Chapter 08 – See

The metallic clang of the door latch echoed through our cramped cell, making my muscles tense involuntarily. High Admiral Lánhuā strode in, her presence commanding the room. I might have been more surprised if Dr. Xuefeng hadn't warned me of this possibility.

What did catch me off guard was Commander Chen’s hulking presence beside her. They settled into the chairs across from us—Lánhuā’s face would make any poker champion proud, while Chen was like a guard dog straining at its leash.

“You caused quite a commotion out there, especially you, Mr. Almeida,” Lánhuā’s voice was low and measured as she methodically peeled off her leather gloves, one finger at a time.

“What happened?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

“A minor confrontation between us and A.U.T.N,” Chen grumbled.

“I thought you were A.U.T.N,” I shot back.

Chen’s face contorted with disapproval. “You know nothing about us, boy!”

“That’s not why we came here, Chen.” Lánhuā’s voice cut through the tension like a knife through silk. “Please, play the recordings.”

Chen’s mouth twisted downward as if he’d bitten into something bitter, but he complied with the High Admiral’s order. The recording filled a holographic screen, showing me entering the Virgo for the first time six days ago. The footage was an edited time-lapse, fastforwarding through the mundane moments before slowing down to normal speed at points of interest. The first pause came during our initial inspection of the rear bulkhead panels.

“Chen, enhance the image,” Lánhuā commanded. “Apply the image processing.”

The grainy, low-contrast footage transformed before our eyes. What had been a pixelated mess became crystal clear, as if we were watching through a window into the past.

“How is this possible?” I blurted out. “That information wasn’t in the original footage—you can’t create information from nothing!” I knew arguing with an interrogator was about as wise as juggling plasma containers, but if they were using some AI algorithm, it couldn’t possibly stand up as evidence.

Lánhuā’s lips curved into what might have been amusement. “You’ve been frozen for a long time, Mr. Almeida. But being the empathetic person I am, I’ll explain how it works.” Her eyes locked onto mine. “We have extremely high-quality mapping of all our ships’ interiors. By analyzing the difference between the pixelated image and what we expect to find in the video, we can make extremely precise inferences about things that shouldn’t be in the video.”

“But you could manipulate the video to put whatever you want there,” I pressed.

“This algorithm doesn’t allow that, Fred,” Xuefeng’s calm voice beside me felt like a splash of cold water.

“Thank you, Dr. Xuefeng,” Lánhuā said. “Now, back to what really matters... On your first day, pipeline CD-PL-006, segment X02, was in perfect condition, with the insulation blanket perfectly adhered. Do you agree with this statement?”

“Yes,” we answered in unison.

She continued her methodical questioning, walking us through various technical points from our first day of work. She was establishing a baseline to have something to compare to later. Luckily both Dr. Xuefeng and I were ready for any technical questions she might throw at us. What I wasn’t prepared for was the external recording. My heart sank as the camera focused on my conversations with Alice.

“Shit...” Was the only thing I could think of.

“As we’ll see in other recordings, Mr. Almeida frequently stopped to talk with Lieutenant Alice Jīnfēng during shift changes—”

“Jīnfēng?!” I was surprised. “In all the times I spoke with her, until now I hadn’t stopped to think where she was from. Could she be from Xīn Tiāntáng too?”

“—We don’t have audio from these cameras, but we can approximate through lip reading,” Lánhuā concluded.

And there lay my terrible crime. During every shift change, we would make jokes and exchange glances. We only had a few minutes between shifts, so it ended up becoming one of those playful flirtations that you know will never come to anything. Most of my attempts to make her laugh had involved poking fun at Dr. Xuefeng, which earned me his first look of genuine disappointment and shame.

“Nobody I knew is alive anymore, I need to make new friends somehow,” I tried to defend myself. “As far as I know, we were both off duty and didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You’re right,” Lánhuā conceded, though her tone suggested this was far from over. “But the fact that you spoke with her during every shift change, and that both were responsible for the same systems on the Virgo, makes her a suspect as well.”

“Lieutenant Alice has served with me for five years,” Commander Chen interjected. “I’ve never had any reason to distrust her.”

“I don’t understand where you’re going with this,” I said, fighting to keep frustration from my voice.

“Chen, continue the video,” Lánhuā ordered.

