Starship Defender: Beyond Human Space

by Michael Keats

  Now was the time for Harry to say something. I stared at the screens around the room, but none of them lit up.

  “Admiral O’Donnell has retracted her orders,” I insisted. “She’s about to connect to the bridge.” I started to sound desperate. Harry was supposed to appear, not let the marines lock me up in the brig and take me back to Fleet Command. If I returned against my will, I’d be in even more trouble.

  Had he planned this all along and betrayed me? He was capable of becoming a villain and a traitor, but he was on my side. I was more fun than the marines!

  I tried to struggle away from the marines’ grips, but they held me firmly.

  “Now would be a good time to appear,” I said out loud.

  Harry appeared in Aunt Eleanor’s 3D persona. “Excuse me,” he said with my aunt’s voice. “I was having a couple of drinks and flirting with a couple of young and handsome male officers who want to get a promotion the easier way. You know how these things work for female admirals…” He grinned at the camera. He was going to make this as hard as possible for me.

  Hooke saluted at the screen. “Captain Hooke at your orders, ma’am!” she shouted. “Commander O’Donnell claims that you don’t need us to arrest him.”

  Harry waved in the air and nodded as he took a sip from a glass of scotch. “I know,” he said in my aunt’s voice. “But I’m an admiral, and I’m allowed to change my mind whenever I want to. And now I don’t want my nephew to come to Fleet Command. I want him to lead the Defender and to chase after the bad guys. He’s in charge and I want him in charge. Understood?”

  The marines who’d been holding me released me immediately and squared up before the screen, but they exchanged doubtful and incredulous glances. Harry took out a portable mirror and checked his reflection. He was making my aunt look like an empty-headed idiot, but I wouldn’t go to jail. At least not for a while.

  “I’ve asked, Understood?” Harry said with a firmer voice. He did sound like my aunt on a bad day. It was almost as if he’d seen her whenever she didn’t want to attend family dinners. Aunt Eleanor wasn’t happy during family meetings until after she’d shot someone with her electric gun.

  “Yes, ma’am!” all three marines replied at once.

  “Very well,” Harry said. “Now let go of him and go back to doing whatever marines do whenever they aren’t chasing after my nephew.” He gestured at them to leave and addressed the rest of the observers on the bridge. “And don’t any of you have anything to do?”

  The engineers returned to their screens and acted as though they were working. A smile flashed on Harry’s face: he was thinking of a thousand mischievous ways of using his rank as a fake admiral, and he liked them.

  If he kept going, he’d find a way to ruin the rest of my life and my career. And the little reputation I had left.

  “Ma’am, you must be very busy right now,” I told him. “Thank you for solving this misunderstanding.”

  “You’re welcome, dearie!” Harry waved at the screen with the tips of his fingers. “Don’t forget to come and visit the next time you come to Earth.”

  Yeah, awesome. Now I had a caring aunt who wanted to see me during the holidays.

  There was something inherently wrong in letting Harry impersonate my aunt. He’d make me compensate him for this sooner or later.

  Chapter 25

  I set the marines to sweep the ship, check for enemies, and gather anyone who didn’t want to take part in the mission. Everyone thought that they were forced to follow my orders because Fleet Command had commanded them to do so, but I didn’t want any pressed hands to demoralize the men, especially if we ended up facing a technologically advanced fleet. If someone wanted to leave, they were free to board a shuttle and abandon us.

  Luckily, only a couple of men disliked the idea of following me. They were ordinary seamen with a couple of years of experience, so we weren’t going to miss them too much.

  Hooke offered to update the patrol schedules now that some of our men had fallen.

  As soon as she’d left, Harry pressed his ear with one finger. He’d returned to his usual holographic image and hadn’t mentioned my aunt again.

  “These marines are too loud,” he complained. “They shouldn’t shout so much. Conference calls don’t lose volume anymore. What century do they think we’re in?”

  “At least they’re on our side now,” I said. “Might need their guns.”

