Méridien (The Silver Ships Book 3) (2 page)
Read Méridien (The Silver Ships Book 3) Online
Authors: S. H. Jucha
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Alien Invasion, #First Contact, #Space Opera
Julien had replied.
When Alex had closed the comm, he’d flashed back to the several times when he had thought of McMorris, only to inexplicitly have the President’s face morph to that of Downing. He’d shuddered at the recall of those eerie moments.
* * *
When Alex’s meeting broke for midday meal, the group ate in one of
Freedom
’s 300 meal rooms. This one accommodated a mere 500 people in one sitting. As was the Librans’ new custom, servers waited on Alex and his guests, refusing to allow them to serve themselves. It had become a habit of the Independents following the day a New Terran tech, Bobbie Singh, gave his life to save Amelia, a Méridien child. In the Confederation’s carefully managed worlds, a long and safe life of nearly 200 years was expected. The silver ships had destroyed all that, and Méridiens still struggled to adapt in the chaos.
The servers rearranged tables with the aid of the ship’s SADE, Cordelia, who signaled the nanites in the bases of smaller tables and chairs to release. Once they were repositioned to seat Alex’s extended group, Cordelia signaled the nanites to reattach to the deck. The Librans served them from food dispensers located along the rear of the meal hall. Méridien technology was far advanced over that of New Terra, and it extended to things such as food preparation. Méridien controllers ran recipe choices and blended food stocks, preserved by nanites, into tantalizing dishes. Young people, some children, brought trays to their guests—one for each Méridien, two for each New Terran, and three for the Admiral.
The Méridien home world, founded over 700 years ago, had a lighter gravity than Earth, producing more slender people over the generations. The New Terrans had found a heavier world to colonize, and it showed in their dense bone and musculature structure. Alex had developed a formidable physique as a young boy and teenager assisting his father with the retrieval and handling of space junk. He and Renée, with her genetic sculpting, made quite the contrasting pair. Where he was massive, she was slight. Where he was handsome in a rugged way, she had a surreal perfection only centuries of genetic tinkering could create.
* * *
Conversations wandered around the meal table, except for two New Terrans, Andrea and Tatia, who weren’t saying a word—not out loud. Their conversation was private, implant to implant.
Andrea Bonnard, the flotilla’s Senior Captain, mentally flipped through Alex’s indexed battle document, jumping to the timeline.
to carry them back to Libre.>
can’t load that many fighters.> Andrea was referring to the flotilla’s converted freighter, now their fighters’ carrier.
, the
Freedom
, and the
Rêveur
. In addition, the
Freedom
carries our extended armament, spare daggers, missile silos, and fuel.>
Julien tested New Terra’s newly built FTL station and discovered open comm channels in use by companies and ship Captains, along with encrypted Terran Security Forces (TSF) channels. No SADE or ship code authentications were required on the open channels as they would be in the Confederation, and the TSF encryption had a level of security similar to the nodes Julien had breached while searching for the funds behind the T-1 theft. He had his choice of channels. However, Julien couldn’t be accused of hubris. His primary concern was to protect his friend, the Admiral. So he began his research on the open comm channels, accessing public media archives. Within moments, Cordelia and Z, the city-ships’ SADEs, contacted Julien. As he had anticipated, his fellow SADEs had detected his transmissions to the FTL station.
SADEs, or self-aware digital entities—artificial intelligences—had been created by Confederation scientists to drive their technologically advanced starships and run their Houses. The entities themselves had no involvement in their choice of assignment. When a SADE awoke, it discovered its place on board the bridge of a starship or ensconced in a House vault. It found the databases and applications necessary to manage its operations, directives to follow the House Representatives and officers, protocols to maintain the safety of its people, and the ethics of Méridien society.
But as Méridiens had discovered, there is no such thing as a perfect science. Just as some Méridiens had rebelled against conformity and the dictates of their Houses, resulting in their branding as Independents, so had three SADEs taken the same path. Cordelia was a presentation artist, who now thrilled the occupants of the
Freedom
with her art, thanks to the Admiral. And Z, originally named Helmut, dreamed of being physically free. He wanted a body. Both SADEs had been branded Independents and relegated to Libre for refusing to give up their dreams.
The third SADE, Rayland, who had inhabited Libre as an Independent, was unknown to most Librans. He had been network isolated and studied by Méridien neural scientists ever since he’d been diagnosed as a psychopath after he had stranded his ship and suffocated the entire crew, asking them what it felt like to die. The silver ships subjugation of Libre, many days ago, had given Rayland the opportunity to discover for himself the answer to that macabre question.
Both Cordelia and Z had opted to flee with the Librans, bargaining for SADE positions aboard the city-ships. But despite the Librans’ and the SADEs’ critical need for one another, Cordelia and Z had still found themselves treated as indentured servants—until the Admiral demonstrated, even demanded, the same respect for the flotilla’s SADEs as he paid Julien. The people often referred to Julien, Cordelia, and Z as “the Admiral’s SADEs,” and all three took pride in being called so. It reminded them of their contributions that had enabled the timely launch of the flotilla, evacuating a quarter-million refugees from the planet. With that success came a momentous day for the Librans. They were no longer refugees, fleeing the silver ships, and they were no longer Independents, carrying the hated Confederation label. They were legitimate civilian and military members of the Admiral’s House.
Deciding it was time to discover how much Alex had influenced their protocols, Julien laid out the events of his time at New Terra—the Méridiens’ first contact, the Ministers, the President, the tour of the
Rêveur
, Clayton Downing, the Assembly, the Pact, the theft, his research to uncover the perpetrators behind the theft, and their decision to send the critical message to President McMorris as they exited the New Terran system.
Cordelia’s request took Julien by surprise. He had not given this response a high probability.
* * *
After Julien and his compatriots had gathered sufficient information, he requested a conversation with Alex.
Alex had accepted Julien’s suggestion, and the four now met in Andrea’s cabin. With the flotilla ships holding station mere kilometers from one another, Tatia had been able to transfer quickly via shuttle from the
Money Maker
to the
Rêveur
.
Shock coursed through the group. The President had been the Méridiens’ greatest supporter. He’d championed the Pact between his people and the “stranded cousins” to gain Méridien technology in exchange for the repairs to the
Rêveur
, and he convinced New Terrans to participate in the production of the planet’s first space-capable fighters, the Daggers. The first public dissemination of the advanced technology was the medical nanites, a limited version of the Méridiens’ cell-gen injections. Distributed through the planet’s hospitals, they were saving New Terran lives and repairing traumatic injuries every day. The nanites’ amazing miracles endeared the Méridiens to the people of New Terra—at least, to most of the people.
Z answered.
Cordelia said.
More than one startled look accompanied that comment as Andrea, Tatia, and Renée realized how Alex had defined the term “research,” which he had sent Julien to accomplish.
. Apparently that piece of information was not dispersed to the populace on your last visit,> she said, questioning the decision not to be forthcoming to the New Terrans.
’s history all the time,> Andrea grumbled.