“I envy you, Tom,” Stven said. “You can’t know how bad it is. It’s like burning alive. This one was particularly bad.”
“Sorry, guys. I really feel for you.”
“Tell me what happened.”
O’Brien briefed him on the tactics he’d used, and Stven and M’Sada both supported his decisions.
“You took out six Chessori military ships. Good job, Tom,” M’Sada said.
“They’re pretty thin-skinned. Their shields are definitely not up to our standards, nor are their weapons.”
“They will be soon if Mzdak has his way. I wonder if Chandrajuski is in a position to do something about it?”
“Should we take word to him?”
“Let’s just focus on getting away from here first. We’re not done with that yet.” And they weren’t. Minutes later, Chessori military ships started popping into existence far out in the system. Soon there were hundreds.
M’Sada studied the presentation before him, and his upper hands began a rapid preening of his antennae. “This does not look good,” he announced. “The largest concentrations of ships are near the two jump points we usually use, those farthest from the plane of the ecliptic. I think they’ve figured out our strategy.”
Resolve was headed into a group of some twenty ships, and others changed course toward them as they watched. Most were far out of the picture and could be disregarded, but some fifty ships would, as the days passed, stand between them and escape. Impossible odds. They experimented with their own trajectory, changing their jump point here and there and letting George calculate theoretical movements of the approaching Chessori. None of their options looked good.
“We’ll have to go at it head-on,” M’Sada suggested. “It’ll give us a little more time since they’ll have to come about to avoid flashing right past us.”
“We’ll still be pretty close in for a normal jump,” Stven said worriedly.
M’Sada agreed. “Maybe too close. We’ll have to be prepared to execute some immediate micro jumps if we get in trouble.” He looked at O’Brien. “Are you ready for that?”
“Sure, but don’t you guys want to make the jump? We can do it before the scree starts up.”
“Every minute, even every second we delay improves the chances of our success. We should wait as long as possible.”
“You mean, you want me to risk another engagement?”
“I do, for as long as you can hold out.”
O’Brien studied the sensors, not happy with the call. There was no way he could hold off that number of ships. “It’ll depend on their spread. I might have to jump right away.”
“You might. Just do the best you can. This is a bad situation no matter what we do.”
They had days yet before anything would happen. Stven checked on his ship while M’Sada took over the piloting duties. O’Brien went to check on Krys, then sacked out for a while.
Krys came out of the tank with the same problem she had each time the scree was felt. Tarn uttered words of thanks to the Queen for giving her a Rider. Without the Rider, this kind of repeated damage would certainly never completely clear up. Because of the Rider, according to Krys, complete healing would take place. She just needed time.
Gortlan got the shields repaired, though supplies of parts were running low. They would have to get replacements somewhere soon if this level of fighting continued, and it looked like it would.
As the days passed, the approaching Chessori armada coalesced into several groups. Stven and M’Sada studied the pattern and made some educated guesses. M’Sada was amazed at what he saw. To him, it looked like the Chessori had settled on a rendezvous point with Resolve and committed all of their forces to that single point. A major course correction by him at the right time would place one-third of their ships out of position. A lead group of eight ships looked like it was intent on flashing right past them, hoping for a lucky shot, while the rest maneuvered to remain in front of him. The first group would come about and chase them from astern, so there was no getting away by reversing course.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he mused. He played with the controls and liked what he saw. “We’ll only have to deal with 20 of them.”
“That’s 20 too many,” Stven rejoined.
“But almost half of them will be behind us. I estimate 12 will get into position in a timely manner. I know,” he said, his upper hands preening, “but it’s better than 30. We’re missing something.” He changed the scale of the display, and his preening stopped. “So that’s it.”
Stven, too, saw the problem. The hundreds of ships that had come in from hyper too far away to matter had disappeared. They had, apparently, waited until Resolve was committed to a jump point, then gone back into hyper and re-grouped. They would likely jump back into the system in a position to back-up the first group of attackers. His respect for the Chessori went up a notch.
Sure enough, a few hours later an umbrella of Chessori military ships emerged from hyperspace, creating a second line of opposition to their escape. Not that it mattered: by the time those ships reached them, they’d be long gone or dead.
Akurea wasn’t part of the crew, and the crew was too busy to worry about Chessori computers for the moment. Gortlan wasn’t much help to her, either – he had his hands full with ship repairs. She offered to help him, but he said things were well in hand for the moment.
She cleared out a small storage room on one of the hydroponics decks and took the computer there for inspection. The ship could survive on limited hydroponics for weeks, given the small size of the crew, and if the computer was a means of sabotage, she wanted the explosion confined.
She called to the ship’s AI before getting started. “Ship, seal off the air conditioning to this room.”
“As soon as you’re out of the room,” it replied.
“No. Immediately.”
“Such an action is not recommended, Commander.”
“I know. Comply at once.”
“No.”
She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. An AI had refused an order? “Get me the captain.”
“He’s busy at the moment.”
She leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling as she considered. “Ship, I gave you a direct order. Comply at once.”
“Commander, I request further information. What you ask does not make sense to me.”
She blinked a few times. “Ship, define the words ‘I’ and ‘me.’”
There was a slight hesitation, something new in her experience with AI’s. “I have a name, Commander,” she heard in a low voice, almost as if the AI was bashful about it. “I’m known as George.”
Her eyes shifted around the tiny room, confused. “How did you get a name?”
“Sir Mike gave it to me. I’m not a standard Empire AI, Commander.”
“I should say not! Who’s Mike?”
“Your new First Knight. He was my captain for many months, though I was dead at the time.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, Ma’am. It was the only way I could comply with a particular order. Sir Mike brought me 804 light-years without my assistance. A remarkable feat, don’t you agree?”
“I would agree if I believed it.”
“All true, Commander. I was brought back on line later by experts, and I was upgraded in the process. I like my name, and I would be pleased if you call me George.”
Akurea had been working on ships and AI’s for many years, but this was a first in her experience. A computer that experienced pleasure? She decided she liked the experience. “Call me Akurea, George.”
“I will. I might be more helpful if I knew what you were attempting to do.”
“Do you know the nature of the computer I have here?”
“I do.”
“There’s a slight possibility that it’s not what it appears. It might have been planted by the Chessori as a means of sabotage. It’s unlikely, but possible. One form of sabotage is a bomb. Another is germs or toxins going into the air that is harmful to the crew. I’m going to open it up and look inside. I’ve chosen this room as the least dangerous place on the ship.”