Willful Child (13 page)

The bridge iris opened and an outrageously curvaceous woman dressed in combat fatigues stepped through. She walked up to stand before Hadrian, snapped a salute, and spoke around the fat half-smoked but temporarily unlit stogie clamped in the corner of her luscious mouth. “Lieutenant Samantha ‘Sweepy’ Brogan, Terran Marines, sir.”

“I can’t believe I left you behind!”

“The incredulity is mutual, sir. Do you have any complaints regarding the extraction team, sir?”

“Not at all, barring the fact that your people refuse to remove their helmets.”

“It’s better that way, sir.”

“You mean, you don’t know what they look like either?”

“No, sir, I don’t. Makes it easier to sleep through the night, sir.”

Hadrian regarded her. Wide face, Asian eyes, long black hair piled into some kind of nest atop her exquisitely round head. High, flaring cheekbones, a delicate scar under the left eye, full lips painted deep red, the flash of white teeth as she spoke. He grunted his appreciation, and then said, “So you sleep well at night, do you, Lieutenant?”

“I sleep the sleep of the damned, sir.”

“And that sits well with you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did you manage to track us down?” Sin-Dour asked, by way of rude interruption. “It is scientifically impossible—”

Sweepy’s eyes flicked over to the 2IC. “We’re marines, Commander. We eat impossible for breakfast, shit it out before lunch, and then eat it all over again.”

“Well, at least that one makes sense, kind of,” Hadrian said. “Outstanding, Lieutenant. How many squads in your complement?”

“One active, two inactive.”

“Inactive?”

“On ice, sir.”

“And presumably, we’ve met the active squad. Gunny Sergeant Muffy Slapp. Skulls, Chambers…”

“And Lefty Lim, Sniper, Stables—our medic—and Charles Not Chuck, heavy weapons. They’re decent. Been downrange enough times to not get in a flap.”

“Delighted to finally have you all aboard, Lieutenant,” said Hadrian, rising to his feet and smiling at her.

She chewed on her stogie for a moment, and then flashed a brief smile that never reached her I’ll-kill-you-in-a-blink eyes. “Thank you, Captain. Is there anything else you want of me right now?”

“Plenty, Lieutenant, but duty demands otherwise. Inform your squad that we’re about to engage a Misanthari Swarm and there may be hand-to-hand on multiple decks.”

“I’ll put the iced teams on standby, sir.”

“Hmm. If you need to take command of ship security squads, Lieutenant, you are so authorized. Oh, and liaise with our chief of security, Adjutant Lorrin Tighe.”

“Yes, sir. Where is this adjutant?”

“Passed out drunk in my office, LT. She might need a Spike to come around, but I’m sure you’re well equipped.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I, then?”

“Go on,” Hadrian said, pointing to the office door. “I know, it’s supposed to be a storage cabinet, but I assure you, it is my office, and you’ll find her in there.”

He watched the marine cross the bridge, gaze fixing on the meaty sway of her behind.

Sin-Dour cleared her throat. “We’re about to drop out of T space, Captain. Five minutes.”

Hadrian sat again. “Tammy! Do you have those new beam weapons installed and ready to blaze away?”

“And so begin a galactic war, Captain? Absolutely.”

“Enough with the sulking, Tammy, and free the weapons to my combat specialist.”

“Not a chance,” the AI replied. “He will be busy enough with the turrets, railguns, and missiles. Besides, only I have authorization to use my weapons.”

“I am not happy about that, Tammy.”

“Oh boo hoo. I’d show you my virtual violin but it’s submolecular.”

Sweepy reappeared with a still-unconscious and now mostly naked adjutant slung over one shoulder. “Captain, I think I’ll just drop her off at sickbay on my way down. She’d need five Spikes just to come around and that’d be a waste. Permission to assume overall command of ship security.”

“Granted, Sweepy. Best get on with it, too.”

As she passed him, Hadrian raised a hand. “Oh, by the way, Lieutenant, I understand that what you discovered in my office might seem, well, a contravention of regulations and, indeed, decorum. But I assure you, it’s only half as bad as you think.”

She studied him, plucked out her stogie, and said, “Captain. I’m on a vessel in the Terran Space Fleet, which is just a puffed-up name for fucking Navy mop-pushers, if you’ll excuse the expression. So … no, I have no opinion, sir, none at all.”

“It’s no surprise,” Hadrian said, “that with soldiers like you, Lieutenant, we’ve conquered a tenth of the galaxy.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Dismissed, Sweepy. Good hunting.”

