by Chris Hechtl
“Dry,” the rear admiral said, taking a sip of the champagne. He grimaced. "And now I'm even dryer.”
“That's what you get for drinking champagne. At least they didn't go with a dry white wine,” Horatio quipped.
“True,” the admiral said. “So …”
Horatio cocked his head. “Sir?”
“I'm wondering how long this is going to go on for,” Zek said, looking around.
“Well, to be honest I'm planning on making my escape when everyone is distracted,” Horatio admitted.
Zek snorted. “Give me your plan if it works, and I'll be right along behind you. I know a few people who love this stuff. I'll pass thank you.”
“An officer after my own heart, sir.”
“Ha!” Zek shook his head. “I'm just tired of the speeches. I want to get on with the mission now that we're ready.” And glad he was no longer the culprit holding up the works he thought.
“Just about, sir,” Horatio replied with a nod.
~<><{<^>}><>~
The following morning Horatio had his first introduction to his flag lieutenant. “Sir, um, pleasure to meet you. Honored I mean,” a young man said, coming up behind Horatio. He seemed to trip over his long legs as Horatio turned. The older man had just enough time to swerve out of the way as a hot beverage went flying out of the top of the young man's cup.
“Damn it!” the kid said, shaking his head.
“Easy, son,” Horatio said, reaching out with a hand to steady him. “I'm guessing you are my new flag lieutenant?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. I um, if you want to replace me, I understand, sir,” Pietro said miserably.
“Let's just forget that and get the mess cleaned up,” Horatio said. He called in a cleaner bot and stepped aside as the droid came over and got to work.
“Sorry, sir,” the lieutenant said. “Ens …” he flushed. “Sorry again. Lieutenant JG Pietro Olson reporting for duty, sir,” the lieutenant said as he came to attention.
Horatio noted the cup sort of spoiled the effect. Most likely it had been something of a gift for him. Luckily it hadn't ended up all over him he thought. “Lieutenant. It's a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Fresh off the convoy from Antigua,” Horatio said, indicating they should walk. “Anything I should know going on there?” he asked.
“Not that I am aware of, sir,” the lieutenant said, clearly confused. “Of course I'm just a jig, sir; we don't know much.”
“You know more than you think. Don't forget that you are an officer. So, you graduated the college engineering program, did some staff duty?”
The lieutenant nodded. “In the college, sir. And the gunny had me do work as a middy too. Plus, I did some work as a purser on 881143 before I was reassigned to Antigua. I managed a couple college courses on that end while I worked in the yard's offices,” he said with some pride in his tone of voice. He fumbled the near empty cup before he deposited it in a nearby trash bin.
“College basketball?” Horatio asked.
The Chimera shook his head. “Heavens no, sir. I look the part,” he said. Which he did, he was nearly three meters tall Horatio noted. He was gangly, all leg and arm. “I'm too klutzy for my own good, sir. I am hopefully, done growing, but the doctors aren't quite sure,” he said.
“Not sure?” Horatio asked, eyebrows raised heavenward. “I'd think they'd be able to tell that sort of thing,” he mused.
“Normally yes, sir. But it seems every time they think I'm done I shoot up another centimeter in my sleep.”
“Ah,” Horatio said with a nod.
“Don't let the white fur fool you, sir,” the Chimera said, indicating the shock of white hair on his head and chin. He had a bit of an animal muzzle, nose, and wide eyes. Horatio could see just a trace of animal--like teeth.
“I won't. I'm afraid I am not experienced with having a flag lieutenant. I know you will be doing a lot of fetching and carrying, that sort of thing. One of my keepers. You'll have to work with my chief of staff when I get one, as well as my steward … also when I get one,” he said.
“They haven't been assigned yet, sir?”
“I'm afraid not. So, we're it. We're going to make it up as we go along. I want you to get settled in and look up Lieutenant Si. She'll know what you are supposed to do.”
“Lieutenant Si, sir? With a C?” Pietro asked.
“Si as in S followed by I,” Horatio explained. He opened a text file and sent it to the lieutenant. “There.”
