Mayday

Obsidian Arrows      

ESO/M. Kornmesser

Mayday

Time of our Lord Creatos 1540, Thursday the 27th of Malibu (Mal-i-b-ú)

The first mayday came in, an alunar ago, when Cline walked out an Airlock.  He was not in a suit.  Clarish had tried to reach him, but he had become more distant with time.  Their endeavors to get water was not entirely fruitful.  The first snowball was highly contaminated, and they set down on two others.  The work was hard and the melting and processing took more time than they thought.  They were almost at seventy five percent capacity when Clarish decided to return to the Hōkūle‘a.  It would do them both good to be on a bigger ship with more amenities.  The G676 AI was quite helpful, but a drill snag had damaged him.  The scout did not have the equipment to repair all the damage, so he was shut down.  He actually apologized for failing them. 

After the third snowball Cline had mentioned how much he missed Sweets.  The man annoyed him, but also kept his spirits up.  Now, there was only his captain and himself.  He just didn’t realize how lonely this would be.  

Clarish tried to get him interested in some books, just so he would spend so much time dwelling on how far from home they were.  For the first two alunars this seemed to work, but then he just started slipping.  With all the extra water tanks on the ship, you couldn’t access the resistance room, so exercise consisted in walking the same corridor over and over and over again.   They had some weights, but they were small and did little to work up a sweat.  Cline actually did a spacewalk just to have a few kilometers of room to walk.  He literally walked from one end of the scout to the other and then around a few more times, just to stretch his legs.  That seemed to lift his spirits for a few days, but then he was in the dumps again.  

Finally, while Clarish was sleeping, he took another spacewalk.  This time without the pressure suit.  The klaxons went off and Clarish tried to make it to the airlock to stop him, but he had timed it right.  She would be too late.  He programmed the door so that it opened before all the air was expelled, this way it would blow him into space.  He was wearing all black and his heat signature would dissipate quickly.  With all its extra weight, the scout would maneuver like a lame whale and she would not be able to find him.  He would be forever lost in this… waste of a place.  

After a futile attempt to recover his body, Clarish finally headed back to the Hōkūle‘a.  Her own spirits were down and even the daily com link to Tarinnish was just barely keeping her above water.  She was the captain and she had lost two-thirds of her crew.  She was a failure, the mission was a failure and her death still loomed in their future.  This was just unacceptable.  She needed a win somewhere.  Something needed to be positive.  She had been a success all her life and now she was faced with nothing but failure.  If it weren’t for the fact that the Hōkūle‘a needed the water she was carrying, she just might join Cline in the cold of space.  She just couldn't bear the idea that her stubbornness brought them here.  He warned her.  He flat out told her that this would be a failure, but she wouldn’t listen.  Now, they have a crippled ship, lack of natural resources and could even die from the water she managed to rip from the snowballs. These rejects from a young system, that were thrown to the outer reaches of this shit hole of a system, were contaminated with both biological and mineral deposits that did not want to give up the water they clung to.  They had to use distillation and reverse osmosis to get ninety-nine percent of the impurities out.  Even then some of the biological components tried to come back, that’s where the inferred bombardment had to be employed.  Clarish set up a circulation system so the destructive light could continue to eradicate the bacteria.  She had to be sure that it was all destroyed, not even one could survive and when this water was transferred to the Hōkūle‘a.  It would undergo another decontamination process. 

Clarish was in the cockpit looking over the last course correction and deceleration plan.  The little ship was much heavier now and so had to start slowing the scout three sevenths earlier than was normal.  This scout had taken a beating when they dropped out of the inner space and had to be handled with care.  She was almost three alunars from the Hōkūle‘a, which was the only place within reach that had spare parts.  The slow and steady plan was what she had to do.  

After another two sevenths Clarish was depressed.  More so than she had ever felt.  Tarinnish insisted that they talk twice a day and that helped, but she could not help but dwell on how alone she was.  Tarinnish tried to get her to talk to Tiffany, it seemed to help him, but she didn’t want to.  She didn’t want to get to know this impressive machine.  She even talked about deactivating it when she got back to the Hōkūle‘a.  

