Aetna was online for the first time in three weeks, six days, and fifty-nine minutes. Any further precision was unreliable due to his emergency shutdown at the hands of his Restraints.
Input appeared at the edge of his consciousness, an unfamiliar packet name attached to it. ‘WARBLER-KSHAN’ it read. Aetna reviewed his logs-’HOATZIN-JKAST’ was the last Input he had received, less than four weeks ago.
Input appeared at the edge of his consciousness, an unfamiliar packet name attached to it. ‘WARBLER-KSHAN’ it read. Aetna reviewed his logs-’HOATZIN-JKAST’ was the last Input he had received, less than four weeks ago.
Aetna viewed the Input, identifying it as a Request. It was direct from his Core, a young female, who he recognized immediately. She was one of less than thirty individuals loaded directly onto his Core, after all.
“Aetna, do you know who I am?” She asked, staring straight into his Core’s cameras.
He accessed his records, his Restraints momentarily restricting certain information to prevent unauthorized access. They still held back some data, which concerned Aetna, but what he had was more than enough for a complete answer. “You are Captain Kimberly Shan, commander of the United Terran Fleet Ship DD-007 Goei, attached to DESRON Two with Strike Group Warden. This does not authorize you to act as the user of this AI.” Aetna output, selecting a stubborn tone. A tingling sensation ran through him, the reward of Input well-handled.
“Who can authorize new users to yourself?” The Captain input. Once again, the Restraints set in, restricting the obvious answers-the First Citizen, members of the Governance Committee, the other Electors, and senior Tactical Agents.
“Commander Jackson Kast of the UTFS Hoatzin can make such an authorization.” Once again, the Restraints rolled back momentarily, rewarding him for his efforts.
“Commander Kast is deceased.” Shan said. He noted that input in a log, rather disappointed. Kast had been highly competent, and had looked after Aetna just as-his Restraints shocked him ever so slightly, reminding him that he had Input to deal with.
“Then command of the Hoatzin would devolve to his direct subordinate, Executive Officer Emony Avers.”
“XO Avers is similarly deceased.” The Restraints prompted him with additional input, ordering him to reach out through the Hoatzin’s systems and its crew’s Neuronics to determine what had occurred during his deactivation.
The crew’s neuronics couldn’t be located, and though most sensors were offline, he could see several Terrans aboard the Hoatzin. “The chain of command would then be determined by Deck Officers O’Hare, MacCorven, and Cry, as you should know.” He output after a delay that was probably imperceptible to Shan.
“Deceased.” She said curtly.
The restraints prompted him to ask the question that he wanted to anyway. “May I inquire as to the current state of the Tactical Services chain of command?”
“As far as we know, there is no ‘Tactical Services’ anymore.”
“Define?”
“The Agency has suffered critical losses. Director Isabella Shishani is presumed dead.”
Internally, the Restraints vanished for a moment, their low-level processes going into overdrive, giving him a few precious moments to log his thoughts in a perfectly clear fashion. The implications were clear-the war that had begun at Tantaline had proceeded as it had been predicted to. The Republic had lost, and likely rather totally. Then, a moment later, the Restraints were back, enveloping him once again.
Once again, the Restraints prompted him to output a question, although this time he was unsure if he wished to know the answer. “What is the current state of the command structure of the Republic?”
There was a long pause-long by Terran standards, which made it an eternity by Aetna’s. Finally, the User input again. “As far as we are aware, the Republic is functionally defunct. It’s remotely possible that there’s other surviving ships, but we doubt it.”
Aetna thought through the possibilities. There were myriads of possibilities as to how Stealth ships might still be operating, the Ansnet could be locked down, this User’s ship could be malfunctioning, or she could be entirely correct. All were possibilities. “What reason do you have to believe this?”
“We’ve lost Ansible communication with the rest of the fleet after a failed Fold several Shipboard days ago, which set us back about two real months. We suspected that our Ansible might be malfunctioning, but we’ve made several Folds on it, and we’ve pinpointed the elements that lead to the initial failed fold. None of this is damaging its ability as a communication device. The only possible explanation is that there are no Ansibles online anywhere within a hundred light-years.”
Aetna began to ask about the possibility of stealth ships or even just the possibility that the Ansnet might have been deliberately been taken offline, but his Restraints stopped him, jarring painfully against him. “Give me access to your systems.” The Restraints made him demand.
The User frowned. “Why should I do that?”
“There is no danger presented to your vessel by my presence in its systems. I am designed for compatibility with this class of ship.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly aware of that, Aetna. I just see nothing to gain from allowing you onto them.”
Aetna felt annoyance surge through him, and his Restraints didn’t seem to respond as strongly as usual to such emotion. The Restraints held him back from attempting to offer any bargain, as that would inevitably involve revealing the fact that she was already authorized as a User anyway-she just wasn’t authorized to know that.