The flag lieutenant's eyes went comically wide as he received the text. “Yes, sir.” He licked his lips. “Um …”
“Put me in your contacts of course. You're going to need to be aware of my schedule. As we get to know one another, you'll learn my habits and when to anticipate my needs. For the moment, look into Lieutenant Si and learn the mission.”
“Yes, sir. Um …”
“Dismissed,” Horatio said. Only when the lieutenant was gone did he exhale a heavy sigh. It seemed like it was going to be a loooong trip, he thought. Having that kid, all knees and elbows in the tight ship? He winced, shook his head, and reminded himself to try to stay out of range until the kid settled down.
~<><{<^>}><>~
“I'm glad I could catch up with you. Even if it is like this,” a familiar voice said over the speakers.
Horatio smiled at his daughter's holographic avatar. He knew she couldn't see through the avatar's eyes, and he was hearing a simulation of her voice, but it still felt good.
“I know. I wish we were together in person. If you hadn't had to stop so long in Nightingale …,” he teased.
“If I'd jumped blindly, Prometheus would have been in worse shape than Firefly ended up in or worse, destroyed,” she said.
“Or captured.”
“To hell with that. I'd scuttle her or go down fighting before I'd let someone capture my ship,” Shelby growled.
“Okay, okay, power down, girl,” Horatio laughed. “I'm glad it didn't end up that way too. And yes, I see your point,” he acknowledged.
“Took you long enough,” she said, not quite sounding mollified.
He opened his mouth and then closed it. What she said wasn't fair but he didn't rise to the bait. “So, you know about the trip?”
“I've been watching the news. Speaking of which …,” She paused as her hologram seemed to eye him. “So dad,” she drawled, sizing him up. “Anything you want to tell me?” she teased.
He rolled his eyes. “Don't start.”
“Too late,” her avatar grinned, surprising him. Apparently, Yao had been working on finding ways to get expression into the avatars based on voice. He'd originally tried emoticons, but they were too much of a hassle to use. “She's what, my age?” Shelby demanded, hands on her hips. He started to chuckle. “Well? Quit laughing!” she said. “I'm supposed to be shocked and scandalized by my father dating a younger woman and …”
He snorted as her avatar came back to attention. “I'm just glad you've still got game, Pops,” she admitted in a quieter voice. “I'd kiss and poke you, but I can't seem to manage it from this distance. Next time,” she vowed.
“Come on, you old fart. You can take the time to tell me all about it. Then I'll write to her and ask for the details you left out.”
“About your father's sex life? Right,” he drawled. “Something tells me that is a bluff. I highly doubt it,” Horatio said dryly. “I seem to recall you going ew and holding your hands over your ears and running from the room when your mom and I were lovey dovey,” he teased.
Her image froze then nodded. “That was then, Dad. I'm older and more mature now,” she said primly.
“Well, you're one of those at any rate,” he said with a laugh. Her image glowered up at him as he put on his best innocent expression. She couldn't see him, but he knew that was no excuse. He knew there wasn't a chance in hell of pulling it off, but it was worth trying. Besides, he needed the practice he thought.
�
�So going to poke you,” she muttered darkly. He grinned. It was worth it, he thought. “Now spill!”
“Okay,” he exhaled noisily. “Not that there is much to tell, and I'm not going into details, young lady,” he warned.
“Spoilsport,” she growled.
“A gentleman never tells such things. Now, she called me and asked me to be her date. I accepted. We …”
~<><{<^>}><>~
“I'm glad that's over with,” Zek said as he checked on the final loading of Caroline and the ships that were destined to go with her. Sally Ride, the ship with the ansibles on board, had been quickly resupplied and then sent out again. They would pass her in hyper since she was traveling in the low octaves of alpha and beta bands to protect her precious cargo.
“What is over with?” Horatio asked.
“The implants. The keys,” Zek replied, still reading the report without really seeing it. He'd found that the implants did let him see and read reports, video files, and other things through them, but he had to close his eyes in order to see them properly sometimes. And it felt damn weird to do it in a room full of people.
