Right Ascension (The Sector Fleet, Book 3) Page 16

  “From dooming us to failure,” he finally said.

  “I…I don’t understand. My grandfather…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  What did I truly know about my grandfather other than what he had chosen to show me?

  “What does the code do?” I asked, my voice level, my face impassive.

  Leo looked up at me; no smile, no flicker of emotion.

  “It kills artificial intelligences who have gone rogue.”

  Thirty-Two

  A Force To Be Reckoned With

  Leo

  I’d killed her. Even if she still existed on the data stick I held in my hand; I’d killed the Corvus I knew. The one who had wanted to be called Phoenix. The one who had shown such courage in the face of such terror. I’d killed her.

  I’d hoped the code would home in on Aquila, the AI that had really gone rogue. But in a way it made sense. Corvus was not the Corvus that Simon had designed. She was now, in her own sweet way, rogue.

  So the code had killed her, as it killed the Aquila that had been in the communications system. It hadn’t differentiated between the two. It had simply identified a corrupted code within both AIs present and deemed them both rogue.

  I’d killed her.

  A glass of water appeared before me. I glanced up and noticed Sophia was holding it. I took the offering and nodded my head, to let her know I was all right. If she sent me off to medical, I’d be there until Dr Lin decided otherwise. And Dr Lin could be a hard arse.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking a sip of the drink.

  Sophia leaned back on the desk; this side of it. But circumstances being as they were meant my mind didn’t automatically go to places it shouldn’t.

  She watched me drink the water for a while until she was satisfied, I suppose, that I was functioning nominally. Then she opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and then sighed.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said at last.

  “As you know,” I said, aware Kulik was watching this all play out with hard eyes, “I had to pull all of Corvus into the comms system in case anything transferred out via her consciousness to other systems. Somehow, she’d managed to contain Aquila in there. Possibly by pulling her awareness out of the communications system completely. But in order to locate the origin of the corrupt code and excise it, I needed Corvus with me in the system.”

  “Yes,” Sophia said. “You explained this earlier.” I had. But it warranted repeating.

  “I had a few options available to me,” I said. “Once we were in there and located Aquila. But it was obvious as soon as we activated the comms system that none of those soft approaches was going to work.” I looked at Kulik and then back to Sophia. “He took over. Immediately. I don’t know what changes have been made to his code, but they’re significant and have given him a decided advantage.”

  “Advantage?” Kulik asked.

  “Corvus couldn’t fight him. In fact,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach again, “he terrorised her. Tortured her.”

  “Corvus is an AI,” Kulik snapped.

  “Who feels just like we do,” I said pointedly. “That corrupt code has migrated. Aquila didn’t, but the code did. We all knew this. Corvus is not the AI she was when we left Earth.”

  Kulik slowly nodded his head in agreement.

  Sophia looked at me with her mask in place and said, “The code didn’t differentiate between her corruption and Aquila’s, did it?”

  I closed my eyes, seeing the phoenix dying all over again.

  “I should have known,” I said softly. “I should have figured it out before I went in there. I killed her.”

  Kulik let out a disgruntled huff of breath.

  “Corvus is an AI, Lieutenant Commander,” he said. “Whether it feels or not, it is designed for one thing and one thing only. To serve us. And you backed her up anyway, so why the guilt trip?”

  I glared at the man. He hadn’t been there. He hadn’t witnessed what I had witnessed. He hadn’t heard her scream.

  But I said none of that, willing myself to remain in control, as I turned my eyes back to Sophia.

  “I tried to get some intel on how Aquila broke his chains,” I said. A small smile graced the captain’s lips and then disappeared. “He admitted he’d had help, but I couldn’t get an answer on what’s happened to the AU crew and passengers onboard.”

  Sophia frowned slightly.

  “What are his intentions?” Kulik asked.

  “World domination,” I said dryly.

  “This is no time to jest, Saitō,” Kulik snapped.

  “His words, not mine, Commander,” I offered. “He also said that we were an obstacle that he had to overcome.”

  Kulik settled slightly. Sophia sucked in a breath, clearly perturbed by what I’d just said.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “By that stage, Corvus was in agony. I couldn’t…I couldn’t stand by and watch that, let that happen, while Aquila played with me, drawing things out.”

  Kulik scoffed, unimpressed with my show of weakness, no doubt.

  I pushed on, ignoring the first officer as best I could.

  “I used the code,” I said. “Having the comms system isolated felt too weak a prison cell for him.”

  “That is your emotions talking,” Kulik said.

  Sophia offered him a scowl but didn’t correct him. To me, she said, “Go on, Saitō.”

  “I’d hoped she’d survived,” I said as steadily as I could manage. “But she didn’t. Aquila, at least, is also dead.”

  “Onboard his ship also?” Kulik asked, sounding surprised.

  I gave him a look that should have had me doing pushups as punishment but quickly covered it with a shake of my head.

  “No. Not at all,” I said. “He might be able to tell that the part of him onboard our vessel has been destroyed, but that’s only a hopeful guess. The Aquila in our comms system was separate from the Aquila onboard his vessel. And he is a ‘he’ by the way. Very much so. He even made a point of calling Corvus a little girl.”

