Universe of the Soul (10 page)

The most likely suspects for this are the superiors that I am supposed to obey. This presents a logic crisis. How can I be obedient to someone whom I have been programmed to suspect and apprehend?

Zultan says in crises like this, I am to follow my “instinct,” whatever that is. He believes it is our primary function to protect Dr. Tarkubunji over obeying orders from the heads of WCRTL, or even the Commonwealth Government. He, at least, makes sense.

As for the harddrive himself, while working with him sometimes stresses my logic functions, it presents no other difficulties. I see no problems with our continued partnership. Although…well, no one is going to read this – connecting with him is oddly special.

Save all new data.

Close file.

Encode.

T
he “night” shift, never the busiest, left Adri with too much time to think. While the captain secluded himself in his quarters, sleeping or doing who-knows-what, Adri had control of the bridge. There were a lot of domestic orders to be given and followed up on, last messages to the
Damacene
to send, and a full checkout on all the Advance Force tertiary equipment. The checkout would take several days to complete, but Adri preferred supervising the whole process. The schematics from all the battles, recorded within the troops' battle suits, would have to be watched and analyzed, which led her thoughts back to the data chip that Duane had given her earlier.

The blaster shot from Kobane should have killed her, or at least mortally wounded her. Adri knew this, without a doubt. The beam had been aimed at her mid chest, and not even her armor and shielding could have completely protected her from a direct shot. So what happened? All she could remember was a second of feeling very peculiar, and then the beam was gone, as though it had hit something and been deflected. Wondering about it was driving her crazy. She would watch the data and see.

The sudden increase of talking, along with the shuffling of feet marked the end of the shift. Captain Heedman had long since retired to his private quarters, where he was doubtlessly sleeping the sleep of the petty-minded. Adri supervised the changes in the bridge shifts, as trained ensigns replaced the senior staff at the major posts. She was grateful that Vice Captain Lowell had covered her first shift the night before. Of course, she would have to pay for it tomorrow with a day-night double shift.

Adri nodded to Lowell as she relinquished the captain's chair and walked off the bridge. In a few hours she knew that Janag would return to relieve him. Gray was standing just outside the door, leaning against the wall, obviously waiting for her. She was a little surprised; not once during the whole shift had Gray so much as asked her a question, instead conversing the whole time with Commander Wede-Uctan or studying the screens at the security station. When the shifts changed, he strode out without even looking in her direction.

“You ready?” He asked, straightening up and walking alongside her.

“I'm surprised you still want to go through with this, you don't have to.”

Gray raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Of course I do. I said I would, didn't I?”

“Well, you don't have to,” Adri repeated, stopping in front of the lift. “I can easily manage this on my own,”

“That's not what you said earlier. Besides, last night's activities aside, this will be the first time we'll be alone together. Are you trying to break our date?”

“This isn't a date, Grayson.”

Gray smiled. “You keep saying that.”

With a last dubious look at Gray, Adri stepped inside the lift. When Gray had joined her and the doors closed, she spoke to the lift computer. “Level four, block seven.”

[Affirmative.] the computer responded in a neutral female tone.

As the lift began to move, Gray turned to her. “So what are we looking at, exactly?”

“Something strange happened in that factory on Rema,” Adri said slowly, choosing her words carefully to keep from sounding ridiculous.

“The skill of the enemy, while unexpected, isn't particularly strange,” Gray replied, confused at her elusive answer.

Adri shook her head. “No, it wasn't the Belligerents themselves, per se. That is an entirely different matter, which we will need to have a staff meeting about very soon.”

“You say that with a sour look on your face,”

Adri's scowl deepened. “You would too if you had to organize the stupid thing. Captain Heedman's necessary presence at such things is never what you could call constructive, and I always walk out wanting to shoot something.”

Gray laughed. “Diplomacy is not your middle name, Adri.”

“Diplomacy, dipshomashy. All that does is make the process longer, and brings in a bunch of idiots who don't realize that we would be better off just shooting each other and getting on with business. They're the ones that make war take so long.”

Gray found he had no argument for that.

