‘He knows,’ Gredan insisted. ‘At the very least he must suspect. How could he not?’
‘Mikhain’s a patriot,’ Ishira Morle added, ‘and a long service officer. He must have had a reason for this.’
‘I agree,’ Vaughn said. ‘He’s a long service officer without a command of his own. My guess is that he wanted Idris’s rescue mission to fail so that he could step up and command one of his own. I asked around after Lieutenant Scott brought us this evidence. Mikhain was actively whipping up support among the rank and file aboard Atlantia before the attack on Chiron IV, trying to build a following among the crew. Why else would he do that unless he had designs on the captain’s chair?’
Gredan looked at the document one last time and then he made his decision.
‘We need to resolve this issue before we reach Oassia,’ he said. ‘We need our house in order and be able to show a united front. Any weakness, any injustice among our ranks will go down badly with the council.’
Ishira Morle shook her head. ‘That’s a bad idea. Mikhain is in command of Arcadia and if he realizes what’s about to happen there’s no telling what he might do. You’re risking splitting the fleet that we do have.’
‘And how can we trust Mikhain to stand by us if the going gets harder?’ Gredan challenged.
‘I don’t think that anybody has the right to question Mikhain’s courage or his patriotism,’ Morle snapped back. ‘He’s come through for us on numerous occasions, and only this morning put Arcadia in harm’s way to rescue Evelyn from the Legion’s ambush.’
‘Evelyn,’ Vaughn uttered as though he had tasted something unpleasant in his mouth. ‘There’s another thorn in our side, along with her sister and that damned machine below decks. All of them, along with Kordaz, threaten any chance we have of garnering the sympathy of the council. We need this to be a ship of upstanding examples of humanity, not Veng’en assassins, convicts and genetically cloned minions of The Word.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Morle shot back. ‘You haven’t seen them fight, for the fleet, for us. Evelyn and Emma both are as human as we are.’
‘Or something more,’ Gredan mused. ‘Vaughn’s right, it’s all acting against us. We’re struggling to cope with these individuals and learn to trust them, and we’ve shared a ship with them for months, years even. The council may have just days or even hours to make a decision.’
‘Then what the hell are you suggesting?’ Morle asked. ‘That we just get rid of them somehow? Turn them over to the council as enemy combatants?’
Vaughn raised an eyebrow and Ayek appeared almost delighted at the thought, but Gredan shook his head.
‘No, we give the decision to somebody whose responsibility it is to control all of these factors,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll give Captain Sansin the chance to do the right thing, and if he doesn’t…’
‘That’s blackmail,’ Morle gasped in horror. ‘You’re risking the cohesion of the entire command structure if this gets out!’
‘Who said anything about revealing this to the public?’ Gredan asked. ‘We inform the captain of everything we know and then observe his response. If it does not fall within the rule of law, then he can be removed from his role as captain for treason.’
Morle shook her head. ‘And you do realize that if Mikhain is brought to trial then you’re also effectively sinking the trial of Kordaz, who is in the cells right now for the murder of Mikhain’s former XO, Djimon?’
‘Murder is murder,’ Gredan replied, ‘and must be tried as such. Furthermore, if Idris Sansin is found to have known about Mikhain’s actions at Chiron IV, then he becomes implicated in all of the deaths that occurred at that incident. In effect, the act of Lieutenant Scott becoming a whistle–blower on this entire sorry affair could remove both captains from their positions, which would require new commanders to take over their roles.’
Vaughn, Ayek and Gredan grinned at each other. Morle almost snorted in disbelief.
‘We’re here to speak for the people, not organise a mutiny.’
‘It’s not mutiny, it’s justice,’ Ayek shot back, ‘or do you condone supporting murderers and liars as senior officers aboard this ship?’
Ishira Morle ground her teeth in her skull and strode toward the exit. Gredan’s voice pursued her.
‘Not a word of this beyond the hall, Ishira,’ he warned. ‘Treason comes in many forms.’
