Torchship Captain

by Karl K Gallagher

  “Going to bring Lian with you?” Voice casual, hands tense.

  “She’s a hot house flower. Wouldn’t last halfway through the winter.”

  “So what are you going to do about the kids?”

  “I don’t know,” Guo said.

  The silence stretched on.

  He said, “I don’t think she’d be willing to give them up. I can send her plenty of money but being a father is more than that. My dad always took time to teach me stuff until . . . anyway, money’s not enough. I don’t know how well the Harmony would treat a Disker’s kids. And she may not have a job.”

  “What, they’re firing her because she couldn’t make you defect?”

  “No, for not telling anyone I’d vanished.”

  Guo realized he’d left his escape attempt out of the story. He told Mitchie about the pre-dawn hike, stealing an emergency vehicle, and seeing the destroyer Walking Rollo blown up in his face. Figures she’d be more impressed by me beating up a cop than negotiating with a government.

  He finished the digression with, “—so whether she’d be court-martialed and for what charge was one of the levers Ping tried to make me defect with. She may have been convicted of treason. I don’t know.”

  “If they executed her, no twins.”

  Guo shuddered. “I can’t see them doing that. Maybe later. But growing up as the children of a traitor would be horrid for the kids.”

  Mitchie waited for a bit before asking, “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to stay with you.”

  She held out her arms to him.

  Guo walked across the cabin, stepping around the pieces of the framed picture, and sat next to Mitchie on the bed. They wrapped their arms tightly around each other.

  “What are you going to do about the twins?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out together.”

  Tuatha Station, Danu System, centrifugal acceleration 10 m/s2

  Guo stopped again.

  Mitchie took a couple more steps down the corridor before realizing he wasn’t moving. She went back and wrapped her arms around him. “It’ll be all right. I’ll body slam the son of a bitch if he tries to talk to you.”

  Her husband chuckled.

  “Better yet, I’ll get one of Galen’s staffers to slam him. They’d have enough mass to actually move the guy.”

  That produced a real laugh from him. He returned her hug. After a moment he said, “It’s not just worrying about Ping approaching me, even if every time I see him I have torture flashbacks. It’s . . . I’ve dreamed of killing him. Wrapping my hands around his neck and squeezing until I crush his windpipe. Can I actually be in the same room with him without losing control and attacking him?”

  “Yes, you can. Even though he deserves it. Because you’re a good person and you can handle yourself and there’s a lot of people will grab you before you reach him.”

  The last part seemed the most reassuring.

  “Now come on,” she said. “We don’t want to be the last ones to arrive.” They started walking again. “Tomorrow, will you go see a therapist?”

  “How can I trust one to keep my secrets? This is Danu. There’s still shooting going on between pro-Fusion and pro-Harmony guerillas despite the cease-fire. No therapist is going to be impartial.”

  “Um.” They kept walking. “There’s lots of doctors from the Disconnect with the Combined Fleet. Would you trust one of them?”

  “Yes. But they’re treating casualties from the battle.”

  “You’re a casualty from the battle.”

  “They’ll triage me as ‘come back in a month.’”

  Mitchie grinned. “Not if we make it a security issue. Maybe you were subjected to subtle psychological programming when held prisoner.”

  “Subtle hell.”

  They’d arrived. The guards checked them against the list and waved them into the ballroom.

  It wasn’t set up for dancing. A table in the center was ready for the signing. Others lined the outside holding nibbles of every kind. Flags decorated the walls, every world of the Disconnect flanked by the Harmony and Fusion ones. It was crowded with every politician who could attend on two weeks’ notice plus the flag officers from all three fleets.

  A waiter offered a tray of drinks. Guo took white wine. Mitchie chose something that looked complicated and strong.

  “Captain Long. Senior Chief Kwan. It’s good to see you.” Admiral Galen must have been waiting for them.

  The couple came to almost-attention and made polite greetings.

