Things Fall Apart: Chapter 10, Part 2
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Starship Bellerophon was minding its business, on a long return cruise from an exploration and mapping mission, when it suffered disaster, ripping a chunk out of the ship and leaving most of the senior officers and crew dead. Most of the ship's AIs are missing from the network, also presumed dead, with evidence pointing to a massive, internal "attack" by those AIs.
The survivors' mission, now, is simply to hold their ship and their people together; figure out what happened to them, and why; and get to a safe port! En route to the nearest beacon on the time-compression network, in hopes of finally calling for aid, Bellerophon receives a distress call, and discovers that they are not the only ones to suffer catastrophe!
“It’s about damned time someone came out here. Do you know how long we’ve been sitting out here, shouting?! Do you know how much trouble Fleet’s in for letting us just ignoring us?”
The voice was angry, and not bothering to hide their anger. Their accent screamed “New Norfolk”, suggesting a born spacer. The person ostensibly attached to the voice had identified themselves as Captain Yuri Sankovich, and as soon as the formalities had been observed, had wasted no time becoming, or attempting to become, a bully.
He had also, however, told Singer several things he did not realize he had told her. Or rather, confirmed for her several things that had become increasingly apparent.
Singer considered intervening at this point, but Cordé had a look in her eye, and Singer decided to let her run with it.
“Mauritania, please report your current status.” Cordé’s voice was unfailingly polite as she stuck to the script, not out of any lack of ideas for other things to respond with, but as a moment of malicious compliance.
In short, Cordé, like the rest of her crew, had been through hell. This yutz of a yacht captain didn’t know that, but it also didn’t matter. The Tau Ceti Treaty Fleet might not strictly be a military service, but it also was also not a customer service hotline. In short, there was no obligation to take a bully seriously.
So, she didn’t.
The snippy voice on the other end responded, “The name of this vessel is Grand Despot of Mauritania. This is the personal craft of Ari ben Yosef Espinoza. You will treat it with respect.”
Cordé’s mouth twisted in a smile that was genuinely wicked. “Grand Despot, please report your current status.”
Captain Snippy was apparently really not used to being sassed, and had not yet realized that he was outmatched at this particular game. “Who the hell are you to claim to be coming to our rescue with that attitude?!”
“This is Ensign Marina Cordé of the TCTFS Bellerophon,” she responded, remaining coolly polite and entirely proper. “We have recently been the subject of a massive AI systems failure, and have reason to believe that failure may have affected ships other than our own. If you do not comply with our request for a status report in your next response, we may be forced to consider you are actually a symptom of that attack, and resume our course.”
I really should intervene, Singer thought. Cordé had more or less just threatened to leave this ship stranded, which was well beyond her authority, and she knew it. But Singer found herself disinclined to come to Sankovich’s defense. Alexander, Singer noticed, was similarly disinclined, and wore a small smile. Cordé, meanwhile, was watching them both, clearly prepared to accept a cue to start behaving differently, which had not yet been forthcoming.
There was a long pause, after this. When communication resumed, it was not Sankovich’s voice, but a different one, speaking in a much more polite mode. “This is Ari ben Yosef Espinoza. Ensign Cordé, please verify my voice print.”
Cordé’s smile was downright beatific.
“Go ahead for voice verification.”
“Verification phrase: ‘It seems to me most strange that men should fear/Seeing that death, a necessary end/Will come when it will come.’”
Cordé glanced at her terminal, approved of what she found there, and said, “Verified, Grand Despot of Mauritania. Please report status.”
Espinoza responded, “Approximately five days—excuse me, four hundred fifty kiloseconds after we left New Norfolk, our primary fusion engine failed and had to be scrammed. Our secondary is designed for life-support, intended to sustain the ship until help arrives, and is insufficient to drive a time compressor, and so we have been stranded, as Captain Sankovich implied, since the accident. We have, as you can imagine, been concerned at the lack of any response in the time since.”
This last was, perhaps, not strictly a part of a status report, but it was still a lot more polite than his yacht-driver had been. It also showed that Espinoza knew full well he was not really speaking to Cordé, alone.
Cordé also caught this, and decided perhaps it really was time for the conversation to move up the chain. She looked a question at Singer, who nodded, waited for the thumbs up, and then said, “Señor Espinoza, this is Lieutenant Elyah Singer, Bellerophon Actual.”
There was another long pause. Espinoza proved himself no fool at all when he finally responded. “So, there really was an incident?”
“Sir, there was. Please allow me to offer you and your captain the hospitality of Bellerophon, so we can exchange news.”
Another pause, shorter. Perhaps to think, perhaps to give his captain a quelling glance. Singer’s gift of empathy only extended so far, but she would have given a lot to know which, just then.
“Bellerophon, that sounds like a good way to proceed.”
“Excellent,” Singer responded. “I will have my XO coordinate with your crew, and send a pinnace across for you shortly. I look forward to meeting you.”
“The same, Lieutenant Singer. If there is nothing else right now, I will hand communications back to my crew to complete the arrangements.”
Singer had expected possible condescension in his address, perhaps some emphasis on the word, “lieutenant”, suggesting that he thought her less than fully able. She heard nothing of the kind. Sankovich remained a possible problem, but Espinoza seemed so far pretty reasonable for a trillionaire.
“There’s nothing else from my side that can’t wait for face-to-face. See you soon.”
Singer looked to Alexander, who nodded and donned a headset to complete the exchange, while Singer left the bridge to go splash some water on her face.