by M. D. Cooper
“There are more than a thousand Heartbridge ships here,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure all these are pirates,” Fran added, pointing at a block of returns on the list. “Or privateers might be the polite term. Europa border control let them in, so they can’t be on any active wanted lists. I’ve seen those callsigns at Cruithne, though.”
“We were at Cruithne,” Andy said.
“Based on our real cargo I think we might qualify as pirates.”
Andy smiled in spite of himself. “That hurts.”
“Never saw yourself as turning to the dark side?”
“I’m trying to be an example.”
“I’d rather you be alive than an example,” Fran said. She checked a report on the co-pilot’s display. “We’re going to need to pick up fuel. There are a couple vendors off Europa you might think about. If there are that many other ships close in, the queues for supplies are going to be insane.”
“It will be worth the higher prices,” Andy answered, still scanning the list. He touched a name on the readout. “There it is. The Resolute Charity.”
“Were you hoping it might all be a mistake?”
“A little.”
“So, Mr. Weird AI’s intel was good. Did he give you a secret key to the ship’s back door?”
“I wish,” Andy said. “We have to figure that out ourselves.”
Fran gave an over-dramatic sigh. “Send me the registry info. I’ll start running some scans and see what I can come back with. The hard part is that we need to take the ship out of here. If all we had to do was disable it things would be easy-peasy.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Easy like peas. Easy peasy. It’s an old Earth saying, right?”
“If you say so.” Andy sent the notification to the rest of the crew that they had arrived in Europa space and had identified the Resolute Charity.
In less than five minutes, Fugia, Brit, Petral, Cara and the Andersonians were in the command deck, circled around the holodisplay as Andy populated the various references in local space. Jupiter was huge until he took the planet off the display, showing only the blue moon of Europa, its thin artificial ring, and thousands of other objects in orbit. Heartbridge ships were peppered throughout the other traffic around the moon, marked with red icons that made the overall scene a blood-pink color.
“That’s a lot more ships than I expected,” Brit said.
“They still couldn’t take on the Mars 1 Guard,” Fugia said. “But they might hit an orbital with a surprise attack and cause some damage. I can’t name any other private fleets this large.” She looked at Senator Walton. “Can you?”
May Walton’s face had lost its color. “Ceres couldn’t stand against that many heavy cruisers,” she said simply. Beside her, Harl nodded.
“So we have a task,” Andy said. He tapped the display and zoomed in on the Resolute Charity, then shifted to a three-dimensional view of the cruiser. It was three times the size of Benevolent Hand, which made it over six kilometers in length. The ship looked somewhat like an ancient hourglass. At its bow was the ramscoop housing, which connected to a large X shape. Supports ran from the X down to the engines where four larger fusion burners were mounted. In the center of the ship was a long, rotating cylinder, which Andy knew—from Xander’s data—moved at a speed to provide 0.7g for the occupants.
Andy could almost imagine sand falling down through the center shaft to the engines below.
“It could be a colony ship,” May said.
“A small one,” Fugia corrected. “Don’t let the size get you upset. That could work in our favor. It’s still a ship run by people and probably one or two AI. We aren’t completely powerless here.”
“That thing probably has a crew of at least a thousand,” Brit said. “Even if we could subdue them somehow, how could we run that monster?”
Fugia crossed her arms. “Lyssa can pilot it.”
The room went quiet.
The AI answered through the overhead speakers. “I’ve been reviewing the schematics. The Resolute Charity is primarily run by three control AI with backup from the human crew,” she said. “I can make contact with the AI if you wish.”
“Not yet,” Andy said, holding up a hand. “We don’t want to give anything away just yet. For now, please gather any information you can about the ship. Manifests, crew logs, inbound freight, whatever.”
“The Resolute Charity is leaving Europa in thirty hours,” Lyssa answered immediately. “I’ve already gained access to the local activity schedules. The officers are taking part in a large social event with local government officials in ten hours. During that time, the fleet is completing fueling and refit operations in preparation for departure.”
“Where are they going?” Fugia asked.
“They’ve marked all their astrogation plans as classified. I could attack the encryption but that might raise awareness with the AIs. However, I think I’ve determined a likely destination. I believe they’re going to Titan.”
“Titan?” Andy said. “Why there?”
“There is an order for a cake serving three hundred with ‘Bon voyage à Titan’ written in the frosting.”
Several of them burst out laughing. Andy grinned. “That’s great, Lyssa. I’m surprised they encrypted their flight plans. If they’re inviting all these locals to a going away party, they aren’t going to be able to keep it a secret for long.”
“Unless it’s a misdirection,” Fugia said.
“True,” Andy acknowledged.
“Why lie?” Brit asked. “Heartbridge isn’t at war with anyone. Why they have this number of warships makes no sense. Why wouldn’t they want to move them away from a populated area now that their storage at Clinic 46 is compromised? This many ships in orbit around Europa must have the local government sweating bullets.”
