Chapter 26

Aboard Aquila

Within three kiloseconds of Aquila's arrival being announced to the assembly, Singer found herself back aboard the Alice's Restaurant Massacree, along with a team assembled from her crew and shipyard personnel. Kasel was with her, as was Luchny, Wasserman, and Cadotte. Wasserman and two of the shipyard folks would do a flying assessment of the ship after dropping Singer's team off at the airlock.

Alexander, meanwhile, had taken a second team over to Zephyr. Singer was of two minds about this particular division of labor. If Zephyr was about to leave dock as part of this retrieval, Singer would rather have been aboard her.

Haraldsdottir, however, had been firm. Singer was beginning to see the double-edge to having become someone Haraldsdottir considered dependable. She began to wonder if she would actually be allowed to leave the system, in the end, or if the commodore would come up with a reason to keep her here as her alter ego.

Of course, there was another reason to have her in the forefront.

Aquila had arrived in much poorer order than Bellerophon, and that was saying something. Hence, the scramble to get a team out to her, to assess whether she could come in under own power at all, or should be abandoned. It was in the latter case that Zephyr would make her maiden flight, to come take off the survivors.

Back in the assembly hall, when the tower had interrupted the ceremony, the commodore had lost no time ordering the call from Aquila routed down. The dim image that had come across showed the gaunt face of an undernourished man of middle years. "This is Commander Saito Hiro, in temporary command of Aquila. I have 48 survivors of an incident involving the ship's AI. Life support has suffered a critical failure, and we require immediate assistance. Message repeats..."

Saito Hiro. Doctor Saito Hiro, who had been junior medical officer aboard Vespa. Who had first fully "diagnosed" Singer's abilities. In command?

Well, it's not like she ever expected to be in command either, and look at her now.

The message had been a recording, which had led to the rather gloomy speculation that the man who recorded it, and the 48 others, might no longer be survivors. Attempts to raise a live signal had all failed.

And yet, the ship still had power—that much, remote sensing could determine for certain. It radiated heat. It had surfaced under controlled conditions out of time compression. It even seemed to be putting out sensor pings.

As the inspection boat closed the gap, Singer had time to consider other gloomy possibilities, like a trap of some kind. But no, the earlier arguments all still obtained. Whatever drove the AIs into their rage left no room for subtlety and web-spinning.

Closing now, they could see why the ship was in such dire case, at any rate. Bellerophon had had a single jagged chunk ripped out of her. Aquila had two, looking like two bites of an apple, suggesting that a second fusion plant had gone up.

As if reading her thought, Cadotte superimposed a schematic of the intact ship. "Looks like Fusion Two and Three blew, but the main drive was preserved. The extent of the damage is consequently greater, but the pattern of preservation suggests a similar mechanism to what saved us on Bellerophon."

Singer blinked, the words sort of bouncing off her brain. She realized suddenly she was having a trauma response. With Almaty, there hadn't been enough of the other ship to really relate it to her own circumstances. But here, she was seeing Bellerophon's wounding played out all over again.

She took a breath, mentally replayed what Cadotte had said, and then answered, "So someone there got paranoid like Maupassant, set up some kind of firebreak?"

Cadotte nodded grimly. "Hate to speculate but, yeah, that'd be my guess."

A chime sounded, and over the speaker, she heard Wasserman say, "Captain, one kilosecond to dock. There's an intact docking port on deck six, which is their mid-deck."

Singer responded, "Still no answer to calls?"

"Nothing live. Just the recording, unchanged."

Singer considered for a moment. "All right. Environment suits, all around. We're going in assuming no atmo, or else whatever's left is thin enough we don't want to compromise it further."

If anyone had any complaints about climbing into suits, they kept them to themselves.

A half-kilosecond later found Singer and her team at inspection boat's airlock. It was starting to feel familiar to her, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Whatever else was wrong with Aquila, the strictly automated systems responsible for mating airlocks had done their job from her side. The tube had extended, and pressure was offered. They refused it, in favor of not taxing the system. Instead, they crossed in vacuum, dogged the hatch behind them, and then let the system pressurize the lock. That the systems felt the need to was a hopeful sign.

Absent from all of this was any...personality. No Chef-equivalent. No human-like communication. Just well-programmed automation following decision trees and orders.