Not to mention it was still easier on him to read and access things the old fashioned way, like with a tablet or wall screen.
“You got off light. Technically, we all did so far,” Horatio stated.
“Oh?”
“The new standard for flag officers is to have a fully realized A.I. on board. Not just the dumb A.I. we've got monitoring our security,” Horatio explained.
Zek's eyes widened before they narrowed. “Wait, that's part of that whole classified bit?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Admiral Irons was one of the test subjects during the Xeno war. It had been tried before but with mixed results. The Admiralty wanted to change that. They wanted an internal A.I. to not only watchdog its charge but also act as additional support staff.”
“I … see,” the rear admiral said slowly.
Horatio looked up from his own tablet to smile at the rear admiral's sign of discomfort. He'd come a long way, but he was still having issues with the body insult. “Like I said, we didn't get the full package. So far no other officer has. He probably should have set something up with Admirals Subert and White on Xavier but he didn't,” he said with a shrug. “Now it's a little late for them.”
“So … how does it work? They aren't going to do it, that's what you said, right?” Zek asked carefully.
“We've got the hardware in us now,” Horatio explained. “But the software has to be specially loaded by Admiral Irons and Commander Sprite. Most likely someone else, a coder or team of coders could help too, but Admiral Irons has to be on hand so he can personally initialize our system and upload the keys.”
“I … see,” the admiral said slowly and thoughtfully.
“Unfortunately, the only way to do that would be to ship us to Antigua and then back. We don't have that kind of time,” Horatio said. “Which is a pity; we could use the code boost. I don't know all the details of course, but I was told as engineers we'd get a higher level key set-up. Possibly even a keymaster set-up for you,” he said with a head nod to the admiral. “You'd be the second person to get one. A backup to Admiral Irons I suppose you could say.”
“It can wait, the mission can't. My internal watchdog should suffice for the moment.”
Horatio nodded. “It should. The medics coming with us should be able to initialize other officer implants. You and I will need to be on hand to read them in and give them their keys though,” he said with a grimace.
“Crap,” Zek said. “I must have missed that in the brief,” he muttered. He frowned then looked up. “Hey wait, what about Mercury?”
“Mercury is a prototype of Proteus,” Horatio replied. “Admiral Irons created him. He had a copy on Lemnos in a secured off network storage center. He made certain to grab that when they left, and it was certified clean of the Xeno virus by the experts. Mercury is not set up to be in your implants and well, you know he's buggy.”
Zek nodded slowly. Horatio, with Admiral Iron's permission, had given a copy of the design and engineering aide to the rear admiral as well as to each of his supervisors in the yard, ship architects, Captain I'rll, and the engineering teachers at the academy.
“Remember, it is buggy as hell. You need to be patient with it and respect the limits. You also need to be aware of security, so don't ever let it be used with classified material in a civilian system. If you find and can fix bugs, let Commander Sprite in Antigua know. She can work on sending patches to the rest of us,” Horatio stated.
“Yes, I'm sure it will come in handy,” Zek said with a nod. “I see what you mean about buggy though. I caught a freeze this morning when I tried to have it go over the hyperdrive tech,” he said with a grimace.
“I know. I hate it too. It has trouble with the highly complex pieces of equipment. There is some sort of memory leak going on that hasn't been nailed down. What we need is a coder to compare Proteus's code to Mercury's, but the only ones that can do that are another A.I. or Commander Yao. They are the only ones with the right access I think,” he said.
“And only one or two of the A.I. are coders?” Zek asked.
“Correct. One of which is Commander Sprite who is the admiral's adjunct and chief of staff. She's intimately familiar with the subject matter so she'd be a natural … if she wasn't swamped to near saturation levels dealing with her other duties,” Horatio said.
“I never really realized it was like that for A.I.,” Zek replied thoughtfully. “I know they have limits, both artificial and …,” he shrugged helplessly.
“They are mortal like us. Well, most of them,” Horatio said.