Andy crossed his arms, staring at the model of the ship rotating slowly in the holodisplay. “We have another objective as well. We need to get Petral into one of their surgeries to reverse the implantation procedure.” He glanced at Petral where she was leaning against Cara’s communication console.
“What about you?” Petral asked.
“You’re the focus right now,” Andy said, avoiding thoughts about Lyssa in his mind—he wasn’t entirely certain that he wanted her gone. “We obviously don’t have the personnel to mount any kind of frontal assault against this kind of position. This party Lyssa says is happening would provide a good cover since most of their command will be distracted. If the captains from the rest of the fleet are busy on the Resolute Charity while the other ships are focused on refueling, what can we do to slow or eliminate them from the equation? What do we have?”
“We have our own little fleet of attack drones,” Fugia said.
“They’re vulnerable during refueling,” Brit said. “Or we disable the refueling stations before they even start and they won’t be able to follow if we take the Resolute Charity out of here.”
“Is the target refueled?” Petral asked.
Lyssa answered, “I show the Resolute Charity at fifty percent fuel capacity. They have not started refueling procedures yet.”
“What about that ram scoop?” Fugia asked. “Can we at least get somewhere with that thing?”
“We can calculate some different courses,” Andy said. “Lyssa, can you find a fail point for the fuel vendors? An administrative lock, a power outage, a medical shut down, whatever. Anything that will slow the refuel operation.” He looked at Fugia. “I know you’ve been working on breaching operations, but I just don’t think there’s any way so few of us can pull that off. I’ve been trying to think of a different way to incapacitate their crew. What about this? What if we manipulated the environmental control on the Resolute Charity?”
Fugia frowned “Environmental control?” Fugia asked. “Why?”
“When I was working anti-piracy patrols with the TSF on Cruithne, we had an attack prot
ocol that targeted a ship’s environmental control systems,” Andy said. “We infiltrated their control AI and reprogrammed them to raise oxygen levels. The crew didn’t notice until they were suffering oxygen poisoning. But those were always smaller ships, usually frigates. The Resolute Charity is huge. It would be like trying to change the air in a small city, everything separated into zones and control areas, with individual scrubbers and contaminate filters. We’d have to attack their environmental adjustment systems from several points at once and override all the fail safes.
“That’s putting everything on Lyssa,” Cara said.
Andy nodded solemnly. “True. That creates a single point of failure.”
“Oxygen poisoning takes a long time and we have to also manipulate the pressure in the ship,” Fugia said, tapping her chin. “Some people are going to be resistant. But if we create chaos, the affected will go after the resistant crew. What about briki?”
“Briki?” Brit said. “You mean the drug?”
“It’s a flower. Its pollen is hallucinogenic. There’s a huge trade on Cruithne. It hits fast and hard. Before they know what’s happening, they’re being chased by giant clowns and their drunk fathers.” Fugia raised her eyebrows as she considered the idea. “You don’t have to use the flowers to get high. There have been artificial variants for centuries. People think the natural high is better, though. If Lyssa could pump the environmental system full of artificial briki, the crew would be going nuts until we sounded a general escape. They all run for the escape craft and clear the ship.”
Andy glanced at Brit. “That could work. Lyssa, what do you think?”
“I need some time to explore the AI on the Resolute Charity,” Lyssa said. “Can’t tell you if it’s possible yet. The first task is to shut down the refueling stations. I can work on that while I gather information about the ship AIs—and find the briki formula.”
Fugia coughed furtively into her fist. “I can help you with that,” she said.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Fran asked.
“I don’t know,” Lyssa said. “I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”
Brit stepped toward the display, pointing at the Resolute Charity’s fore section. “Can you expand it to an exploded view?” she asked. “Is there an airlock near the command section of the ship? We need to find some place where we can get inside and find the quickest access to the ship’s main systems. That’s going to be either command or the engine sections. Then find a position with one of the surgeries we need. If the three of us—” she nodded toward Andy and Harl “—go in with the power armor again, that means Petral is going to be with us as well. Armed but not nearly as safe. We can’t do anything if we don’t control at least a significant part of the ship. I don’t want to get trapped in some medical clinic.”
“The priority needs to be commandeering the ship,” Petral said. “I’m alive. I can find one of their surgeries in the future. It’s not like they aren’t around.”
“We should plan for both,” Andy said.
“There’s something else to think about,” Fugia said. “Air filters. If your power armor or Petral’s EV suit get compromised, you’ll need something to protect you from the briki.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Andy asked.
Fugia nodded. “Personal breathers. They fit right in the nostrils. They won’t last forever, but they’ll keep your lungs clear until we clear the ship at least.” She grinned suddenly. “Although, you forget and breathe through your mouth, and you’re going for a ride.”
“I can’t wait,” Petral said.
After Fugia left to work on the air filters, the rest of the crew spent the next two hours poring over the internal schematics of the Resolute Charity. Fran provided information about control and mechanical systems, Brit, Andy and Harl debated tactical positions, and Petral played devil’s advocate with each new proposal. They debated entry points from exhaust dumps to the external maglev track, developed an estimated strength for the security forces and ran simulations with the crew incapacitated and the drone fleet active and vice versa.
