“Don’t patronize me,” Poz moved his head away from Alex’s pod and watched his captain unfold his gloves, “We are both, yet we are neither.”
“You’re vicious little bastards,” Oxade finished, snapping his gloves onto his hands, “How did you get on with Manuel-2?”
“Oh, she and Pure Genius cheated. Destroyed me in five moves—”
“—No, not in chess, you dummy,” Oxade removed a belt from the cupboard and strapped it around his waist, “I mean generally.”
“Neg is at the control deck with Manuel-2. They’re trying to communicate with Opera Beta.”
“I want an update,” Oxade fanned his fingers out on both hands and pushed them down his thighs. A tight synthetic material unraveled from his waist, down his thighs, past his knees and secured around his ankles.
“We found what we are looking for. We want to bring you up to speed before the others awake.”
Oxade snapped his fingers “Suits me. Is it bad news?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
Oxade made the mistake of patting Poz on the back. The metal crept along his glove for a second and fizzed up a mini electrical storm, “Oww.”
“It’s better that you don’t touch me.”
“Yes, I forgot. I’ve been out of action for the best part of two years,” Oxade made for the door and took a final glance at Alex and Nutrene’s hyper-sleep pods, “I dunno why they bothered with two separate pods.”
“What are you implying, Captain?” Poz couldn’t process the funny quip.
“Nothing,” Oxade returned to the door, “Okay, my messed-up friend. Let’s go and see Manuel-2. We’ll wake the two lovebirds up after the debrief.”
Opera Charlie’s control deck was of similar build and shape as Opera Beta’s, only on a smaller scale. The flight panel stood in front of the windshield. It offered a glorious view of Saturn and the surrounding galaxy-scape.
Oxade’s acclimation had all but been resolved, “Right, where is he?” he asked Poz, who followed behind.
“They’re here, somewhere.”
Oxade noticed something unfamiliar and out of place resting against the wall by the communications deck. A five-foot-high slab of metal in the shape of a sword. A five inch slit formed at the top and drew down the surface, “Ah, you’re awake.”
“Did that weapon just speak to me?”
Poz shook his head and chuckled, “Neg, stop playing around. Show Captain Weller some respect.”
“Sorry,” the slit crept down the length of the blade and stretched in half. The two shafts of metal formed into Neg’s original size and shape – a three-foot droid with blue lights streaking across her ‘scalp’, “Just calibrating. Preparing for the inevitable.”
“Neg, I want you to go to the hyper-sleep quarters and release Hughes and Byford.”
“Why do I have to do it?” Neg twisted her head around and bounced up and down on the spot.
“Because I said so. I’m your captain. Are you defying a direct order?”
“No, no, no,” she said. “It’s just that I get all the crappy jobs.”
“Yes. And until Poz perishes, that’s how it’ll always be. Now, just shut up and do it.”
“Yes, Captain,”
She stuck her tongue out at Poz and made her way out of the control deck.
“Honestly,” Poz shook his head, “Didn’t she read the instruments and articles manual on appropriate conduct?”
“Speaking of which, where’s Manuel-2?”
Oxade trained his eyes on Saturn and absorbed her wondrous beauty.
“Manuel-2?” Poz bounded around the room with excitement, “Your captain is here.”
A holographic book appeared in the air by the flight panel. A husky feminine voice issued from the pages, “Good whenever-it-is, Oxade. I’m glad you could join us, finally,”
“Manuel-2?”
Oxade walked around the book and took in Manuel-2’s ridiculous thickness. She resembled an encyclopedia more than Opera Beta’s paperback autopilot.
“Please, Captain. For the sake of confusion, I’d rather you refer to me as Manny,” the weighty book slapped its back cover to the floor and fanned out, “We don’t have time to waste. Are you ready for the debrief?”
“Yes, show me.”
Manny projected a holograph of their current coordinates. Saturn, represented as a giant circle, hung to the right of a flashing Enceladus.
“We entered the vicinity of Saturn forty-eight hours ago. After establishing Enceladus, we noticed a foreign object in its orbit. It wasn’t there when we set off, according to the Star Drone reports.”
“Do we know what it is?” Oxade moved into the holograph and enlarged the tiny object with his fingers, “This white thing, the resolution is worse than 8k definition. I can barely make it out.”
“That white thing, as you put it, is Space Opera Beta.”
Shocked at the news, Oxade swallowed hard and enlarged the image as far as he could. He flung his arms sideways and walked through its blocky rendition, “It’s the shape of a cone. You’re right. This must be Opera Beta.”
“It is Opera Beta, Oxade,” Manny said. “Don’t question my reports. They are infallible.”
“Have you established communication with them?”
“Several times, yes.”
“And?”
“No response. I can reasonably deduce from their lack of communication that the crew are all dead, or—”
“—or in hyper-sleep?” Oxade nodded at Poz. “Can you sat-link to Opera Beta and retrieve their autopilot’s set of data points? Get some idea of the state they’re in?”
“Certainly,” Poz rolled over to the communications panel and fired it up, “We don’t know the link code, though. It’ll be protected.”
Oxade reduced the image and made his way over to the control panel, “I find it difficult to believe that their Manuel refuses to talk to ours. They must be dead.”
Poz tapped away at the keyboard and looked up at the screen, “Good. Makes our job a lot easier, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” Oxade turned to Manny to find her lying on the floor, “Okay, that’s enough. Stop lying on the job.”
“Yes, Oxade.”
“Tell me about Weapons & Armory,” Oxade unbuckled the leather on his left sleeve and inspected his forearm’s Individimedia panel, “Patch me into Beta’s comms frequency.”
“Certainly,” Manuel beeped and threw a bolt of green light at the glass on the comms panel, temporarily diverting Poz’s attention as he worked on the keyboard, “Hey. Ask first.”
“Shut up, you ball of technological inferiority,” Manny’s sultry voice sounded more of a come-on than a put-down.
Poz twisted his cylindrical head around and scowled at the book, “What did you just call me?” His rope-like arm stiffened, forming a serrated edge, and prepared to strike her.
“You heard.”
“No. I didn’t. Repeat it—”
“—Hey, enough of your lessense,” Oxade stepped in between them and held out his arms, “Damn it, you’re meant to be state-of-the-art technology. Not jumped-up, melodramatic simple machines. Okay?”
Poz fought hard to suppress his desire to stab Manny in her chest. Of course, it would have proved to be futile. Knowing Poz’s fortune of late, he’d end up walking through her and spearing his own body.
Manny threw a beam from her central pages and made contact with the communications deck, “You may be our captain, Captain. But don’t ever call me a simple machine again.”
Oxade clenched his fists, struggling with the sheer temerity on display by his two colleagues, “Christ alive. You two really do put the artificial in artificial intelligence, don’t you?”