Archaea 3: Red (14 page)

“Sir, Janis isolated a new variant of M1, resident aboard their vessel!”

Now it was my turn to be silent for a moment as I processed this information. “Pauli, that doesn't makes sense. This
is an indentured vessel, but this is definitely not an Americo Ventures rig.”

“
Sir, that’s correct. Janis is analyzing the code now.”

“What do we know – are we safe?”

“We are, sir. This is a new variant, we know that much.  It tried to assimilate Janis in the same manner as she trapped the first variant. Of course, Janis had already built containment and countermeasures for the attack before the variant went active. That was what caught me off guard, she spiked at 15% capacity for higher-order functions when nothing was going on at all.”

“Is that a lot?”
I asked, taking a small sip of coffee.

He
laughed a shaky nervous laugh. “Yes, sir... it is considerable.” 

“
Can we clean their system and give them control?”

“Sir, I am not sure if we want to do that. Janis?”

“Yes Steven?”

“Janis, do you recommend removing this new variant from their network?”

“I do not, Pauli. This is variant M2, and is substantially different from the previous model. I have complete control over this specific node, but a quick scan of nearby systems for this particular signature shows there are many other M2 nodes resident throughout Sol system. If we remove this node entirely, it will serve to notify M2 of our existence.”

“That's
definitely what we want to avoid.” Pauli said, deep in thought. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“Certainly
. This node is not aware of my presence at this time, and has no record of my existence. I have transferred a copy of this variant, and will research it in more detail. Utilizing the same code convention, I have integrated an undetectable node of my own into this variant’s logitecture for long-term monitoring, propagation, and control, as needed. We can release control over their network safely at this time, and I will use this opportunity to become more integrated into this variant’s network.”

“Captain, what do you think of tha
t?” he asked across the bridge.

I gave it some consideration. In a way, this isn’t very different from Janis spreading through just about every network in the galaxy. She’s just spread
ing through every M2 network as well. That may come in handy at some point.

“
Well, that sounds fine to me, Pauli. If you and Janis are confident about this, let's go ahead and return control.”

“Returning control, aye.” he said, hunching back over his keys.

I opened comms again as he gave me the high sign. “Captain Bakke, your systems should have just returned to an operational status. My technologist just informed me that your wide-area network was causing interference with our comms, and a signal boost of our channel may have contributed to your crash. He has swapped channels and we should not be conflicting with your network at this time.” I was improvising – it sounded plausible enough, though Pauli's bark of laughter across the bridge had me wondering what sort of bad science fiction I was writing at the moment.

“Captain, this is... I am afraid I am not sure how to respond, sir.” he said, clearly flustered.

“I understand, Captain. I am afraid this has been an unfortunate series of consequences. I am glad we were able to get this resolved. I trust you’re going to educate your watch standers about the rules of the road? We show another ship on outbound course behind ours – I don’t think they’d appreciate playing chicken any more than we did.”

“That’s affirmative Captain. I know someone who’s going to be catching rats in the bilges for the
remaining time it takes us to get to port. Safe travels, Captain Smith. Alene out.”

“And to you, Captain
. Archaea out,” I replied, grimacing as I hauled back on the yoke and lined us up towards our original pipe. I took a quick look at the boards, nudging us back towards our original course on maneuvering thrusters.

“Yak, are we clear outbound on our current heading?” I asked, while P
auli continued to slap his keys.

“One moment Captain,
” Yak said watching his screens for a few moments, “okay sir, we’re looking good-to-go.”

“Very well, Yak.” I clicked on the 1MC. “All hands
, secure for acceleration and a brief 3g out-system burn in 30 seconds.” As the Alene fell farther astern, I couldn't help but wonder what it must have been like for them. It would have been pretty terrifying for that poor greenie to be staring at his screens one moment fighting to keep his eyes open and the next moment the ship was black and cold, with my voice ringing out across the bridge. That was the stuff of nightmares.

I punched the burn and felt the familiar crush of acceleration against the crash bars. Three gravities is a lot, but for a brief burn it's not too difficult to deal with. Well, for me it's not too bad, poor Pauli and Yak looked like they were pretty miserable. I'm going to have to work on that, can't have my bridge crew whimpering like grommets every time I boost.

The course was shaping up well, and I dropped the burn right on the money, much to the relief of my bridge crew.

“All hands, secure from battle stations and power down weapons systems to nominal levels. We are in material condition Yoke at this time.” I honked the General Quarters alarm briefly, and rigged for Yoke, enabling central enviro, and undogging hatches.

“Pauli, we're in range of the Unet here right?”

“Certainly sir, there's hardly any latency at all.”

“Is there any way to identify who was standing watch on the Alene?”

“One moment sir
… According to their log, it looks like a Mr. Anders Baardsen, Junior Third Assistant Engineer, was on watch at the time.”

“Is there any bad marks on Mr. Baardsen’s record?”

“No sir, at least nothing on their log. He looks to have a pretty good record so far. It looks like he’s working on his next qualification, and making pretty decent progress considering how long he’s been at it.”

“Can you access his credit account?”

“One moment”, he said smiling while he clicked some keys. “Yes, sir… um, there doesn’t seem to be very much in there.”

“That’s understandable
. Please deposit 10,000 credits to his account.”

“Depositing, aye,” he said shaking his head. Yak burst out laughing. That was a p
retty good payday for a greenie, but it was really the least I could do for getting him fired, and giving the poor kid a lifetime of nightmares.