  Kulik just shook his head.

  I straightened up and looked at Sophia.

  “I made a decision in the heat of the moment, ma’am,” I said, delivering the statement as one would an official report. “In the process, I killed our AI.”

  Sophia stared at me for a long moment while Kulik practically salivated at the lips waiting for her to pass judgement.

  In the end, she just said, “Can you reboot her?”

  I stared down at the data stick. I had no idea if it would work. Or if the corrupted code had changed things so much that a standard reboot would fail. If it did, we were screwed. But then, we were already screwed pretty much sideways. Aquila was dogging us, determined to destroy us, and we had no idea if he’d even laid the next jump point yet.

  Either way, we couldn’t reach New Earth. But now we didn’t even have an AI to help us survive this. Unless the reboot worked.

  “I’m not sure, Captain,” I finally admitted. “It should work, but…”

  “Yes,” she said. “Things have changed.”

  “Well,” Kulik announced with all the flare of a pissed off general, “that’s just perfect, isn’t it? He’s practically stranded us in a war zone without any ammo.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Commander,” Sophia said, steadily. “He has excised a rogue AI interloper who presented an obvious danger to the survival of the ship.”

  “He ‘killed’ our AI in the process. We won’t be able to use the jump point if he can’t fix his damn mistake.”

  Sophia offered Kulik a chilling stare, that had the abrasive man backing down. Reluctantly. But anyone faced with one of Sophia Anderson’s cold stares would have backed down. Despite who they were in the command chain.

  “We reboot Corvus,” Sophia said in clipped tones. “And if it doesn’t work, we take control of all systems manually. One by one if we have to.”

  Kulik just looked at her, face blank.r />
  “Come on, Anton,” she said, cajolingly. “The first jump point exists.”

  He frowned, clearly not getting the captain’s meaning.

  She leaned forward and said, voice deadpan, “We are not alone.” Back to normal tone of voice, she added, “Or, at least, we won’t be for long. Pavo and Vela are following. And between the three of us,” she announced, “we’ll find a way to deal with Aquila.

  “Corvus or not,” she said, “we will survive this. I have no intention of rolling over and exposing my belly. Not yet. Not ever. And I expect every single member of my crew to think along the same lines as me. Am I clear?”

  Kulik looked up at the captain with a strange look on his face. For a second, I couldn’t decipher it.

  And then he said, “Yes, Captain. Crystal clear.”

  Surprise, I realised. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, respect.

  Finally, someone else saw in Sophia what I had seen at the very beginning.

  A force to be reckoned with.

  Thirty-Three

  Orange Alert

  Sophia

  “That will be all, Commander Kulik,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the first officer replied, offering a picture-perfect salute and heading back to the bridge.

  I watched him go, aware that Leo was watching me. I wasn’t sure if what I was about to do was the right thing to do. But one look at the state Leo had been in when he’d returned to the bridge after excising Aquila, and I knew one thing for certain.

  I couldn’t not do this.

  The door slid shut behind Kulik and silence fell in the ready room. I glanced at the gel walls, which showed no images and no colouring. Losing Corvus had meant we’d lost some of the more interesting aspects of the gel wall. It was still highly resistant to wilful damage, and I was fairly certain it could still self-clean. But communicating via it was gone.

  As were my bonsai trees.

  Finally, I’d stalled enough, and brought my eyes back to Leo.

  “Are you OK?” I said.

  He let out a little breath and nodded his head.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I shook mine.

  “This is me asking as Sophia,” I said. “Not as the captain. This is me asking as your friend.”

  “My friend,” he said. “Are we friends?”

  “I was hoping we’d be more,” I admitted. “I understand now if that isn’t possible. And I should apologise if I misinterpreted anything. But in my defence, you did touch me first.”

  “I did,” Leo said, face carefully concealing what he might be feeling right then.

  I hadn’t realised Leo was that good at hiding his feelings. Hell, he’d just let them spew all over my ready room floor when he’d been talking about killing Corvus. It was clear that he’d felt a bond with the AI. And the fallout of his actions had caused him heartache of some sort.

  That’s what I liked about Leo, I realised. I liked that he felt. That he was free enough to do so. He was a good bridge officer. He kept his cool and did his job without any fuss. But as I’d got to know him better, as I’d…watched him more and more, I’d seen the emotions. The feelings he failed to suppress.

  If I were honest with myself, I was desperately jealous of Leo’s ability to feel and yet to switch those feelings off.

  For me it and always been one or the other. I felt too much. Or I felt too little.

  But Leo had somehow managed to find a way to bridge that gap. And I was drawn to that ability of his.

  I was drawn to him.

  “But in my defence,” Leo said, repeating my words back to me, “you made it difficult to keep my hands off you.”

  “I did not,” I said, smiling softly.

  “Oh,” he said, “you did. Very much. How’s a man to resist a woman who's in control of her world?”

  I arched my brow at him.

  “Most men run the other way,” I said.

  “Most men are mad,” he offered.