The lift came to a stop, and the two stepped out. Gray followed Adri down several corridors until they reached the Weaponry and Tactical Analysis complex. Adri entered her passcode, saying as the door slid open, “The WTA is always empty during graveyard shift, most of the work being done in the day and night shifts.” Adri walked into the dimly lit room, Gray right behind her. She nodded towards the scattered stations that were still being manned. Gray realized that, instead of ensigns, there were humacoms plugged into the schematic consoles. “The
Oreallus
is equipped with a lot of drone humacoms, who mostly handle minor jobs like recording, copying and sending battle records and analyses to the main Commonwealth database on Halieth. They won't acknowledge us unless we give them a command.”

Adri stopped at a console that was tucked around the corner, blocked from view of the door. Booting it up, Adri gave Gray a searching look. “Everything from here on out is not going to be logged, understand?”

“Yeah.”

Adri stared again into Gray's eyes. The dim lighting made them look darker than usual. “Fine then.” She turned back to the console. Pulling out the data chip that Duane had given her earlier, she slid it in. “Computer, upload and display data on chip.”

[Affirmative.]

“Take a seat, this may take awhile.”

Gray pulled the chair from the next station over and sat down beside Adri. There was silence as the computer uploaded the information from the data chip. [Upload complete. Awaiting command.]

“Begin playback of file one,” Adri ordered.

With a soft hum, the computer display began to show a recording of the Belligerent base mission from the view of Adri's visor on her combat suit. The sound was barely audible, but Gray could still pick up his voice on several occasions. He asked no questions, waiting instead to see what Adri was looking for.

Adri was quiet during the whole exploration of the apparently abandoned base. But when her voice, oddly tinny from the recording, shouted [All troops pull out!], she lurched forward. “Computer, freeze screen.”

Gray looked over at her. “What is it?”

She shook her head. “Computer, identify all Belligerent weaponry visible on current display.”

[Affirmative.]

As the computer began to outline, identify and list all the enemy weapons currently being displayed, Gray asked again. “What are you looking for?”

“Something out of the ordinary. Can you identify all these?” She nodded towards the list of weaponry the computer was displaying.

“Sure. They seem pretty typical for a Belligerent Advance Force, which is what they said they were.” Gray looked harder, determined to figure out what she was searching for. “I don't see anything out of the ordinary, Adri.”

“Neither do I.” With a look of intense concentration, Adri rested her chin on her palms, staring into the display screen. “Computer, continue replay.”

[Affirmative.]

Both Adri and Gray stared intently, following the scene of their squad attempting to escape from the base. Every time a Belligerent soldier came into the display scene, Adri would freeze the screen and study the weapon. This continued without any results until they reached the tail end of the recording; the last dash to the exit. “Computer, slow current display speed by point five,”

[Acknowledged. Reducing playback speed to point five.]

Gray watched as the display showed Adri's view of the hall. He saw the appearance of Hildana Kobane, heard her “caught you” before she fired. With Adri, he watched the blaster beam streak towards the screen at half the actual speed, and then disappear.

“What in Danwe's name?” Adri murmured. “Computer, replay last four seconds.”

[Acknowledged. Replaying last four seconds of display.]

Again, they both watched the beam race forward, and then simply disappear. He suddenly recalled seeing this exact scene play out in real life. The stress of the situation had caused him to forget about it until now. “What, by Danwe, was that?” Gray whispered. “Adri?”

“I have no idea. Have you ever seen a Belligerent weapon malfunction like that?”

“I've seen them malfunction before, but never like that.”

“Neither have I. Computer, identify Belligerent weapon currently on screen.”

[Affirmative. Weapons scan identifies current weapon as a Xandarisham Type II blaster rifle. Is further information required?]

“No,” Adri leaned back in her seat. “Computer, switch display to file two.”

[Affirmative.]

“I can see how this would bother you,” Gray said quietly as the computer hummed. “In fact, it bothers me too.”

“I need to know what happened here.” Adri replied. “This is important somehow. I can't just ignore flukes like this.”

“I'm with you.”

Adri didn't turn away from the display screen. “I'm really beginning to think that you are.”

Gray said nothing as the display screen popped on with the second file. He was a bit surprised to see that it was the recording from his own suit.

