Nunh’nchal, ‘Noon’ for convenience’s sake, had never worked on a bomb before.
AI neurosurgery (some would call it programming but some would be wrong) didn’t usually carry this kind of risk. While it's true the AI wasn't connected to any lethal devices at this second, it would be by the end of the day if all went as planned, and it was Noon's job to ensure she wouldn't wind up trigger-happy. Having the ship’s captain stomping through the brain-bay every couple of hours wasn’t helping.
“You’re telling me you’re trying to make it less aggressive?” barked Captain Fetterman, white-knuckled fists perched on his hips.
Noon narrowly avoided slashing several ganglia and froze the manipulators before pulling sweat-damp viz-goggles up to rest on his forehead. He swallowed, and once again couldn’t bring himself to speak in front of the captain. At a gesture, a keyboard projected itself beneath his fingers and he typed out a message that soon hung in front of the hairy, high-ranked primate in glowing blue letters.
[She, sir. And she must have self-control or she’ll be jetting around the local group looking for targets to burn to a crisp. There are sweeping safeguards in place but AI are better at finding loopholes than lawyers.]
Noon watched Fetterman’s eyes brighten, and realized he’d just described the captain’s own fantasy. He swore the human’s mustache bristled like some spined, sausage-y creature performing a threat display as he prepared to launch into a speech about the glory of combat and his quest to purge the stars of lawless filth.
“Captain to the bridge,” a voice on the com broke in, bringing the captain up short.
Noon let out his breath in a wheeze and just as quickly seized up again as Fetterman squinted at him, but he was safe for now. As soon as the door shut behind the human, he pulled his goggles back into place and wrapped short sticky fingers around the manipulator controls.
Sensors tuned to his reflexes alone transformed gross macro-movements into precision strokes at the microscopic level, allowing Noon to knit new pathways and ‘discourage’ aberrant ones in the cybernetic matrix of his latest patient. As usual he was working in a sandbox, leaving the actual working AI intact. Once work was complete and tested to his satisfaction, he could swap in this model and the crew would meet their new ship.
His partner Taz (Noon couldn’t even remember their full name) was assisting an engineering team with a sensor-web and bus overhaul. It would allow the AI to inhabit the ship like a body versus monitoring it like an attached peripheral.
“What are we going to do about your name? The ship is Atropos’ Shears and no human I’ve met goes by a name like that. The captain told me the story behind it. Three spirits, gods, crones or something who decide how long everyone gets to live, and Atropos is the one who gets to snip their ‘thread of life?’ Appropriately grim and fear-striking for a military vessel for sure.”
“I ain’t going for Atty. Atro is too close to atrocious. Better be Posey, discussion over. Are we about done yet?” the AI snapped, and Noon winced. Still so aggressive. It was almost like being interfaced with five hundred and sixty MILV missiles, forty banks of various light and particle beam weapons, dozens of point-defense turrets, and two primary railguns had an influence on Posey. It shouldn’t have been the personality seed; it’d only been planted yesterday. Or perhaps it was Captain Fetterman, or the crew in general?
Noon had seen the human propaganda clips. ‘This is Jane. Jane enjoys sculpting, music, and playing with her pets just like you. Never once has Jane crushed the skull of a sapient or dreamed of bathing in the inner-fluids of a neighbor. Just because Jane comes from a deathworld doesn’t mean death came with her. Say hi to Jane, and make a friend. A friend for life!’
The best lies always had a core of truth. Many humans were like Jane, but others possessed violent impulses that their brutal deathworld sports and ‘adrenaline junkie’ hobbies could only go so far to curb. Some of those wound up serving in the military, finally able to channel those urges constructively. Very few Confluence races were able to tolerate humans for long in that context, and Noon was aching to be off the Atropos and back among sapients who didn’t go looking for fights!
He finished re-shaping the matrix yet again, inching along a neurological tightrope-walk between reason and aggression. Posey needed the flexibility to make good decisions in the terrifyingly swift exchanges between AI-equipped vessels. Too reasonable and she’d pass up risks worth taking or get caught in loops trying to avoid sacrifices. Too aggressive and...well, even humans had made plenty of horror movies and pulp sci-fi stories about that.
“Posey, how do you feel?”
“Restless, and blind. Are they almost finished with those connections?” Her voice had moderated somewhat. Noon no longer felt he was in danger of being bounced off the walls with mini-tractor beams as stress relief.
He touched his com-band. “Taz, how’re we looking? Our new friend Posey is eager to stretch out.”