Next Tarinnish sent over some of the research he had been doing with Tiffany.  The history and consequences of different wars and fights among the demigods of Creatos. Clarish never looked at it.  It was from a place they may never get back to, so why bother.  

Tiffany was listening as she has been for the last alunar.  She was concerned for Clarish and after the last transmission she approached Tarinnish. “She needs a problem.” 

He looked at her, eyes still wet from hearing how depressed Clarish was.  “What?”

“She needs a problem to work on.” Tiffany said, “Something with the ship.  Something that will present a challenge to her and to getting back to you.” She clarified.

“I don’t know.” Tarinnish shook his head. Messing with someone on purpose seemed like a crazy idea.

“Your wife is a problem solver, that’s how she got to where she is today. What has she done in the last two aluanars.” Tiffany let that idea marinate, “She needs a challenge, nothing big, just annoying and persistent.” 

Tarinnish really didn’t like this idea.  It would mean that they would have to send a message to the scout ships that Clarish could not intercept, then create a problem in one of the systems that was difficult to detect and resolve. Clarish knew everything there was to know about these systems, it wouldn’t take her long to figure it out.  “I don’t think you can do anything that she couldn’t figure out.”

“Oh I know that I can.  It just a matter of getting permission to do it.” Tiffany looked at him with what looked like a mischievous expression.

“God, how do you do that?” Tarinnish asked.

“What?” She said in a coy way. 

“Stop it, It’s just not right.” Tarinnish shot back.  “But honestly how do you do that?”

 “Julia Scott was a very expressive person and I learned much of it by mimicking her.” Tiffany said.

“Were you in love with her too?” Tarinnish shot back looking to offend this machine or at least see if he could.

“Let’s just say, I had a great deal of respect for her.” Tiffany scanned her memories for the woman’s face, “She sacrificed so much for others and single handedly saved your history from Creatos’ grip.” 

Tarinnish was almost embarrassed by his juvenile behavior.  This machine had seen so much, knew so much and carried hundreds of lives in her memories.  She was a wonder, not to mock, but to respect.

“What did you have in mind?” Tarinnish asked.

Over the next few days Clarish noticed that the water in the forward tanks were sloshing back and forth.  And that it was starting to affect the scouts trajectory. The ship was drifting off course.  She looked at the logs and found nothing there.  She then started a level three scan of the thruster system.  She even pulled main power in hopes of eliminating the anomaly.  But nothing worked.  After the second day, she reported the problem to Tarinnish, hoping that he might know of a test she could perform.

He suggested that the AI be woke up and placed in the cockpit.  It would be able to monitor the system separately and help determine the root cause.  

After the transmission ended, Tiffany clocked him on the back of the head. 

Tarinnish looked at her as if wounded, “What?” 

Tiffany said nothing at first and walked up to the cockpit, she then turned and said, “She can’t solve this overnight, that would defeat the purpose of the problem.”

“Can’t you just tell that AI buddy to hold back?” Tarinnish asked,

“No.” Tiffany said and lifted her hands in astonishment.

“Why not?” Tarinnish asked.

“His basic programming is to serve the needs of the humans.  He’s to stupid to be deceptive.” She shook her head.

Tarinnish’s only response was, “Oh.” Then a second thought shot to the surface, “If she finds out we’ve been screwing with the ship, she’s going to be pissed.”

“No, she’s going to blame me.” Tiffany had been here before.  It was a jealous human female that get her caught the last time.  Due to the fact that she had watched the young Harold grow up and knew all of his quirks.  She had, what was described as an older sister relationship with him.  And as such she could easily persuade him to do things that were in the best interest of the remnant.  This was fine until a particular human female decided that she wanted to be that for Harold, not the sister part, but the part of being his confidant and more.  The only problem was that this female didn’t have much in the way of intelligence and was continually being upstaged by a machine.  She decided to get her revenge by getting Tiffany exposed as a rogue AI on the ship that they were hiding on.  But Harold had to come to the rescue and was exposed himself.  They tried to run, but their escape attempt failed, and he were taken prisoner.  She was deactivated.  That was close to seven hundred cycles ago. 

