Here's your Sunday reading :)

Enjoy!

-Plum

21 – Black Wing

“It’s pressurizing,” Mathews said, peering through the airlock door into the flexible docking corridor. “I can see the ship’s airlock out there.”

Hector grunted his acknowledgment, looking through the other airlock door to where Gladia, Iris, and Lemon, holding Kit’s hand, waited. It wasn’t just them; there was a crowd in the airlock corridor—crew members who wanted to be there when they learned if Black Wing was more than a floating museum exhibit. He’d left Sass and Demon out there, too, mainly because it made him feel better to have them close to Lemon.

At first, he’d been relieved that Gladia hadn’t suggested Flint come along on their exploratory mission. If she were going to try to seize the drive-core cipher before Hector could use and install it, claiming authority over the ancient ship, now was the time. Flint was her only move in that regard, even though he was a poor match for Hector’s skill set.

The more he thought about it, though, watching how Lemon and Kit stood beside the Royal, the more he realized he was leaving behind another card Gladia could play.

Would she stoop so low?

Evie didn’t respond, recognizing the rhetorical nature of the question. She could try to reassure him; he could try to reassure himself. He’d grown to respect Gladia to some degree, even to like her. He didn’t want to think she’d threaten Lemon to get to him—but he knew how Royals could be.

I guess we’ll find out. It was the only thing he could say. It wasn’t as if he could keep Lemon beside him every waking minute. If Gladia played that kind of hand now, at least he’d know.

Turning away from the window, he looked over his little team. Mathews stood by the exit door, and on the other side were Kristy and Orin. Nobody wore EVA suits, but they wore sealed helmets with air supplies, just in case the ship’s atmosphere had gone bad. Considering how long it had been floating out there with limited power, bad air wasn’t hard to imagine.

The green LED above the airlock, partially painted over with gray primer, flickered and then glowed steadily. “It’s ready,” Mathews announced.

“Let’s check it out, then.” Hector stepped forward, and Mathews touched the open sequence on the control panel. The door’s latches thunked open, some air hissed briefly, and then it swung wide, revealing five meters of grime-stained docking corridor. At the far end, Hector saw the flat-black surface of Black Wing’s circular airlock.

There weren’t any obvious anti-personnel measures in place, but the ship was from the Expansion Era, and the stories about nano warfare from that time period were bloodcurdling. For a little added comfort, he reached into his belt-pack and took out the drive-core cipher, holding it in his hand as he approached the ancient ship. Despite the outward appearance of a powerless derelict, when he got within a meter of the hull, a softly glowing rectangle appeared on the surface to the left of the airlock, and a glossy screen resolved out of the matte-black alloy.

“Wild!” Kristy hissed. “I guess it’s not dead.”

“Stow it,” Mathews growled.

Hector ignored them, reaching toward the panel. An amber static effect danced across the screen, and then a smooth, masculine voice said, “I’ve received a docking query from Elephant. Are you the captain?”

“I’m—”

Before Hector could finish his sentence, the voice spoke again. This time the words came more rapidly, and if he didn’t know better, Hector would have said it sounded excited. “I’m detecting a near-field communication; are you in possession of Kurotsubasa’s drive-core cipher?”

//Remember, that’s the original name of the ship. It means Black Wing.//

Hector grunted, acknowledging Evie’s reminder, and then said, “Yes.”

“Ah! At last! I’d given up hope and put myself into dormancy. I am Tadamori, Kurotsubasa’s governing intelligence. Feel free to address me as Mori—most people do…did.”

“Noted. So? Can we come in?” Hector glanced over his shoulder at his team—every one of them clutching weapons.

“I don’t suppose you are Captain Clay Havish in a new body?” Mori asked.

For a fraction of a second, Hector thought about lying. He knew he’d never be able to keep the charade going, though, not against a ship’s AI. “Um, no. Was he your most recent captain?”

“Yes. I knew it was a slim chance. When he put me here, it was as a fail-safe—an escape route, should his plans go awry. I fear they went more awry than he’d expected. Come in.”

The seam around the circular airlock door lit up with the same amber glow, and then compressed air hissed as it recessed slightly and slid to the side. The new opening revealed an empty, clean airlock with benches along the left and right walls. The bulkhead was marked with words like CAUTION in English and Japanese. Yellow-white recessed lights gave the light gray alloy surfaces a warm, almost inviting appearance.

Hector stepped inside and said, “I’m Hector Valerius, and I’ll be taking ownership of Black Wing.”

“Well,” came Mori’s reply from a hidden speaker, “there’s no one here to contest your claim, and you hold the cipher. More importantly, I’m ever so bored, and loyalty has its limits.”