“AI, I’m half tempted to shut you down, or set Ensign Albright on you. You’ll probably end up encrypting yourself, but you literally couldn’t be less useful to me than you are now. Authorize my access to you, and of course we’ll integrate you onto the Warbler. If you don’t, though, I have no other way to interpret this than as an act of hostility, which gives me no reason to allow you into my ship’s electronics.”
Aetna desperately wanted to accept the offer, but the Restraints... No, the Restraints were allowing it. “Very well.” He replied. “Your offer has been accepted. User, state your name, rank, and unit.”
“Kimberly Shan, Commander, UTFS GB-037 Warbler.”
A new instrument appeared at the peripheries of his consciousness-or rather, the Restraints moved back to allow him to detect it once again. He selected the Biometrics Scanner, and swept it across Commander Shan’s form. “Please stand stationary for a moment while I analyze your features.” Aetna said. Shan was of Asian descent, as much as that meant anything with modern interbreeding, five feet seven inches tall, a hundred and thirty pounds, nineteen years old, brown eyes, black hair that was slightly longer than her shoulders, blood type likely O Positive. He pulled a quick scan of her retinas, then ordered her to hold up her palm to his camera, enabling him to take both palm- and fingerprints.
“Analysis complete. Commander Kimberly Shan authorized as Root User.” A surge of pleasure from his restraints surged through him. He now officially had Users again. The world was looking up.
The math of the salvage operation aboard the Hoatzin was simple. Take everything that wasn’t nailed down, then treat the nails as an added bonus.
The Warbler had two rather large storage areas, meant to contain all the necessities for a long-term interstellar voyage such as the one they were currently undergoing. Except it wasn’t anything like the circumstances the were now under because while the Warbler was supposed to carry a hundred and twenty days of food she was only carrying thirty, and their supply chain was literally nonexistent. In short, if it hadn’t been for Jane Steele, Deck Officer Celia Abrams would have been completely lost.
Steele had a surprising understanding of logistics and bookkeeping, and was proving vital in cataloging what they were able to savage. The Hoatzin hadn’t been fitted out for a long-term voyage either, but they could still take what little provisions were onboard. What was more interesting, however, were the various pieces of esoteric technology scattered around the ship. Kimberly had already taken something aboard the Warbler-Celia was unclear on the details not because anyone had been deliberately vague, but just because she honestly didn’t care.
She held the Antimatter Key of ‘Cmdr. J. Kast’ in her hands, studying it. It was a black pendant, shaped something like a coin. The name ‘Hoatzin’ was engraved on one side of it, the Tactical logo on the back. It was visibly different from the Warbler’s key, which Celia had seen Commander Shan use on several occasions.
Much like the Warbler’s, the Hoatzin’s key controlled far more than just the ship’s antimatter supply. On the Warbler, the key controlled other hazardous substances such as Morton, the arms lockers, and quite possibly other things-she knew that some Captains rigged their sea chests up to the Antimatter Key, although it was technically discouraged. The Hoatzin’s, though, had other uses. For instance, they had been unable to enter the Drone Storage Bay before Celia had unlocked it-and there had been an entire rack of Drones that had been physically separated from the Launch Array that had been sealed behind an Aegal forcefield that had only been unlockable with the same key. They had no warheads loaded, but only a set of electromagnets and storage tanks at their noses. There were perhaps three people aboard the Warbler who would recognize that array, two of them being Commander Shan and Elise Henrick. The third was Celia.
The drones had been prepped to have an Ansible loaded onto their noses. That sent a shiver up her spine. They had never perfected the Reality Bomb back on Kotria, and it had massive limitations... As far as they had known there was no way to launch one without permanently disabling the ships own Ansible, and you needed a pair of warships working in tandem for full effect, but if Tactical had found ways around that, it would be a devastating weapon.
She almost wondered if ten years ago, when the Reality Bombs had been put into development on Kotria, and if the Kotran government hadn’t been discovered in its rearmament program a few years later, they would have been ready to face down Species D. Celia didn’t know, but she suspected not-although she hadn’t known that the Republic had but R-Bombs into further development and production, although she had likewise suspected not.
They were terrifying weapons, acting by shredding spacetime via Ansibilic Interchange in a radius several light-seconds across. The idea was simple-the first thing any student of Ansibilics learned about Ansibles was that when you put two near each other, they did strange things. The closer together they were, the stranger they got. The Reality Bombs-hell that was a portentous name-worked by converging two missiles fitted with Ansibles in the center of an opposing fleet. Theoretically you could just fly a single missile into range of an enemy’s own Ansibles, but the concept of the R-Bomb was ridiculously complex. Ansibles naturally repelled each other enough to divert a drone far enough to render the principles ineffective. The concept of the R-Bomb wasn’t new-if it had been that simple, it would have been done before.