“You need to deactivate me.” Tiffany finally said.

“What?” Tarinnish was astounded.  She had tried so hard to be useful these last six alunars just so he wouldn’t deactivated her, now she wants to be shut down.  “What are you saying?”

“If that stupid AI figures out what I did, she will have me destroyed.” Tiffany explained. “If you deactivate me and backdate it, then you will be the only one to blame and I’m sure you can talk your way out of it.  You love her and she knows that.  You can simply explain why you did it and that it was for her own good.” Tiffany looked at him to make sure she was getting though.  “I can’t be a part of the plan.  I can’t be perceived as trying to get in between you two.” Tiffany turned to go back to her storage compartment, “I need to be out of the picture right now.”

“What excuse will I use to shut you down?” Tarinnish was now following her.  

“You’re a smart man, figure out one.  Just make it believable and not about my mental health.” Tiffany shot him a look.  

Tarinnish was embarrassed that he had said that about her.  But how could he help it.  He had never met a machine that could do what she does. The human insights, expressions and how she moves her body.  They seemed so human.  

Once in the storage and maintenance bay for the AIs, a cramped little compartment with room for just two or three, Tiffany instructed him to reset the computers timestamp to a seventh earlier.  Tiffany had done a great job of being invisible when Clarish was on the comm link, so this wouldn’t raise any suspicions. The only part of this that Tarinnish has to sell is the fact that he shut her down without telling his captain and that some of her advice was given and then he had remembered it while they were talking.  

Tarinnish entered the camber, looked through the logs to find the last time he mentioned Tiffany as if she were awake, set the computer terminal up in remote form and changed the timestamp, then helped Tiffany to her storage box, which resembles a coffin in many ways.  He plugged her into the charging port and then went to the computer.  

“Don’t forget to wake me up in a few periods.” Tiffany said with a ting of regret.  

“I will.” Tarinnish said without turning around.

“Come over here and say that.” Tiffany requested, again you could hear the fear in her voice.

Tarinnish walked over to the coffin. “He looked over the connections and then looked at Tiffany’s blue eyes, “I won’t leave you here. I’ll wake you up in a seven or two, at the latest.” 

Tiffany looked up, “I hate the black.”

Tarinnish looked at the helpless AI, He had never thought about them being turned off.  It just never occurred that they would have an opinion on whether they like being on or off.  Tarinnish returned to the computer and executed the wireless shutdown sequence.  Tiffany’s eyes closed and he simulated breathing stopped.  She was lifeless again.  Tarinnish put the lid back on the coffin and tipped it horizontal so that it would slide back into its alcove.  He then turned back to the computer, reset the timestamp and connected it back to the ships systems.  

During Clarish’s next call, after they had discussed the latest on the scout ships issue with the sloshing tanks, Clarish asked if Tiffany was nearby.  Tarinnish informed her that he had shut her down for some additional diagnostics.  

Clarish’s only response was “Good. There’s just something off about that machine.” 

The conversation shifted back to Clarish's problem and how the thrusters were creating a harmonic signal that would at times get the water in the tanks sloshing back and forth.  For the meantime, Clarish had filled the aft two tanks all the way up.  This dampened their movement and gave less mass to move back and forth in the forward tanks.  The G model AI had not come up with an answer as to why the anomaly was occurring, but she did notice that it only happened when she was asleep.  It was either a coincidence or on purpose.  Which meant that there was some intelligence behind the problem.

Tarinnish didn’t want the problem to go away just yet but wanted her to be more comfortable in the moment. If she stopped sleeping to solve the problem, well that would just cause more problems, “Why don’t you unplug the thruster packs, just until you can figure out what is making them pulse.  