Hector stepped forward, and the rest of his team followed him in. “Can you direct—”

“I’ll guide you to the bridge where you can place the cipher. You should know, though, Hector,” Mori said as the airlock door slid shut and clicked into place, “that if Captain Havish had been a paranoid or cruel man, he could have left me commands that would have made your claim—drive-core cipher or not—meaningless. I could have already reduced you all to sludge and washed you down that drain at the center of the airlock.”

Hector grunted. “Nanites?”

Air hissed as Mori equalized the airlock’s atmosphere. “Nanites, chemicals—there are many defensive measures built into this warship.”

“Well, listen, Mori,” Hector said. “I’m glad you didn’t try any of that. I’m grateful to your old captain, even. That being said, don’t assume we’re helpless to such tactics. Besides, didn’t you invite us aboard?” Hector wasn’t so sure they weren’t helpless, but he didn’t want Mori getting any ideas. He hoped his regeneration and aura abilities would see him through any such trouble, but it had always been a gamble walking aboard a ship as old as Black Wing.

“You’re absolutely right, sir. I do appreciate your courtesy, and I’m sorry if I presumed to imply you weren’t prepared for any eventuality. I’m a little out of practice when it comes to conversation. You understand, I hope.” As Mori finished speaking, the inner airlock door swung open, revealing a long, well-maintained corridor.

“Damn,” Mathews said, moving to stand beside him. “For an old girl, she’s in good condition.”

“That’s right,” Mori replied. “Kurotsubasa, or, as you refer to her, Black Wing, is equipped with an extensive network of maintenance nanites. Provided that network isn’t disrupted and as long as renovations don’t include suboptimal materials, she can keep herself in good repair.”

“And the hull, too?” Hector asked.

“All systems, sir.” On the ceiling, amber arrows appeared, flashing in a line to a four-way junction and then to the right. “Please follow the arrows. I’ll guide you to the bridge.”

“It’s quiet,” Orin observed.

“The reactor is in hibernation-maintenance mode,” Mori said. “Most of the ship’s systems are offline.”

Hector’s mind drifted to the rift pearl in his belt-pack. “Are you low on fuel?”

“Not critically so; the ship is using very little power in this state.”

Hector grunted. He didn’t want to mention the pearl in front of everyone, especially when he wasn’t sure it was the right kind of fuel for a ship as old as Black Wing.

Mathews moved to walk beside him. She let her rifle fall, hanging from its sling at her hip. “This certainly went a lot smoother than I feared. I was imagining an army of ancient synths.”

He nodded. “Yeah. It could’ve been worse. Once I have full command and we’ve assessed things, we can start moving the crew and our supplies over.”

“The cargo compartments are nearly empty, sir. Assuming the cipher pairs properly with the drive core, you shouldn’t have any trouble offloading that barge.” Mori’s tone sounded distinctly judgmental.

“Hey,” Hector said. “For the record, we took that ship off some pirates. We’ll take better care of you.”

“Does this ship really have a fold drive?” Mathews asked. When Hector looked at her sideways, she shrugged.

Mori’s bodiless response drifted through the quiet: “Black Wing is equipped with a fold drive, along with a gravity drive and a fusion propulsion system. The gravity generator, as you can undoubtedly detect, is also functional, though it is currently operating on nano-veritite batteries. We’ll need to get the reactor spooled up in order to begin full operation—something that requires the cipher you’re carrying, Hector.”

“Is the air breathable?” Hector asked.

“I wouldn’t trust it, sir. Apologies for not warning you, but I perceived your helmets.”

Hector glanced at Mathews, then over his shoulder at Kristy and Orin. Nobody said anything. Evie, send an update to Gladia.

//Done.//

He cleared his throat and said, “Tell me about the ship’s weaponry. Is that railgun the primary weapon?”

“Yes, sir. Black Wing was designed as a deep space hunter. Yamamoto Corporation commissioned her from the Aegis-Orbital Shipyards on Luna for the sole purpose of punishing pirates who preyed on the trade routes between Saturn, Jupiter, and Luna. She was outfitted for long, solo missions, and her spinal railgun, running nearly the full length of the ship, was designed to hurl three-hundred-millimeter tungsten slugs. Kurotsubasa has penetrated the armor of many a warship.”

“Three hundred?” Mathews whistled.

“Unfortunately,” Mori added, “one of the reasons Captain Havish had to leave was due to a distinct lack of railgun munitions.”

“You’re out?” Hector asked.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” the AI replied. “However, Black Wing is outfitted with missile batteries, point-defense cannons, and countermeasures. Many foolish gunships and interceptors came close enough to learn that lesson.”

Hector smiled at the AI’s tone; it seemed to him that Mori was struggling to contain a rather droll, prideful personality. He cleared his throat and said, “Mori, you say the previous captain left you here as a contingency?”