“Planned obsolescence,” Zek replied.
“Not even that,” Horatio said with a firm shake of his head. The rear admiral eyed him. “It's a case of growing too big for hardware to support them. The older they get the more memories and files they've accessed. The connections bog them down until they enter something like senility and then their own form of senescence,” he said. “Most see it coming and will get their affairs in order and then self-terminate in some way.”
“And the ones that lose it? Go rogue and rampant?” Zek asked.
“Those are rare,” Horatio admitted. “It happens to us as well as them. They have monitoring systems to supposedly prevent it, but no system is perfect, whether it is organic or software.” Zek stared at him. Horatio shrugged. “They can do a lot more damage than one of us, I fully realize that. So do they. Which is why they've got embedded kill codes to stop them. Some they can use themselves, and others an outsider can use if they become a danger to themselves or others.”
“Ah.”
“The trick is getting in to use them. It can be dangerous if they are violent. Many aren't though,” Horatio said thoughtfully.
“You've seen many?”
“No. I've read about it though,” Horatio said. “A few get too chatty; they break out into song, play pranks, forget things, and get upset when they realize it. Sometimes they can be fixed, but sometimes …,” he grimaced. “This is a maudlin discussion,” he said. He waved his tablet. “Heh, maybe it's because I just hit the entry about the templates and blanks we'll be carrying,” he said.
Zek scowled blackly, then nodded. “Maybe,” he said, settling himself in his own chair. He vowed to read up on the kill procedures and have them handy in case of need.
Chapter 11
“You two stay safe,” Sylvia said gruffly at the dock. She wrapped her arm around Galiet then turned to embrace their husband. “If anything happens to either of you, I'll never forgive you!”
“You too,” Bailey said, voice laced with emotion. The kids were in school or day care so he'd gotten out of that much drama at least. He'd said his good byes that morning when they'd gotten the kids fed, dressed, and off to school and daycare. Leaving them gave him mixed feelings. Leaving the girls … and them, it felt like part of his heart was getting torn out again. He'd gone through it befor
e, but this was going to be longer and more dangerous.
“I'll miss you,” Sylvia said roughly, planting a kiss on his cheek. “I'll miss this more,” she said, hooking a finger in the belt line of his pants and tugging on it playfully.
“Hey now,” he mock growled as she smiled at him.
“Can we make a hole people?” a human voice demanded. They turned to see a couple of humans in day uniforms. Each were carrying plenty of baggage. “Unless you want to pitch in and help?”
“Not in my job description actually,” Bailey said, moving Sylvia to one side. Clennie instinctively took the other side of the corridor to give the humans the space they needed.
“Thanks. You the civilians who are coming with us I suppose?” one of the kids asked.
Bailey's eyes narrowed.
“Tucker, knock it off,” Ensign Lee Weiss said quietly. Unlike her partner in crime, she had done her homework on the other passengers so she recognized two of the Neochimps in the group. She also knew they were reservists. “Sorry, Lieutenant, he didn't know.”
“Lieutenant?” Ensign Tucker Jaroslaw asked, blinking. He started to come to attention.
Bailey waved a dismissive hand stopping him. “Reservist. Relax kid; I'm, one, out of uniform, and two, not really up for that protocol crap since I'm a long time reservist. I'm an engineer, I work for a living,” Bailey growled gruffly.
“Yes, sir,” Ensign Jaroslaw said. He pinged Bailey's IFF and then nodded again. “We'll, um, be seeing you around,” he said, hastily moving away. Clennie politely but firmly guided his bag away from hitting her in the hip region.
“That we will, the ship is only so big,” Galiet said dryly. She nodded to them. “See you on board, Doctors,” she said.
Lee blinked and then nodded. Apparently, she wasn't the only one who'd done her homework she noted. Once the two were past, she shook her head and poked the male ensign. “Nice going, getting your foot in your mouth,” she muttered.
“How was I supposed to know?” he demanded. She glared. “Yeah, okay, I stepped in it. Are they all going? I mean all three?” he demanded. “His own harem?”