‘Yeah,’ Ishira snapped over her shoulder. ‘So does betrayal.’
***
VI
The Lazarus Chamber, as it had become known, was a heavily fortified and guarded storage depot deep inside Atlantia’s hull, formerly an armoury used when colonial frigates had powered their weapons using plasma–filled projectiles rather than the plasma–gas lines that now fed the turrets directly from the fusion cores.
Evelyn walked toward the chamber entrance with Emma alongside her, the guards making way for them as they passed by. Few members of the crew were allowed access to this most dangerous and feared quarter of the vessel, but under the captain’s orders both Evelyn and Emma were allowed to speak to Lazarus at will, provided each and every engagement was monitored by a team of engineers assigned the task of preventing Lazarus from gaining direct access to any of Atlantia’s systems without prior permission.
The chamber was cold, the heating disconnected by the engineers, who were fearful that Lazarus might somehow be able to manufacture a single Infector and begin the process of colonizing the ship: the tiny machines of the Legion were known to be slowed by the cold. The fact that Lazarus had no appendages with which to construct physical entities had apparently escaped them, but such was the deeply ingrained fear of The Word and its Legion.
The guards behind them sealed the doors to the bay, leaving them alone with the machine.
The box–like depot was bare but for a single generator bolted to the deck in one corner of the room, which provided manually controlled power to Lazarus’s terminal. Devoid of any automation, and ringed with explosive plasma charges that were connected to a detonation unit outside, Lazarus was effectively a prisoner not just within the cabinet–like terminal in which he resided but also aboard Atlantia herself.
The original, aged terminal recovered from Endeavour had been replaced with a more modern and powerful machine, and the flat screen was now a holographic emission unit that projected Lazarus’s image upward from a light source alongside the terminal. The projection glowed a vivid electric–blue and shimmered like water, shot through with twinkling points of white light that sparkled like stars.
Like a sick man attached to a computerized lung, Lazarus stood beside his life blood and turned as he sensed their presence. Lazarus’s voice rang out in the chamber, digitized and in–human and yet possessed of a desperation, a genuine need for human contact and shared emotion.
‘Emma?’
Emma walked forward and stood before the terminal. ‘I am here.’
Evelyn joined her sister in time to see Lazarus’s eyes open and a vivid expression of relief blossom on his face, then joy, like a grandparent seeing their grandchild for the first time.
‘I have missed you so,’ Lazarus said, and then looked at Evelyn. ‘And you’ve brought your sister.’
Evelyn felt slightly perturbed by the fondness with which Lazarus regarded them both. Even the biological man had been no blood–relative of theirs, and as such should hardly adore them in the way that he did.
Dr Ceyen Lazarus had been a legend in the development of the quantum computers that gave rise to The Word. A programming genius who had likewise mastered the fields of quantum physics and molecular biology, Dr Lazarus had been instrumental in giving The Word sufficient intelligence and autonomy to be able to govern effectively in place of human beings. Celebrated as the saviour of mankind, in the last days of The Word his name had become an icon for destruction, his memory tarnished by the devastation wrought by his own creation. To ‘become Lazarus’ was a slang term that suggested bru
tality or betrayal of one’s fellow human being, hinting at crimes too hideous of which to speak.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ Evelyn said without preamble.
Lazarus’s smile did not slip. ‘I am provided with a limited stream of information from the bridge, and I am aware of the referendum among the crew and the decision to approach the Galactic Council for assistance. It is most regrettable, but a democratic vote cannot be ignored.’
‘Regrettable how?’ Evelyn challenged. ‘The council could help us, could provide a fighting force of hundreds of warships.’
‘Evelyn,’ Lazarus said as though speaking to a child, ‘our race is not highly regarded across the known cosmos. We are viewed as savages, much in the same way as we view the Veng’en. For instance, the Icari Line was never a barrier to the Veng’en because despite their war–like nature their aggression is only directed at humans. They have had a representative upon the Galactic Council for decades. But humans are viewed by the council as dangerous because we’re as likely to destroy each other as anybody else. There was much fear of human expansion into the wider cosmos long before our people even learned the art of space travel.’