  “But can we keep them locked up until we need them?” Harry said. “Can’t disconnect them like me, but we can lock them up so that they’re quiet. Or we can place duct tape over their mouths.”

  “Shut up, Aunt Eleanor,” I said as I headed to the great cabin.

  “Oi!” he said. “Don’t even think of calling me auntie again, or you’ll have to pull yourself out of your next conflict with the marines.”

  I didn’t tease him again and he didn’t ask me to introduce him to my aunt. The prior events had never happened.

  We reached the great cabin and checked the star charts. We flew somewhat faster than the enemy ship, so we’d catch them soon. Was it a trap?

  While I checked the star charts, Harry dropped onto the admiral’s armchair and took out a doodling program to draw funny mustaches on the crew’s pictures. He acted quite mature for his age. This was his first test flight, after all.

  “Should we test the weapons before the fight?” I asked, trying to draw him away from his doodling.

  Harry wasn’t paying attention and didn’t care about what I’d said. “I’m considering starting a business. Impersonators 4 All. Sounds catchy, doesn’t it?”

  “Can we act as though we haven’t broken all identity theft laws and impersonated one of the highest authorities in the Navy?”

  “Why?” Harry turned off the screen and looked up. “We should be proud of ourselves. Does We Impersonate sound any better?”

  “I’m serious, Harry. We can’t walk around the ship saying that we’ve supplanted my aunt and lied to the marines.”

  Harry shrugged lazily. “Think I can open a bank account for the company?”

  “I honestly don’t care.”

  Even if he opened a bank account and succeeded in his dodgy business practices, the bank would eventually hold his money ransom as soon as the justice system declared him an outlaw. Ignoring Fleet Command wasn’t just going to change our legal statuses, but our futures too. I wanted to take the blame myself, but Harry would have to start acting like an obedient AI if he didn’t want to be accused of being my accomplice.

  “I’m an independent-minded AI,” Harry kept going. “I’ll sue banks if I’m not allowed to open a bank account. It’s discrimination. It’s grounds for a hefty lawsuit.”

  The enemy ship appeared on our screens. We were almost within boarding distance. She was imposing.

  My hand instinctively moved to the DNA melder that Dr. Thompson had given me for safekeeping. I was going to give it to her as soon as I got her out of that ship.

  Harry stood up and walked beside me to observe the magnitude of our enemy.

  “I’ll take care of the banking details later,” Harry said. “I want half of your share for capturing this beauty.”

  Looking at the behemoth that stood before us, perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to chase after them and ignore Fleet Command.

  It was too late to turn around and go back, though.

  Chapter 26

  “Our analysis predicts that the ship is protected by a thick shield.” Donaldson showed me a diagram on one of the bridge screens.

  Donaldson, one of the engineers, had spent the whole day making calculations that nobody understood for people who wouldn’t use them. I needed coordinates and an attack plan, not theories.

  We’d lost our best scientists, and Donaldson and the others were lost without them. Naval protocol required me to listen to the engineers’ theories anyway. If I ever got promoted to admiral, I’d change those rules. Theories make captains’ lives much more difficult.
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  “Hostile Alpha is moving 10% slower than us,” Donaldson said. “We expect to reach boarding distance within a couple of hours.”

  “Hostile Alpha?” Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “Couldn’t you think of any other names? Hostile Alpha sounds like a party gone bad to me.”

  Donaldson’s face turned bright red, and the tablet in his hands shook nervously. “We can call it something else. The name isn’t important.”

  “Yeah,” Harry said. “Why don’t we call it Pudding-to-be? Much more meaningful, because we’re going to crush them.”

  “All right, lads,” I said. “Now that our egos are out of the way and out of the roof in some cases, why don’t we forget about naming the enemy? Let’s plan a way to get our people out of there.”

  Donaldson sighed in relief.