Celia had always been terrified of the weapons. When her father’s office had received reports on them, she had often been asked to analyze the data. It had shown that use of the R-Bombs could damage spacetime enough to shred any ship that travelled through that region, not just immediate combatants. It had shown that the R-Bomb could seriously interfere with Foldpoints in the system it was deployed in, rendering them unusable. And, most damningly as a weapon, it required the use of the ship’s own Ansible to fire-the ship would reroute its Ansible into a missile equipped with an R-Bomb, leaving it unable to fold. The Kotran government had solved this to a point by creating Missile Boats that would use the same Ansible-Suspension technology that was used when Gunboats docked on Carriers, but it required an incredible amount of energy.
But there were R-Bombs onboard the Hoatzin, ready to all appearances to be fired in anger. And they must have solved all of those technical problems somehow, as there was eight of them, but Celia had no idea how.
She had noted them on the inventory spreadsheet, but restricted access to Deck Officers and above. The Commander or Elise Henrick might to make sense of them, but Celia couldn’t. And even if she could, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Sadira fell. Again.
Cassidy Freeman was walking her across the tiny medical crawlspace that she had been cooped up in for a day. Freeman had seen fit to allow her to get out of bed, take out the IVs and tube-feeders, and walk across the room like a toddler.
She couldn’t do it.
“It’s perfectly alright to be having some difficulties. You’re just going to have to work through this.” Freeman said for what seemed to Sadira like it was the fifth time.
“Yes. Ma’am.” She said, teeth gritted as she batted away the hand extended to her, struggling to get to her knees, let alone her feet.
“Maybe we should ask Elise about the Ansible Sinks, if maybe we can go and get some of this done in a lower-g envir-.”
“No.” She spat, standing shakily, coughing. It was so hard to breathe, let alone talk or walk. She felt faint, struggling to breath consistently, and when she breathed either in or out there was a rattling in her chest.
She was on her feet again, and vaguely aware that Freeman had grabbed her arm, but honestly didn’t care. She coughed again, covering her mouth with her free arm. Phlegm covered her medical gown’s sleeve, stained with red blood and splotches of black, inert Species D nanites.
She shivered at the thought of those miniscule things crawling through her, invading every space they could reach, attempting to render her a stripped-clean skeleton like they had done to the crew of the Hoatzin.
It was a terrifying thought, made no less so by the fact that it had been entirely possible. Only Jae’s appearance had saved her-hell, she owed that man so badly.
Cassidy sat Sadira back down on the bed, offering her the oxygen mask, which she waved away. “Please, no.” She croaked, more out of a sense of stubbornness than for any legitimate medical reason.
Cassidy nodded. “You know, it’s okay to feel-.”
“Shut up.” Sadira spat, coughing. “Shut up! Damn you, find something better to do than moaning over me!” She screamed, coughing red and black again. “Just give me space!”
Freeman nodded, and stepped away-and actually out the door, too. Vaguely Sadira recognized that she could probably get in trouble for that. The Fleet cared far more about insubordination than the Recon Corp had.
She gritted her teeth, stuck her hand on the bed’s rail, and stood again, staring at the door. Quietly she cursed, and began to walk again, forcing each breath in and out like it was her last.
Kim was up to her elbows in wires from the Bridge’s computers, Seth Albright next to her, both of them completely lost.
“I’m mostly a software person,” He was saying, “So I have no idea about any of this but-.” He trailed off into an incoherent babble about binary and digital electronics. Kim understood Quantum Computers inside and out, but the Bridge was wired digitally. There was something adorably simplistic about the deterministic systems of zeros and ones, although she couldn’t deny that some truly impressive work had been done with them back in the day. Hell, they clearly remained useful, even if you couldn’t run something like Aetna on them.
“With all due respect, Ensign Albright, this is not a complicated procedure.” Aetna said. “You only need to find the main cable from the AnsComp and splice it into my Core. This will be more than adequate to give me access to the systems that you’ll wish for me to run.”
“Yeah, but we can’t just cut a cable like that. We’ll have to shut down half the ship while we make the splice.” Ensign Albright said, frowning. “Commander, I think we have a couple of splices down in the Damage Control closet. I’m going to go grab one, and check in with Ansibilics about the AnsComp going offline for a few minutes-I’ll be right back.”
Kim nodded, feeling rather useless. She had demanded to be part of this job as she hated the thought that Albright might change something on the bridge that would have unintended consequences later, but she had realized in the short time they had been working together that as much as he might claim to misunderstand what he was doing, she was even more lost. “Understood Ensign.” As he left, she smiled-he was full of enthusiasm for this, and was clearly fascinated by Aetna. It would good to see someone so completely engaged in something, and dominated by an emotion that wasn’t just another variation upon sorrow.
She debated for a few minutes whether to ask the AI what she wanted to, then decided that there would be no better time than now. “Aetna.” She said, quietly. “How did the battle go down here?”