After an hour, Cara asked if they needed to worry about maintenance drones attacking like on the ship back at Clinic 46 and Andy threw up his hands in disgust that he’d missed that detail. “Yes,” he exclaimed.
When they finished, Andy felt they had several workable ideas but still needed the update from Lyssa. He sat in the captain’s chair and rubbed his face. He had grown sick of staring at the rotating model of the Resolute Charity and had paused the ship in mid-turn, making it look warped.
The command deck had cleared for a few minutes as people filed out to take a break and find food. Lyssa had been absent for at least an hour, apparently working on the problems she had been given.
Brit still stood in front of the holodisplay with her arms crossed. When they were alone, she asked Andy, “Why didn’t you answer about the surgery?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“For you. Getting the AI out of your head.”
“I didn’t answer because I don’t have an answer.”
“The answer is easy. You take it out.”
Andy glanced at her. The light from the holodisplay made her face look ghostly. “It’s not that simple, Brit,” he said. “I don’t expect you to understand. All I can say is that for now, I don’t want her removed.”
Brit’s eyes widened. “You don’t want her removed? Do you know what you sound like? An addict. Is that thing making you crazy like everyone says it’s going to?”
Andy took a breath, trying to remain calm. “This is something you don’t know anything about. All I can ask you to do is trust me. She needs our help and the best way to do that is keep her where she is. Don’t forget everything she’s able to do for us.”
Brit waved a hand. “She’s an AI. She could do the same things from a mech or one of those drones. She doesn’t need a human host to access networks.”
“According to Fugia, that’s probably not true. She’s different than the other Weapon Born. She can do things they can’t. That’s a big reason why we shouldn’t just be handing her over to Xander when the time comes.”
“Right. Xander. Didn’t all of you think that one was crazy?”
“We’re dealing with another life form, Brit. I can’t figure out what’s crazy or not. I can see why they would want the Resolute Charity. It’s powerful. We can get it for them.”
“What if someone gets killed? That hasn’t really played into your calculations here.”
Andy couldn’t take it anymore. “You’ve been here with us the whole time,” he said, his voice getting louder with anger. “You could give your input any time you wanted. You think somebody’s going to die? Say it. Since when did you run away from a fight?”
“I don’t run away from fights I can win,” she said bitterly.
“You’ve been chasing ghosts for two years,” Andy said, voice barely under control. “You left this family to chase the thing you thought was hurting those kids on the fortress. Well, we found it. It’s right there.” He jabbed a finger at the frozen ship. “We’re going to take Heartbridge down. And not just Heartbridge. We’re going to take down every company making AI for their own use. We have to give the AI a way to fight back, Brit. I know you understand that. And I can’t protect Lyssa if she’s in one of their Seeds. I can’t keep her safe if she’s taken out.”
Brit stared at him. He didn’t know what he saw in her face: Anger, disbelief, regret. She clenched and unclenched her fists and for a second he wondered if she was going to swing at him.
She lowered her face. “I know, Andy,” Brit said slowly. “I wish we hadn’t been caught up in this. I wish we had never gone into 8221.”
“I know,” he said slowly.
Brit stared at the floor. “It’s like I’m trapped there, and I can’t get away.”
“You’ve been saying that for ten years, Brit. It’s time to let it go. This is our chance to help those kids.”
> “Those kids are dead.”
Andy snorted a short laugh. “One of them isn’t. Kylan Carthage is here. We can get him out of Petral and help him from there.”
“But we’re not going to be able to help you. I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself for this, Andy. That’s never what I wanted.”
She stood trembling, gaze cast down.
“I’m not going to do that, Brit,” Andy said. “I promise. Come here.” He reached for her upper arms and pulled her toward him. She resisted at first, not looking at him. Then she nodded stiffly and stepped forward, allowing him to pull her into a hug.
Andy put his hand on the back of Brit’s head and held her against his chest. He felt her breathing carefully, not allowing herself to relax.
There was a scraping sound at the door and Andy looked up to see Fran standing there. Her green eyes flashed and she gave him a slight questioning tilt of her head. He nodded to let her know things were all right, and she smiled. The sight of Fran’s smile made Andy feel like he could take on a hundred heavy cruisers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
STELLAR DATE: 10.02.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Europa, Jupiter, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
In a deliberately random order, the drones attached to Sunny Skies’ midsection deactivated their maglocks and floated away from the ship. Lyssa let them drift further away for twenty minutes until they resembled jettisoned debris to anyone who might be watching, then activated each in a similarly random order.
Monitoring the sensor returns from Sunny Skies antennae array, Lyssa spread the drones out in a broad wing behind her. Once the drones were completely invisible to external sensors, she set targets across Europa local space and sent each drone on a different route that would ultimately converge on their goal.
The hundred and fifty drones created myriad versions of herself shooting through space. The experience was exhilarating. As data from all her thousand inputs across Sunny Skies flowed through her, she danced in space with each speeding extension of herself.
