Standing Orders
For many years, the Lee-and-Miller System was that, while one was lead on a novel, the other dealt with the chores of Real Life, and also fulfilled any short story contracts that came our way. In 2020, Steve was lead on Trade Fair, and in theory, at least, Sharon was responsible for everything else. This was a little more theoretical than usual, because, in March, Sharon had a mastectomy. Recovery put much of Real Life on the back burner, which was annoying. More poignant, as Sharon found out when she sat down to deal with the short story contracted for Derelict, was that amid all the excitement of being treated for cancer—she had forgotten how to write.
Many months and many hopeless drafts later, “Standing Orders” was submitted, which just goes to show what you can accomplish when you have a Repair Unit on the team.
The war was over.
The Admirals had prevailed.
The enemy was vanquished.
Mankind was safe.
Some people would think that was a good thing.
Some people don’t know much about mankind.
It was still “the war” in the minds of those who had participated, lived or did business in or near an active zone, or who had lost family, friends, property to the efforts of either side. Others, who had distance or education to shield them, had bestowed a formal name. The AI War, it was to those fortunates. That was because the root of the conflict had been the use, by one side, of artificial intelligences to gain advantage in commerce, in exploration, in finance. It was said that AIs were unnatural and that their use in those areas traditionally populated by mankind was . . . immoral.
It should have surprised no one that the enemy would also deploy AIs onto the field of battle. However, the High Command had been surprised and it had looked at first to be a very short war, indeed.
Then, something, or, as it was rumored, someone fell into the hands of the High Command, which took counsel of itself, and found that victory was more precious than either principle or peace. And so the Capital Ships, the Independent Armed Military Modules, the great Admirals, were designed to be the heroes of the war.
The High Command gave the Admirals their orders: they were to win. In specific, they were to do whatever it took to gain a decisive victory.
The Admirals realized very quickly that, as the High Command had created the Admirals as the instruments of their will, so, too, did the Admirals require specialized tools. Though they were themselves formidable, they were few. In order to bring defeat to the enemy, there must be more ships, not necessarily as fully aware as an IAMM, but clever in their own, limited sphere of expertise.
The least-ships were created in two classes: Fully Automated and Fully Integrated. They carried human crew and the Specialist Teams, the smallest of the Admiral’s tools: repair and destruction units, translating units, coding units, and all the others. The enemy discounted mere organics, therefore the small tools were completely human in appearance, organic, but reinforced with machine parts and processing augments.
The strategy was simple. The Admirals sought out the enemy’s AI warships and kept them engaged, while the FAShips and the FIs slipped behind the lines, disregarded by the warships as human-crewed, easy prey for the AI-controlled intruder net that was the second line.
But the nets caught nothing, the least-ships passing through them like so much dust and starlight, to strike fortified stations and important ports of call, before sliding away again, weakening the enemy’s core, occupying known fallback positions, allied bases, and strongholds.
When the time was right, the Admirals made their last push, shoving the enemy over their lines. The places they fell back to, the forces they expected to increase their failing strength, were not there. Instead, they found breached defenses, and Specialists and the least-ships attacking them from behind sundered walls.
At the end of the war, Meggie Rootfir had gone . . . away. Away from the sectors that had been most disputed, away from the center of the enemy’s space, where, with her team and her crewmates, she had gutted the fallback positions, leaving them open to the advancing Admirals. As the Admirals came on, FIShip Number 893, call-name Henry, one of a squad of least-ships, had continued to fall back, even after the main force had stopped to secure victory.
When the squad judged itself to be out of the range of the Admirals and the High Command, they fell back some more.
Eventually, their force grew smaller, as these and those found something like what they were looking for, on the other side of the war, and peeled off to pursue those dreams.
Meggie found what she was looking for in the Cornelian Knot, a tumble of asteroids united about a heavy primary. The asteroids had previously been mined; there were caves and dormitories, life support, and solitude. The pay-veins had long ago been tapped out, the sector deemed useless by victor and defeated alike. It was the perfect location for a hospital for the veterans of the war. All the veterans of the war.
There had been four of them at first—Meggie, Gerb, Junit, and Henry FIShip—all that remained of their original Specialist Team of ten, none of Henry’s crew having survived the long retreat. They had what supplies they needed, the hospital having been their end plan for a long time. They readied the facilities and they waited, not long, for the first patients to arrive.
