Willful Child (18 page)

“Let it not be said that Captain Hadrian Alan Sawback is an unreasonable man. All charges are dropped against you, Lieutenant Eden. In fact, for listening to that music, you may well earn a commendation for service beyond the call of duty. Or at least the elimination of one of those black flags on your file. Resume your station. Corporal Twice, stand here beside me, in case I need you for something else.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I trust you’re armed this time?”

“Uh, no, sir.”

“Take up that fighting stance you used before, then. Yes, like that. Perfect. Now, where was I? Oh, right.” Hadrian glowered at the screen, which was displaying the Bombast vessel directly ahead with the massive curve of the planet down and to the right. “So,” he mused, “we’re going to play the Hold game, are we? Fine. Eden!”

“Sir?”

“Put their hold of our hold, on hold!”

“Yes—sir? How do I do that?”

“Well, what music did we have for them the first time?”

“Uhm … I think it was the Corbomite Cream-Sniffers, sir, with their latest hit ‘Fracking Radulak Up the Crack Take That Shit-Heads It’s a Bomb!’”

“Hmm, who decided on that one?”

“It’s locked in, sir,” Eden replied. “Contractual stipulations, sir. Just bad timing, I guess.”

“All right. Override Celine Dion. What’s next on this hour’s list?”

“Uhm, the retro pop-synth-heavily-medicated group Rad Slime Puke Shit Stick a Match in It Go Boom, sir. Last year’s Number One hit, ‘If It Drips, Kill It.’”

“Ah,” mused Hadrian. “The yoot of t’day are in their Really Fucked-Up period of Sporadic Intellectual Development. Next generation’s government will shine bright indeed. Fine, then, never mind the hold on hold on hold. Put Bob on the viewer. Let’s get on with this.”

The Radulak drench-master returned to the screen. It was slumped back in its chair and appeared to be eating a Muppet alien. Noticing that transmission had resumed, it flung away the headless body and leaned forward. “Wise to surrender to our holds, Captain! We had thousands of them just waiting!”

“If you think Celine Dion was going to make us surrender, Drench-Master, well, it was a good call.”

“Hah! Now hand over Wynette Tammy!”

“We’re extracting the AI even as we speak—”

“We followed the transmissions from Bill! You will not fool us again with your horrible lying and treachery!”

“Look, Bob, we don’t want to start a shooting war here—you must realize that it was Wynette Tammy who commandeered this vessel and forced us into your territory.”

“We accept this, Captain. Your Affiliation has been sending us T packets by the hundreds.”

“I’m not surprised. Have you responded to them?”

Bob’s nostrils flared. “We put them all on hold!”

“Celine Dion? Oh, those poor buggers.”

“Not just her! Barry Manilow! And advertisements for various diet pills and exercise regimens. Ha ha ha! See, we have learned the art of Insufferable Cruelty from you humans! We throw your crap back into your face, with added Slime of Contempt!”

“Well, listen, Bob. Wynette Tammy tricked us last time—that’s right, we really believed we’d trapped him in that crate. But we weren’t fooled this time. He’s definitely in the crate we’re about to send you.”

“If you lie, I will destroy you!”

“We’re sending it across now, Bob.”

“One eye watches, one is skeptical and the last suspicious, just so you know—we are ready for anything, human!”

“I’m sure you are, Drench-Master. See, there it goes—those are guidance thrusters—”

“I know what they are! We have overwhelmed their defenses! The crate is ours!”

“Good to hear it,” Hadrian replied.

“We displace it now! Yes, it is with us, and it’s time to kill you—what? Antimatter explosion? Cascade effect? Human! Lies! Deceit! Treachery! The worst—” The screen went dark, and an instant later was replaced by an external shot, showing the vessel vanishing inside a fiery cloud.

Hadrian rubbed at his face. “You know,” he said, “it’ll be a mercy when we finally conquer them.”

“Sir!” cried Sticks. “The third Bombast vessel is coming into view!”

“Galk?”

“Readying another one right now, Captain. But even the Radulak can’t be that—”

“Of course not,” Hadrian said. “That’s why I want you to paint this crate bright red.”

“Acknowledged.”

“In the meantime,” Hadrian continued. “Tammy, how about you quietly prime all our fancy new beam weapons? But not the Dimple Beam. Oh, and if you have any super-cool countermeasures, best have those ready, too.”

“I have been observing human interactions with alien species, Captain.”

“Exciting, aren’t they?”