  Hightower, the marine who had helped us against Fleet Command, stood silently and observed the meeting. He hadn’t been around marines too often since his treason to Hooke. She hadn’t dared to send him to the brig because we were all on the same side. Marines are much more hierarchical than naval men, so Hightower had almost become an acting naval officer now that his own people shunned him.

  The engineer kept talking about silly statistics that he didn’t know anything about. I sometimes wondered if engineers made up all that jargon just to distract our attentions from the fact that they were as lost as the rest of us.

  Hightower wasn’t as eager as me to tolerate the engineer’s tech talk. He cleared his throat and zoomed in some of the diagrams. “And how do you know about the enemy shields?” he asked.

  “Well…” Donaldson shifted his weight from one foot to another and brought out several charts and diagrams that didn’t mean anything to our untrained eyes. “We’ve based it on the Defender’s layout and Hostile Alpha’s reaction to our weapons. They weren’t hurt by our shields, yes?”

  Hightower switched from one of the engineer’s diagrams to another and studied them for a few seconds. His doubts increased the engineer’s confidence, and he stared proudly at all of us, just like whenever engineers realize that they’re the smartest guy in the room.

  “You have no idea of what to expect from Hostile Alpha, do you?” Hightower finally said.

  Harry burst out in laughter until his eyes watered. He covered his mouth, excused himself, and retreated a few steps to avoid interrupting the conversation.

  The engineer hesitated and tried to explain himself. He’d been caught and he knew it.

  “Awesome,” I said. “So we know nothing about the hostile ship, and we won’t know until we try to board them.”

  Donaldson shrugged. Hightower sternly stared both at him and at Harry sternly but didn’t say anything. Marines didn’t speak up like the rest of the crew. The engineer shrunk under Hightower’s constant gaze, and even Harry straightened up.

  Before they started a fight, I set tasks to the engineers and the rest of the crew. We manned the radars and prepared the weapons. We were going to test the Defender’s plasma weapons, but we couldn’t use too much destructive force or we risked killing our own people too.

  The engineers didn’t complain much now that they feared that Hightower questioned whether they knew something about their own jobs. Once they were all set and Hightower was tasked with supervising the weapons officers, I finally headed to the center of the bridge to observe the fight and supervise our behavior.

  The men remained tense, and the brightness of their screens lit up the rest of the room. I drew several squares in the air in front of me to create holographic screens and turned on the displays on my HUD glasses.

  “I want to help too,” Harry said eagerly. “Can I help with something?”

  “You can keep quiet and follow orders,” I said. “Don’t get drunk and be ready.”

  “And what am I supposed to do if I can’t drink while I’m bored?” Harry said.

  Right. This was Harry I was talking to. I exhaled and hoped that he’d either get tired or decide to have some drinks.

  “Don’t ignore me,” Harry said. “I’m an AI, an artificial intelligence. Why would anyone create an artificial intelligence if they aren’t going to let me contribute to anything? I have feelings too. I need to feel productive just like everyone else. And I’m better at thinking than many of these ‘I make words up to sound smarter’ guys. I might not talk with so much jargon, but I don’t make anything up.”

  “How about you drink yourself to unconsciousness?” I said. “It’s better than hearing you talk all day.”

  “And how about I stand here beside you and wait for battle?” Harry said. “We need someone caffeinated to lead the fight.”

  This was progress and the latest artificial intelligence technology. I honestly preferred the sexy and obedient avatars from older ships.

  Chapter 27

  Everyone remains silent before a battle.

  Naval men are aware of their own mortality aboard a flying chunk of metal. One small failure or one small mistake can end everything for the entire crew. Nobody is eager to die in space, but the pressure before a fight pushes them to fight death with their whole souls.

  There’s nothing like the feeling of hunting the enemy, of chasing after him, looking for his weaknesses, and finally attacking. Humanity has progressed and become more civilized throughout the centuries, but progress has not quenched the thirst for battle. It’s a primal feeling, a moment where survival takes over the mind. Muscles only react to instinct.

