Queen of the Pirates (29 page)

“The strong will rule,” Jing Du intoned solemnly, “and the weak will fall. So has it always been.”

Chapter XXXVII

Date of the Republic February 16, 394 Above Callumnia

“So, young lady,” a voice snuck up on Moirrey as she carefully welded a line, “will it work?”

She flipped up her visor as she powered down the laser and carefully slid it home in its little carrier, the one decorated with sparklies and bangles. The chief engineer hovered close by.

Oz couldn’t exactly lurk over her, being not much taller than she was, but he were twice her mass, and that counted f’r something.

“The wee beasties seemed to prove it, Oz,” she replied carefully, turning her shoulders to look up at him.

And they had.

Fist–sized, remotely piloted, little toy fighter craft, plinking around engineering with the gravplates turned off, stalked by even smaller hunter–killers, with an elaborate scoring system to test theories, tactics, and blow off steam. The engineers certain didn’t tell the pilots about their new hobby. Not safe, at least not until they had mastered it and could take all the flight–jocks’ money.

Then, t’were open season.

“That they most indubitably did, Yeoman,” he observed carefully with a serene smile, hands crossing behind his back as he rocked back and forth. Oz had a gift fer pilotin’ the craft, and the current high score. “However, the proof, as the ancients teach us, will be in the pudding. Will it work?”

“I plan on betting my life on it, Chief,” Moirrey said tartly. “Yers, too.”

She paused to look at the section of tubing in front of her, big enough for three of her fists to fit inside.

“Will she be needing them at the next stop?” Moirrey asked, all serious–like.

“It is my understanding, Moirrey, that the next stop is
Bunala
, just across the border from
Salonnia
.” He paused to consider something. “I would rate the possibilities low, but greater than zero. How many of the weapons will be ready when we arrive?”

Moirrey did the math quickly. These were numbers that had haunted her sleep for weeks.

“Five of the Mark I, Oz,” she said. “Ya knew that. Another five of the improved Mark II, after we figured out how to put in a fourth warhead. Past that, as fast as we can turn them out. I gots to sleep occasionally, ya know?”

“I am aware of that, Yeoman,” he said crisply. “And I am aware that you taking the time off to train others in the intricate tasks may not be time well spent, at least until we know how soon we will require their usage in hostilities. Pray, continue.”

“Rights,” she said, flipping the visor back down and grabbing the welding laser on muscle memory.

More
Mischief
for the Lady. Would it work?

Chapter XXXVIII

Date of the Republic March 1, 394 Bunala System

Cayenne flew a slow pass, almost leisurely and polite. If she hadn’t known any better, Jessica would have thought that
Gaucho
had been on the medical report and someone else was flying today. He did this so rarely. Fly like a sane person, that was.

Jessica smiled across the VIP transport room at Desianna, seated like a proper queen, fingers intertwined with Arnulf’s. Apparently, that woman had charmed
Gaucho
into submission, something no Fleet Lord had managed in two decades of trying.

Today, Jessica wore her field utilities. Dark green, as appropriate, but with a subtle pattern to the fabric that made it hard to look at directly. Knee–high heavy boots, polished black leather with metal toes and metal soles. Damned near indestructible to anything short of a beam weapon.

Desianna wore a similar outfit, apparently issued from
Auberon’
s stores at some point, but then significantly modified. Tailored even, to a degree that would get a regular crew member in trouble for showing off the wrong amount of flesh in the wrong places.

Jessica smiled even broader. Only Desianna could make utilities sexy. Although she had probably had some significant assistance along the way from the ship’s seamstress pixie down in engineering. Moirrey knew cloth. Desianna knew distraction.

Dangerous team.

Jessica wondered what she would look like, if she had Moirrey do the same thing for her.

She snorted under her breath at the thought. She really was getting too enamored of her image to the pirates, and especially to the Red Admiral, as an air–head fluff more worried about fashion than command.

At least she could take her occasional frustrations out on the fighting robot with nobody around.