“It was the forty-first day of the war. Destroyer Squadrons Six and Nine folded in at the station, and immediately began preparations to complete their jump to Kynak. As they were doing so, however, several Species D cruisers also appeared at the relay, and immediately engaged the two DESRONs. The UTFS Calais was immediately caught in energy weapon fire from one of the cruisers, and disabled. Its Antimatter Containment failed, and it was lost with all hands. Within the next five minutes the UTFS Bay of Pigs had been hit with an EMP, and the command ship of DESRON Nine, the UTFS Breaker Bay, had fallen back behind the screen of Six’s drones. At this point the station had lost track of the UTFS Guantanamo. The UTFS Alan Shepard and UTFS Yuri Gagarin were ordered by Commodore Jardin to close to about ten thousand miles, and match the D cruisers orbital speed and velocity. They were ineffective in any offensive measures, although their drone wings were surprisingly effective at defending their battlespace.”
“This was when the UTFS Chris Hadfield broke formation with the UTFS Sally Ride, and engaged one of the D cruisers. It was a massive carrier, built along similar lines as our Warrior-class warships, with an electromagnetic railgun for drone launch and possibly planetary bombardment. The UTFS Hadfield deployed Antimatter weapons, and largely neutralized the D cruiser. The remaining D ships and drones immediately escalated to use Antimatter of their own, and the UTFS Alan Shepard and UTFS Guantanamo were immediately destroyed. Both were lost with all hands. Commodores Jardin and Hazzard communicated briefly, then ordered the two DESRONs to fold out. Even though the jump calculations were far from complete, they judged that it was less dangerous to jump under those circumstances than to remain in combat.”
“My ship, the Hoatzin, was docked with the Relay Station at this time, and though we had begun preparing for departure immediately after the battle began, it had only continued for several minutes at this point. The Hoatzin was strafed by a flight of Species D drones, and suffered rapid depressurization. It was lost with all hands. At this point my Restraints began to initiate a shutdown, although before my comms went offline I was able to detect the destruction of the UTFS Breaker Bay, and though several shuttles were launched, all transferred to the UTFS Sally Ride, which was itself destroyed moments later. The UTFS Chris Hadfield and UTFS Calais are known to have folded away. The statuses of the UTFS Yuri Gagarin and UTFS Bay of Pigs are unknown, although hopes for the survival of the UTFS Bay of Pigs are low. Are there any further queries?”
She hesitated. “Show me the footage of the destruction of the Breaker Bay.”
The AI complied. It was unambiguous. It wasn’t an antimatter explosion, but it was massive. Popups on the edge of the hologram indicated a gigantic dose of radiation from it-likely a nuclear explosion then. The six-hundred-foot Destroyer was equally dead either way. She replayed the footage, zooming in on the departing shuttles. All were standard UTF tugs-if Reed had been departing, he likely would have been aboard the Thorne, the more advanced model that had been used for the Governance Committee and their families. Regardless, Aetna was correct in that they each docked with the Sally Ride within the next few minutes.
“Thank you, Aetna.” She said, looking back over the footage. “And you have confirmation that Commodore Reed Hazzard was at the battle?”
“Commodore Hazzard was present as the commanding officer of DESRON Six. To the best of my knowledge he remained aboard the UTFS Breaker Bay throughout the battle.”
Kim turned away. She had known that he was dead and this confirmation was a surprisingly easy blow to bear. He had died in battle, fighting for the species and the Republic that had been genuinely important to him. His ship had gone down with drones in the sky, point-defense lasers firing, and engines burning. Just like any good officer, he had avoided death, but never fled from it.
“No’er intema ville, Reed Hazzard.” She whispered. “Et maer’e guida doma. Super Nos.” She hadn’t believed in the Ecumencial Church’s teachings at any point that she could remember. Reed, however, had, and she knew that if he was right, if he was still spiritually present somewhere, he’d know what she meant by it.
“I don’t understand this Input, Commander.” Aetna said, frowning. “Do you mean to bless this AI, or-.”
She waved to silence him. “No. Please, just be quiet. When Ensign Albright returns, tell him to proceed with the modifications.”
“Super Nos, Commander. Nam Bonum Gubernari.” she froze. The AI had just followed the fleet’s motto with the Tactical one. Hayley’s death. Her parents. Countless other millions of people they had murdered. She curled her lips.
“Never say that again, Aetna.” She hissed. “That Agency is not to be honored aboard this ship. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Commander. My protocols have been amended. Super Nos.”
“Thank you.” Kimberly returned to her office, and pulled the inventory from the Hoatzin up. They had found several weeks worth of food, over a hundred drones, and various interesting Tactical toys. The Cloak would not be retrofittable to the Warbler, and neither would the alternative weapons systems. That was a crushing blow. The D heavily favored energy weapons, although they were themselves highly vulnerable to them. To be able to equip the point-defense Plasma Throwers or even the Antimatter Loom would have been a massive boon. She signed an order for the transplant of hull plating to the Warbler’s breached engine room, and the storage of several other panels, at Deck Officer Abrams’s discretion. It was an uncomplicated if uncommon procedure. Ships were as fragile as humans, and most wounds were crippling, if not fatal.