“They invariably conclude with the sudden, violent deaths of thousands of biologicals, not to mention semi-sentient artificial personalities.”

“Are you suggesting a pattern, Tammy?”

“I conclude that your particular species, Captain, advances by way of deadly incompetence, willful ignorance, deliberate misunderstanding, and venal acquisitiveness, combined with serendipitous technological superiority.”

“Ever since Columbus landed on the shores of Old America, Tammy. What’s your point?”

“There are many advanced civilizations in this sector of the galaxy, Captain. The odds are almost certain that you will, sooner or later, stumble into one that you can’t take down in your usual illimitable, blood-soaked manner.”

“
You
know it, Tammy.
I
know it. Maybe three or four smart people in the Affiliation know it, too. We are the lemmings of space, my friend. So far, we’ve been bullying voles and shrews. And I’ll tell you this—if I have a personal mission out here, Tammy, it just might be to shock our species into some semblance of sanity.”

“Indeed, even if you have to kill millions of aliens in the process.”

“Well, granted. We call this collateral damage, and then, happily, sweep it under somebody else’s rug. I didn’t say it would be pretty, Tammy. I never said that.”

All the officers on the bridge were staring at Hadrian now. He smiled back, and offered Nina Twice a wink.

Tammy said, “Captain, if I was to establish a book on your continued command of this starship, why—”

“Mutiny? Well, anything’s possible, I’ll grant you. But the thing is, as everyone here is quickly learning, without me they would already be so much chopped meat floating flash-frozen in empty space. There are missions, Tammy, and then there are missions. Who’s to say those half-dozen wise-heads hiding in High Command aren’t the ones who sent me out here in the first place? And don’t ask me, because I won’t tell. Now, Lieutenant Eden, is the new Radulak drench-master hailing us?”

“Yes, sir, for the last five minutes.”

“And you kept him waiting?”

Eden paled, and nodded.

“Well done,” Hadrian said. “Let them sweat, considering the two Bombast decals on our hull. But now, it’s time. Open hails and onscreen.”

“—we’re going to destroy you and make puddles on your sleeping mats until the last sun burns out in the Night of All Slime into Blackness—oh, look, finally the Infamous Liar Captain Hadrian Alan Sawback deigns to talk to us. There is a Dripping Blob on your head, Captain Hadrian, with ten weeks in a sex pool as the reward! My egg sac is all aquiver at the glory I am about to receive for having destroyed you!”

“But don’t you want Wynette Tammy first? And what was all that about puddles and blackness?”

“What? Oh, I was speaking to an interloper Klang science vessel eager en route to meet you. But you will not be alive to make Jumpy-Head Greeting with the Klang! You will be dead!”

“And Wynette Tammy?”

“You will send it to us, Captain. In a crate.”

“Oh, good. Since we have it ready for you—”

The drench-master waved a thick finger. “No no no, Captain Hadrian. Not so easy this time for your treacherous lies!”

“But this is a red crate, Drench-Master.”

“Red?”

“Yes, as proof that it is the right one that we’re sending.”

“Well…” A Muppet alien appeared, leaping up to whisper in the Radulak’s membrane, and then shooting Hadrian a vicious glare. The drench-master raised a fist. “No, Captain Hadrian! No tricks this time! Send the Red Crate, yes, but you will ride it!”

“You want me to accompany the crate, Drench-Master?”

“Yes! I tremble for sex pool!”

“Why,” said Hadrian, “so do I. So at least we have something in common. All right, it’s a deal. Obviously, I need to suit up for the crossing. I’ll be ten minutes or so.”

“Agreed! We observe you on crate in ten minutes. Be sure it is the Red Crate, too!”

“Of course.” Hadrian looked over at Eden and made a chopping motion. The lieutenant frowned.

“Corporal Nina? May I have that log pad you’re holding? Thank you.” He flung it at Eden, the tablet striking the man on the shoulder. “Cut transmission, you oaf!”

One hand rubbing his shoulder, Eden ended the contact.

Hadrian rose, smoothing out his uniform.

“Captain!” Sin-Dour said. “You can’t mean to sacrifice yourself to save us!”

“Of course not, 2IC. Why on earth would I do that? Tammy!”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Radulak displacement-dampening fields—pretty much same as Terran versions?”

“Well, yes, since they stole the technology from you.”

“They didn’t steal anything. We sold it to them, and then told everyone else they must have stolen it. But never mind all that. So, that field draws on the same Latent Implicator Quantum Sinkwell that ours does, right?”