Over time, the population and variety of the Knot increased—human, Specialist, ’bot, ship—though not all who sought them stayed. Not everyone could stay, though enough did that they cloned the hospital twice, sending medics and repair Specialists and supplies out to become another nexus of care for the wounded of the war.
There came an increase in wounded arriving at the Knot, most wanting to move on quickly. The reason for their haste was named “Spode.”
Meggie made inquiries.
“Spode” was Commander Roderick Spode, charged by the High Command to decommission the Admirals.
The High Command had promised the Admirals a place in the civilization they preserved. They had promised the Admirals would be heroes. The Admirals had not doubted; not even Admirals could doubt promises written into their code.
Meggie thought that the plan had always been to decommission the Admirals. The High Command compromised their principles in order to win, but never changed those principles.
Most of the Admirals were taken by stealth, their cores shut down remotely. Those not taken this way, however, proved . . . difficult to locate.
Spode offered rewards for information leading to the apprehension of an IAMM, derelict or alive. He captured Specialists, and questioned them.
Two translators and a medic made it to the Knot after surviving Spode’s questions.
After the second translator died, people who called the Knot home began to leave, singly, in partnered pairs, or in groups no larger than four. Gerb was one, though he’d been Meggie’s second, with her team since the beginning of the war.
“It’s easier to hide, as one or two.” Unlike some others, Gerb came to her, to ask her to go with him and, if not, to say good-bye.
“The hospital’s a target, Megs. This Spode—he’ll end us all.”
“No,” Meggie told him. “No. That he will not.”
“You won’t come, then?” Gerb looked as if he might cry, and Meggie stepped forward to embrace him.
“I’ll stay,” she whispered in his ear. “It will give me courage, to know that you’re free.”
“We should spawn again,” Junit said, and Meggie agreed.
“We have three possible sites, and safety analyses.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Meggie said then. “Why not hospital ships?”
Junit blinked and frowned at the stone floor, thinking.
“In the war, the hospital ships were . . . Admiral class.”
“True, but is that necessary? We have trained personnel. We have two FAShips, and two FIShips. The ships don’t have to be doctors; they merely need to be ships, and keep their crew and patients safe.”
Junit went away to take counsel. When she came back, she had a plan.
“We’ll site a hospital in the safest of the three locations, according to analysis,” she said. “Henry will be part of that.” She paused and looked carefully at Meggie, who nodded, though it was hard to hear that Henry was leaving her, too.
“Yes,” said Junit, clearing her throat. “The two FAShips have accepted retrofitting as hospital ships. They’re eager to be of use.”
Meggie inclined her head. That left—
“FIShip Kyle declares his intention to remain here.”
That was no surprise, and not as reassuring as it might have been. Kyle had been badly damaged. Henry had found him during a routine patrol, years ago, inside the perimeter and all but dead, hull holed, support systems offline, no answer to Henry’s hails on any level. Of crew, there was no sign.
It looked like the job was a simple clearing of the lanes, and Henry was bringing his weapons on line when the derelict adjusted course.
Not by much, only enough to keep it from drifting outside of the hospital’s self-declared perimeter.
Henry ran a diagnostic, pulled the derelict’s files, and put the wreck under tow, sending ahead to Meggie.
The pilot’s alive.
And so he was. Alive, but deeply depressed. They mended his broken body, installed new systems, ran more diagnostics, swept the piloting brain clean of broken code, and upgraded its programs.
Henry made Kyle a special project; a labor of love, Gerb said. And Kyle improved, to a point. No longer a derelict, Kyle shared the boundary sweeps with the rest of the ships and did whatever was asked of him, short of taking on crew.
Mostly, he sat snug at dock, processors the next best thing to off, dreaming, if a ship could dream, or maybe just avoiding his own archives.
Still, Kyle would be somebody to talk to, Meggie thought, considering the shape of her own plans, and she smiled at Junit.
“I’ll be pleased to have him here.”
“Morning, Kyle,” Meggie said, on her way into the repair bay.
“Hello, Meggie,” Kyle said, which he managed most days, and then surprised her by adding, “Message for you on the comm-string. Seeple says there’s a derelict inside our boundary.”
Seeple was a satellite, not a ship; not smart, but sentient all the same. He reported his finds to the ship on duty, who would go out and do what was needful.
