9


I returned to the Jellybird with a lot on my mind. Life was more complicated now. People depended on me, and if Henshaw was to be believed, they were looking to me for leadership.
I had friends, and that made me vulnerable. Losing my family to my violent enemies had taught me how devastating the weakness was to a man at war with a power as formidable as the Union.
Gone were the days when I could drop into the middle of my adversaries, shoot and slash to my heart’s content, and then disappear into the shadows without any real consequence. When they came after me, they would be coming after Elise and the others.
I still wasn’t sure about Henshaw, but I wanted to believe his story. “X, have you been able to analyze Henshaw’s behavior during our interview?”
“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I would prefer to tell you with certainty that he is, how would you say it, a lying jack hole, but to do so would be to fabricate a report. That isn’t something I’m programmed to do to my host.”
“You know it creeps me out when you refer to me as your host,” I said offhandedly.
“I will endeavor to find a more suitable description of our relationship,” X-37 promised. “You have work to do. Jelly is requesting your presence on the bridge.”
“I’m tired, X,” I said. “Why doesn’t Jelly just asked me herself?”
“It seems she is trying to establish a communication link with the Bold Freedom,” X-37 advised without emotion. My LAI was neither excited nor bored with this news.
“What?” I exclaimed, stopping dead in my tracks.
“There was a distress call of some sort and a garbled plea for help. Something about the alarming approach of a comet on their location,” X-37 explained.
I headed for the bridge. “What the hell are they doing this far into uncharted space?”
“I imagine they’re doing the same thing we are doing, running from the Union,” X-37 said.
“I know they’re on the run, but we’re only here because our situation is extreme,” I said, immediately scolding myself for underestimating the desperate nature of the Bold Freedom and its passengers. The Union wouldn’t allow them to survive, or if it did, it would be by putting them in a place worse than Dreadmax.
When I arrived on the bridge, several holo displays were active, searching quadrants in the nearby systems. “How can you not know where they are? I thought you said something about a comet. Just look for the comet and find the ship.”
“Perhaps now is the time for me to explain, Reaper Cain, that comets are not as rare as you might have come to believe with your limited human senses,” X-37 said. “Jelly lacks the power to see much of the star systems around the one we are currently residing in. She’s attempting to backtrack the distress signal, but there is some nebula interference we’re still trying to figure out. My point, however, is that there are comets around every star. Some are larger and more dangerous than others.”
“I never said I was an astronomer,” I muttered.
“Clearly not,” X-37 said.
“Don’t get nasty with me, X. The last thing I need is an intellectually superior and judgmental LAI chiming in with his opinion every five minutes,” I said.
“Would you like me to keep a log of our conversations and the frequency at which I evaluate your mental prowess?” X-37 asked.
“Not only no, but hell no,” I said, pulling up information on a workstation and trying to see where this distress signal had come from. “Get Tom up here and make sure Henshaw and the Lady Faith are working on this as well.”
“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.
“Jelly, can you give me an update?” I asked. “What type of nebula are we dealing with and how big is it?”
Several seconds passed, which was a long time for a ship AI to hesitate. “I believe we are dealing with a highly ionized emission nebula, but little is known about the star systems in this region. As for the Bold Freedom and its distress call, I’ve not been able to respond other than by a simple acknowledgment that we received the distress call. They’ve asked for an ETA several times, stating that they are low on food and water, and completely out of fuel. This is the main problem. They are unable to steer out of the way of the comet.”
“Unlucky bastards,” I said without thinking.
“They are unfortunate,” Jelly agreed. “My analysis suggests they are less than ninety-six standard hours from destruction. After that time, they won’t be able to evade the debris caused by outgassing when it neared this system’s star. Even if they have fuel, no one will be able to get close enough to rescue them while maintaining enough speed to still escape their doom.”
“Can you at least tell me exactly where they are?” I asked.
“I’ve narrowed it down considerably since we first detected the distress call. There are two possible comets as large as they are reporting. They are in different systems, neither of which are close to our current position,” Jelly said.
* * *
By the time we finished our calculations, I was more mentally and emotionally exhausted than after a gut-check workout with Elise. It had been a long time since I’d bent over a workstation and wrestled with numbers and astro-navigation charts like this.
It was all hands on deck for this one. Even Path worked on the problem in his own peculiar way. He spent a lot more time looking at the numbers than actually manipulating them, only making a computation after meditating on the charts for some time.
I’d expected Elise wouldn’t like this type of boring mind work. But she went at it like she went at all challenges, determined to beat us to the answer. Every time I watched her do something like this, I reminded myself that I didn’t really know that much about her or how she had grown up. Despite her rough teenage years, she had undoubtedly been educated in the most expensive schools the Union had to offer until she made her break.
None of us had a chance of beating X-37 and Jelly to the location of the Bold Freedom, but my limited artificial intelligence and two ship AIs insisted we were helping. Occasionally, one of them would ask the humans questions and we would speculate on various hypotheses.
Because that was what we could do that Jelly and X-37 couldn’t, imagine things.
“I believe that we have a good location on the freighter,” X-37 finally announced. “It is two systems away and cannot be confirmed until we get much closer for our sensors to take direct observations. This region of space is dirty with nebulas.”
