Accelerating Universe: The Sector Fleet Book One Page 14

  “We have a passenger missing, and you were the last to be seen with her.” Jameson wasn’t beating about the bush. I felt enormous relief at that.

  “Who? Nancy? Your goons pulled me off that delectable bit of flesh, so I hardly think I was the last to see her.”

  “Not the woman whose cabin you were found in.”

  “Then who? I haven’t been myself lately. That launch left me feeling rather abused. Nancy was a toe dipping in the water if you will. My first foray back into normality.”

  He talked too much. I could just picture the captain working out how best to use that against him. If I’d been there, I would have waited the man out and seen what he offered up under the pressure of silence. Silence, like the void of space, had a presence. You felt it push in from all sides.

  I was amused when the captain said nothing and the time stretched out.

  “What are they doing?” I asked Pavo.

  “Nothing, Ana. The captain is merely standing there. He has not moved an inch.”

  I smiled. Jameson had some interrogation skills then.

  “Well?” Stefan Archibald said. “Who? I haven’t dallied with any other women. You did say it was a woman, didn’t you? Because I don’t go for men. But if that’s your thing, Captain, I won’t judge. Each to their own. Now, Nancy. That’s more my style. Curvy and soft in all the right places. Do you do curvy and soft, Captain Jameson?”

  Nothing.

  “Pavo?” I pressed.

  “The captain looks bored.”

  I stifled a laugh.

  Marshal flicked me a look. I took the opportunity to glance around the bridge, but Commander Torrence was busy with tactical.

  “I heard you’d been visiting a certain cabin,” Archibald said. “It can’t have been for dear old Mara. She’s as old as the stars, and I can’t see geriatrics being your style.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath.

  “I have often thought her niece a fine bit of fluff, though. But then, I like my women a little more…feminine. Soldiers are probably more your style.”

  “And where did you hear that?” the captain asked.

  “That soldier’s are more your style? I just assumed. Must be the uniform.”

  Silence.

  “This brooding thing might work on your women, Captain. But I’m afraid I’m not swayed by pouting lips and dark eyes.”

  I shook my head. The man was just as mad as his brother.

  I wondered if the family had a history of instability in it. And then I wondered if Anderson Universal bothered to do a psych test on Damon Archibald before he signed the lease to this ship. Desperate times, and they were definitely desperate, made even big, powerful companies like AU cut corners.

  And now we were in this mess.

  “Are they just staring at each other, Pavo?” I whispered.

  “The captain has turned away and is walking toward the brig door.”

  I scowled at my console.

  “That’s it?” Stefan Archibald demanded. “You’re giving up already? You haven’t even asked me what I talked about with Mara.”

  I clenched my fists.

  “Or what my brother wants with her. He had fun with the niece. Of course, his type of fun isn’t the same as mine. But I’m sure he’ll have enjoyed himself with the nanny by now.”

  I stopped breathing.

  “The forcefield is down.”

  A sucked in breath of air came over the earpiece and then the distinctive sound of a fist hitting flesh.

  “Captain!” Chan shouted.

  Another whack, a moan following.

  “Stand down, Chan,” Jameson snapped.

  “He hit me! He hit me!” Stefan shouted.

  “Mr Archibald,” the captain said in a deceptively calm voice. It sent chills down my spine, and I wasn’t even in the room with him. “We’re only just getting started. Now, tell me, what does Damon Archibald want with Marama Kereama?”

  “You’re insane! You can’t just hit people. You’re over, buddy. Gone. Vamoose! We’ll have a new captain in your place within the hour, and then this ship will function as it should.”

  “And how do you plan to achieve that?” the captain asked without missing a beat. “You’re in here, after all, and your brother is AWOL.”

  “He’s not AWOL, you idiot. He’s just removed himself to our secondary base.”

  Silence.

  Then a soft whimper.

  “Pavo?” I whisper-snarled.

  “The captain just took a step toward the prisoner.” Menacingly, I thought.

