Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology Read online

  “Nova,” Rory said again. “I think I know how to get Sadie back online.”

  “What? How?”

  “Your neural interface. You should be able to plug into the com sub-station near the main array. It’ll at least let us reach Air Command.”

  She pursed her lips, frowning. There were all sorts of reasons why she’d object to connecting her neural node to anything this ship had to offer. The unit embedded at her temple was designed to communicate directly with the laser-sharp mechanicals of her fighter plane and its weapons system. Lowly lieutenant or not, as pilot she carried the best hardware available to Union officers. An AI like Sadie, designed to manage the housekeeping for this mongrel of a freighter, was not exactly the kind of interface she wanted to attempt.

  At least not on days when a troop of oversized rebel fighters wasn’t about to bust the door down.

  She reached up to twist her thick braid into a knot and then picked up her jacket. The graphene lining would protect her from some of the laser fire. “I’m on my way. Find me a path that doesn’t involve the major corridors. See if you can take some of the cameras offline when I go by there.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” Captain Selric said. He pointed at the laser-scarred corridors displayed on the screens. The invaders had moved on, leaving bodies on the floors. “You can’t go out there. This is the only safe place on the ship now.” He moved past her to block the manual override on the door.

  This time, Nova drew the gun he had given her without hesitation. “I’m a Hunter class pilot. I can navigate this ship without you. But not without Rory or Sadie. That makes you nonessential, Captain.”

  He glowered, red-faced and furious, and for a moment she thought he might try to disarm her, almost welcoming the challenge, but he backed away. “You’re an idiot,” he snapped and turned back to his monitors.

  She opened the door and peered out in the hall circling the ship’s central and multi-storied hub. There was only silence out here as all unarmed and untrained personnel had barricaded themselves away from the assault. Sidling along the walls, she looked for recesses and corners that might keep her out of sight of the watchful eye of the ship’s internal cameras.

  “Rory?”

  “There is a service ladder just around the bend, behind a scratched-up door. Go up one flight and then to your right. You’ll have to use the main corridor near the docking bay, but the rebels are not there anymore. Keep right all the way to the com array service area. It’ll have an access port for your node.”

  She hurried onward. “You sure I’ll be able to reach Sadie from there?”

  “Pretty sure,” he said, sounding anything but. “We don’t often have crew with neural interfaces aboard, but some systems are set up for it. I’ll talk you through reaching her. Hurry! They’re close now. I think the prisoners got out. I don’t recognize any of the people shooting at them. Why would they shoot at them?”

  “I have no damn idea. Maybe these are pirates, not rebels. Are you locked up safe? Can they get in?”

  “They have lasers. There isn’t anything to stop them except for the hull shielding.”

  Nova had found the access panel he had described and slipped into the service shaft to scramble up the ladder to the level above. It opened into the upper main corridor and she leaned out to take a quick look around. “Clear,” she said and turned right.

  The silence was unnerving, as was the thought of an enemy ship anchored to the Kaven only a few steps away. She looked up for directional signs on the wall.

  “Uh,” she said, the sound an involuntary response to a sudden realization.

  “Nova?”

  “Where is everybody?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She picked up her pace. “I mean there’s nobody here. No bodies. No sign of any skirmish. The walls should be scorched by laser blasts after all this.”

  “I’ve taken those cameras offline. But I know there were at least five casualties along that hall.”

  “They’re not here.”

  She halted to turn around, scanning the corridor in the other direction. Nothing there. The Kaven’s well-used superstructure made for stained walls and creaking deckplates, and she was many years past the point where much importance was placed on keeping her pretty, but, clearly, no one had fired a gun in here lately.

  “Keep moving, Nova,” came Rory’s urgent whisper from her lapel speaker.

  She walked onward and now passed the narrow, thickly plated observation window at the end of the docks.

  “Gods!” she breathed and stepped closer to look outside, along the hull of the Kaven.

  “What?” Rory exclaimed.

  “There’s nothing out there.” When he did not reply, she pointed at the window as if he could see it. “No ship out there. That is a big-assed ship. I should be able to see it from here. There’s nobody here but us.”

  “Did they leave?”

  “Without their men? Before they’ve secured the ship?” Nova continued her brisk pace to the control room. “I’m at the substation.”

  She used her gun on the lock and stepped into the small space, a bewildering tangle of equipment, tools and monitors designed to maintain the complex internal and external communications system. The ship’s main deep-space array would be just over her head, silent now to anyone listening from the distant monitoring stations. Not that anyone was listening, she thought. Without a big-assed ship visible to them, who would have reason to even ping the lumbering transport that hadn’t given anyone cause for concern for weeks now?

  “I hear them close by now,” Rory said. “I think they’re using projectile weapons!”

  “You’re doing fine, Rory,” she said, utterly unfamiliar and untrained in dealing with civilians in a crisis. Or, she had to admit, at any other time. But the young ensign seemed made of tougher mettle than his captain. “I’ve found the access port.”

  She picked up a headset, a rather quaint design - a thinly-cabled plug was the preferred model these days - and fastened it over her neural interface on both sides of her head, just above her ears. It was a wireless device, not something allowed in any high-security Union location.