‘Humanity is not that bad,’ Emma argued. ‘The wars that our ancestors fought on Ethera ended long ago, and we’ve come a long way. The Word was supposed to end all conflicts, military or otherwise, and it did so. It was the machine that turned against us, not people.’
‘Sadly, the council will not see it that way,’ Lazarus replied. ‘A moratorium on artificial intelligence governing or controlling global affairs was created by the council centuries ago. It was not devised because of a fear of advanced machines waging war on galactic species, but rather out of a consideration for the rights of machines should they become sentient. Races were concerned that switching off a sentient machine was in fact a form of murder, which in some ways it would be – I can vouch for that. They called it digicide, the killing of a sentient computer.’
‘We couldn’t have known that,’ Evelyn replied. ‘If the Icari Line was created to keep human beings in, then we can hardly have been blamed for knowing nothing of laws in the wider cosmos beyond.’
‘The council will not take that into consideration,’ Lazarus replied. ‘Their view has always been that a species must conquer its own flaws and mistakes before being given access to the cosmos. Using a machine to govern, to avoid the responsibility of finding a way to maintain peace among its own people, is not an option. The moment The Word was given political power and governance, humanity’s fate was sealed as far as the council was concerned.’
‘How do you know all of this?’ Evelyn asked. ‘You were aboard Endeavour, which we found adrift, and had never been to the council.’
Emma answered for Lazarus, recalling her time aboard Endeavour.
‘Lazarus explained to the crew the real reasons for the Icari Line,’ she said. ‘We used the ship’s sensors, the most powerful ever conceived at the time, to listen in on other races populating deep space. We learned a great deal until the Morla’syn found us and attacked.’
Evelyn stepped forward, confronting Lazarus even though she knew that he was as ephemeral as air itself, a projection of light and not matter.
‘How did you manage to get the DNA of Emma back into the population on Ethera, and start the process that led to me?’
‘In short?’ Lazarus asked. ‘I didn’t. The crew of Endeavour, before leaving on their epic voyage, were subject to intense biological and psychological studies by the Etheran government and space agencies. The Word, naturally, would have had access to that information. After their departure, The Word began using the crew of Endeavour as the template from which to build genetic clones that it intended to use to infiltrate and eventually take over humanity. However, the process did not go as according to plan. The complexities of human nature and the difficulties in controlling human beings conflicted by devotion to their parents as much to The Word meant that The Word was forced to abandon the plan and instead attempt to build nano–tech devices with which to infect the population. In this, it was more successful.’
Evelyn thought for a moment. ‘And my immunity?’
Lazarus smiled now as he looked at Evelyn. ‘Just because I did not have anything to do with The Word’s genetic tinkering of your sister’s DNA, doesn’t mean I wasn’t hard at work aboard Endeavour. The Word’s experiments with nanotechnology were in their infancy, and although it learned at a trimetric rate I was able to ensure that the fundamental basis of its nano–Infectors was presented with a biological foe, a naturally occurring immunity that blocked the paths taken by Infectors in order to colonize and control the spinal column and brain stem and instructed human T–cells to attack the foreign objects. I felt certain that if that immunity could spread quickly enough through the populace, then at least some of humanity might survive the apocalypse that I felt certain was coming. It was too little, too late of course, but it was all that I could do in the time available to me. I sent the altered DNA back to Ethera as a sort of virus, and hacked The Word’s experiments. You, Evelyn, are descended from the resulting bloodline.’
Evelyn glanced at her sister before she went on.
‘The council is going to be against us, against you,’ she said. ‘They’ll insist that we’re creations of The Word and likely imprison us. I have no idea what Captain Sansin intends to do about that, but right now he’s got no choice but to go with the referendum vote.’