  “I’m not going to say another thing!” Stefan growled, clearly aware he’d said too much already.

  “That is a shame, Mr Archibald,” the captain said. “I do hope you enjoy your new accommodations. They’re not nearly as comfortable as a top-tier berth, but at least you’ll be safe here from your brother.”

  “My brother! My brother will eat you for breakfast, Jameson! He’ll have me out of here by lights out! And that stupid AI won’t be able to help you. Not after my brother is through with it!”

  I sat back in my seat, alarmed.

  “Pavo?”

  “I…”

  “What does he mean?” I demanded.

  “I am unsure.”

  “He can’t get to you, can he?”

  “I can’t find him to stop him, Ana.”

  “But where would he go?” I almost shouted.

  “Lieutenant?” Commander Torrence enquired, appearing at my shoulder.

  I held up a finger to stall him and stared at the gel ceiling. He just scowled.

  “Pavo? Where would he go if he wanted to shut you down?”

  “Ana, if I tell you, I expose myself.”

  “Pavo, you’ve got no choice. Archibald already knows.” I was sure of it. Why else did his stepbrother seem convinced of Damon’s success?

  “I can protect myself,” Pavo said.

  “But what if you can’t, Pavo? What if he gets to you and somehow shuts you down, or reboots you and takes control of your protocols? What do you think will happen to us? To the fleet? To Vela’s survivors?”

  “Ana.”

  The doors to the bridge swished open, and the captain ran in. He skidded to a stop, took in Torrence looming over me and no doubt the desperate look on my face, then, keeping his eyes on me, he strode over to join us; eyebrow arched in an obvious question which I chose to ignore.

  “Pavo, you have to trust me,” I said instead.

  “I do trust you, Ana,” the AI answered. “I’m just not so sure of anyone else.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Not Just A Pretty Face, Lieutenant

  Jameson

  “Lieutenant?” I said when Ana stopped talking for several seconds. I didn’t think she was listening to Pavo. I was pretty sure he’d gone silent.

  The walls, on the other hand, were pulsing a dark red.

  She turned to stare at me, a guarded look on her face.

  “Where do I send Chan’s men?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “He won’t let you near him,” she explained. “If you make a move, Archibald will know. Pavo thinks it’s a trap.”

  I leaned back. Not an altogether inappropriate thought. Pavo might be right. Stefan Archibald could well have played me.

  I nodded my head. “He could be right.”

  Ana looked surprised.

  “I am pleased you agree, Captain,” Pavo said. I didn’t let the relief show on my face; he was still talking. Still here. Still functioning.

  “But we do have a problem, Pavo,” I said. “If they already know where you are, you’re vulnerable without backup.”

  “I am not without resources of my own, Captain. I have…moved locations.”

  Well, that was new. And disturbing. I met Ana’s eyes.

  Letting out a slow breath of air, I asked Pavo, “Can you be sure he isn’t tracking you?”

  “At the moment, I am prepared to believe he can’t.”

&nbs
p; “That’s an awfully big risk, Pavo,” I said. “And please bear in mind, I have a ship full of passengers to protect. Two sector fleets to protect. I have a responsibility to them all. As do you now.”

  “Then I suggest we locate Damon Archibald before he, in theory, can locate me.”

  “Any suggestions on that?” I asked.

  Silence.

  “Pavo can’t find him,” Ana advised. “Damon’s biosignature has disappeared.”

  I nodded my head and looked at Torrence. He shook his and shrugged.

  “Why is Archibald doing this?” I finally said, opening up a discussion.

  We had no choice for now but to do as Pavo said. Maybe he’d trust Ana enough to let her in. Maybe he wouldn’t. But we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the AI to grow up. We needed to act before Archibald did.

  “He doesn’t want to wait for the Sector One Fleet,” Taylor offered from across the bridge. “He made that perfectly clear. It would give Sector Four and Three an unfair advantage according to him.”