Today, she didn’t have to maintain the charade. Despite the open invitation to take a flying tour of the sights, all the supposed conspirators had passed. The Red Admiral was apparently working on his memoirs, a fancy term for a spy report. Jing Du was having a meeting with Ian Zhao and a few others aboard
Kali–ma
.

The friendly vessels:
Auberon
,
Rajput
,
Supernova
, and
Sky Dancer
; were all quietly at red alert, ready to unleash the Apocalypse if anything happened. Not that she expected it. And if it did, Denis Jež and David Rodriguez could handle themselves, at least long enough.

Instead, it was a cozy little sight–seeing outing. Arnulf and Desianna. Daneel Ishikura. Her. Jessica’s brain suddenly clicked and she wondered if Desianna had set this up as a picnic, a double date of sorts, without bothering to tell her.

Desianna would do something like that.

The woman spoke now to get her attention. “Admiral Keller,” she called over the low hum of the ship’s engines, and gestured expansively with her free hand, “how big did you say this, what did you call it, was?”

“A breaker yard,” Jessica said, loud enough to be heard. “And this is a large one. One of the largest I am aware of in colonized space. The estimate is roughly forty square kilometers.”

“And it’s all dead starships?” Desianna asked, turning to include Arnulf in her question.

“Well,” Arnulf said, “it’s not completely covered, but yes, there are huge piles of parts and equipment, plus a boneyard of decommissioned vessels that strippers have brought here over the centuries. Think of it as an open–faced mine, except we dig up starships here, instead of ore.”

Jessica nodded. That was about as accurate as one could get. Most of the craft here were the size of fighters or freighters, designed to land on a planet.
Auberon
couldn’t do that. Well, it could, exactly once, but would never lift off again.

Below, she could see one vessel at least twice the size of
Auberon
, dominating an entire corner of the boneyard. She keyed the microphone to the cockpit.

“
Gaucho
, could you overfly that big ship on the starboard bow? And do we have an ID?”

For a moment, she expected him to stand the DropShip on one wing and make an assault pass. That was how he flew. But no, he gracefully banked and elevated a touch to bring a better view onto the big projection screen dominating the drop bay.

The screen abruptly transformed to a craft flying in orbit. It had that bright sharpness of a generated–animation, rather than scanner footage. The warship was gorgeous.

“Vessel is an ancient legend, and a local landmark, Commander,”
Gaucho
said politely over the intercom. “The Concord Warship
Kinnison
. She was the last and biggest super–dreadnaught the Concord fielded before the Dark Times. Nearly two kilometers long. Crew of only two hundred.”

“How was that possible?” Arnulf wondered aloud.

Jessica smiled. “This is one of those things that would have set Admiral Wachturm off, had he joined us today,” she said. “The vessel would have had a master
Sentience
controlling most of the systems, with subsidiary
Entities
handling Engineering, Weapons, and Navigation. You have a lot of space left over for power and guns if you don’t have to carry much in the way of consumables and crew.”

“But how would it work?” Desianna asked.

“You have a command staff for the bridge,” Jessica replied, “plus a maintenance crew to handle day–to–day repairs and such. If it was a carrier, you would also have an entire flight wing staff, but a super–dreadnaught would only have had a handful of shuttles, probably none of them a quarter as big as
Cayenne
here.”

Jessica patted the bulkhead behind her.

“And when it all failed,” Arnulf observed, “there were no people who knew how to fix things, because the machines had done it all before that.”

“Correct, Admiral Rodriguez,” Jessica nodded. “When
Aquitaine
was founded, the Provost at
Ballard
, the woman AI named Suvi, was allowed to teach, but not to do anything greater. Henri Baudin believed precisely that: the Dark Times had been caused because humans let the machines do their thinking. All the more so because he knew her and had learned technology from her. If you look at the bridge on
Auberon
, on your next visit, you will see that my pilot has a control board that looks like an old church organ, not because we could not fully automate many of those functions, but because humans need to be doing the work, not machines.”

“Then why is
Fribourg
so different?” Arnulf asked.