  “Thank you for giving me an excuse to escape Sukhoi’s Planetary Director. Those people are going to carry a grudge forever over the space stations they lost. Have you had a chance to read the treaty?”

  Both nodded. Guo said, “Yes, it looks like it should be a stable compromise.”

  Mitchie added, “I was impressed that you convinced the DCC to commit to using Disconnect ships to enforce the treaty provisions.”

  Galen laughed softly. “Be impressed when they ratify it. They haven’t seen that part yet.”

  “That’s—do you think they’ll get a unanimous vote?”

  “They will. Or war will break out again and it will be their fault. And they’ll need to find a new fleet commander.”

  Guo looked shocked. Mitchie was impressed. The admiral had taken severe risks to win his battles but she’d never seen him operate on the political level like this.

  “Anyway, Long, I just want to tell you you’re a bad influence. Enjoy the party.” Galen moved on.

  Mitchie choked on her drink.

  “He must have read your report,” said Guo.

  No one in the crowd wanted to talk to Guo. Mitchie was sought out by Fusion Marines wanting to thank her for her daring landings, and Disker intelligence officers who wanted to shake hands and wouldn’t say why.

  Guo had relaxed a bit when he realized Ping wasn’t in the crowd but tensed up every time someone arrived through either door.

  Mitchie spotted Guen and some other Fuzie politicians she knew but the crowd around them was too thick to fight through.

  The last of the principals to arrive was Daifu Ping. Mitchie and Guo drifted to the far corner of the room. It wasn’t necessary.

  Ping insisted on kicking off the signing of the peace treaty immediately.

  The negotiations included protocols for making a ceremony of it. Anthems were played, with Bonaventure’s standing in for the rest of the Disconnected Worlds (not all of whom had bothered choosing anthems). A Hindi priest gave a carefully neutral invocation. Then handcrafted pens in museum-ready display cases were presented to each signer.

  “Going to be embarrassing if those fancy pens won’t write,” muttered Mitchie.

  Her husband pointed to the presenter. “That guy probably has six extras tucked into his jacket.”

  Daifu Ping stood in front of the first of the three copies on the table. Holding the pen in the air he began his speech. The Harmony would be a good neighbor and example of cultural growth for all of humanity. It would accept those betrayed by impersonal institutions and social atomization, providing worthy tasks for all to undertake.

  Mitchie wrapped her arms around Guo as the speech continued. He stood stiffly. She reached up and stroked his cheeks. He stopped grinding his teeth.

  At last Ping shut up and signed.

  Guen kept her speech short. She thanked the negotiating teams for their hard work and promised to start Stakeholder elections as soon as the referendums over control of Danu, Franklin, and other disputed worlds were concluded. Once the Fusion’s control mechanisms were back in place everyone could be assured of peaceful and prosperous lives. Her signature was a quick scribble.

  The Disconnected Worlds were represented by Admiral Galen. He accepted the ceremonial pen, running a finger over the letters carved in the wooden barrel. “I choose to sign this treaty. I choose it because it protects the right of every human to make the most importan
t decision. To pick up and leave where ever they are and find someplace better. Sometimes two men will switch places. If they’re both happier thereby, good. Different people need different things from their neighbors and their governments.

  “Others will want something that never existed before. They have the right to go where they can and build it. Only by protecting that right can we discover better ways.

  “As the representative of the Defense Coordinating Committee of the Disconnected Worlds, I sign this treaty.”

  He wrote a firm signature on all three copies.

  The room broke into applause.

  Mitchie looked up at her husband. The free emigration clause had survived from the original proposal he carried to the Harmony. He wiped at an eye.

  “You did it,” she said. “You changed the world.”

  With the ceremony over the real drinking began. Guo stuck with wine. Mitchie snagged another strange-looking drink as an experiment then abandoned it on the first table she came to. Growing up on Akiak didn’t prepare her for 50% pineapple juice.

  “There you are! Have you been hiding?”