  “The longer it takes for us to get there, the less likely it is he’d get a fair, or advantageous portion of New Earth, for this sector fleet,” Torrence said.

  “For him,” Ana sneered. “It’s all about him and no one else.”

  I agreed with her, but knowing that didn’t help us right now.

  “He can’t take over engineering without Pavo stepping in,” I said instead.

  Ana kept scowling at everyone. She was cute when she was mad. An observation I was sure she’d resent.

  “But he will once he gets Pavo,” Taylor offered.

  “He will not get me, Lieutenant,” Pavo said.

  “We’d like to believe that, Pavo,” I replied. “But we can’t risk not thinking of every possibility. Even the possibility that he could gain control of your parameters and change them to suit his plans.”

  “And if he did that, we’d be shut out of everything,” Torrence said. “Engineering. Life support. The bridge.”

  “It would be mutiny,” Marshal offered.

  “He’s not crew,” I murmured, thinking.

  “But it would have to break the lease, at least,” Taylor said. “I’m sure I read something about interfering with ship systems as being a cause for suspension.”

  “The lease has well and truly been broken now, anyway,” I announced. “As of now, we are operating under Anderson Universal Protocol Zulu-Alpha-One.”

  “Zulu-Alpha-One instated,” Pavo officially said.

  “Does it make a difference, Pavo?” I asked, more intrigued than concerned now. “To your protocols as they currently stand?”

  He’d already breached them. Most if not all of them. I hardly thought a change in AU directives would alter things for the AI now.

  “I am still part of this ship, Captain,” Pavo said.

  Did that mean he was still part of the AU team? Part of our family as Ana had put it?

  It was a question I couldn’t answer, and we had, maybe not more pressing matters but, equally pressing matters to be concerned with.

  “All right,” I said. “So, Archibald is now our main obstacle to maintaining control of this ship and saving what is left of the Sector One Fleet. Without Pavo, we’re out. And I wouldn’t put it past him to space us. He’s clearly got some technical know-how. He can ghost his way through the ship without Pavo being any the wiser. And he had the capability to blank out a portion of the ship, but that’s changed. To what?”

  “Masking himself and perhaps that blank spot as something else,” Marshal said.

  “Is that possible, Pavo?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I am unsure, Captain. But it is the only available explanation. I cannot find him, Marama Kereama, or his men. Nor can I locate a blank spot.”

  “He’d need a large room,” Ana guessed. “Or a particularly cramped one.”

  I offered her a grin. She looked a little startled.

  I cleared my throat and said, “Stefan Archibald said Damon had removed himself to his secondary base. Which would lead us to believe this was planned. He’d have had something organised before we launched. But there isn’t a part of this ship that’s not as Anderson Universal designed it. So, he’s taken over an existing function and used his mobile interrogation room masking abilities to provide this new bolt hole.”

  “I am assessing those locations currently not in use by crew or passengers.”

  “Process of elimination,” Taylor said with approval.

  “There are currently twenty-three such locations,” Pavo said, without acknowledging the lieutenant, “This changes daily, so I have reduced the suspected number to eight; which have not been used in the past four days or longer. Would you like me to place them on the viewscreen, Captain?”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  The screen lit up with locations pinpointed all over the ship.

  “Four spare berths, two each on decks H and G,” Marshal read. “A science lab on deck C, an armoury cache on deck E, and two shops in the Habitat Three central hub on deck H.”

  “It won’t be the armoury,” Torrence said.

  “Because we’d be even more screwed if it was?” I quipped.

  My 2IC frowned at me.

  “But I agree,” I rushed to add. “Access there would be prohibitive.”

  “The empty berths are our best bet,” Taylor concluded.

  “Even so, we’ll have to check them all,” I said.

  “I’ll start working with Lieutenant Chan to assign teams,” the lieutenant offered.

  “Do that.” I kept staring at the layout of our ship.

  Only eight locations. That wasn’t so bad.