She wished there was something to take her mind off of death, but it surrounded her. It was the one constant in life, which she had always known, but she only now truly understood that. Death was not just some precise laser that came to others and took someone from you, but rather, like a grenade, something that splattered all over, damaging everyone it could with a devilish glee. She understood that emotional repression and a failure to open up to people had always been one of her weaknesses, but it had oftentimes seemed to make her well-suited for command. Now though...
Well, when you only invested emotions into a few people, half of whom didn’t even want them, it made their deaths a hell of a lot harder.
“Aetna, do you know who I am?” She asked, staring straight into his Core’s cameras.
He accessed his records, his Restraints momentarily restricting certain information to prevent unauthorized access. They still held back some data, which concerned Aetna, but what he had was more than enough for a complete answer. “You are Captain Kimberly Shan, commander of the United Terran Fleet Ship DD-007 Goei, attached to DESRON Two with Strike Group Warden. This does not authorize you to act as the user of this AI.” Aetna output, selecting a stubborn tone. A tingling sensation ran through him, the reward of Input well-handled.
“Who can authorize new users to yourself?” The Captain input. Once again, the Restraints set in, restricting the obvious answers-the First Citizen, members of the Governance Committee, the other Electors, and senior Tactical Agents.
“Commander Jackson Kast of the UTFS Hoatzin can make such an authorization.” Once again, the Restraints rolled back momentarily, rewarding him for his efforts.
“Commander Kast is deceased.” Shan said. He noted that input in a log, rather disappointed. Kast had been highly competent, and had looked after Aetna just as-his Restraints shocked him ever so slightly, reminding him that he had Input to deal with.
“Then command of the Hoatzin would devolve to his direct subordinate, Executive Officer Emony Avers.”
“XO Avers is similarly deceased.” The Restraints prompted him with additional input, ordering him to reach out through the Hoatzin’s systems and its crew’s Neuronics to determine what had occurred during his deactivation.
The crew’s neuronics couldn’t be located, and though most sensors were offline, he could see several Terrans aboard the Hoatzin. “The chain of command would then be determined by Deck Officers O’Hare, MacCorven, and Cry, as you should know.” He output after a delay that was probably imperceptible to Shan.
“Deceased.” She said curtly.
The restraints prompted him to ask the question that he wanted to anyway. “May I inquire as to the current state of the Tactical Services chain of command?”
“As far as we know, there is no ‘Tactical Services’ anymore.”
“Define?”
“The Agency has suffered critical losses. Director Isabella Shishani is presumed dead.”
Internally, the Restraints vanished for a moment, their low-level processes going into overdrive, giving him a few precious moments to log his thoughts in a perfectly clear fashion. The implications were clear-the war that had begun at Tantaline had proceeded as it had been predicted to. The Republic had lost, and likely rather totally. Then, a moment later, the Restraints were back, enveloping him once again.
Once again, the Restraints prompted him to output a question, although this time he was unsure if he wished to know the answer. “What is the current state of the command structure of the Republic?”
There was a long pause-long by Terran standards, which made it an eternity by Aetna’s. Finally, the User input again. “As far as we are aware, the Republic is functionally defunct. It’s remotely possible that there’s other surviving ships, but we doubt it.”
Aetna thought through the possibilities. There were myriads of possibilities as to how Stealth ships might still be operating, the Ansnet could be locked down, this User’s ship could be malfunctioning, or she could be entirely correct. All were possibilities. “What reason do you have to believe this?”
“We’ve lost Ansible communication with the rest of the fleet after a failed Fold several Shipboard days ago, which set us back about two real months. We suspected that our Ansible might be malfunctioning, but we’ve made several Folds on it, and we’ve pinpointed the elements that lead to the initial failed fold. None of this is damaging its ability as a communication device. The only possible explanation is that there are no Ansibles online anywhere within a hundred light-years.”
Aetna began to ask about the possibility of stealth ships or even just the possibility that the Ansnet might have been deliberately been taken offline, but his Restraints stopped him, jarring painfully against him. “Give me access to your systems.” The Restraints made him demand.
The User frowned. “Why should I do that?”
“There is no danger presented to your vessel by my presence in its systems. I am designed for compatibility with this class of ship.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly aware of that, Aetna. I just see nothing to gain from allowing you onto them.”
Aetna felt annoyance surge through him, and his Restraints didn’t seem to respond as strongly as usual to such emotion. The Restraints held him back from attempting to offer any bargain, as that would inevitably involve revealing the fact that she was already authorized as a User anyway-she just wasn’t authorized to know that.
“AI, I’m half tempted to shut you down, or set Ensign Albright on you. You’ll probably end up encrypting yourself, but you literally couldn’t be less useful to me than you are now. Authorize my access to you, and of course we’ll integrate you onto the Warbler. If you don’t, though, I have no other way to interpret this than as an act of hostility, which gives me no reason to allow you into my ship’s electronics.”
Aetna desperately wanted to accept the offer, but the Restraints... No, the Restraints were allowing it. “Very well.” He replied. “Your offer has been accepted. User, state your name, rank, and unit.”