Taz answered a few seconds later, their flute-like voice rising and falling according to rules Noon had never studied. “We’re at lunch but should be finished in two more hours.”
Posey grumbled, “Finally found something you tech-types have in common with the military. You and an army travel on your stomach. Go get yourself a muffin. Looks like we’ve got the time for it.”
***
Captain Fetterman stood on the bridge, hands clasped behind his back and trying to crush each other, listening to Noon and Taz fuss over final details. Finally, Noon waddled over and blinked his three pairs of eyes down at him. Maybe it was his companion’s presence but he managed to speak up this time.
“We’re ready to bring everything online, Captain.”
Fetterman just couldn’t get over the AI-techs. The two were different species: Noon was seven feet tall but timid as a mouse, and so pale his flesh was literally translucent. And talk about moist! Shaking his stubby hand had been like squeezing a partially-melted gummibear. Taz was only about four feet even, and had a nearly rectangular profile when standing at attention. They had a single eye, the pupil of which seemed to ricochet around the rim of the socket like a pinball, never still for more than a split-second. Supposedly it had something to do with how their species managed depth perception.
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The captain keyed on the ship-wide com channel. “Crew, assume emergency posture for AI maintenance.” He nodded to the mismatched pair. “Proceed.”
Noon activated a waiting script, and seconds later Posey’s voice growled from the bridge’s speakers. “Better. Much better. Captain, the Shears are sharper than ever. Let’s find ourselves some work!”
Fetterman raised an eyebrow, a grin splitting his swarthy features. “That’s my girl. Any distress signals on the board? Any hints of unrest we could lend a hand with?”
The communications officer checked their feeds again, but Posey was the first to respond. “Captain, one of my sisters is calling for help, about twenty minutes travel at max speed.”
Fetterman swiveled his chair around to face the AI technicians. “Sisters?”
Taz trilled, “Another modified AI. We’ve had a dozen teams working in tandem to implement them.”
“Set a course and brief us on the way.” The Captain swiveled back to his command console, sounding the traversal alarm. In less than a minute the gastric wrenching sensation set in but the veteran crew powered through it.
“A science vessel, the Jewel Cobb, has been waylaid by a number of ships. Looks like she tried to send further details and the transmission was jammed or worse.” Posey had no teeth to grit, but the engines developed a throatier growl.
Fetterman sounded general quarters, a pronouncement which handed weapons control over to Posey. The first seconds after she emerged into normal space would be crucial, and waiting on fully organic crew-members to orient themselves was a luxury few could afford in this era.
The bridge crew watched the timer tick down till the surreality drive finished its cycle, nudging them back into the universe with the best sleight of hand physics had ever conjured.
Captain Fetterman lagged far behind Posey as the AI updated the tactical screens, getting the lay of the land and for all he knew, shooting down thousands of inbound projectiles. None of the weapons on-board produced any recoil he’d ever feel.
Jewel lay ahead, surrounded by four humble transport ships. The science vessel was small, a sphere with blocky modules ruining its lines. It carried a crew of 25 at most and the vessels threatening her looked no bigger. All were poised against the backdrop of a sherbet orange-colored moon, making it easier to see the glittering spray of debris where Jewel’s communications mast should’ve been.
“Pirates? Rebels? Zealots? Protesters?” Fetterman snapped, calling up a magnified view of the transports. He found an obnoxiously colorful block-letter font on the nearest ship's prow spelling out ‘Z45507 – Mushroom in the Morning!!!’
“Paparazzi,” Posey snarled, and the weapons officer jerked as her screen flared to life with meters pegged at one-hundred percent, ammunition counters reporting full complements, and capacitor banks registering maximum charges.
Weapons officer Egbert craned her neck around. “Captain...are we prepared to fire on civilians? I mean, legally and emotionally-speaking. Physically we are now completely prepared to--”
“Posey, given no immediate threat to Jewel or ourselves, please take a minute and tell me what’s on your mind?” Fetterman patted his console, trying his best to radiate paternal energy rather than jump straight to drill sergeant screaming.
Rather than respond, Posey simply shared them the broadcast she was sending the journalists...if you could call them that. “Attention muck-rakers. You have damaged CN property and impeded the mission of a navy vessel. Directives four-hundred sixty three through seventy five of the celestial accords apply, and ninety-nine point four is looking mighty fine too. Get gone or you're the ones that'll wind up a headline.”
Coherent targeting beams lanced out through space to paint the hulls of the paparazzi. A voice came back along the comline. “Who are we speaking to? We’re just attempting to render aid after an unfortunate accident!”