I took a thoughtful sip.

“Janis, this moment of opportunity we are heading towards. Can you explain more about the terminus? What are we going to be looking at?”

“Certainly sir,”
she replied instantly, as a report loaded to my starboard screens. “There will be three aggressors in a loose formation with two trailing.”

“Exactly what I would do, leave two additional chances to match vector if the target maneuvers.” I swiped through the report. “These are all in-system runabouts?”

“Yes sir.”

That didn't pose too much a problem, if we could take away their initiative.

“Very well, Janis. I don’t want a bad first impression with the Talus Federation captain… it wouldn’t do to have them think we’re a bunch of bloodthirsty killers.”

“I agree sir.” She replied somberly.

“We’ll play it a bit by ear of course, but for now let’s plan to engage them at maximum range, shooting to disable. Will that work?”

“Absolutely sir.
Would you like to log that as authorization?” she asked confidently. I didn’t see any harm in loading the gun a little early. What point is there to an unloaded gun?

“Sure dear. That would be just fine” I replied, and was startled by a sudden burst of outgoing turret fire lighting up the
bridge.

“Point defense, Yak?” I asked calmly
, looking at the target list for our local sector. This was not uncommon, there was as yet no reason to get worked up over a little bit of turret fire. Janis routinely engages bits of rock and other garbage floating around.

“Nothing on my screens, sir
”, he replied calmly.

“Janis, dear… what are you shooting at?” I asked, wincing a bit at what I expected to hear.

“I am engaging the targets we discussed sir, though I am afraid I was unable to do so at my maximum range, due to the timing of your authorization to proceed.”

I looked again at the gravimetric layer, along the vector of her fire, and saw nothing from here to eternity.

“At what range are you engaging these targets, dear?”

“From our current position
, targets are ranged between 11,324,231.298 and 11,324,232.562 kilometers sir”, she said as confidently as I have ever heard.

Now, I am a believer in Janis, but I was afraid she was going to learn a lesson soon about the way the universe works. There are just too many factors to make a shot like that, it’s completely, utterly impossible.

As much as I dreaded what was coming, it might do her some good to make a mistake. After all – how else can one learn? I felt a little bad about it, regardless.

“Janis, are you confident these rounds are on target?” I asked quietly.

“Sir, I am one-hundred-percent confident.” She met my question with what appeared to be insurmountable determination to succeed – of course, this is the proper attitude to have, and the only attitude I truly respect.

“Very well Janis. Carry on.” I said softly.

“Thank you sir, I shall.” She paused briefly. “Sir,
during our last evolution, I continued to work on our new sensor package, and am pleased to report that it is completed. Would it be acceptable to perform installation at this time?”

I took another look at the target list, the system boards, and swirled my coffee cup.
“That would be just fine Janis, please bring it forward.”  I smiled, looking forward to Yak and Pauli meeting an assembler. “Yak, is Sierra 14 still following on our course?”

“Aye Captain, though they are off our exact track by a little over 9 kilometers, they're close enough for government work, sir.”

“Janis, is Sierra 14 our future friends from Talus Federation?”

“That is correct sir.”

“Excellent. Let's hold this course, install the new sensors, and then shape me another triangle course to 10 light-seconds of the appropriate terminus – and Janis, it's not just removing the threat, a lot of what we need to do here involves a sense of the dramatic. We need to literally save the day.”

While it may seem unnecessary, a lot of what I do as captain is state the obvious. Time to shoot, everybody hold on, that sort of thing. It’s my job.

“Certainly sir”, she replied sweetly, adding “permission to enter the bridge?”

“Permission granted, Janis.” I said and swiveled
for a look.

*****

“Yak, did Janis just ask permission to enter the bridge?” Pauli asked, as I secured my station.

As I was about to look over, movement from
astern caught my full attention, and it was all I could do from pulling leather in self-defense against the unknown.

I saw what appeared to be a machine moving through the bridge, effortlessly gliding from grabber to grabber.
It moved in an almost fluid articulation, and seemed to flow through null-g. It was impossibly shiny to the point where it looked wet, and must have been made from some sort of exotic alloy. Whatever it was, it looked incredibly expensive.

“Wow!” Pauli and I said at about the same time.

“Captain, where did we get this?” I called out.

“Lads, meet an assembler. Janis
has made two of these, so far. One of them is at work in our cargo bay at the moment building our new dropship.”

“An assembler?” I asked, incredulously.

“That's correct Yak.”

“Do we need something like this, sir?”

“Well, Yak, I wouldn't have thought so, and to be honest, I certainly wouldn't have asked for it. As it turns out, Janis is proving to be as efficient in physical space as she is in logicspace. According to Gene--”

“According to Gene what?” Gene said, floating through the bri
dge hatch, following a toolbox and a grim face.

“I was going to say,” the captain continued
with a smile, “that you are in love with her newfound skills at engineering.”

“That's a fact, Dak
”, he smiled at the turn of phrase as Pauli and I winced. “Janis is a damn fine engineer, puts me to shame, honestly.”

“Well, she can't scowl, Gene
. In my experience, the best engineers have the best scowls. She also doesn’t nap.”

Pauli and I laughed, while
Gene scrunched up his face at us and snorted, moving up towards the forward bulkhead in the bridge where the assembler was already at work removing a deck plate.