“But we’re pretty sure where it’s at,” I said.
“That means something different to Jelly and me,” X-37 pointed out.
“Of course it does,” I said. “Let’s assume this location is accurate enough to be actionable. What can we do now to help them?”
Everyone stared at me with defeated expressions. Elise looked angry, like she wanted to give the universe the finger. Tom’s downcast stare made him look heartbroken. He toyed with his well-pressed jumpsuit to avoid meeting my eyes.
On the holo view, Path was calm and contemplative as always, but he looked straight ahead as though he had accepted the deaths of everyone on board the Bold Freedom.
Henshaw was the only one to face me directly, as though he understood the hard realities we were facing. “Sorry, Mr. Cain, even if we could get there in time, we don’t have any fuel to get the Bold Freedom moving again.”
“I must add that there are numerous slip tunnels in this galactic region,” X-37 dropped in like information would be important to our discussion. “We avoid problematic systems once we have a better map of the area.”
“We are getting better at determining their locations,” Jelly added, in what ship AI probably assumed was an encouraging tone. “I hope that is helpful, Captain, but I still haven’t located a fuel source for the lost freighter.”
“Thanks, Jelly, but this isn’t that complicated,” I said, frustrated that none of my friends saw where we needed to go.
Henshaw became indignant. “Well, why don’t you tell us where your superior mind and reasoned intellect says we should go.”
“My analysis suggests that Mr. Henshaw believes he is superior to you in areas of intelligence,” X-37 advised privately.
I didn’t answer. X-37 probably knew where I thought we should go, but I wanted Elise and the others to figure it out. Sometimes my LAI could be intuitive. It was like we were a team or something.
Elise crossed her arms, chewing her lower lip like she really didn’t like me right now. After a moment, she spoke. “You want us to do what the Union is doing to chase us.”
“I’m sorry, how does that have anything to do with getting hit by a comet?” Henshaw asked. His opinion of Elise’s theory, even though she was holding back, was pretty plain. Henshaw was used to being the smartest man in the room and the first to know the answer to a problem.
“Take it a bit further,” I said.
“We’ve been scanning areas of space we have no intention of going with the intent of misdirecting Nebs and his ship captains. You want us to figure out where the Bold Freedom wants to go and then go there,” Elise said, seeming more confident now.
“How does that help the Bold Freedom?” Tom asked, respectfully interested.
“The Bold Freedom needs fuel. That’s where they were going, to find the natural resources or some other way of powering their ship,” Elise said.
“I should’ve thought of that,” Tom admitted.
Henshaw took a moment longer but lost some of his attitude. “Very good, Mr. Cain. We will need to project their destination, figure out how long it will take to get there, and then have a plan for delivering the fuel to the Bold Freedom in time to escape the path of the comet.”
I clapped my hands together and smiled broadly. “Well then, let’s do this. There are three slip tunnels in this system. We are still in a place no one from the Union has ever been. Let’s pick one and jump. I prefer we move toward the system the Bold Freedom was trying to reach if possible.”
“Our map of the area is increasing as we explore, but we have a long way to go before we have a complete understanding of this region. It doesn’t matter which slip tunnel we use. We are taking a risk every time we make a blind jump. The more data we gather, the stronger our conclusions will be,” Tom said. “But there is more debris than any of us could’ve expected. Most of it is so diffused, none of us will even notice it, but it’s a good reminder not to become overconfident. Everything we are encountering is new.”
Henshaw nodded agreement.
I had expected him to make a snide comment about the mechanic giving navigation advice, but he didn’t. Maybe I shouldn’t be making assumptions. Maybe I needed to stick with what I knew, like the fact that the Union was after us and wouldn’t quit, and that Henshaw had killed a man for Nebs.
There was a frenzy of activity once we decided which tunnel to take. I caught Henshaw staring at me in the middle of it. It was almost private for a moment because everyone was focusing on their work as intensely as possible.
“What do I have to do to prove myself?” Henshaw asked, the holo view flickering slightly as he finished his words.
I had thought about that a lot. He had warned me about Nebs and how the vice admiral could control or interfere with X-37 next time we met. That was something. If he worked for Nebs, this revelation was treasonous.
“Trust but verify, that’s always been a good policy,” I said. “At this point, we are stuck with each other. Unless you’re part of an extremely complicated and far-reaching plot to become a sleeper agent on my ship, I’d bet money that your life’s worth less than mine to the Union. So I may not trust you, but we have to work together or we both die.”
Henshaw looked sad, like he had expected real friendship or at least something more than an uneasy truce.
“I bet you feel like a jerk now,” X-37 said.
“I’m good, X,” I said, not looking away from Henshaw.
“Uncertainty detected,” X-37 said.
I ignored X. “Let’s start by proving your upgrades can withstand any cyber-attack launched by Vice Admiral Nebs.”
“I think that’s an excellent place to start. I will build some scenarios in which one of the AIs attempts to penetrate X-37’s defenses. And while we’re at it, you should devise a way to test the Jellybird’s stealth cloak, a game of hide and seek perhaps,” Henshaw suggested. “I should also start working on the Bold Freedom’s destination planet before Tom figures it out and takes all the glory.”