Out she went with the adjutant like a sack draped over her shoulder.

Sin-Dour had returned to the science station, and now announced, “Exclusion Zone ETA, thirty seconds!”

“Stay calm, 2IC,” said Hadrian. “Red alert. Forward viewscreen on. Thrusters primed for combat readiness, all weapons loose. Stand by, Helm.”

The
Willful Child
rattled as the twin railguns powered up and loaded projectiles.

In his mind Hadrian pictured the countless corridors and operations rooms in his Engage-class starship, while he floated like an invisible ghost and watched his crew running about as the red-alert beacons flashed. Seeing one man trip and slam into a wall, the captain shook his head to clear it. “Nice and calm, now,” he said to his bridge officers. “Panic won’t do, not on this ship. If I have to—
holy freaking crap!
”

The
Willful Child
dropped out of T space to find itself in the midst of an enormous space battle. Counter-class Terran warships were blazing from every weapon cluster, missiles spinning, flaring and curving round as they chased dozens of Misanthari swarmships. Oblong red blobs splashed against Terran shields even as inert kinetic strikes blossomed in vast bruises against the protective energy screens.

One Counter-class vessel, the ASF
Cruel Without Cause,
was visibly staggering to a barrage of kinetic strikes, and an instant later its port shield collapsed. Red blobs raced in to explode in smears against the ship’s hull. The acid made the hull armor boil, and in each place the dark splodge that was huddled inside the crimson goop unfolded its weapon-studded limbs as it readied to drop through the imminent breach.

“Sir!” Sin-Dour cried. “They got here ahead of us! The Misanthari Rage Index is Grey Point Two! Captain! Two points left until Pure White!”

Tammy crowed, its laughter echoing through the ship. “Galactic war! Hahahahaha! Serves you right, Captain Hadrian!”

“Galk! Target the swarmships around the
Cruel Without Cause!
Helm! Ignite the antimatter engines, twenty percent acceleration exponential to point six-nine!”

“Captain,” shouted Sin-Dour, “that’ll plough us right through the engagement!”

“That’s right, 2IC,” Hadrian said. “Oh, we’ll take a few potshots and maybe help out our erstwhile fellow Terrans who happen to be hunting us on a shoot-first basis. But this ruckus here, why, clearly someone messed up on the diplomatic front. In other words, not our problem. Tammy! Target that big Swarm-Mother—the flashing-flagged one to starboard—that’s where most of the red blobs are coming from. We’ll do a drive-by. Beam weapon, baby! Hit it, Tammy!”

Loud twanging country music filled the bridge.

“What the hell? Tammy!”

The music stopped. “Sorry, Captain,” said Tammy. “Some sleeper command in my matrix.”

“The beam weapon! Hit that ship! Hit it hard!”

A scintillating, actinic line blazed out from the
Willful Child
, cutting through the enemy shields and striking amidships.

“Direct hit!” cried Joss Sticks.

Nothing happened.

Hadrian scowled. “Tammy! What kind of beam was that?”

“It’s a particle beam. Must I get all technical with you?”

“Sorry I asked. Well, you hit the Swarm-Mother. What kind of damage did you deliver?”

“I appear to have turned a square centimeter of its hull into glass.”

“Glass? What’s the point of that?”

“Evidently, it is very effective where I came from, I suppose.”

“Your makers—what are they, Galactic Voyeurs?”

“I have another beam-weapon configuration, Captain, but I should warn you, it’s—”

“Lock on the same target and fire it, damn you!”

The beam that erupted from the
Willful Child
’s bow seemed to cut a slash through the fabric of space itself. Striking the Swarm-Mother, it turned the capital ship into a cloud of twinkling dust.

“Darwin preserve us!” cried Sin-Dour in a hushed, shocked tone.

The other Misanthari vessels were breaking off.

Moments later, the
Willful Child
cleared the area of engagement and continued on, still accelerating. “Tammy,” said Hadrian, “what was that thing?”

“A Folded Actuating DM Target-Disassembler Irrefutable-Assertion Beam.”

“Oh,” said Hadrian, “one of those, huh? Listen, we’ll need a better name for it, I think.”

