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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 4 -
Chapter 22 - The Broken[]
Aftermath of the Virus Attack[]
"I Insist…
…Admiral, Captain Roberts is in no physical condition to return to duty, and won't be for more than six months," the flight surgeon explained. "Let me make it perfectly clear for everyone in this room, all right? She should be dead right now. I had to replace so many of her internal organs that we might as well term it a full-body retrofit. We burned through enough blood supplement that she represents a not insignificant investment by the Touman in what amounts to a chalcas civilian. I had to have help repairing the various joint and skeletal reinforcements because they are artificial and some were outright damaged. Amanda Roberts is as of this moment, grounded on medical grounds while her remaining organic body parts adapt to the sheer number of transplants and surgeries I had to do to keep her from becoming a head in a jar."
"She's not going to take being beached."
"We can't beach her anyway," Foster observed. "President Avellar might be able to, but we can't. We'll have to take Evanescent out of the line up for the next offensive."
"Means we have to look at personnel redistribution, doesn't it?" Billie Hoel asked.
"Yes, we will," Foster agreed. "Billie, what's the status of ALICE?"
"The virus did a LOT of damage, Admiral. Kolossus is remoting through a dedicated link to pick up the slack for the Station, and Kolossus claims to have a line on a specialist who can get her back on-line and working. While Luther is also helping while finishing his refit and repairs. And since we did a lot of damage, we’re helping Esme replace server modules and associated computer systems across the station as best we can."
"Are there any further signs of the infection?" Lori Crow asked.
“No. We successfully contained it and no matter how smart and adaptive it is, it’s not getting out of the systems we trapped it in before Esme can yank and clean them safely.” Billie shook her head.
"Well, that's a relief…" Lori wasn't in great shape herself. "Has anyone asked Amanda if she'll just let… someone else take the boat out?"
"Aff," Foster nodded. "I did, and then I judged it to be a poor option. The Evanescent stays. You need to detail who gets transfer orders, and who will need transfer offers. You may retain a skeleton crew and vital personnel, but the rest get redistributed to vessels on the line."
“Esme’s also insisting on her own checks of our cores before she signs off on us going out for operations again, and I can’t deny her request in good conscience. Really, this virus has done a lot to sideline us.” Billie Hoel frowned.
"So we have to reorganize," Admiral Foster determined. "Helena, can you confirm which of your Fleet's vessels were not exposed?"
“SLS Larry Nichols, since that system is completely offline, Mashona and Maori were out of system at the time. The rest were here because I wanted to put on my own dog and pony show. Boy did that virus come at a bad time.”
"Well, I guess we have to put the offensive off until the Diamon...I mean, 'Sea Fox' and Wolf fleets have arrived at Joan's Post then."
“Well I might be able to free up Mashona short term, I had her pick up Daryl.”
"Mashona and Maori are front line fighters, the issue is fleet recon." Foster explained, "which is going to be the problem, with so many of our key players down until it's cleared up."
“Which means making do with what we have. I’ll see if I can figure out something to free up Maori too for the short term.”
"What about Phoenix? She wasn't in the virus fight, she might still be okay…" Lori suggested.
“That’s true, she never did connect. She was on perimeter patrol. Light delay would have limited her usefulness in that situation anyway,” Billie Hoel added.
The alarms rang announcing an unexpected jump emergence.
“Could it be?” Foster was already starting to stand.
“No. Good news, it’s friendly. Bad news, we’ve got a situation despite that.” Billie Hoel shook her head.
Signs of a long trip to come[]
About six weeks ago
Daryl was at the Space Port. He was told he’d have someone there waiting to pick him up.
In the crowd he saw a tall dark skinned woman in a very nice dress. She had a sign. It read ‘Meatbag, Roberts, Daryl’.
“I’m guessing you’re my ride? Kind of an odd sign you have there.” He walked up to her.
She just stared at him with her intense brown eyes. Then he swore he heard music over the commotion. It was a style he hadn’t heard before but it sounded distinctly primitive. “Tribal” was the word forcing it’s way into his mind.
She grabbed his bag from him, then led him down a secure area of the space port obviously reserved for VIPs.
“So what’s your name?” Daryl tried asking.
The woman simply turned to face him then pointed to a name tape on her dress that read ‘Mashona’.
“First? Last? Just Mashona, got it.” The woman shook her head before finally nodding at his last guess.
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Human-Like Remote, Mashona
The shuttle was waiting for them.