The recording continued. Each time we appeared near that cursed pipeline, they would freeze the frame and launch into the same battery of questions. The result never varied—the pipeline remained intact. This continued until yesterday’s footage. We watched ourselves open the rear bulkhead, work on several reactor valves, and break for lunch. The camera followed as I consumed my boxed lunch and drifted off to sleep in zero gravity while Dr. Xuefeng left the Virgo.

For the first time, we witnessed the image reconstruction algorithm’s true capabilities. While I floated there, blissfully unconscious, something sinister climbed the pipeline like a mechanical spider. It created the tear in the protection blanket, then attempted to conceal its handiwork with a carefully arranged tangle of cables.

“What was that?” Dr. Xuefeng lurched forward cracking his usual composure to get a better look at the footage.

“That is why I’m here,” Lánhuā responded. “Our algorithms estimate it’s a remotely controlled automaton. It should be around five centimeters in diameter.” She paused again, studying us like specimens under a microscope. “We’ve gone through all our images, frame by frame, but couldn’t locate how or when that thing entered the Virgo. Our most concrete theory is that it came with your tools.”

“Then if you already know we’re innocent, why are we still being held here?” I challenged her.

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“It’s too early to grant you total innocence. Alice is considered one of the main suspects; she’s being interrogated at this very moment.” The words hung in the air like toxic gas.

“This is a witch hunt...” I muttered.

“Mr. Almeida, if you have knowledge about anything, this is the best time to speak,” Lánhuā’s words filled the room with a suffocating silence. Commander Chen had taken to glowering at the walls as if they might confess. “The only reason I’ve spent all this time here with you, telling you much more than you should hear, is because I think you’re truly innocent, but I need you to help me find the culprit so this story can end quickly.”

“I wish I could help you, but I have nothing to contribute,” I responded.

“Dr. Xuefeng?” Her gaze shifted to my professor, who sat with his head bowed and eyes closed, looking like a man carrying the weight of worlds.

“I...” he started. “I noticed the device in my tool case,” he finally admitted, each word seeming to cost him something.

“And you did nothing about it?” Commander Chen’s incredulity radiated from him.

“I thought someone had placed it there by mistake—it had been there for about two days. I even asked around in the corridors about who owned it. You can check the cafeteria cameras from Thursday and Friday, you’ll see.” Dr. Xuefeng’s words tumbled out like he was trying to outrun them.

“And when you didn’t find the owner, you simply left it in your bag?” Lánhuā questioned.

“I had no idea what it was, it looked valuable. I was keeping it until I found the owner,” he defended himself.

“With all the respect you know I have for you, Dr. Xuefeng, but you’re one of the most renowned physicists and engineers in all of Vielovento. How could you not recognize an automaton?” Lánhuā maintained her pressure.

“When you see it moving, it’s easy to recognize. To me, it was just a flat metallic disc.”

“And you didn’t think to open it to see what was inside?”

“Yes... But the routine with Fred didn’t allow me time for that.”

Lánhuā and Chen continued their relentless questioning, but Dr. Xuefeng had nothing more to offer, like a star that had burned through all its fuel.

“Mr. Almeida, you’re released for now. We’ll pass the investigation to A.U.T.N. You can wait in freedom while this proceeds.” Lánhuā’s words should have felt like relief, but something in her tone made them feel more like a stay of execution. “As for you, Dr. Xuefeng, we’ll need to keep you and Alice here for a little longer.”

✹✸✶✸✹

As soon as I left, anxiety propelled me through Broodmothers’s labyrinthine corridors in search of Peregrina’s crew. I searched the cafeteria and the common areas, without success. I decided to go to each of their dormitories, I didn’t remember exactly where they were and I kept trying, but I couldn’t find them either. Finally, I resolved to go to Peregrina itself. I approached the external communicator.

“Peregrina, this is Fred, requesting permission to enter.”

I waited for a few seconds before Cirakari’s familiar voice crackled through the speaker, “Fred, you may enter.”

After six days of growing accustomed to Virgo’s interior, the Peregrina’s cabin felt oddly foreign. The crew was scattered floating in its interior, their faces etched with concern that didn’t match their relaxed postures. No signs of physical training were visible; the active displays suggested they’d been running combat simulations instead.

“What happened yesterday?” Cirakari asked.

I recounted the whole story, watching as their expressions shifted from curiosity to disbelief. By the time I finished, they looked like they’d seen a ghost materialize through the bulkhead.

“Should I be worried, Cira?” Tài asked.