  We stared at each other. This was nice, I thought. It wasn’t awkward at all. It frightened me a little.

  But I wanted more.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Now,” he said, looking down at the data stick he still held in his hand, “we see if Corvus wants to come out to play." He grimaced as he said that. Pain flickering behind his eyes briefly.

  I tried not to show my disappointment though. I hadn’t been talking about the ship.

  Leo looked up at me and cocked his head.

  “Unless you have a better idea,” he said.

  I looked at him and grinned.

  He chuckled and shook his head.

  “I’m not sure if I shouldn’t be worried about your wicked side, Captain,” he announced.

  “Only if you have no desire to be wicked with me,” I offered.

  He looked at me then. Eyes steady, face serious. And then he stood up and stepped toward me, placing the data stick back down on the desk.

  Leo wasn’t that much taller than me. But as he stood to full height, one hand resting on the desk beside me, the other moving to rest across my body from its counterpart, he seemed so much taller than me right then. He bracketed me with his body and then slowly leaned in.

  His hot breath coasted over my lips, but no skin touched me. Then his head moved to the side, and his breath laid a trail over my neck until his mouth came to a stop by my ear. Still not touching.

  He whispered, “I have many wicked desires where you’re concerned, Sophia. Never doubt it.”

  He pulled back and looked at me.

  “The ball’s in your court,” he said softly, then reached forward and picked up the data stick.

  One last look in my eyes and then he spun on his heel and left.

  It was ridiculous, but I liked that he hadn’t saluted. That he hadn’t waited to be dismissed. That I hadn’t felt the need to take back control and place distance between us by using his rank and issuing a command.

  It felt right. Natural. Ours. Out there, on the bridge, I knew he’d be the respectful and dutiful officer. But in here, he’d just shown me he could be someone else. Someone I needed. Someone who was just mine.

  I realised I was smiling. I tried to stop. It took a few efforts and a face scrub. And then I straightened my uniform and made my way back to the bridge.

  If we didn’t get Corvus back online, then ignition at 2300 was out. It seemed we kept taking two steps forward and then one back. I was worried about the rest of our fleet. I was worried about how close the Sector Two and One ships were getting.

  They needed to be warned. That much was obvious. They all needed to be protected.

  I felt the weight of command fall on my shoulders as I stepped onto the flight deck.

  “Captain on the bridge!” Kulik announced, louder than I’d heard him ever say it.

  He nodded his head at me and flicked his eyes around the bridge crew. They all stood straighter as I walked across the deck.

  “Lieutenant Commander Saitō,” I said.

  “Yes, Captain,” Leo offered.

  “Let’s do this, shall we?”

  “Aye-aye, ma’am,” he said, slipping the data stick into an access point on his science console.

  “Lieutenant Gāo,” I called. “Eyes on your scans. Rebooting Corvus might just bring everything back online, and if we’re active, Aquila will spot us.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Gāo said.

  “Orange alert,” I announced.

  “Orange alert,” Kulik repeated. “Aye-aye, ma’am.”

  I looked at Leo.

  “The ship is in your hands, Lieutenant Commander,” I said.

  He nodded his head.

  “Standby for reboot,” he said. “Rebooting in…three, two, one.”

  The lights on the bridge flickered and then dimmed, the gel walls glowed a soft white. I had hoped for blue. The consoles all came to life, flashing, beeping. The viewscreen before us suddenly showed the black of space around us; the odd asteroid lit up by the sy
stem’s distant sun.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” I heard Saitō say under his breath.

  Come on, Corvus, I willed the AI inside my head.

  No one spoke. We all held our breaths.

  And then a female voice, not too dissimilar to my own but still uniquely hers, started to sing, “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.”

  I stared at Leo in horror.

  Leo looked concerned for a split second, and then he started to laugh.

  “Someone’s been watching 2001: A Space Odyssey,” he said.

  Corvus giggled. Leo blinked his eyes rapidly, hiding his face from the rest of the crew.

  “Welcome back, Phoenix,” he said.

  “Phoenix?” Corvus repeated. “Who’s Phoenix?”

  Leo just shook his head.

  Thirty-Four

  It Was Priceless

  Leo

  It was a good thing, I told myself. Corvus didn’t need to remember what Aquila had done to her in that room. It was better this way. She’d been through enough.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, as the rest of the bridge crew checked systems and ensured we were still in the dark. No one wanted Aquila to turn up in person and finish what he’d started.

  “I’m fine, Leo. There’s so much more room in here,” she said. “Why did you back me up?”

  “It seemed a good idea,” I admitted.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Aquila has been removed from the comms system, but it’s still corrupted.”

  “Oh, you have been a busy boy while I’ve been gone.”

  “It’s been a long day, Corvus,” I said.

  There was silence for a bit as I checked on various systems under my command. All seemed to be functioning as usual.

  “You look tired,” she observed. “Everyone looks tired. It’s not healthy to have a tired crew.”

  No, it wasn’t. I looked across to where Sophia was talking to Kulik. The captain didn’t show her weariness as easily as everyone else, but I knew she’d be feeling it. Starting the engines tonight was going to push us to the limit.