Chapter Three - Tyler
The first of two transfer burns completed, Remnant slowed and drifted further away from Earth, two degrees off the equatorial plane. The target was eighteen hours away, and Tyler continued to spend the majority of his time in his cabin. At first, he’d cleaned the waist-high clutter in the hopes of bringing Lew back down for a while. She hated the constant state of filth, despite his assurances that it was clean, just disorganized. He’d had a roommate from his Academy days who’d kept their room in such a mad state of disrepair, and he’d sworn to not be that person. It had taken six hours to clean his room after the roommate left, and Tyler swore he’d never live like that, nor tolerate anyone else who did.
Lying on his bed, Tyler realized his indifference to cleaning was causing his purely sexual relationship with Lew to wane. He constantly found her wiping consoles and cleaning surfaces when she thought he wasn’t looking. The smartass remarks he made didn’t help, either. He knew he offended her on a regular basis, but he was always able to tease her back with wine and chocolates, and the promise of something he was never going to give her. There was only one woman who had his complete attention, and what he couldn’t get from Remnant, he got from Lew, especially when he grew tired of masturbating in his filthy cabin.
“Remnant? Progress report, please,” he said and stared up at the ceiling-mounted speaker, waiting for her specially programmed voice to reply. Originally a Chinese artificial intelligence protocol, her Midwestern accent and breathy voice caused most trained professionals to guess she came from the labs at Urbana. She, along with the ship, was his greatest and sole confidant. If she’d been human, she’d have been perfect.
“Transit proceeding as scheduled. Miss Holmes is off shift and asleep in her cabin,” Remnant replied. “Would you like me to play a movie for you, Tyler?”
“No.” He grinned. “You’re always taking care of me.”
“That’s my job,” Remnant replied. “Is there something else I can do for you?”
Tyler yawned and lay back on the bed. “Any mail?”
“Negative. There’s a hold request on a bid you placed to recover a Falcon heavy booster, but nothing confirmed as yet.”
SpaceX, Tyler thought with a grin. There’s some good news. Pull the current contract and get the Falcon recovery, and his days of slumming to get a job were over. Provided he got there first. “Is our course the fastest and most fuel efficient we can take?”
“Affirmative. Miss Holmes’ navigation was exceptional for a change.”
“You don’t like her.”
“Liking is an emotional response, Tyler. Your navigator’s performance ability rates eighty-five percent efficiency. She routinely makes corrections and inputs based on instinctual reactions rather than solid data.”
“Goes with her gut, you mean.”
“Affirmative,” Remnant said. “Her recent performance has been better, though she doesn’t like my constant oversight.”
Tyler snorted. “Right. Those are your orders, Remmie. Stick with them.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Tyler laughed. For an AI, she really wasn’t that bright. “You’re the eyes and ears of this ship. What else has Miss Holmes been doing?”
“She’s read five books in the last two weeks, all considered literary classics.”
“Like what?” Tyler chuckled. “Something with vampires or robots?”
“The latest book she finished was a volume of Hemingway’s short stories,” Remnant replied. “She’s currently reading Fitzgerald.”
Whatever, Tyler thought. Lew was a pretty girl, but in a homely sort of way. Smart but quiet, she’d spent most of her time reading until he’d broken the ice and seduced her with a bottle of cabernet after they’d captured a fully-fueled, dormant space probe that never made it to Mars. The take was astronomical for them both, upwards of fifty thousand Euros, and they’d spent the rest of the voyage alternately drinking and screwing for hours at a time. The memory made him smile. Too bad she hadn’t been around the last time he’d come this way.
Would it have made a difference?
He sobered for a moment. The job should have been easy, and he’d won his portion of the bid based purely on the size of Remnant’s cargo hold. Untested, his ship had rumbled from the docks at Luna with only three of four engines firing and bits of metal vibrating wildly under thrust. She was his private project, a hybrid of two different decommissioned freighters.
He’d won the bid for the job by sheer determination and spent every bit of his personal savings to fuel the beast. With reluctant backing from his father, Tyler had gone down to super-sync, because everything was “down” from the moon. By the time he’d arrived, the engines were firing on full, and he’d managed to secure most of the random stray vibrations. He hadn’t inspected along the port side, where a debris-clogged reaction control jet had become stuck.
He closed his eyes, remembering the feeling in his stomach as the ship departed controlled flight. There was nothing he could have done. He had learned about Gemini Eight under the old American space program. A maneuvering thruster had become stuck and threatened to black out the astronauts. They’d detached from their docking target and Agena booster, and brought the capsule under control using their reentry systems. The mission was aborted well before their goals had been reached, but they’d survived. Both crewmen had walked on Luna for their efforts. Tyler had had no system that could be used to gain control without powering Remnant down completely. By the time he’d done so, the satellite was destroyed, and a woman was dead.