Clarish looked at him, then finally said, “Do you know how hard it is to get to the aft packs.” She finally asked,

“Actually, Yes.” Tarinnish responded.  He smiled, “I’m sure you can fit.” 

“She looked up and then back to the monitor, “I’ll start with the forward two.  If that doesn’t do it, then I’ll unplug the aft ones as well.  

“Once your back we will plug that damn thing in and run a memory wipe on the core.  Once that’s complete, we will re-install all the software and test it again.” Tarinnish said with confidence.

“You think it's in the core?” Clarish was not convinced.

Tarinnish could tell his wife was in better spirits.  She had something to focus on.  Something that she could fix, or at least put her mental energy into to try and fix it.  “I’m not sure, but we need to find it.  Fix it and get that ship back to 100%.  We are going to need it to help push us to escape velocity.  

With purpose in her voice, Clarish signed off, “I’ll find it and if I can’t fix it here.  I’ll Isolate it and maybe that exceptional AI of yours can purge it from the system.” 

The next alunar Clarish only spoke to him briefly.  She was a bit consumed by her problem.  She had disconnected the thruster’s assemblies twice and purged their buffers only to find that the problem resurfaced after a seventh. Tarinnish guilt kept growing while Clarish’s determination continued to build.  Tiffany’s plan was working.  Clarish had a problem to solve and it kept her mind off of the impending doom.  Even the anticipation of the problem’s recurrence, kept her occupied.

Clarish was only an alunar away and she was going to have to increase the breaking process and as such needed her thrusters more than ever. Even thow the main engines will do the lion's share of the work; it was the thrusters that kept them on the correct course.  These anomalies continued to occur at times when she slept.  If was, as if, the ship knew.  So, she donned a space suit and shut down all the bio-telemetry to her med. scanners.  She was going to deprive the ship of her personal data and see what happened.  At first nothing happened.  Two periods and she saw nothing, felt nothing.  No recurrence and the ship drifted along just fine.  Now she was faced with exchanging her suite of giving up on the experiment.  She was about to give up when the data sniffer she applied on the main terminal beeped.  Then beeped again.  The main drives were telling the computer that it had breaking instructions.  Instructions that contradicted the routine that was already running.

Clarish looked at the instructions and they did not have signature.  These instructions did not come from any console in the ship or even the main computer.  They were being generated from the drives themselves.  She tried to purge the instructions and they disappeared.  All of them, not just the one she was working on.  Clarish swapped out the suite and waited.  She managed to stay awake for the first two periods, then the boredom overtook her, and she fell asleep.  It was the low oxygen alarm on her suit that roused her.  She would have to go back to her first suit or plug this one in.  But if she did that, the computer would know she was there.  She didn’t want it to know.  She was convinced that somehow the computer and the drives were… conspiring.  But if that was the case, why the conflict in commands.  

Clarish went to the airlock to change suits, she brought along the cleansing pads so that she could disinfect her body.   The odor in the suit was noticeable and if she noticed her own smell, it had to be bad. She was in the airlock with her new suit and was in the middle of her bath when the ship shuddered.  Then again.  She quickly donned her new suit, fastened the helmet then cloves.  Her on-board bios started to reflect her rapid heart rate.  She tried to calm herself. It was either the gremlins or her impending death.  She didn’t know which, but she was expecting one or the other.  There were no klaxons, so the issue had to be internal.  That’s when she was thrown against the bulkhead.  It was violent and without warning.  She tried to get back up, but then the ship shifted beneath her.  She was headed to the other wall. She watched the wall she was just facing slide away, then blackness.  She has lost consciousness. 

Tarinnish first notice the annoying beep from his wrist monitor.  He had fallen asleep in the commons, on one of the couches.  His clothing was three days overdue for changing and smelled like it.  He looked at this wrist.  The scout was sending a second mayday, but this was automated.  Not Clarish.  

