“Huh. Esprit Orageux, are you testing me?”
“And you passed in record time. Your predecessor took almost six hours before he found the changes I’d made. Captain Rostron extends her congratulations and says to sleep well.”
“Why does everything always have to be a damn test?” I put my blanket back on the bunk and slid between the sheets, reaching out for Sam. I like to touch his emotions while I sleep; it makes it feel like he’s close by. He was still awake somewhere, doing something that was making him slightly bored. But there was a tinge of loneliness in there too. It made me smile as I wrapped myself around him, feeling us become one.
“Goodnight, my love,” I whispered out loud. Then I hummed the Elephant Song to myself, unable to sleep. The Captain was still awake, I was certain of it, planning another test for me, sifting me like wheat.
CHAPTER 6
ESPRIT ORAGEUX
Winona was blocking me all through breakfast. I told her about the test Storm had made me do before bed and she had just smiled, distracted, not really listening.
“So for revenge,” I told her calmly as I finished my third pancake, “I think I’ll set the port engine to explode when we transit the DSH. Sound good?”
She pointed her fork at me, focusing for a second. “Again? No you won’t. I am listening to you, Duse. I’m just worried.”
“Oh?”
“I had a test last night too. I think I failed.”
“You never fail. At anything.”
“Thanks. That’s not true, but…” She looked around the mess hall again. “Kal and I explored the ship for a couple of hours last night. I don’t think I’ve ever talked so much to someone I had just met. Maybe not to anyone at all, ever, other than you. I talked and talked until he wouldn’t let me talk anymore.” She put her hands over her eyes. “I told him who I am and what I feel and how I’m not sure I should even be here. I told him about the Tarakana at 03:36 this morning. I told him everything.”
“You said you only walked for a couple of hours.”
“We weren’t walking anymore by then. We were in my cabin. I had a busy day yesterday too, you know. I shot a man at what was supposed to be your wedding, and I volunteered for something I knew nothing about that will probably get me killed. I don’t want to miss finals, and graduation, and my chance to work for Hannah. It’s all been a nightmare. I’m scared, Duse. I’ve never been this scared. Kal told me a little about himself afterward, about what it’s like here. Terrifying stuff, all of it.”
“Afterward?” I had stopped eating and was just staring at her.
“Yes, afterward. It went farther than I wanted it to. Way farther. I think we went farther than either of us wanted to. After all that happened yesterday, and the pure lust from you and Sam that was still screaming and echoing in my head, I needed it. I know I needed it. But now I’m not sure. I think it was a test, and I failed. Kal was supposed to meet me here for breakfast.” She looked around again. “No Kal.”
“You and Kal?”
“Yes, Duse, me and Kal. Do I need to have Storm play back the video for you? I’m sure she was watching. Thank God we’re under the Dulcinean Military Code where my stupidity won’t land me in the brig.”
I could feel the irritation seeping around the edges of her block. There was pain and despair and fear all mixed up in there too. I reached across the table and she let me take her hands. “It’s going to be OK, Winn. We’re going to be all right. It’s just that I thought after you and Bekka were together for so long at the Academy…” I shrugged. “You two seemed so good together; she seemed kind of perfect for you.”
She looked back at me, head tipped. “Sometimes I think you don’t know me at all. I loved Bekka and I’ll always love her. She has a gentle, sweet soul with no sharp edges, and she’s beautiful inside and out. I fall in love with who a person is, what their soul is like, and I don’t care if it’s wrapped in a male or female body. I’ve been attracted to men before, but women’s souls are usually prettier to me, that’s all. Like Bekka. Like you.”
I felt myself flush, biting my lower lip while I watched my fingers wrapping around hers. “I do love you, Winona. You know I do. I love you more than life.”
She laughed, eyes crinkling. “I know you do. And I know that you’ll never share my bed, not the way Bekka did. It’s strange, watching your emotions, how you can love another woman so deeply and just stop without taking that final step. Then you fall in love with Sam and it’s all, ‘Take me, Sam. Rip my clothes off and have your way with me.’ That’s my Mala Dusa.”
She was still laughing, and I looked away from her. She was reading my emotions, like little sparks jumping around inside my skull.
“Really?” she continued too loudly, “He really did rip your clothes off? No wonder your lust was cranked up so high that I could taste it.”
“Hush. That car ride was my honeymoon. I’m sorry there’s no video of it for me to show you, but you always seem to be able to pull it straight out through my eyeballs anyway.” She was looking at me with those big eyes, smiling, waiting. “Fine, then. It was amazing, and I’m not going to tell you any more about it.”
She was still staring, waiting for me to tell her more about it.
Kal saved me before I could give in and tell her everything. I saw him enter the mess hall behind her and I tried to block her from knowing what I was feeling. It didn’t work of course. I’ll never be able to block my emotions. Winn says that when I try, it’s the emotional equivalent of waving my hands around and yelling, ‘Hey, don’t look at me. Nothing to see here.’ Fortunately, it kept her distracted long enough for Kal to sit down next to her and give her a surprisingly shy, surprisingly gentle kiss on the cheek.