  Those moments always made me wonder if I should’ve paid more attention to my grandmother’s endless preaching. I also kept wondering if I’d been stupid for stealing the Defender and acting like a hero. Was that how idiots died?

  If so, I was ready to do so. No fight is worth fighting if the result is easy to predict.

  I’d fought in the real thing before. I’d flown both unmanned and manned ships. I’d spent countless hours escorting bombers, chasing after enemy fighters, or testing new ship designs. The adrenaline before a fight never fades, no matter how often one has fought. Everyone falls silent at some point before a fight.

  This wasn’t the time to joke, and we all knew it.

  “Mind if I rescue the girl myself?” Harry asked me. “It might increase my chances of… you know what I’m talking about.”

  We were all aware of the situation except for Harry. He was thinking of Dr. Thompson instead of about our chance of survival.

  “You aren’t coming,” I said. “You’re a hologram. We need people to hold guns.”

  “That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard. I can join you as a backup, for emotional support. You’re trying to get rid of me so that the girl only sees you. That’s very unsportsmanlike of you.”

  With these words, Harry turned around and headed for the great cabin. The door was shut, so he walked through it, annoyed. Seconds later, I received an anonymous message with several fart sound attachments.

  Harry was a mature and professional AI, and he never questioned the acting captain’s decisions.

  At least he’d left the fight to the rest of us.

  The marines got ready for the fight and came to the bridge with their equipment.

  We’d have sent unmanned drones only a couple of decades earlier, but pilots didn’t fly as well remotely. Only a few extraordinary pilots’ instincts continued peaking even when their lives were not at stake. Risking our lives made battles more demanding, riskier, and more fun.

  I stood before the men to give them the classic pep talk before flying. Hooke stared at me with suspicion, but Harry had disguised as my admiral aunt to order her to follow me. She was hardwired to follow orders from her officers in charge, and she’d follow me to the end of the universe even if I went mad and led them there.

  I told them the strategy: strip some of the Defender’s smaller defense systems to use them as portable guns, and hope that they were enough against the armored soldiers. The plan wasn’t too solid, but we’d work on the details along the way.

  We
’d also stolen a few guns from the armored soldiers. They’d be a good backup in case our normal weapons didn’t work either.

  Harry walked out of the great cabin dressed in the black marine uniform. He carried a black protective helmet and a matching bulletproof vest, just like the marines during special operations missions. I preferred to ignore him.

  “All right, lads,” I said to close my speech. “We’re almost within boarding distance. Get your guns ready and let’s go.”

  “Yes, sir!” the marines shouted in unison. They were almost loud enough for the other ship to hear them even though sound doesn’t travel through a vacuum.

  Harry covered one of his ears with his hand. “Do any of you ever have sex?” he asked them. “Because half of your dates must run away with so much shouting.”

  “Mind your own business, Harry.” Hightower punched Harry’s shoulder, and his hand went right through him.

  “Ow!” Harry said, rubbing his holographic shoulder. “That’s an aggression to a fellow crewman. I could get you sent to the brig for it.”

  “Want to test my patience?” Hightower raised an eyebrow at Harry, and he fell silent.

  At least Harry wasn’t going to be a problem anymore. Someone knew how to control him for the time being.

  “Ready for some fun, lads and lasses?” I asked the marines.

  “Permission to speak frankly, sir!” Hooke shouted. She didn’t look at me; she kept looking ahead of her like marines usually did. I’d never get used to their style; it’s too rigid for life aboard a starship. The crew is scruffy, tired, and fed up of seeing the same faces for months. Marines are too disciplined.

  “Go ahead, Captain,” I told her.

  “You’re the acting captain, sir,” Hooke said. “You’re supposed to stay on the bridge and control everything from here. We can’t babysit anyone if we’re shooting someone down.”

  “I won’t need any babysitting,” I said.

  For a brief moment, she considered telling me to reconsider my choice. Instead, she said, “I like your guts, sir. Stick close to me and don’t play the hero, or I’ll shoot you down myself.”