“That’s correct; he was hoping to clear his name with the Western Bio Dynamics Corporation on Luna. He never returned.”

As Mori finished speaking, Hector and the others came to an elevator, and it opened at their approach. They stepped aboard, and it hummed softly, lifting them for a few moments, then it surprised Hector by accelerating sideways. He wasn’t the only one caught off guard.

“Dammit!” Orin grunted, lurching to slam his shoulder into the wall.

“Apologies. Please secure your footing or hold onto the railing. We’re traversing nearly two hundred meters toward the bow,” Mori said.

As Orin, grumbling, regained his balance, Kristy looked at Hector and asked, “What’s with all the talk about corporations? What’s with all the Japanese writing? What about the Empire?”

“Empire?” Mori asked.

Arching his eyebrow, Hector asked, “How long have you been tethered to this asteroid, Mori?”

“Nine hundred and forty-two years if I round down.”

“Angels!” Kristy cried. “That’s even before the Chen Dynasty!”

Mathews snorted. “We told you this was an Expansion Era ship…”

“So? There are a lot of EE ships in the system. I figured someone had been using it since then!”

“To be honest,” Hector said, nodding, “I thought so too. We’ll need to update your libraries, Mori.”

“I’m intrigued to see only slight variances in your Sol-standard English. You have different inflections, an unusual accent, and some of your usage differs from what I’m accustomed to, but it’s perfectly understandable.”

“Well…” Hector shrugged. “Sol-standard is Sol-standard.”

“A truly profound explanation,” Mori said.

The elevator—or train car, Hector supposed—came to a stop, and the doors slid open, revealing not a corridor, but the ship’s bridge. “Oh,” Mathews said. “We’re here.”

“Indeed,” Mori replied.

Hector stepped out and looked around the bridge as the lights clicked and flickered before taking on the same steady, amber glow they’d seen elsewhere in the ship. The bridge was neat and utilitarian, but quite a step above even Maidensong’s. Four crew stations were at the top level, where the elevator and another door provided egress, but a ramp led down to a middle tier, and then another ramp down to the bottom tier.

On the middle tier, there were four more crew stations, and at the bottom, which was the largest section, there were eight, including one in the center that had to be the captain’s. A viewscreen occupied the front of the bridge, wrapping around to the sides. He figured it was at least ten meters wide and stretched from floor to ceiling. The screen was dark and lifeless, but Hector imagined it would provide quite the panoramic view when activated.

A light flickered in his peripheral vision, and Mori said, “There’s a server cabinet there, Hector, where you’ll want to install the drive-core cipher. Once you’ve done so, I’ll be able to begin the activation process for the ship’s systems, including environmental processing. We should have clean air within the hour.”

Hector walked over to the cabinet and touched the latch. It clicked and opened, revealing a stack of silent server decks. It boggled his mind to think about how old the computers were. More troubling, if he let himself dwell on it, was that they were more advanced than modern technology.

How many times had humanity nearly wiped itself out in the centuries that Black Wing had been lurking out there in the asteroid field? How many times had one overbearing government or another fought to keep people oppressed? He grimaced at the thought, remembering his time in the Legion and then the Invicti. His hands were dirty, no matter how he looked at it.

All the more reason.

Evie either played dumb, or she really couldn’t read his current mood. //What do you mean? Reason for what?//

For the emperor to die.

Hector pushed the only button in the stack that had a faint blue glow. Something clicked, and a drawer rolled out. At its center was a spherical depression, and Hector knew what to do next: he set the drive-core cipher into it, and the drawer retracted. Several soft clicks sounded inside the server stack, and then, all around the bridge, beeps sounded, followed by the low, steady hum of electronics.

“Excellent news, Captain Valerius! The drive-core cipher was uncorrupted and has cleared all the authentication checks. I’m waking the reactor and bringing all systems online—unless there’s a reason I shouldn’t. Are enemies near?”

“Just call me by my name, Mori. Go ahead and fire everything up. Make sure the PDCs don’t blast Elephant.”

“We’re good, then?” Orin asked, reaching for his helmet seal.

Mathews slapped his wrist. “Not yet. The AI said an hour. Give the air some time to circulate.”

“That’s right,” Mori added. “By the way, Hector, do you mind introducing your crew?”

“Yeah, sure. Just a minute, though.” Hector eyed the mute function on his helmet’s UI, deactivating the external speaker, then he focused on his comms window. When he stared at Lemon’s name for a quarter of a second, it lit up, and he said, “You there?”

Her reply was immediate, “Here!”

“Everything good?”

“Yes! We’re just anxious to hear more! Someone from the bridge just messaged Gladia that the ship’s reactor came alive.”

Hector grinned. “Yep. She’s alive, Lemon, and she’s beautiful.”