When Fighting Monsters, page 16
part #5 of The Maauro Chronicles Series
“I see.”
“And I’m returning her to him as an icicle.”
“Nothing more could have been done,” Olivia said. “Get everyone ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
As we moved inward, messages flew back and forth. Maauro and Delt returned to the machine shop to continue furious work on the parts Taiko desperately needed. With Maauro’s ability to manufacture almost any small part in her body and Delt’s skills with the artificers, we made progress quickly. Cully and the Marines under Olivia prepositioned all they had found that would help the crippled cruiser, near the airlocks.
“We’re coming up on atmospheric breaking,” I said. “Olivia, get everyone secured. This is always a bumpy ride.”
The air-braking was as bad as I expected. The ship grew hot and bucked and belled as it contacted the outer edge of the gas giant. Our approach had been even more complicated by the thin cirrus rings that wrapped the planet. They were rock and water ice, and I didn’t want to contact them at this speed. Finally Stardust settled down from her thunderous approach, and slowed as she looped around the gas giant, easily five times the size of Jupiter.
Taiko appeared as a dot on the screens as we closed to visual distance. The cameras finally brought the damaged cruiser into a focus that caused Olivia to swear and Delt to whistle. The sensor picture had shown us much of this, but it was not the same as seeing it directly.
When Taiko had left for Piola sector she had been 650 meters of lethal warship in haze gray and blue with a crew of over five hundred. Now the gray and blue hull was pitted and blackened with one whole section open to space. Even her pointed bow was partly crumpled. Her weapon suite showed damage as well.
“God, she’s beaten up,” Delt said. “I’m surprised she’s holding atmosphere.”
“The damage is less severe than it appears,” Maauro observed, with a professional air. “Her armor has spared her interior, though her weapons suite has taken severe damage. There have been piercing shots to her interior, notably her machine shops. Still, while not technically crippled, she is heavily damaged.”
The cruiser’s running lights glowed as we reached 10,000 meters. I drew closer to the big cruiser, doing all the maneuvering. Compared to the cruiser, we were little more than a launch, even at our 112 meter length. Taiko would rarely land atmospherically, usually in water and with the brute power of her engines slowing the huge mass. Larger ships than her didn’t make planetary landings in atmosphere.
“We will be docking in 193 seconds,” I added. I lined up on the cruiser, tapping the attitude jets gently to close the distance. Maauro stood next to me, pleased as always by my piloting skill. With an almost imperceptible jar, we touched the docking ring and the clamps engaged with a thump. I hit the control to extend the boarding tube, not wanting to chance the cruisers beaten up one.
“All hands,” I called, “docking completed. Boarding tube is extended and green. Dockside routine is in effect. All systems secured.”
Maauro and I made our way to the main airlock. Olivia was waiting, in full uniform, with all of Taiko’s Marines and the Morok ensign with them. It seemed no one was going to wait for permission to reboard the Taiko, regardless of the life support situation.
I opened the tube at our end and we trooped in. The airlock door sealed behind us. Unless the override was hit— both doors on a boarding tube would not open at the same time. The far end opened and armed Marines looked in on us. Since Maauro and I led the parade, our presence and perhaps that of Olivia, kept the situation formal, but I could see people looking past us at the shuttle survivors with grins and nods.
A human female in a navy uniform walked up to us briskly. Her brown hair was short-cropped, but her yellow-eyes and muscular build marked her as a Polphorean, an old colony mutation. She seemed uncertain about saluting us, but did so after a moment. “Lt Commander Abalaf,” she said, “Taiko’s executive officer. We’re damn glad to see you, Captain Trigardt.” Mutant herself, she’d barely given Maauro a second look.
I nodded. “Wrik Trigardt, my executive, Maauro, no last name, and Major Olivia Croyzer.”
“I’ll take you to the captain in a moment.” She walked past to shake hands with the shuttle survivors, starting with the Morok ensign. Everyone else seemed to take this as the sign to relax, and Cully and his group were surrounded with people shaking hands, pounding backs and trading insults.
Abalaf turned back to me. “Like I said, Captain wants to see you, but he also desperately wants those spares, especially the positron pumps. How the hell you could manufacture those without a Class A factory I have no idea.”
“We’re full of surprises,” I replied. “Cully knows where everything is situated. My First Mate, Delt, can give you the pumps. They are in engineering in a vacuum chamber.”
“You’re a godsend, Captain.” She gestured over her shoulder, and Taiko crew in engineering uniforms came forward eagerly. “Cully.”
“On it, XO,” Cully said. He waved the others forward and ducked back into the boarding tube.
“Follow me, please,” Abalaf said. We followed her into the vast honeycomb of passages and spaces of the cruiser’s interior. It was immediately obvious this was a ship in trouble. The corridors were cold, dank even, and the air smelled peculiar. In the delicate biosphere of a spaceship, this was a hallmark of looming disaster.
“Captain’s on the bridge,” Abalaf threw over her shoulder. “Practically lives there since our last battle with the Anomaly.”
“We call it the Beast,” I said.
She looked back as we reached a metal stairway. “You’ve seen it?”
“No,” I replied, “but we have seen its works and made contact once.”
