“I think I have his name wrong,” Cole said, “but trust me: the guy was a genius.”
“Well, I must be a Glemot, then. The guy following the rules might be dumb, but the woman who wrote the rules for him to follow speaks Drenard fluently and is quite intelligent. Which means there is a smart person in the room that’s passing the Turing Test, not just some algorithm. It doesn’t matter if she wrote her smartness down or was sitting beside the guy whispering the answers; if the result’s the same, the delivery method shouldn’t matter.”
Molly bit her lower lip and glanced past Cole. “Whether it’s a brain or a computer holding her memories–either way–I think that’s my mom out there.”
She ducked down below the decking, then popped back up. “And this is what I hate about these philosophy debates you drag me into. The questions are only baffling if you have the IQ of a Venusian sea slug—”
“Wait,” Cole interrupted, lifting a hand. “Did you hear that?”
They both fell silent. “That’s the SADAR alarm,” Molly said.
Cole scrambled backwards, out of the cramped space. Molly followed after, her hands leaving greasy prints on the decking. They both rose and sprinted toward the cockpit, forty meters away, the pounding of their feet on the metal decking waking the rest of the crew.
“Contacts! At least two dozen ships!” Cole looked from the SADAR screen to the porthole on his side of the ship. A small fleet had appeared off their starboard side. Anlyn backed out of the cockpit, her eyes still on the nav screen, which remained full of bizarre symbols.
“Everyone in flight suits!” Molly called out, which broke Anlyn’s spell and sent her scurrying back toward the crew quarters.
“That includes you,” said Cole.
Molly looked down at her dirty work shirt and greasy hands as if confirming his suggestion. “Okay,” she said, “turn on the radio and find out who they are. And tell Mom what’s going on. I’ll be right back.” She left him alone in the cockpit and raced back to her room.
Cole plugged his own suit into the console between the seats. He put the radio on channel 2812, the galaxy-wide standard for hailing and ship-to-ship communications.
Someone was already transmitting.
“—yourself. Repeat. This is Naval Task Force Delta KPR76 calling the vessel point two AU’s off our bow, velocity zero knots absolute, identify yourself.”
Cole’s nav screen was covered in gibberish. He typed in a quick line to whoever was on the other side of Turing’s door.
TROUBLE. GOTTA RUN_
He hit the enter key and switched over to the Bel Tra nav charts. Comparing Parsona’s location to the position of the Navy fleet made his stomach drop. He heard someone run up behind him.
“Troublesss?”
Walter. His hissing voice scraped across Cole’s nerves even more than usual. “Go strap in,” he told him, “and stay out of the way.” He didn’t look back to see the expression on the boy’s face, which was just as well.
The next set of approaching feet left no doubt as to their owner. The vibrations came up through Cole’s nav chair as Edison stomped his way to the crew seats. Cole flipped on the cargo bay cam and made sure everyone had their helmets on and their harnesses secure. This would be the first time Anlyn wore one of Walter’s flight suits; he hoped his alterations would keep her smaller frame protected.
The radio demanded identification again just as Molly arrived in a dead run. She vaulted into her chair, landed on her feet in a crouch, and then let them shoot out from under herself into the pocket below the dash. She fastened her harness and plugged in her flightsuit, all with the coordinated swiftness of an emergency drill.
“Navy?” she asked.
“Yeah, and we’re in a spot here.” Cole pointed to the SADAR. “My anniversary gift is the hard place and that fleet is the rock.”
Molly looked out her porthole. The “gift” Cole referred to loomed off the port side of the ship. It was a binary pair—a black hole and a large star locked in each other’s orbits. A wide trail of plasma leaked off the star and swirled into the black hole, the rotation of the system creating a pinwheel of light millions of kilometers across.
The display had been Cole’s one-month anniversary gift. Beautiful and touching ten minutes ago, now it created a gigantic wall of gravitational mass that prevented their escape into hyperspace.
“This is Naval Task Force Delta KPR76 to the stationary vessel off our bow, please identify yourself.” The voice had become more insistent—and the SADAR unit flashed a warning that they were being scanned. Molly admired the way the fleet spread out before closing in. Without a zero-gravity chunk of the cosmos to jump from, Parsona was trapped.
She grabbed the flight stick and pushed Parsona’s nose toward the nearby star. With one of her three thrusters on the mend, she was able to give the ship full throttle without worrying about the forces on her and the crew; the anti-grav fluid in their flightsuits could handle anything Parsona dished out in a straight line. Which was unfortunate, really. She would need more if they were going to outrun these guys.
“GN-290 ship identification Parsona, do not flee. Cease thruster burn immediately. We will fire. I repeat, this is Naval Task Force Delta KPR76, and we will fire to kill. You are in a hostile no-fly zone. Cease thruster burn immediately. Over.”
Cole tagged each Navy ship with hostile indicators. Parsona had received a few upgrades over the past two weeks: two laser cannons recessed in the leading wings, a missile pod hidden in one of the large rear wings, and some basic defenses to boot. It wasn’t enough to take on a few Firehawks, much less an entire fleet, but the routine tasks seemed to give him something to do.
“What’d you tell my mom?” Molly asked.
“Are you serious? I told her we’d get back to her. Now what’s your plan, ’cause I don’t see any way out besides a brig and a court-martial.”
“I’m thinking—”
The radio cut her off. “GN-290 Parsona, this is Naval Task Force Delta KPR76. There’s a seizure notice out on your ship. You will be considered hostile. Cease thruster burn or we will begin firing missiles. Over.”
“Think faster, babe. We’ve got two chaff pods, and I’m just guessing here, but they probably have more than two missiles.”
“The first thing we’re gonna do is not call me ‘babe.’ Ever.” Molly shot Cole a menacing look and leaned forward to study the nav charts and SADAR display. She had the ship in a straight-line burn away from the fleet and toward the black hole and star. She did some quick and dirty math in her head. Even if the Navy fleet came after them at full speed, Parsona would still get to the two-body system first.
“Okay, I’ve got an idea. I need you use that charming mouth of yours and talk the Navy out of firing their missiles. I’m gonna make a full burn right at the star and get there before they do.”
Cole reached to the controls that patched his helmet mic through to the radio. “I’d like to veto hiding inside the star. Can you give me a few other ideas to choose from?”
“I’m not going to hide in the star, wise guy, I’m gonna use it to catapult us into clear space on the other side, just like we slingshot cargo from one orbit to another back home.”
“Not bad,” Cole said. “I’ll buy you some time.” He keyed the radio mic. “Naval Task Force Delta KPR76, this is Parsona KML32. We’re having a thruster malfunction. Requesting assistance. Over.”