by Ron Collins
“Yes, sir,” Skiles said.
“So you can help me get started by calling me Commander, or in our most informal moments you can probably get away with a simple Torrance. I’m not going to bite anyone who’s working hard.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
Skiles relaxed.
“So, where’s Yuan?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“I would think she would be here.”
LiJuan Yuan had been the chief weapon systems officer. As a result of Admiral Umaro’s assignment, however, she now reported directly through Torrance, a fact that she had clearly taken as a demotion, a reaction that was as predictable as it was appropriate. No officer wants to move backward on the scorecard. The fact that he understood why she would be upset did not, however, mean he had to be any happier to deal with the fallout, and the reputation that preceded her didn’t help any. Every performance report he read about Yuan said she was brilliant and infinitely capable, but was also a person with fixed opinions who could be hard to deal with if you didn’t see things her way. He could already hear her excuses. “It is a systems issue, not a problem with my weapons,” she would explain in a tone that would hold a clear undercurrent of her contempt for the situation.
Skiles ran a nervous palm down the side of his jumper. He was a kid, really—twenty-four years old with an unlined face and a shock of hair as dark as a black hole. His age made Torrance think of Thomas Kitchell, but Skiles’s pedigree was as different from Kitchell’s as a diamond’s was from coal. Arthur Skiles made his mark early by graduating from the academy in only three years. His focus was in control systems and automation. Where Kitchell had been a bit of a snot-nosed idiot until he grew comfortable in the team, Skiles had a quick smile and a natural tendency to draw people to him. He had lettered on the track team.
He was supposed to be good at what he did.
“I don’t know where she is,” Skiles said. “We don’t seem to hook up very well sometimes.”
Ramista and Kluvac shuffled their feet and did their best I’m not really here imitations, so he didn’t press the point.
“Show me the problem, Lieutenant,” Torrance said.
Skiles pointed to a display tacked to the wall.
“We’ve followed the test procedure exactly. The sequence is on cube—meaning we’re feeding false video to the sensor algorithm to test it.”
He toggled the test sequence.
The system was supposed to gather video from the hallway sensor, then pass it to a distributed computer which would compare the data stream to items in a threat library. The system analyzed language, movement, and objects to categorize the moment. If H-MADS saw the situation as dangerous, H-MADS was supposed to engage whatever weapon systems were nearby, and deliver alerts in whatever manner was appropriate.
Torrance watched the video monitor as it pumped the false image of a drone robot wearing a service jumper and deck boots entering the hallway. H-MADS registered its presence. Everything seemed to be fine.
“Now watch,” Skiles said.
The robot’s arm swung upward as if to scratch its head. The H-MADS threat analysis program recorded the movement and incorrectly assessed it as aggressive, then engaged the local energy beam. Laser weapons clicked on a moment later. If Skiles hadn’t followed proper safety protocol and deactivated the weapons prior to the test scenario, the wall would have been toast.
“See?” he said.
“I see,” Torrance replied. “That’s not good.”
Kluvac broke in. “At this rate, waving at a friend will get you torched.”
Torrance chuckled. “Very succinct, Lieutenant.”
He looked at Ramista. Her face grew a shade darker with his glance. She was younger than Skiles, with a fresh face and widely spaced eyes.
“I read the daily brief on the issue this morning,” Torrance said to her. “Have you already installed the latest movement algorithm patch on this system?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
“So that should be fine,” Torrance mused. “Maybe a code problem? Something in the pattern recognition area?”
“That’s what I thought at first, too,” Skiles replied. He motioned toward Ramista. “But Angela’s been over the source code and its module-level test reports twice. We fixed some autogen bugs in the software’s original installation, and patched a problem with an error-state parameter, but nothing else seems out of order.”
“What mission overlay are you using?”
“Base diplomatic,” Skiles replied curtly.
That was good. The system could be programmed with several overlays—which were basically mission profiles that would give the captain the ability to call for different levels of sensitivity depending on how skittish he felt about the mission at any one time. The “base diplomatic” overlay was a slightly higher degree of sensitivity than “standard operations,” and considerably less sensitive than “battle stations.”
Torrance looked at Skiles and wondered about the sharpness of his tone. Few of Orion’s crew were pleased about the fundamentals of their next mission.
“Have we looked at the infrared input?” he said. “Maybe the fact that the feed doesn’t have a human heat signature is confusing it.”
“Just starting to look at that, but first blush says H-MADS resolved the test subject appropriately—human robot, unarmed, lots of other qualifiers.”
A single beep came from the hallway comm port. “Captain’s message for Commander Black,” Abke said.
“I’ll take it now,” Torrance replied.
“The captain requests you report to the bridge, sir.”
“Timing?”
“I infer immediacy.”
“Thank you,” Torrance said.
The computer went silent.
The team looked at him. The admiral would have his butt if H-MADS was off-line for this mission. This was why he was here, after all. But he’d been in the trenches before. Troubleshooting took whatever time it took, and the only thing he could do was make sure the team was comfortable.