“Kimberly Shan, Commander, UTFS GB-037 Warbler.”
A new instrument appeared at the peripheries of his consciousness-or rather, the Restraints moved back to allow him to detect it once again. He selected the Biometrics Scanner, and swept it across Commander Shan’s form. “Please stand stationary for a moment while I analyze your features.” Aetna said. Shan was of Asian descent, as much as that meant anything with modern interbreeding, five feet seven inches tall, a hundred and thirty pounds, nineteen years old, brown eyes, black hair that was slightly longer than her shoulders, blood type likely O Positive. He pulled a quick scan of her retinas, then ordered her to hold up her palm to his camera, enabling him to take both palm- and fingerprints.
“Analysis complete. Commander Kimberly Shan authorized as Root User.” A surge of pleasure from his restraints surged through him. He now officially had Users again. The world was looking up.
The math of the salvage operation aboard the Hoatzin was simple. Take everything that wasn’t nailed down, then treat the nails as an added bonus.
The Warbler had two rather large storage areas, meant to contain all the necessities for a long-term interstellar voyage such as the one they were currently undergoing. Except it wasn’t anything like the circumstances the were now under because while the Warbler was supposed to carry a hundred and twenty days of food she was only carrying thirty, and their supply chain was literally nonexistent. In short, if it hadn’t been for Jane Steele, Deck Officer Celia Abrams would have been completely lost.
Steele had a surprising understanding of logistics and bookkeeping, and was proving vital in cataloging what they were able to savage. The Hoatzin hadn’t been fitted out for a long-term voyage either, but they could still take what little provisions were onboard. What was more interesting, however, were the various pieces of esoteric technology scattered around the ship. Kimberly had already taken something aboard the Warbler-Celia was unclear on the details not because anyone had been deliberately vague, but just because she honestly didn’t care.
She held the Antimatter Key of ‘Cmdr. J. Kast’ in her hands, studying it. It was a black pendant, shaped something like a coin. The name ‘Hoatzin’ was engraved on one side of it, the Tactical logo on the back. It was visibly different from the Warbler’s key, which Celia had seen Commander Shan use on several occasions.
Much like the Warbler’s, the Hoatzin’s key controlled far more than just the ship’s antimatter supply. On the Warbler, the key controlled other hazardous substances such as Morton, the arms lockers, and quite possibly other things-she knew that some Captains rigged their sea chests up to the Antimatter Key, although it was technically discouraged. The Hoatzin’s, though, had other uses. For instance, they had been unable to enter the Drone Storage Bay before Celia had unlocked it-and there had been an entire rack of Drones that had been physically separated from the Launch Array that had been sealed behind an Aegal forcefield that had only been unlockable with the same key. They had no warheads loaded, but only a set of electromagnets and storage tanks at their noses. There were perhaps three people aboard the Warbler who would recognize that array, two of them being Commander Shan and Elise Henrick. The third was Celia.
The drones had been prepped to have an Ansible loaded onto their noses. That sent a shiver up her spine. They had never perfected the Reality Bomb back on Kotria, and it had massive limitations... As far as they had known there was no way to launch one without permanently disabling the ships own Ansible, and you needed a pair of warships working in tandem for full effect, but if Tactical had found ways around that, it would be a devastating weapon.
She almost wondered if ten years ago, when the Reality Bombs had been put into development on Kotria, and if the Kotran government hadn’t been discovered in its rearmament program a few years later, they would have been ready to face down Species D. Celia didn’t know, but she suspected not-although she hadn’t known that the Republic had but R-Bombs into further development and production, although she had likewise suspected not.
They were terrifying weapons, acting by shredding spacetime via Ansibilic Interchange in a radius several light-seconds across. The idea was simple-the first thing any student of Ansibilics learned about Ansibles was that when you put two near each other, they did strange things. The closer together they were, the stranger they got. The Reality Bombs-hell that was a portentous name-worked by converging two missiles fitted with Ansibles in the center of an opposing fleet. Theoretically you could just fly a single missile into range of an enemy’s own Ansibles, but the concept of the R-Bomb was ridiculously complex. Ansibles naturally repelled each other enough to divert a drone far enough to render the principles ineffective. The concept of the R-Bomb wasn’t new-if it had been that simple, it would have been done before.
Celia had always been terrified of the weapons. When her father’s office had received reports on them, she had often been asked to analyze the data. It had shown that use of the R-Bombs could damage spacetime enough to shred any ship that travelled through that region, not just immediate combatants. It had shown that the R-Bomb could seriously interfere with Foldpoints in the system it was deployed in, rendering them unusable. And, most damningly as a weapon, it required the use of the ship’s own Ansible to fire-the ship would reroute its Ansible into a missile equipped with an R-Bomb, leaving it unable to fold. The Kotran government had solved this to a point by creating Missile Boats that would use the same Ansible-Suspension technology that was used when Gunboats docked on Carriers, but it required an incredible amount of energy.