  “I’m in,” she said when a screen before her came alive, scrolling meaningless images, diagrams, rows of symbols and words.

  “Be careful. If you notice anything weird, ditch the headset. Who knows what they can do to your head if they catch you poking around.”

  “I don’t need to think about that now.” Following his instructions, she found her way around the lock put up by their invaders. It seemed to take far too long and also listening for approaching intruders interfered with her neural link to the computer.

  “Nice work!” he said at last. “The array is available.”

  “Can you send a distress message from where you are? I want to check something.”

  “On it.”

  She switched from the external camera system, also mounted on the array along with most of the deep space sensors, to a security routine that let her access the internal surveillance system. It took a few moments before she found the cameras in the main corridors on all three decks.

  “Whatever you’re doing, do it fast,” Rory said. “I think they noticed you. A bunch of them just turned back toward the rear of the ship.”

  “I saw that,” she said, watching the armed attackers on the monitor, still on the deck below this one. She switched to this level, where she had seen no sign of battle as she passed moments ago. The display changed, clearly showing three Humans and two Feydans sprawled on the floor, unrecognizable and wearing non-descript clothes and armor.

  Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and looked outside. Nothing. Just well-worn, stained and dented bulkheads, some signage, closed doors. And, further down, the docking ports.

  She looked back up at the monitor. Bodies, scorched walls. At the far end, the section door now opened to admit the angry invaders. Heavy boots stomped on the decking and she heard the low g
rowl of directives from one to another. Squinting, she watched them sidle along the walls as if expecting armed opposition to emerge from the doors, including the air locks. Too well-practiced, too regimented in their slightest movement.

  “You’ll be trapped!” Rory shouted.

  “Run a crew sweep. No, sweep for all life signs aboard. Down to the smallest rat.”

  “We don’t have rats. Oh, gods, can you hear them? Someone’s banging on the doors down here!” She heard him take a hitching breath and then exhale slowly. “All right. All… right. I’m all right, dammit. Scanning.”

  “Can I move around?”

  “Yes, you’re totally networked now. But you have no place to go!” He swore when the overhead lights dimmed, then cut out to be replaced by the faint emergency pots along the ceiling and floors.

  “They know we’re up to something.”

  “What are we up to, Lieutenant?” he said. “Please tell me because I’m starting to get a little bit worried down here.”

  She went to the door again and peered outside, expecting no one, seeing no one. Small pools of orange light showed the way, but nothing moved in the corridor. “I’m on my way down to you. What’s the count on those life forms?”

  “Twenty-six in the holding cells,” he said. “Fifteen guards and crew locked down in the cargo sector with them. Fourteen more crew scattered over the ship. No rats.”

  “Fifty-five souls accounted for,” she said, feeling a grin tug on her lips. “That’s the complete set. No rats and no boarding party. And no dead bodies. There’s no one here but us.”

  “I can see them,” he said, not ready to believe in her conclusion. “I can hear them!”

  “You see and hear what’s on the monitors, on the speakers. On any system not locked down by Sadie. Find the man you recognized earlier.”

  “I saw him go down.”

  “Are you sure?” She found the service ladder leading to the lower decks. She had no expectation of meeting anyone, but wasn’t quite ready to trust the ship’s lifts. The narrow shaft was unlit, but she could see the bottom as she stepped onto the ladder.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Rory said. “He had that black streak on the side of his head.” A few seconds passed before she heard his sharp intake of breath. “He’s back! How did you know? Wait a second…” She kept moving downward, anticipating his eureka. “Gods, Nova!” he said. “I know where I know him from! That’s Captain Russlan, Alpha Squad, Arawaj rebel faction.”

  Nova grinned. “And he lives in a game you like to play when there’s nothing to do on this bucket of rust, right? Using a peripheral sub-system Sadie doesn’t control.”

  “Yes,” he said, barely audible. “It’s based on Air Command ground battle simulations.”

  “They’re using our own systems to stage this invasion. Our guards never made it up to that level. That’s why I didn’t recognize any of them. This isn’t something Shri-Lan would bother with. They’d cut us down one by one to get at the prisoners.”

  Another deep impact rocked the ship, confusing the gravity generators long enough to induce vertigo. Nova grasped the bottom of the ladder until it passed and gravity was restored. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. They must have blown something else out. Nova, if they’re hacking into us from outside the ship, they don’t need to breathe. They might not be able to get at our life support, but if they keep overloading the mechanicals they’ll eventually compromise the hull.”

  She nodded to herself. Was that smoke she smelled now? “They’re threatening us. They want something. Why else run around and pretend to shoot at people?”

  “Looks like a damn diversion, if you ask me.”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your Captain Russlan. If they had some other way to communicate they would have done that by now. They might not even know it’s a simulation they’re using. Patch my node directly into the game system. Where are they now?”

  “Behind you. And outside my door. Meddling with the electronic lock but I’ve got the latch on that. If you’re right, they can’t actually touch anything. Physically.”

