by M. D. Cooper
Shannon had connected with the NSAI controlling the tanker when it had come into range four days ago, and had taken control of the replacement fuel’s flight path. It was Jason’s duty to be her extra sensors from the backside as she flew the tanker alongside the Speedwell’s massive hydrogen fuel cylinders.
The shuttle sat in a station-keeping attitude as the tanker slowed to a stop relative to the starship. Dipping beneath the tanker, Jason brought up the view of the universal refueling collar and magnified it. What he saw had him frowning in dissatisfaction.
Shannon’s voice was flat in disgust.
He grinned.
At Shannon’s affirmative, he had his suit cycle a systems’ check, then nodded.
He heard Shannon sigh.
Jason toggled the shuttle’s virtual controls, slaving his systems back to Tobias. He punched the pilot’s cradle release and floated free. Pushing gently off and reaching for a handhold on the deck above him, he began pulling himself toward the aft airlock.
* * * * *
Jason watched as the indicator for the fourth fuel cylinder reached one hundred percent on his HUD.
Since the refueling was complete, he didn’t try to counteract the recoil. Instead, he let the tanker begin to drift away as he sent the command for it to begin retracting its hose and secure its fueling collar. He caught movement in his periphery, but before he could turn his head to see what it was, an explosion sent his body slamming into the side of the starship.
He heard Tobias shout
He inhaled sharply and coughed up blood, as his suit’s monitors registered loss of containment and the nano inside began to seal its breaches. He had a moment to register that his impact with the side of the ship had caused him to sail away from it at a rapid clip before he slipped into unconsciousness.
HAVOC
STELLAR DATE: 10.22.3191 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ESF Speedwell, Interstellar Space
REGION: In transit to Proxima Centauri System
Calista’s heart leapt to her throat; her first instinct was to throw her harness off and send her body shooting toward the docking bay. Her hand went to the harness release, but before she could trigger it, Terrance’s hand covered hers.
A ship with warning klaxons sounding, as reports began to flow in from the exterior of the ship where the hull had been damaged.
She glared briefly at Terrance as she set ship’s sensors to track Jason’s motion and zoomed in on his figure. When she saw the damage his suit had sustained, she pinged Marta with a medical emergency and sent the ESF medic the feed. A beat later, Marta reported she was on her way to the flight deck.
She heard Eric’s sharp
Her fingers flew through the holo, noting that the blast had taken out at least half a dozen sensors along that side, two of which had been monitoring fuel pressure within the ship’s tanks.
Calista reached into the holo and tapped the icon for the tanker, zooming in to see what damage it had sustained.
“Tanker looks shot,” she announced. “We still have control of its NSAI; I’m sending it back along its return trajectory. We’ll have to file a report with the Catapult Authority, but we’ll have plenty of time to deal with that later.”
She saw Eric’s avatar nod on the command channel just as the maintenance bot came online. She tossed its feed up next to the one of the Sable Wind and Jason.
Tobias was maneuvering the Icarus craft deftly. He’d sent it arcing above and behind the unconscious pilot and was now maintaining station with him as the Weapon Born cycled the shuttle’s airlock, and then began to close with Jason.
Terrance sat silently in the cradle next to her, fists clenching and unclenching, eyes riveted to the holotank, and she knew he felt as helpless as she did.
Jason’s form appeared to float inside and bounce gently off the inner hatch before the Weapon Born deployed a net of webbing around Jason and the outer airlock sealed.
They heard the Weapon Born’s grim
Unable to take it anymore, Calista unhooked herself from the pilot’s cradle, slaving her boards to Shannon’s control, and pushed off for the lift. She heard a noise behind her and was unsurprised to find Terrance join her inside the lift. He nodded once to her as she tapped in the flight deck as their destination.
They remained silent as the lift slid open and they pulled themselves down the hall. Ahead, they could see Marta and two nurses floating a gurney toward the dock’s main entrance. The medic nodded as they caught up to her, engaging the maglocks on their boots as they waited for the Sable Wind to enter and the bay doors to seal.
As she and Terrance clomped after the medic, who had opted to push off from the entrance and float herself and her team more rapidly to Jason’s side, Eric addressed them both over a private connection.
the commodore instructed.
Calista exchanged glances with Terrance, nodding mutely. The AI was correct; in all her years of service with the ESF, she’d executed mid-space refueling maneuvers thousands of times without incident. They weren’t entirely unheard of, and it was possible the bent collar on the tanker could have been a factor, but her gut told her it was unlikely.
What the hell just happened?
She met Marta’s eyes as the doctor floated her patient past them, her own eyes silently questioning the doctor. It was only after the other woman gave a brief nod that Calista allowed herself to let out the breath she’d unwittingly been holding.
She turned to the shuttle.
* * * * *
Calista leaned back in the pilot’s cradle and slammed her hands down on the console in front of her in frustration. Terrance shot her a glance from where he rode shotgun in the copilot’s seat, but kept his own counsel.
“That makes three complete sweeps, and we aren’t picking up anything out of the ordinary, on any scan,” she said in disgust.
“Convenient,” Terrance muttered. “No evidence, no one to pin it on.”
She heard Eric make a sound like a sigh, and then the commodore ordered them to return to base.