The repercussions were immediate and fierce. He’d lost his salvage license, and Remnant was impounded, pending payment of a million Euro fine. The resulting investigation of Heather MacLeash’s death had cleared him of intentional wrongdoing, but his reputation was shot. His father agreed to get Remnant out of impound, but all hope he’d had left him the moment they arrived at the airlock.
His father, silver-haired and stooped from a lifetime of Earth’s gravity, looked at him with soft brown eyes. A tanned hand dappled with age-spots caught Tyler’s arm. The old man sighed and looked up at him.
“Son, this is it. You’ve embarrassed us enough. First you get thrown out of the Academy. And as if that wasn’t enough, you go and do this! There’s blood on your hands, Tyler. I can’t wipe it clean.”
Tyler felt hot tears roll down his face. The shame pushed down on him, squeezing and crushing from all sides. For all he’d done, they were here with a check in hand to get Remnant out. “Then why are we here?” Tyler snuffled.
His father grabbed him by the shoulders and looked up into his eyes. “A long time ago, I fucked up, too. My father gave me another chance. The only reason I’m standing here now is that I made good on his offer. I’m giving you the chance to do the same.”
Tyler nodded. “I will.”
His father smiled and shook his head. “No you won’t. Not yet. That’s why I’m doing this, Tyler. You’ve spent a lot of time and your own money on this ship. It may yet be your salvation…or it may be your tomb. Which one is up to you. You’re no longer associated with Harris Salvage. Whatever you do from this point forward is on you. Don’t call me or your mother and ask for help.”
He was reduced to sobs as his father handed him the check and left him at the airlock. There’d been no chance to say goodbye; everything had been said. Tyler remembered striding aboard angry and determined.
When he found no work for the first two months, the anger turned to despair. Then a contract came along. He very nearly took a loss on it, but it was work, and it built from there. Last year, he’d made more than ten million Euros, but the only communication from the family was to tell him that his father was in a hospice on Earth. Validation wouldn’t come, nor would recognition. He’d been alone until he’d found Remnant. That she was a computer program should have alarmed him, but his affection for her was genuine. She was the only friend he had, and until Lew Holmes had appeared on his doorstep, he was certain he’d end up plundering the asteroid belt alone.
He remembered thinking she wouldn’t take the offer he’d made in the Academy commandant’s office on Boot Day, but she had. He’d been sitting in a bar in Shannon with the newly returned Remnant waiting for him in orbit, drowning his sorrows and watching football, when she’d sat down next to him and carefully swept her blonde hair from her face.
“You still want me?” Lew asked. “On your crew?”
“Oh, that? I thought you wanted to take me to bed, Miss Holmes.” He’d grinned in his stupor at her. She didn’t flinch away. Maybe she knew what was good for her after all?
“If that job offer stands, I’ll take it.”
Tyler tried to straighten on his barstool. “And why should I hire you?”
“I’m the best navigator Fleet ever had,” she said, before ordering a cider. He decided he liked her eyes. She turned back to him. “And you need help.”
“I don’t need anything,” he said, trying to look up at the television.
“Bullshit, mate.” She leaned close to him. “I don’t care about what happened, Tyler. I want a job, and you need a hand. I’m ready when you are.”
Tyler nodded, his eyes on a stunning corner kick that lifted Chelsea over Manchester United. “Fine. We’ll be going after this match.”
Lew Holmes had smiled and nodded. “Where to? And don’t you dare give me a smart answer.”
There wasn’t any answer that came to Tyler’s mind. He sat there watching the match, drinking stout, and hoping like hell that things were going to be better.
And they were. Within two days of Lew’s arrival, the first contract came through to harvest dead Iridium communications satellites from orbital planes in low earth orbit. Lew’s cosmic navigational skills completed the job in record time and made them a tidy bonus. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to trust her. Trust was an expensive commodity.
During his time on leave with Lew in Spain, Tyler started looking for an AI system. Lew was good, there was no doubting that, but having her around for the companionship and her flying ability were two entirely different things. Even as he paid cash for the AI prototype, he knew that he should trust Lew Holmes. But he didn’t, and with the memory of Heather MacLeash’s death in his mind, he knew he could never trust anyone again. He liked her, and she was a helluva pilot, but when the time came, she’d do what everyone else had ever done to Tyler: she’d leave, and he’d be on his own, again. Having Remnant prevented that. An immediate friend and confidant, Remnant was everything he could have asked for, mainly because he’d programmed her that way. She wasn’t completely autonomous, nor did she “live,” but she was capable of extrapolating thought and emotion under a learning algorithm that quickly surpassed his own considerable abilities. It was a match made in heaven.
Tyler looked up at the speaker. “Remnant? Have you had any contact with Cardiff? Any track on it from Luna Control?”
“Negative. Based on the departure control logs, I was able to determine a preliminary track. However, any secondary or tertiary burn data wouldn’t be reflected.”
Tyler made a “give-it” gesture with his right hand. “Tell me.”
