“Anything yet?” he asked over his shoulder.
“No,” Rosemary said. She was seated at Dr. Chef’s desk, watching the news feeds for updates. The Transport Board had contacted them moments after they entered into Central space, and had offered all the support they could give, but provided no information on the situation back at Hedra Ka. “It’s so weird.”
“What is?”
“We’re the first sign anyone back here had that something had gone wrong.”
Ashby changed his grip on the cover, trying to feel for a loose spot. “The GC had to know. I’m sure those delegates were calling home the minute we got fired on.”
“Yeah, but nobody else knows. To all these people out here, it’s just another day. It’s just… I don’t know, none of it’s making sense yet.” She fell quiet. “We could’ve died out there. Lovey—”
“Lovey’s going to be okay,” he said, looking back at her. “Kizzy and Jenks know what they’re doing. They’ll fix her.”
She forced a smile and nodded. “I know. I know they will.” Dark circles underscored her eyes. How long had it been since any of them had slept? She nodded again, but the smile dimmed. “I wish I could help.”
“Me too.”
“It’s so—oh, here, look.” She leaned forward, gesturing at the pixel screen.
Ashby brushed his hands off on his pants and walked over.
This is a breaking news story from the Thread. We have received reports that hostilities have broken out within the Toremi fleet stationed at Hedra Ka. It is believed that some GC ships have come under attack, while others are being defended by Toremi vessels. Few details are known at this time, though the head GC diplomat on assignment at Hedra Ka already issued a brief statement declaring the rogue Toremi’s actions to be “unprovoked and utterly without reason.” Reports also claim that this development follows an attack by a Toremi military vessel on an unarmed civilian ship. Please stay linked to this feed for further updates as they arise.
“Stars,” Rosemary said. “All those people. Stars, Ashby, we were just there.”
He placed his hand on her shoulder. He shook his head. “We shouldn’t have been.”
His scrib pinged. A new message. He picked it up, read it, and sighed.
“What is it?” Rosemary asked.
“Transport Board,” he said. “They want our incident report as soon as possible.”
“‘Incident report.’ That sounds so… I don’t know.”
“Inadequate?”
“No kidding. I like what Kizzy called it better.”
“What was that?”
“A ‘monstro clusterfuck.’ ”
Ashby laughed dryly. “I doubt they have a form for that,” he said. He continued reading, and frowned.
“What?”
“Parliament’s forming an analytical committee. They’re going to be holding a series of meetings to hash this all out. They want to talk to us.”
“Us?”
“Me, specifically. In person.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything.”
“They know that.” His eyes flicked over the scrib, over words like voluntary and ordeal and greatly appreciated. “I don’t know what I could tell them. I didn’t even have time to get a look at that ship.” He tossed the scrib onto his desk. “Just sounds like politics.” He looked to the far wall, to the vox resting dark and silent. “I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
Jenks? Jenks, are you there?
I’m right here, Lovey. I’m not going anywhere.
I can’t, I can’t see it—
You can’t see what?
I don’t know. I’m scared, Jenks, I’m so scared.
I know. I’m right here. I’m going to fix this. You’re going to be okay.
Pepper’s here. She’s in a wall.
Yes. She’s helping with repairs.
That’s different. How long until we get to Hedra Ka?
We were already there.
Don’t lie.
I’m not lying, Lovey. You just don’t remember.
I feel terrible.
I know you do. It’ll be okay.
No, not that. The other thing.
What other thing?
Kizzy.
What about Kizzy?
She’s tired.
Don’t worry about Kizzy. She’ll be okay.
She should sleep. You should sleep.
We’ll sleep when we’re done helping you. Really, Lovey, we’re okay.
There’s a shuttle at the hatch. I don’t know it.
That’s Pepper’s.
Is she here?
Yes.
Please don’t go away.
I won’t.
You’re the only thing that makes sense.
Ashby made his way down to the AI core, at Kizzy’s request. As soon as he arrived, Kizzy waved him back out into the hallway. He got a quick glance at Jenks, who was putting a fresh slap patch on his neck. Ashby wasn’t sure which of the two techs looked worse.
“You need to know what’s up,” Kizzy said, speaking in a low voice. Her eyes were grounded, her face serious. This was no “I need a thing” conversation. This was a tech telling her captain that something was very wrong. She had Ashby’s undivided attention.
“Let’s have it,” Ashby said.
Kizzy shook her head. “I’ve never seen circuit damage this extensive. Whatever the Toremi threw at us tore through her like wildfire. We’ve repaired all the physical damage, so her actual hardware is functional. Under normal circumstances, she’d have full access to the ship, no problem.”
“But?”
“But her installation is completely fucked. She may be based within the core, but you know how she divvies herself up between the synaptic clusters throughout the ship? The connections between the clusters and the core were totally fried. She’s essentially lost pieces of herself.”
“She can’t access those clusters now that the circuits have been restored?”
“She can, but—ugh, this is hard to explain. The clusters aren’t meant to store data for as long as it took us to repair the circuits. One or two cluster pathways failing, yeah, she could bounce back from that. But she lost all of them simultaneously, and the backups, too. It doesn’t matter that we’ve fixed the pathways. It’s like trying to cure someone who’s had a stroke by going in and repairing the vein that broke. It doesn’t matter if blood can flow normally if the brain’s already been damaged.”
“And in this case, the brain is Lovey’s software, right?”
“Right. That’s why I called you down here. Lovey’s conscious. Her core memory files are intact. She’s still her. But she can’t access the ship normally. She just grabs out in random flashes, like she’s having a seizure. She can’t access anything beyond her memory files, and even those are a mess. Her reference files, the Linkings, the ship’s systems—they’re all a jumble to her. She’s confused, and scared.”
“So what do we do?”
Kizzy turned her head toward the core. Jenks was climbing back down into the pit. “We’ve tried everything. And I mean everything. Stars, we’ve tried things there aren’t even terms for. Ashby, she might—”
Ashby put his hand on Kizzy’s shoulder. “What are our options?”