Cirakari’s mouth quirked into a sardonic smile. “Were you the one who planted the robot in Dr. Xuefeng’s luggage?”

“No...” Tài’s face darkened. “But this smells like separatism to me. The kind that gets people killed.”

“We need to focus on the four Overseers cruisers that will arrive here in a few weeks,” she responded gruffly. “All this squabbling won’t amount to anything when we’re staring down their gun ports.”

“Forgive my frankness,” Tài said, leaning forward, “but I think you’re wrong.”

“I always said you’d contradict me at any chance, and I’m standing by that.” Cirakari crossed her arms. “But explain to me why you think that way, Tài?”

“Xīn Tiāntáng will see A.U.T.N as a weakness rather than an advantage in the fight against the Overseers.” He gestured expansively. “It’s much easier for them to control their own people than to depend on everyone’s cooperation. Especially with the growing wave of officers favoring surrender.”

“Xīn Tiāntáng only has that old Huánglóng relic,” Cirakari countered. “Without a decent cruiser, they won’t stand a chance against the Overseers.”

“A.U.T.N won’t stand a chance either without our frigates to fill the Broodmother’s docks,” Tài shot back.

“You think they plan to take this fight to the ground?” I interjected, trying to understand the full scope of their concerns.

“It’s a possibility, yes,” he continued. “Take the battle to the surface and try to negotiate favorable surrender terms while they still have something to bargain with.”

“We should do the same, folks,” Gulliver chimed in from his station. “They outnumber us, have more resources, and better technology. It’ll be a massacre whether A.U.T.N is united or not.”

“’In interstellar warfare, the defender always has the advantage,’” Cirakari recited, as if quoting from some military expert.

“We threw a bunch of rocks in their path, but what if that doesn’t work?” Gulliver’s voice carried an edge of desperation.

“Whoa, wait a minute,” I interrupted. “They’re traveling at near-lightspeeds, right? If you managed to put obstacles in their path, they won’t be able to dodge or destroy them. It should be a hit-kill at those speeds.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Cirakari intervened, calling up a holographic display showing trajectory paths. “We detected the cruisers three years ago. When we spotted them, they had already started their deceleration burn. The encounter with the first rock we threw was a year and a half ago. By then, they had already decelerated to 0.80c. We’re not sure how much damage we caused, but apparently it was minimal. Currently, they’re at 0.20c and should be entering the supersaturated zone.”

“Supersaturated zone?” I leaned closer to examine the hologram.

“Yes,” she manipulated the display, showing a cloud of tiny points along the approach vector. “We spent several weeks launching gravel-sized rocks along their approach trajectory. Our hope is that this will cause enough damage to pierce their shields. Even at 0.20c, small particles still carry enough energy to destroy the cruisers.”

“But if it doesn’t?! We’ll have to face all four cruisers head-on,” Gulliver added.

“We’d still have the advantage,” Cirakari added. “Even if all four cruisers arrive intact, we’ll still be able to choose how, when, and where we fight our battles. We’re literally sitting next to our natural resources; they’ll only have what they managed to bring on their journey. Antimatter is extremely efficient, but it’s not infinite.” She paused, her eyes sweeping across our faces. “Do I think it’ll be a massacre? Yes, I do, for both sides. But I’m fully convinced we can defend ourselves.”

“We need four Freedom-Class ships to take down a single interceptor. Imagine four cruisers full of them,” Tài added.

“Those interceptors come on suicide missions; they’re disposable,” Cirakari countered. “That’s why they’re so aggressive—they can’t maintain that pace forever. They burn bright but brief.”

“I think it’s really cool how you allow this kind of discussion among the crew, regardless of rank,” I commented, impressed by the open exchange.

“If I imposed a hierarchical regime, you’d discuss this without me knowing.” Cirakari’s features softened slightly. “I prefer to participate in the discussion and know my crew well, as long as it doesn’t interfere with operations.”

Tài and Gulliver nodded in agreement. “This really changes my view of military life,” I admitted.

“This varies from commander to commander, but it’s important to know that everything we say here stays within this group,” she concluded.

“Understood,” I affirmed.

“Well...” Cirakari straightened, reaching in her chair, signaling the end of our discussion. “Let’s wrap it up here. You’ve had quite a week, Fred.” She paused briefly, checking something on her display. “We’ll be arriving at Vielovento soon. Let’s rest—maybe I can get a resupply run to show you the planet.”