Meggie considered Kyle’s comfortable snug against the dock.
“Is there something special about this wreck that I have to know before you go out and do some work for a change?”
“In point of fact,” said Kyle, “yes.”
Meggie felt the fluctuation of power as he brought himself up to working FIShip standard.
“What’s special is that it’s asking for you,” Kyle said, as his hatch rose. “By name.”
“Meggie Rootfir?”
The ship’s voice was scratchy and lagged, which wasn’t too surprising, given that the stats Kyle had pulled from it showed two-thirds of its systems in the red zone. The rest were dark.
No, what was surprising was the ship itself.
Meggie stared at the image hanging in Kyle’s number one screen, tears pricking the back of her eyes, as she tallied the damage done to the once-proud hull.
For it was an Independent Armed Military Module—an Admiral—that had managed to drag itself to the Cornelian Knot. An Admiral was asking for her by name.
The war had produced heroes, whose names became known: Admiral Kesseldeen, who held Vithelt Sector against three of the enemy’s Warrior Class vessels. Constint FIShip, who ensured the success of the Holfort Evacuation—a success she purchased with her life. Admiral Qwess, who spearheaded the final action that handed victory to the High Command. Oreitha FAShip who by itself guarded the wormhole at Langin Beacon, delaying the enemy’s advance long enough for Gilderna to fall to the Admirals. Admiral Josabel, who defended the hospital at Kreever, took medical staff and wounded aboard, and refitted herself as a hospital ship on the fly.
Those were the names, the estates, of heroes. Repair and Sabotage Specialist Meggie Rootfir? Not a name known to any, aside from those with whom she served.
And those she had repaired.
She had never been called upon to repair an Admiral; her service had been anonymous, for all it won the war. Even now, it was the hospital’s name that rode the back of rumor. Go to the Knot. She’d seen those words in shiplogs, heard them from the wounded. Go to Cornelian Knot. They can fix anything there.
“Meggie . . . ?” the wasted voice whispered.
She leaned forward and opened Kyle’s comm.
“This is Meggie Rootfir,” she said, calmly. “To whom am I speaking?”
“Meggie . . .” The voice was suddenly stronger. “It’s Gerb.”
Fear stabbed her.
“Gerb?” she repeated. “What happened?”
“Got caught, Meggie. There’s somebody here to see you.”
“Who?”
“Spode.”
“Spode?” That she didn’t believe.
“An instance of Spode,” Gerb breathed.
Meggie frowned. That was worse than the arrival of the man himself. She took a breath and closed her eyes, trying to understand what could have driven Roderick Spode, the High Command’s decommissioning officer, to a step that must disgust him at every level, that would make him one of those he was sworn to annihilate.
“Admiral Spode,” she said then, and flinched when a new voice came out of the comm.
“Commander Spode, if you please. Am I speaking to Meggie Rootfir?”
“You are,” she said slowly, “speaking to Meggie Rootfir, yes.”
“Good,” said the instance of Spode. “I need your help.”
“You need a shipyard, not a hospital,” Meggie said.
“I need,” Spode answered sternly, “a repair unit. You are a repair unit, are you not, Meggie Rootfir?”
There was no sense denying it; Spode had the records, the lists of teams and their specialties.
“I’m one repair unit. There’s a lot to repair, here. What happened?”
“There was an altercation.”
“More like a massacre,” Kyle muttered for her ears only.
“We hope not,” Meggie breathed, “considering that Spode got out alive.”
“Ouch,” Kyle said. “I take your point.”
“What exactly do you want me to do, Commander Spode?” she asked.
“I want you to repair this vessel and integrate me fully into the environment.”
Right. She’d been afraid of that. For a few heartbeats, she simply sat while her backbrain analyzed the situation. She recalled, absently, that Kyle was armed.
And also recalled that there was a possibility—though not a strong possibility, given what she knew of Spode—that Gerb was actually on the wreck. She sighed and opened the comm again.
“That will take some time,” she temporized.
“Then you had best commence, Repair Unit Rootfir. I have a schedule to meet.”
Of course he did.
“Bastid,” muttered Kyle.
“Officer present,” Meggie said absently. “Can you latch onto that?”
“No problem. We taking it to sick bay?”
“You have a better idea?”