“How?” she demanded.
“Perhaps it would be best if that conversation was told only once in a secured location,” Maauro said, as some crewman clambered down the stairs next to us.
Abalaf gave Maauro a searching look, but nodded. “Sorry about the roundabout route. We took a lot of midships damage and had to decompress some of the adjacent compartments to lessen the strain on the airtight sections. If those positron pumps you made, work, we should be able to get atmosphere recycling working better and some of the 3D printers and artificers. We’ll begin to resemble a warship again.”
“They will work,” Maauro stated.
Again the searching stare, surprised perhaps that it was Maauro and not me speaking. I only smiled.
We finally reached the rear of the bridge by way of a broad metal staircase that led up to a space twenty times the size of Stardust’s bridge. Unlike ours, it was lit in a subdued red lighting. About two dozen crew manned various consoles, some sitting some standing. All of them looked at us as we came in. In the center of the bridge, on a raised seat surrounded by screens, Captain Raglan sat. He rose as we entered and came over to greet us. Raglan was tall, even for Denlenn, and I had to look up at his face, etched with worry and fatigue. His hair had silvered in the same way a human’s did, but would be premature for a Denlenn, and there was a touch of gauntness to his face.
“Greetings Captain Trigardt, Ms. Maauro and Major Croyzer,” he said.
Olivia threw a salute. As a Marine major she did not rank a warship captain on his own deck. We were entitled to receive a salute, but there was no need to make this point now. I extended my hand, and Raglan took it human fashion. Maauro did the same and he held hers a little longer than was necessary, giving her a searching gaze.
“Let’s adjourn to my space cabin,” he said, gesturing to the port side. We and Abalaf followed him to a small cabin that held a table bolted to the deck, chairs and a curtained space behind which I knew would be a bunk and small washroom that the skipper of a warship, unwilling to be more than a few steps from his bridge, would commonly use.
A steward was placing coffee, water and a plate of cookies in the center.
“Thank you, Flores,” Raglan said. The steward nodded and slipped silently out, as we seated ourselves.
“Damage control and the engineers are getting everything that they have prepared for us,” Abalaf said. “We should hear about that positron pump shortly.”
Maauro looked at the yellow-eyed woman. “You need not be concerned. The pump I made for you will function at factory specifications or above.”
“Sorry,” Raglan said. “We do not mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, but how you’re able to manufacture a spare of such size and complexity aboard a scoutship defies us.”
Maauro only smiled and reached for a cookie. Abalaf poured coffee and Olivia opted for water.
“We can spare you supplies of food that should feed your remaining crew at full rations for months,” I added. “We should be able to cover 65% of your spares and equipment needs. Only fuel and fluids are beyond us.”
“The crew will be grateful for the food especially,” Raglan said, “rations have been both short and monotonous. We are all right for water, given the nearby ice rings. We’ve rigged up solar panels to harvest some solar power, but it is a poor source this far out in the system.
“But to more substantive matters,” Raglan said. “It was a comfort to me to have Cully vouch for you, even with your codes and orders. Major Croyzer’s presence is reassuring as well, but you two? Well, pardon an old line officer’s skepticism, but you seem to be a very young man commanding a small scoutship and you are actually second to this even younger lady here. Your crew consists of five people on an older model scoutship we only use in the reserves. How is it that you represent a significant force in a battle with an interstellar nightmare we have only barely survived, mostly by fleeing?”
“Sounds like it’s time for your speech, Olivia,” I said.
She shot me a look. “What Captain Trigardt means, is that while they are private contractors to the government, I’m regular military as you noted. So it falls on me to deliver an order straight for the Head of Combined Military Intelligence and countersigned by Fleet Command.” Olivia rattled off a code and handed Raglan a data crystal. He inserted it in a nearby screen which lit and text scrolled on it. Abalaf read over his shoulder and after a few seconds, whistled. Raglan looked startled and kept glancing at Maauro, who was nibbling a second cookie.
“Revelation of any of what you have read, or learn of Maauro,” Olivia said, “is a court martial offense and will result in decades of prison time. As for the rest, well Maauro, save us time and show them.”
Maauro nodded and finished her cookie. Her hand then began to glow blue with a plasma fire that warmed the room.
“Do not be alarmed,” she said, in her soft voice. “I am an artificial person, not merely an AI. I was made by a species that disappeared from space while humans and Denlenn’s both dwelt in caves. My computational and software abilities exceed anything that you have ever encountered.”
“So you’re actually in command,” Raglan said, struggling to comprehend.
“No, I share command with Captain Trigardt, quite seamlessly I think. We are usually of a like mind on most matters.”
“And you people are private contractors?” Abalaf said, looking frankly horrified at the idea.
“If by that you are expressing surprise that I’m not in Confederate control, I’m an independent, thinking being, with free will and will not be owned by anyone or anything,” Maauro said. “The Confederacy has recognized that I’m better courted with citizenship and a commission, than confined or otherwise harassed. This has been a mutually beneficial and sensible choice.”
“By which she also means,” Olivia added, with a touch of grimness, “she’s already ensured her safety aboard your ship by infiltrating every system on Taiko, probably before we boarded you. You’ll find that no weapon will track on her ship and she can control any system on Taiko from weapons to reactor containment.”