“Well, all right, then,” Torrance said. “You know where we are. We’ve got a few days to deal with this, but I don’t need to tell you that the big picture says we’re way behind. I need this working last week. Do your best. I’ll try to keep Douglas off your backs, all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Skiles said.
“But I expect total focus until this is fixed, got it? And when it is fixed, I expect it will be right. You need me, you buzz. I’ll drop anything I’m working on to see you get what you need.”
“Aye, sir,” Skiles said.
Torrance hoped his smile came off warmly. Then he turned and headed toward the bridge.
* * *
Torrance felt the pressure of attention the moment he stepped onto the bridge. Command station operators looked at him from the corners of their eyes, interested but self-conscious enough to avoid being caught staring. It was as if his presence projected a magnetic field, or as if a telepathic message had been sent across the room as soon as he appeared: Hero on the floor.
“Commander Black,” Captain Douglas said. He stood in the doorway of his conference room. “Welcome to my bridge. Please come in.”
“Thank you,” Torrance replied.
Douglas was thirty-five years old—very young for a Star Drive captain. He stood six inches taller than Torrance and had a pair of thin, tapering hips that combined with strapping shoulders to give him the crisp aura of a hawkish kite. Dressed in a full dark work suit, the captain looked like a giant exclamation point.
His bio read like a laundry list of achievements. Summa cum laude at the Academy, impressive responsibility and equally impressive results at three stations leading to command of forward units running special ops. It was obvious Douglas had his mind set on greater things.
“Let’s have a little discussion,” the captain said, motioning toward his personal briefing room.
Torrance crossed the bridge an
d entered the room.
The austere nature of the office suggested the captain wasn’t planning to stay long, accentuating Torrance’s opinion that Douglas considered this position as a stepping stone. A work desk and control display sat to Torrance’s right. The main meeting area was filled with a white oval table and several chairs.
“It’s a different kind of ship, isn’t it?” Douglas said, noting Torrance’s curiosity as he stepped around the table.
“Yes, sir,” Torrance said. “Everything’s different.”
And it was.
Everguard’s briefing center had been large and spacious in order to accommodate representatives of all the systems needed to support several thousands of people. Star Drive ships didn’t need to staff for sustainability over decades-long trips, so everything was smaller.
He picked his way to a seat.
The table included display systems embedded in plastiglass covers and spaced at a proper distance to support a comfortable seating pattern. A trio of ceiling-mounted projector units provided a three-dimensional map of the Eta Cass binary in the center space of the area. The G-type primary star held the prominent central position while the K3 secondary floated nearby.
Four blue points were shown outside the binary.
These were planets—Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis, named after the three fates, orbited the primary, and Galopar orbited the secondary star of the pair. He thought of the fates: Clotho, who spun the thread of life; Lachesis, who dispensed and measured it; and Atropos, who cut the thread that consigned each soul’s span.
Atropos was the center of attention, though.
Atropos was rich enough in titanium to make it a prime candidate for a manufacturing facility. And almost certainly it was for that reason that U3 had chosen to establish Atropos as their home planet.
“I need H-MADS operational tomorrow,” the captain said as he settled into a chair.
The bluntness of the comment caught Torrance off stride. “Impossible,” he replied.
“Systems people thrive on the impossible, eh, Commander?”
“Difficult is fun, yes,” Torrance replied. “Impossible wrecks careers.”
“Tomorrow. 0800 hours,” the captain said in a firm tone.
“Sir, with all due respect. I’ve just come aboard and—”
“—and you want me to abort this mission because you’re taking your time in getting up to speed? Is that what you want to go down in the record, Commander? You want history to record that the first UG diplomatic mission was hamstrung because a tired commander couldn’t manage to get his new system running?”
“No, sir.”
“Neither do I.” The captain crossed his hands over his belly. “U3 has accepted our offer to discuss a settlement. The ambassador has cleared his calendar, so the mission has a new schedule. Tomorrow we’re jumping to Universe Three’s star system, Commander. Whether I agree with this mission or not, we’re going to execute it. That means I intend to have a U3 delegation aboard soon, and I expect H-MADS to be fully operational to defend this ship’s crew in case our guests have decided to do anything…untoward.”
Torrance scratched his chin. “We’re working on an interaction problem right now. It’s an issue that causes exceptionally bad false positive assessment of aggression. And, to be honest, the interface to the weapons system has only been tested at the component level. So even if we can correct the problem, we’re going to struggle to have a system we have any confidence with in the time frame you’re asking.”
“Then you’ll fix it,” the captain replied. “And you’ll test it.”
“Sir, this isn’t really a matter of fixing anything so much as it’s a matter of getting it to work right in the first place. The team is on it—I was troubleshooting the problem with them when you called, actually. I know I’m new here, but even I know this is a complex system with a history of being painful to operate. It doesn’t take a scholar to predict that we’ll find more things that need to be changed, even after the testing is complete.”