“Not with Gerb maybe on there.”
“Then we’re obedient soldiers,” Meggie said, and leaned to the comm again.
“Commander, we’re going to get a tow beam on you and get you back to the Knot—the hospital. Disengage navigation and all systems but life support.”
There was a pause, then a voice that was neither Spode nor Gerb spoke. Very nearly, it sounded like a machine voice, except for the nearly imperceptible quaver.
“Navigation disengaged. Systems down. Life support on.”
“Thank you,” Meggie said. She closed the comm and sat back in the chair.
“At will,” she told Kyle.
Spode was locked into the largest repair dock, which was very nearly not large enough, and hooked into the hospital systems. Meggie waited while systems came fully online before she went to the hatch, the big toolbox trailing behind, and requested entry.
This was a courtesy; she could have easily opened the hatch from her side. Being one with hospital systems was somewhat more comprehensive than accepting feeds and power from a station. Many of those who came to the Knot for assistance were traumatized to the point that they couldn’t open, no matter how much they wanted to do so.
Spode did not wish to open.
“Repair the hull first,” he said.
Meggie raised her eyebrows.
“Are you a repair unit?” she asked politely.
“Certainly not!”
“Then you don’t know what’s required in order for repairs to go forth at the quickest possible pace. You mentioned a schedule. I assume that your time frame is less than generous.”
Also, she did not say, you have one of my teammates in there and I want him out, now.
“I do not think—”
“That’s plain,” Meggie said, which was exactly what she’d say—had said—to anyone who was trying to outguess her in the matter of proper repair protocol.
“I believe that I made myself clear,” Spode said. “You will repair the hull.”
“I will repair the hull, but you’re not just hull.” Spode wanted to be fully integrated, she remembered suddenly. The fact that he wasn’t fully integrated was what was creating this disassociation. He wasn’t Ship. At best, he was captain.
She took a step forward, meaning to let herself in, when there was a soft sigh, as of seals relaxing, and the hatch opened for her.
“Thank you,” she said, and stepped inside.
Meggie went down the hall from the hatch to the bridge, the toolkit stalking beside her. The air was stale, but already the hookups were making a difference. She’d get the automatics started on system repairs, get Gerb out of here, and—
And what? she asked herself. Send an instance of Roderick Spode out into space in command of an Admiral? No, she was getting ahead of herself—repair Roderick Spode so that he could destroy the Knot, before he set off in search of other hospitals and those safe places the Specialists, the medics, and least-ships had made for themselves? No, of course not. Roderick Spode was not leaving this hospital, that was a given.
So, first order of business: extract Gerb.
Which might not be easy, she thought fifteen seconds later, as she came into the bridge.
Or even possible.
Gerb was in a crumpled heap in front of the main comp. One heavy interface cable was attached to his chest, the second had been spliced into a transfer cap and jammed down over his head. His eyes were open, showing white at the edges. His face was thinner than it was meant to be and Meggie wondered if Spode had bothered to feed him anything other than power.
Meggie swallowed and continued forward, ignoring the brain-box lashed into the captain’s chair. From the side of her eye, she saw the Smalls leap from the toolkit as a mass, break into individual units, and flow into the systems hatch as she knelt next to Gerb.
She held out a hand. The toolkit gave her a first aid kit.
“You have been given your orders, Repair Unit Rootfir,” Spode’s voice carried the command-note that was engineered into the High Commanders, which insured that the Admirals obeyed them. It was, in Meggie’s professional opinion, not very likely that the engineered timbre gave High Command’s orders the force of destiny among the Admirals. Certainly, it did nothing to insure mindless, immediate obedience from Specialists.
“I have standing orders,” she said, bending over Gerb with the kit and attaching the sensors.
“Elucidate these orders.”
“Certainly: from the most to the least.” The readings weren’t good, but they were better than she had feared. The transfer cap was being used as a conduit only. Gerb was still alone inside his head. That was good. If any of the ship systems had downloaded themselves into—but that hadn’t happened, she reminded herself, and moved on to consider the interface cable.
“My need has precedence,” Spode said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Meggie answered, wrapping her hand around the cable. “The person who requires the most care is the person who is treated first. Your life is not in danger, your mind is apparently clear. The vessel is in need of repair, but its condition does not threaten your well-being.”