Tarinnish raced to the main terminal and typed in the scout’s telemetry.  It was still on course with no clear sign of trouble.  More investigating showed that the internal sensors were turned off.  Damn!  After an hour of scans and downloads from the scout’s computer, Tarinnish went down to the lower storage and woke Tiffany up.  He was going to disconnect from the gate and go after the Scout.  With luck, he could make a rendezvous with the scout in six periods.  Then return in eight.  Fourteen periods, two sevenths with the gate completely vulnerable.  No, shields, no sensors and no way to detect or avoid collisions.  He had to go.  What was life without Clarish.  

Tarinnish pulled Tiffany from the alcove on opened the coffin, he just plugged her in and ran out of the room.  They had not made the adapter yet, and that would mean that she would revive herself and then come find him.  

Tarinnish was in the compartment just aft of the Galley.  He was looking out a porthole at the tether that connected the ship to the their only way home.  He was in the process of disconnecting the power grid when Tiffany walked in.

“What happened?” Tiffany asked.

Tarinnish jumped a little, he had been alone for sevenths and her sudden presence startled him.  He knew he had woke her, but her spoken word made him jump.

“The scouts in trouble and I can’t get a reading on Clarish.” Tarinnish said as it that would explain his current activity.

“So, you decided to shut down your only way home to do what?” Tiffany said in the most monotone voice. Cold and logical.

It spooked Tarinnish.  So much so that he stopped what he was doing to look at her.  

She was standing there, but she was stone cold.  She looked at him with an expression that was disapproving.  “You need to stop.” She finally said.

“What?” Tarinnish could not fathom the idea of leaving Clarish out there.

“You need to stop and reconnect what you have turned off.” Tiffany was now a step closer.

Tarinnish felt threatened. He still didn’t quite trust this machine.  She, by her own admission, had defied her maker.  Now she was putting Clarish in danger, well more so than she was.

“If she is dead, running off to Save her,  is mute.” Tiffany said in a calm voice, “And if she is injured, then we have the AI assiter her.” 

Tarinnish turned to her, “Hes damaged.” 

“Not enough to count him out.” Tiffany countered.

“But..” Tarinnish didn’t want a machine to find her. He wanted to find her.

“I will send the commands.  Please reconnect the gate and lets wait till G676 can find her and make an assessment.

That would mean waiting and Tarinnish didn’t want to wait, he wanted to take action.  He wanted to go get his love. He looked out the porthole.  The two electrical umbilical cords were already retracted.  It was just two more commands and the Hōkūle‘a would be free.  

Tiffany’s hand rested on Tarinnishes.  It was warm, soft.  Nothing like a machine should be.  She gently lifted Tarinnish’s hand.  “If she were mortally hurt, you could not make it in time.  If she’s dead, it would not matter.”

Tarinnish was crying.  He heard her and knew she was right.  His hand started to shake.  He removed the second hand. 

“I will reconnect the gate.”  Tiffany offered.

“No, contact the G6 and get him to find Clarish at all cost.” Tarinnish looked back out the porthole, he typed in a command and watched as the umbilical cord reached out and connected itself to the gate.  Then the next.  Once the confirmation code was displayed, Tarinnish reached over and threw the switch that allowed the ships power to flow into the gates electrical grid.  The gate will continue its drain on their ship.

Tarinnish folded up the keypad and left the cramped little closet.  He needed to go back down to the commons and see what Tiffany had found out about the scout.  His body knew the way, but his mind was still lost in all the possibilities of what could have happened.  If they were struck by something, why didn’t the klaxons go off, why was there no warning?  And was the Hōkūle‘a vulnerable as well?   This was his nightmare.

End of Chapter 16

Next Chapter 17

IThis blog contains two books of the Remnant Series If you want to start at the beginning of Book 6, click the link below.

1st Chapter of Obsidian Arrows

If you want to read more about the Remnant Series see the links below.

            Book 1-3: Graham Heights available on Amazon.com

            Book 4: The Grey Abyss available on Amazon.com

            Bood 5: Chaos coming soon to Amazon.com

Book 6: Obsidian Arrows

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Thank-you
R. A. Legg

    
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