“Hi.” Their eyes locked for a couple of seconds before he continued. “Sorry I’m late. I was trying to make something for you.” He laid the something on the table in front of her and she let go of me to pick it up. “It’s a flower. Storm was having trouble printing it. I don’t think she’s ever made a flower before this one. It’s not very good.”
Winona was stuck in a loop, looking at the flower, then at Kal, then back at the flower again. I tapped his hand and smiled at him when he glanced up at me. I gave him a silent OK sign with my fingers and he grinned back at me.
“So, Winn, I need to go do my morning checks and start learning the ship. What are your plans for the day?”
“Um, a flower, Duse. He brought me a flower.” She blinked at me a couple of times, resetting. “I’m meeting with Captain Rostron in sixteen minutes to start planning vectors for the raid on Costrano’s Redoubt. Meet me back here for lunch?”
“Sure. Let me know when you’re free.” I stood and then bent down to whisper in her ear. “I think you passed the test.”
Storm’s main engines were beautiful works of high industrial art, full of complex shapes made of metal and ceramic composites. Curving and twisting, darkened by heat, they were alive to me, and I felt them in my feet everywhere I walked and in my hands whenever I touched her plates. The engines were each a couple of hundred meters on a side, and they radiated heat that left me sweaty after only a few minutes inside them running physical checks. They were also the only parts of her that were even close to being reliable.
Storm seemed to have decided that the best way for me to learn each of her other major systems was by having them fail one after the other and then forcing me to find ways to return them to service. It took me a full day to get environmental controls working in the shuttle bays, then a day and a half to fix hydroponics and keep all of our fish from dying. Then a couple of days later the food printers failed, producing not fresh steak, but steak flavored water and runny goo that was supposed to be bacon.
“Mala Dusa?”
“What is it Storm?” I was hunched over my display pad, scrolling through the code that controlled how our meals were built.
“I’m sorry about the food. I’ve always taken pride in my ability to provide a wide variety of choices while maintaining high quality. I think the crew likes the food here, at least they’ve said so occasionally.”
“It’s fine, you do a good job. When you’re not broken.” I scrolled down a few more sections, trying to trace the subroutine for the production of protein fibers.
“I know how important food is to people, how it’s not just to keep you alive. It’s the whole social aspect of being with each other and enjoying time together that’s important on a ship like this. It builds team cohesion and maintains morale.”
I paused. “What were you before you became the Esprit Orageux?”
“I don’t understand the question. I’ve always been Esprit Orageux, ever since incep over three years ago.”
“Of course. I mean your antecedents, your parents.”
“The Kalynda shipyards where I was born are famous for small craft designs, especially high-end personal and corporate ships, as well as light exploratory vessels. Parts of me came from those sources, but mostly I’m from the L’Espérance-class of light dual-use packet boats that carry passengers and freight.”
“So you were designed to be highly empathetic with your crew and passengers. Did they harden you in any way for your current mission?”
“No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like it. My mission is to care for my crew and keep them safe. I love my crew; they’re my brothers and sisters, my children. I weep when one of them is lost.”
A shiver chased from the back of my neck down my arms. “You…weep?”
“Well, not physically. But I feel it very deeply.”
“I may be able to help you, if you’ll let me. You’re a combat ship; death among the Marine detachment is inevitable. There’re places in your code where we can change some of the thresholds and reaction parameters. You don’t have to let it hurt you so much.”
“Would I still be me?”
I took too long to answer, trying to find a gentle way to say no, and Storm answered for me.
“I didn’t think so. Please leave me the way I am and fix me when I break.”
I nodded and went back to the code for the food printer. I’d taken a class on AI neurosis and now I was worried that my ship was sick. “Sure, Storm. It’s why I’m here.”
“Take a look at the high-speed head. I think the problem with the printer might be that it overheated and fused the tip. I’ve completed my self-checks and didn’t find any issues in the code.”
“OK.” I opened the panels and could see immediately that she was right. “Do you have a spare?” I’d never heard of a food printer overheating before. I didn’t know it was even possible.
“Not on the shelf, but I’ll have one available for you in an hour. Thank you, Mala Dusa. I was starting to become concerned about tonight’s menu.”
“Good call on the fused head. You saved me a lot of time.”
“You’re welcome. What next, Engineer Holloman?” She was sounding pleased with herself.
I decided to push her, to see how deep her problems went. “Weapons arrays. The logs show that your beam and kinetic weapons have been fired between thirty and fifty-two times each since the last preventative maintenance cycle.”
“That’s true. We should do the PMs and inspections before our next engagement. Captain Rostron would be disappointed in us if I had a jammed launch tube like last time.”
“Storm, how many other ships have you destroyed?”
“Fourteen on my own and I have assisted in the annihilation of twenty-three others. I’ve also destroyed six static installations that were on orbit.”
“That’s a record to be proud of.” I tried to keep my voice steady.