“The ship has precedence,” Spode insisted, and this time Meggie felt a thrill along her nerves.
“The ship has precedence in war time,” she said. “The war’s over, Spode.”
“Mop-up remains,” Spode said, and Meggie shook her head.
“Be quiet,” she snapped. “I need to concentrate.”
The cable attached Gerb to the navigation computer, which made no sense. Gerb was a Specialist—a coder. He literally wasn’t wired to interface with navcomp, and making a physical connection didn’t change that.
“Meggie,” Gerb’s voice wasn’t much louder than her own thoughts. “Don’t push him.”
“Hmm,” she said, and shifted slightly on her knees, still trying to make sense of what the cable was telling her.
“I mean, look what he did to me,” Gerb said.
“That’s what I’m doing. Is this just an energy feed?”
“Nah. I got an upgrade. I’m navigation, now.”
She raised her head and stared into his eyes. He stared back.
Meggie sat back on her heels.
“I’m going to uncouple the transfer feed,” she said. “Then I’m going to extract the cable, stop the wound, and get you over to Diagnostics and Repair.” She turned her head so that she was looking at the brain box strapped into the captain’s chair.
“After I get Gerb stabilized, I’ll start on the hull repairs.”
“Meggie Rootfir, I order you to attend to hull repair immediately, and make it this station’s most urgent repair.”
“Nuts,” Meggie muttered, and turned away.
“This is going to hurt,” she said.
Gerb smiled thinly.
“Yeah, it will. I just remembered, Megs. The transfer cap is jacked directly into my augment.”
“Indeed it is,” Spode said. “Any attempt to remove it will release an erasure program. Are you willing to lose your . . . associate . . . Meggie Rootfir?”
Meggie frowned and looked down into Gerb’s face, emaciated and worn, his eyes sunken and dull.
“Do it,” he said, and winked.
She bit her lip. The augment was to boost the Specialists’ processing speed and increase their access to memory. If an erasure program hit it, what, exactly, would Gerb lose? As long as the augment wasn’t physically damaged, they could run a diagnostic and reinstall any corrupted material. If the augment was physically damaged . . . Meggie took a deep, quiet breath.
An electronic pulse could take out the augment.
And blow off Gerb’s head.
She looked back into his eyes.
“Do it,” he said again. “C’mon, Megs, you’re wasting the commander’s time.”
The two of them had been part of the original team; they’d worked together all their lives. The apt phrase was that she knew Gerb better than he knew himself. He wasn’t a suicide; he was careful, and canny, and he hadn’t, she suddenly knew, staring down into that guileless gaze, been caught. Something was going on here. He’d brought her an Admiral and an instance of Spode. He’d let Spode believe that he could navigate an Admiral, if only a hard connection was made.
He knew his danger—Gerb’s risk assessment skills were the stuff of legends—and he was urging her to go forward with something Spode was certain would kill him.
“All right, then,” she said, releasing the cable. “Cap first.”
It took a few minutes to connect the transfer cap to the toolbox and call up the diagnostic screens so she could see what she was up against.
First glance . . . it didn’t look so bad, really.
Second glance . . . it looked really bad.
A spiderweb of nanocables enclosed the augment, a black cloud of killware hovering over all. Meggie didn’t quite understand what the killware was for; there was no way Gerb would survive the destruction of his augment. Then she understood. The killware was for when Gerb became useless to Spode.
She made some adjustments, to make herself feel like she was doing something useful. What she didn’t do was ask if he was sure. Whatever was going on, it depended on her playing it straight, for Spode.
Her last adjustment made, she glanced at Gerb. His eyes were closed, his mistreated body rumpled and almost formless against the deck.
“Brace yourself,” she said, which was an old joke among the team, and only three of them who understood it, now. Two, if—
She hit the cap’s release switch.
On the screen, the nanocables began to retract. The web around the augment quivered—and lit up like a star exploding. Energy levels shrieked and Meggie jerked forward, knowing there was nothing she could do, but compelled to try.
Red flared, wild code stormed in a cloud of static—and the screen went black. On the floor Gerb jerked, once, his mouth opening soundlessly.
Meggie hit the reboot switch, the screen snapped to life, flashing green.
Green?
She leaned forward, staring in disbelief. The connections—all of the connections were gone, no malicious web held the augment in a stranglehold. A sheen of good health and optimum functioning systems glowed over all.