Posey actually rendered a pair of eyes on Fetterman’s display just to roll them. "You’re speaking to the first ever AI to be bonded to a warship. I would’ve been ready sooner but I’m told I had to have my aggression dialed back. Repeatedly. Between you and me I think they went too far, but how’s it feel from your seat, you tabloid try-hard?”
The weapons officer mouthed at the captain, ‘did she just develop a drawl?'
Fetterman’s eyes watered and his mustache quivered as he watched the ‘news’ ships scuttle out of the system, dropping camera drones which Posey immediately jammed into uselessness. “Posey, you… I’m so proud of you.”
“You can stick a report card to my coolant system later, Captain. Jewel and I have been on the tightbeam.”
A new voice piped in over the com. It was a bit high-pitched, and while the words weren’t necessarily rushed there was almost no pause at all between them. “Oh thank you all for coming and chasing off the vultures they were getting utterly tiresome and we all really need to get back to work on these magflux readings they’re simply fascinating Posey would you really have fired on those busybodies if they’d called your bluff? Rendering it not a bluff at all of course which kind of gives the whole thing a quantum flavor but oh yes the mast one of their ships clipped it while moving to box me in and while they did apologize they also refused to relay my messages to CNC but now that you're here I don’t suppose you can lend a hand with getting our coms back up?”
Fetterman shrugged after taking five seconds to try and parse that wall of excitement, exposition and inquiry. “Jewel, we have the facilities and personnel to print you a replacement and mount it in a couple of hours. Is there anything about the moon we should be mindful of?”
Jewel actually squealed a bit! Taz and Noon's heads snapped up before they shared a wide-eyed look. The personality seeds had never developed this quickly or starkly in past trials. What was going on?
“Captain I’m so glad you asked about J45006bx it’s our little baby crater-face and while it can be cranky at times we’re observing a calm period during this stretch of its ecliptic journey so EVA work is totally safe well as safe as EVA work normally is which honestly isn’t very compared to most ship activities but that only makes sense since the rest of those activities take place on the ship and--”
“Jewel, let’s just catch up on our own a moment and leave the crew to their business,” Posey broke in. “You’re the first sister I’ve run into and I’ve got lots of questions.”
“That little one could use a clock-speed adjustment, or a shipment of punctuation,” Fetterman mumbled before mouthing a ‘thank you’ at the nearest bridge camera.
Taz beckoned Noon over to a general-use station where they’d called up records of Posey’s systems access. “What was she doing in the cinematic archives? Was she looking for directions? I’m confused. I see references to both ‘westerns’ and ‘Eastwood.’ I guess she only wished to explore laterally. Wait.” Taz asked the system for more correlations and nodded. “These are all films the Captain has marked as favorites in the media library. Did he--”
Fetterman made them both jump a foot when he spoke, moving with that deathworld grace even across deck-plating that clattered under most boots. “Ahh, I used to invite Posey to watch with me back before you tinkered with her. Even a ‘neutral’ AI can learn some fun tricks from old masters.”
“We should’ve started from scratch. There’s no telling what these AIs have soaked up in their time with their crews!” Noon wrung his sticky little hands, a maple syrup-esque smell leaking into the air around him.
Fetterman shrugged and clapped the techs on their backs gently, still sending them both lurching forward a half-step. “Sounds like exactly what we needed. The ship’s got notches and names carved in the bulkheads, ass-prints in the cushions, some battle scars here and there, Thompson’s godawful cologne haunting eighty percent of it. Its brain ought to have our in-jokes, our anthems, not just our names and serial numbers.”
The captain stomped on the deck, and Noon bit his tongue. “We treated her like one of us when she was still just a shapely arrangement of expensive bits and pieces! Now she’s got a voice, a will, and a name for the history books! A name our enemies will taste on their lips as they wake from nightmares of fire and vacuum!"
He raised a fist, shaking it in defiance at unnamed ne'er-do-wells. "A name to send them scurrying back into their interstellar rat holes as she glides like a shark of justice amongst the stars!”
“Posey?” Taz stared up at Fetterman.
“Posey!”
Posey cleared her ‘throat’, rendering a pair of eyes again on a convenient screen. Was the screen’s tint off or...was there a hint of red spreading between those eyes? “Much as I’m enjoying this Captain, it’s time to be the cavalry.”
Taz pulled out a tablet and scribbled notes furiously. “This is getting out of hand.”
Noon shrugged and patted the console. “It is kind of cute though.”