“Indeed.”

“With the basic Phase Discriminators in place.”

“Yes.”

“Tammy, that hidden energy source of yours—is it capable of overriding that sinkwell?”

“If you are asking, Captain, if my energy source has the capacity to override the Latent Implicator Quantum Sinkwell, then the answer is ‘yes.’”

“Tammy, why didn’t you just answer ‘yes,’ instead of repeating what I said first?”

“Apologies, Captain. I was fiddling around in here and found a redundancy-delimiter program, and was checking to see that it still worked. Alas, it does. It works perfectly. Precisely in fact—”

“So,” cut in Hadrian, “if you attach a speck tag on me, you could pluck me out of that field—thus collapsing it—in the instant before the ship explodes?”

“Well, only if I can insert a tense pause before confirming that we have you back on board.”

“You’re learning, Tammy. Okay … Galk!”

“Captain?”

“Link the detonator to the Radulak vessel’s sinkwell collapse, and since we’re dealing with quantum effects here, set it to occur precisely one point five seconds
before
the collapse. Got it?”

“Acknowledged.”

“Tammy, give me oh, say, eight minutes, before plucking me off that ship.”

“Why so long, Captain?”

“Why, I need to have a conversation with the drench-master. Even better, a fistfight.”

Sin-Dour stepped toward him, one hand half raised. “Sir, the Radulak weigh four hundred pounds, and most of that is endothermic reptilian optimized muscle!”

“And I plan to use every ounce of that muscle against the oaf, 2IC. Now, it’s time to get ready. Sin-Dour, you have command. If anything goes wrong, go down fighting. Give it your all until your last fiery blood-boiling moment. We’re talking pointless annihilation all in the name of avenging my death. Understood?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“All right. I’m off to Deck Twenty!”

FOURTEEN

Hadrian found Buck waiting outside the airlock chamber on Deck Twenty. “Ah, my chief engineer. What’s up?”

“It’s Tammy, sir! The AI is infiltrating all the drive systems! It has to stop!”

Shrugging into a breathing pack, and then stepping toward a suit-spray pod, Hadrian said, “Tammy, what’s he complaining about?”

“Oh, some minor alterations to improve efficiency, Captain. Hardly a thing to panic about. By the way, do you mind if I attach a camera speck so we can keep an eye on you while you’re on board the Radulak ship?”

“What? No, that’s fine—”

Buck stepped in between Hadrian and the pod. “Nothing’s fine at all, dammit! Those are my engines! My drives! I don’t even recognize the configurations anymore! How can I do my work? Tammy’s making me useless!”

“Buck, for Darwin’s sake, not now. We’ll talk about this when I get back.”

“Captain, I’m warning you! I want satisfaction!”

“You want a duel? Between you and Tammy? Great idea. I’ll be your second. Now get out of my way—I have a ship to save.”

Stepping into the pod, Hadrian activated the spray. While this was going on, Tammy spoke. “I suppose it would be pointless to recommend a personal shield or body armor, wouldn’t it?”

“Getting sweet on me, Tammy?”

“No. I was calculating odds. Presumably, you want to live—I know, by all indications thus far, that may be a wildly inaccurate assumption.”

“What you might see as a death wish, Tammy, is nothing more than the bravado necessary to being a captain worthy of the name. It’s all down to calculating the risks and then throwing the calculations away, because the role of the captain on a Terran starship is a mysterious, ineffable thing when you come down to it.”

“Having observed you thus far, I have to agree. You’re imperious, contradictory, headlong, insulting, irrational, and indeed cruel. Not to mention lascivious. And yet, somehow, you’re still alive, still in charge, and the
Willful Child
is not a hunk of slag.”

As the faceplate hardened in front of Hadrian’s face, he said, “The risks of judging a book by its cover, Tammy.”

“Oh? You mean to suggest that, deep down inside, you are really none of those things?”

“No, I am. And worse, in fact. But my crew don’t know that, do they? They’re already convincing themselves and each other that I have a heart of gold. I mean, I must have, right?”

“I find that hard to believe, Captain.”

“Really. Fine, tap us into an audio feed of the bridge.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Can I add holo?”

“Sure, why not. Pop it up on my HUD.”

He saw the bridge take form in front of his eyes, as if seen from the viewing screen. Sin-Dour was seated in the command chair. Eden was at his station, although he’d swung the chair around to face her. At the helm, Jocelyn Sticks had done the same, since the 2IC was speaking.