Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments

by Randolph Lalonde

  “What about piracy charges?”

  “Oh, they’ve got you there. If they arrested you on piracy you’d either spend months defending yourself in court and get acquitted or you’d be convicted and executed.”

  “Surprise, surprise. All right, how much power does Ayan have?”

  “A lot less than I pretended to,” she sighed.

  “Pretty amazing negotiation, by the way. Where did that land grant idea come from?” Oz asked as he stopped to stand next to her. He squeezed her shoulders affectionately. “Who’d of thought our little Sunspot would grow into someone with such a commanding presence?”

  “Better late than never. I’ve been working on getting things set up on Tamber since I knew there would be damage to the Triton. I didn’t expect this though, I don’t think anyone did. I’m just glad we have something to our names without her.”

  “Wheeler, I can’t believe he’s here, or something that looks and acts like him is here,” Jacob said, shaking his head.

  “God, I’ve never wanted to throttle someone so badly,” Ayan added.

  “Couldn’t tell. You kept your cool better than anyone.”

  “Thank you. I still think bringing you was too much of a risk. You were right before, you should be in hiding.” She told Jacob.

  “Him? Hide? Fat chance,” Minh scoffed. “I’m just surprised he’s taking this so well.”

  “I made sure I calmed down before I came to this table.”

  “I saw that pointing antic before I made it to the loading ramp. You could have cost us the little traction I had with that commander.” Ayan told him levelly.

  “Fleet Warden. It’s similar to Admiral in rank. She’s right on both counts though. As much as I want to toss Wheeler out of the nearest airlock, I took a serious risk with that move. There are still prices on the Samson crew’s heads, so we’ll at least have to hide them while we appeal for the bounties to be cancelled.”

  “That shouldn’t be much of a problem, especially since the Carthans didn’t try to arrest you here. It’ll take time though.” Jason mused. “I’m going to set up fake idents for you and your old crew so they can move around a bit. They might be able to show their faces with new names and a DNA mask built into their vacsuits, but you’re screwed unless you go get facial reconstruction, which might not work because you have a healing problem.”

  “Never thought that would be a problem, but you’re right. You’ll make at least a dozen new best friends out of the Samson crew though.”

  “It should be an easy job, especially if there are a lot of new people coming into the Rega Gain system.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Ayan added.

  “Good.” Focusing on the fine details of the situation helped. All he wanted to do was storm off the Clever Dream and open fire on the Carthan soldiers, the Warden, and make sure Wheeler died last. If it was him in a framework body, then he could experiment. Ever since he found out that he was a human of synthetic origin himself, he wondered what it would take to kill him. Wheeler provided the perfect test subject. He shook it off and took a deep breath before continuing. Ayan’s hand crept around his waist. “What about the fighters? Do you think we’ll have to surrender them to the Carthans?”

  “Just having them could have exposed the pilots and Ayan to grand theft charges. If they wanted to arrest anyone, they would have” Jason replied.

  “They gave me registration papers instead.” Ayan added.

  “Well, then the Carthans are on our side, but quietly. They want to please Wheeler because they actually think he has something important. If it weren’t for him, I’m pretty sure we’d be fine. Better than. As it is, I’m hoping filing a complaint will tie the Triton up in the docks instead of letting Wheeler have her outright. The Carthans are stepping lightly. I suspect, no, I’m sure that’s why they’re not sending a huge boarding effort aboard to control our retreat and minimize looting.”

  “That, and two thirds of the people here are ready to raise their rifles. We’ve already proven that we can defend the ship deck by deck,” Oz stated as a matter of fact. “It’s the external firepower that we can’t deal with. How long are they giving us?”

  “The clock is running. We have forty two minutes left to clear the Triton of all personnel,” Jake said. His voice was tight, it was impossible to hide how he felt completely. “Is there any way we can lock down the Triton?”

  “I thought you had the command codes?” Oz asked.