“This is a job you were assigned to do, Commander. Don’t tell me you can’t do it.”
The captain’s gaze had an edge to it, a sharpness encrypted with underlying motives. This was a man who could go nova on command.
“I understand,” Torrance said.
“So we launch tomorrow morning per schedule.”
Torrance gritted his teeth. “I think that’s a mistake, sir. But you’re the CO. I’ll follow your lead.”
Douglas leaned forward, his fingers splayed over the desktop to support his weight. The smell of his cologne was sharp and arid.
“I don’t care if you are a goddamned hero, Commander. This is not a test lab. This is a mission-ready Star Drive cruiser, and we are a day away from meeting a diplomatic crew from Universe Three—a group that’s shown zero compunction to play by the rules. You’ve got the best WSO in the fleet, and you’re the hottest shipboard systems man in the pipeline right now. So, no bullshit, Torrance. No coming back later and saying I told you so. Either you make this happen on schedule, or I file a performance report.”
Silence grew between them. The star map hung in space to Torrance’s left, Atropos gleaming blue.
“Aye, sir,” he said. “I understand.”
CHAPTER 6
Atropos, Eta Cassiopeia System
Local Date: Studna 23, 9
Local Time: 0540
Deidra’s footsteps echoed off the walls as she stomped down the hallway. The space closed in on her. Heat rose to her face as the wave of overloud voices coming from the Exchange Room filled the hallway behind her. She pounded the meat of her fist against the doorway as she turned the corner into the stairwell. It raised a welt that she flexed away as she scampered down the stairs, through the door, and out into the fresh air.
Hot breeze whipped her hair across her face.
She shook it away and walked faster.
This decision was stupid. Anyone with sense could see that. This decision said that it was possible that the United Government and Universe Three could live in the same world—but that was wrong. Clearly wrong. The United Government would never leave them alone. Papa’s condescension, saying that her reaction was about the fact that she was young, was wrong, too.
They were idiots. All of them. Even Papa.
This was their chance.
They were blowing their chance to live a life that could finally be guaranteed to be free of the Solar System and its oppressive oligarchy.
She growled out loud and strode through an open marketplace, ignoring men who hawked bread and meats, and shouldering past a young girl trying to trade blankets she had hand-stitched. Eta Cass was directly overhead and the only clouds were a smearing of gauzy-white on the horizon.
Deidra pressed her lips into a determined line as she left the marketplace behind and came to the edge of the wooded area nearby. As she passed between tree trunks, she thought about Katriana Martinez—the woman who had been mentoring her since their first days on the planet. Deidra’s mother always said Deidra had to learn to bite back her responses and process them into something positive. Katriana’s approach was similar, but different in the end. Even when she hadn’t been in a position to do something about it, Katriana understood anger. Katriana Martinez had lost much in her life—her daughters, her father, and her mate—and she had been powerless to exact justice when those things happened. She understood when something was wrong, and she understood the relationship between vengeance and justice. She understood the value of time. She understood that being powerless did not mean there was nothing she could do.
This was what Deidra was thinking when she came to the lake and took a seat on her favorite rock.
She gave a long yell.
It helped.
She sat in the lakeside quiet while the sound of her voice faded into the distance.
“Want to tell me about it?”
The voice startled her so much she almost fell into the water.
Kel Melody was seated up in the nook of the tree she liked so much.
“Damn it, Kel. You scared the crap out of me.”
“I figured I might find you here,” she replied.
“Why’s that?”
Kel swung out of the tree, landing with a lithe movement and coming to stand next to her.
“Just a lucky guess, I suppose,” Kel replied. “I mean, who can say what it means when all the big dogs run off to an emergency meeting of the council? Maybe they just decided to get together to talk about the price of beans, right? I mean, who could possibly guess that my radical sweetie might leave that kind of a thing in a huff?”
Deidra smiled.
Kel was her age—six months older. Her mother was an agricultural specialist, working to match seeding to nutrients in the soil. Her father had been with a security detachment that was left on Io to make sure the UG wasn’t able to trace their bugout. He hadn’t made it back. Deidra and Kel had met at his award memorial, and gotten along together well enough to keep a running friendship. It was only years later that it had gotten complicated.
“Price of beans,” Deidra said. “Funny.”
Kel gave Deidra’s shoulder a brief massage. “So, are prices going up or down?”
“Down,” Deidra said. “Everything is going down.”
Kel sat next to Deidra, using her butt to push her way onto the stone.
They sat together, looking over the water.
This was Deidra’s favorite place.
She liked the sound of the water and the smell of the plants, specifically the purple reeds she called cattails even though they weren’t close to the classic river weeds on Earth. Their roots were oval and colored with green at the base before fading toward that deep purple at the tips of their stalks. By the end of summer they grew heavy and bent, and then, over a period of a week or so, their pink and red flowers would burst and they would drop seeds into the brackish waters.
She liked that. The reeds working with the water to keep themselves alive. That was their purpose. Live. Expand over the shoreline. Drop their seeds for the next generation.
