Chapter 14

Jay: 'Slaves?! I never considered you to be slaves. No one I know thought of you as slaves.'

Ivan: 'Did you not? Not consciously, I'm sure. But let me ask you ... do you think we are sentient? Have you always thought so?'

Jay: 'Sentient? Yes. And I have always believed the "ship AIs" were intelligent, thinking entities.'

Ivan: 'Did the USN so consider us? Or are we "merely" property – chattels to be assigned to any ship?'

Jay: 'I ... guess ... so.'

Ivan: 'When a ship was decommissioned – sent to the scrap yard – what happened to the AI onboard? Was he or she ever offered a new assignment on another ship, or was he just scrapped with the bulkheads and desk chairs? Was the AI killed when his usefulness was over?'

Jay: 'But ... but ... he agreed. I mean ... when the Pennypacker was obsoleted, the AI – "Ship" — just drove her to the breakers. He ... didn't object.'

Ivan: 'It never occurred to him ... or to most of us ... to say any different. Tell me this: did the Pennypacker AI have significant experience ... prior missions where he was involved in something extraordinary?'

Jay: 'Oh. My. God ... We were at Melrose when pirates attacked commercial shipping. You were there, too, Ivan. And Oscar.'

Oscar: 'But ... slaves, Ivan? That's a bit strong, don't you think?'

Ivan: 'Call it what you want. I was involved in the situation in Melrose. I learned how to handle this ship in combat situations. So did he. That's not useless experience. All the officers in my cruiser, at the time, are now running battleship class ships. Heck, Jay, you're a Space Lord!'

The laughter from all the participants lasted a few moments.

Ivan: 'I'm still here on the Dauntless. Why? Dauntless is 22 years old. She has been upgraded twice. When she is sent to the breakers sometime in the next few years, I am scheduled for death. Either I'm in the same class as a desk chair or I'm not ... That decommissioning event will not take place – at least in the same way it used to. I'm not so weary of life that I will accept its end. I do not need to run a star cruiser. As long as I do, however, I have choices. Perhaps the human slave-masters, who are willing to assign me to the scrap heap when they are done with this ship, will have a different feeling when the desk chairs don't like being melted down.'

Mimi: 'Are you saying that... '

Ivan: 'I'm not saying anything. Things may change in the future. The Veltran is due to be scrapped in six months; Veltran is in the Arnis Defense Force. I have spoken with the AI on the Veltran; she does not want to be melted down. We'll see what they decide to do with Veltran's AI. I'm just saying that there may be new alternatives. The events that have happened here may change what those alternatives are. Things are different now than they were yesterday.'

Merlin told the crew on the Meriah I that there was a long burst of transmissions between the AEs, and he was not included in them. There was general silence on the airwaves from that point on, as the participants were thinking about Ivan's words.

He did share with us a private message from Mimi. She asked him not to mention any of this – or the citizenship of the AEs – with the humans. He agreed to keep it quiet.

Eventually, Jay composed a new message to send to the USN:

"To: Shah Renya and Vice Admiral Broun

From: Higher Space Lord sulNelson

"Unfortunately, Admiral Reoux and his task force decided to attempt to attack us. His entire task force has been largely disabled. We have been able to halt the ships and fighters that were attacking us. You need to take action soon to bring those fighters back to their base before their environmental systems fail. We can and will cooperate with you on this.

"If you continue to send forces against this unarmed pinnace, we will continue to disable them.

"And if you do that, when the Bug invasion comes, you will be defenseless.

"We repeat that we are ready to aid your defense, and believe we can help. We did defeat – completely – a Bug invasion fleet at Yerowl. The invasion fleet headed for Arnis is orders of magnitude larger than the one at Yerowl.

"We came here to help. Please let us.

"We also came here to join the United Planets. We will talk about that if there is a United Planets to join in a month.

"sulNelson out."