  “We have a command code chip,” Jake said, pulling a small golden rectangular necklace out from under the collar of his armour. “It gives someone control over the Triton’s higher functions, but there’s no way to know what the codes actually are. Anyone can slip this chip into a command console and take control of the ship, unless someone who actually knows the encrypted passwords comes along and overrides it.”

  “So someone from Sol Defence could just come on in and take control without that.”

  “Yup,” Jason confirmed. “As far as I can tell the command pass is alphanumeric, anywhere between eight and one thousand twenty four characters and encoded to someone’s DNA. I doubt anyone has had this ship running at full efficiency since she was stolen. Even Lewis has tried to hack in, didn’t get past the first layer of the computer’s central processor security. It’s almost as bad as the Carthan’s network.”

  “I’ve tried several times, and beyond grading the security quality of the various departments, I have no information to offer.”

  “Don’t try to break in again, Lewis. Ever,” Jake told the artificial intelligence, looking up at the middle of the room.

  “I was not detected.”

  “That doesn’t matter. If their defence systems get a whiff of you, just enough to realize an intelligent AI is crawling around, you’ll bring the entire Carthan military down on us,” Ayan explained. “They’ve outlawed Artificial Intelligences completely.”

  “You’ve also made the Holocaust Virus as part of your core program,” Jason added.

  “So I can cure other aritificial intelligences and protect myself,” Lewis countered.

  “That’s commendable, but if the Carthans see that code-“

  “They’ll assume I was the initial carrier of the virus, and they would be partially correct. I did carry the virus to Pandem, after all.”

  The room fell silent. Jake suspected he was the initial carrier, the time line was a match, but he didn’t want to know for certain. “Just don’t initiate contact with any military network, or any other system unless we order it, and don’t tell anyone else you delivered the virus to Pandem. We understand, you weren’t in control of yourself and you’ve corrected your programming. Others won’t.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Jacob sighed, trying to put the lecture he wanted to give Lewis aside and went on. “So, could the Carthans get control of Triton as is?”

  “I doubt they ever will. Chief Grady’s implanted a series of packets that will kill the organic circuitry and he’s got the reactors hard wired on a feedback loop,” Oz added.

  “How do they activate?” Ayan asked, surprised.

  “As soon as someone tries to bring Triton’s main systems online it all goes into motion. The reactors start overloading, and the command systems will begin to fail. He made sure it would take a close visual inspection to tell if there’s anything wrong.”

  “All right, so, when someone tries to start her up, the reactors and main control systems will burn out. How long would it take to repair?” Jake asked. The thought of destroying the primary systems of the greatest ship he’d ever seen made him feel ill.

  “The reactors would have to be rebuilt from scratch, same with the primary computer systems. The core is isolated though, so that’s a mercy.”

  “So in dry dock it would take six months?”

  “If they have a specialist who understands how the bioelectric systems work and can manage to grow replacement materials then it could take three with their faciliti
es. Without a specialist they’d have to replace the computer systems ship wide.”

  “Chances are they can get a specialist.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Then let’s take things a step further,” Jake said darkly. All eyes were drawn to him. “Send a message to Sol Defence. Tell them we found their ship and the man who stole her.”

  “You’re joking,” Laura burst.

  Oz, Minh and Ayan started smiling. “That’s going to make things very interesting for the Carthans,” she said quietly.

  It was obvious that Jason’s mind was busy at work. “I’m going to send a compressed version of the command logs since you captured her from Wheeler, Jake. The best way to avoid blowback from this is to make sure they know everything about us and what we’ve been doing with the Triton since you took possession.”

  “I think Sol Defence will approve,” said Liam Grady from the entrance. “You won’t have their endorsement, but they won’t press charges against you for taking command of one of their ships. Especially since you weren’t responsible for her initial theft and you’ve rescued thousands of refugees, freed half as many slaves. We’re going to lose her though, and for good if my guess is right.”

  Silence fell over the room for a long moment. “It was a dream,” Minh said finally. “A new day brings new opportunities.”

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