  Mitchie turned around to find Guen with Wayne Searcher on her arm. She was thankful she’d told Guo of the signs she’d seen of that romance. Even if he was relieved, he shouldn’t be surprised.

  An exchange of hugs was followed by celebration of the treaty. Then Guo asked, “You two seem comfortable together. Are congratulations in order?”

  Guen blushed and looked down.

  Wayne had a bit of embarrassment in his voice as he said, “Well, there’s nothing official, but yes.”

  “We wish you much happiness. How long . . . ?”

  “It was on the battleship.” Wayne gave Guen a squeeze. “There’s something about going into danger that makes you stop hesitating.”

  “I understand. Mitchie and I started off in a similar way. Kidnapping, gun battles, broken skulls, all very romantic.”

  “Also very classified,” snapped Mitchie. If word got out she’d used a spaceship’s torch to kill people on the ground she’d be banned from flying ships on every human world.

  Guo switched to the almost as dramatic and less secret story of their wedding during a Betrayer invasion.

  Past Guen’s shoulder Mitchie saw Ping approaching, drink in hand. She thrust a palm at him to repel him. He stopped but crooked a finger to summon her.

  “Excuse me.” She crossed to Ping. “What do you want?”

  “A good working relationship with you and your husband. Seeing that we have new rules to live by we will probably encounter one another from time to time.”

  Mitchie bit back her first reply. “Yes, there’s new rules. Those rules don’t allow me to kill you. If we ever have rules that do allow me to kill you I’ll do it. And I’ll enjoy doing it.”

  “I love your honesty, Long. However did you manage as a spy?”

  She turned on her heel and walked back to her husband.

  Chapter Ten: Earth

  FIVE MONTHS LATER

  Joshua Chamberlain, Solar System, acceleration 10 m/s2

  Mitchie let herself slide down the last part of the cargo hold ladder. Bosun Setta’s, “Ma’am, could you come down here?” had been enough to get her moving. She could hear the argument from up here.

  The words were too muffled to make out completely. She caught Guo saying “circuit breaker” and Pete saying “experiment.” All the lights in the starboard side of the hold were out.

  Yep, this would take the captain’s intervention.

  As the ladder went vertical she braked to a stop and switched to the rungs. She wanted to go down two at a time, but her legs wouldn’t reach. Well, this way was probably more dignified.

  Once on the deck the bickering voices were muffled by all the containers in the way. Mitchie listened for a moment then gave up and buttonholed the nearest boffin. “Where’s Dr. Smith?”

  “Probably in the Radiation Transmissibility Shack,” said the affronted scientist.

  “Take me there, please.”

  The boffin started to protest then realized who she was dealing with. She led Mitchie to the dark side of the hold.

  The ‘shack’ was yet another standard container filled with cutting-edge electronics. Joshua Chamberlain’s hold held a couple dozen of them stacked in ever-changing arrangements. Guo and Pete were arguing in the narrow aisle in front of its open doors, waving their flashlights for emphasis.

  “What’s the problem?” said Mitchie, voice pitched to cut through their voices. The guide-boffin fled.

  Both answered at once.

  Mitchie held up a hand to silence them. “Senior Chief?”

  Guo took a breath to calm himself.

  “About ten minutes ago the circuit breakers for the starboard power lines to the hold tripped. When I attempted to investigate the problem, Dr. Smith demanded I reset them so he could continue his experiment. When I explained the breakers will only allow so much current he demanded I provide a power connection to the main converter. That would be a safety hazard.”

  “Thank you. Dr. Smith?”

  The cyberneticist’s words tripped over each other as he rattled through his explanation. “The fleet is approaching Earth. That’s an entirely different opponent than we’ve faced before. Not one AI occupying a system, but a multitude of AIs on a single world, competing and cooperating, forming an ecology. They’ve been evolving ever since the Betrayal, if we still want to call it that. The approaches we’ve used before won’t work on these more sophisticated AIs. We need to establish a deeper understanding of them in hardware—”

  Mitchie cut in. “What’s the experiment?”