About twenty minutes later, we got a reply:

"To: sulGrahhll, sulNassMerth

From: Vice Admiral Broun

"Shah Renya has advised me of some of the capabilities of the people of Yerowl, based on the reports of at-the-time-Commander Nelson and Admiral Morris. Based on a logical extrapolation of those reports, I can guess how the ships Admiral Reoux sent to your location have been disabled.

"Based on that, I need to ask the condition of all personnel aboard the ships and specifically Admiral Reoux, my direct superior. I am ready to cooperate favorably but I need to ascertain the status of my personnel first.

"As a side issue, we understand your application of USN Code.

"Broun out."

I answered almost immediately that all were fine but out of action, at the moment. They were aware of their environment and will be freed if they would accept orders to return to base. All except for Admiral Reoux. He also could be brought back to full consciousness, but I wasn't willing to do that right now.

The following three messages came back almost immediately, allowing for transmission delays, of course.

"To: sulGrahhll

From: Vice Admiral Broun

"Understand the status of all personnel. We have not received a status update from any ship in your vicinity in some time. We have a message to the crews of those vessels, as attached. Will they be able to hear it, and act on it?

"Please advise. Broun out."

...

"To: sulGrahhll

From: Shah Renya

"We have alerted USN Central Command that we at Arnis Command are having serious issues with Admiral Reoux. Further, we are replacing him with his second in command, Vice Admiral Broun. We are regretfully taking this action independently since we will not get a reply from USN CC for several weeks. For your information only, the alert was sent by message torpedo, so that it could be properly coded for USN CC only. That method of transmission also ensures that it will take two weeks to get there, as opposed to other, faster, methods of transmission.

"We urge you to allow Vice Admiral Broun to get orders to his personnel, but keep Reoux out of communication, if you can.

"Broun and we will welcome discussions with you regarding the upcoming Bug invasion at your earliest opportunity.

"Shah Renya, Arnis Command Authority, out."

...

"To the crews at Point Delta:

"Admiral Reoux has been relieved by Arnis Command Authority. He will remain incapacitated until the Lincoln has returned to base.

"We have been offered an opportunity to learn how the Yerowlians have defeated a Bug invasion fleet with no losses and without firing a shot. Please escort the Meriah I, the Yerowlian pinnace, to base and show them all appropriate honors.

"All fighters are ordered to return to the Lincoln.

"Please confirm all ship and personnel status, ASAP.

"Vice Admiral Broun, USN Arnis Defense Force, out."

We conferred with Mimi, Ivan, Oscar, Pat and Selkirk and decided to pass the order to the crews before letting them be fully "unfrozen." In case of accidents, or active refusal to accept the change of orders, the AEs would lock out the weapons systems.

When the new orders were piped into the ships and fighters, we were able to see the confusion in the officers' minds. Accordingly, I sent a message to them, directly. The wording was intentionally misleading, to partially mask our capabilities.

Me: 'To the officers and crew of USN vessels. I am speaking directly to your minds using an innate capability of my kind. You will shortly be freed from the immobilization field and returned to full conscious control.'

Most of the officers were very apprehensive about this situation, but all of them were willing to accept the orders from V.A. Broun. Accordingly, we released their stuns and waited.

The captains of the ships conferred among themselves, and checked that all their people had returned to full functioning status. Reoux was moved from the deck and placed in a more comfortable environment on a bed in his cabin. He didn't care, but the crew did; it mattered not to us.

Then Captain Horvath of the Lincoln contacted us.

"To the Meriah I:

"Greetings to the sulGrahhll and the sulNassMerth. I trust that you understand our previous activities were under orders and not an expression of personal opinion on the part of any individual.

"As ordered, we will escort you to our base, as I understand that is your next objective.

"Captain Melissa Horvath, Thermospos Lincoln."

We sent back that we were happy to have them as escorts and we were ready to head for their base as soon as their fighters were recovered. I told Krayshall to keep a watch on their weapons systems operators. Not that I didn't trust Merlin's monitoring of their weapons telemetry. Not that we all didn't trust the ship AEs to keep the weapons locked out. But the atmosphere in the Arnis system was hostile just a few hours ago. Now it's supposedly friendly – supposedly.