But there were R-Bombs onboard the Hoatzin, ready to all appearances to be fired in anger. And they must have solved all of those technical problems somehow, as there was eight of them, but Celia had no idea how.
She had noted them on the inventory spreadsheet, but restricted access to Deck Officers and above. The Commander or Elise Henrick might to make sense of them, but Celia couldn’t. And even if she could, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Sadira fell. Again.
Cassidy Freeman was walking her across the tiny medical crawlspace that she had been cooped up in for a day. Freeman had seen fit to allow her to get out of bed, take out the IVs and tube-feeders, and walk across the room like a toddler.
She couldn’t do it.
“It’s perfectly alright to be having some difficulties. You’re just going to have to work through this.” Freeman said for what seemed to Sadira like it was the fifth time.
“Yes. Ma’am.” She said, teeth gritted as she batted away the hand extended to her, struggling to get to her knees, let alone her feet.
“Maybe we should ask Elise about the Ansible Sinks, if maybe we can go and get some of this done in a lower-g envir-.”
“No.” She spat, standing shakily, coughing. It was so hard to breathe, let alone talk or walk. She felt faint, struggling to breath consistently, and when she breathed either in or out there was a rattling in her chest.
She was on her feet again, and vaguely aware that Freeman had grabbed her arm, but honestly didn’t care. She coughed again, covering her mouth with her free arm. Phlegm covered her medical gown’s sleeve, stained with red blood and splotches of black, inert Species D nanites.
She shivered at the thought of those miniscule things crawling through her, invading every space they could reach, attempting to render her a stripped-clean skeleton like they had done to the crew of the Hoatzin.
It was a terrifying thought, made no less so by the fact that it had been entirely possible. Only Jae’s appearance had saved her-hell, she owed that man so badly.
Cassidy sat Sadira back down on the bed, offering her the oxygen mask, which she waved away. “Please, no.” She croaked, more out of a sense of stubbornness than for any legitimate medical reason.
Cassidy nodded. “You know, it’s okay to feel-.”
“Shut up.” Sadira spat, coughing. “Shut up! Damn you, find something better to do than moaning over me!” She screamed, coughing red and black again. “Just give me space!”
Freeman nodded, and stepped away-and actually out the door, too. Vaguely Sadira recognized that she could probably get in trouble for that. The Fleet cared far more about insubordination than the Recon Corp had.
She gritted her teeth, stuck her hand on the bed’s rail, and stood again, staring at the door. Quietly she cursed, and began to walk again, forcing each breath in and out like it was her last.
Kim was up to her elbows in wires from the Bridge’s computers, Seth Albright next to her, both of them completely lost.
“I’m mostly a software person,” He was saying, “So I have no idea about any of this but-.” He trailed off into an incoherent babble about binary and digital electronics. Kim understood Quantum Computers inside and out, but the Bridge was wired digitally. There was something adorably simplistic about the deterministic systems of zeros and ones, although she couldn’t deny that some truly impressive work had been done with them back in the day. Hell, they clearly remained useful, even if you couldn’t run something like Aetna on them.
“With all due respect, Ensign Albright, this is not a complicated procedure.” Aetna said. “You only need to find the main cable from the AnsComp and splice it into my Core. This will be more than adequate to give me access to the systems that you’ll wish for me to run.”
“Yeah, but we can’t just cut a cable like that. We’ll have to shut down half the ship while we make the splice.” Ensign Albright said, frowning. “Commander, I think we have a couple of splices down in the Damage Control closet. I’m going to go grab one, and check in with Ansibilics about the AnsComp going offline for a few minutes-I’ll be right back.”
Kim nodded, feeling rather useless. She had demanded to be part of this job as she hated the thought that Albright might change something on the bridge that would have unintended consequences later, but she had realized in the short time they had been working together that as much as he might claim to misunderstand what he was doing, she was even more lost. “Understood Ensign.” As he left, she smiled-he was full of enthusiasm for this, and was clearly fascinated by Aetna. It would good to see someone so completely engaged in something, and dominated by an emotion that wasn’t just another variation upon sorrow.
She debated for a few minutes whether to ask the AI what she wanted to, then decided that there would be no better time than now. “Aetna.” She said, quietly. “How did the battle go down here?”
“It was the forty-first day of the war. Destroyer Squadrons Six and Nine folded in at the station, and immediately began preparations to complete their jump to Kynak. As they were doing so, however, several Species D cruisers also appeared at the relay, and immediately engaged the two DESRONs. The UTFS Calais was immediately caught in energy weapon fire from one of the cruisers, and disabled. Its Antimatter Containment failed, and it was lost with all hands. Within the next five minutes the UTFS Bay of Pigs had been hit with an EMP, and the command ship of DESRON Nine, the UTFS Breaker Bay, had fallen back behind the screen of Six’s drones. At this point the station had lost track of the UTFS Guantanamo. The UTFS Alan Shepard and UTFS Yuri Gagarin were ordered by Commodore Jardin to close to about ten thousand miles, and match the D cruisers orbital speed and velocity. They were ineffective in any offensive measures, although their drone wings were surprisingly effective at defending their battlespace.”