  “In previous systems we disrupted AIs by sending data into their existing communications ports. Radio antennas usually. That worked because the AIs had the system to itself. It only expected messages from other nodes of the same AI. On Earth other AIs would take advantage of that vulnerability. All the ports will be hardened against us.”

  “The experiment, please.” Mitchie wanted to be patient. Hosting Pete’s flying laboratory was safer and easier than her usual missions. She didn’t want him flouncing off to demand a more amenable ride. But she still wanted to strangle him sometimes.

  “The theory we’re testing—Dr. Kirk’s idea really, very outside the box thinker—is whether we can by-pass the antennas and put signals into the processing nodes directly. That would let us attack the executive software layer, either disrupting execution or inserting parasitic code. The data payloads—”

  Mitchie grabbed his collar and pulled his face down to hers. “What’s using electricity?”

  “The radio transmitter,” he squeaked. “We’re beaming code at one of the AI processors we captured, inside the protective shell. So we need high power to get signal through. The experiment will tell us if the shell garbles the signal too much to be read.”

  She let go. “Okay. Let’s look at your set-up.”

  Pete led Mitchie and Guo into the container. The transmitter took up one end of the box. Its wave guide was pointed at a patched egg ten meters away at the other end.

  “We’d have all the doors closed while it’s running to seal the Faraday cage,” said Pete.

  Guo was studying the conduit bringing the power lines though the wall. “This isn’t an airtight container. And you haven’t grounded it. Really you can’t ground the amount of power you’d be running through this, not on the ship.”

  “Dr. Kirk has a doctorate in electrical engineering,” protested Pete. “He assembled the apparatus personally!”

  Guo turned toward the transmitter. “In that case I’d better check the soldering work for shorts.”

  Mitchie intervened before Pete could start on a defense of his colleague. “Does the processing core need to be in the container for this experiment?”

  “Well, no. It’s in the box to contain the spillover from the transmitter.”

  “Then let’s try this. We’ll cut acceleration and park the core a few h
undred meters from the ship. With the cargo doors open the transmitter can hit it from the hatch. We’ll give you the maximum safe power supply.”

  The scientist moved his hands through the air as he visualized the new plan. “Can we put out multiple cores at once?”

  “I don’t see a problem with that,” answered Mitchie.

  Guo opened the transmitter’s case to trace the power lines.

  BDS Patton, Solar System, acceleration 0 m/s2

  Mitchie and Pete were the last to arrive for Admiral Galen’s staff meeting. Doing the experiment left them lagging so far behind the Combined Fleet they’d missed the battle as the fleet crossed through the Asteroid Belt. She was fine with that.

  The meeting opened with Intelligence recapping the battle in detail. Mitchie used the time to study the other attendees. Nine-tenths of them outranked her. Pete was here as ‘Lead Researcher,’ giving him a seat at the table. The other civilians, political observers, were exiled to a corner. Mitchie’s role as ‘Research Liaison’ won her a spot behind Pete, where she could intervene if he broke military protocol too egregiously.

  “The majority of Betrayer ships detected did not engage in any offensive actions,” said the Intelligence commodore. “We assess they were intended as observers, monitoring our combat capability as well as that of rival Betrayer factions. Some observers conducted synchronized maneuvers while widely separated, indicating they belonged to the same faction.”

  “How many factions?” asked Admiral Galen.

  “We don’t have a good estimate. At least fifteen. Possibly more than sixty.” The commodore finished his briefing with an even vaguer estimate of Earth’s defenses.

  “Thank you,” said Galen. “Operational Plans?”

  A rear admiral unseatbelted and floated to a spot beside the display wall. He brought up a map of the sphere of systems surrounding Earth. Half were now marked in orange after being cleared. The other half were still the red of active Betrayers. “Our priority is to capture Earth quickly so we can continue operations. We don’t want to let them regroup and launch another counterattack. Our secondary goal is to recover resources from Earth to support our fleet.”