“There are several variables I don’t know; however, the most likely course of action for Cardiff, based on personality research and historical data, is a high-velocity approach. Their estimated time of arrival is very close to ours. Within six minutes.”
“But we get there first, right?” Tyler asked.
“Provided there are no further burns, yes.”
Tyler cued the viewscreen on his wall to the navigational track. Looking down on the Earth’s north pole, he could see the orbit of the super-synced bird and Cardiff’s approach. Widening the view to include Luna, Tyler ran through projected paths and approaches to the satellite that MacLeash would attempt. Without a confirmation of his intentions by radar data, all of it was speculation.
“How long until we can ping Cardiff?”
“Six hours, forty-eight minutes,” Remnant replied. “The curvature of the Earth prohibits line of sight until then.”
Tyler sighed. “Got it.”
“I have been able to do some additional research on Cardiff. Would you like me to go over that with you?”
“No,” Tyler said.
“I’m aware that you’ve had previous work experience with—”
“I said no, Remnant.” Tyler’s face clouded over. “I’m not getting into that, and neither are you. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly, Captain.” The use of his title clearly indicated that she was upset with him, or as upset as a virtual personality could be. He lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. “Would you like me to dim the lights? Some music?”
Tyler didn’t answer. The growing silence was perfect, and he fell into it. He knew the feeling growing in his mind. Overwhelmed by the prospects of the contract and the requirement he work with the one man he never wanted to face again, the details were swirling in his mind. That MacLeash would attempt to screw him over was a simple truth, and the easiest thing to focus on. No apology of any magnitude would salve the old man’s wounds. The possibilities played out in his mind, and none of them were pleasant to consider.
Focus on the work, he told himself. Grab the bird, and get it disassembled and stowed as quickly as possible. Return it to the private hangars at Luna and collect the check. Don’t get involved in the personal aspects. It isn’t worth it. His mind flashed to Lew, asleep in her spotless and warm cabin. How was that going to work out? He didn’t know what type of woman he wanted, but he knew Lew Holmes wasn’t it. Heather MacLeash would have been a better analog than Lew.
Damn it. Tyler shook his head and tried to avoid thinking about the beautiful woman whose death was on his hands. They had only spoken during the capture party, but Tyler remembered thinking how lucky her husband was to have her. Her dark hair and green eyes had stunned him, and her warm smile was infectious when she looked at her man. That she owned the room was an understatement. He would remember the first time he’d laid eyes on her forever. Problem was, it only worsened the memory of the last time he saw her: floating in pieces away from a cloud of debris left over from an expensive satellite. The real expenses came later, and they never left.
Why now? Tyler thought with a heavy sigh. Yes, Cardiff and Remnant had the two largest holds in the salvage business, but working together again, in light of their past, raised flags. Did Boss, or whoever he was, know his past well enough to confound his recent successes by having to deal with MacLeash? Or was this an attempt to get them back on working relations to tackle the larger pieces of debris in cislunar space? The market for Apollo-era booster technology was tantalizing, but without large ships like Cardiff and Remnant, there was no point in pursuing large targets. This worried him. The orbital belts of Earth brimmed with non-functioning equipment and precious metals that brought significant returns. The four largest companies were still working primarily in low Earth orbit, daunted by blazing speeds and the constant threat of conjunction in super-sync. They stayed because of the immense wealth therein. The void was left to idealists and glory-seekers like Tyler and MacLeash. Tyler smiled at the thought, knowing that the characterization, at least in his case, was completely accurate. And then there were the rumors of smaller companies mounting more ambitious expeditions. How long before ships started mounting weapons and engaging in piracy?
* * *
When sleep didn’t come, Tyler sat up on the bed and stared at the viewscreen. Remnant displayed an estimated time to contact with Cardiff that was ticking down from four hours. Tyler rubbed his chin, feeling the weeks’ worth of stubble, and decided to clean up a bit before capture. He wouldn’t go as far as getting dressed in clean coveralls and the like, but he should look presentable. Look your best, do your best.
“Remnant?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“When you have contact with Cardiff, establish shared telemetry like always. Once you’re green, I want you to mine them for whatever data you can scrounge.”
Remnant replied after a moment, “Hacking programs are standing by for deployment.”
“Good.” Tyler looked at the orbital analysis display again. “Plot a faster course, too.”
“The course that Miss Holmes plotted is the fastest course within our current conjunction parameters.”
Tyler stood up and stretched. “Null those parameters out. Execute the burn and retract all arms behind the nose shield.”
“Captain, the odds of a conjunction with an object larger than three centimeters in diameter rise from one in fifty-thousand maneuvers to one in twenty-five hundred. This is too risky.”
“Do it,” Tyler ordered. “Ian MacLeash is going to come in as fast as he can to grab that bird first. That makes the capture his, and we lose control of the situation in the case of an emergency. I won’t allow that.”
“I understand, Captain.”
This time, he thought, she actually might.
* * * * *