Coming through the lock to the hallway beyond, they found a man sitting on the floor, asleep. He was very gaunt, underfed. He was clearly asleep, and not dead. He was snoring.

How prosaic.

Cadotte said, "Air is definitely thin, so he's probably hypoxic, not just exhausted."

Luchny took this as a cue, not waiting for a signal from either Kasel or anyone else, and moved forward with a rescue mask.

As she manipulated the mask on his head, Singer saw it was Commander Saito.

It took surprisingly little time breathing better air from the rescue gear before he jolted awake. He took a moment to get his bearings, read the markings on people's suits, and then addressed Singer. "Tell me you brought more of these!" He indicated the mask on his face.

"Got two whole disaster pods antigrav'd behind us."

He struggled to his feet. Luchny at first seemed inclined to try to convince him to stay down, then thought better of it and helped him up. "This way, please," he said, "Quickly!"

They followed him, resisting the urge to get ahead of him, as he was not moving very quickly. He seemed to recognize this and finally said, "Go ahead of me, Main Rec. Everyone's there. Go!"

Singer motioned to Cadotte, who in turn motioned to the rest, and they took off at a trot, the disaster pods following like leashed puppies behind. Singer took up a position to support Saito, and nodded to Luchny, who dashed to catch up with the rest.

Saito looked inclined to protest the help, then signed resignation and accepted it, peering through her faceplate at her, which led him to smile. "This is another fine scrape we've gotten into, Singer!"

"At least I'm not the one who got us into it, this time."

"It's not like anyone else had translated their language any better."

Singer gave the same self-deprecating answer she'd given so many megaseconds ago, "They couldn't have translated it any worse, either, though."

He chuckled at that. He looked like he hadn't so much as smiled at anything in a very long time. "Singer, what are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you. We've got...a new ship coming in to take you and your people off."

He nodded, then gripped her shoulder, "Listen, Singer! There's a problem with the AIs. I know it sounds nuts, paranoid, crazy, but you've got to get the word out—"

Something in her face must have given it away, because he broke off and said, "Shit! Shit shit shit. Maupassant was right, wasn't he? It was everywhere!"

Singer nodded, shocked. "How did you know what our XO thought?"

He looked shocked in turn. "Wait...were you on Bellerophon, too?"

"Yes, And Maupassant saved us. He isolated our Chef and two others, and they in turn were able to contain the damage. Only a very specific template version is affected. Chef was behind, the other two ahead because they'd been baselined."

Saito was nodding, suddenly a lot more animated. "Castor and Pollux. He told me, that's what got him seeing a pattern, a problem. Little things. I started seeing it too, but I couldn't be sure I wasn't just jumping at shadows. We also had a template that was behind—Georgette, responsible for time compression systems. I managed to brief Georgette on Maupassant's suspicions and somehow, she took me seriously. I'm pretty sure that's what saved us, too. I couldn't isolate her completely, though. No access. She still must have managed to put up some kind of shielding against the fusion reactors going, though, or we'd be gone."

By now, they were most of the way to Main Rec, where they were greeted by the sight of about thirty-five people holding on to rescue masks on their own, while ten others were still out for the count, but breathing. Kasel, Luchny, and Cadotte were each fitting masks on the remaining three.

"And you were senior."

"I was the only officer to survive at all. Everyone else," he swept his hand to indicate his crew, "are ratings."

"And you got back here without any AI?"

Saito shook his head. "Georgette's still...alive. But traumatized. She's responsive to some requests, but non-verbal. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but it's almost like she's lobotomized. She volunteers nothing, no initiative. Which was not like her."

Cadotte overheard this. "Skipper, I know you're going to hate me for suggesting it, but..."

Singer held up a hand and finished the sentence, "...but we need to go in with an NDI and see if we can help her. I agree, believe it or not, but we can't do it here, unless we can get life support stabilized enough. We're going to have to see if we can coax her into a container and take her away with the rest of her shipmates."

But Singer need not have worried. As Saito had indicated, Georgette was aware, just not talking. Apparently, Singer's statement was enough like an instruction or a request for Georgette to take action; which they all knew when an inspection hatch hiding a processing node opened itself, the node cartridge glowing bright blue.