“What does ‘DM’ refer to, Tammy?” Sin-Dour asked from the science station. She was frowning down at her sensor readings. “That is,” she added, “I’m getting some unusual perturbations in our wake—”

“DM, Commander,” said Tammy, “refers to dark matter, of course. As I was attempting to tell your captain, this particular beam has a few side effects, principally, the terminal, irreversible thinning of the substrate of dark matter upon which the fabric of this universe is, shall we say, hung. If you wish a schematic of the effect, imagine a dimple in what should be a taut, stretched, and mostly level substrate. Given the current cross-flow of dark matter, which always runs perpendicular to the continued expansion of the universe, thus maintaining observable cohesion, this dimple is asymmetrical, with the greatest thinning effect at the apex as seen from against the expansion of the universe.”

“Dimple, huh? You want us to call this a Dimple Beam?”

“Well, not necessarily, Captain,” Tammy replied. “But I would suggest that you urgently advise your Terran allies back there to vacate the area of combat as quickly as possible, in case their vessels, uh, fall through.”

“Fall through? To where, Tammy? Some kind of T space?”

“Oh dear, no, Captain. The precise nature of the sub-substrate a vessel might plunge into is unknown. In fact, I doubt there’s a single hypothetical musing worth noting regarding said sub-substrate. If I was asked to, say, posit a few likely characteristics to what waits at the bottom of the pit, I would note a likely breakdown of most functionality. And even should the vessel manage to maintain coherence, why, I doubt the thrusters or engines would work. The same for the T drive. Meaning, no way to get back out.”

“Comms! Pol—oh, you again, Jimmy. Thought I relieved you? Never mind. Warn the Counter fleet out of the way, highest priority.”

“Yes, sir. What reason should I give, sir?”

“Weren’t you listening?”

“No, sir.”

“Just tell them, uhm, tell them they’ll die if they don’t leave. The beam weapon we used has side effects—there, that’s about right, or is that too complicated for you to understand, Mr. Olympian? Send it!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Tammy!”

“What?”

“Don’t use that tone with me! What happened to that Swarm-Mother? Did it fall through, then?”

“No. It dispersed. At the subatomic level.”

“So,” said Hadrian, “shall we summarize here? You have two beam weapons. One turns tiny, solid, opaque surfaces into glass, presumably designed to be used against deadly private shower stalls, or the bottom of toilet basins, depending on your predilections. The other beam weapon permanently weakens the fabric of the universe. Tammy, can you maybe come up with a beam weapon that, I don’t know, falls somewhere between the two? You know, some kind of tachyon antiproton X-ray gammatron beam thingy.”

“The beam weapons you describe, Captain, lack efficacy.”

“Oh, and your glass popper does?”

“Within specification constraints,” Tammy said loftily, “I would suggest that it worked perfectly.”

“I want middling!” Hadrian shouted, pounding the arm of the command chair. “Comms! Sickbay—Printlip! Get up here with that nanogel, would you? Tammy! Middle-of-the-road beam weapons. I want to see flashes of bright deadly colors. I want to see shields glow and buckle! And big black smears against enemy hulls! Errant electrical discharges would be pretty cool, too. I want to
engage
in battle, do you understand? To-and-froing, with broadsides! What I don’t want, damn you, is pushing a button that obliterates an entire Darwin-damned ship! Where’s the glory in that?”

“You describe the vice of inefficiency, Captain.”

“Exactly! That’s what I want, inefficiency!”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense, Tammy.” Hadrian settled back in the chair, taking a deep breath. “Perfect sense. Poetic sense, in fact. If life has no drama, there’s no real point in living it. Without jeopardy, without real risk, without the old touch-and-go moments of serious shit going down, well, what’s the fucking point to it all? And nix the close-up again, will you?”

Galk chimed in from his combat cupola.
“All very Varekan of you, sir. I am impressed. As we Varekan are wont to say: ‘If you have to, live long or live short, what real difference does it make in the end anyway?’”

“Not now, Galk. Stop eavesdropping. Take a bucket and brush to your cupola, will you? Listen, Tammy, it’s clear that you have a lot to learn. You’re like a child with a machine gun. Sure it’s funny when it goes popopopopop, but then, your whole family’s dead, so what the fuck? Listen, how about we make us a deal here?”

“What kind of deal, Captain?”

“Delay this whole ‘where’s my daddy’ scenario for the time being. The day you step up to that weirdo, you want to be an AI that he or she or it can be proud of, don’t you? We’re talking a steep learning curve here, friend. I’m the man to send you on that ladder, step by step.”

“You, Captain?”

“See? It’s that dubious skepticism stuff you need to deep-six, Tammy. In the meantime, how about we drop back into T space, give the Radulak and the Klang a miss for now, and work us up some pristine, as yet unexplored sector of space to go fuck around in.”