She secured his bag and he strapped into one of the available seats. Then she just stood there. From where he was Daryl could see there was no pilot at the controls.
“AI shuttle. Which means you’re an AI too, doesn’t it?”
The woman looked at him and the music was back, with a more joyful tone.
“This is going to be a long trip.” Daryl muttered as he felt the shuttle lift off the pad and begin to climb into space.
What awaited him… Well, he wasn’t exactly well traveled, but even what awaited him seemed particularly spartan.
The woman made grunts and gestures at certain junctures. Clearly guest quarters that had been rigged up for him, along with emergency shelters and other absolute basics to make his trip at least somewhat comfortable.
“Well, at least I don’t have to shit in a bucket.” Daryl looked over the preparations.
Acting in name of Family[]
And now up to a few hours before current events
The HPG message about how seriously Amanda had been hurt had come over Mashona’s system.
Mashona used her cameras to look at Daryl as he was sitting at the navigational console studying local stellar bodies through the ship’s optical telescopes.
Shit. What kind of monster would I be if I didn’t make sure he could see his sister again? Well better to ask forgiveness than beg for permission.
Her human form remote came on line and walked over to Daryl.
She changed the display to a navigation chart with a system highlighted.
“That is not where we were originally going is it?” Daryl put together.
Mashona shook her head.
“Okay, why then?”
“Because your sister got hurt, bad. She’s alive and stable but she’s not going anywhere any time soon. So I’m taking you to her since she needs you…” Mashona broke her typical silence.
“That’s what family does. I’m gathering you’ll be getting into some trouble for this since that system’s not on the public charts.”
Mashona nodded.
“Thank you.”
<<HyperSpace JUMP>>
/\/\/\/\/\/discontinuity\/\/\/\/\/\
Daryl was in the middle of a field lined with trees he didn’t recognize. Next to him was a woman in a wedding dress. It wasn’t his wife, and this wasn’t where he got married to her either. The woman took on the features of someone somehow familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on who before…
/\/\/\/\/\/discontinuity\/\/\/\/\/\
“That was different…”
“Welcome to Port Orphan.” Mashona said matter of factually.
AI Daughter like Mother[]
Admiral David Foster…
… had the look of a barely contained explosion.
“You brought an unauthorized civilian here without prior approval. That is the sort of thing that would get you shot or shoved out an airlock without a suit. If you had bothered to ask, well too late for that now. Helena?” Foster managed to finally sit back down.
“Okay, Mashona, since you took it upon yourself to go this far above and beyond to be his taxi, that’s what you’re going to be. Thank god Esme’s already cleared Betty, Tabby, and Olivia so I can spare you for this. Hell. If I could, I’d have you transferred to a Tracker. But that’d take months. Months we don’t have and just because I know how little you like using words, I’m also assigning you as personal diplomatic security and translator.”
Mashona’s human remote visibly flinched, then left the office.
“You have a discipline problem, Lady Cameron. You need to do something about it.”
“I know. Too many of my bad habits have rubbed off on them. Being a rebellious youth despite being 371 years old will do that I suppose.” Helena sighed.
Foster’s expression suddenly changed as realization hit him.
“You are a devil, Helena Cameron. You have been setting up your AIs to connect with humans other than you as much as they have been trying to get you to connect with humans.”
“Yes. Despite my outward appearance, I’m not actually immortal. In fact, my last visit to medical suggests Elizabeth will outlive me despite my occasional trips to hibernation land and all the horrible shit done to her.” Helena sighed.
“The head wound and your own implant.” Foster nodded.
“Yeah. To you, I probably still have worlds of time. But to me, I’m looking at a real timer, and it’s counting down to zero uncomfortably fast. Perspective. It’s why I’d be doomed to fail as a First Lord, though. Elizabeth knows it too, and has her own reasons for not taking the job, despite being the rightful heir.”
“But you are still plotting something. I have gotten to know you well enough to know you have another plan hiding in that dangerous mind of yours.”
“Of course, but this plot is for after the war.” Helena smiled.
“At least there is one upside to this mess. While Esme does her checks, your ships can undergo their maintenance cycles at the same time. Meaning you could actually put quite the Fleet into action at the same time.” Foster nodded.
“Yeah. I’ve been pushing some of them a bit hard, having them all operational at the same time. We’ll just have to hope the Sons of Plunder don’t regroup too much while we give them this unintended breather. I’m going to go check on Amanda, then Billie.” Helena left the office.