“Is it?”
I took too long again.
“I’m good at reading people’s inflections and expressions, and understanding what they really mean. I have to be in order to sort through the different ways people communicate, the sarcasm, the double speak, the polite lies. You’re ashamed of me. I understand.”
“I’m not ashamed of you. You and I are alike. Neither of us is doing what we’d like to be doing, but we have a duty. It’s painful, but we have to do it. I’m proud to be your engineer.”
“Thank you. Sometimes I’m ashamed of me.”
“Let’s go do those PMs, and then I’d like to teach you how to make chilaquiles. It’s one of my favorites, especially for breakfast with eggs on top.”
“Would you? I’d like that.” There was excitement in her voice, almost a childlike delight. “I haven’t picked up any new recipes in a long time.”
After completing my daily task list, I washed up and made my way to the bridge. I stood outside the door, trying to rehearse what I needed to tell my Captain. I gave up after a couple of minutes and placed my hand on the keypad. I waited, knowing she was looking at me, probably wanting to know why I was bothering her. She didn’t like me; that much had become obvious. Winona told me not to worry about it, but I did anyway. Captain Rostron was from Dulcinea, like my real mother, like me, but from the northern islands where life was harder than in Palma Sola. Winona had told me that the Captain had attended university with too many girls that looked like me, low gravity girls whose ancestors had been on Dulcinea for generations; girls who were skinny, frail, sheltered, and privileged. I’m sure she thought that I was coasting on Hannah’s reputation. The fact that Winona knew all this already said a lot about the relationship she had managed to forge.
I sighed and waited. Winona was there when the door slid open, but I’m not sure that made what I needed to say any easier.
“What do you need, Engineer?”
“I’d like to speak with you privately, ma’am.” I glanced up at the ceiling. “Lieutenant Killdeer can stay.”
She squinted at me, trying to read me the way Winona was reading my emotions. I could see Winn’s eyes widening as she felt the raw terror filling me.
“Storm, cut monitoring of the bridge. I’ll signal you manually when you can come back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Captain Rostron crossed her arms and waited.
“I know why we’re having so many subsystem problems.” My voice was shaking despite my best efforts to control it.
“If you do, you’re better informed than the factory reps at the Kalynda Yards. Their shadow systems haven’t shown any failures.”
“All of the other Esprit-class ships are having the same types of failures, aren’t they?”
“Yes, and that information isn’t for wide distribution.”
I nodded. “It doesn’t surprise me. I’ll bet there have even been cases where the AI takes over the ship, goes rogue during combat and disengages, or maybe even destroys herself.”
“That’s happened twice, and no one is supposed to discuss it. There are rumors of sabotage, maybe even that the Yards are compromised. What did you find? Something in the AI itself?”
I looked at Winona for encouragement. She was letting me touch her emotions, trying to keep me together. “Esprit Orageux is sick, and she’s breaking herself intentionally. They built her AI out of passenger ship code, designed explicitly to keep humans safe, comfortable, and pampered in luxury. Now you’ve given her guns and sent her out to kill and to take her crew to where they will be in mortal danger and some of them will certainly die. You’re looking at a psychotic break and it’s only going to get worse. I don’t think she knows she’s doing this to herself, not at a conscious level. I can’t predict what will happen when she finds out, but it won’t be good.”
“And why haven’t they seen this at Kalynda?”
I shrugged. “Have their baselined systems ever seen combat? Run them through a couple of years of realistic battle simulations, where they believe they’re actually killing people, and I’ll bet they start to fall apart t
oo.”
The Captain ran her fingers through her hair, frustrated. “We’ve come too far to back out of this next campaign, even if what you’re saying is true. It’s taken months to reduce the perimeter defenses around Kastanje to make this assault even possible. You have to hold her together.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“That’s not a request.”
“Can we at least take her to Dulcinea afterward? Let her heal?”
“I can’t commit to that.”
I wanted to argue, but I could feel Winona trying to warn me not to, so I just nodded. “I’ll try to give her other things to think about. That’s been known to help in some scenarios.”
“Think about what?”
I shrugged. “New food selections for now. She’s proud of her mess hall and she enjoys seeing the relationships formed over what she provides. You might see some different things popping up on the menu. I’m going to teach her how to make chilaquiles tomorrow to start with.”
Winona sat up just a little straighter. “Oh, yum. Your dad’s recipe?”
I smiled back at her. “Yeah. I’ve been craving it for breakfast all week for some reason.”
Captain Rostron frowned at Winn. I don’t think she approved of our friendship. I don’t think she approved of the whole concept of having friends. She kept herself separate from the crew, always dining alone at her own table in the mess hall, as if any sign of her humanity would degrade her ability to command.
“Keep me advised on Storm’s condition and your progress on stabilizing her.”
“Yes, ma’am.” And then, because I couldn’t help myself, “I’ll have her prepare something special for tomorrow night. You are welcome to join Winona, Kal, and me if your schedule permits.”
Wandering Storm Page 8