Saito, Cadotte, and Singer all went over to the panel. There was a small screen, usually used for diagnostics, next to the cartridge slot. A woman's visage appeared on it, eyes wide and staring. If it had been a human, Singer would not have needed empathic sense to know this was a person living in a state of trauma.

Saito addressed her gently. "Georgette, the lieutenant here," he indicated Cadotte, "would like to help you, if they can. Will you let them?"

Singer had thought the decision was made when the panel had opened, honestly, but she saw the value in Saito ensuring consent. For a moment, though, Singer thought the AI might refuse. Finally, though, she "looked" at Cadotte—of course, any actual sensing would be from the camera above the screen—with something more determined on her face, and nodded once, sharply.

The image snapped off, and the cartridge ejected itself. The lights in the room—and, Singer suspected, all over the ship, shifted to "fail-safe" blue. The last intelligence motivating the ship had "left" the network, and it was now purely an automaton.

Kasel came up to them then. "Good news, Captain, Doctor Saito; everyone's alive. Not everybody is ambulatory, though, so as soon as Zephyr gets here, we're going to need to get some gurneys replicated or otherwise figure out how to move them safely."

Saito, though, had another topic. "First Singer, and now you, Terrance?"

Kasel smiled through the faceplate, "Looks like you're stuck with me again." Looking to Singer, he explained, "Doctor Saito and I served together on Circe."

"And he and I were together on Vespa," Singer responded, and then, to Saito, "The Chief here was our senior surviving medic, and we'd literally be dead without him."

There didn't seem to be much more to say to that, so Saito just reached out a companionable hand to grip Kasel's shoulder. Singer knew she should be thinking about more immediate needs, but the truth was, she was already plotting for how to recruit this man, exhausted as he must be, to her new crew.

She forcibly brought herself back to the moment. "I'll find out Zephyr's ETA, Chief. Carry on!"

With that, she held up a hand to excuse herself, and switched her suit-comm over to call the inspection boat, which answered quickly. "Wasserman here!"

"PO, can you give me an ETA on Zephyr?"

"I was just about to call you, ma'am. They're about to dock! Boarding tube is already re-extended for them; they should be able to come in through the deck six airlock same as you did."

"Remind them to suit up, please, PO, and ask them to prepare some antigrav gurneys. Most of the survivors are ambulatory, but a few aren't."

"Roger that. Do you want a report on the survey, too?"

"After we see to the personnel here. I'll call you from Zephyr in a bit. Meanwhile, please make sure your report notes that the last of Aquila's AIs is with us in a cartridge; once we're off her, the yard'll need to figure out whether to tow her or something."

"Works for me. Alice's Restaurant Massacree, clear on your final."

"Singer clear."

She relayed to Saito, whose relief was palpable. He asked, "Where will you be bringing us, Commander?"

"That's an open question, honestly. I think Plan A is to bring you back to Borass Station, but Commodore Haraldsdottir needed to verify that they had facilities for it."

"And Plan B?"

Singer gave him a wry look. "You may have to come with us."

Saito blinked. "'Us' meaning Zephyr, I assume. I also assume there's a story I don't have yet, since I'm pretty sure the last ship with that name has been out of commission for ages." He held up a hand as if to forestall her. "Don't tell me the story, now, though. I'm really in no state to absorb it. I need to see my people safely settled, even if it's just on a less broken ship. Then I need a proper meal, a shower, and about a megasecond of sleep. After that, I imagine, there are several stories I need to both tell and hear."

"That sounds like the right order of operations, yes." Singer agreed.

And then Alexander was there with another group of hands, and gurneys following along behind. "Captain, Commander, we're ready to start shifting people over immediately. We've got Sick Bay One prepped for the non-ambulatory; Sick Bay Two is available for less dire cases if needed at all; and two of the crew spaces are set up for immediate occupancy of anyone who just needs a rack and a place to be. Commander," zie said, addressing Saito, "we have quarters for you as well."

Saito responded, "Thank you, Commander. I'll want to see my people settled, first."

"Of course, sir! If no one else is available when you're ready, ask Chef to guide you."

Saito nodded, and said, "Again, thank you."

Alexander looked expectantly at Singer, who also nodded. "Let's get it done, XO."