Jessica shrugged. “Their founding was a result of adding a religious overtone to Baudin’s proscriptions. The AI, Suvi, appears female, so all females must be inherently bad. Tainted. It goes back to elements of their religion that actually pre–date spaceflight.”

“Are they right?” Arnulf asked seriously.

Jessica felt her face harden. “Are you seriously asking a female starship commander if she thinks women are weak, evil creatures that must be controlled by men in order to protect human civilization?”

Arnulf quickly bowed his head with a soft smile. “My apologies, Admiral Keller. Perhaps I could have phrased that more diplomatically,” he said. “Were the AIs evil? Is she? Should she be allowed to live, or destroyed before she causes a second apocalypse?”

Jessica shrugged, softening her glare. “I have never met the woman, although I have been to
Ballard
once, fresh out of Academy. Human civilization is as large and robust as it is today because of her. Without her knowledge and memories, we might still be stacking rocks atop each other.”

“That does not answer my question, Admiral Keller,” he said across the aisle with a grin. “Are the AIs useful? Can they be reborn, but better controlled this time?”

Jessica paused to think. “It would make some things easier, certainly, Your Majesty,” she continued, “but at what price? Humans are an inherently lazy species. If we could automate everything and let the machines handle it, most would leap at the opportunity, under the guise of labor–saving. But that would set us up again for failure.”

Daneel tilted his head and looked at her. “But could one single point–source failure cause that much system instability? Haven’t we progressed to a point where the loss of any one system would not cascade laterally across all civilization? The Homeworld was unique in that measure.”

Jessica just blinked in surprise. She would have lost a good deal of money betting anyone that this man wasn’t hiding that much intellect and knowledge under that blond hair.

Then she smiled. All that, and smart, too.

Jessica was really, really happy she hadn’t had to kill him.

“Today?” She shrugged. “Who knows? I‘ve heard legends of a system far towards the galactic core and spinward where one of the
Sentiences
survived and is worshipped as a God–Emperor, never having fallen into barbarism, with technology far in advance of our own, having had a two–thousand–year head start. If it exists, and gets aggressive, it might manage to bind us all back under its yoke.”

“Would
Aquitaine
accept that?” Desianna asked.

“I don’t know,” Jessica replied. “I know
Fribourg
would fight something like that to the death. Would
Corynthe
welcome conquest, with all that the benevolent dictator might bring?”

“No,” Arnulf said simply. “Or rather, the captains would never accept it. But if they were broken, destroyed, I suspect the general population would approve. It is a battle I fight daily.”

“Which brings us to today’s flight,” Jessica said. She keyed the microphone to the cockpit again. “
Gaucho
, please find us a quiet corner near the super–dreadnaught to set down. I’d like to walk around and inspect the wreck.”

She turned back to Arnulf and the rest with a wry smile. “To quote an ancient poet,” Jessica said, gesturing to the horizon, “Look at my grand works and despair.”

Ξ

It was as if a long ridgeline had erupted out of the ground in some tremendous, seismic spasm, throwing up a boulder larger than most sports stadiums or prince’s palaces.

Daneel had a hard time reconciling the gray–green wall of hull metal in front of him with the picture of the warship in orbit he had seen earlier. Somehow, someone had managed to bring the vessel down intact, under power, and land it here. Softly.

How?

But more importantly, why?

Bunala
was a terribly dry world, as planets went. Perhaps it had been chosen for that reason. Certainly this entire area was as desiccated as old bone, downwind from a pair of massive coastal mountain ranges that would suck all the water out of the air. That weather pattern would protect a ship that was landed here from all elements except wind and sun, but anything built for the perils of deep space would probably just laugh at weather like that.

Daneel watched four of Jessica’s marines disappear into an open garage door, passing from light into near darkness. Another dozen or so remained, armed to the teeth, just to protect the four of them. Apparently, Jessica’s dragoon was not a man for half–measures.

When one emerged, she gave a hand gesture that caused the rest to relax, at least a little.