Lazarus nodded. ‘And he’s not helping my position by limiting my access to information so severely. We are in super–luminal travel, so I cannot detect anything from beyond the ship, but when we joined orbit at Akyron V the ship’s sensors would have been able to collect enormous amounts of data. I would very much like access to it.’
‘To what end?’ Evelyn challenged.
‘To give us as much time as possible.’
‘Time for what?’ Emma asked, consternation in her voice.
*
‘All systems at one hundred per cent, captain.’
Idris nodded as he scanned the bridge displays for any sign of weapons malfunctions, shield weaknesses or structural defects.
‘Fighter wing readiness?’ he asked.
‘The Reaper’s pilots will be called back to operational status within the hour,’ Andaim replied from his station. ‘I’ll lead the launch flight.’
Idris did not reply, knowing that Andaim would not be kept on the bridge and away from his Raython’s cockpit at such a time. Young for the role of CAG, Andaim had been the most experienced officer and fighter pilot aboard Atlantia when the apocalypse had struck and thus the natural choice to lead the frigate’s compliment of fighters. His natural vigour reminded Idris of his own youth, when he had flown Phantoms as a young lieutenant in the fleet and…
‘Captain!’
Idris turned, alarm pulsing through his nerves as he saw Evelyn rush onto the bridge deck with Emma in hot pursuit.
‘What is it?’
‘Get us out of super–luminal now, before we enter Galactic space!’
‘We’re almost there,’ Idris protested.
‘It’s tracking us!’ Evelyn snapped. ‘The Word, it knows where we’re going!’
‘That’s not possible,’ Andaim replied. ‘We’re at super–luminal cruise – nothing can track us.’
‘It’s not the cruise,’ Emma wailed in horror. ‘It’s Arcadia. She must have picked up some of the Legion when she covered Evelyn’s escape! They’re aboard, and Lazarus heard them!’
Idris whirled and pointed at the helm.
‘Emergency stop, break us out of super–luminal cruise right now!’
***
VII
Captain Mikhain sat in his personal quarters, located just off Arcadia’s bridge, and closed his eyes as he attempted to silence his mind. His thoughts were overwhelmed with a constant stream of command requests, logistical problems, technical malfunctions brought about by Salim Phaeon’s inept slave–labor maintenance on th
e frigate’s hull back on Chiron IV and an endless list of other problems all vying for his attention. And above them all a final voice whispered to him a single word over and over again.
Regret.
Mikhain had served the Colonial Fleet his entire adult life, and almost half of that time in the role of Executive Officer of one vessel or another. His career had been stellar, but due to the vagaries of captaincy availability he had never received his own command despite serving two tours as XO of the Colonial super–carrier Defiance. After those heady days at the bridge of a capital flagship and in the twilight of his career, he had seen himself posted to the prison service as XO aboard Atlantia.
Mikhain had always craved command, had always dreamed of being in the captain’s chair and leading his crew into battle against whichever foe had threatened the safety and sanctity of Colonial space, but now he realized that it had been a fool’s errand, a step too far. The command role was one of adjudicator, engineer, pacifist, warmonger, lawyer, judge and accused all in one, and the stress of dealing with a daily litany of crisis and setbacks was crushing Mikhain beneath a burden his sanity had not been designed to bear.
‘Idiot,’ he muttered at himself under his breath.
Idris Sansin knew what Mikhain had done on Chiron IV, of that he was sure, but then he had chosen not only to say nothing but to promote Mikhain to the captaincy of Arcadia in the wake of the battle above Chiron IV. True, Mikhain had fought ferociously to protect Atlantia, to the extent of almost losing Arcadia in the process to a more powerful Veng’en vessel’s attack, but even so… Kordaz would soon be on trial for the murder of Djimon, Arcadia’s former XO. Moreover, Djimon had been in the prison cells in order to kill Qayin, the former convict and Marine who had been so heavily involved in the whole damned process. And all of it on Mikhain’s say–so.
Defiance (Atlantia Series Book 5) Page 5