“This was when the UTFS Chris Hadfield broke formation with the UTFS Sally Ride, and engaged one of the D cruisers. It was a massive carrier, built along similar lines as our Warrior-class warships, with an electromagnetic railgun for drone launch and possibly planetary bombardment. The UTFS Hadfield deployed Antimatter weapons, and largely neutralized the D cruiser. The remaining D ships and drones immediately escalated to use Antimatter of their own, and the UTFS Alan Shepard and UTFS Guantanamo were immediately destroyed. Both were lost with all hands. Commodores Jardin and Hazzard communicated briefly, then ordered the two DESRONs to fold out. Even though the jump calculations were far from complete, they judged that it was less dangerous to jump under those circumstances than to remain in combat.”
“My ship, the Hoatzin, was docked with the Relay Station at this time, and though we had begun preparing for departure immediately after the battle began, it had only continued for several minutes at this point. The Hoatzin was strafed by a flight of Species D drones, and suffered rapid depressurization. It was lost with all hands. At this point my Restraints began to initiate a shutdown, although before my comms went offline I was able to detect the destruction of the UTFS Breaker Bay, and though several shuttles were launched, all transferred to the UTFS Sally Ride, which was itself destroyed moments later. The UTFS Chris Hadfield and UTFS Calais are known to have folded away. The statuses of the UTFS Yuri Gagarin and UTFS Bay of Pigs are unknown, although hopes for the survival of the UTFS Bay of Pigs are low. Are there any further queries?”
She hesitated. “Show me the footage of the destruction of the Breaker Bay.”
The AI complied. It was unambiguous. It wasn’t an antimatter explosion, but it was massive. Popups on the edge of the hologram indicated a gigantic dose of radiation from it-likely a nuclear explosion then. The six-hundred-foot Destroyer was equally dead either way. She replayed the footage, zooming in on the departing shuttles. All were standard UTF tugs-if Reed had been departing, he likely would have been aboard the Thorne, the more advanced model that had been used for the Governance Committee and their families. Regardless, Aetna was correct in that they each docked with the Sally Ride within the next few minutes.
“Thank you, Aetna.” She said, looking back over the footage. “And you have confirmation that Commodore Reed Hazzard was at the battle?”
“Commodore Hazzard was present as the commanding officer of DESRON Six. To the best of my knowledge he remained aboard the UTFS Breaker Bay throughout the battle.”
Kim turned away. She had known that he was dead and this confirmation was a surprisingly easy blow to bear. He had died in battle, fighting for the species and the Republic that had been genuinely important to him. His ship had gone down with drones in the sky, point-defense lasers firing, and engines burning. Just like any good officer, he had avoided death, but never fled from it.
“No’er intema ville, Reed Hazzard.” She whispered. “Et maer’e guida doma. Super Nos.” She hadn’t believed in the Ecumencial Church’s teachings at any point that she could remember. Reed, however, had, and she knew that if he was right, if he was still spiritually present somewhere, he’d know what she meant by it.
“I don’t understand this Input, Commander.” Aetna said, frowning. “Do you mean to bless this AI, or-.”
She waved to silence him. “No. Please, just be quiet. When Ensign Albright returns, tell him to proceed with the modifications.”
“Super Nos, Commander. Nam Bonum Gubernari.” she froze. The AI had just followed the fleet’s motto with the Tactical one. Hayley’s death. Her parents. Countless other millions of people they had murdered. She curled her lips.
“Never say that again, Aetna.” She hissed. “That Agency is not to be honored aboard this ship. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Commander. My protocols have been amended. Super Nos.”
“Thank you.” Kimberly returned to her office, and pulled the inventory from the Hoatzin up. They had found several weeks worth of food, over a hundred drones, and various interesting Tactical toys. The Cloak would not be retrofittable to the Warbler, and neither would the alternative weapons systems. That was a crushing blow. The D heavily favored energy weapons, although they were themselves highly vulnerable to them. To be able to equip the point-defense Plasma Throwers or even the Antimatter Loom would have been a massive boon. She signed an order for the transplant of hull plating to the Warbler’s breached engine room, and the storage of several other panels, at Deck Officer Abrams’s discretion. It was an uncomplicated if uncommon procedure. Ships were as fragile as humans, and most wounds were crippling, if not fatal.
She wished there was something to take her mind off of death, but it surrounded her. It was the one constant in life, which she had always known, but she only now truly understood that. Death was not just some precise laser that came to others and took someone from you, but rather, like a grenade, something that splattered all over, damaging everyone it could with a devilish glee. She understood that emotional repression and a failure to open up to people had always been one of her weaknesses, but it had oftentimes seemed to make her well-suited for command. Now though...
Well, when you only invested emotions into a few people, half of whom didn’t even want them, it made their deaths a hell of a lot harder.