  Until Ana said, “He could have always commandeered someone’s assigned berth. One of his merc’s. A random passenger who doesn’t have a set routine yet and wouldn’t be missed.”

  We all turned to stare at her, various looks of mortification on our faces.

  “What?” she said, looking defensive.

  I grinned. Again. “Not just a pretty face, Lieutenant,” I said.

  I’m not sure anyone else on the bridge felt as happy as I did, right then.

  Now we had hundreds of locations to search.

  Twenty-Nine

  Don’t Look So Alarmed

  Ana

  Everyone was doing something except me. Pavo was engaged and operating normally. The walls were a muted red, but as the crew had been placed on high alert, and the captain had announced that protocol Zulu-Alpha-One had been instated, that wasn’t entirely unusual.

  Jameson hadn’t made an announcement to the passengers, though. That could well have been because he didn’t want Archibald to be aware that he’d lost all legal power. I approved of his caution. Damon still had Aunt Mara. Why I didn’t know.

  Was it nostalgia? Was he showing off to the only person in his life he’d ever had an emotional connection with? Or was it more sinister than that? He wanted a hostage, and Aunt Mara just happened to be someone the captain had shown an interest in. Just like I had been.

  Or was it punishment for Mara bringing the captain to their meeting?

  Damon Archibald was a man who didn’t like his position of power challenged, I thought, and my aunt had challenged it by circumventing his usual protections.

  So did the captain. Just his mere presence challenged Archibald’s position of power.

  Pavo, on the other hand, was a prize not a challenge to his power base. Pavo would be a shiny red cherry on top of the Archibald Enterprise cake.

  How would controlling an AI look to those leaseholders in the Sector Four and Three Fleets?

  I was thinking pretty damn impressive and possibly a bargaining tool - or threat - to be used when we got to New Earth.

  Damon Archibald had to be stopped.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Childs said from navigation.

  The captain looked up and met the young navigator’s eyes. Hers, though, quickly flicked to me and t
hen back again.

  I sat very still. I wasn’t doing anything. I was staying out of trouble. So why did the lieutenant look at me when the captain looked at her.

  “My ready room,” Jameson said, clearly interpreting Childs’ unspoken message better than I had.

  I almost snorted to myself. Marshal was over at the ops table with Torrence and Taylor. I was all on my own over here, and the helmsman was too busy keeping an eye on various engine functions and our location in comparison to the rest of the Sector Two Fleet.

  “Pavo, can you see what the captain and navigator are up to?” I whispered, just to be sure no one overheard.

  “The captain’s ready room is a secure location, Ana.”

  “So was the brig,” I offered.

  “Point made,” Pavo said in an imitation of Jameson’s words to me earlier in his ready room.

  I had the feeling Pavo liked to imitate human behaviour whenever he could and had chosen the captain as a suitable example.

  The central viewscreen on my console lit up with an image of the captain’s ready room. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was paying me any attention, and then reached forward and made the view smaller, so it would be harder to see what I was watching from a distance.

  I knew I was breaking all sorts of orders. Behaving irresponsibly for a lieutenant in any military operation. But desperate times and all that. And Childs had looked at me funny.

  Whatever was about to be spoken of in that room concerned my aunt or me. I felt justified, if not a little guilty.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?” the captain was asking.

  “Sir, I’ve managed to delve further into where the solar flare hit us.”

  Solar flare? What did that have to do with me?

  “So, it did breach the ceramic field?” the captain said.

  “Yes, sir. Nothing major, just an access way and conduit leading into the recycling systems on deck C. Pavo bypassed it six-point-three seconds later. It hadn’t even been in use on lift-off. And since then, the bypass has worked efficiently.”

  “So, no loss of systems at all?”

  “No, sir.”

  Silence. I watched on the screen as the captain stared at the lieutenant and the lieutenant stared back at him. No words were said. No one made a move or indicated something with a nod of their head. Their hands remained visible and immobile.