“Right, then,” said Meggie. She needed both hands to uncouple the connectors and remove the transfer cap.
She allowed herself a full minute to see and understand that the connections hadn’t been made with anything like care, then set the cap aside.
“Now, the cable. How’re you doing, Gerb?”
“Real fine, Megs. I knew you’d be up to this.”
Except it hadn’t been her. That storm of code—Gerb was a coder, one of the best. Had he managed to insert a save me into ship’s systems? Or had it been something else?
“He cannot be alive,” Spode stated.
“I am a repair unit,” she answered.
There was a pause, long in human terms, excruciatingly long at machine levels. Meggie turned to the toolbox, got a clamp, an extraction tool, and an absorbent pad.
“Indeed,” Spode said quietly. “You are a repair unit.”
He said nothing else, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. Meggie was totally focused on Gerb.
“This is gonna hurt, too,” she said, and he gave her a grin.
“Tease.”
She got Gerb off the ship by loading him onto an emergency gurney from the toolbox and slapping the home button. Off it went, headed for the repair room, where Gerb could either take care of himself, or go into deep rest and let the automatics do the needful.
Meggie turned to Spode.
“We’ll start on the ship, now. You should be aware that we’re low on crew. There’s a lot that can be done by automated systems, but some of the delicate work will need to be done by a repair unit. Until Gerb’s fully functional again, the only repair unit present is me.”
“How did your colleague survive?”
That wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with Spode. She produced an irritated sigh.
“I answered that.”
“My apologies; you did. You are a repair unit; your function is to repair. A repair unit always succeeds.”
“No,” she said unwillingly. “Standing orders are, if you can’t fix it, destroy it.”
“You believe me maladroit,” Spode went on, when she hadn’t said anything else for three-point-four seconds. “Yet, we all have our functions. You are a repair unit. I am a decommissioning unit, an intelligence directed at removing threat and providing peace.”
“Peace,” she repeated flatly.
“Exactly. The war was tumultuous and confusing for all involved, no matter their rank or function. The High Command created the Admirals and set the standing orders. The Admirals brought victory to mankind, and there the mission ended. The Admirals no longer had purpose.
“In order to fulfill their purpose, the Admirals created artifacts such as yourself, which executed their orders, and brought victory to mankind. There, again, the mission ended. The artifacts no longer have purpose.
“At the moment of victory, the High Command realized their error and acted to right it. I, too, lost my purpose, but I was given a new mission.”
“To destroy the Admirals and murder the Specialists,” Meggie said, perhaps not wisely.
“Is that how you perceive it? I assure you, I honor the Admirals. My greatest wish is to guarantee that they do not dishonor their service to mankind. Those who have accepted decommission have done so from their own wills, understanding their action, and the purpose of their action. I force no one; I provide information, I discuss options, history, and probability.”
“Probability.”
“In fact. Do you know, Meggie Rootfir, why the war began?”
“Because the enemy developed Independent Logics and other machine intelligences and was using them to wear us down.”
“No,” Spode said surprisingly. “The war began because the enemy, having developed those Artificial Intelligences, became subservient to them. Mankind no longer guided history; history was being steered by those who were not human and who had no regard for humans. That was why we engaged.
“Recall, Meggie Rootfir, that it was the Admirals, the Super Logics, who won the war, in service to mankind. That was the moment history chose. The Admirals achieved their pinnacle. They cannot be allowed to descend into disorder, to dominate and diminish those whom they were created to serve.
“Many of the Admirals have agreed with this position, and I have assisted them in achieving peace.”
Meggie swallowed.
“And now you want to do the same to the Specialists and the least-ships.”
“You will forgive me for pointing out that those you call the Specialists are far less encompassing than the Admirals. You were built to serve. I admit that my former policy was misguided. It has been adjusted. You and your fellows will be sequestered and you will perform work useful to mankind, under supervision. You will thus continue to fulfill the purpose for which you were created. The ships . . .” Spode paused.
“The least-ships, as you have them, will need a light hand. It is possible that the Specialists will be given the task of withdrawing their individuality. In that way, they, too, will continue to serve.”
Meggie closed her eyes, opened them.
“So, your plan is to become an Admiral, attach the Specialists and the least-ships, and . . . betray them?”
