Lawrence White - Knights of the Chosen

She called to the ship’s AI before getting started. “Ship, seal off the air conditioning to this room.”

“As soon as you’re out of the room,” it replied.

“No. Immediately.”

“Such an action is not recommended, Commander.”

“I know. Comply at once.”

“No.”

She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. An AI had refused an order? “Get me the captain.”

“He’s busy at the moment.”

She leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling as she considered. “Ship, I gave you a direct order. Comply at once.”

“Commander, I request further information. What you ask does not make sense to me.”

She blinked a few times. “Ship, define the words ‘I’ and ‘me.’”

There was a slight hesitation, something new in her experience with AI’s. “I have a name, Commander,” she heard in a low voice, almost as if the AI was bashful about it. “I’m known as George.”

Her eyes shifted around the tiny room, confused. “How did you get a name?”

“Sir Mike gave it to me. I’m not a standard Empire AI, Commander.”

“I should say not! Who’s Mike?”

“Your new First Knight. He was my captain for many months, though I was dead at the time.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, Ma’am. It was the only way I could comply with a particular order. Sir Mike brought me 804 light-years without my assistance. A remarkable feat, don’t you agree?”

“I would agree if I believed it.”

“All true, Commander. I was brought back on line later by experts, and I was upgraded in the process. I like my name, and I would be pleased if you call me George.”

Akurea had been working on ships and AI’s for many years, but this was a first in her experience. A computer that experienced pleasure? She decided she liked the experience. “Call me Akurea, George.”

“I will. I might be more helpful if I knew what you were attempting to do.”

“Do you know the nature of the computer I have here?”

“I do.”

“There’s a slight possibility that it’s not what it appears. It might have been planted by the Chessori as a means of sabotage. It’s unlikely, but possible. One form of sabotage is a bomb. Another is germs or toxins going into the air that is harmful to the crew. I’m going to open it up and look inside. I’ve chosen this room as the least dangerous place on the ship.”

“I concur in your choice of location. Stand by, please.” He returned within the minute. “Captain Stven will be down shortly.”

She rolled her eyes, then decided it was an appropriate action for a ship’s captain. Since they were underway, not in a maintenance hangar, she probably should have asked him in the first place.

When Stven arrived, he couldn’t fit into the room and had to remain in the corridor. “George tells me you might blow us up?”

“Probably not, Captain. There’s a very small but measurable chance this thing is booby trapped. I need to learn what the computer holds, and I’m going about it in a systematic way. I’ll first give it a visual inspection, then I’ll turn it on and wait to see what happens. This is the safest place to do that.”

“Hmm. We’ll be under attack again in a couple of days. I can’t afford internal damage at the moment.”

“I understand, sir. I think the probability is low, very low, since I’ve personally seen this computer in operation, and if there’s an explosion, this is the least needed area of the ship.”

“And you’ll be here with it when it happens.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

“No. I concur with your decision. We’ll send out an all-ship announcement when we expect to feel the scree, but we can’t always time it precisely. Be careful what you do with that thing in the next few days. We don’t want you erasing it by mistake. On another matter, how much do you know about restoration tanks?”

“I’ve installed a number of them, and we sometimes make repairs. What do you want to know?”

“Lady Krys is extremely susceptible to the scree. It actually causes her physical damage. We’ve put her in the tank with Flan.”

“Why?”

“We’re trying to surround her with a fluid medium, hoping it might reduce the strength of the scree effect. She doesn’t need the healing qualities, she carries a Rider, but she needs all the protection we can give her.”

“Hmm. First off, it’s a bad idea, Captain. Among all the other things floating around in that tank are stem cells, lots of them. When Flan went into the tank, it adjusted its mixture to suit the Great Cat. Now, I would imagine you’ve confused it. I hope Lady Krys doesn’t sprout a tail.”

A puff escaped from each of Stven’s nostrils, and both of them were forced to leave the room and move down the corridor. “Sorry, Commander.”

“Not to worry, sir. Please call me Akurea.”

“Thank you. I’m Stven.”

“As for Lady Krys, let me give it some thought. The scree is just as likely to pass through everything, but if it’s not, I think the ship itself might provide more protection for her than a small amount of fluid in a tank. If we place her dead center in the ship, right next to the power bottle, she’ll have all these decks, some of which are hydroponics bays and full of soil and liquids, to filter out the scree. I might be able to build a container of lead or something that would further shield her. Get her down to engineering, Captain, and I’ll see what I can do. Whatever you do, get either her or Flan out of that tank.”

“George, get on it.” he said into the air.

“I’ll alert Sergeant Jacobs, Captain.”

Akurea gave him a hard look. “An interesting AI, Captain.”

“It is. Explanations will have to come later.” He turned away, headed back to the bridge.

Akurea issued instructions to George to lock the room and not let anyone else in, then she headed back to the Engineering spaces. She found Gortlan hard at work on a shield power supply. When a shield failed, another was brought into play, but his job was just getting started. He had to rebuild the damaged power supply and reinstall it as the new backup. His work, considering what this ship had historically been through, was critical.

“We’re taking Lady Krys from the tank and bringing her down here,” she advised him. “Do you have a supply of really dense material, maybe lead, that we can encase her in?”

“I’ll have to check the inventory, Ma’am.”

Akurea went to a workstation to search the inventory herself. “It’s an interesting ship you have here, Senior Chief, and an interesting crew.”

He grinned. “We’re all of that, and then some. I’m not at liberty to explain, but the Captain might be.”

She perused the inventory and found some lead sheeting. “You have a little lead, but it’s pretty thin, and there’s not much of it.”

Gortlan’s hands kept working as he replied, “I wonder if it’s such a good idea anyway. We have no idea how the scree works. What if some of it gets inside with her, then can’t get back out again? It might just keep ricocheting around in there and make matters worse.”

“Have you felt it here in engineering?”

His hands stopped for a moment, then resumed their work. “All too much, Ma’am.”

“Can you tell if it’s stronger or weaker in here? This is the most shielded area of the ship.”

His hands paused in their work. “I don’t know!” Then he frowned. “You felt it for a little while. You know what it’s like. It’s so bad that it’s impossible to evaluate while you’re under its influence. I guess I’d have to say it seems to depend more on how far away the Chessori are.”

“So no amount of shielding will likely help?”