“One finds that difficult to believe—” Raglan began.
The lights in the room went out, save for the glowing green of Maauro’s eyes. Then they came back.
“I can arrange suitable demonstrations more impressive than manipulating lighting if you insist,” Maauro added dryly. “One would hope our orders and codes would obviate such necessity. In addition, we are all allied forces here, even if in our case it’s by virtue of being paid.”
“Allies or not,” Raglan said. “We will scrub any unauthorized software from our systems.”
Maauro gave him a pitying look.
“No, you won’t,” Olivia stated against the building storm. “In the first place, no one has ever even been able to detect any intruder program she’s launched, much less counter it. Nor has any but short term defense ever worked against her.
“More to the point, Captain, reread your orders. She is authorized software. Like it or not, she and Trigardt rank everyone and everything in Piola sector. Period. If she wants, she can legally relieve you of command. Argue that point and it’s not even insubordination, Captain, the charge will be mutiny.
“Maauro and I are here to help, Captain Raglan,” I interjected, “so perhaps we have spoken enough about our prerogatives and ranks and can turn to how we help you. In that regard, Maauro is the big asset we bring to the table. The greatest supercomputer ever known, in the toughest machine body anyone has ever seen.”
“And you control her?” Raglan asked, still trying to orient himself in a new universe.
I chuckled. “Hell, no. But she will listen to me if I have a good idea.”
Raglan gave Maauro a challenging look. “Why? If you’re the superior intelligence, why?”
Maauro met his gaze. “Because I love him, and he has many good ideas. The one I appreciate most is that he loves me too.”
I wasn’t sure what a stunned Denlenn looked like, but Raglan was probably the image of it now.
“It would be best to start getting over all of this now,” Olivia added. “Command didn’t do any of this lightly. Maauro and Wrik have been death and frustration to thousands of enemies of the Confederacy. I once watched her force a rebellious colony world to surrender when they were holding Wrik. She would have destroyed the colony by detonating reactors and climate alterations even if they had succeeded at getting her, which I don’t believe they would have.”
“But as Wrik says,” Maauro continued, pouring a coffee for herself, “we are here to help. It was I who made the positron pump for you, the heart of which I had to create within myself in my internal factories.” She delicately sipped the coffee.
Raglan’s expression softened as he watched her. “It seems I must learn to accept the impossible in the universe. But let me say that you are a far more pleasant and charming impossibility then the Anomaly, and I do not mean to damn with faint praise. You are enough to amaze any being.”
“A living machine,” Abalaf said, “indistinguishable from a real person.”
“She is a real person,” I said.
“Of course,” Abalaf said.
“Captain, while Maauro has already digested all of what you have sent us from your logs.” I said, “for those of us with merely biological brains, it would be useful to hear your story directly from you.”
“Which will certainly give me time for another cookie,” Maauro said
“Leave some for others,” I said.
“Wrik, we brought plenty,” she protested.
“Sorry,” I said, “she is inordinately fond of sweet things.”
Abalaf laughed, and after a moment Raglan followed suit. It took a while for them both to run down.
“Miss Maauro,” Raglan said. “I now believe we may be saved, and I must beg you to forget my suspicions and any lack of welcome I displayed. It has been a long and grim time aboard Taiko, and there has been precious little laughter. We owe you thanks for so much, but in this I must particularly thank you. I cannot recall when I last laughed.”
“Does this mean I can have the cookie?” she asked.
Raglan smothered another laugh with a hand across his face. Abalaf looked as though the effort to not burst out might kill her.
“Yes,” Raglan said, “please enjoy as many as you wish and I will have more brought if you want.”
With a demure glance at me, Maauro said. “One more will do.”
Even I never knew how much of Maauro’s charm was studied tactics for influencing biologicals and how much was innate, but she had clearly passed the tipping point of winning over the Captain.
Suddenly the lights brightened, and the whir of machinery grew louder. The air began to stir.
Abalaf touched the headpiece she wore. “Engineering reported the positron pump went in like it was custom-built, twenty-five percent increase in power to be followed with a forty-percent improvement in life support.”
“That is excellent news,” Raglan said, some of the strain in his face easing. “Miss Maauro the list of things that I must thank you for seems to be growing.”
“I am pleased to be able to help.”
“We have found only one other jump point out of the system,” Raglan continued. “We have no idea where it goes. I sent our one functioning probe into it, transmitting all the way. But the Anomaly, no, the Beast, I think of your name as the more apt, detected the maneuver and damaged the probe. Perhaps that is the reason the probe did not return. So we do not know where the point goes to, but it is beyond hope to imagine that it goes anywhere useful in Confederate space. We dared not jump further away from home; we’re near our limits already.”
“I would like to see the data from the probe,” Maauro said.
Raglan gave her a curious look. “If what Major Croyzer say is true, then do you not already have access, Miss Maauro?”
Maauro looked slightly embarrassed. “It seemed polite to ask. But yes, I already have the data. Regrettably, the only thing I can analyze is the approach telemetry and the first signs of jump effect. I will continue analysis.’