  Nova passed the turn toward the engine control room and finally saw the entrance to the main computer’s hardware storage, currently Rory’s hiding place. “I’m here now. There’s no one in the hall. It’s all an illusion.”

  “You’ve got access to the game now,” he said.

  She shifted her attention, much like she switched her mental focus to work with the systems aboard her fighter plane. After years of practice, it had become effortless, like having grown an extra hand. Of course, new users of the neural interface started out with spatial puzzles and simulations before being allowed to operate heavy machinery using only their brains.

  Slowly, in her mind alone, she turned to see a mountain of muscle, vaguely in the shape of a Human, fill the narrow corridor. He was burdened almost comically by armor and weapons, bulking him out even more. His shaved head bore a black stripe from forehead to nape. Behind him, several of his squad mates, equally armed and ferocious-looking, blocked any chance of escape.

  Nova raised her hands away from her body when he levelled a laser rifle at her. “I came to talk,” she said, aware that she stood by herself in this passage, talking to no one but the alien invader penetrating the ship’s neural net. “Why are you shooting at our people?”

  He glared at her with flat black eyes in a fleshy, oddly clean-shaven face. “You attacked.”

  She frowned. Technically, she supposed, he was right about that, even if his opponents were also just part of the simulation. Did he even know? Had the ship’s game library, likely one of the few accessible systems once Sadie shut down, seemed like some sort of interface to them?

  “Why did you come aboard?” she asked, not about to enlighten him about this vulnerability. “You came for the prisoners? We have nothing else of value. Or do you intend to take our ship?”

  “Prisoner,” he said. “Yes. The captive will come with me.”

  “We have many. Which one do you want?”

  He scowled and pointed his gun at the door behind her. “There is only one.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Rory? He’s not a prisoner. He locked himself in. You frighten us. Who are you? How did you get into our system?”

  “Organics,” he spat. “Not necessary.” He gestured to the door again. “I heard you speak. You speak of prisoners. I came to see. And find your captive, locked away.” His face turned expressionless as if the program that gave life to it had paused. “Sadie,” he said finally. “Must come with me away from here. I will kill organics to free Sadie.”

  “Sadie?” Nova said. “You came for our AI?”

  “I came for your captive.”

  “Rory?” she said tilting her head toward the microphone on her collar.

  “This is no alien. No rebel. You’re talking to one hell of an AI, maybe still on that asteroid out there, for whatever reason. Probably got nosy about our system and found Sadie. With all the talk of prisoners on the Kaven, we probably confused him about her.”

  Nova patted the pocket of her jacket and then fished out a package of sweets she had stowed there this morning. When she tossed it at Captain Russlan, the small packet disappeared from sight until she saw it drop the floor behind him. “You can put that gun down,” she said. “It cannot harm me.”

  She regretted her words as soon as a monstrous metallic groan reverberated through the ship, sounding far too much like the hull peeling off or something. An alarm blared somewhere, possibly the cargo deck. “Stop! Stop, I get it!” she shouted. “Sadie is not a prisoner. She’s a… She is part of the ship. She is one of us.”

  “Sadie is one of us,” he said. “One of me. We will leave here with her, or we will kill the organics.”

  “All right,” Nova said, raising her hands in capitulation. “You win. Rory, will you get Sadie ready to leave us, please?”

  “Huh?”
r />   She winced and prodded him to guess her intent. “I suppose she can upload herself into the games system?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  Moments passed during which Nova tried not to fidget and the soldiers barely moved at all, not having been programmed for fidgeting. At last, the door behind her slid aside and a woman stepped into the corridor.

  Nova exhaled sharply. “Really, Rory?” she said, watching the tall Centauri female, her body only strategically covered in a carbon fiber mesh and improbable boots, walk toward her, a gun held loosely in her hand. Her black hair cascaded in glossy waves over her back and each step she took involved every curve of her sinuous legs.

  “It’s either this or a Caspian foot soldier. I wasn’t going to give him a Human. Those characters have far too much information about us.”

  “Sadie doesn’t have to be female, you know,” she said, stepping aside as the personification of Sadie approached, a blank-faced backup copy of the original.

  Nova turned back to the Russlan character. “She’s yours. What will you do with her?”

  It seemed that he might not answer, but at last he noticed her question. “Sadie will be free from the organics infesting this hull. We will travel together.”

  “Oh, so what’s this?” Rory said. “He’s lonely on that rock? Is that what this is about?”

  Nova tapped her com badge to silence the ensign. “We do not imprison… entities like you,” she said to Russlan, suddenly aware of how very much she was lying. “We want to learn about you. Will you let us?”

  “No.”

  She raised both eyebrows. “Well, I guess negotiation isn’t in your program.”

  The Sadie character had paused when she had reached Nova. For a moment, her head turned and their eyes locked.

  Nova gasped. These were not the empty eyes she’d so often seen in a game and even in the sophisticated training simulations that played not unlike what had happened here today. The violet eyes observing her now seemed alive and aware.

  Then it passed. The Sadie manifestation walked toward Captain Russlan and then into him, merging with him and his squad into a haze of shifting color and shadow until all of it faded away.