“You were the only one that was with me at that part,” Adri explained.

Together they quickly watched the mission from the beginning. Adri was determined not to leave a single stone unturned. Time passed, but neither really noticed. When it reached the last segment, Adri again ordered the computer to display the screen at point five speed. The last scene unfolded again, but this time at an angle from Adri, to the right side and a little behind her. Again, the blaster beam raced across the corridor, only to stop inches from Adri and disappear.

This time, however, Adri noticed something different. “It flashed, like it hit something.”

“You're right.” It was Gray who ordered the replay. “It's like it hit your shield and dispersed.”

“How did it do that?” Adri hissed. “There is no way my shield could have withstood a frontal hit.” She shook her head again. “Computer, split screen and show file three on screen two.”

[Acknowledged. Splitting screen and displaying file three.]

Gray studied the schematics that popped up on the second screen. “These are your combat suit statistics.”

“That's right.” Adri ordered the computer to continue to replay the last four seconds of the contents of screen one before switching attention to the second screen. “These are my suit diagnostics taken right after we got aboard ship. Its standard procedure.” There was silence for a moment as both studied the information. “Do you see anything unusual?”

“The diagnostics states that you were breathing irregularly in the milliseconds the shot was fired,” Gray began. “No surprise there, you probably gasped. But here,” He pointed to another set of data. “It shows that your body temperature increased erratically as well. That's odd in of itself; the human body usually sweats during periods of stress, in an effort to cool down. Instead you heat up. But then, as soon as the beam is gone, you cool back down again to a normal combat temp.”

Adri opened her mouth and then closed it again.

“Spill it,” Gray demanded.

“I don't think that's so unusual, for me at least. Combat records show that in periods of crises my body tends to heat and cool at a rapid rate. I've always done that I suppose.”

“Hmm, an odd bird, are you?” Gray smiled at the wry face Adri made. “Don't worry, I still like you for it.”

“Gee thanks.”

They both went back to studying the data. “There's no indication that the beam hit your suit,” Gray said at last. “Not so much as a fluctuation in the exterior heat sensors to show that a blaster was even fired close to you,”

Adri made no reply.

Suddenly she shot forward. “What…”

“What, what?” Gray looked over to where Adri was staring at screen two. The scene started over, and he watched the beam shoot, and disappear as usual. “What've I missed?”

“All this time we've been looking at the beam,” Adri murmured. “Look at me.”

Gray watched Adri on screen as the scene played out once again. She was running, the beam was shot, and disappeared, without Adri so much as breaking stride. “Wait, you were blurry for a second there.”

“Yeah. Computer, replay last two seconds, then freeze screen.”

[Affirmative.]

The scene played again, and then froze in the millisecond before the beam disappeared. The figure of Adri was slightly out of focus. “Is there something wrong with the visual on my suit?” Gray queried.

“Let's find out. Computer, switch screen two's display with file four.”

[Acknowledged. Switching display two to file four.]

The screen popped up again with the schematics of Gray's combat suit. “Looks like you thought of everything,” Gray said.

“As an L.C., I do try.”

“Then, as your field lieutenant, let me anticipate your order. Computer, check the diagnostics on the suit's visual recorder.”

[Affirmative. Diagnostics reports no errors in visual recorder scan.]

“No error?” Gray turned back to the frozen image. “Then why are you blurry?”

Adri was silent for a long moment. “I really don't understand any of this,” she sighed and leaned back. “I'm going to run some probability simulations. You don't have to stay, Gray. It's late.”

Gray gave her a long, thoughtful look before rising. “I'll get us some coffee.”

Five hours later, after three cups of coffee and a light meal, with nearly forty probability simulations down, he was still there.

Sometimes life spins in a way you don't expect, spitting you out in a place where all you ever counted on is taken away, leaving you floating around in a world with nothing but yourself.

After my parents died, I had no one. The government came and took my house and toys away. They even took Mandy. I still wonder what happened to her. Well-programmed domesticoms with learned experience were rare at the time. They debated what to do with me for a long while, and I remember sitting outside the courtrooms, watching as a bunch of other children like me sat and waited for these strangers to decide what to do with us.