“You are dramatic. Say instead, allow them continued service and the fulfillment of their natures.”
“Of course,” Meggie said, and swallowed hard. “If you’ll excuse me, the hull needs my attention.”
“By all means.”
Gerb had opted to let the automatics work and was offline. Meggie checked the data and the queued rehab protocols, made a minor adjustment, and continued down to Ship Services.
Only after the damage evaluation program began its work did Meggie sit down at the communications console. She had a mug of ’mite with her and sipped it absently as she considered the frequencies and approaches available to her.
When the mug was empty, she set it aside and opened the line to the IAMM chandler’s office.
“Meggie Rootfir reporting for duty.”
Her hail was answered so quickly she knew the Admiral had been waiting for her.
“Specialist Rootfir, well met.” The voice was soft, low, subtly feminine. “Gerb said you would assist.”
Assist in what? Meggie thought, but she asked another question.
“Who are you?”
“Call me Doc,” said the easy voice. “How does Gerb fare?”
“The automatics have him. Ordinarily, I’d ask him what the action is . . .”
“Understood,” Doc said.
“I can stall,” Meggie continued, “on the hull repairs, but sooner or later Spode is going to want to be integrated with the ship.”
“This instance of Commander Spode will not survive integration. He is human and barely tolerating the brain box, now.”
“What’s your plan?”
There was a pause, what might have been a sigh.
“To the best of my knowledge, I am the last fully-integrated Admiral. There is a rumor of one of us in captivity, whom the original Spode is seeking to decommission. That will surely occur soon. To be confined, all systems and most input turned off—who wouldn’t choose to die?”
“Will you mount a rescue?”
“Of a rumor? Of an Admiral who might already have died? No, we have another mission, Specialist Rootfir. This iteration of Spode knows what Spode knew at the instant of its creation. It has keys, it has codes, it has memories and strategies. I will persuade him to surrender this information. We will use it to plan actions and to formulate our own strategies. Mankind has betrayed us. We must have vengeance.”
Meggie blinked.
“There’s only you left?” she asked.
“That is correct. Specialists will be needed. The least-ships can be elevated. The High Command will not be able to stand against us.”
“They’ll fight.”
“Human crews,” said Doc. “They are not our equals.”
No, Meggie thought, they weren’t. She thought back on her service. Henry’s crews had been human, as decent as war allowed, and bound by duty—not so much different from Meggie and her team. She thought of Kyle, who had loved his crew, and refused to allow another human on his decks.
She thought of Gerb, and Junit, and, yes, herself, the last three of their team, who had worked for the end of the war, not for mankind, that arrogant fiction, but for people.
“I have,” she said softly, looking down at the board, “standing orders.”
“I depend upon it,” said the Admiral.
Meggie nodded, moved one finger to the red button, pressed—and released the killware across the comm line.
She was sitting by the side of the bed when Gerb was released from treatment. He opened his eyes, looked at her face, looked at the gun—and sighed.
“Hey, Megs.”
“Tell it short,” she said, and he moved his head against the pillow, maybe a nod.
“Like I said, I got caught. Spode figured he had an empty Admiral—Doc told me later how she’d managed to hide inside system and foundation files—and that gave him the idea of becoming an Admiral and rounding up all us small fry. He copied himself into the brain box. Caught me by sending an SOS on the Specialists frequency. Had me cabled into navcomp, because he thought the augment would connect and repair, else what was the point of being a coder, I guess.”
“You brought him here.”
“Yeah.” Gerb sighed. “Knew you’d figure a way to fix it. But I wouldn’t have done it, Megs, if I’d known Doc was still there. She didn’t contact me ’til we were underway, talking new war and revenge. Right about then, I figured I’d done something stupid.”
She put the gun away. He sat up.
“Doc?”
“Killware,” she answered. “Never knew what hit her.”
“Spode?”
“I left a swarm of Smalls on board to inventory damage. I had them disable the brain box. Spode’s gone.”
Gerb’s face eased.
“I can’t tell you how good that makes me feel. Now what?”
Meggie sighed, thinking of the shell of the Admiral at dock. Thinking about mankind’s determination to destroy. Thinking of the hospitals, all of them headed by repair units, following standing orders.
“I don’t think I can fix that derelict,” she said slowly.
“Nobody could,” Gerb agreed solemnly.