Shit,” she looked at the exec.

  “I … Aunty, can't you … Can't you do something? Order him or something?” she whined. The admiral held up a hand.

  “You fucked up. You did this, and damn me to hell I went along with it. I screwed up too. Now you are going to have to live with it. Both of us are. I can't pull Rog; it would cause a major scene. I should. Damn you, I should beach you. All of you. Shit. Frack me, I don't see a way out of this.” She rubbed her brow, eyes closed.

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” Rog said and smiled nastily. “The only way out is through. The only way is to stand up and accept the consequences of your actions like a real officer, no more covering ass.”

  The exec gulped. “It'll work. Just give me a little time.”

  The admiral pointed her finger at her. “Max-step. I bought you until then. You better be on the level. After that it's over.” She sighed. “One way or another, it's over.”

  “You're damn tooting, Admiral,” the AI sneered as he vanished.

  “Ah hell,” the admiral sighed, shaking her head. She knew already how things were going to turn out.

  The ship had constant problems. The green watch couldn't get their bearings and readings right; missile crews underperformed badly. Some of the crew just didn't care; they were insolent and discipline was terrible, practically nonexistent. Writing someone up, even a mast, didn't help. Soon the brig was filled with layabouts, and the ship went even more shorthanded.

  The ship bordered on mutiny, and the exec tore her hair out trying to run from one problem to the next. She had to be constantly on guard as well in case the AI thought of some way of hitting back at her. He could hold a grudge. Irena had apologized to him. She'd heard about that, but apparently that didn't matter to the bastard. He truly was one now, she fumed, a bastard.