At least Marta says Jason’s stable. Sure would have liked to have found out one way or the other what was behind this.
As the Sable Wind settled into its docking cradle, Calista heard Tobias reach out to her privately.
She smiled.
The Weapon Born sent her the AI equivalent of a hug at that suggestion.
* * * * *
Frida waited until the excitement had died down, and the humans who ran first shift were midway through their sleep cycle before she attempted her first expanse. Its detail wasn’t as fine as the one Prime would have created, but she figured it would suffice. She stood now on the ship’s hull, awaiting the arrival of the mysterious AI.
“A bit rudimentary, but a credible attempt,” a voice said from behind her, and Frida suppressed a flare of resentment.
She wished passionately for a way she could strike back at the arrogant AI without risking a retaliation she could ill afford.
He spread his hands expansively, paused, and cocked his head. “Well, you didn’t make this crude facsimile of the ship just to impress me, I’m sure. Tell me, Frida,” his voice grew hard, “why you are taking me away from other matters to meet with you.”
“Other matters?” she asked. “What, am I keeping you from your playtime with that human toy of yours?” she sneered as she advanced toward him. “What are you doing to that human anyway, that others on the ship are actually noticing and commenting about it?”
The apparition shrugged carelessly. “Experimentation, if you must know. Inducing various states within her neural circuitry. Testing her stamina, her resistance to pain, how she handles sensory overload.”
His eyes glowed more intensely as they narrowed on her. “Not that it is any concern of yours, Frida. Unless you are volunteering to take her place? I grow bored during a passage of this length and find that I must have stimulus to keep myself entertained.”
Frida was surprised to discover that her anger toward Prime had burned away her fear of him. The last time she’d been this angry, she’d been on her ship—the New Saint Louis—talking to a human who was treating her with exactly the same amount of disdain that an AI was treating her with on this ship.
“Are you so unable to control yourself that you are willing to risk discovery?” she hissed at him now. “First, the brother suspects something is wrong with his sister, then you try to kill him while he’s EVA? Refilling our fuel tanks, so we can make it to the planet you intend to conquer? You need to learn to control yourself better, or—”
“Or what?” The AI’s voice had grown dangerously soft. “I could end the life of every human on this ship right now….”
Frida tensed as her connection with the ship reported warning klaxons, sounding the alert that atmosphere was rapidly evacuating, and airlocks had all simultaneously opened without ES fields in place.
She thought fast. “If you do, any chance of using them as hostages, as bargaining chips, will be lost.”
She ignored the klaxons, focusing only on the AI she was becoming increasingly convinced was more than a little bit mad. “I’ve heard from El Dorado again, twice. And now I’ve heard from Chinquapin. If we don’t acknowledge them, and with a satisfactory reply, they will greet us as hostile when we arrive. Without humans aboard, they won’t hesitate to fire on this ship and obliterate it.”
As suddenly as they had begun, the klaxons stopped.
“We’re halfway there now,” she said quietly to him. “You’ve lasted this long, don’t be stupid and blow it when you have the end in sight.”
Abruptly, she found herself back inside the ship, her expanse shattered.
Shaken, she opened the message from Proxima again. Perhaps I can warn them that Prime has been tipped off to their—
Searing pain prevented her from completing the thought.
* * * * *
Calista awoke to the sound of klaxons and Shannon’s mental urging, accompanied by Tobi’s wet nose nudging her insistently.
She paused, indecisive, her desire to follow Tobi and check on Jason warring with her duty to the ship. As Calista began running for the lift, she reached out to Marta.
She breathed a sigh of relief, sent her thanks to the medic and then pinged Shannon again.
Air pressure had dropped, and there was a noticeable breeze. She heard bulkheads slamming into place, conserving what atmosphere existed within each section’s environs.
the engineer replied, frustration lacing her mental tone.
Calista dodged two crew members, spilling out into the corridor on their way to their posts. She waved an apology to them as she jogged around a service bot and barely missed slamming into a woman stumbling blearily out of her cabin.
Her destination—the lift that would take her down to the engineering level—was just a few steps away, but she swung left, opting instead for the service shaft next to it. Grabbing either side of the ladder, she quick-slid the three levels downward in a fireman’s descent.
Hopping out of the shaft, she raced for the entrance, arriving just as the klaxons stopped.
Terrance arrived, slightly out of breath, and a beat later, Logan joined them.
“What was that all about?” the exec queried his chief pilot.
Calista sent him a short headshake as she turned back to where Shannon had projected a holo of herself. “We were just trying to determine that, sir,” she replied, her tone puzzled as she approached a data console and began manipulating a holo feed that was projected in front of them.
Terrance’s face was thunderous. “T
his has to be sabotage,” he stated tersely. “Especially on the heels of what happened to Jason on that EVA.”
“Speaking of whom,” she began, holding up a finger as she pinged Marta for an update.
Calista smiled in relief. “Jason’s fine. They all are, down there.”
Terrance nodded but his scowl remained as the commodore addressed them again.
Calista nodded. “Understood. But sir, if it’s sabotage, then who…and why?”
Eric’s avatar looked grim.
Calista’s head snapped up and she glanced at Terrance, noting his expression looked as shocked at Eric’s statement as she felt. She glanced at Logan, but the AI’s expression revealed nothing.
the commodore warned.
